======================================================================== WRITINGS OF PATRICK FAIRBAIRN by Patrick Fairbairn ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Patrick Fairbairn, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 137 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Titles/Contents 2. 01.00.1. Hermeneutical Manual - Introduction to the Exegetical Study of the NT 3. 01.00.3. Preface. 4. 01.01. Discussion Of Facts And Principles Bearing On The Language And Interpretation... 5. 01.02. The Original Language Of The New Testament. 6. 01.03. The Characteristics Of New Testament Greek. 7. 01.04. Collateral Sources For Determining The Sense And Explaining The Peculiarities ... 8. 01.05. General Rules And Principles To Be Followed In The Interpretation Of ... 9. 01.06. Of False And True Accommodation 10. 01.07. The Respect Due In The Interpretation Of The New Testament To The Analogy Of The Faith... 11. 01.08. The Relation Of The Old To The New In God’s Dispensations More Exactly Defined 12. 01.09. On The Proper Interpretation Of The Tropical Parts Of The New Testament. 13. 01.10. The Parables Of Christ, Their Proper Interpretation And Treatment. 14. 01.11. On The Subject Of Parallelism As Bearing On The Structure And Interpretation ... 15. 01.12. Exegesis Of New Testament Scripture. 16. 01.13. The Two Genealogies Of Christ... 17. 01.14. The Designations And Doctrine Of Angels.... 18. 01.15. On The Names Of Christ In New Testament Scripture 19. 01.16. 2Co_3:2-18. 20. 01.16. On The Import And Use Of Certain Terms, 21. 01.17. On βαπτίζω And Its Cognates 22. 01.18. Import And Uses Of Hades, Ἃιδης In Scripture. 23. 01.19. On The Import And Use Of διαθήκη In Scripture 24. 01.20. ON THE IMPORT OF CERTAIN TERMS EMPLOYED IN NEW TESTAMENT 25. 01.21. On The Use Or Paraskeue And Pascha In St. John S Account Of Our Lord’s Last Sufferings 26. 01.22. THE USE MADE OF OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE IN THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 27. 01.23. Quotations From The Old Testament In The New 28. 01.24. Quotations From The Old Testament In The New 29. 01.25. Appendix - The Historical Circumstances That Led To Christ’s Birth At Bethlehem 30. 02.00.1 PASTORAL THEOLOGY 31. 02.00.2. Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com 32. 02.00.3. Preface 33. 02.00.4. Biographical Sketch 34. 02.01. Chapter 1 35. 02.02. Chapter 2 36. 02.03. Chapter 3 37. 02.04. Chapter 4 38. 02.05. Chapter 5 39. 02.06. Chapter 6 40. 02.07. Chapter 7 41. 02.08. Chapter 8 42. 02.09. Chapter 9 43. 03.00.1. PROPHECY 44. 03.00.2. Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com 45. 03.00.3. Preface To The Second Edition 46. 03.01. Part 1. Investigation Of Principles 47. 03.02. Chapter 1. The Proper Calling Of A Prophet, And The Essential Nature Of A Prophect 48. 03.03. Chapter 2. The Place Of Prophecy In History, And The Organic Connection .... 49. 03.03. Chapter 3. Chapter 3. The Proper Sphere Of Prophecy—The Church 50. 03.05. Chapter 4. The Relation Of Prophecy To Men’s Responsibilities 51. 03.06. Chapter 5.  The Prophetic Style And Diction 52. 03.07. Chapter 6. The Inter-Connected And Progressive Character Of Prophecy 53. 03.08. Part 2. Application Of Principles To Past And Prospectre Fulfilments Of Prophecy 54. 03.09. Chapter 1. The Apologetic Value Of Prophecy 55. 03.10. Chapter 2. The Prophetical Future Of The Jewish People 56. 03.11. Chapter 3. The Prophetical Future Of The Church And Kingdom Of Christ 57. 03.12. Appendices 58. 03.13. Appendix A 59. 03.14. Appendix B 60. 03.15. Appendix C 61. 03.16. Appendix D 62. 03.17. Appendix E 63. 03.18. Appendix F 64. 03.19. Appendix G 65. 03.20. Appendix H 66. 03.21. Appendix I 67. 03.22. Appendix K 68. 03.23. Appendix L 69. 03.24. Appendix M 70. 04.00.1. THE REVELATION OF LAW IN SCRIPTURE 71. 04.00.2. Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com 72. 04.00.3. Preface 73. 04.01. Lectures 74. 04.02. Lecture 1 75. 04.03. Lecture 2 76. 04.04. Lecture 3. 77. 04.05. Lecture 4 78. 04.06. Lecture 5. 79. 04.07. Lecture 6. 80. 04.08. Lecture 7. 81. 04.09. Lecture 8. 82. 04.10. Lecture 9. 83. 04.11. Supplementary Dissertations. 84. 04.12. I. The Double Form Of The Decalogue, And The Questions To Which It Has Given Rise. 85. 04.13. II. The Historical Element In God’s Revelations Of Truth And Duty... 86. 04.14. III. Whether A Spirit Of Revenge Is Countenanced In The Writings Of The Old Testament. 87. 04.15. Exposition Of The More Important Passages On The Law In St Paul’s Epistles. 88. 04.16. 2Co_3:2-18. 89. 04.17. Gal_2:14-21. 90. 04.18. Gal_3:19-26. 91. 04.19. Gal_4:1-7 92. 04.20. Gal_5:13-15. 93. 04.21. Rom_2:13-15. 94. 04.22. Rom_2:19-20. 95. 04.23. Rom_3:31. 96. 04.24. Rom_5:12-21. 97. 04.25. Rom_6:14-18. 98. 04.26. Romans 7. 99. 04.27. Rom_10:4-9. 100. 04.30. Rom_14:1-7. 101. 04.31. Eph_2:11-17. 102. 04.32. Col_2:11-17. 103. 04.33. 1Ti_1:6-11. 104. 05.00.1. THE TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE 105. 05.00.2. Preface To The Fourth Edition. 106. 05.01. Book First 107. 05.02. Chapter First 108. 05.03. Chapter Second 109. 05.04. Chapter Third 110. 05.05. Chapter Fourth. 111. 05.06. Chapter Fifth 112. 05.07. Chapter Sixth. 113. 05.08. Chapter Seventh 114. 05.09. Book Second 115. 05.10. Preliminary Remarks. 116. 05.11. Chapter First. 117. 05.12. Chapter Second. 118. 05.13. Chapter Third 119. 05.14. Chapter Fourth. 120. 05.15. Chapter Fifth. 121. 05.16. Chapter Sixth 122. 05.17. Appendices. 123. 05.18. Appendix A. 124. 05.19. Appendix B. 125. 05.20. Appendix C. 126. 05.21. Appendix D. 127. 05.22. Appendix E. 128. 05.23. Book Third. 129. 05.24. Chapter First 130. 05.25. Chapter Second. 131. 05.26. Chapter Third 132. 05.27. Chapter Fourth 133. 05.28. Appendices 134. 05.29. Appendix A 135. 05.30. Appendix B. 136. 05.31. Appendix C. 137. 05.32. Appendix D. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. TITLES/CONTENTS ======================================================================== Fairbairn, Patrick - Library Fairbairn, Patrick - Hermeneutical Manual - Introduction to the Exegetical Study of the NT 01 - Part First. Discussion Of Facts And Principles Bearing On The Language And Interpretation Of New Testament Scripture. 01.01 - Section First. The Original Language Of The New Testament. 01.02 - Section Second. The Characteristics Of New Testament Greek. 01.03 - Section Third. Collateral Sources For Determining The Sense And Explaining The Peculiarities Of New Testament Scripture. 01.04 - Section Fourth. General Rules And Principles To Be Followed In The Interpretation Of Particular Words And Passages 01.05 - Section Fifth. Of False And True Accommodation; Or, The Influence That Should Be Allowed To Prevailing Modes Of Thought In Fashioning The Views … 01.06 - Section Sixth. The Respect Due In The Interpretation Of The New Testament To The Analogy Of The Faith, Or From One Part Of Scripture To Another; … 01.07 - Section Seventh. The Relation Of The Old To The New In God’s Dispensations More Exactly Defined, With The View Of Preventing Mistaken … 01.08 - Section Eighth. On The Proper Interpretation Of The Tropical Parts Of The New Testament. 01.09 - Section Ninth. The Parables Of Christ, Their Proper Interpretation And Treatment. 01.10 - Section Tenth. On The Subject Of Parallelism As Bearing On The Structure And Interpretation Of New Testament Scripture. 02 - Part Second. Dissertations On Particular Subjects Connected With The Exegesis Of New Testament Scripture. 02.01 - Section First. The Two Genealogies Of Christ, Given Respectively By The Evangelists Matthew And Luke. 02.02 - Section Second. The Designations And Doctrine Of Angels, With Reference More Especially To The Interpretation Of Passages In New Testament Scripture. 02.03 - Section Third. On The Names Of Christ In New Testament Scripture, And, In Particular, On The Use Of χριστός and Υἱὸς τοῦ. 02.04 - Section Fourth. On The Import And Use Of Certain Terms, Which Express An Antagonistic Relation To Christ’s Person And Authority, … 02.05 - Section Fifth. On βαπτίζω And Its Cognates, With Special Reference To The Mode Of Administering Baptism. 02.06 - Section Sixth. Import And Uses Of Hades, Ἃιδης In Scripture. 02.07 - Section Seventh. On The Import And Use Of διαθήκη In Scriptur 02.08 - Section Eighth. ON THE IMPORT OF CERTAIN TERMS EMPLOYED IN NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE TO INDICATE THE NATURE … 02.09 - Section Ninth. On The Use Or Paraskeue And Pascha In St. John S Account Of Our Lord’s Last Sufferings; And The Question There With Connected, … 03 - Part Third. THE USE MADE OF OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE IN THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 03.01 - Section First. Quotations From The Old Testament In The New, Considered In Respect To The Manner Of Citation. 03.02 - Section Second. Quotations From The Old Testament In The New, Considered In Respect To The Mode Of Application. 04 - Appendix. The Historical Circumstances That Led To Christ’s Birth At Bethlehem Cyrenius And The Taxing Fairbairn, Patrick - Pastoral Theology - Office and Duties of the Christian Pastor Chapter 1. Introductory.—The Relation of the Pastoral Office to the Church, and the Connection Between Right Views of the One and a Proper Estimate of the Other Chapter 2. The Nature of the Pastoral Office, and the Call to Enter on its Functions Chapter 3. The Pastoral and Social Life of the Pastor Chapter 4. The More Special Duties of the Pastoral Office Chapter 5. Different Kinds of Discourses Chapter 6. Supplementary Methods of Instruction, Personal Intercourse, Dealings with Special Cases, Pastoral Visitations, Catechetical Instruction,… Chapter 7. Public Prayer and Other Devotional Services Chapter 8. The Administration of Discipline Chapter 9. Subsidiary Means and Agencies Fairbairn, Patrick - Prophecy 01 - Part 1. Investigation Of Principles 01.01 - Chapter 1. The Proper Calling Of A Prophet, And The Essential Nature Of A Prophect 01.02 - Chapter 2. The Place Of Prophecy In History, And The Organic Connection Of The One With The Other 01.03 - Chapter 3. The Proper Sphere Of Prophecy—The Church 01.04 - Chapter 4. The Relation Of Prophecy To Men’s Responsibilities, With A Consideration Of The Question, How Far It Is Absolute Or Conditional In Its Announcements 01.05 - Chapter 5. The Prophetic Style And Diction 01.06 - Chapter 6. The Inter-Connected And Progressive Character Of Prophecy 02 - Part 2. Application Of Principles To Past And Prospectre Fulfilments Of Prophecy 02.01 - Chapter 1. The Apologetic Value Of Prophecy, Of Its Place And Use As An Evidence For The Facts And Doctrines Of Scripture 02.02 - Chapter 2. The Prophetical Future Of The Jewish People 02.03 - Chapter 3. The Prophetical Future Of The Church And Kingdom Of Christ 03 - Appendices 03.01 - Appendix A, Page 5: The Original Import Of The Word נָבִיא (Prophet) And Its Later Usage 03.02 - Appendix B, Page 9: Interpretation Of Numbers 12:6-8, And The Prophet Like To Moses 03.03 - Appendix C, Page 13: Prophetic Agency Apart From Personal Holiness 03.04 - Appendix D, Page 82: Views Of Earlier Reformed Theologians On The Conditional Element In Prophecy 03.05 - Appendix E, Page 98: Symbolical Designation Of Kingdoms As Mountains 03.06 - Appendix F, Page 100: Prophetical Literalism Essentially Jewish 03.07 - Appendix G, Page 116: Interpretation Of 2 Peter 1:21 03.08 - Appendix H, Page 124: The Symbolic Actions Of The Prophets 03.09 - Appendix I, Page 250: St Peter’s Discourses In Acts 1, 2 03.10 - Appendix K, Page 273: Who Are The Saints, That In Daniel 7:18-22, Are Said To Possess The Kingdom 03.11 - Appendix L, Page 367: The Tendency Of Prophecy To Describe Things According To The Reality, Rather Than The Appearance Or Profession 03.12 - Appendix M, Page 420: Euphrates As A Symbol In The Prophetical Books Fairbairn, Patrick - The Revelation of Law in Scripture 01 - Lectures 01.01 - Lecture 1. Prevailing Views In Respect To The Ascendency Of Law 01.02 - Lecture 2. The Relation Of Man At Creation To Moral Law 01.03 - Lecture 3. The Revelation Of Law, Strictly So Called, Viewed In Respect To The Time And Occasion Of Its Promulgation. 01.04 - Lecture 4. The Law In Its Form And Substance—Its More Essential Characteristics—And The Relation Of One Part Of Its Contents To Another. 01.05 - Lecture 5. The Position And Calling Of Israel As Placed Under The Covenant Of Law 01.06 - Lecture 6. The Economical Aspect Of The Law 01.07 - Lecture 7. The Relation Of The Law To The Mission And Work Of Christ 01.08 - Lecture 8. The Relation Of The Law To The Constitution, The Privileges, And The Calling Of The Christian Church. 01.09 - Lecture 9. The Re-Introduction Of Law Into The Church Of The New Testament, In The Sense In Which Law Was Abolished By Christ And His Apostles. 02 - Supplementary Dissertations. 02.01 - I. The Double Form Of The Decalogue, And The Questions To Which It Has Given Rise. 02.02 - II. The Historical Element In God’s Revelations Of Truth And Duty, Considered With An Especial Respect To Their Claim On Men’s Responsibilities And Obligations. 02.03 - III. Whether A Spirit Of Revenge Is Countenanced In The Writings Of The Old Testament. 03 - Exposition Of The More Important Passages On The Law In St Paul’s Epistles. 03.01 - 2 Corinthians 3:2-18. 03.02 - Galatians 2:14-21. 03.03 - Galatians 3:19-26. 03.04 - Galatians 4:1-7 03.05 - Galatians 5:13-15. 03.06 - Romans 2:13-15. 03.07 - Romans 2:19-20. 03.08 - Romans 3:31. 03.09 - Romans 5:12-21. 03.10 - Romans 6:14-18. 03.11 - Romans 7. 03.12 - Romans 10:4-9. 03.13 - Romans 14:1-7. 03.14 - Ephesians 2:11-17. 03.15 - Colossians 2:11-17. 03.16 - 1 Timothy 1:6-11. Fairbairn, Patrick - The Typology of Scripture (2 Vol) 01 - Book First.—Inquiry Into The Principles Of Typical Interpretation, With A View Chiefly To The Determination Of The Real Nature And Design Of Types, … 01.01 - Chapter First.—Historical And Critical Survey Of The Past And Present State Of Theological Opinion On The Subject. 01.02 - Chapter Second.—The Proper Nature And Province Of Typology. 01.03 - Chapter Third.—The Proper Nature And Province Of Typology 01.04 - Chapter Fourth.—The Proper Nature And Province Of Typology 01.05 - Chapter Fifth.—Prophetical Types, Or The Combination Of Type With Prophecy—Alleged Double Sense Of Prophecy. 01.06 - Chapter Sixth.—The Interpretation Of Particular Types—Specific Principles And Directions. 01.07 - Chapter Seventh.—The Place Due To The Subject Of Typology As A Branch Of Theological Study, And The Advantages Arising From Its Proper Cultivation. 02 - Book Second. The Dispensation Of Primeval And Patriarchal Times. 02.01 - Preliminary Remarks. 02.02 - Chapter First. The Divine Truths Embodied In The Historical Transactions On Which The First Symbolical Religion For Fallen Man Was Based. 02.03 - Chapter Second.—The Tree Of Life. 02.04 - Chapter Third.—The Cherubim (And The Flaming Sword). 02.05 - Chapter Fourth.—Sacrificial Worship 02.06 - Chapter Fifth.—The Marriage Relation And The Sabbatical Institution. 02.07 - Chapter Sixth.—Typical Things In History During The Progress Of The First Dispensation. 03 - Appendices. 03.01 - Appendix A.—The Old Testament In The New. 03.02 - Appendix B.—The Doctrine Of A Future State.. 03.03 - Appendix C.—On Sacrificial Worship. 03.04 - Appendix D.—Does The Original Relation Of The Seed Of Abraham To The Land Of Canaan Afford Any Ground For Expecting Their Final Return To It?’ 03.05 - Appendix E.—The Relation Of Cannan To The State Of Final Rest (Hebrews 4:1; Hebrews 4:10) 04 - Book Third. 04.01 - Chapter First.—The Divine Truths Embodied In The Historical Transactions Connected With The Redemption From Egypt, Viewed As Preliminary … 04.02 - Chapter Second.—The Direct Instruction Given To The Israelites Before The Erection Of The Tabernacle, And The Institution Of Its Symbolical Services The Law. 04.03 - Chapter Third.—The Religious Truths And Principles Embodied In The Symbolical Institutions And Services Of The Mosaic Dispensation, … 04.04 - Chapter Fourth.—Historical Developments. 05 - Appendices 05.01 - Appendix A.—Views Of The Reformers Regarding The Sabbath. 05.02 - Appendix B.—Altar Of Burnt Offering. 05.03 - Appendix C.—Supplementary Remarks On The Subject Of Sacrifice By Blood. 05.04 - Appendix D.—On The Term Azazel. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.00.1. HERMENEUTICAL MANUAL - INTRODUCTION TO THE EXEGETICAL STUDY OF THE NT ======================================================================== HERMENEUTICAL MANUAL: OR, INTRODUCTION TO THE EXEGETICAL STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D. D., PRINCIPAL AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW; AUTHOR OF “TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE,” ETC. PHILADELPHIA: SMITH, ENGLISH & CO., NO. 40 N. SIXTH ST. NEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKE MAN & CO. BOSTON: GOULD & LINCOLN. 1859. WM. S. YOUNG, PRINTER ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.00.3. PREFACE. ======================================================================== Preface. THE alternative title prefixed to this volume has been assumed, rather than the simple designation of “Hermeneutics of the New Testament,” chiefly for the purpose of indicating, that a certain latitude may be expected in it, both in regard to the range of subjects discussed, and in regard to the measure and method of treatment respectively applied to them. Works, indeed, could readily be named, bearing the title of Hermeneutics, which have taken nearly as much license in both respects, as I need to vindicate for myself in connexion with the present publication. But the term is strictly applicable only to such works as unfold the principles of Interpretation, and give to these a regular, consecutive, and scientific treatment. Of this sort is the comparatively recent work of Cellerier (Manuel d’Hermeneutique, 1852,) which, however objectionable in respect to the principles it occasionally enunciates, is one of the most systematic and complete in form,—treating, after a pretty long introduction, successively of the Psychological elements and aspects of the subject—the Grammatical, the Historical, the Scriptuary (or more peculiarly Biblical,) the Doctrinal. In this province, however, it is possible to sacrifice to completeness or perfection of form greatly more than there is any reasonable prospect of gaining by it. Higher ends have here to be aimed at than can always be reached by a rigid adherence to scientific method, or a close regard to artistic proportions. For, in a field so various as that of New Testament Scripture, so complicated, touching on so many relations, and embracing topics so diverse alike in nature and in importance, it often depends, not more, perhaps even less, upon the hermeneutical principles adopted, than upon the mode of applying these principles to particular cases, and passages of more peculiar difficulty, that solid footing is to be obtained, and satisfactory results accomplished. Accordingly, in those hermeneutical works, which take the more precise and scientific form, there is always what appears to me much needless waste in one direction, and ill-judged parsimony in another. Not a little space is occupied in announcing, or illustrating principles, which every one knows and admits, and which often have no special bearing on the interpretation of Scripture; while many of the points more peculiarly calling for elucidation are summarily disposed of, and left much as they were found. Even when the simpler elements of the subject are correctly enough stated, little often in connexion with them is properly wrought out; and unless the student of Scripture is content to take all on the authority of his Master, he will often feel as much at a loss as ever in respect to the things for which he more especially seeks the help of a qualified instructor. A work that is really fitted in the present day to serve the purpose of a proper guide-book, must undoubtedly so far possess a scientific character, that it shall exhibit an acquaintance with the several branches of learning and knowledge, which illustrate the language and structure, the incidental allusions, and the main theme of the sacred, books, and apply what it may thence appropriate in an orderly and judicious manner. If deficient in this, it fails in the fundamentals of the subject. But it should be allowed to move with some freedom in the selection of its topics, and in the relative care and consideration that it expends upon some of them, as compared with others. It cannot otherwise occupy, in a serviceable manner, the intermediate ground, that properly belongs to it, between Lexicons, Grammars, Books of Antiquities, etc., on the one hand, and formal commentaries on the other—turning, as it should do, to such account the materials furnished by the former class of productions, as may aid and qualify the student for an independent and discriminating use of the latter. This is the peculiar province and object of a Hermeneutical work on Scripture, and that will always come practically the nearest to the mark, which is the best fitted to place the student of Scripture in the position now indicated. In works composed with such an aim, there must ever be room for some diversity of judgment as to the subjects that should be brought into notice, and the degree of consideration respectively given to them. Different persons will naturally form their opinions from somewhat different points of view; and what will appear to some the fittest arrangement to be adopted, and the points most in need of investigation, may not always be regarded in exactly the same light by others. In this respect I have simply to say, that I have endeavoured to exercise an impartial judgment, influenced, no doubt, to some extent, by what my own experience, coupled with the general tendencies of the age, may have suggested to me as of importance. Throughout the volume prominence has been given to the connexion that subsists between the Old and the New in the Book of God’s revelation, as well in respect to words as ideas; there being nothing more essential than correct views here to an intelligent reading of New Testament Scripture, or better fitted to serve as a safeguard against superficial and fanciful interpretations. This, also, has partly operated as a reason for introducing some of the dissertations which occupy the Second Part of the volume. The whole of these, however, have reference to terms and subjects, which must always engage the special attention of those who give themselves to the exegetical study of the writings of the New Testament. And they may further serve the purpose of exemplifying, as by a few testing cases, the principles and modes of inquiry, which it is the great object of the work to explain and recommend. In another respect also, I am prepared for finding occasional differences between what has approved itself as right to my own mind, and what may appear such to some of my readers: I refer to the explanation given of several of the more difficult passages of Scripture, and the exhibitions of Divine truth therewith connected. Here, again, there is room for a certain diversity of judgment, even among those who are agreed upon the plenary inspiration of Scripture, and the great doctrines of evangelical religion. And I am not so extravagant as to imagine, that on every point I shall carry the convictions of all, who may be at one with me in fundamental principles. It is possible I may find critics, who are disposed to look with so censorious a spirit and so unkindly an eye on what I have written, that they shall even try to represent me as at fault in regard to some of those evangelical principles themselves. This, I perceive, has been attempted in a certain quarter with respect to my last publication—Prophecy Viewed in Respect to its Distinctive Nature, etc.—and, as the work is occasionally referred to in the present volume, I may be permitted here to make a brief allusion to the subject. In Chapter IV of that work, I treated of the bearing of prophecy on human freedom and responsibility, with a consideration of the question, how far it should be regarded as conditional in its announcements. I was aware, of course, that people would think differently respecting the mode of explanation I adopted: that to some it might appear more or less satisfactory, to others not. But a writer in the Journal of Prophecy (for July 1857) has chosen to represent me as giving expression to views essentially at variance with the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, or the unconditionality of the Divine decrees. Nothing certainly was further from my own mind; neither there, nor in any other part of my writings, have I consciously given expression to a thought which was intended, in the slightest degree, to impugn the statement of doctrine on that subject, contained in the Westminster Confession, or the Articles of the Church of England, and not a few things that plainly enough point in the contrary direction. But the reviewer, of course, must have some way of making out his point; and, with the adroitness of a critic, who sets himself to damage the credit of a book, and its author along with it, he does so by imposing a sense upon my words which they were not intended to bear, and so bringing them in connexion with a subject that was not properly in my view. Prophecy, as he there views it, is identical with the Divine decree; so that a conditional element in the one comes to be virtually the same with a conditional ground for the other. The subject of discourse with me, however, was prophecy, simply as it appears in the writ ten Word, as an objective communication to men. In handling this, I, no doubt, occasionally spoke of the Divine purposes; but of these, as is evident from the whole tenor and connexion of the discourse, not as formed in the mind of God, and determining- with in finite and unerring wisdom the entire system of the Divine administration. I purposely abstained from entering upon this higher region, and confined my attention to the intimations of the Divine will as disclosed in the prophetic word to these as coming into contact with men’s obligations and responsibilities—and therefore, in a greater or less degree (for they differ widely in the extent to which they admit it,) tinged with that anthropomorphic colouring, which is required to adapt the communications of Heaven to the thoughts and feelings, the ever varying states and conditions of men. The subject, as presented by me, might be assigned to that species of accommodation treated of in Part I. sect. 5 of this volume, according to which, while the form given to spiritual things bears the variable type of what is human, there are not the less realities lying behind, fixed and immutable. And in the very brief and general allusion, which was made to the Calvinistic writers of a former age, nothing more was designed than to intimate, in the shortest manner possible it was implied, indeed, rather than intimated—that the distinction (however expressed) between the secret and the revealed, or between the absolute decrees and the conditional announcements of God, did not, to my view, satisfactorily explicate the matter at issue. I thought so then, and I think so still, notwithstanding the advantage I have derived from the instructions of so learned a reviewer. To divide, as he and his authorities do, between prophecy, considered as equivalent to Divine decrees, and prophecy, as involving matter of commination or promise—the former absolute, the latter conditional—does not satisfy my “exegetical conscience,” and I am afraid never can. It seems to me to introduce an artificial distinction into the prophetic word, which is not indicated in that word itself, nor admits of being properly drawn; and has the appearance, at least, of attempting, by the mere adoption of a particular phraseology, or by arbitrarily singling out portions of the same prophetic message, to tide over difficulties in interpretation, which attach to the subject as a concrete whole, as an objective communication addressed to the fears or the hopes of mankind. But this is not the place for minute or lengthened explanations on the subject. I wished merely, in a few sentences, to deliver my protest against a style of criticism which I hold to be essentially unfair, and which, if similarly applied to the sacred writers, might readily be made to turn one half of them against another. It is not likely that I shall refer to any thing of the same sort in future. No one, who reads with a candid and unbiassed spirit what is written in this, or in previous productions of my pen, can have any doubt that the great principles of the Reformed churches are therein maintained and vindicated. The Third Part of the volume, which is devoted to the quotations from the Old Testament in the New, occupies a larger space than I could have wished. But it relates to a branch of the subject which, in the present day, is of special importance; and I did not see how my main object could be served without taking it up in detail, and examining somewhat carefully the parts which are more peculiarly attended with difficulty. For those who would study the subject in its relation to Typology, and would trace the gradual evolution of the meaning of Old Testament Scripture, through the application of particular passages to the realities of the Gospel, I take leave to refer to .the first volume of my Typology, and especially to the Appendix in that volume on this particular subject. P. F. GLASGOW, May, 1858. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.01. DISCUSSION OF FACTS AND PRINCIPLES BEARING ON THE LANGUAGE AND INTERPRETATION... ======================================================================== Part First. Discussion Of Facts And Principles Bearing On The Language And Interpretation Of New Testament Scripture. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.02. THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ======================================================================== Section First. The Original Language Of The New Testament. In the more exact and scientific study of the Sacred Scriptures, the first object, in the order of nature, that calls for examination, has respect to the state of the original records. The possession of a pure text is an indispensable preliminary to a thoroughly correct and trustworthy exposition. And, as well from its importance as from the peculiar character of the investigations belonging to it, this is now fitly assigned to a distinct branch of Biblical study. Next to it in order, and certainly not inferior in importance, is a correct and discriminating acquaintance with the original language of Scripture, and the principles that should guide our inquiries into its meaning and purport. All theology that is really sound, and that will stand the test of time, must have its foundation here. The reformers, to their credit, clearly perceived this, and were hence led to doctrinal results, which, in the main, never have been, and never can be displaced. They proceeded on the sound maxim of Melancthon, that Scripture cannot be understood theologically, unless it has been already understood grammatically, (Scriptura non potest intelligi theologice, nisi an-tea sit intellecta grammatice.) In such statements, of course, the term grammatical must be taken in its wider sense, as comprehending all that is necessary to a just discernment of the import and spirit of the original. And if such a critical acquaintance with the mere language of sacred Scripture be but one element of success, it still is an element of very peculiar moment to the well-furnished theologian; since it has respect to the ultimate source of all that is sound and valuable in theological attainment. As regards the Scriptures of the New Testament, with which alone we have properly to do at present, it is only the Greek language that comes directly into notice; since the whole of the writings that compose the New Testament are found, as to their original form, in no other language than that of the Greek. If any of them ever existed in a prior original, it no longer does so. Nor, with the exception of St. Matthew’s Gospel, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, has it ever been imagined, but by a few dreaming and speculative minds, that the books of the New Testament appeared originally in any other language. The Epistle to the Hebrews is now also held by all men of competent learning to have been originally composed in Greek. And there only remains the gospel of St. Matthew about which there may still be some room for difference of opinion—though, even in regard to it, the conviction has of late been growing in favour of the proper originality of its present form, which was certainly in current use before the close of the apostolic age. Whence, then, did this predilection for the Greek arise? Were our Lord’s discourses, and the writings of the Evangelists, as well as of the apostles, transmitted to us in Greek, because that was the current language of the place and time? Was this really the language in which our Lord and his apostles usually spoke? So, some have been disposed to maintain; and though it is a question rather of antiquarian interest, than of any vital moment for the interpretation of Scripture, it is entitled to some consideration at our hands. It has also a certain bearing on the dispute respecting the original language of St. Matthew’s Gospel. Indeed, it was chiefly in connexion with this more special question, that the other pressed itself on the attention of Biblical students. Thus Hug, in his introduction to the New Testament, went at considerable length into the investigation of the subject, for the purpose of vindicating the proper originality of the Greek gospel of Matthew; and endeavoured to prove, that the Greek language was in current use throughout Palestine at the commencement of the Christian era—so much so, that the people generally understood it, that our Lord himself often employed it, nor had His evangelists and apostles any proper reason for resorting to another in those writings, which were intended for circulation in Palestine and the neighbouring regions. But the fullest and, we believe, also the ablest defence of this view, is to be found in the treatise of an Italian Ecclesiastic, Dominici Diodati, entitled De Christo Greece loquente exercitatio, originally published at Naples in 1767, and re-published in this country not many years since. In this treatise the subject is discussed, partly on general grounds, as on its own account interesting and important to the Biblical student, and partly also with reference to its bearing on the question of the original language of Matthew’s Gospel. The position which the author labours to establish, is, that “neither Hebrew, Syriac, nor Latin, was the vernacular language of the Saviour, but Greek.” It will be readily understood, on the other side, that those who held the contrary opinion respecting Matthew’s Gospel—viz., that it was originally written in Hebrew for the use of the Jewish believers in Syria—were naturally led to controvert the position, that Greek was generally spoken and understood in Palestine: they held, that not Greek, but Aramaic, a sort of broken Hebrew, was the only language in general use, and that also commonly employed by our Lord and his apostles in their public discourses. Now, on a question of this kind, it is not difficult for an ingenious theorist, or an eager disputant, to sort and apply some scattered notices of ancient writers, either directly or indirectly bearing on the subject, in such a way as to give them a plausible appearance, and compel them to pay tribute to the side of the controversy he has espoused. But there are certain great principles applicable to the case which, with all sober and impartial minds, must go far to settle it, and which cannot be overthrown, or materially modified by any occasional statements or fragmentary notices culled out of ancient records. It is found, not in the history of one people, but in the history of nations generally, that there is nothing which is more tenacious of its grasp, and which more slowly yields to the force of foreign influences, than the vernacular language of a people. “Language is after all the most durable of human monuments. Conquerors may overthrow empires and states; earthquakes may swallow up cities; time may confound all things besides:—but the winged words, in which man gives utterance to his feelings and thoughts, often outlast all these ravages, and preserve the memory of nations long after they have ceased to exist. That which seems the most fragile, the most variable, the most evanescent of human attributes or possessions, becomes in reality the most permanent, the most indestructible. If no longer able to support an independent existence, it clings to and coalesces with some more recent and robust dialect:—if lost in one form, it is almost certain to re-appear in another—exhibiting amidst all changes and disfigurations incontestable traces of its origin. This law of decay and reproduction, of fluctuation yet permanence, is so general, that it is principally from analytical inquiries into the origin, composition, and affinities of language, that we derive what knowledge we possess of the early history and fortunes of nations.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 7th ed., Art. ‘Hieroglyphics,’ 100: 2d) In confirmation of this, it is only necessary to point to a few well-known examples. One of the most striking is furnished by the ancient country of the Pharaohs, after the time that their dynasty came to an end, and a succession of conquests, followed by the ascendency of a foreign power, swept over the land. Persian, Macedonian, Roman, and Arabian conquerors in turn held possession of the throne of Egypt, each endeavouring to establish as firmly as possible their dominion over the vanquished, and to render their sway enduring and complete. Yet after this subduing and fusing process had been proceeding for twelve or fourteen centuries, we have the best grounds for believing that the language of the Pharaohs still survived, and continued, though not, we may well conceive, without the introduction of many foreign admixtures, to form the staple of the vernacular tongue of the people. What is called the Coptic language is. but a correct form of the old Egyptic, (as the name also, perhaps, is. [Α’ιγυπτος—Gyptos, Coptos, Coptic.]) Into this language the Scriptures were translated in the earlier ages of Christianity; a liturgy in common use probably about the fifth or sixth century, is still employed by the few remaining Copts of the present day—though the Coptic tongue in which it is written is no longer understood by them. They adhere to it merely as a venerable relic of the better past of their history; of which it forms an abiding, though a mournful and mummy-like witness. But its introduction into the churches of Egypt a few centuries after the Christian era testifies to the fact, that the substance of the ancient language had withstood the influences of foreign conquest and dominion for more than a thousand years. We may, however, take an example nearer home. The Norman conquest took place in the year 1066; and it is well known to have been the policy of the first Norman kings—a policy, too, that was continued with steady aim by their successors—to get rid of the old Saxon entirely, and have it supplanted by their own Norman French. In this French the statutes of the realm were written; so also were commentaries upon the laws, and the decisions of the courts of justice. In many places it was at length introduced into the common schools; so that an old chronicler (Ralph Higden) complains of it as a thing “against the usage and manner of all other nations,” that “children in schools are compelled for to leave their own language, and to construe their lessons and their things in French.” A change in this respect only began to be introduced about the year 1385—more than three centuries after the conquest—when the English again resumed its place in the schools;—and though it was English materially altered, betraying in many respects the influence of Norman domination, yet it still retained its old Saxon root and trunk. The power and policy of the conquerors, though in active operation for more than three centuries, could prevail no further than to superinduce some partial changes upon the mother tongue of the people, and introduce some additional terms; and that, too, while this tongue itself was in a comparatively crude state, and very far from having reached its matured form. Other examples might be referred to—such as the Welsh, the Gaelic, and the Irish-speaking portions of the British Isles, from which still more powerful and long-continued influences have not been sufficient to dislodge the ancient dialects from their place, as the customary vehicles of intercourse among the people. But it is needless to enlarge. The cases adduced are by no means singular; they are but specimens of a multitude—exemplifications of principles and habits that are inherent in human nature, operating equally among all races and in all climes. And is it, then, to be conceived, with such facts presenting themselves in the linguistic history of tribes and nations, that the effect of a foreign rule in Palestine—a rule that had not for more than two or three centuries possessed the form of a stringent and pervasive domination—the rule, too, of masters, who themselves spoke different languages, first Persian, then Greek, then Roman, and who never were so closely identified with the subjects of their sway as in the cases already noticed—is it yet to be conceived, that the effect here was to be such, as to bring about an entire revolution in the vernacular language of the people? The supposition is in the highest degree improbable—we may even say, morally impossible; the rather so, as the Jews had reasons connected with their religion, their history, and their prospects, for cleaving to their language, which no other people, either in ancient or in modern times, equally possessed. Every thing in the past and the future contributed to throw an air of sacredness and grandeur around the Hebrew language, which must have doubly endeared it to their minds, and, on the part of their conquerors, have greatly aggravated the difficulty of supplanting it by another altogether different. It is, therefore, against all analogy, and in opposition to the strongest tendencies of human nature, to suppose that in such circumstances the Greek tongue should, in the age of our Lord and His apostles, have come into general use in Palestine, and to any considerable extent taken the place of Aramaic. With far more probability might it be maintained that Norman and not Anglo-Saxon was the language of common life among the English in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, or that in the present day English is understood and spoken by the mass of the population in the Principality of Wales, or in the Highlands of Scotland. It is true, however, that the ancient language of Palestine had undergone a certain change; it had in some degree suffered by the misfortunes of the people, and had lost its original purity. The long sojourn in Chaldea, in the first instance, then the intercourse kept up with the neighbouring Syrian tribes through commerce, war, and marriage relationships, naturally brought into it foreign elements, and imparted to it a Syro-Chaldaic form. Of this we have undoubted indications, both in the later books of the Old Testament, and in occasional notices and expressions that occur in the New. But these successive changes only affected the accidents of the language; they introduced new dialects, antiquated particular words and phrases, and obtained currency for others in their stead;, but—as in all similar cases—they left the bones and sinews of the language, its structure and essence, substantially what they were. The historical proofs of this are perfectly sufficient. Josephus, for example, constantly distinguishes between his native tongue and the Greek. While he speaks of having applied diligently to domestic and foreign literature, so as even to be acknowledged by all his countrymen as a person of superior learning, he yet confesses himself to have been so long accustomed to his own tongue (τάτριος συνήθεια) that he could not attain to an accurate pronunciation of the Greek, (Antiq. xx. 11, 2.) In the introduction, as well to the Antiquities as to the Wars, he speaks of writing in the Greek language and in his native tongue, as two distinct things, and says, that what he originally wrote in the one . he afterwards translated into the other, (Ἐλλάδι γλώ σση μεταβαλῲν, ἃ τοῖς βαρβάροίς τη πατρίω συντάςας, Bell. Jud. Proverbs 1, Antiq. Proverbs 2.) And once and again he represents the communicatices sent from Titus during the siege of Jerusalem as being interpreted by himself to the Jews, or by some other person who Hebraised (ἑβαῒζων as he terms it, or spake to them in their own tongue (πατρίω γλώσση, Bell., v. 9, 2, vi. 2, 11.) At the same time he shows, by occasional allusions to Syriac or Babylonian terms, that the Hebrew current in his day was not altogether identical with that of earlier times—as when, speaking of the high priest’s upper robe or girdle, he tells us the old designation for it had been dropt (אבְנֵט, abaneth,) and it was now called by the Babylonian name Emia, (Antiq. Iii. 7, 2,)—a proof that the foreign influence had reached even to the terms for sacred things, and if to these, then assuredly to many others. When we turn to the New Testament, the evidence is not less clear on both points—both, that the language in common use in Palestine was of the Hebrew, not of the Greek character, yet Hebrew of the Aramaic, not of the older and purer Hebrew stamp. Thus, when our Lord appears in the attitude of addressing any one very familiarly, of giving or adopting designations for common use, He is represented as speaking in Aramaic:—as when He said to the daughter of Jairus, Talitha cumi, Mark 5:41,) and to the blind man, Ephphatha, (Mark 7:34;) or when He referred to the terms currently employed among the people·, such as raka, rabbi, corban; when he applied to His disciples such epithets as Cephas, Bar-jona, Boanerges, or when on the cross He exclaimed, Eli, Eli, lama Sabacthani. Similar indications are also to be found in the Acts of the Apostles— in the name, for example, reported to have been given by the Jews to the field purchased by the reward of Judas’ treachery, Aceldama, (properly Ἀκελδαμα Acts 1:19;) or of tabitha as the familiar term, the native word for the Greek δορκάς, (Acts 9:36;) or, finally, in the fact of St. Paul addressing the Jewish multitude on the occasion of his being apprehended in the temple, in the Hebrew tongue, and their giving, on that account, the more attentive heed to him, as addressing them through a medium which was at once intelligible and congenial to their minds, (Acts 22:1.) The composition also of Targums among the Eastern Jews, some time about the apostolic age, (certainly little if at all later,) can only be explained on the supposition that the Aramaic language in which they were written, was that currently employed at the time by the Jews in Palestine and the adjoining regions. Nor is there any clear or even probable evidence of the Greek translation of the Old Testament Scriptures ever having been used in the synagogues of Palestine and Syria. The efforts that have been made to establish this point, have utterly failed; indeed, it can scarcely be said, that so much as one of the proofs advanced by Diodati in support of it, has any proper bearing on the subject. (The arguments by Diodati are well met by Dr. Pfannkuche, in vol. II., of Bib. Cabinet. A fair summary of the arguments on both sides is given by Dr. Davidson, in his Introduction to the New Testament, I. pp. 38—40.) On all these grounds it appears to us a matter of historical certainty, that the Aramaic, or later Syro-Chaldaic form of the Hebrew, was in the age of our Lord the vernacular language of the Jewish people, and consequently the medium of intercourse on all ordinary occasions. At the same time, it cannot be reasonably doubted, on the other side, that from a long and varied concatenation of circumstances, the Greek language must have been very commonly understood by the higher and more educated classes throughout Syria. It was the policy both of Alexander and of his successors in that part of the world, to extend the language and culture, as well as ascendency of Greece. With this view cities were planted at convenient distances, which might be considered Grecian rather than Asiatic in their population and manners. The Syrian kings, by whom the Macedonian line of rulers was continued, kept up Greek as the court language, and were doubtless followed by their official representatives, and the influential classes generally throughout the country. The army, too, though not entirely, nor perhaps even in the major part, yet certainly in very considerable proportions, was composed of persons of Grecian origin, who could not fail to make the Greek language in some sense familiar at the various military stations in the regions of Syria. Even after the Macedonian rule had terminated, and all became subject to the sway of the Romans, it was still usually through the medium of the Greek tongue that official intercourse was maintained, and the decrees of government were made known. It is in the very nature of things impossible that so many Hellenizing influences should have continued in operation for two or three centuries, without leading somewhat generally to a partial knowledge of Greek among the better classes in all parts of Syria. There were also circumstances more strictly peculiar to the Jewish people, which require to be taken into account, and which could not be without their effect in bringing them to some extent acquainted with the Greek language. Partly from special encouragements held out to them at the founding of Alexandria, a Grecian city, and partly, perhaps, from the mercantile spirit which began to take possession of them from the time of the Babylonish exile, Alexandria became one of their great centres, where, as we are told by Philo, they formed about two-fifths of the entire population. They abounded also, as is clear alone from the Acts of the Apostles, in the Greek-speaking cities of Asia Minor, and in those of Greece itself. From whatever causes, the dispersion seems, for some generations previous to the Christian era, to have taken very much a western, and specially a Grecian direction; in everyplace of importance inhabited by Greeks, members of the stock of Israel had their homes and synagogues. It is only, too, what might have been expected in the circumstances, that the culture and enterprise which distinguished the communities in those Grecian cities, would act with stimulating effect upon the Jewish mind, and bring its powers into more energetic play and freedom of action, than was likely to be found among the Palestinian Jews, who wre sealed up in their national bigotry and stagnant Pharisaism. Hence, the only moral and religious productions which are known to have appeared among the Jews between the closing of the Old Testament canon and the birth of Christ—those contained in the Apocryphal writings—came chiefly if not entirely from the pen of the Hellenistic Jews, and exist only —most probably never did exist but—in the Greek language. Hence also the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which was completed several generations before the Christian era, and which, there is good reason to believe, was in extensive use about that era among the Jewish people. So that, looking to the numbers, the higher intelligence, and varied resources of the Hellenistic Jews, and taking into account their frequent personal visits to Palestine at the ever-recurring festivals, we cannot doubt that they materially contributed to a partial knowledge and use of the Greek tongue among their brethren in Palestine. As regards the question, then, whether our Lord and his immediate disciples ever spoke in Greek to their countrymen in Judea, it may be admitted as perfectly possible, perhaps even probable, that they sometimes did so—but the reverse of probable, that such should have been their usual practice, or that their public addresses should have been originally delivered in that tongue;—the more so, as their intercourse for the most part lay, not with the more refined and educated, but with the humbler classes of society. But in respect to the further question, why in such a case the books of the New Testament, including those which contain our Lord’s personal discourses, should, with at most one exception—if the Gospel of St. Matthew he indeed an exception—have been originally composed in the Greek, rather than the Aramaic language? the answer is obvious—that at the time those books were written, and for the individuals and communities whose spiritual good they more immediately contemplated, the Greek language was on every account the fittest medium. It was comparatively but a small portion of the people resident in Jerusalem and Judea, who embraced the Christian faith; and those who did, having in the first instance enjoyed many opportunities of becoming personally acquainted with the facts of gospel history, and enjoying afterwards the ministry of apostles and evangelists, who were perfectly cognisant of the whole, were in a manner independent of any written records. Besides, the troubles which shortly after befel their native land, and which were distinctly foreseen by the founders of the Christian faith, destined, as they were, to scatter the power of the Jewish nation, and to render its land and people monuments of judgment, presented an anticipative reason against committing the sacred and permanent records of the Christian faith to the Hebrew language. That language, itself already corrupted and broken, was presently to become to all but the merest fragment of the Jews themselves, antiquated and obsolete. The real centres of Christianity—the places where it took firmest root, and from which it sent forth its regenerating power among the nations—from the time that authoritative records of its facts and expositions of its doctrines became necessary—were to be found in Greek-speaking communities—the communities scattered throughout the cities of Asia Minor, of Greece, at Rome and the West—where also the first converts to the faith consisted chiefly of those whose native tongue was Greek. Whether, therefore, respect were had to the immediate wants of the first Christian communities, or to the quarters in which the gospel was to find its most active agents and representatives, and the direction it was appointed to take in the world, the Greek was obviously the language in which its original and authoritative documents behooved to be written. Whatever reasons there were for the adherents of Judaism getting the Scriptures of the Old Testament rendered into Greek; whatever reasons also Josephus could have for translating into Greek his Jewish histories, and the authors of the Apocryphal writings for adopting that language in preference to Aramaic, the same reasons existed, and in far greater force, for the inspired writings, which were to form in earlier and later times the fundamental records of the Christian faith, being composed in the Greek language, and in that language committed to the faithful keeping of the church. Had they not been originally composed in Greek, the course of Providence would presently have required that they should be translated into Greek; and considering how much depended on the correct knowledge of them, and how many sources we have for illustrating Greek, as compared with Aramaic productions, it was unspeakably better that, from the first, they should have appeared in a Greek form. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.03. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. ======================================================================== Section Second. The Characteristics Of New Testament Greek. I. Being satisfied that the books of the New Testament were written in Greek, our next inquiry naturally turns on the precise character of this Greek. Is it fashioned after the model of classical Greek, or has it laws and properties of its own? If the latter, wherein consist its distinctive peculiarities? This is evidently a subject of no small moment for the correct interpretation of the New Testament writings, and demands a careful examination. In the present day, it can scarcely be said, that there is any material difference of opinion upon the subject. This common agreement, however, is the result partly of a long controversy, and partly of the more exact and impartial treatment of Scripture, which is the general characteristic of present, as compared with earlier, times. Indeed, the question, in so far as it has been agitated, has usually turned, not so much upon the fact of a difference between New Testament and classical Greek, (which no competent scholar could fail to perceive,) as upon the extent of the difference, and the precise light in which it was to be regarded. So early as the period of the Reformation, we find distinct notice taken of the difference. Erasmus, for example, says on Acts 10:38, “The apostles had not learned their Greek from the speeches of Demosthenes, but from the language of common discourse; and I should think it best suited to the gospel of Christ, that it was communicated in a simple and unpolished style, and that the discourse of the apostles resembled their clothing, their manners, and their whole life. Pious persons should as little take offence at the language of the apostles, as at their unwashed bodies, and their plebeian garments.” Beza, in a long note on the same chapter, only so far controverts the sentiments of Erasmus, as the latter had affirmed the language of the apostles to be relatively imperfect and obscure, as well as unpolished; but he admits the existence of Hebraistic peculiarities, and of occasional solecisms. Practically, however, the theological writers of that period treated the language of the New Testament much as they would have done any other production in Greek, and as if it had no very marked peculiarities of its own. The doctrinal discussions, too, in which they, and their immediate successors in sacred learning, were so much engaged, tended not a little to impede the exact philological study of the Greek Scriptures, and their relation in point of dialect to other Greek writings, from a too prominent regard to polemical discussions. Often, indeed, Greek studies were prosecuted for the purpose mainly of impugning or defending out of Scripture a particular class of doctrines; and, as a natural consequence, the New Testament came to be regarded as an ordinary specimen of Greek, and to be commonly used as a class-book for the acquirement of the language. Nor, by and by, were there wanting persons to contend for the absolute purity of its style—including among others the well-known printer, Robert Stephens persons who sought to prove, that the seeming peculiarities of the New Testament dialect were also to be met with in the contemporaneous and earlier writings of Greece. It was the more common opinion, however, among learned men during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that there are certain terms and modes of expression frequently employed in the New Testament, and derived from the Hebrew, which characteristically distinguish it from the writings belonging to Greece proper; but yet that the introduction of these—to use the language of Pfeiffer, who speaks the general sentiment of his age (Klausen’s Hermeneutik, p. 260.)—“is to be sought, not in any degeneracy of the Greek language into a distinct Hellenistic dialect, but in an assimilation of the style of the New Testament to that of the Old, through an especial direction of the Holy Spirit. Such Hebraisms are not to be reckoned as solecisms, or barbarisms, but modes of speech, which are peculiar to the Holy Spirit. If the style of the New Testament (he adds) may be designated by any name, it should rather be called after the authors, the sacred Greek style, than either Hellenistic, or half Hebraistic, or Hebrew Greek, or Hebraizing, to say nothing of disfigured Greek.” We have here, no doubt, in substance, the right view of the matter—though with an error in the formal representation of it, the offspring of a not unnatural, though mistaken dread, lest, in conceding the strict purity of New Testament Greek, a kind of slight should be thrown upon the medium of the Spirit’s communication. The strongest representative of this feeling, perhaps, may be found in Black wall, who, in his Sacred Classics, both denied that many of the alleged peculiarities of New Testament Greek are Hebraistic or Oriental idioms, and claimed for such, as he admitted to be of this description, the character of true and proper ornaments. “He did not consider,” as justly remarked by Dr. Campbell, in the first preliminary dissertation to the gospels, “that when he admitted any Hebraisms in the New Testament, he in effect gave up the cause. That only can be called a Hebraism in a Greek book, which though agreeable to the Hebrew idiom, is not so to the Greek. Nobody would ever call that a Scotticism, which is equally in the manner of both Scotch and English. Now, such foreign idioms as Hebraisms in Greek, Grecisms in Hebrew, or Latinisms in either, come all within the definition of barbarism, and sometimes even of solecism—words which have always something relative in their signification; that term of expression being a barbarism or a solecism in one language, which is strictly proper in another, and, I may add, to one set of hearers, which is not so to another. It is in vain, then, for any one to debate about the application of the names barbarism and solecism. To do so, is at best but to wrangle about words, after admitting all that is meant by them.” So obvious is this view of the matter, and so readily does it commend itself to one’s practical judgment, that it seems strange there should ever have been any unwillingness to admit it. The unwillingness, as we have mentioned, simply arose from a mistaken idea of some necessary connexion subsisting between purity of diction and inspiration of sentiment; certainly a mistaken idea, for the imagined purity is expressly disclaimed by the most learned of all the apostles, who represents himself as naturally appearing to a Greek audience “rude in speech;” and of his method of discourse generally, including doubtless the language in which it was expressed, he declares that it did not aim at excellency of words. A strictly classical diction would not have been natural to him and the other apostles. And as it was the rule of the Spirit in all His supernatural gifts and operations to proceed on the basis of what is natural, it would, in the first instance, have been contrary to the usual method of the Spirit’s working, if they had given utterance to their thoughts in language of fine polish and unexceptionable purity. It would, in fact, have required a kind of second inspiration to secure this, and one so little in accordance with the principle usually acted on in like cases, that it might well have suggested a doubt as to the reality of the first. If the apostles had written with the classical taste, which is sometimes claimed for them, thoughtful minds would have found some difficulty in believing them to be the authors of their own productions. And we, in this remoter age, should have wanted one of the most important evidences of the authenticity and genuineness of New Testament Scripture—its being written in the style natural to the persons by whom, and the age in which, it was produced. The language is precisely what might have been expected from Jews at that particular time expressing themselves in Greek. And this, beyond doubt, is the fundamental reason for the style being precisely what it is. But the apostle Paul connects with it in his own case—connects with its very deficiencies in respect to classical refinement and rhetorical finish—the further and higher reason, that it but served the more strikingly to exhibit the direct agency of God’s Spirit in the success of the gospel. He spake, in delivering the Divine message, and of course also wrote, “not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect;” and “his preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith (the faith of those who listened to his preaching) might not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power ofGod,” (1 Corinthians 2:4-5.) His meaning evidently is, that in himself and the other heralds of the gospel, in their personal attributes and in their whole manner of address, there were obvious defects and imperfections, as judged by the standard of worldly taste and refined culture; and that, not as a matter of accident, but of Divine choice—for the purpose of rendering more palpable and conspicuous the operation of God’s hand in the results that were accomplished through their instrumentality. Even this is not the whole. Another reason still may be added for the same thing, and one too commonly overlooked by those who contended against the purists. There was a necessity in the case for securing the proper ends of a divine revelation—a necessity for a certain departure from the pure classical style, and calling in the aid of Jewish idioms and forms of speech, in order to exhibit in the most distinct and appropriate manner the peculiar truths of the gospel. As these truths required the preparation of much time and special providences for their proper growth and development, so also did the language, in which they were to be finally presented to the world, require something of a peculiar conformation. The native language of Greece, though in some respects the most perfect medium for the communication of thought which has ever been employed by the tongue of man, yet from being always conversant with worldly things, adapted to express every shade of thought and every variety of relationship with in the human and earthly sphere—but still only these—it was not fully adequate to the requirements and purposes of Christian authorship. For this higher end it needed to borrow something from the sanctuary of God, and be, as it were, baptized in the modes of thought and utterance which were familiar to those who had enjoyed the training of the Spirit. So that the writings of the Old Testament formed a necessary preparation for the language of the New, as did also the history and institutions of the one for the religious ideas of the other. Nor is it too much to say, as indeed has been said, “that a pure Greek gospel, a pure Greek apostolic epistle is inconceivable. The canonical and the Hebrew are most intimately connected.” (Hengstenberg on the Revelation of St. John, ii., p. 442.) It is perfectly consistent with all this, and no less true, that the writers of the New Testament often show a correct acquaintance with the idioms of the Greek language, and knew how to distinguish between the nicer shades of meaning in many of its expressions. There are numberless passages in their writings which are scarcely less remarkable for the lofty elevation of thought they convey, than for the graceful and felicitous form in which it is embodied. And if we must say, on the one hand, that their language, as a whole, exhibits frequent deviations from the purity of Attic Greek, we must say also, on the other, that it often makes near approaches to this—differing, if not only, yet most distinctly and chiefly, when the higher purposes for which they wrote required them so to do. Their language may thus be said to be of a somewhat irregular and oscillatory character. “In many cases it rises superior to the common dialect of the time, and approaches marvellously near to the vigour and precision of Attic Greek, while in other usages it seems to sink below the average standard, and to present to us the peculiarities of the later Greek, distorted and exaggerated by Aramaic forms of expression. This mixed character of the language is very interesting and suggestive. It shows us how at one time the august nature of the narrative, from the vital force of the truths it revealed, wove round itself a garb of clear and vigorous diction of Attic power, and more than Attic simplicity: and yet how, at other times, in the enunciation of more peculiarly scriptural sentiments and doctrines, the nationality of the writer comes into view, and with it his inaptitude—his providential inaptitude (we may thankfully say)—at presenting definite Christian truths in the smooth, fluent, yet possibly unimpressive [and spiritually defective] turns of language, which the native Greek the Greek of the first century—would have instinctively adopted. Where, however, in a merely literary point of view, the sacred volume may thus seem weakest, it is, considered from a higher point of view, incomparably strongest. It is this investiture of its doctrines with the majesty of Hebraistic imagery [and the peculiar richness and force of Hebraistic modes of expression,] rather than with the diffluent garb of a corrupted and decaded Hellenism that does truly reveal to us the overruling providence and manifold wisdom of God.” (Frazer’s Magazine for December, 1855. Substantially, indeed, the correct view was given by Beza, in the note already referred to on Acts 10:46. After noticing “the fine specimens of powerful and affecting writing to be found, especially in the epistles of Paul, he adds, “As to the intermixture of Hebraisms, it arose, not only from their being Hebrews, but because, in discoursing of those things which had been transmitted through the Hebrew tongue, it was necessary to retain much peculiar to it, lest they should seem to introduce some new doctrine. And certainly I cannot in the least wonder that so many Hebraisms have been retained by them, since most of these are of such a description, that by no other idiom could matters have been so happily expressed, nay, sometimes not expressed at all; so that, had those formulas not been used, new words and novel modes of expression would have needed to be sometimes employed, which no one could properly have understood.”) Whether, therefore, we look to what was in itself natural and proper at the time, to what was in fittest accordance with the purposes for which the gospel revelation was given, or, finally, to what was required by the demands of the revelation itself, on each account there appears ground for concluding, that not the earlier and purer Greek of the classics, but the later Greek of the apostolic age, intermingled with and modified by the Hebraisms, which were natural and familiar to those whose style of thought and expression had been moulded by Old Testament Scripture, was the appropriate diction for the writers of the New Testament. Admitting, however, that such is and ought to have been its general character, we have still to inquire into the special characteristics of this dialect—to notice the more marked peculiarities that belong to it, and which require to be kept in view by those who would succeed in the work of interpretation. (For a short account of the earlier part of the controversy on the style of the New Testament, and a notice of some of the leading authors and works it called forth, see Planck’s Sacred Philology, Bib. Cab. vii., pp. 67-76.) II. Undoubtedly the basis of the New Testament dialect is Κοινή διάλεκτος, the common, or Hellenic dialect, as it has been called, of the later Greek. This is the name given to the form of the Greek language, which came into general use after the Macedonian conquests. It was called common, and sometimes also Macedonian, because it originated in a sort of fusion of the particular dialects which had prevailed in earlier times; and this again arose, in great measure, from the fusion of the several states of Greece into one great empire under kings of the Macedonian dynasty. Indeed, what are known as the four classical dialects of earlier times­—the Ionic, Ǣolic, Doric, and Attic—were not so properly the dialects in common use among the people, circulating in their separate localities, as the forms appropriated to so many departments of literature, which severally took their rise among the tribes that bore the distinctive names referred to. There may have been, and most probably were, other varieties in current use throughout Greece, but none, except one or other of the four specified, were allowed to appear in written productions. The Attic, however, surpassed the others so much, both by its inherent grace, and by the number of distinguished men who employed it in their writings, that it came to be generally regarded as the model form of the Greek language, and was cultivated by nearly all who were ambitious of writing in the purest style. Certain changes began to pass upon this dialect after the period of the Macedonian conquests, arising chiefly from the Doric peculiarities which predominated in Macedonia, and which now obtained a more general currency; while, along with these, occasional peculiarities from the other dialects were also introduced, probably, in the first instance, from colloquial usage;—the whole combining to form the common speech of Greece in later times. Salmasius was among the first to draw the attention of the learned to this subject, and since his day many others have contributed to the same line of investigation. Of these Henry Planck may be named as one of the most careful and accurate, whose treatise on the subject has been translated into English, and forms part of Vol. II. of Clark’s Biblical Cabinet. The characteristics of this common dialect were not quite uniform; but there are some general features which distinguish it pretty broadly from the Greek of the strictly classical times. They fall into two leading classes—lexical and grammatical peculiarities—the one relating to the form and usage of words, the other to their flexion and government. We shall notice under each head the more marked and important distinctions, and in each shall select only such examples as have a place in New Testament Scripture. 1. Under lexical peculiarities, or such as relate to the form and usage of words, there are, (1.) Words that received a new termination: such as μετοικεσία, Matthew 1:11, for which μετοίκησις or μετοικία was employed in earlier times; καύχησις often in St. Paul’s writings for the act or object of glorifying, as previously in the Septuagint, but in Attic writers καύχη or καύχημα; γενέσια, which in the earlier Greek writers was wont to signify the solemnities offered to the dead, on the pe riodical return of their birth-day, was latterly used for the birth-day itself, as in Matthew 14:6, instead of γενέθλια; ἔκπαλαι for πάλαι, various words with terminations in μα, as αἴ τημα for αἴ τησις, ἀνααπόδνμα for ἀναταπόδοσις, ἀσθένημα for ἀσθένεια, ψεῦσμα for ψεῦδος, (though it is found also in Plato.) We have also βασίλισσα, queen, for βασίλεια or βασιλίς, ἀποστασία for ἀπόστασις, and various other alterations of a like nature. (2.) Words, and forms of words, which were but rarely used in classical Greek, or found only with the poets, passed into common use in the later common dialect: such as αὐθεντεῖν, to govern; ἀλέκτωρ, a cock; ἀλεκτροφωία, cock-crowing; ἀλάλητος, that is not, or cannot be spoken, etc. (3.) Certain words formerly in use came latterly to acquire new meanings;—such as παρακαλεῖν, in the sense of admonishing or beseeching; ταιδεύειν, of chastising; εὐχαριστεῖν, of giving thanks, (originally, to be thankful;) ευʼσχήμων; of respectable or noble standing, (originally, graceful, decent, or becoming;) ὀψάριον, diminutive, from ὄψον, (from ἔψω,) strictly, boiled meat, then any thing eaten with bread to give it a relish, seasoning, sauce—in particular, at Athens, fish, which were there reckoned among the chief dainties—whence also the diminutive ὀψάριον acquired the sense of fish, as in John 6:9, in Plutarch too, and Athenæus. Under the same class may be ranked verbs with an active meaning, which, in classical Greek, are used only intransitively; for example, μαθητεύειν, to disciple, instead of being or taking the place of a disciple; θριαμβεύειν, to cause to triumph, instead of leading in triumph. Such transitions, however, from the received intransitive to a transitive sense, should rather perhaps be ascribed to the Hebraistic impress of the New Testament diction, than regarded as a peculiarity of the common dialect of the later Greek the sacred writers very naturally giving, in certain cases, the force of the Hiphil to the simple meaning of the verb. But, undoubtedly, traces of such alterations are also to be found in other writers. (4.) Words and phrases entirely new entered, especially compound words; for example, ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος, ἀνθρωπάρεσκος, μονόφθαλμος, εἰδωλολατρεία, σπλαγχνίξεσθαι, with many others—some peculiar to the Septuagint and the writings of the New Testament, others common to these and the productions in later Greek generally. Peculiarities of this class are distributed by Planck, not in aptly, into three kinds:—the first comprehending those which were expressly asserted by the ancient grammarians to have belonged to the common language of later times; the second, such as were not explicitly noted in this way, but are only found in the productions which appeared subsequently to the Macedonian era; and finally, those which nowhere occur but in the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, the writings of the New Testament, and the Greek Fathers. It is quite possible that, in regard to many of the words comprised in each of these divisions, the use made of them in the later Greek writings is not absolutely novel; they may have existed before, most likely did exist, but only as provincialisms, which had not received the sanction of any pure writer, or as expressions so seldom employed, that the earlier writings in which they occurred have not been preserved among the remains of antiquity. (5.) A fifih class consists of words imported into the Greek tongue from the Latin—a natural result of the subjugation of the Greek-speaking countries by the Romans; of these it is enough to notice such expressions as ἀσσάριον, δηνάριον, κῆνσος, λεγεών, σικάριος, etc., λαμβάνειν συμβόλιον, (consilium capere,) ἐργασίαν δοῦςαι, (operam dare,) etc. (For a more complete list, see Klausen, Hermeneutik, pp. 338·343; also Winer’s Idioms, § 2.) 2. In regard to the other great class of peculiarities belonging to the common dialect—those relating to flexion and syntax—Grammatical peculiarities—they also fall into several divisions. (1.) We have peculiarities in the flexion of verbs, such as δύνῃ as 2d pers. sing, of indic. pass, for the regular δύνασαι, κάθη for κάθησαι; second aorists with the terminations proper to the first, as εἶπα for εῖπον, ἔπεσα for ἔπεσον, even ἡμαρτήσα for ἡμαρτον; various endings also in αν, instead of ασι, such as ἔγνωκαν for ἐγνώκασι, εἴρηκαν for εἰρήκασι. Verbs occur, too, with double augments, as ἤμελλε, ἡβοὐληθην, ἠδυνηθήσαν, as sometimes also with Attic writers; and again occasionally without the augment, according to the best readings, for example, in Luke 13:13; 2 Timothy 1:16. Besides, certain Doric forms came into general use—such as πεινᾷν for τεινῇν, διφᾷν for διφῇν, σημᾷναι for σημῆναι. (2.) Peculiarities also appear in regard to the gender and flexion of nouns; thus ἔλεος, which, with all good Greek authors, is masculine, is neuter in the New Testament and ecclesiastical writers—but occasionally also masculine; πλοῦτος in like manner is used as a neuter; λιμός, which was used by the Greeks generally as a masculine, but was feminine in the Doric dialect, occurs in this gender also in the New Testament twice, (Luke 15:14, λιμὸς ἰσχυρά; Acts 11:28, λιμὸν μεγάλην,) according to the best copies. On the other hand, the sacred writers and the later Greek writers make βάτος, a bramble, feminine, as the Greeks generally were wont to do, while the Attics treated it as a masculine. The peculiarities in flexion are fewer; but χάριστα, the later and rarer form, occurs occasionally for χάριτα and ἐᾶς of the accus. plural is always dropt εῖς. (3.) As further distinctions, there may be added the nearly entire disuse of the dual, and a few peculiarities in respect to syntax. These latter consist chiefly (to take the summary of Winer) “in a negligent use of the moods and particles. In the New Testament the following may be noticed as examples: ὅταν used with the indicative preterite, εἰ with the subjunctive, ἵνα with the indicative present; (He might have added, what is still more peculiar, the occasional use of ἴνα with the future, as at 1 Corinthians 13:3, Revelation 6:11, if these are, as they appear to be, the correct readings.) the dispensing with ἵνα in forms like θέλω ἵνα, ἄξιος ἵνα, etc.; the coupling of verbs like γεύεσθαι with the genitive, and προσκυνεῖν with the dative; the use of the genitive infinitive, such as τοῦ ποιεῖν, beyond the original and natural limit, and of the subjunctive for the optative in the historical style after preterites; and, above all, the rare use of the optative, which became entirely obselete in the late Greek. Also a neglect of the declensions begins to be exhibited, as εἶς καθεῖς, (after ἕν καθέν,) and even καθεῖς; then also ἀνὰ εῖς, εῖς παρʼ εἶς; so also μετὰ τοῦ ἕν, and similar instances.” These constitute the leading peculiarities of the later Greek, appearing in the writings of the New Testament. But no doubt, as Winer also remarks, this later and more popular dialect had in some districts peculiarities which were unknown elsewhere. And in this category some have been disposed to place the expressions, which Jerome called Cilicisms of the apostle Paul. But of such peculiarities we know too little to enable us to form any correct judgment; and examples have been found in good Greek authors of, at least, some of Jerome’s alleged Cilicisms. Winer, however, is disposed to reckon of the class in question, the occasional use of ἴνα in expressions where the pure Greek writers would have used the infinitive, and would explain it as a sort of free and colloquial usage (§ 45, 9.) It is, certainly, difficult to maintain the strictly telic use of ἵνα throughout the New Testament, as Meyer, for example, endeavours to do; nor can it be done without at times leading to strained and somewhat unnatural explanations. That the telic force should be retained in the great mass of cases, and, in particular, in the formula ἵνα πληρωθῆ, we have no doubt; for when so employed there always is the indication of design. So also is there in various passages, in which it does not at first sight appear, but discovers itself on a closer inspection; as in 1 John 5:3, “This is the love of God, ἵνα τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν,”—not that we do keep, as a fact—but in order that we may keep the commandments of God, as a scope or aim; the tendency and striving of Divine love in the heart is ever in the direction of God’s commandments; or again, in Matthew 5:29, συμφέρει γὰρ σοι ἵνα, κ.τ.λ., it is for thy advantage, viz., to cut off the right hand, in order that one (one merely) of thy members may perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell-fire; this, at least, is a perfectly admissible explanation. But there are others—such as Revelation 6:11; Matthew 18:6; Mark 6:25; Mark 9:30—in which it is, no doubt, possible, by copious supplementings, to bring out a design, yet scarcely to do it in a way that appears consistent with the simplicity of the sacred writers. But of the peculiarities generally, which have been noted as characterizing the dialect of the New Testament, in common with that of the later Greek writers, there is no room for difference of opinion. They distinguish the Greek of the apostolic age from the Greek of classical times. They must, therefore, be understood, and have due allowance made for them by all, who would exhibit the precise import of Scripture, and would even avoid mistakes in interpretation, which have sometimes been committed by persons of high attainments in classical learning, from their too exclusive regard to simply classical authorities. III. But another, and scarcely less important class of peculiarities, must be taken into account for the correct knowledge and appreciation of the original language of the New Testament those, namely, arising from its Hebraistic impress. The common dialect of later times was, in the case of the sacred writings, intermingled with the free and frequent use of forms derived from the Hebrew, which, as already stated, was to some extent unavoidable in the case of the sacred penmen. Very commonly the Greek of the apostolic age, with the addition of this Hebraistic element, is called Hellenistic Greek, from the name Hellenists, which was usually applied to the Greek- speaking Jews, and who naturally spoke Greek with an admixture of Hebrew idioms. It is to be borne in mind, however, that while all the writers of the New Testament partook to some extent of the Hebraistic influence, some did so considerably more than others; and they are by no means uniform in the admission of Hebraisms into their style. The Hebraistic element was a very variable one among them. It differed with the same writers in different parts of their writings, as in the Apocalypse of St. John, which is considerably more Hebraistic than either his gospel or epistles—while these again have more of that element than many other parts of the New Testament. The gospel of St. Luke is decidedly less marked with Hebraisms than those of St. Matthew and St. Mark; and in St. Paul’s epistles also there are diversities in this respect. The epistle to the Hebrews approaches more nearly to the classical diction than any other book of the New Testament. Viewing the subject generally, however, and without reference to the peculiarities of individual writers, there are three several respects in which the Hebraistic influence appears in the style of the New Testament. 1. The first is of a somewhat general kind, and consists of a sensible approximation to the Hebrew in the usual cast and complexion of the style, namely, in those things in which the Hebrew characteristically differed from the Greek. As (1.) in the more frequent use of the prepositions for marking relations, which were wont to be indicated in classical Greek by means of cases. This characteristic pervades so much the style of the New Testament, that particular examples are almost unnecessary. But take one or two:—In Hebrews 1:2, ὃν ἔθηκεν κληρονόμον πάντων, “whom he appointed heir of all,” is classical Greek; but Acts 13:22, ἤγειρεν τὸν Δαυὶδ αὐτοῖς εἰς βασιλέα, literally “raised up David for king,” is Hebraistic. Again, Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων, “for to which of the angels said he at any time,” is pure Greek, but the use of the preposition in the following expressions is Hebraistic, τίς ἐγκαλέσει κατὰ ἐκλεκτῶν θεοῦ, Romans 8:33; ἀγανακτοῦντες πρὸς ἑαυτούς, Mark 14:4; ἀθῷός ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος Matthew 27:24, (so Sept. transl. נָקי מָו in 2 Samuel 3:28;) ὁμολογεῖν ἐν αὐτῷ, Matthew 10:32, etc. (2.) It formed another marked difference between the two languages—the paucity of conjunctions which existed in the Hebrew, and their great abundance, one might almost say, their superfluity, in the Greek. But the New Testament writers constantly show an inclination to adhere to the simplicity of the Hebrew in this respect, rather than to avail themselves of the greater wealth of the Greek. How often in their productions do we meet with a καὶ, where we would rather have expected an ἀλλά, a καίπερ, or a καίτοι? and a γὰρ or an οὖν where we would have looked for an ἐπεί, a ὥστε, or a ὅτι, if judging from the usage of classical writers? In the narrative portions, more especially, of the New Testament, it is the remarkable nakedness and simplicity of the Hebrew language, as to conjunctions and other particles, which presents itself to our notice, rather than the copiousness of the Greek. (3.) A further Hebraistic turn appears in the frequent use of the genitive pronouns, instead of the possessives—σοῦ, μοῦ, αὐτοῦ, ἡμῶν, ὑμῶν, αὐτῶν. This naturally arose from the inspired writers being used to the He brew suffixes, and was also encouraged by a growing tendency in the Greek language itself to substitute the genitives of the personal pronouns for the possessives. The practice, however, is greatly more frequent in the New Testament and the Septuagint, than in other productions of the same period. Indeed, we often meet with the personal pronouns generally in the Greek Scriptures, where simply Greek writers would have altogether omitted them; as in Genesis 30:1, δός μοι τέκνα, εἰ δὲ μὴ, τελευτὴσω ἐγώ; Exodus 2:14, μὴ ἀνελεῖν με σὺ θέλεις, ὃν τρόπον ἀνεῖλες χθὲς τὸν Αιγὺπτον, (in both cases imitating the Hebrew;) so in John 3:2; ταῦτα τὰ σημεῖα ποιεῖν ἃ σὺ ποιεῖς; Revelation 5:4, καὶ ἐγὼ ἔκλαιον πολύ; 2 John 1:1, οὓς ἐγὼ ἀγαπῶ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, etc. (4.) Another pronominal peculiarity, arising from assimilation to the Hebrew, is occasionally found in the New Testament, and abounds in the Septuagint. In Hebrew there is only one relative pronoun,אֲשְׁר (sometimes abbreviated into שְׁ;) and this without any distinction as to number, gender, or case:—on which account the suffixes of the personal pronouns, or these pronouns themselves with a preposition, required to be added, in order to give the necessary point and explicitness to the reference. Hence such expressions as the following: “the land in which ye dwell upon it,” “the place in which ye sojourn in it,” and so on. As the Greek language possessed a declinable relative ὅς, and adverbs derived from it, οὑ ὅθεν, ὅπου, there was no need, when employing it, to resort to this kind of awkward circumlocution. But those who had been accustomed to the force and emphasis of the Hebrew usage, appear still occasionally to have felt as if they could not give adequate expression to their mind without availing themselves of the Hebrew form. Hence such passages in the Septuagint as the following: ἡ γῆ, ἐφ̓ ἧς σὺ καθεύδεις ἐπ̓ αὐτῆς, Genesis 28:13; πᾶς σοφὸς τῇ διανοίᾳ, ὧ ἐδόθη σοφία καὶ ἐπιστήμη ἐν αὐτοῖς, Exodus 36:1; also Deuteronomy 9:28; Exodus 30:6; Deuteronomy 4:5; Deuteronomy 4:14, etc. In the New Testament the peculiarity occurs more rarely; but still it is found, as in Mark 6:55, “They carried about the sick on couches,” ὅπου ἤκουον ὅτι ἐκεῖ ἐστίν; Mark 7:25, ἧς εἶχεν τὸ θυγάτριον αὐτῆς πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον; Revelation 7:2, οἷς ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς; Revelation 12:6, ὅπου ἔχει ἐκεῖ τόπον ἡτοιμασμένον, ver. Revelation 12:14, ὅπου τρέφεται ἐκεῖ καιρὸν. The usage is found also in some quotations from the Old Testament, (Acts 15:17; 1 Peter 2:24,) but it is certainly of rare occurrence in the New Testament writings themselves. (5.) A further distinctive impress arose from a marked difference between the Hebrew and the Greek in respect to the tenses of the verb, giving rise to a peculiarity in the general character of the New Testament style, and imparting to it something of a Hebraistic air. Here again the Hebrew was as remarkable for the fewness, as the Greek for the multiplicity of its forms—the one having its simple past and future tenses, while the other had its present, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, first and second aorists, first and second futures, and paulo-post future—certainly a plentiful variety, if not, in some respects, a needless redundancy; and all these, again, subject to variations of mood—indicatives, subjunctives, optatives which are unknown in Hebrew. There can bε no doubt that the New Testament writers were well acquainted with the principal tenses of the Greek verb, and some of its more peculiar modes of construction, such as those with neuter plurals, with ἵνα and ἄν; at the same time, there are occasional anomalies, with a manifest preference for the simple past and future of the Hebrew, and, as in the latter, a tendency to use the future, as expressive of necessity and continued action, (must and is wont,) somewhat more frequently than is usual in ordinary Greek. (6.) Once more, there are some peculiar case-usages, though rare in the New Testament, as compared with the Septuagint. The most noticeable of these is the employment, though in the New Testament occurring only in the Apocalypse, of a kind of nominative absolute not such as is to be found in Acts 7:40, ὁ γὰρ Μωϋσῆς οὗτος ὁ ἅνθρωπος, in which, merely for the purpose of giving prominence to the leading noun, the sentence begins with it in the nominative, and of which examples are to be met with in ordinary Greek—but one in which the nominative comes after, and stands in apposition with, other nouns in the oblique cases. This arose from a close imitation of the Hebrew, prefixing the indication of case, or the preposition, to the first noun in a sentence, and dropping it in those that followed. Thus at Numbers 20:5, εἰς τὸν τόπον τὸν πονηρὸν τοῦτον; τόπος, οὗ οὐ σπείρεται; Deuteronomy 4:11, καὶ τὸ ὄρος ἐκαίετο πυρὶ ἕως τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, σκότος, γνόφος, θύελλα; also Deuteronomy 4:22; Deuteronomy 8:8; Deuteronomy 10:7. Though an anomalous construction, it had the effect, as Tiersch justly remarks, (Pent. Versione Alexandrina, p. 133,) of giving force and emphasis to the terms placed thus absolutely in the nominative—which were thereby isolated. This also is very decidedly the effect of the employment of the nominative in Revelation 1:4, where grace and peace are sent ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, retaining in the nominative the words, which express the Lord’s eternal Being, and so taking them, as it were, out of the common category of declinable nouns, and placing them in an in dependent position. Other examples occur in Revelation 2:20; Revelation 3:12. In the same connexion may be mentioned a kind of Hebraistic extension of the accusative of place, this accusative being sometimes coupled with a following genitive, in a way not usual with the Greeks; of which we have such examples in the Old Testament as Deuteronomy 11:30, οὐκ ἰδοὺ ταῦτα πέραν τοῦ ̓Ιορδάνου, ὀπίσω ὁδὸν δυσμῶν ἡλίου; Deuteronomy 1:19; Exodus 13:17. And in the New Testament, the peculiar expression in Matthew 4:14, γῆ Νεφθαλίμ, ὁδὸν θαλάσσης, which has its parallel in the passages of the Old Testament referred to, and should not have been regarded in so exceptional a light as it is by Winer, (Gr. § 32, 6.) But such peculiarities exercise comparatively little influence on the Greek of the New Testament. 2. Secondly, the Hebraistic cast of the New Testament style appears in the use of words and phrases, which have their correspondence only in the Hebrew, but are not found in profane Greek writers, whether of the earlier or of the later periods. Among these, certain words might be included, which are transferred from the Hebrew and other Oriental languages into the text of the New Testament:—such as ἄββα, ἀβαδδών, ἀμὴν, παράδεισος, ψεέννα, σατῶν, etc. Terms of this sort are merely Oriental words in Greek letters, or with a Greek termination; and it is by a reference to their Oriental usage that their meaning is to be determined. It is not these, however, so much that we have in view under the present division, as words and phrases which are strictly Greek expressions, but expressions thrown into a Hebraistic form, and conveying a sense somewhat different from what would naturally be put upon them by a simply Greek reader. There is a considerable number of this description,—among which are εἴς in the sense of τις or πρῶτος, according to the Septuagint rendering of אֶחָר (εἴς γραμματεύς, Matthew 8:19, εἰς μίαν (ἡμέραν) τῶν σαββάτων—μίαν for πρώτην,) ζητεῖν τὴν ψυχήν τινός, θανάτου γεύεσθαι, θάνατον ἵδεις, περιπατεῖν ἐνωπίον τίνος, ποιεῖν ἒλεος, πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον, λαμβάνειν πρόσωπον τινός, σάρξ καὶ αἷμα, etc. To refer more particularly to one or two examples, the phrase πᾶσα σάρξ, for all men, mankind at large, is quite a Hebraism, being a literal translation of the Hebrew בָּשָר-כָּל by two terms, which in the one language, as well as the other, signify all flesh while still native Greek writers never used σάρξ in the sense of men, and such an expression, if employed by them, would have meant, not all mankind, but the whole flesh, (of a man or an animal, as it might happen.) Some times the Hebraism is further strengthened by the addition of a negative, in a manner different from the practice of good Greek writers. In Hebrew בָּשָר-לא כָּל not all flesh, is equivalent to no flesh, and in this same meaning οὐ πᾶσα σάπξ is used in New Testament Scripture; as when our Lord says, Matthew 24:22, “If the days should not be shortened, οὐκ ἂν ἐσώθη πᾶσα σάρξ,” no flesh should be saved; or St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 1:29, ὅπως μὴ καυχήσηται πᾶσα σὰρξ, so that no flesh might glory. Such phrases are to be explained by coupling the negative with the verb, and regarding the two together as predicating the negation or want of something—the all comprehending the entire circle or genus to which such predicate extends. Thus, in the sentence last quoted, the not being in a condition to glory is the thing predicated, and the πᾶσα σάρξ, the all flesh, which follows, denotes the sphere of being to which the predicate applies—the entire compass of humanity. So that, when rightly viewed, the expression presents no material difficulty, though it is a form of speech not native to the Greek, but imported into it from the Hebrew. The Vulgate has not been sufficiently observant of this peculiar idiom; hence it renders the passage in Matt, non salva ficret omnis caro, and that in 1 Cor. ut non glorietur omnis caro. Our translators, however, in the authorized version have commonly attended to it, and given the correct rendering—though still in one case they appear to have missed it. The passage we refer to is 1 John 2:19, where the apostle is speaking of those who had once belonged to the true church, but had since fallen into Gnostic errors, and assumed an antichristian position:—“They went out from among us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but that (the sentence here is plainly elliptical, and we must again supply they went out that) they might be made manifest, ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶν πάντες ἐξ ἡμῶν”—that they were not all of us, our version has it but the apostle had already said of them, wholly and absolutely, that they were not of us; and it would be strange, if now, at the close, he should have introduced a limitation, and, when speaking of the evidence of their having assumed an antichristian position, or being in deadly heresy, should have used terms that were applicable only to a portion of them. The terms, however, become quite plain, if understood in conformity with the idiom now under consideration; i.e., if the negative and the verb (οὐκ εἰσι) are taken together, as constituting the predicate, and the πάντες following as indicating the extent of its application—embracing the totality of the parties spoken of. Their going out from the company of the faithful, the apostle then affirms, shows that they are not—all of them—of us; i.e., that none of them are of us; the whole went out, that they might be seen—one and all—not to be of the true church of Christ. Such, substantially, is the view adopted, not only by several foreign commentators, but also in the English Annotations of 1645, by Hammond, Guyse, Whitby, Peile, and others. This, however, is rather a digression, and we return to our proper subject—simply remarking further, in respect to the second class of Hebraisms, that a considerable portion of the words and phrases comprised in it, are still to be taken in their ordinary sense, but, at the same time, with such reference to the Hebrew use and application of them, that in the sense necessary to be put upon them they must be regarded as Hebraisms. For example, in the common expression αἱμα ἐκχεῖν, pour out, or shed blood, what is really meant, is not the simple shedding of blood, but the pouring out of this unto death the words being those used in rendering the Hebrewשָׁפָךְ דָם —the usual sacrificial formula for taking the life of an animal victim, when presenting it to God. It hence passed into a common phrase for taking the life of any one; and in the lips of a Jew, the phrase naturally became more peculiarly and distinctly indicative of death, than it should have done when uttered by a Greek. In like mariner, in the use of the word ὄνομα,, in a great variety of expressions, such as “calling upon the name,” or doing anything in the name of another, “hallowing God’s name,” “believing on the name of Christ,” “trusting in the name of the Lord,” and such like—while the worm precisely corresponds to the שֶׁם in Hebrew, and name in English to both, it is still only through the He brew usage that we can get at the proper import of the expressions. The Hebrews were wont to regard the name of an individual, as, what it doubtless originally was, the index to the nature; and when the primary name failed properly to do this, they very commonly superseded it by another, which yielded a more significant or fitting expression of the individual properties. Hence, with them, the name was very much identified with the person, as, on the other side, the person was very often contemplated in the light of the name. Among the Greeks the significance of names never assumed the same place that it did among the Hebrews; they were regarded more as arbitrary signs, having their chief use in distinguishing one person or one object from another; and consequently the same identification did not prevail in the ordinary Greek usage, as in the Hebrew, between the name, and the person or properties of the individual. In dealing with such expressions, therefore, as those specified above, we must have recourse to the Hebrew, in order to arrive at the proper import. 3. There is still a third respect, in which the Hebraistic cast of the New Testament dialect appears; viz., in the formation of derivatives from words belonging, in the sense employed, to the Hebrew, and not to the Greek. For example, the word σκάνδαλον, the rendering of the Septuagint for מִכְשׁוֹל a stumbling-block, or offence, is the root of a verb found only in the New Testament, σκανδαλίξω, to stumble, or cause to stumble, (corresponding to נִכְ‍שַׁל הִכְשָׁילנח;) σπλαγχνίζεσθαι from σπλάγχνα (as in Hebrew רָחַם and רַחֲמִים;)—ἀναθεματίζεσθαι from ἀνάθεμα, and so on. In such cases one is thrown entirely upon Hebrew ideas and usages; and from these it is necessary to ascertain and determine the precise meaning to be attached, if not to the original noun, at least to the verb derived from it. IV. It is plain, therefore, from the occurrence of such Hebrew or Aramaic peculiarities as we have referred to, that the Greek of the New Testament adds to the later Greek—the common Hellenic dialect—elements derived from the vernacular language of the sacred writers, on account of which it may justly be denominated a peculiar idiom. It exhibits single Greek words, which are nowhere found in Greek writers out of Palestine; it exhibits also Hebrew and Chaldaic phrases, expressed in Greek terms, but conveying a sense different from what a simply Greek reader would naturally have put upon them; and, finally, it exhibits in the grammatical construction various features of a Hebraistic kind;—all necessarily requiring, in order to attain to a correct interpretation of New Testament Scripture, an acquaintance with the Hebrew as well as with the Greek languages, and, in particular, with the usages established by the Septuagint Version of Old Testament Scripture. But there are two important considerations, which ought to be borne in mind in connexion with those Hebraisms—the one having respect to their number, and the other to the proper mode of dealing with them. (1.) In the first place, they are not nearly so numerous as they were at one time represented to be; nor much more numerous than was rendered necessary by the circumstances of the writers. By far the greater part of them are so essentially connected with the position of the writers, as not only trained under the economy of the Jewish dispensation, but called also to unfold truths and principles, which were but the proper growth and development of such as belonged to it, that they could not justly have been dispensed with. They entered, by a kind of moral necessity, into the cast of thought and expression adopted by the apostles of the New Testament. And hence also they occur less frequently in grammatical constructions than in other respects, and only so as to impart to the style, in that particular respect, an occasional Aramaic colouring. The Greek syntax differs in many things from the Hebrew; the one has its own marked and peculiar characteristics, as well as the other; yet in most of these we find the New Testament writers regularly accommodating themselves to the foreign idiom—as in the distinctive use of imperfects and aorists, in the coupling of neuter plurals with a verb in the singular, in the construction of verbs with ἄν, in the attraction of the relative, etc. It may not be improper to point to an example or two, in a single line, of this conformity to the foreign idiom:—in the discriminating use of the aorist and perfect tenses—the aorist as denoting the historic past, and the perfect as denoting the past in its relation to the present, the past-continuing with its -effects and consequences to the present. Even St. John, who has often been treated as ignorant of the commonest Greek idioms, we find, at the very beginning of his Gospel, carefully observing this distinction, when he says of the work of the Logos, ἐγἐνετο οὐδὲ ἔν ὅγεγονεν, nothing whatever that has come to be, and still is in being, was made without Him. So also in Colossians 1:16, pointing to the act of creation by Christ in the indefinite past, ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα; but when Christ’s continued relation to, and interest in, what was created, is in view, then the apostle changes from the aorist to the perfect, τὰ πάςτα δἰ αὐτοῦ καὶ εὶς αὐτον ἔκτισται. Another striking example of a similar change may be seen in ch. 3:3 of the same epistle, in the ἀπεθάνετε used of the old life once and for ever put away, and the κέκπυπται of the new begun at conversion, but continuing still on. In connexion with such discriminating employments of the aorist and perfect tenses, it is justly remarked by the late Professor Scholefield, that the English translation is often obscured by failing to mark the distinction as observed in the original, and consequently inserting or omitting at the wrong place the auxiliary have.—(Hints for Improvements in the Authorized Version, Preface X.) In respect, however, to the excessive multiplication of Hebraisms, Titmann very justly says, in his Synonyms, ii. p. 163, “Many expressions in the New Testament have been stamped with the name of Hebraisms, for no other reason whatever than because it was taken for granted that the writers of the New Testament have imitated the Hebrew mode of speaking; just as if they could not have derived those forms from the like usage of the Greek language, which they were writing. Many Hebraisms have thus been pointed out by Vorstius, Leusden, and others, which might with equal justice be called Hellenisms. Because, forsooth, they appear in the New Testament, in writers ̔Εβραῖζοντες, they are Hebraisms; while the same things, when found in Demosthenes, Thucydides, Xenophon, or Polybius, are pronounced to be good and elegant Greek. Thus, in the New Testament, the use of the demonstrative pronoun without apparent necessity after a noun or relative pronoun, has been regarded as a Hebraism, inasmuch as the Hebrews do indeed use this construction, as also the Arabs, Syrians, Greeks, and Romans, (we might add the Germans and English.) Still that cannot surely be reckoned as a Hebrew idiom, which is also employed by the best writers of other nations.” He proceeds to give various examples of the usage, among which are, from Cicero, Illud quod supra scripsi, id tibi confirmo; from Sallust, Sed urbana plebes, ea vero prsæceps ierat; from Thucydides, “the most Attic of all Greek writers,” τῷ δὲ ̔Ιπποκράτει ὄντι περὶ το Δήλιον, ὡς αὐτῷ ἡγγέλθη; and concludes by saying, “The construction in all these usages is evidently the same as in Matthew 4:16; Matthew 8:5; John 15:2; John 18:11.” Michaelis remarked sharply, but not without cause, on this tendency to discover Hebraisms in New Testament Scripture, “It is extraordinary, that those very persons who are least acquainted with the Hebrew are the most inclined to discover Hebraisms; and it has been as fashionable, as it is convenient, to ascribe the difficulty of every passage to an Oriental idiom.” (Intro, iv. 6.) Yet he has not himself altogether escaped the contagion; for we find him, in the same chapter, ranking some things as Hebraisms, and giving them on that ground a false rendering, which ought to be taken in their strictly Greek meaning; for example, εἰς νῖκος, in 1 Corinthians 15:54, which he designates “a harsh Hebraism” signifying “for ever,” while really the proper import is best given by the literal rendering, “into victory,” i.e., towards this as the end aimed at—death being viewed as the great enemy, with whose swallowing up the final victory comes. Gerard, (Bib. Criticism, p. 54,) as usual, follows Michaelis in this; and, along with many others then and since, he also gives ῥῆμα, in the sense of thing, as a Hebraism, in such passages as Luke 1:37; Luke 2:15; Acts 5:32. But it always bears the sense of word or saying, or of things only in so far as they have become matters of discourse. Thus, at Luke 1:37, the exact rendering undoubtedly is, “No word shall be impossible with God;” and hence the verb is in the future, ἀδυνατήει, pointing to the futurity of the accomplishment, as compared with the period when the word was spoken. (2.) Then, while we should thus beware of multiplying Hebraisms in the New Testament beyond what really exist, we should, in the second place, also beware, in handling what really are such, and the peculiarities generally of the New Testament dialect, of setting them down as mere extravagancies, or barbarous departures from a proper diction. On the contrary, we should endeavour to ascertain the idea in which they originated, and get at the precise shade of meaning, or aspect of a subject, which they set before us. This is the course, as Winer remarks, which has latterly been taken by grammarians in their investigations concerning the Greek language: “The idea which gave rise to each particular form has been accurately apprehended, and its various uses reduced to the primary signification. The language thus becomes a directly reflected image of the Greek thought, as a living idiom. One does not stop at the mere externals, but there is a reference of each form and inflexion of the language to the thinking soul, and an effort to apprehend it in its existence in the mind itself. For a long time Biblical philologists took no notice of these elucidations of Greek grammar and lexicography. They followed Viger and Storr, and separated themselves entirely from the profane philologists, under the impression that the New Testament Greek, being Hebraistic, could not be an object of such philological investigations. No one believed that the Hebrew, like every other language, admitted and required a rational mode of treatment. The rational view is now gaining ground. It is believed that the ultimate reasons of the phenomena of the Hebrew must be sought out in the nation’s modes of thought; and, above all, that a plain, simple people could not contravene the laws of all human language. It is no longer, therefore, considered proper to give a preposition diverse meanings, according to one’s own plea sure, in a context superficially examined. Nor must it be supposed that a Hebrew, instead of ‘this is my brother,’ could say pleonastically, ‘this is of my brother,’ or ‘this is in the wise man,’ instead of ‘this is a wise man;’ but the origin of changes so contrary to rule must be sought for in the speaker’s mode of thought, as with every rational being each deviation has its reason.”—(Idioms, pp. 19, 20.) This, it will be understood, is said simply of the manner in which deviations of the kind here referred to should be considered and explained; and determines nothing as to what may be called the comparative pureness and elegance of the diction, or the reverse. In some of them, possibly, the thought expressed may be cast into a form, which is not justified by the usage of the most correct writers, nor accordant with the native idioms of the language; but possibly also there may be no real departure from these;—and the apparent deviation, or peculiarity, may lie in the thought expressed being somewhat different from what a superficial consideration, or a common point of view, might be apt to suggest. Such, no doubt, will be found sometimes to be the case. But the question at present has respect, not simply, nor indeed so much to the purity of the diction, as to the proper and rational mode of explaining its real or apparent peculiarities. These should, in every case, be considered with reference to the specific circumstances and mental habits of the writer. And had they been so—had due regard been paid to the considerations which have just been advanced not only would many senseless and improper laxities have been spared from our grammars, lexicons, and commentaries, but the received text also of the New Testament and our authorized version would have been in a better state than they at present are. Schleusner’s Lexicon of the New Testament, and Macknight’s Commentary on the Epistles, may be referred to as specimens, out of the more learned class, which egregiously err in the respect now mentioned, more especially in the laxity with which they render the prepositions and the particles of the New Testament Greek. For example, in Schleusner, the prepositions εἰς and ἐν have ascribed to them, the one 24, the other no fewer than 30, distinct uses and meanings; and, though Macknight does not carry it quite so far, yet, from the diverse and disconnected senses he puts upon them in his Preliminary Essays, it seems as if, when handled by a Hellenistic Jew, these prepositions might express almost any relation whatever. Εἰς, as it happens, may be into or in, concerning or with, against, before, by, in order to, among, at, towards, or it may stand without any definite meaning—as a mere expletive—and had better been wanted. So also with ἐν. (This looseness has also been countenanced to some extent by Ernesti, and still more by his foreign and English annotators. See Bib. Cabinet, vol. iv. 153, 154.) Of course, in the writings of the New Testament, as in all popular productions, there is a considerable freedom in the use of such parts of speech—especially in what are called pregnant constructions and current phrases—yet never without a respect to the fundamental meaning of the word never with a total abnegation and disregard of this. Thus, in the New Testament, as with Greek writers generally, the preposition εἰς is not unfrequently coupled with verbs of rest, and hence comes to be rendered as if it were ἐν: as Matthew 2:23, κατῴκησεν εἰς πόλιν λεγομένην Ναζαρέτ; Acts 8:40, Φίλιππος εὑρέθη εἰς Ἄζωτον, John 1:18, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρὸς. But in all such cases there is an implied reference to the preceding motion towards the place indicated, or some sort of terminal relation to it. Thus, in the examples noticed, we must explain, in the first, having gone so far as to the city called Nazareth, having entered into it, he dwelt there; in the second, Philip was found as far as Azotus, carried thither, and so at it; in the third, He that is (viz. set, who has His proper place of being) into the bosom of the Father, so close, so deep into the personal indwelling, and union with, the Father. In none of the cases is there properly an interchange of one preposition for another; but a complex thought is uttered in an abbreviated and elliptical form. In many cases of this description, however, it is only by a comment that the full and proper meaning can be brought out, and in a simple translation it is scarcely possible to keep up the peculiarity of the original. But there are others, in which that was perfectly possible, and in which our authorized version has suffered from the too prevalent notion of Hebraistic laxity—nor has even the received text of the original escaped occasional corruptions. Under those of the latter description we may point to Revelation 2:14, where the undoubtedly correct reading of what is said of Balaam is, ὃς ἐδίδασκεν τῷ Βαλὰκ βαλεῖν σκάνδαλον ἐνώπιον τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ, but which, from the apparent anomaly of the verb διδάσκω being coupled with a noun in the dative, for its direct object, (as was supposed,) the resort was made by grammarians and commentators to Hebrew usage, according to which it was alleged the dative was put for the accusative; and certain copyists went a step further, and, taking the dative for an error, substituted the accusative in its place, which is the reading of the received text—τὸν βαλὰκ. It is not a Hebraism, however, to couple such a verb with the dative; the Greek and Hebrew usage here entirely correspond; and that John was perfectly cognisant of the Greek usage is manifest from his coupling the same verb with an accusative in Revelation 2:20, as in every other instance, in which he has placed a noun in regimen with it, except the one before us, (John 7:35; John 8:2; John 8:28; John 9:34; John 14:26; 1 John 2:27, thrice.) This sufficiently shows, that the dative in Revelation 2:14 is put, not by oversight or from the usage of a foreign idiom merely, but on purpose; that it is what grammarians call the dativus commodi, indicating that what was done, was done, not upon the individual concerned, but in his interest—not that Balaam taught Balak, (as in the English version,) but that he taught for Balak, on his account and in his behalf, to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel. We are not, in short, told whom he taught, though we know from the history it was the people of Balak, but for whose advantage he did so; he taught in the service of the king of Moab, not of the God of Israel. We must refer to a few other passages, in which, though the received text remains correct, the authorized version has missed the precise shade of meaning by giving way to the idea of laxity on the part of the original writers. Thus, in the prayer of the converted malefactor, Luke 23:42, Remember me when Thou comest ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ σου—not into Thy kingdom, which might seem to point to the glory into which the Lord was presently going to enter—but—Thy kingdom, viz., when the time comes for Thee to take to Thyself Thy great power and to reign among men; for this future manifestation of glory was undoubtedly what the faith of the penitent man anticipated and sought to share in, not the glory which lay within the vail, which only the answer of Christ brought within the ken of his spiritual vision. The same preposition has also been unhappily translated in another important passage—Php 2:10, ἵνα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ—not at, but in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow; in it as the ground and principle of the act, not at its mere enunciation. Again in Ephesians 3:19, “That ye may be filled εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ,” not strictly with, which would imply an infinite recipiency, but into all the fulness of God—lifted, like empty vessels, into the boundless pleroma of Godhead, that ye may take to the full satisfaction of your desires, and the measure of your capacity. So, again, in 2 Peter 1:3, where God is said to have given to us all things pertaining to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him καλέσαντος ἡμᾶς ἰδίᾳ δόξῃ καὶ ἀρετῇ, who called us—not, as in our version, to glory and virtue, which puts a most arbitrary and unauthorized sense upon the διὰ, and converts, besides, the means into the end—but by or through glory and virtue—namely, the glory and virtue, the divine energy exhibited in the way and manner, in which we are called of God, in consequence of which, as is presently added, there have also been given to us exceeding great and precious promises; the promises are so great and precious, because the call conducting to them was so distinguished by divine power and glory. The very next verse but one of the same epistle, ver. 5, furnishes another example of unfortunate laxity in the translation, which in consequence misses the precise shade of thought expressed in the original: the words, καὶ αὐτο τοῦτο δὲ, rendered, “And besides this,”—altogether sinking the adversative particle δὲ, and mistaking also the force of the adverbial accusative αὺτο τοῦτο. The object of the clause, is partly to suggest a difference, and partly to mention an agreement, between what precedes and what follows: “And on this very account indeed,” or “but for this same reason, give all diligence,” etc. These are only a few specimens out of many, that might be adduced, of the evil that too long and generally prevailed, of supposing that the sacred writers of the New Testament were so Hebraistic, or otherwise so peculiar in their use of words and phrases, that any sort of license might at times be taken with their language. It is but rarely that the evil discovers itself in the authorized version, and within narrow limits, compared with what has appeared often in later versions and commentaries. But it is still occasionally found there; and special notice has been taken of it, not for the purpose of disparaging that version, which, as a whole, is so admirable, but in order to show, how even there, when the proper line has been deviated from, and with the best intentions, the effect has only been to substitute one shade of meaning for another—a meaning that could only at first view have seemed the natural and proper one, for another more accordant both with the idioms of the language and with the truth of things. V. To pass now, however, from the real or alleged Hebraisms of the New Testament, we may mention as another characteristic feature of its diction, that which it occasionally derives from the new ideas and relations introduced by the gospel. These of necessity called into existence a class of expressions, not in themselves absolutely new, but still fraught with an import which could not attach to them as used by any heathen writer, nor even in the production of any Greek-speaking Jew prior to the birth of Christ. With the marvellous events of the gospel age, a fresh spring-time opened for the world; old things passed away, all things became new; and the change which took place in the affairs of the Divine kingdom could not fail to impress itself on those words and forms of expression, which bore respect to what had then for the first time come properly into being. In so far as the terms employed might embody the distinctive facts or principles of Christianity, their former and common usage could only in part exhibit the sense now acquired by them; for the full depth and compass of meaning belonging to them in their new application, we must look to the New Testament itself, comparing one passage with another, and viewing the language used in the light of the great things which it brings to our apprehension. When handling such terms as those now referred to, it is peculiarly necessary to understand and apply aright the fundamental principles of language, as to the relation in which the spoken word stands to the internal thought, of which it serves as the expression. “Language,” it has been justly said, (William Von Hurnboldt, quoted in Donaldson’s Cratylus, p. 56.) “is the outward appearance of the intellect of nations: their language is their intellect, and their intellect their language; we cannot sufficiently identify the two. . . . Understanding and speaking are only two different effects of the same power of speech.” In confirmation of this statement, we may point to the twofold meaning of the Greek word λόγος, which denotes alike the internal and the external reason—either reason as exercising itself and forming conceptions in the mind itself, (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος,) or reason coming forth into formal proposition, and embodying itself in the utterance of human speech, (λόγος προφορίκος)—comprising, therefore, in one term, what the Latins, with their more objective and realistic tendencies, took two words to express—ratio and oratio. Now, as the external reason, or reason embodied in the form of spoken or written words, ought to be the exact image of the internal, a correct representation of the thoughts and conceptions of the mind, so, in proportion as these thoughts and conceptions vary, the language employed to express them must present a corresponding variation; and if the same terms are retained, which may have been previously in use, there must be infused into them a somewhat new and more specific import. To some extent this is done, even in comparatively common circumstances, and as the result of individual thought and feeling; for speech, as has also been well said by the writer just referred to, “acquires its last definiteness only from the individual. No one assigns precisely the same meaning to a word that another does, and a shade of meaning, be it ever so slight, ripples on, like a circle in the water, through the entirety of language.” That is—for the sentiment must be understood with such a limitation—it will so perpetuate and diffuse itself, if circumstances favour it, and the particular shade of meaning introduced is one not confined to too narrow a sphere of thought, not merely local or temporary, but requiring, by the exigencies of human thought, to have an abiding place in its medium of communication. Whenever that is the case, it will certainly “ripple on like a wave, widening and enlarging its range, till it has embraced the whole field. Such peculiarly has been the case in respect to those terms, which the great events of gospel history served to bring into general use, and through which expression is given to some of the more distinctive ideas and relations of gospel times. Among the foremost of these is the phrase, βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ, or τῶν οὐρανῶν—a phrase composed of words perfectly familiar to all accustomed to the Greek tongue, but, as applied to the state of things introduced by Christ, and growing out of the events of His earthly career, expressive of ideas essentially novel to heathen minds, and but partially possessed even by Jewish. We can have no doubt about its origin, and the reason of its employment in this connexion. It points back to those prophecies of the Old Testament, in which promise was made of a king and kingdom, that should unite heaven and earth, God and man, in another way than could be done by a merely human administration; and especially to the prophecies of Daniel 2:1-49 and Daniel 7:1-28, where, after a succession of kingdoms, all earthly in their origin, and ungodly in their spirit and aims, the Divine purpose was announced, of a kingdom that should be set up by the God of heaven, and that should never be destroyed—a kingdom imaged by one like a Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, and destined to be possessed by the saints of the Most High. Some notion might, therefore, be obtained of the import of the expression, by those who were acquainted with Old Testament Scripture; yet only a vague and imperfect one, as the precise nature of the kingdom, and its distinctive characteristics could only be correctly understood, when they were brought clearly to light by the facts and revelations of the gospel. The general unbelief and apostacy of the Jewish people, after Christ came, showed how little previous intimations had served to bring them properly acquainted with the nature of the kingdom; and both that, and the palpable errors and mistakes regarding it, which frequently discovered themselves even among the followers of Christ, but too clearly proved how difficult it was for the minds of men to rise to a just apprehension of the subject. The difficulty, no doubt, chiefly arose from the imperfect earthly forms under which the prophetic Spirit had presented it to their view, and from the not unnatural tendency in their minds to shape their idea of it too much after the monarchies and governments of this world, which kept them from realizing the change in spirit, aim, and administration, involved in the divine character of its Head. But as soon as the true idea came to be realized, and the kingdom in its real properties began to take root in the world, as a natural result, the phrase βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ, which gave expression to the idea, became informed, we might say, with a new meaning, and bore a sense which it were vain to look for any where but in the writings of the New Testament. Even there the sense which it bears is not quite uniform; for in a subject so complex, and branching out into so many interests and relations, the expression could not fail to be used some times with more immediate reference to one aspect of the matter, and sometimes to another. This is clearly the case in the parables, where a manifold variety is found in the images employed to represent the kingdom of God, with the view of presenting under diverse, though perfectly consistent and harmonious representations, a comprehensive exhibition of the truth respecting it:—some (as in the parable of the mustard-seed) pointing more to its growth from small beginnings; others, (as in the parables of the ten virgins and the husband man,) to its final issues in evil and good, according to the part taken on earth by its members; others, again, to its internal principles of administration, (as the parable of the talents, or of the labourers in the vineyard;) to its external means and agencies, with the diversified results springing from them (as the parables of the sower, the tares and wheat, the fishing-net;) or to the relation of the members of the kingdom to its Divine Head, and to each other, (as the parable of the unforgiving servant.) But with all this variety in the use of the expression, two ideas are never lost sight of, which in truth form the two most prominent things connected with it, viz., those of a Divine king on the one hand, and of human subjects on the other—the one ordering, providing, directing, and controlling all; the other, according to the line of conduct they pursue, receiving at His hand blessing or cursing, life or death. If these remarks are kept in view, there will appear no need for dividing (as Dr. Campbell, for example, does, in his preliminary Dissertations and Translation of the Gospels) and rendering βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν sometimes the reign of heaven, and sometimes the kingdom of heaven. This is not only unnecessary, but fitted also to mislead; since it gives, whenever the word reign is used instead of kingdom, only a partial and imperfect representation of the proper idea. It was one of the prevailing tendencies of Campbell’s mind—a mind certainly of great penetration, of remarkable clearness of perception, of much philosophical acumen, and singular perspicacity in thought and diction—partly in consequence of these very excellencies, it was a tendency in his mind to make precision, rather than fulness of meaning his aim; and for the sake of that precision, both in his preliminary Dissertations and his Notes, he often seizes only a part of the meaning, couched under a particular phrase or expression, and exhibits that as the whole. This is, indeed, the most characteristic and general defect of his work on the Gospels, which, notwithstanding that defect, however, and a few others that might be named, is well entitled to a perusal. It was the tendency now referred to which led Dr. Campbell to substitute so often the word reign for that of the kingdom of heaven, on the ground, that the expression most commonly relates to that “sort of dominion,” as he terms it, which is understood by the dispensation of grace, brought in by the Gospel; while the phrase, “kingdom of heaven,” he thinks, properly indicates “the state of perfect felicity to be enjoyed in the world to come.” Now, this is to divide what Scripture seeks to preserve entire, and fixes the mind too exclusively on a part merely of the idea, which it ought to associate with the expression. It was never intended that we should think of the Messiah’s kingdom as having to do merely with the inner man, and, for the present, laying claim only to a sway over the thoughts and affections of the mind. His kingdom, according to its scriptural idea, is no more a divided empire, than He is Himself a divided person. It comprehends the external as well as the internal—although, from having its seat in the latter, it is most frequently depicted with special relation to this; but still it comprehends both, and embraces eternity as well as time—though its condition, now on this side, now on that, may at times be brought most prominently into view. But even in those pas sages, in which it points to the present mixed state, and imperfect administration of the affairs of the kingdom, we should take nothing from the full import of the expression, but retain it in its completeness; as it serves to keep before the Church the idea of a kingdom in the proper sense, and to prompt her to long for, and aim at, its realization. We have dwelt at the greater length on this particular example, as it is one of considerable moment, and it affords an intelligible and ready explanation of the peculiarity with which it has been here associated. But it is only one of a class belonging to the same category: such ἀὶων μέλλον, δικαιοῦσθαι, δικαιοσύνη, εὐαγγελίζω, ζωή, and θάνατος; (understood spiritually,) κλῆσις, μυστήριος, νόμος, παράκλητος, πίστις, πλήρωμα, χάρις, χάρισμα, πνευατικός, ψυχικός. All these, and, perhaps, several others that might be named, are used in New Testament Scripture with the same radical meaning, indeed, as elsewhere; but, at the same time, with so much of a specific character derived from the great truths and principles of the Gospel, that their New Testament import must be designated as peculiar. VI. Once more, it may be given as a still further note of distinction characteristic of the New Testament Greek, that, while there are peculiarities of the several kinds already described, distinguishing the language as a whole, there are also peculiarities distinguishing the Greek of one writer from that of another—words and phrases used by one and not used by the others, or used in a manner peculiar to himself. There is an individual, as well as a general, impress on the language. And if, as in the class last mentioned, a special regard must be had to the revelations and writings of the New Testament as a whole, there should, in the class now under consideration, be a like regard had to the writings of the particular person by whom the expressions are more peculiarly employed. The terms belonging to this class are not of so extensive a range as some of the preceding ones; and they are to be found chiefly in two writers of the New Testament—the Apostles Paul and John. In the writings of John we meet with various expressions, which, as used by him, are almost peculiar to himself: such as ἀλήθεια, in the specific sense of denoting what is emphatically the truth—the truth of the Gospel; ποιεῖν τὴν αλήθειαν, in the sense of giving practical exhibition of that truth; γεννηθῆναι ἀνωθεν, or ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ; ὁ λόγος, as a personal designation of the Saviour in respect to his divine nature and relationship; ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς, ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, ὁ παράκλητος, ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου, ἔρχεσθαι εἰς τὸν κόσμον, etc. In like manner, there is a set of phrases nearly as peculiar to the Apostle Paul: such as γράμμα put in contrast to πνεῦμα, ἀποθνήσκειν τινί, δικαιοῦσθαι, ἔργα σαρκός, καινὴ, κτίσις, πλήρωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, νόμος ἐν τοῖς μέλεσι, σταυροῦσθαι τινὶ, στοιχεῖα (taken in a figurative sense of rudimental principles,) τύπος, etc. We refrain at present from entering on the examination of any of these peculiar forms of expression—the greater part of which, viewed simply in themselves, properly belong to some of the preceding classes, and are now mentioned only as connected with a further peculiarity—their exclusive or prevailing use by particular writers. And as they undoubtedly acquired this further peculiarity from some mental idiosyncrasy on the part of the person using them, or from some determinative influences connected with the circumstance of his position, these ought, as far as possible, to be ascertained, that the several expressions may be considered from that point of view, which was held by the writer, and may be interpreted in accordance with the laws of thought under which he wrote. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.04. COLLATERAL SOURCES FOR DETERMINING THE SENSE AND EXPLAINING THE PECULIARITIES ... ======================================================================== Section Third. Collateral Sources For Determining The Sense And Explaining The Peculiarities Of New Testament Scripture. OUR attention has hitherto been confined to the original language itself of the New Testament, and to the things which concern both its general character and its more distinctive peculiarities. In considering these, it has been implied, rather than formally stated, that for the correct and critical study of the writings of the New Testament, there must have been acquired a competent acquaintance, not only with the common dialect of the later Greek, but also with the idioms of the Hebrew tongue, and with that combination of Greek and Hebrew idioms, which appears in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. In this version all the leading peculiarities, as well of the later Greek as of the Hebraistic style, which have been noticed in connexion with the language of the New Testament, are to be found; and some of them, those especially of the Hebraistic class, in greater abundance, and in bolder relief, than in the writings of the New Testament. In regard to the earlier portions of the Septuagint, this has been exhibited with scholarly acumen and precision in a late publication by the younger Thiersch (De Pentateuchi Versione Alexandrina, Libri Tres, 1851,) to which reference has already been made. Considerable use has long been made of the materials supplied by the Hebrew Bibles and the Septuagint for illustrating the diction of the New Testament in some of the more learned commentaries; particularly those of Grotius, Wetstein, Koppe, Kuinoel, and the more recent commentaries both of this country and the Continent. Some additional service has been rendered in the same line by the Editio Hellenistica of the New Testament of Mr. Grinfield, which is devoted to the single purpose of collecting under each verse examples of the same or of similar words and phrases occurring in the Septuagint, and other writings of the period. The Lexicons also of Biel and Schleusner, and, above all, the Grammar of Winer, have contributed to establish and elucidate the connexion between the Greek of the New Testament and of the Septuagint, and the characteristics of the dialect in which they are written. All this, however, has respect to the elements of the subject under consideration; it bears directly upon the form and structure of the language itself of the New Testament; so that, without a certain knowledge of the one, there can be no accurate and discriminating know ledge of the other. But there are also certain collateral sources of information, from which incidental and supplementary aid may be derived, to illustrate both the phraseology and .some of the more characteristic notices and allusions of New Testament Scripture. These we must now briefly describe, with the view of indicating the nature and amount of the aid to be derived from them, before entering on the examination of specific rules and principles of interpretation. (It should be borne in mind by those who are entering on the prosecution of such studies, that the Septuagint is far from being a close translation, and that those commentators and grammarians, who have proceeded on the principle of always finding in it the key to the exact meaning of particular words and phrases, are by no means to be trusted.) I. The sources that may be said to lie nearest to the inspired writings, and which should first be named, are the contemporary Jewish writers, who used the Greek language. These are simply two—Philo and Josephus; the former, there is reason to believe, born about a quarter of a century before Christ, though he appears to have outlived the Saviour; and the other fully as much later. The birth of Josephus is assigned to A.D. 37. In a strictly exegetical respect, little help, comparatively, is to be obtained from the first of these writers. Philo was much more of a philosopher than a religionist; and living in Alexandria, and ambitious mainly of ranking with its men of higher culture, both his sentiments and his style stood at a wide distance from those peculiar to the writers of the New Testament. Even in respect to the points, in which his writings bear a kind of formal resemblance to those of the Apostle John, in the use of a few terms relating to the Being and operations of Godhead, no real advance has been made by the efforts that have been put forth to interpret the one by the other. It has turned out rather—the more carefully the subject has been examined—that as their conceptions of divine things were essentially different, so their language, even when it seems most nearly coincident, is by no means agreed; and little more has resulted from such comparative investigations than learned disputations about the meanings of words and phrases, which sometimes look as if they yielded what was sought, but again deny it. As for the principles of interpretation adopted by Philo, they have, indeed, a close enough affinity with what is found in many of the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries, but are by no means to be identified with those sanctioned by the writers of the New Testament. Such deliverances, therefore, as the following of Ernesti, which has often in substance been repeated since “Philo is particularly useful in illustrating the allegorical and mystical reasonings, so much used by St. Paul” (Institutes, P. III., ch. 8.)—must be rejected as groundless, and fitted to lead in a wrong direction. The statement is made by Ernesti with apparent moderation, as it is again in recent times by Klausen, (Hermeneutik, pp. 96, 97.) with the view simply of pointing attention to Philo as a master in that kind of allegorizing, which was pursued especially by the Apostle Paul—not that Paul was actually conversant with the writings of the Alexandrian, and followed in his wake. This latter is noted by Ernesti as a fanciful extreme, advanced by Wetstein and some others, and is declared to be destitute of historical support; unnecessary also, since both Paul and Philo but imbibed the spirit of their age, and adopted a style of exposition which was already common. In opposition to this view, we maintain, that the allegorizings of Philo and those, as well of the Jewish cabalists who preceded, as of the Christian theosophists who followed, belonged to another class than the so-called allegorical interpretations of the New Testament. The latter are not allegorical, in the distinctive sense of the term; they are not, as allegorical meanings properly are, adaptations of matters in one sphere of things to those of another essentially different, and consequently arbitrary and uncertain. On the contrary, they are applications of the truths and principles embodied in the institutions or events of preparatory dispensations to the corresponding events or institutions of an ultimate dispensation, to which, from the first, they stood intimately related. In short, they are typical explanations, as contradistinguished from allegorical, and have nothing about them of the caprice and extravagance to which the others are liable. But as we have investigated this elsewhere, (Typology of Scripture, vol. i., o. I., and App. B., § 1.) it is needless to do more here than mark the confusion of ideas, on which this assimilation of Paul and Philo is grounded, and declaim against the dishonour which is thereby done to the character of the apostolic teaching. So far, therefore, as Philo is concerned, there is little to be reaped from his writings for the exposition of New Testament Scripture; his language, his style of thought, and his manner of dealing with Old Testament Scripture, all move in different channels from those followed by the apostles; and his references also to existing manners and circumstances are extremely few and unimportant. In this last respect, however, his contemporary Josephus may justly be said to compensate for the defect of Philo. A man of affairs, and bent on transmitting to posterity an account of what he knew and understood of the events of his times, as well as of former generations, his writings abound with details, which are calculated to throw light on, at least, the historical parts of the New Testament. In the words of Lardner, who has done more than any other person to turn to valuable account the notices of Josephus, “He has recorded the history of the Jewish people in Judea and elsewhere, and particularly the state of things in Judea during the ministry of our Saviour and His apostles; whereby he has wonderfully confirmed, though without intending it, the veracity and the ability of the evangelical writers, and the truth of their history.” (Works, vi. p. 502.) It was for the richness of materials in this respect, contained in the writings of Josephus, that Michaelis strongly recommended a diligent study of his works, from the beginning of Herod’s reign to the end of the Jewish Antiquities, and spake of him as furnishing the very best commentary on the Gospels and the Acts. (Introduction, vol. iii. P. 1, c. 9.) Of course, a commentary so furnished could only have been of the external and historical kind, which too much accorded with the taste of Michaelis; but, in a revelation pre-eminently historical, the incidental light and attestations derived from such a source are not to be undervalued; and though, doubtless, the imperfections in Josephus accounts, and what probably we may call his occasional errors and studied omissions (in respect to the subject of Christianity,) have given rise to some perplexities, yet his writings, on the whole, have contributed greatly to elucidate and confirm the narratives of the New Testament. His style, however, which he aimed at having as pure as possible, is of little service in illustrating the more peculiar idioms of Scripture; though, in regard to some of those common to it and the later Greek dialect, and the meaning also of particular words and phrases, considerable benefit has accrued from the study of his productions. Two works, of about the middle of last century (the Observationes of Krebs, and the Specilegium of Ottius.) were specially directed to the elucidation of the New Testament from this source; and many of the examples adduced by them, with others gathered by subsequent inquirers, have found their way into recent grammars and commentaries. It is proper to add, that there are questions on which even the silence of Josephus is instructive, and fairly warrants certain conclusions respecting the existing state of things in the apostolic age—for example, on the subject of Jewish proselyte-baptism; since, treating, as he does, of matters bearing upon the reception of proselytes, and remaining silent regarding any such practice, this, coupled with the like silence of Scripture, is well nigh conclusive on the subject. (But see Dissertation on βαπτίζω) in Part II.) Again, there are other points, chiefly of a formal or legal description, on which the testimony of Philo and Josephus runs counter to that delivered in the later Jewish writings; and in such cases, we need scarcely say, the testimony of those who lived when the Jewish institutions were actually in force is entitled to the greater weight. Nothing of this sort, however, has to be noted in connexion with New Testament affairs. II. The next source of illustrative materials that falls to be noticed, is that supplied by the Jewish Rabbinical writings—writings composed near to the apostolic age, though subsequent to it, and composed, not in Greek, but in modern Hebrew. These writings consist of two main parts, the Mischna and the Gemara,—the Mischna being the text, viz., of the traditions about the law, and the Gemara the comments of learned men upon it. Two sets of comments grew up around it,—the one earlier, produced by the Palestinian Jews, and called, along with the Mischna, the Jerusalem Talmud; the other, originating with the Chaldean Jews, and forming, with the Mischna, the Babylonian Talmud. It is important to bear in mind the ascertained or probable dates of these productions, in order to determine their relation to the writings of the New Testament. The Mischna being a compilation of traditional lore, may, of course, in many of its parts, be really more ancient than the Gospels; but as it was not committed to writing till the latter half of the second century after Christ, and probably even later than that, (See Prideaux, Connexion, at B. c. 446; Lightfoot’s Opera, i., p. 369.) there can be no certainty as to the actual existence of particular portions of it before that period; and still more does this hold with the Talmudical comments, which were not produced, the one till 300, and the other till 600 years after Christ. “Besides, undoubted traces exist in these writings of references to the events of Gospel history, showing the posteriority of some of the things contained in them to that period; and if some, who can tell how many! They were, it must be remembered, the productions of men who wrote in the profoundest secrecy, and who, though not formally assuming a hostile attitude towards the Christian cause, could not but be conscious of a certain influence from the great events of the Gospel and the writings of apostolic men. There are few ancient writings extant, perhaps, that contain a larger proportion of what may be called rubbish than these Talmudical productions. Lightfoot speaks of the stupenda inanitas et vafrities of the subjects discussed in them, and says of them generally, nugis ubique scatent. There is the more reason that we should cherish feelings of gratitude and admiration toward him, and such men (in particular the Buxtorfs, Bochart, Vitringa, Surenhusius, Schoettgen,) who, with the simple desire of finding fresh illustrations of the meaning of sacred Scripture, have encountered the enormous labour, and the painful discipline, of mastering such a literature, and culling from it the comparatively few passages which bear on the elucidation of the Word of God. They have undoubtedly, by so doing, rendered important service to the cause of Biblical learning; although it must also be confessed, that a very considerable proportion of the passages adduced might as well have been left in their original quarries, and that some have been turned to uses which have been prejudicial, rather than advantageous, to the right understanding of Scripture. The special benefit derived from them has been in respect to ancient rites and usages, the meaning of Aramaic expressions occasionally occurring in New Testament Scripture, the synagogal institution and worship, and the state of things generally in the closing period of the Jewish commonwealth, to which so many allusions are made. But in respect to the points in which the Scriptures of the New Testament may be said to differ from those of the Old—the doctrines, for example, relating to the person of Messiah, His peculiar office and work, the characteristics of the Christian community, etc. nothing definite can be learned from the Rabbinical sources under consideration. Endless quotations have been made from them, apparently favouring the Christian views; but it were quite easy to match them with others of an opposite description; so that all belonging to this department was evidently but idle talk or free speculation. In regard also to the treatment of Scripture—especially the method of expounding and applying it to things, with which it might seem to have no very direct connexion—this, which Surenhusius (in his Βιβλος Καταλλαγης) and Eisenmenger (in his Entwecktes Judentum) have shown to be so much the practice with the Rabbinical Jews, and which rationalistic interpreters have so often sought to connect also with the writers of the New Testament, must be held to be altogether foreign to the territory of inspiration. It was quite natural to the Talmudists and their followers; for they could find separate meanings not only in every sentence, but in every word, and even letter of Scripture, and in the numerical relations of these to each other. With them, therefore, Scripture admitted of manifold senses and applications, of which some might be ever so remote from the natural import and bearing. But apostles and evangelists belonged to another school; and when they apply Old Testament Scripture to a circumstance or event in Gospel times, it must be in the fair and legitimate sense of the terms; otherwise, their use of it could not be justified as a handling of the Word of God in simplicity and godly sincerity. We may add, that on points of natural history the Talmuds seem just about as capricious guides as on texts of Scripture. The writers would appear to have wantoned sometimes with the field of nature around them, much as they did with the volume of God’s revelation in their hands; and to have found in it what no one has been able to find but themselves. A fitting specimen of this peculiarity may be seen in the quotations produced by Lightfoot in connexion with the cursing of tjie fruitless fig tree. Among other wonderful things about fig trees there noticed, mention is made of a kind which bore fruit, indeed, every year, though it only came to maturity on the third; so that three crops, in different stages of progress, might be seen on it at once; and on this notable piece of natural history an explanation of the evangelical narrative is presented. In such matters it is greatly safer to trust the accounts of scientific naturalists and travellers than Jewish Rabbis; and when they report the existence of such figs in Palestine, it will be time enough to consider what aid may be derived from the information, to illustrate the narrative referred to. Meanwhile, no great loss is sustained; for the narrative admits, without it, of a perfectly satisfactory explanation. There are points, however, of another kind, in respect to which this species of learning is not unfrequently applied, not so properly for purposes of elucidation, as with the view of showing how the teaching of the Gospel appropriated to itself elements and forms of instruction already existing in the Jewish schools. Here the question of priority is of some moment; and though the things themselves remain the same, their relative character is materially affected, according as the priority may appear to have belonged to the authors of the Gemara, or to the originators of Christianity. The teaching of our Lord, for example, by parables, is certainly one of the most distinctive features of His public ministry; and, accordingly, when He began more formally to employ it, the Evangelist Matthew saw in it the realization of a prophetic utterance (Matthew 13:35;) nor can anyone attentively read the Gospels, without discerning in the parables the most impressive image of the mind of Jesus. But this impression is apt to be considerably weakened by the array of quotations sometimes produced from those Rabbinical sources, to show how the Jewish teachers delighted in the use of parables, and even exhibiting some of our Lord’s choicest parables as in the main copies of what is found in the Talmud. (Lightfoot, Horæ Heb. on Matthew 6:13; and Schoettgen, Horæ Heb. on Matthew 20:1-34, Matthew 21:1-46, Luke 15:1-32) The same thing has also been done in regard to the Lord’s Prayer; so that not only its commencing address, “Our Father which art in heaven,” but nearly all that follows, is given as a series of extracts from Jewish forms of devotion. Now, this style of exposition proceeds on a gratuitous assumption; it takes for granted that the existing forms in the Talmud were there before they were in the Gospels,—and, of course, that the Rabbinical gave the tone to the Christian, rather than the Christian to the Rabbinical. The reverse is what the palpable facts of the case tend to establish. The prayers of the synagogues before the Christian era were doubtless moulded after the devotional parts of the Old Testament, and to a large extent composed of these. But in none of them does the suppliant, even in his most elevated moments, rise to the filial cry of “My Father in heaven;” it was the distinctive glory of the Gospel to bring in this spirit of adoption; and the theological as well as the historical probability, is in favour of the supposition, that Rabbis here followed in the wake of Jesus, not Jesus in the wake of Rabbis. The same probability holds equally in regard to the parables. The parabolical form, possibly, to some extent appeared among the earlier traditional lore of the Jews; for it is not unknown in Old Testament Scripture; but the parable, such as it is found in the teaching of our Lord, bears on it the impress of originality; and the few straggling specimens that have been produced from Rabbinical sources, nearly identical with those of Christ, may confidently be pronounced to be the echoes of the latter—the productions of men, who were greatly too feeble and puerile to invent, but who had enough of sagacity to imitate. The slaves of the letter and of tradition were not the persons to originate anything new or fresh, not even in form. (Owen, in his Theologoumena, Lib. v., c. 15, Dig. 4, discusses the question of our Lord’s relation to the Talmudical doctors, but chiefly with respect to religious usages and services. He indignantly rejects, however, the idea of a borrowing on the part of Christ.) III. The more ancient versions maybe mentioned as the next collateral source, from which aid should be sought in endeavouring to ascertain the meaning, and expound the text of New Testament Scripture. Those versions have their primary use, as among the helps for determining the text itself that should be preferred; since they exhibit the one that was preferred at an early period by some, and possibly should still be retained, where there is a variation in the readings. In this respect, however, they can never amount to more than subordinate authorities; since it must ever remain doubtful whether due pains were taken by the translator to obtain a pure text, and doubtful, still further, whether the translation may not to some extent have been tampered with in the course of its transmission to present times. There is necessarily the same kind of relative inferiority adhering to the use of versions in connexion with the import of the original. While, in the simpler class of passages, they could scarcely fail to give the natural meaning of the original, it must still be a matter more or less problematical, how far they did so in those cases where there is some dubiety or difficulty in the passage, and consequently some possibility of the precise import having been misunderstood. Still, considerable weight must always be attached, especially in respect to the meaning of particular words and phrases, to those versions, which were made by competent persons at a time when the original language of the New Testament continued to exist as a living tongue. And of such versions so made, the Vulgate seems entitled to hold the first place. The Vulgate, that is, as it came from the hands of Jerome, and as it appears with probably substantial correctness in the Codex Amiatinus, the oldest MS. of the Vulgate extant, not the common Vulgate of the Romish Church, which in many parts has undergone alteration for the worse. In point of learning and critical tact, Jerome, we have reason to believe, was the most competent man in the ancient Church for executing a translation of the Scriptures; and the version he produced would have been probably as near perfection as the translation of a single individual, and in so early an age, could well be expected to be, if he had been left altogether free to exercise his judgment in the performance of the work. His version of the Old Testament, with the exception of the Psalms, was the unfettered production of his hand; it was made directly from the Hebrew, as he himself testifies once and again, although, as it now exists, it contains not a few accommodations to the Septuagint, and departs from the Hebrew. (See Walton’s Prolegomena, x. c. 9.) But in regard to the New Testament, he professed to do nothing more than fulfil the request of Pope Damasus,—revise the current versions, and select out of them the best; so that, as he said, “he restrained his pen, merely correcting those things which appeared to affect the sense, and permit ting other things to remain as they had been.” What was called the Old Italic, or Latin version, therefore, was simply the current version, in one or other of the forms in which it. existed before it had been the subject of Jerome’s collating and emendatory labours. It now exists only in part, but most fully in the Codex Claromontanus, which is of great antiquity. In some things the rendering contained in it is even prefer able to that adopted by Jerome, and, consequently, where access can be had to it, it is worthy of being consulted. But it is not so properly a distinct version from that of Jerome, as a variation of what became his. And, as a whole, Jerome’s form of the Latin version must be held to be the best. Restrained and limited as his object was, he undoubtedly accomplished much good. And with all the defect of polish that appears in the version that goes by his name, its occasional Hebraisms, the imperfect renderings, and even erroneous representations of the original, sometimes to be met with in it, there can be no doubt that it is in general a faithful translation, and has rendered essential service toward the elucidation of the sacred text. Some of the blemishes in the Vulgate, especially in the New Testament portion, are obvious, and have often been exposed; such as the pœnitentiam agite, in Matthew 3:2, and other parallel places; Ave gratia plena, Luke 1:28; mortuus est autem et dives, et sepultus est in inferno, Luke 16:22; et (Jacob) adoravit fastigium virgæ ejus, Hebrews 11:21; panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis, Matthew 6:11, etc. And, unfortunately, they are mistranslations which too often afford a sort of handle to the advocates of corruption in the Church of Rome. Yet it is proper also to add, that some of the examples occasionally referred to in that connexion yield no real countenance to those corruptions; and some again, that are more correct than the English translation, which has been exalted to the prejudice of the other. Thus at 1 Peter 3:19, the rendering, in quo et his, qui in carcere erant, spiritibus veniens prædicavit, is substantially correct (though the meaning expressed, of course, may be, and often is, perverted by Romanists to a wrong use,) and the in quo, in which, is more exact than the by which of the authorized version. In not a few cases, indeed, the Vulgate is decidedly more correct than our version in the rendering of prepositions and connecting particles:—as, to refer to one or two examples partly mentioned already in another connexion, ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur, Php 2:10; gratia vobis et pax adimpleatur in cognitione Dei, 2 Peter 1:2; qui vocavit nos propria gloria et virtute, ver. 3; ut impleamini in ornnem plenitudinem Dei, Ephesians 3:19. In these, and many other cases, the Vulgate contrasts favourably with our English version in respect to grammatical precision; and, if judiciously used, it may often be of service in suggesting some of the nicer shades of meaning. It is due also to the memory of Jerome to notice (though it does not belong to the criticism of the New Testament,) that the well-known mistranslation in the authorized Vulgate of Rome, of Genesis 3:15, ipsa conteret caput tuum, which ascribes to the woman the victory over the tempter, and which the Romanists usually apply direct to the Virgin, is a later corruption. The correct reading as given by Vallarsius, runs, ipse conteret caput tuum, and, in a note, he declares this to be beyond doubt the reading established by the authority of MSS. The version next in importance to the Vulgate of Jerome, and undoubtedly prior to it in origin, is the Old Syriac, or Peschito—a production, in all likelihood, of the latter part of the second century. We know nothing of the author of this version (which, however, wants the second Epistle of Peter, the last two of John, Jude, and the Apocalypse;) but without going into the extravagance of Michaelis, who pronounced it “the very best translation of the Greek Testament he had ever read,” we may safely regard it as, in general, a faithful and spirited translation. The chief use, to which it has hitherto been turned, is as a witness in behalf of the genuine text. This may have partly arisen from the Syrian language being so little understood, even by Biblical scholars. They may, however, to some extent, avail themselves of its aid by means of the translations which have been made of it. It has long existed in Latin; and a few years ago the portion containing the Gospels was rendered into English by Mr. Etheridge, ac companied with preliminary dissertations. The remaining versions which, from their age or their fidelity to the original, are entitled to consideration, and calculated to be of occasional service in the work of exposition, are the Ethiopic, the Memphitic, and the Gothic of Ulphilas. The aid, however, to be derived from any of them is extremely limited. Mr. Ellicott, in the preface to his last volume (his Commentary on the Epistles to the Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) speaks in strong terms of the excellence of the Ethiopic version, and of the satisfaction he has derived from consulting it, since he has been enabled to find his way with some certainty to its meaning. But, in truth, we have so many more helps for getting at the precise import of the Greek New Testament, than for arriving at an intelligent acquaintance with the old Ethiopic version of that Greek, that most people will feel greatly more assured of coming at the object of their search by repairing directly to the original source; nor, with the defective literature of Ethiopia in the early centuries, can such a version—even if it were thoroughly understood—attain to a place of much authority. Its renderings can, at the most, confirm meanings obtained by other and surer lines of investigation. And the same may be said of the Memphitic and Gothic versions. So that, whatever incidental benefits or personal satisfaction the study of such versions may yield, little comparatively can now be expected from them as to the correct understanding of New Testament Scripture. IV. Among the collateral sources of information, that may be turned to account in the interpretation of New Testament Scripture, we must unquestionably reckon the writings of the earlier Fathers. It is, certainly, but a mixed service they render; since, from the strong tendency among them to allegorical and arbitrary modes of interpretation, if they are not used discriminatingly, they will often prove false guides. They were as a class defective in critical discernment, and that well- poised balance of mind, which in such matters is rarely possessed, excepting as the result of an efficient training in linguistic and critical studies, such as they did not enjoy. Had the earlier Fathers but possessed a little more of the critical faculty, and employed in connexion with it the advantages of their position for the good of the Church in future times, they would have directed their minds particularly to the investigation of the facts and circumstances of the Gospel age, examined with minute care the information that lay within their reach respecting the local and historical allusions in the New Testament, searched into the meaning of all words that in any way bore upon them the peculiar impress of the time, and by philological or antiquarian researches endeavoured to make plain the obscurer passages in the Gospels and Epistles. These, however, are the provinces which they have most thoroughly neglected to cultivate, and in respect to which, apparently, they felt least conscious of any need of special application. We have scarcely left the inspired territory, till we find ourselves involved in the strangest misconceptions even as to matters of fact, and, instead of careful discriminations between fable and history, are presented with a confused jumbling of both together. In what is probably the earliest of sub-apostolic writings extant, one also of the best—the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians—we have the fables about the Danaids and the Phoenix classed with the biographical notices of sacred history, and treated as equally deserving of credit (c. 6, 24.) Justin, in like manner, swallows without a suspicion the-story of Aristeas about the translation of the Septuagint, and even speaks of Herod as having sent to Ptolemy the seventy elders who executed the work; as if the two had been contemporaries! (Apol. c. 31, Exhor. ad Græcos, § 11.) Even in the face of plain statements in the Gospel history to the contrary, he once and again, in his Trypho, represents Jesus as having been born in a cave or grotto. Irenæus falls into mistakes and inanities still more extraordinary; not only ac crediting the senseless tradition of Papias respecting the fruitfulness of the millenial age (B. 5:c. 33,) but also affirming it to have been the teaching of St. John, that our Lord’s person alministry lasted from His thirtieth till His fiftieth year (ii. c. 4, 5.) Even when we come down to the more regular and elaborate expositors of New Testament Scripture, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, while they contain much that deserves, and will repay a careful perusal, they are marvellously deficient on those points in which their comparative proximity to apostolic times, had they known how to avail themselves of its opportunities, should have given them an acknowledged superiority over more distant generations. In respect to dates and places, customs and manners, they knew nothing of the accuracy of our age. Their references to Old Testament affairs contain often the most egregious blunders (of which a striking example will be found in the Dissertation on the Genealogies;) and of the spirit and design of the Old Testament economy, both as a whole, and in its several parts, they are ever evincing the most defective understanding. Not unfrequently, also, in matters connected with the New, we meet with explanations utterly puerile and fantastic; as in the instance produced by Archdeacon Hare from Augustine respecting the gift of the Spirit to the disciples on two distinct occasions—an explanation that turns on the mystical value of numbers—and of which Hare justly remarks:—“The striking thing is, not that the explanation is a bad one, but that it implies an ignorance of what an explanation is, and of the method in which we are to attain it; and the same thing we find perpetually, as well in the Fathers, as in the contemporary grammarians and rhetoricians.” (Mission of the Comforter, p. 312.) Another thing, that may equally be characterized as striking in the mode of exposition adopted by the Fathers, is the perpetual interchange between the most spiritualistic meanings and the grossest literalism; so that one is puzzled to understand how the same minds that took pleasure in the one could possibly rest satisfied with the other. For example, we have not one merely, but a whole series of the Fathers (Barnabas, Tertullian, Clement Alex., Ambrose, Augustine, etc.,) finding in the letter T, when occurring as a numeral in the Old Testament, an indication of the cross, numbers of all kinds spiritualized, the spring in Eden with its four streams made to signify Christ and the four cardinal virtues (Ambrose de Parad. 3;) and, in short, the principle of Augustine carried out in all directions, “that whatever in Scripture cannot be referred to purity of manners or the realities of faith, is to be understood spiritually” (De Doc. Chris, 3:14.) But, on the other hand, there ever and anon meets us the most literal and fleshly application of the prophecies: if these speak of New Testament things under the images supplied by the Old, of priesthood and sacrifice, they are interpreted to mean things equally outward and earthly still. Some of the Fathers (such as Irenæus, Tertullian, Ambrose, Lactantius,) even carried this species of carnalism into the future world, and held that flesh and blood only in the sense of unregenerate nature, shall not inherit the kingdom of God; but that the bodies of believers—limb for limb, member for member, precisely the same bodies as now—shall be raised up from the dead, and shall regale themselves with corporeal delights (Tert. de Resur. c. 35, Irenæus, 5:9, etc.) This exegetical caprice, which oscillated between two extremes, and inclined to the one or the other as the fancy or exigence of the moment might prompt, unfits the patristic writings for being employed as exegetical guides; and, along with the other defects mentioned, obliges the student at every step to exercise his discretion. Still, considerable benefit is to be reaped for Scriptural interpretation from the perusal of the more eminent Fathers—although one that we must be content to seek in fragments. To say nothing of the bearing they have on the text of Scripture, the development of Christian doctrine, and the varied evolution of evil and good in the history of the Church, which constitute their chief historical interest, they are valuable for the manifestation they give of mind in the ancient world, when brought into contact with the revelation of God in Christ, and of the effect produced by this in turning the tide of thought and feeling, and directing it into a channel somewhat accordant with the realities of the gospel. Even when the explanations given of Scripture are one-sided and imperfect, they are far from being uninstructive; for, when not absolutely erroneous, they still present one aspect of the truth, which the events and relations of the ancient world served more particularly to call forth. In this respect they contribute an element—often a very important element—to the full understanding of the Divine record. And in writers of the higher class writers like Augustine and Chrysostom—one is continually rewarded with passages, which discover the profoundest insight into the truth of Scripture, and present it to our view in the sharpest outline. The Greek expositors, too, among the fathers, have a value of their own in regard to occasional words and phrases, the precise import of which they not unfrequently enable us to apprehend, or at least to determine, in a way that might otherwise have been impracticable. With all the exceptions, therefore, and serious abatements that require to be made, in regard to the exegetical value of the fathers, there are advantages to be derived from their judicious perusal, which no well-furnished interpreter can dispense with; and however, in certain quarters, their employment may have been pushed to excess, the full and correct knowledge of New Testament Scripture has certainly gained by the revived study of their writings. V. In the way of collateral sources, nothing further requires to be mentioned, excepting the occasional employment of the various materials, furnished partly by ancient, partly by modern research, which serve to throw light on the historical, social, or geographical allusions of the New Testament. If the earlier Christian writers have done little to supply us with such materials, the deficiency is in a great degree made up by contributions from other quarters. From the nearly stationary character of society in the lands of the East, the manners and usages of the present time, which have been amply illustrated by modern travellers, have brought us almost equally acquainted with those of the Gospel age. All the scenes, too, of Gospel history, not only the places trodden by the footsteps of Jesus, but those hallowed by the labours, the journeyings, and voyages of the apostles, have been with laborious accuracy explored. The chronology of the New Testament has been so frequently and so fully investigated, that the probable period of every event of any moment has been ascertained. And even the local details, and casual occurrences of single chapters—such as Acts 27:1-44—have been verified and explained with a minuteness and fidelity, which leaves nothing further to be desired, (Smith on the Voyage and Ship wreck of St. Paul.) With sources of such a kind the intelligent interpreter of Scripture must make himself familiar; and be prepared at fitting times to use the information, which past care and industry have accumulated. In its own place this is valuable, and, in a sense, indispensable; yet still only as a subsidiary aid; and the work of exposition turns into a wrong channel, when it finds its chief employment in matters of so incidental and circumstantial a kind. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.05. GENERAL RULES AND PRINCIPLES TO BE FOLLOWED IN THE INTERPRETATION OF ... ======================================================================== Section Fourth. General Rules And Principles To Be Followed In The Interpretation Of Particular Words And Passages WE must now make the supposition, that the points adverted to in the preceding sections have been duly attended to; that an acquaintance has been formed with the peculiar dialect of the New Testament, and with the collateral sources of information fitted to throw light on its terms and allusions. It by no means follows, however, that when we have become thus furnished with knowledge in such elementary matters, we have all the qualifications necessary to render us safe or skilful interpreters of New Testament Scripture, capable of unfolding with clearness and accuracy the meaning of its several parts. For this various other things are requisite, the want or neglect of which may as certainly ensure our failure in the work of interpretation, at least as regards the more select portions of Scripture, as if we had yet to learn the peculiar structure and characteristics of the language. We proceed, therefore, to lay down some general rules and principles, which it is of essential moment that we be in a condition to embrace and act upon, in order to exhibit aright the meaning of Scripture. 1. The first we shall notice is one, that bears on the state of mind of the interpreter—he must endeavour to attain to a sympathy in thought and feeling with the sacred writers, whose meaning he seeks to unfold. Such a sympathy is not required for the interpretation alone of the inspired writings; it is equally necessary in respect to any ancient author; and the possession of it, to some extent, must be held to be altogether indispensable. Language is but the utterance of thought and feeling on the part of one person to another, and the more we can identify ourselves with the state of mind out of which that thought and feeling arose, the more manifestly shall we be qualified for appreciating the language in which they are embodied, and reproducing true and living impressions of it. An utter discordance or marked deficiency in the one respect, cannot fail to discover itself in the other by corresponding blunders and defects. It is the virtual abnegation of this principle, and the palpable want of the qualification which it presupposes, that has rendered the really available results so inadequate, which have been accomplished by the rationalistic school of interpreters. Not a few of them have given proof of superior talents, and have brought to the task also the acquirements of a profound and varied scholarship. The lexicography and grammar, the philology and archaeology of Scripture, have been largely indebted to their inquiries and researches; but, from the grievous mental discrepancy existing between the commentator and his author, and the different points of view from which they respectively looked at Divine things, writers of this class necessarily failed to penetrate the depths of the subjects they had to handle, fell often into jejune and superficial representations on particular parts, and on entire books of Scripture never once succeeded in producing a really satisfactory exposition. What proper insight, for example, into the utterances of the apostle John—utterances that are remarkable for the combination they present of simplicity in form, with depth and comprehensiveness of meaning—could be expected from one, who calls, indeed, upon the reader to sympathize with the sacred writer, but how to do so? To sympathize “with the apostle, as being, at the time of his writing the epistle, a weak old man, who had no longer the power of thinking in any connected manner.” Such is the manner in which even Langé speaks, though in many respects greatly in advance of the proper rationalists. Dr. Paulus of Heidelberg was long one of the leading champions of this school—a man of no ordinary gifts, both natural and acquired, and a man, too, who possessed what many learned and useful commentators have wanted the power of so far sympathizing with the sacred penmen, as to realize, in a vivid and attractive manner, the scenes of their history, and the circumstances in which they were placed. But all being brought to the test of a so-called rational—namely, an anti-supernatural—standard, the spirit evaporates in his hands, and every thing in a sense becomes common and unclean. The most miraculous occurrences shrink into merely clever transactions or happy coincidences; and even when he comes to such a passage as this, “Blessed art thou, for flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but My Father that is in heaven,” he can see nothing but a reference to the force of circumstances in awakening the mind to reflection, and giving it a practical direction and impulse to ward what is good; or to such another passage as this, “I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work,” the whole he can extract from it is, “I must heal the diseased eyes before the evening twilight comes on, because when it is dark we can no longer see to work.” (The entire note on the first of the two passages is: “All circumstances leading to insight and pursuit after the good are, in the New Testament, considered as grounded in the Godhead, educating men in a spontaneous and moral, not juridical manner. When they awaken the mind to reflection, furnish to its activity matters of practical insight, keep these before it, and thereby quicken the energetic working toward what is good, then the paternally inclined Godhead reveals to man something which the grovelling and earthly disposition in man could not have discovered to him.”) This school of interpretation, however, at least in the extreme shape represented by Dr. Paulus, has become virtually extinct. In Germany itself the tide has long since turned, and been steadily setting in a better direction; nor would it be easy to find any where better specimens of a truly sympathetic and congenial spirit in the work of interpretation, than are furnished by some of the later expository productions from that country. There still is, no doubt, and probably will ever be, both there and here, a class of interpreters, who in a certain modified form exhibit a defect in the respect under consideration; but a conviction, as to the real nature of the things which constituted the great aim and substance of the gospel, and to the necessity of a correspondence in belief and spirit between the inspired penmen and those who would engage in the work of interpretation, such a conviction being now more generally diffused and constantly growing, renders it probable, that that specific work will in the future be left more in the hands of persons, whose productions shall manifest a becoming unison of sentiment between the original author and the modern disciple. Hence it is laid down as a fundamental point by a distinguished German theologian—by Hagenbach in his Encyclopedia, that “an inward interest in the doctrine of theology is needful for a Biblical interpreter. As we say, that a philosophical spirit is demanded for the study of Plato, a poetical taste for the reading of Horner or Pindar, a sensibility to wit and satire for the perusal of Lucian, a patriotic sentiment for the enjoyment of Sallust and Tacitus, equally certain is it, that the fitness to understand the profound truths of Scripture, of the New Testament especially, presupposes, as an indispensable requisite, a sentiment of piety, an inward religious experience. Thus is it ever true, that the Scriptures will not be rightly and spiritually comprehended, unless the Spirit of God become himself the true interpreter of His words, the angelus interpres, who will open to us the real meaning of the Bible.” The more we take into consideration the distinctive character of Scripture, as a revelation from God, the more shall we be convinced of the necessity and the importance of the principle now stated. That character constitutes a special reason for a harmony of spirit between the interpreter and the original writer, beyond what belongs to Scripture in common with other ancient writings. For, as an authoritative revelation of the mind of God, it unfolds things above the reach of our natural desire and apprehension, and unfolds them, not as things that may be coolly surveyed and thoroughly understood from a position of indifference, but as things affecting our highest interests, and demanding our implicit and cordial acceptance. In such a case something more is evidently required than mere intellectual discernment, or competent scholarship. The heart as well as the head must be right; there must be the delicacy of a spiritual taste, and the humility of a childlike disposition. So true is the sentiment, which Neander took for his motto, Pectus est quod theologum facit. Our Lord, indeed, declared as much at the outset, when He said, in His address to the Father, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” It is only with the attainment of such a spiritual condition, that the eye opens to a clear perception of the truth, or that the mind is able to discern the full import of the words which embody it, and catch the nicer shades of meaning they convey. So that what has been said of religion generally, may be specially applied to the interpretation of its sacred records: “As in all subjects we can understand language only as far as we have some experience of the things it reports, so in religion (by the very same principle) the spiritual heart alone can understand the language of the Spirit. In every book whatever, it is the mind of the reader that puts meaning in the words; but the language of the New Covenant is a celestial language, and they who would give their fulness to its blessed words, must have caught their secret from heaven.” (Sermons by Mr. A. Butler, First Series, p. 94.) 2. Necessary, however, and important as this sympathetic spirit, this spiritus interpres, is, on the part of the interpreter of Scripture, when possessed in fullest measure, it can never entitle any one to use arbitrariness in the explanation of its words, or warrant him to put a sense on these different from that which properly belongs to them. Its value lies simply in guiding to the real import, not in modifying it, or in superinducing something of its own upon it. And we, therefore, lay it down as another principle to be sacredly maintained in Scriptural interpretations, that nothing should be elicited from the text but what is yielded by the fair and grammatical explanation of the language. The import of each word, and phrase, and passage, must be investigated in a manner perfectly accordant with the laws of language, and with the actual circumstances of the writers. Not what we may think they should have said, or might possibly wish they had said, but simply what, as far as we are able to ascertain, they did say—this must be the sole object of our pursuit; and the more there is of perfect honesty and discriminating tact in our efforts to arrive at this, the more certain is our success. For in the words of Bengel: (Life by Burck, p. 259.) “It is better to run all lengths with Scripture truth in a natural and open manner, than to shift, and twist, and accommodate. Straightforward conduct may draw against us bitterness and rancour for a time, but sweetness will come out of it. Every single truth is a light of itself, and every error, however minute, is darkness as far as it goes.” Nothing is more directly at variance with this principle of interpretation, and more surely fatal to success, than a party or polemical bias, which brings the mind to the examination of Scripture with a particular bent, and disposes it to work for an inferior end. No doubt, it may be alleged, the possession of a spirit in harmony with that of the sacred penmen implies something of this description—as such a spirit cannot exist without the recognition of vital truths and principles common to us with the inspired writers, and in conformity with which our interpretation must proceed. To some extent it must be so. But there is a great, and, for the most part, easily marked distinction, between holding thus with the writers of New Testament Scripture in a natural and appropriate manner, and doing it in a controversial and party spirit—between holding with them so as to give a fair and consistent interpretation of their language, and doing it, or professing to do it, while we are ever and anon putting a constrained or inadequate meaning on their words. If the latter be our mode of procedure, it will not fail to betray itself in the manifest violence occasionally done to the words of the original, and the various shifts resorted to for the purpose, either of evading their proper force, or foisting upon them a sense they cannot fairly be made to bear. Previous to the Reformation, divines of the Romish Church were wont to carry this style of interpretation to the worst extreme. Individual writers, here and there, gave evidence of a certain degree of candour and impartiality; but, for the most part, the sacred text was treated in abject deference to the authority of Rome, and the most arbitrary expositions were fallen upon to establish her doctrinal positions. It was only such a vigorous and general movement as the Reformation,—a movement basing itself upon the true sense of Scripture, and perpetually appealing to that for its justification,—which would break the trammels that had so long lain upon men’s minds in this respect, and recall sincere students of Scripture to the simple, grammatical sense of its words. To a great extent, it actually did this. Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and the other leading Reformers, were of one mind here, though they sometimes failed, and differed from each other, in the results to which the principle actually led them. Their fundamental rule was, that “the sense of Scripture is one, certain, and simple, and is everywhere to be ascertained in accordance with the principles of grammar and human discourse.” (Elem. Rhet. II. of Melancthon.) “We must not,” says Luther, “make God’s word mean what we wish; we must not bend it, but allow it to bend us; and give it the honour of being better than we could make it; so that we must let it stand.” Of this fair, straightforward, grammatical mode of handling Scripture, as characteristic of the spirit of the Reformation, the Commentaries of Calvin are the no blest monument of the period, scarcely surpassed in that respect, as in certain others not equalled, to the present day. It was more, indeed, by what the Reformers did in their exegetical productions, and their comments on Scripture, than by any formal announcement or explanation of their hermeneutical principles, that both they themselves and their immediate followers gave it to be understood what those principles really were. A hermeneutical work by Flacius Illyricus did appear in 1567—entitled, Clavis Scripturæ Sacræ—somewhat cumbrous indeed (comprising, along with his explanation of Scripture figures and expressions, two large volumes,) and in certain parts not a little prolix; but strong and earnest in its advocacy of the great principle now under consideration, and for the period altogether a respectable and useful production. It stood alone, however, in the 16th century, and was not followed up, as it should have been, by Biblical students of a more strictly exegetical and less controversial spirit. The author himself in this, as in his other works, was too much influenced by doctrinal prepossession and interest, although he justly condems Papists and sophists on this account, who (he says) “pick out select passages from the sacred books at their own pleasure, and combine them together again in the most arbitrary manner; so that they speak, indeed, in the plain words of Scripture, but at the same time utter their own thoughts, not those of Scripture.” It is proper to note, however, that on this very point the point—in respect to which the Reformation wrought so beneficial a change—Dr. Campbell pronounces a most severe and caustic judgment against Beza, one of the most learned and able expositors of the Reformation; he charges him with allowing his doctrinal tendencies to impart an improper bias to his translation and notes. It cannot be questioned, we think, that Beza did lay himself open to objection on this ground, and his adversary Castalio proved himself quite ready to take advantage of it. Some of the examples produced by Castalio, and reproduced by Campbell, are certainly instances of wrong translation and false exposition, such as but too clearly originated in undue doctrinal bias. But neither is it quite fair, with Campbell, to ascribe them all to this source, nor are they such as to merit that bitter acrimony which pervades the critique, and which looks more like the expression of personal antipathy to Beza for the kind of doctrines he espoused, than for occasional indiscretion in the way of introducing them. That something of this sort did mingle in Campbell’s animad-versions, one can scarcely doubt, not only from the pungency of their general tone, but also from the evident desire betrayed in some of the examples to aggravate as much as possible the charge of bad faith:—As when, in regard to Beza’s rendering ψυχή, in Acts 2:27, by cadaver in his first edition, he is represented as quite singular and arbitrary, while for that sense (though in itself, we believe, a wrong one) Beza produces the authority of Jerome; and Suicer, in his Thesaurus, says of it, Quœ Beza in prima editione sua RECTE interpretatus erat,—referring, as Beza had done before him, to Virgil Ǣn. iii., Animamque sepulchre condimus. So, again, in regard to the word χειροτονήνσαντες, in Acts 14:23, which Beza renders per suffragia creassent, Dr. Campbell can see nothing in the per suffragia but Beza’s desire to thrust in his own views respecting the popular election of ministers. Beza, however, only professes to give what he held to be the full and proper import of the word, and what was undoubtedly its original meaning; as Suicer also admits, when he says, it designates, according to its primary signification, “an election, quæ fit per suffragia manuum extensione data”—eligere per suffragia ad Episcopatum—a practice, he truly remarks, which long survived in the Church. It may be questioned, whether the word should have this definite meaning ascribed to it in the passage under consideration, as the word was often used in the more general sense of designating or appointing. Suicer himself thinks it does not; but Erasmus had already translated cum suffragiis creassent, and the same sense is vindicated by Raphelius, who supports it by examples from profane writers; to say nothing of Doddridge and others in later times. There is, therefore, no just reason for charging Beza with bad faith, as if, in ascribing such a sense to the word, he deliberately tampered with the integrity of Scripture. These remarks have been introduced merely for the purpose of guarding against what appears an exaggerated representation of Beza’s partiality, and of correcting the too depreciatory estimate formed by Dr. Campbell of his merits as an interpreter of Scripture. It may be confidently affirmed, that the parties, who, next to the Papists, have erred most through doctrinal bias in perverting and narrowing the proper import of Sacred Scripture, have been the elder Socinians and the modern Rationalists. These, if not the only, are at least the chief parties who from the ranks of Protestantism, and under a show of learning, have systematically tampered with the sense (sometimes even with the text) of Scripture; and have sought to obtain from it something else or something less than that which the words by a natural interpretation yield. But the arts plied for this purpose have signally failed. The forced interpretations and arbitrary methods of the Socinian party have been obliged to give way. By the establishment of a more accurate criticism, by sounder principles of interpretation, and a more intimate acquaintance with the original languages, it has been found that Scripture will not surrender up any of its peculiar doc trines; so that, as has been remarked by Winer, (Litteratur Zeitung, No. 44.) “the controversies among interpreters have usually led back to the admission, that the old Protestant views of the meaning of the sacred texts, are the correct ones.” These views are there, the Rationalists of a past generation confessed, though only by way of accommodation to the antiquated notions and doctrinal beliefs of the Jews, not as being in themselves absolutely true or strictly Divine:—they are there, the Rationalists of the present day still admit, but only as the temporary and imperfect forms of the truth, suited to an immature age, now to be supplanted by higher and worthier conceptions. We thank them both for the admission; in that we have the confession of those whom nothing but the force of truth could have constrained to own, that the doctrines of the orthodox faith are those which are elicited from Scripture by the grammatical rendering and fair interpretation of its words. And by this faith it behooves us to abide—till, at least, He who gave it may be pleased to give us another and better. The principle, however, of abiding in interpretations of Scripture by the grammatical sense, not only requires a spirit of fairness, as opposed to a doctrinal bias or polemical interest, but also a spirit of discrimination in regard to the various elements, the Lexical and Syntactical peculiarities, by the observance of which the real grammatical sense is to be ascertained. It is obvious, that if no proper discrimination is made between the later and the more classical Greek—if due respect is not had to the Hebraistic element, which appears in some of the phrases and constructions of New Testament Scripture—if either the more distinctive meanings of particular words, or the characteristic peculiarities of individual writers are overlooked, failures and mistakes in a corresponding degree will inevitably be made in the exhibition of the correct meaning. From deficiencies in one or more of these respects it is possible to give an unfair and erroneous view of a passage, not only without any improper bias prompting one to do so, but even with the most honest purpose of attaining to correctness, and many qualifications to aid in accomplishing it. When the Apostle Paul, for example, in Galatians 2:2, speaks of going up to Jerusalem κατὰ ἀποοκάλυψιν— if, from undue regard to classical analogy, we should interpret with the learned Hermann, explicationis causa—for the purpose, that is, of rendering certain explanations to parties residing there, we should certainly not give what is either the grammatical sense of the expression, or what accords with the Apostle Paul’s use of the term ἀποκάλυψις; by whom it is always employed in the higher sense of a Divine communication. And in such an expression it is not so much classical analogy, as scriptural, and we may even say Pauline, usage, that must determine the exact import. It is in fact, as formerly stated, very much from the more careful and discriminating attention, that has latterly been paid to the various peculiarities both of the Greek language generally, and of the New Testament style and diction in particular, that advances have been made in precision and accuracy of interpretation. Nor should it be forgotten, in strictly critical expositions, what has been justly remarked by Mr. Ellicot in his preface to the Epistle to the Galatians, that “in the Holy Scriptures every peculiar expression, even at the risk of losing an idiomatic turn, must be retained. Many words, especially the prepositions, have a positive dogmatical and theological significance, and to qualify them by a popular turn, or dilute them by a paraphrase, is dangerous in the extreme.” 3. Assuming, however, what has been stated—assuming that our primary object in interpreting Scripture, should be to ascertain what sense the words of every passage may, by a fair and grammatical interpretation, and in reality do yield: assuming, moreover, that we both know and are disposed to keep in view the more distinctive peculiarities belonging in whole or in part to the language of the New Testament, there are still guiding principles of great importance to be remembered and followed, especially in those parts that have some degree of difficulty about them. One of these, which we therefore specify as the third point to be noticed in this connexion, is the regard that should be had to the simplicity which characterizes the writings of the New Testament. “The excellence of an interpreter,” says Ernesti, justly, “consists much in simplicity; and the more any interpretation bears the mark of facility, and it appears as if it ought to have struck the reader before, the more likely is it to be true. ̔Ρᾷδιον τὸ αληθὲς, says Lycurgus; and Schultens, in his Preface to Job, well remarks that the seal of truth is simple and eternal.” It is necessary, however, to explain here. The simplicity that should characterize our interpretations of Scripture is very different from shallowness, or from what lies entirely on the surface and is found without difficulty. On the contrary, great skill and study may often be required to come at it. The simplicity we speak of is the proper counterpart of the simplicity of Scripture itself—a simplicity that is compatible with the most profound thought and the most copious meaning—and which had its ground partly in the circumstances, and partly in the design of the sacred penmen. In respect to their circumstances, the position they occupied was that of the comparatively humbler ranks of life; they lived and thought in a simple, as contra-distinguished from an artificial state of society. Their manners and habits, their modes of conception, and forms of speech, are such as usually belong to persons similarly circumstanced; that is, they partake, not of the polish and refinement, the art and subtlety, which too commonly mark the footsteps of high cultivation and luxurious living, but of the free, the open, the natural—as of persons accustomed frankly to express, not to conceal their emotions, or to wrap their sentiments in disguise. On this account—because written by persons of such a type, and depicting characters and events connected with such a state of society, the narratives of Scripture are pre-eminent above allother writings for their simplicity; they are nature itself, in its unvarnished plainness and clear transparency; and from this they derive a charm, which is more or less felt in every bosom. But what so strikingly characterizes the narrative portions of Scripture, has also given its impress to the others; the whole are pervaded by the direct, the guileless simplicity of men, who had to do with the realities of life, and were wont to speak as from heart to heart. But if the circumstances of the sacred writers tended to produce, the design with which they wrote expressly called for, this simplicity in writing; and, indeed, secured it. It was to inform, to instruct, to save, that they wrote—this was their one grand aim. They had no personal, no literary ends in view; they were simply witnesses, recording the wonderful things they had seen and heard, or ambassadors conveying messages from another, not on their own behalf, but for the interests of their fellow-men. Hence, they naturally lost themselves in their subject. Having it as their one object to unfold and press this upon the minds of others, they used, as the apostle says, great plainness of speech—language the most natural, the most direct, the most fitted to convey in appropriate and impressive terms the thoughts of their heart. The simplicity which thus characterizes their writings is that of men, who had a single aim in view, and so went straight to the mark. Such is the kind of simplicity which the writings of the New Testament possess; and corresponding to this is the simplicity which should appear in our manner of interpretation. How, then, should it appear? Primarily, no doubt, and mainly, in putting a natural construction on their words, and ascribing to them, precise indeed and accurate, yet not recondite and far-fetched meanings. As in writing what they were moved to indite by the Holy Ghost, the sacred penmen were guided by the simplicity of an earnest purpose and a lofty aim, so we should prescribe to ourselves (as Titmann has said) this quality of simplicity as a rule, and not recede, except for grave reasons, from that sense, which seems to be the nearest and most direct. It may be quite possible, in certain cases, by the help of lexicons and other appliances, to bring out interpretations of an ingenious nature, and display a good deal of skill in supporting them; but no satisfactory results shall thus be obtained, unless the meanings put upon the different words, and the sense extracted from them, are such as might seem appropriate to men using the language of ordinary life, and using it with the view, not of establishing subtle distinctions, but of unfolding in the most effective manner the great principles of truth and duty. This, however, has respect only to our treatment of the language; the kind of thoughts and feelings of which that language might be expressive is another thing. Here there was room for infinite depth and fulness. It is of the nature of grace, in all its operations, to give a subjective elevation to the soul—to increase, not only its appetency, but its power of discernment also, for the inward and spiritual; and by the help even of common things, through the instrumentality of the simplest language, to open veins of thought, and awaken chords of feeling, which lie beyond the reach of those who are living after the course of nature. In the spiritually enlightened mind there is, what may be called, a divine simplicity, which, by drawing it into closer connexion and sympathy with the mind of God, discovers to it views and meanings, which would otherwise never have suggested themselves. So, we see with the inspired writers of the New Testament themselves, that not unfrequently they discern an import in the earlier dispensations of God, or indicate thoughts in connexion with the facts of later times, such as would not have occurred to persons, even of superior and cultivated minds, looking from a merely natural point of view. Yet not the less in what they thus discern and indicate—in the inferences they deduce, and the conclusions they build, as well as in the more substantive part of their announcements, are there to be found the proper characteristics of simplicity—a style of thought and expression, direct, plain, natural. We simply add further, that in endeavouring to preserve and copy this simplicity, we are in no respect precluded from the necessity of applying careful thought and the resources of solid learning to the work of interpretation. It is only through these, indeed, that we can hope to surmount the difficulties which lie across the path of a thoroughly successful exegesis of Scripture. In aiming at this we have to throw ourselves back upon the times and circumstances of the sacred penmen—to realize their position—make ourselves familiar with their modes of thought and forms of expression, so as to be able to judge what would have been for them a natural and fitting mode of representation—what forced and unnatural. And this we can only expect to do by close study, and the judicious employment of the resources of learning. Not the learning merely which is confined to the use of grammars and lexicons, but all that can serve to throw light on the language, the manners, the opinions and habits of those, among whom Christ and His apostles lived and spoke. Whatever is calculated to aid us in arriving at such intimate knowledge, must also be serviceable in enabling us to attain to a proper simplicity in our interpretations of Scripture. 4. It is only following out the same line of thought, and rendering the principle it involves specific in a particular direction, when we mention as another, a fourth rule to be attended to in scriptural interpretations, that in settling the meaning of words we must have respect chiefly to the usus loquendi, the current sense, or established usage at the time—to this more than to their etymology. The reason for such a rule is no further peculiar to the writings of the New Testament, than that they are of a popular and practical nature; which rendered it expedient, and, in a sense, necessary, that words and phrases should be taken in their prevailing signification. But this signification often differs greatly from what might be conjectured by looking simply to their etymology. For the spoken language of a people is ever passing through certain processes of change and fluctuation. Many of its terms depart considerably, in the course of time, from their original import, acquire new shades of meaning, and sometimes even become so entirely transformed in their progress, that the ultimate use scarcely exhibits a trace of the primal signification. A familiar example of this from our own language is to be found in the word villain—the English form of the Latin villanus—originally, the poor serf attached to the villa or farm of a proprietor—then, from the usual condition and manners of such, the low, selfish, dishonest peasant—and, finally, when villenage in the original sense became extinct, those capable of the most base and dishonourable actions—the morally vile and mean. Another instance is furnished by a word, which by a strange coincidence has had the like fortune in its English, that it seems formerly to have had in its Greek form. Sycophant in the earlier stages of our literature meant simply an accuser—by-and-by a false accuser—but in process of time it lost this sense, and came to signify a fawning flatterer, one who speaks, not ill of a person behind his back, but good of him before his face, though only for a sinister and selfish purpose—the only sense now retained by the word. In like manner, the Greek συξοφάντης, according to the ancient grammarians, and according also to its apparent composition, originally a fig-shower—an informer (as is said, though there is no certain proof of such a use) against persons exporting figs from Attica—then a common informer—and ultimately a false accuser, or a false adviser, its only signification in classical writings while in the New Testament it bears the still further, but collateral sense, of extorting money under false pretences (Luke 3:14.) Not only do words thus in current use sometimes escape altogether from their original meaning, but there are also words, which, etymologically considered, ought to be identical in their import, and should admit of being interchanged as synonymous, which yet come to differ materially as to their actual use. To refer only to one example: our two terms foresight and provision are each made up of two words precisely similar in meaning—only the one pair of Saxon, the other of Latin origin. Undoubtedly fore by itself answers to pro, and sight to vision; yet usage has appropriated the two words to different ideas—the one to indicate what is anticipated in the future, the other to what is laid up or done with a view to the future. A foreigner not acquainted with the usage, and guided merely by the etymology, might readily substitute the one for the other. And it is but lately that I noticed in a letter written from abroad the expression used respecting some one, that his “provisions were disappointed,” evidently meaning by provisions what should have been expressed by foresight—the anticipations that had been formed in respect to the future. A similar sense of incongruity, as in this case, is occasion ally produced in one’s mind, when a word occurs in some of our older writers, which since their day has undergone a considerable change of meaning—especially if, as sometimes happens, it is employed by them, not only in its original acceptation, but also in conjunction with an epithet, which seems to indicate what is incompatible with the other. Thus in one of Caxton’s prefaces, his preface to a translation of a Life of Charles the Great, printed by him in 1485, beseeching the reader’s indulgence toward his translation, he says, “Though there be no gay terms in it, nor subtle, nor new eloquence, yet I hope, that it shall be understood, and to that intent I have especially reduced (translated) it after the simple cunning that God hath lent me,”—the simple cunning, two words that now bear antagonistic meanings, and seem incongruously united together. Certainly, as now understood, a man of cunning is any thing but a simple person; simplicity and cunning cannot exist together. But cunning originally implied nothing of a sinister kind. It has its root in the German kennen, to know, from which our ken comes, and merely denoted the kenning, or knowing, which one might have of any thing in art or science. Applied to works of art, it became nearly synonymous with skill or power—approaching to an other cognate German word, kœnnen, canning, having the power or ability to accomplish any thing—in which sense it occurs in our English Bible, “Let my right hand forget her cunning,” namely, her acquired skill to play upon the harp. It is only in comparatively late times, that the word lost this meaning, and came to denote that sort of deceit, which is united with a low kind of skill or cleverness. Such examples show how cautiously etymology should be applied in determining the sense of words, as these come to be used in a living tongue. As our examples have been chiefly taken from our own language, it may be added in passing, that the person, who did most to turn the attention of English scholars in this direction, and who originated inquiries which have led to many interesting and profitable results—Horne Tooke—has also exhibited in some of his deductions one of the most striking examples of the danger of pushing such inquiries to excess, and of being guided simply by the etymological element in ascertaining the import of words. In the spirit of a thorough-going Nominalist, he maintains, in his “Diversions of Purley,” that as words are merely the signs of ideas, and as all our words, not excepting the most abstract, are ultimately traceable to a meaning derived from sensible impressions, so words must be understood not in their acquired or metaphorical, but always substantially in their primitive and sensational meaning:—consequently, as we have no words, neither have we any ideas, of a properly absolute description—both alike cleave inseparably to the dust. So in regard even to truth: “Truth is nothing (he says) but what every man troweth; whence there is no such thing as eternal, immutable, everlasting truth; unless mankind, such as they are at present, be also eternal, immutable, and everlasting; and two persons may contradict each other, and yet both speak truth, for the truth of one person may be opposite to the truth of another.” This is carrying the subjective principle in our natures to an extravagant height, and making words govern ideas in a manner, which few, we should think, will be disposed to accredit. We refer to it merely as a proof of the folly of pushing such a line of investigation to the utmost, and making what is the primary ground of our words and ideas also their ultimate standard and measure. Even with soberer inquirers and safer guides we sometimes perceive an excess in the same direction. It may be noticed occasionally in a work, which as a whole is marked by just thought and fine discrimination, and will repay a careful perusal—Dr. Trench on “the Study of Words.” Thus, when treating of kind, he says, “a kind person is a kinned person, one of kin, one who acknowledges and acts upon his kinship with other men. And so mankind is mankinned. In the word is contained a declaration of the relationship which exists between all the members of the human family; and seeing that this relation in a race now scattered so widely and divided so far asunder can only be through a common head, we do in fact, every time that we use the word man kind, declare our faith in the common descent of the whole human race,” (p. 42.) We would, indeed, declare it, if, as often as we used the word, we had respect to that derivation, and assented to the principle implied in it; but how few in reality do so! In the language of every-day life, we employ the word simply as current coin—we take it as expressive of the multitude of beings who possess with ourselves a common nature, but at the same time, perhaps, thinking as little of their common origin, as, when speaking of truth, we have respect to what every individual troweth. But in all this we point only to the excess. There can be no doubt, in regard to the thing itself, that it is of great importance to attend to the derivation of words, and that without knowing this we cannot get at those nicer shades of meaning which they often express, or make a thoroughly intelligent and proper use of them. In the great majority of cases, the etymological is also the actual sense of the word; and even when the acquired or metaphorical use comes materially to differ from the primary one, the knowledge of the primary is still of service, as most commonly a certain tinge or impress of it survives even in the ultimate. How often does a reference to the original import of some leading word in a phrase or sentence, enable us to bring out its meaning with a point and emphasis that we must otherwise have failed to exhibit! How often, again, when terms nearly synonymous are employed—so nearly, perhaps, that in rendering from Greek to English we can only employ the same word for both,—does a glance at the fundamental import disclose the difference between them! Thus, in Galatians 6:2, we have the exhortation, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ;” and presently afterwards, in Galatians 6:5, we have the announcement, “For every one shall bear his own burden.” Even an English reader may see, by looking at the connexion, that theburden in the one case cannot be the same with what is meant by it in the other; that the one, as Augustine long ago remarked, is the burden of one’s own trials or infirmities, which may be shared in by others, while the other is something altogether proper to the individual—the burden of his personal responsibility, or rather, perhaps, the burden of his personal state and destiny—which he must bear himself alone. But the difference at once presents itself when we turn to the original, where we find two distinct words employed, each having their respective shades of meaning. The burdens we are to bear one for another are τὰ βάρη, the weights, the things which press like loads upon those who come into contact with them, and in a manner call for friendly help; but the burden each one has to bear for himself is τὸἴδιον φορτίον, that charge of what is more properly his own, which is indissolubly linked to his personal consciousness and rationality, and of which no one can relieve another. Again, in Romans 9:15, Ἐλεήσω ὃν ἂν ἐλεῶ καὶ οἰκτιρήσω ὃν ἂν οἰκτίρω, we have two verbs, which are of such cognate meaning, that they are often loosely interchanged, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other, is held to be the stronger expression. Even Titmann (Synon. I. p. 122,) and after him Robinson, in Lex., designates ἔλεος and ἐλεεῖν as stronger than οἰκτιρμός, and οἰκτείρειν, because the former carry along with them the additional notion of beneficence, a desire to relieve the miserable. But if the greater strength had been there, we should rather have expected the clauses in this passage of the Epistle to the Romans to be in the inverse order—the weaker to be first, and the stronger last. A more exact analysis justifies the existing order; for, as Fritzsche has justly remarked on the passage, the words ὁ οἰκτιρμός and οἰκτειρεῖν signify more than ὁ ἔλεος and ἐλεεῖν. The latter stand related to ἵλαος, ἱλάομαι, ἱλάσκομαι (the being propitious, kind, or gentle;) the other to οἴ (the oh! the cry of distress or sympathy,) and οἶκτος (the tender pity or compassion, of which that cry is one of the first and most natural expressions.) Hence ὁ ἔλεος denotes that sorrow which a kindly disposition feels at the misery of another, and is the proper word to be used when the general notion of mercy is to be expressed; ὁ οἰκτιρμός, however, denotes the sorrow awakened by the sense of another’s misery, which calls forth tears and lamentations—not pity merely, but pity in its keener sensibilities and most melting moods. So that the passage referred to has in it a real progression: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and will have pity on whom I will have pity.” An expression in 2 Corinthians 12:9, may be referred to as an example of a somewhat different kind. The apostle there says that he would most willingly rather glory in infirmities, ἵνα ἐπισκηνώσῃ ἐπʼ ἐμὲ ἡ δύναμις τοῦ Χριστοῦ, the full import of which is but imperfectly conveyed by the common rendering, “that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” The verb employed belongs to the later Greek, and is found in Polybius in the sense of dwelling in a tent, or inhabiting. This, how ever, is not sufficient to explicate the meaning of the word here; nor is any aid to be obtained from the Septuagint, since it does not occur there. It can only be explained by a reference to what is said in Old Testament Scripture of the relation of the Lord’s tabernacle or tent to His people; by such a passage, for example, as Isaiah 4:6, where it is written, “And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat;” that is, the Lord’s gracious presence and protection spread over them as a shelter. So in Revelation 7:15, the Lord is represented as “tabernacling upon” the redeemed in glory. In like manner, the apostle here states it as the reason why he would rejoice in infirmities, that thereby Christ’s power might tabernacle upon him—might serve, so to speak, as the abiding refuge and confidence in which he should hide himself. We need not multiply examples further of this description. But we may add, that for those who would know generally how much may be gained in drawing out the more precise and delicate shades of meaning, by a reference to the radical and primary sense of words, one of the best helps will be found to be Bengel’s Gnomon, which, notwithstanding occasional failures, is in a short compass the happiest specimen extant of this kind of interpretation. This should be taken as an habitual companion. But occasionally, also, in writers of a more popular cast, good examples are to be met with of the same tact—in none, perhaps, more than in Leighton, who, if he sometimes strains rather unduly the original meaning, more commonly turns it to good account, and that in a natural and happy manner. As in the following example: “God resisteth the proud—ἀντιτάσσεται—singles it out as His grand enemy, and sets Himself in battle array against it; so the word is. It breaks the ranks of men, in which He hath set them, when they are not subject—ὑποτασσόμενοι,—as the word is before; yea, pride not only breaks rank, but rises up in rebellion against God, and doth what it can to dethrone Him, and usurp His place; therefore He orders his forces against it;” and so on. On the other hand, in passages presenting some difficulty, or affording scope for the display of fancy on the part of the interpreter, it is quite possible, and, indeed, very common, to err by pressing unduly the etymological import of words. Horsley, for example, gives a marked somewhat ludicrous exhibition of this, when rendering, as he occasionally does, the Greek word ἰδιῶται by the English word derived from it, idiots, (Tracts against Priestley, p. 46.)—a word, no doubt, bearing much the same signification with its Greek original—denoting, first, the merely private man, as contradistinguished from one conversant with affairs and offices of state; then a person of rude and unskilled condition—in manners and intellect unpolished; and, finally, one altogether destitute of the ordinary powers of human intelligence—bereft of reason, to which last sense it has long been confined in the common intercourse of life. So that, with Horsley, to turn the expression used of the apostles in Acts 4:13, “unlearned men and idiots,” is only, by a misplaced literalism, to give a false representation of the meaning. Not much better is his rendering and interpretation of Luke 1:4, “That thou mightest know the exact truth of those doctrines wherein thou hast been catechised”—περὶ ὧ κατηγήθης:—on which he remarks, “St. Luke’s own Gospel, therefore, if the writer’s own word may be taken about his own work, is an historical exposition of the Catechism, which Theophilus had learned when he was first made a Christian. The first two articles in this historical exposition are, the history of the Baptist’s birth, and that of Mary’s miraculous impregnation. We have much more, therefore, than the testimony of St. Luke, in addition to that of St. Matthew, to the truth of the fact of the miraculous conception; we have the testimony of St. Luke, that this fact was a part of the earliest catechetical instruction; a part of the catechism, no doubt, which St. Paul’s converts learned of the apostle.” (Sermon on the Incarnation.) We see here, too plainly, the polemical interest, endeavouring to make the utmost of an argument, but overreaching its purpose by putting an undue strain on the principal word in the passage. That our word catechise might originally correspond to the Greek word κατηχέω, from which it obviously comes, may be certain enough; but it does not follow, that what κατηχέω imports, as used by St. Luke, is fairly given by catechise, in its current acceptation. The Greek word did not originally bear the technical import of catechise; it meant, to sound out towards, to resound, or sound in one’s ears; then more specially to do this by word of mouth, to instruct, and ultimately to instruct by way of question and answer. As used in the New Testament, and Greek writers generally, except the Fathers, it indicates no thing as to the specific mode of instruction; and to represent it by the word catechise, would only render our translation in most cases unintelligible or ridiculous. Thus, at Galatians 6:6, it would run, “Let him that is catechised in the word communicate to him that catechiseth in ail good things;” and at Acts 21:22, “But they have been catechised concerning thee, that thou teachest all the Jews to forsake Moses.” To sound forth, or communicate instruction, in the active voice, and in the passive, to hear by way of rumour, or be instructed anyhow,—these are the only senses which the word bears in the New Testament. In later times the κατηχουμένοι were those who were under special instruction for admission to the Church, and, as we might say, the catechised portion in Christian communities. In Dr. Campbell’s Fourth Preliminary Dissertation will be found some good remarks and apposite illustrations on the subject before us. Not, however, without some grounds for exception. His jealousy in respect to etymological considerations is carried to excess, and in some of the instances he produces, leads him, more or less, into error. We formerly alluded to his remarks on χειροτονέω, as used in Acts 14:23, and his severe denunciation of Beza for so far giving heed to its etymological formation, as to express in his translation a reference to the mode of appointment to church offices by popular election, signified by holding up the hand. He would exclude everything from its import but the simple idea of appointment, although in the only other passage in the New Testament, where it is similarly used of appointment to church offices (2 Corinthians 8:19,) it plainly does include the element of popular suffrage. We shall rather point, however, under the present division, to another example, in which Dr. Campbell is still less successful, though he labours hard to make good his point. It turns on the word προγινώσκω, whether this should be rendered, as its component elements would lead us to expect, by foreknow, or by some more general mode of expression. Dr. Campbell holds, it should be less strictly taken in Romans 11:2, where we read in our common version, “God hath not cast away His people, whom He foreknew” (ὅν προέγνω) he would separate the preposition, πρό, from the verb, and also impose on the verb itself a somewhat different meaning,—that, namely, of acknowledging or approving; and thus he obtains a, no doubt, very plain and intelligible sense: “God hath not cast off his people, whom heretofore He acknowledged.” But is this really the sense intended by the apostle? We find him using the same compound verb a little before at Romans 8:29, “Whom He did foreknow (οὖς προέγνω,) them He also did predestinate;”—and there it is scarcely possible to understand it otherwise than in the sense of foreknowing given to it by our translators, being plainly used of an act of the Divine mind toward His people, prior to that of their predestination to blessing: He foreknew, then He foreappointed. Is there any necessity for departing from the same literal sense in the passage before us? None that appears worthy of notice. Dr. Campbell has, indeed, said, that to speak there of God’s people as those whom He foreknew, “conveyed to his mind no meaning whatever;” and, by a strange oversight in so acute a mind, he founds his statement on the assertion, that to foreknow “always signifies to know some event before it happens”—as if it might not equally import, when used in reference to an act of God, to know a person before he exists. Presently, however, he resorts to another consideration, which implies a virtual abandonment of the other, and objects, that “God knew Israel before, in the ordinary meaning of the word knowing, could never have been suggested as a reason to hinder us from thinking, that He would never cast them off; for, from the beginning, all nations and all things are alike known to God.” True, indeed, in one sense, but not in another. They were not all alike known to God as destined to occupy toward Himself the same relation, and to receive the same treatment; and that is precisely the point in the eye of the apostle. God could not cast away His own people, whom He foreknew as His own. Their friendly relation to Him being descried as among the certainties of the coming future, nothing in that future could arise to hinder its accomplishment. In another passage (2 Timothy 2:19) of quite similar import, the apostle finds [the ground of the believer’s security from perdition in the simple fact, which he calls a seal, that “the Lord knoweth them that are His”—a thought which had consoled the Psalmist ages before, as appears from the words in the first Psalm, “The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous.” For such know ledge necessarily implies a corresponding treatment. “If the way of the righteous is known by God as the omniscient, it cannot but be blessed by Him as the righteous. Hence, there is no necessity to ascribe to know the sense of having care and affection for, loving, which it never properly possesses. It is enough, if only God with His foreknowledge is not shut up in the heavens; the rest flows spontaneously from His nature, and does not need to be particularly mentioned.” (Hengstenberg on Psalms 1.) We have referred under this division to so many illustrative examples, on the one side and the other, because it is chiefly through these, that the danger of running into an extreme is made apparent; and along therewith the necessity of care and skill in avoiding it. It is, no doubt, one thing to know, in what direction a tendency to excess in such a matter lies, and another thing to keep clear of it. Yet it will be of importance to remember, that while one should always seek to be acquainted with the etymological import of words, this cannot in every case be taken for the actual meaning; this is determined by the current usage, which must be ascertained and adhered to. So far as concerns the language of the New Testament, or the precise meaning and interpretation of its words, the general rules and principles now given appear to comprise all that is necessary. They will serve to mark out the course of inquiry that must be pursued, if any measure of success is to be attained. For the actual result, much will necessarily depend upon the greater or less degree of exegetical tact possessed by the student, and the extent to which it has been cultivated by personal application and proper exercise. Hermeneutical skill, like skill of other kinds, must not only have something in nature to rest upon, but have that also matured by diligent and well-directed practice, without which no proficiency can be expected. For those cases, in which some more peculiar difficulty is felt in getting at the precise sense of a passage, there must, first of all, be brought into play the requisite qualifications connected with the application of the rules and principles already laid down. There must be an acquaintance with the original language, in its proper idioms, the etymology and usage of its words—a knowledge of the distinctive peculiarities of the writer, in whose productions the passage occurs—of the circumstances of the time in which he wrote, its manners and customs, modes of thought and principles of action—in a word, an insight into the nature of the language employed, and the various things, of a circumstantial description, fitted to tell upon the views of the writer and his more immediate circle. It is clear, that without knowledge of such compass and variety, no one can reasonably expect to succeed in dealing with a passage, which involves any difficulty in respect to the proper construction of its words, or the real meaning which they bear. But it is possible, that where so much is possessed and used, the difficulty may still fail to be overcome. In that case, the next, and more special thing that should be done, is to look very “carefully and closely to the connexion in which the passage stands—which will often do much to remove the darkness or uncertainty that rests upon its import. Then, let the peculiar phrase or construction, which occasions the difficulty, be examined in connexion with others of the same, or nearly the same description, in what remains besides of the individual writer;—or if none such may occur, then in other parts of Scripture; and, still again, in other writings of the apostolic age, and periods not remote from it. The nearer to the passage itself, then the nearer to him who indited it, that any light can be found, the more likely to prove satisfactory. So that the examination should usually be made in the order of his own writings first, next of the other inspired productions, and, finally, of writings as near as possible to the age and circumstances in which he wrote. In such investigations, we need scarcely say, all available helps, whether ancient or modern, should be brought into requisition. Access to these in any considerable degree must always be a special advantage to those who enjoy it. But even where it is very imperfectly possessed, no inconsiderable progress may be made in the exact knowledge and interpretation of Scripture, if this Scripture itself is but carefully studied, with a few good grammars and lexicons; as, when so used, it will be found to supply many materials for interpreting itself. Let no one, therefore, wait till he has all requisite means within his reach; but let each rather endeavour to make the most profitable use of what he can command—in the persuasion, that though he may be far from accomplishing all he could wish, he will still find his labour by no means, in vain. And, however he may stand as to inferior resources, let him never forget to seek the enlightening and directing grace of the Holy Spirit, who to the humble and prayerful mind will often unlock secrets, which remain hid to the most learned and studious. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.06. OF FALSE AND TRUE ACCOMMODATION ======================================================================== Section Fifth. Of False And True Accommodation; Or, The Influence That Should Be Allowed To Prevailing Modes Of Thought In Fashioning The Views And Utterances Of The Sacred Writers. THE previous discussions have had respect mainly to the language of the New Testament, and the principles or rules necessary to be followed, in order to our arriving at the precise and proper import of its words. There are, however, elements of various kinds, not properly of a linguistic nature, which must yet, according to the influence allowed them, exercise an important bearing on the sense actually obtained from the words and phrases of Scripture elements, which will affect the interpretation of some parts of Scripture—more than others, or tend to modify the meaning put on certain of its passages. The points referred to less properly concern the explanation of particular terms, than the nature of the ideas contained in them. They respect the question, what is there precisely of truth to be received, or of practical instruction to be obeyed, in the portions which have been analyzed and explained? It is quite possible, that one may know with perfect correctness every word in a passage, and yet, from some false conceptions or misleading bias, may have a very imperfect apprehension of its real purport, or, perhaps, give a wrong turn to the thoughts it expresses. It is necessary, therefore, on the basis of the principles already unfolded, to proceed to this higher line of hermeneutical inquiry, and endeavour, if possible, to set up some proper landmarks upon it. I. Now, the first point that here calls for investigation is, the general one, in what relations the sentiments of the sacred writers stand to the spirit of their age—to its prevailing modes of thought and popular beliefs. Were they in any material respect modified by these? Or did they pursue an altogether independent course—never bending in aught under the prevailing current, if this at all deviated from the exact and natural line of things? Or, if they did to some extent accommodate themselves to this, how far might we expect the accommodation to go? At a comparatively early period a certain doctrine of accommodation was introduced with reference to representations in Scripture which Origen, and others of the Fathers, were wont to regard as spoken or done κατʼ οἰκονομίαν, by way of dispensation, or through συγκατάβασις, a condescension, or an accommodation to the position and infirmities of the persons addressed. Advantage, it was believed, was taken of these, in order the more readily to gain the confidence or reach the understanding of those who were in an unfit state for receiving the naked truth. It is difficult to say precisely, how far the Fathers, who introduced this principle, meant to carry it, in respect to the teaching of Christ and the apostles; for they are neither very explicit nor altogether consistent in their statements upon the subject. For the most part they appear simply to have understood by it an adaptation in the form of Divine communications to the modes of human thought and speech, while the matter not the less remained true and divine; as in conduct the Apostle Paul became as a Jew to the Jews (1 Corinthians 9:20,) or externally conformed himself to their manners and customs, without in the least detracting thereby from the claims and principles of the Gospel. In this way, Scripture was explained as accommodating itself to men’s infirmities or habits, when it speaks of God as possessing human parts and passions, or uses parables, proverbs, and familiar images, to set forth to our view things spiritual and divine. But occasionally they seem to indicate an application of the principle beyond this limit, and to include the matter of what was taught or done, as well as the form: as when Origen (in his Priricipia, L. iv.) speaks of mystic dispensations employed by God, which, in their literal sense or obvious meaning, were opposed to enlightened faith and reason—or when Jerome, in his Epistle to Augustine, teaches that Paul, as well as Peter, feigned himself to be a Jew, and yet reproved Peter at Antioch by what he calls honesta dispensatio, which the one administered, and the other submitted to feignedly, that they might show the prudence of apostles. It requires no arguments to prove, that honest dispensations of this sort but ill accord with that godly simplicity, which we are wont to ascribe to the apostles, and would, if generally believed in, somewhat shake their credit as inspired writers. Fortunately, however, the Fathers erred comparatively little in this direction; and it was rather from inadvertence, or from perplexity in dealing with particular passages, than from any general laxity of principle, that they have been occasionally betrayed into rash and unguarded statements upon the subject. It was reserved for modern times to apply the principle of accommodation to the teachings of Scripture in the full and proper sense, and to represent Christ Himself and the apostles as pandering to the mistaken views and narrow prejudices of their time. Wetstein was among the first to lay down a formal principle of this sort, although Grotius in some of his comments had before virtually acted on it. But Wetstein, in a little work on the criticism and interpretation of the New Testament (A.D. 1724,) gave it out as a canon of interpretation, in respect to those passages, which seem to be at variance with truth, or with each other, that the sacred writers should be viewed “as not always expressing their own opinion, nor representing matters as to their real state, but occasionally also expressing themselves according to the sentiments of others, or the sometimes ambiguous, sometimes erroneous, opinions of the multitude.” And he indicates, that this mode of explanation should be especially adopted in regard to what is often said in the New Testament of sacrifices, of Satan, of angels and demons. Shortly after, Semler (both in a new edition of Wetstein’s treatise, and in works of his own, took up the principle of interpretation thus announced, and with characteristic ardour and industry applied it to the explanation of the New Testament writings. His fundamental position was, that the exposition of the New Testament should be pre-eminently historical; that is, that one should have respect to the spiritual conditions of the time the prevailing thoughts and opinions, as well as external circumstances, of those among whom Christ and His apostles lived; and these he represented to be such, that the truth could not always be spoken as it should have been, and required a use to be made of Old Testament Scripture in reference to Gospel events, such as cannot be justified on principles of grammar or grounds of abstract reason. Our Lord and His apostles, therefore, spoke at times ex vulgari opinione, not precisely according to the truth of things; yet so as that, by instituting a comparison of the different parts of their writings, and making the more general and comprehensive rule the more special and peculiar, we may arrive at the ultimate and permanent ideas of the Gospel. The door was thus fairly opened for exegetical license,—and from Semler’s day to this, there have never been wanting men fully disposed to avail themselves of the liberty which it invited them to take. Loose as Semler’s views were, and great as was the havoc which he carried into the received views of Scripture, he lived to see (with grief, it is said) others far outstripping him in the same line of accommodations. By degrees every thing was reduced to a subjective standard; and if in any thing an interpreter found statements recorded, or doc trines taught, which did not accord with his notions of the truth of things, the explanation was at hand, that such things had found a place in Scripture merely on a principle of accommodation; the people at the time were capable of appreciating nothing higher, or the writers themselves as yet understood no better. And so, in the hands of many on the Continent, and of some also in this country, of some here still, the proper teaching of the Gospel came to be reduced to the scanty form of a Sadducean creed. The doctrines of the Trinity, of the Divine Sonship of Messiah, of the atonement, of the personality of the Spirit, of a corporeal resurrection and a final judgment, have all been swept away by the abettors of the principle under consideration; and even the idea of Christianity’s being in any peculiar sense a revelation from Heaven, has been sometimes represented as merely a mode of speech suited to the time of its appearance. Such has been the practical result of the accommodation theory, or the historical principle of interpretation (as it has been sometimes called)—a result which carries along with it the virtual doom of the principle itself. For, obviously enough, to deal in such an arbitrary and magisterial manner with sacred Scripture, is not to interpret, but to sit in judgment upon it, as we might do upon any human composition, and receive or reject what it contains, according to our preconceived notions. The proper revelation—the real standard of truth and error, is in that case within; we stand upon essentially infidel ground; and seeing that Scripture as much contradicts, as coincides with our views of things, it were better to discard it as an authority altogether—treat it merely as a help. Most commonly, however, the accommodation principle is confined within a comparatively narrow range, and applied to what are called innocuous errors. So Seiler, for example, in his Hermeneutics, who says, that in such a matter we must be careful to distinguish between innocuous and nocuous errors. Among the innocuous he includes chiefly errors of an historical and chronological kind—such as he conceives occur in the speech of Stephen, Acts — and exegetical errors, or false interpretations of several passages of the Old Testament, which were erroneously supposed to contain what the words did not really indicate. So, too, Rosenmuller, in his Historia Interpretationis, I. p. 27, who thinks, that as the Jews had a fondness for something out of the direct and simple style of writing, loved to exhibit their sentiments in an allegorical dress, and to seek for them strained and fanciful supports in Scripture, so the apostles acted wisely in adapting themselves in these respects to the genius and habits of their countrymen. Whence with him, and many others in this country and America (including such names as Moses Stuart, Home, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes,) the formula, “that it might be fulfilled,” or “then was fulfilled what was spoken,” is held to have been used often as a kind of Rabbinical flourish, an embellishing of the narrative or discourse with quotations, which, though they had properly another sense, yet were so expressed as to admit of being happily applied to the circumstances and events of Gospel history. But would this really have been a wise, or even a justifiable procedure, on the part of our Lord and the apostles? Would such a fanciful application of Scripture have been an innocuous error? Is it so light a thing for inspired men to misquote the writings of each other? It is precisely to their use of Old Testament Scripture—to the elucidations they give of its meaning, and the specific applications they make of its several parts, that we are indebted for our more certain know ledge of its design, and especially for our insight into the connexion that subsists between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations. To bring looseness and ambiguity into such a region were in reality to destroy all certainty of interpretation, and open the door on every hand for fanciful conceits or groundless conjecture. Surely the same majestic authority which said of the Old Testament writings, “And the Scripture cannot be broken,” virtually said, at the same time, It must not be arbitrarily dealt with; it is too sacred a thing to be coupled with mock fulfilments, or brought into connexion with events, to which it bore no proper reference. And the rather may we thus conclude, when we think of the slender nature of the reasons for which, it is supposed, an accommodation should have been made. To give fancied ornateness to a discourse, or show a sort of Rabbinical adroitness in the mere handling of texts—and thereby to win for the moment a readier attention to what they said or wrote—were these sufficient motives for our Lord and His disciples travestying the great laws of sound exegesis, and bringing confusion into the sense of ancient Scripture? No—we may rest assured, they knew their calling better; and as in other things they were not afraid to meet the strongest prejudices of their countrymen, and lay the axe to the most rooted corruptions, it were folly to think, that in this, and for such trivial considerations, they should have entered into compromises about the truth. Least of all could they be guilty of such improper trifling with the oracles of God, who brought it as one of their heaviest charges against the men of that generation, that they erred in not knowing the Scriptures, or in making them void with their own traditions. We hold it, therefore, to be contrary to any right views of the mission of Christ and His apostles, to suppose, that they in such a sense accommodated themselves to the modes of thought and contemplation around them, as to admit error into their instructions—whether in respect to the interpretation of Scripture, or in respect to forms of opinion and articles of belief. “This,” as Heringa has justly said in his notes to Seiler, “were consistent neither with wisdom, nor with honesty; it had not been suited to the case of extraordinary ambassadors of God, furnished with such full powers, and assisted by such Divine interposition as they were. There is a vast difference between leaving errors untouched which would in time expire either of themselves, or by deeper views of the very doctrine preached, and the confirmation of the same errors, by admitting them into their own instructions.” It is, plainly, one thing to desist from unfolding a doctrine, because men are for the time capable of apprehending or bearing it, and another and very different thing to countenance them in the mistakes and delusions, in which that incapacity has its ground. The one course, in either respect, was compatible with inspired wisdom, the other was not; and when ever explanations are given, which would involve our Lord and His apostles in the formal admission or inculcation of what is in itself erroneous, out of deference to existing circum stances, we must hold it to be a false accommodation: since, if knowingly done by them, it must have been in the sphere of religious instruction, doing evil that good might come; but if without conscience of the evil, on their part, then it must have bespoken their participation in the errors of the time, and their consequent unfitness for being the infallible guides and instructors of the world. II. In rejecting, however, this false accommodation, because it trenches on the matter of the teaching contained in the New Testament, we say nothing against such an accommodation as has respect to the form merely of the doctrines or lessons taught, which might be perfectly admissible, and, in a sense, even necessary. In this direction there was abundant room, in New as well as Old Testament times, for a true accommodation, of which the inspired writers wisely availed themselves, and which must be duly taken into account by those who would fairly interpret their writings. The limits within which such accommodation might be practised, cannot always, perhaps, be very precisely defined; but, in the general, it may be stated to consist in the falling in with prevalent modes of thought or forms of conception, so as, not to lend countenance to error, but to serve for the better apprehension of the truth. An accommodation of this sort might be employed under two kinds one more general, the other more specific; the former grounded in characteristics of thought common to mankind at large, the latter in such as were peculiar to the age and country in which the sacred penmen lived. (1.) To the first or more general class of accommodations are to be referred the representations given of Divine and spiritual things—which lie beyond the region of sense, and are not directly cognisable by any faculties we possess. Such things can only be made known to us by an accommodation from the visible to the invisible, from the known to the unknown; and though, in such cases, the form is necessarily imperfect, and conveys an inadequate idea of the reality, it still is the fittest representation of the idea, the nearest to the truth of things, which it is possible for us in present circum stances to attain to. What is said, for example, of God’s anger towards sinners—or of His being revealed (through Christ) in flaming fire for the execution of judgment upon the wicked—or of the possibility of moving Heaven by prayer to depart from some purpose already formed, as if there could be passion or mutability with God—everything of this sort manifestly proceeds upon that necessity, which is inherent in our natures, of thinking and speaking of God in a human manner. It is impossible, otherwise, to gain definite ideas of His perfections and government; and the only way of guarding against the abuse of such representations, is by the employment of counter-representations, which declare God to be in Himself essentially spiritual, unchangeable, and incapable of being carried away by the feelings and impulses of finite beings. We must, nevertheless, think of Him, and conduct ourselves towards Him, as if the human form of conceptions respecting Him conveyed the exact truth;—He will act toward impenitent sinners precisely as if He were moved to anger by their sins—His appearance for judgment against them will be as if He were encompassed with devouring fire—He will give effect to earnest and believing prayer, as if He could be changed by the entreaties of His people. Essentially similar, and belonging to the same class, are the representations given of Satan and his agents. Being in themselves simply spirits, without bodily parts, the language used concerning them could not have been intelligible, unless it had taken its hue and colour from human forms and earthly relationships. So that when Satan is spoken of as falling from heaven, as being chained or set loose, as overcoming the saints or being bruised under their feet—or when the demons gene rally are spoken of as going into men, as driven out of them, as wandering in dry and desert places, and such like, it is open for consideration, how far in such things there is an accommodation in the form of the truth exhibited to what is cognizable by the senses. To a certain extent there must be an accommodation—as several of the things mentioned are, if literally understood, incompatible with the nature of incorporeal creatures, and some, if closely pressed in the literal sense, would be found inconsistent with others. Due allowance, therefore, must be made in our interpretations for the sensuous and external form of such statements—not to the extent, certainly, of explaining away the existence of those evil spirits (which were to tamper with the very substance of the representations;)—but yet so as to render what is contained in them a description of the relative, rather than of the absolute state of things—of what Satan and his agents are or do in reference to human interests, and as contemplated through a human medium. Viewed thus, the whole, probably, that can be understood, for example, by Satan being cast down from heaven, is losing the place of godlike power and influence he had reached—and by the demons wandering in dry and desert places, their being bereft for a season of that malignant satisfaction, which they find in inflicting evil upon the unhappy subjects of their sway—being left, like persons in a desert, without refreshment and without a home. It is need less, at present, to pursue the subject into further details, as from what has been said the principle of interpretation may be distinctly understood. It may be added, however, that the same kind of accommodation, which appears in the language used of essentially Divine and spiritual things, is also required in many descriptions of the still undeveloped future. For, although that future may lie within the region of sensible and earthly things, yet, if the world’s affairs are then to assume an aspect essentially different from what has hitherto belonged to them, they can only be distinctly imaged to our view under the form of the present or the past. Partial, of course, and imperfect such prophetical representations of the higher things to come must always be, but they are the only ones adapted to our existing condition; and the nearest approach to the truth, the best practical conception we can form, of what is hereafter to be realized, is by the help of representations so drawn from the theatre of actual and known relations. But this opens too wide a field of thought for investigation in a general course of hermeneutical instruction; it is enough to have indicated the fundamental principle, on which the structure of prophecy is framed, and on which its interpretation should proceed. (For the particular investigation, see “Prophecy viewed in respect to its Distinctive Nature,” etc.) (2.) But there is another and more specific class of accommodations, which cannot thus be said to have their explanation in the necessary limitations of the human mind, in its relation to the objects and beings of a higher sphere, but which arose out of the modes of thought and expression peculiar to the age and country in which the sacred writers lived. Every age and country has certain peculiarities of this description; and as the inspired penmen were not prevented by the Spirit, but rather led thereby, to think and write in a manner agreeable to the usage of the times, such peculiarities must be taken into account, if we would fully understand the passages where they occur, or even sometimes avoid serious misconceptions of their meaning. The peculiarities referred to are often no further remarkable, than that they are connected with what seems a singular turn of expression—some peculiarity in the mode of conception embodying itself in a corresponding peculiarity in the form of representation. For example, both Hebrews and Greeks were in the habit of conceiving certain states of mind or body, indicated by some verb or adjective, as limited or particularized by a related noun in a way not natural to us—they simply placed the limiting noun in the accusative, without any thing to mark the nature of the connexion, while we invariably attach it to the verb or adjective by a preposition. The expressions in Greek, ποδὰς ὠκύς, κάμνειν τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς τὰς φρένας ὑγιαίνειν, θαυμαστὸς τὸ μέγεθος, and such like, are familiar to every one acquainted with the Greek language; and precisely similar are many phrases in Hebrew such as—רַגְל֭יו-חָלָה אֶת, he was diseased the feet of him; יְשׁוּפְך רֹאשׁ, he will crush thee the head; הִכּהִכּהוּ נֶפֶשׁ, he smites him the soul or life; קוֹלִי אֶקֻרָא, my voice I will cry. In all such cases, we find it necessary to use some preposition before the noun—with, in respect to, upon, or such like—in order to bring out the idea we wish to express. This arises from our conceiving the state expressed by the verb or adjective as something by itself, as having no necessary connexion with any particular object; and so, when there is such an object to be specified, we must connect the two by terms that will fitly indicate the connexion. The Hebrews and Greeks seem to have viewed matters more concretely; they conceived of the state indicated as inseparably connected with some individual person or thing, and thought it enough to name in the loosest way the particular part or property affected. They were satisfied with the accusative, as it is called, of nearer definition—or that which expresses the relation of the particular to the general. It arose partly, perhaps, from the same tendency in ancient times to a more concrete mode of contemplation than prevails now, that the Hebrews, and to some extent also the Greeks, express relations in a more inward manner than we do—they look to the sphere or element in which a thing is, or is done; while we, viewing the matter more ab extra, speak of the way or instrument by which it comes to be so. Thus they said, to drink in a cup, while we say, to drink from it, or out of it, to walk in the counsel of any one; “in murder in my bones,” Psalms 42:10, as if my bones were actually undergoing murder; Ecclesiastes 7:14, in the day of joy be thou in joy (joyful)—הֳיִה בְטוֹב—live in it as thy proper element. Quite similar in the New Testament are such passages as Apoc. Revelation 13:10, “If any one ἐν μαχαίρᾳ ̓̓ποκτενεῖ,” literally, kills in sword—identifies himself, in a manner, with the sword, so as to make its proper action, killing, his own—“he must be killed ἐν μαχαίρᾳ:”—Romans 2:12, “As many as have sinned ἐν νόμῳ, shall be judged ἐν νόμῳ” the ἐν denoting the status of the person spoken of, in respect to law—in it, as possessing the knowledge of its requirements and its penalties:—1 Corinthians 4:21, “What will ye? Shall I come to you ἐν ῥάβδῳ ἥ ἐν ἀγάπῃ”—in a rod, as if a rod led and impelled me, or love:— And to mention no more, 2 Peter 1:5-7, we have a whole series of graces coupled with ἐν, Englished in the authorized version by to, “add to your faith virtue,” and so on; but more properly the ἐν points to the spiritual state of the person addressed, as standing in the several graces mentioned; and the exhortation given them is, that in the spirit and power of these they should go on and have themselves established in others of a like kind. For us, however, it is more natural to regard faith and the other graces as principles or dispositions to be possessed and exercised; and in such a manner, that the cultivation of one should lead on to the possession and exercise of others. These may seem somewhat minute distinctions; and it is only in a limited sense, that we can regard the expressions noticed as accommodations: they are such, only in so far as they show a falling in, on the part of the inspired writers, with a somewhat peculiar mode of conception, belonging to their age and country—and one, with which we must acquaint ourselves, if we would catch the precise shades of thought they meant to express. But we have only to follow out the same line of reflection a little further, to find it supplying us with some very natural and important explanations. The same tendency to the concrete, as contradistinguished from the isolating and analytic spirit of modern times, discovers itself occasionally in statements and forms of expression, which, if considered from a modern point of view, must appear loose and incorrect. For example, in the genealogy of Matthew 1, Joram is said to have begotten Ozias, or Uzziah, although in reality there were three intervening generations between the two. And in the Dissertation on the Genealogies of Matthew and Luke, there will both be found many other instances noticed of the same description in Old Testament Scripture, and the mistakes also pointed out, into which many have been led by overlooking the practice adverted to. Mr. Layard, in his work on Nineveh and Babylon, p. 613, when noticing an inscription, which seems to designate a certain king as the son of another, though he was only a successor, not the offspring of that other, remarks, that “the term, son of, appears to have been used throughout the East in those days, as it still is, to denote connexion generally, either by descent, or by succession.” It is well, that an existing practice in the East can thus be appealed to in confirmation of a usage, that seems so manifestly sanctioned in the genealogies;—but it is strange, that any students of Scripture should have been so regardless of the terms employed in other and similar portions of its records, as to have required any extraneous or modern proof of the usage. It was only to advance a step farther in the same line, and view another class of related objects in a like concrete manner, if successive exemplifications of one great principle, or substantial repetitions of one line of procedure, instead of being precisely discriminated, were treated as in a manner one. The prominence given in the mind to the common principle or homogeneous action, appearing in the several cases, had the effect of practically obliterating the individual differences which separated one part of the transactions from another, and made the differences seem not worth noticing. In this way, Abraham and his posterity are often identified, in regard to the principle of faith, on account of which he was justified,—it is alike Abraham’s faith, whether appearing in him person ally, or in them;—and so in regard to the blessing connected with it—Abraham’s blessing comes upon them, and the in heritance of Canaan is indifferently spoken of as given to him or to them. Many similar examples occur in those Scriptures, which afford scope for the play of lively feeling or a warm imagination—those, therefore, more particularly, in which the facts and personages of history are worked up into the delineations of prophecy, or are considered as exponents of great and vital principles. It is thus we would explain a statement in the speech of Stephen before the Jewish council, which has often been treated as a demonstrable historical error, but which has only to be viewed as an accommodation to the mode of contemplation now referred to, in order to its being satisfactorily explained. The statement is that in which Stephen says, “So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem.” (Acts 7:15-16.) Now, there can be no doubt, that viewing the matter critically and historically, there are inaccuracies in this statement; for we know from the records of Old Testament history, that Jacob’s body was not laid in a sepulchre at Sychem, but in the cave of Machpelah at Hebron;—we know also that the field, which was bought of the sons of Emmor, or the children of Hamor (as they are called in Genesis 33:19,) the father of Sychem, was bought, not by Abraham, but by Jacob. It would appear, therefore, that to a critical eye there are no less than two distinct blunders here—and blunders so palpable, that a mere school-boy, who had read Old Testament Scripture, might without difficulty detect them. But this very circumstance, that the incongruities are so palpable and easy of detection, must surely render it very improbable, that they could have been fallen into by a man of Stephen’s penetration and discernment—to say nothing of his supernatural endowments by the Spirit. There must be some other explanation of the matter, than that which would resolve it into mere ignorance or forgetfulness of the facts of the case—the rather so, as it occurs in a speech remarkable for the insight it displays into the connexion and bearing of Old Testament history. And that explanation is to be found in the principle of accommodation, considered merely as determining the form and manner of the representation. Stephen here, as in his speech generally, is not acting the part of a simple narrator of facts; he has in view throughout important principles, substantially the very same principles, which were then struggling for victory in the cause with which he was identified; and it is only as connected with these, and serving to throw light on them, that he notices and groups together the occurrences of the past. In this part of his statement, where he is speaking of the godly fathers of the nation, he is silently contrasting their faith in God with the unbelief and hardness of subsequent generations, his own in particular; and the special proof of it, to which he points, is the purchase of ground from the Canaanites, at a time when it seemed little likely to the eye of sense that the land should ever be theirs, and destining their bodies to be deposited in the ground so purchased, as a pledge of the ultimate realization of their hopes. As the faith in this respect was one, and the way in which it showed itself the same, Stephen (after the manner of his countrymen) throws all together;—he does not distinguish between what was done by Abraham, and what was done by Jacob, as if they were separate and in dependent acts; he looks at the matter concretely, and as Abraham originated the procedure of buying ground for a sepulchre, and Jacob merely trod in his footsteps, so the whole is identified with Abraham,—the ground at Sychem is also contemplated as his purchase, in which, according to Jewish tradition, the patriarchal heads of the nation were brought from Egypt and buried; and the distinction is in a manner lost sight of between the transactions connected with Mamre, and those with Sychem,—because one character and one bearing belonged to them in the light contemplated by Stephen. (It is much in the same way, and on substantially the same principle, that two prophecies the utterance of quite different men are sometimes thrown together, and treated as one. See the remarks on Matthew 27:9-10.) It appears, therefore, that there is a perfectly legitimate application of the principle of accommodation; and one that it may be of considerable importance rightly to understand and employ, for the proper elucidation and defence of New Testament Scripture. It is carefully to be borne in mind, however, that the accommodation has respect merely to the form and manner in which the statements are made, not to the substance of the truth therein communicated;—its whole object is to render the truth more distinctly comprehensible, or to give it greater force and prominence to the mind. And as it proceeds upon forms of thought and conception prevalent, it may be, only in the times and places where the inspired writers lived, or, at least, more markedly prevalent there than elsewhere, it must always be our first concern, to get ourselves well acquainted with the peculiarities themselves, and the state of mind out of which they originated. For thus alone can we come to perceive in what respects there was an accommodation, and know how to give due allowance to it, without, at the same time, impairing the substance of the truth that might be couched under it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.07. THE RESPECT DUE IN THE INTERPRETATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TO THE ANALOGY OF THE FAITH... ======================================================================== Section Sixth. The Respect Due In The Interpretation Of The New Testament To The Analogy Of The Faith, Or From One Part Of Scripture To Another; And The Further Respect To Be Had To The Religions Of The Ancient World, The True And The False. FROM what concerns the form, we proceed now to what rather relates to the substance of the sacred writings; with the view of considering whether this may not itself be subject to modifying influences—whether it is to be always taken in an absolute, and not also sometimes in a merely relative point of view. I. Here our first line of inquiry shall be, into the relation of one part of New Testament Scripture to another—whether any respect, or, if any, what respect, should be had in our interpretations to what is called the analogy or rule of faith. The expression, the analogy of faith, is derived from Horn. 12:6, where the subject of discourse is the exercise of spiritual ministrations or gifts, and where, in regard to the gift of prophecy, it is said, that they who possess the gift, should employ it κατὰ τὴν ἀναλαγίαν τὴς πίστεως, according to the analogy of the faith, as some would render it;—and when so rendered, it becomes very nearly synonymous with according to the rule of faith. For analogy in such a connexion can only be understood as denoting the common agreement, the standard κανών, or rule, which results from a comparison of one part of Scripture with another. And there can be no doubt, that the word ἀναλογία is sometimes so used; for it is denned, by the old lexicographer Hesychius, measure, canon, rule. Yet the sense, which is thus obtained, is not suitable to the connexion in the passage before us, and is now generally abandoned by commentators, although it is still retained by Hodge. When treating of persons, who do not merely pretend to possess, but who are actually endowed with, the gift of prophecy, an exhortation to use it in accordance with the great principles of the Christian faith seems out of place; for it were really no gift at all, unless it took of itself this divinely prescribed course. The faith here meant is to be understood, not objectively as a comprehensive term for the truths and doctrines of the Christian religion, but subjectively, for the internal principle of spiritual discernment and apprehension, on which the soul’s recipiency in respect to prophetical gifts, and fitness for exercising them, depends. According to the measure or proportion—such is undoubtedly the usual import of ἀναλογία—of this faith, says the apostle, let each one prophesy, who is spiritually endowed for that work; let him ply his function, or give forth the instructions he has to communicate, agreeably to the light and strength enjoyed by him—not seeking to go beyond it, on the one hand, and not falling short of it, on the other. Understood thus, the exhortation comes to be much of the same import as that of Paul to Timothy, to “stir up the gift that was in him”—meaning, that he should not allow the spiritual endowments conferred on him to slumber, nor divert them to a wrong use, but should endeavour to bring them into full and proper exercise. Some of the early Fathers make mention of a rule of faith (regula fidei,) to which all teaching in the Church was to be conformed, or, if contrary to it, condemned. By this was originally meant, no specific creed or set form of words, but merely the general principles of the faith, of which various summaries are given by Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, agreeing in the main, but by no means altogether the same. Augustine, in his Treatise de Doc. Christiana 3:2, expressly defines it to be the sense or doctrine, which is gathered from the plainer parts of Scripture. Speaking there of the difficulties which the student of Scripture sometimes meets with in his efforts to ascertain the meaning, he says, Consulat regulam fidei, quam de Scripturarum planioribus locis et Ecclesiæ auctoritate percepit; i.e. Let him rule the sense of the more obscure and difficult parts of Scripture by such as are of plainer import, and the common faith held by the orthodox Church. And should this prove insufficient, then, he adds, let him carefully examine the connexion, and endeavour to get light to the particular text from what goes before or follows. The expression, however, of the rule of faith came by-and-by to be understood of the creeds publicly authorized and sanctioned by the Church; and in the hands of Vincentius Lirinensis it came to assume the form of an all-embracing principle of conformity—in the famous maxim, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. By thus establishing universality, antiquity, and general consent as the great criterion of truth and duty, tradition was virtually exalted above Scripture—and the maxim has hence passed as a watchword among Roman Catholic theologians, and their High Church imitators. In this sense the rule is, of course, rejected by all sound Protestant writers. Yet there is also a sense in which it has been accepted by them, and has commonly had a place assigned it in the Hermeneutics of the New Testament. Ernesti, for example, thus writes of it in his Institutes: “Analogy of doctrine or of faith, which is rarely defined with sufficient accuracy, depends not upon the system received by any sect of Christians, as unfair and ignorant men falsely assert; for in that case the rule would be variable;—nor on the mutual relation of its parts—just as legal analogy does not consist in the body of laws, nor in the mutual connexion and dependen.ee of single laws; nor grammatical analogy in the words themselves. But as grammatical analogy is the law and form of language established by usage, to which is opposed anomaly, that is, departure from the established usage and forms of speech; so the analogy of doctrine or faith rests upon- the main points of Christian doctrine evidently declared in Scripture, and thence denominated by the Latin doctors, the Regula Fidei. To these everything is to be referred, so that no interpretation can be received, which is not consistent with them. Nor, as far as relates to matters of faith and practice, is the analogy of Scripture anything different from the analogy of doctrine.” This is a very plain and reasonable account of the matter; although one may justly say, with Dr. Terrot, the translator of Ernesti, that the expression has not been happily chosen, and that it were better to say, Scripture, like all other books, ought to be interpreted consistently. When the analogy or rule of faith is mentioned as a standard or rule of interpretation, it naturally suggests something apart from Scripture—some sort of compend or exhibition of its leading principles; whereas all that is really meant, is, that one part of Scripture should not be isolated and explained without a proper regard being had to the relation in which it stands to other parts. This is a consideration, which must be taken into account generally, without respect to any peculiarity in the nature of the writings we have to deal with; but it should have place more especially in the interpretation of Scripture; for the Word of God must be consistent with itself, while the word of man may not. “The books of Scripture were not handed down to us by chance or accident; neither are we to regard them only as a manual of sayings and examples, or as isolated relics of antiquity, from which no perfect whole, no comprehensive and finished plan, can be educed; but as a matchless, regular account of God’s dealings with man through every ago of the world, from the commencement to the end of time, even to the consummation of all things. They indicate together one beautiful, harmonious, and gloriously connected system. For, though each scriptural book is in itself something entire, and though each of the inspired penmen has his own manner and style of writing, one and the self-same spirit breathes through all; one grand idea pervades all.” (Life and Remains of Bengel, p. 254.) Thus understood, the principle of which we speak is not fairly open to the objection urged against it by Dr. Campbell in his 4th Prelim. Dissertation. He represents it as implying, that we have first somehow learned the scheme of truth revealed in Scripture, and that, with this previously arranged scheme in our heads, we then go to Scripture, not in order to learn the truths it contains, but in order to find something that may be made to ratify our opinions. This is, no doubt, what has too often been done; and, whenever done, ought to be strongly repudiated by all who have a proper reverence for the authority of Scripture. But in its fair and legitimate application the principle has respect only to the more doubtful or abrupt parts of the Word of God, and simply requires, that these should be brought into comparison with the other and clearer statements contained in it; so that no erroneous or partial meaning may be imposed on them, and amid various possible interpretations such a one may not be adopted as would place them at variance with the fundamental truths and pervading spirit of Scripture. The selection of one or two examples will serve to exhibit more distinctly its true nature and proper application. In Matthew 4:1 it is stated, respecting our Lord, that “He was led up” of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil;” while in James 1:13, the general principle is laid down, that God tempteth no man; and it is the plain import of what is taught in Scripture concerning God, that being Himself infinitely wise and good, He cannot take a course with His children which has for its object the enticing of them to sin. This general doctrine, therefore, so frequently announced, and so necessarily flowing from the character of God, must so far be allowed to qualify the statement respecting the design of our Lord’s being led into the wilderness, that we dissociate from it the idea, which we usually couple with tempting—that of an intention to draw into evil. The leading, on the Spirit’s part, into the field of temptation, was for the purpose of victory over sin, not of subjection to its power. In the course of that temptation, Satan brought into remembrance a promise, contained in Psalms 91, expressing in the strongest and most comprehensive terms the charge, which the Lord gives to the angels over His own people, and the certainty with which, in consequence, they shall be kept in all their ways. But, in reply to the use made of this promise by the tempter, for the purpose of inducing our Lord to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, He placed, not as an antagonistic, but as a restrictive consideration, the precept, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”—showing that here, as in respect generally to the promises of Scripture, the whole is to be understood as bounded and qualified by the plain rules of duty—nothing promised is ever meant to supersede or disannul what has been commanded. The special promise given to the apostle Peter, in Matthew 16:18, as to his being the Rock on which Christ should build His Church, is to be dealt with in a similar manner;—instead of being isolated, as is done by Romanists, and the meaning of its terms pressed to the uttermost, as if the subject of promise stood in no sort of connexion with any other passages of Scripture, it ought to be viewed in connexion with similar promises and statements made concerning the other apostles, according to which they were all to be, in an instrumental sense, foundation-stones and pillars, (Matthew 19:29; Galatians 2:9; Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:14;) and also with what Peter himself wrote in the latter period of his earthly labours, in which, for himself, and for all others, he denounces that spiritual lordship, which, on the ground of the original promise, has been attributed to him, (1 Peter 5:1-4,) and gives to Christ the whole and undivided glory of procuring and distributing the blessings of salvation, (1 Peter 1:1-25, 1 Peter 2:1-25, 1 Peter 3:1-22, 1 Peter 2:3-6, etc.) Take one example more: in Proverbs 25:21-22, and again in Romans 12:20, kindness instead of revenge is enjoined toward an enemy—giving him food when he is hungry, when thirsty giving him water to drink—by the consideration, “for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.” Now this, if taken simply by itself, is capable of a two-fold meaning; it may mean, either thou shalt by these acts of kindness sorely aggravate the guilt and the doom of thine adversary,—or, thou wilt altogether destroy in him that which makes him an adversary—thy kindness, in recompense for his malice, will consume the spirit of evil that works in him, and win him to the position of a friend. If the clause were entirely isolated, either of these explanations might be adopted. But, surely, when we consider the whole tenor of the gospel of Christ—when we think even of what goes immediately before, of the benignant spirit and the active charities, which it is the object of the apostle to enforce, it is scarcely possible to doubt which of the two should be preferred. Could the apostle, as a sequel to such exhortations, and when, seeking to have the disciples penetrated by a full sense of the mercies of God, have meant to ply them with the diabolical motive of deepening the guilt of an adversary, and rendering his doom more intolerable? No—we instinctively feel this could not possibly be; what he intended, must have been the practising upon him of that noble and generous revenge, which should convert him from being an enemy into a friend. These illustrations may suffice to show, in what manner, and within what limits, the principle of analogy, or, as it had better be called, the principle of consistency, in the interpretation of Scripture, may be applied. It undoubtedly requires to be used with caution, and in a spirit of fairness and candour—if it is to be turned to any valuable account, or even not abused to the support of dangerous error. The faith, according to which the sense of particular passages is determined, must be that which rests upon the broad import of some of the most explicit announcements of Scripture, about the meaning of which there can be, with unbiassed minds, no reasonable doubt. And in so far as we must decide between one pas sage and another, those passages should always be allowed greatest weight in fixing the general principles of the faith, in which the subjects belonging to it are not incidentally noticed merely, but formally treated of and discussed; for, in such cases, we can have no doubt that the point on which we seek for an authoritative deliverance was distinctly in the eye of the writer. 2. The principle of interpretation now considered has respect to the relation that one part of New Testament Scripture bears to another—the more difficult and obscure to the plainer and more explicit. But there is another relation also that must be taken into account—the relation in which the writings of the New Testament stand to those of the Old. It is scarcely possible to throw this into a specific principle of interpretation; at least not further than that it must be remembered, we have in the New Testament a higher, but very closely related, exhibition of truth and duty: and consequently must have respect alike to the agreements and the differences subsisting between them. This relation, of necessity, exercised a very marked and important influence upon the writings of the New Testament—upon its writings, both in respect to ideas, and the forms of expression in which the ideas are clothed. It is, of course, necessary, in the first instance, that a correct apprehension be formed of the relation as regards the ideas involved in it, the ideas common to both dispensations; for the knowledge of the ideas bears on the foundation, and touches the ground and nature of every particular view that may be exhibited. This, however, is too wide a field to be entered on particularly here. If considered fully, it would require a discussion of the nature and principles of the typical connexion between the law and the gospel, and lead to investigations fully as much connected with the dogmatical as with the exegetical departments of theology. So far, however, the relation must be understood, that it has to do as well with the agreements as with the differences between the affairs of the Old and those of the New Covenants. Indeed, if any distinction were to be made between the two, we should say, that the agreements ought more especially to be regarded, because they lie deeper, and concern the more essential elements in the two dispensations; while the differences are of a more circumstantial and formal nature. From the position of matters at the commencement of the New dispensation, more particularly from the determination on the part of many to exalt to an undue place the temporary and shadowy things, in which the Old dispensation differed from the New, it became necessary for the inspired writers of the New Testament to bring out with peculiar prominence the differences; with the view of manifesting the superior and more perfect nature of the work and economy of Christ. But they scarcely ever do this, without, at the same time, pointing to the essential agreements pervading both economies. Now, it is in accordance with this twofold nature of the relation which subsists between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, that the language of New Testament Scripture, in so far as it bears respect to the Old, is constructed, and ought to be interpreted. In the great majority of cases, the precise nature of the reference is manifest; we can see at a glance whether it is the agreements or the differences that are in view. For example, when our Lord is described by the Baptist as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world;” or when the apostle Paul says, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” the simplest reader will perceive, that there is an agreement or correspondence indicated between the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the one great sacrifice of the New—that what the lamb of atonement, especially the paschal lamb, was to the Israelite, as regards his interest in the blessings of the Old Covenant, that Christ now is to believers, in respect to the greater things of His redemption. No one can doubt, that like is compared to like; although, from the nature of the objects brought into comparison, differences of an important kind were necessarily implied. But, in explaining the passages, we would naturally lay stress upon the resemblances between Christ and the Old Testament things referred to, and would only notice subordinately the points which distinguished the one from the other. In like manner, when, in Colossians 2:11, the apostle calls baptism “the circumcision of Christ,” and, in Php 3:3, describes believers as “the circumcision which worship God in spirit,” the meaning obviously is, that the essential design of circumcision, its real spirit and object, are attained in those who, as baptized believers, have entered into fellowship with Christ. So that it is the correspondences, which must again, in such passages, be brought out; it is these which must be rendered prominent; however, also, occasion may be taken to indicate the points, in which the new surpasses the old circumcision. Again, there is another class of passages in which, with equal plainness, our attention is drawn to the differences subsisting between the New and the Old:—as when, in Hebrews 8:2, Christ is called “a minister of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man;” and, in Hebrews 10:20, where believers are said to enter the holiest of this higher tabernacle “by a new and living way”—in such passages, while the language bears distinct allusion to the things of the Old Covenant—expresses the New, indeed, under the form and aspect of the Old, yet it is for the purpose of showing the vast superiority of the New. So that, in such cases, it is the differences we are naturally led to think of—these now become the prominent things, and the resemblances fall into the back ground. But there are other passages, in which it is less easy to decide—passages, in which Old Testament language is employed, without any clear indication being given, whether the resemblances or the differences are more particularly referred to. For example, in Hebrews 10:22, the apostle exhorts us to make a fiducial approach to the throne of grace, as persons “having their hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and their bodies washed with pure water.” Now, what is here meant by our bodies being washed? Corporeal ablutions held an important place under the Old economy; and continually, as the priests entered the sanctuary, they had to wash their hands and their feet at the brazen laver, which stood in the outer court. But what corresponds to this in Christian times? We have no external sanctuary, like that which existed in the Jewish commonwealth, and consequently no corporeal ablution to perform, when drawing near to engage in the worship of God. When, therefore, the apostle speaks of having the body washed with pure water, he must mean, not formally the same thing as of old, but something corresponding to it in nature—bearing the same relation to a Christian, that the other did to a ceremonial worship. And this is not far to seek; it is simply a freedom from all manifest stains and blemishes in the conduct. It was precisely these stains and blemishes, which were imaged by outward defilements on the body of one entering into the material sanctuary:—his washing of these off was a symbol of the separation, which then also had to be maintained by sincere and accepted worshippers, from all overt acts of iniquity. And now that the symbol has dropped, as no longer needed now that the reality alone remains, it is of this reality that the language should be understood;—we are to regard the apostle as intimating, that along with a purged conscience, we must also have a blameless and untarnished life—and then, with the two together, we may draw near with confidence to God. It is, therefore, to the resemblances that this expression also points. In explaining its import, we should endeavour chiefly to bring out the correspondence, that subsisted between the ritual service of the Old, and the spiritual worship of the New economy. This, obviously, cannot be done by exhibiting merely the ritual, on the one side, and the spiritual, on the other; for that would be to present a contrast rather than a resemblance. We must penetrate into the symbolical import of the ritual, and show, that in the outward action, in which it consisted, there lay concealed a spiritual element, for the sake of which it was required and done. So that it is not properly a contrast, to be put after this manner: Such an outward thing then, and such another inward now, or fleshly then, and spiritual now; but a similarity with a difference:—A similarity, since under both covenants alike freedom from open impurities is required of God’s acceptable worshippers—there must be clean hands, or a blameless life, as well as a pure heart; and yet a difference, since from the clearer revelation now made of all things spiritual and divine, and the abolition of the worldly sanctuary, the symbolical action has gone into desuetude, and the naked reality is alone brought into view. Let us still look at another example, and we shall thus more readily perceive the justness of the rule, which we are seeking to deduce for guiding our interpretations in respect to such portions of New Testament Scripture. In Romans 12:1, we have this exhortation given by the apostle, “I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice—more exactly, a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” There is evidently a reference in the language to the ancient sacrificial worship; and, in particular, to the service of the whole burnt- offering, in which at certain times an entire animal was presented upon the altar to God. The only question is, what is the nature of the reference? Is it by way of resemblance, or by way of contrast? If the apostle had stopped at θυσίαν—if he had said merely, “present your bodies a sacrifice,” the matter would have been quite plain; it would have been manifest, that the resemblance only was indicated. But he adds a series of epithets, characterizing the nature of the service, which Christians are called to render; and these are usually regarded by commentators as expressing the kind of service, not positively merely, as to what it is in itself, but negatively also, as to what it is not, viewed in reference to the ancient ritual of Judaism. The λογικὴν λατρείαν, the reasonable service, at the close, is in particular held to indicate this idea,—as in the following comment of Haldane: “This evidently refers to the distinction between the service of the Jews by sacrifices and ceremonial worship, and the service of Christians. Sacrificial worship, and in general the whole ceremonial ritual of the Jews, were not worship according to reason. It is, indeed, reasonable to worship God in whatever way He prescribes; but had not man fallen, he would not have been required to worship by such ceremonies as the Jewish, law enjoined. Sacrificial worship is not in itself rational; and was appointed by God, not for its own excellence, but from its adaptation to prefigure the good things to come.” He adds, and certainly not without reason, that many commentators hesitated about adopting this explanation of the λογικὴν, under the impression, that it was disrespectful to the Divine appointments to have them represented as not rational. But might we not, on the same ground that is assigned here for the non-rational character of the Old Testament worship, also deny rationality to the New? For it, too, proceeds on a basis different from the natural and proper one; it is offered on the foundation of what has been done by another in our stead, while the original and strictly proper idea of sacrifice is that of a personal surrender and dedication to God. We may feel the rather inclined to doubt the correctness of this mode of explanation, at least in the strongly antithetic form expressed above, when we look to the other epithets applied by the apostle to the sacrifice of Christians—living, holy, acceptable. Living, we are told, stands opposed to the dead sacrifices presented under the law, slain victims; but what, then, shall be put in contradistinction to the holy and acceptable? Were these epithets not applicable to the burnt-offerings of the Old Testament? On the contrary, they are precisely the epithets that are most commonly applied to them. The flesh of the sacrifices generally, as of everything laid upon the altar, was declared to be holy—in token of which the victims were required to be without any external blemish; while of every sacrifice offered according to the law the set phrase is, that it was an offering of sweet savour—in other words, acceptable to God. These two expressions, then, beyond a doubt, indicate a resemblance; and it would surely be somewhat strange—a confusion in the use of language we should not have expected in the apostle—if the one going immediately before them, and the other coming immediately after them, should have pointed to a formal contrast. Such a throwing together of agreements and differences in one continuous description, is in the highest degree improbable. A good deal of this confusion imputed to the statement of the apostle, arises from the inadequate notions that prevail respecting the Old Testament sacrificial worship—as if the outward actions had formed the one and all of this, and there were no outgoings of spiritual desire and affection on the part of the worshipper accompanying them. According to the true idea, the outward service was merely the symbolical expression of what was thought and felt, done or purposed to be done, by the person who performed it. The sacrifice was in the closest manner identified with the sacrificer. Thus, in the case of the burnt-offering, which is here more particularly referred to, the occasion of presenting it usually was, when an individual had experienced some great mercy, or felt upon his soul a special call to devoted gratitude and love; and his feelings in this respect were embodied in the offering—he expressed thereby his personal surrender to God, and the dedication of all he had to the Divine service and glory. Without this grateful feeling and purpose of devotedness on the part of the offerer, the offering would have been simply a piece of hypocrisy—a sign without any thing signified thereby. The proper connexion between the external and the internal was beautifully brought out by David in the fifty-first Psalm, when, after having expressed his deep contrition for past sin, and renewed the dedication of himself to God, he prays for fresh tokens of the Lord’s favour, that as the natural result of what was to be imparted on the one hand, and felt on the other, the Lord might receive and be pleased with sacrifices of righteousness, with the whole burnt-offerings that should be laid upon His altar. In offerings so drawn forth, and so presented, would there be no life? Could the service with any propriety be designated as a dead one? Assuredly not; the soul of the offerer was itself on .fire with love and gratitude to God, and a spirit of life animated its movements, not the less that it had to express itself by means of slain victims laid and consumed upon the altar. We entertain no doubt, therefore, that here also the direct and prominent thing in the apostle’s description is a resemblance, and not a contrast. His object is, to show how those, who are partakers of the rich grace and mercy of God under the Gospel, may and should exhibit a substantial agreement with the service of the burnt-offering, which was wont to be rendered by such as had received peculiar tokens of the Lord’s goodness. They should present to God their bodies—i.e. the active powers and energies of their nature (for it is through the body that these come into operation)—present these as a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable—a real dedication, instinct with life and purity, and on that account well-pleasing to God. On the same account also a λογίκη λατρεία, a reasonable service not, however, in the sense of rational, as opposed to a former ir-rational service; but in the sense of spiritual,—a reasonable or spiritual service, in which the soul and conscience are exercised, and hence opposed to what is simply σωματική, corporeal or outward. In no part of the description is there properly a contrast marked between the Christian and the Jewish service; for, in the Jewish also, when rightly performed, there were the same spiritual elements, as in the Christian; there too the soul and conscience were engaged; the service was one of life and holiness, on the part of the worshipper, and on the part of God crowned with acceptance. Still, no doubt, a difference is implied, though not distinctly and formally expressed;—it is implied in the very prominence which is given to the spiritual elements of the service required, presented apart from any external accompaniments or outward rites. For there being so much of what was outward in the Old Testament service, it naturally tended to take off the mind to some extent from the more inward and vital part; the mind could, and doubtless too often did, view the sacrifice as something apart from itself—a thing done for one, rather than by him and with him:—While now, the temptation to a lifeless externality is in great measure removed, the service is of a strictly personal and spiritual nature, springing from the soul’s proper consciousness of grace and blessing, and appearing in the willing obedience of the members of the body, as instruments of righteousness unto God. Now, from these examples and illustrations there is plainly deducible a twofold rule of interpretation in regard to those portions of the New Testament, which represent spiritual things in language derived from the relations and ritual of the Old. The rule is, that in those passages, which distinctly and formally exhibit the difference between New and Old Testament things, it is this difference, which ought to be rendered prominent in our explanation, yet not without also pointing attention to the fundamental agreement, which lies underneath the superficial diversity; while, on the other hand, in those passages, which simply present Christian things under the form and aspect of those that belonged to the Old Covenant, it is the correspondence or agreement that should be mainly dwelt upon. The Old should, in that case, be exhibited as a lively image or palpable representation of the New—though a representation in an inferior line of things, and with comparatively inadequate results. In the former case, our object should be to unfold a marked and obvious difference with an underlying substantial agreement; in the other, to unfold a substantial agreement, though accompanied with formal and ostensible differences—such as necessarily pervaded the relations of an inferior and preparatory, to an ultimate and permanent state of things. 3. If now we pass, for a moment, from the true, to the many false religions of the ancient world, from Judaism to the endless forms of heathenism, we have to mark in Christianity toward them a relation of an essentially different kind—one simply of an antagonistic nature. The heathen religions of antiquity, therefore, had no direct or positive influence in moulding the language of the New Testament, and imparting peculiar shades of meaning to its expressions. Yet the subject is not to be passed altogether unnoticed. For, though the respect had to heathen modes of thought and forms of expression is chiefly of a negative kind, yet even that is instructive; since it shows in what a different region the Christian religion moved, and what different elements it embraced from those, out of which heathenism was constructed. Amid the freedom, with which Christianity proceeded to diffuse itself in the world, and its adaptation to the modes of thought and forms of expression in current use, it still manifested a careful reserve in respect to all that savoured of heathenism; it abstained from the use of such terms as had become associated with the false worship, or impregnated with the false notions, of the pagan world. For example, in so far as the language of the New Testament bears respect to sacrificial usages, it borrows the terms it employs from the Old Testament, or makes use only of such as are common to the Septuagint and the writings of Hellenic authors. It refrains from employing such expressions as, though of similar import, had been linked to usages, which rendered them suggestive of the pollutions of idolatry. Of this description are περικάθαρμα and περίψημα, which both bear, in the old lexicographers, the signification of ransom or sacrifice—the equivalents given are ἀντίλυτρον, ἀντίψυχον. The Septuagint also, at Proverbs 21:18, has περικάθαρμα δικαίου ἄνομας, the wicked is a ransom for the righteous. But as the words acquired this sense from the horrid custom of sacrificing criminals and worthless persons to make expiation for the state in times of public calamity, they are never used in the New Testament with reference to religious worship. The custom prevailed especially at Athens, where persons of a worth less caste were regularly kept against the occurrence of any plague or public calamity, and then thrown into the sea, in the belief that they should wipe off the guilt of the nation. Such persons were called καθάρματα, περιψήματα, and other epithets of a like import. The terms are used only once in the New Testament: it is by the Apostle Paul, when speaking, in 1 Corinthians 4:13, of the indignities he had received; but it is in the original sense of sweepings, offscourings, or filth, the vilest portions of society. The common term for the altars on which the heathens offered their victims, might have been thought less objectionable for Christian uses. This term is βωμός; yet it occurs only once in the whole of the New Testament; and on that solitary occasion it is employed, not of a Jewish altar, or anything corresponding to it in Christian times, but of the heathen altar, with its inscription to the Unknown God, which Paul found at Athens. The term uniformly employed in the New Testament, whether in a literal or a figurative sense, is θυσιαστήριον:—an evidence of the care with which the sacred writers sought to keep the true religion at a distance from all contact, even in name, with idolatry. In the use also of δαίμων, and its compounds, we see a similar instance of the wisdom and the propriety with which the speech of the sacred writers were guided. The word had become thoroughly inwoven with the ideas and the worship of heathendom; and as the evil, as well as the good—bad, and malignant, not less than gracious and benign divinities, were embraced in the religions of Polytheism, so the word δαίμων extended equally to both. It was in that respect a word of indifferent meaning. The whole religion of the Greeks and the Romans might be called, and, indeed, was familiarly called, demon-worship, δεισιδαιμονία. It could not, therefore, be counted a reproach, it might rather be esteemed an honour for any one to be spoken of as δεισιδαιμονεστέρος; it simply marked him out as peculiarly given to the worship of the gods. And when Paul, in the Areopagus, applied that epithet, at the commencement of his speech, to the men of Athens, inferring their title to it from what he had observed of their altars, there can be no doubt that he meant to indicate nothing that should prove offensive to them. He merely intended to express the fact, that they were, in their own sense of the matter, a very religious people. And it is certainly a somewhat unhappy turn that is given to this, the opening part of the apostle’s address, in the authorized version, when he is made to say, that he perceived “they were in all things too superstitious.” Had such been the native import of his language, the apostle would have been guilty of the misdemeanor of creating a prejudice against himself at the outset—a fault, we may be sure, he did not commit at any time, and least of all in that which is, artistically considered, the most perfect of all his recorded discourses. There is another instance of a like use of the word—though in this case really misapplied—in Acts 25:19, where Festus says of the case of Paul to Agrippa, that it touched upon questions περὶ τῆς δεισιδαιμονίας; it should have been rendered, “concerning their own religion” to give the fair impression of what Festus actually meant; since, speaking as Festus did to Agrippa, a professed Jew, he never could have intended to stigmatize the worship which was paid by the king and his countrymen as a superstition, in our sense of the term. It was, however, a wrong term to apply to the religion of a Jew, and in making use of it Festus spoke from a merely heathen point of view. The Jewish religion was a θεοσεβεία, a reverential fear and worship of God, but not a δεισιδαιμονία, a religious homage to the divinities. In the Jewish sense, demon-worship was devil-worship—abominable idolatry. And hence δαιμονία was the common term employed to designate the malignant powers, that so often held possession of the bodies and souls of men at the Gospel era. Hence also the term εὐδαιμονία, which so frequently occurs in heathen authors to express human happiness and prosperity, is never—because it indicates prosperity as the gift of the divinities—similarly employed in the New Testament. Not even once is it used there to express, in any way, the blessedness enjoyed by God’s people. These examples may suffice, as the subject they are brought forward to illustrate is rather negative in its bearing on the interpretation of Scripture, than of a positive description. They are signs, impressed upon the language of the New Testament, that the religion of the Gospel has no proper affinity to that of heathenism, and convey a silent .protest against all pollutions of idolatry. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.08. THE RELATION OF THE OLD TO THE NEW IN GOD’S DISPENSATIONS MORE EXACTLY DEFINED ======================================================================== Section Seventh. The Relation Of The Old To The New In God’s Dispensations More Exactly Defined, With The View Of Preventing Mistaken Or Partial Interpretations Of Such Portions Of New Testament Scripture As Bear On It. To lay more securely the ground of some of the directions given in the preceding section, and to provide, so far as can be done within a small compass, a clue to the right path in the treatment of those passages, which bear upon the mutual relation between Christianity and Judaism, it seems advisable, before entering on a fresh topic, to devote a little space to the further consideration of these relations. We do this more especially for the purpose of guarding against a twofold error, which is constantly reappearing, in the one or the other of its aspects, with those who have not attained to accurate views of the connexion between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations:—the error of either ascribing too much of the carnal element to Judaism, or of imposing too much of the Judaistic on Christianity. These are the two opposite extremes, into which certain diverse tendencies in Christianity are ever apt to run. They both began at an early period to develop themselves. The Judaizing tendency naturally appeared first, as it was out of Judaism that Christianity sprung; and in making the transition from the one to the other, many found it difficult to realize the extent of the change which the work of Christ had introduced—they clung to what was temporary in the Old, even after it had been supplanted by something higher and better; like persons, according to the similitude of our Lord, who have been accustomed to old wine, and cannot straightway relish new—although in this case the new was the better. It was providential, that this Judaizing tendency did appear so early—at Jerusalem, at Antioch, in the churches of Galatia, and elsewhere—as it obliged the apostles at the very first to meet it. In various parts of the New Testament, we have their formal deliverance on the subject, and their condemnation of the error which it involved. The Epistles to the Galatians, to the Colossians, and to the He brews are, in this point of view, especially important; as they show conclusively, that the external forms of the ancient worship, its visible temple, Aaronic priesthood, fleshly sacrifices, stated festivals, and corporeal ablutions, were no longer binding on the conscience, and naturally led, if perpetuated, to carnalize the Gospel. It might have been thought, that these apostolic efforts and explicit deliverances would have been sufficient to check the evil, and prevent its recurrence in the Christian Church. But this was far from being the case. With some non-essential modifications, the old error reappeared, bringing in a train of forms and ceremonies, purgations and sacrifices, feasts and solemnities, which differed only in name from those of the Old Economy; and a Christian priesthood established itself as an essential part of the Church’s constitution, of which the most characteristic feature was, that it should be able to trace up by successive links to Christ its hereditary power and authority, precisely as the ancient priesthood had to show their genealogical descent from the loins of Aaron. And the result has been, that, notwithstanding the strong and repeated protest lodged in New Testament Scripture against such institutions and practices, as at variance with the genius of the Gospel, in what once formed nearly the whole, and what still forms the largest part of Christendom, sacred times and seasons, altars and sacrifices, external purifications and an official priesthood, have their recognised place now, much as in ancient Israel. To such a mournful extent has Christianity been Judaized. Exactly the opposite tendency, however, began also in early times to discover itself, and still continues to do so, though it has not proved nearly so powerful or so general as the other. The Gnostic spirit, which was just beginning to make its appearance in the Christian Church at the close of the apostolic period, was the first representative of this extreme. In its self-elated and ethereal flights, Gnosticism sought to soar above Christianity—to become spiritual above its Spirituality; and to raise at least the loftier and more contemplative believers of the Gospel into a kind of Divine-like superiority to every thing outward and material. In this vain attempt, however, it only corrupted Christianity, by disparaging or denying the great historical facts on which it is based, and entering into profitless speculations respecting heavenly things. Along with this tendency, and as a kind of natural corollary to it, it sought to break the chain between Christianity and Judaism—holding the former to be indeed of God, but not so the latter, on account of the fleshly ordinances and material accompaniments with which it was connected; it was, therefore, assigned to the agency of an evil, or, at least, inferior spirit. In this anti-scriptural form, Gnosticism was, of course, repelled by the Church; its special views and conclusions were universally reprobated by believers. But the spirit of Gnosticism crept in through many avenues into the Church; and in the case of some of the fathers—more especially Clement of Alexandria and Origen—it led them to draw too broadly the distinction between Christianity and Judaism, and to seek the instruction couched in the ordinances of the Old Testament, not in their immediate design or symbolical import, but in an allegorical interpretation of an entirely fanciful and arbitrary nature. The natural inference from their mode of treating the Old Testament ritual and worship was, that, considered by itself, in its obvious and historical reality, it was too carnal to have much in common with Christianity. Now, of course, the relations of those times no longer exist; the leaven, which then wrought with insidious and corrupting influence, can scarcely be said to work after the same fashion that it did then. And yet there have been, and there still are, certain sections of the Christian Church, and particular individuals in almost every section, in whom the tendency to over-spiritualize (if we may so express it) in Christianity, and, as a natural consequence, to carnalize in Judaism, does not fail in some way to manifest itself. Writers belonging to the Baptist communion are under some temptation to give way to this tendency, and not unfrequently do so. Take as an example the following passage, in a commentary by a late respectable member of that body: “Israel was a stiff-necked and rebellious people; their law was written on tables of stone, and enforced by temporal sanctions; he that despised Moses law died without mercy. But all Christ’s disciples are taught of God; they are the circumcision of Christ; they worship God in the Spirit; His law is written on the fleshly tables of the heart.” (Haldane on the Epistle to the Galatians, pp. 113, 103.) If there is any propriety in this contrast, it must be, that Israel, as such, were a carnal and ungodly people, yet were not the less entitled to God’s ordinances, nay, these ordinances were just for such a people; whereas the Church of the New Testament, as well in respect to its people as its ordinances, is strictly spiritual and holy. The conclusion, therefore, in regard to the Israelites, as the author distinctly states (p. 193,) is, that their privileges were all carnal, that the relation in which they stood to God was carnal, and all properly growing out of it fleshly and temporal; and that the covenant, under which they were placed, had attained its object, if only it preserved a worshipping people visibly separated from the idolatrous Gen tiles. In like manner, another writer, belonging to the same communion, (Dr. Cox, as quoted by Dr. Wardlaw on Baptism, pp. 55, 60.) says of circumcision (and, of course, he might equally have said it of any other Jewish ordinance,) that it was “quite irrespective of personal character, conduct, or faith,” that the covenant of which it was the sign “included solely temporal blessings;” and that “the rite was instituted to distinguish the Jews from the other nations, and to show their title to the land of Canaan:”—all simply outward and carnal. Another writer still—and one belonging to an entirely different school, a minister of the Church of England—in a late work, gives forth substantially the same views respecting the people and ordinances of Israel; does so, too, in the most assured tone, as if there could be no reasonable doubt upon the subject—as if, in announcing it, he was entitled to demand the assent of the whole Christian world: “The Old Covenant (he says) had nothing whatever to do with eternal life, except by way of type or suggestion; it had nothing whatever to do with any, except with the nation of Israel; and nothing whatever with any mere individual in that nation. It was made with the nation collectively (as if the collective nation did not consist of an aggregate of individuals!) and was entirely temporal. God promised to give the land of Canaan to the nation of Israel; but only so long as the nation collectively acknowledged Jehovah as the one God.” (Johnstone’s Israel after the Flesh, p. 7.) And further, as regards the nature of the holiness aimed at by the covenant, he says, that “it was quite irrespective of individual righteousness. Notwithstanding any sins short of the national infraction of the covenant, Israel was still the holy nation.” And he adds, “This very manifest sense of the Old Covenant holiness is constantly lost sight of, and errors of the most destructive kind are caused.” (Johnstone’s Israel after the Flesh, p. 87.) Quotations of a similar kind might be furnished in great profusion, but those given may suffice. They abundantly show what crude and ill-digested notions prevail still among persons, otherwise well-informed, and holding evangelical views, respecting the nature of the Old Economy, and the real position of God’s people under it. On the hypothesis of such views, there are some queries that naturally suggest themselves to one’s mind, and to which it seems impossible to produce a satisfactory answer. Circumcision, and the other ordinances of the Old Testament, were (it is alleged) altogether carnal, and irrespective of personal holiness—how, then, could Israel in the wilderness, when simply standing under a covenant with such ordinances, have been reproved and punished for murmuring against God, and want of faith in God’s promises—spiritual acts—committed by the people, while they still collectively acknowledged God—and both acts and punishments so personal, that the two individuals (Joshua and Caleb) who stood aloof from the rest in sin, were also excepted from them in judgment? How could it be reconciled with the notion of a God essentially holy and spiritual, to have imposed such merely carnal services upon His people, with promises of blessing if performed, and threatenings of evil if neglected and despised? How could He have represented it as the end He had in view in establishing such a covenant, that He might have a godly seed? (Isaiah 6:12; Malachi 2:15.) How could there come to exist in the midst of Israel such seed at all—a seed possessing the elements of real holiness? Whence could its members have their being? How were they born? Was it altogether apart from the ordinances? In that case, must not their existence have been an anomaly, a miracle accomplished by Divine power without the intervention of appropriate means? And the more pious individuals of that seed, such as David, and those who acted with him, how could they possibly long for, and rejoice in waiting upon, ordinances which were wholly carnal, and without any adaptation to a spiritual taste? To such questions no satisfactory answer can be returned, on the supposition of the Old Testament ordinances being what those persons would represent. We know of no way by which a spiritual seed can be expected, in any age, to come into existence, and find life to their souls, otherwise than through the ordinances which God is pleased to appoint; and how God could either appoint ordinances altogether carnal, or how, if appointed, spiritual life and nourishment could be derived from them, is a mystery that seems inexplicable on any grounds of reason or of Scripture. Without going very minutely into the subject, there are a few leading principles that may be laid down upon it, sufficient, if clearly understood, and kept properly in view, to guard us against any material error on either side. 1. It must be held, in the first place, as a fundamental principle, that whatever difference may exist between Judaism and Christianity, as to their respective services and forms of administration, there still must have been an essential agreement between them at bottom—an essential oneness in their pervading character and spirit. We say, must have been so; there was a Divine necessity in the case, grounded in the nature of Him who is the Author of both covenants, and who makes Himself known as Jehovah that changes not.” Unchangeable in His own nature, He must be such also in the principles of His government among men, not less than in the personal attributes of His being. The adversaries of the faith in every age have well understood this; and hence, from the Manicheans of early times to the infidels and rationalistic writers of the present day, they have ever sought to overthrow the foundations of Divine truth by playing off one part of Scripture against another—exposing what they deemed the contrarieties between things established in the Old, and things taught in the New Testament; or, through alleged defects and immoralities in the one, aiming a blow at the authority of the other. Had they succeeded in such attempts, their object had been gained; since Scripture could no longer be vindicated as the actual product and authoritative revelation of an unchangeable God. It is true, as indeed appears on a moment’s inspection, that the religion of the Old Testament addressed itself more immediately to the outward man, while that of the New addresses itself more to the inward. In ancient times, the business of religion—if we may so speak—was transacted under the form and aspect of what pertained to visible and earthly relations: its rites and services had respect primarily to a worldly sanctuary, an earthly inheritance and a present life—in these exhibiting the shadow or sensible image of what relates to the concerns of an unseen world, and an eternal existence. They did, however, present such a shadow of higher realities; and did it, not as an incidental and subsidiary, but as an essential part of their design; and not for some merely, but for all the worshippers. Through the external and corporeal, God continually spake to them of the internal and spiritual. Under the outward shell, and along with it, He conveyed to as many as would receive it, the kernel of Divine truth and holiness;—so that the same description, as to its substance, will serve at once for the true Israelite and for the genuine Christian. As in that given by the Apostle Paul, He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men (the mere outside observer,) but of God (who looks directly upon the heart.”) We find the truth in this respect distinctly apprehended by Augustine, and correctly expressed in the writings he composed against the Manicheans and other errorists of his day. Referring, in his work against Faustus (Lib. 12:3,) to what the apostle says, in Romans 3:1-31, Romans 9:1-33, of the advantage possessed by the Jews in having had God’s oracles and covenants, he asks, “Why did he say that the covenants belonged to them, had it not been that the Old Covenant was given to them, and that the New was imaged in the Old? These men, in their senseless folly, are in the habit of denouncing the legal institution, which was given to the Israelites, not understanding its dispensation, and because God has thought good now to place us, not under law but under grace. Let them, therefore, give way to the authority of the apostle, who, in lauding the condition of the Israelites, mentions it among their advantages, that to them had belonged the giving of the law, which could not have been matter of praise, if it had been in itself bad.” And again, in another work, written against one who had published a treatise containing many things of an offensive nature against the law and the prophets, he shows the pervading and essential agreement of these with the Gospel, even in those things, in which this adversary had sought to represent them as utterly opposed to each other. In regard, for example, to the punishment of sin, he both mentions what precepts and examples there were under the Old Testament of a forgiving spirit, and places alongside the temporal inflictions of the one the eternal retributions of the other, thereby making it manifest that “in each Testament alike (as he says) there was at once a goodness to be loved, and a severity to be dreaded,” Then, referring to the inferior nature of the Old Testament dispensation, on account of its having had so much to do with outward and temporal things, he says, “Nevertheless, in those times also there were spiritual and righteous persons, whom the letter of command did not kill, but the aid- giving Spirit quickened. Whence both the faith of a coming Saviour dwelt in the prophets, who announced beforehand that He should come; and now, there are many carnal persons who either give rise to heresies by not understanding the Scriptures, or in the Catholic Church itself are like babes that can only be fed with milk, or, still worse, are preparing like chaff to be burned in the fire. But as God is the sole and true Creator of both temporal and eternal goods, so is He also the Author of both Testaments; because the New is as well figured in the Old, as the Old is revealed in the New (quia et Novum in Vetere est figuratum, et Vetus in Novo est revelatum.” (Contra Adversarium Legis et Proph., i. 35.).) 2. Very nearly allied to the fundamental principle just stated is another, viz., that the ordinances of Judaism were all of a symbolical nature, not simply outward or typical. If they had been simply outward as regards the service they required, and typical as regards their religious value, they would have been nothing more than bodily exercises for those who engaged in them—exercises that had respect to their purification from a merely ceremonial uncleanness, and the preservation of a present life; while, in addition to this, a few persons of superior discernment might have descried through them the higher and better things, which they prefigured for a coming age. This is the whole that many persons would find in the ordinances of the Old Covenant; and thence arises much of the confusion and misconception in which the subject has been enveloped. An important element is omitted—the symbolical, lying mid-way between the other two, and forming in reality the link that unites them together. By calling them symbolical, we mean, that they expressed, by means of the outward rite or action, certain religious views and principles, which the worshipper was expected in the performance of the service to recognise, and heartily concur in. It was the conscious recognition of these views and principles, and the exercise of the feelings growing out of them, for which more immediately the outward service was appointed, and in which its acceptability with God properly consisted. Without these the whole would have been a false parade—an empty and meaningless form. Take as an example the corporeal washings, which on so many occasions were required under the law—these were not appointed for the purpose merely of removing bodily defilement. Often, as in the case of the restored leper, purification from the touch of a dead body, or from sprinkling the Water of cleansing on others, there was not even the semblance of anything of that sort to be removed. The washing, in every case, was appointed as a natural and appropriate symbol of personal purity on the part of the worshippers, and was perfectly understood by all serious and thoughtful worshippers to carry such an import. Even Pilate, though a heathen, showed his understanding of this symbol, by taking water and washing his hands before the people, to express more emphatically than he could do by words his refusal to participate in the condemnation of Jesus. And the Psalmist, when he spake of “washing his hands in innocency,” and the prophet, when he called on the crimson- stained sinners of his day to “wash themselves, and make themselves clean,” gave plain indication of the symbolical import of the transaction. In like manner—to refer to the initiatory ordinance of the whole series the rite of circumcision, when brought into connexion with the Divine covenant as its sign and seal, was by no means a merely external badge. Its proper aim and object were not the affixing of a corporeal mark upon the Jew, and thereby distinguishing him from the people of other countries. If that had been all, it would have been very imperfectly fitted to serve the end in view; as it is certain that at least the Egyptian priesthood, if not also some of the higher grades of the people, and not a few of the Syro-Arabian races, practised the rite from the very earliest times. It is, in fact, one of those customs, the origin of which is lost in a remote antiquity. But when adopted by God in connexion with His covenant as its appropriate token and seal, it thenceforth became a symbol of purification from the guilt and pollution of the flesh—the symbol of a transition from nature’s depravity into a spiritual and holy life. This transition should have been effected in all who stood within the bonds of the covenant; and in those whose state accorded with their profession, it must in reality have been effected. It was, therefore, the distinctive badge of Israel, not simply as a separate people, but as God’s covenant-people called and bound to cast off nature’s impurity, and walk in righteousness before God. This, too, was perfectly understood by all the more serious and thoughtful portion of the Israelites; and they did not need the higher revelations of the Gospel to disclose its import. Moses himself pointed to it as a thing which even then was familiarly known and understood, when he represented the people, in their state of impenitence and guilt, as being of uncircumcised hearts (Leviticus 26:41;) and on this very account,—because circumcision had a strictly moral import, it was suspended during the thirty-eight years sojourn in the wilderness; since the people being then under the judgment of heaven for their sins, they were held to be in an unfit state for having the ordinance administered to them. Such, at least, appears the main reason for the disuse of the ordinance during that long period. Circumcision, therefore, if viewed according to the design of God, and its own emblematic import, was no more a merely outward and corporeal thing, than baptism now is; the one had respect to the believer’s spiritual position and call to righteousness, not less than the other. In both cases alike the opus operatum might stand alone; the sign might be without the thing signified; since no ordinance of God ever has salvation indissolubly linked to it; while yet the two would always in point of fact be connected together, if the ordinances were used in a spirit of sincerity and truth. 2. This second principle, which ascribes a symbolical or spiritual import to all the rites and ordinances of the Old Covenant, like the first, has its ultimate ground in the nature of God—in the essential holiness of His character. Precisely as God’s unchangeableness rendered it necessary, that there should be in everything of vital moment a fundamental agreement between Judaism and Christianity; so the pure and unspotted holiness of God, which comes out in the very first revelations of the Bible, and holds in all of them the most prominent place, rendered it necessary, that the Covenant, with every rite and institution belonging to it, should have respect to moral purity. What is essential and pre-eminent in God himself must appear also essential and pre-eminent in His public administration. And hence in the very centre of the Mosaic polity—as the standard by which every thing was to be judged, and the end to which it pointed—lay the two tables of the moral law—the comprehensive summary of love to God and man. Hence also, in some of those parts of the laws of Moses, which prescribe the more peculiar ceremonial institutions, the reason of their appointment is placed in immediate connexion with the holiness of God; as in Leviticus 20:25; Leviticus 20:20, where the command is re-enforced as to the distinction to be put between clean and unclean in food, it is added as the ground of the requirement, “And ye shall be holy unto Me, for I, the Lord, am holy, and I have severed you from other people, that ye should be Mine.” So again in Leviticus 22:1-33, after a multitude of prescriptions regarding sacrifice, and the eating of the flesh of peace-offerings, the whole is wound up by pointing to the fundamental reason, “I am Jehovah; therefore shall ye keep My commandments and do them; I am Jehovah. Neither shall ye profane My holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel; I am Jehovah, that hallow you.” The entire ritual had its foundation in God, in the principles of His character and government, whither the people were directed to look for the ultimate ground of the laws and institutions they were commanded to observe. As the one was pre-eminently moral, so, of necessity was the other; and no enlightened Israelite could regard the services of his symbolical worship, any more than the statutes and judgments of his theocratic polity, in any other light than as a system of means and appliances for securing purity of heart and conduct. 3. It is clear then—and we state it, as equally a deduction from what has preceded, and a third point to be kept in view, in all the representations that may be made in such matters—that the true Israelites, those who were such in the reckoning of God, were a spiritual, not a fleshly seed; and that the rearing of such a seed, not any outward and formal separation from the world, was the direct aim of the laws and institutions of Moses. That the dwelling of the people alone, in a state of isolation from the other nations of the earth, or antagonism to them, could never of itself have been designed to form the principal reason of the ancient economy, is evident—not only from the considerations already advanced—but also from the very end of their peculiar calling in Abraham, which was to be first blessed in themselves, and then to be a blessing to others—a blessing even to all the families of the earth. It can never be by an isolating and frowning exclusiveness, that they could fulfil this ulterior part of their destination; it could only be by operating in a kindly and beneficent manner upon the nations around them, diffusing among them the knowledge of God, and extending the boundaries of His kingdom. That this was from the first contemplated by God may certainly be inferred from the admission of proselyte strangers, even in Abraham’s time, into the bosom of the covenant, (Genesis 17:12,) and from the law afterwards prescribed regarding it (Exodus 12:48.) It is still further evident from the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the temple, which made express mention of the case of strangers coming to intermingle their devotions with those of the house of Israel; and from the fact, that whenever the covenant-people were in a lively and prosperous state, there was a disposition, on the part of others, to share with them in their privileges and blessings, as in the times of David and Solomon, (1 Chronicles 22:2; 2 Chronicles 2:17.) So far, indeed, were David and the prophets from thinking it the glory of Israel to be alone, that they anticipated with joy the time when kings would bring presents to Jerusalem, and the Lord’s house should become a house of prayer for all nations. So long, certainly, as the people of other countries abode in heathenism, it was inevitable that Israel should dwell apart—if they remained faithful to their calling. But the separation in that case was only the necessary result of Israel’s holiness, on the one hand, and the corruptions of the Gentiles, on the other; nor was it for any other end, than as the fittest means, in the existing state of the world, for producing and maintaining that holiness in the families of Israel, that the laws and ordinances of the Old Covenant were established. So, indeed, the Apostle Paul distinctly declared, when in Galatians 3:19, he said, “Where fore, then, serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions,”—added, that is, to the prior covenant made with Abraham, on account of the people’s proneness to transgress. That covenant was not of itself sufficient to restrain them; and the law, with its explicit requirements of duty, and its terrible sanctions, was given to supplement the deficiency. The law, therefore, when rightly understood and properly used, was in perfect harmony with the covenant; it occupied an inferior and subsidiary place, but in that place was alike designed and fitted for qualifying the people to carry into effect the objects of the covenant. And as it was not the aim of the covenant to make Israel merely a separate people, walled off by certain distinctive peculiarities from others, as little could it be the proper aim of the law. The scope and tendency of both, indeed, was for righteousness, and their common end was accomplished only in so far as there was produced a spiritual and holy seed to God. 4. It follows from what has been said, in the fourth place, that the difference, as to privilege and character, between the genuine members of the Old and of the New Covenants, must be relative only, and not absolute. It should be exhibited, not as a contrast between two opposites, but as an ascending gradation, a rising from a lower to a higher stage of development. A contrast, no doubt, is sometimes presented in the New Testament between law and grace, between the darkness and servile condition before Christ’s coming, and the light and liberty that followed. But the darkness was not that of total ignorance, nor was the bondage properly that of slaves, but of children rather, who from their imperfect discernment and feeble powers required to be hemmed in by outward restraints, and stimulated by artificial expedients. When the Prophet Jeremiah represents (Jeremiah 31:1-40) the distinction between the Old Covenant then existing, and the New and better one some time to be introduced, as consisting in the putting of the Divine laws into the hearts of the people, and engraving them in their inward parts, the representation can only have been meant to indicate a more effectual and general accomplishment of this spiritual result, than had hitherto appeared, not its absolute commencement. For, beyond all question, the internal revelation of the law was to a certain extent possessed also in former times—possessed by every true Israelite, of whom it was written, “The law of God is in his heart,” and “he meditates therein day and night.” And in what chiefly did the reforming agency of David and many of the prophets appear? Was it not in their earnest striving to awaken the people to the insufficiency of a dead formalism, and have them brought to the cultivation of such holiness as the law required? There was something more, then, in the relation between Judaism and Christianity, than that of type and antitype—in the sense commonly understood by these terms; there was the relation also of germ and development, beginning and end. The Christian Church, if in one respect a new thing in the earth, is, in another, a continuation and expansion of the Jewish. As was long ago well stated by Crucius, “Israel is the basis and the body itself of the church, which must continue to grow and diffuse itself more and more; and this it does, not by virtue of its corporeal descent, but on account of its faith and obedience towards God’s covenant of grace with it, in virtue of which it obtains the heritage of the heathen. When Paul in Galatians 6:16, speaks of the true Israel of God, he means thereby believing Israelites, whom he opposes to the enemies of Christ. And these Israelites did not pass over to the heathen, but the heathen to them, (Ephesians 2:19; Ephesians 3:6; Php 3:3; Colossians 2:11; Acts 13:32; Acts 26:6-7.) In this sense true Christians are reckoned to Israel; and as the ancient Israel of God could, before Christ’s appearance, receive proselytes among themselves, who thereafter became part of the covenant people; so now, since the appearance of Christ, they have by reason of the covenant and the promise, already become greatly enlarged through the incorporation of multitudes of the heathen, and shall at length receive the whole earth for a possession. And this entire body of the church, of which the believing portion of Israel formed the foundation, shall one day also receive the remnant of the other portion, the apostacy, into its bosom.” (In Delitzsch’s Biblisch. proph., p. 132.) 5. From all these premises, there arises still another conclusion, a fifth point to be kept steadily in view, viz., that the ordinances of the two covenants, like the conditions of their respective members, can admit only of relative differences. Differences certainly exist, corresponding in nature to the change in the Divine economy, and the spiritual condition of those placed under it; and these must be carefully marked and explained in accordance with the truth of things—otherwise, countenance may be given to grievous mistakes. It was here that Augustine, in common with so many of the fathers, chiefly erred, though holding correct views in the general as to the connexion between Judaism and Christianity. The one was clearly enough seen to be the preparation and shadow of the other; but in drawing out the connexion to particular points, too little account was made of the rise that had taken place from a lower to a higher sphere; a tendency rather was shown to regard the antitype as equally outward and formal with the type. Hence, in the first instance, the typology of the Old Testament was caricatured, by having the most fortuitous and superficial resemblances turned into adumbrations of Gospel mysteries; and then the theology of the New was carnalized, by being cast into the form and pattern of the Old; the observance of days and seasons in the one inferring, it was thought, a like observance in the other—and, as of old, so also now, it was held, that there should be an altar, with its consecrated priesthood and material oblations—a visible unity in the church, from which it was heresy, even in matters of ceremony, to deviate—and, at last, a supreme earthly head, on whose will were conceived to hang the issues of life and death for entire Christendom. A mournful result in any circumstances; but rendered greatly more so by the consideration, that among the forces tending to produce it must be placed the venerable name of Augustine, who, in his interpretations, often falls into the mistaken carnalism, out of which the evil might be said to have originated. But while shunning this form of error, care must be taken to avoid falling into another. And the principle must be held fast, that in the ordinances of the two covenants there can be room only for differences of a relative kind. The sacrifices and ablutions of the Old Testament were not simply carnal institutions, no more than baptism and the Lord’s Supper now are. They also pertained to the conscience, and, to be acceptably engaged in, required faith on the part of the worshipper. It is true, that “as pertaining to the conscience, they could not make the comers to them perfect;” they could not present to the worshippers a full, complete, and permanent ground of peace; whence a perpetual renewal of the sacrifices was needed to reassure the conscience after fresh acts of transgression. Yet, this by no means proves, that they had to do merely with the purification of the flesh. There were certain fleshly or ceremonial defilements, such as the touching of a dead body, for which purification was obtained by means of water, mixed with the ashes of a red heifer;—and to that the apostle refers in Hebrews 9:13. But it is an utter misapprehension of his meaning, to understand him there to assert, that all the offerings of the law were of force merely to purify the flesh. What could purifications of such a kind have availed one, who had been guilty of fraud, or oppression, or deceit, or false swearing? Yet for such sins, forgiveness was attainable through the appointed offerings, Leviticus 6:1-7. We hold it, therefore, as most certain, that there was also a spiritual element in all the services of the Old Covenant, and that their unsuitableness to Gospel times does not arise from their having been exclusively carnal and outward. It arises, partly from their being too predominantly symbolical for a religion, which contains a full revelation of the truth; and partly also from their having been peculiarly adapted for bringing into view the demands of law, and the liabilities of debt, while they provided only a temporary expedient as to the way of relief—no more than a shadow of the real satisfaction. So that for men to cleave to the Old Testament services after Christ had come, as a matter essential to salvation, was in effect to say, that they did not regard the death of Christ as in itself a perfect satisfaction for the guilt of sin, but that it needed the purifications of the law to render it complete—thereby at once dishonouring Christ, and taking the legal ceremonies for something more than they really were. But still, these ceremonies, when rightly understood, differed from the ordinances of the gospel only in degree, not in kind; and it is perfectly competent for us to draw conclusions from the nature and administration of the one, to the nature and administration of the other. Here, as in so many other things, there is a middle path, which is the right one; and it is just as easy to err from it by carnalizing too much in Judaism, as by Judaizing too much in Christianity. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.09. ON THE PROPER INTERPRETATION OF THE TROPICAL PARTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ======================================================================== Section Eighth. On The Proper Interpretation Of The Tropical Parts Of The New Testament. AMONG the portions of New Testament Scripture which require a separate hermeneutical consideration, are those in which tropes or figures are employed. Some of the examples given under the last two divisions might in part be referred to this head, for there is also a figurative element in them. But other portions belong more properly to it; and the class is of sufficient compass and moment to entitle it to special inquiry. The subject, however, does not hold so large a place in the hermeneutics of the New Testament as it does in those of the Old; for the poetical enters more into the composition of the Old, and poetry, from its very nature, delights in the use of figure. In both the prophetical, and the more distinctively poetical books of Old Testament Scripture, the boldest images are introduced, and the language has throughout a figurative colouring. But of these we are not called to treat at present. We have to do merely with that more sparing and restricted use of tropical language, which appears in the New Testament, and was not incompatible with its clearer revelations and its more didactic aim. Reference, however, may also be occasionally made, by way of illustration, to passages in the Old Testament. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to state, yet, in case of any misapprehension, it may as well be stated, that the terms figurative and tropical, on the one side, and those of literal and grammatical, on the other, may be employed indiscriminately, as being substantially of the same import. The one pair happen to be derived from the Greek, and the other from the Latin, but, in each case, from words that precisely correspond. Literal, from the Latin litera, denotes the meaning of a word, which is according to the letter, the meaning it bears in its original or primary use; and nothing else is indicated by the term grammatical, in this connexion, the word of Greek derivation for what is according to the γράμμα or letter. But when a word, originally appropriated to one thing, comes to be applied to another, which bears some real or fancied resemblance to it, as there is then a τρόπος or turning of it to a new use, so the meaning is called tropical, or, if we prefer the Latin form of expression, figurative—there being always some sort of figure or image suggested to the mind in this new use of the term, founded either on resemblance or some other link of connexion, and forming a natural transition from the original to the derived sense. Very commonly also the word proper is used to denote the original import of words, and improper the figurative. But as these epithets are fitted to suggest wrong ideas, it is better not to employ them in such a connexion. All languages are more or less figurative; for the mind of man is essentially analogical, and delights to trace resemblances between one object and another, and embody them in forms of speech. In strictly mental operations, and in regard to things lying beyond the reach of sense or time, it is obliged to resort to figurative terms;—for only through the form and aspect of sensible objects can it picture to itself and express what lies in those hidden chambers of imagery. And the more vivid its own feelings and conceptions are respecting spiritual and Divine things, or the more it seeks to give a present and abiding impression of these to the mind of others, the more also will it naturally call to its aid the realistic language of tropes and metaphors. Hence the predominant use of such language in sacred poetry; and hence also its occasional employment by Christ and His apostles, in order to invest their representations of Divine things with the greater force and emphasis. I. In applying our minds to this subject, the first point that naturally calls for inquiry, has respect to the proper mode of ascertaining when words are employed, not literally, but tropically. How may we assure ourselves, or can we assure ourselves, against any mistake in the matter? This branch of hermeneutical inquiry began to receive some consideration in comparatively early times; and in Augustine’s treatise. De doctrina Christiana, we find certain rules laid down for determining what in Scripture should be taken literally, and what figuratively. These are, certainly, somewhat imperfect, as might have been expected, considering the period when they were written: yet they are not without their value, and if they had been followed up by others, with any measure of Augustine’s discernment, they might have kept the early church from many false interpretations, on which the most unscriptural and superstitious views leaned for support. 1. In the first place, it may be noted, that in a large number of cases, by much the larger number of cases, where the language is tropical, the fact that it is so appears from the very nature of the language, or from the connexion in which it stands. This holds especially of that kind of tropical language, which consists in the employment of metaphor—i.e., when one object is set forth under the image of another; and in the employment of parable, which is only an extended metaphor. Thus, when Jacob says of Judah, “Judah is a lion’s whelp, from the prey, my son, thou art gone up;” or when our Lord designated two of His disciples by the name of Boanerges, “Sons of thunder;” or, again, when He spake of the difficulties connected with an admission into His kingdom, under the necessity of “being born again,” and of “entering a strait gate and treading a narrow way;”—in all these and many examples of a like nature, the tropical element is palpable; a child, indeed, might perceive it; and the only room for consideration is, how the lines of resemblance should be drawn between the literal and the figurative sense of the terms. The same also may be said, and with still stronger emphasis, of formal similitudes and parables, in which the literal interpretation is expressly, or by plain implication, taken as the mere cover of something higher and greater. 2. Another class of passages, in which the figure is also, for the most part, quite easy of detection, are those in which what is called synecdoche prevails—i.e. in which a part is put for the whole; as a cup for its contents, “Take this cup and drink it,” or, “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.” It is manifest, that in such cases the cup does not stand alone; it is viewed merely as the symbol of the draught presented in it. So in other passages, where there is a kind of metonymy, such as putting a cause for an effect, or an effect for a cause:—for example, when our Lord says of Himself, “I am not come to send peace upon earth, but a sword;” or when, inversely, the apostle Paul, in another connexion, says of Him, “He is our peace.” In examples of this description also there is no difficulty; it is obvious, that a particular result is in the eye of the writer, and that, for the sake of point and brevity, the object or person is identified with that result, or with the natural cause and instrument of effecting it, as if they were one and the same. But still, when all such examples as those now referred to have been taken into account, there remains a considerable number,—especially of the class called metonymies, in regard to which it is not so easy to determine whether the language should be understood literally or tropically. It may, for instance, be questioned, whether our Lord, in Matthew 5:23, where He speaks of bringing a gift to the altar, means an actual altar for the presentation of sacrificial offerings, or something in the spiritual sphere that might be held equivalent to it:—whether, again, when speaking of His followers eating His body and drinking His blood, He meant a corporeal or a spiritual participation:—or Paul, when he makes mention of a fire that is to try every man’s work, (1 Corinthians 3:13,) whether he has respect to the material element of fire, or to a process of judgment, which in spiritual things will have the same effect as a searching fire in earthly. It is well known, that these questions are answered very differently, and that great points of doctrine hang on the specific interpretations adopted. Nor is it possible, by any sharply defined rules to settle conclusively the view that should be taken; for the settling of the rules would necessarily involve a discussion of the particular cases to which we wish to apply them. It is more, therefore, to the general principles of interpretation—to the proper mode and habit of dealing with the Word of God, the accurate analysis of its terms, the close and discriminating examination of the scope and connexion:—it is to this, more than to any specific directions, that we are to look for obtaining the skill to determine between the literal and the tropical in the less obvious cases. At the same time, there are two or three leading principles, which, if fairly and consistently applied, might, in the majority of cases, be sufficient to guide to a right decision. (1.) The first of these is, that when any thing is said, which, if taken according to the letter, would be at variance with the essential nature of the subject spoken of, the language must be regarded as tropical. This principle requires to be little more than enunciated; it carries its own evidence along with it. No single act, no particular attribute, can be ascribed by an intelligent writer to a person or an object, which is inconsistent with their proper nature. So that, on the supposition of that nature being known to us, we can be at no loss to understand in what sense the language should be taken. Thus, it is essential to the nature of God, that He is spirit and not flesh—a Spirit infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; consequently without bodily parts, which are necessarily bounded by space and time; without liability to passionate excitation or erring purposes, which arise from creaturely limitations. Hence all those passages, which represent God as possessed of human powers and organs, as seeing, or hearing, or having experience of such affections as are the result of human weakness and infirmity, must be understood in a figurative sense. Nor can it be otherwise with those things, which are spoken of the soul and its spiritual life in terms borrowed from what pertains to the body:—As when our Lord calls on His followers to cut off their right hand and pluck out their right eye, or when St. Paul speaks of crucifying the flesh, and putting off the old man of corruption. In such cases the path is clear; we must keep strictly in view the essential nature of the subject discoursed of; and since that is not such as to admit of an application of the language in the literal sense, we can have no hesitation about understanding it tropically. (2.) A second principle applicable to such cases, is, that if the language taken literally would involve something incongruous or morally improper, the figurative, and not the literal sense, must be the right one. If the literal implies nothing contrary to sense and reason—if the instruction it conveys is in accordance with the great moral distinctions impressed upon the conscience, and written in the Word of God, then it may safely be adhered to as the sense actually intended. But if otherwise, we must abandon the literal for the figurative. The passage formerly referred to in another connexion—Romans 12:20—may be taken as an example; it is the exhortation to heap coals of fire on an enemy’s head, by showing kindness to him in the time of want and necessity. The action itself here specified (whatever may be understood of the motive involved in it,) must in any case be understood figuratively; since the heaping of coals of fire on the head of another must plainly have respect to the moral influence of the things done to him upon his state or character. But further, in regard to the kind of operation intended, or the nature of the effect to be wrought, held out as the motive for exertion in the manner specified, it must be, as Augustine long ago remarked, of a beneficial, not of an injurious description, since it is brought in to enforce a precept of benevolence, and must, therefore, have contemplated the good of the parties interested. (Aug. De Doc. Christiana, 3:10, Ne igitur dubitaveris figurate dictum; et cum possit dupliciter interpretari, uno modo ad nocendum, altero ad præstandum; ad beneficentiam te potius charitas revocat, ut intelligas carbones ignis esse urentes pœnitentiæ gemitus, quibus superbia sanatur ejus qui dolet se inimicum fuisse hominis, a quo ejus miseriæ subvenitur.) There are many similar examples in the Proverbs, where the one just noticed originally occurs;—as to mention only another when a person sitting at meat with a ruler is exhorted to put “a knife to his throat,” meaning that he must set bounds to his appetite—slay, in a manner, his voracity. In like manner, our Lord says, “If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me,”—“Whosoever loveth his life, shall lose it,”—“Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness;”—in each of which passages there must be a certain amount of figure; since, to bear a cross, and to love life, in the natural sense of the expression, cannot be regarded as things fitted to carry with them the consequences of good and evil with which they are associated, nor can it be deemed proper, otherwise than by a figure, to make for one’s self a friend of what is unrighteous. In such cases, we can only get at the true meaning by penetrating beneath the surface, and apprehending a moral act or line of behaviour as the object presented to our notice. (3.) A third direction may be added; viz., that where we have still reason to doubt whether the language is literal or figurative, we should endeavour to have the doubt resolved, by referring to parallel passages (if there be any such) which treat of the same subject in more explicit terms, or at greater length. The really doubtful cases, in which we can avail our selves of this help, may not, perhaps, be very numerous; but they are still to be found. Thus, in the first beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount, in which the simple designation poor occurs, in the Gospel of Luke, “Blessed are ye poor:” this has its fuller explanation in St. Matthew’s Gospel, where we read, “Blessed are the poor in spirit:”—plainly indicating that, if literal poverty is not excluded, respect is mainly had to the spiritual frame. In like manner the passage in the same sermon, respecting bringing a gift to the altar, in so far as regards its bearing on the Christian Church, has its meaning clearly determined by the Epistle to the Hebrews, and other parts of the New Testament, which declare earthly altars, and the offerings proper to them, to have no longer any place in the Church of God. And the word of Jesus, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again,” though spoken with apparent literality, was afterwards found, when the progress of events and the illumination of the Spirit laid open its meaning, to have had a figurative import. It referred, not to the building usually designated the temple, but to the Lord’s body, although this also was in reality a temple, which is but another name for the dwelling-place of Deity; nay, was such in a sense more strictly appropriate than could be affirmed of the other. Now, if we apply these simple and just principles of interpretation to the passage in Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:13,) we can have no difficulty in ascertaining the result that ought to be arrived at. The declaration there made is, that “the day,” viz., of coming trial, “shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is.” What is the nature of the work to be tried? That is naturally our first question. Is it of a moral, or simply of an external and earthly kind? The only work spoken of in the context is that which concerns the foundation and progress of Christ’s Church, and man’s relation to it—work, therefore, in a strictly moral sense; and so, by our first principle, the fire that is to try it must be moral too. For how incongruous were it to couple a corporeal fire with a spiritual service, as the means of determining its real character? And if in accordance with our last principle, we have recourse to other passages, which speak of the day of future trial and final decision, we find statements, indeed, to the effect that the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, or, as it again is, in the clouds of heaven; but as to what shall really fix the character and the award of each man’s work in the Lord, we are left in no room to doubt that it shall be His own searching judgment:—this it is that shall bring all clearly to light, and give to every one according to his desert. The result, therefore, is obvious; the fire spoken of, and spoken of simply in respect to its property as an instrument of trial, must be understood tropically of what, in spiritual things, has the like property. Let us also try, in the same way, what our Lord says about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The Romanists contend that the expressions must be taken literally, even as recorded in John 6:53, long before the sacrament of the Supper was instituted. Ernesti, who was a Lutheran, admits it must be understood tropically there; but he maintains that the words at the institution of the Supper must be taken literally. When treating of the interpretation of tropical language, in his Institutes of Biblical Interpretation, he states that, as at Matthew 28:19, in the formula of baptism, the word baptize is to be taken literally, so the words at the institution of the Supper, about eating and drinking must be taken literally. And he refers to what he regards as a kind of parallel passage, Hebrews 9:20, where the words of Moses are quoted, “This is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you,” and draws the conclusion that, as in this case the blood of the covenant must be literally understood, so our Lord must have meant His blood to be understood in the same manner. Nor could this expression, he adds, convey any other than its proper sense to the minds of the disciples, who were accustomed to take up our Lord’s declarations in their proper or literal sense. No doubt they were accustomed to do this; greatly too much accustomed: it was their failing and their error to be so. Hence our Lord had once and again to complain of their inaptitude to perceive the real import of His words; and specially in regard to this very form of expression, when, on one occasion, He spoke of having Himself bread to eat that others knew not of, and on another, cautioned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees; so far was He from justifying them for understanding His words literally (as He discovered they did,) that He reproved them on that very account for their dulness of apprehension. If Ernesti’s reasoning were sound, and the use he makes of the words of Moses in Hebrews were valid, the natural conclusion would be, not only that the corporeal presence of Christ in the Supper should be maintained, but also that the whole legal economy should remain in force—the altar of sacrifice, with the blood of slain victims, the distinction of Jew and Gentile, the continued teaching of the scribes in Moses seat, etc.: for these are all distinctly mentioned by Christ, and, in all probability, were at first understood in the most literal sense by the disciples. We must plainly have other rules for our direction in such a case. It is surely one thing to say, that Christ literally ratified the covenant with His own blood, and a very different thing, that bread and wine became His blood, and as such were to be eaten and drunk, at a feast instituted in commemoration of His act in ratifying the covenant. Indeed, it is only by a sort of figure that we can speak even of the covenant being ratified by His blood—a figure derived from the ancient sacrifices; for, in reality, it was the simple death of Christ, the free surrender of His soul through the pains of dissolution to the Father, which, in His case, established the covenant; and would equally have done so, though not a drop of blood had been outwardly shed. There is a failure, therefore, as to formal resemblance at the very outset, in the actions that are brought into comparison. And when we come to the participation spoken of, there is no resemblance whatever. Even Augustine, with all his leanings toward ritualism, and his mystic notions on the virtue of the Sacraments, saw that the literal in its strict sense could not stand. On the passage in St. John’s Gospel, about eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, he says, “It appears to order a wicked and abominable action; it is, therefore, a figure, teaching that we must communicate with our Lord’s passion, and have it sweetly and profitably laid up in our memory, that His flesh was crucified and wounded for us (præcipiens passioni dominicæ communicandum, et suaviter atque utiliter recondendum in memoria quod pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit. (De Doc. Christiana, 3:10.))” Whether we look to this passage, or to the words, “This is My body broken for you,” and “This cup is the New Covenant in My blood, shed for the remission of sins, drink ye of it,” the literal interpretation violates every one of the three leading principles, which we have laid down as applicable to such cases. It is against the first principle; for what our Lord was speaking of in the one passage, and the privilege He was establishing in the other, was a joint participation with Himself as the Redeemer of men. But this is a thing in its very nature spiritual; and a carnal amalgamation with His bodily parts—were such a thing possible—could be of no benefit: in that respect, as our Lord Himself testified, “The flesh profiteth nothing.” Not oneness of outward standing or corporeal substance, but unity of soul, identity of spiritual life—this is what alone avails in such a matter. Then, the literal interpretation is against our second principle of interpretation, inasmuch as it ascribes an action to Christians, nay imposes as the highest and most sacred duty an action, which is abhorrent to the common instincts of humanity—an action which has no parallel in real life, except among the lowest types of human nature—the most untutored savages. These alone among mankind are known, and even these only in extreme cases, to eat human flesh and drink human blood; and it is utterly inconceivable, that the most solemn rite of Christianity should have been designed to be formally the same with the most unnatural and savage practice which exists in the world. And, finally, the parallel passages may also be said to be against it; for though from the singularity of the case, as to the Sacrament of the Supper, we cannot appeal to any passages absolutely parallel, yet passages substantially parallel are not wanting—passages in which Christ is represented as identifying Himself with an external object, much as He does with the bread and wine in the Sacrament:—Such as, “I am the door,” “I am the vine,” “The Church which is His body,” “And that Rock was Christ.” We have also passages, in which the bread of this ordinance, after consecration, the bread as actually partaken by the communicants, is still designated bread, and not flesh; as when the apostle says, in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For, we being many are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread”—from which one might as well argue, that believers are turned into bread, as from the words in Matthew, that the bread is turned into flesh. And in Acts, Acts 2:42, Acts 20:7, Acts 20:11, we have the expression, “breaking of bread,” used as a common phrase to denote the celebration of the Supper, manifestly implying, that the participation of bread, and not what could be termed flesh, constituted the formal act in this part of the Communion. We say nothing of the doctrinal positions based upon the literal sense, but contemplate the matter in a simply exegetical point of view. Apart altogether from the doctrinal consequences and results, the close and comparative examination of the words leads to the adoption of the tropical, in contra distinction to the literal import. II. We turn now to what forms naturally the second subject of consideration in this branch of inquiry, viz., the proper mode of treating the tropical or figurative portions of Scripture. This necessarily varies to a considerable extent, as does also the use of figure in Scripture:—so that uniform rules, applicable to all cases of figurative language, cannot possibly be given. The field must be surveyed in successive portions. 1. In the first place, there are in Scripture, as in other compositions, words and phrases, which are really used in a figurative manner, but in which the figurative has become so common, that it has ceased to be regarded as figurative. Examples of this in ordinary language are not far to seek. Expression, for example, which in its original sense means a squeezing out, but is now almost invariably appropriated to the specific act of pressure outwards, which takes place in speech, when the thought conceived in the mind is put forth into intelligible words—ardour, which is primarily burning or heat, but by usage has come to be confined to states of mind—reflect, ruminate, and many others of which what was once the tropical, has now come to be the ordinary usage. Examples of the same description are found in Scripture, in such words as edify (“edify one another in love,”) train-up (originally draw-up, but now usually educate, instruct, rear,) synagogue, church: in all which the secondary or tropical meaning is the current one; and if occasionally a reference may with advantage be made to the primary sense, generally it is best to treat them as no longer tropical, but to regard the common acceptation as the only one that has any particular claim for notice. 2. A second point to be noted is, that there is often a complex tropical meaning in the words and phrases of Scripture (as of language generally)—one tropical meaning, by some addition or subtraction in respect to the principal idea, giving rise to another, and that, perhaps, still to another. So that there is sometimes trope upon trope; and it is of importance, not only to have a general acquaintance with the whole, so as to be able the more readily to choose the proper one for the occasion, but also to understand something of their successive growth—to be able to trace, in a manner, their genealogy, so as fitly and intelligently to connect one with another. This can now, for the most part, be done with comparative ease, and usually requires nothing more than the careful use of the grammar and the dictionary; for of late years the progress of philological study has been such as to determine pretty accurately almost all the primary and derived meanings of the words in New Testament Scripture, with their relative order and gradation. As an example of the accumulation of tropes in the meaning of some words, we may refer to Revelation 3:12, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God,” in which not the nearer, but a more remote tropical meaning is given to pillar. The literal is that of a strong support to a material building; whence comes the more immediate tropical meaning, of some kind of like support in the sphere of moral and spiritual things; but a further tropical meaning also arises, suggested by the thought of pillars being usually the strongest and most securely fixed parts of the building—the meaning of a stable and abiding position. This is the idea intended to be conveyed in the passage referred to; and hence it is added, as what naturally arises from the subject of the promise having the position of a pillar assigned him, that “he shall go no more out”—his place in the region of bliss and glory shall be one of eternal continuance.—We may point for another example to Matthew 23:14, where our Lord says to the Scribes and Pharisees, “Ye devour widows houses”—τὰς οἰκας τῶν χηρῶν, evidently meaning the goods or substance of those widows. The first transition from the natural to the figurative import consists in taking house, by metonymy, for family—what contains for the principal objects contained in it—and then, by a further limitation, putting the means of support, belonging to the house or family, for this itself—on the implied ground, that the one as to substantial existence is identified with the other, and that he who lays his hand on the means of sustenance to a house virtually lays his hand on the house itself. This second trope, therefore, growing out of the first, is quite natural; and we can easily see, how much, by the throwing together of the several things which make up this last idea, the language of our Lord gains in strength and vivacity. It leads us to think, not merely of the avaricious and fraudulent appropriation of some earthly goods, but of the result also flowing from such conduct the actual absorption of a whole house, in order to gratify a base and selfish appetite. 3. As a third direction for the proper explanation and management of the tropical language of Scripture—and indeed, the principal one—we mention this, that care should be taken to give a fair and natural, as opposed to a far-fetched or fanciful turn to the figure employed. We do so, on the ground, that figurative language is essentially of a popular caste, and is founded on those broader and more obvious resemblances, which do not need to be searched for, but are easily recognised and generally perceived. When the apostle, for example, says, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” the reference plainly is, to the time that should be set to the continued indulgence of angry feelings: if these should arise in your bosom, let them not be harboured, let them at least expire ere the day closes, on which they have arisen. But see how oddly, and we may say fantastically, Thomas Fuller draws out the figure, “St. Paul saith, ‘Let not the sun go down on your wrath,’ to carry news to the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful nature. Yet— he adds, as if in tending to give a more simple view of the matter, “let us take the apostle’s meaning rather than his words, with all possible speed to depose our passion; not understanding him so literally, that we may take leave to be angry till sunset; then might our wrath lengthen with the days, and men in Green land, where day lasts above a quarter of a year, have plentiful scope of revenge.” It is evident on a moment’s consideration, that such turns given to the image are quite fanciful: they could not have been in the apostle’s mind, nor would they readily suggest themselves to an ordinary reader of the epistle; and they serve rather to amuse, or to divert attention from the right point, than guide it into the proper channel. Even writers much less fanciful than Fuller, and who have their imaginations more under control, often err in this direction. Thus Leighton, in his first sermon on Isaiah 60:1—as a whole an admirable discourse—when referring to Song of Solomon 6:10, where it is said of the spouse, “She is fair as the moon and clear as the sun,” thus explains, “The lesser light is that of sanctification, fair as the moon; that of justification the greater, by which she is clear as the sun. The sun is perfectly luminous, but the moon is only half enlightened; so the believer is perfectly justified, but sanctified only in part; his one-half, his flesh, is dark; and as the partial illumination is the reason of so many changes in the moon, to which changes the sun is not subject at all, so the imperfection of a Christian’s holiness, is the cause of so many waxings and wanings, and of the great inequality of his performances, whereas in the mean while his justification remains constantly like itself.” Doctrinally, indeed, this is perfectly correct; but it is certainly not in the passage, on which it is founded. The reference there to the two objects in nature, sun and moon, is merely to these as they strike the eye of a spectator—therefore, to the intense brightness of the one, and to the milder radiance of the other. And the Church is compared to the two luminaries of nature, only for the purpose of exhibiting under two similar, though slightly diversified aspects, the imposing and attractive appearance, which would belong to her, if she were in her normal condition of light and purity. Take still another example. In Matthew 10:16, our Lord exhorts His disciples, since they were to go forth like sheep in the midst of wolves, to be “wise as serpents”—on which Augustine remarks, by way of explanation, “It is known respecting the serpent, that it presents to those striking it, instead of the head, the whole body; and this shows, in connexion with our Lord’s word, that we should offer to those persecuting us our body, rather than our head, which is Christ, lest the Christian faith should be, as it were, slain in us, if by sparing our body we should disown God.” “Or, again”—taking another view of the matter—“since it is known, that the serpent, when compressed by the straitness of its den, casts off its old skin, and thereby, it is said, receives new strength, it admonishes us to imitate that same cunning of the serpent, and put off the old man, as the apostle says, that we may put on the new, and put it off through straits, entering (as the Lord says) through the strait gate.” (De Doc. Christiana, ii. 16.) I need scarcely say, that these points in the natural history of the serpent (if they were real) would serve little to illustrate our Lord’s maxim, in the connexion, in which it is introduced; since, plainly, the wisdom He recommends, and finds imaged in the serpent, is wisdom, not to enter into a Christian state, nor to brave persecution and death, when entered, rather than betray the cause of Christ, but to guide one’s self discreetly and prudently in the midst of danger, so as if possible, to escape the evil threatened by it. Indeed, there is scarcely any thing known in the natural history of the serpent-brood, which can be of service in illustrating the comparison; for in their existing condition serpents are not remarkable for wisdom, in the respect now r mentioned, and possess lower instincts and sagacity than many other irrational creatures. Yet there can be no doubt, that in ancient times the serpent was very commonly taken as a symbol of wisdom, was even extensively worshipped as having something Divine about it. But this most probably sprung out of the tradition respecting its primeval state, as the wisest among the beasts of the field, and the part it was in consequence employed by the arch-deceiver to play in the fall of man. Scripturally, and traditionally, the serpent was peculiarly associated with the attribute of wisdom—and it is best to regard our Lord as simply founding on this historical belief, and the deeply significant facts connected with it. The danger of erring in the manner now referred to is not, perhaps, so great in our day, as it was in former times, when general literature abounded with laboured ingenuities and fanciful conceits. We live in an age, which gives more play to the unsophisticated feelings and instincts of nature, and which is less disposed to seek for remote and curious analogies. But when in public discourses a passage is selected, which contains a similitude, there always is some danger of pressing this, in some respects, too far, so as to make it the cover of a more varied or lengthened instruction than it naturally suggests.The best way to avoid this, is to cultivate simplicity of thought and style, and to rest in the conviction, which experience will amply justify, that two or three points, well chosen and vigorously handled, will make both a happier and a more lasting impression, than double the number, if not properly grounded in the text, or really germane to the subject. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 01.10. THE PARABLES OF CHRIST, THEIR PROPER INTERPRETATION AND TREATMENT. ======================================================================== Section Ninth. The Parables Of Christ, Their Proper Interpretation And Treatment. WE have considered as yet only the commoner and briefer forms of figurative language in the New Testament writings—those which consist of single expressions, or admit of being compressed into one sentence. But a very considerable and important part of our Lord’s discourses exhibits the use of figurative representations of a much more extended and diversified kind. We refer to the parables, which, both on account of their intrinsic importance, and the peculiarities connected with such a mode of instruction, demand a separate treatment. It is marked by the Evangelists as a sort of era in our Lord’s ministry, when He began to teach in parables. Each of the Synoptic Evangelists takes notice of it, and connects it with specific reasons. The period itself is not very definitely indicated; but it must have fallen, if not actually within the last year of His ministry, at least not far from its commencement; and if not absolutely the whole, certainly by much the greater number of His parables must be ascribed to the last year. At the same time, the formal employment of parabolic teaching was not the introduction of something entirely new. Christ’s manner of teaching from the outset partook largely of figure; and some even of His earlier recorded utterances were parables of a shorter kind; for, while conveying a spiritual lesson, they bore a distinct and intelligible meaning also in the natural sense. Of this description are some parts of the Sermon on the Mount; for example, Matthew 5:25, “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.” Here human and earthly relations alone are directly mentioned, though it is plain, from the connexion in which they stand, and the whole tenor of the discourse, that they are employed merely as the cover of a higher instruction. Not materially different are other things in the same discourse, and especially the concluding verses, in which the two classes of hearers—the fruitful and fruitless—are represented under the similitude of two builders, the one of whom erected his house on the sand, and the other on the solid rock. And in the interval between the delivery of the sermon on the Mount, and the commencement of the more regular system of parabolic instruction, we find on record a few instances of similitude, which are always ranked with the parables—those, namely, of the old garment and the new patch, of the new wine and the old bottles (Matthew 9:16-17,) and of the creditor and the two debtors in the house of Simon (Luke 7:41-42.) So that the parabolic mode of instruction, to a certain extent, pervaded the ministry of Jesus; it was not altogether limited to any one period; only, at a particular stage, somewhere between the middle and the close, He commenced a more regular, frequent, and systematic use of the parabolic style. And to this later period it is, that the parables distinctively so called, belong. I. In regard, first of all, to the reasons which may have led our Lord to adopt this mode of instruction, and to resort to it more especially in the concluding stages of His ministerial career, a variety of considerations may be named as having each had a certain share in the result. 1. In the first place, a foundation is laid for it in the nature of things, “in the harmony that exists, and that is unconsciously felt by all men between the natural and spiritual worlds, so that analogies from the first are felt to be something more than illustrations, happily, but not arbitrarily chosen.” (Trench on the Parables, p. 13.) Something more—because they are the signs and witnesses of that happy adjustment, which God has established between the external and internal worlds, between matter and mind, time and eternity; according to which the things that are seen are in many respects the image of those which are not seen, and nature-processes are at once designed and fitted to be emblems of the operations of grace. In saying this, we do not need with some, among others with Dr. Trench, to go to the extreme of holding, that everything in nature has been pre-ordained expressly to shadow forth and represent Divine mysteries;—to hold, for example, that “all the circumstances of our natural birth had been pre-ordained to bear the burden of the great mystery of our spiritual birth,” or that the title of King, as applied to Christ, is not taken from the kings of the earth, but “rather that He has lent His title to them.” We designate this an extreme, because it is an inverting of the natural order of things as they present themselves to our minds, and is also at variance with the whole current of Scriptural representation on the subject. There the natural ever precedes the spiritual, and the supernatural bases itself on the natural; so that creation does not anticipate redemption, but redemption pre-supposes creation pre-supposes it as in itself good and right; and, in like manner, regeneration presupposes generation, and elevates it to a higher sphere. All we have to affirm and hold is, that the author of the spiritual kingdom (as Tholuck, on John 15, has very correctly and fitly expressed it) “is also the author of the natural kingdom, and both kingdoms develop themselves after the same laws. For this reason, the similitudes which the Redeemer drew from the kingdom of nature, are not mere similitudes, which serve the purpose of illustration, but are internal analogies; and nature is a witness for the kingdom of God. Hence was it long since announced as a principle, that whatever exists in the earthly, is found also in the heavenly kingdom. Were it not so, those similitudes would not possess that power of conviction, which they carry to every unsophisticated mind.” On this ground alone, then, we have a valid ground for the employment by our Lord of the parabolic method of instruction. He thereby drew the attention of His followers in every age to the profound and intimate connexion that subsists between the realms of nature and of grace, and taught them to look through the one to the other. It was the more important that He should do this, as the kingdom He came to introduce stood in so many respects opposed to the world as it existed in His time, through the false views, grovelling superstitions, and horrid crimes under which it groaned. It had become, so to speak, a worn-out world,—corrupt nature had spent apparently its last efforts on it in vain; and it seemed as if there was little more to be learned from it, or to be done for it. But our Lord, while mainly intent upon unfolding new views of the mind and purposes of Heaven, at the same time directed a new look into the secrets and principles of nature. By means especially of His inimitable parables, He showed, that when nature was consulted aright, it spoke one language with the Spirit of God; and that the more thoroughly it is understood, the more complete and varied will be found the harmony which subsists between the principles of its constitution and those of Christ’s spiritual kingdom. 2. A second reason very naturally suggests itself for this method of instruction, in the near assimilation, into which it brings a large portion of the teaching of Jesus with the acted lessons of His life, and with sacred history in general. That so much of the revelation of God to men consists of the facts of history, especially of biographical facts connected with the lives of God’s saints, has ever been regarded by wise and thoughtful men as a striking proof of its adaptation to our natures, which so much more readily imbibe clear and lasting impressions in this way, than by set and formal instructions. And not only so, but by this means they can be taught much more in a brief compass than it is possible otherwise to impart to them. For, in a life, especially in such lives as are recorded in the Word of God, there is a great variety and fulness of instruction, admitting of a manifold applicability to the diversified fortunes and conditions of men. There is this, preeminently, in the life of Jesus, with its wondrous details of doing and suffering, and the unfathomable depths of wisdom and love, which it was ever exhibiting—alike incomparable in itself, and in the artless, engaging manner, in which it is presented to our view by the Evangelists. The parables of Jesus, from the historical element in them, and the attractive form in which it appears, possess much of the same excellence. They are based, if not on what has actually occurred in the world of realities, at least on what may have occurred there, and often in effect has done so. Ideal histories they are, yet derived as to all their leading features from the actual, and these grouped together, and portrayed with the simplicity of nature itself. They are hence, in a brief compass, copious treasures of Divine wisdom, from which lessons, new and old, may be continually drawn. And however much we may strive to exhibit the several aspects of the Divine kingdom, we shall still find, that we can present nothing under any of them so complete, as is contained in some one of the parables, which is devoted to its illustration. 3. A third reason for our Lord’s teaching in parables may be found in the opportunity it afforded of presenting more truth to the minds of His disciples than, from their continued dulness and carnality of spirit, could otherwise have been communicated to them. Steeped in prejudice, and, even when holding the truth in substance, mingling with it such partial, or mistaken apprehensions, they could with difficulty be got to receive with intelligence some of Christ’s plainest revelations; and, at last, He was obliged to stay His hand in respect to the more direct and open communications of his mind, as He found the disciples were not able to bear, or to profit by it. But, by teaching in parables, and presenting the concerns of His kingdom under the image of familiar objects and earthly relations, He laid the ground-work of a most comprehensive and varied instruction. Many aspects of the kingdom were thus unfolded to them in a form they could easily grasp and distinctly comprehend—though, for the time, all remained, like the symbols of the Old Testament worship, very much as a dark and unintelligible cipher to their view. That cipher, however, became lighted up with meaning when the personal work of Christ was finished, and the Spirit descended with power to make application of its blessings, and the minds of the disciples were enabled to grasp the higher as well as the lower scheme of doctrine exhibited in the representation. Through the earthly form they could now descry the spiritual reality; and the advantage they derived from the types, when rightly understood, they also derived, and in a still higher degree, from the parables. 4. Once more, another reason, and, indeed, the one that is most distinctly announced in the Gospels, for our Lord teaching so much in the latter part of His ministry in parable, was the judicial treatment involved in it—the practical rebuke it administered to the people generally, on account of their failure to receive the truth when presented in its simple and more direct form. After the parable of the sower and some others had been delivered, the disciples asked Jesus, “Why speakest Thou to them in parables?” And the answer pointed chiefly to the measure of darkness connected with them: “Unto you it is given (said He) to know the mysteries of the kingdom: but to them it is not given; for whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. Therefore”—He added, with reference to the people, who belonged to the latter class, the persons who had not, as the disciples did to the former—“Therefore speak I to them in parables; because they seeing, see not; hearing, they hear not, neither understand.” The import of the statement is, that the disciples, having to a certain extent used the privilege they possessed having improved the talents committed to them were to be intrusted with more; while the body of the people, having failed to make a similar use of their opportunities—remaining destitute of Divine knowledge, notwithstanding all that had been taught them—were to have their means of knowing abridged, were to be placed under a more indirect and veiled method of instruction. This mode of dealing was in perfect accordance with the whole nature and tendency of the work of Christ in its relation to the hearts of men,—which always carried along with it two ends, the one displaying the severity, and the other the goodness of God. From the first He was “set for the fall,” as well as “the rising again,” of many in Israel—for the enlightenment and salvation first, but, if that failed, then for the growing hardness and aggravated guilt of the people. In the parable, viewed as a mode of instruction, there was necessarily a veiling of the truth for such as neither sought, nor obtained through private explanations, the key to its spiritual bearing. And in that veiling there was an act of judgment for previous indifference and contrariety to the manifestation of the truth. Because the people had not received it in love, when more openly presented to them, it now became wrapt in an obscurer guise, and was placed at a greater distance from their view. Even this, had it been rightly viewed, would have wrought beneficially upon their minds. For, had they not wilfully blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, they would have seen in such a darkening of the Divine counsel something fitted to rouse and startle them; it would have fallen on their ear as the warning-note of coming retribution; and, perceiving that the Lord was showing Himself froward to the froward, they would have fled to the arms of mercy before severer judgment overtook them. This, undoubtedly, was what our Lord designed as the effect that should have been produced upon them by the change He adopted in His manner of teaching. And in certain cases it may have done so; but, with the greater part, the evil only proceeded from one stage to another, and, before leaving for the last time the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, and His discourses delivered, He uttered against them those memorable woes which announced their approaching doom. Such appear to have been the chief considerations which induced our Lord in the later period of His ministry, to use so commonly the parabolic mode of instruction. It is not so properly an additional reason, as a particular mode of representing those that have been specified, when the Evangelist Matthew says of Christ’s speaking to the people in parables, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.” What is here regarded as a prophecy, is a somewhat general declaration respecting the form of utterances common to the more special messengers of Heaven. With certain characteristic differences, there still was something proper to them all in this respect, more particularly in those communications which had a prospective reference to the kingdom of God; there was a certain amount of figurative and analogical discourse required to their fulfilling aright their prophetic office. And it was unavoidable, that the greatest messenger and prophet of all should also exhibit this mark of the prophetic calling. It behooved to appear in some form; but the specific form it actually assumed in his hands was determined by the several considerations already mentioned. So that the allusion of the Evangelist to the passage in the forty-ninth Psalm, does not indicate anything new or different upon the subject, but is comprehensive of all the considerations, which actually weighed with our Lord, and induced Him to adopt the parabolic style. II. We proceed now to the second leading point of inquiry respecting the parables of Jesus, viz., the proper mode of interpreting and handling them. We are not left here entirely to our own resources; for, on two occasions, very near each other, the disciples asked our Lord for an explanation of the parables He had delivered, and we have, in consequence, His interpretation of two of them. We are, doubtless, entitled to regard these examples of Divine exposition as specimens of the kind of exposition generally, that should be employed upon the parables, and the main features in them should be steadily kept in view by all interpreters. 1. The first thing, however, that requires to be attended to is one not noticed in our Lord’s explanations, but taken for granted there as perfectly understood, viz. the correct reading of the parabolical representation itself, which forms the ground and cover of the spiritual instruction. We must obtain a clear understanding, and be able to give an accurate exposition of the meaning of the words, and the natural or historical allusions which they may contain. And the image or delineation, as a whole, in its merely natural aspect and relations, should be set forth in its proper fulness and simplicity, preparatory to our drawing from it the instruction it is fitted to convey. For the most part, this is not difficult—if only a moderate amount of scholarship is possessed, and such a cast of mind as is capable of taking up a fair impression, and giving forth a distinct representation of what is narrated:—not difficult, because usually the language in these portions of Scripture is remarkable for simplicity, and the parabolic narratives relate to the more familiar objects in nature and history. In a few cases only is some difficulty experienced. As an example of one in the language, we may point to the parable of the wheat and the tares as it is commonly termed. The difficulty lies here in determining exactly what is meant by ζιζάνια, the seed which the enemy scattered among the wheat, and which, it appears, did not attract any notice or excite any uneasiness, till the full blade had been put forth, and the ear had been formed. The tares, the ancient vicia, by which our translators have rendered the word, plainly do not altogether accord with the description; both because they are so different in form and appearance from wheat, that they should be detected the moment they rose above ground, and also because they are not of a noxious nature, but are grown for purposes of nourishment. Our Lord, there can be little doubt, referred to some weed with which His hearers were familiarly acquainted, and which was wont to be found in the corn-fields of Syria. The term zizania is, therefore, in all probability a Syrian word; and, accordingly, it never occurs in any Greek or Latin author, except in the writings of the Fathers, where they refer to this parable. They explained it differently, and if we except Jerome, none of them quite correctly. But there is a plant, which the Rabbins call zunim, and the Arabs of the present day zulzan (neither of them very far from the zizania of Scripture,) which abounds in the corn-fields of Syria—a plant, which is at first very like wheat in appearance, which belongs to the same family, and which, when analyzed, contains nearly the same ingredients, yet so different in its effects upon the human frame, that when the seeds remain mixed with the wheat, the flour thus produced always occasions dizziness and other injurious effects. There can be little doubt, that this is really the plant referred to. The only question (but one that can scarcely be said to affect the exposition of the parable) is, whether it is a distinct plant, or a sort of degenerate wheat—afterwheat as it is sometimes called. The Rabbinical doctors held it to be the latter: they said, as quoted by Lightfoot, “Wheat and zunim are not seeds of different kinds,” but “zunim is a kind of wheat, which is changed in the earth, both as to its form and as to its nature.” The ancient scholiast, too, writes on Virgil’s infelix lolium, “Triticum et hordeum in lolium mutantur.” This, certainly, maybe reckoned doubtful; for the Rabbis and scholiasts were no great naturalists; and it is more common now to regard the zizanion as a separate plant, the bearded darnel, lolium temulentum, of naturalists. At all events, this plant, and not our tares, is what must be understood by the term in the parable—although it would be unwise now to substitute the one term for the other in our Bibles. In the figurative representation of the parable, apart from the language in which it is expressed, there is seldom any difficulty. Only, it is necessary to exercise caution, so as not to extend the representation too far—carry it beyond the bounds within which it was intended to move. Thus, in the parable of the unjust steward, who is set up as a representative in the worldly sphere, of a selfish and carnal wisdom, choosing skilfully its means for the accomplishment of a desired end, we must take care to confine it to that one point, and abstain from giving it a more general direction. There is a higher wisdom even in the world than what is there exhibited, a wisdom that extends to the choice of a proper end, as well as to the employment of proper means:—but this is not brought into view in the representation of the parable. 2. The next thing to be attended to in the interpretation of the parables, is the main theme or leading idea, which they are severally intended to illustrate. For, there always is what may be so characterized—some special aspect of the Divine kingdom, or some particular line of duty to be followed, or of danger to be shunned, which the parable aims at exhibiting, and to which all its imagery is subservient. This, as Lisco has justly observed, “is the centre and kernel of the parable, and till it has been discovered and accurately determined, we need not occupy ourselves with the individual parts; since these can only be seen in their true light, when contemplated from the proper centre. We may compare,” he adds, “the whole parabolical representation to a circle, the centre of which is the Divine truth or doctrine, and the radii are the several figurative traits in the narrative. So long as we do not stand in the centre, neither does the circle appear in an entirely round form, nor do the radii seem in their proper order, as all tending to the centre, and in beautiful uniformity:—this is done, when the eye surveys every thing from the centre. So is it precisely in the parable. If we have brought clearly and distinctly out its central point, its principal idea, then also the relative position and right meaning of its several parts become manifest, and we shall only dwell upon these in so far as the main theme can thereby be rendered more distinct.” In order to arrive correctly at this main theme, beside an exact and careful examination of the parable itself, the chief help is to be sought in the connexion; and if this is closely considered, and the light it furnishes applied to the illustration of the subject, we shall rarely, if ever, be left in doubt as to the principal idea or doctrine which it was designed to unfold. A few of the earlier parables, all those recorded in the 13th ch. of Matthew, and which were delivered about the same time, having been uttered one after another, without any thing intervening between them in speech or action, can consequently derive no benefit from the immediate context. But with that exception, all the parables in the Synoptic evangelists are connected with occasions of an historical kind, very often also are preceded by a direct address; and then the principle couched in the address, or which the historical occasion served to bring out, is resumed, and for all times thrown into the form of an attractive and striking parable. Possibly, the parable may carry the instruction somewhat farther than was done by what immediately preceded, but it will be found to be only in the same line. Thus the beautiful and impressive parable of the rich fool, recorded in the 12th ch. of Luke, was occasioned by a person rudely interrupting Jesus, and requesting his interference with that person’s brother, in order to obtain a division of the inheritance. Our Lord first repelled the intrusion by asking, “Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you?” and then delivered to His followers the appropriate counsel, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” Now, the parable that follows is simply an embodiment of this great lesson, which is thrown into the parabolic form, to clothe it with life-like freshness, and give it a more impressive and touching influence on the heart. In like manner, the three parables in Luke 15:1-32—those of the lost sheep, the lost piece of money, and the prodigal son all took their rise in the taunt thrown out by the Pharisees against Christ, that He received sinners and ate with them; and they each unfold, under so many different, yet closely related aspects, the grounds of the procedure, out of which the taunt originated; they explain and justify, on the common principles and feelings of humanity, the merciful and considerate treatment, which the adversaries vilified. These examples are comparatively simple; but there are others, in which the proper result is not so easily arrived at. It is, however, to be sought in the same way; the connexion, when closely surveyed, will generally be found the best help to ascertain the principal idea in the parable. In the case which, probably, presents the greatest difficulty in this respect—that of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, Matthew 21:1-46—we shall not search in vain if we look in the direction now indicated. By referring to the close of Matthew 20:1-34, we find the parable was delivered for the purpose of embodying and illustrating a great principle, which Peter’s self-complacent exhibition of the sacrifices he and the other apostles had made for Christ’s sake, had elicited from the Saviour, “that many who were first should be last, and the last first.” The main theme of the parable, which is summed up with the reiteration, in a somewhat stronger form, of this practical saying, is comprised in the twofold truth therein contained. It teaches that the one class, the outwardly first, represented by the early called labourers, were unfit for the kingdom, because of the sense of merit, grounded on their early and long-continued services, rendering them indisposed to the simple reception of the gifts of grace, on which the Divine kingdom is founded. The other class, the outwardly last, represented by those who went into the vineyard at the eleventh hour, and who had nothing almost of their own on which to ground any claim to blessing—these, the parable teaches, are the proper subjects of the kingdom, having that deep spirit of humility, which disposes them to receive without a murmur whatever the Divine householder might give. It is needless to multiply examples further. But it will be perceived, from what has been already stated, that the parable should be viewed in each case as one whole. If it is pervaded by some great idea, or specific lesson, it should be viewed and treated with a reference to this; and it cannot but suffer if it is broken up into a variety of separate parts, and each handled independently of the others. At the same time, individual traits may, on certain occasions, be selected as the basis of a discourse, if only care is taken to exhibit the connexion in which it stands with the unity of the entire representation, and a view is given of it properly consistent with the place belonging to it in that connexion. 3. There is still another point, which requires consideration in the treatment of parables, but on which it is scarcely possible to lay down a very explicit direction. We refer to the regard that should be paid to the individual traits—how far they should, or should not, be looked upon as having a separate significance. It is here more especially that our Lord’s interpretation of the two parables formerly noticed is fitted to yield an important service. From this we see, that every specific feature in the earthly type has its correspondence in the higher line of things it represents. Nothing, on the one hand, appears merely for ornament; while, on the other, nothing is wiredrawn, or made to bear a meaning that seems too much for it. It may, doubtless, be regarded as one of the indications of comparative perfection belonging to the parables of our Lord, that they admit of such a close and particular application; for the more numerous the points of agreement in such a case, the more perfect must be deemed the form of the discourse. In connexion with this, however, the distinctive nature of the parable should be borne in mind, which is not fitted for unfolding the particular facts or the more specific doctrines of the kingdom of Christ, as its more fundamental laws and broader features. In their nature, parables are a species of allegory, or symbol; and whatever variety or depth of meaning this is capable of embodying, it still must relate more to the great lines of truth and duty, than to the minuter details of either. If we should, therefore, go to the interpretation of them in a spirit of partisanship, eager to find support for some particular dogma we may be anxious to uphold, the result is sure to be an unnatural wresting of certain portions of the parable. And in all ages such has too frequently been the case in the treatment that has been given to this species of discourse. In early times we find many indications of it. For example, the Manicheans sought support for their independent principle of evil, the essentially divine and creative power of the wicked one, in the representation given in the parable of the tares, respecting the sowing of the bad seed in the field—as if the existence of the bad were something altogether new, and not rather the depravation of what existed before. It is not, as Augustine contended, and many others of later times, that something is brought into being apart from the creation of God, or accomplishing what God alone could effect. The zizania were of God, as well as the wheat, only in the wrong place, and in that place a depravation—a travestying of the proper order and harmony of God’s productions—an evil, as every work of Satan is. Nor can we regard it as any thing but another, and, in principle, similar misinterpretation of the same parable, when many in modern times find in the sowing of the zizania, and the refusal of the householder to have them plucked up, an argument for the utter relaxation of discipline in the Christian Church. They thus place it in antagonism to the instruction contained in other portions of the New Testament; for example, the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia, and the First Epistle to the Corinthians, in which the strictest charges are given to maintain a watchful discipline, and the severest rebukes and threatenings are uttered on account of its neglect. The proper application of that part of the parable has respect only to such admixtures as spring up unperceived those which the most vigilant oversight cannot prevent, or which, when they appear, are not so flagrantly offensive to Christian sense and purity, that they may at once be proceeded against as utterly opposed to the character of a Christian Church. It is only of such things that the representation can justly be understood, as of them only could it be said, that the judicial treatment of them by human instrumentality might involve the exclusion also of some of the true children from the state and privileges of grace. Comparing this parable with that of the sower, what is said in the one of the tares, nearly corresponds to what is said in the other of the third class of hearers—those in whom the cares of this life, and the deceitfulness of riches, spring up and choke the word. Both alike seem to include such as might be within the pale of the Christian Church, though becoming by degrees alien to it in spirit and character, yet still preserving so much of the form of godliness, that no merely human eye has sufficient discernment to draw the line of demarkation between them and others, nor could any human hand administer the proper discipline, without sometimes, at least, confounding together the children of God and the children of Satan. A misuse, similar to those already noticed, has also frequently been made of the representation given in the parable of the prodigal son, of the reception which that son met with on his return to the father. No mention is there made of any thing being necessary to secure the father’s reconciliation, or provide for the son access to the bosom of his love, excepting the son’s own penitent frame of mind, and actual return; and hence, it is argued, in the higher sphere of things represented by these, there can also be no need for more—an atonement in the ordinary sense cannot be required. But here the cases are not parallel the representation, by this use of it, is stretched beyond the proper line; since it is not as a father, but as a righteous governor, that God requires an atonement for the guilty; and to press a feature of this kind in an exclusive sense, is simply to place it in antagonism to other parts of Scripture. This parable, like all the others, was intended to represent Divine things under the image of the human, only in so far as the one could present a parallel to the other. In the case of the earthly parent and child, there was no room for the introduction of an atonement as the basis of reconciliation; the whole that could, with any propriety, be exhibited, was the play of feeling from the one side to the other, with the results to which it led—every thing of a more fundamental kind, or connected with other aspects and relations of the subject, being left, for the present, out of view. Reference may still further be made in this connexion to the treatment often given to the parables in a prophetical respect. Undoubtedly, they do generally contain a prophetical element, referring as well to the future progress and results of Messiah’s kingdom, as to its existing character and condition. But they commonly do so under some particular aspect, one parabolical representation being chosen to give prominence to one feature, that was going to be developed, and another to another. Care, therefore, should be taken to keep in view the partial nature of each representation; otherwise particular traits will have undue significance attached to them, and the instruction conveyed by one parable will be brought into conflict with that of another. Thus, the parable of the tares and wheat presents the future aspect of the kingdom as to the intermingling of the evil with the good—presents this as a state of things that should, more or less, continue to the end of time;—while the parable of the leaven hid in meal represents the Divine element in the kingdom working on till the whole was pervaded by it. They are two different aspects, but perfectly consistent, if the parts in which they differ are not unduly pressed; but if otherwise, then the apparent continuance of evil in the one case, and its gradual extinction in the other, must become, not the complements, but the antitheses of each other. The Divine leaven cannot spread onwards till all is leavened, without, at the same time, causing the tares of error and corruption to disappear. But that there shall still, till the time of the end, be a certain admixture of the evil with the good, can readily be supposed; while, on the whole, the good continues to grow and spread, and becomes ultimately triumphant. These hints, perhaps, may suffice. It is impossible, on such a subject, to lay down precise and definite rules; and the exact line in each case can only be ascertained by careful consideration, a well-exercised judgment, and a spiritual sense, derived from a living acquaintance with the truths of the gospel, and close attention to the manner in which they are revealed in Scripture. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 01.11. ON THE SUBJECT OF PARALLELISM AS BEARING ON THE STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION ... ======================================================================== Section Tenth. On The Subject Of Parallelism As Bearing On The Structure And Interpretation Of New Testament Scripture. IT seems to be the invariable tendency of the human mind—the consequence of its partial and imperfect working—that when it gets hold of a right principle, it cannot rest till this has been pushed in some direction to excess; and the subject of Scripture parallelism forms no exception to the rule. It was to the fine discernment and poetical taste of Bishop Lowth that we owe the first correct appreciation of the distinctive characteristics of Hebrew poetry, and the establishment of what he denominated parallelism, as the peculiar feature of its rhythmical structure. He showed, first in his Prelections on Hebrew Poetry, and afterwards in his Preliminary Dissertation to his work on Isaiah, that while the poetry of the He brews did not admit of rhyme, nor of the regular metrical measures we meet with in the classical poets in Greece and Rome, yet it possessed a clearly marked rhythmical structure, consisting in a certain correspondence of the lines not, however, in respect to the sound, but in respect to the sense; “a certain equality, (as he defined it,) resemblance, or relationship between the members of each period, so that in one or more lines or members of the same period things shall answer to things, and words to words, as if fitted to each other by a kind of rule or measure,” (Prelec. xix.) Lowth. gave to this rhythmical structure, as we have said, the name of parallel ism, or the parallelism of members—a name which is sufficiently indicative of the reality, and is not likely, in this country at least, to be displaced by the “verse-rhythm,” or “thought- rhythm” of Ewald. It is, however, in the thought or the sense that the rhythm properly lies. It is not simply, as Ewald justly states, a harmony of the members of the verse, but along with this, and as the foundation of this, “the rhythmical outpouring of the subject and life of the thoughts which fill the verse; and the beauty of the verse, as a whole, rises in proportion to the equilibrium and symmetry with which the sense is poured forth.” We are not called here to enter into any formal investigation of the subject of parallelism, as connected with the poetical portions of Old Testament Scripture. But it may be proper to state, that under the general principle of parallelism Bishop Lowth comprehended the different forms, which he called severally synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic or constructive parallels. The synonymous parallel lines are those which correspond one to another, by expressing the same sense in different but equivalent terms—when a proposition is delivered, and is immediately repeated in whole or in part, the expression being varied, but the sense entirely or nearly the same. As when it is said— “O-Jehovah, in-Thy-strength the-king shall-rejoice, And-in-Thy-salvation how greatly shall-he-exult! The-desire of-his-heart Thou-hast-granted unto-him, And-the-request of-his-lips Thou-hast-not-denied.” The correspondence here is confined to two lines, the second of the two having a formal resemblance both in thought and in membership to the first. But the correspondence may also extend to three, to four, or even to five lines. The antithetic parallels are those “in which two lines correspond with one another by an opposition of terms and sentiments; in which the second is contrasted with the first, sometimes in expressions, sometimes in sense only.” One of the simplest examples is Proverbs 10:7, “The memory of the just is blessed, But the name of the wicked shall rot.” Or this, Proverbs 27:6, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.” The antithesis expressed may differ both in kind and degree; and is found, indeed, to exist in very consider able variety, both in the Proverbs, where this species of parallelism particularly abounds, and in other parts of Scripture. The synthetic or constructive parallel lines are those, “in which the parallelism consists only in the similar form of construction; in which word does not answer to word, and sentence to sentence, as equivalent or opposite; but there is a correspondence and equality between the different propositions in respect of the shape or turn of the whole sentence, and of the constructive parts: such as noun answering to noun, verb to verb, number to number, negative to negative, interrogative to interrogative.” From its very nature, this species of parallel ism is of a somewhat looser, and more discursive sort than the others; but, as one of the best, and most familiar examples of it, we may point to Psalms 19:1-14, “The law of the Lord is perfect—converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure—making wise the simple,” etc. Now, looking to this parallelism, as first explained by Bishop Lowth, and applied by him to the more strictly poetical portions of Scripture, one can easily see the propriety and fitness of having the rhythmical structure of those portions confined to such a characteristic. It is the simplest of all rhythmical forms, and the freest, and, as such, peculiarly adapted to inspired strains, in which, whatever scope may be allowed to the fancy, the form must still be subordinated to the sense. The artificial and complicated measures of classical poetry would have been unsuited to such a purpose; for it would have been difficult, next to impossible, for us to regard what was written, if thrown into such forms, as the unconstrained and fresh utterances of men, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. It is the chaste and natural simplicity of parallelism which peculiarly adapts it for sacred purposes, and renders the discourse so true, hearty, and confidential. (Herder, Hebr. Poesie, i. 21.) For, when the heart pours itself forth, there naturally flows stream upon stream—which is parallelism; or it turns over the image, and shows the reverse side in order to impress the matter more deeply upon the heart—and this again is parallelism. Only a measure which possessed such freedom and simplicity could have been worthy of being employed as the poetry of revelation. And this alone, too, properly consisted with the design of the Bible, as destined for the use of men, in every nation and every language. It is the excellence of the simple rhythmical structure of Hebrew poetry, that it is “transfusible (to use the words of Bishop Jebb) into all languages—an excellence, not only unattainable in classical poetry, but prevented by classical metre. Classical poetry is the poetry of one language, and of one people. The words are, I shall not say chosen (though this be sometimes the case,) but arranged, with a view, not primarily to the sense, but to the sound. In literal translation, therefore, especially if the order of the original words be preserved, not only the melody is lost, but the sense is irreparably injured. Hebrew poetry, on the contrary, is universal poetry, the poetry of all languages and of all peoples: the collocation of the words is primarily directed to secure the best possible announcement and discrimination of the sense; and so, if a translator be only literal—if he only preserve, so far as the genius of his language will admit, the original order of the words, he will infallibly put the reader in possession of all, or nearly all, that the He brew text can give to the best Hebrew scholar of the present day.” (Sacred Literature, p. 20.) Bishop Lowth has himself—in the Introduction to his work on Isaiah—given examples of this: he has shown how, by adhering closely to the order of the original, not only may the parallelism be preserved, but a more lively and spirited exhibition also of the sense be given, than is done by neglecting it. And he has further shown, that by means of the parallelism the interpretation is sometimes aided, in those cases especially, in which rare words are employed, or words of doubtful import; the plainer meaning of one member throwing light upon the corresponding one. At the same time, the help to be derived from this source is of a somewhat ambiguous character, and is very apt to lead astray. In the hands of Lowth himself, and of some of his followers, it led to not a few arbitrary interpretations, and unwarranted tamperings with the sacred text; as a change in the received import of a word, or in the existing text, when it seemed favoured by the parallelism, presented itself as an easy mode of getting over a difficulty, while, perhaps, it only led to a departure from the true meaning of the original. As a help to interpretation, therefore, the parallelism of Hebrew poetry always requires to be used with much caution. It does so more especially on this account, that there is both a considerable diversity, and a great freedom manifested in the use of the parallel arrangement. So that what is called the synonymous parallel is not always, and indeed very rarely, altogether synonymous; with a general similarity, it usually exhibits some distinct shade of meaning; and, again, when there is something of antithesis, the sentiment expressed is often but partially antithetic. Bishop Lowth was not insensible of such freedoms and shades of diversity; for, when speaking of the second member of synonymous parallels, he represents it as containing either entirety, or nearly, the same sense as the first. And in his 4th Prelection, when treating generally of the subject of parallelism, he says not merely that they repeat, but also that they vary and strengthen the sense (idem iterant, variant, augent.) Practically, however, this was too much overlooked both by hi, and by his followers; and the custom sprung up and grew, among lexicographers and commentators, of ascribing many unwarranted meanings to words, on the simple ground, that the sense as determined by the parallelism seemed to require them. On this practice, which extended to the Greek Scriptures also, Bishop Jebb very properly cautioned Biblical students: he said, “The assumed synonyme of periods, mera- hers, or lines, has, in many instances, occasioned the consequent assumption, that in the Alexandrine translators of the Old Testament words are synonymous, which in all other writers have totally diverse meanings; and the same principle has been applied to several words and passages in the New Testament.” He adds, “Let the cited passages be carefully examined, and I venture to affirm, that instead of a synonyme, there will almost universally be found an important variation of meaning, between the related members; commonly a progress in the sense; but always such a variation as will quite supersede the necessity of resorting to an unusual, much less an unprecedented, acceptation of the terms employed.” (p. 51.) Jebb, however, fell into something like an opposite extreme; and, instead of being satisfied with showing a general variation in the meaning of one parallel line as compared with another, he sought to establish a uniform and regular progression of thought in the sentences. Hence, the parallels of the first class instead of being called synonymous, have come to be usually designated gradational—though Jebb himself preferred the term cognate. We call this an extreme in the opposite direction; for though there can be no doubt, that in a very large proportion of the parallelisms of Scripture, there is a gradational advance, an intensifying of the sense in the se cond parallelistic line as compared with that given in the first, yet in a considerable number of cases there is a substantial agreement, or a diversity without anything that can fitly be called a progression of thought. And the attempt to make out a uniform gradational sense in the parallelism has led, not unfrequently, to forced interpretations. Take, for example, one of Jebb’s illustrative passages:— “Who shall ascend the mountain of Jehovah? And who shall stand within His holy Place? The clean of hands, and the pure in heart.”—Psalms 24:3-4. “To ascend,” says Jebb, “marks progress; to stand, stability and confirmation; the mountain of Jehovah , the site of the Divine sanctuary; His holy place, the sanctuary itself; and in correspondence with the advance of the two lines which form the first couplet, there is an advance in the members of the third line: the clean of hands, and the pure in heart:—the clean of hands shall ascend the mountain of Jehovah, the pure in heart shall stand within His holy place” (p. 40.) Augustine, as Jebb acknowledges, had in substance made the same distinction; but whenever, or by whomsoever made, I hold it to be quite fanciful—at least in the form in which it has now been presented. The Psalmist is plainly describing, in this part of the Psalm, the sincere worshipper of God, and doing so in respect to his going to appear before God at the appointed place of worship under the Old economy. But nothing seems farther from his mind, than the thought of delineating different degrees of purity, and of privilege connected with it—one to occupy a certain position of nearness, and another to occupy a higher and a holier. To ascend God’s mountain, in the sense here contemplated, was all one, in substance, with standing in His holy place; for, it was for the purpose and with the view of standing in such a place, that the worshipper comes into consideration as ascending the mountain;—and the law of Moses recognised no distinction of the kind here indicated—between cleanness of hands fitting for one act of worship, or one stage of approach, and purity of heart fit ting for another. Cleanness of hands .has no other significance than as a symbol of moral purity; if it differs at all from the other expression—purity of heart—it can only be in pointing more to the life as embodying the purity, which has its seat in the heart;—but the two expressions at most denote, not different degrees of goodness, but different aspects of the same goodness. Besides, in a continuous description of this sort, how can you stop simply at the second term of the description? If there is a progression in the first two, why should it not extend also to what follows? It is added, “Who hath not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” Do these denote a gradation of excellence beyond purity of heart? Or is the one clause here also to be connected with ascending the mountain, and the other with standing in the holy place? Neither of these assertions can with any propriety be made. And on this ground also we hold, that the distinction is an entirely fanciful one; and that the description ought to be viewed in its entireness, as the description, under a variety of aspects, of one who might appear with acceptance among God’s sincere worshippers. The several epithets are not absolutely synonymous, but neither are they gradational; they are merely diverse representations of the righteous man’s state and character. It is, therefore, my conviction that the principle of parallelism has been carried to excess by Dr. Jebb, and his followers, in the way of discovering correspondences or relations of a somewhat more complicated and artificial kind, than really exist. But the chief excess has been in connexion with what is called the introverted parallelism—a fourth form introduced by Jebb—and its application to portions of the New Testament writings. On this sort of parallel, Jebb says, “There are stanzas so constructed, that whatever be the number of lines, the first lines shall be parallel with the last; the second with the penultimate; and so throughout, in an order that looks inward, or, to borrow a military phrase, from flanks to centre.” One of the longest examples given of this by Jebb is also, perhaps, the best for his purpose that could have been selected: it is in Psalms 135:15-18, and consists of eight lines, of which the first and eighth are held to be parallel—then the second and seventh—the third and sixth—and finally, the two beside each other, the fourth and fifth, in the centre. The passage is the following:— “The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, “They have ears, but they hear not; The work of men’s hands: Neither is there any breath in their months. They have mouths, but they speak not; They who make them are like unto them; They have eyes, but they see not; So are all they who put their trust in them.” “In the first line,” says Dr. Jebb, “we have the idolatrous heathen; in the eighth, those who put their trust in idols; in the second line the fabrication, in the seventh the fabricators; in the third line mouths without articulation, in the sixth mouths without breath; in the fourth line eyes without vision, and in the fifth ears without the sense of hearing.” No doubt, a sort of correspondence throughout, but, at the same time, no organic connexion, or peculiar relationship between the lines thus artificially brought together—nothing that materially contributes to help the meaning. Thus, in the first and last, “the idols of the heathen are silver and gold—so are all they who put their trust in them.” What is gained, we ask, by bringing these far-distant lines into juxtaposition? So far from the sense thereby gaining in force and clearness, it is not even preserved; and though, it is true, idolatrous persons are the subjects in both of them, yet this is no more than what may be said of the seventh line—“they who make them are like to them,”—and one might as well join together the first and seventh as the first and eighth. Indeed, rather do so, as this collocation would make sense, while the other does not. The parallelism, therefore, viewed in respect to the sense, which is the main point, fails in the manner it is here attempted to be carried out; and we gain nothing by throwing ourselves back from the later to the earlier line, with which it is supposed to have some special affinity. On the contrary, we are in danger of losing the real progression of thought, which appears in the passage, when viewed consecutively, for a somewhat fanciful arrangement of its several parts. So also in multitudes of passages, that might be produced from human compositions, it might be perfectly possible to throw the successive lines of thought into similar combinations, although these were quite remote from the mind of their respective authors; but by doing so we would gain nothing, we should rather lose by making the attempt. It may be well to give proof of this by pointing to some examples; but let me first present some idea of the extent to which the parallelistic principle has been carried. A great portion of Bishop Jebb’s work on Sacred Literature was devoted to the purpose of applying that principle, and more especially this latter form of it, to New Testament Scripture. Of course, there are parallelisms there. The language of the New Testament, as well as its doctrines, spring out of the Old; and where the poetical element enters, it naturally assumes much of the ancient form; the parallelistic structure is more or less preserved. It is not, therefore, the fact of the existence of parallelisms in New Testament Scripture, but the limits within which they should be confined, or the form they may be made to assume, that can be regarded as just matter of controversy. It is not the presence, but the excess of the principle, as exhibited by the class of writers referred to, to which we object. But this principle, first of all, is often sought for in cases where there is nothing peculiar—where there is merely such a structure of the sentences as the mind naturally adopts when tersely expressing its thoughts, without thinking of any regular measures or parallel lines. Thus, in Luke 12:48, “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom they have committed much, of him shall they demand the more;”—or Galatians 6:8, “He who soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; and he who soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life eternal.” In Matthew 8:20, we have an example of what is called the triplet, there being three lines in parallelism,—“The foxes have dens, And the birds of the air have nests, But the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head;” and again, in Revelation 14:18, “Put forth thy sharp sickle, And gather in the clusters of the vine of the earth, For its grapes have become fully ripe.” Then, there is the quatrain, consisting of two parallel couplets, the pairs of which are termed sometimes directly, sometimes inversely parallel—of which the passages just cited from Luke and Galatians may be taken as specimens;—or this in John 15:10, “If ye keep My commandments. Ye shall abide in my love, Even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, And abide in His love:”—And even this in Mark 12:12, “And they sought to seize Him, And they feared the people; For they knew that against them he spake the parable; And having left Him, they departed.” But examples of longer stanzas, having five, six, and even more lines, are produced—such as John 11:9-10, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walk in the day he stumbleth not; Because he seeth the light of this world: But if a man walk in the night he stumbleth; Because the light is not in him” (five;)—also Matthew 24:7-8; 1 Thessalonians 5:7-8; Romans 2:28-29. For those of six, see Matthew 16:2-3 (“When it is evening, ye say, a, calm! For the sky is red: And in the morning, to-day a tempest; For the sky is red and lowering: Hypocrites! the face of the sky ye know how to discern, But ye cannot [discern] the signs of the times.”) Also Luke 12:4-5; Luke 12:47-48; 1 Corinthians 15:47-49; and many parts of the Sermon on the Mount. Now, that there is nothing of the proper parallel arrangement in such passages as these, is evident from the difficulty often of knowing where precisely the division of the lines should be made, or which part is to be held as corresponding with another. One has to cast about for a time, to see how the sentences can be brought into shape; and were it not for the stanza-form, into which they are thrown by the advocates of parallelism, very few persons would ever have imagined that they really admitted of such an arrangement. They belong to that species of composition which consists of apophthegm, or short sententious utterance, usually embodying some sort of comparison or contrast, and in which the mind naturally—in modern as well as ancient times, in its ordinary as well as in its loftier moods—throws its words into set forms and relative proportions but without ever thinking of any thing like remote and complicated parallels. Open, for example, Lord Bacon’s Collection of Apophthegms, and take one of the very first that occurs. As presented by him, it forms two short sentences; but in the hands of the Parallelists it would make a choice specimen of the introverted quatrain—thus: Good fame is like fire: When you have kindled it, you may easily preserve it; But if once you have extinguished it, you will not easily kindle it again, At least not make it burn as bright as it did. Here, it might be stated, the first and the last lines correspond; they both speak of fire in its capacity of burning, or shining brightly. Then, the two intermediate clauses refer to two different conditions, with their respective effects—the fire, when once kindled, easily preserved; when extinguished after having been kindled, not easily lit up anew. But what is gained by this sort of introversion? Does it throw additional light on the thoughts expressed, or present them in a more striking aspect? Not in the least; it only suggests an artificial arrangement, where none whatever was intended, and the mind of the writer was merely following the natural course of its thoughts and feelings. We might say substantially the same of another example in Bacon: “In great place, ask counsel of both times—Of the ancient time, what is best; and of the latter time, what is fittest:”—quite natural and orderly as it stands, but incapable of being improved by being drawn out into parallels. Or, look at this longer specimen from the same quarter:— “The empirical philosophers are like pismires, They only lay up and use their store; The rationalists are like the spiders, They spin all out of their own bowels. But give me a philosopher who is like the bee, Who hath a middle faculty, Gathering from abroad, But digesting that which is gathered, By his own virtue.” Thrown into so many lines, this passage doubtless presents a great variety of parallels—parallels, too, much more distinctly marked, and more easily detected, than many of those found in New Testament Scripture. But what advantage is gained by presenting the passage in such a form? Was this form present to the mind of the writer? Or, when exhibited, does it serve to bring out the thoughts in a more lucid and impressive manner? The writer himself has simply put them down as so many consecutive sentences—each growing naturally out of what preceded; and, so far from making any improvement upon the manner of exhibiting the truths stated, the introduction of parallelisms would tend rather to lead our minds in the wrong direction—make us conceive of him as busying himself about artificial forms of expression, while in reality he was intent only upon giving distinct utterance, or logical sequence, to the ideas which had formed themselves in his mind. The proper parallelism—that which by way of distinction should be so called—is a particular form of that measured diction, which the mind in an elevated state of feeling instinctively adopts, as necessary to give adequate expression to the fiery glow, or swelling fulness of sentiment, of which it is conscious: it cannot be satisfied with itself, till it has thrown its conceptions and feelings into such a compressed and regulated form. But in the examples that have been adduced both from Bacon and the New Testament, it is the reflective or logical faculties that are at work. The mind is in its ordinary mood, and merely seeks in a pointed and consecutive manner to present its thoughts on some particular topic. So that introverted parallelisms, or complicated structures of any kind, are out of place; nor can they serve any purpose but that of suggesting the idea of constraint or art, where in reality nothing of the kind existed. Not only, however, does this extreme fondness for parallel isms, and the attempt to discover them in the simply didactic or historical portions of New Testament Scripture, tend to give too artistic and constrained an appearance to such portions, but it leads occasionally to fanciful conceits and false interpretations. The most part, as we have said, of the Sermon on the Mount has been turned into examples of parallelisms—some of them of the most involved and intricate description, but never with the effect of throwing any fresh light upon its different parts—sometimes, however, with the effect of arbitrarily changing the connexion, and obscuring the natural import. In proof of this we may take one of Jebb’s examples, which is re-produced by Dr. Forbes, in his work on Scripture Parallelism—viz., Matthew 7:6 : “Give not that which is holy to the dogs, Neither cast your pearls before swine; Lest they trample them under their feet, And turn about and rend you.” This is considered as a specimen of the introverted parallelism; so that the first and the fourth go together, then the second and the third. It is, therefore, according to Dr. Jebb, to be read thus: “Give not that which is holy to the dogs, Lest they turn about and rend you; Neither cast your pearls before swine, Lest they trample them under their feet.” And this interpretation is justified on the ground that our Lord wished to place the more dangerous act of imprudence first and last, so as to make it, and its fatal result, produce the deepest impression on the mind; while the other and less senseless form—that represented by the image of casting pearls before swine—is placed in the middle. But, in that case, by the ordinary laws of construction, something would have been required to carry back our thoughts from the last to the first member: and Dr. Jebb, sensible of this, shoves in a those before the verbs in the last line—“Lest those turn about and rend you.” And, indeed, to make the matter quite right, the they in the preceding clause should have been these: it should have stood thus: “Give not that which is holy to the dogs, Neither cast your pearls before swine: Lest these (the swine) trample them under their feet, And those (the dogs) turn about and rend you.” In this way, no doubt, the references become tolerably plain; but it is a plainness for which we are indebted to the invention or arbitrariness of an interpreter who has a theory to support, and adjusts the words to the theory, rather than the theory to the words. Plainness of this kind is too easily found to be of much value, and in the present case it is not needed. For, while both dogs and swine might be included in the latter part of our Lord’s statement, it is the swine more especially, not the dogs, that must be meant. The one, as well as the other, might turn about and rend those who threw something in their way;—but from the very nature of the case, it is the swine we are here naturally led to think of as acting such a part:—both, because they are the more voracious and savage in disposition, and because the thing cast to them—pearls—being fitted to mock rather than to satiate their appetite, it was quite natural for them to turn about and rend the person who had thus provoked, without satisfying, their greed. The dogs, on the other hand, had no temptation to act so ferocious a part; for in having what was holy given to them, they doubtless had what they wished—they got flesh to eat; only, being holy flesh, they were incapable of appreciating its distinctive character, and treated it as a common thing. Understood spiritually, the dogs represent those who are in such a grovelling and debased condition, that they have no aptitude for the things of God no relish or capacity for spiritual exercises and enjoyments; so that to admit them to sacred privileges, or to spread before them the joys of the Divine life, were only to give them an opportunity of treating as common—profaning—what should be handled with holy reverence and spiritual relish. The characters represented by the swine, however, are such as have reached a more advanced stage in the course of depravity—not grovelling, merely, and sensual, but also devilish—ready to resent as evil what has been meant for good, but does not suit their unhallowed appetite; hence disposed, not only to treat with despite or scorn the pearls of Gospel truth and promise, but also to vilify, abuse, or persecute those who would press these on their regard. It is such, therefore—the characters represented by the swine—the sour, ungenial, repulsive, or furious, as well as worldly spirits, who are chiefly referred to, and warned against, as likely to turn again and rend those who might offer the precious things of the Gospel to them. Thus it appears, that the natural order and connexion is also the best; and the search after a more artificial arrangement only leads to a mistaken application of the images employed. The same line of remark in substance might be extended to many other passages in New Testament Scripture, to which the principle of parallelism has been applied. And the objections already urged are a fortiori valid in regard to a still farther extension of the principle, which has occasionally been made in particular by Mr. Boys, in what he designates a Key to the Book of Psalms, and more recently adopted by Dr. Forbes. By this more extended application of the principle, whole chapters, and passages long enough to form a chapter, are treated as specimens of the introverted parallelelism. The entire Epistle of Philemon is held to be constructed on this principle—the two verses at the centre (Philemon 1:15-16) having something in common, viz., one and the same subject, Onesimus; and then the respective verses on each side, as they recede from this centre, possessing what is thought to render them parallel one to another. The merest glance over the arrangement is sufficient to convince any unbiassed mind that it is altogether fanciful; since what are called parallel verses have often so little in common, that no one, who was not in search of resemblances, would ever have thought of them. But even if there had been more to countenance the idea in appearance, we should still have rejected it. The very conception of such complicated and artificial structures has something palpably and painfully unnatural about it, and is utterly opposed to the simplicity, which we cannot but associate with the epistolary and didactic parts of Scripture. It is as if one should compress the free and spontaneous movements of Spirit-stirred minds within bones of steel, and make art, rather than nature, the ground-form of the utterances of God’s Spirit. Such applications of parallelism, therefore, must be ranked as a vicious excess—unsound in principle, and sure, in practice, to lead to frivolous conceits. Parallelism, as already remarked, properly belongs to the poetical province, being the simplest of the measured and regular forms into which a poetical elevation throws the conceptions and feelings which it strives to give forth. If judiciously applied to those portions of Scripture which partake of this elevation, the beauty of the composition, and the fulness and force of the thoughts expressed in it, will be more distinctly perceived, and may be more impressively set forth. But when brought into the province of history, of epistolary writing or familiar discourse, if admitted to a place at all, it must be within very narrow bounds, and in connexion only with the simpler modes of construction. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 01.12. EXEGESIS OF NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE. ======================================================================== Part Second. Dissertations On Particular Subjects Connected With The Exegesis Of New Testament Scripture. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 01.13. THE TWO GENEALOGIES OF CHRIST... ======================================================================== Section First. The Two Genealogies Of Christ, Given Respectively By The Evangelists Matthew And Luke. THERE are several marked and characteristic differences between the two genealogical tables presented by the Evangelists of the human ancestry of our Lord—differences that from a very early period have occasioned embarrassment to interpreters, and have often been pronounced inexplicable discrepancies. Nor is it only in the things in which they differ that they have given rise to trouble and dispute; but a still more perplexing circumstance, if possible, has been found, in a matter on which they are, at least, apparently agreed; namely, that it is with Joseph, not with Mary, that the genealogical descent of Jesus is formally connected. What renders this the more remarkable is, that the two Evangelists, who thus agree in dropping the name of Mary from any ostensible or direct connexion with the descent from David and Abraham, are precisely those, who expressly record the miraculous conception of Jesus, and so provide an explicit testimony to the fact, that He was strictly the Son only of Mary, and not of Joseph. There can be no doubt that this is, in some respects, the greater difficulty adhering to these tables, since it touches the point of our Lord’s title to the name and office of Messiah. It is, therefore, the point to which our attention shall be primarily directed, yet so as not to neglect the others, which are also of considerable interest and importance. I. Here we observe at the outset, that there are certain preliminary considerations, which ought, in all fairness, to be borne in mind, and which, apart from all minutiæ belonging to the construction of the genealogies, go far to determine the chief historical question. It is certain, for example, that up till the period of our Lord’s birth, and even after His death, genealogical registers were kept in Judea, both publicly and privately; so that ample materials must have existed for investigating all that concerned the lineage of Jesus. This fact, like most others in Gospel history, has been questioned, chiefly on the ground of a statement of Julius Africanus, who wrote, in the earlier part of the third century, a chronicon, of which a fragment on this subject has been preserved by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. i. 7.) Africanus there reports, that Herod, conscious of the infelicity of his birth, and anxious to prevent the possibility of detecting it, burned the public family registers, “imagining that he should then appear noble, when no one could derive from the public monuments the evidence of a descent from the patriarchs, or the proselytes, and the mixed multitude that was called georæ.” On what grounds this statement was made, nothing is known; nor does it appear, that Africanus himself had any great confidence in its historical correctness; for he introduces the narrative as delivered by the descendants of those who were the kinsmen of Jesus, “either for the purpose of display [in respect to their own pedigree,] or for simply declaring the truth;” and at the close introduces the qualifying clause, “Whether the matter actually stood thus or not” (εἴτʼ οὖν ὃτως, εἴτʼ ἄλλως ἔχει.) The story must be held to be, if not entirely fabulous, at least a great exaggeration of some lawless proceedings on the part of Herod or his abettors. Josephus is altogether silent respecting any such destructive measures, which, if they had actually occurred to the extent described, could scarcely have been practicable: more than that, he expressly testifies, that he took the materials of the abstract he gave of his own family descent from those same public registers (δέλτοις δημοσίοις ἀναγεγραμμένην εὐρον, Vit. i. 1,) and at a period considerably later than that of the birth of Christ. The reference, too, of the Apostle Paul once and again to genealogies, as matters with which certain Jewish teachers were wont needlessly to entangle themselves and others (1 Timothy 1:4; Titus 3:14,) is a sufficient proof of the plentiful existence of such documents. And so also is the reference made to them in the Protevangelium of James, which, though a spurious production, is yet of very great antiquity. There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt of the late existence of registers, or genealogical tables, public as well as private; and the means must have been accessible to all, who had a mind to examine the point, for determining whether Jesus was really of the house and lineage of David. Nor can we doubt, from the nature and intensity of the opposition made to Him, that, if the evidence on this point had not been known to be of the most conclusive kind, the defect would certainly have been discovered, and pressed to the prejudice of His claims. If His title to a Davidic origin was not impugned, the reason could only be, that it was incapable of being gainsayed. It is further to be borne in mind, that both Christ’s title to be regarded as the Son of David, and the evangelical testimony in favour of that title, by no means rests exclusively, or even principally, upon the preservation in the Gospels of the two Genealogies. There is much evidence besides upon, the subject, and evidence of a more patent and obtrusive kind. In the annunciation of His birth to the Virgin, it was declared, that the throne of His father David should be given to Him—implying, that simply as born of her, He stood connected with the throne and family of David. During the course of His public ministry, He allowed Himself to be openly addressed as the Son of David (Matthew 9:27; Matthew 15:22)—again implying both what He Himself claimed, and what was commonly believed respecting Him. On the day of Pentecost, St. Peter proclaimed to the assembled thousands, that God had raised Him up of the fruit of David’s loins, to sit upon his throne (Acts 2:30;) and in several passages St. Paul represents Him as having been the seed of David, according to the flesh (Romans 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:8; Acts 13:23.) Finally, in the Apocalypse He is designated “the root and offspring of David” (Revelation 22:16.) Most plain, therefore, it is, that neither our Lord Himself, nor His immediate followers, made any secret of His strict and proper relationship to the house of David—itself a conclusive proof, that it had a solid ground to rest upon, and could challenge the fullest scrutiny. The very objections urged against Him may be cited as evidence; for, while they occasionally grazed the border of this important point, they never actually struck upon it, and so yielded a virtual testimony in its support. It was perfectly understood, that if He was the Son of David, and the heir to his throne, He behooved to be born at Bethlehem (Matthew 2:5; John 7:42;) and on this account the objection was raised against Jesus, that He was a Galilean, and came forth from Nazareth, whence nothing good in the spiritual sphere might be looked for (John 1:46; John 7:52;) but it never took the form of an allegation laid, or even a suspicion uttered, against His connexion by birth with the house of David. This is the more remarkable, as His residence from childhood in Galilee gave His adversaries a prima facie ground to question it; doubts could scarcely fail to be stirred in many minds on the subject; and that these doubts did not find any audible utterance or assume a tangible form, can only be accounted for by the conclusive evidence which existed of His royal parentage. Still further, the report of Hegesippus concerning the relatives of Jesus in a subsequent generation, furnishes a collateral proof, as it clearly indicates the general and settled belief of the time. He states, as quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiastes 3:20) that the grandchildren of Judas, the brother of Jesus, were accused to the Emperor Domitian, and brought before him for examination, because of their reputed connexion with the royal line of David; but that when Domitian ascertained their humble circumstances, and the spiritual nature of the kingdom they ascribed to Jesus Christ, he despised them and sent them away. It thus appears, that amid all the circumstances that had become known concerning Christ down to the close of the first century—the claims put forth on the part of His followers, and the objections or surmises raised on the part of His adversaries—the belief of His personal relationship to the house of David remained unshaken. The fact, therefore, of our Lord’s real descent from David must be held as certain, whatever difficulties concerning it may hang around the two genealogical tables. The subject of inquiry in respect to them narrows itself to the point, how they can be made to appear consistent with the truth of things, and not in antagonism with each other. There are certain palpable differences between them, which are fitted to suggest the idea of their having been drawn up on somewhat different principles; and the thought very naturally suggests itself, that if these could only be ascertained, a satisfactory explanation would be found of the diversities subsisting between them. II. Is this diversity of principle in the construction of the two genealogies to be sought—as regards the main point at issue—in the one evangelist presenting the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph the reputed and legal father, and the other through Mary the only real parent, according to the flesh? If this were a practicable mode—exegetically considered—of understanding what is written, it would, no doubt, present a comparatively natural and easy solution of the greater differences. But so far is it from appearing on the face of the language, that it seems never so much as to have occurred to the earlier writers, who had their minds specially directed to the subject. With one consent they referred both genealogies to Joseph, and appear to have been little troubled by the absence of any specific mention of the lineage of Mary. Africanus, who made the subject a matter of very careful investigation, makes no allusion to this point, as tending to create in his mind any embarrassment. Jerome, indeed, refers to it; but thinks it enough to say, that Joseph’s relation to the tribe of Judah and the house of David determined also Mary’s, since by the law people were obliged to marry from among their own tribe: (Qurerat diligens lector et dicat: Quum Joseph non sit pater Domini Salvatoris, quid pertinet ad Dominum generationis ordo deductus usque ad Joseph? Cui respondebimus primum, non esse consuetudinem Scripturarum, ut mulierum in generationibus ordo texatur. Deinde, ex una tribu fuisse Joseph et Mariam; unde ex Lege earn accipere cogebatur ut propinquam—In Matthew 1:18.)—although he could scarcely be ignorant, that however customary this might be, there is no express enactment upon the subject; and, indeed, in the case of the daughters of Zelophehad, the legislation actually made proceeded upon the usual liberty of the females to marry into any tribe, and prescribed a limit in their case, and cases of a similar kind, only for the sake of perpetuating the inheritance. When there was nothing peculiar in this respect, it was perfectly allowable, and not uncommon, for the husband to belong to one tribe and the wife to another. In the Gospel age, also, when remnants of all the tribes were thrown together, such intermarriages would naturally be more frequent. Augustine, the contemporary of Jerome, goes, somewhat singularly, into the opposite extreme; and while of opinion that Mary must have had some connexion (he does not state what) with the house of David, he is rather disposed to lay stress upon her relationship to Elizabeth, and her connexion with the house of Aaron; for, he says, “it must be held most firmly, that the flesh of Christ was propagated from both stems, that alike of the kings and of the priests, the personages in whom among the Hebrews was figured that mystic unction (namely, chrism,) whence the name of Christ beams forth, so long before also pre-intimated by that most evident sign. (Firmissime tenendum est carnem Christ! ex utroque genere propagatam, et regum scilicet et sacerdotum, in quibus personis apud ilium populum Hebræorum etiam mystica unctio figurabatur, id est, chrisma, unde Cbristi nomen elucet, tanto ante etiam ilia evidentissima significatione prænuntiatum. De Consensu Evang. ii. 2.) Chrysostom, in his second homily on St. Matthew, reverts to Jerome’s mode of explanation, and puts it in a still stronger form. He says, “not only was it not lawful to marry from another tribe, but not even from another family (οὐδὲ ἀπὸ πατριᾶς ἑτέρας;) that is,” he adds, “kindred (συγγενέας.”) This is the chief explanation he gives, although he also points to the words used by the angel Gabriel, of whom it is said, that he was sent to “a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David”—understanding the latter expression, “of the house of David,” to refer, not to Joseph the immediate, but to Mary the remote, antecedent; in which he is not followed by the better class of interpreters. He indicates no doubt, however, any more than the other writers of early times, that both genealogies bore respect to the ancestry of Joseph. This general agreement, for so long a time, as to the fact of Joseph’s lineage being exhibited in both tables—the absence of any idea, that either of them did, or by possibility might be understood, to trace the descent of Mary, undoubtedly affords a strong presumption against the idea itself, as proceeding on a too subtle or somewhat forced interpretation of the text. It was only about the period of the Reformation that the opinion seems to have been distinctly brought out and advocated, of Mary’s genealogy being given in Luke, and Joseph’s in Matthew—the one for the satisfaction of the Jews, who, in matters of this description, made account only of males; and the other for the satisfaction of mankind in general, who might seek to know the lineage of Jesus, not through his reputed or legal father, but through his one real earthly parent. Calvin refers to it as a view which had its known advocates in his day, but rejects it as untenable; and, though it has since numbered many learned names on its side—those, among others, of Osiander, Calov, Spanheim, Lightfoot, Rosenmuller, Paulus, Kuinoel yet it must be held to be without any just foundation in the text, and even to do violence to its plain import. The view is based on the words of the Evangelist Luke, when introducing the subject of the genealogy, “And Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age when beginning (viz. His ministry,) being, as was supposed, the Son of Joseph, who was the son of Eli,” etc. (ὤν, ὡς ἐνομίζετο, υἱὸς ̓Ιωσὴφ τοῦ ̔Ηλι.) But the words, taken in their natural and obvious sense, connect Jesus with Joseph as his reputed father, and then this Joseph with Heli, as his father. The native import and bearing of the ὡς ἐνομίζετο, was precisely given by Euthymius, ἑς ἐδόκει τοῖς ̓Ιουδαίοις ὡς γάρ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἐ͂χεν, ὀ̓κ ἧν υἱὸς αὐτοῦ—in the common reckoning of the Jews He was Joseph’s Son, but He was not so in reality. The latter idea, however, was only implied, not distinctly stated, in the Evangelist’s expression. If the meaning had been: the Son, as was supposed, of Joseph, but in reality of Eli, that is Eli’s grandson (through Mary the daughter of Eli,)—the passage would have required to run (as justly stated by Meyer,) ἔς, ὡς ἐνομίζετο ὑιὸς ̓Ιωσὴφ ὄντως δὲ Μαρίας, τοῦ Ηλι, or something similar. It is possible enough, and may even be deemed probable, that the genealogies of Mary and Joseph coincided at a comparatively near point, but this can only be matter of probable conjecture, or, at most, natural inference; for, as regards the genealogy itself of St. Luke, we have no direct notice of Mary’s pedigree, but only of Joseph’s. To our view, the silence regarding Mary in the genealogical tables, and the stress that is laid in the Gospels upon Joseph’s connexion with the house of David, certainly seems strange. It appears to imply, that the Davidic descent of Joseph somehow carried that of Christ along with it; for the genealogies are produced as evidence of that very point. In much the same way, Joseph, when meditating the repudiation of the Virgin, is addressed by the angel in terms that make special reference to his royal descent,—“Joseph, thou son of David” (Matthew 1:20;) and, again, when the reason is assigned for the journey to Bethlehem, which led to the birth of Jesus there, it was because, not Mary, but Joseph, was of the house and lineage of David (Luke 2:4.) How is this to be explained? Does the termination of Joseph’s genealogy really involve and carry along with it that of Mary’s and Christ’s? So Augustine perceived, and in a profound remark expressed, when commenting on the designation of Joseph and Mary by St. Luke as the parents of Jesus. “Since, therefore, says he, “the Evangelist himself relates that Christ was born, not from intercourse with Joseph, but of Mary, as a virgin, whence should he call him (Joseph) His father—unless we rightly understand, both that he was the husband of Mary, without carnal intercourse, by the bond simply of the marriage-tie; and that he was on this account also Christ’s father, Christ being born of his wife, in a manner far more intimate than if He had been adopted from another family? And on this ground,” he adds, “even if anyone should be able to prove that Mary had no blood-relationship to David, it was competent to hold Christ to be the Son of David, for the very same reason that Joseph was entitled to be called His father.” (Cum igitur ipse narret, non ex concubitu Joseph, sed ex Maria virgine natum Christum; unde eum patrem ejus appellat, nisi quia et virum Mariæ recte intelligimus sine commixtione carnis, ipsa copulatione conjugii; et ob hoc etiam Christi patrem multo conjunctius, qui ex ejus conjuge natus sit, quam si esset aliunde adoptatus? Ac per hoc, etiam si demonstrare aliquis posset, Mariam ex David nullam consanguinitatis originem ducere, sat erat secundum istam rationem accipere Christum filium David, qua ratione etiam Joseph pater ejus recte appellatus est. De Consensu Evang. ii. 1.) This view, though not formally referred to Augustine, has been taken up and ably expounded by Delitzsch, in an article on the genealogies in Rudelbach’s Zeitschrift for 1850, p. 581, sq. He holds that, in consequence of the Divine revelation made to Joseph, and his entire acquiescence in the arrangements announced to him, Jesus was really the fruit of his marriage, and, as such, his Son. Joseph acknowledged and owned the child, not, indeed, as begotten of his body, but as a sacred gift, which God had most wonderfully granted to him through his wife. In all cases children are God’s gifts; but this child was so in the most peculiar sense, there being an exclusion of human agency, and the direct intervention of the Divine. Now, if Jesus was the Son of Joseph, in his married relation, for the same reason also He was the Son of David; for He was born to a descendant of the house of David—was conceived and born of a virgin, who, simply from her espousals to Joseph, was already introduced into the house of David, and, within that house, as Joseph’s spouse, brought forth her child. So the Evangelist Matthew contemplated the matter; for, according to the law and the established convictions of Israel, all depended upon Joseph’s descent from David, not upon Mary’s; and, by virtue simply of his relation to Joseph, Jesus was born in the house of David, was therefore the child of a Davidic person, and so was justly held to have sprung out of the house of David. Such is the view of Delitzsch, which is undoubtedly in accordance with Jewish notions on the subject, and rests upon a solid basis of truth; since Mary, before the birth of the child, had actually, and by Divine ordination, become the spouse of Joseph, so that what was hers, through her became also her husband’s. Yet, as God’s work is ever perfect—not in design and nature merely, but in the way and manner also of its accomplishment—so doubtless it was here. We have the best reasons for supposing that the relationship of Mary, immediately to Joseph, and remotely to the house of David, was such, and so well known, that the genealogy of the one, at a point comparatively near, was understood to be the genealogy also of the other. This relationship on Mary’s part seems plainly taken for granted by the angel, who announced the conception and birth of the child, when he said, “And the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David,”—an announcement that was made to her before her marriage to Joseph, before she could be sure of such a marriage ever being consummated, and so implying that, simply as born of her, through the power of the Holy Ghost, the child should stand in a filial relation to David. The statements in other parts of Scripture, designating Christ as, beyond dispute, of the seed of David, are also to be taken into account; so that, if the genealogies do not of themselves establish the personal relation of Mary to the house of David, they may be said to involve it; since, when viewed in connexion with the entire representation of the sacred writers, they seem to proceed on the ground of a common interest in this respect belonging to Joseph and Mary, and to Jesus through them. Certain other probabilities will also present themselves as we proceed. III. But, meanwhile, difficulties start up from the ground we have already won. For, if the two genealogical tables are both those of Joseph’s proper pedigree, how should they differ—at so many points from each other differ, even in respect to the immediate father of Joseph—and differ so regularly in the latter divisions, that between David and Christ they present only two names in common? This is a difficulty, which has long exercised the ingenuity of interpreters, and has given rise to a variety of schemes. It would occupy a considerable time to recount all these, and could serve no valuable purpose. We shall simply state what we deem to be the correct explanation of the matter—prefacing it however by a few considerations, which ought to be kept in view by those who would arrive at right conclusions on the subject. The first is, that in these, as in genealogical tables generally, there may be several diversities without any actual incorrectness. This holds of such tables generally, and arises from the diversity of names sometimes borne by individuals mentioned in them, and from various circumstances and relations occurring to alter in some respect the natural course of descent, and thereby leaving room for one genealogist departing from the exact route or nomenclature of another. It is perfectly well known, by those who are at all acquainted with Jewish genealogies, how much this is the case; and the reference of the apostle to disputes in his day about endless genealogies (1 Timothy 1:4; Titus 3:9,) clearly implies, that the circumstances just noticed were wont to involve considerable diversity in details, not readily settled or explained. It may well be expected, therefore, especially at this distance of time, that there should be points of divergence in the two tables before us, either altogether inexplicable now, or admitting of explanation only by the help of suppositions which can at most be considered only as probable. A more full and intimate knowledge of the particulars might have made all perfectly plain. Another consideration to be kept in mind is, that whatever precise form the genealogical tables might assume—whether they traced the lineage in an ascending or a descending order—whether each successive generation is presented to our view as begotten by the preceding, or as standing to this in the relation of a son to a father—in either case alike the table is to be regarded as possessing the same character; and the same allowances or qualifications that may have to be made in the one case, are also quite allowable in the other. Mistakes and false theories have arisen from the neglect of this consideration. It was thus, indeed, that Julius Africanus was misled, and became the instrument of misleading many others regarding the principles on which the two tables were constructed, by supposing that the phrase in Matthew, such a one begat such another, is of a stricter kind than the phrase in Luke, such a one was the son of another; he was of opinion that the former always denoted a natural connexion as of parent and child, while the latter might include other connexions—sons by adoption, or by marriage, or by legal standing, as the case might be. In realty, however, the Hebrews observed no distinction of the kind; they were accustomed to use both forms of expression in the same way; and the one as well as the other was sometimes applied to denote, not descendants by actual procreation, but the next of kin, or descendants in the wider sense. The table itself in Matthew’s Gospel affords conclusive evidence of this; for it has “Joram begat Ozias,” or Uzziah, although we know for certain that three links of the chain are there dropt out, and that Joram begat Ahaziah, then Ahaziah Jehoash, and Jehoash Uzziah. As a proof of the freedom sometimes used in such cases, we may point to the statements in Genesis 46:26; Exodus 1:5, where Jacob is himself included among those that came out of his loins; (See, for example, the Jewish Commentator Raphall, on Genesis 46:26, who, after referring to the opinions of other Jewish authorities, and showing how the 66 persons said to have come out of Jacob’s loins were made up (32 by Leah, 16 by Zilpah, 11 by Rachel, 7 by Bilhah,) thus sums up: “Now, as the family of Leah is said to consist of 33, though only 32 are enumerated, and as the former number would give us 67 persons (which the Septuagint actually has,) whereas the text expressly declares, that the number of those who proceeded from Jacob’s loins were 66, and no more: And as, moreover, the only members of Jacob’s family whom the text mentions as being in Egypt were three, namely, Joseph, and his two sons; and as these three, with the 66 above named, are only 69, whereas the text declares, that all the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were 70; and as Jacob must, of course, be considered as a member of his own house, it follows, that the 70th person who came, can have been no other than Jacob himself. And if this be so, then the 33d person numbered with, but not among, the descendants of Leah, can also have been no other than Jacob; for if it had been any other person, the total number of Jacob’s house would have been 71—contrary to the text, since Jacob can in no wise be excluded from his own house.”) and to Genesis 10:13-14, “Canaan begat Sidon, his first born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite,” etc.,—where evidently whole races are said to have been begotten by the person who was no further related to them than that he was their common progenitor. We even occasionally find cities or districts associated in the same way with an individual as their parent; thus in 1 Chronicles 2:50, “Shobal the father of Kirjath-jearim, Salma the father of Bethlehem, Hareph the father of Beth-Gader.” And not only did the Levirate law afford occasions of pretty frequent occurrence, when a person must have had children reckoned to him that were not strictly his own, but women also for example, Sarah and Rachel—are represented as speaking of the possibility of obtaining children born to them through their handmaids (Genesis 16:2; Genesis 30:3.) Such being the case, there is plainly nothing in the way of our holding, that the table of Matthew may, equally with that of Luke, admit of relationships being introduced not of the nearest degree; nor, further, any thing, so far as form is concerned, to render the position untenable, that in the one we may have the succession in the strictly royal line, the legal heirs to the throne of David (Matthew’s,) and in the other (Luke’s) the succession of our Lord’s real parentage up to David. So that, were this view to be accepted, we should have Christ’s legal right to the kingdom established, by the list in the one table; and by that of the other, the direct chain which connected Him with the person of David. This is substantially the view that was adopted by Calvin, though not originated; for he refers to some as preceding him in the same view. It was first, however, fully brought out, and vindicated against the errors involved in the current belief, by Grotius. In opposition to that belief, which owed its general prevalence to the authority of Africanus—the belief that in St. Matthew we have the natural, and in Luke the legal, descent—Grotius remarks, “For myself, guided, if I mistake not, by very clear, and not fanciful grounds, I am fully convinced, that Matthew has respect to the legal succession. For he recounts those who obtained the kingdom without the intermixture of a private name. Then Jechonias, he says, begot Salathiel. But it was not doubtfully intimated by Jeremiah, under the command of God, that Jechoniah, on account of his sins, should die without children (Matthew 22:30.) Wherefore, since Luke assigns Neri as the father of the same Salathiel, a private man, while Matthew gives Jechoniah, the most obvious inference is, that Luke has respect to the right of consanguinity, Matthew to the right of succession, and especially the right to the throne—which right, since Jechoniah died without issue, devolved, by legitimate order, upon Salathiel, the head of the family of Nathan. For among the sons of David Nathan came next to Solomon.” This view has lately been taken up, and at great length, as well as in a most judicious and scholarly manner, wrought out by Lord Arthur Hervey, in a separate volume. The work as a whole is deserving of careful perusal. On this particular part of the subject he reasons somewhat as follows:—First of all, since St. Matthew’s table gives the royal successions, as far as they go, one can scarcely conceive why another table should have been given, unless it were that the actual parent age of Joseph did not properly coincide with that. If Joseph’s direct ancestors, and Solomon’s direct successors, had run in one line, there had been no need for another line; since, having already the most honourable line of descent, there could have been no inducement to make out an inferior one. But, on the supposition that a failure took place in Solomon’s line, and that the offspring of Nathan (the next son of David) then came to be the legal heirs to the throne, another table was required to show, along with the succession to the inheritance, the real parentage throughout. A second consideration is derived from the prophecy of Jeremiah already noticed, in which it was declared concerning Jehoiakim, “He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David,” (Jeremiah 36:30;) and again, of Jehoiachin or Jechoniah, the son, who was dethroned after being for a few months acknowledged king, “Write ye this man childless, for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.” After such explicit declarations, it is not conceivable that these men should yet have been the parents of a seed, out of which was at last to spring the ultimate possessor of David’s throne. A third consideration is supplied by the names found in both tables immediately after Jehoiachin. It was precisely there that the lineal descent from Solomon was broken; and there, accordingly, the two tables again coincide; for the next two generations the names Salathiel and Zerubabel occur alike in both tables—brought in, we may reasonably suppose, from Nathan’s line, to supply the place of Solomon’s, when it became defunct, and so are connected with Solomon’s line by Matthew, but with Nathan’s by Luke. So that, the line being traced by one Evangelist through Solomon, by the other through Nathan, the double object is served, of showing Christ to be at once David’s son and Solomon’s heir, the latter being the type of Christ as David’s immediate son and heir. And thus also the genealogy of the one Evangelist supplements that of the other, by showing the validity of the right of succession as traced by Matthew, since Joseph was Solomon’s heir only by being Nathan’s descendant. A collateral confirmation is obtained for this view in certain double genealogies which occur in the Old Testament Scriptures; the one having respect to the parentage, the other to the inheritance. One of the most remarkable of these is that of Jair, who, in 1 Chronicles 2:1-55, has his genealogy ranked with the house of Judah, being the son of Segub, the son of Hezron, the son of Pharez, the son of Judah. By Moses, however, he is always called the son of Manasseh (Numbers 32:41; Deuteronomy 3:14-15;) and is represented as having come to the possession of a number of small towns in Gilead, which he called Havoth- Jair, i.e., the towns of Jair. A notice in the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 2:22-23, explains the discrepancy. We there learn that Hezron, his grandfather, in his old age married the daughter of Machir, the son of Manasseh, who bare him Segub, and that Segub begat Jair; while Ashur, another son by the same marriage, had his inheritance in Judah. So that Jair, by his real parentage, was a descendant of Judah; though, in respect to his inheritance, and no doubt in the reckoning of the public registers, he was of the tribe of Manasseh. Another example is found in the case of Caleb, who, in the earlier records, is always called the son of Jephunneh, (Numbers 13:6; Numbers 14:6, etc.,) and is reckoned of the tribe of Judah; while yet, it would seem, he did not originally and properly belong to that tribe: for, in Joshua 14:14, he is called “Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite” and in Joshua 15:30, it is said that Joshua “gave him a part among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua.” If he had by birth belonged to that tribe, there should have been no need for a special commandment appointing his inheritance to be given out of what felHo that tribe; this would have happened to him as a matter of course; and both, therefore, on this account, and from his being called a Kenezite, we are led to infer, that, not by birth, but by adoption, he had his place and portion fixed in the tribe of Judah. But, in order to this, he must be reckoned to some particular family of that tribe; and accordingly, in the public genealogy given in 1 Chronicles 2:18-20, the paternity of Jephunneh is dropt, and that of Hezron, the son of Pharez, the son of Judah, put in its stead: “And Caleb, the son of Hezron, begat children of Azubah, his wife, and of Jerioth,” etc. It is probable that one or other of these wives belonged to the family of Hezron, and that Caleb became, by marriage, connected with it; while afterwards, on account of his steady faith and resolute behaviour, he had the honour conferred on him of a special allotment in the tribe of Judah. We have thus the interesting fact brought out, through these comparatively dry details, that Caleb was originally a stranger, probably a native of Egypt, or an Arab of the Desert, but that he joined himself to the Lord’s people, and was not only counted of the seed of Jacob, but became one of the most distinguished heads of its chief tribe. A still further proof in support of the principles supposed to be involved in the construction of the two tables, as to the points now under consideration, is found in the recurrence of certain names in both of them during the period subsequent to the captivity. In St. Luke’s list the name of Nathan’s son is Matthata, (Luke 3:31;) another son, in the eleventh generation, was called Matthat, (Luke 3:29;) and, between Salathiel and Joseph, the name of Matthias occurs twice, (Luke 3:25-26,) and that of Matthat once, ( Luke 3:24;) all but different modifications of the original name Nathan, (from נָתַן, he gave,) and so affording internal evidence of the genealogy being really that of Nathan’s line. In the other table, we find Matthan, (the same person, in all probability, as Luke’s Matthat,) in the third generation before Joseph; and, at the same time, several names taken with little alteration from the royal household of former times—Eliakim, Zadok (Zedekiah,) Achim, (an abbreviation of Jehoiachim;) as if, while the line age in this part was really that of Nathan, there was an effort to keep up the connexion with the latter days of the elder branch, the line of royal succession down to the period of the exile. The descendants of Nathan, who afterwards stepped into their place in the genealogy, though not in the kingdom, seemed, by the very names they assumed, to be conscious of their peculiar relationship to Solomon’s house, and desirous of indicating their claim to the throne. This is all quite natural; and it affords a very probable explanation at once of the agreements and the differences between the two genealogical tables. Now it only requires one or two very natural suppositions to bring the closing parts of the tables into correspondence; for, on the supposition that the Matthan of St. Matthew is the same with the Matthat of St. Luke, (of which there can be little doubt,) then Jacob the son of Matthan, in Matthew, and Heli, the son of Matthat, in Luke, must, in fact, have been brothers—sons of the same father. And if Jacob had no sons, but only daughters, and Joseph, Heli’s son, married one of these—perfectly natural suppositions—then he became (on the principle of Matthew’s table) also Jacob’s son, and the lineal heir of the throne, as Jacob had been. It only requires that we make the further supposition—no ways extraordinary or unreasonable of that daughter being the Virgin Mary, in order to meet all the demands of the case; for thereby the principle of each table would be preserved: and Mary and Joseph being, in that case, first cousins, and cousins in that line which had the right of succession to the throne, the birth of our Lord was in every respect complete, whether viewed in respect to consanguinity or to relationship to the throne. The whole ordering of the matter exhibits a conjunction of circumstances which it was worthy of the Divine oversight to accomplish, and which yet might, in the common course of events, have readily come about. It may be added, that the last circumstance in the series of suppositions now mentioned—the marriage of Joseph and Mary, as of two cousins, the one the son of Heli, the other the daughter of Jacob, dying without sons—perfectly accords with Jewish practice; as appears alone from the case of Jair marrying into the tribe of Manasseh, and thenceforth taking rank in that tribe; and still more, from the case of Zelophehad’s five daughters, who married their five cousins, and retained their inheritance. It was the constant aim of the Jews to make inheritance and blood-relationship, as far as possible, go together. And it could not seem otherwise than natural and proper, that the daughter of the nearest heir to the throne of David, should be espoused to the next heir. Nor is it undeserving of notice—as, at least, negatively favouring the supposition respecting Mary—that, while we read of a sister, we never hear of a brother belonging to her; excepting Joseph, female relatives alone are mentioned. So that, in the supposed circumstances of the case, there is nothing that even appears to conflict with the facts of gospel history; every thing seems rather to be in natural and fitting agreement with them. IV. The few remaining peculiarities in the two tables are of comparatively little importance, and need not detain us long. (1.) The existence of a second Cainan in only one of the tables—in that of Luke (Luke 3:36)—between Sala and Arphaxad—is one of these minor difficulties. In the corresponding genealogy of our Hebrew Bibles, the name is not found. The only Cainan that appears in the early Hebrew records belongs to the ante-diluvian period; and it is still a matter of dispute how the second Cainan has originated—whether it had somehow been dropt from the Hebrew text, or had been unwarrantably inserted into the Greek. It is found in all the copies extant of the Septuagint, except the Vatican; but the Septuagint itself omits it in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1:1-54; and it is wanting in the Samaritan, Pentateuch, and seems not to have been known to Josephus, Berosus, Eupolemus, Polyhistor; nor does it even appear to have been in the copies of the Septuagint used by Theophilus of Antioch in the second century, by Africanus in the third, or by Eusebius in the fourth. Jerome, too, in his comments on that part of Genesis, omits all mention of Cainan, though he has annotations on the precise verse, where the name of Cainan is now found. Augustine, however, had the name in his copy both of the Septuagint and of St. Luke. The probability seems to lie decidedly against the original existence of the name of Cainan in the genealogy, either in the Old or the New Testament tables. But the precise time or occasion of its introduction can be matter only of conjecture. Possibly, it may have originated in some mystical notions about numbers, which often had a considerable influence in the form given to genealogies. Bochart was of opinion, it probably arose from some clerical oversight in the transcription of the table in Luke, and was thence transferred to the Septuagint; but the common opinion rather leans to the view of its having first appeared in the Septuagint; certainty, however, is unattainable. Bochart’s statements on the subject are worth consulting—Phaleg, l. ii. c. 13. (2.) A peculiarity of a minor kind also belongs to the other table, and one, in respect to which we can have no difficulty in perceiving the influence of numbers. It is the division into three tesseradecades. For the purpose of securing the three fourteens certain names are omitted in the second division—Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah—which would have unduly swelled the number, if they had been inserted. And closely connected with the same point is a peculiarity in respect to Josiah, who is said to have “begot Jeconias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon,” (Matthew 1:11.) It is scarcely possible to doubt, that some corruption must have crept into the text here; for, in reality, Josiah begot Jehoiakim, not Jeconias; and the birth of Jehoiakim took place a considerable time before the exile. But Jehoiakim begat Jeconias much about that period; and the natural supposition is, that the original text here must have had Jehoiakim as the son of Josiah, and then Jeconias as the son of Jehoiakim. The two might very readily have been run together by a copyist, as, in one form of them, the names differed only in a single letter:—Jehoiakim being written ̓Ιωακειμ, and Jeconias ̓Ιωαχειμ. A scribe might quite naturally take these for but one name, and so leave out Jehoiakim. This view is strengthened by the consideration, that unless we take in Jehoiakim, as well as Jeconias, we want one to complete the fourteen of this middle division; at least, it can only be made out by the somewhat awkward expedient of including the name of David at the beginning of this division, as well as at the close of the preceding one. If this really had required to be done, one does not see why the evangelist should have omitted three names together in order to shorten the list; it had been a much simpler expedient to leave out only two. And on each account the probability is very great, that Jehoiakim has been dropt from the text in the manner just stated. In regard, however, to the general characteristic of the division of the entire table into so many fourteens; and the adoption of certain abbreviations to effect this, it has the support of a very common practice among the Jews. Schottgen has produced from the Synopsis of Sohar a genealogy constructed in a quite similar manner to the one before us: “From Abraham to Solomon there are 15 generations, and at that time the moon was full; from Solomon to Zedekiah there are again 15 generations, and at that time the moon was down, and Zedekiah’s eyes were put out.” Lightfoot also produces on Matthew 1 several artificially framed genealogies. The number 14 was here, doubtless, fixed on as the basis of the arrangement, and made to rule each period: because, in the first period, that from Abraham to David, it comprehends the entire number of links, when both Abraham and David are included. No higher number, therefore, could have been assumed; and in this fact we discover the most natural reason for the ground of the arrangement. In the preceding remarks we have touched on every thing that is likely to create difficulty in connexion with the two genealogies. For various other points of a collateral kind, or of antiquarian interest, and occasionally bearing on peculiarities in the Old Testament chronology, we refer again to the volume of Lord A. Hervey, which will be found well deserving of a careful perusal from those, who are desirous of prosecuting the subject into its minuter details. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 01.14. THE DESIGNATIONS AND DOCTRINE OF ANGELS.... ======================================================================== Section Second. The Designations And Doctrine Of Angels, With Reference More Especially To The Interpretation Of Passages In New Testament Scripture. ANGELIC agency meets us at the very threshold of the gospel. The first communications made respecting the new order of things, then on the eve of emerging, came through the mediation of angels: it was they who at length broke the silence of ages. Nor may this be matter of surprise, if, together with the long cessation of prophetical gifts among men, respect be had to the part, that in earlier times was wont to be taken by angels in supernatural revelations. The only thing that may seem somewhat strange is the assumption of a name (Gabriel) by one of those angelic messengers, for the purpose more immediately of confirming the certainty of those things which he came to announce, and magnifying the guilt incurred by Zecharias in entertaining doubt concerning the possibility of their accomplishment, (Luke 1:19.) This, however, admits of a satisfactory explanation; but as there are various other points and passages of Scripture connected with angelic agency, which also call for explanation, we shall take the whole subject into consideration, and discuss the several topics relating to it, in the order that seems most natural and appropriate. I. And, first, in regard to the general designation and its use in Scripture. The Greek ἄνγγελοι, like the Hebrew מִלָכִים, has a general as well as a more specific sense: it may denote any individuals sent forth with a message to carry, or a commission to execute—messengers, as well in the natural as in the supernatural sphere of things. When the reference is plainly to the former, then the rendering ought commonly to be messenger, as it usually is in the English version—for example, Job 1:14; 1 Samuel 11:3; Luke 9:52; James 2:25. There are passages, however, in which, while the reference still is to persons or things belonging to the earthly sphere, the name is applied to them in a sense quite peculiar, and so as sometimes to leave it doubtful whether angel or messenger might be the more fitting translation. In this I do not include such passages as Acts 12:7, or 1 Corinthians 11:10, where, by “the angel of the Lord,” in the one case, and by “the angels,” in the other, some would understand merely human delegates; entirely, as I conceive, against the proper import and interpretation of the passages. Of this, however, after wards. But, in Psalms 104:4, we have the words, which are quoted in Hebrews 1:7, “who maketh His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire;” and as the discourse there is of natural things, in their relation to the beneficent disposal and ever present agency of God, it seems fittest to understand by the spirits winds, and by the flaming fire lightning; so that the sense comes to be, that God makes the winds of heaven, as angels or messengers, do His bidding, and the lightning of the clouds minister to His will: not certainly (as Kingsley interprets it, Village Sermons, p. 7,) “showing us that in those breezes there are living spirits, and that God’s angels guide those thunder clouds:” no, but showing that these very breezes and thunder-clouds are His angelic or ministering agents. Of course, they are poetically so designated; and the language is of the same kind, as when it is said of God, that “He makes the clouds His chariot, and flies upon the wings of the wind.” In like manner, but with closer approximation to the ordinary meaning of the word, prophets are sometimes called God’s melakim, or angels, though the rendering of messengers is adopted in the authorized version (Haggai 1:13; Malachi 3:1;) and the epithet is even applied to Israel generally, with special reference to the prophetical nature of his calling, appointed by God to be the light and instructor of the world, (Isaiah 42:19.) It formed but a comparatively slight transition from this use of the word, and indeed, was but connecting it with another aspect of the delegated trust committed to the covenant-people, when the priesthood were styled God’s angels; as in Malachi 2:7, “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the angel (Engl. version, messenger) of the Lord of Hosts.” This obviously is said, not so much of any individual member of the priestly class, as of the class itself collectively; the priesthood was God’s delegated ministry for making known the things pertaining to His will and worship—in that respect, His angel- interpreter. And thus we obtain a ready explanation of another passage, which has often been much misunderstood: “When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools; pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldst not vow than that thou shouldst vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error” (Ecclesiastes 5:4-6;) that is, neither rashly utter with thy lips what thou hast not moral strength and fixedness of purpose to perform; nor, if thou shouldst have uttered it, go before the priesthood, the Lord’s deputed agents to wait on such things, and say it was an error, as if by making an easy confession of having done wrong in uttering the vow, the evil could be remedied. On the ground especially of this last application of the word angel in Old Testament Scripture, we find the most natural explanation of the address under which, in the Apocalypse, the epistles were sent to the seven churches of Asia:—“to the angels of the churches.” The term is adopted, like so many others in the Apocalypse, from the prophetical usage, and from that usage more especially as employed in later times with respect to the priesthood. It can determine nothing, therefore, as to the question, whether the party designated angel, might at the time consist of one individual, or of a collection of individuals; without in any way defining this, it indicates the high position of the party, whether single or collective, as having had committed to it the authoritative instruction and oversight of the Christian community in the several churches. That party stood, as it were, between heaven and earth, and was charged with God’s interest in that particular locality. (This very charge and the responsibility implied in it, is itself quite fatal to the notion of Dean Stanley, “that the churches are there described as personified in their guardian or representative angels” (Apostolic Age, p. 71.) Angels are nowhere else spoken of as having to do in such a manner with the life and purity of the churches; and the notion is altogether opposed to the general doctrine of angels.) Usually, however, when angels are mentioned in Scripture, it is with reference to another kind of existences than such as properly belong to this present world to spirits, as contradistinguished from men in flesh and blood, and the occupants of regions suited to their ethereal natures. Yet even when thus limited, there is considerable latitude in the expression, and the name may be said to comprise several orders of being. (1.) First, there are those more commonly understood by the expression—the angels of God, as they are sometimes called, or of heaven (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32; John 1:51; Matthew 22:30.) They are named in connexion with heaven, because they have their more peculiar abode there, in the region of God’s manifested presence and glory. God’s angels also they are emphatically called, not merely because they derived their being from His hand, and are constantly sustained by His power—for this belongs to them in common with all creation—but more especially because they are in a state of peculiar nearness to God, and are His immediate agents in executing the purposes of His will. It is as possessing the ministry of such glorious agents, and possessing them in vast numbers, as well as invincible strength, that He takes to Himself the name of “The Lord of Hosts.” (2.) Then there are the angels of darkness, who are never, however, like the others, designated simply the angels, but always with some qualifying epithet indicative of their real character and position; such as “the Devil’s angels,” as contrasted with the angels of God, or “the angels that sinned,” “that kept not their first estate,” in contradistinction as well to what they themselves once were, as to the party that remained steadfast (Matthew 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6.) (3.) Finally, there is one who is called the angel, by way of eminence, or “the Angel of the Covenant,” and who, as regards angelic ministrations, occupies a place altogether peculiar to himself. As we shall have occasion to refer at some length to this angel-prince under the next division, it is needless to be more particular here. II. We turn now to the individual or proper names sometimes applied to angels in Scripture, one of which occurs so near the commencement of the Gospel history. It is at a comparatively late period of the elder dispensation, and only in the book of Daniel, that we find any specific names given to particular angels, or beings acting in the capacity of angels. There, for the first time, occur the names of Gabriel and Michael; nor do any other names beside these occur. The late appearance of such designations, together with the local position of him who employed them, was sufficient ground for the Rationalists to rush to the conclusion, that such names were of heathen origin, and that Daniel and his captive brethren learned them from the Chaldeans. It were impossible to admit such a view, without bringing into doubt the prophetical gifts of Daniel, and involving in just suspicion the supernatural character of his communications. For the angelic names he uses were not applied by himself, but were heard by him in vision, as applied one to another, by the heavenly messengers themselves. So that whatever may have been the reason for their introduction, it can with no fitness be ascribed—if Daniel’s own representations are to be accepted—to an adoption of the heathen notions prevalent around him. Nor was such a tendency in the direction of heathenism to have been expected here. Nowhere more strongly than in the book of Daniel does the theocratic spirit keep the ascendant—the resolute determination to abide at all hazards by the old foundations, and, in things spiritual and divine, to make the heathen the learner merely, not the instructor or the guide. The aim and design of the whole book is to show the real superiority and ultimate triumph of Judaism over heathenism. And it was not, to say the least, by any means likely that in this one point Daniel should have been disposed to renounce his claims as a messenger and prophet of the true God, and become a disciple of the magicians over whom his better wisdom carried him so far aloft. It is true, no doubt, that the Jews, after the Babylonish captivity, the interval that elapsed between that period and the Christian era, showed a disposition to deal somewhat lavishly with angelic names and orders. The book of Tobit, which was composed during this interval, not only finds one of the principal characters of the story in an angel called Raphael, but makes this personage say of himself, “I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One:”—evidently showing that something like a system of angelology, branching out into offices as well as names, had sprung up among the Jews of the dispersion. As commonly happens, when the elements of superstition begin to work, the false tendency developed itself more fully as time proceeded. In the book of Enoch, a spurious production that appeared some time about the Christian era, and undoubtedly embodying the notions of many of the more speculative Jews of that period, we are told of the “four great archangels, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel,” who perpetually bring reports to the Creator, of the corrupt state of the world, and receive from Him their respective commissions. Rabbinical writers descend into still further details, specify the exact positions of those superior angels in the presence of God (setting Michael on the right, Gabriel on the left, Raphael behind, Uriel in front,) tell us how Gabriel attended at the nuptials of Adam and Eve, how he taught Joseph the 70 languages of the world, and many similar things both of him and of the other archangels (Eisenmenger Ent. Judenthum, vol. i., p. 374, sq.) Such were the fanciful and ridiculous vagaries into which the Jewish angelology ran; but it by no means follows, from such a system having developed itself among the later Jews, that it had its origin in the Chaldean influence, to which they were exposed in Babylon—least of all, that Daniel and his godly companions led the way in surrendering themselves to the direction of such an influence. Considering the jealousy with which not only they, but the stricter Jews gene rally, felt toward the corruptions of heathenism, after the Babylonish exile, the more natural supposition is, that they spun, their theories of angelical existences out of the few actual notices that occur of the world of spirits in their own Scriptures—in this, as in other things, pushing some scattered elements of truth into many groundless and frivolous extremes. It is in perfect accordance with what is known of Jewish or Rabbinical speculations in general, to affirm, that the real basis of what they imagined respecting the names and offices of angels, was to be found in the writings of the Old Testament, though the opinions of those among whom they lived might come in at one quarter or another, to give a particular turn to the current of their speculations. Now, it is to be remembered that, while we meet with specific names of those heavenly messengers only in Daniel, yet in earlier revelations there is a certain approximation to the same thing; and the change cannot be characterized as very abrupt, or the feature in Daniel marked as absolutely singular. Even in one of the earliest notices of angelic visitation, that which occurred to Abraham on the plains of Mature (Genesis 18:1-33) it is evident from the sacred narrative that, of the three personages who then appeared, one was manifestly superior in dignity, if not also in nature, to the other two. He remains behind, and, in the name of the Lord, speaks to Abraham respecting the destruction of Sodom, while they go in the humbler character of messengers to take personal cognizance of its state. Then, in later times, we have the designations of “the Angel of the Covenant,” “the angel of the Lord’s presence,” “the angel in whom the Lord’s name is” (Malachi 3:1; Isaiah 63:9; Exodus 23:21;) constantly represented as different from, and superior to, a mere angel—for, in the first of the passages just referred to, he is identified with the Lord Himself, whom the people professed to be seeking after; in the second he is described as the Saviour of the covenant-people; and, in the third—the earliest of the three, and the foundation of the others—He is in a pointed manner distinguished from an angel in the ordinary sense (comp. the passage with Isaiah 33:2, Isaiah 33:12, Isaiah 33:14,) and is characterized as the same that afterwards appeared to Joshua, at once as the Lord and as the Captain of the Lord’s host (Joshua 5:14-15; Joshua 6:2.) Still further, we find this highest angel, the Angel or messenger of the covenant, identified with the Messiah, and designated by a variety of names, such as Immanuel, Jehovah Zidekinu, the prince, or the prince of the host, etc. And not only is this leader of the Lord’s hosts thus individualized and indicated by name, but a specific designation is also frequently applied to the great adversary of God and man—Satan. So that it was not to strike into a path altogether new, but merely to take an additional step in a direction already formed, when Daniel introduced the names of Michael and Gabriel into our heavenly vocabulary. But why should even such a step have been taken? Was this done in a way which admits of being intelligently explained and justified? Or does there appear in it something arbitrary and fanciful? In answer to such questions, it may be replied generally, that, if such designations were proper to be introduced anywhere, it is precisely in the book of Daniel that they might be most fitly looked for. His writings possess considerably more of a dramatic character than those of the other prophets, and in his own book those are the most dramatic visions in which the names occur. It was, therefore, in them that the actors in the spiritual drama might be expected to be most distinctly portrayed. And then the individual names, which are used for this end, are found on examination to be, not proper names in the ordinary sense, but appellatives designating the nature and office of those who bore them, and most naturally growing out of the special communications which they were engaged in making. To see this, we have only to glance at the names themselves. 1. Beyond doubt the highest in rank and importance is MICHAEL. This name occurs twice in Daniel, and is also found in the Epistle of Jude and the Revelation. It is compounded of three words, which together express the meaning, Who is like God? (מִיכָאַל.) The El, which denotes God, has respect to God as the God of might; so that the idea indicated by the appellation is, the possession, either of absolutely Divine, or of Divine-like majesty and power—the former, if the name is applied to one in whom the nature of God resides; the latter, if applied to a created intelligence. Here, however, there is considerable diversity of opinion. The Jewish and Rabbinical authorities, as already noticed, understand by Michael one of the four highest angels, or archangels, as they are sometimes termed—though with a certain superiority possessed by him above the rest; for they call Michael the Princeps Maximus, the tutelary angel of Judea, God’s peculiar angel, the Prince of the World. He was, therefore, in their account, decidedly the highest of created intelligences, but still himself a part of the creation. We find the same view exhibited in one of the earliest Patristic productions, the Shepherd of Hermas; and it became the prevailing opinion among the fathers. But the divines of the Reformation very commonly adopted another view, and understood Michael to be a name of Christ. So, for example, Luther (on Daniel 10:21 and Daniel 12:1,) and Calvin, who, at least, expresses his preference for the same opinion, though without absolutely rejecting the other; in the next age, also Cocceius, Witsius, Turretine, Lampe, Calov, the last of whom even affirms the opinion which represents the Michael in Daniel 12:1 as a created angel, to be impious. This certainly appears to be the correct view, and we shall present in as brief a compass as possible the grounds on which it is based. (1.) The name itself—who is like God? This seems to point to the Supreme Lord, and in a way very common with the earlier writers of the Old Testament; as in Exodus 15:11, “Who is like Thee among the gods, Lord?” or, in Psalms 89:8, “Who is like the Lord among the sons of the mighty?” Such an ascription of peerless might and glory, when turned into a personal appellation, seems most naturally to imply, that the qualities expressed in it belonged to the individual; it fixes our regard upon Him as the representative and bearer of what the appellation imports; and the turn given to it by Bengel (on Revelation 12:7,) as if it were a mark of humility rather than of weakness—as if the possessor of the title pointed away from himself to God—is quite unnatural, and contrary to the Scriptural usage in such appellations. Nor, in that case, would it have formed a suitable designation for the highest of the angels, since it could have indicated nothing as to any peculiar honour or dignity belonging to him. As a distinguished epithet, it is appropriate only to Christ, who actually possesses the unrivalled properties of God; and who, expressly on the ground of his possessing these, and being able to say, “All that the Father hath is Mine,” has charged Himself with the interests of the covenant-people, and is found adequate to the establishment of its provisions (John 5:18; John 16:15; Isaiah 9:6-7; Php 2:6-11.) (2.) Another argument is found in the collateral, and, to some extent, epexegetical, or explanatory designations, which are applied to the same personage. Thus in Daniel 12:1, He is called emphatically the Great Prince (הַנָדֹול הַשַׂר) apparently referring to, and closely agreeing with, the name assumed by the angel of the Lord in Joshua 5:14, captain, or rather, prince of Jehovah’s host (יְהוָה-עְכַא-שַׂר,) that is, the leader of the heavenly forces of the Great King. So again, in Daniel 10:21, Michael is styled the prince of the covenant-people, “Your prince,” the one who presides over their state and destinies; or, as it is at Daniel 12:1, “Who standeth up for the children of thy people,” namely, to protect and deliver them. These descriptions seem plainly to identify Michael with the Angel of the Covenant, who sometimes appears as God, and sometimes as his peculiar representative. Even the Rabbinical Jews could not altogether escape the conviction of the identity of Michael and this personage; for the saying occurs more than once in their writings, that “wherever Michael appeared, there was seen the glory of the Shekinah itself.” The passage, which tended chiefly to lead them in the wrong direction, was Daniel 10:13, where he is called “one (אֶחָר) of the chief princes,” or, as it might equally be rendered, “first of the chief princes,” head of the angel-chiefs. The Jewish writers understood it to indicate merely precedence or superiority in respect to others essentially of the same class. But, taken in connexion with the other passages and expressions in Daniel, it seems intended simply to exhibit the relation of Michael to the angels, to present him to our view as their directing and governing head. It is substantially, indeed, of the same import as archangel, which is never used in the plural, and never receives a personal application but to Michael (Jude 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:16;) so that there is no Scriptural warrant for understanding it as an indication of an angelic hierarchy, or otherwise than as a designation of the head of angelic hosts. (3.) Lastly, the descriptions given of Michael, both of his person and his acts, seem to confirm the same view: they are such as properly belong to the Messiah, the essentially Divine Head and King of His Church, but are scarcely compatible with the position of a created intelligence. Take, for example, the delineation of his person as given in Daniel 10:5-6, “And I looked, and behold a certain man in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude”—the description has been almost literally transferred to the vision of the glorified Redeemer by St. John in the Apocalypse (Revelation 1:13-17, Revelation 2:18.) With representations so nearly identical, we naturally conceive the same personages to have been intended by them. Some, indeed, have taken the description in Daniel as refer ring to Gabriel, and not to Michael; but this is plainly against the natural import of the narrative; which represents Gabriel as coming and talking familiarly with the prophet, while the vision of the glorious One was so overpowering, that he was unable to bear the sight. It is necessary, therefore, to understand it of Michael, who appeared in glory at some distance, and on the opposite bank of the river. What is afterwards said of Michael, at Daniel 12:1 as standing up to deliver the Lord’s people in a time of unparalleled tribulation, and the co-relative action ascribed to him in the Apocalypse (Revelation 12:7-9,) of overcoming and casting down from the heaven of his power and glory the great adversary of God and man, serve also to confirm the identification of Michael with Christ. For, the actions referred to are manifestly proper to Christ, as the Head of His Church, not to any inferior agent. Scripture constantly represents it as the sole and peculiar glory of Christ to put down all power and authority that exalts itself against God, or to execute the judgment written upon the adversary. On these grounds we conclude, that Michael is but another name for the Angel of the Covenant, or for Christ. It is the name alone that is peculiar to Daniel; and the reason, apparently, why such a name was chosen in the revelations given through Him, was to render prominent the Divine power and majesty in the angel-mediator, which assured the covenant- people of a triumphant issue out of those gigantic conflicts and troubles that were before them, if only they proved stead fast to the truth. (Compare Ode de Angelis, pp. 1054-58, Hengstenberg on Daniel and on Revelation 12:7-9.) (2.) In regard to the other specific name, GABRIEL, it is clear, both from the name itself, and from the historical notices given of the bearer of it, that a created angel is to be understood. The word may have a slightly different explanation put upon it, according as the iod is held to be paragogic merely, or the pronominal affix: in the former case, it means hero, or mighty one of God; in the other, my hero, or mighty one, is God—God is my strength. Either way the leading thought conveyed by it is much the same; it embodies a twofold idea—that the bearer of the name is distinguished by heroic might, and that he has this might, not of himself, but of God. Such an appellation could only be given to a created intelligence, to one whose part it was to recognise his dependence upon God, and in the exercise of his might to show forth something of the almightiness of the Creator. Appearing under this designation, it indicated that the business, which led to his appearance, was one that would call for the manifestation of heroic energy, such as could be found only in close connexion with the all-sufficient Jehovah. The times and circumstances referred to in the vision of Daniel, in which Gabriel acted a prominent part (Daniel 8:1-27, Daniel 9:21,) were precisely of such a description; they bore respect to the great struggles and conflicts, through which ultimate security and blessing were to be attained for the covenant-people; and the revelation of the progress and issue of the contest by one, whose very name carried up the soul to the omnipotence of Jehovah, was itself a pledge and assurance of a prosperous result. Nor was it materially different at the commencement of the Gospel, where the name of Gabriel again meets us in Divine communications. These communications bore upon matters encompassed with peculiar difficulty, and capable of being brought about only by the supernatural agency of Godhead. The very first stage in the process lay across a natural impossibility, since to furnish the herald of the new dispensation an aged and barren woman (Elizabeth) must become the mother of a child. The next, which was presently afterwards announced to Mary, involved not only a natural impossibility, but the most astounding and wonderful of all mysteries—the incarnation of Godhead. In such circumstances, what could be more fitting and appropriate, than that the Divine messenger, sent from the Upper Sanctuary to disclose the immediate approach of such events, should come as the personal representative of the heroic might and energy of Heaven?—should even make himself known as the Gabriel, the God-empowered hero, who in former times had disclosed to Daniel the purpose of God to hold in check the powers of evil, and in spite of them to confirm for ever the eternal covenant? The remembrance of the past, in which the purpose of God had been so fearlessly proclaimed and so successfully vindicated, now came in aid of the testimony, which the same Divine messenger was sent to deliver; so that the tidings, all strange and startling as they might appear, should have met from the children of the covenant with a ready and believing response. Even the miraculous, temporary suspension of the power of speech, with which the appearance of Gabriel to Zacharias came to be attended, was full of meaning and in perfect keeping with the whole circumstances of the time. Viewed in connection with these, the aspect of harshness, which at first sight it may seem to carry, will be found to disappear. That the measure of unbelief, which arose in his mind on seeing the angelic vision, and on first hearing the announcement made to him, was deserving of rebuke, must be regarded as certain from the rebuke actually administered; no such, even slight and temporary, punishment would have been inflicted, had it not been amply justified by the existing state of mind in Zacharias. But Zacharias is chiefly to be contemplated here as a representative of the people, whose prayers he was at the time symbolically offering; and in him, as such, were embodied, along with the better elements that continued to work among them, a portion also of the worse. The unbelief, therefore, that discovered itself in connexion with the angelical announcement, was but too sure an indication of the evil that slumbered even among the better part of the covenant-people. And the instant, and visible, though still comparatively gentle rebuke it met with in the case of Zacharias, was meant to be a salutary and timely warning to the people at large; and, taken in connexion with the name, Gabriel, made known along with it, it was also a palpable proof that this name was no empty title, but gave assurance of the immediate operation of the infinite power of Godhead. Thus the miracle of dumbness wrought upon Zacharias became a sign to all around—a sign of the certainty with which the things should be accomplished that were announced by Gabriel (whatever might be required of miraculous power for their performance,) and a sign also of the withering and disastrous result, which should infallibly emerge, if the manifestations of Divine power and goodness that were at hand should be met by a spirit of distrust and unbelief. It thus appears, when the history and relations of the subject are duly considered, that there is nothing greatly peculiar in the use of the names Michael and Gabriel, whether in the Book of Daniel, or in New Testament Scripture. The names here also, as in those of Immanuel. Branch of the Lord, Angel of the covenant, Satan, were really descriptive of nature and position. And their appearance only in the later revelations of the Old covenant finds a ready explanation in the circumstance, that the progressive nature of the Divine communications necessarily led to a progressive individualizing, both in regard to the Messiah Himself, and to the various persons and objects connected with His undertaking. Hence, it naturally happens, that in the later books of the Old Testament, and in those of the New, the individual features and characteristics of all kinds are brought most distinctly out. In this respect, therefore, the appearance is precisely as the reality might have led us to expect. III. Having so far cleared our way to a right understanding of the subject of angels, by examining the language employed, both in its more general and its more specific forms, we naturally turn to inquire next, what, according to the revelations of Scripture, is their personal state?—the state, namely, of those, who are always understood, when angels generally are spoken of—the angels in heaven. In Scripture they are uniformly represented as in the most elevated condition of intelligence, purity, and bliss. Endowed with faculties which fit them for the highest sphere of existence, they excel in strength, and can endure, unharmed, the intuition of God (Psalms 103:20; Matthew 18:10.) Nor in moral excellence are they less exalted; for they are called emphatically “the holy angels,” “elect angels,” “angels of light” (Mark 8:38; 1 Timothy 5:21; 2 Corinthians 11:14;) and are represented as ever doing the will of God, doing it so uniformly and perfectly, that men. on earth can aim at nothing higher or better than doing it like the angels in heaven. In the sphere, too, of their being and enjoyment, all is in fitting harmony with their natural and moral perfections; not only no elements of pain or disorder, but every essential provision for the wants and capacities of their immortal natures; so that to have our des tiny associated with theirs, to have our condition made equal to theirs, is presented to our view as the very glory of that resurrection-state to which Christ has called His people (Luke 20:36; Hebrews 12:22.) The two, indeed, may not be in all respects identical, can hardly, indeed, be so; but that which is made to stand as the pattern cannot in anything of moment be inferior to what is represented as bearing its likeness. That the angelic state was from the first substantially what it still is, can scarcely be doubted from the general tenor of the Scriptural representations. Yet in these a certain change also is indicated—not, indeed, from evil to good, or from feebleness to strength, but from a state, in which there was, at least, the possibility of falling, to another in which this has ceased to be possible—a state of ever-abiding holiness and endless felicity. The actual fall and perdition of a portion of their number, implies that somehow the possibility now mentioned did at one period exist; and the angels, that kept their first estate, and have received the designation of elect angels, nay, are assigned an everlasting place among the ministers and members of Christ’s kingdom, must have made some advance in the security of their condition. And this, we inevitably conclude, must infer some advance also in relative perfection; for absolute security to rational beings in the enjoyment of life and blessing, we can only conceive of as the result of absolute holiness; they have it—they alone can have it—we imagine, in whom holiness has become so deeply rooted, so thoroughly pervasive of all the powers and susceptibilities of their being, that these can no longer feel and act but in subservience to holy aims and obedience to principles of righteousness. So far, therefore, the angels appear to have become what they now are, that a measure of security, and, by consequence, a degree of perfection (whether as regards spiritual knowledge, or moral energy) is now theirs, which some time was not. From the representations of Scripture, there is room also for another distinction in regard to the state of angels, though, like the one just noticed, it cannot be more than generally indicated or vaguely apprehended. The distinction referred to is a certain diversity in rank and power, which there seems ground for believing to exist among the heavenly hosts. There are indications in Scripture of something like angelic orders. For, though the term archangel cannot be applied in this connexion, being used (as we have seen) only as the designation of a single personage, and that, apparently, the Messiah, yet the name Gabriel, when assumed as a distinctive epithet, appears to imply that he stood in a nearer relationship to God than certain others, or partook to a larger extent than they of the might of Godhead. So also in Revelation 18:21, we read of “a mighty angel,” as if not every angel could be called such. And in various places there is an accumulation of epithets, as of different orders, when referring to the heavenly intelligences; as in Ephesians 1:20-21, where Christ is said to be exalted “above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come;” and in 1 Peter 3:22, where He is again said, in His heavenly exaltation, to have “angels, principalities, and powers made subject to Him.” But if such expressions appear to render probable or certain the existence of some kind of personal distinctions among the angels of glory, it leaves all minuter details respecting it under a veil of impenetrable secrecy. An d to presume like the ancient Jews, to single out four or seven primary angels; or, like the Rabbins, to distribute the angelic hosts into ten separate classes; or, still again, with many of the Scholastics, to range them in nine orders, each consisting of three classes, regularly graduated in knowledge and authority, the class below ever standing in dependence upon the one above: —to deal with the matter thus, is to do precisely what the apostle has discharged any one from attempting on such a subject, “intrude into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind” (Colossians 2:18.) Of persons who discourse familiarly upon such points, and discuss the most subtle questions regarding angelic being and agency, Gerhard very justly, as well as wittily said, “They naturally dispose one to ask, how recently must they have fallen from heaven!” (quam nuper sint de cœlo delapsi.) And Calvin with his accustomed sense and gravity remarks, “If we would be truly wise, we shall give no heed to those foolish notions, which have been delivered by idle men concerning angelic orders without warrant from the Word of God” (Inst. i. c. 14, 4.) We are assuredly entitled to affirm, that in whatever the distinction among angels may consist, or to whatever extent it may reach, it cannot in the least interfere with the happiness they individually enjoy. For this happiness arises, in the first instance, from each standing in a proper relation to the great centre of life and blessing; and then from their being appointed to occupy such a sphere, and take part in such services and employments, as are altogether adapted to their state and faculties. These fundamental conditions being preserved, it is easy to conceive, how certain diversities, both in natural capacity, and in relative position, may be perfectly compatible with their mutual satisfaction and general well-being, and may even contribute to secure it. IV. The proper function and employment of angels relatively to us, is what next calls for consideration; and on this point we are furnished in Scripture with information of a more varied and specific nature, as it is that which more nearly concerns ourselves. In not a few passages we find their know ledge of what pertains to affairs on earth distinctly intimated, and also their interest in it, as proving to them an occasion of joy, or yielding a deeper insight into the purposes of God. Thus, they appear taking part in communications made from heaven to earth, desiring to look into the things which concern the scheme of salvation, learning from the successive evolution of the Divine plan more than they otherwise knew of God’s manifold wisdom, rejoicing together at the birth of Jesus, and even over the return of individual wanderers to His fold (1 Peter 1:12; Ephesians 3:10; Luke 2:13; Luke 15:10.) But there are other passages, in which a still closer connexion is indicated—passages which represent them as engaged indirectly and actively ministering to the good of believers, and shielding or delivering them from the evils incident to their lot. The office of angels in this respect was distinctly understood even in Old Testament times; as appears alone from the designation, “Lord of Hosts,” so commonly applied to God in respect to the forces He has at command for the execution of His purposes; and still more from the frequent interposition of angels to disclose tidings or accomplish deliverances for the covenant-people, as well as from express assurances, such as these: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them” (Psalms 34:7.) “He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways; they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalms 91:11-12.) Similar representations of angelic agency are found in New Testament Scripture, and come out, indeed, with greater prominence there, conformably to the general character and design of the Gospel, in rendering more patent the connexion between this lower region and the world of spirits. So that it is only what we might have expected beforehand, to learn that our Lord in the days of His flesh was from time to time ministered to by angels; that on ascending to the regions of glory, He had the angels made subject to Him for carrying forward the operations of His kingdom; that commissions of importance were executed through their instrumentality during the life-time of the apostles; and that, generally, they are declared to be “all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of salvation” (Mark 1:13; Luke 22:43; Php 2:10; 1 Peter 3:22; Acts 12:1-25; Hebrews 1:14.) In regard, however, to the kind of services which are actually rendered to believers by the ministry of angels, or the benefits which may justly be expected from it, we know too little of the nexus, which binds together in any particular case the world of sense with the world of spirits, to be able with much accuracy to determine. Negatively, there are definite boundaries that may be set down; we must hold as excluded from their agency the actual communication of life and grace to the souls of men. Nowhere is this ascribed to them in Scripture; on the contrary, it is uniformly represented as an essentially Divine work, and, as such, lying beyond the agency of created beings. Father, Son, and Spirit are here the only effective agents, working, in so far as subordinate means are employed, through a human, not through an angelic instrumentality. The things which come within the sphere of angelic ministrations, bear incidentally upon the work of salvation, rather than directly touch it; and as regards the ordinary history of the Church and the common experience of believers, they have to do with the averting of evils, which might too seriously affect the interests of righteousness, or the bringing about of results and operations in the world, which are fitted to promote them. When it is reflected how much even the children of God are dependent upon the circumstances in which they are placed, and how much for the cause of God, whether in the world at large or in the case of single individuals, often turns upon a particular event in Providence, one can easily see what ample room there may be in the world for such timely and subtle influences as the quick messengers of light are capable of imparting. It might be too much to say, as has occasionally been said by divines, and seems to be held by Mr. Kingsley, that all the active powers of nature are under angelic direction, and every event—at least every auspicious event—is owing to their interference; there are certainly no testimonies in Scripture sufficient to warrant so sweeping an inference. But, on the other hand, it is equally possible to err in the opposite direction; and as we have explicit information in Scripture of the fact, that there are myriads of angelic beings in heavenly places, who are continually ascending and descending on errands of mercy for men on earth, it may not be doubted, that in many a change which takes place around us, there are important operations performed by them, as well as by the ostensible actors, and by the material agencies of nature. But whatever individuals, or the collective body of believers, may owe to this source, there are certain laws and limitations, under which it must always be understood to be conveyed. The fundamental ground of these is, that the efficiency of angels is essentially different from that of the several persons of the Godhead; it is such merely as one finite being is capable of exercising toward another. Consequently, it never can involve any violent interference with the natural powers of reason in those who are the subjects of it: it must adapt itself to the laws of reciprocal action established between finite beings, and so, can only work to the hand, or set bounds to the actings of nature, but cannot bring into operation elements absolutely new. Hence, as a further necessary deduction, all that is done by angels must be done in connexion with, and by means of natural causes; and only by intensifying, or in some particular way directing these, can they exert any decisive influence on the events in progress. Thus, at the pool of Bethesda, the angel’s power wrought through the waters, not independently of them; at Herod Agrippa’s death, through the worms that consumed him; at the jail of Philippi, through the earthquake that shook the foundations of the building:—and if thus in these more peculiar, certainly not less in the more regular and ordinary interpositions of their power. But this takes nothing from the comfort or efficacy of their ministrations; it only implies, that these ministrations are capable of being viewed apart from the channels through which they come, and that the beings who render them are not to be taken as the objects of personal regard or adoring reverence. Hence, while the hearts of believers are cheered by the thought of the ministry of angels, the worshipping of angels has from the first been expressly interdicted (Colossians 2:18; Revelation 22:9.) Various fanciful and groundless notions have been entertained on the subject of angelic ministrations, and have sought for countenance in isolated statements of Scripture. It has been held, for example, that a part of their number are separated for the special work of praise in the heavenly places, and observe hours of devotion; that angels act at times as subordinate intercessors, mediating between believers and Christ; that individual angels are appointed to the guardianship of particular kingdoms, and even of single persons; and that they have also, whether individually or collectively, a sort of charge to be present in the assemblies of the saints. As this latter class of notions still extensively prevails, and has an apparent foundation in certain passages of Scripture, it will be necessary to subject it to a particular examination. (1.) In regard to the guardianship or protection of particular kingdoms by individual angels, the notion can scarcely, perhaps, be said to exist, as a substantive belief in the present day, in Protestant Christendom; but it is held by not a few interpreters of Scripture as a doctrine of the book of Daniel, though not a doctrine they are themselves disposed to accredit. Rabbinical writers have certainly from an early period found it there. On the supposition, that Michael was a created angel, and the guardian angel of the Jews, (designated as such, “their prince,”) coupled with the further supposition, that what is said in the same book of the prince of the kingdom of Persia, who is represented as withstanding Gabriel for twenty-one days, (Daniel 10:13,) has respect to another angel, exercising a like guardianship over the Persian empire:—on these suppositions, the notion became prevalent, not only among the doctors of the synagogue, but also among the Christian fathers, from whom it went down, like other crudities, as a heritage to the Catholic theologians, that the several states or kingdoms of the earth have each their protecting genius, or tutelary angel—a created, but high and powerful intelligence. The idea—as the divines of the Reformation justly contended—is at variance with all right views of the general teaching of Scripture respecting those kingdoms, which are represented as in a condition that must have placed them beyond the pale of any such guardianship, even if it had existed; nor do the particular passages leaned upon, when fairly interpreted, countenance the idea of its existence. We have already seen, how the proof fails in respect to Michael, he not being an angel, in the ordinary sense, but the Lord Himself as the Angel of the Covenant. He, the Jehovah-Mediator, the King and Head of the Old, as well as of the New Dispensation, was fitly denominated the שַׂר, or Prince of the covenant-people. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia, who stands, by way of contrast, over against this Divine Head of the Theocracy, is the mere earthly potentate, the only real head of that kingdom. Such also is the prince of Grecia afterwards mentioned. The Lord in the heavens, by His angelic agencies, and providential arrangements, contends with these earthly powers and dominions: in the exercise of the freedom granted them, and the resolute application of the resources they possessed, they might succeed in gaining certain advantages, or creating a certain delay, but in such an unequal contest the result could not belong doubtful; and the victory is soon announced to be on the Lord’s side. This is the substance of the representation in Daniel, which contains nothing at variance with the other representations in Scripture, nor any thing, indeed, peculiar unless it be the designation of the heads alike of the Divine and of the human kingdoms by the name of prince, instead of using the more common appellation, king. A peculiarity scarcely deserving of notice. (For a similar contrast between the Divine Head of the Jewish state, and the merely earthly heads of the surrounding states, see the explanation given in Part Third of Isaiah 7:14, as quoted in Matthew 1:23.) (2.) The idea of guardian-angels for each particular believer, or, as it is often put, for each individual child—the natural child in the first instance, then the spiritual—has met with much more general acceptance than the one already noticed, and still has the support of distinguished commentators. It is chiefly based on our Lord’s statement in Matthew 18:10, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father, which is in heaven.” Alford, as well as Meyer, holds the plain teaching of the passage to be, that individuals have certain angels appointed to them as their special guardians; and on Acts 12:15, where he again refers to the passage, he affirms, not only that the doctrine of guardian-angels had been distinctly asserted by our Lord, but that the disciples, on the ground of His teaching, naturally spoke of Peter’s angel, and believed that the guardian-angel sometimes appeared in the likeness of the person himself. So also Stier, (on Matthew 18:10,) while he admits, that the language points only by way of allusion to special guardian-angels of persons, holds the doctrine on this ground, and the unanimous sense of the Fathers, to be beyond any reasonable doubt. “Every child,” he affirms, “has his angel until sin drives him away, as we may still be able to trace in the reflection of the angelic appearance in the countenance and aspect of children. Every believer, again, who may have come into a saved condition through the grace of redemption, gets, as a new spiritual child, his angel again, whom now he especially needs in the weakness of his spiritual commencement, for deeper-reaching experiences of guardianship and admonition, than weak and foolish children in times of bodily danger.” I am no way moved by these high authorities and confident assertions; for they seem to me to impose a sense upon the words of our Lord, which they neither necessarily bear, nor naturally convey. The readiness and unanimity with which the Fathers found in them the doctrine of guardian-angels, is easily understood from the universal belief in the heathen world—a belief accredited and often largely expatiated upon in its highest philosophy—of attending genii or demons attached to single persons; and which naturally begat in the Father?, whose early training was to a greater or less degree received in the school of heathenism, a predisposition to discover the same doctrine in a Christian form. On such a point they were peculiarly disqualified for being careful and discriminating guides; of which the following comment of Jerome on the passage may serve as a sufficient proof: “Because their angels in heaven always see the face of the Father: the great dignity of souls, that each should have from his natural birth (ab ortu nativitatis) an angel appointed for his guardianship. Whence we read in the Apocalypse of John, Write these things to the angel of Ephesus, Thyatira, and to the angels of the other churches. The apostle also commands the heads of women to be veiled in the churches, on account of the angels.” How much sounder and more discriminating, not only than this confused and puerile annotation, but also than the interpretations of the modern expositors referred to above, is the note of Calvin? “The view taken by some of this passage, as if it described to each believer his own peculiar angel, is without support. For the words of Christ do not import, that one angel is in perpetuity attached to this person or that, and the notion is at variance with the whole teaching of Scripture, which testifies, that angels encamp round about the righteous, and not to one angel alone, but to many has it been commanded, to protect every one of the faithful. Let us have done, therefore,” he justly adds, “with that comment concerning a good and evil genius, and be content with holding, that to angels are committed the care of the whole Church, so that they can bring succour to individual members as necessity or profit may require.” This plainly appears to be the correct view of the passage. It does not speak of little children simply as such, but of believers under this character (to which in humility and lowliness of spirit they had immediately before been assimilated;) nor does it speak of individual relationships subsisting between these and the angels, but of the common interest they have in angelic ministrations, which extend to the apparently least and lowest of their number. But of a separate guardianship for each individual there is not a word dropt here, nor in any other part of Scripture. Even in Acts 12:7, where a very special work had to be accomplished for Peter by the ministry of an angel, there is nothing of the historian’s own that implies any individual or personal relationship of the one to the other: the angel is not called Peter’s angel, nor is the angel represented as waiting upon him like a tutelary guardian; on the contrary, he is designated “the angel of the Lord,” and is spoken of as coming to Peter, to do the particular office required, and again departing from him when it was done. It is true, the inmates of Mary’s house, when they could not credit the report of the damsel, that Peter himself was at the door, said, as if finding in the thought the only conceivable explanation of the matter, “It is his angel.” But as Ode has justly stated (De Angelis, Sec. viii. c. 4,) “It is not every thing recorded by the Evangelists as spoken by the Jews, or even by the disciples of Christ, which is sound and worthy of credit. Nor can what in this particular case was true of Peter be affirmed of all believers, or ought it to be so. And, indeed, that Peter himself did not believe, that a particular angel was assigned to him for guardianship, clearly enough appears from this, that when Peter got out of the prison, and followed the angel as his guide, he did not as yet know it to be true, that an angel was the actor, but thought he saw a vision; and at length, after the departure of the angel, having come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent His angel, and delivered me from the hand of Herod.” (3.) The last notion we were to consider respecting the ministry of angels, is the special charge they are supposed to take of Christian assemblies. This notion rests entirely upon two passages: the one, Ecclesiastes 5:4-6, which has already been examined, and shown to have no proper bearing on this, or any other point connected with angel agency; the other, 1 Corinthians 11:10, in which the apostle says, “For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head, because of the angels.” It is said in the course of the discussion, which the apostle introduces on the subject of female attire in the public assemblies. At the same time, it is proper to bear in mind, what expositors too commonly overlook, that the immediate object of the statement is of a general kind, and has respect to the relation of the woman to the man, as determined by the order of their creation: “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man; neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man: for this cause (namely, on account of that relative position and destiny,) ought the woman to have power on her head, because of the angels.” It is plainly the attire and aspect of the woman, as indicative of her proper place, that the apostle has here more immediately in view, and not merely nor directly her appearance and bearing in the church; this last and more specific point he would derive simply as a practical conclusion from the other. Now, as to the import of what he says on that other and more general subject, there can be little doubt, that what is meant by having power or authority (ἐξουσία) on the head, is having what visibly exhibited that; viz. a veiled, or covered appearance, which is the natural symbol of a dependent or subordinate position. There is no force in the objection to this, that it is rather the want of authority, than the possession of it, which is ascribed to the woman; for it proceeds on a mistaken view of the expression, as if the apostle meant she had the power to use it as her own. The reverse, rather, is what is indicated. The expression is entirely similar to that used by the centurion in Matthew 8:9, when he said of himself, “For I also am a man under authority” (ὑπὸ ἐξουσίας)—he stood, as it were, under its law and ordination—having a right and a call to do whatever it authorized him to do—that, but no more. So the woman here, as standing under the man in a relation of subservience, ought (ἐφείλει) to have authority or power upon her head; in other words, something in the very attire and aspect of her head to denote, that authority lay upon her. Her veiled appearance—naturally, by her long hair, and artificially, by an appropriate head-dress—is such a thing; it is a token of respect and submission toward the higher authority lodged in the man, and betokens that it is hers to do with ministrations of service, rather than with the right of government and control. Hence the feminine aspect which, in the ancient ordinance of the Nazarite vow, the person bound by it had to assume, in regard to his head. The Nazarite was one who. by a special vow, placed himself in strict subservience to God; the authority of God rested upon him in a manner quite peculiar; and, to mark this, he had to let his hair grow like a woman s; so that, as the woman in relation to man, so he in relation to God, might be said to have power or authority on his head; and the parting with the symbol of his position (as in the case of Samson) was in effect abandoning the covenant-engagement under which he stood—breaking loose from God. We see, then, the fitness and propriety of the veiled appearance of the woman’s head—it is the becoming sign of her place and calling, as made of man, and, in a sense also, for man. But why should this be said to be because, or for the sake of the angels? Whatever may be meant by the expression, one thing should be distinctly understood regarding it—that, from the brief and abrupt manner in which the allusion is made—not a word of explanation going before or coming after—it can have reference to no recondite or mysterious point—nothing in itself of doubtful speculation, or capable of being ascertained only by minute and laborious search. Points of such a nature, together with the Rabbinical or heathen lore, on which they are grounded, must be out of place here, as the allusion (had it referred to such) could only have tended to perplex or mislead. Proceeding, therefore, on the ground now laid down, we have to dismiss from our minds all the peculiar and unusual applications of the term angels sometimes adduced by commentators; and also all fanciful notions regarding the acts of real angels—such as their supposed habit of veiling their faces before God (which is never mentioned of angels, strictly so called), or having a sort of superintendence and oversight of Christian assemblies (a matter also nowhere else intimated in any earlier Scripture:) and we have simply to consider, whether there be any broad and palpable facts respecting the angelic world, which, without violence or constraint, may be fitly brought into juxtaposition with the proper place and bearing of women. We know nothing of this description, unless it be what their very name imports—their position and calling as ministering spirits before God, from which one section of them, indeed, fell, but which the rest kept, to their honour and blessing. This, however, is enough; it furnishes precisely the link of connexion between them and woman. Her place, in relation to man, is like that of the angels of God; it is to do the part of a ministering agent and loving help—not independently to rule and scheme for herself. It is by abiding under law to man, that she becomes either a subject or an instrument of blessing. Hence, when she fell, it was by departing from this order, by attempting to act an independent part, as if no yoke of authority lay upon her, and she might be an authority and a law to herself—quitting her appointed place of ministering, for the coveted place of independent action. So, too, was it, in the higher regions of existence, with the angels that lost their first estate; they strove, in like manner, against the prime law of their being, which was to minister and serve, and aspired to be and act as from themselves. By this vain and wicked attempt they fell; and the fall of Eve, through their instrumentality, was but the image and echo of their own. Now, is it unnatural to suppose that the apostle, while tracing up the matter concerning woman’s place and bearing in society to the origin and fountain of things, should also have reminded them of these instructive facts? should have pointed their thoughts to the higher region of spirits? The order here—he virtually said to them—the order of things in this lower world, serves as an image of the heavenly. Relations of superiority and subservience exist there as well as here; and the harmony and blessedness of both worlds alike depend upon these relations being duly kept; to disregard them, is the sure road to confusion and every evil work. Let the woman, therefore, recognising this, and remembering how the evil that originated in ambitious striving in the heavenly places, renewed itself on earth by the like spirit taking possession of her bosom—feel that it is good for her to wear perpetually the badge of subjection to authority. It is at once safe and proper for her to retain it; and so, instead of constantly repeating the catastrophe of the fallen angels, she will show her readiness to fulfil that angel-relationship, with its ministrations of service, for which she was brought into being, and exhibit before the blessed ministers of light a reflection of their own happy order and loving obedience. It may be added, in respect to the false views of angelic ministration which we have combated, and as an additional proof of their contrariety to the truth of Scripture, that the countenance they too commonly received from the Fathers produced its natural fruit throughout the early Church in a prevailing tendency to angel-worship. The Fathers, however, opposed this tendency, and sometimes by formal synodal acts denounced the practice, in which it showed itself, of dedicating particular churches to certain angels, and calling them by their names. In the Tightness of this opposition, the in consistency with which it was connected may be overlooked; but it were hard to see how, if the guardianship of distinct regions, of particular persons, and of Christian assemblies, were assigned to individual angels, these should not have received a share in the semi-divine honour that was paid to the saints. Angelic adoration and saint-worship are but different forms of the same idolatrous tendency. V. The doctrine of the fallen angels, and their agency among men, though it should not be totally omitted here, yet does not call for lengthened consideration; since, while it gives rise to many metaphysical questions and baffling difficulties, these have comparatively little to do with the interpretation of Scripture. For the most part, the passages in which the fallen angels are referred to, are plain enough in their meaning; and it is the subjects themselves discoursed of, not the language used in discoursing of them, which more peculiarly exercise the powers of the mind. At present, it will be enough to indicate a few points nearly connected with, or naturally growing out of, the principles that have been unfolded regarding the angels of God. (1.) It is, first of all, to be held fast respecting them, that, in common with those who still retain their place in light and glory, they were originally created good. The teaching of Scripture throughout is altogether opposed to the idea, which, from the earliest times, was so extensively prevalent in the East, of an independent, uncreated principle of evil, whether as embodied in one, or in a multiplicity of concrete existences. Every being in the universe, that is not God, is a part of the creation of God; and, as His works were all, like Himself, very good, the evil that now appears in any of them must have been a perversion of the good, not an original and inherent malignity. And, in the case of the evil angels, the fact of a fall from a preceding good state is distinctly asserted (John 8:44; Jude 1:6; 2 Peter 2:4.) But nothing is said as to the period of this fall, whether it came immediately after their creation, or after the lapse of ages—nor as to the circumstances that gave rise to it, and the precise form it assumed. The expression of our Lord in John’s Gospel, that Satan was a liar from the beginning (ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς) does not necessarily refer to the commencement of his own existence, but seems rather, from the connexion, to point to the beginning of this world’s history. It is more natural for us to suppose, that the fall of the angels, like that of our first parents, was nearly coeval with their existence, as it is next to impossible for us to conceive how they should, for any length of time, have enjoyed the intuition and the blessedness of God, without having all the principles of goodness in their natures strengthened and rendered continually less capable of turning aside to evil; but this is a region into which Scripture does not conduct us, and it is best to avoid it as one that can only involve matters of uncertain speculation. (2.) The total depravity, and consequent misery of the evil angels, is also constantly asserted in Scripture. In both respects they are represented as the antithesis of the good and blessed angels. Inveterately hostile to God Himself, whatever is of God excites their enmity and opposition: falsehood instead of truth, instead of love, selfishness, hatred and malice, have become the elements of their active being; and, themselves utterly estranged from all good, they appear incapable even of apprehending the feelings of those who love it, and actuated only by the insatiate desire of, in every possible way, resisting and overthrowing it. Hence their policy is characterized by mingled intelligence and blindness, cunning and folly, according as it is directed to those who, like themselves, are inclined to the evil, or to such as are wedded to the good: with the one it is skilfully laid and reaches its aim, with the other it perpetually miscalculates and defeats itself. Of all this the recorded actings of Satan and his angels, in the history of our Lord and His apostles, supply ample proof (comp. besides Matthew 13:39; 1 Peter 5:8; Ephesians 6:12; Hebrews 2:14.) So that sinning and doing evil may be said to have become a moral necessity in their natures, as love and holiness with the elect angels. “Hence they are necessarily miserable. Torn loose from the universal centre of life, without being able to find it in themselves; by the feeling of inward void, ever driven to the outward world, and yet in irreconcilable hostility to it and themselves; eternally shunning, and never escaping, the presence of God; always endeavouring to destroy, and always compelled to promote His purposes; instead of joy in the beatific vision of the Divine glory, having a never-satisfied longing for an end they never reach; instead of hope, the unending oscillation between fear and despair; instead of love, an impotent hatred of God, their fellows, and themselves:—can the fearful condemnation of the last judgment, the thrusting down into the bottomless pit of destruction (Revelation 20:10,) add any thing to the anguish of such a condition, excepting that they shall there see the kingdom of God for ever delivered from their assaults, their vain presumption that they can destroy or impede it scattered to the winds, leaving to them only the ever-gnawing despair of an inward rage, which cannot spend itself upon anything without, and is, therefore, for ever undeceived as to its own impotence!” (Twesten’s Lectures, see Bib. Sacra, i. 793.) (3.) Lastly, in regard to the agency of the evil angels, and the mode in which it is exercised in the world, the general limitations already deduced from Scripture in respect to the good, undoubtedly hold also here. Negatively, it cannot assume a substantive existence or separate action of its own, nor come into direct contact with the minds of men. It has no other way of operating, either upon men’s souls or bodies, but by entering into the series of second causes, and giving such additional potence to these as it may consist with the Divine purpose to admit of being employed. So that the temptations of the powers of evil, and the effects of every kind wrought by them, are not (in ordinary cases) to be distinguished from the operation of the moral and physical laws which prevail in the world. No record is contained of external injuries inflicted by them, except by means of external causes, which they were allowed, in some unknown manner, to intensify—as in the case of Job’s calamities, or Paul’s thorn in the flesh. And the moral hardening, or intense addictedness to evil, which is sometimes ascribed to the working of Satan, or his fellows, always appears as the result of a previous course of wickedness, and as consisting simply in a more thorough abandonment to the carnal lusts and affections, which have gained dominion of the heart. The case of Saul in the Old Testament, of Judas, Ananias, and Sapphira, the followers of Antichrist, etc., in the New, fully confirm this (1 Samuel 16:14; 1 Samuel 18:10; Luke 22:3; Acts 5:1 - 2 Thessalonians 2:11, etc.) The nearest contact with the individual that any of the notices of Scripture give reason for supposing to have ever taken place, or to be compatible with the nature of things, lies in some such operation on the bodily organism, as is fitted to inflame the existing tendencies to evil, and shut their unhappy victim more entirely up to their dominion. And hence the utter fallacy of the whole theory and practice of witchcraft, which proceeded on the assumption of direct personal intercourse with the Wicked One. That the possibility of such a traffic should have been believed in Christian times, and especially that it should have led to the sacrifice of thousands of lives in every state of European Christendom, is one of the greatest scandals in the history of modern civilization. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 01.15. ON THE NAMES OF CHRIST IN NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE ======================================================================== Section Third. On The Names Of Christ In New Testament Scripture, And, In Particular, On The Use Ofχριστός andΥἱὸς τοῦ. ALL the names of the Redeemer were originally appellatives. They expressed some leading property, or exhibited some specific aspect of His person, His mission, or His kingdom. The term Christ is no exception, nor even Jesus, which simply denotes Him as emphatically the Saviour—although being the individual name borne by Him from His infancy, it was familiarly used, and might from the first be regarded as a proper name. The Old Testament designations not only were originally, but for the most part continued still to retain an appellative character; such v for example, as The Angel of the Lord, The Angel of the Covenant, Immanuel, The Prince, The Son of God. But in others the appellative passed, even in Old Testament times, into a kind of proper name; and, as a consequence, the article, which was originally prefixed to them, ultimately fell away. In one of them, indeed, Michael—which has already been investigated in connexion with the subject of angels—the article was not prefixed; for in the only book where it occurs (Daniel) it was employed substantially as a proper name; yet it was really an appellative, and, for the purpose of indicating more distinctly the Divine nature and exalted position of Messiah, was preferred to some of the earlier and more common designations used by the prophets. As a proper example, however, of the change from the appellative to the individual form, let us trace the manner in which the term Zemach, or Branch, came to be applied definitely and personally to Christ. Isaiah first speaks in Isaiah 4:2, with reference probably to Messianic times, but in a somewhat general way, of the Lord’s branch (עֶמַח יְהֹוָה) which he said was yet to be beautiful and glorious; and at Isaiah 11:1, a little more specifically, at least with a more special reference to the house of David, and an individual member of that house, he gives promise of a stem of Jesse, and a branch, or sucker, from his roots. Here, however, the word Zemach is not used, but חֹטֶר and רעֶנֵ, showing that such terms were employed simply in an appellative sense, and merely because indicating a certain characteristic of the future scion of the royal house. With a still nearer approach to the personal, Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 23:5, prophesies of a time, when the Lord would raise up to David a righteous branch (Zemach,) and a king (viz. the branch already mentioned) should reign and prosper. And, finally, when through these earlier prophecies the appellative had come, in the general apprehension, to be associated with the one object of hope and expectation, to whom it pre-eminently pointed, it is used as a sort of proper name by the prophet Zechariah—though still with an obvious reference to its appellative import: Zechariah 3:8, “Behold, I bring my servant, Branch;”—and again, Zechariah 6:12, “Thus saith the Lord, Behold a man, whose name is Branch.”—Much in the same manner Melek, king, is occasionally used; for example in Psalms 45:1, Psalms 72:1, where the theme is that King by way of eminence, to whom even then the eye of faith looked forward as the crowning-point of Israel’s glory; it is applied to Him individually, and without the article, as a strictly personal designation. This progression, however, from the appellative to the proper use of names, appears still more distinctly in the epithet, by which in ancient times the coming Redeemer was most commonly known—the Messiah, or, adopting the Greek form, the Christ. In its primary import and application there was nothing strictly personal, or even very specific, in the term. A participle or verbal adjective from מָשַׁח to anoint, it was applied to any one so anointed; for example, to the high- priest, who is called in Leviticus 4:3, “the priest the anointed,” (hamaschiach, rendered in the Septuagint ὁ ἱερεύς ὁ χριστός. At a later period it is similarly used of Saul by David not of Saul as an individual, but of him as the possessor of a dignity, to which he had been set apart by a solemn act of consecration; as such, he is designated ὁ χριστὸς τοῦ Κυρίου, the christ or anointed of the Lord, (1 Samuel 12:8; 1 Samuel 12:5, etc.) It was Hannah who first gave the term this kingly direction, when, at the conclusion of her song of praise, she proclaimed the Lord’s intention to give “strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed (meschiho)” evidently using His Messiah, or anointed, as synonymous with His king in the preceding clause; and singularly enough, doing so, before there was an actual king in Israel, and when as yet the act of anointing had not been applied to any one filling the kingly function. The prophetic spirit, in which her song was conceived, and the elevation especially of its closing sentences, seem to point above and beyond the immediate future, and to bear respect to that universal King, of whom Jacob had already spoken as the Shiloh, and to whom the gathering of the peoples was to be—whom Balaam also described as “the Star that should come out of Jacob, and the Sceptre that should rise out of Israel, who was to smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of tumult.” This was the child of hope more especially in the eye of Hannah; for the anointed King, of whom she speaks, was to stand pre-eminent above the states and powers of the world, and through Him the adversaries of the Lord were to be broken, and the ends of the earth to be judged. Not long after we find the term Messiah applied in the same manner by David—not to a merely human and earthly monarch, but to the Son of the Highest, to whom as such the heritage of the world, to its utmost bounds, by Divine right belongs. And at length it became so appropriated to this higher use, in the diction of the Spirit and the expectations of the people, that its other possible applications were lost sight of; it came to be regarded as the distinctive name of the promised Saviour—as in Daniel 9:25, “Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah, Prince” (no article;”) and again in the next verse, “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off.” These remarks will explain some apparent grammatical anomalies in the New Testament use of the term Χριστός. But before quitting the Old Testament usage, it is not unimportant to notice, that there are two or three passages, in which the term is applied to persons not precisely included in the cases already noticed; applications which have given rise to the idea, that the term was loosely extended to include any person of note, and in particular the collective people of Israel. This is a mistaken view, and loses its apparent plausibility, when respect is had to the symbolical import of anointing with oil, out of which the word Messiah arose. Such anointing, as a religious ceremony, was always symbolical of the communication of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus the anointing of the tabernacle and all its furniture bespoke the indwelling of the Spirit for purposes of life and blessing among the members of the Theocracy. Hence, when David was anointed to be king in the room of Saul, it is immediately said, that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him from that day forward, and that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul,” (1 Samuel 16:13-14;) and David himself, when by his iniquity he had forfeited his title to the place he held in the kingdom, prays that God would not take His Holy Spirit from him, (Psalms 51:1-19)—would not deal with him as He had dealt with Saul, and leave his anointing a shell without a kernel. Still more explicitly Isaiah, pointing to gospel times, and personating the Messiah himself, says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach glad tidings to the meek,” (Isaiah 61:1)—the possession of the Spirit because of the anointing; as if the one necessarily inferred the other; and, indeed, in this case the reality alone was made account of; the symbol was dropt as no longer needed. And, to mention no more, in the vision presented to Zechariah, Zechariah 4:1-14, there is first the symbol of two olive-trees, pouring a perpetual stream of oil into the candle-stick, with its seven branches—emblems of the church; and then the explanation of the symbol in what is said to Zerubbabel, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts:”—So that the presence of the Spirit, pervading the affairs of the covenant, and carrying these triumphantly over the difficulties and dangers around them, is the reality indicated by the oil that flowed from the olive-trees into the candlestick. Now, it is by a reference to this symbolical import of the practice of anointing that the passages in question are to be understood and explained. One of them is Isaiah 45:1, where Cyrus is designated by the name of Messiah (“Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus;”) so designated, however, not from his being simply a prince or a ruler, but from the peculiar relation in which he stood to the covenant-people, and the important service he rendered to their interests. On these accounts he was justly regarded as one possessed of a certain measure of the Spirit, having the reality, though not the outward symbol of an anointing, which qualified him for discerning in some degree the truth of God, and for acting as God’s chosen instrument at an important crisis in the affairs of His Church. In the judicious language of Vitringa, “The anointed person here is one who was separated by the Divine counsel, and ordained to accomplish a matter that pertained to the glory of God, and was furnished for it from above with the necessary gifts; among which were his justice, his regard for the Divine Being, his prudence, fortitude, mildness, and humanity; so that he could not seem to be unworthy of being made an illustrious means of executing the counsels of God.” Again, in Habakkuk 3:13, it is said, “Thou wentest forth for the salvation (help) of Thy people, and for the salvation of Thine anointed” (Sept. τοὺς Χριστούς σου;) where the anointed, in the last clause, is often viewed as synonymous with people in the first. But this is erroneous; the former expression points to the God-anointed king of the people, in whose behalf the Lord is often also in the Psalms represented as coming, or entreated to come, for the purpose of bringing deliverance (Psalms 28:8; Psalms 20:6.) Finally, in Psalms 105:15, it is said respecting the patriarchs, “Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm;” and the reference is still of the same kind—it points to those heads of the Jewish nation as vessels and instruments of God’s Spirit, to whom were communicated revelations of the Divine will, and by whom were accomplished the more peculiar purposes of Heaven: on which account also Abraham is expressly called a prophet (Genesis 20:7.) To style thus the patriarchal heads of the covenant-people, and even Cyrus the heathen prince, by the name of God’s anointed, is itself convincing evidence of the respect that was had, in Old Testament times, to the reality in the symbol, and shows how, where the external form of anointing had failed, this might still be regarded as virtually present, if the things signified by it had actually taken effect. To return, however, to our more immediate object, we have seen that while the term Messiah was properly appellative, yet, toward the close of the Old Testament writings, it came to be used of the expected Redeemer much as a proper name, and hence, naturally, without the article; still, not as if it thereby lost its appellative import, but only because this import was seen concentrating all its fulness in Him, so that He alone seemed worthy to bear the appellation. It should not, therefore, excite any surprise; it is rather in accordance with what might have been expected, if, sometimes at least, and especially when persons spoke, who were peculiarly under the influence of the Spirit, or who had no doubt as to the individual to whom the name properly belonged, it is found to be similarly used in New Testament Scripture. It is in reality so used on the very first occasion on which Χριστὸς occurs in the Gospels, viz., when the angels announced to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem that there had been born a Saviour, ὅς ἐστιν Χριστὸς Κύριος, “who is Christ, Lord” (Luke 2:11.) In like manner, the woman of Samaria, when speak ing, not of any definite individual, but of the ideal Messiah, or the specific, though still unknown individual, in whom the idea was to be realized, uses the term absolutely, or as a proper name, “I know (she said, John 4:25) that Messias comes, who is called Christ (ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός:) when he shall have come, He will tell us all things.” So, yet again, Jesus Himself in the only passage in which He is recorded to have applied the term directly to Himself, John 17:8, “And Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” Here especially commentators have often found a difficulty, from not seeing the matter in its proper light; and Dr. Campbell even suspects, in the face of all the MSS., that the article has somehow been lost before Χριστόν. He might, however, as well have suspected a like omission in the address of the angels to the shepherds, or in Daniel 9:24-25, before Messiah. The same principle accounts for the omission in all the cases, and satisfactorily explains it; viz., the distinctive application of the term Messiah, even before the close of Old Testament Scripture, to the promised Redeemer, which rendered it substantially a proper name, when used by those who looked with some degree of confidence to the individual that was entitled to bear it. But from the circumstances connected with our Lord’s appearance in the world, which were such as to occasion doubts in many minds respecting His Messiahship, it was quite natural that when the term was used during the period of His earthly sojourn, it should not commonly have been employed as a proper name, but should rather have been taken in its appellative sense, and as only with a greater or less degree of probability applicable to the Saviour. The question, which at the time either consciously agitated, or silently occurred to men’s minds, was, whether this Jesus of Nazareth was entitled to be owned as the Messiah; whether He was in reality the person, in whom the characteristics and properties implied in that designation were to be found. Hence, being commonly used with reference to the solution of such a question, the name Messiah, or Christ, usually has the article prefixed, till after the period of the resurrection, when all doubt or uncertainty vanished from the minds of His followers, and the name began, equally with Jesus, to be appropriated to our Lord as a strictly personal designation. We can thus mark a general progress in the usage of the sacred writers, and a diversity in respect to Χριστὸς, quite similar to that, which was noticed in the Old Testament respecting Messiah: an earlier use, in which respect is had more to the appellative import, and a later, in which the word comes chiefly to be applied as a proper name. And accordingly in the Gospels it is but rarely found without the article, while it is almost as rarely found with the article in the Epistles. This more advanced stage of matters, when Christ as well as Jesus had come to be used as a proper name, had already entered when the Gospels were written. Hence we find the Evangelists, at the beginning of their narratives, and when speaking from the point of view which had then been reached, employing the term Christ in as personal a manner as Jesus. Thus Matthew, at the beginning of his genealogy, “The book of the generation ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ,” of Jesus Christ; and again at the close of it, “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστὸς.) In like manner Mark heads his Gospel, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” So also John in John 1:17, “The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by” Jesus Christ.” But immediately after such introductory statements, when they begin to report what persons thought and spake, while the events of Gospel history were in progress, we mark in the use of the article the regard men had to the appellative import of the word. Thus in John 1:20, the Baptist is reported as confessing, that he was “not the Christ;” and at John 1:42, Andrew says to Peter, “We have found the Messias.” In Matthew 2:3, Herod demands of the chief priests and scribes, “Where the Christ is born;” i.e. the person to whom that appellation should really belong. And Peter in his memorable confession says, “We believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It would undoubtedly have been better, and would have contributed to the more easy and distinct understanding of some passages in New Testament Scripture, if our translators had been more generally observant of the difference in style now under consideration, and had more commonly rendered the article when it exists in the original. We miss it particularly in some passages of the Acts—as at Acts 4:42, “They ceased not teaching and preaching Jesus Christ,” properly, Jesus the Christ, meaning, that Jesus is the Christ; Acts 17:3, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is Christ;” Acts 18:28, “Showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ;” where, in both passages, the meaning would evidently gain in distinctness by inserting the article, as in the original, “That Jesus is the Christ.” At the same time, as the name, even when it became a kind of personal designation, always bore a reference to its original import, so it never wholly loses this in the minds of thoughtful readers of the Bible; and there are probably not very many, at least of serious and thoughtful readers, who are in the position described by Dr. Campbell, when he says, that they consider Jesus Christ as no other than the name and surname of the same person, and that it would sound all one to them to say, that Paul testified that Christ was Jesus, as that Jesus was Christ. (Preliminary Dissertations. ) No one could possibly be insensible to the difference in these statements, who reads with ordinary attention the authorized version—excepting in the sense, which would not suit Dr. Campbell’s purpose, of ascribing an appellative import to Jesus as well as Christ. In that case it would be much the same to say, that Jesus or Saviour is Christ, and that Christ or Messias is Jesus. All, however, that can with propriety be affirmed, is, that the omission of the article in such cases renders the meaningless palpable and obvious than it would otherwise have been. Even when the word Christ was passing, or had already passed into a sort of personal designation, pains were taken by the apostles to keep up in the minds of the disciples an acquaintance with its proper import. Thus Peter on the day of Pentecost speaks of God having made the Jesus who had been so recently crucified both Lord and Christ—καὶ Κύριον και Χριστὸν; and, somewhat later, the assembled company of apostles, after the liberation of Peter and John, say in their joint address to God, “Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou didst christen,” or anoint, (ὅν ἔχρισας, Acts 4:27.) Still more explicitly was this done in the address, of Peter to the household of Cornelius, when, after briefly adverting to the general outlines of our Lord’s history, and styling Him simply, Jesus of Nazareth, he adds, “how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power,” (ὡς ἔχρισεν αὐτὸν ὁ Θεὸς Πνεύματι ̔Αγίῳ καὶ δυνάμει, Acts 10:38.) Indeed, the verb χρίω on this very account—that is, because of its symbolical connexion with the gift of the Spirit, and in particular with the name and consecration of Jesus itself acquired a kind of sacred value, and in New Testament Scripture is only used of this higher, spiritual anointing. With one exception, it is never used but of Christ Himself, as the Spirit-replenished servant of Jehovah; and even that exception is not without a close respect to the same. It is in 2 Corinthians 1:21, where the apostle says, “He that establisheth us together with you into Christ, and hath anointed us, is God,” (ὁ δὲ βεβαιῶν ἡμᾶς σὺν ὑμῖν εἰς Χριστὸν κὰ̀ χρίσας ἡμᾶς Θεός,)—that is, He has so knit and consolidated us into Christ, that we have ourselves become Christ-like, replenished with a portion of His enlightening and sanctifying Spirit. The verb ἀλείφω is the word employed in reference to anointings of an inferior sort, done for the sake of refreshment merely, and without any sacred design. In some of the later passages of the New Testament this reference to the original meaning of the term is undoubtedly lost sight of; and Jesus is designated Christ, when, as far as we can see, Lord, or Redeemer, might have been equally appropriate. Thus in Ephesians 5:21, according to the correct reading, we have “being subject to one another in fear of Christ,” (ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ;) Christ being simply an appellation of the Divine and glorified Redeemer, as the object of humble reverence and submissive regard. Passages of this sort, however, are not very frequent; and where there is no distinct, there often is a concealed or implied reference to the appellative import of the term. It is to this, that we would ascribe the occasional employment of Christ, rather than any other name of the Redeemer, to denote the organic union between Him and His people. Thus in Galatians 4:19, the apostle says, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you;” and in Ephesians 4:20, “Ye have not so learned Christ.” In these passages we are not to dilute the term Christ, so as to take it for a kind of concrete designation of Christian doctrine; we are rather to regard it as pointing to that intimate spiritual fellowship between the soul and Christ, which renders genuine believers so many images of Himself—smaller vessels and partial embodiments of that grace, which in infinite fulness and perfection is treasured up in Him. So again in 1 Corinthians 12:12, we read, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ;” i.e., Christ and those who are His—the whole corporate society of the faithful; they are together designated by the name of Christ, as having their spiritual being in Him, and in Him receiving the unction of the same Spirit. It is quite possible also, and even probable, that out of this import and use of the word Χριστὸς may have grown that common name Χριστιανοί, Christians, by which the followers of Jesus became so early, and have so uniformly been distinguished. We are told in Acts 11:26, that they were so called first in Antioch; and Dr. Trench, (in his Study of Words, p. 98,) as well as many in former times, have thought that the name was imposed upon them by their heathen adversaries, and consequently at first had somewhat of the aspect of a nickname. We cannot positively affirm it was otherwise; but the phraseology of St. Paul approaches so very near to the use of the word as a common designation, that if it did not actually originate in the Church itself, we might almost say, it should have done so; nor, assuredly, would it have become so readily owned, and so extensively employed among the Christian communities, unless it had either spontaneously arisen from within, or as soon as heard awakened a response among the members of the Church. Hence, as conscious of no reproach in the appellation, yea, rather as owning and accrediting its propriety, the Apostle Peter says, “But if any of you suffer as a Christian—ὡς Χριστιανός —let him not be ashamed,” (1 Peter 4:16.) And as regards the spiritual use to be made of the appellation, the most natural and appropriate turn, in our judgment, to be given to the matter, is, to direct attention—not to the supposed accident of the origin of the term—but to the real meaning involved in it, when rightly understood; in other words, to the fulness of grace and blessing which ought to distinguish those who have their calling and designation from Him, who is THE CHRIST—the Spirit-anointed Saviour. Another thing to be noted, in connexion with this name and its cognate terms, is the rise that took place from the outward and symbolical, to the inward and spiritual. This had begun, as we have noticed, even in Old Testament times; persons were even then designated as Christ’s or anointed ones, who had received no outward consecration with holy oil. The application of the term to the patriarchs in Psalms 105, and to Cyrus by Isaiah, was manifestly of this description; and in the New Testament the external symbol, so far as regards the use of χρίω in all its forms, falls entirely away; it is applied only to the inward communication and endowment with the Spirit’s grace, which was symbolized by the external anointings with holy oil. The spiritual reality was so well understood, that while the old language was retained, the ancient symbol was felt to be no longer needed; so that the anointed one now is simply the vessel of grace—Jesus pre-eminently and completely, because in Him resides the plenitude of the Spirit’s grace; then, subordinately to Him, the members of His spiritual body, because out of His fulness they receive grace for grace. It is proper, still further, to note the relative order and gradation, that appears in the names usually applied to our Lord as regards their individual import and common use. The first name by which He was known and addressed was Jesus, which, though of deep and comprehensive import, and requiring the exercise of lively faith and spiritual discernment, if used with a proper knowledge and apprehension of its meaning, was yet for the most part regarded as simply a proper name. When called Jesus of Nazareth by the men of His generation, our Lord was merely distinguished from the other persons of the place and neighbourhood. The first question that came to be stirred in men’s bosoms, was, whether He was entitled to have the further name of the Christ, or simply to be called Jesus Christ. As soon as inquirers attained to satisfaction on that point, they took their place among His disciples; they recognised Him as the promised Messiah, and confessed Him as such. It was a further question, however, and one not so readily decided, what personally this Christ was? Was He simply a man, distinguished from other men by superior gifts of nature and of grace? Or was He, in a sense altogether peculiar, the Son of God? A considerable time elapsed before even the immediate followers of Christ reached the proper position of knowledge and conviction upon this point; and the first distinct, or, at least, thoroughly intelligent and assured utterance of the truth, was that which came from the lips of Peter, when he said, “We believe, that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” If he had stopt at “the Christ,” there had been nothing very remarkable in the confession; Philip virtually confessed as much at the outset, when he said to Nathanael, “We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus the Son of Joseph;” and by Andrew, when he informed Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” But it was greatly more to be able to add? with a full understanding and conviction of what was said, “the Son of the living God.” Peter appears to have had precedence of the other disciples in the clearness and strength of his convictions on the subject. Nearly the same confession in words had been uttered at an early period by Nathanael, when he exclaimed, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel;” but we can scarcely doubt that his mind was still imperfectly enlightened regarding the person of Jesus, and that he really confessed to nothing more than some kind of indefinite superiority in Jesus over ordinary men. But the truth had been communicated to Peter by special revelation, and had taken firm possession of his soul; and the Sonship of Jesus to which he confessed was that essentially Divine one, of which Christ spake when He said, “All things are delivered to Me of My Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him,” (Matthew 11:27.) And it was, beyond doubt, in this higher sense, which had been indicated in various discourses of Christ, that the Jewish high priest used it, when he solemnly put the question to Jesus, whether He were the Christ, the Son of God; and on receiving an affirmative answer, condemned Him for blasphemy. So that to confess Jesus, as at once the Christ, and the Son of God, was to own Him to be all that the prophets foretold He should be—all that His Divine mission required Him actually to be; it declared Him to be possessed of a nature essentially Divine, as well as human, and thereby rendered capable of receiving the entire fulness of the Spirit, to qualify Him for executing in every part the Work of man’s redemption. It is somewhat singular, that our Lord Himself never, except on one occasion—the one already referred to in John 17:3—appropriated the names, Jesus and Christ; and only on a very few occasions, and even then somewhat obliquely, did He take to Himself the title of the Son of God, (Matthew 11:27; John 5:25; John 9:35; John 11:4.) The epithet, under which He usually spoke of Himself, was that of the “Son of Man.” There are on record upwards of forty distinct occasions on which He is represented to have employed it in His discourses. Yet it was never applied to Him by the evangelists, when relating the events of His earthly ministry; nor is He ever mentioned as having been addressed under this title either by friends or foes. Stephen, however, after the resurrection of Jesus, made use of it, when in ecstasy he exclaimed, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God,” (Acts 7:56.) On no other occasion do we find it used, either of Christ or to Him, in New Testament Scripture—unless we may so regard what is written in Revelation 1:13, where the Apocalyptist speaks of seeing in vision one ὄμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου, “like to,”—not, as in the authorized version, the, but—“a son of man.” It is in itself a quite general expression, although it doubtless points to the glorified Redeemer. This, however, we only learn from what follows: from the connexion it appears, that the individual, who in the vision bore such resemblance to a son of man, was none other than the once crucified but now exalted Saviour; but the description, “like a son of man,” is not in itself more specific and personal than the corresponding phrase in Daniel, Daniel 7:13—where, after the vision of the four wild beasts rising from the sea, and representing the four successive worldly monarchies, one appeared in the night visions “like a son of man, (no article in the original,) coming with the clouds of heaven, and receiving dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him.” There can be no doubt that this passage in Daniel is the fundamental one, on which not only that in Revelation, but also our Lord’s favourite and familiar use of the phrase in question, is based; and without knowing the precise import and bearing of the representation in the prophet, it is impossible rightly to apprehend the reason and object of the language derived from it in New Testament times. There are two .points of contrast brought out in the prophet between the representative of the fifth, the really universal and everlasting kingdom, and the representatives of the earthly kingdoms that preceded. These latter are all exhibited as deriving their origin from beneath; they appeared coming out of the sea, that is from the world, in its heaving, troubled, and agitated state; and not only so, but they, one and all, bore the aspect and possessed the nature of wild beasts, having only earthly properties about them, and these of the more savage and selfish description. In marked contrast to both of these broad characteristics, the representative of the fifth and ultimate kingdom was seen descending from above, borne on the clouds of heaven, the distinctive chariot of Deity, and bearing the aspect, not of a nameless monster, or savage tenant of the forest, but of “the human face Divine”—ideal humanity. Introduced in such a connexion, and with the obvious design of exhibiting such a contrast, it is surely a meagre representation of its import, which is given by many commentators—for example, by Dr. Campbell, when it is said, “Nothing appears to be pointed out by the circumstance, one like a son of man, but that he would be a human, not an angelical, or any other kind of being; for, in the Oriental idiom, son of man and man are terms equivalent.” (Dissertations, v. 13.) Be it so; the question still remains, Why only in respect to this last—the sole world-embracing and perpetual monarchy—was there seen the attractive form of a human likeness, while the others, which were certainly to be constituted and governed by men, had their representation in so many irrational and ferocious wild beasts? And why, possessing the likeness of a man, should the former have appeared, not coming from beneath, like the others, cast up by the heaving convulsions of a tumultuous and troubled world, but descending from the lofty elevation of a higher region, and a serener atmosphere? These things assuredly were designed to have their correspondences in the realities to which they pointed; and the difference indicated is but poorly made out in the further statement of Dr. Campbell, when he says, “This kingdom, which God Himself was .to erect, is contradistinguished from all the rest by the figure of a man, in order to denote, that whereas violence, in some shape or other, would be the principal means by which those merely secular kingdoms should be established, and. terror the principal motive by which submission should be enforced, it would be quite otherwise in that spiritual kingdom to be erected by the Ancient of Days, wherein every thing should be suited to man’s rational and moral nature; affection should be the prevailing motive to obedience, and persuasion the means of producing it.” True, so far as it goes; but the question is, How was such a spiritual and Divine kingdom to be set up and administered among men? And when a prophetic representation was given of the fundamental difference betwixt it and the merely worldly kingdoms that were to precede, was the human element alone thought of? Did the Spirit of prophecy mean to exhibit a simple man as destined to realize, on the wide field of the world, the proper ideal of humanity? That certainly is by no means likely; and if the whole vision of the prophet is taken into account, is plainly not the case. The simply terrene or human kingdoms are there represented by the wild beasts; and if one like a son of man is brought in to represent another and better kingdom, and one both receiving His kingdom from above, and descending thence, as on the chariot of Deity, to take possession of His dominion, the obvious inference and conclusion is, that here at last Divine and human were to be intermingled in blessed harmony, and that till such intermingling took place, and the kingdom based on it was properly erected, the ideal of humanity should remain an ideal still, bestial properties should really have the ascendant, and should retain their sway, till they were dislodged by the manifestation and working of Him who, with Divine aid, should restore humanity to its proper place and function in the world. Such is the fair and natural interpretation of that part of Daniel’s vision which relates to the fifth monarchy, and its representation under one bearing the likeness of a son of man. And it sufficiently explains our Lord’s partiality for this epithet, when speaking of Himself, and some of the more peculiar connexions in which he employed it. He was announced to Israel by His forerunner as coming to set up “the kingdom of God,” or “of heaven.” It was this kingdom which John declared was at hand—in other words, the fifth monarchy of Daniel, which was to come from above, and which was destined to supplant every other. How natural, then, for our Lord, in order to keep prominently before men this idea, and impress upon their minds correct views of the nature of His mission, to appropriate to Himself that peculiar epithet, “Son of Man,” under which this kingdom has been prophetically exhibited, as contradistinguished from the kingdoms of the world? In so appropriating this epithet, He by no means claimed simple humanity to Himself; on the contrary, He emphatically pointed to that union of the Divine with the human, which was to form the peculiar characteristic of this kingdom, as that through which its higher ideal was to be realized. He was the Son of Man personified, to whom prophetically, and in vision, were committed the powers and destinies of the kingdom, which was of God—the kingdom, in which humanity was to be made to re-assume its proper type. Hence we can readily explain, and see also the full propriety of such representations as that in John 1:51—the first occasion on which the phrase in question is recorded to have been used—“Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”—on Him, as uniting, according to Daniel’s vision, heaven and earth, the Divine and the human. Or that in John 3:13, “And no man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, who is in heaven”—a seeming contradiction, if taken by itself, hut, when placed in connexion with the passage in Daniel, embodying a most important truth. For it tells us that no one, who is simply a man, fallen and degenerate, ever has ascended to heaven, or can do so—the tendency is all in the opposite direction—not up wards to heaven, but downwards to hell. The Son of Man, however, in whom the idea of humanity was to be realized, is of a higher mould; He belongs to the heavenly—that is His proper region; and when he appears (as in the person of Christ He did appear) on earth, it is to exhibit in Himself what He had received from the Father, and raise others to the possession of the same. By the very title He assumed, He claimed to be the New Man, the Lord from heaven, come for the purpose of making all things new, and conforming men to the image of Himself. Hence, too, the peculiar expression, embodying another seeming incongruity, in John 5:27, where our Lord says of Himself, that the Father “has given Him authority also to execute judgment, because He is Son of Man.” To execute judgment is, undoubtedly, a Divine work; and yet it is committed to Christ precisely because He is the Son of Man. How? Not, assuredly, because in Him there were simply human properties; but because there was the realization of that form in Daniel’s vision, which represented the nature and aspect of the Divine kingdom among men—the Son of Man, in whom humanity was to attain to its proper completeness, and in whom, that it might do so, the human should be interpenetrated by the Divine, and hold its powers and commission direct from a higher sphere. He, therefore, could execute judgment; nay, as concentrating in Himself the properties of the kingdom, it was His peculiar province to do it; since to man, as thus allied to heaven, God has put in subjection the powers of the world to come. And there is still another peculiar passage, which derives a clear and instructive light from the same reference to the original passage in Daniel; it is Matthew 26:64. The high priest had adjured our Lord to confess whether He were indeed “the Christ, the Son of God;” and His reply was, “Thou hast said [rightly;] nevertheless [rather, moreover, in addition to what I have declared] I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” It is very striking, how our Lord here drops the title, “Son of God,” to which He had confessed when put by another, and immediately reverts to His wonted appellation, “Son of Man;” while, at the same time, He affirms of this Son of Man what might have seemed to be more fitly associated with the Son of God. The explanation is found in the passage of Daniel, the very language and imagery of which it adopts; and our Lord simply asserts Himself to be the Head and Founder of that Divine kingdom, which was presented to the eye of Daniel in vision, under the appearance of one like a Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven; but which a moment’s reflection might have convinced any one He could be, only by, at the same time, being in the strict and proper sense the Son of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 01.16. 2CO_3:2-18. ======================================================================== 2 Corinthians 3:2-18. ‘Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men, Manifested as being an epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables of flesh, those of the heart. But such confidence have we through Christ toward God: Not as if we were sufficient as of ourselves to think any thing of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God; Who also has made us sufficient [to be] ministers of the new covenant, not of letter, but of Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death in the letter, engraven on stones, came in glory, so that the children of Israel were not able steadfastly to look on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, [though a glory that was] to vanish away; How shall not rather the ministration of the Spirit be in glory? For if the ministration of condemnation was in glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness abound in glory. For even that which has been made glorious has not had glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which vanisheth away was in glory, much more is that which abideth in glory. Having then such hope, we use great boldness of speech; And not as Moses put a veil on his face, in order that the children of Israel might not steadfastly look to the end of that which was to vanish away: But their understandings were blinded; for until this very day the same veil remaineth at the reading of the old covenant, without having it unveiled (or discovered), that it is vanished away in Christ. But unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart. But whenever it shall have turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord the Spirit.’ This section has at first sight a somewhat parenthetical appearance, and introduces, in a manner that seems quite incidental, a subject not elsewhere discussed in either of the Epistles to the Corinthians—the difference in certain respects between the ministration of law and the ministration of the Gospel. Closer examination, however, shews that it was not done without reason, being intended to meet the unworthy insinuations, and incorrect or superficial views of the teachers, who by fair speeches, recommendatory letters or otherwise, had been seeking to supplant the apostle’s authority at Corinth. That a certain Judaistic leaven existed also among some of these, may not doubtfully be inferred from their calling themselves by the name of Cephas or Peter (1 Corinthians 1:12). And though the apostle had reason to conclude that the influence of those designing teachers had already received its death-blow from the effect produced by his first epistle, we cannot wonder that he should still have deemed it needful—though only as it were by the way—to bring out the higher ground which he had won for himself at Corinth, and the practical evidence this afforded of the Divine power of his ministry, being in such perfect accordance with the spiritual nature of the Gospel dispensation, and the superior glory that properly belonged to it. This, then, is the apostle’s starting-point—his own fitness or sufficiency as a minister of Christ: this, as to power and efficiency, is of God; it is proved to be so by the life-giving effects which it had produced among the Corinthians themselves, these having become like a living epistle of the truth and power of the Gospel; and this, again, the apostle goes on to shew, is the best of all testimonials, as being most thoroughly in accordance with the character of the new covenant, which in this very respect differs materially from the old. 2 Corinthians 3:6. Passing over the two or three earlier verses which, for the purpose we have more immediately in view, call for no special consideration, the apostle, after stating at the close of 2 Corinthians 3:5 that his sufficiency (ἱκανότης) was of God, adds, ‘who also has made us sufficient to be ministers’ (ἱκάνωσεν—not, as in the authorized version, ‘made us able ministers’), that is, has qualified us for the work of ministers, ‘of the new covenant.’ The καὶ must be taken in the sense of also, or thus too: our sufficiency in general is of God, who thus too has made us sufficient—in this particular line has given proof of His qualifying grace, by fitting us for the ministry of the new covenant. It is here first that the term ‘new covenant’ is introduced, suggested, however, by what had been said of the effects of the apostle’s ministry in 2 Corinthians 3:3, as having constituted the members of the church at Corinth his recommendatory letter, written neither with ink, nor on tables of stone, but by God’s Spirit on the heart. The mention of tables of stone on the one side, and Spirit on the other, naturally called up the thought of the two covenants—the old and the new—the old, that which was established at Sinai, and which, as to its fundamental principles or terms, stood in the handwriting of the two tables; the new, that indicated by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34), according to which there was to be a writing of God’s law upon the hearts of men, an engraving on their inward parts. Of this new covenant the apostle speaks as a thing perfectly known and familiar to the minds of his readers: hence simply new covenant, without the article, not to be rendered ‘a new covenant,’ with Meyer, Stanley, and others, as if of something indeterminate, and there was still room for inquiry which new covenant. This cannot be supposed; it is rather assumed, that the readers of the epistle knew both what covenant the expression pointed to, and what was the specific character of the covenant. The definite article, therefore, may be quite appropriately used, the new covenant. But then, standing related as ministers to this new covenant, the apostle goes on to say, they were ministers (for διακόνους must be again supplied), not of letter, but of Spirit (not of γράμμα, but of πνεῦμα). The expression is peculiar, and can only be understood by a reference to the state of things then existing; for in themselves there is no necessary contrast between letter and spirit. The apostle himself elsewhere uses the word letter in the plural, in connection with sanctifying and saving effects: the τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα, the sacred letters, or writings, he says to Timothy—meaning the Scriptures of the Old Testament—‘are able to make thee wise unto salvation.’ (2 Timothy 3:15.) And as letters are but the component parts of words, we may apply here what our Lord Himself affirmed of His words or sayings (ῤήματα), ‘The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and life.’ (John 6:63.) Hence, without pointing to any contrast between old and new, or outward and inward, we find Justin Martyr, or the author of ‘Expositio Fidei,’ denoting by the term a passage of Scripture, saying, in proof of the essential divinity of the Son and Spirit, ‘Hear the passage’ (ἄκουε τοῦ γράμματος, sec. 6); and Cyrill Alex, applies it specifically to the Scriptures of the New Testament, speaking of what is fitting according to the scope of the New Scripture (κατὰ τὸν τοῦ σέου γράμματος σκοπὸν) and ecclesiastical usage.’ (De Ador., L. xii.) Paul might, therefore, in perfect accordance with Greek usage, have spoken of himself as a minister of letter or word, if he had so qualified and used the expression as to shew that he merely meant by it the oral or written testimony of God in Christ, which he elsewhere characterizes as ‘the sword of the Spirit,’ and as ‘quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword.’ (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12.) But putting, as he here does, letter in contrast with spirit, it is quite clear that the apostle had respect to the written testimony or law of God, considered by itself, and taken apart from all the spiritual influences with which, as given by Him, it was meant to be associated. And he was naturally led to this use of the term, with reference especially to Old Testament Scripture, by the undue, and, in many cases, exclusive regard paid, at and long before the Gospel era, by the Jewish authorities to the bare terms, or precise letter, of the written word. Their scribes (γραμματεῖς) had become very much men of the letter (γράμμα), as if every thing which a Divine revelation had to aim at might be accomplished by an exact and proper adherence to the terms in which it was expressed. Hence arose a contrariety between Rabbinism, the system of the scribes, and Christianity, but which might equally be designated a contrariety to the true scope and spirit of the old covenant itself: the aim of each was substantially one, namely, to secure a state of things conformable to the revealed will of God; but the modes taken to accomplish it were essentially different, according to the diversity in the respective modes of contemplation. ‘Christianity demanded conversion, Rabbinism satisfied itself with instruction; Christianity insisted on a state of mind, Rabbinism on legality; Christianity expected from the communication of the Holy Spirit the necessary enlightenment, in order to discern in all things the will of God, Rabbinism thought it must go into the minutest prescriptions to shew what was agreeable to the law; Christianity expected from the gift of the Holy Spirit the necessary power to fulfil the Divine will, Rabbmism conceived this fulfilment might be secured through church discipline.’ (‘Rabbinismus,’ in Hertzog, by Pf. Pressel.) The inevitable result was, that; ‘by the external position thus given to the law, there was nothing Divine in the heart; no repentance, faith, reformation, and hope, wrought by God’s Spirit; no kingdom of God within, but all merely external;’ and, in like manner, the prophets were viewed in a superficial manner, as if pointing, when they spake of Messias, to a mere worldly kingdom, no true kingdom of Heaven. But this senseless adherence to the letter was at variance, as we have said, not merely with Christianity, but with the teaching of the prophets, and the design of the old covenant itself (when taken in its proper bearing and connection). And hence (as Schöttgen long ago remarked, in his ‘Hor. Heb.,’ on the passage before us), by the letter is not to be understood the literal sense of the Divine word (in which sense many things in the Gospel were equally liable to abuse with those in the law, as the call of Christ to follow Him, to bear His cross, etc.), for that word, as having been given by the Spirit for the direction, not so much of man’s body as his soul, is mainly spiritual, and the law itself is expressly so called by the apostle in Romans 7:14. But by letter must be understood the outward form merely of what is taught or commanded in the word, as contra-distinguished from its spiritual import or living power—the shell apart from the kernel; and, in this sense, neither the apostles nor any true messengers of God, in earlier any more than later times, were ministers of the letter. Not even circumcision, Paul elsewhere says, was of this description, that is, as designed by God, and properly entered into on the part of the people: ‘Circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter;’ (Romans 2:29.) and the same might, of course, be said of all the precepts and ordinances of the law; none of them were intended to be taken and observed in what he calls ‘the oldness of the letter.’ (Romans 7:6.) So that it is utterly to mistake the apostle’s meaning here, to suppose that he draws a distinction betwixt the old and the new in God’s revelations; the distinction intended has respect mainly and primarily to a right and wrong understanding of these revelations, no matter when given; and only hints, though it cannot be said distinctly to express, a difference between law and Gospel in this respect—that letter or formal prescription had a more prominent place in the one than it has in the other. The meaning was given with substantial correctness by Luther in his marginal gloss—greatly better than by many later expositors—‘To teach letter is to teach mere law and work, without the knowledge of God’s grace, whereby every thing that man is and does becomes liable to condemnation and death, for he can do nothing good without God’s grace. To teach spirit is to teach grace without law and works [i.e., without these as the ground of peace and blessing], whereby men come to life and salvation.’ ‘For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (quickeneth).’ This the apostle assigns as a reason why he and his fellow-labourers were ministers of the new covenant, in the sense just explained, not of letter but of spirit; when done otherwise, it is but a ministration of death. And this, whatever the nature of the word ministered, whether carrying the aspect of law or of Gospel. More obviously, the result took place with a ministration of law, since this consisted of requirements which were opposed to the natural tendencies of the heart, and which, when seriously looked into, demanded what man was not able of himself to perform; hence not peace and life, but trouble and death, were the inevitable consequence—although the law itself, if viewed in its proper connection, and taken as designed by God, as the apostle elsewhere testifies, ‘was ordained for life.’ (Romans 7:10.) But the Gospel, too, when similarly treated, that is, when turned either by preacher or hearer into a letter or form of requirement concerning things to be believed and done without any higher agencies being called into play, in reality achieves nothing more; it is, in such a case, as the apostle had stated but a few verses before, (Romans 2:16.) ‘a savour of death unto death;’ for to take up the yoke of Christ, to repent and be converted, to become new creatures and lay hold of everlasting life, is as far above nature as any thing in the law, and if isolated from the grace with which it ought ever to be associated, and in its bare terms pressed on men’s responsibilities and obligations, or by men themselves so taken, the result can only be deeper condemnation, death in its more settled and aggravated forms. (Matthew 11:25; John 1:5; John 5:40; John 6:44, &c.) From the preceding exposition, it will be seen that we cannot, with the older expositors (also Bengel, Meyer, Alford), identify letter with the old covenant, and spirit with the new; nor altogether hold, with Stanley, that letter here denotes ‘not simply the Hebrew Scriptures, but the more outward book or ordinance, as contrasted with the living power of the Gospel:’ we take it generally of outward book or ordinance, whether pertaining to Old or New Testament times. Only, as from the ostensible and formal character of the two dispensations, there was more of letter in the one, more of spirit in the other: what he says of the letter, and of its tendency to kill, admitted of a more ready and obvious application to the things of the old covenant, than to those of the new—an application the apostle proceeds immediately to make. The kind of killing or death (we may add) ascribed to the letter is certainly not, with some, and, among others, Stanley, to be understood of physical death, the common heritage of men on account of sin, but of the spiritual death, which consists in a painful sense of guilt, and the agonies of a troubled conscience. What is here briefly indicated in this respect is more fully developed in Romans 7., and the one passage should be taken in connection with the other. 2 Corinthians 3:7. ‘But if the ministration of death in the letter, (Here there is a diversity in the copies, which are about equally divided between the singular and the plural form of the word: B D F G exhibit γράμματι, and א A C E K L γράμμασιν, the latter outweighing the others somewhat in number, but not much in authority, as the last three (E K L) belong to the ninth century; and the natural tendency was to change from γράμματι to γράμμασι, as a f lording a more obvious sense when coupled with ἐντετυπωμένη, since it would hardly do to say of the ten commandments, ‘engraven in letter,’ while ‘engraven in letters’ was quite simple. Hence also, in D, while at first hand it presents γράμματι, afterwards has this changed into the plural; and, both in its later form, and in E K L, ἐν is inserted before λίθοις, to help out the sense, which had been injured by joining ἐντετυπωμένη to γράμμασιν. This also accounts for the versions following this later form. But the whole has arisen from adopting an obvious and superficial, in preference to the real and only proper sense. It is of a revelation, not in letters, but in the letter that the apostle is speaking throughout, and the change to the plural here brings confusion into the whole passage. Lachmann and also Alford adopt γράμματι.) engraven on stones, came in glory.’—(The authorized version is unfortunate here.) We adopt, as stated in the note below, the reading γράμματι (instead of that of the received text, γράμμασιν) in the letter, and couple this immediately with what precedes, not with what follows. The first clause is, ‘If the ministration of death in the letter’—it being in this respect alone that the apostle is going to speak of it; to speak, that is, of the Decalogue in its naked terms and isolated position, as contemplated by a spirit utterly opposed to the Gospel—the spirit of Rabbinism already described. The law itself, so contemplated, is called a ministration of death, because, in its native tendency and operation, certain to prove the occasion of death; and there can be little doubt that it was from overlooking the peculiar or qualified sense in which the apostle thus spake of the law, that some copyists substituted the plural for the singular, and, instead of ‘ministration of death in the letter,’ took the meaning to be ‘ministration of death engraved in letters’—leaving the subsequent expression, in stones (λίθοις), as a mere appendage to the engraving. The change was altogether unhappy; for, first, it loses sight of that which renders the law a ministration of death—namely, its being viewed merely in the letter—and then the sense is weakened by a needless redundancy about the engraving: engraved in letters! how could it be engraved otherwise, if engraved at all! This was to be understood of itself, and adds nothing to the import; but the engraving in stones does add something, for it was the distinctive peculiarity of the ten commandments to be so engraved, as compared with the other parts of the Mosaic legislation. We therefore get the proper sense only by reading, ‘If the ministration of death in the letter, engraven on stones, came in glory.’ To speak of a ministration being engraven sounds somewhat strange; but it is to be understood as a pregnant expression for, ‘the law as ministered by Moses being engraven.’ And when said to have come in glory (ἐγενήθη ἐν δόξῃ), the meaning more fully expressed is, came into existence in glory, had its introduction so among the covenant-people. What sort of glory is meant, the apostle, before going further, explains by pointing specifically to the radiance which shone from the face of Moses when he returned from the mount with the two tables of the covenant, and which, though not actually the whole, might yet justly be regarded as the symbol of the whole, of that glory which accompanied the formal revelation of law. This glory was such that ‘the children of Israel were not able steadfastly to look on the face of Moses, because of the glory of his face [though a glory that was] to vanish away.’ The corresponding statement in the history is, that when ‘Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.’ (Exodus 34:30.) Dazzled with the supernatural appearance, it seemed to them as if something of the majesty of Heaven now rested upon Moses, and they durst not approach to fix their eyes intently on the sight—though still the glory was but transient. The original record does not directly state this, but plainly enough implies it, as it associates the shining of Moses’ face only with his descent from the mount, and afterwards with his coming out from the Lord’s presence in the tabernacle: the children of Israel, it is said, saw it then, but not, we naturally infer, at other times—the shining gradually vanished away, till brightened up afresh by renewed intercourse with Heaven. The train of thought, then, in this case, is, that the law written upon tables of stone, which was the more special and fundamental part of the legislation brought in by Moses, was, when taken apart and viewed as a scheme of moral obligation, a ministration of death, because, while requiring only what was good, requiring what man could not perform; that still there was a glory connected with it as the revelation of God’s mind and will—a glory partly expressed, partly symbolized, by the radiance that occasionally shone from the face of Moses, dazzling and affrighting the Israelites, but, at the same time, a glory which was not abiding, one that, after a little, again disappeared. 2 Corinthians 3:8. Having stated this respecting the glory of the law, which formed, in the sense explained, a ministration of death, the apostle asks, ‘How shall not rather the ministration of the Spirit be in glory?’ Why does he not say, the ministration of life, which would have been the more exact counterpart to the ministration of death? The chief reason probably was, that this might have created a false impression: a ministration of law taken in the letter, or simply by itself, can be nothing else for fallen man than a ministration of death; but there is no ministration in New Testament times which, with like regularity and certainty, carries life in its train. No doubt, if spirit here were to be understood directly and simply of the Holy Spirit (as Chrysostom, ‘He no longer puts what is of the Spirit, viz., life and righteousness, ἀλλ̓ αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα, but the Spirit itself, which makes the word greater’), it might well enough be held to involve life—life would be its inseparable accompaniment, as death of unmitigated law; for in so far as the Spirit ministers, the result can only be in life and blessing. But the apostle could not thus identify his apostolic agency with the third person of the Godhead, and call it absolutely a ministration or service (διακονία) of the Holy Ghost as if ministration of the Spirit were all one with dispensation of the Spirit. In popular language they are often so confounded, but not in Scripture; and the expression in Galatians 3:5, ‘He who ministereth (ἐπιχορηγῶν) to you the Spirit,’ points not to the apostle as a minister of the new covenant, but to God or Christ: it is He alone who can minister, in the sense of bestowing, the Holy Spirit. The ministration or service here meant is undoubtedly the evangelical ministry of the apostles and their followers—the teaching-function of the Gospel, as Meyer terms it, and called, he thinks, the ministration of the Spirit, because it is ‘the service which mediates the Holy Spirit.’ Strictly speaking, it is a ministration of word and ordinance, but such as carries along with it, in a quite peculiar degree as compared with former times, the regenerative, life-giving power of spiritual influence (the working of the Holy Ghost); and, named from this as its most distinctive feature, it is characterized as the ministration of the Spirit—much as a man is often called a soul, because it is from that more especially he derives what gives him his place and being in creation:—the Spirit, therefore, not hypostatically considered, but as a Divine power practically operative through word and ordinance in bringing life and blessing to the soul. 2 Corinthians 3:9-10; ‘For if the ministration of condemnation was in glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness abound in glory.’ This is substantially a repetition of the same idea as that expressed in the immediately preceding passage—only with this difference, that the law in the letter is here presented in its condemnatory, instead of its killing, aspect—condemnatory, of course, not directly, or in its own proper nature, but incidentally, and as the result of men’s inability to fulfil its requirements. Accordingly, on the other side, righteousness is exhibited as the counterpart brought in by the Gospel: what the one requires, and from not getting becomes an occasion of condemnation, the other, through the mediation and grace of Christ, actually provides. A far greater thing, assuredly—hence in connection with it a surpassing glory; such, the apostle adds in 2 Corinthians 3:10, that the glory which had accompanied the one might be regarded as nothing in comparison of the other. 2 Corinthians 3:11. A still further aspect of the subject is here presented, one derived from the relative place of the two ministrations in respect to stability or continuance: ‘for if that which vanisheth away was in glory, much more is that which abideth in glory.’ In this form of the comparison, reference is had to what had been already indicated in the mention of the new covenant, implying that, with the introduction of this, there was a superseding or vanishing away of what went before. The two tables—the law in the letter, which is all one with the service or ministration of Moses—formed the material of a covenant, which was intended to last only till the great things of redemption should come; when a new covenant, and along with that a new service or form of administration, should be introduced, adapted to the progression made in the Divine economy. The former, therefore, being from its very nature transitory, could not possibly be so replete with glory as the other; the higher elements of glory must be with the ultimate and abiding. Here properly ends the apostle’s contrast between the ministration of letter, and the ministration of spirit—for what follows is rather an application of the views unfolded in the passage we have been considering, than any additional revelation of doctrine. From the pregnant brevity of the passage, and the peculiar style of representation adopted in it, mistaken notions have often been formed of the apostle’s meaning—as if the contrast he presents were to be understood of the Old and New Testament dispensations generally, of all on the one side that was connected with the covenant of law for Israel, and what on the other is provided and accomplished for mankind in the Gospel of Christ. So understood, the passage becomes utterly irreconcilable both with the truth of things and with statements elsewhere made by the apostle himself. If the law as given by God, and intended to be used by the covenant people, was simply a service of condemnation and death, it could have had no proper glory connected with it, and Moses, instead of being entitled to regard and honour as the mediator that introduced it, would have been the natural object of repugnance and aversion. If also the doing or vanishing away spoken of had respect to the law in its substance, as a revelation of moral truth and duty, where could be the essential oneness of God’s moral character? and how could the apostle here assert that to be done away, the very thought of doing away with which he elsewhere rejects as an impiety? ‘Do we then,’ says he, ‘make void (καταργούμενον, put away, abolish, the very word in 2 Corinthians 3:11 here) the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law’ (ἰστάνομεν, give it fixed and stable existence). (Romans 3:31.) The apostle, we may be sure, could not involve himself in such inconsistencies, nor could he mean to speak so disparagingly of the revelation of law brought in by Moses, if viewed in its proper connection, and kept in the place designed for it by the lawgiver. Moses himself, also, is a witness against the view under consideration; for he expressly declared that, if the people hearkened to the voice of God, they should live, and that he set before them life as well as death, blessing as well as cursing. (Exodus 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 30:15-19.) But, certainly, he could not have said this, if he had had nothing to point to but the terms of a law, which required perfect love to God, and the love of one’s neighbour as one’s-self. This law branched out into the ten commandments, which were engraved on the tables of stone, and were by Moses ministered to the people at Sinai, taken apart and read in the letter of its requirements, could never be for fallen men the path way to life, and could only, by reason of their frailty and corruption, be the occasion of more certain and hopeless perdition. And here lay the folly of so many of the Jews, and of some Judaizing teachers also in the Christian church, that they would thus take it apart, and would thus press it in the letter, as a thing by which life and salvation might be attained. It is against this that the apostle is here arguing. He is exposing the idea of Moses being taken for the revealer and minister of life through the law he introduced, and as such the author of a polity which was destined to perpetuity. No, he in effect says, Moses, as the in-bringer of the law, did but shew what constituted life, but could not give it; he exhibited the pattern, and imposed the obligations of righteousness, but could not secure their realization; this was reserved for another and higher than he, who is the Life and the Light of men; therefore, only condemnation and death can come from understanding and teaching Moses in the letter—while still, his ministration of law, if considered as an ordinance of God, and with due regard to its place in the economy of Heaven—that is, in its relation to the antecedent covenant of promise, and its subservience to the higher ends of that covenant—has in it a depth, a spirituality and perpetual significance for the church, which constitute the elements of a real glory—a glory that was but faintly imaged by the supernatural brightness on the face of Moses. This is in truth what the apostle presently states, when shewing, as he proceeds to do, what the carnal Jews missed by their looking at the ministration of the old covenant merely in the letter, instead of finding in it, as they should have done, a preparation for the better things to come, and a stepping-stone to the higher form of administration which was to be brought in by Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:12. ‘Having then such hope, we use great boldness of speech.’ He had said before, 2 Corinthians 3:4, that he had such, or so great confidence toward God—on account of the grace and power which were made to accompany his ministrations; he knew and felt that he was owned by God in his work. Now, he says he has such hope—such, namely, as arises out of the surpassing greatness of the blessing and glory connected with the Gospel and its ministration of spirit, and this not passing away, but abiding and growing into an eternal fulness and sufficiency of both; so that hope, as well as confidence, here has its proper scope. And having it, he could be perfectly open and bold in his speech, as one who had nothing to conceal, who had nothing to gain by the ignorance or imperfect enlightenment of the people, who also needed to practise no reserve in his communications, because the great realities being come, the clear light was now shining, and the whole counsel of God lay open. 2 Corinthians 3:13. ‘And not’—he adds, as a negative confirmation of what he had just stated, and also as an introduction to the notice he is going to take of the culpable blindness and carnality of the Jews—‘And not as Moses put a veil on his face (an elliptical form of expression for, and we do not put a veil on our face, or mode of manifestation, as Moses put a veil on his face), in order that the children of Israel might not steadfastly look to the end (or cessation) of that which was to be done away.’ The fact only, as already noticed, is mentioned in the history of the transaction, that Moses put a veil over his face, but not the purpose for which it was done—which is left to be inferred from the nature of the act, and the circumstances that led to its being done. Nor is it very distinctly indicated either here or in Exodus, whether the veil was put on by Moses while he addressed the people, or after he had done speaking with them. The authorized version, at Exodus 34:33 expresses the former view. ‘And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face;’ but there is nothing in the original corresponding to the till; it merely states that he finished speaking with them, and put a veil on his face, which seems to imply, regarding that first discourse at least, that the veiling was subsequent to the speaking. And so the ancient versions give it (Sept. ἐπειδὴ κατέπαυσε λαλῶν ἐπέθηκεν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ κάλυμμα; Vul. Impletisque sermonibus posuit veelamen super faciem suum). But as to the future, it is merely said that Moses took the veil off when he went in to speak with the Lord ‘until he came out;’ and when he came out and spake, the children of Israel perceived that his face shone: ‘And he put the veil upon his face again until he went in to speak with Him’ (Exodus 34:34-35). The natural impression, however, is, that the method adopted at first was still followed (though Meyer still takes the other view), namely, that Moses did not veil his countenance quite immediately when he came out, but only after he had spoken what he received to say to the people; and that the direct object of the veil was to conceal from the view of the people the gradual waning and disappearance of the super natural brightness of his skin. But viewing this brightness as a symbol of the Divine mission of Moses, the apostle ascribes to him a still further intention in the veiling of it—namely, that the children of Israel might not, by the perception of its transience, be led to think of the transitory nature of the service or ministration of Moses itself—for this, I think with Meyer, whom Alford follows, must be held to be the natural sense of the words, ‘in order that they might not steadfastly look πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι- πρὸς τὸ, with the infinitive always denoting the purpose in the mind of the actor), (Matthew 5:12; Matthew 6:1; Matthew 13:30; Ephesians 6:11; 1 Thessalonians 2:9, etc.) to the end of that which was vanishing away (transitory).’ The vanishing-away or transitory (τοῦ καταργουμένου) here is a resumption of the same (τὸ καταργούμενον) in ver. 11; and which, as we there explained, was the service of Moses as the bringer in of objective, written law. There was a glory connected with this, indicated by the shining of his skin (the seal, in a manner, of his Divine authority), but as the symbol of the glory was transient, so also was the ministration itself; and Moses, the apostle would have us to understand, was aware of this; but lest the children of Israel should also perceive it and at the very time the service was introduced might begin to look forward to its cessation, he concealed from them the fact of the passing away of the external glory by drawing over it a veil. (I take the concealing to be the whole that is indicated by the veil as most indeed do. Alford would find also the idea of suspension or interruption; but this seems fanciful; for no ministry is perfectly continuous. St Paul’s was liable to suspension as well as that of Moses.) Many commentators have rejected this view, because appearing to them to ascribe something derogatory, a kind of dissimulation, to Moses, while legislating for the people, he wished to hide from them the provisional nature of that legislation, and its relation to the future coming and kingdom of the Messiah. But this is to extend the object of the concealment too far: what Moses did in respect to the veil, he doubtless did under the direction of God; and what is affirmed by the apostle concerning it is, that the service of Moses as the minister of law engraven on stones (with all, of course, that became connected with this), was to be thought of as the service which they were specially to regard and profit by, according to its proper intent, without needlessly forestalling the time when it should be superseded by another ministration, that of the Gospel. For the former was the kind of service meanwhile adapted to their circumstances; and to have shot, as it were, ahead of it, and fixed their eyes on the introduction of a higher service, would have but tended to weaken their regard to that under which they were placed, and rendered them less willing and anxious to obtain from it the benefits it was capable of yielding. But this did not imply that they were to be kept ignorant of a coming Messiah, or were not to know that a great rise was to take place in the manifestations of God’s mind and will to men; for Moses himself gave no doubtful intimation of this, (Deuteronomy 18:15-18.) and it was one of the leading objects of later prophets, to make still more distinct announcements on the subject, and foretell the greater glory of the dispensation which was to come. But even with these, a certain concealment or reserve was necessary; and though a mighty change was indicated as going to take place, and the passing away of the old covenant itself into another, which, in comparison of it, was called new, yet so carefully was the ministration of Moses guarded, and so strongly was its authority pressed during the time set for its administration, that one the very last words of ancient prophecy to the members of the old covenant was, ‘Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.’ (Malachi 4:4.) 2 Corinthians 3:14. At the same time, the language used by the apostle implies that this was not what should have been; it was an imperfect state of things, and involved a measure of blame; but the blame lay with the people, not with Moses. He could not make use of such boldness of speech, regarding Divine things, as was now done by apostles and preachers of the Gospel; he was even obliged to practise a kind of disguise, with the view of concealing the transitory nature of the ministration with which he was more peculiarly charged. And this for the sake of the spiritual good of the people themselves; because, considering their state of mind, more of insight in that particular direction might have turned to evil; and the ultimate reason follows: ‘But their understandings were hardened (νοήματα, thoughts=thinking powers, understandings).’ The connection is not, I conceive, that given by Stanley: ‘Nay, so true is this, that not their eyes, but their thoughts were hardened and dulled’— substantially concurred in by Alford, who takes ἀλλὰ in the sense of But also, and regards it as introducing a further assertion of their ignorance or blindness—blindness in respect to things not purposely concealed from them, but which they might be said to see: such modes of connection are somewhat unnatural, and scarcely meet the requirements of the case; for something is needed as a ground for what precedes as well as for what follows. I take it to be this: Moses practised the concealment and reserve in question, not as if it were what he himself wished, or thought abstractedly the best; but he did so because the understandings of the people were hardened, they had little aptitude for spiritual things, perfectly free and open discourse was not suited to them. And the apostle goes on to say, it was not peculiar to that generation to be so—it was a common characteristic of the covenant people (so Stephen also says (Acts 7:51.)), ‘for until this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant (that is, the book or writings of the covenant), without having it unveiled (discovered) that it (viz., the old covenant) is vanished away in Christ.’ Such appears to be the most natural construction and rendering of this last clause— ἀνακαλυπτόμενον being taken as the nominative absolute, and the vanishing or being done away being viewed, in accordance with the use of the expression in the preceding context, as having respect, not to the veil, but to the old covenant, or the ministration of Moses. Having been so used once and again, it manifestly could not, without very express warrant, be understood now of something entirely different. It is not, therefore, as in our authorized version, the veil which is done away in Christ, but the old covenant; and the evidence of the veil being still spiritually on the hearts of the Jews, the apostle means to say, consists in their not having it unveiled or discovered to them that the old does vanish away in Christ. This was a far more grievous sign of a hardened understanding in the Jews of the apostle’s time, than the hardening spoken of in the time of Moses; for now the disguise or concealment regarding the cessation of the Mosaic service was purposely laid aside; the time of reformation had come; and not to see the end of that which was transitory was to miss the grand design for which it had been given. 2 Corinthians 3:15-16. ‘But unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon the heart.’ This is merely to be regarded as an explanation of what was meant in the preceding sentence by the want of discernment, as to the cessation of the old covenant in Christ. It arose from a veil being, not upon Moses, or upon the book of the covenant (for the advance of the Divine dispensations had taken every thing of that sort out of the way), but upon their own heart. There was the real seat and cause of the blindness. ‘But (adds the apostle) whenever it shall have turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away’ (περιαιρεῖται, a different word from that in the preceding verse, and confining the application there made of καταργεῖται to the old covenant, not to the veil). There is a certain indefiniteness in the statement, and opinions differ concerning the subject of the turning—some taking it quite generally: when any one shall have done so; some supplying Moses as the symbol or representative of the old covenant: when application is made of this covenant to the Lord; others, and, indeed, a much greater number, understand Israel; with substantial correctness—though it seems better, with Meyer and Alford, to find the subject in the ‘their heart’ of the immediate context: when the heart of the people, whether individually or collectively, shall have turned to the Lord, then the veil as a matter of course is taken away, it drops off. The language undoubtedly bears respect to what is recorded of Moses when he went into God’s presence—as often as he did so putting off the veil; but it cannot be taken for more than a mere allusion, as the actions themselves were materially different. 2 Corinthians 3:17. ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit.’ This is undoubtedly the natural and proper construction, taking spirit for the predicate, not (as Chrysostom, Theodoret, and several moderns) Lord; and the apostle is to be understood as resuming the expression in the preceding verse, and connecting it with what had been said before of spirit; q. d., Now the Lord, to whom the heart of Israel turns when converted, is the spirit which has been previously spoken of as standing in contrast to the letter, and the ministration of which has been given as the distinctive characteristic apostolic agency. By spirit, therefore, must here be understood, not the Holy Spirit hypostatically or personally considered—for in that case it could not have been so identified with the Lord (by whom is certainly meant Christ), nor would it properly accord with the sense of spirit, in verses 2 Corinthians 3:6 and 2 Corinthians 3:8—but the Spirit in His work of grace on the souls of men—or Christ Himself in His divine energy manifesting Himself through the truth of His Gospel to the heart and conscience, as the author of all spiritual life and blessing. So that it is the inseparable unity of Christ and the Spirit in the effect wrought by the ministration of word and ordinance, not their hypostatical diversity, which here comes into consideration: Christ present in power, present to enlighten and vivify,—that, as here understood by the apostle, is the Spirit (in contradistinction to the mere ‘form of knowledge and of truth in the law’); ‘but (the apostle adds—δὲ as the particle of transition from an axiom to its legitimate conclusion) where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’—not there in the local sense (for ἐκεῖ is wanting in the best authorities, à A B C D, also in the Syriac and Coptic versions, nor is its employment in such a manner quite in accordance with the usage of the apostle); but merely as, along with the substantive verb, declarative of a certain fact: the man who is spiritually conversant with Christ, who knows Him in the spirit of His grace and truth, there is for such an one a state of liberty—he is free to commune with Christ himself, and to deal with the realities of His work and kingdom, as at home in the region to which they belong, and possessing, in relation to them, the spirit of sonship. (Romans 8:15.) Not merely is the hardened understanding gone which prevents one from seeing them aright, but a frame of mind is acquired, which is in fitting adaptation to them, relishing their light and breathing their spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18. A still further deduction follows, the climax of the whole passage, rising from the matter discoursed of to the persons in whom it is realized: ‘but we all with unveiled face beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord the Spirit.’ The but at the beginning indicates a certain implied contrast to the state of others—the bondmen of the house of Israel, who knew not the Lord as the Spirit, and the spiritual liberty such knowledge brings, but it is otherwise with us. We all—that is, we who are Christians, not apostles merely, or Christian ministers and evangelists, for the expression is purposely made quite general, in order to comprehend, along with himself, the whole of those whose case the apostle is now handling—‘We all with unveiled face behold.’ The last reference to the veil had represented it as being upon the heart of the Israelites; for it was as hearers of the law that he then contemplated them; but now, as it is in connection with the sight that he is going to unfold the privilege of New Testament believers, he returns to the thought of the face in relation to the veil—the face of Moses having been veiled, indeed, to the people, but unveiled in the presence of the Lord, whence it received impressions of the glory that shone upon it from above. So we all—after the manner of Moses, though in a higher, because more spiritual, sense, but unlike the people for whom the glory reflecting itself on his countenance was veiled—‘behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord.’ I adhere to this as the most natural and also the most suitable sense of the somewhat peculiar word κατοπτριζόμενοι, as opposed to that of ‘reflecting as in a mirror,’ adopted by Chrysostom. Luther, Calov, also by Olshausen and Stanley. There is no evidence of the word having been employed in this sense. In the active, it signifies to ‘mirror,’ or shew in a glass; in the middle usually, to ‘mirror one’s-self,’ or; ‘look at one’s-self in a mirror,’ of which examples may be seen in Wetstein on the passage, but which is manifestly out of place here; and to turn the seeing one’s-self in a mirror, into reflecting one’s likeness from it, is to introduce an entirely new and unwarranted idea into the meaning. Nor could it, if allowable, afford an appropriate sense; for the mention of the unveiled face undoubtedly presents a contrast to the representation in vers. 2 Corinthians 3:14-16, and has respect to the free, untrammelled seeing of the Divine glory. There is also in Philo one undoubted use of the word in this sense ( Leg. Allegor., III. 33, μηδὲ κατοπτρισαίμην ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ τὴνσὴν ιδέαν ἤ ἐν σοί τῷ θεῷ, neither would I see mirrored in any other, etc.) The plain meaning, therefore, is, ‘We all with unveiled face (the veil having been removed in conversion) beholding in a mirror (or seeing mirrored) the glory of the Lord.’ The apostle does not say where or how this mirrored glory is to be seen, but he supplies the deficiency in the next chapter, when at 2 Corinthians 3:4 he speaks of the light, or rather shining forth of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (which Satan prevents natural men from perceiving), and at 2 Corinthians 3:6 (when speaking of the contrary result in the case of believers), he represents God as ‘shining in their hearts to the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ The glory, therefore, in so far as it is now accessible to the view of believers, is to be seen mirrored in the face or person of Jesus Christ, or, as it is otherwise put, in the Gospel of the glory of Christ—that is, the Gospel which reveals what He is and has done, and thereby unfolds His glory. This is now freely opened to the inspection of believers, and by beholding it with the eye of faith, we are transformed into the same image (τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα, the accusative, according to some, to be explained as that of nearer determination; but better, perhaps, with Bernhardy, Meyer, and others, to be regarded as expressive of the form implied in the action of the verb, and so indirectly governed by it; but either way capable of being rendered into English only by the help of the preposition, ‘transformed into the same image’), the image, namely, of Christ’s glory seen in the mirror of His Gospel, the living impression of which on our hearts is all one with having Christ formed in them; (Galatians 4:19.) hence, a deeper change than that which passed upon the skin of Moses, and indicative of a more intimate connection with the Lord; for it is now heart with heart, one spiritual image reproducing itself in another. And this from ‘glory to glory’—either from glory in the image seen, to glory in the effect produced, or rather perhaps from one stage in the glorious transformation to another, till coming at last to see Him as He is, we are made altogether like Him. (1 John 3:3.) Very different, therefore, from an impression of glory, which was evanescent, always ready to lose its hold, and tending to vanish away. ‘Even as (the apostle adds) from the Lord the Spirit’—so, I think, the words should be rendered with Chrysostom, Theodoret, Luther, Beza, and latterly Stanley, Alford, seeing in them the same kind of identification of Lord and Spirit as in 2 Corinthians 3:17; not, with Fritzsche, Olshausen, De Wette, Meyer, ‘from the Lord of the Spirit,’ which would introduce at the close a new idea, and one not very much to the purpose here, for, in the only sense in which the expression can be allowed, the Lord has ever been the Lord of the Spirit—as much in Old Testament times as now. The English version, ‘from the Spirit of the Lord,’ is inadmissible, as doing violence to the order of the words. The meaning of the apostle in this closing sentence is, that the result is in accordance with the Divine agency accomplishing it—it is such as comes from the operation of Him who makes Himself know r n and felt through the vital energy of the Spirit—whose working is Spirit upon spirit—therefore penetrating, inward, powerful—seizing the very springs of thought and feeling in the soul, and bringing them under the habitual influence of the truth as it is in Christ. This is a mode of working far superior to that of outward law, because in its very nature quickening, dealing directly with the conscience, and with the idea of spiritual excellence, giving also the power to realize it in the heart and conduct. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 01.16. ON THE IMPORT AND USE OF CERTAIN TERMS, ======================================================================== Section Fourth. On The Import And Use Of Certain Terms, Which Express An Antagonistic Relation To Christ’s Person And Authority, ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι, ψευδοπροφήταιν,ψευδόχριστος, ἀντίχριστος. IT is more especially the last two of the terms just mentioned which call for particular investigation; but as the other two are nearly related to them, and belong substantially to the same line, we shall in the first instance direct some attention to them. 1. The two may be taken together, as they appear to be used in senses not materially different. So early as in the Sermon on the Mount, we find our Lord warning His disciples against false prophets: προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῶν ψευδοπροφητῶν (Matthew 7:15;) and the test He suggests to be applied to them is one chiefly of character; “They come,” says He, “in sheep’s clothing, but within they are ravening wolves. The warning is again given in our Lord’s discourse respecting the last times, “And many false prophets shall arise and deceive many” (Matthew 24:11;) and further on at verse Matthew 24:24, He returns to the subject, coupling false prophets with false Christs, who, He said, “should arise, and give great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if it were possible, even the elect.” From these intimations, we are led to understand, that the appearance of such characters in considerable numbers was. to form one of the precursors of the dissolution of the Jewish state, and was also to be a characteristic generally of the time of the end. As to the precise import, however, to be attached to the terms, we must bring under review one or two of the passages, in which they are mentioned as actually appearing. Thus in Acts 13:6, the Jew, Barjesus, who was with Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, and who there withstood Paul’s preaching, is called ψευδοπροφήτης; and partly in explanation of this designation he is styled Elymas the magos—̓Ελύμας ὁ μάγος—two words of different languages expressing substantially the same meaning; Elymas (from âlim) in the Arabic or Aramaic, and μάγος in the Persian, wise—wise, however, in the Eastern sense, that is, given to learned pursuits and the skill of hidden and sacred lore. It did not necessarily denote what is now commonly understood by the term, magician or sorcerer; but comprehended also the better wisdom of that higher learning, which was cultivated in the East, with its attendant fancies and superstitions. In the Gospel age, however, this learning had become so much connected with astrology, and kindred arts, that too often—and in the case particularly of the Barjesus mentioned above—it did not materially differ from what is denominated magic or sorcery. The persons who bore the name of Magi, in the districts of Syria, were for the most part mere fortune-tellers. It was such, who swarmed about Rome, and are celebrated in the Latin classics, as “Chaldean astrologers,” “Phrygian fortune tellers,” “dealers in Babylonian numbers,” etc.; (Hor. Sat. I. 2, 1; Od. I. 11, 2. Juv. Sat. III. 6.) rushing in amid the decay of the old faith, with their delusive arts of divination, to play upon the credulity of an age alike skeptical and superstitious. It is clear from the allusions of the ancient satirists and historians, that those pretenders to the secrets of the gods and the knowledge of futurity drove a very lucrative trade, and had the ear of men, as well as women, high in rank, and by no means deficient in intellect. Marius is reported by Plutarch to have kept a Syrian witch or prophetess in his camp, and to have been much guided by her divinations in regulating his military and political movements. Tiberius is described by Juvenal (x. 93, sq.,) sitting on the rock in Caprese, “surrounded by a flock of Chaldeans.” Even such men as Pompey, Crassus, Cicsar, appear to have had frequent dealings with them; for Cicero speaks of having heard from each of them many things, that had been said to them by the Chaldeans, and, in particular, of the assurances they had received, that they should not die, excepting in a ripe age, at home, and in honour (De div. ii. 47.) Certainly, most fallacious predictions! and calculated, as Cicero justly remarks, to destroy all confidence in such prognostications! Yet it failed to do so; for men must have something to repair to for support and comfort in the hour of need; if destitute of the true, they inevitably betake to the false; and infested as Rome was with the elements of religious darkness and moral evil, the soothsayers were a class that, according to the profound remark of Tacitus, were sure to be always shunned, yet always retained (genus hominum, quod in civitate nostra et vitabitur semper et retinebitur.) It was, then, to this fraudulent and essentially profligate class of persons, that Barjesus belonged; he was a false prophet of that low and reprobate caste. But he had evidently acquired a certain sway over the mind of Sergius Paulus, much as the other leading men of the age yielded themselves to the spell of a like delusive influence. It may well seem strange, that there should have been found Jews addicting themselves to such magical arts and false divinations, considering the express and solemn condemnation of such things in the law of Moses. But there can be no doubt of the fact: not this man alone, but vast numbers of the Jews in apostolic times, plied .sorcery and divination as a regular trade. It was one of the clear proofs of their sunk condition, and a presage of approaching doom. Jewish females are represented by Juvenal (Sat. 6:542,) as emerging from their lurking places in the woods, and for the smallest pittance whispering into the ear of Roman matrons some revelation of Heaven’s secrets. But such were only the lower practisers of the art. There were others, like Barjesus, who made loftier pretensions, who insinuated themselves by their apparent learning and divine insight into the counsels of the powerful; and their number, we can easily conceive, as well as the disposition to give heed to their fallacious arts, would acquire considerable accession from the fame of the wonderful deeds performed by Christ and His immediate followers in Judea. The manifestation of the true, in the knowledge of Divine mysteries and the exercise of super natural power, with the mighty fermentation it produced, created, as it were, a new field for the display of the false; whence, as our Lord foretold, many false prophets arose, deluding the ignorant, and even seeking to press into the Christian fold. (It is well known, also, that the last struggles and convulsions in Judea were accompanied with prophetical delusions. Josephus speaks of “a great number of false prophets” playing their part, and notices one in particular. (Wars, VI. 5, § 2, 3.)) The apostle John, who lived to the close of the first century, testifies that many such prophets had already appeared. In 1 John 4:1 of his first Epistle, he says, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (ͅὅτι πολλοὶ ψευδοπροφῆται ἐξεληλύθασιν εἰς τὸν κόσμον.) He does not say, that they had found their way into the Church, but merely that they had made their appearance in the world, and were there making such pretensions to supernatural insight, that believers in Christ, as well as others, had need to stand on their guard against them. They might partly be the subtle and audacious diviners, of whom we have just spoken, who went about deceiving the simple and the crafty by their vaunted ability to explore the depths of futurity. That class may certainly be included in the description of the apostle; but from what follows in the Epistle, it is clear, that he more especially points to the false teaching, the antichristian forms of error, which were springing up, if not actually within, yet on the borders of the Christian Church. For, he presently states, that the spirits are not of God, which do not confess Christ to have come in the flesh; and “this,” he adds, namely, the denial of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God, “is that of the antichrist, of which ye have heard that it comes, and even now is it in the world.” This apostle, therefore, virtually identifies the false prophets with false teachers, and both with the spirit of antichrist. It may, indeed, be affirmed generally, so far as regards the manifestation of error in reference to the early Christian Church, that the ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι were scarcely to be distinguished from the ψευδοπροφῆται or that false prophesying chiefly assumed the form of false teaching. The more arrant impostors the astrologers and fortune-tellers—the false prophets in that sense, were rather to be looked for beyond the pale of the Church; as they could only be found in persons, who either ignored the authority of Jesus, or set up their own in rivalry to His. But within the Church, the spirit of falsehood would more naturally show itself in assuming the name of Christ to teach what was inconsistent with the character and tendency of His Gospel. It is evidently of such—rather ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι than ψευδοπροφῆται in the ordinary sense of the term—that the Apostle Paul speaks, in Acts 20:29-30, as sure to arise, after his departure, among the converts at Ephesus—“grievous wolves,” as he calls them, “not sparing the flock;” some of them also from their own number, “speaking perverse things, and drawing away disciples after them.” In his epistles, also, it is false teaching, chiefly, with which he had to struggle, and in regard to which his warnings were more particularly uttered. And Peter, in his second Epistle, at the commencement of the second chapter, draws thus the parallel between Old and New Testament times: “But there were false prophets also among the people (i.e. ancient Israel,) even as there shall be false teachers among you;” the latter now, as the former then. And in the description that follows of the kind of false teachers to be expected, he gives as their leading characteristics the introduction of heretical doctrines, tending to subvert the great truths of the Gospel, and the encouragement by pernicious example as well as by corrupt teaching, of licentious and ungodly behaviour. To do this was, no doubt, to act the part of false prophets, since it was to give an untrue representation of the mind of God, and to beget fallacious hopes of the issue of His dealings with men on earth; but, as it did not necessarily involve any formal predictions of the future, it was more fitly characterized as false teaching than false prophesying, while the place its apostles were to occupy in New Testament times should virtually correspond to that of the false prophets in the Old. In general, therefore, we may say in respect to these two terms, that while the false prophets were also false teachers, and the two were sometimes viewed as nearly or altogether identical, the first term usually had more respect to the pretenders to prophetical insight outside the church, the other to the propagators of false and pernicious doctrinal views within the church. The same persons might, and, doubtless, occasionally did sustain both of these characters at once; yet by no means always, and never necessarily so; since there might be the most heterodox doctrine and corrupt behaviour without any attempt at divination; and in certain cases the art of divination might be carried on as a traffic by itself. 2. We proceed now to the two other, and more peculiar terms of this class, which must also, in great measure, be taken conjointly. In regard to ψευδόχριστοι there can be little doubt; it can only indicate false pretenders to the name and character of Messiah. Precisely as false prophets are such as laid claim to gifts that did not belong to them, by false Christs must be meant those who assumed to be what Jesus of Nazareth alone is. In the strict sense, therefore, false Christs could only arise outside the Christian Church, and among those who had rejected the true. In so far as they did arise, there was in their appearance the fulfilment of another word of Jesus,—“I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive,” (John 5:43.) The most noted example of the kind, as well as the earliest, was that furnished by Barchochbas—Son of a star, as he chose to call himself, with reference to the prophecy of Balaam, which he would have his followers to believe was going to find its fulfilment in his victorious struggles, and his establishment of a Jewish dominion. False expectations of a similar kind have often been raised among the Jewish people, and reports of persons answering to them, circulated; but they have never reached such a height as they did in the pretensions and the exploits of Barchochbas. It would scarcely be right, however, to limit the declaration of our Lord respecting false Christs to such Jewish pretenders; the more especially as the place where He made it was in a discourse addressed to His own disciples; and for them the danger was comparatively little of being misled by such manifestly wandering stars. There was a danger in that direction, near the beginning of the New Testament Church, for persons, whose leanings might be on the side of Christianity, but who were very imperfectly enlightened in their views, and strong in their national predilections. Such persons might, amid the tumults and disorders, the false hopes and fermenting excitement, which preceded the downfall of the Jewish State, have for a time caught the infection of the evil that was at work, and even, in some instances, have precipitated themselves into the general delusions. But such cases would certainly be rare; and we cannot suppose that our Lord looked no farther than that; we are rather to conceive, in accordance with the whole structure of His discourse, that He wished them to regard what was then to take place but as the beginning of the end—a beginning that should be often in substance, though under different forms, repeating itself in the future. It matters little whether persons call themselves by the name of Christ, or avowedly set up a rival claim to men’s homage and regard, if they assume to do what, as Christ, He alone has the right or the power to perform; for in that case they become in reality, if not in name, false Christs. Should any one undertake to give a revelation of Divine things, higher than and contrary to Christ’s; to lay open another way to the favour and blessing of Heaven, than that which has been consecrated by His blood; or to conduct the world to its destined state of perfection and glory, otherwise than through the acknowledgment of His name and the obedience of His gospel; such a one would be as really acting the part of a false Christ, as if he openly challenged the Messiahship of Jesus, or explicitly claimed the title to himself. There is, therefore, a foundation of truth in the statement of Hegesippus, in which, after mentioning the Menandrians, Marcionites, Carpocratians, and other Gnostic sects, he says, that “from these spring false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, the persons who, by their corrupt doctrines against God and against His church, broke up the unity of the church,” (Euseb. Hist. Eccl., iv. 22;) although they could hardly be said to bring division into a body, to which they did not themselves strictly belong. The tendency of the doctrines, however, propounded by those advocates of heresy and corruption, undoubtedly was to supplant or supersede Christ, and the spiritual doctrines of the gospel. While paying a certain deference and respect to the name of Jesus, their teaching in reality breathed another spirit, and drew in another direction than that of Christ. And the same, of course, may be said of many authors and systems of later times,—of all, indeed, in every age, that have maintained, or rested in the sufficiency of nature to win for itself a position of safety before God, or to acquire a place of honour in His kingdom. These, in reality, disown the name of Jesus, and set themselves up in His room as the guides and saviours of the world. And we cannot fail to perceive an indication of the varied forms such characters were to assume, and the many different quarters whence they might be expected to appear, in the warning of our Lord respecting them:—“If they shall say unto you, Behold he is in the desert, go not forth; behold ho is in the secret chambers, believe it not.” But in what relation, it is proper to ask, does ψευδόχριστος stand to the ἀντίχριστος? Is this last but another name for the same idea of assumption, in some form or another, of Christ’s peculiar office and work? Or, does it denote contrariety and opposition of a different kind? The word ἀντίχριστος was not used by our Lord Himself; nor does it occur in any of the writings of the New Testament, except those of the apostle John. There are descriptions which virtually indicate what the word, as used by him, imports; but the word itself is found only in his writings; and there it occurs altogether four times—thrice in the singular, and once in the plural. Before looking at these, let us first endeavour to determine the force of the preposition ἀντί in the word. There are some who hold that it necessarily denotes contrariety or opposition to, and others who with equal tenacity contend for the sense of substitution, in the room of: If the former were the proper view, the antichrist would necessarily be the enemy of Christ; but if the latter, it would be His false representative or supplanter. The original meaning of the preposition is over against, and all its uses, whether alone or in composition, may be traced without difficulty to this primary idea, and express but different shades of the relation it involves. What is over against may be so in one of three different respects: in the way (1.) of direct antithesis and opposition; or (2.) of substitution, as when one takes the place which belongs to another; or (3.) of correspondence, when one thing or person answers to another an image or counterpart. This last aspect of the relation, involved in the ἀντί, cannot, of course, come into consideration here. But it is not unknown in New Testament Scripture, either as regards the simple or the compound use of the preposition. Thus, at John 1:16, “Of His fulness we all have received, and grace for grace”—χάριν ἀντὶ χάριστος—i.e., grace corresponding to grace—grace in the believer becoming the counterpart of Christ’s—line for line, feature for feature. So also in composition, when occurring in such words as ἀνταπόδοσις, a giving back in return, a recompense; or ἀντιτύπος, the correspondence to the τύπος. This, however, is the less common form of the relation denoted by the ἀντί; and of the other two, we find instances of both in Scripture. In such words as ἀντιλογία, άντίθεσις, ἀντικείμενος, the relation of formal opposition is denoted; as it is also in ἀντινομία, contrariety to law, ἀντίδικος, an adversary in. a suit, ἀντίχειρ, what is over against the hand, the thumb. But there is another class of words, in which the idea of substitution, or contradistinction, in the form of taking the place of another, whether by deputy or as a rival, is also indicated; for example, ἀνθύπατος, the substitute of the consul, pro-consul; ἀντιβασιλεύς, pro-rex, or viceroy; ἀντίλυτρον, substitute or equivalent for a forfeit, ransom. It is plain, therefore, that the single term ἀντίχριστος cannot of itself deter mine the precise meaning. So far as the current use of the preposition is concerned, it may point either to contrariety or to substitution; the antichrist may be, indiferently, what sets itself in opposition to Christ, or what thrusts itself into His room—a ψευδόχριστος—and it is only by the connexion in which the word is used, and the comparison of the parallel passages, that we can determine which may be the predominant or exclusive idea. In the first passage where the word occurs, 1 John 2:18, the literal rendering of which is, “Little children, it is the last hour (or season;) and as ye heard, that the antichrist cometh, even now many have become antichrists (ἀντίχριστοι πολλοὶ γεγόνασιν;) whence we know it is the last hour.” Here, there is no precise definition of what forms of evil are included in the antichrist; there is merely the assumption of a fact, that the idea expressed by the term had already passed into a reality, and that in a variety of persons. This, however, is itself of considerable moment, especially as it conveys the information, that while the name is used in the singular, as of an individual, it was not intended to denote the same kind of strict and exclusive personality as the Christ. Even in the apostolic age, John finds the name of antichrist applicable to many individuals. And this, also, may so far help us to a knowledge of the idea, since, while there were numbers in that age who sought within the Church to corrupt the doctrine of Christ, and without it to disown and resist His authority, we have yet no reason to suppose, that there were more than a very few, who distinctly claimed the title of Christ, and presumed to place themselves in Messiah’s room. The next passage occurs very shortly after the one just noticed, and may be regarded as supplementary to it; it is in 1 John 2:22. The apostle had stated, that no lie is of the truth; and he then continues, “Who is the liar (ὁ ψεύστης, the liar by pre-eminence,) but he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denieth (or, denying) the Father and the Son.” Here it is the denial of the truth concerning Christ, not the formal supplanting of Christ by an impious usurpation of His office, to which the name of antichrist is applied. Yet it could not be intended to denote every sort of denial of the truth; for this would have been to identify antichristianism with Jewish infidelity or with heathenism, which certainly was not the object of the apostle. The denial of the truth by the antichriat was denial after a peculiar manner, not as from a directly hostile and antagonistic position, but under the cover of a Christian name, and with more or less of a friendly aspect. While it was denied that Jesus was the Christ, in the proper sense of the term, Jesus was by no means reckoned an impostor; His name was still assumed, and his place held to be one of distinguished honour. That this was the case is evident, not only from the distinctive name applied to the form of evil in question, but also from what is said in 1 John 2:18-19, of the origination of the antichrists. “Many,” says the apostle, “have become antichrists;” they were not so originally, but by a downward progress had ended in becoming such. And again, “They went out from us, but were not of us;” that is, they had belonged to the Christian community, but showed, by the course of defection they now pursued, that they had not formed a part of its living membership, nor had really imbibed the spirit of the Gospel. When, therefore, the apostle says, in the verse already quoted, that those whom he designated antichrists denied Jesus to be the Christ; and when, in another verse, he says, “Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ as having come (ἐληλυθότα) in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist whereof ye have heard, that it cometh, and is even now in the world” (1 John 4:3;) and, still again, when he says, “For many deceivers have entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ having come in flesh (ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί;) this is the deceiver and the antichrist” (1 John 5:7.) In all these passages, it can only be of a virtual denial of the truth, that the apostle speaks. He plainly means such a depravation of the true doctrine, or abstraction of its essential elements, as turned it into a lie. And when, further, he represents the falsehood as circling around the person of Jesus, and disowning Him as having come in the flesh), we can scarcely entertain a doubt, that he refers to certain forms of the great Gnostic heresy—to such, as held, indeed, by the name of Jesus, but conceived of Him as only some kind of shadowy emanation of the Divine virtue, not a personal incarnation of the Eternal Word. Only by taking up a position, and announcing a doctrine of this sort, could the persons referred to have proved peculiarly dangerous to the Church—so dangerous, as to deserve being called, collectively and emphatically, the Deceiver, the embodiment, in a manner, of the old serpent. In an avowed resistance to the claims of Jesus, or a total apostacy from the faith of His Gospel, there should necessarily have been little room for the arts of deception, and no very pressing danger to the true members of the Church. We arrive, then, at the conclusion, that in St. John’s use of the term antichrist, there is an unmistakable reference to the early heretics, as forming at least one exemplification of its idea. Such, also, was the impression derived from the apostle’s statements by many of the Fathers; they understood him to speak of the heretics of the time, under the antichrists who had already appeared. For example, Cyprian, when writing of heretics, Ep. lxxiii. 13, and referring to 1 John 4:3, asks, “How can they do spiritual and divine things who are enemies to God, and whose breast the spirit of antichrist has possessed?” On the same passage Œcumenius says, “He declares antichrist to be already in the world, not corporeally, but by means of those who prepare the way for his coming; of which sort are false apostles, false prophets, and heretics.” So, too, Damascenus, L. iv. orth. fid. 27, “Every one who does not confess the Son of God, and that God has come in the flesh, and is perfect God, and was made perfect man, still remaining God, is antichrist.” And Augustine, in the third Tractatus on 1 John, speaking to the question, “Whom did the apostle call antichrist? extends the term, indeed, so as to make it comprehend every one who is contrary to Christ, and is not a true member of His body, but places in the first rank, as being the characters most directly meant, “all heretics and schismatics.” It is manifest, indeed, that the existing antichrists of John, the abettors and exponents of the lie, or deniers, under a Christian name, of what was emphatically the truth, belonged to the very same class with the grievous wolves and false brethren of St. Paul, of whom he so solemnly forewarned the Ephesian elders, and of whom he also wrote in his epistles to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:1,) as persons who should depart from the faith, teach many heretical doctrines, and bring in perilous times upon the Church. St. John, writing at a later period, and referring to what then existed, calls attention to the development of that spirit, of which Paul perceived the germ, and described beforehand the future growth. The one announced the evil as coming, x the other declared it had already come; and with reference, no doubt, to the prophetic utterances of Paul, reminded believers of their having previously heard that it was to come. So that the antichrists of John are found to coincide with one aspect of our Lord’s false Christs; they were those who, without renouncing the name of Christians, or without any open disparagement of Jesus, forsook the simplicity of the faith in Him, and turned His truth into a lie. They might, so far also be said to supplant Him, as to follow them was to desert Christ; yet, from the circumstances of the case, there could be no direct antagonism to Jesus, or distinct unfurling of the banner of revolt. We cannot, therefore, concur in the statement of Dean Trench (New Testament Synonyms, p. 120,) that ‘resistance to, and defiance of, Christ, is the essential mark of antichrist.” Defiance of Christ betokens avowed and uncompromising opposition, which was the part, not of deceivers, who had corrupted, the truth by some specious lie of their own, but of undisguised enemies. We concur, however, in the other part of his statement, that, according to St. John’s representation of the antichrist, there was not the false assumption of Christ’s character and offices—no further, at least, than in the modified sense already explained, of committing one’s self to a kind of teaching, which was virtually subversive of the truth and authority of Christ. It is still, however, a question, whether we are to regard the Scriptural idea of the antichrist as exhausted in those heretical corrupters of the Gospel in the apostolic age, and their successors in apostolic times; or should rather view them as the types and forerunners of some huge system of God-opposing error, or of some grand personification of impiety andwickedness, to be exhibited before the appearing of Christ? It was thought, from comparatively early times, that the mention so emphatically of the antichrist bespoke something of a more concentrated and personally antagonistic character than the many antichrists which were spoken of as being already in the world. These, it was conceived, were but preliminary exemplifications of some far greater embodiment of the antichristian spirit, some monarch, probably (like Antiochus of old) of heaven-daring impiety, and unscrupulous disregard of every thing sacred and divine, who, after pursuing a course of appalling wickedness and violence, should be destroyed by the personal manifestation of Christ in glory. This view, however, was founded, not simply, nor even chiefly, upon the passages above referred to in the Epistles of John, but on the representation of St. Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10, (taken in connexion with certain portions of the Apocalypse.) Amid many crude speculations and conflicting views on this passage, none of the Fathers appear to have doubted, as Augustine expressly states, (De Civ. Dei, xx. 19,) that it referred to antichrist, under the names, “Man of Sin,” and “Son of Perdition.” And, beyond all question, the evil portrayed here is essentially of the same character as that spoken of in the passages already considered, only with the characteristic traits more darkly drawn, and the whole mystery of iniquity more fully exhibited. As in the other passages, the antichristian spirit was identified with a departing from the faith, and a corrupting of the truth of the Gospel; so here the coming evil is designated emphatically the apostacy—ἡ ἀποστασία­—by which we can think only of a notable falling away from the faith and purity of the Gospel; so that the evil was to have both its root and its development in connexion with the Church’s degeneracy. Nor was the commencement of the evil in this case, any more than the other, to be far distant. Even at the comparatively early period when the apostle wrote, it had begun to work; and in his ordinary ministrations he had, as he reminds his disciples, (2 Thessalonians 2:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:7,) forewarned them concerning it; plainly implying, that it was to have its rise in a spiritual and growing defection within the Christian Church. Then, as the term antichrist evidently denoted, some kind of antithesis in doctrine and practice to Christ—a certain use of Christ’s name, with a spirit and design utterly opposed to Christ’s cause—so, in the passage under consideration, the power personified and described is designated the opposer, ὁ ἀντικείμεμος—one who sets himself against God, and arrogates the highest prerogatives and ho nours. Yet, with such impious self-deification in fact, there was to be nothing like an open defiance and contempt of all religious propriety in form; for this same power is represented as developing itself by a “mystery of iniquity;” i.e., by such a complex and subtle operation of the worst principles and designs, as might be carried on under the fairest and most hypocritical pretences; and by “signs and lying wonders, and all deceivableness of unrighteousness,” beguiling those who should fall under its influence, to become the victims of “a strong delusion,” and to “believe a lie,”—viz., to believe that which should, to their view, have the semblance of the truth, but in reality should be at complete variance with it. Not only so, but the Temple of God is represented as the chosen theatre of this impious, artful and wicked ascendency, (2 Thessalonians 2:4;) and in respect to Christian times, the Apostle Paul knows of no temple but the Church itself. Nor can any other be understood here. It is the only kind of temple-usurpation which can now be conceived of as affecting the expectations and interests of the Church generally; and that alone, also, which might justly be represented as a grand consummation of the workings of iniquity within the Christian community. So that, as a whole, the description of the apostle presents to our view some sort of mysterious and astounding combination of good and evil, formally differing from either heathenism or infidelity—a gathering up and as sorting together of certain elements in Christianity, for the purpose of accomplishing, by the most subtle devices and cunning stratagems, the overthrow and subversion of Christian truth and life. It is, therefore, but the full growth and final development of St. John’s idea of the antichrist. Of the descriptions generally of the coming evil in New Testament Scripture, and especially of this fuller description in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, nothing (it appears to me) can be more certain on exegetical grounds, than that they cannot be made to harmonize with the Romish opinion—which Hengstenberg and a few others in the Protestant Church have been attempting to revive—the opinion that would find the evil spoken of realized in the power and influence exerted in early times by Rome, in its heathen state, against the cause and Church of Christ. In such an application of what is written, we have only some general coincidences, while we miss all the more distinctive features of the delineation. If it might be said of the heathen power in those times, that it did attempt to press into the temple or Church of God, and usurp religious homage there, the attempt, as is well known, was successfully repelled; and it never properly assumed the appearance of an actual sitting, or enthroning one’s self there (as the words import,) for the purpose of displacing the true God and Saviour from their rightful supremacy. Nor, in the operations of that power, do we perceive any thing that could fitly be designated “a mystery of iniquity”—the iniquity practised being that rather of palpable opposition and overbearing violence—in its aim transparent to every one, who knew the Gospel of the grace of God, and involving, if yielded to, the conscious renunciation of Christ. As to the signs and lying wonders, and deceivableness of unrighteousness, and strong delusions, which the apostle mentions among the means and characteristic indications of the dreaded power, there is scarcely even the shadow of them to be found in the controversy which ancient heathenism waged with Christianity. On every account, therefore, this view is to be rejected as wanting in the more essential points of correspondence between the apostolic description and the supposed realization in Providence. Another view, however, has of late been rising into notice, which, if well founded, would equally save the Romish apostacy from any proper share in the predicted evil; and which, we cannot but fear, if not originated, has at least been somewhat encouraged and fostered by that softened apologetic hue, which the mediaeval and antiquarian tendencies of the present age have served to throw around Romanism. The view we refer to would make the full and proper development of the antichrist an essentially different thing from any such depravation of the truth, as is to be found in the Papacy—a greatly more blasphemous usurpation, and one that can only be reached by a Pantheistic deification of human nature. So Olshausen, who, on the passage in Thessalonians, thus writes, “The self-deification of the Roman emperors appears as modesty by the side of that of antichrist; for the Caesars did not elevate themselves above the other gods, they only wanted to have a place beside them, as representatives of the genius of the Roman people. Antichrist, on the contrary, wants to be the only true God, who suffers none beside him; what Christ demands for Himself in truth, he, in the excess of his presumption, claims for himself in falsehood.” Then, as to the way in which he should do this, it is said, “Antichrist will not, as Chrysostom correctly remarks, promote idolatry, but seduce men from the true God, as also from idols, and set himself up as the only object of adoration. This remarkable idea, that sin in antichrist issues in a downright self-deification, discloses to us the inmost nature of evil, which consists in selfishness. In antichrist all love, all capability of sacrifice and self-denial, shows itself entirely submerged in the making of the I all and all, which then also insists on being acknowledged by all men, as the centre of all power, wisdom, and glory.” The proper antichrist, therefore, according to Olshausen, must be a person, and one who shall be himself the mystery of iniquity, as Christ is the mystery of godliness—a kind of embodiment or incarnation of Satan. He can regard all the past manifestations and workings of evil, only as serving to indicate what it may possibly be, but by no means as realizing the idea; and he conceives, it may one day start forth in the person of one, who shall combine in his character the elements of infidelity and superstition, which are so visibly striving for the mastery over mankind. Some individual may be cast up by the fermentation that is going forward, who shall concentrate around himself all the Satanic tendencies in their greatest power and energy, and come forth at last in impious rivalry of Christ, as the incarnate son of the devil. Dean Trench seems substantially to adopt this view, though he expresses himself more briefly, and also less explicitly, upon the subject. With him, the antichrist is “one who shall not pay so much homage to God’s word as to assert the fulfilment in himself, for he shall deny that word altogether; hating even erroneous worship, because it is worship at all; hating much more the Church’s worship in spirit and in truth; who, on the destruction of every religion, every acknowledgment that man is submitted to higher powers than his own, shall seek to establish his throne; and for God’s great truth, God is man, to substitute his own lie, man is God. “(Synonyms, p. 120.) It may be admitted, with reference to this view, that there are tendencies in operation at the present time, fitted, in some degree to suggest the thought of such a possible incarnation of the ungodly and atheistic principle; but nothing has yet occurred, which can justly be said to have brought it within the bounds of the probable. At all events it is an aspect of the matter derived greatly more from the apprehended results of those tendencies themselves, than from a simple and unbiassed interpretation of the passages of Scripture, in which the antichrist is described or named. Such an antichrist as those authors delineate, the impersonation of unblushing wickedness and atheism, has everything against it, which has been already urged against the view, that would identify the description with the enmity and persecutions of heathen Rome. Instead of seating itself in the temple of the Christian Church as its own, and arrogating there the supreme place, an anti-Christian power of that sort could only rise on the ruins of the temple. And whatever audacity or foolhardiness there might be in the assumptions and proceedings of such a power, one cannot, by any stretch of imagination, conceive how, with such flagrant impiety in its front, it could present to God’s people the appearance of a mystery of iniquity, and be accompanied with signs and wonders and deceitful workings, destined to prevail over all who had not received the truth in the love of it. Conscience and the Bible must cease to be what they now are, cease at least to possess the mutual force and respondency they have been wont to exercise, ere so godless a power could rise to the ascendant in Christendom. It may even be said, the religious susceptibilities of men, in the false direction as well as the true, would need to have sustained a paralysis alike unprecedented and incredible. And, besides, the historical connexion would be broken which the passages, bearing on the antichristian apostacy, plainly establish between the present and the future. In what already existed the apostles descried the germ, the incipient workings of what was hereafter more fully to develop itself; while the antichrist now suggested to our apprehension, if it should ever attain to a substantive existence, would stand in no proper affinity to the false doctrine and corruptions of the apostolic age. It would be a strictly novel phenomenon. It were out of place, however, to prosecute the subject further here, where exegetical investigations are what chiefly demand attention. For those who wish to see the subject viewed more in its doctrinal and historical aspects, I must refer them to Prophecy, Viewed in Respect to its Distinctive Features, etc., p. 359, sq., from which some of the last preceding pages have been mainly taken. It will be enough here to state my conviction which may be readily inferred from the preceding remarks, that the conditions of the Scriptural problem respecting the antichrist, have met their fullest, and incomparably most systematic and general fulfilment in the corruptions of Popery. And, in as far as any other forms of evil, either now existing, or yet to arise, may be comprehended under the same designation, it can only be because they shall contain a substantially similar disfiguration of the truth, and undue exaltation of the creature into the place and prerogatives of Godhead. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 01.17. ON ΒΑΠΤΊΖΩ AND ITS COGNATES ======================================================================== Section Fifth. On βαπτίζω And Its Cognates, With Special Reference To The Mode Of Administering Baptism. IT is a somewhat striking circumstance, that when our Lord’s forerunner came forth to prepare the way for His Master, he is represented as not only preaching the doctrine, but also as administering the baptism of repentance; while still a profound silence is observed as to the manner in which he administered the ordinance to his disciples. St. Luke in his first notice of the subject, couples the two together—the doctrine and the ordinance—and says, “John came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance.” And St. Matthew, after briefly mentioning his call to repent, and referring to the prophecy in Isaiah 40:8, with like simplicity relates, that “all Jerusalem went out to him, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.” Whence may we suppose such reserve upon the matter to have arisen? Was it from the practice of religious baptism being already in familiar use among the Jews, so that no specific information was needed respecting the mode of its administration? Or did the word itself, βαπτίζω, so distinctly indicate the kind of action employed, that all acquainted with the meaning of the word would understand what was done? Or, finally, did it arise from no dependence being placed on the precise mode, and from the virtue of the ordinance being necessarily tied to no particular form? Any of these suppositions might possibly account for the peculiarity; but as they cannot be all admitted, it is of some importance, that we know which has the preferable claim on our belief. I. To look first to the term employed—βαπτίζω has the form of a frequentative verb from βάπτω, which is rarely used in the New Testament, and never in this connexion. βάπτω means simply to dip; the Latin synonyms are mergo, tingo; and βάπτος has the sense of tinctus. The word was used of dipping in any way, and very commonly of the operation of dyeing cloth by dipping; whence it has the figurative import of dyeing, with a collateral reference to the manner in which the process was accomplished. Taking βαπτίζω for a frequentative of βάπτω, the earlier glossaries ascribed to it the meaning of mergito, as is stated by Vossius in his Etymologicon: Cum autem βάπτω sit mergo, βαπτίζω commode vertamus mergito; and he adds, respecting the Christian ordinance, præsertim, si sermo de Christianorum baptismo, qui trinâ fit immersione. If this view were correct, it would be necessary, to a right administration of baptism, that the subject of it should not only be immersed in water, but should be immersed several times; so that not immersion only, but repeated immersion, would be the constitutional form. In mentioning definitely three times, as Vossius does, reference is made to a custom that came early into use, and in certain portions of Christendom is not altogether discontinued, according to which a threefold action was employed in order more distinctly to express belief in a triune God. Thus Tertullian writes, Adv. Praxeam, c. 26: Novissime mandavit (viz. Christus) ut tinguerent in Patrem, et Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, non in unum. Nam nec semel, sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas tinguimur. Chrysostom, in like manner, affirms, that the Lord delivered one baptism to His disciples in three immersions of the body, when He gave the command to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Hom. de fide, 17.) Jerome and others mention the head as the part on which the threefold immersion was performed. Thus Jerome, adv. Luciferanos: Nam et multa alia, quæ per traditionem in ecclesiis observantur, auctoritatem sibi scriptæ legis usurpaverunt, velut in lavacro ter caput mergitare, deinde aggressos, lactis et mellis prægustari concordiam ad infantiæ significationem, etc. We have no definite information as to the time and manner in which this threefold immersing of the head in baptism began to be practised. Jerome admits, that there is no authority for it in Scripture, and that it was observed in his day, and was to be vindicated merely as an ancient and becoming usage. It very probably took its rise about the period when the doctrine of the Trinity came to be impugned by the theories of ancient heretics, toward the middle or latter part of the second century, with the view of obtaining from each subject of baptism a distinct and formal acknowledgment of the doctrine. But the head being so specially mentioned as the part immersed, seems to imply that the entire person did not participate in the action. This, however, only by the way. The point we have at present more immediately to consider, is the precise import of βαπτίζω, and whether, as commonly used, it was taken for the frequentative of βάπτω. We have said, that if it really were a frequentative, it must indicate, not immersion simply, but repeated immersion, as the proper form of administering baptism. This, however, is not borne out by the usage. The word is applied to denote the enveloping of objects in water, in a considerable variety of ways, and without any distinct or special reference to the act of dipping or plunging. Thus it is used by Polybius of ships, i. 51, 6, καὶ πολλὰ τῶν σκαφῶν ἐβάπτισον; and in like manner by Josephus, κυβερνήτης, ὅστις χειρῶνα δεδοικὼς πρὸ τῆς θέλλης ἐβάπτισεν ἑκὼν τὸ σκάφος (Bel. J. iii. 8, 5:) in both cases, the general meaning, sink, is evidently the sense to be adopted; in the first, “many of the skiffs sunk;” in the second, “of his own accord the pilot sunk the skiff.” Speaking of Jonah’s vessel, Josephus uses the expression, “the vessel being all but ready to be overwhelmed,” or sunk (ὅσον οὔπω μέλλοντος βαπτίζεσθαι, Ant. 9:10, 2;) and again, in his own life, § 2, of the ship that he sailed in to Home being swamped in the Adriatic (βαπτίζοντος ἡμῶν τοῦ πλοίον,) so that they had to swim through the whole night. The same word is used by Diod. Sic. i. 36, of animals drowned by the overflowing of the Nile, ὑπὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ περιληφθέντα διαφθείρεται βαπτιζόμενα, and by Polybius, both of horses sinking in a marsh, 5:47, 2, and of infantry being plunged, or covered up to the waist, ἕως τῶν παστῶς βαπτιζόμενοι; so that, whether the objects were covered by the water flowing over them, or by themselves sinking down in it, the word βαπτίζω was equally applied. lu consideration of such passages, and others of a like kind, Dr. Gale, in his Reflections on Wall’s History of Infant Baptism, feels constrained to say, that “the word, perhaps, does not so necessarily express the action of putting under water, as in general a thing being in that condition, no matter how it comes to be so, whether it is put into the water, or the water comes over it; though, indeed, to put it into the water is the most natural way, and the most common, and is therefore usually and pretty constantly, but it may not be necessarily implied.” (Wall’s History of Infant Baptism, iii., p. 122.) In plain terms, βαπτίζω does not always mean dip, but sometimes bears the more general import of being under water. And even this requires to be qualified; for when dipping appears to be meant, not the whole, but only a part of the object seems sometimes to have gone under water. Pressed by such uses and applications of the term, Dr. Gale says, “We readily grant that there may be such circumstances in some cases, which necessarily and manifestly show, that the thing spoken of is not said to be dipt all over; but it does not therefore follow, that the word in that place does not signify to dip. Mr. Wall will allow his pen is dipt in the ink, though it is not daubed all over, or totally immersed.” (D. p. 145.) This, as justly remarked by Wall, is, indeed, to contend for the word, but at the same time, “to grant away the thing;” since, “if that which he allows be dipping, the controversy is at an end.” It resolves itself into a petty question, not worth contending about, how much or how little water should be used in baptism—whether this or that part of the body should be in the element. Liddell and Scott, in their Lexicon, beyond all reasonable doubt, give the fair import of the word, as used by profane writers and Josephus, when they represent it as signifying to dip unwater, to sink, to bathe or soak. It denotes somehow, and to some extent, a going into, or being placed unwater; but is by no means definite as to the precise mode of this being done, or the length to which it might be carried. When, however, we turn to the use of the word in the Apocrypha and the New Testament, we find a still greater latitude in the sense put upon it. In the apocryphal book Judith, Jdt 12:7, it is said of the heroine of the story, that “she went out every night to the valley of Bethulia, and baptized herself in the camp at the fountain of water”—καὶ έβαπτίζετο ἐν τῆ παρεμβολῇ ἐπι τῆς πηγῆς τοῦ ὕδατος: which can scarcely be understood of any thing but some sort of ablution or washing, since the action is reported to have been done in camp, and not in, but at the fountain of water. Immersion seems to be excluded, both by the publicity of the scene, and by the relation indicated to the fountain. Another, and, if possible, still more unequivocal example, occurs in the Wisdom of Sirach, Sir 34:25, “When one is baptized from a dead body—βαπτιζομένος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ—and touches it again, of what avail is his washing” (τῷ λουτρῷ?) The passage evidently refers to what the law prescribed in the way of purification for those who had come into contact with a corpse. And this we learn from Numbers 19:13, Numbers 19:19, included a threefold action—sprinkling the person with water, mixed with the ashes of a red heifer, bathing it, and washing the clothes. Plainly, therefore, the βαπτιζομένος of the son of Sirach is a general term expressive of the whole of these; it includes all that the law required as to the application of water for the purposes of purification in the case supposed. Nothing but a controversial aim could lead any one to think of ascribing another meaning to the word in this passage. Dr. Gale informs us, that “he remembered the time, when he thought it a very formidable instance;” but bracing himself for the occasion, he again recovered his composure, and corrected, as he says, his mistake; nay, he even came to “think it exceeding clear to any who are willing to see it, that a further washing is necessary besides the sprinklings spoken of, and that this washing was the finishing of the ceremony. The defiled person was to be sprinkled with the holy water on the third and on the seventh day, only as a preparatory to the great purification, which was to be by washing the body and clothes on the seventh day, with which the uncleanliness ended.” (Wall iii., 154.) Such is the shift to which a controversialist can resort, in order to recover his equanimity from a formidable instance! So far from any sort of bathing at the close being the chief thing in the ordinance, and that from which the whole might be designated, the bathing was evidently one of the least; for it is not so much as mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the service is referred to (Hebrews 9:13.) The whole stress there is laid on the sprinkling the unclean with water, mixed with the ashes of the red heifer; nor can any one take up a different impression, who reads the passage in Numbers with an unbiassed spirit. For there, when the state of abiding uncleanness is denoted, nothing is said of the absence of bathing, but account alone is made of the water of separation not being sprinkled on him, which is thrice emphatically repeated, Numbers 19:9, Numbers 19:13, Numbers 19:20. He that was to be cut off from his people, on account of this species of uncleanness, was to suffer excision simply “because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him.” So that the βαπτιζομένοι of the son of Sirach, if it should be connected with one part of the transaction rather than another, ought plainly to be viewed as having respect chiefly to the sprinkling of the unclean with the water, which had the ashes of the heifer mingled with it; but the fairer interpretation is to view it as inclusive of all the ablutions practised on the occasion. (An explanation has been given of the passage in Numbers, which goes to an extreme on the opposite side, and would deny that the person who underwent the process of purification from the touch of a dead body, required to be bathed at all. Thus Dr. Armstrong, in a late work on the Doctrine of Baptisms, holds respecting Numbers 19:19, “And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even,” that this is meant of the person sprinkling, not of the person sprinkled upon. And he thinks this is made quite certain by Numbers 19:21, which ordains it as a perpetual statute, that he who sprinkles the unclean shall wash his clothes, and be unclean till the evening (p. 72.) But such an explanation will not stand. For the latter person was not required to bathe his body at all; he had simply to wash his clothes. And if he had been meant in Numbers 19:19, there could have been no propriety in laying stress on the seventh day, any more than the third. This points manifestly to the person defiled by the touch of the dead.) In New Testament Scripture we find the same general use of the word, embracing, in like manner, various ceremonial ablutions. Thus in Hebrews 9:1-28, Hebrews 10:1-39, the ancient ritual is described as “standing in meats and drinks and divers washings—διαφόροις βαπτισμοῖς— and carnal ordinances.” The diverse evidently points to several uses of water, such as we know to have actually existed unthe law, sprinklings, washings, bathings. If it had been but one mode or action that was referred to, the diverse would have been entirely out of place. In Mark 7:3-4; Mark 7:8, it is said, “The Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft (ἐὰν μὴ πυγμῆ νίψωςται τὰς χεῖρας,) eat not, holding the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market, except they are baptized (ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται,) they eat not.” This latter expression is undoubtedly of stronger import than the former one, and marks a difference between what was done when they came from the market, and what was done on other and commoner occasions. Dr. Campbell, who, on this subject, lends his support to the views of the Baptists, concurs with them in making the distinction to be—in the one case a simple washing of the hands, or pouring water on them, and an immersion of them in the other. Dr. Campbell even throws this view into his translation; he renders the one clause, “until they wash their hands, by pouring a little water on them;” and the other, “until they dip them.” This mode of explanation, however, is grammatically untenable; it would have required the repetition of the τὰς χεῖρας, in the second clause, after the βαπτίσωνται, if the verb had referred to the dipping of them alone. But on another ground this supposition must be abandoned; for βαπτίζω is never applied to a part of the body, nor is even λούω; these always have respect to the body or person as a whole; while νίπτω is invariably the word used when some particular member or select portion is meant. (Titmann’s Synonyms: “λούω νίπτω; they differ as our bathe and wash. Therefore νίπτεσθαι is used of any particular part of the body, not only of the hands or feet; but λούσασθαι of the whole body. Acts 9:37; Hom. II. w. 5:582.” See also Trench’s Synonyms unthe words.) Having respect to this usage, and marking also that the verb is here in the middle voice, having a reflective sense, we must render the clause, which speaks of what the Pharisees did on coining from market, “except they baptize (or wash) themselves, they eat not;” i.e. they first perform a general ablution; for, having mingled with the crowd in the market-place, and possibly come into contact with some unclean person, not the hands alone, as in ordinary circumstances, but the whole body, was supposed to need a purification. Yet not such a one as involved a total immersion; for the law only required this in extreme cases of actual and ascertained pollution; in cases of a less marked or palpable description, it was done by sprinkling or washing. And we are the rather led to think of this mode of purification here, as the Evangelist, in Mark 7:4, speaks of the Pharisees having “many other things which they received to hold, baptism of pots and cups, and brazen things, and couches;” obviously meaning, not immersions, in the ordinary sense, but washings and sprinklings, which are the forms of purification proper to such things as brazen utensils, pots, and couches. A still further, and very decisive use of the verb is given in Luke 11:38, where we read of the Pharisee marvelling, that our Lord οὐ ἐβαπτίσθη πρὸ τοῦ ἀρίστου, had not washed before dinner. Even Dr. Campbell finds himself obliged to render here, “had used no washing;” judging from his views on other passages it should rather have been, “had not immersed, or bathed himself.” If the Pharisees had been wont to practise immersion before dinner, we might then have supposed, that it was the disuse of such a practice, on the part of our Lord, which gave occasion to the wonder. But there is conclusive evidence to the contrary of this. The passage already cited from the Gospel of Mark alone proves it; for the washing of the hands merely is there mentioned as the ordinary kind of ablution practised by the Pharisees before dinner. And Josephus notices it among the peculiarities of the Essenes, that they bathed themselves before dinner in cold water; plainly implying, that in this they differed from others. There is no evidence to show, and it is against probability to believe, that private baths were common in Judea; and, indeed, the scarcity of water for a great part of the year rendered it next to impossible to have them in common use. Nor was Judea singular in this respect in more ancient times, and in states of society similar to what existed there in the apostolic age. In countries also, where water was greatly more abundant than in Judea, bathing by immersion was comparatively little practised till effeminate and luxurious habits had become general, and even then it was not always so frequent as is commonly represented. It is doubtful if the Greeks in earlier times practised it. Ulysses, indeed, is represented by Homer as going into the bath in the palace of Circe, but the bath (ἀσαμίνθος) was only a vessel for sitting in; and the water, after being heated, was poured over the head and shoulders. In the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, edited by Dr. Smith, it is stated (Art. Balneal) that, “on ancient vases, on which persons are represented bathing, we never find any thing corresponding to a modern bath, in which persons can stand or sit; but there is always a round or oval basin (λουτήρ or λουτήριον) resting on a stand, by the side of which those who are bathing are represented standing undressed, and bathing themselves.” “The daily bath,” says Bekker (Charicles, p. 149,) “was by no means so indispensable with the Greeks as it was with the Romans; nay, in some instances the former nation looked on it as a mark of degeneracy and increasing effeminacy, when the baths were much frequented.” Various proofs are given of this; and it is further stated, that in the Grecian baths there appear usually to have been, beside the λουτὴρες already mentioned, some sort of tubs, in which the persons sat or stood. Some of the paintings represent women standing, and a kind of shower-bath descending on them. To return, however, to the subject more immediately before us—it seems unquestionable, that according to Hellenistic, and more especially to Apocryphal and New Testament usage, the verb βαπτίζω did not always signify immersion, or even the being totally unwater, but included the more general notion of ablution or washing. Nor is there any reason for supposing it to have borne a narrower meaning when applied to the baptism of John or of Christ. We thus quite naturally account for the different construction used in coupling the act of baptizing with the instrument employed. Very commonly the baptism is said to have been done, ἐν ὕδατι, “in water;” but Luke has simply the dative after the verb, ἐγὼ μὲν ὕδατι βαπτίζω (Luke 3:16,) “I indeed baptize you with water”—with that as the instrument, but leaving altogether indeterminate the mode of its application. (Dr. Campbell most unwarrantably translates this passage in Luke’s Gospel, “baptize in water,” as if it were ἐν ὕδατι; and so, has rendered himself justly liable to the rebuke which, in his note on Matthew 3:11, he has administered to those who translate ἐν ὕδατι, with water: “It is to be regretted that we have so much evidence, that even good and learned men allow their judgments to be warped by the sentiments and customs of the sect which they prefer. The true partisan always inclines to correct the diction of the Spirit by that of the party.” So, sometimes, does the man who unduly presses a particular opinion.) We can readily conceive the practice to have varied. When administered at the Jordan, or where there was plenty of water, there might be an actual immersion, or, at least a plentiful affusion. But how could there well be such a thing at Jerusalem about the time of Pentecost in the height of summer, when the rite had to be administered to several thousands at once? We are informed by a most credible witness, that in summer there is no running stream in the vicinity of Jerusalem, except the rill of Siloam, a few rods in length, and that the city is, and was supplied with water from its cisterns, and public reservoirs chiefly supplied by rain early in the season. (Dr. Robinson’s Researches, vol. i., sec. 7, § 9.) It is not unworthy of notice also, that we learn from the same competent authority, that the baptismal fonts still found among the ruins of the most ancient Greek churches in Palestine, and dating, it is understood, from very remote times, are not large enough to admit of the baptism of adult persons by immersion, and from their structure were obviously never intended to be so used. (Ibid., vol. ii., sec. x.) And it may be still further noted as an additional confirmation of the view taken, that in the old Latin version the verb βαπτίζω was not rendered by immergo or mergito as if those words were somehow too definite or partial in their import to be presented as equivalents. It preferred adhering to the Greek, and simply gave baptizo. II. A second point demanding examination, is that which respects proselyte-baptism among the Jews. Did this exist prior to John’s baptism? In other words, did he simply adopt an existing institution? or did he introduce what might be designated a new ordinance? Both sides of this question have been zealously maintained, and the discussion of it has given rise to long and learned investigations, both in this country and on the continent, into that department of Jewish antiquities. In favour of the prior existence of Jewish proselyte- baptism we find, among others, the names of Lightfoot, Schott- gen, Selden, Buxtorf, Wetstein, Michaelis, Hammond, Wall, etc.; and against it Owen, Carpzov, Lardner, Paulus, De Wette, Schneckenburger, (in an elaborate, separate treatise,) Ernesti, Moses Stuart, etc. The existence of Jewish baptism, as an ancient initiatory rite for proselytes, was more commonly believed in former generations, than it is now. Not a few of the writers mentioned in the first of the above lists, spoke of it as a matter about which it was scarcely possible to entertain a shadow of doubt. Thus Wall gives expression to their views, “It is evident that the custom of the Jews before our Saviour’s time, (and as they themselves affirm, from the beginning of their law,) was to baptize, as well as circumcise any proselyte, that came over to them from the nations. This does fully appear from the books of the Jews themselves, and also of others, that understood the Jewish customs, and have written of them. They reckoned all mankind beside themselves to be in an unclean state, and not capable of being entered into the covenant of Israelites without a washing or baptism, to denote their purification from their uncleanness. And this was called the baptizing of them into Moses.” (History of Infant Baptism, vol. i., p. 4.) Now, there can be no doubt, that ample quotations can be produced (Dr. Wall has great store of them) in support of these positions. But then what sort of quotations? Are they of a kind to bear with decisive evidence on the state of matters in the gospel age? It is here, that when the authorities are looked into, they prove insufficient for the end they are intended to serve; for, so far from finding any attestations among them respecting the existence of proselyte-baptism in the apostolic age, we are rather apt to he struck with the total want of evidence on the point; and the want of it in writings which, if it could have been had, might have been confidently expected to furnish it. In the inspired writings of the Old Testament no notice is taken of any ordinance connected with the admission, either of native Jews or converted Gentiles, into the Covenant, except that of circumcision. Nor is mention once made of any other in the Apocrypha, or in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, or in Philo and Josephus, notwithstanding the references which abound in their writings, to Jewish rites and customs. There is a like silence upon the subject in the Patristic productions of the first three or four centuries, and in those of the Jewish Rabbis for the same period. So far as the direct evidence goes, the very utmost that can be said is, that indications appear of Jewish proselyte-baptism as an existing practice during the fourth century of the Christian era. And as there is no historical ground for supposing it to have been then originated, it may, with some probability, be held to have been commonly in operation for a certain time previously. But if we inquire when, or how, we can find no satisfactory answer; all is involved in uncertainty. (Schneckenburger, in the treatise above referred to, besides giving a clear historical survey of the opinions and literature upon the subject, has satisfactorily established the following positions. (1.) The regular admission of strangers into the Jewish religion, while the temple stood, was done through circumcision and sacrifice—a lustration, however, preceding the sacrifice, which, like all other lustrations, obtained merely as a Levitical purification, not as an initiatory rite. This appears from a variety of sources, and especially from several passages in Josephus, (such as Ant. xiii. 9, xx. 2, xviii. 3, 4,) in which the reception of individuals from other lands is expressly treated of, and no mention is made of baptism. (2.) The lustration performed on the occasion did not differ in outward form from the ordinary lustrations? but, like these, was practised by the proselytes merely upon themselves. (3.) This lustration by and by took the place of the discontinued sacrifice, yet not probably till the end of the third century; and was then, for the most part, still performed as a self-lustration in connexion with the circumcision that followed it: but in the case of women was done apart from the latter, and in process of time came to be applied, as a proper initiatory rite, as in the case of slaves and foundlings. (4.) Hence, a derivation of the baptism of John or Christ from this Jewish custom, is not to be thought of; but it is to be accounted for from the general use and significance of lustrations among the Jews, taken in connexion with the expectations entertained respecting the new state of things to be introduced by the Messiah.) From the state of the evidence, therefore, respecting proselyte-baptism among the Jews, we are not entitled to found any thing on it in respect to the subject unconsideration, since it is not such as to enable us to draw any definite conclusions regarding its existence or form in the gospel age. We are not on that account, however, to hold that there was nothing in the usages of the time tending in the direction of a baptismal service, and that the institution of such a service in connexion with a new state of things in the kingdom of God, must have had an altogether strange and novel appearance. For, in the ancient religions generally, and in the Mosaic religion in particular, there was such a frequent use of water, by means of washings, sprinklings, and immersions, to indicate the removal of defilement, that the coupling of a great attempt towards reformation with an administration of baptism, could scarcely have appeared otherwise than natural and proper. In the Greek and Roman classics we find constant references to this symbolical use of water. Thus, in Virgil, Æn. ii. 17, Tu, genitor, cape sacra manu, patriosque Penates; Me bello è tanto digressum et caede recenti, Attrectare nefas; donec flumine vivo abluero. Macrobius, Sat. iii., Constat Diis superis sacra facturum corporis ablutione purgari. Porphyry, de Abstin. 4:7, says of the priests of Egypt, τρὶς τῆς ἡμέρας ἀπελούσαντο ψυχπῷ. Ovid speaks of the belief in the efficacy of ablutions as not only prevailing, but prevailing too extensively among the Greeks and Romans: Omne nefas, omnemque mali purgamina causam Credebant nostri tollere posse senes. Graecia principium moris fuit; ilia nocentes Impia lustratos ponere facta putat. Ah! nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina caedis, Flumina tolli posse putetis aqua (Fasti, ii. 35.) Many other passages might be cited to the same effect, but these are enough. The state of feeling and practice among the Jews was only so far different, that they had a better foundation to rest upon, and ordinances of service directly appointed by Heaven to observe. Among these, as already noticed, divers baptisms—baptisms by washing, sprinkling, and immersion—were imposed on them; and both the priests daily, when they entered the Temple, and the ordinary worshippers on ever-recurring occasions, had ablutions of various kinds to perform. Not only so, but it was matter of public notoriety, that the Essenes, who carried their notions and practices somewhat farther than others in ceremonial observance, admitted converts into their number by a solemn act of lustration, making it strictly an initiatory rite; for only after this purifying service had been undergone, and two years of probation had been passed, could the applicant be admitted into full connexion with the society, (Josephus Wars, ii. 8, 6.) Taking all these things into account, and remembering, besides, how frequently in the Old Testament the purification to be effected upon the soul of true penitents, and of those especially who were to live when the great period of reformation came, is represented unthe symbol of a water-purification, (Psalms 26:6; Isaiah 1:16; Isaiah 52:15; Ezekiel 36:25; Zechariah 13:1,) we can scarcely conceive how it should have appeared in any way startling or peculiar that John, who so expressly called men to repentance and amendment of life, as preparatory to a new phase of the Divine administration, should have accompanied his preaching with an ordinance of baptism. The ideas, the practices, the associations, the hopes of the time, were such as to render an act of this kind both a natural expression and a fitting embodiment of his doctrine. Hence, when John gave a succession of denials to the interrogatories of the Pharisees, such as they understood to be a renunciation of any claim on his part to the character, either of Messiah or of Messiah’s forerunner, they asked him, “Why baptizest thou, then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?” (John 1:25;)—they would have been nowise surprised had any one of these come with an ordinance of baptism; they only wondered that John, disclaiming, as they thought, being identified with one or other of them, should still have made himself known as the dispenser of such an ordinance. After what has been stated, it is scarcely necessary to add, that it is a matter of no moment in what manner Jewish proselyte-baptism was administered, when it came to be regularly established. For, as we have no certain, or even very probable evidence of its existence till some centuries after the Christian era, the mode of its administration can have no bearing on the question of baptism by John or the apostles. According to the descriptions given of it by Maimonides and other Jewish writers (as may be seen in Wall,) it appears to have been done by immersion; but these descriptions belong to a period long subsequent to the apostolic age. In describing the practice of the Essenes, which, perhaps, comes the nearest to the new rite of any known existing custom, Josephus uses the words ἀπολούω (wash off,) and ἁγνεία, cleansing; pointing rather to the operations of the lavacrum or λουτήριον, than to the act of immersion in a pool or bathing-tub. And it is always by words of a like nature—words indicative of washing, cleansing, and such like, that the ablutions of the Old Testament ritual are described; as in Leviticus 16:28, where it is in the Septuagint, πλυνεῖ ταʼ ἱμάτια καὶ λούσεται τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ὕδατι, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe (in any of the forms) his body with water. It was not, in short, by any precise mode of applying the water, but to the cleansing property or effect of the water, when applied, that respect appears to have been had in the descriptions referred to. III. A third line of reflection will be found to conduct us substantially to the result we have already arrived at. It is derived from the incidental allusions and explanatory expressions occurring in Scripture, both in respect to the symbolical use of water generally, and to the ordinance of baptism in particular. In nearly all of these it is simply the cleansing property of the water, its washing virtue, which is rendered prominent. For example, in Acts 22:16, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord;” or in Ephesians 5:25-26, “Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it, by the washing of water by (lit. in) the Word.” Here the reference is not exclusively to the ordinance of baptism; for the cleansing spoken of is represented as finding its accomplishment “in the Word”—being wrought mainly in the soul through the belief of the truth. Yet, along with the more direct and inward instrumentality, the apostle couples that of baptism, and points, while he does so, to the cleansing property of the symbolical element employed in its administration. The same also is done in such expressions as “But ye are washed,” “He hath washed us from our sins,” “He hath saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost;” in each of them the language employed is founded on the baptismal use of water, and bears respect simply to its natural adaptation to purposes of cleansing. On this alone the attention is fixed. It adds force to the argument derived from these considerations, to observe, that the word baptism is sometimes used of circumstances and events, in regard to which the mode was entirely different, and only the main, fundamental idea alike. Thus in 1 Corinthians 10:2, the apostle represents the Israelites as having been all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; where nothing but the most fanciful imagination, or the most determined partisanship can think of an immersion being indicated. (One would almost think it was in jeux d’esprit some one had said of Moses walking through the sea on dry ground, “He got a dry dip. And could not a person, literally covered with oil-cloth, get a dry immersion in water?” But it is Dr. Carson who has put his name to such solemn trifling.) The two actions classed together were quite different in form; and neither the one nor the other—neither the passing under the cloud, nor the going dry-shod through the Red Sea, possessed the reality, or even bore the semblance of a dipping. In 1 Peter 3:20-21, the preservation of Noah by the waters of the deluge, which destroyed the ungodly, is represented as a species of baptism—baptism in the type. And there also it was plainly of no moment what corporeal position Noah occupied relatively to the waters—whether above or below them. This is not brought at all into notice. The simple point of comparison between the Old and the New is, that with Noah, as with us, there was an element accomplishing a twofold process the destruction of the evil, and the preservation of the good. He was saved in the ark through that which destroyed others; precisely as we, when our baptism becomes truly operative in our experience, are saved by that regenerative and sanctifying grace, which at once destroys the inherent evil in our natures, and brings to them a participation of a Divine life. In each of these illustrative cases no stress whatever is laid upon the particular form or mode, in which they respectively differed; in regard to none of them is it so much as distinctly referred to, and the whole point of the comparison is made to turn on the separation, the cleansing process effected between the evil and the good—the corruption of nature, on the one side, and the saving grace of God, on the other. Even the passages in Romans 6:3-4, and Colossians 2:12-13, in which the apostle speaks of baptism as a burial, and which Baptists usually contend is founded on the specific mode of immersion—even these, when viewed in connexion with the representations already noticed, instead of invalidating, rather confirm the deduction we are seeking to establish. For, on the supposition of a reference being made merely to the mode of administration, it would surely be to present us with a most incongruous association, if one and the same act were held to be significant, in its simply external aspect, at once of an interment and a cleansing. What natural relation have these to each other? What proper affinity? Manifestly none whatever; and if the same ordinance is somehow expressive of both ideas, it cannot possibly be through its form of administration; it must be got by looking above this (whatever precisely that may be,) and taking into account the spiritual things symbolized and exhibited in the ordinance. Indeed, as burial was commonly practised in the East, it did not present even a formal resemblance to an immersion in water; for, usually the body, and in particular our Lord’s body, was not let down, as with us, into an open sepulchre, but placed horizontally in the side of a cave, and there not unfrequently lifted up as on a ledge. Such an act could not be said to look like a dip into water; and if, on the ground of an external resemblance, they had been so associated by the apostle, it would have been impossible to vindicate the connexion from the charge of an unregulated play of fancy. But there is here nothing of the kind. The apostle is viewing baptism as the initiatory ordinance that exhibits and confirms the believer’s union to Christ—the crucified and risen Redeemer; and to give the greater distinctness to the representation, he places the believer’s fellowship with Christ successively in connexion with the several stages of Christ’s redemptive work—His death, burial, and resurrection, reckoning these as so many stages in the believer’s personal history. And as thus, the very substance of the statement shows, how Paul was looking to the realities, not to the mere forms of things, so, as if the more to take our thoughts off from the forms, he varies the figure, passes from the idea of being buried with Christ, to that of being, like saplings, planted in the likeness of His death and resurrection. But if immersion in water has little resemblance to an Eastern burial, it has still less to the process of planting a shoot in the ground, that it may spring up into life and fruitfulness. Thus, the figures, with the truth couched under them, only become intelligible and plain, when they are viewed in relation to the spiritual design of the ordinance. There is still another passage, to which, in this connexion, reference should be made; for although it does not directly discourse of baptism, it proceeds on the ideas commonly associated in our Lord’s time with the religious use of water, and on which the ordinance of baptism is certainly founded. The passage is John 13:1-17, which narrates the action of washing the disciples feet by our Lord. The action had a twofold significance. It was intended, in the first instance, to exhibit an affecting and memorable proof of our Lord’s lowly and loving condescension toward His disciples—one, He gave them to understand, which in spirit must be often repeated among themselves. But, besides this, it pointed to the necessity of spiritual cleansing to its necessity, even in the case of those who have already become the disciples of Christ. They must be perpetually repairing to Him for fresh purifications. Of this symbolic import of the action Peter soon betrayed his ignorance—though really not more ignorant, but only more prompt and outspoken than the others—when he declared that Jesus should never wash his feet. The reply this drew forth was, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me,” indicating that a deep symbolic import attached to the service, on account of which all the disciples behooved to submit to it. And now Peter, catching a glimpse of his Master’s meaning, exclaimed, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head.” To this Jesus again replied, ̔Ο λελουμένος οὐ χρείαν ἔχει ἤ τοὺς πόδας νίψασθαι, ἀλλ̓ ἔστι καθαρὸς ὅλος;—where we are to mark the change of verb in the first member—the λελουμένος referring to a general washing, the cleansing of the whole body, and the νίψασθαι, the cleansing merely of the feet—in accordance with the usage previously noticed (p. 300.) By reason of their relation to Christ, the disciples (all except Judas, who is expressly distinguished from the rest in what immediately follows) had been, in a manner, washed; that is, they were in an accepted or justified condition, which, with reference to the action of washing, our Lord designated clean. But they could only abide in this condition (our Lord would have them to understand) by perpetually repairing to Him for deliverance from the partial defilements which they contracted in the world; so that the one great baptism into a forgiven and purified condition must be followed up by ever recurring lesser baptisms. But in both cases alike, it is the cleansing virtue alone of the outward service that is made account of; it is the washing away alone of contracted defilement; and if that idea is made prominent in the use of the water, we naturally and reasonably infer, the design of the symbol will in any case be accomplished. On the whole, two things seem perfectly clear, from all that is written in Scripture respecting what is external in the ordinance of baptism. The first is, that there is nothing, either in the expressions employed concerning it, or in the circumstances of its institution, to fix the Church down to a specific form of administration, as essential to its proper being and character. This sufficiently appears from the considerations already adduced; but the view might be greatly strengthened, by comparing the indeterminateness which characterizes the language respecting baptism, with the remarkable precision and definitiveness with which the appointments were made in Old Testament ordinances. In these the form was essential, and hence its minutest details were prescribed—the day, the place, the materials to be employed, and the manner of employing them: all were matter of explicit legislation. But in the New Testament ordinance it is otherwise, because, while the rite itself is imperative, nothing of moment depends upon the precise form of administration. The second conclusion is, that the use of water in baptism is chiefly, if not exclusively, for the purpose of symbolizing the cleansing and regenerative nature of the change, which those, who are the proper subjects, must undergo on entering the Messiah’s kingdom. So that the prominent idea—the one point on which the general tenor of Scripture would lead us to lay stress—is the cleansing property of the element applied to the body, not the precise manner of its administration. And we may fairly regard it as an additional confirmation of the soundness of our views in both these respects, that when we look from the external symbol to the internal reality, we find the same disregard as to form, coupled with the same uniformity as to substantial import. It is said, we are baptized in the Spirit (ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, Matthew 3:11; John 1:33; Acts 1:5;) but this is described as taking effect by the Spirit descending into us, not by our being immersed into the Spirit—by His being poured out upon us, or coming to abide in us. The cloven tongues as of fire, which at the first imaged the fact of his descent on the apostles, appeared sitting on them; it was not an element, into which they themselves were plunged, but a form of power resting upon them. In a word, it is the internal, vivifying, regenerative agency, which alone is important; the mode in which it is represented as coming into operation is varied, because pointing to what in the ordinance is not absolutely fixed or strictly essential. We have confined our attention, in the preceding line of inquiry, to what properly belongs to the exegetical province. Our immediate object has been to ascertain, by every fair and legitimate consideration, the Scriptural import of βαπτίζω and βάπτισμα, as applied to the baptism of John and our Lord. The doctrine of baptism the truths it involves, the obligations it imposes, its proper subjects, and the parties by whom it should be administered these are topics that belong to another department of theological inquiry. We shall merely advert, in conclusion, to one or two expressions, in which the word to baptize is coupled with certain adjuncts, used to indicate more definitely its nature and object. In respect to John’s baptism, the common adjuncts are, εἰς μετάνοιαν, εἰς ἔφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, into repentance, into remission of sins—that is, into these as the aim and result of the ordinance. The same general relation is sometimes expressed in regard to Christ’s baptism, only the object is different; as when it is said to be εἰς ἔν σῶμα (1 Corinthians 12:13,) εἰς Χριστὸν ̓Ιησοῦν, or εἰς τὸν θάνατον αὐτοῦ (Romans 6:3)—into these, as the end or object aimed at in the ordinance. To be baptized into a person into Christ, for example, or into His body— means, to be through baptism formally admitted into personal fellowship with Him, and participation in the cause or work associated with His name. And not materially different is the expression of being baptized, ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Κυριόυ (Acts 10:48,) also ἐπι τῷ ὀνόματι ̓Ιησοῦ (Acts 2:38;) the import of which is not that the original formula given by the Lord was dispensed with—that instead of it Christ’s name simply was pronounced over the baptized; but that they were baptized into the faith of His person and salvation, or into the profession and hope of all that His name indicates for those who own His authority, and trust in His merits. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 01.18. IMPORT AND USES OF HADES, ἋΙΔΗΣ IN SCRIPTURE. ======================================================================== Section Sixth. Import And Uses Of Hades, Ἃιδης In Scripture. THIS is one of the few words employed by the sacred writers which played a prominent part in the mythologies of Greece and Rome; and it is of importance, for the correct interpretation of certain portions of New Testament Scripture, to as certain, whether the sense which it bears in the sacred, is the same with that which it bore in the profane territory; or what, if any, may have been the modifications it underwent in being brought into contact with the spiritual revelations of the Bible. 1. To look first to the heathen use of the term,—the derivation and primary meaning cannot be pronounced absolutely certain; yet what has been the most general, continues still to be the most approved opinion—that it is a compound of privative a and ἰδεῖν, so that, if applied to a person or power, it would designate what makes invisible, if to a place, the invisible region. We may the rather hold this to be the correct etymology, as in the more ancient writers the iota is very commonly written and pronounced as a constituent part of the word; and ᾅδης may consequently be regarded as an abbreviation of ἀΐδης. One does not see how this could have happened, if the derivation had been from ἅδω or χάδω, to receive. In the elder Greek writers, the word is generally used to designate a person or power; it is but another name for Pluto, Dis, or Orcus. In Homer it is always so used; but in later writers it is applied sometimes to the power, and sometimes to the abode or region, over which he was supposed to preside. And as people felt unwilling (according to Plato) to designate the Deity by the dreaded name of Hades, preferring that rather of Pluto, so the term Hades came in process of time to be generally appropriated to the region. Nor can there be any doubt that this region, in respect to locality, was understood to occupy a relatively lower position than the earth—hence the Latin designations, inferi and inferna, the people or places beneath ground; and that, in respect to its nature and design, it was the common receptacle of the departed, Πάντας ὁμῶς θνητούς ̓Αΐδης δέχεται. This common receptacle, however, they held to be divided into two distinct spheres one for the good and another for the bad—Elysium and Tartarus. Delineating the two paths, which at a certain point led off to the different habitations, Yirgil says, Æn. vi. 540:— “Hac iter Elysium nobis: et laeva malorum Exercet pœnas, et ad impia Tartara naittit.” But notwithstanding this division, and the possibility, according to it, of a state of happiness being enjoyed in the nether world, the notion of Hades was still a predominantly gloomy and forbidding one to the heathen mind. Pluto and his subordinates were always imaged under a grim and stern aspect; and the whole region over which their sway extended looked dull and mournful. The passage of souls thither was commonly represented as a transition from the region of light and life to the mansions of darkness, and the possession, at the most, of a kind of shadowy, semi-real existence, a sort of mid-way condition between proper life and death. The poets, who partly expressed and partly also formed the popular belief upon the subject, inclined so much in their representations to the shady side, that Plato would only admit them into his Republic, if the passages bearing on this point were erased from them; because, filling the minds of men with such uninviting representations of the state after death, they inevitably tended, he conceived, to unnerve the spirits of men, and dispose them to prefer slavery to defeat and death (Rep. iii. 1-4.) This dark and gloomy portraiture of the state of the departed in heathen mythology arose, doubtless, in part from the want of any definite revelation to guide and elevate men’s views regarding the future; but still more, from a want of another kind the want of any proper satisfaction for the guilt of sin, such as should, on solid grounds, have restored peace to the conscience. Their imperfect ablutions and sacrifices were felt to be insufficient for so great an end, especially when the thought of future retribution hove distinctly in view. Yet, uninviting as the prospect of an entrance into Hades was, even for the better portion of mankind, it was greatly preferred to exclusion; and the classes that were denied admission for a time, were deemed peculiarly unhappy. These were the unburied, the unripe (such as had been carried off at an immature age, hence supposed to be not ready,) and those who had met a violent death. The first class till their funeral rites were performed, the other two till the natural period of death had arrived, were doomed to flit about the outskirts of Hades. (See Tertullian de Anima, c. 56; also the long note of Pearson on the subject under Art. V. of the Creed, note l.) Itself a proof of the superficialism of heathen mythology, and of the undue regard that was had in it to merely natural considerations! since all the circumstances which were supposed to exclude from the proper receptacles of the dead, belonged to the outward and fortuitous, rather than to the moral. But whatever may be thought of such imaginations, there can be no doubt of the two leading points already noted—namely, that the Hades of ancient heathenism was believed to be the common receptacle of departed souls, and that it was understood to possess a compartment of bliss for the good, and a compartment of retributive punishment and misery for the bad. 2. Turning now to the territory of Scripture, we look in the first instance to the light that is furnished on the subject in the writings of the Old Testament. There the place of departed spirits is designated by the Hebrew name of Sheol; which is most commonly, and I believe rightly, derived from שָׁאַל, to demand or ask: So called, to use the words of Michaelis, a poscendo, quod non desinat postulare, et homines alios post alios ad se trahere. With reference to this primary import of the term, as well as to the reality indicated by it, it is said in Proverbs 27:20, “Sheol and the abyss are never satisfied,” and in Habakkuk 2:5, the Chaldean monarch is likened to Sheol, “because he gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people.” Gesenius’s later derivation, as if it were for שְׁעוֹל, a hollow, then a hollow and subterranean place, seems to rest on no solid foundation. But nothing of importance depends on the etymology; other and more certain sources of information exist as to the notions involved in it. The Sheol of the Hebrews bore so much of a common resemblance to the Hades of the Greeks, that in the Septuagint ᾅδης is the word commonly employed as an equivalent; and in the latter periods of the Jewish commonwealth the two words were viewed as of substantially like import. According also to the Hebrew mode of contemplation, there was a common receptacle for the spirits of the departed; and a receptacle which was conceived of as occupying, in relation to this world, a lower sphere—under ground. Hence they spoke of going down to Sheol, or of being brought up again from it. Josephus, when describing in this respect the belief of the Pharisees, which was, undoubtedly, the common belief of his countrymen, says, “They believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth (ὑπὸ χθονὸς,) there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; that the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again,” (Ant. xviii, 1, 8.) The language of earlier times perfectly accords with these views, so far as it refers to the points embraced in them. Jacob, for example, speaks of being brought down to Sheol with sorrow, (Genesis 42:38;) and David, in one place, (Psalms 139:8,) contemplates the possibility of making his bed in Sheol, and in another, (Psalms 3:1-8) after deliverance from the sore calamity which had enveloped him for a time as in an atmosphere of death, gives thanks to God, like one actually restored to life, for having brought his soul up again from Sheol. At the same time, that the wicked were regarded as going to Sheol, is so often expressed in Old Testament Scripture, that it is almost needless to produce any particular examples of it. The passage alone of Isaiah 14:1-32, which, though highly figurative, is certainly based on the existing beliefs of the Israelitish people, is conclusive proof. The king of Babylon is there represented as thrown from his lofty elevation by the judgment of Heaven, and sent as an humbled captive into the chambers of Sheol, the inmates of which appear moved with wonder at the thought of his downfall, and raise over him the shout of exultation. Beyond doubt, therefore, Sheol, like Hades, was regarded as the abode after death alike of the good and the bad. And the conception of its low, deep, subterranean position is not only implied in the general style of thought and expression upon the subject, but is sometimes also very forcibly exhibited;—As when in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 32:22, the Lord declares that a fire was “kindled in his anger, which should burn to the lowest Sheol;” and in Job 11:7-9, “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than Sheol, what canst thou know?” And still again in Amos 9:2, “Though they dig into Sheol, thence shall My hand take them; though they climb up into heaven, thence will I bring them down.” In these passages Sheol, like Hades, is manifestly put in opposition to what is elevated in height; it is the antithesis of heaven, and stands as a concrete designation of the lowest depths. From what has been stated, it is clear, that the Sheol of the Hebrews much more nearly coincides with the Hades of the Greeks, than with either our hell (in its now universally received acceptation (Originally, it had much the same meaning as Hades, being derived from the Saxon helan, to cover, and denoting simply the covered or hidden space—the invisible regions.)) or the grave. In some of the passages referred to, indeed, the meaning would not materially suffer by one or other of these terms being employed as an equivalent. Substantially, we should give the sense of Jacob’s declaration, if we rendered, “Ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave;” nor should any violence be done to the general import of the passage in Deuteronomy, if as in the authorized version, the wrath of God was said to burn to the lowest hell; because here it is the wicked only that are contemplated, and these as pursued by Divine vengeance to the farthest bounds of their possible existence. Yet, the terms in either case are not precisely equivalent, and hence are not convertible; we could not substitute hell for grave in Jacob’s declaration, or grave for hell in the passage from Deuteronomy. With this general agreement, however, between Hades and Sheol, there may still be shades of difference between them, and such as involve important principles. The term Hades certainly came nearer to Sheol than either hell or the grave, especially in these two respects, that both alike were viewed as the common receptacle of departed souls, and as lying far under ground: In two other points also there might be said to be a substantial agreement. First, in regard to the diverse conditions of the departed; for, though in what is said of Sheol we do not find by any means such a distinct separation into the two regions for their respective classes of occupants, as in the case of Hades with its Elysium and Tartarus, yet the existence of such a separation is not doubtfully indicated. It is implied in the representations given of the doctrine of Divine retribution, as reaching beyond the boundaries of sense and time into the realms of the dead. It is again implied in the hope, which was possessed by the righteous in his death—the rooted conviction, that he was safe in the keeping of the all-present and omnipotent Jehovah, even when appointed to find his bed in the viewless chambers of Sheol;—a very different condition from that of those, who, like the godless monarch of Babylon, were represented as cast down thither with the marks upon them of shame and dishonour. Such things leave no room to doubt, that while Sheol might be regarded but as one region, it was known to possess quite different receptacles for those received within its gates, and that there still, there, indeed, pre-eminently, it should be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked. With all this—and here lies the other point of substantial agreement with the Hades of heathendom—a certain degree of gloom and repulsiveness hung around the region even to the eye of the believing Israelite. He felt alarmed and saddened at the thought of his entrance into it—as if his nature must there suffer a kind of collapse; and not only the commoner sympathies of flesh and blood, but the holiest affections also of grace, must be denied the exercise they delighted in on earth. In the Book of Psalms Sheol is spoken of as the land of forgetfulness, and of silence, where no celebration is made of God’s praise, or active service is done for Him, like what is ever proceeding on earth. David asks respecting those who have entered that nether world, “Who shall give Thee thanks?” (Psalms 6:5.) And Hezekiah, in like manner, declares “Sheol cannot praise Thee, nor death extol Thee. The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day.” (Isaiah 38:18.) Were expressions of this nature to be taken absolutely, they would bespeak even a darker and gloomier view of Sheol, on the part of Old Testament believers, than was held by the better sort of heathens respecting the Elysium of Hades. But it is evident, from what has been stated, that they cannot be so taken. If the retributive justice of God followed men into Sheol, distinguishing there also between the righteous and the wicked, there could not possibly, with either class, be total silence and forgetfulness; the soul must have been conceived capable of happiness or misery, and consequently to have had continued recollection and consciousness, as discerning in the elements of its new state the issues of that which it had left. The ideal scene, too, in Isaiah, of the Chaldean monarch’s reception among the departed, and the historical representation of Samuel’s reappearance at Endor to rebuke Saul and proclaim his approaching doom, should have wanted their proper basis, if the tenants of Sheol had been supposed to be bereft of consciousness and power. The language, which seems to betoken such a complete cessation of thought and energy, could be nothing more than relative. It meant, that, as compared with the present life, so replete with busy, and in many respects pleasurable activities, existence in Sheol presented itself to the apprehension of the Hebrews, as an obscure, inactive, torpid repose. In truth, they had no revelation on the subject; and, wiser than the heathen, they stopped where their light forsook them; they did not attempt to supply the lack of supernal illumination by silly fables, which were fitted only to deceive. It was the further development of God’s scheme which alone could relieve the gloom; and waiting for that, they rested meanwhile in the conviction—though not without many recoils of feeling and faintings of heart—that He who had kept and blessed them through the troubles of life, would not leave them a prey to evil in the undiscovered regions that lay beyond. Along, however, with those points of obvious or substantial agreement, between the Sheol of the Hebrews and the Hades of the Greeks, there were points—two in particular—of actual diversity. One was, that Sheol was not, in the estimation of the Hebrews, a final, but only an intermediate state. It was the soul’s place of rest, and, it might be, for aught they knew, of absolute quiescence, during its state of separation from the body, but from which it was again to emerge, when the time should come for the resurrection of the dead. The prospect of such a resurrection was cherished from the very first by the believing people of God, to whom the promise was given of a reversion of the evil brought in by sin, and, by consequence, of the destruction of death, in which that evil found its proper consummation. So that every true believer was a man of hope of a hope that penetrated beyond the mansions of Sheol; his final resting-place, he knew, was not to be there. And when the Psalmist spake concerning himself, “God will redeem my soul from the hand (or power) of Sheol, for He shall receive me,” (Psalms 49:15;) or the prophet Isaiah, of the righteous generally, “Thy dead men shall live, my dead body shall arise; awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust,” (Isaiah 26:19;) or Hosea, “I will ransom them from the power of Sheol, I will redeem them from death: death, I will be thy plagues; Sheol, I will be thy destruction,” (Hosea 13:14;) or Daniel, “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” (Daniel 12:2 :)—they but gave varied expression to that hope, which lay in the breast of every pious Israelite—namely, that there should be a resurrection of the just and of the unjust—that for the just, at least, there should be a release from Sheol, with its unnatural abridgments of life and being, that they might enter on their proper heritage of blessing. In this consisted one important element of difference between Sheol and Hades; for the heathen idolater could see nothing beyond Hades; its bars to him were eternal; the thought of a resurrection was alien to all his conceptions of the possible future. And closely connected with that was this other, that Sheol was not viewed as a separate realm, like Hades, withdrawn from the primal fountain of life, and subject to another dominion than the world of sense and time. With the heathen, the lord of the lower regions was the rival of the King of earth and heaven; the two domains were essentially antagonistic. But with the more enlightened He brew there was no real separation between the two; the chambers of Sheol were as much God’s as the habitations of men on earth, or the mansions of the blest in glory; there, as well as here, the one living Jehovah was believed to be in all, through all, and over all. Now, it is impossible but that these two leading principles, associated with the Hebrew Sheol, but not with the Grecian Hades, must have materially affected the views currently entertained upon the subject; and though the Hellenistic Jews employed Hades as the nearest equivalent in the Greek language to Sheol, it must yet have called up ideas in the mind of an enlightened Israelite, which found no place in the bosom of a heathen. The word was a different thing in the mouth of the one from what it was in the mouth of the other. 8. So much, then, for the Old Testament usage and ideas; we come now to those of the New Testament. Here the word Hades is of comparatively rare occurrence; it is not found in more than eight passages altogether. The first time it meets us is in our Lord’s denunciation upon Capernaum, the place where He had usually resided during the time of His active ministry in Galilee; and it is employed, as in some of the passages cited from the Old Testament, merely as one of the terms of a contrast:—“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to Hades” (Matthew 11:23)—i.e., from the most towering elevation to the deepest debasement. From a proverbial use of this description nothing very definite can be inferred as to the nature of the place; the reference proceeds simply on the popular apprehension respecting its position in the lowest depths. The next use of the term by our Lord is also of a somewhat rhetorical character; it is in the memorable words addressed to Simon Peter, which contained the declaration, “And on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18.) This no further determines the nature of Hades, than that somehow it is conceived of as standing in opposition to the continued existence or prosperity of the church; so that the ascendency of the one would be the defeat or overthrow of the other. Hades is referred to as a realm or kingdom, having, like earthly kingdoms in the East, seats of council and authority at its gates, where deliberations were held, and measures taken, in regard to all that concerned its interests; and these, the Lord affirms, should never prevail against His cause on earth; this cause should ever maintain its ground. But on another occasion still—the only occasion besides on which the term occurs in the recorded sayings of our Lord—in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, it is there said of the former, that “in Hades he lifted up his eyes, in torments.” And it cannot but be regarded as a noticeable circumstance, that in the solitary example, wherein Hades is mentioned by our Lord explicitly as a receptacle for the departed, it is in connexion with the wicked, and as a place of torment. True, no doubt, Lazarus also, the child of faith and the heir of glory, was so far associated with the lost worldling, that he appears, as it were, within sight and hail of the other; but still, it is only to the compartment, where the lost had their portion, that the name Hades is applied; and betwixt that locality and the abodes of the blest an impassable gulf is represented as being fixed. Coupling with this the circumstance, that in the other two cases also, in which the term Hades was employed by our Lord, it appears in a kind of antithesis to His cause and kingdom, one can scarcely avoid feeling as if there had been taken from Hades somewhat of that common aspect and relation to the whole of mankind, which in more ancient times was ascribed to Sheol. The rather may we thus conclude, when we call to remembrance the words of Christ on another occasion; words which exhibit a marked contrast to those spoken of the rich man in the parable, and which, from the emphatic moment when they were uttered, might be said to designate for future time the receptacle of departed saints. It was on the cross, when Jesus said to the penitent malefactor, “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise,” (Luke 23:43.) Paradise! the region, not of gloom and forgetfulness, but of beautiful and blessed life the primeval home and heritage of man; and so, proclaiming Jesus to be that Second Man, the Lord from heaven, who had prevailed to recover what was lost by the first. (The full significance of our Lord’s language on this occasion has been sadly marred by our rabbinical commentators (Lightfoot, Wetstein, etc.,) who have thought they sufficiently explained it by adducing passages from Jewish writings, in which the Garden of Eden is used as a name for the place of departed believers. As if such writings were entitled to rank even in antiquity with the gospels! Or, as if the kind of hap-hazard employment of terms by blind Rabbis, as often wrong as right, when referring to the mysteries of the kingdom, gave the key to Christ’s pregnant and select diction! But see at Part I., sec. 3, p. 51, sq.) Notwithstanding, however, this studied avoidance, on the part of our Lord, of the term Hades to denote the place of His temporary sojourn, and that of His people, between death and the resurrection, the next passage in which we meet with the word, seems to make Hades, such a place of sojourn for the Redeemer Himself. It is in Acts 2:27-31, where, after quoting a portion of Psalms 16:1-11, and applying it to Christ, the Apostle Peter says, that David spake there as a prophet—“spake of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, neither did His flesh see corruption.” By the great body of Christian writers this passage is held conclusive as to the fact of Christ’s soul having actually been in Hades; since it could not have been represented as not left there, had it not actually been there; and by many of them it is deemed the only very clear and decisive text on the point. (See Pearson on the Creed, Burnet or Browne on the 39 Articles.) Yet it is rather pressing the language too far, when it is alleged in proof of Hades being the proper designation of the place, whither our Lord’s soul went at the moment of death. For it is an Old Testament passage, and like other passages of a prophetic nature, which pointed to New Testament times, it naturally spoke of the future under the form and image of the things then present or past. It should, therefore, be understood of the actual event in Gospel times with such a measure of qualification, as the altered circumstances of the new dispensation might require. And if, as we have seen reason to believe, the language of our Lord Himself gave indication of a change in respect to Hades, as regards the souls of believers if in His discourses he carefully distinguished between Hades and the receptacle of His own and His people’s disembodied spirits, we can scarcely be warranted in pressing the Old Testament passage quoted by St. Peter, so as to impose on it still an Old Testament sense. But, in reality, neither the original Hebrew, nor the Septuagint Greek, which is adopted by the apostle, gives any precise indication of the place where our Lord’s spirit sojourned; they do not define so closely, as is supposed, his relation to Hades. The words in the Greek, which represent quite exactly the sense of the Hebrew, are, οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψεις τὴν ψυχήν μου εἰς ᾅδην, Thou wilt not relinquish, or abandon, my soul to Hades—wilt not surrender it as a helpless prey to that hostile power, or unwelcome abode. It might, indeed, mean, that the soul was to be allowed to enter there, though not to be shut up for a continuance; but it might also, and even more naturally, intimate that the soul should not properly fall under the dominion of Hades. The expression is general as regards the matter of relationship; Hades is simply eyed as the antagonistic power, the hostile quarter, against which security was to be provided, or from which deliverance was to be granted. Another passage commonly referred to in the same connexion, were it justly so employed, might also be treated as deriving its impress from Old Testament times. Having quoted Isaiah 25:8, “He will swallow up death in victory,” St. Paul breaks out into the fervid exclamation, “O death, where is thy sting? Hades, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55.) Such is the reading of the received text; but there can be no doubt that Θάνατε, death, should be in this clause, as well as the preceding one. So that the passage does not come into consideration here; and the English version, which merely substitutes grave in the second clause for death in the first, is really more correct than the original it professed to follow. Grave answers more nearly to θάνατε than it should have done to ᾅδη. Passing this, then, as not applicable, the only remaining passages, in which Hades occurs, are in the Book of Revelation. There it is found four times. In Revelation 1:18, the Lord re-assures John, who had fallen at His feet as dead, by saying, “Fear not: I am the first and the last; He that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore; Amen, and have the keys of death and of Hades.” The second is in the description of the rider on the pale horse, in Revelation 6:8, whose name was Death, and who was followed by Hades, slaying on every hand with sword and pestilence. The two others occur in successive verses, at Revelation 20:13-14, where, amid the changes that usher in the final condition of things, it is said, “And the sea gave up the dead that are in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that are in them, and each were judged according to their works. And Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death.” In these representations it were too much, perhaps, to affirm with some, that Hades is necessarily restricted to the place of torment, the temporary prison-house of the lost. For, when Christ speaks of having the keys of death and of Hades, He might refer to the invisible world generally; He might intend to comfort the Apocalyptist with the assurance, that He, who then appeared to him in glory, had supreme control over the mansions of life and death, and that excepting under His direction no one could be sent into the nether world from the scenes and habitations of the living. At the same time, when the connexion of the words is taken into account—when it is remembered that John, together with the church he represented, was then threatened with destruction by a powerful adversary, and that he felt at the moment on the point of dissolution, the conviction forces itself on our minds, that there also death and Hades are chiefly contemplated as evils objects shrunk from and dreaded, on account of their connexion with sin, and from which exemption was to be sought and obtained in Christ. That such is the aspect in which death and Hades are presented in ch. 6:8, where the one follows the other in the work of carnage and desolation, admits of no doubt; for the work given them to do was one emphatically of judgment, to take effect on the adversaries of God. The same reference to the wicked, and to the consequences resulting from their misdeeds, if less obvious in the remaining passage of Revelation, is scarcely less certain. For, while the sea is spoken of, along with death and Hades, as giving up the dead that were in it, and of all the dead, so given up, being judged out of the books that were written in them according to their works, it is not to be forgotten, that in the Apocalypse sea is the usual symbol of the world, in its sin-heaving, agitated, and troubled state—the world as opposed to the peaceful and blessed kingdom of Christ; and in such a case the books are most naturally regarded as the ideal records of human guilt and depravity. I am inclined, therefore, to the opinion, that the souls here represented as coming out of the sea, death, and Hades, and being judged according to the things written in the books, are the non-elect portion of mankind—all, whose names were not found in the book of life. And this is confirmed by what is said immediately after, that death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire; for what reason could there have been for such an utter perdition, if Hades included in its domain the paradise to which Christ went with the penitent malefactor? Could the realms of bliss and wo, life and destruction, be so indiscriminately confounded together? Manifestly a Hades, which was to find its outgoing in the devouring fire of Heaven’s wrath, was a very different region from that, in which our Lord tasted the sweets of paradise, or even the lap of Abraham’s bosom, wherein a pious Lazarus is said to have reaped his reversion of comfort from the sorrows of an afllicted life. On the whole, there seems ample ground for maintaining that a marked difference lies between the use of Hades in the New Testament and of Sheol in the Old. Sheol is plainly and uniformly represented as the common receptacle of the good and the bad; for the one class, indeed, containing the elements of a very different portion from what awaited the other; yet even for the good wearing an aspect somewhat cheerless and uninviting. Hades, in New Testament Scripture, is not once explicitly employed as a designation for the common region of departed spirits; when speaking of the intermediate state for the good, our Lord carefully abstained from associating it with the mention of Hades; and both as referred to by Him, and as personified in the Book of Revelation, Hades is placed in a kind of antagonistic relation to the interests of His kingdom—is even viewed as standing in close affinity with death, and destined to share in its final extinction. Not, however, that we are therefore warranted to deny the existence of an intermediate state for the souls of believers, differing in place or character from their ultimate destination; or that it must on no account be identified with Hades. No; but simply that this is no longer the fitting epithet to apply to the temporary receptacle of departed saints; and we cannot but regard it as unhappy, and tending to convey a partially wrong impression respecting Christ, that the article in the Apostles Creed should have taken the form of representing His disembodied soul as descending into Hades. He Himself introduced a change in the phraseology respecting the state of the departed, such as appears to have betokened a corresponding change in the reality. Assuredly, by the incarnation and work of Christ, the position of the Church on earth was mightily elevated; and it is but natural to infer, that a corresponding elevation extended to those members of the Church who had already passed, or might henceforth pass, within the veil; that a fresh lustre was shed over their state and enjoyments by the entrance of Christ, as the triumphant Redeemer, into the world of spirits; and that for them now the old Hades, with its grim and cheerless aspect, was to be accounted gone, supplanted by the happy mansions in the Father’s house, which Christ opened to their view. Hence also, instead of shrinking from the immediate future, as from the grasp of an enemy, the children of faith and hope should rather look to it as a provisional paradise, and confidently anticipate in its realms of light and glory a higher satisfaction than they can ever experience in the flesh. In this statement, however, nothing is to be understood as affirmed in respect to the locality assigned for the spirits of the departed as if it had been removed to another sphere by the agency of Christ, and a new and higher region had taken the place of the one originally appointed. This was a very common view among the later Fathers those who lived subsequently to the fifth century—and became at length the received opinion of the Church. It was supposed that, up to the death of Christ, and His descent into Hades, the souls of the righteous were kept in what was called Limbus Patrum—not absolutely hell, but a sort of porch or antechamber in its outskirts; and that Christ, after having finished the work of reconciliation, went thither to deliver them from it, and set them in the heavenly places. Bede expresses this to be the general faith of the Church in his day; (Catliolica fides habet, quia dcsccndens ad Inferna Dominus non incredulos inde, sed fideles tantummodo suos educens, ad celestia secum regna perduxerit. So also Isidore Hispalensis, Sentent. L. I. c. 16, Ideo Dominus in Inferno descendit, ut his, qui ab eo non pœnaliter detinebantur, viam aperiret revertendi ad cœlos. See other authorities in Pearson on the Creed, Art. V.) although many of the greatest authorities before him had opposed it, both because it seemed to bespeak the existence of too much evil in the condition of ancient believers after death, and also to ascribe too great a change to the personal descent of Christ. The notion undoubtedly rested on fanciful grounds, and had various errors, of a collateral kind, associated with it. Its propounders and advocates too much forgot that the language used of this province of the invisible world, as well as others, is to a large extent relative, and, as regards circumstantial matters, was never meant to impart precise and definite information. When represented as a lower region, as stretching away even into the profoundest depths, it was, doubtless, the world of sense that supplied the form of the representation. The body, at death, goes down into the earth; and it became natural to think and speak of the soul as following it in this downward direction, and finding its proper abode in the shades below. But this no more determined the locality, than our conception of heaven as a higher region necessitates its position over our heads; which, indeed, would require it to shift perpetually with the seasons of the year, and with the revolutions of day and night. Hence it is ridiculous to say with Horsley, as if such language aimed at philosophical precision, “The sacred writers of the Old Testament speak of a common mansion in the inner parts of the earth; and we find the same opinion so general among the heathen writers of antiquity, that it is more probable that it had its rise in the earliest patriarchal revelations, than in the imaginations of man, or in poetical fiction.” (Sermon on 1 Peter 3:18-20. ) Did not the sacred writers as well, though less frequently, also speak of the spirit of a man going upwards, while that of a beast went downwards—of God taking the most eminent saints to Himself, of their being made to see the path of life, and dwelling in the house of the Lord for ever? (Genesis 5:2; Ecclesiastes 3:21; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Psalms 16:11; Psalms 23:6.) In speaking of what pertains to the soul after death, we necessarily speak under a veil; the discourse we make must fashion itself after the appearances, rather than the realities of things; and we wander into a wrong path whenever we attempt to turn the language so employed into a delineation of exact bounds and definite landmarks. “What is written of departed believers is intended only to give us some idea of their state, but not of their local habitation; and the comparison of the later, with the earlier revelations, as already stated, warrants the belief, that with the progress of the scheme of God, and especially with its grand development in the person of Christ, that state did also partake of some kind of progression, or experience some rise, though we want the means for describing wherein precisely it consisted. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the same qualifications attach to what is sometimes indicated as to the relative nearness of the two regions appropriated respectively to the saved and the lost in the separate state. An actual nearness is inconceivable, if the better portion are really to exist in a state of blissful consciousness; for what room could there be for an Elysium of joy, with the existence of such a mass of wretchedness perpetually pressing on their view? The scene of the rich man’s cognizance of and interview with Lazarus can be nothing more than a cover to bring out the elements of remorse and agony, that torment the bosom of the lost. So far, disembodied spirits might be viewed as occupying a common territory, that they are alike tenants of a region physically suited to such spirits, and a region not yet parted into the final destinations of heaven and hell. But nearer determinations are impracticable, and the attempt to make them is to enter into profitless and haply misleading speculations. 4. The preceding remarks have touched upon every thing that calls for consideration as regards the import and application of the term Hades in Scripture. The doctrine of our Lord’s temporary withdrawal into the world of spirits, its historical reality, the relation it bears to the experience of His people, and the results to which it may be applied in respect to the constitution of His person and the completeness of His work,—all this properly belongs to another department of theological inquiry. Or, if treated exegetically, it would be more fitly discussed in connexion with a few texts, in which the term Hades does not occur. One of these is the application made in Ephesians 4:9, of an Old Testament passage, in which the Lord is represented as ascending up on high, leading captivity captive; and on which the apostle remarks, “Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts (τὰ κατώτερα) of the earth?” The Fathers, undoubtedly, made frequent use of this passage in establishing the descent of Christ into Hades, and they have also been followed by many in modern times. But this, as Bishop Pearson long ago remarked, and for stronger reasons than he alleged, is a very questionable interpretation; for the contrast marked in the apostle’s statement is not, betwixt one part of the earth and another, but rather betwixt earth as the lower region, and heaven as the higher. The one is brought into view simply as expressive of His humiliation, preceding and preparing for the exaltation, announced in the other; and to understand the words of a farther descent into the bowels of the earth, would not only be to press them to a sense which cannot fairly be regarded as before the mind of the writer at the time, but also to make them include a portion of our Lord’s history, yea, specially to single out that, as the distinctive mark of his humiliation, which does not strictly belong to it. This will appear from what follows in connexion with another text—the one that chiefly bears on the point under consideration—1 Peter 3:18-20, in which the apostle points to the sequence and result of Christ’s sufferings in the flesh. He suffered once, says Peter, for sins, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God, being put to death, indeed, in flesh, but quickened in spirit, in which also he went and preached, (or made proclamation,) to the spirits in prison, that sometime were disobedient in the days of Noah,” etc. (θανατωθεὶς μὲν σαρκὶ ζῳοποιηθεὶς δὲ πνεύματι, ἐν ᾧ καὶ τοῖς ἐν φυλακῇ πνεύμασιν πορευθεὶς ἐκήρυξεν, ἀπειθήσασίν ποτε ὅτε ἀπεξεδέχετο ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ μακροθυμία, κ.τ.λ.) This is, certainly, one of the most remarkable, and, if isolated from the context, one of the most obscure passages of New Testament Scripture—bringing in so abruptly, and with such rapidity passing over, some of the more remote and peculiar points in the Divine economy. The greatest theologians have not only differed from each other in their views respecting it, but also differed from themselves at one period as compared with another; of which instances may be found in Augustin, Luther, and Calvin. It would be out of place here, however, to give a history of opinions on the subject; they may be seen, for example, in Steiger’s Commentary, (Biblical Cabinet,) and in part, also, in Pearson’s Notes under Art.V. It will here be enough to indicate a few guiding principles and textual explanations, which it is hoped may serve to show, that when contemplated in the proper light, the passage is neither inexplicable in meaning, nor in the least at variance with the general teaching of Scripture. First, then, it must be held as fixed and certain, that our Lord’s visit to the world of departed spirits, between His death and His resurrection, was an historical reality, whatever He might have felt or done when there. His departed soul did not ascend to the proper heaven of glory, as He expressly declared, till after the resurrection; while yet it went, according to another declaration, to a region so blissful, that it could be called by the name of paradise. One alternative alone remains, that His spirit went to the company of those who are waiting in hope of a better resurrection. Secondly, Christ’s presence and operations in that world of spirits must be held to have taken place in free and blessed agency; they are to be associated, not with the passive, but with the active part of His career. His sufferings were at an end when He expired upon the cross; for then the curse was exhausted, and, with that, the ground of His appointment to evil finally removed—whence the change explains itself of the difference that forthwith appeared in the Divine procedure toward Him. Shame and contumely now gave place to honour: not a bone of Him was allowed to be broken; He was numbered no longer with the vile and worthless, but with the rich and honourable, and by these, after being wrapped in spices, He was committed to a tomb, where no man had lain: all, so many streaks of that dawn which was to issue in the glory of the resurrection-morn. Whatever, therefore, was done by the soul of Christ subsequent to His death, must have been in free and blessed agency; and it were abhorrent to all right notions of the truth respecting Him, to suppose, as some have done, that His sufferings were prolonged in the world of spirits, and that He there for a time had experience of the agonies of the lost. This were in effect to say, that His work of reconciliation on the cross was not complete,—that the sacrifice then paid to Divine justice was not accepted of the Father. Even the modified view of Bishop Pearson must be rejected, that “as Christ died in the similitude of a sinner, His soul went to the place where the souls of men are kept who die for their sins, and so did wholly undergo the law of death;” for, in that case, a certain measure of penalty and satisfaction should still have been implied in the transaction. The language of St. Peter in the passage more immediately before us gives no countenance to such an idea, nor admits it under any modification; for he represents Christ’s spirit as being vivified, or quickened—starting into fresh life and energy of action, from the moment that in flesh He underwent the stroke of death, and, as so invigorated, going” forth to preach. (In this explanation, it will be observed, the ζῳοποιηθεὶς πνεύματι is taken to refer to the spiritual part of Christ’s human nature, precisely as the θανατωθεὶς σαρκὶ, to His corporeal part; for it is impossible to deny that this is the natural, and, indeed, the only grammatical mode of interpreting them. As Flacius long ago remarked, “The antithesis clearly shows, that He is said to have been put to death in one part of Him, or in one manner of life, but vivified in another.” In like manner Horsley, If the word flesh denote, as it most evidently does, the part in which death took effect upon Him, spirit must denote the part in which life was preserved in Him, i.e., His own soul.” Perfectly right thus far, though scarcely right when he adds, that “the word quickened is often applied to signify, not the resuscitation of life extinguished, but the preservation and continuance of life subsisting;” no, not preservation and continuance simply, but rather freshened energy and revived action. The interpretations, which understand by spirit the Holy Ghost, and regard the preaching spoken of as either the preaching of Noah through the Spirit, to the antediluvians, or that of the apostles to the wicked around them, hence fall of themselves; they are but ingenious shifts resorted to for the sake of getting over a difficulty, but twisting the passage into an unnatural sense. Giving to the words πορευθεὶς ἐκήρυξεν their legitimate import, they must mean, that Christ went away and preached—as a spirit to spirits. And the spirits being described as having been sometime, or formerly disobedient, also plainly implies, that the period of disobedience was a prior one to that to which the preaching belonged.) In short, the culminating point of His humiliation and suffering was His death upon the cross, (as already prefigured in the Old Testament sacrifices,) (See Typology of Scripture, vol. ii. p. 347.) and from that point, both in respect to soul and body, the process of exaltation, strictly speaking, began. Thirdly, In regard to the more specific points—why the Apostle Peter should have made such particular mention of this agency of Christ’s disembodied spirit, why he should have coupled it only with the spirits of those who had perished in the flood, and what may have been the nature and intent of his preaching to them:—for all this we must look to the connexion. Now, it must be carefully remembered (for chiefly by overlooking this have commentators gone so much into the wrong track,) that the apostle is not discoursing of these topics doctrinally; they are referred to merely as matters of fact, which had a practical bearing on the great moral truths that were the more immediate subject of discourse. What were these? They were, that Christians should seek to avoid suffering by maintaining a good conscience; but that if they should still, and perhaps on this very account, be called to suffer, it was greatly better to do so for well-doing, than for ill-doing. Then, in confirmation of this complex truth, he points to a twofold illustration. In the first instance, he fixes attention on Christ as having suffered, indeed, the just for the unjust suffered as the Righteous One, but only once suffered; and on that (the ἅπαξ ἔπαθεν) the special stress is here to be laid; it was, so to speak, but a momentary infliction of evil, however awful in its nature while it lasted; still, but once borne, and never to be repeated, because borne in the cause of righteousness. Not only so, but it carried along with it infinite recompenses of good—for sinful men, bringing them to God; and for “Christ Himself, limiting the reign of death to a short-lived dominion over the body, while the soul, lightened and relieved, inspired with the energy of immortal life, went into the invisible regions, and, with buoyant freedom, moved among the spirits of the departed. How widely different from that mighty class of sufferers!—the most striking examples in the world’s history of the reverse of what appeared in Christ—the last race of antediluvians, who suffered, not for well-doing, but for ill-doing, and suffered, not once merely in the flood, that swept them away from their earthly habitations, but even now, after so long a time, when the work on the cross was finished still pent up as in a prison-house of doom, where they could be only haunted by memories of past crime, and with forebodings of eternal retribution! What a contrast! How should the thought of it persuade us to suffering for well doing, rather than for evil-doing! And for those lost ones themselves, Christ’s spirit, now released from suffering, fresh with the dew of its dawning immortality, preached; preached by its very entrance into the paradise of glory. For even this, seen from afar, must have been to them like the appearance of a second Noah, “the preacher of righteousness;” since it proclaimed—proclaimed more emphatically than Noah ever did—the final establishment of God’s righteousness, and a sure heritage of life and blessing for those, but for those only, who were ready to hazard all for its sake. Such, doubtless, was the kind of preaching meant; it is that alone which the case admits of—whether, as to its formal character, it may have consisted in the simple presentation of the Spirit of. Christ among the spirits of the blessed, or may have included some more special and direct intercourse with the imprisoned hosts of antediluvian time. In either case it was to them like the renewal, in a higher form, of the old preaching of righteousness; for what the one had provisionally announced, the other finally confirmed and sealed; yea, was itself the radiant proof of an eternal distinction between those, in whom suffering triumphs because of sin, and those who through righteousness triumph over suffering. (It is no objection to the view now given, that κηρύσσω is commonly used in the sense of a gospel proclamation; for it is neither necessarily nor always so used. In Romans 2:21, it is coupled with abstinence from stealing as its object—a preaching of moral duty. Here the reference manifestly is to the ancient preaching of Noah; and to connect this action of Christ with his the term might justly seem the fittest.) Viewed thus, the whole passage hangs consistently together; one part throws light upon another; and the agency ascribed to Christ is in perfect keeping with all that is elsewhere written, both of His own mediatorial work, and of the condition of departed spirits. On the one hand, it rescues the words from the arbitrary meanings which doctrinal considerations have so often led pious minds to put on them; and, on the other, it removes the ground, which has too often been sought in the passage, not only by Romish, but even by some Protestant writers, who find a door of hope for certain classes of those who have lived and died in sin. The reference to the antediluvians in the age of Noah is not to some individuals among them, for whom possibly some better fate might have been reserved, but to the collective race as a well-known class in sacred history; and to them as still detained in the prison of judgment, not as having any prospect of deliverance from it. Nay, on this very circumstance the great moral of the reference properly turns; for it is their protracted, everlasting destination to a doom of suffering, as contrasted with Christ’s suffering but once, and, that over, entering on a fresh career of life and glory, which lent all its weight to the exhortation given, to prefer suffering for righteousness-sake to suffering for sin. In what follows also the same account substantially is made of their case; they are thought of simply as reprobate and lost. It is in Noah alone, and the little remnant in the ark, whom the waters, that destroyed the corrupt and pestilential mass around them, saved, to be the seed of a new world, that the prototypes are found of the genuine subjects and fruits of Christian baptism. And what does this imply of the mass whom the waters engulfed? Plainly, that their counterpart in Christian times is to be sought in the corruptions of the flesh and the world, from which it is the design of baptism through the power of Christ’s resurrection, to save His people—corruptions which, like their antediluvian exemplars, are irreconcilably opposed to the life of God, and can have no end but destruction. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 01.19. ON THE IMPORT AND USE OF ΔΙΑΘΉΚΗ IN SCRIPTURE ======================================================================== Section Seventh. On The Import And Use Ofδιαθήκη In Scripture THE word now to be considered is of frequent occurrence, both in Scripture, and in the classics, but usually in a somewhat different sense. In the classics it commonly signifies disposition, arrangement,—or, more specifically, that particular disposition which is denominated a man’s will and testament the deed by which he finally disposes of his effects. The latter is the more common usage; whence the old glossaries gave testamentum as the Latin synonym. The cases are so rare in which with classical authors it is found in any other sense, that little account needs to be made of them. They do occur, however, and in one passage at least, the Aves of Aristophanes, 1. 480, the phrase, διαθεσθαι διαθήκην is used to express the making of a compact or covenant, to be carried out between two parties. But the common noun for such cases was undoubtedly συνθήκη. Yet for what was emphatically the covenant in ancient times, the Septuagint has preferred διαθήκη, which, accordingly, among Greek-speaking Jews, became the appropriate term for the covenant of God with Israel. The first occasions on which the word was used had respect to transactions which strikingly displayed the goodness of God in making sure provision for the present safety and highest well-being of man (Genesis 9:9; Genesis 17:7.) It is possible, we may even say probable, that on this account mainly the term διαθήκη was employed rather than συνθήκη for the latter might justly seem an inadequate expression to characterize arrangements, in which it appeared so prominent an object to make men recipients of the Divine goodness, personally par takers, or instrumentally channels of blessing. It seemed more fitting to employ a term which, without altogether losing sight of the mutual relationship, as between two parties somehow standing in contract, should still give chief prominence to the beneficence of God in disposing of His affairs, so as to provide a suitable heritage of good for His people. In this light it appears to have been understood by some of the Fathers. Thus Clemens Alex, describes διαθήκη as that “which God, the Author of the universe, makes;” namely, His arrangement or disposition of the riches of His bounty. Suidas defines it as ἡ Θεοῦ πρὸς ̓Αβραὰμ, καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς προπάτορας γενομένη ἐπαγγελιά, the promise which God made to Abraham and the other patriarchs. Isidore of Pelusiam gives it a somewhat different turn, and points to a more special characteristic, but one also that is derived from its more peculiar reference to God. He says, “συνθήκη is called in Scripture a testament because the promise it contains is firm and permanent; pactions, indeed, are often broken up, but legal testaments never.” (See Suicer.) But, however we may thus be able to account for the use of διαθήκη rather than of συνθήκη as a translation of the Heb. berith, we must not allow it to assume, in its ordinary use, the classical sense of testament, rather than of covenant. There can be no doubt, that covenant is the proper rendering of berith; and as διαθήκη was employed as its synonym by the Septuagint, it must be taken in the sense of the original—unless the connexion should determine otherwise. Indeed, for any thing that appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Israelites knew nothing of testaments in the ordinary sense of the term; their rights of property were so regulated as to render these for the most part unnecessary; if only the means were at hand for ascertaining the family descent and relationship of the parties concerned. They consequently made much account of genealogies, but none, so far as we know, of testaments. When God, however, designated the transactions into which He entered with their fathers by the name of covenant, even though the pledged and promised goodness of God might be the most prominent feature in them, the idea of a mutual paction or agreement was still meant to be kept steadily in view;—the Lord sustained one part, and the people another. And this was done, primarily, that they might have a clear and affecting proof of His desire to assure them of the certainty of the things guarantied in the covenant. Not for this only, however, but for the farther purpose of impressing upon their minds the feeling, that they had a part to perform to God, as well as God to them, and that faithfulness in duty, on the one side, must keep pace with bountifulness in giving on the other. Such was the case even in the Abrahamic covenant, which is called, by way of eminence, the covenant of promise; for the assurance it contained of a numerous and blessed offspring carried along with it the condition, that parent and offspring alike should abide in the faith of God and keep His charge. In the English Bible the word covenant is the uniform rendering adopted for the Heb. berith; and so is it also in New Testament Scripture for διαθήκη, whenever the word points to the covenants made with the patriarchs or at Sinai. Yet in the designation of the Scriptures, which belong to the periods embraced by those covenants, the sense of testament has been generally introduced. By a natural metonymy, the writings that pertain to a period during which a διαθήκη was in force had this applied to them as an appropriate name. Thus, in 2 Corinthians 3:14, St. Paul speaks of the veil remaining on the minds of the Jews, ἐπι τῆ ἀναγνώσει τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης, at the reading of the Old Testament, as our translators have rendered it, not of the Old Covenant. We have become so much accustomed to the use of Testament in this application, that we rarely think whether it is altogether appropriate or not. Yet had it been proposed for the first time to our consideration, it could hardly have failed to strike us as a sort of anomaly in language, that the term Testament should be employed as the distinctive epithet for writings in which the term itself never occurs, while the term covenant is of frequent use, and in the later Scriptures, old covenant is employed to designate a period altogether or nearly past, in contradistinction to a new and better era approaching, (Jeremiah 31:31.) The Old covenant, therefore, was clearly the fitting designation for the earlier half of the Bible, rather than the Old Testament. (Kohlbrugge, in a treatise Wozu das alte Testament, objects also to this designation, and deems it not warranted by the language of the apostle in 2 Corinthians 3:14. He conceives the apostle to be there speaking of the Hebrew Scriptures, not absolutely, but as they are to the unbelieving and blinded Jews; to these they are merely the old covenant, while to the enlightened believer, who can read them with open eye, they display the new covenant. Undoubtedly the books are very different things to the two classes mentioned; but the plain and natural import of the apostle’s language points to the books themselves, as containing what pertains to the Old Covenant. Their further and prospective reference is not here taken into account. And if persons now think themselves entitled to disregard those books, because they are specially connected with the Old Covenant, this is an abuse chargeable on their own ignorance and sin.) The Vulgate, however, by its adoption of testamentum, instead of fœdus, has in this respect given the law to modern times. Some of the earlier versions presented both terms, at least in respect to New Testament Scripture, as Beza’s Testamentum Novum, Sive Fœdus Novum, and the Genevan French, Le Nouveau Testament, c’est à dire la Nouvelle Alliance. But the alternative phrase never came into general use; and the only prevailing designation has been, and still is, The Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. Of course, as a convenient term for simply designating the two component parts of the Bible, it is of little moment whether we use the one or the other. The current epithets serve well enough to distribute the inspired writings into two sections or parts, standing related to each other, the one as the earlier, the other as the later revelation of Divine truth; the one springing up in connexion with that state of things which preceded the birth of Christ, and has vanished away; the other with that which was introduced by Christ, and abides for ever. But as there can be no doubt that the substitution of Testament for covenant, in the designation of Scripture, arose from a disposition to regard the economy of Christ’s salvation in the light of a testament rather than of a covenant—as on this account the writings of evangelists and apostles came to be denominated The New Testament, and in conformity with this appellation that of Old Testament was assigned to the Law and the Prophets—the question very naturally presents itself, whether such be the Scriptural view of the matter? Whether the gift of Christ, and the benefits of His redemption, are exhibited in the light of a testamentary bequest? For if they are not, then the testamentary aspect of redemption must be pronounced formally incorrect, however in substance accordant with the truth of things; but if they are, the form also is capable of vindication. In neither case is any doctrine of Scripture involved in the inquiry; it touches merely the mode of representation. Now, as διαθήκη constantly bears in the Old Testament the sense of covenant, it may justly be inferred to carry the same meaning in the New, unless the connexion should, in certain cases, plainly decide in favour of the other rendering. So far as regards our Lord’s personal teaching, there is no room for any difference of view on the subject. Though He frequently referred to both the affairs and the writings of the old economy, He was very sparing in the use of the term διαθήκη. Ho docs not employ it to designate the revelation of law from Sinai; nor are the transactions entered into with, the patriarchs, as the heads of the Jewish people; or with David, as the founder of the royal house, called by this name. The first, and the only time that the word appears in our Lord’s discourses, is at the institution of the Supper. The words of institution slightly vary in the accounts of the three evangelists, and of the apostle Paul, (1 Corinthians 11:1-34) but in each of them He is represented as using the expression ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη. And using it, as He does, without a word of explanation, we cannot doubt that He intended it to be taken by the disciples in its current acceptation; namely, in the sense of covenant; for in that sense alone had it hitherto been employed. Nor can we but regard it as unfortunate, that at that special moment in our Lord’s ministry, and in connexion with the most sacred and distinctive institution of His kingdom, the later rendering of testament should have been substituted for the earlier one of covenant. For it confuses the expression in words which are of perpetual recurrence, as well as solemn import, and in respect to which it was desirable that the greatest clearness and certainty should exist; and in so far as the language may be distinctly understood, it presents the great redemption in an aspect which had not at least been previously exhibited, and could not therefore have been intended at the time. How, then, it may naturally be asked, should such a sense have been so generally put upon it? Are there other pas sages in subsequent portions of New Testament Scripture, in which the word, in its connexion with the work of Christ, conclusively bears the meaning of testament? There is a remarkable one in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which it certainly appears to have that meaning, and which will call for special investigation. Leaving that passage, however, for a moment (which is in Hebrews 9:1-28,) there are various other places where the word διαθήκη is used; and always, it is proper to note, in reference to what was strictly a covenant. In the Epistle to the Hebrews itself, we read once and again of two covenants—an old and a new; the former imperfect in its nature and provisions, and destined to last only till the time of reformation; the latter, founded on better promises, complete in all its arrangements, consequently declared to be everlasting. In like manner, in Galatians 4:24-31, we have a discourse upon the two covenants, the covenants of law and of promise, as allegorized or typified by the facts and relations of Abraham’s family; the term διαθήκη being used as the common designation of both. Again, in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, a contrast is drawn between the two covenantsthe old and the new—in respect to the points, in which the one differed from, by rising superior to, the other. In this comparison, however, the word διαθήκη is only once used; and our translators, following the Vulgate and the earlier English versions, have rendered it testament (“who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament,” 2 Corinthians 3:6.) Such was their regard to those guides, that on one occasion they have even adopted this rendering in connexion with a phrase which, in all the other passages where it occurs, has been otherwise translated. The passage is Revelation 11:19, where the temple presented itself in vision to the prophet, and he saw “the ark of the testament,” as we find it rendered, but, as it should rather have been, “the ark of the covenant.” In all these cases, there can be no reasonable doubt that, whether referring to the old or to the new things in God’s dispensations, the “word διαθήκη is to be understood in the ordinary sense of covenant. So that if, in the one remaining passage where it occurs, we should see reason for adopting the sense of testament, this would furnish no ground for altering the translation in the other passages that have been referred to. The less so, indeed, as the passage in the ninth chapter of Hebrews, as far as regards what is denoted by διαθήκη, is of a somewhat general nature; it does not point exclusively, or even specially, to the transactions bearing that name in Scripture, but rather to the nature of διαθῆκαι generally—what those of Scripture have in common with others. But let us turn to the passage itself. Commencing with verse Hebrews 9:15, for the sake of the connexion, it reads thus in the authorized version: “For this cause He (viz. Christ) is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament (διαθήκη both times,) they that are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator (ὅπου γὰρ διαθήκη, θάνατον ἀνάγκη φέρεσθαι τοῦ διαθεμένου.) For a testament is of force after men are dead (ἐπὶ νεκροῖς;) otherwise, it is of no strength at all, while the testator liveth (ὅτε ζῆ ὁ διαθεμένος.) Whereupon neither the first (viz. testament) was dedicated without blood.” The meaning obtained by this rendering may be briefly stated thus: A will does not become valid so long as the person making it is alive; it is a disposition of his affairs proceeding on the contemplation of his death, and can only take effect when he has himself ceased to live; whence also Christ, as the testator of an inheritance of blessing for His people, must die before the benefit provided by Him can be reaped. So understood, and viewed with reference to the practice known to exist among Greeks and Romans respecting wills, the sense of the passage is plain enough. The only question is, will the sense obtained suit the connexion, and meet the real circumstances of the case? There are, obviously, some apparent incongruities in the way; both at the commencement and at the close. The statement is brought in to illustrate a certain correspondence between the preparatory and the final in God’s dispensations: Christ is the Mediator of a new διαθήκη, that by His death He might purchase redemption for those who could not obtain it by the old; for where a διαθήκη is there must of necessity be the death of the διαθεμένος. But the notion of testament here involves some difficulty; since a mediator, in ordinary circumstances, has nothing to do with a testament; nor is there any essential link of connexion between a mediator and a testator. Then, again, at the close, where it is said, “Whence the first also—the first διαθήκη—was not consecrated without blood,” it is not death, as of a testator, but consecration from defilement, that is represented as constituting the establishment of the earlier διαθήκη. So that the connexion at both ends seems to hang somewhat loosely with the notion of a testament; and if that notion is here the correct one, its justification must be sought in some peculiarity connected, either with the transactions referred to, or with the point of view from which they are contemplated. It is possible, that such may be found, when the subject is properly considered. Meanwhile, it is right to state, that the difficulties are by no means lessened by resorting to the other translation, and rendering by covenant. The late Professor Scholefield, who preferred this rendering, still found himself so beset with difficulty, that the passage appeared to him the “most perplexing in the whole of the New Testament.” (Hints for Some Improvements in the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 142.) He would render Hebrews 9:16-17, “For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be brought in the death of the mediating [sacrifice.] For, a covenant is valid over dead [viz. sacrifices;] since it is never of any force while the mediating [sacrifice] continues alive.” Here, we are first of all struck with the number of ellipses in so short a passage; sacrifice or sacrifices requiring to be supplied no less than three times—to διαθεμέου, in Hebrews 9:16, then to ἐπὶ νεκροῖς, in the first part of Hebrews 9:17, and again to διαθεμένος; in the second. It is plainly too much; especially as a transition is made from the singular to the plural, and back again from the plural to the singular. Sacrifice and sacrifices were not wont thus to be interchanged in the reality. Then, to speak of sacrifices as dead, is altogether unusual, still more to put dead simply for sacrificial victims; no proper parallel can be produced to justify such a license. And, finally, the rendering of διαθέμενος by mediating sacrifice is equally unwarranted: when used in regard to covenant transactions, it is so naturally understood of him who makes the covenant, that, as Professor Scholefield remarks, a strong nerve should be required for any one, that would be conscious of no difficulty in giving it a different sense here. In short, it is an entirely arbitrary translation, and no support can be found for it in the whole range of Greek literature. This alone is fatal to the view under consideration; and when taken along with the objections previously urged, leaves the matter under this aspect utterly hopeless. It could serve no end to examine in detail the other modifications of the view, which proceeds to the adoption of covenant for the sense of διαθήκη, and “over dead sacrifices” for ἐπὶ νεκροῖς. The same objections substantially, or others equally valid, apply to each of them. We revert, therefore, to the apparently natural sense of testament, and inquire whether there be not some point of view, from which, if the subject be contemplated, a natural and satisfactory vindication may be gained for it. This, we are persuaded, is to be found. The statement, it will be perceived in this aspect of the matter, proceeds upon the apprehension of a certain agreement between a covenant made by God for the good of men, and a will or testament made by a man in behoof of his heirs. There are, no doubt, obvious points of difference between the two; in this respect especially, that in a cove nant strictly so called, there is something of the nature of a mutual engagement or contract between the covenanting parties. This, however, is not the aspect in which the Divine covenants are contemplated in this portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews. From ch. 8:6, where a formal comparison begins to be instituted between the New and the Old, they are viewed in the light of a disposition or arrangement, on the part of God, for the purpose of securing certain blessings to His people—imperfectly and provisionally in the Old Covenant, adequately and finally in the New. On this account, the contracting element in them naturally falls into the back ground, and the beneficiary or promissory alone comes into view; the discussion turns upon what God has done and laid up for them that fear Him, scarcely, if at all, upon what they are taken bound to do for God. Now, it is precisely here, that a point of contact is to be found between a covenant of God and a testament of man; the very point which led to the adoption of διαθήκη as the fittest term for expressing the Heb. berith; because a covenant of God, in this aspect of it, is not, in the ordinary sense, a συνθήκη or compact, but rather a διαθήκη or disposition, an unfolding of the way and manner in which men may attain to a participation or inheritance in the riches of Divine grace and goodness. It is to this common element, that the apostle points, and on it that he founds this part of his argument for the superiority of the New over the Old. The first, he in effect tells us, did contain a disposition from the Lord’s hand as to the participation of His riches; but one only provisional and temporary, because of its presenting no proper satisfaction for the sins of the people. It left the guilt of these sins still standing unatoned, in the eye of Divine Justice, and so, if taken simply by itself, it could not provide for men the eternal inheritance which God destines for His people. Christ, who comes actually to provide, and confer on men, a title to this inheritance, must therefore come as the executor of a new διαθήκη, to make good the deficiencies of the Old, and by a valid atonement remove the sins, which continued to lie as a bar across the path to the inheritance. He must (as stated in Hebrews 9:15) through His death provide redemption for the transgressions pertaining to the first covenant, that they who had been called under it, as well as those called now, might have the promise of the inheritance made good in their behalf. Thus it comes to pass, that to do here the part of an effective mediator, in establishing a complete and valid covenant, Christ has, at the same time, to do the part of a testator; He must lose the personal possession of His goods, before He can secure for His people a right to participate in them; to enrich them He must, for a time, impoverish Himself—die the death that they (along with Him) may ultimately inherit eternal life. And so, in this fundamental respect, the two ideas of covenant and testament coalesce in the work of Christ; He is at once Mediator and Testator; at one and the same moment He establishes for ever what God pledges Himself in covenant to bestow, and by His voluntary death transmits to others the inheritance of life and blessing wherein it consists. It is, therefore, as true of this Divine διαθήκη, as of any human testament, that it could not be of force till the διαθεμένος; had died. Till then the inheritance was bound up indissolubly with His own person; and through His death alone was it set free for others; as was plainly intimated under a natural image, by our Lord Himself, when He said, “Verity, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24.) When viewed in the light now presented, the allusion of the inspired writer is very different from what is commonly represented—a mere play upon words. On the contrary, each word is retained in its natural and appropriate meaning, while, at the same time, there appears a strictly logical connexion in the argument. The train of thought proceeds, not upon a fanciful or fictitious, but upon a real point of coincidence and agreement between a Divine covenant and a human testament; hence also, between Christ the mediator of the covenant, and Christ the testator of the eternal inheritance; since it is the great object of the covenant, whether in its old or its new form, to instate men in the possession of that inheritance, and the great end of Christ’s work as mediator, to open the way to the possession by His sacrificial death. With perfect propriety, therefore, might the apostle, in confirmation of his principle respecting the necessity of an intervenient death, point back to the offerings of blood at the ratification of the old covenant, and identify death (as of a testator) with consecration by blood (as through sacrifice.) For as the old covenant did make a provisional or temporary arrangement for men attaining to the inheritance of life and blessing, it had in consequence to be ratified by a provisional or typical death. The death inflicted there was Christ’s death in symbol, as the blessing inherited was Christ’s blessing by anticipation. But in the passage before us, the typical blood is presented in the more common aspect of a consecration (ver. 18;) and, under that aspect, its necessity and value are set forth, in the verses that follow, as the one grand medium of access for sinners to the region of eternal glory. This simply arose from the two aspects of death—death as necessary to the participation of the inheritance, and death as necessary to purification from sin—happening to coalesce in Christ; so that the same act, which was needed to secure, and did secure a title to the inheritance, was also needed to consecrate, and did consecrate, a way to the eternal inheritance; and but for the one necessity, the other should never have existed. The two ideas, therefore, so far as Christ is concerned, run into each other; and as that of consecration was both the more usual, and the most immediately connected with the great theme of the epistle, the sacred penman quite naturally resumes and prosecutes it—quitting the other, which had been but casually introduced for the sake of confirming a truth, and marking a point of connexion between things sacred and common. Such appears to us the correct interpretation of the pas sage, and the proper mode of explicating its meaning. The difficulty felt in arriving at this has arisen mainly from overlooking the special ground of the apostle’s statement; that is, the common element or point of coincidence between a human testament and a Divine covenant in the particular aspect referred to. Both alike contain a disposition in regard to the joint participation by others of the goods of him who makes it; and a participation that requires, as its indispensable condition, his own subjection to the power of death. We thus obtain a clear and natural sense from the passage, without interfering with the received, which is certainly also the apparent, import of the words. (The considerations, on which the above explanation is made to turn had not suggested themselves to me when I wrote the article on the Epistle to the Hebrews in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review for Sept. 1854. I there adopted substantially Ebrard’s view.) At the same time, while we here vindicate the received translation, we cannot but regard it as somewhat unfortunate, that on the ground of a thought so casually introduced, and a meaning of διαθήκη nowhere else distinctly exhibited in Scripture, many, both of the ancient, and of the more modern theological writers, should have given such prominence to the testamentary aspect of the scheme of redemption. The Cocceian school, to which several of our own older divines belonged, had a sort of predilection for this mode of exhibiting Christ’s relation to his people, and thereby gave a somewhat artificial air to their explanations of things connected with the covenant of grace. They were wont to treat formally of the testament, the testator, the executor, the legatees, and the legacies. Such a style of representation, though not altogether unwarranted by Scripture, has yet no broad and comprehensive ground to rest upon there. When salvation is exhibited in connexion with a covenant, it is always (with the exception just noticed in Hebrews 9:15-17) covenant in the ordinary sense that is to be understood—a sense, that involves the idea of mutual engagements—individual parts to be fulfilled, and corresponding relations to be maintained though the place occupied by God is pre-eminently that of a bountiful and gracious benefactor. And to keep attention alive to the strictly covenant aspect of redemption, it had, doubtless, been better to have retained in the authorized version the rendering of covenant for διαθήκη in all but the one passage of Hebrews, and to have designated the Bible the Scriptures of the Old and New Covenants, rather than of the Old and New Testaments, In particular, it had been better, in the words connected with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, to have retained the common rendering, and read, “This is the new covenant in My blood;” since all should thus have readily perceived, that the Lord pointed to the Divine covenant, in its new and better form, as contradistinguished from that which had been brought in by Moses, and which had now reached the end of its appointment. Due pains should be taken to instruct the unlearned, that such is the import of the expression, and also to inform them, that while the covenant, as established in His blood, bears the epithet new, it is so designated merely from respect to the order of exhibition, while, if viewed with respect to the mind and purpose of God, this is the first as well as the last—the covenant, which was planned in the counsels of eternity to retrieve the ruin of the fall, and out of the depths of perdition to raise up a spiritual and blessed offspring for God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 01.20. ON THE IMPORT OF CERTAIN TERMS EMPLOYED IN NEW TESTAMENT ======================================================================== Section Eighth. ON THE IMPORT OF CERTAIN TERMS EMPLOYED IN NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE TO INDICATE THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE RENOVATION TO BE ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH THE GOSPEL; μετάνοια, παιγγενεςία, ἀνακαίνωσις, ἀποκατάστασις. THE mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the institution consequent on it of His spiritual kingdom, have for their object the accomplishment of a great and comprehensive renovation. And in addition to such expressions as βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη, which, in different respects, indicate the design and character of the change to be introduced, and which have already been considered, there is a class of expressions pointing also to the change in question, but with a more special respect to its renovating character. There are altogether four of these terms, which, while they form a sort of whole, must yet be considered separately, in order to obtain a correct idea, both of their distinctive meanings, and of the relation in which they stand to each other. I. The first in order of the terms referred to is μετάνοια, which need not detain us long. The verb meets us at the very threshold of the Gospel, in the Baptist’s call of preparation for the kingdom—μεανοεῖτε—which was afterwards also taken up by our Lord. The first and most immediate change, which was required of men in expectation of the Lord’s appearance and kingdom, was an altered state of thought and purpose in regard to things spiritual and divine; and to impress the necessity of this more deeply upon the minds of all, the call to enter into it was coupled with an administration of baptism—a baptism εἰς μετάνοιαν. Even after the personal ministry of Christ was finished, and He had left the work to be prosecuted among men by his apostles, the call was still the same; μετανοήσατε καὶ βαπτισσθήτω was the closing and practical point of St. Peter’s address to the multitudes on the day of Pentecost; and in St. Paul’s brief summary of the Gospel he everywhere preached the first article named is τὴν εἰς Θεὸν μετάνοιαν (Acts 20:21.) In all these passages, it is μετάνοια or the cognate verb, which is employed, not μεταμέλεια and μεταμέλομαι; and this, no doubt, because the former more significantly and correctly indicated the change intended than the latter. Both, indeed, by etymology and usage μετάνοια points more to the change itself in thought and purpose, while μεταμέλεια fixes attention chiefly on the concern or regret, which the consideration of the past has awakened. Of itself, μετάνοια expresses nothing as to the nature of the change, in what particular direction taken, or how far in that direction carried: this is left to be determined by the connexion, or from the nature of the case. In the New Testament it is always used in a good sense, and in reference to a sincere practical reformation of mind and conduct. Not this, however, in the aspect of a change wrought by the power of God, but rather in its relation to human responsibilities, as an amendment that men are bound to aim at and strive after; hence the verb is used in the imperative; the thing to be done is bound as an obligation upon men’s consciences. The other verb, μεταμέλομαι is never so used—the thought it expresses being a matter of suffering rather than of action, the recoil of feeling or inward sorrow and dissatisfaction which rushes upon the soul’s consciousness, when a past course of transgression is seen in its true light. Whenever the μετάνοια is of the right description, there will always, of necessity, be something of this sort; since it is impossible for the mind to turn from the love and practice of sin, to even the heartfelt desire after righteousness, without a certain degree of sorrow and remorse. But, from the varieties that exist in human temperaments, and the diversified effects apt to be produced by the circumstances of life, no definite measure or uniform rule can be laid down in this respect; there may be considerably less of such conscious and painful regret in some cases than in others, where the change is alike genuine; and there may also be a good deal of it where there is no actual μετάνοια—the recoil of feeling passing away without leading to any permanent result. Accordingly it is not the μεταμέλεια, but the μετάνοια, which is indispensably required of those who would find a place in the Messiah’s kingdom—a μετάνοια, as is expressed in 2 Corinthians 7:10, εὶς σωτηρίαν ἀμεταμέλητος, a repentance unto salvation not to be repented of. The word repentance, however, as is evident from the preceding remarks, is but an imperfect synonym for μετάνοια, it does not sufficiently distinguish between this and μεταμέλεια in the respects wherein they differ, but gives a partial indication of the import of both. As commonly understood, it points fully as much to the sorrow or regret which ensues upon a proper change of mind, as to the change itself. Yet we have no other word that can fitly take its place; for, though reformation or amendment may seem more closely to correspond with the original, and have been formally proposed as a better rendering, they carry the thoughts too much outward to meet with general approval as a substitute for repentance. It is the excellence of this last, as a translation of μετάνοια, that however otherwise defective, it points inward, and marks the state of the soul—not merely of the outward behavior—as different from what it formerly was: it is expressive of a changed action of the heart in respect to sin and holiness; only it leaves the action in a state of incompleteness, as if it had respect merely to the evil perceived to have existed in the past. It is right, however, as far as it goes. He who repents has come to see that to be evil which he previously loved and followed as good; and it is only necessary to think of this altered bent of mind, as taking a direction toward the future equally with the past, in order to find in the term repentance, which is used to express it, a fair representation of the New Testament μετάνοια. The call to this μετάνοια, as necessary for admission into the Messiah’s kingdom, proceeds on the existence of a state of alienation and disorder in respect to the things of God; it implies, that the νοήματα, the thoughts and intents of the mind, have gone in the wrong direction, and must be turned back upon the right objects. As a people the Jews were in such a state when the call was originally addressed to them; arid, notwithstanding the call, they, for the most part, continued to abide in it. In respect to the state itself, however, there was nothing singular in their case; the same alienation of heart belongs naturally to every individual, and the spiritual change, or conversion, which consists in its abandonment, is the one door-way for all into the kingdom. The great question—when once the heart has begun to grapple in earnest with the Divine call—is how the change is to be effected? It is man’s duty and interest to have it done; for till it is done, he is an enemy of God, a child of perdition; and to bestir himself to the task of reformation is his immediate and paramount concern. But if in reality he does so, he will presently find that other powers than his own are needed for the end in view; he can himself see the necessity for the change, can think with sorrow and remorse of the errors of the past, can anticipate with dread the dangers of the future, can wish and pray that it were otherwise with him—but nothing comes to perfection, unless the effort to convert bring the soul into contact with the regenerating grace of God, and make it conscious of a vital influence from above. II. It is this second, but most important stage in the process, that is marked in the next term—παλιγγενεσία or regeneration. Considered doctrinally, either of these terms might be made to include the other, and the one or the other might indifferently be put first. Regeneration might be represented as necessary to conversion, and determining what belongs to it; since it is only when the Divine element implied in regeneration works upon the soul, that the conversion it undergoes is sufficiently deep and earnest to be lasting. On the other hand, conversion, if viewed in its entire compass and perfected results, must be made to comprehend, as well the regenerating grace that effects the change, as the desires and struggles of the soul, while travailing in birth for its accomplishment. But, viewed in the order of nature, and also as commonly represented in Scripture, the μετάνοια, or conversion, must be placed first; for it is with this that man’s responsibilities have immediately to do: and it is in addressing himself to the things connected with it, that he is driven out ofhimself, and brought to surrender himself to the working of that Divine power on which he depends for the necessary result. Scripture never puts regeneration, or what is implied in regeneration, before conversion; but it does press the work of conversion, as in some sense prior to the possession of a regenerated state:—as in the original call of the Baptist to repent, or be converted, that men might be prepared for the baptism of the Spirit; or in St. Peter’s address to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, exhorting them to convert and be baptized, that they might receive the gift of the Spirit. Of course, when so represented, conversion is to be understood as spoken of only in respect to its initial stages, and as a work demanding men’s earnest application; in which respect it may be said to “precede regeneration, and to be the condition and qualification for it;” (Mozley on Baptismal Regeneration, p. 58.)—if by condition and qualification we understand simply that without which, on the sinner’s part, he has no valid reason to expect the further and higher good implied in regeneration. And there is undoubtedly this further difference implied in the terms themselves, that, while conversion is a change of mind which, so far as the mind that experiences it is concerned may possibly change again, regeneration is a change of state, a new being—and so, we may say, carries the idea of fixedness and perpetuity in its bosom. The term itself παλιγγενεσία, which exactly answers to our regeneration, is found only twice in the New Testament (Matthew 19:28; Titus 3:5,) and in the second alone of the two cases, has it respect to spiritual renovation. There are, however, various other expressions which are employed to indicate the same thing. In point of time, the first was that used by our Lord in His conversation with Nicodemus—one also of the most explicit—in which he declared the necessity for every one who would enter His kingdom, of being born again. ̓́Ανωθεν γεννηθῆναι is the expression used, and is most exactly rendered, perhaps, born afresh—but obviously all one as to meaning with πάλιν γεννηθῆναι , for both alike indicate a kind of starting anew into being, or re-entering upon life, in some new and higher sense. In the explanations given immediately after by our Lord, it is connected with water and the Spirit—with the Spirit alone, however, as the effective agent; for He calls it “a birth of the Spirit,” as contradistinguished from a birth of the flesh (John 3:6;) and, after referring for illustration to the somewhat similar operation of the wind in nature, He sums up by saying, “So is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Evangelist John himself, John 1:13, says of all genuine believers, ἐκ Θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν, they were born of God, and that in a manner different from every form of natural generation. So again in his first Epistle, 1 John 5:4, the believer, on account of his faith, is “born of God.” In 1 Peter 1:23, and James 1:18, the new birth is asserted equally of all Christians, and ascribed directly to God, but connected instrumentally with the operation of the word (διὰ λόγου or λόγῳ ἀλληθείας.) So, still further, St. Paul, who not only designates believers once and again “new creatures” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15;) but in the passage already referred to, Titus 3:5, characterizes the change that passes on them, when they become true Christians, as a regeneration. The whole passage runs thus: “After that the kindness and love toward man (φιλανθρωπία) of our Saviour God (τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Θεοῦ) appeared; not by works of righteousness which we did (ἐποιήσαμεν,) but according to His mercy He saved us—διὰ λουτροῦ παλιγγενεσίας καὶ ἀνανκαινώσεως πνεύματος ἁγίου— through washing (or laver) of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” The whole of these passages describe in terms substantially alike, the spiritual change which passes over those who become Christ’s true people; differing only in connecting it, some more immediately with the word, understood and received in faith, others with the baptismal font or water. As this connexion can only be of a subordinate and instrumental kind, it does not affect the nature of the thing itself, which must be determined by the plain import of the language employed concerning it. But the language, in its plain import, undoubtedly expresses an actual change—a new birth; not the mere capacity for such, but its realized possession. Were this παλιγγενεσία any thing short of a work of God, brought into actual existence in the case of the person who is the subject of it, the term would be an entire misnomer, such as we cannot conceive to have a place in the volume of inspiration. But this becomes still more certain, and is established beyond all reasonable doubt, when along with the natural import of the language we couple what is said of those, who have undergone the regenerating change. “He that is born of God,” says the Apostle John, “doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.” And, he adds, “in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.” (1 John 3:9-10.) In like manner St. Paul describes the sons of God as those, who are led by the Spirit of God, and declares that if any have not this Spirit they are none of His (Romans 8:9, Romans 8:14.) Not only so, but he characterizes them, on the ground of their regeneration, as dead to sin, risen again with Christ to walk in newness of life, and already sitting together with Him in heavenly places (Romans 6:4; Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 2:12.) The apostles of our Lord can no longer be regarded as persons, who used great plainness of speech, or even gave intelligible utterance to their thoughts, if such expressions were employed by them to denote any thing else than an actual change from death to life, from sin to holiness;—if nothing more was meant, for example, than the bestowal of some mysterious gift or capacity, which might be held by the worst in common with the best of men—by one who continues practically a child of the devil, as well as by him who breathes the spirit and does the works of a child of God. “Such a monstrous perversion of language,” it has been justly said, “would never approve itself to any one, who did not come to this subject with his mind pre-occupied with a particular” view. But it is in vain, that Scripture is plain and express to the effect, that the Divine gift of regeneration is actual holiness, so long as men are pre-occupied with an idea, that actual holiness cannot be a Divine gift. They will go on to the last, not seeing the plainest assertions of Scripture as to the nature of regeneration.” (Mozley on Baptismal Regeneration, pp. 29, 30.) It can serve no good purpose, therefore, to dwell longer on this aspect of the matter; since exegetical efforts must be altogether misspent in endeavouring to impart light to those who cannot afford to see. But in regard to the point of the instrumental relationship of regeneration to the Divine ordinances, we may remark, that while it is specially and frequently connected with baptism, it is not connected with that ordinance alone; the Word of God equally shares in the honour. It is not to be denied, that when our Lord speaks of being born of water and spirit, and when St. Paul couples the laver with regeneration, and represents believers as being buried and rising again with Christ, a close relationship is established between Christian baptism and. spiritual regeneration. But there are other passages referred to above, which equally connect it with the word of the Gospel, of which also it is said generally, that it is “the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth,”—that it is “quick, powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword,”—that it is even “spirit and life.” Nothing stronger than this is said of baptism in respect to regeneration; so that the relationship of baptism to the spiritual change is by no means exclusive; and as the change itself is inward and vital, neither baptism nor the word can have more than a subordinate and instrumental relation to it. As to efficacious power, it is “the spirit that quickeneth,”—not, however, apart from the ordinances, but in connexion with their instrumentality; nor yet by indissoluble union and invariable efficiency through these, but in such manner and ways as seem good to Him who quickeneth whom He will. It is enough for us to know, that in this spiritual birth, as in the natural, the internal links itself with the external, the Divine with the human; so that if the word is honestly handled, and the sacrament of baptism believingly received and used, the spiritual effect will infallibly result. When so received and used, baptism saves, and the baptized are regenerated, because the manifested grace of God meets with a suitable recipiency, on the part of man; as also the word of truth brings salvation, quickens and renews, when its promises of grace and blessing are rested on in humble faith. But abstract the supposition, which is commonly made in Scripture, of this faithful and honest dealing with these ordinances of God, and there is nothing of regenerative power or saving effect in either; the hearer of the word only treasures up for himself a heavier condemnation, and the baptized, so far from rising to newness of life, remains, even when baptized by an apostle, in “the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.” There is, doubtless, so far a difference in the scriptural statements referred to, as to the relation in which baptism and the word respectively stand to regeneration, that the former, being a symbolical and sealing ordinance, it more distinctly and personally exhibits the things connected with the soul’s regeneration. It has somewhat of the nature of a covenant transaction, in which the individual presents himself, or is presented by others, for a personal participation in the regenerating grace exhibited in the ordinance; and personally, or through others for him, professes to accept what is there offered to his hand, and engages to act accordingly. Contemplating the matter, therefore, as an honest transaction a transaction—in which the human subject seems truthfully to respond to the Divine condescension and favour shown him—our Lord and His apostles represent baptism as, according to its true idea, an instrument or channel of regeneration, and speak of those as regenerate persons who have in sincerity complied with it. But that is a very different thing from saying, that baptism, simply as an ordinance, carries regeneration in its bosom, or that all who have passed through the outward rite are regenerate. Such language is in Scripture applied only to those who have actually been born of the Spirit, or who, in the judgment of faith and charity, may be considered to have been so born again. And precisely on account of regeneration being thus essentially a Divine work, in which man, as a spiritual being, has to be the recipient, through the grace of the Spirit operating vitally within, it is not directly laid as an obligation upon his conscience. He is entreated and bound to do the things, which, in their full compass, involve it, and which also bring him into immediate contact with the living agency that works it; but for the change itself the actual regeneration of his soul to God—he must be a partaker and not a doer, become a subject of the Spirit’s renewing grace. III. This interconnexion, however, between the human and the Divine, as directly related to men’s responsibilities, comes out in the next term of the series, ἀνακαίνωσις, which is occasionally, though not very frequently, used in New Testament Scripture. In the passage cited from the Epistle to Titus, it is coupled with παλιγγενεσία, and placed after it, as denoting something consecutive—a carrying forward of the regeneration to its proper completion; which again brings us into the region of human responsibility and active working. For, while it belongs to God, through the internal agency of His Spirit, to implant the principle of divine life in the soul, it belongs to man not independently, indeed, and as at his own hand, but in connexion with the promised grace of God—to guard, and nourish to perfection the gift conferred upon him. Hence this ἀνακαίνωσις is matter of express command; for example, in Ephesians 4:23, where the apostle charges believers—who had already “been taught as the truth is in Jesus” to “renew themselves (ἀνανεοῦσθαι) in the spirit of their mind;” and in Romans 12:2, they are called to be transformed, or to transform themselves, in the renewing of their mind (τῆ ἀνακαινώσει τοῦ νοός.) This growing renewal of mind and spirit, which is only rendered possible by a preceding regeneration, it is the imperative duty of every believer to press forward; it should be the object of his daily watchings, strivings, and prayers, which, if rightly directed, shall have for their great end his progressive advancement in the divine life, and assimilation to the image of his Father in heaven. We have here to note the manner in which the new life of Christianity has formed for itself a language, to give adequate expression to the thoughts and aspirations it has awakened. Of the two words just mentioned, one of them ἀνακαίνωσις, is found only in the New Testament, as is also the verb ἀνακαινόω. The classical word for expressing a somewhat similar action of mind, was ἀνακαινίζω, which occurs in Hebrews 6:6, but is found nowhere else in the New Testament. It was, we may conceive, felt to be too feeble, or, from its ordinary application, indicative of too partial and defective an improvement, to bring out the Christian sense that was meant to be conveyed; and so a distinct word, of the same root, but with a different termination, was brought into requisition. The other word, παλιγγενεσία, was, indeed, employed by heathen writers, but in a sense so inferior, that it may be said to have become instinct with new meaning, when turned in a Christian direction. As employed elsewhere, it expresses such renovations as take place, from time to time, within the natural sphere, and on the same line of things with itself. Thus Cicero, on the close of his exile, and referring to his restoration to honour and dignity, speaks of hanc παλιγγενεσίαν nostram (Ad Attic, 6:6.) In like manner, Josephus applies the word to that political resuscitation, which was granted to his people and country, on the return from the Babylonish captivity (Ant. 11:3, 9.) Marcus Antoninus and the Stoics generally designated the revivals, which, at shorter or longer intervals, occur in the constitution and order of earthly things, and which they believed would ultimately become fixed, τὴν περιοδικὴν παλιγγενεσίαν τῶν ὄλων, the periodical regeneration of the world. And approaching a step nearer, though basing itself on a fanciful foundation, it was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, as we learn from Plutarch (De Em. Cat. i. 7)—part of their general doctrine of the transmigration of souls—that there was a παλιγγενεσία to each particular person when his soul returned to the body, and again made its appearance on the theatre of an earthly existence. From such applications of the word, one sees at a glance what an elevation was given to it when it entered into the sphere of Christian ideas, and came to denote that high moral renovation, which Christ ever seeks to accomplish in His people—the formation in them of a life fashioned after the life of God. Here we find ourselves in another region than that of nature’s feebleness and corruption; the supernatural mingles with the natural; and the earthly in man’s being is transformed, so as to receive the tone and impress of the heavenly. But the παλιγγενεσία of the gospel, and its attendant ἀνακαίνωσις, do not stop here; while commencing with the soul of the individual believer, they thenceforth proceed to other operations and results. The internal renovation is but the beginning of a process, which is to extend far and wide—to spread with regenerating power through all the relations and departments of social life—to defecate and transfigure the corporeal frame itself into the fit habitation of an immortal spirit—yea, and embrace the whole domain of external nature, which it will invest with the imperishable glory of a new creation. It was this more extended and comprehensive application of the word παλιγγενεσία, which was made by our Lord in Matthew 19:28, when He gave assurance to the disciples of the immortal honour and dignity that was to be their position in the closing issues of His kingdom, “Verily, I say unto you, that ye who have followed Me, in the regeneration (παλιγγενεσία)—when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” It was a prevalent opinion among the Fathers, that by regeneration here, our Lord pointed explicitly to the resurrection of the body. Thus Augustine, De Civ. Dei. 20:5, “When he says, in the regeneration, beyond doubt He wishes to be understood thereby the resurrection from the dead; for thus shall our flesh be regenerated through incorruption, even as our soul has been regenerated by faith.” To the like effect Jerome, who says on the passage, “In the regeneration, that is, when the dead shall rise incorruptible from corruption.” Gregory, Theophylact, Euthymius, and others, follow in the same line. It is, however, too narrow a reference to give to our Lord’s words. The resurrection of the body is, doubtless, implied in what He says; for when the Son of Man sits upon the throne of His glory, or is manifested in His kingly state, the saints shall certainly have been raised up to sit with Him; according to the testimony of the apostle, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.” Undoubtedly, too, the resurrection may be fitly designated a regeneration; as it shall be in the most emphatic sense a renovating of the old, casting it entirely into a fresh mould, and giving it a kind of second birth, unspeakably better than the first. So, the apostle Paul in effect, though not in express terms, calls it, when in Romans 8:23, he speaks of the general body of believers groaning in themselves, and “waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body;” as if their proper filiation only began then, and not till it took place did they fairly enter into the state and heritage of the sons of God. Then only indeed shall they reach it in its completeness, or in respect to their entire personality. The regeneration is already theirs; it is theirs from the first moment of their spiritual life, in so far as their souls are concerned, but still only as in a mystery; since the corporeal and visible part of their natures continues as before, in the frailty and corruption of the fall. At the resurrection, however, this anomalous state of things shall be terminated; the old man shall in this respect also be exchanged for the new; and the children of the regeneration shall at last look like their state and destiny—they shall possess the visible seal of their adoption, in the redemption of their bodies from the law of mortality and corruption. On these accounts, the resurrection of the body may fitly be called a παλιγγενεσία; it is certainly to be included in the general renovation, which the Lord will introduce at the proper time; but it is this general renovation itself, not simply the resurrection of the body, which is to be understood as pointed to in the declaration of our Lord. The παλιγγενεσία there mentioned is the bringing in of what is elsewhere called the new heavens and the new earth, the constitution of every thing after a new and higher pattern; in consequence of which, that which is in part shall be done away, evil in every form shall be abolished, and universal peace, harmony, and perfection established. For, such is the proper issue and consummation of Christ’s work, who, as the Lord’s anointed, has received from the Father the heritage of all things, and received it, not to retain them in their state of corruption and disorder, but to rectify and bless them; so that, throughout the entire domain, there shall be nothing to hurt and offend, and all shall reflect the spotless glory of their Divine Head. IV. The regeneration in this large and general sense is much of the same import as another word—the last we have to notice in this connexion—ἀποκατάστασις. The noun occurs, indeed, only once with reference to the work of Christ (Acts 3:21;) but the verb is found, on two occasions, with a somewhat similar reference. In Matthew 17:11, our Lord replied to a question respecting Elias, “Elias indeed cometh and restoreth (or shall restore—ἀποκαθιστάνει, Mark; ἀποκαταστήσει, Matt.) all things. It was the purpose or destination for which John came that Christ here speaks of; His mission was of a restorative nature, being appointed in respect to a people, who had gone away backward, and were practically in a state of alienation, first from the God of their fathers, and then from these fathers themselves. To turn again this tide of degeneracy, and bring the hearts of the people into a friendly relationship as well to God, as to their pious ancestors, was the special calling of this new Elias; he came to the intent, that He might restore all things to their normal state of allegiance to God, and mutual respondency between parent and child (Luke 1:16-17.) But in respect to the event, all was marred by the perverseness and carnality of the people; they frustrated the grace of God, and did to the Elias “whatever they listed.” In this case, it was plainly but a provisional moral restoration that was meant to be accomplished; but even this was arrested in its course, and only in a very partial manner reached its end. Still more immediately, however, in connexion with Messiah’s work, we find the expression used by the apostles after the resurrection, when they asked Christ, “Lord, dost Thon at this time restore the kingdom to Israel (εἰ ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ ἀ ποκαθιστάνεις τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ ̓Ισραήλ)?” The answer returned simply conveyed a rebuke for their too prying curiosity regarding the future, and an instruction as to present duty: “It is not for you to know the times and seasons, which the Father has put in His own power; but ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost comes upon you,” etc In short, there was to be no ἀποκατάστασις such as they were looking for, of a present resuscitation of the temporal kingdom; and for themselves, they had other and higher things to mind, for which the needed power was shortly to be conferred on them from above. They were not on this account, however, discharged from expecting an ἀποκατάστασις —only it was to be one (as they themselves soon understood,) which carried in its bosom the elements of a nobler renovation fresh successions of spiritual revival in the first instance, and these culminating at last, in a complete, final restitution. So, in a comparatively brief period, the Apostle Peter gave expression to his views, and showed the vast moral elevation that had been imparted to him by the descent of the Spirit: “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come (ὅπως ἄν ἔλθωσιν καιροὶ ἀναψύζεως) from the presence of the Lord; and He may send Jesus Christ that before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things (ἀποκατάστασεως πάντων,) of which (of which times) God spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, since the world began (or, from the earliest times.”) The slightest inspection may convince any one, that this was spoken under the direction of a far more enlightened and elevating impulse, than that which dictated the question, “Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” In the one case there is a manifest savouring of the things of the flesh, in the other, of those of the Spirit; the first thoughts were characterized by a narrow exclusiveness, and a desire for some sort of temporal ascendency, while in the latter there is a noble breathing after things heavenly and divine, a just appreciation of the spiritual in comparison of the earthly, and a lively expectation of the complete triumph over all evil yet to be effected by the presence and power of the glorified Redeemer. The ἀποκατάστασις now looked and longed for by the apostles was nothing short of a general and thorough renovation the same, that prophets had from the first been heralding, when they pointed to the glory which was to follow the obedience and sufferings of the Redeemer—a re-establishment of the original order and blessedness of the world, or its final deliverance from all the troubles and disorders thatafflict it, and along therewith its elevation to a higher even than its primeval condition. But the general carries no antagonism to the particular; the restitution of all things now hoped for should also be, in the truest sense, the restitution of the kingdom to Israel. For, in Christ all that is really Israel s, finds its proper centre and its ultimate destination; where He, the King of Zion is, there is Israel’s ascendency, Israel’s seed of blessing, Israel’s distinctive glory; and the best and highest thing for Jew and Gentile alike is to share in the dominion of Christ, and with him to possess the kingdom. To sum up, then, in regard to this series of words so peculiarly indicative, as a whole, of the nature and tendency of the Gospel of Christ:—The generic idea of renovation, or radical change from a worse to a better state, is here presented to our view under successive stages and developments. We see it beginning in the region of the inner man—in the awakening of a sense of guilt and danger, with earnest strivings after amendment (μετάνοια) then, through the operation of the grace of God, it discovers itself in a regenerated frame of spirit, the possession of an essentially new spiritual condition (παλιγγενεσία) this, once found, proceeds by continual advances and fresh efforts to higher and higher degrees of spiritual renovation (ἀνακαίνωσις) while, according to the gracious plan and wise disposal of God, the internal links itself to the external, the renovation of soul paves the way for the purification of nature, until, the work of grace being finished, and the number of the elect completed, the bodies also of the saints shall be transformed, and the whole material creation shall become a fit habitation for redeemed and glorified saints (ἀποκατάστασις.) What a large and divine-like grasp in this regenerative scheme! How unlike the littleness and superficiality of man! How clearly bespeaking the profound insight and far-reaching wisdom of God! And this not merely in its ultimate results, but in the method also and order of its procedure! In beginning with the inner man, and laying the chief stress on a regenerated heart, it takes possession of the fountainhead of evil, and rectifies that which most of all requires the operation of a renewing agency. As in the moral sphere, the evil had its commencement, so in the same sphere are the roots planted of all the renovation, that is to develop itself in the history of the kingdom. And the spiritual work once properly accomplished, all that remains to be done shall follow in due time; Satan shall be finally cast out; and on the ruins of his usurped dominion, the glories of the new creation shall shine forth in their eternal lustre. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 01.21. ON THE USE OR PARASKEUE AND PASCHA IN ST. JOHN S ACCOUNT OF OUR LORD’S LAST SUFFERINGS ======================================================================== Section Ninth. On The Use Or Paraskeue And Pascha In St. John S Account Of Our Lord’s Last Sufferings; And The Question There With Connected, Whether Our Lord Kept His Last Pass Over On The Same Day As The Jews. IT is simply in connexion with this question respecting the time of keeping the last Passover, that the use of the words παρασκευή and πάσχα, by St. John, in John 18:1-40 and John 19:1-42, is involved in doubt, or assumes an aspect of importance. And, as we are firmly persuaded that the question itself has mainly arisen from some of the historical circumstances being too little regarded, we shall commence our inquiry by taking these in their order, and endeavouring to present them in their proper light. 1. The first thing requiring to be noted is the determined purpose formed by the leading men in Jerusalem to make away with Jesus. The clear revelations He had given, especially on the occasion of this last visit to Jerusalem, of His own character and kingdom, and the unsparing exposure He had made of their ignorance, carnality, and deserved condemnation, had brought matters, as between them and Him, to a crisis. It was now seen that, if their authority was to stand, His career must be extinguished. But, in their project for accomplishing this, two points of special moment are to be noted. In the first place, it was to be by stratagem (ἐν δόλῳ, Matthew 26:4; Mark 14:1) this being, as they naturally conceived, the only safe course for them to adopt. They durst not venture on an open assault, as Jesus had evidently acquired great fame, had come up to the feast with a large retinue of followers, and by His miracles, His discourses, and His disinterested life, had made profound impressions upon many hearts. Against such a person it would have been a hazardous thing for them to bring a formal charge of impiety or crime; it were on every account wiser to compass their design by the hand of an assassin, or some secret plot, which might admit of their remaining in the background. Then, this stratagem was not to be quite immediately put in force; not till after the feast. This is expressly noticed in two of the Evangelists (Matthew 26:5; Mark 14:2;) and they both assign the same reason for the delay--"lest there should be an uproar among the people." These seemed now to an alarming degree won to His side; they had attended Him in crowds from Galilee; they had even borne Him in triumph, and with every demonstration of enthusiastic joy, as King Messiah, from Mount Olivet into the heart of the city; and it was not to be supposed that multitudes, apparently so full of confidence in their leader, and so ardently devoted to His cause, would suffer Him to be openly wronged, without exerting themselves to the utmost in his defense. It was, therefore, the obvious dictate of prudence to let the crowds again disperse, before the hand of violence was lifted against Jesus. 2. But all of a sudden a new element came into their deliberations, and their policy took another form, when the treachery of Judas discovered itself, offering for a sum of money to deliver up Jesus into their hands. The precise moment when Judas made this offer to them is not stated. It must, however, have been sometime between the conclusion of those discourses, in which the Lord had so plainly exposed and denounced the leading Jews, and the actual execution of the treachery; for it is manifest that the traitor had come to terms with them before the paschal feast had actually begun, and yet not less manifest that it must have been after they had formed their plan not to proceed against Jesus till the feast was over. Subsequently to this resolution on their part, but prior even to the assignation of any particular time or place for the accomplishment of the purpose, "he sought how he might conveniently betray Him" (Mark 14:11.) The purpose itself doubtless took shape in the mind of Judas, and reached the point of action, much in the same way that the Jewish rulers were led to their resolution to kill Him. From the position matters had now assumed, it had become for both alike a necessity to get rid of Jesus: His presence was felt to be intolerable. Indeed, Judas, in his state of mind and his procedure toward Jesus, might be taken for a representative among the twelve of those Jewish rulers; he did within the narrower sphere what they did in the larger one--delivered up the Holy One of God to His adversaries; on which account, in the psalms that spake before concerning the treachery, the individual traitor is identified with the whole company of faithless men who were to take the part of violence and deceit (Psalms 119:109; Acts 1:16-20.) Judas had undoubtedly, at the time of his first connexion with Christ, been known as a person of shrewd intellect, as well as respectable demeanour, most probably also as a person of active business habits:-whence the charge naturally fell to him of managing the pecuniary concerns of the company, of bearing the purse. With such natural gifts and acquired habits, he had thought he discerned enough in Jesus of Nazareth to convince him that this could be no other than the expected Messiah; but, beyond doubt, the Messiah of an earthly cause and a worldly kingdom. And as the hopes of advancement in this direction began to give way ; as the plan of Jesus more fully developed itself, and successive revelations of coming events forced on the mind of Judas the conviction, that not earthly grandeur or political ascendency, but sacrifice, self-denial, peril, and shame, were to be the immediate portion of those who espoused the cause of Jesus, then the spell was broken to his calculating and worldly spirit. He not only became depressed and sorrowful, like the others, but totally unhinged: his only distinct motives for embarking In the enterprise were withdrawn from him; he must be done with the concern. Symptoms of this recoil had been perceived by the penetrating eye of Jesus about a twelve-month before the last Passover, which led Him to utter the strong expression, that of those He had chosen, one was a devil (John 6:70.) It was only now, however, that the full effect was produced. The repeated intimations which Jesus had recently made of His coming death, the specific assurance that He was to be rejected by the chief priests and scribes, crucified and slain; the palpable breach that took place be tween Him and these rulers of the people on the occasion of His public entrance into Jerusalem, with the discourses subsequently delivered; still more recently the reproof individually and pointedly addressed to Judas, in connexion with the personal anointing at Bethany, and the fresh allusion then also made to His impending death and burial:--all these following in rapid succession, and leaving, at length, no room to doubt that a catastrophe was at hand, consummated the process which had been going on in the mind of Judas, and impelled him to adopt a course of decisive action--to resolve on being done with a service which no longer possessed his sympathy or his confidence, and make sure of his interest with those that had. Thus prompted and drawn, he secretly threw him self into the camp of the adversaries, and entered into terms with them for the betrayal of Jesus. (It is most likely, on account of the influence exercised on the mind of Judas by what took place at Bethany, that the Evangelists Matthew and Mark mention it in immediate connexion with the purpose of Judas to be tray. In reality, however, it occurred before several of the last discourses were delivered, and six days previous to the last Passover, John 12:1) 3. But this unexpected occurrence, we may well conceive, cast a new light upon the prospects of Christ s adversaries in Jerusalem, and naturally led to a remodeling of their plans. The discovery that one of His bosom friends was deserting Him, as if he had seen through the imposture, and was even proffering his aid to the accomplishment of their aims, could not fail to beget the conviction, that the cause of Jesus was by no means so powerful, nor His place in the popular esteem so firmly seated, as they had imagined. They now began to think that there was not so much need for stratagem and delay, as they at first imagined; nay, that their best chance for accomplishing the desired result, was by a bold and summary procedure. Most heartily, therefore, did they close with the proposal of Judas, and for the stipulated sum of thirty pieces of silver, agree to act in concert with him. This circumstance, if allowed its due consideration, and followed to its legitimate results, will be found sufficient to account for all the peculiarities and apparent inconsistencies in the evangelical narratives. It first of all led the Jewish rulers to resolve on taking action immediately, the moment Judas might find a favourable opportunity for effecting the betrayal. And it led our Lord, who was perfectly cognizant of what was proceeding in the camp of the enemies, to pursue a course at the very commencement of the Passover, which left Judas no alternative: he must either act promptly that very night, or lose the opportunity of acting at all. 4. This procedure, then, on the part of Christ, is the point that next calls for notice. In compliance with His own instructions, the necessary preparations had been made for holding the feast--an upper chamber was engaged, and the materials requisite for the feast provided. There Jesus met with the disciples at the appointed time--we can readily suppose at a somewhat earlier hour than customary, as He well foreknew what a series of events had to be crowded into the remaining hours of that night. The period, it should be remembered, for eating the paschal lamb, was left somewhat indefinite. The lamb itself was to be killed any time between the two evenings, (Exodus 12:5; Leviticus 23:5;) that is, between the ninth and eleventh hour by the Jewish reckoning, or the third and fifth in the afternoon by ours, (Joseph. Wars, 7: 9, 3.) So that, as our Lord had special reasons for making the hour as early as possible, we may warrantably suppose that the lamb was killed about three o clock, and the feast entered upon about five, or shortly after it. But scarcely had Jesus and His disciples begun the feast--it was, at least, only in progress, after the solemn service of the washing of the disciples feet had been performed, (John 13:1-22,)--when Jesus, with evident emotion, announced that one of them should betray Him. [Notwithstanding the positive assertions of Meyer to the contrary, there can be no reasonable doubt, that the feast mentioned in this 13th ch. Of John, at which our Lord washed the disciples feet, was the same as that described by the other Evangelists under the name of the Passover. The great majority of commentators are agreed on this however they differ oil other points. Stier justly states, that the supper or feast here mentioned from the manner in which it is introduced, was manifestly no ordinary supper; and the reference to it again, at John 21:20, as the supper, by way of eminence, at which John leaned on his Master s bosom, confirms the view. A still further confirmation is derived from the evident allusion, in Luke 22:27, to the action of washing the disciples feet, which took place at it, and is recorded only by St. John; there, however, and with reference to it, our Lord says Himself, "I am among you as one that serveth." The expression of St. John, at the beginning of the chapter, πρὸ τὴς ἑορτῇς τοῦ πάσχα, which Meyer so strongly presses as conclusively showing that the circumstances of this supper were prior to the Passover, and that our Lord did not keep the Passover at all, have no such necessary import. It is utterly arbitrary to make them point to all the transactions that followed, and, indeed, against the most natural and proper sense. The Evangelist simply tells us, that before the Paschal Feast, at which the things concern ing His earthly career were to proceed to their consummation, had actually arrived before that, but without any indication of how long before, Jesus, being cognizant of all that was at hand, and of His speedy return to the Father, having loved His own, and still loving them, was resolved to give them a palpable and personal proof of it, by washing their feet before the feast properly commenced. So substantially, after multitudes of earlier commentators, Alford, Stier, Luthardt. The precise period of washing, however, is wrongly put in our version, by the words in John 13:2, "and supper being ended;" it should be, "supper having come " for it is quite clear from what follows, that it had not ended, nor even in any proper sense be gun. There was, at most, before the washing, the προεόρτιον or ante-supper, as it was called, from which, (John 13:4) Jesus rose and went about the washing; after which came the supper itself, the Paschal Feast.] The disciples, as might be supposed, were greatly stunned by the announcement for a moment looked at one another then anxiously, in succession, put the question, "Lord, is it I?" Judas could not afford to appear singular at such a time, perhaps also wished to learn how far Jesus might be acquainted with the secret, and so, followed the rest in putting the question. The reply informed him that his treachery was known ; but it would seem, the information was so conveyed, as to be intelligible only to the traitor him self. Hence, still revolving the matter, and anxious to attain, to certainty regarding it, Peter beckoned to John, who lay next to Jesus, to the intent that he might endeavour to obtain more definite information. The inquiry was evidently made by John in a whisper, as simply between himself and Christ. But the mode adopted by our Lord in giving the reply, of presenting a sop to Judas, while it served the purpose of a sign in regard to the treachery in question, served, at the same time, to connect the act of Judas with the delineations of prophecy, (John 13:18; Psalms 41:9.) Then, turning to Judas, He said emphatically, "That thou doest, do quickly." This brought the matter to an issue. Judas s time was clearly up; he had forfeited his place among the disciples of Jesus; and if the bargain with his new masters was to be implemented, it must be instantly gone about. Hence, without a moment s delay, he hurried off to the Jewish rulers to get them to strike at once, as now only was it likely he could do aught in their behalf. 5. Now, let it be imagined, in what mood he must have found his accomplices at such a time, and what was likely to have been the effect produced on them by his appearance. His purpose had been precipitated by what took place in the Passover-room; and this necessarily led them to precipitate theirs. It was a great crisis with them--now or never. Even scrupulous men could not be expected to be very nice in such a moment ; and since they now had what they could never look for again, the opportune help of one of the companions of Jesus, they must venture somewhat, though it should oblige them to depart a little from use and wont--the rather so, as it was probable that the matter might be brought to quite a speedy termination. Let it be remembered, that it was but a com paratively limited number of persons, who were actively engaged in the business--only a few of the more resolute and daring members of the Sanhedrim. When Judas presented himself before these, it was in all probability still the earlier part of the evening, considerably before persons in their rank of life would be accustomed to sit down to the Passover-feast. And as there was no time to lose, as everything, in a manner, depended upon their seizing the favourable moment, and as they could eat their Passover any time between night and morning, what was more likely than that they should agree to postpone their participation of the feast till they had got through with this urgent business? It was possible enough they might have it dispatched before midnight, when still it would not be too late for them to eat the Passover. Such, it might seem, would be the natural, and, on every account, the most advisable course, for them to pursue in the circumstances. Judas in the first instance, and then the party with whom he was in concert, had both, sooner than they anticipated, been thrown into the vortex of active and violent operations, through the overruling providence of Him, who bounds and restrains even the wrath of the wicked, so as to render it subservient to His purposes. And as they could postpone their paschal solemnity for a certain period, but could not postpone concurrence with the proposal of Judas to proceed immediately against Jesus, they hastily concerted their measures, and commenced their course of action, by sending along with Judas an armed band to the garden of Gethsemane, for the purpose of arresting the Son of Man, and dragging him to the tribunal of judgment. 6. So far the traitor had calculated aright. Jesus was found in the well-known garden. He had there already passed through that solemn and affecting scene of agony, in which, with thrice-repeated and ever-increasing earnestness, He had prayed to the Father that the cup might be removed from Him. The season of watching and prayer was no sooner ended than Judas and his company presented themselves. It could not, therefore, be late; as it was still near the beginning of April, when the nights are too cold in Palestine to admit of persons remaining at an advanced hour in the open air, without harm; and hence, when it did become late, Peter is spoken of as shivering with cold, and going near to warm him self at the fire that had been kindled (John 18:18.) We cannot reasonably suppose the time of the meeting in Gethsemane to have been beyond eight, or, at the furthest, nine in the evening, according to our mode of reckoning. What ensued upon the meeting need not at present detain us. Jesus proved Himself to be fully equal to the occasion--with mingled majesty and meekness met the assault of His adversaries, kept them for a time awe-struck and powerless, by word and deed showed how easily, had He willed, He could have smitten them to the ground; but, that the Father s counsel might be fulfilled, freely yielded Himself into their hands. There after Ife was conducted by them to the house of the high priest; first, indeed, to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, then to Caiaphas himself, where the chief priests and elders-such of them as could be got together on such hasty notice-had meanwhile assembled to give formal judgment against Him. Here, however, they met with an unexpected difficulty ; for, while Judas had put them in possession of the obnoxious party, he had but poorly provided them with grounds of guilt, or evidence to establish it. "They sought for witness against Jesus to put Him to death--and found none" (Mark 14:55.) So that, after fruitless efforts to make good a charge of felony, and considerable time spent in the endeavour, they were obliged to fall back on the claims of Jesus regarding His person, and extorted from Him a confession of His assuming to be, in a sense altogether peculiar, the Son of the living God. This they held to be blasphemy, and thereby obtained, indeed, the materials of a capital offence; since, by the law of Moses, blasphemy was punishable with death. But a new difficulty sprung up on this very ground, for, as it was necessary to obtain the sanction of the Roman governor to the doom before it could be put in execution --the charge being a strictly religious, not a civil one--how should they manage to get Pilate to accredit it? They must, however, make the trial; Pilate’s consent was indispensable ; and they must present themselves with the prisoner at the judgment-hall, in order to press the sentence of judicial condemnation. Thither, accordingly, they went. 7. By this time it was past midnight; it is even said in John 18:28, that, when they got to the judgment-hall or πρωί pnetorium of Pilate, it was, not merely past midnight, but early morn. This is implied also, in the circumstance that, before leaving the palace of the high priest, the crowing of the cock, indicating the approach of dawn, had been heard, awakening the cry of guilt in Peter s bosom. It might still further be inferred, from the accounts given by the several Evangelists of the processes of trial and examination gone through, followed by the scenes of mockery and dishonour, during which, it is evident, many hours must have been consumed. And, indeed, the very purpose for which they went to the praetorium is a proof that it must have been about the break of day; since they could not sooner have expected an audience of the governor on a matter of judicial administration. Early in the morning, then--it might be a little before, or a little after sunrise they led Jesus to the praetorium; and when there, they presented Him before Pilate for summary condemnation, as a person whom they had ascertained to be a rebel against the government of Caesar, forbidding men to give tribute, and perverting the nation (Luke 23:1.) This took place, apparently, at the door of the praetorium, and they doubtless hoped that Pilate would instantly accede to their proposal, and allow them to take their own way with the prisoner. Such, however, was not the result; the same over ruling Providence, which controlled their proceedings before, controlled them again; instead of summarily pronouncing judgment, Pilate took Jesus into the hall for the purpose of examining more closely into the matter. But thither, it is said, (John 18:28,) His accusers refused to follow, "they did not go in to the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover." 8. Now, it is here that the first, and indeed the main difficulty presents itself, in reconciling St. John’s account of the transactions with the accounts of the other Evangelists, and with what may seem to have been the facts of the case:--a difficulty which has given rise to avariety of conjectural explanations; in particular, to the supposition, on the part of some, that Jesus kept the Passover with His disciples a day earlier than the Jews generally; and, on the part of others, to the supposition that the eating of the Passover mentioned in the passage just quoted, referred, not to the eating of the Paschal lamb itself, but to the subsequent and supplemental provisions of the feast. Both views carry a somewhat unnatural and arbitrary appearance; and can neither of them stand a rigid examination. 9. The latter view, which would take the expression "eating the Passover" in an inferior sense, of the things to be eaten only on the second and other days of the feast, has the usage of the Evangelists wholly against it. The expression occurs in five other places—Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12; Mark 14:14; Luke 22:11; Luke 22:15 --and always in the sense of eating the Passover strictly so called. It is true, as is still urged by Luthardt, that in Deuteronomy 16:2, offerings of the herd and flock to be presented during the feast are called the paschal sacrifices, and that the word Passover itself is used by John frequently of the feast generally (2: 28, 13: 1, 18: 89.) But these things will never prove, or even render probable the idea, that the phrase of "eating the Passover" might be used of any other part of the feast, exclusive of the very thing from which all the rest took its character and name; and the plain meaning of the expression, in all the other passages where it occurs, must be held conclusive against it. Then, as regards the other opinion, that our Lord kept the Passover on a day earlier than the Jews generally, it places the account of John in direct opposition to that of the other Evangelists. They clearly represent the day observed by our Lord as the one looked forward to with common expectation for the keeping of the Passover. In Matthew 26:2, Jesus is represented as saying at the close of His discourses, " Ye know (as if there could be no doubt upon the matter) that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified;" again at Matthew 26:17, "And on the first day of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover?" So also in Mark 14:1, it is intimated, as a matter of public notoriety, "After two days was the feast of the Passover, and of unleavened bread;" and still again in Luke 22:7, "Then came the day of un leavened bread, when the Passover must be killed." With such clear and explicit statements on the subject, it is not too much to say with Lucke, that "it is impossible to extract from the text of the Synoptical Gospels even the semblance of an anticipation of the Passover." And if we hold by the historical fidelity of their accounts, no ingenious theorizings as to the probability, or moral fitness of the day preceding that of the ordinary Passover, being observed, can have any effect in countervailing the force of the testimony delivered in the above passages. Of such theorizings none has been pressed with more frequency or confidence than the require ments of type and antitype--not merely as understood by the Jews, and urged by commentators like De Wette, Lucke, Meyer, Ewald, Bleek; but also as demanded by the nature of things. So Mr. Gresswell, for example, presses the consideration: circumstances of time and place were indispensable to the constitution of the paschal offering as a type; it must be slain on the 14th of Nisan, and only in the place where God had put His name, latterly in the city of Jerusalem; other wise, the ordinance was not kept in its integrity. And "who then," asks Mr. Gresswell, "shall say, that they were not equally indispensable to the antitype? Had Christ suffered, though He had suffered as a victim, on any day but the 14th of Nisan could He have suffered as the Jewish Passover? Had Jesus suffered, though He had suffered anywhere but at Jerusalem, could He have suffered as the Jewish Passover?"(Harmony, vol. 3:, p. 163.) But why stop simply there? Why not insist upon other correspondences of a like kind? The Jewish Passover was expressly required to be a lamb of a year old; and could Christ have suffered as the Jewish Passover, if more than a year had elapsed since He entered on His high vocation? The Jewish Passover, wherever and however killed, must have its blood poured around the altar; and could Christ have suffered as the Jewish Passover, if a like service was not performed with His life-blood? If such merely outward correspondences are pressed, we shall not find the reality, after all; and that not here alone, but in the ordinances generally which had their antitypical fulfillment in the history and work of Christ. The demand for these proceeds on mistaken views of the relation between type and antitype, as if the one stood upon the same level with the other, and were equally dependent upon conditions of place and time. (See Typology of Scripture, vol. 1:, p. 57.) And, besides, what, in the circumstances supposed, should become of our Lord s own Passover? The precise day did enter as an important element into the Old Testament ordinance; and was He, who came to fulfill the law, to change at will the Divine appointment? Was it by infringing upon one part of a typical institution, that He was to make good another? To say with some, among others Stier, that it was probably the right day for the Passover our Lord and His disciples kept, and that the Jews erred a day in their calculations, is a mere assertion, and against the manifest bearing of the evangelical statements already adduced. Such lame and halting respect to the ordinances of heaven, could neither be pleasing to God, nor satisfactory to men; and Christ s accomplishment of the things written beforehand concerning Him in type and prophecy, must be placed on another footing, if it is to approve itself to our religious feelings and intelligent convictions. We dismiss, therefore, all pleadings of the kind now referred to; and hold to the plain import of the historical statements in the Evangelists, that our Lord and His disciples knew of no day for observing the Passover, but the one which the law required and which was common to them with their countrymen. [The reasoning in the text is directed only against those who hold the idea of an anticipated Passover being kept by our Lord, without impugning the historical accuracy of the Synoptical Evangelists. But most of the German writers, who think that our Lord either did not keep the Passover at all, or, at least, that He did not keep it on the common day, give up the historical accuracy of the Synoptists. So, for example, Meyer and Ewald (the latter in his Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 5: p. 409, sq.,) who both, though Meyer most sharply and offensively, hold John’s narrative to be irreconcilable with the other accounts; that he, however, gave the correct one, while the others erroneously identify the feast kept by our Lord with the proper Jewish Pass over. They followed a mere tradition; and Meyer supposes the tradition to have originated in the Lord s Supper coming to be identified with the Paschal Feast; whence the day of its institution was first viewed as an ideal 14 Nisan, and by-and-by was taken for a real 14 Nisan. Precious writers of sacred history to say nothing of their inspiration who could thus, all three, confound the ideal with the real, which is here, in plain terms, the false with the true! Considering the importance which attached to the last festal solemnity of Jesus, we ask, with Luthardt, how could such an error in the tradtion have sprung up, especially under the eyes of the apostles, and gained an established footing? Or, if such a thing had been possible, what must one think of the intelligence and the memory of the Synoptists? The very pro posing of such a solution seems like an affront to one’s understanding, as well as an assault on one’s faith.] 10. In truth, the supposition, that our Lord and his disciples anticipated by a day the proper time for observing the Passover, when closely examined fails to explain the statement, for the solution of "which it was more peculiarly adopted: it does not, if it were true, account for the refusal of our Lord’s accusers to enter the praetorium. This has been well pointed out by Friedlieb, in a passage quoted by Alford, "The Jews would not enter the praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. For, the entrance of a Jew into the house of a Gentile made him unclean till the evening. It is surprising, that, according to this declaration of the holy Evangelist, the Jews had still to eat the Passover; whereas Jesus and His disciples had already eaten it on the previous night. And it is no less surprising, that the Jews in the early morning should have been afraid of rendering themselves unclean for the Passover; since the Passover could not be kept till the evening; 1: e. 9 till the next day, (for the day was reckoned from evening to evening;) and the uncleanness which they dreaded, did not, by the law, last till the next day." Had these Jews, therefore, been simply concerned about fitness for eating the Passover on the day following that observed by Christ and His disciples, they did not need to have been so sticklish about entering the praetorium; the uncleanness they were anxious to avoid contracting would of itself have expired by the time they behooved to be free from it ; at sunset they should again have been pure. So that the supposition, which is historically groundless, is also inadequate for the purpose of a proper explanation. 11. Friedlieb himself, along with not a few critical authorities, in former as well as present times, is disposed to fall in with the other supposition, and to regard the eating of the Passover, in John 18:28, as referring to subordinate parts of the feast. After stating that the passage labours under no small exegetical difficulties, which, perhaps, cannot be solved for want of accurate knowledge of the customs of the time, he adds, "Possibly the law concerning Levitical defilements and purifications had in that age been made more stringent, or otherwise modified; possibly they called some other meal beside the actual Passover, by its name. This last we certainly, with our present knowledge of Hebrew antiquities, must assume." We might, indeed, have to do so, and take what satisfaction we could from the possible solution thereby presented, if the circumstances of the case absolutely required it. But it is here we demur: we see no necessity for having recourse to the merely possible and conjectural, when the actual (if duly considered) may suffice. It is to be borne in mind, we again repeat--though constantly overlooked by the authors of those hypothetical explanations--that the persons mentioned by the evangelist as afraid to contract uncleanness by entering, the pragtoriura, and thereby losing their right to eat of the Passover, formed no fair representation, in this matter, of the Jews at large. The Evangelist, in the whole of this part of his narrative, is speaking merely of the faction of the chief priest and elders, the comparative handful of men who conducted the business of our Lord s persecution, and never once refers to the general population of the Jews. Once, indeed, and again, he calls them by the name of Jews (John 18:31, John 19:7, etc.) partly to distinguish them from Pilate, the heathen, and partly also from his custom of using the general name of Jews, where the other Evangelists employ the more specific names of Scribes and Pharisees, (John 5:16, John 5:18, John 6:10, etc.) He still, however, leaves us in no doubt, that the persons really Concerned were the mere party of the high priest, the accomplices of Judas. This base faction had, as already stated, been driven by circumstances, over which they had no control, to a course of proceeding different from what they had contemplated. When preparing to partake of the Pass over, they suddenly found themselves in a position which obliged them to act with promptitude, while it did not appear to exclude the possibility of their being able, at a more advanced period of the night, to eat the Passover. In the urgency of the moment they allowed the feast to stand over till the business in hand was dispatched. But unexpected difficulties met them in the way; in the midst of which the night wore on, and at last the morning dawned, without the desired result being reached. They did not, however, on that count ,abandon the purpose of eating the Passover—no doubt conceiving that the greatness of the emergency justified the slight deviation they had to make from the accustomed order. Hypocrites and formalists, in all ages, when bent on the execution of some cherished project, have been notorious for their readiness in accommodating their notions of duty to the exigencies of the moment; they can swallow a camel when it suits their purpose, while at other times they can strain at a gnat. Nor were the chief actors on the occasion before us ordinary hypocrites and formalists; the more forward of them at least belonged to the Sadducean party, the members of which, it is well known, never scrupled to make religious practice bend to self-interest or political expediency. It is vain, therefore, in a case like the present, to summon a host of witnesses (as Mr. Gresswell does, Harmony, 3: p. 156) to the great regard which the Jews as a people paid to the Sabbath, and to the consequent improbability of their pressing forward such judicial proceedings against Christ, on the supposition of the time being the first day of the Paschal Feast, which by the law was to be observed as a Sabbath. A single fact or two, coupled with the known characters of the actors, is perfectly sufficient to put all such general testimonies to flight. Looking into Jewish history, we find it related of a period very shortly after that now under consideration, during the commotions, which took place under Cestius, that while the Jews were celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, they heard of the governor s approach with an army towards Jerusalem; and immediately, (to use the words of Josephus, Wars, 2: 19, 2,) " they left the feast, and betook themselves to their arms; and, taking courage greatly from their multitude, they went in a sudden and disorderly manner to the fight, with a great noise, and without any consideration had of the rest of the seventh day, although the Sabbath was the day to which they had the greatest regard; but that rage, which made them forget the religious observance, made them too hard for their enemies in the fight." Here, both the solemnities of the feast and the hallowed rest of the Sabbath were unhesitatingly sacrificed to the demands of a civil emergency. And at a somewhat later stage of affairs, instances are recorded by Josephus, which show, that the men who then chiefly ruled in Jerusalem came even to count nothing whatever sacred, in comparison of their own mad policy; that the most hallowed things were turned, without scruple, to a profane use whenever the interests of the moment seemed to require it; so that, from what passed under his observation, the historian is led to express his conviction that, if the Romans had not come and put an end to such impieties, some earthquake, or supernatural visitation from heaven, must have been sent to revenge the enormities, (Wars, 5: 13, 6.) 12. Now, it is only ascribing a measure of the same spirit, and in a far inferior degree, to the few leaders of this conspiracy against Jesus, when we suppose them to have been hurried on by the progress of events beyond the proper time for eating the Passover; yet, without abandoning the intention, and the hope of still partaking of it, after the business in hand was brought to a close. They were consequently anxious to avoid contracting a defilement, which would have prevented them from eating the Passover during the currency of the first day of the feast. Were it not better that they should strive so to keep the feast, than omit its observance altogether? Undoubtedly, they would reckon it to be so. For the delay that had occurred beyond the appointed time, they would plead (as with their views there was a fair pretext for doing) the constraint of circumstances; they would rest in the conviction, that they had come as near to the legal observance of the institution as it was practicable for them to do. And as to the special objection of the first day of the feast being a Sabbath, and, as such, unfit for the prosecution of such a matter as now engaged their attention, the same considerations, which could reconcile them to the postponement of the feast, would also appear to warrant the active operations they pursued. It was not as if matters were moving in a regular and even current, and they could shape their proceedings in accordance with their own deliberate judgments; the rush of unexpected circumstances had shut them up to a particular course. Nor are there wanting instances in what is presently after recorded of them in Gospel history, in perfect keeping with the view now taken of their procedure. On the day following the crucifixion, which by the testimony of all the Evangelists, was not only a Sabbath, but a Sabbath of peculiar solemnity, they waited upon Pilate, for the purpose of getting him, on that very day, to set a watch around the sepulchre of Jesus, lest the body should be stolen (Matthew 27:62-63) And at an earlier period, we learn from John 7:32; John 7:37; John 7:45, the Pharisees sent out officers to apprehend Jesus on the last day of the Feast .of Tabernacles, which by the law was also to be observed as a Sabbath. So that either they did not look upon such judicial proceedings as work unsuited to a Sabbath, or they thought the urgency of the occasion justified its being done. How much more, then, in the matter now under consideration, when everything, in a manner, was at stake? It is proper also to add, that while the first day of the Paschal Feast was appointed to be kept as a Sabbath, it was not possible, from the amount of work that had to be done in connexion with the feast, that it could have so much the character of a day of rest as an ordinary Sabbath. And, indeed, the law regarding it expressly provides, that such work as was necessary to the preparation of victuals and travelling to their respective abodes, was allowable (Exodus 12:16; Deuteronomy 16:6-7;) ordinary avocations merely were prohibited, in order that the observances proper to the feast might proceed. The conclusion, therefore, to which on every account we are led is precisely that which the Statement in John 18:28 it self requires us to adopt. The expression of " eating the Passover" there employed, by invariable usage points to an actual participation on that very day of the proper feast; and the more closely the circumstances of the time, and the character of the actors are considered, the more reason do we find for the belief, that it was the same Passover of the 14th of Nisan which our Lord had kept, and which they were still intent on celebrating, though from urgent circumstances, it had to be postponed a little beyond the due season. (It is not necessary to do more than refer to an objection that might be raised against this conclusion, drawn from the procedure of our Lord Himself, going out with His disciples after eating the Passover. This Mr. Alford mentions as a reason for thinking of another than the exact day and feast prescribed by the law being kept; since in Exodus 12:22, it was ordered that none should leave his house till the morning. But it was equally ordered, that all should cat the Passover, attired as travellers, and ready for a journey,—though we know, the prescription was not kept in later times, and was understood to be temporary. So and much more must the other have been; for, keeping the Passover, as multitudes necessarily did, in other people’s houses, it must often, have happened that they were obliged to go out after wards.) 13. So much for the more peculiar passage in St. John’s Gospel on this subject; but there are one or two others that also require explanation. These have respect to the Sabbath, and in particular what is called the paraskeue. Speaking of the time when Pilate was going to pronounce judgment against Jesus, it is said in John 19:14, ἠν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, it was the paraskeue or preparation day of the Passover. This, it has been alleged, points to the proper passover-day as still to come, and fixes it to be the day following the one of which the transactions are recorded. It would certainly do so, if the expression, as used by the Evangelist, meant a preparation-day before the keeping of the Passover. But this does not appear to be the case. He uses the word paraskeue twice again in the same chapter, and each time in reference to the Sabbath: ver. 81, "The Jews, therefore, because it was the paraskeue, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day (for that Sabbath was a high day) be sought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away;" and John 19:42, "There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews paraskeue; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand." Here, plainly, it is with the Sabbath, that the term is specially connected; and the natural inference is, that in the earlier passage, although it is called the para skeue of the Passover, yet what is meant is not a paraskeue of the feast itself, but a Sabbath paraskeue during the feast. This is confirmed by what is written in the other gospels. Thus, at Matthew 27:62, with reference to the application made to Pilate for a guard on the day after the crucifixion it is said, "Now, on the following day, which is the one after the paraskeue" (ἥτις ἐστὶν μετὰ τὴν παρασκευήν;) the following day, beyond doubt, was the ordinary Sabbath; and the name paraskeue had become so common as a designation of the preceding day, that the Sabbath itself, it would seem, was sometimes denominated from it. Not merely, the evening after sunset of the sixth day, as Michselis, Kuinoel, Paulus, and Alford suppose (though even so, the words would apply to what was strictly the Jewish Sabbath;) but the following morn, as the τῇ ἐπαύριον of the Evangelist properly means. This we may the rather believe to be the meaning, as it is against all probability that the thought of placing a guard around the sepulchre during the night between the second and the third day, should have occurred so early as the very night of the crucifixion; it has all the appearance of an after-thought, springing up when reflection had got time to work. In Mark 15:42, we have not only the same word applied to designate the time preceding the Sabbath, but an explanation added, "And evening having now come, since it was paraskeue, which is προςάββατον, fore Sabbath." Luke says, Luke 23:54, "and it was paraskeue day" (καὶ ἡμέρα ἦν παρασ.) The day which preceded the Sabbath, was called by way of emphasis, the preparation, on account of the arrangements that had to be made on it in anticipation of the approaching Sabbath, with the view of spending this in perfect freedom from all ordinary labour. So much account was made of such preparatory arrangements, in the later periods of Jewish history, that the name paraskeue came to be a familiar designation for the sixth day of the week, and even to have a certain degree of Sabbatical sacredness attached to it. Josephus gives a decree of Augustus securing, among other liberties to the Jews, exemption from judicial proceedings on the Sabbath, and on paraskeue, after the ninth hour (Ant. 16: 6, 2.) Irenaeus, in his account of the Valentinian System, represents them as connecting the creation of man with the sixth day, because it was the paraskeue (I. 14, 6.) And in a passage quoted by Wetstein, at Matthew 27:62, from a Rabbinical authority, the days of the week are given thus: the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, paraskeue, Sabbath. Clearly therefore the word in question had come to be familiarly applied to denote the day correspending to our Friday, to denote that day as a whole, not merely some concluding fragment of it; but we have no evidence of any such appellation being customary in regard to the Passover Feast. Nor, indeed, can we conceive how it should have been thought of. For, as already stated, even on the first day itself of the feast, a certain freedom was allowed for travelling and preparing victuals ; and the day preceding it must usually have been one of considerable bustle and activity. We hold it, therefore, as established beyond all reason able doubt, that the paraskeue is the day preceding the regular Jewish Sabbath; and that when the Evangelist John speaks of the paschal paraskeue, he is to be understood as meaning simply the Jewish Saturday, the fore-Sabbath of the Passoversolemnity; in other words, not an ordinary preparation-day, but that heightened by the additional solemnities connected with the Passover--such a paraskeue as was itself a sort of Sabbath. Hence he makes the further explanatory statement, that the Sabbath following was a high day, or, lite rally, " Great was the day of that Sabbath." Why should it have been called great? Not surely--though this is very often alleged--because the first day of the Jewish Passover coincided with the ordinary Sabbath; for a great deal had to be done on the first day of the feast, which tended rather to disturb Jewish notions of Sabbatical repose:--the killing of many thousand victims (Josephus even speaks of so many as 200,000,) the pouring of the blood around the altar, the hurrying to and fro of persons performing these services, and all the labour and bustle connected with the cooking of so many suppers. A day, on which all this went on, could scarcely be regarded among the Jews as emphatically a great Sabbath. They were much more likely to apply such an expression to the Sabbath immediately following the Paschal Supper, when, the activities of the feast being over, the assembled people were ready, in vast numbers, and with excited feelings, to engage in the public services of the sanctuary. Thus, every expression receives its most natural explanation; no constraint is put upon any of the words employed either by St. John or by the other Evangelists; while, by giving full play to the historical elements mentioned in the narrative, we have the best grounds for concluding, both that our Lord kept the Passover with His disciples on the 14th of Nisan, on the day prescribed by the law, and observed by the great body of the Jews, and that a faction, but in point of number, only a small faction of these, lost the opportunity of observing it till a later period of the same day. If these positions have been successfully made out, then, in this case, as in so many others connected with the sacred writings, the apparent discrepance in the different statements, as seen from a modern point of view, coupled with the satisfactory explanation, which arises from a careful examination of the circumstances, affords a strong confirmation of the thorough truth fullness and integrity of the writers--greatly more than if their narratives had presented a superficial and obvious agreement. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 01.22. THE USE MADE OF OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE IN THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ======================================================================== Part Third. THE USE MADE OF OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE IN THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE use here referred to has respect simply to the formal quotations made in the New Testament from the Old, and the purposes to which they are applied. There is a more general use pervading the whole of the New Testament writings, and appearing in the constant appropriation of the truths and principles unfolded in Moses and the prophets, of the hopes and expectations that had been thereby awakened, and the very forms of thought and expression to which, as subjects of former revelations, the minds of God’s people had become habituated. In all these respects the New is the continuation and the proper complement of the Old. But beside this general use, which touches more or less on every department of theological inquiry, there is the more formal and specific use, which consists in the citations made by our Lord and His apostles from the inspired writings of the Old Covenant. These are of great number and variety; and are marked by such peculiarities, that it may justly be regarded as one of the chief problems, which modern exegesis has to solve, to give a satisfactory explanation and defence of the mode of quoting and applying Old Testament Scripture in the New. If this cannot be made to appear consistent with the correct interpretation of the Old Testament, and with the principles of plenary inspiration, there is necessarily a most important failure in the great end and object of exegetical studies. It is proper, however, to state at the outset, that a very considerable number of the passages, which may, in a sense, be reckoned quotations from Old Testament Scripture, are better omitted in investigations like the present. They consist of silent, unacknowledged appropriations of Old Testament words or sentences, quite natural for those, who from their childhood had been instructed in the oracles of God, but so employed as to involve no question of propriety, or difficulty of interpretation. The speakers or writers, in such cases, do not profess to give forth the precise words and meaning of former revelations; their thoughts and language merely derived from these the form and direction, which by a kind of sacred instinct they took; and it does not matter for any purpose, for which the inspired oracles were given, whether the portions thus appropriated might or might not be very closely followed, and used in connexions somewhat different from those in which they originally stood. For example, when the Virgin Mary, in her song of praise, says, “He hath filled the hungry with good things,” she uses words exactly agreeing in our version with those in Psalms 106:9, and in the original differing only in its having the singular for hungry and good, where the other has the plural: but nothing scarcely can be said to be either gained or lost by bringing the two passages into comparison, nor can we even be certain, that the later passage was actually derived from the other. Or, when the Apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 3:14-15, of his first epistle, gives the exhortation, “Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts,” there can be no doubt, that he substantially adopts the language of Isaiah, in Isaiah 8:12-13; but as he does not profess to quote what had been written by the prophet, so he reproduces the passage with such freedom, as to manifest, that it was the substance of the exhortation, rather than the ipsissima verba containing it, which he meant to appropriate. There are multitudes of similar examples, which in an exegetical respect involve no difficulty, and call for no special remark; and if noticed at all, it should only be as proofs of the extent to which the ideas and language of the Old Testament have given their impress to the New. Taking in all the instances in which the expressions of the Old Testament are thus used by the authors of the New, as well as the more direct and formal quotations, a number exceeding 600 has been made out. (See the volume of Mr. Gough, “The New Testament Quotations collated with the Scriptures of the Old Testament,” Walton and Maberly, 1855; a volume which shows pains and industry, but is not distinguished for critical ability; and is, besides, too cumbrous and expensive to be of general use.) No proper end, however, could be served hereby exhibiting such a lengthened array as this; it would tend rather to embarrass than promote the object we have in view. Our business must be chiefly with citations of a more formal and explicit kind, fitted, from the manner in which they are employed, to raise the inquiry, whether they are fairly given and legitimately applied. There are properly, however, two points of inquiry—one bearing respect to the form in which the citations appear; the other, to the application made of them. These are two distinct questions. Are the passages quoted from the Old Testament in the New fairly dealt with, simply as quotations? And are the purposes for which they are adduced, and the sense put upon them, in accordance with their original meaning and design? In answer to the first question, it is found, that the quotations fall into four different classes; the first, a very large one, in which they exactly agree with the Hebrew, (often also with the Septuagint;) the second, likewise a considerable one, in which they substantially agree with the Hebrew, the differences being merely formal or circumstantial, and indicating no diversity of sense; the third, those in which the Septuagint is followed, though it diverges to some extent from the Hebrew; and the fourth, a class of passages in which neither the Hebrew nor the Septuagint is quite exactly adhered to. The whole of the passages might be ranged under these different classes; but for purposes of reference and consultation this would give rise to inconvenience; and we shall, therefore, follow the order of the citations themselves, as they occur in the New Testament. In adopting this course, however, we shall not lose sight of the several classes, which shall be marked respectively, I., II., III., IV., and one or other of them appended to each quotation, indicating the class to which it belongs, with a figure besides, denoting its number in that class. A summation will be given, at the close, of the results obtained, and such explanatory remarks added as may seem to be called for. This will occupy the first section. Another section will be devoted to the second point noticed—the sense put upon the passages quoted, and the purposes to which they are applied; in other words, the principles involved in the application made of them. In the great majority of cases, however, the application is so manifestly in accordance with their original meaning and design, that it requires no vindication. All of this description, therefore, will be passed over, and attention directed only to such as involve some apparent license in interpretation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 01.23. QUOTATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW ======================================================================== Section First. Quotations From The Old Testament In The New, Considered In Respect To The Manner Of Citation. THE capital figures employed after each quotation, it will be borne in mind, refer to the several classes indicated above. I. Those in which the Greek exactly corresponds with the Hebrew. II. Those in which it substantially agrees with the Hebrew, the differences being merely circumstantial, and indicating no diversity of sense. ΙΙΙ. Those in which the Septuagint is followed, though it diverges to some extent from the Hebrew. ΙV. Those in which neither the Hebrew nor the Septuagint is exactly adhered to. The numerals subjoined to these figures give the number of that class, reckoning from the commencement of the Gospels. In all cases the exact translation will be given, whether precisely agreeing with the authorized version or not. ST. MATTHEW’S GOSPEL. Matthew 1:22-23. In order that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσουσιν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ: Isaiah 7:14. Behold the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel. II. 1. The deviation here from the exact rendering of the original is very slight and unimportant; it relates only to two expressions, putting “shall be with child” for “shall conceive,” הָרָה, and “they shall call” for “thou shalt call,” קָרָעת. In both cases the Septuagint is closer to the original; it has ἐν γαστρὶ λήψεται, and καλέσεις. Matthew 2:5-6. For thus it is written by the prophet, Καὶ σὺ Βηθλέεμ, γῆ Ἰούδα, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ ἐν τοῖς ἡγεμόσιν Ἰούδα· ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ἐξελεύσεται ἡγούμενος, ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ἰσραήλ: Micah 5:2. And thou Bethlehem, Judah-land, art by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a Governor, who shall rule My people Israel. IV.1. Here the differences are very considerable, both from the Hebrew and from the Septuagint. (1.) Instead of Ephratah, after Bethlehem, the Evangelist puts γῆ Ἰούδα—an elliptical expression for situated in the land of Judah, and, coupled with Bethlehem, making substantially the same meaning as is sometimes expressed in the Old Testament by the compound term, Bethlehem-Judah, (Judges 17:7; Ruth 1:1.) It merely distinguishes that Bethlehem from another in a different locality. So far, the addition of the Evangelist serves much the same purpose as the Ephratah of the prophet, which defined Bethlehem as the place that originally bore the name of Ephratah, (Genesis 35:19.) The Septuagint has οἶκον ʼΕφραθά, which gives no proper sense. (2.) Instead of “thou art by no means least among the rulers of Judah,” the Hebrew has “thou art little to be (too small to be reckoned) among the thousands of Judah,”—צָעִיר לִהְיוֹת בְּאַלְפֵי יְהוּדָה. The Septuagint gives this part of the passage with substantial correctness, ὀλιγοστὸς εἶ τοῦ εἶναι ἐν χιλιάσιν Ιουδα. The words of the Evangelist express a meaning formally different, yet materially the same. Looking at the substance of the original, it intimates, that Bethlehem, little in one respect, scarcely or not at all able to take its place among the ruling divisions of the land, was yet destined to be great in another—as the appointed birth-place of the future Governor of Israel. This two-fold idea is precisely that also which the words of the Evangelist convey—only they contemplate the preceding littleness as in a manner gone, on account of the now realized ultimate greatness: q.d. Thou wast, indeed, among the least, but thou art no longer so, for thou hast already attained to what in the Divine purpose was to make thee great. So that this change, as well as the preceding one, proceeds on the principle of explaining while it quotes—modifying the language, so as, without changing the import, to adapt it to the Evangelist’s times. (3.) The remaining clause is a quite correct, though somewhat free, translation of the original, which hardly admits of a very close rendering lit.—“Out of thee there shall come forth for Me to be Governor in Israel,” מִמְּךָ לִי יֵצֵא לִהְיוֹת מוֹשֵׁל בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל, that is, One shall be raised up there by My special providence, who shall possess the government in Israel; all one in substance with the Evangelist’s “out of thee shall come forth a Governor, who shall rule My people Israel.” (For some explanation of the circumstances connected with the fulfilment of the prophecy, and especially its relation to the governorship of Syria by Cyrenius, as stated in Luke 2:2, see Appendix.) Matthew 2:15. In order that it might be fulfilled which Was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου: Hosea 11:1. Out of Egypt have I called My Son. I. 1. The passage of Hosea is here given with the greatest exactness. The Septuagint is more loose, ἐξ Αἰγ. μετεκάλεσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦ, apparently taking the word for My Son, לִבְנִי as a plural, sons, or children. Matthew 2:18. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through, Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Φωνὴ ἐν Ῥαμὰ ἠκούσθη,ἠκούσθα, (The received text has θρῆνος before κλαυθμὸς, but it wants authority.)κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὀδυρμὸς πολύς·Ῥαχὴλ κλαίουσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς, καὶ οὐκ ἤθελεν παρακληθῆναι, ὅτι οὐκ εἰσίν: Jeremiah 31:15. In Rama was there heard a voice, lamentation and great mourning, Rachel bewailing her children, and refused to be comforted, because they are not. II. 2. The departures from the Hebrew original are here quite trifling; they consist merely in substituting “great mourning for “bitter weeping,” or weeping of bitternesses, בְּכִי תַמְרוּרִים, a correct, though not the most literal translation; and omitting the second mention of her children, which is found in the prophet—“refused to be comforted for her children,” while the Evangelist simply has, “refused to be comforted,” namely, for the loss of her children. What is not expressed is clearly implied. Matthew 2:23. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, ὅτι Ναζωραῖος κληθήσεται, He shall be called a Nazarene. IV. 2. The words here given as a quotation from the prophets are not found in express terms in any one of them; and the mode of quotation, as from the prophets generally, seems to import, that the Evangelist had in view, not a single prediction, but a series of predictions, respecting Messiah, the substance of which might be compressed into the sentence, He shall be called a Nazarene; that is, He shall be a person of low and contemptible appearance, as the inhabitants of Nazareth were in a somewhat peculiar sense esteemed (John 1:46.) The reference appears to be to such passages as Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:1; Zechariah 3:8, Zechariah 6:12, in which the Messiah was spoken of as the offspring of David, that was to grow up as a nezer, or tender shoot; in plain terms, rise from a low condition, encompassed for a time with the emblems of poverty and meanness. Nazareth itself was probably derived from nezer; so that sound and sense here coincided. Matthew 3:3. This is he that was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ· Ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου, εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ; Isaiah 40:3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. II. 3. The same passage is also quoted in Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4, and in precisely the same words. They are directly taken from the Septuagint, except the last expression, τρίβους αὐτοῦ, for which the Septuagint has τρίβους τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν. Both renderings, however, differ slightly from the expression of the prophet, which is “highway for our God,”—מְסִלָּה לֵאלֹהֵינוּ. The sense is entirely the same, only less fully and boldly exhibited by the Evangelists. Matthew 4:4. It is written, Οὐκ ἐπʼ ἄρτῳ μόνῳ ζήσεται ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἀλλʼ ἐπὶ παντὶ ῥήματι ἐκπορευομένῳ διὰ στόματος θεοῦ: Deuteronomy 8:3. Not on bread alone shall man live, but by every word that cometh forth through God’s mouth. I. 2. The passage is most fitly assigned to the first class of quotations; for it is a close translation of the original, down to the last word, the name of God. This is Jehovah in the original, which is usually given in the Greek by Κύριος; but here the Septuagint has Θεοῦ, and it is followed by the Evangelist, as it is also throughout, except in the substitution of ἐν παντὶ instead of ἐπὶ παντὶ. The insertion of ῥήματι in the Septuagint and the Evangelist, without any thing corresponding in the original, is only done to render the sense plain, and cannot justly be regarded as a deviation from the original. Matthew 4:6. For it is written, ὅτι Τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ ἐντελεῖται περὶ σοῦκαὶ ἐπὶ χειρῶν ἀροῦσίν σε, μήποτε προσκόψῃς πρὸς λίθον τὸν πόδα σου: Psalms 91:11-12. He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, and upon their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. I. 3. The meaning of the original is quite exactly given, and given in the words of the Septuagint only a clause is omitted in Psalms 91:11 of the Psalm, “to keep thee in all thy ways.” No change is thereby introduced into the passage, which, as far as it goes, is a faithful reproduction of that in the Psalm. Matthew 4:7. It is again written, Οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις κύριον τὸν θεόν σου: Deuteronomy 6:16. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. I. 4. This must also be regarded as an exact translation; for it merely adopts the singular for the plural—thou for ye; an interchange that is constantly made in the Pentateuch itself, according as Israel was contemplated as a plurality or a unity. The Septuagint here adopts the singular; so the words of the Evangelist exactly correspond with it. Matthew 4:10. For it is written, Κύριον τὸν θεόν σου προσκυνήσεις καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις: Deuteronomy 6:13. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. III. 1. The same words are given in Luke 4:8; they are those of the Septuagint; but they differ so slightly from the Hebrew, that the passage might almost with equal propriety be ranked under class I. The only divergence is in putting “thou shalt worship,” for “thou shalt fear,” תּירָא; The fear undoubtedly includes worship, as its chief outward expression. Matthew 4:14-16. In order that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Γῆ Ζαβουλὼν καὶ γῆ Νεφθαλίμ, ὁδὸν θαλάσσης, πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, Γαλιλαία τῶν ἐθνῶν, ὁ λαὸς ὁ καθήμενος ἐν σκότει φῶς εἶδεν μέγα, καὶ τοῖς καθημένοις ἐν χώρᾳ καὶ σκιᾷ θανάτου φῶς ἀνέτειλεν αὐτοῖς: Isaiah 9:1-2. Land of Zabulon, and land of Nephthalim, way of the sea beyond the Jordan, the people that sat in darkness saw a great light, and for them that sat in the region and shadow of death, light sprung up to them. IV. 3. It is but a part of Isaiah’s prophecy that is here cited; the Evangelist begins in the middle of a sentence, and does not give even the whole of what follows. The entire passage may be thus literally rendered: “As the former time degraded the land of Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim, so the latter makes glorious the way of the sea, the farther side (עַבֶר) of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people (viz. of this Galilee,) those walking in the dark, see a great light, the dwellers in the land of the shadow of death, light rises upon them.” It thus appears, that there are considerable differences between the Evangelist and the prophet, but chiefly in the way of abridgment, His purpose did not require him to produce the whole, and he gives only a part—very naturally, on this account, beginning with a nominative, γῆ Ζαβ., while a fuller quotation would have required the accusative. For the ὁδόν in the next clause, see at p. 42. It has very much the force of a preposition, and means alongside, or by the tract of, viz. the sea; the sea-board portions of the tribes of Zabulon and Naphthali. The only deviation worth naming, in the portion that is fully quoted, from the precise meaning of the original, is in substituting “the people that sat,” for “the people, those walking”—הָעָם הַהֹלְכִים; and “in the land and shadow of death,” for “in the land of the shadow of death”—בְּאֶרֶץ צַלְמָוֶת. The difference in both respects is quite immaterial, and seems to have been adopted for the sake of greater distinctness. The Septuagint differs so much, both from the original and from the Evangelist, that it has manifestly exercised no influence here. Matthew 8:17. So that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Αὐτὸς τὰς ἀσθενείας ἡμῶν ἔλαβεν καὶ τὰς νόσους ἐβάστασεν: Isaiah 53:4. Himself took our sicknesses and bore our pains. I. 5. The Septuagint has here οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται, This one bears our sins, and on our account is put to grief. So that the rendering of the Evange list strikingly departs from it, and does so by adhering more closely to the original. There can be no doubt that this is the case respecting the first clause, “Himself took (i.e., took upon Him נָשָׂא) our sicknesses,” or diseases. But it holds equally of the second clause, which is וּמַכְאֹבֵינוּ סְבָלָם “and our pains He bore them.” The only peculiarity in the Evangelist is, that he employs νόσους in the sense of pains; which, however, is a very common meaning of the word, though not elsewhere found in the New Testament. Matthew 9:13 (Matthew 12:7.) But go and learn what is Ἔλεος θέλω καὶ οὐ θυσίαν: Hosea 6:6. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I. 6. The passage is again quoted on another occasion by our Lord, at Matthew 12:7, and in precisely the same words. They give the literal meaning of the original, and adhere more strictly to the form than the Septuagint, which has Ἔλεος θέλω ἤ θυσίαν. This gives undoubtedly the substantial meaning—I desire, or delight, in mercy rather than sacrificebut it is obtained by a sort of paraphrase. Matthew 11:10. For this is he of whom it is written, Ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου, ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου ἔμπροσθέν σου: Malachi 3:1. Behold I send My messenger before Thy face, and he shall prepare Thy way before Thee. II. 4. In the original it is simply, “Behold I send My messenger (or angel,) and he shall prepare the way before Me.” As given by our Lord, there is a change of person not found in the Hebrew—I send . . . before Thy face, prepare the way before Thee; and it is also a little more explicit—not simply send, but send before Thy face, and prepare, not the way merely, but expressly Thy way. The alterations are, like others of a like kind already noticed, plainly for the sake of explanation. It was in reality the same Divine Being who sent the messenger, and before whom the messenger was to go, preparing the way. But when that Divine Being had become man, and was Himself in the condition of one sent, it was fit that He should somehow indicate the diversity that thus appeared in connexion with the unity. And it was quite naturally done by the change of person introduced, by which the sender appeared in some sense different from the person before whom the messenger went; yet, as the messenger had just been declared to be greater than all the prophets (Matthew 11:9,) who could He be, whose way the messenger went before to prepare, but the Lord Himself, that sent him? This was evident to any thoughtful mind; and to show it was the same, and yet in one sense another, of whom in both parts the prophet spake, was our Lord’s object in slightly altering the original words. The real meaning was not thereby altered; it was only adapted to existing circumstances, and to a certain extent explicated. The Septuagint mistook the meaning of the second clause of the verse, apparently from not knowing that the verb פנָנָּה in the Piel signifies to clear or prepare; so, they rendered פִנָּה־דֶרֶךְ by ἐπιβλέψεται ὁδὸν, he shall survey the way. Matthew 12:17-21. In order that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Esaias the prophet, saying, Ἰδοὺ ὁ παῖς μου ὃν ᾑρέτισα, ὁ ἀγαπητός μου εἰς ὃν εὐδόκησεν ἡ ψυχή μου· θήσω τὸ πνεῦμά μου ἐπʼ αὐτόν, καὶ κρίσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ἀπαγγελεῖ. οὐκ ἐρίσει οὐδὲ κραυγάσει,οὐδὲ ἀκούσει τις ἐν ταῖς πλατείαις τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ. κάλαμον συντετριμμένον οὐ κατεάξει καὶ λίνον τυφόμενον οὐ σβέσει, ἕως ἂν ἐκβάλῃ εἰς νῖκος τὴν κρίσιν. καὶ τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ ἔθνη ἐλπιοῦσιν: Isaiah 42:1-4. Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom My soul is well-pleased; I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall announce judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry, nor shall any one hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He have brought forth judgment into victory. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust. IV. 4. By much the greater part of this passage might be assigned to the first class; for it gives a faithful representation of the original—in this differing favourably from the Septuagint, which presents a very loose and incorrect translation. It merely has, “whom I have chosen,” instead of “whom I up hold”אֶרְמָךְ־בּוֹ ; also, “He shall not strive, nor cry,” instead of “He shall not cry nor lift up,” לֹא יִצְעַק וְלֹא יִשָּׂא ; the former being only “more explicit, and affixing to the lifting up of the prophet the more definite sense of boisterous and wrangling procedure. But at the close of ver. 20, we have “till He have brought forth judgment into victory,” while in the original it is, “He shall bring forth judgment into truth”—לֶאֱמֶת יוֹצִיא מִשְׁפָּט—or rather, “for truth (in the interest of truth) He shall bring forth judgment;” that is to say, His administra tion shall be in accordance with the principles of truth; and that is not materially different from the sense of the Evangelist, who represents the Lord’s servant going on in His quiet, peaceful exercise of goodness, shunning everything that might lead to violent measures, or insurrectionary movements, till judgment—i.e., righteousness in act and power—shall have been rendered triumphant over all that was opposed to it. It is a free rendering of the words of the original, but one that gives with perfect fidelity their scope and import. And the same also may be said of the last clause, “in His name shall the Gentiles trust,” which is the Septuagint rendering for what is literally, “the isles shall wait for His law.” In prophecy “the isles” is often put for the Gentiles; and these being said to wait for His law, is as much as, they look to Him as their Lord, they trust in His name. Matthew 13:14-15. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, Ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε, καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε. ἐπαχύνθη γὰρ ἡ καρδία τοῦ λαοῦ τούτου, καὶ τοῖς ὠσὶν βαρέως ἤκουσαν καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτῶν ἐκάμμυσαν, μήποτε ἴδωσιν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς καὶ τοῖς ὠσὶν ἀκούσωσιν καὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ συνῶσιν καὶ ἐπιστρέψωσιν καὶ ἰάσομαι αὐτούς: Isaiah 6:9-10. Ye shall verily hear, and shall not understand, and shall verily see, and shall not perceive; for this people’s heart has waxed gross, and in their ears they are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and should hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should convert, and I shall heal them. III. 2. The quotation accords throughout with the Septuagint, differing only in the transposition of a single word, putting αὐτῶν after ὀφθαλμοὺς instead of after ὠσὶν. Nor does it any other wise differ from the Hebrew, than by using throughout the future instead of the imperative; what shall be done, accord ing to the Septuagint and the Evangelist, the prophet represents himself as commanded to do. But this was only a stronger form of the future; it ordered the melancholy results spoken of to be accomplished, because these were so clearly foreseen as going to take place, that the Lord might as well instruct His servants to bring them about. Winer, Gr. 44, § 3. So that the Greek version is but the plainer and milder form of the prophetic declaration. In Acts 27:20; Acts 27:27, it occurs again in the same form; and in John 12:40, it is given historically as a state of things actually brought about by the Lord, “He hath blinded their eyes,” etc.; because what, in such circumstances, was commanded to be done, might equally be represented as in the eye of God already in being. In all the places of New Testament Scripture, in which the original passage is cited, it is applied to the mass of the Jewish people of the apostolic age, as if directly spoken of them. But it is clear from the passage itself, that it was uttered respecting that people generally, and that the prophet spoke for a long time to come. Matthew 13:35. So that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Ἀνοίξω ἐν παραβολαῖς τὸ στόμα μου,ἐρεύξομαι κεκρυμμένα ἀπὸ καταβολῆς: Psalms 78:2. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things that have been hidden from the foundation [of the world.] II. 5. In the first member the citation literally agrees with the Septuagint, and only so far differs from the Hebrew, that it puts parables in the plural, instead of in the singular. In the second member, however, the Evangelist very markedly differs from the Septuagint, which has φθέγξομαι προβλήματα ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, will utter problems—dark sentences, enigmas—from the beginning. This is a pretty close rendering of the original Hebrew, אַבִּיעָה חִידוֹת מִנִּי־קֶדֶם; excepting that “from of old,” “from ancient time,” would have been a little closer than “from the beginning;” but the meaning is the same. The version of the Evangelist, which expresses the same general sense, was obviously intended to present a simpler meaning, and to give a sort of explanation of the dark sentences spoken of, and of the ancient time. They were defined to be things that had been hid, not properly understood, and that from the beginning of the world. The ἐρεύξομαι of the Evangelist ex actly corresponds to the Hebrew, both signifying properly to sputter, or belch out, then to give forth, or utter. Matthew 15:4. For God said, Τίμα τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα, καί, Ὁ κακολογῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα θανάτῳ τελευτάτο: Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:16. Honour father and mother; and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. I. 7. This may justly be assigned to the first class; for it gives the exact meaning of the original, only omitting the personal pronouns, thy and his, after father and mother, merely on account of the citations being turned from the form of a direct address into that of a general charge. The Septuagint no further differs, than in having the pronouns, σου in the first verse after father and mother, αὐτοῦ; in the second; and in having τελευτήσει instead of τελευτάτο. In Mark 7:10, the σου is retained in the first part of the citation, but not in the second. Otherwise, it agrees with Matthew. Matthew 15:8-9. Esaias prophesied concerning you, saying, Ὁ λαὸς οὗτος τοῖς χείλεσίν με τιμᾷ, ἡ δὲ καρδία αὐτῶν πόρρω ἀπέχει ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ· μάτην δὲ σέβονταί μεδιδάσκοντες διδασκαλίας ἐντάλματα ἀνθρώπων: Isaiah 29:13. This people honoureth Me with the lips, but their heart keeps far from Me; but in vain do they worship Me, teaching doctrines, commandments of men. III. 3. The Evangelist here so nearly gives the words of the Septuagint, that the passage may be substantially regarded as an adoption of its words. The only difference is, that the Evangelist abbreviates the commencement a little, puts the verb after λαὸς in the singular, τιμᾷ instead of τιμῶσι, and, at the close, while using the same words, places them in another order; the Septuagint has, διδάσκοντες ἐντάλματα ἀνθρώπων καὶ διδασκαλίας. It is in the last part chiefly, that this version differs from an exact impression of the original. For the sentence, “But in vain do they worship Me, teaching doctrines, command ments of men,” the Heb. is וַתְּהִי יִרְאָתָם אֹתִי מִצְוַת אֲנָשִׁים מְלֻמָּדָה, “and their fear toward Me has become a precept of men, taught” (viz. by men, as contradistinguished from God.) An abrupt and somewhat obscure sentence, of which the Septuagint version is a kind of paraphrase, giving what is substantially the same meaning in a fuller and plainer form. They seem to have taken וַתְּהִי for וְתֹהוּ and יִרְאָתָם the second person plural Kal of the verb, thus obtaining the sense, “in vain do they worship Me.” This is not distinctly stated in the original, but it is implied; for their fear toward God being characterized as a fruit of man’s teaching, necessarily bespoke its vanity. Matthew 19:4-5. Have ye not read, that He who made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, Ἕνεκα τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ κολληθήσεται τῇ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν: Genesis 2:24. Therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. II. 6. The Septuagint is here all but adopted, and, for any prac tical purpose, it is of no moment whether we should say, the Hebrew is rendered with substantial correctness, or the Septuagint is in the main followed. The Septuagint differs only in having αὐτοῦ after πατέρα, which the Evangelist omits, and in putting προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα instead of κολληθήσεται τῇ γυναικὶ—variations of no moment. Nor is the difference much greater from the Hebrew: this has his father, and his mother; and instead of they two shall be one flesh, it has simply they shall be one flesh; by the tliey, however, plainly meaning the two in the preceding context. The sense, therefore, is the same. Matthew 19:18-19. Οὐ φονεύσεις, Οὐ μοιχεύσεις, etc. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, etc., precisely as in Exodus 20:12, sq., and Leviticus 19:18. I. 8. Matthew 21:4-5. In order that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying, Εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών, Ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλεύς σου ἔρχεταί σοι πραῢς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὄνον καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου: Zechariah 9:9. Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh to thee, meek and mounted on an ass, and on a colt the foal of a beast of burden. II. 7. There is a peculiarity in the commencement of this citation, the “Say ye to the daughter of Zion” being found, not in Zechariah 9:9, from which what follows is taken, but in Isaiah 62:11; so that there is properly the joining together of two Old Testament passages. They both relate to the same thing—the one more generally, the other more particularly. Isaiah says, “Behold thy Salvation cometh; behold His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.” Zechariah proclaims, not the salvation merely, but the Saviour Himself, and His appearance and character. It is, no doubt, on this account that the two passages are thrown together, and considered as one; although, as it is merely the preamble of Isaiah’s that is taken, the prophecy quoted as now fulfilled is strictly that of Zechariah. As given by the Evangelist, it does not differ much from the Septuagint, but it comes somewhat nearer to the original—omitting, however, one clause, “He is just and having salvation.” The last expression in the original, בֶּן־אֲתֹנוֹת, more exactly means son, or foal of she-asses; according to a common Hebraism, by which the young of a creature is denominated the offspring of that kind of creatures generally; for example, בֶנ כָקָר, son of the herd, offspring of cattle. The Evangelist gives the import more generally, foal of a beast of burden including asses of course, but not specifically designating them. The Septuagint had also given the meaning in a general way—ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὑποζύγιον καὶ πῶλον νέον; and this, no doubt, was partly the reason of the rendering adopted by the Evangelist. Matthew 21:13. And He said unto them, It is written, Ὁ οἶκός μου οἶκος προσευχῆς κληθήσεται, ὑμεῖς δὲ αὐτὸν ποιεῖτε σπήλαιον λῃστῶν: Isaiah 56:7; Jeremiah 7:11. My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye make it a den of thieves (or robbers.) I. 9. It is only the first part of this passage that is properly a citation; and it is a literal version of a part of Isaiah 56:7. It stands there, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Matthew omits the “for all nations,” as Luke also does, but it is given in Mark 11:17. The other part of the passage is the word of Christ Himself, charging the persons before Him with an entire depravation of the character of the temple and a frustration of its design; but He does so in language borrowed from Jeremiah 7:11, where the prophet indignantly asks of the priests and elders of his day, “Is this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?” Our Lord purposely threw His accusation into this form, to impress on the men of His generation, that the iniquities of Jeremiah’s age had again returned, and that consequently like judgments also might be expected. It is an allusion, however, to the prophet’s words, rather than a formal citation of them. Matthew 21:16. Have ye never read, ὅτι Ἐκ στόματος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αἶνον: Psalms 8:2. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise. III. 4. A transcript from the Septuagint. The Hebrew has יִסַּדְתָּ עֹז, Thou hast founded, or, more generally, prepared strength. Earlier commentators gave the sense of praise here, and in some other places, to the noun; and it is still one of the mean ings ascribed to it by Gesenius. Such also must have been the view of the Septuagint translators. In the passages, however, where it is conceived to bear this meaning, it rather in dicates the strength, by which God gets praise to Himself over His enemies, than the praise itself. In Psalms 8:1-9 particularly, the idea of such strength is appropriate; for children are plainly brought in there to show how God, even by such weak and foolish instruments, can put to shame His powerful adversaries; the strength of babes is sufficient for His purpose. So that we must regard our Lord here as adopting the current version of the Septuagint, giving the general sense, though not the precise shade of meaning in the original. It merely differs in directing attention, more to the re sult aimed at, less to the means of accomplishing it. Matthew 21:42. Have ye never read, Λίθον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες, οὗτος ἐγενήθη εἰς κεφαλὴν γωνίας· παρὰ κυρίου ἐγένετο αὕτη καὶ ἔστιν θαυμαστὴ ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν: Psalms 118:22-23. The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner; it was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. I. 10. The Septuagint is followed verbatim, as it is also in Mark 12:10-11; Luke 20:17; and as far as the quotation goes, in Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7. But the Septuagint here gives a close translation of the original. Matthew 22:24. Moses said, If any one die, etc. The reference is to Deuteronomy 25:5; but the passage cannot justly be regarded as a quotation; it merely professes to give the substance of a provision in the Mosaic law. Matthew 22:31-32. Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ θεὸς Ἀβραὰμ, καὶ ὁ θεὸς Ἰσαὰκ καὶ ὁ θεὸς Ἰακώβ: Exodus 3:6. I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I. 11. At once coincides with the Septuagint, and closely adheres to the Hebrew, but omits what is in both, after I am, “of thy father,” as not bearing on the point in hand. Matthew 22:37. Jesus said to him, Ἀγαπήσεις κύριον τὸν θεόν σου ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ καρδίᾳ σου καὶ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ ψυχῇ σου: Deuteronomy 6:5. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with (or in) all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. I. 12. The passage keeps closer to the Hebrew than to the Sep tuagint, which uses the preposition ἐξ instead of ἐν. The only apparent deviation from the exact import of the original, is at the close, in rendering בְכָל־מְאֹדֶךָ with all thy mind, as strength is the more proper meaning of the noun; but it is mental strength that is meant; and consequently mind is really the same, denoting the full bent and purpose of soul. Matthew 22:39. Ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν: Leviticus 19:18. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. I. 13. An exact translation, found previously in the Septuagint. Matthew 22:43-44. How then doth David in Spirit call Him Lord, saying, Εἶπεν Κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου, Κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου, ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν σου: Psalms 110:1. The Lord said to my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. I. 14. Also an exact translation, and differing from the Septua gint only in having ὑποκάτω instead of ὑποπόδιον. The sense is the same in both. The passage is cited in the same terms in Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42; Acts 2:35; Hebrews 1:13; but in the last three with ὑποπόδιον. Matthew 26:31. For it is written, Πατάξω τὸν ποιμένα,καὶ διασκορπισθήσονται τὰ πρόβατα τῆς ποίμνης: Zechariah 13:7. I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. II. 8. The rendering hero is nearer to the Hebrew than the Septuagint, but it differs in putting the first verb in the first per son future instead of in the imperative, as in the Hebrew, and also in adding τῆς ποίμνης for which there is nothing to correspond, either in the Hebrew or in the Septuagint. This addition is omitted in Mark 14:27. The passage, as given in Matthew, is merely the simpler and more explicit form of that in Zechariah; by using the first person future of the verb πατάσσω, the action is more distinctly referred to God, and by calling the sheep the sheep of the flock, they are more pointedly described as the Lord’s select people. Both, however, were implied in the original passage. Matthew 27:9-10. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, Καὶ ἔλαβον τὰ τριάκοντα ἀργύρια, τὴν τιμὴν τοῦ τετιμημένου ὃν ἐτιμήσαντο ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ, 10 καὶ ἔδωκαν αὐτὰ εἰς τὸν ἀγρὸν τοῦ κεραμέως, καθὰ συνέταξέν μοι Κύριος: Zechariah 11:13. And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him that was valued, whom they valued from (i.e., on the part of) the children of Israel, and gave them for the potter’s field, according as the Lord appointed me. IV. 5. The most striking peculiarity in connexion with this citation, is the circumstance of its being ascribed to Jeremiah, while in reality it is found in the writings of Zechariah. This point will be considered in Section Second, as it bears upon the mode of application. Viewing the words as those of the prophet Zechariah, there certainly are considerable differences between the original Hebrew and the Evangelist’s version, though they affect the form only, and not the substance. The Septuagint differs again so materially from both, that it can have exercised no influence. The passage in Zechariah runs literally thus, “And the Lord said to me, Cast it (viz., the price, mentioned immediately before) to the potter, a glorious price which I was prized at of them (מֵעֲלֵיהֶם, from off them, on their part;) and I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them into the house of the Lord for the potter (i.e. that they might be given to the potter.”) Here, the whole assumes the form of a transaction between the Lord and the prophet, who personates the Divine Shepherd, thus meanly rated by the people; in the Evangelist, the people themselves are represented as doing all—as might, indeed, have been understood, would be the case, when the prophecy passed into the reality. The change in this respect, therefore, is entirely of the same kind with that which was made at Matthew 11:10 and Matthew 13:14; a change from the first person to the third, to adapt the words more palpably to the historical fulfilment, and render them more transparent in meaning. The same object led to the other alterations. In the original, the passage is very strongly enigmatical; and so, instead of Jiterally quoting it, the Evangelist presents a sort of paraphrase of the words. But there are in both the same leading ideas,—viz. that the Lord’s representative, the Shepherd of Israel, had a price set upon Him—that this price was the miserable sum of thirty pieces of silver—that the transaction was gone into on the part of the people, and consequently by those who had to do with the house of the Lord—that, in token of the baseness of the transaction, the money was to be somehow consigned to the potter—and that the hand of the Lord was to be remarkably seen in the ordering of what took place. The words at the close, “according as the Lord commanded me,” answer to the pre amble in the prophet, “And the Lord said to me,” coupled with the imperative form of what follows. The disposal of the price of blood was described as of the Lord’s appointment; and, in like manner, in the history, while Jewish rulers alone are mentioned as doing all, it is plainly implied, that the hand of God directed the course of events into the particular channel they took. Matthew 27:46. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, ̓Ηλὶ ̓ηλὶ λαμὰ σαβαχθανί; τοῦτʼ ἔστιν, Θεέ μου θεέ μου, ἱνα τί με ἐγκατέλιπες; Psalms 22:1. My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? I. 15. The Hebrew is exactly given, but given in the words of the Septuagint. Mark only so far differs, that instead of θεέ he has ὁ Θεός, and instead of ἱνα τί he has εἰς τί. The sense is quite the same. ST. MARK’S GOSPEL. Mark 1:2-3. As it is written in Esaias the prophet, Ἰδοὺ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου, ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου· φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, Ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου, εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ: Malachi 3:1; Isaiah 40:3. Behold I send my Messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare thy way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. II. 9. The Old Testament passages have been already noticed—the latter at Matthew 3:3, where it appears in precisely the same form; the former at Matthew 11:10, from which the words here no further differ, than in substituting ὃς for καὶ before κατασκευάσει, merely turning the second member of the verse from an independent into a relative clause; and by leaving out at the close ἔμπροσθέν σου. This abbreviates the passage, and so far departs from the original, but the meaning is not altered. For the principle of coupling two prophets together, and under the name only of one introducing quotations from both, see the remarks in Section Second, No. VIII., near the close. Mark 4:12. In order that βλέποντες βλέπωσιν καὶ μὴ ἴδωσιν, καὶ ἀκούοντες ἀκούωσιν καὶ μὴ συνιῶσιν, μήποτε ἐπιστρέψωσιν καὶ ἀφεθῇ αὐτοῖς: Isaiah 6:9-10. Seeing they might see, yet perceive not, and hearing might hear, yet understand not, lest at any time they should convert, and it be forgiven to them. IV. 6. The Evangelist does not expressly cite these words; and we only know, from their substantial agreement with the passage referred to in Isaiah, that they are a virtual quotation from the prophet. From the manner in which the passage is given, however, it is evident that the Evangelist only meant to give the substance of what was written. And accordingly, the words actually produced are a sort of compound of the first and second part of the original passage; and, intent on the spiritual import of the prophecy, the closing member, “and it be healed to them,” is here turned into “and it be forgiven to them.” This, doubtless, was what was really meant; but in so changing the passage here, and in the other parts, it is plain that the Evangelist thought it enough to give the substance. Mark 7:6-7. See at Matthew 15:8-9. Mark 7:10. See at Matthew 15:4. Mark 10:7. See at Matthew 19:5. Mark 11:17. See at Matthew 21:13. Mark 12:11. See at Matthew 21:42. Mark 12:26. See at Matthew 22:32. Mark 12:29-30. The first commandment of all is Ἄκουε, Ἰσραήλ, κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν, καὶ ἀγαπήσεις κύριον τὸν θεόν σου ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας σου καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς σου καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς διανοίας σου καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ἰσχύος σου: Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God out of all thy heart, and out of all thy soul, and out of all thy mind, and out of all thy strength. IV. 7. It is necessary to assign this quotation to the last class; since, while very nearly coinciding with the Septuagint, it still slightly differs, without following the Hebrew. The difference is increased by the clause, ἐξ ὅλης τῆς διανοίας σου, for which there is nothing corresponding either in the Septuagint or in the Hebrew; but it seems doubtful, if the clause should form part of the text. Tischendorf omits it. Besides this, however, there is the substitution of ἰσχύος for the δυνάμεώς of the Septuagint. The change renders it fully more close to the Hebrew; and, (supposing the clause above noticed being unauthorized,) the only departure from the exact translation of the Hebrew is in the preposition ἐξ, instead of ἐν—pointing more distinctly to the action of Divine love, as being from within outwards, and not simply to its having its seat within. Mark 12:31. See at Matthew 22:39. Mark 12:36. See at Matthew 22:43-44. Mark 14:27. See at Matthew 26:31. Mark 15:28. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which said; Καὶ μετὰ ἀνόμων ἐλογίσθη, and He was numbered with the transgressors. The passage is a literal translation of Isaiah 53:12; but the whole verse is wanting in the best MSS., A B C D X, and it is consequently omit ted in the later editions of the text. Mark 15:31. See at Matthew 27:46. ST. LUKE’S GOSPEL. Luke 1:17, comp. with Malachi 4:5-6; Luke 1:37, comp. Genesis 18:14; Luke 1:46, comp. with 1 Samuel 2:2, sq.: Luke 1:76, comp. with Malachi 3:1; Luke 1:78, comp. with Malachi 4:2;—in these and various other parts of the first chapter of this Gospel, there are references to passages in Old Testament Scripture; but they are concealed references, the meaning of the original Scriptures being adopted, and their language, with more or less exactness, also employed, but without any formal citation of them. The object of the references, indeed, is as much for the purpose of elucidating the Old, as confirming the New; and hence there is a considerable freedom in the mode of using the original. Luke 2:4. According to that which is said in the law of the Lord, ζεῦγος τρυγόνων ἢ δύο νοσσοὺς περιστερῶν: Leviticus 12:8. A pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons. I. 16. The translation is as literal as it could well be; for the expression in the original, “two sons of a pigeon,” is but a Hebraism for “two young pigeons.” The rendering of the Evangelist very nearly accords also with the Septuagint. Luke 3:4-6. As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, Φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν Κυρίου, εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ· πᾶσα φάραγξ πληρωθήσεται καὶ πᾶν ὄρος καὶ βουνὸς ταπεινωθήσεται, καὶ ἔσται τὰ σκολιὰ εἰς εὐθείαν καὶ αἱ τραχεῖαι εἰς ὁδοὺς λείας· καὶ ὄψεται πᾶσα σὰρξ τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ: Isaiah 40:3-5. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and things crooked shall be [made] into straight [paths,] and rough ways into those of smoothness; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. III. 5. The citation so nearly agrees with the Septuagint, that the Evangelist may justly be held to have followed it. The first part of the passage occurred also in Matthew and Mark; and here too, as with them, the departure from the Septuagint and the Hebrew merely consists in substituting αὐτοῦ for τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν. This Evangelist alone gives the latter and longer part of the passage; and the language, throughout, with only very slight and superficial differences, is that of the Septuagint. The Septuagint has πάντα before τὰ σκολιὰ; it has τραχεῖα instead of τπαχεῖαι, and πεδία instead of ὀδοὺς λείας; no difference in meaning, grammatical diversities chiefly. The last clause, which, according to the Hebrew, is, “And all flesh shall see it together,” is in the Septuagint and Evangelist, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” The object to be seen—the salvation of God—appears to have been introduced for the sake of explanation. The manifestation of God spoken of was plainly that of God as the Saviour of His people; and the Septuagint translator merely expressed what was implied in the preceding context. Luke 4:4. See at Matthew 4:4. Luke 4:8. See at Matthew 4:8. Luke 4:10-11. See at Matthew 4:6. Luke 4:12. See at Matthew 4:7. Luke 4:17-19. Opening the book, He found the place where it was written, Πνεῦμα Κυρίου ἐπʼ ἐμὲ οὗ εἵνεκεν ἔχρισέν με εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς, ἀπέσταλκέν με, [ἰάσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν καρδίαν—of somewhat doubtful authority,] κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν, ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει, κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν Κυρίου δεκτόν: Isaiah 61:1-2. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; because that He anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor, sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. IV. 8. Supposing the clause within brackets to be a part of the text, the Evangelist has followed the Septuagint precisely as far as ἀνάβλεψιν; but after that he inserts the clause, ἀποστεῖλαι τεθ. ἐν ἀφέσει, not found in the Septuagint, and in the last clause, which is in the Septuagint, substitutes κηρύξαι for καλέσαι. It is obvious, that the Septuagint has been mainly followed, even though its rendering is not very literal. Thus, instead of poor, as the persons preached to, the Hebrew ex presses rather humble or meekעֲנָוִים and for healing the broken hearted, it has bind up. But in such a connexion binding up and healing convey much the same meaning, and the poor must plainly be understood, partly at least, in a moral sense. The clause, “recovering of sight to the blind,” corresponds to what in the authorized version of that part of Isaiah, runs “the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” But the original, לַאֲסוּרִים פְּקַח־קוֹחַ, literally is, “and to the bound open-opening,” or complete release from the evil under which they laboured. The evil itself is not distinctly expressed; and it is only by a sort of conjecture that prison has been inserted. The verb is almost always used of opening blind eyes (for example, in Isaiah 42:7, Isaiah 50:10,) which accounts for the rendering of the Septuagint. The translator merely sought to bring out the meaning more definitely; and even now—after all the helps of modern learning have been called into requisition—this substantially is the sense that approves itself to some as the best. Dr. Alexander holds, that “the only natural sense which can be put upon the words, is that of spiritual blindness and illumination.” The clause, ἀποστεῖλαι τεθ. ἐν ἀφέσει, appears to have been imported from another part of Isaiah, ch. 58:6. But how it should have come to be introduced here, is incapable of any proper explanation. Luke 7:27. See at Matthew 11:10. Luke 10:27. See at Matthew 22:37, and Mark 12:29. Luke 19:46, Luke 20:17, Luke 20:42-43. See at Matthew 21:13, Matthew 21:42, Matthew 22:43-44. Luke 22:37. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in Me, ὅτι καὶ μετὰ ἀνόμων ἐλογίσθη: Isaiah 53:12. And He was numbered with the transgressors. I. 17. An exact rendering of the Hebrew, and but slightly differing from the Septuagint, which has ἐν τοῖς ἀνομοις. Luke 23:46. El εἰς χεῖράς σου παρατίθεμαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου.: Psalms 31:6. Into Thy hands I commit My spirit. I. 18. The words exactly accord with the original, and only so far differ from the Septuagint, that the latter has παραθήσομαι, the future, instead of the present. The received text has also the future; but there can be no doubt that the other is the correct form, which is that exhibited in the older MSS. ST. JOHN’S GOSPEL. John 1:23. See at Matthew 3:3. There is here the substitution of εὐθύνατε for ἑτοιμάσατε. John 2:17. His disciples remembered, that it was written, Ὁ ζῆλος τοῦ οἴκου σου καταφάγεταί με: Psalms 69:9. The zeal of thine house consumes me. I. 19. It only differs from the Septuagint by using the present instead of the past tense of the verb. The Septuagint has κατέφαγε. The original is closely adhered to. John 6:31. According as it is written, Ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς φαγεῖν:Psalms 78:24. He gave them bread out of heaven to eat. II. 10. The more precise rendering of the Hebrew is, “Corn of heaven” (דְגַן־שָׁמַיִם) He gave them.” The Septuagint corresponds with the Evangelist, excepting that it was simply οὐρανοῦ, without the preposition and the article. John 6:45. It is written in the prophets, Καὶ ἔσονται πάντες διδακτοὶ θεοῦ: Isaiah 54:13. And they shall be all taught of God. II. 11. The form of citation is very general: “in the prophets,” as if our Lord had various passages in view, the substance of which alone He meant to give. The words, however, so nearly coincide with the passage in Isaiah referred to, that this is justly regarded as the original. The sense only is given; the more exact rendering is, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord;” with which also the Septuagint agrees. John 10:34. Is it not written in your law, ὅτι Ἐγὼ εἶπον, Θεοί ἐστε: Psalms 82:6. I said, Ye are gods. I. 20. In accordance both with the Hebrew and the Septuagint. John 12:14-15. According as it is written, Μὴ φοβοῦ, θυγάτηρ Σιών· ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλεύς σου ἔρχεται, καθήμενος ἐπὶ πῶλον ὄνου: Zechariah 9:9. Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold thy King corneth to thee upon an ass’s colt. IV. 9. Comp. at Matthew 21:5. The passage is here given in a somewhat abbreviated form, and so as merely to convey the general sense. It hence does not literally accord with the Hebrew, yet differs but slightly from it, as far as the quotation goes: there is “fear not” instead of “rejoice,” and “sitting” instead of “riding”—differences of no moment. John 12:38. That the saying of the prophet Esaias might be fulfilled, which he spake, Κύριε, τίς ἐπίστευσεν τῇ ἀκοῇ ἡμῶν; καὶ ὁ βραχίων κυρίου τίνι ἀπεκαλύφθη; Isaiah 53:1. Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? I. 21. The Septuagint is here followed in the closest manner; but the Hebrew, at the same time, is literally rendered. Only the passage begins with a Κύριε, which is in the Septuagint, but has nothing corresponding in the Hebrew. John 12:43. See at Matthew 13:15. John 13:18. In order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Ὁ τρώγων μου τὸν ἄρτον ἐπῆρεν ἐπʼ ἐμὲ τὴν πτέρναν αὐτοῦ: Psalms 41:9. He that eateth bread with Me, lifted up his heel against Me. II. 12. The words are fully nearer to the Hebrew than the Septuagint, and differ from it so little, that the sense is no way interfered with. The precise import of the Hebrew is, “He that ate My bread, magnified against Me the heel.” To magnify the heel is a peculiar expression, and undoubtedly means the same as the simpler phrase, “Lift up the heel;” namely, for the purpose of kicking, or overthrowing his benefactor. John 15:25. In order that the word might be fulfilled, which is written in their law, ὅτι ἐμίσησάν με δωρεάν: Psalms 109:3. They hated me without a cause. II. 13. The original is יִּלָּחֲמוּנִי חִנָּם, they fought against Me gratuitously, or without a cause; which the Septuagint also expresses by ἐπολέμησαν. The fighting, of course, implied the hatred, and was but the expression of it; so that the sense is substantially the same. And possibly this mode of rendering was adopted to indicate more distinctly the moral nature of the conflict, and divert the minds of the disciples from external weapons of violence. John 19:24. In order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτιά μου ἑαυτοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἱματισμόν μου ἔβαλον κλῆρον: Psalms 22:18. They parted My garments among themselves, and upon My vesture they cast lot. I. 22. The words are taken verbatim from the Septuagint, which here exactly render the Hebrew. John 19:36. In order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Ὀστοῦν οὐ συντριβήσεται αὐτοῦ: Exodus 12:46. A bone of Him shall not be broken. I. 23. The words again correspond with the Septuagint, and give a literal rendering of the Hebrew, with the trifling exception of a change of person and voice in the verb, to agree better with the application made of the prescription: instead of “Ye shall not break a bone,” “A bone shall not be broken.” John 19:37. Another Scripture saith, Ὄψονται εἰς ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν: Zechariah 12:10. They shall look unto Him whom they pierced. I. 24. An exact rendering of the original, with simply a change of person, to adapt to the occasion, as a word spoken of the Messiah, not by Him, as in the prophet: hence, look unto Him, not, unto Me. The Septuagint expresses it quite differently, ἐπιβλέψονται πρός με ἀνθ̓ ὧν κατωρχήσαντο. ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Acts 1:20. For it is written in the book of Psalms, Γενηθήτω ἡ ἔπαυλις αὐτοῦ ἔρημος καὶ μὴ ἔστω ὁ κατοικῶν ἐν αὐτῇ: Psalms 69:25. Let his habitation be desolate, and let there be none dwelling in it. II. 14. The sense is entirely that of the original; only what is there in the plural is here applied to an individual, and in the last clause, “in their tents” is omitted, and a reference made by the pronoun to the habitation in the preceding clause. The Septuagint does not differ materially. Acts 1:20. And Τὴν ἐπισκοπὴν αὐτοῦ λαβέτω ἕτερος: Psalms 109:8. Let another take his office. I. 25. An exact version of the original, and a transcript of the Septuagint, except in having λαβέτω for λάβοι. Acts 2:16-21. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet [Joel,] Καὶ ἔσται ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις, etc. The whole of this long passage is, with a few exceptions, a transcript of the Septuagint, and, as the Septuagint is here very faithful to the Hebrew, it is at the same time a close version. The Καὶ ἔσται ἐν ταῖς ἐσχ. ἡμέραις of the Evangelist is substituted for μετὰ ταῦτα of the Septuagint, and אַחֲרֵ־כֵן of the Hebrew; and there is a change of order in the two clauses of the second division of Acts 2:17; at the close of Acts 2:18 the Evangelist adds, καὶ προφητεύσουσιν apparently for the purpose of rendering more explicit the intended result of the Spirit’s effusion, resuming what had been in that respect indicated before; and, lastly, in Acts 2:19, there is for ἐν οὐρανῷ of the Septuagint, ἐν τῷ οὐρ. ἄνω; also for καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, there is καὶ σημεῖα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς κάτω. The slight additions are all of an explanatory kind; they seem to have been designed to render the meaning at certain places somewhat more pointed and explicit. Though the passage approaches very nearly to the first class, it should perhaps strictly be ranked with the second. II. 15. Acts 2:25-28. For David saith respecting Him, Προορώμην τὸν Κύριον ἐνώπιόν μου διὰ παντός, etc.: Psalms 16:8, sq. The passage throughout is taken verbatim from the Septuagint. But the translation gives the original very faithfully—the only, and that a very slight deviation, being in Psalms 16:8, second member, where the original expresses, “Because He is at my right hand, I shall not he moved;” while the other has, “Because He is at my right hand, in order that I may not be moved.” In rendering, however, so as to give the meaning at once of the Hebrew and of the Greek, the first clause should run, not as in the English version, “I foresaw the Lord,” but “I proposed,” or set, “the Lord;” and again, at Acts 2:27, instead of, “Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell,” the exact import is, “Thou wilt not leave (give up, abandon) My soul to Hades,” ὐκ ἐγκαταλείψεις τὴν ψυχήν μου εἰς ᾅδην. I. 26. Acts 2:34-35. See at Matthew 22:44. Acts 3:22-23. Moses said, “ὅτι Προφήτην ὑμῖν ἀναστήσει Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ὑμῶν ἐκ τῶν ἀδελφῶν ὑμῶν ὡς ἐμέ· αὐτοῦ ἀκούσεσθε κατὰ πάντα ὅσα ἂν λαλήσῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς. Εσται δὲ πᾶσα ψυχὴ ἥτις ἐὰν μὴ ἀκούσῃ τοῦ προφήτου ἐκείνου ἐξολεθρευθήσεται ἐκ τοῦ λαοῦ.: Deuteronomy 18:15, Deuteronomy 18:18-19. The Lord your God shall raise up to you of your brethren a Prophet, like me; Him shall ye hear, in all things whatsoever He may speak to you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul which will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. IV. 10. This citation differs as remarkably from the Septuagint as that of Acts 3:25-26 coincides with it; there is some resemblance between them in the first part of the passage, but in the latter part, not an expression is the same. Acts 3:22 is an exact rendering of the Hebrew, as far as “Him shall ye hear,” with which Deuteronomy 18:15 terminates. But instead of proceeding right onwards, or passing over to Acts 3:19, in what follows the substance is given of the latter part of Acts 3:18, together with Acts 3:19. “He shall speak unto them,” it was said, in Acts 3:18, “all that I shall command Him.” This substantially is added after the quotation from Acts 3:15, “Him shall ye hear, in all things whatsoever He may speak to you” the things, namely, that the Lord should command Him to speak. And then the general import of Acts 3:19 is given. According to the original it is, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoeverwill not hearken to My words, which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.” St. Peter makes it somewhat more specific, putting “every soul,” instead of “whosoever,” and “he shall be destroyed from among the people,” instead of “I will require it of him.” Not different in reality. Acts 3:25. Saying to Abraham, Καὶ ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου [ἐν]ευλογηθήσονται πᾶσαι αἱ πατριαὶ τῆς γῆς: Genesis 22:18. And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. II. 16. It follows the Septuagint, with the exception of πατριαὶ, which it substitutes for ἔθνη. The Hebrew has גּוֹיֵי, and consequently agrees with the Septuagint. In the original call, however, as given at Genesis 12:3, the term for families is used, although the Septuagint there uses φυλαί. Acts 4:11. See at Matthew 21:42. Acts 4:25-26. Who didst speak through the mouth of thy servant David, Ἱνατί ἐφρύαξαν ἔθνη καὶ λαοὶ ἐμελέτησαν κενά;παρέστησαν οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες συνήχθησαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ: Psalms 2:1-2. Why did heathen rage, and peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood forth, (or up,) and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against His Christ. I. 27. A literal transcript of the Septuagint, and also a fair version of the Hebrew. Acts 7:3, Acts 7:6-7, Acts 7:26-28, Acts 7:32-35, Acts 7:37, Acts 7:40, Acts 7:42-43, Acts 7:49-50 :—In all these verses the words of Old Testament Scripture are referred to, and cited in the course of Stephen’s speech. With only one or two slight verbal exceptions, the Septuagint is followed, in which the plain sense of the Hebrew for the most part is given. But as the passages are recited in a merely historical way, and no specific application made of them, further than what is implied in their having a place in such a speech, it is unnecessary to exhibit them here in detail. No principle of interpretation is involved in the use made of them by Stephen. Acts 8:32-33. Here again there is a simple production of an Old Testament passage, as found in the extant Greek translation, and. perused by the eunuch in his carriage. The version accords generally, though not exactly, with the Hebrew. Acts 13:32-33. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, having raised up Jesus, as also in the second Psalm it is written, Υἱός μου εἶ σύ, ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε: Psalms 2:7. Thou art My Son, today have I begotten Thee. I. 28. The words are precisely those of the Septuagint, which closely render the Hebrew. As to the form of quotation, some MSS. have ἐν τῷ πρώτῷ ψαλμῷ, which is preferred by Lachmann and Tischendorf. If this be the correct reading, the apparent incorrectness is easily accounted for by the known practice of the Jews, to regard the first psalm as a sort of general introduction to the whole collection. In that case, what is now reckoned the second psalm would naturally be viewed as the first. Acts 13:34. But that He raised Him from the dead, no longer going to return to corruption, He spake after this manner, ὅτι δώσω ὑμῖν τὰ ὅσια Δαυὶδ τὰ πιστά: Isaiah 4:3. I will give you the sure mercies of David. I. 29. The words again are those of the Septuagint, which correspond with the Hebrew; only δώσω is introduced at the beginning, as necessary to give a complete sense. Acts 13:35. See at Acts 2:27. Acts 13:40-41. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets, Ἴδετε, οἱ καταφρονηταί, καὶ θαυμάσατε καὶ ἀφανίσθητε, ὅτι ἔργον ἐργάζομαι ἐγὼ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ὑμῶν, ἔργον ὃ οὐ μὴ πιστεύσητε ἐάν τις ἐκδιηγῆται ὑμῖν: Habakkuk 1:5. Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and vanish; for I will work a work in your days, a work which ye will in no wise believe, if one should declare it to you. III. 6. The Septuagint is followed with such slight variations as are scarcely worth noticing. It omits the καὶ ἐπιβλέψατε of the Septuagint, which form its second clause, and also θαυμάσια, which it has after θαυμάσατε. It also inserts a second ἔργον—ἔργον ὁ ού μὴ—which is wanting in the Septuagint. The Hebrew expresses substantially the same meaning, but instead of “ye despisers,” has “ye among the heathen,”—which undoubtedly points to the moral condition of the persons addressed, their heathenish, ungodly state of mind, rather than to their local position; and it also has nothing precisely corresponding to the ἀφανίσθητε of the Greek. The idea conveyed by this is implied rather than expressed in the original. That the passage is quoted so generally as “from the prophets,” is to be explained, partly, from the circumstance to be noticed in the elucidation of Matthew 21:5,—that the minor prophets are scarcely ever individually mentioned; and partly because there is probably a reference to the very similar prophecy of Isaiah 28:14, which may be regarded as the foundation of that in Habakkuk. Acts 13:47. For so hath the Lord commanded us, Τέθεικά σε εἰς φῶς ἐθνῶν τοῦ εἶναί σε εἰς σωτηρίαν ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς: Isaiah 49:6. I have appointed Thee for a light of the Gentiles, that Thou shouldst be for salvation to the ends of the earth. I. 30. The Septuagint is again followed, excepting that the Hebrew is more closely rendered at the beginning, by the Τέθεικά σε, for which the Septuagint has δέδωκά σε διαθήκην γένους. The passage before us differs from the Hebrew only in the latter expressing My salvation, instead of simply, salvation. Acts 15:16-17. As it is written, Μετὰ ταῦτα ἀναστρέψω καὶ ἀνοικοδομήσω τὴν σκηνὴν Δαυὶδ τὴν πεπτωκυῖαν καὶ τὰ κατεσκαμμένα αὐτῆς ἀνοικοδομήσω καὶ ἀνορθώσω αὐτήν, ὅπως ἂν ἐκζητήσωσιν οἱ κατάλοιποι τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὸν Κύριον καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐφʼ οὓς ἐπικέκληται τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐπʼ αὐτούς, λέγει Κύριος ποιῶν ταῦτα: Amos 9:11-12. After these things I will return, and will build up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; so that the residue of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. III. 7. The citation is made almost verbatim from the Septuagint; but instead of μετὰ ταῦτα ἀναστρέψω, the commencement, the Septuagint has ἐν τῆ ἡμέρα ἐκείνῃ. The latter is what the original expresses; and the explanation of the diversity here in the address of James is, no doubt, to be found in the desire to indicate briefly the period to which the prophecy referred, as implied in the context: it was to be after the times of judgment and humiliation there threatened had run their course. The Septuagint also, at least in most MSS., wants the τὸν Κύριον in the second verse, though this seems requisite to complete the meaning; and it has after the ἀνορθώσω αὐτήν, what is omitted here, καθὼς αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ αἰωιος, as in the days of eternity, or of old. Down to this point, or throughout the first of the two verses quoted, the Septuagint renders the original closely; but after that it deviates very considerably from the Hebrew, though it still expresses the general sense. The meaning of the original, however, is so plain, that it is difficult to understand how it should have been so rendered. “So that they may possess (or inherit, the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen”—this is what in the Septuagint is turned into, “So that the residue of men may seek [the Lord], and all the Gentiles.” It has been supposed they might have had a text, of which that was the literal rendering; but this is doubtful, as all the MSS. give the reading of the received text. The reasons for the deviation can be only conjectural. But as it is clear, that Edom was particularized by the prophet, only on “account of the enmity which animated the heathen toward Israel having assumed in them its keenest form,—so that “Edom and all the heathen” was as much as “all the heathen, not excepting even Edom,”—consequently, the rendering of the Septuagint, adopted by Luke, “the residue of men and all the heathen,” comes, though in a general way, to much the same thing; it denotes all sorts of heathen, wherever a residue of the old tribes might be found. And that instead of Israel possessing them, they should be represented as themselves making inquiry after God, the “great fact is still indicated, that there was to be an entire change of relationship between the covenant people and the heathen; instead of hating and fighting against them, the heathen were to make suit to them, arid press forward to obtain a share in their peculiar privileges. But this, in substance, is all one with Israel possessing them, in the sense meant by the prophet; he meant, that Israel was to become, in what was really important, the head of all the nations, and all were to come to them for blessing. So that, while the import is very much generalized in the rendering adopted, the leading ideas of the prophet are still conveyed. And they are quite apposite to the point at issue; for they imply, that there were to be tribes of men seeking after God, yea, over whom His name was called as peculiarly His own, who yet were formally different from the family of Israel. Acts 28:26-27. See at Matthew 13:14. ROMANS. Romans 1:17. As it is written, “Ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται: Habakkuk 2:4. But (or, now) the just shall live of faith. II. 17. According to the original it is, And the just shall live by his faith; or, as it may be rendered, And the righteous through his faith shall he live. The apostle, undoubtedly, gives the virtual import; for, as the suffix in the original, אֱמוּנָתֹו, undoubtedly refers to the righteous person, the apostle could, without the least injury to the sense, leave out the his. The saying is again quoted in Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38. The Septuagint only differs from the apostle’s citation by inserting μου after πιστεώς. Romans 2:24 and Romans 3:4 adopt the words of Isaiah 3:5, and Psalms 51:4, as given by the Septuagint, and correctly ex pressing the original; but the words are simply appropriated as suitable to the subject of the apostle’s remarks, and are not introduced as having any special or prophetical reference to it. Acts 3:10-18 is a series of quotations, in like manner, from Psalms 14:5-7, Psalms 140:3, Psalms 10:7; Isaiah 59:7-8; Psalms 36:1, cited merely as proof texts on the subject of human depravity and corruption, and without any peculiar Christian application. They are all taken from the Septuagint, with occasional slight alterations, which indicate no material difference of meaning, and call for no explanatory remark. Romans 4:3. For what saith the Scripture, Ἐπίστευσεν δὲ Ἀβραὰμ τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην: Genesis 15:6. And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. I. 31. The rendering is that of the Septuagint, and it gives the original with sufficient exactness. What in the one is “He counted it,” is merely put passively in the other, “it was counted to him.” Romans 4:6-7. According as also David saith, Μακάριοι ὧν ἀφέθησαν αἱ ἀνομίαι καὶ ὧν ἐπεκαλύφθησαν αἱ ἁμαρτίαι·μακάριος ἀνὴρ οὗ οὐ μὴ λογίσηται κύριος ἁμαρτίαν: Psalms 32:1-2. Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are pardoned: blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. I. 32. The plural is here adopted in the first of the two verses,—“blessed they—sins transgressions; “while the original has the singular. But the words are there evidently used in a collective sense; so that there is no real difference. The apostle follows the Septuagint exactly. Romans 4:17. As it is written, ὅτι Πατέρα πολλῶν ἐθνῶν τέθεικά σε: Genesis 17:5. A father of many nations have I made thee. I. 33. From the Septuagint, and a literal rendering of the Hebrew. Romans 4:18. As it is written, Οὕτως ἔσται τὸ σπέρμα σου: Genesis 15:5. So shall thy seed be. I. 34. The same as the preceding example. Romans 8:36. As it is written, ὅτι Ἕνεκεν σοῦ θανατούμεθα ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν, ἐλογίσθημεν ὡς πρόβατα σφαγῆς: Psalms 44:23. For Thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for slaughter. I. 35. Again quite literal. Romans 9:7, Romans 9:9, Romans 9:12-13, Romans 9:15, contain passages from Genesis 21:12; Genesis 18:10; Genesis 25:23; Malachi 1:2-3; Exodus 33:19, which are merely historically referred to, and are cited almost uniformly in the words of the Septuagint. Romans 9:17. For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh, ὅτι εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἐξήγειρά σε ὅπως ἐνδείξωμαι ἐν σοὶ τὴν δύναμίν μου καὶ ὅπως διαγγελῇ τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐν πάσῃ τῇ γῇ: Exodus 9:16. For this same thing did I raise thee up, that I might show forth in thee My power, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth. I. 36. Here the Septuagint is not precisely followed in the first part, and the rendering is more close to the Hebrew. The Septuagint has ἔνεκεν τούτου διετηρήθης, ἵνα. Romans 9:25. As He saith also in Osee, Καλέσω τὸν οὐ λαόν μου λαόν μου καὶ τὴν οὐκ ἠγαπημένην ἠγαπημένην: Hosea 2:23. I will call the not-My-people, My people; and the not-beloved, beloved. Hosea 4:11. Here again the Septuagint is departed from, notwithstanding that it gives a pretty literal version. The exact rendering of the Hebrew is, “I will have pity on the not-pitied (lo-ruha-mah,) and will say to the not-My-people (lo-ammi,) My people art thou.” The Septuagint in the first, expresses, I will love the not loved, ἀγαπήσω τὴν ὀ̓κ ἠγαπημέην; otherwise, it is quite exact. The apostle gives substantially the same meaning, but he expresses the sense somewhat paraphrastically. Romans 9:26. Καὶ ἔσται ἐν τῷ τόπῳ οὗ ἐρρέθη αὐτοῖς, Οὐ λαός μου ὑμεῖς, ἐκεῖ κληθήσονται υἱοὶ θεοῦ ζῶντος: Hosea 1:10. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not My people, there shall they be called sons of the living God. I. 37. The Septuagint is here followed, excepting that instead of ἐκεῖ κληθ.it has κλη. καὶ αὐτοί. But the Hebrew is faithfully rendered. Romans 9:27-28. But Esaias crieth for Israel, Ἐὰν ᾖ ὁ ἀριθμὸς τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ ὡς ἡ ἄμμος τῆς θαλάσσης, τὸ ὑπόλειμμα σωθήσεται· λόγον γὰρ συντελῶν καὶ συντέμνων ποιήσει Κύριος ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς:Isaiah 10:22-23. If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall return; for He is finishing His word and cutting it short in righteousness; because a word cut short will the Lord accomplish in the earth. IV. 12. The citation approaches pretty nearly to the Septuagint, yet does not exactly accord with it; nor does it, in the latter part, give more than the general sense of the Hebrew. The first part is a close rendering: If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, (referring to the promise to Abraham,) the remnant (viz. that mentioned in the verse immediately preceding, “the remnant shall return unto the mighty God,”—this, but only this, not the countless, sand- like multitude) shall return. Then the reason follows; which in the original runs, For the Lord God of hosts is making a consumption, and (or, even) determined, in the midst of all the earth. The sentence is obscure; and a paraphrastic rendering is given of it by the apostle. It evidently points to a work of judgment, which the Lord was going to execute generally in the earth, and from which the covenant-people were by no means to escape: Even in respect to them, He was not going always to forbear; and, while He saved a remnant, He would, at the same time, accomplish a work of judgment upon the many. This also is what is expressed by the apostle, and more distinctly. The Lord was going, according to it, to bring His word to an issue—an abrupt and determinate issue—that would signally display His righteousness; implying, of course, from the connexion, that Israel was to share in the severity of its inflictions. So that this does not differ, in sense, from the consumption determined, which the literal rendering yields. Romans 9:29. And as Esaias said before, Εἰ μὴ κύριος Σαβαὼθ ἐγκατέλιπεν ἡμῖν σπέρμα, ὡς Σόδομα ἂν ἐγενήθημεν καὶ ὡς Γόμορρα ἂν ὡμοιώθημεν: Isaiah 1:9. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, we should have become like Sodom, and should have been made like to Gomorrha. III. 8. The Septuagint is here followed verbatim: it differs from the Hebrew only in one word, in rendering a seed, σπέρμα, what in the original is remnant, שָׂרִיד. It means, of course, barely a seed a remnant so small, that it should merely suffice for preserving a seed. So that the difference is only in form. Romans 9:33. As it is written, Ἰδοὺ τίθημι ἐν Σιὼν λίθον προσκόμματος καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου, καὶ ὁ πιστεύων ἐπʼ αὐτῷ οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται: Isaiah 28:16, combined with Isaiah 8:14. Behold I lay in Sion a stone of stumbling and rock of offence, and he that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame. IV. 13. There are here brought together two related passages of the prophet Isaiah; the principal one referred to is Isaiah 28:16, but certain epithets, descriptive of the stone in respect to those who refused to use it aright, are borrowed from an earlier passage, in Isaiah 8:14. There alone is the stone designated “a stone of stumbling and rock of offence.” The apostle, combining thus two passages together, uses some freedom, as might be expected, in the manner of quotation. He does not adhere closely either to the Septuagint or to the Hebrew. The Hebrew, indeed, is so nearly followed, that it may be said to be all but literally rendered. The only deviation worth noticing is in the last expression: the Hebrew is לֹא יָחִישׁ, not shall make haste; while the apostle, after the Septuagint, gives it, “shall not be put to shame.” Not different in meaning, however; for the making haste of the prophet undoubtedly points to that hasty flight which they should betake to who made, not this foundation-stone, but lies, their refuge: these should very soon be found in a state of trepidation and flight; while the others, resting calmly on God’s foundation, should stand fast, as having no occasion for rash and precipitate measures. The last clause is again cited at Romans 10:11. Romans 10:5. For Moses saith, ὅτι ὁ ποιήσας αὐτὰ ἄνθρωπος ζήσεται ἐν αὐτοῖς: Leviticus 18:5. The man that doeth these things shall live therein. I. 38. The precise words of the Septuagint, but also corresponding with the Hebrew. Romans 10:6-8. But the righteousness of faith speaketh on this wise, Μὴ εἴπῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου, Τίς ἀναβήσεται εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν; τοῦτʼ ἔστιν Χριστὸν καταγαγεῖν· ἤ, Τίς καταβήσεται εἰς τὴν ἄβυσσον; τοῦτʼ ἔστιν Χριστὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναγαγεῖν.—Ἐγγύς σου τὸ ῥῆμά ἐστιν ἐν τῷ στόματί σου καὶ ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου: Deuteronomy 30:12, sq. Do not say in thy heart, who shall ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down again. Or, who shall descend into the abyss? That is, to bring Christ again from the dead. (But what saith it?) The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart. This is not a quotation in the strict sense, but merely the free use of certain words in Deuteronomy, which conveyed a meaning adapted to the apostle’s purpose, and is intermingled with comments or explanatory remarks of his own. The parts employed are given pretty nearly in the version of the Septuagint. Romans 10:11. See at Romans 9:33. Romans 10:15. As it is written, Ὡς ὡραῖοι οἱ πόδες τῶν εὐαγγελιζομένων [τὰ] ἀγαθά: Isaiah 52:7. How beautiful are the feet of those that publish good things. I. 39. The original is here exactly rendered, only the apostle omits “upon the mountains,” as not required for his purpose. The Septuagint differs considerably, and mistakes the meaning of the first part, rendering ὡς ὥρα ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρέων. Romans 10:16. For Esaias saith, Κύριε, τίς ἐπίστευσεν τῇ ἀκοῇ ἡμῶν; Isaiah 53:1. Lord, who hath believed our report? I. 40. A transcript of the Septuagint, and a close rendering of the Hebrew. Romans 10:18. Εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν, κ.τ.λ. An exact citation of the words in Psalms 19:5, as found in the Septuagint, and also correctly representing the Hebrew; but the words are only appropriated, not formally quoted. Romans 10:19. First Moses saith, Ἐγὼ παραζηλώσω ὑμᾶς ἐπʼ οὐκ ἔθνει, ἐπʼ ἔθνει ἀσυνέτῳ παροργιῶ ὑμᾶς: Deuteronomy 32:21. I will move you to jealousy by [what is] no-people; by a foolish people I will provoke you to anger. I. 41. A close translation, but taken from the Septuagint. Romans 10:20-21. But Esaias is very bold, and saith, Εὑρέθην [ἐν] τοῖς ἐμὲ μὴ ζητοῦσιν, ἐμφανὴς ἐγενόμην τοῖς ἐμὲ μὴ ἐπερωτῶσιν: Isaiah 65:1-2. I was found of them that sought Me not, I became manifest to them that asked not after Me. All day long I stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. III. 9. The Septuagint is followed in both verses, only the order is somewhat varied; what forms the first clause here being the second in the Septuagint, and the ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν in the second verse being thrown farther back. But the import of the Hebrew is not exactly given. According to it the first verse is, “I was sought of those that asked not, I was found of those that sought Me not.” And, in the closing part of the second verse, there is but one epithet applied to the people—not “disobedient and gainsaying,” but simply “rebellious.” There is no real difference of meaning; but the sense is somewhat more paraphrastically expressed in the Greek. Romans 11:3-4. Two passages from Elijah’s history are here quoted, but merely in a historical respect, as indicative of the state of things existing at the time. In both the Hebrew is pretty closely adhered to, more so than in the Septuagint. Romans 11:8. As it is written, Ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ὁ θεὸς πνεῦμα κατανύξεως, ὀφθαλμοὺς τοῦ μὴ βλέπειν καὶ ὦτα τοῦ μὴ ἀκούειν: Isaiah 29:10, combined with Deuteronomy 29:4. God gave to them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear. IV. 14. The apostle seems here to have combined two passages, as at Romans 9:33. The spirit of slumber is spoken of in Isaiah 29:10, as judicially inflicted on the people; and an explanation is given of what is meant by this in words derived from Deuteronomy 29:4. What might be expected in such a case, was that the general sense should be expressed, rather than a very exact translation; and so in reality it is. Romans 11:9-10. David saith, Γενηθήτω ἡ τράπεζα αὐτῶν εἰς παγίδα καὶ εἰς θήραν καὶ εἰς σκάνδαλον καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδομα αὐτοῖς, σκοτισθήτωσαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν τοῦ μὴ βλέπειν καὶ τὸν νῶτον αὐτῶν διὰ παντὸς σύγκαμψον: Psalms 69:22-23. Let their table become a snare, and a net, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense to them; let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bow down their back alway. III.10. The Septuagint is here followed by some very slight variations; chiefly the leaving out of ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν before εἰς παγίδα, and inserting εἰς θήραν, which does not exist in the Septuagint. Substantially, however, the apostle follows the Septuagint, though this departs considerably from the Hebrew. The precise meaning of the latter is. “Let their table before them become a snare, and for peace (lit. peaces, salâms, salutations of peace) for a gin (i.e. what seemed to be for peace, let it become for a gin.) Let their eyes become dark, so that they shall not see, and their bones continually shake.” The rendering of the Septuagint, adopted by the apostle, however it may have been brought about, gives the general sense, though somewhat paraphrastically: the snare of the one, and its substitution of a gin for indications of peace, is amplified into “a snare, and a net, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense,” that is, into things entirely the reverse, but such as they had deserved by their own treachery. The other verse varies less from the original; it merely substitutes, “bow down their back alway,” for “let their bones continually shake:”—only a different mode of expressing a state of oppressive and enfeebling bondage. Romans 11:26-27. As it is written, Ἥξει ἐκ Σιὼν ὁ ῥυόμενος, ἀποστρέψει ἀσεβείας ἀπὸ Ἰακώβ. καὶ αὕτη αὐτοῖς ἡ παρʼ ἐμοῦ διαθήκη, ὅταν ἀφέλωμαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν: Isaiah 59:20-21. The Redeemer shall come out of Zion, He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; and this is the covenant from Me to them, when I have taken away their sins. IV. 15. This citation differs less from the Septuagint than from the Hebrew, but it does not exactly accord with either. “The Redeemer shall come to Zion,” is the first clause in the original, or “for Zion,” לְצִיּוֹן; the Septuagint has ἕνεκεν Σιὼν; but the apostle says “out of Zion.” And in the following clause, what is in the original, “unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob,” becomes with the apostle, who here follows the Septuagint, “He shall turn ungodliness from Jacob.” Peculiar as these changes are, they proceed upon the same principle as that which we have so often had occasion to notice in previous examples; without in reality altering the meaning, the apostle throws the passage into a form, which virtually explains while it quotes; as our Lord, for instance, slightly altered the words of Malachi, to render them of easier understanding to those who lived when they were passing into fulfilment, (See at Matthew 11:10.) In like manner here, we have such an alteration put upon the original passage, as might render the only fulfilment it could henceforth receive more easy of apprehension. Christ, it intimates, will again come to Zion, as He has already done, and come to such as turn from transgression in Jacob—namely, for the purpose of blessing them and doing them good. But having already come and finished transgression, Christ has put an end to the old state and constitution of things, so that the Zion that then was is now abolished: Zion, in the proper sense, is above, the residence of the Divine King; and when He comes to visit His people for the full execution of His covenant, He must come out of Zion, even while, in a sense, He may be said to come to it. And, as regards the Jewish people, now rooted in apostacy, He must also, in connexion with that coming, turn them from ungodliness; for only thus could the ends of the covenant in their behalf be accomplished, and the Lord’s coming be attended by the benefits pointed at by the prophets. It is, therefore, the same prophecy still—only, by the verbal alterations he puts on it, the apostle adapts it to the time when he wrote, and renders it more distinctly indicative of the manner in which it was to find what still remained of its accomplishment. The last clause, “when I have taken away their sins,” is a brief and compendious expression for the state of blessing and acceptance, in which the people are contemplated by the prophet, and which with him is more especially connected with the indwelling agency of the Spirit. The Lord’s coming finally to redeem and bless, will take place, only when the barrier raised by their guilt and alienation shall have been removed, and their personal state shall correspond with their privileges and prospects. Romans 12:19. For it is written, Ἐμοὶ ἐκδίκησις, ἐγὼ ἀνταποδώσω, λέγει Κύριος: Deuteronomy 32:35. Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. II. 18. The passage is not far from a literal rendering of the Hebrew, which is, “Vengeance is Mine, and recompense.” The λέγει Κύριος is introduced for the purpose of indicating more expressly, that it is the Lord Himself who there speaks. Romans 12:20. Contains a reiteration, and in the words of the Septuagint, of the exhortations originally given in Proverbs 25:21-22. But they are not formally cited. Romans 13:9. Contains citations of the commandments of the second table of the law, where there was no room for variation. Romans 14:11. For it is written, Ζῶ ἐγώ, λέγει κύριος, ὅτι ἐμοὶ κάμψει πᾶν γόνυ καὶ πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσεται τῷ θεῷ: Isaiah 45:23. As I live, saith the Lord, to Me shall every knee bow, and every tongue confess to God. II. 19. The original passage is abbreviated; but it is so near to the Hebrew, that the deviations make no difference in the sense. Instead of “I live, saith the Lord,” the prophet has, “I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return”—a fuller declaration, but not different in sense. “Every tongue shall confess” is also substantially the same with “every tongue shall swear,” which is the expression in the prophet. For in the Old Testament usage swearing to, or in the name of the Lord, is simply to own and confess Him as the one living God. Romans 15:13. As it is written, Οἱ ὀνειδισμοὶ τῶν ὀνειδιζόντων σε ἐπέπεσαν ἐπʼ ἐμέ: Psalms 69:9. The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon Me. I. 42. From the Septuagint, but exactly rendering the Hebrew. Romans 15:9. As it is written, Διὰ τοῦτο ἐξομολογήσομαί σοι ἐν ἔθνεσιν καὶ τῷ ὀνοματί σου ψαλῶ: Psalms 18:49. For this cause will I confess (or, give thanks) to Thee among the Gentiles, and sing praise to Thy name, I. 43. Again from the Septuagint, and a literal translation of the Hebrew. Romans 15:10. Again he saith, Εὐφράνθητε, ἔθνη, μετὰ τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ: Deuteronomy 32:43. Exult, ye Gentiles, with His people. I. 44. Here the Septuagint is quite different; it has εὐφ. οὐρανοὶ ἃμα αὐτῷ. The apostle follows the Hebrew, only inserting the preposition between Gentiles and people, for the sake of distinctness. “Exult ye Gentiles, His people,” is the precise rendering of the original; addressing the Gentiles as now among God’s people, having one place and character with them. Romans 15:11. And again he saith, Αἰνεῖτε, πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, τὸν κύριον καὶ ἐπαινεσάτωσαν αὐτὸν πάντες οἱ λαοί: Psalms 117:1. Praise the Lord all ye nations, and laud Him all ye peoples. I. 45. From the Septuagint, which literally renders the Hebrew. Romans 15:12. And again Esaias saith, Ἔσται ἡ ῥίζα τοῦ Ἰεσσαὶ καὶ ὁ ἀνιστάμενος ἄρχειν ἐθνῶν, ἐπʼ αὐτῷ ἔθνη ἐλπιοῦσιν: Isaiah 11:10. There shall be a root of Jesse, and He that ariseth to govern the Gentiles, in Him shall the Gentiles trust. III. 11. Follows the Septuagint. The Hebrew is, “In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, that shall stand as a banner of the Gentiles; to it (or him) shall the Gentiles seek.” The Greek is a free translation, but gives the sense in a simpler form. To be a banner to the Gentiles, is, in plain language, to take the leadership or government of them; and to seek to Him, in such a connexion, must be all one with repairing to Him in confidence and hope. Romans 15:21. As it is written, Οἷς οὐκ ἀνηγγέλη περὶ αὐτοῦ ὄψονται, καὶ οἳ οὐκ ἀκηκόασιν συνήσουσιν: Isaiah 52:10. To whom He was not announced, they shall see, and they that had not heard, shall understand. III. 12. Again following the Septuagint, which differs from the original only in some points that merely affect the form. It has “what was not announced or told them,” and, at the close, “they shall consider,” implying, doubtless, that they should so do it, as to understand. I. CORINTHIANS. 1 Corinthians 1:19. For it is written, Ἀπολῶ τὴν σοφίαν τῶν σοφῶν καὶ τὴν σύνεσιν τῶν συνετῶν ἀθετήσω: Isaiah 29:14. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the under standing of the prudent I will set aside. II. 20. The citation agrees with the Septuagint, except in the last word, which is κρύψω in the Septuagint, I will hide. The translation, however, though not the most literal that could be made, undoubtedly gives the plain meaning of the original. The chief difference is, that the thing is spoken of in the original merely as done, while here God is directly represented as doing it; this was certainly what the prophet also meant. To make men’s understanding to become hidden, and to set it aside, are obviously but different modes of expressing the same thing. 1 Corinthians 1:31. An abbreviated form of the sentiment contained in Jeremiah 9:24, and not strictly a quotation. 1 Corinthians 2:9. As it is written, Ἃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδεν καὶ οὖς οὐκ ἤκουσεν καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἀνέβη, ἃ ἡτοίμασεν ὁ θεὸς τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτόν: Isaiah 64:4. Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and upon the heart of man came not up, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. IV. 16. This citation agrees neither with the Hebrew nor with the Greek of any particular passage of the Old Testament. It comes nearest, however, to Isaiah 64:4, where the exact rendering of the original is, “And from the beginning of the world they heard not, they perceived not by the ear, the eye saw not, God, beside Thee (or, a God beside Thee,) who will do for him that trusteth on Him.” It is an obscure passage, and is rather paraphrased than translated by the apostle. The “neither hearing nor perceiving by the ear,” is a kind of reiteration for the purpose of strongly asserting, that the matters referred to lay entirely remote from any cognizance of men’s faculties; but the apostle, instead of giving this duplicate reference to ear knowledge, carries it into the region of the heart, and uses words substantially taken from the cognate passage of ch. 65:17, “it came not up upon the heart.” The Septuagint has in the latter place, οὐ μὴ ἐπέλθῃ αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν, so similar to the phrase here employed by the apostle, that one can scarcely doubt he had it in view. The citation, therefore, proceeds on the principle of bringing distinctly out, by a sort of paraphrastic interpretation, the import of the passage, and, while doing so, availing himself in part of language furnished by another passage in Isaiah’s writings. 1 Corinthians 3:19. For it is written, Ὁ δρασσόμενος τοὺς σοφοὺς ἐν τῇ πανουργίᾳ αὐτῶν: Job 5:13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. I. 46. The original is closely rendered, but not in the words of the Septuagint. 1 Corinthians 3:20. And again, Κύριος γινώσκει τοὺς διαλογισμοὺς τῶν σοφῶν ὅτι εἰσὶν μάταιοι: Psalms 94:11. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. II. 22. It differs from the Septuagint, and also from the Hebrew, only by putting “the wise,” instead of “man.” But as man is used emphatically by the Psalmist, as much as the most skilful, the most aspiring of men, it comes to the same thing as the apostle’s wise. 1 Corinthians 9:9. For in the law of Moses it is written, Οὐ κημώσεις βοῦν ἀλοῶντα: Deuteronomy 25:4. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth. I. 47. A literal translation, and in the words of the Septuagint. 1 Corinthians 10:7. As it is written, Ἐκάθισεν ὁ λαὸς φαγεῖν καὶ πεῖν, καὶ ἀνέστησαν παίζειν: Exodus 32:6. The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. I. 48. Another literal translation, and in the words of the Septuagint. 1 Corinthians 14:21. In the law it is written, Ἐν ἑτερογλώσσοις καὶ ἐν χείλεσιν ἑτέρων λαλήσω τῷ λαῷ τούτῳ καὶ οὐδʼ οὕτως εἰσακούσονταί μου, λέγει Κύριος: Isaiah 28:11-12. For in other tongues, and in lips of other per sons (strangers,) will I speak to this people; and not thus [even] will they listen to Me, saith the Lord. II. 22. Here the Septuagint is quite forsaken, being palpably in correct. The meaning of the Hebrew is given, though not by a close translation: what is there “stammering lips and another tongue,” is here put in an explicated form by “other tongues and lips of strangers;” i.e. unaccustomed modes of speech and address. The same thing seems to be meant by both forms of expression. 1 Corinthians 15:25, 1 Corinthians 15:27, 1 Corinthians 15:32, 1 Corinthians 15:45. The language is adopted of the following passages: Psalms 110:1; Psalms 8:7; Isaiah 22:13; Genesis 2:7. 1 Corinthians 15:54. Then shall be fulfilled the word that is written, Κατεπόθη ὁ θάνατος εἰς νῖκος: Isaiah 25:8. Death is swallowed up into victory. I. 49. A literal translation; for לָנֶצַח means to perfection, or to glory, as well as to perpetuity; but quite different from the Septuagint, which has κατάπειν ὁ θάνατος ἰσχύσας. II. CORINTHIANS. 2 Corinthians 6:2. For He saith, Καιρῷ δεκτῷ ἐπήκουσά σου καὶ ἐν ἡμέρᾳ σωτηρίας ἐβοήθησά σοι: Isaiah 49:8. In an acceptable time I heard thee, and in a day of salvation I succoured thee. I. 50. A close translation, taken verbatim from the Septuagint. 2 Corinthians 6:16. As God said, ὅτι Ἐνοικήσω ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐμπεριπατήσω καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτῶν θεὸς καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔσονταί μου λαός: Leviticus 26:11-12. I will dwell among them, and I will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. II. 23. The meaning entirely accords with the Hebrew; only, instead of “I will set My tabernacle,” it has “I will dwell;” and it uses throughout the oblique instead of the direct form of address, as in the original and the Septuagint. 2 Corinthians 6:17-18. Διὸ ἐξέλθατε ἐκ μέσου αὐτῶν καὶ ἀφορίσθητε, λέγει κύριος, καὶ ἀκαθάρτου μὴ ἅπτεσθε· κἀγὼ εἰσδέξομαι ὑμᾶς καὶ ἔσομαι ὑμῖν εἰς πατέρα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἔσεσθέ μοι εἰς υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας—saith the Lord Almighty: Isaiah 52:11-12; Jeremiah 31:9; Jeremiah 31:33. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be to Me sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty. IV. 17. The first of these two verses is a free translation of Isaiah 52:11, and a portion of Isaiah 53:12, which contains an address to the Lord’s people, as redeemed, to go forth from their state of bondage and depression, and to separate themselves from all the defilements amid which they were placed; with the assurance, that if they did so, the Lord Himself would go with them and defend them. Undoubtedly, the substance of the prophet’s declaration is given by the apostle. The remaining part of the passage seems to be a compressed exhibition of the purport of several verses—in particular, the two referred to in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 3:19 might also be included, and 2 Samuel 7:14 has sometimes been thought to be referred to. In all these passages the same sentiment is undoubtedly expressed, viz., the acknowledgment of a filial relationship on the part of God toward those who should forsake their sins, and give themselves to His service. But as to the formal character of both these verses, it may be questioned whether they should be regarded strictly as a quotation—or, rather, as an utterance of the Lord’s mind by the apostle himself; though couched in the style of ancient prophecy, and with reference to certain passages contained in it. So that we might say, substantially, the Lord spake thus in former times; formally, and explicitly, He speaks thus now 2 Corinthians 8:15. As it is written, Ὁ τὸ πολὺ οὐκ ἐπλεόνασεν, καὶ ὁ τὸ ὀλίγον οὐκ ἠλαττόνησεν: Exodus 16:18. He that [got] the much had no surplus, and he that [got] the little had no lack. I. 51. A close translation, and very nearly the same as the Septuagint. 2 Corinthians 9:9. As it is written, Ἐσκόρπισεν, ἔδωκεν τοῖς πένησιν, ἡ δικαιοσύνη αὐτοῦ μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα: Psalms 112:9. He dispersed, He gave to the poor, His righteousness endureth for ever. I. 52. The same precisely as in the last example. GALATIANS. Galatians 3:8. The Scripture preached before the Gospel to Abraham: ὅτι Ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν σοὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη: Genesis 12:3. In thee shall all nations be blessed. I. 53. The original, in Genesis 12:3, has families instead of I; the Septuagint φυλαὶ; but this is all one with nations; and the word for the latter is frequently used in the repetition of the promise: Genesis 18:18; Genesis 22:18. Galatians 3:10. For it is written, ὅτι Ἐπικατάρατος πᾶς ὃς οὐκ ἐμμένει πᾶσιν τοῖς γεγραμμένοις ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τοῦ νόμου τοῦ ποιῆσαι αὐτά: Deuteronomy 27:20. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them. II. 24. The citation differs only in a few unimportant particulars from the Septuagint, and from the Hebrew only in being a little more full and explicit. The latter has, “Whosoever does not confirm,” or ratify, “the words of this law to do them.” Evidently the kind of ratification meant is that of a steady adherence to them. Galatians 3:11-12. See at Romans 1:17; Romans 10:5. Galatians 3:13. For it is written, Ἐπικατάρατος πᾶς ὁ κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου: Deuteronomy 21:23. Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. II. 25. The Hebrew has merely hanged in the verse actually quoted, but the preceding verse uses the fuller expression, hanged on a tree; so that there is no real difference between the citation arid the original. The apostle, however, abbreviates the other part of the verse; he says simply, “cursed,” while the original has “cursed of God.” Galatians 3:16. He says not to seeds, as of many, but as of one, Καὶ τῷ σπέρματί σου: Genesis 22:18. And to thy seed (which is Christ.) The passage was already cited at Acts 3:25. But here it is coupled with a peculiar interpretation, for which see No. XV. Galatians 4:27. For it is written, Εὐφράνθητι, στεῖρα ἡ οὐ τίκτουσα, ῥῆξον καὶ βόησον, ἡ οὐκ ὠδίνουσα· ὅτι πολλὰ τὰ τέκνα τῆς ἐρήμου μᾶλλον ἢ τῆς ἐχούσης τὸν ἄνδρα: Isaiah 54:1. Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail; for more are the children of the desolate than of her that hath a husband. I. 54. The Septuagint is followed throughout; but it gives the original with fidelity. Galatians 4:30. What saith the Scripture? Ἔκβαλε τὴν παιδίσκην καὶ τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς· οὐ γὰρ μὴ κληρονομήσει ὁ υἱὸς τῆς παιδίσκης μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἐλευθέρας: Genesis 21:10. Cast out the bond-woman and her son; for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman. I. 55. This is also a literal translation; only, it generalizes the closing words, by putting “with the son of the free-woman,” instead of with “my son, with Isaac.” Naturally; for the words were originally Sarah’s; but as the Lord sanctioned the principle announced in them, the apostle fitly quotes them as spoken by the Lord of Sarah’s offspring. EPHESIANS. Ephesians 4:8. Wherefore He saith, Ἀναβὰς εἰς ὕψος ᾐχμαλώτευσεν αἰχμαλωσίαν, ἔδωκεν δόματα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις: Psalms 68:18. Having ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts to men. II. 26. The rendering here adopted, which in the latter part only differs from the Septuagint, is a faithful representation of the original, so far as the substantial import is concerned. The only deviation from the literal meaning is in using the oblique, for the direct form of statement, and substituting gave, for received, in respect to the gifts of grace. The two words exhibit but different aspects of the same thing. Ephesians 5:14. Wherefore He saith, Ἔγειρε, ὁ καθεύδων, καὶ ἀνάστα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, καὶ ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὁ Χριστός: Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. The passage is introduced with a very general reference to Divine authority, specifying no particular Scripture where the saying was to be found; and as the words do not occur in any book of the Old Testament, some have even doubted if there is a reference to any passage in it. The mention of Christ at the close plainly shows, that an exact or literal quotation was not meant; but rather a free use of one or more passages read in the light of the Gospel. Such passages exist in Isaiah 9:1-2, comp. with Isaiah 26:19. Ephesians 5:31. See at Matthew 19:4-5. I. TIMOTHY. 1 Timothy 5:18. See at 1 Corinthians 9:9. II. TIMOTHY. 2 Timothy 2:19. And, Ἔγνω κύριος τοὺς ὄντας αὐτοῦ: Numbers 16:5. The Lord knoweth them that are His. II. 27. The words of the Septuagint are taken, except that Κύριος is put for Θεός. In the original it is rather, the Lord will make known who are His not only knows them, but will make His knowledge to appear. This is all the difference; the one indicating simply the fact, the other the visible manifestation, of the Divine knowledge. HEBREWS. Hebrews 1:5. (on first quotation, see at Acts 13:32-33, and No. XII. of the Second Part.) And again, Ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ εἰς πατέρα, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς υἱόν: 2 Samuel 7:14. I will be to him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son. I. 56. In the words of the Septuagint, which correctly render the Hebrew. Hebrews 1:6. And when again He brings His first-begotten into the world, He saith, Καὶ προσκυνησάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι θεοῦ: Psalms 97:7. And let all the angels of God worship Him. III. 13. Coincides with the Septuagint, except in using the oblique instead of the direct form of speech. The original has Elohim instead of angels; and there is the same difference at Hebrews 2:7, where see what is said in explanation. Hebrews 1:7. And as to the angels, He saith, Ὁ ποιῶν τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ πνεύματα καὶ τοὺς λειτουργοὺς αὐτοῦ πυρὸς φλόγα: Psalms 104:4. Who maketh His angels (messengers) winds, and flame of fire His ministers. I. 57. The Hebrew is exactly rendered, and in the words of the Septuagint, excepting in the last expression, which is there πῦρ φλέγον. Hebrews 1:8-9. And to the Son, Ὁ θρόνος σου ὁ θεὸς εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος κ.τ.λ.: Psalms 45:6-7. Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever, etc. I. 58. Throughout from the Septuagint, with no variations worth naming, and giving a close translation of the Hebrew. Hebrews 1:10-12. And, Σὺ κατʼ ἀρχάς, κύριε, τὴν γῆν ἐθεμελίωσας κ.τ.λ.: Psalms 102:25-26. Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, etc. I. 59. Precisely as in the last example. Hebrews 1:13. See at Matthew 22:44. Hebrews 2:6-8. But one testified in a certain place, saying, Τίς ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ὅτι μιμνῄσκῃ αὐτοῦ κ.τ.λ.: Psalms 8:4-6. What is man that thou art mindful of him? etc. III. 14. The citation is made entirely from the Septuagint, and differs from the Hebrew only in one clause: What is here ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ τι παρʼ ἀγγέλους, Thou hast made Him somewhat less than the angels, is in the Hebrewתְּחַסְּרֵהוּ מְּעַט מֵאֱלֹהִים Thou hast made him want little of Elohim (God.) There is, however, an ambiguity in the Greek; for the βραχύ τι may refer either to space or to time lessened him either for a short period, or by a little degree, though the latter is the more natural. The Hebrew is more definite, and indicates little in respect to degree or space. The application made of the passage consists with the one aspect as well as the other; as will be shown in the remarks at No. XVIII. of Second Section. And in regard to the Elohim, it is plain, that when man is spoken of as wanting but a little of this, that is, of Deity, the term cannot be taken in its strictest sense; it cannot mean the Supreme Jehovah, in His personal properties and perfections; for the highest of creatures stand at an infinite distance from Him. It must be understood, therefore, in the looser sense, of something Divine-like in condition and dignity. It is so used in Psalms 82:6; Exodus 22:9, comp. with John 10:34. In the same sense it must also be understood in Psalms 97:7, cited in Psalms 96:6 of the preceding chapter, where the Elohim are called to do worship to one higher than themselves. Divine-like honour and dignity, therefore, are all that, in such cases, can be fairly understood by the term. And as the angels stand highest in this respect among created intelligences known to men, they are not unnaturally regarded as the beings that most fully answer to the description. Substantially, therefore, the Greek version here gives the sense of the original; and some of the best commentators still concur in it as the most appropriate rendering that can be given. “The angels,” says Delitzsch on the passage, “are called Elohim, as pure spiritual natures that have been produced from God, and are the purest reflections of the Divine essence.” Hebrews 2:12. Saying, Ἀπαγγελῶ τὸ ὄνομά σου τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς μου, ἐν μέσῳ ἐκκλησίας ὑμνήσω σε: Psalms 22:22. I will declare Thy name to My brethren, in the midst of the Church (or congregation) will I sing praise to Thee. I. 60. The Septuagint is followed, except in the first word, for which it has διηγήσουμαι and the Hebrew is strictly adhered to. Hebrews 2:13. And again, Ἐγὼ ἔσομαι πεποιθὼς ἐπʼ αὐτῷ, I will put My trust in Him. And again, Ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ καὶ τὰ παιδία ἅ μοι ἔδωκεν ὁ θεός, Behold I and the children which God hath given Me: Isaiah 8:17-18. I. 61. The Septuagint is literally followed in both parts of the citation; and without any material difference it exhibits the meaning of the original. Hebrews 3:7-11. As the Holy Ghost saith, Σήμερον ἐὰν τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ ἀκούσητε κ.τ.λ.: Psalms 95:7. sq. To-day, if ye will hear His voice, etc. I. 62. The words are again those of the Septuagint, but the division made of them is not precisely the same; for here we have “saw My works for forty years,” while in the Septuagint, and also in the original, there is a pause after “saw My works,” and the following sentence begins: “Forty years was I grieved.” The sense is still the same, and by coupling the forty years with the seeing of God’s works additional emphasis is given to the guilt of the people. Hebrews 4:4. For He spake in a certain place, Καὶ κατέπαυσεν ὁ θεὸς ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ: Genesis 2:3. And God rested in the seventh day from all His works. I. 63. The passage is somewhat abbreviated, but it is exactly rendered, and in the words of the Septuagint. Hebrews 5:6. As He saith in another place: Σὺ ἱερεὺς εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχισέδεκ: Psal. Psalms 110:4. Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. I. 64. The Hebrew again rendered in the words of the Septuagint. Hebrews 6:14. God sware by Himself, saying, Εἰ μὴν εὐλογῶν εὐλογήσω σε καὶ πληθύνων πληθυνῶ σε: Genesis 22:17. Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. I. 65. There is no deviation from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, except in putting σε at the close instead of σπέρμα σου. It makes no difference as to the sense. Hebrews 8:5. As Moses was divinely instructed, Ὅρα γάρ φησίν, ποιήσεις πάντα κατὰ τὸν τύπον τὸν δειχθέντα σοι ἐν τῷ ὄρει: Exodus 25:40. For see, says He, thou shalt make all according to the pattern that was shown thee in the mount. I. 66. The words are again to a nearness those of the Septuagint, the only difference being the use of the aorist participle instead of the perfect δεδειγμένεν. The original is correctly exhibited. Hebrews 8:8-12. For finding fault He saith to them, Ἰδοὺ ἡμέραι ἔρχονται, λέγει κύριος, καὶ συντελέσω ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον Ἰσραὴλ κ.τ.λ.: Jeremiah 31:31-34. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will establish with the house of Israel, etc. I. 67. There is no difference worth naming between this citation and the corresponding passage in the Septuagint; it is substantially a quotation from the Septuagint only in one or two instances it substitutes a phrase of like import for another such as συντελέσω ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον for διαθήσομαι τῷ οἴκῳ, and διαθήκην ἐποίησα for διεθέμην. Throughout also the meaning of the Hebrew is closely rendered; nor does any exception need to be made for the clause at the close of Hebrews 8:9, where the writer of the epistle, following the Septuagint, κἀγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν, and I regarded them not. In the original it is וְאָנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָם, which in the English Version, and many others, has the sense put on it, “though I was married to them.” The same expression occurs at Jeremiah 3:14, and has received the same rendering. But the propriety of that rendering is justly called in question, arid the translation of the Septuagint is rather to be maintained. The primary meaning of the verb is to possess, or have dominion over; then to possess a wife, to marry; but finally, according to Gesenius, to loathe, to reject, in which sense he takes it in the two passages referred to. “The common meaning,” he says, “may do in Jeremiah 31:1-40, if it be rendered, “Although I was their Lord;” but it gives a harsh sense; and what weighs with me more, the signification of loathing is not foreign to the primary power of the verb. For there are also other verbs, in which the sense of subduing, being high over, ruling, is applied to the signification of looking down upon, despising, contemning.” Hebrews 9:20. Saying, Τοῦτο τὸ αἷμα τῆς διαθήκης ἧς ἐνετείλατο πρὸς ὑμᾶς ὁ θεός: Exodus 24:6. This is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you. II. 28. The sense of the original is substantially given, though differing slightly in form, and also departing somewhat from the Septuagint. The more exact rendering is, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you.” Hebrews 10:5-7. Wherefore when He cometh into the world He saith, Θυσίαν καὶ προσφορὰν οὐκ ἠθέλησας, σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω μοι· ὁλοκαυτώματα καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας οὐκ εὐδόκησας. τότε εἶπον, Ἰδοὺ ἥκω,—ἐν κεφαλίδι βιβλίου γέγραπται περὶ ἐμοῦ,—τοῦ ποιῆσαι ὁ θεὸς τὸ θέλημά σου: Psalms 40:6-8. Sacrifice and offering I did not desire, but a body hast Thou prepared for Me; burnt-offerings and offerings for sin Thou hadst no pleasure in. Then I said, Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of Me to do Thy will, God. III. 15. This citation follows the Septuagint so closely, that the variations from it are quite inconsiderable. Instead of οὐκ ἠθέλησας it has οὐκ ἤτησας, which is the more exact rendering of the original; but the idea is the same; and it is substantially all one, whether the offerings in question are represented as not sought, or not delighted in, on the part of God. The one implies the other. There is, however, a very peculiar rendering given of a clause in 5:5. In the Hebrew it is אָזְנַיִם כָּרִיתָ לִּי, ears hast Thou dug through (laid thoroughly open) for Me; the meaning is, Thou hast formed in me a willing and obedient spirit, so that I preserve an open and listening ear to all Thy commands. It is difficult to understand, how this should have come to be put into the form given it by the Septuagint, “a body hast Thou prepared for Me.” But the sentiment conveyed by it is substantially the same; for by the preparing of a body, in such a connexion, is evidently meant, a body formed and qualified for the service of God—ready in all its powers to yield the obedience required. The contrast here is, between the sacrifices of slain victims, and the free will sacrifice of a living body, or a listening and obedient spirit. Hebrews 10:16-17. See at Hebrews 8:8-11. Hebrews 10:30. For we know Him that hath said, Ἐμοὶ ἐκδίκησις, ἐγὼ ἀνταποδώσω, λέγει Κύριος. And again, κρινεῖ κύριος τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ.: Deuteronomy 32:35-36. Vengeance is Mine, I will recompense, saith the Lord. The Lord will judge His people. II. 29. The only difference is in the form of the first declaration; as put in the original it is, Mine is vengeance and recompense. Here the latter word is turned into an independent sentence, to give additional emphasis to the meaning. Hebrews 10:37-38. There is here a substantial appropriation of the language of Habakkuk 2:3-4; but there is no express citation, and the original is used with some freedom. Hebrews 11:21. Καὶ προσεκύνησεν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄκρον τῆς ῥάβδου αὐτοῦ: Genesis 47:31. And worshipped upon the top of his staff. I. 68. This is not given as a quotation, but it is actually one, being the precise words of the Septuagint. According as the words in the original are pointed, they admit of a different rendering; either that just produced, or the one given in the English version, according to the Mas. punctuation, “He bowed himself (or, worshipped) upon the bed’s head.” The other is the more probable meaning. Hebrews 12:5-6. And ye have forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as unto children, Υἱέ μου, μὴ ὀλιγώρει παιδείας Κυρίου μηδὲ ἐκλύου ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ ἐλεγχόμενος· ὃν γὰρ ἀγαπᾷ Κύριος παιδεύει, μαστιγοῖ δὲ πάντα υἱὸν ὃν παραδέχεται: Proverbs 3:11-12. My son, despise not the Lord’s chastening, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. III. 16. The Septuagint is followed verbatim, which only in the last clause departs from the Hebrew; but here it does so rather singularly. The Hebrew is וּכְאָב אֶת־בֵּן יִרְצֶה and (or, as) a father the son he delighteth in. The Septuagint apparently read the first word as if it were יַכְאָב, and so turned it into a verb, having God for its nominative, and making it mean, “and chastise the son whom He receiveth,” or delighteth in. As this introduced no change into the sentiment conveyed in the passage, but only omitted the allusion to the earthly father, which, however, the apostle shortly afterwards takes occasion to bring out in words of his own (Hebrews 12:9,) he simply adopted the rendering of the Septuagint. Hebrews 12:20-21. In these two verses the general import merely is given of passages in the Old Testament. Exodus 19:12-13, Exodus 19:16; Deuteronomy 9:19. Hebrews 12:26. Now hath He promised, saying, Ἔτι ἅπαξ ἐγὼ σείσω οὐ μόνον τὴν γῆν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν οὐρανόν: Haggai 2:6. Yet once, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. II. 30. The citation differs from the Septuagint and from the Hebrew only in form: for the purpose of bringing out more prominently the heaven as included in the shaking, what according to the original is, “the heaven and the earth,” is here made, “not only the earth, but the heaven.” Hebrews 13:5. For He Himself hath said, Οὐ μή σε ἀνῶ οὐδʼ οὐ μή σε ἐγκαταλίπω: Joshua 1:5. I will not leave thee, nor will I forsake thee. I. 69. Follows the Hebrew closely, but differs in form from the Septuagint. The same sentiment occurs in Deuteronomy 31:8. Hebrews 13:6. So that we may boldly say, Κύριος ἐμοὶ βοηθός, καὶ οὐ φοβηθήσομαι, τί ποιήσει μοι ἄνθρωπος: Psalms 118:6. The Lord is my helper, and I shall not be afraid; what shall man do to me? I. 70. The Septuagint is cited, but it gives the original quite correctly; for, “the Lord is my helper,” is substantially one with “the Lord is for me,” which is the literal rendering of the Hebrew. JAMES. James 2:8, James 2:23. See at Matthew 22:39, and Romans 4:3. James 4:5. Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, πρὸς φθόνον ἐπιποθεῖ τὸ πνεῦμα ὃ κατῴκισεν ἐν ἡμῖν; the spirit that dwelt in us lusts to envy? The reference seems to be to the passages which condemn an envious or covetous spirit, as naturally working in men’s hearts such as the tenth commandment of the law, Ecclesiastes 4:4, etc. But it is only a reference to the general import of such passages, not an explicit quotation. James 4:6. Wherefore He saith, Ὁ θεὸς ὑπερηφάνοις ἀντιτάσσεται, ταπεινοῖς δὲ δίδωσιν χάριν: Proverbs 3:34. God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the lowly. III. 17. The Septuagint has precisely these words in the passage referred to. The Hebrew so far differs, that in the first member it expresses, “Surely He scorneth the scorners.” It is undoubtedly the scorn of a proud and elated spirit that is meant; so that the meaning is virtually the same. A very similar antithesis also is found in Proverbs 29:23. I. PETER. 1 Peter 1:16. Because it is written, Ἅγιοι ἔσεσθε, ὅτι ἐγὼ ἅγιός: Leviticus 11:44. Be ye holy, for I am holy. I. 71. An abridged quotation, but quite literal. 1 Peter 1:24-25. For, πᾶσα σὰρξ ὡς χόρτος καὶ πᾶσα δόξα αὐτῆς ὡς ἄνθος χόρτου·ἐξηράνθη ὁ χόρτος καὶ τὸ ἄνθος ἐξέπεσεν·τὸ δὲ ῥῆμα Κυρίου μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα: Isaiah 40:6-7. All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass; the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word of the Lord abideth for ever. I. 72. The Septuagint is followed, which adheres closely to the Hebrew. 1 Peter 2:6. See at Romans 9:33. The apostle here merely adds a few epithets from Isaiah 28:16, which were omitted by St. Paul. 1 Peter 2:7. See at Matthew 21:42, and Acts 4:11. 1 Peter 2:9, 1 Peter 2:22, 1 Peter 2:24. In each of these verses there is a silent appropriation of Old Testament passages—Exodus 19:6; Isaiah 53:9, Isaiah 53:5,—in perfect accordance with the Hebrew, and in the words of the Septuagint. But there is no formal citation. 1 Peter 3:10-12. Another silent appropriation of an Old Testament passage—Psalms 34:12-16—almost entirely in the language of the Septuagint, and quite faithful to the original. 1 Peter 3:14-15. A similar adoption of the language of Isaiah, in Isaiah 8:12-13. 1 Peter 4:8. A substantial, though not quite literal appropriation of the words of Proverbs 10:12. II. PETER. 2 Peter 2:22. It has happened unto them according to the true proverb, Κύων ἐπιστρέψας ἐπὶ τὸ ἴδιον ἐξέραμα, καί,Ὗς λουσαμένη εἰς κυλισμὸν βορβόρου: The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. This is not properly a scriptural quotation, but the application merely of a common proverb to a spiritual case. The first part of it occurs substantially in Proverbs 26:11, yet not precisely as presented here. REVELATION. Throughout the book of Revelation there is a constant appropriation of the language of Old Testament Scripture; sometimes—as at Revelation 2:27, Revelation 5:10—sentences are adopted entire; but of proper and formal citation there is no example, as, indeed, the nature of the book did not admit of it. GENERAL RESULT. It thus appears, that of the four classes of citations mentioned at the outset, there are not reckoning repeated citations of the same passages in the same or other books—72 belonging to the first, 80 to the second, 17 to the third, and 17 to the fourth. In other words, considerably more than the half of the whole, in which the passages from the old Testament are closely rendered—very commonly in the words of the Septuagint, but also occasionally by an independent translation. In 30 more the difference between the original and the citation is merely of a formal kind, some slight alteration being adopted in the phraseology, usually for the purpose of adapting it better to its place as a citation, but without making any assignable difference in the meaning of the passage. Indeed, so narrow often is the boundary between this class of quotations and the first, that it is of no moment, practically, whether they should be assigned to the first class, or should form one by themselves. The third class presents 17, in which the Septuagint is followed, in preference to the Hebrew; but here again the variations are commonly of a formal kind; and even when they exhibit a substantial difference, it is only by a sort of paraphrastic explanation being given of the original, or by a distinct expression being imparted to a particular aspect of the truth, such as specifying a result or a cause, which the original did nothing more than indicate. In none of the cases are we presented with a different sense, but simply with a modified representation of the same sense. And in the remaining 17, in which neither is the Hebrew nor the Septuagint strictly followed, there is a common principle pervading them; that, namely, of rendering something peculiar or obscure in the original more clearly intelligible to those who were immediately in the eye of the New Testament writer, or to readers generally in gospel times. In the whole of this class of cases, as well as of the immediately preceding one, the general meaning of the ancient Scripture is still preserved, and nothing in doctrine or precept is built upon the superficial differences existing between the citation and the original. It is, therefore, a groundless and unwarranted application to make of these occasional departures from the exact import of the original, when they are employed as an argument against the plenary inspiration of Scripture. So, for example, Dr. Davidson, in his Hermeneutics, (page 513,) holds, that the freedom with which the New Testament writers cite the Scriptures of the Old Testament, is a conclusive proof against such inspiration. For, he argues, “the terms and phrases of the Old Testament, if literally inspired, were the best that could have been adopted. Why, then, did not the writers of the New Testament give, as nearly as possible, these best terms and phrases? They should have adhered to the ipsissima verba of the Holy Spirit, (seeing they were the best,) as closely as the genius of the Hebrew and Greek languages allowed. But, instead of this, they have widely departed from them.” We are afraid this argument, if valid, would go much further than establish a conclusion against what is termed verbal inspiration. The question cannot be one merely of words; for if not the main import, yet the precise shade of meaning, is necessarily affected by the deviations; so that, on the principle in question, the New Testament writers are liable to the charge of having chosen an inferior thing to what lay actually before them; they altered, to some extent, the statements of Scripture, and altered them to the worse. But the argument rests upon a fallacy—the fallacy of supposing, that what is the best in certain circumstances, what may have been best when the ancient prophets wrote, must also be the best when apostles and evangelists brought into notice the fulfilment of their words. By that time circumstances were materially changed; and it may have been expedient, it may even have been required by the highest spiritual wisdom, to adopt some slight modification of the original passage, or to give an explanatory rendering of its terms, so as to adapt it the better to the purpose of its application. Even in those cases, in which, for any thing we can see, a closer translation would have served equally well the purpose of the writer, it may have been worthy of the inspiring Spirit, and perfectly consistent with the fullest inspiration of the original Scriptures, that the sense should have been given in a free current translation; for the principle was thereby sanctioned of a rational freedom in the handling of Scripture, as opposed to the rigid formalism and superstitious regard to the letter, which prevailed among the Rabbinical Jews. The Church of the New Testament, we are thereby taught, is not bound by the pedantic trammels which Jewish authorities imposed, and which, by spending its solicitude upon the shell, comparatively neglected the kernel. The stress occasionally laid in the New Testament upon particular words in passages of the Old, and even on the number and tenses of words—as at Matthew 22:32; Matthew 22:45; Galatians 3:16; Hebrews 1:5, Hebrews 5:10—sufficiently proves what a value attaches to the very form of the Divine communications, and how necessary it is to connect the element of inspiration with the written record as it stands. It shows that God’s words are pure words, and that, if fairly interpreted, they cannot be too closely pressed. But in other cases, when nothing depended upon a rigid adherence to the letter, the practice of the sacred writers, not scrupulously to stickle about this, but to give prominence simply to the substance of the revelation, is fraught also with an important lesson; since it teaches us, that the letter is valuable only for the truth couched in it, and that the one is no further to be prized and contended for, than may be required for the exhibition of the other. The practice in this respect of the sacred writers is followed every day still, and followed by persons who hold the strictest views of inspiration. They never imagine, while they quote passages from a current translation, though it may not give the meaning to the nicest shade, or themselves slightly modify the form of words to suit the particular application made of them, that they are thereby compromising the plenary inspiration of Scripture. They do not the less hold every jot and tittle of it to be sacred, that they at times find it unnecessary to press what is comparatively but a jot or tittle. Indeed, the matter in this aspect of it has been quite properly put by the writer just quoted, and in a manner, that seems to accord ill with what fell from him on verbal inspiration. “It is unreasonable to expect,” he says, “that the apostles should scrupulously abide by the precise words of the passages they quote. By a slight deviation from the Greek, they sometimes rendered the sense clearer and more explicit; at other times they paraphrased, rather than translated, the original Hebrew. In every instance we suppose them to have been directed by the superintending Spirit, who infallibly kept them from error, and guided them in selecting the most appropriate terms, where their own judgments would have failed.” (P. 470.) There is, however, a point connected with the citations from the Old Testament, which seems somewhat strange, and admits of no proper explanation—although it can scarcely be said to touch upon the doctrine of inspiration, or to involve any question of principle. It is in respect to the apparent capriciousness of the treatment given to the Septuagint translation. Sometimes it is followed with great regularity for a series of passages, and then, it is suddenly abandoned at places where its rendering is not less, or even more exact. Thus at Matthew 27:9-10, a rendering is preferred markedly differing from the Septuagint, itself too one of the most peculiar, while in several preceding quotations the words of the Septuagint were almost literally adopted. So again, at John 15:25, the Septuagint is departed from, where it literally renders the original, but in the two following citations it is implicitly followed. There are similar irregularities elsewhere, particularly in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where, usually, the Septuagint is closely followed, while yet at certain passages a somewhat different rendering is preferred (see Hebrews 9:20, Hebrews 10:30, Hebrews 12:26.) This alternating use and disuse of the Septuagint as a translation of Old Testament Scripture finds no explanation in any existing relations, or spiritual principle, with which we are acquainted. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 01.24. QUOTATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW ======================================================================== Section Second. Quotations From The Old Testament In The New, Considered In Respect To The Mode Of Application. IT is but a comparatively small number of the passages, which have been already produced and compared with the original Scriptures, that require to be brought up for consideration here. The use made of them in the New Testament is, for the most part, so transparently reasonable and proper, that among thoughtful and sober-minded Christians there can be but one opinion regarding it. We shall, therefore, as formerly intimated, limit our inquiry to the examples which have chiefly created embarrassment, and require explanation. I. Matthew 1:22-23; Isaiah 7:14. It is remarkable, that the application of no testimony of Old Testament Scripture to the transactions of the New, has given rise to more variety of opinion, or is more frequently called up for fresh discussion, than the one which meets us at the very threshold of the Gospels,—in Matthew 1:22-23, where we are told, that the things concerning the miraculous conception of Christ took place, that the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 might be fulfilled, which said, “Behold the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.” By a large body of interpreters it is held, that in this application there is a certain accommodation of the prophecy to what was not primarily, if at all, contemplated in it; and that the child to be born and called Immanuel was, in the first instance at least, to be a child produced in the ordinary course of nature, and within a very short period from the deliverance of the prophecy. They argue this on the ground, that the birth of the child was to form the sign of Judah’s speedy deliverance from the hostile assaults of Syria and Israel; insomuch that, before he should know to discern the evil and the good, those two lands should be forsaken of their kings (Isaiah 7:16.) They, therefore, conceive, that by the child-bearing virgin must primarily be meant a then living maid—a maid presently to be married, and to have offspring; that to this offspring a symbolical name should be given, as a pledge of the Divine favour and protection, and that the pledge should be verified within two or three years by the removal of the kings of Syria and Israel. So that the Evangelist Matthew must, either have accommodated a prediction to Christian times, which did not originally and properly point to them, or the prediction of itself admitted and justified such an application because of a typical relationship between the nearer and the more remote birth—the one being like the foreshadowing sign of a much greater future. Many subordinate differences exist among the interpreters, who concur in the more fundamental part of this view; they only differ as to the particular almah, or virgin, and child that may be meant, and the way in which the ultimate is to be connected with the primary application. But as such shades of difference do not affect the principle of the interpretation, or obviate the objections, to which in any form it appears to me liable, there is no need for going into details. I. (1.) To begin with the negative aspect of the matter, or the objections that present themselves to this mode of interpretation, we remark, first of all, that there is obviously in it the want of a proper nexus between the two events, such as the application of the Evangelist seems to indicate, and as the nature of the relation itself would require. We take for granted, that there was a relation of some kind; for the mere accommodationists are not worth arguing against. The Evangelist, then, plainly appears to have found, in the words of the prophet, an explicit and definite announcement of Messiah’s wonderful birth and person, as being in Himself a marvelous combination of the Divine and human, and as born into this world the singular offspring of a virgin. However he may have found this in the prophecy, he certainly appears to have found it; and can the right to do so be justified on such a relationship between the immediate and the ultimate as the view under consideration, in any of its forms, supposes? One can conceive of a birth among the chosen people so brought about and so circumstanced, as that it might fitly enough be taken for a prophetical sign or prefiguration of Christ’s birth. The birth of Isaac was pre-eminently one of that description; there was a quite special and supernatural element in the one as well as in the other; and in both cases alike connected with the higher interests of the Divine king dom. Such, too, in a measure, was the case with Solomon, the immediate successor of David on the throne of the kingdom. But in such cases there was a peculiarity connected with the parentage; a typical relationship already existed there, forming the ground of the prospective reference of the birth; and it became comparatively easy to pass from the immediate to the future, and to see the one imaged in the other; especially when there was a prophetic word uttered over the nearer event, which naturally carried the thoughts onward to the remoter and greater things of the kingdom. But here, on the interpretation in question, there is nothing properly special, either in the parent or the child; it might have been (for aught that appears) any young woman in Judea, any child born of such a woman, in the ordinary course of nature, whether in the line of Messiah’s parentage or not. One cannot even see why, on the supposition in question, the single specification should have been made, of the mother being at the time an unmarried person—granting, what we by no means admit, that the almah of the prophet denotes only a marriage able maid, though not necessarily a virgin; for there seems no proper call for the mother being a maid, if the child was to come by ordinary generation, and if it was to be the pledge of Divine protection and deliverance only by the period of its birth. In such a case, it seems arbitrary in the prophet to lay stress on the point of her maidenhood, especially when no particular maiden was indicated; and still more Arbitrary in the Evangelist to find in the child of this indefinite mother, with its immediate adjuncts, a distinct and circumstantial presage of Messiah’s birth. (2.) Then, the name assigned to this child, for the purpose of indicating its nature and destiny, taken in connexion with the prophet’s own subsequent references to it, seems incompatible with the idea of its being a common child, produced by ordinary generation. That a maiden or virgin, without further specification, should be announced as the prospective mother of a child, that was to bear, as a fit designation, the name Immanuel (God with us,) would certainly be peculiar—we may even say, without a parallel—if in that child there was nothing supernatural in respect to its generation or its birth. The very imposing of such a name seems to import, that Divinity was somehow to be peculiarly manifested in the Being produced. Not only so, but in ch. 8:8, the prophet addresses Him as the rightful proprietor of the land; for, speaking of the adversary, he says, “The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of Thy land, Immanuel.” And in the very fact of that proprietorship, he descries the sure ground of a final deliverance from all oppression and violence: “Take counsel,” he says to the enemies, “and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand, because of Immanuel” (Isaiah 8:10.) Thus Immanuel is plainly regarded by Isaiah as the God-man, the proper Lord of the heritage, supreme Head of the kingdom. And still again, in another part of the same line of prophecy, in the glorious announcement with which it closes (Isaiah 9:6,) the prophet evidently points back to the original passage, and in vests it with the full meaning of which its words were susceptible: in the one, “a virgin conceives and bears a son;” in the other , “unto us a child is born, a son is given;” “God-with-us” is the name by which the first is to be called, and of this, in like manner, it is said, “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” With such marked resemblances, it is impossible almost to doubt the identity of the two; and looking at the whole of these subsequent references to the prediction of the Immanuel, it is not too much to say, that the prophet himself stretches out the hand to the Evangelist. (3.) Thirdly, the interpretation we oppose would find only comfort and encouragement in what was announced to the house of David; and thereby leaves altogether unexplained the element of indignation and threatening with which it is so pointedly introduced. “Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, the virgin shall conceive,” etc. Does it seem a natural or satisfactory way to understand this address, to read it as if it meant, Because ye have wearied men by your faithless and foolish procedure, and are proceeding to do the same with God, therefore the Lord will Himself give you the most astonishing sign of His gracious nearness and protection. This, surely, would have been a premise and a conclusion that hung strangely together; and so some of its propounders have felt; for they have endeavoured to turn the therefore (לָכֵן) into a nevertheless, which would, indeed, make an intelligible meaning, but it is entirely unwarranted by the usage of the word. There were, no doubt, at the time, pious individuals in the kingdom of Judah, and of these some probably in the house of David, who needed a word of encouragement, and for whom also it was provided, in the communication actually given; but such persons are not formally brought into notice. It is with the false and back sliding portion, that the prophet directly and ostensibly deals; hence, whatever of a hopeful nature might be wrapt up in the message he delivers, we are constrained to look for something also—something even of a striking and palpable kind—which involved a work of rebuke and judgment. In presenting nothing of this description, the interpretation under review entirely fails to account for a prominent feature in the prophetic announcement. These objections which are derived mainly from the Old Testament passage itself, seem fatal to the view, under any modification, which would find in the Immanuel an ordinary child, born at that particular time. In urging them, no reference has been made to incidental topics—such as the attempt sometimes made to identify this child with that said, in Isaiah 8:1-4, to be born of the prophet and the prophetess; for this identification is utterly arbitrary, the latter child having both a different parentage ascribed to it, and a different name; nor can it be consistently understood otherwise than of a transaction in the ideal region of prophetic vision. (See Prophecy in its Distinctive Nature, etc., p. 505.) II. It is one thing, however, to make good, or to appear to make good a negative, and quite another thing to establish satisfactorily a positive, view of a controverted subject. And as the strength and plausibility of the class of interpretations now considered lie in the apparent necessity of finding a present birth to render the child a sign (as it is supposed the prophet meant it to be considered) of an immediately approaching deliverance, it is necessary to show how, on the supposition of the Messiah being directly contemplated in the prediction of Immanuel, this objection can be met. (1.) Now, it is at the outset to be borne in mind, that the prophecy has in its very form something enigmatical—purposely has it; both from the nature of the subject, which refers to the deep things of God, and from the condition of the people, which was such as to call for what would, in a manner, drive them from their superficial mode of looking at Divine things. Our Lord. Himself sometimes, for like reasons, spoke enigmatically; He did so, for example, near the commencement of His ministry, when He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”—an announcement which none present at the time understood, and which was not even intended to be understood, except by such as would give themselves to prayerful and earnest inquiry. The real import and bearing of Isaiah’s prediction, in like manner, lay beyond the depth of those who had no eye to look beneath the surface, and might even baffle the research and inquiry of those who possessed such an eye, till farther revelations and the course of Providence had thrown additional light on it. Undoubtedly, there is no want of similar announcements in Isaiah and the other prophetical books. (2.) Another thing to be kept in mind is the precise starting-point, or crisis of affairs, out of which the prophecy originated, and which it was designed to meet. The combination formed by the kings of Syria and Israel had for its object, not merely the invasion of Judah and the subjugation of the king, but the entire displacement of the house of David, and the substitution of another dynasty under the son of Tabeal (bible: Isaiah 7:6;) in other words, the avowed aim of the hostile party was to make void God’s covenant with the house of David. This was the audacious design which called forth the first word of God on the occasion, and led Isaiah to give to Ahaz and his people a solemn assurance that the scheme should certainly miscarry ( Isaiah 7:8-9) Yet, in the very act of doing this, he distinctly intimated, that for Ahaz and his house there still was danger—danger arising, not so much from any plans or power of their open adversaries, as from their own faithless and ungodly spirit; for the word concluded by saying, “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.” As much as to say, Even the overthrow of your immediate enemies, and the defeating of their hostile policy, cannot secure to you and your family the possession of the throne, and the establishment of the kingdom in your hands—unless you rid yourselves of the evil spirit of unbelief, and learn to rest in the word and power of Jehovah. (3.) Then, partly with the view of bringing out this fatal defect in the character of Ahaz, and partly for the purpose of unfolding God’s own design as to the establishment of the kingdom in the house of David, the prophet represents himself as giving Ahaz the option of a sign—a sign of what? A sign, we are constrained by the connexion to think, of God’s purpose to maintain inviolate the covenant with David, and perpetuate the kingdom therein granted to his seed. Ahaz, however, as if already satisfied, pretended to regard the offer as superfluous, and declined asking a sign while really his heart was set upon earthly confidences, and from want of faith in the assurances given him, he was calling in the aid of the king of Assyria (2 Chronicles 28:16; 2 Chronicles 28:20.) Hence, the Lord interposes to give a sign; but of what nature? Such a sign, we naturally expect in the circumstances, as would show at once His determination to maintain the covenant, and His just displeasure with, or even virtual repudiation of, the existing representatives of the house and throne of David. While men should be made to see that God’s covenant must stand fast, they must also see, it would be in a way that should augur no good to persons in such ill accordance with its design. (It makes no difference, as to the essential nature and purport of the representation above given, if we suppose the transactions arid words to have passed in vision; for in that case the offer of the sign to Ahaz and his refusal would simply have served as a cover to bring out his actual state of mind; precisely as in the eighth chapter of Ezekiel with the elders of Judah.) (4.) In this state of matters, when there was given the sign of a virgin conceiving and bringing forth a son, whose name should be Immanuel, we are, if not absolutely necessitated, at least most naturally led to think of a son, that should bear directly and conclusively upon the point at issue; namely, the establishment and perpetuation of the kingdom in conformity with the covenant of David:—a son who, by his very birth and being, should form the truest sign of the full realization of all that properly belonged to it. Such a sign, could it be given, would settle, as nothing else could, the pending controversy. And what the connexion thus seems to point to, is confirmed by the implied contrast between this Son of the virgin, the destined possessor of David’s throne, and what had previously been said of the possessors of the two rival thrones in Syria and Israel (Isaiah 7:8,) “The head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin (these and nothing more they ascend no higher than a mere earthly city and a frail human being;) and in sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken, that it be not a people.” That is, both the two have about them the weakness and instability of the world; they shall presently become striking examples of its fleeting and transitory existence. But now, on the other hand, when the prophet turns to the kingdom of David, the Divine comes prominently into view along with the human; to establish it, Deity itself is to become incarnate; and the inference, therefore, is plain—all attempts to overthrow it must be fruitless; it moves in the element of immortality, and shall abide for ever. (5.) But the mention of such a good implied for existing parties a corresponding evil; the sign given bespeaks a fall as well as a rising; and a contrast was indicated, not merely between the kingdom of David and the kingdoms of Syria and Israel, but also between the child Immanuel and the degenerate house of Ahaz. For in this Divine purpose and provision for a better future, the existing royal house is entirely overleapt; silently passed by on account of their unfaithfulness and corruption, when the higher interests of the kingdom and its ultimate stability come into consideration. The sign, in which the nature and destiny of the kingdom were to be imaged, bursts upon the view as a prodigy from an unknown quarter; it is to be a child born, not to the present occupant of the throne, nor to any future occupant, but to a virgin; and even she marked out by no distinct specifications of place or time,—foreseen only by the omniscient eye of God. He it is alone, who charges Himself with the accomplishment of the result; in His own time He will bring forth the almah and her Son—as if Ahaz and his successors in the kingdom had no personal interest in the matter! (6.) This alone is ominous of evil, but what follows is much more so. And in what follows we include, not merely Isaiah 7:15-16—with which commentators usually and unhappily stop—but all the concluding portion of the chapter. There is no real break or proper termination at the close of Isaiah 7:16, as if the prophet intended to shut up his present communication there, and commence afresh with something different. The whole, to the end of the chapter, is but one message, and is required in its totality to make out a full arid consistent meaning. From what follows, then, it appears that the Son, on whose birth all hope hung, was to grow up in the midst of a depressed state of things; such as betokened a terrible and wide-spread previous desolation. The precise time is left altogether indefinite. From anything that is said in the prophecy, it might be comparatively near or remote; but the position and aspect of affairs, amid which Immanuel was to appear, is distinctly indicated to be one in which the reverse of prosperity and strength should prevail. For no sooner does the child appear, than butter and honey are assigned as His food (Isaiah 7:15,) and not for Him only, but the people in the land generally are afterwards spoken of as having these for their support (Isaiah 7:22 :) and butter and honey are most fitly regarded here as the symbols of a reduced and prostrate condition, being the products of a land, far from barren in deed, but yielding of its resources after little or no cultivation. It tells us, that at the period of Immanuel’s birth, and while He should Himself be still in the feebleness of childhood, all around should be in a weak, dilapidated, impoverished condition—in the kingdom of Judah, not less than in the regions of Syria and Israel. These, indeed, should experience the calamity first; before the child should have out-grown His childhood, they should have “been forsaken of both their kings.” This does not mean, as is very commonly assumed, that the then reigning kings of Syria and Israel should have ceased to fill the throne; far more than that—the land in both its divisions was to be bereft of those holding the state and office of king; it should have ceased to have kingdoms. There was no need, therefore, for the true children of God to be greatly concerned about them; Immanuel, when He came, with the manifestations of Divine power and glory, should not find them even in existence. But, if the earlier and the greater prostration should befall them, the house and kingdom of David should also be marred with symptoms of humiliation and decay. This is more briefly indicated in Isaiah 7:15 by the eating of butter and honey—nature’s products in pastoral countries—and then more pointedly and fully at Isaiah 7:17, where the prophet, turning to the ungodly Ahaz, says, “The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah,” etc. In a word, the substance of the message was, God’s covenant should certainly stand fast, and the sign to be given of its stability should eventually be brought to pass; but, meanwhile, the kingdom of David, in its existing form, together with the kingdoms of Syria and Israel, should undergo a sad and calamitous reverse; they should altogether go down, while it should be diminished and brought low. And the kingdom of David, as the object of faith and hope to the Lord’s people, was to spring as from a fresh starting-point in the person of Immanuel, and out of poverty and weakness rise to its proper magnitude and glory. Such, by a careful consideration of the original passage, appears to be the progress of thought and the richness of meaning embodied in the prophecy here referred to by the Evangelist Matthew. If we are right in the view that has been given of it, the Evangelist was undoubtedly right in the use, to which he applied it; and not a tendency to catch at some obvious and superficial meaning, but a capacity to apprehend the real import of the prediction, was what determined him in turning it to such an account. Understood in the light, in which it has now been presented, it stands in no need of the embarrassing hypothesis of a double birth, nor of the fanciful supposition of Hengstenberg, (Christology, vol. ii.,) and also of Ewald, (if I rightly understand his view of the passage,)—the supposition of the promised child being ideally present in his birth and growth to boyhood before the spiritual eye of the prophet, and constituting, as so present, the sign of a speedy deliverance of Judah from Syria and Israel. Such an impersonation were far too subtle and involved for the purpose in question; and it would, besides, most incongruously confound together the ideal and the real—making the prophet’s internal apprehension of a future event, a sign to the people of a more immediate external reality. The sign, however, as already stated, was not intended to be directly or properly a pledge of Judah’s deliverance from her impending evils; it was strictly a sign of God’s purpose to ratify His covenant with David, and build up his throne to all generations; and a sign so conceived and announced as to speak at once of judgment and of mercy to the existing representative of David’s house. II. Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1. There can be no doubt, that the portion of Hosea here applied to the circumstance of our Lord’s recall from His temporary sojourn in Egypt, was in its original connexion simply an historical statement respecting what God had done for the national Israel in the commencing period of their history. The whole passage is, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and I called ray son out of Egypt.” The question, therefore, is, how the Evangelist could find in such a passage any proper pre-intimation of the circumstance in our Lord’s life to which he has so specifically applied it? The application can only be understood and vindicated on the ground of a typical relationship between the literal Israel and the Messiah; but on this ground it admits of a satisfactory explanation. The relationship in question was not obscurely indicated even in Old Testament Scripture; and particularly in the latter portion of Isaiah’s writings, where there is a constant transition from Israel in the literal sense to an ideal and prospective Israel—from an Israel called, indeed, to the enjoyment of high privileges, and the discharge of important obligations, but still compassed about with imperfection, backsliding and trouble, to an Israel, in whom the calling was to find its adequate fulfilment—God’s elect, in whom His soul delighted, and by whom His name was to be glorified, sin and evil purged away from the condition of His people, and the world restored to the favour of Heaven. (Compare, for example, on the one side, Isaiah 42:19-25, Isaiah 43:22-28, Isaiah 48:18-22, Isaiah 59:1-19; and on the other, Isaiah 42:1-8, Isaiah 49:1-13, Isaiah 53:1-12, Isaiah 59:20-21, Isaiah 61:1-11.) The same sort of relationship was indicated in another class of prophecies, between the son of David in the literal sense, and a son some time to appear, who should occupy an unspeakably higher position, and raise the kingdom to a state of purity and bliss it could never otherwise have reached. (Compare here also, on the one side, 2 Samuel 7:14; Psalms 89:30-32, Psalms 89:38-45; 1 Kings 11:36-39; Amos 9:11; and on the other, Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7; Isaiah 9:6-7, etc.) There was no essential difference between this later covenant with the house of David, and the earlier covenant with Abraham or Israel; they both aimed at the same great end of obtaining salvation and blessing for the world, in connexion with the establishment of truth and righteousness:—only, what the one proposed to accomplish through the seed of Israel, the other, more specifically and individually, sought to work out by the administration of a kingdom, in the hands of a son of David. The design of each covenant should be realized, when (as it might be indifferently expressed) the kingdom among the sons of men had become the Lord s, or all the families of the earth were truly blessed in Him. Fundamentally, therefore, the relation of the promised Messiah to David’s immediate son was the same with that of Christ to Israel; it was such as, in God’s dispensations, subsists between the present and the ultimate, the preparatory and the final that is, in both there were relatively the same place and calling, but these in the earlier connected with an inferior-line of things, partaking more of the human, and the external,—in the later, rising more into the sphere of the spiritual Divine; consequently, in the one case intermingled on every hand with imperfection and failure, in the other, attaining to heavenly excellence and perfection. Such generally is the relation between the Old and New—between type and antitype; and such it is also here. Christ is at once the antitypical or the true Israel, and the antitypical or true Son of David; since in Him all the promises made concerning these were to stand fast, and the high calling of God was to find its proper realization. Hence, the prophetic announcements respecting Abraham’s seed of blessing, and David’s son and heir, are, in their higher bearing and import, ascribed to the Messiah; they have no adequate accomplishment till they find it in Him, (Acts 2:25-26, Acts 13:33; Hebrews 1:5.) Now, as before the incarnation the Spirit gave forth a series of prophetical utterances, based on the relationship of Israel to the Messiah, and again a series based on His relationship to David, it was quite natural, that the writers of the New Testament, under the guidance of the same Spirit, should at times mark how the things concerning both were discovering themselves in the history of Christ. And in doing so, we might expect them to take, not merely the prophetical pas sages, which on the ground of the typical relationship, in either of its forms, pointed to the corning future, but also occasion ally at least, to render prominent the relationship itself, and show how, by remarkable coincidences in God’s providence, Jesus was, in a manner, identified with the literal Israel, or with the house of David. In the nature of things there could not be more than occasional coincidences of the kind referred to; for it had been impossible, or if possible, it had been on many accounts unsuitable, that Jesus should have been made to pass through all the recorded experiences belonging either to Israel at large, or to David’s house. It were enough, if a few noticeable agreements took place, fitted from their own nature, or from the manner in which they were brought about, to serve as finger-posts to direct the eyes of men to Him that was to come, or, like Heaven’s seal on the connexion between the beginnings and the end, to certify them that the old was at length in its higher form coming into being. Such was the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, the city of David,—fulfilling, indeed, a prophecy which had been announced regarding it (not overlooked by the Evangelist, Matthew 2:5-6,) but itself, especially when effected by so singular turns of Providence, a sign from above, that the long expected Son of David was born into the world. Of the same kind, and pointing to the other form of the typical relationship, was the removal of the infant Saviour for a time to an asylum in Egypt, and His recall thence when the season of danger was over; it was substantially doing over again what had been done in the infancy of the national Israel, and thereby helping a weak faith to recognise in this remarkable babe the new Israel, the child of hope for the world. Of the same kind, again, was His withdrawal, through the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil, and His sojourn there for forty days—the number, and the place, and the object, all pointing back to Israel’s forty years temptation in the desert; but by the day for a year (instead of, as in their case, a year for a day,) and by the baffling of the tempter in every assault, showing how infinitely superior the new was to the old, and that here, at last, was the Israel in whom God was to be fully glorified. If these principles in the Divine government are kept in view, no difficulty will be found in the application made by the Evangelist of Hosea 11:1 to our Lord’s return from Egypt. His temporary descent thither, and subsequent recall to the land appointed for the fulfilment of His high vocation, as just noticed, was one of the more striking and palpable coincidences between His outward history, and that of Israel, which were ordered and designed by God to point Him out as the true Israel, the antitype of the old; and the passage in Hosea, which records the earlier event, necessarily formed, by reason of the typical connexion, a virtual prophecy of the corresponding event in the future. It embodied a typical fact; and so, when viewed in connexion with God’s ulterior design, it enclosed a presage of the antitypical counterpart. Substantially the requirements of the type might have been met, if some other local asylum had been” provided for the youthful Saviour than the literal Egypt—precisely as, afterwards, the circumstantials of His temptation differed in time and place from the prior temptation of Israel. But to render the correspondence here more obvious and convincing, the new was made formally, as well as substantially, to coincide with the old; so that, for those who were watching and desirous to learn from the footsteps of Providence, there might be the less difficulty in discerning the fulfilment of the typical prediction, when, the Lord anew called his son out of Egypt. III. Matthew 2:18; Jeremiah 31:15. The application of Jeremiah’s prophecy, about Rachel be wailing her lost children, and refusing to be comforted on account of the apparently hopeless deprivation she had sustained, to the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem, undoubtedly proceeds upon a certain connexion between the earlier and the later event. But from the very nature of things, and the terms of the passage cited, the connexion could not be regarded as of such a close and organic kind, as that indicated in the last quotation. There, stress was laid even on the external resemblance between what befell Christ, and what had anciently befallen Israel; the connexion of both with Egypt formed the immediate and ostensible ground of the word, spoken originally of the one, being extended to the other. Here, on the other hand, there is a palpable diversity as to the external circumstances; for the scene of action in the one case was Rama, a city in the tribe of Benjamin, a few miles to the north of Jerusalem, while in the other it was Bethlehem, a city about the same distance to the south, in the tribe of Judah; and, consequently, if respect were had to literal exactness, Leah, the ancestral mother of Judah, should have been addressed as the chief mourner on the present occasion, as Rachel had been on the former. In such circumstances of obvious and palpable disagreement, the Evangelist could not possibly mean, that the passage he quoted from Jeremiah had either been directly uttered of the scene at Bethlehem, or even that the original mourning at Rama had a typical relation, in the stricter sense, to that at Bethlehem. And hence he does not say, as he usually does, that the circumstances took place in order that the word might be fulfilled, but merely that then was fulfilled what had been spoken by Jeremiah. The kind of fulfilment indicated must be determined by the points of agreement in the two related transactions. Even in its original application, the pas sage is highly poetical in form, and cannot be interpreted as a piece of prosaic writing. It was at Rama, as we learn from Jeremiah 40:1, that the last band of captives was assembled by the captains of Nebuchadnezzar, before they were sent into exile; and either in anticipation of this sore calamity, or in reference to it after it had taken place, the prophet represents Rachel, the ancestral mother of the tribe, where the hapless exiles were gathered, bewailing the fate of her off spring, and giving way to an inconsolable grief, as if all were gone. The introduction of Rachel is, of course, a mere cover, to bring out in vivid colours, the sadness of the occasion, and the apparently hopeless character of the calamity; to human eye, and especially to the passionate fondness of maternal affection, it seemed as if Israel had utterly perished under the stroke of Nebuchadnezzar. Yet it was not so in reality; and the prophet presently goes on to assure the disconsolate mother, that her grief was inordinate, that her children should return again from the land of the enemy, and that there was hope in her end. Now, with all the circumstantial diversities that distinguish the original event at Rama, and the message it called forth, from the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem, there still is a fundamental agreement in the more peculiar features of both. Herod was the new Nebuchadnezzar, who, by his cruel and crafty policy, sought to do what, after another fashion, the Chaldean conqueror thought he had done, viz., extinguish for ever the better hopes and aspirations of Israel. When the one, after having razed the foundations of Jerusalem, bore away from Rama the shattered remnants of her people, he had struck, as he conceived, a fatal blow at their singular pretensions and distinctive glory. And, in like manner, when Herod smote the children at Bethlehem, with the impious design of embracing in the slaughter the new-born “King of the Jews,” he would, had his aim been accomplished, have buried in the dust all that was to render Israel pre-eminent among the nations. They might as well, thenceforth, have ceased to exist, gone to a hopeless exile, or a dishonoured grave. So that, looking upon matters with the eye of sense, the ancestral mother might, as of old, have raised anew the wail of sorrow, even such as might appear incapable of any true solace. Yet God, in His paternal faithfulness and oversight, had provided against the worst, and here again had taken the wise in his own craftiness. As regarded the main object in view, the stroke fell powerless to the ground; the bird escaped from the snare of the fowler. But situated as matters now were—not only with a Herod in the seat of power, but with an Herodian party, who thought that the best thing for the people was to maintain the Herodian interest, it was well to bring this memorable transaction of Gospel times into formal connexion with the ancient catastrophe—to show that Herod was virtually now what Nebuchadnezzar was then—and that, so far as concerned the real glory and salvation of Israel, to look for help from the existing representative of the worldly power in Judea, was like going to Babylon for pity and succour. From such a quarter misery and despair, not life and hope, were what might surely be looked for. IV. Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:4. The explanation given of the terms, by which the Evangelist renders the original in this quotation, has shown the faith fulness of the rendering. It is at once more specific, and more literal, not only than the Septuagint, but also than the authorized version of the passage in Isaiah, which has, “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” Sicknesses and pains, however, are the more exact synonyms for the He brew terms; and it is not bearing and carrying, anyhow, that is ascribed to the Messiah respecting them, but more specially taking them on Himself, as a burden bearing them on His own person. Such also is the sense put upon them by the Evangelist. Yet Meyer says, “The passage is cited according to the original, but not in conformity with its import, since, according to this, the Messiah is represented as an atoning sin-bearer; for the parallel verbs, λαμβάνειν and βαστάζειν, must here be rendered (against the meaning of the corresponding Hebrew words) to take away, to remove, on account of the historical connexion in which the citation is found.” There is, however, no such necessity; and Meyer here, as in many other cases, merely adopts a superficial historical sense as the only tenable one, and then pronounces an arbitrary and pre sumptuous judgment on the sacred record. It is, first of all, riot sins, but sicknesses, or diseases and pains, that primarily and directly are the subject of discourse. And, secondly, while the sense of bearing away or removing these would have suited the connexion, it is not absolutely required by it; nay, the other and literal rendering gives us, though a less obvious, yet a much profounder insight into our Lord’s connexion with the troubles and distresses of mankind. In respect to these also He had a vicarious relation to fill—to charge Himself with the burden of human sorrows, as well as with the guilt from which they spring; and, in order to remove them, He must bring them into contact with His own sympathies, and powers, and benevolent working. Hengstenberg, in his comment on the original passage (Christology, vol. ii.,) maintains the rendering above given, and justifies the use made of it by the Evangelist. He says, “According to the opinion of several interpreters, by diseases all outward and inward sufferings are figuratively designated; according to the opinion of others, spiritual diseases, sins. But, from the relation alone of this verse to the preceding, it appears that here, in the first instance, diseases and pains, in the ordinary sense, are spoken of; just as the blind and deaf, in Isaiah 35:1-10, are, in the first instance, they who are naturally blind and deaf. Diseases, in the sense of sins, do not occur at all in the Old Testament. The circumstance, that in the parallel passage, Isaiah 53:11-12, the bearing of the transgressions and sins is spoken of, proves nothing. The servant of God bears these also in their consequences, in their punishments, among which sickness and pains occupy a prominent place. Of the bearing of outward sufferings, נָשָׂא חֶלִי occurs also in Jeremiah 10:19. If the words are rightly understood, then at once light falls upon the apostolic quotation, in Matthew 8:16-17, which deserves the more careful consideration, as the Evangelist intentionally deviates from the Alexandrine version. In such an application there is not an external meaning given to that, which is to be understood spiritually; but when the Saviour healed the sick, He fulfilled the prophecy in its most proper and obvious sense. . . . He has not only put away our sicknesses and pains, but He has, as our substitute, taken them upon him; He has healed us by His having Himself become sick in our stead.” This, of course, implies, as Hengstenberg goes on to state, Christ’s personal appropriation of our sins, of which His sufferings were the consequence. But it implies also, that the troubles and disorders of humanity were themselves, in a sense, laid upon Christ; He had to make these also His own; and showed that He did so by applying His Almightiness to remove them. Even here there was the proof of an infinite condescension, and the indication of a vicarious work. In 1 Peter 2:24-25, there is undoubtedly a reference to the 53d of Isaiah; and the sin-bearing of Jesus is expressed in the very words used by the Septuagint in rendering the first clause of Isaiah 53:4. But there is no ground, on that account, for supposing that Peter meant the words to be understood as expressing his view of the passage. He is merely unfolding, in language which the thoughts and words of that chapter had rendered current, the great truth, which doubtless formed the centre of the prophet’s representation, as well as the main theme of the apostle’s teaching. V. Matthew 13:35; Psalms 78:2. It is in connexion with the change introduced into our Lord’s method of teaching, when He began to speak in parables, that the passage from Psalms 78:2 is cited. He did so, the Evangelist states, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things that have been hidden from the foundation of the world.” The stress is plainly meant to be laid upon the first part of the passage; it was that, which now more especially had its verification in the procedure of Christ; the hidden or enigmatical nature of the things discoursed of was but a consequence, that, in greater or less degree, attached itself to the other. Now, in considering the fitness of this application of the Psalmist’s language, we are first of all met with a source of doubt and uncertainty in regard to the proper meaning of the word rendered parables. This in the original is מָשָׁל, mashal; and opinions have been, and still are, divided on its precise import in certain applications—some making it bear mainly upon the form and character of the discourse, others upon its style and diction. To the former class belongs Hengstenberg, who says in his work on Balaam, on Numbers 23:7, “The noun mashal originally means likeness, comparison, and properly maintains this sense always. When it is used of sentences, proverbs, and songs, then it denotes these, not simply as such, but only in so far as the idea of likeness, comparison, prevails in them.” As used by Balaam, he conceives it to have respect more particularly to the poetic elevation in them, which naturally led to a considerable infusion of the figurative modes of conception, in which poetry delights to indulge. And there are other portions of the prophetic Scriptures—such, for example, as Isaiah 14:1-32, and the prophecies of Ezekiel (comp. Ezekiel 15:49,) to which also the word is applied—in respect to which from the play of fancy and the large employment of figure that appears in them, we can readily perceive the appropriateness of a term that is indicative of images and similitudes. But when the same term is applied to such didactic pieces, as Psalms 39:4,) or to such narrative discourses, as Psalms 78:1-72, which are not characterized by any flights of fancy, or by figurative speech, one is at a loss to see, how, if the word always retains the sense of comparison or likeness, it should be applied to compositions which seem to have so little about them of the distinctive quality. It is partly on this account, that the other shade of opinion respecting mashal has been adopted, and which would find the idea of similitude or likeness, that forms the root-meaning, in the parallelism of the sentences. Thus Gesenius, while here presents the word as often applied to parabolical and figurative discourses, holds it to be also employed of songs and other compositions, “the particular verses of which consist of two hemistichs of similar argument and form.” In this case there might be no figure, or illustrative style of thought employed in developing the subject handled; nothing, indeed, marked or peculiar beyond the digesting of what was uttered into a series of parallelistic members. This view, however, appears to give undue prominence to the mere structure of the sentences, which is never rendered prominent in Scripture itself, and only takes, in certain cases, the parallelistic form, from the requirements of the kind of instruction, or the species of discourse, with which it is associated. The fault probably lies in making the import and bearing of the word too determinate either way. The sense put upon, it by Lowth, which may be said to include both the shades of opinion now mentioned—giving chief prominence to the characteristics of the discourse, yet not altogether excluding the external form, into which its utterances are cast—is perhaps the correcter mode of representation. He takes it to be a term “expressive of the poetic style. Many interpreters designate it parable; a word in some respects not unsuitable, but by no means embracing the entire compass of the Hebrew term; which, taken in its full strength, and according to its current use, will be found to signify a sententious, figurative, and elevated kind of discourse.” (Prælec. de Heb. Poesi, 4.) He means one or other of these, as the occasion may require; and in the kind of discourse he would include also its appropriate style of expression. When applied, therefore, to such a piece of composition as Psalms 78:1-72, in which by a poetico-historical rehearsal of the transactions of former times, the inspired writer seeks to convey lessons of instruction for the future, it may be regarded as calling attention, not so much to the parallelism of the sentences,—if to that at all, in a quite subordinate manner but chiefly to the underlying parallelism of circumstances conceived as existing between the Israel of former generations and those yet to come; and to the profound, sententious form in which the instruction inlaid in the one was exhibited for the benefit of the other. It was a turning of history into prophecy; for while ostensibly but rehearsing the past, it aimed at presenting in this a mirror of the future. Precisely similar was the object of our Lord’s parables; differing only in so far as they employed for the cover of the instruction, not the records of actual history, but the ideal narratives of parabolical discourse. This, indeed, was a form of speech and instruction, that still more distinctly and fully realized the idea of the mashal, than the 78th Psalm—containing, as it did, more of the poetical element, and more palpably basing its instruction on the similitude of one class of relations to another. And as all preceding teachers, who in any measure possessed and exercised the spirit of prophecy, were but so many forerunners and types of Him, who was to be emphatically the teacher and prophet of His church, so, what by any one of these had been uttered of His calling and His work, might, with fullest propriety, be applied to Christ, as destined to find in Him its truest realization. Nor could any thing of that description be more fitly so applied, than the saying before us, which pointed to a method of instruction, that in one of its forms was carried by our Lord to the highest degree of perfection, and which, at once for what it un folded and for what it wrapt in temporary concealment, was peculiarly adapted to the ends of His mission. The exterior form conveyed to those, who heard, the image of the truth; and purporting to be but the image, it naturally served both to prompt their desires, and to direct their inquiries after the reality. VI. Matthew 21:42; Psalms 118:22-23. The application, first by our Lord, and afterwards by His apostles, of the figurative passage in the 118th Psalm, respecting the rejection of the stone by men, and its elevation by God to the head stone of the corner, to the things which were to befall Himself, proceeds upon the same relation of Christ to Israel, which has been explained under No. II. The psalm speaks in the first instance of the literal and collective Israel; but of this with reference to its election of God, its higher calling and destiny. The experiences, therefore, to which it relates, while they had an earlier verification in the history of the covenant-people, necessarily had a higher development, a kind of culminating exemplification in the person and kingdom of Christ. As a prophecy, it is of that class which may most justly be said to have “springing and germinant accomplishment,” while “the height and fulness of them” are to be found only in the things which relate to the Messiah. The conflict, which the psalm describes, between the speaker and the ungodly adversaries around Him, was in some form perpetually proceeding. The purpose of God to bless Israel, and to make them the one channel of blessing to the world, was ever and anon calling forth the un godly opposition of the world sometimes within the natural Israel itself, as in the struggles through which David, the chosen servant of God, had to make his way to the throne—but more commonly with Israel as a community, when set on by the jealous rivalry and malice of surrounding nations. More especially did this conflict come to a height under the old relations, when the worldly power, headed by the king of Babylon, scattered the force of the chosen people, and, in boastful opposition to them, claimed to be recognised as the ruling dynasty among men. Israel was then like a stone rejected by the builders, deemed altogether unworthy of a place in their proud scheme of earthly dominion and personal aggrandizement. But when Babylon herself fell from her high position, and Israel not only survived the calamities which crushed their conquerors in the dust, but was sent back with honour, and the clear signs of Heaven’s favour, to lay the foundation of a new, and, ultimately, a nobler destiny in their native land, it then strikingly appeared how God’s purpose respecting them prevailed over the power and malice of men; and how the rejected stone was by Him appointed to be the head of the corner. At such a time, even thoughtful persons among the heathen were constrained to say, “The Lord hath done great things for them;” and the covenant-people themselves naturally sung their song of triumph, and exclaimed, “It is the Lord’s doing, and wondrous in our eyes.” In all probability, the event now referred to was the historical occasion on which Psalms 118:1-29 was composed and originally sung; a probability that is greatly strengthened, and rendered all but certain by the recorded fact, that at the laying of the foundation of the second temple, the returned exiles sung in responsive strains, (such as actually belong to this psalm,) and strains that commenced precisely as it does. For we are told, at Ezra 3:11, that they then “sang together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever toward Israel.” But the principles of the Divine government, which then received such a striking exemplification in the case of Israel, were again to be exhibited, and in a yet higher form, in the personal history of Messiah. Many prophecies had pointed in this direction—all, indeed, which spake of the Messiah as executing His work, and rising to the place of pre-eminent power and glory, through a course of trying experiences and headstrong opposition. These, one and all, betokened a contrariety between the views of men and the purpose of God, in respect to the Author and the plan of salvation; and never failed to make manifest the ultimate triumph of Heaven’s counsels over the perversity and malice of the world. But among these prophecies, there were several which connected the struggle and triumph of Messiah with substantially the same idea as that employed in Psalms 118:1-29. In Isaiah, for example, Isaiah 8:14, speaking of the Lord’s more peculiar manifestation of Himself, which was to take place in the future, it is said, “And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel.” Again, at Isaiah 28:16, with a more special and pointed reference to the work of Christ, “Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” In Zechariah also the promised appearance of the Lord’s Branch—the Messiah, as the scion of the house of David—is associated with the erection of a temple, of another and a nobler kind than that which was in process of erection by the returned captives, and in that, of course, Messiah Himself was to occupy the most prominent place, (Zechariah 6:12-13.) So that, when in Psalms 118:1-29, mention is made of the stone rejected by the builders, yet exalted by the Lord to be the head of the corner, and on that very account He is magnified as the God of salvation, the thoughts of believers, even in ancient times, might as readily have been led to think of the future as of the past. And had not a judicial blindness been on the hearts of the people, when our Lord asked them, “Have ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner?” they would have seen, that to continue their op position after all the mighty works that had showed themselves forth in Him, was but to enact anew, and with infinitely less excuse, the part which of old the heathen had acted toward Israel, or which the Sauline party had acted toward David. The same controversy was pending as of old, and the same disastrous results must inevitably befall those who set themselves against the manifested purpose of God. It thus appears, that while the passage had a primary respect to Israel, it from the first included the Divine purpose, with which Israel was more peculiarly identified—their election of God to be the instrument and channel of blessing to the world, and as such to have the chief place among men. But as this purpose was to find its proper accomplishment in Christ, so to apply the passage personally to Him was in perfect accordance with its original import and design. VII. Matthew 22:31-32; Exodus 3:6. This is one of the few passages in which it has sometimes been alleged our Lord occasionally fell in with the cabalistic mode of handling Scripture, which was current among the Rabbinical Jews. It is only, however, with the more extreme and reckless section of the Rationalists that this allegation is found; for, however often interpreters of Rationalistic tendencies have failed to bring out the full force of our Lord’s reasoning, they have commonly admitted that the argument He draws is based on a solid foundation; and even Paulus, in the last edition of his Commentary on the Synoptical Gospels, says, “Jesus reasons here in a subtle manner, yet by no means so that there did not really lie in the premises what He deduces from them.” It is not undeserving of notice, that, amid all the sayings which have been gathered out of ancient Jewish writings, for the purpose of elucidating New Testament Scripture, none has been found that bears any proper resemblance to the words of Jesus, before us. In a comparatively modern Jewish writer, the words themselves, and the reference of Christ, have been substantially appropriated; the passage is quoted by Schöttgen, on this part of Matthew’s Gospel. It is from R. Menasse Ben Israel de Resur., p. 68: “When the Lord first appeared to Moses, he is reported to have said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. But God is not the God of the dead, because the dead are not; but of the living, because the living exist. On that ground, therefore, it is rightly inferred that, in respect to the soul, the patriarchs still live.” Rabbinical men could in some measure perceive the force of the argument, when it was formed to their hand, but they wanted depth and discernment of spirit to discover it for themselves. Indeed, the argument is perfectly simple, and must appear so to all, the moment they apprehend what is implied in the relationship which God, as God, admitted to subsist between Himself and those patriarchs. He owns himself their God; their God still, though for hundreds of years their bodies had been mouldering in the cave of Mamre. In His account they were yet alive; and He, being their God, it necessarily behooved Him to do for them whatever a God is able to perform on their behalf—just as a father is bound to do for his children whatever he really can to promote their welfare. But cannot God—He who at first breathed into those patriarchs the breath of life, again raise them from the dust of death, and clothe them with strength and beauty? Doubtless He can; and because He can, He will—nay, He must, since He has Himself assumed the name, and thereby pledged Himself to make good all that it imports. He who would have been ashamed to be called their God, if He had not provided for them a city, would much more have been ashamed so to call Himself, if their bodies, a part of their very natures, were left for ever as a prey to corruption. VIII. Matthew 27:9-10; Zechariah 11:13. There are two points that require explanation, in the use that is made here of the words of ancient prophecy; one more general, and another more specific. The first has respect to the propriety of understanding the Messiah as the person who was to be so unworthily treated, and rated at the mean price of thirty pieces of silver—the price of a slave. This admits of a full justification; for, in the preceding context, the subject of discourse plainly is about the false shepherds, on the one side, and the true Shepherd on the other. Reproving and judging the former, the Lord Himself, whom the prophet personates, undertakes the office, and in doing so, feeds the misled and injured flock, and cuts off those who had impoverished and oppressed them. But, so far from meeting with a kind reception and grateful acknowledgment from those whose cause he undertook, “their souls rebelled against him,” and he resolved on withdrawing in disgust; but demanded of them a reward for his services in their behalf. This, they are represented as answering, by weighing out the contemptuous sum of thirty pieces of silver: a transaction which evidently bespoke the light estimation in which they held him, and the work he had performed amongst them. Hence they are again given up to bad shepherds, and disorder and trouble rush in as before. Now, since the Lord Himself is the Good Shepherd spoken of, and the transaction about the rating, carries a peculiarly personal aspect, it is scarcely possible to understand it otherwise than as referring to some manifestation of Godhead more objective and realistic than any that had taken place in ancient times. The people, under the relations of the Old Covenant, might be represented as selling themselves (Isaiah 52:3,) but they neither were, nor could fitly be, spoken of as selling the Lord. Such a mode of representation pointed to another and more palpable exhibition of Godhead than had hitherto appeared; it pointed to the appearance of the Divine Shepherd, of whom the earlier prophets had so often and so distinctly spoken (Psalms 2:9; Psalms 72:1-20; Isaiah 9:6-7; Jeremiah 23:4-5; Ezekiel 34:23.) And when, in addition to this, we look to the particulars of the account given by the prophet of the treatment of the shepherd, we may justly say, with Hengstenberg, “The agreement of prophecy and fulfilment is so striking, that it would force itself upon us, although it had been indicated by no declaration of the New Testament. What could the last and most fearful expression of ingratitude towards the Good Shepherd here predicted be, other than the murderous plot by which the Jews rewarded the pastoral fidelity of Christ, and for whose accomplishment Judas was bribed?” (Christology.) The differences that present themselves between the terms of the prophecy and the record of its fulfilment, are such merely as respect the form, not the reality of things. In the prophecy, the shepherd demands the payment of a sum, and that in the shape of a reward for his services; but this is only for the purpose of bringing out more distinctly the fact that he had appeared to them in the character of one doing them important service, and that when they came formally to surrender their interest in him, the time and circumstances of the transaction might fairly be taken as an evidence of the value they set upon him. In a word, it would inevitably and justly be regarded as a proof of blackest ingratitude toward him, and senseless disregard of their own highest interests. Not only so, but as Divine Providence ordered it so that the ministers of the temple paid the price, and the price was again taken back and thrown down in the temple; so in reality all came to be, in a manner, transacted before the Lord; it was done as under His immediate eyesight. As for the command in the prophecy to cast the price to the potter, it was but a strong form of the future (as in Isaiah 6:9, noticed under Matthew 13:14,) and merely denoted the certainty with which the event should come to pass. But another point here calls for consideration, of a somewhat more special kind; viz. why should the price have been so explicitly adjudged to the potter? This seems to imply, that somewhere already mention had been made of a potter, in such a connexion, as rendered the destination of this money to the same quarter a natural and proper thing. The prophecy here, therefore, must lean on some earlier portion of Scripture, which it either resumes, or takes for granted as known and understood. Now, it is only in Jeremiah that we find anything of that description. There, but there alone is mention made of the potter, in a way that is fitted to throw light on the passage under consideration. In Jeremiah 18:2, the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, saying, “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there will I cause thee to hear My words.” From the use of the definite article, the potter, we are naturally led to think of some one being meant, who had a well-known and recognised place in connexion with the temple; and from the prophet being ordered to go down to him, we are not less naturally led to think of his workshop as being situated in a lower place, probably in the valley that lay adjacent to the temple. This, however, is rendered certain in Jeremiah 19:2, where, after being commanded to get a potter’s earthen bottle, he was instructed to proceed, in company with the priests and elders of the people, “into the valley of the son of Hinnom,” and proclaim certain words. This valley had first been the scene of frightful abominations, when idolatry was at its height in Jerusalem; and afterwards, to mark his abhorrence of these, Josiah had polluted the place, by throwing into it carcasses and bones—into that part of it more especially, which was called Tophet, and in which children had been made to pass through the fire to Moloch (2 Kings 23:10; comp. Jeremiah 7:31.) When the prophet, then, had gone down to the potter, he saw a vessel become marred in the potter’s hand; on which the word of the Lord came, intimating that the Lord could do the same with the children of Israel, and, on account of their sins, might even be expected to do it. But the second special message was the one recorded in Jeremiah 19:1-15, when the prophet was commanded to throw an earthen vessel of the potter into the valley of Hinnom, and accompany the action with these appalling words, “Behold I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and have filled this place with innocent blood; therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter. And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword,” etc. “Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks the vessels of a potter, which cannot be made whole again, and they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.” Now, when in Zechariah it was said, regarding the thirty pieces of silver, without any farther explanation, “cast them to the potter,” there can be no doubt, that he refers to these transactions in Jeremiah. And the meaning of the appointment was to this effect, Let these pieces of silver become, like the potter of Jeremiah and his vessels, the symbol of the people’s consummate guilt and impending doom. They are the price of innocent blood—blood that must still more surely draw down the vengeance of Heaven, than that which was of old shed in the valley of Hinnom; let them, therefore, be identified with the potter’s field, the place emphatically of pollution and crime, as a sign and warning to all, that the former desolations are ready to come back again. Such was the natural import of the prediction; and it affords by far the most fitting explanation of the apparent anomaly in the reference of the Evangelist, who, when quoting a passage of Zechariah, ascribes it to Jeremiah. Many suppositions have been made to account for this, such as, that there may have been. a lost passage in the writings of Jeremiah to the same effect—that the portion of Zechariah’s writings quoted from may really have belonged to Jeremiah—that the Evangelist’s memory may have failed him, etc. The real reason, however, is, that the Evangelist had in his eye the inseparable connexion between the prediction in Zechariah and the earlier announcements in Jeremiah; that he regarded the one only as a later and more specific application of the other; and that as he wished the people to consider the denunciations of guilt and judgment most graphically portrayed in the original prophecy, so he couples the prophecy with the name of the earlier rather than of the later prophet. This view, which was first distinctly propounded by Grotius, who says, Cum autem hoc dictum Jeremiæ per Sach. repetitum hic recitat Mat., simul ostendit tacite, eas poenas imminere Judæis, quas iidem prophetæ olini sui temporis hominibus prædixerant, has been more fully vindicated and established by Hengstenberg, in his Christology, on Zechariah. He justly says, “Matthew might, indeed, have cited both prophets. But such prolixity in citation is entirely contrary to the custom of the authors of the New Testament; which may be explained by a twofold reason. They presuppose their readers to possess an accurate know ledge of Scripture; and then the human instrument was kept far behind the Divine Author, the Spirit of God and of Christ, who spake in all the prophets in the same manner. Very frequently, therefore, the human author is not mentioned at all; they content themselves with such forms of citation as “the Scripture saith,” “according as it has been written,” “for it is written,” “as saith the Holy Ghost,” etc. The explanation of Hofmann, in his Weissagung und Erfullung, differs only in some subordinate points. He also thinks, that the Evangelist cannot be supposed to have attributed to Jeremiah a passage of Zechariah, as if by mistake; especially as he has taken the chief circumstance, with which the citation is formally connected, not from Zechariah but from Jeremiah—that, namely, which respects the purchase of the potter’s field, Hofmann, however, would confine the reference to Jeremiah to the Jeremiah 18, making no account of Jeremiah 19:1-15; and would regard the link of connexion between the passage in Zechariah and that of Jeremiah, as consisting simply in this—that the shepherd in Zechariah treats the temple-court as a clay-pit, and under the conviction, that this was destined soon to become a clay-pit, casts down in that holy place the money that was to be given to the potter as a worker in clay. On which account a curse is pronounced upon the place by the prophet, as had been done by Jeremiah; and hence the combination of the two passages together by the Evangelist. The explanation has somewhat of a recondite and artificial appearance; and the other seems simpler. It should be borne in mind also, that the throwing together in the way now supposed of two passages of Old Testament Scripture, is nothing absolutely singular. We have already had an example of it at Matthew 21:4-5, where a portion of Isaiah 62:11, is conjoined with Zechariah 9:9, while the Evangelist simply introduces the words as having been spoken by the prophet. In Romans 9:33, also, two prophecies of Isaiah are thrown together and treated as if they formed a continuous utterance. But the most striking example, next to the one under consideration, is at Mark 1:2-3, where, according to the correct text, the Evangelist says, “As it is written in Esaias the prophet, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” etc. Here, the two prophecies of Malachi and Isaiah are coupled together, and cited only in connexion with the name of Isaiah; partly, doubtless, because he was both the earlier and the greater prophet, and, partly, because the prophecy in Malachi was but the resumption of that in Isaiah, only cast into a somewhat more personal and specific form. It is remarkable, too, and lends further confirmation to the view now given, that while there are numerous references to Malachi and Zechariah in the New Testament, the prophets themselves are never named. Zechariah is quoted four times besides the occasion before us—Matthew 21:5, Matthew 26:31; John 12:14, John 19:37, and always with a general formula. Hosea alone of the minor prophets, and he but once, is expressly mentioned (Romans 9:25;) for, it seems very doubtful if the reference in Acts 2:16 to the prophet Joel should go further than simply, “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet.” The minor prophets were usually regarded as a single book of prophecies by the Jews, somewhat of the nature of an appendage to the larger prophetical books. Hosea stood at the head of the list, and it was natural to name him, but scarcely less natural to refer to the others in a more general manner; or even, when the passage taken from any of them coincided in substance with what had been uttered by one of the greater prophets, to bring out its connexion with the more prominent name. These things undoubtedly indicate a peculiar mode of contemplation in respect to the point at issue, and lend confirmation to the explanations given above. IX. John 19:36; Exodus 12:46. The prescription regarding the Passover Lamb, that a bone of it should not be broken, is applied by the Evangelist to our Lord, as a Scripture that required to find its correspondence, or meet with its verification in His person. The application proceeds, of course, on the ground of a typical relationship between that sacrificial lamb and Christ, as the author of redemption to His people; on account of which it is said by the apostle, “For also our Passover, Christ, was sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7 :) and our Lord Himself, pointing to the same relationship, said, at the celebration of the last Passover he held with His disciples, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God “(Luke 22:15-16.) It will at once be admitted by all, who believe in the fact of this relationship, that it involved the necessity of Christ’s sacrificial death, as the means whereby the stroke of deserved judgment was to be averted from their heads. And not only that, but that this new passover-sacrifice was to hold relatively the same place as the old—was to be the formation of a new era for the Church, the redemptive act, that provided for her members life and blessing. But persons may admit this, without perceiving any necessary connexion between the preservation of our Lord’s limbs from the violence done to those crucified beside Him, and the order to break no bone of the Paschal Lamb. For, why, it may be asked, this specific formal agreement—while so many others were wanting? The lamb, for example, was to die, by having its blood shed with a knife, which was afterwards to be poured out or sprinkled; the flesh of it also was to be roasted entire, and eaten the very night it was slain. These were prescriptions respecting the mode of treating the lamb, as well as that about the bones, while yet we see no formal agreement with them in the personal history of Christ. Why, then, should there have been such an agreement in regard to this one particular? The precise relation of things may be thus stated:—The ordinance of the Passover had this as a distinctive feature in its institution, that the lamb, which had been the provisional means of deliverance from impending destruction, the source, in a sense, of material life, should also be the food and support of the life so preserved; it must be eaten, and eaten entire, by those for whom it had provided a ransom; and for this end it had to be roasted, without suffering mutilation. Now in this, the ordinance was to find its counterpart in the new dispensation, by the appropriation of Christ for strength and nourishment, on the part of all, who should be saved by his death; they must continue to live upon Him, and can only do so by making His fulness of life and blessing their own. And to give, even outwardly, a sign of this unbroken wholeness of Christ—of the necessity of it, and of the believer’s fellowship with it, to salvation—the Lord interfered by a singular act of providence, to preserve the body of the crucified intact. The type, might, indeed, without this external conformity have been substantially verified; but it was given as a special token or seal from the hand of God, to authenticate the antitype, and to point men’s thoughts back to the ordinance, which had been framed so many ages before in anticipation of the reality. The fulfilment here, therefore, belongs to the same class as those referred to in No. II.; a fulfilment that manifested an external correspondence, fitted to help an imperfect discernment, or a feeble faith, but one that, at the same time, bespoke a more inward and deeper correspondence lying beneath. It was, so to speak, but the outer shell of the antitypical development, which is noticed by the Evangelist; yet such, that through it discerning minds might discover the rich kernel of spiritual and abiding truth, of which it was the index. X. John 19:37; Zechariah 12:10. We have here another example of that kind of fulfilment of ancient Scripture, which has been treated of in the last number—in something outward and corporeal a verification of a word, which reached much farther and deeper. Here, however, it is connected, not with a typical transaction of former times, but with an emblematic announcement of ancient prophecy. Describing prospectively the repentance of the people, whose blindness and folly had alienated them from the Lord, and involved them in misery and ruin, the Prophet Zechariah represents them as looking to Him whom they had pierced, and mourning. It was, undoubtedly, a spiritual grief—a grief on account of sin, of which the prophet spake, and in connexion with that, a spiritual direction of the eye to their offended Lord; for the whole is described as the consequence of a spirit of grace and supplication being poured out upon their souls. In such a case the piercing, which more especially caused the mourning, must also have been of a like profound and spiritual kind; it could be nothing less than the heart-grief experienced by the Shepherd of Israel on account of the wrongs and indignities He had received from His people. But the Evangelist John, who had a peculiar eye for the symbolical, and was ever seeing the spiritual imaged in the visible, descried in the piercing of our Lord’s side by the soldier’s spear a sign of that other piercing. It was an in dignity that formed, indeed, so far as it went, a proper fulfilment of the prophetic word, yet still one that touched the surface only, of its dark meaning, and was important, more for what it suggested than for what it actually embodied.—(Comp. John 12:32-33.) XI. Acts 1:20; Psalms 69:25; Psalms 109:8. The manner in which St. Peter brought these passages from the Psalms to bear on the case of Judas, is such as to leave no doubt that they had in this their most legitimate and proper application. He prefaced the use made of them with the words, “Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spoke before concerning Judas.” There was a Divine necessity in the case; Judas was so definitely in the mind of the inspiring Spirit, that the things written must have their accomplishment in the fate that befell him. And when we reflect, that this was the very first application of a prophetic Scripture by any of the Apostles after they had been instructed by Jesus respecting all things that were written of Him “in the law of Moses, in the prophets, in the Psalms” (Luke 24:44,) we cannot doubt that it was made on the express warrant and authority of their Master. It is chiefly valuable, on account of the insight it affords into the position and character of Judas. For, as the hostile party portrayed in Psalms 69:1-36, Psalms 109:1-31, sometimes as an individual, sometimes as a band of adversaries, stands arrayed in the darkest features, alike of guilt and of condemnation—as in the delineation given we see ingratitude of the blackest dye, malice and wickedness taking entire possession of the soul, and rendering it incapable of yielding to the impressions of love and holiness, capable only of rushing headlong to destruction—so we are taught by the personal application of the words to Judas (what the evangelical history itself teaches,) that it was no accidental circumstance, his having found a place among the number of the apostles, and no misapprehension merely, or precipitancy of judgment, (as some would have it,) which led him to take the part he did, in betraying the Son of Man. Judas, within the bosom of the twelve, did what his countrymen generally did, in respect to the world at large—betrayed the Lord of glory to His enemies. He was, therefore, the unconscious representative and leader of these enemies—the impersonation of those elements of evil, which rendered them what they ultimately became to Christ, and the cause of the gospel. He was but accidentally separated from them—fundamentally and in spirit he was one with them. Hence, it was quite legitimate to take what is written in Psalms 69:25, of the adversaries as a body, and apply it, as St. Peter does, individually to Judas: what was to find its realization in the unbelieving portion generally of the Jewish people, was, in a concentrated form, to take effect upon him, who, with peculiar aggravations, acted the treacherous part, which they also pursued. In him, as an individual, their guilt and punishment were alike reflected—as the one first, by his own perversity, so of necessity the other, by Divine ordination. Happy, had they but read in time the sign it was intended to afford of their inevitable doom! In that case, even the melancholy fate of the son of perdition might have proved a beacon, to warn them away from that coming wrath, which laid their habitations desolate like his, and drove them from the office they had been called to fill, as the channels of blessing to mankind. XII. Acts 13:33; Psalms 2:7; Acts 13:34; Isaiah 4:3. The peculiarity in the use of these passages of Old Testament Scripture lies in their being placed in such immediate connexion with the resurrection of Christ. It has been doubted by some, whether in Acts 13:33 the apostle is speaking directly and specially of the resurrection: they would rather regard the raising up (ἀναστήσας) there mentioned as pointing to the natural birth of our Lord, or His official appointment as Messiah. This is argued on the ground, more especially, that the word ἀνασ. does not necessarily imply a raising up again; that it occurs, for example, at Acts 3:22, of the simple existence and manifestation of Jesus as the great prophet like unto Moses; and that when the raising up has respect to the resurrection of Christ, it is coupled with ἐκ νεκρῶν—as in the very next verse to the one under consideration. These grounds are urged, for example, by Treffry, on the Eternal Sonship, p. 299, who therefore thinks, that the apostle “begins to speak of the resurrection only in Acts 13:34,” and that the raising up of Jesus mentioned in Acts 13:33, was His being brought forth, not from the dead, but from the seed of David, as at Acts 13:23. This view might have been held with some appearance of reason, if the apostle in his address had not distinctly introduced the resurrection of Jesus in the immediately preceding context. But this he has done; he has even brought it prominently out, as the point, on which all, in a manner, hung for the Messiahship of Jesus, and in support of which the apostolic testimony was more peculiarly given. “God raised Him from the dead,” he had said, “and He was seen many days of them which came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you,” he continues, “glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, the same has God fulfilled unto us their children, having raised up Jesus; as it is also written in the first Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” It were, perhaps, wrong to say, that this passage in the Psalm is brought in simply and exclusively with reference to the resurrection of Christ; but the connexion seems plainly to indicate, that both in that, and in the raising up of Jesus, it is to the resurrection that allusion is more peculiarly made. All, according to the apostle’s view, seemed to point to, and find its consummation in, the risen Saviour; this realized the hopes nourished by ancient prophecy, and proved Jesus to be emphatically the Son of God. It is to be remarked, also, that this was but the first of a series of like testimonies from St. Paul: above all the apostles, he delights to connect the promise of God and the Messiah- ship of Jesus with the resurrection. When standing on his trial before Felix, he put the whole question, as between himself and his accusers, thus: “I believe all things, which are written in the law and in the prophets, and have hope to ward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust,” (Acts 24:14-15.) And again, when pleading before Agrippa, he represented the hope that God would raise the dead, as at once “the promise made of God unto the fathers, and that for which he was accused of the Jews,” (Acts 26:6-7.) “If Christ has not risen,” he elsewhere wrote, “your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins,” (1 Corinthians 15:17.) It was precisely by His resurrection, that Christ was “declared to be the Son of God with power,” (Romans 1:4;) and by virtue also of a fellowship in the power of His resurrection, that sinners are quickened to newness of life, and constituted sons of God: Himself first, by reason of His resurrection, the first-begotten from the dead, and then, the life—the causal life—to many, who were dead in sin, (Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:18, Colossians 3:1-4, etc.) It was probably on account of Christ’s having appeared to Paul as the risen Saviour, and wrought thereby such a marvellous change on his condition and prospects, that his thoughts took so strongly this direction. Not, however, as if there were anything properly singular in such a mode of representation—for the same substantially is found in the discourses of Christ, and the writings of the other apostles; but in those of Paul it assumed a more remarkable prominence. It proceeds on the contemplation of Christ’s work as the actual restoration of man from the curse of death, which came in by sin. The promise of such a restoration was the grand hope of the fallen, for which the children of faith were ever waiting and longing. And Christ, by His resurrection from the dead, and ascension to the heavenly places, actually brings in the hope; now at length it passes into a living reality; and He, who prevails thus to bring life out of death, and enter in the name of His elect on the heirship of immortality, is found, by the very act, to be, what He was long ago declared, God’s peculiar Son—for He could have done it only by having life in Himself, even as the Father hath life in Himself. Such is the ground of the apostle’s application of the word in Psalms 2:7 to Christ, in connexion with His resurrection from the dead. It does not mean, that He was constituted God’s Son by the resurrection; but that the power of the resurrection belonged to Him as God’s Son, and by the exercise of this power was His Sonship made incontrovertibly manifest. And it is merely by following out the same line of thought, that the other passage—that from Isaiah—is applied to the perpetuity of Christ’s risen life. It was not enough for the apostle’s purpose to exhibit a risen Saviour; he must show this Saviour to be the possessor of an endless life; for, otherwise, the realization of the world’s hopes would not be complete; the covenant could not have been established on a sufficient basis. Therefore, the promise is called in, which spoke of “the sure mercies of David”—the mercies which had for their guarantee the everlasting faithfulness of Jehovah. Here there is no room for failure, as in the case of merely human gifts or promises; the covenant once ratified by the appearance and triumph of Jesus, stands fast for ever, living in the presence of the Father, He can see no corruption, and of His kingdom of grace and blessing there can be no end. XIII. Romans 1:17; Habakkuk 2:4. The only question that can be raised upon this citation is, whether the word rendered faith is taken by the apostle precisely in the same sense in which it is used by the prophet. The word is undoubtedly employed in different senses; sometimes as an objective matter-of-fact property—stability, the settled condition of things; sometimes as a personal property of God, His fidelity or truthfulness; and sometimes, again, as a personal property of men, their truthfulness in word or deed, steadfast adherence to what is felt to be right and good. Some have hence sought to identify it, as used by Habakkuk, with the righteous principle generally; and Hitzig even says, on the passage, that it might as well have been said, that the righteous man shall live by his righteousness. But to this it is justly replied by Delitzsch, that “in a passage which treats, not of the relation of God to man, or of man to his fellow- men, but of man to God, it may fitly designate the state of him who, in respect to God, is named נֶאֶמָן, faithful or steady. But he is so named, whose spirit clings to God with unwavering steadfastness, whose mind is firmly fixed upon God, (Psalms 78:8; 1 Chronicles 29:18.) The property here marked, accordingly, is that of an unshaken confidence in God, a firm adhesion to God, or unwavering direction of the soul upon Him. If, then, the subject of discourse is the gracious promises of God, the term before us will denote an unshaken resting upon these, or firm confidence in them; in short, faith, for this settled acquiescence, this firm confidence, this tenacious cleaving, is the very soul, the constituting element of a living, life-giving, justifying faith.” As used by the prophet, it is of the general principle of faith, as an humble, confiding trust in God’s power and faithfulness of this, as opposed to the proud, self-reliant spirit of the Chaldean, that the prophet speaks. He who has such faith shall live; for the living God is on his side, and infinite resources of grace and blessing are at his command. But it is so still, the apostle affirms; the principle is an all-pervading one; and whenever life in the higher sense is attained, it comes only through faith in the manifested grace of God, realizing and trusting in what this has provided. XIV. Romans 11:9-10; Psalms 69:22-23. The verses here quoted and applied to the apostate part of the Jewish people, are from one of the psalms, which the Apostle Peter had applied to Judas, (Acts 1:20.) This application of it confirms the view taken of the subject at the place referred to. Judas and the Jewish people are identified; their sin was substantially the same, and such also must be their condemnation. In both cases alike, the falsehood and treachery that had been manifested toward the cause of Heaven, must be repaid into their own bosom. XV. Galatians 3:16; Genesis 22:18. The apostle Peter, very shortly after the ascension of our Lord, had applied the promise to Abraham, about all the families of the earth being blessed in his seed, in such a way as clearly to imply, that the fulfilment was to be found in Christ. All were to be blessed in Abraham’s seed; and God having raised up His Son Jesus, hath sent Him (says Peter) to bless you first—meaning, to give the seed of Israel precedence in the enjoyment of the benefit, which yet was to be diffused through every tribe and region of the world, (Acts 3:25-26.) By implication at least, this really involves the principle of the Apostle Paul’s formal explanation in Galatians 3:16. For he merely asserts, that the Abrahamic promise of blessing concentrates itself, as to vital efficacy, in Christ, and so is enjoyed by such, but only by such as are in organic union with Him. Not to seeds, therefore, as of many—not to Abraham’s offspring indiscriminately—the various families and tribes that looked to him as their common fleshly head; but to the one seed that combined the spiritual with the carnal bond of affinity to Abraham—the seed of which Christ was to be the public representative, and the one living Head. This seed, throughout all its generations and members, is properly but one, having its standing, its characteristics, its destiny in Christ. So that by Christ, as the one seed, the apostle does not mean Christ individually, but Christ collectively—Christ personally, indeed, first, but in Him, and along with Him, the whole of His spiritual body the Church. This is put beyond all doubt by Galatians 3:28-29, where he says of believers, that they are all one (εἶς) in Christ—one corporate being—and that being—Christ’s, they are Abraham’s seed (σπέρμα)—a collective unity, as regards the heirship of blessing. The term Christ is used in a precisely similar manner at 1 Corinthians 12:12, where our Lord and His people are compared to the body with its many members, and are simply designated Christ. If the apostle had meant in either case the simply personal Redeemer, he would doubtless have said, Christ Jesus. Considered thus, the argument of the apostle is perfectly legitimate, and there is nothing whatever of the Rabbinical in it. The use of the singular from the first showed, as Tholuck has justly remarked, “that the prophecy had a definite posterity in view, namely, a believing posterity; and had seeds been employed, it would have indicated, that all the posterity of Abraham, who sprung from him by natural descent, were included.” This was not meant; the seed of blessing was to hold of Abraham in a spiritual respect, still more essentially than in a carnal; and the apostle merely affirms, that it has its spiritual standing, and with that its organic oneness, in Christ. No otherwise could it be a seed of blessing. XVI. Hebrews 1:6; Psalms 97:7. The chief peculiarity in this application of an Old Testament passage to Christ, is in respect to the time or occasion with which it is more particularly associated. The Lord, it is said, commanded all the angels (or Elohim) of God to worship the Son, when He introduced Him as the first-begotten into the world. To what occasion or period does this refer? There is nothing in the Psalm itself to enable us to give a very specific answer. It describes in figurative and striking terms a contemplated manifestation of God—such as should confound all the adversaries of Zion, and to Zion herself bring peace, security, and blessing. There can be no doubt, that this was to be accomplished in the highest degree by the incarnation and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and no otherwise could it be effectually accomplished. He alone was to put for ever to shame the enemies of God’s truth, and establish the interests of righteousness—to establish them on such a sure foundation, that the people of God should be able to rejoice with a joy unspeakable, and full of glory. The Psalm, therefore, in regard to its main theme, might be associated generally with the manifestation of Christ’s person and the execution of His mediatorial work; especially as in the pregnant and ideal style of prophecy particular stages and precise moments of the Divine kingdom are often less contemplated than its general character and results. At the same time, as the Psalmist seems to have more properly in his eye the final processes of the work of Christ, and speaks of the whole world having become the theatre of the manifested glory of God in Him, it is most natural to understand the language as pointing more immediately to the time of the end, when every thing shall be brought to its proper consummation. This seems also to be the view adopted by the inspired writer of this epistle; for the πάλιν is most naturally coupled with the verb that follows—“when He (God) again bringeth in the first-begotten into the world”—as if there had been an earlier and preliminary bringing in, which was regarded as past, and another were anticipated, to which the description of the Psalmist more especially applied. The epithet first-begotten also, as a designation of Christ, seems to point in the same direction; for, as used elsewhere, it has a predominant reference to the (either in fact, or in destination) risen, perfected God-man, in whom all humanity, in so far as it is an heir of blessing, has its life and head. So that, when in this respect He is spoken of as being again brought into the world, we naturally think of His return in glory. Even at his first advent, however, angels worship and serve Him, on account of what appeared in Him and was done by Him; and when the passage before us is placed in special connexion with the event of the second advent, it is not as if the affairs of the first were altogether excluded. XVII. Hebrews 1:10-12; Psalms 102:25-27. It strikes one at first sight as strange, that a passage, which proclaims the eternity and immutableness of God, in marked contrast with the created universe, should have been applied, without a note of explanation, to Christ, as if He were beyond any doubt the subject of the representation. But it must be remembered, the sacred writer is not here arguing with Jews, who might have been disposed to question the ground on which the application is made. He is addressing believers, Jewish Christians, who were already persuaded of the truth of Christ’s Messiahship, and who, therefore, understood, that in Christ Divine and human met together—that by Him, as the Great Revealer of Godhead, the worlds were originally made, and all the provisions and arrangements connected with the Old Economy brought into existence. It is in truth as the Divine Head of the covenant with Israel, and in particular with the house of David, that the Lord is addressed throughout Psalms 102:1-28; and the thought of the eternal being and un- changeableness of God is brought in, not absolutely and as an independent consideration, but in connexion with the hopes of His Church and people. There were troubles, the Psalmist well foresaw, lying in the future—calamities and desolations enough to make the pious soul conscious of gloom and horror at the prospect. But he reassured himself, and would have afflicted believers in every age to re-assure themselves, by realizing their connexion with their eternal and glorious King. He is infinitely exalted above the mutable and the perishing; He fails not with created things, which He made by the word of His mouth, and which he can again change at His pleasure, or fold up as a decayed garment;—And we also, who by faith have become heirs of God, and have an imperishable interest in all that is His, are, on this ground, secured against failure, in respect to our hopes of final bliss. This is the train of thought in the Psalm; and the passage, therefore, is in the strictest sense applicable to the Divine Redeemer, by whom the worlds were made, and through whom all the operations of Godhead have been, and are executed in our fallen world. XVIII. Hebrews 2:6-8; Psalms 8:4-6. The use here made of a portion of Psalms 8:1-9 has been so well vindicated by Hengstenberg, as to the ground on which it rests, that we shall do little more than quote what he has said on the subject in his introductory remarks on the Psalm. “The Psalm stands in the closest connexion with the first chapter of Genesis. What is written there of the dignity with which God invested man over the works of His hands, whom He placed as His representative on earth, and endowed with the lordship of creation, that is here made the subject of contemplation and praise. We simply have that passage in Genesis turned into a prayer for us. But how far man still really possesses that glory, what remains of it, how much of it has been lost,—of this the Psalmist takes no thought. His object was merely to praise the goodness of God, which still remained the same, as God, whose gifts are without repentance, has not arbitrarily withdrawn what He gave; only man, by his folly, has suffered himself to be robbed of it. But even with this single eye upon the goodness of God, which, on His part, continues unabated, it is to be understood, that the en tire representation holds good only at the beginning and the end; and but very imperfectly suits the middle, in which we, along with the Psalmist, now stand. When this middle is placed distinctly before the eye, man is represented quite otherwise in the Old Testament than we find him here—as a sheep, a shadow, a falling leaf, a worm, as dust and ashes. And why God is here thanked, see especially Isaiah 11:6-9, where the same reference is made as here to Genesis 1:1-31, and where a restitution is promised to man, in the times of Messiah, of the relation he originally held to the earth, but which is now in a state of prostration. Accordingly, the matter of the Psalm can find its full verification only in the future; and for the present it applies to none but Christ, in whom human nature again possesses the dignity and glory over creation, which was lost in Adam. By-and-by, when the moral consequences of the fall have been swept away, this also shall come to be the common inheritance of the human family.” Contemplated thus, the application of the 8th Psalm to the temporary humiliation and final exaltation of Christ, as the Head of redeemed and glorified humanity, admits of a perfect justification. Only, when viewed simply in reference to Christ, the words descriptive of the nearly Elohim-dignity of man necessarily become, at the same time, indicative of a relative, though temporary humiliation. “With the man of creation the βραχύ is an abiding inferiority of degree, connected with his creaturely existence; but the Son of God, who has humbled Himself to the condition of man, in order that He might exalt it to the lofty position which it is destined to occupy, cannot remain in that low estate; and so, that which with man as such was a paululum of degree (βραχύ, as at 2 Samuel 16:1,) becomes changed into a paululum of time (βραχύτι, as at Isa. 47:17, and commonly with the Attics;) and while with man the paululum of degree has his glory for a correlate, with Jesus the paululum of time has his glory for a contrast. Thus the sense of the βραχύ τι suffers a kind of necessary, but by no means arbitrary turn, in the application to the Man Christ Jesus of the words that were originally spoken of man generally.”—(Delitzsch.) There still are commentators, among others, Stier, who would regard the Psalm as pointing more directly to Christ, and to the restitution of all things to be brought in by Him. But this view cannot be deemed so natural as the other; and it is not needed to justify or explicate the argument of the apostle. XIX. Hebrews 2:13; Isaiah 8:17-18. Three passages are here appealed to in proof of the kindredness of Messiah to those whom He came to redeem. One is from Psalms 22:1-31, which is strictly Messianic; the other two from the eighth chapter of Isaiah. By not a few commentators the propriety of these latter applications is doubted; at least, they are judged applicable only in a secondary sense, as the prophet himself is considered to be the speaker; so that only by way of accommodation, or typically, can the words be understood of the Messiah. This, however, may justly be questioned, and is questioned, by a large body of interpreters. They hold, that as in the immediately preceding verse, it is the Messiah who appears to be the speaker—in the words, “Bind up the testimony, seal up the law, among My disciples,”—so He ought to be understood as continuing to speak in Isaiah 8:17-18, declaring His trust in the Father, and pointing to the spiritual seed the Father had given Him. The passage is unquestionably an obscure one; but even if we should prefer considering the prophet as more directly the speaker, he must be viewed as speaking in a representative character—personating the being, and maintaining the cause of the Immanuel. The whole discourse, from Isaiah 7:14-25, Isaiah 8:1-22, Isaiah 9:1-7, is perpetually-turning upon “the God with us,” as the great security and hope for Israel; and mediately or immediately, the words in question must be regarded as pointing in that direction. Either way the use made of them in the epistle is perfectly legitimate. In the remaining passages of Old Testament Scripture quoted, either in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or in the general epistles, there is nothing very peculiar, as regards the use that is made of them by the inspired writers. We may simply state, in regard to the application made of Psalms 40:1-17 in Hebrews 10:5-10, to the personal obedience and offering of Christ, that it is not to be understood as excluding an inferior reference to the Psalmist himself. He knew perfectly, in regard to his own spiritual state and calling, that a willing surrender of himself to God ranked higher than the mere presentation of animal victims; and substantially the same idea is expressed elsewhere, in passages that undoubtedly have a direct reference to the Psalmist and his fellow-worshippers in Old Testament times (Psalms 50:7-15, Psalms 51:16-17.) It is not necessary, therefore, to suppose, that in Psalms 40 no respect was had to that self-dedication to the Divine service, which even under the ancient dispensation was preferred to all burnt-offerings. But as little should the remarkable words there written be confined to that; and the defects and short-comings, of which the saints of God in those earlier times were painfully conscious, as mingling with all their personal surrenders to God, could not but dispose them to look for the proper realization of what was written in one higher and greater than themselves. The spiritual Israel in every age aimed at it; but He lone, in whom Israel’s state and calling were to find their true accomplishment, could in the full sense appropriate the words, and embody them in action. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 01.25. APPENDIX - THE HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO CHRIST’S BIRTH AT BETHLEHEM ======================================================================== Appendix. The Historical Circumstances That Led To Christ’s Birth At Bethlehem Cyrenius And The Taxing (P. 395.) [BibleSupport.com Note: Page 395 corresponds with, “Section First: Quotations From The Old Testament In The New, Considered In Respect To The Manner Of Citation”] THE application of the prophecy in Micah 5:2 to the birth of our Lord at Bethlehem, by the Evangelist Matthew, involves in itself no peculiar difficulty; for the prophecy itself is so specific, and was so readily understood and applied by the Jews themselves to the great event it contemplated, that the use made of it in this connexion cannot justly be questioned by any fair interpreter of Scripture. The difficulties which do hang around the subject have sprung up in connexion with the historical circumstances, which are mentioned by the Evangelist Luke, as the more immediate causes that led to the birth of Christ at Bethlehem. These circumstances relate, in the first instance, to the decree issued by Augustus, appointing a general census or enrolment to take place; arid, secondly and more especially, to the incidental notice as to the time when this decree was carried into effect, that it was while Cyrenius was governor, or had the presidency of Syria; αὔτη ἡ ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγενετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου. This latter being the more special difficulty, and one also on which recently some new light has emerged, we shall here give it our first and chief attention. I. Giving to the words of St. Luke what seems their natural and grammatical rendering, “this first enrolment was made (or, it was first made) when Cyrenius was governor of Syria,” they appear plainly enough to indicate, that at the time the presidency of Syria was in the hands of Cyrenius, and possibly also (though that is not so clear) that the census now under consideration was an earlier as contrasted with a later one. Dismissing, however, for the present, the question, whether reference is made to a second census, we have to face the position which seems involved in the historical statement of the Evangelist, that the particular census, which led to the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, took place during the time that Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And this, it is alleged, was impossible; for to quote the words of Meyer, “at the time of the birth of Jesus, Q. Sentius Saturninus was president of Syria, and P; Sulpicius Quirinius did not become so till about ten years later;” i.e. ten years after the real period of our Lord’s birth, but only six after the common era, which is four years too late. There can be no doubt that Cyrenius, or Quirinius (as the name ought rather to be writ ten, and as we shall retain it in what follows,) did receive the presidency of Syria at the later period mentioned, and shortly afterwards did conduct a census in Judea. So that, if this were the only presidency of Syria, held by Quirinius, and the only census taken contemporaneously with it, the statement of the Evangelist must be pronounced erroneous. It certainly would be very strange if such were the case; for, apart altogether from the inspiration of St. Luke, it would indicate a degree of looseness in historical information, which would ill comport with his assertion at the outset, of possessing “perfect understanding of all the matters” he was going to write about; and it would just as little correspond with the remarkable accuracy exhibited in his other historical notices. The most searching results of modern inquiry have not only confirmed the general fidelity of his allusions to political affairs and current events, but have established his correctness even in minute details, and in respect to points on which for a time his testimony lay under a measure of suspicion. The narrative in Acts 27 of St. Paul’s voyage and shipwreck, in which every particular has been subjected to the severest scrutiny, and has thereby become but the more clearly marked with the attributes of truth, is itself a convincing evidence of this. But one or two examples more may be taken, and these more closely connected with the point under discussion. In Acts 18:12, Gallio is called “pro-consul,” (Eng. version, deputy) of Achaia; and Achaia was, indeed, originally a senatorial province; but Tiberius changed it into an imperial one. In that case proprœtor would have been the proper name for the representative of the Roman state. Strabo expressly calls it “a praetorian province;” and not only had great perplexities thence arisen among the learned, but Beza even took the liberty to correct the text, substituting pro-prœtor for pro-consul. But we learn from Suetonius, that the Emperor Claudius restored the province to the Senate; and as this change took place only about five or six years before the time referred to by St. Luke, pro-consul had then become the proper designation. Again, in Acts 13:7-8, Sergius Paulus is called the pro-consul of Cyprus, although Cyprus is known to have been ranked as an imperial province, and might still have been reckoned so by the learned, but for a notice in Dio Cassius, which contains the information, that Augustus restored it to the Senate. “And so,” says Tholuck, who, after Lardner, refers to the passage, “as if purposely to vindicate the Evangelist, the old historian adds, ‘Thus pro-consuls began to be sent into that island, also.’” Now, it is surely against all probability, that a historian, who has shown in such things the most exact and scrupulous fidelity, and whose reputation for accuracy has been in danger of suffering, not from our possessing too much, but rather from our possessing too little of collateral testimony—it is against all probability, that he should have committed the gross anachronism of connecting Quirinius with Syria, at a period ten years before his presidency actually commenced. It is the less likely in this case, that there should have been such an erroneous antedating of a public event, as there is every reason to suppose that the Evangelist himself was a native of Syria, most probably a citizen of Antioch, and, consequently, must have had every facility for becoming acquainted with the political history of the district. A conviction of the extreme improbability of any error in this direction, has led many persons—among others in the last century Lardner, and in the present Ewald and Greswell—to adopt an unusual translation of the passage in Luke, so as to make it point to a future, not to an existing, presidency of Quirinius. They would render, “And this enrolment was made before that Quir. had the presidency of Syria.” Certainly an unnatural, if even (in the circumstances) an admissible, representation of the meaning; and one that could only be resorted to, if it were otherwise impossible to vindicate the truthfulness of the narrative! But we are saved from this alternative by the recent progress of research in the historical territory, which has again, and in a very singular manner, lent its confirmation to the scrupulous accuracy of the Evangelist. The person who, in this instance, has conducted the investigation, is Augustus W. Zumpt, the author of a very learned work on Roman Antiquities—entitled Commentationes Epigraphicæ ad Antiquitates Romanas pertinentes. In the second volume of this work he has a chapter on Syria as a Roman province from Caesar Augustus to Titus Vespasian, in which he treats of the successive governors of the province, and the leading features of their respective administration. It is an entirely literary, or antiquarian investigation; and simply as connected with the subject of the Syrian presidencies, the passage in Luke 2:2 comes into consideration. The inquiry is conducted with great patience and acuteness; and in so far as it bears on the point before us—for it frequently branches off in other directions—we shall present an outline of the argument. Taking the words of the Evangelist Luke in their apparent sense, as denoting the contemporaneousness of a presidency of Quirinius over Syria with the event that led to Christ’s birth at Bethlehem, Zumpt conceives that there is the more reason for adhering to that sense of the Evangelist, and ac crediting the testimony it delivers respecting Quirinius, that the Fathers in various connexions deliver a like testimony. Thus Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. i. 5, “Now this was the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus, and the twenty- eighth from the subjugation of Egypt, and the decease of Antony and Cleopatra, with which last event terminated the dynasty of the Ptolemies in Egypt, when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea on the occasion of the first census being taken, and while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” The reckoning here given dates from the time that Augustus was first made consul; from which time there were forty-one years complete to the third before the Christian era, and twenty-eight after the subjugation of Egypt. At that period, therefore, which to a nearness coincides with the real time of Christ’s birth, Eusebius plainly believed, that Quirinius presided over Syria, and that a census was taken: and so also did Irenæus, Hær. ii. 22, 6; Tertullian adv. Jud. c. 9; Clemens Alex. Strom, i. p. 147, etc. In all these passages both the fact of a general census, and the presidency of Quir. over Syria, at the time of Christ’s birth, are distinctly assert ed. Of what nature the census might be, or whether the time of its being taken might precisely accord with the exact period of Christ’s birth, is not now the question. But in regard to the Syrian presidency of Quir. there is an important notice in Tacitus, Annal. iii. 48, which he introduces in connexion with the death of Quir., A.D. 21. Nihil ad veterem et patri- ciam Sulpiciorum familiam Quir. pertinuit, ortus apud municipium Lanuvium: sed impiger militæ et acribus ministeriis consulatum sub divo Augnsto, mox expugnatis per Ciliciam Homonadensium castellis insignia triumphi adeptus, datusque rector C. Cæsari Armeniam obtinenti Tiberium quoque Rhodi agentem coluerat. Quod tunc patefecit (viz. Tiberius) in Senatu laudatis in se officiis et incusato M. Lollio, quern auctorem C. Cæsari pravitatis et discordiarum arguebat. Here we learn respecting Quir., first that he was a man of comparatively obscure origin; then, that he had approved himself to be expert in military affairs, and services that called for stringent measures, in consequence of which he had attained to the consulship under Augustus, by-and-by also got the triumphal badges for having stormed the fortresses of the Ho-monadenses, (The triumphal badges or ornaments were the honours granted in place of a triumph, after triumphs ceased to be held except by the Emperors. They consisted in the permission to receive the titles bestowed on those who did obtain triumphs, to wear in public the robes peculiar to them, and to bequeath triumphal statues to their descendants.) and was afterwards appointed counsellor or guardian to Caius Cæsar on receiving Armenia. He had also paid court to Tiberius, when residing at Rhodes in a sort of exile, and Tiberius reported to the Senate in laudatory terms the services rendered to him by Quir., while he charged M. Lollius with having led C. Cæsar into vicious and quarrelsome courses. Now, as the C. Cæsar here mentioned, one of the grandsons of Augustus, is known to have obtained Armenia in the year B.C.1, and as Quir. was raised to the consulship in B.C.12, it is manifest, that the conquest of the Homonadenses must have been accomplished in the interval. It remains, therefore, to be inquired who these people were, and in what position Quir. was, when he made himself master of their fortified places. The Homonadenses are mentioned by Pliny, Hist. Nat. 5:23, 94, as a people in the farthest parts of Cilicia, near the Isauri, with a fortified town, Homona, and forty-four strong holds situated in rugged valleys or ravines. Strabo also occasionally mentions them, and places them in the rough parts of Cilicia, near the Isauri, and the Pisidians, 14:1, 4, 24. There can be no doubt, therefore, about their character and position; they were evidently a hardy and troublesome set of mountaineers, occupying a number of forts in the more inaccessible parts of Cilicia, and requiring a vigorous and energetic warrior, like Quir., to bring them into subjection. But how should he have come into conflict with them? Or what might be the province held by him, when he gained such victories over the Homonadenses, and triumphal ornaments on account of them? Various provinces might be, and have been thought of. (1.) Proconsular Asia; but this will not suit. For the Homonadenses did not live within the bounds of that province; and, besides, proconsular Asia having come before this into a state of entire subjugation, had no legion stationed in it (Tac. Ann. iv. 5;) and hence there could have been no such victories won by its governor as to secure for him triumphal honours. (2.) Nor could it be Bithynia and Pontus; for Galatia lay between this province and the region of the Homonadenses. It was also a senatorian province, and had no legionary force; even Pliny, in Trajan’s time, had none, though his case was somewhat peculiar, having been sent to put things in order. It was usually assigned, too, to men of only praetorian rank (Dio, liii. 12;) so that, unless we should betake to merely groundless conjectures, the province of Bithynia and Pontus must be excluded from the number of those with whom Quir. might be supposed to have been connected. (3.) Galatia has been pointed to as the probable region; but this also fails in the requisite conditions; for the possessor of it had no legion assigned him, with which he might carry on such warlike operations as would entitle him to triumphal honours. Nor were the Homonadenses situated in Galatia, but on its borders; so that the governor of the province, even if he had the command of a legion, could have had no call to make war upon those Cilician mountaineers. It is also known, that the province of Galatia was wont to be committed to a man of prætorian rank (Eutrop. vii. 5; Euseb. Chron. p. 168.) (4.) Cilicia alone remains, which seems to be indicated by Tacitus as the province—so far, at least, the province of Quir., that the people, whose forts were scattered through it, lay within his jurisdiction. But Cilicia by itself was by much too small a province for a consular man, at the head of a legion; it must have been conjoined with some other district. It is stated by Dio, liii. 12, that when Augustus surrendered, in the 27th year of his reign, the thoroughly reduced and quiet provinces to the Senate, he reserved Cilicia (because of the fierce and warlike tribes that were in it,) and also Cyprus. Afterwards, however, in B.C. 22, Cyprus was granted to the Senate, (Dio, liv. 4.) It, therefore, could not have been coupled with Cilicia to make out a sufficient province; and it seems impossible to think of any other region than Syria. The conclusion thus arrived at from the examination of the passage in Tacitus, is confirmed by evidence from other sources. For example, in the year B.C. 17, Syria and Cilicia appear to have been associated under one provincial administration; since, when Cn. Piso then obtained the presidency of Syria, and required to levy troops against Germanicus, he sent an order to the chiefs (reguli) of the Cilicians to furnish him with supplies of men (Tac. Ann. ii. 70, 78.) It is by no means probable, that either he would have issued such an order, or that they would have complied with it (especially in a war against Germanicus,) unless the governor of Syria had a legal right to their services. And in the course of the proceedings that followed, during which Piso himself acted treacherously, he is reported to have seized the fortress of Celenderis, which Tacitus designates a town in Cilicia (Ann. ii. 80,) and Strabo also places in the highlands of Cilicia (xiv. 4.) But it is also connected with Piso’s province, which was Syria; for Piso was accused by Tiberius to the Senate of seeking to possess the province (the province, namely, over which he had been appointed) by force of arms—armis repetita provincia (Tac. Ann. iii. 12)—and on this very account the Emperor is said to have been implacable toward Piso, that he had taken arms against the province—ob bellum provinciæ inlatum (Ann. iii. 14.) In another passage of Tacitus, Ann. vi. 41, it is stated that Vitellius, president of Syria, sent troops A.D. 36, to subdue the Clitae, a people of Cilicia, as work that properly fell under his administration. It thus appears, that both about B.C. 25, and A.D. 36, Cilicia was conjoined with Syria into one province, and placed under the sway of one imperial representative; and so it remained till the times of Vespasian. From these data there seems no avoiding the conclusion, that Quir., at the time that he possessed himself of the forts of the Homonadenses throughout Cilicia, was the legate of Augustus and pro-prætor of Syria. It only remains to be ascertained, more narrowly, if such a thing be possible, over what period his presidency was spread, and how far down it reached. The determination of this point is to be sought in another series of passages, and chiefly in those which connect Quir. with Caius Cæsar. As the date of his elevation to the consulship precluded his connexion with Syria at an earlier period than B.C. 12, so his relationship to C. Cæsar fixes its termination to a period not later than about the commencement of the Christian era. For it was at the very close of the year B.C. 2, or the beginning of B.C. 1, that C. Cæsar obtained the government of Armenia, when it was threatened with war by Phraates, the Parthian king. Velleius, ii. 101, states, that he set out for Armenia a short time after his mother Julia was banished for her incontinence; and this banishment is known to have taken place before Kal. Oct. of B.C. 2. It was some time after this that Caius set out, and he took Greece, Egypt, Palestine, on his way. He even appears to have spent the winter at Samos, where he was visited by his stepfather Tiberius, at that time resident in Rhodes (Suet. Tib. c.11.) The year immediately B.C. must, therefore, have been nearly spent before he left Samos; and in the following year, A.D. 1, he was designated consul, and set forth toward the region over which he was appointed. The year after this he brought Phraates to a conference, in which the Parthians agreed to abandon Armenia. But in a subsequent war with Tigranes the Armenian, he received a wound, of which he died in A.D.4, the wound itself having been received in the third year. So that Quir., on being appointed rector to C. Cæsar, evidently did not require to quit his Syrian presidency sooner than some time in the year B.C. 2, and it might even be supposed, on a hasty consideration, that about two years later might have been soon enough. But as the determination of this point is one both of some nicety and of some importance, it is necessary to look a little more closely into the circumstances of the time. In the passage formerly quoted from Tacitus, the Emperor Tiberius was represented as commending Quir. for the part he had acted toward Caius Caesar, while standing in the relation of rector to him, and, at the same time, severely blaming M. Lollius. (The rector was not a guardian in the ordinary sense, but a person of skill in war and experience in affairs, who could act as confidential adviser and counsellor to a youthful prince, at the commencement of his public career.) Tacitus does not expressly say, though his language seems to imply, that Lollius held the same relation to C. Cæsar that Quirinius had done. But Suetonius distinctly calls him comitem et rcctorem C. Cæsaris (Tib. c.12, 13,) and adds, that from the charges made by Lollius against Tiberius, Ti berius perceived, when he went on a visit to C. Caesar at Samos, that the mind of the latter had become alienated from him. And it also appears from a passage in Yelleius, ii. 102, that when the conference was held with the Parthian king, Lollius was present, and represented himself as appointed by Augustus to be a sort of regulator to his youthful grandson—veluti moderator em juventæ filii sui. It thus appears, that M. Lollius had become rector to C. Caesar about the end of B.C. 1 or the beginning of A.D. 1, when the young commander was passing the winter at Samos, and that he continued to hold the same position for a year or two afterwards. What time, then, must be assigned for Quir. being rector? It has been thought by Norisius (in Cenot. Pisan. ii. 9,) that he succeeded Lollius in the office, as it is mentioned by Tacitus in connexion with C. Caesar’s obtaining Armenia. But this is untenable. For in the Latin idiom he is said to obtain Armenia, who has acquired the legal right to preside over it, whether he may actually have taken possession of it or not. And from the position and import of the words in the passage of Tacitus (insignia triumphi adeptus, datusque rector C. Cæsari—Tiberium quoque Rhodi agentem coluerat,) it seems plain, that Tiberius was at Rhodes at the time when Quir. had obtained his triumphal honours and had become rector to C. Cæsar. Hence M. Lollius must have succeeded Quir., and not this the other. It is also certain on another account; for by comparing Tacitus, Ann. iii. 22 and 48, it appears that Quir. had, in A.D. 21, been married about twenty years to Lepida, a lady of high rank at Rome, whom Augustus had destined for Lucius Cæsar, the brother of Caius. But this Lucius died in A.D. 2; and hence Quir. must have gone to Rome, and become married to Lepida about the time that Caius actually entered on his Armenian administration. It is clear, therefore, that Quir. must have been made rector to C. Cæsar immediately on the latter crossing the sea on his way to the East, and remained with him for a year or so, and that M. Lollius was sent to take his place toward the beginning of the first year of the Christian era. It seems probable also, that Quir. accompanied C. Cæsar to Egypt, and that both together paid a visit to Tiberius at Rhodes, with which the latter was well pleased; while by the time Tiberius visited Caius at Samos, Lollius had become rector, and had begun to alienate the mind of Caius from his stepfather. Such, then, are the successive links of the history, as brought out by this investigation: Quir., it is ascertained, was governor or president of Syria, some time subsequent to B.C. 12, when he obtained the consulship, and before A.D. 1 or 2, when he seems to have gone to Rome, and become married to Lepida;—after entering on his Syrian presidency, he carried on a difficult, and, no doubt, somewhat arduous conflict, with the warlike mountaineers of Cilicia, and on account of his successes against them obtained triumphal honours;—about a year before the Christian era he was appointed rector to C. Cæsar, in order to prepare him for the administration of affairs in Armenia, for which both military prowess and a considerable measure of diplomatic skill were requisite;—it was, however, while he was governor of Syria that he held this office of rectorship, for it was as governor of that province that he was more peculiarly qualified to give the counsel and aid that were needed to one who was going to fulfil a difficult and dangerous mission in the neighbouring region of Armenia—whence Lollius, and another person, who succeeded him in the one office, also succeeded him in the other—they became both presidents of Syria and rectors of C. Cæsar. But since the common Christian era is four years later than the actual birth of Christ, it follows that Quir. must have been governor of Syria about the time that Christ was born, and for a year or two subsequent to the event. And thus the statement of St. Luke, reiterated by several of the Christian fathers, that Quir. was president of Syria at the time when Jesus was born at Bethlehem, is fully vindicated, though the proof is reached only by a minute and lengthened deduction, and it is again the paucity, not the fulness of the collateral sources of information, which has brought into suspicion the accuracy of the sacred historian. (In the text, we have given only the evidence bearing on Quir.’s presidency about the time of our Lord’s birth. But since the investigations of Norisius, referred to in the preceding discussion, it has been held by most writers on the subject (for example, by Ores well, Harmony, Vol. I., Diss. V., Meyer, Alford, etc,) that Saturninus was president of Syria at the time of Christ’s birth, that in the year of His birth (viz. u. c. 750) Varus became president, and continued, probably, for five years, till he was succeeded by another Saturninus. It is admitted, however, for instance, by Mr. Ores- well, that coins have come to light, which do not readily correspond with this representation. And the more careful inquiries of Zumpt tend to establish the following as the real succession:—C. Sentius Saturninus became president of Syria in the year 9 B.C. (i.e. before the common Christian era,) as may be inferred from Jos. Ant. xvi. 9. 1, who also speaks of him as a man of consular rank, and of great authority, xvi. 11. 3, etc.; then, it appears from coins and other collateral evidence, that Varus obtained the Syrian presidency in B.C. 6, and continued for about two years. The precise time when this Varus was superseded is doubtful; for here, both the notices of Josephus, and other accounts of Syrian affairs, are somewhat meagre and confused. Evidence, however, has been produced of L. Volusius Saturninus having held the government of Syria; and it is certain that he must have quitted it in the year 6 A. D., because then Quir. was appointed to Syria, with the design of reducing Judea to a Roman province, and annexing it to Syria. But between this 6th year after A. D., and the 6th before it, when Varus entered on his office, there is room, according to the usual practice of Augustus, for at least one legate, and possibly more than one, to fill up the space. And it is here that the legation, first of Quir. and then of Lollius (both of a somewhat special character, and lasting but a short time,) come in. So that the succession stands thus:—C. Sentius Saturninus became president B.C. 9; P. Quinctilius Varus, B.C. 6; P. Sulpicius Quirinius, B.C. 4; M. Lollius, B.C. 1; C. Marcius Censorinus (mentioned by Velleius as for a short time after Lollius, who killed himself, rector of C. Cæsar and governor of Syria,) A.D. 3; L. Volusius Saturninus, A.D. 4; P. Sul. Quirinius, A.D. 6, etc.) II. The other points connected with the subject need not detain us long. They refer to the nature of the census, for which, it is said, a decree was issued by Caesar Augustus, and to the compass of territory it embraced—whether the whole Roman world, or simply that portion of it which was bounded by the regions more immediately in the eye of the Evangelist. In regard to this part of the inquiry—which, as already stated, is not touched upon by Zumpt—it ought to be borne in mind, that here also our information is extremely scanty; and it is very possible, that if ampler materials were within our reach for determining the political relations and movements of the time, all would become perfectly plain. In such a matter, it should be enough, if there is nothing obviously irreconcilable with the Evangelical narrative and certainthings that make it reasonably probable. It should also be noted, that while the Evangelist says that the census was taken while Quir. was governor of Syria, he does not affirm it to have been personally conducted by him in Judea. It merely happened to be coeval with his Syrian presidency, and formed a first census, as contradistinguished from a second. St. Luke being himself a native of Syria, and very probably writing to a Syrian, quite naturally indicated the name of the governor presiding at the time over the region, and the relation of this census to another, with which the governor was known to be officially connected. In regard to the ἀπογραγή itself, it is impossible to arrive at any very definite conclusion. The word strictly means an enrolling, though very commonly an enrolment with a view to taxing—taking an account of men’s persons and goods for the purpose of laying on them an equitable proportion of the public burdens; and hence it might often with propriety be rendered by our word taxing. But, undoubtedly, there were cases in which this term would be too specific; in which, at least, the immediate act was not directly associated with any pecuniary rating. Those who, with Lardner, would regard the Evangelist as writing. of the whole world in the restricted sense that is, as embracing merely the districts more immediately in his eye, the provinces subject to the jurisdiction of Herod—think they discover a probable account of the transaction in certain notices of Josephus respecting the latter days of Herod’s reign. In the Ant. xvi. 9, 3, 10, 9, it is stated that Herod toward the close of his life, “lost the Emperor’s favour, and was forced to submit to many disgraces and affronts;” in consequence of which he sent an ambassador to Rome, who succeeded, though not without difficulty, in explaining matters and effecting a reconciliation. Further, in Ant. xvii, 2, 6, the historian having mentioned the Pharisees as a powerful and subtle party, ready to attempt anything against those who were obnoxious to them, adds, “When, therefore, the whole Jewish nation took an oath to be faithful to Cæsar and the interests of the king, these men to the number of above 6000, refused to swear.” He proceeds to mention, that for this act of contumacy they were fined by Herod, while, on their part, they declared that God had decreed to put an end to the government of Herod and his race. This came to the ears of Herod, and proved the occasion of death to not a few of their number. Now, it is supposed that the oath of fidelity here spoken of as having been exacted towards Cæsar and the interests of Herod, might be identical with the enrolment or census of St. Luke; the rather so, as the time must have been nearly the same in both cases, and the national expectation of another king than Herod, or any that could spring from his family, did then also assume a very definite and specific form. Whatever truth, however, there may be in all this, as regards Herod and the people of his dominions, it must be owned that it scarcely meets the conditions of the historical statement presented by the Evangelist. In the account of the Jewish historian the matter seems to lie between Herod and his people, and to be altogether of local interest; while with the Evangelist it is the decree of the Emperor—δόγμα παρὰ Καίσαρος Αὐούστου—which alone comes into notice; and the object of this is represented in the most general terms, as ordering an enrolment for the whole world, πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην. Of course, not absolutely the whole; the words must in any case be understood with some limitation; for wide as the Roman empire was, there still were, in the age of Augustus, regions of considerable extent and ample resources, respecting which he would never have dreamt of issuing a decree of the kind here specified. We are constrained to think, at the very utmost, of a universality co-extensive with Caesar’s acknowledged supremacy: but to that, both the words themselves and the connexion in which they stand, seem most naturally to point. There is some reason to believe, as Mr. Greswell has shown (Harmony, vol. i., p. 536 sq.,) that Augustus did take measures for effecting, not merely partial censuses—of which various are incidentally noticed by the ancient historians—but also surveys of a more general kind. There appears, for example, to have been made in his reign a general geometrical survey of the empire, which, though not mentioned by any historian extant, is yet explicitly referred to by several writers, especially by such as treat of rural affairs. Thus Frontinus de Coloniis says, Huic addendæ sunt mensuræ limitum et terminorum ex libris Augusti et Neronis Cæsarum; and speaks further of a surveyor Balbus, qui tempo-ribus Augusti omnium provinciarum et civitatum formas et mensuras compertas in commentarios contulit, et legent Agrariam per universitatem provinciarum distinxit ac declaravit. Various other authorities are cited by Mr. Greswell to the same effect. And it certainly can be regarded as by no means unlikely, that along with a general measurement of the empire, Augustus should have sought to obtain a general census of its inhabitants. The one could scarcely fail to seem the proper complement of the other. And it is also known that Augustus left behind him what is called breviarium imperii (Tac. Ann. i. 11; Suet. Aug. c. 102; Dio, lvi. 33,) which it took many years to complete, and which would in all probability be based to some extent on returns regarding the population of the empire. But the accounts we have of it are brief, and the history, in particular, of Dio, appears to be defective in respect to this period. Supposing such a measure to have been prosecuted by Augustus, there is no need for imagining that the decree ordering the returns must have been issued for the whole empire at once, and appointed to be carried out simultaneously throughout all the provinces. It would be more likely to be carried into effect piecemeal; although, when speaking of it in connexion with any particular province, a writer of the period would naturally connect the special work in his region of the empire with the decree of the Emperor ordering its general accomplishment. So the Evangelist may be conceived to have done. And it tends still further to confirm this view of the nature and design of the census here spoken of, that the very mode of taking it seems to indicate a specific difference between it and the census afterwards taken by Quirinius, when Judea was formally annexed to Syria. Of the latter it is said, that the express design of it was to take an account of the people’s substance; and Quir. himself is designated an appraiser of their means—τιμητὴς τῶν οὐσιῶν (Ant. xviii. 1.) Had the first census been of this description, there could have been no need for so early a renewal of it. And, besides, the circumstances noted by the Evangelist in regard to the holy family, seem to indicate that other things than property were in question; since, instead of being enrolled where their dwelling and substance (if they had any) existed, they repaired to what was reckoned their own city—theirs, it would appear, only by genealogical descent and personal claims; for, if any property had belonged to them there, they should not have been obliged to lodge in the mere out houses of the inn. Such things seem best to accord with a census of persons merely, apart from the valuation of their property. Finally, as to the relation of the census to the Syrian presidency, it should be borne in mind, that the accounts both of the census itself, and the Syrian presidents at this time, are extremely brief and indistinct. As it was about the very time of our Lord’s birth, that Quir. appears to have taken the place of Varus, one can quite easily conceive, that the enrolling may have partly fallen under the one administration, and partly under the other. It is also quite conceivable and even probable, that, as the appointment of Quir. seems to have been made (according to the notice of Tacitus) for the more immediate purpose of bringing into subjection the Homonadenses in the western and less accessible parts of the province, Yarus, his predecessor, may have been ordered to remain for some time in the east, till Quir. was at liberty to enter on the regular administration of the affairs of the province. These are quite natural suppositions in the circumstances; and they may sufficiently account for the mention made by Josephus of Varus in Ant. xvii. 9, 3, as being still president of Syria, shortly after Herod’s death. He may have been so, in point of fact, as regards the eastern part of the province, although not strictly the president of Syria at the time. But the notices are so partial and incomplete, that it is impossible to exhibit more than a probable view of the circumstances of the period. From what has been established, there is valid ground for asserting, that it is not our Evangelist who has reason to fear the fullest inquiry, and that the more the actual relations of the time are known, the more patent and conclusive should be the proof of his historical accuracy. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 02.00.1 PASTORAL THEOLOGY ======================================================================== PASTORAL THEOLOGY: A TREATISE ON THE OFFICE AND DUTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR. BY THE LATE PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D., PRINCIPAL OF THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW; AUTHOR OF ‘TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE,’ ‘COMMENTARY ON THE PASTORAL EPISTLES,’ ETC. ETC. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author by REV. JAMES DODDS, DUNBAR. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 1875 Prepared for Libronix Library System by William A. Anderson, Summer, 2008 e-Sword and theWord module prepared by BibleSupport.com / WordModules.com ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 02.00.2. MODULE PREPARED BY BIBLESUPPORT.COM ======================================================================== Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com Text Modification The text has been changed from the print edition. Scripture references were formatted for electronic presentation in e-Sword. Most implicit scripture references were made specific to reference the actual book chapter:verse rather than expecting the reader to deduce the chapter or book. Footnotes are presented in-line. Text provided by William Anderson @ StillTruth.com. Connect With Us Download thousands of free e-Sword modules, find answers to e-Sword problems, access e-Sword user forums, and fellowship with other e-Sword users. BibleSupport.com is also home to the only e-Sword User’s Guide, the most comprehensive documentation available for e-Sword. Want to know when this module is updated? Want to know when we release other modules? Want to show your support? Like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/BibleSupport Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/BibleSupport Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com Text Modification The text has been changed from the print edition. Scripture references were formatted for electronic presentation in e-Sword. Most implicit scripture references were made specific to reference the actual book chapter:verse rather than expecting the reader to deduce the chapter or book. Footnotes are presented in-line. Text provided by William Anderson @ StillTruth.com. Connect With Us Download thousands of free e-Sword modules, find answers to e-Sword problems, access e-Sword user forums, and fellowship with other e-Sword users. BibleSupport.com is also home to the only e-Sword User’s Guide, the most comprehensive documentation available for e-Sword. Want to know when this module is updated? Want to know when we release other modules? Want to show your support? Like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/BibleSupport Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/BibleSupport ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 02.00.3. PREFACE ======================================================================== Preface THE lamented Author of this treatise lived to prepare it for the press. It seems to have been originally written in its present form, though it was repeatedly delivered to his class as a course of lectures. There can also be little doubt that it was intended to be a sequel or companion volume to his recently published work on the Pastoral Epistles. As such it may safely be accepted by the public; for the sound judgment, lofty aim, and evangelical spirit that characterize the work on the Epistles will not be found wanting in the present performance. Though probably not free from the defects almost inseparable from posthumous publications, the following pages will, it is hoped, amply sustain the high character of Principal Fairbairn as a theological professor. They relate to a subject which in these days is of growing importance, and which has by no means been exhausted, though several good practical works connected with it have of late made their appearance. Principal Fairbairn left instructions that no extended memoir of him should be published by any of his friends. Accordingly, nothing of the kind has been attempted; but as he also indicated that he had no objection to a brief record of the leading events of his life being given to the public, it has been thought advisable by his trustees that such a summary should be prefixed to this work. A succinct Biographical Sketch has therefore been prepared by one who knew him long and well, who was among the first to become acquainted with his high merits as an author, and who always regarded with admiration his noble Christian character. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 02.00.4. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ======================================================================== Biographical Sketch PATRICK FAIRBAIRN was born at Hallyburton, in the parish of Greenlaw, Berwickshire, on the 28th January 1805. He was the second son of a family of five children. The eldest of the family, a brother, predeceased him; the three younger members, two brothers and a sister, still survive. His father, a respectable farmer, was able to give all his children a good education, and to educate two of them for the Christian ministry, namely, the subject of this sketch, and John, the third of the family, now minister of the Free Church at Greenlaw. Patrick, considered from his earliest years a highly promising boy, was sent to various schools in the district with a view to his being prepared for the University. None of these schools were of a superior kind; yet he profited to such an extent by the tuition they furnished, that he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh in November 1818, before he had completed his fourteenth year. Like many Scottish youths of that period, he commenced his college studies much too early, and had in subsequent years to work doubly hard in order to make up for the deficiencies of his preliminary education. He attended the classes of Professors Pillans, Dunbar, Wilson, Wallace, Dr. Ritchie, and Sir John Leslie. He was noted as a diligent and well-conducted student; but he seems to have made no very brilliant or distinguished figure in any leading branch of academic study. His mind was of that order which comes to maturity rather slowly; and he aimed at solid progress rather than showy distinction. Early in his college career he resolved to study for the Christian ministry. In this matter he was greatly influenced by his mother, who was a woman of fervent piety and great Christian worth. All her children owed much to her prudent and prayerful training; but Patrick seems to have been specially benefited by her influence and example. On the occasion of her death in 1861, her distinguished son thus wrote of her: ‘I doubt if I should ever have thought of giving myself to the ministry, had it not been for the early bent my mind received from her spirit and instructions. While I live I cannot but cherish her memory with affection and regard; and I shall rest in the hope of meeting her in another and better state of existence.’ The young student never prized highly the advantages presented by the classes at the University as they were conducted in his time. With one or two exceptions, the professors in the Arts Course were not successful teachers; and few students ever thought of taking a degree. Wilson was a brilliant lecturer, but he never attempted any systematic instruction in Moral Philosophy. Wallace and Leslie were profound mathematicians, but failed in carrying their students along with them in the demonstrations of the class-room. Patrick Fairbairn never ceased to lament the imperfect training he received at college. The great improvements that have of late been effected in the Edinburgh University system were not even projected in his early academic days. When he entered the Divinity Hall, he found matters worse than they were in the Faculty of Arts. Dr. William Ritchie, an old and infirm man, who had never been very efficient, was Professor of Systematic Divinity; Dr. Brunton was Professor of Hebrew; and Dr. Meiklejohn of Church History. There was nothing in the Hall to stimulate or reward the exertions of the students. Dulness and routine prevailed in all the classes; there was in none of them much evangelical life or theological enthusiasm. Several able young men were fellow-students with Patrick Fairbairn, and like him afterwards made a distinguished figure in the Church; but they owed little of their learning to the instructions of the theological professors. It was not till Dr. Chalmers had been appointed to the Chair of Systematic Theology, and Dr. Welsh to the Chair of Church History, that the Edinburgh Divinity Hall acquired a character worthy of the famous University to which it belongs. It must here be mentioned that the young Berwickshire student received much assistance in the course of his philosophical studies from a Mr. Hay, a small merchant in the quiet little town of Gordon, near Greenlaw. This Mr. Hay belonged to a class of men who were, perhaps, once more numerous in Scotland than they are now,—men who, though moving in a humble station, and possessed of limited means, yet contrived to cultivate literature and philosophy in a remarkable manner, and to gather all sorts of information from such miscellaneous collections of books as they were able to purchase or borrow. This Gordon philosopher delighted to impart to superior young men the various knowledge he had accumulated, and to kindle in their minds that genuine love of moral and metaphysical speculation with which he was himself inspired. During a considerable period of his University career, Mr. Fairbairn attended the ministry of Dr. Robert Gordon, then held in the highest repute as a powerful evangelical preacher. The high intellect of Dr. Gordon, joined to his solemn and impressive pulpit oratory, peculiarly attracted the better class of theological students, and indeed many leading professional men in Edinburgh. His influence in recommending the gospel to the more cultivated classes of society was very great; and down to the close of his life he was, as a highly intellectual yet truly spiritual preacher, almost unrivalled. It is well known that the late Principal Cunningham was profoundly influenced in early life by one of Dr. Gordon’s printed sermons, and that ever afterwards he regarded him with special affection. Patrick Fairbairn must also be set down as one of those young men of high promise who received great benefit, at a critical period of life, from Dr. Gordon’s powerful ministrations. There was another excellent Edinburgh minister to whom the youthful student was introduced in his college days, and to whom he became united by the ties of the closest friendship. This was the late Dr. James Henderson of Free St. Enoch’s Church, Glasgow, who in the early part of his life was minister of Stockbridge Chapel of Ease, Edinburgh. After living on terms of cordial intimacy for half a century, the two friends were but a short while separated by death, Dr. Henderson surviving Principal Fairbairn little more than a month. Always an exemplary and laborious student, Mr. Fairbairn before leaving the Hall attracted the special attention of Dr. Brunton, who procured for him the situation of tutor in the family of his brother-in-law, Captain Balfour, a large Orkney proprietor. He went to Orkney in 1827; and by the way in which he performed his duties, he so commended himself to Captain Balfour, that through the interest of that gentleman he was appointed by the Crown in 1830 to the Parliamentary Parish of North Ronaldshay. He had been licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of Dunse, on the 3d October 1826. North Ronaldshay is the most northerly of the Orkney Islands, and is of no great size or importance. The inhabitants were addicted to some strange and semi-barbarous customs when Mr. Fairbairn entered upon his charge. Many of them had the repute of being ‘wreckers;’ and the morality of the island was by no means high. They had not been accustomed to an evangelical ministry, or any of the best influences of the gospel. Indeed, during the last and the earlier part of the present century, the ministers of the Established Church in Orkney were, as a class, by no means distinguished for sound doctrine or Christian practice. Not a few of them had actually done much to bring the ministry into contempt by unbecoming conduct. But when Mr. Fairbairn commenced his pastoral duties he immediately took high ground, and both as a preacher and as a pastor he strenuously endeavoured to instruct and reform his parishioners. The good fruits of his faithful ministry were soon manifested in the improved character and habits of the islanders. The improvement effected by the young minister was so marked, that it attracted the attention of all who visited, or were specially interested in, North Ronaldshay. It may be truly said, that the studies which laid the foundation of Mr. Fairbairn’s theological eminence began only after he had left the Divinity Hall. About the time when he was licensed as a preacher, or looked forward to ordination as a minister in Orkney, he formed a regular plan of professional study of no slight or superficial character, but solid, laborious, and systematic; and that plan he carried out with unflinching perseverance. He determined to make himself thoroughly master of the Hebrew and German languages, in order more effectually to equip himself as a scientific theologian; and having become in good time an excellent Hebrew and German scholar, he entered on a course of theological reading and inquiry which led to important results. When he was about to be ordained at North Ronaldshay, where some of his friends thought he was in danger of being buried, his brother asked him how long he would like to remain in Orkney. ‘Just six years,’ he instantly and decidedly replied; for, on full consideration, he had calculated on such a period for the completion of the studies he had projected for himself in his remote island home. And it so happened that, after he had spent about six years at North Ronaldshay, he was appointed minister of the new ‘Extension’ Church of Bridgeton, in the city of Glasgow. In 1833 he was married to Miss Margaret Pitcairn, sister of the late Rev. Thomas Pitcairn, minister of Cockpen, who became first clerk of the Free Church General Assembly. Another brother of that lady, the Rev. David Pitcairn, at one time a minister in Orkney, went to the south of England and attained some eminence as a Christian author. Of several children, the fruit of this marriage, only one grew up, John Fairbairn, who, after spending some years in the Island of Java, ultimately settled in Australia, where he died only a few days after hearing of the death of his father. Mrs. Fairbairn died in childbirth, at Glasgow, soon after she and her husband had reached their new sphere of usefulness. Her infant, and another child, a fine boy of about three years of age, only a few weeks after her death followed her to the grave. After faithfully performing the laborious duties of his Glasgow charge for about three years, Mr. Fairbairn was translated to the parish of Salton, East Lothian, which had been rendered vacant by the appointment of the Rev. Robert Hamilton to the Presbyterian chaplaincy at Madras. The predecessor of Mr. Hamilton in Salton had been the Rev. Robert Buchanan, now of the College Free Church, Glasgow, a churchman of the highest eminence in Scotland, and a man who for nearly forty years was the trusting and trusted friend of Patrick Fairbairn. Salton is also noted as having been for some years under the pastoral care of Gilbert Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury. That eminent dignitary left a considerable sum of money to found and support a library for the use of his successors in that Scottish parish, and for the education of a number of children of poor parishioners. Mr. Fairbairn took special delight in putting the Bishop’s library into good working order, and probably derived more benefit from it than any of his predecessors. While he carefully prepared his pulpit discourses, and diligently discharged the numerous duties of a country minister, he was always a laborious student, avaricious of time, and delighting in intellectual toil. He had already translated some works from the German, for the well-known publishers Messrs. Clark of Edinburgh, and was by this time meditating that original work which was destined to give him a high place in British theological literature. Having from the very commencement of his ministry belonged to the ‘Evangelical Party’ in the Church of Scotland, Mr. Fairbairn manfully supported his views in the Church courts, though he did not aspire to the position of an ecclesiastical leader. At the Disruption of 1843 he had no hesitation in joining the Free Church, and indeed was the first of his brethren in the Presbytery to leave his manse and face the hardships of the trying time. He found shelter for himself and his family, first in the neighbouring parish of Bolton, and afterwards in the town of Haddington; but in spite of distance from his people he visited them regularly, and fulfilled every duty of a diligent pastor, while he still carried on his loved theological studies. Of the Presbytery of Haddington, to which he belonged, nine out of sixteen ministers had joined the Free Church; and he took a leading part in helping to form the new Free Church Presbytery, and generally to advance the interests of religion in the district. But at that period of sharp contention between rival Churches he showed no unworthy bitterness of spirit. With the late Dr. Cook of Haddington and some other of his former co-presbyters he continued on terms of friendship, though he differed widely from them on certain points of theory and practice. In 1845 he published, in one thick duodecimo volume, his Typology of Scripture, a work which had occupied a great part of his leisure for a number of years. It was subsequently published in two volumes, and reached some time ago a fifth edition. In its enlarged and improved form it is as free from imperfections as any work of the kind can well be, and it is now universally regarded as a standard theological treatise. The subject of the Old Testament types had never before been handled in a philosophical and satisfactory manner by any British or American theologian. It was reserved for the Free Church minister of Salton to produce a work upon it which, for critical insight, grasp of principle, and solid though unostentatious learning, was not surpassed, if even equalled, by any similar theological performance of the day. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the merits of a work so well known and so highly prized as the Typology of Scripture. It is one of those fresh and valuable contributions to our modern theological literature which is sure to keep its ground, and to be always in great request among students of theology. The writer of this sketch well remembers visiting, soon after its publication, Trinity College, Dublin, and seeing on the library table a copy of it, well worn, and apparently in high favour with the students. He could not help remarking, that while the richly-endowed Fellows of the College had done nothing of importance on the field of theology, there was at least one sterling theological work produced by a disendowed Presbyterian minister which they had the discernment to value and to introduce into their library. In 1846, Messrs. Clark of Edinburgh published the first volume of an English translation of Hengstenberg’s Commentary on the Psalms. Two other volumes subsequently appeared, completing the work. The translators were Mr. Fairbairn and the Rev. John Thomson, an accomplished German scholar, now minister of St. Ninian’s Free Church, Leith. Mr. Fairbairn had previously, when in North Ronaldshay, translated for the Biblical Cabinet, a foreign theological series published by the same eminent firm, Steiger on 1st Peter, and Lisco on the Parables. His knowledge of German, thus early and well exercised, was undoubtedly of good service to him as an earnest theological student. It introduced him to a vast and varied field of theology which must be traversed by every one in these days who would truly earn the name of theologian. But while he prized the excellences, he was well aware of the defects and dangers, of German theology, even of that large section of it which cannot fairly be called Rationalistic. Few of his countrymen have equalled him in making good use of German learning and its solid results, while rejecting what is inconsistent with sound doctrine or that reverence which is due to the word of God. In his Typology, and in most of his other publications, we find an excellent combination of German erudition with Scottish orthodoxy. Towards the latter end of 1847, Mr. Fairbairn was invited to London to deliver a course of theological lectures in the newly instituted College of the English Presbyterian Church. On that occasion he first displayed his peculiar qualification for a theological chair, and may be said to have commenced his professorial career. His services were highly appreciated by the professors and students of the new College, and he always looked back with pleasure to this episode in his life. Professor Lorimer, and several of the ministers of the English Presbyterian Church who attended his lectures, speak at this day in the warmest terms of his learning and ability. They also testify to the great respect which they entertained for him, and the expectations they formed of his future eminence. In 1851 he published, in one volume, his work entitled Ezekiel, and the Book of his Prophecy. This performance, in popularity, perhaps also in freshness and originality, ranks next to his Typology. In it the most difficult subjects are discussed with great ability and judgment. The principles of interpretation applied by the author in his exposition of the obscurest of the prophets commend themselves to the understanding of sober and philosophical critics. We do not know if a sounder and more profitable book on Ezekiel has been published in our times, and it is likely to keep its place in our modern theological literature. In the course of 1851 and 1852, Messrs. Clark published in two successive volumes, Hengstenberg’s Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, translated by Mr. Fairbairn. The work of translation in this instance was peculiarly delicate, the translator in some important matters not agreeing with his author; but the difficulties of the task were well surmounted, and a most important contribution to Apocalyptic literature was made accessible to the English public. It may also here be mentioned, that shortly before this time Mr. Fairbairn had published an interesting little work on the Book of Jonah, in which he took a more favourable than the common view of that prophet’s character. Any complete list of his works would likewise include various lectures, pamphlets, and contributions to magazines, which proceeded from his pen chiefly about this period. A pamphlet on the real opinions of the leading Reformers about the obligation of the Sabbath was published by him, so early as 1842, at the request of some of his brethren who took a special interest in the subject. It was admitted to be a very valuable contribution to the right discussion of the Sabbath question; but it has long been out of print. In the autumn of 1852, Mr. Fairbairn was appointed assistant to Dr. Maclagan, Professor of Divinity in the Free Church College, Aberdeen. In December, only a month after he had commenced his work in the college, he met with the severest possible domestic bereavement. His second wife, Mary Playfair, whom he had married before leaving Glasgow, was seized with fever at Salton a few days after giving birth to a daughter, her fourth child. On hearing of her dangerous illness he hastened home from Aberdeen; but he had only the sad satisfaction of being with his excellent partner during her last days on earth. Having committed to the grave her mortal remains, he made the requisite arrangements for the proper care of his motherless children, and returned to his post. His duties, notwithstanding this heavy trial, were discharged during the whole session with signal energy and success. His great sorrow, through the grace of God, had only the effect of deepening his sense of responsibility in the performance of the important work committed to his hand. By the General Assembly of the following year he was appointed Professor at Aberdeen in room of Dr. Maclagan, who had died before his assistant entered on his duties. He always spoke in the warmest terms of the happiness he enjoyed at Aberdeen, notwithstanding his great bereavement and severe labours. The remarkable kindness shown him by numerous friends in that city made a pleasing and deep impression on his memory. In the summer of 1853, Professor Fairbairn visited the Continent in company with his friend John Elliot Wilson, Esq., Cranbrook, Kent. Mr. Wilson and he had become acquainted in 1845, through means of a correspondence in regard to some theological point touched on in the Typology. A correspondence, originating in the desire of the English gentleman to have some difficulties cleared up, led to a warm and lasting friendship between him and the Scottish theologian. It was some time before the two correspondents met; but their meeting only increased the strong affection which they had learned to cherish for each other. Mr. Wilson’s admiration of the character and works of his friend was very great; and Professor Fairbairn, in his turn, learned to regard his English admirer with something much deeper than gratitude, even with the warm affection inspired by high accomplishments and singular Christian worth. The annals of friendship may be searched in vain for a more sincere and honourable union of hearts than that which was formed between these two men, who, after long living far apart from each other, were in a somewhat unusual way brought together. The two travellers proceeded to Brussels and Cologne, then to Bonn, Coblentz, Mainz, and Frankfort, enjoying as they went along the splendid scenery of the Rhine. From Frankfort they proceeded by one long day’s journey to Halle, in order to see its famous university. They were not much impressed either with the physical or moral aspect of the place, and unfortunately missed seeing its most celebrated professor, Tholuck, who was in the country. From Halle they went to Berlin, where they had an interview with Hengstenberg. This distinguished theologian, whose works Professor Fairbairn had helped to make known in Great Britain, did not favourably impress his visitors. Indeed, his appearance, manner, and spirit greatly disappointed them both. He looked more like an awkward and rather morose student than an accomplished theological professor, acquainted with the world as well as with his great science. The questions put to him by his English translator he answered curtly and imperfectly, while he had no questions whatever to put in regard to the state of religion and the Churches in Great Britain. But Hengstenberg had by this time surrendered himself to those high Lutheran views which greatly impaired his Christian usefulness, and lost him the confidence of the Evangelical party in Prussia. Having visited Potsdam, the travellers went to Hanover, and thence to Cologne on their return to England. In 1857, the same two friends made a tour in Switzerland, visiting on their way Paris and Strasburg. They went on to Basle, Lucerne, Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Martigny, Chamonix, and Geneva, greatly admiring the scenery, and otherwise enjoying the delights of travel, mingled though these were with the usual fatigues. At Vevay they had a pleasant interview with Mr. Howson, now Dr. Howson, Dean of Chester; and at Geneva they met with Dr. Stevens, Rector of St. Andrew’s Church, Philadelphia, who spoke of Dr. Fairbairn’s works as being greatly valued in America, and acknowledged the benefit he had derived from their perusal. Interesting notes of both these Continental tours were written by Dr. Fairbairn, and are still preserved; but no extracts can be given in a brief narrative of this kind. The Professor and his friend also made tours together at various times in the Highlands of Scotland, in Wales, in Cumberland, and in Ireland. On one occasion they likewise visited the two great English universities. At Oxford they met with Dr. Jelf, who seemed greatly struck with Dr. Fairbairn’s appearance, and courteously showed them the principal colleges and the library. They also breakfasted with the Rev. Edward A. Litton, who then first made the acquaintance of the Scottish professor, and afterwards contributed largely to the Imperial Bible Dictionary, at the request of its Editor. Their visit to Cambridge was also of a pleasant character. A Fellow of Christ’s College, who was a friend of Mr. Wilson, conducted them over the principal buildings. During all these excursions, Mr. Wilson spared no personal effort to promote the enjoyment of one whom he regarded with the highest admiration both as an author and a friend. While Professor Fairbairn filled with general acceptance his chair at Aberdeen, the University of Glasgow conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor in Divinity. The University of Edinburgh, where he had commenced and completed his literary and theological studies, thus missed the opportunity of being the first to recognise in a special way the merits of her distinguished alumnus. In 1856, when the Free Church College of Glasgow was instituted, Dr. Fairbairn was appointed by the General Assembly its first professor, and in the following year he was elected to the office of Principal. The Glasgow College, at first equipped with three chairs, and a year after with a fourth, was presided over from the very outset by Dr. Fairbairn with great ability. He brought his valuable experience gained at Aberdeen to bear upon the management of the new Institution, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing it in excellent working order. While he discharged his onerous and often unexpectedly increased professional duties with signal success, he gave much time and thought to the improvement of the buildings of the College, the foundation and enlargement of its library, the better endowment of its chairs, and the transaction of its general business. Perhaps no man in the Free Church could have performed so well the numerous duties that devolved upon him as Principal, or which he voluntarily undertook out of zeal for the success of an Institution which he helped so materially to found and form, and which will long be associated with his name. And while as Professor and Principal of the College he commanded the respect of all his colleagues, and endeared himself to his students as their accomplished instructor and zealous friend, he took a high position in Glasgow as a public man, ready to give his countenance and assistance to every religious or benevolent enterprise that engaged the attention of that great commercial city. His majestic presence and dignified bearing, coupled with readiness of speech and unaffected suavity of manner, were sufficient to win favour in any company, to grace any platform, and to aid the advocacy of any Christian cause. In 1856, Dr. Fairbairn published his work on Prophecy, viewed in its Distinctive Nature, its Special Functions, and Proper Interpretation. This was intended to be a sequel or supplement to the Typology; and certainly it partakes in many respects of such a character. But though an able performance, full of sound and solid views based on philosophical principles of interpretation, it has not escaped the common fate of supplementary works of the kind. It has not been so popular as the Typology, but it undoubtedly deserves to be studied by all admirers of that excellent work. In 1858, its author also published a Hermeneutical Manual, or Introduction to the Exegetical Study of the Scriptures of the New Testament. This work contains many able discussions of difficult texts and subjects that meet the student of the New Testament; but, from its very nature, it is more of a text-book for a theological class than a work likely to attract the attention of the public. Though worthy of his reputation, it has never gained general favour. A man of Principal Fairbairn’s eminence could not fail to receive the highest honour the Free Church has to bestow. Accordingly, in 1864, he was elected Moderator of the Free Church General Assembly. His dignified conduct in the chair was universally admitted, while his opening and his closing address as Moderator were admirable in tone and sentiment. It may here be remarked, that while his favourite occupations were those of the scholar and the professor, he had an excellent knowledge of Church business, and took a fair share of the burden of ecclesiastical government. When he spoke in his Presbytery or in the General Assembly, he uniformly commanded the attention of his brethren, and his views were received with more than ordinary respect. The weight of his character gave him peculiar power in debate; and when he failed to convince, he never offended his opponents. In the great Union controversy, which lasted from 1863 to 1873, he found himself always in the same ranks with his revered friend Dr. Buchanan; but temperate in the advocacy of his own opinions, he did everything in his power to mitigate and allay those unhappy contentions that for a time estranged so many of his brethren from one another. During many years of his residence at Glasgow, Dr. Fairbairn acted as editor of the Imperial Bible Dictionary, an important work published by Messrs. Blackie and Son. Even before he went to Glasgow as professor, it had been virtually arranged that he should occupy that responsible literary post. But some years elapsed before he had actually to enter on his editorial duties. The labour and anxiety he underwent for many years in connection with this great undertaking severely taxed both his intellectual and physical energies. He was assisted, of course, by a staff of able contributors; but not a few of these failed at the last moment to send articles they had promised, and he had of necessity to supply by a great effort their lack of service. None but a man of his high attainments in biblical scholarship could have so promptly and adequately met the varied exigencies that arose during the preparation of such a work, and its progress through the press. His arduous labours in this undertaking came to an end in 1866, when at length the Imperial Dictionary was completed. The work combines, in an almost unrivalled degree, sacred learning of a high order with sound doctrine and an evangelical spirit. Its admirable pictorial illustrations add greatly to its interest and value. Soon after this great work was off his hands, Dr. Fairbairn was appointed to deliver in Edinburgh the third series of ‘Cunningham Lectures.’ The first series, on the ‘Fatherhood of God,’ had been delivered by Dr. Candlish, and the second series, on the ‘Doctrine of Justification,’ by Dr. James Buchanan, one of the Professors of Theology in the New College, Edinburgh. Dr. Fairbairn chose for his subject the ‘Revelation of Law in Scripture,’ and treated it in nine separate lectures, the first of which he delivered on the 3d March 1868. The whole of them, in terms of the trust deed founding the lectureship, were published in a single volume soon after their delivery. This work undoubtedly possesses high merit as a philosophical treatise on an important theological subject; but in its nature and style it is too abstract to be popular. It is not unworthy, however, of that excellent foundation which the Free Church of Scotland owes to the self-denying liberality of Mr. Binny Webster. At the meeting of the Free Church Commission in March 1867, Dr. Fairbairn, Dr. Guthrie, and Mr. Wells of the Barony Free Church, Glasgow, were appointed a deputation to visit the Assemblies of certain Presbyterian Churches in America. These ministers, with their wives, sailed from Liverpool for America in the April following; but Dr. Guthrie, owing to serious indisposition, was obliged to disembark at Queenstown, and thus was unfortunately prevented from paying a long-expected visit to his numerous friends on the other side of the Atlantic. Dr. Fairbairn and Mr. Wells first visited the Assembly of the Old School and also that of the New School Presbyterians, and found both of these bodies hopefully negotiating that grand Union which has since been so happily consummated. They were received by their American brethren with great cordiality, and loaded with hospitable attentions. The learned Principal, whose name had travelled before him across the sea, and whose ‘Jove-like presence’ excited general admiration, was everywhere specially welcomed as a scholar of distinction. The two deputies next visited the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church and the Synod of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in the United States, and afterwards the Synod of the Canadian Church not in connection with the Established Church of Scotland. They also took the opportunity of spending a few days at Princeton, for the sake of seeing its celebrated college, which has since risen into increased prosperity under the vigorous presidency of Dr. M’Cosh. Dr. Hodge, that prince of American theologians, was absent at the time, but Dr. Fairbairn had afterwards the satisfaction of spending a day with him in Washington. When the Committee was constituted for revising our authorized version of the Old Testament Scriptures, Dr. Fairbairn was naturally selected as one of the representatives of the Biblical scholarship of Scotland. He attended most of the meetings of the Committee from the commencement of its arduous labours to nearly the period of his death, and bestowed upon his work much careful study. It is understood that his services were highly valued by his learned colleagues. On at least one occasion he was voted in a very complimentary fashion into the chair. The meeting-place of the Committee, the celebrated Jerusalem Chamber, interested him greatly, from its Presbyterian associations, though he acknowledged that a room more convenient for the purpose might easily have been selected. Having at one time expressed a wish to resign his seat in consequence of the growing inconvenience of his journeys to London, he was entreated by his colleagues to change his mind; and he, on public rather than private grounds, agreed to co-operate with them some time longer. He expected that the revision of our English Bible would be successful and ultimately popular, but was not sanguine about its completion at a comparatively early date. In 1871, the Principal received an unexpected expression of the extraordinary affection with which he was regarded by the young men who had studied at the Glasgow Free Church College. A sum of £200 was subscribed with enthusiastic eagerness by his ‘present and former students’ in order to present him with a full-length portrait of himself by an artist of acknowledged eminence. Mr. Norman Macbeth, A.R.S.A., was selected, and succeeded in producing a very fine picture as well as an admirable likeness. After it had graced the walls of the Royal Scottish Academy’s Exhibition in Edinburgh, it was presented to Dr. Fairbairn in due form at a meeting of subscribers and friends held at Glasgow in the following November. The Rev. James Nicoll of Free St. Stephen’s, Glasgow, acted as the spokesman of his fellow-students, and on handing over to their revered instructor the portrait in their name, delivered a very eloquent speech. The Principal, in his reply, adverted feelingly to the studies of his early life, the methods of study he had followed, and the great objects he had always endeavoured to keep stedfastly in view. He also spoke of the evening of life drawing on, and the necessity of increased earnestness in doing his work while health and strength remained. The Rev. Robert Howie of Govan, who, along with Mr. Nicoll and the Rev. Archibald Henderson of Crieff, took an active part in the management of the necessary details, bears the strongest testimony to the feelings of love and veneration for Principal Fairbairn manifested by all his students when subscribing to this testimonial. The portrait, after being publicly exhibited in Glasgow, was hung up in the hall of the Free Church College, where it still remains, having been bequeathed by the Principal to that Institution. At the commencement of the College Session in November 1872, Principal Fairbairn discharged the important duty of presiding at the induction of Professor Candlish and the ordination of Professor Lindsay, both of whom had been appointed to chairs in the Glasgow College by the preceding General Assembly. He preached from 2 Timothy 2:2, and delivered a very appropriate discourse, in which he addressed his new colleagues in an affectionate and faithful manner. Taking the deepest interest in everything bearing on the prosperity of the Theological Institution over which he presided, he specially rejoiced, on this auspicious occasion, in the prospect of its undiminished efficiency. Early in 1874, he published an elaborate work, in one volume, on the Pastoral Epistles. In a learned introduction, the authenticity of the epistles, recently assailed by many German critics, is ably and successfully vindicated. Then the Greek text is given with a new translation. But the most valuable part of the work is a commentary, or series of expository notes, displaying fine discernment, sound sense, and the varied results of genuine learning. In an appendix, some important points receive a fuller discussion than could find a place in the body of the work. This is really one of the best of the author’s books, and ought to be one of the most popular. It is a very fresh and useful contribution to modern biblical literature; and the present volume, which is full of the spirit of the Pastoral Epistles, will, it is expected, be ranged by its side in many theological libraries. In a limited sketch like this, no details of Principal Fairbairn’s private life or personal religion can find a place. But it must be stated that his house always presented a picture of domestic happiness and intelligent piety. In 1861 he was married to Miss Fanny Turnbull, a lady in every way fitted to add to his comfort and usefulness. The pain of former sad bereavements was gradually forgotten during the latter years of his life, than which, in a domestic point of view, none could be more tranquil and happy. While his time was largely spent in severe intellectual toil, and in the diligent discharge of arduous official duties, his inward spiritual life steadily increased, and he appeared to realize, with growing vividness, the preciousness of those great Christian doctrines he had done so much to elucidate and defend. And thus, when in the course of last year were held in Glasgow the remarkable series of evangelistic meetings which have been associated with the names of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, he took a deep interest in the religious movement that ensued, and publicly gave it his support. He presided over several of the meetings at which Mr. Moody was the chief speaker, and rejoiced in the success of the great evangelist’s work. That work was especially commended to the support of not a few through the countenance given to it by such a wise and judicious man as Principal Fairbairn. On the 16th April 1874, Dr. Fairbairn attended a great evangelistic Convention held in the ‘Crystal Palace,’ Glasgow, and delivered an earnest and valuable address; but, owing to the heat and excitement, as well as to some previous derangement of his system, he suddenly felt sick and unwell before the business was far advanced, and had to leave the meeting. When he reached his house, he went to bed, being prostrated by what may be called the first serious illness of his life. He had always been a remarkably healthy man, methodical and temperate in his habits, an early riser, and accustomed to take long walks before breakfast. Yet, while he had appeared to enjoy perfect health and strength, there can be little doubt that his constant devotion to study during a long course of years had gradually developed an affection of the heart, which seems to have been up to this period totally unsuspected. This sudden and threatening attack, which confined him to his bed for a few days, yielded to medical treatment, and all serious danger was soon considered to be over. But he was advised to spend a month or two of the summer in the country, where he could tranquilly enjoy pure air and necessary relaxation. Accordingly, accompanied by Mrs. Fairbairn, his daughter, and a few other near relatives, he went to Arrochar, Dumbartonshire, in the beginning of June; and, being favoured with fine weather, he greatly enjoyed his sojourn in that romantic locality. All around him remarked that he seemed to be regaining completely his former strength and spirits. The mellowed tone of his conversation, and the finer traits of his character, brought out, as it were, by affliction, also gave a new charm to his society, and endeared him more than ever to his loved domestic circle. When at Arrochar, he returned to Glasgow for a single day to preach in the evening, and preside at the ordination of Messrs. Gibson and Barclay as missionaries to China. This service, though it broke in upon his needed leisure, was quite congenial to his feelings; and he had peculiar satisfaction in ordaining to the ministry two devoted young men,—one of them the son of his former colleague, Professor Gibson,—who had offered themselves as labourers in a difficult part of the Foreign Mission field. He delivered on this occasion a very beautiful and appropriate discourse from Psalms 126:1-6, which has been published since his death in the Christian Treasury. On the 3oth of June he went up to London to attend a meeting of the Old Testament Revision Committee; and on the Saturday following he paid a visit to his friend Mr. Wilson, which he greatly enjoyed. Of that visit Mr. Wilson writes: ‘It was short, but never can be forgotten by myself or household. He bore evident traces of his recent illness; but still more evident were the signs of deepening conformity to his Saviour’s likeness, and of fellowship with his God.’ Having completed his attendance on the Revision Committee, he returned to Glasgow on the nth July. The following week he went to Berwickshire to visit some of his relatives; preached in the Free Church, Eyemouth, on the 19th; and went to Greenlaw on the 24th, to assist his brother at his Communion. On the Sabbath he spoke at the Communion Table, and preached in the evening with great unction and power. Many were deeply moved by his words and still more by the spirit that breathed through all his ministrations. Leaving Mrs. Fairbairn and his daughter behind him, he returned to Glasgow on the following Tuesday, in order to be present at a meeting of the Board for the examination of students in Divinity, that was to be held in the course of the week. On the Monday following, the 3d of August, he received intelligence of the serious illness of his eldest son in Australia. This painfully affected him; but he endeavoured to bear the afflicting news as calmly as possible. Yet Mrs. Fairbairn, on hearing from him on the subject, immediately left Greenlaw, and joined him at Glasgow. On Thursday evening he conducted family worship as usual, and retired to rest about eleven o’clock. In little more than half an hour, a peculiar breathing gave indication of a sudden and fatal attack, which almost immediately ended in death. Without a note of warning, either to himself or his beloved partner, his spirit, in the solemn silence of midnight, suddenly passed away. Thus terminated, as by a swift translation, a truly noble life. Like Chalmers, Patrick Fairbairn was spared all abatement of mental strength, the feebleness of old age, the pain and struggle of the last conflict. In the fulness of his power and usefulness, yet not before his work was done, he was summoned to rest from his labours, and to enter into the joy of his Lord. On the 13th August he was buried at Edinburgh, in the Grange Cemetery, which contains the precious dust of so many of God’s honoured servants. Not far from the graves of Thomas Chalmers, William Cunningham, Thomas Guthrie, and many other eminent Christian worthies, his mortal remains are laid, in the hope of a blessed resurrection. The death of this distinguished man was deeply lamented, not only by the members of his own Communion, but by many in all the Churches to whom his name and works were familiar. The writer of this sketch happened to be out of Scotland when the sad event occurred, and he can testify to the deep sorrow it excited among ministers in other lands, and of various denominations. Presbyterian and Episcopalian admirers of the Typology vied with one another in expressing their regret for the loss which the Chtirch of Christ had sustained by the death of its author. Principal Fairbairn left a widow, three sons, and a daughter. His eldest son, as has been mentioned, died in Australia soon after his father’s death. Two sons, Patrick and Thomas, and a daughter, Mary Ann, all by his second wife, still survive. Patrick is settled at Demerara; Thomas is at present in Shanghai. An interesting daughter, Jane, after growing up to womanhood, died at Glasgow in 1859, and was interred beside her mother in the family burying-ground in the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh, where her father is now also laid. It may serve various useful purposes to inscribe the names of an eminent man’s children in any account, however brief, of their father’s life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 02.01. CHAPTER 1 ======================================================================== Chapter 1. Introductory.—The Relation of the Pastoral Office to the Church, and the Connection Between Right Views of the One and a Proper Estimate of the Other THE office of a Christian pastor obviously proceeds on the assumption of a Christian membership or community, as the parties in respect to whom, and among whom, it is to be exercised. It assumes that the flock of Christ are not a mere aggregation of units, but have by divine ordination a corporate existence, with interconnecting relationships, mutual responsibilities, and common interests. It assumes, further, that the Church in this associated or corporate respect has a distinct organization for the management of its own affairs, in which the office of pastor occupies a prominent place, having for its specific object the oversight of particular communities, and the increase or multiplication of these, according to the circumstances of particular times and places. There are other things of a collateral or subsidiary kind, not unimportant in themselves, and fitted to exercise a considerable influence on pastoral relations:—such as the internal constitution of the Church, or section of the Church to which the pastorate belongs, its relation to a superior governing power (whether of a presbytery or an episcopate), the understanding on which destination is made to a specific field of labour, or the tenure under which the appointment is held. Matters of that description cannot fail to tell with more or less effect on the exercise of the pastoral function, though they cannot be deemed of essential moment. For they may be, and have been, ruled differently in different portions of the Christian Church; while still a pastorate, with substantially the same duties to discharge, and the same interests to prosecute, remains in each of them. Nothing more for the present needs to be assumed than the existence of the Church in separate outstanding communities, constituted with a view to the promotion of the great ends of evangelical truth and duty, presided over by persons destined to spiritual functions, and, in particular, set apart to the ministration of the word and the care of souls. This much, however, must be assumed, and assumed without any detailed proof or lengthened vindication. But as much depends upon the idea entertained of the Church for the idea that also comes to be entertained of the nature and ends of the ministerial calling, so that the one cannot fail to act and react on the other, a brief outline of the scriptural view of the Church (as we understand it) in its more essential characteristics, and of the false views which would either altogether supersede or injuriously affect the character of the pastoral office, may form an appropriate introduction to the line of thought and inquiry that lies before us. I. Scriptural idea of the Church, considered with respect to the nature and calling of the Christian pastorate.—(I.) The Church in its primary and fundamental aspect is the kingdom of Christ, the spiritual society within which, as more peculiarly His own, He is acknowledged as the rightful Head, and served with a loving, loyal obedience. The members of it are the election of grace, the partakers of Christ’s life and Spirit; and as such, His body, in which He more especially resides, and through which He acts for holy ends upon the world. There is therefore a pervading unity, an essential agreement in position, aims, and character among those who really constitute the Church, arising from their common relation to one head, and their mutual relation one to another, precisely as in the members of the human body, or in the subjects of a rightly-constituted and well-ordered kingdom. The Church, in this higher aspect, cannot be thought of but as an organic whole, bound up in living fellowship with Christ, He in it as the habitation which He fills with the manifestations of His presence and glory, and it again in Him as the root out of which it grows, and the pattern after which, in character and destiny, its members are to be conformed. (2.) But the Church in this higher sense exists only ideally, so far as human perception or outward organization is concerned; visibly and actually it nowhere appears in the world, except as it may be in part, by successive stages, realizing itself among the members of Christian communities. This, however, it is ever doing; it is the very law of its growth. And so, what is usually termed the invisible Church, invisible as regards its component elements or actual membership to man’s view, though perfectly known to God’s, demands as its proper counterpart the visible. It demands this not as a circumstantial adjunct merely, a convenient or suitable adaptation, but as a necessary co-relation, the inevitable tendency and result of those spiritual instincts and divine principles which link the believing soul to Christ, the Church of the first-born on earth to the Church made perfect in glory. For, as the internal operation and life-giving agency of the Spirit come into effect through the external call and ministration of the word, thus, and no otherwise; so the one spiritual body of Christ has for its necessary complement a formally constituted corporate society. In short, the process of calling out of the world, and preparing for glory the elect of God, realizes itself through the existence and agency of a visible Church—the visible is the nursery, and, in a measure also, the image of the invisible. Only in so far as it is so can it be said to fulfil its divine calling and appointment. In each Christian community the offices and ministrations, the government and discipline, should be such as may through the Spirit most effectually serve to diffuse the saving knowledge of Christ, awaken and sustain the love of those who receive it, form, nourish, and draw forth the spiritual and holy graces, which are the very life and glory of the elect society that are there in training for the kingdom and presence of God. So that every individual, when as a believer he connects himself with the membership of the Church, should feel as if entering a society that holds of heaven rather than of earth, a society in which all should drop, as they enter, the selfishness and corruption of nature, that they may mingle in the blessed harmony and communion of redeemed souls. (3.) It follows from this relation of the visible to the invisible Church, as to character and calling, that everything in the several sections of the Church on earth should be framed and regulated so as in the most faithful and efficient manner to carry out the revealed mind of Christ. It ought to be so, in a very special manner, with respect to the Christian pastorate, to which belongs for all ordinary ministrations and results the highest place. Christ Himself is the Shepherd of the entire flock; and the pastors whom He promised to provide, for whom He received gifts on finishing the work given Him to do, (Ephesians 4:11-12) are the under shepherds who have to tend the flock in subordinate divisions, and distribute in due season the materials of life and blessing committed to their hand. It is their part to stand and minister in His name; to give themselves to the defence and the propagation of His gospel; to cause His voice, in a manner, to be perpetually heard and His authority respected; in a word, to direct the operations and ply the agencies which are fitted to bring those that are far off near to Christ, and to carry forward their advancement in the life of faith and holiness. Whatever private members of the Church may, and also should, do toward the same end,—for where all are taught of God, who should venture to think or to say that he is charged with no responsibility for the good of others?—yet those who are formally set as pastors and teachers in the various Christian communities must, from the very nature of their position and calling, have the chief responsibility resting on them of doing what is needed to enlighten, and edify, and comfort the souls of men. (4.) And, finally, while all this has immediate respect to the Church as a select body, and to the spiritual life and wellbeing of those within its pale, it has also a real and important bearing on the world at large. For as the Church is gathered out of the world, so it is called to be ever acting on the world with regenerative and wholesome influence. In this evangelistic and reformatory work the Church as a whole, the Church individually and collectively, has the charge committed to it; it is the candlestick which the Lord has set up to diffuse abroad the light of heaven, or, to refer to another metaphor of Scripture, the divinely impregnated and impregnating leaven, which is to work till the general mass of humanity is leavened. But the pastors and teachers of the Church have here also, by virtue of their special gifts and calling, the foremost place to occupy; and much must ever depend on their zeal and energy for the progress that is made in the blessed work of reconciling the world to God. The views now presented contain nothing more than the briefest possible outline of the nature of the Christian Church, of the position assigned to the office of the pastorate in it, and the share which this must necessarily have in all the more vital and important functions which the Church has to discharge. But even such an outline can hardly be presented without conveying to our minds an impression of the lofty character of the pastoral office, and of the momentous interests which are entrusted to its keeping. It stands in close affinity with what lies nearest to the heart, and most peculiarly concerns the glory of God; and high, assuredly, must be the honour, and large the blessing, of being counted worthy to take part in its sacred employments, if these employments be but faithfully discharged; while, on the other hand, a fearful responsibility must be incurred by those who rush unprepared into the holy vocation, or manage in a slovenly and careless manner the concerns with which it charges them. But of this more hereafter: we turn now to other views of the Church, such as are either wholly inconsistent with a Christian pastorate, in the scriptural sense, or injuriously affect it. II. Views of the Church which are subversive of the pastoral office as exhibited in Scripture.—The views which most palpably tend in this antagonistic direction are those which spring from a disposition to push to an extreme the more spiritual aspect of the Church. The reformers found it necessary to bring out very clearly and forcibly the distinction between the Church in this higher aspect, and the existing visible communities, compounds of light and darkness, purity and corruption, which claimed in the hands of the Papacy to be possessed of everything which entered into the idea of the Church. It was impossible otherwise to raise a testimony, such as the times required, against soul-destroying error. But the Reformation had not proceeded far on its course when a tendency appeared on the part of some to carry to an extreme the spiritualistic element, and make comparatively nothing of the outward and visible, consequently disparaging the organizations of scripturally-constituted Churches. And such views have their concrete representation still, in the Society of Fiends, for example, the Quakers, who so isolate and exalt the internal agency of the Spirit, as to render it independent of all official appointments or formal distinctions. According to them, it is only when ‘God raises up and moves among the assemblies of the faithful by the inward, immediate operation of His own Spirit,’ certain persons to instruct, and teach, and watch over them, that any are called to do the work of ministers of the word; and the proof that they are called, is ‘by the feeling of life and power on the part of the brethren which passes through them,’ in connection with the ministration. (Barclay’s Apol, Prop.) Hence, Möhler in his Symbolik, trying to expose the Lutheran doctrine respecting the visible and invisible Church, represents Quakerism as ‘the consummation of Lutheranism,’ because it carries fully out the maxim, which he takes to lie at the root of Lutheranism, that ‘God teacheth man only inwardly.’ In Quakerism, certainly, there is a very earnest endeavour to act in accordance with this maxim, though the endeavour is by no means either consistent in its working, or in its results successful. The Society so far yields to it as to discard all stated forms of worship from having a place in the divine service, to disallow the administration of sacraments, and to suffer the word of exhortation or the presentation of audible prayer only when the motion to do so proceeds from one who is conscious of a special call from above to the exercise. Not merely the actual, but the perceptible influence of the Spirit is required to constitute a right to impart spiritual instruction or guide the expression of pious feeling in their assemblies; so that it is not enough to say with the apostle, ‘If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God,’ but let him speak as a conscious instrument of God’s Spirit, obeying the impulse of a higher power in his soul. But with all this curtailment of the outward means of grace, with the view of enhancing and elevating that which is spiritual, much still remains, even with this peculiar class of spiritualists, to reach the point, that God teaches man only inwardly. For the formal basis, and to a large extent the material, of the instruction which man has to receive in divine things exists outside of him, and in so far as it works by way of enlightenment, must do so from without inwards. The incarnation of the Son of God, His atoning sacrifice, corporeal death, and resurrection, were all external things, connected on every side with the realities of sense and time; hence in themselves they belong to another region than that of the individual consciousness, as does also the written word, in which they are presented to our belief and contemplation. There have been some, not so much, I believe, in this country as in America, who in the interest of the distinctive principles of Quakerism, the sufficiency of its inward light and direct action of spirit upon spirit, have quitted their hold of the historical Christ, and treated the evangelical record as an allegory. This was, indeed, a terrible sacrifice to make for the consistent maintenance of their spiritualistic principles; it was, indeed, abandoning the substance of Christianity itself for the sake of an extravagant assertion of one of its characteristic features; but, after all, it still fails to secure the desired emancipation of the soul from dependence upon the outward elements of instruction. For, interpret the written word as you may, it is in itself an objective instrument, and, as such, the ground on which Quakerism, as well as every other Christian denomination, rests for the justification of its tenets and discipline. We know, indeed,—and it is the exaggeration of this truth which gives rise to the extravagance in question,—that the word may be read or proclaimed in the letter without being understood or received in the spirit. Yet that in no way prevents its being the common, or even the indispensable, handmaid of the Spirit’s working, the means by which He may, without which He ordinarily does not, let in the light of salvation on men’s souls, and conduct them in the way of peace. And if the word has such an end to serve, why should it not be statedly read in the assemblies of God’s people? Why not preached and prayed over at every favourable opportunity? Why not embodied also in outward symbol, and with the solemnity of a covenant transaction impressed upon the heart and conscience? These are all, no doubt, outward things, and of themselves are incapable of either converting souls to God, or of building them up in righteousness; but so far they stand on a footing with the Bible itself; and the same principle which would discard the one might equally discard the other. So, doubtless, the party in question would have acted if their spiritual instincts had not prevailed in some degree to counteract the tendency of their abstract principles. Yet the system, as a whole, has proved a palpable failure; it has been without living warmth or impulsive energy, scarcely able to perpetuate its existence, and exercising no assignable influence on the degeneracy and corruption around it. The fundamental mistake of its adherents, and of the few other sects who in principle coincide with them, lies in a misconception of the nature of the Spirit’s work upon the soul. And the inconsistence alleged against Protestants generally by such writers as Möhler has this in common with it, that it imputes to them, without any just warrant, substantially the same view of the doctrine of the Spirit, and thence chiefly derives what it possesses of a plausible character. It assumes the action of the Spirit to be, according to Protestant ideas, so peculiarly and essentially inward, as to have no proper dependence on what are called the means and ordinances of grace; in which case it would be in ill accord with the complex constitution of man, and the known laws of human thought and feeling. But, to use the words of Isaac Taylor, who in this speaks the common sentiments of Protestant divines, (Nat. Hist. of Enthusiasm, p. 69.) ‘if it be true that the agency of the Holy Spirit in renewing the heart is perfectly congruous with the natural movements of the mind, both in its animal and its intellectual constitution, it is implied, that whatever natural means of suasion, or of rational conviction, are proper to rectify the notions of mankind, will be employed as the concomitant, or second causes, of the change. These exterior means of amendment are, in fact, only certain parts of the entire machinery of human nature; nor can it be believed that its Maker holds in light esteem His own wisdom of contrivance, or is it at any time obliged to break up, or to contemn, the mechanism which He has pronounced to be “very good.” That there actually exists no such intention or necessity, is declared by the very form and mode of revealed religion; for this revelation consists of the common materials of moral influence, argument, history, poetry, eloquence. The same authentication of the natural modes of influence is contained in the establishment of the Christian ministry, and in the warrant given to parental instruction. These institutions concur to proclaim the great law of the spiritual world, that the heavenly grace which reforms the soul operates constantly in conjunction with second causes and natural means. In an accommodated, yet legitimate sense of the words, it may be affirmed of every such cause, that the powers which be are ordained of God; there is no power but of His ordaining; and whosoever resisteth (or would supersede) the power, resisteth (or supersedeth) the ordinance of God.’ Such being at once the scriptural and the commonly received view among Protestants on the subject, it is manifestly erroneous to suppose that the internal action of the Spirit on the souls of men must be of a perceptible kind, consciously distinct from one’s own thoughts and volitions; equally so, that it must make itself known by communications apart from, if not superior to, those contained in the revelation of divine truth in Scripture; and still again, that it stands in any sort of contrariety to an ordained ministry and stated ordinances of worship. Any view of the Spirit’s agency which runs counter to the use of such natural aids and appropriate channels of working betrays its own arbitrary and enthusiastic character. And it certainly is, as again remarked by Taylor, among the singular incongruities of human nature, that notions of spiritual agency, which, when viewed abstractedly, seem as if they could only belong to minds in the last stage of folly and extravagance, have been for generations maintained by a sect remarkable for the chilliness of its piety, for its contempt of the natural expressions of devotional feeling, and even for a peculiar shrewdness of good sense in matters of worldly interest. Another religious party, however, has arisen much more aggressive than the Society of Friends (as these have been known in later times), and differing from them also to a considerable extent in regard to the work of the Holy Spirit, who yet so far concur with them in their views both as to the Spirit and the Church, that they equally set themselves against the function of an ordained ministry, and, indeed, any fixed Church organization. I refer to the Plymouthists, who perhaps approach more nearly to the parties that in the times of the Commonwealth were known by the names of Seekers and Spirituals, than to the Quakers of the present day; (See Gillespie’s Miscellany Questions.) but they may be classed with the latter in this respect, that they disallow the right of any one to teach or rule in the assemblies of the faithful, except such as are directly called and endowed by the Spirit to do so. They therefore repudiate and denounce all kinds of ecclesiastical ordinations, fixed appointments to office, powers and authorities conferred, or attempted to be conferred, through a human instrumentality; nay, associate with these, especially with a regularly trained and endowed clergy, most of the corruptions in the Christian Church. And along with these negative peculiarities, they hold it to be now, at this particular stage of the gospel dispensation, the special and primary duty of believers to stand forth as expectants of the near advent of Christ; and, as such, to separate themselves from the mixed communities of Christendom, simply to recognise each other as united in the common bond of Christian faith and hope, and, when meeting together, to promote each other’s edification by the exercise of such gifts of teaching or administration as the Spirit may be pleased to confer on any of their number. It is of course quite easy, in the existing state of many of the Protestant Churches of Christendom, to take advantage of various corruptions and abuses for the purpose of giving some plausible colour and support to the views now indicated; and there are not wanting currents of religious thought, phases of mind and character, which tend to foster the disintegrating, individualizing spirit, which finds its peculiar power and development in Plymouthism. But without entering into the examination of these, looking only for a moment at the views themselves which this party wish to have regarded as emphatically scriptural, there are two fundamental errors which, on the ground of Scripture, may be charged against them, and which are entirely fatal to the pretensions raised upon them. One is an error in respect to prophecy, which they unduly elevate; and another in respect to history, which they unduly depreciate. As regards the former, we lay down the position, that it is not now, nor ever has been, the insight furnished by prophecy into the Church’s future which constitutes the ground of her polity, but present truth and duty. Believers in Old Testament times, more especially when those times were verging to a close, were assuredly called to look and wait for a coming Messiah. Yet it was not this state of expectancy, or the changes which were to be introduced by it, but the past revelations of God, and the measure of truth therein unfolded, which gave birth to the ordinances of worship that were binding on the members of the old covenant, and determined the relative functions and modes of administration by which its affairs were to be carried on. The very last charge given by Old Testament prophecy to the people of God, was to observe the statutes and judgments introduced by Moses (Malachi 4:4). Not, therefore, by separating oneself from these (as the Essenes did), but by the diligent and proper use of them, was the work of preparation for the events in prospect to be secured. And it is the same in New Testament times. There, the Church itself as an organized institution, with its gifts of grace and offices of ministration, took shape in connection with the incarnation and work of Christ in the flesh; in this, a thing of the past, not in any announcement of His coming again in the future, is placed the ground and reason of all that properly belongs to it. And though intimations were given, both by our Lord and His apostles, of defections that should take place, and corruptions in doctrine and practice that should enter into His Church before He should appear in His glory, yet the call that is addressed to His people in connection with these is merely to resist the evil and witness against the abuse, but not to refuse the order or change the administration which from the first has carried with it the sanction of His approval and the promise of His blessing. For this a specific revelation from heaven would be needed, laying anew the foundation of a Church polity on earth, or warranting believers to withdraw from the foundation already laid. And believers only invert the established order and revelation of things, when they have recourse for the rule of their procedure in such matters not to the historical past, but to the still undeveloped future. But it is not thus alone that the historical element in the constitution of the Church is made too little account of by the parties in question. For this Church, it must be remembered, did not come into existence as an entirely new-creation. It was grafted, like Christianity itself, on the old stock of Judaism; and as to external form and official organization, it had its preparatory type in the arrangements of the Jewish Synagogue. The narrative of apostolic labour in the Acts and other incidental notices of New Testament Scripture plainly implies as much; and subsequent investigation has confirmed the impression beyond any reasonable doubt. The Christian Church, even when under apostolic guidance and direction, did not disdain to borrow, in the regard now under consideration, from existing institutions; and for any persons now summarily to discard what exists, and attempt to model everything anew, with no object but to afford scope for the exercise of spiritual gifts and operations, is certainly to follow another course than that marked out by apostolic precedent. True, in one point there is, if not a total, yet a comparative want of resemblance, between the Jewish Synagogue and the Christian Church; no one in the former was ordained to the office of a regular and stated pastorate; and this circumstance has been laid hold of, by the parties now immediately under consideration, for the purpose of disproving the necessity of such a pastorate in the Christian Church. But the idea of the office in a general form was undoubtedly there, namely, in the joint eldership who were charged with the spiritual oversight of each synagogal community; only, from the relative defect of the times as to spiritual light and privilege, this idea never developed itself into a proper pastorate, or a regular ministration of word and ordinance in the hands of any single individual. Such a development was necessarily reserved for the gospel dispensation; which had scarcely entered on its course till a palpable advance was made in this particular direction, and a church was constituted in which a prominent place was given to the office of pastors and teachers, not, indeed, as formally distinct from that of the eldership, but with a special rise and enlargement of one of its functions. In regard, however, to the right to hold and exercise the functions in question, there is a point that requires to be carefully guarded, which in regularly organized communities is apt to be somewhat lost sight of, sometimes is even entirely misapprehended; and the partial defect, or actual error, is not unfrequently turned to account by the spiritualists in disparagement of the pastoral office. I refer to the relation of the office, as an institution of Christ, to the gift of the Spirit qualifying an individual for its discharge. What is of God in the matter may also be, and ordinarily should be, through man; and it is in the due co-ordination and harmonious working of the human and the divine that the will of Christ is properly accomplished. The original planters of Christian churches, the apostles of our Lord, held directly of Him; in their ordination, human instrumentality had no room to work; as also in their qualifications for what was given them to do, not only spiritual, but supernatural endowments of a high order came into play. But we are not thence warranted to infer that there should be the same direct intervention from above in subsequent and inferior appointments, any more than that because the word had the outward attestation of miracles in the gospel age, a like attestation might be expected for it after the Church had begun to take root in the world. Even in the apostolic age, from the time that matters had become in some degree consolidated, respect was constantly had to the official position and instrumental agency of men. St. Paul himself, who was not only called, but had occasion strongly to assert that he had been called, to the work of an apostle, ‘not of man, nor by the will of man, but of God,’ still submitted to be designated by the Church of Antioch, through imposition of hands, to a special mission (Acts 13:3); and both he and the other apostles associated with them the eldership of the church at Jerusalem, when they came together to determine the question about circumcision. The decree issued was sent forth as the joint resolution of the Holy Ghost and the assembled heads of the Church on the subject (Acts 15:28). In all the churches, too, planted by Paul, we find him ordaining elders or presbyters for the regular administration of word and ordinances; while the real authority to act in the name of Christ, and the excellence of the power in doing so with effect, he never hesitated to ascribe to God. Why should any contrariety be supposed, in such cases, to exist between the divine agency and the human instrumentality? In ministerial ordinations and appointments, the Church does not pretend, at least she should not, and when rightly constituted she does not pretend, to confer the gifts necessary to the rightful and profitable exercise of spiritual functions; she simply recognises the gifts as already possessed in such measure as to warrant her, by a solemn act, to encourage and authorize the exercise of them in a particular sphere. Wherever the matter is rightly gone about, the process is as follows:—the Church, through her ordinary channels of working, comes to obtain a certain number of persons, who are possessed of higher qualifications and spiritual gifts than belong to the general run of her members; these, when she finds them willing to separate themselves to the work of the ministry, she puts into a course, or takes cognizance of them while they put themselves into a course, of training for the work; and this being done to her satisfaction, the endowments of nature and of grace possessed by the individuals being in her judgment such as to warrant the hope of future usefulness, she sets her seal upon them by a formal act of ordination, appointing the individuals to the oversight of some particular portion of the flock of Christ. Viewed thus, which is the only proper light wherein to contemplate it, ordination to the work of the ministry, and other cognate offices, is only a becoming exemplification of the apostolic precept, ‘Let all things be done decently, and in order.’ On the other hand, let the principle of the spiritualists be adopted, and perfect freedom allowed every member of the religious community to exercise the gifts he thinks himself possessed of, what effectual check is there against abitrariness and presumption? What confusion and disorder may not, for a time at least, come into operation? Here one, we can suppose, shall rise up claiming to have received the gift of teaching from the Spirit; there another, asserting for himself the power of government; and another claiming to possess the discernment of spirits, so as to be capable of assigning to each his proper place and character in the reckoning of heaven; and whatever extravagance or delusion there might be in such assumptions, still, on the views of an idealistic and individualizing spiritualism, the claim must in the first instance be conceded, and only by and by rejected, if the teaching and procedure founded on it should be found to clash with the general sense of the community. But, meanwhile, what disturbance might be created? what unprofitable jangling, perhaps irreparable mischief, occasioned in the process? Such, indeed, that no religious community acting on the principle in question, and fairly carrying it out, has ever been able to perpetuate itself. Either some sort of constitutional government has been practically called into existence to temper and control the spiritualistic element, or the community has fallen a prey to its internal weakness and indiscriminate self-assertion. Doubtless there were things connected with the first great movements of spiritual life and action in the Christian Church which have a somewhat irregular appearance, not quite reducible to the method and order of constitutional government; as there have been also in times of convulsive energy and deep spiritual awakening. The parties against whom we now reason are in the habit of making their appeal to such things. That is, they would make what is peculiar and occasional the rule and warrant for ordinary administrations; and not uncommonly what was peculiar and occasional is exaggerated, made to appear greater than it actually was, by throwing into the background circumstances of a qualifying or counterbalancing kind. It is in accordance with all that we know of the Spirit’s mode of operation in the Church, that when the position of affairs was so singular, and the exigencies of the Church in many respects so great, as they were at the commencement of the gospel, He would adapt His gifts and methods of working, in ways somewhat extraordinary, to the state of the times; thus giving special encouragements to believers amid their heavy struggles and embarrassments, and compensating, in a measure, for the want of resources which might at other times be within their reach. But things of that description, however expedient or even necessary at the beginning, might have proved disadvantageous afterwards; because tending to hinder the free and fitting development of the Christian life in its various capacities and powers of action. And it is again in accordance with all that we know of the Spirit’s operations, that the natural should, wherever and so far as properly available, be turned to account, and sanctified to spiritual uses. In the case even of the apostles, at least of the more prominent and influential among them, the recognition of this principle can be without difficulty traced. For, amid all that surrounded them of the supernatural and miraculous, we still see nothing like a disparagement or suppression of their natural powers and susceptibilities; but, on the contrary, a most real and valid consideration made of them. By these, indeed, their relative places and spheres of operation were to a large extent determined. In St. Paul’s case, especially, if we may not say he was called to be the apostle to the Gentiles because he was possessed of singular mental powers, of Grecian culture, and Roman citizenship, it is still clear that these formed no mean part of the qualifications which rendered important service to him in the prosecution of his high calling. Nor was it materially different in regard to the outward support of the ministry. During the earliest stage of ministerial agency our Lord charged Himself, in a manner, with the support of those who were engaged in it. He sent forth His disciples on their first missionary tour without purse, or scrip, or even change of raiment, (Matthew 10:9-10) in order that, while He was still present with them, and personally destitute of material resources, they might have convincing evidence of His willingness and power to bring all necessary provisions to their hand. But at a later period, when on the eve of taking His departure from them, (Luke 22:36) and preparing them for what should be the future order of things, He indicated the propriety of their adopting whatever means or precautions lay within their reach: they were, henceforth, to serve themselves of the natural and the ordinary materials of sustenance or safety, so far as these might be at their command, and could be made available. It was but to follow out the spirit of this original revelation of the Lord’s mind and will, when the members of the New Testament Church provided, through their free-will offerings, for the maintenance of those who gave themselves to the work of the ministry, as well as for the relief of the poor; and when the principle was formally announced by the Apostle Paul, that ‘they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel.’ (1 Corinthians 9:14) If the principle has been abused in later times by the institution of rich benefices, and the employment of simoniacal practices, the legitimate use, with its scriptural warrant and obligation, still remains. Other considerations, also, come in aid of those which are furnished by the word of God, pointing in the same direction. How, in a busy, and to a large extent hostile world, can the interests of the gospel be expected to flourish without a special class of officers charged with the responsibility of watching over them, and placed in a position which may enable them to devote their time and energies to the work? How, even in well-informed and orderly congregations, can the souls of the people be fed with sound knowledge, and their Christian efforts be rightly stimulated and made to tell with proper effect on the state of things around them, without the wise counsels and earnest application of a faithful ministry? The dictates of common sense, and the lessons also of past experience, concur in showing the necessity of adhering in this respect to the method, which has met the common approval of Christendom. It is well to say that the members of Christian congregations should each apply themselves, as God may enable them, to exhortation, and prayer, and active labours for the spiritual instruction and wellbeing of others. No doubt they should, and also will do this, if religion is in a healthful and thriving state among them; but never, unless perhaps in a few exceptional cases, can it be reasonably expected to such an extent as to supersede the necessity of a regular pastorate. It certainly has not done so in the past, and it seems less and less likely to do so in the future. The circumstances of the world, and of the Church itself, are manifestly of a kind to call for the undivided efforts of as many qualified pastors as there is the least probability of obtaining, and whatever occasional help besides can be derived from the more zealous and devoted members of particular congregations. It is not, we may be well assured, the cause of righteousness, but the interests of worldliness or sin, which would be gained by a general discontinuance of the pastoral office in the Church, or by the withdrawal, from those who fill it, of such temporal encouragement and support as may admit of the undivided application of their services to the work of the ministry. III. Views of the Church which, though not fatal to the existence, are injurious to the proper character of the pastoral office.—It is quite possible, and has, indeed, been found greatly more common, to err both as to the idea of the Church, and the nature of the pastoral function associated with it, by pushing to an extreme the formal or visible aspects of the subject, than by going too far in the opposite direction. These may be so unduly magnified and dwelt upon as virtually to disparage and cast into the shade such as are of a more vital and spiritual nature; as is done preeminently in the hierarchical system of Rome, and in other communions in proportion as they are leavened with High Church notions of the priesthood and the sacraments. The system (whatever elements of truth may be combined with it) is always fraught with danger to the spiritual interests of the individual believer; for the tendency here is to repress individualism, hence to weaken the principle of personal responsibility, and dispose men to substitute an easy and formal acquiescence in something done for them, in lieu of a work of grace wrought in them by the Word and Spirit of Christ. It does not, however, carry the same formal opposition to the subject more immediately under consideration, as the erring tendencies in the other direction; for in the hierarchical Churches referred to there is also a pastorate, or cure of souls, only one of a materially different character from that recognised in the Reformed Churches, and, as we believe, sanctioned in Scripture; a pastorate which is at the same time a priesthood, and is mainly distinguished by the work of mediation which it has to perform in behalf of those who are the objects of its solicitude. Under such a system, everything necessarily partakes of a false tinge and bias; pastoral theology has to busy itself chiefly with offices and administrations of a vicarious kind, ritualistic services and sacerdotal offerings; with these, at least, much more than with any direct manifestations of the truth to the hearts and consciences of men. But the extent to which this may be done, and the danger which is in consequence brought to the interests of vital godliness, will depend on the degree in which the hierarchical element, with its accompanying ceremonialism, is allowed to prevail. It is in the Romish Church, with which indeed may be included the several divisions of the Eastern Church, as in this respect there is no material difference, that the element in question has its most complete and systematic development. And it has obtained such ascendancy there, mainly because of the undue, almost exclusive regard that it had to the external relations and formal services of the Church as a visible Institute. Indeed, so far as any practical purpose is concerned, no other view of the Church is ever brought into notice, or distinctly contemplated as possible; and every effort is put forth to treat as entirely theoretical and inconsistent the Protestant doctrine of a spiritual or invisible, in connection with a visible Church. ‘Protestants’ (says Bossuet in his Variations) ‘insist that the Church consists exclusively of believers, and is therefore an invisible body. But when asked for the signs of a Church, they say the word and sacraments, a ministry and a public service. If so, how can it consist exclusively of the pious? And where was there any society answering to the Protestant definition before the Reformation?’ So, also, more recently Möhler in his Symbolik. After quoting Luther’s sentiments regarding the individual Christian as one taught of God through the divine word and Spirit, and representing the Church as composed of such as have been so taught, he thus proceeds: ‘It hence cannot be discerned why he should need the supplemental aid of a congregation invested with authority, from whose centre the word of God should be announced to him; for by the assistance of the outward divine word alone, written in the depths of his heart, he hears His voice, and without an immediate organ. What, after all this, can the Church be other than an invisible community, since no material object in the visibility of the Church can any longer be conceived? Yet,’ he adds, ‘Luther all at once admits, without its being possible to discover in his system any rational ground for such an assumption, the establishment of human teachers, and even the lawfulness of their calling. Hereby the Church becomes visible, recognisable, obvious to the eye; so that the ill-connected notions of God, the sole teacher, and of a human teacher declared competent, and who cannot even be dispensed with, meet us again in such a way as to imply that the invisible is still a visible Church also.’ The whole that there is of plausibility in this line of attack arises from a kind of clever confounding of things that differ, treating the two aspects of the Church as set forth by Protestants with studied perplexity, as if they were to be understood in reference to precisely the same interests and relations. When contemplated with respect to the true scriptural idea, the Church is the living body of the glorified Redeemer; and, as such, it is necessarily composed of those, and of those alone, who have been justified by His grace, and made partakers of His risen life. The signs of it in that point of view are not, as Bossuet insinuates, the word and sacraments,—no intelligent Protestant writer could so represent it,—but faith, holiness, perpetuity. These, however, from their very nature, are strictly inward and spiritual properties; they depend simply on the reality of the soul’s communion with Christ, and the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. But when the question comes to be, How usually is this life-giving work of the Spirit, and communion with the Son, begun and carried on in the experience of men? it is proper to reply,—Through the word and the sacraments, or the ministrations and ordinances of the gospel, which, in so far as they are scripturally maintained and dispensed, are of God, and if not the only, still are the ordinary channels through which the Spirit imparts the blessings of salvation to the soul. In the Bible first, and generally also in the Protestant confessions, the work of our salvation is presented to our view as primarily a personal concern, a transaction which has to take place between the soul and God. And the determination of the question, whether this has really become an accomplished thing in our experience, must ever turn on the state of the heart toward God, whether or how far it has come to be alive to the concerns of salvation in Christ, and has surrendered itself to the power of His grace and truth. The great source of salvation, and the vital bond that connects us with it, being alike spiritual, the main stress neither is nor could by possibility be laid upon our relation to some external apparatus, or human instrumentality. These, at best, can be but the appointed means and channels. The boon itself reaches the soul only when by a spirit of faith there is the appropriation of a living Saviour, and a humble reception of His word of truth. If these really exist, no matter how they may have come into operation, or where; it is of no moment whether amid the solemnities of worship, or in an hour of silent communing with Heaven; whether through a message spoken in due season by an ordained minister of the gospel, or by a word dropped in the private intercourse of Christian fellowship by a believing brother; the soul has found the blessing; it has laid hold of Him who is the fulness of life and blessing; and its portion is, beyond doubt, with the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven. But are we on this account independent of the visible Church? Do we owe nothing to its ministrations, and has it nothing to expect from us in return? On the contrary, we should never, in all probability, have sought after the requisite state of mind, and the blessings associated with it, or known how to attain them, except from the advantages enjoyed in connection with the visible Church; and as with the beginning, so with the future progress. The two, in short, stand related as a double and closely interconnected system of means; the direct and immediate are repentance toward God, and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ; but in order to the production and development of these, there is in the hand of the Spirit another class of means, of a remoter and outward kind,—the ministrations, ordinances, watchful superintendence and oversight of the Church. Is not this in correspondence with what takes place in the natural sphere of things? There also the prime, the essential thing is the secret implantation of a living principle in an organism fitted to receive and manifest its properties; but this organism itself is linked to a system of external adaptations, through which the vital principle is brought into existence, nourished into strength, and carried forward to the proper maturity and perfection of its nature. Thus the sought-for point of union between the visible and the invisible Church, (The Church, p. 368.) to use the words of Litton, ‘lies in the administration of those means of grace by which, as instruments, the Holy Spirit works, continually replenishing the true Church with members out of the visible; and those means are the preached word and the sacraments. To the visible Church it belongs to administer these ordinances; for whatever be the state of heart of those to whom the ministry of the word and the sacraments is committed, these means of grace are efficacious not on account of, that is, not directly or primarily on account of, the human channel through which they pass, but by virtue of Christ’s promise, and the faith of the recipient. To the visible Church, then, belongs the public administration of the means of grace; and as it is by the instrumentality of these means that the true Church is gathered in, it is obvious that it is no more possible to sever the one from the other, than it is to sever the inward grace of the sacraments from the outward sign; and that, in fact, as in the sacraments the outward sign and the inward grace are not two sacraments, but the two aspects, the inward and the outward, of one and the same ordinance, so the visible and the true Church are not distinct communities, but one and the same, regarded from different points of view. The true Church depends for the maintenance of its existence on the visible Church; and, in turn, the visible Church is supported by the true. Thus a reciprocal action is ever going on: the visible Church, as such, dispensing the means of grace by which Christ works to the gathering in of His elect; and the true Church, as such, upholding and perpetuating the visible use of those means by furnishing faithful recipients of them.’ I only add to this clear statement regarding the mutual bearings and relations between the true and the visible, or the elect and actual Church, that the distinction, we should ever remember, is of man’s, not of God’s making. The two should correspond in number and extent, and would do so but for the corruption and hypocrisy of men, which are ever marring the efficiency of God’s ordinances, and bringing imperfection and disorder into His kingdom. The visible Church, as formerly stated, ought to be the community of saints, the brotherhood of faith; so that in it, as in a mirror, men might see what the life of Christ actually is, and be ever deriving from it salutary impressions upon their hearts and consciences. This can be but imperfectly done so long as the representation stands in the characters of single individuals or isolated families. There must be social organization, united action, collective results, otherwise nothing great, or general, or permanent can be reached; and the Church militant is true to her calling, and fulfils her mission, only in so far as she everywhere presents the aspect of a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. With such views of the nature and calling of the Christian Church, we have no hesitation in rejecting as unscriptural and misleading any Church system which, on the ground merely of its historical position, its ecclesiastical polity, or hereditary claim to be the dispenser of salvation, would dispose men to look more to the external framework and formal administration of the kingdom of Christ than to its spiritual aims and inner life; to be more concerned about preserving the right relation to a human instrumentality and a generally recognised order of things, than about their relation to the mind and Spirit of Christ; in a word, to make salvation primarily and chiefly a matter of compliance with a prescribed ritual of service, and of interest in the ministrations of a divinely-constituted priesthood. Such a system, wherever it exists, and however it may be guarded, must always be perilous to the souls of men, since it necessarily tends to carnalize their views of divine things, to fix their regard more upon form than substance, and to turn the work of the ministry, in its higher functions, from an earnest treatment of the sublime realities of the gospel for the good of men, into a mechanical routine of observances which the stupidest of men could perform with equal propriety as the most intelligent and wise. The evil, too, is all the greater, and the more apt to impose on the credulity of men, from its existing in the firmly-compacted system of Rome, where, with a certain measure of plausibility, an appeal can be made to an apparently unbroken historical connection with the past, and the claim is made, as of right, to the heritage of doctrine and worship which has descended from the first fathers of the Christian Church. Unquestionably a certain weight is due to the historical element in determining the relation we should occupy toward any particular Church, and the title it may rightfully have to our allegiance. It should not be without solid grounds that we set aside a claim which, either in a national respect, or from personal ties, may press itself on our regard. Still this historical element itself is an outward thing; it does not directly touch the vitals of the faith; and there are important considerations to show that the outwardness belonging to it, whether as connected with the Church of Rome or with any other visible Church in Christendom, should be allowed nothing more than a secondary place, and should yield, when necessary, to the higher claims of truth and righteousness. (I.) In the first place, the history of the past presents a conclusive argument against the absolute force of any simply historical claim, on the part of a Church or religious community, to our acceptance. For the Christian Church itself started on its course with the peremptory denial of such a claim. Christianity sprang out of Judaism, and when taking root in the earth as an organized society or spiritual kingdom, though but a fresh exhibition and proper development of what already existed in the synagogue, it had at the outset to cast off the authority of the synagogue, and pursue an independent course. This consideration has been put forth by the advocates of Protestant liberty in former times, by Claude, for instance, in his disputation with Bossuet, and has never met with a valid reply. Bossuet urged the inevitable tendency of the Protestant doctrine toward Independentism, and asked what remedy it provided against ‘that intolerable presumption which must lead an individual to believe that he can understand Scripture better than the best Œcumenical Councils and the whole Church together.’ Claude objected to this alleged unanimity, the contrary decisions of councils, such as that of Rimini; but passing from that, he said there is ‘an incontestable example; there is the judgment of the synagogue when it condemned Jesus Christ, and by consequence declared that He was not the Messiah promised by the prophets.’ This, he affirmed, was an unquestionable fact, and it proved that one might do without presumption that which had been pronounced to be intolerable and presumptuous. Bossuet professes to have seen at once the transparent fallacy of this argument, and prayed for grace that he might show it to be so to those who appeared greatly taken by it. ‘When an individual now,’ he said, ‘denies the authority of the Church, there is no other external means by which God can avail Himself to dissolve the doubts of the ignorant, and beget in the faithful the necessary humility. In order to draw such an argument from the conduct of the synagogue, it is necessary to affirm that there was not on earth any external means, any sure authority, to which one ought to submit. But who can say that when Jesus Christ was on the earth? Truth itself then visibly existed among men, the Messiah, the eternal Son of God, to whom a voice from heaven gave testimony before all the people: “This is my beloved Son, hear Him.” True, it was resisted, though infallible. I don’t say that the authority of the Church has never been contested, but I say it ought not to have been so by Christians. I say there has never been a time on the earth in which one has not been sure of a visible, speaking authority, to which obedience ought to be yielded. Before Jesus Christ we had the synagogue; when the synagogue was going to fail, Jesus Christ Himself appeared; and when Jesus Christ withdrew, He left His Church with the Holy Ghost. Bring me back Jesus Christ; I no longer want the Church; but you must restore to me Jesus Christ in person, and an infallible authority.’ Such, from a Papal point of view, will naturally appear a perfectly satisfactory way of viewing the matter, and unanswerably right; and yet it is without any solid foundation, and entirely evades the real merits of the question. First, it lays stress upon the peculiar circumstances of the time, as if these formed the essential features of the case, and in a manner constituted it a principle of working. This, however, was to misjudge Christ; for it was precisely through the circumstances in which He was placed, and His bearing under them, that we learn His will; and whatever He did in the fulfilment of His mission, may in spirit be done over again by His people when placed in positions somewhat analogous. But, secondly, it totally misrepresents the action of Christ at the period referred to, for the purpose of destroying the parallel between His case and ours. When Christ personally appeared before the synagogue, truth did then, indeed, visibly exist among men; but He did not stand upon what, as such, was due to Him; neither then, nor at any other time during His sojourn on earth, did He press rights and prerogatives that were peculiar to Himself. When tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He took the part of an ordinary believer under trial, simply leaning as a child on the word of His Father in heaven. And when judged and condemned by the synagogue, He waived all His distinctive claims to honour and regard, and quietly carried His appeal heavenwards, committing Himself, as St. Peter expresses it, to Him that judgeth righteously. (1 Peter 2:23) If, however, we look from the Master to the disciples, whose case more nearly resembles ours, the light furnished is still more decisive; for when it became necessary for them to take up a separate position, as the guides and leaders of the Christian Church, Christ was no longer visible on earth; He had gone to the right hand of the Majesty on high, and to this invisible Head was their appeal formally made: ‘We must obey God rather than man; ‘or more exactly, ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.’ (Acts 4:19) Thirdly, when the advocate of the Romish Church speaks of the Church being left as Christ’s substitute, the only remaining visible authority upon earth, he quietly assumes the very point at issue; for what or where is the precise community so left? Is it the Papal, or the Greek, or some particular branch of the Reformed Church? The case now is greatly stronger for a liberty of choice among these, or a freedom to act in certain circumstances above them all, than at the commencement of the Christian Church. For then there was but one authority on earth with which, as a competing jurisdiction, the disciples of Christ had to do. But now there is Church beside Church; the very face of Christendom wears a divided aspect. It therefore remains for all time a most instructive and monitory fact, that when the Church of the New Testament was entering on its history, those who guided its counsels had, in the face of existing authorities, to prosecute their course under direct appeal to heaven; and that it was ‘precisely those who refused to examine, who gave themselves up with implicit faith to the guidance of their Church, and relied absolutely upon the teaching of their priests and their learned men, who rejected and crucified the Lord of glory’ (Cautions for the Times, p. 110). (2.) There is, however, another, a prophetical ground for the line of procedure now under consideration, which serves greatly to strengthen and confirm that which is derived from the history of the past. For in the prophetic announcements made by Christ and His apostles, the plainest intimations were given of a coming degeneracy in the Christian Church, not only warranting but most urgently demanding a spirit of faithfulness on the part of true believers, and, in particular, of Christian pastors. It was not merely that single individuals, or even scattered communities, were to give way to doctrines and practices inconsistent with the tenor of the gospel; (Matthew 24:11-12; Matthew 24:23-24) but that there were to be false prophets or teachers arising and gaining ascendancy, a general growth and prevalence of iniquity, what one apostle represents as a gigantic system of harlotry, (Revelation 17:4-5; Revelation 17:18) carrying away multitudes in the sweep of its abominations; what another designates, by way of eminence, the apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 3:1-7) a huge and portentous backsliding from the faith and purity of the gospel in the professing Church, coupled with a defiant and persecuting spirit toward those who should presume to question its authority. With such pre-intimations respecting the future of the Christian Church, interspersed also with the most solemn charges and admonitions to watch against the evil, to resist it, nay, to come out and be separate from it, though at the hazard of property and life, is it not the height of presumption to quash all inquiry and consideration by pointing to some ecclesiastical corporation, and saying: ‘There it is, the very Church which was of old planted by evangelists and apostles; hear it.’ It may be so, we reply, as to local possession or hereditary descent; there may be in one sense an unbroken continuity; but those same evangelists and apostles forewarned us that corruption was to mar their handiwork, that it was to be infested by the spirit of error and delusion, even as by a spreading plague; and we are expressly enjoined by them to consider whether the Church which claims our homage be a Sardis or a Philadelphia, the Lamb’s bride or the whore, a Church which has kept the faith and testimony of Jesus, or a Church which has allied herself to the pride and carnality of the world. This is necessarily a point for decision between Church and Church and as those to whom the revelation of God has come, we cannot escape from the responsibility of searching for ourselves, and determining where the truth lies, and what part it calls us to take. For this purpose, among others, that revelation has been committed to writing, and handed down to us; and as by it we shall ultimately be judged, so by it we must now be guided, as well in regard to our ecclesiastical as to our social and domestic relations. Enough, however, for the present. It would be out of place to pursue the subject further here. Our object is not to enter into a full discussion of it, but to lay down a few fundamental principles upon it, with reference more especially to the responsibilities and calling of those who are either preparing for, or are actively engaged in, the pastoral office as the great business of their lives. As matters actually stand, divisions in the Church, even in its sounder portions, may be held to be inevitable. Christian prayerfulness and effort, it is to be hoped, will lessen their number, but still for many a day they may be expected to exist; and aspirants to the ministry, as well as believers generally, have no alternative but to select a particular community in preference to others as that with which to associate themselves in the exercise of Christian privilege or the discharge of Christian duty. But certain difficulties of a practical kind necessarily arise out of this state of things touching one’s relation to the pastors and members of other evangelical Communions, and the way and manner in which, with due regard to one’s own position, Christ’s great law of love may still be effectively maintained. A few reflections on this point may not unsuitably close these preliminary discussions. IV. The relation of Church to Church and pastorate to pastorate in connection with the great law of Christian love.— It was, doubtless, clearly foreseen by our Lord that the imperfections in faith and knowledge which should attach to His people, and the entanglements amid which His Church should have to make its way in the world, would have the effect of originating formal diversities in outward fellowship and government, even where there might be a substantial agreement on all the great things of salvation. Yet, in imposing His specific law of love, Christ made no account of these prospective differences. Contemplating His believing people through all time as standing in essentially the same relation to Himself, He prayed that they might be kept one in such a sense that the world might be able to take knowledge of it, (John 17:21; John 17:23; John 13:34-35) and also charged them to love one another simply as His disciples; so to do it, that by this very exercise and mutual interchange of love men might with some degree of confidence discern them to be His disciples. (I.) Now, amid the perplexities and embarrassments which the present broken and divided aspect of the Christian Church throws around the subject, especially for those who are called to preside over its several and somewhat antagonistic communities, there is a consideration which it is important to bear in mind, and which so far relieves the difficulty. It is this, that the interchange of love from disciple to disciple, and, of course, also from Church to Church, while enjoined quite generally by our Lord, is not necessarily uniform, and could not have been meant to be altogether uniform, either in its strength or in its manner of exercise. It admits of preferences both as regards individuals and as regards Christian communities. Those who are connected with us by closer bonds, who hold more intimate relationships to us than other men, are on that account entitled to a more special place in our regard. The providence of God has made them to us in a sense what other men are not, and this calls for a corresponding degree and exercise of affection. This implies, no doubt, a distinction in the fold of Christ, yet only a relative distinction, and one for which we have the authority and example of our Lord Himself. For while He loved all His disciples, there was one so peculiarly the object of His affectionate regard, that he is called ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ Hence, as the charge of our Lord to the disciples was to love one another as He had loved them, it is perfectly allowable and proper for them to make distinctions in their love; within the circle of one’s own Communion there may be a circle narrower still, a select few with whom we find such congeniality of feeling, such harmony of spirit, such mutual conformity of gifts and graces, that we are instinctively drawn to them by the warmest affection. And if so in respect to the members of one Communion, much more in respect to that Communion as compared with others, with which we are not visibly, however we may be really and internally united, as partakers of one common salvation. It never was the design of that grace which is exhibited in the gospel to interfere with the constitution of the human mind, or impose on it laws of working different from those which it naturally obeys. On the contrary, it adapts itself to these, and seeks to bring them into harmonious and healthful operation. But there is nothing more certain or uniform in regard to the emotional part of our natures than that we are formed for particular attachments, with affections that settle upon one object or class of objects with greater force and intensity than on others. We cannot, even though we might wish to do so, love all persons alike; and it is no part of Christianity to oblige us to attempt it. To be without hatred or malice toward any, to be ready to repay evil with good, and show kindness even to the undeserving, this is an essential mark of a Christian spirit. But it were no mark of such a spirit to be without special attachments, or to confer no higher tokens of regard on some than we do on others. One not only may but should love one’s own family otherwise than persons who live outside of it; the bonds and obligations of grace concur with the impulses of nature to establish such a difference. And, in like manner, it is at once natural and dutiful to feel more deeply concerned in the welfare of the particular communion to which we belong, and to do more to promote its advancement in all that is really good, than for others, though equally sound and living branches of the true Church, only less intimately known and related to us. All this arises from the operation of that law of our natures which requires that our feelings and affections, in order to be strong, must be limited in their range of action. If scattered over a multiplicity of objects, they necessarily lose in intensity and force. It is therefore not to be regarded as any proof of sectarianism, or violation of this law of Christian love, if we should think, pray, and labour more for a particular Church, or for individual members of a Church, than for others. Only care should be taken that the good sought in this more special line may not be such as to involve the manifestation of an unbrotherly spirit in some other direction. The rights of Christian communities, as well as of single believers, must ever be respected. (2.) There is still another distinction to be made, and in that another principle of direction to be found, in respect to the exercise of Christian love; which is, that we are not called by it to countenance or show ourselves indifferent to any error or delinquency into which, whether as individuals or as Churches, they may have fallen. Love rather requires us to give a clear and unequivocal testimony against the evil, and seek its removal. It was, doubtless, through an infirmity, a defection from the gentle and forbearing spirit of the gospel, that Paul and Barnabas fell out between themselves, since in the matter of dispute no vital truth was at stake. But it was no infirmity, it was a noble proof and exhibition of love, when Paul withstood Peter to his face at Antioch for acting in a manner which tended to mislead the disciples; or when he rebuked the Churches of Galatia for their weakness in suffering themselves to be withdrawn from the simplicity of the faith, and the Corinthians for their party strifes, and abuse of supernatural gifts of the Spirit. There may be sections of the Protestant Church so far removed from what we take to be the proper ideal of a Church of Christ in creed or government, that we could hold no direct or ostensible fellowship with them. Fidelity to the cause of truth and righteousness seems to require that, in that respect, we should stand aloof; love itself compels us to show, by the position we occupy, or the testimony we at fitting times deliver, wherein we conceive them to be in error; and openly to fraternize with them might naturally be construed into an indifference toward our points of disagreement. But if in such communities we meet with individuals who by their spirit and behaviour give evidence of being true disciples of Christ, holding by the great principles of His gospel, and living to the glory of His name, we should then fail in our duty if we did not eye them with affection, and declined to reciprocate the feelings of kindness and goodwill which they may exhibit toward us. The Master, as appears from their spirit and behaviour, has accepted them; who are we, that we should dispute the propriety of His choice, or disown the seal which He has put upon them? Though they will not follow with us, nor may we follow with them in what is peculiar to us both, yet in what is common, in what concerns the fundamental principles of the faith in Christ, the repression of iniquity, the advancement of righteousness in the world, it is in accordance with the spirit of the gospel that there should be brotherly recognition, harmony of thought and action. How much may not be learned in this respect from the bearing and procedure of Christ Himself? The spirit of love which was exemplified in His course was not more remarkable for its depth and fervency in one direction than for its tenderness and forbearance in another. Himself the light of the world, in whom dwelt all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, there was necessarily an immeasurable gulf between Him and those about Him as to the degrees of knowledge and spiritual discernment respectively possessed by them. There would have been so even if the disciples had made the most diligent improvement of their privileges; but as matters actually stood, the distance was much greater than it might have been. In spite of Christ’s endeavours to teach them, their notions of divine things continued to be crude; their minds remained full of misapprehensions respecting the nature of His kingdom; and indications were ever and anon appearing of the carnal tempers and sinful misgivings which cleaved to them. Yet how meekly did Christ bear with them under all! With how gentle a hand did He try to remove from their minds the clouds of darkness and prejudice which rested upon them! How gladly did He avail Himself of the opportunities which arose to impart to them the truth as they were able to receive it! And, again, how considerately did He hold His hand when He saw that they were incapable at the time of receiving more! Altogether, we have here most valuable materials for our guidance, peculiarly valuable for the time and circumstances in which we live. If the spirit of our Lord’s behaviour is imbibed, it will dispose us, whenever we perceive the honest and childlike heart of faith, to bear with much that may appear weak and defective; and to be more ready to convey instruction and dispense blessing, or should that be impracticable, to make due allowance for personal imperfections and failings, than in a feeling of actual or fancied superiority to boast it over others. Were this but more generally done, were the truth, without being less firmly held, more frequently combined with the meekness and gentleness, the patient and considerate spirit of Christ, it might conciliate more hearts; not the interests of the truth, but rather those which are opposed to it, would suffer by such line of behaviour. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 02.02. CHAPTER 2 ======================================================================== Chapter 2. The Nature of the Pastoral Office, and the Call to Enter on its Functions IT is only with some of the preliminary points bearing on the office of the Christian pastorate that we have as yet been occupied. We come now to the subject itself, which naturally falls into a few leading divisions. First, there is the nature of the pastoral office, with the consideration of what constitutes a valid call to its functions and employments. Secondly, the personal and social life befitting one who undertakes the responsibilities and duties of such an office. Thirdly, its proper work, comprising: (1) homiletics, or the composition and delivery of discourses; (2) the employment of subsidiary methods of instruction and counsel; (3) the devotional services of the sanctuary; (4) the administration of discipline; (5) supplemental helps and agencies, not strictly connected with the work of the ministry, but having, in certain respects, an incidental bearing on its operations or results. Under one or other of these divisions every topic of importance relating to the subject may be brought into consideration. And we take that first which naturally precedes the others in the order of discussion, the pastoral office itself, with the call to enter on its functions. I. The office viewed in relation to the persons in whose behalf it is instituted.—This office has to do with the oversight and care of souls, and by its very name imports that ministers of the gospel are called to exercise somewhat of the same fidelity and solicitude in behalf of these, that shepherds are expected to do in respect to their flocks. The names usually applied in Scripture to the highest officers in the Christian Church carry much the same import, though each with some specific shade of meaning as to the primary aspect under which their calling is contemplated. Those names are πρεσβύτεροι and ἐπίσκοποι, presbyters and bishops, or elders and overseers, both alike involving the charge or duty of superintending and consulting for the good of the religious community. The more distinctive Greek term (ἐπίσκοποι), even in its primary or civil application, bore just this, meaning. It denoted a class of persons appointed to the work of inspection and responsible government in towns or provinces subject to the parent state. And when transferred to a corresponding class in the Christian Church, it must have been meant to convey the ideas of watchful vigilance and authoritative control. If the term elders may be regarded as having originally borne respect to seniority of rank, as marked by advance of years, when it came to be used as an official designation, first in the synagogue, then in the Church. It denoted the heads of the religious community, the fathers of the spiritual household. Both terms, therefore, pointed rather to the exercise of authority, or to the ruling and governing power, than to any other ministerial function. They simply designated the men who were set over Christian congregations as the guides and guardians of the flock, who had to watch for its safety and welfare as those that must give an account. And of the same import also is another epithet employed—a description rather than a designation, ὁι ἡγουμενοί, the leading or ruling ones: ‘Remember them that have the rule over you.’ (Hebrews 13:7) A form of expression, however, is occasionally used, which seems to point in the opposite direction, representing, as it does, the work and calling of ministers under the notion of a service, or, we may even say, of a servitude. Our Lord had Himself employed this language: ‘Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister (διάκονος); and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (δοῦλος, slave): even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto (διακονηΘῆναι), but to minister (διάκονῆσαι), and to give His life a ransom for many.’ (Matthew 20:28) The Apostle Paul was peculiarly fond of this form of expression, and seems to have considered it more distinctly indicative of his apostolic or ministerial agency than any of those commonly applied to the presidents or overseers of particular Churches: ‘Who, then, is Paul,’ he asks, ‘and who is Apollos, but ministers (διάκονοι) through whom ye believed, as the Lord gave to every man? (1 Corinthians 3:5) ‘Christ Jesus our Lord hath enabled me, for that He counted me faithful, putting me into the deaconship,’ (1 Timothy 1:12) the ministerial employ. And speaking yet again of the manner in which he conducted himself toward the Churches, he gave no offence, he says, in anything, (2 Corinthians 6:3) ‘that the διακονία ( the ministerial office) might not be blamed.’ It is the same thing still, only presented under another aspect, and with more immediate reference to the performance of work not directly connected with the exercise of authority, though necessarily involving its possession, and its exercise also, in so far as circumstances might render it needful. Whatever special exercise Paul had to render in his office as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is clear from his epistles, that the light in which he chiefly delighted to contemplate his calling was that of a cure of souls; it was his destination to minister to the perishing the bread of life, and bring them to the possession of a saving interest in Christ. Therefore, when he seeks to magnify his office, it is more especially with respect to the preaching of the gospel that he does so. What he dwells upon is the commission he received from the glorified Redeemer to proclaim the unsearchable riches of His grace and goodness, and, in the fulfilment of this commission, the labours he underwent, the sufferings he endured, the efforts he plied, and the measure of success he obtained. We can thus be at no loss to understand what kind of service or ministry it was that the apostle meant when he spake of his διακονία in the Lord; in its more essential features it coincided with that which has to be discharged by every faithful missionary and minister of the word. Having for its object not merely the bringing of sinners within the pale of salvation, but the constituting of those so brought into an organized society, it necessarily included the exercise of an administrative as well as of a teaching function; yet the teaching more directly and prominently, as everything was to proceed in connection with the knowledge and belief of the truth. This, in its entire compass, belongs to the ministry of the word; which is, as Bucer notes, a ministerium, not a magisterium; a service, not a lordship; but a service founded on a divine commission, and holding at command a sacred authority, which it is permitted and even bound to employ whenever the interests of truth and righteousness may seem to require it. In apostolic times the primary object of concern was the diffusion of the gospel, and the planting of churches consequent on its propagation; the oversight and government of particular churches occupied but a secondary place. The apostles gave hours to the one and only minutes to the other. And though the same might be deemed fitting still, if the matter were viewed with reference to the calling of the Church generally toward the world, yet the proportion comes nearly to be reversed when the pastoral office is considered with respect to individual congregations. This, indeed, is what is plainly implied in the instructions given concerning it in the later epistles of the New Testament. The name itself of pastor is but once used there, namely in Ephesians 4:11, where the discourse is of the gifts provided and conferred by Christ for all official service and employment in the Christian Church, and where pastors and teachers are mentioned among the persons who were intended to share in the bestowal. If not the precise word, however, the idea involved in it, and the relative obligations and duties to which it calls, have expression given to them elsewhere; as at Acts 20:28, when St. Paul charges the elders of the Church of Ephesus to ‘take heed to themselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers, and to feed (ποιμαίνειν) the flock of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood;’ also at 1 Peter 5:2, where the exhortation to feed the flock of God is addressed by Peter as an elder in the universal Church to all the elders of particular congregations; and for encouragement in the work points to the expected appearance of Christ as the chief Shepherd, who will give to His faithful servants the unfading crown of glory. It was the more natural for Peter to view the office in this light, as it was the one in which our Lord presented the calling and destination of the apostle, on the touching and memorable occasion when, after drawing forth the confession of his love, He gave to him the charge, ‘Feed my lambs,’ ‘Feed my sheep.’ (John 21:15-17) And standing as Peter did on that occasion, the representative, in a sense, not only of the select company of apostles, but of all in every age who should be called to ply the work of an evangelical ministry, it is but to enter into Christ’s mind in the matter when they view the work in the light of a pastorate, and regard themselves as charged by Christ to care for and feed the sheep of His pasture. It is what may be called the interior side of the office which this view of it most naturally suggests, its relation to those who are already within the fold, nominally, at least, the members of Christ’s spiritual household. It was under the same aspect that our Lord presented His own high calling, in that gospel which is pre-eminently inwards and spiritual in its representations. He there speaks of Himself as the Shepherd, who knows His sheep, and is known of them; (John 10:14) who even came to lay down His life on their behalf, and who ever keeps them in the grasp of His almighty hand. Yet, while in such representations of Christ there was, in one point of view, a certain limitation, in another there was a wide comprehension, far beyond what at first might occur to the mind. If His eye excluded from the range of its vision those who should ultimately perish from the way of life, it at the same time included all who might at any period be brought into that way; not the existing members merely of the fold, but one and all who in the future ages of the Church’s history, and from whatever quarter, should come to have a place in it. Such intimate and comprehensive knowledge, however, is only for the Chief Shepherd Himself, whose eye can discern the things that are to be as clearly as if they already were. And interpreting His words by the light reflected on it from His own actual procedure, which is our pattern and rule, they tell us of a love He cherished, a compassion He displayed, a watchful and beneficent care He exercised toward many who for the moment were far off from His peculiar people, as well as those that were formally numbered in their ranks. All, in some sense, belong to His flock, as forming part of that creation-proprietorship which is His by inherent, indefeasible right; only, in their natural state they are in the condition of lost sheep, and with multitudes the state of nature becomes the fixed and abiding one; so that they cease to be reckoned of the flock in the stricter sense. But it is from the same lapsed and perishing mass that those who became the true sheep have to be gathered; all stand originally on one footing; and hence the work of Christ is so many-sided, and bears in such diverse ways on the responsibilities and interests of the world at large. Directly and properly, it has a twofold object in view, aiming first at the recovery of those who had gone astray, and then at their establishment and growth in the life of holiness. To turn enemies into subjects, aliens into children, sinners into saints, this is its primary design; and its further aim is to keep those who have been so reclaimed from falling away, and carrying forward their preparation for glory. As the Shepherd, therefore, by way of eminence, Christ in His pastorate as clearly goes forth to seek the lost, that they may be brought into the fold of safety, as He ministers to those who are already there what is required to sustain and nourish them in the life of holiness. The relation in which ministers of the gospel stand to Christ puts it beyond a doubt that the pastoral office in their hands was meant to be a kind of reflex or copy of His, alike in respect to its general scope and aim, and the relative order of its ministrations. Here, also, the evangelistic was ever to go along with, and in a sense precede, the evangelical; or, as we may otherwise put it, the ministry of reconciliation must prepare for and accompany the ministry of edification. And this from the very nature and design of the office, since men are nowhere born members of the spiritual flock of Christ. They have first to be made such, and, when made, nourished with the sincere milk of the word. And amid the manifold variety of fields and circumstances in which the pastoral office has to be discharged by those who assume its responsibilities, it may sometimes be the one, sometimes the other department of the work which is entitled to the greatest prominence and application. But both must always to some extent be the object of the pastor’s solicitude and endeavours. Besides, while in any specific field of pastoral labour the direct objects of its assiduities should be ever coming into being as members of Christ’s true flock, as well as growing into maturity, the whole together, pastor and flock, should exercise a diffusive and regenerative influence around. They should operate for good on the ungodly mass amid which they are placed, not by any means exclusively, yet with a more concentrated and sustained energy through the ministrations of the pastor himself. If the church to which he ministers is set as a light in the world, he should be as the lustre of that light, and should avail himself of every opportunity, and employ every means within his reach, to bring the truth to bear with power upon the hearts and consciences of sinners. In short, if the pastoral office more directly contemplates the good of particular congregations, and in these congregations the spiritual wellbeing and comfort of Christ’s true flock, it has respect also to an intermingling or outlying portion, who have to be brought under the husbandry of the gospel, with a view to their becoming children of God and partakers of the blessing. Were it not for operations of this sort, constantly proceeding and successfully plied, there should soon be no flock, in the proper sense, to feed; as, on the other hand, without due attention to the work of feeding, the flock when found should want its proper nourishment, and fail to grow up to ‘the measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ.’ I shall advert presently to the relative importance and the mutual interconnection of those two departments of ministerial agency, and the methods best adapted for their successful prosecution. But whichever of them may be primarily regarded, whether it be the formation of a Christian flock, or the nourishment and growth of its members in their most holy faith, the work itself which the Christian pastor has to perform is always presented to our view in Scripture as a service of love, not as a vicarious mediation; it is a ministerial, not a priestly agency he has to ply; and the results aimed at, of course, must be of a reasonable kind, such as may be expected to flow from an intelligent apprehension of the truth as exhibited in the word and ordinances of God, not what might be effected by any mysterious charm or magical operation. In all that is said concerning the office, in the words either of our Lord or of His apostles, not a hint is dropped which would bespeak for the ministers of the gospel the character of a secret-loving, wonder-working priesthood. And when, a few centuries after the gospel era, we light upon descriptions which present them in such a character, one cannot but be sensible of a huge discrepance between them and the representations of Scripture. It seems as if an essentially new office had come into being, rather than the original office perpetuated with certain slight modifications. Listen, for example, to Chrysostom’s description of what he calls the glory of the Christian priesthood: (De Sac. iii. op. vol. i. p. 467.) ‘The priesthood, indeed, is discharged upon earth, but it takes rank with heavenly appointments, and deservedly does so. For this office has been ordained not by a man, nor by an angel, nor by an archangel, nor by any created power, but by the Paraclete Himself, who has laid hold on men still abiding in the flesh to personate the ministry of angels. And therefore should the priest, as standing in the heavenly regions amid those higher intelligences, be as pure as they are. Terrible, indeed, yea, most awful, were even the things which preceded the gospel, such as the bells, the pomegranates, the stones in the breastplate, the mitre, etc., the holy of holies, the profound silence that reigned within. But when the things belonging to the gospel are considered, those others will be found little, and so also what is said concerning the law, however truly it may be spoken: “That which was glorious has no glory, by reason of that which excelleth.” For when you see the Lord that has been slain, and now lies before you, and the priest bending over the victim, and interceding, and all dyed with that precious blood, do you still reckon yourself to be with men and still standing on the earth? Do you not rather feel transplanted into heaven, and, casting aside all fleshly thoughts and feelings, dost thou not with thy naked soul and thy pure mind behold the things of heaven? O the marvel! O the philanthropy of God! He who is seated above with the Father is at that moment held by the hands of all, and to those that are willing gives Himself to be clasped and received; all which they do through the eyes of faith.’ He then refers to the action of Elias on Carmel, declaring that of the Christian priest to be much greater; and he asks: ‘Who that is not absolutely mad, or beside himself, could slight so dreadful a mystery? Are you ignorant that the soul of man could never have borne the fire of such a sacrifice, and that all should have utterly perished had there not been the mighty help of the grace of God?’ Such was what constituted, in Chrysostom’s view, the peculiar glory of the Christian ministry; and he proceeds in the same magniloquent style to enlarge on the pre-eminent dignity and power connected with it in its prerogative to bind and to loose souls, to forgive or retain sins, to purge men through baptism and other rites from all stains of pollution, and send them pure and holy into the heavenly mansions. All that is, of course, priestly work; work in which the officiating minister has something to offer for the people, and something, by virtue of his office, to procure for them; benefits, indeed, so great, so wonderful, so incomparably precious, that the typical ministrations of the old priesthood, and the benefits accruing from them to the people, were completely thrown into the shade. Now, this is a view of pastoral work on which New Testament Scripture is not only silent, but against which it virtually protests. The service which it associates with the ministry of the gospel is one that employs itself not with presenting a sacrifice for men, but in persuading them to believe in a sacrifice already offered, and through that promoting in them a work of personal reconciliation with God, and growing meetness for His presence and glory. Hence the ministry of the gospel as set forth in Scripture has the revealed word of God in Christ for its great instrument of working; and according as this word is received in faith, and brings forth in the lives of men the fruits of holiness, the end of the ministry is accomplished. In such a service there is, no doubt, a priestly element, since it requires those who would perform it aright not only to deal with men on behalf of God, but also to deal with God on behalf of men, to accompany all their ministrations of word and doctrine with intercessions at the throne of grace. But it is a priestly element of the same kind as belongs to the calling even of private believers, who are bound to bear on their spirits before God the state of the unconverted, and entreat Him for their salvation. And no more in the one case than in the other is there anything of that distinctive characteristic of the priestly function which consists in formally sustaining a vicarious part, and doing for others what they are not warranted or called to do for themselves. The work of the Christian ministry, indeed, is more nearly allied to the prophetical than to the priestly office of the Old Testament; and like it, too, it stands on a higher elevation; for it is a nobler thing to deal directly with the spiritual realities of God’s salvation, and by the varied exhibition of these to wield an enlightening and renovating influence on the souls of men, than to do the part of performers in a merely outward, however imposing, ceremonial. Peter and his fellow-apostles on the day of Pentecost displaying the banner which their Lord had given them because of the truth, and bringing crowds of penitent and willing captives to His feet, did a far higher service in the eye of reason than if they had acted as ministrants at an altar where thousands of bleeding victims were presented, or were even for a whole lifetime sending up clouds of incense from golden censers in a temple. And the same may be said in a measure of every one who, like them, or like the apostle of the Gentiles, is enabled through divine grace to commend himself, by the manifestation of the truth, to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. No ministry is comparable to this, because none is fraught like it with the elements of power and blessing. (So even Erasmus well remarks: ‘The minister is then in the very height of his dignity, when from the pulpit he feeds the Lord’s flock with sacred doctrine’ (Eccles. L. l). And referring to Paul’s statement, that Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach, Stillingfleet justly asks in his Irenicum: ‘Shall we think that those who succeed him in his office of preaching are to look upon anything else as more their work than that?’) In regard, now, to the distribution of ministerial agency, as between that which is devoted to the work of reclaiming sinners and the work of edifying believers, the relations of time and circumstance must determine. Nothing definite respecting it has been indicated in Scripture, nor can it be done here. The actual state of matters differs so widely with one pastor as compared with another, and even with the same pastor in different localities, that the greater prominence will naturally be given sometimes to the one department of labour, sometimes to the other. If he has reason to think that many around are dead in sin, and in danger of sinking into perdition, he cannot but regard it as a much more pressing business to have such rescued from their peril, than that the others, who appear to be already safe, should be plied with encouragements and supports to continue in the path on which they have entered. On the other hand, if spiritual life seems to be generally diffused through the flock, to have this life quickened into greater activity, and drawn forth into more abundant fruitfulness, will naturally become the main object of his ministrations. But, in reality, the two aims of the ministry run very much into each other; and not unfrequently the means which are more immediately directed toward the conversion of sinners will be found of greatest service in strengthening the graces of believers; as, inversely, what is intended to prompt some to the higher attainments of faith and holiness may react with wholesome influence on such as are still living in vanity and sin. There is no difficulty in understanding how this should be the case. It always is owing to the dominion in some form or another of the flesh and the world, that those who have the root of the matter in them are impeded in their progress heavenwards, and are less active than they might be in the service of their Redeemer. But it is only the same thing in a yet higher degree which operates to the danger of those who are altogether estranged from the way of life; and the means and appliances which are employed to rouse these out of their perilous security, cannot but have points of contact in the hearts and consciences of such as, though partakers of the divine life, are still but imperfectly subject to its power. It will even sometimes happen, that individuals of this class may feel as if services of the kind referred to had a special application to them, and they, more almost than any others, had need to listen to the warnings and admonitions which are addressed to the supine and godless. On the other side, things said concerning the faithful in Christ Jesus may strike a chord in the bosom of men far off from righteousness: for, when such hear of the privileges of true believers, of the desires and feelings awakened in their souls by the grace of God, of their blessed nearness to God Himself, their zeal in well-doing, hope in death, and meetness for eternity, how natural the reflection for those who are still living after the course of a present world, that all this belongs to a line of things to which they are entire or comparative strangers, and that if they should continue as they are, the shades of an irrecoverable death may overtake them! It is an undoubted fact, that some of those whose ministrations have been most blessed to the conversion of sinners, have also been most distinguished for the deep spirituality and richly varied experience that have characterized their services, though it cannot, perhaps, be said to be quite common. Indirectly, however, the same result is accomplished by a ministry of this description, since the work of spiritual nourishment and growth in the better portion of the community, in proportion as it is healthful and vigorous, will ever be found conducive to the enlightenment and reformation of the classes which lie beyond. If the members generally of a Christian Church are full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, if their conversation and their conduct are deeply imbued with the earnest, generous, and blessed spirit of the gospel, they will assuredly be to many around them ‘as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass.’ (Micah 5:7) The careless and ungodly with whom they come in contact will be constrained to feel that there is a reality and a power in the life of faith which bespeaks its connection with a higher world; so that, as in the case of the Thessalonian converts, the word of the Lord will be ever sounding forth with convincing and refreshing power to others. And every successful effort that is made for the perfecting of the saints is also a train laid for the breaking asunder of spiritual bonds, and recovering from the snare of the devil those who are led captive by him. But, in such matters, much must always depend on individual temperament and personal gifts. Some are more peculiarly qualified by nature, as well as by the special work of grace in their own souls, for producing convictions of sin; others for guiding those who have been convinced to peace in believing, and progress in the Christian life. And it is in accordance with the highest wisdom, that each should lay himself out chiefly in the kind of work for which his talent is the greatest, and should even seek for such a field of ministerial labour as may admit of its being employed to most advantage. If one may refer to the Puritan period for examples, it is plain that such men as Owen and Howe would find their most appropriate sphere in ministering to congregations which as a rule were not only settled in the faith, but were capable also of receiving and relishing the strong meat of the gospel; although it were not easy to find more solemn and stirring appeals to slumbering consciences than appear occasionally in their extant discourses. It is equally plain, that the next two most distinguished Puritans, Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, both from their native cast of mind, and the spiritual training through which they passed, were more especially fitted for the work of rousing dormant consciences, and moving sinners to flee from the wrath to come. The effects in this line actually wrought through their instrumentality were certainly of the most marked description. And the account which Baxter himself gives in the Reformed Pastor of the reasons which prevailed with him to aim mainly at the conversion of sinners, and to prosecute this aim with the most intense eagerness, are well deserving of the serious consideration of all who are either looking forward to pastoral work, or are actually engaged in it:— ‘Alas,’ says he, ‘the misery of the unconverted is so great that it calleth loudest to us for our compassion. He that seeth one man sick of a mortal disease, and another only pained with the toothache, will be moved more to compassionate the former than the latter, and will surely make more haste to help him, though he were a stranger, and the other a son. It is so bad a case to see men in a state of damnation, wherein, if they should die, they are remedilessly lost, that methinks we should not be able to let them alone, either in public or in private, whatever other work we have to do. I confess I am forced frequently to neglect that which should tend to the greater increase of knowledge in the godly, and may be called stronger meat, because of the lamentable necessity of the unconverted. Who is able to talk of controversies or nice unnecessary points? yea, or truths of a lower degree of necessity, how excellent soever, while he seeth a company of ignorant, carnal, miserable sinners before his face, that must be changed or damned? Methinks I see them entering on their final woe. Methinks I even hear them crying out for help, and speediest help. Their misery speaks the louder, because they have not hearts to seek or ask for help themselves. Many a time have I known that I had some hearers of higher fancies, that looked for rarities, and were addicted to despise the minister, if he told them not more than ordinary: and yet I could not find in my heart to turn from the observation of the necessities of the impenitent for the honouring of these, nor to leave speaking to the apparently miserable for their salvation, to speak to such novelists; no, nor so much as otherwise should be done to the weak for their confirmation and growth in grace. Methinks, as St. Paul’s spirit was stirred within him when he saw the Athenians so addicted to idolatry, so it should cast us into one of his paroxysms to see so many men in great probability of being everlastingly undone. And if by faith we did indeed look upon them as within a step of hell, it should more effectually untie our tongues, than, they tell us, that Croesus’ danger did his son’s. He that will let a sinner go to hell for want of speaking to him, doth set less by souls than the Redeemer of souls did, and less by his neighbour than rational charity will allow him to do by his greatest enemy. Oh therefore, brethren, whomsoever you neglect, neglect not the most miserable! Whoever you pass over, forget not poor souls that are under the condemnation and curse of the law, and may look every hour for the dreadful execution, if a speedy change do not prevent it!’ Considerations like these will undoubtedly weigh much with all preachers of the gospel, who are animated by the true spirit of their office, and alive to its great responsibilities. Yet there is no need, even when such is the case, that conversion should be always thrust prominently forward, as if it were the one concern the faithful pastor had to mind. It will often be felt in the tone and manner in which the particular subjects are handled, rather than discovered in the choice of the subjects themselves. For there is such a manifold variety in the states of unconverted men, their degrees of guilt, and the kinds of deceitfulness with which it is accompanied; such endless diversities exist as to the temper and habit of their minds, the avenues by which the springs of thought and feeling may best be reached, and the appeals that may be most likely to carry their decision for a life of piety, that it is proper to bring into play a corresponding variety of means of moral suasion; and nothing, perhaps, in the whole revealed counsel of God, if wisely handled, may be excepted from the things calculated to effect the desired end. At the same time, it is not to be doubted, that persons who have in a strong degree the bent of soul, and the gifts, natural and acquired, which are more peculiarly adapted to the work of spiritual conviction, will generally find the greatest aptitude and success in handling the topics which do most directly bear upon the object in view. The Spirit of God within men, and the teaching of their own experience, must be their principal guide. But as regards the work itself, the work of winning souls from sin to Christ, if any are successful in accomplishing it, whether by the use of a more extensive and varied or of a more limited range of materials, blessed are they, even above other faithful labourers in the Lord’s vineyard. For the highest place of honour there, and the noblest heritage of blessing connected with its labours, must ever belong to those who have been the instruments under God of saving souls from death, and turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. It was a fine saying of Samuel Rutherford’s, ‘Heaven would be two heavens for me, if souls given me as seals were found there.’ II. The pastoral office viewed in respect to its higher relations.—The preceding observations have had respect to the nature and responsibilities of the pastor’s vocation chiefly on one side, in its relation to those in whose behalf it is exercised. But there is another and higher relation which it also holds; for, considered as the ministry of reconciliation, it is of the nature of an embassy, and implies a commission from Heaven; considered as a cure of souls, it is stewardship, and involves a sacred trust, of which an account must be rendered; considered, finally, as the instrumental agency for regenerating souls and preparing them for glory, it is a work of God, and requires the possession of gifts which He alone can bestow. These are the higher aspects of the pastoral office, its points of contact with the sanctuary above; and it is of importance, both for obtaining a right view of the office itself, and for the preservation of the right spirit in discharging its functions, that it be looked at also in this higher relationship. (I.) Considered, first of all, as a ministry of reconciliation, and implying a commission from Heaven, the original charge of our Lord to His apostles, to go and preach the gospel to every creature, lays for it a sure and abiding foundation. It was obviously impossible that those immediately addressed could do more than make a commencement in the execution of such a wide commission. The charge delivered primarily to them must necessarily go down as a descending obligation to future times, and is virtually laid upon all who in a right spirit and a becoming manner undertake the duties of the pastoral office. Hence the Apostle Paul, speaking not in his own name merely, but in that of all who, like himself, were sincerely preaching the gospel, says, ‘We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.’ (2 Cor. 2:20) And the ministry generally he calls ‘the ministry of reconciliation,’ as having for its more immediate and primary object the pressing upon them of God’s message of love, the reception of which would close their alienation from God, and secure their entrance on a state of peace and fellowship. Having such an aim, and an aim to be accomplished through so vast a field, it was indispensable that the message itself, and the right to deliver it, should turn upon no nice technicalities or ecclesiastical punctilios, but should be of a plain, broad, and reasonable character. And so, indeed, they are as presented to us in the word of God. For, while the Church is there most distinctly and solemnly charged with the mighty task of reclaiming the world to the saving knowledge and love of God, she is trammelled with no minute forms and rubrics as to the specific mode of carrying it into effect; she is left with a few simple directions and ordinances of divine appointment, to proceed as circumstances of time and place might suggest or require. And the terms of the embassy to be put into the mouth of all her official representatives are just the great facts and promises of Christ’s salvation. There for all times and all lands is the sum and substance of the pastor’s commission. Not in any new or more special communication from heaven, but in that revelation which has been delivered to the Church by apostles and prophets, lies the burden of everlasting weal, with its fearful alternative of woe, which he goes forth to deliver in the hearing of his fellow-men, and press on their regard; the only thing, indeed, suited to his purpose and to the necessities of those with whom he has to deal. So that the grand rule here is, as the apostle puts it, ‘If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God;’ for therein alone is contained the revelation of Heaven’s counsel to fallen and sinful men, and the only sure grounds on which they can hope for acceptance and blessing. (2.) Considered more strictly, in the second place, as a cure of souls, the pastoral office involves a stewardship, a stewardship of most grave responsibility, for it has entrusted to it the oversight of treasures of inestimable value. The flock themselves are such a treasure, seeing that in every one of them there resides a soul capable alike of the highest enjoyment and of the deepest misery. To be set in a position of official superintendence and ministerial agency in respect to these, is plainly to be invested with the highest of all earthly stewardships. But add to this the consideration also of the means furnished for meeting the wants of the flock, the treasures of spiritual knowledge, and life, and blessing which, in their behalf, are placed at the pastor’s command, that he may give to all their food in due season. What a thought, to be constituted the dispensers of such imperishable treasures! No doubt the treasures are in a sense common, open to the members of the flock, apart from any human instrumentality; open to all who are willing to search the Scriptures, and, in accordance with the tidings they convey, to make personal application for them through the blood of atonement. There, unquestionably, is the ultimate authority for everything that is either offered or received in the matter of salvation. Still, it is through the ministrations of word and ordinance, as connected with the labours of the pastoral office, that usually the treasures of divine grace and truth are unfolded, and made practically available to the ever-varying conditions of men. Hence the word of our Lord, spoken in answer to a question from Peter, but spoken with reference to all who might be called to pastoral work, ‘Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.’ (Luke 12:42-43) In another passage they are likened by Him to persons who are provided by their Master with spiritual treasures, and should be ever bringing forth from them things new and old; (Matthew 13:52) as also by St. Paul they are designated stewards of the mysteries, or hidden riches of God’s wisdom, (1 Corinthians 4:1) which, as he again expresses it, are put like heavenly treasure into earthen vessels. (2 Corinthians 4:7) What an honourable position! And, at the same time, what a high calling! The special keepers and dispensers of Heaven’s peculiar treasure! The living conduits of that divine word which God Himself delights to magnify above all His name! (3.) The office has still again to be considered as a work, a work of God, by means of which those naturally dead in sin are made alive to God, and carried forward on the way to glory; a work, we may say, impossible, unless divine influences come in aid of its accomplishment. Every work calls for the application of powers suited to its nature; by such alone can it be successfully managed; and as this particular work belongs to the new creation, it can only be made good if the earthen vessels engaged in effecting it have ‘the excellency of power,’ which comes from God. Here, especially, the great truth holds, ‘Not by might, nor by power (viz. of man); but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.’ Hence, when unfolding the gospel commission to His disciples, and pointing as well to the duties as the trials connected with the work, Christ gave such express assurance to them, that He would be with them even to the end of the world, (Matthew 18:18-20) and would obtain from the Father, in answer to believing prayer, whatever might be needed for the service required at their hands. (John 16:23; John 14:12-13) St. Paul also refers to this plenitude of spiritual gifts for pastoral duty, and the readiness of Christ to bestow them, presenting it as the immediate result of His personal glorification: ‘When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Ephesians 4:8; Ephesians 4:11-12) And He gave some apostles (that is, the grace needed to fit them for doing the work of apostles), and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.’ It is not properly of the distinction of offices in the New Testament Church that the apostle is here speaking, but of the distribution of gifts in connection with the discharge of office, and of all kinds of ministerial service. So far as office was concerned, apostles and prophets might be both one; and, indeed, the highest kind of prophecy proceeded only from Christ and His apostles. Pastors and teachers, in like manner, might be, and doubtless were for the most part in the apostolic Church, as well as now, officially one. But whether united in the same person, or existing and exercised apart, the work itself proper to the parties so engaged, having to do with divine operations and results, necessarily required divine help for its successful performance; and it was then, and even is, one of the great ends of Christ’s mediation in the heavenly places to bestow the requisite gifts on those whom He calls to the work. So that, as in their spiritual husbandry they are fellow-workers with God, they have in the promised supply of those gifts of the Spirit the link of connection between the human instrumentality and the efficient power. Rightly viewed, therefore, the work of the Christian pastorate is a kind of continuation of the agency of Christ, carried on through the instrumentality of a divinely aided as well as humanly ordained ministry. It bespeaks, in every faithful discharge of duty, and every saving effect produced, Christ’s gracious presence, and mediatorial fulness of life and blessing. And at every step in his ministerial course the true servant of Christ will have reason to say, ‘Not I, but the grace of God that is in me! Whatever fitness I may have for the work, and whatever good I may be the means of accomplishing in it, is the fruit of what I have received.’ The thought on one side is humbling; for it calls the pastor to regard himself as simply an instrument, and to renounce all claim to the glory. Yet, on the other side, how elevating! since it places him in immediate fellowship with the Lord of glory, and sets the stamp of heaven on what would otherwise have been marked only by human impotence and corruption. III. The call to enter on the pastoral office; what properly constitutes it.—The view which has just been given of the higher aspects of the pastoral office, while throwing around it a certain elevation from the connection it thus appears to hold with the spiritual and divine, serves at the same time to aggravate the difficulty of the question, what should be regarded as constituting a proper call to the office? and how may particular individuals ascertain whether it has actually been received? Contemplated even on its human side, with respect simply to the oversight, responsibility, and anxious labour connected with it, there is much, undoubtedly, that is fitted to inspire awe, and awaken earnest inquiry and solicitude, in the mind of any one who desires to have his path cleared regarding it. But how much more when the higher relations of the office are taken into account; when it is seen to touch at so many points on the special gifts and operations of Godhead! How may it, in such a case, with certainty, or even with some measure of probability, be concluded that the requisite qualifications and conditions for the office meet in any one? There are cases ever and anon occurring, in which no difficulty of this kind exists; the question, in a manner, solves itself; for the experiences of the individual soul carry along with them a self-convincing and determining power. ‘There are decisive hours in which a man feels the germ of a new vocation bursting forth in him; a world all at once opens to his mind, and, seized with a passion imperious as the very voice of God, he takes upon his conscience the engagement to pursue the work, which is henceforth to be the end of his life.’ So a late editor of Pascals Thoughts (Faugere) says of him, and men of like religious impulse; and what was true of Pascal, as the thinker and representative of an earnest religious party, has its exemplification also in persons with reference to the work of the ministry. The operation of divine grace upon their souls, coupled perhaps with something in the native bent of mind, has been such, so marked and peculiar, that they feel moved with decisive energy to give themselves to this sacred calling. Of such, therefore, there is no need to speak here; the point is virtually settled already. With respect, however, to others who have not the advantage of such marked experiences in their mental history, the way to a right determination of the question may be considerably smoothed, by taking properly into account the relation which the special calling of a pastor has to the general calling of a believer. It is a fundamental principle in Christianity, that there is nothing absolutely peculiar to any one who has a place in the true Church. Among its genuine members there is room only for relative distinctions, or for differences in degree, not in kind. It is a consequence of the vital union of true believers to Christ, by virtue of which there belongs to all alike the same spiritual standing, the same privileges and prospects, and, as a matter of course, the same general obligations of duty. If every sincere Christian can say, ‘I am one with Christ, and have a personal interest in all that is His,’ there can manifestly be no essential difference between him and other believers; and whatever may distinguish any one in particular, either as regards the call to work, or the capacity to work in the Lord’s service, it must in kind belong to the whole community of the faithful, or else form but a subordinate characteristic. The ministry itself, in its distinctive prerogatives and functions, is but the more special embodiment and exhibition of those which pertain inherently to the Church as Christ’s spiritual body. And the moment any one recognises himself to be a living member of this body, it thenceforth becomes, not his right merely, but his bounden duty, to consider what part of its collective responsibilities lie at his door, or what department of its common vocation he should apply himself in some specific manner to fulfil. Bring the principle here laid down into connection with the Christian ministry under any one of the aspects already presented, and you will readily perceive that fundamentally the ministerial vocation links itself to that of the simple believer; they differ only as a development may differ from the germ, or a higher and more intensive from a simpler and commoner mode of operation. Let the ministry, for example, be considered in respect to the testimony it has to bear, or the message it has to deliver, in the name of God before men. This is certainly a very prominent part of the ministerial calling; and yet it is by no means peculiar to those who have been formally destined to the office. There are, we may say, various gradations belonging to it. In the highest degree it belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into the world, as He Himself says, to bear testimony to the truth by revealing it, and as so revealed sealing it with His blood. His apostles next, as His immediate representatives and delegates to the world, were sent forth to declare authoritatively, and for all time, the truth which He had partly taught them, and partly revealed to them by His Spirit, that there might be a sufficient and infallible testimony concerning it with the Church. But has not the Church also, the community of believers as such, to take up what has thus been delivered, and bear it forth to the world? It is of the Church, as composed of those who know and believe the truth, that our Lord has said, ‘it is the light of the world;’ (Matthew 5:14) and the apostle, that ‘it is the pillar and ground (or basement) of the truth.’ (1 Timothy 3:15) To this Church there has been given a banner, that it might be displayed because of the truth; (Psalms 60:4) and it is the duty of every faithful member, in his own place and sphere, to witness for that truth by word and deed. Here, in fact, lies the very essence of the trial and triumph of their faith, which consists in standing practically as well as doctrinally to the testimony for the truth of God; and for holding not their lives dear to them, that they might faithfully acquit themselves of this obligation, the martyrs of the Church obtained at once their name and their crown. When, therefore, a ministry is appointed for the special purpose of unfolding the testimony of Christ, and pressing its overtures of grace and love on the acceptance of men, it is not to be regarded as something altogether by itself; it is only a more full, regular, and systematic exhibition of the testimony which the Church is called, individually and collectively, to maintain and make known. The same remarks may in substance be applied to the διάκονια, or active service, which is required of the pastor for the behoof of others. Christ Himself, as formerly noted, gave the first and highest exemplification of it in New Testament times. From Him it devolved on the apostles, who were severally required to give proof of their apostleship, by their readiness to serve after the pattern of their Master, and whose respective places in His kingdom were to be determined by the comparative amount of humble, earnest, and devoted labour undergone by them. (Matthew 20:25-28) Yet it does not rest there, nor with those who, subsequently to the apostles, might be called to bear office in the Church. The members of the Christian Church are also called, according to their opportunities, to serve:—in prayers, in alms-deeds, in works of righteousness, in strivings against sin, in bowels of compassion, in brotherly admonitions, in ministrations of knowledge among the young and ignorant, and visits of kindness, or acts of beneficence among the distressed and destitute. The measure of what people can do in such things is the measure of their obligations (‘she did what she could’); and in so far as any professing Christian neglects or comes short of them, he does so in violation of the claims and responsibilities under which he is placed by his relation to Christ. All have some gifts to be used in His service, and for the good of their fellow-men, only ‘differing according to the grace that is given to them;’ and, as a rule, they should be both most fully possessed and most fruitfully exercised by the Church’s pastors, because in them the calling and obligations of the spiritual community naturally find their highest exemplification. Nor is it otherwise in respect to the higher aspects of the ministerial office, its connection with the sanctuary above; for wherever the Christian really exists, that connection must exist also. The Church collectively is the habitation of the Spirit; so is the individual believer. The works which, as a believer, he is called to do in order to make his calling and election sure, must be works of God; and for one and all of them he needs the illuminating and strengthening agency of the Holy Spirit. No Christian parent within the private walks of domestic life can fulfil his obligations in regard to the godly upbringing of his children; no Christian philanthropist, yearning over the miserable and degraded multitudes around him, can discharge the labours of love, which the mercies of God in Christ impel him to undertake in their behalf; no solitary individual even, warring in his personal experiences with the solicitations of the flesh and the powers of evil in the world, can resist, and stand fast, and do the will of God,—except by receiving gifts of grace to qualify him for the work, and to render the work itself serviceable to the end toward which it is directed. In short, all who would move in the Christian sphere, and in any of its departments would serve their generation according to the will of God, must stand in living connection with the heavenly world. Their calling as the Lord’s servants warrants them to expect, and, if they succeed in that calling, their success proves them to have received, grace for spiritual work; in which respect, therefore, they are vessels of honour fitted for the Master’s use, and partakers of the blessing. Such, then, being the case in regard to the Church as a whole, the question as to a man’s personal vocation to the Christian ministry is merely an application of the general to the particular. It narrows itself to the point, whether he has reason to consider it to be the will of God, that in addition to the ordinary obligations resting on him as a believer, he should undertake the special obligations, cognate in their nature, yet more arduous and exacting in their discharge, of the Christian pastor. It is not, strictly speaking, whether he is to enter into another sphere, or assume a relation altogether different to the Spirit and the cause of Christ; but whether he would have himself more closely identified with this cause, and for the sake of it cultivate more earnestly the higher gifts and endowments of the Spirit than is done even by the major part of genuine believers. In a word, the question resolves itself into the consideration, whether he has the capacity and the will, the faculties of nature and the endowments of grace, which, if duly cultivated and employed, might reasonably be expected to render him more serviceable to the interests of righteousness in the peculiar service of the ministry, than in the common service of the Christian life. When the matter comes to be examined in this light, there will very rarely be found much practical difficulty among earnest inquirers in arriving at a proper conclusion on the subject. It may very readily be otherwise if the correct relation of the Christian ministry to the Christian community is wrongly apprehended or virtually ignored, as indeed is not unfrequently the case. It is not unnatural for the mind, when first turning its thoughts in this direction, to look at pastoral work in too isolated a light, as having, all in a manner peculiar to itself, little or nothing in common with that which enters into the calling of members of the flock. By striking too low an estimate of this general calling, or for the time leaving it out of view, the mind gets perplexed with difficulties regarding its right to intermeddle with the higher vocation. The way cannot but appear to some extent relieved of those difficulties if it is distinctly understood that the primary and fundamental obligations are the same for the true believer as for the Christian pastor. In both cases alike the soul that is properly enlightened about the things of God, and earnestly desirous to fulfil aright its part concerning them, will feel that it has substantially the same gracious privileges to handle, the same principles of life to follow out, the same vital connection with the Spirit to maintain. And with this for a starting-point, it has merely to consider whether it may not be warranted, or even bound to go on to what further is involved in the destination and duties of the pastorate. It is clear, then, that all just and proper inquiries on this point must proceed on one assumption; they must take for granted the personal Christianity of the inquirer as the essential basis and prerequisite for all that belongs to a living and divinely-constituted ministry. He who has not yet been called of God to the common work of a believer cannot possibly have a call to the distinctive work of a pastor. One who is himself a stranger to grace can be in no proper condition to act as a chosen vessel and instrument of grace; he cannot even cordially enter into ‘and sympathize with the objects toward which the ministry of grace is directed. The connection between the common and the special in this respect was forcibly put by the well-known Mr. Robert Bruce, in relation to his own case: ‘I was first called to my grace before I obeyed my calling to the ministry: He made me first a Christian before He made me a minister.’ And then, as to the necessity of the personal work of grace for the proper exercise of the ministerial calling: ‘If the Spirit be not in me, the spirit of the hearer will discern me not to be sent; but only to have the word of the commission, and not the power.’ It is therefore indispensable that those who would have any satisfaction as to their call to the ministry, and any blessing in the work when actually engaged in it, should have some reasonable evidence of their own interest in the salvation of Christ, and personal surrender to the claims of the gospel. ‘We believe, and therefore speak;’ such is the divine order. But even when evidence exists of a work of grace in the heart, there may still be defects and hindrances which practically serve to place a barrier in the way, the absence of which must also be presupposed as an indispensable condition to a real call. For, considering the position which a pastor has to occupy, the amount of intellectual and exciting labour he has to undergo, and the share which public discourse must have in his ministrations, there are various things of a natural kind which may act as virtual disqualifications,—obstructions raised by the hand of God in providence against this particular way of serving Him,—such as physical inability, nervous temperament, defect of voice, feebleness of intellect, incapacity for continued study, want of literary acquirements, and other things of a like nature. Disadvantages of this sort may create difficulties which it is impossible to overcome, or which may at least stand in the way of any reasonable prospect of the individual to whom they belong serving God more acceptably, or yielding more benefit to the interests of religion, by devoting himself to the work of the ministry, than by occupying a sphere in private life. Here, therefore, there is room for calm and thoughtful consideration, sometimes for friendly counsel and advice, as well as for earnest prayer; since, in such cases, neither personal desire nor what are called providential openings can be regarded as sufficient grounds of action. ‘What some call,’ said John Newton justly, ‘providential openings, are often powerful temptations; the heart in wandering cries, “Here is a way opened before me;” but perhaps it is not to be trodden, but rejected.’ It is impossible, however, to lay down any definite rules which would be generally applicable; for the disqualifying circumstances themselves exist in such various forms and degrees, and the spheres of ministerial labour also differ so widely in the comparative demands they make alike for bodily and mental qualifications, that gifts quite inadequate to some, or even to most situations, might yet suffice for a fair amount of acceptable and useful labour in others. There can be no doubt that, however desirable a happy constitution of body and mind may be, however necessary superior powers in both respects for filling the more arduous and prominent positions in the Church, yet comparatively moderate talents, and talents accompanied with marked bodily weaknesses or defects, when thoroughly sanctified and diligently used, have been honoured to do much effective service in the more retired fields of Christian labour. The first-called labourers in the Lord’s vineyard were manifestly of very diverse grades in respect to those natural qualifications of mind and body. In variety and fulness of mental powers, as well as general culture, none of them appear to have approached the Apostle to the Gentiles; while he, again, laboured under certain bodily ailments or defects; and Peter, James, and John seem to have considerably surpassed the other members of the apostolic band. Yet the Lord had work for them all. He did not reject the weaker on account of the stronger; they too had their proper place, though a somewhat humbler one, in the field of apostolic agency. On matters of this description, therefore, I go no further than to suggest the wisdom of prayerful consideration and friendly advice, coupled with a readiness to submit to the application of those tests which in well-constituted Churches are employed to ascertain whether candidates for the ministry possess the gifts which, in ordinary circumstances, may warrant them to count upon some measure of success in pastoral work. But supposing no hindrance should present itself on the preliminary points now indicated; supposing one has to all appearance become a partaker of the grace of God, and, along with a fair measure of natural talent, to possess also a competency of other qualifications, there yet usually is room for a certain regard being had to considerations of a circumstantial kind, considerations arising mainly from one’s training and position in life, which may of themselves go far to exercise a determining influence. Such, undoubtedly, and of the most decisive character, were the circumstances which marked the early career of the apostles and many others of the original heralds of the gospel, who, from their historical position with reference to Christ, or to the movements of His kingdom, were singled out as by the finger of Heaven for the work of the ministry. Those circumstances were, no doubt, in many respects peculiar, and nothing like a formal repetition of them can now be looked for; yet, at the same time, what then took place may in principle, however in point of form diversified, occur at any time, and is in a manner sanctioned for all times. There has often been since, and there may quite readily be expected in the case of particular individuals, such a direction or concurrence of things in providence as may be sufficient to constitute a distinct call to the Christian ministry; nay, even to do it when the individuals themselves might have some cause for hesitation or doubt. In proof of this, and as affording a most striking exemplification of the principle in question, we can point to the case of one of the greatest men who have filled the pastoral office in later times, that, namely, of John Calvin. It was some time after he had embraced the Reformed cause, and had published the first edition of his Institutes,—a clear and lucid exhibition of Christian faith and practice even in that form, but a brief and imperfect production compared with what it ultimately became. He had not, however, as yet resolved to devote himself to the work of the ministry; and was on his way from Italy, where he had been on a visit to the Duchess of Ferrara, to some place in Germany suitable for the further prosecution of his studies. He took Geneva on his route, intending only to spend in it a night or two, as he has himself informed us in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms. But his arrival becoming known to Farel, who was at the time labouring in Geneva, and who burned with an incredible zeal for the propagation of the Protestant faith, that Reformer determined to secure, if possible, the co-operation of Calvin in the great work, and went to him with an earnest entreaty that he would remain where he was. Calvin endeavoured to excuse himself, and said he could not yet think of attaching himself to any particular community; but was desirous of continuing his studies some time longer, yet with the intention of making himself useful to the Reformed cause, wherever he might for the time reside. On this Farel betook, as Calvin expresses it, to execration, and addressed him in the following strain:—‘Now I declare to you in the name of Almighty God, since you are taking your studies only for a pretext, that if you do not give us your help in this divine work, God’s curse will rest upon you, as you are seeking not so much Christ’s glory as your own.’ This speech, Calvin states, struck such a terror into his soul, that he durst not carry out his original intention; he felt constrained to abide in Geneva, ‘as if God had by an immediate hand arrested him in his course.’ And I need scarcely add, the result showed how wisely he had interpreted the leadings of Providence, and in the entreaty and remonstrance of Farel had heard the call of Heaven to undertake the responsibilities of the public ministry of the gospel. The circumstances which determined the wavering mind of John Knox in St. Andrews were not very unlike those now referred to in the case of Calvin. He, too, had at first declined the solicitations made to him in private, ‘not considering,’ as he said, ‘that he had a call to this employment,’ till by the unexpected and earnest address of Rough, in the name of the congregation, his reluctance was overcome, and he threw himself heart and soul into his great work. Both of these eminent men, indeed, had been educated with a view to the priesthood in the Romish Church, one of them (Knox) had actually been admitted into priest’s orders; but their reception of the Reformed faith broke up existing relations, and virtually cancelled them as to the future vocation of both; and it was the special direction and ordering of God’s providence in respect to them which forced on them the question, whether they should not give themselves to the work of the ministry, and helped them to arrive at an affirmative decision regarding it. In a more quiet and unobtrusive manner a similar decision may be rightfully come to still, under the guidance of circumstances essentially the same in kind, though less marked in character. The solemnly expressed wish of pious parents, the tuition and training of early years, the bent and habits of mind in advancing youth, the circumstances of the times, the opening prospects of usefulness, though none of them sufficient apart, yet when more or less combined, may exercise a legitimate influence, and, with minds already alive to the truth of God, and anxious to know how best to promote its interests, may practically be held as providential indications respecting the path of duty. It is possible, however, and in the present day, perhaps, only too common, to allow more place than is justly due to such incidental considerations and external influences. Persons facilely yielding to them may be led at times to assume the responsibilities of a work for which they are but poorly furnished, and in which they are not likely to accomplish much for the real ends of the ministry. Others also, who may have been chiefly influenced by considerations of a circumstantial kind, though not unduly influenced, nor destitute of qualifications for the work, may possibly in the course of time have doubts stirred in their minds as to the reality of their call to the pastoral office, dreading lest perhaps things of secondary moment weighed more with them in the matter than they should have done. It is therefore of importance that there should be in the minds of those engaged in the office, or preparing to engage in it, a clear apprehension of the more inward and spiritual grounds essential to a proper call, such grounds as ought to exist in every case, even where the voice of external providences has seemed to give the most certain sound, and should be known for a light and refuge to the conscience. The subject in this point of view has been very admirably presented in a sermon by Mr. Robert Traill of London, on ‘Winning Souls,’ which is well entitled throughout to a careful perusal. It formed originally one of the Cripplegate lectures or ‘Morning Exercises,’ and is to be found both there and in Mr. Traill’s collected works. On the special point under consideration, he says:— ‘Take heed to thyself, that thou be a called and sent minister. This is of great importance to success. He that can say, “Lord, Thou hast sent me,” may boldly add, “Lord, go with me, and bless me.” It is good when a man is serious in this inquiry. . . . These things may satisfy a minister’s conscience that Jesus Christ hath sent him.’ ‘(I.) If the heart be filled with a single desire to the great end of the ministry—the glory of God in the salvation of men. Every work that God calls a man to, He makes the end of it amiable to him. This desire sometimes attends men’s first conversion. Paul was called to be a saint and an apostle at once. And so many have been called to be saints and ministers together. If it be not so, yet this is found with him whom Christ calls, that when he is most spiritual and serious, when he is most under the impressions of holiness, and he is nearest to God in communion with Him, then are the desires after the serving of Jesus Christ in the ministry most powerful. And the sincerity of his desire is also to be examined; and when it is found, it greatly adds to a man’s peace; when his heart bears him witness that it is neither riches, nor honour, nor ease, nor the applause of men that he seeks after, but simply Christ’s honour in the saving of men.’ ‘(2.) It helps to clear a man’s call, that there hath been a conscientious diligence in all the means of attaining fitness for this great work. That love to the end, which doth not conduct to the use of the appointed means, may justly be suspected as irregular, and not flowing from the Holy Ghost. Even extraordinary officers seem not to have been above the use of ordinary means. Old dying Paul sends for his books and papers.’ ‘(3.) A competent fitness for the work of the ministry is another proof of a man’s call to it. The Lord calls no man to a work for which He doth not qualify. Though a sincere, humble man, as every minister should be, may and should think little of any measure that he hath, whether compared with the greater measures of others, or considered with regard to the weight and worth of the work, yet there must be some confidence as to this competency for clearing a man’s call. What such competency is, it is not easy at all times to determine; singular necessities of the Church may extend or intend (contract) this matter of competent fitness. But in general there must be, first, a competent knowledge of gospel mysteries; secondly, a competent ability of utterance to the edifying of. others. This is aptness to teach, required by the apostle in 1 Timothy 3:2, and that a minister be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.’ These considerations, stated with singular brevity and discretion, have respect to the question, What constitutes a proper call to the ministry, even if it should be only a matter in contemplation, not yet finally resolved on? But for those who have actually entered on the spiritual vocation, other considerations will naturally present themselves along with these, particularly the accompaniment of their ministrations with tokens of the divine blessing, or the apparent absence of these. This cannot but form an element in the judgment of serious and thoughtful minds, although they ought to exercise great caution in their search for signs of blessing, and should be careful to include among these other fruits of spiritual labour than known cases of conversion to the faith. Yet results of some sort, definite, spiritual results, ought certainly to be looked for; and very much in proportion to their number and distinctness will be the measure of satisfaction which one has in reflecting on the course that has been pursued. On the other and more elementary view of the subject, its relation to those who are inquiring beforehand whether they can discern in their state the evidences of a divine call, both the proper points and the proper order and connection between them are indicated in the passage given from Traill. The primary and most essential point of inquiry, beyond doubt, has reference to the state of the heart, whether it really beats in unison with the great end of the ministry. Without this there can be no proper adaptation to the work, nor any just expectation of blessing in its discharge; since always in such a case the needful correspondence is wanting between the aim of the Divine Pastor and that of the under-shepherd. Most fitly, therefore, is the heart’s desire toward the work placed first; and only if the pulse beats truly here can healthful life and energy be looked for in the several functions. Still, if of pre-eminent importance, this is not alone to be regarded, especially not in an age like the present, in which society has advanced so far in knowledge and civilisation, and Christianity has become allied to so many fields of literature and general information. At such a time no one can be reckoned ordinarily qualified to hold the place of a Christian pastor, unless he has shared in the general culture, and become possessed of such intelligence and resources as may enable him to command the respect of the people to whom he ministers. Where these do not in good measure exist, or where there is any marked natural impediment over which the individual can exercise no control, even his desire to the work must give way, as anciently in the case of David, who did well in desiring to build the temple of the Lord, and was greatly blessed even for having such a desire, while yet, on account of special circumstances in his past history and condition, he was restrained from carrying the purpose into execution. A competent fitness, therefore, is justly named by Mr. Traill as another element in a minister’s qualifications which requires to be taken into account, though in itself necessarily a somewhat variable element, and depending not a little on times and circumstances. And, unquestionably, there should also be included, as subsidiary to the fitness, and indispensable both to its acquirement and exercise, the still further element mentioned, turned, of a conscientious diligence in the use of means for the improvement of all natural and spiritual qualifications. No one, whatever be his native talents or his religious experience, if he duly considers the greatness of the ministerial work and the incalculable results that depend on it, can have any reasonable doubt that he should avail himself of every advantage within his reach to give his faculties the finest edge, as it were, and best preparation for the work. Any manifest negligence in this respect, or manifest slighting of the means of intellectual and spiritual progress, would bespeak either an indifference to the calling, or a want of wisdom in going about the things that concern it, which must augur ill for future success. And the contrary result may be in like manner anticipated, where, along with the requisite gifts, there is manifested a laudable and steady endeavour in the way of improvement. It is justly said by Bishop Sanderson, (Sermon 3d, ad clerum.) ‘Where the Spirit of God hath manifested itself to any man by the distribution of gifts, it is but reason that that man should manifest the Spirit that is in him by exercising those gifts in some lawful calling. Do not say, because you heard no voice, that therefore no man hath called you. Those very gifts you have received are a real call, pursuing you with a restless, weary importunity, till you have disposed yourselves in some honest course of life, wherein you may be profitable to human society, by the exercising of some or other of those gifts.’ Though spoken of the Christian calling in general, this is specially applicable to the calling of a minister of the gospel, and indicates well the proper connection between the possession of gifts suitable to the work, and the obligation to give oneself to its duties. But as the possession of such gifts is a call to particular lines of duty, so is it also to prayer and application for their proper cultivation and improvement. And it is a good advice on this point in the same discourse: ‘Remember these abilities you pray or study for are the gifts of God, and as not to be had ordinarily without labour, so not to be had merely for the labour; for then should it not be so much a gift as a purchase. It was the error of Simon Magus to think that the gift of God might be purchased with money; and it hath a spice of his sin, and so may go for a kind of simony, for a man to think these spiritual gifts of God may be purchased with labour. You may rise up early, and go to bed late, and study hard, and read much, and devour the fat and the marrow of the best authors; and when you have done all, unless God gives a blessing to your endeavours, be as thin and meagre in regard of true and useful learning as Pharaoh’s lean kine were after they had eaten the fat ones. It is God that both ministereth seed to the sower, and multiplied! the seed sown: the principal and the increase are both his. If, then, we expect any gift, or the increase of any gift from Him, neither of which we can have without Him, let us not be behind, either with our best endeavours to use the means He hath appointed, or with our faithful prayers to crave His blessing upon those means.’ (See also Vinet’s Past. Theology, p. 72 sq.) So much for the nature of the pastoral office, and the call to enter on its functions. The formal or ecclesiastical authority to enter on its discharge in any particular place, is a matter that scarcely calls for consideration here, as it is a branch of Church polity or government. But as regards the subjects of appointment to particular charges, it will, of course, be understood that if they have the right spirit and qualifications for the office, they will desire that in this respect also everything should be done in a becoming manner, and so as to promote a good understanding between the pastor and the people of his charge. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 02.03. CHAPTER 3 ======================================================================== Chapter 3. The Pastoral and Social Life of the Pastor IT is not unusual to speak of the profession of a minister of the gospel as we do of that of a lawyer or a physician; and were it simply a profession in the sense that these others are, our next subject of consideration, after having discussed the nature of the office itself, would be the different modes of operation, or lines of duty, through which its important ends are to be reached. But there is an easily recognised distinction between the ministerial calling and a profession in civil life. The one cannot, like the other, be contemplated as a thing by itself, apart from the state and character of the individual. From its very nature, it is but the more peculiar embodiment and exhibition of the characteristics of the Christian community, a kind of concentrated manifestation of the views and principles, the feelings and obligations, which belong in common to the Church of Christ. And as the Christianity which should pervade and distinguish the membership of this Church is emphatically a life, so the Christian ministry, in which it may be said to culminate, must be regarded as in the first instance a life, and secondarily as a work. It has to do primarily with a condition of being and a course of behaviour, and only afterwards with the ministrations of service. Not only must the two co-exist together, but they must stand related to each other in the manner now indicated; the life from the first takes precedence of the work, and throughout must hold the place of pre-eminent importance. In the Sacred Scriptures our attention is frequently and very forcibly fixed upon this point. Thus in the Sermon on the Mount, when our Lord was speaking of those in His kingdom who should occupy the position of spiritual guides, He said, ‘Whosoever shall do and teach these things, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven,’ (Matthew 5:19) giving, it will be observed, marked precedence to the doing, even in the case of those whose distinctive place was to be that of teachers in the kingdom. In another passage of the same discourse, the absence of the doing, or rather its converse, the working of iniquity, is represented as the special ground of the condemnation which shall be pronounced on those who have falsely aspired to the rank of prophets and wonder-workers in Christ’s name. (Matthew 7:23) The stress laid upon the pastor’s life and behaviour is one of the most striking things found in the instructions given through Timothy and Titus in the pastoral epistles. They are themselves charged to be most careful and exemplary in this respect, while labouring to plant or build up the churches: as in this to Timothy, ‘Take heed to thyself, and to the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee;’ (1 Timothy 4:16) and to Titus, ‘in all things showing thyself a pattern of good works,’ (Titus 2:7) making this, as it were, the sure ground of all your proceeding, looking to it as an indispensable element of success. Not only so, but in the delineations given of the qualifications that should be sought in those who were appointed to fill the office of presbyter or episcopos in the several churches, nearly the whole have respect to character; (1 Timothy 3:1-16) so that out of thirteen or fourteen different qualities mentioned, only one has distinct reference to the gift of teaching; (Titus 2:1-15) virtually implying that character was the most essential thing, and that if matters were but right there, others would in good measure follow as a matter of course. And how much it was St. Paul’s own practice to let example go before, and give weight to all his ministrations, appears from the general tenor of his life; in particular, from his addresses to the elders of Ephesus, and to the church of Thessalonica, (Acts 20:1-38; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-20) in which he points to the blameless, self-denying, and godly life he maintained, as the clear evidence of the sincerity of his heart, and the seal of His testimony as an ambassador of God. Turning from the light of Scripture on the subject to the subject itself, a variety of considerations readily present themselves, lending confirmation to this view of the fundamental importance of the pastor’s personal state and behaviour, in relation to the objects of his ministry. First of all, it is itself one of the most effective means of teaching; it is one side of the gospel in a living and embodied form, a form which, if sound and true, will, in accordance with the proverb which places example above precept, give forth deeper impressions than what is heard from the lips. As the pastor is the official representative of the flock, he ought to be, all men expect him to be, a typal Christian. There are thousands even in Protestant countries who seldom think of looking higher for their ideal of Christian perfection. The saying of Massillon is at least partially true of them, ‘The gospel of most people is the life of the priests whom they observe; ‘or, as Philip Henry more happily expressed it, ‘Our lives should be the book of the ignorant.’ More than other men the pastor is encompassed by influences which tend to encourage and stimulate him to the cultivation of what is pure and good. For religion is more peculiarly the business of the Christian minister than it is of ordinary believers; his daily occupations, unlike theirs, bring him into immediate contact with divine realities; his position, with the proprieties naturally belonging to it, forms a kind of safeguard against temptations to which they are frequently exposed; and as his proper business is to labour that others may be good, consistency alone obliges him to strive to be such himself. It is inevitable, therefore, that men’s expectations should generally be directed toward the minister as the one in whom there should be seen the brightest exemplification of the spirit and character of the gospel; and if this expectation is in any competent measure realized, the interests of religion and morality will be effectively promoted; if otherwise, they cannot but sustain material damage. Besides, not the nature merely, but the practicability also of the Christian life finds its natural and appropriate illustration in the exemplary walk and deportment of the pastor. The excuse is thereby in a measure cut off, which is so apt to present itself to worldly men when they hear the spiritual demands of the gospel, that these are but the devout speculations of the closet, scarcely to be looked for as realities amid the scenes and employments of every-day life. Let the realization of these, then, be actually witnessed; let the man, who is God’s more peculiar agent in setting forth the requirements of a gospel obedience, be himself an example of the spirit and behaviour they enjoin; and though still the thought may too readily be entertained, that what is possible and becoming in the pastor is too high for the observance generally of the flock, yet the visible reality in him, if in a good degree conformed to the proper standard, will go far to work in men’s minds an .impression of the practicable nature of the Christian life. Indeed, as it will usually be impossible otherwise to convince them of the practicability of such a life, it will be still more impossible to convince them of our sincerity in urging them to aim at it, or of being ourselves persuaded that the earnest pursuit of it is of real moment to their well-being. A minister’s testimony in favour of a godly life, if not borne out by his own example, can only have its fitting counterpart in a people holding the truth in unrighteousness, and for the most part is but too likely to have it. Even in those lines of action which are less directly connected with spiritual and moral ends, but in which also an appreciation and advocacy of these is to some extent involved, a heartfelt regard to the good, and a practical exhibition of it, have ever been deemed essential to complete success. Thus Milton, writing in respect to the sphere of things in which he came so near to the realizing of his own high idea, nobly says: ‘I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope, to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and most honourable things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that is praiseworthy.’ (Apology for Smect.) In a sphere more nearly approaching the one before us, that of the civic orator, if we turn to the thoughtful, judicious pages of Quinctilian, we shall find him very distinctly and repeatedly insisting on the necessity of personal worth. He even throws it into the definition of an orator, saying, oratorem esse virum bonum dicendi peritum, (Inst. L. xx. I.)—first himself good, then skilled in the faculty of speech; a notable description. And again, ‘Not only do I affirm that he who would be an orator ought to be a good man, but that he shall not become an orator unless he is a good man,’ stating his reasons at some length for the assertion, urging, especially for the higher species of eloquence, the necessity of moral honesty in him who pleads for the right, and vindicating Demosthenes and Cicero from the charges sometimes preferred against them of a defective morale. Of Demosthenes himself we have a testimony to the same effect in Plutarch, who tells us, in explanation of the great regard which the orator had for the public influence of Phocion, that ‘he knew a nod or a word from a man of superior character is more regarded than the long discourses of another.’ An unhappy yet most striking illustration of the soundness of this judgment may be found in the case of one of the most highly gifted men of modern times, whose pleadings in the cause of reform chiefly failed of their end from his own sad need of personal reformation. Fox had everything to make him the resistless opponent of public abuses, the most effective and triumphant advocate of what is just and right in the government of the country, except a moral life; and this vitiating element counteracted the force of all his oratory. ‘Both principles and practices tending toward arbitrary power and national degradation, were (to use the words of Foster (Review of Fox’s Memoirs.)) progressively gaining ground during the much greater part of the time that he was assailing them with fire and sword; yet the people could hardly be induced to regard him otherwise than as a capital prizefighter, and scarcely thanked him for the fortitude and energy he devoted to their service. He was allowed to be a most admirable man for a leader of opposition; but not a mortal could be persuaded to regard that opposition, even in his hands, as bearing any resemblance to that which we have been accustomed to ascribe to Cato—an opposition of which pure virtue was the motive, and all corruptions whatever the object. The talents and the long and animated exertions of this most eloquent of all our countrymen failed plainly because the people placed no confidence in his virtue; or, in other words, because they could never be persuaded to attribute virtue to his character. They did not confide in his integrity. Those who admired everything in his talents regretted that his name never ceased to excite in their minds the idea of gamesters and bacchanals, even after he was acknowledged to have withdrawn himself from such society. . . . We wish the greatest genius on earth (Foster concludes), whoever he may be, might write an inscription for our statesman’s monument, to express in the most forcible and strenuous of all possible modes of thought and phrase, the truth and the warning, that no man will ever be accepted to serve mankind in the highest departments of utility, without an eminence of virtue that can sustain him in the noble defiance,—Which of you convicts me of sin?’ But if such be the case in respect to those who would head a reform in the merely economical and political sphere, how much more must it hold with the spiritual guides and reformers of the people! How inevitably must their efforts in the cause of righteousness fail, if their own spirit and behaviour obviously fall below the mark! Not only should they have the reality of the goodness they undertake to press upon others, but the appearance of it also should be so vividly impressed on their aspect and demeanour as to raise them above all suspicion of the contrary. In proportion as any one recedes from this living exemplification of the spirit of the gospel, he becomes disqualified for the effective proclamation of its truths: and if instead of a simple deficiency there is a visible contrast, the result must be in the last degree disastrous. ‘This,’ says Baxter, (Reformed Pastor, c. i. sec. 8.) ‘is the way to make men think that the word of God is but an idle tale, and to make preaching seem no better than prating. He that means as he speaks, will surely do as he speaks. One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all you have been doing.’ He therefore justly notes it as a palpable inconsistence and grievous mistake in those ministers who study hard to preach exactly, but study little, or not at all, to live exactly; who spend most of the week in studying how to speak two hours, and scarcely spend an hour in studying how to live all the week. Such conduct in the case of a popular preacher once met with a just reproof from a blunt English farmer, in the cutting remark, ‘Sir, you light a bright candle on Sundays, and put it out all the week.’ These are all considerations of grave moment, and are more than sufficient to establish the fitness, the necessity even, if any real good is to be accomplished, of the ministers of the gospel being themselves practical examples of its truths and principles. But there are other, and one might almost say higher, considerations still to enforce the same conclusion; for, without being themselves under the power of the truth, they cannot adequately manifest the truth to the consciences of others; they cannot do it as Christ requires it to be done; and whatever talent or learning they may throw into their ministrations, there must still be wanting elements for which no amount of talent or learning can compensate. The kind of preaching, it must be remembered, which the Spirit is promised to bless for much spiritual good, is not the bare manifestation of the truth, but the truth made instinct with the life of Christian experience, quickened and intensified by feeling. It is the truth reflected from heart to heart from a soul already penetrated and imbued with its spirit, to other souls either wholly estranged from it, or less sensibly under its power. Let the same work which is done, or the same word which is spoken, by one from whom they pass lightly off, with little seeming apprehension of their importance, be done or spoken by another with the warmth and earnestness which bespeak a heart all on fire with the mighty interests involved, and that which in the one case falls on comparatively listless ears, will in the other awaken a response in every surrounding bosom. It is the action of the sanctified on the unsanctified soul, the expression of the truth from a conscience thoroughly alive to its teaching, which in the hands of the Spirit is the great means of conveying deep and salutary impressions of it to consciences that are still slumbering in ignorance or sin. And more especially for the purpose of maintaining such a living, spiritual agency has the preaching of the gospel been appointed to form a standing ordinance in the Church. And then there is the progressive nourishment of the soul in the life of faith, the conducting of those who have already believed onwards to the higher experiences of grace, and a more enlarged acquaintance with its blessings. ‘A minister,’ it has been justly said, (Sermon by Mr. Litton.) ‘may have piety, and yet not the quality of piety for this task. He may preach awakening sermons on such subjects as the value of the soul, the uncertainty of life, the terrors of the coming judgment; he may enlarge forcibly on the various branches of Christian practice; he may reiterate in every variety of form the doctrine of justification by faith; and yet but inadequately fulfil this part of his commission. To exhibit the Saviour Himself to the eye of faith, and not a mere doctrine concerning Him; to expose the devices of Satan, and unravel the windings of that labyrinth, the human heart; to enter into the exercises of Christian experience; to conduct the flock into the interior recesses of the sanctuary, where the hidden manna of the gospel lies concealed, where Jesus manifests Himself to His people as He does not to the world, and the Spirit bears witness with their spirit that they are the children of God, and so to promote growth in grace by unfolding the rich privileges of the Christian calling,—this is to feed the flock, this is to make full proof of one’s ministry. And who is sufficient for these things? Assuredly none but he who through the Spirit’s grace has penetrated into the mysteries of the life of faith, and knows the truth in its reality and power.’ Further, if a personal acquaintance with the things of the Spirit, and a consistent exhibition of them in the walk and conduct, be necessary to secure the proper aptitude to teach, they are equally necessary to secure the requisite conditions for the copious effusion of the Holy Spirit. Whatever importance may justly be attached to the clear and comprehensive exhibition of divine truth, it is not to be forgotten that everything ultimately depends on the presence and power of the Spirit. And though the Spirit in His regenerative and sanctifying agency does not exclusively bind Himself to any specific channel for the presentation of the truth; though He distributes to every one severally as He wills, and sometimes communicates saving energy through instruments with which the element of personal holiness is little if at all connected, yet such is by no means His wonted method of working, nor is it what in any case we are properly warranted to expect. According to the ordinary law of the Spirit’s operations, there is a close correspondence between the personal state of the agent and the measure of blessing that is made to accompany his exertions in the service of God. No one, as formerly stated, who is himself a stranger to faith, and the godly behaviour of which faith is the living principle, can have any just right to minister in holy things, much less to look for the seal of divine acceptance and effective co-operation in his work. And it stands to reason, that if the minister’s soul is itself somewhat like a dry and parched region, the wilderness around shall not through his instrumentality be refreshed with the streams of grace. On the other hand, both reason and experience justify us in expecting that those whom the Spirit will most distinctly own in the husbandry of the gospel, whose efforts He will crown with the richest harvest of blessing, are such as have become true participants of grace, and know much personally of its saving operations. For the most part, they are made instruments of good to others in proportion as they are conscious to themselves of the love and practice of the good. Truly spiritual and earnest ministers of the gospel will ever be able to distinguish in this respect between one part of their ministrations and another; as Brainerd, for example, when pressing on those actively engaged in the Lord’s service the importance of their possessing the more special influences of grace, strikingly said, ‘These wonderfully assist them to get at the consciences of men, and, as it were, to handle them with their hands; while, without them, whatever reason and oratory we make use of, we do but make use of stumps instead of hands.’ Yes; and as an elevated spiritual frame is required to fit us instrumentally for the greater results of the Spirit’s working, so this alone can properly dispose us to ask and look for the larger effusions of His grace. There is a close connection between the measure in which the Spirit is given, and the degree of desire and faithfulness with which He is sought. And it is the soul which has experienced much personally, that will ever be the best prepared for seeking much believingly for others. He who has himself known only the small drops of divine grace and power, will hardly be in a condition to expect, or even earnestly to pray for, the richer showers of blessing on the field of his labours. And if there are to be Pentecostal times for the Church, we must look for Pentecostal experiences going before in the hearts of the ministry. And these, I may add, manifesting themselves in an engrossing eagerness of desire and intensity of active effort for the salvation of men. In whom but in such spirit-replenished souls could we expect a picture like the following, the life-picture of the Apostle to the Gentiles, to be in any measure reproduced? ‘Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself the servant of all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law as without law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ), that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake.’ (1 Corinthians 9:20-23) It is this high-strung concentration of soul, through the larger gifts of God’s Spirit, which most of all qualifies a man for doing great things in the more peculiar work of the Spirit. One master-passion animates and controls his movements; and whatever he has of genius or talent, of time, of sympathy, of love, of skill in adapting himself to circumstances, and turning to account the opportunities which present themselves, all are laid under contribution to the one great end, and with an impressiveness of manner, a fulness of soul, which goes far to secure what it seeks to have realized. This one thing I desire, this one thing I do, seems to breathe in all he says and does. On every account, therefore, it is of importance that the personal state and character of the pastor, his possessing and exercising the principles of a divine life in a higher degree than common, should be taken, in a manner, as the postulate of all that should otherwise characterize him, and be anticipated from his labours. And if the following portraiture, drawn by an eminent Dutch divine (Vitringa), of the proper ideal of a Christian minister be too high to warrant the expectation of its being fully realized amid the difficulties and temptations of a present life, it is at least what should be constantly aimed at; and the more it is realized, the ampler will be the reason for expecting a blessing on the work done in the Lord’s vineyard. ‘The faithful servant of Christ, says he, the teacher of the gospel, is a man of sound mind, burning with zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of men, one taught by the Holy Spirit, experimentally acquainted with the ways of God; one who seeks not the things of men, but men themselves; not his own things, but the things of Christ; of chaste and unadulterated manners; by his example teaching the virtues of piety, modesty, gentleness, zeal, prudence, gravity; one who, like a candle set upon a candlestick, gives light to all who are in the house, to all who are desirous of salvation; both showing the way of life, and on gospel terms dispensing the blessings of grace and peace. Whithersoever he goes, there is light; wherever he turns his steps, there is salvation; when he opens his lips, there is the salt of grace; everywhere beloved, respected, and not less the means of imparting consolation to others, than a solace to himself.’ It is the sacred influence which attends this personal piety, the felt power it breathes, the moral weight it imparts to everything said and done, which renders a pastorate much distinguished by it, more attractive in its ministrations, and in its results more beneficial, than another deficient in this, though bringing to its aid much ampler resources of human talent and learning. ‘Read the biographies of those eminent labourers who in modern times have adorned the different communions of the Church of Christ, whose memory is blessed, and whose works to this day do follow them, and you will find that, without exception, they were men whose closets witnessed the close communings, the importunate pleadings, of a life hid with Christ in God; who, abiding near to the fountain of grace, and drawing from it rich supplies according to their need, went forth to their ministerial duties with their hearts enlarged by the love of God, and lips speaking out of the abundance of the heart’ (Litton). For those who are at all read in such biographies many instances will readily occur in proof of what has now been stated. But a better instance, perhaps, could scarcely be selected than that of Mr. Robinson of Leicester, especially when placed beside the case of one who yielded a noble testimony in its behalf, one immensely superior to the other in talent and eloquence, though far from equal in the point now under consideration. I refer to Mr. Robert Hall, who at the time of Mr. Robinson’s death was pastor of a Baptist Church in Leicester, and shortly after it, at a meeting of the Bible Society in the place, pronounced a generous and eloquent tribute to the memory of the deceased. As a writer, Mr. Robinson could not be compared with Hall; he is now chiefly known as the author of a series of Scripture Characters, a work which was once extensively read, and undoubtedly contributed in the earlier part of this century to revive the spirit of genuine piety. In present times one is rather disposed to wonder at its former popularity; for, while it abounds in sensible reflections, and never fails to point to the great principles of the gospel as the living root of all godliness and purity, there is a flatness in the tone, and a commonplace character usually attaching to the style of representation, such as might be thought to argue no great power in the work, or any peculiar fascination about its author. But turn to the delineation of Hall, drawn when the knowledge of the man’s person, and the memory of his life and labours, were still fresh upon the minds of all, and, even making some allowance, as evidently requires to be done for the excitement of the occasion, it cannot be doubted that in the subject of the panegyric there had been witnessed one of the most eminent examples of ministerial attractiveness and power; that a sway had been wielded by him, and moral effects produced, such as might well have excited the envy of the most gifted intellect. ‘His residence in Leicester,’ said Hall, ‘forms an epoch in the religious history of this country. From that time must be dated, and to his agency under Providence must be ascribed, a decided improvement in the moral and religious state of this town and its vicinity; an increase of religious light, together with the general diffusion of a taste and relish for the pure word of God. He came to this place while it was sunk in vice and irreligion; he left it eminently distinguished by sobriety of manners, and the practice of warm, serious, and enlightened piety. He added not aqueducts and palaces, nor did he increase the splendour of its public edifices; but he embellished it with undecaying ornaments; he renovated the minds of the people, and turned a large portion of them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. . . . The loss which the Church of Christ has sustained by the extinction of such a luminary is great; the loss to this populous town and neighbourhood irreparable.’ Certainly he must have been no ordinary man of whom such things could be said, even with the abatements which must be made on account of the impressions of the moment. And if not the only, beyond all doubt the main element of success lay in the deep-toned, consistent, elevated, and, we may say, full-orbed character of Mr. Robinson’s life and ministry. Piety the most sincere, charity the most enlightened and active, a zeal in doing good that grudged no sacrifice or toil, a steadiness of aim that never deviated from its purpose, the greatest kindliness of manners coupled with the most blameless rectitude and sobriety of life: such were the prominent characteristics of his life and behaviour. ‘Religion with him was not an occasional feeling, but an habitual element; not a sudden or transient impulse, but a permanent principle, a second nature, producing purity of intention, elevation of mind, and an uninterrupted series of useful exertions.’ And as a necessary consequence, ‘no one could hear him without feeling persuaded that it was the man of God who addressed them; their feelings toward him were not those of persons gratified, but benefited; and they listened to his instructions, not as a source of amusement, but as a spring of living water.’ The example of such a man, and it is but one of a numerous class, should be viewed at once as an instruction and encouragement for all who in pastoral work would be found occupying the higher places of the ‘field. It shows how much depends on the spiritual healthfulness and vigour of the individual engaged in it; and how much may be accomplished where this exists in any degree of perfection, even though there is nothing like the charm of genius or the force of commanding intellect. The greatest care and solicitude, therefore, should be applied by all in this direction, the more so as here a certain completeness is requisite; and a single palpable blemish, or inconsistence, will go far to undo the effect of many an excellence. Some things will do it more readily than others, because more obviously indicative of a frailty, or weakness, which it is hard to reconcile with a felt apprehension of the great realities of the gospel, and a hearty surrender to its obligations; such as an irritability of temper, apt to fire at trifling offences, or fret at petty annoyances; an intermeddling disposition that is fond of prying into other people’s affairs, or giving heed to the gossiping tales of the neighbourhood; a proud carriage, that looks with indifference or hauteur on those who should be treated with tenderness and regard; a want of disinterestedness and generosity, seeing that an obvious selfishness in pressing his own material comforts and advantages, to the neglect of those of others, seems like a contrariety to the whole design and spirit of his office. Let every one who would lay a good foundation for honour and usefulness in this office sedulously watch and pray against these and such like imperfections in temper and conduct, avoiding, as he would his deadliest enemy, whatever might serve to prompt the question in those among whom he ministers, ‘Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?” I have said that in general the minister’s office is itself a monitor, guarding him against moral dangers to which others are exposed, and stimulating him to the personal cultivation of that goodness which it is his business to press on the regard of others. Perhaps I should add, that there are certain failings to which his office does present temptations somewhat peculiar, and in respect to which he will do well to take heed. In particular, there may be a temptation, if in the discharge of his office he has won the acceptance of his people, to self-elation, impatience of contradiction, jealousy of fame, fondness of applause, and at times, it may be, of offensive dogmatism of manner. So long as men have difficulties to struggle within their work, opposition to meet, or little apparent success in their labours, the circumstances of their position at least cannot be said to afford much provocation to the indulgence of such selfish humours; but it is otherwise when a prosperous current of affairs sets in; when the pastor finds himself at the head of a thriving and numerous congregation, moving in a circle of admiring friends, often receiving the breath of popular applause, and by many sought unto for advice in perplexing and critical affairs. In such circumstances be assured it requires special grace, grace sustained by constant watchfulness and prayer, to keep the even balance of the mind at once open to the encouragements of the position, and ready to check the risings of every fractious or petulant feeling. The great theme he handles, it may possibly be thought, the gospel of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, should be of itself sufficient to guard against the danger to which he is exposed, since it has so much to do with human weakness and corruption, and presents so many calls to deep abasement of heart in all who cordially receive it. No doubt it should do so; but another tendency in the preacher’s position, the tendency to handle the topics of sin and salvation with reference to others rather than himself, and in handling them, to think more of the mode in which he deals with them than with the subjects themselves, will, unless carefully watched, serve in a great degree to neutralize their influence on his own temper and disposition. If he succeeds in preventing it, it will only be by taking pains to press home upon his own heart what he is often preaching to others, examining himself often in the mirror of the divine word, and charging upon his soul the considerations that should beget the meek and lowly spirit which shone so brightly out in the Master whom he serves, and should never be wanting in those who minister in His name. Substantially the same thoughts are suggested, though more immediately with respect to preaching itself, in the following passage from a late German professor, from whom, considering his controversial keenness and severity, one would scarcely have expected it: ‘Even the most beautiful and sacred things which flow from human lips may in time become mere phrases. It is a part of human weakness and defectiveness, a curse, as it were, accompanying the divine blessing, that the very richest gifts of speech are the most in danger of being used in the service of vanity, since they lead one to take pleasure in them, to tickle by means of them, and thus to glorify oneself, rather than to serve God and one’s fellow-men. Or the words, being through frequent use deprived of their soul, become at last as sounding brass. To this danger the clergyman is more than others exposed. As he is required by his vocation so often to. hold up the word of God to others, and to have always at hand and give expression to those truths and ideas which are most of all suited to move, startle, and penetrate men’s hearts, it is only too apt to be the case, that these truths lose for him their terribleness, so that their force and effect on his own heart is neutralized or weakened, and the constant direction of his attention to others keeps him from watching himself; so that while he works on the hearts of others he neglects his own, and lets the weeds in it grow up unheeded.’ (Hupfeld, quoted in Bib. Sacra for October 1866.) Enough, perhaps, has now been said on the subject of the pastor’s life generally, considered with respect to the leading features by which it should be distinguished, and the bearing, as so characterized, it is fitted to have on the success of his labours. But there are various matters of detail connected with it, which partly also stands to the life itself in the relation of means to end, on which a few practical hints may not be out of place. 1. First, it is essential both for maintaining such a life as we have been endeavouring to describe, and for the efficient discharge of the duties of his office, that the pastor secure for himself a certain amount of privacy and retirement. He must know to be alone, and, in a measure, love to be so. Vital godliness generally may be said to require this; as it necessarily involves a habitual recalling of the mind from external things to those which concern its proper well-being, and its relation to a spiritual and eternal world. The life of the soul not only cannot thrive, it cannot for any length of time exist, without the habit of at least occasional abstraction from the busy scenes and avocations of the world, in order to a more distinct recognition of the realities and interests which lie beyond, and from which it mainly draws its inspiration and power. But in a still higher degree must this be predicated of the pastor, whose calling it is, not simply to maintain the divine life for himself, but also to minister to its formation and growth in the souls of others. It will be next to impossible for him to do this unless he be much alone; not as if he shunned society, or placed any virtue in solitude, but because he needs the opportunities it affords to counteract the distracting tendency of earthly things, to have faith strengthened with its proper nourishment, and his ministerial resources supplied with suitable materials of wisdom and knowledge. No doubt he has much also to learn from society, especially from personal intercourse with the members of his flock; there he will find, if he knows how to get at it, a book which it much concerns him to study, and from which he may derive many valuable suggestions, both for himself and his ministry. As regards the poorer members of the flock more particularly must this course be followed, were it only to know how to reach their understandings and hearts; for, as has been justly said, ‘He only can think as they think who often hears them speak their thoughts. It is utterly impossible for a clergyman to preach down to their level who is not in their confidence.’ (Alford, Essays and Addresses, p. 8.) Yet such intercourse can only supplement, it can no way supersede, the advantages to be derived from systematic retirement. The pastor’s favourite resort must be his study; in it he must find what shall be more peculiarly his home; for in the employments to which it calls him, he has what tends most directly to promote his self-culture, and feeds the fountain whence is to flow light and refreshment to others. If ever any minister of the truth might have fitly dispensed with such quiet hours for thought and meditation, it assuredly was the Captain of our salvation, who knew what was in man, and possessed, besides, the treasures of all divine wisdom and knowledge; yet in this respect also He set His people an example. How long a period of preparation, culminating in a season of entire withdrawal from the world, and earnest communings with the things of the Spirit, preceded the commencement of His more public ministry; and even amid its busiest scenes of energetic action, how eagerly did He seek for the lonely hour to refresh His soul with holy contemplation and sustained fellowship with Heaven! With ordinary pastors, however, there are reasons for such seasons of retirement which could have no place with Jesus; and without them, as part and parcel of his regular course of life, no pastor, whatever may be his gifts and acquirements, can reasonably expect either to maintain in healthful vigour his own spiritual being, or throw into his ministrations the variety, the freshness, and the power which ought to characterize them. True, perhaps some may be disposed to say, especially such as are actually engaged in pastoral work, and well when it can be carried into effect; but the question is, how to secure the time requisite for the stated return of retired thought and spiritual occupation at home, so much being taken up with the calls of out-door duty, and interruptions from various kinds of business. Practically, this proves with many ministers of the gospel to be the great difficulty; but in a very considerable proportion of cases, by far the larger number indeed, I have no doubt it comes very much from a prior defect on their part, from the want of a fixed purpose to obtain the requisite time as necessary to success, or the want of orderly, systematic procedure in arranging with a view to its attainment. Everything, in a manner, depends upon these two points: fixedness of purpose as to the object itself, and methodizing one’s own time, or securing the co-operation of others, so as to effect its accomplishment. Where these scarcely if at all exist, one comes to be much at the mercy of accidents; and it may well-nigh be said of the more peculiar vineyard of the pastor, as was said by the Psalmist of another sort of vineyard: ‘The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.’ There is no regulative principle, no girdle, as it were, to bind together the scattered energies of his mind for specific action; and so time on every hand runs to waste; intermeddlers of all sorts are allowed to do with it what they will. Not that I would recommend a rigid and unbending adherence to a particular method of working, which, amid the ever-changing circumstances of pastoral life, could not be retained in even one of the quieter spheres of labour without giving frequent occasions of offence, and missing often the fitting time for the discharge of pastoral work if it is to be done with effect. Exceptions, therefore, ought readily to be allowed; but still they should be known to be exceptions; the minister should be generally understood to have a method and an order, from which he may be expected to depart only for some valid reason. And when such an understanding as this prevails, people for the most part will be found to respect it; they will rarely intrude upon their minister, or expect to see him among them, when his plan of life requires him to be alone. Even if they should at times be disposed to complain that he is not even seen more frequently among them, they will not usually do it so as to disturb his equanimity, if they are well assured that he is really engaged in that kind of employment which is congenial to his office, and tends to fit him for its important duties. 2. A second subject for consideration, naturally growing out of the one just noticed, is the proper distribution of that portion of his time which the pastor may usually allot to the retirement of the study. A reasonable latitude must here be allowed, and to a large extent each individual must judge for himself. Several things of a somewhat specific and formal description used not unfrequently to be recommended to persons preparing to enter on a regular pastorate, such as keeping a registry of the acts and experiences of each day, or a summary of such at more distant intervals, of the course of study pursued, the modes of ministerial action adopted, also the feelings, purposes, behaviour of which the pastor has been conscious to himself from time to time, so that he may both preserve a more distinct recollection of the past, and may have materials beside him for future guidance and caution. Undoubtedly, there are advantages to be derived from such personal records, especially as connected with particular periods of life and experimental efforts; but there are also doubtful tendencies which it is apt to foster, unless kept within definite limits, and managed with brevity and prudence. Discretion and experience must be the chief guides. Right-minded, humble, and earnest men will by degrees find out what is the wisest course for them to pursue, the one best adapted to their own mental idiosyncrasy, and the circumstances in which they are placed. The good and profitable for one may not be so for another. Leaving matters of that sort, then, as neither requiring nor admitting of any precise and uniform rule, the chief appropriation of the hours which the pastor devotes to solitude should unquestionably be given to meditation, prayer, and study. The exact distribution of time to each must be regulated by circumstances. It may, however, be laid down as a general principle, that the whole of a minister’s labours should be intermingled with meditation and prayer. He should never be simply a man of learning or study; for this itself may become a snare to him; it may even serve to stand between his soul and God, and nurse a spirit of worldliness in one of its most refined and subtle forms. If he be really a man of God, experience will teach him how much, even for success in study, he needs to be under the habitual recognition of God’s presence, and to have the direction of His Spirit. It will also teach him how little he can prevail, with the most careful preparations and active diligence, in regard to the great ends of the ministry, without the special aid of the Holy Spirit; how, when left to themselves, his most zealous efforts and best premeditated discourses fall powerless to the ground; yea, and how often, amid the comparatively quiet and orderly events of ministerial employment, he will himself err in counsel, and do what he shall have occasion to regret, unless he is guided by a higher wisdom and sustained by a stronger arm than his own. Continually, therefore, has the true pastor to give himself to prayer; his study should also be his proseuché, in which he daily holds communion, not only with the better spirits of the past and present through the written page, but with the Father of spirits, in the secret communications of His grace and love. There are also, it should be noted, special subjects and occasions in respect to which the pastor may justly feel that he is called in a more peculiar manner to seek the direction and blessing of Heaven. The purpose, for example, of instituting any new agency for the good of the congregation, or the spread of the gospel in its neighbourhood, everything of such a nature should be projected, planned, inaugurated with earnest prayer, both for guidance as to the instrumentality to be employed, and for the wished-for results on the measures that may be put in operation. Discouragements and perplexities in the work of the ministry form another special call to humble waiting upon God, it being always one great design of troubles of that description to bring the pastor to a deep sense of his own insufficiency, and to a closer dependence on God. The extent to which this effect is produced will usually be the measure of his profiting by the dispensations. But most of all should he exercise himself unto prayer in connection with his work as a preacher of the gospel. In the selection of the topics whereon to address his people, in the specific mode or aspect in which he should present particular truths to their heart and conscience, in the frame of his own spirit while delivering the message of salvation to his fellow-men, in the impression actually made by what is delivered on those who hear: in one and all of these the earnest pastor will find what should draw him as a suppliant to the throne of grace. How much often depends on a particular vein of thought being opened, on a certain illustration being employed, sometimes even on a single word of appeal to the conscience! How much also upon the general tone and bearing of the speaker, or the unction with which all is done! And what so likely to help in every respect to what is desired, as the spirit of habitual communion with the sanctuary above? Let the pastor, therefore, like Milton, accompany all ‘with devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who enriches with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases.’ What more than this contributed to raise the genius of Milton himself to its singular elevation, and has given to his productions a character of sacredness and majesty that assimilates them to the lofty strains of a Hebrew prophet? But prayer, it must ever be borne in mind, however valuable as an auxiliary, will fail if it is taken as a substitute for other resources; if it is allowed to supersede the proper application to study. The same apostle who, for himself and other evangelical labourers, speaks of the necessity of ‘praying always with all prayer and supplication,’ has such exhortations as these: ‘meditate upon these things;’ ‘give thyself wholly to them.’ So that to make the exercises of devotion an excuse for neglecting continuous and stated application to study is to depart from the course prescribed in Scripture, as well as to set at nought the well-ascertained results of experience. Both extremes are to be avoided as alike unwise and unscriptural. Study should be accompanied and blessed by prayer, otherwise it can never reach its end. On the other hand, prayer should be fed and sustained by study, otherwise the spirit of devotion itself will languish, and both prayer and preaching will become monotonous and languid. Proofs of this are not far to seek. There are many who, at the outset of their career, gave promise of much acceptance and usefulness in the work of the ministry, but who by relaxing their diligence in study have come ere long to exhibit a wearisome flatness in their services, or in their thoughts and illustrations to move in a kind of circle, the same rounds of ideas perpetually returning, clothed not unfrequently in the same words. It is even worse when freshness is attempted. ‘I have been cured,’ said Richard Cecil, ‘of expecting the Holy Spirit’s influence without due preparation on our part, by observing how men preach who take up that error. I have heard such men talk nonsense by the hour.’ (I have referred only in one respect to the disadvantage attending an early settlement in a large city charge; but other things also should be taken into account. In particular, the country is a far better field for the free and natural development of one’s faculties, and getting fairly alongside the common feelings and sympathies of mankind. There is a much easier access there to men’s understandings and hearts than when encompassed by the conventionalisms and formalities, not to say corrupt manners, too often found in city life. And in nine cases out of ten, a man’s powers of thought and speech will be more likely to take their native direction, and reach their proper healthfulness and vigour, in the one sphere than in the other.) It is perfectly possible, of course, and perhaps not uncommon, to go to the opposite extreme, to study to excess, if not to the neglect of prayer, at least to an undue curtailment of more active labours and employments, and even, it may be, an impairing of the healthful tone and vigour of the frame. There is a certain amount of application in this particular line which may be overtaken with profit; but if more is attempted than the constitution is able rightly to bear, nature will be sure to have its revenge, and a loss, not an additional gain, will be the result. The more immediate consequence will probably be, that the mind being overtasked will perceptibly lose its freshness and power, will feel unable for the sustained thought and application which it was wont to possess; it can neither so well remember what it reads, nor so promptly and energetically use the materials of knowledge it has acquired. And what also not uncommonly, though somewhat more remotely happens, the nervous system falls into disorder, imaginary evils brood over the mind, and even the most ordinary duties are felt to be a burden. When such things begin to make their appearance, the studious pastor should hear in them a call to seek a period of rest, or to give a portion of his time to work less directly mental. In regard to the subjects of study, there can be no doubt as to what should occupy at least the primary place. For a Christian pastor there is nothing in that respect to be placed beside the word of God; that word itself, and the literature bearing on its history and elucidation. Whether his more direct object may be to qualify himself for the effective ministration of the gospel, or to become a well-read and able theologian, the close, exact, and continued study of Scripture is alike necessary. For any department, indeed, of ministerial service, whether as connected with the pulpit or the press, to be mighty in the Scriptures is to have the most fundamental qualification for doing it with success. But on this it is needless to enlarge; it is rather to be taken for granted, as a point upon which there can be no reasonable dispute with those who understand and appreciate aright the things of God. The difficulty rather lies in the practical direction, in getting such command of time, and bringing to the task so much resolution and energy, as will avail to keep up habits of study in any particular line. When a person, still comparatively young, and after, perhaps, no very long experience in evangelistic work, comes to have devolved on him the responsibilities of a regular pastoral charge, he will usually find his weekly preparations for the pulpit absorb all the time he has to spare for study; and if he can only manage to investigate and handle Scripture so as to acquit himself with some measure of profit and satisfaction in his official duties, it will be nearly as much as he can seriously aim at. Work of this description undoubtedly has the first claim on his attention; it will always demand the larger share of his time and application; but in a great many cases it need not, in the long run at least, engross the whole, if there were only a wise economy and proper distribution of time, and what is perhaps fully as essential, the selection of some definite line of inquiry for more careful and prolonged examination. I of course except those who from the first commencement of their pastoral labours are set down in a large town, and charged with the oversight of a numerous and intelligent congregation. In such a case there is probably not one in fifty who possesses either the physical energy or the mental resources to do more than meet the immediate requirements of official duty. Scripture and everything else will have to be studied almost exclusively for the purpose of obtaining the requisite materials for public discourse. And along with this necessary contraction of the field of study, and living, as one may say, from hand to mouth, there naturally springs up also the habit of simply working for the occasion; so that when the occasion makes no demand, nothing of any moment is done, and there is no development of the powers of the mind, or systematic multiplication of its resources, except in connection with the stated labours of the ministry. Independent literary exertion is scarcely possible. Take the case, however, of a person who is called to a sphere of labour, which may be described as of manageable extent or moderate compass; one which may afford scope enough for pastoral activity, and yet not so large but that, after the preliminary difficulties of the work have been mastered, there may be found some time to spare for independent study. Well, to turn this time to best account, it will usually prove of no small service to have the attention directed into a specific line of meditation or research, for the purpose of being somewhat minutely and fully acquainted with the things which belong to it, or of becoming comparatively at home with it. Where no selection of this sort is made, there is the want of a precise object whereon to concentrate the powers of the mind, and awaken its interest. The historian Gibbon, who may here be pointed to as an example, after having completed the first half of his great work, where he at first thought of concluding his labours, states that he then, as one relieved from toil, began to luxuriate over the wide field of ancient literature, but that he soon found such unrestrained and aimless liberty to grow distasteful to him; so that ere long he came ‘in the luxury of freedom to wish for the daily task, the active pursuit, which gave a value to every book, and an object to every inquiry;’ and forthwith resumed the prosecution of his design. Now, whether one may have any approach to the mental calibre of Gibbon or no, whether also there may or may not be the intention of committing the result of one’s labours to the press, still the selection of a particular subject or line of inquiry for more special and careful consideration will always bring along with it this advantage, that it engages the active interest of the mind, provides it with a theme to prosecute in seasons of comparative leisure, a resource to fall back upon in circumstances of discouragement, or, as Gibbon puts it, a pursuit which will impart a value to the books one reads, and furnish an object for specific inquiry. Where such is altogether wanting, the reading is apt to become desultory, and the information obtained, being without any definite aim or connecting bond, is like random seed which yields no adequate harvest. But, indeed, without some special study to nourish his intellect and sustain his thoughts above every-day concerns, the pastor, especially the country pastor, is apt to sink into common-place. Besides, both for the improvement of the mind itself, and for one’s own position and character, it is always an advantage to be well informed upon some particular branch of sacred learning, more so than to have a wider range of knowledge, though less exact and thorough in its character. In the very process, also, of becoming an adept in some one department of inquiry, the mind necessarily gathers a great deal of collateral information, for every subject has its points of contact with many others; and if there should be acquired real depth of research and maturity of view within a limited range, this will ensure a considerable degree of enlightenment over a much wider field. It appears to me, therefore, a wise and beneficial thing for those who have some real taste for study, and the resolution to carry out a plan after they have got a settled position and had time to look about them, to make choice of some particular subject, or class of subjects, for their more peculiar consideration; one that they shall be ever returning upon and labouring at till they acquire in regard to it a comparative mastery. The Bible itself presents a considerable variety of departments which might severally be chosen for such a purpose, each having associated with it a more or less extensive literature. There is, for example, the text of Scripture, viewed with respect to the authorities on which its correctness is based, or to the languages in which it was originally written, with the various and characteristic shades of diversity which they assumed in different ages, or in the hands of different penmen. Then there are the several classes of writings in the Bible, each indicating, on the part of the human authors, a distinctive cast of mind, and requiring a certain affinity with the same in those who would apply successfully to their elucidation: such as the historical books of the Old Testament, which not only relate to what may be called the kernel of all history, the development of God’s kingdom in the world, but touch also incidentally on all the more prominent kingdoms of antiquity, and the manners and customs of former times; the poetical and didactic books, which exhibit the forms of spiritual thought, and the devotional, spiritual, and moral results which sprang from the revelations and institutions successively given to the people of God; lastly, the prophetical, which connected the past with the future, and laid open the more secret counsels of Heaven for the instruction and warning of men. In the New Testament, again, we have the Gospels, the Epistles, the Apocalypse, each forming so many great divisions, and calling for a characteristic mode of treatment, as well as for prolonged study to become thoroughly acquainted with the materials which past diligence and research have accumulated for their elucidation. In addition to these, and more or less connected with the teaching of Scripture, how many other fields of investigation present themselves! Archaeology, or Jewish and Christian antiquities, monumental theology, chronology, patristic and medieval phases of thought and action, the writings and labours of the Reformers, the Puritan development of theology, the controversies with infidels and heretics, the lives of eminent divines and missionaries, etc.; any one of which, if systematically prosecuted, might afford ample scope for profitable and interesting employment. Take up any one of them to which a sense of its own importance, or the drawing of natural inclination, might induce you to give the preference, and you will find that the deliberate effort to master its details, and obtain an intimate acquaintance with its different bearings, will serve at once to give an impulse to your studies, and enable you to make a profitable use of many fragments of time which would otherwise slip unimproved through your hands. With this recommendation, however, let me couple the earnest advice, that no independent course of study be pursued in such a manner, or to such an extent, as to interfere with the regular discharge of pastoral duties, or suitable preparation for them. These should on no account be jostled out of their proper place; and if things which, however important in themselves, are still in their relation to the pastor’s own responsibilities but of secondary rank, come to usurp the time and application which are due primarily to them, dissatisfaction will inevitably arise, and the blessing of God may not improbably be withheld from the employments which are allowed to impoverish the flock. The spirit of vital godliness in the first instance, and then a proper estimate of the nature and ends of the pastoral office, will alone be adequate to preserve in the mind the proper balance between the respective claims that press on it, and save it from running to extremes. 3. To refer now to that part of a minister’s time which is not appropriated either to the occupations of the study or to the formal duties of the pastorate, he is undoubtedly entitled to find in it enough for purposes of daily relaxation, with seasons also of occasional recreation on a larger scale. Interludes of this sort are indispensable to his physical health, and the general freshness and elasticity of his frame. In the kind of occupations or entertainments, however, selected for this end, care should ever be taken to avoid what is unbecoming the gravity which befits the ministerial character, and what may tend to indispose the mind to serious employments. The sports of the field, therefore, hunting, shooting, and such like, are justly proscribed by the spiritual sense of the religious community, as too distinctively worldly in their nature, and in their tendency ministering too powerfully to animal excitement, to comport well with what should be the predominant state of feeling in those who are the keepers of souls. Even entering into parties which are formed for the purpose merely of going a pleasuring, if done at all, should be done with prudent foresight and consideration, as such things are exceedingly apt to degenerate into improper levity and frolicsomeness. For the most part, the safer and more becoming method of filling up the time devoted to relaxation will be to spend it in the quiet occupations of the garden, or in walking excursions and friendly visits, which can be managed without the slightest violation of decorum, and can be taken either alone, or in the company of a very few, and these quite congenial spirits. In matters of this description it were absurd to prescribe for others, or even for oneself, stringent and imperative rules. One must be guided to a large extent by circumstances. Yet there are always limits which the thoughtful and well-balanced mind, which is duly alive to the interests of salvation and the powers of the world to come, though still without moroseness, will not fail to prescribe to itself. As for diversions, exhibitions, and scenes which are in their very nature of a questionable kind, the safe path for a minister of the gospel will be to stand altogether aloof from them. It is not for him, who has to deal with his fellow-men on the great themes of mercy and of judgment, to be mingling in parties or frequenting places where he has to debate the matter at the threshold with his own conscience; and the advantage which he might derive from occasionally seeing what is transacted in them for the amusement of the mere lovers of pleasure, would be greatly more than counterbalanced by the extent to which his character and position should be compromised. In regard to all this class of things it is a good rule of Mr. Cecil’s, that if a worldly man should meet a godly minister in them with the salutation, ‘I did not expect to see you here,’ it is a pretty sure sign that the minister is not in his proper place. For whatever licence the men of this world may often take to themselves, and however disposed to say one to another, What is the harm in such and such things? they have usually a quick enough discernment of the incongruity between questionable indulgences and a Christian profession, when exemplified in the conduct of those whose calling is more peculiarly associated with the spirit and obligations of the gospel. (A former dignitary of the Irish Episcopal Church (the Bishop of Limerick) has the following sensible remarks on the subject under consideration, in a charge to the clergy of the diocese: ‘I do not see,’ he said, ‘how a clergyman, consistently with the sacredness and separation of his character and office, consistently with the vows which he has made at his ordination, can pursue the sports of the mountain or the field; can be found at the card-table or in the ball-room. In avowing these sentiments, I avow the sentiments which, from the earliest ages of the Church, have been maintained alike by the old Catholic bishops and Fathers, and by the most distinguished and illustrious Churchmen of modem times. In these sentiments I have lived; in these sentiments I hope to die; and at the close of life it will be to me a crown of rejoicing, if, through my humble instrumentality, any of my reverend brethren shall be induced to become like-minded, and to consider, even in their most unguarded hours, what gravity and recollectedness are at all times and in all places demanded of our sacred order.’ (Quoted in his Life of Paly, by Rev. E. S. Wayland, p. 38.)) What are called mixed companies stand in a somewhat different position, for in the majority of cases it is impossible for the pastor altogether to avoid them. The boundary line here is not an absolute one between the lawful and the forbidden; it perpetually varies with the circumstances of place and time; and nothing but the fear of God, an enlightened conscience, spiritual tact and discretion, can be our guide regarding it. It can never beseem a minister of the gospel (to court worldly society for its own sake; but neither ought he entirely to shun it. The example of our Lord speaks distinctly upon this point. He entered frankly into the society of those around Him, as conscious of certain relations He had to maintain, certain duties He had to fulfil toward them; and so, within moderate limits, should the ministers of the gospel. But in so doing, they should endeavour, like their Master, to preserve the attitude of persons rather complying with occasions presented to them, than seeking for themselves a natural gratification, and watching the while for opportunities to do good to those with whom for the time they are brought into contact. It is a happy talent to be able, in the company of men of worldly ambition or loose morals, not only to keep one’s own soul from sinking to a level with theirs, but also to exercise a restraint on their dispositions, and raise the tone of thought and conversation to something like a proper pitch. But it is a talent not easily acquired; since it requires a combination of properties that may always be expected to be somewhat rare; and for the most part it will be found by experience to be but a limited good which a minister can accomplish through his presence in mixed societies. Let him beware lest the cause of godliness rather lose than gain by it. For there is truth in what is remarked by Vinet: (Pastoral Theol. p. 118.) ‘A man who is seen everywhere cannot inspire a respectful consideration. The judgment which is formed of a pastor who is seen in all companies is not likely to be very favourable. He will be accused of not feeling his duties, and not appreciating the necessity of solitude. Society multiplies occasions for doing good, but it yet more multiplies occasions for doing evil. And there are some men whom the pastor ought not to see at his own house or elsewhere. St. Paul counsels Timothy to turn away from all men whose life is evil, and especially from those who have the appearance of that piety of which they have denied the power,’ 2 Timothy 3:5. I add only further, that in all situations and in all companies, the pastor should never forget his office; he should bear in mind that he has a high calling to fulfil, and should aim at preserving in his demeanour a dignified simplicity. General gravity of behaviour must ever seem appropriate to one who has such heavy responsibilities resting on him; but it should be natural, not affected or put on for the occasion; it should be accompanied and relieved by a genuine simplicity. If this is wanting, the other will only be regarded as an official mannerism, and will not gain the respect of the world, while it will effectually mar the freedom of his access to the confidence and affection of his people. If all expect decorum, they not less desire simplicity in the air and deportment of their minister. Even people of finesse, themselves living in an artificial state of society, will admire simplicity in him, if only it is not coupled with roughness, or rendered offensive by low manners and a vulgar familiarity. (On the subject of gentlemanly, as opposed to vulgar manners, I may refer to the excellent letters of Dr. Miller of Princeton.) 4. A word may suffice for the pastor’s more public relation to the commonwealth; for the less he meddles with the simply political contests and movements of the day it will usually be the better both for himself and for his work. So many ministers of the gospel, both in Established and Nonconformist Churches, have embroiled themselves in unseemly strife, and become visibly secularized in spirit by labouring too much at this oar, that if not an utter abstinence, at least a cautious reserve in respect to it, is the manifest dictate of wisdom. There are questions and measures so far political that they come to be legislated on in Parliament, but which are intimately connected with the religious and moral well-being of the community. As regards these, ministers of the gospel have an obvious duty to discharge as members of the commonwealth; they should endeavour to arrive at a sound judgment concerning them, manfully declare their views, and on fitting occasions try to influence aright the views of others. It is another thing, however, to enter actively into the political arena, make speeches in political meetings, and direct the machinery of elections. This they had better leave to others, who find their proper sphere in such troubled waters. It is in a higher sphere that their peculiar strength lies; and so long as they keep to it, the sentiments they express, and the part they quietly but firmly take in the things which concern the wise administration and good order of the country will have their weight, without imperilling the interests of their office by making themselves the tools of designing men. 5. Lastly, in respect to the domestic relations, everything in the pastor’s family should be in proper keeping with his place and calling; of incalculable importance it is that it should be so. As he should be himself a typal Christian, so his home should be a kind of pattern household. St. Paul in several places lays special stress upon this, and points to the state of the pastor’s family as an evidence whether or not he is qualified to preside over the household of God. With the state of his family his personal comfort and usefulness are inseparably bound up; and if there is palpable disorder and irregularity at home, it is impossible that in his public capacity he can wield the influence and secure the respect which it is proper for him to possess. How many ministers of promising parts, and as preachers of the gospel apparently destined to excel, have been rendered comparatively ineffective in their pastoral relation by the disorderly condition of their households, or the scandalous misconduct of certain members of their families! Perhaps a want of firmness at first, on the pastor’s part, in checking the evil at its commencement, a connivance at things which ought instantly to have been repressed, a tendency too much indulged to let domestic affairs be overshadowed by the concerns of public duty, perhaps also a want of sympathy in respect to the high ends of the ministry on the female side of the house, opening the door to foolish companionships and improper worldly compliances, have, one or other of them, contributed to foster a spirit of insubordination and licence in the family, which grows till it becomes altogether unmanageable, and recoils with disastrous effect on the pastor’s position and usefulness. Here, therefore, the greatest pains should be taken, the most vigilant oversight maintained, and, I may add, the most prayerful anxiety exercised from the outset, that the whole of his domestic and family affairs should be managed with discretion, so as to second, not to impede, his labours in the gospel. It becomes him to be the more concerned about this, as here he is to a large extent dependent upon others; he cannot stand alone; nor can matters go well with him, unless along with fidelity and prudence to discharge his own part aright those who stand so near to him have corresponding measures of the same for the discharge of theirs. Most of all is it important, that if he be married, he should not be unequally yoked; that his partner in life should be a person of genuine faith, Christian discretion, and active zeal; for, if such, she may not only maintain order and decency in the household, but also by her example and influence render most effective service to the moral and spiritual interests of the flock. In some fields of pastoral labour, of course, the minister’s wife may be able to accomplish more than in others; but in nearly all, she may prove a valuable handmaid; and, speaking generally, the proper relations here may not inaptly be represented, as they were by a German pastor at the Evangelical Alliance Meeting in Berlin (1857), when he said that the pastor was not to be considered as A, and his wife as B, but rather that he was A1 and she A2, meaning that her place and influence, when of the proper kind, come so near to his, that they are to be contemplated as lying in the same plane, and hers only second in magnitude and value to her husband’s. I cannot bring my remarks on this subject to a close without expressing again my deep conviction as to the vast importance I attach to the personal and social life of the pastor for the success of his mission as a servant of Christ. Even in a somewhat general respect the influence of a well-educated, exemplary married clergy has been of great benefit to society, and is acknowledged to have been so by persons who are not disposed to concede anything to them on the score of mere official position. Thus Mr. Lecky, in his History of European Morals (vol. ii. p. 354), speaks, though with a slight qualification, yet in very strong terms regarding it: ‘Nowhere, it may be confidently asserted, does Christianity assume a more beneficial or a more winning form, than in those gentle clerical households which stud our land, constituting, as Coleridge said, “the one idyl of modern life,” the most perfect type of domestic peace, and the centres of civilisation in the remotest village. Notwithstanding some class narrowness and professional bigotry; notwithstanding some unworthy but half-unconscious mannerism, which is often most unjustly stigmatized as hypocrisy, it would be difficult to find in any other quarter so much happiness at once diffused and enjoyed, or so much virtue attained with so little tension or struggle.’ And in regard to the pastor’s wife: ‘In visiting the sick, relieving the poor, instructing the young, and discharging a thousand delicate offices for which a woman’s tact is especially needed, his wife finds a sphere of labour which is at once intensely active and intensely feminine, and her example is not less beneficial than her ministrations.’ This is true; but the truth in it rises in importance when it is viewed in the bearing it necessarily has on what should ever be the great scope and aim of the pastoral calling. It is in reality the personelle of the pastor, what he is as to individual qualifications and character, that gives the tone to his work, and determines at once the nature and the effect of his ministrations. As water cannot rise above the spring from which it issues, neither can the acts themselves of a ministerial career, nor the results accomplished by them, be found to reach higher in spirit and character than his from whom instrumentally they proceed; usually they may be expected to fall considerably beneath it. The services he conducts in the sanctuary must to a large extent take their impress from the preacher, and be in thought, in feeling, in utterance, the reflection of his style of Christianity. And both in these and in the more private labours of the pastoral life, it ever is the living image of the man which makes all what it properly is: not so much what is said or done on any particular occasion, as what he is in personal attainments and worth whose name it bears. If he demeans himself as becomes his office; if his feelings and habits as a man, his endowments and bearing as a minister, are such as to place him on the proper vantage-ground; if all that is seen and known of him is of a kind fitted to suggest the man of God, as well as the official representative of a Church of Christ, then an air of sacredness will attach to his ministerial course, and the testimony he delivers for truth, righteousness, and mercy will come forth with an authority and an impressiveness which cannot fail to command the respect of all, while it will sink more deeply into the hearts of some. But make the contrary supposition; conceive a pastor but poorly qualified for his high trust, so that in office alone he seems to rise above many in his flock; or conceive him possessed of a fair measure of qualifications, and on various accounts entitled to the esteem of his people, but these accompanied by certain marked deficiencies or palpable failings in his character and work, how impossible in such a case must it be for him to get the position he ought to occupy! And how inevitably will the heterogeneous or disturbing elements about him intrude upon men’s minds like a qualifying but, interfering with the impressions that might otherwise have been produced, or taking back again a portion of the good that may have been received. If, turning from the interests of religion generally, we think of those which concern our own Communion in particular, fresh reasons will discover themselves in support of what has been said. On this more than anything else of an instrumental kind the Free Church depends for her wellbeing and prosperity; indeed, the one may be safely tested and gauged by the other. She has received, it is true, a banner to be displayed because of the truth, a testimony which ought to draw toward her the hearts of those who have learned to know and prize the truth. Doubtless this will more or less be the case; yet not as apart from the personal and official qualifications of her pastors. People generally, even good Christian people, will take their impressions and form their opinions in a great degree from this; and if, on the basis of her testimony, this or any other Church should fail to raise up a ministry that is adequate to her own wants and those of our age and country, her testimony will infallibly cease to carry the respect which it ought to command. May all aspirants to the ministry lay this seriously to heart, and strive in earnest to make good what it requires at their hands! It is pre-eminently a noble work to which they are giving themselves; a work which cannot fail to yield a rich harvest of blessing in their own experience, as well as to those among whom they minister, if only it is prosecuted in the right spirit, and by men who are themselves the living examples of what they preach. But this is the indispensable condition of success; and in proportion as it fails, there will also be a failure in the true mission and glory of the Church. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 02.04. CHAPTER 4 ======================================================================== Chapter 4. The More Special Duties of the Pastoral Office Section I.—The Theory and Practice of Preaching IN proceeding now to consider the special duties of the pastoral office, we cannot hesitate to assign the first place to the work of preaching, the preparation and delivery of discourses on the great subjects of God’s revelation to men. This forms more peculiarly the vocation of the Christian pastor; other things, though important in their proper place, are still but subsidiary in comparison of it. As the purpose of God is to save men by the knowledge of the truth in Christ, so by what the apostle calls ‘the foolishness of preaching,’ that is, by the simple, faithful, earnest proclamation of the truth, the great end of the ministry must chiefly be carried out. It is only by their coming to know and believe the truth that men consciously enter into the kingdom of God; and every step they may afterwards take in the discharge of its obligations, or in the personal experience of its blessings, must be in connection with realizing views of the things which belong to the person and the work of Christ. Whatever, therefore, is fitted to aid in bringing men to the possession of such views, is on that account entitled to a minister’s attentive consideration; but he should ever regard the preaching of the gospel as the means more especially appointed by Christ, and in its own nature best adapted for bringing the truth effectually to bear upon the hearts of men, and maintaining its influence in Christian congregations. So that preaching, as justly stated by Vinet, (Past. Theology, p. 73.) ‘is essential to the pastorate, which apart from this cannot reach souls, and cannot present the truth in its most regular and general forms. This,’ he adds, ‘is the glory of our Reformation, that it has restored public preaching to the Church; it may even be said to the Catholic Church. Surely that was a noble movement by which the priesthood passed from a simple celebration of rites (which had become a species of magic) to science, to thought, to speech and aggressive action.’ 1. Points of agreement in essential qualities between preaching and public speaking in general.—Preaching, as it is now understood, being only a particular kind of public discourse, necessarily has certain things common to it with oratory in general, but which must rather be presupposed here than formally considered. Not, however, as if they were of little importance; on the contrary, I quite concur in the statement of Mr. Rogers, (Essay on Sacred Eloquence.) that the eloquence of the pulpit ‘has never, I should rather say seldom, been assimilated so far as it might have been to that which has produced the greatest effect elsewhere, and which is shown to be of the right kind, both by the success which has attended it, and by the analysis of the qualities by which it has been distinguished.’ It will be well, therefore, for those who are bent on attaining to such excellence in this respect as they maybe capable of reaching, to make themselves acquainted with the great principles of public speaking as an art, as these have been unfolded by the masters of eloquence themselves, or by those who have made them the subject of special study. Here the ancients still continue among our best guides, not merely from the admirable specimens of oratory they have left behind them, but also on account of the careful study they gave to the subject, and their clear enunciation of all the more important elements of success. There is scarcely, I believe, anything of moment, nothing certainly entitled to much consideration, which will not be found both lucidly stated and largely illustrated in the rhetorical treatises of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quinctilian. Such works, however, of modern date as Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric, Whately’s Rhetoric, also Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric, may be consulted with advantage. That I may not altogether omit what relates to this more general, though in itself most fundamental branch of the subject, I shall endeavour as briefly as possible to indicate a few leading points. (1.) First of all it is to be borne in mind, that nature here, as in other things, constitutes the foundation. It does so in two respects, both as to the measure in which success in public speaking may be possible, and as to the particular method or style through which it may be attained. Whatever the labour and cultivation of art may do, it must have certain aptitudes or capacities of a natural kind to build upon. That the first parts belong to nature (primas partes esse natura) is freely allowed by Quinctilian, (Inst. xi.) even when he is urging most strenuously the necessity of laborious application. In personal appearance, in freedom, flexibility and compass of voice, in strength of reason, retentiveness of memory, warmth of feeling, quickness and vivacity of thought, one man naturally excels another; and the greater or less degree in which any individual may possess these respective qualities, cannot fail to bring along with it a corresponding advantage or defect in respect to the higher measures of success. ‘Some,’ says Cicero, (De Oratore, L. i. c. 25.) ‘possess them in so eminent a degree, they are so adorned with the gifts of nature, that they seem to have been not so properly born, as fashioned by the hand of God for consummate orators;’ while there are others in the precisely opposite condition, so hesitating in their speech, so harsh and grating in their voice, so lumbering in their mental action or uncouth in their bodily movements, that no amount of application could be conceived adequate to make them tolerable public speakers. But even where there is such combination of properties as may be said to constitute a natural aptness for the work sufficient as a foundation for oratorical culture, that nature must still determine the kind; and to set up before one’s view a model as to method of discourse, or manner of speech and address, which should oblige one to go against the grain, would only be to lose that which might have been attained, to desert nature where it could achieve something for an ideal excellence which lies hopelessly out of reach. (2.) A second point to be borne in mind is the improveableness of nature in the powers which actually belong to it, if only there is applied to their cultivation persistent and well-directed effort. None speak more strongly on this point than those who have themselves risen to the highest degrees of excellence in the art of speaking, or have given finer examples of it to others. The traditions respecting Demosthenes, (Quinct. L. x. 3.) his partial failures at first only rousing him to more resolute endeavours, his laborious practice of elocution by the sea-shore, his frequent resort to the depths of a solitude where no voice but his own could be heard, and no passing objects could be seen to distract the eye of his mind, or interrupt the intensity of its application,—such things, as well as the character of his surviving speeches, tell of the earnest and long-continued study which bore him to the peerless elevation which he ultimately reached. Cicero, too, after he had gained some distinction as a pleader in the Forum, so far from being satisfied with this early success, or thinking that he had already approached the limits of perfection, put himself under the direction of professed rhetoricians, both at Rome and afterwards when sojourning at Athens and in Asia Minor, giving himself, as Quinctilian expresses it, to be in a manner formed and modelled anew. (L. 12:6.) And his own advices to others are in perfect accordance with the course he had himself pursued, as may be seen, for example, in the 2d Book of his Treatise on Oratory, where explicit directions are given upon the subject, and the result of judicious and persevering application is represented as almost incredible. Preachers must expect no exemption from this law of nature, though few may be able to bestow such pains and application in conforming to it as the persons just referred to. As public speakers they have powers to cultivate, faculties to improve and exercise, and that both in respect to the proper treatment of the subjects they have to handle, and the way and manner of presenting their ideas, so as best to convince the understandings and impress the hearts of their audience. However easy it may be with certain natural advantages on their side to reach a respectable mediocrity in these respects, perfection, or even an approach to perfection, in any one of the properties going to constitute the really effective public speaker, is necessarily reserved for the painstaking and the diligent. (It should be remembered also, that whatever help one may sometimes get from others, self-culture, self-application must chiefly be looked to. So it certainly was with Demosthenes, so with one of the greatest of American orators. ‘I owe my success in life,’ said Clay, ‘to one single fact, namely, that at the age of twenty-seven I commenced and continued for years the practice of daily reading and speaking upon the contents of some historical or scientific book. These offhand efforts were made sometimes in a corn-field, at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in some distant barn, with the horse and the ox for my auditors. It is to this early practice of the great art of all arts that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses that stimulated me forward, and have shaped my entire subsequent history.’) (3.) The dependence of successful public speaking on an appropriate style, is a third point requiring careful thought and application; style, I mean, not simply with regard to the choice of words or the structure of sentences (which may admit of many varieties), but as a fitting expression of the speaker’s own cast of mind, as exercised on the class of subjects of which he discourses, and with a view to the specific end he aims at in handling them. Diligence and care in this respect Cicero calls the most efficient and controlling factor in speaking aright (optimum effectorum ac magistrum dicendi), (De Oratore, i. 33.) though Cicero himself, it must be admitted, carried the matter to excess, and in aspiring after that fine modulation of words and wealth and harmony of diction in which he became so great a master, he often impaired the naturalness and strength of his language by the too artificial, elaborate, and prolix structure of his sentences. The line that is really the most fitting and appropriate for a particular speaker will always be found involved in some difficulty, calling for wise discrimination in the individual, with a certain delicacy of feeling and propriety of sentiment; nor in anything will a false taste more readily discover its mistake, or prove more certainly fatal to success. It is also beset with this peculiar difficulty, that while one’s style must to a large extent be formed on the model of written productions, there are qualities of style which may be perfectly proper, sometimes may add grace or dignity to the printed page, which would inevitably appear stiff or affected if transferred to the oral discourse. One thing requires especially to be kept in view by the public speaker, whatever may be the particular theme or the kind of audience with which for the time he has to do; he must cultivate lucidity and directness of speech; for it is not with him as with an author, whose readers may hang for a considerable time over his pages in order to catch the full drift of his meaning, or obtain an adequate appreciation of the felicitous manner in which it is unfolded. The public speaker must be understood as he goes along; every sentence, every word he utters should find its way to the understandings of his hearers as soon as it passes from his lips; in so far as it does not, it necessarily fails of its aim. But in respect to other qualities, such as regard to emphasis, comparative ease or tension, pathetic tenderness or rugged energy, elegance, terseness, epigrammatic point or careless simplicity, there is room for almost endless diversity; and which of these to adopt, and when, demands not only a discriminating judgment with respect to each particular part and species of discourse, but also a just estimate of one’s own powers in relation to the things required. Hence, all sensible critics recommend here much tentative and experimental action; a. cautious gauging of one’s personal powers and resources; a study of the most approved exemplars of thought and style, in their different kinds; and, above all, the habitual practice of composition, whether for public discourse or merely for private exercise and improvement. Scribendum ergo (says Quinctilian) quam diligentissime, et quam plurimum; (L. x. 3, 7.) and this all the more, as he also urges, if we have much to do in extempore speaking, since without regular habits of study and experience in written composition, it is sure to degenerate into what he calls inanem loquacitatem et verba in labris nascentia, frothy talk and lip oratory. (4.) Then, fourthly, there is the intimate connection between the things spoken and the action or bearing of the speaker, a point which the commonest hearers as well as the greatest rhetorical authorities are competent to judge of, and alike regard as of highest moment; for the one class instinctively feel what the other intellectually discern. Thousands can judge of the propriety or impropriety, the defects or advantages of a speaker’s voice and motions, which together make up action, for the comparative handful who can intelligently judge of the merits or demerits of the discourse he delivers. People are affected, not simply, often not so much, by the thoughts presented to their minds, as by the manner in which they are presented, the tone, the gesture, the whole aspect and demeanour of him who is seeking to gain a hearing for them. So that, as is perfectly known, a second or even third rate discourse, if set forth by an appropriate and becoming action, will prevail more than the most exquisite composition, which is accompanied in the delivery by an unsuitable or defective manner. The judgment of Demosthenes on this point is well known; and Cicero speaks with scarcely less decision; for he represents action as having a sort of dominant power in speaking (unam in dicendo actionem dominari). (De Orat. i. 28.) And he justly notices that in that respect there is nothing so readily marked, nor so apt to take a firm hold of the memory, as that which occasions offence. It is what every one perceives; it seems to thrust itself on the observation of all, and cleaves to their remembrance whether they will or not. There is therefore a double reason for attending to the matter, since an appropriate and well-regulated action adds immensely to the force of what is spoken, while anything unbecoming, awkward, misplaced, or ineffective inevitably palls upon the taste of the hearers, and hangs like a clog upon one’s efforts to produce effect. (5.) Yet, with all the attention that should thus be paid to the cultivation of native talent, of style, of action, and the pains that should be taken on every hand to avoid obvious blemishes and defects, there is still another point that may be said to overtop the whole, and the more difficult to be reached in practice, that to be attained in any competent degree it is necessary that all the rest should be cast into comparative forgetfulness; it is the surrender of the heart to the subject in hand, the power of letting oneself out into it. The soul of eloquence may be said to lie here; and without some measure of it, though there may be ever so finely constructed sentences, close and correct reasoning, graceful elocution, there cannot be the quickening impulse and persuasive speech which rivet the attention of the audience, and stir their hearts. For this the speaker must, above all, be possessed by the things which he comes to discourse of, impressed with a sense of their reality and importance. Pectus est enim (L. x. 7.) (to quote again Quinctilian) quod disertos facit, et vis mentis; and hence, he justly adds, even among unlearned persons, if only they are stirred by some powerful affection, words are not wanting. The mind then, instead of turning its eye inward on itself, or fixing on a single point, pours itself forth on many things in succession, as when one glances along a straight path everything is embraced that is in and around it; not the further end merely, but the things also that lie between us and it. So that whatever any one may possess by nature, or may have acquired by learning and art, to fit him for the work of popular discourse, he must, if he has risen to any degree of perfection in it, have acquired the power of losing sight of these when actually engaged in its discharge; the energies of his mind must be wholly concentrated upon his theme. Here, as in other accomplishments, ‘the skill of the artist and the perfection of his art are never proved till both are forgotten. The artist has done nothing till he has concealed himself; the art is imperfect which is invisible; the feelings are but feebly touched, if they permit us to reason on the methods of their excitement. In the reading of a great poem, in the hearing of a noble oration, it is the subject of the writer and not his skill, his passion not his power, on which our minds are fixed. We see as he sees, but we see not him. We become part of him, feel with him, judge, behold with him; but we think of him as little as of ourselves. The harp of the minstrel is untruly touched if his own glory is all that it records. The power of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation.’ (Ruskin, Modern Painters, i. p. 22.) Such are some of the more vital and important considerations which require to be attended to in connection with the art of public speaking generally; which, therefore, can no more be neglected with impunity by the preachers of the gospel, than by any others who seek to influence their fellow-men by their capacity of speech in public. No talent or even genius in the speaker, and no peculiarity in the subject he handles, can compensate for such neglect, or render palpable defects in regard to the qualifications mentioned otherwise than an occasion of comparative failure. It would not be easy, perhaps, to find in a brief compass a description which might seem more thoroughly aimed at exemplifying this than the account transmitted to us, mainly by Isaak Walton and Fuller, of the justly-renowned Richard Hooker. The delineation presents him to our view as a man ‘of mean stature, and stooping, of humble or low voice, his face full of heat pimples, gesture none at all, standing stock-still, his eyes always fixed on one place to prevent his imagination from wandering, insomuch that he seemed to study as he spoke.’ Add to which, what is said by Fuller: ‘his style was long and pithy, driving on a whole flock of several clauses before he came to the close of a sentence; so, when the copiousness of his style met not with proportionable capacity in his auditors, it was unjustly censured for perplexed, tedious, and obscure.’ In short, so defective was he in all the more noticeable qualifications of an orator, that one might almost suppose the trial to have been formally made in Hooker, how the most profound intellect, the most varied learning, the most fertile and lofty imagination, conjoined with a winning simplicity of manners and a spirit of sincere fervent piety might all be possessed, and yet leave the possessor at the remotest distance from the position of an attractive and powerful speaker. It was impossible, indeed, that such a man could fail to produce at times deep impressions in spite of all disadvantages, and be listened to generally by a certain number with respectful and loving affection. Even with the commonest audience, there were passages so finely conceived and expressed, that they could scarcely fail to fall upon the ear like the sound of sacred melody, such as the following: (Sermon on the Certainty and Perpetuity of Faith.) ‘The light would never be so acceptable were it not for the usual intercourse of darkness. Too much honey doth turn to gall, and too much joy even spiritually would turn us to wantons. Happier a great deal is that man’s case, whose soul by inward desolation is humbled, than he whose heart is through abundance of spiritual delight lifted up and exalted above measure. Better it is sometimes to go down into the pit with him who, beholding darkness, and bewailing the loss of inward joy and consolation, crieth from the lowest hell, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” than continually to walk arm in arm with angels, to sit, as it were, in Abraham’s bosom, and to have no thought, no cogitation but “I thank my God it is not with me as with other men.”’ But whatever effect occasional passages of this kind might have had, they could not tell enough upon the general aggregate to render Hooker, with all his gifts and excellences, I shall not say a popular, but even what may be called an ordinarily attractive and effective preacher. It is time, however, to quit this more general part of the subject, on which it was not my intention to do more than indicate a few leading principles, or points demanding careful consideration. We must now turn to those things which have a more direct and special reference to that kind of public speaking with which we are here more immediately concerned: the preparation and delivery of discourses on things pertaining to the kingdom of God and the salvation of men. II. The fitting subjects of discourse for the pulpit, and the solution of appropriate texts.—It has been the all but universal practice in the Christian Church, since she possessed in any measure of completeness the canon of Sacred Scripture, to take some portion of its contents as the ground of the discourses which are addressed to congregations when they meet for purposes of worship. And the practice is in itself highly commendable, and carries with it obvious advantages. It is, first of all, an important as well as a becoming testimony to the supreme authority of Scripture as the revelation of God; and as such, the Church’s sole warrant and guide in regard to all that concerns spiritual and divine things. It virtually proclaims to all whom we address, ‘To the law and to the testimony;’ here is the certain ground and warrant of whatever as Christians we believe, and do, and hope for. Then, this practice of preaching from a text serves in a very natural and fitting manner to bring people acquainted with the matter of Scripture, and to give them both a more intelligent and more comprehensive knowledge of the things which it presents to their faith and obedience. Finally, it tends to impart a distinctive character both of sacredness and unity to what is spoken, whereby the preacher himself is benefited in having a channel, as it were, provided by the hand of God for the orderly presentation of his thoughts on particular themes; and the hearer also has his recollections aided by a passage in the written word which he can keep before him, or fall back upon as he may need. A certain choice, however, is necessary in regard to the subjects of discourse. One is, not to set out with the idea that any passage, or portion of a passage, in Scripture, simply because it is an integral part of what is collectively the word of God, may on that account be fixed upon as the proper foundation of a discourse to an assemblage of Christian people. The whole of Scripture, when rightly interpreted and viewed in connection with its leading purport and design, is certainly profitable for religious instruction and pious uses; but not always profitable to such ends in the way of public discourse. Its aim in some portions may be best accomplished by private meditation, while others require to be looked at complexly as parts of a general whole, and do not so readily admit of being isolated, and made the ground or occasion of a somewhat lengthened discourse. Containing, as the Bible does, historical records of the human family during many successive generations, touching incidentally on an immense variety of circumstances and objects, current events and settled institutions, in its didactic parts referring to numberless productions of nature and works of art, as well as to the things which most deeply concern the present and eternal interests of mankind,—it were quite easy to find in the Bible texts from which discourses could be delivered perfectly textual in their character, and yet in their tenor entirely alien to the great interests of Christianity. The Rationalists of Germany, and the Unitarians of our own country and America, when turning the pulpit, as they have so often done, into an arena of philosophical, or simply moral and political discussion, never needed to be at any loss for texts to start with, and on which to hang their ideas. Volumes of sermons have issued from the press, each with their appropriate text, which as to subject and matter might have suited the taste of an audience in ancient Rome or Alexandria. And it is probable that there was no want of texts, or occasional Scriptural quotations, in those continental discourses mentioned by Dr. Ammon, one series of which treated of subjects connected with rural economy and fallow-grounds; another, of the cultivation of the silkworm; while a third unfolded the duties of Christians on the approach of a contagious disease among cattle. The pastors of evangelical congregations are in little danger of falling into such senseless extravagances; their very position is a safeguard against it. But they may still be liable to go to some extent astray, unless they are careful to keep steadily in view the great end of preaching, which, like that of the Bible itself, is the glory of God in the salvation of men. Where this is rightly understood and appreciated, the preacher will feel that he has something else to do than to search for texts and subjects which are out of accord with the spirit of the gospel. At the same time, a certain latitude should undoubtedly be allowed in this respect to the Christian pastor. He may not be always preaching directly on the great theme, and in his range of subjects may imitate in a measure the variety and fulness by which Scripture itself is distinguished. Nothing may be altogether excluded from the pulpit which has an influential bearing on the Christian life, or admits of being handled in a Christian spirit. But much of which this can be said may still be unsuited to form the leading topic of a sermon. The pulpit has not been erected, as justly remarked by Vinet, (Homiletics, p. 51.) ‘in order that everything may be there treated in a Christian manner; it has a special object, which is to introduce the Christian idea into life. I should say, then,’ he adds, ‘that everything which does not conduce directly to edification; everything which an ordinary hearer cannot of himself convert into the bread of life, or at least which the preacher does not acknowledge to be such, should not be made a subject of his preaching.’ Or, if a licence may at times be taken to go somewhat beyond this precise line, it should be distinctly announced as a kind of exceptional effort, called forth by the circumstances of the moment, and of such a nature as to carry, in a manner, its own justification along with it. It is quite possible for a minister when going to preach on a subject in itself appropriate to connect it with an unsuitable text; and here, perhaps, it is that preachers in evangelical communities are most in danger of being betrayed into an impropriety in the choice of their pulpit themes. There are several ways in which this may be done. It sometimes, perhaps, takes the form of choosing a text which, as the ground of a discourse on matters of grave moment, has an indelicate, but more commonly an odd and fantastic appearance, creating a sort of ludicrous bond of association in the minds of the hearers between the preacher’s theme and the formal warrant or occasion found for it in Scripture. And anything of such a nature is as much out of place in connection with the text as with the discourse preached from it. ‘Of all preaching,’ says Baxter in his own emphatic style,—‘of all preaching in the world that speaks not stark lies, I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their minds with ticklish levity, and affect them as stage-players used to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God.’ What else could be the effect on a general audience when hearing texts like the following announced as the subject of discourse: ‘The old shoes, and clouted upon their feet;’ ‘The nine and twenty knives;’ ‘The unturned cake;’ or ‘The axe, alas! Master, it was borrowed’? Such texts, or fragments of texts, have not unfrequently been preached from; some of them are associated with the name of the eccentric Rowland Hill; along with several others of a like kind, they are found in a series of sermons which appeared in this country not many years ago, with the designation, ‘Sermons on unusual texts.’ It is to be hoped such texts will ever remain unusual, and that if our ministers are going to address their congregations on the subject of violence and war, they will be able to connect it with a more suitable form of words than Ezra’s nine and twenty knives, and will light upon something more becoming than the old and clouted shoes of the Gibeonites, from which to expose the various workings of hypocrisy and deceit, and man’s vain attempts to mend himself. The object of choosing such texts is too palpable to escape the notice of even the humblest audience. They will readily perceive the tendency it exhibits to attract notoriety, and acquire a name for what is smart and peculiar. But precisely as this object is gained, the grand aim of preaching is lost, and the preacher himself sinks to the level of the man who indulges in a perverted ingenuity and a vicious taste. Another and less offensive, though still decidedly objectionable form of the same inappropriateness consists in selecting texts, which only in a figurative, obscure, perhaps even fanciful manner, can be made to express the ideas which are to be deduced from them. Supposing the subject of discourse were to be the important theme of Christ’s righteousness, as imputed or savingly applied to believers, it would scarcely be wise to connect its illustration and enforcement with such a text as Isaiah 45:8, ‘Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness,’ a text, if I mistake not, chosen for that purpose by the excellent Mr. Romaine, yet not fitly chosen, since it is at best too general a declaration for so specific a doctrine; while a plentiful variety of passages might be found in the later Scriptures which unfold it in a much more distinct and categorical form. In like manner, if the subject were to be the connection between faith and works, it would surely be travelling out of the proper way for a fitting text to repair, as has sometimes been done, to Exodus 39:26, ‘A bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate;’ the bell, as the symbol of an articulate call, being taken to represent the preaching of the gospel which demands faith from those who hear, and the pomegranate following in close connection, pointing, as is conceived, to the fruit of holiness, which ever springs from the belief of the truth. How many hearers would be disposed to accredit the doctrine, were this a fair sample of the texts that establish it? How many, after every possible explanation has been made of this particular text, would feel quite satisfied that the doctrine is really expressed there? And if so, how unwise is it to bring into the very foundations of the subject an element of uncertainty, and start as it were with a note of interrogation, an involuntary doubt in the minds of our audience! If a text were chosen which exhibits the doctrine under a typical or figurative aspect, it should still be one that admits of a clear and easily perceived application to the subject of discourse. For whatever the subject itself may be, and whatever the specific character of the text on which it is grounded, the latter should always possess two properties in relation to the former; it should be such as to present a solid, in contradistinction from a fanciful or questionable, basis of discourse, and it should be in its own nature ample enough to bear all that in doctrine or duty is raised on it. In the Evangelical Church (so called) of Prussia, I may notice there exists a temptation which is almost unknown elsewhere, to hang sermons on texts with which they have a very slender connection. The temptation arises from the practice of having prescribed by public authority for every Sabbath and religious festival of the year a series of Bible lessons, from which the preacher is required to select the subject of discourse. Hence there must either be a considerable sameness in the pulpit ministrations, or some ingenuity must be exerted to deduce a variety of themes from a limited number of texts; preachers must turn over the passages submitted to them in every conceivable way, and extract from them not only what they more directly teach, but also what they incidentally suggest, or by some influential process can be made to imply. The sermons of Rheinhard are striking specimens of this sort of ingenuity. The miracle of Christ, for example, in feeding the four thousand with a few loaves and fishes (Mark 8:1-9) furnishes a text for discoursing on the duty of relying on oneself more than on others. The narrative of the paralytic borne on a couch, and let down in faith to the chamber where our Lord was teaching (Matthew 9:1-8), is made the occasion for exhibiting the kind of behaviour which ought to be maintained by Christians, on account of the confidence that is ready to be reposed in them by those around them. The word of our Lord to Peter in Luke 5:10, ‘From henceforth thou shalt catch men,’ gives rise to a lengthened exposition of the principle, that the faithful discharge of the duties connected with each one’s particular calling forms a natural and fitting qualification for the exercise of higher functions. One cannot but feel that, in connecting such topics with the texts mentioned, there is what carries an artificial and forced appearance, the endeavour by a tortuous line of thought to get at what should have been found accessible by a direct approach. In a course of regular exposition through a book of Scripture, it might be proper to introduce a few brief remarks on the points thus incidentally raised in them; but it is another thing when the incidental in the text becomes the one and all in the discourse. This cannot but be felt to be unnatural; it wants simplicity and directness. At the same time, it may be perfectly legitimate and proper to single out from a text some particular idea, which forms a subordinate rather than the principal part of its meaning; and on this, occasionally at least, to raise a discourse which may be designed to serve some special purpose, or to meet some peculiar phase of thought prevalent at the time. Rheinhard also furnishes a very suitable example of this description in a sermon on Matthew 9:24, where, when Jesus affirmed of the daughter of Jairus that she was not dead but asleep, it is observed of the people present that they laughed Him to scorn; and of Himself that, notwithstanding, He proceeded to raise her up again. On this Rheinhard takes occasion to discourse, not of the miracle, or of the attributes of character it manifested on the part of Christ, but of the truth that Christians will often find themselves called to do what shall appear foolish or ridiculous to the multitude; that their principles may be, and often cannot but be, regarded as absurd, their faith in God illusory, their zeal for the divine glory extravagant, their magnanimity indiscreet. And so he urges on them the duty of looking above the superficial multitude, of even suspecting their own piety if it does not prove the occasion of a certain measure of opposition or wonder among worldly men, and of being cautious lest they should be led to join in casting ridicule or reproach on those who are only going farther than their neighbours in doing God service. A discourse of Dr. Chalmers on Acts 19:27 maybe pointed to as another and not less happy example of the same description. From the outcry of Demetrius and his workmen, that their craft was in danger by the spread of the gospel in Ephesus, he undertakes to show how perfectly compatible the growth and prevalence of Christianity is with the commercial prosperity of a people; since, while it may operate to the discouragement or suppression of some forms of handicraft and modes of gain, it is sure to open the way to others, and these of a more healthful and satisfactory kind than those it has supplanted. Special applications of passages of Scripture after this fashion, if confined to particular occasions, or employed only at distant intervals, may not only be free from any just exception, but productive of important benefits, serving as they do to exhibit the pregnancy of God’s word and the manifold wisdom of the revelation it contains, in its adaptation even to the affairs of this life and the ever-varying evolutions of the world’s history. But the practice should not be very often resorted to; and as a general rule, the principle should be maintained, that the prominent ideas of the text should also form the chief burden of the discourse that is professedly based on it. A still further form of misapplied taste or judgment in the choice of texts has sometimes been exhibited, by turning them into a cover for the display of wit, or for conveying sarcastically, perhaps also sincerely, a rebuke to certain persons in the congregation. In the hands of some, this impropriety assumes the form only of an unbecoming levity, or ludicrous employment of Scripture, which has already been adverted to, and which, even when most cleverly done, is still to be condemned, because unsuited to the dignity and sacredness of the pulpit. It is still more objectionable when, under the phraseology or connection of the text, a hit is made at individuals; for the levity in such a case is aggravated by the indulgence of a personal pique, the gratification of a testy humour, in a manner that must always carry an ungenerous aspect, taking advantage of one’s position to shoot an arrow at those who have no power to defend themselves. Such liberties are scarcely known in this northern part of the land; but the greater tendency to the humorous which is characteristic of England, a tendency which sometimes appears even on the tombstones disporting itself with the dead, has also been wont to give rather strange exhibitions of itself, after the fashion adverted to, from the pulpit. I remember being told, when residing in an English parish, that the minister had some time before been presented at an episcopal visitation of the district as negligent of some parts of parochial duty by a respectable solicitor, and that on the following Sabbath he had chosen for his text, ‘And a certain lawyer stood up, tempting him.’ In a story very commonly reported of Dr. Paley (in the little volume, for example, by Mr. Christmas, on Preachers and Preaching), there is certainly what must be regarded as a much better specimen of humour in this line. On the occasion of Pitt, when still a comparatively young man, but already in the proud position of Premier, revisiting Cambridge, where he had studied, and receiving marked attention there from many old associates, who were known to be eagerly looking to him for preferments, Paley, it is said, gave forth for his text the passage in St. John’s Gospel, ‘There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?’ (The story is not quite correct. Paley did not actually preach before Pitt. He was not even at Cambridge when Pitt visited it; but he remarked to some one, that if he had been the preacher on the occasion, such would have been his text. See Life by Wayland, Paley’s Works.) But the best in such a case is bad; the preacher of Christ’s salvation necessarily stoops from his proper elevation, when in the very discharge of his office he makes himself known as a humorist. And to display this character in the selection of his text, is virtually to release his audience from concern about higher things, and let the thought of amusement prevail over a regard to edification. In the choice of a text, however, something more is needed than to consider how far it may itself be fitted to serve as the foundation of a public discourse; its suitableness also to the preacher’s powers and present or prevailing tone of mind requires to be taken into account. That a striking or impressive sermon has been preached by one person from a particular text, is no reason why another, though perhaps of not inferior abilities as a man or character as a Christian, should expect to do the same. The theme, or the form in which the theme has been presented, while suited to the one, may somehow prove unsuitable to the other; it may call for the exercise of sensibilities and gifts, a reach of thought or a kind of experience, which are far from being equally shared by both. This is a point which each individual must ascertain for himself. But let it be kept distinctly in mind, that there is a certain measure of adaptation needed in the text to the preacher, as well as in the text to the theme and the audience. Some can succeed well enough with a general or comprehensive text, having power to give it, by means of suggestive thought and varied illustration, the requisite individuality. But more commonly the preacher will require a text which has itself some kind of individuality, presenting specific points in the history of God’s manifestations, or in the experience and character of His people, for consideration. Preachers of considerable mark have confessed that they could never find themselves properly at home, excepting with texts of this description. And when respect is had to the very great diversity which exists in men’s natural as well as acquired characteristics, the greater preponderance of intellect in one, of feeling in another; here the logical, there the imaginative, and there again the emotional powers in greatest vigour; in some only the simpler phases known of Christian experience, in others the sounding of all its depths and heights;—it is manifest that there must be subjects and passages in the word of God which, in order to a properly successful and effective treatment, will require minds of a particular kind of calibre and religious susceptibility. A well-educated and experienced teacher of divine truth may have a general fitness for all topics, and yet only for some a special and peculiar adaptation. Whatever the particular subject may be on which the pastor is going to discourse on the approaching Sabbath, and whatever the text to be chosen for the purpose, there is one rule which he should, as far as possible, regularly observe; he should have it sought out and fixed on in good time, not left over to the latter part of the week. The advantage of such a method is, that the mind is not only relieved from the flutter of uncertainty and doubt when the moment of actual preparation arrives; but has already so far become prepared that it has had leisure to examine the text itself, so as to get thoroughly conversant with its import and connection, and have the subject embraced in it turned over in various aspects and directions. The truth has thus had time to steep, as it were, in the mind, and enter in succum et sanguinem; so that when one comes to apply formally to the consideration of the subject, instead of hastily snatching at the first thoughts that present themselves, there is already obtained a general acquaintance with the main theme, and more or less of the specific matter suitable for its illustration called up. With the view also of facilitating this preliminary sort of preparation, the practice is not unworthy of notice, which has been followed with advantage by some, of noting in a memorandum-book such texts as have, in the course of one’s reading or meditation, suggested themselves for themes of future discourse, indicating at the same time the lines of thought which it seemed advisable to pursue in connection with them. Topics and ideas occurring in this incidental way are often helpful in striking the proper key-note for more careful and prolonged consideration. The suggestions now offered concerning the choice of subjects of discourse, it will be understood, have respect merely to the ordinary course of pastoral ministrations. There are peculiar and exceptional cases, sometimes perhaps furnished by the pastor himself, when he feels prompted to deliver his views publicly on subjects important in themselves, yet somewhat away from the beaten track of pastoral duty, as Dr. Chalmers in respect to his astronomical discourses; sometimes, again, by the state of the congregation, when, to save it from prevailing error, or recover it from deep spiritual lethargy, a mode of preaching to some extent peculiar may be required, as in Mr. Cecil’s congregation at St. John’s, or Mr. Robert Hall’s at Cambridge. Mr. Dale of Birmingham also, in a volume of Week-Day Discourses, has given a very good example of the treatment of a class of subjects far from unimportant, but which call for illustrations and details that might seem somewhat out of place in the regular ministrations of the pulpit. But for cases of such a nature no general instructions can be given; each must be carefully weighed and considered by itself. III. The matter in pulpit discourses, with reference especially to fulness and variety.—In discourses intended for stated congregations, it is undoubtedly of importance that there should be not only appropriate matter, but that also in considerable fulness and variety. Usually this ought to be the case, though not by any means uniformly; for there may be occasions and subjects, in respect to which it is the part of wisdom to concentrate one’s thoughts on merely one or two ideas, for the purpose of giving them a greater prominence or a deeper impression. This may sometimes be proper in addressing audiences which we have reason to believe are in a very ignorant or lethargic state of mind, when the one object, in a manner, is to rouse to spiritual thought and obtain a lodgment in men’s minds for some grand principle of truth or duty. It may also be proper, in dealing with congregations which are partial and one-sided in their views on some point of Christian belief or morals, when again the great object of the preacher naturally is to drive them from their false position, and have the light of conviction let in upon them where precisely it is needed. It cannot be disputed that some of Dr. Chalmers’ most powerful and effective discourses were of this description. They embody nothing more than one leading idea; but this is usually so diversified in the manner of statement, so varied in the illustration, presented in so many fresh and vivid colours, that the attention of the audience was never allowed to flag, and the impression produced in behalf of the engrossing theme was like that of successive and ever-deepening strokes of some mighty weapon. Such a style of preaching, however, requires intense energy and concentration in the preacher to be practised with success. Very rarely, indeed, would it be safe for persons possessed of only average powers to attempt it when preaching to congregations which are composed of different classes and conditions of people. Even when done with success as regards the quality of the discourse, few congregations would feel quite satisfied with it as a rule, because wanting in the variety which is requisite for the health and nourishment of their spiritual life. Preachers should bear in mind that, as congregations generally consist of persons differing not a little in their intellectual and spiritual states, as well as in their external circumstances and relations, there is needed somewhat of a corresponding variety in the thoughts and considerations which are presented to them at their regular meetings for worship. Nor should it be forgotten that, with the larger portion of those addressed, the discourses they hear on the Lord’s Day constitute by much the greater part of the spiritual instruction they are to receive, in all probability the only instruction they are to get from a living voice during the entire week. So that they will almost certainly feel like persons stinted in their proper nourishment, unless matter for reflection, at once solid in kind and considerably diversified in its manner of administration, be imparted to them on the Sabbath. The work of preaching is often considered with reference to a specific standard of eloquence, according to which it is either appreciated or condemned; and when so considered, the stirring of the emotions and the influencing of the moral judgments and feelings, with the view of raising them to the right spiritual tone, readily come to be contemplated as well-nigh the one object to be aimed at. But this is never more than a part of the proper aim and function of preaching. It has to do as much with instruction as with persuasion; and the enlightenment of the understanding holds even a more prominent, as it does also a prior, place in its formal design, than the excitation of the feelings or the immediate exercise of the will. But, rightly viewed, the one aspect of the matter might as well be included as the other; for the didactic or instructive element is not less essential than the suasive in the notion of true eloquence. The noblest specimens of eloquence that have come down to us from ancient times, or that have appeared in modern, are equally remarkable for the measure of light they were fitted to impart in a brief compass to the audiences addressed, as by their adaptation to rouse and interest their feelings. If you take of the former class the oration of Demosthenes for the crown, or of the latter Hall’s sermon on modern infidelity, or his discourse on the death of the Princess Charlotte, you will not readily find productions treating of like subjects which in the same compass contain a larger amount of solid thought, and presented in a form better fitted to give the minds of the hearers a just and intelligent apprehension of the leading points proper to the occasion. Still, when in ordinary language one speaks of eloquence or oratory, one naturally thinks of what is chiefly addressed to the feelings, what aims at rousing an apathetic indifference or overcoming a reluctant will by fervid argumentation or powerful appeals. In the popular understanding it has come to be associated with a certain degree of impassioned pleading, with the view of impressing and moving the heart. This, undoubtedly, has its place in the pulpit. Yet there is much also that belongs to a somewhat different category. For amid the general knowledge which may be said to prevail in connection with divine things, there is still always room for plain instruction, such as is fitted to lay open the meaning of Scripture, to explain and illustrate the all-important matters contained in it, and to exhibit the nature and extent of men’s obligations in regard to them. Hence the reason for a good deal of variety in pulpit ministrations, since they have so much ground to travel over, so many phases both of truth and duty to make familiar to men’s minds. Especially is it important for preachers in Scotland to aim at such variety; for they have audiences to address which are constitutionally of a thoughtful and intelligent character, and which never can remain long satisfied with any kind of preaching which does not furnish considerable supplies of food for their intellectual and moral natures. Something of a less solid, though possibly of a more showy and sentimental kind, may be relished for a season; but, like a surface stream, it is sure to discover its own shallowness, and will soon be forsaken for what is really fitted to enlighten and edify. Even in connection with the same ministry there are probably not many congregations in Scotland that will not be able to distinguish between discourses which are deficient, as compared with those which are replete, in the respect under consideration, or that will fail to appreciate what has been maturely considered, if only delivered in a manner suited to their capacities and fitted to engage their attention. There is here also, however, a certain middle course which is the best; for it is possible to err by excess as well as by defect. And if, in preparing to address a congregation on any passage of Scripture, one should set out with the intention of saying everything of any moment that could be advanced on the subject, the discourse might no doubt contain a rich collection of material, but it would almost certainly fail of its proper effect with a general audience; they would feel fatigued and oppressed by it. Some of our older sermon writers fell into this mistake; Barrow may be named as a notable example. On some of the subjects discussed in his sermons it is scarcely possible to suggest any relevant consideration which had not already presented itself to his own fertile mind. But then a sort of repletion is created. The mind feels dissatisfied that nothing is left for itself to supply; and a sense of weariness is experienced even in reading so much upon the one theme, which would be greatly increased if listening to it as a spoken discourse. Barrow’s age, however, was one of patience and leisure, and fondness for detail; ours, on the contrary, is one of business and despatch; and people might at least bear with and even admire then what they would not tolerate now. It is indispensable for the great ends in view that there be selection; and in the discrimination necessary to select what is most fitting and appropriate, lies a main part of the skill of an interesting and effective preacher. He has to leave as much unsaid as what he actually says; and by the judicious choice and excellent arrangement of his matter, still more than by its quantity, he has to make his impression. The ancient apothegm ascribed to Hesiod has here a quite legitimate application, ‘The half is more than the whole,’ more, that is, with reference to the proper aim and purpose of the speaker. By what he chooses out of the whole materials before him he will be able to convey, in the time allotted him, a far clearer idea of the leading features of his subject, and impress it more vividly upon the minds of his audience, than if he attempted to fill up the picture by crowding into it every point of inferior moment that might suggest itself to his mind. There is, however, a possibility of another kind, a danger of allowing the variety and fulness of which we have been speaking to overshadow in a measure what should ever be the grand theme of pulpit ministrations, a danger which the very intelligence and generally diffused Christianity of the age tends to increase. The fundamental truths of the gospel are familiar to the bulk of his audience, as well as to the preacher himself; and the cardinal doctrines of the Bible having a recognised place in their creed, it seems no longer needful to enter into any elaborate explanations concerning them, or even to give them, perhaps, a very frequent and prominent place in his subjects of discourse. The consequence comes to be, that the greater is to some extent sacrificed to the less; not formally displaced, indeed, yet practically allowed to lose the position of peerless value and importance to which it is entitled. The preacher endeavours to meet the desire of his hearers for instruction of a diversified kind; he strives to give interest to his pulpit ministrations by introducing a multiplicity of topics, which by their number, if not by their freshness or importance, may serve to keep alive attention. And thus the pulpit is apt to be turned into an instrument of general religious culture and moral improvement, instead of being employed as the chosen means for awakening souls to a concern for salvation, and bringing them under the powers of the world to come. Mr. Isaac Taylor, in one of his most thoughtful productions, Saturday Evening, a considerable time ago adverted to the tendency of things in the direction now indicated. He stated that, in the case of many an evangelical minister, ‘the prime truth of the Scriptures scarcely occupies more than the proportion of one to ten in the gross amount of his public labours. The glory of Christ as the Saviour of men, which should be always as the sun in the heavens, shines only with an astral lustre; or as one light among others. It is a natural, though not very obvious consequence of the intellectual progress which the religious community has made.’ In regard also to what is called intellectual preaching, he says that it can hardly be made to consist with a bold, simple, and cordial proclamation of the message of mercy. Its fruit, he thinks, will commonly be an obtuse indifference in regard to the most affecting objects of the Christian faith. And he adds, ‘The tendency at the present moment of the better informed portions of the religious body towards intelligent frigidity is a grave matter, and one especially which should lead to a reconsideration of our several systems of clerical initiation. The cause of so fatal a practical error should be made known, if the fact be so, that numbers of those who come forth upon the Church as candidates of the Christian ministry are fraught with all qualifications and all acquirements, rather than fervour and simplicity of spirit in proclaiming the glad tidings of life.’ The state of things here described, it will readily be understood, had respect to England rather than to Scotland, and to England mainly as represented by the Established Church. It has prevailed to a considerable extent there for many generations, and is largely owing to that almost exclusive regard which in the more highly educated classes, and especially in those who pass through the universities to the Church, is paid to the cultivation of science and classical learning, or to the general refinement of the taste and manners, while special preparation and fitness for official duty are comparatively neglected. It cannot, however, be doubted that, since the remarks just quoted were penned, the tendencies complained of have undergone abatement. In most things, not an insipid frigidity, but life, warmth, activity, have become the order of the day. Even as regards ministerial agency, it has seldom, perhaps, exhibited more of lively and energetic working in England than at the present time; however much room there may still be in many quarters for improvement, and particularly in regard to the free and earnest proclamation of the gospel. In our corner of the land the change, so far as change can be marked, has manifestly been in the right direction; in the revival of a more earnest Christianity, and a demand for that kind of preaching which gives its proper prominence to the person and the work of Christ. Still, there are causes in operation which constitute an element of danger. The desire already noticed, the necessity, in a sense, of diversifying the ministrations of the pulpit, is perhaps the chief one; but this again is increased by the growing literary character of the age, and the tendency thence arising to assimilate preparations for the pulpit too closely in form and style to those of the press; so that what they gain in elaboration, in correctness, in vigour of thought or variety of illustration, they are apt, in the same proportion, to lose in Scriptural simplicity and spiritual power. The grand safeguard here, as in so many other things connected with the ministry of the gospel, lies in the personal faith and devotedness of the pastor. If matters are but right there, they cannot be far wrong in what may be called the very heart and blood of his ministerial life. And as in the gospel itself everything is found linked on one side or another to the mediation of Christ, so in his public ministrations he will never want opportunities, whatever may be the particular theme or passage handled, to point the attention of his audience to the central object, and press on their regard what is uppermost in his own, namely, the surpassing love and beauty and preciousness of the Crucified One, and the alone sufficiency of His great salvation. The occasions, indeed, will be very few, if they occur at all; they will be exceptions to the general tenor of his ministerial labours, in which the people are allowed to depart from the house of God without having had presented to them the essentials of saving doctrine. The Apostle to the Gentiles, in this respect pre-eminently the model of a Christian teacher, amid manifold diversities of subject and object, things present and things to come, never lost sight of his calling to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and made the crucified Redeemer the Alpha and the Omega of his testimony to men. IV. The principles to be observed in pulpit discourses as to order and arrangement.—Next to the substance of pulpit discourses, or the matter contained in them, comes the consideration of its order and arrangement. No absolute and unvarying rule can, of course, be laid down here; for different subjects necessarily call for different modes of treatment as to form or method; and sometimes what might be best adapted to the mental capacities or acquired habitudes of one person, would prove quite unsuitable to another. At the same time, as there must be an order, so one may say in general, it should be natural and, as far as possible, textual, which will be found to contribute very materially to the securing of freshness and variety. For it is one of the characteristics of Scripture, that it exhibits great diversity, not merely in respect to the topics contained in it, but also to the very form and manner in which they are presented. And if the text is made the foundation, as well for the particular aspect and relations of the subjects handled as for the leading ideas involved in them, it will be comparatively easy to avoid falling into the same track; diversities of many kinds will, as a matter of course, come into play. It will be quite otherwise if texts are taken merely as mottoes to head a discourse on some topic connected with Christian faith or practice; for as often as the same subject returns for consideration, being dissociated from any individual traits or special circumstances, it will naturally present itself in much the same aspect that it did before, and be discoursed of much after the same manner. Nor does the result come to be materially different when texts are split, as it were, into fragments, and each part taken as the ground of a separate discourse. For, though this seems in one sense to be making much of the text, in reality it is making little; since the text, by such a process, necessarily loses its proper individuality, and the several clauses or words of which it is composed are turned into so many mottoes or hints, whereon to raise a discussion on some point of Christian doctrine, or if of a practical nature, on some particular course of duty. The Puritan divines were fond of this method. A single text very commonly became in their hands the introduction to a whole body of divinity, or gave occasion to an entire series of discourses on some branch of Christian life or experience. Baxter’s Saint’s Rest is a specimen, certainly one of the best specimens, of this kind of sermon writing; and so also are the more important of Howe’s works, his Blessedness of the Righteous, Delighting in God, Living Temple, etc. They all started from an appropriate text, and by successive discourses from this they grew into considerable treatises. Howe was possessed of a singularly rich and elevated cast of mind; so that he could infuse a measure of freshness and variety into a system that was essentially monotonous, and throw out new thoughts and illustrations even when travelling anew the same paths which had been trodden before. Yet with such a system even he could not avoid frequently repeating himself, as any one may see who will be at the trouble of comparing some of the treatises with each other. He will find not the same subjects merely recurring, but the same line of thought pursued regarding them, sometimes also the same figures and images used in illustration of them. To a congregation, also, it must have been wearisome to hear always the same text announced for consideration, not on one or two consecutive Sabbaths merely, but for months. The simplicity and freshness of gospel preaching was to a considerable extent lost by such a method; there was too much seen in it of the hand of man, systematizing and arranging the materials of Scriptural truth and duty. (It may be added that the preachers in question endeavoured to compensate for the defect mentioned by often introducing texts incidentally, and dwelling on them. Traill was particularly good at that.) In the present day there is comparatively little danger of a return to the Puritan method. But the same method in a sort of reduced form was much followed in Scotland at a greatly later period, and is not yet, perhaps, altogether disused. I have myself known persons, much beloved as men, and highly esteemed as preachers, who followed it, though never without a manifest disadvantage, arising from the comparatively little scope it afforded for the introduction of the expository element, and the difficulty it presented of avoiding an ever-recurring sameness. According to this plan of discourse, a text is taken embracing two or three principal words or ideas; and, instead of these being viewed in their mutual connection, and discussed with reference to the leading object in the eye of the sacred penman at the time, they are taken apart, and made each the subject of a separate discourse. For example, such a text as Ephesians 2:8, ‘By grace are ye saved through faith,’ would not be treated in its obvious unity as a declaration of the fact that the salvation of the gospel has its origin in the free grace of God, and in consequence must be received by men in faith as a gift from above. It would be divided into three distinct parts: the first comprising what is meant by the term salvation, the second what is to be understood by the word grace, and the third the relation between faith and salvation that is by grace. No doubt, by such a piecemeal treatment everything that is in the verse might be fully brought out; but a great deal also that is not even incidentally found in it would almost certainly be brought into consideration; and a vein of thought would inevitably be pursued, which as a matter of course would be resumed when other texts were chosen in which the same terms occurred. Thus, if Hebrews 2:3, ‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?’ were selected, and treated after the like fashion, we should necessarily again have the import of salvation discussed; this would form, as before, the subject of one discourse, and the thoughts presented in connection with it could not deviate much from the previous track. Of this style of preaching Dr. Campbell, with some justice, though not without a measure of exaggeration, said that those who followed it, a good many undoubtedly in his day, had in a manner but one sermon. ‘The form, the mould, into which it was cast was different according to the different texts, but the matter was altogether the same. You had invariably the preacher’s whole system—original sin, the incarnation, the satisfaction, election, imputed righteousness, justification, and so forth.’ He adds, that the preachers after this plan very slightly touched upon the duties which the Christian religion requires; evidently intending by the remark to convey a censure on the evangelical preaching of his day, as improperly negligent of the practical bearing of Christianity; for there can be no doubt that it was the more evangelical portion of the ministers in Scotland who in Campbell’s time preached in the manner indicated by him. But it never was true of that party as a class that they were remiss in enforcing the moral obligations of the gospel, and it was true beyond contradiction that the parishes in which they ministered contained much more both of religion and morality than those where a different sort of preaching prevailed. With so cumbrous and formal a style of discourse, however, it may readily be supposed that the space for practical instruction would often be unduly limited; and they would also probably be influenced to a considerable extent by the conviction, that the truth itself had only to be received aright to bring forth the fruits of righteousness. But to revert to the subject itself, with the view of ensuring a natural and interesting variety in the exhibition of gospel truth, and also of connecting that exhibition in the minds of the people with the very terms of its announcement in Scripture, it is of importance that the text be really taken as the guide, in some way, to the order and method of treatment, as well as to the subject itself which it suggests for consideration. In order to this, it will, of course, be necessary to view the matter contained in it, not so much in its general and absolute character, as in its relative bearing and connection of parts; and to regard some as primary, and others as subordinate, not with respect to what they may be in themselves, but in respect to the statement made concerning them in the particular text, and with an eye to its more definite scope. Thus in the text just referred to, ‘By grace are ye saved through faith,’ it is not salvation generally, or in its entire compass, that we are called to consider, nor faith in all its acts and operations. The more special object of the declaration is the gratuitous character of salvation, as being of grace on the part of God, in contradistinction to all that can be called works or merit on the part of man; and as the necessary counterpart of this, its connection with the recipiency of faith in them who actually experience it. A discourse founded on such a text, after some preliminary statements, including perhaps, in order to prevent all ambiguity, a brief explanation of the terms grace and salvation, should manifestly have for its leading theme the gratuitous nature of salvation; which might be exhibited, first, in regard to the provision of salvation through the mission and work of Christ, the objective aspect of it; then, secondly, in regard to its appropriation by the soul through the effectual agency of the Holy Spirit, the subjective aspect; and from this may be shown, thirdly, the correspondence between a salvation so provided and so administered on the part of God, and the exercise of faith on ours, so as to bring out clearly the principle, if by grace, then of necessity by faith. And so in general, respect should commonly be had to the particular aspect in which the facts or ideas are presented in the text, and to the relation of greater or less prominence in which they stand one to another. It is to be understood that these are only general directions, not by any means to be converted into rules of stringent uniformity. The Christian minister is under no imperative obligation to take the precise aspect and order of the subject presented in the text as his own. He may chalk out in this respect a path for himself, if some particular mode of treatment has commended itself to his mind. Especially he may do so when he is dealing with matters of a somewhat general nature, and on which the testimony of a specific text is less peculiarly needed; in such a case, if a particular line of reflection has suggested itself to him as the best for his purpose, it were undoubtedly wise to follow it. Yet I would rather that this formed the exception than the rule; that for the most part discourses were thrown into a textual form, the more so, as such a method tends to preserve a habitual and reverent regard to Scripture, as the fountain of all spiritual truth and instruction, while it cherishes the feeling that the preacher is not so properly declaring his own mind, as expounding and setting forth the mind of God. He will thus be able to work into men’s thoughts, not the truth of God merely, but the very word in which that truth is embalmed. And it is this word of the living God which in all the more anxious and stirring movements of the soul is the great thing, the true germinating seed; as was well noticed by the acute and pious Halyburton in one of his later sayings, ‘It is remarkable,’ said he, ‘that though God may make use of the words of man in letting into the meaning of Scripture, yet it is the very word of Scripture whereby He ordinarily conveys the comfort, or advantage of whatever sort; it is the tool of God’s own framing that works the effect.’ The history of genuine revivals, and indeed the private records of every ministry which has been much blessed for good, afford constant illustrations of this. And as it is the peculiar advantage of preaching above all other kinds of public speaking, and the main secret of its strength, that as it has the word of God to handle and apply, ‘so it should be the aim of every preacher—the very method he employs should show it to be his aim—to do honour to this word, and secure for its utterances an enduring place in the minds of his auditors. The whole, however, is by no means settled as to the order and arrangement of discourses when it is admitted, that as far as possible there should be an adherence to the course of thought indicated in the text itself. For, with this general understanding, different persons might still pursue very different paths; by one the ideas proper to the subject might be exhibited in a clear, exact, and logical method; while, in the hands of another, the same ideas might be so exhibited as to embarrass rather than assist the memory, and disturb the natural sequence and connection of thought. There are preachers who seem always to be speaking to the text, and yet make no satisfactory progress in its elucidation; often, it may be, uttering suitable or even profound thoughts, but in so loose or discursive a manner, that it is scarcely possible to retain any very distinct recollection of what has been said. And there are others who have a method, and a method, too, based upon the text, who yet fail to present their thoughts in that natural progression, that dependence of part upon part, which is necessary to sustain attention, and leave a definite impression of the course of inquiry or reflection on the memory. It was, no doubt, the differences observable in this respect, and the great importance of having the train of thought rightly adjusted, that led Herder to say, ‘I easily pardon all defects except those of arrangement.’ He meant, that defects of this kind were more fatal, because they were like an organic disorder in the system; they struck the whole discourse with feebleness, or involved it in confusion; while others belonging to the execution would affect it only in particular parts, and might admit to some extent of compensation. It is very justly said also by Vinet (Homiletics, p. 234.) upon this point, that a proper arrangement ‘not only throws aside that which wanders from the unity of the subject, but assists also in finding everything which is included in the subject. Many things which we had not previously seen are then discovered; many lines of thought are finished, many intervals are filled up. It is the same with order in the arrangement of a subject as with economy in that of a fortune; it enriches. Besides, arrangement gives or restores to each of the elements of which the subject is composed its real importance. Sometimes in separating ideas which were at first view confounded together; sometimes in grouping what appeared separate, in managing contrasts, relations, subjects, or comparison, and luminous reflections of one idea upon another, we give to each of these ideas a new and unforeseen value.’ But when we have said this, we have said nearly all that can be done in a general way. Subjects of discourse differ so much, and so many diversities also exist in men’s individual tendencies and habits of thought, that minute and stereotyped prescriptions would be entirely out of place. It is wiser to follow the discretion and judgment of Quinctilian, who, at the commencement of his Book vii, when he comes to speak of the arrangement that ought to be adopted in forensic discourses, abstains from laying down specific directions for every orator and every subject. He merely states that there ought always to be a divisio, a breaking up of the whole matter into distinct portions; a partitio, that is, a fitting and orderly collocation of those portions, so as to connect properly together those that precede and those that follow; and a dispositio, or a right distribution of topics and ideas to their several heads. But he immediately adds, that it may be expedient often to take different modes in carrying one’s plan into execution, and points in proof to the two great speeches of AEschines and Demosthenes, in which, while both treating of one subject, and both admirable in their respective kinds, a precisely reverse order was followed. The accuser, AEschines, began with the question of right or law, where his strength lay; the defender, Demosthenes, on the other hand, skilfully introduced all other things which seemed to favour his position first, and left the question of law to the last, when he had already won the favourable opinion of his judges. In reference to discourses for the pulpit, I would say first, that there should always be some clear and definite arrangement of the subject in the mind of the preacher, such as to admit of its being handled in so many distinct and regularly distributed portions. No matter whether it be an arrangement which has been adopted or might suggest itself to others or not, let it only be one that commends itself to the preacher’s own mind as fit and proper. Secondly, it ought to be of such a nature that he can present it to the view of his hearers in a way they can readily apprehend; therefore an order that does not turn upon minute and shadowy distinctions, and is neither very meagre on the one side nor very prolix and complicated on the other. And, finally, it should be an order which exhibits some principle, not merely of connection, but also of progression; so that there may be room for the preacher’s own mind growing, as it proceeds, in some quality of thought or feeling, and room also for the minds of the audience enjoying the interest of a conscious advancement. The interest will inevitably flag on the part both of speaker and of hearer if there is no sensible progress in some definite line; or if, in a later division of the subject, there is a coming back again upon ground which has been already traversed in an earlier. Whatever the precise line thus marked out may be, whether it proceed from the more general to the more particular, or from the particular to the general; from cause to effect, or from effect to cause; from doctrine to duty, or from duty to doctrine; whatever it be, there should, if possible, be some easily recognised progression, such as may enable speaker and hearer alike to feel that they are not standing still or moving in a circle, but proceeding from one stage to another, in a course of spiritual contemplation or rational inquiry. These plain directions may suffice for ordinary cases. But it should be ever borne in mind that nothing here can be done, as it should be done, exactly to order; that no rules or prescriptions as to method can save the preacher who would succeed in the proper treatment of his subjects from thinking out his own plan, and adjusting the materials of discourse for himself. He may fitly enough take hints; occasionally, may even adopt an order which he knows to have been struck out by another; but even then he must by personal effort make it his own. And if to save himself from such labour he should make a practice of resorting to skeletons and outlines, he may rest assured that his discourses will also retain not a little of the skeleton character; they will not have much about them of the warmth of flesh and blood. (I have mentioned only one objection to the general use of such helps; hut undoubtedly it is also objectionable, as Dr. Shedd urges, on the score of morality; not quite to the same extent that abstracting whole sermons is, yet in a measure. ‘A preacher ought to be an honest man throughout. Sincerity, godly sincerity, should characterize him intellectually as well as morally. His plans ought to be the genuine work of his own brain. Not that he may not, at times, present a plan and train of thought similar to those of other minds; but he ought not to know of it at the time. Such coincidences ought to be undesigned, the result of two minds working upon a similar or the same subject, each in an independent way, and with no intercommunication. Then the product belongs to both alike; and the coincidence results from the common nature of truth and the common structure of the human mind, and not from a servile copying of one mind by another.’— Homiletics, p. 105.) I only add further, that while an order and a division also should commonly be adopted, it does not follow that this should always be formally announced. Usually, I think, it should be so, as people naturally desire to know, when going to be addressed at some length, what is the series of topics likely to be brought under consideration. But a tame, mechanical uniformity is to be avoided. Sometimes the interest may be best sustained, and the sense of novelty gratified, by simply announcing as they arise the successive heads of discourse; while the memory of the hearers may be assisted by a brief recapitulation of the particulars near the close. (Sensible and good directions, though somewhat brief, and, as far as they go, coinciding with what has been said above on the structure and method of discourses, may be seen in the Directory for Public Worship. For example, ‘In analyzing and dividing his text, he is to regard more the order of matter than of words; and neither to burden the memory of the hearers in the beginning with too many members of division, nor to trouble their minds with obscure terms of art. In raising doctrines from the text, his care ought to be, first, that the matter be the truth of God; secondly, that it be a truth contained in or grounded on that text, that the hearers may discern how God teacheth it from thence; thirdly, that he chiefly insist on those doctrines which are principally intended, and make most for the edification of his hearers. The doctrine is to be expressed in plain terms; or if anything in it need explanation, it is to be opened, and the consequence also from the text cleared. The parallel places of Scripture confirming the doctrine are rather to be plain and pertinent than many, and, if need be, somewhat insisted upon and applied to the purpose in hand. The arguments or reasons are to be solid, and, as much as may be, convincing. The illustrations of what kind soever ought to be full of light, and such as may convey the truth into the hearer’s heart with spiritual delight. If any doubt, obvious from Scripture, reason, or prejudice of the hearers seem to arise, it is very requisite to remove it, by reconciling the seeming differences, answering the reasons, and discovering and taking away the causes of prejudice and mistake. Otherwise, it is not fit to detain the hearers with propounding or answering vain or wicked cavils, which, as they are endless, so the propounding and answering of them doth more hinder than promote edification.’) V. The scope that may justly be allowed in preaching to the individual traits and characteristics of the preacher.—It is a question of some moment, especially as regards the structure and composition of discourses, what scope should be allowed to the preacher in the indulgence of any tastes, tendencies, or habitudes of thought that may more peculiarly distinguish him? Should he, as a preacher of the gospel, endeavour to suppress these? Or, should he here also give them free scope, and let them impart their full impress to the form in which he presents the great theme of salvation to his fellow-men? It is much more easy to put such questions than to answer them. But, in the general, I would say, that within certain limits, in the exercise of what may be called a decent and regulated freedom, it is perfectly allowable to give play to individual powers and susceptibilities, to the qualities which distinguish one man’s mind from another; and that it may even be for the advantage of the work in hand, may tend to the more effective ministration of the word, if that measure of freedom is exercised by the preacher. There is a general principle here which is of wide application to the relations and interests of the gospel; and it may not be out of place to make a few remarks on its more extended bearing, before considering how it applies to the specific subject of pulpit ministrations. We may the rather do so, as it is the natural tendency of the prelections and training of an academical course to aim at the production of attainments which lie within the reach of all who are possessed of respectable parts, rather than at the cultivation of peculiar powers, and the exhibition of distinctive excellences. A common education in theology, as well as other branches of learning and study, necessarily makes account of powers and attainments which the subjects of it have, or may have, in common with each other, not of those in which they mutually differ; it aims at establishing, as far as possible, a sort of community of acquirement and fitness for work. This is manifestly unavoidable; no theological training could succeed in its objects without looking thus at the general agreements more than at the specific and divergent tendencies of the minds subjected to its influence. And, indeed, it is requisite for the safe and profitable development, in due time, of what is special and peculiar to each. For it is a great principle, pervading all the departments of nature, and needful to be borne in mind by those who would attain to eminence in anything for which they may have even a particular aptitude, that as there is nothing general which does not also possess something individual, so there is nothing individual but what springs from, or has its points of contact with, the general. Whatever may distinguish one mind from another in its powers and tendencies, its veins of thought or emotional actings,—if it be simply an exercise or development of what nature has given, not a diseased and morbid affection, it will always find a measure of correspondence in other minds, something, however inferior in strength, to sympathize with it and respond to it. It is well that this should be fully known and considered by those who are called by their position and aims in life not only to acquire a certain distinction for literary gifts and attainments, but also to possess the power of influencing the judgments and moving the hearts of others. As such, they must stand above, and yet be on a footing with, those they have to deal with; they must have certain things peculiarly their own, and yet through these find access to the common understandings and bosoms of their fellow-men; and this they can only do by abstaining from all vicious excess, or by so cultivating the particular and distinctive elements in their mental constitution, as to prevent them from running into discordance with what is general. ‘One touch of nature,’ one great poet has said, ‘makes the whole world kin;’ it does so even though the touch be in itself of a peculiar kind, though it carry a very distinctive impress from the hand that gives it; yet, being a touch of nature, conveying a genuine throb of feeling from one human bosom to another, it cannot but awaken a hearty response. On this ground a great German authority, the greatest, indeed, in matters of this description (Goethe), said to a youthful disciple (Eckermann), ‘You need not fear lest what is peculiar should want sympathy. Each character, however peculiar it maybe, and each object which you represent, from the stone up to man, has generality; for there is repetition everywhere, and there is nothing to be found once in the world.’ Nothing, we must understand him to mean, in its fundamental elements; these are not found once merely anywhere, but are repeated in all objects of the same kind, while still in every particular object they have their specific combination and their characteristic development. So that if there should be in any writer or public speaker some preponderating talent or bias which is allowed to grow into a marked characteristic, it may be done, not only without the risk of his thereby losing hold of the sympathies of his fellow-men, but even with the effect of securing for him a firmer and deeper hold of them than might otherwise have been possible. For such is the constitution of the human mind, that so long as the individual characteristics of thought and feeling root themselves in the general, their very individuality gives them a freshness and power, it wins for them a sway over our hearts which an undistinguished flatness and generality never can command. We are touched by the greater strength and prominence of that of which we are ourselves not altogether unconscious; touched the more, as we see it working with a buoyant force and energy, far beyond anything of which we know ourselves to be capable. The most eminent example of this in the religious sphere is Christ, viewed simply as the great teacher of the world; since, appearing as He did in an age and generation remarkable for their commonplace, one might almost say their effete character, there yet is in His manner of teaching, alike in respect to meaning and form, the expression of an individuality so marked, that nothing similar to it has ever again appeared among men. Yet nowhere can we find words that are in such general accord with the heart of humanity, words that reach so far and pierce so deep; the power of which is felt equally among high and low, by the man of profound culture as by the unlettered peasant. What a depth was there in His look into nature! In His revelations, what a disclosure of the mind and purposes of Heaven! Yet, withal, what a transparent simplicity in the one! And in the other, what profound agreement with the better cravings and convictions of the enlightened reason! Among the leading apostles, also, you see a measure of the same striking but genuine idiosyncrasies; each giving indication, in his own particular way, of characteristic peculiarities of thought and feeling; but along with these combining so much of simplicity and naturalness, that all who read their productions in a right spirit feel in unison with them, as if there were the answering of heart to heart; and this even in regard to the more peculiar parts of their writings. I should never, perhaps, myself have thought, if discoursing of the propriety of that retired demeanour which becomes the modesty of women, of connecting it with their lengthened tresses and overshadowing veils; and these again with their original formation out of man, and the place they were from the first destined to hold in society. I might have wanted the spiritual insight and delicacy of perception to see in such things nature’s signs and witnesses to the fit position and proper bearing of woman. But when presented as they are by the Apostle Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, I am quite ready to enter into their spirit, and recognise their suitableness. I am sensible that they have a foundation in nature; and he who acts for me as nature’s interpreter in the matter, applies in doing so a touch that makes me kin to him. When speaking thus of nature, I am not to be understood as meaning that all here is simply of nature, as in the case of the poet, the artist, or the orator. In the sacred writers primarily, and then also in those who at any period have to discourse of divine things, a higher element comes into play; one by which nature is raised above itself, and sanctified to do service to God. Yet nature, let it be remembered, is not dissolved by this higher element; and no more dissolved in its separate individuality than in its general powers and properties. Every distinctive bent or original impulse of nature may still have its free and genial exercise, only elevated in its aim, hallowed in its forms of manifestation, by the baptism it has received into the spirit of truth and holiness. When so baptized, it is not lost, but renovated, and made capable of loftier aspirations and more energetic movements. One has only to reflect how it is with the common run of believers. Of those who become, through the reception of the truth, sincere and earnest followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, a very large proportion are, no doubt, persons of quite ordinary minds, without any remarkable natural characteristic, either as to capacity for thought, sensibility of heart, or strength of will; bearing, indeed, no very marked individuality in any respect. But from the moment they come under the power of divine truth, and are made partakers of the gift of God, this itself stamps them with an individuality; it quickens into action powers and motions which were latent before; in one prominent direction their mind acquires a determined bent; and instead of the original lameness and insipidity which was wont to appear in their general tone of thought and feeling, there is now an intelligence, a discernment, an application of the right and good, sometimes even an elevation of spirit and strength of devotedness, which throw around their state and character a well-defined and estimable personality. Still more will such an effect of vital Christianity be perceptible in any one if he should be distinguished by any of the larger gifts of nature, whatever may be its precise character; whether it may hold more directly of the reason, the imagination, the emotions, or the will, the more thoroughly it becomes imbued with the spirit of the gospel, and is directed into the channels of Christian worth and usefulness, the more will it acquire, so to speak, its proper set, and work to the production of important results. Now it is the same thing, only in a higher degree and more conspicuously displayed, which often discovers itself with the more eminent preachers of the gospel, in their more impressive and memorable utterances. In listening to these, nothing perhaps strikes us more than the seeming naturalness of what is spoken, and its fitness and force for the occasion, although it may be such as would probably never have occurred to ourselves, or if in substance it had occurred, would not have been thrown into the touching or impressive form that it has assumed in the speaker’s hands. Take the following, for example, from F. Robertson, as illustrative of the unexpectedness coupled with the certainty of the Second Advent: (First Series of Ser. p. 177.) ‘Every judgment coming of Christ is as the springing of a mine. There is a moment of deep suspense after the match has been applied to the fuse which is to fire the train. Men stand at a distance and hold their breath. There is nothing seen but a thin, small column of white smoke, rising fainter and fainter, till it seems to die away. Then men breathe again . . . [but presently] the low, deep thunder sends up the column of earth majestically to heaven, and all that was on it comes crashing down again in its far circle, shattered and blackened with the blast. It is so with this world. By God’s word the world is doomed. The moment the suspense is past. . . . We have fallen upon days of scepticism. There are no signs of ruin yet. We tread upon it like a solid thing fortified by its adamantine hills for ever. There is nothing against that but a few words in a printed book. But the world is ruined; and the spark has fallen; and just at the moment when serenity is at its height, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the feet of the Avenger shall stand on the earth.”’ Or, to take an example which carries with it a still more marked individuality, what a service does imagination render to the moral energy and fervid reasoning of Dr. Chalmers, not only in his astronomical discourses, but also when handling a much commoner theme, the utility of missions! He is combating the objections raised against them by the worldly-minded and unbelieving, and in doing so appeals to the effects which had been accomplished by means of them on the moral and religious aspect of the Highlands of Scotland. ‘What would they have been at this moment,’ he asks, ‘had schools, and Bibles, and ministers been kept back from them, and had the man of a century ago been deterred by the flippancies of the present age from the work of planting chapels and seminaries in that neglected land? The ferocity of their ancestors would have come down, unsoftened and unsubdued, to the existing generation. The darkening spirit of hostility would still have lowered upon us from the north, and these plains, now so peaceful and so happy, would have lain open to the fury of merciless invaders. O ye soft and sentimental travellers, who wander so securely over this romantic land, you are right to choose the season when the angry elements of nature are asleep. But what is it that has charmed to their long repose the more dreadful elements of human passion and of human injustice? What is it that has quelled the boisterous spirit of her natives? And while her torrents roar as fiercely, and her mountain brows look as grimly as ever, what is it that has thrown so softening an influence over the minds and manners of her living population?’ Here a vivid imagination lends a most effectual aid to the reason, and, as by a sudden blaze let in from a higher region, flashes such conviction on the mind as might well shame to silence all further opposition. But a still higher service was exacted of this faculty when Robert Hall, at the close of his wonderful sermon on ‘The sentiments proper to the present crisis,’ the crisis, namely, of 1803, when the country was preparing to plunge into a most formidable war with Bonaparte, after having wound up his hearers to the loftiest pitch of excitement in respect to the necessity and justice of the impending struggle, referred to the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, as bending from their elevated seats to witness the contest, as if they were incapable of enjoying their repose till they saw the matter brought to a favourable issue. And then, apostrophizing those departed worthies as actually present, he exclaimed, ‘Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, influenced with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth for ever and ever, they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labours, and cemented with your blood.’ A personification and appeal like this reached the very borders of that licence which must be allowed to imagination in the pulpit, and could only have been conceived and executed with the least prospect of success by one in whom the imagining faculty itself was strong, and by him only if he had wrought up his audience by previous descriptions and appeals to somewhat of the same rapt fervour with himself. He certainly had done so; they were at the moment like persons carried out of themselves, borne along by an impetuous torrent to think as the preacher thought, and feel as he felt. Such, too, is reported to have been the case in a closely similar example of Whitfield’s preaching, one characterized by the boldest flight of imagination he is known to have attempted, when toward the conclusion of a fervid discourse, throughout which his soul had been, as it were, on fire with zeal and love for the conversion of sinners, he demanded of his audience what account attending angels should carry to heaven of the tidings and invitations he had been addressing to them; and as if afraid that the account should be prematurely closed, nay, as if actually seeing the heavenly messenger already on the wing, suddenly broke out with an imploring cry to Gabriel to stop, that a few more sinners might have time to send on high the news of their blessed return to God, and then with increased fervour briefly reiterated his appeals to the hearts and consciences of his auditors. By all accounts the effort in this case also was successful; the impression upon the audience was in the highest degree powerful and solemn; but it could only have been so by preacher and audience alike having risen, through what went before, to a kind of enchanted ground, so as to have lost sight, in a manner, of the distinction between the visible and the invisible, the angelic and the human. Such things defy all imitation; and those who would attempt to reproduce them (as in respect to this flight of Whitfield I have known a very common-place preacher do in a village congregation), only succeed in making themselves ridiculous. Peculiarities of any kind, and peculiarities of a far less marked description than those just referred to in connection with the imagination, can only appear natural, and strike a sympathetic chord in the breasts of others when they spring forth as from their native soil, and seem to blossom in the proper time and place. They must proceed from the cultivation of a real talent, not from the artificial search after what is unusual, or the vain attempt to wield on an occasion a giant’s weapons. This can produce nothing great or good, and is sure to run out into grotesque forms, or explode in fanciful conceits. Here, above all, simplicity, genuine and unaffected, is requisite, showing itself in a determination to use only what is properly one’s own, to appear to have just what is actually possessed, and to feel what is really felt. In so far as this is done, even though the talent exercised may not be of the highest kind, yet being a reality, and not an affectation, having its foundation in nature, not assumed for a purpose, its manifestation will always meet with some response, and will succeed greatly better than any pretension could do in a higher line of things. For not only does nothing grow by mere imitation (nihil crescit sola imitatione—Quinct.), but the mind that makes the attempt to grow after that fashion is perpetually in danger of shooting into wrong directions, forcing itself into forbidden paths, and betaking to appliances which only create a recoil. It is therefore very justly said by Vinet, (Homiletics, p. 25.) ‘that while art in a sense is one, it is not so in all senses; it multiplies itself with individuals; it individualizes itself in each. The question which will one day place itself before you will not be, What ought one to do? but, What ought I to do? In this preparatory period oratorical discourse may appear to you as the object; in the active labours of the ministry, it will only be one means of attaining an actual object on occasions which will actually resemble no other. The professor you hear, the rhetorician you read or listen to, cannot make that rhetoric individual to you. Every one must do so for himself. It is not meant by this that each must have all, as it were, within himself; that he must be indebted for nothing to others, copying after nothing wherein others have excelled, lest he should be chargeable with a vicious or feeble imitation. No; he should indeed beware of imitating in others what could not come naturally to himself, and should not even be partially influenced by the thought or manner of another without being at pains to assimilate it to himself. For if the things which proceed from his lips are to become a power in the hearts of others, they must first have struck their roots into his own spiritual being; they must teem and germinate within him, and mingle with the essence of his spirit; and must shape themselves into a new original growth.’ But with this caution, on the one side, against a too close approximation to others, especially in regard to what is somewhat peculiar to themselves, there is undoubtedly a legitimate benefit, on the other, to be derived from the study of the best models in those particular gifts and attainments wherein each most notably excels. Those, for example, who have comparatively little imagination, may have that little stimulated and improved by familiarity with the productions of those who have been distinguished for the large possession and happy use of the faculty. The man of discursive tendencies, apt to ramble in his cogitations and string his ideas somewhat loosely together, may have his reasoning powers strengthened, and his capacity for discoursing profitably on divine things increased by making a special study of such works as are remarkable for the lucid order and the argumentative skill they exhibit in the treatment of their respective subjects. And, in like manner, the man of dry intellect, or plain solid sense, may catch some inspiration of a livelier kind by sitting at the feet of those who are masters in the popular modes of address by means of touching allusions to Bible story, appropriate illustrations from the field of nature, or the incidents of every-day life. Though not destined to excel in such arts, yet he may acquire a certain facility in the use of them. In regard to the persons themselves who are possessed naturally of some marked mental characteristic, the chief caution to be exercised is to beware of running to excess, indulging the special and peculiar, till, from forming an attractive distinction, and being an element of power, it becomes a sort of excrescence, which by its undue preponderance hinders the proper action of other faculties of the mind, or by its eccentricities serves rather to tickle people’s fancies than promote their edification. A tendency to pathos, for example, may be developed to the hurtful neglect of the manly exercise of reason, and the nursing of a comparatively weak, mawkish, sentimental piety. The simply intellectual and logical powers, on the other hand, may be allowed to carry it so completely over the sympathetic and emotional, that the discourse shall become little more than a fine speculation or a well-reasoned argument, with something, possibly, to instruct or convince, but nothing to quicken or arouse, nothing to satisfy the spiritual appetite with the food it naturally desires and longs for. But more than either of these, or indeed than any other prominent characteristic, is the danger, in the present day, of letting loose the imagination, where this faculty exists in peculiar strength, by a profusion of images, or multiplying unduly pictorial representations. A power of this kind is undoubtedly a great advantage to a preacher. It enables him to bring to his hand a ready supply of the imagery which charms by its beauty, or interests and instructs by its fresh combinations and striking analogies. But on this very account it is extremely apt to assume an undue prominence in the structure of the discourse, and even to lose, in a measure, its proper character, to pass from a means to an end. Whenever the preacher glides into this excess, he may be said to have drifted from his mooring, he is but dallying with his theme. ‘For every one must recollect,’ as is well said by Mr. H. Rogers, (Essay on Sacred Eloquence.) ‘that if a speaker is in earnest he never employs his imagination, as the poet does, merely to delight us; nor, indeed, to delight us at all, except as appropriate imagery, though used for another object, necessarily imparts pleasure. For this reason illustrations are selected always with a reference to their force rather than their beauty, and are very generally marked more by their homely propriety than by their grace and elegance. For the same reason, wherever it is possible, they are thrown into the brief form of metaphor; and here Aristotle, with his usual sagacity, observes, that the metaphor is the only trope in which the orator may freely indulge. Everything marks the man intent on serious business, whose sole anxiety is to convey his meaning with as much precision and energy as possible to the minds of his auditors.’ Mr. Rogers therefore wisely cautions preachers, and especially young preachers of imaginative powers, against throwing in epithets and employing images merely because he thinks them beautiful. ‘As regards real impression, there is no style which has so little practical effect, even when there is real genius in it. The admiration which it so commonly awakens, but shows that the minds of the auditors are fixed rather upon the man than upon the subject; less upon the truths inculcated than upon the genius which has embellished them. The speaker has but succeeded in attracting the eye upon himself and his power of discourse, but it is a success won at the expense of what is his avowed, and ever ought to be his real object.’ Here, again, the only effectual safeguard lies in the personal state of the preacher. If he has the true spirit of his office, the singleness of eye and deep practical aim which are proper to one whose soul is alive to the great realities of salvation, and who feels his very life bound up with the success of his mission as an ambassador of grace, he will subordinate his use of imagery, like everything else, to his one grand aim. He cannot allow himself to play freaks with his imagination, in order to garnish his speech with sweet flowers, or get up a succession of graphic pictures merely for the sake of gratifying the taste or gaining the applause of his hearers. He has higher objects in view, although in aiming at their accomplishment one person may, the bent of nature so inclining him, infuse more of the graphic and pictorial into his representations than can be done by others. He may do so even more freely in the present age than he could well have done in the last; for there is now, through all departments of literature, a strong current running in this direction; and the eloquence of the pulpit, like popular speech generally, must to some extent bear ‘the form and pressure of the time.’ Desiring to speak to men’s bosoms, it must adapt itself to existing habits of thought, and take advantage of prevailing tendencies. But still only within definite limits, never so as to do violence to the fundamental laws of human discourse; therefore, as regards the point now more immediately before us, never forgetting that for purposes of persuasion the imaginative faculty has but a subordinate part to perform, should be used only as an occasional handmaid, not obeyed as an imperious mistress; and that where the success of the speaker is greatest, the materials it furnishes are never more than sparingly introduced. Indeed, one may say, in regard to the highest species of pulpit eloquence,—that in which the theme of discourse is so thoroughly transfused into the minds of the audience that the speaker himself is forgotten, speaker and hearer being alike absorbed in thought concerning the interests of an eternal world,—it never almost is the preponderance of any one faculty that has to do with the effect, but rather the happy combination of various faculties, only these quickened and ennobled, intensified to the highest degree of spiritual action by the powerful working of God’s Spirit and the felt apprehension of divine things. The discourses which have produced the most profound impressions at the time, and which have been found afterwards to have yielded the richest harvest of spiritual good, have been of this character. Such, for example, appears to have been the discourse of Livingstone at the Kirk of Shotts, which scattered the seeds of a living faith through hundreds of bosoms in the Vale of Clyde. Such, also, was the extraordinary discourse on missions by Dr. Mason of New York, which made even experienced ministers of the gospel feel as if they scarcely knew till then what preaching should be, and gave a fresh impulse to their minds. Such was the character of one of Mr. Toller’s sermons, a sermon every way impressive in itself, but rendered still more so by the pale, emaciated appearance of the preacher, as we learn from the striking account given of it by Mr. Hall. ‘All other emotions,’ he says, ‘were absorbed in devotional feeling; it seemed to us as though we were permitted for a short space to look into eternity, and every sublunary object vanished before the powers of the world to come. Yet there was no considerable exertion, no vehemence, no splendid imagery, no magnificent description; it was the simple declaration of truth; of truth, indeed, of infinite moment, borne in upon the heart by a mind intensely alive to its reality and grandeur. Criticism was disarmed; the hearer felt himself elevated to a region which it could not penetrate; all was powerless submission to the master-spirit of the scene.’ Such, undoubtedly, when viewed with reference to the great end of the ministry, is the highest style of preaching; and it is reserved, not for the man distinguished merely for powerful intellect or lofty imagination, but for the man whose conversation is in heaven, and whose soul lives and breathes amid the realities of salvation. (It is quite possible to find what have the appearance at least, perhaps also the reality, of exceptions to some of the statements made in this section. The maxim of Pope here also has its application—‘Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.’ Men of genius, or of power so varied and attractive as to have nearly all the charm of genius, may in their vocation as preachers attain to great and deserved eminence, even though in some respects violating the rules which have approved themselves to the most matured critical judgment. By means of their peculiar resources they are able to bear, and even to wield with effect, armour which in the hands of other men would only lead to misdirected effort or palpable failure, as in the employment, for example, of extended pictorial representations, which the late Dr. Guthrie certainly used sometimes with wonderful skill and success, but which many others have tried with no result but that of entertaining the fancy of the hearer, or begetting admiration of the artistic power of the preacher. Men should be well assured of their special aptitudes and gifts before they venture upon marked deviations from established principles.) This ought to be the more thought of and the more earnestly coveted, that it springs so much from those spiritual qualities which must ever constitute the more essential elements of the Church’s power for good in all her departments of action and duty. It is that the Church is a society, holding not of earth, but of heaven; connected by a living bond with the realities of an eternal world; connected by such a bond with Christ, the glorified Redeemer, so that the higher life that is in Him may be continually manifesting itself in the spirit and behaviour of her members. It is this which most of all enables the Church to act with reforming and blissful energy upon the world. And the ministers of the Church, those who are her more peculiar agents and representatives, both for keeping the flame alive in her own bosom and bringing it to act with quickening and attractive force upon the masses lying near and around her, while they may justly prize, and should diligently cultivate, such gifts of nature or resources of learning as they may have at command, still should feel that the main secret of their strength lies in the measure in which they themselves possess that higher endowment, that spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and by word and deed can transfuse it into their ministerial agency. God grant that there may be this feeling in all of us, and a fixed desire, through divine grace, to have it brought forth into practical manifestation! VI. The style proper to the pulpit, and the degree of attention that should be paid to it.—Some of the remarks made under the last division had nearly as much respect to the style as to the matter of discourses; for in certain of its aspects the one readily runs into the other. But the subject of style demands a separate consideration, since not a little depends on it for the efficient ministration of the gospel. At the same time negatively, and with respect to its proper place, I would say, that it should not be much taken apart, as a thing to be considered or cultivated by itself. Some men of note, seeing how much practically turns on style, viewed as the right setting of the thought, have expressed themselves somewhat incautiously on the subject. They have spoken so as to convey the impression that style, in a manner, is everything, and that the chief pains must be bestowed upon this by those who would attain to a high place as preachers of the gospel. To speak after such a fashion gives, I believe, an exaggerated idea of the matter for effective oratory of all descriptions, and in particular of that description of it which should be aimed at by preachers of the gospel. Style is but the mirror of the thought, and the one may be said to be perfect if it is in due correspondence with, or gives a just reflection of, the other; but if the cast of thought be feeble or confused, so naturally will be the style; and then it is not so much the mirror as the thing mirrored which calls for rectification. It is justly, therefore, remarked by Vinet, (Homiletics, p. 320.) that ‘the ambition merely to speak well, in proportion as it obtains an ascendancy over the minister, degrades the ministry. ... A good style is necessary, but a good style does not come by itself. The style is not superadded to all the rest; it is a labour of the mind and of the soul which has only to be carried out.’ Precisely here, indeed, lies the distinction between the true orator and the mere rhetorician, who may charm by his language, and delight the ear as by the music of sweet sounds, but leaves no abiding impression, accomplishes no practical result. His mind, in short, is greatly too much occupied with the adjustment of words and sentences, while the real orator has his soul stirred with important ideas, and has no further concern about the form of expression given to them than that it should fitly represent the thoughts and feelings of which he seeks to be delivered. Hence the saying of Montaigne, ‘When I see these excellent ways of speaking, I do not say that they are well written, but that they are well thought.’ The meaning is, that in the happier efforts of mind there is such a connection between thoughts rightly conceived in the mind and the proper mode of expressing them, that the one by a kind of moral necessity draws the other along with it; or, as he again expresses it, ‘Whoever has in his mind a vivid and clear idea will express it well enough in one way or other.’ Hence, also, the happy distinction drawn by Augustine, in the case of the Apostle Paul, between following the rules of eloquence and eloquence following the excellent thought embodied in the discourse: ‘Sicut apostolum praecepta eloquentiae secutum fuisse non dicimus, ita quod ejus sapientiam secuta sit eloquentia, non negamus.’ (Verbaque praevisam rem non invita sequentur.—Hor.) It were therefore a piece of folly in any public speaker, but pre-eminently in a preacher of the gospel, to address himself to the task of elaborating fine periods, and constructing sentences according to rule. By such a course he could, at the most, only draw attention upon himself, and win the petty distinction of being a man of superficial polish or rhetorical skill; a distinction not to be coveted as a prize, but rather to be shunned as a misfortune, by any one who aspires to the possession of a real power in carrying the convictions and swaying the judgments of his fellow-men. All this, however, is merely negative; it touches only on what is not to be sought after or done. But what, on the other side, are some of the leading qualities which ought to appear in the style of those who can so think and so express themselves, as to exercise a salutary and powerful influence on a popular audience? (1.) Simplicity, perhaps, ought to have the first place; for this is but another name, in most cases, for clearness and perspicuity; and without the latter, as formerly noticed, success is impossible. Whatever else may be requisite in spoken or written productions which are adapted to the popular mind, simplicity must not be wanting. This has been well noted by Hume in his essay on Simplicity and Refinement in Writing. He says: ‘A greater degree of simplicity is required in all compositions where men and actions and passions are painted, than in such as consist of reflections and observations. And as the former species of writing is the more engaging and beautiful, one may safely, upon this account, give the preference to the extreme of simplicity above that of refinement.’ Yet, of this last he justly states, that it is ‘the extreme which men are most apt to fall into, after learning has made some progress, and after writers have appeared in every species of composition. The endeavour to please by novelty leads men wide of simplicity and nature, and fills their writings with affectation and conceit.’ I need not say, that everything which savours of this is peculiarly unsuited to a preacher of the gospel. If generally ‘the language which is dedicated to truth should be plain and unaffected,’ (Quae veritati operam dat oratio, incomposita sit et simplex.—Seneca, Ep. 40.) most especially should it be so when applied in connection with that kind of truth which it is the business of the preacher to set forth,—truth which lies so near to the glory of God and the highest interests of mankind. But there are other reasons for it. In the great majority of cases any other kind must be unsuited to the audience addressed, as well as to the nature of the theme. Christian congregations, with comparatively few exceptions, are not only mixed assemblages, but assemblages containing a preponderance of but moderately educated or even unlettered persons, very few of whom, therefore, can be qualified intelligently to follow, far less to relish, a discourse which deals in unusual terms and artificial sentences—the ordinary marks of polish and refinement. And if some of the greater masters of English composition have of set purpose endeavoured to avoid such things; have even, to be sure of their ground in this respect, at times tried the effect of their productions on men of common understanding, before committing them to the press, how anxious should the ministers of the gospel be to use great plainness of speech, that the simple in heart may understand, and nothing which it is important for sinners to know may lie hidden from their view under the folds of a learned phraseology. Augustine, in the last book of his treatise, De Doctrina Christiana, presses very strongly this view of the matter, and commends this quality of plainness or simplicity of speech to all ministers of the word, as deserving of their greatest attention: (L. iv. 26.) ‘He, therefore, who teaches will shun all words that do not teach; and if in place of them he can employ others which are pure, and which are better understood, he will rather choose these; but if he cannot do so, either because there are none such, or because he cannot for the moment get hold of them, he will then resort to others which are less pure, provided only they serve to make the thing itself distinctly understood.’ And returning to the subject again, he asks, ‘What signifies a golden key, if we cannot open with it what we wish? But if a wooden one will serve the purpose, what matters its inferior quality?’ And referring to Cicero’s threefold distinction, docere necessitatis est, delectare suavitatis, flectere victoriae, he urges on preachers of the gospel that, while they should not, indeed, neglect the two latter, while they should endeavour so to speak as to please and to persuade, they should yet regard the teaching element as the prime and essential one, and for that end should make choice of such words as are fitted to convey clear notions of the truth. This is, undoubtedly, what should be aimed at; but even when honestly aimed at, it is not always quite easily accomplished. A long course of academical training, whatever advantages it brings in other respects, is apt here to throw a certain hindrance in the way. For it familiarizes those who are subjected to it to a style of thought and speech philosophical or literary rather than popular; and modes of representation, forms of expression even, which have become perfectly natural to them, will be strange to the ears, and but imperfectly grasped by the understandings of a common audience. The progress of education, and the more general diffusion of intelligence through the community, have, no doubt, been tending to lessen the distance in this respect between the more and the less learned classes, but it is very far from having removed it. There may be little danger in the present day of introducing into the pulpit the kind of academical style of discourse which was by no means unusual with a certain class of ministers in the last century, when, as Dr. Campbell tells us, preachers were often found ‘haranguing the people on the moral sense and universal benevolence, speaking of the symmetry of the universe, and the moral harmony and dissonance of the affections.’ Such a style of pulpit ministrations may now be regarded as gone into deserved oblivion; but there may still, and, unless special care is taken to prevent it, there will remain a tendency with those who have been trained to habits of study, and are more conversant with books than with men, to fall into methods of discussion and modes of speech which are not level to the capacities of the people, at least do not properly reach their bosoms. And if there is any considerable tincture of fancy in the preacher’s constitution, or prompting of literary ambition, there will be the additional danger of his overshooting the mark by using similitudes too remote from common life, and displaying a fondness for what will only be regarded as playful sallies or pretty conceits. This false tendency, more especially in the latter form of it, is so admirably exposed by South in his sermon on Luke 21:15, and the proper style for an earnest preacher to employ is so strikingly set forth, that I cannot forbear quoting the passage, although the tone of sarcasm so natural to the author is not wanting in it, and in the present case is venting itself against no less a victim than his celebrated contemporary Jeremy Taylor: ‘I speak the words of soberness, said St. Paul, and I preach the gospel not with enticing words of man’s wisdom. This was the way,’ says South, ‘of the apostle’s discoursing of things sacred. Nothing here of “the fringes of the northern star;” nothing of “nature’s becoming unnatural;” nothing of the “down of angels’ wings,” or “the beautiful locks of cherubims;” no starched similitudes introduced with a “thus have I seen a cloud rolling in its airy mansion,” and the like. No, these were sublimities above the rise of the apostolic spirit. For the apostles, poor mortals, were content to take lower steps, and to tell the world in plain terms that he who believed should be saved, and that he who believed not should be damned. And this was the dialect which pierced the conscience, and made the hearers cry out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” It tickled not the ear, but sank into the heart; and when men came from such sermons, they never commended the preacher for his taking voice or gesture, for the fineness of such a simile, or the quaintness of such a sentence; but they spake like men conquered by the overpowering force and evidence of the most concerning truths; much in the words of the two disciples going to Emmaus: Did not our hearts burn within us while He opened to us the Scriptures? In a word, the apostles’ preaching was therefore mighty and successful, because plain, natural, and familiar, and by no means above the capacity of their hearers; nothing being more preposterous than for those who were professedly aiming at men’s hearts, to miss the mark by shooting over their heads.’ If somewhat peculiarly, this is not too forcibly put; and in order to avoid the errors pointed at, there is undoubtedly, first of all, needed on the part of the preacher a sincere spirit of self-denial, a determination to shun whatever might look like a needless display of learning, or a laying of traps for popular applause. Like a humble but earnest workman, he must seek the instruments, the plain and intelligible words, which seem best fitted to forward his Master’s business. In order to this he must, as was said in another connection, by familiar intercourse with the people get well acquainted with the manner of thought and speech which is best adapted to their taste or capacities, especially must accustom himself to the use of the more common, chiefly Saxon, elements in our language, as contradistinguished from those which are of Latin origin. And in so far as recourse may be had to figures or similitudes to aid the imperfection of direct language, and give a more vivid representation of the truth, let them not be of a ‘recondite nature, or far-fetched, but such as will really illustrate the subject, and make it better understood by the common understanding. Finer examples could scarcely be anywhere found of what is here indicated than in the sermons of Augustus Hare, the brother of the Archdeacon. They are the productions of a man of high intellect, fine taste, and varied accomplishments, yet subordinated all to the blessed work of endeavouring to bring down the great truths and obligations of the gospel to the level of a plain, rural congregation; a work which, when perfectly done, and with respect to things which are not trite, but of grave importance or difficulty, is, as Whately has remarked, ‘one of the most admirable feats of genius.’ (Rhetoric, p. 256.) I refer, in illustration, to his sermon on the superiority of principles to rules; and hence the far greater importance of having the mind indoctrinated with the one, than the conduct drilled into conformity with the other; (On Col. 2:28.) a subject certainly far from being trite, or even such as can quite easily be made patent to a common audience; yet see how distinct it becomes through Mr. Hare’s lucid exposition and homely speaking! ‘A rule which has been drawn up for any particular purpose, may be likened to a loaf of bread; a principle, on the other hand, is like a handful of wheat. Every rule that is worth anything must be taken from a principle, just as a loaf of bread is made of wheat. For the wants and uses of the moment a rule is more serviceable than a principle, just as, when a man is hungry, bread is more welcome than wheat. For bread is wheat ready prepared for the sake of satisfying hunger. We have only to take it and eat it. Hence, for a hungry man a crust of bread is better and handier than so much unground wheat. Yet will anybody say on this account that bread is a better thing than wheat? Suppose a man were going to some far country where no corn grows, which would he take with him, bread or wheat?’ He illustrates this a little, and then proceeds: ‘This is the great advantage which wheat has over bread. Bread may feed us for the moment; but when once eaten it is gone for ever. Wheat, on the contrary, will bear seed; it will increase and multiply; after one crop has had its day, and been reaped, and stored in the barn, and consumed, another crop, provided seed be preserved, will spring up; and so long as the earth itself lasts, so long will corn last also. Thus, too, is it with rules and principles. A rule is like a loaf of bread; it is a ready handy application of a principle, a principle made up for immediate use. By rules we govern and rule our children. We say to them, “Do this,” or “Don’t do that,” because it is easy for them to understand a plain order; but it is not always easy to make them understand the principle or reason of it. When the child, however, comes to be a man, he puts away childish things. He wants a new set of rules adapted to his new state, for the rules of childhood he has outgrown, so that they no longer fit him. The rules which belong to one stage of life are many of them ill-suited to other stages of life.’ And so with different classes of men, and different nations of the world. ‘Therefore God, when He was graciously pleased to give us a law, which was to serve not for one country and one people, but for the whole world, did not give us an endless string of rules to be followed according to the letter in each particular case; but gave us the principles which are the ground and sources of all rules, and from which the rules are to be drawn,’ etc. He applies it to circumcision and other Jewish ordinances, which in form are dropt, in principle retained. ‘Christ skimmed off the cream, as it were, of the law of Moses;’ ‘in the room of burdensome rites and formal rules He gave us the law of faith and love, and thereby made His doctrine a doctrine of principles, living, active, pure, universal and eternal.’ (Compare another fine specimen of Hare’s method, in Ser. on John 7:17—greatly superior to Archer Butler’s on the same text.) It is quite true that a style like this, so remarkable for its simplicity both in the choice of words and the structure of sentences, is adapted for instruction rather than impression. True also, that it has been seldom attained in anything like the same perfection by excellent preachers of the gospel; and some even of those who reached the highest distinction have rather been noted for the elaboration than for the plainness and simplicity of their style. Such, certainly, are the printed sermons of Dr. Chalmers; they bear throughout the marks of elaborate preparation, in respect not merely to the thought embodied in them, but also to the structure of the sentences and the mode of expression, which were in a great measure peculiar to the man himself; nor was there ever probably an orator who, with no sinister object in view, with the simple desire of communicating his thoughts distinctly and forcibly to the minds of others, has formed for himself a diction so broadly marked by the impress of his own individuality. Yet, with all that is peculiar in his language and remote from the speech of common life, there is in it also a singular breadth and power, a living freshness and palpability, which, however unintelligible in particular phrases to unlettered hearers, could not fail to arrest their attention and find its way to their understandings and hearts. It was still, however, far from being a model style for the pulpit, especially in its relation to the general mass of congregations; and now that it is unaccompanied by the striking aspect and attractive presence of the man, it rests as a heavy drawback on the remains of his pulpit ministrations; it is the element which more than anything besides has impaired their permanent value, and rendered them comparatively strange in the homes of our Christian people. Indeed, Chalmers may here be appealed to as an authority against himself. In a review of the sermons of Dr. Charters of Wilton, he dwells upon the appropriateness of a direct and homely style for the pulpit, in so far as regards the audiences which have most commonly to be addressed from it. ‘In the language of Paul,’ says he, ‘it is right that we should be all things to all men, that we may gain some; and if a simple proselyte can be gained to the cause of righteousness by the embellishments of elegant literature, let every attraction be given to the subject which taste and elegance can throw round it. But let it be remembered that these attractions have no influence over the vast majority of the species, and that the only impression of which they are susceptible is that wholesome and direct impression which a clear and simple exposition of duty makes upon the audience. Let it further be remembered, that even among the cultivated orders of society, the appetite for mere gracefulness of expression is sure, in time, to give way to the more substantial accomplishment of good sense and judicious observation; and that in every rightly-constituted mind the importance of what is true must carry it over what is pretty, and elegant, and fashionable.’ The case of Robert Hall admits of a similar explanation. In his grander efforts he was a preacher for a select class rather than for the body of the people. His more famous sermons (at least as printed), though perfectly clear and perspicuous for cultivated readers, could only have been imperfectly understood and appreciated by common audiences, and are, indeed, in point of composition, among the most classical productions in the English language. They are not, however, exactly specimens of his ordinary and especially of his more effective preaching. Speaking of this in his sketch of Hall’s character as a preacher, Foster says, ‘His language in preaching, as in conversation, was in one considerable point better than in his well-known and elaborately-composed sermons, in being more natural and flexible. When he set in reluctantly upon that operose employment, his style was apt to assume a certain processional stateliness of march, a rhetorical rounding of periods, a too frequent inversion of the natural order of the sentence, with a morbid dread of degrading it to end in a particle, or rather small-looking word; a structure in which I doubt whether the augmented appearance of strength and dignity be a compensation for the sacrifice of a natural, living, and variable freedom of composition.’ He adds: ‘a remarkable difference will be perceived between the highly-wrought sermons long since published, and the short ones now printed, which were prepared without a thought of the press; a difference to the advantage of the latter in the grace of simplicity.’ Hall himself was perfectly aware of this difference, and notes it very strikingly in a letter to Mr. Philips (16th April 1812), as connected with his greater success in the proper end of preaching: ‘Blessed be the Lord, my strain of preaching is considerably altered; much less elegant, but more intended for conviction, for awakening the conscience, and carrying divine truth with power into the heart! ‘It is worthy of notice, too, that even in the earlier period of his ministerial life, his judgment pronounced in favour of a style for the pulpit different from his own at the time in his review, for example, of Foster’s Essays, also of Gisborne’s Sermons. He admired the simple force and expressiveness of the Saxon element in our language, as far superior to the Latin for emphasis and impression, and sometimes expressed in a very marked manner his dissatisfaction with the employment of the one class of words when the others might, as he thought, have been with advantage preferred. Thus, in a conversation with Dr. O. Gregory, having observed that the latter had more than once spoken of felicity, Mr. Hall sharply inquired, ‘Why do you say felicity, sir? Happiness is a better word, more musical, and better English, coming from the Saxon.’ Hall, therefore, as well as Foster and Chalmers, may be cited as a witness to this style, as what may be termed the normal or usually appropriate one for the pulpit; and if the bent of native genius, or a regard to the peculiar circumstances of their own position, rendered their example somewhat at variance with their precept, this should rather tend to enhance the value of their deliberate judgment. On the whole, it is of importance to bear in mind that, amid all the diversities in this respect which are inevitable and even proper, the press and the pulpit have their distinctive requirements; and that what may be comparatively perfect as regards the one, may be obviously defective or misplaced as regards the other. In particular, the pulpit demands plainness and simplicity beyond the written page, while the latter is greatly less tolerant of careless and slovenly forms of expression. ‘There are preachers who, being deficient in the intellectual and moral attributes which are essential to those higher forms of popular eloquence which fascinate and impress all classes of the community, are resolved to grasp by illegitimate means at the same visible success. Unenriched with that bearing and intellectual vigour which enable a man to become the master of difficult and unfamiliar provinces of truth; unendowed with the rare genius which can create a heaven and earth of its own, and lift the thoughts of common men into a world whose paths they have never travelled, and whose atmosphere they have never breathed before; destitute of fancy, destitute of imagination, impatient of the labour and painstaking by which alone the power can be acquired of clothing our conceptions in the nervous and beautiful language which the great writers and orators of our country have been accustomed to employ, they utter paradoxes as though they were wonderful revelations of hitherto unknown truth; they distort and disguise thoughts which have been familiar to all mankind for centuries, and try to pass them off as brilliant originalities; they mistake spasmodic vehemence for strength, gaudy decoration for beauty, words of uncouth shape and sound, sentences of grotesque and unnatural structure, for freshness and force of style. Foolish men wonder, wise men are disgusted; but neither the foolish nor the wise will love God better, resist sin more resolutely, understand the Bible more profoundly, serve Christ more zealously, if they listen to preaching of this kind for half a century’ (Dale’s Discourses, p. 333). (2.) Another characteristic that should more or less distinguish the style of pulpit discourses is strength or energy. It is, indeed, a quality which every preacher may be said almost necessarily to aim at, if he has success in his work really at heart; for in seeking that he seeks to persuade; and this again implies the forthputting of such a power in the things spoken as may serve to beget the expectation of prevailing over the indifference or opposition of those who are addressed. The capacity, of course, to effect this will always depend to a large extent on the relative vigour of the preacher’s mind, or what it is as to concentration of thought and depth of feeling; and where these qualities are greatly deficient, it is not possible by mere outward expression to compensate for the want. A striving after what may be called an artificial energy, energy of style or action out of proportion to the elements of strength existing within, is sure to manifest itself in something forced, extravagant, or coarse; and consequently must tend rather to defeat than further the object of the speaker. It is in this respect with mental action as with bodily; the swoop of the arm must be in proportion to the vital force that moves it; and, in like manner, the energy that a preacher can throw into his diction will be determined by the fire which glows within. This is not, however, to be understood as disparaging the necessity for proper care and application; for here, as in other things, even where the native talent exists, it may miss its aim by misdirected efforts, while, by being rightly improved and guided, it may gain immensely both in force and precision. No cultivation can enable a feeble or commonplace mind to clothe its thoughts in a nervous and stirring diction; but where some degree of mental vigour exists, it may serve to give additional point to its expression, and recall the speaker from trying to reach his aim by a less, to a more effective mode of gaining it. A few leading points is all we can at present indicate on the subject. As regards the choice of words, there can be no doubt that much depends on the skill to select the more specific and individualizing, instead of the more general and abstract terms. For it is the invariable tendency of a vivid realization or powerful emotion, to give a concrete form to its objects; to clothe them, as it were, with flesh and blood, and consequently to deal in the language of impersonation and metaphor. ‘The more general the terms are,’ as Dr. Campbell remarks, ‘the picture is the fainter; the more special they are, the brighter. The same sentiment may be expressed with equal justness, and even equal perspicuity, in the former way as in the latter; but as the colouring will in that case be more languid, it cannot give equal pleasure to the fancy, and by consequence will not contribute so much either to fix the attention or to impress the memory.’ A better example could scarcely be given of this than one selected by Dr. Campbell from the Sermon on the Mount, comparing the specific form which it assumed in our Lord’s hand, with what it would become if the specific were changed into the general. ‘Consider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If, then, God so clothe the grass, which to-day is in the field and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more will He clothe you?’ ‘Let us here,’ says Campbell, ‘adopt a little of the tasteless manner of modern paraphrasts, by the substitution of more general terms, one of their many expedients of infrigidating, and let us observe the effect produced by this change. “Consider the flowers, how they gradually increase in their size; they do no manner of work, and yet I declare to you that no king whatever, in his most splendid habit, is dressed up like them. If, then, God in His providence doth so adorn the vegetable productions, which continue but a little time on the land, and are afterwards put into the fire, how much more will He provide clothing for you?” How spiritless,’ Dr. C. justly adds, ‘is the same sentiment rendered by these small variations! The very particularizing of to-day and to-morrow is infinitely more expressive of transitoriness than any description wherein the terms are general, that can be substituted in its room.’ The Scriptures are full of passages to which the same mode of criticism might be applied, passages which derive much of their graphic and touching power from the use made in them of what is specific and individual, and which would in a great measure be lost by a more indefinite form of expression. Thus St. Paul’s commission as an apostle to ‘turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God,’ is much more vivid and expressive than if we had been told of his being sent to instruct the ignorant, and bring them from the love and practice of sin to the ways of righteousness! (Yet the individualizing may fail, if it goes to things too low or minute for the occasion, as in Parr’s Spittal Sermon: ‘Within a few days mute was the tongue that uttered these celestial words, and the hand which signed your indenture lay cold and motionless in the dark and dreamy chambers of death.’ In such an effort at the solemn and pathetic it looks too small to speak of signing an indenture for boys.) A telling effect is often produced by turning, when it can be done without violence to the idiom of the language, a noun into a verb, expressing an action by what properly indicates a personality; as when, with reference to the bloody spectacles of the Roman amphitheatres, the poet speaks through one of his characters of the unhappy creatures who were ‘butchered to make a Roman holiday;’ or when St. Paul speaks of ‘crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts;’ or we may say of the world, when unduly cared for, that it dwarfs the life of religion in the soul. But it is quite possible in such things to go to excess, and in the search for greater strength so to overdo it as to beget a sense of the strained or the ludicrous. The boundary line here between the true and the false, the allowable and the forbidden, is often a delicate one, and writers that may justly be pronounced classical in other respects will sometimes miss it. As for example, Archdeacon Hare, who usually exhibits a fine taste in the use of language, but whose mind was more remarkable for acuteness, sensibility, and polish than for strength, when, in his discourses on the Mission of the Comforter, he speaks of the soul which has yielded itself to earthly influences as ‘having its feelings tarred and feathered with the dust and dirt of the earth,’ and of Christ’s righteousness as being perfectly pure, ‘not covered with scratches and rents like a sheet of old blotting paper.’ The images involved in such expressions are evidently too low for the subjects discoursed of, and the language rather jars on one’s sense of propriety than adds to the vividness of one’s perceptions. It is therefore to be remembered that all individualizing in descriptions does not confer strength, nor all energizings in the choice of words. The nature of the subject, the idioms of language, the very place and occasion, must each be taken into account. Especially must it be so in pulpit discourses, in which a becoming sense of solemnity should be apparent; and modes of speech, which might without impropriety be employed elsewhere, would then readily be felt to be out of place. Thus there is room for the exercise of taste, discretion, and sanctified feeling. The same substantially may be said in regard to the other means requiring to be attended to, in order to the attainment of a nervous diction, such, for example, as the number and arrangement of words in sentences. It is a matter on which preachers should bestow some pains, yet without being finical or elaborate. Any one at all conversant with what constitutes power of expression, knows that a needless multiplication of words always enfeebles the sense, as does also a looseness of structure between one part of a sentence and another; and that the more tersely and pointedly a sentiment can be expressed, the more forcible will it be. Sometimes the effect will be found to depend as much upon the relative adjustment of the words, so as to give the prominent place to those on which the main stress should be laid, as on the kind and number of the words themselves. I should express quite an appropriate and wholesome sentiment, if I should say, ‘It may now and then be our duty to others to suppress the truth, but duty to ourselves always requires us not to utter a falsehood.’ Change the arrangement, however, and see how much more emphatically it becomes as given by Hare: (Guesses at Truth, ii. p. 319.) ‘To suppress the truth may now and then be our duty to others; not to utter a falsehood must always be our duty to ourselves.’ Whately gives the following from Burke as a good example of the same description: (Rhetoric, p. 209.) ‘Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.’ And we may add this from Archer Butler: (i. p. 131.) ‘There is no bond but his own love (namely, in the promises of God), yet that bond is stronger than iron; and He, whom the universe cannot compel, commands Himself.’ In such sentences everything appears in the place it should occupy, to bring out distinctly the idea meant to be expressed. But here also there is a measure to be observed in any kind of public discourse, but especially in preaching. For if brevity and arrangement were constantly pursued, it would make too great a strain on people’s attention; they would come to feel like persons breathing in too dense an atmosphere; or, as Whately puts it, (P. 260.) like animal natures that are confined to food too simply nutritious, requiring more bulk and distension to render it altogether wholesome. Constructions formed with a view to emphasis, if too frequently indulged in, defeat their own object; what is always emphasized becomes monotonous, or loses effect by too palpable a straining after it. In such things, therefore, it is necessary to time oneself; and, indeed, to be little concerned about either special brevity or emphasis, except when particularly anxious to make impression. (3.) Another characteristic, the only other I shall particularly mention, of the style proper to the pulpit, is that of a Scriptural tincture or impress. One can quite easily suppose that a discourse might be nearly all it should be for the pulpit as to simplicity, clearness, pith, and yet sensibly want something which one naturally expects in the discussion of a scriptural theme. There might be, whether from policy or from a regard to the supposed demands of taste, a studied avoidance of the more peculiar phraseology of Scripture, an employment of terms or a structure of sentences that bespoke no sympathy of tone or community of speech with the sacred writers. Mr. Foster, in one of his well-known essays, went so far as to recommend this as a wise accommodation to persons of cultivated taste, that is, to audiences composed chiefly of such, with the view principally of meeting the aversion such persons cherish to the subjects embraced in evangelical Christianity. In his judgment, a nearer approach to the simply literary style would have the advantage of presenting the ideas of the gospel, without in any way offending, but rather gratifying, their literary predilections. But it would be impossible to adopt such a style of discourse without not only refraining from the use of expressions which are the best our language supplies for the ideas they are intended to convey, but also losing that hallowed air which it is important to have thrown around religious topics for refined as well as ordinary hearers of the gospel. Mr. Hall therefore wisely took exception to the view of Foster in his review of the first edition of the Essays. In doing so he stated, that from the very nature of Christianity, which contains an exhibition of doctrine and requires the exercise of graces peculiar to itself, it necessarily originated a phraseology of its own, for the purpose of conveying correct impressions of its great truths and principles; and that this phraseology having been formed under the immediate impulse and guidance of the Holy Spirit, it could not be safely supplanted by another. While he could not applaud the extent to which the use of Scripture language was carried by some pious writers, he could still less throw it so much into abeyance as it would be on the system advocated by Foster. ‘To say nothing,’ he remarks, ‘of the inimitable beauties of the Bible, considered in a literary point of view, which are universally acknowledged, it is the book which every devout man is accustomed to consult as the oracle of God; it is the companion of his best moments, and the vehicle of his strongest consolations. Intimately associated in his mind with everything dear and valuable, its diction more powerfully excites devotional feelings than any other; and when temperately and soberly used, it imparts an unction to a religious discourse which nothing else can supply.’ He properly adds, that the avoidance of Scripture phraseology in religious discourses might not improbably lead to a neglect of the Scriptures themselves, and the substitution of a flashy and superficial declamation in the room of the saving truths of the gospel. Such an apprehension, he also thought, was too much verified ‘by the most celebrated sermons of the French, and still more by some modern compositions in our own language, which usurp that title.’ And he therefore held that ‘for devotional impression a very considerable tincture of the language of Scripture, or at least such a colouring as shall discover an intimate acquaintance with those inimitable models, will generally succeed best.’ Such, undoubtedly, is the right view of the matter; and there is the more reason for adhering to it, as in the Authorized Version, whatever partial errors and minor imperfections belong to it, there is so fine an example of general fidelity to the spirit and meaning of the original, embodied in a style which, for its object, may be said to approach very nearly to perfection. It puts a vocabulary and an idiom into our hand every way adapted to the purpose of its great mission as the revelation of God’s mind and will to men, embalmed also in the pious recollections, endeared by the earliest and most rooted associations of those to whom we speak. We are not, however, to imagine, that in order to preserve this Scriptural tincture it is enough to crowd our discourses with quotations from the different books of Scripture. This may be done, often actually is done, with no other effect than to beget an impression of the preacher’s want of independent thought, or such a sense of satiety as arises from listening to a continuous stream of commonplaces. Such, to a large extent, must be the effect of a kind of preaching which is sometimes practised, running out into a considerable variety of heads of discourse, and under each introducing so many passages of Scripture, that little space is left for more than a few connecting notes or illustrations. Preaching of this description can never tell with much quickening power, or produce lasting impressions. It is never to be forgotten, as one of the unalterable laws of mental agency, that if one is to beget thought and feeling in the bosom of others, there must first be the conscious possession and exercise thereof in one’s own. Here, also, there must be a cause bearing some proportion to the effect; and even passages of Scripture, if they are to be employed as means of moral suasion, must first be identified in the experience of the preacher with his own spiritual life, and used, not to save thought and application, but because they form the most appropriate vehicle of the ideas he has conceived, the convictions, desires, and hopes which he wishes those whom he addresses to share with himself. When so used, it will usually be found that a comparatively small number of direct quotations will be sufficient; their appropriateness rather than their multiplicity will be the more noticeable thing about them; but the Scriptural impress will pervade the discourse and appear in the general tone and character it presents as well as in specific portions of its contents. Very closely allied to this Scriptural tone of thought and expression, though not absolutely identical with it, is the quality in the higher style of ministrations called unction, a quality more easily felt than described. It is, undoubtedly, when existing in any proper degree, not as an assumed pietism, but as a real quality, a soft penetrating influence mingling with the tone and manner of the preacher, and shedding a kind of sweet and heavenly savour over the sentiments he utters. When existing thus, it must, indeed, root itself deeply in the spiritual characteristics of the man, and be in a peculiar manner the reflection of his own inner life. It implies, prior to any manifestation of it in discourse, a certain sensibility of soul, an emotional nature acting under a sense of divine realities, and elevated by close communion with God, and so naturally appearing when coming forth to act upon others with a mingled solemnity and tenderness of spirit, with a freshness of holy life and yearning solicitude of love, which seems allied to heaven rather than to earth, and is felt upon men’s hearts as a sanctifying and subduing power. It will belong to any one very much in proportion as he has not simply acquired the language, but drunk into the spirit of the Bible, and has become penetrated with a sense of its all-important revelations. But it is not to be identified with a soft or mawkish sentimentality; for it has not rarely found its strongest development in men in whom the intellectual or imaginative faculties have held as prominent a place as the emotional, such as Howe, Edwards, Brainerd, Leighton, Thomas à Kempis, Pascal. But with whatever characteristics of mind more peculiarly combined, never can there be either a proper foundation for the quality or a healthful development of its power, except in connection with the intimate knowledge and habitual meditation of the word of God. Enough, perhaps, has been said on the subject of style in pulpit discourses, as it is only the more essential points that can be noticed here. Impression, if not always the immediate, is assuredly the ultimate object to be aimed at, and everything should be considered and done with a special regard to this. The preacher should prepare for his work, and go through his work with the feeling, that if the truths he unfolds are not made to sink into the hearts of his auditors, let the effect otherwise be what it may, he has substantially laboured in vain. So that if he only can combine with the clear enunciation of gospel truth such nervous strength and spiritual unction as shall tend to win an attentive regard to what he says, and make it live in the remembrance of those who hear, the great object is gained to which his efforts should be directed. Such things, however, cannot be expected to come of themselves. They must be sought and striven for if they are to be found. The men who deem themselves superior to this, or who grudge the labour it exacts of them, must be content to remain deficient in the better and more effective qualities of discourse. But it does not follow that they should always work under the felt trammels of the preceding directions, and carefully elaborate every sentence in their discourses with a specific view to the attainment of the different kinds of excellence which have been mentioned. Composing or speaking well undoubtedly goes before composing or speaking quickly, as was justly said long ago by Quinctilian, ‘Bene scribendo fit, ut cito scribatur, non cito scribendo ut bene;’ but when practice has enabled us to get some freedom and skill in the work, the most correct and powerful in form may also be the portions which have actually passed with the greatest promptitude from our hands. But this can only be if the mind has been well seasoned and prepared by previous application for the effort. ‘Shakespeare,’ says Carlyle, (Review of Sir W. Scott’s Works.) ‘we may fancy wrote with rapidity, but not till he had thought with intensity. It was for him to write rapidly at fit intervals, being ready for it. And herein truly lies the secret of the matter; such swiftness of mere writing after due energy of preparation is doubtless the right method; the hot furnace having long worked and simmered, let the pure gold flow out at one gush.’ Yes, but comparatively few can either write or speak under the glow of such a well-formed and regulating impulse, and for the most part there will need to be a certain degree of conscious effort or toil in the actual bodying forth of one’s thoughts, as well as in the earlier attempts made toward a distinct conception and disposition of them. But on this particular point something more will be said in another connection. VII. Elocution, or the delivery of discourses.—This is the last point of a general kind, common alike to all discourses, to which it is necessary to direct attention. And in some respects it is the most difficult of all; the most difficult to be discussed to any good purpose, and not unfrequently also the most difficult for the preacher to study, so as to reach in it some degree of perfection. The difficulty in both cases chiefly arises from the almost infinite diversity of the qualities to which an effective delivery may be ascribed, or which, at least, are capable of entering into it: the same qualities to which we feel disposed to ascribe it in some being precisely those in which others are markedly deficient, who yet attain to the power of an impressive or pleasing delivery. Fine expressive features, a majestic or heavenly aspect, such as partly from nature partly from grace belongs to some men, whose very appearance is a kind of sermon, an appropriate or graceful action, a voice of much compass and energy, capable of expressing by turns the most tender and melting, and the most lively or powerful tones; these are what may be called the leading elements of a constitutional kind in a good delivery; and when they meet in any individual, they seem quite adequate to account for his success, so far as that can be associated with exterior qualifications. They do, undoubtedly, constitute great natural advantages, for which those who possess them may well be thankful; for such a natural dowry is to the public speaker like what being born to a considerable fortune is for the man of business. Yet how many of those who have risen as speakers to the highest eminence, whether in the civil or the sacred arena, have been more remarkable for the want than for the possession of some of those qualities! Demosthenes, whose name has come down to us as the most consummate orator of antiquity, with respect to the delivery as well as to the composition of his speeches, of whom, when observing the burst of admiration which came from a company of persons who simply heard his oration for the Crown read, his rival AEschines is reported to have said, ‘What would you have felt if you had heard him speak it?’—this same Demosthenes is known to have had a rather feeble constitution, and was so defective naturally in the organ of speech, that the nickname βάταλος (stammerer) was applied to him in his youth. It is worthy of notice, too, that the modern British orator, who is commonly regarded as approaching nearest to Demosthenes in some of the higher qualities of excellence, had very marked natural deficiencies of a somewhat similar kind. ‘In most of the external qualities of oratory,’ says Lord Brougham of Mr. Fox, ‘he was certainly deficient, being of an unwieldy person, without any grace of action, with a voice of little compass, and which, when pressed in the vehemence of his speech, became shrill almost to a cry or a squeak; yet all this was absolutely forgotten in the moment when the torrent began to pour.’ Pitt, it is well known, had most of the qualities in this respect which Fox wanted; he had, at least, a dignified bearing and manner, such as commanded the deference and regard of others, though it sometimes wounded their pride; and his voice is said to have been in a high degree sonorous, and capable of giving full effect to all the varieties of style in which he excelled; clearness of statement, close argumentation, cutting sarcasm, and vehement invective. And another person, a contemporary of these great rivals, himself also a man of rare excellence in some departments of oratory, stood much superior even to Pitt in the exterior qualities of an orator; he had them in a sort of ideal perfection. I refer to Erskine, who was possessed of such a noble figure as struck every one with admiration: an expressive countenance, a brilliant and piercing eye, a most graceful and appropriate manner; altogether such, that juries felt it impossible to withdraw their looks from him when once he had secured their attention; and the whole coupled with a voice peculiarly sweet, clear, flexible, adapted alike to earnest pleading, playful humour, and strains of melting pathos. What an accumulation of advantages! Yet great as they were, and great also as was his success in public speaking, neither he nor Pitt come up to that kind of action which was exemplified in Fox, and which, with all his disadvantages of form and gesture and voice, sufficed to render him the most effective speaker of his time in Parliament. In turning from the senate to the pulpit we meet with precisely similar anomalies. The qualities which seem to have commanded for some great distinction, scarcely, if at all, appear in others, who yet have been able to throw into their manner the most powerful attraction. By all accounts, Whitfield, who perhaps more nearly realized than any other in this country the true ideal of a preacher of the gospel, had most of the natural elements that contribute to a good delivery: a prepossessing appearance, a quick, glancing eye, an elastic and powerful voice, and an action full of grace and propriety. The young Spencer of Liverpool, who for the short period of his career made a singular impression, and to whose wonderful power as a preacher Hall has given in one of his notes a very emphatic testimony, appears to have been equally favoured by nature; as he is represented to have been of a most engaging countenance and form; to have had a fine eye and voice, a natural and impressive elocution, which, combined with much devotional fervour and simple earnestness of spirit, threw a quite unusual charm over his preaching; the more remarkable as his sermons, when published after his decease, proved to be rather tame compositions. But when we turn to others, even to some of the most eminent of recent preachers, we find a very scanty distribution of these exterior qualities. Hall had, no doubt, an expressive countenance and a commanding appearance, but he had a weak voice, and next to no action in the pulpit. Contrasting himself with Robinson of Cambridge, whom he succeeded, and at first unfortunately fell into imitating, he said, ‘Mr. Robinson had a musical voice, and was master of all its intonations; he had wonderful self-possession, and could say what he pleased, when he pleased, and how he pleased; while my voice and manner were naturally bad; and far from having self-command, I never entered the pulpit without omitting to say something that I wished to say, and saying something that I wished unsaid.’ Yet, while the natural qualities which tend to secure a pleasing and effective delivery were so imperfectly possessed by Hall, as compared with his predecessor, there can be no doubt that the delivery which was actually the most perfect, the one which most completely riveted the attention of the hearers, and served to impress the sentiments of the speaker most deeply upon their minds, belonged to Hall in a far higher degree than it ever did to Robinson. In like manner, Chalmers, whose manner for earnestness and force was probably never surpassed in the pulpit, owed wondrously little to the merely external gifts of nature. He had a voice firm indeed, and moderately strong, but utterly devoid of music, flexibility, or softness, singularly hard and uniform in its intonations; an eye that expressed nothing but the utter absorption of the speaker in his own theme; and a manner without grace or polish, rarely serving more than to embody the one idea of tremendous energy and vital force. Yet the effect, not merely with the general public, but with the most severe and keen-eyed critics, was of the most impressive kind. One of the latter class, John Lockhart, (In Peter’s Letters.) after pointing to what was defective, and mentioning that ‘his voice was neither strong nor melodious, his gestures neither easy nor graceful, his pronunciation not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost every word he uttered into some barbarous novelty,’ proceeds to say: ‘But, in truth, these are things which no listener can attend to while this great preacher stands before him armed with all the weapons of the most commanding eloquence, and swaying all around him with its imperial rule. . . . I have heard many men,’ he adds, ‘deliver sermons far better arranged in regard to argument, and have heard very many deliver sermons far more uniform in elegance both of conception and style; but most unquestionably I have never heard, either in England or Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and irresistible as his.’ Were we to multiply examples, it would only be to produce fresh diversities in respect to the degrees in which things naturally conducive to a good delivery have been found in preachers of eminence; and even that which might seem the most indispensable of all qualities for the purpose of impression, the power of a sustained pitch of voice, has sometimes failed so much in preachers of great excellence and power, that their most impassioned and solemn passages have had to be delivered in a kind of undertone, little more ‘than an audible breathing. The conclusion, I think, to be drawn from the existence of such diversities is, that an effective delivery depends upon a considerable variety of things; upon qualities partly corporal, partly mental; and that though all or nearly all of them may be united in a single individual, yet in reality they very seldom are so; nor is it at all necessary that they should be so united in order to the attainment of the highest success as to power and impressiveness of action. It would even seem, from the facts connected with the subject, that there is here also a law of compensation which very commonly comes into play; and that it is rarely indeed those who are most fully endowed with the exterior gifts of nature, but those rather who have some marked defects in this respect to encounter and overcome, for whom the highest place is reserved: the very effort in overcoming the difficulty, or triumphing in the face of an obvious disqualification, being thereby made to turn to the account of the speaker, and imparting to his utterances a charm they could not otherwise have possessed. All this must, of course, be understood with certain limitations. A measure even of the more superficial endowments of nature must be held indispensable to even a moderate degree of success. There are voices not only naturally defective, but so inherently bad, so grating, so harsh, or so impotent, that it is not conceivable they could by any application of art or labour be rendered subservient to a good delivery. There are also constitutional temperaments so nervously shy or timid, and features so uncouth in their appearance or grotesque in their movements, that they present difficulties too great to be surmounted by any ordinary amount of industry, although, it may be admitted, such cases are not of very frequent occurrence. They form but a fragmentary portion of the number who pass through the preparatory education and training which in every well-regulated church precede admission into the rank of preachers of the gospel. So that one can hardly say it is from absolute deficiency in the simply natural and physical qualities, if more than a very small proportion of them should fail in the attributes essential to a becoming manner for the pulpit. Yet comparative failures, there can be no doubt, are far from being uncommon. In numberless instances the remark is extorted from Christian congregations, that the discourse they had listened to was Scriptural, well-digested, in substance excellent, and only wanted to be otherwise delivered; but the defect there spoiled all. I have known not a few men of superior talents and learning, apparently of a right spirit, and perfectly capable of thinking out their ideas clearly and giving them adequate expression, lost in a great measure from mere defects of manner. They seemed to have almost everything necessary to make them able ministers of the New Testament, but the somewhat superficial accomplishment of a proper address. This defect will, no doubt, be found in a number of cases to have its root in the mental constitution of the individual—in an imperfect possession of the qualities which form points of sympathy and contact with the popular mind; so that while there may be a considerable dowry of natural and acquired gifts, these somehow, in their mode of application, acquire a set, which wants adaptation to the popular mind, and one which it may become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to rectify. Indeed, the cases generally of a defective or vicious delivery are of a kind that, when once acquired, are not likely to be much improved by such directions and precepts as can be delivered in a class-room or set forth on the printed page. They are so various in themselves, and stand connected with such diversified tendencies or imperfections, that, to be dealt with effectually, they would require to be dealt with individually. Somewhat possibly may be done in the way of prevention, or in guiding beforehand into the right track; and it is mainly with that view that I am going to offer a few suggestions on the subject. Before doing so, however, I would have it to be distinctly understood, that the things to be noticed should not be deemed as in themselves of more than secondary rank. The primary and more essential attributes belong to the state and temper of the soul. They consist in its enlightened views of divine truth, its firm grasp of the principles of a living piety, and its earnest desire to promote the great ends of the Christian ministry. Nothing can possibly compensate for the want of these, as the possession of them is the great spur to excellence. The very spring and heart of all effective preaching may be said to stand in this, feeling with all the soul, and then speaking with all the soul. 1. With this precaution as to the relative importance of things, and omitting all that is of a subordinate and merely circumstantial kind, (There are things of this sort, however, which are well deserving the attention of preachers, such as their mode of entering the pulpit, their bearing in it, their treatment of the congregation: all should be serious, without levity or undue familiarity.) I notice, in the first place, that great care should be taken to acquire a distinct and proper enunciation. If there is any obvious defect here, every effort should be made by a resolute and continued application to get rid of it. For, whatever may be the peculiar style of the preacher, whether it may naturally assume a calm and dignified or a lively and impassioned form, it will always be a great advantage to possess, and a corresponding disadvantage to want, a clear and articulate enunciation. Should the words be uttered in too rapid or mumbling a fashion to be distinctly caught by the audience, should there be any broad or obvious provincialism in the mode of expression, or should the tone of voice have got anything of a monotonous or sing-song manner, there is necessarily so far a grave impediment in the way of success; and if not earnestly grappled with and overcome, it will be almost sure to grow into a confirmed habit. But one of the main difficulties, when such a defect really exists, lies in the unconsciousness of the individual: it is a chance if he ever becomes duly sensible of it. Every one readily gets accustomed to his own manner of speech and action; and nothing is more common than for those who have some marked peculiarities of utterance or gesture to fall into a sort of unconsciousness about them. It is here that the lessons of an elocution teacher may lend important service, not so much by imparting any positive element of success, as by awakening a full consciousness of the evil that exists, showing it to its owner as it appears when transferred to the person of another. In this way a too quick utterance, a bad intonation, a misplacing or neglect of emphasis, a tendency to strike upon some disagreeable key, or to use certain kinds of provincial mannerisms, may be detected before they have settled down into permanent habits, and brought under correction. Even with some pains and help of this description before the work of preaching has been actually commenced, it will rarely happen that nothing more in the way of correction needs to be effected; and young preachers, if they are wise, will keep their ears open to any hints or suggestions that may be tendered them on the subject. It is a point of some delicacy how far settled pastors should encourage animadversions upon their manner in the pulpit, any more than upon the substance of their discourses, though even they should beware of drawing too tight a cordon around themselves; but preachers, who are only, as it were, feeling their way to the right manner of speech and action, should be less scrupulous about being spoken to. And, I repeat, if they are wise, they will for a time keep their ears open. It requires a good deal of wisdom to do so; wisdom grounded in deep humility of spirit, godly simplicity of purpose, unfeigned desire to know the real truth of the case in order to turn it to profitable account; for it is apt to come like a chilling blast upon one’s spirits, after having plied every effort to deliver the divine message according to the best of one’s ability, to be told of some unhappy blemish or imperfection that considerably interferes with the impression. Yet remember, if there be such a hindrance to your proper success, it exists whether you are told of it or not; and in such a case ignorance is emphatically not bliss; nay, ‘open rebuke is better than secret love.’ It is much better to be made acquainted with the evil, when it may still be remedied, though the discovery may haply come as a stroke on the cheek, than that it should be allowed without a struggle to root itself in your being. Preachers should hold it for certain, that for the first four or five years, at least, they are in the position of learners, with not a few things about them that require to be improved and rectified; and that they can attain to the relative perfection of which they may be capable no otherwise than by becoming alive to the evil as well as the good in their characteristics, and striving with manly resolution to make the best of it. Perfection here, as in other things, comes not so much from being originally destitute of faults, as from knowing well what faults exist, and then aiming at their rectification. (See Miller’s Clerical Manners, p. 99. There are also some good remarks on the subject in Beecher’s Lectures on Preaching, Lect. vi.) 2. A second point to be attended to, is to endeavour to obtain naturalness in voice and manner. Nothing in this respect can be quite good which is not natural, or which attempts to put nature to an undue strain, doing some sort of violence to it. In all departments nature must be the foundation of art, in a great degree also the measure of art; and not what, abstractedly considered, may be the best, but what is best relatively to the powers and situation of each individual, that is for him the point especially to be aimed at. Very commonly it is some time before this can be quite surely ascertained. The man must be regarded as unusually skilful and fortunate who gets all at once into the kind of voice and manner which it is most becoming in him to cultivate as a public speaker. In the majority of cases there will probably be found an ideal excellence set up in the mind’s eye, derived more or less from the known characteristics of some particular individual. And from that imitative principle in our nature which has so many important functions to fulfil, we are extremely apt to fancy that what seems natural to others must be the same with ourselves. Hence it so often happens that artificial mannerisms, strained and unnatural modes of speech, which are utterly unknown in youth, spring up in after life, and become all the more inveterate that they are acquired. And if in higher things the way to the right has many times to be sought by returning whence one has set out; if, as has been said, ‘Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, which it is the pride of utmost age to recover’ (Ruskin); so with the earnest student, in regard to what is for him the proper style of manner and speech, his chief endeavour will often need to be directed to the getting rid of the false set he has acquired, and resuming the simple tones, the natural cadences, and unforced gesticulations of childhood. Let every one try to bear in mind, that so far as in these respects he departs from the simplicity of nature, his manner inevitably loses in power and attractiveness; while, by taking nature for his basis, he may make almost incredible advances. On this point the question was asked by one who was himself a distinguished and most useful preacher, (James, in Earnest Ministry, p. 118.) ‘When will preachers learn that preaching is but talking in a louder tone, and with a little more emphasis of manner? Why affect a preaching or a praying tone, a manner of speaking peculiar to the pulpit? The conversational manner, occasionally elevated, animated, and energetic as impassioned passages and feelings may require, is what we want. There are some men who are good talkers out of the pulpit, yet bad speakers in it. How much more acceptable would they be, if they would carry their easy, natural manner of conversation with them into the sacred desk!’ Yet it is possible to go to excess also in this direction; and there is truth in what Adolph Monod says, (Discourse on Delivery of Sermons.) that ‘too great familiarity is almost as great a fault as declamation. It is the tone of good conversation, but this tone ennobled and exalted, which seems to me to be the ideal of oratorical delivery.’ Very much to the same effect is said by Whately: (Rhetoric, p. 364.) ‘It would not be by any means natural to an educated and sober-minded man to speak like an illiterate enthusiast, or to discourse on the most important matters in the tone of familiar conversation respecting the trifling occurrences of the day. Any one who does but notice the style in which a man of ability, and of good choice of words and utterance, delivers his sentiments in private, when he is, for instance, earnestly and seriously admonishing a friend, defending the truths of religion, or speaking on any other grave subject on which he is intent, may easily observe how different his tone is from that of light and familiar conversation, how far from deficient in the dignified seriousness which befits the case! Even a stranger to the language might guess that he was not engaged on any frivolous topic. And yet, when an opportunity occurs of observing how he delivers a written discourse of his own composition, or perhaps the very same on a similar subject, will it not often be perceived how comparatively stiff, languid, and unimpressive is the effect?’ In short, there are two extremes here to be guarded against. On the one side a stiff, formal mouthing, or monotonous manner; on the other, the quite free and easy, or simply conversational tone. The latter is so far better than the former, that it is natural, though wanting the proper force and elevation of tone. And he who can hit the happy medium between the two is the person who here lights upon the proper track. 3. Another thing of great importance, and materially conducive to the end just considered, is getting the mind well prepared on the subject of discourse, at home in it, and alive to it. Every one is sensible of the difference of manner in the person who, whatever be the matter in hand, shows himself to be well acquainted with the topics he discusses, and the same person, perhaps, when conversing about what he neither very well knows nor cares much about. In the former case there is sure to be a precision, a freedom, and a warmth in what is said, of which little or no trace is found in the other. There is no conceivable reason why it should be otherwise in the pulpit. The difference in the two cases may rather be expected to be more marked there, as the speaker is less at his ease, and he can less readily conceal any deficiency in knowledge or interest under which he may labour. If a preacher goes to the pulpit with his ideas imperfectly arranged or dimly apprehended; or if, having all in that respect much as it should be, he has still not got his heart about the subject, so that the matter he has to bring forth may rather be said to lie before him than to be incorporated with his inner man, it is in the nature of things impossible that the mode of delivery can be engaging or impressive. It may well enough be distinct, correct, or possibly animated and vehement, but it can have nothing of true kindling warmth and stimulating power. Undue familiarity with the subject of a discourse may produce substantially the same effect as comparative strangeness to it; everything by frequent repetition has lost its freshness to the preacher’s mind, and become in a manner stale. Indeed, whatever has the effect of keeping the speaker himself at some distance from his theme, of rendering it either faint to his apprehension or dull to the feelings of his heart, cannot but in a like proportion affect the manner in which he discourses of it to others. And no one who has any experience in preaching can have failed to perceive how differently in point of naturalness, life, and energy he has spoken what was perhaps to a nearness the same discourse at one time, compared with the tone and spirit which characterized his delivery of it at another. It is necessary, therefore, to remember that no general propriety of manner, nor even this coupled with a clear and accurate knowledge of the whole matter of discourse, will be sufficient to ensure, regularly and unexceptionably, a mode of delivery that will meet either the expectations of the hearers or the desires of the preacher himself. Much will still depend upon his state of mind at the time; and only when, by previous meditation and prayer, this has been brought into suitable accordance with the message he has to deliver, will the words he speaks pass from him with due emphasis and power. No art in the mere modulation of speech, .no straining or energy of action, can ever make up for the want of a heartfelt appreciation of the things discoursed of, or a rightly attempered frame of mind. 4. A further point which calls for some consideration and adjustment, is the adaptation of the mode of delivery to the precise character of the discourse, or particular portions of the discourse, delivered. Varieties in the one naturally call for corresponding varieties in the other. If the discourse were altogether of an explanatory or expository nature, it would not do to be spoken with the same tone and tension of manner, which might be quite suitable and appropriate if one were endeavouring to illustrate and enforce a principle, or exhort to the performance of some arduous duty. But a pulpit discourse will, in general, only in part belong to any specific kind; in some portions it will aim more immediately at the enlightenment of the understanding; in others, at the excitation of the feelings, or the guidance and direction of the will. It should therefore differ materially in its structure from an essay, which, calling into play the intellect or taste merely, may preserve throughout an almost unchanging equability of tone. The other requires a certain measure of variety; variety, first, in the method and style of discourse, and then somewhat of a like variety in the manner, which is associated with the delivery of its several parts. If the whole should be gone through in one strain, the attention of the audience will inevitably flag; a sense of satiety or weariness will be produced, and the preacher may not improbably come to be viewed much in the light of a performer who has a certain taskwork of duty to overtake, rather than of one who has to play skilfully on an instrument, so as, if possible, to touch the various sensibilities, and work into proper harmony of thought and feeling with himself the minds of those he addresses. There should therefore be an effort to vary the manner according to the nature of the discourse; and to time oneself as to strength and energy, by interposing quieter and calmer passages between those requiring somewhat of sustained and vigorous action. Sometimes even brief pauses are advisable, if the discourse is of such a nature as to demand continuous thought and sustained application; it being no small part of practical wisdom to take one’s breath at the right time, and thereby give seasonable relief both to speaker and hearer. 5. The remarks hitherto made have had reference to delivery in general, whether the discourse may be simply in the pastor’s mind or lying in a written page before him. Nothing further has been implied than that the matter he is going to address to his congregation has been made the subject of previous thought and consideration, so as to qualify him for speaking intelligently and feelingly about it; without which, directions as to manner will be of little moment. But it would be improper to quit this branch of the subject without paying some attention to the question as to the relative merits of preaching from or without manuscript; or as it is very commonly put, preaching, or simply reading sermons. If one were to be guided by authorities on the art of public speaking, the question would be easily decided; for while I know of many writers on this art who have spoken very decidedly against reading discourses, I know of none worth mentioning who gives the preference to the opposite practice. Campbell says: (Lectures on Pulpit Eloquence, p. 159.) ‘That a discourse well spoken has a stronger effect than one well read, will hardly bear a question. From this manifest truth I very early concluded, and was long of opinion, that the way of reading sermons should be absolutely banished from the pulpit. But from further experience I am now disposed to suspect that this conclusion was rather hasty.’ He goes on to state that he found so very few attained to excellence in speaking their discourses, while a considerable number read tolerably, that he deemed it, upon the whole, preferable to have the plan, which in itself was inferior, and admitted only of a respectable mediocrity, generally adopted; not, therefore, because he thought it better, but because a certain degree of success in it was easier. Blair, with all his coldness and moderation, gives his decision in a tone still more decided. He says: (Lectures, ii. p. 297.) ‘The practice of reading sermons is one of the greatest obstacles to the eloquence of the pulpit in Great Britain, where alone this practice prevails ‘(alone in Blair’s time, though far from being so now). ‘No discourse which is designed to be persuasive can have the same force when read as when spoken. The common people all feel this, and their prejudice against this practice is not without foundation in nature. What is gained hereby in point of correctness is not equal, I apprehend, to what is lost in point of persuasion and force.’ In a former generation, Bishop Burnet spoke of the practice as one ‘peculiar to the English nation, and endured by no other.’ So distasteful was it on its first general introduction there, that Charles II issued a proclamation forbidding it as ‘a supine and superficial way of preaching,’ as it was characterized, which had lately sprung up, and ought to be laid aside. Whately, in more recent times, refrains from pronouncing a judgment on the comparative advantages of the two methods with reference to the pulpit; for he will hardly allow himself to regard it as an open question, whether sermons should be read or not. He takes it for granted that they will be read, and contents himself with giving some directions which might help preachers to attain to a style of reading that would approximate preaching as to apparent naturalness and real power. But his very speech betrays how he felt as to the relative tendencies of the two modes, and which of them he thought best calculated in itself to produce effect. ‘It has been already remarked,’ he says, ‘how easy it is for the hearers to keep up their attention when they are addressed by one who is really speaking to them in a natural and earnest manner, though the discourse, perhaps, may be encumbered with a good deal of repetition, awkwardness of expression, and other faults incident to extemporaneous language; and though it be prolonged for an hour or two, and yet contain no more matter than a good writer could have clearly expressed in a discourse of half an hour, which last, if read to them, would not, without some effort on their part, have so fully detained their attention.’ Of course, therefore, other things being equal, the speaker has a great advantage over the reader for sustaining the interest of his auditors, and gaining the practical ends he aims at. Hare, who was more free, and less trammelled in his judgment on such matters by conventional arrangements, leaves no room to doubt how he thought upon the subject: (Guesses at Truth, vol. ii. p. 214.) ‘What do our clergy lose,’ says he, ‘by reading their sermons? They lose preaching; the preaching of the voice in many cases, the preaching of the eye almost always.’ And to name but another, the late, excellent Mr. James very earnestly dissuades from the practice of reading: (Earnest Ministry, p. 124.) ‘Nothing,’ he says, ‘can be conceived of more likely to repress earnestness and to hinder our usefulness than this method becoming general. True it is, that some preachers may rise up, who, like a few living examples, may in despite of this practice attain to eminence, to honour, and to usefulness, such as rarely falls to the lot of ministers in any denomination; but this will not be the case with the greater number, who, having no commanding talent to lift them above the disadvantage of this habit, will find few churches willing to accept their dulness for the sake of the accuracy with which it is expressed. And who can tell how much greater our greatest men would be if they delivered their sermons without their notes?’ (It is worthy of note also that the introduction of the practice among the English Nonconformists was not of very happy omen. ‘In the course of the second period (that is, near the close of last century), it became the fashion among the Dissenting ministers to read their sermons. Brief outlines of the sermon had been made use of by some of the Nonconformists to assist the memory; a few had the whole placed before them, which they looked at occasionally; but the greater part made themselves masters of the subject, and preached without notes. By degrees reading slipt into general use with those who wrote their discourses at full length, not only among the Presbyterians, but the Independents too; and there were few of the London ministers in either of these denominations who did not pore very much over their notes. Towards the close of the period the practice was at its height. Not to use notes was at that time accounted methodistical; and in the metropolis, reading was the evidence of Dissenting regularity’ (Bogue and Bennett’s Hist, of Dissenters, vol. ii. p. 263).) Certainly, as regards the general feeling in congregations, at least in Scotland, there is a strong advantage on the side of the non-reading preacher. He takes the course which appears to them both natural and proper, so that the way is in a manner open for him to make such impression on their minds as the matter with which he is charged is calculated to produce. With the person, however, who reads his discourses there is, first of all, a repugnance to be overcome; he has to fight his way, in a manner, to a favourable hearing, to confront and triumph over an acknowledged prejudice. All must admit this to be so far a disadvantage were the feeling in question nothing but a prejudice without any valid grounds to rest on; for there are prejudices which wise and prudent men will never fail to respect, which apostles even were obliged to humour in order that they might not preach in vain, or labour in vain. But I doubt if, in the present case, the feeling should be treated simply and in all cases as a prejudice. Even Blair says: ‘It has its foundation in nature,’ as, indeed, the general practice of mankind in regard to public speaking clearly evinces. It springs from a prevailing and deep-rooted conviction, that when men thoroughly in earnest undertake to speak to their fellow-men on a subject of importance, they should be able to give expression to their views and feelings without the formal apparatus of a book, and with the freedom and elasticity of a spoken address. It undoubtedly has also, in this country at least, the general testimony of results on its side; for the preaching which has usually been most appreciated by the better portion of the community, and which has yielded by much the largest harvest of spiritual good, is undoubtedly preaching in the stricter sense, preaching as contradistinguished from reading; the latter also, in many parts of the country, being associated with sad memories of cold and lifeless ministrations. And there is, I suspect, in the better class of our Scottish population, a deeper and more sacred feeling still at the bottom of their dislike to read sermons. They have elevated views of the ministry of the gospel when it appears to be prosecuted in an earnest and believing spirit. He who comes forth in such a spirit to discharge its duties, especially in the preaching of the gospel, is regarded by them as the bearer of a message from the Lord; not as if he had any new tidings to divulge, or truths never heard before to communicate, but because he has on his spirit portions of the word of God to unfold in its proper meaning and various application, so that, relatively to their state and sense of obligation, it comes to them as a fresh exhibition of divine truth, a new opening to them of the counsel of Heaven. Impressed with such a conviction, and justly impressed with it, they cannot understand how that should possess anything like the character of a message to them from the upper sanctuary which they see the minister reading calmly from a paper before him. This presents to their view the aspect of an essay composed, or a line of argumentation pursued, by the reasoning faculties of the man; a thing for the family or the closet rather than for the house of God, where the special presence of the Spirit is expected, and where living communications should be ever passing between heaven and earth. They judge, of course, from appearances. You cannot get them to throw themselves back upon the pastor’s study, and consider whether there may not, for a well-spoken discourse, have been as much previous preparation going on there as for a read one, and whether the one kind of preparation may not have been as much made under the guidance of the Spirit as the other. They judge, as I have said, in great measure from the appearance; the one mode of delivering the testimony of God has much more than the other the aspect of a real message, a direct dealing with their souls about divine things; nor can they easily persuade themselves that the pastor has the interests of salvation properly at heart if he cannot discourse to them with some freeness on the subject. And I fear, if the practice of reading should become altogether or nearly universal, it would go far to undermine the salutary feeling of which I speak. Sermons read from the pulpit will come to be regarded much in the light of a kind of book literature, and the idea cease to be entertained of its being one of the appointed channels through which the Spirit maintains living intercourse with the souls of men. Taking all these things into account, considering also the difficulty, with all possible care and application, of acquiring a manner in reading which shall approximate speaking in naturalness and life, considering further the almost inevitable loss it involves of what Hare calls the preaching voice, and especially the preaching eye, I have no hesitation in giving my decided and earnest recommendation in favour of preaching without manuscript, as in itself, and apart from any peculiar circumstances of place or otherwise, the method that ought to be preferred. So clearly does this appear to me to be the right course, that there should always, I think, be strong and somewhat special reasons to warrant a departure from it. I am by no means disposed to say such reasons may not exist, and would deprecate any stringent regulation on the subject, absolutely proscribing the use of papers in the pulpit. Sometimes the character of the congregation may furnish an adequate reason, namely, when it is almost wholly composed of persons of much culture and polish, naturally disposing it to prize—to prize, perhaps, unduly— the correct or the beautiful in thought and expression above the emotional and impulsive; in such a case it may be usually the wisest course to adopt the practice of reading. The great majority of preachers, even of such as are distinguished by their powers of speech, might find this the mode best adapted to render their ministrations most acceptable and useful to the class of minds they have to deal with. Sometimes, again, the occasion may furnish an adequate reason, as when the discourse to be delivered is on some topic on which it is desirable to bring forward a considerable amount of specific information, or to treat it with much precision of thought and language; in that case few congregations would be so unreasonable as to object to the free use of written preparations, for it is rather the solidity of the matter, and the well-weighed, carefully-balanced expression that is given to one’s views respecting it, by which the discourse is to succeed in its aim, than its power to interest and move the feelings. Still, again, there may be reasons in the mental constitution of the preacher himself rendering it every way probable, if not absolutely certain, that his manner of delivery, on the whole, would be rather injured than improved by the disuse of his notes. The case of Dr. Chalmers may be referred to as one of the most noticeable examples in this class. His cast of thought so deeply impressed itself on his style, and that style was so much more adapted for written composition than for extemporaneous address, that his discourses, in anything approaching their actual form, could scarcely have been delivered otherwise than by reading from the manuscript. Yet their vehement and persuasive oratory was so intimately connected with the very form in which they were produced, that one could hardly have advised the alteration of the form in order simply to get rid of the manuscript; the more especially as in his case, more perhaps than that of any other great exemplar of eloquence, there was such an absorption of the man in the subject, that it seemed much a matter of indifference whether he read or not. The rapt enthusiasm of the speaker made everything external be forgotten; and as it was clear that the eye moved too much in a region of its own to keep up the play of any direct interchange of feeling with the audience, the effect was not sensibly marred by its resting so much on the written page. His case, however, was altogether peculiar; it must be excepted from the common category; for as few could read like him in the pulpit as write like him at the desk. Most commonly, when reasons are drawn from the personal idiosyncrasy of the preacher, they turn upon the felt difficulty, the practical impossibility, of getting the subject of discourse in the mind without writing the discourse in full, and then committing it to memory, so that it must be much the same thoughts and expressions which in either case are presented to the minds of the congregation; and as to the preacher’s own consciousness, there is little difference between the discourse as spoken or as read. As, moreover, the preparation necessary to speak it costs much time and irksome labour, and the actual speaking is attended with manifold anxieties, not to say risks of failure, which are avoided by the smoother course of reading, he deems himself justified in resorting to this latter method, and thinks it reasonable that the grounds of his decision should prevail also with his audience. I have no doubt that there are persons of good natural abilities, and in many respects so qualified for the work of the ministry, that it were to be regretted if the Church should lose their services, who yet, from defect of memory or from nervous temperament, find the work of preaching without manuscript so beset with difficulties, that the other practice appears to them the only one properly within their reach. It is also possible, by due pains and well-directed effort, to get into a mode of reading so easy and graceful and impressive, that it resembles much a spoken address; for in this respect great diversities undoubtedly exist. It is possible, yet one cannot say frequent; and there are two considerations which should have much weight in disposing candidates for the ministry to be cautious in giving way to such a style of thinking. One is, that the practice of reading discourses ministers so readily to the love of ease, that it is almost sure to call forth by degrees less application, to grow less like speaking rather than the reverse; the manuscript, when once fairly trusted to, will be increasingly depended on, and at last, perhaps, slavishly adhered to. The other consideration is, that unless one sits resolutely to the work of studying his subject with the view of being prepared to preach without notes, he scarcely knows what he can do in the matter, or what, in the long run, would be the actual cost to him in time and labour. The greatest difficulties lie here at the threshold; they call for vigorous and persevering application at the outset; but if this is given they gradually diminish, till an amount of work is done, and done with comparative ease, which at one time would have appeared incredible to the person himself who succeeds in accomplishing it. Take as an example the case of Thomas Scott the commentator. In a letter to a country clergyman, Mr. Coffin, published along with many others so late as 1845, Mr. Newton sought to stimulate and encourage his correspondent by the experience of Scott. ‘Mr. Scott,’ he says, ‘is perhaps the most ready and fluent extempore preacher amongst us; yet when he agreed with me upon other points, he still insisted that he should never be able to preach without a book. For some time he read his prayer in his chamber with his wife, and had not confidence to let even her hear him without a form. . . . One day he was so taken up that he could not possibly write his homily. He was forced to speak; and was not a little surprised when some of the people told him they hoped he would read no more, for they had never heard him so well before. From that time he laid his notes aside.’ Indeed, he went to the opposite extreme, of not only laying aside notes, but ceasing to write them; he simply premeditated his subject, and used what words and illustrations came to his hand at the moment of delivery, an extreme I by no means recommend. But in Mr. Scott’s case its injurious tendencies would probably be in good measure counteracted by the vigour of his understanding, his uncommon acquaintance with Scripture, and the constant exercise of his pen in other departments of labour. I point to his example mainly in proof of the success which often attends the resolute endeavour to overcome the difficulties that seem to render progress in the line I recommend all but impracticable. For those, however, who resolve to make the attempt of preaching without manuscript, various methods may be adopted, according to their own peculiar gifts and predilections. In every case, where absolute necessity does not prevent, there should be careful preparation. But this, with some, may take the form of fully thinking out the subject in their mind, with ‘comparatively little in the way of writing, which, by practice, may be carried to the extent of arranging almost every line of thought and illustration, many a paragraph also of the discourse, while still leaving the mind at some liberty to follow the impulse of the moment, and to speak as the Spirit may give them utterance. This is the plan that has been followed by some of the most eminent preachers, as well in former as in present times. Of Mr. Hall, for example, we are told by Dr. Leifchild in his memoirs: ‘I learnt from him that most of his great sermons were first worked out in thought, and inwardly elaborated in the very words in which they were delivered. He ridiculed the delusion of those who supposed that the perorations of his sermons were delivered impromptu, observing that they were the most carefully studied parts of the whole discourse.’ Or the method may be adopted of writing the introduction in full, one or more of the heads of discourse, with select portions of other parts; and, for the rest, merely placing the thoughts in order, adjusting the materials, but leaving the language to the moment of delivery. This method has the advantage of obliging the mind to have its course of thought and illustration very distinctly marked out beforehand, and also of providing it with a certain amount of suitable matter for the occasion, while at ever-recurring intervals it gives scope to the free expression of thoughts and feelings as they arise. Only, as in the former case, it will certainly require, to be managed with success, a considerable degree of self-possession, with clearness of vision and readiness of utterance; otherwise there is sure to appear at particular parts a hesitancy, a confusion of thought, or perhaps a tendency to fall into repetitions. With the requisite amount of talent and adequate preparation such things may be prevented, but they will need to be well guarded against. Still another method has been adopted by some, that of writing the discourse throughout, then reading it carefully over once and again so as to get the entire train of thought on the memory, and many of the particular expressions also in which it is unfolded; yet without attempting to have it committed verbatim, which, from experience, they find to be irksome and embarrassing. When such a plan can be followed without material inconvenience, that is, when it suits the preacher’s mental habits, it may be followed with advantage, combining, as it does, careful preparations with a rational freedom in the use of them. But the instances are not, perhaps, very numerous in which it will be found practically available. For, generally speaking, when one has been at the pains of writing all beforehand, the mind will not be satisfied with itself if it does not also present its thoughts in the same form to others; and a conscious departure from that form in the delivery will usually have the effect of disconcerting the preacher, and of rendering his manner hesitating and embarrassed. It will only succeed where there is such a want of faithfulness and precision in the memory as convinces the individual of his utter inability to adhere closely to what he has written, and at the same time a conscious need of the support it provides. But, undoubtedly, the more common method, and the one that will probably be found in the great majority of cases to be most practicable, is to write, if not absolutely all the discourse, yet all that is of much moment, and so far to commit it to memory as to be able to deliver it with substantial correctness from the pulpit, with nothing more, perhaps, than a brief outline of the train of thought. At first, no doubt, this will usually be accompanied with a sense of irksomeness in the effort to get such a mass of preconceived matter upon the mind, and a feeling of restraint in uttering it. But by exercise these gradually give way; the manner of composition adapts itself more and more closely to the manner of delivery, and the memory both acquires more easily, and with more fidelity retains, what has been written, so that the preacher comes to write much as he would speak, and to speak much as if he was not adhering to any pre-arranged form of words. People who have not fairly tried this method can have no adequate idea of the extent to which it can be realized, and of the indefinite nearness to which the utterance of the speaker can be made to approach in style and spirit the habits of the writer. The degree of preparation, however, which has now been recommended, is sometimes thought too much, has even been stigmatized by persons of some standing and experience as at variance with the apostolic idea of preaching, and incompatible with the true power of the pulpit. It is done particularly in the spirited treatise of Dr. Arthur, The Tongue of Fire. The treatise contains not a little that is excellent and deserving of serious consideration, but is somewhat one-sided, looking at the subject from what may be called more especially the Methodist point of view, as if the end of preaching were almost exclusively conversion, and the minister had only to aim at the bringing of souls to Christ. And this, as formerly stated, is so very fundamental and primary an object in the ministerial calling, that I regret having to say anything that may even seem to take off the mind from it, or to lessen its relative importance. It is immensely the greatest, but still it is not the whole; and to contemplate it as the exclusive object of a minister’s anxiety and labour, is not, I am convinced, the best way of securing even that, as it naturally leads to the undue elevation of some elements of power, and the comparative or total neglect of others. Contemplating the matter chiefly from the point of view now mentioned, the writer in question states it to be the right feeling for every one who goes to preach the gospel, after having been at some pains to think over and digest the truth: ‘I am here to say just what God may enable me to say; to be enlarged or to be straitened, according as He may be pleased to give utterance or not.’ (P. 322.) And with this feeling, he says, ‘all appearances ought to correspond. It ought to be manifest that, while he has done what in him lies to be thoroughly furnished, he is trusting for utterance to help from above, and not ensuring it by natural means, either a manuscript or memory. We put these together, because we do not see that any distinction really exists between them. The plea that the manuscript is more honest than memoriter preaching has some force, but certainly not much, for he that reads from his memory is to the feeling and instinct of his hearers as much reading as he who reads from his manuscript. In neither case are the thoughts and feelings gushing straight from the mind, and clothing themselves as they come. The mind is taking up words from paper or from memory, and doing its best to animate them with feeling. Even intellectually the operation is essentially different from speaking, and the differenceis felt by all. For literary purposes, for intellectual gratification, both have a decided advantage over speaking; but for the purposes of pleading, entreating, winning, and creating a sense of fellowship, for impelling and arousing, for doing good, speaking is the natural, is the Creator’s instrument.’ He admits that other modes may be, and have been, blessed for good; but still he says of reading, either from the manuscript or from memory, that it is not Scriptural preaching. ‘It is not ministering after the mode of Pentecostal Christianity; it is a departure from Scriptural precedent, an adoption of a lower order of public ministrations, and a solemn declaration that security of utterance gained by natural supports is preferred over a liability to be humiliated by trusting to the help of the Lord.’ With much esteem for the author of these sentiments, I yet feel constrained to say, that the passage appears to me to contain quite false assumptions, false alike in the psychology and in the Scriptural idea of the subject, and is much fitted, if reduced to practice, to lead to disappointed hopes and unsatisfying results. First of all, it is ridiculous to say that to speak from memory what has been committed to it beforehand is all one with reading, as in both cases alike the mind can only take up the words which lie before it, and do its best to animate them with feeling. Can a sentiment not be impregnated with the feelings of the heart which is presented to it even in the most definite form through the memory? What, in that case, would become of the great Pentecostal address itself, one half of which and more consists of Scripture quotations, and which, doubtless, came into Peter’s lips through his memory? Shall we say of that portion of his address, that he was only reading from memory, and doing what he could to animate it with feeling, while the other portions alone were what he uttered from the Spirit? But why may not the memory, as well as any other part of the mental constitution, the reason, for example, or the feelings, be used by the Spirit to bring thoughts and words seasonably to the preacher’s mind? If I study and digest my subject carefully beforehand, as Dr. Arthur advises, I necessarily exercise my reasoning powers and my memory too; and in doing so I necessarily employ natural means to ensure, so far as such means can ensure, a suitable and appropriate command of thought and expression when I actually preach. But, on Dr. Arthur’s principle, this is to distrust the Spirit; it is to resort to natural means for what He alone is competent to give, so that to refrain from all special preparation beforehand would be the legitimate result of such a mode of contemplation; the whole should be left to the voluntary impulse of the moment. This, however, is simply fanaticism; it is to confound the Spirit’s ordinary influence with a supernatural afflatus, given independently, and apart from the exercise of the mind’s own faculties. Even inspiration, the highest form of spiritual influence, was not so arbitrary and independent in its action. It, too, gave free scope to the memory and the reason, as well as the emotional faculties of the soul; and on various occasions we find both prophets and apostles, when speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, reiterating, not the thoughts merely, but the precise words of entire sentences and paragraphs of former messengers of God. If they could thus serve themselves of other men’s words and ideas—serve themselves, of course, through memory—while not the less speaking under the power of the Spirit, surely I, speaking under an inferior action of the same power, may still more make a similar use of my own. But again, even if it were the case, which it is not, St. Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost proceeded, apart from the natural use and exercise of the memory, in recalling previous trains of thought and forms of expression, we should not have been warranted to conclude that the employment of memory, or of any other natural faculties, was thereby disparaged in the future preaching of the gospel. It is an essential and general characteristic of the Spirit’s work, that He adapts Himself to the laws of mental action in those through whom He works, and to the circumstances in which for the time they happen to be placed. Beyond all question, the circumstances of the day of Pentecost were to a large extent peculiar, both as regards speakers and hearers. What mainly was needed on that memorable occasion was conviction, and for this, only the exhibition of a few simple facts respecting the person of Jesus, His death and resurrection, brought to bear with power on the hearts and consciences of men: this was all. And accordingly the speech of Peter on the occasion consisted mainly of a brief rehearsal of the great facts of the case, with the application of a few ancient prophecies referring to them, followed by a personal appeal to the individuals addressed. For a speech of that description, not only no previous writing, but not even any special forethought and meditation of the subject, could be required. But look to other apostolic speeches, to St. Paul’s speech, for example, before the Areopagus, where not so much the feelings as the reason of the audience had to be won, do we not feel in reading it as if we had to do with a compactly arranged and most carefully thought out discourse? Or look to the two accounts he gives of his own conversion, though traversing substantially the same ground, yet each of them admirably adapted to the different audiences he addressed, and the more immediate objects he had in view: all showing what varieties the Spirit can employ in the style and mode of address, and consequently in the faculties called into play for its conception and utterance. Dr. Arthur himself, in another part of his treatise, admits this, and apparently forgets at one place what he has written at another. (P. 255.) ‘This fire,’ he says, ‘maybe combined with any form of talent, and with any style of composition. Who has not seen a tranquil man, whose tones seldom rose to passion, and never went beyond the severest taste; whose thought, demeanour, phrases, all breathed a gentle and quiet spirit; and yet, with the placid flow of instruction or exposition, a heavenly influence stole silently along; stole into the veins of the heart, diffusing a sacred glow, a desire to be holier, a sense of nearness to God, a refreshing of all the good principles within you, a check and a restraint on all the evil? Again, you have seen a man, who begins with some calm argument, passes to another point, closely reasoned, which again leads him to another well-pointed stroke at some error or prejudice; no by-play of imagination, no home-thrust to your heart, but one steady grapple with your intellect, a discourse which would be pronounced dry were it not for a mysterious power which accompanies it,’ and so on with several other varieties of mental action and well-constructed discourse. But I wonder how many such discourses one might reasonably expect to hear on the author’s view of the Spirit’s influence and the preacher’s duty. Depend on it they will seldom be met with, except in connection with the sedulous employment of natural means, as well as humble trust in spiritual agencies; and memory will have its full share in the matter, calling up the various forms of thought and modes of expression, which had previously been cogitated as best fitted to promote the end in view. The more, too, that the world advances in knowledge and refinement, the higher that any particular congregation stands in intellectual culture, the greater always is the variety of talents that must be called into play, and the more may the Spirit be expected to make use of the treasures of memory, as well as other resources, to act upon the soul. For the classes that evangelistic agents or itinerant preachers have chiefly to deal with, a comparatively small range of topics may be sufficient; and the power to be put forth has only to rouse insensibility and impress the heart. Very commonly in such cases, the bluff, off-hand, earnest, but coarse and rambling speaker is the instrument best adapted to the purpose. But the same speaker might produce only disgust elsewhere; and hence it is that the most eminently useful of that class of preachers, within a limited circle, very rarely succeed as pastors of regular congregations. Still further, the view against which we argue is not borne out, but, on the contrary, opposed to established facts. No doubt there are facts in abundance to support the view in question so far. If the case had been put conditionally, if it were said that preaching memoriter may be, and often is, only a sort of reading, the mind being chiefly taken up with its effort to remember what was written, and able to do nothing more than utter with formal correctness its prepared sentences, one could not have questioned the fact, and as little commended the practice in that form of it as a proper specimen of apostolic preaching. But if properly cultivated, it both may and will exist in a very different form, and also be productive of far other results. When the method is followed as it ought to be, that is, when the discourse has been prepared with a suitable adaptation to the preacher’s own manner, as well as to the audience he has to address, and has been thoroughly got upon the mind and heart of the preacher, there will usually be a marked difference in his mode of delivering it from what would have been the case if it had been simply read from his notes; a difference such that the auditors cannot with any certainty infer how much is due to previous preparation, how much to the feeling and impulse of the moment. Did not He who spake as never man spake Himself repeat over again on several occasions the very words He had uttered before? But if so, wherein did this differ from preaching memoriter? It is notorious, also, that some of the most gifted preachers, not excepting those who were not in the habit of writing out their discourses, Whitfield for example, have been known usually to preach with most effect when for the second or third time they spoke from the same text. The reason is that they had then come to obtain a more thorough command of the subject, so that the thoughts and words came more promptly to the call of memory. Were I to refer to my own observation and experience, I should have no hesitation in saying, that the discourses which I have listened to with most profit, which have raised the deepest spiritual feeling, and which manifestly bore with them the largest unction from the Holy One, were discourses which came from the preacher, indeed, with the greatest apparent freedom, but which I knew to have been carefully prepared beforehand; yet surely, operating as they did, they were in the strictest sense the Creator’s instrument of working. I have seen whole audiences moved by such discourses as I have never seen them moved by any others. And in the course of my own ministry, I have noted that the occasions on which the most distinct benefit was reaped, have with few exceptions been those in which my own preparations had been most careful and complete. But in saying this, is anything indicated at variance with the idea, that only when the Spirit accompanies the efforts of the preacher does the word go forth with power? Would I, or any one who has experience in the work of God, ever dream of making human preparations independent of the Spirit? No, assuredly; it is still that Spirit alone which quickeneth, quickeneth the soul of the preacher to utter aright the things of God, as well as the souls of the people to hear them aright. Without the Spirit breathing as a divine power through his heart, and giving life to his words, let those words be ever so correct in themselves, and ever so fitly remembered and spoken, they will be found at most as a pleasant sound to the ear, or a gratification to the intellect; but with no saving or permanent results. Yes, the Spirit is the one effective agent; and only in so far as we are in communion with His fulness of life and blessing can our pulpit ministrations proceed either with comfort to ourselves or with spiritual profit to those who wait on them. My earnest counsel and advice, therefore, to those who are entering on the work of the ministry, is, Let no one dissuade you from the painstaking and careful preparation of your discourses. Your manner of delivery need not suffer by it, will not suffer, if you go rightly about the work; and your matter will assuredly gain. The cases are few, indeed, of those who can adequately minister to stated congregations without such preparatory work, compared with those who indispensably require it. But beware of trusting unduly to it; as if, when you have written well, and delivered accurately what you have written, nothing more were needed. Believe, rather, that nothing can be done to purpose unless the Spirit of God mingle with your spirit, and give effect to the words you speak. And even as regards the method, do not tie yourselves up to a specific line. In practical appeals especially, and the improvement of particular points, give yourself up occasionally to the impulse of the moment. And at what may be called extra services, and in district prayer meetings, cultivate a freer manner of speech, learn to speak from premeditation merely, not from written preparations. And thus, in this respect also, becoming all things to all men, disusing at one time what you feel you must use at another, you may the better hope to succeed in the great object of your calling. See some good remarks and advices in Bautain’s Art of Extempore Speaking, as to the details of manner, the management of bodily feelings, voice, etc. And on the matter of careful preparation, the following statements of Lord Brougham are deserving of consideration; the more so, as he was himself regarded as one of the readiest as well as most effective speakers of his time in Parliament. It may be added, that Robert Hall, on hearing the sentiments read from the ‘Inaugural Address,’ said, ‘Brougham is quite right, sir. Preparation is everything. If I were asked what is the chief requisite for eloquence, I should reply, preparation; and what the second, preparation; and what the third, preparation.’ Then, with a sigh, ‘If I had prepared more for the pulpit, I should have been a much better preacher.’ (Greene’s Reminiscences of Robert Hall, p. 138.) After stating that generally the ancients showed even ‘excessive care in the preparation of their speeches;’ that Cicero kept a ‘book of passages, to be used on occasions;’ that Demosthenes probably had the same: ‘At all events,’ he says, ‘one thing is certain, that he, Demosthenes, was very averse to extempore speaking, and most reluctantly, as he expressed it, “trusted to his success in fortune;” and his orations abound in passages, and even in parts of passages, again and again used by him with such improvements as their reception or delivery, or his own subsequent reflection, suggested. I have examined this subject very fully on different occasions, and I find the views taken are approved by Attic scholars both in England and France. But I dwell upon the subject at present in order to illustrate the necessity of full preparation and of written composition to those who would attain real excellence in the rhetorical art.’ He admits that ‘a certain proficiency in public speaking may be acquired by any one who chooses often to try it, and can harden himself against the pain of frequent failures.’ But he denies that any one can ever in this way become truly eloquent: ‘The loose, slovenly, and poor diction, the want of art in combining and disposing of his ideas, the inability to bring out many of his thoughts, and the incompetency to present any of them in the best and most efficient form, will reduce the speaker to the level of an ordinary talker. His diction is sure to be clumsy, incorrect, unlimited in quantity, and of no value. It is the greatest of all mistakes,’ he adds, ‘to fancy that even a carefully prepared passage cannot be delivered before a modern assembly. I once contended on this point with an accomplished classical scholar, and no inconsiderable speaker himself, Lord Melbourne, who immediately undertook to point out the passages which I had prepared, and those which were given off-hand, and on the inspiration of the moment. He was wrong in almost every guess he made. Lord Denman, on a more remarkable occasion, at the bar of the House of Lords, in the Queen’s case, made the same mistake upon the passage delivered before the adjournment in the middle of the first day of the defence. The objection made,’ he continues, ‘that prepared passages are artificial, and disclose the preparation, is groundless. In the first place, nothing can be more artificial than a speech must in almost all cases necessarily be, which is anything beyond mere conversation. Next, it is the diction, not the substance, which is prepared; and, finally, if the art used is shown, and not concealed, the artist alone is in fault.’ (Installation Address at Edinburgh, 18th May 1860.) Indeed, the same things substantially were said, though with a little less of personal allusion, in his Inaugural Address at Glasgow in 1825. ‘I should lay it down as a rule,’ he then said, ‘admitting of no exception, that a man will speak well in proportion as he has written much; and that with equal talents he will be the finest extempore speaker, when no time for preparing is allowed, who has prepared himself the most sedulously when he had an opportunity of delivering a premeditated speech. All the exceptions which I have ever heard cited to this principle are apparent ones only, proving nothing more than that some few men, of rare genius, have become great speakers without preparation; in nowise showing, that with much preparation they would not have reached a much higher pitch of excellence.’ He then refers to Cicero and Demosthenes as one of the best proofs of what he has said; and afterwards remarks, ‘We may rest assured, that the highest reaches of the art, and without any necessary sacrifice of natural effect, can only be attained by him who well considers, and maturely prepares, and oftentimes sedulously corrects and refines his oration. Such preparation is quite consistent with the introduction of passages prompted by the occasion; nor will the transition from the one to the other be perceptible in the execution of a practised master.’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 02.05. CHAPTER 5 ======================================================================== Chapter 5. Different Kinds of Discourses THE observations hitherto made on the composition and delivery of discourses have had respect to discourses generally, with little or no reference to the distinctive properties which ought to characterize one species of discourse as compared with another. There are specific differences which it is not unimportant to note, as on the proper observance of them not a little depends for the attainment of success in the several kinds. Not to speak of minor shades of distinction, there are at least four pretty distinctly marked classes, although these may at times approach indefinitely near to each other, and the same discourse may occasionally admit of being assigned partly to one class and partly to another. I. Expository Discourses.—Discourses of an expository character, lectures, as they are usually designated in Scotland, can never fail to be at least occasionally delivered, where there is an evangelical ministry, animated by a just desire to have the people brought to an intelligent acquaintance with the word of God. But nowhere, perhaps, has the practice been so generally followed as in Scotland, where the custom has long prevailed of having one, and commonly the first, of two discourses on the Lord’s day of this description. As early as the times of the Commonwealth, this practice of expounding in order a few verses out of some book of Scripture existed as a recognised and established part of the ordinary church service; and some of the best remains of the pulpit literature of the period consist of the expository discourses so delivered. It is enough to name those of Leighton, Binning, Hutcheson, and Durham. These expository preachers, however, were but followers of other and in some respects still greater men, who preceded them in the same line. The more eminent Reformers were masters in this species of discourse, Calvin in particular, a large portion of whose published writings, bearing the name of commentaries, first took shape as expositions delivered from the pulpit; and not a few also of the freshest and most valuable of Luther’s works had the same origin. Indeed, we may ascend to a much earlier time still, even to the flourishing period of Patristic literature, which, if not to the same extent, yet in a very considerable degree, was distinguished for the regard it paid to expository preaching. The expositions of Augustine on the Psalms and on the Gospel of John, as well as the homilies, as they have been called, of Chrysostom on many of the books of New Testament Scripture, all originally addressed to congregations in the sanctuary, are, as a whole, decidedly the best specimens which have come down to us of the pulpit ministrations of those ancient times. In England the prevailing practice now, and for a long period, has been quite different: discourses of this description can scarcely be said to form a recognised and distinct class. For the most part, they are given very occasionally; so much so that Alford (Essays and Addresses, p. 12.) says, ‘the general neglect of this kind of preaching among them is lamentable,’ worse even than in Popish countries; for ‘any visitor,’ he tells us, ‘to Roman churches abroad will be deeply sensible of the loss which we thus incur in our influence from the pulpit.’ I confess I did not know that the balance in this respect lay so much on that side; but, certainly, one seldom hears from English pulpits discourses which take the form of an exposition of a particular passage of Scripture, still more seldom of an exposition in regular order of a particular book. And hence the comparatively small proportion which such works form of English theological literature. From the greater scope allowed in expository discourses, the broader Scriptural basis assumed for them, and the wider compass of doctrine or duty embraced in them, an impression not unnaturally prevails, that they are more easily constructed than discourses on single texts, that it is a simpler matter to lecture than to preach. It, no doubt, may be so after a fashion. A kind of tolerable exposition of a passage may be given, some useful explanations thrown out upon its meaning, and just observations raised on its contents, with less expenditure of thought than would be required for the production of a connected discourse on a single text. But that very facility which is afforded by the nature of the discourse for making the necessary preparation too commonly proves a temptation to its being done in a much less effective and satisfactory manner than is both practicable and proper. And hence, probably, it is, that the expository discourse is so often relatively inferior to the sermon: the one presenting a regularly constructed whole, with clear arrangement, judicious selection of matter, an order and progression of thought such as the mind can readily perceive and follow with interest; while in the other, all is loose, rambling, undigested, no proportioning of part to part, no exercise of skill in bringing out the spirit and connection of the whole, much introduced that had better been omitted, and points of interest and importance overlooked which should have received careful consideration. And it is not, perhaps, too much to say, that a considerable number of preachers of average abilities and resources, have never got a sufficiently definite conception of what an expository discourse should be, at least have failed in any competent degree to realize it. (1.) In throwing out a few suggestions upon the subject, it will not be necessary to dwell on what, in certain discourses, is a matter of some importance, the choice of the passage or subject; for, usually, the practice is to be preferred of proceeding in regular order through an entire book, or some considerable portion of a book of Scripture. There are obvious advantages connected with this method. In the first instance, it provides the preacher with a subject which he feels himself in a manner called in providence to handle; and so not only saves him from much wasteful expenditure of time in doubt and hesitancy, but also obliges him to give himself to the orderly and systematic study of Scripture. It also accustoms the people of his charge to somewhat of the same careful, continuous search into the meaning of Scripture, as the Book which is throughout given by inspiration of God for the instruction and guidance of faith; so that they come to know it, not in a few select and isolated fragments, but, in a measure, according to its variety and completeness. Besides, opportunities thus continually present themselves of directing attention to many things which call for correction or advice; but which are either in themselves of so delicate a nature, or so apt to give occasion in some quarters to offence, that one would rather, if possible, avoid the appearance of expressly choosing a text for the purpose of bringing them into notice. These, taken together, will be found practically no slight advantages connected with the method of a regular course of exposition through some portion of the word of God. And, as a general rule, it will be best to adhere to this method, yet without binding oneself down to a rigid uniformity, and losing the benefit of a little variety by occasionally turning to other pastures. Still, with the adoption of such a rule, there is room for the exercise of prudence and discretion in the matter of selection. For, while all Scripture is profitable for instruction, it cannot be all handled with equal adaptation and advantage by the same individual. There are portions which, partly from their own nature, and partly, perhaps, from the relation in which they stand to his mental endowments and Christian experience, may be said to lie, in a measure, out of his beat for continuous treatment; and it is well to know that there are books, as well as texts in Scripture, which may suit one, but not another. Even what portions of Scripture the pastor does resolve at one period or another to overtake, it may be of importance to take in one order rather than another. Of New Testament Scripture, for example, the Gospels will almost uniformly be found better suited for a first course of exposition than any of the Epistles; and of the Gospels themselves, which ever may be first chosen, it should certainly not be that of John, which, with all its apparent, and also real simplicity, possesses a depth and fulness of meaning, a lofty grandeur and spirituality of thought, which cannot be successfully grappled with in a course of regular exposition without considerable maturity of Christian knowledge and experience, as well as exercised skill in the work of interpretation. The Epistles, also, differ considerably from each other, in respect to the comparative ease or difficulty which attends their successful elucidation; but no graduated scale can be applied to them; for a particular cast of mind, or a definite course of preparatory study, may render one or other of them more readily capable of fitting treatment by particular persons, than might be judged likely from the nature alone of the epistle. But in respect to the closing book of Scripture, the Revelation of St. John, I am inclined to say, that except in select portions, such as the three first chapters, and several very precious and pregnant passages which occur at intervals elsewhere, it is not adapted to a course of ordinary exposition; and if respect be had to the common mode of dealing with its prophetic symbols, I would say, not even for extraordinary. The manner in which some preachers rush into the popular arena with this book, and the readiness and confidence with which they apply its mysterious imagery to specific events in past and present times, is to me a source of unfeigned regret. The book undoubtedly has most important uses, important for the Church at large as well as for the retired student of Scripture; but these are scarcely for exhibition in a series of popular discourses before a general audience; and when so employed, the strain of exposition is extremely apt to run into what tends rather to gratify a love for the novel or the marvellous than to promote personal edification. The Scriptures of the Old Testament are characterized by much the same kind of differences as those which are found in the New, only somewhat more variously and strongly marked. The portions best adapted, upon the whole, for a series of expository discourses are the historical books, the historical at least more than the prophetical; for, in consequence of the imperfect nature of the dispensation under which the prophets lived, and the comparatively obscure medium through which the things of God’s kingdom were presented to their view, passages are ever and anon occurring which are of difficult interpretation even to the most skilled interpreters, and which it is not quite easy to make perfectly intelligible to an ordinary congregation. Experience has brought me to the conviction that, in regard to most of the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, a course of exposition on select portions would be more satisfactory to the preacher, and more profitable to his hearers, than one that should aim at embracing every chapter and verse in each. But the book of Psalms, which contains prophetical as well as devotional and didactic elements, might be taken almost entire, and for the most part is well adapted to this species of discourse; only, from the poetical colouring that pervades it, and the manifold variety of life and experience it embodies, very few preachers will find themselves equally at home in all the portions of it; so that it may usually be most expedient to take it at intervals, and as much as possible in connection with the parts of Old Testament history on which it so often leans. It has been the practice also of some of our best expository preachers to alternate between the books of the Old and those of the New Testament, for the purpose of securing a greater variety to their ministrations, and getting an opportunity of explaining more fully the things pertaining to both covenants. But in such matters no one need bind himself to the method of another. Respect must be had to the circumstances of one’s own position, and to what may seem, upon the whole, best calculated to promote the spiritual good of the people entrusted to his care. (It is scarcely necessary to remark, that there are passages, both in the historical and prophetical books of Scripture, which, on the score of delicacy, are not suitable either for being read or expounded in a promiscuous assembly. All Scripture is profitable for instruction, but not necessarily as matter of public discourse.) (2.) When the general subject for exposition has been fixed, the next thing demanding consideration is the proportion of text to be embraced in each particular discourse. This will very commonly, at least in the historical books, well-nigh determine itself; but it may also, both in these and other portions, call for some care and discrimination. It is easier, however, to say regarding it what should not be done than what should. A very lengthened portion should not usually be taken, as the topics in that case will be too numerous and varied to admit of that precision and individuality which are essential to the interest and usefulness of a discourse. On the other hand, a very limited portion, comprising not more, perhaps, than one or two verses, would commonly narrow so much the field of discussion, that the discourse would possess the characteristics of a sermon rather than of an expository lecture. Passages will occasionally, however, be met with, especially in the doctrinal parts of Scripture, so pregnant in meaning, or calling for so much in the way of explanation, that a single verse or two may be all that can be adequately handled at a time. But for the most part it is desirable that a passage of some extent should be included, though it should, if possible, be a passage presenting some sort of unity, or having such threads of connection between one part and another as to admit of the discourse based on it being something else than a succession of remarks that bear no perceptible relation to each other, a series of scattered observations rather than parts of a continuous discourse. In expository as well as other discourses, it must always produce a measure of dissatisfaction if two or three subjects altogether distinct are brought together for discussion; the mind, in such a case, has to pass too rapidly from topic to topic, and without being able to retain that continuity or progression of thought and feeling which it instinctively craves. So much depends for the sustained interest and impression of a discourse upon a due regard to this internal unity and connection, that the neglect of it may justly be reckoned among the chief causes of failure. Even when the verses taken contain a manifestly related whole, this is often in a great degree lost sight of in the actual treatment given to them; they are gone over in a kind of loose, desultory manner, without any proper plan formed beforehand, or distinct order followed; little more attempted than the raising of a few general remarks or observations upon it. The parables of Jesus also, which, from their very structure, seem to invite a different treatment, are sometimes subjected to the same mode of dealing. Plainly, each parable should first be contemplated in its entireness, with the view of obtaining a clear and distinct apprehension of its general scope, so that afterwards the course of thought and illustration may be arranged in such a manner as may seem best fitted to bring out the main theme, and exhibit the bearing which the several parts have in regard to it. In doing this, however, whether in respect to the parables or to other portions of Scripture, it should not be deemed necessary to adhere to the precise order in which the topics present themselves on the sacred record. Sometimes it may be advisable to depart more or less from this, in order to secure a more natural progression or a better adjustment in the different parts of the discourse. Nor should it be held as at all essential that a formal announcement be made of the plan and order intended to be pursued; less so here than in the case of sermons founded upon a single text, where the mind is shut up to a narrower field, and requires to have the lines of thought more definitely marked out before it. In expository discourses, though this method may at limes be fitly enough adopted, yet it may also, and perhaps more commonly should be dispensed with, as the subject itself will often suggest an order to the preacher, and one that can quite readily be perceived by the mind of the hearer without the formality of a regular division. (3.) To come now to the substance of the discourse; its distinctive aim and character, we should ever remember, is exposition; so that to explain the meaning of the words where any explanation is needed, to render clear and intelligible to all the mind of the Spirit conveyed in them, to explicate difficulties, and bring out with due prominence the principles of truth and duty involved, this must be taken as the more direct and primary object of the discourse. To do it properly will, of course, require some measure of exegetical talent, by which I mean, such a combination of taste and judgment as fits one for discerning the right in cases somewhat critical, weighing probabilities, tracing connections, distinguishing between what is extraneous or incidental and what is essential to the train of thought which forms the leading theme of discourse. Not the process itself, by which all this is to be done, should be laid open in the discourse, but the results of the process; the talent should appear in the work it accomplishes, not in the methods by which it operates. Anything like an exhibition of skill or a parade of learning must be out of place in a discourse which is professedly directed to the object of expounding the will of God for the spiritual enlightenment and comfort of men’s souls. Even in the treatment of passages which have some difficulty in them, on which a certain diversity of opinion has prevailed in the past, and may still perhaps be expected to prevail in the future, it is hardly ever advisable to go much into the contending views of interpreters, which is extremely apt to create bewilderment in the minds of a general audience, and possibly also to produce a painful sense of the darkness and uncertainty of Scripture. It is an easy method of consuming time and of giving an air of learning to a discourse, to tell what this commentator has said, and how the conceit of that other may be disposed of. But for the most part it is a far more excellent way, and greatly more serviceable to the flock, when the pastor takes time and pains in his own study to examine and weigh all these competing authorities; and though, perhaps, not concealing the fact that there are certain difficulties or diversities of opinion hanging around the subject, yet coming forth with a plain and intelligent exhibition of what has commended itself to him as the mind of the Spirit regarding it. If, after all his care and application, he should still find reason for hesitation, let him state candidly whence it arises; or if there should be more than one view which may justly be considered as somewhat probable, let this also be noticed. But such double interpretations should obviously be presented as rarely as possible; and with due pains beforehand, supposing that there is some fitness for the work with a few of the better exegetical helps at hand, and prayer continually made for a blessing on their use, they cannot be of very frequent occurrence. It is a good rule to mention no view from the pulpit which may not reasonably be supposed to have occurred, in their own meditations or reading, to some members of the congregation; to mention none simply for the sake of propounding and refuting it. Should, however, an incorrect view, however absurd, be understood to have gained currency, or should it be not unlikely to have occurred to some one on a superficial consideration of the passage, then it may most justly be noticed. At the same time, the clear and satisfactory exhibition of the true sense will commonly be found the best safeguard against false and shallow interpretations, and when thoroughly done will save the necessity of spending much time on what is only to be rejected. In a number of cases in which some difficulty has to be encountered, the difficulty turns upon the precise meaning of the original words, and raises the question, whether the rendering of the Authorized Version gives a correct view of their import. If the matter is very clear as against this version, and anything of importance depends on the difference; or if by some slight variation a fuller, clearer, or more profound meaning could be elicited, in such cases there can be no impropriety in indicating what is entitled to the preference. Only, a certain prudence should be observed as to the manner of doing it, avoiding the appearance of seeming anxious to obtrude a piece of learning somewhat out of the way, but being concerned only about bringing out a just representation of the truth of sacred Scripture. The middle way here also is the best; on the one hand, to guard against the undue disparagement of the version, which to the great body of the people is the only form in which they know the word of God; and, on the other, to keep them in mind that it is still but a version, and must not be allowed to overshadow the original. (There are certain renderings fitted to mislead which should certainly be noted, such as ‘straining at a gnat;’ ‘eating and drinking damnation; ‘after Easter,” Acts 12:4; ‘called to glory and virtue,’ 2 Peter 1:6; also the changes undergone in the sense of certain words, such as ‘earing,’ conversation, nephews, take no thought.) (4.) In regard, finally, to the hortatory, or more peculiarly practical matter of the discourse, this should nearly always form a pretty large portion of the whole, but it may be variously introduced. When the subject happens to be one that calls for a good deal of explanation, or consists of parts very closely related to each other, it may be best to reserve the chief application to be made of it for practical uses to the last. When the whole subject has been placed before the understandings of the people, then press home the lessons of duty it contains on their hearts and consciences. But usually it will be found both more natural and more profitable to interweave the practical throughout with the expository, and make the improvement of the subject keep pace with its elucidation. For in this way the hearers have the subject as it proceeds brought into contact with the moral as well as the intellectual parts of their natures, and are never allowed to forget the aim to which all should be subordinated. Not only so, but the awkwardness is thereby avoided of needing to return back upon topics which have been discussed at an earlier stage, and have not quite recently been engaging attention. When this has to be done, a certain amount of repetition is inevitable, and this is apt to induce satiety or languor in the audience. On every account, therefore, it is advisable to intermingle the word of exhortation with the word of knowledge, while still the most prolonged or urgent of the practical appeals may fitly be reserved to the close. II. Doctrinal Discourses.—By doctrinal discourses I mean such as have it for their more prominent and leading object to set forth some important truth or doctrine of the Bible, to commend it to men’s intelligent convictions, and work it into their settled and conscientious belief. As Christianity owes its primary distinction to the doctrinal truths which it unfolds, and by the belief of those truths seeks to accomplish all the present and eternal results it aims at, a very prominent and essential part of the calling of a minister of the gospel necessarily consists in what he has to do for the manifestation and defence of the same. The exposition in one aspect or another of saving truth must form the staple of his ministrations. But the precise form under which this is to be done may be infinitely varied, and must to a certain extent be modified by the circumstances of time and place. Even in the cast and structure of discourses which may, in a somewhat peculiar sense, be designated doctrinal, there may be a considerable variety; and, in particular, they may be made to assume sometimes more of a controversial and again more of a simply didactic character, according as the special object may be to vindicate and defend, or to explain and enforce the truth. It will rarely happen but that the faithful pastor will require to avail himself of the one mode as well as the other; for in present times at least he will scarcely find it possible to obtain a field of labour where the prevalence of doctrinal error, or the danger of some being misled into it, will not occasionally call for a defence as well as exposition of the truth. At the same time, even in those situations where the danger in question exists, discourses avowedly and predominantly controversial should not be of frequent occurrence; indeed, I would say, they should form rather an exceptional part of a pastor’s public ministrations. For, as they necessarily present a polemical appearance, their tendency is to beget an intellectual sharpness and combative zeal for orthodoxy, much more than to awaken earnest convictions and hearty love of the truth. And it should ever be remembered, that it is this latter and not the former, it is the doctrines of salvation, not simply as reasoned out and grasped by the intellect, but as embraced and loved in the heart, which alone fulfils the design of the gospel, and is also the only sufficient bulwark against the assaults of error. For the things of this description which prove real sources of danger are always such as fall in with some corrupt tendency of human nature, flatter its pride of reason, or allow freer scope to its fleshly inclinations and desires. Hence the faithful pastor must aim at something more than a mere speculative knowledge of the truth. He must seek to have the truth itself effectually lodged in the understandings and hearts of his audience; since, in proportion as this is done, the antagonistic forms of error will of themselves fall away or meet with a stout resistance. Keeping in view what has been said as to the general character and object of this species of discourses, I proceed to offer a few plain hints respecting them. (1.) Whatever the particular doctrine may be which is to form the theme of discourse, care should be taken to have a text that is sufficiently clear and broad to bear the superstructure which is going to be reared on it. There should be no appearance of constraint or violence in the effort to adapt the one to the other, as this would inevitably raise distrust or suspicion at the very outset. The doctrine, it is true, may not be treated as if it rested for proof exclusively or even mainly upon the particular text from which the sermon is preached. There both may and should be a judicious use of other passages bearing on the subject introduced in the course of the discussion. But this will not lessen the propriety of having an appropriate text for the groundwork of the whole; for whatever afterwards may be brought forward by way of supplementing it in the minds of the audience, it will almost certainly be with the text itself that the doctrine will be chiefly associated. (2.) Some discrimination also should be made between doctrines, not for the purpose of exempting any from discussion in the pulpit which have a place in the revelation of God, for it is the part of a minister to declare the whole counsel of God; but so as to give the chief prominence to those which are most vitally connected with the work of salvation and men’s spiritual progress. There are doctrines which may at particular times be brought formally into discussion, but which usually should be taken for granted rather than systematically and at length treated in the pulpit; such, for example, as the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of angels, or the doctrine of divine predestination. Many opportunities will present themselves in the regular course of exposition or preaching for referring to such topics, and bringing forth proofs in illustration of them, in a kind of informal and incidental manner. But it is scarcely possible to take them for the theme of an entire discourse without giving to the discourse somewhat more than is meet of a dry, theological, perhaps speculative turn. When such topics are handled, it should be as much as possible after the pattern of Scripture, that is, not abstractedly or metaphysically, but by means of known analogies, and in their bearing on the scheme of God and the spiritual well-being of men. So contemplated, they will be presented in a sort of concrete form, associated with what has an objective existence in men’s experience, and runs more or less into the lines of their present or future destiny. Take, as an example, the doctrine of election as exhibited in Scripture, which is not as a thing swimming in the air, but intimately associated with the safety and blessedness of believers, tending on the one side to humble them, as showing that they are indebted for all they receive to the sovereign goodness and mercy of God; and on the other to fill them with peace and comfort, as presenting whatever belongs to them of good in connection with the everlasting love and unchanging faithfulness of God. Thus exhibited, the doctrine will be received by believers with a heavenly sweetness and consolation; while those who are still strangers to the grace of God may have the salutary feeling awakened in them, that it were a happy thing for them if they could but attain to some comfortable assurance that they had personally to do with the things which pertain to it. Until they get into that better position, however, and with the view of helping them to do so, such persons should be reminded that they have primarily to address themselves to another class of God’s revelations, those, namely, which have respect to the guilt of sin, and the necessity of fleeing to Christ in order to escape from its deserved doom. Indeed, both for the subjects of grace and for those who are still strangers to its power, the great themes of doctrinal preaching must be, not the darker, but the plainer things in God’s revelation, the reality, the deceitfulness, and the evil of sin; the way of salvation by Christ, Christ Himself in His adorable person, and perfect righteousness, and infinite satisfaction; His amazing condescension, His matchless love, the inexhaustible riches of His grace, the comforts of His Spirit, and the glory of His kingdom. Whatever besides may at times be exhibited of Christian doctrine, such topics ought ever to occupy the foreground; for they have the more fundamental place in the elements of the Christian economy, and they serve to keep the soul ever conversant with Christ, in connection with whom alone is to be found true peace and blessing. (3.) I remark again, that in setting forth such topics as those now referred to, the utmost pains should be taken to have the leading positions laid down regarding them, what will usually be the heads of discourse enunciated in very clear and intelligible statements, such as every person in the congregation of ordinary intelligence can understand. The main part also of what is said in illustration should, if possible, be done in so lucid and orderly a manner, that only the wilfully ignorant and inattentive can fail to apprehend it. This, when it is in some good measure done, will save a great deal of needless verbiage and prolonged argumentation on points of some difficulty; for, as has been truly said, ‘a question well stated is half solved.’ But it can be so stated only when one has been at pains to get the particular subject clearly apprehended in the mind, and in the exposition of it to confine oneself to what has thus been properly mastered. Should the preacher attempt more than this, or be imperfectly prepared for what he does attempt, there will be sure to be found an indistinctness, a want of order or coherence, in his statements concerning it; his course will be, as it were, through a hazy atmosphere or with a halting and uncertain tread, in which comparatively few are likely to attempt following him. To know well, and to know also what it is one does know well, is indispensable to being able to discourse on it to the interest and edification of others. (4.) Along with this distinctness and precision of view, there will always be required, as a further element to success in this kind of discourse, a real heartfelt sense of the importance of the doctrine handled, and a corresponding desire to have the knowledge and belief of it wrought into the minds of others. To a shortcoming in this respect, perhaps more than to an actual deficiency in the formal apprehension of the truth, is to be ascribed the defective interest that too frequently attaches to such discourses. For the complaint which has been uttered on the subject by an English prelate, has its application to other sections of the Church: (Addresses to Candidates for Ordination, by the Bishop of Oxford, p. 54.) ‘How many sermons,’ says he, ‘seem to be composed with no better idea than that they must occupy a certain time prescribed by custom, and that they must be filled with the religious phrases current in this or that school of theological opinion! Hence we find in them prefaces of inordinate length, porches larger than the buildings to which they lead, truisms repeated with a calm perseverance of dull repetition which is almost marvellous, vague generalities about the fall and redemption, as if these awful mysteries were empty words, and not living, burning realities. We hear the sermon, perhaps wandering languidly over the whole scheme of theology; or we find the faintest and most general description of sinners, such as can reach no one in particular; mere outlines of men in the abstract, not portraits of individual men, amongst which each hearer shall find himself; empty general exhortations not to sin, not revelations of sin in itself, or sin in its deceitful working; cold, heartless, unreal words about Christ the healer, not the earnest, plain-spoken zeal of one to whom, because he believes, Christ is precious.’ All this, so far as it exists, comes from the want of a realizing sense in the preacher of the vital importance of the truths about which he discourses. He must go through his task, but there is no living warmth and energy in his mode of executing it; and the impression produced, faint at the first, soon vanishes away. (5.) In regard, finally, to the practical improvement connected with the treatment of doctrinal subjects, this may, as in the case of expository discourses, be managed in two different ways. It may either be interspersed through the several parts of the discourse, or reserved mainly to the concluding portion. In Scripture itself we have examples of both these methods. The two largest doctrinal epistles or discourses in the New Testament are those addressed to the Romans and the Hebrews; and they are constructed respectively upon the two methods just mentioned. In the Epistle to the Romans, the first part, reaching to the close of Romans 11:1-36, is chiefly occupied with the discussion of the great doctrines of sin and redemption; and then, commencing with Romans 12:1-21 onwards to the close, there is a rich and varied application of the truth to the personal and social state of believers; a close and earnest dealing with the conscience in respect to the obligations resting on believers, one toward another, and toward those around them, in the different spheres and relations of life. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, on the other hand, each doctrinal topic, as it comes into consideration, has its practical bearing noticed and pressed home before it is dismissed; so that, throughout, the argumentative continually runs into the hortatory, and successive phases of doctrine are no sooner commended to the apprehension and faith of the readers, than they are turned into matter of counsel, warning, or encouragement to their hearts. With such examples of these diverse methods from the pen of inspiration itself, we may certainly leave the question undecided, which is the better of the two. Rather, perhaps, we may say that both are in themselves good; and that it will be the part of wisdom in the preacher to vary his plan, and make his discourse assume now more of the one, and again more of the other method. For the most part, however, it will be the more advisable, for the reasons already stated under the preceding division, to approximate more nearly to the second mode of distribution than to the first. For, if all is doctrinal in the earlier part of a discourse, and all practical in the later, it will probably seem to a certain portion of the audience allowable to relax their attention while the one or the other portion of the discourse is in progress of delivery. But, indeed, the two elements admit of being in a good degree combined together, as they are in the Epistle to the Romans; for, while the chief burden of the practical matter is reserved to the concluding chapters of the epistle, it is by no means wanting in the earlier portions. Nay, some of the most powerful and touching appeals are there; and the whole of that part which is more especially doctrinal, so far from possessing the character of a dry discussion, is instinct with the living warmth and earnestness of a soul penetrated to its inmost depths with the reality and greatness of the truths unfolded in it. When such is the spirit that characterizes the treatment of any particular subject, it will be comparatively of little moment how the more distinctly practical matter is introduced and distributed. III. Experimental Discourses.—Experimental preaching may justly enough be treated as a distinct class, although in the general run of pulpit discourses the experimental element should not be wanting, and should rather appear in the tone and spirit pervading the whole, than as something existing apart. The revelation of God generally, and that part of it in particular which relates to the life and resurrection of Christ, with the present and eternal issues depending on them, cannot but powerfully affect, when seriously apprehended by men, their emotional natures, and deeply impress their feelings. To its wonderful adaptation in this respect the gospel owes much of its quickening and impulsive power. And the measure of the skill which any preacher possesses to awaken feeling along with believing thought in the minds of his audience, in connection with the great themes he handles, will also be, to a large extent, the measure of his success in getting into their bosoms, and winning them to the love and obedience of the truth. There are subjects of discourse, however, which are in their very nature experimental, and which should from time to time be brought out for formal discussion. Such, for example, is the passage in Romans 7:9, ‘I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,’ which, in both its parts, relates to experience; in the first, to the soul’s consciousness, its conceit, we should rather say, or false consciousness of life, while still ignorant of the spirituality and depth of the law’s requirements; in the second, to its consciousness of death, its stricken and prostrate condition, with an overpowering sense of guilt and danger when the law enters in its true meaning and commanding power. Such also, but with special reference to the grace and truth of the gospel, are Romans 8:15, ‘Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,’ etc.; 2 Timothy 1:12, ‘I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him against that day;’ 2 Corinthians 5:14, ‘The love of Christ constraineth me,’ etc. Texts like these necessarily carry the thoughts inward to the state of the heart and the working of its affections, as wrought upon by the great truths and realities of the gospel. And if they are handled in a lively and earnest manner, the discourse must possess much of an experimental character; it will not simply describe how the things in question should operate on the feelings and affections of the soul, but so do it as to awaken and call forth somewhat of a corresponding frame of mind in the hearers. Can this be done unless the preacher himself has undergone what he describes? Can he preach experimentally without being a man of Christian experience? Or should his own experience be the measure and limit of what he attempts to work through Scripture into the convictions and feelings of his people? Preachers require here to walk softly, and with a prudent step. It is one thing to set before a Christian audience a sort of picture, an ideal representation of the manner in which they should desire and feel on spiritual things, but another thing to make them properly sensible of the characteristics of a gracious work, to give them to know these as things which have been known in their real character, appreciated and felt. Yet there is nothing more common than, for preachers, young preachers more .especially, to mistake the one for the other, or to think that they are accomplishing the one when they are only doing the other. It were, perhaps, too much to say that no effect of a salutary and permanent kind is likely to be ever produced by a discourse in which the work of grace upon the soul and the actings of the soul as operated on by grace, have been drawn from the imagination merely of the speaker, or taken at second hand from the testimony of others; but assuredly very little of that description will usually be found to come of it. Grace, like nature, has its own look, its own tones, its own veins of thought and feeling; and discourses which, without any true or adequate participation of these, profess to lay open the secrets of the divine life in the soul, will be felt to be unsatisfactory by those who know the reality of that life, and will fail even to make much impression upon others. My advice, therefore, in regard to such subjects of discourse is, Let each one first try to ascertain what is his own spiritual state and temper in relation to them; let him, for the most part, be sure that he has at least the elements in himself of the gracious feelings and dispositions which he means to exhibit for the spiritual instruction and comfort of others; and if at times he should be led to go somewhat beyond what he has himself experienced, not, perhaps, having been placed in the circumstances which are needed to bring it into full operation, let it be done discreetly, and on the ground of results and testimonies which admit of no reasonable doubt. Where more than this is attempted, where at least the attempt is systematically made to strike a higher key, one of two results is almost sure to become manifest: either the preacher will fall into the style of some particular person or party, adopting a sanctimonious mannerism, which is always a defect and a misfortune; or his preaching will betray a false glow, a kind of pretentious unreality, will indeed be a preaching about the things of God rather than an actual and earnest grappling with the things themselves. One point more may be noticed which has respect to the matter itself of such discourses, the subject, namely, of Christian experience. In so far as this is really the operation of divine grace, it must, as to all essential features, be the same in the true children of God; for it is the work of one and the same Spirit, and the work of that Spirit in applying the same great truths to the conscience, awakening the same convictions, desires, and hopes in the heart. But along with this general resemblance there may be individual characteristics; there certainly will be such in proportion as there are what the apostle calls ‘diversities of operations ‘in the Spirit’s work, as well as varieties of gifts. This arises primarily from the natural diversity which exists in people’s physical and mental temperaments, since here also the supernatural bases itself on the natural; and the manifold diversities also of place, and circumstance, and position in life, amid which, in different individuals, the work of grace is begun and carried forward, cannot fail to exercise a moulding influence on the particular hue and aspect of the religious character. Thus, while it is true of all who have really been born again of the Spirit, that they have been brought to know for themselves the fearful burden of sin, and have seen somewhat of its exceeding sinfulness, with persons of deep sensibility or sombre feeling there may justly be expected a greater perturbation of spirit than in others during such convictions, and at times even a tendency to sink into the depths of wretchedness and despair. A similar difference in respect to natural temperament or intellectual acuteness will also give rise to a corresponding difference in the measure of distinctness with which the successive stages of thought and feeling are marked in the spiritual history of individuals, which in some will be found more vivid and perceptible than in others; in some, again, more rapid and violent, in others more gradual and progressive. Preachers should therefore beware of representing the experiences belonging to the Christian life in such a manner as to give rise to the impression that not only every feature, but every line, as it were, of that feature, every shade and aspect of life which has developed itself in one Christian, must have its parallel in another. Besides, it is to be borne in mind that a distinction has often to be drawn between the experience of Christians and Christian experience. Whatever may justly be designated Christian experience is of the working of God’s word and Spirit upon the heart. But in the actual experience of Christians there is often found intermingling with that workings of the flesh, fears and hopes, joys and sorrows, and in these again heights and depths, which are either altogether the offspring of peculiarities in men’s natural constitution, or receive their distinctive colour from these, together, it may be, with certain discomposing influences derived from the circumstances of their condition. The holiest men are not free from the action of such merely physical or local influences on the atmosphere of their soul; as may be seen, for example, in the case of Brainerd, whose memoirs exhibit a great deal of what may justly be called unhealthy experience; the experience, no doubt, of a profoundly earnest, spiritual man, and an experience conversant throughout with the things of the Spirit, but still by no means a uniformly Christian experience, in many respects morbid and introverted, and, as a whole, reflecting too much the shady aspect of the law, too little of the genial warmth and gladsome light of the gospel. It was the natural consequence of his consumptive frame and sequestered position, with which he had to maintain a perpetual conflict of feeling, and should therefore be carefully distinguished from that profound lowliness of spirit, that sure and stedfast faith, self-sacrificing zeal, unwearied patience, heavenly elevation of soul, and burning desire for the glory of God, which were his grand characteristics as a missionary of the cross, and which have been rarely surpassed, seldom even equalled. And so as regards the case of many others. I may add, however, that even in those cases which exhibit something peculiar, and require to be considered apart from the general run of Christian experiences, there still is a certain affinity with what others are conscious of; and if the descriptions given of such are drawn from real life, they will not be in vain even for those who are very partially cognisant of the things described. Hence the importance in this connection also of a minister’s familiar intercourse with his people, so as to become properly acquainted with their actual state and character, their misgivings and fears, their trials and perils and difficulties. He will thus be able to speak more directly to their bosoms; and even when, perhaps, speaking with a view to what may seem applicable to only one or two individuals, he will touch the hearts of a considerable number. For, as justly remarked by a German pastor, (Büchsel’s Ministerial Experiences, p. 37.) and by him gathered as the result of ministerial experience, ‘he who hits the case of one hits the case of a class; and, besides, whatever has the impress of truth and reality will interest even those who are not directly concerned in it.’ (4.) Ethical Discourses.—In mentioning ethical discourses, I am not to be understood as meaning what are simply or absolutely such; but discourses which have for their chief object the exhibition of some one of the moral obligations binding on Christians, and the duties of every-day life. Every discourse, as already stated, should have more or less of a bearing in this direction; it should be pervaded by a perceptible moral element, and at certain points should touch upon the things proper to be done, even though mainly occupied with those which are to be believed. But it will also be wise, occasionally at least, to discourse on particular branches of the dutiful behaviour and moral excellence which ought to distinguish the members of a Christian community, and to awaken a sense of shortcoming and guilt, where the good is not sought after or realized. 1. Now, in regard to such discourses, the first and most important direction which has to be given is, that while the moral or spiritual element must be made to predominate, it should never be allowed to stand alone. Precisely as doctrine should ever be set forth in its relation to practice, so when practice is the more immediate theme, its relation to doctrine should never be lost sight of; and that more especially for two reasons. First, because the moral precepts and obligations which believers are called to discharge, have much in their nature, and still more in their spirit, to do with the revelations of the gospel; and it is impossible to give, in connection with any department of Christian life and behaviour, a full representation of what believers should actually do, without bringing the subject into contact with the realities of the gospel. For, since the revelation of these has greatly elevated the position of those to whom the gospel has come, has placed them amid a clearer light, and invested them with other privileges and prospects than they could have known while living in a state of nature, so it has immensely increased their obligations to follow after righteousness, and provided them with means altogether peculiar for understanding the real nature and claims of righteousness. There is, however, another, and, if possible, a still stronger reason; for faith in the blessed truths of the gospel is the only vital root of the practical goodness which we would have people to exhibit in their walk and conduct; and one might as well expect to find fruitful trees growing where there has been planted no living germ, as to see a community adorned with the virtues of a pure, upright, and heavenly behaviour, apart from the believing reception of the truth as it is in Jesus. In the present day it is scarcely necessary to give any special illustrations of this, as with all who are in any measure acquainted with the history of religion in this country it has passed into a generally received maxim. It is well, however, that the pastors, or such as are preparing to become pastors, of Christian congregations should remember some of the more striking proofs of it, which are known to have taken place in the past, that they may be saved even from the partial misjudgments and misdirected efforts into which they might otherwise be led. In the particular sphere of a single ministerial life, none perhaps can be found more marked and instructive than that of the case of Dr. Chalmers, especially as he himself has depicted it. Shortly after his removal from Kilmany to Glasgow, he published an address to his former parishioners; and in that address he referred to the change which had taken place on the character of his ministrations during the period of his residence in Kilmany, describing also the effect which this personal change produced on the results of his pastorate. ‘I am not sensible,’ he said, ‘that all the vehemence with which I urged the proprieties and virtues of social life had the weight of a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it was not till I got impressed by the utter alienation of the heart in all its desires and affections from God; it was not till I got the Scriptural way of laying the method of reconciliation before them; it was not till the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon their acceptance, and the Holy Spirit given through Christ’s Mediatorship to all who ask Him, that I ever heard of any of those subordinate reformations, which I aforetime made the earnest and the zealous, but, I am afraid, at the same time the ultimate object of my earlier ministrations.’ Then, appealing to those who had latterly undergone a change corresponding to his own, and in consequence of it, he says, ‘You have at least taught me, that to preach Christ is the only effective way of preaching morality in all its branches; and out of your humble cottages have I gathered a lesson, which I pray God I may be enabled to carry with all its simplicity into a wider theatre, and to bring to bear with all the power of its subduing efficacy upon the vices of a more crowded population.’ Substantially the same contrast, but with reference to a much wider sphere, was drawn by Bishop Horsley in one of his charges, in which he gave a severe but faithful delineation of the kind of preaching which was prevalent among the clergy of the Church of England during the latter part of last century, contrasting it with the proper idea of gospel preaching. ‘The clergy of those days,’ he said, ‘had lost sight of their proper office, to publish the word of reconciliation; and made no other use of the high commission they bore, than to come abroad on one day in seven dressed in solemn looks, and in the external garb of holiness, to be the apes of Epictetus. A general decay, not merely of piety, but of all the fruits and excellences of a Christian life, was the natural consequence;’ and therefore he fitly concludes by indicating the right path: ‘Practical holiness is the end, faith is the means. The practice of religion will always thrive in proportion as its doctrines are understood and firmly received; and the practice will degenerate and decay in proportion as the doctrine is misunderstood and neglected.’ (On the negative side, practical illustrations of this may be found in the fruitlessness of Societies for the Reformation of Manners formed during last century (see Gillies’ Historical Collections), as compared with the results of evangelical preaching by Whitfield, Wesley, and others.) This, however, may quite readily be admitted by persons in the present day, who yet, perhaps, are in danger of giving way to the same tendency in a somewhat modified and subtler form. There is a kind of refined morality and spiritualism, which partakes to some extent of a Christian character, and is all that certain ministers either know or preach; but which, as a scheme of instruction, wants the living warmth and quickening influence of true evangelism. A more favourable and instructive example of it could not well be found, than in the amiable and very estimable Henry Woodward, an Irish clergyman, not long since deceased, who himself relates the phase of things connected with his ministerial position and agency to which I refer. He had gone through a very remarkable, one might almost say, singular experience, several years after he became an ordained minister, the chief characteristic of which was an intense realization of spiritual and eternal things, which changed the whole tone of his mind, and rendered ministerial work a very different thing from what it had been before, yet without any special prominence being given to the subjects of sin and salvation. Before long, he removed to a neighbourhood where were some men of distinguished parts and good character in the Church, ‘whose agency tended to promote spiritual religion, with disconformity to the world; but upon the subject of the atonement there was somewhat of reserve. It was not denied, it was held as a part of Catholic truth; it was occasionally preached, but it was not prominently put forward.’ Falling in with this system of thought and teaching, Mr. Woodward says of himself, ‘My favourite topics from the pulpit, and from house to house, were such as, from my own experience, I could set my seal to: that sin is misery, and holiness is but another name for happiness; that the ways of religion are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace; that God is Himself the shield and the exceeding great reward of them that love Him; that Christ is the living bread which alone can feed the hungry soul,’ and so on. ‘He did not absolutely omit,’ he says, ‘to preach forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, and justification by faith in His righteousness; but this doctrine had not the prominence which is understood to characterize evangelical preaching; and it was only when he came to perceive the far more marked and blessed effects which flowed from preaching more distinctively evangelical, that he began seriously to consider the defects of his own, and gave that prominence to the doctrines of sin and salvation which they unquestionably have in Scripture. I saw,’ he states, ‘that God was pleased to bless this mode of preaching;’ and He does so, we must remember, just because it thoroughly meets the case of sinners, and, with the knowledge of the good, supplies the only effectual means and motives for their actually attaining it. 2. But to proceed to another point: while the moralities of the. gospel in discourses of this nature should ever be based upon its beliefs, in the mode of doing it some variety is advisable, so as to avoid a tame and mechanical uniformity. Suppose, for example, that humility were the subject of discourse, and the text 1 Peter 5:5, ‘Be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility,’ it might be equally appropriate to begin with a delineation of the grace of humility, its thoughts and feelings with reference to self, its actings toward God, its outgoings of will and purpose towards others amid the intercourse and relations of life; and then to point to the spiritual root out of which it springs, and the manifold considerations presented in the gospel which are fitted to nourish and stimulate it. Or, reversing the process, bring forward first what grounds or reasons there are in Scripture, as well as in the nature of things, for the cultivation of a spirit of humility, and then show how, when these are properly apprehended and felt, they will of necessity prompt to the exercise of humility, dispose the believer, as it were, to clothe himself with it, so that it shall impart a distinctive tone and impress to whatever he does. In like manner, with regard to all the other graces of the Christian life, and the duties of moral obligation, it is immaterial whether the discussion of the duties or the exhibition of the truths and principles which should find their development in the duties have the precedence in the discourse; and not stringent uniformity, but rather variety of order and method is to be cultivated. 3. A still further direction may be indicated, namely, that care should be taken so to exhibit the moralities, or practical duties of the gospel, that these shall appear really practicable to the body of sound Christians. Representations are sometimes given of these, and of the obligations generally of a Christian life, which look too much like ideal pictures, and which, from want of adaptation to people’s circumstances, are fitted rather to discourage than prompt their zeal to the performance of what is required. ‘Our system of preaching,’ Mr. Cecil justly observes, ‘must be such as to meet mankind. They must find it possible to live in the bustle of the world and yet serve God.’ And this should lead, not only, as he suggests, to a prominent exhibition of Christian privileges, and the refreshing of men’s harassed spirits with the cheering manifestation of Christ’s truth and love, but also to such a statement of the way of holiness as shall not appear to overtax the energies of ordinary men, a truthful yet homely and reasonable view of the relative obligations and duties of life. This should especially be attended to when pressing duties of which the formal discharge must necessarily vary with the means and opportunities possessed, such as liberality to the poor, the expenditure of time and resources in the cause of Christ, the exercises of meditation and prayer. That the genuine Christian will always be characterized by a certain regard to such things, we must leave no room to doubt, and a regard that will always grow in proportion to the growth of Christian principle in the heart. But let hearers at the same time be reminded, that they have to do with a God who knows their frame, and sets the bounds of their habitations; so that while the spirit which animates all true followers of Christ must be the same, there cannot be for each the same formal rule and measure; and they may be liberal even in the highest degree, not by giving much, but by giving heartily according to their means, and by doing kindly; they may be meditative, and yet go through their daily taskwork of bodily labour; may be prayerful and yet without a closet to retire to, or hours of repose which they can consecrate to devotion. In all such cases let it be clearly understood that the spirit of the work done or the service rendered is the main thing, and that if the spirit but exist in sufficient strength, it will not fail to obtain scope for itself in appropriate forms of manifestation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 02.06. CHAPTER 6 ======================================================================== Chapter 6. Supplementary Methods of Instruction, Personal Intercourse, Dealings with Special Cases, Pastoral Visitations, Catechetical Instruction, Visitation of the Sick, the Afflicted, and Dying WE have dwelt at some length upon the homiletical department of pastoral duty, because it is that through which, when properly discharged, the pastor exercises his most extensive influence over the understandings and hearts of his people. Other methods of instruction, however important as accessories, must still be regarded as of secondary rank in relation to it. Should the regular ministrations of the pulpit be either undervalued, or from any cause feebly performed, it will be impossible to compensate for the defect by other appliances. For, even if we could thus succeed in awakening some degree of spiritual concern, the better tendencies would again be checked, or at least fail to reach their proper consummation, not finding the requisite impulse and supplies of nourishment ministered on the Sabbath. But there is a danger also in the opposite direction, which the faithful and earnest pastor will do well to guard against. Pulpit ministrations may be too exclusively relied on, and may in turn fail to yield the spiritual harvest expected to be reaped from them, being left too much alone. The divine seed, it may be, has been sown on the Lord’s day by a wise and discriminating hand; but being cast into so many different soils, and exposed thereafter to such diverse influences, more fitted in many cases to mar than to cherish and foster its future growth, nothing of solid and permanent growth is produced. And the more gifted the preacher is, he may only be the more apt to neglect the minor solicitudes and agencies which are needed to secure a better result, under the impression that when his discourses appear to be so much appreciated, and to find such attentive and serious audiences, all is done that can well be expected of him, or is actually required for the success of his ministry. Practically, however, such a mode of reckoning will usually be found a great mistake; and whatever may be any one’s qualifications for public discourse, there are certain things by which his efforts in that respect should be followed up, otherwise they may prove comparatively unavailing. 1. Personal Intercourse.—First of all, it is of importance that, as far as possible, a pastor should cultivate personal intercourse with the people of his charge. By this is not meant such intercourse as arises from the exchange of social visits, or giving and receiving friendly entertainments. Things of that description, within certain limits, are both allowable and proper. They indicate a disposition in the pastor to be on neighbourly terms with his flock, and to partake with them in the common bounties of Providence and the innocent refreshments of life. But they need to be very jealously guarded, and restrained within narrow limits, otherwise they are sure to occasion a serious waste of time, and tend also to bring the minister in his feelings and conversation too much down to the level of ordinary society, or to give him too much the air and tone of a man of the world. Different from this is the kind of personal intercourse which is now under consideration as a department of pastoral duty. In seeking to cultivate it, the pastor must make himself accessible to his people, and be ready to avail himself of such opportunities as occur to draw forth their hearts toward him, and induce an interchange of thoughts. These, no doubt, will very materially differ according to the nature of the sphere he occupies, and the worldly circumstances of his people. A good deal may often be done even in his casual meetings with them through the week, especially if he is himself gifted with somewhat of a natural frankness of manner, and, along with this, has his heart so much in the work of his sacred calling that every one knows what are the themes most congenial to his spirit. But he may also, and should, particularly in rural charges, cultivate acquaintance with the members of his flock, by occasionally entering into their dwellings, though it should be only for a few minutes, and while his more immediate object, perhaps, is to obtain the exercise he needs, or to transact some little piece of business. In certain situations, where the field is extensive and the congregation numerous, it may be a considerable advantage both for himself and his people, on his own part a great saving of time and labour, to appoint occasionally times and places where he will be ready to see them individually, and to enter into converse with them on any matters on which they might desire to open to him their minds, or to have his advice. Now, when the pastor is able in one or other of such ways to maintain personal intercourse with a considerable portion of his people, various benefits will accrue, some of them directly relating to himself, though on these it will be unnecessary to dwell. But he will thereby gain much in respect to intimacy with their state and feelings, and so become more skilful in dealing with their spiritual interests. His knowledge of them gets individualized; their distinctive tendencies and characters, their relative degrees of intelligence, the greater or less capacity they may have for understanding the import and profiting by the instruction of the discourses he delivers to them, the special sins and temptations which they need to be warned against, the duties which require to be most urgently pressed: these things and others of a cognate description will get familiarized to the mind of the pastor who takes the course indicated, with a distinctness and particularity which will otherwise be found unattainable. Acquiring thus a more thorough acquaintance with their natural and spiritual characteristics, he will be able in his various ministrations to adapt himself more exactly and wisely to their particular cases. And while he may certainly lay his account with having things obtruded upon him which cause uneasiness and disappointment, he will also meet with cheering indications, will even occasionally light upon wells of Christian life and activity, which his own exhibitions of the truth may have helped to open, and which will have the effect of sending him on his way rejoicing. But while such advantages are not to be overlooked, they are still inferior to those which the pastor, by such a course, may be the means of imparting to others, and the increased moral influence it is fitted to lend to his ministrations. As he comes thereby to a more intimate knowledge of the people of his charge, so in turn he becomes better known to them; and being often touched through the familiarities of personal intercourse with the proofs of his kindliness and fellow-feeling, they will be prepared to mingle with their respect for him as a pastor, affection and confidence toward him as a friend. The distance and reserve which the one relation naturally tends to throw around him, will become lessened and relieved by the free interchange of thought and feeling fostered by the other; and his addresses from the pulpit will assume more the character of a speaking from heart to heart. They now know that they are listening to one who really sympathizes with them and cares for them; one who unfeignedly seeks their wellbeing, and delights to go out and in among them. Besides, by such a course he greatly multiplies his opportunities of promoting their spiritual good. Though he will often, perhaps, find it impossible to get beneath the surface, or to touch on other than ordinary topics, yet he will again be able, if himself thoroughly in earnest, to direct the conversation into higher channels, and to drop words that shall be like good seed cast into congenial soil. Openings, occasionally at least, will present themselves for suggesting inquiries, tendering cautions, administering reproofs, or giving counsels and encouragements much more special and pointed than could well Be addressed from the pulpit. People will get courage to make known their case in times especially of darkness or perplexity, so as to render comparatively easy a suitable application of the healing medicine of the gospel. This is happily noticed by Bengel: (Life, by Burk, p. 127.) ‘Friendly intercourse with our people often effects more than all the reasons, demonstrations, and sermons in the world. The traveller unwraps his mantle, not when the cold wind blows strongly, but when the warming sunshine smiles. It is better here to have a single dove flying towards us of its own accord, than to see ever so many driven into the enclosure. How desirable is it to get our people to feel so easy with us, that they can ask or tell us anything with open-heartedness and simplicity! ‘He adduces, as a more special reason, a consideration which should certainly not be overlooked: ‘Many become seriously impressed and “pricked in their hearts” under sermons, who yet derive no special comfort from the word of grace till it is communicated to them in private conversation. Therefore, visiting those committed to his charge should be considered by the Christian minister to be anything but a light matter, for he can often do much more good by his private visits than by his public testimony. He should therefore let his people see that he is always willing and ready to attend privately upon any and every one of them.’ All this, of course, implies a certain unbending on the part of the minister, a frankness and geniality of manner easily distinguished from a politic or forced condescension. Like other personal characteristics, it may exist in very different degrees even in godly ministers, but is also susceptible of great improvement in those who are anxious to cultivate what they have. It implies, too, that the pastor shall not be content with merely speaking to men in the mass, but shall care for them individually, a matter often too little regarded by men otherwise distinguished for their ministerial gifts. ‘As fishers of men, they are too exclusively bent,’ Mr. James of Birmingham remarks, (Introduction to Spencer’s Sketches, p. xlv.) ‘on casting their net among a shoal, and drawing many at one throw, and are not given enough to patiently angling for the solitary fish. Single souls are thought, if not beneath our notice, yet below our zeal. Have we forgotten our great Pattern, who sat for a whole hour, perhaps, or even more, on the side of a well, and laboured kindly and condescendingly for the salvation of one individual, and that a female of indifferent character? Or may we not receive instruction from the parable of the lost sheep, upon perceiving the solicitude and the toil of the good Shepherd to restore the solitary wanderer to the fold? Or let us learn from the conduct of the blessed angels, who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. It is this anxiety,’ he adds, ‘for the conversion of single souls by conversation in private more than the ardour of the pulpit that tests the sincerity of our concern and the purity of our motives. Many things apart from the higher objects of pulpit ministration concur to excite our zeal in public; only one, and that of a right kind, can be supposed to operate in private.’ There is, undoubtedly, much truth in this representation; and very few pastors who have been long in the ministry will be able to reflect en it without painful and humbling recollections. It is not unimportant to notice, however, that the same esteemed and earnest minister, in his anxiety to get more into this individual mode of dealing with his people, and deepening on particular minds the impressions which may have been made upon them by the services of the sanctuary, fell upon a plan in the latter years of his ministry which was attended with considerable success, and which doubtless, at particular seasons, has often in substance been adopted elsewhere. The plan was this: He made very special preparation for his pulpit services on one, or perhaps two Sabbaths, with the view of awakening in the minds of his congregation a deep and solemn concern for salvation, and then gave intimation at the close that, on a particular evening shortly after, he would be at the vestry or schoolroom, for the purpose of meeting any one who might have been affected by what they had heard, or who by any means had been brought into concern regarding the things of their peace. He made them very distinctly to understand that his object was not to interrogate or converse with such persons individually, the apprehension of which, he was sure, would have deterred many from coming, but to speak to them and pray with them collectively. The proposal on the first occasion of its announcement was so largely responded to, that Mr. James felt quite overpowered by the greatness and solemnity of the scene; and from that moment, he says, he felt that a new view of his pastoral office had been opened to him, and a new means of usefulness had been put into his hands. At the evening meeting, in addition to exercises of devotion, he endeavoured to address those present in such a manner as to deepen their feelings of thoughtfulness and spiritual concern, also to impart to them clear views of the way of salvation; for which purpose he would sometimes distribute an appropriate tract, and request them to peruse it at leisure, while the instructions given by himself were still fresh upon their minds. Meetings of this sort were renewed for six or seven times in successive weeks, when it was intimated that for the present they would cease, and that the pastor would be ready to converse with persons individually at certain times and places mentioned. Usually a very considerable number availed themselves of the opportunity, and about a half of the whole were added to the membership of the church. The plan, with little variation, was repeated at internals during the remainder of Mr. James’ ministry, and always with considerable success. It should, of course, be understood that such a plan is neither adapted to all situations, nor suited to every one’s ministerial gifts; and wherever it is tried, the greatest care should be taken beforehand in feeling one’s way as to the probability at least of the effort meeting with an adequate response. It should also be understood that even where things seem, upon the whole, favourable to the attempt being made, the whole issue, humanly speaking, will depend upon the spirit, the earnestness, the tact of the minister; and while he should never trust to these, or think for a moment that the possession of them in the largest measure would be of itself sufficient, still it must be through them instrumentally that the impression in ordinary cases is to be produced and lasting results reached. In such a line of operations nothing of any moment can be effected unless the chief agent in them is profoundly conscious of a desire for the salvation of men, unless he is ready also for this end to come into close fellowship with them, and be willing to labour both in pains and prayer to have them brought to a state of peace and acceptance in the Saviour. On the other hand, there may be a danger in waiting too long for what are supposed to be the requisite gifts and fitting opportunities; a certain courageous boldness, in the name of the Lord, venturing for His sake on new lines of action, may sometimes be the truest wisdom. If one in such a spirit but conscientiously uses what he has and does what he can, it may not be in vain; and in this, as in other departments of spiritual labour, experience will of itself bring increased skill and fitness for the work. In regard to the bearing generally of what may be called individual cases of spiritual awakening brought under the cognizance of the pastor on his whole work in any particular place, it is necessary to judge cautiously; for, though important evidences of a spiritual movement, they are not by any means the only, or in themselves infallible, tests of its reality and power. Various circumstances may operate in particular localities to modify the number of such cases, and make them relatively more or fewer than the actual work of grace which is proceeding at the time might of itself seem to warrant. The manners of society must here be taken into account, which have their characteristic differences in persons of higher and lower degree; in the one more quiet and self-possessed, in the other more free and demonstrative; whence, in times of excitement, of religious excitement as well as excitement of any other kind, while the feelings of persons in the humbler ranks of life will burst forth like new wine, those of a more refined and cultivated class, though perhaps equally strong, and even more deep and lasting, are held under self-control, and flow on like a silent but powerful current in the underground of their souls. In a congregation derived mainly from this higher class there will be nothing like the same exhibition of emotional feeling as in one of a different description, though the regenerating influence experienced may not be less general and pervading in the one case than in the other. The pastor therefore must, to a considerable extent, judge by other and less palpable manifestations. Another element also, the comparative amount of religious knowledge, the measure that is possessed of an intelligent acquaintance with the word of God, must not be overlooked; for this of itself, when possessed in any competent degree, renders the way of peace perfectly plain to such as have become really in earnest to find it. Their understandings are already full of light; they have but to realize what they know, to practise what they believe, and in many cases may find no occasion or need to go to the pastor for special direction or comfort. It will naturally, however, be otherwise where people have grown up in ignorance and neglect, estranged in great measure from the ordinances of religion, and hence requiring to be taught what are the first principles of the oracles of God. Deep conviction of sin with such persons will need to be followed up with special efforts to impart a sufficient knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ; and in their case the expressed desire to obtain what in this respect is needed, and the progress made in acquiring it, may commonly be taken as the evidence and measure of a truly awakened condition. It is still further to be borne in mind, that there are constitutional, one may even say national, idiosyncrasies, which cannot fail to discover themselves in such matters; and among these may certainly be reckoned a kind of natural shyness or reserve in the Scottish mind. Taken as a class, devout and serious Christians in Scotland are less communicative in regard to the frames and movements of their inner life than in most other countries. I believe it would often be better both for themselves and others if they revealed more of the currents of thought and feeling, the anxieties, joys, and sorrows of which they are conscious, as they might thus know more of the blessed communion of saints, and in their darker moments might more readily obtain the comfort and consolation of which they stand in need. Yet, if there is to be excess on the one side or the other, that which cleaves to us as a people is at least the safer: rather grave, quiet, earnest thought about spiritual things struggling with itself in the chambers of imagery, than much communicativeness with a deficiency of depth and solidity of thought. And then, for the most part, hearts will one time or another open circumstances will arise which in a manner compel the reserve to give way, and lead to spiritual communings, especially on the part of genuine believers, with their pastor. And it may, perhaps, help to reconcile him to a little delay in the matter, and dispose him to avoid anything like undue haste or urgency, when it is considered how often it happens that the readiest to disclose their spiritual feelings, the most talkative about their soul-experiences, are the most apt to yield under the pressure of outward difficulties, and commonly the least satisfactory in respect to consistency of character and steadiness of growth in the divine life (The following statement, made several years ago by a minister of the Free Church, formerly of the Scottish Establishment, lends confirmation in one or two points to what has just been stated: ‘We must not expect from our people that they shall tell us at what time and in what way they were brought to serious thought. There is on the part of many a dread lest their goodness should be as the morning cloud; and if one is to be happy only when he hears his people telling him that such and such a sermon or address brought them to Christ, he will assuredly be disappointed. Let me tell of the manner in which three cases of, I hope, something better than mere improvement were brought about. The first was a farm-servant, who had been reared in a very careless family, and whose marriage was not carried through so as to approve itself to me. Visiting him one day, I was struck with his remark, “You said there was not a more pleasant sight than to see the labouring man sitting down on the Sabbath evening and teaching his children the word of God; I find it very pleasant.” This was the first intimation of a change. From that day the man took a new position in the parish. He had much family affliction, which he bore with a most submissive spirit, and his worldly circumstances have so improved that I found him lately in possession of a small farm, and highly respected. The second case was one of our most “well-to-do” farmers. Often had this man been approached, but he invariably shied all close dealings; an “Ay” or a “No” was the sum of what could be got out of him. At length, one day he asked me if I could lend him, or would buy for him, a book of prayers, as such a thing ‘‘was a help to the like of him.” From that day he presented a new character to the parish, and spoke and acted as one interested in the truth. In another case, an individual in the upper ranks of life, after having kept a thorough silence as to the means of her change from a system of self-righteousness to one of simple dependence on the grace of God in Christ, when expecting death, felt it would not be right to conceal the instrumentality by which she had been brought to entertain serious views. This often occurs. The Lord graciously keeps from His servant the knowledge of what He is doing through him; it may be, lest he should be unduly exalted.’ These cases are contrasted by the writer with two others, the subjects of which were persons in the better classes of society; one that of a lady, who was often seen to be much impressed by public addresses, affected even to tears; but when laid on a sick-bed was brought to confess that she had till then never prayed. The other was that of a young man, who became apparently a decided convert, and exposed himself to considerable mockery on account of the truth from friends and relatives, but began to decline in his fidelity and zeal, and ultimately sunk into the lowest depths of profligacy and shame.—Free Church Magazine, vol. viii. p. 347.). II. Dealings with Special Catses.—The preceding remarks will be misunderstood, if they are conceived to indicate a disposition to set little by the occurrence of particular cases, as subjects for more exact inquiry and specific treatment, either to discourage the desire for them, or to account their occasional occurrence of little moment. On the contrary, I am persuaded it would argue ill for the character of any Christian pastorate if such were not both expected and found; only some discrimination should be exercised in the matter, if men would save themselves from needless disappointments; and a rule of judgment suitable enough for one sphere of action should not be applied without qualification to another materially different. In almost every field of ministerial labour, though in some greatly more than in others, there will be found exemplifications of the truth so beautifully set forth in the parable: ‘So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how;’ (Mark 4:26-27) a silent, gradual, progressive unfolding, rendering itself distinctly manifest only in the result. Cases will still arise, however, calling for special treatment; and a good deal of a minister’s usefulness and adaptation to his particular sphere may often depend upon his qualifications for making the treatment such as it ought to be. They naturally fall into two classes: first, those which have simply to be met with, the cases of persons roused somehow to spiritual concern, or involved in doubt and perplexity about the interests of their souls, and coming to the pastor for comfort and direction; and second, those whom the pastor should endeavour to seek out, for the purpose of reclaiming them from indifference, or bringing them to a right sense of their state and duty. 1. In regard to the former class, no great difficulty is likely to be occasioned by them, on the supposition that the pastor is a man of sound Scriptural knowledge, spiritual discernment, and hearty zeal in his work. The vast majority of cases that present themselves will be such as require at his hands the exercise only of a sympathizing spirit, prompting him to listen with attention and interest to the details of each; skill in the application of the word of truth, according to the varieties of spiritual want and danger that come before him; and faith, living faith, to lay hold of and press upon the awakened and troubled conscience the promises more especially adapted to conduct it to rest. Prayer, I need scarcely say, should accompany all, prayer for direction how to speak, and for a blessing on what is spoken; prayer also at times during the conference, as well as before or after it. Usually, the main difficulty experienced is in respect to the persons most deeply pierced with convictions of sin, how to get them brought into such clear views of the scheme of grace, and such a realizing sense of the offered forgiveness of the gospel, as will enable them to lay aside their fears, and with a trustful confidence commit themselves to the covenant faithfulness of God. The transition seems so great from the one state to the other, that they are not easy to be convinced of its immediate practicability. And in the case of some, there are constitutional difficulties which serve to aggravate the difficulty, nervous debility, melancholic temperaments, dyspeptic or other bodily derangements, in which material elements become strangely intermingled with spiritual; and something like physical hindrances for a time bar the way to a comfortable assurance. For such cases it is impossible to lay down definite prescriptions, or give instructions that can be of much practical avail. Experience must be the chief guide; and they who cannot find their way thus to the proper mode of treatment, will derive little help either from the lecture-room or the written page. There are cases, however, occasionally occurring in times of religious awakening, and assuming the aspect of a hopeful concern about salvation, in dealing with which the pastor will have need of other qualities than those which may suffice for guiding ordinary inquirers into the way of peace and safety. It is quite possible that persons may become disquieted in conscience, and exhibit considerable marks of a penitent and changed condition, who still have never become properly alive to their condition as sinners, who are not prepared either to confess or to forsake all that is evil in their temper and conduct, and who, therefore, if they should be plied merely with the consolations of the gospel, might readily solace themselves with a peace which is not of God. Such persons need to be dealt with first in a spirit of faithful severity; they must be made to know themselves better before they can apprehend Christ aright as their Saviour, and enter into the participation of His risen life. We meet with cases of this description in the New Testament; for example, in the scribes and Pharisees as a class; in Nicodemus most especially; in the rich young ruler; and in the method of treatment adopted toward them by John the Baptist and our Lord, searching, wise, faithful, we have the line marked out which, in similar circumstances, we ought to follow. It may not be quite easy to detect the lurking evil, or descry amid the signs of apparent life and hopefulness the indications of a want of thorough earnestness and sincerity; but possibly something in the manner, if carefully watched, may discover it, or it may come out as the result of personal inquiries or incidental means of information. When once ascertained, there should be no dallying with the spiritual sore in their condition; no false delicacy in bringing the truth of God to bear upon it; faithfulness, applying the axe to the root of the tree, is the real kindness. Take as a good illustrative example the following case which occurred in connection with the ministry of an evangelical minister of the Church of England in last century, Mr. Walker of Truro:—‘One of his visitors for private instruction was a young man, who stated that he called to thank him for the benefit he had received from his ministry, and to beg his advice. Mr. Walker immediately questioned him as to the knowledge he possessed of his own heart, when the youth expressed in general terms a conviction that he was an unworthy sinner. Perceiving by his manner that he had never duly experienced that conviction, Mr. Walker at once entered into an explanation of the sinner’s character, with a personal reference to the individual before him. He dwelt upon his ingratitude to God, the evil nature of the motives which had influenced all his actions, the fruitlessness of his life, the defilement even of his best deeds, and then added, “I fear you are secretly displeased with me, because I have not commended your good intentions and nattered your vanity.” “No indeed, sir,” said the young man, “I feel extremely thankful for this striking proof of your kindness and regard.”’ Yet even this was feigned; for the young man himself next day confessed that he felt inwardly chagrined at the small account Mr. Walker seemed to make of his professions, and had even secretly determined to encounter no more the searching questions which had exposed his shallowness and wounded his pride. But he could not carry out his purpose of forsaking his instructor; the arrow of divine truth had entered his heart, he submitted himself to the righteousness of God in Christ, and ever afterwards led an exemplary Christian life. But under a less discerning and faithful minister, who can tell what might have been the result? Most probably a fresh increase to his self-complacency, followed by future backslidings, ever-recurring inconsistencies, and much that betokened the form rather than the life of godliness. (See also some other illustrative cases remarkably well conducted in Spencer’s Sketches, particularly the one entitled ‘Delay; or, The Accepted Time.’) Cases of this description render it manifest that all is by no means accomplished when personal concern is awakened, or when the sinner assumes the position of an inquirer, and that a pastor has often much more to do with those who seek advice from him regarding their soul’s interests than quote a few passages of Scripture and point their way to the Saviour. Nor does the difficulty always arise from some latent insincerity or deep-rooted contrariety in some respect to the humbling tenets of the gospel. It may come in great part from the relations of social or domestic life, from embarrassments created by the rival claims of affections and interests, which in themselves are good, and in respect to which it is no easy matter to decide when they compete for the precedency. That which, if one of these claims stood alone, might commend itself to approval, may appear, when relatively considered, to be attended with so many risks and hazards to interests naturally esteemed precious, that a man may be tempted to pause before making the venture, and to ask whether, meanwhile at least, something less might not be held reasonable and proper. Perplexing cases of this sort will sometimes present themselves, for which, either to choose oneself the right path, or to counsel others in regard to it, there is needed a spirit of discretion as well as of godly simplicity, and still more perhaps even than that, a strong, reliant faith in God’s word, the faith which can remove mountains, and which can fearlessly take the course of lofty principle in the calm assurance that God will stand by the right, and, in spite of all that seems adverse or perilous, will cause it to become the best for present peace and blessing as well as for ultimate good. The history of Providence is ever furnishing exemplifications of this, and with such the prudent and conscientious pastor will do well to keep himself acquainted, in order that, from the experience of others as well as from his own observation and knowledge of the way of life, he may be able to guide his people through the more trying emergencies of their lot. (Some excellent specimens of what is referred to may be found in Spencer’s Sketches, especially ‘The Persecuted Wife;’ also one or two in Warton’s Deathbed Scenes and Past Conversations.) 2. The earnest and devoted pastor, however, must not be satisfied with simply meeting such cases as come of their own accord to him for counsel and direction; he must himself assume the part of an inquirer in regard to some, whether formally connected with his congregation or lying on its outskirts, endeavouring by one method or another to get into personal contact with them, and bring them to a sense of what seems unrighteous in their course and perilous in their condition. I have already noticed the temptations there are with many ministers of the gospel for neglecting this part of pastoral duty, and of the difficulties attending its discharge. Indeed, these are altogether so peculiar and so various, that I should only, I fear, spend time to little purpose by going at any length into the subject. It is not so properly a science to be studied as an art to be learned; and, like all other arts, to be learned to purpose, it must be pursued amid the objects of real life. The felt responsibility of being put in charge with immortal souls, among whom there appear to be some perishing for lack of knowledge, and incapable of being effectually reached by public ministrations—this, to awaken the desire for putting forth special efforts in their behalf, and such works as those already referred to suggest practical hints for the most likely methods of accomplishing the end in view, will do more than the most elaborate prelections on the general nature and objects of the duty. I indicate only a few essential points. First, all reasonable care should be taken beforehand to know the real state and character of the parties intended to be dealt with. There should always be more to go upon than vague impressions or general rumours. Knowledge here, of a circumstantial and definite nature, may truly be designated a key to at least a certain measure of success; for it lays open to us the realities of the case we have to deal with, and so both prevents us from stumbling upon imaginary evils, the bare suspicion of which might lead us astray, and brings us acquainted with the precise evils which have, if possible, to be mastered. Secondly, we should prepare for the dealing, by considering well the forms of evil or aspects of character to which we mean to address ourselves in the way of reform, the thoughts and considerations which it might be best to urge on the notice of the persons concerned, the very passages of Scripture also we would lodge in their memory; and prepare, moreover, by invoking the guidance and blessing of Him in whose name alone everything should be done that touches the interests of salvation. Thirdly, this which I have just mentioned, salvation, is the end that should be kept steadily in view, in our private dealings with individual souls, as well as in our public ministrations. Nothing less; for short of this nothing will avail to their real wellbeing, or fulfil the design of a gospel ministry. Slighter reforms, however proper to be mentioned, and made perhaps the starting-point of our remarks, should still only be regarded as the preliminary stages to be gained, the soul’s surrender to Christ and appropriation of His purchased redemption being ever kept in view as the proper landing-place we desire to reach. It is this high aim, also, which best nerves the mind to such close and often delicate intermeddling with other men’s states and modes of life; for, when such mighty interests are seen to be at stake, what practical difficulties should not the servant of Christ be ready to encounter! Finally, while a spirit of profound earnestness and fidelity to the cause of truth should constitute the ground of the whole proceeding, sincere and fervent love should animate and characterize the mode of conducting it, love that may be felt; for this will soften every stroke, and lend weight to every argument and appeal we make. ‘I cannot think,’ said one to a truly evangelical pastor, ‘how your people bear such plain speaking;’ to which the reply was, ‘It is because they know I love them.’ And of the love itself, which bears such blessed fruit, it has been justly said, that ‘it is not the addressing people with epithets of endearment and words of tenderness which proves its existence and secures its objects; it must be a deep, inward love of souls, learned beneath the cross of Christ; it should manifest itself rather in the actions of a loving life than in ready and apparent demonstrations; and when it is real, it will lead to the self-denying abandonment of ease, favourite pursuits, and of pleasant company, that in the morning, and at noonday, and at evening-tide, whenever we can best reach them, we may be with the sick and with the whole, teaching the young, and comforting the mourners, and recalling the wanderers, and building up the weak. Such love as this will impart to the true pastor a character which all can understand, and which, in the long run, few can resist.’ (Bishop of Oxford’s (Wilberforce) Addresses, p. 93.) III. Pastoral Visitations.—A considerable part of the delicacy connected with a portion of the cases which call for special dealing is in great measure avoided by the practice known among us by the name of pastoral visitations; that is, stated official visits, once a year in congregations or parishes of moderate size, to the various households more or less connected with the particular pastorate. No one who is really bent on winning souls will ever think of limiting his intercourse with the families of his flock to such visitations, unless, indeed, the magnitude of his charge or infirm health in a manner oblige him to do so. Yet, even if he should be able to do not a little in that casual and incidental way to keep up a certain intercourse with them, the practice of regular household visitations is in itself a good one, and for various reasons ought to be maintained. It tends, first of all, in a very natural and appropriate manner to keep alive in the minds of the people the feeling that they are under pastoral oversight. For, by such visitations, the fact is ever and anon brought prominently before them, that it is a recognised part of ministerial duty to take cognizance of the families and individuals belonging to a pastorate, and from house to house as well as in the sanctuary speak to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. The practice, besides, furnishes the pastor with an excellent opportunity, perpetually recurring, of breaking the bread of life to the families of the flock in a more homely manner than can be done from the pulpit, and of engaging in acts of devotion with them as one of themselves. But in addition to all this, it carries with it the great advantage of providing him with an occasion for noticing anything that may have appeared to him amiss in particular families or individuals without seeming to go out of his way for the purpose. If he has observed symptoms of ungodliness to be growing upon them, if attendance upon ordinances has begun to be less regular and serious than it formerly was, if questionable courses are known to have been entered on, improper companionships formed, scandalous outbreaks of temper exhibited, whatever it may be that has given occasion for anxiety concerning them, the practice of regular pastoral visitations enables the pastor, in a quiet and unobtrusive manner, to bring his Christian influence and counsel to bear on the incipient evil, and perhaps prevent it from going further. There may possibly be only a few things of the kind referred to calling for notice in each round of pastoral visitation; but it may, notwithstanding, be found of considerable moment, in a practical point of view, to have such a method of dealing with them. If it is asked, after what manner should the visitation be conducted? or, at what times? nothing very explicit can be indicated in the way of answer, nor should anything like unbending uniformity be attempted; the diversified circumstances of congregations and families call for a corresponding variety. Indeed, amid the artificial arrangements of modern society, the great difficulty often is to find any time suitable for such visitations, families being so variously occupied with the employments of active life, and so seldom for any length of time gathered together in their respective homes. In such cases almost the only practicable method is for the pastor to make a brief visit to the nearly empty households at some convenient season during the day, and appointing a particular dwelling in which to meet them together in the evening; a method that may occasionally be adopted as a variation, even where not absolutely necessary; but which always carries the relative disadvantage of losing, to some extent, the more private and special in the general. Usually, where it can be done, the most effective method is to take each family apart, and either draw them into conversation on spiritual matters, such as we have reason to think likely to prove instructive and edifying to the family; or give a short exposition of some passage of Scripture, with such directness and point in the application as may be fitted to tell beneficially on the hearts of those we seek to impress; or, still again, where there are several young persons in the family, put a few questions to them from the Catechism, with subordinate questions and illustrations calculated to bring out the meaning, and then turn the points of doctrine or duty thus elucidated to practical account for the older as well as the younger members of the family. Prayer should always conclude the exercise, and prayer so constructed as to bear specific reference to the several classes composing the membership of the household and the duties respectively devolving on them. Whichever method be adopted, nothing should be done in a rapid and perfunctory manner, as if the object were merely to perform a certain amount of work in a definite portion of time. Work so done is not likely to yield much return of spiritual good. We must throw our souls into it; and if we do so, we shall find that a comparatively small number of families is as much as can be satisfactorily overtaken in a day, as it necessarily involves a considerable degree of mental labour and spiritual anxiety. And here, as in other things, he who would win the blessing must not grudge the cost. It is impossible, as I have said, to prescribe for work of this description any uniform rule; nor can the example of any single individual, however eminent in ministerial gifts, or honoured in the work itself, be fitly set up as a kind of universal pattern. Yet it may not be without benefit to set before one’s mind occasionally a higher specimen of skill and devotedness in this department of pastoral labour, if not for the purpose of copying it, which may now be impracticable, yet as an elevated ideal, which may serve to stimulate one’s exertions, and lead to greater things being aimed at than might otherwise be thought of. Such an ideal we undoubtedly have in the account given by Richard Baxter of the practice of the well-known Joseph Alleine, when assistant parish minister of Taunton. ‘He would,’ says Baxter, ‘give families notice of his coming, the day before, desiring that he might have admittance to their houses, to converse with them about their soul-concerns, and that they would have the whole family together against he came. When he came, and the family were called together, he would be instructing the younger sort in the principles of religion by asking several questions out of the Catechism, the answers to which he would be opening and explaining to them. Also, he would be inquiring of them about their spiritual state and condition, labouring to make them sensible of the evil and danger of sin, the corruption and wickedness of our natures, the misery of an unconverted state; stirring them to look after the true remedy proposed in the gospel, to turn from all their sins unto God, to close with Christ upon His own terms; to follow after holiness, to watch over their hearts and lives, to mortify their lusts, to redeem their time, to prepare for eternity. These things, as he would be explaining them to their understandings, so he would be pressing the practice of them on their consciences with the most cogent arguments and considerations. Besides, he would leave with them several counsels and directions to be carefully remembered and practised for the good of their souls. Those that were serious and religious he would labour to help forward in holiness by answering their doubts, resolving their cases, encouraging them under their difficulties. And before he did go from any family he would deal with the heads of that family, and such others as were grown to the years of discretion, singly and apart; that so he might, as much as possibly he could, come to know the condition of each particular person in his flock, and address himself in his discourses as might be suitable to every one of them. If he perceived they did live in the neglect of family duties, he would exhort and press them to set up the worship of God in their families, and directing them how to set about it, and to take time for secret duties too. Such as were masters of families he would earnestly persuade and desire, as they did tender the honour of Christ and the welfare of their children and servants’ souls, to let them have some time every day for such private duties, and to encourage them in the performance of them; nor would he leave them till he had a promise of them so to do. Sometimes, also, he would himself go to prayer before his departure. This was his method,’ Baxter adds, ‘in the general, although with such necessary variation in his particular visits as the various state and condition of the several families did require. If the family where he came were ignorant, he would insist the longer in instructing and catechizing; if loose, in reproving and convincing; if godly, in encouraging and directing. He did use to spend five afternoons every week in such exercise, from one or two o’clock till seven in the evening. In which space of time he would visit sometimes three or four families, and sometimes more, according as they were greater or less. This course he would take throughout the town; and when he had gone through, he would presently begin again, that he might visit every family as often as he could. He often did bless God for the great success he had in these exercises, saying that God had made him as instrumental of good to souls this way as by his public preaching, if not more.’ Pastoral visitations conducted after this fashion might justly be termed a doing business with people about the salvation of their souls; it displayed such laborious painstaking for their spiritual good, such earnest travailing in birth for its accomplishment, as bespoke a man of apostolic zeal to whom ‘to live was Christ;’ and it was but a specimen, though doubtless one of the more distinguished specimens of what about the same period was pursued by the Puritan ministers in many an English parish, and very generally in Scotland. In Scotland it was both more generally followed and longer continued; and it undoubtedly contributed much to that wide diffusion of religious knowledge and observance which, in the better periods of their history, has been the characteristic of the Scottish people. The instructions issued by the General Assembly on ministerial visitations in 1798, (Act of Assembly 1708 respecting Ministerial Visitations. ‘1. After the minister has got an account of the persons dwelling in the family, he may speak to them all in general of the necessity of regeneration, and the advantages of serious religion and godliness, of piety towards God, and justice and charity towards man. ‘2. And next more particularly to the servants; of their duty to fear and serve God, and to be dutiful, faithful, and obedient servants, and of the promises made to such; commending to them the reading of the Scriptures as they can, and prayer in secret, and love and concord among themselves, and, in particular, a holy care of sanctifying the Lord’s day. ‘3. The minister may apply his discourse to the children, as they are capable, with affectionate seriousness, showing them the advantage of knowing, loving, seeking, and serving God, and remembering their Creator and Redeemer in the days of their youth, and honouring their parents, and to mind them how they were dedicated to God in baptism; and when of age and fit, and after due instruction of the nature of the covenant of grace and the seals thereof, to excite them to engage themselves personally to the Lord, and to desire, and prepare for, and take the first opportunity they can of partaking of the Lord’s Supper; to be especially careful how they communicate at first, much depending thereon (and such of the servants as are young are to be exhorted hereto in like manner); exciting them also to daily reading of the Scriptures, and to secret prayer, and sanctifying the Lord’s day. ‘4. After the minister has spoken to servants and children, he should speak privately to the master and mistress of the family about their personal duty toward God, and the care of their own soul’s salvation, and their obligation to promote religion and the worship of God in their family, and to restrain and punish vice and encourage piety, and to be careful that they and their house serve the Lord and sanctify the Lord’s day. And after this it may be fit to exhort masters to take care that God be worshipped daily in the family by prayer, and praise, and the reading of the Scriptures. 2d. Concerning the behaviour and conversation of the servants, and their duty towards God and man, and how they attend the worship of God in the family, how they attend the public worship on the Lord’s day, and how they behave after sermons; if any of them be piously inclined; if they make conscience of secret prayer and reading the Scriptures. %d. If there be catechizing and instructing the ignorant and weak; if due care be taken in educating the children; and particularly, if they be put timeously to school, and how they profit thereat, and how the Lord’s day is spent after sermons in the family and in secret: in all which the minister may mix in suitable directions, encouragements, and admonitions as he shall see cause, and most for edification. ‘5. (Directs inquiry as to the supply of Bibles.) ‘6. (To exhort communicants to remember and pay their vows.) ‘7. Seeing there is need for all this of much prudence, zeal for God, and love to souls, and affectionate seriousness, all this should be carried on with dependence on God and fervent prayer to Him, both before a minister sets forth for such work, and with the visited, as there shall be access to and opportunity for it. ‘[Sensible and good in the main, but somewhat too formal, dwelling proportionally too much on externals, and carrying the appearance of a degree of inquisitoriousness; the great object better gained by going more into the spirit and life of religion.]) if properly carried out, must have required a substantial repetition of the method practised by Alleine. As a rule, it can be but occasionally and partially followed now; there has come, along with other changes in the course of time, such a divided state of things in parishes and families, such an impatience of authority and whatever in matters of religion wears an inquisitorial aspect, such a want of repose also for the quiet and thoughtful handling of spiritual concerns, as renders the spirit only, not the precise form, of the good old practice for the most part applicable in our generation. Ministers of the gospel, therefore, must here endeavour to adapt themselves to circumstances, and follow the example of her who is commended for having done simply what she could. IV. Catechetical Instruction.—One part of the object intended to be gained by pastoral visitations has been often sought by means of meetings for catechetical instruction; diets for catechizing, as they used to be called among us. No method, certainly, is so well calculated as that of communication by means of question and answer, for enabling the pastor to get at the real state of knowledge in those who are committed to him for instruction in divine things; none also better adapted for bringing such as are imperfectly enlightened in the truth to clear and definite views of it, and exercising their faculties to a proper discrimination between the doctrines of God and the errors and corruptions with which they have been overlaid by men; and when regularly carried out by special meetings for the purpose, held from year to year and from place to place, as was once the common practice in Scotland, it must have had a considerable effect in sharpening the intellects of the people in connection with religious subjects, and raising them to a relatively high place as to the possession of doctrinal knowledge. That, however, was probably about the whole of the result that came out of the yearly catechizings as they were wont, to be conducted, an increase of head knowledge; so far, indeed, good if kept in its proper place, and used chiefly as the means to a higher end, but a very inferior good if rested in as an end of its own, or held merely as the buttress and ornament of a lifeless orthodoxy. There is some reason to fear that this, latterly at least, was the turn things in great measure took, especially when persons in full communion with the Church, as well as those in training for it, were subjected to the process (a thing scarcely capable of justification in an ecclesiastical respect); and the growing conviction of the general inefficiency of the practice with reference to the higher interests of religion, coupled with the somewhat awkward exhibitions not unfrequently made at them by the more bashful and retiring portions of the flock, tended to bring on a disrelish for such catechizings, and ultimately, in most parts of the country, led to their discontinuance. The tendencies in this direction were considerably strengthened by the passing away of the old simplicity of manners, the gradual introduction of a more artificial state of society, accompanied by a greater diversity of rank and position among the people. The minister could not well be catechizing before others ladies and gentlemen, or persons who would not be quite pleased if they were not reckoned such; and then, if they were exempted as belonging to a higher grade, others not very far beneath them in circumstances, possibly in religious knowledge and character superior, could scarcely deem themselves treated with due regard if they should seem to be kept in a sort of leading-strings. Were it only, therefore, to avoid the appearance of partiality, it became in a manner necessary to grant to others the exemption which had already been conceded to some. And another thing which might be said to consummate the change, and to do so without any real loss, was the general establishment of Sabbath schools and of Bible classes for the young. These being usually placed under the superintendence of the pastor, and bringing him more or less into intelligent contact with the minds of the young when ripening to manhood and womanhood, very much superseded the necessity of stated examinations for the congregation as such. At the proper period for acquiring the elements of religious knowledge the pastor has taken cognizance of at least the greater number of those who ultimately form the congregation; so that, in ordinary circumstances, the work of the pastorate in this particular line might be fairly regarded as done. It is not, therefore, by any means an absolute loss that has here to be thought of, but rather the dropping of one mode of action for another, which is even in some respects better, because when rightly managed more thorough and complete. Regularly conducted and well-organized Sabbath schools, followed up, wherever practicable, by Bible classes for the more advanced, may be made most effective instruments for the godly instruction and upbringing of the young; and they have this advantage, that while they afford ample opportunities for pastoral inspection and oversight, they also serve to call into play the available Christian agencies belonging to the congregation; others, with capacities of service differing according to the gift of Christ, become fellow-workers with the pastor in sowing the gospel seed. But the pastor must keep his hand at the plough also here; especially in rural situations, where the supply of teachers is usually most imperfect, and the presence of the pastor is needed to give life and direction to the whole. And he may find it useful—useful to the older as well as to the younger portions of the congregation—to have occasional, quarterly perhaps, or half-yearly, examinations of the Sabbath school in the church; taking care, through the examinations, to bring clearly out to all present the great facts and principles of the gospel of Christ, and to enforce the lessons taught by such illustrative examples and appeals as may prove interesting and instructive to all classes. Methods of this nature wisely planned, and diligently carried out, will in most situations be sufficient to compensate for what has been lost. (It is scarcely necessary to add, that the personal catechizings which it was the more immediate object of Baxter in his Reformed Pastor to recommend, are no longer suitable or practicable; they never were so except in part, or in some particular situations; but the work itself is in other respects of great practical value, and well deserves perusal.) V. Visitation of the Sick and Afflicted.—The only point that remains to be noticed under this general division has respect to the case of those who are in circumstances of distress—the diseased, the dying, or the bereaved. The ministration of counsel and comfort to these is undoubtedly a most important branch of pastoral duty. It is such, indeed, that the neglect or slovenly discharge of it will go far to neutralize the effect of all other services. For the pastor who makes himself strange in the households of his flock, while they are involved in sorrow or stricken with disease and death, will invariably be regarded as devoid of the tenderness and consideration which are the most appropriate characteristics of his calling; also, as letting most precious opportunities slip for prosecuting his high commission. He will be regarded as one more intent on his own ease or gratification than on the business of his spiritual vocation, and even as doing what he may otherwise perform in the fulfilment of its duties, rather out of respect to worldly motives and inducements, than from zeal to the glory of God, and love to the souls of men. So strong is the general feeling among Christian people on this point, that they will hardly allow cases of fever, or other diseases supposed to be infectious, to form a just ground of absence at such times. Unless in very extreme cases, the shrinking of the minister from the region of danger is viewed as a dereliction of duty, since there appears in it an unwillingness to adventure for the sake of men’s souls where others readily go for the sake of their bodies. He should therefore consider well how much the course of procedure he follows here may tell upon his general standing and usefulness. If he might be disposed, from a nervous dread of infection, or from what may seem a becoming regard to the welfare of his family, to stand aloof, he should reflect that disease—possibly the very form of disease he seeks most anxiously to avert—may reach him by ways he cannot anticipate or prevent; and that it were unspeakably better the visitation should find him while faithfully pursuing the path of duty than when timidly deserting it. It is a happy thing, in such times, when one can attain to the conviction, that in all ordinary cases the path of duty is more than any other the path of safety; because, when followed with due precautions, and in a spirit of unshrinking fidelity, it is that in which one can most confidently look for the divine protection and blessing. Not that, even when he has attained to the conviction and is prepared to act on it, the pastor should feel himself obliged to visit the infected chamber, when it is clear he can minister no spiritual benefit, or when he is himself in a state of bodily exhaustion; but merely that inferior considerations should be kept in their proper place, and no one should have just reason to say that for certain by-ends of his own he allowed the solemn calls of duty to fall into abeyance. It is possible, however, at such times to show much sympathy and attention, and still fail miserably in the discharge of duty; never, indeed, rise to any due conception of it. There is a natural feeling in the minds even of the careless and ungodly, which prompts them to desire the visit of a minister when trouble and sickness lie heavy upon them; they are for the time checked in their worldly course; ordinary comforts and supports fail them; their minds are involuntarily thrown into a sombre mood; and they are hence prepared to welcome into their habitation one who comes as the peculiar representative of religion. His very presence is by some thought to carry a blessing with it; and to hear from his lips a few words of consolation, or obtain the benefit of his prayers, is too often deemed sufficient to atone for many a past neglect. Now, a minister may fall in with this state of feeling, and by so doing greatly endear himself to his people; while still nothing after all may be done which the occasion properly demands, and the parties concerned may presently again move on, as before, in their course of worldliness or indifference. Personally, the pastor may have grown in their affection and esteem; but they are not the less settled on their lees. It is in another spirit, and for other ends, that the true servant of Christ will endeavour to discharge the duty devolving on him in the season of trouble. His behaviour will certainly be marked by such kindness and sympathy as will give him a firmer hold of the affection and confidence of his people; but his great concern will be to deal faithfully with their souls, and turn the time of their special visitation into a season of grace and blessing. Personal illness or family trouble is a favourable opportunity for getting nearer to them in a spiritual respect than can usually be done at other times, and pressing home upon them the words of soberness and truth. It is with such words especially they should then be plied; and it were better one should abstain from attempting to act the part of a comforter, than leave them mistaken or in doubt as to the way in which it is to be found. Should the general tenor of their life have been manifestly wrong, and one has reason to fear that they are still in alienation from the life of God, it were kindness altogether misplaced, cruelty, indeed, rather than kindness, to refrain from touching the great sore in their condition, and bringing it into contact with the true, healing balsam of the gospel. The task may often be alike delicate and difficult; it may even exceed all the skill and consideration which we are able to muster for the occasion, or cause us at least to feel in doubt whether we had actually reached the bottom of the matter; but this, at all events, is the great point to be aimed at; and above and beyond the common sympathy we may cherish, and the ordinary acts of kindness in which we may express it toward them, we should set our hearts on the object of having them brought to know and partake of the good part which cannot be taken from them. Such, in particular, should be the spirit and character of our procedure with those who are themselves stricken with disease, and may possibly be trembling on the brink of eternity. It is a solemn thing to have to deal, in God’s stead, with persons who are lying under the shadow of death; in a few brief hours, perhaps, destined to give in their final account. ‘There are two classes,’ Bengel remarked, (Life, p. 147.) ‘which a minister of souls should make his especial care: those which may be called the first and the last, the children and the dying. The first, because in them he may look for the largest outpouring of blessing on his labours; the last, because so little time remains for the fulfilment of his ministry to them.’ In their case it is indeed now or never; and many a time, when the knell of death has finally rung out the season of opportunity, the spiritually-minded pastor will see cause to reproach himself for not being more frequent in his visits, and more earnest in his pleadings with them, while they still were within the offer of mercy. It is true, probably, that the actual number of conversions on the bed of death is not very great; few, it may be, compared with the whole of those who have exhibited some evidence of an awakened concern about their souls, and of a hopeful trust in Christ. There must always, when the concern or hope has begun only then, be a want of full satisfaction as to the result; since the grand test necessarily fails of a work of grace, namely, a stedfast adherence to Christ amid the trials and temptations of life. And the sad relapses often made into the ways of vanity and sin by those who have awoke apparently to righteousness under the momentary apprehension of death, when the danger which produced it has passed away, leaves no room to doubt that the same results would have happened in the case of many others who, after undergoing similar experiences, passed into their final home. Still, there are doubtless some whom the grace of God reaches even then for the first time; and the bare possibility of being the instrument of rescuing so much as one, or a very few, amid the last flickering moments of life, cannot but dispose the faithful pastor to seize with all readiness the opportunities presented by such solemn emergencies to do the work of an evangelist. It is, however, to be borne in mind, that though there may not be many actual conversions in the time of severe sickness or approaching death, there are many cases in which these prove seasons of peculiar blessing; cases ever and anon occurring, in which the already existing germ of life, comparatively latent before, becomes quickened by the stirring experiences of the time, and developes into full consciousness of vitality and strength; and cases, again, in which where life has distinctly appeared, though compassed about with obvious failings and infirmities, a fresh start is taken, and presently a more healthful, vigorous, and decided tone discovers itself in all that is thought and done. The valley of Achor is thus found a door of hope—of hope, at least, as a distinctly realized and conscious power, or a sustaining and governing principle of action; and the diligent pastor, like the wise and skilful physician, should endeavour so to tend, and guide, and nourish the reviving energies of life, while still labouring in the valley, as to help forward the desired result. He should not imagine that for this end much speaking on divine things will always be requisite. Not unfrequently the individual is incapable from bodily prostration to follow that sufficiently; and even when capable, would probably be less benefited by it than by something short, if only earnest, thoughtful, and suited to his spiritual condition. A single verse or brief passage of Scripture, uttered in a serious, affectionate, and believing manner; or the same in a few appropriate sentences, explained and applied, will often do more than a multitude of words. For the thing chiefly needed is to get the heart first to know itself, and then to apprehend and grasp by a living faith, as suited to its wants and weaknesses, the word of God’s faithfulness and truth; when this is done, all in a manner is gained. And very commonly, as I have said, it will be most readily gained, not by lengthened addresses, or by long prayers; but by tenderness of spirit, sympathetic feeling, discriminating fidelity; faith mingling with all, and giving point and impressiveness to the sayings it brings forth from the oracles of God. In regard to experienced believers the method pursued will naturally differ, according as they are themselves exercised under their affliction. If their faith continues living, and death itself is anticipated without alarm, the pastor will often feel that he has little to do as a guide or instructor, but has himself to learn rather than to teach; and has only as a sympathizing friend to mingle his expressions of faith and hope, his tears and prayers, with those of the afflicted to whom he ministers. Cases, however, will occur in which he will find other work to do; to re-assure hearts that in the hour of trial have begun to lose the hold they were wont to have of the Saviour; to strengthen the fainting spirit, and allay vexing doubts and fears which, perhaps, were little known till the waves of sore trouble began to beat upon them. In dealing with cases of this sort, the pastor will sometimes find his own spirit not a little tried; he will be made to see how impotent man’s word is to calm such perturbations of soul, and restore it to confidence in God; how little even God’s word may avail, unless it be handled with a realizing sense of its power and sufficiency, as well as skilfully applied to the particular moods and trials of the persons concerned. Prayerful consideration, therefore, seriousness of spirit, and special preparation as to the most effective mode of reaching the springs of thought and feeling in the bosom, may be needed for the pastor, if he is to do the part of a true spiritual physician. And for this, whatever help he may derive from human compositions, he will still repair as his chief armoury to the word of God; for only on the sure sayings of that word can the troubled soul be really brought to anchor itself in the near prospect of eternity. Times of sickness and bereavement, it should further be remembered, are fraught with solemn lessons to the other members of the family beside those more immediately affected. And these the pastor should also keep in his eye, and help as much as possible to a right improvement of the dispensations of God toward them. He should try to impress them with the conviction that seasons of severe affliction are seasons of special dealing on the part of God, who doubtless watches with peculiar interest for the proper result. And it will also be well for him to urge on them the important consideration, that it is not so much by the outward circumstances of one’s death, or the precise shade of feeling in which it is met, that the final issue for each shall be determined, as rather by the treatment he has given through life to God’s manifestation of Himself in His Son, and the evidence borne by his daily walk and conduct to the reality of his faith and the sincerity of his love. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 02.07. CHAPTER 7 ======================================================================== Chapter 7. Public Prayer and Other Devotional Services IT is necessary to give so much space to the function of preaching and other collateral duties in treating of a pastor’s ministrations, that a comparatively brief discussion must suffice for what concerns the devotional part of the church-service. (Compare Allon’s Essay on Worship, in Ecclesia.) It scarcely, indeed, admits of prolonged discussion, unless where the service has been permitted to grow into a mass of liturgical observances. A certain measure of simplicity of worship may still be preserved, though a liturgy is used in the main parts of the service, as is the case in some of the churches of the Reformation, Presbyterian as well as Episcopal. But in these cases the responsibility and the power of the pastor are of a very limited nature. He has the matériel of the service prepared to his hand; and to give the proper tone and character to this, is the whole that can justly be expected of him. Even that, however, is not so easy as might at first sight appear; for though it neither demands nor admits of any fresh thoughts or independent manifestations of pious feeling, it necessarily owes much of whatever interest or impressiveness may belong to it to the manner in which it is performed. If the officiating minister should go through this department of his work in a dull and spiritless style, like one treading the routine of a prescribed formalism, the performance is sure to repress and deaden the devotional feelings of the people rather than stir and quicken them into lively exercise. Let the mode of conducting divine worship be what it may, if it is to be for a congregation of believers a worship in spirit and in truth, the person who conducts it must himself enter into the spirit of the service, uttering from his own heart what he would have re-echoed from the hearts of others. And, obviously, the more beaten the track that is to be followed, the more familiar to all the specific forms of devotion, the greater at once must be the need of a lively devotional sentiment to inspirit them with life, and the difficulty also of expressing it through the appointed channels. But with liturgical services we have at present nothing to do, as they have been rejected from a place in our public worship. With us the minister who has to address the people on God’s behalf has also to address God in behalf, and indeed in the name, of the people. The responsibility here, therefore, is considerably greater. The matter of devotion, as well as its manner and the fitting adaptation of one part of it to another, are left entirely in his hands; so that, according as he possesses or wants the requisite qualifications for the work assigned him, must the edification and comfort of the worshippers be promoted or marred in the service. It is chiefly, of course, in connection with the prayers offered in the sanctuary that these qualifications will be brought into play, but other parts of the service will also afford a certain scope for their exercise. The psalmody of the congregation is always so far under the pastor’s control, that to him belongs the selection of the pieces to be sung; consequently it is his part to see that they are appropriate to the lessons of the day, and of a kind fitted to sustain and raise the devotional spirit of the worshippers. In the majority of cases, perhaps, he may not be able to do much more directly in this line, as the musical accompaniment must be managed by others. He should, however, take an interest in this, and endeavour to diffuse a sense of its importance in the congregation, and encourage by every legitimate means its due cultivation. The remarks of Baxter on the general subject are nearly as applicable now as when they were originally penned: ‘A great part,’ says he, ‘of God’s service in the Church assemblies was wont in all ages of the Church till of late to consist in public praises and eucharistical acts, and the Lord’s day was still kept as a day of thanksgiving in the hymns and common rejoicings of the faithful, in special commemoration of the work of redemption, and the happy condition of the gospel Church. I am as apprehensive of the necessity of preaching as some others, but yet methinks the solemn praises of God should take up much more of the Lord’s day than in most places they do.’ It is not, however, the comparatively small space given to the celebration of God’s praise in public song, so much as the imperfect and unsatisfactory manner in which it is often performed, that is cause of regret. A prolonged singing of praise soon becomes wearisome, unless it is peculiarly varied and finely adjusted as to the mode of execution; and then comes the danger of allowing it to degenerate into a mere artistic display. The happy medium is to have the singing arranged and modulated, so as at fitting intervals to relieve the service, and by the lyrical fervour of sacred song, chanted to appropriate melodies, to give vent to the devotional feelings and aspirations of the worshippers. For this, unquestionably, a certain attention must be paid to the aesthetical element, to the cultivation of sacred music as an art, without which there never can be anything like a properly varied and effective psalmody; and the pastor should exert his influence, especially on the younger members of his congregation, for the purpose of inducing them to lend their efforts in this direction. Still, of course, the mere mechanical part of the work, even though it were performed with the most correct taste and propriety, is but, as it were, the shell of the service of praise; the kernel must be sought in something higher, in the spirit and life that are infused into it on the part of those who chiefly engage in it. Everything here in a manner depends on the state of devotional feeling in the congregation, which, when lively and strong, never fails to impart a freshness and fervour to the singing which would be sought in vain from simply artistic cultivation. It is therefore the primary duty of the pastor, with respect to this department of public worship, to endeavour to awaken and foster the devotional element among his people; and this will of itself, if wisely directed, dispose them to give the requisite heed and application to the subsidiary means, which, in their own place, are capable of rendering important service toward the perfecting of praise. It is further to be remembered, that the celebration of divine praise in the sanctuary is only in part to be identified with the congregational psalmody. Formally, the chief part is to be found there; but the praise of God should also have expression given to it in the portions of Scripture read, which will sometimes, at least, contain what is preeminently matter of praise, and still more in the direct addresses made to the throne of grace. In what is called common or public prayer, thanksgivings and adorations should ever form a prominent part. And they will be a fit expression of the general sentiments of devout acknowledgment and grateful feeling, cherished by the better portion of the assembled people, only when the pastor who represents them, and speaks in their stead, is in his own soul properly responsive to the infinite goodness and manifold grace and wisdom of God. In this alone there is matter of serious concern to the pastor; and the more so when the further consideration is added, that not merely the united weekly ascription of a people’s thank-offerings to God, but also their collective experiences and desires, their confessions of sin, their sense of want and danger, their fears, temptations, hopes, deliverances, must all, in like manner, find their utterance through his lips. To be thus the representative and organ of a religious community in their stated meetings for intercourse with Heaven, is to occupy one of the highest positions at once of privilege and responsibility; and in no part of his vocation more than in this is it desirable that the pastor should be a kind of typal Christian; one in whose bosom every pious thought and feeling may lodge as in its proper home, and come forth in suitable times and ways for the glory of God and the edification of His Church. It will be a grievous mistake if this should be supposed to be a simple thing; for there can be no reasonable doubt that the difficulty of doing it aright, and doing it with some degree of regularity, is what originally led to the use of liturgies, and what still leads many persons of unquestionably sincere and earnest piety to prefer them to extempore prayer in the sanctuary. (See Shield’s edition of the Book of Common Prayer, as to the relative place of prayer and praise.) 1. The primary requisite, therefore, for pastoral work here, as for the preaching of the gospel, and, if possible, still more here, consists in the pastor’s own state, in the qualities which go to constitute a man of God. There must be an enlightened discernment and appreciation of the truth as it is in Jesus; and along with that, an experimental acquaintance with the heart, so that he may be able to hold communion with God as one who is in a sense familiar with the divine presence, and has known what it is to transact with God for his own salvation. Yet, standing as he does in the room of so many others, and pleading with God for them, he must be able to combine with a regard to self in the matters of religion a regard also to the state of those around him, repressing what is more peculiar to himself where it might fail to meet with sympathy in his fellow-worshippers. A man may not, in public prayer any more than in private, indeed he cannot, if he throws his soul into the exercise, lose his proper individuality. Both in the things he utters and the manner in which he utters them, there will undoubtedly be the impress of his own cast of thought and feeling, and in that, what will, no doubt, serve to distinguish his prayers from those of other men. Yet in public prayer this individuality should be kept within comparatively narrow bounds; since it is only what is proper to the individual believer, in so far as it is in a measure shared in, and is capable of being sympathized with, by the company of believers whom the minister for the time represents, that should find articulate expression before the throne of the Majesty on high. It is what is common to the heart of faith and love, rather than what is peculiar to one or a few, which should at such times be brought into notice. The tendency which minds of strong individuality have to run out into veins of thought and forms of expression which carry an air of extravagance to ordinary men, should here especially be kept in check. The thought of the awful presence in which we stand, and of the feelings and necessities of those who are partaking with us in the exercise, should of themselves shame into silence every idea or word which might seem to others forced and unnatural, and aimed, perhaps, at display. (There could scarcely, perhaps, be found a better description of what is here meant than is given by Jonathan Edwards in his account of the eminently devout David Brainerd’s manner in prayer: ‘This,’ he says, ‘was very agreeable; most becoming a worm of the dust, and a disciple of Christ addressing an infinitely great and holy God and Father of mercies, not with florid expressions, or a studied eloquence, not with any intemperate vehemence, or indecent boldness. It was at the greatest possible distance from any appearance of ostentation, and from anything that might look as though he meant to recommend himself to those that were about him, or set himself off to their acceptance. It was free also from vain repetitions. He expressed himself with the strictest propriety, with weight and pungency; and yet what his lips uttered seemed to flow from the fulness of his heart.’ A very different sort of praying, therefore, from that mentioned by an American periodical not long ago of a Mr. Everett, and characterized as ‘the most eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience; ‘a rhetorical effusion, formally, no doubt, addressed to God; but in reality, as the paper stated, to the audience that listened to it with such admiration. Prayers of that description do not reach beyond the place of meeting where they are spoken.) 2. If the possession of a Christian state and sympathy with the Christian mind of a congregation be the primary element in a minister’s qualifications for conducting aright the united prayers and thanksgivings of those among whom he ministers, the cultivation of an appropriate manner may certainly be placed next. It is of importance that the devotional spirit should give vent to itself in a natural and becoming mode of expression. For devotion, as well as popular speech, has a style of its own, though the one is no more than the other a uniform style. There may be as many shades of difference in the mode of presenting prayer to God, as in the sacred oratory which aims at instructing and convincing a fellow-creature. But never, when sincere and genuine, will the one take precisely the hue and tone of the other; since no truly humble and enlightened Christian can speak forth his feelings to God after the same manner that he would utter his mind to one of like passions and infirmities with himself. The former kind of address will naturally be pervaded by a subdued, reverential, hallowed air, which, if not wholly wanting in the other, will not at least be found in anything like the same measure; and the perfection in this respect may be said to be reached when the feeling instinctively arises which has been known to be expressed respecting an exemplary pastor, ‘The man prays as if he lived at the throne of grace.’ Let it not be imagined, however, that there is any need for the manner being artificial or stereotyped, as if some peculiar pitch of voice, or a kind of tone and cadence essentially different from that of ordinary discourse, were required to give to prayer its appropriate devotional impress. There are cases, no doubt, in which the devotional spirit does clothe itself with some such peculiarity, and does so, possibly, without the effect being sensibly marred in the experience of those whom use has familiarized to the distinctive habit. It is still, however, a defect, as all mannerism is; and in the great majority of cases it will be found, if closely investigated, to prove more or less an impediment to the proper efficiency of the service. The artificial form insensibly usurps to a certain extent the genuine spirit of devotion. Some please themselves with the tones of a sanctimonious manner, instead of pressing into the realities of a true spiritual intercourse with Heaven; while others, perhaps, suffer themselves to be arrested by the peculiarity of the manner, instead of being silently and powerfully borne along with the stream of spiritual thoughts and aspirations expressed. To aid this concurrence of devotional sentiment, an agreeable simplicity and naturalness of manner in the officiating minister is of great service; it should be such as befits one with his habits of thought and feeling when assuming the attitude of profound reverence and holy earnestness. Such a manner, however, though in itself only what might be deemed natural, may not be quite easily arrived at; in certain cases, at least, it may call for a good deal of patient and assiduous effort, but it is what no one should rest satisfied without having in good measure attained. And even when attained, it is of real avail only when it is the vehicle of a quickened spirit. (Two things may be mentioned in particular as desirable to be avoided in prayer. One is quickness and rapidity of utterance, a fault young preachers are very apt to fall into; and objectionable, both because it has an irreverent appearance, and also because the people cannot intelligently follow. The other is boisterousness, which Mr. James justly discriminates from earnestness; the confounding of the two he characterizes as ‘a mistake too commonly made by many, who work themselves up into vociferation and actual contortion. Such vehemence, ‘he properly adds, ‘like a violent blast of wind, puts out the languid flame of devotion, when a gentle breeze would fan it into greater intensity.’—Earnest Ministry, p. 125 sq.) Perhaps more pains should be taken in this direction than is commonly done even by the more pious portion of evangelical ministers. Cecil has noted it as a defect that appeared among them in his time, although his mode of doing so, as it appears in his Remains, is by no means free from exception. He is reported to have said, ‘The leading defect in Christian ministers is want of devotional habit. The Church of Rome made much of this habit. The contests accompanying and following the Reformation, with something of an indiscriminate enmity against some of the good of that Church as well as the evil, combined to repress this spirit in the Protestant writings; whereas the mind of Christ seems to be, in fact, the grand end of Christianity in its operation upon man.’ There is an element of truth undoubtedly in the remark, both on the Protestant and the Romish side; but it is too broadly announced, and with less of the clearness and discrimination which usually distinguish Mr. Cecil’s remarks. He could scarcely have meant, though the words ascribed to him seem to imply as much, that there is more either of the mind of Christ or of true devotion among Popish priests than with evangelical ministers as a class. The whole that could justly be said, and probably the whole really meant by Mr. Cecil, is that the devotional element has had a more prominent place assigned to it in the system represented by the one class than in that represented by the other, and that in this relative prominence the Romish party have acted more in accordance with the mind of Christ. But in such a matter the appearance must not be taken for the measure of the reality. In the public services of the Church of Rome, the devotional form has become well-nigh the one and all; and the officiating priests, who are constantly employed about the services, naturally acquire much of the devotional habit; though, as possessed and exercised by them, one would never think of characterizing it as a nearer approach to the mind of Christ than what is to be met with in Protestant worship. Still something may be learned from them in respect to the point to which they have given their chief attention; and however little the devotional habit may be worth, when unaccompanied by the devotional spirit, it is not in itself to be undervalued. 3. Another thing requiring careful attention in respect to public prayer is the selection of appropriate language, the use of a suitable and becoming phraseology. Very commonly this may be assumed as a thing almost certain to follow from the possession, in any adequate measure, of the spirit and manner already adverted to. But such is not uniformly the case; and by ministers themselves it should never be regarded as a matter of course, coming without pains or consideration on their part; it should engage more or less of their attention. And the fundamental ground on which they should proceed is the representative position they are called to occupy in presenting the adorations and prayers of the congregation. The officiating minister personates a body of worshippers; he must therefore endeavour to give his ideas the form and clothing which they can readily understand and appropriate as their own. If the language is too ornate, if it is such as would appear to them artificial and far-fetched, it will inevitably jar upon their feelings, and disturb the heavenward flow of their thoughts and desires; to suit its purpose, it must, in general, be embodied in such a mode of expression as they are wont to associate with the exercises of devotion. Now, to this nothing is more indispensable than simplicity; it is an unfailing characteristic of all profound and earnest devotional utterances. It is so even when these take a poetical form, and appear in psalms and hymns, though from the demands of the verse a certain freedom in respect to language is easily conceded to them. But only within comparatively narrow limits; for in such compositions unusual forms of expression, remote or technical terms, and pompous phraseology are fatal to success. ‘Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the simplest expression is the most sublime,’ said Samuel Johnson truly, though he made a wrong application of it, when on the ground of this thought he argued against the possibility of a high religious poetry. But the fact is decisive as to the proper style and diction of prayer; if it wants simplicity, it wants the most essential element of adaptation to the minds of a Christian congregation. And for more effectually securing this element, or securing it in the best possible form, the whole should be cast much in the mould of Scripture, and should be marked by a free use of its language. For, being the storehouse alike of God’s more special communications to men, and of the returns made to Him by His more elect worshippers, Scripture provides, not merely in the matter of its contents, but also in the very form into which they are thrown, the best directory and most fitting vehicle of devotion. Its utterances of faith, of desire and hope, were in a peculiar sense prompted by the Spirit of God; and the more that believers are under the power of His grace, the more will they ever be disposed to pour out their hearts before God in what may justly be termed the Spirit’s own style. I am not, however, to be understood as indicating that passages of Scripture alone should be employed in prayer; this is neither necessary nor is it expedient. A prayer simply and wholly composed of such passages cannot fail to wear a sort of borrowed, miscellaneous, and commonplace character. It will seem as if the mind, when speaking only in forms prepared to its hand and culled from all parts of Scripture, were somewhat formal and apathetic in its own frame. Yet, while Scripture should not constitute all, it should undoubtedly give the tone and character to all. And he who would excel in this spiritual gift must be at pains to have the word of Christ dwelling in him richly. (In addition to the more general directions given above, I would notice a few things which ought to be avoided in prayer. I. Ungrammatical or vulgar expressions, such as ‘Grant to impart unto us;’ ‘We commit us unto Thee,’ ‘We commend us unto Thee, and to the word of Thy grace. ‘Now we may commend others to God and His Word, but it is a very inaccurate, and indeed scarcely intelligible mode of speech to say that we commend ourselves to these. And I confess I do not like the expression, ‘Come into our midst, ‘or ‘Be in our midst.’ 2. The too frequent use of the same forms of expression, such as Heavenly Father, or any particular name of God, when almost solely used, has the appearance of a kind of mannerism; and Oh! much repeated, becomes a mere expletive. Scripture is in this a fine example. 3. Amatory language, such as ‘Lovely Jesus, ‘Dear Lord,’ ‘Sweet Saviour.’ Here, again, Scripture is the best model. 4. Undue familiarities, which may take different forms, such as ‘metrical quotations,’ extreme professions of unworthiness, personalities either of a flattering or sarcastic kind; all such things are in bad taste.) 4. In addition to these general prescriptions, which have respect to the matter as a whole, I would earnestly advise a certain measure of special preparation for the devotional work of the sanctuary. The preparation, indeed, should be twofold, consisting partly in having the heart brought into a suitable frame for, the exercise, and partly in having it provided with fitting materials of thought and expression. The former is also, no doubt, somewhat general; it must be in a great degree habitual to the minister; and yet, even where it is so, he will rarely find that he can safely dispense with some special pains of a preparatory nature before actually proceeding to the duty. The bustle and anxiety connected with the working out of his discourses for the Sabbath, will naturally have the effect of repressing the immediate outgoing of devotional sentiment, will even occasionally render the mind less apt to cherish it; and a little time will be needed to get the desires of the heart back, and the mind raised to such a spiritual tone, as will render the work of communion with God altogether congenial to its existing state. In regard, however, to the other kind of preparation, that which refers to the providing of materials of thought and expression suited for the occasion, something more precise and definite may be said. For, as the pastor, when going to conduct the services of the sanctuary, has to bear on his heart various interests and relations, none of which should be overlooked or passed slightly over, he both may and should have in his eye distinct topics for notice in prayer, and particular trains of thought to be pursued. Not otherwise will he be able to give sufficient freshness and point to his supplications, or present them in a form altogether appropriate to the occasion. Entirely unpremeditated prayers will usually partake much of the character of unpremeditated discourses; they will consist chiefly of commonplaces which float upon the memory, rather than of thoughts and feelings that well up from the hidden man of the heart; and as they have stirred no depths in the bosom of the speaker, so they naturally awaken but a feeble response in the minds of the hearers. Nor can it fail, when this offhand method is systematically pursued, that sentiments and expressions will occasionally come out which are in bad taste, or palpably wanting in adaptation to the time and circumstances wherein they are employed. Hence, I fear, it is that there is so often a marked difference in the interest felt, even by good people, in the prayers offered at their stated meetings for worship, as compared with that arising from the sermons delivered; the one does not, while the other does, spring from a background of well-arranged thought and spiritual consideration. A sensible American writer in the Princeton Review, some time ago gave expression to the same view of the subject, and supported it by some remarks that are well deserving of consideration. ‘Ministers,’ he says, ‘labour hard to prepare to address the people, but venture on addressing God without premeditation.’ (Quoted in British and foreign Evang. Review, p. 14.) Dr. Witherspoon says, ‘that the Rev. Dr. Gillies of Glasgow, who in his judgment exceeded any man he had ever heard in the excellency of his prayers, was accustomed to devote unwearied pains to preparation for this part of his ministerial work; and for the first ten years of his ministry never wrote a sermon without writing a prayer appropriate to it. This was also Calvin’s habit; and many of the sermons printed in his works have prayers annexed. An aid which Calvin found needful, no man living need be ashamed of employing.’ It is true that most of the prayers appended to Calvin’s printed sermons are very short, more like brief collects than regularly constructed prayers, expressing in a few pregnant words the thoughts and desires naturally suggested by the subject which had formed the matter of discourse. But the mind which was habituated to such pieces of devotional writing could not be negligent of preparation for more lengthened services of the same description, whether they might take the form or not of written compositions. Probably the more advisable course for ministers of settled congregations will be to meditate, rather than formally commit to writing, the chief prayers they are going to offer in the public meetings for worship; to think carefully over, occasionally also to note down, the train of thought, or the special topics and petitions they mean to introduce, with such passages of Scripture as are appropriate to the occasion. The mind will thus be kept from wandering at large in the exercise, and yet will move with more freedom than if it were trammelled by the formality of a written form; will be able more readily to surrender itself to the hallowed influences of the moment. At the same time, I cannot but regard it as a good exercise for the pastor, calculated to improve his gifts in this direction, and to render him more apt and felicitous in his method of conducting public prayer, if he should accustom himself, not only to peruse some of the best models of devotional utterance, but also to compose particular forms for his own use. Such a practice, though only pursued at intervals, will bring here also a measure of that advantage which always springs ‘from sustained application and cultivated skill; and cannot but help to check the tendency, which is so apt of itself to grow, of doing little beforehand even by way of premeditation, and of performing the service in a kind of slovenly and conventional manner. 5. Nothing has yet been said as to the length of time proper to be spent in public prayer, or to the greater or less frequency with which it should be introduced into the regular services of the sanctuary. But these are obviously points which call for some consideration. They are also closely connected with each other; for the less frequent the acts of common prayer are, the more protracted will each particular exercise naturally be. It has been for long a very common practice in Scotland to have only two prayers at each meeting for public worship; and to make the first prayer, the one before sermon, by much the longer of the two, so that it not unusually runs out into a continuous address to God of twenty minutes or upwards. I cannot but think this practice unhappy, since it necessarily tends to fatigue the mind by too long a strain in this one direction, and to leave the service of the sanctuary bereft of that variety of relief which, within certain limits, are not only allowable, but of material use, as helping to sustain the attention and keep alive the devotion of the worshippers. A measure of respect is due to an established practice in worship, even though, abstractedly considered, it may not approve itself as in all respects the best; and it would be unwise rashly to interfere with it, or strike at once into a path altogether new. It is right, however, to bear in mind, that the usage in question rests upon no proper authority; that it is, indeed, an innovation of comparatively late times; for, according to the authorized Directory for public worship, there should be at the principal meeting of the congregation each Lord’s day three several prayers, and, with the Lord’s prayer, four; for the latter, though not authoritatively enjoined, is yet recommended as deserving a place in the stated observances of worship. (‘And because the prayer which Christ taught His disciples is not only a pattern of prayer, but itself a most comprehensive prayer, we recommend it also to be used in the prayers of the Church Directory.’) The order there set forth as the most fitting to be observed consists, first, of a brief prayer as soon as the minister enters the pulpit, composed chiefly of adoration and invocation; then the singing of Psalms and the reading of sacred Scripture, of which a portion is to be taken as well from the Old as from the New Testament; after this comes another prayer of greater length, in which there should be made humble confession of sin, also acknowledgment of the loving-kindness and mercy of God in providing the blessings of salvation, with an earnest and varied supplication of an interest in these for different ranks and conditions of men; then the discourse, which is again to be followed by prayer, singing of Psalms, and the benediction. No particular place is assigned for the introduction of the Lord’s prayer; this was left to the discretion of the minister, as was the place also for supplicating the divine blessing on magistrates, rulers, and other subjects of public interest; they might be noticed before or after sermon, as appeared most suitable and convenient. As a whole, this order is undoubtedly better than the one previously referred to, though I am not inclined to advocate a uniform and rigid adherence even to it; and whenever a change is deemed desirable on the mode of service that has been in use in any congregation, care should always be taken to carry the feelings and inclinations of the people along with us. Perhaps the chief point in respect to which a nearer approach to the Directory should be generally aimed at, is the introduction of two prayers before sermon in the principal service instead of one. The advantage of this will be, that the devotional element will obtain a more prominent place, and also that, by dividing into two what otherwise would need to be compressed into one, each exercise will be less protracted, and the attention, especially of the young and the less informed, will be more easily sustained. But whatever may be the precise number of devotional services, public prayer should never be much protracted, should rarely if ever, I would say, exceed at a stretch a quarter of an hour, and, as a general rule, two prayers within that limit would be greatly preferable to one going beyond it. For, if a few individuals in a congregation of strong intellects and ardent piety might be found capable of enjoying and profiting by a more prolonged exercise of devotion, with the great majority it will certainly be quite otherwise. And in nothing does undue protraction more infallibly defeat itself than in prayer; for if once the minds of the worshippers relax their attention and get into a wandering mood, the proper frame is gone, and it will rarely be possible to have it again restored by subsequent effort. Further specification or more minute detail on such a subject seems to be unnecessary. A right state of feeling regarding it, with some measure of common sense, will be of much more avail than a thousand specific rules and directions. Let the pastor, first of all, place this branch of public duty among the things which demand his earnest consideration, and which, with regard alike to the substance and manner of the exercise, call for serious forethought and application. Let him also bear in mind that the spirit manifested by him, and the power put forth in the devotional parts of the service, will be sure to leave its impression on the minds of his people; and that, according as he rises toward the proper measure of excellence, so are they likely to become elevated in their tone and practice as worshippers. Let him still further bear in mind that, for the character of other parts of the service, and especially for the effect of the discourses he may deliver, much depends on the interest he throws into the work of prayer, and the spirit of devotion thereby evoked on the part of the people. For when the result in this respect is as it should be, when the hearts of the people have really been borne along with the pastor in his supplications at the throne of grace, and a profound sense of God’s presence is in consequence awakened in them, vast preparation is made for the earnest consideration and belief of the truth. They are thus brought to feel that it is with God rather than with man they have to do in the treatment they give to the preached gospel, and that the matter demands their most serious thought. On this account, no doubt, it partly is that the ministrations of deeply pious, though comparatively weak or unlettered men, have often been accompanied with results upon the hearers more lasting and productive of spiritual good than by the exertions of those who have been able to bring the highest powers and attainments to the work. The spirit of prayer resting upon them diffuses itself among the audience, and disposes them to receive the word as it is preached in simplicity and godly sincerity. Hence, seasons that have been remarkable for the spirit of grace and supplication have also been the most noted for the successful preaching of the gospel, even sometimes when the style of preaching has been by no means distinguished for the graces of pulpit oratory. Nor is the fact unworthy of notice which is reported by Gillies (Historical Collections, p. 201.) to have been observed by a Mr. Hutcheson, minister of Killellan: ‘When I compare,’ he said, ‘the times before the Restoration with the times since the Revolution, I must own that the young ministers preach accurately and methodically; but far more of the power and efficacy of the Spirit and grace of God went along with sermons in those days than now. And for my own part (all the glory be to God), I seldom set my foot in a pulpit in those times but I had notice of some blessed effects of the word.’ It were wrong, perhaps, to ascribe the whole of this difference to the greater prevalence of the spirit of prayer at the one period as compared with the other; for various things of a peculiarly grave and stirring kind undoubtedly contributed to make the period before the Restoration and that also preceding the Revolution times of great moral earnestness and awakened interest about the concerns of salvation in Scotland; but it assuredly had an important bearing on the matter. The public troubles and convulsions then constantly transpiring drove the hearts alike of pastors and people to close communion with God, and prompted the one to preach and the others to hear in a different manner from what is too often witnessed in more quiet and easy-going times. Such things are lessons in Providence to us, and it is our duty to profit by them, yet so as to make due allowance for circumstances of place and time, and thinking rather of the general principles of instruction furnished by them than of simply adopting them as patterns for servile imitation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 02.08. CHAPTER 8 ======================================================================== Chapter 8. The Administration of Discipline IF we take our views of the Christian Church from what is written in Scripture of the nature and ends of the Christian calling, as well as of the pains taken by the apostles to reprove and cast out whatever was palpably opposed to purity of communion, we shall have no doubt that the administration of discipline must be one of its necessary functions. And from the position of the pastor, as called in a peculiar manner to preside over its affairs, the exercise of this function must specially devolve upon him, although, in rightly constituted churches, there will be others to share with him the responsibility and the burden. It is a department of pastoral duty which, from its very nature, must involve a good deal that is delicate and irksome, which will even be found occasionally fraught with trouble and perplexity. For it brings the sword of the Spirit into sharp conflict with man’s pride and corruption, and requires unreserved submission to Him of whom, in some respect, they have been practically saying, We will not have this Lord to rule over us. Here, indeed, there has ever been discovering itself one of the strange inconsistencies that cleave to professing Christians, strange because it is so flatly opposed to the whole spirit and tendency of the gospel, that while they will not only endure, but even insist upon, sound doctrine in the kind of preaching they listen to, they will often not endure sound discipline. And both from this known reluctance on the part of many to submit to the exercise of spiritual authority, and from the habits of intercourse and mutual good-will subsisting between the administrators of the discipline and the subjects of it, a strong temptation naturally arises to be somewhat slack or partial in its application, to do it in many cases but half, or even to leave it altogether undone. Symptoms of defection in this respect began to discover themselves at a comparatively early stage of the Church’s history, ominous of what might confidently be looked for in the future. The church at Corinth, which started so well, and with such a plenitude of gifts, ere long drew down upon it the severe rebuke of Paul for its want of faithfulness in checking disorder and licentiousness among its members. And of the seven churches of Asia, to whom the glorified Redeemer, as the chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls, sent specific messages, how few escape censure on a similar account? Even in the most favourable circumstances, and in the hands of the most faithful rulers, there will doubtless be occasional failures; backslidings and disorders will not be met with the corrective discipline that should be applied to them; and at no period has the Church to any considerable extent approached as nearly the condition of being without spot or wrinkle in the state of her membership as a thoroughly faithful and efficient administration might have made it. In early times, however, it can scarcely be questioned, discipline did in general flourish; and with its vigorous administration the Church felt her existence of prosperity in a manner bound up. The notices which appear in the history of the times, and the well-known exemplariness of the Christians as a body, furnish on this point the most ample proof. So that it was only expressing the general minds of all the better authorities in the early Church, when Cyprian, for example, spoke of discipline as the ‘safety of the Church,’ ‘the stay of faith and hope,’ ‘inculcated in all Scripture as necessary to the order and purity of the Church; ‘or when Augustine designates it ‘the tutor of religion and of true piety.’ Indeed, the predominant tendency in those times was rather to lay too much stress on it than too little, to expect from it in a measure what could only be accomplished through the direct action of the grace and truth of the gospel. And so, when the ascetic element diffused itself as a subtle poison through the leading minds of the Church, and the higher discipline which it made so much account of came to be identified with the perfection of the Christian life, discipline in the Scriptural sense fell into abeyance; things needful to the guardianship and maintenance of the common Church life were neglected, in order that the bodily fastings, the mortifications, the self-imposed labours and penances of monkery, might have their due prominence and laudation. The very name discipline came by degrees to be appropriated to such things; while, among others who lay beyond its sphere, hypocrisy, corruption, worldliness of every sort, flowed in; and these common forms of evil were, after the establishment of Christianity, for the most part met with worldly modes of treatment; civil pains and penalties, fines and corporeal inflictions of some sort, too commonly taking the place of the true, brotherly, spiritual discipline of the gospel of Christ. Of this true Christian discipline, as contradistinguished from all coercive measures of a physical and penal description, Milton has justly said in his own peculiar manner: ‘It seeks not to bereave or destroy the body; it seeks to save the soul by humbling the body, not by imprisonment or pecuniary mulct, much less by stripes, or bonds, or disinheritance; but by fatherly admonition and Christian rebuke to cast it into godly sorrow, whose end is joy, and ingenuous bashfulness to sin. If that cannot be wrought, then as a tender mother takes her child and holds it over the pit with scaring words, that it may learn to fear where danger is; so does excommunication [i.e. discipline] as dearly and as freely without money use her wholesome and saving terrors. She is instant, she beseeches; by all the dear and sweet promises of salvation she entices and woos; by all the threatenings and thunders of law, and a rejected gospel, she charges and adjures. This is all her armoury, her munition, her artillery. Then she awaits with long sufferance, and yet ardent zeal. In brief, there is no act in all the errand of God’s ministers to mankind wherein passes more lover-like contestation between Christ and the soul of a regenerate man lapsing, than before, and in, and after the sentence of excommunication.’ (Of Reformation in Engl and, 2d Book.) The object of such dealing in respect to the Church itself, is to have its actual state brought into as near conformity as possible to its Scriptural idea, by repressing incipient evil within its pale, or casting out of it what gives just occasion of offence. And in respect to the parties more immediately concerned, its design is to lead them to a right view of their particular case, and produce in them an honourable shame, by bringing to bear upon them the more earnest, spiritual sense of the pastor and those associated with him in the care and oversight of the flock. And if anything, as again excellently said by Milton in another treatise, (The Reason of Church Government, Book ii. sec. 3.) ‘may be done to inbreed in us this generous and Christianly reverence one of another, the very nurse and guardian of piety and virtue, it cannot sooner be than by such a discipline in the Church as may use us to have in awe the assemblies of the faithful, and to count it a thing most grievous, next to the grieving of God’s Spirit, to offend those whom He hath put in authority, as a healing superintendence over our lives and behaviours, both to our own happiness and that we may not give offence to good men, who, without amends by us made, dare not against God’s command hold communion with us in holy things. And this will be accompanied with a religious dread of being outcast from the company of saints, and from the fatherly protection of God in His Church, to consort with the devil and his angels.’ This, undoubtedly, is the correct view of the matter, and the right mode of aiming at its accomplishment. But the churches of the Reformation did not readily find their way to it; many of them, indeed, have never yet succeeded in doing so, or even in earnestly setting about it. The mournful confounding of the civil and spiritual jurisdictions which had existed for ages still lingered in most of them, and disposed them to trust, in part at least, to legal and compulsory measures for effecting what could only be done to purpose by spiritual means. (How much this was the case for a considerable time also in Scotland, even to a period later than that to which the noble treatises of Milton belong, will be evident from the following historical statement by Dr. Lee respecting post-Reformation times:—‘Every living soul within the realm must either conform to the same profession, and practise the same worship, and submit to the same discipline, or undergo the vengeance of the law. ... A stripling or a girl of the examinable age must either communicate in the parish church or else pay a fine according to the rank of the party. In the year 1600, and again in 1641, the Church prevailed on the State to impose fines on all non-communicants of the age of 15 years complete. The fines on people of condition were very heavy; and every servant contravening the Act was liable to pay one year’s fee toties quoties. These were powers actually granted to presbyteries, who had a right to crave, receive, and pursue for the penalties’ (Lee’s Lecture on Christian History, i. p. 204). The zeal of Baxter not only led him to approve of the magistrates obliging people by penalties to attend on ministers for instruction, but also to compel ministers to instruct and subject the people of their charge to discipline. He would not, however, have any forced to the communion. (See his Confirmation and Restoration.)) The same disposition lingers still in not a few Protestant churches, which can scarcely be said to have any discipline, except what is secured by the administration of justice through the civil and criminal courts of the lands to which they belong;—a state of things which is deplored by all who know what a Christian Church ought to be, though many, not absolutely ignorant of divine truth, have through the ill effects of custom become habituated to the corruption, and in this particular respect have lost sight of the principles of church order and government. Baxter speaks of some such in his day in England, whom he once took, he says, for godly divines; but who afterwards reproached those who endeavoured to maintain discipline, and would not give the sacrament to every one in their parishes, as Sacramentarians or Disciplinarians. He justly expresses his astonishment that such persons could be found in a Christian Church, and says: ‘Sure I am, if it were well understood how much of the pastoral authority and work consisteth in church guidance, it would be almost discerned, that to be against discipline is nearly all one with being against the ministry; and this, again, nearly all one with being against the Church of Christ.’ For to what end does the Church exist, but to be a witness to the truth, and an organ for diffusing the life of Christ? In proportion, therefore, as she harbours corruption within her pale, and extends the sacred symbols of the faith to those who practically belie its spirit, she is unfaithful to her trust, and fails in the very object of her mission to the world. It must be owned, however, that even where there is a just appreciation of the nature and of the importance of a sound discipline, the relative positions of churches, I mean of such churches as have a constitution which makes provision for the maintenance of discipline, and aims at it with more or less of fidelity, interpose certain difficulties in respect to the efficient discharge of the duty which it is not quite easy for individual pastors or even churches to overcome. These differ in Established Churches and churches independent of the State. In the former, the territorial principle, which brings along with it a certain advantage and authority, brings also a relative weakness; since persons, living within the bounds of any particular parish, naturally come to regard their local situation as of itself constituting a right to the ministrations of the parish church, and to the participation of ordinances within its pale. And practically it is very difficult, as those know who have had trial of the system, to restrain this feeling within proper bounds, that is, so to restrain it as to make the membership of a parish church present the appearance of even a tolerably pure communion. The unregenerate, the worldly, the merely nominal professor, who finds the name of Christianity useful to him, but refuses to give any material sacrifice or even renounce objectionable courses for its sake, have advantages for obtaining connection with an Established Church which attach to no other Evangelical Communion, and of which they very readily avail themselves. A parochial economy is thus from its very nature better adapted for diffusing a certain amount of religious knowledge and profession than of exhibiting the pattern of a living, spiritual Christian community. For checking the more flagrant social evils, for removing or preventing the existence of cases of extreme spiritual destitution, for ensuring the diffusion of a general decency of behaviour, and bringing within the reach of all the means and opportunities of grace;—for such ends and purposes the parish church, with its appropriate machinery, if well wrought, is perfectly adapted. But, excepting in very favourable circumstances, and within comparatively short periods and limited districts, its congregations can seldom be made to assume the aspect of a community of saints. In non-Established Churches there is, for the most part, a fairer opportunity for making at least an approach to this, although there are discouraging circumstances of a different kind arising out of the divided state of things implied in their very existence. For this provides facilities to offending parties for evading the close dealing and defeating the just ends of discipline, by transferring themselves from a more to a less faithful Communion. Still it is of great importance that churches which know and hold the truth, that the Free Church in particular should, in spite of all hindrances and discouragements, apply herself in earnest to the maintenance of an efficient and godly discipline. Her influence in the land for good, and the measure of blessing she is to receive upon her public ministrations, will to a large extent depend upon her faithfulness in the exercise of this function. If the cause of righteousness thrives among her members, if sin when it breaks out is sorrowed over and rebuked, if the procedure altogether is such as to show that the Church cannot bear them that are evil, then she will command the respect of the community. More than that, the favour of the Lord will rest upon her, she will be both blessed and made a blessing. But if, on the other hand, she should show herself more solicitous about the extent of her membership than the purity of her communion, if backsliders and transgressors are not properly dealt with, and something like a travailing in birth experienced to have them brought to repentance and the knowledge of the truth, we may hold it for certain that her real interest and prosperity as a Church will decline. Not being jealous for the honour of her Lord in respect to the holiness of His house, she will not be honoured of Him. Considered merely as a means of spiritual instruction, an ordinance for impressing the minds of a people with right views of things, for leading them to distinguish between what may and what should not be tolerated in Christian communities,—for this end alone a well-regulated discipline is of no small importance. There are many, in all ranks of life, who so readily fall in with the stream of custom, and are so difficult to be convinced of the sinfulness of anything however contrary to the spirit of the gospel, if it be but commonly practised in the neighbourhood, that nothing scarcely will rouse them to proper thought and consideration about it but the formal act and procedure of the Church, treating it as inconsistent with the Christian life. This, if only done on fitting occasions, and done with prudence and discretion, will rarely fail to produce its effect. Individual offenders, it is possible, may not be reclaimed by it, they may even at times kick at the attempt made to interfere with their liberty, and only with increased determination adhere to their objectionable course; but the general conscience of the community will be quickened, inquiry will be awakened, and the things adjudicated upon and pronounced contrary to a sound profession of the faith will be more closely examined by the word of God, and a juster estimate formed respecting them by at least the more thoughtful and serious minds. It is, however, to be carefully borne in mind, that everything, both as regards the practicability and the effect of a righteous discipline, depends upon the Christian sense and feeling which one has to work upon in those among whom it is exercised. While it rests upon the teaching of God’s word as to its formal ground and warrant, this can be made valid as a principle of action, in particular congregations, only in so far as it has been wrought into the minds and consciences of a considerable portion of the community, and is responded to by them as right and good. To get this Christian sense and feeling, therefore, widely diffused and firmly maintained, must always be the first care of the pastor. Behind all specific measures of repression or reform, and as the understood basis on which they are to proceed, there must be a solid groundwork of spiritual enlightenment and conviction, otherwise the measures will fail for want of backing, will not carry with them the requisite moral weight. Passing now from these preliminary considerations to the actual administration of discipline, the first thing that naturally comes into notice is the matter about or upon which discipline should be exercised. There are things in respect to which no difference of opinion in this respect can well be entertained among evangelical Christians, they are so palpably at variance not only with the precepts of the gospel, but with the findings of the natural conscience, that all will admit them worthy of correction and rebuke. Adultery, for example, fornication, blasphemy, forgery, deliberate fraud or theft, habitual neglect or avowed contempt of divine ordinances, these and such like things leave no room for hesitation or doubt; they are in open contrariety to the Christian character, and no one chargeable with them can be recognised as a proper subject of Christian privilege. But things are ever and anon appearing of a somewhat indeterminate nature; indeterminate, that is, as to the degree of guilt they involve, or the measure of contrariety which the performance of them betrays to the faith of the gospel. With respect to such things great prudence and caution are necessary in determining whether they should be proceeded against by way of discipline, or when. Even some of those just specified, practices of fraud, for example, or habitual neglect of divine ordinances, while as facts in the behaviour of this or that individual they may admit of no dispute, they may still be found accompanied with so many qualifying circumstances, complicated relationships, and grounds of defence real or imaginary, that it may not be quite easy for the pastor, and those associated with him in the oversight of the church, to come to the conclusion respecting particular parties, that they should be subjected on account of them to disciplinary treatment. Then there are others; for example, intemperance, violent, revengeful, or harsh dealing, quarrelsome behaviour, compliance with the follies or questionable customs of the world, which admit of so many degrees, that the point at which the excess becomes such as to warrant the interference of church action is a very variable and shifting one. Even the most experienced minister and elders will often find it difficult to arrive at clear convictions as to the path of duty. Generally speaking, where the conduct has been such as to give rise to offence, and begets serious doubt as to the Christian state of the parties concerned, though it may still not be chargeable with deliberate or palpable sin, there should, in the first instance, be private and personal dealings, which, if wisely conducted on the one side and properly met on the other, will very often render any further or more formal proceedings unnecessary. For such dealings, as stated in another connection, a calm, earnest, and prayerful spirit is peculiarly required; since, if a false step is taken at the outset, or an undue regard should appear to have been given to unfounded rumours, all chance of doing good will be lost, and a sense of wrong evoked on account of the treatment experienced, rather than of regret or shame at the behaviour which occasioned it. The difficulties connected with these private efforts to bring under consideration incipient and less broadly developed forms of evil have led some ministers to avoid interfering with anything for purposes of admonition or censure but what may have become matter of public notoriety, and as such can be taken up in a formal manner by the Session or other constituted authorities. It is a course which will, no doubt, save the pastor a good deal of anxious thought and occasional acts of annoyance; but this personal advantage will be purchased at the heavy cost of sometimes losing the chance of winning a soul. For, when courses of defection like those referred to are censured at a certain stage, censured when they are still only in the forming, and just beginning to awaken solicitude and concern in thoughtful minds, there is room to hope that something may be done to arrest the evil by faithful treatment, the wrong bias may yet be checked before it takes its final set; while, at a more advanced stage, the transgressor may indeed be officially admonished, suspended from his Church privileges, or altogether cut off from the communion of the Church, but with little prospect of any good being thereby effected on his spiritual state. He has become wedded to his idols, and will not be separated from them. In actual processes of discipline there are three stages, which naturally succeed each other, and which call for separate consideration. The first has respect to the ascertaining of the facts of the case, often a very perplexing part of the process. The party suspected or accused has an obvious interest in disguising them, putting a different face on them from that which they actually wear: other parties, perhaps, have a like interest in overcharging or distorting them; and persons capable of giving important evidence on the matter are either unwilling or afraid to have anything directly to do concerning it. Hence it will sometimes happen that a very general desire may exist among persons of influence in the Church to leave what is likely to prove delicate and irksome in abeyance, or have it summarily huddled up. In such cases it is always of grave moment that the pastor be known to be a perfectly reliable person, one, I mean, who is seen to be actuated by a sincere regard to the spiritual good of the people, and of firmness tempered with discretion in his endeavours to discountenance what is manifestly evil. If he is either too sluggish in bestirring himself about things which call for serious inquiry, or, on the other hand, too hasty and forward in pressing them into notice; above all, if he is of irresolute purpose, moving but with hesitating step, doing somewhat and again undoing it, the result will commonly be, that matters are concealed from him which he ought to be informed of, or evidence that might be forthcoming is withheld from a feeling of uncertainty as to the use that might be made of it. But even supposing him to possess the proper requisites for inspiring confidence and satisfactorily conducting the inquiries necessary to be instituted, he will often find it extremely difficult, especially in cases connected with uncleanness, to get at the real state of matters; penetration, caution, judgment, patience also and industry, will be required. Guilty or suspected persons will make the most solemn declarations such as it might seem an act of injustice or hardness of heart to discredit, while yet subsequent discoveries may show them to be essentially false; or gross misconduct will be covered with most plausible excuses and pretexts which have little foundation in reality. Ministers generally, and especially young ministers, should hear in such cases with a prudent reserve, taking care not to commit themselves to a view or espouse a side till full time has been had for considering the matter, and every accessible means of information has been turned to account. This should be done, yet so as to beware of giving encouragement to busybodies, or granting a kind of delegated authority to inferior parties, who are likely to become too full of their office to manage it discreetly. Occasionally, though not more than occasionally, and only after every attempt has failed to get conclusive evidence, the matter may be put, if not with the form, at least with the solemnity of an oath, to the individual chiefly interested. This is a last alternative, and one that can rarely yield a satisfactory result, because of the strong temptation it affords to lay all to rest by a false asseveration. It should therefore be very rarely resorted to. The next step in the process has respect to the proper method of dealing with those whose guilt has been admitted or proved, with the view of bringing them to a right sense of their sin and such a state of mind as would justify the Church in restoring them to its communion. This must always form a most important part of the proceedings, since it has respect to that on which the whole issue for the spiritual good of the offending parties may be said to turn. It will be understood of itself that there should be private personal intercourse held with them. If the whole that is done is limited to the somewhat formal action of an official procedure, it will but rarely happen that any real good is accomplished. Yet even in this part of the dealing, especially in the manner in which the parties are received and addressed when making appearance to confess the misdeed laid to their charge, not a little may be done to prepare the way for future action; that is, if by the proper exercise of the spirit of rebuke the pastor is enabled to penetrate, touch, and soften the heart. Let it be well considered, however, wherein properly consists the spirit or power of rebuke, and how, in any circumstances, it can be made to tell with due effect upon the minds of such as have gone out of the way. It is very different from a stern and unflinching denunciation of the wrath of God against transgressors, or a fiery ebullition of righteous displeasure at what has appeared of shameful misconduct. A measure of these occasionally may be pardoned, or even in extreme cases justified; but the spirit of rebuke, as it should commonly be exercised by the Christian pastor, is something deeper, calmer, more measured and restrained, and hence is neither so readily acquired nor so easy to maintain in efficient exercise. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say, with Isaac Taylor, (Saturday Night, chap. xv.) that ‘every part of the duty of the minister of religion is more easy to maintain in vigour than the spirit he needs as the reprover of sin and the guardian of virtue.’ He runs over the other leading parts of ministerial duty, somewhat certainly under-estimating the facility with which they may be performed, and then, with reference to the point in hand, specifies various things that may be tried as a substitute for it, argument, erudition, eloquence, and adds, ‘Ah! but to speak efficaciously of that holiness and justice of Almighty God, and of its future consequences; to speak in modesty, tenderness, and power of the approaching doom of the impenitent, is altogether another matter, and one that must be left to those whose spirits have had much communion with the dread Majesty on high. As the punishment of sin springs by an ineffable harmony from the first principles of the divine nature, and infringes not at all upon benevolence, so must he who would rightly speak of that punishment have attained to a more intimate perception of the coincidence of holiness and love than language can convey, or than can be made the subject of communication between man and man. This knowledge belongs to the inner circle of the soul, and is only conveyed to it in any considerable degree when much meditation and prayer and abstraction from earthly passions open the way to its reception and entertainment.’ It is the possession and exercise of such a spirit that is required for the discharge, in its higher style, of the duty under consideration. Of course it will differ, not only in different individuals, but even in the same individual from time to time; and not unfrequently, those who have it most will feel as if they were singularly deficient in the proper manifestation that should be given to it. I speak only of the quality itself, and of what should be aimed at in regard to it; what also, in proportion as it is brought to bear upon persons whose conduct has subjected them to the discipline of the Church, is likely to have most effect in bringing them to genuine contrition and godly sorrow for sin. Even this, when possessed and exercised with comparative perfection, will not always secure the desired result. The most faithful and spiritually-minded pastors may lay their account to not a few dealings with offenders who, whatever temporary effect may have been wrought upon them, will give afterwards unmistakeable evidence that they have undergone no real conversion. Here also, and very peculiarly, the maxim of our Lord applies, ‘The tree is known by its fruits;’ for while there is much in the condition of those whose immoral conduct has brought them into reproach and laid them open to the censure of the Church, to produce a softened and penitent feeling for the time; if it is nature only that works, the recoil of feeling may pass away, and leave the individual as far as ever from the kingdom of God. The remaining part of the process has reference to what is called the satisfaction of the Church and the formal absolution of the offending parties, or their restoration to Church privileges. This is now usually a very brief and perfunctory thing compared with what it was in the earlier periods of the Reformed Church, and still more in the strict disciplinary period of the first centuries. When one reads the accounts given in Cyprian and Tertullian, for example, of the penitential acts and humiliating services through which the subjects of Church discipline had to pass in their day before they could expect to have their names restored to the communion-roll of the Church, one is apt to be struck with the laxity of present times, and to sigh for the return of such moral strength to spiritual authorities as might enable them to exact from the lapsed demonstrations of sorrow and shame so profoundly indicative of their conscious guilt, and expressions of desire so intense of being re-admitted to a place among the faithful. In describing what was termed the exomologesis of the penitent, Tertullian represents them as appearing clothed in the meanest apparel, lying in sackcloth and ashes; (De Panit. § 9.) either fasting entirely or living upon bread and water, passing whole days and nights in tears and lamentations; embracing the knees of the presbyters as they entered the church, and entreating the more honoured brethren to intercede for them; all this continuing often for a lengthened period, for years sometimes, occasionally even to the point of death; when, the rulers of the Church being satisfied that the repentance was sincere, and that the honour of the Church had been sufficiently vindicated in their contrition, absolution was granted to them, and they received again the right hand of fellowship. But then, as already noticed, this awful stringency, which at first sight carries such an aspect of holiness, at the same time that it tried by vast applications to heal existing sores, was itself indicative of a deep disease; it at once sprung from and fostered a disposition to look to bodily mortifications and self-inflicted penances for what could only be reached through the mercy of God and Christ’s work of reconciliation. Hence we find Tertullian speaking of the penances in question as ‘mitigating God,’ and ‘blotting out eternal punishments;’ and Cyprian, in like manner, who equally lauds the virtue of such disciplinary treatment, describes the penitent who submits to it as not only satisfying the Church, but appeasing the wrath of God; by means of his prayers, it is said, his tears, groans and mortifications, ‘he makes satisfaction to God,’ (De Lapsis.) ‘he purchases both God’s pardon now, and also a crown of glory.’ Thus readily do such external requirements and enforced mortifications rise into a kind of meritorious round of performances, and take to some extent the place of the one glorious object of faith and hope. For the lapsed it came practically to be salvation, remotely no doubt through the redeeming grace of God in Christ, but directly through the rigid observances of a prolonged discipline, the intercessions of a mediating priesthood, and the authoritative absolution of the Church. And we may well be content to want such awful pomp and circumstance in connection with the recovery of fallen members, in order to escape from the deadly errors out of which it in a great degree sprang, and to which it in turn most powerfully ministered. Still it is possible here, as in other things, while shunning excess in one direction, to be guilty of it in another. And one can readily apprehend, when no marked difference of outward treatment appears between those who have fallen into scandalous sin and such as have maintained a consistent Christian behaviour, when, even though some pains may be taken privately to bring them to a better mind, the path of admission to the more distinctive privileges of the Church is left equally open to them as to others, the inevitable result must be a lowering, in the general sense of the community, of the estimate formed of their misdemeanour. So far as overt acts are concerned, no account seems to be made of it by those who have the charge of God’s house; how natural, then, for others to treat similar transgressions lightly, or, if more seriously inclined, to take offence at the seeming indifference of their spiritual guides! Yet, as matters now stand, it is not quite easy to adopt a procedure that shall present very broad and cognizable distinctions; it is only within narrow limits that they can be found. In post-Reformation times the practice of public confessions and rebukes, closed with a formal absolution and a charge to go and sin no more, was set up as a regular part of the discipline of the Kirk in this country, and continued to prevail for several generations. (‘The extremitie of sackcloths was also prescrivt be the acts of the generall discipline,’ and was not to be dispensed with for any ‘pecunial sum’ (Book of Universal Kirk). Nor was any exemption allowed to persons in high life. Among those who made public satisfaction we find the Lord Treasurer in 1563; the Countess of Argyll in 1567; in 1568 the Bishop of Orkney (M’Crie’s Life of Knox, p. 454).) In most churches there was even what bore the name of the ‘repentance-stool,’ placed nearly in front of the pulpit, on which the offending person was obliged to sit for two or three successive Sundays, and to rise up a little before the close of the service and receive solemn admonition and rebuke in the presence of the congregation; on the last, a formal absolution was pronounced. But as times changed, the practice first became irregular in its administration, and then fell into desuetude. Fines in many places were taken as a substitute, the money so obtained being forfeited to the poor, which could only be characterized as a species of simony; and as it would, of course, be chiefly taken advantage of by the richer portion of the congregation, it was attended with the additional evil of forming one kind of discipline for the wealthier and another for the poorer classes of the Church. This was to do the work of God with respect of persons, therefore doing it so as certainly to defeat the ends which it should have been mainly directed to promote. Such a halting procedure could not last; and as the spirit of the times changed, the repentance-stool for the one class and the money fines for the other were disused; public rebukes, also, in great measure disappeared; while acts of formal excommunication and acts of absolution ceased to be delivered from the pulpit in presence of the assembled congregation. Is this change to be regretted? It is not quite easy to say; indeed, it turns very much upon the further question, whether the general state and tone of society now be upon the whole more favourable, or the reverse, to vital godliness, than they were in earlier and ruder times? Without debating the point as to the absolute merits of the two, there can be no doubt that in the conventionalisms and proprieties of life there is a decided change for the better in that part of the population which constitutes the life and stay of Christian society; so that, as in familiar discourse and in current literature, in the formal proceedings also of a Church, things would appear unseemly and indelicate in present times, would grate upon people’s feelings, and tend rather to annoy than to edify, which at an earlier period would have been heard or witnessed without emotion. It is impossible to deny, and hopeless to fight with success against, this altered style of things; it is an essential part of the civilisation and refinement of modern times; and it is the policy of the Church to accommodate her procedure to it, retaining as far as possible the substance, while she lets go the form of the older discipline. The form is, for the most part, gone anyhow; public professions of repentance and rebukes are no longer practicable as in the olden time; and in the few cases where I have known a return to them attempted, under a zealous pastorate, the attempt has always failed, and it was found necessary, for the interests of righteousness themselves, to have them abandoned. But if matters be otherwise rightly ordered, especially if those who have the spiritual oversight of a particular Church be men of principle, discretion, and probity, and enjoy the respect and confidence of the members, the real objects in view may be substantially served through their instrumentality. As representing the spiritual community, let them, in their more private intercourse with the parties interested, do what was wont to be done in public, so far as reproof, admonition, confession of sin, promise of amendment, suspension from Church fellowship, restoration or final excision are concerned. What is done thus is really done by the Church, and, one may say, in its presence; just as what is done by the representative body of a commonwealth is done by the commonwealth itself, and is so regarded by its constituent elements. And if it is done conscientiously, prayerfully, judiciously, it will also be done to edification, more so a great deal than by a rigid adherence to the letter and form of proceedings which may be no longer adapted to the state and temper of society, and which, for the sake of an apparent conformity to Scripture precedent, would sacrifice the reality. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 02.09. CHAPTER 9 ======================================================================== Chapter 9. Subsidiary Means and Agencies BY subsidiary means and agencies, I mean things not directly and strictly belonging to the pastoral office, but still so closely connected with it, that in most cases it will be both the interest and the duty of the pastor to encourage and promote their employment. For, aiming as they do at the reformation of existing abuses, or the bringing about of a more healthful state of society, they so far tend to subserve the objects which a minister of the gospel should have in view, and become handmaids to him in his work. They will, however, necessarily differ to some extent according to the nature of the locality in which his sphere of labour is cast, and the classes of society with which it brings him more especially into contact. Experience here, as in various other things which have come under our consideration, must be the great teacher and guide; and nothing more is needed, or would be proper in this outline, than to indicate quite briefly some of the leading points to which attention should be given. They fall into two divisions, those which have an incidental bearing on religion, and those which relate to social economics. 1. Under the first class may be mentioned efforts to promote a taste for religious and instructive reading. When such a taste is diffused, both itself and the habits associated with it prove among the best auxiliaries of the pulpit. For, if those who frequent the house of God are in any measure accustomed to the quiet and thoughtful occupation of the kind referred to, they will grow in intelligence, in their capacity for appreciating the discourses of the Sabbath, and also in their ability to profit by them. A certain dulness of apprehension, sluggishness of spirit, and consequent indisposition or incapacity to follow the train of thought in a well-digested discourse, are the usual characteristics of audiences which are utter or comparative strangers to reading of a cognate description during the week. And with such audiences the danger is, that when serious impressions are made upon them by what is addressed to them on the Lord’s day, these are apt to disappear again by the total withdrawal of the mind from similar lines of meditation during the week. To some small extent the object in view may be attained by the circulation of tracts, but not very materially. These are more suited, as a whole, for originating right thought, and leading people’s minds into the way of truth, than for imparting much knowledge, or forming habits of thoughtfulness and attention. When judiciously selected, however, they have their use, and even in the way of directing and sustaining thought will sometimes profitably fill up a little spare time which would otherwise run to waste. But better adapted for the purpose more immediately contemplated are the monthly or weekly periodicals which are now issued in considerable variety, with special reference to private and family use on the Lord’s day. Though not to be indiscriminately recommended, as if all were equally adapted to promote their professed object, some of them are worthy of all praise. The stated circulation of such productions, and missionary records, containing accounts of evangelistic operations at home and abroad, is well deserving of attention. Associations might, at various localities, be with advantage formed for carrying it the more easily into effect; and for the more remote and isolated rural districts much may be done to promote the end in view by a judicious encouragement of the colportage system. Sabbath-school, and, where possible, congregational libraries, belong also to this line of things, and should receive the considerate attention, and, when formed, the watchful superintendence of the pastor. It is one of the special advantages of present times, that books for the young exist in such numbers and variety. There is now a pretty extensive literature conducted expressly for them, and a literature predominantly religious in its tone, as also in the subjects of which it formally treats. Every pastor should use his influence with the young of his flock to induce them to form some acquaintance with this juvenile literature, which will also react on the older members of the family. In rural situations it may sometimes be needful, or at least expedient, for him to take the charge of such libraries, as otherwise there may be a danger of the books being badly kept, and the youthful applicants also may be apt to light upon books of a somewhat unsuitable kind. When the young grow up and join themselves to the communion of the Church, it may be well, if their numbers are not very great, to present each with a good practical treatise suited to their respective capacities, a treatise or manual of the kind of which Doddridge’s Rise and Progress may be cited as a favourable example; such a gift being fitted at once to form a pleasing memorial of that important period in their religious history, and also to exercise an influence for good on their further advancement. I am quite disposed to reckon among the subsidiary means under consideration the practice which has of late become common in towns, and has been extending to villages, of lectures on week-day evenings, lectures perhaps sometimes having a directly religious interest, but more commonly on subjects of a historical, literary, or scientific nature, treated in a manner fitted to improve and elevate the minds of the people, as well as strengthen indirectly their religious convictions. Such lectures must be delivered chiefly by ministers of the gospel, though with occasional help from others; and the time and study necessary to take their part occasionally in such employment will be far from being misspent. But more directly bearing on their proper function is the promotion of prayer meetings among their people, and some perhaps would add, of fellowship meetings. But in regard to the latter, there is need for much caution on the part of a pastor. Fellowship meetings are formed with a view, not merely to engage in exercises of worship, but also to interchange thoughts among the members on matters pertaining to divine truth or religious experience; safe enough, probably, and improving if the membership is small, and composed of such as have much confidence and fellow-feeling one with another, so that they can really speak heart to heart; but when it is otherwise, they are extremely apt to become loquacious, disputative, and even to gender strifes. A prudent pastor will therefore rarely intermeddle with meetings of this description, and neither directly encourage nor discountenance them. But in respect to the establishment of prayer meetings he need have no scruple, if he can only find persons who have the requisite zeal and gifts for conducting them. Here for the most part lies the main difficulty, and it is of such a kind that no undue pressure should be made upon individuals with the view of overcoming it; for if there be a defect in the requisite intelligence, piety, or power of utterance, the meetings in question cannot be instituted with much prospect of continuance or success. The spirit of prayer, it should ever be remembered, is of more importance than any particular mode of exercising it. 2. Passing now to the other branch of subsidiary means, that relating to social economics, a pretty large field till lately lay open here for parish ministers in connection with the management of the poor, calling for the exercise of discretion, sagacity, and good feeling. It was in this field that Dr. Chalmers won for himself his first claim to distinction as a philanthropist; and to the discussion of topics connected with it one of his most elaborate works is devoted, his Parish Economics. The work may still be read with interest and profit, as it is pregnant with views and principles which admit of a certain application in every age; but as a guide-book for pastors in a specific department of official duty it may justly be said to be antiquated. This whole branch of social economics is now directed by an agency of its own, in which ministers of the gospel, whether of the Established Church or not, have but a subordinate part to perform. But, of course, it will never cease to be their duty to interest themselves in the state of the poor, and to be forward in devising liberal things in those more peculiar cases of want and distress which from time to time occur, and for which a legal machinery affords no adequate source of relief. In the present circumstances of our country, it belongs more to the province of a minister of the gospel to concert, or lend his countenance and support to those who may be concerting, measures which have for their object the reduction of pauperism and other social evils; in particular, the repression of prostitution, and the diminution of that intemperance which is a fountain of innumerable disorders. For this purpose he will readily co-operate in the efforts made to curtail, in particular localities, the number of public- houses, to establish coffee-rooms and places of healthful refreshment and innocent resort, and to form where they are obviously needed temperance societies. For things of this description, lying outside, in a manner, the pastoral sphere, yet pressing closely on its border, no general rule can be prescribed, or any uniform practice recommended. If there be but high Christian principle first, then an enlightened Christian expediency, wisely considering the circumstances of the place and time with a view to the rectification of any flagrant social evils existing, there will be no need for special instructions and stereotyped modes of working. Here also the love of benefiting one’s generation by the removal of what tends to minister to disease, slovenliness, and vice, will be a law to itself, and not only a law, but a well-spring of beneficent action, fruitful in resources, striving in every way possible to lessen the inducements to evil, and raise up bulwarks for the protection of the weaker elements in human nature against the stronger, the tempted against the tempting, the young and simple against the wiles of the profligate and the wicked. Thus will Christian love earn the blessing promised to those ‘who sow beside all waters.’ THE END. MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 03.00.1. PROPHECY ======================================================================== PROPHECY VIEWED IN RESPECT TO ITS DISTINCTIVE NATURE, ITS SPECIAL FUNCTION, AND PROPER INTERPRETATION BY PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D., PRINCIPAL OF THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW; AUTHOR OF “TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE,” “EZEKIEL AND THE BOOK OF HIS PROPHECY,” ETC. SECOND EDITION EDINBURGH: T AND T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE, STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO. 1865 Prepared for Libronix Library System by William A. Anderson, Summer, 2008 e-Sword and theWord module prepared by BibleSupport.com / WordModules.com ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 03.00.2. MODULE PREPARED BY BIBLESUPPORT.COM ======================================================================== Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com Text Modification The text has been changed from the print edition. Scripture references were formatted for electronic presentation in e-Sword. Most implicit scripture references were made specific to reference the actual book chapter:verse rather than expecting the reader to deduce the chapter or book. Footnotes are presented in-line. The appendices refer to page numbers. The text refers to the appendices by the letter of the appendix (i.e. Appendix A). If necessary, you can determine where the text refers to an appendix by seaching for the letter of the appendix (i.e. Appendix A). Text provided by William Anderson @ StillTruth.com. Connect With Us Download thousands of free e-Sword modules, find answers to e-Sword problems, access e-Sword user forums, and fellowship with other e-Sword users. BibleSupport.com is also home to the only e-Sword User’s Guide, the most comprehensive documentation available for e-Sword. Want to know when this module is updated? Want to know when we release other modules? Want to show your support? Like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/BibleSupport Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/BibleSupport ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 03.00.3. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ======================================================================== Preface To The Second Edition ONE of the main considerations which induced me, a few years ago, to prepare and issue the following treatise on Prophecy, arose from the effect which was being produced by the general tendency of theological discussion on the evidential value of prophecy, as that was wont to be presented. The same reason exists still, if not in increased, at least in undiminished force; and I therefore substantially repeat what I then stated on this preliminary point. The whole of that department of theology, I remarked, which treats of the evidences of revealed religion, has been peculiarly affected by the spirit of the age; and a mode of treatment is now required for the several topics it embraces, which materially differs from what was usually adopted and deemed sufficient so lately as the earlier part of the present century. Such is more particularly the case in respect to the subject of prophecy: The claim of the Bible to divine authority, on the ground of its predictions, has now to be maintained from a more internal position than formerly; since objections are laid by the opponents or corrupters of the truth against the argument from prophecy, less on the ground of an alleged weakness in the argument itself, abstractedly considered, than by attempting to eliminate the predictive element from Scripture, in so far as it can be said to carry with it any argumentative value. Adopt their mode of contemplating the prophetical writings, and you no longer possess the materials necessary for constructing an argument that will serve the cause of Christianity. Contemporaneously, too, with this relative change on the part of the impugners of a supernatural revelation, modes of interpretation, and theories of providential change founded on them, have been gaining currency among many students of prophetical Scripture, which, if valid, would deprive the argument from prophecy of some of its most important defences. The immediate result of the two tendencies combined has been to involve the subject of prophecy in a medley of confusion, and in great measure to antiquate, even for argumentative purposes, the works which have been framed with an express view to the exhibition of the evidence deducible from it. In a higher respect, however, this state of things is scarcely to be regretted; since it necessarily forces on the advocates of revelation a more fundamental investigation of the whole subject, and cannot fail ultimately to lead to the establishment of more correct views respecting the proper function and essential characteristics of prophecy. It is here, more especially, that our theological literature in this department needs fresh consideration and admits of improvement. Of the two disturbing elements referred to in this statement, that to my mind is by much the most serious and embarrassing, which arises from the conflicting views, and, one may say, the antagonistic schools of interpretation, which have come to prevail among sincere and earnest students themselves of the prophetic word. Were there but an intelligent understanding and general concurrence among them respecting the great principles applicable to the subject, less concern might be felt for the hostile criticism of open or disguised opponents, and some reasonable prospect might be entertained of their differences on subordinate points giving way. It is on this account, and as expressive of this conviction, that so large a portion of the ensuing volume has been devoted to the investigation of principles; since no otherwise than by a correct knowledge of these, gathered from a full and careful comparison of Scripture, can a satisfactory foundation be laid, or a general agreement be arrived at by believing theologians as to the right use and interpretation of prophecy. It has been my aim, however, in that part of the volume, which treats of what is more fundamental, to relieve the discussion by introducing as many illustrations as possible of particular prophecies, so as, while chiefly occupied in laying the foundation, to make some progress also in raising the superstructure. In the latter half, which has for its specific object fulfilments of prophecy, prospective as well as accomplished, I have endeavoured to conduct the inquiry strictly with a view to the application of the principles established in the earlier part—going as far as I felt these could safely carry me, but no farther. It is possible, that some who concur with me in regard to the t principles of the subject, may not always go along with me in their specific application; and many, doubtless, will be disposed to complain that the applications to specific objects and events in the future are not by any means so numerous and circumstantial as they conceive they should have been. All I can say is, “I have done what I could;” and before much fault is found on the latter score, it might be well to consider seriously the position into which the subject of prophecy has been brought by that more pretentious and historical style of interpretation which is throughout opposed in this volume as inconsistent with the proper function and character of prophecy. It is impossible for any sober-minded and thoughtful Christian to reflect without grief, if he has intelligence enough to know, how largely with the advocates of that other style the spirit of soothsaying has of late entered into the study of prophecy in this country; and how often the credit of Holy Scripture has been “put at pawn in the hands of infidelity”—not to be redeemed, but to be shamefully lost. The sceptical spirit of the age might, if it chose, reap a plentiful harvest in this field to help on its popular crusade against the credibility and worth of Scripture; and if the faith of many within the enchanted circle has not been seriously shaken by the cycles of expectation and disappointment through which they have passed, it can only be accounted for by some peculiar idiosyncrasy in the mental constitution and habits of its possessors. Mr Frere, who has more perhaps than any other acted as the leader in this mistaken and perilous line of things, has lived to see his most confidently-announced prognostications of great events thrice over palpably falsified. Even since the first edition of this volume was published, a whole series of announcements from the sure word of prophecy, issued, not by one merely, but by a number of disciples of the same school, have shared a like fate. Holding, as they do in common, and without any valid ground in Scripture, that the present Louis Napoleon is the last, the culminating embodiment of the Antichrist—holding it, indeed, so firmly that it has ceased to be with them a matter of doubt, “having been demonstrated with mathematical certainty”—there should have been formed a seven-years’ compact between the emperor and the Jews at the latest in 1861 (the period of the Second Advent being assigned to between 1866 and 1868); the Jews should have been already back to Palestine, and their new temple in progress, since this was to be completed in 1865; Popery as a system should have been destroyed in this current year of 1864, or, as it is otherwise and more particularly expressed, “the mystery of iniquity should now have been finishing in bloodshed so great, that the apostle uses a hyperbole to describe it, reaching unto the horses’ bridles.” All these, and other things of a like nature, were a few years ago confidently predicted, while not one of them has had even the shadow of a fulfilment; and in so far as such interpreters of prophecy could do it, the cause of Bible truth has been delivered up into the enemies’ hands. Nor is it the least melancholy part of the matter, that they appear to be themselves no way daunted by the results; and, as if the ground still remained firm beneath their feet, the same things are re-asserted with unabated confidence, only, by a fresh manipulation of figures and symbols, the period is postponed some eight or ten years later: the consummation now is to be, not in 1866-68, but 1871-2. (See, for example, Baxter’s “Louis Napoleon,” ed. 1863). Surely the knowledge of such things should arouse clergymen, and Biblical students generally, to a more profound and impartial examination of the structure and import of the prophetic word. The more so, as many of the persons, who have been carried-away by this false spirit of interpretation, are not mere ignorant enthusiasts, but belong in considerable numbers to the respectable and educated classes of society. Not a few even fill responsible positions in the church. And what makes the matter more serious, calling for earnest consideration among a much wider circle, is the circumstance—which no one who has much acquaintance with the literature of the subject can well doubt—that it is the partial support which this mode of dealing with prophecy has obtained, and still obtains, from some men of note as interpreters of Scripture, that mainly fosters and sustains it. The principles, on which those castles in the air are built, with at least occasional applications of them, are to be found in some of our most extensively read works, in Scriptural exposition and discourse; and never till the right principles of prophetical interpretation are more thoroughly understood and consistently applied, may we expect to see the soothsaying tendency checked, which compels Scripture to minister to its craving for a degree and kind of information respecting the future, which it was never intended to yield. The proper place of the prophetic word lies between the two extremes, which rationalism and enthusiasm would thus respectively claim for it; and to vindicate for it, on grounds of Scripture and reason, that intermediate place, is the service that is now most especially required in its behalf. On the one side, it must be held and shown, that this word was given by inspiration of God,—not in the general sense alone, in which good thoughts and safe counsels may be said to be so given, but as supernatural and direct communications from above. For the prophets were not simply men of religious genius; they were divinely gifted seers who could descry the truth of the future; and could delineate it, not in the abstract merely, but in concrete forms and distinctive features, such as would carry an easily perceived correspondence with the events that were destined to realise them. On the other side, however, “the prophets were not soothsayers; they do not predict future events simply as such, without regard to God and his kingdom. To look into the very nature of God, to behold in his light the laws of eternity, according to which he governs the church and the world, is something infinitely higher than a mere knowledge of the future, which is itself a matter of indifference “(Hengstenberg). Hence, prophecy is utterly misapplied, when it is taken as a guide-book to details happening in the civil and political sphere of the world’s history—as if it were intended to afford to those, who study it, an insight into the plots and movements of earthly kingdoms, to discover to them remote changes in constitutional governments, or to indicate steps of advancement in material progress. Prophecy moves in a higher sphere, and but incidentally, as well as sparingly, touches on worldly states. It is in the hope of contributing to the right interpretation and use of prophecy, that I again commit the following treatise to the public, with only such alterations as seemed needful to adapt it better to its purpose. Writing more especially for those who wish to study the subject in its essential features, and as’ connected with the true knowledge of Scripture, it has formed no part of my plan to give a complete history of opinion on the topics successively handled, or to recount at length the views of particular writers. I have aimed at giving the treatise rather an exegetical and positive, than a negative and controversial aspect; and have been at more pains in unfolding what I conceive to be the truth, than in noticing every shade and variety of error that may have arisen against it. All the leading forms and phases of opinion, of course, are indicated on such points as are of more vital moment to the main theme; and where necessary for purposes of argument or illustration, references are also made to individual authors. But, very frequently, where views are referred to at variance with those which have commended themselves to my own mind, I have abstained from mentioning particular names, that the discussion might not be entangled more than was necessary with personal allusions. In several cases also I have, in this new edition, softened the language in those parts which are unavoidably controversial, seeking as little as possible to irritate the feelings of others, while obliged to oppose their sentiments. The greater proportion of the changes introduced into this edition are, like the one just specified, of the nature of subordinate improvements. A few incidental corrections also have been made, and occasional additions inserted. The greatest alteration is in Chap. IV. of Part I., where the question is discussed, how far prophecy is to be regarded as absolute or conditional in its announcements,—a subject unquestionably of considerable difficulty, and on which the language used in the previous edition was in some quarters misunderstood, perhaps was somewhat less guarded and explicit than it should have been. In the present edition I have both given a more distinct statement of the question at issue, and have unfolded, what I take to be the right solution of it, in a manner which, whether deemed satisfactory or not as regards the point more immediately in hand, cannot, in a doctrinal respect, be excepted against. Some controversial matter, bearing on the subject, I have thrown into an Appendix. On the general subject of prophecy there have been few publications of importance, so far as my knowledge goes, since the appearance of the first edition of this treatise. In Hengstenberg’s “Christology,” second edition, there is an Appendix on the “Nature of Prophecy,” which may be referred to as in the main confirming the views unfolded here; and several other dissertations in the closing part of that volume, relating especially to the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, and the history of their interpretation, will well repay perusal. From Germany we have also a treatise by Tholuck (Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen, 1860), which contains many excellent and just remarks on the nature of prophecy, and vindicates the strictly supernatural as well as truthful character of its communications, against the attacks of recent assailants. It is somewhat brief, however, on leading points, and is decidedly better on specific predictions and objections of opponents, than in respect to fundamental principles. The Warburtonian Lectures of Dean Goode, delivered in 1854-58, but published only in 1863, abstain altogether from the investigation of principles, and are wholly occupied with the consideration of predictions on particular subjects and their fulfilment. They can scarcely be said to meet the demands of such a critical age as the present, and though replete with good sense and just observations, they bring no fresh contribution to the objects we have here more particularly in view. The recent Lectures on Daniel by Dr Pusey are entitled to be mentioned as containing an able and learned vindication of the genuineness and authenticity of a much assailed portion of the prophetic writings; but from their apologetic aim, they have to do chiefly with the inspired character of the book, and, only as subsidiary to this, treat of its contents or of prophecy in general. In certain parts, the author’s theological position appears to some extent to bias his judgment, and to dispose him (especially in respect to the antichrist), to seek for a species of fulfilment which prophecy, I am convinced, when consistently interpreted, does not warrant. But in what may be regarded as his more direct object, the volume forms a seasonable and important contribution. In many points, which respect the prophetical future, uniformity of opinion can only be expected to be the growth of time; and for what is here written upon them, I ask nothing more than an impartial and patient consideration. P. F. GLASGOW, October, 1864. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 03.01. PART 1. INVESTIGATION OF PRINCIPLES ======================================================================== Part 1. Investigation Of Principles THE subject of prophecy is one that peculiarly demands, for its successful treatment, a spirit of careful discrimination. From the very nature of the subject, the want of such a spirit must inevitably lead to mistaken views, and even to dangerous results. In what respects do the prophetical portions of Scripture differ from those which are not prophetical? And, again, what specific differences separate between one portion of the prophetical field and another? These are points which call for minute and patient inquiry, as on the right settlement of them much depends for the proper understanding and consistent interpretation of the prophetical Scriptures. There are certain characteristics of a general kind, which belong to prophecy as a whole; and there are, again, subordinate peculiarities, which appear in some of its communications, but are wanting in others. The principle so strongly asserted by the Apostle Peter, that “prophecy came not by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” has respect only to one, and, indeed, to the most general, though, at the same time, the most fundamental, property of genuine prophecy—namely, the divinity of its origin. This property it, however, shares in common with every part of God’s revealed word; while yet revelation by prophecy possesses features and occupies a place peculiar to itself. Even within the prophetical territory there are important differences, which should not be without their influence on the mode of treatment its several portions receive at our hands. For prophecy is by no means uniform, either as regards the manner in which it came, or the form which it assumed. By much the larger portion of its communications were the utterances of men, who formed a distinct order, and who, in speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, were acting in the discharge of a recognised function in the Church. A certain portion, however, proceeded from persons, who had no proper office of such a kind to fulfil, but were supernaturally endowed for the occasion; while other, though smaller, portions, without passing through the medium of any human instrumentality, were uttered by a voice direct from Heaven. Of those portions, also, of the prophetic Word which were brought through the agency of men, some were communicated in visions, and others when the recipients were in their waking condition and their ordinary frame of mind. There are portions which are written in language comparatively simple; while others are clothed in the richest imagery, or enveloped in the mystery of symbols. Now, if no regard is paid to such marked distinctions between prophecy in general, and other modes of Divine revelation, and between one portion of prophecy and another; or, if the distinctions are practically overlooked in the mode of interpretation that is adopted, we shall seek in vain to arrive at any safe and satisfactory conclusions, either as regards the common aim of the prophetic writings, or the meaning of its several parts. It is to want of pains in this preliminary line of inquiry, more than to any other cause, that we ascribe the contradictory views which still continue to be propounded of various predictions, and the manifold uncertainty which still unfortunately seems to haunt the prophetical region. In applying our minds, therefore, to this important subject, it will be our duty, in the first instance, to cast our eye over the field of prophecy, with the view of making ourselves accurately acquainted with some of its more prominent and distinctive characteristics. And then on these, as the proper basis of all sound interpretation, we shall endeavour to find our way to such fundamental principles as ought to direct and regulate our inquiries into the different portions of the prophetic volume. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 03.02. CHAPTER 1. THE PROPER CALLING OF A PROPHET, AND THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF A PROPHECT ======================================================================== Chapter 1. The Proper Calling Of A Prophet, And The Essential Nature Of A Prophect THE first thing that demands consideration in this survey has respect to the constituent elements of a prophecy, and, in connection with that, the proper calling or function of a prophet. For here, at the very outset, the current language of the world, which so often governs its ideas, is fitted to create a false impression, and impart a misleading bias to our views. In ordinary language, that only is a prophecy which delivers some prediction of the future; while in the original and proper sense this embraces but a part of the idea, and not always even the more principal part. The prophet, as regarded in the light of Scripture, was simply the recipient and bearer of a message from God; and such a message of course was a prophecy, whatever might be its more specific character—whether the disclosure of some important truth, the inculcation of an imperative duty, or a prospective delineation of coming events. A message, however, that bespoke no supernatural insight into the will and purposes of Heaven, could not, except in peculiar circumstances, require a divinely-commissioned person to deliver it. And so, while any communication received directly from above might be called a prophecy, the term was naturally understood only of such communications as inferred a more than ordinary acquaintance with spiritual and divine things; but these not less when the Word spoken referred to the higher truths of God’s kingdom, than when it foretold the future acts of His providence. That such actually is the Scriptural idea of a true prophet, and a prophetic Word, is evident alone from the two first occasions on which the subject is formally mentioned. “Restore the man his wife,” said the Lord to Abimelech, after he had taken Sarah from Abraham, “for he is a prophet” (Genesis 20:7). This is absolutely the first time the designation prophet is applied to any one in Scripture; and being used without explanation, and with reference to a person, whose peculiar distinction lay in his having been raised to so high a place in the friendship of God, where he enjoyed the privilege of direct intercourse with Heaven, it must have been intended to denote Abraham as possessed of that distinction—to characterise him as one admitted into the secrets, and made acquainted with the counsels, of the Most High. The next occasion is even more precise and definite, as it presents the prophetical agency under the aspect of simply human relations. “Behold,” says God to Moses, in Exodus 7:1, “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet.” By comparing this declaration with Exodus 4:15-16, where it is said to Moses, “Thou shall speak unto Aaron, and put words in his mouth, and he shall be thy spokesman unto the people,” it is plain that as Moses was to act God’s part in giving the message to Aaron, so in receiving the message, and communicating it to others, Aaron was to do the prophet’s part. The prophet, therefore, was one qualified and called to sustain this twofold relation to God and man—on the one side to receive; on the other, to give forth the Word received—to be, in a manner, God’s mouth, for the purpose of declaring the truths, and unfolding the secrets, which God might see meet by special revelation to impart to him. This was the peculiar calling of the prophet, and whatever was uttered in the fulfilment of such a calling was a prophecy. (See Appendix A.) The prophetic writings themselves sufficiently attest this. They give no countenance to the notion that the gift of prophecy was conferred merely for the purpose of announcing beforehand the coming events of Providence. The discourses which actually possess this character never comprise the whole, nor usually even the larger portion of the writings which have been left by the prophets to the Church. In these, viewed generally, the grand object seems rather to have been to deal with men, as in God’s stead, for the interests of truth and righteousness, and, only in so far as might be required for the furtherance of this object, to lay open the prospect of things to come. But the strongest proof is to be found in the case of those who, in the highest and most emphatic sense, had to do the part of a prophet, since it appears to have been with the present, rather than with the future, that their mission called them more immediately to deal. The persons who, above all others, occupied this lofty position, were Moses and Christ. Most commonly, indeed, they are named apart from the prophets, as if something else than prophetical gifts,—something essentially superior to these entered into the revelations brought by their instrumentality to the world: hence such expressions as “Moses and the prophets,” “Christ and his holy apostles and prophets.” Expressions of this sort, however, must be understood to indicate only a relative, not an absolute, difference. Moses was, in the strictest sense, a prophet, and is often so described, as in Hosea, Hosea 12:13, “And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.” Not only was he a prophet in the strictest sense, but also in the highest degree; for who, in ancient times, received such free and ample communications from Heaven as were imparted to Moses? Or who, like him, was charged with a commission to order and establish everything in God’s kingdom, in its earlier and provisional form, among men? When the time, however, came for that form giving way to another more perfect and complete, then came also the greater than Moses, whom the people of God in every age have recognised as emphatically the prophet of the Church, and whom Moses himself descried as destined to arise, and entitled also to obtain, when he should appear, universal homage and respect (Deuteronomy 18:15). Now, it is true, alike of Moses and of Christ, that while, as prophets, they possessed and manifested the profoundest insight into Divine things, the communications they actually made to the Church partook comparatively little of the nature of specific predictions respecting particular personages or events in the future. The whole that either of them uttered of such predictions might be comprised within the limits of a few ordinary chapters. The other and much larger portion of their communications has to do with the great realities of faith and hope, or the principles of truth and duty, which form the basis of their respective dispensations; and is no farther predictive of what was afterwards to happen, than as the present necessarily contained the germ of the future, or the manifestations then given of God’s mind and will bespoke the recurrence of like manifestations, and, it may be, still higher ones in the time to come. It could not, indeed, have been otherwise, from the very nature of things. The distinction we now refer to has its foundation, not in accidental circumstances, or individual choice, but in the more essential relations that connect man with God, and the soul of one man with that of another. This we may learn from the world itself. The world also has its prophets,—men in whom it recognises “the vision and faculty divine;” and, among these, some who are regarded as possessing it in a super-eminent degree. But to whom does it assign this elevated place? Not to those who labour, even though it should be with superior ingenuity and skill in Nature’s corners and byepaths—who, within some narrower range of action, light upon discoveries interesting only to the few, or elaborate works, which can be appreciated by none but persons of exact learning or refined taste. Not such, but the nobler spirits who can venture boldly, and with a step altogether their own, upon the lofty steeps and broad highways of nature: the men who in science attain to the possession of truths which have a world-wide significance and value, or in literature give birth to productions which address themselves to the universal instincts of mankind, touch the springs of thought and feeling in every bosom, and become the common heritage of all generations and all lands. These, in the worldly sphere, are the gifted seers, who have an eye to look into nature’s profounder secrets, and a tongue to interpret her meaning, such as is sure to meet with a response from the hearts of her children. And what such men are in respect to human and earthly things, the same in things spiritual and divine was Moses to the Old, and Jesus Christ to the New, Testament Church. Have not they too left behind them—above all, has not Jesus Christ left behind Him—the signature of his peerless elevation, in the incomparable breadth and wide-reaching importance of his revelations? It is not the remoter incidents, or more private details of the Divine economy, which his words disclose, but its grander interests and concerns; not a few streamlets merely that his Divine hand has laid open, but rather the perennial fountain itself of heavenly truth. Of no work could it be said with such manifold reason as of his, that it is not of an age, but for all time; in the heights it reaches, in the depths it explores, in the very form it assumes, it bears the impress of relative perfection and completeness. And it had been a mark, not of a more elevated, but of an inferior prophetical insight, it had stamped his mission as of a subordinate and temporary kind, rather than as one of primary importance and indestructible value, if his communications had turned more upon particular incidents of providence, and the varying evolutions of the world’s history. This signature of relative greatness and superiority in the nature of the Divine communications, which came by Christ, and in a measure also by Moses, is accompanied, and, as it were, accredited by another signature in the mode of communication. In the case of Moses, a difference in this latter respect was formally established by God himself, and for the express purpose of marking the higher place of power and influence which rightfully belonged to his servant. Rebuking the presumption of Aaron and Miriam, who had become jealous of the pre-eminent rank of their brother, and had been saying to the congregation, “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us?” the Lord interposed to give an authoritative decision, and said, “Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision, in a dream I will speak to him. Not so my servant Moses: he is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth I speak to him, and appearance (i.e., as with open face), and not in dark speeches; and the similitude (form) of the Lord he beholds.” (Numbers 12:6-8). (See Appendix B.) With an evident reference to this passage, the singular pre-eminence of Moses is again noticed near the close of his life, Deuteronomy 34:10, “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.” There was a certain amount of truth mixed up with the allegation of Aaron and Miriam: they did possess a kind of prophetical character (Exodus 15:20-21; Micah 6:4), though of an inferior description as compared with the prophets generally, and greatly more so when viewed in reference to the position of Moses, betwixt whom and the other prophets a marked distinction is drawn. The distinction bears respect to a difference in the mode of revelation:—in the case of Moses, an open, waking, face to face intercommunion; while with the other prophets communications were to be made by dreams and visions. But this difference in the mode is made to rest upon a distinction in the office. Moses, as the mediator of the old covenant, had devolved on him the care of the whole house or kingdom of God, and consequently required to have the freest intercourse with heaven, and the most explicit instructions, to enable him to order everything aright. But the other and ordinary members of the prophetical order had no such high commission to fulfil. Standing upon the foundation already laid by Moses, and charged to enforce and maintain, but not allowed to remodel or dispense with any of its provisions, they necessarily had but a limited range of operations to mind, and messages of a more special kind to bring. These are the principal points of difference established in this fundamental passage in Numbers, between Moses and the other prophets. But the Jewish doctors are fond of multiplying the marks of superiority in Moses, for the purpose of investing him with a more transcendent glory. Thus Maimonides (Porta Mosis, Pockoke’s Works, vol. i. pp. 63, 64.) finds as many as four notes of distinction possessed by Moses, and wanting in the prophets generally:—First, in God’s speaking to him without the mediation of an angel, in direct discourse, as one man might do with another; secondly, in his having communications made to him openly, not by way of vision or dream; thirdly, in his being able to hold intercourse with God without suffering such corporeal languishings and faintings of nature as were sometimes at least experienced by men of ordinary prophetical gifts; and, lastly, in his having habitual access to God for supernatural revelations; while to others these came only at distant intervals, and at times also required to be preceded by a season of special preparation. These four grounds of distinction are merely an expansion, by the introduction of related circumstances and effects, of the two points noticed above from the passage in Numbers; they admit of being all comprised in the singular dignity of the office of Moses, and the consequent openness and freedom of his intercourse with heaven. It was in these peculiarly that he rose so much superior to all who succeeded him in the dispensation he introduced. The privilege of holding free and open communication with heaven in respect to the secret things of God, however it may have distinguished Moses from other prophets, only attained its perfection in Christ, as in Him also the ground on which it rests becomes immeasurably higher and broader. Moses had the honour of being counted faithful as a servant over the house of God; yet it was only as a servant, at a time, too, when the house was comparatively small, and when the service to be done in it had for its highest aim the providing of “a testimony beforehand of those things which were to be spoken after.” Christ, however, has the place of a son. It is his to exercise authority and rule in the Divine kingdom, as in his own house; and hence the revelations which came by Him, as in their own nature they were the highest that could be given, so in their form and manner they were the most natural and direct—the freest from whatever partook of outward formality or inward constraint. In Him the Spirit of the Father resided in unrestricted fulness, nay, He himself knew the Father, as could be done only by one who possessed the same nature, and had freest access to his bosom: so that the words He spake, the doctrine He taught, and the works He performed were not more His own than the Father’s. (John 1:18; John 3:13, John 3:34; Matthew 11:25-27) Here, therefore, the intercourse with heaven reached the highest degree of closeness and intimacy. It was not so properly God speaking to man, as God speaking in man and through man; and on that account speaking not only with a clearness and comprehension of view, but also with a self-possessed manner and a heaven-like elevation of tone, peculiarly His own. To some extent, indeed, though very imperfectly as compared with Christ, the Apostles shared in this higher standing and freer communion,—to such an extent as to form a marked distinction betwixt them and the prophets of the earlier dispensation. For, excepting on a few special occasions (Acts 10:1-48; 2 Corinthians 12:1-21; Apoc. passim), they never appear to have received revelations in a trance or vision; and, like men habitually replenished with the Spirit, they spoke and wrote as if the Lord himself spoke and wrote in them (1 Corinthians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 14:37; 2 Corinthians 13:3). They, therefore, deemed it unnecessary to preface their discourses with the wonted formula of the prophets, “Thus saith the Lord.” As possessed by them, the prophetical gift corresponded with the comparative maturity and freedom of their New Testament position; and in the exercise of it, they seemed more like persons in their native element, with full scope on every side for the free development of their susceptibilities and powers, than for the moment raised into a region not properly congenial to them. Thus there were differences between prophet and prophet, and between one kind of prophetical agency and another; and by carefully noting these, we are enabled to draw the line of demarcation between what is essential, and what is merely circumstantial, in the matter. 1. It was, first of all, essential to the prophet, that he should have direct personal communications from above, constituting him, in a sense quite special and peculiar, the medium of intercommunion between heaven and earth; and, consequently, that he should possess a state and temper of soul, such as might form a proper recipiency for the divine communications. In no case could these be dispensed with. Not the actual communications, for on them depended the very substance of the message he had to deliver; not the suitable inward recipiency, for in that stood the capacity to apprehend, and the fidelity to use, what of supernatural insight might be imparted to him. That “vision and faculty divine,” of which the world speaks, must have belonged to him, and in another manner than its most gifted seers can attain to; since he had to see what even these could not see, and to hear what they heard not; nay, not only to see and hear, but to give it willing audience in the inmost chamber of his soul. For Scripture knows as little of automaton prophets, as the world knows of automaton orators or poets. Spirit to spirit—a spirit in man rightly attempered and formed to the revelations presented to it by the Spirit of God:—such is the essential law of God’s working in his more peculiar, not less than in his more common, operations on the souls of men. The prophet, therefore, was emphatically what he was also often designated, “a man of God.” He was one who entered into God’s mind, who breathed God’s Spirit; whose very heart and soul were imbued with the truth and righteousness of God: so that, when he came forth to speak to his fellow-men, it was to utter feelings of which he was himself profoundly conscious—to proclaim a message which had first given light to his own eyes, and awakened a response in the sanctuary of his own bosom. This much was essential to the proper calling and agency of a prophet, and could not, save in cases altogether exceptional, be dispensed with. (See Appendix C.) But it was not essential—however commonly it may be so represented—that the prophet, when receiving the divine communication, should be agitated and convulsed in the process—should be moved and driven to and fro, as by some overpowering and arbitrary impulse. Such might occasionally have been the case with him; but never in the Hebrew prophet as in the heathen soothsayer (the μαντίς), who sought by external appliances to excite his spirit into a kind of sacred phrenzy, and appeared and spoke as one borne away by a really divine fervour. The settled rule in the sphere of Scripture prophecy was, that “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets,”—the higher impulse stimulating their natural powers, and informing their minds with supernatural revelations, but never destroying either their personal freedom, or their proper individuality. And even the regulated excitation of entranced feeling was so far from being essential to the existence of a prophetic agency in its larger sense, that it had the least play in those who occupied the highest standing, and were most plentifully endowed with the prophetic spirit. 2. Secondly, in regard to the communication received by the prophet, it was essential that this should constitute a message respecting the things of God, which it became God, in a supernatural manner, to impart, and His people, through an extraordinary message, to receive. For, otherwise, the necessary condition of the prophet’s existence, or the appropriate evidence of his mission, must have been wanting. He would have been like those dreamers, who came forth in the name of the Lord, to speak to the people, though they had seen nothing—nothing, at least, that required the immediate interposition of divine authority, and a direct revelation from heaven. But it was not essential—it was a matter that depended upon the time and the occasion, whether in the word he spake there might be any explicit announcements of coming events in providence, or, if any, how far they might reach. In a more general sense every prophecy might be said to carry in its bosom a revelation of things to come, as it never failed to disclose the fundamental truths and principles of God’s righteous government, and to represent them as the moral hinges on which the dispensations of time and the issues of eternity must eventually turn. In Old Testament times, more especially, it could not fail to have much of a prospective bearing on the future, as every thing then pointed onwards to a more perfect state of things. But in the more specific sense of precise and definite information respecting the future operations of God in the world, prophecy, as we have seen, was far from being uniform. Neither did it always enter into such prospective details, nor, when it did, was the disclosure of these made to assume the appearance of the more direct and primary object it aimed at. It differed essentially from that soothsaying or divination, which prevailed so extensively in the heathen world, and which, by improperly prying into the future, always betokened distrust in God, and naturally allied itself with idolatry. The very criterion laid down by Moses for testing the claims of those who might assume to speak as prophets of the Most High, gave clear indication of this, and marked the relative position which the circumstantial here should bear to the essential in prophecy. If a prophet, it was said, Deuteronomy 13:1-5, should arise, and give a sign or wonder which should come to pass; but, at the same time, should seek to draw people away after other gods, and lead them to forsake the worship and service of Jehovah, they were on no account to accredit his testimony, or regard him as a messenger of God, but were rather to suppose that through his plausible pretensions God was making trial of their fidelity. What could have more strikingly shown that the moral and religious element in prophecy, was ever to be viewed as occupying the primary, and the predictive no more than the secondary and subservient place? The ordinary prophet was not to be expected to introduce any thing essentially new. On the contrary, he was to make it patent to all that he stood on the old foundations; and as a true watchman of God, jealous for the honour and glory of Him who laid them, was bound to raise the alarm when he saw them in danger of being destroyed, and freshen up in men’s souls the eternal principles of truth and duty in which they consisted. Only as an handmaid to this more determinate part of his function, was the disclosure of future events to be looked for at the hands of the prophet. And a surer sign, either of a false claim to the divine gift, or of a false apprehension and mistaken estimate of the true, could scarcely be named, than the reversing of this Scriptural order, by raising the subsidiary element into the place of the principal. 3. Again, and in respect to the last stage of the process, it was essential that the prophet should faithfully record or utter the revelations he obtained. He must not only deliver his message, but deliver it as he had himself received it—like an impartial and incorrupt witness declaring what his eyes had seen, and his ears had heard, in the visions of God. No more in this ‘ department of his calling, when dealing with men in behalf of God, was it lawful for him to confer with flesh and blood, than when, in the other, he was dealt with by God in behalf of men. A select ambassador of heaven, he had but one thing, in a manner, to do—to speak what God had put into his heart, without fearing the face of man, or listening to the suggestions of his lower nature. Had this condition failed—as for a moment it did fail in the case of Jonah—the indispensable characteristic of a prophet had been wanting. But it was not essential, that in this outward communication of the light that shone within him, there should have been any thing like forcible pressure or violence in the tone and manner in which it was done. A certain amount of this there may have been—there occasionally was; yet not “as a form necessarily cleaving to every thing prophetical;” as if the prophetical, “in its works of greater moment and abiding faithfulness, could not possibly exist without it.” (Ewald, Propheten, p. 8.) It could not, indeed, exist without the internal impulse of holy feeling and irrepressible energy of purpose, bearing the prophet’s soul aloft, and rendering it superior to all earthly considerations. But this may be found in a region of perfect calmness and serenity, nay, found there in the highest degree. It was, in reality, so found for the most part by Moses, but always and entirely by Jesus Christ, whose words, even when laying open the sublimest mysteries, are remarkable for nothing more than the perfect composure and unruffled calmness of spirit which they breathe. Whatever, therefore, might, at any time, appear in the prophet of disturbed feeling or undue excitation, so far from being a necessary accompaniment of his prophetical calling, is rather to be ascribed to his own imperfect elevation of soul, or the embarrassments of his outward condition. If he was himself conscious of some difficulty in fully embracing as his own the word committed to him—or if he had to proclaim that word to a people who were maintaining an attitude of stout-hearted resistance to the will of God, then something of violent agitation, or even of impassioned vehemence in his manner, might not unnaturally be looked for. But it was still only an incidental and separable adjunct, not an essential attribute, of a prophet’s calling. Now, from the whole of the considerations here advanced, and more especially from what has been stated regarding the quite singular nature of the position occupied by Moses and Christ, in respect to the revelation of the Divine will, one can readily understand how they should be so commonly placed apart from the strictly prophetical order. In reality, it was in them that the spirit of prophecy had its noblest exercise, and rose to its highest perfection. But this very perfection threw so wide a gulf between them and the persons who possessed the more ordinary prophetical gifts, that the latter alone came to be regarded as by way of distinction the prophets, and the two others were contemplated as moving in a loftier sphere. Hence, even John the Baptist is called by our Lord, “more than a prophet,” though it was in the character of a prophet, that he had been previously announced (Isaiah 40:6, Malachi 4:5, Luke 1:16-17); and, beyond doubt, it was the distinctive work of a prophet in which his mission had its fulfilment. But the same considerations, which account for the usual restriction of the term prophet to others than Moses and Christ, also explains how the word spoken by these others should partake largely of predictions, and should even thence derive, in the popular conception, its predominant characteristic. It naturally arose from the dependant and supplementary nature of such prophecy, as compared with the revelations brought in by Moses and Christ. In these the more important and fundamental things of the Divine economy had already been established. The truths, on which the respective dispensations were based, might afterwards be reiterated anew, or applied to the different phases of error and corruption which successively arose; germs of spiritual thought implanted there, might be expanded and matured; existing institutions also, after seasons of decay, might have the breadth of a new and more vigorous life breathed into them: all this might be done, in connection with the one dispensation or the other, and, to provide for its accomplishment, was always one great design of God in the bestowal of prophetical gifts. But the doing of such work, from its very nature of a subsidiary and ministerial kind, could not of itself, even in the most favourable circumstances, yield so convincing a proof of direct communication with God, and of supernatural insight into the counsels of heaven, as the clear delineation of yet future events in Providence. Nor could the prophets, as the more select agents and witnesses of God among men, be properly qualified for their important mission, unless they had been enabled to direct their eye into the future, and make some disclosure of its coming issues. For, it was to these issues they naturally pointed for the confirmation of the principles they affirmed, and the vindication of the part they took in the ever-proceeding controversy between sin and righteousness. So that, whether we look to the nature of their calling, or to what was needed for its proper authentication, it could scarcely fail that prophecy, in its more regular and wonted ministrations, should partake much of a predictive character, and by indications of supernatural foresight, should often give conclusive evidence of its Divine origin. It is of prophecy in this more special and restricted sense—of prophecy as containing announcements, more or less specific, of the future—that the word must be chiefly employed in discussions like the present. In this sense we must, henceforth, be understood to use the term, where no intimation to the contrary is given. It is, undoubtedly, a great limitation of the Scriptural idea, and embraces what is but a particular and subordinate province of the field. This must be carefully borne in mind, if we would either form a correct estimate of the subject itself, or arrive at safe and well-grounded principles of interpretation. To set out with such a definition of prophecy in general as this, that “it is a prediction of some contingent circumstance or event in the future, received by immediate and direct revelation,” (So Vitringa, Typus Proph. Doc. p. 1.)—a definition which, if not formally given, is, for the most part, tacitly assumed in works on prophecy—betokens, in the first instance, a partial view of what the prophetic field properly embraces, and it must inevitably lead to practical mistakes in the treatment of particular portions belonging to it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 03.03. CHAPTER 2. THE PLACE OF PROPHECY IN HISTORY, AND THE ORGANIC CONNECTION .... ======================================================================== Chapter 2. The Place Of Prophecy In History, And The Organic Connection Of The One With The Other FROM the relation of prophecy in the more restricted, to prophecy in the more general and comprehensive sense, we come, by a very natural transition, to consider the relation of prophecy to history. The consideration of this point also will be found to turn, in some degree, on the distinction between the two aspects of prophecy already noticed—the fundamental and the subsidiary; and will suggest reflections as to the proper treatment of the prophetic volume very closely allied to some of the considerations urged in the preceding chapter. The most cursory glance over the pages of Scripture can leave no doubt that prophecy, in so far as it consists in predictions of coming events in providence, exists there in very various and irregular proportions. In the Old Testament—to which alone we shall for the present refer—it appears somewhat like a river, small in its beginnings, and though still proceeding, yet often losing itself for ages under ground, then bursting forth anew with increased volume, and at last rising into a swollen stream—greatest by far when it has come within prospect of its termination. During the whole antediluvian period of the world, it could scarcely be said to exist, excepting at the beginning and the close; and even then only in small amount and apart from any regular official ministration. The first prophecy, called forth by the circumstances of the fall, delineates in graphic, but general and comprehensive outlines, the leading characteristics of the world’s history; projects, as it were, the channels alike of evil and of good, in which the stream of events was destined to run, yet so as to give sure prognostication of the final ascendancy of the good over the evil. Indefinite as this prophecy was, it was of unspeakable moment, on account of the promise it embodied to the heart of faith, whereby, in the midst of brooding darkness and wide-wasting destruction, it lighted up the hope of better things to come. As a prediction, however, of contingent events, destined to appear in the future, this primeval word of life is scarcely to be mentioned, since it rather announced great principles of working, and pointed to ultimate results, than defined, beforehand, particular acts of Providence. And this holds yet more of the prophecy of Enoch (Jude 1:14-15), which may be regarded merely as an application of the prophecy uttered at the fall, to the times of growing apostacy and wickedness in which he lived. It declared the certainty of God’s appearing to check the temporary triumph of the adversary, and establish the just. The revelation to Noah of the general deluge, is again but the more specific application of Enoch’s announcement, and is, in truth, the first definite prediction we meet with—being required for the support of Noah’s faith, amid an almost universal backsliding, and for the direction of his course in respect to the approaching catastrophe. Subsequently to the deluge, a series of prophecies follow each other at considerable intervals, not unlike in their general character. There is, first, Noah’s own prediction respecting the state and prospects of his posterity—a prediction, indeed, considerably more definite in its intimations than that pronounced at the fall; but still, like this, pointing chiefly to the essential principles of the Divine government, and to the relation in which his offspring, by the three lines of descent, should stand to these, and through these to each other. Then, at the distance of some centuries come the revelations to Abraham respecting his seed, and the closely dependant prophecies of Isaac and Jacob to their children—each of them successively growing in precision and definiteness, but dwelling still upon the relative positions and prospects of stems, and races, and tribes, rather than upon individual personages or particular events. The promise of Shiloh, as a centre of unity and peace, to arise out of the tribe of Judah, is the most specific in the series, and for the first time gives prominence to a single individual in the perspective of the more distant future. But, as a whole, those patriarchal prophecies turned mainly on the general points, through what line of descent the more peculiar blessing of the covenant with Abraham was to flow—how, even within this favoured line distinctions of higher and lower, better and worse, should exist, according as the persons concerned might stand related to the moral ends of the covenant; and how, along with the heritage of good promised and secured, there should be also the constant intermingling of struggles, conflicts and sorrows, necessarily calling for the exercise of faith and patience on the part of the true children of the covenant. It holds of these patriarchal predictions, as well as of those which preceded them, that not one of them was given “like an insulated phenomenon, or merely to demonstrate the prescience of their all- wise Creator; but were all by Him engrafted upon the exigency of times and persons, and made to serve as a light of direction to the attentive observers of them, before the event had set the seal to their truth.” (“Davison on Prophecy,” p. 99, who makes this just remark on prophecy in general, without, however, having sufficiently investigated, or freely applied, the principle involved in it.) Their primary and immediate object unquestionably was to give, as the ever-changing circumstances of the world required, counsel or encouragement to the children of promise, in respect to their more peculiar trials and dangers, hopes and obligations. And in so far as they may have tended to produce any other results, the effect could only be regarded as subsidiary and incidental. Centuries of silence and darkness pass away after the last words of Jacob were uttered, without any addition being made to the prophetic oracles. But the time at length came for carrying into fulfilment the promise of an inheritance made to the seed of Abraham; and then, with the appearance and mission of Moses, the well-nigh expiring light of prophecy bursts forth at once into a sudden blaze—but prophecy (as formerly stated) chiefly of the more fundamental and primary kind, dealing less in predictions of coming events than in the great principles of truth and duty, as connected with the introduction of a new phase of the Divine administration. There were certain distinct assurances given through Moses to the Israelites regarding their possession of Canaan, and a series of hypothetical predictions uttered regarding the evil and the good that might afterwards befal them there (Leviticus 26:1-46; Deuteronomy 28:1-68, Deuteronomy 33:1-29)—hypothetical, inasmuch as the blessings and the cursings prospectively announced, were uttered merely as deductions that grew out of the government under which they were placed, taken in connection with the course that might be pursued by future generations. But, if we except such parts of the writings of Moses, the revelations which came by him cannot be termed prophecies in the sense now understood. The predictions spoken by Balaam—though appearing only as a sort of interlude in the Mosaic record—possess more of the simply predictive element. The circumstances of the time, especially the perilous situation of Israel, required something of this description. And as it could be most effectually done from the camp of the adversary, so the extraordinary course was taken of making use of the heathen diviner to send forth rays of light respecting the future purposes of God, which were to be afterwards expanded into yet more full and explicit delineations. The age of Moses is succeeded by another long break in the prophetic chain. Persons with prophetic insight occasionally appear during the period of the Judges, but only as rare and glimmering lights, for it was a time for heroic action rather than for lofty utterances. Prophecy, in its formal character, comes into view only in the age of Samuel, with whom properly originates the prophetical order of the Old Testament. And, in the history of this order, it is to be remarked how small a part prediction plays in its earlier operations. The series opens with it in the loud and terrible denunciation of judgment which came forth against the degenerate house of Eli (1 Samuel 2:1-36, 1 Samuel 3:1-21), and it recurs from time to time afterwards, as in the difficult and perplexing circumstances connected with the elevation of Saul to the throne, the election of David in his stead, and the rending of David’s kingdom in the time of Rehoboam. At this period, however, the predictions uttered were manifestly of a quite occasional and circumscribed nature. They gave forth, indeed, gleams of supernatural light, such as were required by the members of the covenant in seasons of emergency and danger, but not of a kind to occupy more than a merely fragmentary portion of the prophetical activity of the period. This activity, originating in Samuel, and by him organized and perpetuated through regular institutions, called Schools of the Prophets, exerted itself mainly as a spirit of revival, and spent its energies greatly more in conducting practical operations, than in searching into or disclosing hidden mysteries. This was what the circumstances of the time especially required. It was not so much new revelations that were needed, as an inworking into the feelings and habits of the people of the revelations which had already been received. The members of the prophetical order, therefore, usually appear as the more select portion of the Levitical and priestly classes, to which, with probably few exceptions, they belonged. Hence they sometimes took part in the performance of services that were strictly of a priestly character (1 Samuel 9:13, etc.), but more commonly were employed in holding meetings for devotional exercises and spiritual instruction, in the hope of thereby rekindling the flame of piety, and diffusing the fear of God throughout the land. Such seems to have been the distinctive nature of the prophetic agency for centuries after the age of Samuel. The prophets were, in a peculiar sense, the spiritual watchmen of Judah and Israel—the representatives of divine truth and holiness, whose part it was to keep a wakeful and jealous eye upon the manners of the times, to detect and reprove the symptoms of defection which appeared, and by every means in their power foster and encourage the spirit of real godliness. And such pre-eminently was Elijah, who is therefore taken in Scripture itself as the type of the whole prophetical order in this earlier stage of its development,—a man of heroic energy of action rather than of prolific thought and elevating discourse. The words he spake were few, but they were words spoken as from the secret place of thunder, and seemed more like decrees issuing from the presence of the Eternal, than the utterances of one of like passions with those he addressed. Appearing at a time when the very foundations were out of course, and the most flagrant enormities were openly practised in the high places of the land, he boldly stood forth in the name of God, as a wrestler in the cause of righteousness—not so much to plead for it as to avenge and vindicate it, as if the time had come for deciding the controversy by deeds rather than by words. For this gigantic work power was given him to smite the earth with plagues, and to torment those who dwelt on it, and who were corrupting it by their wicked deeds (1 Kings 17:1-24, 1 Kings 18:1-46; Revelation 11:6). But when the results aimed at by this severe and stern agency were in a good measure accomplished, when by terrible things in righteousness the daring of the adversary had been quelled, and an open field had been won for active operations, his mission called him to work of another kind—such work as was fitly symbolised by the still small voice at Horeb, in which now, and not in the whirlwind, the earthquake or the fire, the Lord made Himself known to His servant. Enough, it was virtually said to the prophet, of such overawing displays of power as have hitherto been put forth. They have already served their more immediate purpose, but work of a more peaceful and regenerative nature still remains to be done. The decayed schools of the prophets must be revived, and spiritual labours prosecuted, if haply through such instrumentality the hearts of the children may be quickened into newness of life, and turned back to the Lord their God. And so, after he had by patient and faithful exertion approved himself in this part also of his prophetical mission, he was received up to heaven in a chariot of glory. The only remarkable divergence from the general course which appears in this great series of prophetical agency, after the pattern of Samuel, is that of David’s circle—including, beside himself, Nathan, Solomon, and the more distinguished men of certain Levite families, who took part in the composition of the Psalms. So far this collateral branch of prophecy corresponds with the main stem, that here also the grand aim was of a practical kind. It had for its direct object the infusing of new life and vigour into the Mosaic institutions, and promoting, among all classes of the people, the cultivation of that righteousness which they were designed to plant and nourish. But, with this general resemblance, the agency of David and his coadjutors differed from that of the contemporary prophetical order, in the more judicial character of the measures employed on the side of righteousness, and also in the frequent composition of inspired writings. Here there was not only action, but action pursuing its ends through the channels of constituted government, with the view of purging out evil from the kingdom, and rendering it in reality, what it was in name, a commonwealth of saints. And, along with this, sometimes also without it, there was ever and anon flowing the pure stream of didactic and devotional poetry. Popular and sacred song, chaunted first upon the lyre of the son of Jesse, and afterwards continued by a noble band of like-minded companions and followers, breathed forth in lofty strains the spiritual essence of the Mosaic ritual, which it also touchingly inwrought with the feelings of a profound and varied personal experience. By consecrating such productions to the interest of religion, and even associating them, as was usually done, with the service of the sanctuary, the believing Israelite was supplied with forms of thought and feeling suited to all the moods of his soul, and the diversified circumstances of his condition. And to these spiritual songs, so fragrant with the odour of Divine truth and sanctified experience, were added others (indited after the promise brought by Nathan to David, respecting the perpetuity of the kingdom in David’s line), usually designated, by way of eminence, the Messianic Psalms, which interweave the predictive with the devotional and experimental elements, by pointing to the greater personage and nobler results in which the kingdom was to find its ultimate completion. Of both parts of the Psalmodic poetry, it may be said, that the primary tendency and design was to inspirit the entire framework of the ancient economy with the measure of life, of which it was susceptible, and to carry its members to the highest degree of light and purity it might be possible for them to reach under that provisional state of things. In process of time, however, it became evident that all these extraordinary efforts, both by the prophetical order generally, and in the collateral line of operations originated by David, could not avail to stem the tide of corruption, and raise the affairs of the old economy to the desired elevation, or even to save them from fatal disorder and ruin. Too manifestly the external fabric of its institutions must be taken down, and the kingdom of God among men cast in another mould. As soon as this melancholy result came distinctly into view, then began the later, and, as regards specific predictions, the more fully developed stage of ancient prophecy. It commenced with Hosea and Amos (if not with Jonah), in the kingdom of Israel, and with Joel and Isaiah, in that of Judah—and had its distinctive characteristic in this, that while the prophets did not cease to lift their voice against prevailing evils, and strive for a return to the old paths, yet seeing every thing as it then stood tottering to its foundation, they chiefly directed their eye to the more distant future, and disclosed the purposes of God respecting the higher development of the divine kingdom now in prospect, along with the destinies awaiting the earthly states and dominions which had disputed, or might yet dispute, with it the claim for empire. In this period, as the prophetical writings were greatly more numerous than in any previous one, so, from the very nature of the case, they go more into details about the future, and supply our amplest materials for comparing the anticipations of prophecy with the subsequent events of history. In this brief survey, we have purposely confined our view to the more general features of the subject, such as may be perceived on the most cursory inspection, and about which there can scarcely be any difference of opinion. The more minute investigations connected with its several parts will be matter for future inquiry and consideration. Meanwhile, from the outline itself, various thoughts naturally suggest themselves as to the relations of prophecy to history, and these of some importance for a correct appreciation of the nature and function of prophecy. 1. First of all, it is obvious, that the prophecy of Scripture is closely interwoven with its history. So far from standing by itself in a sort of isolation and independence, it is in connection with the facts of history that prophetical revelations took at once their rise and their form. It is so in whichever light the revelations of prophecy be contemplated—whether in the higher and more enlarged sense of Divine communications respecting the mind and purposes of God, or in the more limited sense of predictions of things to come. As prophecy, however, in this latter sense, appears in Scripture as only a particular and comparatively subordinate department of a wider field, it naturally enters less in this sense than in the other, into the bulk and texture of sacred history. Prophetic communications and prophetic agency occur often in the greatest frequency, and tell with the most powerful effect upon the course of events, when little is to be met with of predictions—at least of clear and definite predictions—of coming events in providence. But even in this narrower sense—the one also with which we have now more especially to do—the connection between prophecy and history is alike close and pervading. A prophetic thread runs through the whole of the inspired records, and binds together both ends of revelation. To a certain extent this is not peculiar to the Bible, but belongs to it in common with the products of human thought and observation, which record the facts of providence, or unfold the principles on which they proceed. For, as has been justly said, (“Douglas on the Structure of Prophecy,” p. 4.) “prophecy is not an anomaly; it springs from the nature of Jehovah, the self-existent and eternal, who gives continuity to existence, and perpetuity to knowledge. Philosophy is prophetic as well as religion—the fact discovered to-day becomes the ‘prediction of that which will take place under exactly similar circumstances when ages have rolled away, as long as the present system of creation remains.” (On this ground Coleridge said admirably of Burke—“He possessed, and had sedulously sharpened, the eye which sees all things, actions, and events, in relation to the laws that determine their existence, and circumscribe their possibility. He referred habitually to principles. He was a scientific statesman; and therefore a seer. For every principle contains in itself the germs of a prophecy; and as the prophetic power is the essential principle of science, so the fulfilment of its oracles supplies the outward, and (to men in general) the only test of its claim to the title.”—Biog. Lit,, I., p. 195.) Hence also the saying of our great poet: “There is a history in all men’s lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceased; The which observed, a man may prophesy With a near aim of the main chance of things, As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie intreasured.” There is a profound truth in such utterances, but not by any means the whole truth as connected with prophecy in Scripture; since they have respect to the prophetic element merely as involved in the general principles of the Divine administration, and make no account of the more peculiar points of contact which Scripture presents between heaven and earth, and the more vital links with which the present is there bound with the future. Sacred history furnishes other materials of a prophetic nature than are to be found in “men’s lives,” or in the common operations of providence. For God is in the Church as He is not in the world; and the history which records the manifestations He gives of Himself in the former, has aspects to unfold of His perfections and character, which will be sought for in vain amidst the lights of natural science, or the annals of earthly transactions. The fundamental difference lies in this—that in the Church there is the revelation of God’s grace; and grace from its very nature is instinct with the spirit of prophecy. Seeking to achieve, by a happy combination of righteousness with mercy, the redemption of the fallen, it necessarily anticipates not only a future, but a future greater and better than the present: therefore awakening desire and hope in respect to things not seen as yet, and pointing expectation onward to their coming realisation. Hence the first promulgation of grace is also the first prophecy (Genesis 3:15); a prophecy, no doubt, vague and indeterminate as regards actual personages and events, but perfectly explicit as to the certainty of a deliverance to be accomplished by God, and to be patiently waited for by men. And continually as the work of grace proceeded on its course, multiplying its proofs of the loving-kindness of God, and of his determination to vindicate the cause of his chosen, especially from the time its professed recipients were bound together as the members of a visible kingdom, and had their expectations of coming good associated with the affairs of a local territory and the interests of a distinct community, it was impossible but that with the growth of the historical element, the prophetical also should increase, and should, in many respects, become more varied and definite in its prospective intimations of the future. Prophecy, therefore, being from the very first inseparably linked with the plan of grace unfolded in Scripture, is, at the same time, the necessary concomitant of sacred history. The two mutually act and re-act on each other. Prophecy gives birth to the history; the history, in turn, as it moves onward to its destined completion, at once fulfils prophecies already given, and calls forth farther revelations. And so far from possessing the character of an excrescence, or existing merely as an anomaly in the procedure of God toward men, prophecy cannot even be rightly understood, unless viewed in relation to the order of the Divine dispensations, and its actual place in history. Let it not, however, be inferred from this mutual interconnection, that prophecy and history are altogether alike in nature; or in such a sense assimilated, that by the rule and measure of the one, we must determine the import and bearing of the other. Such, too often, has been the manner of dealing with the subject by those who have perceived and exhibited the connection; as if, on the one side, prophecy could not rise above history—nor, on the other, history be more precise and determinate than prophecy. However closely related the two are to each other, they still have their own distinctive characteristics, and through these, their respective ends to serve. History is the occasion of prophecy, but not its measure; for prophecy rises above history, borne aloft by wings, which carry it far beyond the present, and which it derives, not from the past occurrences of which history takes cognizance, but from Him to whom the future and the past are alike known. It is the communication of so much of His own supernatural light, as He sees fit to let down upon the dark movements of history, to show whither they are conducting. For the most part, the persons who live in the midst of events, are the least capable of understanding aright the character of their age. But God is elevated above it, and, by the word of prophecy, He so informs the minds of his people in respect to the end, that they come also to know better than they could otherwise have done, the beginning and the middle. And as prophecy, from its intimate connection with history, has its regular progress and development, there are two considerations that ought not to be forgotten in any attempts to ascertain its proper nature and import. The one is, that the meaning of a prophecy is not to be restrained and limited by conclusions deduced simply from the historical circumstances out of which it may have sprung, but from the words of the prophecy itself; since the circumstances only prompt and fashion the words, but by no means hold them restricted within the same compass. And along with this, there is the further consideration, that since prophecy has God, and not history, for its author—has only been conceived in the lap of history, but not properly produced by it—it must ever have in it something divinely rich and great, reaching, not only beyond the things presently existing, but also, it may be, beyond what even, with the help of these, it might be possible beforehand adequately to conceive. (In these closing remarks I have adopted thoughts, though not the precise words of Delitzsch, in his Biblisch-Proph. Theologie, p. 184, where he opposes the view of Hofmann, that history must be made the measure and rule of prophecy. See also Hengstenberg’s Christology, vol. iv. p. 388, Eng. Trans., who justly says, that the weak point in the early orthodox view was to be found in its comparative disregard of the connection between history and prophecy, which, on the other side, rationalism has pushed to excess. He also states, and justly, that care must be taken to maintain the connection so as not to lose sight of the essential characteristics of prophecy (after the fashion, for example, of Hofmann), and that features are still occasionally met with in some of the prophetic delineations (as in the mention by Micah of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Messiah) which it is scarcely possible to account for by any known historical circumstances of the time.) 2. These remarks, however, only touch the more obvious and formal part of the connection of prophecy with history. The connection goes much farther and deeper. For, we observe, secondly, that the sacred history itself has throughout intermingled with it a prophetic element. Not only is it to be viewed as the germinant soil out of which predictions were ever springing forth, but in the very facts and statements it records, predictions, though of a somewhat concealed and general kind, lie imbedded. The historical transactions of Scripture are part of a great plan, which stretches from the fall of man to the final consummation of all things in glory; and in so far as they reveal the mind of God toward man, they carry a respect to the future not less than to the present. Their having such a prospective significance rests on the fundamental principle, that in His character and purposes, God is unchangeably the same; so that, seeing the end from the beginning, and planning all with infinite wisdom, as parts of a progressive and consistent whole, the truths embodied in the transactions of one periodnecessarily retained their efficacy, and reappeared in the corresponding transactions of another. Hence the freedom, and the frequency also, with which prophecy, in its delineations of the future, serves itself of the antecedent facts and characters of history. As—to point only to a few examples out of many—when the Psalmist announces in Psalms 110:1-7, a royal priest after the order of Melchizedek, which implied, that the relations of Melchizek’s time and person should somehow revive again in the future; or, when, by a mode of representation common to all the prophets, the successive stages of Israel’s history are described as experiences once more to be undergone (Hosea 2:1-23, Ezekiel 4:1-17,Ezekiel 20:1-49, etc.). Hence, too, the use perpetually made by the apostles of the notices of patriarchal and Israelitish history, as a kind of preparatory exhibition of the truths and relations of the gospel (Romans 4:4, Romans 4:17; 1 Corinthians 10:1-11; Revelation 4:1-6, etc.); and by our Lord himself, who so often appears retracing the footsteps of His forefathers after the flesh—re-echoing from His own bosom the recorded utterances of their faith and hope—and appropriating to Himself the words that had been addressed to them, of counsel and encouragement (Matthew 4:1-10; Luke 23:46, etc.) Nor is even this the whole; for, the more important and characteristic features of the ancient dispensation—the erection of the tabernacle in the wilderness, with its complicated ritual of worship—the conquest and possession of Canaan—the institution of the earthly kingdom, and the building of the temple on Mount Zion—what are they all but so many prophetic forms and symbols of things to come? In themselves they were but imperfect and provisional means, incapable, from their very nature, of reaching their proper end, and ever, in a manner, proclaiming the necessity of a higher order of things to substantiate and perfect their design. And so, when the higher things actually came—when Christ’s work and kingdom entered among men, they did not assume the aspect of something absolutely new, but appeared rather as the natural result and completion of the old—the working out of the plan of God in accordance with its Divine and spiritual nature, and establishing it on its immoveable foundations. Indeed, it is as true of the history, as of the prophecy of Old Testament Scripture, that it points to the incarnation and work of Christ for man’s redemption as its great terminating object. There alone it finds its proper explanation and its adequate result. It unfolds modes of procedure on the part of God, and experiences on the part of His people, which, in respect to that ulterior event, are all anticipative and preparatory; since in them God was ever manifesting Himself under the limits and conditions, sometimes also in the form, of humanity, for the purpose of saving men from the evils and dangers of sin; while yet the salvation, which might effectually and for ever accomplish this, is never reached, and remains still an object of desire and hope. Those divine theophanies, therefore, with the human experiences of grace and redemption connected with them—from the walking of God in Eden, when He came to reveal the purpose of salvation, to the last appearances of the angel of the covenant to counsel and comfort the released exiles of Babylon—the whole of these, when rightly understood, are so many converging lines that meet in the God-man and His redemptive work, as their common centre. They are a prophecy in action of that personal union of the divine and human in Christ, by which alone the gulph between God and man could be closed, and the breath of a new and higher life infused into the fallen. Viewed apart from this consummating process, they seem like the disjointed materials and fragmentary projections of some vast building, which cannot attain to proper harmony and completeness, till the Great Architect comes to finish the work But let them be viewed, as they should be, in their relation and subservience to what was to come, and then they will be seen to give evidence throughout of the presiding agency of God, planning and directing all with infinite skill, so as to render the past a suitable and growing preparation for the future, and present in the antecedent history of redemption the prelude of redemption itself. But for this redemption, foreseen and contemplated by the mind of God, there could as little have been such an antecedent history, as there could have been a volume of prophecy springing out of it, having for its pervading and animating spirit the testimony of Jesus. Thus it appears that the Old Testament is in a manner impregnated with the prophetical element, and not as by caprice or accident, but from the very aim and character of its revelations. The more specific and formal predictions it contains, do not stand out in solitary grandeur by themselves, like eminences rising abruptly from a surrounding level; they are only the higher elevations, the occasional mountain-peaks, from which the eye of faith was allowed at times to descry more clearly the shadows of the coming age. But all around also, there were prospective contrivances and points of contact between the present and the future. “As, in a writer of genius, his individual, great thoughts appear like lilies on the surface of the water, groundless and rootless, and yet are sustained by one common soil, so also the individual prophets of God’s people are not to be regarded as scattered manifestations of the Divine Spirit, but rooted in one common soil,—namely, in the prophetic subsistence of the nation itself, and its institutions.” (Tholuck, Comm. on Hebrews, Diss. i.) Besides, there were occasional arrangements and transactions, in which the prophetical element assumed a somewhat more distinct shape, and which, consequently, held a closer affinity with the announcements of prophecy. Such, for example, were the things accomplished in Abraham, as the head of that covenant, which was to diffuse life and blessing through all the families of mankind. Occupying this high position, a position that so manifestly linked together the present and the future, he was constituted by God, in the truest sense, a representative man, in whose calling and course of life there was to be a real significance for others down to the latest generations. There, as in a glass, the children of the covenant, of every age, were to find a prospective exhibition of the things which concerned their relation to God—what they were as children of nature, what they become as partakers of grace, what they are called to strive after and may justly expect to reach as the heirs of blessing. And so again, at a later period, in the case of David, who was also the head of a covenant, and, indeed, of the same covenant, only made to assume a form more immediately adapted to the working out and administration of the blessing. All the lines of his eventful history pointed, like prophetic signs, to the future, and were by himself employed, through the direction of the Spirit, as the materials of many vivid delineations that had for their object the person and kingdom of Messiah. Daniel’s history, too, was in the closest manner connected with his prophecy. The one may fitly be regarded as a type of the other, and on that account, probably, occupies so large a place in his book. The grand aim of the revelations imparted to him, was to unfold the progress of the kingdom of God from deep depression, and through manifold struggles, to the supreme place of honour and glory, and the process is already imaged in the marvellous rise of Daniel himself from the condition of a Hebrew exile to the place of highest power and influence at the court of Babylon. In the case also of some of the other prophets similar providences were not wanting. Nor, among those prophetical elements and affinities interwoven with the history and institutions of the Old Testament, should we omit to notice a class of persons who made a near approach to the prophetical order, and might not unfitly be designated prophets in action. We refer to the Nazarites, who, in one passage, are named along with the prophets, as if there were no very marked distinction between them: “And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites” (Amos 2:11). The Nazarites were simply, as the name imports, the separated ones, persons who stood apart from the mass of the community, as under a special vow or act of consecration to the Lord. Individually, and for a set time or purpose, they were to give a living exhibition of that holy surrender and devotedness to God which should ever have been exemplified by the covenant-people as a whole. They were, therefore, a kind of election within the election. And the peculiar restraints and services imposed on them had this alone for their object: To present the Nazarites as pattern-men, withdrawn from everything fitted, whether by undue exhilaration or by mournful sadness, to mar their communion with the pure and blessed life of God. According as they abounded in Israel, there were to be found among the people so many embodied lessons, or palpable manifestations of that covenant faithfulness, which it was always the first part of a prophet’s calling, as well as the sum of Israel’s duty, to illustrate and maintain. But it was possible for the Nazarite to be brought into still closer resemblance to the prophet. There might be circumstances connected with his vow of separation to the Lord, which served to mark him out as a special gift of heaven, or, in some more peculiar sense, a witness of the truth of God. That such was occasionally, at least, the case, may naturally be inferred from the language of Amos, in which the Nazarites are mentioned as among the singular proofs furnished by God of His goodness to His people. They are also referred to by Jeremiah in a way that seems to betoken the high place they held among the peculiar lights and instruments of blessing in Israel. “Her Nazarites,” he says (Lamentations 4:7), “were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire.” And in two very remarkable cases, those of Samuel and John the Baptist, cases in which instruction by action was to go hand in hand with that of direct teaching, the obligation of the Nazarite vow was by Divine ordination made coeval with birth, and associated also with the higher gifts and calling of a prophet. The most singular example, however, of the whole class, and the one that, in its simply Nazaritish character, bore most distinctly the aspect of a prophecy, is that of Samson—in itself a kind of sacred enigma. Not, however, an inexplicable enigma, if viewed in relation to the circumstances of the time, and with due regard to its prophetical character. The time was one of backsliding and rebuke. The marvellous story begins immediately after it has been said, that “the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.” Judges had been raised up for their deliverance before, with only a partial and temporary success; for the root of the evil was never properly reached. But the Lord now bethought Him of trying, as His chosen instrument of working, a Nazarite, wonderful in his very birth, and wonderful still more for the singular gift with which he was endowed,—yet trying him not solely, nor even chiefly, for the purpose of breaking the Philistine yoke, but for what was more urgently needed, the imparting of a proper insight into God’s mind, and awakening a right spirit of devotedness to His fear. It was this which alone could re-establish the people in honour and blessing, as the oppression and miseries that lay upon them were the result merely of broken vows, and unfaithful dealing in the covenant of God. And how could the requisite instruction be more touchingly and impressively conveyed to them, than by such a marvellous and mournful story as presents itself in the life of Samson? A child is supernaturally promised and given, expressly on account of the exigency of the times—the child of a mother laid, for the occasion, under the restrictions of the Nazarite vow, and himself appointed to be a Nazarite from his birth—one so emphatically called to separate himself to the Lord, that to every thoughtful mind he must have readily seemed a personified Israel, the peculiar representative of a people standing under covenant to Jehovah. “The child grew, and the Lord blessed him; and the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times” (Judges 13:24-25); but only, it would seem, in the lower sphere of operations, in the display of supernatural bodily might, and the performance of astonishing feats of strength and prowess. We can descry, through those fitful and terrific movements of his early life, a zeal glowing in the breast of this young Nazarite, capable of daring and accomplishing the greatest things. But we watch in vain to see it rising to the proper height; it looks more like the earth-sprung zeal of patriotism, than that of a holy and self-denying regard to the glory of God. Ready to seize on every opportunity to afflict the Philistines as enemies, it burns not against them as the servants of idolatry and corruption; and so, while at one moment he rushes on them in his fury, at another he takes them to his familiar embrace, and is even bent on having one of their daughters for his wife. It was precisely the defect and failing of his people. To them, too, collectively belonged a noble superiority in outward standing and privilege above their idolatrous neighbours. They were a people of relatively high endowments, and were bound together by a strong international and patriotic spirit. But they lacked the true zeal of God, and hence were ever ready to lose sight of what was in itself their grand distinction, and the foundation of all that they possessed of good—their divine call to the knowledge and service of Jehovah. For such a people to lose this was, in a manner, to lose all, since, by losing it, they necessarily became false witnesses of God, and, in consequence, were surrendered by Him to the powers of evil, which they should have held in subjection. The moral weakness, therefore, which appeared in Samson, was but a reflexion of the hereditary and prevailing evil in Israel. And God did with it in the present case as He ever in effect does with evil of that description, when unrighteously clung to: He shut it up to a particular channel, allowed it to take only that course which might render the example of this externally strong, but internally feeble, Nazarite, a more exact and instructive image of the people whom he represented. Hence, as one carried away by a resistless impulse, he must go to woo and wed among the uncircumcised Philistines, ally himself to the daughter of a strange god, nay, suffer himself to become the weak tool of this woman’s treachery and caprice, so as to betray, at her solicitation, the secret of his strength, and part with the symbol of his consecration to God. How light did it show him to have made of his heaven-imposed vow of separation to the Lord! And how bitterly was his own measure meted back to him, when, after being caught in the toils of the deceiver, he was delivered over as a laughing-stock to his enemies and was trodden under foot of men! There, in black night and abject humiliation, the riddle might have ended; it would have ended there, if the fall of Israel were like the fall of the world—a fall without the hope of recovery. But it is not so; through the loving-kindness and mercy of God, other things were still in reserve for them. Therefore, when the cold winter of desolation had passed over the son of Manoah, and amid the shame and wretchedness of his captivity, the Nazarite’s heart returns to him, the freshness of another spring returns along with it; he again raises himself up in the might of a giant, and with one terrible blow brings confusion on the pride and glory of his adversaries. An acted prophecy throughout!—only, in the earlier part, bearing more immediate respect to the chequered experiences which Israel had been made to undergo, and, in the later, to the expectation that might still be cherished of a happier future. With the certainty of a sign from heaven it proclaimed, that for the seed of Israel every thing in evil or in good depended upon the part they acted in respect to the covenant of God; and it should have been heard by the men of that generation proclaiming this the more loudly, as their failure to recognise aright the divine mission of Samson, and to stand by him at the outset of his career, had manifestly contributed not a little to his failure in the work of deliverance he ought to have achieved for them. There was hope, however, still hope in his death; and if their repentings did but kindle together, and their faith revive after the manner of his, they might yet ride upon the high places of the earth, and do the more valiantly by reason of their temporary defeat. (When the history of Samson is understood in the light presented above, no difficulty need be felt about the statement in Judges 14:4, that it was of the Lord he sought a wife from the Philistines. It was of the Lord, in the same sense, that the act of David in numbering Israel was so (2 Samuel 24:1). In both cases alike, as in many others of a similar kind, there was a wrong bias or disposition already working in the soul, sure to take tome outward direction in the way of evil; and God so ordered matters, as to make it take that direction which He saw to be the best fitted for discovering its own nature, or subserving the purposes He meant to accomplish in connection with it. For another quite parallel case, see 1 Kings 2:15.) This branch of our subject, however, has been pursued far enough. We have seen that not a few points of contact exist between the prophecy of Scripture and its history; and how naturally, how necessarily even, the one grows out of the other, and how closely, in several respects, it is interwoven with it. So that while there are specific differences, it is impossible but that there must also be general agreements, and particularly in regard to the place they respectively hold in the great plan of God’s moral government. Prophecy and history alike occupy but different provinces in the evolution of this Divine plan—provinces that continually overlap and interpenetrate one another; and the relation they bear to it, is the aspect in which both should always be primarily and chiefly contemplated. Their common and more direct object is to make known God’s purposes of grace and principles of dealing towards men; the one by narration of the past, the other by connecting the past with the future. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 03.03. CHAPTER 3. CHAPTER 3. THE PROPER SPHERE OF PROPHECY—THE CHURCH ======================================================================== Chapter 3. The Proper Sphere Of Prophecy—The Church (The term church is used here as a convenient expression for the community of the faithful, without reference to its formal organization, and also without respect to time—consequently of that community before, as well as after Christ.) BY the sphere of prophecy, we mean the parties for whom it was directly given, and the objects it more immediately contemplated. The subject is very closely connected with the topics which have already been discussed, and the correct view may be said to be involved in the preceding remarks. But it is a matter of too much moment to be settled merely by implication; the more especially as conclusions naturally flow from it, which ought to exercise an important bearing on the interpretation of prophecy. It is of prophecy in the stricter sense that we now speak—prophecy as containing pre-intimations of things to come—not only a distinct branch, but the most special and peculiar branch of God’s communications to men. This alone determines it to have been, in its leading aim and object, for the behoof of the Church. If, in its other aspects, prophesying was “not for them that believe not, but for them that believe” (1 Corinthians 14:22), it must have been so more especially in this; only in an incidental and remote manner could it have been intended to bear upon those without. For it was the revelation of the Lord’s secret in regard to the future movements of His providence, which belongs peculiarly to them that fear Him (Psalms 25:14). Not such a revelation, however, for the purpose of gratifying the curiosity of those who might seek needlessly to pry into the future, but for the higher end of furnishing, especially in times of darkness and perplexity, the light that might be required for present faith and duty. It is not God’s common method, nor, indeed, would it be consistent with His wisdom, to lay open His hidden counsel respecting things destined to come to pass, even to the children of His covenant: for such knowledge, if imparted with any measure of fulness and precision, would be a most dangerous possession, and would inevitably tend to destroy the simplicity of their trust in God, and beget an unhealthy craving after human calculations and worldly expedients. It is only, therefore, within certain limits, or in cases that may be deemed somewhat exceptional, that God can grant, even to His chosen, a prophetical insight into future events. In so far as this may be needful to awaken or sustain hope in times of darkness and discouragement—to inspire confidence in the midst of general backsliding and rebuke—at the approach of imminent danger to the life of faith, to give due intimation of the brooding evil—at such times, and for such purposes, God’s merciful regard to the safety and well-being of His people may fitly lead Him to provide them with an occasional and partial disclosure of the future; but the same regard would equally constrain Him to withhold it, when not necessary for the moral ends of His government. Apparent exceptions to this view present themselves in the cases of Balaam and Daniel, both of whom primarily disclosed to the enemies of God’s kingdom the things destined to come to pass. Both, however, occupied a kind of exceptional position. They stood apart, not only from the prophetical order of men in Israel, but also from the common affairs of the church. Hence the writings of Daniel, notwithstanding their high prophetical character, have had a place assigned them in the Jewish canon, distinct from the writings of strictly prophetical men. But in regard to the point immediately before us, the grounds of exception are more apparent than real. For, in the case of both Balaam and Daniel, it was mainly for the light and encouragement of the church, that the word of prophecy came by them; only, the circumstances of the times were such as to render the camp of the enemy the most appropriate watch-tower, where it should have been received, and primarily, made known. At both periods, Israel had come into direct collision with the kingdoms of the world—in the one case as a new, in the other as a small and shattered power, standing over against others of mighty prowess, and, as might seem, of all-prevailing energy. The subject for anxious thought and consideration then was not, as usually with the prophets, Israel in its relation to the worldly powers, but rather the worldly powers in their relation to Israel. (See Auberlen’s “Der Prophet Daniel und die Offenbarung Johannes,” p. 22.) The providence of God had ordered matters so as, for the time, to give these powers the predominant rank in the world’s affairs; and it was meet that the word which announced the evanescence of their glory, and their ultimate subjection to the kingdom of God, should proceed from a divine seer on their own territory. There was thus extracted from the domain of the earthly, a testimony on behalf of the spiritual and divine. And to render the witness still more striking and impressive, it was ordered in the latter of the two cases referred to, that Nebuchadnezzar, the head and representative of the worldly kingdom, should, by receiving a divine dream himself, herald the final downfal of the one, and the eternal ascendency of the other (Daniel 2:1-49). The actual revelation, however, came from Daniel, the representative at Babylon of the divine kingdom; and though the general outline of the future was presented in his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, yet the more inward and special delineation of the respective natures of the earthly and the heavenly kingdoms, of the relations that were to subsist between the two, of the death-like struggles through which, both in the nearer and the more distant future, the kingdom of God was to make its way to a secure position, and a universal dominion—all this, which forms the great burden of Daniel’s prophecies (Daniel 7:1-28, Daniel 8:1-27, Daniel 9:1-27, Daniel 10:1-21, Daniel 11:1-45, Daniel 12:1-13), and which it was his more especial calling to disclose, was given through him directly for the support and encouragement of the church, amid the deep depression and gloom which both then and afterwards hung around her condition. Here also, therefore, the general principle holds, that prophecy, as the revelation of things to come, in all its leading phases, is God’s communication to the church; and that for spiritual ends—for the especial purpose of preparing and fitting her for the more trying emergencies of a struggling and perplexed condition. 1. And this, first of all, accounts quite naturally for the very unequal, and apparently irregular, distribution of prophecy. Being intended, in its more immediate aim, to counsel and direct the church, in respect to evils in her condition, too great for ordinary light and privilege, it was fitly made to vary, both in form and quantity, according to the exigencies of the times. Hence, prophetic revelations were much longer continued, and more widely diffused in the earlier ages of the church’s history than now; for believers then possessed so imperfect an insight into the scheme and purposes of God, that they required more full and frequent glimpses into the future to sustain their faith, and guide their course of procedure. Hence also, when toward the close of the Theocracy, error and corruption became unusually prevalent and strong—when on account of these, it was necessary to allow a cloud of darkness to settle upon the outward position and prospects of the church, and every thing began to wear a frowning aspect; it was then more especially that the spirit of prophecy needed to multiply, and that it actually did multiply, its announcements—pouring in rays of heaven’s light amid nature’s gloom, and doing so the more, as the gloom became deeper, and difficulties thickened around the walk of faith. In perfect accordance with this more immediate and special design of prophecy, not only are there comparatively few prophetic delineations in New Testament Scripture, but the portions which more peculiarly belong to this class (viz., our Lord’s predictions respecting the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, St Paul’s description of the great apostacy, and the mystic visions of alternate suffering and triumph in the Apocalypse), all proceed on the anticipation of distressing and perilous times to the church, and are obviously designed to provide her beforehand with the necessary materials of light and comfort. (In what has now been stated regarding prophecy, we have a ready explanation of a notice in New Testament history, as this notice, in turn, incidentally confirms the statement just made. In Acts 4:36, the surname of Barnabas, given to the good Levite, Joseph, is explained as meaning “son of consolation” (υἱὸς παρακλήσεως), while more strictly it is “son of prophecy” (בַּר נְבוּאָה). It implied that prophecy, in its primary and leading design, was what we have represented, the light and comfort of the church in her times of trouble and perplexity. And had prophecy been viewed more in this Scriptural aspect, and less as a weapon of defence against unbelievers, the explanation of this name would have appeared more easy and natural than it has usually done.) Now, since this is the primary design of prophecy in its more specific announcements—since in these it has respect more immediately to the church of God, and speaks peculiarly for her direction and support in times of danger or distress—it is clear we should not expect prophecy to be framed, as if its argumentative value were the main service it was intended to render. Whatever it may be fitted to yield of this description, is rather to be regarded as an incidental result, than its direct and proper aim. It speaks, for the most part, in a tone of confidence and sympathy, as to those who should be disposed to receive and profit by the communications it addressed to them, not with a view to meet on the field of controversy, persons on the search for weapons of assault against the truth of God. The moral position of such persons is entirely wrong; and it is only what might be expected, that various things respecting prophecy and its fulfilment should afford ground for doubt or cavil to them, which appear full of light and satisfaction to the children of God. The eye of the one class is evil, and so abides in darkness; while in the other it is single, and receives in simplicity the testimony of truth. 2. The same consideration, which accounts for the somewhat irregular distribution of prophecy, also serves to explain a peculiarity, which not unfrequently appears in the form of its announcements. This peculiarity consists in the minatory aspect given to many predictions which are really pregnant with blessing; or their indirectly announcing good to the church, by directly denouncing evil upon the adversary. In all cases of this sort it is the relation implied or indicated between the two parties, which determines the form of the prediction; this being such as to render the infliction of evil on the one necessary to the accomplishing of deliverance for the other. Every such prediction, therefore, is in truth a word of promise addressed to the church, assuring her, under covert of the spoliation or defeat of the enemies of her peace, of her own coming safety or enlargement. The very first promise belongs to this category. It assumes in both its parts the form of a threatening—a threatening of partial injury to be brought on the woman’s seed by the seed of the tempter, and of the utter destruction of the tempter’s seed by that of the woman. In itself, a most significant fact, and indicating, from the outset, how necessarily and how much the salvation of an elect church was to proceed by the avenging of evil, and the overthrow of an adverse power! In the same light are we to view the denunciations of coming judgment and desolation, which, in the later prophets, are so often given forth against Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and other heathen kingdoms. The relation in which these powers stood at the time to the church of God, as her dangerous rivals or cruel oppressors, made it impossible to give her the promise of good she needed, without, at the same time, foretelling their coming ruin; for it was only by the fall of the one, that the other could rise to the ascendant. Even the more particular and detailed representations of Daniel respecting the successive monarchies of the world, had the same ultimate design; the terminating point of his visions (as we have already stated), was to impress upon the minds of believing men the temporary nature of the earthly, under every phase it might assume, and with whatever weapons it might arm itself: its destination still was, to pass away, that the heavenly might remain. Nor is it otherwise in the case of the Apocalyptic sketches in the New Testament. The plagues of judgment, the vials of wrath, the woes, calamities, and desolations, with which they so greatly abound, are all of the nature of promises to the party more properly contemplated by the prophetic spirit; for the revelation they contain of the world’s doom, is given for the especial purpose of enabling the church to reckon on her abiding security and final triumph. They are but another form of the message, “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.” 3. It is of more importance, however, to notice another point connected with the revelations of prophecy, and which is also a simple deduction from the view under consideration, of its more immediate purpose and design. From the relation of prophecy to the church, a very large portion of its announcements naturally consists of direct promises of good things to come; and addressed, as these necessarily are, to the church in the strictest sense, they can only be expected to meet with fulfilment in so far as the church is true to her calling, or in the experience of the church as composed of sincere and faithful members of the covenant. It could not be otherwise, if prophecy really is—what we have found it to be—the more special and peculiar revelation of God’s purposes of mercy to His people in times of comparative darkness, or peculiar trouble and perplexity. In that case, whatever it contained of comfort and encouragement, must have been designed for genuine believers—for them alone; because such only are the proper subjects of blessing. It were, therefore, to turn prophecy out of its proper direction—to draw it into a sphere that does not rightfully belong to it, if we should view the promises of blessing it embodies, as bearing respect to men in their natural condition: if, for example, we should regard them as the settled heritage of the Jews, in their simply natural descent and national capacity, apart from the spiritual characteristics of the church, or the seed of true believers, which that nation contained in its bosom. This were, indeed, to invert the relative order and position of things; it were to convert the incidental and formal in Israel’s condition into the substantive part, leaving all that is inward and spiritual as a kind of separable adjunct. It were to exhibit God’s election of Israel to the prominent place they held, and their title to Divine favour and blessing, as a thing by itself, and for itself—a piece of mysterious favouritism, or freak of arbitrary will and power; instead of being, as the whole tenor alike of the historical and the prophetical Scriptures manifests, a concentrated display of his principles of truth and grace, in order to work with the greater effect upon the world at large. (See this point more fully treated in “Typology of Scripture,” book 2, ch. vi., sec. 6.) So far from its being the case, that the promises in Isaiah and the other prophets were all made to the Jews as a nation, it were nearer the truth to say, that no promises were made to them, simply in that capacity. The promises, in which they were more peculiarly interested, were made to Abraham and his seed; but to his seed only in the sense explained by the Apostle (Romans 4:1-25, Romans 9:1-33, Galatians 3:1-29); that is, to those who might spring from Abraham’s loins, in so far—but in so far only—as they stood also in his faith and walked in his footsteps; and along with these, to all who should possess the same spiritual standing, whether they might belong or not to the number of his natural offspring. The possession of the spiritual element was thus, in every age, stamped as the essential thing, as the vital bond of connection, according to the pregnant saying of Augustine, “The faith of Abraham is the seed of Abraham,” (Fides Abrahae semen est Abrahae, Op. x., p. 2593). When the lineal descendants failed in respect to this, they were not recognised by God as the heirs of promise, or as possessed of any title to blessing. They then wanted the heart of the parent, which was unspeakably more important than bearing his name, or having a portion of his blood in their veins. Their condition did not essentially differ from that of the heathen. How clearly was this indicated by the prophet Isaiah, when, at the beginning of his book, though described as “the vision he saw respecting Judah and Jerusalem,” he breaks forth in an address to the existing generation as “the rulers of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah!” Not only had they become like heathens in God’s sight, but like that portion of the heathen, who, from having been pre-eminent in guilt, were made also pre-eminent in punishment; not Abraham’s seed, therefore, in the proper sense, but a generation of vipers. In like manner, Ezekiel advances it as a specific charge against the children of Israel, that they had “brought strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in God’s sanctuary, to pollute it” (Ezekiel 44:7), describing a corrupt priesthood as uncircumcised heathen, because such morally was their position in the sight of God. So, again Amos in Amos 9:7, “Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?” That is, the doing of the one, as matters now stand, is to be regarded as entirely of a piece with the doing of the other. Since Israel has descended spiritually to a level with the nations of the earth, the removal of their forefathers from Egypt, and their settlement in the land of Canaan, has also become a merely political and worldly change, similar to what has occurred among other tribes and races of men. It involves no distinctive privilege; it secures no real blessing. The promise is not for persons in such a condition, but only for the children of faith, who are the proper seed of Abraham. The rule for promised blessing, however, does not hold of threatened evil. The prophets could not, in accordance with the principles of the Divine government, have assured the Israelitish people, in the mass, and irrespective of their spiritual condition, of future good; but there was nothing to prevent the same prophets from threatening the people with the most general and overwhelming judgments. The two cases are essentially different. True believers alone are in any case the proper subjects of promise; but sinners of every name are exposed to the judgments of heaven, and those who have sinned as Israel did, against covenant light and engagements, only render themselves the heirs of a heavier condemnation. Hence the groundlessness of the complaint which is sometimes raised concerning the seed of Israel, as if a certain degree of harshness were shown them when their connection with the severity of God is represented as more marked and general than their connection with his goodness—when the prospects of blessing unfolded by the prophets are held to have been the heritage only of the spiritual portion of the people, while the calamities threatened are found to have had a collective and national fulfilment. Such a complaint, if traced to its source, would resolve itself into a dissatisfaction with the principles of the Divine administration; since, according to these, individuals or communities, merely as such, may become the subjects of threatened evil, there being always enough of sin in the general mass, enough even in the better portion, to account for every visitation of evil that may be sent; while, on the other hand, no tokens of the Divine favour, no blessing either temporal or eternal, can be made sure to any, excepting in so far as they become partakers of the grace and salvation of God. It is true that the promises of blessing held out to Israel by the prophets are often couched in terms not less comprehensive than the threatenings of evil; they are addressed to the people in their collective capacity, as if all were alike interested in them. This arose from the desire felt by God’s servants to treat Israel according to their proper ideal, as a people called to the knowledge and service of Jehovah—an ideal which they were reminded by this very mode of address ought to have been realised in the entire community. The same thing precisely occurs in New Testament Scripture. In the epistles addressed to particular churches, these are designated according to their Christian profession, as standing in the faith and purity of the gospel, and as so standing, have many rich and precious promises conveyed to them; but without prejudice to the truth that there might be, nay, not without many indications of the fact that there were, amongst them persons who were not conformed to the doctrine, and who could have no part in the blessing. The principle which underlies one and all of these promises is, that as it is Christ who gave them confirmation for his people, so it is such only as really are his people who are entitled to look for their fulfilment. But for those who are without the faith of Christ, so far from their having an interest in any promises of grace, they still have the wrath of God abiding upon them. It is proper to add, that the converse of the principle here affirmed respecting the promissory element in the prophecies of Scripture, or the positive aspect of the truth it contains, also demands consideration, and is, indeed, one on which both the comfort of believers and the practical value of the prophetic Scriptures greatly depend. If, on the one hand, the promises of future good they disclose are only for the children of faith, who constitute the real members of the covenant, on the other hand, it is to be remembered, they are for all such. To the latest generations, and to the utmost bounds of the world, these may claim an interest in them. Not always, indeed, as to the mere form of the promised good (which changes with circumstances of place and time), but invariably as to its substance. For “the word of God lives and abides for ever;” if, as a word of blessing, for none but the true seed, yet assuredly for all the seed, of every kindred, and tribe, and tongue. Believing Gentiles are therefore designated “heirs according to the promise,” (Galatians 3:29)—the promise, namely, given originally to Abraham, and which may justly be said to comprehend every other in its bosom. And both our Lord himself and his Apostles continually recognise and proceed upon the principle, that the child of faith, wherever he is, and in whatever region he resides, has a personal interest in every word of encouragement and hope which has been delivered to the people of God. (Matthew 4:4; Acts 2:39; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Hebrews 6:17-18, etc.) How could it possibly be otherwise? This word is the testimony of an unchangeable God—the expression of his own unalterable nature. Distance of space or time, therefore, can make no material alteration respecting it. It is as veritable in its announcements, and as fresh in its spirit, for the believer now, as if it had been uttered for the first time in his own day, and even had come direct to his own ear. So that, on sure and solid grounds, which may be said to have their root in the very being and character of God, we may affirm believers of every name to be substantially on a footing as regards the word of promise; to all of them it speaks one language, and lays open to them the same inheritance of blessing. But the principle which thus binds the individual believer of one time with the believer of another, is, of course, equally valid in a collective respect; it establishes the unbroken continuity of the church, and the essential oneness of her relation to the promises of God. These promises have, indeed, to do with different covenants and successive dispensations, but not by any means with diverse churches, one having a right to this, and another to that, part of its provisions. There is in reality but one church, pervaded by one organic life, and only so far differing at one time from what it was at another, as it has had to pass through successive stages of development, and to adapt itself to circumstances full of change and progress. Hence, as Owen justly remarked, in one of the shortest, but, at the same time, one of the most solid and well-digested of his Preliminary Dissertations to his “Commentary on the Hebrews” (Exer. vi.), “At the coming of the Messiah, there was not one church taken away, and another set up in its room; but the church continued the same, in those that were the children of Abraham according to the faith. The Christian church is not another church, but the very same that was before the coming of Christ, having the same faith with it, and interested in the same covenant. The olive tree was the same; only some branches were broken and others grafted into it: the Jews fell, and the Gentiles came in their room. And this doth and must determine the difference between the Jews and Christians about the promises of the Old Testament. They are all made unto the church. No individual hath any interest in them, but by virtue of his membership with the church. This church is, and always was, one and the same. With whomsoever it remains, the promises are theirs; and that, not by application or analogy, but directly and properly. They belong as immediately at this day, either to Jews or Christians, as they did of old to any. The question is, with whom is this church, which is founded on the promised seed in the covenant; for where it is, there is Zion, Jerusalem, Israel, Jacob, the temple of God.” (See also “Typology of Scripture,” vol. i., p. 190, sq., fourth edition.) 4. A still further deduction, and one of much importance to the right interpretation of prophecy, remains to be drawn from the consideration of its proper sphere and intention. Since prophecy is mainly and essentially a revelation of God’s mind and will to his church, and that more especially for the direction and encouragement of her members in times of darkness and perplexity, we may confidently infer that the ethical or moral element, not the simply natural, must predominate in its announcements respecting the future. It may, and to a certain extent must, foretell events in Providence with sufficient distinctness to enable those who have witnessed or become cognisant of their occurrence, to identify them with its prior intimations; for otherwise the church could never assure herself that the hopes and expectations it had awakened in her bosom had found their realisation. In regard, for example, to the Messiah, to whom, most of all, prophecy was intended to bear witness, it was necessary that it should describe Him by such marks and characteristics as would enable those who waited for His coming to recognise Him when he did come, as the same that had been promised to the fathers. In like manner, the predictions that bore on the destinies of the covenant-people, and the hostile kingdoms around them, must, in order to serve the purposes for which they were given, have spoken with sufficient plainness of the grand results, at least, concerning each of them, in which the course of Providence was to issue. But it could not be in any case the mere occurrences themselves, as objects of natural curiosity or ordinary facts of history, in respect to which they were so announced beforehand, or were afterwards to be marked as fulfilments of prophecy. For then they should have belonged, not to the province of religion, or to the sphere of the church, but to the region of nature and the world. It is in the moral element that the church moves; and the prominent point in all prophetic intimations respecting her state and destiny, must be something of a like kind—something that, in one respect or another, tends to exhibit the principles of the Divine administration in its dealings with men as subjects of a moral government. Prophecy, therefore, as has been justly said, “is not merely the divination of future events; these events, however important, are but points in the immense map of God’s designs. It is the weakness of the human mind to desire to pry into futurity without a moral aim. God’s aim, on the contrary, is to raise us above the whirl of passing events, and to fix our attentive gaze on the Divine hand, which is moving all the complicated wheels of Providence:” (“Douglas on the Structure of Prophecy,” p. 8.)—and moving them, it might have been added, for the great end of displaying His moral attributes, and accomplishing the purposes of His grace in behalf of-His church and people. Everything in the Divine plan is subordinate to this, and must also be subordinate in the prophetic word, which is but the partial disclosure of that plan, before the time has come for its actual evolution in Providence. If due weight is given to the consideration now advanced, it will exercise an important influence on our interpretations of prophecy. It will lead us to view every thing, not through a natural, but through an ethical, medium. In the predictions, for example, respecting states and kingdoms, it will dispose us to look not so much to the land or territory they occupied, or the external changes these might undergo, as to the rational beings composing them, who alone were proper subjects of a moral treatment. Hence, when the predictions took the form, as they very commonly did, of dnunciations of coming evil, they are to be understood more especially of the people whose sins had provoked the threatened doom, and of the territories they occupied, only in so far as the eternal aspect of these might be made visibly to reflect the prostrate condition of their owners. To have respect to the territories, rather than to the people who inhabited them, were to look at the prophecies and their fulfilment in a simply natural light. It were to make account of the relation in which they stood to the omniscience and power of God, but to lose sight of their connection with His moral government. This, however, as we have stated, was invariably the point of highest moment. The primary question was, how the states referred to stood related, now, in guilt, and prospectively, in punishment, to the righteousness of heaven. “It is not, therefore,” to use the words of Arnold, who correctly exhibits the general purport of this portion of the prophetical Scriptures, “it is not as if the places were accursed for ever; or as if the language of utter vengeance, which we find in prophecy, was applicable to the soil of Mesopotamia or Edom; but the people, the race, the language, the institutions, the religion, all that constitutes national personality, are passed away from the earth. And if Mesopotamia were to be civilized and fertilized to-morrow, and a city with the name of Babylon rebuilt, yet it could not be the old Babylon (of Scripture); for that has become extinct for ever.” Viewed thus, in their predominantly moral bearing, such prophecies will be found to have met with the fullest verification; while, otherwise, as will afterwards appear, the verification is at best broken and incomplete. Nor is this all. For, by keeping thus prominently in view the moral element in prophecy and its primary destination to subserve spiritual interests, we escape from what, more than any thing else, has impoverished much of our prophetical literature, and we may almost say, has stricken it with the curse of barrenness: namely, the disposition to treat the subject of prophecy merely as a branch of the evidences, and make account of nothing but what it contains of the miraculous. Somewhat of the miraculous, undoubtedly, belongs to every prophecy of Scripture; since it necessarily betokens a supernatural insight into the counsels of Heaven, and a power not granted to men in general, of penetrating through the veil of the future. This, however, is only a part, not the whole; it is not even the more essential and prominent part; and to isolate and magnify it, as if it were alone entitled to regard, is most unduly to contract the boundaries of the field, and leave unexplored its hidden riches. Even in the case of miracles themselves, the too exclusive regard to the miraculous element has proved a source of weakness and danger. It has presented them to men’s view, merely on their natural side, apart from their moral use as manifestations of the character of God—has treated them, not as themselves integral parts of a revelation, but only as evidences of a revelation; and the natural result has been, that being under-estimated by the defenders of the faith, they have been all the more rudely disparaged and assailed by its opponents. It is, in truth, to use the words of Archdeacon Hare, “the theological parallel to the materialist hypothesis, that all our knowledge is derived from our senses.” (“Mission of the Comforter,” p. 354.) The mistake is, if possible, still worse in regard to prophecy, which comes forth as a direct communication from the presence of God. When considered merely as a Divine act of foresight, it is but an evidence of his foreknowledge, which, even in its highest exercise, is still only a natural attribute, standing in no necessary connection with spiritual aims and purposes. But what, if not to exhibit these, is the great design of all the revelations of Scripture? They are given to tell, not that God is, but what he is—what in the features of His character, in the principles of His government, in His purposes of mercy or of judgment toward men. So that to contemplate the revelations of prophecy in their relation merely to the Divine foresight, is to view them apart from what has ever been the higher aim of God’s formal communications to men. And not only so, but the further error is naturally fallen into, of expecting prophecy to be more full and explicit in its announcements regarding future events, than from its inherent nature and immediate uses it could properly be. Valued only for the evidences it contains of Divine foresight, a mode of interpretation is in danger of being adopted, which, in its craving for specific predictions, would confound the characteristics of prophecy and history. How far this has actually been the case, will appear when we come to treat of the proper style and diction of prophecy. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 03.05. CHAPTER 4. THE RELATION OF PROPHECY TO MEN’S RESPONSIBILITIES ======================================================================== Chapter 4. The Relation Of Prophecy To Men’s Responsibilities, With A Consideration Of The Question, How Far It Is Absolute Or Conditional In Its Announcements FROM the proper sphere of prophecy, we pass to the consideration of its proper bearing on those whom it respects, as to their personal liberty of thought and action, their obligations and prospects. It indicates the future; is the future in every case absolutely determined by it? Or, is room still left after it has uttered its declarations for human freedom to work, and, according to the nature of the working, to give a corresponding turn to its prospective announcements? In a word, is it the characteristic of prophecy to make known certainly and conclusively what is to come to pass? Or, are its revelations to some extent conditional, depending on the line of conduct that may meanwhile be pursued by those to whom they are addressed? This is a point of some moment for the right understanding of considerable portions of the prophetical Scriptures; and one that has called forth the most contradictory opinions. The diversity, however, has arisen more from the intermingling of philosophical and doctrinal elements with the discussion of the question, than from any darkness or uncertainty necessarily attaching to the grounds and principles on which the solution should be based. For the question here is not, as it has too often been considered, whether the definite prediction, and consequently clear foreknowledge, or certain determination of the future actions of men, be compatible with their moral freedom—which may be admitted without ever touching the more noticeable peculiarities belonging to the present subject; and must, indeed, be admitted by all who receive in simplicity the statements of Scripture, however impossible they may find it to harmonise the respective spheres of the human and the divine in the matter, and adjust their concurrent agencies. Nor, again, is the proper question here, whether any fixed purpose and determination of God is liable to be changed by the contingent procedure of men; for, in that respect, the truth, founded in God’s eternal nature, stands fast for ever: “He is not man, that he should lie; nor the Son of man, that he should repent.” The question rather is, whether prophecy, viewed simply as a word spoken in behalf of God by one class of men to another, ought to be regarded as announcing what is fixed and conclusively determined by God—his irreversible decrees? Or, whether it should not to some extent—and if in some, then to what extent—be viewed as the proclamation of God’s mind respecting his future dealings, on the supposition of the parties interested standing in a certain relationship to his character and government. In this last case the word might assuredly be expected to take effect, in so far as the relations contemplated in the prophecy continued, but in the event of a change entering in the one respect, then a corresponding change in the other might reasonably be looked for. Such is the real question at issue among those who concur in holding the word of prophecy to be a supernatural disclosure of God’s mind and will; and to diverge to other, however closely related points, is only to embarrass the discussion with what does not strictly belong to it. Now, to say nothing for the present of the theologians of former times, there are two classes of writers on prophecy in the present day who assume nearly opposite positions on the point before us. On the one side may be named Küster and Olshausen, holding, that all prophecies are more or less conditional. Thus, on Matthew 24:1-51, we find Olshausen saying, “As every thing future, even that which proceeds from the freedom of the creature, when viewed in relation to the divine knowledge, can only be regarded as necessary; so every thing future, as far as it concerns man, can only be regarded as conditional upon the use of this freedom. As obstinate perseverance in sin hastens destruction, so genuine repentance may avert it. This is illustrated in the Old Testament in the prophet Jonah, by the history of Nineveh; and intimated in the New Testament by Paul, when, like Abraham praying for Sodom, he described the elements of good existing in the world as exercising a restraint upon the judgments of God (2 Thessalonians 2:7); and in the second epistle of Peter, the delay of the Lord’s coming is viewed as an act of long-suffering, designed to afford men space for repentance. “Accordingly,” he adds, “when the Redeemer promises the near approach of his coming, this announcement is to be taken with the restriction (to be understood in connection with all predictions of judgments), ‘All this will come to pass, unless men avert the wrath of God by sincere repentance.’ None of the divine predictions are bare historical proclamations of what is to take place; they are alarums calling men to repentance—of which it may be said, that they announce something for the very purpose, that what is announced may not come to pass.” The same principle must, of course, be held equally to apply to predictions containing intimations of coming good—only with this difference, that these are understood to be made for the express purpose of aiding in the accomplishment of what is announced, by their tendency to influence human wills in the right direction, yet without securing either this, or their own realization by any rule of imperious necessity. The principle, however, is rejected by Hengstenberg, who may be taken as the highest representative of the counter-mode of interpretation. He says, “Beyond all doubt, when the prophet denounces the divine judgments, he proceeds on the assumption, that the people will not repent—an assumption which he knows from God to be true. Were the people to repent, the prediction would fail; but because they will not, it is uttered absolutely. It does not follow, however, that the prophet’s warnings and exhortations are useless. These serve ‘for a witness against them;’ and, besides, amid the ruin of the mass, individuals might be saved. Viewing prophecies as conditional predictions nullifies them. The Mosaic criterion (Deuteronomy 18:22), that he was a false prophet, who should predict things ‘which followed not nor came to pass,’ would then be of no value, since recourse might always be had to the excuse, that the case had been altered by the not fulfilling of the condition. The fear of introducing fatalism, if the prophecies are not taken in a conditional sense, is unfounded; for God’s omniscience, His foreknowledge, does not establish fatalism; and from omniscience simply is the prescience of the prophets to be derived. The prophets feel themselves so closely united to God, that the words of Jehovah are given as their own, and that to them is often ascribed what God does, which proves their own consciousness to have been entirely absorbed into that of God.” (Art. ‘Prophecy’ in Kitto’s Cyclopedia.) These two forms of representation may both be characterized as somewhat extreme, and neither of them can be applied to the actual interpretation of the prophetic Scriptures, without coming at many points into conflict with the undoubted facts of the case. In particular, one does not see, how the ethical element could have been allowed that scope in prophecy, which we have already seen to belong to it, unless the historical result had been left in some degree dependent on the conduct of those to whom the prophecy should come: since such persons might be, and often actually were, as much the subjects of moral treatment in respect to the announcements of prophecy, as in respect to the commands of law, or the provisions of grace. The case alone of Nineveh under the preaching of Jonah puts it beyond a doubt, that such a conditional element as we suppose, might find a place in the domain of prophecy. Never did its intimations of coming evil assume a more definite and pointed form, than when Jonah proclaimed in the streets of that great city, that in forty days it should be overthrown. And yet, by operating in the way of moral suasion on the hearts of the people, the predicted event did not take place; in other words, the prophecy, notwithstanding its apparent absoluteness, was found to have in it a latent conditionally. Precisely similar was the case of Hezekiah in his sickness. The prophet Isaiah came to him with a formal message, “Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live.” Yet, on account of the deep humiliation and earnest prayer of Hezekiah, the word was recalled, and a prolongation of life granted to him. The Mosaic criterion, interpreted after the method of Hengstenberg, and applied to such cases, would inevitably lead to the conclusion, that there had been no true prophecy. And if the supposition of a conditional principle inhering in the nature and design of prophecy might occasionally afford some excuse to a mere pretender, for evading the condemnation due to him on the failure of his prediction—might even sometimes render it a matter of doubt, how far a prediction really divine should be expected to meet with a fulfilment according to its terms—on the other hand, the absolute rejection of such a principle can have no other result than that of excluding from the rank of genuine predictions a considerable portion of the prophetic word, and also of most unduly contracting the ethical import and bearing of prophecy. Its specific character as a prediction—the merely natural element in it—would thereby become its only appreciable quality. The chief error, we conceive, in these conflicting views respecting prophecy is the disposition they exhibit to generalize too far, to extend to the whole prophetical field principles that are applicable only to a portion of it. There is need here for a measure of discrimination, as prophecy in regard to the greater or less absoluteness of its terms must materially depend upon the kind of subjects it embraces, and the relations amid which it moves. An exact classification, however, is impossible, on account of the concrete character of its prospective delineations, and the readiness with which these in their diverse aspects run into each other. But one can without difficulty trace out a few broad and easily recognised distinctions, which, for all practical purposes, may be held to be sufficient. 1. There is, first, a class of prophecies, the direct and proper object of which is to disclose God’s purposes of grace to men, and indicate in its grander outlines their appointed course of development. As the ultimate ground of these purposes is plainly in God himself, and the bringing of them into accomplishment is emphatically His work, it is evident that, in respect to this line of things, there can be no room for the operation of any conditional element, except in regard to the subordinate relations of place and time. Whether to be sooner or later in effecting the results aimed at, whether to be effected in this particular mode or in some other that might be conceived—in such things, as the plan of God necessarily comes into contact with earthly relations and human agencies, it must presuppose a certain adaptation in the state of the world, and the conduct of individual men. Hence, in these respects announcements might be made at one time, which, as seen from a human point of view, appeared to have undergone a relative change at another; but the things themselves, and all that essentially concerns their history and progressive operation in the world, being entirely and absolutely of God, must proceed in strict accordance with the intimations He gives of His mind respecting them. As examples of this great class of prophecies, we point to the original announcement of salvation, by the triumph of the woman’s seed over that of the tempter; to the promise given to Abraham, that through his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed; to the successive limitations made as to the fulfilment of this promise in its main provisions, by its special connection with the tribe of Judah, the house of David, and a virgin-born son of that house; to the representations made of this glorious Being himself, of the constitution of His person, the place of His birth, the nature and circumstances of His career on earth, the character of His government, the final results and glories of His kingdom, with the opposite destinies of those who might set themselves in array against it. In regard to all that in this respect was purposed in the Divine mind, and announced from time to time in the prophetic word, there could be no room for any such conditional element as might in the least affect the question, whether they should actually come to pass or not; for they were matters entering into the very core of the Divine administration, and indissolubly linked to the great principles, on which from the first all was destined to proceed. As concerns them, we have simply to do with the omniscience of God in foreseeing, His veracity in declaring, and His overruling providence in directing what should come to pass. Still, even in this class of prophecies, as they do not proceed to their accomplishment in a lofty isolation from human interests and responsibilities, so the things belonging to them must be presented to men’s view as capable of being expedited or retarded by the line of behaviour they pursue; and while with God himself the end was seen from the beginning, and absolutely determined, yet particular issues might fitly enough appear to be suspended on the particular condition of the church or the world—precisely as in men’s individual relation to the grace of God, some are spoken of as subserving, and others of frustrating it—though, as contemplated from the divine point of view, grace must always be regarded as reaching its end. Thus, to refer to the predictions mentioned in the extract from Olshausen—those respecting the second advent of the Lord—there can be no doubt, that (however definitely fixed in the counsels of Heaven) certain things among men are represented as tending, on the one side to hinder, on the other to forward its approach. Our Lord, in one of his parables (Luke 18:1-8), speaks as if it hung on the stedfast faith and persevering prayer of his elect people. St Peter uses still stronger language; he exhorts believers to a hopeful, godly, and consistent life, that they might hasten on the day of the Lord’s coming, (for such is the plain import of his words, σπεύδοντας τὴν παρουσίαν τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμέρας, 2 Peter 3:12). And St Paul not only speaks of a grand development of apostacy necessarily preceding the arrival of that day, but of certain things, which he does not further characterize, hindering this development, and by implication retarding the personal appearance of the Lord, which in the chain of providences was to be subsequent to the other. Hence, the day in question might, in perfect accordance with the general design and proper character of prophecy, be represented in apostolic times as “near,” as “drawing nigh,” as even “at hand;” for the church being then in the full spring-tide of its life and blessing, burning with holy zeal for the proper fulfilment of its mission, it might well seem, as if that mission were hastening to its accomplishment, and all things were becoming ready for the final harvest of the world. Yet, it must have been impossible for any one to read with care some of the parables of our Lord, or even what was written by St Paul of the great apostacy—to say nothing of the more lengthened and intricate plan of events prospectively delineated in the Apocalypse—without coming to the conviction, that there was still an implied alternative; namely, that if the church of Christ should degenerate in her course, if she should begin to slumber in the work given her to do, still more, if she should become adulterated by the carnal spirit, and the corrupt practices of the world, then the shadows of the evening should need to be lengthened out, and in the tenderness of his forbearance, as well as for purposes of trial and judgment, the Lord should have to protract the day of his appearing. The day itself, therefore, was purposely left in concealment; it remained among the undiscovered secrets of the Godhead, and nothing more than probable, and proximate signs were given of its approach, as of an event to be ever expected, and looked for, yet never, as to the period of its actual occurrence, to be certainly foreknown. Another, and in some respects more palpable example of the relative, yet quite partial and subordinate, dependence of this class of prophecies on the actual course of events in the world, may be found in the predictions bearing on the divine purpose to connect the peculiar blessing for mankind with the royal house of David. The appointment in favour of that house to bear rule among men, and bestow upon them life and blessing, was irrevocably fixed, from the time that Nathan delivered to David the prophecy contained in 2 Samuel 7:5-17. On that prophecy as a sure foundation, a whole series of predictions began to be announced, in which the eye of faith was pointed to the bright visions in prospect, and, in particular, to that child of promise, in whom the succession from David’s loins was to terminate, and who was to reign for ever over the heritage of God. But while the appointment itself was absolute, and the original prophecy was so far of the same character, that it indicated no suspension in the sovereignty of David’s house, or actual break in the succession to his throne, David himself knew perfectly, that there was an implied condition, which might render such a thing possible, and that the prophecy behoved to be read in the light of those great principles, which pervade the whole of the Divine economy. Hence, in addition to all he had penned in his psalms, he gave forth in his dying testimony, for the special benefit of his seed, a description of the ruler, such as the word of promise contemplated, and such as ought to have been, at least, generally realized in those who occupied the throne of his kingdom, “He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God” (2 Samuel 23:3). Not only so, but in his last, and still more specific charge, delivered to his immediate successor on the throne, he expressly rested his expectation of the fulfilment of the covenant made with him, on the faithful adherence of those who should follow him to the law and testimony of God. For, after enjoining Solomon to walk in the ways, and keep the statutes of God, he adds, as a reason for persuading to such a course, “that the Lord may continue his word, which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth, with all their heart, and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee a man on the throne of Israel” (1 Kings 2:4). But when this fundamental condition was violated, as it began to be in the time of Solomon himself, the prophetic word became, in a manner, responsive to the change; so that now it spoke almost in the same language respecting the house of David, which had formerly been addressed to that of Saul (“I will rend the kingdom from thee, and give it to thy servant,” 1 Kings 11:11, compared with 1 Samuel 15:28); coupled only with the reservation, that so much was still to be left to the house of David as was needed for maintaining the essential provisions of the covenant. Even this, however, appeared for a time to give way; the inveterate folly and wickedness of the royal line called forth such visitations of judgment, that the stately and glorious house of David, as it appears in the original prophecy, came afterwards to look like a frail tabernacle, and even this, at a still future stage, as fallen prostrate to the ground (according to the figure in Amos 9:11). In consequence of these changes, darkness settled down on the hearts of God’s people, and fearful misgivings arose in their minds concerning the faithfulness of God to his covenant engagements. The painful question was stirred in their bosoms, “Has his promise failed for evermore?” The thought even escaped from their lips, “He has made void the covenant of his servant.” The whole Psalm, from which these words are taken (the 89th) is a striking record of the manner in which faith had to struggle with such doubts and perplexities, when the house of David was (for a time) cast down from its excellency, and God’s plighted word, like the ark of his covenant, seemed to be given up into the hands of his enemies. God, however, vindicated in due time the truthfulness of his word, and the certainty of the result, which it contemplated. The prophecy stood fast as regarded the grand article of its provisions—only in travelling on to its accomplishment it had to pass through apparent defections and protracted delays, which could scarcely have been anticipated from the terms of its original announcement, and which were, in a sense, forced on it by human unbelief and waywardness. And so, within certain definite limits—those, namely, which connected the divine promise with the sphere of man’s responsibility, and bore on the time and mode of its fulfilment—it might justly be said to carry a conditional element in its bosom, in respect to those whom it more immediately concerned; while still, from first to last, the great purpose which it enshrined, varied not and continued to be, as a determinate counsel of heaven, “without shadow of turning.” 2. Another class of prophecies, in their ostensible character and design widely different from the preceding, yet much akin as regards the point now under consideration, consists of those which, from time to time, were uttered concerning the powers and kingdoms that stood in a rival or antagonistic position to the kingdom of God. It is not such prophecies generally, as respected those powers and kingdoms, that are now referred to, but those which were given forth concerning them—addressed not so properly to them as to the people of God, and for the purpose of allaying what naturally awoke fear and anxiety in the minds of believers. Predictions like that of Jonah to the Ninevites belong to an entirely different class; for in this there was a direct dealing with the people of a heathen city in respect to their sin and liability to punishment—a preaching even more than a prediction—and both preaching and prediction entering into the sphere of human responsibility, and intended to operate as means of moral suasion. Nineveh was not at the time viewed as occupying a hostile position to the interests of God’s kingdom in Israel, but as itself a hopeful field for spiritual agency,—more hopeful, indeed, than Israel itself, and fitted to tell with a wholesome influence even on the people of the covenant. The mass of prophecies, however, uttered respecting worldly powers and states, had an entirely different object. Contemplating these as rival, and for the most part directly antagonistic forces, they were mainly intended to assure the hearts of God’s people, that whatever earthly resources and glory might for the time belong to those kingdoms, all was destined to pass away; that their dominion, however arrogant and powerful, should come to an end; while that kingdom, which was more peculiarly the Lord’s, and was identified with his covenant of grace and blessing, should survive all changes, and attain to an everlasting, as well as universal, supremacy. Prophecies of this description, therefore, stood in a very close relation to those already considered; they but exhibited the reverse side of God’s covenant love and faithfulness. If the purposes of grace and holiness connected with his covenant were to stand, all counter authority and rival dominion must be put down; the safety and well-being of the one of necessity involved the destruction of the other. And to certify believers that such would be the result, was the more immediate design of the prophecies in question—of the later prophecy, for example, uttered respecting Nineveh by Nahum, when the city had become the centre of a God-opposing monarchy; and of the many similar predictions scattered through the prophetic writings concerning Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Edom, and the surrounding heathen states. It holds of this class of prophecies as a whole, that in their grand aim they disclose the settled purposes of God—purposes that grow out of the essential principles of his character and government—and that the results they announce are consequently to be regarded as of an absolute character. As concerned the kingdoms themselves, whose destinies they unfolded, they could scarcely be said to become, through the prophecies in question, except in a very limited degree, the subjects of moral treatment; for the prophecies were communicated to the covenant people, rather than to them, and comparatively few of the heathen concerned might ever come to any distinct knowledge of what had been spoken. Not, however, that they were thereby justified; for the circumstances were such as plainly to demand inquiry, and, if this had been made, the truth would have been ascertained and known. The cases of Rahab and Ruth are examples of individuals, who did come to the knowledge of what was written, and through the exercise of a believing spirit escaped the doom of their race and country. There were, doubtless, others of the same kind occurring from time to time; but of too rare and partial a kind to affect materially the general result. Indeed, with regard to the special aspect of the subject before us, they do not properly affect it at all; for in so far as any from those godless and rival kingdoms listened to the voice of the prophets, they ceased to belong to an adverse interest; they joined themselves to the cause of God’s covenant, and as adversaries suffered (though in a happy form) the doom of extinction announced in the prophecies. It was simply in this character, that such kingdoms were made the subjects of prophetic threatening; and from the essential relations of things it was indispensable that the doom threatened should be carried into execution—if not (as it very rarely and partially was) by the conversion of the people to the knowledge and service of God, then by the defeating of their plans, and the overthrow of their dominion, as irreconcileably opposed to the interests of truth and righteousness. 3. Leaving, now, the two classes of prophecies, which from their very nature can possess little or nothing of a conditional element, we proceed to notice those which purposely and directly bore upon men’s responsibilities—those which, by means of promise or threatening, placed the subjects of divine revelation under the peculiar training of Heaven. Here we find from the sacred records, that the conditional element has often, as a matter of fact, been strikingly exhibited; and it must always, we conceive, be virtually, if not formally and expressly found intermingling itself with prophetic intimations of the kind in question. This conditionally rests upon two great and fundamental principles. The first of these is, that in God’s prophetical revelation of his method of dealing with men, as in the revelations of his mind generally, all is based on an ethical foundation, and directed to an ethical aim; so that the prediction should never be viewed apart from the moral considerations on account of, or in connection with, which it was uttered. And the other principle is, that in giving intimations to men or communities of approaching good or evil, God speaks, is in other parts of Scripture, in an anthropomorphic manner; He addresses the subjects of His threatening or promise, more from a human than from a divine point of view; in other words, He adopts that mode of representation which is most natural to men, and which is best adapted for impressing and influencing their minds. Let us take as an illustration of the proper working of these principles, the striking case of Nineveh, already referred to. After having sent His prophet to announce the destruction of Nineveh in a specified time, the Lord suffered the prophecy to fall into abeyance, refrained from executing the threatened doom, or, in the language of Scripture, He repented of the evil He said He would do to the city, because of the moral change that had meanwhile taken place among its inhabitants, as manifested in their turning from their evil ways. Why, we naturally ask, such a change in the mind of God? Why such a difference in His actual, from his previously meditated and announced, procedure? Simply, we answer, on the ground of the first principle mentioned above, from the predominantly ethical character of God’s revelations and dealings; on account of which these must be all framed so as to convey just impressions of sin and righteousness, and preserve a proper correspondence between men’s behaviour toward God, and His dealings toward them. The character of His administration, in itself, is such, that where sin is perseveringly and obstinately indulged in, it inevitably brings upon itself a doom of evil: while, on the other hand, if it is repented of and forsaken, the doom is averted, and a heritage of blessing substituted in its place. But alternations of this sort, so far from bespeaking God to be capricious in His ways, and changeable in the principles of His government, rather serve to manifest Him, in what alone is essential, as unalterably the same. Directing His procedure in accordance with the principles of righteousness, He must change His dealings toward men, when their relation to Him has become changed; since, otherwise, there would be only an apparent uniformity, but a real diversity. So, long ago, Abraham perceived when, in his pleading for Sodom, he said, “That be far from Thee, to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” And so, also, the prophet Ezekiel met the captious spirits of his day, who, from looking more to the appearances than to the realities of things, complained of inequalities in the Divine administration, “Hear, now, O Israel, is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal? When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquities, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive” (Ezekiel 18:25-27). Hence, when Nineveh ceased from being a theatre where wickedness of every form was running riot, and became a place where the name of God was feared, and His authority respected, the measures of the Divine government fitly partook of a corresponding change; the people having passed into another condition, it was meet that they should be subjected to other treatment. And to have dealt with repenting, as it had been threatened to do with corrupt and profligate, Nineveh, would have been to disregard the essential distinctions between right and wrong in behaviour, and to make it fare with the righteous even as with the wicked. It is with reference to these eternal principles of righteousness, that the declarations in Scripture are made, which deny the possibility of change in the administration of God: Such, for example, as has been already noted in the word of Balaam, “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the Son of man, that He should repent; hath He said, and shall He not do it? hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good? (Numbers 23:19). Or, in the word of Samuel, which is but a resumption, and fresh application of that of Balaam, “The strength of Israel will not He nor repent; for He is not a man, that He should repent” (1 Samuel 15:29). Testimonies of this sort uniformly bear respect to such revealed purposes of God, as are inseparably connected with His inherent and immutable righteousness, and consequently admit of no change in the direction of His dealings. To purposes of that description belonged, as we have already stated, His fixed determination to connect, with the seed of Israel, His peculiar blessing. The covenant of God was with them, and in the time of Balaam, they stood, as a people, within the bonds of the covenant. And standing there, the faithfulness of God was pledged, to secure them against the assaults of any adversary, or the enchantments of any diviner. But when they fell from the obligations of the covenant—as thousands of them did, shortly after the word of Balaam was uttered, and in later times, the great mass of the people—then God made them to know, what He Himself called, His breach of promise (Numbers 14:34; Zechariah 11:10); He changed the blessing into a curse. In such a case, as in the reverse one of Nineveh, the change of dealing on the part of God was necessitated by a change of relation, on men’s part, to Him; and He could only maintain uniformity of action in the essential principles of His moral government, by giving a new turn to the course of His external administration. But, such being the case, why, it may be asked, should not the prophetic word be always framed, so as to meet a possible change of this description? If it is to be understood conditionally, why should it not also speak conditionally? Why, to refer again to the case of Nineveh, instead of declaring absolutely, that the city should be overthrown in forty days, should it not rather have taken the form of announcing such a. doom, in case the people did not repent? We reply, on the ground of the second principle, previously mentioned, that in this, as in His revelations generally, God spake as from the human point of view; He took up the case of the city as it stood at the time, and pronounced, without qualification or reserve, its appropriate doom; knowing, perhaps, that the very absoluteness and precision of the form was the best adapted, it may be the only one actually fitted, to arouse slumbering consciences, and lead to serious repentance. No doubt, if the thing done had involved any breach of righteous principle—if the throwing of Jonah’s message into such a form, had been a mere stroke of policy, inconsistent with the truth of things, in that case, however adapted to the higher end in view, it could not have been employed with the sanction and approval of God. But who would venture on such an affirmation? who has any right to say, that the predicted overthrow of wicked Nineveh would not have actually taken place, if Nineveh had persevered in its wickedness? There may have been, and doubtless were, instruments of destruction at hand, ready to do the work of judgment, of the Divine purpose had required it to be done. What we have here to do with, is simply the prophet’s message, which must be held to have been a genuine and truthful utterance of God’s mind and purpose toward Nineveh, in the circumstances of its existing position—as the place where shad reached its last stages of enormity, and cried in Heaven’s ear for immediate vengeance. But when that position was shifted, when sin was repented of and abandoned, then another state of things, and one not contemplated in the message, came into being; the cause of the threatened evil had gone, and there was room now for the principle entering, “The curse causeless shall not come.” Indeed, the form, as to its main features, has a substantial parallel in the first great act in the drama of God’s administration toward fallen man. The constitution of grace introduced at the fall, proceeded on the assumption, that not only was the human race to perpetuate its existence, but that, in its history, the good, upon the whole, was to prevail. What was then said and done, contained a matter-of-fact promise or prediction, that God should still have His delights with the children of men. Yet, when the era of the deluge approaches, we meet with the very strong declaration—the strongest in the whole Bible, as to a change of feeling or purpose in the mind of God, “It repented the Lord that He had made man upon the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart” (Genesis 6:6). In this declaration, to use the words of Calvin, God is represented as “clothing Himself with our affections, that He might the more effectually penetrate our hearts, and impress us with His abhorrence of sin. It is as if He had said, ‘This is not my workmanship; this is not the being I formed after my own image, and replenished with such noble endowments; I disdain to acknowledge such a corrupt and degenerate creature as my offspring.’” Or, as Hengstenberg puts it, with a more especial respect to God’s end in creating man, “The words have respect, merely to the destination of man, to glorify God with a free and willing mind. Were this man’s only, as it certainly is his original destination, God must have repented that He had made the degenerate race of mankind. What God would have done had this point alone come into consideration, He is here represented as having actually done, in order to impress upon the hearts of men, how great their corruption was, and how deep was God’s abhorrence of their sin.” (Authentic ii., p. 453.) Whatever precise turn we may give to our explanation of the passage, there can be no doubt, that as a representation of the mind of God toward mankind at the close of the antediluvian period, it exhibits a very marked change as compared with what appeared at the beginning; and a change, which finds its justification in the two principles we have enunciated: first, that in God’s revelations of Himself, whether prospective or retrospective, the ethical design and tendency ever has the foremost place; and secondly, that for the purpose more especially of effecting His aim in this, He discloses His character and purposes in a human manner, as the only way by which He can be properly understood, or can effectually reach our hearts. So much is this the case, and so certainly does the truth involved in it underlie the whole prophetic testimony, in so far, at least, as this touches on the dangers or the expectations of men, that the prophet Jeremiah has formally announced it as a definite principle of prophetical interpretation: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them” (Jeremiah 18:7-10). It may be the case that, for the most part, in the prospective delineations of good and evil which are given in prophecy, there was to be no such moral change in the subjects of them, as would call for the application of this principle in the interpretation of their import. More especially might this be expected to be generally the case in respect to the denunciations of coming judgment, which, being usually pronounced against inveterate adversaries of the truth, were but too unlikely, in most cases, to tell with any wholesome and reformatory influence on those whom they respected. Yet still even these the prophet Jeremiah teaches us to regard, as, in their more direct and primary aim, intimations of God’s displeasure on account of sin, and only in a certain event predictions of what should actually occur in providence. They did not, in any case, become, of necessity, events in history. Their doing so was a contingency depending on the spiritual state and behaviour of those over whom the threatenings of judgment were suspended. And to take such prophetic burdens in the fixed and absolute sense of announcements of evil, that must be executed as described, is plainly to overlook an essential element in the structure of prophecy, and possibly also to involve ourselves in inextricable difficulties as to its proper fulfilment. How it would have happened, with such a mode of interpretation, in the case of Jonah’s prophetic judgment against Nineveh, is obvious at first sight. But let us take another example, and one which has respect not to open and inveterate adversaries, but to parties standing within the bonds of the covenant, in whose case there was less to interfere with the moral action of the prophecy as a revelation of the mind and character of God. We shall take the prophetic utterance in the last words of Jacob on Levi and Simeon: “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:7). As the language itself bears, this was of the nature of a curse. Only, indeed, comparatively so, for being themselves children of the covenant, and viewed as heads of a covenant-offspring, they still had a share in the blessing connected with the covenant, and are hence said to have been blessed by the patriarch, along with their brethren (Genesis 49:28). But the sentence of judgment pronounced upon them, which took a form so strikingly retributive—destining them, in consequence of their former union in iniquity, to future separation and scattering in the land of their inheritance—this prophetic sentence of judgment evidently proceeded on the footing of a moral connection, which runs through the whole of Jacob’s prophecy respecting the heads of the future Israel,—a connection, first of all, between righteousness and blessing, sin and punishment, and, still further, between the condition of the parents and the offspring as subjects respectively of the one or of the other. In the different sections of the covenant people there was to be a descending impulse in evil or good, to be transmitted from those patriarchal heads to their future descendants; and this was dwelt upon with such peculiar emphasis at that formative period of their history, for the purpose of stamping indelibly upon the minds of the people, how deeply moral considerations entered into the constitution under which all their prospects were held. So far as Simeon was concerned, the prophetic threatening of the dying parent appears to have produced no beneficial effect of a moral kind, and the germ of coming evil it contained took its natural course of development. Of all the tribes, that of Simeon suffered most severely from the divine judgments on the way to Canaan, implying, of course, that among its members there had been a sad pre-eminence in transgression; and in so enfeebled a condition did it enter the sacred territory, that, instead of having a separate province of its own, a portion was allotted it within the inheritance of the tribe of Judah (Joshua 19:1). It was so shattered and dispersed, that it never properly attained to a distinct tribal standing, but became merged, as it would seem, in Judah; and its people are, doubt-leas, those more particularly referred to in 1 Kings 12:17, as “the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah,” who adhered to Rehoboam. Matters, however, turned out differently with Levi. From whatever cause it might be, probably from nothing more than a consideration of the solemn words of the dying patriarch, this tribe became distinguished for its piety and zeal in the cause of God; and on this account it had the singular distinction conferred on it, first of furnishing the great Deliverer and Lawgiver of the nation, and then of having its sons consecrated in all coming time for ministering in the more peculiar offices of religion. In their case, therefore, while the dispersion in Israel, threatened in the prophetic judgment, might be said to be carried into effect, since the priests and Levites were in reality dispersed among the other tribes for the better discharge of their spiritual functions, yet, in accordance with their altered condition, the act came to assume a new character. What was originally announced as a brand of dishonour on the tribe of Levi was at length turned into a mark of distinction; and if it served to render the members of the tribe politically weak, it provided for them, at the same time, the opportunity of becoming morally strong, assigned them, in fact, the place of highest influence so long as they were faithful to their high charge as the spiritual teachers and guides of Israel. The dispersion, indeed, was such that it could only become a source of weakness, if the great ends for which it was more immediately appointed were allowed to fall into abeyance. But the change thus put on the original prophecy, the new form and aspect given to the divine procedure toward the tribe of Levi, in consequence of the marked change in a moral respect which its members afterwards underwent, is a striking exemplification of the principle of Jeremiah, as to the dependence in prophecies of this nature for the actual result on the spiritual state and conduct of the parties concerned. If, however, in such cases of threatened judgment, we find the principle coming into force, not less certainly may we expect to see it acted on in the opposite class of cases,—in those, namely, in which the theme of prophecy was of a blissful tendency. If a change in man’s spiritual relation to God, from bad to good, necessitates a corresponding change in the manifestations he gives of himself to them, an alteration in the reverse order, from good to bad, must, in like manner, draw after it a partial or total suspension of God’s intention to do them good. So that if the threatened judgments of the prophetic word, then also its promised blessings, are to be regarded, not as absolute and indispensable announcements of coming events, but rather as exhibitions of the Lord’s goodness, prospective indications of his desire and purpose to bless the persons or communities addressed, yet capable of being checked or even altogether cancelled, in the event of a perverse and rebellious disposition being manifested by them. The word of Jeremiah makes express mention of this class of cases, as well as the other. And the Apostle Paul re-announces the principle with special emphasis on this particular branch of its application, when he says, at the close of his reasoning on the case of the Jewish people, “Behold, therefore, the goodness and the severity of God: on them which fell severity, but toward thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise, thou shalt also be cut off” (Romans 11:22),—that is, the prophetic intimations of future blessing are to be understood as valid only so long as the spiritual relation contemplated in them abides. When that ceases, a new and different state of things has entered which the promise did not contemplate, and to which it cannot in justice be applied. There is no want of cases of this description. They are even more numerous than those of the former class, and are to be found both in the larger and in the more limited sphere of things. Thus, in respect to a single family, a very emphatic seal was set on the principle by the dealings adopted with the house of Eli, when, for its profligacy, the right to minister in the priest’s office was taken from it: “Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said, indeed, that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever. But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Samuel 2:30). (The reference in the first part of this announcement to some previous word of God giving assurance of a perpetual right to the blessing and honour of the priesthood, must be to such passages as Exodus 28:43; Exodus 29:9, where the priesthood was given in perpetuity to the sons of Aaron. Had the house of Eli belonged to the posterity of Phinehas, we would naturally have thought of Numbers 25:11-13. But it was of the line of Ithamar (1 Chronicles 6:4-9; 1 Chronicles 24:1-6; 1 Samuel 14:3). The threatening here, it must be remembered, has respect not simply to the loss of the more peculiar honours of the high priesthood, but to such afflictive dispensations as should bring marked dishonour upon the family, and render their share even in the common privileges of the priestly office precarious and insecure.—Comp. 1 Samuel 4:1-22, 1 Samuel 22:1-23, 1 Chronicles 24:1-31.) God never meant that the promise of blessing should hold good in all circumstances. Like the revelations, generally, of His mind and will, it was linked inseparably to His own moral nature; and as the degenerate offspring had abandoned the spiritual position of their forefather, the ground no longer existed on which the promised heritage of blessing proceeded. We have even, if possible, a still more specific case in New Testament Scripture, in the prophecy of future honour and blessing uttered by our Lord to the apostles. When speaking to the twelve, he said, “Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration—when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory—ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel “(Matthew 19:28). Yet one of these twelve was Judas, of whom the Lord certainly knew that he should have no part; in the matter, and that another should take his place. On a larger scale, the history of Israel is replete with changes and vicissitudes of a similar kind. Thus, when Moses was sent to them in Egypt, he came with a message from the Lord, that their groanings had been heard, and that now the promise given to their fathers, respecting the possession of the land of Canaan, was to be carried into effect. The message proceeded on the supposition, as was afterwards expressly declared (Exodus 19:5, etc.), that they would hearken to the voice and obey the call of God. But failing, as the great majority of them did, to verify this supposition, the promised good was in their case never realized. So, again, the prophecies, which were uttered before they entered Canaan, respecting the portion of good things awaiting them there—that it should be to them “a land flowing with milk and honey”—that they should dwell in it alone among the nations, replenished with the favour of Heaven, and enjoying it as an everlasting possession:—Such prophecies as these, which were, in other words, promises of rich grace and beneficence, could not be more than partially verified, because the children of the covenant were ever falling from the state of filial reverence and love, which was pre-supposed as the ground of all inheritance of blessing. Nor is this dependence of such portions of prophecy on the condition of those who are the subjects of them, a mere expedient devised to meet a difficulty in interpretation. On the contrary, it rests on a principle which is essentially connected with the nature of God, and therefore cannot but pervade the revelations he gives of his mind and will in Scripture. There, from first to last, all is predominantly of a moral or spiritual, as contradistinguished from a simply natural character; and in nothing more does the religion of the Bible, in its entire compass, differ from the religions of the world, than in the place it assigns to the principles of righteousness. These it constantly sets in the foremost rank, and subordinates to them all divine arrangements and responsible agencies. It knows nothing of results in good or evil, coming as merely natural processes of development, but ever brings into account the eternal distinctions between sin and holiness, which have their root in the character of God. It was the capital error of the covenant people that they so often forgot this. Holding their position and their prospects formally in connection with their descent from Abraham, this simply natural element was ever apt to assume too high a place in their minds, and to invest in their eyes the promises of God with an absolute and unconditional character. For them it was a most pernicious and fatal mistake in experience, as it must also be for us in interpretation, if we should tread in their footsteps. We want the key to a right understanding of all prophetic utterances of good and evil, unless we keep in view their relation to the principles of God’s moral government. And we shall certainly misunderstand both Him and them, if we suppose that, when He most loudly threatens visitations of evil, He shall execute the threatening where repentance, meanwhile, has taken place, or that He can continue to bless those who may have hardened their hearts in sin, however expressly and copiously He may have promised to do them good. (See Appendix D.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 03.06. CHAPTER 5.  THE PROPHETIC STYLE AND DICTION ======================================================================== Chapter 5. The Prophetic Style And Diction WE proceed now to the consideration of a topic which bears even more closely and directly upon the interpretation of the prophetic Scriptures, than those hitherto discussed. We mean the appropriate style and diction of prophecy. The subject calls for the more particular and careful treatment, as it has been associated with many fanciful notions, and is now, more than ever, mixed up with modes of interpretation altogether groundless and indefensible. We shall, therefore, need to go at much greater length into this department of our inquiry, than has been necessary in regard to any of the points which have already passed under our notice. And for the sake of greater distinctness, we shall view the subject in a negative light, before we look at it positively; in other words, we shall first endeavour to show, and that in opposition to prevailing errors, what is not the proper style and diction of prophecy, and then establish some of its more fundamental and essential characteristics, with the deductions that naturally grow out of them. Section I. Negatively: What Is Not the Character of the Prophetic Style and Diction BY looking at the matter in this negative aspect, we have respect more particularly to one of the results growing out of the too exclusive contemplation of prophecy on its merely natural side, and in its apologetic use, as an argument for the defence of the Bible. Writing, as the exponent of an age and a class by whom this was very commonly done, Bishop Butler gave expression to the sentiment, which has since been many a time repeated, “Prophecy is nothing but the history of events before they come to pass.” (“Analogy,” Part II., chap. 7.) Of course, if it be nothing but that, it should be written like that: as the character of both is the same, there can be no reason why the style of both should not also be substantially the same. Proceeding, therefore, on this ground, and carrying out the principle to its legitimate conclusions, two schools of prophetic interpretation have sprung up, having one starting-point in common, but wide as the poles asunder as to the goal, to which they deem the light of prophecy fitted to conduct us. The more Christian section reason thus: since prophecy is but history anticipated, all it reveals of the future must be taken as literally as history itself; every word must have its simple meaning attached to it—that and no more; so that the degree of fulfilment which has been given to any prophecy of Scripture, is to be ascertained and measured by the adaptation of what is written to events subsequently occurring, viewed simply in the light of a pre-historical intimation of them; whatever has not been so fulfilled must be regarded as still waiting for its accomplishment in the future. And as this view seemed to betoken a high regard for the exact and perfect truthfulness of the prophetic record, so by pressing the literality of some of its announcements, it appeared for a time to gain in value, and to furnish new weapons for the vindication of the faith. Hence the popularity of such works on prophecy as have been written to show what numerous and exact correspondences can be pointed out in the past or present state of the world, with the prophetic delineations of Scripture, and how often the language of prophecy has proved like that of history, by receiving the most close and palpable verifications. We are far from wishing to undervalue works of this description, or denying that they have rendered any service to the cause of divine truth. They have unquestionably contributed to awaken a more lively interest in this portion of the word of God, and have also helped to diffuse a more general and intelligent belief in its verity, by fixing attention on certain undeniable fulfilments of its predictions. But it is perfectly possible that the efforts in this direction may have somewhat overshot their proper mark; that the advantage obtained on one side may have been pushed so far as to create a disadvantage on another; that the evidence of a close and literal fulfilment of particular prophecies, by being carried beyond its due limits, may have given rise to views and expectations respecting the structure and design of prophecy in general, which are neither warrantable in themselves, nor capable of being vindicated by a reference to historical results. Such, indeed, has proved to be the case. This principle of regarding prophecy as merely anticipative history, will not stand, by any fair construction, with some of the recorded examples of fulfilled prophecy mentioned in New Testament Scripture. It would oblige us to consider these as little better than fanciful or arbitrary accommodations. And even in the midst of those which to a certain extent admit of being read in the exact and literal style of history, there often occur passages which have obviously received no fulfilment of a similar description. The consequence has been, that the number of fulfilled prophecies has been constantly lessening in the hands of this school of interpreters. Not a few that at one period were held to have received their accomplishment, have latterly, by the more stringent and uniform application of the principle of historic literality, been thrown into the class which are to stand over for their fulfilment till the time of the end. And of those, which seem to have found their verification in the facts of gospel history, a considerable portion are allowed to have had only a kind of preliminary fulfilment—such a fulfilment as is at most but a prelude and earnest of the proper one. It is no new thing for extremes to meet; and so far there is a coincidence between this school of interpreters, and another of a very different spirit, that they both agree in reducing very much the number of fulfilled prophecies. This latter class, however, hold, that there are few, if any, to be fulfilled, scarcely, indeed, any that can be fitly characterised as history written beforehand, while the others do not question their existence, but only, in the case of the greater part, transfer the period of their fulfilment to the yet undeveloped future. On the hypothetical ground that, in so far as prophecy may be descriptive of coming events in Providence, it must be written like history, the school we now refer to, think, some that they can find very little, others almost nothing so written among the prophecies of Scripture; and so, practically, they come in great measure to change the idea of prophecy—to deny, that its object was to give any precise or definite outline of the future, and to regard it rather as the varied expression of men’s fears or longings as to the coming destinies of the world. Thus, Schleiermacher, who may be said, if not to have originated, at least to have rendered current, this mode of thinking regarding prophecy, was of opinion, that in Old Testament Scripture there are no actual predictions of the Messiah; nothing more than indistinct longings, expressions on the part of pious men of their felt need of redemption—such also, only more intense and earnest, as some, even among the heathen, were conscious of. It might possibly be too much to say, that Dr Arnold, in this country, went quite so far as this, in disavowing the predictive character of Scriptural prophecy; yet, there are some passages in his writings, which seem to come very near to it. “If you put,” he writes in a letter to Dr Hawkins, written about two years before his death, “If you put, as you may do, Christ for abstract good, and Satan for abstract evil, I do not think, that the notion is so startling, that they are the main and only proper subjects of prophecy, and that, in all other cases, the language is, in some part or other, hyperbolical—hyperbolical, I mean, and not merely figurative. Nor can I conceive how, on any other supposition, the repeated applications of the Old Testament language to our Lord, not only by others, but by Himself, can be understood to be other than arbitrary.” This evacuating, on Arnold’s part, of nearly all that was properly predictive in prophecy, and in respect to what one might look for distinct and circumstantial fulfilments in Providence, was, in one sense, a revulsion from the common practice of assimilating prophecy to history. He held them to be essentially different in their characteristic features and objects; but did so in a way which, at the same time, left little for it to do in foretelling things to come—in short, lessened the predictive element in it in proportion as he magnified its dissimilarity to the historical. In reality, therefore, there are here also, the same fundamental ideas, only differently assorted and made to contribute to a different result. It is supposed, that prophecy to be, in the ordinary sense, predictive in character, must be historical in style; and that it possesses little of the one, because it partakes little of the other. There are not wanting persons, however, bearing the Christian name, but possessing little of the Christian spirit, who would rob prophecy altogether of its predictive character, on the ground of its containing no historical delineations of the future, which lie beyond the reach of human foresight. A representative of this school tells us, “The writings of the prophets contain nothing above the reach of the human faculties. Here are noble and spirit-stirring appeals to men’s conscience, patriotism, honour, and religion; beautiful poetic descriptions, odes, hymns expressions of faith almost beyond praise. But the mark of human infirmity is on them all, and proofs or signs of miraculous inspiration are not found in them.” That they commonly prefaced their declarations by, “Thus saith the Lord,” merely arose, we are informed, from the prevalent Jewish feeling, which regarded every manifestation of religious and moral power as the direct gift of God. But it is denied, that any of them ever uttered “a distinct, definite, and unambiguous prediction of any future event that has since taken place, which a man, without a miracle, could not equally well predict.” And in regard, particularly to Messianic prophecy, we have the bold assertion, “it has never been shewn that there is, in the whole of the Old Testament, one single instance, that, in the plain and natural sense of the words, foretells the birth, life, or death of Jesus of Nazareth.” (“Absolute Religion,” by Theodore Parker, pp. 205-9.) This might seem to be going far enough in the depreciation of the prophetic Scriptures, in their predictive character, but there is a phase beyond it still. For, Mr Foxton, in what he calls his “Popular Christianity,” not only maintains that there are no proper predictions of things to come in Scripture, but that there cannot be. He holds the doctrine of prophecy to be “directly at variance with the theory of Providence,”—the theory, namely, of a providence proceeding entirely according to general laws, as opposed to any particular interpositions of Divine power. The farthest he can go is to admit, that men of superior intellect and sagacity, who have acquired more than ordinary insight into the laws of nature and God’s dealings in providence, may sometimes have uttered what, in common language, might be called prediction^. Thus, “the prophecy of Christ, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, recorded by St. Matthew, may be interpreted as a simple instance of political foresight into an event extremely probable in the existing condition of his country. And the same may be said generally of the predictions of the earlier Jewish prophets respecting the probable fortunes of their nation. The prophecies of the advent of Christ, when stript of the ingenious explanations, forced constructions, and subtle spirit of adaptation displayed by critics and commentators, are nothing more than instances of a speculative expectation of those reformations of society, which the periodical appearance of men of genius, after long periods of corruption, always renders probable in the history of nations.” (“Popular Christianity,” p. 120. We take no notice of some of the more offensive things in this volume; as when the prophets of the Old Testament are spoken of as having visions precisely akin to those of Swedenborg of Sweden, Jacob Behmen of Germany, and James Nayler of England.) Such are the extremes to which, in different hands, the tendency has run, to place prophecy, in so far as it may be predictive, on a level with history, as to style and diction. On the one hand, some finding little or nothing, as they conceive, of such prophecy in the Bible, reduce to the merest fraction or altogether disallow predictions in the proper sense; while others maintain, that they abound, indeed, in sufficient number, but that comparatively few have, as yet, been properly fulfilled. It becomes us, therefore, to look well to the foundation, out of which such tendencies and results have grown; and we shall do so with more especial reference to those who appear to take up in good faith the historical view of prophecy, and regard it as necessary to the strict veracity of God’s word. The great argument of the persons who advocate this view, is the exact fulfilment of many prophecies already accomplished, and especially of those which pointed to the appearance and history of Christ on earth. Never, it is alleged, were facts more literally described than those which were foretold to take place, and actually have taken place, in connection with the events of gospel history. But if the principle of literal exactness, or historical precision holds there, why should it not be understood as holding also in other parts of prophetical Scripture? What can a departure from it be but a corruption of the simplicity of the divine word? And so, since throughout we have to do with plain historical description on the one side, and corresponding matters of fact upon the other, “the vision which Isaiah (for example) saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem,” the heading of his whole book, must be viewed as bearing immediate respect only to the Jewish people, and their land and city. So also in regard to what is written generally in the prophetic word, Edom is to be taken literally of Edom, Moab of Moab, Egypt of Egypt, Zion of Zion, and Jerusalem of Jerusalem. Now, if the ground on which this stringent literality is contended for were real; if the sense, which past fulfilments of prophecy appear to have put on the predictions of Scripture, were uniformly that alone of the historical and literal; then, we should not hesitate to regard it as a settled point, that the past should in this respect rule the future, and that for prophecy in general, what remains to be fulfilled, as well as what has already been accomplished, all must be understood and interpreted like history. But is it so in reality? Let us put the principle to the test; let us try it even with the first prophecy uttered in the ears of fallen man. Addressing the serpent, the Lord said, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.” Here, the seed of the woman beyond all doubt is the woman’s offspring—a child of promise, or, collectively (as the word seed is commonly taken), a line of children to be born of her; and, consequently, the serpent—if all must be taken in the prosaic style, and read as history—can only be that creature of the field then present, and its seed the offspring which might afterwards by natural generation proceed from it. The prophecy, therefore, speaks merely of the injuries to be received from serpents on the one side, and of the killing of serpents on the other: and any member of Eve’s future family who might have the fortune to kill a serpent, should, by so doing, verify the prophecy. For, taking all in a simply historical aspect, as the woman’s seed must be one or more of human-kind, so the serpent and his seed can only comprehend what is of the serpent-kind. Such is a fair application of the principle of a bald and naked literalism; and the fruitful result it enables us to extract from the primeval promise to a fallen world, is an assurance of man’s relative superiority to the most subtle of beasts, and the ultimate destruction of the serpent-brood! Could the lowest rationalism find any thing more suited to its purpose? Or, could the pitiable condition of the parents of the human family, and the great necessities of their fallen state, have been more bitterly mocked? It would truly have been giving them a serpent for bread. (This is all that even Hofmann finds in the original promise, the spirit of literalism in him leading to the same result a the spirit of rationalism in others. He asks, if there was no matter of joy in these words of God for man? And answers, “Nothing, but that it was not quite over with them. They were to live for a time, and perpetuate their nature in offspring like themselves” (Weissagung and Erfullung, i. p. 76). The simple prolongation of existence as opposed to utter destruction, was all they had given them to hope for! Such literalism finds a fitting parallel in the rationalist Credner’s view of Joel 2:28, who thinks that the all flesh, on which the Spirit is to be poured out, must mean absolutely all, beasts as well as men, yea even locusts.) Those who can rest in such a conclusion, and see nothing in it at variance with the character of God and the general tenor of his revelations to men, are not likely to be won by any reasoning of ours to a better style of interpretation. But on the palpable inadequacy of the result so obtained we affirm) that the simply literal for prophecy will not do at the very outset; and that to apply it to the first prophetic announcement connected with the hopes of mankind, were only to burlesque the occasion of its deliverance. Let it be, that some respect was therein had to the natural enmity, which was henceforth to subsist between the serpent-brood and the human family; still when the whole circumstances of the case are taken into account, this cannot now, nor could it ever, be regarded as more than a sign or emblem of the spiritual truth, which lay underneath, and which alone constitutes its prophetic import for Adam and his offspring. The “warfare,” as has been justly remarked, (“The Structure of Prophecy,” by James Douglas, Esq. of Cavers, p. 28.) “which the human race have carried on and successfully with the serpent-brood, has been merely a repetition by emblems of the predicted warfare, which the spiritual seed have been carrying on against the spiritual old serpent, who is the devil—which prediction received its highest accomplishment, when Christ at his crucifixion and resurrection triumphed over Satan; when the conqueror bruised Satan’s head after the tempter had bruised the victor’s heel.” How, indeed, could a thoughtful mind rest satisfied with any other than a spiritual interpretation of the prophecy? It was not a physical, but a spiritual conquest, which the tempter had achieved, and which, according to the principles of the divine government, drew after it the heritage of natural evil that settled down upon the world. Could it be seriously imagined, that the successful warfare which was now with divine help to be waged, and the final victory that was to be won by the woman’s seed, should be of an inferior kind to that accomplished by the serpent? The good promised should in that case have been no proper reversion of the evil. Even the language, by its poetical colouring, naturally carries the mind to this higher aspect of things, and lodges a silent protest against the notion of a flat and prosaic literalism. To bruise a serpent’s head is a natural expression for putting it to death, making a final end of its power to injure or destroy; but who ever heard of a serpent, in the natural sense, bruising a person’s heel? To speak thus is not to speak in the style of history, as if the object were to give a naked unvarnished account of a specific result hereafter to be expected; not this, but rather a picturing out, by means of existing relations, and with a measure of poetic freedom, of the general nature of what was in prospect, as to the relative positions of the contending parties, and the final issue of the struggle. Rightly viewed, therefore, this first prophecy is an instructive example, not in favour of, but against, the idea of prophecy being merely history written beforehand. It is a sign and witness set up at the very threshold of the prophetic territory, showing how much prophecy, in the general form of its announcements, might be expected to take its hue and aspect from the occasion and circumstances that gave rise to it—how it would serve itself of things seen and present, as a symbolical cover, under which to exhibit a perspective of things which were to be hereafter—and how, even when there might be a certain fulfilment of what was written according to the letter, the terms of the prediction might yet be such as to make it evident that something of a higher kind was required properly to verify its meaning. Such plainly was the case with respect to the prediction at the fall; and in proof that it must be so read and understood, some of the later intimations of prophecy, which are founded upon the address to the serpent, vary the precise form of the representation which they give of the ultimate termination of the conflict. Thus Isaiah, when descanting on the peace and blessedness of Messiah’s kingdom, tells us not of the serpent’s head being bruised, but of his power to hurt being destroyed; of dust being his meat, and of the child playing upon his hole (Isaiah 11:8-9; Isaiah 65:25). It is the same truth, again, that appears at the close of the Apocalypse, under the still different form of chaining the old serpent, and casting him into the bottomless pit, that he might not deceive the nations any more (Revelation 20:2-3),—his power to deceive in the one case corresponding to his liberty to bruise the heel in the other, and his being chained and imprisoned in the bottomless pit to the threatened bruising of his head. The introduction of type into the scheme of God’s revelations brought another peculiarity into the region of prophecy, and still farther increased its tendency to diverge from the simple and direct style of historical narration. Every type was, so far, a prophecy, that under the form of sensible things, and by means of present outward relations, it gave promise of other things yet to come, corresponding in design, but higher and better in kind. And hence, when a prophetic word accompanied the type, or pointed to the things which it prefigured, it naturally foretold the antitypical under the aspect, or even by the name, of the typical. At the time the first promise was given, nothing of a properly typical nature yet existed to weave into the prophetic delineation. There was only the loss of Nature’s heritage of good, and in that loss the triumph of the principle of evil; so that in the prospect held out of an ultimate recovery, there was room only for a symbolical use of what was, or had been, to image what should hereafter be. But as the scheme of Providence proceeded on its course, bringing, from time to time, its temporary and partial provisions of blessing, these commonly became to men of prophetic insight the form under which the better and more enduring reality presented itself to their view, as well as the pledge of its certain realization. We have elsewhere treated of this at large, and need not enter into detail concerning it here. (“Typology of Scripture,” Book I. ch. 5, Fourth Ed.) But as an evidence how materially the diction thus formed differed from that proper to history, we may refer to the single example of Ezekiel 34:24, “And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant, David, a prince among them”—where, assuredly, another personage must be understood than the historical David; one who, in that greater and more glorious future, would hold relatively to the kingdom of God the same place which had been held by the Son of Jesse in the best period of the past. In any other way it is impossible to extract a suitable meaning from the prediction, and to avoid putting on it a sense that is utterly incongruous or puerile. Nor is this all. There are many passages in the prophets in which the application to them of a strict and historical literalism would not only evacuate their proper meaning, but render them absolutely ridiculous and inconsistent one with another. Nothing, surely, can be more evident to a simple reader of the prophetic writings than that one of their great objects, the burden not of one or two only, but of many of their predictions respecting the Messiah, was to have the hearts of men prepared for His coming by a genuine repentance and moral reformation. But take the prophecy on this subject in Isaiah 40, and we shall find that, according to the principle now under consideration, it is something quite different which was announced as going to precede the Lord’s advent. Referring to the words of the prophet, and describing his own mission, the Baptist said: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God; every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be laid low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.” The language, it will be observed, understood as a naked and historical delineation of what should take place before the Lord’s personal appearance, speaks only of external changes and reforms on the earth’s surface, such as might more suitably adapt it to purposes of travel. But as no beneficial improvements of that description, in the Baptist’s time, nor even to the present day, have been accomplished in Palestine, the opinion has been avowed by the advocates of historical simplicity and directness in prophecy that the prediction still remains unfulfilled—that, in its leading import, it must refer not to the first, but to the second advent. And the thought has even been suggested whether it may not refer to that great improvement of modern times, the levelling of hills, the elevating of valleys, and straightening of paths, by means of railroads! A happy thought, no doubt, if the object for which the Spirit of prophecy had kindled the bosom of Isaiah had been to light the way to inventions in art and science, or, if the essential condition of the Lord’s coming to dwell among His people was their providing for Him the means of an easy and rapid conveyance in an earthly chariot! But before this can be admitted, we must entirely change our ideas of the Bible, and the purport of Messiah’s appearance in a fallen world. We shall refer to another prediction of Isaiah, found at the commencement of the second chapter, where, in speaking of the glory of the latter days, he says, “It shall come to pass that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” It is spoken absolutely, and, therefore, if taken as an historical delineation, must be regarded as importing that the little elevation of the temple-mount shall be projected upwards, and made to overtop in height the loftiest of the Himmalayas—and that, too, for the purpose of increasing its attraction as a centre of religions intercourse to the world, and drawing men in crowds toward it from the most distant regions. What a mighty revolution—what an inversion even of the natural state of things, this would imply, it is needless to point out. Yet the interpretation now given has often been adopted, as conveying the real meaning of the prophecy, if not to the extent of making Zion absolutely the loftiest summit on the earth’s surface, at least to the extent of its elevation above all the hills in that region of the earth. So common, indeed, had this view of the upward projection of Mount Zion in the latter days, become in the time of Edward Irving, that we find him excusing himself from not implicitly adopting it. He expresses, indeed, his belief that there would be “some remarkable geographical changes on the face of the earth, and especially in the Holy Land”—so that he was “far from slighting the more literal interpretation of the passage;” yet, withal, “he inclines to think that the glory of Zion, in the eye of the prophet, standeth rather in this,—that it shall acquire such a celebrity in those days as shall bring low the most noted of the mountains of the earth, and the eyes of all men upon it, being the centre of the worship of the whole world.” Even the better sort of Jewish rabbies read with a less fleshly eye the meaning of the prophet. “It does not mean,” says Kimchi, “that the mountain shall be raised in bulk, but that the nations shall exalt and honour it, and shall go there to worship the Lord.” But we have a surer interpreter here than either Jewish rabbies or Christian divines. For the prophet Ezekiel, evidently referring to this prediction of Isaiah, connects it with circumstances which oblige us to understand the relative elevation of the sacred mount, as of a spiritual, not of a natural, kind, and as verified in what already has been, not in what is yet to be. Representing the seed of David as the subject of promise, under the image of a twig of a lofty cedar, and contrasting what the Lord would do to this, with what was to become of the twig cropped from the same cedar by the king of Babylon, the prophet says in the name of the Lord, “I also will take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent: in the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it; and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar; and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell” (Ezekiel 17:22-23). There cannot be the smallest possible doubt that the young and tender twig here mentioned represents Jesus of Nazareth, the Branch, as he is elsewhere called, out of the roots of Jesse, and represents Him in His first appearance among men, when he came in the low condition of a servant, to lay through suffering and blood the foundation of His everlasting kingdom. For, it is of the planting of the twig that the prophet speaks, and of its original littleness when so planted, as compared with its future growth, and ultimate peerless elevation. Yet even of those very beginnings of the Messiah’s work and kingdom, it is said, that they were to take place on “an high mountain and eminent,” on “the mountain of the height (the mountain-height) of Israel.” So that, as seen in prophetic vision, the elevation had already taken place when Christ appeared in the flesh, the little hill of Zion had even then become a towering height; in other words, it was not the natural, but the spiritual aspect of things which was present to the eye of the prophets, when they made use of such designations. All Israel was in their view a height, because distinguished and set up above the nations by its sacred privileges; (See Ezekiel 34:14, and the note there in my Commentary.) Mount Zion was the loftiest peak, as it were, in that height, because there was the seat and centre of what rendered Israel pre-eminent among the nations; and when seen as the place where God, manifest in the flesh, was to accomplish the great redemption, and unspeakably enhance the good, by turning what before was shadow into substance, then its moral grandeur became altogether transcendent, and all that might be called great and lofty in the world shrank into littleness as compared with it. Here now was the world’s centre—the glory that eclipsed every other. If it were necessary to our argument, and would not lead us too far from our present purpose, we might strengthen the ground of this interpretation, by showing how commonly in prophetic language powers or kingdoms, as such, are spoken of under the image of mountains—mountains varying in height or stability according to the character and position of the kingdoms themselves. We merely refer to the fact (giving a few instances in the note (See Appendix E.)), and shall find occasion when we come to treat of the positive aspect of the subject, to shew the essential connection of such a style of representation with the usual form in which prophetic insight was given. But from the examples already adduced, it is manifest, that if we would not render prophecy in some parts utterly fantastical, and in others plainly inconsistent and contradictory, we need other rules to guide our interpretations than that of a strict adherence to historical simplicity. Prophecy cannot be always read merely as history antedated. And the absolute impossibility of making out, on such a principle, a prophetic harmony, or, to state it positively, the inevitable confusion and discord it would introduce into the prophetic record, may be further seen by a comparison of the diverse and, historically considered, antithetical representations, that are given of the religious changes that were to come in with the gospel dispensation. Sometimes this appears as a revival and perfecting of the old, and sometimes, again, as the entire supplanting of it by something higher and better. Thus Isaiah, in certain places, speaks of the future glory as consisting in the full re-establishment of the old things, the erection of the temple in surpassing magnificence, the rigorous enforcement of its ritual, and the vieing of all nations with each other to frequent its courts and celebrate its services (Isaiah 60:1-22; Isaiah 61:7-8; Isaiah 66:21-23); while, in other places, he pours contempt upon the old, as not worthy to be mentioned, treats the erection of a material temple, like that which formerly existed, as a thing no longer to be thought of, and holds out promises of blessing, which imply the abolition of the ordinances introduced by Moses (Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:1-3; Isaiah 66:3-5). In like manner, Jeremiah, setting forth, at Jeremiah 3:16, the superiority of the latter days, affirms that the time was coming when they should no more remember or speak of the ark of the covenant, nor make such a thing—meaning, that the peculiar sacredness and glory belonging to it should then be more widely diffused, not confined to so limited a spot. In another place (Jeremiah 31:31), he tells us of the supplanting of the old covenant entirely by a new one, founded on better promises; and yet, passages again occur in which he depicts the full and perfect re-establishment of the ancient order of things, as the glory of those latter days (Jeremiah 30:18-22; Jeremiah 33:15-22). To mention no more, Ezekiel’s last vision of the brighter future presents all under the aspect of a re-edified temple, perfect in its structure and arrangements; while, in St John’s last vision, it takes the form of a holy city, complete in its proportions, and composed of the most precious materials, but having in it no temple. There is a principle, we may be well assured, which is quite sufficient to harmonise these different representations, and render them perfectly consistent with one another; but no skill or sophistry can ever persuade simple and unprejudiced men, that such a harmonising principle is to be found in reading the whole as one would read history—taking all as matter-of-fact descriptions of gospel times, or the millennial age. On that principle, the contradiction is necessarily real, and we have no alternative, according to it, but that of holding by one portion of the prophetic future, and letting go another. Nor would such be the result merely with what may be still regarded as the prophetic future, and in respect to which endless and fanciful conjectures, for reconciling things which differ, may be thrown out; it would hold equally with what once was a prophetic future, but is now the historical past or present; for many of the representations we have noticed point to the New Testament dispensation generally, and necessarily bear respect to what has already come to pass. Indeed, it is difficult to say what a fair and uniform application of the principle of historical interpretation to the style of prophecy would leave us of prophetical fulfilments. Micah, for example, predicted that out of Bethlehem was to come forth He that was to be Ruler in Israel, the Messiah, as King of Zion. But it is held as a settled point by those who read prophecy like history, that Messiah has not yet appeared in the character of the King of Zion, or Ruler in Israel; so that, we should suppose, the predicted coming out of Bethlehem, in the proper sense, has yet to take place. In like manner, it must be maintained that he shall yet have to make good the prophecy of Zechariah, by riding into Jerusalem on an ass, since it was distinctively as the King of Jerusalem that the act in question was to be performed by Him. We are afraid, indeed, that on this principle a large portion of Christ’s earthly career, which the Evangelists have described as finished, and finished in accordance with the intimations of prophecy, must be regarded as still future. For when, according to one prophecy of Isaiah, was He actually anointed, or oiled, to preach the gospel to the poor? or, according to another, was precisely His back given to the smiters? Where do we read, in literal conformity with the Psalmist’s words respecting Him, of His ears having been bored; or of His sinking in deep waters, where there was no standing; or of His being heard from the horns of the unicorns? Such things, and others of a like nature, were written concerning Messiah in the Psalms and prophets; and if all were to be ruled by a principle of historical literalism, the conclusion seems inevitable that the predicted humiliation of the Messiah has been accomplished but in part by Jesus of Nazareth—a conclusion which could be hailed with satisfaction only by unbelieving Jews, as it is also one that is the legitimate result of their own carnal principles of interpretation. (See Appendix F.) To conclude on this point, we object to the treatment of prophecy as merely anticipated history, or to the strictly literal principle of prophetical interpretation:—First, because, in point of fact, this principle is not justified by all the applications made of prophecy in New Testament Scripture, nor by the course of Providence in certain cases, at least, which may confidently be reckoned those of fulfilled prophecy; secondly because it would necessitate, if uniformly applied and carried out, the belief of many things utterly extravagant or absurd, as necessary to verify the prophetic word; and finally, because it would render one part of this word manifestly inconsistent with another. These objections, it is to be understood, are not urged against the existence of an historical element in prophecy, but only against the mode of ascertaining it—against the principle, that prophecy in its predictive character is written substantially in the style and manner of history. While we contend against its being so written, or interpreted as if such had been the case, we still strenuously maintain, that if understood in its proper nature, and interpreted in a manner agreeable to that, it will be found in many of its announcements capable of yielding clear and specific historical results. The prophecy, for example, of Ezekiel, recently referred to, not less certainly foretells the appearance of the King of Zion in a state of deep humiliation, the founding of His kingdom amid circumstances outwardly mean, yet of vast spiritual moment, and its subsequent growth to universal sovereignty, that it represents all under the image of a slender twig planted on the summit of Israel, and rising and expanding till it overtopt all the trees of the field. In such a representation there are unquestionably involved conditions of an historical kind, which required to be met by definite corresponding facts in providence—such facts precisely as are recorded in the gospel history. At the same time, the prophecy differs materially in the form it assumes, from that of historical narration, and, as regards the events actually in prospect, plainly exhibits these in an aspect that must have appeared somewhat obscure, till it was shone upon and informed by the events themselves. But then, something of this kind was necessary to the very evidence which was to be furnished to the truth of Scripture by fulfilments of prophecy. A certain veil required to hang over the prophetic field, up to the time that its predictions passed into realities; otherwise, there would have been room for the allegation, that the palpable clearness of the prophecy had prompted the efforts that led to its fulfilment. The allegation, in fact, has been made, in respect to some of the most important parts of the prophetic Scriptures. Lord Bolingbroke did not scruple to assert, that Jesus Christ brought about his own death by a series of preconcerted measures, merely to give his disciples the advantage of an appeal to the old prophecies. “This was ridiculous enough (to use the words of Dr Chalmers (Works, vol. iii.)); but it serves to show, with what facility an infidel might have evaded the whole argument, had these prophecies been free from all that obscurity which is now complained of. The best form (he adds) for the purposes of argument, in which a prophecy can be delivered, is to be so obscure, as to leave the event, or rather its main circumstances, unintelligible before the fulfilment, and so clear as to be intelligible after it.” It may be said, indeed, that the problem to be solved by prophecy was to speak of the future in such a way as to admit of the word being fulfilled, before its import was distinctly perceived by the persons taking part in the fulfilling of it, and yet to leave no proper room to doubt, that the things they did constituted the actual future pointed to in the prophecy. It were not easy to conceive a train of circumstances, in which these conditions were more remarkably met, than in those connected with the personal appearance and history of Christ in the world. Throughout the whole of it, prophecies were continually passing into fulfilment, and for the most part had become events in providence before they either were or could be brought into remembrance by those who were taking part in the transactions. So far from its being the prediction which led to the doing of the things which accomplished it, it was the doing of the things which first suggested the prediction, and brought to light what had previously lain in a neglected obscurity. In this peculiarity, therefore, of the structure of prophecy, this felicitous combination of light and shade, we have a signal proof of the unsearchable wisdom of God, in directing those who uttered its predictions. It is proper, however, to add, that while the style of prophecy always to some extent differs from that proper to history, it is not itself uniform in this respect, but is subject to change. It purposely spake of the future in “divers manners,” accommodating itself to the diversified circumstances in which it was given, and the more specific objects it contemplated. In the comparative fulness and frequency of its communications, as we had occasion formerly to remark (ch. 2), it varied exceedingly from time to time, and, as a general rule, increased in proportion to the dangers and difficulties of the period, or the magnitude of the subjects involved. The same considerations naturally had some influence also on the form of the prophetic announcements, as to their approaching nearer to the directness and circumstantiality of history, or receding farther from it. Sometimes general intimations regarding the course and issues of things might be enough for the support of faith, and the ordinary discharge of duty; while more full and explicit announcements of coming events might be called for in circumstances of an unusually perplexing or perilous nature. It was in such circumstances that Elijah had to do the work of a prophet in Israel. Spiritual wickedness in high places had assumed so bold a front, that there was the most imminent danger of overwhelming ruin; and the prophet coming forth as a mighty wrestler with the evil, there is an awful force and directness in his words—he speaks as already standing amid the scenes which he perceived to be at hand. In like manner, Jeremiah, though cast in a different mould from Elijah, yet because placed in circumstances of similar backsliding and rebuke, speaks often in the plainest terms of approaching events; and in those portions of his writings that relate to the nearer future,—such, for example, as Jeremiah 24:1-10, Jeremiah 25:1-38, Jeremiah 31:1-40, Jeremiah 50:1-46, Jeremiah 51:1-64,—has greatly more of the historical element than in such as point to times subsequent to the return from Babylon. Matters of fact abound in the one, while they are scarcely to be found in the other. So also in the Messianic prophecies, as a class, the same diversity is observable; there is more that is general in the earlier part, more that is specific in the later. By far the most explicit and circumstantial predictions were reserved for the time, when the old covenant and its earthly kingdom were tottering to their foundations, or existing only in an impaired and enfeebled condition. The heart of faith required then more special supports to sustain it; and suiting itself to the necessities of the case, the Spirit of prophecy began to disclose with greater freedom and distinctness the things which concerned Messiah’s appearance and kingdom, and gave the picture of the coming future, if we may so speak, more of an historical setting. Nor was this gradual approach to historical distinctness required, merely for those who lived in the latter days of the Hebrew commonwealth; it was also necessary for the generation that should witness the coming of the Messiah, and those of after times. As He was to present Himself to their acceptance in the character of a promised Redeemer, certain marks, of an external kind, to be verified amid the transactions of history, were necessary to assure them, that he who should come, had actually appeared. The vision, in this respect, must be written so plain, that no sincere inquirer could fail to perceive the correspondence between the promise and the fulfilment. But this it could only be by touching at many points on the common relations and circumstances of life, such as are patent to the observation and level to the capacities of the simpler order of minds. In such a matter, men could not be left to grope their way to the truth, by the help merely of internal considerations or general characteristics. So that, however the prophecies which went before, may have differed in their style of delineation from the histories which followed after, the coming of Messiah, they must still, to accomplish the purpose they had in view, have borne distinct reference, and furnished a kind of pre-historical testimony, to certain things that should hereafter appear in the outward domain of history. If due weight be given to the considerations now stated, there will be no need for holding some of the prophecies in Daniel (especially Daniel 8:1-27 and Daniel 9:1-27), on account of their historical details, to be at variance with the essential character of prophecy, and, therefore, liable to the suspicion of having been written after the events they refer to. This objection was raised so early as the third century by Porphyry, has frequently been revived in modern times, and has even, quite recently, been advanced by Dr Arnold and his followers in this country. He holds, that delineations like these, cast so much in the mould of history, and finding their verification in the affairs of the Alexandrian and Maccabean periods, are alien to the nature of prophecy, and must have been written after the events had taken place. We need not say, that such an opinion is fraught with most serious consequences in regard to the character and integrity of the Old Testament canon; as it admits of no doubt, that the book of Daniel, with those portions included, had its place in the Jewish Scriptures, when these were acknowledged as of Divine authority by our Lord and his Apostles, and were declared to have been all given by inspiration of God. The argument for the inspiration of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, as they now exist, would be shaken to its foundation, if the portions of Daniel referred to were displaced from the rank of genuine prophecies. But as there is no valid reason of an external kind for such a rejection, neither can one be found in the internal objection derived from the historical aspect of the predictions. It is not denied, that there is somewhat peculiar in the form of those predictions, a form that assimilates them more to the detailed and prosaic style of history, than is usual in prophecies which relate to a future at some distance from the speaker. Yet it is to be remembered, we have the advantage of reading them after the fulfilment of the larger portion, at least, of what they foretold; whereas Daniel himself, and those to whom the word originally came, lived even before the national revolutions had taken place, which rendered the fulfilment possible. Hence, he speaks of the vision, in its most historical parts, as being perfectly dark to himself and others (Daniel 8:27; Daniel 12:4, Daniel 12:8-9). And so different, after all, is this prophetico-historical delineation of things to come, from history in the proper sense, that, as Hengstenberg has remarked, (“Authentic des Daniel,” p. 190.) no one ignorant of the history, and with only this prophetical outline in his hand, could make his way to any precise and circumstantial account of the events; nor even yet are we free from all difficulties in the interpretation; there is still room at several points, from the mode of representation employed, for difference of opinion. And then, when we look at the circumstances of the period, for whose instruction and comfort this portion of Daniel’s prophecies was more especially intended—that, namely, stretching from the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the coming of Messiah—we can easily discern an adequate reason for that nearer approximation to the historical style, which unquestionably characterizes the predictions. Two leading peculiarities distinguished the period. It was, in the first instance, one of great feebleness and depression, and subject throughout to many trying and perplexing difficulties, which could not fail to put faith many times to the stretch. In such circumstances the people who had returned from Babylon with high hopes of the revival of their ancient glory, were the more likely, from the painful contrast which the realities of their position presented, to become disaffected and downcast in their minds. For long the infant colony in Judea had to struggle for its very existence against the insidious attacks of powerful and envious neighbours. And though its affairs became more settled and prosperous during the ascendancy of the Persian kings, and of Alexander, yet, soon again, the tide of fortune turned, and a period came, of which Calvin has said, that “if ever there were times of distress, such as might tempt men to imagine that God was asleep in heaven, and had become forgetful of the human race, it was certainly then, when the revolutions that took place were so frequent and so various.” Another peculiarity, however, added very materially to the trials connected with these circumstances of outward trouble, and rendered some special support and consolation necessary. For, during the whole of the post-Babylonian period, the theocratic constitution existed in a kind of anomalous and shattered condition. The original ark of the covenant, the centre of the whole polity, was gone, and the Shekinah, and the answering by Urim and Thummim, and even the kingly rule and government, though it had been secured by covenant in perpetuity to the house of David. It was to contend, at fearful odds, with the difficulties of their position, as compared with former times, when the members of the ancient covenant had to pass through deep waters shorn of these distinctive badges of a proper covenant relationship. Yet this was not all; for during that period all sensible tokens of God’s immediate presence were wanting. There was no longer any vision; the spirit of prophecy was silent; and with a closed record, and destitute of any miraculous agency, the people were left to hold on their course, as they best could, with no more than the settled and ordinary means of grace placed at their command. Taking, then, into account the entire circumstances of the period between the return from Babylon and the coming of Christ, is it to be wondered at? might it not rather be expected, from the whole character of God’s dealings with His people, that His foreseeing and watchful guardianship should make some suitable provision for such a time of need? It would have been precisely such a provision, if, along with the prophecies pointing the eye of hope to Messiah’s appearance and kingdom, there were also furnished to the hand of faith a more than usually explicit pre-intimation of the changes and vicissitudes that should arise during the intervening period; in particular, during that portion of it when the conflict with sin and error was to be the hottest. For this would, in great measure, compensate for the failure of the prophetic office, through which, in earlier times, direction was given in emergencies, and a sensible connection maintained between the providence of God and the events which befel His people. With such a comparatively detailed exhibition of the coming future in the prophetic record, the children of faith could feel that they were not left alone in their struggles, but that the eye of God still directed every movement, and had descried, as formerly, the end from the beginning. And, finally, if such a provision, by means of prophetic delineations, was to be made, Daniel, of all the prophets during the captivity, or immediately subsequent to it (as Hengstenberg has already noted), was precisely the one fitted for the purpose. “In the impartation of prophetical gifts, God always acts in adaptation to human powers and susceptibilities. A man, therefore, like Daniel, who had spent his life in the highest employments of the state, must have been peculiarly fitted for apprehending aright communications which had reference chiefly to political revolutions. The other prophets held not only the prophetical gift, but also the prophetical office; their utterances bore a distinct reference to their contemporaries. But, with such a relation, the communication of so long a series of special revelations was scarcely compatible. These were necessarily destined, as, indeed, is expressly said in this book, more for the future than for the present; while a prevailing destination for the present naturally carries along with it a direct monitory tendency, and, at the same time, an elevated, predominantly poetical style of discourse, which might easily have proved prejudicial to the requisite precision and clearness in a case like this Now, Daniel was no prophet, so far as office was concerned. Hence, in the prophecies communicated through him, comparatively little respect required to be had to the necessities of the existing generation, and their capacity of spiritual apprehension. Nor would an elevated poetical diction have here been in its place, as for himself only, in the first instance, did he desire and receive explanations. And in so wonderful a manner had he been accredited by God, that men could not venture, on account of what might appear of darkness in his revelations, to withhold an acknowledgment of their Divine character, and were only the more careful in comparing the prophecy with the fulfilment. Of this, the Books of the Maccabees and Josephus contain indisputable proofs.” (“Die Authentie des Daniel,” p. 193.) On the whole, therefore, we conclude that there are material differences in form and style between history and prophecy, as the distinctive aims and provinces of each are also different; but, at the same time, that prophecy approximates more nearly to the manner of history at one time than another, varying considerably in this respect, according to the circumstances in which it was given, and the more specific purposes it was intended to serve. Section II. The Prophetic Styleand Diction Viewed Positively—Its More Distinctive Peculiarities The Ground of Those Peculiarities, in the Mode of Revelation by Vision AT an early stage of our investigations, we had occasion to notice the regular and settled method by which Divine communications were made to those who were prophets in the ordinary sense, as contra-distinguished from the revelations given by Moses, and afterwards by Christ. In the latter cases, the intercourse with Heaven was maintained, while the mind continued in its habitual state, and the Divine message was received by a face-to-face communication. But, in the case of the prophets generally, it was to be otherwise; the Lord was to “make Himself known to them in a vision, to speak, to them in a dream” (Numbers 12:6). The Jewish doctors were wont to make some distinction between these two—the prophetic vision and the prophetic dream. They generally regarded the vision as superior to the dream, as representing things more to the life, and seizing upon the prophet while he was awake, though it often declined into a true dream, as in the case of Abraham (Genesis 15:12). The difference, however, as Mr Smith, of Cambridge, long since remarked, (“Discourse on Prophecy,” chap. ii.) seems rather to lie in the circumstantials than in anything essential; only, as the term vision pointed to what was seen, the dream must be understood as referring more particularly to what was spoken and heard; as, indeed, the passage itself indicates, “make known in a vision,” “speak in a dream.” But, in regard to the state marked by these expressions, the older Jewish interpreters described it as one in which the imaginative faculty was set forth as a stage on which certain visa and simulacra (appearances and images) were represented to the understandings of the prophets, as they are in our common dreams; only, that in their case the understanding was always kept awake, and strongly acted on by God in the midst of those apparitions, that it might see the intelligible mysteries in them. And the Jewish writers regarded this as constituting the specific difference between the more ordinary prophetic illumination and the Mosaic degree, that in the latter the impressions of things were made nakedly to the understanding, without any schemes or pictures exhibited upon the phantasy. (See Smith, as above.) This ancient view of the prophetical state is, beyond doubt, substantially correct. It supposes the prophet, when borne away by the impulse of God’s Spirit, to have been transported out of his natural condition, into a higher, a spiritually ecstatic state, in which, losing the sense and consciousness of external objects, he was rendered capable of holding direct intercourse with Heaven; and surrendering himself wholly to the divine impressions conveyed to his soul, he for the moment ceased from his ordinary agency, and, as one released from the common conditions of flesh and blood, entered into the purely spiritual sphere, to see the vision and hear the words of the Almighty. It was his, therefore, in a degree altogether supernatural, to possess and exercise the faculty, which the soul ever in some degree exerts in its intenser frames of thought and feeling, which it is the part especially of the poet’s soul, in its loftier moods, to exert,—the faculty of withdrawing within itself, closing its eyes and ears against external impressions, and living as in a world of its own. Like this in kind, but far higher in degree, was the ecstasy of the divine seer, which transferred the conscious exercise of his powers to the region of spiritual things, and placed him in direct and free communion with God. The Fathers seem to have been afraid of conceding quite so much concerning the ancient prophets, from its appearing to place them in a dangerous resemblance to the heathen diviners, and the rhapsodical Montanists. A sharp distinction was drawn between the ecstacies of such persons speaking in a kind of sacred fury, and the conscious spiritual elevation of the true prophet. Miltiades is even reported by Eusebius to have written a book on the theme, that a prophet must not speak in ecstacy. (Hist. Eccl., v. 17, and the same sentiments are expressed by Epiphanius, Adv. Haeres. Mont., chap. 2, Jerome, Pract in Isaiam, Nahum, etc.) In this, however, they did not mean to deny, that the prophets were in a supernaturally raised and elevated frame when they received their revelations; but only, that the excitation under which they thought and felt, was not that sort of irresistible agency claimed by Montanism, and assumed in heathen divination, which left no room for human individuality, and impelled those who experienced it to utter what had no place in their own understandings. This appears to have been all they meant, as may be learned from Jerome’s more explicit statement, in his preface to Habakkuk, where he vindicates the prophets from assimilation with Montanists, by asserting that they were not madmen, as if they had spoken without intelligence, and had no power over themselves, either to speak or to remain silent. The jealousy of the Fathers in this direction naturally led them to contract somewhat unduly the difference between the ordinary frame of the prophets, and that to which they were raised when presented with the visions of God. And, certainly, in their interpretations of the prophetical writings, they often exhibit grievous failures in the correct appreciation of the prophetical state, in its bearing on the prophetical style. But, on the other hand, some modern writers on prophecy—among others, Hengstenberg, in the first edition of his “Christology”—seem to go to the opposite extreme, in making the ecstacy of the prophets approach too closely to the μανία, the sacred fury of the diviners. Such, undoubtedly, is the impression produced, when it is said of them in that state, that “they lost their consciousness,” that “their rational powers were suspended,” that they were “completely passive under an overpowering influence of the Spirit of God.” They were, indeed, borne aloft by an impulse which lifted them above themselves, but, at the same time, an impulse which destroyed nothing they possessed, which left unimpaired their native susceptibilities, and wrought in accordance with their personal characteristics. So far from their own intelligence and agency being suspended, everything in their perceptive and emotional nature moved then with living energy and freedom; they saw, they heard, they felt, they spake, not less than if all had come from the spontaneous workings of their own minds, but with a clearness of insight, and a glow of sentiment, which of themselves they had been incapable of reaching. (In the last edition of the “Christology,” Hengstenberg, I am glad to see, has corrected his former view on this subject: he now expressly says “that we are not to regard the prophets as entirely deprived of intelligent consciousness,” “they did not lose their self-possession, but knew what they said, and spoke with a full apprehension of the existing circumstances.” At the same time he holds, and justly, that “there are not less decisive proofs, that the intelligent consciousness of the prophets was something secondary and superadded, and that when in the spirit they were in a state altogether distinct from their ordinary condition” (App. vi).) We must here hold fast by the principle, which lies at the foundation of all right views of the Divine agency in the soul, and the overlooking of which, more than anything else, has bred perplexity and error on the whole subject of God’s inspired communications to men—that the supernatural ever bases itself on the natural. Grace, in all its acts and provisions, comes not to mar or destroy, but only to quicken, and exalt, and perfect nature. And the Spirit of grace, alike in his more peculiar, and in his more common, operations upon the soul, ever has respect to its essential powers and properties, and adapts himself, even in his most special communications, not only to the general laws of thought, which regulate the workings of the human mind, but also to the various idiosyncrasies and acquired habits of particular individuals. While it was altogether of the Spirit, therefore, and through a supernatural exercise of his power, that prophetical men were raised into the ecstatical condition, in which they received the vision of things to come, still no more when in that condition than in their ordinary frame, did the Spirit suspend or control their mental faculties. On the contrary, he employed these faculties as his instruments of working, and, in doing so, gave the freest scope to their powers of thought and utterance, and even to their more remarkable peculiarities. We see the undoubted proof of this, in the diversities of manner which characterise the prophetical, equally with the other portions of inspired Scripture, and which not only shed over them the charm of an instructive and pleasing variety, but also endow them with a singular adaptation to the different tastes and capacities of men. We see it again in the use made by one prophet of the writings of another—a use made more frequently by none than by those who most distinctly relate what passed before them in the visions of God, and which, as often as employed, plainly bespoke the intelligent exercise of the mind’s natural and acquired endowments. We see it even in the form and materials of the visions themselves, which so uniformly bear the impress of the cast of mind, and the individual relations, of the persons who saw them. How strikingly, for example, do the kind of visions seen by Ezekiel differ from those reported in Isaiah! And again, in Daniel, how widely different from what are met with in the prophets, strictly so called, of the Old Testament! The point of view from which their visions proceeded, was the church or kingdom of God, from which they looked forth at times on the states of heathendom that stood related to it, and gave some disclosures of their approaching future. But Daniel stood in the centre, not of the church’s but of the world’s power and glory, and at that remarkable phase of its history, when no longer isolated and independent states, but huge and aspiring world-monarchies, began to strive for the mastery. Accordingly, it is the worldly power in this concentrated and all-embracing form, which has the prominent place assigned it in the visions of Daniel—the reflex of the prophet’s own peculiar position, and political environments; and in that characteristic feature of them we perceive the free operation of the natural element, as in the wonderful insight they display concerning the future movements of providence, we discern the divine element that wrought on the occasion. Nay, a farther and more specific distinction may here be noted, illustrative of the principle under consideration. For in the two classes of visions in the book of Daniel—in the visions of Nebuchadnezzar as compared with those of Daniel, we mark a characteristic difference, such as might well have been expected, if the native bent and the special relations of each were allowed to come into play. As presented to the view of Nebuchadnezzar, the worldly power was seen only in its external aspect—under the form of a colossal image, possessing the likeness of a man, and in its more conspicuous parts composed of the shining and precious metals; while the divine kingdom appeared in the meaner aspect of a stone, without ornament or beauty—with nothing, indeed, to distinguish it but its resistless energy and perpetual duration. Daniel’s visions, on the other hand, direct the eye into the interior of things, strip the earthly kingdoms of their false glory, by exhibiting them under the aspects of wild beasts and nameless monsters (such as are everywhere to be seen in the grotesque sculptures and painted entablatures of Babylon), and reserve the human form, in conformity with its divine original and true idea, to stand as the representative of the kingdom of God, which is composed of the saints of the Most High, and holds the truth that is destined to prevail over all error and ungodliness of men. In such natural and striking diversities as these, who can fail to see an indication of the different frames of mind in the subjects of the revelation—a difference stamping itself on their respective visions, though the visions themselves, in each case, came from a higher source? It is thus that the Spirit of God, in his most peculiar workings, shows how thoroughly he knows man’s frame, and how, in his supernatural gifts and operations, he takes the natural as the ground and basis of all that is imparted and done. So that, when raised by the Spirit into an ecstatical condition, the prophets did not lose either their personal consciousness, or any distinctive characteristic they possessed of thought and feeling; the faculties of their intellectual and moral being were allowed their proper scope and exercise, and the ideas and imagery they employed came in perfect accordance with the mind’s ordinary habits and associations. At the same time, it is not less clear, that the state itself, in which the prophets received their revelations, was essentially a supernatural one. It was in the most peculiar sense a spiritual state, in which the soul was carried by a divine impulse above the region of sense, and, with powers and sensibilities strung for the occasion, was brought into immediate contact with the things of the Spirit. This is evident even from the most common expressions used to denote the prophetical state; such as, “I was in the Spirit and heard,” “The hand of the Lord was upon me,” “The Spirit of the Lord came upon me,” etc. Ezekiel represents himself not only as thus borne aloft out of his ordinary state, but carried to Jerusalem, where he said and did certain things of a symbolical and typical nature—of course all in vision (Ezekiel 8:3, Ezekiel 12:7-10). St Paul, speaking of what he experienced in that state (2 Corinthians 12:1-21), describes himself as unable to tell whether he was in the body or out of the body—so completely was the spiritual part of his being transferred to that higher sphere, and so thoroughly was it for the time loosed from the ordinary conditions of flesh and blood. Its activities were all absorbed by what was presented to it in the invisible world, and even its experiences (as in 2 Corinthians 12:7) are clothed in an ideal form. In like manner, it is said of St Peter, when going to receive in vision a special revelation concerning the admission of the Gentiles into the church, that an ecstasy fell upon him (ἐμέπεσεν ἐπʼ αὐτὸν ἔκστασις, Acts 10:10) a—supernatural experience, which presented objects to his mind that lay beyond the reach of his ordinary discernment: which having passed away, he is described as again becoming in himself (γενόμενος ἐν ἑαυτῷ). And the same apostle, when speaking of the prophetic impulse generally (2 Peter 1:21), describes it as carrying those who were the subjects of it out of their natural condition, raising them into a rapt and excited state, in which the human in them was borne aloft, and, in a manner, lost in the divine: “Not by man’s will was prophecy at any time brought (or borne) in, but borne by the Holy Spirit, holy men of God spake.” (See Appendix G.) It was not what they themselves thought out, but what they saw and heard, and then uttered by divine impulse. Hence, also, the occasional excitation of manner, which appeared in the utterance of the prophecy, after the strictly prophetical state had passed away (2 Kings 9:11; 1 Samuel 19:24). Now, since the prophets, when under divine illumination, were thus raised to the higher sphere of the Spirit, having their agency for the time being transferred to that sphere, it is but natural to suppose, that whatever they relate as having been spoken or done, was spoken and done simply in the Spirit—a real transaction, indeed, but a transaction in vision. Whether the prophet on any particular occasion might, or might not, expressly state, that the things he saw, heard, or did, took place when he was in ecstasy or vision, the original appointment in respect to prophetical communications, that it was in vision they were to be imparted, left it to be inferred, that according to the rule such was actually the case, and that, if at any time, the ride was departed from, and the transactions occurred in the external world, very express and unequivocal intimation would require to be given. There can be no doubt, that the more intelligent portion of the Jewish interpreters perfectly understood this, and, by just inference, we may suppose also the better informed Israelites of earlier times. Maimonides gives a clear deliverance upon the subject in his More Nevochim. “Know, therefore,” says he, “that as it is in a dream, a man thinks that he has been in this or that country, that he has married a wife, and continued there for some certain time—that by this wife he has had a son of such a name, of such a disposition, and the like; precisely so was it with the prophetical parables, as to what the prophets see or do in a prophetical vision. For, whatever those parables inform us concerning any action the prophet does, or concerning the space of time between one action and another, or going from one place to another, all is in prophetical vision. Nor were those actions real to sense, although some particularities may be distinctly reckoned up in the writings of the prophets. Since it was well known, that all was done in a prophetical vision, it was not necessary, in the rehearsing of every particularity, to reiterate that it was in a prophetical vision, as it was also needless to inculcate that it was in a dream. But now (he adds) the vulgar sort of men think, that all such actions, journeys, questions, and answers, were really and sensibly performed, and not in a prophetical vision.” It were well, if we could say with Maimonides, that it is only the vulgar sort of men, in present times, who understand the narrations referred to in this realistic manner. The greater part of our popular writers on prophecy take them generally in this sense, and not a few also of our more eminent commentators. Horsley contends at great length, in the introduction to his Commentary on Hosea, for the necessity of interpreting the instruction given to the prophet in the first chapter, to marry an unchaste woman, and the successive births of children by her, of transactions in real life—a view that was held also by Augustine and many of the fathers in former days, by many Lutheran and reformed divines, and is still also held by Hofmann in Germany, and by Dr Pusey in this country. Even Dr Alexander of Princeton, who usually exhibits a correct discrimination and sound judgment in his Commentary on Isaiah, at Isaiah 20:2, where the prophet is commanded by the word of the Lord, to loose the sackcloth from off his loins, and pull off his shoes from his feet, and go naked and barefoot three years as a sign and wonder respecting Egypt and Ethiopia, regards the account as descriptive of what actually took place in public. Nor are there wanting some, who insist upon a like actual accomplishment of Ezekiel’s appointment (Ezekiel 4:1-17), to lie 390 days at a stretch upon one side, and forty days upon another, for a sign to Israel and Judah—all the while fixed down with bands to prevent him from turning from the one side to the other—his arm, too, constantly uncovered, as in the act of prophesying evil—and his food consisting of the meanest provisions, and baked with what both nature and the law held to be abominable. One might have thought, that the absolute physical impossibility involved in such cases, if transferred to the world of sense—the palpable indecency of food so repulsive, and nakedness so startling and long-continued (for there is nothing in either case in the descriptions given to qualify the full import of the language), might alone have been regarded as a clear indication, that the spirit of holiness and purity could never have intended the instructions to take effect in the sphere of ordinary life. In so far as the things reported to have been enjoined upon the prophet and done by him, were of an absurd and fanatical, or of an unbecoming and illegal character, it has been alleged, that if the action were such in real life, it could not be otherwise when transferred to an ideal region, and done in the Spirit—the impropriety would still follow the prophet in his visions, and could only have been justified there by the special appointment of God, which might equally have warranted it in real life. But the two cases arc entirely different. An internal action, it would be readily understood, was prescribed and accomplished simply for purposes of instruction—as a representative type merely of things that had happened, or were going to happen on the outward theatre of the world; in order that the characters and procedure it personated, whether good or bad, might be more distinctly realised, and forcibly impressed upon the heart and conscience. If done, however, on the territory of every-day life, it could not be considered in such a light. The things belonging to it then necessarily became more than types; they must have had a personal, before they could possess a didactic import; and by multitudes would undoubtedly have been looked at in their more immediate and obvious aspect, without a thought of anything further or higher. Pursuing a course in itself objectionable, the prophet (who should have stood pre-eminent for sanctity and worth, whose prime characteristic was to be conformity to the law of God) would inevitably have been subjected to suspicion, or covered with shame in the very act of fulfilling his mission. He must, to all human appearance, have descended to a level with the heated enthusiast, who in the fervour of his inflated zeal, or the rashness of his presumption, tramples upon law and order. But, to use the language of Calvin on the case of Hosea, “It seems not to be consistent with reason, that God should voluntarily have rendered his prophet contemptible; for how could he ever have appeared in public after such ignominy had been inflicted upon him? If he had married such a wife as is described, he ought rather to have hidden himself all his life-time than have assumed the prophetic office.” Besides, many of the actions were of a kind to have lost rather than gained in impressiveness by being outwardly transacted: some, as in the case of the siege conducted by Ezekiel with tiles (Ezekiel 4:1-17), being of so diminutive a nature, and others (like the same prophet’s lying hundreds of days upon his side, or the details of Hosea’s marriage-relation, or Jeremiah’s going to hide his girdle by the river Euphrates, and returning after many days to find it marred), being spread over so wide a space, occupying so long a time, or requiring to be performed (if performed at all) in so secret a manner, that no one could in any proper sense be cognisant of the performance. If presented all at once as an acted lesson—a rehearsal of what had taken place in that ideal world, where the prophet in his entranced condition lived and moved as in the presence of God, then the action being seen at once in its completeness might immediately produce its proper effect. But if seen only in fragments, as it must have been if outwardly performed, the action as a whole should have been in great measure unintelligible, and, in a moral respect, could have conveyed no certain and definite impressions. It was, after all, by the narrative of the story with its accompanying explanations, that the desired result in either case must have been reached. To all this the farther consideration may be added in respect to the argument derived from the moral impropriety of certain of the actions, that as those typical actions of the prophets in general stood in a close relation to parabolical representations, and were essentially, indeed, of the same description, so, in these also, we find an occasional use made of circumstances which the Lord never could have directly countenanced in any real transaction. Such, for example, is the parabolical representation in the twenty-third chapter of Ezekiel, where the story of Israel’s calling, guilt, and punishment is exhibited under the figure of two women, both of them received into marriage relationship to God, and acting unfaithfully to the marriage vow. Such also, in the parables of the New Testament, are those of the unjust steward (the type in a particular aspect of true wisdom), and of the unmerciful servant; in both of which, things in themselves morally improper, form, to some extent, the basis of representations pertaining to the kingdom of God. In these cases, the Lord showed that He could make an ideal use of earthly relations and affairs, to image the truths of His kingdom, such as on the territory of real life He could have commissioned no one to employ; and why should it be thought to have been otherwise in respect to the ideal world of prophetic revelation? There, simply because it was ideal, and intended to present a faithful image of the actual world, in its guilt and punishment, as well as its privileges and hopes, scenes required to be occasionally enacted with the Divine sanction, which could have had no place in the actual life of God’s true servants. Understood to be representative and teaching actions in the purely spiritual sphere, nothing they might contain of an unbecoming nature could produce the pernicious effect which must have attended it, had it obtruded itself on the senses; it was for the mind alone to contemplate, and it would naturally do so with a respect to the moral bearing of the representation. It is humiliating to reflect, how clearly the right principle of interpretation on this part of the subject was perceived, and deduced from its proper source—namely, revelation by vision—two centuries ago, by Mr Smith of Cambridge, and how often it has been missed or but partially apprehended since. He states, that “though it be not always positively laid down in the prophetical narrations, that the transactions were in a vision, yet the nature and scope of prophecy required, that things should be acted in imagination (the imagination being the prophetical scene or stage, on which all apparitions were made to the prophet), and we should rather expect some positive declaration to assure us, that they were performed in the history, if indeed it were so. The things which God would have revealed to the prophet, were acted over symbolically in his imagination, as in a masque, in which divers persons are brought in, among whom the prophet himself bears a part; sometimes by speaking and reciting things done, or propounding questions, sometimes by acting that part in the drama which was appointed him by others. It is, therefore, no wonder to hear of those things being done, which, indeed, have no historical or real verity; the scope of all being to represent something strongly to the prophet’s understanding, and sufficiently to inform it in the substance of those things, in which he was to instruct those to whom he was sent. And so, sometimes, we have only the intelligible matter of prophecies delivered to us nakedly, without the imaginary ceremonies or solemnities.” But have we not, it may be asked, undeniable evidence, that the symbolical actions ascribed to the prophets were sometimes, at least, performed on the outward theatre of life? Allowing this, however, to have been the case, it cannot materially affect the general result. The normal state of the prophets, when they were receiving Divine communications, was that of ecstasy, and while in ecstacy, their proper sphere was not the external, but the internal world; it was the region of spirit as contradistinguished from that of sense and time. And though there might be symbolical actions, performed by them also in real life, yet the circumstances are such as to warrant our expecting clear evidence of their having been so, and even then regarding them as exceptions to the general rule. There are recorded examples of this description—cases, in which the action has a place in the narrative of sacred history, and is surrounded by other historical transactions. In such cases, undoubtedly, it must be held to be of the same character with the rest, and, like them, accomplished on the visible theatre of earthly affairs: as in the notice (1 Kings 20:35-43), of the prophet, who disfigured his person, and requested others to smite him, as a sign of the Lord’s judgment on the Syrians; or in the account given by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 28:1-17), of the yoke upon his neck, seized and broken before the people by the false prophet Hananiah. The action with the yoke is there imbedded in details of history, and must necessarily be understood as itself of the same class. Indeed, it is only the circumstance, which incidentally comes out, of Jeremiah having a yoke upon his neck, which can properly be regarded as a symbolical action of the kind under consideration, and which seems to have been done by him as a realistic fulfilment of the word that came to him in the preceding chapter, “Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck.” In New Testament times also, we have the undoubted case of Agabus, binding himself with a girdle, as a symbolical pre-intimation of the approaching imprisonment of St Paul. Such recorded actions, however, differ from those previously referred to, and, indeed, from the mass of symbolical actions described in the prophetical writings, in that they appear, not in the account of a Divine message communicated by God to the prophet, but as parts of an historical narrative, where all must necessarily have been of a homogeneous nature. They differ also from the greater portion in being so obviously and transparently typical in their character, that their symbolical import could scarcely fail to be apprehended at the very first, and perceived to be the sole reason of their appointment. The general conclusion, then, we would draw from what we have stated, may be thrown into the following principle of interpretation: As, according to the rule, Divine communications were to be made to the prophets in ecstasy or vision, so whenever we have to do merely with the record of these communications, the actions related, as well as the things seen and heard, should be understood to have occurred in the spiritual sphere of prophetic revelation; and outward reality is to be predicated of any of them, only when the account given is such as to place the symbolical act in undoubted connection with the facts of history. Or, it may be put thus: The actions are to be held as having taken place in the spiritual sphere alone, if they occur simply in the account of God’s communications to the prophet; but in actual life, if they are found in the narration of the prophet’s dealings with the people. In the one case, the mere publication of the account constituted the message from God, while, in the other, an embodied representation was given of it in the outward act. Such a rule may leave us in some doubt as to certain cases in the history of prophetical agency, but they will be found to be extremely few. It may not, perhaps, conclusively determine whether all the transactions recorded in Isaiah, Isaiah 7:1-25 and Isaiah 8:1-22, respecting the prophet’s two sons by the prophetess, and the messages given him to Ahab and his people, belong to the spiritual alone, or also to the actual sphere, though the natural impression from the narrative is that they belong to the former;—since the whole account seems to refer merely to the Lord’s communication to the prophet, and the going to the prophetess, to have sons by her, which forms part of the transactions, would infer, if understood otherwise than as an ideal matter, an impurity not to be named or thought of in such a connection. In like manner, the account in Jeremiah 18:1-23 and Jeremiah 19:1-15, of that prophet’s being instructed to go to the potter’s house, in the valley of the Son of Hinnom, and there see and speak several things, may not, with perfect certainty, be assigned to either the ideal or the actual sphere by the application of our principle; yet, as in the case previously noticed, the presumption manifestly is on the ideal side, since the whole narrative carries the aspect simply of what passed in the region of the prophet’s communings with God, and appears to relate to the message he got to deliver, not to the account of its delivery. For almost every other case the rule laid down will be found sufficient. In particular, it will certainly lead us to regard the many symbolical actions in Zechariah and Ezekiel as having taken place in vision—not excepting that in Ezekiel 24:1-27, respecting the death of the prophet’s wife, and the charge to refrain from mourning on account of her. For the entire chapter is in the form of a direct communication to the prophet, conveying instruction he was to impart to the people; and so at Ezekiel 24:25, immediately after the account of the action, and without a break, the Lord is represented as continuing his address to the prophet, and saying, “And thou, Son of Man, shall it not be in the day that I take from them their strength,” etc. (This case, and others in Ezekiel, may be seen examined at some length in my Commentary on that Prophet.—See also Appendix H.) It is only necessary to add, farther, that the mode of revelation by vision, which was common to all the prophets in the strictest sense, appears, like other supernatural gifts, to have existed in different degrees of power and completeness; in the more expostulatory and didactic parts of the prophetical writings (such as Ezekiel 18, the larger portions of Hosea, Haggai, Malachi), it may have been imperfectly either needed or conferred; but it rose to its highest form in the case of those who may be called, by way of eminence, apocalyptists. These were, more especially Daniel in the Old Testament, and the Apostle John in the New. Not that there was anything absolutely peculiar to these two prophets, for every real prophet is, so far, an apocalyptist, that it is given him in some measure to take off the veil (ἀποκαλυτεῖν) from things spiritual and divine. But the persons in question were called to do this in a somewhat peculiar and superabundant measure. Both of them were placed, by the events of God’s providence, in a remote and isolated position, so as to be precluded from speaking directly to the church then present, and they had, by way of compensation, the honour assigned them of speaking more specially and peculiarly than others to the church of the future. In respect to this future they stood upon a loftier altitude, and had visions of things to come more explicit, also more continuous and detailed, than were afforded to any of the other prophets. The perspective of the church’s history was, in a manner, mapped out before them; in particular, as regards the long-continued and bloody struggle between Christian truth and antichristian error, and its final termination on the side of righteousness. In Daniel this great struggle first assumes its more definite and concrete shape, as a mortal conflict between two kingdoms, with their appropriate heads and vital agencies; and the theme is resumed by the apostle, in connection, at once with a larger battle-field, and with mightier forces, and conducted to its final close. Hence, also, from the more distinctly marked apocalyptic character of the two books, it is first in Daniel that several distinct phases of the kingdom of God are brought out—that mention is made of a typical as well as of an antitypical antichrist—and of an earlier appearance of Messiah, in humiliation, to suffer and die, quite apart from another, in power, dominion, and glory; while it is by St John that the interval is properly filled up, which separates between the first and second advents of Christ. These men, therefore, were emphatically the church’s apocalyptists, and had most of those visions which unveiled her future fortunes and destiny. Section III. First Peculiarity of the Style and Diction of Prophecy—Poetical Elevation THAT a poetical element enters largely into the composition of the prophetical writings requires no proof. The fact is on all hands admitted; and the only points respecting it that can be termed disputable, or that call for explanation, are the grounds of its existence, and the effect it should exercise on the interpretation of the writings themselves. It was the fashion at no remote period, with Biblical scholars, to regard these writings of the prophets as if they simply belonged to the poetical remains of the Hebrews. Some of the ancient nations, among others the Hebrews, had but one name for poet and prophet (vates); and it was thought that, with the Hebrews also, every prophet must be a poet, and every poet to some extent a prophet. It hence naturally arose, that the measure in which the prophetical gift was possessed, was supposed to be in proportion to the degree in which the poetical property was displayed, and the prophetical books were assigned to a golden or a silver age, according to their rank as poetical compositions. The more exact and discriminating spirit of recent times has led in this, as in other things, to a juster perception of the essential characteristics respectively belonging to the prophetical and the poetical departments—to a discernment of the differences, as well as the agreements subsisting between them, even on the part of those who are still disposed to look at the sacred writings too much in the light of human productions. Thus Ewald, in the present day, devotes two entirely separate publications to what, in the last century, was comprised in one, both by Lowth in this country, and by Herder in Germany. Instead of a single work on Hebrew poetry, including the writings of the prophets as a part of the whole, he treats in one work of the poetical, and in another of the prophetical portions of the Old Testament. In his introduction to the prophetical books, Ewald also correctly distinguishes between the manner proper to the prophet, and that of the poet. “The distinctive characteristic,” he says, “of the prophetical representation lies peculiarly in this, that it is not confined to any precise mode; but as its aim rises above all kinds of human discourse, so it avails itself of all, according as they are best adapted to that aim. The poet has his definite manner, and cannot so readily change and vary it, for his immediate aim is not to work upon others; he must satisfy himself, and the requirements of his own art. But the prophet will and must work upon others—nay, work upon them in the most direct and impressive manner; and so for him every method and form of representation is right which carries him straitest to his end.” (Propheten i., p. 31.) This strong practical tendency in the prophets operated in various ways to check and regulate the poetical element in their writings, as it did, indeed, in the inspired productions generally. Their primary aim throughout, as we have had occasion once and again to notice, is of a moral kind; to influence the heart and conscience is their main object. Even in the more strictly poetical portions, therefore, the imaginative faculty could never be allowed uncontrolled play, as it may be in the higher productions of human genius; nor, like these, could it clothe itself in external forms of a very artificial and complicated nature. All had to be kept subservient to the higher ends of spiritual instruction, and only such peculiarities in rhythm and structure could be employed as were compatible with the simple measures of Hebrew parallelism. The very structure of Scripture as a book, the comparative freedom and simplicity even of its artificial forms, bears evidence to the deep-toned ethical spirit that pervades it. But this is said merely of the restraint under which the poetical element was necessarily held in Scripture, not of its entire suppression. The regulated use of that element, so far from being inconsistent with, was fitted materially to promote, the spiritual ends of the word of God. Poetry of a certain kind is proverbially a powerful instrument for swaying the hearts and moulding the manners of a people. And, accordingly, when a form of instruction was to be prepared by Moses, which might go down to succeeding generations, and work with special and sanctifying energy upon the minds of all, a sublime and stirring lyrical song was the result, instinct throughout with the fire and elevation of poetry (Deuteronomy 32:1-52). But in its ordinary functions—in that function more especially in which it had to do with the varying aspect of the times, and the pre-intimation in connection with them, of things to come—prophecy was too directly and energetically practical in its aim, to admit so much of a poetical nature, as might be proper in a sacred ode or song. And a comparison of such portions of Scripture with those which are more strictly prophetical, of the last chapter of Habakkuk, for example, with the two preceding chapters in the same book—will show at once, in how subdued a form the poetical spirit usually works in the prophetical portions, as compared with the others, and how much they partake of the direct and simple style proper to oratory. Not only so, but as a large proportion of the communications of prophecy came in the guise of symbolical actions, the mere description of these actions would manifestly be, for such parts, the appropriate form; as in such cases, the poetical element consisted in the things described, rather than in the mode of depicting them. And, generally, the more nearly prophecy approached in its character to history, it always of necessity partook less of the higher characteristics of poetry. Such, however, it must be understood, were differences in degree, not in kind. Prophecy, in the more distinctive sense, never altogether lost a poetical impress, whether in the form of its representations, or in the language in which it clothed them. And in the larger and more important part of its communications, it stands more nearly allied to the poetical than to any other species of composition which we can name. Nor did this arise fortuitously, or depend merely upon the choice, the individual temperament, or the natural endowments of the persons employed in inditing it; for in the prophetical writings the simplest narratives and the most practical addresses are sometimes found in close juxtaposition with highly coloured and ornate descriptions. Now the language bespeaks the profoundest repose, and again the most powerful emotions; in one part, a spirit of calm reflection seems to breathe in it; in another, it indicates a state of lofty excitation. And herein, especially, is to be sought the ground of the poetical element in prophecy. It was in vision that the prophet received the revelations given to him, and in uttering them, he naturally spoke as in an ecstatic or elevated frame of mind—the same in kind with that of the poet’s, however superior in the spiritual insight connected with it. So that what has been finely said of the one, may be understood also of the other. It is “of imagination all compact;” “And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation, and a name.” For here again the great law of the Spirit’s working comes into operation—the supernatural bases itself on the natural. In the gifts of grace generally, and still more in those possessed and exercised by prophetical men, while the Spirit carries the soul above nature, He does not set it on modes of thought and speech, which are at variance with its own constitutional tendencies. Under the Divine afflatus, the mind acts with as much freedom and spontaneity as when left to the unassisted operation of its own powers. And, as might be expected, when the minds of prophetical men were raised, through the Spirit, to that state of ecstatical elevation, in which they saw the vision, and heard the words of the Almighty, they naturally disclosed the revelations they obtained, in a correspondingly elevated tone. Thoughts conceived, messages taking shape in such a frame, could not possibly keep the level of ordinary discourse, or even in language follow the beaten track. They must rise above the common and familiar, because the subjective condition of the speaker was above it. Bishop Lowth, in his work on Hebrew poetry, failed to connect properly the character of the prophetical diction with the nature of the prophetical state; but he describes, with his usual taste and discrimination, the influence of the poetical excitation on the language of those who experienced it. “The first,” he says in his Third Prelection, “and chief source of the poetical diction is the powerful excitation of the mind. For what else is that phrenzy peculiar to poets which the Greeks, ascribing it to a Divine afflatus, called ἐνθουσιασμός, than a manner of discourse, prompted by the very condition of nature, and exhibiting the true and exact image of a mind moved by some powerful impulse!—since it lays open, as it were, the innermost depths and recesses of the mind, and shows its profoundest feelings in their most troubled, agitated, and disjointed state. Hence, sudden exclamations, frequent interrogatives, addresses even to inanimate objects; for, to those who are much moved themselves, everything around appears to participate in the same commotion.” And in regard to the style, “It is the tendency of all poetry, and especially of the Hebrew, anxiously to avoid familiar language, and as well in the choice of words, as in the structure of sentences, to cultivate a certain peculiar and polished form of speech.” This description applies, of course, only in part to the writings of the prophets; for, as has been already stated, from the nature and objects of their calling, the prophets were not limited either to one form of representation, or to one species of diction. In those parts, for example, which consisted in the rehearsal of symbolical actions performed in vision before the Lord, the prophet’s excitation, as well as the divine communication, appeared in the actions themselves; and the narrative style, with some slight deviations, was the one naturally adopted. In other parts, the symptoms of poetical elevation might be expected to vary, as it suited the occasion and object of the revelation to restrain or foster the ecstatical impulse. But, looking to the prophetical discourse generally, and making no account of extremes either way, it has, beyond doubt, a form and impress of its own. “On the one hand,” to use again the words of Ewald, (Propheten i., p. 46.) “it was too elevated in its matter and tone for sinking down to simple prose; and, on the other hand, too much destined for working immediately upon the life, to depart so far and wide from ordinary discourse, as to assume a complete poetical form. Therefore it moves between the two, and in such a manner that internally it always appears aspiring and reaching after poetic elevation, while externally it acts with more freedom and familiarity, in order to operate directly upon the life, and, at the same time, not altogether lose the quality of oratorical fulness and flexibility. From the intermingling of these two forces has arisen its quite peculiar form. This form is of a determinate and settled nature, and, in particular, is fully established in the form of the words, the structure of the sentences, and the development of the whole after its parts; rising, however, as might be expected, from its intermediate character, in some prophets more, in others less, to a proper poetical elevation.” Ewald goes into some details, in proof of these linguistic peculiarities, and points out certain characteristic differences and agreements, first in the selection of words, and then in the use of parallelisms and strophe-arrangements, between the prophetical diction and that of poetry strictly so called. Comparatively little, however, can be made within a brief compass, of such an investigation; as the usages of which it makes account, when viewed singly, can scarcely be said to indicate results quite uniform and conclusive. In the general it may, doubtless, be asserted, without any chance of contradiction from those who are intimately acquainted with the books of the Old Testament, that whatever distinguishes Hebrew poetry from Hebrew prose, is found, though after a somewhat modified manner, in the prophetical writings. In these also, rare expressions and peculiar forms of words are often put in the room of those which were in common use, the concrete are preferred to the abstract, the tone is grave, elevated, sonorous, and the sentences are, for the most part, regular and harmonious, but occasionally also concise and abrupt. Apart, however, from such peculiarities in the use of words and the structure of periods, the poetical elevation appears in the strongly idealistic or imaginative form, which the delineations and addresses of the prophets very commonly assume. Instead of speaking in the severe and exact style of history, they delight rather to throw around the actual world the life and lustre of a higher sphere; so that symbols to their view often take the place of realities; inanimate objects appear with the properties of sentient beings; the past seems to live again in the future; and, overleaping the gulph of ages, the dead of former generations are seen still prolonging their existence, and consciously intermingling in the affairs of men. Examples of such forms of poetical licence will readily suggest themselves to those who are in any measure conversant with the prophetical writings. It is scarcely possible, indeed, to look into any portion of these, without lighting on some of them. As when—to point only to a few specimens—Zechariah symbolizes the power of the world, in its opposition to the kingdom of God, as a great mountain, and then addresses it as a real and sensible object, capable of thought and feeling, “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain” (Zechariah 4:7); or when Joel identifies the invading host of the Chaldeans with the ravages of a horde of locusts, describing the operations of the one under those of the other (Joel 1:1-20, Joel 2:1-32); or when Hosea (Hosea 2:1-23), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 4:1-17, Ezekiel 20:1-49), represent the memorable period of chastisement appointed in former times to the covenant-people in the wilderness, as coming back again in their future history; or when, as in numberless passages, the patriarchal heads of the Israelitish nation, or Zion and Jerusalem, their religious and political centre, are addressed as living personalities, present to the mind and eye of the prophet. We refrain here from entering into any particular examination of such cases, the rather as those of them, which involve any peculiar difficulty in the interpretation, either have been already, or will yet be, considered in another connection. We shall, however, briefly advert to two passages, which are both, in respect to form, examples of the same kind of idealism, and have also both suffered from the same mistaken disposition to get rid of the poetical element in prophecy, and substitute for it the historical. One of these is Jeremiah 31:15, “Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted, because they were not.” It is the passage itself, not the application made of it to an event in gospel history, of which we have now to speak; (See the passage, considered in that respect, in “Typology of Scripture,” vol. i. p. 406.) and, in particular, the singular personification embodied in it of Rachel. This is to be explained from the poetical elevation of the prophet, in connection with the circumstances of the time. It was at Ramah, as we learn from Jeremiah 40:1, that the Chaldean conqueror assembled the last band of Jewish captives, preparatory to their being sent away after the others, to the land of the enemy. And as their going thither had, to the eye of sense, all the appearance of a perpetual exile—as with them, indeed, the last hope of Israel’s existence as a nation seemed to expire, the ancestral mother of the tribe, within whose bounds the captives were assembled, is by a strikingly bold, yet touching, impersonation, conceived of as present at the scene, and as raising a loud wail of distress, cherishing even an inconsolable grief, because getting there, as she naturally imagined, the last look of her hapless offspring. This peculiar form is employed merely as a cover, under which to give a more impressive exhibition of the apparently hopeless prostration to which matters had been reduced, and the prospect which, in spite of it, the power and faithfulness of God did not hesitate to unfold of better days to come. But no one, surely, needs to be told, that it is a form very different from what is wont to be found, or could with any propriety be used, in history—a form, indeed, conceived in the very highest style of poetry. In this respect the other passage also is essentially alike, and differs only in softening a little the bolder features of the image. It is the last prediction of the Old Testament, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Here again the past and the future are contemplated as at once present to the eye of the prophet; generations far asunder in point of time appear together upon the same scene—on the one side, the godly fathers of the Jewish people, on the other their degenerate offspring in the days of the prophet and subsequent times; the two alienated from each other, on account of the entirely different feeling respectively entertained by them toward the covenant of God; and, to effect a proper reconciliation between them, and have all, if possible, prepared for the coming of the Lord, the sending anew of him who was preeminently the prophet of reformation, the man, whose whole striving in a like degenerate age was directed to the object of having the hearts of the people turned back again to the God of their fathers, in whom, as the only proper centre of union, the hearts of fathers and children could meet and embrace each other. Thus understood, the meaning of the passage is plain; and the mode of representation is so natural, so accordant with the genius of prophecy, in spirit also so entirely at one with the tendency of the writings of Malachi, which perpetually aim at the restoration of a backsliding people to the bond of the covenant and the piety of better times, that it at once commends itself to our approval. But it is altogether of a piece. The poetical element, which moulds it into such a peculiar form, belongs to one part as well as to another; it is throughout an ideal representation. And we should no more imagine, that for its fulfilment the literal Elijah was at some future time to resume his place among men as a preacher of repentance, than that the pious forefathers of Israel were personally to arise from the dead and receive with a hearty embrace their converted children, or (to recur to the prophecy of Jeremiah) that Rachel was actually heard at the Babylonish exile in the neighbourhood of Ramah, bewailing her loss of children. In truth, neither Elijah nor the fathers seemed to need resuscitation for such a purpose; they are viewed as still living and present—the one ready to be sent on a fresh mission of reform, and the other to welcome those on whom it should take practical effect. These remarks and illustrations may suffice in regard to the ground of the poetical element in prophecy, and the indications in form and language, which are there given of it. They apply chiefly to the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, as these constitute by far the largest portion of the revelations, which were received in the ecstatical state, the real source of the poetical element in prophecy. There is only one Book of the New Testament which had its origin in such a state—the revelation of St John. And there can be no question that it is beyond comparison the most poetical Book of the New Testament. Though belonging to an age in many respects unlike that of the ancient prophets, and consisting chiefly of narrations of what was seen and heard in the spiritual sphere, yet both in its general diction, and in the attributes of its particular style, it bears the evident marks of the poetical impress. Indeed, it is on this ground we are to explain, and can explain with perfect satisfaction, the characteristic differences between the apocalypse and the other writings of John himself,—differences, which have been of late diligently searched out and magnified, for the purpose of connecting the apocalypse with another and inferior authorship than that of the apostle. Its more Hebraistic style; its scenic representations and fragmentary-like form; its disuse of expressions common in the other writings of the apostle, and frequent resort to other expressions seldom or never found there; its many solecisms, full-toned periods, perpetual recurrence to objects in the natural world (seas, hills, trees, sun, moon, stars, and such like), as forms, under which to present others somewhat resembling them in the political and moral world—are all to be traced to that one source; and when properly viewed, they are a proof of the divine origin and genuine apostolicity of the Book. (See “Hengstenberg on the Revelation,” vol. ii., p. 436, sq. Trans.) The age of the apocalypse, we have said, was a very different one from that of the Old Testament prophets. It differed primarily in the comparative completeness of its revelations, which, by unfolding the redemption itself that had been so long waited for, has rendered the dispensation of the gospel pre-eminent in light and truth. And this principally it was that gave rise to another difference, which appears on the very face of the New, as compared with the Old Testament revelations, that they have greatly less of the predictive in matter, and still less of the poetical in form. An incidental allusion is made to this difference in the Second Epistle of Peter, 2 Peter 2:1, where the apostle draws attention to a resemblance that was to exist between Old and New Testament times, but so as, at the same time, to indicate a difference: “There were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you”—implying that teachers now were to occupy relatively the same place that prophets did under the preceding dispensation. The fundamental reason of this comparative diminution of the prophetic element in New Testament scripture, and by consequence also of the poetical, lies in this—that the ecstatic, which properly belongs to a supernatural and temporary state of things, has lost its more immediate and necessary ground, by the bringing in of the greater things of the gospel. All has now reached a higher elevation. What before was supernatural, has become, in a manner, natural; and things once but dimly descried on the lofty watch-tower of prophetic vision, are seen as in the clear light of day by the ordinary disciples of Jesus. Placed on such a high vantage-ground, the Church of Christ no longer depends for her stability and encouragement, as the church of old did, on such partial and fitful glimpses into the future, as holy seers might at times be permitted to enjoy. And far more elevating and powerful in their influence on the soul than the glowing effusions of Hebrew poesy, are the sublime and simple records of the gospel. In the wonderful facts there presented, with the many soul-inspiring truths and ennobling prospects, inseparably connected with them, are treasured materials in ample abundance, such as a sanctified imagination might work into the finest creations of poetry. But this it was rather for the church herself to do in the course of ages by the hand of her more gifted sons, than to have it done once for all, and stereotyped for ever by the pen of prophets and apostles on the page of inspiration; the more so as the things themselves were not for a single land or people, but the common heritage of mankind. Better that these materials of sacred song should for the most part be left by inspired men in their native simplicity, to be used, according to the free, transfusive, and world-embracing spirit of the gospel, by the people of every age and clime, and, like the flower-seeds of nature, expanded into manifold and ever-varying forms of beauty. Such, indeed, has been the result. The gospel age has been a new era for poetry as well as history. The really sovereign songs of modern times are those which have drawn their inspiration from the New Testament; although we may still indulge the hope, to which expression has been given by one who had a right to speak on such a theme (the late Professor Wilson), that “the time will come, when Christian Poetry will be deeper and higher far than any that has ever yet been known among men, and that as the Dayspring from on high which has visited us, spreads wider and wider over the earth, the soul of the world, dreaming of things to come, shall assuredly see more glorified visions than have yet been submitted to her ken.” Thus all is found to be in its proper place; and here, too, as was meet, the New Testament scriptures bear on them the stamp of relative perfection. In them living realities take the place of prophetic visions; and vivid exhibitions of heavenly things at once supplant and transcend the former poetical elevation. As Christ was in himself unspeakably greater than Moses, so by him came such full revelations of grace and truth, that he needed not, like the ancient lawgiver, to compensate for any imperfection in his direct teaching, by the stirring notes of a prophetico-poetical song; and not in ecstatic visions, which veiled as much as disclosed the truth, but in greatest plainness of speech, his apostles laid open to the church the mysteries of the kingdom. One book alone was given in vision, and written in the obscurer characters of prophetic symbol—fulfilling by its very existence the double purpose of being a witness to the church of her still imperfect and militant condition, and a pledge of the brighter and better future that is preparing to complete her destiny. Section IV. Second Peculiarity of the Prophetic Style and Diction—Figurative Representation A CERTAIN freedom and fertility in the employment of figurative representations is an undoubted characteristic of the prophetical writings. But the ground of this peculiarity, instead of being traced to its source in the mode of prophetic revelation, is too often ascribed to merely partial and secondary influences. With many it has seemed enough to say that the persons through whom the word of prophecy came were Asiatics, and so naturally adopted the rich and gorgeous style which is agreeable to an eastern imagination—forgetting that the same book, which in some parts is so remarkably distinguished by its use of figure, is in others not less distinguished by its severe simplicity and directness. The explanation of Warburton, and his follower, Hurd, cannot be pronounced much more successful. These writers carry us back to the original imperfection of human language. They tell us of its comparatively small stock of words, which obliged men to resort, by way of compensation, to external signs and representative actions; descant upon its prevailing tendency, from the want of cultivation and refinement, to make use of material images, which again was greatly strengthened and long perpetuated by the practice first of picture-writing, then of symbolic characters formed into a regular system of representative signs, and known by the name of hieroglyphics. This highly ornamental, or hieroglyphic style of thought and expression, we are told, sprung up in Egypt, and from that as its centre gradually diffused itself throughout the East; so that it became with the Israelites, as well as the oriental nations generally, the common and approved garb in which they clothed their ideas, at least in their more formal and laboured compositions. “What, then, could be more natural,” asks Hurd, “than that a mode of expression which was so well known, so commonly practised, and so much revered—which was employed in the theology of the eastern world, in its poetry, its philosophy, and all the sublimer forms of composition—should be that in which the sacred writers conveyed their highest and most important revelations to mankind? If we consider how ancient, how general, how widely diffused this symbolic style has been, and still is, in the world—how necessary it is to rude nations, and how taking to the most refined—how large a proportion of the globe this practice had overrun before, and at the time of writing the prophecies—and what vast regions of the east and south, not yet professing the faith, but hereafter, as we presume, to be enlightened by it, the same practice at this day overspreads—when we consider all this, we shall cease, perhaps, to admire that the style in question was adopted rather than any other.” (“Hurd on the Prophecies,” ser. ix.; also Warburton’s “Legation of Moses,” B. iv., sec. 4. The same track is still occasionally followed; among others, by Dr Turner of America, in his recently published “Discourses on Prophecy,” pp. 103-5.) There had been no need for this apologetic strain, or the reference, on which it is based, to the original imperfection of language, if due regard had been paid to the distinctive nature of the mode of revelation by which prophecy usually came. Nor does it fairly meet the point at issue. It draws no line of demarcation between the different kinds of composition in Scripture; and if well-founded, as applied to the prophetical, should have been scarcely less so in regard to the historical and didactic portions of the Bible. Seeking to account for the peculiarity under consideration in the common characteristics of human thought and speech, it obviously establishes nothing for one species of writing any more than for another, and consequently leaves the specific point of the prevailing use of figure in prophecy without any adequate explanation. The whole that can justly be attributed to the circumstances above noticed is, that a certain subsidiary influence may have been exerted by them, and that in such kinds of composition as properly admitted of the use of figure, the associations and habits of the time may have afforded greater licence for its employment than could otherwise have been taken. The fundamental reason, however, of the figurative style, which is so prominent a characteristic of prophecy, must be sought in the mode of revelation by vision. In the higher species of prophecy, which was connected with no ecstatic elevation on the part of the writer, but with his ordinary frame of mind—that, namely, of which the most eminent examples are to be found in Moses and Christ—the language employed does not in general differ from the style of ordinary discourse. But prophecy, in the more special and peculiar sense, having been not only framed on purpose to veil while it announced the future, but also communicated in vision to the prophets, must have largely consisted of figurative representations; for, as in vision, it is the imaginative faculty that is more immediately called into play, images were necessary to make on it the fitting impressions, and these impressions could only be conveyed to others by means of figurative representations. Hence the two—prophetical visions and figurative representations—are coupled together by the prophet Hosea, as the proper co-relatives of each other: “I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions and used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets” (Hosea 12:10). Thus the predominant form of prophetic revelations was conditioned by the mode in which they were wont to be communicated. That they were received by the prophet in vision bespoke the sensuous character of the representations made to him, and the prevailing use in them of images and figures. Yet this did not take place always in the same manner, or to the same extent. In accordance with the diversified circumstances in which prophecy was given, and its skilful adaptation to the present or prospective condition of the church, the figurative element might be greater at one period and less at another; and hence, indeed, the tendency, formerly noticed, in certain prophecies to approximate to the style of history. But there could never be more than an approximation in this direction, so long as prophecy came by vision. Otherwise, vision and reality should have lost their distinctive places, and violence must have been done to the mind of the prophet when being made the subject and channel of divine communications. If the process was conducted intelligently and rationally, there must always have been something of imagery presented to the imagination. And even in the kind of imagery selected, it is but reasonable to infer that the same respect would be had to the ordinary laws of human thought, and that the images would be found, in objects of the past or present, familiar to the individual—since thus alone could they either have presented themselves in a natural manner to the prophet’s imagination, or have been adapted to the apprehension of those for whom, more immediately, the revelations were imparted. It is only by things known, however relatively imperfect, that the mind can picture to itself such as are unknown; and in foreshadowing things that are yet to be, it must avail itself of those which have already been. In any other way, to have conveyed to the prophets an insight into the coming issues of Providence, would have required, not a supernatural working merely upon the human faculties, but the super-addition to them of a new sense, or the coercion of an irrational force. (The mental law here spoken of, having respect to the operations of mind generally, holds equally in the philosophical as in the religious province. Hence it is laid down as a fundamental principle in the Novum Organum of Bacon, Axiom 34, B. i.: “Nor is it an easy matter to deliver and explain our sentiments, for those things which are in themselves new can yet be only understood from some analogy to what is old.” In other words, when attempting to conceive things not yet perceived or known, the mind necessarily shapes its conceptions by the forms of which it is cognizant in the present or the past. As a principle to be taken into account in the interpretation of prophecy, it was most distinctly enunciated by one who failed egregiously in the proper application of it:—“The prophets were taught the future by means of emblems, as a blind man is taught arithmetic by means of counters. They never speak in the spiritual mood, because they never saw in that mood. Everything which the Spirit manifests to them was by these emblems, and is expressed in these the great historical events and epochs of their nation.”—Irving’s Preface to Ben Ezra, page 193.) 1. Now, this natural, and, as it may fitly be called, necessary tendency in prophetical men to resort to known and familiar things for figurative representations of what was to come, took a twofold direction; it led them to draw chiefly from two sources. The first comprehends the various objects belonging to the world of nature. Of these objects themselves it is not necessary to treat at much length; for, that they were frequently used as images of things bearing some resemblance to them in the history of God’s kingdom among men, has never been disputed; nor is the use generally such as to give rise to much diversity of opinion respecting it. In the great majority of cases where any difference exists, it turns less upon the import of the images themselves, than upon the specific application to be made of the sense expressed by them, in the passages where they occur. No competent interpreter will doubt, that on the ground of a certain analogy between the symbols and the things symbolized—the metals in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, and the wild beasts in Daniel’s (Daniel 2:1-49, Daniel 7:1-28, Daniel 8:1-27), denoted certain ruling powers and kingdoms. As little will he doubt that, both in the prophecies of Old Testament Scripture, and in the book of Revelation, mountains are a common designation for worldly kingdoms, stars for ruling powers, roaring and troubled seas for tumultuous nations, trees for the higher, as grass for the lower, grades of society, running streams for the means of life and refreshment, the bow in the cloud for the return of mercy and loving-kindness after floods of judgment—and many more of a like kind. The spiritual import of such symbols is generally rendered plain enough by the connection in which they stand, and a comparison of one passage with another. Nor are there wanting works which give, in a compendious and accessible form, a particular explanation of the symbols in the prophetic imagery derived from natural objects, and which may be referred to by those who wish to study the subject in detail. (Two of the latest in this country are Wemyss’ “Clavis Symbolica,” and “Mills’ Sacred Symbology,” both useful works, and, for the most part, agreeing in their explanation of the symbols, but occasionally differing from each other, and (as we believe) from the correct view itself, in the application and use made of particular images.) We refrain, therefore, from entering into minute investigations regarding it; but there are two points to which we must particularly advert, as they form the fundamental conditions on which the use of natural symbols in prophecy is founded, and must, therefore, be kept steadily in view by all who would succeed in the interpretation of the prophetical Scriptures. (1.) The first of these conditions is, that the image must be contemplated in its broader and commoner aspects, as it would naturally present itself to the view of persons generally acquainted with the works and ways of God, not as connected with any smaller incidents or recondite uses, known only to the few. The reason of this is obvious. For if symbolical language is to convey any definite or certain meaning, it must proceed on a consideration of the objects employed as symbols, such as is commonly known and understood; and to depart from this common ground, and make account of things entirely incidental and peculiar, could only give occasion to subtleties and refinements, which must render certainty unattainable. Even analogies, which might readily enough have presented themselves to people in certain times or circumstances, but belonging rather to the profane than to the sacred territory, must here be left out of view; for they necessarily want those characteristics which fit them for serving as the elements of a Biblical symbolical language, such as might be distinctly apprehended, and generally acquiesced in. Let us take as an example the warlike attire of the first rider in the Apocalypse (Revelation 6:2), who is described as appearing with a bow, and going forth conquering and to conquer. From the frequent use of the bow in ancient war, its early consecration in poetry and the arts, as a common accompaniment or emblem of martial skill and prowess, and, more particularly from its use in Psalms 45, in connection with that glorious King, who, in the cause of truth and righteousness, was to ride forth prosperously, sending his arrows into the hearts of his enemies, and bringing the people under Him:—from such considerations, which are obvious and patent to all, one can easily understand how appropriately the bow might be selected, in a book of symbols, as the distinctive badge of a hero, or of the cause identified with the Hero, whose singular destiny it was to go forth conquering and to conquer,—whose career of conquest was only to cease, when all power and authority had been made subject to Him. But the matter assumes another aspect—it is withdrawn from the broad field of nature and of history, to the obscure and narrow corner of antiquarian research, when, as with some recent writers, the key to its precise import and application is sought in the remote ancestry of a single individual. By this class of interpreters, the symbol is identified in the first instance with the reign of Nerva, but extended also to that of his four immediate successors, on the special ground that Nerva himself, who stands at the head of the group, though his family had been long domesticated in Italy, yet was by descent connected with Crete, his great-great-great-grandfather having been born there; and, in Crete, the bow was used as a sort of national emblem! As if the readiest thought about a public man, and the mark by which he might be most aptly characterised, yea, and with him a line of successors, who, in this precise point, differed from their head, was the relation in which he happened to stand, through the ascending links of several generations, to a comparatively unimportant island! With a licence to ransack antiquity for such incidents to determine the meaning and application of prophetic symbols, who should be able to foretell what may one day be extracted from them! Or who could assure himself, that he had really ascertained their import! But, indeed, such modes of explanation may be left to themselves; and when the principles of prophetical interpretation are better understood, they will be seen to carry their own refutation along with them. (2.) The other condition with which the use and interpretation of prophetic symbols must be associated, is that of a consistent and uniform manner of applying them; not shifting from the symbolical to the literal, without any apparent indication of a change in the original, or from one aspect of the symbolical to another essentially different, but adhering to a regular and harmonious treatment of the objects introduced into the representation. This also is necessary; for, without such a consistence and regularity in the employment of symbols, there could be no certainty in the interpretations put upon them; all would become arbitrary and doubtful. Thus, if in the second chapter of Isaiah, the mountain of the Lord’s house is to be understood in a moral sense, understood symbolically, of the seat of the divine kingdom, (See Part I., chap. iii.) then the other mountains mentioned in connection with it, over which it was to be exalted, must also be understood of kingdoms, the rival powers and monarchies of the world. So, in the sixty-third chapter of the same prophet, if the Edom there mentioned, on whom the Lord’s vengeance is exercised, is the “country spiritually called Edom,” really some modern hostile power, the people in whose behalf the work is done must also be those spiritually called Israel—the true church. Or, take an image that occurs with great frequency in the prophetic Scriptures—that, namely, of falling, used in reference to a person or a kingdom, and denoting, when so used, the destruction of a power, or the overthrow of a dominion; as, when the proclamation is heard, “Babylon is fallen.” There can be no doubt, that such is the import of the expression in ancient prophecy, and also in the eighteenth chapter of Revelation, where the subject of discourse is the complete overthrow of the power there designated by the name of Babylon. But the same sense should manifestly be retained in other passages of the book; at Revelation 11:13, for example, where, speaking of the same power under the image of a city it is said, that on the occasion of a mighty earthquake, the tenth part of the city fell. Whatever may be there intended by the tenth part of the city, consistency in the use of terms requires that the falling should denote an overthrow; and, so understood, the idea conveyed by it cannot well accord with that, which is so commonly found in the passage, of the detachment of certain modern kingdoms from the Romish Apostacy by the reception of the Protestant faith. Nor does the description in other respects appear to suit this interpretation; for it is immediately added, “seven thousand were slain in the earthquake, and the remnant (those, namely, who remained in the city) were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.” So that neither does the kind of falling implied in this interpretation agree with that actually conveyed by the expression (the event supposed, indeed, might more properly be termed a rising than a falling, as regards the particular kingdom), nor did the other results connected with it at all correspond in nature and magnitude to those unfolded in the apocalyptic vision. Many similar violations of the very simple and necessary condition we have specified, might be selected from some of the more popular and current works on the Apocalypse. In particular, they often err by confounding together symbol and reality. Thus, while Babylon is uniformly understood, in the mystical sense of the Papal system, with its centre of power and influence at Rome, the Euphrates (Revelation 9:14), the river on which it should stand, if the image is consistently employed, is taken as the actual Assyrian river, or (if viewed symbolically), as the designation, not of a Romish, but of a Mahommedan power, having its seat where the literal Euphrates flows. In like manner, the burning mountain of the second trumpet is viewed as symbolizing Genseric the Vandal; but the sea, into which that mountain is cast, is supposed to be, not the symbol of something else, but the veritable sea of the Roman empire in its coasts and harbours. So, again, Attila is regarded as the scourge that corresponds to the burning star of the third trumpet, while the fountains and rivers it falls upon, are held to be, not what resemble the objects denoted by these terms, but the objects themselves—the Danube, the Rhine, and the Po, with the countries to which they belong. We are not to be understood as indicating any opinion, as to whether the historical events now referred to, were contemplated in the visions with which they have thus been associated, but are merely indicating what seems an obvious flaw in such a mode of interpretation. It is impossible that the symbolical representations of Scripture can be written in so confused and arbitrary a style; and if those were in reality the events in which the prophetic visions found their accomplishment, it will assuredly be practicable to establish the connection between the prophecy and its fulfilment without so palpably travestying the ordinary laws of language. It belongs also to the same fundamental condition, as to the use of figurative representations in prophecy, that the figurative character of the description, in its general features, not less than in the particular images it employs, should be preserved throughout. The examples of false interpretation just noticed, refer to particular images, and show the uncertainty and confusion that inevitably arise, when they are dealt with in an arbitrary and variable manner. But there ought to be the like consistence and uniformity observed in respect also to the general features of a prophetical delineation; since we cannot suppose that the vision shifted from a symbolical or ideal description in one part to a plain matter-of-fact description in another. We might, indeed, expect occasional notes and indications derived from the actual world as prospectively contemplated by the prophet, rather than from the ideal world in which he was for the time living, furnishing a kind of key for the more certain explanation of the figurative delineation, and giving some indication of the more prominent acts in the historical drama to which it pointed. This, we say, might not unnaturally be expected; for such ideal delineations in prophecy, viewed in respect to the things they represented, must always have been of a somewhat enigmatical nature. They necessarily, to some extent, veiled, while they exhibited the coming reality; and so required, in part, to borrow from the reality to prevent the veil from altogether hiding its proper character. Such, manifestly, is the case in the description given by Joel (Joel 1:1-20, Joel 2:1-32), of the threatened judgment of God under the image of locusts invading the land, and spreading terror and desolation through all its borders. In several parts of the description, traits are introduced which appear so strange and exaggerated, if understood merely of the natural plague of locusts, that we cannot but regard them as designed, like so many rays of light let in from the actual world, to render the veil transparent, and discover the much more fearful reality which it imaged—namely, the desolation to be produced by the Chaldean army. Of this sort, in particular, are the statements made respecting the unparalleled greatness of the calamity to be produced by the locust-army—its coming was to be emphatically the day of the Lord, and in itself an evil of unheard-of magnitude (Joel 1:2-3, Joel 1:15); so also what is said of the effects of the visitation, which are described as nothing less than the loss of all the outward signs of a covenant relationship to God (Joel 1:8-9); then again, the designation of the instruments of vengeance as a nation (Joel 1:6), and their subsequent identification with the mighty conqueror from the north (Joel 2:20), nay, with the heathen generally, deliverance from whose oppressive and ignominious yoke is represented as all one with preservation from the threatened calamity (Joel 2:17). Such things are undoubtedly to be regarded as realistic features, introduced on purpose to show that the description was an ideal one, and should be understood throughout only as intended to present an imperfect image of the transactions really predicted. Similar things are to be found in other parts of the prophetic writings—for example, in the description of Ezekiel’s temple and its accompaniments—which, in like manner, serve to break the shell of the ideal covering, and render manifest the proper greatness of the reality that lies beneath. (In the case of Ezekiel’s temple the vast dimensions of the temple and city may be referred to in proof, the alterations at several points introduced into the Old Testament ritual, and the kind of river represented as flowing from the temple to the Dead Sea.) So far, we admit, it was probable, and, in a sense, necessary, that the realistic should intermingle with the ideal, or the actual with the symbolical in prophetical delineations. But it was still within very narrow limits, that this either was, or could be done; so far only as might be required to give some idea of the kind of realization that was to be expected, or the manner in which it was to be brought about. In the general, however, the description must be uniform; it could not otherwise be intelligible, and if constructed on a figurative basis, one and the same character must be sustained throughout. For example, the vision which Isaiah is reported to have seen respecting Babylon, and which forms the most imaginative and picturesque delineation in his whole writings (Isaiah 13:1-22, Isaiah 14:1-32—a delineation which condenses into one vivid picture the history of ages, and draws together all that can be conceived most terrible and affecting of things in heaven, things on earth, and even things under the earth, to portray the doomed and prostrate condition of the self-exalting, God-dishonouring kingdom:—in the whole of this pictorial representation, there is to be sought, according to its predominant character, not the exact and literal description of the future, but rather such an ideal picture as might present the most distinct and lively image of its nature. This is so plain as to admit of no doubt in regard to certain parts of the representation—those which speak of the sun being darkened, and the stars of heaven ceasing to give their light, of the fir-trees rejoicing, and the cedars of Lebanon lifting up their voice, of the humbled monarch himself descending into the shades of the mighty dead, and being there greeted with taunts from those over whom he was wont to domineer, as now brought down to a level with themselves. Every one perceives that, in all this, there is merely an ideal or figurative representation of the awful reverse, the utterly remediless desolation and ruin which awaited Babylon as a kingdom. And why should not the same view be taken of the other parts? It is one end that is aimed at throughout, and the means employed to reach it could, with no propriety, be diverse in their character. Even the mention of the Medes, in connection with the coming vengeance (Isaiah 13:17), can only be regarded as an historical trait introduced for the purpose formerly stated—to mark more f definitely the nature of the events predicted, together with the nearness and certainty of the change they were to bring. And what is said in the remaining details of the shepherds making their folds there, and of wild beasts of the desert—owls and dragons, and all kinds of doleful creatures—making it their haunt, was necessary (like the monarch’s ideal descent into the nether world, and hearing the shout of triumph raised over his downfall), to complete the picture of thorough desolation, and exhibit Babylon as an utterly extinct empire. This was the real object of the representation; and the actual appearance of some of the things specified in the condition of Babylon as a mere city or province, served but to exhibit, how the doom of Babylon as an empire—the only doom properly announced in he prophecy—had already passed into accomplishment. In the execution of this doom, the prediction was verified; and the signs of local wretchedness and desolation, which in process of time settled upon the very city and neighbourhood, less properly fulfilled what was spoken, than sealed the fulfilment, and rendered it palpable to the most careless observer. (3.) But beside this sustained and pervading ideality in many of the figurative delineations of prophecy, which are drawn from natural objects, there is another element to be taken into account—not always, indeed, as an indispensable condition, on which they proceed, yet still as a very common characteristic, giving a distinctive form and colour to the representation. We allude to the prophet’s subjective state and position, while the objects in the divine vision were passing before his illuminated eye. If the prophet simply described what he saw as a calm observer, the subjective element would, of course, be kept in abeyance. But this was not usually the case. More commonly his personal feelings were called into exercise, and were allowed to give their tone and impress to the description. Hence the perceptible differences in manner among the prophetical writers, who, even in narrating what occurred in vision, retain severally their individual characteristics of thought and expression. Hence, also, the apparently exaggerated descriptions which are sometimes given of the changes predicted to take place in the world—as in the vision of Isaiah respecting Babylon just referred to, when he says, “The stars of heaven and the constellations thereof do not give their light, the sun is darkened in his going forth, and the moon does not cause her light to shine.” Or in what Jeremiah saw, when he was assured of the approaching dissolution of the Jewish state, “I beheld the earth, and lo! it was without form and void: and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and all the hills moved lightly” (Jeremiah 4:23-24). Or, again, in Joel’s memorable description of the wonders that were to appear in the latter days, according to which the sun was to be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord (Joel 2:30-31). Such passages in the prophetical writings are not to be regarded simply as high-wrought descriptions in the peculiar style of oriental poetry, possessing but a slender foundation of nature to rest upon. On the contrary, they have their correspondence in the literature of all nations, and their justification in the natural workings of the human mind; we mean its workings, when under circumstances which tend to bring the faculty of imagination into vigorous play, much as it was acted on with the prophets when in ecstasy they received divine revelations. For, it is the characteristic of this faculty, when possessed in great strength, and operated upon by stirring events, such as mighty revolutions and distressing calamities, that it fuses every object by its intense radiation, and brings them into harmony with its own prevailing passion or feeling. It leads the person who is under its sway to regard himself as the centre of all that is proceeding around him, even to see “the history of his own most secret emotions written on the very rocks.” So that, if working in connection with a bosom greatly troubled and agitated, it will transfer that trouble and agitation to the objects which it happens for the time to be contemplating. Such precisely is the exhibition—an exhibition not to be apologised for, but justly reckoned among the finest creations of Shakespeare’s genius—given of the workings of Macbeth’s mind, when on the eve of perpetrating the horrid murder. (The words of Macbeth, more particularly referred to, are the following:— “Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand! Come, let me clutch thee:— I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou, fatal vision, sensible To feeling, as to sight? Or art thou but A dagger of the mind: a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­----------------------There’s no such thing: It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes.—Now o’er the one half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleeper,” etc.) “Standing on the very brink of hell, and about to plunge into it, he sees the reflection of his own chaotic feelings in all things. Order is turned into disorder; law is suspended; every natural, every social tie is cracking; he is hurling an innocent man, his king, his guest, into the jaws of death; death is in all his thoughts. To him, therefore, with the deepest truth, ‘o’er the one half world nature seems dead;’ even as also the instrument with which the crime was to be perpetrated, rises in palpable form before him, though it was ‘only a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.’” (“Guesses at Truth,” i. p. 63.) Nor are such things to be met with in poetry alone; they are not wanting even in prose compositions, when the subject is of a kind fitted to work powerfully on the imagination, and agitate the bosom. The mind then cannot refrain in its historical delineations of what is taking place, from throwing around the world of outward realities the aspect of its own inward experience; as (to refer to a familiar example) in the descriptions given by contemporary writers of the fearful irruptions of the northern barbarians into the south of Europe, which they were wont to characterize as torrents, conflagrations, and even earthquakes. “Such,” says Guizot, when speaking of these descriptions, “is the instinctive poetry of the human mind, that it receives from facts an impression, which is [often] livelier and greater than are the facts themselves; they are for it but matter, which it fashions and forms, a theme upon which it exercises itself, and over which it spreads beauties and effects which were not really there.” And on this ground, combined with the excitation naturally produced by a sense of personal interest in the events described, he justly infers that in the light of history the accounts referred to must be understood with some qualification; they must be considered as to a certain extent pictures of the imagination, though raised, doubtless, on a dreadful substratum of historical reality. (“History of Civilization in France,” Sect. viii.) Need we wonder, then, that the prophets, when depicting scenes of uproar and convulsion, should often have done so in language that reflected the agitation or distress experienced in their own bosoms? Being descriptions of what was seen in vision, they are pictures of the imagination; they are ideal scenes, though scenes which appeared real to the prophet who lived in them, and which in due time, also, as regards the substance of the delineation, were to become real in the historical future. What, therefore, is actually meant by the constellations of heaven disappearing, or by the sun being turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, is that everything would appear to men’s view in a convulsed state; such terror should everywhere strike their minds, as would make all things in nature seem to be out of course, and the very instruments of life and blessing would wear the aspect of messengers of wrath. This is the case to some extent in every manifestation of the Lord for judgment; but not till his appearance for what shall be emphatically the world’s judgment shall it rise to its proper consummation. 2. As yet we have noticed only one of the sources from which the prophets drew the materials of their figurative representations of the future,—namely, the visible world of nature. But there was another, and one more frequently resorted to in those prophecies, which bore respect to the person and kingdom of Messiah; one, therefore, that we have more especially to do with, when considering the word of prophecy with reference to Christian times. This other and very fertile source of prophetic imagery consisted of the things which belonged to the history of God’s dealings with his church and people—the things, as they are very commonly called, of the Old Covenant, though including also what pertained to earlier times. The higher and better things to come, which it was the calling of the prophets to announce beforehand, were to be but the fuller development of those which existed in the past, or a grander exemplification of the truths and principles they embodied. The two stood related to each other, partly as the beginning to the end, partly, also, as the shell to the kernel; and in a doctrinal respect alone it was of great importance to have this relative connection and dependence maintained—so to exhibit and foretell the better future, as not to lose sight of its organic union and fundamental correspondence with the past. This, of itself, must have led to the various use of the former things which lay within the ken of the prophets, and those whom they immediately addressed, as a fitting medium through which to point men’s hopes and expectations toward what was to be hereafter. And not only so, but as God, when revealing himself in vision to the prophets, did not work magically, though he wrought supernaturally upon their minds—as in all that they saw and felt there was the free and conscious exercise of their mental faculties—and, finally, as it is only from things known, existing in the present or past, that the mind can imagine to itself, or describe intelligibly to others, the things which are still unknown and future:—on these grounds it was a matter of necessity that the materials of what the prophets uttered respecting the appearance and kingdom of Messiah should be drawn chiefly from the affairs of past and preparatory dispensations. It was only by the help of the lower and ascertained class of objects and relations that they could attain to any definite idea of the higher things in prospect; even as still it is only from God having let himself down to the sphere of humanity, having clothed himself in human form, acted under the impulse of human affections, and spoken of himself and heavenly things in modes of speech derived from the familiar objects of sense and time, that we can rise to the apprehension of what is really spiritual and divine. And as in these latter, so, beyond doubt in the other, the prophetical representations, there must be a large intermixture of the figurative. What they presented could not be the very image or naked reality of the things in prospect, but only such a view of them as could be given through imperfect forms, and by means of partial and glimpse-like visions; so that in them the dim shadow of the past ever, as it were, projected itself into the future, and spread like a veil or masque over the prospect that lay before. The necessity we here speak of was one that arose from the very position of the prophets, and the mode in which an insight was granted them into a future, which, in many respects, was higher and greater than anything that had hitherto appeared—a future which one of the most distinguished of those prophets announced would be such as “the world had not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither had the eye seen.” Before Isaiah and the later prophets (to whom we now more particularly refer) came upon the stage of sacred history, several of the most prominent features in this grander future had been brought out with a considerable degree of distinctness. Plain and repeated intimations had already been given of a personal Messiah, who should come to fulfil the promises made to the fathers; of the connection in which he was to stand with the house of David; of his peculiar relation also to the Godhead, qualifying him for higher work than David himself could perform; and, in the accomplishment of that work, of His destination, like David, first to severe trials and deep humiliation, then to preeminent greatness and glory. Such points in the prophetic future had been rendered familiar to men’s thoughts and expectations, even before the commonwealth of Israel took the downward course, which began with the division into two kingdoms. But, for the filling up of the prospect by more special predictions, for the investing of those primary and essential features with the properties of flesh and blood—in short, for the delineation of the Messianic future in its more distinctive characteristics and varied results, everything had yet to be done by Isaiah and the prophets of a later period. Nor, according to the fixed laws of human thought, could it have been done otherwise than under the form and aspect of things previously existing; for, if revealed in another and more direct manner, the distinction must have been practically abolished between vision and reality; and the prophets, whose part it was only to descry and herald from afar the better things to come, would, contrary to the progressive character of the Divine plan, have been placed on a footing as to light and privilege with Christ and the apostles, by whom the better things themselves were introduced. There had been no room, in the case supposed, for the marked difference between the revelations of the old and the new dispensations; nor could it have been said of the one period as compared with the other, “The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” In this, no doubt, it is implied that the revelations by prophecy, respecting the gospel age and its realities, were necessarily defective as to clearness and precision, and are not capable of bearing so exact an interpretation, or yielding so explicit a meaning, in respect to the affairs of Christ’s kingdom, as is conveyed by the writings of the New Testament. But such, precisely, is the result that was to be expected, from the place and calling of the Old Testament prophets. Though high in one respect, they were subordinate in another. Indeed, they were subordinate in reference to the past, as well as to the future—subordinate even to Moses, so that they could not alter in any particular the polity introduced by him; and the primary and most fundamental test of their divine commission was the conformity of their teaching to that of the lawgiver. The whole they could do in the way of advance was to hold out the prospect and kindle the desire of another and better state of things. But if inferior to Moses as regards the revelation of the mysteries of God’s kingdom, how much more in comparison of Christ? Even John the Baptist was more than a prophet, because he stood within the actual dawn of Christ’s day; and yet such was the brightness which characterised this day, that John himself was less than the least of those who fully shared in its privileges (Matthew 11:11). Nor was this the case merely in the general, but on specific points also it is expressly asserted that the revelations of Old Testament prophecy were much inferior in distinctness to those brought by the ambassadors of Christ. Thus the Apostle Paul, when discoursing of what he calls “the mystery of Christ,” says: “It was not made known in other ages to the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel “(Ephesians 3:5-6). Here the apostles and prophets of the New Testament are placed above the prophets of the Old, distinctly on the ground that in the matter referred to they had more clear and explicit revelations given them. Nay, it is on these apostles and prophets of the new covenant that the entire temple of the Christian church is reared; not on them as apart from Christ, but most intimately associated with Him, and by Him as his agents charged with the whole ordering and establishing of the church in its institutions, privileges, government, and progress. Could such things have been said and done, if the revelations by the ancient prophets, respecting the work and kingdom of Christ, had not been dim and imperfect, as compared with the announcements of the gospel? And if those prophets received nothing in vision which would interfere with and unsettle what had been imparted to Moses, when God spake with him face to face, what an anomaly would it not be if their word were to be called in to supersede, or even to explicate and determine more perfectly, the word that came by Christian apostles and prophets! This were truly to invert the natural order of things—to imagine one could find in twilight-gloom what is not to be perceived amid the sunshine of noon-day. There cannot be a surer canon of interpretation, than that everything which affects the constitution and destiny of the New Testament Church has its clearest determination in New Testament Scripture. This canon, with the grounds on which it is based, strikes at the root of many false conclusions drawn mainly from ancient prophecy, respecting the events of the latter days—conclusions which always implicitly, and sometimes even avowedly, give to the Old the ascendency over the New; and, on the principle which has its grand embodiment in Popery, would send the world back to the age of comparative darkness and imperfection for the type of its normal and perfected condition. (The late Mr Irving only spoke out distinctly on this subject what is implied in many current interpretations, when he said, “My idea is, that not the Old Testament, but the New Testament dispensation, hath an end; and then the other resumes its course under Christ and his bride, which is his church.” All who hold, that there is to be a return to the old sacrificial worship, must concur in this opinion, whether they give expression to it or not.) But, by the positions we have been establishing in respect to the essential nature of Old Testament prophecy, and the mode of its revelations, we are carried farther than this; we are enabled also to perceive the fallacy of a conception which, from an early period, has been prevalent in the church, as to the kind of insight possessed by the ancient prophets into the realities of the gospel dispensation. It has been very commonly supposed, that these were presented to them in their proper character, and that they saw them much as they are now seen amid the revelations of the gospel. Hence the prophecies, in which they give utterance to the knowledge they obtained, according to a happy simile of Tholuck, came to be regarded as “an image of history, thrown by means of a concave mirror from the future into the past;” (“Commentary on the Hebrews,” Diss. i.) that is, the character and events of the prophetic future were supposed to be exhibited in a kind of reflex manner to the eye of the prophet, and though in less definite lines, yet exactly in the form of the historical reality. It was the same misconception which prevailed in regard to the Old Testament types, and which, by perpetually stirring the question, What under this and that particular ordinance did ancient believers perceive of Christ’s person or work? gave a wrong direction to men’s inquiries, and perpetuated the existence of an entirely fanciful and arbitrary typological system. This error we have endeavoured to expose elsewhere, (See “Typology of Scripture,” Book I. ch. vi.) and the similar error in respect to the prophecies of the Old Testament admits still more readily of exposure; it flows as a necessary deduction from the fundamental principles of the subject. For, if the revelations given of Christian times by the prophets of the former dispensation, occupied, like the prophets themselves, only a subsidiary position in respect to Moses, and a preliminary one in respect to Christ and his apostles—if, on this account, they disclose simply what was exhibited to them in vision, and heard in dream, not perceived amid the realities of waking life; then there must have been a specific and characteristic inferiority in the nature of the prophetic, as compared with the apostolic revelations. And that inferiority must, according to the known laws of human thought, to which the Spirit ever adapts himself in his operations, have mainly stood in the more ideal and figurative character of the prophetic announcements. The prophets necessarily thought and spake of the future under the conditions of their own historical position; so that it was not the image of the future which threw itself back upon the past, but rather the image of the past which threw itself forward into the future—the things which were, and had been, gave their form to the things which were yet to be. The substance of the Messianic prophecies, as Tholuck has again happily said, “is the Psyche of the New Testament, hidden Under the chrysalis envelopment of the Old Testament. But, as the latter is still a Psyche, even while concealed under its thick covering, so also the prophecies wear an envelope, which they can be divested of only by him who perceives their historical fulfilment. Hence, the prophets delineate the blessings of the New Covenant, in colours taken from the Old Testament theocracy.” Now, that such actually was the case—that the Old Testament predictions of gospel times did usually partake of an Old Testament colouring, may be made plain by a few examples bearing on the very heart and centre of the new economy, in which we have the benefit of an inspired interpretation, and about which, therefore, there is no proper room for dispute. Such are some of the predictions which went before, respecting Christ’s personal appearance and work—those more especially which bore respect to his threefold office, and which usually present what he was to be and do under an Old Testament aspect. Thus in Isaiah 61:1, the Messiah, in his prophetical office, is represented as “anointed to preach good tidings to the meek,” with reference to the consecrating oil, which in the case of such persons as were designated to special prophetical service, was wont to be employed (1 Kings 19:16); although not the outward form, but the spiritual reality alone, was to be found in Christ. In like manner, as priest, He is described as “opening a fountain for sin and uncleanness,” “anointing a holy of holies,” “pouring out his soul unto death,” (as in the ordinary victims, the animal soul, the life-blood), and thereby “making it an offering for sin,” (Zechariah 13:1; Daniel 9:24; Isaiah 53:10, Isaiah 53:12)—all of them expressing Old Testament acts, and therefore neither having, nor capable of having, a formal, though they certainly had a most real, fulfilment; the words were accomplished—not in the letter, which from the nature of things they could not be, but in spirit and in truth. So, again, as King, it was predicted of Messiah, that He should spring forth as a stem out of the root of Jesse, a branch of the royal stock of David, that he should sit upon David’s throne, and should build (in some higher sense than the returned captives were building) the temple of the Lord (Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 11:1; Zechariah 6:12-13, etc.) And, in perfect accordance with the meaning of these predictions, but with little agreement as to the outward form of things, He is represented in Gospel history as coming into the world to occupy the throne of His father David (Luke 1:32); nay, as allowing himself to be proclaimed its present occupant (Mark 11:9-10; Luke 19:38; Matthew 21:5); and, after His ascension, the apostles, in the most explicit manner, declare Him to have entered on the fulfilment of the prophecies which spake of His kingly glory, openly announce Him as having already become a Prince and a Saviour, even represent Him as having been anointed in terms of the Second Psalm (Acts 2:33, etc.; Acts 4:25-27; Acts 5:31); and speak of Him as thus constituted head over all things, that He might carry forward the building of a great spiritual temple to the Lord (Ephesians 2:20-22; 1 Peter 2:5, etc.) It is impossible, by any fair construction of the language in these cases, to understand it of anything but an actual and present fulfilment of the prophecies referred to, an occupation, at that very time, of the predicted throne, and a prosecution of the work properly belonging to it; while between the form of the predictions, and the manner of their accomplishment, there were as many formal differences as there were essential agreements. For those, who might insist upon a literal conformity to the pattern of David’s throne and kingdom, there could have appeared no fulfilment. (For a more particular examination of the prophecies respecting Christ’s occupation of the throne of David, see Part II., chap. ii.) And, indeed, whence arose all the misapprehensions of the disciples themselves about the work and kingdom of Christ, and the difficulty of having them brought to a right understanding of the prophecies concerning Him? Did it not spring from the predominantly outward and shadowy form of the things predicted, the shell of which they were long unable to break, and get at the kernel which lay within? The gospel history would be an inexplicable riddle, if prophecy had not in general presented the new things of the kingdom under the veil of the old. It is much the same when we pass from the personal work of Christ to that which more immediately concerns its application and fruits among men, the work of the Spirit. Of this, beyond doubt, the prophet Ezekiel speaks, when he makes promise of a sprinkling with clean water (Ezekiel 36:25), in language derived from the corporeal lustrations of the old covenant; and the fulfilment alike of the prophetic word, and of the legal type, is indicated in those passages of the New Testament which describes believers as “washed,” as “clean,” or even as having “their bodies washed with pure water,” though what was really meant is the purifying of their consciences from the guilt and pollution of sin. But one of the most striking examples of this species of prophecy and its fulfilment, connected with the work of the Spirit, is to be found at the very commencement of the Spirit’s dispensation. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter, accounting for what was at the time proceeding, said: “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy,” etc. It were against all probability to suppose that the apostle meant to speak of this prophecy as having found a complete fulfilment in the events of that particular day, or as being in any measure exhausted by these. But, beyond all question, he does claim for it an actual fulfilment in the larger spiritual endowments then granted to the apostles, and their speaking in a supernatural manner of the things of salvation. This must, in the apostle’s estimation, have answered to the prediction of Joel respecting the outpouring of the Spirit, and the results in which it was to appear; for there precisely lay the occasion for citing the prophecy, and the point on which its testimony was needed. Yet here, also, the form in the two cases materially diners; it is old in the one, and new in the other. The prophecy, viewed in respect to its substance, makes promise of a far freer and larger communication of the Spirit than had hitherto been known; but it does this under the peculiar form of a quite general seeing of visions and hearing of dreams, because such, when Joel lived, was the mode in which the more special gifts of the Spirit manifested themselves. In that manner alone could he conceive of so plentiful a communication of the Spirit taking place. But by the time the prophecy entered on its proper fulfilment, this form of the Spirit’s working had been well-nigh supplanted by another; the great realities of Christ’s kingdom were now brought to the light of day, and were discoursed of in plain and direct terms. This was the only kind of speaking in the Spirit which appeared on the day of Pentecost, or was commonly practised in the New Testament church; so that while the substance remained, the form in which it was wrapt necessarily disappeared. The promised gift of the Spirit was conferred, but with a mode of operation higher than that of which the prophet Joel was himself cognizant. Various other subjects of prophecy might be referred to as exemplifying the principle under consideration, but we simply point to an additional class of announcements. In not one merely, but in a whole series of passages, the predictive assurances given to Abraham and the patriarchs respecting a seed of blessing, are applied, first, indeed, to Christ (in whom they were verified as to the form, as well as the substance), but also to believers generally in Him, without respect to their genealogical descent, if only they had through the Spirit become members of the family of God. These, also, are held in a legitimate and proper sense—in a sense included in the prophecy, and verifying it—to be of the seed promised to Abraham (Luke 19:9; Romans 4:1-25, Galatians 3:1-29, Galatians 4:1-31). Now, in all these cases we have examples, about which there can be no reasonable doubt—examples resting for their proof on inspired authority—of precisely such figurative representations in the prophets of the Old Testament as the nature of their position might have led us to expect. They are, one and all, examples of prophecies which received their accomplishment as regards the substance, but not as regards the form; for another state of things had entered which rendered this impracticable. But if so in such cases, why not also in others? There is, doubtless, a general uniformity in the style of prophecies coming by vision, as well as in any other department of sacred writing. And specific examples, such as those noticed, ought to be viewed as so many illustrations, or light in an embodied form, let in by the Spirit of God upon some of the more select portions of the field, to guide us to a correct knowledge and understanding of the rest. Nor are there wanting collateral considerations to confirm and strengthen the conclusion. (1.) First of all, there is the consideration that the symbolical prophecies contained in the manifold types of the Old Testament were of a similar nature, and had a similar fulfilment. They were every one of them made good as to their predictive import by the realities of the gospel, but in forms differing as much from the typical representations of them as the realities themselves were higher and better than their temporary substitutes. Since the very body of the religious dispensation under which the prophets lived was of such a nature, and carried in its bosom the prospect of such a realisation in the future, could it be otherwise than reasonable and proper that the Spirit of prophecy, when giving verbal intimations of the same future, should to a large extent have assimilated these in form and manner to the other? (2.) A second consideration is found in the circumstance, that even before the introduction of the gospel era, and in respect to changes far less fundamental and peculiar than that ancient prophecy did certainly predict events in the manner now specified; it announced things to come under the formal aspect of a recurrence of those which had already happened, although the later proved not to be a repetition of the earlier, but only relatively alike. Thus, Hosea, when foretelling the approaching bondage and captivity of Israel, represents it as a returning again into Egypt—because, there the great example of such a state presented itself in the past. But to show it was the Egyptnstate, and not the actual country of Egypt, to which the prophet referred, he afterwards names Assyria as the region where the humiliating discipline was to be experienced, and even with an apparent contradiction of the former announcement, declares they should not return to Egypt (Hosea 8:13; Hosea 9:3; Hosea 11:5). Another period in Israel’s earlier history, the sojourn in the wilderness, is represented both by Hosea (Hosea 2:1-23), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 4:1-17, Ezekiel 20:1-49), as destined to recur in the future; again, the people were to be led back into the wilderness, or be subjected to the memorable forty years’ chastisement on account of sin, that they might be prepared for future mercies; but the subsequent mention, in Hosea, of Assyria as the more immediate place of discipline, and Ezekiel’s designation of the wilderness as that “of the peoples,” plainly indicate that something quite different from a bald repetition of former events was intended. In Obadiah’s prophecy respecting Edom and Israel, the period of the Judges, in like manner, is taken as the form under which to predict the future ascendency of Israel; saviours were to come up on mount Zion, judging the mount of Esau, and bringing deliverance to Israel (Obadiah 1:17, Obadiah 1:21, compared with Judges 2:16; Judges 3:9). And still more strikingly in the description given in Habakkuk 3:1-19, of God’s manifestation of Himself for judgment, is the history of the past taken as a vehicle for revealing what was to take place in the approaching future. We have there, not an historical narration of what had been done in former times, but a lyrico-prophetical celebration of what should take place when God came forth, as He was on the eve of doing, to punish sin, first among the backsliding Jews, and then among the proud and lordly Chaldeans. Even Delitzsch, with his natural Jewish leanings and love for prophetical literalism, feels constrained to adopt this view of the description; he does not suppose, that, according to its real import, God was actually going to come from Teman, to shake the tents of Cushan, to make the land of Midian tremble, and such like. No, he says, most properly, “The prophet borrows from the ancient wonders of God, and the descriptions given of them (viz., as to his conducting the covenant people through the wilderness), the traits and features of his delineation of a corresponding future, justly considering the one as the type of the other. He forms thence the delineation of a great day of judgment, which was to combine in itself the severe and awful, yet salutary judicial manifestations of God for His people, which have ever and anon been taking place, of a deliverance outshining the typical deliverance out of Egypt. This close pre-established connection between the past and the predicted future, is the reason why the prophet makes Teman and the mountains of Paran the starting point of the theophany, and represents the tribes on both sides of the Red Sea—as in terror and confusion.” For the principle of this interpretation, the authority of Crucius is quoted, who says, “Since future things could not yet be narrated historically, which could not indeed have been done with propriety, a tropical mode of speech is employed, in which figurative terms are borrowed from things that happened at the departure from Egypt and the entrance into the land of Canaan, and which are fitly taken as images of things that were still to happen.” (“Der Prophet Habakkuk Ausgelegt,” p. 139. Various other predictions might have been given, beside those specified; such as Ezekiel 29:11-12, where the forty years’ chastisement of the wilderness is threatened even against Egypt; and Zechariah 5:5-11, where a second exile to the land of Shinar or Babylon is spoken of as in reserve for the covenant people because of the sins that were beginning to appear among them; a repetition of the old calamity is taken to indicate fresh judgments.) (3.) Still farther, there is the consideration, that in the language also of the New Testament, and of Christian discourse generally, the same practice is constantly followed—the practice of expressing new things in a phraseology derived from the old; while yet no one dreams of a formal resemblance between the things themselves, or an interpretation of the language according to the letter. At the very commencement of the gospel, our Lord, pointing to the free intercommunion between heaven and earth, which was to be the result of His mediation, describes it to Nathaniel in the words of Jacob’s vision, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”—not that Jesus was ever to present the appearance of a ladder for that purpose, such as Jacob saw in his vision, but that in the new and higher sphere of his kingdom, there should be a like medium of communication established, and the agency of a like intercourse maintained. With a still more specific identification of the past and the present, St Jude represents the filthy dreamers of his day as having already perished in the gainsaying of Korah. In a similar manner, the death of Christ is often spoken of under the old sacrificial form of the shedding of the blood, and the inward application of His atonement to the soul is termed the sprinkling of His blood upon the conscience, and baptism is designated His circumcision; and never, scarcely, is a prayer offered, or a Christian discourse heard, without the free use in it of words that belong to the old covenant—such as altar, priest, sacrifices, Zion, Jerusalem, Canaan. Here, again, the instinctive poetry of the human mind discovers itself in its fondness for the sensible and concrete, for the hallowed, though, in themselves, imperfect symbols of the past, in order to express its spiritual thoughts and feelings, instead of looking at the direct and naked reality. It is a continuing to do from choice what the prophets, who lived before the reality appeared, did from necessity. And it were even more incongruous to insist on an outward and formal agreement between their representations of gospel times, and events that verified them, than inversely to demand the same in respect to the similar, but now less absolutely needed, representations of gospel realities under the antiquated forms of the old covenant. Thus, every thing, both of a direct and of a collateral kind—considerations grounded in the proper nature and function of prophecy, in the light thrown upon the style of its predictions by the applications made of them in New Testament Scripture, in the typical character of the old dispensation, and the predilection for symbolical modes of speech as well among Christians now, as with prophets of former times—all seem to point to, and establish, the conclusion, that in the announcements of ancient prophecy respecting the work and kingdom of Christ, there must have been a prevailing and characteristic tendency to exhibit the new under the image of the old. Whence it follows, that since the new has come, what appears of the old, in the prophetical delineations, must be interpreted in the light of the new—they must be set loose from their earthly and now obsolete form, and seen in the position and aspect of things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven. By being so considered, they are only made to keep pace with the progressive march of God’s dispensations; and their proper import is no more lost, than our Lord’s proper personality was lost, when on the mount of transfiguration, He was enveloped in the glory of the kingdom, or than the essence of Judaism was lost, when its prophetic symbols passed into the abiding realities of the gospel. All take a simultaneous and corresponding rise. And so far from evacuating the meaning of Old Testament predictions, when we transfer what they say of Zion or Jerusalem, of the temple and its sacrificial worship, of a ransomed people and their inheritance of blessing, to the Church of the New Testament with its clearer light, its ample privileges and elevating prospects, we throw into them fresh life and meaning, illuminate their darker side, and render them, like the whole economy to which they belonged, in the strictest sense, “the testimony of Jesus.” The whole, however, of this line of thought is to be understood only of the general and prevailing character of the Old Testament predictions regarding Messianic times; and it must be taken in connection with what was formerly stated (in the first section of this chapter) of the variable and elastic nature of prophecy, whereby it could adapt itself to different circumstances, and approximate more to the style of history at one time than another. For though communicated in vision, and always to a certain extent partaking of the characteristics of that mode of revelation, yet, by means of spoken explanations and continuous statements (as in Daniel’s later prophecies through the revealing angel), it was capable of assuming more of an historical character than would have been practicable in a simple vision. Nor should its frequent combination with type be overlooked; especially with type as exhibited in the representative life of David arid the history of Israel; since thus a variety of personal and local traits naturally came to be interwoven with its delineations of the future. These were so many tangible links connecting the new with the old, and served as special helps to a weak faith and a feeble discernment at the beginning of the gospel, that it might the more readily assure itself of the certainty of those things which it was called to embrace. And yet even these stood so intimately connected with things of a higher kind, they were so closely entwined with more profound marks of verisimilitude, as to render it scarcely possible for those, who perceived the external points of agreement, to avoid discerning others of a more inward and spiritual nature. In Christ’s birth at Bethlehem, for example, or his temporary asylum in Egypt, or the actual piercing of his side with a spear, while there was a formal agreement with the prophecies mentioned in connection with those events by the evangelists, there was manifestly something more; in that outward verification no intelligent believer could fail to perceive the sign and index of a deeper fulfilment, which was at the same time accomplished, and which reached to the inner mysteries of the kingdom. (For the illustration and proof of this, see “Typology of Scripture,” Book I. chap. v., and Appendix B on the Old Testament in the New.) It is in this typico-historical element more especially, so widely diffused through Old Testament prophecy, that we are furnished with a safeguard against the rationalistic tendency to carry to excess its figurative character, and are enabled to resist the temptation, presented by apparent contrarieties between prophecy and history, of attempting to resolve all its announcements into vague generalities. Real contrarieties are not to be found, if only the language of prophecy is understood and interpreted in accordance with its distinctive nature. But, certainly, there may be no difficulty in finding apparent ones, if the same principles of interpretation are indiscriminately applied to prophecy and history. And it is the practice alike of infidels and rationalists to make diligent search for contrarieties of this description, which they take to be real, and thence argue against every thing specific and supernatural in prophecy. We shall be prepared and fortified against this error, if we keep properly in view the connection between prophecy and type, and the comparative approach that might be made, particularly in this direction, to a measure of historical distinctness. For, on account of this connection, it necessarily moved within definite relations, which had their historical basis in the past, and must likewise have a historical basis in the future; it embraced transactions, which had their points of contact with the outer world, as those also had, which corresponded to them in the earlier dispensations. So that in perfect accordance with its figurative character, as bearing respect to events, which were to constitute an extraordinary era, and introduce an immense rise in the divine economy, prophecy might, and actually did, contain a considerable variety of particulars which were capable of receiving a plain and palpable verification. Section V. Third Peculiarity of the Prophetic Style and Diction—the Exhibition of Events as Present, or Successive only in Relation to Each Other, Rather than as Linked to Definite Historical Epochs THE scenical nature of the mode in which prophetic revelations were given, naturally brought along with it this additional peculiarity. The prophet was in spirit transported into the midst of the representations which emblematically unfolded the coming future, and depicted them as they passed in vision before the eye of his mind. Some of these, as in a picture or panoramic exhibition, might appear nearer, others more remote; one series of actions might be seen to terminate and another to begin; but they must have been continuously present to the prophet, or have stood related to each other as successive operations in the same line of things. “The prophets,” says Crusius, “by the divine light which illuminated them, for the most part beheld things to come much as we look upon a starry sky. For, while we see the stars above us, we are incapable of rightly discerning at how great a distance they are from us, or which are nearer, and which more remote.” So also, Bishop Horsley, in the main correctly, though not without a certain tendency to excess, “If you have observed, that this is the constant style of prophecy—that when a long train of distant events are predicted, rising naturally in succession one out of another, and all tending to one great end, the whole time of these events is never set out in parcels, by assigning the distinct epoch in each; but the whole is usually described as an instant—as what it is in the sight of God; and the whole train is exhibited in one scene without any marks of succession: if you consider that prophecy, were it more regularly arranged, and digested in chronological order, would be an anticipated history of the world, which would in a great measure defeat the very end of prophecy—which is to demonstrate the weakness and ignorance of man, as well as the sovereignty and universal rule of Providence: if you take these things into consideration, you will, perhaps, be inclined to think, that they may best interpret the ancient prophecies concerning the Messiah, who refer to two different and distant times, as two distinct events, His coming to make reconciliation for iniquity, and His coming to cut off the incorrigibly wicked.” (Works, vol. i., p. 83.) The tendency to excess in this passage betrays itself chiefly in the application made of the principle at the close. For, if that application were altogether correct, it might seem as if there were not only an indistinctness, as to time, in the prophetic delineations, but an absolute confusion—a juxtaposition of things in the prophecy, such as could scarcely fail to beget a false expectation in regard to the historical fulfilment. If Malachi, for example, at the beginning of Malachi 3:1-18, on which Bishop Horsley more immediately grounds his remarks, had described the first coming of the Messiah, and then instantly started off to what was to take place at His second coming, we are at a loss to see how the prophecy could have been of any service in bearing testimony to the claims of Jesus. For, in such a case, the question must instantly have arisen, why should the results specified have stood so entirely disjoined in fact from the coming, with which they are prophetically associated? One can easily conceive, that the results indicated may not have been accomplished at once, or may have received nothing more than an initiatory accomplishment at the period of the first advent; but to have conjoined with this advent results, which were not to come then into operation at all, nor till another advent separated from it by the distance of centuries, must inevitably have tended to give rise to false anticipations beforehand, and created afterwards a most embarrassing perplexity. It was not necessary, however—and here lay the ground of Horsley’s partial misapprehension—that the first coming of the Messiah should always be specially connected with the work of reconciliation, as if that were its only object, and as if the first coming were to have nothing in common with the second. There was to be, in many respects, a fundamental agreement between them; and, in particular, the work of judgment, which is to have its consummation at the second, began also to take effect at the period of the first coming. It is true, that the more immediate and ostensible purpose, for which our Lord came into the world, was not to condemn, but to save it. Yet he himself testifies, “For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.” So, even at the period of his birth it had been announced by the aged Simeon, when he said, “This child is set for the fall and for the rising again of many in Israel;” and again by the Baptist, when he spoke of the coming Saviour as one “whose fan was in his hand, and he would thoroughly purge his floor,” or, shifting the image, “who would lay the axe to the root of the tree.” Indeed, the work of judgment is inseparable from the manifestation of the truth; when the one is brought to bear upon the hearts and consciences of men, the other infallibly takes effect upon their condition. And, therefore, in the prophecy of Malachi respecting the coming of the Lord, there is no need for any formal separation between what is designated the first and the second advent; the judicial procedure, with which it is associated, belongs to the one as well as to the other; only, in the first, there was necessarily a reserve and a limit in its operations, while in the second it will be complete and final. It is a relative merely, not a total, disregard of time that was proper to the scenical representations of prophecy. An exact and detailed chronological order was incompatible with its nature, yet not such an order as might be sufficient to mark the comparative distance or progression of events. There is a perspective also in the delineations of prophecy. Hence the language of Balaam, “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh “(Numbers 24:17). A glorious personage rose upon his view, but one descried as at a remote point on the field of vision, because not to appear for ages to come on the theatre of the world’s history. Hence, also, Daniel’s successive monarchies; successive, and yet in a manner co-existent, for only with the establishment of the last do the others seem finally to disappear. More commonly, however, the description of the future is presented in a kind of continuity—exhibited under some particular phase, and in that carried onwards to its proper consummation. Thus, in the prophecy of Isaiah, respecting Babylon, noticed in the preceding section, the whole drama of her coming downfal and ruin is set forth in an unbroken delineation, which in one rapid sketch embraces the history of ages, and connects with the first stroke of vengeance inflicted by the Medes the last sad proofs of her prostrate condition. A representation, precisely similar, is given by Jeremiah respecting the same proud city (Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23); and by Ezekiel respecting Tyre, Egypt, and Assyria (Ezekiel 26:1-21, Ezekiel 27:1-36, Ezekiel 28:1-26, Ezekiel 29:1-21, Ezekiel 30:1-26, Ezekiel 31:1-18, Ezekiel 32:1-32). Many, also, of the prophecies respecting Christ and His times possess the same character; they comprise the entire outline of the history in the particular aspect or class of relations under which they present it. Striking examples of this are to be found in such Psalms as the Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7, or in Isaiah 11:1-16, where, after having depicted, in the chapter preceding, the discomfiture and overthrow of the Assyrian power, which was then the peculiar rival and enemy of the kingdom of God, the prophet breaks forth into the description of a new and very different scene in the land of the covenant. This scene began with the appearance as of a tender shoot out of the decayed stem of Jesse, by which, beyond doubt, is to be understood the Messiah in His original humiliation and outward littleness. But presently the personage thus appearing in comparative insignificance rises to the highest place of power and authority, shows Himself to be possessed of the noblest qualities and endowments; and, in the exercise of these, proceeds onward, till every enemy is subdued, unrighteousness in every form is put down, and universal harmony and blessing is restored. In this delineation everything is left indefinite as to time. The preceding downfal of Assyria, with which it is connected, merely furnishes the occasion for bringing out the contrast that should, in this respect, be found to exist between the worldly and the divine kingdom—the one being destined to pass from its peerless height of grandeur to utter annihilation; the other to rise from the lowest depression to universal dominion and imperishable glory. But while the delineation is indefinite as to time, in the nature of the things described it is comparatively distinct and complete; and as regards the particular aspect under which the things of God’s kingdom are here contemplated, the prospective outline reaches from the commencement to the close. In like manner, in the second part of Isaiah’s writings, amid all the phases presented of the Redeemer’s history and work, the progress of His cause, and the triumphs of His kingdom, no notes of time are anywhere given; each successive scene is described as in itself complete, and the order of events no farther indicated than that some things were to stand in a relation of priority to others. The same substantially may be said of the prophets generally, more especially when they discourse of the coming events of the gospel. They knew that it was of the remoter future that they spake, although, we are informed, they had to make diligent inquiry before even this could be rightly ascertained (2 Peter 1:10-11). As much also is implied in the general nature of the formula with which their predictions of the Messianic times are usually introduced; the things spoken of are announced merely for “the latter days;” so that it is clear the prophetic Spirit could have no intention of marking out distinctly beforehand the times and seasons of the “world to come.” Yet here also the accommodating and variable nature of prophecy discovered itself; for, as vision and dream commonly went together in the imparting of the revelation, so in the dream words might be heard with reference to the time, defining more or less exactly the period of the transactions which presented themselves in the vision. Such actually was the case in respect to some of the predictions; they were associated with certain prophetic periods. Occasionally this was done when a test of prophetic verity had to be given. The test was made, wholly or in part, to consist of a particular event happening within a specific time, as when Isaiah foretold the destruction of the kingdom of Israel in threescore and five years, or when Elijah declared that for three whole years there should be no rain in Israel. Such signs, however, were but rarely given; and when they were, they rather belonged to the nature of wonders or miracles, than to prophecy in its more regular operations. But beside this, in times of peculiar difficulty and depression, the introduction of the element of time might be necessary to afford the consolation which was required for the people of God. Above all others in the history of the Covenant people, the period of the Babylonish captivity was of that description. Everything seemed then verging to utter ruin; and not merely a prospective deliverance, but a deliverance within some definite period was needed to re-assure and strengthen the heart of faith. It is, accordingly, at this period that we have one of the most specific announcements as to time in Old Testament prophecy—in the intimation that at the end of seventy years the season of captivity and desolation should expire (Jeremiah 25:11). Yet even here the period was not exactly determined; for as the captivity was effected at three successive stages, from any one of which the seventy years might, with some appearance of probability, have been dated, the expiry of the period by no means lay upon the surface, and Daniel himself only ascertained it by searching into books (Daniel 9:2). A much greater obscurity, however, must necessarily have hung over the mystical notes of time in some of Daniel’s own visions—the seventy weeks that were determined upon His people and the holy city; the fourfold succession of worldly monarchies, with the setting up, during the last of them, of the kingdom of heaven; the time, times, and the dividing of time, during which the power represented by the little horn was to prevail; and the several other numbers which afterwards occur in connection with the later visions of his book. Such indications of time obviously bear obscurity and indistinctness upon their very front. They were intended to conceal not less than to disclose; and while, on the one hand, they set a limit to the prevalence of evil, or fixed a period for the accomplishment of promised good, on the other hand they so determined this as to require the most careful inquiry and patient consideration of the march of Providence, before ultimate assurance could be obtained respecting it. Daniel expressly testifies he did not himself understand what he heard of some of those numbers (Daniel 8:27; Daniel 12:8). And yet such helps did they furnish to an inquiring faith, and such checks did they set to artful imposture, that through them, and similar landmarks in the prophetic word, general expectation was awakened at the time of Christ’s appearance. The history of the period, the more it is examined and understood, the more it is found to possess points of coincidence with the notes of time and other circumstances in prophecy; and presently after, the relative position of things became so completely changed, that a proper agreement between the two ceased to be any longer possible. This aversion of prophecy to clearly defined historical periods—its tendency to exhibit coming events under relations in space or time, or, as successive only, without being on either hand definitely bounded—appears also in New Testament predictions. It appears in the discourses of Christ himself, in whom the Spirit resided above measure, and who received no revelations in dream or vision. He gives certain signs of the approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and of His own personal return to the world, by the careful consideration of which His followers might not be taken unawares by either event; but the precise period in both cases is altogether indeterminate. Nay, so essential did He deem it to the spiritual interests of His church to have the time so left, as regards the great object now of the church’s expectation, His own second coming, that He refrained from knowing it Himself when on earth. He voluntarily refrained from doing so; for, beyond doubt, He might have had the knowledge of that also, if He had so willed it, since, as the Son in the highest sense, He knew the Father (Matthew 11:27); nay, had all things of the Father’s delivered into His hand (John 16:15). But He did not will it; He purposely restrained the intercommunion between the divine and human natures, that He might exhibit Himself an example to His people, as not seeking to know what were not proper to be known, even by the most perfect, in their state of humiliation and trial. Therefore, he said, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven; neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32). Not only so, but when the disciples showed, at their last interview with their master, that they had failed to profit aright by this declaration, and came to Him with the question whether He was then going to restore the kingdom to Israel, He rebuked their curiosity by the answer, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in His own power.” This specific announcement, delivered in a face-to-face communication, we may be sure, from the fundamental laws of prophetic revelation, could not be annulled by any subsequent information on the subject, communicated in vision. It fixed, from the first, the abiding condition of the church as regards the knowledge of coming epochs in her history. It did so, more especially in regard to the great epoch of her Lord’s personal return. And whatever insight the visions of the Apocalypse might be intended to give in respect to the kind and order of events which were to fill up the intervening space, it were unreasonable to expect that they should be such as to throw any determinate light upon the precise period of the end. Interpretations pretending to derive from them light of this description, betray, in the very pretension, their own vanity, and cannot fail, as often as renewed, to afford fresh proof of the folly of attempting to penetrate a veil which God has wisely resolved to hang over the events of the future. Let it not, however, be supposed, that the revelations of prophecy contain no materials for aiding our inquiries concerning the probable approach of the greater movements and issues of Providence. There is here also a growing light, which will be found sufficient for all practical purposes, if it is carefully sought for and applied. The events of gospel history separated between things which had not been accurately discriminated, in respect to time, on the page of prophecy; and the visions of the Apocalypse were, no doubt, designed to light up more clearly the prospect of the future, by exhibiting it in successive and contemporaneous forms of development. It is only by the facts and revelations of the New Testament, that ancient prophecy has been found conclusively to require for its complete verification, two disparate manifestations of Godhead—the one in humiliation, the other in glory. And had we not possessed the visions of the Apocalypse, we could hardly have imagined the interval between the commencement of Messiah’s reign, and its proper consummation, was to be so great, or that it was to admit of so complicated a drama of good and evil, of such manifold and successive waves of sin and judgment, trial and victory. On this account alone the Book occupies a most important place, and fills what would otherwise be a grievous blank in the general scheme of revelation. But from its very structure, and more especially from the mystical numbers it employs, and the absence of any explicit information as to the relation of the different visions it unfolds to each other, it is plain, that nothing more than probable grounds of expectation beforehand, or moral certainty afterwards, should be looked for in respect to the events of which it speaks. Should this be reckoned strange? Should it be viewed as derogating to some extent from the honour and usefulness of the prophetic word? Should we not rather esteem it matter of just admiration, that men, who were endowed with such profound insight into the future, should in this particular have been led to exhibit so peculiar a reserve on their communications? Here, especially, the impatient curiosity of the human mind is ever and anon going in quest of specific information; and the world’s prophets seldom want the will, however often they prove destitute of the power, to gratify it. But we have only to search the records of divination, to learn what disastrous results have followed its presumptuous attempts in this direction—even when, by a fortunate coincidence, the prognostications have found a verification in Providence; and what numberless proofs they have afforded of the observation:— “Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths!” Most commonly, indeed, it is falsehoods under the colour of truths, that have been told. Yet even truths, when told out of their proper place and time, respecting the future, have ever proved among the deadliest snares to human virtue. In greatest mercy, therefore, as well as wisdom, God has restrained his servants from breaking too rashly the seal of the future. He has permitted them to impart only such a measure of knowledge concerning things to come, as might not be out of proportion to our other endowments. In special emergencies, when more than common light was needed for direction and encouragement, he has disclosed something even of the times and seasons of coming events. But as comparatively little could have been communicated on such points with safety, so it has always been done with the most sparing hand, and seldom without a covering of secrecy. And in nothing, perhaps, more than in this wonderful combination of darkness and light observable in the prophetic word—in the clear foreknowledge it displays, on the one hand, of the greater things to come in Providence, coupled, on the other, with only such indications of time and place as might be sufficient to stimulate inquiry, and ultimately dispel doubt, may we discern the directing agency of Him who knows our frame, and knows as well what is fit to be withheld as what to be imparted in supernatural communications. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 03.07. CHAPTER 6. THE INTER-CONNECTED AND PROGRESSIVE CHARACTER OF PROPHECY ======================================================================== Chapter 6. The Inter-Connected And Progressive Character Of Prophecy VERY considerable misapprehensions have arisen, and both partial and mistaken views have been propounded respecting particular prophecies, by considering them singly and apart, without regard to the place they hold in the general scheme of prophetical development. Their relation to such a scheme was not a matter of accident, but one of wise and orderly adjustment—not, indeed, on the part of the prophets, who uttered the predictions, but of the inspiring Spirit from whom the communications really proceeded. The prophets themselves spake as they were moved, and as the circumstances of the time required; but both in the personal qualifications of the prophets, and in the particular messages they were commissioned to deliver, a regard was had to the prophecies which had been previously uttered, to the more or less complete fulfilment they had received, and the farther progress that remained to be made. The testimony of prophecy, therefore, like the testimony of history, is a chain composed of many links, each running into others before and after it, and by the introduction of some fresh particulars, or some different aspect of the truth, contributing at once to the elucidation of the past, and to a more explicit representation of the future. This unity of plan and mutual inter-connection of parts, with progressive action on the whole, is precisely what was to have been expected in prophecy, on the supposition of its being the product of one and the same Spirit, operating in connection with a gradual and growing development of the divine purpose in respect to the world’s redemption. In such a case, it is but natural to infer, from what appears in the divine works generally, that as the end must have been contemplated from the beginning, so the whole burden of prophecy would be comprised even in its earlier utterances, but only that it might be afterwards expanded into such variety of parts, as was required by the manifold and ever-changing phases of the world’s history, and the onward progress of the scheme of God. So it was in reality, as the following brief, but comprehensive, sketch, very strikingly unfolds:—“At first, the word of God is as a seed, it may be of the oak, or of any other plant, in which the whole majestic form and various parts of the future lie undisclosed, ready to reveal themselves when the times and the seasons and other conditions which God has appointed to determine its being, shall have taken their course. And there is no break, nor leap, nor start in its course, which proceeds by a slow, and sweet, and beautiful progression, to perfect that purpose or word of God, which said at the beginning, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit, after its kind, whose seed is in itself.’ So the first great promise made in Eden, contains the whole of the revelation and prophecy of God, in an embryo state: first, the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, which has produced all the persecutions endured by the church from the world, since the time of righteous Abel, until this hour, and which she shall endure till the resurrection. The second part of it, ‘Thou shalt bruise his heel,’ has been likewise developing itself during the whole of the same long period, in which the heel, or lowest part of the church’s body, that is, our carnal, natural life, has been vexed and crucified by him during life, and lies bruised unto dust in the grave; but, at the resurrection, the church shall bruise his head, casting him out of his usurped domination, and reigning over him for ever and ever. Therefore it is written, both of Christ and of His church, that they shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel, and have all their enemies under their footstool. We have not room to trace the progress of this seed sown in paradise, as it is developed in the progress of revelation, and shoots its roots into the soil of the fallen world, and spreads its branches into the atmosphere of time, until it shall possess the whole earth; yet in order to show how true the principle is, let us trace it out a little. We have the promise to Abraham still made of a seed, and now all nations are to inherit the blessing, in whose right their father Abraham is infeoffed in a country by the divine word. In the mouth of David, the promise is still of a seed to come, which has now attained the high stature of a triumphant and universal king of Judah by pre-eminence, of all the earth by equal privilege; in this same character of a king, the child is made known to the immediate precursors of His birth, Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, John; in the same character to Simeon, though now His sufferings and the calling of the Gentiles be hinted as first to happen, which He labours all His life long to make intelligible to Nicodemus, to His apostles, and all His disciples. In no other character does Peter declare Him, after the day of Pentecost, and James in the council of Jerusalem, and the two shining ones on Mount Olivet, and Paul and all the apostles, than as THE KING, who ascended on high without seeing corruption, waiting and expecting, till the Father shall accomplish the times and the seasons, and bring in the days of refreshing spoken of by all the prophets, the restitution of all things waited for by the whole creation of God. In no other way does John see Him in the Apocalypse, than as a child, the seed of a woman, caught up to God, and His throne, and there abiding until, after certain sore warfares and persecutions of His church, He comes again with many crowns upon His head, and followed by all the armies of heaven, in order to break the confederacy of Satan’s powers, to bind the old serpent himself, and cast him into the bottomless pit, with all the nations that forget God. There is such a soft, sweet, and silent development of this one seed sown in paradise, and which in its growth doth change the earth into paradise again, reproducing that kind of blessedness which the world was then deprived of, that this alone has ever to thoughtful men marked revelation as a divine work, comprehending the restitution, regeneration, and complete blessedness of man and his habitation. Like the stately branching oak, which begins in an acorn, and of which the end and purpose is, to generate an acorn, while, during the progress of its stately growth, it covers every beast of the earth with its kindly shade, and nestles every bird of heaven in its ample branches; so this promise was sown in the soil of a perfect and perfectly blessed state, while man still dwelt in paradise, and its end is to produce perfectly blessed men, dwelling in paradise again; while, during all the ages of its growth, it should bless the immortal spirits of men with salvation, and its leaves be for the healing of the nations.” (Irving’s Preface to Ben-Ezra, p. lxxi., etc.) In this outline, which we present, chiefly because of the happy manner in which it connects together the beginning and the end, and exhibits the analogy that subsists between God’s method of working in nature and in grace, only some of the more obvious links are noticed. When the matter is looked at more closely, far more is discovered of the progressive unfolding of the first promise, and the inter-connection between it and subsequent prophecies, and of these again with each other. Before we reach the time of Abraham, reference is made to it in the benediction of Noah upon Shem, which defines to some extent the line through which the blessing was to come upon the world—it was to be directly in connection with Shem, and mediately, through a participation with that line, upon the other branches of the human family. Then the revelation to Abraham may be said to combine together the word of Noah and the original promise; it makes promise of a seed of blessing, which was to spread and prosper and have the ascendency in the world, and defines still more exactly the line by which it should proceed; singling out the family of Abraham, setting it in the highest place, and linking indissolubly with it the better destinies of the world. Along with the promise of the land of Canaan for a possession to his seed, or, as it was afterwards defined, to a select portion of his seed, after the flesh, the word given to Abraham was, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” This great promise to Abraham was in one sense only a limitation of the original promise; it merely chalked out a particular channel, through which divine grace should flow in raising up a spiritual seed, to resist and baffle and drive out the tempter; yet in the actual form which it gave to the expected good, more especially in the relations it established with a view to the accomplishment of what was promised, it became a germinant word for all future prophecy before the coming of Christ. From henceforth prophecy takes what may be .called the Abrahamic type. Connecting, as this fundamental promise did, the particular with the general—the hope of the world with a chosen family and a local territory, the same particularism ever after adheres to prophecy; it moves continually within the relations, which date their commencement from the call of the Father of the faithful. The relations are variously modified; new elements are ever and anon intermingled with them to make out the progressive exhibition of the future; but only as gradual developments of what already existed, additional branches springing out of the old stock, and clustering around it, not the production of a stock altogether new. Thus, the prophetic disclosures successively made to Isaac and Jacob are little more than renewals of the original promise to Abraham, with certain indications regarding the mode in which it was to proceed to its accomplishment. Even the remarkable prophecy of Jacob, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh (the peaceful one) come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the peoples be,” is merely a step forward in the same line; it simply associates the divine purpose, as disclosed to Abraham, primarily with the tribal ascendency of Judah, and ultimately with a distinguished individual of that tribe, in whom the fulness of power and blessing was to reach its culminating point, and diffuse itself throughout the nations of the earth. Balaam ere long catches up the strain of the dying patriarch, and, along with other expansions of the Abrahamic promise, proclaims the rise of the bright day-star, of which Jacob spoke—the glorious and mighty Lord, who should rule with resistless might, but rule only to subdue the evil and establish the good. The current grows in volume as it proceeds. The house of David comes into view as the election within the election, the seed out of all the tribes of Israel and the families of Judah, which, by virtue of its peculiar relationship to God, was to attain to the ascendency in the affairs of men, and carry the blessings of salvation and peace to the remotest habitations. Here, again, a fresh start is taken by the prophetic word, another stage is reached; and the settlement of the power and the glory for ever in connection with the house of David, as disclosed in the fundamental prophecy of Nathan (2 Samuel 7:1-29), appears at once as a certain consummation of the earlier predictions given to Abraham and his posterity, and the seed-corn of other predictions that point to a still brighter and greater future. Hence these other predictions have respect alike to the more general and the more special relations indicated in what had been spoken and done; they point back sometimes to the less definite covenant of blessing made with Abraham, sometimes to the more personal and specific form it assumed in connection with the house and lineage of David; and not unfrequently the language carries a distinct reference to both together. The Messianic psalms, and the later Messianic prophecies generally, are constructed mainly on the basis of Nathan’s prophecy and the relations it introduced respecting the kingdom, yet not so as to loose sight of the earlier promise, and the fulfilment it was to receive by the others coming into play. Thus, in Psalms 72:1-20, which is throughout a prophecy of Him, who was to be emphatically the King, and of the character of His kingdom, it is said at Psalms 72:17, with evident reference to the Abrahamic promise, “And they shall bless themselves in Him, all nations shall call Him blessed;” and, again, in Psalms 22:27, “All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord; and all the families of the Gentiles shall worship before Him.” It is as much as to say, then shall the blessing of Abraham have come upon the Gentiles. In Jeremiah 33:22, the promise of a continued and flourishing condition to the house and kingdom of David is thrown—doubtless for the purpose of marking more distinctly the connection between the two—into the peculiar form of the Abrahamic promise, “As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the seed of David my servant”—although the covenant with David had respect, not so properly to a numerous offspring, as to a perpetual and glorious succession in the kingdom. And in Zechariah 14:16-19, which obviously has respect to the closing issues of Messiah’s kingdom on earth, the word of promise to Abraham as to those being blessed who blessed him, and cursed who cursed him, and all the families of the earth being at last blessed in him, is taken up and applied in Zechariah’s peculiar manner; the nations, as in the old promise, have the designation of “all the families of the earth,” and they are represented as going to be blessed or cursed, according as they did or did not go to worship before the Lord with His covenant people. (See this subject of the developments of the earlier prophecies ably handled in Hengstenberg’s “Christology,” vol. i., second edition.) Such examples show very distinctly the consecutive, as well as progressive nature of prophecy—how tenaciously it adheres to the old channels, maintains the original impress, and proceeds by way of development under relations already settled and known, rather than by the introduction of others essentially different and new. They show, that as regards the great stream of prophecy, the past never properly dies; it is perpetually resumed and carried forward in the future. Earlier developments become only the historical basis, out of which spring the announcement of more matured and diversified results. It is thus that the historical goes along with the prophetical, the one ever furnishing, by its fresh evolutions, the occasion and ground-work on which the other proceeds to unfold some further aspect of the scheme of God. And instructive, as well as interesting, is it to mark how the history was moulded, sometimes even into peculiar and unexpected shapes, to open the way and provide the materials for the progressive informations of prophecy. The circumstances of David’s time were remarkable illustrations of this, which were all divinely ordered, so as to make the beginning prophetic of the end. Even the changes to the worse, that afterwards arose—the falling down, as it is called, of the tabernacle of David, or the decaying of his once stately tree, till it had become like a scathed and branchless stump—though singularly trying to faith in the meantime, was improved by the Spirit of prophecy to the end of bringing out more distinctly and graphically, than might otherwise have been possible, the deep humiliation and adverse circumstances amid which the kingdom was ultimately to rise from the dust and advance toward its perfected condition. But, perhaps, the most striking example to be found of this moulding of the historical relations and occurrences, to admit of prophecy, without essentially altering the form of its representations, progressively adapting these to the approaching future, is furnished by the changes—in themselves changes to the worse, that entered after the return from Babylon. Various points might be mentioned in this connection, but one very particularly indicates the foreseeing eye and presiding agency of God. An anomalous and, as regards the history of the period, an almost inexplicable state of things then began. While the work of God generally was revived among the covenant people, and the house of David did not want a worthy representative in the person of Zerubbabel, yet that house itself did not revive in the same proportion as the rest; it even fell, after a little, into complete abeyance; and, notwithstanding that the hopes of the people were all suspended on the appearance of a glorious personage of the seed-royal, it was not the royal but the priestly line that rose to the place of power and authority in Judah. This was, no doubt, partly ordained to the end, that when the promised child appeared, the hand of God might be more evidently seen in His rise to the possession of the kingdom. But it was partly also, and, indeed, more immediately appointed for another purpose—for the purpose of directing the thoughts and expectations of the church to the priestly element in Messiah’s character, which in the prophecies founded on the relations of David’s time, had been somewhat obscured by the kingly. The reverse now takes place; the kingly falls into the background, and the priestly rises in its stead. Hence, in the prophecies of this period, those of Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi, a quite peculiar place is given to the priesthood; and though Zerubbabel is once and again mentioned as the representative of the royal house, yet it is Joshua, the high-priest, who is formally exalted to the head of the covenant people, and is even taken as a type to foreshadow the future Joshua or Saviour-king. In the third chapter of Zechariah, after being set up as a type of the people, first clothed in filthy garments, then in others fair and comely—a sign of forgiveness and acceptance—a charge is addressed to Joshua, to walk in the ways of God, coupled with the assurance, that if he did thus walk, it would be given him to “judge the house of the Lord and keep His courts”—in other words, to have regal as well as priestly power. And then, after declaring Joshua and his fellows, in this, to be men of wonders or signs, the prophet goes on to read the import of the transaction, by making promise of the Branch, the Lord’s anointed already promised under that name, by whom the iniquity of the people was really to be purged away, and who, as the true Shiloh, would give them to sit in peace, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree. In like manner, in the sixth chapter, Joshua is expressly set forth, with crowns upon his head, as the representative of “the Man whose name is the BRANCH,” of whom it is said, “He shall build the temple of the Lord,” build it, namely, in the true and proper sense, as contradistinguished from that inferior and shadowy sense, in which Joshua and his companions were then doing it. “And,” it is added, “He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” In Malachi also, it is the state and calling of the priesthood that are peculiarly dwelt upon, and the most explicit prophecy that is given of the coming Messiah, represents Him as going to establish the covenant which the sons of Levi were violating, and accomplish a work of thorough purification upon the members of the covenant. Thus was it wisely ordered by the providence of God, that in the last announcements of prophecy, that aspect of the Messiah’s character and mission should be the most distinctly, as from the turn given to affairs it was also quite naturally, brought out, which was the first to be formally established, and which was to constitute the ground-work of all that should follow. It was nothing absolutely new, however; but only a more palpable and prominent exhibition of what had been frequently indicated in earlier, and was involved even in the earliest, prophetical announcements. And so, when prophecy enters on its proper fulfilment, the whole appear to have simultaneously reached their end; the relations, whether more general or more particular, under which the future had been predicted, are once for all established in the higher sphere of gospel realities, so that the end may be said to embrace the beginning. When Christ enters the world, He is made known as pre-eminently the seed of Abraham, through whom the blessing, so long promised, comes upon the Gentiles; as the son of David, who appears to rectify every evil, and set up the throne of the kingdom in righteousness and truth; as the high-priest, also, who bears away the iniquity of His people, and in his own blood, lays the foundation of His kingdom—receives the crown of glory in the heavenly places, because He has suffered unto death in the earthly. His followers become Abraham’s children, the true Israelites, fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, ministering before God in light and purity in the midst of surrounding Gentiles (1 Peter 2:5, 1 Peter 2:12; 3 John 1:7 John 7:1-52); at death going to Abraham’s bosom; at the regeneration sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God; nay, at the restitution of all things, entering paradise as the woman’s victorious seed, and taking their place beside the tree of life, and the river, clear as crystal, that proceeds from the throne of God and the Lamb. In reality, and looking to the order of nature, Christ is the root of all; in Him and from Him the whole proceeds; and so it is declared in Scripture with the greatest plainness and frequency. But out of regard to the historical element, which plays so important a part in the revelations of Scripture, the older relations are still preserved in the word of promise, in order to connect prophecy with its fulfilment, and to render manifest the consecutive as well as progressive character of its revelations. But it is clear that if this holds in regard to one class of relations, it must equally do so in regard to another. The manner and style of prophecy must be uniform, if it is to be intelligible. The relations we have referred to, as embodied in its representations—progressively embodied, as its views of the future came to be progressively unfolded—are those of a personal and social kind; but, in intimate connection with these, there were also local relations, which stand side by side with the other in the delineations of prophecy. They were not merely poetical beings in connection with whom it revealed the future; they had their place amid the realities of sense and time. Eve was connected with a paradise of life and blessing before her fall, as with a cursed and troubled earth afterwards; and the prophecies respecting her victorious seed point to the uplifting of this curse, and the return to that paradise again. Abraham, with his immediate offspring, Isaac and Jacob, were also connected, by promise, with a specific territory; and the covenant made with Abraham as distinctly and properly includes an inheritance of blessing, as a seed of blessing that should become co-extensive with the families of the earth. In the history and prophecy alike, the two are bound up inseparably together. Circumcision was appointed as the seal of the covenant, without the remotest hint of a division in respect to these objects, so that it can only be characterised as a fiction of modern times to connect it with the one of these more than with the other. We must here also proclaim the word, “What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Certainly the prophets of the Old Testament did not do so. As they employ the personal and social relations of Abraham and his posterity to unfold the character and purposes of the great scheme of God, so with these they ever conjoin the territorial; and Canaan, Jerusalem, Zion, are at every step mixed up with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others, in the prospective exhibition of the better things to come. What, under the one class of relations, is represented as the blessing of Abraham diffusing itself to all the families of the earth, appears, under the other, as the King of Zion having the heathen for His heritage, or reigning in peace and righteousness to the ends of the earth; or as Israel being third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth (Isaiah 19:24); or as people out of Egypt, Babylon, Ethiopia, and other countries, going to be born in Zion, and many representations of a like nature. Nor is it otherwise when we pass to writers of the New Testament. They tell us, indeed, that baptism has taken the place of circumcision, but in its entireness, not in respect merely to a part of its symbolical and sealing import. They speak, with reference to Christians generally, of our fathers having passed under the cloud and through the sea. They designate believers, not only Abraham’s children, but heirs also with him, according to the promise—heirs, namely, of what he himself was heir of. They represent the oath, which ultimately confirmed the covenant with Abraham, as added, that “we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us;” and describe the members of Christ’s church as having now come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Yes, and we may well thank God that it is so; that the evidence on each side is so clear and decisive; and that on the warrant of inspired prophecy going before, and an infallible interpretation coming after, we can assure ourselves of a personal interest in all that was written in former revelations, without being obliged to grope our way between certain things that are for us, and certain other things with which we have no personal concern. All hangs harmoniously together. The same word that, as addressed to men of former generations, tells us of the way to a sonship condition, lays open, at the same time, the prospect of a sonship inheritance. And speaking, as it does, of things to come, through the existing relations of those by whom it came—their territorial as well as personal and social relations—we may, and indeed ought to see in one and all of them alike, the hidden purpose of God’s grace, in its completeness, struggling into light, and in the present and visible sphere of things giving open pledge and testimony of the glorious heritage of life and blessing, destined for those upon whom the ends of the world have come. (On the ground of these considerations we object to the division of the prophecies of the Old Testament into those of a simply temporal kind, which belonged to Abraham and his family; and those of a spiritual kind, in which the people of God generally have an interest. Sherlock, in his Discourses on Prophecy, exhibits this division. One portion, he says, “relates to the temporal state and condition of the Jews, and was in order to the administration and execution, on God’s part, of the temporal government given to Abraham and his natural descendants. These prophecies, relating to the things of this life, concern us but little; but there are others in which we are highly concerned,” etc. But Davison carries out this division more formally. He regards prophecy as taking, from the call of Abraham, a double course—falling into two distinct lines, “one of them exclusive and particular to his family; the other extending to all the nations of the earth.” He holds the two to “be exceedingly distinct in their extent and in their kind, and their distinction was marked from the beginning” (p. 83). We take this to be a superficial view of the matter. The outward and temporal did not exist by itself or for itself, but for the higher spiritual things connected with it, and as the necessary means for securing their attainment. To separate such things which God has bound so closely together, and draw a broad line of demarcation between them, is false in principle, and sure to lead to erroneous results. If believers in Christ are Abraham’s children, and heirs according to His promise, they are assuredly interested in all that was said or promised to him. And the outward and temporal can never stand alone; rightly considered, it will be seen to have a spiritual element pervading and animating it.) We have hitherto spoken of the mutual inter-connection and progressive character of the prophetical writings together, the one as the natural result and sequel of the other. There might, however, be a connection without an actual progression. One prophecy might, in regard either to its subject, or to the form of representation it employed, have a respect to, and even be in a sense dependent upon, an earlier prophecy. And, in so far as such may be the case, it must be proper to keep it in view as an important element in the interpretation of prophecy, since a later prophecy of that description, even when it does not add anything material to the earlier, and brings out no new aspect of the future, cannot fail to be of service in confirming or elucidating what has preceded. The reference in Zechariah, already noticed, to the prophecy of Isaiah, respecting the branch that was to spring out of the stem of David, would have been of value (to say nothing of the intimation coupled with it of the priestly character of Him in whom it was to be realised), were it only for the familiarity it bespeaks with the earlier prophecy, and the explanation it puts upon the term branch, as indicative of small beginnings, but such as were to grow to the greatest magnitude. The passages in which one prophet substantially adopts the representation, or quotes the language of another, are of considerable number and variety. We can only refer to a few of the more obvious examples. Thus, in Isaiah 2:1-4, we have, with only a few verbal differences, the same prediction respecting the exaltation of the house of the Lord in the latter days, and the general resort of the nations to it, that occurs in Micah 4:1-3; the ideas, the language, the structure of the periods are so nearly alike, that there can be no doubt of the one having given rise to the other; and there are pretty strong grounds for the conclusion, that it appeared first in the prophecies of Micah. The prophecies of Balaam, as they refer more than once to earlier predictions, so are they again among the most frequently referred to and quoted in subsequent prophecies. Micah, for example, distinctly points to them, in Micah 6:5, and calls upon the people to remember them. Habakkuk at Habakkuk 1:3, “Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold violence?” and again, at Habakkuk 1:3, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on evil,” evidently uses language derived from Numbers 23:21, where Balaam speaks of God as “not beholding iniquity in Jacob, nor seeing perverseness in Israel.” Balaam had said (Numbers 24:17), of the star that was to arise out of Jacob, that “He should smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth;” and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 48:45), says, “a flame shall devour the corner of Moab, and the crown of the head of the children of noise”—partly quoting the former words, and by a slight change (much slighter than the translation might seem to imply), giving the meaning more distinctly of the rest—the children of Sheth in Balaam becoming the children of noise or tumult in Jeremiah. There are many similar examples in Jeremiah, who, more than any of the prophets, adopts the language of his predecessors; thus, in Jeremiah 17:8, his description of the man, whose hope is in the Lord (“He shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green”), is very much an adoption with some amplifications of the Psalmist’s description of the righteous in the first Psalm; and the prophecy in Jeremiah 49:7-32, of Edom, is in many parts the same with what is found in Obadiah, or differs from it only in unimportant particulars. Obadiah had said, “The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.” Jeremiah says, “Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that boldest the height of the hill; though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord.” Several other specimens might be given from the same prophecies. And Obadiah, who here is followed, himself also follows Joel in various expressions; as when he says, “They have cast lots upon Jerusalem” (Obadiah 1:11), while Joel had said, “They cast lots upon my people” (Joel 3:3): or, “Thy reward shall return upon thine own head” (Obadiah 1:15), and “Upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance “ (Obadiah 1:17), where the words are in each case taken from Joel Joel 3:4, Joel 3:7; Joel 2:32. But it is needless to multiply examples farther. Now, at first thought, such appropriations by one prophet of the words and ideas of another, may seem scarcely to consist with the raised and elevated condition of those who saw the vision of God, and spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. It may seem to throw around such portions of the prophetic word an appearance of art and labour; and exhibit them in a dangerous resemblance to the productions in human literature of those who endeavour to make up for the want of original genius, by availing themselves of the ideas and expressions of more gifted intellects. Such actually has been the interpretation sometimes put upon the matter. And yet, that it is manifestly not the right one, is evident alone from the order, in which the citations and references by one prophet from another appear in the examples we have adduced. If an Isaiah could take from a Micah, a Habakkuk from a Balaam, a Jeremiah from an Obadiah, it is clear, that some other principle must be sought to account for the dependence, than any native inferiority of mental powers, or the decay of prophetic gifts. In the way of explanation, it must be remembered, that the revelations of the prophets, if not formally given over, like the Psalms of David, to persons charged with the service of God in the sanctuary, were usually made public as soon as they were received, and added to the existing testimony of God. They forthwith became part of the sacred treasury of the church; and formed, not only as to the thoughts expressed in them, a portion of revealed truth, but also, as to the very terms employed, a kind of hallowed tongue, in which to give expression to such thoughts, when they might again present themselves for utterance. May we not appeal in support of this to experience? When one is really, and, in the proper sense, full of the Holy Ghost, do not his thoughts instinctively, as it were, run in scriptural channels, and clothe themselves, when he speaks, in the very language of inspiration? The more powerfully the Spirit works within, originating spiritual thoughts and feelings, the more readily do they always take this scriptural direction; as appears on the day of Pentecost itself, in the address of the apostle Peter, which is full of Old Testament quotations; and shortly after, when escaping from the hand of violence, and filled with the Holy Ghost, the apostles poured forth their hearts to God with one accord, in the very words that had been indited centuries before by the pen of David (Acts 4:23-27). In like manner, the apostle Paul, who had the highest gifts of the Spirit, and spoke of the things of God “in the words which were taught by the Holy Ghost,” ever makes the freest use of the earlier Scriptures, and sometimes, as when enjoining the duty of forgiveness, contents himself with reiterating the testimony of former times (Romans 12:19-21). And how often does the apostle Peter, throughout his first epistle, address to the New Testament church, as from himself, passages that were originally addressed by other servants of God to the church of the Old Testament? Yet such passages are as much the communications of the Holy Spirit on their second, as they were on their first appearance; for the purpose of God required, that a fresh utterance should be given to the sentiments they expressed, and the original form of expression was, on many accounts, the best that could be chosen. Besides, there were ends of a more special kind to be served by the references and quotations from one prophet to another. For, these were like so many sign-marks along the line of ancient prophecy, indicating the relation of one portion to another—formal and specific authentications in the chain of God’s testimony, connecting the earlier with the later, certifying the existence of the earlier, and confirming anew, or incidentally throwing light on its import. “The Old Testament prophets,” says Caspari, form a regular succession; they are members of an unbroken continuous chain; one perpetually reaches forth the hand to another. The later prophets had always either heard or read the prophecies of the earlier, and had these deeply impressed upon their minds. When therefore, the Spirit of God came upon a prophet and irresistibly impelled him to prophesy (Amos 3:8), it naturally happened first, that here and there, sometimes more, sometimes less, he clothed what the Spirit imparted to him, in the words of one or other of the prophets he had heard or read—the words of his prophetical fore-runner thus cleaving to his memory, and forming part of the materials of utterance of which the Spirit availed himself; and second, that the later prophet attached himself to the prophetical views of the earlier, and in the power of the prophetic Spirit, which descended on him from above and wrought in his soul, either confirmed them anew by a fresh promulgation, or expanded and completed them. For the most part, the coincidence in thought and expression is found united in the prophets.” (Der Prophet Obadiah, Ausgelegt Von Carl Paul Caspari, pp. 21, 22.) Delitzsch, the friend and coadjutor of Caspari, has followed up this line of remark by similar observations in his introduction to the third chapter of the prophet Habakkuk—a chapter which is not less distinguished by the vein of originality that pervades it, than by the free use which is made in it of some of the earlier portions of Scripture, especially of Psalms 77:1-20, “With the inspired penman in general,” he says, “and with the prophet in particular, simply from his being a living member of the spiritual body, there was formed an internal storehouse out of the substance of former revelations, which had entered into the very core of his spiritual life, and become amalgamated with it—revelations which sunk so deep into the memory and the heart of every pious Israelite, that he necessarily acted under their influence in the formation of his thoughts, and, when writing also, could not avoid making use of the older expressions, which already bore upon them a divine impress. Besides, the prophet could not otherwise be the organ and bearer of a divine revelation, than by sacrificing everything of a selfish kind, therefore all ambitious strivings after originality, that he might surrender himself to the operation of God; and this operation was partly of a mediate nature, through the work which had already been produced, and partly immediate, yet even then connecting itself closely with the existing word. The conformity of the new, which germinated in the mind of the prophet, with the old, which had been imported into his mind, was necessitated alone by the circumstance, that the revelation, in its organic development, could only present the aspect of something new, in so far as it took up the old, in order to confirm and still further unfold it, without the possibility, in the process of development, which proceeds from God Himself, the Unchangeable, of running into contrariety with what had preceded. This unison is the very seal of a divine revelation, as the work of one and the same Spirit operating in the workshops of many individuals.” (Der Prophet Habakkuk, Ausgelegt von F. Delitzsch, p. 118.) On the whole, then, this mutual inter-connection and dependence apparent in the prophetical writings was of importance, as an appropriate evidence and seal of the oneness of the pervading Spirit, of the brotherhood of the prophetical order in faith and love, of the advancing, yet ever-renewing light of the prophetical testimony, and, we may add, of the genuineness and authenticity of its several parts. The prophets were not rendered less human in their manner of thought and utterance, that they were supernaturally moved by the Holy Spirit; they thought as men, they spake as men; and the use they thus made successively of each others’ writings, is a mark of verisimilitude on them as writings, a concealed attestation of their having been produced and published at the proper time, and a satisfactory indication as to the place they relatively and respectively occupied in the prophetic chain. It is an element that has most effectually withstood the rationalistic alchemy, and materially contributed to the defence of the integrity of the prophetical writings. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 03.08. PART 2. APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES TO PAST AND PROSPECTRE FULFILMENTS OF PROPHECY ======================================================================== Part 2. Application Of Principles To Past And Prospectre Fulfilments Of Prophecy ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 03.09. CHAPTER 1. THE APOLOGETIC VALUE OF PROPHECY ======================================================================== Chapter 1. The Apologetic Value Of Prophecy, Of Its Place And Use As An Evidence For The Facts And Doctrines Of Scripture THERE are three points that ought especially to be borne in mind, when prophecy is considered as an evidence, and brought to bear on the controversy we have to maintain with the assailants of the Bible. The first is, that as it is prophecy in its predictive character alone that is here made account of, this, it should be remembered, was only a branch, and not more than a subsidiary branch, of its revelations. We refer for the proof and grounds of the statement to the first chapter of the former part, and to the farther elucidations given respecting it in chapter third. But assuming the position now as a correct one, it were in itself wrong, and fitted to beget mistaken apprehensions on the subject, to conduct the argument from prophecy, as if the whole value of prophecy depended upon the number and clearness of its announcements of the future. This has been too often done in the past, and material injustice has in consequence been inflicted on the interests of revealed truth. A second consideration, which was also brought out in the earlier part of our inquiries (chap. iii), has respect to the more immediate design and function of prophecy. Its proper sphere is the church, rather than the world; and the primary end for which its communications were given, was to direct and comfort the children of faith, more especially in their seasons of greater darkness and perplexity. Of necessity, therefore, those who stand altogether without the region of faith, must be in an unfavourable position for appreciating, or even for distinctly understanding a large portion of the prophetical volume. It is only some of the broader features and more salient points of the subject, that can with any advantage be presented to them. We are obliged to act in the matter like persons who stand outside—looking, as from a distance, on the exterior of the sacred building, and pointing to such proportions and adjustments as are too conspicuous to be overlooked, or altogether denied; but are not in a condition to enter in, and take cognisance of the finer, the more profound, and far-reaching harmonies which pervade the internal framework. There is still another point, which must be taken into account—in itself, when duly considered, a source of great strength, but one that must also be attended with some disadvantage in conducting an argument with adversaries of the faith. In dealing with such persons, it is necessary, for the most part, to single out and press specific points, instead of surveying the matter in its proper compass and completeness. Now, the evidence of prophecy is essentially of a connected and cumulative nature. It does not consist so much in the verifications given to a few remarkable predictions, as in the establishment of an entire series, closely related to each other, and forming a united and comprehensive whole. This is peculiarly the case in respect to the prophecies, which relate to the person and kingdom of Messiah, which more than any others form a prolonged and connected series. Hence, to use the words of Bishop Hurd, “though the evidence be but small from the completion of any one prophecy, taken separately, the amount of the whole evidence, resulting from a great number of prophecies, all relative to the same design, may be considerable: like many scattered rays, which, though each be weak in itself, yet concentred into one point, shall form a strong light, and strike the sense very powerfully.” (“Sermons on Prophecy,” p. 86.) Any one may see, on a moment’s reflection, how great a difference this serial and connected character of Old Testament prophecy forms, in an argumentative respect, between it and the isolated, occasionally happy prognostications of uninspired men. The difference is such, as to secure for the argument founded on the fulfilment of Scriptural prophecy a conclusive force, if it is fully entered into and fairly dealt with; while, if looked at only in broken fragments, the distance cannot possibly appear so great as it would otherwise do between them and some of the more fortunate specimens of human augury. Even, however, with this disadvantage, the prophecies of Scripture will be found to have characteristics belonging to them, which such specimens fail to exhibit. The two most noted examples of the class, that used to be brought, and in the present day are still brought, into competition with the predictions of the Bible, are taken from ancient Roman authors. One is the saying of a Roman augur, Vettius Valens, reported by Varro, in his eighteenth Book of Antiquities: If it was true, as historians related (si ita esset, ut traderent historici), that twelve vultures had appeared to Romulus at the founding of the city of Rome, then, since the Roman people had survived for 120 years, they would prolong their existence to 1200 years. And the other occurs in Seneca’s Medea, where it is said, a time should come, when the ocean would relax the cords by which the world was then bound, and new regions of the earth come to be explored; when Thule (Shetland) would cease to be the remotest boundary of the known world. [1] [1] --------- Venient annis Saecula sens, quibus oceanus Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos Detegat orbes; nec sit terris Ultima Thule.) Now, in regard to both of these vaunted prophecies, there is no need with Hurd to press on the other side the serial and compact nature of the prophecies of Scripture. By doing so, indeed, we might place those of Scripture at a much greater and more conspicuous elevation above them. But, in truth, they cannot stand a comparison even with some of the earlier and less specific announcements of Scriptural prophecy. Bishop Horsley has tested that of Seneca with the prophecy of Noah, in respect to the relative fortunes of his posterity, and shown the immeasurable superiority of the patriarch’s insight into the future above that displayed by the Roman sage. General and comprehensive as Noah’s prediction is, it still comprises particulars which were capable of meeting as well with a marked contradiction, as with a distinct verification in the course of Providence, since it so expressly, and in perfect accordance with the results of history, ascribes to Shem’s line the superiority in respect to the knowledge and worship of Jehovah; to Japhet’s, the superiority in respect to extensive propagation and active energy; and to Ham’s, the bad pre-eminence of degradation and servitude. It is easy to conceive how, in many respects, the course of events might have travestied this prospective distribution, instead of presenting, as it has done, a remarkable confirmation of it. But, in regard to Seneca’s augury, which has, no doubt, received a sort of fulfilment, it really predicts nothing but what might with confidence have been anticipated from the history of the past. There had already, within the period to which authentic tradition reached back, been a great enlargement of men’s geographical knowledge; many discoveries had been made of new territories both by sea and land; and as it was certain that a vast extent of ocean still remained to be explored, nothing was more likely to occur to an imaginative mind than that in process of time further additions would yet be made to the ascertained boundaries of the habitable globe. But, beside this natural inference, all is vague and general. “Neither the parts of the world are specified from which expeditions of discovery should be fitted out, nor the quarters in which they should most succeed; or, if any intimation upon the latter article be couched in the mention of Shetland, as an island that should cease to be extreme, it is erroneous, as it points precisely to that quarter of the globe where discovery has ever been at a stand—where the ocean, to this hour, opposes his eternal barrier of impervious unnavigable ice.” (Horsley’s Works, I., p. 256.) It fares still worse with the other prediction, the ancient oracle of Vettius. His prognostication from the number and appearance of the vultures, did not even profess to have more than a possibility for its foundation: “If it was so,” he said, “as historians related.” But every one knows now that, like other things respecting Romulus and Remus, the story about the vultures is not so properly the account which historians related as the legends which poets sung; it was altogether of a fabulous character, and the prediction hazarded on it could be nothing more than a fortunate guess. It appears, indeed, in the form of a calculation. If the Roman people have survived 120 years—that Isaiah , 12 times 10—then they shall do so ten times that again,—1200 years. But why this longer period? They certainly did survive so long; but we can see no probable grounds for the anticipation, none for that precise period any more than others that might be named. We have, as we shall presently see, greatly more specific predictions in Scripture, than either of those heathen oracles—predictions which are not based upon any conjectural hypothesis, and far too discriminating to have been framed merely by shrewd inference and deduction from the history of the past. But were they less so than they really are, when taken individually, it is not to be forgotten that their immense number and connected order—as related to a great scheme, and pointing to a definite end—forms their peculiar distinction, and renders the argument deducible from them one of an exceedingly varied and cumulative nature. If it might be excepted against certain portions of the chain, that they did not afford conclusive evidence of supernatural foresight and Divine interposition, the whole surely cannot be so accounted for. And, besides, even when taken in its full compass and connection, prophecy, it must be remembered, with its manifold accomplishments, is still but one branch of the Christian evidence. So far from having the whole weight to bear alone, there are several others equally important to be coupled with it—the miracles of the gospel, the originality of Christ’s character and scheme, the sincere and self-sacrificing spirit of His apostles, the sublime morality of their teaching, with its profound adaptation to the wants and emotions of man’s moral nature, and the blessed results it has accomplished in the world. All must be taken together; they are so many distinct but converging lines; and it is the combined force and operation of the whole, not the strength merely of a particular part, which must decide the claim of Scripture to be received as the authoritative revelation of God to men. We must, however, quit these general considerations, and by a selection of particular examples show how the argument from prophecy may be most advantageously conducted. Dealing with the subject as it may be best fitted to tell upon the understanding and convictions of those who are enveloped in doubt or unbelief, our position should be chosen at a point where the ground is comparatively clear as to the main question, and no preliminary difficulties can be raised, or brooding suspicions entertained, regarding the possible occurrence of the events that fulfilled, before the utterance of the prophecies that foretold them. The interval between the prophecy and its fulfilment should be such as to leave no proper room to doubt that the one had been spoken and recorded before the other had come into operation. On this account many of the most explicit prophecies, whose deliverance and fulfilment are recorded in the same book, should be passed over in the first instance; as in the case of such, the adversary is ready with the reply, that he doubts the formal existence of the predictions till after the events themselves had taken place. We may, therefore, fix upon the period about or immediately subsequent to the Babylonish captivity, when most of the prophetical writings were certainly in existence; but as some, not even avowed adversaries, are still disposed to except portions of Daniel, and to regard them as the productions of a still later period, however groundless the suspicion is, the consideration of such portions had better be postponed till others are disposed of. Section I. Prophecies on the States and Kingdoms Which Came Into Contact with Israel OPENING Old Testament Scripture, then, as it unquestionably stood at the period referred to, we would ask the person, on whom we seek to make some impression by the argument from prophecy, to note what is written there of the surrounding states and kingdoms, that either then stood, or had lately been standing, in an attitude of rivalry and opposition to the covenant-people. However it may have happened, the fact is palpable and notorious, that feelings of enmity existed, and proceedings of hostility had been carried on betwixt Israel and those heathen neighbours, not, however, without alternations of close intimacy and fraternal alliances, though on God’s part expressly forbidden. Nor is the fact less palpable and notorious, that in the prophetic word a doom was pronounced against one and all of those surrounding states; and that although they respectively occupied very different positions in rank and power, and also inhabited very different territories. There were the smaller tribes of the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Philistines; the bitterly inimical, and, even after the Babylonian era, still powerful Edomites; the enterprising and nourishing community of Tyre, who had the maritime commerce of the world at their command, and whose ships frequented every harbor of the ancient world; Egypt with her hereditary renown, her natural and acquired resources, and still almost unsullied glory; and towering proudly above all, Babylon with her enormous walls and lofty battlements, her advantageous situation and treasures past reckoning, the seat, when the prophecies respecting her were uttered, of a mighty empire, and though subject to the Medo-Persian sway at the time when the Jewish exiles returned to Judea, yet wanting little in appearance of her former magnificence, and not unlikely to assert again her independence, or become under her new masters the centre of as extensive and powerful a dominion as she had ever wielded. Such were the states and kingdoms that surrounded the covenant-people, and against one and all of which, because of their ambitious rivalry or ungodly and spiteful opposition toward the kingdom which God had set up for the homage and blessing of the nations, prophecy uttered a doom of judgment. So far the doom was uniform—that all, as powers possessing or aspiring to dominion in the earth, should be brought down, and be made monuments of ruin. But, at the same time, there was considerable variety in the language employed; the predictions are by no means indiscriminate denunciations of coming evil; the form and extent of the evil announced varies, and with the evil there sometimes also intermingles the prospect of spiritual good. Thus, in the twenty-third chapter of Isaiah, after the most express intimation of the coming downfal of Tyre, it is added at Isaiah 23:18, that she should again recover from that first overthrow, and that “her merchandise and her hire should be holiness to the Lord;” and in Isaiah 19:18-25, of the same prophet, a participation in spiritual blessings is distinctly promised in respect to Egypt and Assyria: the Lord was to smite and again to heal; Egypt and Assyria were to derive benefit from Israel; so that it might even come to be said, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.” Yet with all this diversity, both as regards the measure of calamity in the threatened doom, and the prospect of spiritual good occasionally intermingling with the announcement of natural evil, it is declared with one voice by the ancient prophets respecting all those states and kingdoms, that their power and political existence should be utterly destroyed—they should, in that respect, become a desolation; but with a marked exception in the case of Egypt, which was merely to sink into irrecoverable meanness and degradation (Ezekiel 29:15, etc.) Now, looking at these prophetic utterances in this general light, and with respect to the more obvious results contemplated in them, as the import of the prophecies is plain, so the fulfilment of them is certain. There can scarcely be said to be any room for doubt either way. Nor was there any thing in the political aspect of the times, or in the natural position of affairs, which could in each case have warranted the prognostication of such striking results. It might, possibly, have been conjectured without any superhuman insight that the lesser states, such as the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, should in process of time be extinguished by the great empires which were then contending for the mastery of the world, or become merged into the wandering tribes of the desert. But what natural sagacity could have foreseen, that the Edomites, who continued comparatively strong and vigorous beyond the period that the prophecies respecting them were written, and who retained possession of their territory when Judea was laid waste, should yet become more desolate than their Jewish rivals, nay, should entirely cease to have a political existence, and should do so from their being swallowed up by the revived might and energy of Israel? This is the singular turn of affairs that was predicted as to the relative position of the two peoples: “Upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it” (Obadiah 1:17-18; Ezekiel 25:14). The meaning plainly is, that the Edomites should cease to be a separate kingdom; their name and memorial as such should perish; and as this was to come upon them specially on account of their vengeful hatred toward the children of Israel, so, to mark more distinctly the divine retribution, the Lord was to “lay his vengeance upon Edom by the hand of his people Israel;” other instrument of judgment might be employed, but this was to be the one that should actually effect the work of their national destruction. And so it was—though not till about a century and a-half before the Christian era. Instruments of desolation had begun to work at a much earlier period; for even Malachi could speak of their having been impoverished, and greatly decayed, though still existing as a separate people (Malachi 1:3-4); but in the time of the Maccabees, John Hyrcanus so completely subdued them, that he gave them the alternative of entirely abandoning their country (which then lay immediately to the south of Palestine, and even included part of ancient Judea), or submitting to the rite of circumcision, and conforming to the laws of Moses. They embraced the latter alternative, and so, as Josephus says, “They were henceforth no other than Jews.” (Antiq. 13:9. 1. Such also is the testimony of the grammarian Ammonius, as quoted by Prideaux, An. 129, “The Idumeans were not Jews from the beginning, but Phoenicians and Syrians; but being afterwards subdued by the Jews and compelled to be circumcised, and unite into one nation, and be subject to the same laws, they were called Jews.” To the like effect also Dio. lib. xxxvi., “That country is also called Judea, and the people Jews; and this name is given also to as many others as embrace their religion, though of other nations.”) Their national distinction was gone; their political existence, and their heritage had alike perished; and in such a manner as to render but the more conspicuous the nobler rank and destiny of Israel. Was there not here the manifest signature of the eye and the finger of Omniscience? The case of Babylon is, if possible, a still more striking evidence. What merely human foresight could have descried the utter ruin and prostration of such a city? At the time the prophecies were written, she was in the noontide of her glory; and her natural situation was such as might seem to betoken a perpetual continuance of prosperity. Even in the time of Herodotus, who visited the city and neighbourhood some generations after the prophecies were delivered, a full century after the first conquest of it by the Persians, there was everything, to human appearance, that was calculated to secure for it a continued prosperity and greatness. The city was still the most populous and magnificent of the world, and might be said to have changed its masters rather than its condition; for the Persian monarchs were wont to spend several months of the year in it. And the region in which it was situated, the province of Babylonia, was so exceedingly rich and fertile, that it supported the king of Persia, his army, and his whole establishment for four months of the year; in other words, it contributed one-third of the entire revenue of the kingdom. Yet the Spirit of prophecy, which guided the sacred penman, perceived in the first blow that was struck by the victorious Persians, the infliction of a mortal wound; they declared it to be the commencement of a complete and total ruin. Centuries elapsed in the process, but the destined consummation travelled on. Against all present appearances, in spite of every natural advantage, and notwithstanding repeated efforts on a gigantic scale to turn back the tide of evil, the work of deterioration still proceeded. The civilization, commerce, wealth and dominion of the world took another direction, and Babylon continued to sink till nothing remained of all her glory but emptiness and desolation. Does not this, again, we ask, bespeak the eye and finger of Omniscience? The foresight displayed is scarcely less remarkable when we look to what was written of a nearer neighbour of Israel, the commercial and enterprising community of Tyre. That this wonderful state, the growth of centuries—grown till she had become sole mistress of the seas—should be destined to fall, should become a spoil to the nations, should even sink so low that her harbours would be forsaken, and she should become a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea (Ezekiel 26:1-21),—this, especially when contrasted with the glorious things that were spoken of the little kingdom of Judah, by her side, was anything but what might on natural grounds have been expected. Her insular situation, itself a citadel of strength—her want of local territory, and comparatively small resident population, fitted, one might have thought, to exempt her from the cupidity and violence of ambitious conquerors—her peaceful and busy commerce, together with her numerous and flourishing colonies, each serving to unite her as by a bond of concord with the nations of the earth—all seemed to bespeak for her a prolonged existence, and, at least, to form a protection against the worst calamities. Yet here, also, the word of God stands fast. The thirst for conquest, first in Nebuchadnezzar, afterwards in Alexander the Great, could not brook the thought of such a state continuing independent, and holding treasures over which they had no control. The blow was once and again struck with fatal success; and though centuries had to roll on before the judgment of Heaven ran its course, it did not fail to proceed. The commerce of the world found for itself other channels, and Tyre at length ceased, ceased for ever, to hold a place among the communities of the earth. But why should the same not have been predicted of Egypt? Why only a perpetual depression in the one case, and a total subversion in the other? Egypt was not, according to the delineations of prophecy, to become so thoroughly extinct in its national power and resources as Tyre or Babylon. It was not to be made perpetual desolations, but to be brought down from its supremacy, to lose its ancient prestige, to be humbled, and made to serve, and rendered base among the nations—which, indeed, as compared with what Egypt from of old had claimed to be, and still in a great degree was when the prophets wrote, indicated an entire revolution and change in the relative position of the earthly kingdoms. We need scarcely say that this also has happened. The land of the Pharaohs has never lost its fertility; its natural capacities, to this day, are great, though but imperfectly developed; yet from the period of the Persian conquest, it has never regained its independence as a nation. Degradation and servility have been stamped upon its condition for more than twenty centuries; and, beyond all doubt, its ancient assumption of the highest place of honour, and pretentious rivalry with the kingdom of God, have irrecoverably gone. Whichever way we look, therefore, among those ancient states and kingdoms that lay around the covenant-people, we see that the things written concerning them, in the prophecies of the Old Testament, hold good, alike in what was common to all the communities spoken of, and what was peculiar to some. And we should conceive it impossible for any one really open to conviction, carefully comparing this class of prophecies with their fulfilment, without having the impression forced on him that the prophets, in what they thus wrote, were supernaturally led by the Spirit of God. But there are persons, it is well to remember, who are not properly open to conviction, and who have preconceived notions, which tend effectually to prevent a fair and candid examination of the subject. In this position certainly are those who, on general grounds, deny the reality of all supernatural interference with the affairs of men; everything of this sort is against their “theory of providence,” which makes account only of physical agencies and mechanical laws; and, therefore, prophecy, as implying a supernatural insight into the future, is concluded to be an impossibility. Persons of this philosophical creed, however, usually couple with their denial of the prophetical element, in the Scriptural sense, a kind of assertion of it in the natural. “Every department,” they tell us, “of human knowledge and enterprise, has had its seers and prophets. What, in the first sense, was the Novum Orgauum of Bacon but a prophecy the most distinct, and which has been partially fulfilled in the present condition of science, and will, no doubt, be still further verified in its future fortunes? The deep political insight of Bonaparte enabled him to prophesy at St Helena the destruction of the old Bourbon dynasty, the succession of the Orleans branch, and the final establishment of a republic, events which have literally been accomplished before our eyes. (This was written in 1849, when there was, during a brief interval, a republic in France; but, alas! for its final establishment. Louis Napoleon soon dashed that chimera to the ground, and furnished a sad commentary on the deep insight displayed in his uncle’s prophecy.) Entirely original minds are so rare in the world, occurring only here and there in the lapse of centuries, that the frivolous and unthinking portion of mankind is apt to regard all true insight into nature as a miraculous gift. Each succeeding age has beheld the fulfilment of the prophecies of Bacon, ‘Man gradually establishing his reign in the interpretation of nature.’” And then we have the case of Columbus, “the Genoese sailor, whose soul was burdened with a material vision,” which spurred him on by its internal promptings, till, in the face of gigantic difficulties, he fulfilled both it and the still older prophecy of Seneca; and not only Columbus, but Wickliffe also, and Luther, and Knox, were all, it turns out, seers, who, “in prophetic vision, saw the great futurity of Protestantism that was to shake the foundations of human faith throughout the civilised world.” (Foxton’s “Popular Christianity,” p. 117, sq.) Such is Mr Foxton’s view of the matter. Sagacity, shrewdness, philosophic culture, genius—these, one and all, though in different degrees, enable their possessors to rise higher and see farther than other men; and, in so far as they do so, the result is a prophecy! That is—for the explanation amounts to no more—a degree of discernment is obtained, to which the same general name is applied as that by which we designate the prophetic announcements of Scripture. For anything beyond this we deny the relevancy of the explanation. It does not touch the real points at issue, and as little accounts for the utterance of those definite and discriminating predictions regarding the countries around Judea, as it does for the creation of the world. Persons who can see no essential difference between the two cases must be held either as taking a merely superficial view of the subject, or as incapable, from their mental state, of reasoning soundly upon it. But, assuredly, they will need to produce other reasons than those contained in the vague and general assertions of Mr Foxton, before they shall be able to convince plain and unsophisticated minds that Hebrew prophets, living at such a time, and with so little to aid them of a scientific nature, could have succeeded otherwise than through supernatural guidance to give forth predictions relating to events so unlikely at the period, so far distant in time, and of so diversified a character. Others of the same school with the writer just referred to, meet the argument drawn from such predictions by denying that they contained any definite and unambiguous announcement of coming events, or, that in so far as they did so, the predictions were as often falsified as confirmed by the event—therefore, only at best shrewd anticipations, or lucky hits. Such is the view more particularly dwelt on by Theodore Parker. The greater part of the prophecies were, according to his opinion, quite vague and indefinite. Some, however, were more precise; and of these he thinks there may have been some, though he does not condescend to specify any, which might be regarded, like some of the oracles delivered from the tripod of Delphi, “extraordinarily felicitous;” but he is quite sure there were others which proved false. (“Discourse of Religion,” p. 207.) In the instances he alleges in proof of this statement, he shows no small degree of effrontery. The first is that of the seventy years’ captivity predicted by Jeremiah, which he summarily pronounces to have failed, because the captivity was accomplished at three successive stages, and from neither of them does the period of the return make so much as seventy years. It would appear, therefore, that Theodore Parker is wiser than Daniel. He discovers a falsehood where Daniel perceived a truth; or, as it will, perhaps, be more correct to put it, he is more hasty and superficial in his judgment, for Daniel, by careful search, found out the number of years which the prophecy required to run its course, while Mr Parker snatches at some shallow chronology—for which not so much as a single authority is given—and by the aid of it leaps to his desired conclusion. It has been conclusively settled, by the most rigid examination, that the period of seventy years’ desolation and captivity dates from the first deportation of the captive Jews (among whom were Daniel and his companions), about the year 608 or 609 before Christ; and the return took place about 536, making a period of full seventy years. A second alleged failure is found, with the same easy and flippant superficiality, in Ezekiel’s prophecies regarding Tyre—in one of which, Ezekiel 26:7, sq., he predicts the capture of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, while in another, Ezekiel 29:17, sq., he represents Nebuchadnezzar as having served a great service against Tyre, but without getting any wages for it; on which account Egypt was to be given him for a prey. After the example of several German rationalists, Parker understands this latter prediction, as implying that Nebuchadnezzar had been obliged to raise the siege of Tyre, without being able to take the city; so that the second prophecy is held to be an undoubted evidence of the first having failed, or, rather of both being, what he calls, poetical odes, never intended to be token literally. I have investigated this point, at some length, elsewhere; (Sec “Com. on Ezekiel” in loco.) and shall only state here, that the view is altogether groundless; that the second prophecy, which speaks of the want of recompense to the king of Babylon, by no means necessarily implies the defeat of his attempt to take the city, but only the comparative smallness of the treasure found in it; that there is, however, the strongest historical evidence, altogether independent of Scripture, of Tyre having, at this very time, sunk to a position of inferiority, from which she never recovered, and which can only be explained on the ground of her subjugation by Nebuchadnezzar. It is not, therefore, Ezekiel who is self-contradictory; but simply modern rationalists, who in their anxiety and haste to find blemishes in Scripture, have misinterpreted Ezekiel, and imperfectly studied history. These are the only specific cases, relating to Old Testament times, which are adduced by the writer above named, to disparage the authority, and disprove the properly predictive character of Scriptural prophecy. They are really nothing to the purpose, and can only be characterized as arbitrary interpretations, built on false assumptions. (Since our first edition was published, the prediction of Amos respecting the house of David, in the time of Jeroboam 2 (ch. 7), has been appealed to by Professor Jowett (“Essays and Reviews,” p. 343), and is apparently also by Stanley viewed as a prophetic failure (Smith’s Diet., Art. ‘Jeroboam II.’). Hitzig had taken the same view before them. But there is no proper ground for it. The prophecy of Amos was uttered against the house of Jeroboam, which he declared should be slain by the sword; this Amaziah, the priest at Bethel, construed into an assertion that Jeroboam himself should die by the sword—perverting the words, much as the false witnesses at Jerusalem perverted those of Stephen (Acts 6:13-14). The prophecy, therefore, was not falsified by the circumstance that Jeroboam died in peace; for his house was soon cut off.) On the other side, the argument founded on the remarkable fulfilments of prophecy, respecting the states and kingdoms around Judea, is never fairly looked at; nor is the slightest attempt made by him or Foxton, to show, how either shrewdness or sagacity, philosophy or genius, might have enabled the Hebrew prophets to see so far into the natural tendencies of things, as to be able, of themselves, to light upon such wonderful prognostications of the future. Having, therefore, no other rational explanation of the matter offered, and being able to conceive of none that appears deserving of being entertained, we must rest in the conclusion, that they were veritable prophecies, not coming by the will of Man, but spoken by those who were supernaturally enlightened and moved by the Holy Ghost. It is, however, a conclusion, which we could arrive at and rest in, only on such principles of interpretation as we previously laid down respecting the style and diction of prophecy; and if, with the extreme literalists, we were to insist on prophecy being understood and read like history, we should feel constrained to say, that the predictions we have been considering had been very imperfectly fulfilled. Let us take Edom as an example. In some of our popular works on prophecy, which proceed on the Literalist principle, the prophecies concerning Edom are viewed as bearing respect merely to the land of Edom, as if it was the territory alone, and not rather the people who occupied it, which the prophecies respected, and then with this application given to them, they are applied in the most prosaic manner to the country, as it exists in the present day. A double error; for as the moral element in prophecy was always the main one, it is, in the first instance, the people that should be regarded as pointed at in the predictions, and the land only, in so far as its state might be a representation or an emblem of the condition of the people. It seems, therefore, somewhat beside the purpose, to look to the Arabia Petraea of the present time, as of itself fulfilling what was spoken respecting Edom. For that region, it is known, had ceased to be the proper territory of the Edomites, two or three centuries before the Christian era. At the time of the Babylonish captivity, the Edomites began to move more upwards, spreading over the old country of the Moabites, and encroaching on the southern borders of the land of Judah; while, from the opposite quarter, the Nabatheans, a different race, pressed in from the south upon Mount Seir, and became masters of the greater part of the old Edomite territory, including Petra, its rocky capital. The Grecian architecture which adorned Petra, sometime before, and for a considerable period after, the Christian era, and the ruins of which have been so often described, must have been the workmanship of the Nabatheans, not of the Edomites; for the latter had been supplanted by the Nabatheans, before the Grecian influence and taste had diffused itself in the East. Its subsequent desolations had, therefore, no direct relation to the Edom of Scripture; and if these desolations, which reach to the present day, are at all taken into account, it should only be as affording a collateral proof of the judgment that was to befall the children of Esau, and of their having signally failed to establish their ascendency in the earth. But it is the desolations of an earlier period, and, above all, the utter extinction of Edom as a people, and that by the hand of Jacob, in which, as before remarked, the more direct and proper fulfilment of the predictions is to be sought. This, however, is but one error, and it is another, certainly not inferior, to seek, in the present state of Arabia Petrsea, for an exact and literal correspondence with the fervid, and in many respects figurative representations of prophecy respecting the doom of Edom. Such passages as those of Isaiah 34:10, where it is said, “From generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it for ever and ever,” and of Ezekiel 35:7, “I will make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out, and him that returneth,”—such passages as these are quoted, and after appeals to the note of Volney, “This country has not been visited by any traveller,” and the difficulties experienced by Burckhardt, by Irby and Mangles, and other travellers, in getting access to the region, the conclusion is drawn as certain, that “the prophecy must be literally understood and applied.” Sometimes even the rage for literalism is carried to the ridiculous extent of palpably violating the very rule it seeks to establish; as when in proof of minute prophetical fulfilment, the cases of Seetzen and Burckhardt are exhibited, as of men who “passed through the land,” indeed, but did not live “to return.” Strange verifications, surely, of a prediction, which foretold the cutting off of him that returned! Is the cutting off, which prevents men from returning, the literal accomplishment of a word, which speaks of cutting off such as did return? It were certainly a new species of literalism. And here lies the folly of dealing thus with such prophecies: they fall to pieces in our hands. Persons have, of late years, often passed and repassed through the Idumean territory, and scarcely a year elapses without its being visited by travellers, and fresh accounts coming forth of what they witnessed. Even particular localities, such as the ascent of Mount Hor, which the cupidity of the Arabs rendered difficult or impracticable to earlier travellers, are now found perfectly accessible. Dean Stanley and his party, in 1852-53, appear to have met with no serious impediment in their course; (See his “Sinai and Palestine,” pp. 88-92.) and the facilities are constantly on the increase. But in truth, there has never been a total cessation of persons going and returning; for the region has always been, to some extent, inhabited, and if not by European travellers, yet by Arab wanderers, it has, in every age, had its passing sojourners. The expression of the prophet Ezekiel was never meant to exclude this; it is merely a proverbial phrase for general desolation, and as such is used by another prophet, of the territory of the Israelites themselves (Isaiah 60:15). It intimated, that instead of being a powerful, flourishing, and prosperous community, with persons on all sides flocking to it, and returning from it, Edom was to be stricken with poverty and ruin: Edom, however, not simply, nor chiefly as a land, but as a people. This was what the prophecy foretold, and it has been amply verified—verified not the less that the “wadys are full of trees, and shrubs, and flowers, and the eastern and higher parts are extensively cultivated, and yield good crops.” (Robinson’s “Biblical Researches,” vol. ii., p. 552.) Still, the Edom of prophecy—Edom considered as the enemy of God, and the rival of Israel—has perished for ever; all, in that respect, is an untrodden wilderness, a hopeless ruin; and there, the veracity of God’s word finds its justification. It is scarcely possible, one would imagine, for any person to read, with an unbiassed mind, the prophecies we have been more particularly considering, without perceiving that the poetical element enters largely into their composition, and that Edom often appears in them as the representative and head of a class. In the latter stages of the history of Israel, the Edomites surpassed all their enemies in keenness and intensity of malice; and hence they naturally came to be viewed by the Spirit of prophecy as the personification of that godless malignity and pride, which would be satisfied with nothing short of the utter extermination of the cause of God—the heads and representatives of the whole army of the aliens, whose doom was to carry along with it the downfal and destruction of everything that opposed and exalted itself against the knowledge of God. This is manifestly the aspect presented of the matter in Obadiah 1:15 of the prophecy of Obadiah; the fate of all the heathen is bound up with that of Edom; “For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen; as thou (viz., Edom) hast done, it shall be done unto thee, thy reward shall return upon thine own head”—that is, in Edom, the quintessence of heathenism, all heathendom was to receive, as it were, its death-blow. And at still greater length, and amid images of terrific grandeur, the same view is unfolded by Isaiah, in Isaiah 34; where all the nations of the earth are summoned together, because, it is said, “the Lord’s indignation was upon them all;” while still, the fury to be poured out was to discharge its violence, and in a manner rest, upon the land of Idumea. It is clear that the passage is throughout an ideal representation—clear from the very conjunction of all the heathen with Edom, and also from the peculiar boldness of the images employed—such as the dissolving of the host of heaven, the sword of the Lord bathing itself in heaven, the mountains melting with blood, the turning of the streams into pitch, and the dust into brimstone—which, like the ascriptions of corporeal organs and human passions to God, seem purposely intended to guard us against understanding the words in the grossly literal sense. (It is strange that the literalists do not perceive this; and that, while chiefly pressing the apologetic side of prophecy, they should not see how, by singling; out some points as having been literally fulfilled, while others are left of which this cannot be alleged, they are surrendering the cause into the enemy’s hands. It is but scraps of fulfilment which can thus be furnished out from the present state of Idumea; and an unbeliever may justly ask, when presented with them, where are the rest? There are ruined cities, it is true, and thorns and brambles, and wild creatures of the desert, where palaces once stood; but where is the carnage of all nations that was to precede these? where the burning pitch and brimstone? where the mountains melting with blood? and where, above all, the people themselves, who formed the very heart and centre of Isaiah’s prophecy? We cannot speak of God’s word being verified by halves; and of prophecies so interpreted, the adversary might justly say, they are made up of fortunate guesses alternating with palpable failures.) The ideal character of the representation still farther appears from the relation which Edom is represented as holding toward Israel, and which was such that the execution of judgment upon the one, was to be the era of deliverance, joy and blessing to the other—the era when the controversy of Zion should be settled, and everlasting prosperity be ushered in. So that the personification here employed respecting Edom is entirely of a piece with that which identifies Jacob or Abraham with the whole family of God, and connects the names of those patriarchs even with the final issues of the divine kingdom. (Genesis 22:18; Matthew 8:11; Luke 16:22, etc.) When stript of the mere form and drapery in which it is clothed, the prophecy contained in Isaiah 34:1-17 and Isaiah 35:1-10 (for the two evidently form but one piece), is fraught with the following message: The enmity and opposition toward the Lord’s cause and people, which the heathen nations in general, and Edom in particular, had evinced, shall be defeated of its end; not the nation that knows and keeps the truth, but the nations that reject and hate it, shall come to desolation; and as Edom might be fitly taken to represent the one, and Israel the other (precisely as of old in their progenitors, Esau and Jacob, the carnal and the spiritual seed had their representation), so the destroying judgment of heaven, on the one hand, is seen concentrating itself in Edom, while, on the other, its favour and blessing alight upon Zion, and thence diffuse all around the greatest joy and satisfaction. The prophecy, indeed, is a sort of recapitulation, and sums up in one glowing delineation, what had already been presented in several successive chapters. The prophet had gone over, one by one, all the tribes and kingdoms that had acted in a spirit of proud and envious rivalry toward the children of God’s covenant, and in respect to each had declared, that their pride should be humbled, their glory tarnished, the very foundations of their dominion shaken and destroyed, while peace and prosperity should be the portion of Zion. And now gathering the whole into a common focus—bringing the contest to a single point, with the view of giving a. more vivid and impressive exhibition of the issues that were pending, he represents the vials of divine wrath as emptying themselves in a mighty torrent of desolation upon Edom, and securing as its happy result to the seed of blessing, a perpetual freedom from those who afflicted them, so that they should possess undisturbed their heritage of good, and be for ever replenished with favour from on high. Such appears to be the natural import and bearing of this prophecy; and that Edom is to be understood in this representative manner, and with reference more especially to the hostile attitude it had assumed toward Israel, seems further plain from other prophecies, which speak of a purpose of mercy in reserve for Edom, and for all the heathen, when the old relation should have been exchanged for another and better one. The prophet Amos (Amos 9:11-12), giving promise of a time when David’s tabernacle should be raised up again, and its glory revived, mentions as the result, “that they (viz., those who belong in the proper sense to the house and kingdom of David), may possess the remainder of Edom, and of all the heathen over whom my name is called, saith the Lord of Hosts that doeth this.” This clearly implies, that the Edom of prophecy, which was doomed to utter prostration and eternal ruin, is only the Edom of bitter and unrelenting hostility to the cause and people of God; that in so far as the children of Edoni ceased from this, and entered into a friendly relation to the covenant of God, and submitted to the yoke of universal sovereignty committed to the house of David, instead of breaking it, as of old, from their necks, they should participate in the blessing, and have their interests merged in those of the people on whom God puts His name to do them good. A promise and prospect like this never can be made to harmonise with the result that is obtained from the predicted judgments upon Edom, as read by the strictly literal style of interpretation; for, according to it, there should be no remnant to be possessed, no seed or place of blessing, as connected with Edom, but one appalling scene of sterility, desolation, and cursing. The demands of a prophetic harmony, as well as a due regard to the nature of the prophetic style, require that the revelations of judgment should be understood in the manner we have explained them. Section II. Prophecies Respecting the Jewish People FROM the prophecies which respected the nations that surrounded Israel, we naturally pass to those which respected Israel itself. What prospects did the prophetic volume, as it certainly existed about the period of Babylon’s beginning to lord it over Israel and the world, hold out in regard to the covenant-people? They were then undoubtedly in a very depressed and perilous condition; and, if judged merely by outward appearances and according to human calculations, they were not more likely to have a prolonged existence than the small states around them—immeasurably less likely to occupy a prominent place in the future history of the world, than Tyre or Egypt, Babylon or Persia. But the word of prophecy did not frame its anticipations by the outward aspect of things; and never did it speak in bolder terms and a more assured tone, of the future greatness and glory of the covenant-people, than when their political position had reached its lowest ebb. While it declared, that the Philistines were to cease from being a people—that the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the wealth and power of Tyre, of Egypt, of Babylon, of the whole heathen world, were to pass away, it spoke in other language respecting the seed of Israel and the house of David—they were to rise and take root and flourish, when their rivals and oppressors had perished—were even to give laws to the world, and make the whole earth blessed in their blessing. There is scarcely one of the later prophets, by whom this high destiny of Israel is not disclosed, and in the larger prophetical books it occupies a most prominent place. Yet, when we look attentively into them, we find it is no indiscriminate assertion of future eminence and glory, not a resolute vindication of the highest rank for the Israelitish people at large, such as the fond yearnings of patriotism or the promptings of ambition might have put forth; but a variable and chequered prospect, in which the evil was strangely to intermingle with the good, and the greatest indignities and sufferings were somehow to be combined with the highest glory. Micah, prophesying more than a hundred years before the Babylonish captivity, speaks both of extreme desolation and singular blessing being destined for Jerusalem: she was to be ploughed as heaps, yet was to be delivered from her enemies; nay, made the subject of a salvation and a glory which should raise her to the head of the nations, while it should involve herself in trouble and distraction, (Micah 2:10, Micah 3:12, Micah 4:10-13, Micah 7:1-20). In the latter half of Isaiah’s prophecies, also, these two themes constantly alternate with each other, in what is said of Israel’s future. In an earlier prophecy—the brief, but pregnant and comprehensive revelation of Isaiah 6:1-13—it was distinctly foretold, that, on account of the prevailing hardness and corruption of the people’s hearts, “men should be removed far away, and there should be a great forsaking in the midst of the land;” that even though there should be a remnant, a tenth, that should return, yet this also should be for consumption (or, being eaten); and for the same reason as of old, because sin should again obtain a footing in them; for it is added, that amid all troubles and consumptions, the holy seed should be the substance in them, the one truly conservative element. In like manner, in Daniel’s prophecy regarding the coming of Messiah, toward the close of the seventy weeks, while the greatest results were then to be accomplished—“making reconciliation for iniquity, bringing in everlasting righteousness, sealing up the vision of prophecy, and anointing a holy of holies”—it is still said, that “desolations were appointed,” insomuch that even “the city and the sanctuary were to be destroyed.” So, again in Zechariah, Zechariah 13:8-9, in immediate connection with the smiting of the shepherd of the sheep, there is predicted the cutting off of two-thirds of the people, and even the remaining third was to be “brought through the fire, and refined as silver is refined.” In Malachi, the last of all the prophets, the aspect that is presented of Israel’s future is in many respects dark and lowering; images of terror and alarm are crowded into it; it speaks of a day that should burn as an oven, consuming the wicked as stubble, of the Lord’s presence being like a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap, of the land being possibly smitten with a curse;—while yet the salvation of the Lord was sure to come, and when it did come, was to bring power to tread down the wicked, in order that the righteous might be exalted to the chief place of honour and blessing. Now, we have surely some right to demand of one, who if disposed to doubt, is not determined to reject all proof of supernatural insight and direction, whether we have not in these diversified predictions the indication of a knowledge essentially divine? Here, again, it is not some loose and random utterances we have to deal with, such as either the forebodings of a gloomy imagination, or the excitement of a fervid and hopeful enthusiasm might call forth. There is not only foresight, but foresight of a most impartial and discriminating kind, capable alike of descrying the darker and the brighter aspects of the future, dwelling even with painful emphasis upon the coming evil and reiterating it; yet without ever losing sight of the coming good; and even when the clouds of present trouble gathered thickest, only proceeding with a clearer eye and a more assured step to reveal the glorious and blessed future that lay beyond. Most remarkably have both parts of the prospective outline been fulfilled. The subsequent history presents many a dark and troubled page to substantiate the vision of coming evil—corruptions within and calamities without, defections the most heinous, and chastisements the most severe; yet in the midst of all, and in spite of all, there came out a greatness and energy, an effulgence of light and life and glory, which strikingly contrasts with the comparative smallness of Israel’s position, and the external meanness of their circumstances. The mightiest and most imposing of the surrounding kingdoms came to nought; but Israel still existed, and we may say, in the language of another (Dr Arnold), “Still exists unchanged. Still God’s people in every land carry back their sympathies unbroken to the age of the first father of the faithful; the patriarchs and prophets are the spiritual ancestors of the apostles and ourselves; their prayers are ours, their cause was ours; for their God was ours [and the Messiah born of them is our light and salvation]. And if Israel after the flesh were to return to the Lord, what has she lost of her old identity? Place does not make a nation, but the sameness of sympathies. And in this respect there is nothing of Israel in the earliest times which would be dead to Israel now. This can be said of no other nation upon the earth; and thus has Israel endured, because she was, though imperfectly, the representative of the cause of that God who alone endureth for ever.” It is enough here to look thus to the main features of the prophetic outline—those more prominent aspects of it, which cannot fail to impress themselves on any careful and unprejudiced reader of Old Testament prophecy, in connection with the past of Israelitish history. Its bearing upon the still remaining future is another point, and one that will call for separate and particular investigation. In the meantime, and as regards the plain import of a whole series of prophecies concerning Israel, it seems undeniable that most striking fulfilments have taken place of what no merely human eye could have foreseen, nor the shrewdest intellect anticipated. Section III. Prophecies Respecting the Messiah THE portions of the prophetic testimony we have already considered, argue nothing directly for the truth of Christianity. They afford, we think, conclusive proof of the supernatural foresight of the persons who indited them; and so may be regarded as placing the seal of divine attestation on the writings of the Old Testament prophets. Unbelieving Jews, however, hold this in common with ourselves; while they reject Christ and the Scriptures of the New Testament, they appeal to the confirmation, which their own history and that of other nations mentioned in ancient prophecy yields of the divine direction under which their prophets wrote. But the apologetic value of prophecy would be small, if it stopt there. By much the most important question now is, how it tells on the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah? For here we have to do with the main trunk of the prophetic tree, not simply with a few occasional branches. And accordingly it is here that the Scriptures of the New Testament lay the great stress of the argument from prophecy; “the spirit of prophecy,” they declare, “is the testimony of Jesus;” and both Jesus Himself and His apostles made constant reference to the things written in the prophets, as what at once required and found a verification in His appearance among men. Here, therefore, especially, it is necessary to compare together prophecy and history. We again conceive ourselves in the presence of one who doubts—doubts, perhaps, whether there were anything more in the prophecies of the Old Testament than certain indefinite longings after some distinguished guide and leader, or a series of guides and leaders, who might carry the nation to a high degree of glory; and whether anything written and verified in this respect was so peculiar as to exceed the limits of men’s unaided powers. How should we proceed to deal with such a person? The difficulty is not where to find materials of proof, but which to select as best fitted to produce conviction on a mind that is likely to be affected only by the more palpable and obvious lines of resemblance. In such a case nothing more than fragments of the truth can be presented, as it will naturally appear to those who are conversant with the entire field. Yet even a fragmentary exhibition of the truth ought here to be sufficient, if rightly presented, to carry conviction to a mind that is not absolutely foreclosed against it. There is, in the first instance, the gradual contracting of the purpose of Heaven from a more general to a more specific object of hope and expectation, till it evidently centres in a person of singular gifts and endowments,—beginning with the woman’s seed generally, though, as the nature of the case implied, and the course of Providence soon clearly determined, that seed only in the spiritual line; then confining itself to the seed of Abraham, still, of course, under spiritual conditions; then to the tribe of Judah, where it first distinctly assumes the personal form in the promise of a future Shiloh, or prince of peace; next, to the house of David, a family within the tribe of Judah, which is appointed to the high destiny of carrying out the provisions of the Abrahamic covenant, of bearing sway in the affairs of men, and diffusing among them the blessings of salvation; then, finally, to a son of that house, a definite child of promise, to be born of a virgin, and somehow mysteriously connected with the Godhead, so that divine names are freely applied to Him, and a divine work the work of making reconciliation for iniquity, and, in the proper sense, redeeming a people whom He was to rule and bless—is associated with His appearance and mission. Finding, thus, the proper personality and special destination of the Messiah distinctly marked in the prophecies of the Old Testament, we would, thereafter, point to the local circumstances and individual characteristics plainly ascribed to Him; the clear designation, for example, of the place of His birth, in Bethlehem-Ephratah (Micah 5:2), historically verified in a manner that effectually prevented the possibility of collusion; the mingled lowliness and majesty of His appearance, as of a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch, or tender suckling, from his roots (Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5); or, as one marred in his visage, and without either form or comeliness, yet, withal, a King, clothed with power and authority to subdue every form of evil, and bear the government on His shoulder, coming, like other kings, with a herald or forerunner, yet not coming in lordly state, but as one meek and lowly, riding on an ass (Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 52:14 to Isaiah 53:12; Zechariah 9:9; Malachi 3:1); on the one side, having experience of the sorest trials and indignities, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3); on the other, possessing every element of greatness, the elect of God, and the hope of the world (Isaiah 42:1-4); nay, more marvellous still, a priest as well as a king, and a priest that was himself to become an offering for sin, and give His life a ransom for many, while yet He should prolong His days, and out of the travail of His soul should have given to Him a seed and kingdom, in every respect worthy of His incomparable merits and successful mediation (Isaiah 53:1-12; Zechariah 6:12-13; Psalms 110:1-7). What a singular combination of qualities and results! And yet how completely authenticated by the history! The heights and depths—the apparent anomalies and seeming incompatibilities, such as no human imagination of itself could have conceived, yet all most wonderfully meeting in the history of Jesus of Nazareth! If such a series of characteristics, traced out hundreds of years before the person appeared in whom they were to be exemplified, could have at once originated in human conjecture, and received, as they have done, the seal of Divine providence, then it may justly be affirmed, there are no certain landmarks between the human and the divine; the possible achievements of man have nothing essentially to distinguish them from the powers and operations of Godhead. We might even carry the argument farther. As our Lord himself spake of things written concerning Him in Moses, as well as the prophets, that required to be fulfilled, so we might rise from the individual prophecies contained in the later writings of the Old Testament to the one great prophecy embodied in the law. We might say, to use the language of another, “Though you were to evacuate the Old Testament of, every express miracle it records, though you were to convert the prophets into jugglers and the people into fools, and make our Elijahs and Isaiahs pretenders to power and conjecturers in knowledge, could you even so clear the Old Testament of wonders? You may deny the story of miracles, but can you deny the miracle of the story? Can you resolve the enormous difficulty of this history, these recorded habits, and, above all, this recorded religion? You deny, or, in confessing, you neutralise any typical import, any prospective atonement. Mark, then, the mysteries that emerge on your supposition. The whole spiritual system of the Hebrew Scriptures is made up of two elements, entwined with the most intricate closeness, yet absolutely opposite in character. You are, then, to answer how it was that every particular of a long and laborious system of minute, and often very repulsive, sacrificial observances is found united in the same volume with conceptions of God, that surpass, in their profound and internal spirituality, all that unassisted man has ever elsewhere imagined, nay, that all our modern refinement is unable to emulate. What miraculous mind was it that combined these singular contradictions? Where is there a real parallel to this mysterious inconsistency? Who is this strange Instructor, or series of instructors, that now portrays the form of the one everlasting essence, hid in the veil of attributes that are themselves unfathomable, and now issues the most minute and elaborate directions as to the proper mode and the tremendous obligation of slaughtering a yearling lamb; and this as the duty of him who would approach the eternal Spirit? Who is He that, at one moment, enounces the simplest, sublimest code of human duties in existence; at another, nay, in the same page, the same sentence, exhorts, with equal earnestness, to the equal necessity of drenching the earth with animal blood as the appointed path of human purification? Here, then, in the very texture of the Old Testament, and its polity, is a mystery greater than any you can escape by denying its predictive import. It is altogether impossible on any supposition but the one, the supposition which alone can elevate ceremonies to the dignity of moral obligations. Judaism, with a typical atonement, may be a miracle, or a chain of miracles; but Judaism without it is a greater miracle still.” (Dr Archer Butler’s Sermons, First Series, p. 192.) This train of thought, though more immediately directed to the establishment of the Divine character of the Mosaic writings, is equally applicable as an argument for the truth of Christ’s pretensions. For a typical atonement—in other words, the concealed prophecy which was embodied in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, being what alone accounts for the system as it actually existed, the anti-typical atonement of the gospel, or the accomplishment in Christ of a real propitiation for the sins of the world, and this as the grand end and object of His work on earth—shows a correspondence between the work of Christ as historically narrated in the gospels, and as pre-supposed and foreshadowed in the handwriting of Moses, which in both respects bespeaks the operation of a Divine hand. It does so all the more that the correspondence is one which does not lie upon the surface, and which neither the friends nor the enemies of Jesus could be brought to understand, till the work itself was accomplished. But here, again, perhaps, it may be replied, that the argument derived from the fulfilment of prophecy, whether in its more concealed, or in its more direct and specific form, might have been sufficient to carry conviction, if there had been nothing to countervail it on the other side—if, in the same prophetical writings, there had not been other predictions which appear to have failed in their accomplishment. The predominating aspect under which prophecy spake of the expected Messiah was that of a King coming for the purpose of occupying the throne of David. But where were the signs of His royal state and dignity? Is it not a fact, to which the gospel-history itself bears ample witness, that His own disciples were disappointed in this respect; and up to the very eve of His departure—till, in short, they could not better themselves—clung to the hope that their Master should still set up an earthly kingdom? Is it not also a fact that many students of prophecy, in the present day, comparing what was predicted with what has been done, firmly maintain that Jesus has not yet got possession of the throne promised to Him, and cannot do so till He comes in glory to erect Jerusalem into the seat of His kingdom? There is no denying this, any more than the other, allegation; and it cannot be too much regretted that the adversaries here have their quiver filled for them by the hands of friends. Could we bring the adversaries to the position of friends—could they be persuaded, on other grounds, to regard Jesus as the promised Messiah—it might matter comparatively little, whether they should consider the kingly rule and government now exercised by Christ as that designated of old by the name of David’s throne and kingdom, or a provisional dominion in process of time to merge into the other. But it is another thing when the alleged want of the kingdom lies across the threshold, a stumbling-block to the acknowledgment of Jesus as the true Messiah, and it is urged as a reason for denying that prophecy met its proper fulfilment in Him. He was to come, it is said, as a King. As David’s son and heir he was to be born in Bethlehem; to occupy David’s throne, he was to be conceived of the virgin; and, in constantly allowing Himself to be addressed as the son of David, He plainly countenanced the idea that He was to have His throne in Zion. Did not the result, then, prove both Him and them to have been mistaken? Did it not evince that the ancient predictions, in one grand particular, failed of their proper end? We unhesitatingly answer, No—though we should be at a loss to perceive, how such an answer could be given, on the strictly literal principle of interpretation—the principle, which holds that prophecy is nothing but history written beforehand; for if so, it must have adopted the style of history, and described scribed everything according to the naked appearance and reality. But the case becomes entirely different, if here, as elsewhere, the Spirit of prophecy gave intimation of what was to come, in language appropriate to an ecstatical condition, and, in doing so, served itself of known and existing forms to unfold corresponding, but nobler and better things to come. In that case, the representation must have been, to a large extent, figurative and symbolical—a representation of it after its nature, rather than the precise form it should assume. No more should it have been expected, that the Messiah was to be a king on the earthly model of David, than that he should be a prophet on the same level with Moses, or a priest after the imperfect type of those who presented their fleshly offerings on a brazen altar. No more, to prove Him the occupant of David’s throne, was it necessary for Him to possess the outward forms and trappings of Jewish royalty, than to prove His people’s personal union to Him, must they have the actual participation of His flesh and blood. Standing as to the constitution of His person, immeasurably above those ancient prototypes, he was, of necessity, higher also in the character of His work and kingdom; so that, when exhibited and promised under the form of the old, a relative agreement only, not an exact likeness is to be understood. That He was destined to occupy the throne and kingdom of David, meant simply, that He was, like David, to hold the place of a king over God’s heritage, and to do, to the full, what David could do only in the most partial and imperfect manner—bring deliverance, safety, and blessing to the people of God. With the divine properties of the king, however, and the world-wide domain of His kingdom, all of necessity rose to a higher place; Immanuel’s reign must be another thing than that of the son of Jesse—it must be spiritual, heavenly, eternal. A kingdom of an inferior description, if possessing more of a formal resemblance to David’s, would have had less of real conformity to the word of promise; it could not have verified the prophecies; for it should have bespoken the absence of that Divine element which lay at the foundation of all that Messiah was peculiarly to be and to do. Thus, the objection against the fulfilment of prophecy in Christ, derived from his not having assumed the outward appearance of a Jewish monarch, falls to the ground. It proceeds on a merely superficial view of the connection between the old and the new in God’s dispensations, and a consequent misapprehension of the import of the prophetic language, as growing out of, and founded upon, that connection. Follow it consistently out, and no landing-place can be found, short of the Christianized Judaism of popery. But take into account the whole circumstances of the case—make due allowance for the shadowy and imperfect state of things, under which the prophets lived and wrote—above all, give free scope to the higher elements, that, according to prophecy itself, were to develope themselves in Messiah’s person and kingdom, and nothing will be found wanting of that real and substantial agreement, which we expect to subsist between the anticipations of prophecy and the facts of history. The more inward some of the lines of agreement are, they only serve to indicate a deeper and diviner harmony. Jesus of Nazareth needed no outward enthronement or local seat of government on earth, to constitute him the possessor of David’s kingdom, as He needed no physical anointing to consecrate Him priest for evermore, or material altar and temple for the due presentation of his acceptable service. Being the Son of the living God, and as Son, the heir of all things, He possessed, from the first, the powers of the kingdom; and proved that He possessed them, in every authoritative word He uttered, every work of deliverance He performed, every judgment He pronounced, every act of mercy and forgiveness He dispensed, and the resistless control He wielded over the elements of nature, and the realms of the dead. These were the signs of royalty He bore about with Him upon earth; and wonderful though they were—eclipsing, in real grandeur, all the glory of David and Solomon—they were .still but the earlier preludes of that peerless majesty which David from afar descried when he saw Him, as his Lord, seated in royal state at the Father’s right hand, and on which He formally entered when He ascended up on high with the word, “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth; and lo! I am with you alway even to the end of the world.” Section IV. The Prophecies Respecting the Destruction of Jerusalem WE have hitherto confined our attention to the prophecies of the Old Testament, and to that portion of these which had scarcely, or not at all, entered on their fulfilment at the close of the Babylonish captivity; because it is in regard to such, that the conditions formerly specified as necessary to be borne in mind for handling successfully the argument from prophecy, most distinctly and obviously hold. It is only from the difficulty of rendering manifest, to a distrustful and doubting mind, the existence of those conditions in the case of some other prophecies, of some, especially in the writings of Daniel, where the particulars are most full, and the fulfilment in various parts the most striking, that we omit them in a consideration of the apologetic use of prophecy. Their use will be found rather in directing the views, and establishing the faith of those who already believe in the Divine authority and inspiration of Scripture, than in overcoming the scruples of such as may still be lingering in the regions of unbelief. And from the close connection in form, partly also in substance, between the prophecies of Daniel, and the Revelation of St John, it is scarcely possible to enter on a particular examination of the one, without going first into a pretty full consideration of the other. There is no reason, however, why the argument from prophecy should be altogether conducted with a reference to the predictions of the Old Testament. For, while New Testament Scripture, in perfect accordance with the dispensation to which it belongs, deals much less in specific announcements respecting the future, than the Old; it is yet by no means absolutely devoid of such. There is one, in particular, which has also a point of contact with some of the Old Testament prophecies, and is but a detailed exhibition of what they more generally indicate—namely, our Lord’s prediction regarding the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophecies of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-13), and Daniel (Daniel 9:1-27), already referred to, gave no doubtful indication of troubles and desolations, which the spirit of apostacy was yet to bring upon Judah and Jerusalem, even after the people had regained a considerable degree of power and prosperity, nay, after the Messiah himself had come. Various prophecies also in Zechariah, especially those in Zechariah 5:1-11, Zechariah 12:1-14, Zechariah 13:1-9, evidently pointed in the same direction; in them the promise of Messiah and the prospect of good that was to be the characteristic of His times, was coupled with the mention of fearful calamities and floods of tribulation on account of sin. But it was our Lord who first clearly announced the coming retribution, and described it as one that was to bring along with it the most sweeping desolation, and as so near at hand, that the existing generation was to see it accomplished. The predictions of Christ, to this effect, were, no doubt, uttered not very long before the event, and it has sometimes been surmised, that the publication of the Gospels, which contain the prophecy, may have been subsequent to the occurrence of the event. But the surmise is so destitute of all probability, that no candid and serious adversary can think of urging it. The very form of the prediction, in its most specific announcement, is against the supposition; since it is so much occupied with directions and warnings to the disciples how to conduct themselves in anticipation of the event; while the testimony of antiquity is quite uniform as to the priority of the prophecy. Uttered, then, at the time it purports to have been, that is, not less than forty years before the calamities it depicts—at a time when, in the political horizon, there was no appearance of any impending storm, and on simply natural grounds, there was no reason to apprehend extreme measures of any kind, it can be ascribed to nothing but Divine foresight on the part of Christ, that He should have so clearly descried, not only the approaching danger, but the overwhelming nature of the catastrophe in which it was to terminate:—first, a strait siege of the city, then its surrender into the hands of the enemy, followed by its merciless destruction—its very temple laid in ruins, and its people scattered abroad, trodden down by the Gentiles; while, on the other hand, the gospel of His salvation, which they had despised and rejected, should spread far and wide, and everywhere take root in the earth (Matthew 24:2, Matthew 24:15, Matthew 24:21, Luke 21:6, Luke 21:20-24). To foresee such results—results in many respects opposed to the intentions, and the general policy of the Romans, who were the chief instruments in effecting it—and with such a tone of assurance announce them so long beforehand, was not to speak in the manner of men; and no one, who looks calmly into the circumstances, can ever find an explanation that will be satisfactory to his own mind, by the help merely of some unusual degree of shrewdness on the part of Jesus, or of a certain fortuitous combination of circumstances in Providence. We refrain from entering farther into the details of the subject, which would carry us beside our present purpose. In another connection, the circumstances of Jerusalem’s destruction will come again to be noticed in a subsequent chapter. And though the argument from New Testament prophecy admits of being strengthened by the consideration of what is written of Antichrist, and the great apostacy, yet we refrain also from taking up this topic in the present connection. The diversities of opinion now current even among Protestant and Evangelical divines on the precise import of the predictions bearing on that subject, have in great measure destroyed its apologetic value, and require for it in a work like the present, a separate treatment. Meanwhile, we trust, there is enough in the line of argument indicated, to show, that a most important and conclusive branch of evidence is yielded by prophecy in support of the great facts and doctrines of the Bible. We must say, however, in conclusion, that for a just appreciation of this evidence, and the capacity either of using or profiting by it aright, the careful study of the prophetic Scriptures on sound principles of interpretation, is indispensable. Here also it is the patient and continued search, to which the choicest treasures are revealed. Could we only persuade those who have placed themselves in an antagonistic position, and contemplate the subject from a distance, to take up in a spirit of candid and earnest inquiry, so much as one or two portions of the prophetical Scriptures, and consider them attentively on every side, we would expect more from the exercise, than from all argumentations of a more general kind; for though the circle embraced might be of limited extent, yet the deeper and more delicate lines of agreement it contains with the realities of the gospel, would be perceived, as well as those which are of a more palpable description. And in regard to those who would pursue the study, not for conviction, but for farther enlightenment in the knowledge, and a firmer establishment in the faith of the gospel, resort should be had, less to works devoted to an exposition of the argument from prophecy, than to the word of prophecy itself, and its correct interpretation. They should make themselves conversant more with exegetical, than with apologetical sources. And in proportion as their acquaintance with the divine word becomes more discriminating and comprehensive, they will also become more thoroughly satisfied respecting the coherence of its several parts, and be more sensible of the numberless points of coincidence that exist between its predictions of things to come and the subsequent events and issues of Providence. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 03.10. CHAPTER 2. THE PROPHETICAL FUTURE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE ======================================================================== Chapter 2. The Prophetical Future Of The Jewish People THE predictions noticed in the preceding chapter respecting the natural seed of Israel had respect only to the past fortunes of the people, and their existing condition. So far, there is a general agreement, both among Jews themselves, and among Christian interpreters, as to the import and fulfilment of the prophecies. But the matter assumes another aspect, when we turn from the past or present to the future. Here the greatest diversity prevails—not between Jews and Christians merely, but between one class of Christian interpreters and another. The Jews hold, and on their principles, indeed, consistently hold, that according to the prophecies of Old Testament Scripture, they shall, as a people, be gathered from their dispersions by the Messiah, and restored to their ancient territory—that there the temple shall again be built, and its worship set up anew, after the handwriting of Moses—and that, as thus established and presided over, they shall stand politically at the head of all the nations of the earth. Such, generally, is the Jewish expectation; and there are not wanting, especially in the present day, evangelical Christians, who entirely concur with the Jews in their interpretation of the prophecies, and confidently anticipate, not only a restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Palestine, but also a re-institution of the rites and services of the law, to be performed in a Christian spirit, and frequented by Christian worshippers from every region of the earth. A much larger portion, however, concur only in so far as the national restoration to Palestine is concerned, along with a certain pre-eminence in honour and Christian influence beyond what shall be possessed by any other people in Christendom. And another portion of Christian interpreters—also a very large one—deeming it impossible to divide, in the work of interpretation, between the national restoration of the Jewish people, and the re-establishment of their ancient polity and worship, reject the one as well as the other, and hold, that the proper meaning of the prophecies, in so far as they bear on the future of Israel, is to be made good simply by the conversion of the people to the Christian faith, and their participation in the privileges and hopes of the church of Christ. Such, omitting all minor shades of difference, is the threefold view that prevails upon the subject, and which may be designated from the modes of interpretation on which they are respectively based, as the Jewish, the semi-Jewish, and the spiritualistic. In the Jewish, we, of course, include the first class of opinions maintained by Christian writers, not as intending thereby to disparage the Christianity of those who hold it, but because the view itself coincides in all its ostensible features with the distinctively Jewish one, and proceeds entirely upon the Jewish principle of prophetical interpretation. That principle is the strictly literal sense of prophecy, the principle which insists on reading prophecy simply as history written beforehand; and whatever has been urged in previous portions of this work against that style of interpretation, is applicable in its full force to this particular branch of the subject. (See particularly in Part I., Chap. v., Sec. i. and iii.) The principle of literalism is not espoused in this extreme form by those who hold what we have called the semi-Jewish opinion; they are prepared to apply to Christ and the church of the New Testament every prophecy that is so applied by the sacred writers, or may admit, on similar grounds, of such an application. They think, that in the language of prophecy, what is said of Zion and Jerusalem, or of David’s throne and kingdom, has to a large extent already received its fulfilment in Christ, or is in the course of doing so; and that every prediction couched in the terms of the Old Testament shadows, must be regarded, in accordance with the spirit of the New Testament dispensation, as capable of receiving fulfilment only in a non-literal, or spiritual sense. But, at the same time, they are of opinion that many prophecies respecting the Jewish people neither require nor admit of any such modified application—prophecies which speak in so distinct, specific, and circumstantial a manner of the gathering of that people out of all their dispersions, and settling them again in their former haunts, with even more than their former glory, that it seems difficult, if not impossible to understand them otherwise than in the most obvious and natural import of the language. There are collateral considerations which appear in their judgment to strengthen the position which they occupy; but this aspect of the prophecies forms the proper basis of the view they entertain. So far, therefore, it also rests on the principle of literalism, though restrained within comparatively narrow limits, confined chiefly to what respects the land and people of the Jews. And the main point to be determined respecting it is, whether in the prophecies themselves, or in the mode of applying them in New Testament Scripture, there is ground for maintaining such a distinction as it draws between this particular subject and the others, with which it stands, in the prophetic volume, so intimately connected. The class of interpreters, who adopt the spiritualistic view, conceive that there is no valid ground for the distinction referred to. Taking up their position on distinctively gospel principles, and contemplating all that is written in Old Testament Scripture of gospel times primarily in a New Testament light, they apply uniformly one and the same rule of interpretation to the prophecies which bear on the future of the covenant-people. What it obliges them to hold in respect to the religion and the more distinguishing peculiarities of Israel, they feel constrained to hold also in respect to their land and polity. And in support of this view they are wont to adduce a number of particular passages, which in their plain and obvious aspect seem to abolish, along with other distinctions, those also of land and people, and to leave no room for any name or commonwealth in the kingdom of Christ, but that of the one body, formed out of all people and tribes and tongues, which is knit together by the bond of a living faith and a common participation in the blessings of Christ’s redemption. It is not enough, however, to produce a series of passages possessing this import; for they are met by a counter-set of passages on the other side, and in looking at the subject as so presented, the mind is apt to be perplexed and bewildered by what seems so many cross lights and contradictory statements. The question can never be satisfactorily determined, by being viewed and discussed in so isolated a manner. It must be seen in the light, not of this particular Scripture or that, but of great fundamental principles—principles which may enable us to distinguish between Scripture and Scripture—between those parts of Scripture which relate to the foundations of God’s kingdom, which fix and determine the form as well as the substance of things belonging to it, and those which, from being of a subsidiary nature, relate only to what may be fit or practicable within the settled landmarks. Unless some distinctions of this kind can be made good, there may be no end to the controversy on the field of argument; and it is with a view mainly to the establishment of such a result, that we propose now to conduct the investigation. Several incidental topics will be left unnoticed, in order the more fully to concentrate attention on what we deem to be the great and determining elements of the question. I. With this end in view, we naturally turn our eye, in the first instance, to the direct teaching of our Lord and His apostles; for there, beyond all question, it is that we find the revelations, which are in the strictest sense fundamental as to all that is to distinguish the kingdom of God in New Testament times. What Moses was to the Old Testament church, Christ is to the New, though Himself as much higher than Moses, as the New is above the Old. And if the prophets under the Old Testament, from being in their position altogether inferior to Moses, and having only revelations by vision while he had them by direct and open intercourse, could introduce no alterations in the principles or even farms of things settled by him,—if the last of them wound up the whole prophetic testimony in its direct bearing upon those to whom it was delivered, by charging them to “remember the law of Moses, God’s servant, which he commanded to him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments” (Malachi 4:4): (See Part I., Chap. i.)—if the prophets of the Old Testament stood in this subordinate relationship to Moses, how much more must they have done so to Christ? They were charged with no commission to interfere with any thing which the Mediator of the old covenant had ordained—to bring in no new rite, to establish no new relation—for even the kingly form of government was prospectively indicated and authorised by Moses; how much less, therefore, could any word have been given them, which was to have the effect of countervailing the principles, or modifying the constitution brought in by the unspeakably greater Mediator of the new covenant? Indeed, the consideration reaches farther than this; the conclusion derived from it holds, not merely as between the prophets of the Old Testament and Christ, but also between those prophets, and the apostles of Christ; for the least of the apostles was greater than John the Baptist, who again was greater than any of the prophets; and the communications by the apostles (for the most part) were also open and direct, not by vision. Here, therefore, in the teaching of Christ and His apostles, must be sought all the essential principles which go to determine the nature, the constitution, and form of Christ’s kingdom; or, to use the words of a canon formerly enunciated, “Every thing which affects the condition and destiny of the New Testament church has its clearest determination in New Testament Scripture.” (See p. 158.) So that, where there is any doubt or uncertainty, it is by this later Scripture we are to interpret the prophecies of former times, not by the prophecies that we are to explicate or resolve the later and higher revelations. What, then, is the bearing and import of this teaching of our Lord and His apostles on the special subject before us? Is it such as to give us reason to expect a future restoration of the Jewish people, or a re-establishment of their old economy, as if something of importance for the church depended on it? Unquestionably, there is no explicit announcement to this effect in the whole range of the historical and epistolary writings of the New Testament. The infliction of divine judgment upon the mass of the Jewish people, was very distinctly proclaimed by our Lord Himself, with the destruction of their city and temple, and the scattering of the community at once from the kingdom of (rod, and from the land of their fathers. But in not so much as one passage does he unequivocally indicate for them a re-gathering to their paternal home, or a reinvestment with their former relative distinctions and privileges; far less is there any statement to imply, that the temple-worship should be again set up as the common religious centre and resort of Christendom. And in these respects the disciples are of one mind with their Master; they are equally silent upon the topics referred to. It is true, there are a few passages which are sometimes represented as by implication teaching those things; but still at the most it is only by implication; and a very slight consideration of them is enough to show, not necessarily or certainly even that. When our Lord, for example, spake of a coming time, when the twelve apostles should sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28), there is nothing whatever to indicate (even taking it quite literally) in what region it should be—under what form of religious worship—or even whether as collected into one body, or distributed through several localities. Nothing on such points is either affirmed or denied in the statement. Nor, again, when foretelling the coming overthrow and the long-continued degradation that was to follow, in the memorable words, “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24), was any thing said of a return to the ancient home of Israel, and its ritual worship, not even of a restitution of the old nationality. Jerusalem is obviously to be understood not alone as a city, but as a city identified with, and representative of the Jewish people; and the word simply announces, that a bound was to be set to its down-treading on the part of the Gentiles—the ascendency on the one side, and the degradation on the other, were to terminate; but in what manner, or to what extent, was left entirely undecided. Manifestly, the treading down might cease by the simple abolition of the outstanding distinctions between Jew and Gentile, and the coalescing of the two on a footing of fraternal love and equality, without any collective national re-union of all the seed of Israel (which but partially existed, indeed, when Jerusalem actually was trodden down), or any restoration of the old religious ascendency and temple-worship. Nor yet, again, when in answer to the question of the disciples, “Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” our Lord said, “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power,” was any thing determined as to the points now under consideration. For supposing it to imply, that the kingdom was somehow and at some period to be restored, the question still remains, in what sense? To Israel in their natural relation merely to Abraham, or, as a spiritual seed? separate and alone, or merged with believers generally into the Church of God? in the land of Palestine, or diffused throughout the earth? On these points nothing whatever is indicated, while yet they involve the whole questions now at issue. It is nothing to say, that the disciples must have meant by Israel the natural seed and its political resuscitation; for through the whole of his earthly ministry, Jesus was ever using language, and language often far more explicit and direct than this, which they did not at the time understand. We have no more reason to affirm, that the sense in which they understood the words of Christ here was that also in which he employed them, than it was so when He spake of destroying the temple and raising it up in three days (John 2:19); or, when pointing to his crucifixion, he said, “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). It was the descent of the Spirit alone, which fitted them for entering properly into the meaning of any of our Lord’s sayings; and the utter disappearance from their thoughts and language, after that event, of all reference to a national kingdom of Israel, separate from the Church of Christ, is quite sufficient to show how great a change their sentiments had undergone upon the subject. This, however, is not all. It is not merely that in these fundamental teachings respecting the character and prospects of the Messiah’s kingdom, there is the want of any formal and explicit announcement of either the national restoration of Israel to Palestine, or the re-establishment there, as in a religious centre, of a Jewish polity and worship; but that the want exists in connection with much that bore immediately upon the subject, and was fitted to call forth, or even to demand, some definite announcement regarding it, if such could have been made. Beside the careful reserve maintained by our Lord respecting it, on the occasions already referred to, when we turn to His parables, in which he indicated more concerning the future of His church and kingdom than He could do in His direct discourses, we find Him presenting almost every possible aspect of its coming fortunes and destiny, yet without once conveying an intimation that any of them were to turn upon the separate nationality or distinctive privileges of the natural Israel. In some of the parables He spoke plainly enough of their opposition to the spirit of His kingdom, and of the certainty of their losing their place in it, notwithstanding that they might be called the children of the kingdom (Matthew 21:28-46, Matthew 22:1-14; Luke 13:6-9, Luke 15:11-32, etc.); and in others He pointed to the corruptions which, in the course of time, should creep into the church, the troubles and difficulties it should have to contend with, the sure progress and enlargement it should continue to make, and the final issues of reward and condemnation, blessing and cursing, in which it should close (Matthew 13:24-50, Matthew 25:1-46, Luke 16:1-31, Luke 18:1-43, etc.) But in not one of them is the least hint given of the prospective return of the Jewish people to a separate place and position in the kingdom; nor is the distinction ever drawn as one destined to exist and work for good, as between people and people, land and land, . church and church. The kingdom always presents itself as a unity, alike in nature, privilege, and destiny for its real members, with the world at large for the field of its operations—divided only in so far as it was to be composed for a time of the false and the true, and to have its issues at last in evil as well as good. After Christ, the apostles touch the disputed territory on every side, but still with the same studied reserve. The Apostle Paul, who had every inducement, from his official calling and circumstances, to speak in the most conciliatory tone of his countrymen, and who does, in one of his epistles, treat at considerable length both of their general fall and of their future recovery (Romans 9:1-33, Romans 10:1-21, Romans 11:1-36), still utters not a word concerning their separate position, their local habitation, or their distinctive worship, as if in such respects they were to differ, when converted, from the other members of God’s kingdom. On the contrary, he represents their return simply as a reconciliation with the one spiritual body, from which they are for a time cut off—an admission into the community, which, he plainly testifies, admits of no distinction between Jew and Gentile. With him the church in the future, as well as in the present—the church, through all its coming stages on to its consummation in glory, precisely as in the parables of Christ—is an organic unity, marred only by the false admixtures and the antichristian apostacy which were for a time to corrupt its simplicity. Nay, the Apostle Peter, the apostle pre-eminently of the circumcision, in all his discourses and epistles after the day of Pentecost, seems equally unconscious of any distinction awaiting the race of Israel in God’s kingdom—none excepting that of being by privilege the first to receive, and by calling the most imperatively bound to spread abroad its blessings. This may be said to be the one theme of his first epistle, as addressed, more immediately, to believing Israelites scattered throughout the cities of Asia Minor. And in his recorded speeches on the day of Pentecost, and after it, how entirely does Christ’s present reign, and his one kingdom of converted and saved men, take the place of what previously held such firm possession of his thoughts, the kingdom of Israel? The change is most remarkable. He appears, in the last interview with Jesus, along with the other disciples, making earnest inquiry about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. But presently afterwards, when the Spirit has descended with his enlightening and elevating influences, he proclaims Christ as already “exalted to sit on the throne of David” (Acts 2:30); or, as it is again expressed, anointed by God, according to the terms of the second Psalm, and now meeting the opposition of ungodly men, which was there predicted respecting the Lord’s anointed King (Acts 4:24-28). And when he points (as he does in Acts 3:19-21) to the brighter future of the kingdom, he represents it as a future which Israel, indeed, by their conversion and forgiveness, might do much to help forward, but which was by no means to be peculiarly connected with them—which, in its progress and consummation, was to bring not “the restoration of the kingdom to Israel,” in the sense formerly imagined, but “the restitution of all things spoken of by all God’s holy prophets since the world began,” the one grand universal restoration to order and blessedness. The sphere of the apostle’s vision has now immeasurably widened, and though in no respect to the prejudice of the natural Israel, yet to the indefinite expansion of their peculiar privileges, and the enlargement of the kingdom so as to embrace men of every nation, and the round circumference of the globe itself. (See Appendix I.) Nor in the Apocalypse is there anything that can fairly be regarded as bearing a different import. It is true that in one passage there, in the sealing vision of Revelation 7:1-17, the Israelites are mentioned, and twelve thousand from each tribe are represented as being marked with the seal of God. There is a class of interpreters who understand this of the literal Israel (including even Bengel in former times, and now Auberlen), and who regard the 144,000 thus made up as constituting the elect church from among the Jews, and the multitude without number, from every nation, tribe, and tongue, in Revelation 7:9, as the elect from among the Gentiles. This, however, is so utterly at variance with the whole style of the Apocalypse, and with the connection of this passage itself with what precedes and follows, that the opinion is rejected by many who in other respects adhere to the literal style of interpretation. If the natural Israel were really meant, then this portion of the book would form an exception to the general character of the Apocalypse, which ever represents New Testament relations and prospects under the imagery of those of Old Testament times. The temple and its courts afterwards mentioned, the city where our Lord was crucified, Sodom and Egypt, Jerusalem and Babylon, Mount Zion and Megiddo, the woman and the whore, are all used symbolically to indicate things and parties corresponding to what bore those names in earlier times; and it would be to mar the consistency of the apocalyptic style, and introduce the greatest arbitrariness into its interpretation, if the tribes of Israel were here to be taken in their natural sense. Nor would it accord with the symbolical import evidently attached to these 144,000. It is against all probability to suppose, on the hypothesis of the literal reading of the passage, that precisely 12,000 of elect ones were to be found in each of the tribes specified. And if that improbability could anyhow be got rid of, why should only twelve tribes have been specified, and not thirteen, the actual number of the tribes? Is it to be conceived that, while each one of those twelve should furnish 12,000, Dan, the tribe omitted, should furnish none? The very omission of this tribe, so as to leave the historical number, twelve, and the precise squaring of this number, so as to make the twelve times twelve, multiplied by a thousand, shows that it is not the meaning of the letter we have to deal with, but the symbolical representation of a perfect and complete totality. This appears, also, from the object of the sealing, which was to stamp, with the sure impress of Heaven, “the servants of the living God,” the Lord’s people generally, as being through the Divine protection safe from the desolations that were to sweep over “the earth and the sea.” The sealed are manifestly the representatives of all whom Divine grace saves from the world-wide judgments contemplated in the vision; and hence quite naturally appear, during the process of the sealing, as made up of so many thousands taken from the tribes that historically composed the professing church. Not less naturally at the close of the process, when the act is completed, they present the aspect of a numberless multitude gathered from all lands. These reasons, drawn from the vision itself, which treats of the sealed company of Israelites, are still farther confirmed, and rendered altogether conclusive, by the subsequent reference that is made to the subject. In Revelation 14:1-20 the Lamb is seen standing on Mount Zion with 144,000, the same sealed company “having His name, and the name of His Father (so it should be read) written on their foreheads.” These are described in terms that can only be understood of the elect generally, not of a mere fraction of the elect. It is said of them that they alone could sing the new song, and that they were virgins, faithful followers of the Lamb, redeemed from among men. They are, therefore, the saved; and appearing as representatives, forming an ideal number, and in a state of ideal perfection, they are also fitly called the first fruits unto God and the Lamb. On every account, the conclusion seems inevitable, that the Israelites, in the sealing vision, must be understood symbolically, like all similar terms in the Apocalypse. And as this is the only occasion on which they are formally introduced into the vision of things to come, it remains certain, that the revelations given to St John, are in perfect accordance on this point with what appears generally in New Testament Scripture. As for the view of Hofmann, whom Ebrard, and some British writers, follow, that the woman in Revelation 12:1-17 is simply the Jewish Church, and her seed that was to be driven into the wilderness, the Jewish people in their unbelieving and scattered condition, it is so palpably opposed to the whole spirit of the Book, and the general object of its prophetic revelations, that it needs no special consideration. It thus appears, that in the teaching of our Lord and his apostles, there is nothing to favour either the Jewish, or the semi-Jewish view of the prophetical future. Amid much incidentally bearing on the subject of Jewish prospects, there is still no distinct announcement of the national restoration and settlement of the Jewish people in Canaan, or of the re-institution of their temple-worship. There is nothing whatever said to indicate, that such events may be expected in the history of the Christian Church, or that any thing depends on them for the advancement and welfare of Christ’s cause in the world. Christianity as exhibited and denned for all coming time by its divine founder and his servants, acknowledges no such distinctions, and is silent as to any such prospects. And as the revelations that came by them, were for the church of the New Testament of a primal and fundamental character, it were to invert the natural order of things, and unsettle the foundations of sound scriptural exposition, if Scriptures of an older, and from the first only of a subsidiary kind, should be alleged in support of an opposite conclusion. From the nature of things, they cannot be rightfully alleged. And the feeling of this, we have no doubt—however vaguely defined and imperfectly understood as to the principles on which it rested—the feeling, that the fundamental teaching of the New Testament was of the nature now described, and ought mainly to be regarded, was what led the Fathers with one voice (not excepting such as held the personal, millennial reign of Christ in Jerusalem), and all Christian writers, down to the seventeenth century, to reject as chimerical, the Jewish expectations both of a territorial restoration and of a revived Judaism. The feeling itself was sound, though it could seldom, perhaps, have given a satisfactory explanation of the grounds out of which it sprung, or made an enlightened defence of them. (Jerome, in his note on Isaiah 11:10-16, brings out what was undoubtedly the prevailing view among Patristic writers. He refers, in doing so, to certain Christians, whom he calls “our Judaizers,” meaning the ancient Millenarians, who connected the things spoken of in the passage with the second coming of Christ, not as he thought should have been done with the first, and also understood them too carnally, while still they made no distinction in regard to them betwixt Jew and Gentile. And he winds up the whole with this canon of criticism, “Let the wise and Christian reader take this rule for prophetical promises, that those things, which the Jews and ours, not ours [but] Judaizers, hold to be going to take place carnally, we should teach to have already taken place spiritually, lest by occasion of fables and inexplicable questions of that sort (as the apostle calls them), we should be compelled to Judaize.”) It is true, that Christianity itself sprung out of Judaism, and that certain things belonging to it, may be, not explicitly stated and announced, but presumed, on account of the place they had in former revelations, and it has been alleged, that the obligation to observe the weekly Sabbath is of this description, as also the right to administer baptism to infants. These both rest chiefly upon grounds and principles definitely settled in the Old Testament Scriptures; and are, it is held, substantially on a footing with the supposed distinctions in the prophetic future between Jew and Gentile, or the return to a ceremonial worship. Our answer to this is very short. If the points now under discussion were really on a footing with the things referred to, they must have been presumed as continuously subsisting; they must have been held to be integral parts of Christianity as well as of Judaism, and opportunity must have been afforded to maintain them, at least in substance. But so far from this, they were authoritatively set aside, and an insuperable bar laid by God’s providence in the way, even of their formal observance. If anything could mark them as merely superficial and temporary distinctions, it was surely this. We hold it to be otherwise with the Sabbatical Institution, and the admission of children to a covenant-standing. These are no Jewish peculiarities or temperory expedients; they rest on primeval grounds of truth and duty, and enshrine principles which are interwoven with the constitution of man, and were inwrought into the very foundations of the world’s history. II. This latter point, however, touches closely upon another, to which we now proceed. We refer to the typical character of the Levitical dispensation. And our position respecting it is, that as the Israelitish people, with their land and their religious institutions, were, in what distinctively belonged to them under the old covenant, of a typical nature, the whole together, in that particular aspect, has passed away—it has become merged in Christ and the Gospel dispensation. That this holds good in respect to the religious institutions, distinctively and peculiarly belonging to the old covenant, was, till quite recently, admitted by, at least, all Evangelical Christians. The only party known in history to have disputed it, were the small and obscure Ebionite section of the early heretics, whom all credible historians represent as much more Jewish than Christian in their views. That men of evangelical sentiments, in other respects, should, in these latter times, have come to the same belief, maintaining the absolute perpetuity of the temple worship, and the certainty of its being again established for the benefit of all Christendom, we can only regard as one of those strange and bewildering meteors, that occasionally appear for a little in the theological heavens, and then pass away with the occasion that has produced them. The belief, we are persuaded, has gradually forced itself upon them, as an untoward, but necessary result of the false principle of prophetical literalism, to winch the writers of this school had eagerly committed themselves, before they distinctly saw to what lengths it would conduct them. The anomalous position, which they now occupy, cannot possibly last. Consistency will oblige them, either to abandon their Judaism, or renounce their evangelism; for, as we said before, that the evidence for the historical Messiah cannot stand with their principle of prophetical literalism, so we say now, that the fair and grammatical exegesis of New Testament Scripture, can as little stand with the Judaistic hypothesis that has sprung from it. By the one result, the prophetical testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus is destroyed, and by the other the foundation is subverted of the true relation between type and antitype. The full proof of this can only be had by the establishment of a sound typological system, based on a close and comprehensive examination of the writings of both the Old and the New Testament. And as we have endeavoured to do that elsewhere (in the “Typology of Scripture”), it is the less necessary to say much upon the subject here. Indeed, with plain and unprejudiced minds, the matter admits of a very simple and direct solution. We might put it to any one perfectly free to express his convictions, if, holding the Judaistic views now under consideration, he could have taken the part, which the Apostle Paul did, in respect to circumcision and the law? Could he have resisted the introduction of these into the church as a matter of life and death? Could he have said, as Paul did to the Galatians, when he heard, not that they abused, but simply, that they used them—heard merely, that they “observed days, and months, and times, and years”—“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth? I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain; Behold I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing?” Or, could he have declared the proper subjects of the law, to have been placed by it in a state of bondage, or under a schoolmaster, from which, now that faith has come, they were set free? It is impossible—and a glance into the writings of those, whose views we are now discussing, brings us acquainted with quite another language. Hear, for example, Mr Birks, “They (the legal sacrifices and services connected with them), were taken away, from constituting any part of the true atonement for sin, which our Lord was coming to effect by the offering of his own body on the tree. As symbols or sacraments, pointing to something beyond, and far higher than themselves, and as adapted for an earthly stage of man’s being, they were always acceptable, when offered in obedience to God’s revealed will. But when adopted by others, to whom no such command had been given, or viewed as having inherent efficacy, they were denounced by the prophets as dishonourable to God, and unavailing to man; and the refusal to impose them upon Gentile converts, when the gospel was sent to them, was only a further and plainer testimony against the Jewish perversion of them, as in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah, by pride and self-righteousness.” (“Outlines of Unfulfilled Prophecy,” p. 323.) Must not this sound in the ears of a plain reader of Scripture somewhat like a travesty of its meaning? It was certainly not thus that Luther understood the matter. How differently did he write of the Judaizing spirit of the Galatians and apostles of Judaism? And Paul himself, did he simply refuse to impose the Jewish ritual of worship upon the Gentile converts? Or, when introduced, did he merely tell them, that it was only when coupled with pride and self-righteousness, the services became unavailing? but that as symbols or sacraments they were always acceptable? By no means. It is the services themselves he condemns—because, in the very observance of them, where there was no bond of custom rendering it difficult to break them off, he descried the clear sign of an antichristian spirit; and the teaching which persuaded the Galatians to enter on their observance, he affirms to be “another gospel.” The very existence of them anywhere, he considered a badge of servitude, and the things themselves are stigmatised as “beggarly elements.” During the period appointed for them, they held the place only of temporary expedients—“shadows,” but with Christ’s coming, the “body” is present, and the shadows, as a matter of course, disappear. The whole system of carnal ordinances, he tells us in Hebrews, was abolished, not because of men’s abuse of it, but because of its own weakness and unprofitableness; and he shows that they belonged to a priesthood and a covenant, which, according to Old Testament itself, were destined to be displaced, and now, he expressly declares, were displaced by the higher priesthood and the new covenant of Christ. In short, the question, as treated by the apostle, and as it should still be treated by us, is not, whether those cardinal ordinances might not be observed by certain individuals under the gospel in a Christian spirit? But whether they were in themselves altogether good? And especially, whether they were adapted to the genius of Christianity, and properly fitted to nourish the Christian spirit? To this, the whole tenor of his remarks gives a decided negative, and we may say, an unqualified rejection. Such are the plain and broad features of the subject, as presented by the apostle to the Gentiles, which it is impossible to explain away, without subverting the very principles of a right interpretation of Scripture. But they by no means stand alone. Our Lord’s declaration to the woman of Samaria, in which he said, “The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father; but the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him; “may be said to involve the principle of the Whole matter. For it intimates, that the distinction of places as to religion was on the eve of abolition, and that worship rendered at Jerusalem would be no more acceptable to God than that given in the most distant regions. But to say this, was to ring the knell of the ceremonial law, which necessarily fell with the exclusive honours of the one temple and the one altar at Jerusalem. It thenceforth ceased to be either binding or proper, though still it did not strictly die—but rather, like the chrysalis breaking its horny crust, and emerging into a higher form of life and beauty, was transfigured into Christ’s form of doctrine, the new law of a spiritual Christianity. The same change was involved in the instructive fact connected with our Lord’s death, when the veil of the temple was rent in twain; for this declared, as by an impressive sign from heaven, that the formal distinctions of the old economy were abolished at the very centre, and must thenceforth cease, even to the farthest extremities. From that moment, there was no longer, in the old sense, a sanctuary, and a holy of holies; the handwriting which had established such divisions till the time of reformation, was blotted out; the reformation itself had come, and the entire sacrificial system founded on it necessarily gave way. The change was still farther indicated in Christ’s declaring, at His last passover, that He had greatly desired to eat it with his disciples, because now it was to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God (Luke 22:16): that is, the typical act it commemorated, was to be substantiated by the great redemption, whose commemorative rite must henceforth take the place of the former. Hence, in still farther explanation, the apostle Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “For even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us” (or, more exactly, For also our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed), let us, therefore, keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” The meaning obviously is, that the Christian church now possesses, through participation in the death and grace of Christ, in the real and proper sense, what was only symbolically represented in the ancient passover and its accompanying feast. In another epistle also (Colossians 2:1-23), he expressly affirms, that the other most distinctive ordinance of the Old Testament, circumcision, has passed into Christian baptism; so that those who through the Spirit have been baptised into the spiritual body of Christ, are the circumcised in heart. And if, as the apostle in the same place announces, the handwriting of ordinances was in one mass, as in Christ’s body, nailed to the cross and taken out of the way, there can be room for but one conclusion; namely, that for as many as look to that cross for salvation, the old ritual has for ever gone; and we may justly say of it with Luther, “Like Moses, it is dead and buried, and let no man know where its place is.” But what is thus said of the religion of the old covenant, as to its external form, is also said of the people on whom, in their elect and separate condition, it was imposed; they also in that condition possessed a typical character. As a chosen people, saved from outward bondage and corruption, and placed in covenant-relationship to God, they represented those who, when the true redemption came, should be delivered from all evil, and constituted members of God’s everlasting kingdom. So long as that typical relation stood, the national distinction between Jew and Gentile necessarily continued—although, as the time for its abolition drew near, a certain approximation was made to its removal, by the dispersion of the Jews through the Roman empire, and the constant accessions made to them by proselytes from the Gentiles. The way was thus prepared, by Divine Providence, for the change from a typical to an anti-typical election—that is, from an elect seed to an elect society; which began to take full effect as soon as the Christian church assumed an outstanding existence in the world. From that time we hear only of a precedence on the part of the Jew in the order of time—he stood nearest to the kingdom of God, and fitly had the first offer of its blessings; but he had no superiority in rank, privilege, or destiny. Again and again the apostle testifies, that in these respects, there was no difference; as in Romans 10:12, “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all, is rich unto all that call upon Him;” Galatians 3:28, “There is. neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female (these outward distinctions do not indeed cease, but they are nothing in a religious point of view), for ye are all one in Christ Jesus;” Colossians 3:11, “Where (i.e., in Christ) there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all.” And in Ephesians 2:14, sq., where he speaks more formally of the constitution of the Christian church, “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” Here, plainly, the ground of separation or enmity, the law of ordinances, is declared to have been removed by Christ, for Jew as well as Gentile; it was, henceforth, no more obligatory upon the one than upon the other; and should have ceased as soon as possible to be even observed, in order that the intended oneness of the Church might be effected, and converted Gentiles might feel that they were “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” Hence, in token of this complete fusion of races, and the consequent merging of the type in the anti-type, believers in Christ, generally, are called Abraham’s seed (Galatians 3:29), Israelites (Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:12), comers unto Mount Zion (Hebrews 12:22), citizens of the free or heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26), the circumcision (Php 3:3). It is to be added, that here also our Lord himself took the lead. He began to do so at a comparatively early period in his ministry, when on the occasion of the Centurion’s remarkable faith, he exclaimed, “Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness” (Matthew 8:11-12). So again, when He was told of His mother and brethren desiring to speak with Him, “He answered and said unto him that told Him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father that is in heaven (or, as in Luke, hear the word of God, and do it), the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Here, precisely as in the rending of the veil for the ceremonials of Judaism, the exclusive bond for the people was broken at the centre: Christ’s very mother and brothers were to have no precedence over others, nor any distinctive position in His kingdom; spiritual relations alone should prevail there, and the one bond of connection with it for all alike, was to be the believing reception of the gospel and obedience to it. Finally, the command given the apostles to teach and baptise all nations, with no further difference than that they should begin at Jerusalem and the Jews, though they were not to rest till they had reached the uttermost part of the earth, and preached the gospel to every creature—evidently implied the cessation of all outward national distinctions as having any recognised place in the kingdom of Christ. So that the apostle Paul, in the explicit declarations we have quoted from his epistles, only carried out, and in a more concrete form expressed, the principle already embodied in our Lord’s announcements. So far, therefore, as regards Israel’s typical character, their removed and isolated position is plainly at an end: all tribes and nations are on a footing as to the kingdom of God—members and fellow-citizens if they are believers in Christ, aliens if they are not. But admitting this, may not the natural Israel in some other respect have the prospect of a separate and peculiar standing in the church! It was not simply to be a type of the future election, that they were anciently separated from the nations, but also that they might possess the reality of a present interest in God’s love and blessing, and do special service for Him in the world. Why may it not be so again? It may, certainly, and, we have no doubt it will, in some sense, and in so far as may consist with the fundamental principles and relations of God’s spiritual kingdom. But it should be well considered how far, in respect to that, the history of the past itself may warrant us to carry our expectations. Beside the typical character of Israel, the only ground of distinction that belonged to them, at least as recognised by God, was their religious position; they were the nation that held the truth, and, as such, stood apart from the idolatrous nations of heathendom. But when that distinction virtually ceased to exist by the mass of the people abandoning the truth, and espousing the corruptions of heathenism, the Lord held the ground of separation to be abolished, and addressed and treated them as heathen (Isaiah 1:1-10; Amos 9:7-8; Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 23:1-49). Or when it ceased on the other side by heathens renouncing their abominations, and entering into the bond of the covenant, the same abolition, though in a happier sense, took place as to any formal distinction. Never, indeed, was there anything properly distinctive and peculiar to Israel as a people, apart from their standing in the knowledge and faith of God; whenever this ground of separation was removed on the one side or the other, the distinction itself disappeared; the natural seed of Israel no longer dwelt alone. And justly so. For their election of God to a separate place, viewed in respect to the time then present, was no act of favouritism; it was simply the appointed means to a great moral end; and when they were either no longer capable of reaching this, or no longer needed for doing it, it fell into abeyance. Such was the state of matters viewed in respect to the past: And would it not be an anomaly of the strangest description, if now under the new dispensation, pre-eminent, especially for the freedom it has brought from outward restraints and adventitious distinctions, a kind of division were to be introduced, which had no existence even under the old? In the church itself of the Old Testament there was no recognised division; members of the stock of Israel formed its main trunk, and those who joined it from other tribes became merged in the common body; the separation was simply between this body and the heathen world. Shall it be otherwise now? In Christian times alone shall there be a recognised and abiding distinction within the church, between one portion of it and another? Even when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, shall the Jewish nation stand out and apart from the rest? Were it actually to do so, it would not be a continuation or a renewal of the past, but the introduction of an entirely new principle into the Church of God. When the kingdoms shall have attained to the condition mentioned, they will be relatively in the very position occupied of old by Israel itself—they will be one and all kingdoms holding the truth; and if converted Israelites were still to stand apart from and above them, it would not be the same thing that existed under the law, but something essentially different—something foreign even to Judaism; how much more, then, to Christianity? The only just expectation respecting the position of the Jewish people in their converted state—that alone which is warranted by the .history of the past, or seems in accordance with the great principles of Christianity, is not that their singular and isolated place after they have entered the church, but that their entrance itself there shall enliven and refresh her condition. The receiving of them, says the apostle, shall be “life from the dead.” Cut off, as they have been and continue to be, for their impenitence and unbelief, they are, so to speak, in the condition of an amputated limb—lying in the bonds of death. And when animated anew by the breath of the Spirit, so as to become re-united with the living body of Christ, what else can the effect be, than that of sending a fresh impulse through every part and member of the body? How far this effect may be produced simultaneously or by successive stages, cannot be determined with certainty, and is of no moment as regards the general question. The apostle’s language, in the eleventh chapter of the Romans, has been thought to imply, that the return of the Jews shall be in a kind of national capacity. And such may be its import, although it does not materially differ from our Lord’s language respecting the calling of the Gentiles, when he says in Matthew 21:43, “Therefore I say unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” He spoke of the general result, in the comprehensive style of prophecy, as if the transference were to be begun and completed at once; while yet, we know from the history, it took place in a quite gradual and successive manner. For anything we can tell, the reception of the Jews into the bosom of the church may also take place gradually, though it is spoken of as a single event. At the same time, from the close interconnection that subsists among them, it is likely to be accomplished in a much briefer period, after the work of conversion has somewhat generally commenced, than in the case of the Gentiles. And if the present scattered, yet separately preserved condition of the Jews shall be found, as we may well conceive, to hasten forward the blessed consummation, shall there not be discovered a sufficient reason for the providence that has so kept them apart? Their preservation certainly has been wonderful, and we can scarcely doubt is destined in the issue to work out more signally God’s great purpose of mercy for the world. Their very scattered and peeled condition, bringing them into contact with so many nations, and making them familiar with so much suffering, may but render them the more thoroughly prepared, when the time to favour Zion has come, to do the part of the great Evangelizers of the world. For through them the tongues of all nations would be hallowed to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ, and, speaking from the bosoms of such converts, and the depths of such a manifold experience, they would assuredly be tongues of fire. Were Jerusalem but effectually reached by the power of the gospel, every nation under heaven would be stirred; and then indeed “the remnant of Jacob would be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.” But now, what we have affirmed first of the religion of the old covenant, then of the people, we must also affirm of the inheritance. This, not less than the other two, as formerly stated, (See Part I., Chap. vi.) possessed a typical character in relation to gospel times: like them, it passed, when these entered, into something higher and better. And in tracing the connection between the new and the old things, Christ and his apostles make no difference between this and the two former particulars. Christ himself came into the world as the heir of an inheritance, but it was the inheritance of the earth, as given up to Him to be delivered from the bondage of evil, and ultimately glorified (Psalms 2:1-12). Accordingly, one of the first benedictions he pronounced in his sermon on the Mount, was an assurance to His people of an interest in this large inheritance, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” So, again, in the words he uttered in connection with the faith of the Centurion, the converts from every land are represented as sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God—sharing ultimately in their inheritance, as they had already entered into their faith. In like manner, the apostle Paul speaks of believers in Christ, not only as children of Abraham, but also as heirs with him according to the promise (Galatians 3:29)—having a joint-heritage, as well as a common standing with Abraham. He even designates Abraham “the heir of the world” (Romans 4:13)—which can only be explained by his identifying Canaan with what it typically represented, in the same way that Christ is called Abraham’s seed (Galatians 3:16), since in the immediate offspring the eye of faith contemplated the ultimate child of promise. In Hebrews 11:1-40 the patriarchs themselves are identified in their prospects of a future inheritance with believers in Christ; they are described as in their expectations overshooting the nearer possessions literally contained in the word of promise, and looking for the everlasting inheritance. And this inheritance, described by the apostle Peter as the destined portion alike of converted Jews and Gentiles (1 Peter 1:4), is also by him identified with the new heavens and the new earth, which the prophet Isaiah had held out in prospect to the church of the Old Testament, as the final resting-place from all their troubles (2 Peter 3:13). It appears, therefore, that the typical character which attached to the people and the religion of the old covenant, attached also to the inheritance—the land of Canaan; and that the transition to gospel times is represented as effecting the same relative change in respect to this as to the others. It is true here, as of the people and of the religion, that the typical bearing was not the only one; immediate ends of an important kind were connected with the possession of the land, though they were never more than partially accomplished. But the typical bearing is the relation in which it stands to gospel times—a relation which it holds equally with the people whose heritage it was, and the ceremonial worship they observed. How, indeed, could it have been otherwise? The land was, in a manner, the common basis of the people and the worship—the platform on which both stood, and in connection with which the whole of their religious observances, and their national history, might be said to move. To except this, therefore, from the typical territory, and withdraw it from the temporary things which were to pass to something higher and better in Christ, were to suppose an incongruity in the circumstances of ancient Israel, which we cannot conceive to have existed, and could only have led to inextricable confusion. Viewed in the light in which we have presented it, all is of a piece; a common principle pervades the relations of Old Testament times. The seed of Israel, as an elect people, placed under covenant with God, represented the company of an elect church, redeemed from the curse of sin, that they might live for ever in the favour and blessing of Heaven: and when the redemption came, the representation passed into the reality. In like manner, the religion of symbolical feasts and ordinances, which was imposed upon the people of the covenant, shadowed forth under various aspects the realities and consolations of the gospel; and when these were introduced, the other, as a matter of course, passed away—the type became merged in the antitype. So, once again, the inheritance which was given for a possession to the typical seed, and was to be a visible pledge of God’s favour, so long as they fulfilled the obligations of the typical calling and worship, served for the time to image the final portion and destiny of the redeemed, but now it also through the gospel has been supplanted by the earnest and expectation of a world where all is pure and blessed. Here, as in other respects, the past links itself with the future, as the germ of a great and abiding reality, that was in due time to be developed. And precisely as the seed of Abraham was seen by inspired men perpetuating itself in the flock of Christ, and David in Christ Himself, so are Abraham’s inheritance and David’s kingdom to be regarded as having a prolonged and expanded existence in those of Christ and his people. There is the same principle in both. And, as a necessary result, the former relation of the Israelites to the land of Canaan affords no ground for expecting its re-occupation by them after their conversion to the faith of Christ, no more than for expecting that the handwriting of ordinances shall then be restored, or the relations of the ancient world, generally, shall return to their old channels. However viewed, therefore, the expectations of which we have been treating seem destitute of any solid foundation. They are to some extent at variance with the fundamental principles of the divine administration in general, and especially at variance with the spirit and genius of Christianity. The fulfilment of them would constitute, not an advance to a more perfect state of things, but a retrogression to what was essentially imperfect. The local temple, which formed the centre of the old religion, with its holy persons, and places, and seasons, bespoke in its very nature imperfection; since it implied, in respect to other persons, and places, and seasons, a relative commonness or pollution; so that the prophets themselves anticipated a time when it would be supplanted by something higher and better (Jeremiah 3:17). The same kind of imperfection was inseparably connected with the idea of an elect people and a holy land; all lying beyond the hallowed circle being necessarily regarded as either absolutely or relatively impure. Perfection can come only as this circle widens, and embraces the field of humanity in its compass. It began, in a measure, with the believing Jews of the dispersion, carrying with them into heathen lands the lamp of Divine truth, and preparing the way far and wide for the day of gospel light. More properly, however, it began with the incarnation of Christ, the one complete, living temple of Godhead; and it grows as the Holy Spirit that is in Him finds for itself a home in the bosoms of believing men. Wherever such are, there also are living temples, surpassing in real glory the magnificent but lifeless fabric that stood upon the heights of Zion. And it is the grand aim of Christianity to increase and multiply these living temples of the Spirit, so that they may be found in every part of the habitable globe. Its tendency is not to centralise, but to diffuse abroad; not externally to communicate an impression of sanctity, by the mere touch of particular localities, and the observance of stated forms, but internally to sanctify men by the Spirit of holiness, and through them, as vessels of the Spirit, to sanctify all places and all times. The true ideal of Christianity is realised only in proportion as this regenerative process is accomplished; and it were obviously a retrograde movement, if its free and expansive energies should be repressed by the local restraints of some particular region, or by having its more select agencies drawn from but a fragmentary section of the human family. In what has hitherto been said, we have confined our attention, in the first instance, to the essential nature of Christianity, then to the typical character of Judaism, with scarcely any direct reference to the prophetical portions of Old Testament Scripture, beyond the terms of the Abrahamic covenant. It is to this, more especially, that the apostle Paul refers, when he treats of the future of the Jewish people in the epistle to the Romans. But neither in what he says regarding it, nor in the covenant itself, when rightly understood, is there anything to imply the restoration of the seed of Israel to a future and permanent possession of the land of Canaan. In reality it was never meant to secure, in any sense, the possession of Canaan to more than a select portion of Abraham’s seed; as the successive limitations made among his immediate offspring to the more peculiar blessings of the covenant clearly shewed. It settled at length upon the children of Jacob, but only on the supposition (never more than partially verified) of their being collectively children of faith—for otherwise they could not have been entitled to any blessing. (See Part I., Chap. iii.) And, as thus ultimately defined and fixed, it was in respect to the possession, no doubt, as well as other things, everlasting; not, however, as regards the form, but simply as regards the substance of its provisions. The form necessarily underwent a change with the coming of Christ, from whom everything in the future connected with God’s kingdom takes its shape and character. He was Himself pre-eminently the Seed promised in the covenant; but, at the same time, unspeakably more than the seed primarily designated; it was now a seed embracing alike the Divine and human, and including as many as partake of the life of God. In correspondence with this, the possession becomes also unspeakably more than the old land of Canaan—it embraces the whole extent of a recovered and renovated world. And wherever there is found a soul linked in vital union with Christ, there also are found the essential characteristics of Abraham’s seed, and a title to Abraham’s inheritance. III. But we come now to glance at what are more strictly the prophetical parts of Scripture, and we here advance the proposition that they contain nothing which, taken according to the real nature and intent of prophecy, is at variance with the conclusions already arrived at. That they contain many passages which formally announce the re-establishment and perpetual existence of everything distinctively Jewish, admits of no doubt. But when read in accordance with the fundamental principles of prophetical interpretation, the true import is in perfect conformity with the views we have unfolded. 1. For, in the first place, by one of the most essential of these principles, the predictions of the future continually took the form and image of the present or the past. (See pp. 142, 154, sq.) Partly from the mode of revelation by vision, and partly from the necessary laws of the human mind, which the Spirit in His supernatural communications does not overbear, but leaves in free and unfettered exercise, there was no possibility of avoiding such a leaning upon history in the anticipations of prophecy. The new can only be conceived of under the aspect of the old; and by the aid of known relations the mind is obliged to feel its way to such as may belong to other states and conditions of existence. Of necessity, therefore, the form in such cases is always defective, and an accomplishment that should answer the description according to the letter would, in the nature of things, be impracticable. This holds as well of the New Testament delineations of our still undeveloped future, as of the Old Testament delineations of what has now become our present or past. Take, for example, some of our Lord’s descriptions of the coming bliss and glory of His people. Luke 12:37, “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth to serve them;” Luke 22:29, “And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel;” Revelation 3:21, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne,” etc. Of these and all similar descriptions of what is to come, no one needs to be told that they present only a shadowy representation drawn from known objects and relations upon earth, not the very form and image of the things hereafter to be realised. Understood otherwise, they would neither give assurance of the kind of felicity that is fitted to satisfy the desires of believers, nor would they be properly consistent with each other. And if such be the case with the prospective delineations of the gospel, how much more must it have been so with those which were given in the very age of shadows and symbols? Relatively, the people of those times were in the condition of children with respect to the better things to come, and these must either have been wrapt in absolute darkness to their view, or unfolded to them in a childish manner. In this form alone could they have formed any distinct idea of the coming future; and whatever imperfections may have cleaved to the form, it still was what alone could enable persons in their circumstances to obtain some apprehension of the reality. Hence as the dispensations of God toward His people varied, and assumed in successive periods new aspects and relations, prophecy also changed the form of its representations. Instances have already been given of this (Part First, chap. iv.), and we glance here only at some of the general features. The patriarchal age was distinguished by the Lord’s condescending to select, for the world’s good, certain more peculiar instruments and channels of blessing, and prophecy then spake only of the general relations amid which the purpose to bless should be carried into effect. In the times of David and Solomon, when the kingdom, after many struggles, attained to a united and flourishing condition, the prophetic future assumed the aspect of a king contending and conquering—a kingdom in Israel bearing down all opposition, and gathering people of every name under its sway—and a blessed people, having their interests inseparably bound up with the person and fortunes of Him whom God had set upon the throne. But after the kingdom lost its unity, and the royal house of David was shorn of its glory, and the people themselves became peeled and scattered, then the spirit of prophecy, sighing amidst the mournful desolations, yet confident of the grace and glory still to be revealed, spake of this under the image of the removal of existing evils—of the reunion of Ephraim and Judah—of a reviving of the splendour of David’s house—of the resuscitation even of David himself, to wield again the sceptre, in God’s name, over a blessed heritage—and of the re-gathering of the scattered flock, to share in the peace and glory of His reign. How else could they have formed definite notions of the nature of the good in prospect? The existing evils must appear to be supplanted by the opposite good. Even the sorest of all their calamities, that which befel them at the overthrow of their beautiful city and temple, only served, in the hands of Ezekiel, for materials to picture out a restored community more perfect and glorious than the past, under the image of a temple and city, manifestly ideal in their whole structure and arrangements, yet admirably contrived to give assurance of a coming future that should totally eclipse the brightest era of the past. In Daniel a still further stage was reached in the development of the prophetic future, and, in accordance with his peculiar position, an altogether different form was given to it. Placed by Providence at a heathen court, it is from the midst of the worldly interest, not from that of the covenant-people, that his prophetic outline of the future is given. It unfolds the relations between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God, but contains nothing of the more internal relations growing out of the times of Abraham, or Jacob, or even David. And when he comes to designate the members of the Divine kingdom, the characteristics are drawn from the broadest ground. They are simply “the saints of the Most High;” and the kingdom itself, so far from being confined within the little bounds of Canaan, comprehends all people, and nations, and languages, under the whole Heaven. (See Appendix K.) Taking, thus, the hue and aspect of the past—foretelling things to come, under the form and image of things which have already appeared—prophecy becomes comparatively simple as to its mode of interpretation and its leading results, if only (for there lies the chief difficulty) we can throw ourselves back to the position of those who disclosed it, and conceive of their relation to the future of the gospel dispensation, as we must do of our own relation to the still future dispensation of glory. Situated as the prophets generally were, it was quite natural, and, in a sense, necessary, that they should speak of the better things to come in language and imagery derived from such as were known and familiar to their minds, and especially that when disorder and confusion entered into the state of things previously settled, they should announce the recovery of what was lost, and the re-establishment on surer foundations of what had given way. This principle, in fact, pervades all their representations, and must be applied to one part as well as to another of the materials of which their representations are composed. The prophets themselves make no difference. They speak as distinctly, in some places, of a separate nationality for the covenant people, as in others of the healing of what was internally disordered; of the erection of the temple, and the joyful celebration of its worship, as of a restoration to the land of Canaan, and a re-built Jerusalem. It must ever appear arbitrary to separate between representations which are manifestly one in kind, and, if either intelligible or consistent, can only be found so by being based on a common principle. To hold by the form in one part, and let it go in another, is to introduce absolute confusion, and surrender the prophetic field to the caprice of individual feeling or the shifting currents of popular opinion. Indeed, on any other principle than that we have laid down, the prophetic testimony respecting the future of Israel would be of the most contradictory and discordant nature; for sometimes this future is exhibited under the form of a removal merely of the disorders that had crept into the old constitution of things, and at other times of the removal of this itself, on account of its inherent imperfections, in order that something better may take its place (Jeremiah 31:31; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:1-4; Haggai 2:7). In one class of representations the nations are spoken of as going to Jerusalem to join in the restored feasts and ritual of Judaism (Isaiah 66:23; Zechariah 14:1-21); in another, the distinctive peculiarities of Judaism and the temple service are described as no longer distinctive but everywhere diffused, as when Egypt and Assyria are placed on a footing as to covenant privileges with Israel (Isaiah 19:21-25); or, when the sacredness of the ark of the Lord is said to be shared in common by all Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:16-17); (The explanation by the Rabbinical interpreter Jarchi of this passage is striking, and shows how far even he had obtained an insight into its real meaning; “For your whole community shall be holy, and I will dwell among you as if you were yourselves the ark of the covenant”—a spiritual and godly people now taking the place of the temple and the most sacred part of its furniture!) or, when the most peculiar rites of the temple, such as the altar service, or the offering of incense, is connected with other countries, and even every region of the earth (Isaiah 19:19; Malachi 1:11). Ezekiel, writing when the heart of faith was prostrated by the fall of the house of God, seeks to re-animate it with the hope of a temple and a city incomparably more glorious and perfect than what had been lost; while John, living when the temple and all its forms were superseded, perceives no temple in the consummate glory of the New Jerusalem, with which his visions terminate. All, indeed, perfectly natural and intelligible, if they are understood to be merely the varying and imperfect forms under which men, guided by the Spirit of God, endeavoured to body forth, from their several points of view, the better future; but full only of discord and confusion, if their delineations are to be ruled by a prosaic literalism. In this also, we have a satisfactory answer to the demand, that is often made for the same kind of events in the prophetic future of Israel, as have appeared in their past history. Both, it is alleged, must be on the same level, equally outward and palpable in the one case, as in the other. If so, then the future in God’s kingdom must itself be on the same level with the past; there must be no rise, no progressive development; Christianity must move in the same sphere with Judaism; the history of Providence, instead of ever advancing forward, must turn back to its old channels, and its movements in that direction must even have been more clearly descried by ancient seers, in the dusky twilight, than by apostles and prophets in the bright noon-day of the gospel. To affirm such conclusions, is to place the word of God in antagonism to nature and reason, and to set one part of its revelations in antithesis to another. For the prophecies that were to have their fulfilment in the gospel history itself, dying, so to speak, on the boundary-line between the old and the new in God’s dispensations—for such prophecies, a considerable degree of correspondence in the very form, might justly be expected between the terms of the prediction and the manner of its accomplishment—as is often, though not uniformly found to be the case in the recorded fulfilments of the gospels. But when the work of Christ was finished, a higher class of relations entered; the Divine administration rose greatly beyond its former level; and, in so far as prophecy pointed to what should thereafter take place, we should no more expect to see it fulfilled after the precise letter of its announcements, than we should expect the fruit of genius in mature years to retain the exact type of its early promise. 2. Another essential principle in prophetical interpretation, is the primary and pre-eminent regard that is ever had in it to the moral element. This appears particularly in two ways. It appears, first, in those predictions which refer to different nations and people, by pointing more especially to the persons or communities composing them, the real subjects of moral treatment, rather than to the territories they occupied. It appears, again, in the conditional character of those predictions which contain promises of good things to come—these always implying a corresponding spiritual condition on the part of those in whom they are to be fulfilled, and a failure or modification, according to the nature of that condition. (See Part I., Chap. iv.) Now, it is absolutely impossible to carry out this principle in the interpretation of many of those prophecies, which refer to the future of the Jewish people. For, in these prophecies, Israel does not stand alone, but in connection with the surrounding nations, who represented, in different degrees, the ungodliness and enmity of the world, as Israel was called to represent the truth and holiness of God. But in the light in which those nations were contemplated in prophecy, they are gone; as distinct and separate communities, maintaining an ambitious rivalry with the covenant-people, they are utterly extinguished; their very existence is numbered among the things that were. How, then, can the prophecies, which speak of either Israel’s restoration to the land of Canaan, or their forming in that land the religious centre of a blessed world, be fulfilled according to the letter? It is not the naked fact respecting Israel, of which the prophecies speak, but of this as imbedded amid relations derived from their old historical position. Their return, for example, to their ancient possessions, is described as being made, sometimes with the help, and sometimes to the confusion and overthrow of those, who formerly afflicted them: “They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them” (Isaiah 11:14); “And this man (Messiah) shall be our peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when He shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against Him seven shepherds and eight principal men” (Micah 5:5; “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom” (Amos 9:11-12). To the same class belong also such passages as Zechariah 14:16-19, and Isaiah 19:23-25, referred to under the last head; for the Egypt and Assyria spoken of as one with Israel, is manifestly not the mere territories, but the people or kingdoms that had their seat of empire there; these it is who are represented as undergoing, at last, an entire change of relationship toward Israel, laying aside their hostility and joining her in brotherly communion. But the people mentioned in all these passages have disappeared from the stage of history; and neither the restoration itself of Israel, nor the events growing out of it, can be understood according to the letter of the description; in that sense, considerable portions of the prophetic Scriptures can have no proper fulfilment. And why, then, should the others be supposed to have? Why not understand them generally in the sense of prophetic delineations written in the language and imagery supplied by history? It is undeniable, as we have already shown, (See p. 165.) that prophecies were sometimes written thus, even such as found their fulfilment under the old dispensation; and it is in accordance with the nature of things to suppose, that what was occasionally done in predictions relating to Old Testament times, would be, constantly done in those which foretold the better things of the New. For, in the one case, it might have been dispensed with, but in the other, it could not; here there was no alternative—the prophets were obliged to avail themselves of the former things to depict those that were to come. The prominence given in prophecy to the moral element in the other respect mentioned, confirms, still farther, this result. For, the prophecies now under consideration are all of the nature of promises of good things to Israel; and these God invariably hung, to a certain extent, upon the spiritual condition of the subjects of them; and the determinate thing in them was not the precise mode and measure of the accomplishment, but rather, the purpose of God to do good to His people, and to what extent they might look for His blessing. But the proper result was continually marred by their shortcomings and sins; and some, even of the most explicit prophecies of this description, referring to the return of Israel from their first dispersion, and their future prosperity in the land—prophecies that should have been fulfilled before the coming of Christ, had never more than a very partial accomplishment. The prediction in Jeremiah 24:5-7, may be specified as an example, since the Lord there says of the portion of the Jews that had been carried captive to Babylon, as contradistinguished from the other portion that still remained in Judea, that he would “bring them back to their land, and would build them, and not pull them down, and plant them, and not pluck them up.” There are various prophecies of a like nature in Zechariah—as at Zechariah 1:16, Zechariah 2:4, where, after the captivity had in part returned, the Lord declared, that he had “returned to Jerusalem with mercies,” that it should be “inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein,” that He would Himself be “a wall of fire round about, and the glory in the midst.” So again, in Zechariah 8:1-23 he renews the declaration, that he “was returned unto Zion, and would dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem should be called a city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts, the holy mountain.” That these and other predictions of a like kind, intimated what the Lord was ready to do for the people, and what should have been found in the immediate future, seems quite plain; but the want of a proper sanctification on their part rendered the full accomplishment impossible; as in other cases, so also here, the natural had to bend to the moral—the promised good could only be so far realized as the people were prepared and fitted to receive it. In other words, it was not the natural Israel merely as such, but these as the seed of God, the church, to whom the promises were made; and the natural element in the thing promised, necessarily had its amount as well as form determined by Israel’s relation to the church, and God’s dispensations toward her. Even in legal times, it never was more than a secondary point, whether Canaan was to be the home of the seed of Jacob; what alone gave it importance, was its selection as the chosen theatre of the one acceptable worship, the religious centre of the world. And when no longer needed for this, what should we expect, but that the natural element in the prophecies referred to, should fall yet more into abeyance, and the moral, which has to do with spiritual realities and abiding relations, alone become prominent? We may say, therefore, in regard to the entire class of prophecies, to which the above examples belong, that from their very nature their fulfilment, according to the letter and form, could not be expected to be more than partial; but as to the substance it becomes complete, though only when the form has passed away. During the time that the temple and Jerusalem stood, and formed the centre of the divine kingdom and worship, the predictions, which were of the nature of promises, received a measure of fulfilment in the case of the true covenant-people to whom alone they properly referred. But from the moment that Christ was glorified, as the temple and Jerusalem lost their original character—as the Jerusalem and the temple, which thenceforth constituted the real habitation of God and the seat of worship, rose heavenwards with its Divine Head (Galatians 4:26, Revelation 21:2), it is in connection with that higher region that we are to look for what yet remains to be fulfilled of the predictions. So long as God’s dwelling-place needed to have an outward and local position upon earth, it continued, according to the word of promise, to have it. He did, as he said, encamp round about it, drew towards it from every quarter his sincere and faithful worshippers, and rendered it a fountain of holiness and peace to the children of the covenant. And when Christ personally appeared, and brought in redemption, not for the sins of Israel alone, but for those of the whole world, while he did not take from his people a centre-place of meeting and fellowship with God,-he yet shifted its position; he raised it from earth to heaven; and instead of saying, “You shall find me here,” or “Go to meet me there,” he said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world, and to the uttermost bounds of the earth.” So that Zion, considered in its higher and moral sense, as the seat of the divine government, is always a holy mountain, and Jerusalem, viewed as the centre of true worship and hallowed influences, abides still, and in higher perfection than before. Beyond the reach of violence or corruption, it cannot be removed or plucked up for ever; and the word stands fast, which assured the covenant-people of a perpetual residence of God in the midst of them, a home of safety and a fountain of blessing. 3. Another, and quite essential principle of prophetical interpretation, as of every species of writing which is accordant with truth, is that the mode of understanding its declarations must involve nothing absolutely incredible, or contrary to the nature of things. Under the terms now indicated we do not mean what may be designated natural impossibilities; for the whole work of grace, like the birth of Isaac and of Christ, is of that sort; it is above nature, and in such a sense contrary to it, that if the laws and forces of nature alone were to operate, it might justly be pronounced impossible. To the heart of faith such things are not incredible, because it takes into account the supernatural grace of God, which does what nature is alike incompetent and unwilling to do, by bringing to its aid a truly divine energy. But there are limits even to the operations of grace, and of the power of God generally. There are things of a providential kind, which we may say God cannot do, as we say, in respect to his moral character, that he cannot lie. And no interpretation of the prophecies can be sound, which, when fairly and consistently applied, would involve the belief of such things being brought to pass. Now some things of this description, in our opinion, have already been specified in the course of our remarks, as flowing from that style of interpreting the prophecies, against which we contend. Such are the self-contradictory statements, which on this literal style are found in them (noticed at p. 94, sq.), since both parts cannot be literally verified; and such, also those, which presuppose the existence of states and communities that have altogether ceased to exist. These are spoken of, not in the general sense of lands or countries, but of corporate societies and distinct races, standing in a known and definite relation to the covenant-people. In this respect the old condition of things referred to in the prophecies is gone; and gone irretrievably. But there are other things of the same nature mentioned of the covenant-people themselves. Thus the prophecy in Zechariah 12:1-14, which is commonly pressed as one of the clearest proofs of the permanently separate condition and restoration of the Jews in the latter days, implies the existence of the old organization also as to families; the family of David is represented as mourning apart, and the families of Nathan, of Levi, and of Shimei. In other prophecies of a like nature, the priests and Levites are mentioned apart, even the children of Zadok, as contradistinguished from the other priestly families, and every tribe in its own order (Isaiah 66:21; Malachi 3:3; Ezekiel 44:15, Ezekiel 48:1-35) But all such internal distinctions have long since perished; the course of divine providence has been such as to sweep them entirely away. And from the very nature of the case, such distinctions, when once lost, can never be recalled; the revival of them would involve, not the resuscitation of an old, but the creation of a new state of things. So long as any prophecies were depending for their fulfilment on the separate existence of tribes and families in Israel, the distinction betwixt them was preserved; and so also were the genealogical records which were needed to attest the fulfilment. These prophecies terminated in the Son of Mary, the branch of the house of David, and the lion of the tribe of Judah; but with him this, and all other old things ceased—a new era, independent of such outward and formal differences, began. Hence, we find the apostle discharging all from giving heed to endless genealogies, as no longer of any avail in the Church of God; and the providence of God shortly after sealed the word by scattering their genealogies to the winds, and fusing together in one undistinguishable, inextricable mass, the surviving remnants of the Jewish family. Now, prophecy is not to be verified by halves; it is either wholly true, in the sense in which it ought to be understood, or it is a failure. And since God’s providence has rendered the fulfilment of the parts referred to manifestly impossible on the literal principle of interpretation, it affords conclusive evidence, that on this principle such prophecies are misread. In what it calls men to believe, it does violence to their reason; and it commits the word of God to expectations which never can be properly realized. The ground on which these remarks are made, holds also in regard to other predictions; for example, to that of Zechariah 14:16, which speaks of all nations going up to worship every year at Jerusalem, and to keep the feast of tabernacles; to that of Isaiah 66:23, which affirms the same respecting the new moons and even the Sabbaths; to that of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 40:1-49, Ezekiel 41:1-26, Ezekiel 42:1-20, Ezekiel 43:1-27, Ezekiel 44:1-31, Ezekiel 45:1-25, Ezekiel 46:1-24, Ezekiel 47:1-23, Ezekiel 48:1-35, which sketches a temple and city and a new distribution of the land, which by no conceivable adjustments can be brought within the bounds of the possible. It was never intended to be so; its aim was to unfold by means of the old external symbols and relations, freshly arranged and expanded, certain great truths and elevating prospects (as we have shewn in our Commentary on that part of Ezekiel); and similar ends were aimed at in all the other prophecies of a like description. By being so viewed, it is true, they are rendered less specific in their meaning, and we can derive little information from them regarding the precise arrangements and forms of things in the latter periods of the Christian dispensation. But then, it never was the design of prophecy to give us such information; this is the province of history, not of prophecy. It is the part of the latter to inculcate great principles, to lay open the springs of God’s moral government, to awaken earnest longings and expectations regarding the good in prospect for the people of God, and indicate the greater lines and more marked characteristics of those spiritual movements on which the destinies of the church and the world are to turn. These are its leading objects; but for subordinate details of providential arrangements, we have no warrant to look to it, unless it be in exceptional cases, such as times of peculiar darkness or great emergency, to which they have usually been confined. 4. We shall refer only further—not to an additional principle of prophetical interpretation, strictly so called—but to a particular prophecy—for the purpose of giving what we conceive its true interpretation. We have already done so, indeed, in another place (the “Typology of Scripture,” vol. i., p. 416), but must present it anew here, on account of the bearing of the passage on the subject before us. It is the prophecy in Isaiah 59:20-21, which, as applied in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans, has been supposed incapable of explanation, excepting on grounds that necessarily involve at least the restoration of the Jewish people. “And so,” says the apostle—that is, after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, and the blindness is again removed from Israel, “all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” One not of the least difficulties connected with this passage is the change which the apostle makes on the words of the original. In the prophet, it is to Zion that the Redeemer was to come, not out of it; and He was to come, not to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, but “to those that turn from transgression in Jacob.” Such deviations from the words and scope of the original have appeared to some so material, that they regard the apostle here, not so properly interpreting an old prediction, as uttering a prediction of his own, clothed as nearly as possible in the familiar language of an ancient ‘prophecy. A manifestly untenable view; for how could we, in that case, have vindicated the apostle from the want of godly simplicity, using, as he must then have done, his accustomed formula for prophetical quotations (“As it is written”) only to disguise and recommend an announcement properly his own? We repudiate any such solution of the difficulty, which would represent the apostle as sailing under false colours. Nor can we regard the alterations as the result of accident or forgetfulness. They can only have sprung from design; and we take the right explanation to be this:—The apostle gives the substantial import of the prophecy in Isaiah, but in accordance with his design gives it also a more special direction, and one that pointed to the kind of fulfilment it must now be expected in that direction to receive. According to the prophet, the Redeemer was to come to or for Zion—somehow in its behalf, and in the behalf also of penitent souls in it—those turning from transgression. So, indeed, he had clone already, in the most literal and exact manner; and the small remnant who turned from transgression, recognised him, and hailed his coming. But the apostle is here looking beyond these; he is looking to the posterity of Jacob, generally, for whom, in this and other similar predictions, he descries a purpose of mercy still in reserve. For, while he strenuously contends, that the promise of a seed of blessing to Abraham, through the line of Jacob, was not confined to the natural offspring, he explicitly declares this to have been always included—not the whole, certainly, yet an elect portion out of it. At that very time, when so many were rejected, there was, he tells us, such an elect portion; and there must still continue to be so, “for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance;” that is, God having connected a blessing with Abraham and his seed in perpetuity, he could never recall it again; there should never cease to be some in whom that blessing was realised. But, besides, there must here also be a fulness: the first fruits of blessing gave assurance of a coming harvest. The fulness of the Gentiles itself is a pledge of it; for if there was to be a fulness of these coming in to inherit the blessing, because of the purpose of God to bless the families of the earth in Abraham and his seed, how much more must there be such a fulness in the seed itself? The overflowings of the stream could not possibly reach farther than the direct channel. But then, this fulness, in the case of the natural Israel, was not to be (as they themselves imagined, and as many along with them still imagine) separate and apart; as if by providing some dispensation of grace or external position for them individually. Of this, the apostle gives no intimation whatever. Nay, on purpose, we believe, to exclude that very idea, he gives the more special turn to the prophecy, so as to make it out of Zion that the Redeemer was to come, and with the view of turning away ungodliness from those in Jacob. For, the old literal Zion, in the apostle’s view, was now gone. Its whole framework was presently to be laid in ruins; and the only Zion, in connection with which the Redeemer could henceforth come, was that Zion in which he now dwells, which is the same with the heavenly Jerusalem, the church of the New Testament. He must come out of it, at the same time that He comes to or for it, in behalf of the natural seed of Jacob. And this is all one with saying, that these could now only attain to blessing in connection with the Christian church; or, as the apostle himself puts it, could only obtain mercy through their mercy—namely, by the reflux of that mercy which, issuing from Israel, has gone forth upon the Gentiles, and has been bearing in their fulness. It is one salvation, one blessing for both parties alike, which Israel had the honour to bring in, and was the first to receive; but which they shall be among the last to receive fully. Thus explained, both the prophecy itself, and the apostle’s use of it, are in perfect accordance with his principles of interpretation elsewhere, and with those we have endeavoured to establish. And it holds out the amplest encouragement in respect to the good yet in store for the natural Israel. It holds out none, indeed, in respect to the fond hope of a literal re-establishment of their ancient polity. It rather tends to discourage any such expectation; for the Zion, in connection with which it tells us the Messiah is to come, is the one in which He at present dwells—the Zion of the New Testament church; to which he can no longer come, except at the same time by coming out of it. Let those, therefore, who already dwell with him in this Zion, go forth in his name, and deal in faith and love with these members of the stock of Israel. Let them feel that in such evangelistic work, the presence and power of the Lord are pledged to be with them; and let them do it in the sure conviction and hope that the conversion of Jew and Gentile shall happily react on each other, till the promised fulness on both sides is attained. For this important work, and the animating prospects connected with it, they have sure ground to go upon; but for local changes and external relationships, they have none; and it is no part of the design of prophecy to lead the Christian church either to wait for such, or to work for them. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 03.11. CHAPTER 3. THE PROPHETICAL FUTURE OF THE CHURCH AND KINGDOM OF CHRIST ======================================================================== Chapter 3. The Prophetical Future Of The Church And Kingdom Of Christ UNDER this general head may be comprised all that requires to be said, in an elementary treatise like the present, on what the prophecies unfold respecting other topics connected with the Christian dispensation. These topics all stand related in some manner to the condition and destinies of Christ’s church and kingdom. They are presented, however, under different aspects and relations; and it is impossible to arrive at any satisfactory knowledge of the general purport of what is written, without either going through the prophecies in order and giving a regular exposition of their contents, or endeavouring to exhibit, in connection with a few leading points, the light they collectively throw on the tendencies and results of gospel times. Either way it were scarcely possible to avoid a certain degree of complexity and repetition, as both the prophecies themselves, and the subjects of which they treat, frequently run into each other. But by being viewed in a definite order and connection, there will be found less of repetition than might otherwise be possible, and there will also be secured a more distinct continuity and progression of thought. We, therefore, adopt this latter method, and, in following it, shall take the latitude that is indispensable to a proper investigation of the subject—not confining our survey to what may still with some confidence be reckoned the prophetical future of the gospel dispensation, but embracing also what might be regarded as future from the era of its commencement. Section I. The Church and the Kingdom of Christ in Their Relation to the Kingdoms of this World THE prophecies which relate to this subject are, in one sense, of great variety and compass, but, in another, of comparatively limited extent. They are the one or the other, according as we have respect to prophecies of a general, or to prophecies of a specific and determinate nature. Those of the former class begin with the times of David, when the great promise of blessing, originally given to Abraham, first assumed a distinctly personal shape, and became linked with the expectation of one in David’s line, on whom the hopes and destinies of the world were to depend. In the series of predictions originating in this covenant with David, and unfolding its prolific import, whatever other topics are introduced, the kingly character of the expected Messiah always holds a prominent place; and not only that, but also the sure and final ascendency of His kingdom over all the rival powers and kingdoms of the world. His right to rule in the affairs of men was to be alike absolute and universal; and however resisted for a time, and left apparently to struggle for existence, the destination of this king was to be that of one “conquering and to conquer,” till everything was subdued, and all became subject to His hand. There is not one of the more properly Messianic Psalms in which this progress and result are not exhibited, though some dwell more particularly on one phase or aspect of the history, some on another. And such also is the character of those predictions scattered through the prophetical books, which, on the ground of the promise made to David, point to the future establishment of Christ’s church and kingdom. In general, they begin by exhibiting an inherent contrariety in spirit between the things pertaining to this Divine kingdom and those of the world—the one being of God, therefore holy, just, merciful, and blessed; the others of the earth, and partaking, in consequence, of its selfishness, carnality, and corruption. Then, as the natural result of this inherent contrariety, the mutual antipathy and death-like struggle for the mastery is depicted, and that with infinite fulness and diversity—the kings of the earth, with their carnal weapons and material resources, appear combining together, taking counsel, and, with consummate malice and energy, striving to crush the person and arrest the progress of the heaven-appointed King. But all in vain. It is not He but they who suffer in the conflict; He goes on like a resistless hero, lifting up the head, while they fall under the arrows which He sends forth in the cause of truth and righteousness; so that but one of two alternatives is before them, either to yield themselves to His sway, or to perish under the stroke of His indignation. And, finally, in the last lines and issues of the prospective delineation, the cause and kingdom of Messiah become everywhere triumphant. The kings of the earth, in so far as they have not fallen under His wrath, are seen walking in His light, and doing homage to Him; their kingdoms have become, in a manner, His kingdoms; all the ends of the world turn to the Lord, and the families of the nations worship before Him—throughout the earth “one Lord, and His name One.” Now, in respect to the substance of these prophecies, only a comparatively small portion of them can be said to belong to what is still the future of the Christian church—that, namely, which relates to the absolute completeness and universality of the kingdom of Christ. The other and larger, as well as more circumstantial parts of them, which describe the mutual antipathy and struggle, the rise of the personal Messiah and His cause from small beginnings, and in the face of the most violent and long-continued opposition, till the greaterpart of the old civilized world owned His supremacy, and many kings, nominally at least, did homage to His name:—All these belong to the past; their fulfilment is legibly inscribed in the records of the world’s history. And in regard to what still remains to be accomplished, though we cannot but see in the present state of the world, and even of the professing church, many great and discouraging obstacles in the way of success, yet when viewed in the light of what has already been achieved, they cannot with certainty be pronounced insurmountable to Christian effort and resources. The small mustard-seed has sprung up into a lofty tree; and whatever hindrances there may be tending to impede farther progress, and prevent ultimate success, they are of the same kind with those over which the truth has in a considerable degree prevailed, and which no one has a right to say it cannot wholly overcome. Besides, who can tell what special providences may be in store to favour the advancement of truth and righteousness? How many changes and revolutions, even of a civil and literary kind, may arise fitted to strike at the root of prevailing errors and superstitions, and prepare the way for the triumph of the cross? Above all, as living Christianity spreads, and the feeling grows among enlightened and earnest minds, that the highest well-being of the world is bound up with the diffusion of the gospel, what seasons of refreshing, in aid of their exertions, may not be sent from the presence of the Lord? In such considerations there is enough to make the contemplated issue probable, even without any great departure from the regular course of events; and that it shall somehow take place is the united testimony of all the predictions referred to. Christ shall reign till His enemies have become His footstool, and shall cause the knowledge of the Lord to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. The word of prophecy can never reach its full accomplishment till this result is attained. But while the result is very distinctly and frequently announced in this class of predictions, nothing very particular is intimated in them as to the relation of Messiah’s kingdom to the kingdoms of the world individually. These kingdoms are viewed in the general, as all alike opposed to the character and claims of Messiah, and alike also destined to submit or be destroyed. It is not doubtfully indicated of some of them, that, in process of time they would renounce their hostile for a friendly position, and help forward the cause they at first sought to withstand; as when David speaks of “princes coming out of Egypt, and Ethiopia stretching out her hands to God “(Psalms 68:31), and when Isaiah makes promise to the church, of kings being her nursing-fathers, and queens her nursing-mothers, of the forces of the Gentiles coming to her, and kings ministering to her (Isaiah 49:23, Isaiah 9:10-11)—with many more of a like kind. Such passages plainly imply, that while the struggle was still pending between the cause of Christ and the powers of the world, while the people of God were still in need of help for the conflict in which they had to engage, different nations with their rulers, would successively give in their adherence, and contribute their aid to the final result. But in what way, or to what extent this might be expected to take place, we can learn nothing from such general predictions. We turn, therefore, to the other and more specific class of prophecies, which, as we said, are comparatively limited in number. Indeed, they are peculiar to Daniel and the Apocalypse; and in these, again, are so related to each other, that those of Daniel form the foundation of what is written in the Apocalypse; the latter simply resuming the subject, as it had been left by Daniel, and prosecuting it farther into detail. We shall, therefore, glance first at the prophetic outline which is exhibited in Daniel, and then consider the subsequent and related visions of the Apocalypse. The view, presented in both respects, must necessarily be brief and confined to the more leading features. § 1. Prophecies in Daniel concerning Messiah’s Kingdom in its relation to the Kingdoms of the World. The prophecies in question are found in Daniel 2:1-49 and Daniel 7:1-28—the one containing Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the great composite image, with the interpretation of it by Daniel, and the other, the vision and dream, given to Daniel himself respecting the five monarchies. That the two visions relate to the same subject, and differ only in presenting it under diverse aspects, can admit of no doubt. The diversity also (as previously noticed, p. 114), has its foundation in nature, and is in perfect accordance with the relative position of the parties, through whom the visions were given. It is the external aspect of the matter that is presented in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, while the internal is brought out in that of Daniel. The heathen king sees such a symbol of the kingdoms of this world and of the kingdom of Christ, as was adapted to the carnal eye, which has a capacity for apprehending the appearances rather than the realities of things. The man of God, however, has an eye that looks beyond the surface; he must see things as they really are; and so, the vision presented to him, while it may be said to follow in the same track, and cover the same field with the other, lays open the actual nature of the different kingdoms—the minuter shades of difference in the worldly kingdoms themselves, and their collective and fundamental difference from the kingdom of Christ. (1.) This contrariety, however, and those differences are not entirely overlooked in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar; they are indicated there also—but only on the external side, and from the point of view, in which it was natural for the Chaldean monarch to contemplate them. It is in this light that the various materials of a natural kind in his vision are to be considered. They are symbols—but not of the relative worth and greatness of the several kingdoms respectively; for then the fourth kingdom, imaged by the iron, must have been inferior to those which preceded it, and the fifth, the Divine kingdom, having only a stone for its emblem, still again inferior to it. Nor, for the same reason, could the progressive descent in the value of the materials be intended to mark a progression in the world’s degeneracy and rooted opposition to the work and kingdom of God. (This idea is taken up by Auberlen (p. 200-6), who, at some length, seeks to make out, that the materials of the image symbolize a twofold progression—that of a growing civilization and culture (indicated mainly by the brass and iron), and along therewith a growing contrariety to the truth and holiness of God. In this he forgets the last material mentioned, which, though not a part of the image, still belongs to the vision, and belongs to a lower territory in nature than the iron. If the qualities of the other things are to be made account of, in the manner he suggests, the stone also must be included. But it is only from Nebuchadnezzar’s point of view that the whole is to be considered and each element interpreted.) These are not the points of comparison which come here into notice, or which would have been proper for such an occasion. The person, to whose mind the image was presented, was the representative of a grand, though, for him, intensely carnal and selfish idea—that, namely, of having the whole world reduced under a single head, and fused together into one mighty empire. He was not content, like those who had preceded him in the field of ambitious rivalry or conquest, with strengthening the foundations of his dominion at home, or increasing his power and resources by subjugating foreign countries to his sway. His ambition towered higher; he sought to be himself the one lord of the earth, and to have his kingdom like the gigantic tree that afterwards imaged it, “reaching unto heaven, and the sight thereof unto the end of the earth.” It was, indeed, the idea of a Divine kingdom among men—but, as attempted to be realized by the Chaldean monarch, a vain and presumptuous parody of the idea, not a proper realization. This, however, it must be remembered, is the point of view from which the whole vision is to be contemplated; and by a reference to this, must the properties of the different materials be taken into account. In themselves, therefore, and as component parts of the image, they are symbols of the apparent relative fitness of those successive monarchies to fulfil the destiny at which they severally aspired, of becoming, in the proper sense, universal kingdoms. Let us see how admirably they do it. In the first place, as standing at the top of the list, and representing the idea in all its freshness and majesty, Nebuchadnezzar and his dynasty are fitly represented by the head of gold. Then comes the Medo-Persian, physically, indeed, stronger at the time of its appearance, than the monarchy it supplanted, yet inferior (as it is expressly called, Daniel 2:39), in respect to the main point under consideration; because in its very foundation it was of a divided nature; formed by the junction of two races who differed considerably in their religion and other characteristics; and never properly cohering together in its several parts, nor presided over by heads fitted to consolidate its interests: therefore not less fitly represented by the secondary metal of silver, and by the breast and arms of the image—in which not compact unity, but rather doubleness and divisions are prominently exhibited. Brass is remarkable for its pliancy, for the fine polish of which it is susceptible, and the brilliant glitter it emits. As such, therefore, nothing could more appropriately symbolize the third great kingdom, which began with the splendid achievements of Alexander, and carried in its train the high intellectual culture of Greece. But withal, it betokened little durability or consolidating strength; and the part of the image that was formed of this material, the belly and the thighs, gave indication of a loose, disjointed, heterogeneous state of things, that could not hold well or long together. How exactly emblematic throughout of an empire which aimed at universal sovereignty, and seemed as if, by a few brilliant efforts, it should succeed in the enterprise, but which fell asunder at the death of its founder, and became henceforth the prey of intestine divisions! Where it failed, however, the gigantic Roman empire, which comes next upon the stage, particularly excelled, and far outstript all its predecessors. The slow and steady growth of ages, Rome struck her roots deep, wherever she obtained a footing, and left the impress of her sovereign will, and of her imperial laws and institutions on every region of the ancient civilized world. “The arms of the republic,” says Gibbon, as if writing the interpretation of this part of the vision, “sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid strides to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold and silver or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome.” Yet, while it could break and beat down every thing opposed to it in the existing powers and dominions of the earth, growing even and prospering till it had become co-extensive with the known world, it could not secure for itself the eternity which it so ambitiously aimed at. There was in it, indeed, the strength of the iron; but the legs of the image, which were composed of that material, themselves indicated division—a division strikingly exemplified by the partition of the empire into the two sections of the East and West; and still farther, when, as symbolized by the toes and the feet, part of iron and part of clay, the irruptions of barbaric hosts entirely broke up its unity, and with the introduction of fresh races upon the theatre of the world, brought in also new elements into its social arrangements and civil institutions. Thus as regards the component parts of the great image in this vision, and their several application, every thing finds its striking verification in the annals of history. Indeed, the verification is so striking, and the parallel so exact in all its parts, that we cannot but discern the impress of the same Divine hand in both; the very conception and distribution of such a symbolical image was as manifestly from God as the successive rise and the varied characteristics and fortunes of the gigantic empires, which fulfilled its prophetic import. Nor does the correspondence fail, it becomes, if possible, still more wonderful, when we look at the aspect presented of the last, the only truly universal, and everlasting kingdom in the world. It is from this point of view that the subject is still to be contemplated; as thus only can we see the fitness of the material chosen to represent the divine kingdom. A stone is, indeed, a poor emblem of such a kingdom, if viewed with respect to the proper nature of the kingdom, and the high objects it is designed to accomplish—the one gross, earthly, rigid, dead; the other spiritual and heavenly, all instinct with life and blessing, and with pliant energy adapting itself to every relation and circumstance of being. But in the particular respect now under consideration, in the fitness and destination of this kingdom to supplant the other kingdoms, and attain to the universality and permanence of dominion which they vainly strove to possess, what better emblem could be found than that of a stone! Massy, firm, compact in structure, crushing in the dust the looser and softer materials with which it comes in contact, and itself, not only retaining its original unity, but growing into a huge mountain, and filling the whole earth with its vastness! Here at last was the sublime idea of the Chaldean monarch realized; but realized in a very different way from that in which his fond ambition was prompting him to attempt it Existing altogether apart from the image, which symbolized the kingdoms of the world, this stone evidently pointed to a kingdom entirely different in its origin and nature from theirs: a stone, not graven like the other by art or man’s device, but cut out from the unhewn rock, and cut without hands—how expressive of a kingdom formed by the immediate operation of the Great Architect of nature! and, as such, partaking of the irresistible might and the endless duration of its Divine Author! Every thing, therefore, gives way before it; it destroys in its progress whatever is contrary to it, and itself at length possesses and fills all. It remains to be asked, how much of this prophetical outline belongs to the past, and how much to the future? The question has been variously answered, according to the different views entertained by writers on prophecy, respecting the character and prospects of Messiah’s kingdom. But, looking simply to the language of the symbolical prediction, there are, it will be perceived, two points in which the description appears indefinite—the one is as to the precise time when this divine kingdom, represented by the stone, should make its appearance; and the other, the precise manner in which its establishment should actively press on the other kingdoms, and cause their annihilation. In regard to the first of these points, it is merely said, that “in the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44). By the “days of these kings” have sometimes been understood the latter stages of the fourth monarchy, when it became subdivided into many separate states. But, while this rent and broken condition is plainly referred to in the vision, it is not described as being distinguished by separate kings or kingdoms; and, therefore, the only reference to which the days of the kings can legitimately apply, is the collective period of the kings or kingdoms symbolized by the image. The language is purposely indefinite. It does not indicate at what particular time, or even under which worldly dominion, the kingdom represented by the stone should begin to develop itself on the theatre of the world—though, from being mentioned the last in order, and from the fourth worldly kingdom being the one with which alone it appears coming into collision, the natural inference obviously is, that the commencement of the heavenly kingdom is to be assigned to the fourth or last form of the earthly one. The whole of these successive monarchies of the world are taken together as but different phases of the same worldly principle; in a somewhat different form the old always lived again in the new; so that the image which represents the entire series, appears still standing in its completeness—the several successive kingdoms which it symbolized were to the last ideally present; but, from the nature of the case, they could only be so as seen in that which was more immediately represented by the legs and feet of the image. Even here, however, there is an indefiniteness; for, while the stone is spoken of as pressing with irresistible force upon the image first when the history had reached to what is symbolized by the feet, it is not said that the stone then for the first time appeared. On the contrary, before the stone smote the image, we must think of it as taking form in the world; it must be viewed as coming into substantive existence, as being cut out, before it began to act aggressively; the rather so, as it is not the simple appearance of this divine kingdom, and its universal establishment, that is the subject of the vision, but its growth from small beginnings onward to complete and ultimate success. The moment of the bruising, therefore, is not necessarily, nor even probably the moment of the actual formation of the stone; and a period seems to lie there of indefinite length—the period of the rise and early progress of Christianity, when, by an agency altogether its own, and holding directly of God, it gradually advanced to a distinct organization, and a form, in which it could act extraneously upon the affairs and destinies of the world. The other point mentioned had respect to the manner in which the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom was to tell on the worldly kingdoms. This is described in the action of the stone, as that of bruising the image, so as to render its component elements, the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, which the wind carries away. A sublime image truly of their evanescent nature, as compared with that which destroyed them, and of their utter disappearance from the face of the world! But if we ask, in what respect, or by what kind of operation was this work of demolition to be wrought, nothing definite is indicated; nor, indeed, could it be from the nature of the representation; for it is only (as we have repeatedly stated) the external aspect of the matter that is here presented to the view—the appearances and effects of things alone are described. So far as these are concerned, we are distinctly informed that the whole of the magnificent image, which engrossed the vision of Nebuchadnezzar—or, in plain terms, that a world-embracing monarchy, such as he contemplated, presided over by one human will, and directed for the glory of its earthly head, in every shape and form, which it might assume, was doomed to perpetual destruction. And that, not as a thing of itself dying out, but as a thing put out, and for ever abolished by the establishment and the progress of that divine kingdom, to which alone the real universality and the absolute right of governing upon earth was to belong. This, it is well to be noted, though it is too commonly overlooked, is the only kind of abolition spoken of in the vision. It is not the subversion of constitutional government, and the dissolution of earthly states and kingdoms (a subject not brought into consideration here), but simply the extinction of those ambitious monarchies which grasped at the dominion of the world, and the causing them to disappear for ever by the establishment of a higher kingdom, in which the idea they sought to embody was to be, and alone could be realized. Has, then, the introduction of Christ’s kingdom wrought such an effect? We answer, unhesitatingly, that it has. And if we are asked how? we reply, in the only way, in which such gigantic and self-deifying schemes could be effectually abolished—by rendering men familiar with divine realities, with elevating principles, with heavenly aims and prospects. It has spread through humanity a regenerating leaven—the sense of God’s redeeming love to man; and by the wondrous acts of mercy and gifts of grace, therewith connected, has diffused far and wide the feeling of the brotherhood of man, yea, and breathed the spirit of a new life into the history and aspirations of the world. It has thus, even with the manifold imperfections that have attended its working and progress on earth, for ever antiquated the idea of a universal monarchy, in its old and grosser sense; and shewn this to be alone possible in the hands of Him, who, as at once God and man, Lord of heaven and earth, combines in his person the qualities, and holds at command the gifts, necessary to the establishment of such an empire. Since the diffusion of Christianity, the only thing in a wrong direction that has properly aimed at, or has ever seemed in any measure to possess, the character of a world-embracing dominion, is the parodying by corrupt doctrine and a false usurpation of this divine kingdom itself. But that is an essentially different matter from the old world-monarchies, and falling as it does within the domain of spiritual things, is brought out, as we shall see, in another connection. (2.) So much, then, for the first great prophecy of Daniel on the point before us—the relation of Christ’s church and kingdom to the kingdoms of the world. Like those previously noticed, it speaks chiefly of the past, so far as anything definite and particular is concerned; but points also to the future; inasmuch as it declares the absolute universality of Messiah’s authority and rule among men, His unlimited and everlasting sway. This is yet far from having been established: while the stone has broken in pieces the image, which sought to pre-occupy the entire ground, it has not yet itself grown so as to fill the whole earth. Let us turn, then, to the other prophecy in Daniel—the vision and dream recorded in the seventh chapter—and see if any further insight is furnished on the subject. Here, as already noticed, it is the internal aspect of the kingdoms to which prominence is given—their respective characteristics and differences, first in regard to each other, and then in regard to the kingdom of Christ. (We take it for granted, that the succession of kingdoms in this case is the same as in the other, and that the attempts of some modern Germans, followed by Moses Stuart, cither to divide between the Median and Persian kingdoms, or to take Alexander’s kingdom for the third, and that of his successors for the fourth, with its ten subdivided kings or kingdoms, have palpably failed. They have been thoroughly refuted by Hofmann, Hengstenberg, and latterly by Auberlen.) Viewed as a whole, the worldly kingdoms have their representation in so many wild beasts, because in them the beastly principle was predominant—that is, the earthly, sensual, grovelling tendency, with all its selfishness of working and its debasing results. In Nebuchadnezzar’s personal history, the man’s heart was taken away, and a beast’s heart for a season given him (Daniel 4:16)—as a judicial sign and token from the hand of God, that by living, as he had been doing, for the gratification of his own selfish desires, and for having all made subservient to his own grovelling ambition, he was acting the beastly, rather than the human part. And, accordingly, when the man’s heart returns to him, with the wisdom to use it aright, his eye at once turns heavenwards, he rises above self and the world, and acknowledges his dependence on the power and goodness of the Most High, who does, as he expressed it, according to His will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. We can have no doubt, therefore, as to what is meant by beastly natures being chosen to represent the successive worldly monarchies: it intimates, that they were to be so many personifications of earthliness—all pervaded and governed by the same prone, ungodly, carnal, and self-deifying spirit. In fitting accordance with such a common character, they are also represented as having a common origin: they appear rising together out of the sea, at the moment of its being driven and agitated by the winds of heaven; in other words, they spring from beneath, from the lap and-bosom of earth; nor from this in its better moods, as it exists in seasons of peaceful repose, but when moved by violent commotions, heaving and agitated by the fierce passions and tumultuous elements of sin. What real good could come, or what lasting creations proceed, from such a mode of generation? In respect to the characteristic differences among the several worldly kingdoms, it is unnecessary to say much. Under the emblem of a lion with eagle’s wings, which were afterwards plucked, itself also placed in a standing and erect posture upon the earth, no longer slavishly directed to this, but having a man’s heart given it to look upward, we have a representation of the Babylonian empire, as exemplified in its head: first, its lion-like majesty and strength, combined with the winged speed of its march to conquest and dominion, and its soaring sublimity of spirit; then, the checks and arrests laid upon it, rendering farther enlargement impossible; and, finally, the humbling providences, which forced on it a sense of the power and sovereignty of God, and with the loss of dominion brought reason again to the ascendant. Then, by means of a beast like a bear, raising itself on one side, with three ribs in its teeth, and a command given it to devour much flesh, we have an image of the Medo-Persian kingdom—in its general thirst for blood and conquest (comp. Hosea 13:7-8, with Isaiah 13:15-18; Jeremiah 51:20-24), its notorious disregard and lavish expenditure of human life, its originally composite character, as if one side were dissimilar to the other, and by the strength of one Chiefly (the Median) it was to arise for the work of conquest, with the three-fold .direc­tion in which it was to have its appetite in this respect satiated. (Compare chap. 8:4, where the ram representing the Medo-Persian empire, is described as pushing westward, northward, and southward— Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, being perhaps more immediately intended.) The panther or leopard comes next, with four wings of a fowl, as for flying, and also four heads; one living creature, yet with a fourfold partition in the very seat of life and motion, and hav­ing dominion given to it: a strange compound, but strikingly expressive of the Grecian monarchy, which, in its movements, like the leopard, was remarkable for the quickness and rapidity of its spring, as also for cunning and dexterity in seizing its prey (Habakkuk 1:8; Jeremiah 5:6), and which, after having astonished the world by its elastic energy and wonderful feats of prowess, in the person of its founder, split into four dominions, which sur­vived till a much greater than they overspread the field. This greater empire, the greatest of all in its aspirations after worldly dominion, and the most extensive and lasting in its ascendency, the Roman, is most aptly represented by a nameless monster, “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, devouring and breaking in pieces, and stamping the residue with its feet, and diverse from all the beasts that were before it.” This was, un­questionably, the characteristic of the Roman power in the days of its vigour and conquest. For, though it was a part of Rome’s policy, to treat the nations she conquered with many marks of respect and kindness, to leave especially their religion and social manners untouched, and to fill them with sentiments of venera­tion and attachment to the “eternal city;” yet the whole aim of her administration was directed to the purpose of moulding every province and state of the world into one vast empire, and consequently to destroy and obliterate every sign of national independence—to merge the individual in the universal. The other kingdoms that preceded her, were comparatively rapid and hasty in their formation; they neither possessed nor dis­played anything like the skill and pains put forth by Rome, through a succession of ages, with the view of smoothing down national peculiarities, and compacting them into one huge sys­tem of universal government. All the more remarkable, too, on her part, that the whole was done, not, as in the case of the rest, for the aggrandisement of a particular dynasty, but from a systematic and hereditary love of rule in a city and people; so that the very name of Rome carried with it a kind of magic in­fluence, and the gigantic sway connected with it formed the nearest approach that could be made, in a mere earthly govern­ment, to a kingdom of spiritual influences, and living depend­ence on an invisible Head. It was still, however, far from this, and in spirit and tendency as diverse from it, as in other respects from the worldly kingdoms that preceded it. Strong as this empire was, compact in its organization, and spirit-like in its power and influence, it contained, like every­thing earthly, the elements of dissolution and decay. This was indicated in the former vision by the legs of the image, the feet of iron and clay, and the toes of the feet. And here it is brought out by means .of ten horns, which were seen on the beast, and which are afterwards explained as the kings (mean­ing thereby kingdoms), which were to arise out of the fourth empire. By arising out of it must be meant, that they were to be historically connected with it, and to be in a sense its con­tinuation; as there can be no doubt that the various kingdoms, which sprung up after the irruptions of the barbarians into the Roman empire, had much in common with Rome, while in policy and character they were diverse from it; they still had her laws, her language and literature, her institutions and cus­toms, for the basis of theirs. (For some remarks on the number ten, see tbe concluding portion of Section 3 of this Chapter.) There was, however, too much of the new to admit of a proper amalgamation with the old—a was intimated in the vision of the image, by the mixing of clay with the iron, and the attempts at union by intermarriages and compacts, “mingling themselves with the seed of men,” yet not cleaving one to another. But this, and everything, indeed, of an individual kind, respecting the ten kingdoms, is here passed over, as in haste, in order to concentrate attention on that peculiar kingdom, diverse from all the others, which was symbolized by the little horn, which came up among the others, and which is represented as not only plucking up three of these others, but also as taking such a part against the kingdom and people of God, and exercising withal such an influence over the rest, that it drew on the judgment of the whole. Nothing whatever is said of this extraordinary power in the former vision; for it manifestly comes within the domain of the church, and is much more a spiritual than a civil and earthly dominion; so that it did not properly fall within the range of Nebuchadnezzar’s view, which, with strict propriety in adhering to the natural as the basis of the supernatural, was confined to the outward and temporal aspect of things. On this account, also, we refrain from here adverting more particularly to what is said of this horn or kingdom, as, we think, there can be no reasonable doubt, that it is to be identified with the antichrist, and will, therefore, fall to be considered under our next division. But it is in connection with the wickedness practised through the instrumentality of this power, and the judgment to be inflicted upon it, and all its abettors, that the fifth, the Divine, and alone universal and everlasting kingdom, is here introduced. On this occasion it appears, not in its rise and progress, but in its strength and glory, and for the execution, more immediately, of the work of judgment. First, the Ancient of days, as He is called, Daniel 7:9, the Eternal God, is represented as appearing, on account of the heaven-daring spirit manifested by the power in question, and the evils it was occasioning among men, and, with thrones of judgment set, and streams of fire issuing from before Him, as well as myriads of attending spirits, proceeding to reckon with, and condemn to deserved punishment, the offending parties. These—that is to say, the wicked power itself, and the other powers or horns which were led to take part with it in the evil—are spoken of as being consigned to a common funeral-pile; while the rest of the beasts had only their dominion taken away, and their lives prolonged for a season and time. The same apparent anomaly occurs here as in the vision of the second chapter. All the symbolical characters appear to the last as existing together on the stage; while, from the description given of them, they are not contemporaneous but successive powers, each rising on the ruins of its predecessor, so that, historically, all the preceding ones must have been gone ere the last rose to the ascendant. The reason, however, of admitting such an anomaly, and of conceiving of the other powers as still existing, was merely to bring out more distinctly the moral truth involved in this part of the delineation. Those earlier forms of the worldly power, while all rooted in sin and essentially ungodly, were yet far inferior in guilt and wickedness to the last, especially as represented by the little horn, with its outrageous blasphemies, and disastrous influence in the church, and violent persecutions against the saints of God. Therefore, when the time for judgment comes, this last must appear first—the stroke of vengeance must alight directly, and with its heaviest retributions, upon the power which has done most to provoke its inflictions; and bad as the fate was of the others, having lost in the taking away of their dominion all that they contended for, it seemed mild as compared with the doom now appointed to the consummate offender. There, pre-eminently, the carcase appeared; and there the eagles must primarily be found gathered together. It is evident, then, that this part of the vision is framed with a view to one great object—to render prominent the moral element in the history of God’s dispensations. The delineation of the worldly side of the picture is carried on continuously (as very commonly in prophecy) till it reach its culminating point; the iniquity of the worldly power, in its last and most aggravated phase, grows till it becomes full; and then the righteous kingdom, with its Divine head, comes forth to condemn and cast out the evil. It were quite a mistake, however, on this account, to suppose that the kingdom of God had no existence in the world till this terminating part of the process; and would evince as great a misunderstanding of the proper import in one respect as it had been in another, to suppose the continued existence of the three first kingdoms as actual powers in the world, down to the time that the judgment is represented as taking effect upon the last of them. It is, throughout, an ideal representation, formed so as to exhibit, in the most effective manner, the real tendencies and final issues of things; and, as a natural consequence, matters are compressed into a single act which might be the product of ages, and events appear in close juxtaposition, which, in actual history, might stand ever so far apart. So was it, for example, in Isaiah’s vision of the doom of Babylon (Isaiah 13:1-22), and Ezekiel’s vision of the destruction of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:7, sq., Ezekiel 28:1-26); the work which it was to take centuries to accomplish, is presented as a thing devised and executed at once. We are not, therefore, to suppose here that because the doom of the worldly power is represented in a similar manner, that it is to fall by a single stroke; or that the kingdom, through which the consummating act is to be inflicted, then for the first time enters upon the stage of history. Indeed, the reverse is manifest, from the dream-part of the vision given in explanation of that which was seen. In the vision itself the prophet saw thrones set (so it should be rendered at Daniel 7:9; not cast down, but set or placed down) for kingly persons vested with power and authority to pronounce judgment, implying that the judgment was not to be the act simply of the Eternal, nor the inflicted doom to proceed straight from the bolt of Omnipotence. But who were those assessors in judgment? By whom was it that the powers of evil were to be judged and cast out? By looking to the explanations in Daniel 7:19-27, we learn that they are not the angels, as has too commonly been supposed (these are never represented as judging, always only as ministering spirits), but the saints of the Most High, the same saints who, along with the Son of Man, are to possess the kingdom. It is to them that the work of judgment on the worldly power is committed (Daniel 7:21); it is they who sit in judgment, and take away his dominion, and consume and destroy it to the end, and, in turn, receive the kingdom for an everlasting possession, of which the other has been dispossessed (Daniel 7:26-27). But whence should these saints have come? How have they attained to such numbers, and such authority and power? Not, we may be sure, of a sudden, or by any miraculous intervention of Providence. They can be none other than the members of the kingdom which has been in existence since the Lord came from heaven to found it by His incarnation and blood. And their appearing here in such numbers, and with such judicial authority and power, merely indicates that the kingdom to which they belong has at length acquired the mastery; the cause of righteousness and truth, with which it is associated, has become triumphant; and the interest opposed to these vanishes from the field, as smitten with irrecoverable perdition. So long as that interest appeared to prevail and prosper, it seemed as if God’s rectitude slumbered; and men were disposed to sigh with the Psalmist, Oh! that He would awake to the judgment, that He would establish the just! But when the reverse takes place, and they see the cause of wickedness going down, they are equally ready with devout gratitude to exclaim, Thou satest in the throne, judging right; Thou hast destroyed the wicked (Psalms 7:1-17, Psalms 9:1-20). § 2. Prophecies in the Apocalypse concerning the Kingdom of Christ in its relation to the Kingdoms of the World The views now exhibited from Daniel again re-appear in the Apocalypse. Indeed, the grand drama unfolded in that mysterious book is little else than a simple expansion of this part of Daniel’s vision, by following it out into detail. There, in the opening vision, we have presented to our view the Ancient of Days on the throne, with the Son of Man (as the Lamb) in the midst of it, and round about the central throne four-and-twenty other thrones (so it should be, not seats), for the four-and-twenty crowned elders, the representatives of Christ’s royal priesthood, or entire membership of a redeemed church. The scene is, in truth, an ideal representation (precisely as in Daniel) of the Lord, and His assessors in judgment, the saints, whom He exalts to sit with Him on His throne, and destines to possess with Him the kingdom. These appear together in the attitude of dealing judicially with the ungodly world, and preparing the way for the final occupation of the inheritance. Hence thunders, and lightnings, and voices proceed from the midst of them (Revelation 4:5), the awful signs of coming wrath; and the seven-sealed book is opened, which contains in successive stages the world’s doom and the church’s victory; and scene after scene follows, with sounding of trumpets and pouring out of vials, during which the same action is constantly proceeding to its proper issue. The whole ends, as here, with the utter destruction of the beast, and with the saints living and reigning with Christ upon the earth; in other words, possessing the kingdom. So that, were it otherwise doubtful, the scheme and arrangement of the Apocalypse would put it beyond a doubt that the brief and vivid representation of Daniel in reality covers an extensive field of operations; that it embraces the general progress, as well as the final result of Christ’s cause upon earth, and includes the main substance of the Book of Revelation. Only, while Daniel, for the reasons already stated, points more directly to the close of the action, St John unfolds the numerous stages by which it was to be reached, the many windings and evolutions in the work of judgment upon the world, till judgment is brought forth into victory. (Compare what is said in Part I., chap. v., sec. 4, near the beginning.) In this general outline of the scenery and action of the Apocalypse a fair idea is conveyed both of the common agreement and the characteristic differences, which pervade the representations of the two Apocalyptists. They are precisely such as might have been expected from the one theme they had to handle, and the different positions they occupied in relation to it. Where the one merely gives a result, as seeing everything from afar, the other, speaking from a nearer point of view, gives us a process, with many attending characteristics alike of its nature and of its issue. While the look of Daniel into the future, also, is inward, as compared with that of Nebuchadnezzar, it is, as might have been expected, far inferior in depth and inwardness, especially as regards the affairs of the Divine kingdom, to that of the Evangelist. On the other hand, the worldly kingdoms, amid which Daniel was standing, and which were then only beginning to run their ungodly career, occupy a place in his visions, which they no longer possess in John’s; here it is the last only, and the last chiefly in the hitter stages of its history, that is particularly dwelt upon, as it was with this alone now that the people of God had to do. We shall, therefore, present in a few leading points what is peculiar in the representations of the Apocalypse on the subject before us, and shall notice, as we proceed, the relation (whether of correspondence or diversity), in which they stand to those of Daniel. Occasion also will be taken to draw attention to some features in the latter, which have, as yet, not been more than cursorily referred to. (1.) We notice first the representation that is given in the Apocalypse of the worldly power. In Daniel this appeared under a succession of beasts, each symbolizing a new and somewhat different form of the great monarchies of the world. But now it appears simply as a beast (Revelation 13:1-18), a beast, however, that had the same origin with those of Daniel, like them rising out of the sea, and a composite creature, uniting together the several forms of the three first in Daniel (the lion, the bear, and the leopard), and possessing also the ten horns which were seen in the fourth. These points of coincidence with the vision of Daniel, plainly indicate a fundamental agreement, and, at the same time, such a difference as is obtained by the compression of a diversity into a unity. The beast of the Apocalypse, accordingly, is the worldly power, not in its several parts or successive forms of manifestation, but in its totality. Having already passed through its earlier phases, and reached its last regular form, it is naturally represented as one, or rather, as a composite whole, possessing still all that it ever had of a beastly, grovelling, God-opposing character, and combining them together in its present visible realization. There is no essential difference in this from the view given in Daniel; for there also, as we have had occasion to notice, both the four beasts, and the several parts of the image, were represented as at once successive, and in a sense also co-existing. The seven heads in the beast of the Apocalypse, present more of an apparent dissimilarity, and may seem at variance with the notion of an essential oneness between it and the monarchical symbols in Daniel. For these were only four, corresponding to the number of kingdoms, in which the general idea exhibited in them was attempted to be realized. How, then, if referring substantially to the same thing, should John have seen seven heads upon the beast—heads with crowns, consequently denoting so many kingdoms? The main reason, no doubt, must be sought in the reality, which the symbol represents, and which must somehow have been contemplated in a sevenfold aspect by the Evangelist. He afterwards tells us in Revelation 17:9 (for, we hold it as a settled point, that the beast there discoursed of, is identical with the one here), that “the seven heads are seven mountains”—which may certainly have some reference to the seven-hilled city of Rome, where the beast then bad the seat of his dominion; but it cannot possibly rest there, or have that for its chief reference; since in a description otherwise entirely symbolical, the term “mountains” cannot be taken in a merely literal sense, nor without respect to its usual emblematical import of states or kingdoms. We have no doubt, however, that it does carry, in the first instance, an allusion to the seven hills of Rome. But to prevent our resting in this literal sense—to lead us rather to regard those Roman hills as themselves the symbols of something higher, a kind of natural indication of the concentrated worldliness of Rome, as in a manner combining in her dominion all the phases of the worldly power, it is immediately added, “and they are (not “and there are”) seven kings”—meaning thereby, so many kingdoms, according to the uniform import of the word in this connection. There is, therefore, a double reference; and hence it is introduced with the saying, “Here is the mind which hath wisdom,” to intimate that there is something peculiar and enigmatical in what follows—and that it contained, if rightly understood, an important key for the understanding and application of this part of the vision. (There is a precisely similar use of the literal as symbolical of the figurative in the description of the whore, which, with reference to the historical Babylon, appeared sitting on many waters (ver. 1)—so Babylon of old did, having near and around her, the streams and canals of the Euphrates, one of the great sources of her fertility and wealth—but, like Rome’s seven hills, in respect to the seven kingdoms, so the waters of ancient Babylon are explained of “the peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues,” (ver. 15).) Still, with this explanation of the language, the question recurs, why should the worldly power have appeared to the Evangelist in a sevenfold aspect? To suppose that it has respect to seven forms of government which successively appeared in the Roman commonwealth, from its commencement, is entirely arbitrary and fanciful. Any changes of a merely political kind, Rome might have undergone, and before it came into contact with the church, are of no moment as regards the subject of this prophecy; they mark for it no epochs, and lie altogether outside the territory on which it moves. It treats of the worldly power only in its relation to the kingdom of God, and of that in a collective aspect, as it has existed and manifested itself throughout history. The sevenfoldness ascribed to it, therefore, must be, not seven forms of government in one state, but seven different states or forms of dominion, in which the worldly spirit, in its self-idolatrous and God-dishonouring form, successively embodied itself. And these the Evangelist finds by simply taking a wider range of view than Daniel, as he was naturally called to do, and contemplating the matter in its whole historical compass. Thus surveyed, the number seven readily occurred by adding to the four of Daniel, first, the Egyptian and Assyrian kingdoms, which preceded, and which, as regards their own character and their relation to the Divine kingdom, were essentially one with the others; then the new and divided state at the close into which the dissolved Roman empire fell. As it was of these chiefly that the Evangelist was called to treat, and as they were to hold, in some respects, a very different relation to the kingdom of God, from that of heathen Rome, they quite naturally came to be represented as an additional head of the beast. Indeed, Daniel himself gave a sort of occasion for their being so regarded, by representing them under the emblem of clay, which did not properly assort with the iron of ancient Rome; in one respect they belonged to it, but not in another. In what respects their relation was to differ, will appear in the sequel; but, meanwhile, as it was one leading object of the prophecy of this book to exhibit the difference, and to reveal the peculiar part those kingdoms were to play in the history of God’s church, the state of things they were to introduce might well be entitled to rank as a new and final phase of the worldly power. (It was Hofmann, we believe, who, in more recent times, suggested this mode of interpreting the seven heads of the Apocalyptic beast, though by leaving out Egypt, and dividing between the Greek empire generally, and Antiochus, he arranged the matter somewhat differently. But it is in reality the ancient interpretation, the same substantially, which is given in the oldest connected commentary on the Revelation—that of Andreas of Caesarea, who lived about the end of the fifth century. He also began with Assyria, and made the Median as well as the Persian monarchy a separate kingdom. These, however, are differences only as to detail; the fundamental idea is the same; and we refer to the antiquity of the interpretation, as a proof, that it is really one not very far to seek. It is the tendency of Protestant interpreters, in later times, to find Rome, heathen and papal, everywhere in the Apocalypse, which has given currency to the idea of seven Romish forms of government being indicated by the number—an idea wholly arbitrary and incapable of yielding satisfaction.) In the realities of the subject, we thus find a solid ground for this part of the symbolical representation. But an additional ground may also be noticed, in the connection exhibited between the beast, or worldly power, and the devil. This also is one of the points of difference between the Apocalypse and Daniel, one of the indications it gives of a deeper insight into the spiritual world, since it lays open, in respect to the movements of evil upon the earth, the mighty though invisible influence of Satan. The outward manifestations of the worldly power are here but the signs of Satan’s working; and, as in the history of the fall, when he identified himself with the serpent, so here the beast is at once the image and the instrument of Satan. As the one, therefore, appeared under the form of a great dragon, with seven heads and ten horns (Revelation 12:3), so must the other that is to reflect his nature and exercise his power. And seven is peculiarly the sacred number; as such it is constantly recurring in the book of Revelation, and is used as an emblem of the Spirit of God, in His active operations in the church (“the seven spirits of God,” chap. Revelation 1:4, Revelation 4:5, Revelation 5:6). Hence, it is the number which Satan may be supposed to affect, especially in those operations in which he tries to deceive and corrupt the church of God. In these he ever seeks to parody and imitate the work of God’s Spirit. We, therefore, think (with Auberlen, p. 270), that some respect may be had to thisconsideration in the use here made of the number seven. But we are not disposed to lay much stress on it, and regard the other reason stated as undoubtedly the chief one. (2.) We turn now from the apocalyptic representation of the adverse or worldly power, to that of the church and kingdom of God. Here, also, while we have a fundamental agreement with the visions of Daniel, we have important and characteristic shades of difference. Indeed, we may say, it is the kingdom only, and not what we more properly understand by the church, that has any representation in the two visions of Daniel. He speaks simply of the kingdom that was to supplant the worldly monarchies, and obtain the everlasting and universal dominion they aspired after. And we must attend for a little to the form, under which he presents it, as this not only contrasts in a striking manner with the representation given of the other kingdom, but also lays the foundation of the more special language used in the Apocalypse, and in other parts of the New Testament. The other kingdoms have their emblematic representation in so many wild beasts, because they were to be in their pervading spirit and operations more beastly than human. But when the divine kingdom appears on the field, the form that represents it is one “like a son of man,” and “coming with the clouds of heaven.” Though the form is simply human, there is evidently connected with it a superhuman elevation. For it comes, not like the base representatives of mere earthly rule, from beneath, but from above, and riding in the peculiar chariot of Deity, the clouds of heaven; and it might seem but the fair conclusion that here also the form was indicative of a higher nature than outwardly appeared—that the human likeness, to be properly human, required to be associated with the divine. It is, therefore, to give but a poor and partial exposition of the subject, to say, that it meant the Messiah “would be a human, not an angelical, or any other kind of being; for, in the oriental idiom, Son of man and man are equivalent.” (Dr Campbell in his “Dissertations on the Gospels.”) Let it be so, the question remains, why should the head and representative of this kingdom alone have been exhibited in the form of a man, while all the others, who really were men, should have been symbolized by so many beasts? And why, having the likeness of a man, should he have been represented as coming, not like the others, from below, as cast up by the waves of a raging and tumultuous sea, but descending from the lofty elevation and serener atmosphere of a higher world? Why such marked differences if the human alone was all that the expression, with its attendant circumstances, was designed to exhibit? It is true, that the form here, as in the other cases, was not simply personal, but emblematic; indeed, it might not (for aught that could have been certainly gathered from the vision itself) have been personal at all; it might merely have been intended to represent symbolically the nature of this kingdom, which God was going to erect, as contradistinguished from the rest. In that respect, it denoted, that while in them the merely animal powers and sensibilities should come into play, terror and physical force should prevail, all downward and grovelling tendencies should rise to the ascendant, in this divine kingdom the nature of man should attain to its true dignity, and, re-united to the life of God, the moral elements of its being should be brought into proper exercise, and a softening, humanizing influence be diffused through the entire domain. But then, who could be the instrument of setting up such a kingdom? Like all the others, this kingdom must have a head, from whose spirit and character the whole was to take its impress, and one, in whom personally, and through whom instrumentally, the true ideal of humanity was at length to be realised. Was this work, so different from what man had hitherto achieved, an undertaking for man alone to effect? Unquestionably not; and hence, in the vision, the human form representing at once the head and nature of the kingdom, appears as the denizen of a higher sphere, and the personal associate of Godhead. It indicated that the ideal should remain an ideal still, so far from being realized, continually outraged and trodden under foot by the ascendency of the baser elements in nature, till the human should be interpenetrated by the divine, and God should in very deed dwell with men upon the earth. Every thing, therefore, is in its proper place and character:—As the devil had from the first assumed the beastly form in the serpent, whose nature it is to crawl upon the dust, so now in the Son of Man God was to appear in the form of man, to raise all above the beastly, and conform it to the spiritual and divine. Such seems the fair and natural explanation of the epithet, “Son of Man,” as originally and prospectively used in the vision of Daniel. And it is fully confirmed by one of the first recorded appropriations of it by our Lord. This occurred in the course of his conversation with Nicodemus, when he said, “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven” (John 3:13). It sounds like a contradiction, and might, at least, have seemed an unintelligible enigma, but for the vision in Daniel, to which it manifestly refers, and which fully justifies and explains its meaning. No man, it is thus found to declare, who simply is a man, fallen and degenerate, as mankind now are, ever has ascended to heaven; his progress is all in the contrary direction—not upwards to heaven, but downwards to earth and hell. The Son of man, however, in whom the idea of humanity was to be realized, in whom it is found according to its original type and destination, as the living image of God,—He belongs to the heavenly; that is His proper region; and when he appears (as he now does) on earth, it is because in what properly constitutes his being and character, He has come from above. This thought, too, it should be observed, respecting the head of the kingdom of God, was most fitly introduced in connection with a discourse on the necessity of regeneration from above, in order to admission into the kingdom. The head of the kingdom, the realized ideal of humanity, is Himself from above; He is emphatically “the new man,” “the Lord from heaven;” and so, all who hold of Him, and are to participate in the rights and blessings of His kingdom, must be made new; their humanity must be regenerated after the pattern of His, and by virtue of the divine power with which He is replenished. Thus only can there be a proper correspondence between the head and the members; and thus only can the earth be filled and possessed, according to the promise, by a kingdom of saints, in room of the corrupt and brutalizing powers which have so long held possession of the field. In the same way is to be explained another application of the term, which, from overlooking the reference made in it to the original prophecy, has very commonly had a mistaken or inadequate sense put on it. The passage is in John 5:27, where our Lord speaks of Himself as having received authority from the Father to execute judgment upon men, “because He is the Son of Man.” Taken by itself the passage contains a seeming incongruity. But connect the assertion with the prophecy of Daniel—regard it as indicating the divine-human (perfectly human, because, at the same time, really divine) person and character of Messiah, through whom the everlasting kingdom of righteousness was to be brought in, and by whom, along with his elect people, the powers of evil were to be adjudged and cast out; and then the meaning and reason of the statement become obvious. He now announced Himself as the new man, to whom was to be “put in subjection the world to come,” and who, therefore, held at his command both the regenerating grace necessary to establish the good, and the judicial power and authority commissioned to expel the incorrigibly evil. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt, that it was mainly on this account He so commonly designated Himself in His public discourses by the title of the Son of Man, rather than any other. He would thereby lead men to regard Him as the type of what humanity should be, and as come on purpose to found the kingdom in which, according to ancient prophecy, it was to be generally exemplified. And, doubtless, also, it was a reference to the same prophecy which led to the so frequent designation of the kingdom of Messiah as that of “the kingdom of heaven.” This expression also has respect to certain representations in Daniel; and was employed rather than “the kingdom of David,” because more directly pointing to the divine and spiritual character of the kingdom, and thereby fitted to correct the mistaken notions of the Jews respecting the Messiah’s reign. But as Son of Man, applied personally and emphatically to Jesus, was all one with Son of David, so what in accordance with some prophecies was called the kingdom of God or of heaven, can be no other than that elsewhere identified with the throne of David. Turning now to the Book of Revelation, we find the whole of its representations regarding the affairs of the New Testament church based upon the same views. The book speaks throughout of the kingdom and coming of Christ. And in the opening vision, which presents us with an ideal delineation of Him from whom all its revelations came, his appearance is described (precisely as in Daniel) to be that of a “Son of man,” while the great theme of the revelations is to make known, how, as such, he was to proceed in bringing into subjection “the world to come.” We have thus at the outset a clear indication of the close relationship between the Apocalypse and the visions of Daniel. When viewed in this connection, also, the Book itself is seen to be of a piece—made up of two equally necessary, and though different, by no means heterogeneous parts. The symbolical description of Christ’s person at the beginning, and the addresses to the seven churches, unfold the nature of the kingdom, over which as Son of Man he presides, and shew how far the idea had begun to be realized, how far it had failed in a series of particular churches. This portion is in reality the foundation of all that follows, and supplies the standard by which its other descriptions are to be ruled; for it brings fully and distinctly out the mind of Christ on such important topics as these—what kind of persons he would recognise as “the saints,” who were to possess with him the kingdom—in what manner they were called to make good their title to the character—what seductive influences and threatening dangers should strive to hinder them from attaining it—what prospects of bliss and glory awaited them, if they did attain it; what condemnation and judgments, if they failed. It is by what is written on these points in the direct addresses, that we are to interpret what is afterwards symbolically written concerning the church; we have here the criteria for determining her proper character, and discerning between the true and the false. Then, in regard to the other and prospective part of the book, we find a striking divergence in the form of the representation from that of Daniel, but one that naturally arose from the different and more advanced position of the Evangelist, and necessary as a cover, under which to present the more minute and varied aspects of the future that were now to be unfolded. Standing at a point so far removed from the Messiah’s kingdom, Daniel could only have revelations given him of its general character and destinies. Even the form under which it was imaged to his view, was symbolical rather than personal—symbolical of the whole in the first instance, and only by inference admitting of personal application to an individual. But now that that ideal form had become embodied in a glorious personality, that the foundations of the kingdom also had actually been laid, and matters were in a train for reaching the destined consummation, it became necessary in some way to distinguish between the head and the members of the church, as also between the church in a militant and imperfect condition, and the church prepared for her final inheritance. This is done without any essential, but only by a relative, change in the symbol: the human form is retained for the new prospective delineation of the church, but the female, not the manly, type of the human. Taken complexly, the human still makes up the representation of the kingdom, but as the kingdom now falls into two parts, so does the symbol, which represents it: Christ, the Son of Man, the male son (ὓιον ἀῤῥενα, Revelation 12:5), as He is called to denote the perfection of his manly nature, and the church the woman; the one the antithesis to the dragon, and the other to the beast. For this division there was even from early times a Scriptural foundation. The relation of God to Israel began under Moses to be spoken of in terms borrowed from married life (Exodus 24:15-16; Numbers 14:33); and in many of the prophets it is formally compared to this relation—God is the husband, and Israel the wife (Isaiah 50:1, Isaiah 54:1; Jeremiah 2:2, Jeremiah 2:20; Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 23:1-49, Hosea 1:1-11, Hosea 3:1-5). Psalms 45:1-17, also, and the Song of Solomon, are extended representations of the same idea. And it meets us again from time to time in the pages of the New Testament; in the words of John the Baptist (John 3:29), and in various parabolical statements of our Lord (Matthew 9:15, Matthew 22:1, Matthew 25:1-46), followed by others of the apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:25-32). But in these latter passages, Christ, being as truly divine as He is human, occupies the place formerly ascribed generally to God; and now also the prevailing form is that of the bridegroom on the one side, and of the bride on the other; as if the union could not properly be consummated, so long as the church is in so inferior a condition, compared with her Divine Head, and must stand over till she has become complete in number and perfect in holiness. Most appropriately, therefore, the Apocalyptist, whose peculiar calling it was to disclose the existing imperfections of the church, the seductions with which she was to be I but too successfully plied, and the many trials and humiliations through which she must pass on her way to glory, presents her under the aspect of a woman—a woman espoused, but not yet married—while struggling with sin and evil, the Lamb’s bride, but at last, when the troubles of time are over, and its corruptions done away, the Lamb’s wife, sharing with Him in all the blessings and honours of the kingdom. We should note, however, how careful the Apocalyptist is, before he exposes the perils and defections of the church, with their sad and fearful issues, to exhibit ideally the church’s perfection; he first of all unfolds what she is in calling, what she should ever aim to be in character, and what in the consummation she is destined to be in the reality. We have this description at the beginning of Revelation 12:1-17. There she appears as a woman in heaven—in the same blissful and elevated region with her Divine Head; for there her citizenship lies, as well as His (Php 3:20). Not only so, but her condition is in full accordance with her place, she is clothed with the sun—the grand luminary of heaven, and the uniform emblem of a truly divine and celestial glory, as contrasted with the darkness and corruption of the world. Ideally, therefore, the church has heaven’s light and glory for her own—according to Isa., Isaiah 9:1, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord hath risen on thee.” And as a natural consequence, she stands nobly superior to the corrupt attractions of what is reckoned glorious on earth; she feels that she is called to higher and better things. Hence she appears, not only clothed with the sun, but having also the moon under her feet—the comparatively little orb, which has, indeed, a measure of light and glory, but such only as is derived from the earth, and which altogether belongs to the earthly sphere—fit emblem of the riches, the culture and the honours of the flesh, which all perish with the using. These the true church keeps beneath her feet; they are not her real glory, or her proper portion. Finally, her head is emblazoned with a crown of twelve stars—emblems of her proper representatives, the twelve apostles—emblems of them and those they represented, as called to shine and rule with Christ. Their position, also, is in the heavenly sphere; they are, one and all, by their Christian calling, bearers and dispensers of the light of heaven; placed aloft, and endowed with their respective gifts, that they may exhibit the mind and truth of God to those who are sitting in darkness and corruption. What a lofty idea! Would that the church had from the first kept it stedfastly before her eye, and striven with unflagging zeal to have it realised! How innocuously should the darts of the adversary then have fallen upon her, and from what sloughs of corruption, and seas of blood, should she have been preserved! And would she but do it yet! For, the moral pestilence still wastes within her borders, and the work of judgment for apostacy is far from having run its course. But in this we are anticipating what belongs to another department. (3.) We turn, then, to a third point, the last we shall advert to in connection with this branch of the subject—the representation given in the Apocalypse of the relation of the spiritual to the worldly power, or of the kingdom of Christ to the kingdom of the prince of this world. Proceeding on the deeper insight he has obtained into the spiritual region, and the more detailed aspect which it thence became necessary to present of spiritual things, the apostle here divides between the church and Her divine Head. He gives, first, (Revelation 12:1-17), in the case of the latter, a compressed view of the nature and issue of the conflict, as carried on in the entirely spiritual sphere, of which that afterwards to be carried on through the church, on the visible theatre of the world, was to be, on the whole, though not without many grievous back-slidings and partial failures, a reflex. The representation in this first part has necessarily a retrospective, as well as a prospective, aspect—a circumstance not unusual in visions, which require to connect the past with the future, in order to give a comprehensive view of the reality (for example, in Daniel’s visions of the image and the beasts, and St John’s account of the seven-headed beast). The appearance of the head of the kingdom is sketched from its commencement. As he was to be born of a woman, and through her made under the law, so the church is represented as a woman travailing and in pain to be delivered of what was at once her great burden and her great hope—the long-expected man-child. But while she is in this position, the dragon (who is simply the devil, in his relation to the powers of this world, Psalms 74:13; Ezekiel 29:8; and personified for the time in Herod) stands ready to devour—his chance of success being now suspended upon the destruction of this child of hope, and his whole energy in consequence directed to the accomplishment of the object. How likely, to human view, that he should succeed! He, on the one side, being possessed of such enormous power, that seven crowned heads are needed to represent his might on earth, and in heaven the third part of the stars are carried off by the sweep of his tail (i.e., a large proportion, like a third, of the world’s spiritual lights and rulers, corrupted and destroyed by his influence); while, on the other, all that appears is a feeble and helpless child, seemingly an easy prey to the devourer! But the destiny of this child is to rule all nations with a rod of iron—to rule them so as to break their hostility, and bring them into subjection to God. And the destiny must be fulfilled; for it is of God. Therefore, the power and malice of the adversary are defeated; the child, having escaped the dangers, and triumphed over all the difficulties that encompassed it in the earthly sphere, is caught up into the heavenly sphere, and seated in the very throne of God. And now, in this higher sphere, everything is reversed; with the rise of the Son of Man, on the ground of His perfected redemption, to be the Head of all principality and power in the heavenly places, the fall of the prince of darkness follows as its proper counterpart. He is, therefore, cast down from the higher region of power—the conflict having been fought and won against him, in regard to its fundamental principles—and he is reduced to the position of a mere earthly head; so that all he can even appear to do of evil, is in respect to the body of Christ, the church, during her continuance among the relations of sense and time. This is, of course, to be understood as an ideal representation, like the rest of the vision, though resting on an historical basis. It seems, therefore, entirely out of place here (with various writers, both British and Continental), to draw from this passage, in conjunction with some others of a like nature, the conclusion that, up to the time of Christ’s ascension, Satan was allowed to mingle freely with the angelic hosts, while afterwards that liberty was withdrawn. Nor is there any better foundation for the idea expressed by some, that the transition of Satan, from heaven to earth, indicated an enlargement of his influence and operations in the affairs of men. The reverse is plainly meant; as, throughout the prophetical Scriptures, the symbolical action of falling, or being cast down from heaven, always denotes a loss of power and authority. It is Satan’s downfal, therefore, which must here be understood, necessarily bringing with it a restraint to his operations, not the giving of an additional licence or effect to them. If an increase in any respect might be thought of, it could only be in the greater bitterness and guile which he would endeavour to infuse into his policy, on account of the defeat he had sustained on the high places of the field. In respect to this, he is said to have come down, “having great wrath.” And when our Lord declared, even while on earth, that by reason of the mighty power He exercised, and the work of perfect righteousness and mercy He was performing, “He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” and that “the prince of the world was judged and cast out” (Luke 10:18; John 12:31), he plainly teaches, that what is to be understood, and the whole that can justly be understood, by such language, is this capital abridgement of power and dominion. We say the whole, for, if taken more literally, the different passages would manifestly run counter to each other—what in one place is described as the result of Christ’s ascension, being, in the others, represented as taking place before it. (It is perfectly gratuitous to represent our Lord’s statement in Luke 10:18 (as some do; for example, Mr Birks in his “Outlines,” p. 99), as spoken prophetically; it is plainly spoken of what was at the time proceeding. And, though the figure is different, the idea is the same in Colossians 2:15, where the triumphing over principalities and powers is connected with the death of Christ.) Understood figuratively, the casting down of Satan might be connected with different periods, as the result it indicated had successive stages. But, in a comprehensive ideal delineation, it was most fitly connected with our Lord’s ascension to the right hand of power and glory, as this formal elevation on the one side necessarily inferred a corresponding depression on the other. It is with Christ’s personal work and history, therefore, according to the natural import and bearing of the passage, that the statement should here be connected, and not with the age of Constantino. And since the question has been thus settled as between the respective heads of the two kingdoms, how certainly must a like result follow to all connected with them? What occasion can there be any more for despondency or doubt as to the issue, if there be but the eye of faith to discern the Divine Redeemer enthroned within the vail, having all angels, principalities, and powers, made subject to Him? (We have taken no special notice of the conflict in the heavenly places being, in Revelation 12:7-8, ascribed to Michael and his angels; holding it to have been virtually settled by Ode (Do Angelis, p. 1032, sq.), Vitringa, Hengstenberg, etc., on the passage, that Michael is but another name for Christ—a name given Him in special connection with this great conflict to indicate the certainty of His success, grounded on his divine nature, for it means, Who is like God?) But, now, this sure foundation being laid in the heavenly sphere, and the triumph on the side of good secured once for all, personally, by the Redeemer, the Apocalyptist proceeds to set forth the progress and issues of the conflict in that lower sphere, which was still open to the adversary, in the history of the church in the world. Here the comparative advantage of the adversary is indicated in the very symbol used to represent the object of his malice and guile—the woman, humanity in its weaker division, over whom he so fatally triumphed at the commencement of the world’s history. Some allusion is, doubtless, made to the circumstances of the fall in this part of the representation; but the mystical drama that follows has rather for its historical basis the relations of Israel under the old covenant, and the manifold experiences and transactions through which they passed. For the evil as well as for the good, the materials of the representation are found there. It is with the exhibition of the good that the story begins and also ends. It discloses what should pertain to the true church (the chaste and faithful spouse) in her preservation from the assaults of the destroyer, her trials, her victories, and final deliverance and glory; but much of the intermediate portion is taken up with the other and darker side of the picture—the history of the false church (the adulterous mother of abominations), her apostacy and corruption, deserved and irrecoverable doom. It is, however, with the former and better portion alone of the prospective delineations that we have at present to do, as the things written of the other belong to what properly lies outside the Christian church, though nominally within—the anti-christian apostacy—and will fall to be considered under our next division. The church, then, as represented by the woman, the true spiritual mother of children, when pressed with the dangers raised against her, flies into the wilderness—that is, into such a hiding-place as might be found in some secure and silent retreat,—a flight that had its first historical exemplification in the temporary withdrawal of Mary, and the infant Jesus, to Egypt, to escape the persecution of Herod. This original withdrawal was the sure prelude of many similar expedients that should need to be resorted to in the future. And, accordingly, no sooner did the members of the church become large enough to attract the public notice of the world, than they were scattered abroad, reviled, buffeted, driven from the public walks of society, and glad often to find an asylum in what were comparatively the dens and caves of the earth. Speaking generally, however, her place of retreat might be regarded as what is called in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:1-49), “the wilderness of the peoples”—the moral deserts of the earth—in the first instance, Rome and the other cities of heathendom, which were the world’s deserts as compared with the land of Judea, where Christianity had its birth, and afterwards, when the earlier places of refuge had themselves become theatres of danger or bloodshed for the followers of Jesus, the more obscure and unenlightened parts of the empire. Such places of retreat from the world’s thoroughfares were to be to the true church in Christian times much what the wilderness of old was to Israel, refuges of safety at once from outward violence and from moral pollution; and with evident allusion to this, it is said that the place was prepared for her by God, and that the wings of a great eagle were given to bear her to it (Revelation 12:6, Revelation 12:14, comp. with Exodus 19:1-4; Deuteronomy 32:11). In former times, the Lord had borne His people, as on eagles’ wings, away from the violence, oppression, and contaminating influence of Egypt, to a place of safety and of wholesome discipline in the wilderness; and the same was to be done also in the case of the Christian church. The old was substantially to recur again. In spite of all the efforts of the adversary to strangle her in her birth, she should be preserved, and nourished, as with food from heaven, for a certain space, the mystical period of 1260 days. (See, on this number, Sec. 3, at the close.) The adversary, however, follows her into her wilderness-retreat. He “sends out of his mouth a flood after her, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood” (Revelation 12:15). This flood is an emblem, not of things in the spiritual sphere, such as corrupt doctrines, or false teachers, for these cannot, according to the symbolical import of the dragon, be the direct and proper emanations of his mouth, but of the vast hordes, the teeming and fluctuating masses, which the prince of darkness raises up and influences to effect his purposes of mischief (compare Revelation 17:15 with Psalms 124:4; Jeremiah 46:8; Isaiah 8:8, etc.) These never assumed more of a flood-like appearance, or were employed with a more hostile design, than in those ages, when the irruptions, especially of the Germanic tribes, convulsed the whole fabric of society, and threatened to bring back a state of universal barbarism. Had such a result actually ensued, the cause of genuine Christianity had inevitably been lost, for it can only maintain its ground, and diffuse its regenerating influence with proper effect in an orderly and peaceful state of things. But the Lord again restrained the violence of the storm. He made “the earth to help the woman,” earth being taken symbolically for a designation of the world in its more settled aspect, as the sea for its periods of heaving, commotion, and tumult. The meaning, therefore, is, that what is firm and solid in the constitution of the world set bounds to its more restless and wayward elements, so that the wild chaos of disorder, which for a time prevailed, again took shape, and the several states of modern Christendom came gradually into being. During this phase, therefore, of her connection with the world, the church was to be, and, by the evidence of history, actually was, both oppressed and protected, now evil-treated, and again screened and saved from the destruction meditated against her, through the instrumentality of the powers and kingdoms of the earth. But another phase of evil commenced when this was over. The cessation of the world-floods by no means exhausted the malice and resources of the tempter. “The dragon (it is said, Revelation 12:17) was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” The words too plainly indicate that the dragon had not altogether failed in his object by the troubles and disorders he had already raised against the church. At the beginning of the conflict, it was said generally of her members, that “they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). But now the remnant only of the woman’s seed are spoken of as keeping God’s commandments and the testimony of Jesus. The war needs to be continued only against a portion of the seed, a faithful remnant, implying that another, and, indeed, a larger portion had already been won over to the cause of the enemy, and were virtually on the dragon’s side. The great apostacy, in short, was to have begun, and even made much progress, before the dark epoch, marked by the up-breaking of the old Roman empire, had run its course. How truly the history here also coincides with and verifies the prophetic outline, needs no proof to intelligent Christians. The descriptions that follow in several succeeding chapters, may be regarded as an expansion of the announcement contained in Revelation 12:17; they give a symbolical representation of the kind of war waged by the beast against the woman, the unflinching resistance given to it on the part of the true seed, the honour and glory they, in consequence, received from God, and the judgments sent down to avenge their cause, and punish the apostacy and wickedness of that other portion of her seed, who were to take part with the adversary. It is here that the seven-headed beast rises first into view; for it was only now that the church was to come into conflict with those later operations of the worldly power, which it was the more especial design of the Apocalypse to unfold. But as the conflict had, in reality, begun before that, and was even coeval with the birth of the New Testament Church, therefore, the representation is here also in part retrospective; as is evident from the seven heads which embrace the whole of the successive phases of the worldly power, and perhaps, also, from the period assigned (Revelation 13:5) to his dominion, forty and two mouths, or 1260 days, the very same period during which the church was to be in the wilderness (Revelation 12:6). But the sojourn of the. church there, as we have said, was the immediate result of what took place on our Lord’s ascension, and embraces, not merely what ensued after the dragon sent forth the flood, or multitudinous hosts after her into the wilderness, but the whole of her trials and contendings there. If this number, therefore, is not entirely symbolical, and even if symbolical but not arbitrarily used, its employment here must be regarded as indicating the past, as well as the future, ascendency of the worldly power in respect to the church. But it is the future that is more particularly depicted—the actings of the worldly power after it had begun to assume its last head. And here, first of all, the striking peculiarity is mentioned, that one of its heads appeared to be as it were wounded to death (Revelation 13:3). This we take (with Auberlen), to mean, that a change, in regard to the worldly power’s ostensible relation to the church (for in that respect alone is it represented under the aspect of a beast), was to take place; in one of the forms of its manifestation it was not, indeed, to be actually and properly killed, but to appear as if it were wounded to death: i.e., to drop for a season its wonted appearance of hostility to the cause and kingdom of God—to cease, for a time, to act as a beast; which it could only do by assuming cither a truly religious, or a professedly religious character. Now something that precisely answers to this change did take place about the period in the church’s history, to which the symbolical delineation refers—the period, when the sixth head of the beast tended towards the seventh and last, when the Empire began to totter to its fall, and fresh races strove to form themselves into new states and dynasties. It seemed then, as if the beast had received a deadly wound; for in the last stages of the old Roman empire, and in the formative epoch of the new states, the beast apparently passed into the woman, through the formal reception of Christianity by the ruling powers. The beast then, as is stated in the corresponding passage in Revelation 17:8, Revelation 17:11, “was not, and yet was;” for the deadly wound was presently healed; the old spirit of contrariety to the mind of God, and conformity to the flesh and the world, soon returned though under another form, and as a kind of Christianized paganism. Nay, and to mark the character of this modern heathenism, its more subtle, demon-possessed, artfully-contrived nature, the beast is said to come now, not as formerly from the sea, but “from the abyss:” as if in a state of closer union with the power and cunning of the adversary. So that the work of self-deification began to proceed anew (Revelation 13:4, “They worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?”), and the blaspheming of God (viz., by the usurpation of Divine prerogatives), and the war against the saints. It is even said respecting the latter (Revelation 13:7), that it was given him to overcome them; the reverse of what had been testified regarding the early part of the conflict, when it was said (Revelation 12:11), that they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Now, on the other hand, he overcomes them—which, of course, implies, that they renounced their confidence in the blood of the Lamb, and played false with the word of their testimony. They did so, not by utterly casting off the profession of the faith—for then they would simply have belonged to the worldly power itself; but by falling in with the secularized Christianity, which that power had espoused; by ceasing, in short, to be the proper bride of the Lamb, and becoming (as is fully represented in Revelation 17:1-18), the whore borne up by the beast. As in the world before the flood, and in Israel before the captivity, the church was to join hands with the world, and assuming an essentially worldly position, was to set itself against the real interests of God’s kingdom, while still professing to have them at heart. Such was to be the result of this new phase of the worldly power—what was to come from the healing of the wound of the beast; a new, and master-stroke of Satanic policy. The dragon would no longer openly devour the woman, which had ceased any longer to be possible; but by bringing her into subjection to his own power, would rather, through her instrumentality, carry on his purposes of mischief. And the plot has wonderful success; in this new form, the beast is found to have even more than recovered what he had lost by the wound. For now it is said, “Power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:7-8). An all but universal dominion! in struggling and holding out against which, it is immediately intimated, the faith and patience of the saints were to have their grand trial (Revelation 13:10). And we have no doubt, with reference to the same, the apparent anomaly in Revelation 17:11, is to be explained, where we read, “And the beast that was, and is not, even he (or, he also), is the eighth (viz. kingdom), and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” So great was the power and success to be gained by the change of policy, and especially by the Lamblike beast which was to come to his aid, that the last head of the beast has the appearance of more than a mere head; it is like the beast itself in its entireness, a concentrated form of the whole, and so less properly the seventh as originally formed out of the ten horns into which the Roman empire fell, than an eighth, though it was still of the seven, because it sprang out of them, and was in reality a prolongation of their complex being. Not only was the clay of Daniel’s vision to take a distinct form; but the clay itself, as with plastic powers, and by the reception of certain Christian elements, was to undergo a transformation, such as should give it a new and more formidable character. If in this part of the representation we find a characteristic difference between the Apocalypse and the vision of Daniel, it becomes still more marked in what immediately follows. St John not only saw farther than Daniel into the changes which the worldly power in its later stages was to undergo, but he also had a revelation given him of an ally which that power was ultimately to obtain, and of which no trace is to be found in the earlier and more compressed predictions of Daniel. This ally is described under the symbol of a second beast coming up out of the earth, having two horns like a lamb, but speaking as a dragon (Revelation 13:11). The rest of the description refers to the doings of the power symbolized by this image; but it is by the image itself that the essential nature of the power is to be determined, and the relation in which it was to stand to the other powers mentioned in the vision. Now, as it is a fundamental principle in the interpretation of prophetical symbols, that there must be uniformity of meaning ascribed to them in the things wherein they agree, there are certain points in the description given above, which from their coincidence with things going before, leave little room to doubt as to the proper character of this power. The first is the name—a beast; which proves it to be entirely of a worldly character—like a beast looking downwards to the earth, having the world for its god. Throughout the visions both of Daniel and the Apocalypse, the beasts are symbols of what belongs to the earthly and human, as contradistinguished from the divine and heavenly sphere. The several beasts in Daniel denote simply human governments, or the worldly power in its successive phases (as is done also by the other beast in the Apocalypse with its many heads and horns); and when a power rising up among them, and aspiring to something higher, laying claim (though unjustly) to the spiritual and divine, had to be indicated, it is described as so far differing from the others, that it had eyes like those of a man. Here, however, there is no such appearance; the form is altogether beastly, and consequently the power represented by it is only human and worldly. A second point is its origin; it came up out of the earth—from beneath, not from above; and so, like the first beast, was to be entirely terrene in its character. It differed, however, in this respect, that it appeared to spring not from the sea—image of the world in its heaving, disordered, and tumultuous state—but from the solid earth; that is, the world in a state of settled order and fitness for civilization. Terrene, therefore, as this power was going to be, it was yet to possess earthly elements of a higher kind than the other—properties more refined, and distinctive of humanity in its advanced and orderly condition. Thirdly, it had horns like a lamb—horns, the symbol of power, but the horns of a lamb, among beasts the emblem of what is gentle, harmless, and engaging:—and, therefore, disposed to exercise the power, not in deeds of violence or with overawing displays of majesty and force, but by methods of a suasive kind, and suited to a peaceful and settled state of things. Perhaps, something even more specific is indicated—a studied imitation of the lamb with seven horns, formerly mentioned (Revelation 5:6), an affectation of Christ-like virtues, or a striving after the lamb-like qualities, which appear in their highest perfection in Christ. We can scarcely doubt, indeed, that this more specific reference was intended. But, lastly, notwithstanding this lamb-like appearance in regard to the form which this power was to assume for its exercise, the spirit directing and animating it was to be widely different: “He spake as a dragon.” It was to be by speech that the beast was to give indication of what it was, and by the character of its speech it was to be found in the strictest sense from beneath, an instrument of Satan, not of God; earthly, sensual, devilish. There can be no certainty in the interpretation of symbols, if these traits do not determine the power here described to be simply a power of this world—not spiritual or ecclesiastical, which necessarily infers either a real or an assumed connection with the divine—but one both actually and ostensibly holding of the world. It has been, we think, the great error of writers in this country, to give too little heed to such fundamental and decisive characteristics in the appearance of the symbol, and to make account rather of dependent and subsidiary points. They have hence commonly adopted the opinion of its being an ecclesiastical power, and have sought to identify it with the priesthood of Rome. Indeed, this opinion very naturally grew out of a previous misapprehension—the identification of the first beast with the papal sovereignty of Rome; and there are not wanting things in the description now before us, which admit of being readily applied to the Romish priesthood—if only a proper foundation existed for such an application. But it is there precisely that the fanciful and groundless nature of the opinion discovers itself. And the more fundamental and strictly exegetical treatment, which the subject has received on the Continent, has led to the general adoption (among others by Hofmann, Hengstenberg, Auberlen) of what seems to us the correct view (though Gaussen and Ebrard still hold to the other). According to this view, the power here symbolized is that of worldly wisdom, comprehending every thing in learning, science, and art, which human nature of itself in its civilized state can attain to—the worldly power in its more refined and spirit-like elements—its more gifted sages and seers. There can be no doubt, that it is the same power, which in three subsequent passages (Revelation 16:13, Revelation 19:20, Revelation 20:10) is called expressly “the false prophet;” so that, as was already indicated by the power of speech ascribed to it, it belongs to the intellectual and moral, not to the physical or political sphere. But the marked separation in those passages between this false prophet and the whore, or the corrupt church, and the equally marked intimacy of connection between the false prophet and the beast, point to the conclusion we have otherwise arrived at, of its having to do with prophecy, not in the ecclesiastical, but in the worldly sense. The things which concern the whore, as forming a class by themselves, have a distinct representation; though nearly connected with the beast, and for a time serving herself of this, she still is judged and destroyed apart. But the false prophet never appears separate from the beast; he comes upon the stage as the mere servant and tool of the latter, and the two both work together, and perish in the same condemnation. They are alike, therefore, in origin, in character, in aim, and in destiny; an embodiment, only in different respects, of the sensual, grovelling, ungodly, spirit of the world. This second lamb-horned beast, then, is a personified representation of the world’s gnosis—“the gnosis, falsely so called,” of the apostle Paul; and hence the power professing and exercising it, is emphatically the false prophet. False—not because always or necessarily propounding things in themselves untrue, but because actuated by a wrong spirit in its investigations and pursuits—cultivating the talents, studying the works, plying the manifold resources of nature in a state of practical divorce from God and the interests of salvation, as if those were alone sufficient to bless the soul, and render the world a scene of satisfaction and delight. The teachings of such a spirit of prophecy are false, even when setting forth what is in itself true, because they ignore the existence, or belie the testimony, of what is emphatically the truth. Yet a formal opposition to this truth, though it might certainly be expected in part to characterise the operations of this power, is what it should rather, by the description given of it, seek to avoid. The lamblike horns imply as much—indicating that the power in question would strive to conceal its base origin and character, and even work upwards to a resemblance of that which has its true embodiment in the Divine Author of Christianity. The same thing is also implied in the note given of the relative period of its manifestation; the period, namely, of the last times of the worldly power: “He exerciseth,” it is said, Revelation 13:12, “all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth, and them that dwell therein (all the worldly-minded), to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” If the deadly wound of the beast be, as formerly represented, the professed reception of Christianity by the ruling powers of the world, by which they went, or seemed as if they went over to the side of Christ; and if the healing of that wound be their return-to an essentially ungodly state, a kind of Christianised Paganism, then this second beast’s appearing in connection with the healed condition of the other, presents it to our view as a power more especially of the latter days, attaining to strength when the world itself had attained to the likeness of a formal Christianity. It was only then, indeed, and by reason of this very connection with the Christian name, that the wisdom and learning of the world could come to be peculiarly dangerous to the people of Christ, and be apt to supplant the truth that is in Him. In its old, and avowedly Pagan form, it was too palpably antagonistic in its nature to possess much of this character; and hence the philosophic class in ancient times, either stood entirely aloof from Christianity, or hatched abortive schemes of doctrine, which met with the strong and stedfast reprobation of the church. But matters have presented another aspect, since the kingdoms of the world came to assume somewhat of the Christian type. Since then, a comparatively sober, refined, and softened spirit, has been widely diffused. The prophets of the world have in many respects caught the reflection of that which is from above; and the literature, art, and science, which they have been giving to the world, not only render many a formal homage to Christianity, but partake much, also, of the elevating influence which has flowed from it. Yet with all this change to the better in the world’s prophets, they are the world’s still—breathing its spirit, working for its interests, and, out of regard to its ends and objects, evacuating or setting aside the more essential truths of the gospel. The speech is ever such as befits the dragon’s mouth; and the grand tendency of its teaching, of its discoveries and inventions, is to lead men to worship the beast—to make a god of this present world. It even teaches them that dwell on the earth, as St John most characteristically described it beforehand, “that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed,” etc. (Revelation 13:14-15). The image here spoken of, which was undoubtedly suggested by the image of the Roman emperors, “denotes,” as Auberlen has excellently interpreted, “the deification of the world, and the worldly power. And the false prophet’s breathing living breath into this image, with much felicity describes how the false teaching has skill to give to the foolish idolatry of the creature’s deification, a kind of spiritual, reasonable, philosophical impress: the worldly spirit, with its revelations, is this dead and now again life-breathing idol deity, before which the whole world does homage. It is (he means in its actual tendencies and final outgoings) the new heathenism, sinking down again to the deification of nature and humanity: and it is impossible to predict what foolish and beastly forms it may yet assume.” The extraordinary workings ascribed to this power in the prosecution of its aim, which are designated miracles, and in which it is even said to call down fire from heaven, point to its great achievements in nature, and also to its lofty pretensions, seeming to rival those of the real witnesses of God’s truth, and the faithful expounders of His will to men (Revelation 11:5). Nothing in heaven or earth should appear to be above the reach of its inquiries and the skill of its hand. And the exclusion from merchandise, the assignation even to death (by which must be understood, not literal, but social or political death, civil martyrdom, for in this sense only could death with any propriety be ascribed to the speech of a prophet), which it should have power to appoint to as many as would not worship the beast, disclose the extreme eagerness, and the wonderful success, with which this last and highest form of the worldly spirit should drive after its object. The saying, that “the world loves its own,” should receive through it the most striking exemplification; and those who were not of the world, and held by the faith of Christ, would be disliked, shoved into corners, maligned, and vilified. Who that is but moderately acquainted with the history of modern Christendom, or has any discernment of the signs of the times, can fail to perceive how much the tendency of the world’s culture is in this direction! how little it commonly sets by the interests of salvation! nay, how jealously it eyes such as give these their proper place! And rising, as it continually does, in its achievements and consciousness of power, growing incessantly in its command over the elements of nature, and the materials of earthly comfort and enjoyment, who can but fear that its future progress may be marked by times yet more perilous than hitherto, and more audaciously opposed to the claims and spirit of the gospel! It would only require an intensifying of powers already in extensive operation, and a quite conceivable development of the world’s culture, to make the unswerving profession of Christianity, and the carrying out of its heavenly spirit into the various relations of life, a matter of constant sacrifice, and of virtual exclusion from all the more prominent positions of worldly life. So far we can without material difficulty find our way to the import and application of this part of the Apocalyptic vision. On the number of the beast, and of his name, we refrain from making any remark at present; as indeed, we have little more to offer than an analogical probability, which may be better noticed, in connection with other numbers, at the close of Section in. The result, however, as regards the church’s relation to the power and kingdoms of the world, is sufficiently humiliating as to the past, and not without some anxious forebodings in respect to the future. The last, and in some sense Christianised form of the beast, has already proved, in accordance with the view presented beforehand in the Apocalypse, a more dangerous and formidable opponent to the cause of God than it was in its earlier and more palpably antichristian manifestations. And what is afterwards said of this beast itself, in Revelation 17:14-17, Revelation 19:11, sq. (of which particular notice will be taken in the next section), together with what is here said of his ally, the false prophet, seems plainly to indicate, that the warfare of the church with this dragon-like power, is far from being ended, and, probably, in some of its aspects, has not yet reached its climax. It may be doubted whether there be any just foundation for the idea entertained by some, and among others by the writer recently quoted (Auberlen), that days of active and violent persecution still await the church, and that only by the suffering of blood she must expect to win her latest, as she did her earlier, victories. In so far as this apprehension is based on the description of the false prophet, it seems to be without any just foundation; as it is against the proper nature of the symbol to connect it with acts of external violence and corporeal infliction. The conflict in its later stages is more likely to occupy itself with the higher region of thought and feeling, and to be primarily a war of opinion, though it may also carry in its train certain political and social disturbances. The tactics of the adversary may henceforth be expected to grow in subtlety and refinement. The more Satan succeeds in transforming himself into an angel of light, the more he can lead his servants to exchange obsolete notions and brute force for weapons more accordant with the views of cultivated minds, and less directly opposed to the nature of the gospel, the more disastrous is likely to be their effect in impeding the progress and thinning the ranks of genuine Christianity. But however that may be, the issue of the struggle is not doubtful. The same inspired pen, which has so wonderfully traced its general character and progress unfolds in the most distinct manner the triumph of the kingdom of Christ, and the irretrievable ruin, both of the beast and the false prophet. We reserve what is written on this point for the next section, where we must consider the judgment of Babylon, which is so intimately connected with that of the other two, that they can with no propriety be examined apart. But the most cursory glance into the representations which follow, is enough to satisfy us, that if the seer of Patmos was a watchman of the night, he was also a herald of the approaching morn, and that, amid all the combinations of malice and guile, which were to be arrayed against the church of God, he foresaw the higher elements of power were still to be with her. Nay, no sooner has he described the appearance and proceedings of the lamblike beast, than he points attention to the real Lamb on Mount Zion, with his noble army of 144,000 tried and faithful followers (Revelation 14). By these are represented the truly effective forces, powers, and agencies, mightier by far than those which were symbolized by the beast and false prophet. And by means of them, changes are accomplished, and processes of judgment carried forward, which terminate only with the final overthrow of the adversary, and the exaltation of a pure and faithful church to the possession of the inheritance. Section II. The Prophetical Future of the Church and Kingdom of Christ, in Their Relation to the Character, Working, and Fate of the Antichristian Apostacy WHEN the church or kingdom of Christ, and the kingdoms of this world, are viewed in their original character and relative positions, the connection between them, as we have seen, is one simply of antagonism. They meet on the stage of the world’s history, but only to contend with each other, not to coalesce, or to merge their respective properties in a state of things common to both. The relation, therefore, when so considered, is necessarily of an external nature. It is that of kingdoms moving in different spheres, animated by a different spirit, and embracing not only different but conflicting interests, so that the progress and triumph of the one inevitably carries along with it the conquest and subversion of the other. But there is also another and more internal relationship, of which we have already had occasion to notice several intimations in prophecy, and which was to arise from an unnatural coalition between the two parties—or, rather, between the apparent, not the real, power on the one side, and the antagonistic power on the other. The kingdom of God, like its Divine Author, cannot change in respect to its essential elements, or cease to be opposed to the powers which are Satanic in their origin, and bestial in their character. But it might appear to do so, after it had obtained a distinct organization, and assumed an outstanding position in the world. It might, in the hands of its ostensible representatives and agents, renounce its opposition, and become more or less identified with the operations of the worldly power. Nor was it from the first by any means unlikely that such a result should take place, for Satan’s policy has always been to corrupt what is of God, when he has failed to destroy it. And situated as the church of Christ is in the world—beleaguered, on every hand by the powers of evil—within, liable to be drawn aside by the remains of indwelling sin—and without, alternately pressed by the violence and the blandishments of those in power—it was not to be wondered at if the world should make encroachments upon the church, and the adversary should find for himself an interest and an agency under the very banner of heaven. § 1. The Antichrist as represented in Daniel both Typically and Antitypically The prophecies of Daniel, which, in Old Testament Scripture, contained the most distinct and varied perspective of the more public relations of Christian times, did not fail also to exhibit this feature of the distant future. As might have been expected, no indication is given of it in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, which, in accordance with its general character, presents merely an external aspect of the different monarchies; and as regards the relation of Messiah’s kingdom to the others, gives prominence only to its prevailing might, absolute universality, and endless continuance. But it is otherwise in respect to the vision of the seventh chapter, which was communicated to Daniel himself. Under the last worldly monarchy, in the times of which the kingdom of heaven was to begin to lay claim to the world, a representation is given of a remarkable change that was to take place in the former, by which it was to a certain extent to throw off its bestial appearance, and become assimilated to that of the divine kingdom, though still retaining its essential contrariety to it. Before, however, looking at this representation, we may glance at another in the subsequent visions of Daniel, which is so far related to it, that the things it describes formed the nearest approach to a typical exhibition of the more distant future to be found in ancient times. Generally speaking, the kingdoms of the world, with which the covenant-people came into contact, aimed only at an external supremacy and control over them; they did not interfere with the internal affairs of the religious polity of Israel, or set their hearts on establishing a conformity between it and the religions of heathendom. But in the periods intervening between the return from Babylon, and the coming of Messiah, the worldly power was to quit its outward position and force its way within. It was, in one remarkable instance, to lay its hand upon the very life and spirit of the theocratic constitution of Israel, with the view of bringing this into formal agreement with the state of things in its own territory. And both because it was to form a somewhat singular turn in the affairs of the old covenant, and to afford the nearest parallel these were to present to the most singular and perilous evolution in the future history of Christ’s kingdom, a very prominent exhibition was given of it in the later visions of Daniel. We meet with it first in Daniel 8:1-27, in the vision of the ram and the he-goat, which are explained to mean, the one the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, the other the kingdom of Greece. Then, after quickly passing over the subjugation of the former kingdom by the latter—the rapid conquests of the Grecian kingdom, and its division, on the death of its founder, into four smaller monarchies, a power is described as going to rise up out of one of these, symbolized by a little horn, which was to wax great and do extraordinary things, especially toward what is called the pleasant land or the land of beauty. By this is undoubtedly meant the land of Canaan (compare Ezekiel 20:6, Ezekiel 20:15); and of the operations of this power there it is said, Daniel 8:10-12, “And it waxed great to the host of heaven, and it cast down of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. And he magnified himself even to the prince of the host; and by him the daily (or continual, viz., burnt-offering) was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And the host (so it should be rendered) was given (viz., to him) along with the daily sacrifice, because of transgression, and the truth was cast down to the ground; and it (viz., the horn) practised and prospered.” The host in this last verse must be the same as in Daniel 8:10-11; it must be the Lord’s host, the covenant-people, considered in their ideal character, as possessed of a theocratic constitution, and forming, amid the heathen kingdoms of this world, a kind of heavenly constellation. Notwithstanding this elevated position, however, violence was to be done to it by the bold and aspiring power represented under the little horn: it was to suffer a humiliating prostration, though, as is presently explained in Daniel 8:13-14, only for a comparatively brief season. And in regard to the reason of this dreadful reverse and temporary invasion of the worldly power on the Divine order and prerogatives, it is said in the explanatory verses toward the end of the chapter, that it was to take place “when transgressors should have come to the full;” that while his power should be mighty, yet it should “not be by his own power,” plainly meaning that the iniquity harboured and practised among the covenant-people was what should call forth the visitation, and that the power which was to work so disastrously was really lent by God for the occasion as an instrument of vengeance. And, again, in Daniel 11:1-45, where the operations of the same power are chiefly detailed, the king in question is not only described as having “indignation against the holy covenant,” but also as “having intelligence with them that forsake it” (Daniel 11:30), and “corrupting by flatteries such as do wickedly against the covenant” (Daniel 11:32); while the design of the whole, on the part of God, is “to try them, and purge them, and make them white” (Daniel 11:35). It is evident, by a comparison of all the passages bearing on the subject, that the period referred to was to be one of deep backsliding and apostacy among the covenant-people, and that this was to be taken advantage of by the worldly power, then in immediate contact with them, for the purpose of breaking up the commonwealth of Israel, and reducing it internally to a level with the states of heathendom. Such certainly was the occasion and aim of the proceedings carried on against the people of Israel by Antiochus Epiphanes, as described in the books of Maccabees. The origin of the whole is ascribed to a Hellenizing party in Israel, who introduced the Grecian culture and games, and thought that strength and safety were to be acquired by assimilating their manners and customs to those of their more polished neighbours (1Ma 1:11-15, 1Ma 11:43-53; 2Ma 4:7-20). This spirit of defection had invaded also the priesthood; so that some of the priests even assumed Grecian names, and the office of high-priest was made matter of merchandise. It was the world in its baser forms entering into the sanctuary of God; and in Antiochus, a fitting representative of the world, it reached a climax of presumption and wickedness. He is, beyond doubt, the power, that in connection with the Grecian monarchy, was to act so lawless and violent a part against the covenant. It is hard to say what precisely was the object of this man in many of his proceedings; for they not unfrequently resembled more the doings of a madman, than those of a reasonable being; on which account the epithet Epimanes (the mad), was often substituted for Epiphanes (the illustrious). But from his applying to himself on some of his coins the epithet of Theos (God), and on the reverse of others, exhibiting the likeness of Jupiter, taken in connection with the general character of his reign, it would seem that he identified himself with the Olympian Jupiter, and thought himself justified in resorting to any measures for the purpose of establishing the worship of this deity, and along with it his own absolute supremacy. He prosecuted this design also among the Jews; and in the course of his operations succeeded, not only in inflicting the most revolting cruelties, but also in polluting, through the instrumentality of the Hellenizing party, the altar and temple at Jerusalem with the foulest abominations. “He did according to his will, and exalted himself, and magnified himself above every God, and spoke marvellous things against the God of gods, and prospered till the indignation was accomplished” (Daniel 11:36). It was, therefore, quite a peculiar relation which the worldly power held for a season, in the person of this Antiochus, to the kingdom of God in Israel. It occupies essentially the same relative place in the third worldly kingdom, that antichrist was to do in the fourth, and has hence been generally designated the typical antichrist. There is the more reason for viewing it thus, as in some of the descriptions of antichrist in New Testament Scripture, in that especially of 2 Thessalonians 2:4, sq., the very words are used, in which Antiochus and his outrageous proceedings are described by Daniel. But of this occasion will be found to speak afterwards. We revert, then, to the description of a similar kind, though pointing to a later period, which is found in the seventh chapter of Daniel (Daniel 7:6, Daniel 7:20-21, Daniel 7:24-25). The period is that of the latter stages of the fourth kingdom, subsequent to the tenfold division into which it was to fall; and so the power described must be posterior to the Christian era; it must be not the typical, but the real antichrist. This power is described, precisely as the other, under the emblem of a horn—at first a little horn; but presently waxing great, so as to pluck up by the roots three of the horns out of which it sprang; and differing also from the others, nay, approximating in appearance to the kingdom which was from above, since it had eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things (Daniel 7:8). How far, however, the reality was from corresponding with this appearance, how much similarity of form (as might naturally have been suspected from the manner of its origin), was assumed as a cloak to mask the most intense contrariety of spirit, was plainly brought to light in the explanation given in the subsequent parts of the vision. There we find, that this horn or power was to be entirely of the same spirit with those, among which it should come up, and was to form, indeed, the concentration of all the enmity and ungodliness by which they were, in common, characterised. While he was to be diverse from them in having eyes like a man’s, his look was to be more stout than his fellows, and he was to make war with the saints and prevail against them (Daniel 7:20-21). “He shall be diverse from the first,” it is added, Daniel 7:24, Daniel 7:26, “and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” In this description much is purposely left vague and mysterious; but there are a few points which admit of being clearly determined from it. 1. It is first distinctly intimated, that the power of which it speaks, the last offspring and development of the fourth worldly monarchy, was to be distinguished by many of the higher qualities of earthly goodness; by human-like culture and adornment. The eyes as of a man bespeak this; for the spirit of life and intelligence is in the eye; and if the eyes had been altogether those of a man, then the power symbolized would, in spirit, have realized the proper ideal of humanity—it would have been the Divine kingdom itself. But since the eyes were not actually man’s, but only like those of a man, it indicates an approach merely to the true pattern—such a resemblance as fallen human nature by the cultivation of its own powers, and the skilful use of its means and opportunities might of itself accomplish. So that in respect to art and science, general culture and refinement, and the various elements of social order and enjoyment, this last development of the earthly power should constitute an advance upon those which preceded it. Nay, considering that before its full formation, at least, if not as the very condition of its existence, the truly Divine kingdom, represented by Him who had the proper being, as well as likeness of a Son of man, must have begun to diffuse itself in the world, it was but natural to infer, that the human-like power would avail itself of many elements presented to its hand by this higher kingdom, and through these work up the appearance of things to a closer resemblance of the true pattern. The more it could take into its system of the forms of the Divine, the more would its aim be accomplished of looking like this. And the mouth speaking great things, or making high claims and pretensions, seems not doubtfully to indicate, that such would be the case; for, after the introduction of those things, which were to constitute the proper greatness and well-being of humanity, no power could well arrogate to itself the title, or possess the appearance of the truly human, without assimilating to itself much that bore this loftier impress. The higher qualities, therefore, which were to distinguish this singular power, must have derived something from the heavenly, as well as the earthly, so as to form a peculiar compound of flesh and spirit. 2. On the other hand, there comes plainly out, as a second point in the description, the intense worldliness and God-opposing character of this power; it was to have still the essential spirit of the beast, and that in a state of the greatest virulence and energy. This appears, first of all from the manner of its origination and growth—springing up simply as a fresh horn of the beast, and with such vitality as to pluck up by the roots three of the existing horns. Worldliness in full life and vigour is evidently the least that can be understood by such a symbolical representation—the earthly, sensual, self-idolizing spirit in its ripeness. But the same thing appears also from the actions ascribed to this power; making war with the saints and prevailing against them, even wearing them out by the keenness and constancy of its opposition, and, in the highest spirit of self-deification, speaking words against the Most High, and changing times and laws. Such things plainly bespeak, not only an unabated, but even an increased contrariety to the mind and will of God; the higher culture, and the nearer approach in appearance to the Divine kingdom, which this power was to assume should but serve, as it were, to whet its appetite and inflame its zeal against the real interests of that kingdom. But the very circumstance of its having assumed something of an apparent resemblance to the higher power, and by dint of cultivation and art, changed the original beast-like form into a kind of human aspect, necessarily implied the adoption of a different sort of policy in the prosecution of its ungodly measures, from what had been practised in the earlier stages of its history. If the old spirit of opposition to God and divine things was to be continued, and become more intense than ever, it could no longer be in the rough and undisguised form of heathenish antagonism to the claims of Jehovah and the higher interests of men; the circumstances of its condition would manifestly oblige this power to keep up the appearance of a regard to these, while the reality was maintained of a deadly and inveterate opposition. So far one might easily go in reading the interpretation of this part of Daniel’s outline of the distant future. And the certainty of an ultimate failure of the objects aimed at by the worldly power in this last form of its existence—of the downfal of the power itself, and the rise, in spite of its malice and persecution, of the saints of the Most High to the place of power and dominion; these also are points so clearly unfolded, that there is no need for dwelling particularly upon them. But with so much that is plain in the vision, there is much also that is left in darkness and uncertainty, especially in regard to the probable period in the church’s history, when this mysterious power should arise, and the manner and degree in which it should seek to cultivate the human aspect of the divine kingdom, and thereby prove itself to be diverse from the more grovelling worldly kingdoms that preceded it. On such points as these it had been premature to give any specific information in the time of Daniel; and in so far as they might be prophetically given, it is only in the Scriptures of the New Testament that we can be warranted to look for them. To these, therefore, we now turn; and though it is only the visions of the Apocalypse which properly resume and fill up the symbolical perspective of Daniel, yet it is necessary in the first instance to refer to certain direct intimations of the coming evil, which are found in the earlier portions of New Testament Scripture. For thus only can we gather with certainty and precision the light which is furnished to the Christian church respecting the last and most dangerous form of the worldly power. § 2. The Antichrist as represented by our Lord and his Apostles 1. Here, we naturally look first to the discourses of our Lord; but as these were chiefly intended to lay the foundations, as to doctrine and duty, of the Christian church, and unfold the calling and prospects of her real members, they contain comparatively little that bears on our present subject. Not unfrequently they point, though in a quite general way, to the difficulties and dangers through which his genuine followers should have to pass, the violence and oppression they should have to meet, and the corruptions and counterfeits that should rise up in the midst of them and continue till the time of the end. Such, in particular, are the parables of the tares and the wheat, the labourers in the vineyard, and the importunate widow. Almost the only information of a more specific kind contained in our Lord’s discourses regarding the usurpation of the world upon the church, is to be found in what he says of the false pretenders to divine light and power, and the dangerous ascendency they were to acquire. A warning on this head had been thrown out in the Sermon on the Mount: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheeps’ clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15). But it is repeated, and more pointedly pressed in the discourse respecting the last times in Matthew 24:1-51; first at Matthew 24:11, “and many false prophets shall arise, and deceive many;” and again at Matthew 24:24, “There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” From the connection in which the words are spoken, there can be no doubt, that they taught the disciples to look for the appearance of such characters among the signs of the approaching downfal of the old Jewish constitution; and from the relation which this bore to the time of the end, in the more extended sense, we are warranted to expect, that the sign would repeat itself in the latter stages of the world’s history. Both points, however, are so much more fully brought out by the apostles of our Lord in their addresses and epistles, that we pass at once to what proceeded from them upon the subject. 2. There is an historical passage, which it is not unimportant, at the outset, to notice, since it serves to throw some light on the import of one of the terms used by our Lord. In Acts 13:6, the Jew, Barjesus, who was with Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, and who there withstood the preaching of the gospel, and sought to turn him from the faith, is called a false prophet (ψευδοπροφήτης). And in still farther explanation of his real character, he is called Elymas the magos—two words, indeed, of the same import, only the one Aramaic (or Arabic) and the other Greek—Greek, at least by adoption, though originally Persian. Elymas (from âlim, wise), and magos, both alike denote the man of wisdom in the Eastern sense; that is, a person addicted to the study of philosophy, and furnished with the skill of secret lore. It did not necessarily convey the sinister meaning of our magician or sorcerer, but comprehended also the better wisdom of that higher learning, which was the common pursuit of eastern sages. In apostolic times, however, this learning had become so much identified with astrology and the magic arts, that too often, as evidently in the case of this Barjesus, the persons who professed it were mere soothsayers and sorcerers. Prophets of this low and reprobate description swarmed in the countries around Judea; and notwithstanding the strong denunciations in the law against all magical arts and false divinations, they were found also in great numbers among the Jews. It was, indeed, one of the crying sins of the times, a proof of great hardness of heart and depravation of manners; and there can be no doubt that the wonders wrought by Jesus and His disciples would, with a certain class of minds, give a fresh impulse to the evil. Such a singular manifestation of the true wisdom, with its attendant power, could not fail to produce a general fermentation and excitement, which would give occasion to the display of the false; and as our Lord foretold, so it happened, that many false prophets arose, and deceived many. The account we have in Josephus of the last crimes and troubles of Judea, serves also to show, how large a part prophetical delusions played in that fearful tragedy. But the spirit of error did not work altogether without the territory of the church: it was always striving to press inwards. The apostle John even speaks of great numbers having been misled by it. “Beloved,” he says, “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). He does not precisely say, that they had proceeded from within the Christian community; but it is clear from what follows, that he had chiefly in view the false teaching, which had begun to appear partly within, and partly, also, on the outskirts of the church. For, he presently states, that those spirits are not of God, which do not confess Christ to have come in the flesh, and that such also are of the spirit of antichrist that was to come. So that, according to this apostle, false prophets, unsound teachers, and antichrist, belonged to the same category, and were but different forms or operations of the same spirit. Indeed, as regards the Christian church, the false prophesying warned against, could have found no great scope for its exercise excepting in the form of teaching untrue or corrupt doctrines. Hence, it was the prevalence of false teachers (ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι) in New Testament times, corresponding to false prophets in the Old, of which the apostle Peter so earnestly admonished believers in his Second Epistle (2 Peter 2:1-22), and whose disastrous influence he so strikingly portrays. It was of the same, also, that St Paul spake in his address to the elders of the church of Ephesus, when he announced it as certain, that after his departure “men should arise from among themselves, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them; that grievous wolves also should enter in among them, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29-30); and many parts of his epistles bear evidence to the same apprehensions and foresight of evil pressing upon his mind. The only question, therefore, is, how far, or in what respects this false prophesying or corrupt teaching in the church coincided with the false Christs and the spirit of antichrist also predicted to arise? It was Jesus alone who foretold the appearance of false Christs. By such can only be understood false pretenders to the name and character of Messiah. Precisely as false prophets are those who laid claim to gifts they did not really possess, false Christs must denote such as would assume to be what Jesus of Nazareth alone was. In the strict sense, therefore, false Christs could only arise outside the Christian church, and among those who had rejected the true; and in so far as they did so, they verified the word of Christ, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye received me not; if another should come in his own name, him ye will receive “(John 5:43). The most noted example of the kind, as well as the earliest, was the case of Barchochbas (the son of a star), as he chose to designate himself, with reference to the prophecy of Balaam, and who drew multitudes after him to destruction. False hopes and pretensions, however, of a similar kind have been ever renewing themselves among the Jews, though circumstances have not admitted of their reaching such an imposing magnitude, and entailing such a common disaster. But we cannot altogether limit our Lord’s declaration respecting false Christs to such merely Jewish pretenders, especially as it was a declaration made more immediately for the instruction and warning of His own disciples, and for them the danger of being seduced by persons of that description must have been comparatively little. We are rather to conceive that in this, as well as in other things noted in His discourse of the latter times, He wished them to regard the immediate future as but the beginning of a remoter end—a beginning that should in substance be often repeating itself, though the particular form might undergo many alterations. It matters little, any one may perceive, whether men might or might not call themselves by the name of Christ, and openly set up a rival claim to the faith ofmankind. If they should assume to be, or to do what by exclusive right and appointment belongs to Him, they then become, if not in name, at least in reality, false Christs. Should any one undertake to give a revelation of divine things higher than that communicated by Christ, and different from His—to propound essentially other terms to the favour and blessing of heaven than those which proceed on the foundation of His perfect atonement—or to conduct the world to its destined consummation in light and blessedness otherwise than through the acknowledgment of His name and the obedience of His gospel—such an one would as really act the part of a false Christ as if he openly disallowed the claims of Jesus, and challenged to himself what rightly belongs to the Son of God. Hegesippus, therefore (in Eusebius’ Eccl. Hist. iv. 22), had perfect right to include, among the false Christs predicted by our Lord, the early heresiarchs and their followers—the Simonians, Marcionists, Valentinians, Basilidians, etc.—“from whom,” he says, “sprung the false Christs, and false prophets, and false apostles, who divided the unity of the church by the introduction of corrupt doctrines against God, and against His church.” While, in the teaching of such parties, a certain deference was paid to Christ, and some elements of the truth of His gospel were embraced in their views, yet in the general aim and tendency of these views they undoubtedly sought to supersede Christ and contravene the spirit of his gospel. And the same substantially may be said of not a few persons and systems of later times—such as Mahomet, and the advocates in every age of nature’s sufficiency to reach for itself a position of acceptance with God, and of honour in His kingdom. These, in reality, disown the claims of Jesus, and set themselves up in His room as the guides and saviours of the world. And we cannot fail to perceive an indication of the varied forms such characters should assume, and the many different quarters whence they might be expected to arise, in the warning of our Lord respecting them, “If they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not.” It is Christ alone, however, as we have said, who speaks of false Christs. Elsewhere, we read of antichrists or the antichrist, and have various descriptions given us of the corrupt and pestilential power which the term denotes. What, then, precisely does it denote? Does it imply that the power or party indicated by it should, in some form or another, arrogate Christ’s peculiar office and work, or does it simply express a spirit of contrariety and opposition to His doctrine or kingdom? Nothing, in this respect, can be gathered with certainty from the word itself, for the preposition (ἀντι), which is here used in composition with Christ, alike expresses formal opposition to an object, and the supplanting of it by taking its place; and there is a series of compounds, in which the one idea, and a series in which the other idea, is embodied. (For example, in ἀντιλογία, ἀντίθεσις, the relation of formal opposition; and in ἀνθύσατος, ἀντιβασιλεύς ἀντιλυτρον, that of taking the place of, substitution.) It is only, therefore, by the usage of the word, and the comparison of parallel passages, that we can determine in what specific sense it is to be understood, and what kind of contrariety to the truth of Christ it was meant to designate. The first passage in St John’s Epistle, by whom alone the word is used, stands literally thus: “Little children, it is the last hour (or season); and as ye heard that the antichrist cometh, even now many have become antichrists (ἀντίχριστοι πολλοὶ γεγόνασιν), whence we know it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). Here there is no precise definition of what the term antichrist imports, but the assertion chiefly of a fact, that the idea involved in it had already passed into a reality, and that in a variety of persons. This, however, is itself of considerable moment, especially as it conveys the information that while the name is used in the singular, as of an individual, it was not intended to denote the same kind of strict and exclusive personality as the Christ. Even in the apostolic age John finds the name of antichrist applicable to many individuals. And this, also, may so far help us to a knowledge of the idea, since, while there were numbers in that age who sought within the church to corrupt the doctrine of Christ, and without it to disown and resist His authority, we have yet no reason to suppose that there were more than a very few who distinctly claimed the title of Christ, and presumed to place themselves in Messiah’s room. The next passage occurs very shortly after the one just noticed, and may be regarded as supplementary to it; it is in the 22nd verse. The apostle had stated that no lie is of the truth; and he then continues, “Who is the liar? (ὁ ψεύστης, the liar by pre-eminence) but he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist, who denieth (or, denying) the Father and the Son.” Here it is the denial of the truth concerning Christ, not the formal supplanting of Christ by an impious usurpation of His office, to which the name antichrist is applied. Yet it could not be intended to denote every sort of denial of the truth, for this would have been to identify antichristianism with heathenism, and Judaism, and unbelief generally, which was certainly not the meaning of the apostle. The denial of the truth by the antichrist was made in a peculiar manner—not as from a directly hostile and antagonistic position, but under the cover of a Christian name, and with more or less of a friendly aspect. While it was denied that Jesus was the Christ, in the proper sense of the term, Jesus was by no means reckoned an impostor; His name was still assumed, and His place held to be one of distinguished honour. That this was the case is evident not only from the distinctive name applied to the form of evil in question, but also from what is said (in 1 John 2:18-19) of the origination of the antichrists. “Many,” says the apostle, “have become antichrists;” they were not so originally, but by a downward progress had ended in becoming such. And, still further, “They went out from us, but were not of us;” that is, they had belonged to the Christian community, but showed, by the course of defection they now pursued, that they had not formed a part of its living membership, nor had really imbibed the Spirit of the gospel. When, therefore, the apostle says in the verse already quoted, that those whom he designated antichrists denied Jesus to be the Christ; and when, in another verse (1 John 4:3), he says, “Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come (ἐληλυθότα) in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come (literally, cometh), and now already is it in the world;” and still again, when he says in his Second Epistle, 2 John 1:7, “For many deceivers have entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ coming in flesh (ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί); this is the deceiver and the antichrist.” In all these passages it can only be of a virtual denial of the truth that the apostle speaks. He plainly means such a depravation of the truth, or abstraction of its essential elements, as turned it into a lie. And when farther he represents the falsehood as circling around the person of Jesus, and disowning Him as having come in the flesh, we can scarcely entertain a doubt that he refers to certain forms of the great gnostic heresy—to such as held, indeed, by’ the name of Jesus, but conceived of Him as only some kind of shadowy emanation of the Divine virtue, not a personal incarnation of the Eternal Word. Only by taking up a position, and announcing a doctrine of this sort, could the persons referred to have proved peculiarly dangerous to the church—so dangerous as to deserve being called, collectively and emphatically, the Deceiver—the embodiment, in a manner, of the old serpent. In an avowed resistance to the claims of Jesus, or a total apostacy from the faith of His gospel, there should necessarily have been little room for the arts of deception, and no very pressing danger to the true members of the church. We arrive, then, at the conclusion, that in St John’s use of the term antichrist, there is an unmistakeable reference to the early heretics, as forming at least one exemplification of its idea. Such, also, was the impression derived from the apostle’s statements generally by the Fathers; they understood him to speak of the heretics of the time, under the antichrists who had already appeared. For example, Cyprian, when writing of heretics, Ep. lxxiii. 13, and referring to 1 John 4:3, asks, “how can they do spiritual and divine things, who were enemies of God, and whose breast the spirit of antichrist has possessed.” On the same passage, Œcumenius says, “He declares antichrist to be already in the world, not corporeally, but by means of those who prepare the way for his coming; of which sort are false apostles, false prophets, and heretics.” So John Damasc. l. iv., orth. fid. 27, “Every one, who does not confess the Son of God, and that God has come in the flesh, and is perfect God, and was made perfect man, still remaining God, is antichrist.” And Augustine, in the third Tractatus on 1 John, in answer to the question, whom did the apostle call antichrists? though he extends the term to comprehend every one who is contrary to Christ, and is not a true member of His body, yet he places in the first rank, as most directly meant, “all heretics and schismatics.” It is plain, indeed, that the existing antichrists of John, the abettors and exponents of the ψεύδος, or lie, under a Christian profession, the deniers of what is emphatically the truth, belonged to the very same class with the grievous wolves and false brethren of Paul, of whom he so solemnly forewarned the Ephesian elders, and of whom also he wrote in his Epistles to Timothy (1st Epistle 1 Timothy 4:1-2 nd Epistle 2 Timothy 3:1), as persons who should depart from the faith, teach many heretical doctrines, and bring in upon the church perilous times. John, writing at a later period, and referring to what then existed, calls attention to the development of that spirit, of which Paul perceived the germ, and described the future growth. The one announced the evil as coming, the other declared it had already come; reminding believers also of their having previously heard (with reference, doubtless, to the prophetic utterances of Paul), that it was to come. So that the antichrists of John are found to coincide with one aspect of our Lord’s false Christs; they were those who, without renouncing the name of Christians, or without any open disparagement of Jesus, forsook the simplicity of the faith in Him, and turned His truth into a lie. In so far, they might be said to supplant Him, as to follow them was to desert Christ; yet, from the circumstances of the case, there could be no direct antagonism to Jesus, or distinct unfurling of the banner of revolt. (This seems so clearly implied in the apostle’s statements, that we cannot but feel surprised how Archbp. Trench, in his “New Testament Synonyms,” p. 120, should regard those statements as implying, that resistance to, and defiance of, Christ, is the essential mark of antichrist. Defiance of Christ necessarily involves avowed and palpable opposition, which is the part, not of deceivers, and of teachers who had corrupted the truth by a lie of their own, but of open enemies and unbelievers. We agree with him, however, that, as used in John’s writings, the term antichrist does not imply an assumption of Christ’s title and offices—not, at least, excepting in the modified sense already stated, of propounding what was virtually subversive of Christ’s authority and work.) Assuming this, however, the question still remains, whether we are to regard the idea of the antichrist as exhausted in those heretical corrupters of the gospel in the apostolic age, and their successors in future times; or should rather view them as the types and forerunners of some huge system of God-opposing error, or of some grand personification of impiety and wickedness to be exhibited before the appearing of Christ? It was thought from comparatively early times, that the mention so emphatically of the antichrist, bespoke something of a more concentrated and personally antagonistic character, than the many antichrists, which were spoken of as being already in the world. The Fathers generally were of opinion, that those were but preliminary exemplifications of some far greater embodiment of the antichristian spirit, and commonly thought of a monarch (like Antiochus) of heaven-daring impiety, and unscrupulous disregard of everything sacred and divine, who, after pursuing a course of appalling wickedness and violence, should be destroyed by the personal manifestation of Christ in glory. The Fathers, however, were in an unfavourable position for taking a comprehensive view of this, as well as of other points belonging to unfulfilled prophecy. (Warburton, in a note to one of his Discourses, Works, vol. 10:192, has very well distinguished in this respect between history and prophecy. “In a history of things past, and recorded in the learned languages, the languages of the times, the best scholar and the most sagacious critic without doubt bids fairest for the best interpreter, and the earlier he is to the subject, the better chance he has of being in the right. But in a prophecy of things to come, common sense assures us, that he is most likely to interpret best who lives latest, and comes nearest to the time of the completion. For he who sees one part already fulfilled will certainly be best able to judge of the whole, and best understand to what object it capitally relates.”) And this view, besides, was founded, not simply, nor even chiefly, upon the passages above referred to in the Epistles of John, but (along with what is written in the Apocalypse) on the words of St Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10. Amid many crude speculations and conflicting views upon this passage, none of them doubted, as Augustine states (De Civ. Dei, 20:19), that it referred to antichrist, who was understood to be indicated by “the man of sin,” and “the son of perdition.” And beyond all question the evil portrayed here is essentially of the same character as that spoken of in the passages already considered, only with the characteristic traits more darkly drawn, and the whole mystery of iniquity more fully exhibited. As in the other passages, the antichristian spirit was identified with a departing from the faith, and a corrupting of the truth, of the gospel; so here the coming evil is designated emphatically the apostacy (ἡ ἁποστασία, 2 Thessalonians 2:3); by which we can only think of a notable falling away from the faith and purity of the gospel; so that the evil was to have both its root and its development in connection with the church’s degeneracy. Nor was the commencement of the evil in this case, any more than in the other, to be far distant. Even at the comparatively early period when the apostle wrote, it had begun to work, and in his ordinary ministrations he had forewarned the disciples concerning it (2 Thessalonians 2:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:7); plainly implying, that it was to have its rise in a spiritual and growing defection within the Christian church. Then, as the term antichrist evidently denoted some kind of antithesis in doctrine and practice to Christ, a certain use of Christ’s name, with a spirit and design entirely opposed to Christ’s cause; so in the passage before us, the power personified and described, is designated the opposer (ὁ ἀντικείμενος, 2 Thessalonians 2:4), one who sets himself against God, and arrogates the highest prerogatives and honours. Yet, with such impious self-deification in fact, there was to be nothing like an open defiance and contempt of all religious propriety in form; for this same power is represented as developing itself by “a mystery of iniquity”—such a complex and subtle operation of the worst principles and designs, as might be carried on under the fairest and most hypocritical pretences; and by “signs and lying wonders, and all deceivableness of unrighteousness,” beguiling those who should fall under its influence, to become the victims of a “strong delusion,” and to “believe a lie”—viz., to believe that which should have to their view the semblance of the truth, but in reality should be its opposite. Not only so, but the temple of God is represented as the theatre of this impious, artful, and wicked ascendency (ver. 4); and in respect to the Christian church, the apostle Paul knows of no temple but that church itself, nor can any other be understood here, as even Augustine did not fail to perceive. (He states, indeed, as a possible alternative, the ruins of the old temple at Jerusalem, but evidently leans to the idea of the church being intended; and adds, “Unde nonnulli, non ipsum principem, sed universum quodammodo corpus ejus, it est, ad eum pertinentem hominum multitudinem, simul cum ipso suo principe hoc loco intelligi antichristum volunt: rectiusque putant etiam Latine dici, sicut in Graeco est, non, in templo Dei, sed in templum Dei sedeat, tanquam ipse sit templum Dei, quod est Ecclesia” (De Civ. Dei, xx. 19)—understanding by the temple the church, and by the power usurping it the corrupt body that was to compose so large a part of the church.) It is the only kind of temple usurpation in Christian times, which can be conceived of as affecting the expectations and interests of the church generally, and that alone, also, which might justly be represented as a grand consummation of the workings of iniquity within the Christian community. So that, as a whole, the description of the apostle presents to our view some sort of mysterious and astounding combination of good and evil, formally differing from either heathenism or infidelity—a gathering up and assorting together of certain elements in Christianity for the purpose of accomplishing, by the most subtle devices and cunning stratagems, the overthrow and subversion of Christian truth and life. It is, therefore, but the full growth and final development of St John’s idea of the antichrist. Of the descriptions generally of the coming evil in New Testament Scripture, and especially of this fuller description in the epistle to the Thessalonians, nothing (it appears to us) can be more certain on exegetical grounds, than that they cannot be made to harmonize with the Romish opinion—which Hengstenberg and others in the Protestant church have been seeking to revive—the opinion that would find the evil realized in the power and influence exerted in early times by Rome, in its heathen state, against the cause and church of Christ. In such an application of what is written, we miss all the more distinctive features of the delineation. If it might be said of the heathen power in those times, that it did attempt to press into the church or temple of God, and usurp religious homage there, the attempt, as is well known, did not succeed; nor did it even assume the appearance of an actual sitting, or enthroning one’s self there (as the words import), for the purpose of displacing the true God and Saviour from their proper supremacy. In the operations of that power also we perceive nothing that could fitly be designated “a mystery of iniquity”—the iniquity being that rather of palpable opposition and overbearing violence—in its aim transparent to every one who knew the gospel of the grace of God, and involving, if yielded to, the conscious renunciation of Christ. As to the signs, and lying wonders, and deceivableness of unrighteousness, and strong delusions which the apostle mentions among the means and characteristic indications of the dreaded power, there is scarcely even the shadow of them to be found in the controversy which ancient heathenism waged with Christianity. On every account, therefore, this view is to be rejected; failing, as it does, to establish the necessary correspondence between the leading features of the description and the supposed realization in providence. Another view, however, has of late been rising into notice, which, if well founded, would also save the Romish apostacy from any proper share in the predicted evil; and which, we cannot but fear, if not originated, has at least been somewhat encouraged and fostered by that softened light, which the mediaeval and antiquarian tendencies of the present age have served to throw around Romanism. The view we refer to would make the full and proper development of the antichrist an essentially different thing from any such depravation of the truth, as is to be found in the Papacy, a greatly more blasphemous usurpation, and one that can only be reached by a pantheistic deification of human nature. So Olshausen, who says, on the passage in Thessalonians, “The self-deification of the Roman emperors appears as modesty by the side of that of antichrist; for the Caesars did not elevate themselves above the other gods, they only wanted to have a place beside them, as representatives of the genius of the Roman people. Antichrist, on the contrary, wants to be the only true God, who suffers none beside Him; what Christ demands for Himself in truth, he, in the excess of his presumption, claims for himself in falsehood.” Then, as to the way in which he should do this, it is said, “Antichrist will not,” as Chrysostom correctly remarks, “promote idolatry, but seduce men from the true God, as also from all idols, and set himself up as the only object of adoration. This remarkable idea, that sin in antichrist issues in a downright self-deification, discloses to us the inmost nature of evil, which consists in selfishness. In antichrist, all love, all capability of sacrifice and self-denial, shows itself entirely submerged in the making of the I all in all, which then also insists on being acknowledged by all men, as the centre of all power, wisdom, and glory.” The proper antichrist, therefore, according to Olshausen, must be a person—one who shall be himself the mystery of iniquity, as Christ is the mystery of godliness, a kind of embodiment or incarnation of Satan. He can regard all the past manifestations and workings of evil, only as serving to indicate what it may possibly be, but by no means realising the idea; and he conceives, it may one day start forth in the person of one who shall combine in his character the elements of infidelity and superstition, which are so visibly striving for the mastery over mankind. Some individual may be cast up by the fermentation that is going forward, who shall concentrate around himself all the Satanic tendencies in their greatest power and energy, and come forth at last in impious rivalry of Christ, as the incarnate son of the devil. Dr Trench appears substantially to adopt this view, though he expresses himself more briefly and also more vaguely on the subject. With him the antichrist is “one who shall not pay so much homage to God’s word as to assert the fulfilment in himself, for he shall deny that word altogether; hating even erroneous worship, because it is worship at all; hating much more the church’s worship in spirit and in truth; who on the destruction of every religion, every acknowledgment that man is submitted to higher powers than his own, shall seek to establish his throne; and for God’s great truth ‘God is man,’ to substitute his own lie, ‘man is God.’” (Synonyms, p. 120). It is certainly not to be denied, that there are tendencies in operation at the present time, fitted, in some degree, to suggest the thought of such a possible incarnation of the ungodly and atheistic principle; though nothing has yet occurred which can be said to have brought it within the bounds of the probable. But, at all events, it is an aspect of the matter derived greatly more from the apprehended results of those tendencies themselves, than from a simple and unbiassed interpretation of the passages of Scripture under consideration. Such an antichrist as that now depicted, the impersonation of unblushing wickedness and atheism, has every thing against it, which has been already urged against the view, that would identify the description with the enmity and persecutions of heathen Rome. Instead of seating itself in the temple of the Christian church as its own, and arrogating there the supreme place, that antichristian power could only rise on the ruins of the temple. And whatever audacity or foolhardiness there might be in the assumptions and proceedings of such a power, one cannot, by any stretch of imagination, conceive, how, with such flagrant impiety in its front, it could present to God’s people the appearance of a mystery of iniquity, and be accompanied with signs and wonders and deceitful workings, destined to prevail over all who had not received the truth in the love of it. Conscience and the Bible must cease to be what they now are, cease at least to possess the mutual force and respondency they have been wont to exercise, ere so godless a power could rise to the ascendant in Christendom. It may even be said, the religious susceptibilities of men, in the false direction as well as the true, would need to have sustained a paralysis alike unprecedented and incredible. And besides, the historical connection would be broken, which the passages, bearing on the antichristian apostacy, plainly establish between the present and the future. In what already was, the apostles descried the germ, the incipient workings of what was hereafter more fully to develope itself; while the antichrist now suggested to our apprehensions, if it should ever attain to a substantive existence, would stand in no proper affinity to the false doctrine and corruptions of the apostolic age. It would be a moral phenomenon altogether novel. The tendency, we believe, on the part of evangelical writers, to fall into such mistaken views of the antichrist, has arisen in good measure from isolating too much some parts of the apostle’s description (particularly 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4), and overlooking as well the agreements, as the necessary differences, between the ultimate and the typical antichrist. The part of the description more immediately referred to, consists almost entirely of Daniel’s words and imagery; and when the two are viewed in their proper relations, considerable light is thrown on the import of the later revelation. In the first place, it holds alike of both, that the opposing and blaspheming power was to have its root and the occasion of its manifestation within the professing church. Even in the case of Antiochus, though he stood outside, yet the party whom he represented, and through whom alone he obtained the power and the opportunity to practise his enormities, had their place within; he merely gave a head to the evil that had been working in Israel, and brought it forth into full efflorescence. So also in the apostle’s description all is connected with the rise and progress of iniquity in the church; viewed complexly it is “the apostacy,” beginning in men’s failure to receive the truth in love, and having pleasure in unrighteousness; so that the revelation of what is called emphatically “the wicked,” or “the man of sin,” can be nothing but the growth of the internal corruption to its proper magnitude—assuming, as it were, its head and crown. The distinctive characteristics, therefore, must have been the same throughout. Then, in regard to the more offensive part of these characteristics, the one power also was the prototype of the other; and in neither case is absolute atheism or utter irreligiousness meant to be ascribed to it. It was said of Antiochus, the typical antichrist, that he should do according to his will, should exalt himself, should magnify himself above every god, and speak marvellous things against the God of gods; though we know, that he did all as a professed and zealous religionist. His course is described, after the common manner of prophecy, not by its formal, but by its real character; so that his fiery zeal for Jupiter is resolved into its true source—his own arbitrary self-will and frenzied devotion to the false religion and corrupt manners of Greece, which only sought for itself a cover in an affected regard for the honour of a particular god. He really magnified himself above every god, because in the service of heathenism he did what was contrary to the genius of heathenism itself, as well as outrageously dishonouring to the God of heaven. And it is undoubtedly in the same way, that St Paul’s application of those terms to the New Testament antichrist ought to be understood; they should be held descriptive of its real, rather than its formal character. The self-exaltation of this power above all that is called God or worshipped, so far from excluding a show of religion, might rather be expected to involve this as its necessary condition—the direct and naked exhibition of such a spirit being,-from the nature of things, fitted to provoke indignation and ensure defeat. The more lofty and towering its pretensions, the more indispensable should it find a religious pretext to carry them out. And hence the scene of its operations is expressly laid in the temple of God, as something essentially significant of their nature: “So that as God he sits”—not simply “and he does sit,” as a distinct part of his proceedings, or an aggravation of their impious character, but of necessity he takes this course, in order to make good his self-exalting projects: “So that, as God he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” In short, the church was the requisite sphere for such a power developing itself; in this alone could it reach the height of presumption and God-dishonouring worldliness it aspires after; and consequently, the opposition to God and assumption of divine prerogatives must be virtual only, and not formal or professed; there must needs be the show of religion, as well as the setting up of a standard, and the encouragement of practices, that are opposed to the spirit of the Bible. (See Appendix L.) Then, thirdly, considering the change which Christianity has introduced, and the differences subsisting between Old and New Testament times, while substantially the same acts are ascribed to the typical and the antitypical antichrist, the manner of their accomplishment must be understood to have not only allowed, but required some diversity. This is common to relations generally between Old and New Testament times. In the one, both the religion and the history partook much of the local, the outward, and the individual: while in the other, it is the inward, the general, the diffusive, which chiefly predominate; and hence things which might, while the old relations stood, have been transacted in a particular spot, or embodied in a single individual, must now, though occupying relatively the same place, be quite otherwise carried into execution. Since the Christian church, which is confined to no land or region, has taken the place of the ancient temple, and is called by its name, no individual could do in it precisely what was done by Antiochus at Jerusalem. The corresponding power, which is described as that of an individual, because it was to be informed and animated by one spirit, could admit of being so described, only by being viewed collectively; in reality, it could no more, than the temple it was to usurp, and in great part also occupy, be simply local and personal. And, indeed, even in former times, Antiochus was rather the exponent and representative of an evil, that had spread far and wide in Israel, than an independent power; but much more must this be the case with what should correspond to it in Christian times. So that, as antichrist was shown even in the apostolic age to be a collective designation, such terms as “the wicked,” “the man of sin,” “the son of perdition,” must have been intended to bear a like extent of meaning. They all point back to the vision of Daniel, in which the divine kingdom had its representation in one like a Son of Man; and indicate, that this apostate power would strive to imitate the man-like appearance of the other—would profess to be what it really was; but so far from being, like it, the image of the spiritual and divine, should be rather the impersonation of the sensual and the devilish. It would be a son, indeed, but like Judas, a son of perdition; a manly rather than a beastly form, but one gathering up and garnishing with a deceitful show the worse elements of man’s fallen condition, and so, incurring the doom of the heaviest condemnation. (In saying this we do not reject the notion of Lange, as quoted by Auberlen, p. 307, of Auberlen himself, and many others, that “as every phase of mind has its more prominent representatives and directors, so the different aspects of antichristianism appear blooming in individual antichrists;” but we are of opinion, that it is pressing an Old Testament analogy too far, and overlooking the diversity of circumstances introduced by the gospel, when it is announced as at once an historical and a Scriptural result, that “these individual antichrists shall one day reach their close in an evil genius far outstripping all predecessors.” We see no proper ground for such an expectation.) On the whole, then, the conclusion which forces itself upon our minds from a full and impartial consideration of the apostolic testimony, is that the antichristian apostacy cannot be identified either with the heathenism of ancient Rome, or with any conceivable form of infidelity or atheism yet to be developed. The conditions of the prophetical enigma are not satisfied by either of these views. So much for the negative side of the question. And in regard to the positive, if we may not say (as, indeed, we by no means think it can in truth be said) that in Romanism and the papacy the anticipated evil has found its only realization; yet we cannot for a moment doubt, that it is there we are to look for the most complete, systematic, and palpable embodiment of its grand characteristics. There, we perceive, as nowhere else, either to the same extent, or with the same firm determination of purpose, a mass of errors and abuses “grafted on the Christian faith, in opposition to, and in outrage of, its genius and its commands, and taking a bold possession of the Christian church.” We see “the doctrines of celibacy, and of a ritual abstinence from meats, against the whole spirit of the gospel, set up in the church by an authority claiming to have universal obedience; a man of sin exalting himself in the temple of God, and openly challenging rights of faith and honour due to God; advancing himself by signs and lying wonders, and turning his pretended miracles to the disproof and discredit of some of the chief doctrines or precepts of Christianity; and this system of ambition and falsehood succeeding, established with the deluded conviction of men still holding the profession of Christianity.” (Davison’s “Discourses on Prophecy,” p. 448.) All this meets so remarkably the conditions of St Paul’s prophecy, and in its history and growth also from the apostolic age so strikingly accords with the warnings given of its gradual and stealthy approach, that, wherever else the antichrist may exist, they must be strangely biassed, who do not discern its likeness in the Romish apostacy. We may the rather rest in the certainty of this conclusion, as it is matter of historical certainty, that ages before the Reformation, and, indeed, all through the long conflict that was ever renewing itself on the part both of secular and spiritual opponents against Rome, the Pope was often denounced as the antichrist, and man of sin. But it is one thing to find a great and palpable realization of the idea there, and another thing to hold, that it is the only realization to be found in the past or the future. And if Romanists have made void the testimony of Scripture in rejecting the one application, we fear Protestants have too often grievously narrowed it by excluding every other. Of this, however, we shall have a fitter occasion to speak, when we have examined that remaining portion of New Testament Scripture, which treats of the same subject, and in a way peculiarly its own. We refer, of course, to the Apocalypse. § 3. The Antichrist as represented in the Apocalypse In turning to this last division of the New Testament writings, we find no use made of the more peculiar part of the phraseology we have recently been considering. The terms “antichrist,” “man of sin,” “son of perdition,” or “apostacy,” are never met with—though there is no want of terms and representations, which coincide with them in meaning. In the first part of the book, which describes the things that were in connection with the seven churches of Asia, and through them presents us with the Lord’s idea of a true church, we are furnished with many proofs of an already begun apostacy, and see a prevailing tendency towards the forms of evil, the anti-christian spirit of error and corruption, of which we have been discoursing. In almost every one of the churches addressed, there appears an intermingling of the false with the true; Satan already had something of his own in them. And in some the evil had assumed the precise form of a mystery of iniquity, or a course of deep and deadly defection, under the guise of lofty pretensions, and a crafty ensnaring policy. Not only do we read of an Ephesus, where the first love was lost, of a Sardis, where little more than a name to live continued to exist, and a Laodicea, where fleshly ease and self-confidence generally prevailed, but we have also a Pergamos, and a Thyatira, where false prophets or teachers, designated Nicolaitans and followers of Balaam, plied their arts of seduction, seeking with their false gnosis to draw men away from the true; and the false prophetess Jezebel (whether an individual, or, as may rather be supposed, an influential party) through whom the community were being enticed to spiritual whoredom, or led to couple with the profession of the faith a heathenish looseness and carnality of spirit. In these disclosures respecting the existing state of things, we have presented to our view, as already in active operation, the antichristian spirit—the mixture of false doctrine with true, of corruption in practice with swelling words of profession—of the world, in short, with the church, which constitutes the distinguishing peculiarity of Paul’s apostacy, and John’s antichrist. And so essential was it, according to all Scriptural views of the condition and calling of the church, for her to resist and stand free from the elements of corruption, which were thus striving to press in upon her from the world, that the Lord, throughout the whole of these epistles, threatens with the sorest judgments such as might yield to the pernicious influence, and declares His purpose to recognise now as His real people, and hereafter reward with the honours of His kingdom, none but those who should overcome, and hold fast the purity and stedfastness of their allegiance to him. All besides were of the wicked one, and not of Christ; deceitful workers and children of perdition, not temples of the Spirit, and heirs of glory. Now, in these representations of the things which were, we have a key to the general object and meaning of the symbolical revelation given in the remainder of the book of the things which were to come. In respect to the church at large, and its coming fortunes, we have there exhibited the same tendencies conflicts, and results. We see the church, by reason of her connection with Christ, destined to conquer and reign, but meanwhile greatly marred by the darkness and corruption which were ever making way upon her from the world. In consequence of this, she is by the visitation of God chastened and purged; in her worst part judged and tormented by having her sin turned into her punishment; for, calamities and woes are brought upon her in manifold succession from that world which she sinfully coveted and embraced; until the work of purification being accomplished, and a church in holy beauty being prepared for the glories of the Lamb, the full and proper union between her and her Divine Head is consummated, and the mystery of God concerning His work on earth finished amid songs of triumph and scenes of ineffable delight. In the evolution of this singular and complicated symbolical history, the anticipated degeneracy of the church, and the formation in her of a vast antichristian power of the kind already described, is continually implied, and sometimes more, sometimes less explicitly alluded to; but there are two portions more particularly, in which it is distinctly and formally represented. The first of these is introduced at Revelation 11:1-19, in connection with the sixth trumpet, and is presented under the image that had been previously used by the apostle Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:4), that of the temple of God. “There was given me,” it is said, “a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.” We can regard this remarkable passage in no other light than as an expansion of St Paul’s description, indicating more particularly how the antichristian power was to sit in the temple of God, and the relation in which it should stand to the true church. Romish writers, and latterly, also some Protestants, have laboured hard to impose the same interpretation upon this, as upon the passage in the Thessalonians, and to understand by the two parties described, the Christian church, on the one side, and on the other, the opposing and persecuting power of heathen Rome. But the attempt must ever appear fruitless to those who understand the symbolical language of Scripture, and would give it a consistent and impartial application. The words manifestly delineate, not merely two different and opposing parties, but two classes of worshippers—parties alike professing to belong to the same visible temple of God, though one of them alone really and properly abiding in it. This latter class are those who are symbolized by what was to be measured, as that which had its appointment of God, and was under His careful guardianship—“the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.” They are, in a word, God’s living temple—his “spiritual house,” or “holy priesthood,” whose duty and calling it is to “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” The other portion, though also, in a sense, belonging to the same sacred building, only lying outside the strictly sacred territory, was to be left unmeasured, as wanting the right connection with God, and a real interest in His faithful keeping. It is called “the court without the temple,” and is represented as “being given to the Gentiles,” with reference to the uncircumcised condition of those who of old worshipped in such a court, and, without doubt, to indicate the uncircumcised, or really unsanctified state, of those whom it imaged, however holy they might externally seem. That they were to have, more or less, the semblance of this, their position in the temple-court clearly denotes; but that it was to be only a semblance, that it was to want the reality of divine grace and life, the merely external, essentially heathenish or worldly nature of the position, not less clearly demonstrates. The characters indicated, therefore, were of necessity to form a church party, but the false as contra-distinguished from the true—the world in the church; and so, coinciding in character with the apostacy of Paul, and the spirit of antichrist in the epistles of John. And when it is said of this corrupt party that they should “tread the holy city under foot forty and two months,” we are plainly informed, that they were, notwithstanding the false position they occupied, to have the ascendency in the professing church of God; nay, and should trample on and oppress those who alone rightfully belonged to it. The “holy city” is but another name for the church, the true members of which are said to have their names written among the living in Jerusalem; and to tread down the city is, in other words, to rule with proud domination over the sincere people of God, and treat them with persecuting violence. The period during which this unnatural state of things was to last is described by the mystical term of “forty and two months,” which, whether it may be capable or not of being definitely determined, must have been meant to comprehend a period of some continuance. For, in another place, it denotes the time during which the church was to be in the wilderness (Revelation 12:6), that is, in a tried, humbled, and afflicted condition; a state, into which she began to enter, shortly after the Lord’s ascension to the heavenly places, and out of which she is only to come to possess with him the inheritance. Here also it embraces the whole time between the rise of the corrupt and apostate party in the church, and their complete overthrow, which takes place at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, when the kingdoms of this world are declared to have become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ (Revelation 11:15). During this time the real church is represented as occupying chiefly a witnessing condition. Precluded from outwardly ruling in the things of God, she can only deliver a testimony—and is, therefore, symbolized by two witnesses, the legal number for such a purpose; implying that God would still continue a succession of faithful persons, adequate, though but barely adequate, it may be, to such a purpose. And as the testimony they should utter was that of God’s own word, it could not be without effect; the protest it delivered against reigning error and corruption, and in behalf of the truth of Christ, must make itself heard, like the testimony of old on the tables of the covenant, alike in the ear of Heaven and in the consciences of men. It is on this word, which is the expression of God’s mind and will, that all blessing and cursing is found to turn; by it the windows of heaven are shut or opened, and life and death (spiritually) are administered among men (Revelation 11:5-6). No wonder, therefore, that the ungodly dominant party, who are said to have their dwelling upon the earth (Revelation 11:10), because they belonged entirely to the earthly sphere, should seek to stop the mouths of those who had such a testimony to deliver, and even proceed to the last extremities against them, by utterly silencing them, or, as it is called, putting them to death, killing them as witnesses. To make it more apparent, how, and by whom this should be effected, it is said to take place “in the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified;” that is, it was to be done by an apostate church that had formally joined hands with the world, as when the Jewish church combined with Pilate and Herod to destroy Jesus, and had become like the most reprobate portions of the world itself. But still it does not succeed in its object; the tormenting testimony cannot so be quenched; it revives again, all the louder and more impressive in its utterances for the violence that has been done to it; the old saying is anew verified, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church; and thus, by striving unto blood, and holding fast the word of her testimony, the cause represented by her faithful children grows and prospers by means of suffering, and after it they rise, like their Divine head, to the higher region of power and influence, until at length the system of antichristian error they opposed falls under the doom of heaven, and the world in the church comes to be exchanged for the church in the world. Such briefly, and without reference to explicit times or periods (of which we may afterwards speak), is the tenor and import of this first symbolical representation in the Apocalypse of an apostatizing and corrupt, as contra-distinguished from the true church. So closely does it join itself to earlier revelations upon the subject, especially to the passage in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, that it seems much like the turning of what had been there written into a parable, or presenting it in the form of a symbolical narrative—only with less regard, than in St Paul’s description, to the means by which the antichristian usurpation was to be effected, more to the manner in which it should be met and overcome by the remnant of a faithful church. And it should be well noted in respect to this latter point, which is here, for the first time, distinctly exhibited, that no mention is made of any instrumentality on the part of the church, or in behalf of the cause of righteousness, but the unswerving and devoted use of the testimony of God’s word. The operation and effects of this are described (in accordance with the general character of the vision), under material imagery, such as the power of the witnesses in opening and shutting up heaven, fire going out of their mouth, and latterly the occurrence of an earthquake, shaking, to its foundations, the corrupt city, and partly destroying, partly leading to the conversion of its inhabitants. But all these are manifestly images, not of agencies employed, but rather of effects produced, by the one grand agency of a living church, plying the mighty weapon of God’s testimony. As the result of her doing this, undoubtedly, many external and even political changes must ensue, such as cannot but carry the aspect of woes and judgments to the apostate and worldly power. But the primary and fundamental result—that also which carries all else in its train, is the success of the testimony itself; it is this alone which can secure a moral victory, and, in such a case, nothing but a moral victory can be either adequate or permanent; it, and nothing else, lays the axe to the root of the tree, and cuts it down for ever. Apart from this, outward calamities or temporal judgments, at most effect but the removal of a few branches. The other formal representation given of this subject in the Apocalypse is founded upon a different image; upon the Church’s relation to Christ as His bride or spouse. It was especially for the purpose (as noticed in last section) of obtaining a symbolical foundation for unfolding the false and unfaithful part, which so large a portion of the professing church was to play in the future, that the symbolical representations of St John, while coinciding so much with those of Daniel, split here into the two parts of humanity, what in the former case had been preserved in its unity. With John as well as with Daniel, the Divine kingdom as a whole, in its ideal grandeur and perfection, has its representation in one, who had the appearance of a Son of man, and that irradiated with a brightness and glory altogether divine. But since this representation had been embodied, before the writing of the Apocalypse, in a living personality, and the idea involved in it was there realized in all its completeness, it became necessary, when tracing out the perspective of the church’s history amid the imperfections of a present life, and the defections of an unfaithful and apostate spirit, to divide between the head and the members. This was done by choosing the female side of humanity for the symbol of the church, viewed in connection with the bonds, obligations, and prospects of the marriage vow. The real church, therefore, is the woman clothed with the sun—the chaste virgin without spot or wrinkle, pure and glorious, therefore fit to be the Lamb’s wife, and to share with him in the blessings and honours of His kingdom. But there is another woman, a harlot, who stands related to the true church precisely as an unfaithful and profligate spouse to one of unshaken probity and worth: not, therefore, a simply unrighteous and wicked party, but such a party with a Christian profession; a church degenerate, faithless, sunk in the mire of worldliness and sin. Such, precisely, is the sense in which this symbol is employed in Old Testament prophecy; and in designating the false and corrupt church a harlot, or mother of abominations, St John only followed a precedent that had been given in a multitude of prophetical passages (Isaiah 57:3-5; Jeremiah 2:1-37, Jeremiah 3:1-25, Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 23:1-49, Hosea 1:1-11, Hosea 2:1-23, etc.) There the terms adulteress, harlot, or whore, with scarcely an exception, denote the backslidden and apostate community of Israel. Our Lord also makes a similar use of the image (Matthew 12:39, Matthew 16:4; Mark 8:38). And in the earlier part of the Apocalypse, the incipient evil in this respect, the declension that had begun in certain churches, by falling into the corrupt ways and practices of the world, is characterized as whoredom and the committing of fornication (Revelation 2:14, Revelation 2:20, Revelation 2:22); as, on the other hand, the true and faithful church is afterwards represented as a company, who retained their virgin-purity (Revelation 14:4), while immediately in contrast to them, the faithless portion is brought into view as the great whore (Revelation 14:8). So that both the general usage in prophecy, and the usage in particular portions of this book, can leave no reasonable ground to doubt as to the sense meant to be conveyed by the figurative expression. (It is marvellous, and can only be accounted for by the perverting bias of a false hypothesis, how, in the face of this whole stream of prophetical usage, Hengstenberg (following the Catholic, and a few continental Protestant writers), should understand by the whore merely the worldly Romish state, and by her fornication the arts with which she drew the nations of the earth under her sway. For any appearance of support to this view, he can only refer to the two passages, Isaiah 23:15-18; Nahum 3:4, where the figure is used similarly of Tyre and Nineveh. But two such isolated passages can be of no force in determining the usage in a book, which, as to its language, is an echo of that of prophecy in general. But were it otherwise doubtful, the connection in this book itself, between the whore and the woman, renders it certain that the former can only denote a corruption of what is denoted by the latter.) This view is also confirmed by the descriptive signature emblazoned on the forehead of this mystical woman: “Upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” The designation of Babylon points to the essentially heathen, ungodly character of the power represented, and its hostile relation to the true church of God; with the further indication (which is more expressly brought out in Revelation 11:18), that it was to have a seat and concentration of influence in a modern city (that, namely, of Rome) similar to what the Chaldean monarchy once had in Babylon. If this, however, had stood alone, we should only have had presented to us the antichristian and worldly character of the power, without anything to imply that it had become such by a process of declension and apostacy. But a single word, and that the very first in the inscription, proclaims this; it intimates that the really Babylonish character of the power was so far from being the ostensible one, that a spiritual discernment should be needed to perceive it. The term mystery, in the quite uniform usage of Scripture, denotes something which lies beyond the ken of the merely natural apprehension, and is revealed only to such as have the mind and Spirit of God. So it is used frequently by the apostle Paul (Romans 16:25; 1 Corinthians 2:7-10; Ephesians 3:3, Ephesians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 15:51; and by St John himself, first at the commencement of this book, Revelation 1:20, where the explanation of the seven candlesticks and the seven stars is called a mystery, because disclosing in connection with them something greater and deeper than the bodily eye perceived; and again at Revelation 10:7, where the work of God’s providence towards the church and the world is styled a mystery, plainly from its containing so much that lay above and beyond the reach of the natural understanding, and which could only be learned by special revelation from above. Now, there had been no mystery in this sense, had the power here referred to been merely a worldly kingdom, opposing and persecuting the church of God, and as such called Babylon from its resemblance to the old heathen power of that name; the commonest understanding might have perceived the meaning and the propriety of the designation. But there was a mystery in the strictest sense, if the power so designated professed to be the very reverse of what the designation implied; if by a spirit of degeneracy and unfaithfulness it had, while still retaining its claim to spirituality, sunk into a condition of the grossest earthliness and corruption. In that case there would be needed the wisdom that comes from above, the hidden wisdom of God’s Spirit, to look through the external appearance, and discern the real state and character underneath. To call this power, therefore, in connection with the appellation Babylon, a mystery, was quite of a piece with calling Jerusalem in our Lord’s time, and in after times the corrupt and apostate church spiritually, Sodom and Egypt (Revelation 11:8): it denoted a character the reverse to the spiritual mind that it should seem to the carnal. And when along with this indication of a reality contrary to the appearance and profession, we find coupled the epithet of “mother of harlots and abominations,” the evidence is complete, that a degenerate power of the worst description, a false, apostate, corrupt and worldly church, must have been the kind of power represented in the image. Very striking, also, and still farther confirmatory of what has been said, is the manner in which the image is introduced, and the place and appearance ascribed to it. The apocalyptist represents himself as carried in the spirit, for the purpose of beholding this sight, into a wilderness (Revelation 17:3). Had it been the worldly dominant monarchy of Rome, which was to be exhibited in vision, this had certainly been a strange place to be taken to see it; the marts of commerce or the conspicuous heights would have been the more fitting scenes. But it perfectly accords with the view we have given of the subject, and is no doubtful link of connection between the present representation and a former one. The prophet had left the true church, as symbolized by the woman that was clothed with the sun, in the wilderness, whither she had fled for safety, and whither, also, she was followed by the dragon with his flood-like hordes. We already saw, in what is said at Revelation 12:17, of a remnant only of her seed being said to keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus, evidence of a certain success having been won by the adversary in the efforts he was thus going to put forth against her. And now, when the prophet is again borne in the Spirit to a wilderness, instead of seeing the woman he had seen in such a place before, he beholds a woman, indeed (there is no article), but one so unlike the former, that the name only remained: one so far from being all radiant with celestial brightness and glory, like the other, that she was immersed in the foulness and degradation of earth; sitting on a scarlet-coloured beast, and herself arrayed in purple and scarlet-colour, decked with gold and precious stones and pearls—the best, no doubt, of a worldly attire, but still all of the earth, earthy. While the woman is so different, the beast is the same as before—the same seven-headed, ten-horned monster, full of a spirit of blasphemy (Revelation 17:3, comp. with Revelation 13:1); in plain terms, the worldly antichristian power in its last great embodiment; so that a woman sitting on this, must be a church sunk in spirit to the world’s level, yet in power rising to the ascendant over it, and having it for her leading ambition to direct and rule in the worldly sphere. But of necessity she could only do this by entering into the beast’s hostility to the kingdom of God, and warring with the real members of that kingdom, who should hold the faith and testimony of Jesus. Hence the woman appeared also “drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Revelation 17:6). This explains why the prophet wondered at the spectacle, even with a great admiration! Had it been merely a heathen power, or one that stood altogether apart from the things of God’s kingdom which he saw thus represented before him, there had been no great reason for astonishment; the ungodliness, corruption, and persecuting violence exhibited were precisely what might have been expected. But such a transformation—a power spiritual in its origin, and claiming by its appearance still to possess a spiritual character—for such a power to have sunk so low, and come to act so atrocious a part, might well awake the most profound astonishment. It was the same thing substantially, but with far greater aggravations, which, in Old Testament times, led the prophets to call both upon heaven and earth to express amazement as at an unheard-of enormity (Isaiah 1:2; Jeremiah 2:10, Jeremiah 17:13). (Warburton, in his rapid but vigorous sketch of the change indicated in the text, though dwelling rather too exclusively on political relations, has noticed an alteration in respect to the Beast, in its present as compared with its former appearance, which, perhaps, should not have been overlooked: “Religion had now exchanged those divine gifts and graces, with which she was first adorned by the Holy Spirit, for worldly wealth and grandeur, to which she had arrived by coming to a good understanding with her old enemy the Red Dragon, or CIVIL POWER: of whom having received the trappings of Sovereignty, she soon tore from him the sovereignty itself. A revolution in her fortunes well expressed by her mounting and riding the Scarlet-coloured Beast, the same with the Red Dragon, as appears from the like number of heads and horns bestowed upon the monster under each denomination. Nay, to mark this identity the stronger, the crowns which were on the seven heads of the Red Dragon, while he was Sovereign, and a persecutor of the Virgin, are no longer found on the seven heads of the Scarlet-coloured Beast, now deprived of Sovereignty, and become subject to the Scarlet Whore: who, having got the Beast, or degenerated civil power at this advantage, rides him at her pleasure; and like another Circe, gives him of her golden cup, full of the wine of her abominations, and filthiness of fornication, while she herself drinks the blood of the Saints. The kings of the earth (says the Prophet) commit fornication with the whore; that is, in this impure mixture of the two powers, civil and spiritual, both become polluted; the civil uses religion for an engine of state, to support tyranny; and the spiritual gets invested with the rights of the Magistrate, to enable her to persecute.”—(Discourse on 2 Peter 1:20-21).) The result, then, which must here be arrived at is manifest; every essential feature in the symbolical delineation forces on us the conclusion, that it is a fallen and degenerate church which is delineated—a power claiming the character, but opposed to the spirit and interests of the real church—worldly, temporising, persecuting. Nor only so; but it was to be also a power most extensive in its dominion, and preponderating in its influence; for the woman appeared sitting on many waters, which are explained to mean “peoples and multitudes, and nations and tongues” (Revelation 17:15); so that she should seem to want little of a complete universality. It is the great apostacy of St Paul come to its perfection, the antichrist in its full development, and well-nigh in total possession of the earth which is the inheritance of Christ and his church. It is itself the church become worldly, promising to those who imbibe its spirit a crown without a cross, a pathway to glory without suffering in the flesh and ceasing from sin; presenting to them, not the Lord’s cup of manifold temptations and resistance unto blood against sin; but the golden cup of fleshly indulgence and foul abominations (Revelation 17:4); not operating as the light of the world, and making itself felt throughout the earth as a preserving salt, but, on the contrary, corrupting it by the teaching of false doctrines, the sanctification of abuses, and the hatred and scorn exhibited toward the faith and purity of the saints (Revelation 19:2). If it is asked, where such a church is to be found? we cannot hesitate to reply, In that church, which in the nature and extent of its power and influence became in the course of a few generations after the apostle’s time the city in another form which reigned over the kings of the earth (Revelation 17:18)—in the church pre-eminently of Papal Home. For there it is that the essential elements of the antichristian apostacy, worldliness of spirit, corruption of doctrine, licentiousness of manners, hatred and oppression of the truth, have had, not as by stealth, or in spite of a better faith, but formally and on principle, their great and most systematic operation: there, that the queen-like elevation of Babylonish pride and security has been most conspicuously manifested: there, in a word, that the more distinctive characteristics of the Apocalyptic whore have found their most complete and palpable exemplification. When inquisition is made for the blood of saints and for those who have the mark of the beast, there can be no doubt, among such as know the mind of God, that they will be found in the communion of Rome. But while we thus hold the charge to be applicable to the Romish church, primarily and peculiarly, we by no means think it should be laid there, as it too commonly is, exclusively. The Eastern church, which does not differ essentially from that of Rome, must also be included; and much, too, that is to be found under the name of Protestantism. This Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, like the book of God’s revelation generally, is pregnant with great principles of good and evil, which were to find their application far and wide in the coming future; and no more in regard to the antichrist, than to Christ Himself, is it to be said, Lo, here he is, or, Lo, there, as if he were to be confined within some local territory, or pent up in the forms of an external worship. God is no respecter of persons, nor a creator of artificial distinctions. Wherever the symptoms of an antichristian spirit, or of a grovelling and worldly condition, discover themselves in the church, there, we say with our Lord, in a like case, the carcase is, and there, also, the eagles shall be gathered together. The assurances which are sometimes held out to the Protestants of this land and America, of safety from the doom of antichrist—because, forsooth, “we never formed, or do not now form, a street of the mystical Babylon,” or because we never actually “shed the blood of the martyrs”—sound to our ears very much like the flattering unction of those of old, who deemed that, as they had not themselves killed the prophets, so they should not inherit the condemnation of them who did, or of those who sheltered themselves under the thought of being Abraham’s seed, as enough to screen them from the judgments denounced against their sins. Our Lord showed himself to be of a different mind when he charged the one class with being children of the devil and the other with being in danger of the accumulated retribution due for all the righteous blood that had been shed in bygone generations of the world; and of like mind also were the ancient prophets, who so often identified the condition and doom of Israel with those of the heathen (Ezekiel 16:1-63; Amos 9:7-8, etc.) In the realities of the world’s history, as in the visions of the Divine seer, there are two, and only two, kinds of Christianity—the false and the true, the worldly and the spiritual. The one is found in those who, in their state and character, correspond essentially with the symbol of the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, or, which is all one, possess what is commended in the seven Asiatic churches; the other is found in the merely outer court worshippers, who have not the faith that overcomes the world, whose citizenship is not in heaven, who mind earthly things. All who are not of the Lamb’s wife, and related to the New Jerusalem, are necessarily of Babylon, and must share in her inheritance of evil. On this point there is much truth in the following remarks of a writer, to whom we hare often already had occasion to refer, and which we the rather quote, as they exhibit an aspect of the matter too much overlooked by writers in this country:—“The whore is at bottom as old as the woman, just as the visible and the invisible church have scarcely ever been absolutely identical. There was a time for Israel of first betrothed love, of which Jeremiah speaks (Jeremiah 2:2-3), the time of the departure from Egypt, and the beginning of their sojourn in the wilderness. So, too, was there a time of first love for the Christian church, the apostolic age, especially in its earlier periods, which are also represented in Revelation 11:8, Revelation 12:6, Revelation 12:14, as those of Egypt, and of the entrance into the wilderness. But the whorish way very soon began. Israel, as a people, was, in general, inconstant; and the small company of genuine believing Israelites, the woman, was at all times only as the kernel concealed in the shell. This is indicated in the Apocalypse itself, since it exhibits the whore as sitting upon all the seven worldly kingdoms, thereby extending the idea embodied in her, as it does also that of the woman, to the times of the Old Testament. The prophets describe at large, in particular in Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 23:1-49, how shamefully Israel committed fornication with the worldly kingdoms, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon. The same story is resumed in the New Testament. In Revelation 12:1-17 a representation is given of the first period of Christianity, when apostate Israel had become the whore, and the young Christian community was the woman—that time of first love among Christians, when the church, as a whole, stood so faithful to her Lord. But whorish ways soon pressed in upon the Christian church herself, so that the general aspect this presents, as seen in Revelation 17:1-18, no longer looks like the woman, but the whore, the great Babylon, in which the people of the Lord (equivalent to the woman), were concealed (Revelation 18:4). We are met here by a fundamental view of the Bible, which is of importance for a right understanding of all prophecy and history. God has granted to humanity at large, for its development, the two essential communal institutions of state and church—the latter in a twofold form, as it first existed in Old Testament times, with people and state bound together, then in the New Testament with a spirit of liberty. State and church are noble gifts of God, the one a gift of nature, a creation gift; the other a special gift of grace, the offspring of revelation. But these divine ordinances reach their proper end only in the case of a small number of men. Taken generally, they are deformed and desecrated by sin. States fall away to the manner of the beast, churches to that of the whore. Still, however, they continue to exist under the Divine forbearance till their purpose is fulfilled; and under the protection of the state, under the superintendence of the church, under the pressure even of their mal-administration, an elect people, the chaste and faithful spouse of Christ, are gathered. For this kernel the beast and whore serve as a shell, as a scaffolding for the true temple. And when the kernel has fully grown, when the building is finished, then shall the shell fall off, and the scaffolding be dashed in pieces; and every one who does not belong to the temple must have his doom among the rubbish that is to be destroyed. So will it be found then, when the judgment alights upon Babylon, and the word is heard, Go ye out of her, my people. And so was it when the judgment fell upon the people of the old covenant, from among the ruins of Israel and Jerusalem came forth the young Christian community. . . This absolute separation, which the Holy One is to make, between light and darkness, between the kingdom of God and the world, between the woman and the beast, appears strange to us, especially in the present age. Hence do we find it so hard to understand the Apocalypse. The key to it (according to Revelation 5:9) is the cross, through which the world is crucified to us, and we to the world. The fundamental error, however, in our Christian theory and practice, is the mingling together of God’s kingdom and the world, which the Holy Scriptures stigmatise as whoredom. We, therefore, cannot understand the Divine zeal against it. We want the clear, spiritual discernment for the sins of the church and of Christians—we want it for our own sins. Hence we think the thunder-words of Revelation 17:1-18 and Revelation 18:1-24 cannot be for the church, they must be meant for worldly states. Ah! had we but the eye with which prophets, apostles, and Jesus himself, the friend of sinners, looked upon the church of their times! The Pharisees were, confessedly, not so very bad a people; they had, in their own way, a zeal for divine things. And yet with what terrible severity does the Lord rebuke them! The prophets lived, in great part, under good kings, such as Hezekiah and Josiah; and yet what powerful calls to repentance, and threatenings of judgment, do we hear from their lips! The seductive and heretical teachers, with whom the apostles had to do, were far from being of so dangerous and fundamentally erroneous a kind as those of the present day; and yet with what words do Paul and John, Peter and Jude, testify against them! Sin is, in God’s eye, a much viler thing than it is in man’s. But its character is vilest in those on whom God has bestowed His grace, who possess and know God’s word, and are called to serve Him. The driving after the world in the church is the most worldly and the most profane. Therefore, in its descriptions of Babylon, the Apocalypse combines the main features, not only of Israel’s sins, but those also of the heathen, as they are found in the prophets. Therefore it pursues at greater length, the representation of the whore’s abominations and judgment, than of the beast’s. Therefore is the whole section, which begins with Revelation 17:1-18, presented under the aspect of the judgment of the great whore. Therefore, finally, is there even in heaven a quite peculiar joy over her fall more than over that of the beast (Revelation 18:20, Revelation 19:5).” (Auberlon Der Prophet Daniel und die Oflenbarung Johannis. Page 287, sq.) § 4. The Antichrist of the Apocalypse in regard to its Overthrow and Final Doom We pass now to this fall itself—the judgment to be executed on the apostate and worldly church. Here it is necessary to mark the order of the issues described, the succession, as well as the connection, of God’s dealings with the guilty parties. These are altogether three, the beast, the false prophet, and the whore; all of them so many wicked parodies and usurpations of the Divine in Christ, and his true church. And they are all so far connected together that they have one and the same worldly foundation, one and the same carnal interest at heart; so that it is not possible to conceive of a complete destruction of one of them, which should not involve also the destruction of the others. Yet in the representation given of the final issues respecting them, there is a marked prominence and priority in the case of the false church. Let us mark the successive stages of the process, as seen in vision by the prophet. First, after it has been said, that the kings or kingdoms into which the Human monarchy was to fall, and which were to constitute the seventh phase of the beastly power, should have given their power and strength to the beast, it is intimated in what is plainly a general announcement (Revelation 17:14), that “they shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” This brief statement covers, we may say, the whole of what follows, to the end of Revelation 19:1-21; for it is only with the close of this chapter that we have the victory of the Lamb over the kings and the beast, brought to an absolute termination. The whole, therefore, of the intervening part must be regarded merely as the filling up of the picture, briefly sketched in the verse above quoted; it presents in detail the process of overcoming the adverse powers. Then, secondly, in this vanquishing process, the whore is the party that occupies both the first and the most conspicuous place. It is said, at Revelation 17:16, “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, shall hate whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God put it into their hearts to do His mind, and to do one mind (so it literally is), and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.” There was to be a certain unity of sentiment and action among the kingdoms, after they had passed through the stage of a temporary conversion (when the beast seemed as if it were killed), which should show itself in their giving their kingdom to the beast, or exhibiting in their general principles and behaviour much of the beastly nature. And they should do this till the words of God should be fulfilled—but only, it is implied, till then; and when the divine purpose required it, they should turn their mind against the whore, and utterly abolish her existence. The remarkable thing here is, that it is not said they changed their relation to the beast, while they so entirely changed it to the whore: the destruction of the false and apostate church, which had played into the hands of the godless, worldly power, and leant for support on this, as this again on that, is represented as taking place by itself, while still the conflict between the kingdoms and Christ, if begun, was by no means concluded. Lastly, after the description of Babylon’s downfal, or the infliction of judgment and ruin on the false church, and the shouts of triumph raised over her in heaven and earth (detailed at length in Revelation 18:1-24 and Revelation 19:1-6) comes an account of the prosecution of the war with the kings or kingdoms of the earth. In this representation, the scene is transferred from earth to heaven; for it concerns Christ and the true church, who all along, as to position and character, vital power and influence, have been contemplated as belonging to the heavenly sphere, in contrast to the inhabiters of the earth, who belong to the beast and his agencies. The Divine King of Zion, therefore, who in this heavenly sphere has the direction of all the power and the instrumentalities connected with it, appears foremost in the field—he goes forth in battle array, with many crowns on his head (the symbol of complete and universal sovereignty), and in the character of the word of God, with the sharp sword (that, namely, of the word) going out of his mouth. The name and weapon alike proclaim him to be a spiritual warrior, who was to prevail through that word of truth, which is the grand instrument and manifestation of him as the Personal Word. But he does not go thus alone; the armies of heaven follow him on their white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean; in other words, the representatives of the true church, spoken of a little before, as the Lamb’s bride, arrayed in fine linen, which is the righteousness of the saints (Revelation 19:8); and the same, doubtless, that were mentioned in Revelation 17:14, as the called, chosen, and faithful band that appeared with Christ as the leader of victory. It is not Christ directly, therefore, but Christ in and through His faithful church, by whom this battle was to be waged, and the victory won. His personal appearance to the eye of the prophet no more necessitates His visible intermingling in the actual conflict, than His opening the seven-sealed book bespoke his personal manifestation among men, to announce or perform the things it contained; or than the appearance of an angel flying through heaven with the everlasting gospel (in Revelation 14:6) necessarily implied the outward spectacle of such an apparition. What was seen here by the evangelist in the heavenly sphere, like everything else of a like kind in this book, was but a representation in vision of what was actually to take place in the earthly sphere,—a representation of it as going to be accomplished by virtue of a power, and through means of an instrumentality, that hold not of earth, but of heaven—that belong truly and properly to God. It informs us that a living and faithful church, sustained by the presence, and replenished with the power and spirit of Jesus, shall rise to the ascendant as the false and apostate church goes down. With the Lord upon her side giving effect to her spiritual armoury and her work of righteousness, the powers of darkness and corruption shall be driven away; and the beast and the false prophet, with all their misguided followers, shall share substantially the same fate with Babylon; that is, their interest shall perish, and the saints shall enter on their millennial reign of blessedness and peace, holding undisturbed possession of the inheritance which they have at length vindicated from the serpent’s brood, and converted into a habitation of righteousness. We have said, that there is nothing here necessarily implying the visible and personal manifestation of Christ upon the earth. But neither, of course, is it absolutely excluded. Whether he shall actually appear for the decision of this conflict must depend upon the general question whether the Divine economy shall then have reached such a stage of advancement as will render such an appearance fit and proper. It rather belongs, therefore, to the subject of our last section, where we shall have to treat of the kingdom of Christ, in relation to His own second coming, and the nature of the millennium. The questions, which here more immediately call for consideration have respect to the kind of judgment to be executed upon the doomed parties, and the manner of its execution. What, precisely, is its nature? Is it simply the conversion of the world to right thoughts and feelings respecting the things of God? Or is it something of a more outward and fleshly character? And, whether the one or the other, how should the judgment upon the whore come to be represented as done by the kingdoms, while these kingdoms still appear to be in opposition to Christ, and to be subdued by Him only at a later period? To refer to the latter point first, we think it would be a hasty, and perhaps fake conclusion from the place given to the judgment upon Babylon, were we to infer (as is very commonly done by writers in this country, also by Auberlen), that Popery and other forms of a corrupt Christianity are certainly to be repudiated by the kingdoms of the world before the work ofconversion has made much progress amongst them, and that a considerable interval may elapse, possibly for the church a very trying and perilous interval, between the doom of the false church, and the doom of the worldly power itself, or the destruction of the beast and the false prophet. It may be so; on such a point we would not speak with confidence. It certainly is not a new thing in the history of God’s dealings, for the world, even in its unconverted state, to be made the instrument of punishing and humbling to the dust a corrupt and apostate church. Such was signally the case at three great epochs of the past—when Assyria acted as the rod of God’s anger in scattering backsliding Israel, when Babylon led captive the people of Judah, and when, in the last and worst stage of Jewish impenitence and guilt, the Romans took away their place and nation. In accordance with a great principle in the Divine government the Lord in these, as in many similar cases, made the people’s sin their punishment; the staff on which they unrighteously leaned pierced their hand; the same world through which the old serpent beguiled them into unfaithfulness to God, turned against them with the fury and might of an Apollyon. And in one sense, we have no doubt, the same principle will ever be exemplified anew, in so far as the same course is pursued. But there may be different modes of accomplishing it; and it may not be necessary, that the world, when employed in the work of retribution, should always remain in precisely the same state as it was, when used as an instrument and occasion of sin. This must depend on circumstances; and manifestly the circumstances in respect to the church’s relation to the world at the period of the ancient judgments referred to, differed very materially from those which belong to the carnal and apostate church of modern times. In the one case the two parties stood formally apart from each other, and the relation, however close, was still only political and outward; in the other there is an actual amalgamation, the church having in its degeneracy given itself to the service of the world, and the world in its several kingdoms identified itself with the church. So that from the very nature of the case the execution of a work of judgment now upon the church by the world must involve much more than a mere change of external relationship; it must imply a revolution in the world’s own sentiments on the subject of religion; since what, in this respect, it embraced before, it is now to hate and repudiate. Here again, it is necessary, not to look merely into the agreements between Old and New Testament things, but to take account also of the differences; and especially to bear in mind, how very greatly more every thing in connection with the affairs of God’s kingdom has come to assume an inward and diffusive character, than it formerly possessed. It is also to be borne in mind, that in the pictorial delineations of prophecy, the moral element often discovers itself, even in the mode of representation adopted; and that to give prominence to this, the place of priority in judgment is sometimes assigned to the party which has been the worst in guilt, though it may not actually be the one that has first to fall. Thus, in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, the great stone is represented as smiting the image first upon the toes, and proceeding upwards till the whole was crushed to atoms, the head last; although, in the reality, the order was the reverse; and the last is placed first in the vision, merely because it seemed ripest for destruction, and stood most prominent in the eye of the mind. These considerations ought to be taken into account here, not as of themselves disproving the notion of a priority in point of time in the world’s execution of judgment upon Babylon, before it is itself either judged or converted; but as showing the necessity of cautious and careful inquiry in determining the probable sequence of such events. Indeed, it might seem to accord best with the nature of the case, viewed in respect to its singular complexity and interconnected relationships, that no precise order should be marked out definitely beforehand, as necessary or certain in every case to be followed. Amid the prevailing unity, there could not fail to be a manifold diversity in the degrees of apostacy and guilt adhering, at different-times and places, to the false church; and there naturally would be a corresponding diversity in the way and manner in which the destined judgment should take effect. History, too, confirms the impression; for it shows, in the partial judgments already executed upon the apostacy, a very considerable diversity, both in respect to the relative time, and the precise manner of its accomplishment. In many communities at the Reformation, it was through a process of enlightenment and conversion, that the world was brought to hate the whore, and shake itself free from her abominations. But in the France of last century, this work of hatred and judgment was carried on, while the kingdom gave its strength and power even more than ever to the beast; it had light enough from its own oracles to repudiate a false Christianity, but none to receive and cherish the true; and so, we cannot doubt, would it be with many papal regions of the present day, if circumstances should allow them to embody their opinions in action. In Spain and Italy it is much more the worldly power of the kingdoms, than the false church in them, which has hitherto been smitten with judgment. Such ascertained diversities in the past may readily be supposed to extend into the future; and if so, then sometimes the worldliness and corruption of the church, sometimes those of the kingdoms shall appear to be the first to be judged and cast out. But, in truth, from the connection subsisting between the two, a complete work of judgment cannot be conceived to take place, without both being alike involved in it. Any priority that may be practicable, can belong only to the beginning, not to the consummation of the process. On the one side, the existence of the whore implies the existence of the beast, or the ungodly state of the world; and, on the other, so long as the beast has a horn left, human nature being what it is, the whore will find means somehow to hang by it. Accordingly, in the Apocalyptic representation, nothing of a very definite kind in this respect is indicated. While the judgment upon Babylon has a fearful prominence assigned to it, and is brought to a close before the war against the kings of the earth, as identified with the beast and the false prophet, is particularly related, still the notice of this war has so far the precedence given to it, that it is cursorily mentioned, even before the kings are said to have turned against the whore (Revelation 17:14). It may, therefore, be supposed to have, at least, commenced, and made some progress before the period of Babylon’s destruction. At the same time, if the war itself is essentially a spiritual one—if its grand characteristic and object is to stand in overcoming their hostility to the cause of Christ, and bringing them from the service and interest of Satan to those of the living God—if this is the nature of the conflict indicated, and the victory to be won, then, in the very nature of things, the doom of Babylon, that is, the general hatred and repudiation of a false and corrupt Christianity, must always, more or less, precede the subversion of the worldly spirit itself. All experience testifies, how much easier it is to detect and abhor hypocrisy, than heartily to embrace the truth—to abjure the pretensions of a false religion, than to become dead to the world, and alive to the interests of God’s spiritual kingdom. In the social as well as the personal sphere, there will naturally be some interval between the two—not unfrequently a very considerable one, and one attended with struggles and dangers peculiar to itself. Nor, when the general course of events, and the particular tendencies of the present age are duly considered—especially when it is reflected what advances the world is making in science, literature, and philosophy, how, in every department, the knowledge connected with its own earth-sprung culture is growing, and rising continually nearer in its assimilation to the Divine; can it be deemed otherwise than probable, that light may very generally be diffused, sufficient to beget a hatred of Popery, and the false forms of Christianity, while the idolatry of self and the world holds its place as before, or even waxes bolder for a time in its pretensions. In the negative part of the process, profane science and learning may do the part they have often done already; they may expose and reject the falsehood, corruption, and hypocrisy, which enter into the religion of an apostate and spurious Christianity, and thereby prepare the way for its formal abolition. But higher elements will assuredly be required to complete the process. Worldly negations can never wholly uproot what has so many grounds of support in the constitution of society, and the condition of the human heart. And only the reception of that divine truth, which reunites the soul to God, and effectually expels the world from the heart, will be sufficient to work the final extirpation of the antichrist. So that the judgment of the whore can only in part precede that of the beast and the false prophet, or of the world itself in its self-exalting and God-opposing tendencies. They have been too closely united in their lives to be in their deaths far divided. But is the war, with its final issues on the side of Christ’s cause and kingdom, of the kind referred to? Is this great conflict to be carried on and decided mainly by the use of spiritual weapons, and not rather (as is very commonly conceived) by some obtrusive and overwhelming displays of divine power and glory? Is it not by the compulsion of resistless might, rather than by moral suasion, that the evil is to be driven out, and the field won for the saints? To answer such questions, we must call in the aid of collateral considerations, as there is nothing in the representation of St John, which can fairly be regarded as absolutely decisive on the subject. He distinctly enough intimates, that the judgment of one of the obnoxious parties—the repudiation and downfal of Babylon—certainly one grand object and result of the war, is to be mainly accomplished by the instrumentality of the kingdoms, which had formerly given her their homage; by a change of mind on their part, or a healthier tone of thought and feeling, the judgment written is to be enforced. And if so much thus, one naturally asks, why not more? why not the whole? Yet possibly, it might be wrong to extend the inference so far, as the means capable to a large extent of subverting the false, might fail in establishing the true; while they may go far to procure the fall of a corrupt church, they yet may come short of reforming an ungodly world. But there are not wanting considerations to show, that the spiritual element is chiefly to prevail in the matter, and that all else can be little more than incidental and subsidiary. First of all, the very nature of the conflict points in this direction. It is a conflict with the error and hypocrisy, the selfishness and corruption of the world; and these are to be driven from the souls of men, and cast into the bottomless abyss, not by any mechanical process, or external emanations even of divine glory, but by the truth of Christ established in the heart and conscience. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith”—the only victory that is real and enduring. Then, secondly, the victory achieved by Christ himself, and the judgment executed by Him directly upon the adversary, was entirely of this description; it was obtained exclusively by the manifestation of the truth of God, and, in doing and suffering, fulfilling His righteous will. Now, in the progress and issues of the divine kingdom, everything takes its impress and direction from the personal Saviour; and the conflict which is to be waged by the church in the world, in so far as it is properly maintained, is but the reflex of that, in which Christ has himself engaged and overcome. It would be to quit the higher field for a lower, and make the spiritual give way to the carnal, were the church to be indebted for her success chiefly to the application of external force or physical suffering. She triumphs far more nobly, and executes judgment greatly more thorough and complete, when, by the aid of spiritual appliances, she causes the truth to be felt in its proper force and magnitude. So is it also in nature: “The light in its silent, beneficent operations, is far mightier than the lightning, notwithstanding the roar that follows it.” It was the weak element in the conquests won, and the judgments wrought upon the ungodliness of the world through Israel of old, that they had in them so much of what was merely outward, so little of the Spirit’s internal power of conviction to penetrate the heart, and sky its enmity to God in the root. And it is only by having what was then comparatively wanted—by the beneficent operation of the Spirit of truth and holiness in the church and through her instrumentality, not by calling down fire from heaven, or shewing wonders from the deep, that the effectual overthrow may be expected of the adversary’s dominion in the world. Thirdly, there is the remarkable circumstance mentioned in Revelation 14:6-8, of the appearance of an angel (emblem, beyond doubt, of the church in her active ministrations) speeding his way with the gospel among all nations, and calling on them to fear and worship God—and this as the immediate precursor of Babylon’s doom, carrying in its train the downfal of the great apostacy. For immediately on that being done, the cry is reported to have been heard, that Babylon was fallen. What can this action import, but that the church was to look back for the driving back of the evil that oppressed her, not to any miraculous interposition in her behalf, but to the revival of that testimony, which had been so shamefully abandoned in the apostacy, and the virtue of that blood, which had been so much buried out of sight? She must grasp anew, and with fresh energy display the old banner of the faith, that was delivered to the saints, and in God’s name make war with all the powers of darkness and the forms of corruption. Were there but faith for this among the people of God—faith to realize, that the title to the inheritance is already won for them, and that it is their calling and destiny to make it good against all opposition, who can tell what results might be accomplished! what spring- times of life and blessing might yet burst forth upon the world! That in the circumstances in which the world is placed with so many powers of evil working in it, and forms of corruption established on every side, the struggle may be long and arduous, is only what may be expected. And there may also be expected in its progress many interminglings of external judgment; political convulsions, desolating wars and tumults, which the fermentings of opinion and the operation of the truth themselves will naturally tend to bring on; and besides these, perhaps, also pestilences, famines, fearful troubles, and disturbances in nature, to discomfit the worshippers of nature, and drive them to seek for other means and resources than it can supply. Nay, it is far from improbable, that before the world is cured of the distempers that rage in it, and brought heartily to embrace and carry out the principles of the gospel of Christ, times of uproar and distress may have to be appointed for it, such as have not been witnessed in the past; such times as are spoken of by our Lord, when all things shall seem pregnant with evil and involved in gloom—when it shall be as if the sun were darkened, and the moon did not give her light, and the stars dropt from the firmament, and the powers of the heavens were shaken. We need not be at all surprised, if such a time should come in the course of this great conflict; and especially, when it is drawing toward its close, and the adversary knows that his time is short. Though the battle by that time may have been in great part won, yet he may not quit his hold without more fiercely than ever rending his victim. And how but amid great agitations and convulsive movements, can the basis be laid of a new and permanently good order of things? The turmoil, however, shall not last; the days of evil shall be shortened; and whatever there may be connected with them of external appliances, whether in the higher or the lower sphere, can only come to second and enforce the grand agency of a living church with her armour of righteousness and the Spirit of grace making it effectual. May we not appeal for confirmation to the history of the past? What great deliverance has ever been wrought for the kingdom of God apart from this spiritual agency? What did even our Lord’s personal appearance and astounding miracles effect, compared with the showers of grace and blessing that came down at Pentecost, and after it? Or compare the spiritual work of the Reformation with the outburst of the French Revolution. Viewed in an external aspect, this last event, no doubt, with its convulsive throes and fiery ebullitions, its merciless retributions for abused power, its confiscations of church property, and summary proceedings against a corrupt clergy, and a superstitious worship, had most the appearance of the execution of a work of judgment on apostate Rome:—And yet how little ultimately did it effect compared with the other? The Reformation struck less violently, but it struck far more powerfully; it was a blow at the root. The secret of its strength lay in resorting so little to physical force, and so much to divine truth and principle. It was distinguished only for the free and copious use made in it of the instrumentality heralded by the angelic precursor of Babylon’s fall—the preaching of the everlasting gospel. On this account pre-eminently it proved a season of refreshment to the world, scattered everywhere the seeds of faith and love, undermined the strongholds of error and corruption, and breathed a healthier tone through the whole framework of society. This, therefore, is the kind of work, refreshing times like these are the operations, on which more especially the issue of the conflict is to turn: for them the long-suffering of God waits, suspending, that they may proceed, the time for the final executions of judgment; for them the risen Saviour continues to abide within the veil, that He may dispense of the Spirit’s fulness of life and blessing, to help forward the cause of the world’s regeneration. And for the church, in any of her members or branches, to stand aloof from such operations—to neglect the word of God and prayer, to allow abuses to remain unrectified, to lay down her testimony against prevailing corruptions, to leave unoccupied any available channel, at home or abroad, for shedding forth the light of the gospel, and advancing the interests of righteousness—for the church so to act, in the hope that the work, which might and should be done by her, shall somehow be done for her by an outward and judicial display of divine power, were but to prove herself unworthy of her calling, and to continue in sin, not that grace, but (still worse) that iniquity first, and then judgment may abound. Section III. Supplementary: Containing an Outline of the General Plan of the Apocalypse, from Chap. 5 to the Close of Chap. 19, with Reference More Especially to the Distinctive Character and Relative Order of the Three Great Series of the Seals, the Trumpets, and the Vials 1. The parts of the Apocalypse more particularly referred to in the two preceding sections, are those which indicate generally the character and relations, the dangers, struggles, and triumphs of the church, from the planting of Christianity to the introduction of the Millennium. They are comprised mainly in the chapters which reach from the beginning of Revelation 11:1-19, Revelation 12:1-17, Revelation 13:1-18, Revelation 14:1-20, Revelation 15:1-8, Revelation 16:1-21, Revelation 17:1-18, Revelation 18:1-24, Revelation 19:1-21. But there are other things also in these chapters, the actions especially of the vials, in part also of the trumpets, and the times and seasons mentioned, of which no special notice has yet been taken. Before proceeding, therefore, to the consideration of the topics embraced in the three concluding chapters of the Apocalypse, we propose to attempt a brief synopsis and explanation of the Apocalyptic scheme, as contained in Revelation 5:1-14, Revelation 6:1-17, Revelation 7:1-17, Revelation 8:1-13, Revelation 9:1-21, Revelation 10:1-11, Revelation 11:1-19, Revelation 12:1-17, Revelation 13:1-18, Revelation 14:1-20, Revelation 15:1-8, Revelation 16:1-21, Revelation 17:1-18, Revelation 18:1-24, Revelation 19:1-21; which may be passed over by those who are disinclined to enter into such an investigation. Our main object in it will be to arrive at the proper reading of the symbols themselves, and their mutual relation to each other, as therein must be sought the key to the structural arrangement and general design of the whole scheme, and the ground of its more particular application to specific movements or results in Divine Providence. 2. The first thing that presents itself to our notice is the account given in Revelation 5 of the seven-sealed book, remarkable not only for the number of its seals, but also for the marvellous difficulty connected with the opening of them. After the challenge had been thrown out to the wide universe for any one to attempt it, no one, it is said, was found capable of undertaking the task, but the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the Root of David. It is clear from this, that by the opening of the book, something more must have been meant than the mere disclosure of its contents; it must have involved, besides, the personal appropriation of these, with a view to their actual accomplishment. Nothing else could have created so gigantic a difficulty. It is clear, also, from the designation of Christ on the occasion, as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the Root of David, that the book must have borne respect to a work of war and conquest—a work in which heroic energy and lion-like strength should require to be put forth, and that too for the purpose of vindicating the peculiar honour and blessing secured in covenant to the house of David. What, then, was this? No other than the universal possession and sovereignty of the earth, the right to reign over it, to its uttermost bounds, in the name of the Lord (Genesis 49:9-10; Numbers 24:9; Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 22:1-31, etc.) The book, therefore, with which none but this royal personage could intermeddle, was, in other words, the book of the inheritance—laying open the way by which the possession must be made good. And it was a sealed book—seven times sealed—not only because there were to be successive stages in the course, such as might fitly be distributed into that number, but because the course itself was to be a hidden one—not patent to men’s view, nor one they could beforehand have anticipated, but a complicated mystery, lying under the secrecy of a sevenfold seal. Hence, as if to explain where peculiarly the mystery lay, it is in the character, not of a lion-like hero, or royal personage, but “of a lamb as it had been slain,” that Christ is seen approaching to take the book, and enter on the task of disclosing and fulfilling its burden. The songs of praise, also, that are presently afterwards ascribed to Him by the redeemed, celebrate His worth and goodness, especially on this account, that He had “redeemed them by His blood;” and they declared Him to be worthy to take the book, and open the seals thereof, because of his having been slain, and redeemed to Himself a people, whom He has made kings and priests unto God. When they farther add, “And we shall reign on the earth,” they point, not only to the expected realisation of their hopes, but also to the assurance, which the action with the book had brought in respect to that expectation; they now see the end desired and looked for, clearly in prospect. Plainly, therefore, the mystery of this book is the mystery of Christ’s cross and crown: all that is wonderful and arduous in the working out of His claim to the conquest and dominion of the earth, has its explanation in the difficulty of getting men, within the professing church and without, to receive the doctrine of a crucified Redeemer, as the foundation of all blessing, and to carry out the spirit of humble, holy, self-sacrificing, and devoted love which it breathes. To bring this doctrine and this spirit to the ascendant in the affairs of men, is the mystery and the burden of the seven-sealed book. 3. Though it is our object rather to explain the symbolical structure and meaning of the prophecy before us, than to discuss the topics which it embraces, yet we pause here for a moment to state, that the sealed book having such a purport as we have now stated, there necessarily arise two great aims to be prosecuted in the sequel. There must be first the gathering out and preparing of a people, on the ground of the doctrine of the cross; and then the preparing of the earth for their inheritance, by the dispossessing of the powers of evil, who resist or corrupt the doctrine, that it may become an abode of righteousness. In the typical relations of ancient Israel, we see precisely the same twofold aim prosecuted. An elect people had in the first instance to be found; found both in sufficient numbers to occupy the destined inheritance, and in such a moral condition as might in some measure fit them for accomplishing the ends designed by its occupation. This itself required a long period of preparation, during which alternately trial and blessing, judgment and mercy, now the oppression and again the protection of the world, were brought into play. And when, through the operation of such varied and conflicting forces, the result, as regards the people, had been in good part attained, then followed the prosecution of the other branch of the divine scheme—the occupation of the inheritance by judging and dispossessing the adversaries. The same, substantially, in both respects, falls to be done now by Christ, in connection with his redeemed people—only with the usual differences that distinguish the relations of the antitype from those of the type. All has now to be conducted on an immensely larger scale, and in the sphere more immediately of spiritual realities rather than of sensible transactions—by means, also, of the Word and Spirit of truth, not of fleshly weapons and political arrangements. What in the earlier line of things was done but imperfectly, with defection and failure adhering to the last, and marring the completeness of the work, must now, by reason of the higher agency employed, and the more advanced stage that has been reached in the divine economy, be perfectly realised; the result must be one altogether worthy of Him who conducts it to its destined completion; it must provide both a people thoroughly prepared for the inheritance, and an inheritance completely won and beautified for their possession. But such a result will inevitably require a most complicated machinery of operations to effect it; and the history may well be expected to be marvellous, both for the good and the evil, the processes of judgment as well as of mercy, with which it is sure to be intermingled. 4. To return, however, to our more proper business. From the very nature and objects of the sealed book, it would seem that its symbolical contents must cover the entire field of the future militant condition of the church, and reach down to the time when the mystery of God shall be finished by the installing of the church with regal power and glory, in the possession of the inheritance. Such being the case, any other prophetic symbols, or series of prophetic symbols, that follow, must stand to it in the relation of synchronal, not of continuative and posterior developments. To this conclusion, also, the analogy of other portions of prophetic Scripture points. It is a general characteristic in the structure of prophecy, that of its delineations in any particular line or class of relations, each picture stands complete in itself. In that specific direction the prophetic outline is conducted to a close. Many of our Lord’s parables are striking exemplifications of this—those, for example, of the sower, of the wheat and tares, of the talents, of the ten virgins, since they, one and all, present the divine kingdom under so many distinct images or aspects, and, in connection with these, disclose its progressive advancement and final issues. (Hence the impropriety, too often exhibited by writers on prophecy, of taking up the representation in a particular parable, and pressing it to the uttermost, as if it contained the whole. This is to do violence to the principle on which they are constructed, and inevitably leads to the giving of undue prominence to individual traits, and making the instruction in one parable clash with that of another. Thus the parable of the tares and the wheat represents the divine kingdom as continuing to the end more or less intermingled with corrupt principles and false members; while in the parable of the leaven the divine element appears fermenting and working on till the whole sphere participate in the renovating change. Two different aspects, but perfectly consistent, if the parts in which they differ are not isolated and unduly pressed, but viewed the one as the complement of the other. By the first we learn that the evil shall never be wholly extirpated (though it may be indefinitely diminished) till the final consummation; by the second, that the good shall not cease to diffuse itself till it has become co-extensive with humanity.) The Messianic Psalms—in particular, Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 22:1-31, Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7—are formed after the same pattern; and so are many predictions in the greater prophets, such as Isaiah 2:1-5, Isaiah 11:1-9, Isaiah 49:1-26, Isaiah 53:1-12, Ezekiel 4:1-17, Ezekiel 34:1-31. But the visions in Daniel make the nearest approach in form to those of the Apocalypse; and there we find the characteristic in question very strongly marked. In Daniel the prospective history of God’s kingdom, in its relation to the world, and its own varied fortunes, is presented under the aspect of a twofold series of symbols—first, that of the composite image, and the stone cut from the mountain; then that of the different beasts out of the sea, and one like a Son of Man from heaven. And each of these delineations covers the same space—continues the history, in its own specific line, to a close; so that they are necessarily synchronal, not successive, in their relation to each other. But. along with these, there are supplementary revelations, one of them also exhibiting a most important aspect of the affairs of the kingdom, entirely omitted in the two former visions—that, namely, in Daniel 9:1-27, which has respect to the first appearance of Messiah, and His expiatory death. Others do not introduce anything entirely excluded from the first pair, but only present, more in detail, particular traits of the symbolic picture contained in them. Of this class are the visions in Daniel 8:1-27, Daniel 9:1-27, Daniel 10:1-21, Daniel 11:1-45. The analogies, therefore, furnished by other portions of the prophetic field, are of such a nature as to confirm the expectation that the seal series in this book shall form a complete whole in itself; and that any other series, or individual representations, which may follow, shall be either wholly, or in part, synchronal—that is, they shall either, under some new aspect, conduct the history of the divine kingdom over the same ground, or bring more fully and particularly into view certain definite portions of the territory. It is the latter, perhaps, that we might chiefly expect to find; as in connected prophecies, like those of this book, it is usual not so much to give diverse exhibitions of the same totality, as rather to supplement what may already have been comprehensively, though somewhat briefly, unfolded, by the introduction of more specific representations. 5. We turn, then, to the three great series of symbols, for the purpose, in the first instance, of ascertaining whether what has now been suggested seems to be the case. In doing so, we look simply at the symbolic representations themselves, and take them in their broader aspect—as such representations ought always to be taken (See p. 143.)—in order to learn if any traces are to be found in them of synchronal order and connection. Now, the first series, that of the seals, certainly has the appearance of forming by itself an entire and comprehensive whole. It commences with the representation of one going forth in the attitude of a warrior, conquering and to conquer, and it ends with the show of a complete and universal subjugation. Under the sixth seal the whole world appears in the last throes of trouble and confusion; nature, in all its departments, is trembling and convulsed; the mountains flit away like shadows; men, of every rank and degree, rush in dismay from the presence of Him whom they had formerly despised, and seek a hiding-place from “the wrath of the Lamb.” And, when the next and final seal opens, all is silence. The struggle of conflict is over, the noise and tumult of war have ceased, and the whole field lies prostrate before the one sovereign and undisputed Lord. Taken by itself, therefore, the delineation is complete. It leaves much, indeed, that might be added as to the manner in which the process of resistance and defeat went on, and how the respective parties stood when the struggle came to a close. Yet one does not see how there could be any farther continuation in the same line of things; so far as concerns mere conflict and victory, the end has been reached. (We are simply, it must be remembered, endeavouring to read the language and import of the symbols, not attempting to find for them any specific application. But the mere description implies, that we regard the sixth seal as having some other and higher reference than that which would confine it to the age of Constantine. What then took place was a very mingled good, and rather altered the political relations of Christianity, than tended materially to aid it in securing such a triumph, as it is the more peculiar object of the Apocalypse to predict and help forward. To say nothing of the masses of heathenism which stood side by side with the formal Christianity of the empire, not only in Constantine’s time, but for centuries afterwards, let any one compare with the light furnished by late researches-into church history, the Christianity of the 4th and 5th centuries with that depicted in the second and third chapters of this book, and ask seriously whether in the eye of the apocalyptist, the comparatively superficial change which marked the age of Constantine could have, in any adequate degree, substantiated the magnificent imagery of the sixth seal. It is impossible that such a change could have exhibited more than the faintest shadow of what is there delineated.) In collateral directions, however, there was evidently not only room, but much need also, for supplementary revelations; for in the abrupt and stately march of those seals everything appears in the mass. Classes of objects or events are described, but nothing is indicated respecting the more particular relations of the church and the world. And at one remarkable stage of the proceedings an appearance presents itself which manifestly implies much that is untold, and, from its very nature, seems to call for more detailed representations. It occurs in the action of the fifth seal, where were “seen under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held”—whence it appears that a fierce and bloody persecution of the true church had preceded, or was then in progress, while yet nothing had been expressly related of that description under the earlier seals. Turning, however, to Revelation 11:7, we find an indication given of it in what is written of the faithful witnesses, whom the beast from the bottomless pit was to overcome and kill. But this forms part of the transactions belonging to the sixth trumpet, which may, therefore, be regarded as probably synchronizing with the events of the fifth seal, and one or more of the preceding. We find it again at Revelation 12:11, in what is said of the violence of the dragon after the ascension of Christ. He persecuted to the death the followers of Christ, who, even in death, overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony. Still, again, it appears at Revelation 13:7, in the transactions ascribed to the beast after the healing of his wound—that is, in the last great phase of his manifestation, when, in conjunction with the whore, he made war with the saints, and shed their blood (compare Revelation 17:6). At different stages and periods, then, there was to be this suffering unto death for the testimony of Jesus; and as the victims are spoken of quite generally under the fifth seal, as they appear simply as the class who had so suffered already, or were yet to suffer, there can be no propriety in understanding the description of any portion less than the whole. We must hold the accounts in the later visions to contain the particulars which make up the collective representation given in the fifth seal, so that this seal and the fifth trumpet, in part, at least, must lie alongside each other. The seventh trumpet also, which, after great manifestations of wrath, and turning of things upside down, issues in the proclamation of the kingdom or dominion of the world having become our Lord and his Christ’s, plainly coincides with the closing action of the seals. It brings matters to a termination in its peculiar line of things, and with a precisely similar result. The dominion of the world becoming Christ’s, in the one line, corresponds to the disappearance, in the other, of all power and authority opposed to Christ’s, and the establishment of utter silence and prostration before Him. 6. The connection between the series of the trumpets and that of the vials, is of a still more palpable and pervading kind, and has many more points of contact, than those noticed, between the seals and subsequent visions. The two series, indeed, run throughout so closely parallel in regard to the objects and operations described in them, that it is scarcely possible to believe they can relate to two disparate and consecutive lines of procedure. The first trumpet has for its scene of action the earth, on which it represents fire and hail mingled with blood being cast; and, in like manner, the first vial is poured upon the earth, causing a noisome and grievous sore to those that dwell on it. The second trumpet turns the sea into blood; the second vial is poured into the sea, and it becomes as the blood of a dead man. The third trumpet brings the visitation of the star wormwood upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and renders them deadly; the third vial is poured upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they become blood. When the fourth trumpet sounds, the sun is smitten to the extent of a third part, as also the moon and the stars; the fourth vial is poured upon the sun, and he scorches men with fire. At the sound of the fifth trumpet the bottomless pit is opened, and hordes of scorpion-locusts issue forth with most destructive power; the fifth vial is poured upon the seat of the beast—which is but another name for the bottomless pit, as it was from thence he ascended after his wound was healed (Revelation 11:7, Revelation 17:8), and the reference here is undoubtedly to a period subsequent to that. The sounding of the sixth trumpet looses the four angels in the great river Euphrates, who presently send forth their armed myriads, riding on horses with breastplates of fire, with heads like lions, and fire, smoke, and brimstone going out of their mouths; the sixth vial is also poured upon the great river Euphrates, so that its water was dried up, and the way of the kings of the East was prepared, and unclean beasts, the spirits of devils, issued out of the mouth of the dragon, and of the beast, and of the false prophet. Finally, with the sound of the seventh trumpet great voices in heaven are heard, for the day of God’s wrath is come, the final retributions of good and evil are to be awarded, and the sovereignty of the world passes into the hands of Christ; so, when the last vial is poured into the air, a great voice comes out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, “It is done;” for the day of recompense has arrived, and great Babylon comes in remembrance before God. It is surely against all reasonable probability, to suppose that these two lines of symbolic representation, touching at so many points, alike in their commencement, their progress, and their termination, can relate to dispensations of Providence wholly unconnected, and to periods of time separated from each other by the lapse of ages. It is immeasurably more probable, that they are but different aspects of substantially the same course of procedure—different merely from the parties subjected to it being contemplated in somewhat different relations. Nor would it be possible, if two entire series of symbolical delineations, following so nearly in the same track, were yet to point to events quite remote and diverse, to vindicate such delineations from the charge of arbitrariness and indetermination. On the whole, therefore, we deem it morally certain, from a simple comparison of the prophetical visions before us, apart altogether from any specific sense or application that may be given to them, that each is in itself complete, and in the particular province it occupies, leaves nothing more to be done. They cannot, therefore, refer to consecutive periods in the history of God’s dispensations, the next always beginning where the previous one ends; but must be viewed as indicating parallel, though, in some respects, diverse operations. Each alike ends with “a great earthquake” (Revelation 6:12, Revelation 11:19, Revelation 16:18), which shakes everything to its foundations, and prepares the way for a new and better order of things. Let us, then, look at each series separately, that by a consideration of the symbols themselves, and the actions respectively connected with them, we may (if possible) learn the distinctive nature of each, and their relative place and object in the Divine dispensations. We shall find, that by this closer survey other parallelisms will discover themselves than those yet noticed. 7. The first series, that of the seals, contains (as has been already stated), a representation of the unfolding, not theoretically merely, but practically also, the actual progression of the Lord’s mysterious work of conquest, whereby the earth becomes his possession. It is mysterious, because of the character in which He addresses Himself to the work, as a Lamb that had been slain, or the crucified Redeemer; and from the peculiar manner in which He proceeds to make good His title to the possession. The opening of the first seal presents the proper claimant, the only party that has the right and destiny to the dominion of the world—namely Christ, and His body the church. They have their representation in a warrior on a white horse, having a crown given him, in token of universal sovereignty, and “going forth conquering and that he might conquer” (ἵνα νικήση)—i.e., for the very purpose of conquering, and with the certainty that he should do so. And had there been upon earth anything like the same feeling which prevails in the heavenly places—had men been everywhere disposed and ready to count the Lamb worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, righteousness and peace had been diffused around, and the world had become a field of blessing. But a different state of mind is found to prevail; the worldly power in all its dominant forms of authority and influence, refuses to own the right as exhibited by the representations of Jesus, and feels, as if without having aught to do with Him, it could secure for itself peaceable and blessed possession of the worldly domain. It must, therefore, be taught the contrary; and so, at the opening of the next three seals there come forth successively three riders of a very different stamp from the first. A rider appears first on a red horse, having power given him to take away peace from the earth, and cause men to kill one another; then one on a black horse with a pair of balances in his hand, as in the stinting times of scarcity, when the blighted earth has yielded but a partial increase, and everything has to be carefully measured and weighed; finally comes a rider on a pale or wan horse, with death for his rider, and hell for his pursuivant, laying all waste around him by the most terrible instruments of destruction:—All of them, how unlike in character and opposite in working to the gentle Lamb of God, with His benignant sceptre of love and peace! They are so many emblems of the world’s powers—natural, social, and political—turned against itself, preying upon its own bowels, and showing how little it is able to control the elements of evil, or to protect its votaries from the most repeated and sweeping desolations. Its history, so long as the claims of Jesus were rejected, and the principles of His gospel contravened, was to be marked by perpetual returns of war, famine, pestilence, and whatever is fraught with calamitous results to those who live only in the worldly sphere; and these not coming as at random, but in consequence of men’s sinful repudiation of the doctrine of the cross. On this account not only are the seals successively opened by the Lamb Himself, as if sending those destructive forces forth upon their mission, but at the opening of each of them, one of the four living creatures cried, Come (ἔρχου). The voice was a call to the rider to proceed on his errand; and was most fitly uttered in turn by those living creatures, who, in their composite forms, represented the whole living creaturehood of earth, and pre-eminently man (whose structure predominated in their appearance), in his state of ideal perfection. (See “Typology of Scripture,” vol. i., B. II, c. 3.) These, the highest representatives of the world, and the nearest to the throne, call successively upon each of the powers symbolized by the riders to come and do the work assigned them:—first, the right royal Rider with His kingdom of righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; and then, because of the disregard and opposition manifested toward Him, the riders who symbolized the disastrous influences of war, scarcity, tumult, and sweeping desolation. For the earth still is the Lord’s, and it cannot be a theatre of blessing, but must be ever and anon turning its powers and resources into instruments of chastisement against its inhabitants, while they refuse to do homage to its rightful Lord. (The proper design and import of the call of the living creatures at the opening of the first four seals, has been greatly obscured by the false reading, Come and see (ἐρχου καὶ βλέπε), as if it had been a call to the Apocalyptist or others, to behold what was going to appear. On the contrary, it is a call to the symbolical horse and rider, as is evident from the corresponding expression used in regard to the two first: “and he came forth” (ἐξῆλθε), as if in coming upon the stage, he had but answered the previous call. The correct reading is restored in the latest and best editions.) 8. There are no more riders heralded by the call to come; for the four sufficiently represent all the powers that were to be in visible and active operation during the pending history. But the opening of the fifth seal discloses another power, one not belonging to the visible sphere, and not regarded by the world, but still mighty and powerful, because entering the ear of God: the cry, namely, of his own elect—not the cry of their prayers merely, but the cry of their blood, which had been shed for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. It discloses by implication, rather than by direct discourse, the history of the real church in the world, the true followers of the Lamb, who, like Him, are meek and suffering, using no weapons of violence, but simply holding by the word and testimony they had received from Him, and for its sake loving not their lives unto the death. In such the Lamb and His cause had their proper representatives; and now the cry of their blood ascenda to the highest heavens, and demands the recompense that was meet upon the world, which had so wickedly shed it—a cry that must be heard by Him who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. It began, indeed, to be heard before it was finally answered—so that a period must elapse from the time it seemed to be listened to, till the whole company of faithful witnesses and martyrs had completed their testimony, and the world’s iniquity had become full. In other words, the same work of testifying and suffering for the truth of Jesus was to go on, longer than the church herself thought and expected it should—not, however, because the Lord was indifferent to the evil, but because the efficacious means of testifying and suffering must be plied till the divine forbearance with the world is exhausted, and the proper time of recompenses for evil has come. That time, however, must assuredly come; and so, without any thing farther being indicated as to the operations of the church, the next seal exhibits the cause of the Lamb triumphant, by the world giving way, as it were, beneath the feet of those who had hitherto held possession of it, all its foundations getting for them out of course, and filling them with overwhelming dread and dismay. They at length find the Lamb whom they had despised too mighty for them. But lest the members of the church, being themselves in the world, and liable to share in its calamities, should also feel appalled by the prospect of such things going to come on the world, the episode in Revelation 7:1-17 of the sealing vision is introduced, which represents an 144,000, a perfect number, symbol of a complete church, as sealed for God, and thereafter glorified in the heavenly places; and that before even the winds were allowed to blow upon the earth to hurt it: not, therefore, pointing so much to the future, as to the past, showing how even from the very commencement of the tribulations, which were to come on the world, and of which every seal but the first had only disclosed successive stages, the Lord had His eye on His own people, and would both keep them in perfect security, and conduct them to final bliss. It is impossible, we think, by any fair or natural interpretation of the scenes described, to understand this sealing vision otherwise than of past and present times—of what was to take place in reference to the troubles, which had been long in progress, and were to reach their culmination during the sixth seal. By these unquestionably the earth was to be hurt, with all that naturally belonged to it, nay, brought to utter shame and confusion. And then, the work on both sides being finished—the number of the elect being made up, and the resistance of an ungodly world effectually subverted and overthrown, the seventh seal discloses the state of thorough subjugation and repose that should ensue—all keeping silence before the Lord, as now everywhere acknowledged governor among the nations. As previously remarked, the representation in this first series is a general one; the wonderful march of Providence and the prospective history of the world are exhibited only in their grand outlines: Christianity is there as a whole, the church as a whole, and so also the world in its deeds of evil, its instruments of mischief, its judgment and doom. It must ever appear arbitrary to limit to single epochs or particular individuals what has purposely been left indefinite in these respects on the sacred page. Nor can it by any possibility be done so as to produce general confidence and satisfaction. For anything of a more special nature, we must look to subsequent revelations. 9. The next series by the very symbol employed to characterize it—the trumpet—bespeaks an active and stirring agency; for the trumpet was peculiarly the instrument of warlike preparation; its loud shrill sound was the immediate call to battle; and, employed here in connection with the great struggle, which was to be carried on by the Lamb of God, as the head of the divine kingdom, with the powers and kingdoms of this world, it must be regarded as the Lord’s war-note, proclaiming successively that another and another instrumentality was to be employed by Him for the purpose of bringing the world under Him. The things indicated, therefore, by the trumpets, should not have formally the character of judgments executed upon doomed and incorrigible offenders, who were reserved only unto wrath. They should rather be of the nature of mixed dealings—on the one hand chastisements on account of sin, which should form so many calls on men to repentance, and on the other, revelations of mercy to lead them from sin to salvation. It is by this combined twofold instrumentality, that the Lord always strives to overcome, or in effect does overcome the obstinacy and wickedness of men. And when we look both to the beginning and to the close of the series, plain indications discover themselves, that they were to be of the character, and designed for the purpose now stated. They are preceded by the action of an angel at the golden altar offering much incense, (i.e. carrying with it, embodying) the prayers of all saints; and the smoke of the incense with these prayers, it is said, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. This denotes their acceptance with God; they came up as a sweet memorial, which He could not fail to regard; and the actions that follow are the answer that He gives to them. But “the prayers of all saints” are the united cry of the Lord’s people, His royal priesthood, not for the destruction, but for the salvation of the world; for judgment, indeed, in so far as that might be necessary to hold in check the power of the adversary, and bring home to men’s bosoms the knowledge and conviction of sin; but still, in the midst of this, and through this for mercy, that the way of peace and blessing may be found. Then, when we look to the end, we hear as the termination and result of the whole, the joyful announcement pealed forth, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ”—a result, which shews the gracious design that must have pervaded the entire series, and which could only have been reached by such a combination of severity and goodness as we have described. Bent on overcoming the world, by subduing its sinfulness, and bringing it into the obedience of His truth, the Lord comes forth as a man of war; the successive trumpet-notes herald the different means and agencies He employs in the conflict; and partly moved by fear, but partly, also, and much more drawn by the word of grace and truth, the hearts of men yield, and the field is at length won from the grasp of the enemy. Such appears to be the general character and aim of this series of symbols, very fitly following on the former, as tending to show how the conquest more generally unfolded there, was to be wrought out and brought to a successful issue. And a glance at the particulars confirms this view. The series is divided in the vision itself into a four and a three. The four so far stand by themselves, and coincide with each other, that the things indicated by them are of the nature of inflictions on the outward territory of nature; as a whole they travel the round of that territory, and turn it in all its departments into the occasion of trouble and calamity to those who cleave to it as their portion. First, the earth itself is visited, not by fertilizing showers, but by hail and fire mingled with blood; so that a third part of the trees and grass are burnt up. Then, the sea is to the same extent turned into blood by a burning mountain being cast into it; whereby a third part of the creatures in it, and the vessels sailing on its bosom, were destroyed. Next the rivers and fountains of waters by the star wormwood are, to the extent also of a third, rendered so bitter, that many died of them. Lastly, the higher region of nature is visited, and again in a third part the sun, moon, and stars are so smitten, that for a third part of the time both by day and by night there was only darkness. All the departments of nature, or rather what might correspond to these in the political and social sphere, were thus to be successively visited, and rendered instruments of affliction and trouble. Yet still with a marked reserve, as if only for chastisement and warning; in each case only the third part was affected, as a proof how loath God was to proceed to extremities—how he restrained even while he afflicted—and by the very character of his rebukes discovered his unwillingness to destroy, his desire that men should repent and live. By such means, however, no effectual result is accomplished; though the world is stricken in all its sources of natural sufficiency, multitudes still cling to it as a portion, and for its sake continue to disown Christ, and reject the gospel of his salvation. Therefore, other and more effectual measures must be brought into operation; and these are represented by the three last, the woe-trumpets, as they are called. It must be remembered, however, in what respect it is they are so called; it is merely because of their power to bring to an end the beastly, grovelling God-opposing character of the world; to pour confusion and ruin on the worldly interest, as such, that the interest of truth and righteousness might take its place. It is said, therefore, at the commencement of these trumpets, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth,” on account of them; by the inhabiters of the earth being meant those whose proper home and portion was there, such as entirely belonged to it, the earthly-minded, and hence aliens from that church, the true members of which have their names written in heaven, who are contemplated as ideally with the Lord in Zion. The woes to the persons described, therefore, were woes merely in respect to their earthly-mindedness and devotion to the world; but instruments and occasions of blessing, if they would but see in them the chastening hand of God, and abandon the worse for the better part. Now, of the three woes, the first is described as the action of a fallen star—fallen from heaven to earth—emblem of a degenerate power, an angel of light, become one of darkness; and as such sent on the bad errand of opening the bottomless pit, and letting out, amid the smoke of hell, a horde of scorpion-locusts, whose commission was not to touch the herbs and trees of the field, but to torment men, all such as had not the seal of God in their foreheads—the men simply of the earth. These locusts, the direct emanation of the world of darkness, were also in their personal characteristics a strange compound of the beastly and the human (shaped like horses, yet with faces like men, and crowned, as if somehow destined to rule), of the soft and the savage (the hair of women, and the teeth of lions), of the courageous and the vicious (rustling as with chariots and breastplates of iron, yet stinging as with tails of scorpions). What an image of the emissaries of Satan, who sometimes with high pretensions and king-like authority, sometimes with winning gentleness, and again with bold effrontery, teach the doctrines of devils—doctrines which tend to make men the slaves of corruption and lust, to bind them up in strong delusion to believe a lie; and so, in reality, amid all professions and appearances to the contrary, acting a beastly, savage, and vicious part, and involving their followers in many sore and grievous troubles! Apollyon, the destroyer, is their king; for it is his interests they serve, to the cruel bondage and manifold miseries of men. Though confined to no particular age, yet undoubtedly they had their most exact representation, and their largest embodiment, in those corrupters of the Christian doctrine, who gradually brought on the murky atmosphere of the dark ages, and formed into shape the great apostacy which converted the new Jerusalem into Babylon, and entailed numberless evils upon Christendom. Hence also, as having its grand impersonation in an apostate and degenerate church, the work is ascribed to a fallen star. The next woe-trumpet, the sixth in the whole series, presents us with a phenomenon, in its earlier part, somewhat similar in kind, and in some respects even more threatening and formidable than that which preceded. The scene here is laid in the Euphrates, which implies that Babylon, which stood on the Euphrates, and from which the Euphrates derives all its symbolical value and significance, has anew sprung into being. Euphrates by itself is nothing in Scripture, no more than any other river, excepting as “the great river” (here emphatically so called) on which Babylon stood, and which ministered so much to the wealth and security of the city; it is hence so far identified with Babylon, as to share with it in symbolical applications. This mention of Euphrates, also, and by implication of Babylon, confirms what has been said of the preceding symbol; as it plainly betokens that corrupting influences had been at work, and had even formed a new Babylonish power. And now when the call is given, under the sixth trumpet, to loose the four angels that had been bound in the great river Euphrates, and when, as the result of this loosing, myriads of horsemen rush forth, and come with such destructive energy, that the third part of men are represented as killed by them, a power must be indicated which, as to its origin, was very closely connected with the Babylon understood, was even one grand source of its strength and prosperity, but which now was to turn with prodigious force and destroying might against it. The very waters that nourished her were to become her plague and her destruction. And what these were, we learn from Revelation 17:15, “The waters which thou sawest, where the whore (Babylon) sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues,”—in other words, the kingdoms of the world, represented by the beast, on which the whore was seen sitting, because on their carnal power and influence she leant for support. So that this Euphrates-host of warriors are instruments of mischief issuing, as it were, from her very bowels, from the ground of worldliness and corruption on which she stands, and making her the object of their hatred and rapacious violence. (See Appendix M.) It is the same thing substantially that is meant in Revelation 17:16, by the kingdoms turning to hate the whore, so as “to make her desolate and naked, to eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.” And hence, as having such an origin, and working for such a purpose, the army here mentioned was of the most singular and anomalous description; it is an army of horses rather than of horsemen, for the horses are said to have heads like lions, sending forth from their mouths, fire, smoke, and brimstone, whereby the third part of men were killed; and not only so, but tails also like serpents, with which they still farther do hurt. In short, it is the devil’s agents, turned by the judgment of heaven against the devil’s own interest; a beast-like instrumentality, full only of rapacity and violence, Satanic guile and wickedness, assailing and subverting that which, though chiefly of Satan, had still too many elements in it of a better kind to suit the taste of the more outrageous and heaven-daring spirit that was to characterise the last times. It comprehends, therefore, the ultimate proceedings both of the beast, and of the false prophet—the world’s power and wisdom applied, as they in part have been, and will yet more fully be, with determined and ruthless vengeance to put away from them the corrupt and worldly religion, the Babylon, that had usurped and lorded it over them. (Hengstenberg thinks the angels must be good ones, most strangely; for were ever good angels represented before as being bound? Or did they ever head such a serpent-like and hellish agency? Good angels could only be understood, if they had been employed to keep back the agency till a certain time; but this is not the idea; it is that they had been prepared to send it forth; and to do so “for the hour, and day, and month, and year”—so it should be read—it means that when the precise time should come for such a visitation, the proper agency should be found ready.) And that such was the character of the party more especially to be visited by this unscrupulous and vengeful instrumentality, is rendered still more clear by the description given of the results (Revelation 9:20-21), “And the rest of the men, which were not ‘killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold and silver, and brass and stone, and of wood, which neither can see nor hear, nor walk; neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” The sins of which they did not repent, and for which, therefore, the chastisement of heaven had been sent, formed just that kind of revived heathenism, that trafficking in the idolatry and abominations of the world, which, with the name of Christianity, constitute the Babylon of the Apocalypse. So that in this part of the sixth trumpet we manifestly have a representation of the severity to be employed in the latter days against the modern Babylon, for the purpose of chastising her guilt, and delivering the world from her abominations. And the severity was to be inflicted in its worst form by means of the worldly powers, which it had been her policy to embrace, and use for her own carnal and selfish purposes. 10. But this was not the only agency to be employed in connection with the sixth trumpet. Beside severity, there was also to be mercy, as there was indeed a purpose of mercy running through the whole of this series; only now, when the final issues are approaching, it is more fully and distinctly exhibited. It might have seemed, from such a long and dreadful succession of afflictive dealings, as if severity and judgment alone were to prevail during this series of symbolical actions—precisely as during the former series it might have seemed, up till the sealing vision of the sixth seal, that the Lord’s own people were to have no defence and security above others. Here, therefore, under the sixth trumpet, as there under the sixth seal, a long and precious episode is introduced, which should have formed, as in the other case, a separate chapter, but which is thrown into Revelation 10:1-11 and Revelation 11:1-3. Like the sealing vision, it is of a regressive as well as prospective character; and is intended to exhibit the better agency which all along had been in operation, in connection with the severer measures employed, and which was necessary to carry out the design of these by leading men to repentance. The one was like the law, intended, by its awful utterances and deadly wounds, to penetrate with a humbling sense of guilt and danger; while the other, the gospel, with its gentle and persuasive voice, entreated men to arise and flee from the wrath to come. The representation of this better agency is introduced by the appearance of a mighty angel (who, by what follows, can be understood to be no other than Christ), with a cloud and rainbow about His head, the symbol of mercy after judgment; indicating that, notwithstanding the floods of wrath which He had been making to pass over the world, He still had a purpose of grace, and that His design was not to destroy but to save. His whole appearance and manner denote great determination of purpose, and irresistible might, in carrying His design into execution. To show what the design was, He plants His right foot upon the sea, and His left upon the earth, to indicate His sovereign right in respect to both, and His firm resolve to put that right into execution. He farther, by a solemn oath, declares, that, viewed in respect to the stage of operations marked by the sixth trumpet, no more delay should take place in having the whole carried into execution. He swore that “time should no longer be (i.e., there should be no farther delay), but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when He shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished.” And then follows the instrumentality more especially to be employed for the accomplishment of the intended result. This is the little book given to John to eat, a symbolical action to denote that the contents of that book must be received into the heart and soul of those whom John represented, the confessors and witnesses of the truth,—as only by being so received on their part, and then proclaimed before “peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings,” could the end in view be attained. The book is called little, much for the same reason that faith, even in its mightiest operations, is compared to a grain of mustard-seed, because it is small and insignificant in the estimation of the world and in the eye of sense, as compared with the gigantic and obtrusive forces it has to contend with, and the vast results it must achieve. It is simply the gospel of the grace of God, which becomes, in respect to those who cordially embrace and own it, the word of their testimony. This is the one grand weapon of the Lamb, the sword that goeth out of His mouth to bring the people under Him, or else consign them to destruction as finally impenitent. This, believingly received, and confessed and handled by a faithful church, is the chosen instrumentality by which the tide of evil in the world is to be turned, and the inheritance rescued from the power of the adversary. After the brief indication of the weapon and the instrumentality comes the vision of the measurement of the temple, and the history of the witnesses, retrospectively connecting the past with the present, showing how the character of God’s temple or church had been outwardly transformed—how that which apparently was such, and had become dominant, was really the reverse, an essentially heathen or worldly party under a godly name and profession—how this spiritual Egypt, or Babylon, had sought to corrupt the truth, and trample under foot those that believed and proclaimed it—how they had even, for a time, utterly suppressed the open testimony of the faithful, and violently made away with them—but how the Lord, notwithstanding, stood by His servants, gave testimony to the word of His grace, and, at last, rendered it so mighty and powerful that the respective parties altogether changed places, the faithful witnesses being exalted to heaven, the place of power and influence; while the proud and persecuting city (Babylon) falls as by an earthquake, multitudes of her people are slain, and the rest are affrighted and give glory to the God of heaven. We only indicate here the train of thought, as the subject has been formally discussed in the preceding section. But it should be noted how different the result now is from what it was at the close of the more judicial parts of the process. By these many were left who did not repent of their sins and evil deeds (Revelation 9:20-21); but now that the instrumentality of life and blessing is brought distinctly into view, the work of repentance is accomplished; the terror produced by the severer measures disposes men to embrace the mercy offered in the gospel, and embodied in the testimony of the witnesses; the remnant, even in Babylon, believe and are saved. And then comes the end; not, indeed, without many heavings and agitations, convulsions of various kinds, caused by the truth of God rising to the ascendant. But still it comes; and when the seventh trumpet sounds amid those complicated disturbances, it is only that the joyful announcement may be proclaimed, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom (so it should be read) of our Lord and of his Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.” Thus it appears that the series of the trumpets constitute a clear and decided advance upon that of the seals. They exhibit the train of causes and effects by which the marvellous results unfolded in the seals were to be brought about; the twofold kind of agencies by which the Lamb and His followers should at length come to change places with the world—viz., the rod of chastisement and the word of reconciliation; afflictive providences and retributory judgments, on the one hand, and, on the other, the gospel of salvation, unflinchingly and perseveringly proclaimed by a chosen band of witnesses till it should become everywhere triumphant. In this way the cause that went forth at the first to conquer does conquer, and secures for itself a universal dominion. But one point still remains to be cleared. It has come out in the course of this last series that, in the work of conquest to be achieved, it was not simply the world in its original and palpably heathenish form, which had to be brought into subjection. A professedly religious, though really intensely worldly and antichristian domination, had come into the field, and, indeed, so extensively occupied at last that field, that it is with this latterly the struggle appeared to be more especially conducted. Whence, then, this extraordinary change? How did such a worldly Christianity rise into being; and what precise measures were to be adopted in respect to it? 11. Now, it is chiefly to provide an answer to these questions, which most naturally present themselves, that the visions reaching from the close of Revelation 11:1-19, Revelation 12:1-17, Revelation 13:1-18, Revelation 14:1-20, Revelation 15:1-8, Revelation 16:1-21, Revelation 17:1-18, Revelation 18:1-24, Revelation 19:1-21, eight whole chapters, have been introduced. This portion occupies so large a space because it more directly concerned the church’s dangers and difficulties, and was required to put her fully on her guard against the coming evil, or to leave her inexcusable, if she became involved in it. Like the visions already noticed, it embraces an extensive range, and, as we have previously had occasion to show, points back to the past, as well as onwards to the future, in order to show how the evil originally sprung up, and how it was to develope itself till it reached the gigantic magnitude and formidable character it ultimately assumed. This is done more particularly in Revelation 12:1-17 and Revelation 13:1-18, where the matter is represented in connection both with the personal spite and malice of the tempter, on account of the victory gained over him by Christ; and with the beast, or worldly power, in its varied forms and manifestations, more especially in the times following the general spread of Christianity, after the deadly wound caused by this gospel had again been healed. Out of the healing of the wound came Babylon, which consists of an unnatural conjunction of the church and the world, the church having thereby become essentially antichristian; and because of the greatness of the guilt, and the heaviness of the doom, incurred by such a degeneracy, it has a very large and prominent place given to it in the prophecy. In Revelation 13:1-18 we are told how the introduction of Christianity led the worldly power to assume a form corresponding to the altered state of affairs; and the success following its altered policy implied, that the church, to a large extent, had sacrificed its character, and joined hands with the world. Accordingly, in the next chapter, Revelation 14:1-20, the true church, as contra-distinguished from the false, is brought prominently into view. The apostle sees an elect and faithful company with the Lamb on Mount Zion; while he hears, and, for the first time, hears the name of Babylon proclaimed as the object of divine wrath, and as destined to fall by the preaching of the everlasting gospel (Revelation 14:6-8). At the same time, to show the essential agreement of the power designated Babylon, with that previously represented by the beast and his image, the wrath of God is also proclaimed (Revelation 14:9-11) against all who receive the mark of the beast and worship his image—that is, against all who surrender themselves to the lusts and interests of a present evil world, though they may gild it over by a Christian name. For all such, it is declared, the fiery indignation and final judgments of God are reserved; while, in marked contrast, is brought out (Revelation 14:12-13) the safe and everlastingly blessed condition of those who, crucifying the flesh through the Spirit, renouncing the world for the better part, keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Then follow an entire series of visions, each containing representations of God’s judicial proceedings and closing acts toward those adherents of earthliness and sin. The first is a quite general one (Revelation 14:14-20), and appears under the image of a vine to be reaped and trodden, an image similarly used in Old Testament prophecy (Isaiah 63:1-19). It is called the vine “of the earth”—earth’s own spontaneous production—and so a fitting representation of those who had nothing about them savouring of a higher world, but were the slaves of sense and time. No distinction, therefore, is here made between one class of doomed sinners and another; they are considered in the mass; and being, without distinction, lovers of a corrupt and perishing world, they are regarded as growing together till they become ripe for judgment, when they receive the heritage of a common destruction. 12. The next series, however, is of a more specific kind; it consists of the seven vials; and has somewhat of the same relation to the trumpets, that the trumpets had to the seals. The trumpets, as we have shown, disclose God’s dealings with the world in order to bring it to repentance, and the faith of Christ; they are, therefore, of a mixed character, and partake alike of chastisement and mercy. But the world is here contemplated simply in its guilt; not its natural guilt merely, but that far deeper and more aggravated guilt which it had incurred by rejecting the salvation of Christ, and even turning his scheme of grace and truth into a huge Babel of falsehood and corruption. The dealings here, therefore, are strictly judicial; they bring jut the severe aspect of God’s character, and end only with the utter destruction of the party against which they are directed. That party, precisely, as in the case of the trumpets, is the sinful world at large, but viewed with a more especial reference to its condition after the introduction and general spread of Christianity, and still more after the formation of the Babylonish counterfeit. Hence, the general subject being the same as in the case of the trumpets, though contemplated and dealt with under a somewhat different aspect, the one series runs uniformly alongside the other, and does not so properly represent a diverse and separate order of things, as the dark, the judicial, the simply punitive character and operation of the same things. In accordance with this character and design, the distinctive symbol here used is that of the vial, a round cup or goblet, into which ingredients of a deleterious kind are supposed to be put, that they might be poured out upon the subjects of vengeance. The action of pouring out in this sense, and sometimes also with the mention of a cup from which the contents were to be poured, is frequently used in Old Testament prophecy (Psalms 75:8, Psalms 79:6; Jeremiah 10:25, etc.); it denotes the full, resistless, overwhelming energy with which the visitation of evil should come. The vials here are hence called vials “full of the wrath of God;” and are represented as belonging to the seven angels who have “the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God:” not that the things here represented were absolutely posterior to all that had gone before, but that they belonged to the procedure of God in its terminal processes of judgment upon the guilty world—processes that should not run out till the worldly, God-opposing interest of the adversary was effectually put down, and all its adherents were scattered to the winds. As being the last actions of this description, God’s judicial proceedings against the worldly power in its ultimate forms of manifestation, the heavenly inhabitants are represented as singing in contemplation of them “the song of Moses and the Lamb,” coupling together the victory to be won over the last, with that won over the first great embodiment of the anti-righteous worldly power; spanning, in their notes of triumph, the whole field of struggle and conquest. And finally, the work of judgment to be executed is represented as emphatically a work of holiness, by the seven angels appearing to come out of “the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony”—that is, out of the temple, which contained the tabernacle of the testimony; in other words, they came forth as representatives of that holy law of God, which was called the testimony of the tabernacle, because it testified against all unrighteousness of men, and called for Divine judgment against it. Looking now individually at the vials, the first four have formally the same immediate objects, and perform exactly the same round as the trumpets: first the earth is smitten, then the sea, then the rivers and fountains of waters, and last of all the sun. There is this difference, however, that here, in accordance with the strictly penal character of the series, the effects appear more extensively and directly hurtful, and are also more explicitly connected with the sins which called them forth. Instead of only the third part of the objects immediately affected being mentioned, it is the effect upon men themselves, which is brought specially into notice, whose sin and punishment are expressly linked together. In the first case, a grievous and noisome sore falls upon the men who have the mark of the beast and worship his image; in the second, the sea becomes blood, and every soul in it dies; in the third, when the rivers and fountains have been made blood, the Lord is praised as righteous in His judgments, because He had given those blood to drink, who had shed the blood of His saints; and in the fourth, power was given the sun to scorch men with fire, on account, as is plainly implied, of their still daring and growing wickedness, which was such, that they even blasphemed His name, while suffering under the direful visitation. It is manifestly impossible to understand such things literally; they never could be meant to be so taken. But the general sense is obvious; the men whose souls clave to the dust, who, in spite of all that the Lord had done to reclaim them to Himself, continued to reject or corrupt His truth, that they might live on in conformity to the flesh and the world, should find the whole circle of worldly powers and influences, so far from keeping a covenant of peace with them, often turned into instruments of evil: So that from the world in its more settled state (the earth), distressing sores should come upon them; from its heaving agitations and troubles (the sea), violence and bloodshed; even from its more refreshing and gladdening influences (the streams and the sun), tormenting and pestiferous effects, which they should be powerless to resist. Such things ever and anon occurring, and as might be supposed, at certain periods occurring in more marked and dreadful visitations, would tell how far the world, in its antichristian and ungodly portion, was from having gained by its contrariety to God; how little it could do to avert the deadliest evils from its followers; and how much it lay under the frown and chastisement of an angry God. The vexations and disorders coming on it while under antichristian rule, and on this very account coming on it, must be ever rendering it a valley of Achor to those who perversely cling to and worship it. 13. These, however, are only the more general forms of divine judgment (though, if the world perseveres in guilt, and high-minded opposition to the truth, it is by no means improbable they may find more specific and marked exemplifications than have yet been given them); the more peculiar and decisive ones are exhibited in the three last vials. The fifth was poured upon the seat of the beast, which (as before observed under the fifth trumpet) is all one with the bottomless pit. It is not said here what came forth from it, for that had been fully described under the fifth trumpet; but as the result of the smoke and the scorpion-locusts which issued forth, the kingdom of the beast, it is said, was filled with darkness, and men gnawed their tongues for pain, and went on blaspheming the God of heaven: involved in darkness and misery, and yet cleaving to their idols and abominations! in their stricken and miserable condition manifestly lying under the rebuke of God, and yet continuing in the things which dishonoured and provoked Him! Of this the comfortless, ignorant, deluded, and enslaved state of Papal kingdoms generally, during the night of the dark ages, formed the most extensive and striking exemplification. The next vial is poured upon the great river Euphrates, and the result is, that the water thereof is dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared. The waters of the Euphrates, as already noticed, were the source of Babylon’s riches and security; she relied on these to the last, when the judgment of heaven was overhanging her—fatally relied on them; for by diverting their course, and drying up their wonted channel, the Medes and Persians entered and took possession of the city. These Medes and Persians were actually the kings of the East, coming, as they did, from the country east of Babylon, and coming with such royal might and plenitude of resources, that the proud mistress of the nations fell an easy prey into their hands. Here, however, the epithet, “Kings of the East,” precisely as Euphrates and Babylon, is used symbolically to denote powers and influences of a kind, that, in their relation to the mystical Babylon, should correspond with those of the Medes and Persians to the literal. They are none other than the dreadful Satanic agency, symbolized under the sixth trumpet by the myriads of horsemen, whose horses had tails like serpents, and sent forth fire, smoke, and brimstone from their mouths. Another, but not less appalling representation is given of them here, under the “three unclean spirits like frogs,” which the prophet saw coming “out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” They are farther described as “the spirits of devils (demons), working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” The description here, as well as in the parallel passage, points to the last, the most wreckless, antichristian, and blasphemous manifestations of the beast and the false prophet, when impregnated to the full with the spirit of Satan, and acting as his agents in the final effort he makes against the kingdom of God. It is on this account, that the evil spirits, likened to frogs from their low, unclean, and loathsome character, appear as coming out of the mouth, first of all of the dragon, being, so to speak, direct emanations of the prince of darkness, and ready to give vent to his foul blasphemies, and intense malice against the truth. They proceed also from the mouths of the beast and the false prophet, because the power and wisdom of the world supply the immediate instruments—the wonder-working skill, the lofty achievements in art and science, the daring speculations, lawless doctrines, resolute energy and might—by which the work is to be carried forward. Babylon, or the corrupt and apostate church, is not mentioned as having directly to do with the issuing forth of these moral plagues; for they belong to a stage beyond hers, and are to have their great use in tearing up her foundations and overthrowing her confidences. It is through this agency of evil that the kingdoms come to hate the whore; or in the symbolical language of this vision, that the waters of the great river Euphrates (the multitudes and peoples), on which Babylon sat, and to which she looked for her security and strength, are dried up—nay, are made to send forth against her hosts of adverse forces, which shall do to her substantially what the kings of the East, the Medes and Persians, Babylon’s own tributaries, did to the ancient city. Had these relations been perceived, and the real character of the conflict been understood, there would have been little difficulty in understanding the remaining feature in the description; in which it is said, that the conflicting hosts were to be gathered together for a final decision in a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. It is another allusion to the history and relations of Old Testament times, and indicates that the Old was virtually to return again. Armageddon is simply the hill of Megiddo; and in sacred history the neighbourhood of Megiddo is celebrated for a very memorable and mournful event, the overthrow of Josiah’s army, and his own death by the host of Egypt (2 Kings 23:29-30)—the discomfiture of the professing church of God by the profane worldly power. The reason was, that though Josiah was a good man, the church itself had become a Babylon; corruption of every kind continued to nestle in it; the prophets were at the time uttering in the strongest terms their denunciations and threatenings against it; and not only was the step taken by Josiah a false one, betokening too superficial views of the evil within, and the difficulties to be contended against without, but the event proved that the world was now the stronger party, and was used as God’s instrument to rebuke a corrupt church, and warn her of her approaching downfal. There, therefore, was the type of the mighty and portentous future now under consideration: the great battle of Armageddon is to be on the grand scale, what the old battle of Megiddo was on the small one: the world, as animated by the spirit of darkness, is to rise up with such fresh might, and to bring into the field such potent and effective instruments of its own, that the false church shall be unable any longer to control, or even to cope with it: Babylon shall be worsted. Hence the propriety and importance of the call in Revelation 16:15, uttered immediately before the final conflict: “Behold, I come as a thief: Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” It virtually points to the case of Josiah, and warns against its imitation in the future. The corrupt and antichristian church must go down—the world shall prevail against it. Let all, therefore, who would be found on the Lord’s side, and avoid a shameful exposure, take heed how they have to do with it; let them see, that they occupy the right position, and stand only in the truth and purity of the gospel. Thus the whole of this part of the vision receives a quite natural explanation; the peculiar references to ancient history couched under the terms “Euphrates,” “Kings of the East,” and “Armageddon “are found to be most appropriately and consistently applied; and the numberless arbitrary and far-fetched interpretations which have been employed regarding them, are no longer needed. (It is unnecessary to refer particularly to these interpretations. Among the most current are those which take Euphrates as a name for the Turkish empire, “Kings of the East” for the Jews, and Armageddon for some great political struggle in the Levant (latterly, the Crimea) or in Italy. All merely external and political affairs, which are foreign to the great theme of the Apocalypse! Euphrates, too, taken literally in the midst of symbols! and kings of the East coined for the occasion as an epithet of the Jews! Such confusion and arbitrariness needs no refutation; it is our reproach, that interpretations embodying them should ever have been propounded. Less fanciful, in regard to Megiddo, but far from satisfactory, is the explanation offered by Mr Stanley in his recent volume on Sinai and Palestine, p. 330; where, on account of the natural position of Megiddo, as forming a convenient and suitable arena for conflicts between the people of Palestine and the surrounding nations, it is supposed to have been selected “as the battle-field of the world, and passed, through its adoption into the language of the Apocalypse, into a universal proverb.” It is possible enough many battles may have been fought on Megiddo, or in its immediate neighbourhood; but there is only one recorded, that had any peculiar moral bearing on the affairs of the old covenant—the one, namely, in which Josiah fell before the might of Egypt. And as it is the moral, not simply the natural aspect of things, on which the use of such historical circumstances in the Apocalypse proceeds, we should have no hesitation how to explain the allusion before us. It is only by viewing the matter in the light we have presented it, that the precise place also, as well as the nature, of the allusion can be understood.) All, then, is seen in the action of this vial approaching to the final consummation; the last forms of ungodliness are in full operation, and the false church is vainly struggling against them; her old ground is sinking under her feet. And then with the pouring forth of the seventh vial the closing stage commences: the controversy both in respect to the false church and the world is brought to an ultimate decision, and first on the one, then on the other, the desolating judgment of heaven alights. This last vial is represented as being poured into the air—not from any real or supposed connection between the air and evil spirits, but with reference to the air as the region, on which the earth immediately depends—the region from which in peaceful times descend the genial and blissful influences of nature, but the region, also, when things are out of course, which is charged with the deadliest elements, and gives birth to the most desolating effects. Hence voices, thunders, lightnings, and a great earthquake are the immediate results which follow the pouring out of this vial: all of them belonging to the region of the air, and the symbols of the mightiest changes and fearful catastrophes in the moral world. They indicate, that the judgments of God upon the ungodliness of the world and the apostasy of the church, have at length run their course; “it is done “respecting these forms of evil; the cities of the nations fall, that is, they are destroyed in their character as strongholds of error and wickedness; and great Babylon comes in remembrance before God to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. All, in short, undergoes a revolution; and the antichristian spirit, which had so long wrought in the world, and so deeply rooted itself in the kingdoms of the earth, is judged and cast out. 14. After this comes another and more specific series, representing the guilt and doom of Babylon by itself—contained in Revelation 17:1-18 and Revelation 18:1-24. The remarkable prominence given to this subject, shows the singular place it held in the mind of God, as deserving of his special reprobation. Babylon in many respects stood alone in guilt. Instead of correcting and reforming the world, the false church had fallen in with its corruptions and lent the name of God to these, for her own temporal aggrandisement. It was meet, therefore, that her shame should be fully exposed, and her overthrow portrayed with the greatest fulness of detail and vividness of colouring. But as this part of the vision has been exhibited in the preceding section, there is no need to enlarge on it here. 15. The same also may be said of the last and concluding series of this portion of the book—that which occupies the greater part of Revelation 19. We have there a revelation of the final dealings with the kingdoms of the earth. The series of the vials, which has to do merely with judgments, leaves a portion of the history untold. While God’s work upon Babylon, and His work also upon the beast and the false prophet, that is, the world viewed in respect to its ungodliness and corruption, comes to a close with the destruction of the evil, it is otherwise with the kingdoms of the world viewed in respect to their inhabitants. These, as already exhibited in the series of the trumpets, are to be transferred to the dominion of Christ. And so, to wind properly up this part of the marvellous history, a representation is given of the conquest of the kingdoms to Christ, which, like all His conquests over the hearts and consciences of men, is accomplished by the power of the truth, wielded by a faithful church, and rendered efficacious by the power of His Spirit. External troubles and social evils no doubt contribute to the result; but it is still the sharp sword of the word, and the spiritual energy and faithfulness of the church, by which all is more immediately .effected. Thus the spirit of error and iniquity which had corrupted and destroyed the world is put down; the beast and the false prophet, as well as Babylon, are cast into outer darkness; and the saints with their Divine head possess the kingdom, and enjoy together a reign of millennial blessedness and glory. 16. It remains only to notice the indications of time contained in the portion of the Apocalypse we have been surveying. These appear to be simply three, though one of them is expressed in a threefold manner. It is the period of the church’s tried and oppressed condition—denoted first in Revelation 11:2, as a period of forty-two months, during which “the holy city is trodden down of the Gentiles,” during which also the beast was to continue in its power to blaspheme and injure (Revelation 13:5); then as consisting of 1260 days (forty-two months multiplied by 30 days), during which the witnesses, representatives of a faithful, but oppressed and persecuted church, were to prophecy, Revelation 11:3, and the church was to abide in the wilderness, Revelation 12:6, having a place and food prepared for her by God; and finally, as a time, times and a half (corresponding to one year of twelve months, two of the same, and a half-year of six, or to forty-two months, or again to 1260 days), during which the church was to remain and be fed in the wilderness, Revelation 12:14. In Daniel 7:25, where the expression first occurs, it is the time during which the saints of God were to be given into the hand of the power that was to speak great words against the Most High. These are manifestly but different modes of expressing one and the same period, as the state of things also to which they are applied is substantially identical, though variously represented. For the sojourn in the wilderness on the part of the faithful and proper spouse, the treading down of the holy city by those who belonged only to the court of the Gentiles, and the testifying for the truth of God by a faithful remnant clothed in sackcloth, and wrestling against error and corruption; these are obviously but different symbolical representations of the same abnormal and dislocated state of things. The other two periods mentioned are both very brief, as compared with the one just noticed. The shortest is that during which the bodies of the faithful witnesses are represented as lying dead, though unburied, three and a half days, Revelation 11:12; and the other is the five months during which the scorpion-locusts were to have power to torment the followers of the beast, Revelation 9:5. Now, it is scarcely possible to avoid being struck even on the most cursory inspection of these periods, with a peculiarity that is common to them all—the broken and incomplete aspect they present. A certain whole was evidently in respect to each of them in the mind of the Divine author of the vision, as that toward which the parties spoken of were aiming, but were arrested midway in their career. This is particularly observable in the largest and by much the most important number, which in every form—whether as time, times and a half, or as the months and days that make up three and a half years—is most expressive of an unfinished course, a period somehow cut off in the middle. In like manner, the three and a half days of rejoicing over the unburied corpses of the slain witnesses, betokens the same violent and abrupt termination of the course indicated; in their ungodly triumph, the adversaries could not complete more than half of one of the briefest revolutions of time—one of the smallest cycles of the whole period allotted to the ascendency of evil. The incompleteness may appear less palpable in the five months specified for the plague of scorpion-locusts; but it will scarcely do so to those who have attended to the use made in Scripture of ten with reference to certain kinds of totality. The five is simply the broken ten. So marked a peculiarity in the use of all these numbers is itself a strong presumption in favour of their symbolical import It seems to stamp their value as indications of relative, rather than of absolute periods of duration—relative both as regards each other, and also as regards an ideal whole. And it will appear to do so the more convincingly the more the periods are viewed in reference to the parties mentioned, which are the entire spiritual church throughout the world, on the one side, and the whole antichristian power on the other; for in regard to such vast bodies, and their wide-reaching interests, what could such periods avail in their natural sense! They could obviously afford but a mere fraction of the time necessary for the accomplishment of the results connected with them; nor could such results in actual history be shut up into any periods consisting of such exact and definite measures. Another, and very powerful consideration in favour of the same view is the place of these historical numbers—surrounded on every hand, not with the literal, but with the symbolical. The woman that is persecuted, and the dragon who persecutes; the wilderness into which she flees, and the floods sent after her; the beast that rages against the truth, and the two witnesses who testify for it to the death; the holy city that is trodden down, and the Egypt or Babylon by whom the treading is effected; all are symbolically used, and shall the periods of working be otherwise than symbolical? In that case there would be the violation of one of the plainest laws of symbolical writing, and confusion and arbitrariness, as a matter of necessity, would be brought into the interpretation. (See Part I., Chap. v., Sec. 4.) It is true, the number seven, as applied to the heads of the beast, and the number ten spoken of its ultimate forms of separate organization, have already been found by us to possess a kind of historical verification. But this, when more closely considered, manifests an evident striving after the symbolical. For, it is to make out the number seven, that St John diverges so strikingly here from the representation of Daniel, taking in the two earlier worldly kingdoms, which Daniel had omitted, and making of the divided state of Daniel’s fourth empire a separate kingdom—the seventh. Nay, even this seventh he calls in a sense also the eighth—Revelation 17:11—although seven still is taken as the proper number, because it alone has the proper symbolical import. The beast comes into view mainly as the rival of God, and seven being the common symbol of completeness for the Divine manifestations in the world (Isaiah 30:26; Zechariah 3:9, Zechariah 4:2; Proverbs 9:1; Revelation 1:4, Revelation 3:1, etc.)—originating, no doubt, in the sevenfold acts of God at creation—the worldly rival of God’s power and glory in the world is, in token of its God-defying defying character, presented under the same number of manifestations. (It is perhaps by a silent reference to this that we should explain the enigmatical passage in Revelation 13:18, respecting the name of the beast: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is a man’s number; and the number is 666.” The name must be taken here (as usual in Scripture), as the indication of the nature. Now, though the beast had been allowed to assume a sevenfold manifestation, as a kind of assumption and parody of the Divine, and though in the latter stages of its existence, its lamb-horned ally was to do much to work it into a resemblance of the Divine, yet as regards the realities of things, it could never reach what it aspired after—it could not attain to any development beyond the human—though it should have this in its higher form. Not the seven, therefore, the symbol of Divine fulness and perfection, but only the six highly potentialized—this six three times repeated is the utmost that could be assigned him for a symbolical indication of his nature—this is the number of his name. It is but a man’s name still, not God’s.) For a like reason the divided state of the last manifestation is distributed into the number ten. This also is often used as a symbol of completeness, on which account the ancients called it the perfect number, which comprehends all others in itself. But it commonly denotes completeness in respect to human interests and relations—as in the tithes or tenths (ten being regarded as comprising the entire property, from which one was selected to do homage to him who gave the whole), and the ten commandments, the sum of man’s dutiful obedience. When, therefore, the divided state into which the modern Roman world fell, is represented under ten horns or kingdoms, it may well be doubted whether this should be pressed farther than as indicating, by a round number, the totality of the new states—the diversity in the unity—whether or not it might admit of being exactly and definitely applied to so many historical kingdoms. There is always some difficulty in making out an exact correspondence; and we should the less hold such a correspondence to be necessary, since even in the case of the tribes of Israel, when taken to represent the company of an elect people (Revelation 7:1-17), one tribe is totally omitted to preserve the symbolism of the historical twelve. This shows very strikingly the stress laid on the symbolical element, and strengthens the conclusion, that both in the seven and ten, as applied to the beast, and in the broken periods now under consideration, that element is primarily respected. Lastly, there is to be added on the same side the obviously loose setting of the periods; neither their starting-point, nor their termination is sharply defined. Viewed historically, indeed, one does not see how it could have been otherwise. The flight of the church into the wilderness, or the treading down of the holy city by the Gentiles, came on gradually; and appeared in different places at different times. It cannot be linked to definite historical epochs, as if at one or other of these it commenced for the first time, and for the whole church; and from the very nature of things, the termination must have a like diversity and gradation in its accomplishment. This draws a plain line of demarcation between the periods before us, and Daniel’s seventy weeks, which are definitely bounded both in respect to their commencement and their close. The narrower field, and more outward character of the things they referred to, easily admitted of such a limitation; but here the world is the field, and the cause of vital Christianity throughout its borders the great interest at stake. (I have deemed it needless to refer to such epochs as have often been fixed on for the commencement of the period in question—for example, the conceding of title of universal bishop by a particular emperor to the pope of Rome, the era of Justinian’s legislation, or the crowning of Charlemagne emperor of the west—all events of little moment as regards the more distinctive features that were to mark the period itself.) Giving all these considerations their due weight, we cannot avoid arriving at the conclusion, that the periods mentioned, in accordance with the general character of the book, are to be chiefly, if not exclusively, understood in a symbolical manner, as serving to indicate the times of relative length or brevity which the operations described were destined to occupy. If anything further is implied, it should only, we conceive, be looked for in some general correspondence, as to form, between the symbol and the reality, such as might be sufficient to guide thoughtful and inquiring minds to a more firm assurance of the realisation of the vision. But all precise and definite calculations respecting the periods, as they necessarily proceed upon a disregard of the symbolical character of the book, and upon a too external and political contemplation of the events to which it points, so they must inevitably be defeated of their aim in the future, as they have continually been in the past. The prophecy was not written to give men to know after such a fashion, the times and the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power. (Compare what was previously said upon this subject at p. 177, sq.) The same considerations, it may be added, which have conducted us to this conclusion, in regard to the periods connected with the church’s humiliation and conflict, substantially apply also to the period of her future ascendency. The thousand years’ reign of the saints must be taken, like the others, symbolically, and as such it forms a perfect contrast to the comparatively brief and broken sections of time that preceded it. It is formed of the round number of totality in earthly things, the ten; and that increased to one of its higher values, by being twice multiplied into itself (10x10x10 = 1000), still further heightened by being connected, not with days or with months, but with years. A ten times ten revolution of years, and that again increased tenfold—what a symbol of completeness! What a contrast to the three and a half days of triumph over the slain witnesses! or even to the three and a half years of usurped dominion on the part of the beast! Yet such is the relative continuance allotted in the decrees of heaven to the power and prevalence of the good, as contrasted with the evil: so long is the true church of the Redeemer destined to ride upon the high places of the earth, in comparison with the days in which she was made to see evil. Section IV. The Prophetical Future of the Churck and Kingdom of Christ in Their Relation to His Second Coming, and the Closing Issues of His Mediatorial Kingdom THE portions of the Apocalypse, and of other prophetical book-which have already passed under our review, reach down to what is known as the millennium, or the thousand years’ reign. That the things written concerning this belong to the still undeveloped future, we entertain not the remotest doubt, and regard as utterly futile all the attempts that have been made to accommodate the terms of the description to any period of the past. (One of the latest of these attempts is Hengstenberg’s, who would date the commencement of the millennium from the year 800, when Charlemagne was proclaimed emperor; according to which the millennium has already reached its close, and we are now sustaining the assault of Gog and Magog. Of this view, Auberlen justly remarks, “One is at a loss to know, whether to be more astonished at the extraordinary manner in which the word of prophecy is impaired and evacuated by it, at the greatly too favourable estimate it makes of the past history of the church, or at the want of discrimination which would thus place the darkest periods of the middle ages and the Papacy alongside those of the Reformation, and treat them all as ages of gold. Was it during these thousand years, when so many sins were committed, and that, too, in the name of Christ, by Catholics and those of the national and orthodox establishments, that the devil was actually bound? Was it during those times of the Waldensian persecutions, of the Inquisition, of Huguenot wars, and Bartholomew nights, that the martyrs governed the world? Was it during those times, when princes were, indeed, styled Apostolical Majesties, Most Christian Kings, etc., yet lived in the most flagrant sins, that they were really priests of God and kings of Christ? It is truly lamentable that a man like Hengstenberg should have contributed in such a manner to mislead the judgments of men respecting the nature of the church and the world, and should have been able to derive from the prophets no deeper and purer insight. He substitutes what was a false anticipation of the thousand years’ reign for the reign itself—external political Christianity for the real—Christianity of the name and the lip for the true and genuine.” (P. 415) In truth, the description given in the epistles to the seven churches of the kind of Christianity which alone the Lord could recognise and own, forms a strong anticipative protest against such a millennium, and repudiates it.) The very best that has yet been can be nothing more than the prelude of what may still be expected of good. But the subject of the millennium, and the closing periods generally of the world’s history, have such a real or supposed connection with the second coming of Messiah, that it is necessary, in the first instance, to investigate the language of Scripture upon this point. We are the rather inclined to do so, as we are persuade! that if the Scriptural representations regarding it were but calmly considered, there might both be more of formal agreement on the main subject, and less of confident assertion generally on some of the subordinate topics connected with it. I. The doctrine of the Lord’s coming is common to both Testaments, as the desire and expectation of it belongs to the people of God under both dispensations. It could scarcely fail, therefore, that the mode of representation employed respecting it in New Testament Scripture should bear a close resemblance to that which had been in use under the Old, and should even be in great measure coincident with it. The proper starting-point for all the representations is the entrance of sin, which brought as its necessary result the withdrawal of God’s manifested presence, and laid a restraint upon His intercourse with men. Prior to that fatal period, He did not need to come, as from a distance, to do anything for man; He did it as being already and habitually at hand. Even after the transgression the fallen pair are represented, not as seeing the Lord come for the occasion, but as hearing His voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day; they knew the familiar sound of their heavenly Father’s footsteps. But they were to know it thus no more. The Paradise, where God could so familiarly dwell with man, had now become to them a forfeited region; and not till the evil which then entered should have run its course, not till the works of sin should be destroyed, and the warfare with its abettors brought to a perpetual end, could the original state of things in regard to men’s relation to God be again restored. Then, however—that is, when the new and better Paradise is brought in—the tabernacle of God shall be once more with men, and He shall dwell with them, in an everlasting fellowship of love. But till that blessed consummation, there can only be occasional manifestations—comings of such a nature and in such succession as may be needed to maintain the divine interest in the world, to provide the requisite means of grace and comfort to the Lord’s people, and administer seasonable rebukes to His adversaries. Now, in Old Testament Scripture there appears a perpetual struggle against this untoward state of things. Faith is ever striving to bring God out of the distance to which He has retired, and present Him in immediate connection with the deeper experiences of the soul, and the more important movements of the world’s history. The Book of Psalms may be regarded as a continued exemplification of this. How often, in perusing it, do we feel as if we even heard the voice of God, and saw His shape! The soul, animated by a lively spirit of faith, and thereby raised to the higher moods of spiritual thought and feeling, moves among the things of God as among sensible realities; is tremblingly alive to whatever marks His presence or His absence; is alternately cheered by the light of His countenance, and troubled by the hidings of His face; and is conscious of all the indications of a sustained or interrupted fellowship. “Lord, by thy favour thou didst make my mountain to stand strong; thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.” “Arise, O Lord, in thine anger; lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies; and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded.” “In my distress, I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, into His ears. He bowed the heavens also, and came down.” “O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever? Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom?” “Arise; why sleepest thou, O Lord? Cast us not off for ever,” etc. Such a mode of contemplating and addressing God pervading a book which is the production of so many hands, and in its several parts is connected with so many diversities of time and place, could not, it is clear, belong to a few isolated individuals, or be transient in its exercise. It must have been the natural tendency and expression of that spirit which grew out of the religion of the Old Covenant, and which it was the design as well of its symbolical institutions, as of its express promises, to strengthen and foster. Hence, also, it enters deeply into the language of prophecy. Everything of moment in the dispensations of God, is there connected with His presence and working. So, for example, in the earliest prophecy after the transactions connected with the fall, the prediction of Enoch, which is preserved in Jude, though not recorded in the original history: “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all; and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” The prophecy, as appears from the application made of it by St Jude, had an extensive reach, and might be understood even of the final manifestation of the Lord to execute judgment. But, from the time and circumstances in which it was spoken, there can be no doubt that it pointed more immediately to the clouds of wrath which were already gathering around antediluvian sinners, and that when these burst in the deluge there was the first realization of the Lord’s threatened coming to judgment. In like manner, the next recorded manifestations of righteousness of an unusual kind—those connected with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—the punishment of Egypt and the rescue of Israel—are in Scripture associated with the Lord’s immediate presence and agency. He is represented as “coming down to see and hear” how matters stood; and when He saw, smiting, on the one hand, with pestilence and destruction, on the other, stretching forth His hand to protect and succour. What a vivid representation is given in the song of Moses of the Lord’s appearance and working, in connection with the events of the Red Sea! It seems as if it spake of what the eye had seen and the ear had heard: “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name. Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters. Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.” It is not otherwise in prophecy generally. The descriptions vary in respect to imagery and vividness of colouring; but they are alike in connecting the Lord’s personal presence with events, whether of mercy or of judgment, which bore materially on the well-being of His people, or on the power and policy of their enemies. If signal judgment was to be executed upon the worldly kingdoms which sought to oppress or extinguish the covenant people, proclamation was made of the Lord’s coming to inflict it (Isaiah 13:1-22, Isaiah 19:1-25, Isaiah 30:27, etc.) When sin prevailed among the covenant-people themselves, the Lord speaks of His soul departing from them, or of going far off from His sanctuary (Jeremiah 6:8; Ezekiel 8:6), as He actually did when He gave them up to the will of their enemies, and laid their land desolate for a season. On the other hand, when the prospect of better times was announced, it came in the form of an assurance that the Lord would appear with salvation, would Himself even go before as a leader, or, as a protector, bring up their reward (Hosea 6:1-3; Isaiah 40:1-31, Isaiah 52:12). And when the remnant from Babylon again settled at Jerusalem, they were met with the prophetic testimony that He also had returned to Jerusalem with mercies (Zechariah 1:16). But were the people not taught to expect another, and, in the stricter sense, personal coming of the Lord from heaven? Undoubtedly they were—not, however, by the simple announcement of such a coming, but by the conditions and circumstances associated with it, which were such as to require for their fulfilment a personal appearance of Godhead in the flesh. Predictions like those in Malachi, in which it was intimated that the Lord should come suddenly to His temple, that the day of His coming should be terrible, and should burn as an oven, might be paralleled by many others which had their accomplishment in events long prior to the incarnation, and were accompanied by no external displays of the Divine personality. But then in other prophecies there were particular adjuncts connected with the coming. It was to take place amid conditions of flesh and blood, of time and circumstance. There was to be a preparation of the way by a messenger going before, a birth in a definite line and at a specific place, a life and death alike marked by the most singular characteristics—all not only affording ground for expecting, but even containing terms that indispensably required, a coming of the most distinct and palpable description. It was not, therefore, so properly the coming considered by itself as the declared manner and objects of the coming, which rendered that of Messiah’s predicted appearance in the flesh different from all other announcements of the Lord’s coming. And if, on that account, the epithet real is applied to the one, and figurative to the other, or, if the one is designated a personal coming, and the others only virtual or spiritual, such modes of distinction, it must be remembered, are not derived from Scripture, nor are they strictly accordant with the truth of things. The Lord was as really present at the destruction of Sodom, at the deliverance of Israel from the host of Pharaoh, and at the restoration of the captives from Babylon, as in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. There was a proper coming, and an actual presence, in the earlier as well as the later events referred to; only in the former withdrawn from human sight, and forming no part of the visible realities which made up the historical transactions of the time. It was there, however, as a living force, and the invisibility attaching to it was the result merely of a defect in the perceptive part of our natures, which (if He had pleased) might have been supplied by some higher intuition, or even by an intensifying of the power of spiritual apprehension. It was from no want of reality in the appearances, which betokened, on a certain occasion, the presence of the Lord and of His ministering host, but for want of the necessary discernment, that the servant of Elisha was unconscious of their existence; and when the prophet prayed that the servant’s eyes might be opened, presently, we are told, he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha (2 Kings 6:17). In like manner, the peculiar elevation of soul which was given to Stephen on the eve of his martyrdom, enabled him to see what had otherwise remained hid,—the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. Jesus himself is reported to have heard with perfect distinctness a word addressed to Him by the Father, which, in the duller ears of those about Him, sounded only as a confused murmur (John 12:28-29); and, subsequently, in His own manifestation to Saul on the way to Damascus, Saul both saw and heard in the clearest manner what seems to have made but a faint impression upon the senses of others (Acts 9:7). How, indeed, in the case of One who is everywhere present, without whom not even a sparrow falls to the ground, nor a single event, from the least to the greatest in any region of the universe, is accomplished—how but by a special adaptation of Himself to the existing faculties of His creatures, or by an elevation of these faculties to a nearer conformity to His own spiritual nature, can they perceive Him where He is, or descry the signs of His approach? The Son of Man speaks of Himself as being in heaven at the very time He was living upon the earth (John 3:13), as from His essential divinity He must have been, and must also have appeared to be to the higher beings who could penetrate the region of His glory. So that, as regards the Lord’s presence and coming, the real and the visible are by no means to be regarded as interchangeable; and it is only from the accompanying circumstances and conditions that we can determine, in regard to any predicted manifestation of Himself, whether it is to be patent to the senses of men, or concealed from their view. Such are the conclusions we arrive at on the subject of the Lord’s coming, from a consideration of what is written of it in Old Testament Scripture; and the presumption is, as we have already indicated, that it may not be materially different, when we pass from the Old to the New. Here it is the Messiah in His distinctly defined personality as the God-man, and in His character as the glorified Redeemer, whose coming in glory is announced as the great hope of the church. When on earth He was known as “He that should come” (ὁ ἐρχόμενος, the coming one), coming to accomplish the great salvation, and satisfy the longing expectations of spiritual minds. But this could only be done in part at the first appearance of the Lord. It was even necessary, that the work begun on earth should be prosecuted in the heavenly places, that the full number of the elect might be gathered in, and the way prepared for that final possession of the world, and that free intercommunion between God and men, which is to constitute the blessedness of Paradise restored. The agency of Christ, therefore, must be carried on within the veil, and accomplish great results among men, before He can appear in glory. And in regard both to the terminal point itself, and the intervening steps necessary to secure its being reached, we might justly expect representations to be given in the prophetic word very similar to those which had appeared in Old Testament Scripture regarding the incarnation, and the more peculiar manifestations of divine power and glory that preceded it. Such we find to be actually the case. There is a coming spoken of in New Testament Scripture which may be designated in the proper sense terminal, and therefore also visible; so that every eye shall see it, and every heart be filled either with joy or dismay on account of it. And there are comings of a provisional kind, which all point toward the ultimate manifestation, and differ from it only in being less palpable in their nature, and less complete and lasting in their results. The reference to both modes of coming is found in our Lord’s own discourses upon the subject. In some of the parables it is presented under the aspect of a single and conclusive event; as in the parables of the talents and the pounds, where He appears as one going to a far country for a time, and leaving his servants to their several spheres of privilege and duty, with the prospect of a personal reckoning on his return; in the parable also of the wise and foolish virgins, which presents the church in its false, as well as its true portions, under the aspect of a bridal company waiting for the arrival of the proper spouse to the celebration of his marriage solemnity; and in the delineation, substantially also a parabolical one, of the appearance of the Son of Man on the throne of judgment, when He shall have come finally to separate between the goats and the sheep, and to give to every one as his works may have been. In all these representations the coming of the Lord has the aspect of a grand and culminating event, which winds up the affairs of time and ushers in the destinies of eternity. But if we turn to the parable of the wicked husbandmen (Matthew 21:33-43), we find a coming spoken of, which is plainly interpreted by our Lord to have had its accomplishment in an earlier and merely provisional event. There the husbandmen are represented as consummating a long-continued course of wickedness by proceeding to kill him who had come to them in the character of son and heir. And the question is then asked, “When the Lord of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?” The persons present instinctively supplied the answer by saying, that he would miserably destroy those wicked men, and let out his vineyard to others, that would render him the fruits in their seasons. On receiving this answer, and making special application of the truth it embodied, the Lord forthwith uttered the memorable words, “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” So that the divine procedure, which had the effect of transferring the kingdom from Jewish to Gentile soil, must correspond to the coming of the Lord of the vineyard in the parable, for the purpose of dispossessing one class of husbandmen, and installing another. But how was that transference effected? Simply by the setting up of the gospel dispensation by means of the word preached, and the Spirit bestowed among the Gentiles, along with the overthrow of Jerusalem and the dissolution of the old economy. The Lord then came and let out the vineyard to others. Nor is this the only place in our Lord’s discourses, where the same use and application is made of the expression. In the tenth chapter of St Matthew’s gospel we have a full report of the address delivered by our Lord on the occasion of His sending out His apostles on a missionary tour—the first of its kind. Precisely because it was the first—the moment when the ἀποστέλλειν (the sending forth) came into force, from which the apostles derived their name—Jesus perceived in it the image of the whole future mission-work of the kingdom. Accordingly, He framed His address on the occasion so as to embrace the whole, and rendered it substantially a charge to all ministers and missionaries of the gospel to the end of time. That Jesus should have taken this wide and comprehensive view of the subject is itself an evidence of His divine greatness. For a mere man to have done so, might justly have been held extravagance or presumption; but in Him, who could see the end from the beginning and in the beginning, it was perfectly natural. And because He thus embraced in His perspective the whole future progress of His kingdom, even to the bringing in of its final results, He did not fail at the outset to deliver appropriate counsel and encouragement for the later as well as the earlier labourers belonging to it. The discourse, indeed, falls into three successive portions. The first, which reaches to the close of Matthew 10:15, has respect more immediately to the present temporary mission committed to the twelve; as appears from their being charged to confine themselves to the house of Israel, without turning aside either to the Samaritans or the Gentiles, and also from their being instructed to take with them neither scrip nor staff, changes of raiment nor provisions—restrictions which were afterwards withdrawn, when their more general and permanent mission began (Luke 22:35-36). The second part, which again begins with the “I send you”at Matthew 10:16, has respect to a more advanced stage of the work, though one in which those apostles had still the chief burden to bear; it embraces the main period of apostolic agency. In this portion mention is made for the first time of persecutions, and such persecutions as should not be of a merely local kind, but would involve the appearance of the disciples before kings and rulers, as well as councils and synagogues, and among Gentiles not less than Jews. For the emergencies and trials thence arising the promise is also for the first time given them of the Holy Spirit, with all requisite and suitable gifts of grace. And the limitation of the period, as well as of the sphere, to which their agency was to be more especially confined, is marked in the closing words of the section, Matthew 10:23, “Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over (τελέσητε, finished, namely in respect to the great aim of the mission) the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.” A pregnant word indeed for those first heralds of the gospel—as it already gave intimation of difficulties to be encountered among their own countrymen, which they should but very partially succeed in overcoming within the allotted period for their labours! A pregnant word also in respect to the light it threw upon the future intentions and purposes of our Lord! He announces a coming so near, that they should not have time to finish their work as apostles among the cities of Israel, till it should be brought to pass. What possibly could be meant by this but His coming to order and settle anew the affairs of His kingdom among men! Coming, not in visible personality, yet in real majesty, first to endow His followers with power from on high, and cheer them with manifestations of His presence; and then to remove by His judgments the old polity and commonwealth out of the way, which from being superstitiously clung to served only to mar the progress of the new, that the field might be left clear to the gospel of the kingdom! But the end, which was to be introduced by this coming of the Son of Man, was only the beginning of what was to constitute the end in another respect. As the spiritual kingdom then to be set up constituted the New Jerusalem in its commencement, and the Old that was to be destroyed had become a kind of spiritual Sodom or Egypt (Revelation 11:8); so the work as a whole, with its salvation on the one side, and its destruction on the other, formed a striking image of the still more signal coming of Christ, when the old world of sin shall be finally abolished, and the new brought in with its scenes of everlasting purity and bliss. Therefore, in the last section of the discourse, our Lord proceeds to unfold what might be expected by all future labourers in His kingdom both in trial here and in recompense hereafter—what troubles and persecutions they might look for—what encouragements and supports he would be ready to extend to them—what fidelity and zeal it would be their calling to exhibit—and in what fulness of blessing and glory their service would issue, if they but continued stedfast in it to the end. (The sense put, and unavoidably put in the above remarks upon Matthew 10:23, and upon the coming indicated in the parable of the husbandmen, shews how groundless the statement of Bishop Horsley is, “that the phrase of our Lord’s coming whenever it occurs in his prediction of the Jewish war, as well as in most other passages of the New Testament, is to be taken in its literal meaning, as denoting His coming in person, in visible pomp and glory, to the general judgment.” The investigation on which he founds his statement is very summary, and neither of the passages above noticed are referred to.) There are not wanting other passages of a similar kind in our Lord’s discourses; for example, Matthew 16:28, “Verily I say unto you.There be some standing here who shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom”—which, by no fair and natural exposition can be referred primarily to events and times altogether subsequent to the apostolic age; it must indicate what some of those then present lived to witness, viz., to the manifestation of Christ’s divine power after His ascension, when introducing the new dispensation, and formally removing the old. This is the only thing that can be regarded as properly falling within the terms of the description; and what, in, effect, was it but the first movements of the stone in Daniel’s vision, proceeding to displace the things opposed to it, and to take possession of the field? “The day of the Son of Man,” in Luke 17:24, must also be viewed as having its primary reference to the same period—since if referred to the final advent, the practical exhortations connected with it would not be applicable. And in Matthew 24:1-51, it is impossible altogether to separate between the immediate and the final coming. To a certain extent, the two are intermingled together, and the one is contemplated as the type and presage of the other. At the same time there can be no doubt, that the final return of the Saviour is often held forth in New Testament Scripture as the great object of hope and expectation to the church. It meets us at the very commencement of the Apostolic history, in the words addressed by the angels to those who witnessed the ascension: “This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye have seen Him go into heaven”—which manifestly gives promise of a return equally visible and glorious as the departure which had just taken place It is again, shortly afterwards, and in the most pointed manner, referred to by the apostle Peter in his second address to the people of Jerusalem, when representing it as necessary that the heavens should receive Christ only till the times of the restitution of all things. The same apostle in his second epistle describes believers not only as holding fast the promise of Christ’s coming, but even as called to hasten the day of its fulfilment; and St Paul characterises the followers of Jesus as those “who love his appearing.” It is needless to multiply examples. But such passages alternate with others, in which a coming is spoken of, which is neither terminal nor marked by any outward personal display. The history detailed in the book of Acts, though formally that of the apostles, appears more as the continuation of Christ’s personal agency, carried on through the instrumentality of the immediate actors, than of their own proper working. The wonders of Pentecost were exhibited as the evidence of Christ’s exaltation, and the fruit of His power. The miraculous healing of the poor cripple at the temple-gate, and the no less miraculous judgment on Ananias and Sapphira in the church, were alike viewed as the results of Christ’s outstretched hand; they happened because He (the Holy One whom the Father had anointed, Acts 4:27-30) was present with the power of His Spirit to do signs and wonders. When the apostles bore to other lands the gospel of salvation, and planted Christian churches, Christ Himself was declared to have come and preached peace by them (Ephesians 2:17). On Him as a present living Saviour, they laid the foundation of a living church (1 Corinthians 3:10-11). In the Book of Revelation, more especially, where the final coming is most conspicuously displayed, provisional and invisible comings are also most distinctly noticed. “Remember from whence thou art fallen,” is the charge to the church of Ephesus, “and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove the candlestick out of its place.” So also to others, “Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly;” “If thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Nay, he even speaks of himself to the church of Laodicea as standing at the door and knocking. In the subsequent parts of the Book, it is he who, as a “mighty angel,” is represented (Revelation 10:1-11) as coming down from heaven, and setting his feet upon the sea and dry land, as going presently to take permanent possession of both; and who again during the currency of the sixth vial, and in respect to the things then in progress, proclaims, “Behold I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame” (Revelation 16:15). (When all these things are put together, and when it is remembered how our Lord taught a parable for the express purpose of destroying the expectation, that the kingdom should immediately appear in visible glory (Luke 19:12)—when it is remembered also how the apostles, in their more specific passages, interpose a long series of operations and events between their day and the consummation of all things (as in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17, and the Apocalypse)—it is difficult to express one’s astonishment at the confidence with which it is still often affirmed of the apostles, that they looked for the return of Christ before their own death. If so, they must have been at once the most impracticable of learners, and the most inconsistent of writers. The real explanation of the matter lies in their singular strength of faith, with which many of their commentators can so little sympathise, and which led them, in a manner, to overleap the gulph of ages, to identify the present with the future, and to realise great events, whether near or remote, in their pressing magnitude and importance.) From the general current, therefore, of Scriptural representations concerning Christ—from the language employed in the Book of Revelation, and in other parts of the New Testament—it is plain, that the question of Christ’s second advent or His coming, not to depart again, but to dwell with His people, is not to be determined by the mere announcement of His coming. The farther question has still to be considered, for what purpose is the coming announced, and in what manner may it be expected to take place? It was Christ’s promise to the disciples, before He left them, that though corporeally absent, He would still be really and effectively present with them; that He would manifest Himself to them as He could not do to the world, and would be ever coming to do works of mercy or of judgment in their behalf. In every age the heart of faith finds the realization of this promise, sometimes more, sometimes less conspicuously, though never so as to satisfy its longings, or consummate His own work, till He shall come visibly in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And the more particular question, whether this terminal coming is to precede the millennium, or to be subsequent to it, must depend for its settlement on the things spoken of the millennium, whether they are such as befit the manifested presence and glory of the Saviour, or are properly compatible with it. This can only be learned from a careful consideration of what is written upon the subject. We turn, therefore, to the millennium itself. II. It is only in the Book of Revelation that we have any formal or explicit account of what is known as the millennium, or the thousand years’ reign of Christ and His saints. The Old Testament prophets contain many delineations which point towards it, and which shall only then reach their proper accomplishment; but they are, for the most part, of a general description, and are couched under the veil of Old Testament relations. They speak, for example, of a time to come, when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14); when the Lord shall be king over all the earth, and His name one (Zechariah 14:9); when men shall be blessed in Him, and all nations shall call Him blessed (Psalms 72:17); when the earth, having been smitten with the rod of His mouth, and the wicked slain with the breath of His lips, righteousness and peace shall universally prevail, and there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all God’s holy mountain (Isaiah 11:1-9). There are many such descriptions sufficient to show that the Old Testament prophets were enabled to descry, even from their comparatively distant watch-tower, the sure and final overthrow of every form of evil in the world, to be followed by a long and happy reign, during which the truth of God should be everywhere triumphant, and the blessings of salvation shed abroad. But beyond this, nothing can with certainty be anticipated from such descriptions. Those of Daniel, however, are somewhat more specific. In the first of them the kingdom, represented by the stone cut out without hands, the kingdom that was to be set up by the God of heaven, is described as “breaking in pieces and consuming all those kingdoms, and itself standing for ever”—apparently implying, not only the ultimate success and permanent establishment of the Divine kingdom, but along with this, and as somehow necessary to it, the formal abolition and disappearance of the kingdoms, which were contrary to its spirit, and had opposed its progress. So also in the other vision, that of Daniel 7:1-28, the prophet says he “beheld till the beast (the embodied representation of all the worldly kingdoms in their hostility to the kingdom of Messiah) was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame”—as if not merely the spirit that had animated it, but the very form and shape it had assumed, was to come to an end. And again, to the like effect in the explanation, “The judgment shall sit, and they (viz., the saints, the only party of an opposite kind mentioned in the preceding verse—they, therefore, having now received power and authority to judge) shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it to the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness (or power) of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” If this language does not certainly betoken, it yet seems naturally to imply something more than the infusion of a better spirit into the kingdoms of the world; to indicate an actual remodelling of the state of things among men, and a fresh organization of the social fabric, such as would formally commit the administration of affairs into the hands of the Lord’s people, by making personal piety and worth the essential qualification for civil rule. The indications to this effect in Daniel are confirmed, and still more distinctly exhibited in the Apocalypse, which contains by much the most explicit revelation upon the subject. It is not simply, however, the account given of the thousand years’ reign (Revelation 20:1-6), that here calls for consideration; but the manner, also, in which this is introduced, and the antecedent condition of things, out of which it is represented as emerging. Prior to this millennial reign, and preparatory to it, the worldly power in all its successive phases and forms of working, is seen to have gone down. It had passed through every conceivable species of combination and culture, from the time of the old heathen monarchies, down to the subdivided, and at last professedly Christian kingdoms of more recent times. In the course of the changes it underwent, and as the result of the contact into which it came with Christianity, it had appeared for a season to die; the stroke as of a mortal wound seemed to have befallen it; but the former vigour again returned to it, and even more than the former danger to the cause and kingdom of Christ became connected with its operations. Instead of carrying into full and proper effect the spirit of the gospel, it had only imbibed as much of the Christian element as served to render its ministrations to the flesh more perilous for those who knew not the power of godliness; on which account its Christianity had proved but a mother of abominations, and its prophecy a spirit of carnal pride, and lying divination. All, therefore, had been judged and cast out; first, the whore, or the corrupt and faithless church, which even the worldly power came at length to repudiate; and then this power itself—the beast—with his ally, the false prophet, both had been adjudged to the lake of fire, or finally put down as irreconcilably opposed to the spirit and interests of the divine kingdom. The last trial had been given to the world in what might be called its native and self-contrived organizations, to see if its authorities would submit themselves aright to the truth of the gospel, and have their administration directed in accordance with the mind of Christ. But without the desired effect. The old enmity still lurked; the opposition to God and holiness only assumed new and more aggravated forms; and the kingdoms themselves, as well as the beast that represented their ungodliness, and the false prophet that, as it were, inspirited and justified the evil, were swept away into the blackness of darkness for ever. It seems scarcely possible to understand all this of a simple diffusion of gospel light, and a general ascendency of the Christian element, under forms of social life and conditions of working, such as the world has hitherto exhibited. We might have conceived it would be so, if merely a corrupt and apostate Christianity, and a science and learning opposed to the gospel, were all that had been represented as going into perdition. But it is otherwise, when the beast also, and the kingdoms of the world are spoken of as sharing the same fate; for this seems to import, that the worldly powers, or forms of earthly government now and hitherto subsisting in the world, should pass away, as in their very nature incompatible with that higher state of things which is in prospect. They cannot, it would appear, be so divested of the bestial properties inherent in them, as to be capable of assuming the aspect of that kingdom, which had its proper representation in one possessing the likeness of a son of man. The transition from one to the other involves a shaking of earthly things to their foundations, that other things, which cannot be shaken—the things which are of God—may remain. And, indeed, let any one reflect on the invariable tendency of worldly power and dominion—how constantly it takes the direction of fleshly indulgence and selfish aggrandisement, becomes partial or exclusive in its operations, makes undue account of the adventitious and the temporal, while it leaves comparatively unheeded what is of primary and enduring moment; and this, not as in one age merely, or in some particular phases of political and social life, but in all: let any one reflect carefully on this, and say, whether worldly kingdoms, as such, can be conceived to perpetuate their formal existence, on the supposition of everything coming to bear the image of a living Christianity. It is one thing to overthrow evil in its more prevailing forms, but another thing to bring in and establish on a secure and permanent footing the contrary good. The progress of enlightenment, and the growing diffusion of divine truth, may of themselves expose the corruptions of a false religion, and render manifest the insufficiency or ungodliness of a mere earthly wisdom. But they may still prove wholly inadequate to the higher end of making righteousness everywhere and continuously triumphant; nay, must do so, unless the entire framework of society shall be cast anew, so as to lay open all the avenues of life for the good, and close them against the evil. Yet nothing less than this is the extent to which the change predicted shall reach. It is that the saints, not merely shall become more numerous and powerful than hitherto, but shall formally possess the kingdom under the whole heaven, and exercise its dominion. It is, that the god of this world shall be bound in his proper home, that men may not be deceived, and turned aside from the right by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. It is, therefore, that the spiritual shall carry it over the natural in the ordinary affairs of the world—that the grace and energy of holy principle, not hereditary place, or the adventitious distinctions of rank and fortune, shall come to bear general sway among men. And how this can be done without many organic changes being wrought in the social and political sphere, it is impossible to conceive. The more closely the account of the millennial reign is examined, the more does it confirm us in these impressions. Thus, while we read still of the nations of the earth (Revelation 20:3, Revelation 20:8), we hear no more of the old worldly kingdoms, nor of the beast and the false prophet. The existing and historical forms of the world’s power, and wisdom, and glory, have all disappeared. Then, the thrones which were set for judgment, and which unquestionably represented not only the actual, but also the ostensible, forces that are destined to regulate the affairs of that better age, are said to be for those who had suffered for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus—a description which, however understood in respect to the particular occupants, and of which we shall speak presently, undoubtedly denotes such as are distinguished for the most faithful and uncompromising adherence to the principles of the gospel. These it is who are then to appear before the world as its guides and rulers; by them somehow, and by them in the recognised character of the Lord’s people, the world is to be presided over and governed. Of them, as emphatically “blessed and holy,” it is written, that they are the “priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” Being, like Christ Himself, priests upon thrones, their kingly power and influence shall be based on ascertained holiness of character; all authority shall be held directly of God, and such things only shall be allowed to proceed as carry with them the divine sanction, and are fitted to promote the interests of righteousness. Happy period, truly, that shall witness the commencement of such an administration! But what a remodelling shall it not need to bring along with it of the political and social fabric! In the same direction, also, points the notice that is given of the prime agent and patron of evil. Satan, we are told, shall be bound during the thousand years’ reign in the bottomless pit, so that he shall be able to deceive the nations no more. Here, again, there is a mighty gulph to be bridged over for the world, and even for the church. Outside the professing church, the field is, in a manner, all his own; he is the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, and carries them captive at his will. But even within the church his temptations are plied with unwearied diligence, and lamentable success. Under the very eye of the apostles, and in spite both of their supernatural gifts, and their unceasing watchfulness, he found it possible to deceive many; and by dint of his subtle agency, not only has there been reared a huge system of antichristian idolatry, but in the case of myriads living amid the clearest light, a worthless profession is ever being substituted for the life and power of godliness. When that agency, therefore, with its fruits, shall have been abolished, there will inevitably be a revolution, previously unheard of, in the general order and constitution of things. Governments as they now exist, the policy and business of the world as at present conducted, even the management and direction of the church, which shall then have ceased to be distinct from the world, shall be antiquated; in many respects they shall have to take another aim, and work in another manner, than they have hitherto done; because they shall have to be adapted to a state of things in which no longer ignorance, delusion, and falsehood predominate, but the knowledge and love of the truth. Such, then, being the view of the millennial state presented to us in the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse, taken in its plain and broad import, the question naturally arises, How is it to be brought about and maintained? What is indicated as to the means and agencies by which such extraordinary results are to be accomplished? To say nothing of the operations going before, and preparing the way for the introduction of this state—which have been discussed in a previous chapter—there are two leading features in the millennial vision itself, the two circumstances last noticed, which must be regarded as of the nature of means or agencies, and must be understood, if not themselves to possess, at least to involve in the way of inseparable accompaniment, whatever of vital influence or efficient working may be necessary. (1.) The first instrumentality referred to is the binding of Satan: “And I saw an angel,” St John writes, “come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after that he must be loosed a little season.” That this description is, in respect to the form, figurative, can admit of no doubt; for the actual performance of such material operations as those here connected with the key, the chain, and the seal, are obviously incompatible with the nature of the being to whom they relate. A spirit without bodily parts cannot possibly be the subject of such gross and mechanical treatment. But as a finite being, subject to the conditions of space and time, he may, doubtless, be confined within a definite region—confined as strictly as if he were actually chained in a prison-house, with the door sealed by the hand of Omnipotence to prevent the possibility of egress. And such may be the meaning here. The binding of Satan may denote a local and personal incarceration of the prince of darkness within the region designated by the bottomless pit; or it may indicate, that in respect to his cause and operations in the world, it shall be as if by forcible arrestment and location in such a region he were prevented from taking part in them. Which of these two senses should be preferred will depend upon the question, Whether the representations given us of Satan in this book, and in Scripture generally, are mainly of a personal or of a relative description? Whether they refer to Satan as an individual, or to the relation in which he stands through his workings to the church and the world? Now that it is the latter, and not the former, may be rendered evident by a few plain considerations. It is in perfect accordance with the economy practised by Scripture in its supernatural communications, and the strictly moral design with which it makes them, that it should be very sparing in its intimations respecting the personal history of Satan, and should give prominence only to what concerns his power and interest among men. There is, therefore, an antecedent presumption that the knowledge imparted will be chiefly, if not exclusively, of a relative description. And when we look to the communications actually made, we soon perceive that unless they are contemplated in this light they stand in irreconcilable opposition to each other. Thus, at a certain period of our Lord’s ministry, He declared that He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven; at another and later period, He speaks of Satan being judged and cast out (viz., from the world); while in the second chapter of the Apocalypse he is represented as having his seat at Smyrna, then, in chapter twelfth, as being, in consequence of our Lord’s perfect obedience unto death and ascension up on high, cast out of heaven, and brought down to the earth; yet again, in this twentieth chapter, as shut up in the bottomless pit; while in 2 Peter 2:4, the whole company of fallen angels, inclusive doubtless of their chieftain, are declared to have been, from the very period of their fall, thrust down to hell, and under chains of darkness reserved unto judgment. It is impossible, excepting on the most arbitrary and forced suppositions, to bring such statements into harmony, if they are understood absolutely, and applied simply to the personelle of Satan. But viewed as symbolical representations of his position and influence in relation to mankind, the whole becomes perfectly intelligible; and the several changes of position indicated in respect to height and depth, heaven and earth, confinement and release, only mark the different stages of the power he exercises, and the cause he maintains in the world. Such, on a still farther account, must be the view we adopt of the description given of Satan in the vision before us. In it, as in the descriptions generally of this book, a symbolical element predominates. The characters delineated in them all are representative, rather than individual and personal; and Satan is no more to be considered apart from the legions of darkness, and the instruments of evil generally, than the beast from its different embodiments in the worldly kingdoms, or the woman and the whore from the parties they respectively symbolized. Satan, therefore, comes into view here simply as the representative of the devilish power and agencies in the world; and the disposition often shown by writers on the Apocalypse, to consider the binding of Satan in a strictly personal light, is but another example of the intermingling of the literal with the symbolical, which has so greatly retarded the proper understanding of the prophetical Scriptures. Taking, then, the description of Satan’s being bound with chains, and shut into the bottomless pit, in a relative sense, we have in it a symbolical representation of the utterly prostrate condition to which at and during the millennium his interest in the world shall be reduced. It goes down, as it were, to the lowest hell. At first the adversary had appeared altogether in the ascendant; his dwelling seemed to be in heavenly places—such commanding sway had he obtained over the minds of men and the affairs of time. He is compelled to stoop, however, from his lofty elevation by the accomplishment of our redemption, and the ascension of the Son of Man to the right hand of the Father. But though thenceforth crippled in his power, and reduced to a lower sphere, he still wields a mighty influence, and sustains a vast dominion in the world. He does so partly by giving a new and more Christian-like form to the beastly power of the world, and partly by the corruption of the church through the formation of the great apostacy. Here again, however, he is destined to another downfal. The building he has laboured with such power and dexterity to raise, at length gives way under the advancement of truth and righteousness. The judgment of heaven alights on its different parts—Babylon, or the corrupt church, first going into perdition, then in close succession the beast and the false prophet. One abyss receives them all; and with their descent thither, the adversary has his dominion overthrown also upon the earth, and is consigned as to a miserable and inactive bondage in the nether world. In each stage of the downward history all is at once symbolical and relative, and is consequently framed according to the appearances of things. At every step in the process we must explain, it was as if Satan were in such a position, as if now he were occupying such a sphere. And hence in what respects the last stage, his place during the thousand years’ reign, it is the comparative, rather than the absolute annihilation, of his power and influence that must be understood. His cause on the earth shall be gone. He shall no longer have a distinct party to represent him, or a fitting agency to ply his devices and prosecute his designs. It will be as if he had altogether lost his influence among the generations of mankind, though, since men shall still be in the flesh, and death shall still work, and a liability shall still exist to deception and apostacy, his connection with the world cannot be wholly destroyed. It will survive, but only—as the cause of God in the past times of the world’s corruption—in a mystery. From what has been said of the nature of the representation before us, it follows that the binding of Satan, when viewed in respect to millennial means and agencies, is much more of a negative than of a positive nature. It will appear in the withdrawal of manifold temptations to evil, and the cessation of plans and operations, which had for their object the encouragement of ungodliness and crime. But that very cessation and withdrawal must itself be a result. It will be the supplanting of falsehood by the prevalence of truth; the abolition of darkness by the diffusion of light; the removal of what is in itself evil, or tends to evil, by the love and practice of what is pure and lovely, and of good report. The kingdom of Satan, it must be remembered, belongs not to the physical but to the moral sphere. The foundation on which it rests is sin; and wherever the occasions and inducements to sin are resisted, there also the devil is worsted—he plies in vain his machinations, his weapons of war have perished. But to render such a resistance general in the world, there will necessarily be required a direct and powerful agency of good. There must be influences from above, and, through these, states of mind, social habits, and arrangements, brought into play, which shall on every hand counterwork the wiles of Satan, and give effect to the pure and beneficent spirit of the gospel of Christ. (2.) It is in the other feature of the description that we are to look for these more direct and positive agencies, by which the comparative perfection of the millennial state is to be secured. This, though in itself one, has a double representation in the vision. In the first instance it is described as a judging and reigning with Christ; while afterwards it is designated the first resurrection; the one aspect, however, being involved in the other, and only rendering more prominent what had been previously implied. “And I saw thrones,” so the description runs in regard to the first aspect, “and they sat upon them; and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness (testimony) of Jesus, and for the word of God; and such as had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” Now, that they are said to have lived and reigned, is obviously as much as that they lived again in order to reign. It implies their previous death, and their death from circumstances the very opposite of those now associated with their state—because they had not power to reign, nor even to preserve themselves in life. The description, therefore, is plainly that of a martyr-company. It is so throughout, in the latter part as well as the first; for the whole of the parties mentioned are represented as now living and reigning, in contrast to a previous time, when they had found it impracticable alike to live and to reign. But it becomes conclusively certain, and, indeed, must cease with all fair and sober interpreters to be a disputable point, when the description here is taken in connection with earlier passages, which it merely resumes, in order to shew the reverse of the picture that had been previously exhibited. The first of those passages is Revelation 6:9-11, where it is said, at the opening of the fifth seal, that there appeared “under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and the testimony which they held,”—manifestly the first company indicated in this millennial vision, who are said to have been beheaded, or slain, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. And in answer to the cry for judgment raised by those slain witnesses, it was intimated, that “they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed, as they were, should be fulfilled.” This is not less plainly the other company, who were to suffer in the later stages of the beastly power’s opposition to the cause of God, and whose case is more fully represented in subsequent portions of the Book. We find it in Revelation 13:15, where it is written of those who would not receive the mark of the beast, nor worship his image, that power was given to the second beast to kill them; and again in Revelation 17:6, where Babylon, the antichristian power of later times, more peculiarly embodied in the papacy, is described as being even drunk with the blood of the saints, and of the martyrs of Jesus. Referring now to these previous delineations, and embracing the whole line of confessors and martyrs, the vision given to the Apocalyptist of the occupants of the millennial thrones includes such as had not worshipped the beast, nor had received his mark, together with those who, at an earlier period, had been beheaded for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus. So that the description tells simply of the confessors and martyrs living anew, and, instead of dying as formerly for the cause of Christ, reigning with Him over a world at last brought into subjection to the truth of God. (This seems now to be generally admitted by those, who yet differ widely on other points—compare, for example, Dr Brown’s “Second Advent,” Part I., chap. 10, and Mr Birks’ “Outlines of Prophecy,” pp. 108-110. We are, therefore, the more surprised, that such a writer as Auberlen should fail here so much in apprehending the connection of the passage, and the character of the representation, as to interpret only the first part of the martyrs, and the second of all, who did not belong to the whore—true Christians generally. In one sense, no doubt, they are included, but no more in connection with the one portion of the martyr-company than the other.) In what sense, then, is it, that the martyrs previously referred to as persecuted and slain, are here represented as living anew and reigning as kings? Is the description to be understood of such persons individually and properly? or is it to be understood of them symbolically, as representatives of the cause and kingdom of Christ? Many reasons and counter-reasons have been presented in answer to these questions; of which, however, the greater part determine nothing either way. But there are two considerations, which to our own mind are perfectly decisive; and the rather so, as they are considerations which the simplest readers of the Apocalypse are capable of discovering and resting in, as well as the most subtle and learned. The first is, that if the souls of the martyrs are to be viewed in an individual, then they must also be taken in an exclusive respect. It must be held, that those, and those only, who had suffered unto death in the cause of the gospel are to rise again and reign during the millennium; for individuals of that precise class having the honour assigned them, those not belonging to it must be understood to have been purposely omitted. But then the class is so comparatively limited in number, and so palpably distinguishes those who compose it from other genuine believers by the accidents of their history, rather than by the essential characteristics of their state, that to confine the regency of the millennial age to them, were to run counter to the whole genius of the Gospel. It would exclude the apostle John himself from any share in the honour, since he was not beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, nor, we have reason to think, were the apostles generally, and the first evangelists in the church. We hold, therefore, the partial and arbitrary character of this interpretation to be fatal to it; understood of individuals, the exclusive bearing of the description is as legitimate and necessary as the inclusive one, and then not Christian believers, but only Christian martyrs must be destined to live again and reign in the millennium. There is another point, however, in this view of the description, which is still more decisive against it; namely, its contrariety to the general style of the representations of this Book, and in particular to that of the earlier portions referred to in the very terms of the description. In unison with the ecstatic condition of the prophet, and the mode of revelation, which was by vision, the scenes are throughout ideal as to the form they assume; and the characters that appear in them are in consequence described symbolically and representatively, not individually and personally. Thus the royal and conquering hero in the first seal is not the personal Saviour, but the cause and people that have Him for their living head; it is personified Christianity in all its compass and completeness. In like manner, the woman in the twelfth chapter is not properly or directly the Virgin Mary, as is plain from the woman’s seed being used as a comprehensive term for the whole of the elect church; it is this church itself which can only at most be regarded as having for the moment found a concentrated representation in the mother of Jesus. That the same holds of the vision in the fifth seal respecting the souls under the altar seems so manifest, that it is difficult to understand how it should ever have been contemplated otherwise. Their position alone as seen under the altar is conclusive of the sense in which it is to be taken; it shews the description to be that entirely of an ideal scene, in which the animal souls (corresponding to the life-blood of the ancient victims) of the martyred witnesses appeared in the place of sacrifice, their righteous blood that had been poured out there crying to heaven for vengeance. It is quite frivolous, therefore, to insist upon the term souls being often used to denote persons; no one doubts that it is; but the question is, can it be so taken here? In the midst of a scenic and symbolic representation, in which certainly it is not a literal altar, nor a literal cry for judgment, nor literal robes of glory that are spoken of, are the souls, that form the centre of the whole, to be understood in the literal and personal sense? They manifestly cannot be so understood without arbitrarily interchanging the literal with the symbolical, and destroying all certainty of interpretation. The souls seen in the ideal region under the altar simply represent those, who during the struggling and depressed period of Christ’s kingdom had to bear reproach and suffering unto death on account of it. And so, again, here, the souls once sacrificed and slain, but now living and enthroned represent the party that had been persecuted unto blood, risen at length to the dominion, not only possessed of fresh life, but invested with kingly power and authority. Should it be asked, whether the party so represented must not, however, be viewed as composed of the same individuals? We reply, that the question here is not properly of individuals, but of a collective body, and of a continuous history. It might as well be asked, whether the witnesses in Revelation 11:1-19, who represent the church during the whole period of her earnest contending for the truth of the gospel, were the same at the close as at the beginning? Or, whether the beast was the same in the later forms and manifestations of the worldly power as in the earlier? Or, whether the whore was the same, when she received her doom, as when she entered on her career of backsliding and apostacy? In all cases of this description there is, and must be, a continuity in the imagery employed; the future as to its essential elements must be identified with the past, in order to show that it is the same cause which is proceeding, the same interests that are involved. And precisely as here the once beheaded souls are seen rising to life and reigning, so in earlier and closely related visions the two witnesses appear as first slain, then coming to life again and ascending to heaven, and the holy apostles and prophets are called to rejoice over Babylon, as being avenged in her destruction (Revelation 18:20), although they lived before the apostacy represented by Babylon had even assumed a formal existence in the world. We are compelled, therefore, by a regard to the scenic and symbolic character of the representations in the Apocalypse, and by the necessity of avoiding what would otherwise war with the great principles of the Gospel, to take the souls here described as passing from the death of martyrdom to the possession of thrones, not in an individual, but in an ideal and representative sense. In their position and aspect, as formerly seen by the apostle, they formed a fitting and impressive image of the church and cause of Christ, when struggling for existence and striving unto blood for the testimony they held; now, they not less fitly image the same church and cause everywhere triumphant, appearing, as they do, not under the rod of oppression, but upon thrones of judgment, not as sheep for the slaughter, but holding at command the sovereignty and dominion of the world. It is simply to mark the contrast in its full extent, that the description in the Apocalypse takes the form of the martyred host rising to life and glory. In Daniel, on the other hand, where the same representation in substance is given, but where it assumes a more general and outward form—the form of a contest for dominion between the kingdoms of earth and the kingdom of heaven, the issue of the contest naturally presents itself under the image of the judged becoming the judges, or of the saints possessing the kingdom, and exercising the dominion under the whole heaven. These saints in Daniel are no other than the martyrs in the Apocalypse; and it is only from the demands of the symbolical representations in the two places respectively, that a diversity in the form to that limited extent prevails. But if such be the true interpretation of this part of the vision, why, it may still be asked, should such emphasis be laid on the scene described as a resurrection? “They lived and reigned with Christ,” it is said of the souls, “a thousand years; but the rest of the dead lived not again, until the thousand years were finished. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ; and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” Why designate the event referred to so explicitly and repeatedly as not only a resurrection, but the first resurrection, and distinguish between the dead then raised and the rest of the dead, who are not to be raised till the close of the millennial era, if the description is not to be understood of definite individuals, but symbolically of the representatives of Christ’s cause and kingdom among men? Simply, we answer, to mark the greatness of the moral resuscitation that is to take place, the mighty and permanent impression it is to make upon the world, and the near approach that is to be effected by it toward the final issues of the kingdom. In these respects it will be immeasurably superior to everything that has been known or experienced within the sphere of the earthly life. In describing it the prophet must borrow his imagery from the higher life to come: it is the first resurrection, because it seemed to his illuminated eye to partake more of the immortal vigour and bloom of the resurrection-state, than of the sickliness and languor which have hitherto characterized the church on earth. Such glowing delineations of the nearer future, by the characteristics of the higher and more remote, are not unknown in prophecy. The prophet Ezekiel, when foretelling what relatively occupies the same place in his predictions with the scene before us, finds nothing suitable but the coming resurrection; it is under this image, wrought out after his peculiar fashion into manifold details, that he pourtrays the resuscitation that was to come upon his peeled and scattered countrymen. (Indeed the whole that is written here in Revelation 20:1-10, is but the resumption, with reference to Christian times and relations, of the predictions in Ezekiel 37:1-28, Ezekiel 38:1-23,Ezekiel 39:1-29; where there is first the revived state imaged by the resurrection—then the happy and peaceful reign under the presidency of the new David—and, finally, the temporary interruption of this happy state of things by the invasion of Gog and His warlike hordes.) It is under the same image that the apostle Paul, in no ecstatic mood, depicts the result of Israel’s conversion: “What,” he asks, “shall their reception be, but life from the dead?” How much more, then, might such a style of representation be used of the time, when the universal church, freed at length from the thraldom of the antichristian yoke, and recovered from the slumber and filth of ages, is to burst forth in the freshness and beauty of a divine life? When all her members shall reflect the holy grace and energy of her glorified Head? and these members grown so many in number, and so powerful in influence, that every sphere of life shall be penetrated by their agency, and every region of earth be willingly obedient to their sway? When such a scene is realized, shall not the first stage of the resurrection-life seem to be reached? Shall not the world at length have the visible pledge of a blessed immortality? (It is no argument against this view, to say, that the words, “this is the first resurrection,” are introduced by way of explanation, and cannot, therefore, be understood symbolically. For we find similar explanations constantly occurring in the Apocalypse; as in this very chapter, “the lake of fire, this is the second death;” Revelation 14:4, “these are they which are not defiled with women, for they are virgins;” Revelation 11:9, “the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified;” Revelation 4:5, “seven lamps of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.” In all these, and various others, there is a symbolical element in the explanation, as well as in the thing explained; and it is by the whole character and connection of the vision, that the precise import of the descriptions is to be determined.) Viewed thus, the language of the vision has its perfect justification, both in the nature of the things described and in the usage of prophecy. And were it not for the mistaken realism, which is ever forcing itself in upon even the better class of interpreters, and disturbing the harmony of the Divine symbolism, no material difficulty would be found in what remains of the description. Let it be only kept steadily in view, that in the apostle’s account of what he saw and heard in the visions of God, we have an ideal delineation of the great and heart-stirring reality just described—such a delineation as might convey to the church beforehand, the most correct and vivid notion of its character; and it will readily be perceived, why he should pronounce those peculiarly blessed and holy, who should have part in the first resurrection, and should also represent the rest of the dead as not living till the thousand years were finished. The change is to be so great and deep—there is to be such an inwardness and strength in the spiritual life of the millennial era, that not only a resurrection, but a resurrection of the most faithful and devoted of Christ’s followers seemed necessary to characterise the event. It should be as if the flower alone of the church, her noblest exemplifications of holy zeal and self-sacrificing love had come to life again, and entered on their immortal career. Nothing any longer should appear of the lukewarm, who had hung midway between flesh and spirit, Christ and the world, and in times of temptation had ever been ready to fall away; far less of those who had openly espoused the cause of ungodliness, and soiled their garments in the pollutions of the world. At the millennial era there shall be no resurrection of such mongrel characters—none, at least, till the period commenced by that era shall be drawing to its close. Then the other dead shall have their representation also; and the diversities that have appeared in the past shall be found embodied anew in the lives and actions of professing Christians. Not so, however, during the millennium itself. Then there shall be only life in its fullest vigour and efflorescence; and the church shall present the aspect of a body fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. Hence the eulogium, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power:” that is, they shall be all visibly of the right stamp—not like men standing on slippery places, and leaving it doubtful, whether heaven or hell might at length come to be their portion; no, but men so sincere in heart, so consistent in behaviour, so clearly and transparently Christian, that no room shall be left for doubt in regard either to their blessed condition, or their glorious destiny. (It is only by understanding thus “the rest of the dead,” who lived not till the close of the thousand years, of classes of characters, that the uniformity of the symbolical description is preserved. And to interpret it of the remnant mentioned in Revelation 19:21, or of the dead generally as to their personal resurrection, is to bring in a realistic element out of place in the midst of a symbolical delineation.) This perfectly harmonizes, also, with the other part of the description, which represents the millennial worthies as “priests of God and of Christ, and as reigning with Him.” Royal power shall belong to them, but not such as the world is wont to associate with the name. It will be the royalty of priests, who in their kingly administration shall do spiritual and holy service to the Lord. The ensigns of their dignity shall not be stately equipages, nor shall carnal weapons be the instruments of their sway. They shall deal with the higher elements of power, such as are fitted to reach the springs of action, rather than to direct its outward courses; and so they shall do their “great works upon the unforced obedience of men”—the noblest proof of a spiritual agency and a divine calling. But how they shall actually do so; by what steps they shall themselves attain to this priestly power; what special organizations, when attained, it may lead them to form; through what modes of influence and channels of working it may diffuse itself in the world, we can as yet form no distinct conception. It is enough for us to know, that it shall be, and that the residue of the Spirit is with the Lord, to accomplish the result. Has He spoken, and shall He not do it? Has He purposed, and shall He not accomplish it? III. Having now considered what is written of the thousand years’ reign, we return to the question, in what relation does it stand to the coming of the Lord? Of much that has been advanced upon this question, it is not our intention to take any notice; being persuaded that a multitude of things have been pressed into the field from a misapprehension of the proper nature and province of prophecy, and from a desire to extract from it an amount of light respecting the precise form and lineaments of the future, which it was never intended to give. If in the first part of our inquiry we have not succeeded in showing the impropriety of such a treatment of prophecy; and if the proofs which have subsequently been exhibited of the erroneous and contradictory results, to which it inevitably leads, have failed to produce conviction, nothing that could be said now on this particular phase of the prophetic future could be of any avail. But from what has been already stated respecting the millennium itself, as well as from the kind of providences which must be necessary to bring it into accomplishment, there can be no doubt that it must be in a very special manner connected with the power and presence of the Lord. The apostles spake of Him as coming and being present, when the gospel through their instrumentality and the working of God’s providence took effect in particular places, and when the kingdom of God was transferred from Jewish to Gentile soil. But the operations by which such things were accomplished, could not have afforded nearly such marked indications of His presence, or such proofs of His controlling agency and power, as must appear in the world-wide movements and changes of which we have been treating. The subversion of antichristian falsehood and domination, the bringing to nought of the world’s power and wisdom, the abolition of all that in the social and political condition of things is opposed to truth and justice, and, along with these, the formal elevation of the pious and God-fearing portion of mankind to the place of influence and authority, and the establishment through all lands of the pure and benign principles of the Gospel:—such things, when they take place, cannot but betoken a manifestation of the presence and coming of the Lord, far surpassing what has yet appeared in the past—if we except the period of His actual sojourn among men. Besides, when we take into account what human nature now is, and how much its instinctive cleaving to the dust, together with the veil that hides from its view the realities of a higher sphere, operates as a hindrance to the work of grace among men, and to the practical ascendency of the truth of God in the world, it cannot appear wonderful if there should be some nearer connection established in the millennial period between the two regions of the divine kingdom. Without speculating much concerning the possibilities of things, we can conceive a mode of administration not impracticable, which should bring into fuller realization than hitherto the word of our, Lord to Nathanael, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man”—something whereby faith might become more like a living sense than it has ever been in any number of individuals, or for any length of time in the same individuals, during the past stages of the world’s history. This, we say, might not seem impracticable, and might even appear needful, when we think of the difficulties to be vanquished, and the resistance to be overcome, compared with the gigantic and blessed results, that for so long a period are to be in progress. Indeed, we can scarcely understand how such results can be effected, unless supports of some sort are furnished to faith, and an insight is given into the spiritual and divine beyond what has been the common privilege of believers since the present dispensation began. But whatever may be justly anticipated in this direction, it ought to be looked for, not so much, perhaps not at all, in connection with any objective or visible manifestation on the Lord’s part, but from subjective elevation on theirs. In so far as given, it will be the property of faith, not of sight, and will come as the effect of a more copious outpouring of the Spirit—a bestowal of grace so plentiful as to make gifts that have hitherto been rare comparatively common, and shall raise the recipients of them to such an elevation of soul, and such nearness of communion with heaven, that all who see them shall feel as if they saw the face of an angel. There is nothing in the constitution of the church of Christ, or in the prophetic word, to render such an enlargement of present grace and privilege improbable; much, indeed, to warrant and encourage the expectation of it. The more so, as it is plain that, entirely apart from the removal of external hindrances, or the supply of adventitious helps, there must be an operation of the Spirit of grace, of the most efficacious and persuasive kind, in order even to reconcile the world to the rule of the saints, or to give it practical effect. If there shall be power to make the people generally willing to obey, how much more of power—power to reach to the greater things of God—will be required for those who in such a time will be called to rule in the affairs of men, and ride on the high places of the earth! And if it shall be the grand reaping-time for the world in the Spirit’s work, of which till then the first-fruits only shall have been gathered, what must form the essential condition of its accomplishment so much as the nobler endowments of the Spirit, and His richer communications to the souls of men! But that the glorified Redeemer should openly manifest Himself to the world, and in the splendour of Divine Majesty should take visible possession of the throne—that what is known as distinctively the advent of the Son of Man in glory, for the purpose of winding up the affairs, and bringing in the final results of His dispensation—that this is to precede the commencement of the millennial reign, and constitute its more important and distinguishing feature, we can by no means admit; for it seems to us, in many respects, at variance with the clearest revelations given on the subject, and incompatible with the constitution and order of things that shall then be brought into existence. We shall only glance at some of the more leading points. (1.) First of all, in the passage which beyond doubt contains the most explicit and detailed account of the millennium, this personal manifestation, and local residence of Christ on earth, is not mentioned. If it really were to have a place in the state of things then to exist, that place must unquestionably be a pre-eminent one; it should, one would imagine, have formed the prominent feature in the description. But it is not once distinctly named. The reign of Christ is implied, merely, as forming the substratum and background of that which His people are to exercise. But it is the reign of this people themselves—the thrones set for them to occupy—the royal priesthood they are to discharge—the high, blessed, and honourable condition they are to hold—these alone are the points which are prominently exhibited in the delineation. When the people of Christ are thus represented as possessing the kingdom, it must be because they are ostensibly to bear sway upon the earth; the reins of government are to be in their hands. Then, no doubt, as well as now, the position they occupy shall have its root in their connection with Christ; their rule, therefore, shall not be of an independent nature, but, as it is here described, a reigning with Christ, precisely as in their present state they live with Christ, and (spiritually) sit with Him in heavenly places. As regards outward appearance, however, it is they who in the millennium are to constitute the dominant parties, while in an after-stage, the really culminating period of the world’s history, when Christ is to appear, and shine forth in His glory, they fall comparatively into the back-ground, and it is He who takes the prominent place. Then by the excessive lustre of His throne, every other throne disappears; all power and authority, life and blessing, centre in Him, and diffuse their influence on every side (Revelation 20:11, Revelation 21:5, etc.) (2.) A second argument against the visible manifestation and personal appearance of Christ at the millennium is derived from the account given in the Apocalypse of what is to precede and usher in the era. Its more immediate precursors are to be the execution of the doom of antichrist, the destruction of the beast and the false prophet, or the overthrow generally of the world’s organized power and wisdom. The final conquest of the kingdoms that formed the earthly forces and adherents of those hostile parties had been represented in Revelation 19:1-21 under the image of a royal rider on a white horse, going forth with his armies to bring the people under him. Such a rider cannot fail to suggest the thought of Christ; yet the representation is properly an ideal one, and exhibits the spirit rather than the exact form of the coming transactions. This is evident alone from the accompaniments of the chief personage—his white horse and splendid accoutrements—his band of faithful and devoted attendants—and, above all, the grand weapon employed in the conflict, the sharp sword going out of his mouth. This, we can have no doubt, is the word of truth, considered as a word of conviction and rebuke, wielded, however, as it ever is now, not by Christ directly and personally, but through the instrumentality of His faithful and devoted servants. Through them, therefore, as the immediate actors in the conflict, the victory is to be won. And so again in the overthrow of Babylon, or the destruction of the antichristian apostacy, so far from any visible and overpowering display of Christ’s divine glory being required to accomplish it, the kingdoms of the world themselves are represented as having a chief hand in the business, turning, as it is said, to hate the whore and to destroy her (Revelation 17:16). Their taking this part will by no means dissociate the event from Christ’s personal agency; it will still be His doing, and so, in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, it is expressly ascribed to the breath of His mouth and the brightness of His coming. But since even worldly kingdoms are to be actively employed in effecting it, the coming spoken of cannot be that of the final advent or any external manifestation of Christ’s power and glory. It must be such a coming as took place in Pentecostal times, and the overturning that followed, through heathenish intervention, of apostate Judaism; so that whether we look to the immediate precursors of the millennium, or to the distinctive features of the millennium itself, there seems nothing in the description that requires or properly admits of the manifested appearance and external glory of Christ. (3.) Thirdly, The hypothesis of the final advent before the millennium assumes an incongruous mixture of the two states of humiliation and glory, such a mixture as seems incompatible with the great principles of the divine administration. Looking either to these principles themselves, or to the exemplification that has been given of them in the past, there seems to be a gulph fixed between the two conditions. The things belonging to a state of humiliation cannot, excepting in momentary periods and partial cases, intermingle with those belonging to the state of glory. The outward frame and constitution of the world is adapted to the present condition of its inhabitants; and if the one becomes essentially changed, the other must undergo a corresponding alteration. When Jesus entered on His state of glory, He could no longer dwell on earth and make Himself visible to men. Before this can fitly take place, the corruptible must have put on incorruption, the carnal be changed into the spiritual. Only when He comes to make all things new, and stamps them with the perfection of His divine work, will the world be prepared as the house of the glory of His kingdom. (4.) Again, the special acts more immediately associated in Scripture with the period of the second advent belong to the age subsequent to the millennium. Among the acts referred to must be placed, in the first instance, those of the general resurrection and the final judgment,—both of which are here placed after the millennium, and described in the latter part of Revelation 20:1-15. It is as clear as language can make it, that by St John’s account these events are both posterior to the millennial age, and also peculiarly connected with the Lord’s manifested presence and glory; and all opinions which attempt to get rid of these conclusions must be assigned to the region of speculation, not to that of fair and unbiassed interpretation. The same order also is observed in the representations elsewhere found in Scripture. Another act of the same class is the solemnization of the bride’s marriage with the Lamb. This, in the Apocalypse, is placed subsequent to the millennium, subsequent even to the general judgment. It is only after the period of conflict is entirely closed, and the final awards have been dispensed, that the holy city (as the church is now called) appears descending out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2). At an earlier stage, indeed, she is spoken of as having made herself ready, and the time for her marriage is even said to have come (Revelation 19:7). But the actual and formal realization of the espousals is only introduced afterwards, and the previous notice of preparation and readiness must be understood simply of the great relative advance made toward the consummation. So marked was this at the period referred to, that farther delay, in regard to the final issue, seemed needless; the union, so far as the existing church was concerned, might be consummated at once. Hence, when we look to the representations given of it in Scripture, we find the union spoken of as one that admits of a series of matrimonial solemnities. Even the first union of believers to Christ has sometimes the aspect of a marriage given to it (Romans 7:4; Ephesians 5:32; Isaiah 54:5). More commonly, however, the present relationship of the church to Christ is described as that of a bride to the bridegroom, contemplating the marriage-union as an event yet in prospect. But at the glorious epoch of the millennium the things that concern her seemed to take such a mighty rise—the number, the holiness, the power and influence of her members, appeared to mount so far above their former level, that the happy time for a consummation might already be said to have arrived. Yet, if the church should then seem ready, other things would not be so. The theatre of bliss would be by no means adequately prepared for the full manifestation of the sons of God, and their joint participation with Christ in the highest honours of the kingdom. For this there is required not only a church all glorious within, but a corresponding glory also without—a new heavens and a new earth. Sin, in every form, must be put down; the powers of evil must be driven from every department of nature and every sphere of life; the whole region of terrestrial things must again become very good; and then at length will the Lord dwell with men as at first, there being nothing any more to offend the eye of His holiness, or to draw forth the visitations of His displeasure. Then will He find it possible to treat His redeemed as His proper spouse, and maintain with them a free and blessed intercourse of love. But if so only then, a pre-millennial manifestation in glory, followed by His abiding and visible presence, cannot be justly looked for. On all these grounds the conclusion forces itself upon us, that whatever of spiritual elevation may be given to the Lord’s people during the millennium, and whatever indications may be afforded them of His own peculiar nearness and presiding agency, as still the restitution of all things shall not then have fully come, so it will not be the time for the unveiled manifestation of His presence, and His face-to-face communications with men on earth. This belongs to the period of final deliverance from evil, when every thing in the natural and the spiritual world shall be stamped with the glory of the new creation. And between the millennium and this ultimate period of blessing and glory, there lie, according to the representations of the Apocalypse, two great acts—the one forming the last phase of wickedness on the part of man, and the other the last phase of retributive justice, which shall be emphatically the judgment, on the part of God. IV. The earlier of these great acts is presented in so abrupt and abbreviated a form, as necessarily to suggest a reference to some preceding revelation. “When the thousand years are expired,” it is said, “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison; and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters (literally, corners) of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Were there not an earlier revelation, which this merely resumes and applies to post-millennial times, it would be inexplicable, that the extraordinary names of Gog and Magog should have been thus suddenly introduced upon the scene, without any thing to indicate why such names should have been chosen to designate the heads of so vast a confederacy, or what should have moved either them to undertake, or others to concur in it. It is singular, also, that in the description of their hostile movement, while they are said to come up over the breadth of the earth, and to compass the camp of the saints and the beloved city, no mention had previously been made of the saints having pitched that camp, or of their possessing such a city. These obvious blanks in the vision before us can only be accounted for by an implied reference to a fundamental passage, in which materials should be found to supply what is here defective, and which rendered more explicit statements unnecessary. That passage, we can have no doubt, is the prophecy contained in Ezekiel 38:1-23 and Ezekiel 39:1-29, which forms one of the most characteristic portions of Ezekiel’s writings. Having endeavoured to unfold its meaning in detail elsewhere, (“Commentary on Ezekiel,” p. 414, sq.) it will be enough at present to exhibit its general bearing and import, and its natural adaptation to the use made of it in this portion of the Apocalypse. By its whole texture, the prophecy must be regarded as an ideal delineation of certain dangers and assaults, that might be expected to arise in the distant future against the cause and people of God, with the triumphant result, in which it was to terminate. Amid all that is ideal in this delineation, there are some prominent features in the great conflict it portrays, which are so exhibited as to leave no room for doubt respecting them, and which it is more especially important here to bear in mind. 1. The first has respect to the time of the conflict: it is not only assigned to the remote future, but is placed absolutely last in the series of struggles, through which the covenant-people were destined to pass. The prophet had represented them, in the predictions going before, as delivered from all their existing troubles, and raised above their hereditary enemies in the immediate neighbourhood. He had spoken of the very best things in the past—the things on which their recollections loved to dwell—as having returned again, with more even than their former celebrity, and being settled also on firmer foundations. The new David has established the covenant in its fulness of life and blessing; the Lord himself is known to have His dwelling among them by the abundant peace and prosperity that was poured into their lot; and the one thing, that should arise to cloud for a moment the bright sunshine of future glory, was the extraordinary outbreak of hostile violence by the forces of Gogbursting over the land like a tempestuous blast. When this has passed away, the last form of evil has come and gone; the heathen are utterly perished, and it is known throughout the world, that the Lord shall not again desert His people, nor hide His face from them any more (Ezekiel 39:28-29). Future visions speak only of the ultimate perfection and glory of the redeemed. 2. A second point in the delineation is the condition, in which the covenant-people were contemplated as being when this assault took place, and which in a manner provoked it. They are described as dwelling in a state of secure peace—so secure, that no thought of danger seemed to cross their minds, nor was any external preparation made to meet it: the people were seen throughout the land dwelling at rest, inhabiting towns without walls, and villages that possessed neither bars nor gates. Such a state manifestly bespoke the enjoyment of a prolonged season of repose, and the entire disappearance from their neighbourhood of any apparent elements of danger or annoyance. They had been so long and so completely freed from these, that it had seemed needless to make any formal provision against their recurrence; and so, defenceless in regard to outward weapons of assault, and strong only in resources of spiritual life and blessing, it seemed to the enemies, who had been eyeing them with jealousy, and mustering their forces for an attack, as if they should fall an easy prey into their hands. 3. Then, thirdly, in respect to the enemies themselves, who thus thought and reasoned, they were, as might be inferred from what has now been said, hostile powers from the distance; powers that had hitherto lain, as it were, out of sight, and now for the first time were gathered from the most remote regions, and brought up in battle array by a powerful and enterprising leader. This leader is described under the ideal name of Gog, of the land of Magog, prince of Rosh, Mesech, and Tubal; and as having in his train, beside the people more immediately belonging to his own northern latitudes, the far-off Ethiopians and Libyans, on one side; and on the other, the Armenians, the Persians, and the Cimmerians of Crim Tartary. Even the nearest of these tribes was at a considerable distance from the land of lsrael, and some of them were in the very corners of the earth, alike remote from each other, and from the people of God. They were, therefore, the fit representatives of a hostile movement to be made from quarters morally at the greatest distance from the kingdom of God, and thence disposed to imagine, that by mere dint of carnal weapons and numerical force, they might carry it as by storm over the children of righteousness and peace. 4. Finally, the result proves them to be entirely wrong in their calculations; for as the assault was not provoked by any defection on the part of the Lord’s people, so they have Him for a shield of safety; with fire from heaven He consumes the adversaries, and causes it to be known, that now the right must prevail, that the meek and pure, not the violent and rapacious, must possess the earth, and dwell in it for ever. Such are the main features of the prophecy, which, with certain characteristic differences, the divine Seer of the Apocalypse resumes and applies to the period immediately subsequent to the millennium. The differences are not such as materially to affect the nature of the vision, or the relative place and bearing of the things disclosed in it. In accordance with his more advanced position, and the deeper insight possessed by him into the spiritual world, the later prophet supplies at the outset a link that is omitted by the earlier—he connects all with the powerful agency of the prince of darkness. Satan at the commencement of the new period is loosed from his prison, and goes out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth; that is, fresh opportunity and a larger scope is, by some turn in the affairs of Providence, to be given him for plying his temptations and influencing the minds of unregenerate men. And though the parties whom his wiles succeed in stirring into rebellion are not here connected, as in Ezekiel, with any definite localities, and are represented, not as mustered and led by Gog, the prince of Magog, but as themselves collectively Gog and Magog (for the purpose, no doubt, of showing more clearly, that such names are to be understood in an ideal manner), yet the substance of the revelation entirely corresponds with that of Ezekiel. First, the time assigned for the fearful conflict is the remoter future—the closing stages of the present dispensation, after which nothing remains for the church but the final recompenses of blessing and glory. The mighty revival and spread of living godliness destined to characterize the latter days represented by the resurrection of the martyrs, and their thousand years’ reign among men, corresponding to the resurrection-scene in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:1-28), with the long period of holy peace and prosperity that was to follow; this has already, in the prospective outline of St John, come and fulfilled its course: and before the final extirpation of evil, room is afforded for but one more, and, as it were, a spasmodic effort of the adversary to regain his lost ascendency. The general condition, in like manner, of the cause and people of God, in the period preceding the hostile assault was evidently one of secure and tranquil enjoyment. So complete had been the ascendency of good, and so long the flow of outward peace and prosperity, that no thought of evil was likely to have entered the bosoms of men, or any outward munitions of defence and safety to have been provided against its possible occurrence. The followers of the Lamb have reigned for ages in their character as saints; by the moral weight of holy principle and works of righteousness, they have borne sway in the affairs of men; and, realising on this account their connection with the omnipotent grace, and sure guardianship of Heaven, they could scarcely fail to discard from their minds all care for other means of protection. But carnal minds, if any such still existed, must be expected to judge otherwise; to their view the spiritual rule of saints, simply because trusting so much to divine supports, and intent mainly on the employment of moral agencies, could not but appear to be deficient in solid strength; and this, coupled with the joyous security, and benignant satisfaction everywhere diffused, might well be conceived enough to prompt the idea of a gigantic effort to overturn the dynasty of righteousness. The more naturally might such a project come to be entertained, if it should happen, that in process of time the power of godliness to some extent should fall into decay, and the love of many wax cold. But this is precisely what we have already seen to be indicated in Revelation 20:5, by “the rest of the dead living not again till the thousand years were finished. (See p. 475.) It intimates that other characters than those who belonged to the highest sphere of the Christian life, who were ready alike to die for Christ and to reign with Him, should appear on the stage ; that when the mighty flood of millennial zeal and devotedness should have spent its force, there should come, not, indeed, a general apostacy, or corrupt worldly admixture, as of old, but a season of comparative languor, in which many should be found to want the spiritual elevation that as a whole is to distinguish the saints of the millennium. What more natural, then, when such a relaxation might become apparent in the higher qualities of a divine life, that the awe, in which the world had been held by such living piety and pre-eminent worth, should give way, and that the hope of regaining the ascendency should spring up afresh in the slumbering remains of the worldʼs ungodliness? Then, as to the quarters where these remains might exist, or by what means they might be stirred into such combined action and desperate hostility, as the words of the vision indicate, nothing very definite can be drawn from the description of the apostle. But the corresponding vision of Ezekiel entitles us to infer that they will be gathered from the outskirts—not of course the literal but the moral outskirts of the habitable globe—the regions of society or spheres of life, which even the millennial agency of Christian love shall have failed to penetrate, and win over to the interests of righteousness. We cannot conceive that these would be very numerous or extensive during at least the better and brighter period of the millennial reign; but they will naturally grow with the decline of its fervour and activity toward the close, and when roused to action by the subtle malice of Satan (through what forms of delusion we know not), they will ultimately present the aspect of an innumerable host compassing the camp of the saints and the beloved city—that is, they will then virtually place the people of God throughout the world in the same relative position that Israel of old was, when surrounded with enemies in the field, or beleaguered in their capital city. The cause of God will seem for a time to be brought by them into peril. However, it shall only be for a time; the danger shall soon pass away. Its appearance shall but serve to rekindle the zeal and devotedness of the people of God. The martyr-spirit shall once more revive in all its energy of life and action, and like hallowed fire sent down from heaven (for we cannot think of literal fire any more than of a literal camp and city, on the one side, or a literal Gog and Magog, on the other), shall consume the carnal elements, and defeat the hostile machinations, through which the confederacy of evil hoped to prevail. Thus ends the last great struggle of the adversary; and having been allowed to make his final attempt against the followers of the Lamb, and failed in doing so, his doom of utter and hopeless exclusion from the domain of earthly affairs is carried into effect. As formerly the beast and false prophet, his earthly representatives, so now the devil himself is cast into the lake of fire; the original sentence against the tempter is executed to the full, and his head utterly bruised. V. In the midst of this general rout and confusion of the adversary and his host, or immediately subsequent to it, there comes the end of all things, as regards the present frame and constitution of the world, and the fixing of the final destinies of all who have had part in its eventful history. This is introduced in the visions of the apostolic seer, by the appearance of a great white throne (emblem of the pure and glorious majesty of the divine Judge), and one sitting on it who is identified with God (Revelation 20:11-12). Before the face of this Eternal King, earth and heaven (the old frame and constitution of things) were seen to flee away, and the dead, small and great, stood before God to be judged by their deeds. The process of judgment is described by the books being opened, those, namely, which were viewed as containing the record of all they had done and said during their lives on earth, and along with these memorials of good and evil in the past, the book of life, wherein are recorded the names of the elect from the foundation of the world. Of the latter class, none can be allowed to perish with the wicked; they shall all have their portion in the New Jerusalem, however diversified may be their respective lots there; since these must be determined by the other things concerning them that may be found written in the books. It is impossible to understand all this of any thing short of an absolute universality: the language of symbols can have no definite meaning, if such descriptions are not to be understood as comprising the entire race of humanity in the whole of its two grand divisions of the saved and the lost. And the more so, as (in Revelation 20:13) every region and receptacle of the dead are said to be ransacked for the purpose of having the assize complete: not the earth merely, or the world in its more conspicuous and settled parts which did not need to be particularly named, but the sea also which is identified with whatever is deep, mysterious, turbulent, and death and hades themselves—the ideal lords and possessors of the departed—wherever their realms might extend—all now are compelled to resign their charge, that the judgment of God may proceed to the completion of its work. And when these ideal powers, death and hades, as well as those whose names were not found written in the book of life, are represented as being cast into the lake of fire, it is but a symbolical way of exhibiting the awful truth, that all the forces and abettors, the agents, and the results of sin shall be doomed to remediless destruction. The accursed thing with all belonging to it, the forms it has assumed, and the instruments it has wielded, shall go into the perdition, which, from the first, it was destined to inherit. VI. The old framework of nature, with the noxious powers and elements which had so long held possession of it, being thus brought to an end, the closing scene of the book unfolds to us the new and better constitution which is to take its place. The description can only be regarded as presenting an imperfect image, derived, like all the preceding delineations in the book, from such things in the past or present, as seemed best fitted to shadow forth the coming reality. If we should seek to ascertain from it the precise form and lineaments of the church’s final condition and destiny, we shall turn it to a purpose it was palpably not intended to serve. It tells only—and relating, as it does, to things which immeasurably surpass all that eye has yet seen, or ear heard, it could tell only—of the relative nature and properties of what is to be hereafter. By a manifold variety of allusion and figure it exhibits this to our view as both negatively and positively perfect, alike freed from all evil, and possessed of whatever is desirable, glorious, and good. The sea, which has so often served as an image of the world’s restless turmoil and disorder, is no longer seen; nor the temple, which by its own peculiar sanctity witnessed to the general pollution of the world around; night also disappears (emblem of the world’s guilt and shame), and with it every thing that works abomination and causes defilement: and as the natural result of this stainless purity, there are found no tears, no sorrow, no pain, no death, for, in such respects, “the former things have passed away.” Then, with this removal of all the forms and occasions of evil, there is not less prominently marked, under signs and emblems of an opposite description, the appearance of whatever might be needed to constitute a state of consummate happiness and glory. There is the radiance of a perennial lustre, the very light and glory of God, investing the whole region of the church’s existence. Then the church herself, seen descending from heaven in loveliest form and most comely attire, as a bride prepared for her marriage-union with the Lamb; or-again, appearing as a city, perfect in its proportions and structure, paved with gold, built and garnished with the most precious gems—a city watered with the river of life, issuing clear as crystal from the throne of God, and bearing on its banks the tree of life, the blessed medicine of immortality; and, to crown all, the living God, as now thoroughly reconciled to the work of His hands, and beholding in all around the reflection of His own perfect nature, having His tabernacle with men, and discovering everywhere the signs of His gracious presence and working. What more is needed to complete the picture, and heighten the ideal of the coming good? It is still, indeed, but an ideal, framed out of such materials in the past and present as imagination has here at its command. It necessarily leaves undefined the exact shape and features of the glorious future. In that respect we must still say, “We know not what we shall be;” but we know at the same time, we cannot doubt, from what is here written, that all shall be very good, and that as God is the end as well as the beginning of all, so the end shall be not only like the beginning, perfect in its kind, but in that kind unspeakably higher and better—not nature rectified merely, but nature refined and glorified. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 03.12. APPENDICES ======================================================================== Appendices ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 03.13. APPENDIX A ======================================================================== Appendix A, Page 5: The Original Import Of The Wordנָבִיא (Prophet) And Its Later Usage IN what has been advanced respecting the true idea of a prophet, and the essential nature of a prophecy, no stress has been laid upon the original meaning or derivation of nabi (נָבִיא) as nothing material depends upon the precise view that may be taken of it. The difference of opinion which prevails respecting its fundamental import, turns on the point, whether it is originally of active, or of passive signification— whether it designates the prophet as the recipient, or as the conveyer, of divine communications. The former is the more common, and also, in our judgment, the more natural opinion—both because the form (קטיל) is one, that, according to the rule, is derived only from intransitive verbs, and because, understood in that sense, the word points to what is certainly the more fundamental characteristic of the prophet’s calling— his relation to a revealing God. Ewald, however, still holds to the other view, and understands the word as strictly importing a speaker, who announces the mind, and utters the words of another, who does not himself speak (“Die Propheten des Alten Bundes,” p. 6). Practically, the two opinions coalesce; since the true prophet was always one who in the first instance received communications from above, but only that he might impart them to others; so that it was equally his obligation to speak, and to speak simply according to the tenor of what he had received. He, who might speak without having received a message to deliver, and he who might refrain from communicating the message with which he had been charged, would alike prove unfaithful to the calling of a prophet—although, when distinguishing the true from the false in prophecy, it is naturally the former deviation from the proper line that is most prominently exhibited. (See Jeremiah 14:14, and Ezekiel 13:2, with the remarks in my commentary on the latter passage). Turning, however, from the etymology and original import of the word to its later and more general usage, there can be no doubt that the deliverance of the message entered as the preponderating element into the idea of a prophet. Hence the change of phraseology that took place in ancient Israel, when prophetic agency began to assume a more regular and recognised place: the term seer, which had more immediate respect to the inward reception of the divine communication, fell into general disuse, and that of prophet, which had then at least acquired a more active meaning, came in its place (1 Samuel 9:9). The language of the prophets themselves bears respect to this distinction. Thus Isaiah, when reproving the people of his day as to their obstinate resistance to the word of God, speaks of them as those “who say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” (Isaiah 30:10). And Jeremiah, when describing his own prophetic calling, represents himself as one sent in the name of the Lord to speak, and even designates himself “the Lord’s mouth” (Jeremiah 1:7, Jeremiah 15:19). On this account, also, the person who simply delivered a divine message, though he had that message at secondhand—not directly from the Lord—one, therefore, who could not be called properly a seer, still bore the name of a prophet. Of such we have examples in the person whom Elisha sent to anoint Jehu (2 Kings 9:1-4), and, we may say, in the prophets generally as regards that portion of their work which consisted in the exercises of devotion and the re-enforcement of the law of Moses. It may be added, that the Greek term, from which our word prophet is derived, προφήτης, while in its original import equally comprehensive with the Hebrew, נָבִיא, having respect to any divine communication, not merely to the prediction of future events, gives distinct expression to this active side of the matter: it denotes one who discloses the mind of another, who speaks for a divine person. Thus poets were called “the prophets of the Muses,” and Apollo, “the prophet of Jupiter,” and the Pythoness was “the prophetess of Apollo,” each being viewed as the oracles of the parties they severally represented. So long as μάντις was used somewhat in the sense of the Hebrew seer, for one who possessed the spirit of divination, the προφήτης was the interpreter of the oracle pronounced. But in later times the term came to acquire the meaning of our word prophet, denoting one who had obtained a supernatural insight into the mind of Deity, and more especially one who came forth with a revelation, real or pretended, of things to come. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 03.14. APPENDIX B ======================================================================== Appendix B, Page 9: Interpretation Of Numbers 12:6-8, And The Prophet Like To Moses IN the text, we have given the precise and literal rendering of Numbers 12:6-8. But as a different view has been presented of their import, and one on which some important conclusions are founded, particularly in a treatise entitled the “Harmony of the Mosaic and Geologic Records,” a few explanatory remarks are necessary. That the words in Numbers 12:6, “If there be a prophet among you,” answer with substantial correctness to the original, which more literally runs, “If there be your prophet,” is so obvious, that had another meaning not been suggested, we should scarcely have imagined any other could have been thought of. The Chaldee paraphrases, “If there should be prophets to you;” and all commentators of any note give a similar sense. The connection also seems conclusive in its favour; for Aaron and Miriam were here ranging themselves against Moses, and on the side of the people; they were endeavouring to raise a popular tumult against their brother, so that the expression “your prophet,” spoken generally, and in respect to the people, is manifestly equivalent to “a prophet from among you”—one, not like Moses, in a sense apart from, but out of your own number. To render—as is done in the treatise referred to—“If he (viz. Moses) were your prophet”—i.e., the prophet of Aaron and Miriam, is against the preceding context, where the question is respecting a prophet from God, not to them, but to the people; and in respect to what follows, it involves a kind of incongruity. For it would represent God as intimating that he would have given visions and dreams to Moses, had he been the prophet of Aaron and Miriam. Did Aaron himself, in consequence of being a prophet under Moses, get revelations in such a way from God? We certainly read of none; and, looking at his conduct on the present occasion, we should judge it very unlikely that he had received any. The two clauses, “I will make myself known to him in a vision, in a dream will I speak to him,” explain one another. The revelation was to be made in the imperfect form of a vision; but as this term is of somewhat doubtful import, and does not of itself sufficiently indicate the imperfection in the mode, another clause is added, to make it more explicit—“in a dream I will speak to him.” All the Jewish commentators understood a certain degree of obscurity to be implied in communications so made. And, as Baumgarten has justly remarked on the passage, “A divine revelation by dreams forms a complete contrast to revelation as made in Paradise, where Jehovah walked, and where, therefore, his appearance was made in a quiet manner, in connection with the things of the external world, and presented itself to man, while in his quite natural state.” Here, on the contrary, he was to be taken out of his natural state, isolated from surrounding objects, and raised merely for the moment, in his spiritual part, into communion with Heaven. Such was God’s ordinary mode of communicating with the prophets, usually so called, but not his mode of communicating with Moses—otherwise, Moses had, in this respect, enjoyed no peculiar distinction. The distinction he actually possessed is stated in the second part of the declaration. In this part, the word rendered vision in the first part again occurs, מַרְאֶה and is often translated adverbially, as in the authorised version, “apparently.” “I will show him the thing as it is,” is Abenezra’s explanation. Rosenmüller has “adspectu,” and others render in a similar manner. There is no material difference in most of the explanations, nor will there be found any ambiguity in the double use of the same word, if only it is noted that in the case of the ordinary prophet, mentioned in the first part, the word was plainly intended to denote the form and method of the Divine revelation made to him; while here it has respect rather to the personal manifestation of the revealing God, “Mouth to mouth I speak to him, and appearance.” What can this mean, in such a connection, but visible, open manifestation? As indeed, the last clause, which is evidently epexegetical of what precedes, renders manifest, “and the similitude or form of the Lord he beholds.” Perspicuity and distinctness are the characteristics here, the employment of ordinary converse, and, as a natural consequence, the disuse of dark or enigmatical sentences. This is precisely such a distinction in behalf of Moses as the whole circumstances would lead us to expect. In regard to the purpose for which, in the treatise referred to at the beginning of this note, a different interpretation is sought to be established, viz., to represent Moses as having got the professedly historical account of creation in Genesis 1:1-31 by vision, it is open to other, and these also insuperable objections. On this point, however, we are not called to enter. We simply state that there is no instance of what is given to the Church as history having been communicated to the church by way of vision, except in such cases as the visions recorded in Daniel 2:1-49 and Daniel 7:1-28, or Revelation 12:1-17, where, in a dramatic representation of a connected series of events, the portion already past has also a certain place—an essentially different case, and very differently exhibited also from that of the Mosaic account of the creation. To regard this as given by vision, is to confound the real and the ideal, history and prophecy. Nor can we bring, at least, the substance of the historical narrative contained in the three first chapters of Genesis so far down as the time of Moses. The great facts there related formed the very basis of the primeval religion; and either exactly the same history, or another very much akin to it, must have been communicated to the earliest worshippers of God. Not to dwell, however, upon such points, it is plain, from the right interpretation and clear import of this passage in Numbers, what was required to the full verification of the closely related passage in Deuteronomy 18:18, “I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” From the connection in which the passage stands, there can be little doubt that it had a certain respect to the prophetic testimony in general, which was to be continued among the covenant people. But the specific qualification included in the words like unto thee, leave as little room to doubt on the other side, that nothing more than a partial and provisional fulfilment could be given to the prediction by prophets of an ordinary kind. There was a general resemblance between Moses and every prophet who received a Divine communication to deliver to the people; not along with that resemblance there was also an important difference—a marked inferiority in the case of the ordinary prophet. His communications came only in vision and by dream, while Moses received them by a waking, face-to-face intercommunion; so that the people of our Lord’s time justly expected the prophecy to receive a higher exemplification than it had yet found in the past, and the apostles had both the import of the original, and the general feeling of their countrymen on their side, when they applied it specifically to the Messiah. It was manifestly the common understanding in their time, that the Messiah was to be emphatically the prophet spoken of; the only question was, whether Jesus of Nazareth was the person in whom the terms of the prediction had met with their fulfilment. That He was this, and, as such, not only like Moses, in that wherein he differed from the ordinary members of the prophetic order, but even rising far beyond him, must be the conviction of all who believe in His Messiahship. And though other points of resemblance betwixt Him and Moses should not be overlooked, yet when considered simply in respect to prophetic standing and gifts, it is in the particular point indicated in Numbers 12:6-8, that the likeness should be viewed as more peculiarly exemplified. The prophet like to Moses, in the full sense, could only be the one who received his revelations like Moses; in the first instance, Christ, and subordinately the apostles whom He sent forth to make known His mind and will to men. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 03.15. APPENDIX C ======================================================================== Appendix C, Page 13: Prophetic Agency Apart From Personal Holiness THE cases which most readily occur, of prophetic agency in a state of divorce from personal holiness, are those of Balaam in the Old Testament, and Caiaphas in the New. Both of them were manifestly of a quite exceptional nature, and stand entirely apart from the ordinary track of God’s procedure in the bestowal of such gifts. It might, without impropriety, be said that there was a doubly miraculous element in the predictions they uttered; they were miraculous, as well on account of the personages who spoke, as the Divine foresight exhibited in what was spoken. Balaam was used by God against his own inclination to make known the Divine purposes at a peculiar crisis in the history of ancient Israel. It was a time when, with some apparent reason, their hearts were ready to faint at the prospect which was before them, and helps and encouragements of a somewhat extraordinary kind were needed to bear them through the trial. It seemed, therefore, an act worthy of the Divine interposition not only to provide the special support to faith that the emergency called for, but to do so in a way that should verify the proverb of even “making the eater bring forth meat.” The more strikingly to manifest the power and faithfulness of God in behalf of His people, a blessing is extorted for them from a child of perdition. On this account Balaam was used, though an unwilling instrument; and for a like reason, only in a more quiet and incidental manner, Caiaphas was used, even though an unconscious one. In a time altogether peculiar and extraordinary, he was made to utter a sentiment, in which thoughtful and reflective minds could not fail to perceive the overruling hand of God, since it declared a very great and important truth singularly applicable to the crisis, although not in the sense intended by the speaker. It was, we may say, the guiding of the last official representative of the priestly order enigmatically to disclose the event, which was at once to antiquate its existence, and to fulfil the end of its appointment. And this might the more fitly be done by one who knew not what he said, as the priesthood generally, at the time, had ceased to know the mystery of its own vocation. But setting aside such cases as altogether peculiar and exceptional, the connection between the personal sanctity of the prophets and their divine communications will be found to hold as a general rule. It was not so stringent, indeed, in its application, as not to admit of occasional defections in the history of particular persons, and considerable diversity in different individuals of the prophetical order. When Jonah attempted to evade the work committed to him respecting Nineveh, by taking ship to go to Tarshish, there was undoubtedly a temporary failing in regard to the spiritual frame of mind proper to the true prophet. And to recover this, which could not be wanted in such a case,—for that end primarily at least—he is subjected to a treatment alike severe and unprecedented. He is made to go down to the lowest depths, that he might there acquire the living faith and intense earnestness of soul, which would fit him for being the bearer of a divine message to Nineveh. In like manner the case of the old prophet at Bethel, mentioned in 1 Kings 13:1-34, must be regarded in its more general aspect, as that of a prophet imperfectly sanctified. Indeed, the very fact of his residing at Bethel and remaining silent, as he appears to have done while Jeroboam was proceeding with his idolatrous innovations, was a clear sign of his having previously fallen into a state of spiritual slumber, and having become well-nigh deserted by the Spirit of God. He seems to have been at length roused out of this slumber by the report of the circumstances connected with the mission of the prophet, who came from Judah to denounce the Divine judgment against the abominations of Jeroboam, and who received in the execution of his commission, such manifest tokens of the Divine approval. The old prophet was bent on making the acquaintance of this servant of God, and claiming, as it were, kindred with him—although no mode of accomplishing what he sought presented itself but that of decoying the other back by a falsehood. In this he too plainly showed how far he still was from having attained to the proper spiritual elevation. But as the other prophet also had erred in acceding to his proposal, and thereby deviating from the prescribed path of duty, a word for the occasion was given to the old prophet to intimate the displeasure of God on the defection, and the judgment that was ready to chastise it. With the sin that mingled on both sides in the transactions, it was impossible almost for the blindest not to see, that the unbending truthfulness of God’s word, and the necessity of holiness in those whom He called to His more immediate fellowship and service, received but a more impressive and awful testimony. To the idolatrous Bethelites it gave forth a peculiarly solemn warning; since if God so severely requited a comparatively slight deviation from the path of rectitude in one of His chosen servants, how much more might He be expected to chastise their flagrant corruptions! And to the members of the prophetical order themselves it furnished the salutary lesson, that if they would be honoured by God with His more special communications, and be fitted for the higher kinds of service in His kingdom, they must be found in heart and conduct holiness to the Lord. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 03.16. APPENDIX D ======================================================================== Appendix D, Page 82: Views Of Earlier Reformed Theologians On The Conditional Element In Prophecy THE discussion respecting the conditional element in prophecy purposely conducted, without any distinct reference to the views advanced by the more orthodox and systematic divines of former times: chiefly because such a reference must either have rendered the discussion unduly protracted and polemical, or must have been so brief, as to admit of being readily perverted or misunderstood,—a fate that befel the very brief allusion which was made to them in the first edition The theological writers more particularly referred to were the Calvinists of the 17th century, the great defenders and expounders of the faith, who looked only incidentally at the points here more immediately in question, and looked at them in a doctrinal rather than an exegetical respect. Their more special object in referring to them was to vindicate the divine authority of revelation, and the orthodoxy of its higher truths against conclusions apt to be drawn from apparent failures in prophetical announcements; not to find their way to correct principles of prophetical interpretation, or to determine the proper place and bearing of prophecy in the history of God’s dispensations. Hence they too often appear, in such parts of their writings, to be standing merely on the defensive, and not unfrequently drawing distinctions, which seem invented for the occasion, and are more fitted to embarrass than to promote the intelligent study of prophecy. Stillingfleet’s “Origines Sacrae” may be taken as a fair specimen of this mode of treating prophecy by the writers now under consideration. Viewing prophecy with respect merely to the supernatural insight and veracity of the persons inditing it, the author had to account for the fact that prophetic announcements were not always strictly fulfilled, and it hence became necessary to distinguish between prophecies “revealing the internal counsels and decrees of God’s will,” and prophecies merely indicating “the method and series of his providence in the administration of things in the world.” For determining those of the former class,—those, namely, of an absolute character—four specific marks of distinction are assigned. (1.) The first is the accompanying of the prediction with a present miracle, by which, as by a visible seal from Heaven, it was authenticated as a revelation of God’s fixed purpose, or secret will—a mark, however, which was of a merely circumstantial kind, and a mark besides, which was so rarely given (one example only being noticed, 1 Kings 13:3), that it contributes nothing worth naming to the general result. (2.) Again, predictions are to be understood absolutely “when the things foretold exceed all probabilities of second causes,” such as the predicted deliverance first from Egypt, and afterwards from Babylon, the only instances referred to by Stillingfleet in proof of the distinction. But we may surely ask, Did the promised deliverance from Egypt lie more beyond the probability of second causes than the promised introduction of the persons delivered into the land of Canaan? Or, was the threatened overthrow of Babylon for the subsequent release and return of the Jewish captives less probable when viewed with respect to the operation of second causes, than the earlier prediction, announced by Jonah, of the destruction of Nineveh in forty days? No one could venture to assert the affirmative of these questions; and yet, of the two pairs of predictions now mentioned, much apparently on a level as regards natural probability, one in each proved to be not a revelation of God’s absolute will in the sense of Dr Stillingfleet, while the other did. His second mark of distinction, therefore, is destitute of any solid foundation, and does not touch the real grounds of difference. Who, indeed, can tell, amid the hidden, intricate, curiously-interconnected movements of Providence, what events of the remote future lie within, or beyond the probabilities of second causes? In such matters human sagacity is an insufficient guide, and can furnish no proper criterion. (3.) A third distinction given is, that “predictions which are confirmed by an oath from God himself, express the immutable determination of his will.’’ True, certainly, as to the fact; for the two or three predictions which were so confirmed were literally fulfilled (Numbers 14:28; Psalms 89:31-36; Hebrews 6:17). Yet, as in the case of the first class, this is a merely circumstantial distinction—a difference only in the mode of announcement, and one adopted in accommodation to human infirmity, not of itself indicative of any inherent peculiarity in the matter of the predictions. Their actual verification must have resulted rather from their essential character than from that incidental accompaniment. (4.) Lastly, “predictions concerning blessings merely spiritual (it is affirmed) do express God’s eternal purpose;” and for this reason, “because the bestowing of such blessings doth immediately flow from the grace and favour of God, and depend not upon conditions on our part.” In one sense this is true, but in another not—not as it requires to be understood in its present application. The most approved defenders of the doctrines of grace have readily owned that many promises, or predictions of spiritual good, are conditional (for ex. Turretine Inst. Loc. iii., Q. 16, § 14, 19); and consequently depend for their fulfilment on the existence of the condition. The Bible abounds with such conditional announcements. The Sermon on the Mount opens with a whole series of them. And, to go farther back, was there nothing spiritual in the promised settlement of the ransomed Israelites in Canaan (Exodus 32:34)—a word with which inspired writers identified the very sum of all spiritual blessings, “entering into God’s rest,” (Psalms 95:2; Hebrews 3:11-19)— though it proved in such a sense conditional as to fail in the case of those to whom it was immediately given through their unbelief. Or, was there nothing spiritual in the covenant of promise made with David’s house and seed? In truth, the prophetic word itself knows of no such distinction as between spiritual and temporal in the promise and bestowal of blessing; for, in Old Testament times, the two constantly went more or less together; and it may justly be affirmed, that a simply temporal or a simply spiritual good never constituted the exclusive theme of any prophetic announcement made to the covenant people. It thus appears, that the distinctive marks given by Stillingfleet of the higher or absolute species of predictions (and we know no writer of his age that gives them better) are of no real value. They bear unmistakable evidence of having been fallen upon primarily as weapons of defence, and were but casually intended to bear upon the subject of prophetic interpretation. There inadequacy in the one respect, however, necessarily renders them of little avail in the other; and a skilful adversary might readily have served himself of them in impugning the authority of Scripture. It could scarcely be expected, that when our author failed so palpably in the one branch of his subject, he should have been successful when turning to the other. Accordingly, the directions he gives for ascertaining what predictions are not expressive of the final determinations or secret will of God, discover their insufficiency on a moment’s consideration. He has here just two leading positions; one of them having respect to predictions of temporal blessing; these, he considers, always involve the condition of obedience, so that the event “could not be fulfilled when the people did not perform their condition”—which is true, no doubt, as regards the class of predictions in question, but assuredly not on account of the simply temporal nature of the blessings indicated in the prophetic word; for, as already stated, there were no such prophecies, and, in the nature of things, the temporal could never in this way be distinguished from the spiritual gifts of God’s goodness. Stillingfleet’s other rule is, that threatenings, or “comminations of judgments to come do not of themselves speak the absolute futurity of the event;” and for this reason, “because comminations confer no right to any, which absolute promises do; and therefore God is not bound to necessary performance of what he threatens.” This is a favourite distinction of the period (though some reject it, as Rivet in Genes. Exerc. 51, and Charnock on God’s Immutability, III., prop. 4); and we find it particularly pressed by another, writer (Gale), who says, “Promises give a right to the persons to whom they are made, which cannot be taken from them without injury; for albeit it be free to any to make a promise, yet having made it, his fidelity is obliged to see it performed. So that in promises there is no room for relaxation or dispensation. . . But as to comminations or threats, no right or debt accrues to the persons to whom they are made, save only a debt or merit of punishment. Yet in many cases, especially as to circumstances, the superior, who made the law, and affixed a threat thereto, has a liberty of relaxing, or dispensing with the penalty of his law,” etc.—(“Court of the Gentiles,” P. IV., B. II,, c. 6, § 2. See also Owen on Heb., vol. iv., p. 268.) As if the right of a creature were more binding on God than a regard to the verity of his own word! Or, as if his threatenings of judgment were not, equally with his promises of blessing, the expression of his character towards persons standing in specific relations to him! As if, indeed, they were no more than arbitrary announcements, which he could send forth, or recal at pleasure! This surely, is a strange mode of vindicating the divine honour and faithfulness; especially strange in those whose Calvinism bound them to seek the ultimate ground of all God’s dealings in the eternal principles of His own nature, or the counsel of His will! It would never have been thought of, had it not presented itself as a convenient method of escape from a polemical difficulty. There is more, however, than this against it; for (as already stated in the section to which this note is appended) the greater part of God’s comminations of judgment in the prophetic Scriptures are really indirect promises of good to the true children of the covenant. The first promise itself, on which all hope for fallen man was built, took the form of a threatening against the adversary; and, generally, the denunciations of coming judgment on ungodly nations and individuals are but the reverse aspect of God’s covenant-love and faithfulness to His people. So that to distinguish in the way now under consideration between threatenings and promises, as if the one were in their own nature less closely connected with the secret will of God than the other, is to take but a superficial view of the matter; it betokens a defective insight into the structure of prophecy. The fundamental element for such distinctions is wanting, so long as due account fails to be made of the relation of prophecy to God’s moral nature, on the one hand, and men’s responsibilities on the other. Yet with so many crude, superficial, arbitrary positions on the subject, there are not wanting some, who can point to Stillingfleet, and writers of his stamp and age, as authorities regarding it—safe and skilful guides in distinguishing between the absolute and the conditional in its predictions!! Such appeals may serve a purpose; but it can never be the purpose of promoting the unbiassed study and sound interpretation of prophetical Scripture. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 03.17. APPENDIX E ======================================================================== Appendix E, Page 98: Symbolical Designation Of Kingdoms As Mountains THE first passage, probably, in which a kingdom is presented under the symbol of a physical elevation, or a mountain, is the historical notice in 2 Samuel 5:12, where it is said of David’s interest as king, “And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom:” it had now sensibly become a conspicuous thing, a height in the earth. Writing in Psalms 30:1-12, and at a later period, of the vicissitudes which he experienced on the throne, he says, “Lord, by thy favour thou didst make my mountain to stand strong; thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.” In Psalms 68:16, the hill of Zion, which had already been chosen as the seat of the kingdom, is taken for an emblem of it, and the other and loftier, but more remote hills, stand for images of the rival kingdoms of the heathen: “Why leap ye, ye high hills? This is the hill God desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever.” In Psalms 46:2, the mountains are spoken of as “shaking in the midst of the sea,” and the figure is explained by the introduction of the reality at Psalms 46:6, where it is said, “The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved,” or rather shook. The hill of Zion with its fortress is identified with the kingdom of God, and addressed as symbolically one with it in Micah 4:8, “And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold (hill) of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion, the kingdom also shall come to the daughter of Zion;” as it is also in Isaiah 11:9, where the temple-mount, the ideal dwelling-place of God with his people is viewed as comprehensive of the whole divine kingdom, and this again as co-extensive with the entire habitable globe. Comp. also Daniel 9:16; Daniel 9:20; also Daniel 2:35, where the stone which represents the Lord’s kingdom appears growing into a huge mountain, and filling the whole earth. In Psalms 76:1-12, the greater heathen kingdoms are denoted, not only mountains, but “prey-mountains,” as being apparently raised to the gigantic height they attained for the purpose only of laying waste and destroying others. Babylon, in particular, is called by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 51:25, “a destroying mountain, that destroyed all the earth”—not as Bishop Newton interprets, vol. i., chap. 10, “on account of the great height of its walls and towers, its palaces and temples,” but from its lofty and domineering altitude among the political eminences of the world. And hence, quite naturally, in the Apocalypse, which gathers up and applies the symbolical imagery of the earlier prophets, mountains are used in a whole series of passages as the familiar designation of kingdoms, Revelation 6:14, Revelation 8:8, Revelation 16:20, etc. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 03.18. APPENDIX F ======================================================================== Appendix F, Page 100: Prophetical Literalism Essentially Jewish THE essential coincidence between the Jewish mode of interpreting prophecy, and that of the extreme literalists among Christians, will force itself on any one who compares for a moment what has been written by the respective parties on the prophetical future. For the most part he will find the same passages quoted by both, and the same principle of the historical sense applied to them—only, with this difference, that while both apply it to establish the necessity of a future restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and the re-institution of the Mosaic polity and worship, the Jew also applies it, and with perfect consistence, to the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. We say with perfect consistence, for the principle is as fairly applicable to the one point as to the other, and by that principle, the evidence of prophecy in favour of the Messiahship of Jesus is not impaired merely, but annihilated. The argument from prophecy as between Christians and Jews is gone; that only remains which may serve the Jew against infidels and heathens. If, for example, the literalist school of interpreters among Christians are right in maintaining, as they do, that Christ has not yet appeared as King of Zion, or as the possessor of David’s throne and kingdom, why should not Rabbi Crool (in his “Restoration of Israel,” a work replied to by Thomas Scott), and other Jewish writers, be equally right in contending, that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be the Messiah? The passages which both parties appeal to—such as Zechariah 9:9; Isaiah 9:6-7; Micah 5:2—though they are expressly declared by the evangelists to have been fulfilled in Christ, yet speak of the Messiah under the very character and relations, which, it is alleged, have not yet been assumed by him: they represent him as going t» appear among men, to be born at Bethlehem, to ride on an ass into Jerusalem, etc., in the character of the king of the Jews, and to the great joy of his subjects. Therefore, says Crool, and with manifest right on this principle, your Jesus cannot be the Messiah; for He did not sit upon David’s throne, He set up no Jewish kingdom, and instead of finding joy and peace and union from His presence, the Jewish people only then began to experience their greatest troubles and their widest dispersions. So, of the greater proportion of prophetical passages applied in New Testament Scripture to Christ; and with equal justice on the principle of historical literalism, for they generally connect the appearance and work of Christ on earth with His destiny as the Son of David, or His relation to Zion and the covenant-people. And if certain characteristics are associated in prophecy with Messiah’s birth and appearance—if certain results are described as flowing simply from His coming, not from His coming a second time to Zion or Jerusalem, and if these are not found in the person and history of Jesus of Nazareth, the plain and obvious inference is, that the promised Messiah is yet to come. In a word, the apologetic value of prophecy as regards the truth of Christianity is gone, and instead of a means of defence we find a weapon of assault. So much is this felt to be the natural tendency of the line of interpretation referred to, that those who adopt it have, of late years, been withdrawing prophecy after prophecy from the number of those which the inspired penmen and all truly Christian writers hitherto have understood of Christ. At in regard to the first great promise to fallen man, so also here, the principle of a prophetical literalism has led to the same result as its apparent opposite—a subtilizing rationalism: the one needs as much the doctrine of accommodation as the other, in explaining the New Testament applications of prophecy to Jesus. See this proved in “Typology of Scripture,’’ Book I. ch. i., against an American Literalist: See also Dr Brown’s “Second Advent,” chap. 7 for proof of the successive abandonment of prophecies in reference to Christ, and for some able and acute remarks respecting the essentially Jewish position of the interpreters in question. Indeed, the list there given might he greatly increased. In chap. i, sec. 3, of our Second Part, when treating of the Apologetic value of Prophecy, the subject necessarily recur? again, and it is there shewn, that the literalism sought for in respect to Christ’s throne and kingdom was in the nature of things impossible, and that if He be really the Son of God, the differences between the New and Old form of things could not be otherwise than they are. It is therefore justly said by Hengstenberg (“Christology,” 2nd Edition, App. vi), that the strictly literal style of prophetical interpretation is essentially the very same as that which the Jewish commentators adopt; that its value may also be understood from the countenance given to it by many Rationalists on the continent; but that its strongest condemnation consists in its being the very method of interpretation which led to the crucifixion of Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 03.19. APPENDIX G ======================================================================== Appendix G, Page 116: Interpretation Of 2 Peter 1:21 THE rendering given in the text of 2 Peter 1:21, is the strictly literal one: and as so rendered the passage exhibits more distinctly the contrast between the human and the divine in prophecy, denying it to be of the one, and affirming it to be of the other; at the same time, representing the mental state of those to whom and through whom it came, to have been of a quite supernatural description. The statement contained in the passage is given as a reason for the more general declaration which immediately precedes, that “Scripture prophecy is not of private interpretation,” or, as it should rather be, “no Scripture prophecy comes of one’s own solution”—literally, loosing out, ἐπιλύσεως. The word is peculiar, but its use here is to be accounted for by prophecy being contemplated according to its fundamental character, as an unravelling, or opening out of the secret counsels of heaven. As such it comes, the apostle tells us, from no private solving of the hidden mystery, on the part of those who uttered it; it was not of one’s own (viz., the prophet’s) unfolding. This seems to us by far the most natural sense of the passage; as it is also the one which fits most suitably in to what follows. It is only thus, too, that we preserve the force of the verb γίνεται, which is comparatively lost in our common version; for the real import of the apostle’s statement is, not that no Scripture prophecy it, but that none comes in the manner specified; it does not so take its being and form. The question is not, as it is put by Bishop Horsley and many others, how the meaning of prophecy is to be made out or interpreted, but how prophecy itself came into existence, whence it drew its origin. And besides, to say of all prophecy alike, as such persons understand the declaration, that it is not of self-interpretation, but can only be understood as to its proper bearing when the events it contemplates have actually occurred, is not true as regards some prophecies (for example, 1 Timothy 4:1, “The Spirit speaketh expressly”), and would virtually contradict what the apostle had said of prophecy immediately before, when he represented it as “a light shining in a, dark place.” With what propriety could it be designated a shining light, if itself necessarily remained without any sure interpretation, till outwardly shone upon by the events of Providence! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 03.20. APPENDIX H ======================================================================== Appendix H, Page 124: The Symbolic Actions Of The Prophets THE role laid down in the text, founded on the distinction between the record of God’s communications to the prophet, and that of the prophet’s communications to the people, we have said, will generally be found sufficient to guide us in determining, whether the actions described belong to the ideal region, or to the territory of actual life. It will be so at least, if it is coupled with the considerations previously advanced respecting the essential nature of the actions themselves. This may, perhaps, be rendered more palpable, by a brief examination of the view that is presented of some of the prophetical actions noticed or referred to in the text, by writers who understand them in a realistic manner. We shall take it on the showing of one of the most sensible and judicious of the class—the Rev. Dr Turner of America. In a little work, published in 1852, “Thoughts on the Origin, Character, and Interpretation of Scriptural Prophecy,” after mentioning some instances of revelation by symbolic vision, he says:—“But the symbolic method was often employed by means of real actions openly performed. That ideas may be conveyed in this way distinctly and with perfect clearness, we know with certainty. Observation and experience have proved this beyond all doubt. In adopting this method, therefore, divine wisdom did but choose one from among various means, any of which is sufficiently well adapted to assure men of the meaning of His will. And the method chosen is sometimes the most impressive and startling that can possibly be imagined. When it is said of the prophet Isaiah, that, in obedience to the divine command, to ‘loose the sackcloth from off his loins,’ and to ‘put off the shoe from his foot,’ ‘he did so, walking naked (i.e., stript of a part of his clothing) and barefoot, three years, a sign and a wonder’—in other words, a remarkable indication of God’s judgment ‘upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;’ it is hardly possible to conceive of a more direct prediction of overthrow and captivity, and of the contumely and shame to which Egypt, the world-renowned, the world-scorning, and in its own estimation all but celestial, Egypt should be exposed. And when Ezekiel is ‘set for a sign unto the house of Israel,’ and at the command of God ‘removes his furniture in the sight’ of the people, ‘bearing it upon his shoulders and covering his face;’ it would seem that the act itself spoke out its own meaning, and certified the miserable inhabitants, that they ‘should remove and go into captivity,’ that the prince should be degraded to a servile condition, carrying the most necessary articles, and hiding his face through shame for the ignominy to which he should be subjected.—Let us look at the symbolical actions of Jeremiah. On one occasion God orders him to get a potter’s earthen bottle, and after a public proclamation addressed to king and people, of terrible judgments impending, and of their iniquities which occasioned them, to break the bottle in pieces in their presence, as a symbol of their utter destruction. Such preaching, one might think, could hardly need the oral comment accompanying it, which begins in these words, ‘Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel that it cannot be made whole again.’ At another time, he is directed to send yokes to certain kings in the neighbourhood of Judea, indicating that the Creator and owner of all had resolved to subjugate them to the Babylonian power, announcing at the same time, that Zedekiah, the reigning king of Judah, should also be compelled to submit to the same degradation. To select another illustration from the same prophet: Whilst the armies of Nebuchadnezzar are besieging Jerusalem, and its conquest by the Chaldeans is generally expected; when the death, destruction, or captivity of the inhabitants is almost morally certain, and consequently no value can be attached to property, the enjoyment or possession of which had become wholly precarious; Jeremiah, at the divine direction, buys a field within the city, pays down the purchase-money, requires a deed properly attested, has the trans action witnessed according to law and with remarkable circumstantiality, and adopts measures to secure the legal documents, that they may neither be lost nor injured. No doubt, the ungodly portion of the inhabitants, who had abandoned themselves to the despair of infidelity, must have imagined that the prophet had become insane. But all this was done to show his faith in the divine promise of a future restoration, and resettlement of the people in their own land; which took place long afterwards under the decree of Cyrus. And to adduce one more instance: On occasion of the birth of a son, Isaiah is directed to give him a symbolical name, indicative of the fact, that the Assyrians should plunder Israel and Syria, powers which were then in hostile combination against Judah. In order to give publicity to the prediction, he is required to write the name of the child on a broad roll or tablet. He does so, and has the whole matter attested by unimpeachable witnesses of high standing and character. In due time the fact takes place, and the prophecy is verified.” Pp. 75-78. We have admitted, that the action recorded in the nineteenth chapter of Jeremiah in respect to his going to the potter is so related, as to leave us in some doubt, whether it took place only in vision, or on the territory of real life. We shall, therefore, allow it to pass without particular notice; but shall make a few comments on the real 1. The first is the action of Isaiah, Isaiah 20:1-6, appointed to symbolize the coming disgrace and humiliation of Egypt and Ethiopia. What is the action, according to the description of the prophet? Not as Dr Turner and others make it, “stripping off a part of his clothing,” but “loosing the sackcloth from off his loins, and putting off his shoe from his foot,” and for three whole years “walking naked and barefoot;” and this expressly as a sign of the people of Egypt and Ethiopia being doomed ere long to become captives, rendered “naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.” The thing signified was a shameful uncovering, or a disgraceful humiliation of those proud worldly powers, on whose support Israel was idolatrously inclined to lean; and the sign, which was appointed to foreshadow it, was a shameful uncovering of the prophet’s person. This alone could be a proper sign; and to talk of his putting off only a part of his garments, as if the object had been merely to lessen the comfort or gracefulness of his attire, is quite beside the purpose. Nothing less than a shameful exposure of the person was required to satisfy the conditions of the prophecy. And if the affair was conducted amid the realities of daily life, the prophet must necessarily have made himself a spectacle of aversion to every right-thinking person. In the very act of fulfilling his mission, he must have given a shock to the interests of piety; such, nay greatly more than was done in our own land by the early Quakers, who were led by a mistaken view of this and similar passages in the prophetical writings, to exhibit in actual life what had been transacted by the prophets in vision. The universal disgust produced in Edinburgh by some of that sect running through the streets without clothing, and crying out that they were “the naked truth,” or by one in Aberdeen (Andrew Jaffray) who, stript to the middle, and with filth in his hand, walked about proclaiming himself to be “a spectacle and a sign among the people.” on account of the offensiveness of their sins, may convince us how impossible it was for God to have commanded His servant Isaiah to present himself in such an attitude to the people, even for a day, to say nothing of three whole years. Besides, if such painful results could anyhow have been averted, an action of the kind specified, when spread over so many years, and seen, if seen at all, only in fragmentary portions, and by a few individuals, must have lost nearly all its effect in the performance. And then the action itself left its own bearing undefined. How should any one, who might have seen the prophet walking in his shame, have known to transfer the image to Egypt and Ethiopia? It must have been from an accompanying word, explaining the action, that they were enabled to do so. So that it still was the prophetic word, to which they were mainly to be indebted for the information of their minds; and the rehearsing of the action as done in the visions of God—done in the peculiar sphere of the prophet’s spiritual agency—along with the explanation of it, was on every account the mode best fitted for reaching the end; the only mode, we may affirm, actually possible. 2. The other action of the prophet Isaiah referred to by Dr Turner—the last of the cases specified by him—not less imperatively demands the same interpretation. We have again to notice the slurring over the main features of the transaction, as presented by Dr Turner; he speaks of it as simply consisting in the ceremony of giving a symbolical name to a child of the prophet. This, however, was the smallest part of the matter. The existence of the child, much more than his name, was what formed the embodied prophecy; the name merely served to explain the symbolic meaning of the child himself. And how was this child to come into being? Not properly as a member of the prophet’s family; but the prophet was to “go to the prophetess,” who was thereafter to conceive, and bring forth the son, that was to bear the symbolic name; and not only to go, but to take with him witnesses of the whole transaction, that there might be no doubt respecting any part of it (Isaiah 8:1-3). Can anything be conceived more entirely at variance with the essential character of a true prophet, if understood of what was to be done in real life, or that would more palpably have identified his procedure with the worst practices of self-inflated visionaries? For, the prophetess to whom Isaiah was to go, and with whom he was to have carnal intercourse, can with no propriety be understood to be his own wife; she is represented as one standing apart from him, and with whom his connection was to be quite special, so as to require even a formal attestation. An ideal person, therefore, she must be considered, and the connection one that existed only in the ideal sphere—if the prophet is to be vindicated from the charge of pollution in the very execution of his mission. Indeed, the mode of designating her, clearly indicates as much: the prophetess—what prophetess? We have heard of none before, and we hear of none afterwards in this connection. Such a designation can be understood only if viewed as the form into which God threw His communication to the prophet, and, as such, confined to the higher sphere of his immediate intercourse with Heaven. An assurance was to be given to the people of the approaching certain overthrow of the enemies of God’s covenant—the combined powers of Samaria and Damascus. And for that purpose there is given forth an account of an ideal transaction, through which the prophet is spiritually conducted by God, and in which he, the prophet, is described as going to the prophetess, that by the conjunction of a twofold prophetical character in the parentage, there might be a birth in the fullest sense prophetical—a son so strikingly predictive of the coming overthrow, that before he should be able to cry, My father, both Syria and Damascus should have fallen under the stroke of Assyria. Viewed thus, merely as a sensible form, though confined to the ideal sphere, under which God made known His fixed determination to the people, one can easily perceive the propriety of what is recorded; but no otherwise can the history it seems to delineate be vindicated from the gravest charges. It may be added, that in this case, too, as in the preceding, it could not have been the outward reality (even if it had taken place, and had been liable to no moral imputation), on which must mainly have depended the assurance given of the intended result: the chief ground for faith to rest upon still was the word which accompanied and explained the transaction. And for this it was substantially one, whether the word was connected with an action in vision, or an action in ordinary life. 3. The case of Ezekiel, at the Divine bidding removing his furniture in the sight of the people, and going forth with covered face, and only an exile’s implements (Ezekiel 12:1-28), is particularly unhappy for the realistic interpretation. Dr Turner seems to have regarded it as one of the most telling examples, as if the act itself spoke its own meaning. But he forgets where the prophet was when the supposed action was performed before his countrymen. Both he and they were already in exile on the banks of the Chaboras, and the impression that would naturally have been produced upon their minds by the sight of such a symbolic action would have been, not that the day of exile, but rather that the day of escape from exile was at hand. The persons whose exile was foreshadowed in the prophecy were the king and people far off in Jerusalem, not those who should have witnessed the transaction had it been outwardly performed So that for those whom the prophetic action immediately contemplated it must, of necessity, have been not the actual sight of what was done, but only the rehearsal of it, that was to tell upon their minds. And surely, in that case, it mattered little whether the sphere of the transaction might be the ideal or the real world; while for those in the immediate neighbourhood of the prophet, it so far mattered that, if it had outwardly taken place before them, it would have tended to convey a false information. 4. It is needless to dwell upon the two instances (besides the one already considered) connected with the prophetical agency of Jeremiah. They are both of them confined to what respects God’s communications to the prophet, and so belong to the higher sphere in which direct communication was held with heaven. One of them may be said to have been beset with impossibilities, if considered as an action in real life. We refer to the bonds and yokes which Jeremiah was commanded in Jeremiah 27:1-22 to make, and not only put upon his own neck, but also to send to the kings of Edom, of Moab, of the Ammonites, of Tyre, and of Sidon, and to do so by the hand of the messengers who were coming to Zedekiah, as a sip that all those countries were to be brought into subjection to the king of Babylon. Such persons, we may be sure, would neither carry such a symbol to the different kings mentioned, nor the message that was appointed to accompany it. And the prophecy itself was for the people of Jerusalem rather than for those surrounding nations. It only took the form of a message to them, in order, more distinctly, to show the fixedness of God’s purpose regarding the issue of the struggle in which Zedekiah was engaged with the king of Babylon. The rehearsing by the prophet of the command he had received, to make the yokes, and send them to the different parties, was what properly constituted the prophecy. And though Jeremiah appears, from what is related in Jeremiah 28:1-17, to have had yokes actually on his neck, yet this seems rather to have been done for the purpose of calling attention to the prophecy than the necessary condition of its announcement. Nor is anything said in the historical part of the sending of yokes to the surrounding nations. In regard to the other instance, that recorded in Jeremiah 32:1-44, the whole has the aspect of a continuous stream of communications between God and the prophet; and the prophetical action about the buying of Hanameel’s field is most naturally regarded as of a piece with the rest, an action in vision. There are other reasons, also, against its being taken as an actual transaction, for, being a priest, Jeremiah could scarcely have entered into any such transaction for the purchase of land; and if he could, yet, as he had predicted that a desolation was at hand, which was to last for seventy years, the transaction would, in his case, have been a kind of extravagance, since long before the purchase could have been of any avail he must have been numbered with the dead, and all the old landmarks practically abolished. Only as an ideal action in the peculiar region of the prophet’s spiritual activity does it admit of a natural and fitting interpretation. Thus, when more nearly considered, the instances appealed to in proof of the symbolic actions having taken place in real life, are found to support the principle of interpretation we have sought to establish. The striving after outward reality in such things, on the part of modem commentators, has chiefly arisen from forgetfulness respecting the fundamental law of prophetic revelation, that it was to be by vision. Had this been sufficiently borne in mind, it would have seemed quite natural (as no doubt it did to those by whom, and to whom, the word of prophecy came), that in accounts of Divine communications, things done in the sphere of the prophet’s ecstatic elevation should have been described as real transactions; for to the prophet’s own consciousness, and as symbolic representations for the people of the mind and purposes of God, they had all the force and value of realities. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 03.21. APPENDIX I ======================================================================== Appendix I, Page 250: St Peter’s Discourses In Acts 1:1-26, Acts 2:1-47 THE view given in the text of Peter’s discourses in the Acts puts no strain upon any of the expressions, but takes them all in their natural sense and connection. Strange liberties are resorted to by those who espouse the Jewish theory of the future, and in part also by some who adopt only the semi-Jewish. The question of the disciples to Jesus on the eve of his ascension, about restoring the kingdom to Israel, is usually made, not only to commit Jesus to the fact of such a restoration, but also to rule by its carnal sense the whole of the subsequent expressions. It is assumed, that Peter’s views of the kingdom after the descent of the Spirit, continued the same as they were before; and that, however it might be in other respects, on this subject he gained nothing in depth, spirituality or clearness of discernment. It is usually farther assumed, that in those invitations to press into the kingdom, addressed to men far and near, as many as the Lord might call, he never thought of any but Jews as having a right to the blessings of the kingdom—although the Lord had in the most explicit manner charged the apostles to include the whole world in their ministrations. They were, He said, to be “His witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth:”—a regular gradation, but only in respect to order and time; first Jerusalem, then the country around Judea; next Samaria, the kind of intermediate region between Jew and Gentile; and finally, the most remote and distant territories. Nay, the original charge, as given in Mark, Mark 16:15, was that they were to “go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature”—precisely, as in the first parable, “the field is the world.” So that if Peter and the apostles still thought only of Jews as entitled to a place in the kingdom, they must have been most strangely inattentive to their Lord’s instructions. That they did not open the door at once to the Gentiles, arose simply from their views respecting circumcision and the law; they thought these were still to remain in force, and consequently that the Gentiles must enter the Messiah’s kingdom by passing under the Jewish yoke. But this had respect merely to the mode of admission; it did not touch the fact, that the Gentiles had an equal right to enter, but simply that they had to enter as the Jews; both alike must go in by the legal door. And in this very circumstance we have an answer to the statement made by many—among others by Baumgarten—respecting the sense attached by the apostles to the expression “the restoration of the kingdom to Israel,” as necessarily meaning both with them and with Christ the revival of Israel’s external power and splendour as a nation; because “their honest and childlike minds clung to the what and the how that the prophets had written of.” The apostles no doubt did this, they did so in this matter only too long, and in respect to circumcision, as well as the kingdom; but the issue proved in the latter case, that their spirit, however honest and childlike, needed enlightenment, as the style of Peter’s future discourses showed that it had also done in respect to the other. The passage in Acts 2:30-36, seems alone quite conclusive of a change of view respecting the kingdom. In one part, there is a diversity as to the proper reading, and the two best MSS. A, B, omit the words in Acts 2:30, rendered in the common version, “According to the flesh, he would raise up Christ.” There are good reasons for supposing that these words were not in the original; so that the passage should stand thus: “Therefore [ David] being a prophet, and’ knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, of the fruit of his loins to make to sit upon his throne, foreseeing this, he spake concerning the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, whereof we all are witnesses,” etc., and, after quoting Psalms 110:1-2, he concludes, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God had made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” The passage is plain enough without the omitted words, and unless it is a piece of false logic, and the conclusion does not cohere with the premise, it explicitly affirms Christ’s present possession of the throne of David. The position from which Peter sets out is, that “God had sworn with an oath to David, of the fruit of his loins to make to sit upon his throne;” and the conclusion at which he arrives is, that that same Jesus who had been crucified and had ascended to the right hand of God “has been made both Lord and Christ.” In such a connection, what can the being made Lord and Christ mean, but sitting upon David’s throne? What other inference could the public audience Peter addressed (who had neither time nor taste for subtle ingenuities, but naturally took the words in their plain and obvious meaning) draw from the statement? They must have felt, that, according to the apostle, the word to David respecting the possession of his throne by a son had now reached its fulfilment. As contemplated by them, the being made Lord and Christ in any other sense would not have been to the point. The words uttered in common by the apostles in an address to God, as recorded in Acts 4:25-27, clearly express the same view. They quote the first verses of the second Psalm, which speak of the rulers combining and standing up “against the Lord and His Christ” (anointed); and then, applying the testimony to present times, they add, “For of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together.” In such a connection to call Jesus the person, whom God had anointed, could only mean, what is more fully expressed in Psalms 2:1-12, by being anointed as king and set on his holy hill of Zion. In any other sense the application of the terms must have been irrelevant, and fitted to mislead; unless, indeed (for that is the only means of escape from the conclusion), the apostles acted on the rationalistic principle, and merely accommodated the words of David to Jesus, on account of certain resemblances between the two cases. The other passage referred to in the text, Acts 3:19-21, is the only one in those addresses of Peter, which distinctly points to the future. Here the correct rendering undoubtedly is: “Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, for the blotting out of your sins; in order that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Christ Jesus, who was before appointed to you (or, the Christ before appointed to you—Jesus); whom the heavens, indeed, must receive, till the times of the restitution (ἀποκαταστάσεως) of all things, of which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets from the beginning of His world.” Such persons as can see nothing here but Israelitish prospects, and nothing more in the restitution of all things than what was meant to be expressed at Acts 1:6, by the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, must be swayed by other reasons than are furnished by a natural exposition of the apostle’s words; and they do him, besides, the manifest injustice of making his views, before the descent of the Spirit, rule and determine those which he entertained afterwards. Discharging all preconceived notions, and taking the passage in its most obvious meaning, it seems plainly to indicate a series of progressive stages: first, a present duty in order to a present blessing (repenting and being converted for the sake of obtaining forgiveness of sin); then, on the ground of this repentance and forgiveness, the just expectation of seasons of refreshing—seasons like that of Pentecost, which those only who have become forgiven and accepted in the Beloved, can rightfully expect, but which they may confidently look for. These, however, are not the ultimate things of redemption—there is a stage higher and better still, for which they but tend to prepare the way and hasten forward the consummation. This is denoted by the sending of Christ Jesus from heaven, and the times of the restitution of all things; for though, did the sense absolutely require it, the seasons of refreshing (καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως), in Acts 3:20, might be identified with the times of the restitution of all things (χρόνοι ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων) in Acts 3:21, yet the natural supposition is, that they point to different epochs, as they also seem to indicate different results. Times of refreshing may come from the Lord’s presence, while the Lord Himself is not visibly manifest; and in no proper sense can they be called, when they do come, complete restitution-periods; they arc rather the occasional showers of blessing sent to invigorate the strength and cheer the hearts of faithful labourers before the final harvest. That harvest is a nobler thing—not something sent from the Lord merely, but the sending of the Lord himself—not a present refreshment, but an ultimate and universal restitution—a restitution which has been spoken of, not by the peculiar prophets of Israel alone, but by all prophetic men from the foundation of the world. Such a restitution, and so spoken of, must transcend every thing local and temporary; it can be nothing less than that bringing back of all to the order and perfection of God, which from the first, has been the great purpose of Divine grace, and the hope it has awakened in the heart of faith. Formally this restitution comprises the whole burden of prophecy, but not really; for the bringing back to what was, carries in its train an indefinite elevation. It involves the rise of all to another and higher sphere of being; for He who stands at the head of it is the Lord from heaven; and while He restores, He at the same time refines and glorifies. Why should not this thought also be extended to the other expectation, and determine what should be understood by the restoration of the kingdom to Israel! This restoration, too, may still be spoken of; but if so, it should be as connected with a glorious elevation. In Christ, David’s throne has become allied with Godhead, and the kingdom assumes of necessity a far loftier position and embraces an immensely wider domain. It becomes, indeed, co-extensive with the world; and hence the two points, when rightly understood, coalesce; the final re-adjusting and ordering of the affairs of Christ’s divine government shall be at once the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, and the restitution of all things to the world. Hence also, what in the prophets generally, who spoke in the midst of Israel, and from the Israelitish point of view, is predicted under the aspect of the full and perfect re-establishment of David’s kingdom, appears in Daniel, who by his position was led to contemplate the matter in its broader relationship to the world at large, as the setting up of the kingdom of heaven in the hands of one like a Son of Man. They are but different modes of exhibiting the same great truth; intimating that the kingdom, which belongs to Christ as Son of Man or Son of David, when conducted to its final issues, shall bring along with it the restitution of every thing on earth to perfect order and blessedness. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: 03.22. APPENDIX K ======================================================================== Appendix K, Page 273: Who Are The Saints, That In Daniel 7:18-22, Are Said To Possess The Kingdom THE representation given in the text of Daniel’s vision proceeds on the assumption, that in the kingdom of Messiah, as there disclosed, there is no distinction of tribes and races, and that its subjects are simply the righteous as opposed to the wicked—“the saints of the Most High.” The words themselves and the whole character of the vision seem to make this plain enough. But interpreters with Jewish leanings cannot so view it; the warping influence of their opinion as to the future ascendency of Israel induces them to impose on the passage a limitation, of which there is no trace in the passage itself. Their literalism is exchanged here for the most unwarranted license, and the saints of the Most High shrink into merely “the people of Israel.” Thus Auberlen, in his work on Daniel and the Apocalypse, writing of this vision, says at p. 219, “By the people of the saints of the Most High, to whom the dominion is to be given, Daniel could manifestly have understood only the people of Israel, as contradistinguished from the kingdoms and peoples of heathendom, who up to this time are to reign; so that we also with exegetical right and propriety can think of nothing else, therefore not immediately of the church.” Here, in the first place, we have a groundless assumption—that Daniel could only understand by the expressing the people of Israel. What Daniel understood is not stated, nor generally are we informed of the prophets how far their insight carried them into the real import of the visions given them. It, no doubt, differed in one prophet as compared with another; and also in the same prophet with respect to different parts of the communications he received. Of them, therefore, as of the ancient believers generally, it cannot be said with certainty in any particular case, how far precisely they understood the meaning of their predictions. But, secondly, whatever their understanding might be—if Daniel, here, for example, understood by the saints of the Most High simply the Jewish people, that is no reason why we should hold such to be what was properly meant. We are no more obliged or warranted in such a case to abide by his understanding, than we ought to abide by the partial and mistaken senses, which the apostles often put upon our Lord’s words up till the day of Pentecost. The words are not so properly the words of Daniel as those of the Spirit of God, and to ascribe to them a certain sense, different from what they naturally bear, as not only that put on them by him, but because so put, their only valid and proper sense, is to embrace the old rationalistic principle, which treated the prophetical writings as simply the productions of men, incapable of bearing any other or higher sense than the men themselves fully understood. Such a principle is utterly at variance with the proper inspiration of prophecy-and with the real circumstances of the prophets of the Old Testament In regard to the things which were given them to make known concerning the Christian dispensation, they themselves saw through a glass darkly; they had consequently to search, as St Peter tells us, 1 Peter 1:11, what in certain respects the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify. The very search implied a measure of darkness in the prediction, and of ignorance in the prophet; and in regard to the opinion itself, to which this search in any particular case conducted, we have, in the first place, no certain means of knowing what it was, and, in the second, even if we knew it, we should not be bound to abide by it; the judgment of the prophet, as Horsley has justly said, “must still bow down to time as a more informed expositor.” This holds particularly in respect to such a prophecy as the one now before us, in which Daniel merely reports what he saw in vision and heard in a dream. Neither the matter nor the words of the prophecy are in any proper sense his own—not his own, that is, as to the ultimate meaning and intention of them. They were his only in so far as they accurately described what he saw and heard; but for all that this pointed to, and required for its proper realization, Daniel was merely on a footing with other believers, and far less favourably situated for understanding it than believers now are. The very absence of any peculiar reference to Israel in the words of the prophecy is strong evidence that none was intended. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: 03.23. APPENDIX L ======================================================================== Appendix L, Page 367: The Tendency Of Prophecy To Describe Things According To The Reality, Rather Than The Appearance Or Profession THE interpretation which has been given in the text of the strongest terms in the apostle’s language respecting the antichrist, by understanding them of a virtual, in contradistinction to a formal and avowed assumption of blasphemous prerogatives, is so much in accordance with the general style of prophecy, and so plainly demanded by the connection, that we cannot refrain from expressing our wonder, at finding interpreters of note still pressing the opposite view. Their doing so must be regarded as another instance of that tendency to literalism, which has wrought such confusion in the prophetical field, and which, at particular points, returns upon some, who in general have attained to a correct discernment of the characteristics of prophecy. The practice of describing things by their real, as opposed to their professed or apparent character, is one that peculiarly distinguishes the Apocalyptic imagery. Thus the worldly kingdoms, both in Daniel and the Revelation, are represented as beasts—not that they actually were, or gave themselves out to be such, but because they pursued a course which partook largely of the bestial nature; they were, one might say, virtual beasts. And the false, seductive power designated Babylon, the mother of harlots and abominations, we may be sure, was not going to proclaim her own shame by declaring herself to be what those epithets import. Beyond all doubt, she is described according to what she really was, not by what she would profess, to be. In like manner, the names of blasphemy on the head of the beast indicate a real rather than a professed dishonour to the God of heaven; for open profanity and avowed atheism have, with few exceptions, been studiously avoided by the worldly power. It has almost uniformly striven to associate with its different forms of government, and political aims, the name and sanctions of religion. Even in the more prosaic parts of the Apocalypse we find the same characteristic prevailing—as when it describes the soaring spirit of the Gnostic teachers, by their knowing the depths of Satan (not those of God, which they themselves rather affected to understand), and designates them by such epithets as Nicolaitans (people-destroyers), followers of Balaam, Jezebels—which they were so far from professing to be, that they laid claim to the highest gifts and the most honourable distinctions. Nor could it be otherwise with the wolves, of whose coming St Paul warned the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:1-38); they were not going, when they appeared, to avow their own wolf-like character, but would, doubtless, aspire to the place of guides and shepherds of the flock. All prophecy, indeed, abounds with examples of this mode of representation; for, speaking as with Divine intuition, itever delights to penetrate through showy appearances, and to strip deceivers of their false disguises. Thus the self-deifying pride of the Chaldean conquerors has its representation in the prophet Habakkuk, by their being characterised as successful fishers, sacrificing to their own net (Habakkuk 1:16); and the corruption of degenerate Israel is exhibited with singular boldness by Ezekiel, under the form of their having had an Amorite father and a Hittite mother (Ezekiel 16:3); and by Isaiah, under the announcement, as from themselves, that they had made a covenant with death, and come to an agreement with hell (Isaiah 28:15). By a still bolder figure the prophet Amos calls the tabernacle in the wilderness the tabernacle of their Moloch, because the idolatrous and unsanctified spirit which still clung to them rendered it practically an idol-tent rather than that of the true God (Amos 5:26). These and many similar representations are obviously designed to set before us the real state and character of the parties described, though entirely different from the outward profession and appearance. On any other principle it were impossible to render much that is written in prophecy either intelligible in itself, or consistent with the facts of history. The violation of this principle in regard to the passages which treat of the antichristian apostacy, by adhering to a mistaken literalism, is the more to be regretted, as it is doing with this portion of the prophetic Scriptures what it has already done with those which have respect to the promised Messiah—it is altogether destroying in the hands of its abettors their apologetic value. As, with the one class of predictions, Jewish Rabbis find themselves backed by Christian literalists in denying the fulfilment of some of the clearest prophetic intimations in the history of Jesus of Nazareth, so Romish controversialists are sheltering themselves under the wing of Protestant interpreters of the same school, in rebutting the application of the Scriptural antichrist to Popery. Thus, in a small volume recently published on “The End of the World, or the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the Very Rev. John Baptist Pagani,” a very adroit use is made of the name of the late Mr Faber. An astonishment is first expressed that any intelligent person could ever have thought of identifying the Pope of Rome with the antichrist of Scripture, especially that this could be done in so enlightened a country as England; and then a passage from Mr Faber’s “Calendar of Prophecy” is quoted to show how a sensible Protestant writer exposes the absurdity of the idea. In the passage referred to the argument is thrown into what is considered both by Mr Faber and by his Catholic admirer a conclusive syllogism. “I shall throw my argument,” Mr Faber says, “into the form of a syllogism, and if any person be able to confute me, I shall be very ready to own myself mistaken. According to St John, he who denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist. The line of the Roman Pontiffs did not deny the Father or the Son; therefore the line of the Roman Pontiffs is not the antichrist.” Embracing with satisfaction this triumphant syllogism, Mr Pagani proceeds to give it additional strength by affirming, that so far from denying the Father and the Son, the Roman Pontiffs have always maintained the doctrine of the Trinity against Deists, Sabellians, Unitarians, and other heretics; that they have uniformly held, that Christ has come in the flesh; that they have also been remarkably distinguished for their humility, taking for their ordinary title, “unworthy ministers of Christ,” “servants of the servants of God,” whereas antichrist is to exalt himself above all that is called God. P. 41, sq. One might go through a considerable portion of prophecy with this sort of syllogism, and ask in vain for any thing in the transactions of real life, that would answer to the terms of the predictions. What, on such a style of interpretation, could be made of the passages to which we have been adverting? Must we suspend the veracity of one prophet on the question, whether the proud Chaldeans actually hung up a net in some temple and did sacrifice to it? Or that of another, on the similar question, whether the Israelites literally bore about during their long sojourn in the wilderness an idolatrous tabernacle in impious rivalry to that of Jehovah? (Even Hengstenberg has given too much countenance to this utterly groundless and extravagant idea, when, in discoursing upon this passage of Amos in the first volume of his work on the Pentateuch, he thus unfolds the general sense of the announcement: “The great mass of the people had, for the larger part of the time during their march through the wilderness, given up honouring the Lord by sacrifices, and instead of Jehovah, the God of hosts, had set up a spurious king of heaven (the Egyptian Pan), whom with the rest of the host of heaven, they honoured with a spurious worship.” It is against all probability, that such an openly idolatrous worship, as is here supposed, should have been practised by the mass of the Israelites during their stay in the wilderness. Occasional defections there no doubt were, but we have no reason to think more—at least, nothing approaching to such a regular, systematic, and general idolatry. We are told even of the comparatively smaller and isolated offences of a public nature—such as the gathering of sticks on the Sabbath, and the blaspheming of God’s name—being capitally punished; and can it be imagined that an idol-tabernacle should have been allowed to be carried about, and openly frequented? Assuredly not. It is of the state of the heart, of its still unsanctified and idolatrous spirit, that the prophet speaks; this practically turned Jehovah’s tent and worship into the interest of heathenism; in God’s sight it belonged to Moloch rather than to himself. When thus viewed, also, there is no need, with Hengstenberg, of rendering “your king,” instead of “your Moloch;” indeed, to do so rather obscures the meaning. The prophet is seeking to identify the idolatrous spirit of his own day with that of earlier times; they were then going after Moloch; and so, says the prophet, you have always been substantially doing. You did so through your forefathers in the wilderness; even then you bore the tabernacle of your Moloch, and sacrificed to strange gods, and the old doom must return upon you. It is, therefore, the later form of idolatry, which is used to characterize the earlier, not (as Hengstenberg would have it) the earlier the later.) Or must we have credible testimony to the fact, that the great worldly monarchies, as they successively arose, did each proclaim their own beast-like and blasphemous character? Or, finally, shall we hold, that nothing can verify the description given of the mystic Babylon, which does not set itself openly to establish and avow the prostitution of all righteous principle? If such be the kind of expectations, with which we proceed to examine the prophetic word, we may certainly lay our account to meet with few instances of fulfilment; we know not where they are to be found in the past, and are afraid they shall in vain be looked for in the future. But surely, if the apostle in his day knew persons in the Christian church, whom he could declare to be the “enemies of the Cross of Christ,” even while they were avowedly looking to that cross for salvation, the pontiffs of Rome might justly enough be characterized as denying the Father and the Son, if they should be found claiming prerogatives, and upholding a system of error and delusion, which virtually subvert the revelation given of the Father and the Son in Scripture. Let it just be granted, that in the descriptions of the collective antichrist, the apostles had their eye on the realities, not on the mere appearances of things—no very extravagant postulate surely—then the proper syllogism will stand thus: the antichrist, according to St John, is he who denies the Father and the Son; but the line of the Roman pontiffs, by their own blasphemous assumptions, and by their system of legalized falsehood and corruption, utterly opposed to the spirit and design of the Gospel, have denied what is revealed of the Father and the Son; therefore the line of the Roman pontiffs is antichrist. This we take to be a truer form of syllogism than Mr Faber’s. But it only meets one fallacy involved in the interpretation. There is another in its taking for granted, that the representations in John’s epistles are to be regarded as comprehensive of ail that was to characterize the spirit and conduct of the antichrist. He merely points to one of the first forms and manifestations of the evil—that which took shape under the hands of the Gnostic teachers. By and by this was to lead on to others, of which not less distinct intimation was given elsewhere in the New Testament writings. The antichristian spirit was to assume different phases, according to the peculiar influences of the time, and the changing fortunes of the church. But they were all to have one thing in common: under a profession of Christianity, there was to be something in doctrine or practice, which in effect made void the Christian truth and life. This in every form was to be the characteristic of anti-christianism as contradistinguished from atheism, heathenism, or undisguised worldliness. And hence, so far from expecting that the Popes, or any other embodiments of the antichrist, should formally assume what u predicted of this power, we should rather expect the reverse. We should expect a studious effort to disguise the truth of the case, though such s one as should only impose upon the ignorant or the corrupt And precisely as the Servant of servants can in lordly arrogance place his foot upon the necks of princes, and claim the ascendency over all earthly power and authority, so under a boastful proclamation of the doctrine of the Trinity, and the conversion of the Cross into a magic charm, may there be found the most substantial denial of the Father and the Son. In a word, the question is, not what Popery pretends to be, but what it really is; with this alone we have to do in determining its relation to the prophetic delineations of Scripture. And when the subject is viewed in this light, he must be strangely blinded or unhappily biassed, who fails to perceive the striking correspondence between the one and the other. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: 03.24. APPENDIX M ======================================================================== Appendix M, Page 420: Euphrates As A Symbol In The Prophetical Books IT may justly be deemed strange, that any one in the least conversant with the style of prophecy should have failed to understand the proper nature of the allusion to the river Euphrates in Revelation 16:12, and especially that so many interpreters of the Apocalypse should be able to see nothing in it beyond the natural river, or the Turkish power, which now happens to have command over the regions around it. For, the ancient prophets have here furnished the key to the interpretation in the most natural and intelligible manner: this I have exhibited elsewhere (“Imperial Bible Diet.,” Art. Euphrates), and shall here do little more than adopt the language there employed. Contributing so materially, as the river Euphrates did, to the resources and wealth of Babylon, it came naturally to be taken for an emblem or representative of the city itself, and of the empire of which it was the capital. In this respect a striking application was made of it by the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 8:5-8, where the little kingdom of Judah, with its circumscribed territory and its few earthly resources on the one hand, is seen imaged in the tiny brook of Shiloah; while, on the other, the rising power of Babylon is spoken of under the emblem of “the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory.” And he goes on to expose the folly of Israel’s trusting in this foreign power on account of its material greatness, by declaring that in consequence of this mistaken trust, and in chastisement of it, the mighty stream would, as it were, desert its proper channel, and turn its waters in a desolating flood over the Holy Land. In like manner the symbolical action of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 13:4), going to hide his girdle in a cavern by the river Euphrates, points to the evil that was destined to come upon the covenant-people from the power which had its representation in that river. But when Babylon’s own doom comes to be the theme of prophetic discourse, then quite naturally, and by a simple reversing of the figure, the waters of the river are spoken of as suffering under drought yea of being dried up (Jeremiah 50:38; Zechariah 10:11)—although one should no more, in this case, think of a decay of the natural stream than in the other of its overflow; in both cases alike it is the kingdom or power imaged by the river, which is really the subject of discourse. Now, when we pass to New Testament prophecy, and find there again a Babylon and a Euphrates, the objects they represent must stand in the same relation to each other that the Babylon and Euphrates of former times did; therefore, not simply diverse powers, but powers mutually interconnected—the one sustained, as it were, and fed by the other. Neither the literal Euphrates, nor the Turkish power, ever stood in such a relation to the mystic Babylon; the relation of the two powers has rather been one of antagonism than of cooperation and support. The only thing answering to the description is what the Apocalypse itself indicates—“the peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues”—from which the antichristian power has ever drawn her supplies of strength. Hence, as in the case of the literal Babylon, the drying up of the waters of the Euphrates signified, in prophetical language, the diminution or failure of the city’s resources; so the same expression, when applied to modern relations, can be fitly understood of nothing but a similar diminution or failure of the support which mystical Babylon was to derive from the nations and kingdoms of the earth. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: 04.00.1. THE REVELATION OF LAW IN SCRIPTURE ======================================================================== THE REVELATION OF LAW IN SCRIPTURE: CONSIDERED WITH RESPECT BOTH TO ITS OWN NATURE, AND TO ITS RELATIVE PLACE IN SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. THE THIRD SERIES OF THE CUNNINGHAM LECTURES BY PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D. D., AUTHOR OF “TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE,” ETC. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38, STREET. LONDON: HAMILTION & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO. MDCCCLXIX. EDINBURGH: COMMERCIAL PRINTING COMPANY, 22 HOWE STREET ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: 04.00.2. MODULE PREPARED BY BIBLESUPPORT.COM ======================================================================== Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com Text Modification The text has been changed from the print edition. Scripture references were formatted for electronic presentation in e-Sword. Most implicit scripture references were made specific to reference the actual book chapter:verse rather than expecting the reader to deduce the chapter or book. Footnotes are presented in-line. Text provided by William Anderson @ StillTruth.com. Connect With Us Download thousands of free e-Sword modules, find answers to e-Sword problems, access e-Sword user forums, and fellowship with other e-Sword users. BibleSupport.com is also home to the only e-Sword User’s Guide, the most comprehensive documentation available for e-Sword. Want to know when this module is updated? Want to know when we release other modules? Want to show your support? Like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/BibleSupport Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/BibleSupport ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: 04.00.3. PREFACE ======================================================================== Preface THE subject handled in the following Lectures enters so deeply into the whole scheme and objects of Divine Revelation, that no apology can be required for directing public attention to it; at any period, and in any circumstances of the church, it may fitly enough be chosen for particular inquiry and discussion. But no one acquainted with the recent phases of theological sentiment in this country, and with the prevailing tendencies of the age, can fail to perceive its special appropriateness as a theme for discussion at the present time. If this, however, has naturally led to a somewhat larger proportion of the controversial element than might otherwise have been necessary, I have endeavoured to give the discussion as little as possible of a polemical aspect; and have throughout been more anxious to unfold and establish what I conceive to be the true, than to go into minute and laboured refutations of the false. On this account, also, personal references have been omitted to some of the more recent advocates of the views here controverted, where it could be done without prejudice to the course of discussion. The terms of the Trust-deed, in connection with which the Lectures appear, only require that not fewer than six be delivered in Edinburgh, but as to publication wisely leave it to the discretion and judgment of the Lecturer, either to limit himself to that number, or to supplement it with others according to the nature and demands of his subject. I have found it necessary to avail myself of this liberty, by the addition of half as many more Lectures as those actually delivered; and one of these (Lecture IV.), from the variety and importance of the topics discussed in it, has unavoidably extended to nearly twice the length of any of the others. However unsuitable this would have been if addressed to an audience, as a component part of a book there will be found in it a sufficient number of breaks to relieve the attention of the reader. The Supplementary Dissertations, and the exposition of the more important passages in St Paul’s writings in reference to the law, which follow the Lectures, have added considerably to the size of the volume; but it became clear as I proceeded, that the discussion of the subject in the Lectures would have been incomplete without them. It is possible, indeed, that in this respect some may be disposed to note a defect rather than a superfluity, and to point to certain other topics or passages which appear to them equally entitled to a place. I have only to say, that as it was necessary to make a selection, I have endeavoured to embrace in this portion what seemed to be, for the present time, relatively the most important, and, as regards the passages of Scripture, have, I believe, included all that are of essential moment for the ends more immediately contemplated. But several topics, I may be allowed to add, very closely connected with the main theme of this volume, have been already treated in my work on the Typology of Scripture; and though it has been found impracticable to avoid coming here occasionally on the ground which had been traversed there, it was manifestly proper that this should not be done beyond what the present subject, in its main features, imperatively required. GLASGOW, October 1868. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: 04.01. LECTURES ======================================================================== Lectures ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: 04.02. LECTURE 1 ======================================================================== Lecture 1. INTRODUCTORY. Prevailing Views In Respect To The Ascendency Of Law (1) In The Natural; (2) In The Moral And Religious Sphere; And The Relation In Which They Stand To The Revelations Of Scripture On The Subject. AMONG the more marked tendencies of our age, especially as represented by its scientific and literary classes, may justly be reckoned a prevailing tone of sentiment regarding the place and authority of law in the Divine administration. The sentiment is a divided one; for the tendency in question takes a twofold direction, according as it respects the natural, or the moral and religious sphere in the one exalting, we may almost say deifying law; in the other narrowing its domain, sometimes even ignoring its existence. An indissoluble chain of sequences, the fixed and immutable law of cause and effect, whether always discoverable or not, is contemplated as binding together the order of events in the natural world; but as regards the spiritual, it is the inherent right or sovereignty of the individual mind that is chiefly made account of, subject only to the claims of social order, the temporal interests of humanity, and the general enlightenment of the times. And as there can be no doubt that these divergent lines of thought have found their occasion, and to some extent also their ground, the one in the marked advancement of natural science, the other in the progress of the Divine dispensations, it will form a fitting introduction to the inquiry that lies before us to take a brief review of both, in their general relation to the great truths and principles of Scripture. I. We naturally look first, in such a survey, to the physical territory, to the vast and complicated field of nature. Here a twofold disturbance has arisen—the one from men of science pressing, not so much ascertained facts, as plausible inferences or speculations built on them, to unfavourable conclusions against Scripture; the other from theologians themselves overstepping in their interpretations of Scripture, and finding in it revelations of law, or supposed indications of order, in the natural sphere, which it was never intended to give. As so interpreted by Patristic, Mediaeval, and even some comparatively late writers, the Bible has unquestionably had its authority imperilled by being brought into collision with indisputable scientific results. But the better it is under stood the more will it be found to have practised in this respect a studious reserve, and to have as little invaded the proper field of scientific inquiry and induction, as to have assumed, in regard to it, the false position of the nature-religions of heathenism. It is the moral and religious sphere with which the Bible takes strictly to do; and only in respect to the more fundamental things belonging to the constitution of nature and its relation to the Creator, can it be said to have committed itself to any authoritative deliverance. Written, as every book must be that is adapted to popular use, in the language of common life, it describes the natural phenomena of which it speaks according to the appearances, rather than the realities, of things. This was inevitable, and requires to be made due account of by those who would deal justly with its contents. But while freely and familiarly discoursing about much pertaining to the creation and providence of the world, the Bible does not, in respect to the merely natural frame and order of things, pronounce upon their latent powers or modes of operation, nor does it isolate events from the proper instrumental agencies. It undoubtedly presents the works and movements of nature in close connection with the will and pervasive energy of God; but then it speaks thus of them all alike—of the little as well as the great—of the ordinary not less than the extraordinary, or more striking and impressive. According to the Bible, God thunders, indeed, in the clouds; but the winds also, even the gentlest zephyrs, blow at His command, and do His bidding. If it is He who makes the sun to know his going forth, and pour light and gladness over the face of nature, it is He also who makes the rain to fall and the seeds of the earth to spring, and clothes the lilies of the field with beauty. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without Him. And as in the nearer and more familiar of these operations everything is seen to be accomplished through means and ordinances bound up with nature’s constitution; so, it is reasonable to infer, must it be with the grander and more remote. In short, while it is the doctrine of the Bible that God is in all, and in a sense does all, nothing is authoritatively defined as to the how or by what they are done; and science is at perfect liberty to prosecute its researches with the view of discovering the individual properties of things, and how, when brought into relation, they act and react on each other, so as to produce the results which appear in the daily march of providence. Now, let this relation of the Bible, with its true religion, to the pursuits of science, be placed alongside that of the false religions of Greek and Roman poly theism which it supplanted, and let the effect be noted—the legitimate and necessary effect of the progress of science in its clearest and best established conclusions on the one as compared with the other. Resting on an essentially pantheistic basis, those ancient religions ever tended to associate the objects and operations of nature with the immediate presence and direct agency of some particular deity—to identify the one in a manner with the other; and very specially to do this with the greater and more remarkable phenomena of nature. Thus Helios, or the Sun, was deified in Apollo, and was not poetically represented merely, but religiously believed, to mount his chariot, drawn by a team of fiery steeds, in the morning, to rise by a solid pathway to mid-heaven, and then descend toward the western horizon, that his wearied coursers might be refreshed before entering on the labours of another day. Selené, or the Moon, in like manner, though in humbler guise, was contemplated as pursuing her nocturnal course. Sun, moon, and stars, it was believed, bathed themselves every night in the waves of ocean, and got their fires replenished by partaking of the Neptunian element. Eclipses were prodigies—portentous signs of wrath in heaven—which struck fear into men’s bosoms, as on the eve of direful calamities, and sometimes so paralysing them as to become itself the occasion of the sorest disasters. Hence, the philosophy which applied itself to explore the operation of physical properties and laws in connection with natural events, was accounted impious; since, as Plutarch remarks, (Life of Nicias. ) it seemed ‘to ascribe things to insensate causes, unintelligent powers, and necessary changes, thereby jostling aside the divine.’ On this account Anaxagoras was thrown into prison by the Athenians, and narrowly escaped with his life. Socrates was less fortunate; he suffered the condemnation and penalty of death, although he had not carried his physical speculations nearly so far as Anaxagoras. At his trial, however, he was charged with impiety, on the ground of having said that the sun was a stone, and the moon earth; he himself, however, protesting that such was not his, but the doctrine of Anaxagoras; that he held both sun and moon to be divine persons, as was done by the rest of mankind. His real view seems to have been, that the common and ordinary events of Providence flowed from the operation of second causes, but that those of greater magnitude and rarer occurrence came directly from the interposition of a divine power. Yet this modified philosophy was held to be utterly inconsistent with the popular religion, and condemned as an impiety. Of necessity, therefore, as science proceeded in its investigations and discoveries, religion fell into the background; as the belief in second causes advanced, the gods, as no longer needed, vanished away. Physical science and the polytheism of Greece and Rome were in their very nature antagonistic, and every real advance of the one brought along with it a shock to the other. It is otherwise with the religion of the Bible, when this is rightly understood, and nothing from without, nothing foreign to its teaching, is imposed on it. For it neither merges God in the works and operations of nature, nor associates Him with one department more peculiarly than another; while still it presents all—the works themselves, the changes they undergo, and every spring and agency employed in accomplishing them—in dependence on His arm and subordination to His will: He is in all, through all, and over all. So that for those who have imbibed the spirit of the Bible, there may appear the most perfect regularity and continued sequence of operations, while God is seen and adored in connection with every one of them. It is true, that the sensibilities of religious feeling, or, as we should rather say, the freshness and power of its occasional outbursts, are less likely to be experienced, and in reality are more rarely manifested, when, in accordance with the revelations of science, God’s agency is contemplated as working through material forces under the direction of established law, than if, without such an intervening medium, in specific acts of providence, and by direct interference, He should make His presence felt. The more that anything ceases to appear strange to our view, abnormal—the more it comes to be associated in our minds with the orderly domain of law—the less startling and impressive does it naturally become as an evidence of the nearness and power of God head: it no longer stands alone to our view, it is part of a system, but still a system which, if viewed aright, has been all planned by the wisdom, and is constantly sustained and directed by the providence of God. In this, as in so many other departments of human interest and experience, there is a compensation in things. What science may appear to take with one hand, it gives—gives, one might almost say, more liberally with another. If, for example, the revelation on scientific grounds of the amazing regularity and finely-balanced movements which prevail in the constitution and order of the material universe, as connected with our planetary system,—if this, in one aspect of it, should seem to have placed God at a certain distance from the visible world, in another it has but rendered His presiding agency and vigilant oversight more palpably indispensable. For such a vast, complicated, and wondrous mechanism, how could it have originated? or, having originated, how could it be sustained in action without the infinite skill and ceaseless activity of an all-perfect Mind? There is here what is incalculably more and better than some occasional proofs of interference, or fitful displays of power, however grand and imposing. There is clear sighted, far-reaching thought, nicely planned design, mutual adaptations, infinitely varied, of part to part, the action and reaction of countless forces, working with an energy that baffles all conception, yet working with the most minute mathematical precision, and with the effect of producing both the most harmonious operation, and the most diversified, gigantic, and beneficent results. It is, too, the more marvellous, and the more certainly indicative of the originating and controlling agency of mind, that while all the planetary movements obey with perfect regularity one great principle of order, they do so by describing widely different orbits, and, in the case of some, pursuing courses that move in opposite directions to others. Whence should such things be? Not, assuredly, from any property inherent in the material orbs themselves, which know nothing of the laws they exemplify, or the interests that depend on the order they keep: no, but solely from the will and power of the infinite and eternal Being, whose workmanship they are, and whose purposes they unconsciously fulfil. So wrote Newton devoutly, as well as nobly, at the close of his incomparable work: ‘This beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets, could have its origin in no other way than by the counsel and sovereignty of an intelligent and powerful Being. He governs all things—not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of the universe. . . . We know Him only through His qualities and attributes, and through the most wise and excellent forms and final causes, which belong to created things; and we admire Him on account of His perfections; but for His sovereign lordship, we worship and adore Him;’—thus in the true spirit of the Psalmist, and as with a solemn hallelujah, winding up the mighty demonstration. (On this point, Dr Whewell has some remarks in his ‘Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,’ which another great authority in natural science, Sir John Herschel, has characterized as admirable (‘Essays and Addresses,’ p. 239). ‘The assertion appears to be quite unfounded, that as science advances from point to point, final causes recede before it, and disappear one after the other. The principle of design changes its mode of application indeed, but it loses none of its force. We no longer consider particular facts as produced by special inter positions, but we consider design as exhibited in the establishment and adjustment of the laws by which particular facts are produced. We do not look upon each particular cloud as brought near us that it may drop fatness on our fields; but the general adaptation of the laws of heat, and air, and moisture, to the promotion of vegetation, does not become doubtful. We are rather, by the discovery of the general laws of nature, led into a scene of wider design, of deeper contrivance, of more comprehensive adjustments. Final causes, if they appear driven farther from us by such an extension of our views, embrace us only with a vaster and more majestic circuit; instead of a few threads connecting some detached objects, they become a stupendous network which is wound round and round the universal frame of things.’ Vol. 1:p. 635.) We are informed, in a recent publication by a noble author, (The Duke of Argyle, ‘Reign of Law,’ p. 122.) that modern science is again returning to this view of things; returning to it, I suppose, as becoming conscious of the inadequacy of the maxim of an earlier time, in respect to creation, ‘That the hypothesis of a Deity is not needed.’ Speaking of the mystery which hangs around the idea of force, even of the particular force which has its seat in our own vitality, he says, ‘If, then, we know nothing of that kind of force which is so near to us, and with which our own intelligence is in such close alliance, much less can we know the ultimate nature of force in its other forms. It is important to dwell on this, because both the aversion with which some men regard the idea of the reign of law, and the triumph with which some others hail it, are founded on a notion, that when we have traced any given phenomena to what are called natural forces, we have traced them farther than we really have. We know nothing of the ultimate nature, or of the ultimate seat of force [that is, know nothing scientifically]. Science, in the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy and the convertibility of forces, is already getting something like a firm hold of the idea, that all kinds of force are but forms or manifestations of some central force issuing from some one Fountainhead of power. Sir John Herschel has not hesitated to say, that it is but reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a consciousness or a will existing somewhere. And even if we cannot certainly identify force in all its forms with the direct energies of one omnipresent and all-pervading will, it is, at least, in the highest degree unphilosophical to assume the contrary; to speak or to think as if the forces of nature were either independent of, or even separate from, the Creator’s power.’ In short, natural science, in its investigations into the forces and movements of the material universe, finds a limit which it cannot overpass, and in that limit a felt want of satisfaction, as conscious of the necessity of a spontaneity, a will, a power to give impulse and direction to the whole, of which nature itself can give no information, because lying outside of its province, and which, if discovered to us at all, must be certified through a supernatural revelation. But this is still not the whole of the argument for the pervading causal connection of God with the works of nature, and His claim in this respect to our devout recognition of His will as the source of its laws, and His power as the originator and sustainer of its movements. For, besides the admirable method and order, the simplicity in the midst of endless diversity, which are found to characterize the system of material nature, there is also to be taken into account the irrepressible impulse in the human mind to search for these, and the capacity to discern and appreciate them as marks of the highest intelligence. A pre-established harmony here discovers itself between the world of thought within, and the world of material order and scientific adjustment without, bespeaking their mutual co-ordination by the wise foresight and plastic energy of one Supreme Mind. ‘Copernicus (Max Müller, ‘Lectures on Language,’ p. 19.) (it has been remarked), in the dedication of his work to Pope Paul III., confesses that he was brought to the discovery of the sun’s central position and of the diurnal motion of the earth, not by observation or analysis, but by what he calls the feeling of a want of symmetry in the Ptolemaic system. But who had told him that there must be symmetry in all the movements of the celestial bodies, or that complication was not more sublime than simplicity? Symmetry and simplicity, before they were discovered by the observer, were postulated by the philosopher;’ and by him, we may add, truly postulated, because first existing as ideas in the Eternal Mind, whose image and reflex man’s is. So also with Newton: the principle of gravitation, as an all-embracing law of the planetary system, was postulated in his mind before he ascertained it to be the law actually in force throughout the whole, or even any considerable part of the system—mind in man thus responding to mind in God, and finding, in the things which appear, the evidence at once of His eternal power and Godhead, and of the similitude of its own understanding to that of Him by whom the world has been contrived and ordained. There is a class of minds which such considerations cannot reach. They would take a position above them; and adventuring upon what tends to perplex and confound, rather than satisfy, the reason, they raise such questions respecting the Absolute and Infinite, as in a manner exclude the just and natural conclusions deduced from the works of creation concerning the Being and Government of the Creator. But questions of that description, pressing as they do into a region which transcends all human thought and known analogy, it is presumption in man to raise, folly to entertain; for ‘man is born,’ as Goethe well remarked, ‘not to solve the problems of the universe, but to find out where the problem for himself begins, and then restrain himself within the limits of the comprehensible.’ Considered from this point of view, the reflections which have been submitted as to the prevalence of natural law in the general economy of the world of matter, in its relation to God and its bearing on the religion of the Bible, are perfectly legitimate; and they might easily be extended by a diversified application of the principles involved in them to the arrangements in the natural world, which stand more closely related to men’s individual interests and responsibilities. But to sum up briefly what relates to this branch of our subject, there are three leading characteristics in the teaching of the Bible respecting the relation of God to the merely natural world, and which, though they can only in a qualified sense be termed a revelation of law, yet form, so to speak, the landmarks which the Bible itself sets up, and the measure of the liberty it accords to the cultivators of science. (1.) The first of these is the strict and proper personality of God, as distinct from, and independent of, the whole or any part of the visible creation. This to its utmost limits is His workmanship—the theatre which His hands have reared, and which they still maintain, for the outgoing of His perfections and the manifestation of His glory. As such, therefore, the things belonging to it are not, and cannot possibly be, a part of His proper self. However pervaded by His essential presence and divine energy, they are not ‘the varied God,’ in the natural sense of the expression. They came into being without any diminution of His infinite greatness, and so they may be freely handled, explored, modified, made to undergo ever so many changes and transformations, without in the slightest degree trenching on the nature of Him, who is ‘without variableness or shadow of turning.’ Such is the doctrine of the Bible—differing from mere nature-worship, and from polytheism in all its forms, which, if it does not openly avow, tacitly assumes the identification of Deity with the world. The Scripture doctrine of the Creator and creation, of God and the world, as diverse though closely related factors, leaves to science its proper field of inquiry and observation untrammelled by any hindrance arising from the view there exhibited of the Divine nature. (2.) A second distinguishing feature in the revelations of the Bible is, that they rather presuppose what belongs to the domain of natural science, than directly interfere with it. With the exception of the very earliest part of the sacred records, it is the supernatural—the supernatural with respect more immediately to moral relations and results—which may be designated their proper field; and while in this the supernatural throughout bases itself on the natural, the natural itself is little more than incidentally referred to, or very briefly indicated. Even in the account given of the formation of the world and the natural constitution of things therewith connected, it is obviously with the design of forming a suitable introduction to the place of man in the world, his moral relation to the Creator, and his special distinction as the responsible head of creation upon earth, that the narrative was framed, rather than for the purpose of affording any insight into the merely natural relations and properties of things. The physical as such, with its manifold gradations of life and being, its history and developments, its laws of attraction and repulsion, modes of operation, existing forms and possible transformations,—all this is either unnoticed in Scripture, or indicated only in its rougher outlines. Even the vexed question respecting the origin and distinctions of species in the animal creation is but partially involved here; for, while Scripture undoubtedly represents the existing families of mankind as originating in the formation of one pair by the immediate interposition of God, and also represents the production of plants, fishes, land animals, fowls, as coming at successive stages into being, and each constituted so as to bring forth after its kind; yet nothing is said as to the number of kinds, or the centres, one or more, in which they respectively originated, how far the several kinds should remain stereotyped, or how far they might be capable, through human art or climatic influences, of departing from the original type, and in process of time developing into varieties and making indefinite approaches one to another. On such points Scripture is altogether silent, even in that introductory portion which most nearly resembles a piece of natural history. Nothing depends on them for the higher interests which it has mainly in view, the things which concern the moral character and purposes of God, as connected with His crowning work in creation—Man. And it may well surely be regarded as a wonderful thing in that simple primeval record, an evidence of something more in it than a merely human authorship, that it should, while touching but incidentally on scientific ground, stand, as a whole, in such striking accord even now with the established results of science—exhibiting, by means of a few graphic lines, not merely the evolution from dark chaos of a world of light, and order, and beauty, but the gradual ascent also of being upon earth, from the lowest forms of vegetable and animal life, up to him, who holds alike of earth and heaven—at once creation’s head, and the rational image and vicegerent of the Creator. Here, substantially at least, we have the progression of modern science; but this combined, in a manner altogether peculiar, with the peerless dignity and worth of man, as of more account in God’s sight than the entire world besides of animated being, yea, than sun, and moon, and stars of light, because incomparably nearer than them all to the heart of God, and more closely associated with the moral aims, to which everything in nature was designed to be subordinate. Better than all science, it reveals alike man’s general place in nature and his singular relation to God. (See Butler, Analogy, P. I. c. 7.) (3.) A third characteristic of Bible teaching in this connection is the free play it allows to general laws and natural agencies, or to the operation of cause and effect; and this, not merely as bearing on simply natural results, but also as connected with spiritual relations and duties. Those laws and agencies are of God; as briefly expressed by Augustine, ‘God’s will constitutes the nature of things’ (Dei voluntas rerum natura est); or more fully by Hooker, (Eccl. Polity/ B. I. c. 3, sec. 4.) ‘That law, the performance whereof we behold in things natural, is as it were an authentic or original draft written in the bosom of God himself, whose Spirit being to execute the same with every particular nature, every mere natural agent is only as an instrument created at the beginning, and ever since the beginning used, to work His own will and pleasure withal. Nature, therefore, is nothing else but God’s instrument.’ Whence the various powers and faculties of nature, whether in things animate or inanimate, her regular course and modes of procedure, are not supplanted by grace, but are recognised and acted upon to the full extent that they can be made subservient to higher purposes. Thus, when in respect to things above nature, God reveals His mind to men, He does it through men, and through men not as mere machines unconsciously obeying a supernatural impulse, but acting in discharge of their personal obligations and the free exercise of their individual powers and susceptibilities. So also the common subject of grace, the ordinary believer, obtains no warrant as such to set at nought the settled laws and ordinances of nature, no right to expect aught but mischief if he should contravene their action, or fail to adapt himself to their mode of operation; and at every step in his course toward the final goal of his calling, reason, knowledge, cultivation, wise discretion, and persevering diligence have their parts to play in securing his safety and progress, as well as the divine help and internal agency of the Spirit. It is, therefore, within the boundary-lines fixed by nature, and in accordance with the principles of her constitution, alike in the mental and the material world, that the work of grace proceeds, though bringing along with it powers, and influences, and results which are peculiarly its own. And even as regards the things done for the believer in the outer field of providence, and in answer to humble prayer, there may be no need (for aught we know to the contrary) for miraculous interference, in the ordinary sense of the term, but only for wise direction, for timely and fitting adjustment. It may even be, as Isaac Taylor has said, ‘the great miracle of providence, that no miracles are needed to accomplish its purposes;’ that ‘the materials of the machinery of providence are all of ordinary quality, while their combination displays nothing less than infinite skill;’ and, at all events, within this field alone of divine foresight and gracious interventions through natural agencies, there is in the hand of God ‘a hidden treasury of boons sufficient for the incitement of prayer and the reward of humble faith.’ (‘Natural History of Enthusiasm,’ sec. vi.) The three principles or positions now laid down in respect to God’s operations in nature and providence, seem to comprise all that is needed for the maintenance of friendly relations between the religion of the Bible and the investigations of science; on the one side, ample scope is left to these investigations, while, on the other, nothing has been actually established by them which conflicts with the statements of the Bible interpreted by the principles we have stated. But undoubtedly there is in them what cannot be reconciled with that deification of material forces, which some would identify with strict science—as if everything that took place were the result of the action only of unconscious law—law working with such rigid, unbroken continuity of natural order, as to admit of no break or deviation whatever (such as is implied in miracles), and no special adaptation to individual cases (as a particular providence would involve). Both miracles and a particular providence, within certain limits, and as means to the attainment of important ends, are postulated and required in the revelations of the Bible. For if, as it teaches, there be a personal God, an infinite and eternal Spirit, distinct from the works of creation, and Himself the author of the laws by which they are governed—if also this God sustains the character of moral Governor in regard to the intelligent part of His creation, and subordinates everything in His administration to the principles and interests therewith connected—then the possibility, at least, of miracles and a particular providence (to say nothing at present of their evidence), can admit of no reasonable doubt. This does not imply, as the opponents of revelation not unfrequently assume, the production in certain cases of an effect without a cause, or the emerging of dissimilar consequents from the same antecedents. For, on the supposition in question, the antecedents are no longer the same; the cause which is of nature has superadded to it a cause which is above nature, in the material sense—the will and the power of a personal Deity. We reason here, as in other things, from the human to the divine. Mind in man is capable of originating a force, which within definite limits can suspend the laws of material nature, and control or modify them to its desired ends. And why, then, should it be thought incredible or strange, that the central Mind of the universe, by whom all subsists, should at certain special moments, when the purposes of His moral government require a new order of things to be originated, authoritative indications of His will to be given, or results accomplished unattainable in the ordinary course of nature, bring into play a force adequate to the end in view? It is merely supposing the great primary cause interposing to do in a higher line of things what finite beings are ever doing in a lower; and the right, and the power, and the purpose to do it, resolve themselves (as we have said) into the question, whether there really be a God, exercising a moral government over the world, capable for its higher ends of putting forth acts of supernatural agency—a question which natural science has no special mission to determine, or peculiar resources to explicate. (See MʻCosh, Method of Divine Government, B. II. cap. i. sec. 7. And for an admirable and conclusive exposure of the views of the chief opponents in the present day of all miraculous agency, even in creation and intelligent design as connected with the works of nature namely, the advocates of natural selection and progressive development—see particularly ‘The Darwinian Theory of Development examined by a Cambridge Graduate.’ It is there stated, as a remarkable thing, that this theory, which professes to be based on scientific grounds, yet expresses itself in the form of a creed: the words ‘We must believe,’ ‘I have no difficulty in believing,’ etc., are perpetually recurring, and, in fact, form the necessary links in the chain of so-called deductions. Hence, while setting out with the object of avoiding the miraculous, the end is not attained. ‘In the old method, the great physiologists take it for granted that their researches can only reach a certain point, beyond which they cannot penetrate; there they come to the inexplicable; and they believe that barrier to be the Creator’s power, which they leave at a respectful distance. This, according to the feelings of the ancients, was “the veil of nature which no mortal hand had ever withdrawn,” and, as they approached it, they felt and spoke of it with reverence. Now, the new method is to discard the belief in a Creator, to reject the omniscience and omnipotence of a Maker of all things, to charge us who believe in it with endeavouring to conceal our ignorance by an imposing form of words; and to undertake to explain the origin of all forms of life by another and a totally different hypothesis. What, then, is the result? A long list of new and doubtful assertions, some of them of surpassing novelty and wildness, and all of them unaccompanied by proof, but proposed as points of belief. The marvellous in the old method is in one point only, and that, for the most part, more implied than expressed—the belief in a paramount Intellect ordaining life and providing for its success. The marvellous in the new way is a vast assemblage of prodigies, strange and unheard-of events and circumstances that cannot be confirmed by any authentic evidence, and which, indeed, are out of the reach of evidence—a throng of aëry dreams and phantasies, evoked by the imagination, which we are called on to believe as realities, as it is impossible to prove that they are so (p. 355). A distinguished naturalist has said, ‘No one who has advanced so far in philosophy as to have thought of one thing in relation to another, will ever be satisfied with laws which had no author, works which had no maker, and co-ordinations which had no designer’ (Phillips, ‘Life on Earth’). The development school vainly try to satisfy themselves by making enormous drafts on their imagination and faith.) The subject of a particular providence so far differs from that of miraculous action, that, to a large extent, its requirements may be met through the operation of merely instrumental causes, fitly disposed and arranged by Divine wisdom to suit the ever-varying conditions of individual man. To have respect to the individual in His method of government cannot be regarded as less consistent with the nature of an all-wise and omnipotent Being, than to restrain His working within the bounds of general laws; and nature itself is a witness to the infinite minuteness of the care and oversight of which even the smallest forms in the animated creation are the object. Besides, in a vast multitude of instances, probably in by far the greater number of what constitute special acts of providence for individuals, it is not the law of cause and effect in material nature that is interfered with, but the operations of mind that are controlled—the Eternal Spirit directly, or by some appropriate ministry, touching the springs of thought and feeling in different bosoms, so as to bring the resolves and procedure of one to bear upon the condition and circumstances of another, and work out the results which need to be accomplished. In the ordinary affairs of life, where secular ends alone are concerned, we see what a complicated network of mutual interconnection and specific influences is formed, by the movements of mind transmitted from one person to another, and the same we can readily conceive to exist in relation to spiritual ends; in this case, indeed, even more varied and far-reaching, as the ends to be secured are of a higher kind, and there is the action of minds from the heavenly places coming in aid of the movements which originate upon earth. But without dilating further, the principle of the whole matter in this, as well as the previous aspect of it, is embodied in another grand utterance of Newton’s, in which, after describing God as a being or substance, ‘one, simple, indivisible, living, and life-giving, everywhere and necessarily existing,’ etc., it is added, in these remarkable words, ‘perceiving and governing all things by His essential presence, and constantly co-operating with all things, according to fixed laws as the foundation and cause of all nature, except when it is good to act otherwise (nisi ubi aliter agere bonum est):’ the will of the great Sovereign of the universe being thus placed above every impressed law and instrumental cause of nature, and conceived free to adopt other and more peculiar lines of action as the higher ends of His government might require. II. We turn now from the physical to the moral and religious sphere, the one with which in the present discussion we have more especially to do; and in doing so we pass into quite another region as regards the tendency of thought in the current literature and philosophy of the day. For here, undoubtedly, the disposition with many is to fall as much short of the teaching of Scripture in respect to the supremacy of law, as in the other department to go beyond it. But opinions on the subject are really so diverse, they differ so much both in respect to the forms they assume and the grounds on which they are based, that it is not quite easy in a brief space, and impossible without some detail, to give a distinct representation of them. (1.) At the farthest remove from the Scriptural view stand the advocates of materialism—those who would merge mind and matter ultimately into one mass, who would trace all mental phenomena to sensations, and account for everything that takes place by means of the affinities, combinations, and inherent properties of matter. In such a philosophy there is room for law only in the physical sense, and for such progress or civilization as may arise from a more perfect acquaintance therewith, and a more skilful use or adaptation of it to the employments and purposes of life. The personality of God, as a living, eternal Spirit, cannot be entertained; and, of course, responsibility in the higher sense, as involving subjection to moral government, and the establishment of a Divine moral order, can have no place. For, mind is but a species of cerebral development; thought or desire but an action of the brain; man himself but the most perfectly developed form of organic being, the highest type in the scale of nature’s ascending series of productions, whose part is fulfilled in doing what is fitted to secure a healthful organization, and provide for himself the best conditions possible of social order and earthly wellbeing. But, to say nothing of the scheme in other respects, looking at it simply with reference to the religion and morality of the Bible, it plainly ignores the foundation on which these may be said to rest; namely, the moral elements in man’s constitution, or the phenomena of conscience, which are just as real as those belonging to the physical world, and in their nature immensely more important. In so doing, it gives the lie to our profoundest convictions, and loses sight of the higher, the more ennobling qualities of our nature, indeed would reduce man very much to the condition of a child and creature of fate—capable, indeed, of being influenced by sensual desires, prudential motives, and utilitarian considerations, but not called to aim at conformity to any absolute rule of right and wrong, or to recognise as binding a common standard of duty. Such an idea is strongly repudiated by writers of this school; each man, it is contended, has a right or ‘just claim to carry on his life in his own way,’ ‘his own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode;’ hence, on the other side, Calvinism, which appears to be taken as another name for evangelical Christianity, is decried as comprising all the good of which humanity is capable in obedience, and prescribing a way of duty which shall be essentially the same for all. (J. S. Mill ‘On Liberty,’ ch. iii. In referring to Mr Mill, we certainly take one of the less extreme, as well as most respectable and able of the advocates of a materialistic philosophy—one, too, who in his work on Utilitarianism has laboured hard to make up, in a moral respect, for the inherent defects of his system. But there still is, as Dr MʻCosh has shown (‘Examination of Mill’s Philosophy,’ ch. xx.), the fundamental want of moral law, the impossibility of giving any satisfactory account of the ideas of moral desert and personal obligation, and such loose, uncertain drawing of the boundary lines between moral good and evil, as leaves each man, to a large extent, the framer of his moral standard.) (2.) Formally antagonistic to this sensational or materialistic school—occupying, one might say, the opposite pole of thought in respect to moral law, yet not less opposed to any objective revelation of law—is the view of the idealists, or, as a portion of them at least are sometimes called, the ideal pantheists. With them, mind and God are the two great ideas that are to rule all; God first, indeed, whether as the personal or ideal centre of the vital forces that work, and the fundamental principles that should prevail throughout the moral universe; but also mind in man as the exemplar of God, the exponent of the Divine, and the medium through which it comes into realization. Man, accordingly, by the very constitution of his being, is as a God to himself; or, in the language of one who, more perhaps than any other, may be regarded as the founder of the school, ‘Man, as surely as he is a rational being, is the end of his own existence; he does not exist to the end that something else may be, but he exists absolutely for his own sake; his being is its own ultimate object.’ Consequently, ‘all should proceed from his own simple personality,’ and should be determined by what is within, not by a regard to what is external to himself, though this latter element will usually more or less prevail, and bring on a sort of contradiction, empirically or as matter of fact, to his proper self. But he should be determined by nothing foreign, and ‘the fundamental principle of morality may be expressed in such a formula as this,” So act, that thou mayest look upon the dictate of thy will as an eternal law to thyself.’” (Fichte, ‘Vocation of Man.’) Thus the Divine becomes essentially one with the human; the law for the universe is to be got at through the insight and monitions of the individual, especially of such individuals as have a higher range of thought than their fellow-men; the heroes of humanity are, in a qualified sense, its legislators. ‘What,’ asks Carlyle, (‘Latter Day Pamphlets,’ No. II.) ‘is this law of the universe, or law made by God? Men at one time read it in their Bible. In many bibles, books, and authentic symbols and monitions of nature, and the world (of fact), there are still some clear indications towards it. Most important it is, that men do, and in some way, get to see it a little. And if no man could now see it by any bible, there is written in the heart of every man an authentic copy of it, direct from Heaven itself: there, if he have learnt to decipher Heaven’s writing, and can read the sacred oracles, every born man may find some copy of it.’ An element of truth, doubtless, is in such utterances—a most important element, which Scripture also recognises—but inter mingled with what is entirely alien to the spirit and teaching of Scripture. For, it proceeds on the supposition of man being still in his normal state, and as such perfectly capable, by the insight of his own rational and moral nature, to acquaint himself with all moral truth and duty. The inner consciousness of man is entitled to create for itself a morality, and a religion (if it should deem such a thing worthy of creation); it is, in effect, deified—though itself, as every one knows, to a large extent the creature of circumstances. And thus all takes a pantheistic direction—the Divine is dragged down to a level with the human, made to coalesce with it, instead of the human (according to the Scriptural scheme) being informed by and elevated to the Divine. (See Morell, ‘Hist, of Modern Philosophy,’ Vol. II. p. 611.) And the general result, in so far as such idealism prevails, is obviously to shut men up to ‘measureless content’ with themselves, and dispose them to resist the dictation of any external authority or revelation whatever. This result is beyond doubt already reached with considerable numbers among the educated classes, and is also pressing through manifold channels of influence into the church! For it is of this that the historian of rationalism speaks when he says, (Lecky’s ‘Hist, of Rationalism,’ Vol. I. p. 384.) ‘The tendency of religious thought in the present day is all in one direction, towards the identification of the Bible and conscience. Generation after generation the power of the moral faculty becomes more absolute, the doctrines that oppose it wane and vanish, and the various elements of theology are absorbed and recast by its influence.’ The representation is plausibly made, and only when taken in its connection is its full import seen; for the meaning is, that the identification in question proceeds, not from the conscience finding its enlightenment in the Bible, but from the Bible being made to speak in accordance with the enlightenment of conscience. The intellectual and moral idealism of the age, if still holding by the Bible, reads this in its own light, and throws into the background whatever it disrelishes or repudiates. (3.) This species of idealism—allying itself with the Bible, though sprung from philosophy, and in itself naturally tending to pantheism—has its representatives in the Christian church, especially among the class whose tastes lie more in literature than in theology. Of cultivated minds and refined moral sentiments, such persons readily acknowledge the ascendency of law in the government of God, but, in accordance with their idealism, it is law in a somewhat ethereal sense, having little to do with definite rules or external revelations, recognised merely in a kind of general obligation to exercise certain feelings, emotions, or principles of action. Hence in the same writers you will find law at once exalted and depreciated; at one time it appears to be everything, at another nothing. ‘This universe,’ says a religious idealist of the class now referred to, (Robertson of Brighton, ‘Sermons,’ 2d Series, p. 114.) ‘is governed by laws. At the bottom of everything here there is law. Things are in this way and not that; we call that a law or a condition. All departments have their own laws. By submission to them you make them your own.’ And still more strongly in another place, adopting the very style of the pantheistic idealists, (‘Life and Letters,’ Vol. I. . 292.) ‘I think a great deal of law. Law rules Deity, and its awful majesty is above individual happiness. This is what Kant calls the ‘categorical imperative;” that is, a sense of duty which commands categorically or absolutely—not saying, “It is better,” but “Thou shalt.” Why? Because “Thou shalt”—that is all. It is not best to do right, thou must do right; and the conscience that feels that, and in that way, is the nearest to divine humanity.’ But in other passages language equally decided is used in disparagement of anything in the moral or spiritual sphere carrying the form of law. Nothing now must rest, we are told, on enactment; if necessary, it is not on that account, ‘not because it is commanded; but it is commanded because it is necessary’ (‘Life,’ in a Letter, October 24, 1849.)—hence binding on the conscience only so far as it is perceived to be necessary. And again, professing to give the drift of St Paul’s admonitions to the Galatians respecting observance, it is said, (‘Sermons,’ 2d Series, p. 184.) ‘All forms and modes of particularizing the Christian life he reckoned as bondage under the elements or alphabet of the law;’ so that, though the Christian life might, if it saw fit, find a suitable expression for itself in any particular observance, this could be defended ‘on the ground of wise and Christian expediency alone, and could not be placed on the ground of a Divine statute or command.’ Professor Jowett seems to carry the idealizing a little further; he thinks that, under the Old Testament itself, the period emphatically of law, there is evidence of its adoption by the more thoughtful and intelligent of the covenant people. The term ‘law,’ he says, is ambiguous in Scripture; (‘Epistles of St Paul,’ II. p. 501.) ‘it is so in the Old Testament itself. In the prophecies and psalms, as well as in the writings of St Paul, the law is in a great measure ideal. When the Psalmist spoke of “meditating in the law of the Lord,” he was not thinking of the five books of Moses. The law which he delighted to contemplate was not written down (as well might we imagine that the Platonic idea was a treatise on philosophy); it was the will of God, the truth of God, the justice and holiness of God. In later ages the same feelings began to gather around the volume of the law itself. The law was ideal still’—though he admits that ‘with this idealism were combined the reference to its words, and the literal enforcement of its precepts.’ A strange sort of idealism, surely, which could not separate itself from the concrete or actual, and continued looking to this for the material alike of its study and its observance! But it is the view only we at present notice, the form of thought itself respecting the law, not its consistence either with itself or with the statements of Scripture. It clearly enough indicates how idealism has been influencing the minds of Christian writers in this direction, and how, along with much that is sound, pure, and sometimes elevating in the sentiments they utter, there is also a certain laxity as to particular things, an asserted superiority for the individual over law in respect to everything like explicit rules and enactments. (4.) There is, however, a class of Christian writers, more properly theological and also of a somewhat realistic character, who so far concur with the idealists, that they maintain the freedom of the Christian from obligation to the law distinctively so called—the law in that sense is abolished by the Gospel of Christ, or, as sometimes put, dead and buried in His grave; but only that a new and higher law might come in its place, the law of Gospel life and liberty. This view is what in theological language bears the name of Neonomianism—that is, the doctrine of a new law, in some respects differing from or opposed to the old—a law of principles rather than of precepts, especially the great principles of faith and love, which it conceives to be carried now higher than before. The view is by no means of recent origin; it was formally propounded shortly after the Reformation, was adopted by the Socinians as a distinguishing part of their system, and with certain unimportant variations has often been set forth afresh in later times. (Zanchius, who belongs to the Reformation era, states expressly that we have nothing to do with the moral precepts of Moses, except in so far as they agree with the common law of nature, and are confirmed by Christ (Op. IV. I. i. c. 11). To the same effect, Musculus, ‘De Abrogatione Legis Mos.;’ and more recently, Knapp, ‘Christian Theology,’ sec. 119, ‘Bialloblotzky, De Abrog. L. Mos.,’ &c.) Dr Whately puts it thus: The law as revealed in the Old Testament bears on the face of it that the whole of its precepts, moral as well as ceremonial, ‘were intended for the Israelites exclusively;’ therefore ‘they could not by their own authority be binding on Christians,’ and are by the apostle in explicit terms denied to be binding on them, hence as regards them abolished. (Essay on the Abolition of the Law, sees. 1, 2.) ‘But, on the other hand, the natural principles of morality which (among other things) it inculcates, are from their own character of universal obligation; so that Christians are bound to the observance of those commandments which are called moral—not, however, because they are commandments of the Mosaic law, but because they are moral.’ The moral law, as written upon man’s heart, remains still, as ever, authoritative and binding, and ‘is by the Gospel placed on higher grounds. Instead of precise rules, it furnishes sublime principles of conduct, leaving the Christian to apply these, according to his own discretion, to each case that may arise.’ In a somewhat modified form, the same view has been presented after this manner: ‘Under the Christian dispensation, the law in its outward and limited form—in its form as given to Israel has passed away; but the substance, the principles, of the law remain. Would we be free from that substance, these principles must be written on our hearts. If they are not so written, we ourselves reduce them to an outward and commanding law, which, not being obeyed, brings bondage with it.’ The law, therefore, in one sense has passed away, in another not; it is improper to speak of it as dead and buried in the grave of Christ, for in its great principles it never dies; but ‘the outward, the limited, the commanding form of it may be said to be dead;’ or, as otherwise expressed, ‘that law in a particular and local form has been taken up and widened out into a higher law, in Him who not only exhibits it in its most perfect form, but gives the strength in which alone we can obey.’ (Milligan on ‘The Decalogue and the Lord’s Day,’ pp. 96, 108, 111.) The difference between this and the other mode of representation is evidently not material: in both alike the revelation of law in the Old Testament is held to be not directly, and in its letter, binding upon Christians; but its essential principles, which constitute the basis of all morality, being recognised and embraced in the Gospel, developed also to nobler results and enforced by higher motives, these are binding, and if not strictly law, at least in the stead of law, and more effectively serving its interests. (5.) A still farther development in the same direction is what is known under the name of Antinomianism—antithesis to the law, in the sense of formal opposition to it, as from its very nature destructive of what is good for us in our present state—an occasion only and instrument of death. It is the view of men, evangelical indeed, but partial and extreme in their evangelism—who, in their zeal to magnify the grace of the Gospel, lay stress only upon a class of expressions which unfold its riches and its triumphs, as contrasted with the law’s impotence in itself, yea, with the terror and condemnation produced by it, and silently overlook, or deprive of their proper force, another class, which exhibit law in living fellowship with grace—joint factors in the accomplishment of the same blessed results. But it is right to add, the spirit and design with which this is done differ widely in the hands of different persons. Some so magnify grace in order to get their consciences at ease respecting the claims of holiness, and vindicate for themselves a liberty to sin that grace may abound—or, which is even worse, deny that anything they do can have the character of sin, because they are through grace released from the demands of law, and so cannot sin. These are Antinomians of the grosser kind, who have not particular texts merely of the Bible, but its whole tenor and spirit against them. Others, however, and these the only representatives of the idea who in present times can be regarded as having an outstanding existence, are advocates of holiness after the example and teaching of Christ. They are ready to say, ‘Conformity to the Divine will, and that as obedience to commandments, is alike the joy and the duty of the renewed mind. Some are afraid of the word obedience, as if it would weaken love and the idea of a new creation. Scripture is not. Obedience and keeping the commandments of one we love is the proof of that love, and the delight of the new creature. Did I do all right, and not do it in obedience, I should do nothing right, because my true relationship and heart-reference to God would be left out. This is love, that we keep His commandments.’ (Darby ‘On the Law,’ pp. 3, 4.) So far excellent; but then these commandments are not found in the revelation of law, distinctively so called. The law, it is held, had a specific character and aim, from which it cannot be dissociated, and which makes it for all time the minister of evil. ‘It is a principle of dealing with men which necessarily destroys and condemns them. This is the way (the writer continues) the Spirit of God uses law in contrast with Christ, and never in Christian teaching puts men under it. Nor does Scripture ever think of saying, You are not under the law in one way, but you are in another; you are not for justification, but you are for a rule of life. It declares, You are not under law, but under grace; and if you are under law, you are condemned and under a curse. How is that obligatory which a man is not under—from which he is delivered?’ (Ibid. p. 4.) Antinomianism of this description—distinguishing between the teaching or commandments of Christ and the commandments of the law, holding the one to be binding on the conscience of Christians and the other not is—plainly but partial Antinomianism; it does not, indeed, essentially differ from Neonomianism, since law only as connected with the earlier dispensation is repudiated, while it is received as embodying the principles of Christian morality, and associated with the life and power of the Spirit of Christ. (6.) Still it is clear, from this brief review, that there is a very considerable diversity of opinion on the subject of law, in a moral or spiritual respect, even among those who are agreed in asserting our freedom from its restraints and obligations in the more imperative form; and from not a little of the philosophic, and much of the current secular literature of the age, a tendency is continually flowing into the church, which is impatient of anything in the name of moral or religious obligation, beyond the general claims of rectitude and benevolence. In respect to everything besides, the individual is held to have an absolute right to judge for himself. It cannot, therefore, appear otherwise than an important line of inquiry, and one specially called for by the present aspect of things, what place does law hold in the revelations of Scripture? How far has it varied in amount of requirement or form of obligation, at different periods of the Divine administration? What was the nature of the change effected in regard to it, or to our relation to it, by the appearance and work of Christ? It is of the more importance that such questions should receive a thoughtful and considerate examination, as the confessional position of most churches, Reformed as well as Catholic, is against the tendency now described, and on the side of law, in the stricter sense of the term, having still a commanding power on the consciences of men. At the farthest extreme in this direction stands the Roman Catholic church, which holds Christ to be a legislator in the same sense as Moses was, and deems itself entitled by Divine right to bind enactments of moral and religious duty upon the consciences of its members, similar in kind, and greatly more numerous and exacting in the things required by them, than those imposed by the legislation of Moses. There are sections also of the Protestant church, and parties of considerable extent and influence in particular churches, who have ever endeavoured to find, either by direct imposition, or by analogical reasonings and necessary implication, authority in Scripture for a large amount of positive law as well as moral precept, to be received and acted on by the Christian church. And from the opposite quarter, we may say, of the theological heavens, there has recently been given a representation of Christ, in which the strongest emphasis is laid on His legislative character. Speaking of the first formation of the Christian society, the author of ‘Ecce Homo’ says (P. 80.) ‘Those who gathered round Christ did in the first place contract an obligation of personal loyalty to Him. On the ground of this loyalty He proceeded to form a society, and to promulgate an elaborate legislation, comprising and intimately connected with certain declarations, authoritatively delivered, concerning the nature of God, the relation of man to Him, and the invisible world. In doing so He assumed the part of a second Moses;’ and he goes on to indicate the specific character of the legislation, and the sanctions under which it was established, both materially differing from the Mosaic. Yet this seems again virtually recalled by other representations, in which the New Testament is declared to be ‘not the Christian law;’ (P. 202.) not ‘the precepts of apostles,’ not even ‘the special commands of Christ.’ ‘The enthusiasm of humanity in Christianity is their only law;’ ‘what it dictates, and that alone, is law for the Christian.’ But apart from this, which can only be set down to prevailing arbitrariness and uncertainty on the subject, the Protestant churches generally stand committed to the belief of the moral law in the Old Testament as in substance the same with that in the New, and from its very nature limited to no age or country, but of perpetual and universal obligation. They have ever looked to the Decalogue as the grand summary of moral obligation, under which all duty to God and man may be comprised. Is this the true Scriptural position? or in what manner, and to what extent, should it be modified? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: 04.03. LECTURE 2 ======================================================================== Lecture 2. The Relation Of Man At Creation To Moral Law—How Far Or In What Respects The Law In Its Principles Was Made Known To Him—The Grand Test Of His Rectitude, And His Failure Under It. WHEN opening the sacred volume for the purpose of ascertaining its revelations of Divine law, it appears at first sight somewhat strange that so little should be found of this in the earlier parts of Scripture, and that what is emphatically called THE LAW did not come into formal existence till greatly more than half the world’s history between Adam and Christ had run its course. ‘The law came by Moses.’ (John 1:17.) The generations of God’s people that preceded this era are represented as living under promise rather than under law, and the covenant of promise—that, namely, made with Abraham—in the order of the Divine dispensations took precedence of the law by four hundred and thirty years. (Galatians 3:17.) Yet it is clear from what is elsewhere said, that though not under law in one sense, those earlier generations were under it in another; for they were throughout generations of sinful men, subject to disease and death on account of sin, and sin is but the transgression of law; ‘where no law is, there is no transgression.’ (Romans 5:12-13; Romans 4:15; Romans 6:2-3.) So that when the apostle again speaks of certain portions of mankind not having the law, of their sinning without law, and perishing without law, (Romans 2:12; Romans 2:14.) he can only mean that they were without the formal revelation of law, which had been given through Moses to the covenant -people, while still, by the very constitution of their beings, they stood under the bonds of law, and by their relation to these would be justified or condemned. But this plainly carries us up to the very beginnings of the human family; for as our first parents, though created altogether good, sinned against God, and through sinning lost their proper heritage of life and blessing, their original standing must have been amid the obligations of law. And the question which presses on us at the outset the first in order in the line of investigation that lies before us, and one on the right determination of which not a little depends for the correctness of future conclusions—is, what was the nature of the law associated with man’s original state? and how far, or in what respects, did it possess the character of a revelation? (In discussing this subject, it will be understood that I take for granted the truth of the history in Genesis 1:1-31, Genesis 2:1-25, Genesis 3:1-26, and the fact of man’s creation in a state of manhood, ripeness, and perfection. The impossibility of accounting for the existence and propagation of the human race otherwise, has been often demonstrated. See Dr Moore’s ‘First Man and his Place in Creation,’ and the authorities there referred to.) I. The answer to such questions must be sought, primarily at least, in something else than what in the primeval records carries the formal aspect of law the commands, namely, given to our first parents respecting their place and conduct toward the earth generally, or the select region they more peculiarly occupied; for it is remarkable that these are in themselves of a merely outward and positive nature—positive, I mean, as contra distinguished from moral; so that, in their bearing on man’s original probation, they could only have been intended to form the occasions and tests of moral obedience, not its proper ground or principle. Underneath those commands, and pre-supposed by them, there must have been certain fundamental elements of moral obligation in the very make and constitution of man—in his moral nature, to which such commands addressed themselves, and which must remain, indeed, for all time the real basis of whatever can be justly exacted of man, or is actually due by him in moral and religious duty. In applying ourselves, therefore, to consider what in this respect is written of man’s original state, we have to do with what, in its more essential features, relates not to the first merely, but to every stage of human history—with what must be recognised by every law that is really Divine, and to which it must stand in fitting adaptation. The notice mainly to be considered we find in that part of the history of creation, which tells us with marked precision and emphasis of the Divine mould after which his being was fashioned: ‘Let us make man,’ it was said by God, after the inferior creatures had been formed each after their kind, ‘in our image, after our likeness (or similitude).’ And the purpose being accomplished, it is added, ‘So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him’—the rational offspring, therefore, as well as the workmanship of Deity, a representation in finite form and under creaturely limitations of the invisible God. That the likeness had respect to the soul, not to the body of man (except in so far as this is the organ of the soul and its proper instrument of working) cannot be doubted; for the God who is a Spirit could find only in the spiritual part of man’s complex being a subject capable of having imparted to it the characteristics of His own image. Nor could the dominion with which man was invested over the fulness of the world and its living creaturehood, be regarded as more than the mere consequence sequence and sign of the Divine likeness after which man was constituted, not the likeness itself; for this manifestly pointed to the distinction of his nature, not to some prerogative merely, or incidental accompaniment of his position. Holding, then, that the likeness or image of God, in which man was made, is to be understood of his intellectual and moral nature, what light, we have now to ask, does it furnish in respect to the line of inquiry with which we are engaged? What does it import of the requirements of law, or the bonds of moral obligation? Undoubtedly, as the primary element in this idea must be placed the intellect, or rational nature of the soul in man; the power or capacity of mind, which enabled him in discernment to rise above the impressions of sense, and in action to follow the guidance of an intelligent aim or purpose, instead of obeying the blind promptings of appetite or instinct. Without such a faculty, there had been wanting the essential ground of moral obligation; man could not have been the subject either of praise or of blame; for he should have been incapable, as the inferior animals universally are, of so distinguishing between the true and the false, the right and the wrong, and so appreciating the reasons which ought to make the one rather than the other the object of one’s desire and choice, as to render him morally responsible for his conduct. In God, we need scarcely say, this property exists in absolute perfection; He has command over all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge—ever seeing things as they really are, and with unerring precision selecting, out of number less conceivable plans, that which is the best adapted to accomplish His end. And made as man was, in this respect, after the image of God, we cannot conceive of him otherwise than as endowed with an understanding to know everything, either in the world around him or his own relation to it, which might be required to fit him for accomplishing, without failure or imperfection, the destination he had to fill, and secure the good which he was capable of attaining. How far, as subservient to this end, the discerning and reasoning faculty in unfallen man might actually reach, we want the materials for enabling us to ascertain; but in the few notices given of him we see the free exercise of that faculty in ways perfectly natural to him, and indicative of its sufficiency for his place and calling in creation. The Lord brought, it is said, the inferior creatures around him—those, no doubt, belonging to the paradisiacal region—‘to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every creature, that was the name of it.’ (Genesis 2:19.) The name, we are to understand, according to the usual phraseology of Scripture, was expressive of the nature or distinctive properties of the subject; so that to represent Adam as giving names to the different creatures was all one with saying, that he had intelligently scanned their respective natures, and knew how to discriminate, hot merely between them and himself, but also between one creature and another. So, again, when a fitting partner had been formed out of his person and placed before him, he was able, by the same discerning faculty, to perceive her likeness and adaptation to himself, to recognise, also the kindredness of her nature to his own—as ‘bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh’—and to bestow on her a name that should fitly express this oneness of nature and closeness of relationship (isha, woman; from ish, man). These, of course, are but specimens, yet enough to shew the existence of the faculty, and the manner of its exercise, as qualifying him—not, indeed, to search into all mysteries, or bring him acquainted with the principles of universal truth (of which nothing is hinted)—but to know the relations and properties of things so far as he had personally to do with them, or as was required to guide him with wisdom and discretion amid the affairs of life. To this extent the natural intelligence of Adam bore the image of his Maker’s. (This view of man’s original state in an intellectual respect, while it is utterly opposed to the so-called philosophic theory of the savage mode of life, with all its ignorance and barbarity, having been the original one for mankind, is at the same time free from the extravagance which has appeared in the description given by some divines of the intellectual attainments and scientific insight of Adam—as if all knowledge, even of a natural kind, had been necessary to his perfection, as the image of God! Thomas Aquinas argues,* that if he knew the natures of all animals, he must by parity of reason have had the knowledge of all other things; and that, as the perfect precedes the imperfect, and the first man being perfect must have had the ability to instruct his posterity in all that they should know, so he must have himself known ‘whatever things men in a natural way can know.’ Protestant writers have occasionally, though certainly not as a class, carried the matter as far. And, as if such innate apprehension of all natural knowledge, and proportionate skill in the application of it to the arts and usages of life, were necessarily involved in the Scriptural account of man’s original state, geologists, in the interest of their own theories, have not failed to urge, that, with such ‘inspired knowledge,’** the remains should be found of the finest works of art in the remotest ages, ‘lines of buried railways, or electric telegraphs,’ &c. It is enough to say, that no enlightened theologian would ever ascribe such a reach of knowledge to primeval man, and that what he did possess soon became clouded and disturbed by sin. * Summa, P. 1:Quaest. 94, art. 3. ** Sir G. Lyell, on The Antiquity of Man, p. 378.) The rational or intellectual part of man’s nature, however, though entitled to be placed first in the characteristics that constitute the image of God (for without this there could be no free, intelligent, or responsible action) does not of itself bring us into the sphere of the morally good, or involve the obligation to act according to the principles of eternal rectitude. For this there must be a will to choose, as well as a reason to understand—a will perfectly free in its movements, having the light of reason to direct it to the good, but under no constraining force to obey the direction; in other words, with the power to choose aright conformably to the truth of things, the power also of choosing amiss, in opposition to the truth. This liberty of choice, necessary from the very nature of things to constitute man a subject of moral government, was distinctly recognised by God in the scope given to Adam to exercise the gifts and use the privileges conferred on him, limited only by what was due to his place and calling in creation. It was more especially recognised in the permission accorded to him to partake freely of the productions of the garden, to partake even of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, though with a stern prohibition and threatening to deter him from such a misuse of his freedom. But the will in its choice is just the index of the nature; it is the expression of the prevailing bent of the soul; and coupled as it was in Adam with a spiritual nature untainted with evil, the reflex of His who is the supremely wise and good, there could not but be associated with it an instinctive desire to exercise it aright,—a profound, innate conviction that what was perceived to be good should carry it, as by the force of an imperative law, over whatever else might solicit his regard; resembling herein the Divine Author of his existence, whose very being ‘is a kind of law to His working, since, the perfection which God is gives perfection to what He does.’ (Hooker, ‘Eccl. Polity,’ B. I. c. 2.) Yet, while thus bearing a near resemblance to God, there still was an essential difference. For in man’s case all was bounded by creaturely limitations; and while God never can, from the infinite perfection of His being, do otherwise than choose with absolute and unerring rectitude, man with his finite nature and his call to work amid circumstances and conditions imposed on him from without, could have no natural security for such unfailing rectitude of will; a diversity might possibly arise between what should have been, and what actually was, willed and done. These, then, are the essential characteristics of the image of God, in which man was made—first, the noble faculty of reason as the lamp of the soul to search into and know the truth of things; then the will ready at the call of reason, with the liberty and the power to choose according to the light thus furnished; and, finally, the pure moral nature prompting and disposing the will so to choose. Blessedness and immortality have by some been also included in the idea. And undoubtedly they are inseparable accompaniments of the Divine nature, but rather as results flowing from the perpetual exercise of its inherent powers and glorious perfections, than qualities possessed apart—hence in man suspended on the rightful employment of the gifts and prerogatives committed to him. Blessed and immortal life was to be his portion if he continued to realize the true idea of his being, and proved himself to be the living image of his Maker; not otherwise. But that the spiritual features we have exhibited as the essential characteristics of this image are those also which Scripture acknowledges to be such, appears from this, that they are precisely the things specified in connection with the restoration to the image of God, in the case of those who partake in the new creation through the grace and Gospel of Christ. It is said of such (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10.) that they are created anew after God, or that they put on the new man (new as contradistinguished from the oldness of nature’s corruptions), which is renewed after the image of Him that created him. And the renewal is more especially described as consisting in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness—knowledge, the product of the illuminated reason made cognizant of the truth of God; righteousness, the rectitude of the mind’s will and purpose in the use of that knowledge; true holiness, the actual result of knowledge so applied in the habitual exercise of virtuous affections and just desires. These attributes, therefore, of moral perfection must have constituted the main features of the Divine image in which Adam was created, since they are what the new creation in Christ purposely aims at restoring. And in nature as well as in grace, they were of a derivative character; as component elements in the human constitution they took their being from God, and received their moral impress from the eternal type and pattern of all that is right and good in Him. Man himself no more made and constituted them after his own liking, or can do so, than he did his capacity of thought or his bodily organization; and the power of will which it was given him to exercise in connection with the promptings of his moral nature, had to do merely with the practical effect of its decisions, not with the nature of the decisions themselves, which necessarily drew their character from the conscience that formed them. If, therefore, this conscience in man, this governing power in his moral constitution, had in one respect the rightful place of authority over the other powers and faculties of his being, in another it stood itself under authority, and in its clearest utterances concerning right and wrong could only affirm that there was a Divine must in the matter—the law of its being rendered it impossible for it to think or judge otherwise. In reasoning thus as to what man originally was, when coming fresh and pure from the hands of his Creator, we must, of course, proceed in a great degree on the ground of what we still know him to be—sin, while it has sadly vitiated his moral constitution, not having subverted its nature or essentially changed its manner of working. The argument, indeed, is plainly from the less to the greater: if even in its ruin the actings of our moral nature thus lead up to God, and compel us to feel our selves under a rule or an authority established by Him, how much more man in the unsullied greatness and beauty of his creation-state, with everything in his condition fitted to draw his soul heavenwards, standing as it were face to face with God! Even now, ‘the felt presence of a judge within the breast powerfully and immediately suggests the notion of a supreme judge and sovereign, who placed it there. The mind does not stop at a mere abstraction; but, passing at once from the abstract to the concrete, from the law of the heart it makes the rapid inference of a lawgiver.’ (Chalmers, ‘Nat. Theology,’ B. III. c. 2.) Or, as put more fully by a German Christian philosopher, (Harless, ‘Christ. Ethik.,’ sec. 8.) ‘There is something above the merely human and creaturely in what man is sensible of in the operation of conscience, whether he may himself recognise and acknowledge it as such or not. The workings of his conscience do not, indeed, give themselves to be known as properly divine, and in reality are nothing more than the movements of the human soul; but they involve something which I, as soon as I reflect upon it, cannot explain from the nature of spirit, if this is contemplated merely as the ground in nature of my individual personal life, which after a human manner has been born in me. I stand before myself as before a riddle, the key of which can be given, not by human self-consciousness, but by the revelation of God in His word. By this word we are made acquainted with the origination of the human soul, as having sprung from God, and by God settled in its creation-state. This relationship as to origin is an abiding one, because constituted by God, and, however much it may be obscured, incapable of being dissolved. It is one also that precedes the development of men’s self-consciousness; their soul does not place itself in relation to God, but God stands in relation to their soul. It is a bond co-extensive with life and being, by which, through the fact of the creation of their spirit out of God, it is for the whole course of its creaturely existence indissolubly joined to God; and a bond not destroyed by the instrumentality of human propagation, but only transmitted onwards. On this account, what is the spirit of life in man is at the same time called the light (lamp) of God (Proverbs 20:27).’ (In substance, the same representations are given in all our sounder writers on Christian ethics—for example, Butler, MʻCosh, Mansel. ‘Why (asks the last named writer) has one part of our constitution, merely as such, an imperative authority over the remainder? What right has one part of the human consciousness to represent itself as duty, and another merely as inclination? There is but one answer possible. The moral reason, or will, or conscience of man can have no authority, save as implanted in him by some higher spiritual Being, as a Law emanating from a Lawgiver. Man can be a law unto himself, only on the supposition that he reflects in himself the law of God. If he is absolutely a law unto himself, his duty and his pleasure are distinguishable from each other; for he is subject to no one, and accountable to no one. Duty in his case becomes only a higher kind of pleasure—a balance between the present and the future, between the larger and the smaller gratification. We are thus compelled by the consciousness of moral obligation to assume the existence of a moral Deity, and to regard the absolute standard of right and wrong as constituted by the nature of that Deity’ (‘Bampton Lecture,’ p. 81, Fifth Ed.). For some partial errors in respect to conscience in man before the fall, as compared with conscience subsequent to the fall, see Delitzsch, ‘Bibl. Psych.,’ III. sec. 4.) On these grounds, derived partly from the testimony of Scripture, partly from the reflection on the nature and constitution of the human soul, we are fully warranted to conclude, that in man’s creation-state there were implanted the grounds of moral obligation—the elements of a law inwrought into the very framework of his being, which called him perpetually to aim at conformity to the will and character of God. For what was the law, when it came, but the idea of the Divine image set forth after its different sides, and placed in formal contrast to sin and opposition to God ? (See Sartorius, ‘Heilige Liebe,’ p. 168.) Strictly speaking, however, man at first stood in law, rather than under law—being formed to the spontaneous exercise of that pure and holy love, which is the expression of the Divine image, and hence also to the doing of what the law requires. Not uncommonly his relation to law has had a more objective representation given to it, as if the law itself in some sort of categorical form had been directly communicated to our first parents. Thus Tertullian, reasoning against the Jews, who sought to magnify their nation, by claiming as their exclusive property the revelation of law, says, (Adv. Judæos, c. 2.) that ‘at the beginning of the world God gave a law to Adam and Eve’—he refers specifically to the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; but he thus expounds concerning it, ‘In this law given to Adam we recognise all the precepts as already established which afterwards budded forth as given by Moses . . . . . For the primordial law was given to Adam and Eve in paradise as the kind of prolific source (quasi matrix) of all the precepts of God.’ In common with him Augustine often identifies the unwritten or natural law given originally to man, and in a measure retained generally, though imperfectly, in men’s hearts, with the law after wards introduced by Moses and written on the tables of stone (On Psalms 118:1-29, Sermo 25, § 4, 5; Liber de Spiritu et Lit., § 29, 30; Opus Imp., Lib. vi. § 15). In later times, among the Protestant theologians, from the Loci Theol. of Melancthon downwards, the moral law was generally regarded as in substance one with the Decalogue, or the two great precepts of love to God and love to man, and this again identified with the law of nature, which was in its fulness and perfection impressed upon the hearts of our first parents, and still has a certain place in the hearts of their posterity; hence such statements as these: ‘The moral law was written in Adam’s heart,’ ‘The law was Adam’s lease when God made him tenant of Eden’ (Lightfoot, Works, iv. 7, viii. 379); ‘The law of the ten commandments, being the natural law, was written on Adam’s heart on his creation’ (Boston, ‘Notes to the Marrow,’ Introd.); or, as in the Westminster Confession, ‘God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; which law, after the fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in ten commandments, and written in two tables’ (Exodus 19:1-25). We should, however, mistake such language did we suppose it to mean, that there was either any formal promulgation of a moral law to Adam, or that the Decalogue, as embodying this law, was in precise form internally communicated by some special revelation to him. It was a brief and popular style of speech, intimating that by the constitution of his spiritual nature, taken in connection with the circumstances in which he was placed, he was bound, and knew that he was bound, to act according to the spirit and tenor of what was after wards formally set forth in the ten commands. And so Lightfoot, for example, who is one of the most explicit in this mode of representation, brings out his meaning, ‘The law writ in Adam’s heart was not particularly every command of the two tables, written as they were in two tables, line by line; but this law in general, of piety and love towards God, and of justice and love toward our neighbour. And in these lay couched a law to all particulars that concerned either—to branch forth as occasion for the practice of them should arise: as in our natural corruption, brought in by sin, there is couched every sin whatsoever too ready to bud forth, when occasion is offered.’ (Sermon on Exodus 20:11, Works, IV. 379.) In like manner, Delitzsch, who among Continental writers adheres to the same mode of expression, speaks of the conscience in man, pre-eminently of course in unfallen man, by what it indicates of moral duty, as ‘the knowing about a Divine law, which every man carries in his heart,’ or ‘an actual consciousness of a Divine law engraven in the heart;’ but explains himself by saying, that ‘the powers of the spirit and of the soul themselves are as the decalogue of the Thora (Law) that was in creation imprinted upon us;’ (‘Biblische Psychologie,’ pp. 138, 140.) that is to say, those powers, when in their proper state, work under a sense of subjection to the will of God, and in conformity with the great lines of truth and duty un folded in the Decalogue. (Were it necessary, other explanations of a like kind might be given, especially from our older writers. Thus, in the ‘Marrow of Modern Divinity,’ where the language is frequently used of the law of the two tables being written on man’s heart, and forming the matter of the covenant of works,* this is again explained by the fact of man having been made in God’s image or likeness, and more fully thus, ‘God had furnished his soul with an understanding mind, whereby he might discern good from evil and right from wrong; and not only so, but also in his will was most perfect uprightness (Ecclesiastes 7:29), and his instrumental parts (i.e., his executive faculties and powers) were in an orderly way framed to obedience..’ Much to the same effect Turretine, ‘Inst. Loc. Undecimus, Quæst. II.,’ who represents the moral law as the same with that which in nature was impressed upon the heart, as to its substance, though not formally and expressly given as in the Decalogue, sec. III. 2. xvii.; also Colquhoun, ‘Treatise on the Law and the Gospel,’ p. 7. * p. I. c. I.) Understood after this manner, the language in question is quite intelligible and proper, though certainly capable of being misapplied (if too literally taken), and in form slightly differing from the Scriptural representation; (Romans 2:14-15.) for in the passage which most nearly resembles it, and on which it evidently leans, the apostle does not say that the law itself, but that the work of the law, was written on men’s hearts, in so far as they shewed a practical acquaintance with the things enjoined in it, and a disposition to do them. Such in the completest sense was Adam, as made in the Divine image, and replenished with light and power from on high. It was his very nature to think and act in accordance with the principles of the Divine character and government, but, at the same time also, his imperative obligation; for to know the good, and not to choose and perform it, could not appear otherwise than sin. Higher, therefore, than if surrounded on every side by the objective demands of law, which as yet were not needed would, indeed, have been out of place—Adam had the spirit of the law impregnating his moral being; he had the mind of the Lawgiver Himself given to bear rule within—hence, not so properly a revelation of law, in the ordinary sense of the term, as an inspiration from the Almighty, giving him understanding in regard to what, as an intelligent and responsible being, it became him to purpose and do in life. But this, however good as an internal constitution—chief, doubtless, among the things pronounced at first very good by the Creator—required, both for its development and its probation, certain ordinances of an outward kind, specific lines of action and observance marked out for it by the hand of God, for the purpose of providing a proper stimulus to the sense of right and wrong in the bosom, and bringing its relative strength or weakness into the light of day. And we now therefore turn, with the knowledge we have gained of the fundamental elements of man’s moral condition, to the formal calling and arrangements amid which he was placed, to note their fitness for evolving the powers of his moral nature and testing their character. II. The first in order, and in its nature the most general, was the original charge, the word of direction and blessing, under which mankind, in the persons of the newly-created pair, were sent on their course of development—that, namely, which bade them be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over its living creatures and its powers of production. This word was afterwards brought into closer adaptation to the circumstances of our first parents, in the appointment given them to dress and keep the blessed region, which was assigned them as their more immediate charge and proper domain. Taken by itself, it was a call to merely bodily exercise and industrious employment. But considered as the expression of the mind of God to those who were made in the Divine image, and had received their place of dignity and lord ship upon earth, for the purpose of carrying out the Divine plan, everything assumes a higher character; the natural becomes inseparably linked to the moral. Realizing his proper calling and destiny, man could not look upon the world and the interests belonging to it, as if he occupied an independent position; he must bear himself as the representative and steward of God, to mark the operations of His hand, and fulfil His benevolent design. In such a case, how could he fail to see in the ordinances of nature, God’s appointments? and in the laws of life and production, God’s methods of working? Or if so regarding them, how could he do otherwise than place himself in loving accord with them, and pliant ministration? Not, therefore, presuming to deem aught evil which bore on it the Divine impress of good; but, as a veritable child of nature, content to watch and observe that he might learn, to obey that he might govern; and thus, with ever growing insight into nature’s capacities and command over her resources, striving to multiply around him the materials of well-being and enjoyment, and render the world a continually expanding and brightening mirror, in which to see reflected the manifold fulness and glorious perfections of God. Such, according to this primary charge, was to be man’s function in the world of nature—his function as made in God’s image—and as so made capable of understanding, of appropriating to himself, and acting out the ideas which were embodied in the visible frame and order of things. He was to trace, in the operations proceeding around him, the workings of the Divine mind, and then make them bear the impress of his own. Here, therefore, stands rebuked for all time the essential ungodliness of an indolent and selfish repose, since only to man’s habitual oversight and wakeful industry was the earth to become what its Maker designed it, and paradise itself to yield to him the attractive beauty and plenteousness of a proper home. Here, too, stands yet more palpably rebuked the monkish isolation and asceticism, which would treat the common gifts of nature with disdain, and turn with aversion from the ordinary employments and relations of life: as if the plan of the Divine Architect had in these missed the proper good for man, and a nobler ideal were required to correct its faultiness, or supplement its deficiencies! Here yet again was authority given, the commission, we may say, issued, not merely for the labour of the hand to help forward the processes of nature, and render them productive of ever varying and beneficent results, but for the labour also of the intellect to explore the hidden springs and principles of things, to bring the scattered materials which the experience of every day was presenting to his eye and placing at his disposal under the dominion of order, that they might be made duly subservient to the interests of intellectual life and social progress; for in proportion as such results might be won was man’s destined ascendency over the world secured, and the mutual, far-reaching interconnections between the several provinces of nature brought to light, which so marvellously display the creative foresight and infinite goodness of God. We may even carry the matter a step farther. For, constituted as man was, the intelligent head and responsible possessor of the earth’s fulness, the calling also was his to develop the powers and capacities belonging to it for ornament and beauty, as well as for usefulness. With elements of this description the Creator has richly impregnated the works of His hand, there being not an object in nature that is incapable of conveying ideas of beauty; (Ruskin’s ‘Modem Painters,’ Vol. II. p. 27.) and this beyond doubt that each after its kind might by man be appreciated, refined, and elevated. ‘Man possessed,’ so we may justly say with a recent writer, (Moore’s ‘First Man and his Place in Creation,’ p. 299.) ‘a sense of beauty as an essential ground of his intelligence and fellowship with Heaven. He was therefore to cultivate the feeling of the beautiful by cultivating the appropriate beauty inherent in everything that lives. Nature ever holds out to the hand of man means by which his reason, when rightly employed, may be enriched with true gold from Heaven’s treasury. And even now, in proportion to the restoration to heavenly enlightenment, we perceive that every kind of beauty and power is but an embodiment of truth, a form of love, revealing the relation of the Divine creative mind to loveliness, symmetry, and justness, as well as expressing tender thought towards the susceptibilities of all His sentient creatures, but especially for the instruction and happy occupation of man himself.’ This too, then, is to be reckoned among the things included in man’s destination to intelligent and fruitful labour—an end to be prosecuted in a measure for its own sake, though in great part realizing itself as the incidental result of what was otherwise required at his hand. But labour demands, as its proper complement, rest: rest in God alternating with labour for God. And here we come upon another part of man’s original calling; since in this respect also it became him, as made in God’s image, to fall in with the Divine order and make it his own. ‘God rested,’ (Genesis 2:2-3.) we are told, after having prosecuted, through six successive days of work, the preparation of the world for a fit habitation and field of employment for man. ‘He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made; and He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which he created and made’—a procedure in God that would have been inexplicable except as furnishing the ground for a like procedure on the part of man, as, in that case, the hallowing and benediction spoken of must have wanted both a proper subject and a definite aim. True, indeed, as we are often told, there was no formal enactment binding the observance of the day on man; there is merely an announcement of what God did, not a setting forth to man of what man should do; it is not said, that the Sabbath was expressly enjoined upon man. And neither, we reply, should it have been; for, since man was made in the image of God, it was only, so long as this image remained pure, the general landmarks of moral and religious duty, which were required for his guidance, not specific and stringent regulations: he had the light of Heaven within him, and of his own accord should have taken the course, which his own circumstances, viewed in connection with the Divine procedure, indicated as dutiful and becoming. The real question is, did not the things recorded contain the elements of law? Was there not in them such a revelation of the mind of God, as bespoke an obligation to observe the day of weekly rest, for those whose calling was to embrace the order and do the works of God? Undoubtedly there was—if in the sacred record we have, what it purports to give, a plain historical narrative of things which actually occurred. In that case—the only supposition we are warranted to make—the primeval consecration of the seventh day has a moral, as well as religious significance. It set up, at the threshold of the world’s history, a memorial and a witness, that as the Creator, when putting forth His active energies on the visible theatre of the universe, did not allow Himself to become absorbed in it, but withdrew again to the enjoyment of His own infinite fulness and sufficiency; so it behoved His rational creature man to take heed, lest, when doing the work of God, he should lose himself amid outward objects, and fail to carry out the higher ends and purposes of his being with reference to God and eternity. Is it I alone who say this? Hear a very able and acute German moralist: ‘It is, indeed, a high thought (says Wuttke (‘Handbuch der Christlichen Sittenlehre,’ I. p. 469.)) that in Sacred Scripture this creation-rest of God is taken as the original type and ground of the Sabbath solemnity. It is thereby indicated, that precisely the innermost part of what constitutes the likeness of God is that which demands this solemnity—the truly reasonable religious-moral nature of man, and not the natural necessity of rest and enjoyment. What with God are but two sides of the eternal life itself, no temporal falling asunder into active working, and then retreating into one’s self, that with respect to the finite spirit falls partially, at least, into separate portions—namely, into work and Sabbath-rest. God blessed the seventh day:—there rests upon the sacred observance of this day a special and a higher blessing, an imparting of eternal, heavenly benefits, as the blessing associated with work is primarily but the imparting of temporal benefits. The Sabbath has not a merely negative significance; it is not a simple cessation from work; it has a most weighty, real import, being the free action of the reasonable God-like spirit rising above the merely individual and finite, the reaching forth of the soul, which through work has been drawn down to the transitory, toward the unchangeable and Divine.’ Hence (as the same writer also remarks), the ordinance of the Sabbath belongs to the moral sphere considered by itself, not merely to the state of redemption struggling to escape from sin—though such a state obviously furnishes fresh reasons for the line of duty contemplated in the ordinance. But at no period could it be meant to stand altogether alone. Neither before the fall nor after it, could such calm elevation of the soul to God and spiritual rest in Him be shut up to the day specially devoted to it; each day, if rightly spent, must also have its intervals of spiritual repose and blessing. So far, then, all was good and blessed. Man, as thus constituted, thus called to work and rest in harmony and fellowship with God, was in a state of relative perfection—of perfection after its kind, though not such as pertains to the regeneration in Christ. Scripture itself marks the difference, when it speaks of the natural or psychical coming first, then that which is spiritual (ψυχικόν, 1 Corinthians 15:46). The first man was of the earth,—earthy in the frame and mould of his being simply a part of this mundane existence, though incomparably its noblest part, and allied, through his spirit, with the Divine; but the second man was the Lord from heaven. The creation of the one was welcomed by the silent homage and regard of the living creaturehood on earth; the advent of the other was celebrated by angelic hosts in anthems of joy from the heavenly places. In Adam there was an intelligence that could discriminate wisely between irrational natures and his own, as also between one kind of inferior natures and another; in Christ there was a spirit that knew what was in man himself, capable of penetrating into his inmost secrets, yea, even of most perfectly knowing and revealing the Father. Finally, high as man’s original calling was to preside over and subdue the earth, to improve and multiply its resources, to render it in all respects subservient to the ends for which it was made; how mightily was this calling surpassed by the mission of Him, who came to grapple with the great controversy between sin and righteousness, to restore the fallen, to sanctify the unclean, and bring in a world of incorruptible glory and blessed life, with which God should be most intimately associated, and over which He should perpetually rejoice! The superiority, however, of the things pertaining to the person and the work of Christ does not prevent those relating to man’s original state from being fitly viewed as relatively perfect. But then there was no absolute guarantee for this being continued; there was a possibility of all being lost, since it hung on the steadfastness of a merely created head; and hence, as regarded man himself, there was a need for something of a more special and definite kind to test his adherence to the perfect order and rectitude incumbent on him. There might, we can readily conceive, have been defections from the right and good in respect to his general calling and destination—failures distinct enough, perhaps, in themselves, but perceptible only to the eye of Him who can look on the desires and intents of the heart. Here, however, it was indispensable that the materials for judgment should be patent to all. For, in Adam humanity itself was on its trial—the whole race having been potentially created in him, and destined to stand or fall, to be blessed or cursed, with him. The question, therefore, as to its properly decisive issue, must be made to turn on conformity to an ordinance, at once reasonable in its nature and specific in its requirements—an ordinance which the simplest could understand, and respecting which no uncertainty could exist, whether it had been kept or not. Such in the highest degree was the appointment respecting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, forbidding it to be eaten on the pain of death—an appointment positive in its character, in a certain sense arbitrary, yet, withal, perfectly natural, as relating to a particular tree singled out for the purpose from many others around it, imposing no vexatious burden, requiring only the exercise of a measure of personal restraint in deference to the authority, and acknowledgment of the supreme right, of Him of whom all was held—in short, one of the easiest, most natural, most unexceptionable of probationary enactments. It was not exactly, as put by Tertullian, as if this command respecting the tree of knowledge formed the kind of quintessence or prolific source of all other moral commands; for in itself, and apart from the Divine authority imposing it, there was nothing about it strictly moral: not on this account therefore was it given, but as serving to erect a standard, every way proper and becoming, around which the elements of good and evil might meet, and the ascendency of the one or the other be made manifest. (So, indeed, Tertullian, when he explains himself, virtually regarded it: ‘Denique si dominum deum simm dilexissent’ (viz., Adam and Eve), ‘contra præceptuni ejus non fecissent; si proximum diligerent, id est semetipsos, persuasioni serpentis non credidissent,’ etc. And the general conclusion he draws is, ‘Denique, ante legem Moysi scriptam in tabulis lapideis, legem fuisse contendo non scriptam, quæ naturaliter intelligebatur et a patribus custodiebatur.’ (Adv. Judæos, sec. 2).) And so the Sovereign Disposer of events by the very appointment undertook to order it. If the Divine image should anyhow begin to lose the perfection of its parts, if a spirit of disaffection should enter the bosoms of our first parents, it could not be left to their own choice or to merely adventitious circumstances, in what form or direction this should appear. It must assume an attitude of contrariety to this Divine ordinance, and discover itself in a disposition to eat of that tree of which God had said, They should not eat of it, lest they died. There, precisely, and not elsewhere—thus and not otherwise was it to be seen, if they could maintain their part in this covenant of life; or, if not, then the obvious mastery of the evil over the good in their natures. III. We are not called here to enter into any formal discussion of the temptation and the fall. Profound mysteries hang around the subject; but the general result, and the overt steps that led to it, are known to all. Hearkening to the voice of the tempter, that they should be as God, knowing good and evil, our first parents did eat of the interdicted tree; and, in doing so, broke through the law of their being, which bound them ever to live and act in loving allegiance to the God who made them, and of whom they held whatever they possessed. Self now took the place of God; they would be their own rule and their own end, and thereby gave way to the spirit of apostacy; first entertaining doubts of God’s goodness, as if the prohibition under which they had been placed laid an undue restraint on their freedom, limited too much their range of action and enjoyment; then disbelieving God’s testimony as to the inevitable result of disobedience; finally, making the gratification of their own self-will and fleshly desire the paramount consideration which was to determine their course. At every step a violation of the principle of love—of love in both its departments; first, indeed, and most conspicuously, in reference to God, who was suspected, slighted, disobeyed; but also in reference to one another, and their prospective offspring, whose interests were sacrificed at the shrine of selfishness. The high probation, therefore, issued in a mournful failure; humanity, in its most favoured conditions, proved unequal to the task of itself holding the place and using the talents committed to it, in loving subjection to the will of Heaven; and the penalty of sin, not the guerdon of righteousness, became its deserved portion. Shall not the penalty take effect? Can the Righteous One do otherwise than shew Himself the enemy and avenger of sin, by resigning to corruption and death the nature which had allied itself to the evil? Where, if He did, would have been the glory of His name? Where the sanction and authority of His righteous government? It was for the purpose, above all, of instituting such a government in the world, and unfolding by means of it the essential attributes of His character, that man had been brought on the stage of being as the proper climax of creation; and if, for this end, it was necessary that righteousness should be rewarded, was it not equally necessary that sin should be punished? So, death entered, where life only should have reigned; it entered as the stern yet sublime proof, that in the Divine government of the world the moral must carry it over the natural; that conformity to the principles of righteousness is the indispensable condition of blessing; and that even if grace should interpose to rectify the evil that had emerged, and place the hopes of mankind on a better footing than that of nature, this grace must reign through righteousness, and overcome death by overcoming the sin which caused it. To have these great principles written so indelibly and palpably on the foundations of the world’s history was of incalculable moment for its future instruction and well-being; for the solemn lessons and affecting memories of the fall entered as essential elements of men’s views of God, and formed the basis of all true religion for a sinful world. They do so still. And, certainly, if it could be proved by the cultivators of natural science, that man, simply as such—man by the very constitution of his being—is mortal, it would strike at the root of our religious beliefs; for it would imply, that death did not come as a judgment from God, and was the result of physical organization or inherent defectibility, not the wages of sin. This, however, is a point that lies beyond the range of natural science. It may be able to shew, that death is not only now, but ever has been, the law of merely sentient existence, and that individual forms of sentient life, having no proper personality—if perpetuated at all, must be perpetuated in the species. But man is on one side only, and that the lower side, related to sentient forms of being. In what constitute the more essential characteristics of his nature—intelligence, reason, will, Conscience—he stands in close affinity to God; he is God’s image and representative, and not a liability to death, but the possession of endless life, must be regarded as his normal state of being. And to secure this for the animal part of his frame, so long as spiritually he lived to God, was, at least, one part of the design of the tree of life (whatever higher purposes it might also have been intended to serve as the pledge or symbol of life to his soul): it was the specific antidote of death. A most in adequate provision, it may perhaps be alleged, for such a purpose, suited only for a single pair, or for a comparative handful of people, but by no means for a numerous race. Let it be so: He who made the provision knew well for how many, or how long, it might be required; and, in point of fact, from no misarrangement or defect in this respect, the evil it was ordained to guard against found an entrance into the world. By man’s disobedience, by that alone, came sin, and death by sin—such is the teaching of Scripture alike in its earlier and later revelations; and the theology which would eliminate this doctrine from its fundamental beliefs must be built on another foundation than the word of the living God ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: 04.04. LECTURE 3. ======================================================================== Lecture 3. The Revelation Of Law, Strictly So Called, Viewed In Respect To The Time And Occasion Of Its Promulgation. A PRINCIPLE of progression pervades the Divine plan as unfolded in Scripture, which must be borne in mind by those who would arrive at a correct understanding, either of the plan as a whole, or of the characteristic features and specific arrangements which have distinguished it at one period, as compared with another. We can scarcely refer in proof of this to the original constitution of things, since it so speedily broke up—though, there can be no doubt, it also had interwoven with it a principle of progression. The charge given to man at the moment of creation, if it had been in any measure executed, would necessarily have involved a continuous rise in the outward theatre of his existence; and it may justly be inferred, that as this proceeded, his mental and bodily condition would have partaken of influences fitted in definitely to ennoble and bless it. But the fatal blow given by the fall to that primeval state rendered the real starting-point of human history an essentially different one. The progression had now to proceed, not from a less to a more complete form of excellence, but from a state of sin and ruin to one of restored peace, life, and purity, culminating in the possession of all blessing and glory in the kingdom of the Father. And, in accordance with this plan of God for the recovery and perfecting of those who should be heirs of salvation, His revelation of spiritual and divine things assumes the form of a gradual development and progressive history—beginning as a small stream amid the wreck and desolation of the fall, just enough to cheer the heart of the fallen and brace it for the conflict with evil, but receiving additions from age to age, as the necessities of men and the purpose of God required, until, in the incarnation and work of Christ for the salvation of the world, it reached that fulness of light and hope, which prompted an apostle to say, ‘The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.’ It may seem strange to our view—there is undoubtedly in it something of the dark and mysterious—that the plan of God for the enlightenment and regeneration of the world should have been formed on such a principle of progression, and that, in consequence, so many ages should have elapsed before the realities on which light and blessing mainly depended were brought distinctly into view. Standing, as we ourselves do, on a point of time, and even still knowing but in part the things of God’s kingdom, we must be content, for the present, to remain ignorant of the higher reasons which led to the adoption of this principle as a pervading characteristic of the Divine administration. But where we can do little to explain, we are able to exemplify; for the ordinary scheme of providence presents us here with a far-reaching and varied analogy. On the same principle of progression is the life-plan of each individual constructed; so that, on an average, a half, and in the case of multitudes greatly more than a half, of their earthly life is spent before the capacity for its proper employments has been attained. In the history, also, of nations and communities, of arts and sciences, we see the principle in constant operation, and have no difficulty in connecting with it much of the activity, enjoyment, and well-being of mankind. It is this very principle of progression which is the mainspring of life’s buoyancy and hopefulness, and which links together, with a profound and varied interest, one stage of life with another. Reasons equally valid would doubtless be found in the higher line of things which relates to the dispensations of God toward men, could we search the depths of the Divine counsels, and see the whole as it presents itself to the eye of Him who perceives the end from the beginning. It is the fact itself, however, which we here think it of importance to note; for, assuming the principle in question to have had a directive sway in the Divine dispensations, it warrants us to expect measures of light at one stage, and modes of administration, which shall bear the marks of relative imperfection as compared with others. This holds good of the revelation of law, which we now approach, when placed beside the manifestation of God in the Gospel; and even in regard to the law itself the principle of progression was allowed to work; for it might as well be said, that the law formed the proper complement and issue of what preceded it, as that it became the groundwork of future and grander revelations. To this, as a matter of some importance, our attention must first be given. Considering the length of the period that elapsed from the fall of man to the giving of the law, the little that remains in the Divine records of explicit revelation as to moral and religious duty, appears striking, and cannot be regarded as free from difficulty when contemplated from a modern point of view. It may be so, however, chiefly from the scantiness of our materials, and our consequent inability to realize the circumstances of the time, or to take in all the elements of directive knowledge which were actually at work in society. This deficiency is certainly not to be supplied, after the fashion of Blunt, by combining together the scattered notices in the early history of the Bible, and looking upon them as so many hints or fragmentary indications of a regularly constituted patriarchal church, with its well furnished rubric as to functions, places, times, and forms of worship. (Some of these, as might be expected, are obtained in a very arbitrary manner, and look almost like a caricature of the text of Scripture:—as when in Esau’s‘goodly raiment,’ furtively used by Jacob, is found the sacerdotal robes of the first-born,* and something similar also in Joseph’s coat of many colours—as if this mere boy were already invested with priestly attire, and not only so, but in that attire went about the country, since he certainly wore it when he visited his brethren at Dothan. Can any parallel to this be found even in the complicated legislation of the Mosaic ritual? The priests who were ministering at the tabernacle or temple had to wear robes of office, but not when engaged in ordinary employments. * ‘Scripture Coincidences,’ p. 12.) These are not the points on which the comparatively isolated and artless families of those early times might be expected to have received special and unrecorded communications from Heaven. It had been as much out of place for them as for the early Christian communities, while worshipping in upper chambers, hired school-rooms, and sequestered retreats, to have had furnished to their hand a ritual of service fit only for spacious cathedrals and a fully developed hierarchy. We are rather to assume, that brief as the outline which Scripture gives of the transactions of the period, it is still one that contains whatever is to be deemed essential to the matter as a history of Divine revelation; and that only by making proper account of the things which are recorded, not by imagining such as are not, can we frame to ourselves an adequate or well-grounded idea of the state of those earlier generations of mankind, as to the means of knowledge they possessed, or the claims of service that lay upon them, in respect to moral and religious duty. Let us endeavour to indicate some of the leading points suggested by Scripture on the subject, without, however, dwelling upon them, and for the purpose more especially of apprehending the relation in which they stood to the coming legislation of Sinai. 1. At the foundation of all we must place the fact of man’s knowledge of God—of a living, personal, righteous God—as the Creator of all things, and of man himself as His intelligent, responsible creature, made after His image, and subject to His authority. Whatever effect the fall might ultimately have on this knowledge, and on the conscious relationship of man to his Maker, his moral and religious history started with it—a knowledge still fresh and vivid when he was expelled from Eden, in some aspects of it even widened and enlarged by the circumstances that led to that expulsion. ‘Heaven lies about us in our infancy:’— it did so pre-eminently, and in another sense than now, when the infancy was that of the human race itself; and not as by ‘trailing clouds of glory’ merely, but by the deep instincts of their moral being, and the facts of an experience not soon to be for gotten, its original heads knew that ‘they came from God as their home.’ Here, in a moral respect, lay their special vantage-ground for the future; for not the authority of conscience merely, but the relation of this to the higher authority of God, must have been among their clearest and most assured convictions. They knew that it had its eternal source and prototype in the Divine nature, and that in all its actings it stood under law to God. Goodness after the pattern of His goodness must have been what they felt called by this internal monitor to aim at; and in so far as they might fall beneath it, or deviate from it, they knew—they could not but know that it was the voice of God they were virtually disobeying. 2. Then, as regards the manner in which this call to imitate God’s goodness and be conformed to His will was to be carried out, it would of course be understood that, whatever was fairly involved in the original destination of man to replenish and cultivate the earth, so as to make it productive of the good of which it was capable, and subservient to the ends of a wise and paternal government, this remained as much as ever his calling and duty. Man’s proper vocation, as the rational head of this lower world, was not abolished by the fall; it had still to be wrought out, only under altered circumstances, and amid discouragements which had been unknown, if sin had not been allowed to enter into his condition. And with this destination to work and rule for God on earth, the correlative appointment embodied in God’s procedure at creation, to be ever and anon entering into His rest, must also be understood to have remained in force. As the catastrophe of the fall had both enlarged the sphere and aggravated the toil of work, so the calm return of the soul to God, and the gathering up of its desires and affections into the fulness of His life and blessing, especially on the day peculiarly consecrated for the purpose, could not but increasingly appear to the thoughtful mind an act of homage to the Divine will, and an exercise of pious feeling eminently proper and reasonable. 3. Turning now, thirdly, to the sphere of family and domestic life, the foundation laid at the first, in the formation of one man, and out of this man one woman to be his bosom companion and wife, this also stood as before—and carried the same deep import. The lesson originally drawn from the creative act, whether immediately drawn by Adam himself or not—‘therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24.) was a lesson for all time. Our Lord (who as the creative Word was the immediate agent in the matter) when on earth set to His seal, at once to the historical fact, and to the important practical deduction flowing from it; and He added, for the purpose of still further exhibiting its moral bearing, ‘So then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ (Mark 10:8-9.) Thus was impressed on the very beginnings of human history the stamp of God’s appointed order for families—the close and endearing nature of the marriage-tie—the life-union it was intended to form—the mutual sympathy and affection by which it should be sustained—and the common interest it created, as well as the loving regard it naturally tended to evoke, in behalf of the offspring that might issue from it. All this, though not formally imposed by definite rules and prescriptions, was yet by the moral significance of that primeval fact laid upon the consciences of men, and indicated the place which the family constitution and its relative duties were to hold in the organization and progress of society. (The objections that have been made to the sacred narrative respecting the fact of Eve’s formation out of a rib of Adam, as that it was unworthy of God; that his posterity are not deficient in that part of their bodily organization, which they would have been if Adam had been actually deprived of a rib; that we have therefore in the story not a fact but a myth, teaching the companionship of the woman to man—are entitled to no serious consideration. It is the very foundations of things we have here to do with, in a social and moral respect, and for this, not shadowy myths (the inventions, always, of a comparatively late age) but great outstanding facts were necessary to furnish the requisite instruction. Since important moral ends were in view for all coming time, why could not God have taken a portion of Adam’s frame for the formation of his partner in life, and afterwards repaired the loss? or, if the defect continued in him as an individual, prevented its transmission to posterity? Somehow, the formation of the first woman, as well as the first man, had to be brought about by a direct operation of Deity; and why not thus rather than otherwise, if thus only it could be made the symbol of a great truth, the embodiment of an imperishable moral lesson? No reason can be shewn to the contrary.) 4. Of devotion as consisting in specific acts of religious worship, the record of man’s creation, it must be admitted, is altogether silent, nor does anything appear in the form of a command for ages to come. This cannot, however, be fairly regarded as a proof, either that nothing in the matter of worship was involved in the fundamental grounds of moral obligation, or that the sense of duty in that respect did not from the first find some fitting expression. The hallowing of a particular day of the week, and connecting with its observance a peculiar blessing, evidently implied the recognition of the religious sentiment in man’s bosom, and formed an ever-recurring call to exercises of devotion. For what is devotion in its proper nature, and stript of its mere accessories? It is just the Sabbath idea realized, or, in the simple but expressive language of Bishop Butler, (Sermons, Ser. XIV.) ‘Devotion is retirement from the world God has made, to Him alone: it is to withdraw from the avocations of sense, to employ our attention wholly upon Him as upon an object actually present, to yield ourselves up to the influence of the Divine presence, and to give full scope to the affections of gratitude, love, reverence, trust, and dependence, of which infinite power, wisdom, and goodness is the natural and only adequate object.’ The constitution of man’s nature, and the circumstances in which he was originally placed, could not but lead him to cherish and exercise the feelings of such a spirit of devotion—though with what accompaniments of outward form we have no indication, nor is it of any practical moment, since they can only be under stood to have been the natural and appropriate manifestations of what was felt within. With the fall, however, matters in this respect underwent a material change; for the worship which became a sinner could not be the same with that which flowed spontaneously from the heart of one who was conscious only of good, nor could it be left entirely to men’s own unaided conceptions; for if so left, how could they be assured that it was accepted of their Maker? how know it to be such as He would bless? Somehow, therefore—apparently, indeed, in connection with the clothing of the shame of our first parents by means of the skins of slain victims—they were guided to a worship by sacrifice as the one specially adapted to their state as sinners, and one which probably from the very first (by means of the supernatural agencies associated with the entrance to Eden and its tree of life, viz., the flaming sword and the cherubim), received upon it the marks of Divine approval. At all events, in the history of their earliest offspring, worship by the sacrifice of slain victims becomes manifest as the regular and approved mode of access to God in its more formal acts of homage. Here then, again without any positive command, far less any formally prescribed ritual, there still were in the Divine procedure, taken in connection with men’s moral convictions and feelings, the grounds of moral obligation and specific duty—not law, indeed, in the formal sense of the term, but the elements of law, or such indications of the Divine will as were sufficient to guide truly humble and God-fearing men in the earlier ages of the world to give expression to their faith and hope in God by a mode of worship suited to their condition and acceptable to Heaven. 5. Another thing also ought to be borne in mind in respect to those varied materials of moral and religious duty, which is this—that while they belonged to the origination of things on earth, to things of which the first heads of the human family were either the only witnesses, or the direct and immediate subjects, they had the advantage of being associated with a living testimony, which was capable of preserving it fresh, and unimpaired for many generations. The longevity of the first race of patriarchs had doubtless many important ends to serve; but we cannot be wrong in mentioning this among the chief. He who had received his being direct and pure from the hand of God, to whom had been revealed the wonders of God’s work in creation, who had himself walked with God in paradise, was present with his living voice to tell of all he had seen and heard, and by his example (as we can scarcely doubt) to confirm and com mend his testimony, down even to the times of Lamech, the father of Noah. So that, if the materials of knowledge respecting God’s will to men were comparatively few, and were in many respects linked to the facts of a primeval past, this continuous personal testimony served to render that past a kind of perpetual present, and so to connect, as by a living bond, the successive generations of men with the original grounds of faith and hope for the world. There were, also, as is clear from the case of Enoch and other incidental notices, closer communings occasionally maintained by God with believing men, and for special seasons more definite communications made of His will. Sparse, therefore, as the memorials are, in a religious respect, which belong to this period, as compared with its great length, God still did not leave Himself without a witness; and men who were alive to the responsibilities of .their position, and disposed to follow the impulses of their moral nature, could not complain of being without any sure direction as to the great landmarks of truth and duty. 6. Yet, it is impossible to carry the matter further; and to speak of law in the moral and religious sphere—law in some definite and imperative form, standing outside the conscience, and claiming authority to regulate its decisions, as having a place in the earlier ages of mankind, is not warranted by any certain knowledge we possess of the remoter periods of God’s dispensations. That ‘all human laws are sustained by one that is divine’ (a saying ascribed to Heraclitus), seems, as several others of a like kind that might be quoted, to point to a traditional belief in some primitive Divine legislation; and in a well-known noble passage of Cicero, which it is well to bring into remembrance in discussions of this nature, there is placed above all merely local and conventional enactments of men, a law essentially Divine, of eternal existence and permanent universal obligation, (De Republica, III. 22.) Est quidem vera lex, etc. ‘There is indeed a true law, right reason, conformable to nature, diffused among all, unchanging, eternal, which, by commanding, urges to duty; by prohibiting, deters from fraud; not in vain commanding or prohibiting the good, though by neither moving the wicked. This law cannot be abrogated, nor may anything be withdrawn from it; it is in the power of no senate or people to set us free from it; nor is there to be sought any extraneous teacher or interpreter of it. It shall not be one law at Rome, another at Athens; one now, another at some future time; but one law, alike eternal and unchangeable, shall bind all nations and through all time; and one shall be the common teacher, as it were, and governor of all God, who is Himself the Author, the Administrator, and Enactor of this law.’ Elsewhere, he expresses it as the opinion of the wisest men, (De Leg., II. 4.) that ‘this fundamental law and ultimate judgment was the mind of Deity either ordering or forbidding all things according to reason; whence that law which the gods have given to mankind is justly praised. For it fitly belongs to the reason and judgment of the wise to enjoin one thing and prohibit another.’ And in thus having its ground in right reason, which is the property of man as contradistinguished from beasts, and is the same in man as in God, he finds the reason of this law being so unchanging, universal, and perpetually binding. But the very description implies that no external legislation was meant coming somewhere into formal existence among men; it is but another name for the findings of that intelligent and moral nature, which is implanted in all men, though in some is more finely balanced and more faithfully exercised than in others. Under the designation of the supremacy of conscience, it appears again in the discourses of Bishop Butler, and is analysed and described as ‘our natural guide, the guide assigned us by the Author of our nature,’ that by virtue of which ‘man in his make, constitution, or nature, is, in the strictest and most proper sense, a law to himself,’ whereby ‘he hath the rule of right within; what is wanting is only that it be honestly attended to.’ But this has already been taken into account, and placed at the head of those moral elements in man’s condition which belonged to him even as fallen, and which, though possessing little of the character of objective or formal law, yet carried with them such directive light and just authority as should have had the force of law to his mind, and rendered inexcusable those who turned aside to transgression. (It is only in this sense, and as connected with the means of instruction provided by the course of God’s providential dealings, that we can speak of the light possessed by men as sufficient for moral and religious duty. The light of conscience in fallen man by itself can never reach to the proper knowledge of the things which concern his relation to God and immortality.) 7. The result, however, proved that all was insufficient; a grievous defect lurked somewhere. The means of knowledge possessed, and the motives to obedience with which they were accompanied, utterly failed with the great majority of men to keep them in the path of uprightness, or even to restrain the most shameful degeneracy and corruption. The principle of evil which wrought so vehemently, and so early reached an over mastering height in Cain, grew and spread through a continually widening circle, till the earth was filled with violence, and the danger became imminent, unless averted by some forcible interposition, of all going to perdition. Where lay the radical defect? It lay, beyond doubt, in the weakness of the moral nature, or in that fatal rent which had been made by the entrance of sin into man’s spiritual being, dividing between his soul and God, dividing even between the higher and the lower propensities of his soul, so that the lower, instead of being regulated and controlled by the higher, practically acquired the ascendency. Conscience, indeed, still had, as by the constitution of nature it must ever have, the right to command the other faculties of the soul, and prescribe the rule to be obeyed; but what was wanting was the power to enforce this obedience, or, as Butler puts it, to see that the rule be honestly attended to; and the want is one which human nature is of itself incompetent to rectify. For the bent of nature being now on the side of evil, the will, which is but the expression of the nature, is ever ready to give effect to those aims and desires which have for their object some present gratification, and correspondingly tend to blunt the sensibilities and overbear the promptings of conscience in respect to things of higher moment. In the language of the apostle, the flesh lusts against the spirit, yea, and brings it into bondage to the law of sin and death. And the evil, once begun, is from its very nature a growing one, alike in the individual and in the species. For when man, in either respect, does violence to the better qualities of his nature, when he defaces the Divine image in which he was made, he instinctively turns away from any close examination of his proper likeness—withdraws himself also more and more from the thoughts and the companionships which tend to rebuke his ungodliness, and delights in those which foster his vanity and corruption. Hence, the melancholy picture drawn near the commencement of the epistle to the Romans, as an ever deepening and darkening progression in evil, realizes itself wherever fallen nature is allowed to operate unchecked. It did so in the primitive, as well as the subsequent stages of human history: First, men refused to employ the means of knowledge they possessed respecting God’s nature and will, would not glorify Him as God (γνόντες τὸν θεὸν οὐχ θεὸν ἐδόξασαν); then, having thus separated themselves from the true light, they fell into the mazes of spiritual error and will-worship, became frivolous, full of empty conceits, mistaking the false for the true, the shadowy for the real; finally, not thinking it worthwhile to keep by the right knowledge of God (οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν τὸν θεὸν ἔχειν ἐν ἐπιγνώσει), treating it as comparatively a thing of nought, they were themselves made to appear worthless and vile given up by God to a reprobate mind (ἀδόκιμον νοῦν), whereby they lost sight of their true dignity, and became the slaves of all manner of impure, hurtful, and pernicious lusts, which drove them headlong into courses equally offensive to God, and subversive of their own highest good. 8. This process of degeneracy, though sure to have taken place anyhow, had opportunities of development and license during the earlier periods of the world’s history, which materially helped to make it more rapid and general. If there were not then such temptations to flagrant evil as exist in more advanced states of society, there were also greatly fewer and less powerful restraints. Each man was to a larger extent than now the master of his own movements: social and political organizations were extremely imperfect; the censorship of the press, the voice of an enlightened public opinion in any systematic form, was wanting, and there was also wanting the wholesome discipline and good order of regularly constituted churches; so that ample scope was found for those who were so inclined, to slight the monitions of their moral sense, and renounce the habits and observances which are the proper auxiliaries of a weak virtue, and necessary in the long run to the preservation of a healthful and robust piety in communities. The fermentation of evil, therefore, wrought on from one stage to another, till it reached a consummation of appalling breadth and magnitude. And yet not for many long ages—not till the centuries of antediluvian times had passed away, and centuries more after a new state of things had commenced its course—did God see meet to manifest Himself to the world in the formal character of Lawgiver, and confront men’s waywardness and impiety with a code of objective commands and prohibitions, in the peremptory tone, Thou shalt do this, and Thou shalt not do that: A proof, manifestly, of God’s unwillingness to assume this more severe aspect in respect to beings He had made in His own image, and press upon them, in the form of specific enactments, His just claims on their homage and obedience! He would rather—unspeakably rather—that they should know Him in the riches of His fatherly goodness, and should be moved, not so much by fear, as by forbearance and tenderness, to act toward Him a faithful and becoming part! Hence He delayed as long as possible the stringent and imperative revelation of law, which by the time alone of its appearance is virtually acknowledged to have been a kind of painful necessity, and in its very form is a ‘reflection upon man’s inconstancy of homage and love.’ (‘Ecce Deus,’ p. 234.) God did not, however, during the long periods referred to, leave Himself without witness, either as to His displeasure on account of men’s sin, or the holiness in heart and conduct which He required at their hands. If His course of administration displayed little of the formal aspect of law, it still was throughout impregnated with the principles of law; for it contained manifestations of the character and purposes of God which were both fitted and designed to draw the hearts of men toward Him in confiding love, and inspire them with His own supreme regard to the interests of righteousness. Of law, strictly so called, we find nothing applicable to the condition of mankind generally, from the period of the fall to the redemption from Egypt, except the law of blood for blood, introduced immediately after the Deluge, and the ordinance of circumcision, to seal the covenant with Abraham, and symbolize the moral purity which became those who entered into it. But even these, though legal in their form, partook in their import and bearing of the character of grace; they came in as appendages to the fresh and fuller revelations which had been given of God’s mercy and loving-kindness—the one in connection with Noah’s covenant of blessing, and as a safeguard thrown around the sacredness of human life; the other in connection with the still richer and more specific covenant of blessing established with Abraham. Indeed, during the whole of what is usually called the patriarchal period, the most prominent feature in the Divine administration consisted in the unfoldings of promise, or in the materials it furnished to sinful men for the exercise of faith and hope. God again condescended to hold familiar inter course with them. He gave them, not only His word of promise, but His oath confirming the word, that He might win from them a more assured and implicit confidence; and by very clear and impressive indications of His mind in providence, He made it to be understood how ready He was to welcome those who believed, and to enlarge, as their faith and love increased, their interest in the heritage of blessing. It is the history of grace in its earlier movements—grace delighting to pardon, and by much free and loving fellowship, by kind interpositions of providence and encouraging hopes, striving to bring the subjects of it into proper sympathy and accord with the purposes of Heaven. Yet here also grace reigned through righteousness; and the righteousness at times ripened into judgment. There was the mighty catastrophe of the Deluge lying in the background—emphatically God’s judgment on the world of the ungodly, and the sure presage of what might still be expected to befall the wicked. At a later period, and within the region of God’s more peculiar operations in grace, there was the overthrow of the cities of the plain, which were made for their crying enormities to suffer ‘the vengeance of eternal fire.’ So still onwards, and in the circle itself of the chosen seed, or the races most nearly related to them, there were ever and anon occurring marks of Divine displeasure, rebukes in providence, which were designed to temper the exhibitions of mercy, and keep up salutary impressions of the righteous character of God. And it may justly be affirmed, that for those who were conversant with the events which make up the sacred history of the period, it was not left them to doubt that the face of God was towards the righteous, and is set against them that do wickedly. 9. Such, certainly, should have been the result; such also it would have been, if they had wisely considered the matter, and marked the character and tendency of the Divine dispensations. But this, unfortunately, was too little done; and so the desired result was most imperfectly reached. So much so, indeed, that at the close of the patriarchal period all seemed verging again to utter ruin. The heathen world, not excepting those portions of it which came most in contact with the members of God’s covenant, had with one consent surrendered themselves to the corruptions of idolatry; and the covenant seed themselves, after all the gracious treatment they had received, and the special moral training through which they had passed, were gradually sinking into the superstitious and degrading manners of Egypt—their knowledge of Jehovah as the God of their fathers become little better than a vague tradition, their faith in the promise of His covenant ready to die, and all ambition gone, except with the merest remnant, to care for more than a kind of tolerable existence in the land of Goshen. (Exodus 2:14; Exodus 5:21; Exodus 16:4. Ezekiel 23:25; Ezekiel 23:39.) A change, therefore, in the mode of the Divine administration was inevitable, if living piety and goodness were really to be preserved among men, and the cause of righteousness was not wholly to go down. This cause had come to be quite peculiarly identified with the people of Israel. God’s covenant of blessing was with them; they were the custodiers of His word of salvation for the world; and to fulfil their calling they must be rescued from degradation, and placed in a position of freedom and enlargement. But even this was not enough. The history of the past had made it manifest that other securities against defection, more effectual guarantees for righteousness than had yet been taken, would require to be introduced. Somehow the bonds of moral obligation must be wound more closely around them, so as to awaken and keep alive upon their conscience a more profound and steadfast regard to the interests of righteousness. And when, looking forward to what actually took place, we find the most characteristic feature in the new era that emerged to be the revelation of law, we are warranted to infer that such was its primary and leading object. It could not have been intended—the very time and occasion of its introduction prove that it could not have been intended to occupy an independent place; it was of necessity but the sequel or complement of the covenant of promise, with which were bound up the hopes of the world’s salvation, to help out in a more regular and efficient manner the moral aims which were involved in the covenant itself, and which were directly contemplated in the more special acts and dealings of God toward His people. It formed a fresh stage, indeed, in the history of the Divine dispensations; but one in which the same great objects were still aimed at, and both the ground of a sinner’s confidence towards God, and the nature of the obligations growing out of it, remained essentially as they were. 10. This becomes yet more clear and conclusively certain, when we look from the general connection which the revelation of law had with preceding manifestations of God, to the things which formed its more immediate prelude and preparation. The great starting-point here was the redemption from Egypt; and the direct object of this was to establish the covenant which God had made with the heads of the Israelitish people. Hence, when appearing for the purpose of charging Moses to undertake the work of deliverance, the Lord revealed Himself as at once the Jehovah, the one unchangeable and eternal God, and the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, (Exodus 3:6; Exodus 3:9; Exodus 3:13; Exodus 3:15-17.) who was going at last to do for their posterity what He had pledged His word to accomplish for them. And as soon as the deliverance was achieved, and the tribes of Israel lay at the foot of Sinai, ready to hear what their redeeming God might have to say to them, the first message that came to them was one that most strikingly connected the past with the future, the redeeming grace of a covenant God with the duty of service justly expected of a redeemed people: ‘Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; (Exodus 19:3-7.) Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.’ They were, indeed, words of profound significance and pregnant import, comprising in substance both the gospel and the law of the covenant. Primarily, indeed, the gospel; for Jehovah announces Himself at the outset as, in a quite peculiar sense, the God of Israel, who had vindicated them to Himself by singular displays of His power and glory—had raised them to the position of a people, given them national existence, for the very purpose of endowing them with the richest tokens of His favour and loving-kindness. It drew a broad distinction between Israel as a nation, and all merely worldly kingdoms, which spring into existence by dint of human powers and earthly advantages, and can attain to nothing more than that kind of secondary glory and evanescent greatness, which such inferior means and resources may be able to secure. Israel, however, stands related from the first to a higher sphere; it comes into being under special acts of Divine providence, and has both its place of peculiar honour assigned it, and the high prerogatives and powers needful for fulfilling aright its calling by reason of its living connection with Him who is the eternal source of all that is great and good. Considered, therefore, in its now ransomed and independent position among the nations, Israel is the creation of God’s omnipotent goodness—the child, in a manner, which He has taken to His bosom, which He will endow with His proper inheritance, (Leviticus 25:23.) and whose future safety and well-being must be secured by Divine faithfulness and power. But for this very reason that God identified Himself so closely with Israel, Israel in return must identify itself with God. Brought into near relationship and free intercommunion with the Source of holiness and truth, the people must be known as the holy nation; they must even be as a kingdom of priests, receiving from His presence communications of His mind and will, and again giving forth suitable impressions of what they have received to the world around them. This, henceforth, was to be their peculiar calling; and to instruct them how to fulfil it—to shew them distinctly what it was (as matters then stood) to be a kingdom of priests and an holy nation the law came with its clear announcements of duty and its stern prohibitions against the ways of transgression. What, then, are the main characteristics of this law? and how, in one part of its enactments, does it stand related to another? This naturally becomes our next branch of inquiry. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: 04.05. LECTURE 4 ======================================================================== Lecture 4 The Law In Its Form And Substance—Its More Essential Characteristics—And The Relation Of One Part Of Its Contents To Another. IN this particular part of our inquiry, there is much that might be taken for granted as familiarly known and generally admitted, were it not that much also is often ignored, or grievously misrepresented; and that, for a correct view of the whole, not a little depends on a proper understanding of the spirit as well as formal contents of the law, of its historical setting, and the right adjustment of its several parts. If, in these respects, we can here present little more than an outline, it must still be such as shall embrace the more distinctive features of the subject, and clear the ground for future statements and discussions. I. We naturally look first to the DECALOGUE—the ten words, as they are usually termed in the Pentateuch, which stand most prominently out in the Mosaic legislation, as being not only the first in order, and in themselves a regularly constructed whole, but the part which is represented as having been spoken directly from Heaven in the audience of all the people, amid the most striking indications of the Divine presence and glory—the part, moreover, which was engraven by God on the mount, on two tablets of stone the only part so engraven—and, in this enduring form, the sole contents of that sacred chest or ark which became the centre of the whole of the religious institutions of Judaism—the symbolical basis of God’s throne in Israel. Such varied marks of distinction, there can be no reasonable doubt, were intended to secure for this portion of the Sinaitic revelation the place of pre-eminent importance, to render it emphatically THE LAW, to which subsequent enactments stood in a dependent or auxiliary relation. 1. And in considering it, there is first to be noted the aspect in which the great Lawgiver here presents Himself to His people: ‘I am Jehovah thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’ The words are merely a resumption of what had been shortly before, and somewhat more fully, declared in the first message delivered from Sinai; they give, in a compendious form, the Gospel of the covenant of promise. Jehovah, the unchangeable and eternal, the great I AM; this alone, had it been all, was a lofty idea for men who had been so long enveloped in the murky atmosphere of idolatry; and if deeply impressed upon their hearts, and made a pervading element in their religion and polity, would have nobly elevated the seed of Israel above all the nations then existing on the earth. But there is more a great deal than this in the personal announcement which introduces the ten fundamental precepts; it is that same glorious and unchangeable Being coming near to Israel in the character of their redeeming God, and by the very title, with the incontestable fact on which it rested, pledging His faithful love and sufficiency for all future time, to protect them from evil or bring them salvation. (Exodus 15:26.) So that, in coming forth in such a character to declare the law that was henceforth to bind their consciences and regulate their procedure alike toward Himself and toward one another, there was embodied the all-important and salutary principle, that redemption carries in its bosom a conformity to the Divine order, and that only when the soul responds to the righteousness of Heaven is the work of deliverance complete. The view now given received important confirmation in the course of the historical transactions which immediately ensued. The people who had heard with solemn awe the voice which spake to them from Sinai, and undertook to observe and do what was commanded, soon shewed how far they were from having imbibed the spirit of the revelation made to them, how far especially from having attained to right thoughts of God, by turning back in their hearts to Egypt, and during the temporary absence of Moses on the mount, prevailing upon Aaron to make a golden calf as the object of their worship. The sensual orgies of this false worship were suddenly arrested by the re-appearance of Moses upon the scene; while Moses himself, in the grief and indignation of the moment, cast from him the two tables of the law, and broke them at the foot of the mount (Exodus 32:19.)—an expressive emblem of that moral breach which the sin of the people had made between them and God. The breach, however, was again healed, and the covenant re-established; but before the fundamental words of the covenant were written afresh on tables of stone, the Lord gave to Moses, and through him to the people, a further revelation of His name, that the broken relationship might be renewed under clearer convictions of the gracious and loving-nature of Him whose yoke of service it called them to bear. Even Moses betrayed his need of some additional insight in this respect, by requesting that God would shew him His glory; though, as may seem from the response made to it, he appears to have had too much in his eye some external form of manifestation. Waiving, however, what may have been partial or defective in the request at least, no farther meeting it than by presenting to the view of Moses what, perhaps, we may call a glimpse of the incarnation in a cleft of the rock—the Lord did reveal His more essential glory—revealed it by such a proclamation of His name as disclosed all His goodness. (Exodus 33:19; Exodus 34:6-7.) ‘The Lord,’ it is said, ‘passed by before Moses, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.’ This emphatic proclamation of the Divine name, or description of the character in which God wished to be known by His people, is in principle the same with that which heads the ten words; but it is of greater compass, and remarkable chiefly for the copious and prominent exhibition it gives of the gracious, tender, and benignant character of God, as the Redeemer of Israel, that they might know how thoroughly they could trust in His goodness, and what ample encouragement they had to serve Him. It intimates, indeed, that justice could not forego its claims, that obstinate transgressors should meet their desert, but gives this only the subordinate and secondary place, while grace occupies the foreground. Was this, we ask, to act like One, who was more anxious to inspire terror, than win affection from men? Did it seem as if He would have His revelation of law associated in their minds with the demands of a rigid service, such as only an imperious sense of duty, or a dread of consequences, might constrain them to render? Assuredly not; and we know that the words of the memorial-name, which He so closely linked with the restored tables of the law, did take an abiding hold of the more earnest and thoughtful spirits of the nation, and ever and anon, amid the seasons of greatest darkness and despondency, came up with a joyous and re-assuring effect into their hearts. (Psalms 86:5; Psalms 86:15; Psalms 103:8; Psalms 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nehemiah 9:17.) So that, whatever of awful grandeur and majesty attended the revelation of the law from Sinai, as uttered amid thrilling sounds and sights that flashed amazement on the eyes of the beholders, it still had its foundation in love, and came from God expressly in the character of their most gracious and faithful Redeemer, as well as their righteous Lord. 2. Yet—and here is a second point to be noted—it did not the less on that account assume—being a revelation of law in form as well as substance, it could not but assume a predominantly stringent and imperative character. The humane and loving spirit in which it opens, is not, indeed, absent from the body of its enactments, though, for the most part, formally disguised; but even in form it reappears more than once—especially in the assurance of mercy to the thousands who should love God and keep His commandments, and the promise of long continuance on the land of rest and blessing, associated respectively with the second and the fifth precepts of the law. But these are only, as it were, the relieving clauses of the code—reminiscences of the grace and loving-kindness which had been pledged by the Lawgiver, and might be surely counted on by those who were willing to yield themselves to His service: the law itself, in every one of the obligations it imposes, takes (as we have said) the imperative form—‘Thou shalt do this,’ ‘Thou shalt not do that;’ and this just because it is law, and must leave no doubt that the course it prescribes is the one that ought to be taken, and must be taken, by every one who is in a sound moral condition. This is the case equally whether the precepts run in the positive or the negative form. For, as justly stated by a moralist formerly quoted, (Wuttke, ‘Handbuch. tier Christlichen Sittenlehre,’ I. p. 385.) ‘Since morality rests upon freedom of choice, and this again consists in the fact, that under several modes of action that are possible, a particular one is chosen through one’s own independent exercise of will, every moral act is at the same time also a refraining from a contrary mode of action that might have been taken. The moral law is hence always double-sided; it is at once command and prohibition; nor can it make any essential difference, whether the law comes forth in the one or the other form; and as the moral life of man is a continuous one, he must every moment be fulfilling a Divine law; a mere abstaining would be a disowning of the moral.’ No peculiar learning or profound reach of thought is required to understand this; it must commend itself to every intelligent and serious mind; for if, in respect to those precepts which take the negative form of prohibitions, the mere omitting to do the thing forbidden were all that is enjoined, there would be nothing properly moral in the matter—the command might be fulfilled by the simple absence of moral action, by mere inactivity, which in the moral sphere is but another name for death. Hence it has ever been the maxim of all judicious and thoughtful commentators on the law of the two tables, that when evil is forbidden, the opposite good is to be understood as enjoined; just as, on the other side, when a duty is commanded, everything contrary to it is virtually forbidden. Thus Calvin, after substantially affirming the principle now stated, referring to the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ repudiates the idea that it is to be regarded merely as an injunction to abstain from all injury, or wish to inflict it. (‘Institutes,’ B. II. c. 8, sec. 9.) ‘I hold (he says) that it means besides, that we are to aid our neighbour’s life by every means in our power.’ And he proves it thus: ‘God forbids us to injure or hurt a brother, because He would have his life to be dear and precious to us; and therefore when He so forbids, He at the same time demands all the offices of charity which can contribute to his preservation.’ So also Luther, who, under the same precept, considers all indeed forbidden that might lead to murder, but holds this also to be included, that ‘we must help our neighbour and assist him in all his bodily troubles.’ Higher than both, our Lord Himself brings out the principle strongly in His exposition of that and of other precepts of the Decalogue in His sermon on the mount; as again also in reference to the prohibition regarding work on the Sabbath, when taken as an excuse for refusing to administer help to a brother’s necessities, by asking, ‘Is it lawful on the sabbath-days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?’ (Luke 6:9.)—which plainly involves the principle, that mere negatives in matters of moral obligation have the force of positives; that to reject virtue is to choose vice; that not to do the good we can is to consent to the evil we allow; to let a life we might have saved perish, is to be guilty of another’s death. On this ground, which has its justification in the very nature of things, there can manifestly be no adequate knowledge of this revelation of law, or proper exhibition of its real nature and place in the Divine economy, without perceiving its relation, as well in those who received as in Him who gave it, to the great principle of love. Apart from this, it had been a body without a soul, a call to obedience without the slightest chance of a response; for aiming, as the law did, at securing a conformity in moral purpose and character between a redeeming God and a redeemed people, not one of its precepts could reach the desired fulfilment, unless the love which had exhibited itself as the governing principle in the one should find in the other a corresponding love, which might be roused and guided into proper action. Hence, as if to make this unmistakeably plain, no sooner had Moses given a rehearsal of the Decalogue in the book of Deuteronomy, than he proclaimed aloud the memorable words: ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might:’ (Deuteronomy 6:4-5.)—which our Lord declared to be the first and great commandment, (Matthew 22:40.) and He added another, which He pronounced the second and like to it, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’—the same also which centuries before had issued from the lips of Moses. (Leviticus 19:18.) ‘On these two commandments,’ He further declared, ‘hang all the law and the prophets.’ The apostles also freely interchange the precept of love with the commands of the Decalogue, as mutually explanatory of each other. (Romans 13:9-10; James 2:8-11.) And thus, in part at least, may be explained the negative form of the ten commandments. They assume throughout the known existence of a positive; and that, primarily, in the moral nature of man, as the image (though marred) of the Divine—without which, latent but living in the bosom, they had been incapable of awakening any response, or creating the slightest sense of obligation. Yet not in that alone does the law assume the existence of a positive, but also in the revealed character of God, as recognised and exhibited in the law itself. There Israel, as the redeemed of Jehovah, had ever before them the perfection of excellence, which they were bound to aim at, and for the sake of which—lest they should lose sight of it, or think little of the obligation—they had their path fenced and guarded by those prohibitions of law, on the right hand and the left. Still, the negative is doubtless in itself the lower form of command; and when so largely employed as it is in the Decalogue, it must be regarded as contemplating and striving to meet the strong current of evil that runs in the human heart. This may not improperly be deemed the main reason—only not the exclusive one, since even in paradise a negative form was given to the command which served as the peculiar test of love. 3. Viewing the law thus, as essentially the law of love, which it seeks to guard and protect, as well as to evoke and direct, let us glance briefly at the details, that we may see how entirely these accord, alike in their nature and their orderly arrangement, with the general idea, and provide for its proper exemplification. As love has unspeakably its grandest object in God, so precedence is justly given to what directly concerns Him—implying also that religion is the basis of morality, that the right adjustment of men’s relation to God tends to ensure the proper maintenance of their relations one to another. God, therefore, must hold the supreme place in their regard, must receive the homage of their love and obedience:—and this in regard to His being, His worship, His name, and His day. He is the one living God—therefore no others must be set up in His presence; He alone must have the place of Deity (the first). Spiritual in His own nature, His worship also must be spiritual—therefore no idol-forms are to appear in His service, for none such can adequately represent Him; they would but degrade men’s notions concerning Him, virtually change His truth into a lie (second). His name is the expression of whatever is pure, holy, and good—therefore it must be lifted up to nothing that is vain, associated with nothing false, corrupt, wicked, or profane, but only with words and deeds which breathe its spirit and reflect its glory (third). The day, too, which He has specially consecrated for Himself, being the signature of His holiness on time and labour—the check He lays upon human activity as naturally tending to work only for self, His ever-recurring call in providence on men to work so as to be again perpetually entering into His rest—this day, therefore, must be kept apart from servile labour, withdrawn from the interests of the flesh, and hallowed to God (fourth). The next command may also be taken in the same connection a step further in the same line, since earthly parents are in a peculiar sense God’s representatives among men, those whom He invests with a measure of His own authority, as standing for a time in His stead to those whom instrumentally they have brought into being, and whom they should train for His service and glory—these, therefore, must be honoured with all dutiful and ready obedience, that the hearts of the fathers may in turn become the hearts of the children. This, however, touches on the second division of moral duty, that which concerns men’s relation to each other; and according to the particular aspect in which it is contemplated, the fifth command may be assigned to the first or to the second table of the law. Scripture itself makes no formal division. Though it speaks frequently enough of two tables, it nowhere indicates where the one terminates and the other begins—purposely, perhaps, to teach us that the distinction is not to be very sharply drawn, and that the contents of the one gradually approximate and at last pass over into the other. Already, in the fourth commandment, distinct reference is made to persons in the humbler ranks of life, and a kind consideration is required to be had of them—though still the primary aim and aspect of the command bore upon interests in which all were alike concerned. In like manner with the fifth: what it directly enjoins is certainly such love and regard as is due from one human being to another; and yet the relation involved is not that exactly of neighbour to neighbour, but rather of wards under persons bearing Heaven’s delegated trust and authority; so that in the honouring of these God Himself receives somewhat of the homage due to Him, and they who render it, as the apostle says, ‘shew piety at home.’ (1 Timothy 5:14) With the sixth command, however—the first of the second five—we are brought to what most distinctly relates to the human sphere, and to the exercise of that love, which may in the strictest sense be called love to one’s neighbours. These the law enjoins us not to injure, but to protect and cherish, in regard to their life; then, to what next to life should be dearest to them, the chastity and honour of wife or daughter, to their property, to their character and position in life. In respect to one and all of these, the imperative obligation imposed is, that we do our neighbour no harm by the false testimony of our tongues, or the violence of our hands, or any course of procedure that is fitted to tell injuriously upon what he has and loves. And, finally, to shew that neither tongue, nor hands, nor any other member of our body, or any means and opportunities at our command—that not these alone are laid under contribution to this principle of love, but the seat also and fountain of all desire, all purpose and action—the Decalogue closes with the precept which forbids us to lust after or covet wife, house, possessions, anything whatever that is our neighbour’s—a precept which reaches to the inmost thoughts and intents of the heart, and requires that all even there should be under the control of a love which thinketh no evil, which abhors the very thought of adding to one’s own heritage of good by wrongfully infringing on what is another’s. Viewed thus as enshrining the great principle of love, and in a series of commands chalking out the courses of righteous action it was to follow, of unrighteous action it was to shun, the law of the two tables may justly be pronounced unique—so compact in form, so orderly in arrangement, so comprehensive in range, so free from everything narrow and punctilious—altogether the fitting reflex of the character of the Supremely Pure and Good in His relation to the members of His earthly kingdom. It is emphatically a revelation of God—of God generally, indeed, as the moral Governor of the world, but more peculiarly as the Redeemer of Israel; and to lower it to the position of a kind of semi-political and religious code, were to deprive it of all that is most distinctive in its spirit and bearing, and render utterly inexplicable the singular prominence assigned it, not alone in the legislation of the old covenant, but in the Scriptures generally alike of the Old and the New. (Those who will calmly reflect on the statements advanced in the preceding pages will not, I think, be much moved by the extraordinary assertions in the following passage: ‘What is termed the moral law is certainly in no way to be peculiarly identified with the Decalogue, as some have strangely imagined [some indeed!] Though moral duties are specially enjoined in many places of the Law, yet the Decalogue most assuredly does not contain all moral duties, even by remote implication, and on the widest construction. It totally omits many such, as, e.g., beneficence, truth, justice, temperance, control of temper, and others; and some moral precepts omitted here are introduced in other places. But many moral duties are hardly recognised, e.g., it is difficult to find any positive prohibition of drunkenness in the Law. In one passage only an indirect censure seems to be implied (Deuteronomy 29:19).’* As if God’s grand summary of moral law might be expected to run in the style of an act of Parliament, and go into endless specifications of the precise kinds and forms of wickedness which would constitute breaches of its enactments! Such cumbrous details would have been unsuited to its design, and marred rather than aided its practical effect. What was needed was a brief but comprehensive series of precepts, which for thoughtful and considerate minds would be found to embrace the wide range of duty, and, if honestly complied with, would render acts of ungodliness and crime practically unknown. And this is what the Decalogue really contains. That any one who sincerely opens his heart to the reception of its great principles of truth and duty, and lives in the loving connection it implies with God and his fellow-men, should deem himself otherwise than bound to practise justice, temperance, beneficence, and truth, it is impossible to conceive. And the same substantially may be said of another alleged omission—the moral obligation of missions. For, how could any one entering into the spirit of the revelation of law, and believing the practical acknowledgment of its great principles of truth and righteousness to be the essential condition of all true peace and well-being, fail to recognise it as his duty to do what he could to bring others acquainted with them? The very position and calling of Israel partook of a missionary character: it had for its grand aim the communication of the peculiar blessing of the covenant to all nations; and the missionary spirit breathed in such passages as Psalms 67:1-7, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 98:1-9, Isaiah 2:1-22, Isaiah 49:1-26, Psalms 60:1-22, etc., is but an expression of the love, in its higher exercise, which, as members alike of the covenant of law and the covenant of promise, the people of God were bound, as they had opportunity, to manifest.—For some points of a formal kind connected with the Decalogue, see Supplementary Dissertation, No. I. * Baden Powell’s ‘Christianity without Judaism,’ p. 104. ) II. Subordinate to this grand revelation of moral law, yet closely related to it, is what has usually been called the judicial law of the Theocracy though this is too limited a term for what must be comprised under it. A more fitting designation would be, Statutory directions and enactments for the practical ordering of affairs amid the complicated relations and often untoward events of life. The law, strictly so called, being the absolute expression of the Divine will toward a people redeemed for the Divine service and glory, was necessarily oblivious of difficulties and defects; it peremptorily required conformity with its own perfect ideal of rectitude, and made no account of any deviation from this, except to warn against and condemn it. But in the circumstances in which mankind generally, and the Israelites in particular, actually stood, such conformity could never be more than partially realized; transactions, interests, would be sure to come up, which might render it doubtful even to sincere men how to apply, or how far to carry out, the precepts of the Decalogue; and, what was likely to be of much more frequent occurrence, wayward and selfish men would take occasion to traverse the pure and comely order, which it was the design of those precepts to establish among the covenant people. In the event of such things arising, how was the external polity to be regulated and maintained? What modes of procedure in definite circumstances should be held in accordance with its spirit? What, as between one member of the community and another, might be tolerated, though falling somewhat below the Divine code of requirements? What, again, calling for excision, as too flagrantly opposed to it to consist with the very being of the commonwealth? It was to provide some sort of answer to these questions that the statutory directions and enactments now under consideration were introduced. They are called, in the first mention that is made of them, the mishpatim, (Exodus 21:1.) the statutes or judgments, because bearing that character in relation to the ten commandments going immediately before. A series of particular cases is supposed—by way of example and illustration, of course, not as if exhausting the entire category of possible occurrences—and, in connection with them, instructions are given as to what may or should be done, so as to preserve the spirit of the constitution, and to restrain and regulate, without unduly cramping, the liberty of the people. Indeed, the range which is allowed through the whole class of provisions now in question, for the exercise of individual liberty in official and even social arrangements, is one of the most noticeable points connected with them. In civil and economical respects, the people were left in great measure to shape their domestic institutions, and model their administrative polity as they thought fit. There were to be judges to determine in matters of dispute between man and man, and to maintain the fundamental laws of the kingdom; but how these judges were to be appointed, or what their relative places and spheres of jurisdiction, nothing is prescribed. A regular gradation of officers was introduced by Moses shortly before the giving of the law; (Exodus 18:2.) but this was done at the suggestion of Jethro, as a merely prudential arrangement, and, for any thing that appears, was in that specific form confined to the wilderness-sojourn. Neither the time, nor the mode of its introduction, brings it properly within the circle of legal appointments. Even when, at a later period, the supposition is made of the general government assuming a kingly form, it is spoken of as a thing to be left to the people’s own choice, restricted only by such rules and limitations regarding the mode of election, and the future conduct of the king, as would render the appointment compatible with the Theocratic constitution. (Deuteronomy 17:14-20.) And a similar reserve was maintained in respect to whatever did not come distinctly within the province of religion and morals; the people stood, in regard to it, much on the same platform as the other nations of the earth. And these, we know, were still in a comparatively imperfect state of order and civilization: education and learning in the modern sense were unknown, the arts and conveniences of life in their infancy, the civil rights of the different classes of society little understood, and usages of various kinds prevailing which partook of the rudeness of the times. It was in such a state of things that the kingdom of God, with its formal revelation of law, was set up in Israel; and while that revelation, in so far as it met with due consideration and was honestly applied, could not fail to operate with effect in elevating the tone and habits of society even in the strictly temporal and earthly sphere, yet, we must remember, it only indirectly bore upon this, and had to make its way amid much that was out of course, and that could only admit of a gradual amelioration. Here, too, unless violence were to be done to the natural course of development, and a mechanical order made to supersede the free action of mind, the principle of progression must have had scope given it to work, and consequently, in the actual administration of the affairs of the kingdom, not always what was absolutely the best, but only the best practicable in the circumstances, was to be authoritatively enjoined. If only contemplated thus from a right point of view, the things sometimes excepted against in this part of the Mosaic legislation would be seen to admit of a just defence or reasonable explanation. 1. But to take the points connected with it in order. A considerable portion of the statutes and judgments are, as we have said, a simple application of the great principles of the Decalogue to particular cases, intended at once to explain and confirm them. That in its general spirit and tenor the Decalogue is an embodiment of love —in its second part of brotherly love, extending through the entire circle of one’s thoughts, words, and deeds—might be conceded. But must it be exercised in every case? even toward one from whom injury has been received? If we think he has. acted to us unjustly, may not we in turn take our revenge? No; the judicial reply is a neighbour, though an enemy, in trouble, as when his ass or his ox strays, or his ass has fallen helplessly under a burden, ought to receive our help. (Exodus 23:4-5.) So that the action of love enjoined in the command must not be thought to depend on the mere accidents of one’s position; and in the most untoward circumstances, in respect even to an enemy, must shew itself in the positive as well as the negative form. Revenge is strictly excluded, and love to every brother or neighbour enforced; (Leviticus 19:18.) nor in words merely, but also in giving to him in his time of need without usury, and imitating toward him the Divine beneficence. (Exodus 22:25-27.) Other statutes in the same line cut off the excuse, which some might be ready to offer, that the injury sustained by their neighbour had been done by a mere act of inadvertence or rashness on their part (as by kindling a fire, which spread into another’s vineyard, or by keeping open a pit into which his ox fell); (Exodus 22:5; Exodus 21:33.) done, perhaps, in a sudden outburst of passion, (Exodus 21:22-27.) or through the vicious propensities of their cattle; (Exodus 21:28-36.) for such things also men were held responsible, because failing to do within their proper domain the kind and considerate part of love to those around them. But then it was possible some might be disposed occasionally to press the matter too far, and hold a man equally responsible for any violence done by him to the life or property of another, whether done from sheer carelessness, from heedless impetuosity, or from deliberate malice. Here, again, the statutory enactments come in with their wise and discriminating judgments—distinguishing, for example, between death inflicted unwittingly, or in self-defence, or in the attempt to arrest a burglary, and murder perpetrated in cool blood. (Exodus 21:12-14; Exodus 22:2.) Thus there is delivered to us, for a principle of interpretation and personal guidance, that the law under any particular head is violated or fulfilled, not by the bare act anyhow performed, but by the act taken in connection with the circumstances, especially the feeling and intent of the heart, under which it has been done. Once more, the question might be stirred by some in a perverse, by others in a partial or prejudiced spirit, whether the law should be understood as applying to all with absolute equality? whether an exemption more or less might not be allowed, at least to persons in what might be called the extremes of social position? Here, also, the decision is given with sufficient plainness, when it is ordained that the poor man was neither to have his judgment wrested, nor be unduly countenanced in his cause, from respect to his poverty; that even the friend less stranger was to be treated with kindness and equity; and that the rich and powerful were not to be allowed to use their resources for the purpose of gaining an advantage to which they were not entitled. (Exodus 23:2-3; Exodus 23:6; Exodus 23:9; Deuteronomy 1:17; Deuteronomy 19:7-19.) 2. It thus appears that the class of enactments referred to have an abiding value, as they serve materially to throw light on the import and bearing of the Decalogue, confirming the views already given of its spiritual and comprehensive character. Another class, which, like the preceding, involve no difficulty of interpretation, also reflect, in a somewhat different way, a measure of light on the Decalogue, viz., by the judicial treatment they award to the more flagrant violation of its precepts. The deeds which were of this description had all the penalty of death attached to them—shewing that the precepts they violated were of a fundamental character, and entered as essential principles into the constitution of the Theocracy. Such was the doom suspended over the introduction of false gods, in violation of the first command, (Exodus 22:20; Deuteronomy 13:9-10.) to which also belong all the statutes about witchcraft, divination, and necromancing, which involved the paying of homage to another object of worship than Jehovah; over the worshipping of God by idols, in violation of the second command; (Exodus 32:1-35; Deuteronomy 4:25-28.) over the profanation of God’s name, in violation of the third; (Exodus 20:7; Leviticus 24:16.) over the deliberate profanation of the Sabbath, in violation of the fourth; (Exodus 31:14-15; Numbers 15:35.) over shameful dishonour and violence done to parents, in violation of the fifth; (Exodus 21:15-17.) over murder, adultery, bestiality, men-stealing, and the more extreme cases of oppression, violence, and false witness-bearing, in violation of the successive commands of the second table. (Exodus 21:12; Leviticus 24:17; Leviticus 20:10; Exodus 22:19; Exodus 22:22-24; Deuteronomy 19:21.) Why the breaches of these great precepts of the Decalogue should have been met so uniformly with the severity of capital punishment, is to be accounted for by the nature of the kingdom set up in Israel, which was a theocracy, having God for its supreme Lawgiver and Head, and for its subjects a people bearing His name and occupying His land. How completely would the great end of such an institution have been frustrated, if the holiness to which the people were called had been outraged, and the sins which ran counter to it openly practised? To act thus had been to traverse the fundamental laws of the kingdom, nay, to manifest an unmistakeable hatred to its Divine Head, and could no more be tolerated there than overt treason in an earthly government. The law, therefore, righteously laid the sin of deliberate transgression on the head of the sinner as guilt, which could only be taken away by the punishment of him who committed it. (See Weber, ‘Von Zorne Gottes,’ p. 142.) If this should be deemed excessive severity, it can only be because the right is virtually denied on the part of God to establish a Theocracy among men in conformity with His own revealed character, and for the manifestation of His name. That right, however, is assumed as the ground on which the whole legislation of Sinai proceeds; and if the penal enactments of the Theocracy are to be rightly interpreted, they must be placed in immediate connection with the authority and honour of God. In respect to all judicial action, when properly administered, the judgment, though administered by man, was held to be the Lord’s. (Deuteronomy 1:17.) To bring a matter up for judgment was represented as bringing it to God (so the rendering should be in Exodus 22:8-9, not ‘the judges,’ as in the English version); and persons standing before the priests and the judges to have sentence pronounced upon them, were said to stand before the Lord. (Deuteronomy 19:17.) If the judges and the judged realized this to be their position, would there have been any just ground to complain of undue severity? Would there not rather have been diffused throughout the community a deep sense of the Divine righteousness, and an earnest striving to have its claims and penalties enforced, as the indispensable pre-requisite of peace and blessing? (Human theories of jurisprudence often entirely repudiate the relation here implied of sin or crime to punishment. The maxim of Seneca (nemo prudens punit, quia peccatum est, sed ne peccetur; revocari enim praeterrita non possunt, futura prohibentur), which abjures the thought of inflicting punishment, except as a check or means of prevention against its future commission, has found not a few defenders in recent times, though more in Germany than here. Yet there also some of the profoundest thinkers have given it their decided opposition. Hegel, for instance, taught that ‘punishment is certainly to be regarded as the necessary abolition of crime which would otherwise predominate, and as the re-establishment of right.’ More fully and distinctly Stahl, ‘To man is given, along with the power, the authority also of performing a deed, but this he can only have with God, not against Him. If, therefore, he acts amiss, he comes to have a glory in the world antagonistic to God. Not, however, to undo the deed itself, and its consequence, can be demanded by the Divine righteousness, but only to destroy this glory of the deed; and if this can be destroyed, the antagonism is brought to an end.’—(See in Baumgarten’s Comm. on Pent., II., pp. 29, 30.) But the relation of capital punishment to moral transgressions of the first table, and to some extent also of the second, which was proper to a Theocracy, cannot be justly transferred to an ordinary civil commonwealth; and, in this respect, Christian states have often grievously erred in assimilating their penal statutes too closely to those of the Mosaic legislation.) Besides, it was not they alone who were to be considered; for in planting them in Canaan, ‘in the midst of the nations,’ and furnishing them with such a polity, God’s design was to use them as a great teaching institute—a light placed aloft on the moral heights of the world amid surrounding darkness. What incalculable blessings might have accrued to ancient heathendom had that high calling been fulfilled! But to this end the stern proscription of open ungodliness and flagrant immoralities was indispensable. (See the remarks in my ‘Commentary on Ezekiel,’ pp. 68-70.) 3. Another class of the statutes and judgments under consideration is one which more directly bore on the imperfect state of order and civilization then everywhere existing, and which has often been misunderstood and objected to. The law of compensation—frequently, though improperly, termed the law of retaliation—does not strictly belong to the class, but may be included in it, on account of the assaults to which it has been subjected. It is, indeed, so far of the class in question, as it comes first directly into view in connection with a very rude and barbarous state of manners. The supposition is made of two men striving together, and a woman with child (whether by chance or from well-meant interference on her part) happening to receive some corporeal injury in the fray; and it was ordained, that her husband was entitled to claim compensation from the offender, according to the extent of the injury; proceeding further, the statute provides generally for all like cases, that there should be ‘life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’ (Exodus 21:22-25.) Stript of its concrete form, this is simply a rule for the proper administration of justice between man and man, requiring that when a particular wrong was done to any one, and through him to society, an adequate compensation should be rendered. So far from being peculiar to the Mosaic code, no legislation that is not capricious and arbitrary can dispense with such a rule, nor could society exist in peace and comfort without its faithful application. ‘In fact,’ to use the words of Kalisch in his commentary on the passage, ‘our own Christian legislation could not dispense with similar principles: life is punished with life, and intentional injuries are visited with more than equivalent penalties. Not even the most sentimental and romantic legislator has ever had the fancy to pardon all criminals out of Christian love. For, in reality, every simple law in our criminal code is based on the jus talionis (the law of compensation), with the limitation that bodily mutilation is converted into an adequate pecuniary fine, or incarceration; but the same modification (he adds) has been universally adopted by traditional Judaism.’ Such a limitation was in perfect accordance with the general spirit of the Mosaic code, and must have been from the first intended. The literal application of the rule, as in the case of burning for burning, or wound for wound, would often have been impracticable, for who could have undertaken to make a second that should always be precisely equivalent to the first? or unjust, for the severity of a bodily infliction may, in particular circumstances, be a widely different thing to one person from what it is to another. To insist on the exact counterpart of such corporeal injuries, even when it could have been secured, in preference to a reasonable compensation, would plainly have been to gratify a spirit of revenge; and this, as already stated, was expressly disallowed. There was one thing, and only one, in regard to which compensation was formally interdicted: the life of a deliberate murderer must be given for the life of the murdered, without satisfaction, without pity; (Numbers 35:31; Deuteronomy 19:13.) and the emphatic exclusion of compensation here, was justly regarded by the Jewish doctors as virtually sanctioning its admission in cases of a lighter kind, where no such exclusion was mentioned. The real bearing of this law, then, when rightly understood and applied as it was meant, in judicial decisions, was in perfect accordance with the principles of equity; it was merely a practical embodiment of these; and the reference made to it by our Lord in His sermon on the mount, where it forms a kind of contrast to the injunction laid on His followers not to resist evil, but when smitten on the one cheek to turn the other also, and so on, (Matthew 5:38.) can imply no disparagement of the old rule in its proper intention. In so far as it breathed a tone of censure, or assumed a position of antagonism, it was only in regard to those who, in their personal endeavours after the pure and good, had not known to rise above the level of a formal and rigid justice. Not questioning the claims of justice in the public administration of affairs, our Lord still made it to be known that He sought a people who would be ready to forego these, whenever by doing so they could promote the good of their fellow-men. But the law of brotherly love, when requiring the suppression of revenge, and the exercise of forbearance and kindness even to an enemy, in reality did the same, as was perfectly understood by the better spirits of the old covenant. (Psalms 7:4; Proverbs 25:21-22; 1 Sam 24:26.) So that nothing properly different, but only a greater fulness and prominence in the exhibition or enforcement of such love, can be claimed for the Gospel dispensation. (The same view is given of the Mosaic statute by the leading authorities; for example, by Michaelis, Salvador ‘His. des Institutions de Moise’ (who says, ‘The jus talionis is a principle rather than a law; as a law it cannot, nor does it actually come in general to be executed’); Saalschütz ‘Des Mosaische Recht;’ Kalisch gives some specimens of the Rabbinical discussions on the subject, from Bab. Talmud; and Maimonides. For the compensations by which the Arabs and Egyptians carry out the principle, see Kitto’s ‘Pictorial Bible,’ on Exodus 21:1-36, and Lane’s ‘Modern Egyptians,’ ch. III.) 4. More distinctly than the statutes just noticed may some of those connected with the punishment of murder be ranked in the class now under consideration. In this branch of the Mosaic legislation there is generally apparent a spirit of humanity and moderation. First of all, murder in the proper sense is carefully discriminated from death brought about in some casual manner. In every case of real murder it was necessary to prove preceding malice or hatred, a lying in wait or taking deliberate measures to compass the death of its victim, and an assault with some violent weapon accomplishing the end in view. (Deuteronomy 19:2.) But if, on the other hand, while a man had proved the cause of a neighbour’s death, the act inflicting it was merely the throwing of a stone or other weight, which incidentally lighted upon some one, and took away his Life—or if by some sort of sudden thrust, in a freak or fury, without aught of preconceived malice or deliberate intent, a neighbour’s life was sacrificed, the instrument of doing it could not be arraigned for murder; but neither could he be deemed altogether innocent. There must usually have been, in such cases, at least a culpable degree of heedlessness, which would always call for careful investigation, and might justly subject the individual to a limited amount of trouble, or even of punishment. It does so still in the civilized communities of modern times, with their regulated forms of judicial procedure and vigilant police: the man-slayer, however unwittingly he may have been the occasion of taking another’s life, must lay his account to the solemn inquest, often also the personal arrest, and it may be, ultimately, the severe reprimand, pecuniary fine, or temporary imprisonment, which may be thought due as a correction to his improper heedlessness or haste. But at the period of Israel’s settlement in Canaan there were not the opportunities for calm inquiry, and patient, satisfactory adjustment of such cases as exist now; and there were, besides, feelings deeply rooted in Asiatic society, and usages growing out of them, which tended very considerably to embarrass the matter, and yet could not be arbitrarily set aside. These arose out of the relation of Goel, according to which the nearest of kin had the wrongs, in particular circumstances, as well as the rights of the deceased, devolved upon him; especially the obligation to avenge his blood in the event of its having been unrighteously shed. On this account the term Goel is very commonly reckoned synonymous with ‘avenger’ (Goel haddam, avenger of blood), and in the passages bearing on this subject they are invariably so rendered in our English Bible. (Numbers 35:12; Deuteronomy 19:6; Deuteronomy 19:12; Joshua 20:5; Joshua 20:9, etc.) To the mere English reader, however, in modern times, this is apt to convey a somewhat wrong idea; for in its proper import Goel means not avenger, but redeemer (as in Job 19:25, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’), and Goel haddam is strictly ‘redeemer of blood,’ one to whom belonged the right and duty of recovering the blood of the murdered kinsman, of vindicating in the only way practicable its wronged cause, and obtaining for it justice. In him the blood of the dead, as it were, rose to life again and claimed its due. In other cases, it fell to the Goel to redeem the property of his relative, which had become alienated and lost by debt; (Leviticus 25:25.) a to redeem his person from bondage, if through poverty he had been necessitated to go into servitude; (Leviticus 25:48-50.) even to redeem his family, when by dying childless it was like to become extinct in Israel, by marrying his widow and raising up a seed to him. (Deuteronomy 25:5-10.) It thus appears that a humane and brotherly feeling lay at the root of this Goel-relationship; and in regard to the matter more immediately before us, it did not necessarily involve anything revengeful or capricious in its mode of operation. In ordinary cases, all its demands might have been satisfied by the Goel appearing before the judges as the prosecutor of the man-slayer, and calling upon them to examine the case and give judgment in behalf of the deceased. But there can be no doubt that it might also quite readily run to evil, that it might degenerate—if not very carefully guarded and checked into what, from time immemorial, it has been among the Arab races—a kind of wild and vengeful spirit of justice, which would take the law into its own hands, and, in defiance alike of personal danger and of the forms of legal procedure, would pursue the shedder of blood till his blood in turn had been shed. This was the vicious extreme of the system; yet one, it ought to be remembered, which operated as a powerful check—perhaps, in the circumstances of the place and times, the only valid check that could be devised against another and still more pernicious extreme, for which peculiar facilities were afforded by the vast deserts of Arabia and the regions lying around Palestine. How easy might it have been for the daring and successful murderer, by making his escape into these, to get beyond the reach of the regular tribunals and officers of justice! Only the dread of being tracked out and having his own measure summarily meted back to him, by one on whom the charge to avenge the wrong lay as a primary and life-long obligation, might be sufficient to deter him from trusting in such a refuge from evil. We have it on the testimony of those who have been most thoroughly conversant with the regions in question, and the races inhabiting them, that nothing has contributed so much as this institution (even in its most objectionable Arab form) to prevent the warlike tribes of the East from exterminating one another. (See in Layard’s ‘Nineveh and Babylon,’ p. 305, for his own and Burckhardt’s testimony.) In these circumstances, Moses, legislating for a people already familiar with the Goel-relationship, and going to occupy a region which presented to the more lawless spirits of the community, tempting opportunities for escaping from judicial treatment of a more orderly kind, took the wise course of grounding his statutes in respect to manslaughter and murder on the hereditary rights and duties of the Goel. But he so restrained and regulated them, that, if faithfully carried out, the checks he introduced could scarcely fail to arrest the worst tendencies of the system, and indeed reduce the position of the Goel to that of the recognised and rightful prosecutor of the shedder of blood. To prevent any sudden assault upon the latter, and afford time for the due investigation of his deed, a temporary asylum was provided for him in the cities of refuge, which were appointed for this purpose at convenient distances—three on the one side and three on the other of the Jordan. (Numbers 35:2.) When actually appointed, the cities were most wisely distributed, and belonged also to the class of Levitical cities (Golan in Bashan, Eamoth in Gilead, and Bezer on the east side; Kadesh in Galilee, Shechem and Hebron on the west), (Joshua 20:7-8.) and as such were sure to contain persons skilled in the knowledge of the law and capable of giving intelligent judgment. Arrived within the gates of one of these cities, the man-slayer was safe from the premature action of the Goel; but only that the judges and elders of the place might take up the case and pronounce impartial judgment upon it. If they found reason to acquit him of actual murder, then he remained under their protection, but was obliged to submit to a kind of partial imprisonment, because not allowed to go beyond the borders of the city till the death of the existing high-priest after which, if he still lived, he was at liberty to return to his own possession. Were not these conditions, however, somewhat arbitrary? If not really guilty of blood in the proper sense, why should he not have been placed at once under the protection of the law, and restored to his property and home? And why should the period of his release have been made to hang on the uncertain and variable moment of the high-priest’s death? Perhaps there may have been grounds for these limitations at the time they were imposed, which cannot now be ascertained; but a little consideration is sufficient to shew that they could not be deemed unreasonable. In the great majority of cases, the death of the person slain must have been owing to the want of due circumspection, fore thought, or restraint on the part of him who had occasioned it; and it could not, to thoughtful minds, appear otherwise than a salutary discipline, that he should be adjudged to a temporary abridgment of his liberty. Arbitrarily to break through this restraint after it had been judicially imposed, would clearly have argued a self-willed, impetuous, and troublesome humour, which refused correction, and might readily enough repeat in the future the rashness or misdeed of the past; so that it was but dealing with him according to his folly to leave him in such a case at the mercy of the Goel. (Leviticus 25:26-27.) Nor could the connection of the period of release with the death of the existing high-priest carry much of a strange or capricious aspect to the members of the Theocracy. For the high-priest was, in everything pertaining to sin and forgiveness, the most prominent person in the community; in such things, he was the representative of the people, making perpetual intercession for them before God; and though there was nothing expiatory in his death, yet being the death of one in whom the expiatory ritual of the old covenant had so long found its centre and culmination, it was natural—more than natural, it was every way proper and becoming—that when he disappeared from among men, the cause of the blood that had been incidentally shed in his life-time, and from its nature could admit of no very definite reckoning, should be held to have passed with him into oblivion—its cry was to be no more heard. (This appears to me the natural explanation of the rule, and sufficient for the purpose intended. The older evangelical divines (some also still, as Keil) think that in the death of the high-priest there was a shadow of the death of Christ; consequently something that might be regarded as having a sort of atoning value for the sins of the people. This I cannot but consider arbitrary in interpretation, and involving a dangerous element in respect to the work of atonement. For if the death of a sinful man, because he was anointed with oil, the symbol of the Spirit’s grace, had such a value then, why should not the death of martyrs and other saints, richly endowed with the Spirit, have something of the same now?) It was made very clear, however, by other statutes on this subject, that when actual murder had been committed, no advantage was to accrue to the perpetrator from the cities of refuge; though he might have fled thither, he was, on the proof of his guilt, to be delivered up to the Goel for summary execution. (Deuteronomy 19:11-16.) Nor was the altar of God—a still more sacred place than the cities of refuge, and in ancient times almost universally regarded as an asylum for criminals—to be permitted in such cases to afford protection; from this also the murderer was to be dragged to his deserved doom. (Exodus 21:14.) In short, deliberate murder was to admit of no compromise and no palliation: the original law, ‘whoso sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed,’ (Genesis 9:6.) must be rigorously enforced; and, doubtless, mainly also on the original ground, ‘because in the image of God made He him.’ To disregard the sanctity of human life, and tread it vilely in the dust, was like aiming a thrust at God Himself, disparaging His noblest work in creation, and the one that stood in peculiar relationship to His own spiritual being. Therefore, the violation of the sixth command by deliberate murder involved also a kind of secondary violation of the first; and to suffer the blood of the innocent to lie unavenged, was, in the highest sense, to pollute the land; (Numbers 35:34.) it was to render it unworthy of the name of God’s inheritance. So great was the horror entertained of this unnatural crime, and so anxious was the Lawgiver to impress men with the feeling of its contrariety to the whole spirit and object of the law, that, even in the case of an uncertain murder, there was a cry of blood which could not be disregarded; and when every effort had failed to discover the author of the deed, the elders of the city which lay nearest to the corpse were to regard themselves as in a manner implicated; they had to come publicly forward, and not only protest their innocence of the crime, and their ignorance of the manner in which it had been committed, but also to go through a process of purification by blood and water, that the charge of blood-guiltiness might not rest upon them and their land. (Deuteronomy 21:1-9.) 5. We pass on now to the statutes on slavery and the treatment of those subject to it, which have in various respects been deemed inconsistent with the spirit of the Decalogue, as embodying the law of brotherly love. Here, again, it is especially necessary to bear in mind the state of the world at the time the law was given, and the relation in which it stood to manners and usages, which bespoke a very imperfect development both of economical science and of civil rights. It was necessary that the law should take things as it found them, and, while setting before the covenant people the correct ideal of all that was morally right and good, should still regulate what pertained to the enforcement of discipline with a due regard to circumstances more or less anomalous and perplexing. By constitutional right, all the members of the covenant were free; they were the Lord’s redeemed ones, whom He vindicated to Himself from the house of bondage, that they might be in a condition to serve and honour Him; (Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 15:15.) they were not again to be sold as bond men; (Leviticus 25:42.) and that they might remain in this freedom from human servitude, every one had an inheritance assigned sufficient for the maintenance of himself and his family. The precautions, too, which were taken to secure the perpetuity of these family possessions, were admirably devised; if properly guarded and carried out, nothing had been wanting to provide, so far as external arrangements could effect it, the means of a comfortable livelihood and independence for the families of Israel. But much must still depend on the individual character of the people, and the current of events in their history. If, through adverse circumstances, desolation fell on any portion of the territory—or if, from slothful neglect, particular inheritances were not duly cultivated, or the resources they furnished were again improvidently squandered—above all, if the people in whole or in part should become involved in the reverses or triumphs of war—such in equalities might readily spring up as, in the existing state of civic life and political arrangements, would most naturally lead to the introduction of a certain kind of slavery. It is even possible that, as matters then stood, the humanest, if not the only practicable thing, that could be done by legislative enactment, was to bound and regulate, rather than absolutely interdict, some modified form of this in itself unhappy relationship. Such, at least, appears to have been the view countenanced by the Divine Head of the Theocracy; for the statutes bearing on the subject of slavery are entirely of the kind just indicated, and, when temperately considered, will be found to involve a wise adaptation to the circumstances of the time. Even a brief outline may be enough to establish this. (1.) The language alone is of importance here, as indicative of the spirit of the Hebrew Theocracy: it had no term to designate one class as slaves (in the stricter sense) and another who did hired service. The term for both alike is Ebed (òÆáÆã), properly, a labourer or worker, and hence very naturally one whose calling in life is emphatically of this description, a servant. And, as justly noted by Saalschütz, (‘Mosaische Recht,’ c. 101, sec. 1.) ‘among a people who were engaged in agricultural employments, whose lawgiver Moses, and whose kings Saul and David, were taken straight from the flock and the plough to their high calling, there could not seem to be anything degrading in a designation derived from work; and the name of honour applied to Moses and other righteous men was that of “servant of God.”’ The only ground for concern could be, lest occasion might be taken to render work galling and oppressive, or incidentally subversive of the great principles of the constitution. (2.) As a check upon this, at the outset a brand was set upon man-stealing; he who should be found to have kidnapped a soul (meaning thereby man or woman) of the children of Israel, for the purpose of using or selling that soul as a slave, incurred the penalty of death, as a violator of the fundamental laws of the kingdom. (Leviticus 21:17; Deuteronomy 24:7.) (3.) But a man might, under the constraint of circumstances, to save himself and his family from the extremities of want, become fain to part with his freedom, and bind himself in servitude to another. In such cases, which should never have been but of an exceptional kind, a whole series of prescriptions were given to set bounds to the evil, and secure, during its continuance, the essentials of a brotherly relationship. The service required was in no case to be that of an absolute bondman—or, as the expression literally is, service of a servant (òÇáÉøÇú òÈáÆã)—rigorous service, such as might be expected of one into whose condition no higher element entered. (Leviticus 25:39-43.) His relation to Jehovah as the Redeemer of Israel must not be allowed to fall into abeyance. Hence, his general rights and privileges as a member of the covenant remained untouched: he could inherit property if it accrued to him, could be redeemed by a kinsman at a fair ransom, was entitled to the rest of the weekly Sabbaths, and to the joy and consolation of the stated festivals. (Leviticus 25:42-52.) Besides, the period of service was limited; it could not extend beyond six years, after which, in the seventh, came the year of release; and even then the master was not to let him go empty, but was to furnish him with supplies to help him toward an independent position (Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12-14). (In respect to the period of release, there is an apparent discrepance in the passages relating to it; in Exodus 21:2, also Deuteronomy 15:12, the seventh year is fixed definitely as the time of release; while in Leviticus 25:40, the year of Jubilee is named as the terminating point. In the latter passage, and throughout the chapter, the chief subject of discourse is the Jubilee, and it is only as connected with it that the other subject comes into consideration. The natural explanation, therefore, as given by many of our recent writers, is, that in ordinary circumstances the servitude terminated with the commencement of the seventh year, but when a Jubilee intervened, the bond of servitude, like all other bonds, ceased as a matter of course. This simple explanation renders quite unnecessary Ewald’s resort to his theory of earlier and later documents. The seventh year, however, was not the Sabbatical year, but the seventh from the entrance of the servitude—the principle of the arrangement being, that, as after seven days work there came the day of rest, and after seven years husbandry a year of repose, so after seven years servitude a return to freedom.) So that the relation of a Hebrew bondman to his master did not materially differ from that of one now, who sells his labour to a particular person, or engages to work to him on definite terms, for a stated period. A certain exception, no doubt, has to be made in respect to the provision concerning his wife and children: if the wife belonged to him when he entered into the bond-service, then both wife and children went out with him; but if the wife had been given him by the master, wife and children could be claimed by the master. In the latter case, of course, the servant would be at perfect liberty to refuse what was offered; and as it must have been a person of heathen birth that in the case supposed was offered him for wife (for Hebrew maid-servants were, equally with the men, entitled to release in the seventh year), (Deuteronomy 15:12.) the proper Israelite could not have complied with it, unless the woman had ceased in spirit to be a heathen, and he had himself made up his mind to abide in perpetual servitude to his master. The laws respecting marriage involved these two conditions, as in a moral respect binding upon the individual in question; for temporary marriages, and marriages with unconverted heathens, were alike forbidden. A man might, however, choose to remain in the position of a bondman, rather than avail himself of his right to become free; the supposition of such a case is distinctly made, and it was ordered that he should go through what could not but be regarded as a degrading ceremony. On declaring that he loved his master, his wife and children, and that he would not go out free, his master was to place him before the judges, and in their presence bore his ear through with an awl into the door or door-post. (Exodus 21:6; Deuteronomy 15:17.) The perforating of the ear and fixing it with the awl to the door (as appears from the passage in Deuteronomy to have been the full rite), was undoubtedly intended to signify the servant’s personal surrender of the freedom proper to him as an Israelite, that he might attach himself to the authority and interest of the master. By the door, therefore, is most naturally understood the door of the master’s house, in which the man and his family now became a kind of fixtures; but whether the ‘for ever’ connected with his obligation of servitude indicated a strictly life-long continuance, or an unbroken service only till the year of Jubilee, is differently understood, and cannot be quite definitely determined—though the natural impression is in favour of the former view. The whole object and bearing of the ceremony were obviously to fix a sort of stigma on any one who voluntarily assumed the condition of such prolonged servitude. His claim, however, to lenient treatment, and the usual Israelitish privileges, remained as before. (4.) A still further supposition is made, that, namely, of the daughter of an Israelite—not going into ordinary servitude for the legal term of years, as in Deuteronomy 15:12, in which case the regulations laid down for male servants were in substance applicable here—but being sold (according to a prevailing custom in the East) with the double view of service and betrothal. (Exodus 21:7-11.) She was, in the circumstances, supposed to go as a maid-servant, namely, to engage actively in domestic work; and, at the same time, she is represented as standing in a betrothed condition to her master. If he was satisfied with her, and either himself took her to wife, or gave her to his son in that capacity, then she, of course, became a member of the family and had the rights of a spouse; but if the connexion, after being formed, was again broken off, then (besides all the moral blame that might be incurred in the matter, of which this branch of the law does not treat) the master was obliged to forfeit the money he had paid the maid could not be re-sold, but was instantly to regain her liberty; though it may be doubtful if she had the right to sue for a regular divorce. This part of the question, however, belongs rather to the subject of marriage than to that of servitude. (5.) Servitude, in a stricter sense than that which the preceding regulations contemplate, might be exacted of foreigners. Of the heathen that were round about them, the Israelites might buy persons for bondmen and bond maids, also of the strangers who might be sojourning among them. (Leviticus 25:44-45.) Then, those who were taken captive in war, as a matter of course fell into the hands of the victors, and were reduced to the condition of bondmen. (Numbers 31:26-35; Deuteronomy 20:14, etc.) The children also, if any should be born to either of the preceding classes, formed a third source of supply. But from the very constitution of the kingdom, which secured a general distribution of the land along with the rights of citizenship, and rendered next to impossible large accumulations of property, or fields of enterprise that would call for much servile labour, there was comparatively little scope or occasion for the growth of this kind of population. The circumstances of the covenant-people presented no temptation to it; beyond very moderate limits, the presence of such a population must have been a source of trouble and annoyance, rather than of comfort or strength; and hence, in the historical records, no indication exists of any regular commerce being carried on in this line, or even of any considerable numbers being held in the condition of bondmen. The Phoenician slave trade is noticed only in connection with what Israel suffered by it, not for anything they gained; (Micah 1:9; Obadiah 1:20.) and so little sympathy were they to have with the slave system practised among the nations around them, that a slave flying to them for refuge from his heathen master was not to be delivered up, but to be allowed, under Israelitish protection, to fix his abode in whatever city he himself might choose. (Deuteronomy 23:15-17.) The strangers or foreigners sometimes mentioned, and especially in the times of David and Solomon, as ready for the execution of servile work, (1 Kings 9:20; 2 Chronicles 2:16; 2 Chronicles 8:7.) seem rather to have been a kind of serfs, than slaves in the ordinary sense—chiefly the descendants, in all probability, of the heathen families that remained in the land. Of that class certainly were the Gibeonites, only with a special destination as to the form of service they were taken bound to render. (Joshua 9:23; 2 Samuel 21:1-22.) From the facts just stated, one is naturally led to infer, that bond-service in the strict sense must have been of very limited extent among the covenant people, and that, in so far as it did exist, it must have ever tended to work toward its own extinction. This also is the impression which the particular statutes on the subject are fitted to convey. As a rule, the persons belonging to the house as bondmen or bondmaids were to be treated as members of the family; they were to enjoy the Sabbath rest, and partake of the sacrificial meals; (Deuteronomy 5:14; Deuteronomy 12:12; Deuteronomy 16:11.) even if the priest should have any servants in that position, they were to eat of the consecrated food which fell to the share of the master. (Leviticus 22:11.) When they submitted to the rite of circumcision—which, according to Rabbinical tradition, and, indeed, to the obvious proprieties of things, required their own deliberate consent—as they thereby entered into the bond of the covenant, so they became entitled to eat of the Passover, and, of course, to participate fully in all the privileges of the covenant. (Exodus 12:44.) If the master should smite any of his bondmen with a murderous weapon, so as to cause his death, he was himself liable to the penalty of murder—for smiting to death with intent to kill is, without exception, in the case of the stranger as well as the native Israelite, placed under one condemnation. (Exodus 21:12; Numbers 35:16-18; Leviticus 24:17-22.) Smiting only to the effect of destroying a tooth or an eye, was to be followed with the freedom of the slave. (Exodus 21:26-27.) But when smiting of that description—smiting, namely, with a rod in the way of chastisement, with no intent to kill—went so far as to produce death, it was to be met by deserved punishment the atrocity was to be avenged—though it is not said by what particular infliction (Exodus 21:20.) (I take here the view which seems the most probable, which is that also of Saalschütz, Kalisch, Œhler in ‘Hertzog,’ art. Sklaverei, and many others. The smiting to death, in the verse referred to, was only with a rod—not with a heavy or deadly weapon; and the death, though immediate, was not intentional. The phrase, he shall be avenged or punished, must therefore refer to something less than capital punishment.) The penalty was apparently left to the discretion of the judges, and would doubtless vary according to the circumstances. But if death did not immediately follow, if the servant lingered a day or two, no additional penalty was to be imposed; the delay was to be taken as proof that no fatal result was contemplated by the master, and, in a pecuniary respect, the death of the victim had itself inflicted a heavy mulct. (Exodus 21:21.) Not that, in a moral point of view, this was an adequate compensation for the undue severity he had practised, but that the temporal loss having equalled the recognised value of the subject, it was deemed inexpedient to go farther in that direction. For the higher bearing of his procedure, he had still to place himself in contact with the revelations respecting sin and atonement. Taken as a whole, the statutes upon the subject of slavery, it is impossible to deny, are largely pervaded by a spirit of mildness and equity, tolerating rather than properly countenancing and approving of it, and giving to it a very different character, both as to extent and manner of working, from what belonged to it in the nations of heathen antiquity. If brought into comparison, indeed, with the arrangements of modern civilization, one can readily point to features in it which, considered by themselves, were not in accordance with the ideal of a well-ordered commonwealth. But such a comparison would be essentially unfair. For, however high the standard of moral rectitude set up in the Hebrew commonwealth, and in its entireness laid upon the consciences of the people, the commonwealth in its political administration could not move in total isolation from the state of things around it. At various points it necessarily took a certain impress from the age and time; and from the universal prevalence of slavery among their heathen neighbours, it must often have been impracticable for the people, when seeking the service they needed, to obtain it otherwise than in the form of bond service. But as the persons acquired for the purpose must usually have been brought from heathen districts, they could not possibly be placed on a footing with the proper subjects of the Theocracy. Even, however, as strangers in a depressed condition, they were to be treated in a kind and considerate manner, as by those who, in their own persons or through their ancestors, had known the heart and experience of a stranger; (Exodus 23:9.) and all proper facilities were besides afforded them, and reasonable encouragements held out, to their entering into the bond of the covenant, and merging their condition and prospects with those of the covenant people. If, after all, things were often not ordered as they should have been, who that calmly considers the actual position of affairs, would venture to affirm that it could have been made better by any statutory regulations given for authoritative enforcement? These must limit themselves to the practically attainable—if they were not to produce other, and perhaps greater, evils than those they were intended to prevent. 6. The only remaining class of statutes and judgments calling for consideration here are those relating to the subject of marriage. The fundamental law on the subject merely declared, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery;’ but, as in all the other precepts of the Decalogue, so here, what should constitute a breach of the command was left to the moral instincts of mankind; no specific description was given of adultery, nor was a right marriage relationship more nearly denned. But that marriage, according to its proper ideal, consisted of the life-union of one man and one woman, and that the violation of this union by sexual commerce with another party constituted adultery, was well enough understood in the earlier ages of the world, and especially among the covenant-people. ‘The notion of matrimony has in the Old Testament, from the very commencement, been conceived in admirable purity and perfection. Already the wife of Adam is called “a help at his side,” that is, a companion through life, with whom he coalesces into one being’ (Genesis 2:18-24). (Kalisch on Exodus 20:13.) And this being testified of man in his normal state, as he came pure and good from the hand of his Creator, clearly indicated for all coming time what in a family respect should be his normal condition—as is, indeed, formally stated in the inference drawn from the original fact: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife (his wife, the one individual standing to him in that relation), and they shall be one flesh.’ It was a great thing for the covenant-people to have had this view of the marriage relation placed so prominently forward in those sacred records which together formed their Thorah, or law. And we see it distinctly reflected, both in the dignity which is thrown around the wife in ancient Scripture, and in the prevalent feeling in behalf of monogamy as the proper form of matrimonial life. The two, indeed, hang inseparably together; for wherever polygamy exists, woman falls in the social scale. But in the glimpses afforded us of family life in Israel, the women have much freedom and consideration accorded to them; (Exodus 15:20; 1 Samuel 18:6-7; Psalms 68:25, etc.) and those of them especially who are presented as the more peculiar types of their class, appear in an honourable light, as the fitting hand maids of their husbands, the rightful mistresses of the house. Such, certainly, was Sarah in relation to Abraham, and Rebekah to Isaac; and similar examples, ever and anon throughout the history, rise into view of married women, who acted with becoming grace and dignity the part that properly belonged to them in the household—as the wife of Manoah, Hannah, Abigail the prudent and courteous spouse of Nabal, the Shunamite woman, who dealt so kindly with Elisha, and others of a like description. It was from no fancy musings, but from living exemplars such as these, that Solomon drew his noble portraiture, unequalled in any ancient writing, of the virtuous wife; (Proverbs 31:10-31.) and pronounced such a wife to be a crown to her husband, and a gift bestowed on him from the Lord. (Proverbs 12:4; Proverbs 19:14.) So fully also did the lawgiver himself accord with these sentiments, that he allowed the new married man to remain at home for a year, free from military service and other public burdens, that he might gladden his wife; (Deuteronomy 24:5.) and in the reverence and affection charged on children towards their parents, the mother ever has her place of honour beside the father. (Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:17, etc.) In perfect accordance with this regard for woman as the proper handmaid and spouse of man, there is evidence of a prevailing sense in men’s minds in favour of monogamy as the normal state of things, while polygamy carried with it an aspect of disorder and trouble. It was not by accident, but as an indication and omen of its real character, that the latter first made its appearance in the Cainite section of the human family, and has its memorial in an address savouring of violence and blood. (Genesis 4:23-24.) How strongly the mind of Abraham was set against any departure from the original order, is evident from his reluctance to think of any one but Sarah as the mother of the seed promised to him—only at last yielding to her advice respecting Hagar, when no other way seemed open to him for obtaining the seed he had been assured of—yet for this also receiving palpable rebukes in providence to mark the course that had been pursued as an improper violation of the Divine order. We see this order beautifully kept by Isaac, though his patience was long tried with the apparently fruitless expectation of a promised seed; no thought of another spouse than Rebekah seems ever to have been entertained by him; nor did Jacob purpose differently, till by deceit in the first instance, then by artful cozening, he was drawn into connexions which brought their recompenses of trouble after them. The sons of Jacob, the patriarchal heads of the covenant-people, are at least not known (with the exception, perhaps, of Simeon) to have possessed more at a time than one wife; such, more certainly, was the case with Moses, as also with Aaron; and in the rule laid down for the priests, who might be regarded as the pattern-men for Israel, it was ordained that each should take a virgin of his own people for wife (Leviticus 23:14.)— purposely contemplating but one such connexion. In the later descriptions also of rightly constituted and happy families, the wife is always spoken of as the one spouse and mother of offspring; and severe denunciations are occasionally uttered against un fair dealing toward her. (Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 128:1-16, Proverbs 31:1-31; Malachi 2:14.) So that, while there were unquestionably notorious exceptions, especially among persons in high places, yet with the great mass of the covenant-people monogamy must have been the general rule, and the one properly recognised order. Holding this view of the marriage union, the greater part of the statutes bearing on it in the books of Moses present no difficulty; their obvious design was to guard its sanctity, and punish with unsparing rigour its de liberate violation. Sexual commerce with another man’s wife rendered both parties liable to the penalty of death; (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22.) and if the woman, instead of being actually married, was simply betrothed, the penalty remained the same. (Deuteronomy 22:23.) A man who seduced a girl, and robbed her of her chastity, was obliged to marry her, and pay fifty shekels to her father; (Deuteronomy 22:28-29.) on the other side, a married woman who was only suspected of having improper intercourse with another, was subjected to a severe and humiliating test of her innocence; (Numbers 5:1-31) and while suppositions are made of men having sexual connexion with women, not betrothed or married, and of entering into relationships not consistent with strict monogamy, there is never any pronounced sanction of their conduct, nor is the word concubine (pilegesh) once named in the Mosaic statutes as a kind of recognised relation, separate from and superadditional to that of wife. The nearest thing to it, perhaps, is in Exodus 21:8, where we have the case formerly referred to of a man purchasing a maid-servant, under a pledge or betrothal to take her to wife, or to give her in that capacity to his son. As a maid-servant she was so far in his power, that he could, if he so pleased, break his connexion with her, and cease to keep her as a wife. Yet this is spoken of as a moral wrong; it was ‘dealing deceitfully with her;’ and, as already noticed under the statutes about slavery, he lost his purchase-money—the maid regained her freedom—a penalty so far being thus imposed on such capricious behaviour. If, however, he should retain the person so acquired for his wife, and at the same time take another, the first was to be continued in her rights—‘her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage’ (Exodus 21:10.)—as if still she alone properly stood in the relation of spouse, and the other was superadded merely for show or fleshly indulgence. But did not this also involve a wrong, as well as the former mode of treatment? And was it not an anomaly in legislation, that she should have a certain compensation in the one case and none in the other? Nay, that while the man was bound by the nature of the marriage tie to be as one flesh with her, he should become the same with another person? Undoubtedly, a certain ground existed for such questions; and the spiritual guides of the community should have made it clear, that men had no constitutional right to act after such a fashion; that in doing so they violated great moral principles; and that the guilt and the responsibility of such procedure were all their own—the judicial statutes of the commonwealth only not interposing against it by specific enactments and penalties. In its moral bearings, the case was very nearly parallel with another, which has been even more generally excepted against, and by our Lord Himself was allowed to be justly liable to exception; that, namely, of a divorce executed against a wife for some cause less than actual infidelity. (Deuteronomy 24:1-4.) This was the point brought into consideration by the Pharisees; but it is proper to notice—the rather so as the English Bible fails to give a quite correct translation of the original—that it was not the one which formed the direct or formal subject of the statute. Exactly rendered, the passage stands thus:—‘When a man has taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she does not find favour in his sight, because he has found something of shame (or nakedness) in her, and he writes for her a bill of divorcement, and gives it into her hand, and sends her out of his house: and she has departed from his house, and gone and become another man’s: and the latter husband hates her, and writes for her a bill of divorcement, and gives it into her hand, and sends her forth out of his house, or the latter husband has died that took her to wife:—The first husband that sent her away cannot return to take her for his wife after she has been defiled; for that were abomination before Jehovah; and thou shalt not pollute the land which Jehovah thy God gives thee as an inheritance.’ Thus read, it will be seen that the thing directly forbidden in the passage is simply the return of the divorced woman to be again the wife of the man who had first divorced her; this would indicate a total looseness in regard to the marriage relationship, and was to be interdicted as an abomination which would utterly pollute the land. There is marked, indeed, a double or progressive defilement: the woman was defiled by her commerce with another man after being divorced from her first husband; and to re-marry her, when so defiled, was to aggravate the pollution. All, however, that goes before this prohibitory part is simple narration: when a man marries a woman, and is displeased with her, and gives her a bill of divorce, and sends her from him, and another man does after the same manner—not as our translators, after Luther and some others, ‘then let him write her a bill of divorce,’ and so on. The words do not properly admit of this rendering; and on that very point may be said to turn the diversity of view exhibited in the Gospel narrative, (Matthew 19:7-8.) the one presented by the Pharisees, the other given by our Lord. They asked, ‘Why did Moses command (ἐντείλατο) to give a writing of divorcement, and to put away?’ The Lord replied, ‘Moses, from respect (πρός) to the hardness of your hearts, suffered you (ἐπέτρεψεν ὑμῖν) to put away your wives:’—not a privilege to be enjoyed, or a duty to be discharged, but a permission or tolerance merely suffered to continue, because of Israel’s participation in the evil of the times—their moral unfitness for a more stringent application of the proper rule. The permission in question, so far as the Mosaic legislation was concerned, went no further than not distinctly pronouncing upon the practice, or positively interdicting it. The practice, it is implied, was not unknown; in all probability it prevailed extensively among the corrupt nations among whom Israel was to dwell (since things greatly worse were of everyday occurrence among them); and in so far as any might adopt it, the judicial authorities were not empowered to prevent it—that is all; but whatever rashness, or contravention of the proper spirit and design of the marriage relation might be involved in it, this lay still with the conscience of the individual; he was answerable for it. Viewed in respect to the grounds of his supposed procedure, there is a certain vagueness in the form of expression, which gave rise even in ancient times to very different modes of interpretation. The two chief words in the original (òÆøÀåÇú ãÌáÈø) certainly form a somewhat peculiar combination—strictly, nakedness of a matter, and as the term for nakedness is very commonly used for what is unbecoming or indecent, it may most naturally be regarded as indicating something distasteful or offensive in that direction. The two great Jewish schools, those of Hillel and Shammai, were divided in their opinions on the subject; the school of Hillel included in the expression everything that might cause dissatisfaction in the husband, even the bad cooking of his victuals, (See quotations in Lightfoot and Wetstein, on the passage in Matthew.) while the school of Shammai restricted it to uncleanness in the conjugal sense—defilement of the marriage bed. That something different, however, something less than this, must have been intended, is evident alone from a comparison of other parts of the Mosaic legislation, which ordained that a woman guilty of adultery should be, not divorced, but put to death. It is also evident from the explanation of our Lord, which ascribed this liberty of divorce to the hardness of the people’s hearts, and declared its inconsistence with the fundamental principle of the marriage union, which admitted of a justifiable dissolution only by the death or the adulterous behaviour of one of the parties. The truth appears to have lain between the two extremes of the Jewish schools referred to; and something short of actual impurity, yet tending in that direction something unbecoming, and fitted to create dislike in the mind of the husband, or take off his affections from her—was understood to form, in the case supposed, an occasion for dismissing a wife. It is also supposed, that if such a step were taken, it would be done in an orderly manner—not by a mere oral renouncement, as among some Eastern nations, but by a formal writing, which would usually require the employment of a neutral person, and perhaps also the signature of witnesses; that this writing should be deliberately put into the woman’s hand, and that she should thereafter leave the house and go to another place of abode. These things, requiring some degree of deliberation and time, and so far tending to serve as a check on the hasty impulses of passion, are not directly enjoined (as already said), but presupposed as customary and indispensable parts of the process in question; and the liberty thereby granted to the woman to ally herself to another man, coupled with the strict prohibition against a return to her first husband, were evidently intended as additional checks—reasons calling for very serious consideration before the consummation of an act which carried such consequences along with it. Still, the act could be done; no positive statute, capable of legal enforcement, was issued to prevent it; and was not the licence thus granted, however arising, a sign of imperfection? Beyond doubt it was; our Lord admits as much, when He accounts for it by the hardness of the people’s hearts. But the person who should avail himself of the licence was not thereby justified—no more than in Christian times a wife, or a husband, who, by wilful abandonment or criminal behaviour, turns the marriage bond into a nullity. The apostle distinctly states, that a believing woman is not bound by the law of her husband, when he, remaining in unbelief and displeased with her procedure, has forced her into separation; (1 Corinthians 7:15.) he holds such a case not to be included in the general law of Christ respecting the perpetuity of marriage, except through death or fornication; and, by parity of reason, the same must be held respecting parties, either of whom has become incapable of fulfilling matrimonial obligations, by being imprisoned or banished for life. There is here, at least, an approach to the Old Testament state of things, arising from the same cause, the hardness of the people’s hearts; and for the greater measure of licence, and consequently of practical imperfection adhering to the old, the question, in its moral bearings, resolves itself into a wider one—it touches the principle of progression in the Divine government; for if, in progress of time the light and privileges granted to men became much increased, should not the practical administration or discipline in God’s house receive a corresponding elevation? It stands to reason that it should; and hence certain things might be tolerated, in the sense of not being actively condemned, at an earlier stage of the Divine dispensations, which should no longer be borne with now; while still the standard of moral duty, absolutely considered, does not change, but is the same for men of every age. There is the same relative difference, and the same essential agreement, between the church in its present and in its ultimate stage on earth—the period of millennial glory: things tolerated now, will not be then. It is further to be borne in mind, that this, above all other points in the social system, was the one in respect to which Orientals stood at a relative disadvantage, and that feelings and practices were widely prevalent, which would render stringent regulations of a disciplinary kind worse than inoperative with a certain class of persons. There was comparatively little freedom of intercourse, prior to marriage, between the sexes, especially among those who were of age. In many cases espousals were made for the young, rather than by them; multitudes found themselves joined in wedlock who had scarcely ever seen each other—never, at least, mingled in familiar converse; and often, too, they came from such different classes of society and spheres of life, especially when the wife was purchased as a bond-maid, or taken as a captive in war, that it would have been a marvel if estrangements, jealousies, tempers that repelled each other rather than coalesced into a proper unity of heart and life, did not at times appear as the result. Still, doubtless, the moral obligation remained, growing out of the essential nature of the marriage relation, and no way invalidated but enforced by the tenor of the Mosaic revelation, that the parties should cleave one to another, and abstain from all that might tarnish the sanctity of their union, or mar the ends for which it was formed. But in such a state of things to exclude by positive and rigid enactment any possibility of relief, even for such as did not in their hearts realize that obligation, could only have tended to produce a recoil in the opposite direction; it would have led them probably to resort to violent measures to rid themselves of the hated object, or to employ such treatment as would have made death rather to be desired than life. The general regulations of the judicial code in respect to marriage, as well as to other points of moment, thus appear to admit of justification, when they are considered with reference to the actual condition of the world. But when particular cases are looked at, as they arose in the subsequent history of the people, things are certainly sometimes met with of which it is difficult to find any adequate explanation:—the case, for example, of Elimelech, a Levite, and apparently a man of probity, not only married to two wives without any specific reason assigned, but one of these (Hannah) a person of distinguished piety, and the subject of special direction and blessing from Heaven; much more the case of David, and that of his highly gifted and honoured son Solomon, adding wife to wife, and concubines to wives, without any apparent consciousness of wrong in the matter—yet all the while possessing the more peculiar endowments of God’s Spirit; and though receiving counsels, revelations, sometimes also rebukesfrom above, still never directly reproved for departing on this point from the right ways of the Lord. It is true, on the other hand, they had no proper warrant for what they did; they sinned against law—judicial as well as moral law; and it is also true, that painful results attended their course, such as might well be deemed practical reproofs. Such considerations do help us a certain way to the solution—we can say no more; perplexing difficulties still hang around the subject, which cannot mean while be cleared satisfactorily away, only they are difficulties which relate to the practical administration of affairs, rather than to the Divine constitution of the kingdom. There are certain things in other departments of which the same might be affirmed. But for all in the Old Economy that bears on it the explicit sanction of Heaven, though formally differing from what is now established, the principle so finely exhibited by Augustine in his contendings with the Manichees is perfectly applicable. Having compared the kingdom of God to a well-regulated house, in which for wise reasons certain things are permitted or enjoined at one time, which are prohibited at another, he adds: So is it with these persons who are indignant when they hear that something was allowed to good men in a former age, which is not allowed in this; and because God commanded one thing to the former, another thing to the latter, for reasons pertaining to the particular time, while each were alike obedient to the same righteousness:—And yet in a single man, and in a single day, and in a single dwelling, they may see one thing suiting one member, another a different one; one thing permitted just now, and again after a time prohibited; something allowed or ordered in a certain corner, which elsewhere is fitly forbidden or punished. Righteousness is not therefore various and mutable, is it? But the times over which it presides do not proceed in a uniform manner, just because they are times. But men, whose life on earth is short, because they are not able intelligently to harmonize the causes of earlier times and of other nations, of which they have not had cognizance, with those wherewith they are familiar—though in one body, or day, or house, they can easily see what would suit a particular member, particular times, particular offices or persons—take offence at the one, but fall in with the other.’ (Confes. L. III. c. 7. Sic sunt isti qui indignantur, cum audierint illo sæculo licuisse justis aliquid, quod isto non licet justis; et quia illis aliud prsecipit Deus, istis aliud pro temporalibus causis, cum eidem justitiæ utrique serviunt; cum in imo homine, et in urio die, et in unis ædibus videant aliud alii membro congruere, et aliud jamdudum licuisse, post horam non licere; quiddam in illo ingulo permitti aut juberi, quod in isto juste vetetur et vindecitur, etc.) III. There yet remains to be noticed the third great division of the Law namely, the rites and ceremonies which more directly pertained to religion; or, as it is very commonly designated, the Levitical code of worship and observance. In what are called the statutes and judgments, which immediately succeeded the delivery of the ten commandments, there is scarcely any reference made to ordinances of this description. A few words were spoken to the people respecting the kind of altar they should erect, (Exodus 20:24-26.) implying that sacrifices were to form an essential part of worship; also respecting the consecration of the first-born for special service to God, the offering of the first-fruits, and the appearance of the males annually at three stated feasts before the Lord; but that was all. And it was only after the covenant had been formally ratified and sealed with blood over ‘the ten words’ from Sinai, with those supplementary statutes, that the ritual of the Levitical system, in its more distinctive form, came into existence. From its very place in the history, therefore, it is to be regarded, not as of primary, but only of secondary moment in the constitution of the Divine kingdom in Israel; not itself the foundation, but a building raised on the foundation, and designed, by a wise accommodation to the state of things then present, and by the skilful use of material elements and earthly relations, to secure the proper working of what really was fundamental, and render it more certainly productive of the wished for results. The general connexion is this: God had already redeemed Israel for His peculiar people, called them to occupy a near relation to Himself, and proclaimed to them the great principles of truth and duty which were to regulate their procedure, so that they might be the true witnesses of His glory, and the inheritors of His blessing. And for the purpose of enabling them more readily to apprehend the nature of this relation, and more distinctly realize the things belonging to it, the Lord instituted a visible bond of fellowship, by planting in the midst of their dwellings a dwelling for Himself, and ordering everything in the structure of the dwelling, the services to be performed at it, and the access of the people to its courts, after such a manner as to keep up right impressions in their mind of the character of their Divine Head, and of what became them as sojourners with Him in the land that was to be emphatically His own. In such a case, it was indispensable that all should be done under the express direction of God’s hand; for it was as truly a revelation of His will to the members of the covenant as the direct utterances of His mouth; it must be made and ordered throughout according to the pattern of things presented to the view of Moses; while the people, on their part, were to shew their disposition to fall in with the design, by contributing the materials requisite for the purpose, and fulfilling the offices assigned them. (Exodus 25:2; Exodus 25:9; Exodus 25:40, etc.) The connexion now indicated between the revelation of law in the stricter sense, and the structure and use of the sacred dwelling, comes out very strikingly in the description given of the tabernacle, which, after mentioning the different kinds of material to be provided, begins first with the ark of the covenant—the repository, as it might equally be called, of the Decalogue, since it was merely a chest for containing the tables of the law, and as such was taken for the very seat or throne from which Jehovah manifested His presence and glory. (Exodus 25:21-22.) It was, therefore, the most sacred piece of furniture belonging to the Tabernacle—the centre from which all relating to men’s fellowship with God was to proceed, and to derive its essential character. To break this link of connexion between the ceremonial and the moral, or to invert their relative order as thus impressed from the first on the very framework of the Tabernacle, had been virtually to reject the plan of God, and frustrate the design contemplated in this part of His covenant arrangements. For those who practically ignored the revelation of truth and duty in the Decalogue, there was properly no house of God in Israel, no local throne, in connexion with which they could hold communion with the living Head of the Theocracy, and present acceptable worship before Him. And for such as did acknowledge and own that revelation, there could be only this one. The fundamental truth, that Jehovah the God of Israel is one Lord, before whom no other God can stand, nor even any form of worship be allowed which might countenance the idea of a diversity of nature or will in the supreme object of worship—this must have its expression in the absolute oneness of the place where Jehovah should put His name, and where, in the more peculiar acts of worship, He should be approached by the members of the covenant. The place itself might be different at one time from what it was at another; it was left, indeed, altogether undetermined at what particular point in the chosen territory, or even within what tribe, the sacred dwelling should have its location. This might change from one period to another; the dwelling itself also might, as the event proved, change its exterior form—pass from the humble tent to a gorgeous temple; but its unity must ever remain intact, so as to exclude the entrance of different theocratical centres, and thereby prevent what would, in those times, have been its inevitable sequence, the idea of a plurality of gods to be acknowledged and served. When we proceed from the sacred dwelling itself to the institutions and services associated with it, we find only further proofs of the close connexion between the Levitical code and the Decalogue, and of the dependence of the one upon the other. ‘The Levitical prescriptions,’ says Weber excellently, (‘Von Zorne Gottes,’ p. 143.) ‘follow the establishment of the covenant and its realization in the indwelling of Jehovah in Israel. They are not conditions, but consequences of the Sinaitic covenant. After Jehovah, in consequence of His covenant, had taken up His abode in Israel, and Israel must now dwell before Him, it was necessary to appoint the ordinances by which this intercourse should be carried on. Since Israel in itself is impure, and is constantly defiling itself, because its natural life stands under the power of sin, it cannot quite directly enter into fellowship with Jehovah; but what took place at Sinai must be ever repeating itself—it must first, in order to meet with Jehovah, undergo a purification. Hence, one department of the ordinances of purification in the Levitical part of the Law. But even when it has become pure, it still cannot approach Jehovah in any manner it may please, but only as He orders and appoints. It will not, in spite of all purifications, be so pure, as that it could venture to approach immediately to the Lord. The glory of the Lord enthroned above the cherubim would consume the impure. Therefore must Israel come near to the Lord through priests whom He has Himself chosen; and still not personally, but by means of the gifts which ascend in the fire and rise into Jehovah’s presence, nor even so without the offerer having been first covered from the fiery glance of the Holy One through the blood of His victim. This is the second part of the Levitical law.’ (In nothing is the imperfect and temporary nature of the Levitical economy more distinctly marked than in the appointment of a separate priest hood, which was rather necessitated by circumstances, and superinduced upon the original constitution of the Theocracy, than properly germane to its spirit. The priestly institution sprang out of the weaknesses and defections of the time (Exodus 19:21-24, Exodus 32:1-35; Leviticus 16:1-34, Numbers 16:1-50., etc.), hence was destined to puss away when a higher spiritual elevation was reached by the people of God. And this (as justly remarked by Ewald, Vol. II. p. 185) ‘is the finest characteristic of the Old Testament, that even when its original elevated truths suffer through the violence of the times, it still always gives us to recognise the original necessary thought, just because in this community itself the consciousness of it could never be wholly lost. At the last, there still stands prominently out, here and alone, the great gospel of Exodus 19:5, which was there before any kind of hereditary priesthood, and continues after it, however firmly such a priest hood had for long ages rooted itself; and even while it stood, the circumstance that this priesthood had always to tolerate by its side the freest prophetic function, prevented it from becoming altogether like an Egyptian or a Brahminical one.’) It would be impossible here, and, besides, is not required for the purpose we have more immediately in view, to go into all the details which belong to a complete and exhaustive treatment of the subject. It will be enough to indicate the leading points relating to it. There is, then, first of all, in the Levitical code, a teaching element, which leans upon and confirms that of the Decalogue. The grand lesson which it proclaimed through a multitude of rites and ordinances was, the pure, the good have access to God’s fellowship and blessing; the unholy, the wicked are excluded. But who constitute the one class, and who the other? Here the Levitical code may be said to be silent excepting in so far as certain natural and outward things were ingrafted into it as symbols of what, in the spiritual sphere, is good or evil. But for the things themselves which properly are such, it was necessary to look to the character of God, the Head of the Theocracy, and as such the type of all who belonged to it—to His character especially as revealed in that law of moral duty, which He took for the foundation of His throne and the centre of His government in Israel. There the great land marks of right and wrong, of holy and unholy in God’s sight, were set up; and in the Levitical code they are presupposed, and men’s attention called to them, by its manifold prescriptions concerning clean and unclean, defilement and purification. Thus, its divers washings and ever-recurring atonements by blood bespoke existing impurities, which were such because they were at variance with the law of righteousness imposed in the Decalogue. The Decalogue had pointed, by the predominantly negative form of its precepts, to the prevailing tendency in human nature to sin; and in like manner the Levitical code, by making everything that directly bore on generation and birth a source of uncleanness, perpetually reiterated in men’s ears the lesson, that corruption cleaved to them, that they were conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. The very institution of a separate order for immediate approach to God, and performing, in behalf of the community, the more sacred offices of religion, was, as already noticed, a visible sign of actual short comings and transgressions among the people: it was a standing testimony, that they were not holy after the lofty pattern of holiness exhibited in the law of Jehovah’s throne. The distinction, also, between clean and unclean in food, while it deprived them of nothing that was required either to gratify the taste or minister nourishment to the bodily life—granted them, indeed, what was best adapted for both—yet served as a daily monitor in respect to the spiritual dangers that encompassed them, and of the necessity of exercising themselves to a careful choosing between one class of things and another, re minded them of a good that was to be followed, and of an evil to be shunned. And then there is a whole series of defilements springing from contact with what is emphatically the wages of sin—death, or death’s livid image, the leprosy, which, wherever it alighted, struck a fatal blight into the organism of nature, and rendered it a certain prey to corruption:—things, the very sight and touch of which formed a call to humiliation, because carrying with them the mournful evidence, that, while sojourners with God, men still found themselves in the region of corruption and death, not in that brighter and purer region, where life, the life that is incorruptible and full of glory, for ever dwells. (The passages bearing on the particular subjects adverted to in the text are contained chiefly in Leviticus 10:1-20, Leviticus 11:1-47, Leviticus 12:1-8, Leviticus 13:1-59, Leviticus 14:1-57, Leviticus 15:1-33, Numbers 19:1-22. For detailed explanations respecting them, and the specific import of each as briefly indicated in the preceding remarks, see my ‘Typology,’ B. III. c. 8. Though some of the ordinances may now seem, in their didactic aspect, to be somewhat arbitrary, it would l>e quite otherwise for those who were accustomed to symbolical institutions; if sincere and earnest, they would readily pass from the natural to the spiritual, and would find in them all the lesson expressed in regard to the class first mentioned (Leviticus 11:44), that they should be holy as God Himself was holy.) Viewed in this light, the law of fleshly ordinances was a great teaching institute—not by itself, but when taken (according to its true intent) as an auxiliary to the law of the two tables. Isolated from these, and placed in an independent position, as having an end of its own to reach, its teaching would have been at variance with the truth of things; for it would have led men to make account of mere outward distinctions, and rest in corporeal observances. In such a case it would have been the antithesis rather than the complement of the law from Sinai, which gave to the moral element the supreme place, alike in God’s character, and in the homage and obedience He requires of His people. But, kept in its proper relation to that law, the Levitical code was for the members of the old covenant an important means of instruction; it plied them with warnings and admonitions respecting sin, as bringing defilement in the sight of God, and thereby excluding from His fellowship. That such, however, was the real design of this class of Levitical ordinances—that they had merely a subsidiary aim, and derived all their importance and value from the connexion in which they stood with the moral precepts of the Decalogue is evident from other considerations than those furnished by their own nature and their place in the Mosaic legislation. It is evident, first, from this, that whenever the special judgments of Heaven were denounced against the covenant people, it never was for neglect of those ceremonial observances, but always for palpable breaches of the precepts of the Decalogue; (Jeremiah 7:22-31; Ezekiel 8:1-18, Ezekiel 18:1-32; Hosea 4:1-3; Amos 2:4-9; Micah 5:1-15, Micah 6:1-16) evident, again, from this, that whenever the indispensable conditions of access to God’s house and abiding fellowship with His love are set forth, they are made to turn on conformity to the moral precepts, not to the ceremonial observances; (Psalms 15:1-5, Psalms 24:1-10, Psalms 1:1-6, etc.) evident, yet again and finally, from this, that whenever the ceremonial observances were put in the foreground by the people, as things distinct from, and in lieu of, obedience to the moral precepts, the procedure was denounced as arbitrary, and the service rejected as a mockery. (1 Samuel 15:22; Psalms 40:7, Psalms 40:1-17; Isaiah 1:2; Micah 6:8.) Beside the teaching element, however, which belonged to the Levitical institutions, there was another and still more important one, which we may call their mediating design. Here also they stood in a kind of supplementary relation to the law of the ten commandments, but a relation which implied something more than a simple re-echoing of their testimony respecting holiness and sin—something, indeed, essentially different. For that law, in revealing the righteous demands of God, from its very nature could make no allowance or provision for the sins and shortcomings by which those demands were dishonoured; it could but threaten condemnation, and, with its cry of guilt under the throne of God, terrify from His presence those who might venture to approach. But the Levitical code, with its mediating priesthood, its rites of expiation, and ordinances of cleansing, had for its very object the effecting of a restored communion with God for those who through sin had forfeited their right to it. While it by no means ignored the reality or the guilt of sin nay, assumed this as the very ground on which it rested, and so far coincided with the Decalogue—it, at the same time, secured for those who acknowledged their sin and humbled themselves on account of it, a way of reconciliation and peace with God. The more special means for effecting this was through sacrifice—the blood of slain Victims—the life-blood of an irrational creature, itself un conscious of sin, being accepted by God in His character of Redeemer for the life of the sinner. A mode of satisfaction no doubt in itself unsatisfactory, since there was no just correspondence between the merely sensuous life of an unthinking animal and the higher life of a rational and responsible being; in the strict reckoning of justice the one could form no adequate compensation for the other. But in this respect it was not singular; it was part of a scheme of things which bore throughout the marks of relative imperfection. The sanctuary itself, which was of narrow dimensions and composed of earthly and perishable materials, how poor a representation was it of the dwelling-place of Him who fills heaven and earth with His presence! And the occasional access of a few ministering priests into the courts of that worldly sanctuary—an access into its inmost receptacle by one person only, and by him only once a year—how imperfect an image of the believer’s freedom of intercourse with God, and habitual consciousness of His favour and blessing! Such things might be said to lie upon the surface, and could not fail, as we shall see, to give a specific direction to the minds of the more thoughtful and spiritual worshippers. But there still was, in the structure of the tabernacle, and the regulated services of its worship, a provisional arrangement of Divine ordination by which transgressors, otherwise excluded, might obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and enjoy the blessings of communion with Heaven. Through this appointed channel God did in very deed dwell with men on earth; and men, who would have been repelled with terror by His fiery law, could come nigh to His seat, and in spirit dwell as in the secret of His presence. (For the specific ordinances, I must again refer to my ‘Typology,’ Vol. II.) One can easily see, however, that the very imperfections attendant on this state of things required that its working be very carefully guarded. Definite checks and limits must be set to the possibility of obtaining the blessings of forgiveness. For, had an indefinite liberty been given to make propitiation for sin, and to wash away the stains of its defilement, how certainly would it have degenerated into a corrupt and dangerous license! The Levitical code would have become the foster-mother of iniquity. The ready access it gave to the means of purification would have encouraged men to proceed on their evil courses, assured that if they should add sin to sin they might also bring victim after victim to expiate their guilt. Therefore, the right and privilege of expiation were limited to sins of infirmity, or such as spring from the weakness and imperfection of nature in a world abounding with temptation; while sins committed with a high hand, that is, in open and deliberate violation of the great precepts of the Decalogue, were appointed only to judgment, as subversive of the very ends of the Theocracy. (Leviticus 4:2; Numbers 15:22-30.) So that here, again, the Levitical code of ordinances leant on the fundamental law of the Decalogue, and did obeisance to its supreme authority. Only they who devoutly recognised this law, and in their conscience strove to walk according to its precepts, had any title to an interest in the provisions sanctioned for the blotting out of transgression, Then, as now, ‘to walk in darkness,’ or persistently adhere to the practice of iniquity, was utterly incompatible with having fellowship with God. (1 John 1:6.) One thing further requires to be noted respecting the Levitical institutions, which is, that while under one aspect they constituted the rights and privileges of the Israelite, under another they added to his obligations of duty. They took the form of law, as well as the Decalogue, and, wilful violators of its prescriptions, were not less amenable to justice than those who were guilty of gross immorality. (Leviticus 7:20; Leviticus 17:4; Leviticus 17:14; Numbers 9:13.) And the reason is obvious: for these Levitical ordinances of purification bore on them the authority of God as well as those which related to the strictly moral sphere, and to set them at nought was to dishonour God; it was also to make light of the means He had appointed—the only available means—of having the guilt of transgression covered, which therefore remained unforgiven, yea aggravated, by the despite that was done to the riches of God’s mercy. Yet, practically, the difficulty and the danger did not lie much in this particular direction. Though guilt was no doubt frequently incurred by neglecting the provisions and requirements of the Levitical code, yet this was sure to be preceded and accompanied by the far greater guilt of violating the fundamental precepts of the Decalogue. And, hence, it was always guilt of this latter description which drew down the heaviest judgments. If anything, indeed, has more clearly discovered itself than another, from the whole of this investigation, it is the fundamental character of the Decalogue—its pre-eminent and singular place in the Revelation of Law. This was itself emphatically THE LAW; and all, besides, which bore that name was but of secondary rank, and derived its proper value and significance from the relation in which it stood to the other. Hence, the prominent regard, as in due time will appear, which, in the use of the term Law by our Lord and His apostles, was had to the moral precepts of the Decalogue. Hence, also, the groundlessness of the statement, which has been often made by modern writers, that the distinction, with which we are so familiar, between t moral and ceremonial, was not so sharply drawn in the Books of Moses, and that precepts of both kinds are there often thrown together, as if, in Jewish apprehension, no very material difference existed between them. It is easy to pick out a few quotations which give a plausible support to such a view. But a careful examination of the subject as a whole, and of the relation in which one part stands to another, yields a quite different result. And Mr Maurice does not put it too strongly when he says, ‘The distinction between these commandments and the mere statutes of the Jewish people has strongly commended itself to the conscience of modern nations, not because they have denied the latter to have a divine origin, but because they have felt that the same wisdom which adapted a certain class of commands to the peculiarities of one locality and age, must intend a different one for another. The ten commandments have no such limitation. . . . All the sub sequent legislation, though referred to the same authority, is separated from these. All the subsequent history was a witness to the Jew, that in the setting up of any god besides the Unseen Deliverer; in the fancy that there could be any likeness of Him in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; in the loss of awe for His name; in the loss of the distinction between work and rest as the ground of man’s life, and as having its archetype in the Divine Being, and as worked by Him into the tissue of the existence of His own people; in the loss of reverence for parents, for life, for marriage, for property, for character; and in the covetous feeling which is at the root of hese evls, lay the sources of political disunion, and the loss of all personal dignity and manliness.’ (‘Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy,’ p. 13.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: 04.06. LECTURE 5. ======================================================================== Lecture 5. The Position And Calling Of Israel As Placed Under The Covenant Of Law, What Precisely Involved In It—False Views On The Subject Exposed—The Moral Results Of The Economy, According As The Law Was Legitimately Used Or The Reverse. HAVING now considered the nature of the Law as revealed from Sinai, and the relation in which both the judicial statutes and the Levitical ordinances stood to it, our next line of investigation naturally turns on Israel’s position under it; in which respect such questions as these press themselves on our regard: How did the being placed under the covenant of law of itself tend to affect the real well-being of Israel as a people? or their representative character as the seed of blessing, the types of a redeemed church? How far did the proper effects of the covenant realize themselves in their history, or others not proper—the result of their own neglect and waywardness—come in their stead? And did the covenant, in consequence of the things, whether of the one sort or the other, which transpired during its continuance, undergo any material alterations, or remain essentially the same till the bringing in of the new covenant by the mission and work of Christ? 1. In entering upon the line of thought to which such questions point, we are struck at the outset with a somewhat remarkable diversity in the representations of Scripture itself respecting the natural tendency and bearing of the law on those who were subject to it. Coming expressly from Jehovah in the character of Israel’s Redeemer, it cannot be contemplated otherwise than as carrying a benign aspect, and aiming at happy results. Moses extolled the condition of Israel as on this very account surpassing that of all other people: ‘What nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day.’ (Deuteronomy 4:7-8.) The very last recorded utterance of the legislator was a rapturous exclamation over Israel’s now enviable condition and joyful prospects: ‘Happy art thou, Israel; who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord!’ (Deuteronomy 33:29.) And the sentiment is re-echoed under various forms in other parts of ancient Scripture, especially in the Psalms. Among the great acts of mercy and loving-kindness for which the Lord is praised in Psalms 103:1-22, is the fact that ‘He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel;’ or, as it is put in another Psalm, ‘He shewed His statutes and His judgments to Israel; He hath not dealt so with any nation.’ (Psalms 147:19-20.) And then the law itself, and the blessedness arising from a just acquaintance with its precepts, are celebrated in the very strongest terms: ‘The law of the Lord is perfect, converting (quickening) the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple: the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.’ (Psalms 19:7-8.) ‘O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.’ ‘I will never forget thy precepts, for with them thou hast quickened me;’ and, generally, ‘Great peace have they who love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.’ (Psalms 119:93; Psalms 119:97; Psalms 119:165.) But another set of passages appear to point in the very opposite direction; they represent the law as a source of terror or trouble—a bondage from which it is true liberty to escape: ‘The law worketh wrath;’ ‘by the law is the knowledge of sin;’ ‘the strength of sin is the law;’ and referring distinctly to the law in the stricter sense—as indeed these other passages also do the law engraven in stones the apostle designates it the ‘ministration of condemnation and of death.’ (Romans 3:20; Romans 4:15; 1 Corinthians 15:56; 2 Corinthians 3:7; 2 Corinthians 3:9; Galatians 4:1-3; Galatians 5:1-3.) It is clear, on a moment’s reflection, that such diverse, antagonistic representations could not have been given of the law in the same respects, or with the same regard to its direct and primary aim. If both alike were true—as we cannot doubt they were, being alike found in the volume of inspiration—it must be from the law having been contemplated in one of them from a different point of view, or with regard to different uses and applications of it from what it was in the other. At present, as we have to do with the place of the law in the Old Testament economy, it is more especially the happier class of representations which come into consideration; they may fitly, at least, be viewed as occupying the foreground, while the others may come into particular notice after wards. 2. Now, the view which we have seen reason to take of the nature of the law as revealed through Moses, will render it unnecessary to do more than make a passing reference to such modes of explanation as would resolve every thing in the covenant with Israel into merely outward and carnal elements—would make the law, as delivered to them at Sinai, a comparatively easy and lightsome thing—satisfied if it could but secure outward worshippers of Jehovah, and respectable citizens of the commonwealth. The law, we are told by writers of this class, was one that dealt only ‘in negative measures:’ ‘the precepts were negative that the obedience might be the more possible;’ and he was ‘the good man who could not be excused to have done what the law forbade, he who had done the fewest evils.’ So Jeremy Taylor, (‘On Conscience,’ B. II. c. 2, sec. 4; c. 3, sec. 2.) and at more length Spencer, in his learned work on the Laws of the Hebrews, who endeavoured to shew that the one great end of the Decalogue, as well as of the ceremonial law, was to extirpate idolatry, and the fruits that more immediately spring from it. (L. 1:c. 2.) Warburton improved on it a little, by turning the negative respecting idolatry into a positive respecting God; but that was all. The primary end of the law (moral and ceremonial alike) according to him was, ‘not to keep the Israelites from idolatry,’ but ‘to preserve the memory of the one God in an idolatrous world till the coming of Christ,’ (‘Leg. of Moses,’ B. V. sec. 2.) a distinction, one might almost say, without a difference, and of use only as a polemical weapon in the hands of its author. Michaelis followed in the same track, and could find nothing in the first part of the Decalogue but a provision for the acknowledgment and worship of one God, in opposition to the idolatries of heathenism, nor in the second not even as condensed into the positive form of love to one’s neighbour as one’s-self—but a dry injunction to have respect to one another’s civil rights. (‘Laws of Moses,’ sees. 34, 72.) And to mention no more (though many more might be noticed), we meet, in a comparatively late work, with such assertions as the following respecting the Old Covenant, which had the law of the two tables for its basis, that ‘it had nothing whatever to do with any, except with the nation of Israel, and nothing whatever with any mere individual in that nation; that it was made with the nation collectively, and was entirely temporal;’ that its whole substance lay in this, God promised to give the land of Canaan to the nation of Israel, so long, but ‘only so long, as the nation collectively acknowledged Jehovah as the one God.’ Hence the holiness required was ‘quite irrespective of individual righteousness;’ Israel was still the holy nation, whatever sins might be harboured in its bosom, so long as it did not cease from the formal recognition and worship of Jehovah. (Johnstone’s ‘Israel after the Flesh,’ pp. 7, 87.) We appeal from all such representations to the plain reading of the law itself (as we have endeavoured to give it), looked at, as it should be, in its historical connection and its general bearings. The blinding influence of theory will obscure even the clearest light; but it is scarcely possible that any unbiassed mind should apply itself earnestly to the subject, and take up with so partial and meagre a view of what, not in one place merely, but in all Scripture, is made known to us as distinctively God’s revelation of law to men. The immediate circumstances that led to it—the special acts and announcements which might be said to form its historical introduction, are alone sufficient to compel a higher estimate of the revelation. The people had just been rescued, it was declared, from Egypt, had been borne by God on eagles’ wings, and brought to Himself—for what? Not simply that they might acknowledge His existence, or preserve His memory, in the face of surrounding idolatry, but that they might ‘obey His voice and keep His covenant,’ and so be to Him ‘a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.’ (Exodus 19:4-6.) Peculiar nearness to God in position, and, as the proper consequence and result of that, knowing and reflecting His character, entering into His mind and will, striving to be holy as He is holy—this was the end to which all was directed—the purpose, also, for which they stood before God as a separate people, and were gathered around Sinai to hear the law from His mouth:—And if that law had been aught else than a real disclosure of the mind of God as to what he demands of His people toward Himself and toward each other in the vital interests of truth and righteousness, it had been (we need not hesitate to say it) beneath the occasion; failing, as it should have done, to present the proper ideal, which it was Israel’s calling to endeavour constantly to have realized. The formal acknowledgment, forsooth, of Jehovah as the one true God, and paying due respect to one another’s civil rights! And that, too, chiefly in the general, without any distinct bond of obligation on the individual conscience, quite irrespective of personal righteousness! Was this a thing so important in itself, so well-pleasing in the eyes of the pure and heart-searching Jehovah, that the law requiring it should have been laid as the very foundation of His throne in Israel, and that the period of its promulgation should have formed a marked era in the history of His dispensations among men? The thought is not for a moment to be entertained. The eternal God could not so abnegate or demean Himself no more for any temporal purpose than for one directly bearing on the interests of eternity; for in such a matter nothing is determined by the mere element of duration. He could not, in consistence with His own unchangeable character, either ask or accept what should be other than a fit expression of the homage that is supremely due to Him, and the love that willingly yields itself to His requirements. (‘To know and to serve God, that is religion, whether it be with a view to the present life or to the next, and whatever inducements or encouragements He may choose to supply. The greatest rewards of endless felicity sought, or expected, in any other service than His, cannot consecrate that service, nor make it a part of essential religion. In every original right of moral authority, the essence of the obligation, and the virtue of compliance with it, are independent of the kind, or the degree, of the retribution annexed .’—Davison ‘On Prophecy,’ Dis. IV.) This, also, is what a fair examination of the law itself has impressed upon our minds. Were it necessary to say more, we might add, that there is a conclusive historical reason against the view of the law, and the polity founded on it, to which we have been adverting. According to it, the religion of the Old Covenant had been nothing more than a kind of bald theism, adapted to the circumstances of the time—a sort of natural religion, enshrined amid a cumbrous framework of ordinances and political regulations, which partly humoured the semi-heathenish state of the people, and partly kept them off from the more flagrant pagan corruptions. Had that, however, been all, the Jews of our Lord’s time should have been presented to our view as the best exemplars and most satisfactory results of the Sinaitic covenant. For in what age of its continuance was the doctrine of the unity more strictly adhered to? or when were the institutions connected with it more generally and punctually observed? It will not do to say, by way of explanation, that in rejecting Jesus they set themselves against the very Head of the Theocracy, and so ran counter to its primary design; for it was not in that character that He formally appeared and claimed the homage of men, but rather as Himself the living embodiment of its great principles, the culmination of its spiritual aims. It was the practical oversight of these which constituted the fatal error of those later Jews; and the theoretical oversight of the same, in any view that may be taken of the covenant of law under which they were placed, must be equally fatal to its acceptance. 2. Belonging almost to the opposite pole of theological sentiment, writers of the Cocceian school have sometimes gone to a different extreme, and have given, if not a false, yet an artificial and perplexing, rather than a plain and Scriptural view of Israel’s position under the law. They were themselves embarrassed by the habit of ranging everything pertaining to covenant engagements under one of two heads—the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. They differ, however, to some extent in their mode of representation—all, indeed, holding that the ten commandments, in which the covenant of law more peculiarly stood, was for substance the same with the covenant of works; in other words, embodied that perfect rule of rectitude, on conformity to which hung man’s original possession of life and blessing; but differing as to the precise form or aspect under which they supposed this rule of rectitude to have been presented to Israel in the Sinaitic covenant. Cocceius himself, in his mode of representation, did not differ materially from the view of Calvin, and that generally of the Reformed theologians. He held that the Decalogue was not formally proposed to the Israelites as the covenant of works; that it proceeded from Jehovah as the God and Redeemer of Israel, implying that He had entered with them into a covenant of grace; that the covenant of law was given to subserve that covenant of grace, pointing out and enjoining what was necessary to be done, in order that the children of the covenant might see how they should live, if they were to enjoy its blessings—precisely as the evangelical precepts and exhortations in the New Testament do in subservience to the Gospel. Its language, he thinks, was not, I demand that you do these precepts, and so live (this had been to mock men with impossibilities); but, I have called you to life, and now, laying aside fear, come and hear my voice. (Animad. de Vet. Test. Quæst. 33; also De Foed., chap. 11:49-58.) Indeed, one might say Cocceius leant rather too much to the assimilation of the law to the form of things in the New Testament Scriptures. Witsius, the more systematic expounder of the Cocceian theology, discriminates more exactly; he finds in the precepts of the Decalogue the moral elements of the covenant of works, and in the terror and majesty with which they were delivered, a sort of reduplication (ingeminationem) of the covenant of works; but still they were not proposed in the character of that covenant, as if through obedience to its precepts the people were to attain to life; they only assumed somewhat of the appearance of the covenant of works to convince the people of their sinfulness, and drive them out of themselves to look for the hope of salvation in Christ. But with all this it in reality assumed and was founded upon the covenant of grace already made with Israel—Israel, as partakers in such a covenant of grace, promising to God a sincere observance of the precepts imposed, and God in turn promising to accept and bless such observance, though in itself imperfect. (De Œcon. Foederum, Lib. IV. chap. iv. secs. 47-54. It is astonishing how Mr Johnstone, if he really had the entire work of Witsius in his hands, could have so grossly misrepresented his views on this subject. He says, p. 3, ‘It is the usual, but an utterly unfounded conception of the old covenant, that “it points out the way in which, by means of works, salvation is obtained;” that “the form of this covenant is, The man which doeth these things shall live by them, and that in it there is a promise of eternal life, consisting in the immediate fruition of God.” I do not hesitate to say, that there is not the shadow of an authority for this all but universal view of the old covenant.’ The authority referred to, and briefly quoted, for this sweeping declaration, is Witsius, De Œcon. Foederum, Lib. I. chap. i. sec. 15. But there Witsius is treating, not of the old covenant properly so called, but of the covenants abstractly—namely, of works and grace. It is at a much later part of his treatise that he comes to discuss the old covenant, or covenant of law, and which, as we have said, he holds to have been neither formally a covenant of works nor a covenant of grace. As for the assertion that the view ascribed to Witsius is nearly universal, we can only designate it as for present times a great exaggeration.) A different view, however, came to prevail pretty generally among the English Puritans, who generally belonged to the Cocceian school, and found its expression in a book which attained to great popularity, and became the occasion of a prolonged controversy—Fisher’s ‘Marrow of Modern Divinity.’ Here it is broadly asserted, and at some length maintained, that the ten commandments were formally delivered on Mount Sinai as the covenant of works, or as a renewal of the Adamic covenant—not, however, as if the Israelites were expected to fulfil it, and justify themselves by deeds of law—but for this, and no other end, ‘that man being thereby convinced of his weakness, might flee to Christ. So that it was renewed only to help forward and introduce another and a better covenant.’ (Part I. chap. ii.) And various authors are referred to as having previously adopted the same style of representation (in particular Preston, Pemble, Walker). Boston, who was a more correct theologian, and a more discriminating writer, than the author of the ‘Marrow,’ in his notes to that work admits that the view in question was held by ‘some late learned writers,’ but gave it only a qualified approval. He conceives that both covenants were delivered on Mount Sinai to the Israelites: ‘First, the covenant of grace made with Abraham, contained in the preface, repeated and promulgated there to Israel, to be believed and embraced by faith, that they might be saved; to which were annexed the ten commandments, given by the Mediator Christ, the head of the covenant, as a rule of life to His covenant people. Secondly, the covenant of works made with Adam, contained in the same ten commands, delivered with thunderings and lightnings, the meaning of which was afterwards cleared by Moses describing the righteousness of the law and the sanction thereof, as the original perfect rule of righteousness to be obeyed; and yet they were no more bound thereby to seek righteousness by the law than the young man was by our Saviour’s saying to him, If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.’ Thus, he adds, ‘there is no confounding of the two covenants of grace and works.’ (Substantially the same representation is given by Colquhoun, ‘Law and Grace,’ chap. I. sec. ii; Beart’s ‘Eternal Law and Everlasting Gospel;’ and, to name no more, in the work of the late Dr R. Gordon, ‘Christ in the Old Testament,’ Vol. I. p. 385, seq. It is there said, ‘The giving of the law was thus a new exhibition of the covenant of works—a declaration of what was necessarily incumbent on men, if they expected to secure for themselves the favour and fellowship of God;’ while, shortly after, it is denied that ‘the law was prescribed to Israel as the covenant of works, so as that their acceptance with God absolutely depended on their fulfilling the condition of that covenant.’ This ground of acceptance is referred to the previous exhibition of grace and mercy. What we except to in such a statement is, that it is fitted to create confusion, to embarrass and perplex people’s minds. It was adopted by the writers in question very much from the view they took of the passages, Romans 10:5, Galatians 3:12, where the righteousness of works is described in language derived from the writings of Moses. But see the exposition on Romans 10:5, in Supplement.) I fear, in saying this, the good man forgot at what period it was in the Divine dispensations that the law was given from Sinai. It was still the comparatively dim twilight of revelation, when the plan of God could be seen only in a few broken lines and provisional arrangements, which tended to veil, even while they disclosed the truth. The men of that age could not so easily distinguish between the two aspects of law here presented, even if they had got some hint of the diversity; but, as matters actually stood, it could scarcely be said, that the two were ever distinctly before them. No one can read the history of the transaction without being convinced, that in whatever character the law was declared to the Israelites and established with them as a covenant, it carried with it the bond of a sacred obligation which they were to strive to make good; and of any other meaning or design, either on God’s part in imposing, or on their part in accepting the obligation, the narrative is entirely silent. 3. But a class—one can scarcely say of theologians (for the name would be misapplied to persons who in most things make so complete a travesty of Scripture)—a class, however, of very dogmatic writers (the Plymouthists) have recently pushed to its full extreme the view of the law just stated as the covenant of works—not, like the later Cocceians, as a kind of side view or secondary aspect which might also be taken of it, but as its direct, formal, and only proper character. ‘Law,’ we are told by one of them, ‘was a distinct and definite dispensation of God, according to which life was promised consequent on obedience, and had its whole nature from this, a righteousness characterized by this principle: obedience first, then life therein, righteousness.’ (Darby ‘On the Law,’ p. 22.) This is given as the import of ‘the reasoning of the apostles’ on the subject; and another of the party, in his ‘Notes on Exodus,’ interprets the narrative respecting the giving of the law so as to make it tell in support of the same view. When God, in the nineteenth chapter of Exodus, delivered to Moses on the mount the tender and touching address, in which He related what He had done for the people, what He now called them to be in honour and blessing, and how, in order to maintain and enjoy this, they must be ready to obey His voice and keep His covenant; and when Moses, after hearing the words, went at God’s bidding and reported them to the people, and received for answer, ‘All that the Lord hath spoken we will do’—this, we are told, was a virtual renunciation, on the part of Israel, of their blessed position: ‘instead of rejoicing in God’s holy promise, they undertook the most presumptuous vow that mortal lips could utter. Nor was this the language of a few vain, self-confident spirits, who presumed to single themselves out from the whole congregation. No, “All the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.”’ (‘Notes on Exodus,’ by A. M., p. 232.) And then we are informed, that because of this proud and presumptuous spirit, the Lord immediately gave ‘a total alteration to the aspect of things:’ He wrapt Himself up in the cloud of thick darkness, assumed an appearance of terrible majesty, and issued that fiery law, the object of which was to shew them how incompetent they were to fulfil what they had undertaken, to reveal what on their own assumption they ought to be, and place them under the curse for not being it. If this were the correct reading of the matter, why, we naturally ask, should God Himself have taken the initiative in this so-called abandonment of the covenant of promise? for it was He who sent Moses to the people with the words, which manifestly sought to evoke an affirmative reply. Why, after such a reply was returned, did it call forth no formal rebuke, if so be it displayed an in tolerable arrogancy and presumption? and the reason, the only reason, assigned for the Lord’s declared intention to appear presently in a thick cloud, why should this have been simply that the people might hear His voice, and believe Moses for ever? (Exodus 19:9.) Why, also, at the rehearsal of the transactions in the book of Deuteronomy, did God say, ‘The people had well said all they had spoken,’ and only further breathed the wish, ‘O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children for ever?’ (Deuteronomy 5:28-29.) Why, above all, if the case were as now represented, should the formalities of a covenant transaction have been gone through in the name of God over the words uttered by Him and responded to by the people—based, as it must in that case have been, on what were known on the one side to be impossible conditions, and on the other palpable delusions and lies? And why, after all, should Israel not the less, but the more rather, have been pronounced most exalted in privilege, peculiarly destined to honour and blessing? (Exodus 23:27-29; Deut. 6:33.) Nothing, surely, can be more fitted to shake our confidence in the transparent simplicity and faithfulness of God’s recorded dealings with men, than to be taught, as by a look from behind the scenes, that what wears the aspect of a solemn transaction, was in reality but a formal display or an empty mockery. And such, beyond all reasonable doubt, would be the effect with the great majority of minds, if the mode of representation before us should come to be accepted as valid. 4. But it rests upon no solid ground, and has more the character of an interpolation thrust into the sacred record than a fair and natural interpretation of its contents. The revelation of law from Sinai did not come forth in independence, as if it were to lay the foundation of something altogether new in men’s experience; nor did it proceed from God in His character as the God of nature, exercising His right to impose commands of service on the consciences of His creatures, which with no other helps and endowments than those of nature, they were required with unfailing rectitude to fulfil;—not, therefore, when when made to take the form of a covenant, was it with the view of exacting what must be given as the prior and indispensable conditions of life and joy? No, the history of Israel knows nothing of law except in connection with promise and blessing. (Harless, ‘Ethik.,’ sec. 13.) It was as the Redeemer of Israel that God spake the words as in a special sense Israel’s God (‘I am Jehovah thy God’) a relation which, we have our Lord’s explicit testimony for asserting, carries in its bosom the dowry of life eternal; (Luke 20:37-38.) so that grace here also took precedence of law, life of righteousness; and the covenant of law, assuming and rooting itself in the prior covenant of grace, only came to shut, the heirs of promise up to that course of dutiful obedience toward God, and brotherly kindness toward each other, by which alone they could accomplish the higher ends of their calling. In form merely was there anything new in this, not in I. For what else was involved in the command given to Abraham, at the establishment of the covenant of promise, to have it sealed with the ordinance of circumcision—the symbol of a sanctified nature and a holy life? Nay, even before that, the same thing in effect was done, when the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, ‘I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect,’ (Genesis 17:1.)—a word which (as Cocceius justly observes) (De Foed., c. xi. sec. 338.) was comprehensive of all true service and righteous behaviour. But an advance was made by the entrance of the law over such preceding calls and appointments, and it was this—the obligation to rectitude of life resting upon the heirs of promise was now thrown into a categorical and imperative form, embracing the entire round of moral and religious duty; yet, not that they might by the observance of this work themselves into a blissful relation to God, but that, as already standing in such a relation, they might walk worthy of it, and become filled with the fruits of righteousness, which alone could either prove the reality of their interest in God, or fulfil the calling they had received from Him. 5. It is true, the people who entered into the bond of the covenant, as thus proposed, could not of themselves keep the precepts of the law; and the shameful back sliding which took place so shortly after they had formally undertaken to do all that was commanded, but too plainly shewed how little they yet understood either the height of their obligations, or the degree of moral strength that would be required to meet them. It was but gradually, and through a succession of painful and trying experiences, that the truth in this respect could work itself into their minds. The law undoubtedly was exceeding broad. In its matter, that is, in the reach and compass of its requirements, it did (as the writers formerly referred to maintained) comprise the sum of moral excellence—the full measure of goodness that man as man is bound to yield to God and his fellow-men. It was impossible that God, in His formal revelation of law to His people, could propound less as the aim of their spiritual endeavours; for conformity to His mind and will, to be made holy or good after the type of that which He Himself is, was the ultimate design contemplated in His covenant arrangements. But in these arrangements He stood also pledged to His people as the author of life and blessing; and that mercy and loving-kindness which prompted Him so to interpose in their behalf, and which (as if to prevent misapprehension) He embodied even in His revelation of law, could not possibly be wanting, if earnestly sought for the ministration of such help as might be needed to enable them to give, though not a faultless, yet a hearty and steadfast obedience. Was not the whole tabernacle service, springing from the covenant of Sinai as its centre, and ever circling around it, a standing and palpable proof of this? Through the rites and ordinances of that service, access continually lay open for them to God, as their ever-present guardian and strength; there the incense of prayer was perpetually ascending to draw down supplies of help on the needy: and when consciousness of sin clouded their interest in God, and troubled them with apprehensions of deserved wrath, there was the blood of atonement ready to blot out their guilt, and quicken them, under a fresh sense of forgiveness, to run the way of God’s commandments. Thus viewed, every thing is in its proper place; and the covenant of law, instead of coming to supersede the earlier covenant of promise, was introduced merely as an handmaid to minister to its design, and help forward the moral aims it sought to promote. 6. If now we turn to the writings of the Old Covenant, we shall find the evidence they furnish in perfect accordance with the view just given; only, we must take it under two divisions the one as connected with the sincere members of the covenant, who made an honest, a legitimate use of the things belonging to it; the other with such as made an illegitimate use of them, whose hearts were not right with God, and who only incidentally, and as it were by contraries, became witnesses to the truth. We shall look successively at both, considering each under a threefold aspect—with reference to God, to sin and holiness, and to salvation. 7. We look, then, in the first instance, to those who may be regarded as the more proper representatives of the Old Covenant; and to these, primarily, in respect to what concerns their relation to God—His being and character. It was certainly not, as we have had occasion already to state, the sole design of the moral law, or even of the first table of the law, to preserve the belief in one personal God, as opposed to the polytheism of the ancient world; but this was, unquestionably, a very prominent and fundamental part of the design. The tendency in those remote times was all in the opposite direction. Polytheism, the offspring of guilt and terror, leading to the deification and worship of the powers of nature under the different aspects in which they present themselves to the natural mind, set in like a mighty flood, and swept over the earth with an all-subduing force. The very name of religion came to be identified, in the different countries of the world, with the adoration of these false gods; and as civilization and refinement advanced, it became associated with all that was imposing in architecture, beautiful in art, joyous and attractive in public life. There was just one region of the earth, one little territory, within which for many an age this wide-wasting moral pestilence was withstood—not even there without sharp contendings and struggles, maintained sometimes against fearful odds; yet the truth held its place, the moral barrier raised in defence of it by the Decalogue preserved the better portion of the covenant-people from the dangers which in this respect beset them—preserved them in the knowledge and belief of one God, as the sovereign Lord and moral Governor of the world. So deeply did this great truth, from the prominence given to it in the Old Covenant, and the awful sanctions there thrown around it, strike its roots into the hearts and consciences of the people, that it was not only handed down through successive ages in the face of every adverse influence, but made itself practically known as a principle of commanding power and ennobling influence. Of this the writings of the Old Testament are a varied and pro longed witness. These writings were indited by men of very different grades of intellect and feeling, composed in circumstances, too, and at periods, widely remote from each other; yet they are all pervaded by one spirit; they exhibit a profound belief in the existence of one God, as the moral Governor of the world, and in His right—His sole and indefeasible right—to the homage and obedience of men. It is the religious view of the world, of the events of life and the interests of mankind,—the relation in which these severally stand to the one living God—which is continually presented in them, and stamps them with a quite peculiar character and a permanent value. What has antiquity transmitted to us that in this respect may be compared to them? We have, doubtless, much to learn from the literature of Greece and Home, as regards the history of kingdoms, the development and portraiture of character, the arts and refinements of the natural life; but it is to the writings which enshrined the principles and breathed the spirit of the Divine law, that the nations of the world are indebted for that knowledge of God, which is the foundation at once of true religion and of sound morality. (See Luthardt’s ‘Fundamental Truths of Christianity,’ Lecture VIII.) Look at the matter for a moment in its concrete form. See the mighty difference which appears between Hebrew monotheism and the polytheism of heathendom, even in its better phases, on that memorable occasion, in the closing period of the old economy, when the extremes of both might be said to meet—the one as represented by the polished senators of Athens, the other by Paul of Tarsus. There cannot well be conceived a bolder, and, morally, a more sublime attitude, than was presented by this man of God when, addressing the supreme council of the city on Mars’ hill, he assailed the idolatry of Greece in the very metropolis of its dominion, and in the presence of its most wonderful creations. On that elevated plat form of religion and art, he had immediately in front of him the Acropolis, adorned with an entire series of statues and temples:—among others, the Propylaea, one of the most expensive and beautiful works of Athenian architecture, with its temple and bronze statue of Minerva, under the name of Niké Apteros (wingless victory); the Erectheium, the most revered of all the sanctuaries of Athens, containing, as it did, the most ancient statue of their patron goddess, which was supposed to have fallen down from heaven, and the sacred olive tree which she was believed to have called forth from the earth in her contest with Neptune for the guardianship of the city; and, towering above all, the Parthenon, the most perfect structure of ancient heathendom, with its gold and ivory statue of Minerva, the masterpiece of Phidias; and sculptures besides of such exquisite workmanship, that the mutilated remains of them have been the admiration of the world, and, when made accessible in recent times to the studious of other lands, served to give a fresh impulse and higher style to the cultivation of modern art:—Think of all this, and then think of Paul of Tarsus, an unknown and solitary stranger, a barbarian, a Jew, standing there, and telling his Athenian audience, in the midst of these consecrated glories, that the Godhead could not be likened to objects graven by art or man’s device, nor dwell in temples made with hands; and that out of the whole amphitheatre of their shrines and temples he had been able to discover only one thing which pro claimed a truth, and that remarkable for the ignorance it confessed, rather than the knowledge it revealed—an altar to the Unknown God; adding, as from his own higher vantage-ground, ‘Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.’ 8. Here, then, was a great result accomplished in the case of those who in a becoming spirit submitted themselves to the bond of the Sinaitic covenant; in the most fundamental point of religion they became the lights of the world, the chosen witnesses of Heaven. And such also they were in a closely related point: their convictions in regard to holiness and sin. The polytheism of the heathen world wrought with disastrous effect here; for losing sight of the one great source and pattern of moral excellence, and making to themselves gods after their own likeness, men’s notions of holiness became sadly deranged, and their convictions of sin were consequently irregular and superficial. Even the more thoughtful class of minds—those who sought to work themselves free from popular delusions, and to be guided only by the dictates of wisdom—never attained, even in conception, to the proper measure: the want of right views of sin cleaves as a fundamental defect to all ancient philosophy. But Israel’s knowledge of the character and law of God, as it placed them in a different position spiritually, so it produced different results in experience. How was God Himself commonly present to their apprehensions? Pre-eminently as the Holy One of Israel, loving righteousness, and hating iniquity. (Deuteronomy 33:8; Psalms 5:4; Psalms 45:7; Isaiah 1:4; Hebrews 1:12-13, etc.) Or, how did their writers of devotion portray the true worshipper of Jehovah, the man who had a right to draw near and abide with Him, as a dweller in His house? It was the man who had entered into the spirit of the Decalogue—the man of clean hands and a pure heart, who had not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully—the man who had been wont to walk uprightly, work righteousness, speak the truth in his heart, exercise himself, in short, to all suitable manifestations of love to God and man—he alone was the person to ascend the hill of God, and worship and serve before Him. (Psalms 4:3, Psalms 15:1-5; Psalms 24:3-6; Ps. 24:26, etc. It cannot be said of these, and many similar passages in the Psalms, that they indicate an advanced state of things, higher views of goodness and acceptable worship, than those sanctioned at the institution of the tabernacle service. For it belonged to Moses, as the mediator of the Old Covenant, to settle all that pertained to its worship; no one, during its continuance, had any warrant to prescribe new conditions to the worshipper; nor indeed was this done in the passages quoted, for they evidently lean on the terms of the Decalogue.) But, then, who had actually done so? In whom was the ideal properly realized? Such questions could not but arise in thoughtful bosoms, and lead to both profound convictions of sin and a trembling awe on the spirit when venturing into the presence of God. Hence the language of penitence, the cry of guilt with which we are so familiar in Old Testament Scripture: iniquity is felt cleaving to men as a girdle, yea, entering as a virulent poison into their natures, breaking out continually into unhallowed tempers, marring the perfection of things that were outwardly correct, and taking away all hope of justification or acceptance with God, on the ground of personal conformity to His requirements. (Psalms 19:12-13; Psalms 32:5; Psalms 51:5; Psalms 143:2; Isaiah 64:6; Job 15:16, etc.) Alive to the fact of an infinitely perfect God, Israel was also, and on that very account, alive to painful misgivings and fears of guilt; the humiliating truth comes forcibly out in its history, that by the law is the know ledge of sin; and, unlike all other nations of antiquity, its one most solemn service throughout the year was that of the day of atonement—the day for bringing to remembrance all its transgressions and all its sins, that they might be blotted out. 9. Had there been nothing more than law in the Old Covenant, there had also been nothing further in Israel’s experience, except the penalties that were the just desert of sin. But with the true members of the covenant another thing invariably appears—a fleeing to God as the Redeemer from sin, the Healer of Israel—or a falling back from the covenant of law on the covenant of grace and promise out of which it sprung. Take as an example the rich and varied record of a believer’s experience contained in Psalms 119:1-179. The theme of discourse there, from beginning to end, is the law of God—its excellence, its breadth and fulness, its suitableness to men’s condition, the blessedness of being conformed to its requirements, and the earnest longings of the pious heart after all that properly belongs to it:—but things of this sort perpetually alternate with confessions of backslidings and sins, fervent cries for pardoning mercy and restoring grace, and fresh resolutions formed in dependence on Divine aid to resist the evil, and strive after higher attainments in the righteousness it enjoins. And so elsewhere; the consciousness of sin and moral weakness ever drove the soul to God for deliverance and help; and especially to the use of that gracious provision made through the rite of sacrifice for expiating the guilt of sin and restoring peace to the troubled conscience. But then this present deliverance bore on it such marks of imperfection as might well seem to call for another and more perfect arrangement; since both the means of reconciliation were inferior (the blood of bulls and goats), and the measure of it also, even as things then stood, was incomplete; for the reconciled were still not permitted to have direct and personal access into the presence-chamber of Jehovah—they were permitted only to frequent the courts of His house. The law, therefore, awakening a sense of guilt and alienation which could not then be perfectly removed, creating wants and desires it but partially satisfied, while it could not fail to be productive of fear, was also well fitted to raise expectations in the bosom of the worshipper of some better things to come, and dispose him to listen to the intimations concerning them which it was the part of prophecy to utter. And in proportion as men of humble and earnest faith acted on the hints thus given, they would, in answer to believing prayer and pious meditation, understand that, however the existing provisions of mercy were to be appreciated, there was a sense also in which they might be disparaged; (As in the following passages: Psalms 40:6; Psalms 50:7-14; Psalms 51:16; Hosea 6:6.) that they were indeed ‘God’s treasure-house of mysteries,’ wonderful in themselves, but wonderful and precious most of all for the hidden reference they bore to realities which were not yet disclosed, and into which the eye of faith naturally desired to look. (See Davison ‘On Prophecy,’ p. 143, who, after referring to the obvious imperfections in the religion of the Old Covenant, says, ‘The action of the moral and ceremonial law combined, I conclude to have been such as would produce, in reasonable and serious minds, that temper which is itself eminently Christian in its principle, viz., a sense of demerit in transgression; a willingness to accept a better atonement adequate to the needs of the conscience, if God should provide it, and a desire after inward purity which bodily lustration might represent but could not supply; in short, that temper which David has confessed and described when he rejects his reliance upon the legal rites: For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it thee, etc. (Psalms 51:1-19).’ At the same time, considering the provision actually made under the law for sin, and the expectations raised concerning something better to come, it is clear that the fear spoken of in connection with it could not be, with the true members of the covenant, properly slavish fear; for in their case the native effect of the law was always checked by the prayer and hope which grew out of the covenant of promise. It was only that in a more intense degree, which in a certain degree is still experienced in serious and thoughtful minds under the Gospel. And in so far as the law then, or at any time, might be found to work wrath and despair, this, as justly remarked by Harless (‘Ethik,’ p. 161), ‘is the guilt of men who do not rightly understand, or who misuse the law. For, if the law were understood, or rather the God who gave the law, then it would be known that the same God, who in the law threatens death, does not wish the death of the sinner.’) Such, briefly, is the evidence furnished by one portion of the covenant-people, those who constituted the true Israel, and who used the covenant of law, as it was intended, in due subservience to the prior covenant of grace. Even with the imperfections cleaving to the Divine plan, as one of a merely provisional nature, and corresponding imperfections in the spiritual results produced by it, we may yet ask if there was not, as regards that portion of the people, fruit that might well be deemed worthy of God? Where, in those ancient times, did life exhibit so many of the purer graces and more solid virtues? Or where, on the side of truth and righteousness, were such perils braved, and such heroic deeds performed? There alone were the claims of truth and righteousness even known in such a manner as to reach the depths of conscience, and bring into proper play the nobler feelings, desires, and aspirations of the heart. It is to Israel alone, of all the nations of antiquity, that we must turn alike for the more meek and lovely, and for the more stirring examples of moral excellence. Sanctified homes, which possessed the light, and were shone upon by the favour of Heaven; lives of patient endurance and suffering, or of strong wrestling for the rights of conscience, and the privilege of yielding to the behests of duty; manifestations of zeal and love in behalf of the higher interests of mankind, such as could scorn all inferior considerations of flesh and blood, and even rise at times in ‘the elected saints’ to such a noble elevation, that ‘they have wished themselves razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity, and feeling of infinite communion’ (Bacon): for refreshing sights and inspiring exhibitions like these, we must repair to the annals of that chosen seed, who were trained to the knowledge of God, and moulded by the laws and institutions of His kingdom. Must we not, in consideration of them, re-echo the saying of Moses, ‘O Israel, what people was like unto thee! a people saved by the Lord!’ (See ‘Typology,’ Vol. II. p. 491.) 10. But, unfortunately, there is a darker side to the picture. There was another, and, for the most part, a larger and more influential portion of the covenant-people, who acted very differently, who either openly resiled from the yoke of the law, or perverted it to a wrong purpose, and in whom also, though after another fashion, the truth found a remarkable verification. In this class, the most prominent thing—that which was always the first to discover itself, was a restive and reluctant spirit, fretting against the demands of the law, often even against that fundamental part of them, which might be said to involve all the rest—the devout acknowledgment and pure worship of Jehovah. With this class, the prevailing tendency to idolatry in the ancient world had attractions which they were unable to resist. Like so many around them, in part also among them, they wished a less exacting, a more sensuous and more easily accessible mode of worship, than that which was enjoined in the law and connected with the tabernacle; and so idolatrous sanctuaries in various localities, with their accompanying rites of will-worship, were formed: these generally first, and then, as a natural consequence, altogether false deities, local or foreign, came to take the place of Jehovah. There was a strong tide from without bearing in this direction; it was the spirit of the age, which human nature is ever ready to fall in with; but the real ground of the defection, and that which rendered the apostatizing disposition a kind of chronic disease in Israel, lay in the affinity between those corrupt idolatries and the natural inclinations of the heart. Living in Gospel times, we are wont to speak of the carnal and ritualistic nature of the Old Testament worship; but underneath it all there was a spiritual element, which was distasteful to the merely natural mind, and the reverse of which was found in the showy and corrupt rites of heathenism. These fostered and gratified the sinful desires of the heart, while the worship of Jehovah repressed and condemned them: this was the real secret of that inveterate drawing in the one direction, and strong antipathy in the other, which were perpetually breaking forth in the history of Israel, and turned it, we may say, into a great battle-ground for the very existence of true religion. In its essence, it was the conflict of human corruption with the will, the authority, and the actual being of God; and, therefore, it never failed to draw down those rebukes in providence, by which God vindicated the honour of His name, and made the backslidings of His people to reprove them. Viewed in this light, the history of Israel, however melancholy in one respect, is instructive and even consolatory in another: it shewed how every thing for Israel, in evil or in good, turned on the relation in which they stood to the living God, as the object of faith and worship—how inexcusable, as well as foolish, they were in hardening their hearts against His ways, and preferring the transitory pleasures of sin to the abiding recompenses of His service—and how, in spite of all manifestations of folly, and combinations of human power and wisdom against the truth of God, that truth still prevailed, and they who stood by it, the godly seed, though comparatively few, proved the real strength or substance of the nation. (Isaiah 6:13.) 11. There was, however, another form of evil which manifested itself in this portion of the covenant-people, which latterly became a very prevalent form, and which so far differed from the other, that it could consist with an outward adherence to the worship of Jehovah, nay, with apparent zeal for that worship, while the great ends of the covenant were trampled under foot. The failure here lay in false views respecting holiness and sin, necessarily leading also to an utterly false position in regard to salvation. Instead of viewing the institutions and services connected with the tabernacle—the ceremonial part of the law—as the complement merely of the Sinaitic tables, intended to help out their design and provide the means of escape from their just condemnation of sin, the persons in question exalted it to the first place, and, however they might stand related to ‘the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith,’ thought all in a manner accomplished, if they kept the ordinances and presented the appointed offerings. Many sharp reproofs and severe denunciations are pronounced against this mode of procedure, and those who pursued it, in the writings of the Old Testament, especially the prophets. Asaph asks such persons in his day, asks them indignantly in the name of God, what they had to do with declaring God’s statutes, or going about the things of His covenant, since they were full of backbiting and deceit, taking part with thieves and adulterers? (Psalms 1.) Isaiah is still more severe in his language; he finds such characters, after a period of much backsliding and rebuke, professing great concern for the interests of religion, diligently frequenting the courts of God’s house, heaping sacrifices upon the altar, and stretching out their hands in prayer, while oppression and iniquity were in their dwellings, and their hands were even stained with blood. In such a case—so flagrantly at variance with the fundamental precepts and obligations of the covenant—what right, the prophet demands, had they to tread the courts of God’s house or take part in its services? Who required it? There was no sincerity, he tells them, in what they did; their altar-gifts were but lying offerings; (So the expression should be rendered in Isaiah 1:13, not merely ‘vain oblations.’) and their whole service an abomination in the sight of the Holy One. (See also Isaiah 29:13, Isaiah 58:1-11, Isaiah 59:1-17) Jeremiah, in like manner, points out the inexpressible hardihood and folly of men trusting to the temple and its services for a blessing, who by their ungodly and wicked lives had turned it into a resort of evil-doers, a den even of robbers (Jeremiah 7:1-34); so also Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18:1-23, Ezekiel 23:1-40), and some of the other prophets. By and by, however, a phase of things entered, although not till after the return from Babylon, and of which we have no very exact portraiture in Old Testament times; we see the beginnings of it merely in the writings of Malachi. The fires of Divine judgment had now at last purged out from among the people the more heinous and abominable forms of transgression; monotheism had come to be rigidly maintained; and from being neglecters of the law, they passed, many of them, in a formal respect into the opposite extreme—the extreme, namely, of making the law, in a manner, every thing for life and blessing—more than it was ever intended to be, or in reality could be, consistently with the moral character of God and the actual condition of men. So the feeling continued and grew, and meets us in full efflorescence among the more prominent religionists of the Gospel era. And there is not, perhaps, a more remarkable example to be found in history than their case affords of that form of deceitfulness of the human heart, by which it can pass from the extreme of dislike to the law and service of God, to the extreme of outward regard and honour; and yet retain, in the one extreme as well as the other, the ungodly frame of mind, which is opposed to their essential character and aim. It is this latter form of the evil that has most of interest for us, as it comes prominently into view in New Testament Scripture. Its fundamental error, as I have said, lay in isolating the covenant of law, taking it apart from the prior covenant of promise, as if it was alone sufficient for men—and not only so, but failing to distinguish between what was of prime, and what of only secondary moment in the law, throwing the ceremonial into precisely the same category with the moral. From this grievous mistake (which some would still most unaccountably confound with proper Judaism) three fatal results of a practical kind inevitably followed. First, they shut their eyes upon the depth and spirituality of the law’s requirements. They were obliged to do so; for had they perceived these, the idea must of necessity have vanished from their minds, that they could attain to righteousness on a merely legal footing; they could never have imagined that ‘touching the righteousness which is in the law they were blameless.’ (Php 3:6. That Paul speaks thus of his earlier life from a Pharisaic point of view, is evident from the connection; as he is avowedly recounting the things which had reference to the flesh (Php 3:4), and which gave him a merely external ground of glorying. It is further evident, from what he says of his relation to the law elsewhere, when he came to a proper understanding of its real import (Romans 7:1-25); and also from the utter want of satisfaction, which even here he expresses, of his former life after the light of truth dawned upon his mind (Romans 7:7-8).) Thoughts of this description could only enter when the law was stript of its proper import as the revelation and sum of moral duty, and reduced to an outward discipline of specific rules of conduct. When so reduced, it was quite possible for any one to feel that the law’s requirements lay within the compass of the practicable; the task-work of services might with laudable regularity be gone through; and the feeling of self-righteousness, so far from being repressed, would only be the more fostered and sustained by the number and variety of the materials it had to work upon. A second result was the servile spirit in which all in such a case came to be done. The covenant of Sinai—taken by itself, simply as the revelation of law—‘genders unto bondage;’ (Galatians 4:24.) if it begets children, they will inevitably be children of a carnal and slavish, not of a free, loving, and devoted spirit. It cannot be otherwise. When any one submits to a yoke of service for which he has no natural inclination, for the sake merely of certain benefits he expects to reap from it, the heart cannot but be conscious of a burden; it does what is exacted, not from any high motives or generous impulses, but simply because necessary to the end in view—it must earn its wages. I need hardly say, that it was much in this spirit the Scribes and Pharisees of our Lord’s time acted—they were hirelings, and not sons. And the explanation of their case was what we have just indicated—they put the law out of its proper place, and applied themselves to get through a formal obedience to its requirements, what it was altogether incapable of giving—what, if got at all by sinful men, must come through the channel of Divine grace and loving-kindness. It is the covenant of promise alone, not the covenant of law, that is the true mother of children in the kingdom of God. Finally, as a still further result, the persons who thus erred concerning the law’s place and spirit, could neither rightly look for the Messiah, nor, when He came, be at all prepared to receive Him. They fancied they had already of themselves attained to righteousness, and were little disposed to think they must be indebted for it to Christ. They naturally regarded it as foul scorn to be put virtually on a level with those who had been without Jaw, and clung to the law as the ground of all their distinctions, the very charter of their privileges and hopes. So completely, by misapprehending the proper nature and relations of things, did the major part of the later Jews frustrate the object of the law, and turn it from being a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ, into the jealous and lordly rival that would keep them at the remotest distance from Him. And the mournful result for themselves was, that the rock in which they trusted, itself rose against them; the law which could condemn but not expiate their sin, cried for vengeance with a voice that must be heard, and wrath from heaven fell upon them to the uttermost. A marvellous history, on whichever side contemplated!—whether in the evil or the good connected with it—and fraught with important lessons, not for those alone who were its immediate subjects, but for all nations and for all time. God constituted the seed of Israel the direct bearers of a Divine revelation, made them subjects alike of law and promise, and shaped their history so that in it men might see reflected as in a mirror the essential character of His kingdom, the blessings that flow from a hearty submission to His will, and the judgments that not less certainly come, sooner or later, in the train of wilful perversion and incorrigible disobedience. In a sense altogether peculiar, they were called to be God’s witnesses to the world; (Isaiah 43:10.) and by the word of God, which has embodied itself in their experience and history, they still remain such—a light in its better aspect to guide and comfort, in its worse a beacon to admonish and warn. Like every revelation of God, this word also liveth and abideth for ever; and among other lessons to be learned from it, this, which is common to all dispensations, embodied in a pregnant utterance of Augustine, should never be forgotten, Lex data est ut gratia quaereretur; gratia data est ut lex impleretur (De Sp. and Lit., sec. xix.)—the law was given that grace might be sought; grace was given that the law might be fulfilled. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: 04.07. LECTURE 6. ======================================================================== Lecture 6. The Economical Aspect Of The Law—The Defects Adhering To It As Such—The Relation Of The Psalms And Prophets To It—Mistaken Views Of This Relation—The Great Problem With Which The Old Testament Closed, And The Views Of Different Parties Respecting Its Solution. IN the preceding lecture we have seen what advantages accrued to Israel, and through them to the world, from the revelation of law at Sinai, in so far as that revelation was rightly understood, and was kept in its proper place. But as yet we have only looked at a part of the considerations which require to be taken into account, in order to get a comprehensive view of the work which the law had to do in Israel, and of much that is written concerning it in Scripture. There can be no doubt that the law, taken in its entireness, and as forming the most prominent feature in the economy brought in by Moses, however wisely adapted to the time then present, was still inlaid with certain inherent defects, which discovered themselves in the working of the system, and paved the way for its ultimate removal. As an economy, it belonged to an immature stage of the Divine dispensations, and as such was constituted after a relatively imperfect form. The institutions and ordinances, also, which were associated with it, and became an integral part of its machinery, were in many respects suited to a comparatively limited territory, and even within the bounds of that involved not a little that must often have proved irksome and inconvenient—what an apostle said to his brethren, neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. (Acts 15:10.) It is plain, therefore, that matters existed then only in a provisional state, and that a change must somehow be introduced into the Divine economy, to adapt it to the general wants and circumstances of mankind. It becomes, therefore, an interesting and important question, wherein precisely lay the inherent defects of an economy modelled so much after the legal form. Also, how these defects practically discovered themselves; and what other elements or agencies came into play, to compensate for the defects in question, and to prepare the way for the entrance of another and higher state of things. To such points we shall now endeavour to address ourselves. I. Whatever may be the contents of law—even if comprising what is of universal import and obligation—simply as law, written on perishable materials, and imposed in so many formal enactments, it has a merely outward and objective character. And this is what first falls to be noted here; for the main element of weakness in the Sinaitic law, viewed in its economical bearings, stood in its having so much of the outward and objective. It was engraved on tables of stone, and stood there before men as a preceptor to instruct them, or a master to demand their implicit submission, but without any direct influence or control over the secret springs and motives of obedience. And the same, of course, holds with respect to the ordinances of service, which were appended to it as supplementary means to subserve its design—more so, indeed; for they not only possessed the same formally written character, though not on tables of stone, but bore throughout on men’s relation to a material fabric, and their submission to bodily restraints or exercises. The whole, therefore, taken by itself, formed a kind of legal institute, and in its working naturally tended to the mechanical and formal. It is of the nature of law, whether Divine or human, when imposed as a bond of order and discipline, to work from without inwards—acting as an external pressure or constraint on the vital energies, and seeking to bind them into an orderly and becoming course. ‘Laws politic,’ says Hooker, (‘Eccl. Polity,’ I. sec. x.) ‘ordained for external order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience unto the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be, in regard to his depraved nature, little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide, notwithstanding, so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance to the common good, for which societies are instituted.’ It is the same thing substantially which was uttered long before by the apostle, when, with reference more immediately to the Divine law, he said, The law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners: (1 Timothy 1:9.) it is such alone who need the stringent rules and prohibitions of an outward code of enactments; those who are firmly rooted in the principles of rectitude, and animated by a genuine spirit of love, will be a law to themselves. Essentially the sum, as well as spirit, of the law is love. But then the law does not of itself elicit love; its object rather is to supplement the deficiency of love, and by means of an external discipline form the inner nature to the habit and direction which would have been instinctively taken by the spirit of love. Still, this spirit could not be altogether wanting in those for whom the discipline availed anything, otherwise the result would have been at most but a well-drilled and heartless formalism. It was with them, as in the case of children who, through the yoke of parental discipline, are trained to goodness and virtue: the elements of the good are all there though existing in comparative feebleness, and by means of the discipline are stimulated to a readiness and constancy of exercise, which they would otherwise have failed to put forth. And as a natural consequence, both of the feebleness of love and of the magisterial presence and power of law, the principle of fear must have had relatively greater sway than would belong to it in a more perfect state of things. The dread of incurring the wrath of an offended God, and suffering the penalties which guarded on every side the majesty of His law, would often deter from sin when no other consideration might prevail, and quicken the soul to exertions in duty which it would not have otherwise put forth. These were, undoubtedly, marks of imperfection impressed on the very nature of the old economy; it wrought, as the apostle tells us, to a large extent by weak and beggarly elements; and it did so because it was the comparative nonage of the church, and the materials of a more spiritual economy did not yet exist. ‘The atonement was yet but prospective; the Holy Spirit did not operate as He does under the Gospel; and God’s gracious designs, as regards the redemption of our race, lay embedded and concealed in the obscure intimation, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and in the promises to Abraham. Nor were these defects perfectly remedied throughout the whole course of the dispensation. To the last the Jew walked in comparative darkness; to the last the powerful motives which affect the Christian, derived from the infinite love of God as exhibited in the completed work of redemption, and from the authoritative announcement of a future resurrection to life or death eternal, could not be brought to bear on the ancient believer; to the last, therefore, he needed stimulants to his piety drawn from inferior sources.’ (Litton’s ‘Bampton Lecture,’ p. 50.) The practical result in some measure corresponded. It might, indeed, have been greatly better than it actually was, and would have been, if the proper use had been generally made of the grace offered in the covenant of promise; the people would then have had the law of God in their hearts. (Psalms 37:31.) But this proved to be the case only with a portion. In many the pulse of life beat too feebly and irregularly for the requirements of the law being felt otherwise than a difficult, if not oppressive yoke. Too often, also, those who should have been the most exemplary in performing what was enjoined, and from their position in the commonwealth should have checked the practice of evil in others, were themselves the most forward in promoting it. Hence, the theory of the constitution as to the strict connection between transgression and punishment gave way: souls that ­should have been cut off from the number of their people, as deliberate covenant-breakers, and in God’s judgment were cut off, continued to retain their place in the community, and to exercise its rights. (The expression, ‘that soul shall be cut off,’ refers primarily to God’s act, and is sometimes used where, from the nature of things, human authority could not interfere—viz., where the violation of law was quite secret, as in Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 18:29; Leviticus 22:3. Hence the words sometimes run, ‘I will cut off that soul,’ or ‘I will cut him off from my presence.’ But when the act was open, and the guilt manifest, God’s decision should have been carried out by the community, as at Numbers 15:30; Joshua 7:24-26.) By degrees, also, the faulty administration of the covenant by human authority re-acted on the state of heart out of which it sprung, and strengthened yet more the tendency to fall away. And there being but a partial and defective exhibition of holiness on the part of the people, there necessarily ensued on God’s part a proportionate withdrawal of the promised blessing. So that the aspect of things in Canaan never presented more than a broken and irregular impression of that righteousness and prosperity which, like twin sisters, should have accompanied the people through the whole course of their history. But did not the Mediator of the covenant Himself apprehend this, and at the outset proclaim it, when on the plains of Moab He so distinctly portrayed the future backslidings of the people, and foretold the desolations which should in consequence overtake them? (Deuteronomy 28:1-68, Deuteronomy 32:1-52) Coincident with the birth of the covenant there were thus given intimations of its imperfect character and temporary purpose; and it was made clear that, not through the provisions and agencies therewith connected could the ultimate good for mankind, or even for Israel itself, be secured. (See Davison ‘On Prophecy,’ p. 165.) II. The comparative failure in this respect, while in itself an evil, was overruled to bring out very distinctly, among the covenant-people, the spiritual element which was in the law; and this we note as the second point which here calls for consideration. By spiritual element I mean the great moral truths embodied in the law in their relation to the individual heart and conscience. This could not, of course, be said in any proper sense to be dependent on the defective observance and faulty administration of the covenant, but it would, we can easily understand, be aided by them. The law bore so much of an external character, that it was quite possible for persons to maintain a conduct free from all just exceptions of a public kind, while still it wanted much to bring it into accordance with the real spirit and design of the law; for the outward was of value only as expressive of the desires and principles of the heart. Even in any circumstances, the thoughtful meditation of the law must have had the effect of leading the soul apart, instead of losing itself amid the decent formalities of a generally approved behaviour, of bringing it into close personal dealing with God regarding sin and righteousness. It could scarcely fail to force itself on the convictions of those who were thus spiritually exercised, that their relation to the law, and to Him whose glory was identified with its proper observance, must materially differ, according as it might be the outward man merely that was drilled into the keeping of the law’s requirements, or along with this, and under this, the outgoing also of reverent feelings, holy desires, and pure affections. The members of the covenant, it would thus come to be felt, were not alike children of the covenant, even though they might present much the same appearance of outward conformity to its handwriting of ordinances. An Israel would be known as developing itself within Israel—a more special and select class, who individually came nearer to God than others, and who might reasonably expect to find God coming nearer to them, and bestowing on them the more peculiar tokens of His goodness. But, plainly, a conviction of this sort, which was almost unavoidable anyhow, would gather strength in proportion as differences appeared among the members of the covenant; and some were seen making conscience of keeping the statutes of the Lord, while others resigned themselves to selfish indifference or courses of sin. Reflecting and serious minds would feel assured, that the one class held a relation to the God of truth and rectitude, which could not belong to the other; and though all might still be called the seed of Israel, and might alike enjoy the common privileges of the covenant, yet those who alone properly answered to the description, and had any just right to look for the favour and protection of God, must have appeared to be such as, like Abraham, were observed to keep the commandments of the Lord and obey His voice. (Genesis 18:19.) We judge this to have been the case from the very nature of things. The law recognised important relations, general and particular, human and Divine, and, in connection with them, established great moral obligations, which not only called for a certain appropriate demeanour, but demanded also a suitable state of feeling and affection. These, of necessity, formed elements of spiritual thought and comparative judgment with the better class of Israelites, and must have done so the more, the more they found themselves surrounded by persons of another spirit than themselves—mere formal observers of the law, or open transgressors of its precepts. And that such actually was the case, we have conclusive evidence in those writings of the Old Covenant, which give expression to the personal feelings and reflective judgments of godly men on the state of things around them. Take, for example, the Book of Proverbs, immensely the richest storehouse of thoughtful utterance and practical wisdom that any nation, not to say single individual, has given to the world, does not its leading characteristic, as a writing, stand in the skill and discrimination with which it draws moral distinctions—distinctions between one principle of action and one line of conduct and another? It proceeds throughout on the profound conviction that there are such distinctions—a right and a wrong unalterably fixed by the law of God and the essential nature of things; and, corresponding to this, a good and an evil in experience, a blessing and a curse. The Book is the record of a most careful and extensive observation, gathered, no doubt, in part from the general field of the world’s history, but chiefly and most especially from the land of the covenant—the territory which lay in the light of God’s truth and in the bond of His law. The comparison is never formally made between Israel as a nation and the idolatrous nations around it; no, but rather between class and class, individual and individual in Israel. There are the fearers of Jehovah on the one side—those who sincerely listen to the voice of Divine wisdom, and apply themselves in earnest to all the works of a pious, upright, and beneficent life; and, on the other, the vain and foolish, the corrupt and profligate, the envious, the niggardly, the unjust, the scornful, and the wicked. With both classes, and with manifold shades and diversities in each, the writer’s experience had manifestly made him familiar; and, according to their respective moral condition—in other words, their relation to the law and service of God such also is the portion of good or evil he associates with their history. In various portions of the Book of Psalms, the spiritual element comes out, if possible, still more strongly, and the moral distinctions are drawn with a yet keener edge; because for the most part drawn from a personal point of view, and with reference to a contrast or an antagonism which was pressing on the faith and interests of the writer. In such a psalm as Psalms 37:1-40, the contrast assumes its milder form, and approaches to the style of the Proverbs; yet still there is perceptible the feeling of one who knew himself to be in a struggling minority, and who needed to encourage his own heart, and the hearts of those he represented, with considerations drawn from the eternal principles of God’s law, and the recompenses of good and evil therewith connected. But more commonly the theme of the Psalms in question turns on the trials of the Lord’s servant in his contendings for truth and righteousness against those who, though formally members of the covenant, ranged themselves in opposition to its real interests. It was the representative of Heaven’s cause, the true wrestler for righteousness, on the one side, and those, on the other, who had not the fear of God before their eyes, and sought to strengthen themselves by their wickedness. It was the former alone, the Psalmist with manifold frequency proclaims, the godly ones, whom the Lord had chosen; the others were objects of His displeasure, aliens, heathen at heart, who should be made to perish from the land, or become entangled in their own arts of destruction. Thus it appears that the principle, ‘not all Israel who are of Israel’—in other words, an election within the election, a spiritual seed from among the visible community of the covenant-people—though not recognised in the Theocratic constitution, yet came practically into distinct and palpable operation. It was present as a fact to the minds of the faithful in almost every age of its history; and so gave promise of a time when the really distinctive and fundamental things in men’s relation to God should rise to their proper place. It follows, therefore, that the law, considered as a national covenant, did not, in its actual working, tend to perpetuate, but rather to antiquate itself; it led to a state of things, which was the prelude and virtual commencement of an era in which primary regard should be had, not to men’s natural descent or hereditary position, but to their personal relation to the redeeming grace of God, and their heartfelt sympathy with the interests of His kingdom. (There was unavoidably connected with the state of things now described certain anomalies of a moral kind, which exercised the patience, sometimes even for a time staggered the faith, of God’s people—cases in which, contrary to the general tenor of the covenant, wrong appeared to triumph, and the righteous cause or person was put to the worse. We have specimens of the painful reflections they gave rise to in such Psalms as Psalms 49:1-20, Psalms 73:1-28; also in the Book of Ecclesiastes, and various passages in the prophets. They are to be explained, so far as an explanation was possible, from the broken and disordered state of things brought in by the wide-spread unfaithfulness of the people to the covenant, which necessarily rendered the administration of temporal rewards and punishments also broken and irregular—although still of such a kind, that thoughtful observers had enough to satisfy them that there was a righteous God who judged in the earth. This is surely a better and more Scriptural mode of viewing such cases, than the rough and sceptical sort of treatment they receive in ‘Ecce Homo’—where, in reference to acts of moral delinquency not punished by the judge, it is said, ‘What did Jehovah do? Did He suffer the guilty man to escape, or had He other ministers of justice beside the judge and the king? It was supposed that in such cases He called in the powers of nature against the transgressor, destroyed his vines with hailstones, etc. But this theory was found to be unsatisfactory. Life is a short term, and prosperous villany was seen going to an honoured grave. Another conjecture was hazarded: it was said the bad man prospers sometimes, but he has no children, or at least his house soon dies out,’ etc. (p. 38). All mere human thought and vain speculation about the matter!) III. The sacred writings just referred to, more especially the Psalms, besides incidentally testifying to the existence of a spiritual along with a carnal seed in Israel, had another and more direct end to serve in respect to the question now under consideration: by their didactic and devotional character they made a fresh advance in the Divine administration toward men, and so far tended to modify the operation of law. They formed the introduction of an agency, perfectly harmonious, indeed, with the outward prescriptions and observances of the law, but in its own nature higher, and as such tending to prepare the way for yet further advances in the same direction. The service rendered by this kind of agency was various; but, in whichever way considered, the effect must have been in the line now indicated. It undoubtedly bore respect, and may be said, perhaps, to have more immediately owed its origin, to the form of worship associated with the covenant of law. Partaking as this did so much of the outward and ceremonial, it was, as a matter of course, largely identified with particular times and places, which for the great body of the people necessarily circumscribed very much the opportunities of public worship. Long intervals elapsed between the solemnities which drew them around the one altar of burnt-offering, and the place where Jehovah, in a more peculiar sense, put His name. Not only so, but when the people held their holy convocations in their several localities (such as the law itself contemplated, (Leviticus 23:3; Leviticus 23:24; Leviticus 23:27; Numbers 29:1; Numbers 29:7.) and which ought to have been of frequent occurrence) no special legislation was made in respect to the mode of conducting them; the worshippers were left to their own discretion and resources, doubtless on the supposition that the lack would be supplied by the more gifted members of the community. And in the circumstances of the time, when written helps were as yet so scanty, one of the readiest, and one also of the most effectual modes of supplying it, was by means of the lofty and stirring notes of sacred song, accompanied by simple but appropriate melodies. How near this lay to the thoughts of the better class of the people, is evident from the frequency which, even in the earlier periods of their national existence, remarkable incidents and memorable occasions gave rise to such spirited effusions, as appears from the songs intermingled with the records of their history. (Exodus 15:1-27; Numbers 21:17-27; Deuteronomy 32:1-52, Judges 4:1-24; also Balaam’s prophecies, and the Psalm of Moses.) These songs were manifestly composed for use in religious meetings, and were sure to be increasingly employed, and also to grow in number, in proportion as a spirit of earnest piety diffused itself among the people. Accordingly, in the period of revival which was originated by Samuel, this appears as one of the more distinguishing features of the time. The schools of the prophets, as they were called—that is, companies of the more select and godly members of the community, gathered together into a kind of spiritual brotherhood, under the presidency of a prophet, made such abundant use of sacred lyrics that they had for their distinctive badges musical instruments—the psaltery, the tabret, the pipe, and the harp. (1 Samuel 10:5.) David himself, in his earlier years, was no. stranger to these institutions, and not improbably, by what he witnessed and felt in them, had his heart first moved to stir up the gift that was in him to add to their materials of devotion. But what he received he repaid with increase. The fine poetical genius with which he was endowed, ennobled as it was and hallowed by the special gifts of God’s Spirit, singularly fitted him for giving expression to the spiritual thoughts and feelings of the people, and even for imparting to these an elevation and a fervour beyond what should otherwise have belonged to them. And to him, in his vocation as the sweet Psalmist of Israel, it was not a little owing that such associations became, not only means of spiritual culture, but centres of religious awakening. Nearly akin to this was another service, which the Psalmodic literature, and the writings that were somewhat allied to it, rendered to the religion of the Old Covenant—one more immediately connected with their didactic character. That religion was predominantly of a symbolical nature. The very writing of the Decalogue on tables of stone possessed this character; and every act of lustration, every ordinance of service at the temple or away from it, had couched under it a spiritual meaning. It had this, however, practically not for all, but only for those who possessed discernment to look through the shell into the kernel. The native tendency of the soul was to rest in the outward; and, instead of searching into the hidden treasures which lay enclosed in the external forms of worship, to turn the mere ritualism of these into a kind of sacred pantomime, which, for all higher purposes, left the worshipper much where it found him. The proneness of ancient Israel to give way to this unthinking, fleshly disposition, comes out with mournful frequency through the whole of their history. And for the purpose of correcting it—for the purpose, we may also say, of providing in this behalf a needed complement to the institutions and services of the Old Covenant, it became the calling of the more gifted members of the community to extract from them their spiritual essence—to detach the great truths and principles they enshrined, and, by linking them to the varied experiences and prospects as well of individual as of national life, to invest them with a significance and a power that might be level to every understanding, and touch a chord of sympathy in every reflecting bosom. This was pre-eminently the calling of David, and of those who succeeded him in the line of reforming agency he initiated. It was to pour new life and vigour into the old religion, not merely by rectifying the partial disorders that had crept into its administration, and promoting the due observance of its solemnities with the lively accompaniment of song and music not merely this, but also, and much more, by popularizing its lessons in compositions adapted to general use, and providing appropriate forms of utterance for the devout feelings and desires which the ordinances of God and the events of life were fitted to call forth. The thought of God as the Creator and moral Governor of the world—the Redeemer, the Shepherd, the King of Israel—of His glorious perfections and wonderful works—the deliverances He had wrought for His people, the careful guardianship He exercises over them, the spirituality of His holy law, as requiring truth in the inward parts not less than integrity and kindness in the outward life, His mercy to the penitent, His special nearness to the humble, to the needy, to the souls struggling with convictions of sin or sharp conflicts in the cause of righteousness, yea, His readiness to keep them as in the secret of His tabernacle, and compass them about with His presence as with a shield:—these and such-like thoughts, which were all interwoven with the facts of sacred history and with the structure and services of the Tabernacle, were in these inspired productions plainly set forth, clothed in the forms of an attractive and striking imagery, and enkindled with the glow of human sympathies and devout emotions. It is impossible not to see what an approach was here made to the directness and simplicity both of instruction and worship, which are the characteristics of a spiritual dispensation. In proportion as the members of the covenant became conversant with and used these helps to faith and devotion, they must have felt at once more capable of profiting by the worship of the sanctuary, and less tied to its formal routine; in spirit they could now realize what was transacted there, and bring it home to the sanctuary of their bosoms. Jehovah Himself, though His dwelling-place was in Zion, was through these utterances of His Spirit brought near to every one of them; and alike in their private communings and in their holy convocations, they possessed the choicest materials for holding sweet and hallowed converse with Heaven. And therefore must these Psalms have been pre-eminently to the Jewish believer what they have been said to be also in a measure to the Christian—even well-nigh ‘what the love of parents and the sweet affections of home, and the clinging memory of infant scenes, and the generous love of country, are to men of every rank and order and employment, of every kindred, and tongue, and nation.’ (Irving. An incidental proof of this is found in the touching notices in Psalms 137:1-9, where the Jewish captives are represented as hanging their harps on the willows, and incapable, when requested by their conquerors, of singing one of the songs of Zion. It shews how deep a hold the psalmody had taken of the better minds of the community, and what a powerful influence it exercised over them.) IV. The tendency in this direction, however, was greatly increased by the operation of another element—the prophetical agency and writings, which attained only to their greatest fulness and power when the affairs of the Old Covenant approached their lowest depression. The raising up of persons from time to time, who should come with special messages from God to the people, suited to the ever varying states and exigences of life, was from the first contemplated in the Theocratic government; (Numbers 12:6; Deuteronomy 18:17-22.) and certain directions were given both for trying the pretensions of those who claimed to have such messages from God, and for treating with becoming reverence and regard such as had them. This was, certainly, a very singular arrangement—as justly noticed by G. Baur:—‘That the holy will of the one true God should have been set up before the Israelites in the definite prescriptions of a law, and that, in order to carry this Divine law into effect, and prepare for its proper fulfilment, prophets must appear on the scene,—this is what distinguishes the religion of Israel, not only from all other pre-Christian religions, but also from Christianity itself. For, the legal and prophetical elements of the Old Testament religion are precisely those through which it stood in marked contrast to the other religions, and made an approach to Christianity, while at the same time it thereby bore the character of a religion which could not of itself present the most perfect religious state of things, but could only prepare for it, and hand over the completion to another.’ (‘Geschichte der Alttestamentlihen Weissagimg,’ by Dr Gustav Baur, p. 9.) The close relation of prophecy to the law is not too strongly stated here, and must be kept steadily in view. In its earlier stages the aim of the prophetic agency was almost exclusively directed to the one object of diffusing a better knowledge of the law, and promoting a more dutiful observance of its institutions and precepts. It was essentially a spirit of revival, called forth by the grievous disorders and wide-spread degeneracy that prevailed. Such, as has been already stated, was the leading character and aim of the religious associations which have received the name of the ‘schools of the prophets.’ They were composed of earnest and devoted men, who, under the direction of one or more persons of really supernatural gifts (such as Samuel at first, afterwards of Elijah and Elisha), set their faces boldly against the corruptions which prevailed, and endeavoured, by religious meetings in various places, with the powerful excitation of sacred song, to stir up the languid zeal of the people, and engage them to a hearty surrender to the Divine service. It was a kind of action which, though apparently somewhat irregular and spasmodic in its movements, was in nature not unlike to the evangelistic operations often carried on in modern times, and reached its end in proportion as people were brought to consider aright and discharge their duty as placed under the economy set up by the hand of Moses. The labours of David, and those gifted men, chiefly of Levitical families, who succeeded him in the work of sacred song, so far coincided with the class of agencies instituted by Samuel, that they also had in view the proper understanding and due appreciation of what pertained to the old economy, but employed more of literary effort, especially of lyrical compositions, for the purpose, and in these sometimes gave delineations of the kingdom of God as it should exist in the future, and of the King who should preside over its affairs and destinies, which could scarcely be conceived capable of realization, except by some mighty change in the form of the constitution and the powers brought to bear on its administration. But by and by a state of things entered, which proved the comparative failure of those reforming agencies, and called for prophetic work of a different kind. Back sliding and corruption perpetually returned, after seasons of revival, and with ever-deepening inveteracy. The royal house itself, which should have ruled only for Jehovah, became infected with worldly pride, luxury, idolatry with its host of attendant vices. Judgment after judgment had been sent to correct the evil, but all without permanent effect; and not the realization of splendid hopes, but the sinking of all into prostration and ruin, was the fate that seemed more immediately impending. It was when matters were verging toward this deplorable condition, that the prophets, distinctively so called, came upon the field, and fulfilled, one after another, their appointed mission. The circumstances were very materially changed in which they had to act, from those which belonged to the times of Samuel and David; but they still stood in substantially the same relation to the law, differing only in the application which was made of it to the state and prospects of the people. The prophets without exception took up their position on the basis of law: they appeared as the vindicators of its authority, the expounders of its meaning, and in a sense also the avengers of its injured rights; for they never fail to charge upon the people’s culpable neglect of its obligations, and persistent adherence to the practices it condemns, all the visitations of evil which in the course of God’s providence had befallen them, or the yet greater calamities that were in prospect. Nor in pointing to the possibility of escaping the worst, when there was the utmost reason to apprehend its approach, do they ever indicate another course than that of a return to the bond of the covenant, by ceasing from all the acts and indulgences against which it was directed: this one path presented to the people a door of hope. But in this particular line the prophets abstain from going farther; they never attempt to improve upon the principles of the Theocracy, or inculcate a morality that transcends the ideal of the Decalogue. A claim has sometimes been made in honour of the prophets, as if their teaching did transcend, and, in a manner, remodel what had been previously given though the quarter from which it comes may justly beget doubts of its validity. ‘The remark,’ says Mr Stuart Mill, (‘On Representative Government,’ p. 42.) ‘of a distinguished Hebrew, that the prophets were, in Church and State, the equivalent of the modern liberty of the press, gives a just but not an adequate conception of the part fulfilled in national and universal history by this great element of Jewish life; by means of which, the canon of inspiration never being complete, the persons most eminent in genius and moral feeling could not only denounce and reprobate, with the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever appeared to them deserving of such treatment, but could give forth better and higher interpretations of the national religion, which thenceforth became part of the religion. Accordingly, whoever can divest himself of the habit of reading the Bible as if it was one book, sees with admiration the vast interval between the morality and religion of the Pentateuch, or even of the historical books, and the morality and religion of the prophecies—a distance as wide as between these last and the Gospels. Conditions more favourable to progress could not easily exist; accordingly, the Jews, instead of being stationary, like other Asiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the most progressive people of antiquity, and, jointly with them, have been the starting-point and main propelling agency of modern cultivation.’ There is just enough in the actual history of the case to give a plausible colour to this representation, and a measure of truth which may save it from utter repudiation. The recognised place given to the function of prophecy in the Theocratic constitution, was unquestionably a valuable safeguard against arbitrary power; it secured a right and warrant for freedom of speech on all that most essentially concerned the interests of the kingdom; and as the function was actually exercised, it did unquestionably serve, in a very high degree, the purpose of reproving abuses, and of unfolding principles of truth and duty, which needed only to be believingly apprehended to fill the mind with a generous aspiration after everything pure and good. But the language quoted goes a great deal beyond this. It implies, that we have in the Bible a specimen, not simply of growing light and progressive development, but of diverse exhibitions of truth and duty; that the beginnings of the Hebrew commonwealth were in this respect extremely crude and defective, but that in process of time, as men of higher intellect and finer moral sensibilities (the prophets, to wit) applied themselves to the task of instruction, everything took a nobler elevation, and a religion and morality were brought forth which stood at a wide remove from those of the Pentateuch. This we altogether deny, and regret the countenance it has met with from Dean Stanley (as indeed from many other writers of the day). He quotes the passage from Mill without the slightest qualification, and proceeds to support it by specifying the more leading features in which the prophetic teaching constituted an advance on what preceded. The particular points are, first, the unity of God; then the spirituality of God (meaning thereby His moral character, His justice, love, and goodness); and lastly, as the necessary result of this, the exaltation of the moral above the ceremonial in religion ([not sacrifice, not fasting, not ablutions,’ etc., but ‘judgment, mercy, and truth’). (Lectures on Jewish Church, end of Lec. XIX and beginning of Lec. XX.) Beyond all doubt, these were among the leading characteristics of the prophetical teaching; and in that teaching they are set forth with a clearness, a prominence, and a fervour, which may justly be termed peculiar, and for which the church of all ages has reason to be thankful. The circumstances of the times were such as to call, in a very special manner, for the bold and explicit announcement of the vital truths and principles in question; only, it must be remembered, they were not given for the purpose of initiating a higher form of morality and religion, but rather of staying a perilous degeneracy, and recovering a position that had been lost. For the truths and principles were in no respect new; they were interwoven with the writings and legislation of Moses; and only in the mode and fulness of the revelation, but not in the things revealed, does the teaching of the prophets differ from the hand writing of Moses. So far from aiming at the introduction of anything properly new, either in the religion or the morality of the Old Covenant, it was the object of their most earnest strivings to turn back the hearts of the children to the fathers, the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; (1 Kings 18:37; Luke 1:17.) and the very last in the long line of prophetic agency, while pointing to nobler messengers and grander revelations in the coming future, charges his countrymen, as with his parting breath, to ‘remember the law of Moses which God commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.’ (Malachi 4:4.) It was virtually to say, This was meanwhile the best thing for them; the word of prophecy did not seek to carry them above the dispensation under which they lived; and not a higher position, in respect either to God or to one another, was to be gained by disregarding it, but a fall into vanity, corruption, and ruin. But as regards the particular points mentioned by Stanley, which of them, we should like to know, is wanting in the books of Moses, or is denied its just place in the religious polity he brought in? The grand truth of the Divine unity is assuredly not wanting; it stands in the very front of the Decalogue, and from the first chapter in Genesis to the last in Deuteronomy, it is the truth which above all others is prominent—so prominent, that (as we have seen) to guard and preserve this doctrine some would even take as the almost exclusive end of the Mosaic legislation. Nor is it much otherwise with the spirituality of God—understanding thereby not only His incorporeal nature, but also and more peculiarly His moral character; for this, too, is a pervading element both in the history and the legislation. It is the key which opens out to us, so far as it can be opened, the mystery of paradise and the fall, and the principle which runs through the entire series of providential dealings, of blessings bestowed upon some, and judgments inflicted upon others, which make up so large a portion of patriarchal history. But the grand testimony for it is in the law of the ten commandments, given as the revelation of God’s character, yea, laid as the very foundation of His throne in Israel—the most sublime exaltation of the moral above all merely physical notions of Deity, and of the spiritual over the outward and material in the forms of worship, to be found in the records of ancient times. The prophets could but unfold and vindicate the truth so presented; they could add nothing to its relative significance. And if, in the law itself, there were many enactments of a ceremonial kind—and if the Jewish people, especially in later times, shewed an inclination to give these the foremost place, to make more account of sacrifice, fasting, ablutions, than of judgment, mercy, and truth—it was in palpable violation (as we have already shewn) of the evident tendency and bearing of the law itself. It was only as testifying against an abuse, a culpable misreading of their religious institutions, that the prophets sometimes drew so sharply the distinction between the ceremonial and the moral in religion. At other times, they again shewed how they could appreciate the symbolical institutions of the law, and enforce their observance. (Psalms 51:19; Psalms 118:27; Isaiah 43:23-24; Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 9:13; Malachi 1:11; Malachi 3:9-10.) There was, then, no proper diversity, much less any antagonism, between the teaching of the prophets and the instruction embodied in the commands and ordinances of the law. And we must hold, with Harless, that there is no ground for regarding ‘the law of God in Israel as the product of a development-process among the people of Israel, who gradually arrived at the consciousness of what is good and right in the relation of man to man, and in the relation of man to God. On the contrary, God appears, in opposition to the prevailing spirit of the people, giving testimony to His will in a progressive revelation. The law did not sink down into the people of God as a spiritual principle, the development of which was by God surrendered to the people; but the entire compass of life’s environments was among this people placed, through the variety of the law’s enactments, under the prescription of the Divine commanding will. Instead of being abandoned to the vacillations and gropings of human knowledge, it stands there (what can be said neither of conscience nor of any human law) as beyond doubt the ‘holy law,’ and its command as the ‘holy and righteous and good command!’ (‘Christliche Ethik,’ sec. 16. If due consideration is given to what has been stated, one will know what to think of the loose and offensive statements often made by persons, however able, who give forth their short studies on grave subjects—such as the following in Froude, ‘The religion of the prophets was not the religion which was adapted to the hardness of heart of the Israelites of the Exodus. The Gospel set aside the law,’ etc. A certain glimmering of truth, to give colour to an essentially wrong meaning! It is also somewhat striking, in this connection, that the exercise of feelings of revenge, so often charged against the morality of the law, has more appearance of justification in the Psalms and Prophets than in the prescriptions of the law. But even in these the countenance given to it is more apparent than real. See, Supplementary Dissertation on the subject.) But with this fixed character as to the substance of the law, there is undoubtedly in the prophetical writings an advance made in the mode, and along therewith in the perspicuity, the fulness, and motive power of the instruction. What in the one lay written in naked prescriptions, or wrapt in the drapery of symbol, is in the other copiously unfolded, explained, and reasoned upon, accompanied also with many touching appeals and forcible illustrations. Specific points, too, as occasion required, are brought out with a breadth and prominence which it was impossible for them to possess in the original revelation. And then in those prophetical writings of later times, as the falling down of the tabernacle of David was clearly announced, and the dissolution of the Theocracy in its original form distinctly contemplated, it was through those writings that the minds of believing men got such insight as they could obtain into the nature of that new and better form of things, through which the blessing (so long deferred) of the covenant of promise was to be realized, and practical results achieved far surpassing what had been found in the past. It is impossible to go here into any detail on this part of the prophetical writings; but one thing ought to be noted concerning them, which may also be said to be common to them all, that while they speak plainly enough of the old being destined somehow to pass away, they not less plainly declare that all its moral elements should remain and come into more effective and general operation. When Isaiah, for example, makes promise of a king who should spring as a tender scion from the root of David, and not only retrieve the fortunes of His kingdom, but carry everything belonging to it to a state of highest perfection and glory, he represents him as bringing the very mind and will of God to bear on it, taking righteousness for the girdle of his loins, and establishing all with judgment and justice. (Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 9:11.) To magnify the law and make it honourable, is, in a later part of his prophecies, presented as the aim with which the Lord was going to manifest His name in the future, otherwise than He had done in the past; and, as the final result of the manifestation, there was to arise a kingdom of perfect order, a people all righteous, and because righteous full of peace, and blessing, and joyfulness. (Isaiah 42:21; Isaiah 60:1-22; Isaiah 65:17-18.) Jeremiah is even more explicit; he says expressly, that the Lord was going to make a new covenant with His people, different from that which He had made after the deliverance from Egypt; yet different rather in respect to form and efficient administration, than in what might be called the essential matter of the covenant; for this is the explanation given, ‘After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people’ (Jeremiah 31:33.) the same law in substance still, only transferred from the outward to the inward sphere—from the tables of stone to the fleshy tables of the heart; and this so as to secure, what had in a great measure failed under the old form of the covenant, a people with whom God could hold the most intimate and endearing fellowship. Then, following in the same line, there are such prophecies as those of Ezekiel, in which, with a glorious rise in the Divine kingdom from seeming ruin to the possession of universal dominion, there is announced a hitherto unknown work of the Spirit of God, changing hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, and imparting the disposition and the power to keep God’s statutes and judgments; (Ezekiel 17:23-24; Ezekiel 36:25-27.) the similar prophecy of Joel, according to which the Spirit was to be poured out in such measure, that spiritual gifts hitherto confined to a few should become, in a manner, the common property of believers; (Joel 2:28-32.) the prophecy of Micah, that the mountain of the Lord’s house, the seat of the Divine kingdom, should be morally exalted by such a manifestation of the Divine presence, and such a going forth of the law of the Lord, as would reach all hearts and carry it with decisive sway over the most distant lands; (Micah 4:1-5.) and, to mention no more, the brief but clear and striking announcements of Malachi, telling of a sudden coming of the Lord to His temple, with such demonstrations of righteousness and means of effective working, as would burn like a refiner’s fire, and bring forth a living community of pure and earnest worshippers. (Malachi 3:1-6.) From the general strain of these and many similar revelations in the prophetic Scriptures, it was evidently in the mind and purpose of God to give a manifestation of Himself among men for the higher ends and interests of His covenant, far surpassing anything that had been known in the history of the past; and that, while the demands of law should thus be for ever established, the law itself should be made to take another place than it had been wont to do in economical arrangements, and should be so associated with the peculiar gifts and graces of the Spirit, as to bring out into quite singular prominence the spiritual elements of the covenant, and secure for these far and wide a commanding influence in the world. So that the volume of Old Testament prophecy might be said to close with the presentation of this great problem to the consideration of thoughtful and believing men—how the promised blessing for Israel and the world could be wrought out, so as to maintain in all its integrity the law of the Divine righteousness, and, at the same time, provide for powers and agencies coming into play, which should necessarily change the law’s place from a higher to a lower, from a greater to a less prominent position in the administration of the Divine kingdom! V. There can be no doubt that, for generations before the Christian era, the minds of the better part of the Jewish people were more or less occupied with thoughts concerning this problem; and though from its very nature it was one of Divine, not of human solution, yet as the period approached for its passing into the sphere of history, expectation took very determinate forms of belief as to the manner in which it behoved to be done. These differed widely from each other, but were all so wide of the true mark, that the very conception of the plan by which the Divine purpose was to receive its accomplishment, proved the Divine insight of Him through whom it was at last carried into effect. With two of those forms of thought and belief we are perfectly familiar, they come out so prominently in the Gospel history—represented, respectively, by the two great divisions of later Judaism in Palestine—those of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Neither party, perhaps, embraced more than a section of the Jewish people resident in Palestine, but together they undoubtedly included its more influential portions—the men who guided the sentiments and ruled the destinies of their country. The Pharisees, as is well known, were by much the more numerous and influential party; and taking their name from a Hebrew word (parash), which means to separate or place apart, it denoted them as the men by way of eminence, the more select and elevated portion of the community, those who stood ‘at the summit of legal Judaism’ (Neander). In them the state of feeling described toward the close of last lecture found its more peculiar development. The law was in a manner everything with them; and to preserve it on all sides from dishonour and infringement, they gradually accumulated an infinite number of rules and precepts, which tended greatly more to mar than to further its design. For it led them to fix their regards almost exclusively on the outward relations of things, to turn both religion and morality into a rigid formalism; and, as a matter of course, the form was substituted for the power of godliness—weightier matters gave way in practice to comparative trifles—and the law was in great part made void by what was done to protect and magnify it. Thus the Pharisees, as a class of religionists, proved them elves to be blind in regard to the great problem which was then waiting its solution; and the more they multiplied their legal enactments, they but wove a thicker veil for their own understandings, and became the more incapable of looking to the end of those things which the law aimed at establishing. A perpetuation and extension of their system would have been a bondage and not a deliverance, a misfortune and not a blessing; since it would have served to case the world up in a hard, inflexible religious coat of mail, fitted to repel rather than attract—the very antithesis of a free, loving, devoted piety. It had been no better, but in various respects worse, on the principle of Sadduceeism; for here the deeper elements of the Old Covenant were not merely overshadowed, or relatively depreciated, as in Pharisaism, but absolutely ignored. The spiritual world was to it little more than a blank; it had an eye only for the visible and earthly sphere of things; therefore knew nothing of the spiritual significance of the law, and the depth of meaning which lay underneath its symbols of worship. For men of this stamp, the religion of the Old Covenant was the ground merely of their national polity and of their hopes as a people—which consequently had a claim on their respectful observance, but not such as was connected with painful convictions of sin, or earnest longings after a holier and better state of things. All that apparently entered into their dream of prospective glory would have been realized, if, without any material change in the religious aspect of things, they should be able, under the leadership of some second David, to rectify the political disorders of the time, relieve themselves of the shame and oppression of a foreign yoke, and rise to the ascendency of power and influence in the world, which the antecedents of their history gave them reason to expect. The more fundamental elements of the great problem could scarcely be said to come within their range of vision. There was much more of an earnest and thoughtful spirit in a class of religionists who belonged to Judea, and had their chief settlements about the shores of the Dead Sea, but who, from their reserved and secluded habits, are never mentioned in the Gospel history. I refer to the Essenes, whose religion appears to have been a strange and somewhat arbitrary compound of ritualistic and theosophic elements—of Judaism (in the Pharisaic sense) and asceticism. They are reported to have sent offerings to the temple, but they did not themselves personally frequent its courts, deeming it a kind of pollution to mingle in the throng of such a miscellaneous company of worshippers; so that many of the most distinctly commanded observances in the religion of the Old Covenant must have been unscrupulously set aside by them. But while thus in one direction scorning the restraints of ceremonialism, and in their general abstinence from marriage, and their communism of goods, chalking freely out a path for themselves, in other respects the Essenes were ceremonialists of the straitest sect: they would not kindle a fire or remove a vessel on the Sabbath, refused to use victuals that had been prepared by persons out of their own hallowed circle, resorted ever and anon to corporeal ablutions, in particular after having been touched by an uncircumcised person, or even one of an inferior grade among themselves. (Josephus, ‘Ant.’ xviii. 1, sec. iv.; ‘Wars,’ ii. 8, secs. 3-13.) Their system was evidently a sincere but ill-adjusted and abortive attempt at reform; on the one side, a reaction from the mechanical, selfish, and worldly spirit of Pharisaism; on the other, an adhesion to specific forms and ascetic practices, as the choicest means for reaching the higher degrees of perfection. At how great a remove did the followers of such a system stand from the spiritual elevation of the prophets! And in themselves how obviously incapable of bursting the shell of Judaism, and understanding how a religion might be evolved from it of blessed peace, expansive benevolence, and son-like freedom! It was clear that no more with them than with the others, was found the secret of the problem which now lay before the people of God: they could contribute nothing to its solution. And the same, yet again, has to be said of another class of reforming Jews, who brought higher powers to the task than the narrow-minded Essenes, and who gave to Judaism whatever light could be derived from the most spiritual philosophy of Greece. I speak now not of the Jews in Palestine, but of the Alexandrian Jews, more especially as represented by the thoughtful and contemplative Philo. He shrunk from the extremes that some of his countrymen, in their passion for philosophy, appear to have run into—‘trampling (as he says of them) upon the laws in which they were born and bred, upturning those customs of their country which are liable to no just censure.’ He, along with the great body even of the philosophizing Jews, still held by the traditions and religious customs of his fathers, but threw over these a kind of foreign costume, read them in a Hellenic light, and thereby sought to obtain from them a more profound and varied instruction than they were otherwise capable of yielding. Philo and his coadjutors were so far right, that they conceived a letter and a spirit to belong to the Old Testament; but they entirely erred in trying to find a key to the spirit in the sublimated physics of a Gentile philosophy—in seeing, for example, in the starry hosts choirs of the highest and purest angels, in the tabernacle a pattern of the universe, in the twelve loaves of shew-bread the twelve months of the year, in the two rows of them the vernal and autumnal equinox, in the seven-branched candlestick the seven planets, and so on. This was truly to seek the living among the dead. It is the moral, as we have had occasion frequently to repeat, which is the essential element in the religion of the Old Testament, underlying all its symbols, interwoven with all its histories; the spirit which pervades them throughout is the spirit of the ten commandments. And in trying to find in them the cover of philosophic ideas, or the reflex of material nature, everything was turned into a wrong direction; it became merely the handmaid of an intellectual refinement or a mystic lore, but in the same proportion ceased to be of real value in the kingdom of God. On every side we see only misapprehension and failure. Not one of the various sections, into which the covenant-people latterly fell, sufficiently grasped the completed revelation of the Old Testament, so as even to perceive how its destined end was to be reached—how its great problem was to be solved. From the simply ritualistic and patriotic spirit, as represented by the divergent schools of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, it lay hid; it lay hid also from the theosophic and ascetic spirit, as represented by the earnest, but exclusive and somewhat forbidding sect of the Essenes. And when philosophy, with its intellectual culture and lofty aspirations, came to the task, it fared no better; the real spirit of the old economy was not evoked, nor any discovery made of the way by which its apparent contradictories might be reconciled, and an influence of charmed power brought to bear on the hearts and consciences of men. For anything that such schools and parties could effect, or even knew distinctly to propose, the world had slumbered on in its ancient darkness and corruption—its moral degeneracy unchecked, its disquieting terrors unallayed, its debasing superstitions and foul idolatries continuing to hold captive the souls of men. And if the real reform—the salvation-work, and the better spirit growing out of it, which like a vivifying pulse of life was to make itself felt through society, to cause humanity itself to spring aloft into a higher sphere, and commence a new career of fruitfulness in intellectual and moral action—if this should have found its realization in One who, humanly speaking, was the least likely to be furnished for the undertaking—One who not only belonged to the same people, but was reared in one of their obscurest villages, and under the roof of one of its humblest cottages whence, we naturally ask, could it have been found in Him, but from His altogether peculiar connection with the Highest? A failure in every quarter but the one which was most palpably deficient in human equipment and worldly resources, manifestly bespeaks for that One the preternatural insight and all-sufficient help of God. Jesus of Nazareth did what all others were unable not only to accomplish, but even adequately to conceive, because He was Immanuel, God with us; and so, in spite of the lack of human advantages, and the fierce opposition of powerful foes, He fulfilled the task with which expectation had been so long travailing in birth, and left the mysterious problem concerning the future of the Divine kingdom among men written out in the facts of His marvellous history, and the rich dowry of grace and blessing He brought in for His redeemed. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: 04.08. LECTURE 7. ======================================================================== Lecture 7. The Relation Of The Law To The Mission And Work Of Christ—The Symbolical And Ritual Finding In Him Its Termination, And The Moral Its Formal Appropriation And Perfect Fulfilment. AS the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ for the work of our redemption was unspeakably the greatest era in the history of God’s dispensations toward men, we cannot doubt that every thing respecting it was arranged with infinite wisdom. It took place, as the apostle tells us, ‘in the fulness of the time’ (Galatians 4:4). Many circumstances, both in the church and in the world, conspired to render it such; and among these may undoubtedly be placed the fact, that there was not only a general expectation throughout the world of some one going to arise in Judea, who should greatly change and renovate the state of things, but in Judea itself the more certain hope and longing desire of a select few, who, taught by the word of prophecy, were anxiously waiting ‘for the consolation of Israel.’ Yet even with them, as may be reasonably inferred from what afterwards transpired in Gospel history, the expectation, however sincere and earnest, was greatly wanting in discernment: it might justly be said ‘to see through a glass, darkly.’ The great problem which, according to Old Testament Scripture, had to find its solution in the brighter future of God’s kingdom, was not distinctly apprehended by any known section of the covenant-people; and in all the more prominent and active members of the community there were strong currents of opinion and deeply cherished convictions, which were utterly incompatible with the proper realization of the Divine plan. This condition of affairs immensely aggravated the difficulty of the under taking for Him, who came in this peculiar work to do the Father’s will; but it served, at the same time, more clearly to shew how entirely all was of God both the insight to understand what was needed to be done, and the wisdom, the resolution, the power to carry it into execution. If, however, from the position of matters now noticed, it was necessary that our Lord should move in perfect independence as regards the religious parties of the time, it was not less necessary that He should exercise a close dependence on the religion which they professed in common to maintain. Coming as the Messiah promised to the Fathers, He entered, as a matter of course, into the heritage of all preceding revelations, and therefore could introduce nothing absolutely new—could only exhibit the proper growth and development of the old. And so, while isolating Himself from the Judaism of the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus lovingly embraced the Judaism of the law and the prophets; and, founding upon what had been already established, took it for His especial calling to unfold the germs of holy principle which were contained in the past revelations of God, and by word and deed ripen them into a system of truth and duty adapted to the mature stage which had now been reached of the Divine dispensations. It was only in part, indeed, that this could be done during the personal ministry of our Lord; for, as the light He was to introduce depended to a large extent on the work He had to accomplish for men, there were many things respecting it which could not be fully disclosed till the events of His marvellous history had run their course. It was the redeeming work of Christ which more than all besides was to give its tone and impress to the new dispensation; and much of the teaching on men’s relations to God, on their present calling and their future prospects as believers in Christ, had in consequence to be deferred till the work itself was finished. This our Lord Himself plainly intimated to His disciples near the close of His career, when pointing to certain things of which they could not even then bear the disclosure, but which the Spirit of truth would reveal to them after His departure, and qualify them for communicating to others. (John 16:12-15. See the point admirably exhibited in Bernard’s ‘Bampton Lecture,’ on ‘The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament.’) Yet not only were the materials for all provided by Christ in His earthly ministry, but the way also was begun to be opened for their proper application and use; and what was after wards done in this respect by the hands of the apostles was merely the continuation and further unfolding of the line of instruction already commenced by their Divine Master. I. Now, of one thing our Lord’s ministry left no room to doubt—and it is the more noticeable, as in this He differed from all around Him—He made a marked distinction between the symbolical or ritual things of the Old Covenant, and its strictly moral precepts. He regarded the former, as the legal economy itself did, in the light merely of appendages to the moral—temporary expedients, or provisional substitutes for better things to come, which had no inherent value in themselves, and were to give way before the great realities they foreshadowed. Hence the reserve He manifested in regard to external rites and ceremonies. We read of no act of bodily lustration in His public history. He expressly repudiated the idea of washing having in itself any power to cleanse from spiritual defilement, or of true purification at all depending on the kind of food that might be partaken of. (Matthew 15:1-20.) He was the true, the ideal Nazarite, yet undertook no Nazarene vow. Though combining in Himself all the functions of prophet, priest, and king, yet He entered on them by no outward anointing: He had the real consecrating of the Holy Spirit, visibly descending and abiding with Him. (John 1:32-34; Luke 3:22; Luke 4:18.) And though He did not abstain from the stated feasts of the Temple, when it was safe and practicable for Him to be present, yet we hear of no special offerings for Himself or His disciples on such occasions. Even as regards the ordinary services and offerings of the Temple, He claimed a rightful exemption, on the ground of His essentially Divine standing, from the tribute-money, the half-shekel contribution, by which they were maintained. (Matthew 17:24-27.) He was Himself, as the Son of the Highest, the Lord of that Temple; it was the material symbol of what He is in His relation to His people; and on the occasion of His first public visit to its courts, He vindicated His right to order its affairs, by casting out the buyers and sellers; yea, and, identifying Himself with it, He declared that when He fell, as the Redeemer of the world, it too should virtually fall—the Great-Inhabitant should be gone—and hence forth, no more in one place than another, but in every place where the children of faith might meet together, there should true worship and acceptable service be presented to God. (John 2:13-22; John 4:21-24.) Utterances like these plainly rung the knell of the old ceremonialism. They bespoke a speedy removing of the external fabric of Judaism, yet such a removing as would leave greatly more than it took—instead of the imperfect and temporary shadow, the eternal substance. And if one might still speak, in the hallowed language of the sanctuary, of a temple, and a sacrifice, and a daily ministration, of a sanctity to be preserved and a pollution to be shunned, it must be as bound to no specific localities, or stereotyped forms, but as connected with the proper freedom and enlargement of God’s true children. (The nature of this part of our Lord’s work, and the substance of His teaching respecting it, was strikingly embodied in the first formal manifestation of His supernatural agency—the σημείον, which He performed as an appropriate and fitting commencement to the whole cycle of His miraculous working—namely, the turning of water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana (John 2:1-10). Considered as such a beginning, it certainly has, at first sight, a somewhat strange appearance; but, on closer examination, this aspect of strangeness gives way, and the Divine wisdom of the procedure discovers itself. The transaction, like the period to which it belonged, found a point of contact between the new and the old in God’s kingdom—it was indicative of the transition which was on the eve of taking place from the law to the Gospel. The water-vessels used for the occasion were those ordinarily employed for purposes of purification according to the law; they stood there as the representatives of the old economy—the remembrancers of sin and pollution even in the midst of festive mirth; and had they been associated merely with water, they could not have been made the bearer of any higher instruction. But when, after being filled with this, the water was turned into wine—wine of the finest quality—such as drew forth the spontaneous testimony, not that the old, but that the new was the better, they became the emblem of the now opening dispensation of grace, which, with its vivifying and refreshing influences, was soon to take the place of the legal purifications. Yet, in that supplanting of the one by the other, there was not the production of something absolutely new, but rather the old transformed, elevated, as in the transmutation of the simple and comparatively feeble element of water into the naturally powerful and active principle of wine. In the very act of changing the old into the new, our Lord, so far from ignoring or disparaging the old, served Himself of it; and it was, we may say, within the shell and framework of what had been, that the new and better power was made to come forth and develop itself in the world. Such, in its main features and leading import, was the sign here wrought by Jesus at the commencement of His public career. The occasion, too, on which it was done, fitly accorded with its character; for, just as in the Old Testament arrangements the feasts were linked to appropriate seasons in nature, so was it here with the initiatory work of Christ: like the economical change which the miracle symbolized, the time was one of hope and gladness. It was the commencing era of a new life to the persons more immediately concerned, and one that, not only in its natural aspect, had the sanction and countenance of Christ, but also, from the higher turn given to it by His miraculous working, made promise of the joy and blessing which was to result from His great undertaking. Nay, by entering into the bridegroom’s part, and ministering to the guests the materials of gladness, He foreshadowed how, as the Regenerator of the world, He should make Himself known us the kind and gracious Bridegroom of His church. And it seems as if the Baptist had but caught up the meaning couched under this significant action of our Lord, when, not long afterwards, he spoke of Jesus as the Bridegroom, whose voice he, as the Bridegroom’s friend, delighted to hear, and whose appearance should have been welcomed by all as the harbinger of life and blessing.) II. Turning now to the moral part of the Old Testament legislation to the law strictly so called—we find our Lord acting in a quite different manner shewing the utmost solicitude to preserve intact the revelation at Sinai, and to have it made, through His teaching, both better understood, and with fresh sanctions enforced as the essential rule of righteousness in God’s kingdom—nay, Himself submitting to bow down to it as the yoke which, in His great work of obedience, He was to bear, and, by bearing, to glorify God and redeem man. Let us look at it first in more immediate connection with the teaching of Christ. There was undoubtedly a difference—a difference of a quite perceptible kind, and one that will not be over looked by those who would deal wisely with the records of God’s dispensations, in respect to the place occupied by law in the economies headed respectively by Moses and Christ. It was in His memorable Sermon on the Mount that our Lord made the chief formal promulgation of the fundamental principles of His Kingdom, which, therefore, stood to the coming dispensation in somewhat of the same relation that the imposing promulgation of law from Sinai did to the ancient Theocracy; and, as if on purpose to link the two more distinctly and closely together, He makes to that earlier revelation very frequent and pointed reference in His discourse. But how strikingly different in mode and circumstance the one revelation from the other! The two dispensations have their distinctive characteristics imaged in the two historical occasions, exhibiting even to the outward eye the contrast expressed by the Evangelist John, when he said, ‘The law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ What a difference in the external scenery alone, in. the two mounts! Sinai is less properly a mountain, in the ordinary sense of the term, than a lofty and precipitous rock, in the midst of a wilderness of rocks of similar aspect and formation—combining, in a degree rarely equalled, the two features of grandeur and desolation; ‘The Alps unclothed,’ as they have been significantly called—the Alps stript of all verdure and vegetation, and cleft on every side into such deep hollows, or rising into such rugged eminences, as render them alike of sullen mien and of difficult access. There, amid the sterner scenery of nature, intensified by the supernatural elements brought into play for the occasion, the Lord descended as in a chariot of fire, and proclaimed with a voice of thunder those ten words which were to form the basis of Israel’s religion and polity. It was amid quite other scenes and aspects of nature, that the incarnate Redeemer met the assembled multitudes of Galilee, when He proceeded to disclose in their hearing the fundamental principles of the new and higher constitution He came to introduce. The exact locality in this case cannot, indeed, be determined with infallible certainty—though there is no reason to doubt its connection with the elevated table-land, rising prominently into view a few miles to the south of Capernaum, and jutting up into two little points called the ‘Horns of Hattin,’ to which tradition has assigned the name of ‘The mount of the Beatitudes.’ This elevated plain, we are informed, ‘is easily accessible from the Galilean lake, and from that plain to the summit [or points just mentioned] is but a few minutes’ walk. Its situation also is central both to the peasants of the Galilean hills, and the fisher men of the lake, between which it stands; and would, therefore, be a natural resort to Jesus and His disciples, when they retired for solitude from the shores of the sea.’ (Stanley’s ‘Sinai and Palestine,’ p. 368.) The prospect from the summit is described even now as pleasing, though rank weeds are growing around, and only occasional patches of corn meet the eye; (Robertson’s ‘Researches,’ III. p. 239.) but how much more must it have been so then, when Galilee was a well-cultivated and fertile region, and the rich fields which slope downwards to the lake were seen waving with their summer produce! It was on such an eminence, embosomed in so fair and pleasing an amphitheatre, and, as the multitudes assembled on the occasion seemed to betoken, under a bright sky and a serene atmosphere, that the blessed Redeemer chose to give forth this fresh utterance of Heaven’s mind and will; and Himself the while, not wrapt in thick darkness, not even assuming an attitude of imposing grandeur, but fresh from the benign work of healing, and seated in humble guise, as a man among his fellow-men, at the most as a teacher in the midst of His listening disciples. So did the Son of Man open His mouth and make known the things which concern His kingdom. What striking and appropriate indications of Divine grace and condescension! How well fitted to inspire confidence and hope! As compared with the scenes and transactions associated with the giving of the law from Sinai, it bespoke such an advance in the march of God’s dispensations, as is seen in the field of nature when it can be said, ‘The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’ The discourse which our Lord delivered on the occasion entirely corresponds with the new era which it marked in the history of God’s dispensations. The revelation from Sinai, though grafted on a covenant of grace, and uttered by God as the Redeemer of Israel, was emphatically a promulgation of law. Its direct and formal object was to raise aloft the claims of the Divine righteousness, and meet, with repressive and determined energy, the corrupt tendencies of human nature. The Sermon on the Mount, on the other hand, begins with blessing. It opens with a whole series of beatitudes, blessing after blessing pouring itself forth as from a full spring of beneficence, and seeking, with its varied and copious manifestations of goodness, to leave nothing un provided for in the deep wants and longing desires of men. Yet here also, as in other things, the difference between the New and the Old is relative only, not absolute. There are the same fundamental elements in both, but these differently adjusted, so as fitly to adapt them to the ends they had to serve, and the times to which they respectively belonged. In the revelation of law there was a substratum of grace, recognised in the words which prefaced the ten commandments, and promises of grace and blessing also intermingling with the stern prohibitions and injunctions of which they consist. And so, inversely, in the Sermon on the Mount, while it gives grace the priority and the prominence, it is far from excluding the severer aspect of God’s character and government. No sooner, indeed, has grace poured itself forth in a succession of beatitudes, than there appear the stern demands of righteousness and law—the very law proclaimed from Sinai—and that law so explained and enforced as to bring fully under its sway the intents of the heart, as well as the actions of the life, and by men’s relation to it determining their place and destinies in the Messiah’s kingdom. Here, then, we have our Lord’s own testimony regarding His relation to the law of God. His first and most comprehensive declaration upon the subject—the one which may be said to rule all the others—is the utterance on the mount, ‘Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets, I came not to destroy (καταλῦσαι, to dissolve, abrogate, make void), but to fulfil (πληρῶσαι).’ (Matthew 5:17.) This latter expression must be taken in its plain and natural sense; therefore, not as some would understand it, to confirm or ratify—which is not the import of the word, and also what the law and the prophets did not require. God’s word needs no ratification. Nor, as others, to fill up and complete their teaching for this were no proper contrast to the destroying or making void. No; it means simply to substantiate, by doing what they required, or making good what they announced. To fulfil a law (πληροῦν νόμον), was a quite common expression, in profane as well as sacred writings, and only in the sense now given. (Luke 24:44; Acts 3:18; Romans 13:8; Galatians 5:14. See, for example, Tholuck and Fritzsche on the words. Alford points to what he calls parallel instances for another meaning; but they are not parallel; for the question is not what πληροῦν by itself, but what πληροῦν νόμον signifies. The expression has but one ascertained meaning.) So we find Augustine confidently urging it against the Manichsean perverters of the truth in his day: ‘The law (says he) is fulfilled when the things are done which are commanded. . . . Christ came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it: not that things might be added to the law which were wanting, but that the things written in it might be done—which His own words confirm; for He does not say, “One jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law" till the things wanting are added to it, but” till all be done.”’ (Contra Faustum. L. xvii. sec. 6. I have given only what he says on the expression of our Lord; his mode of explaining the fulfilment, though not in correct, is somewhat partial and incomplete:—Ipsa lex cum impleta est, gratia et veritas facta est. Gratia pertinet ad charitatis plenitudinem, veritas ad proplietiarum impletionem.) And uttered as the declaration was when men’s minds were fermenting with all manner of opinions respecting the intentions of Jesus, it was plainly meant to assure them that He stood in a friendly relation to the law and the prophets, and could no more, in His teaching than in His working, do what would be subversive of their design. They must find in Him only their fulfilment. To render His meaning still more explicit, our Lord gives it the advantage of two specific illustrations, one hypothetical, the other actual. ‘Should any one, therefore (He says, in ver. 19), annul (not break, as in the English version, but put away, abrogate, annul, λύσῃ) one of these commandments—the least of them—and teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven;’ such is the exact rendering, and it very expressly asserts the validity of what was found in preceding revelations, down even to their least commands, in the kingdom presently to be set up. There was to be no antagonism between the new and the old; so far from it, that any one who had failed to discern and appreciate the righteousness embodied in the smaller things of the law, and on that account would have them set aside—for so plainly must the words be understood—he should exhibit such a want of accordance with the spirit of the new economy, he should so imperfectly understand and sympathize with its claims of righteousness, that he might lay his account to be all but excluded from a place in the kingdom. But it was quite conceivable, that one might in a certain sense not except even to the least, and yet be so defective in the qualities of true righteousness, as to stand in an altogether false position toward the greater and more important. There were well-known parties in such a position at that particular time; and by a reference to what actually existed among them, our Lord furnishes another, and to His audience, doubtless, a more startling, illustration. ‘For I say unto you,’ He adds, ‘that except your righteousness should exceed (περισσεύσῃ go beyond, overpass) that of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ The question is now one of total unfitness and consequent exclusion. In the preceding and hypothetical statement, our Lord had declared how even a comparatively small antagonism to the righteousness of the law should inevitably lower one’s position in respect to the kingdom; and now, vindicating this stringency, as well as exemplifying and confirming it, He points to the mistaken and defective standard prevalent among the more conspicuous religionists of the time as utterly incompatible with any place whatever in the kingdom. The Scribes are joined with the Pharisees in upholding the righteousness in question—the one as representatives of its defective teaching, the other as examples of its inadequate doing. The Scribes understood and taught superficially, adhering to the mere letter of requirement, and hence unduly magnifying the little, relatively undervaluing or neglecting the great. The Pharisees, in like manner, practised superficially, intent mainly oil the proprieties of outward observance, doing the works of law only in so far as they seemed to be expressly enjoined, and doing them without love, without life—hence leaving its greater things in reality undone. A righteousness of this description fell altogether below what Jesus, as the Head of the new dispensation, would require of His followers, below also, it is implied, what was taught in the law and the prophets; for while He could place Himself in perfect accord with the one, He entirely repudiated any connection with the other: the kingdom, as to the righteousness recognised and expected in it, was to rise on the foundation of the law and the prophets; but for any one to stand on the plat form of the Scribes and Pharisees, was to belong to an essentially different sphere. Now two conclusions seem plainly to flow from this part of our Lord’s teaching. One is, that He must have had chiefly in view the moral elements of the old economy, or the righteousness expressed in its enactments:—I do not say simply the ten commandments; for though these always occupied the foremost place in discourses on the law, did so also here (as appears from the examples presently referred to by our Lord), yet one can scarcely think of them when a ‘least’ is spoken of, as they one and all belonged to the fundamental statutes of the kingdom. Yet, as it is of the law, in connection with and subservient to righteousness, that our Lord speaks, primary respect must be had to the Decalogue, and, in so far as matters of a ceremonial and judicial nature were included, to these only as designed to inculcate and enforce the principles of holy living; that is, not as mere outward forms or civil regulations, but as the means and the measure of practical goodness. For, otherwise, our Lord’s teaching here would be at variance with what He taught elsewhere, and with the truth of things. What He said, for example, on the subject of defilement, that this does not depend upon corporeal conditions and questions of food, but simply on the state of the heart and the issues which proceed from it, formally considered, was undoubtedly an infringing upon the lesser things of the law; but not so really, for it was merely a penetrating through the shell into the kernel, and in direct terms pressing upon the conscience the lessons intended to be conveyed by the law’s carnal ordinances. If the letter fell away, it was only that the spirit might become more clear and prominent. And so in regard to all the ritual observances and factitious distinctions associated with the religion of the Old Covenant—while an entire change was hinted at by our Lord, and in His name was after wards introduced—the commands imposing them were by no means dishonoured, since the righteousness, for the sake of which these commands were given, was still cared for, and even more thoroughly secured than it could be by them. Rightly viewed, the change was more properly a fulfilling than an abrogating; an abrogating, indeed, formally, yet a fulfilling or establishing in reality. Another conclusion which evidently flows from the statements made by our Lord respecting His own relation and that of His kingdom to the law and the prophets, is that the distinctions which He proceeds to draw, in the Sermon on the Mount, between what had been said in earlier times on several points of moral and religious duty, and what He now said, must have respect, not to the teaching, strictly speaking, of the law and the prophets, but to the views currently entertained of that teaching, or the false maxims founded on it. After so solemnly asserting His entire harmony with the law and the prophets, and His dependence on them, it would manifestly have been to lay Himself open to the charge of inconsistence, and actually to shift the ground which He professedly occupied in regard to them, if now He should go on to declare, that, in respect to the great landmarks of moral and religious duty, they said one thing, and He said another. This is utterly incredible; and we must assume, that in every instance where a precept of the law is quoted among the things said in former times, even though no improper addition is coupled with it (as at vers. 27 and 33), there still was an unwarrantable or quite inadequate view commonly taken of them, against which our Lord directs His authoritative deliverance, that He might point the way to the proper height of spiritual attainment. This view, which the very nature of the case may be said to demand, is also confirmed by the formula with which the sayings in question are introduced: Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time (τοῖς ἀρχαίοις, to the ancients). (Commentators are still divided on the construction here, whether the expression should be taken in the dative or the ablative sense—to the ancients, or by them. The general tendency of opinion, however, is decidedly in favour of the former; and though the sense does not materially differ whichever construction is adopted, yet various philological considerations determine for the dative. (1.) The verb (obsol. ῥέω) is used with great frequency in Matthew’s Gospel in the passive, but always (unless the cases in chap. 5 be exceptions) with a preposition, ὑπό or διά, when the parties by whom the things spoken are mentioned they were spoken by or through such an one. (2.) In the other passages of Scripture, in which precisely ἐῤῥεθη is used, followed as here by words in the dative without a preposition (Romans 9:12; Romans 9:26; Galatians 3:16; Revelation 6:11; Revelation 9:4), it is beyond doubt the dative import that must be retained. (3.) If it were to be read by the ancients, then a special emphasis must rest upon the ancients; this will stand in formal contrast to the ‘I’ of our Lord. The collocation of the words, however, would in that case have been different; it would have been ὅτι τοῖς άρχαιοίς ἐῤῥεθη, not ὅτι εῤῥεθη τοῖς ἀρχαιοίς. Not only so, but in most of the repetitions of the formula, in Matthew 5:27, according to what seems the best reading, and in Matthew 5:31; Matthew 5:38; Matthew 5:43, according to the received text, the τοῖς ἀρχαιοίς is wholly omitted—shewing that it was on the saying of the things, not on the persons who said them, that the contrast mainly turns. (4.) It may certainly be regarded as a confirmation of this being, at least, the most natural and obvious construction (which itself is, in such a matter, of some moment), that it is the one adopted by all the leading Greek commentators—Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius. It is that also of the Syriac and Vulgate. Beza was the first, I believe, who formally proposed the rendering by them of old time, taking the simple τοῖς ἀρχαιοίς as equivalent to ὑπὸ τοῖς ἀρχ.) It is a very general mode of expression, not such as we should have expected, if only the deliverances of Scripture were referred to, or the persons who at first hand received them from the messengers of Heaven. These were the honoured fathers of the covenant-people, not the ancients merely, who at some indefinite period in the past had heard and thought after some particular manner. Hence, while they all turn on certain precepts of the law, these, in two or three of the cases, are expressly coupled with later additions, indicative of the superficial view that was taken of them; (These are, Matthew 5:21, after ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ ‘And whosoever shall kill shall be liable to the judgment;’ and Matthew 5:33-36, in regard to several kinds of oaths; and Matthew 5:43, after ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour,’ ‘Thou shalt hate thine enemy.’) and, throughout all the cases adduced, it is evident from our Lord’s mode of handling them, that it is not the law per se that is under consideration, but the law as understood and expounded according so the frigid style of Rabbinical interpretation—by persons who looked no further than its form of sound words, who thought that to kill had to do with nothing but actual murder, and that a neighbour could be only one dwelling in good fellowship beside us; who, in short, turned the law of God’s righteousness, which, like its Divine Author, must be pervasively spiritual, into a mere political code or ecclesiastical rubric. It is of the law, as thus unduly curtailed, evacuated of its proper meaning, treated by the Scribes or letter-men (γράμμα) as itself but a letter (γραμματεῖς), that Christ speaks, and, setting His profound and far-reaching view in opposition to theirs, proclaims, ‘But I say unto you.’ Never on any occasion did Jesus place Himself in such antagonism to Moses; and least of all could He do so here, immediately after having so emphatically repudiated the notion, that He had come to nullify the law and the prophets, or to cancel men’s obligation to any part of the righteousness they inculcated. It is to free this righteousness from the restrictive bonds that had been laid upon it, and bring it out in its proper breadth and fulness, that our Lord’s expositions are directed. And as if to guard against any wrong impressions being produced by what He now said—to shew that His views of righteousness were in strict agreement with what is written in the law and the prophets, and that the germ of all was already there, He distinctly connected with them, at a subsequent part of His discourse, His own enunciation of the law of brotherly love, in what has been called its finest form, ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 7:12). (I am convinced the connection of our Lord’s discourse—the relation of the specific illustrations, given in Matthew 5:21-48, to the fundamental positions which they were brought to illustrate, Matthew 5:17-20—will admit of no other construction than the one now given. From early times, others have been adopted by the Manichæans, who sought to found on the illustrative expositions an absolute contrariety between Christ and Moses; and by the great body of the Greek and Romish theologians, followed in later times by the Socinian, Arminian, and rationalistic expositors, who understand them of a relative antagonism—namely, that the law as given by Moses was good as far as it went, but was carnal and imperfect, and so needed supplementing and enlarging by Christ. Christ, consequently, according to this view, placed His sayings in contrast with the law itself, as well as with the external legalisms of the Scribes and Pharisees; these, in fact, are regarded as in the main the true exponents of the Sinaitic law—contrary to the whole tenor of our Lord’s representations of them, and the position He took up with reference to them. The other, and what I take to be the correct view, began to be distinctly unfolded and firmly maintained by Augustine, in his contendings with the Manichæans. This is the sense expressed in the passage already quoted from his writings, at p. 224; and in the treatise there referred to, L. Matthew 19:27, he brings out the same meaning at still greater length, illustrating as well as stating this to have been Christ’s object, either to give the explanation of the law that was needed, or to secure its better observance—omnia ex Hebraeorum lege commemoravit, ut quiquid ex persona sua insuper loqueretur vel ad expositionem requirendam valeret, si quid ilia obscure posuisset, vel ad tutius conservandum quod ilia voluisset. The Protestant church, generally, in its sounder representatives, took the same view,—Luther, Calvin, Chemnitz (who speaks of the whole passage being corrupted by those who think, Christum hanc suam explicationem opponere ipsi legi divinae), latterly, Stier, Meyer, Fritzsche, Olshausen, even De Wette, Bleek, Ewald, and others of a like stamp; so also Tholuck, who gives a lengthened review of opinions on the subject, and expresses his own view, and that of many other of the best expositors thus:—‘The object of the Saviour is twofold; on the one hand, He seeks to exhibit the Mosaic law in its deeper import as the moral norm of the righteousness of His kingdom; on the other hand, He aims at an exposure of the laxer Pharisaic righteousness of His contemporaries, shewing how inadequate it was to attain the high end in view.’ Neander, Hofmann, and several others of note, have espoused the other view. In our own country, Mr Liddon (Bampton Lecture for 1866, p. 252) presents it with rhetorical confidence; while Mr Plumptre (‘Christ and Christendom,’ 1866, p. 235), substantially concurs with the old Protestant interpretation, looking on our Lord’s discourse ‘as a protest against the popular ethics of the Scribes and Pharisees, professing to be based upon the law, but representing it most imperfectly.’ Alford would take a middle course, but fails to make his meaning quite intelligible. The contrast, he thinks, is ‘not between the law misunderstood, and the law rightly understood, but between the law and its ancient exposition, which in their letter, and as given, were vain, and the same as spiritualized by Christ; but the Divine law, when taken in its letter (that is, we presume, as a mere outward regimen), is misunderstood, for it never was meant to be so taken; psalmists and prophets, as well as Christ, protested against that view of it; and then the more spiritual a law is, if left simply as law, the more certain is it to be vain as to any saving results. The parts in our Lord’s sermon which have most the appearance of contrariety to the old law, are what is said about swearing (Matthew 5:33-36), about the law of recompense (Matthew 5:38-42); also, in a future discourse, what is said on the law of divorce (Matthew 19:1-9). In regard to the first, however, the specific oaths of the Jews referred to by Christ, taken in connection with His later reference to them in Matthew 23:16-22, shew clearly enough that it is a prevailing abuse and corruption of the law that was in view . And, as Harless remarks, ‘What the Lord, the Giver of the law, had commanded in the Old Covenant, namely, that one should swear in His name (Deuteronomy 6:13; Deuteronomy 6:18; Deuteronomy 6:20; Exodus 22:11), that could not be forbidden in the new by the Lord, the Fulfiller of the law, without destroying instead of fulfilling it. Rather in this precisely consists the fulfil ment, that what the law commanded without being able properly to secure the fulfilment, that has now come in the Gospel, and, in consequence, the precept respecting swearing has also reached its fulfilment. It is just what Jeremiah intimated, when he predicted that Israel, after being converted, would swear in a true and holy manner (Jeremiah 4:1-2). What is prohibited in the Gospel of Matthew are light and frivolous forms of swearing, without any religious feeling’ (Ethik, sec. 39). As to the law of recompense (not revenge), as meant by Moses, it is substantially in force still, and must be so in all well-regulated communities. (See in Lect. IV.) What our Lord taught in connection with it was, that men in their private relations, and as exponents of love, should not regard that judicial law as exhausting their duty: to do so was to misapply it. They should consider how, by forbearance and well-doing, they might benefit a brother, instead of always exacting of him their due. The case of divorce has certain difficulties connected with it, yet rather from what in the Old Testament was not enacted, permitted merely, than what was. But see in Lect. IV.) At the same time, there is nothing in all this to prevent us from believing, as, indeed, it is next to impossible for any one to avoid feeling, that an advance was made by our Lord in His own wonderful exposition of the law—if only that advance is confined to the clearer light which is thrown on the meaning of its precepts, and the higher form which is given to their expression. The Decalogue itself, and the legislation growing out of it, were in their form adapted to a provisional state of things; they had to serve the end of a disciplinary institution, and as such had to assume more both of an external and a negative character, than could be regarded as ideally or absolutely the best. And it was only what might have been expected in the progress of things—when that which is perfect was come—that while the law in its great principles of moral obligation and its binding power upon the conscience remained, these should have had an exhibition given to them somewhat corresponding to the noon-day period of the church’s history, and the son-like freedom of her spiritual standing. Accordingly, our Lord does, in the Sermon on the Mount, and in other parts of His teaching, bring out in a manner never heretofore done, the spirituality of the law of God—shews how, just from being the revelation of His will who is Himself a Spirit, and, as such, necessarily has a predominant respect to spiritual states and acts, it reaches in all its precepts to the thoughts and intents of the heart, and only meets with the obedience it demands, when a pure, generous, self-sacrificing love regulates men’s desires and feelings, as well as their words and actions. Hence, things pertaining to the inner man have here relatively a larger place than of old; and, as a natural sequel, there is more of the positive, less of the negative in form; the mind is turned considerably more upon the good that should be done, and less upon the evil to be shunned. It is still but a difference in degree, and is often grossly exaggerated by those who have a particular theory of the life of Christ to make out—as by the author of ‘Ecce Homo,’ who represents the morality enjoined in the Pentateuch as adapted only to half-savage tribes of the desert, the morality even of Isaiah and the prophets as ‘narrow, antiquated, and insufficient for the needs’ of men in the Gospel age, while, in the teaching of Christ, all becomes changed ‘from a restraint to a motive. Those who listened to it passed from a region of passive into a region of active morality. The old legal formula began, “Thou shalt not;” the new begins with “Thou shalt,”’ etc. (‘Ecce Homo,’ ch. xvi.) That this style of representation, in its comparative estimate of the new and the old, goes to excess, it would not be difficult to shew; but the mere circumstance that Mr J. S. Mill charges the expounders of Christian morality with presenting an ideal essentially defective, because ‘negative rather than positive, passive rather than active, innocence rather than nobleness, abstinence from evil rather than energetic pursuit of good,’ is itself a proof that elements of this description cannot be wanting in the Christian system. (‘Essay on Liberty,’ p. 89. It is due, however, to Mr Mill to state that, while his language in the passage referred to is not free from objection, he yet distinguishes between the teaching of Christ in this respect, and what he designates ‘the so-called Christian morality’ of later times. The writer of ‘Ecce Deus,’ in his attack on Mill (p. 261), has not sufficiently attended to this distinction. In another treatise, Mr Mill appears to find, in the fundamental principles of the Gospel, all that he himself teaches in morals. ‘In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbour as oneʼs-self, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.’ ‘On Utilitarianism,’ p. 24.) In truth, in the New Testament as well as in the Old, the prohibitory is perpetually alternating with the hortatory, the shall not with the shall; even in the Sermon on the Mount the one is nearly of as frequent occurrence as the other, and must be so in every revelation of spiritual obligation and moral duty that is suited to men with corrupt natures, and compassed about with manifold temptations. It must lay a restraint upon their inclinations to evil, as well as direct and stimulate their efforts to what is good. And the difference between the discourses of Christ and the earlier Scriptures on this and the other point now under consideration, cannot be justly exhibited as more than a relative one—adapted to a more advanced period of the Divine dispensations. It is such, however, that no discerning mind can fail to perceive it; and when taken in connection with the altogether peculiar illustrations given of it in the facts of Gospel history, places the Christian on a much higher elevation than that possessed by ancient Israel as to a clear and comprehensive acquaintance with the obligations of moral duty. (The view now given is not, I think, materially different from that of Wuttke, who conceives something more to have been intended by Christ in His exposition of the law, than a mere repudiation of the false interpretations of the Pharisees, namely, such an elucidation and deepening of the import, as to constitute a further development, or spiritual enlargement (‘Christliche Sittenlehre,’ sec. 208). He still does not mean that anything absolutely new was introduced, or a sense put upon the law which was not contained in the Decalogue; for he had just declared the ‘law of the Old Covenant to be simply the moral law, valid for all men and times,’ comprehensive of all righteousness, so that he who should keep it in spirit and in truth would be altogether righteous before God (sec. 204). But in Christ’s discourse it got a clearer, profounder exposition, and was thrown also into a higher form. It is much the same also, apparently, that is meant by M tiller when he speaks of the Decalogue expressing the eternal principles of true morality, and, therefore, always fitted to bring about the knowledge of sin and repentance; while still a far more developed and deeper knowledge of the moral law is given to the Christian Church through the efficacy of the holy prototype of Christ and the Holy Spirit, than could have been communicated by Moses to the children of Israel (On ‘Sin,’ B. I. P. I. c. 1). For this includes, besides law strictly so called, all supplementary means and privileges.) In perfect accordance with the views respecting the moral law exhibited in the Sermon on the Mount, and widely different from what He said of the ceremonial institutions, was the action of our Lord in regard to the Sabbatism enjoined in the fourth command of the Decalogue. He gives no hint whatever of its coming abolition, but, on the contrary, recognised its Divine ordination, and merely sought to establish a more wholesome and rational observance of it than was dreamt of or admitted by the slaves of the letter. On a variety of occasions He wrought cures on the Sabbath-day—so often, indeed, that the action must have been taken on purpose to convey what He deemed salutary and needful instruction for the time; and on one occasion He allowed His disciples to satisfy their hunger by plucking the ears of corn as they passed through a field. (Matthew 12:1-14; Mark 1:23-24; Mark 3:1-5; Luke 6:1-10; Luke 13:10-16; John 5:1-47, John 9:1-41) His watchful adversaries were not slow in marking this procedure, and charged our Lord with profaning the sacred rest of the Sabbath. How does He meet their reproaches? Not by quarrelling with the Divine command, or seeking to relax its obligation; but by explaining its true purport and design, as never meant to interfere with such actions as He performed or sanctioned. In proof of this He chiefly appeals to precedents and practices which His adversaries themselves could not but allow, if their minds had been open to conviction—such as David being permitted in a time of extremity to eat the shew-bread, or themselves rescuing a sheep when it had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath—things necessary to the preservation and support of life; or things, again, of a sacred nature, such as circumcising children on the legal day, though it might happen to be a Sabbath, doing the work at the Temple connected with the appointed service, which in some respects was greater on the seventh than the other days of the week, yea, at times involved all the labour connected with the slaying and roasting of the Paschal lamb for tens of thousands of people. With such things the parties in question were quite familiar; and they should have understood from them, that the prescribed rest of the Sabbath was to be taken, not in an absolute, but in a relative sense—not as simply and in every case cessation from work, irrespective of the ends for which it might be done, but cessation from ordinary or servile work, in order that things of higher moment, things touching on the most important interests of men, might be cared for. Its sacred repose, therefore, must give way to the necessary demands of life, even of irrational life, and to whatever is required to bring relief from actual distress and trouble. It must give way also to that kind of work which is more peculiarly connected with the service of God and with men’s restored fellowship with the life and blessedness of Heaven; for to promote this was the more special design of the Sabbatical appointment. So, plainly, existing facts shewed even in Old Testament times, though the Pharisees, in their zeal for an abstract and imperious legalism missed the proper reading of them. Jesus grasped, as usual, the real spirit of the institution; for, we are to remember, He is explaining the law of the Sabbath as it then stood, not superseding it by another. He would have them to understand that, as it is not the simple abstraction of a man’s property (which may in certain circumstances be done lawfully, and for his own temporal good), that constitutes a violation of the eighth commandment, but a selfish and covetous appropriation of it by fraud or violence; so, in regard to the fourth, the prohibition of work had respect only to what was at variance with its holy and beneficent designs. ‘The Sabbath was made for man’—with a wise and gracious adaptation to the requirements of his complex nature, as apt to be wearied with the toils, and in his spirit dragged downward by the cares of life; ‘not man for the Sabbath,’ as if it were an absolute and independent authority, that must hold its own, however hardly in doing so it might bear on the wants and interests of those placed under its control. It has an aim, a high moral aim, for the real wellbeing of mankind; and by a conscientious regard to this must everything, in regard to its outward observance, be ruled. Such is the view given by our Lord on the law of the Sabbath, speaking as from the ground of law, and doing the part merely of a correct expounder of its meaning; but a thought is introduced and variously expressed, as from His own higher elevation, in harmony with the spiritual aspect of the subject He had presented, and pointing to still further developments of it. The Temple, He had said, has claims of service, which it was no proper desecration of the Sabbath, but the reverse, to satisfy; and ‘a greater than the Temple was there.’ ‘The Temple yields to Christ, the Sabbath yields to the Temple, therefore the Sabbath yields to Christ’—so the sentiment is syllogistically expressed by Bengel; but yields, it must be observed, in both cases alike, only for the performance of works not antagonistic, but homogeneous, to its nature. Or, as it is again put, ‘The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’ Made, as the Sabbath was, for man, there necessarily belongs to man, within certain limits, a regulating power in respect to its observance, so as to render it more effectually subservient to its proper ends. But this power is supremely resident in Him, who is the Son of Man, in whom Humanity attains to its true ideal of goodness, whose will is in all things coincident with the will of God, and who, like the Father, works even while He rests. (John 5:17.) He is Lord of the Sabbath, and, as such, has a right to order everything concerning it, so as to make it, in the fullest sense, a day of blessing for man—a right, therefore, if He should see fit, to transfer its observance from the last day of the week to the first, that it might be associated with the consummation of His redemptive work, and to make it, in accordance with the impulsive life and energy thereby brought in, more than in the past, a day of active and hallowed employment for the good of men. So much was certainly implied in the claim of our Lord in reference to the Sabbath; but as regards the existence of such a day, its stated place in the ever-recurring weekly cycle, which in its origin was coeval with the beginning of the world, which as a law was inscribed among the fundamental precepts of the Decalogue, which renders it on the one side a memorial of the paradise that has been lost, and on the other a pledge of the paradise to be restored—in this respect nothing of a reactionary nature fell from our Lord, nor was any principle advanced which can justly be said to point in such a direction. (It needs scarcely to be said what an interval separates the sayings of our Lord in the Gospels respecting the Sabbath, from the story reported by Clement of Alexandria about Christ having seen a man working on the Sabbath, and saying to him, ‘If thou knowest what thou dost, then art thou blessed; but if thou knowest not, then art thou accursed.’ It was a story quite in accordance with the spirit of the school to which Clement belonged; but to call it, as Mr Plumptre does (‘Christ and Christendom,’ p. 237), a credible tradition of Christ’s ministry, would certainly require some other test of credibility than accordance with what is written in the Gospels; for nothing recorded there gives such a licence to the individual will for disregarding the Sabbath.) The same spirit substantially discovers itself in the other occasional references made by our Lord to the moral law of the Old Covenant, as in those already noticed; that is, there appears in them the same profound regard to the authoritative teaching of the law, coupled with an insight into its depth and spirituality of meaning, which was little apprehended by the superficial teachers and formalists of the time. Such, for example, was the character of our Lord’s reference to the fifth command of the Decalogue, when, replying to the charge of the Pharisees against His disciples for disregarding the tradition of the elders about washing before meat, He retorted on them the greatly more serious charge of making void the law of God by their traditions—teaching that it was a higher duty for a son to devote his substance as an offering to God, than to apply it to the support of his parents thereby virtually dishonouring those whom God had commanded him, as a primary duty, to honour. (Matthew 15:3-6.) The love and reverence due to parents was thus declared to be more than burnt-offering, and to have been so determined in the teaching of the law itself. The right principle of obedience was also brought out, but with a more general application, and the absolute perfection of the law announced, as given in one of its summaries in the Old Testament, when, near the close of His ministry, and in answer to a question by one of the better Scribes, Jesus said, ‘The first of all the commandments is, Hear, Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ Not only did our Lord affirm, that ‘on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,’ but that ‘there is none other commandment greater than these’ (Matthew 22:40; Mark 12:31.)—evidently meaning that in them was comprised all moral obligation. And when the Scribe assented to what was said, and added, that to exercise such love was more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices, Christ expressed His concurrence, and even pronounced the person who had attained to such knowledge not far from the kingdom of God. So, too, on another and earlier occasion, when the rich young ruler came running to Him with the question, ‘What good thing he should do, that he might inherit eternal life?’ (Matthew 19:16.) And on still another, when a certain lawyer stood up and asked, ‘What shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ (Luke 10:25.) On both occasions alike, as the question was respecting things to be done, or righteousness to be attained, with the view of grounding a title thereon to eternal life, Christ pointed the inquirers to the written law of God—in the one case more particularly to the precepts of the Decalogue, in the other to the two great comprehensive precepts of supreme love to God and brotherly love to man; and, in connection with each, affirmed that, if the commands were fulfilled, life in the highest sense, eternal life, would certainly be inherited. In other words, by fulfilling those commands, there would be that conformity to the pattern of Divine goodness, on which from the first all right to the possession of life in God’s kingdom has been suspended. At the same time, our Lord took occasion to shew, in both the cases, how far His inquirers were themselves from having reached this ideal excellence, or even from distinctly apprehending what was actually included in the attainment. This surely is enough; for, touching as these declarations do on the great essentials of religion and morality, they must be understood in their plainest import; and anything like subtle ingenuity in dealing with them, or specious theorizings, would be entirely out of place. Manifestly, the revelation of law in the Old Testament was, in our Lord’s view, comprehensive of all righteousness—while still, in respect to form, it partook of the imperfection of the times, and of the provisional economy, with which it was more immediately connected; and for bringing clearly out the measure and extent of the obligations involved in it, we owe much—who can say how much?—to the Divine insight of Christ, and the truly celestial light reflected on it by His matchless teaching and spotless example. In that respect our Lord might with fullest propriety say, ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that ye may love one another; as I have loved you, that ye may so also love one another:’ (John 13:34.) new, however, not in regard to the command of love taken by itself, nor in regard to the degree of love, as if one were required now to love others, not merely as one’s-self, but above one’s-self—no, but new simply with reference to the peerless manifestation of love given in His own person, and the motive thence arising altogether peculiar in its force and efficacy—for His people to strive after conformity to His example. This, indeed, is the highest glory that can here be claimed for Jesus; and to contend with some, under the plea of glorifying His Messiahship, that He must have signalized His appearance on earth by the introduction of an essentially new and higher morality, were in effect to dishonour Him; for it would break at a vital point the continuity of the Divine dispensations, and stamp the revelation of law which, at an earlier period of His own mediatorial agency, had in reality come forth from Himself, as in its very nature faulty—wanting something which it should have had as a reflection of the character of God, and a rule of life for those who, as members of His kingdom, were called to love and honour Him. II. We turn now from what Christ taught to what He did. And here, still more than in regard to His prophetical agency, He had a mission peculiarly His own to fulfil for the good of men, yet not the less one which was defined beforehand, and in a manner ruled, by the prescriptions of law. For the work of Christ as the Redeemer neither was, nor could be, anything else than the triumph of righteousness for man over man’s sin. And, accordingly, in the intimations that had gone before concerning Him, this characteristic (as formerly noticed) was made peculiarly prominent: He was to be girt about with righteousness, was to be known as the Lord’s righteons servant, His elect one, in whom His soul should delight; so that He might be called ‘The Lord our Righteousness,’ as well as ‘The Lord our Salvation,’ since in Him all that believed should be justified, or made righteous, and should glory. (Isaiah 11:5; Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 53:11; Jeremiah 23:6.) There have been those who questioned whether the reality corresponded with these predictions, or with the claims actually put forth in behalf of Jesus of Nazareth; but nothing has ever been alleged in support of such insinuations, except what has been found in mistaken ideas of His mission, or wrong interpretations put on certain actions of His life. Certainly, His enemies in the days of His flesh, who sought most diligently for grounds of moral accusation against Him, failed to discover them: He Himself boldly threw out before them the challenge, ‘Which of you convinceth me of sin?’ (John 8:46.) ‘The prince of this world,’ He again said—the great patron and representative of sin—‘cometh, and hath nothing in me.’ (John 14:30.) Higher still, He said to the Father, ‘I have glorified thee on earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do’ (John 17:4.)—no indication whatever of the slightest failure or shortcoming;—and this assertion of faultless excellence was re-echoed on the Father’s side, in the word once and again heard from Heaven, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ (Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5.) It was an altogether strange phenomenon in the world’s history. ‘What an impression,’ Dorner justly asks, (‘Ueber Jesu Sündlose Vollkommenheit,’ p. 34.) ‘must have been made upon the disciples by Jesus, whose spirit was full of peace and of an undisturbed serenity, who never shewed the slightest trace of having worked Himself into this peaceful state through hard effort and conflict with sin. There was a man in whom appeared no sign of repentance or of disquietude in regard to Himself; a man without solicitude for His soul’s salvation, for He is already possessed of eternal life; He lives as in heaven. No prayer is heard from Him for sin of His own, nor is any aversion shewn to enter into the company of publicans and sinners; in the most trying moments of His life, it becomes manifest that He is without consciousness of sin. This is an unquestionable fact of history, whatever explanation may be given of it. For that He set before Him as His life-purpose the deliverance and reconciliation of the world, that for the execution of this purpose He knew Himself to be committed to suffer, even to the cross, and that He actually expired in the consciousness of having at once executed the purpose and maintained undisturbed His fellowship with God—this no more admits of denial than that it would have been an utterly foolish and absurd idea to have thought of bringing in redemption for others, if He had been Himself conscious of needing redemption. . . . Jesus was conscious of no sin, just because He was no sinner. He was, though complete man, like God in sinless perfection; and though not, like God, incapable of being tempted, nor perfected from His birth, and so not in that sense holy, yet holy in the sense of preserving an innate purity and incorruptness, and through a quite normal development, in which the idea of a pure humanity comes at length to realization, and prevents the design of the world from remaining unaccomplished. The impression made by Him is that of the free, the true Son of Man—needing no new birth, but by nature the new-born man, and no remedial applications, but Himself consciously possessing the power fitted to render Him the physician of diseased humanity.’ Could such an One really be subject to the law? Was He not rather above it? So some have been disposed to maintain, with the avowed design of magnifying the name of Jesus: it has seemed to them as if they were claiming for Him a higher honour, when they represented Him as living above law, precisely as others have sought to do with respect to His teaching above law. But it is a kind of honour incompatible with the actual position and calling of Jesus. To have so lived would have been to place Himself beyond the sphere which properly belongs to humanity. He could no longer have been the representative of the morality which we are bound to cultivate; His standing in relation to spiritual excellence had been something exceptional, arbitrary; and wherever this enters, it is not a higher elevation that is reached, but rather a descent that is made—the sentimental or expedient then takes the place of the absolutely righteous and good. To be the Lord of the law, and yet in all things subject to the law’s demands—moving within the bounds of law, yet finding them to be no restraint; consenting to everything the law required as in itself altogether right, and of a free and ready mind doing it as a Son in the Father’s house, so that it might as well be said the law lived in Him, as that He lived in the law:—this is the highest glory which could be won in righteousness by the man Christ Jesus, and it is the glory which is ascribed to Him in Scripture. Never do we find Him there asserting for Himself as a right, or claiming as a privilege, a release from ordinary obligations; never was that which is dutiful and good for others viewed as otherwise for Him, or as bearing less directly on His responsibilities; and in so far as the work He had to do was peculiar, so much the more remarkable was the spirit of surrender with which He yielded Himself to the authority that lay upon Him. Of Himself He declared that He was loved of the Father, because He kept the Father’s commandments; (John 10:17-18; John 15:11.) and it is said of Him, in a word which covers the whole of His earthly career, ‘He was made of a woman, made under the law,’ (Galatians 4:4.) therefore bound to a life-long subjection to its requirements; bearing throughout the form of a servant, but bearing it with the heart of a Son. It was, consequently, not His burden, but ‘His meat to do the will of His Father, and to finish His work;’ (John 4:34.) and the spirit in which He entered on and ever prosecuted His vicarious service was that expressed in the language long before prepared for Him, ‘Lo I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart;’ (Psalms 40:7-8; Hebrews 10:7.) and if at other times, so especially when His work of obedience was reaching its culmination, and He was ready to perfect Himself through the sacrifice of the cross. The necessity of this great act, and the place it was to hold in His mediatorial agency, had been from the first foreseen by Him: He knew (so He declared near the commencement of His ministry) that He must be lifted up for the salvation of the world. (John 3:14.) When the awful crisis approached, though He had power either to retain or to lay down His life, the things which had been written concerning it (He said) must be accomplished, that He should be numbered with the transgressors; (Luke 22:37.) and the humble, earnest entreaty, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine be done,’ only shewed how nature recoiled from the terribleness, yet meekly bowed to the necessity, of the doom. For here especially lay the ground of all that He was to secure of good for His people. Here the work of reconciliation between sinful men and their offended God must be once for all accomplished; and it was accomplished, by His ‘being made sin for them who knew no sin, that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him’—or, as it is again put, by ‘redeeming them from the curse of the law, by being Himself made a curse for them.’ (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13; Romans 5:8-10.) It is impossible here to do more than very briefly glance at this all-important subject; and the less needful, as it was so fully treated by the esteemed friend who immediately preceded me in this Lectureship. (Rev. Dr J. Buchanan. See his Lecture on ‘Justification.’) But, surely, if there be any thing in the record of our Lord’s work upon earth, in which more than another the language employed concerning it should be taken in its simplest meaning, it must be in what is said of the very heart of His undertaking—that on which every thing might be said to turn for the fulfilment of promise, and the exhibition of Divine faithfulness and truth. And there can be no doubt, that the representations just noticed, and others of a like description, concerning the death of Christ, do in their natural sense carry a legal aspect; they bear respect to the demands of law, or the justice of which law is the expression. They declare that, to meet those demands in behalf of sinners, Christ bore a judicial death—a death which, while all-undeserved on the part of Him who suffered, must be regarded as the merited judgment of Heaven on human guilt. To be made a curse, that .He might redeem men from the curse of the law, can have no other meaning than to endure the penalty, which as transgressors of law they had incurred, in order that they might escape; nor can the exchange indicated in the words, ‘He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,’ be justly understood to import less than that He, the righteous One, took the place of sinners in suffering, that they might take His place in favour and blessing. And the stern necessity for the transaction—a necessity which even the resources of infinite wisdom, at the earnest cry of Jesus, found it impossible to evade (Matthew 26:39.)—on what could it rest but the bosom of law, whose violated claims called for satisfaction? Not that God delights in blood, but that the paramount interests of truth and righteousness must be upheld, even though blood unspeakably precious may have to be shed in their vindication. There are many who cannot brook the idea of these legal claims and awful securities for the establishment of law and right in the government of God; the sacrifice on the cross has no attraction for them when viewed in such an aspect; and the utmost ingenuity has been plied, in recent times more particularly, to accept the language of Scripture regarding it, and yet eliminate the element which alone gives it value or consistence. Thus, with one class, the idea of sacrifice in this connection is identified with self-denial, with ‘the entire surrender of the whole spirit and body to God,’ bearing with meek and uncomplaining patience the impious rage of men, because it was the will of the Father He should do so; when otherwise He might have met it with counter-violence, or used His supernatural power to save Himself from the humiliating ordeal. (So, for example, Maurice in ‘Theological Essays;’ and ‘Ecce Homo’ (p. 48), with some artistic delineations.) What, however, is gained by such a mode of representation? It gets rid, indeed, of what is called a religion of blood, but only to substitute for it a morality of blood and a morality of blood—grounded (for aught that we can see) upon no imperative necessity, nor in its own nature differing from what has been exhibited by some of Christ’s more illustrious disciples. Such a view has not even a formal resemblance to the truth as presented in Scripture; it does not come within sight of the idea of vicarious sin-bearing or atonement, in any intelligible sense of the terms. Nor is the matter much improved by laying stress, with some, on the greatness of the opposition which the existing state of the world rendered it needful for Him to encounter—as when it is said, ‘He came into collision with the world’s evil, and bore the penalty of that daring. . . . He bore suffering to free us from what is worse than suffering, sin: temporal death to save us from death everlasting’ (Robertson). Nor again, with others, by viewing it in a merely subjective light, and finding the work to consist in a kind of sympathetic assumption of our guilt, entering in spirit into the Father’s judgment upon it, and feeling and confessing for it the sorrow and repentance it is fitted to awaken in a perfectly holy soul (Campbell); or as others prefer putting it, by the manifestation of a burdened love, of the moral suffering of God for men’s sins and miseries, a Divine self-sacrificing love, to overmaster sin and conquer the human heart (Bushnell, Young, etc.). In all such representations, which are substantially one, though somewhat different in form, there is merely an accommodation of Scripture language to a type of doctrine that is essentially at variance with it. For when expressed in unambiguous terms, what does it amount to but this: That Christ in His views of sin and righteousness, in the virtue of His life, and the sacrifice of His death, is the beau-ideal of humanity—our great pattern and example, the purest reflection of the Father’s love and goodness? But that is all. If we catch the spirit of His antipathy to sin and devotion to righteousness, we share with Him in His glory; we link ourselves to the Divine humanity which has manifested itself in Him; ‘God views us favourably as partaking of that holy, perfect, and Divine thing, which was once exhibited on earth’; but there is no judicial procedure, no legal penalty borne by the Saviour, and for His sake remitted to the guilty; no direct acceptance for them through the blood of the atonement. And what comfort were such a Gospel to the conscience-stricken sinner? It is but a disguised legalism; for such a perfect exhibition of goodness in Christ, feeling, doing, suffering, with perfect conformity to the mind of God—what is it, considered by itself, but the law in a concrete and embodied form? therefore the sinner’s virtual condemnation; the clear mirror in which the more steadfastly he looks, the more lie must see how far he has gone from the righteousness and life of God; and if not imputed to him, till he is conscious of having imbibed its spirit, where shall be his security against the agitations of fear, or even the agonies of despair? In the great conflict of life, in the grand struggle which is proceeding, in our own bosoms and the world around us, between sin and righteousness, the consciousness of guilt and the desire of salvation, it is not in such a mystified, impalpable Gospel, as those fine-spun theories present to us, that any effective aid is to be found. We must have a solid foundation for our feet to stand on, a sure and living ground for our confidence before God. And this we can find only in the old church view of the sufferings and death of Christ as a satisfaction to God’s justice for the offence done by our sin to His violated law. Satisfaction, I say emphatically, to God’s justice—which some, even evangelical writers, seem disposed to stumble at; they would say, satisfaction to God’s honour, indeed, but by no means to God’s justice. (The language referred to occurs in Swainson’s ‘Hulsean Lecture,’ p. 234. But by implication it is also adopted by those who sharply distinguish between vicarious suffering and vicarious punishment, accepting the former, but rejecting the latter, and treating the transference of guilt on which it rests as an Humility against which common sense revolts. So, no doubt, it is, as represented, for example, by Mr Jelletlet, in his ‘Moral Difficulties of the Old Testament,’ pp. 50-99, who holds the idea of guilt and punishment as inseparable from the moral qualities of the individual sinner, consequently inalienable. But Scripture does not so contemplate them, in the passages referred to in the text, or in Isaiah 53:1-12, Isaiah 56:1-12; 1 Peter 2:24, etc. And the church doctrine of the atonement undoubtedly is, and has always been, as stated by the younger Hodge, ‘that the legal responsibilities of His people were by covenant transferred to Christ, and that He, as Mediator, was regarded and treated accordingly. The sinful act and the sinful nature are inalienable. The guilt, or just liability to punishment, is alienable, otherwise no sinner can be saved.’—‘The Atonement,’ chap. xx. Hence the sufferings are penal in their character, in moral value equivalent and greatly more to the guilt of the redeemed, though not in all respects identically the same, which they could not possibly be.) What, then, I would ask, is God’s honour apart from God’s justice? His honour can be nothing but the reflex action or display of His moral attributes; and in the exercise of these attributes, the fundamental and controlling element is justice. Every one of them is conditioned; love itself is conditioned by the demands of justice; and to provide scope for the operation of love in justifying the ungodly consistently with those demands, is the very ground and reason of the atonement—its ground and reason primarily in the mind of God, and because there, then also in its living image, the human conscience, which instinctively regards punishment as ‘the recoil of the eternal law of right against the transgressor,’ and cannot attain to solid peace but through a medium of valid expiation. So much so, indeed, that wherever the true expiation is unknown, or but partially under stood, it ever goes about to provide expiations of its own. Thus has the law been established (Romans 3:31.)—most signally established by that very feature of the Gospel, which specially distinguished it from the law—its display of the redeeming love of God in Christ. ‘Just law indeed,’ to use the words of Milton— ‘Just law indeed, but more exceeding love! For we by rightful doom remediless, Were lost in death, till He that dwelt alone, High throned in secret Miss, for us frail dust Emptied His glory, even to nakedness; And that great covenant, which we still transgress, Entirely satisfied; And the full wrath beside Of vengeful justice bore for our excess.’ (Milton, Poem on the ‘Crucifixion.’) Yes; hold fast by this broadly marked distinction, yet mutual interconnection, between the law and the Gospel; contemplate the law, or the justice which it reveals and demands, as finding satisfaction in the atoning work of Christ; and this work again, by reason of that very satisfaction, securing an eternal reign of peace and blessing in the kingdom of God; and then, perhaps, you will not be indisposed to say of law, as thus magnified and in turn magnifying and blessing, with one of the profoundest of our old divines, that ‘her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage—the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men and creatures, of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of peace and joy.’ (Hooker, ‘Eccl. Polity.’) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: 04.09. LECTURE 8. ======================================================================== Lecture 8. The Relation Of The Law To The Constitution, The Privileges, And The Calling Of The Christian Church. HOW Christ, in His mediatorial work, stood related to the law, and how He bore Himself in respect to it, we have already seen; and we have now a similar inquiry to prosecute in connection with the Christian church. This line of inquiry, in its more essential features, can be nothing more than the continuation of the one already pursued. For whatever distinctively belongs to the Christian church—whether as regards her light, her privileges, her obligations, or her prospects—it springs from Christ as its living ground; it is entirely the result of what He Himself is and accomplished on earth; and whatever room there might be, when He left the earth, for more explicit statements or fuller illustrations of the truth regarding it, in principle all was already there, and only required, through apostolic agency, to be fitly expounded and applied, in relation to the souls of men and the circumstances of the newly constituted society. But situated as matters then were, with prejudices and opinions of an adverse nature so deeply rooted in the minds of men, and long hallowed associations and practices that had to be broken up, it was no easy task to get the truth in its completeness wrought into men’s convictions; and only gradually, and through repeated struggles with error and opposition did the apostles of our Lord succeed in gaining for the principles of the Gospel a just appreciation and a firm establishment. Keeping to the general outline observed in the preceding discussion, we shall, in this fresh line of inquiry, consider, first, how the Christian scheme of doctrine and duty was adjusted, under the hand of the apostles, with reference to things of a ceremonial nature to a law of ordinances? and, secondly, what relation it bore to the great revelation of moral law? I. As regards the former of these relations, the way had been made, so far at least, comparatively plain by Christ Himself: the law of ordinances, as connected with the old covenant, now ceased to have any binding authority. The hour had come when the Temple-worship, with every ceremonial institution depending on it, should pass away, having reached their destined end in the death and resurrection of Christ. Not immediately, however, did this truth find its way into the minds even of the apostles, nor could it obtain a footing in the church without express and stringent legislation. From the first, the disciples of our Lord preached in His name the free and full remission of sins to the penitent and believing, but still only to such as stood within the bond of the Sinaitic covenant—the Gospel being viewed, not as properly superseding the ancient law of ordinances, but rather as giving due effect to it—supplying what it was incompetent to provide. Of what use, then, any more such a law? Why still continue to observe it? This question, evidently, did not for a time present itself for consideration to the apostles—their immediate work lying among their own countrymen in Judea. But it could not be long kept in abeyance; and such a direction was soon given to affairs by their Divine head as left them no alternative in the matter. The new wine of the kingdom began here to burst the old bottles first in Stephen and those who suffered in his persecution—although as to the mode, perhaps, somewhat prematurely, and with too much vehemence to reach a settled result. But shortly after wards there came the remarkable success of the Gospel in Samaria, with gifts from the Holy Ghost attesting and sealing the work; and following upon that, the super natural vision granted to Peter of the sheet let down from heaven with all manner of beasts, unclean and clean alike, immediately explained and exemplified, under the special guidance of the Spirit, by the reception into the Christian church of the heathen family of Cornelius. These things forced on a crisis in spite of earlier predilections; and by conclusive facts of Divine ordination shewed, that now Jew and Gentile were on a footing as regards the blessings of Christ’s salvation; that, as a matter of course, the observances of the ancient ritual had ceased in God’s sight to be of any practical avail. The discovery fell as a shock on the minds of Jewish believers. They did not hesitate to charge Peter with irregularity or unfaithfulness for the part he had acted in it; and though the objectors were for the time silenced by the decisive proofs he was able to adduce of Divine warrant and approval, yet the legal spirit still lived and again broke forth, especially when it was seen how the Gentile converts increased in number, and the church at Antioch, chiefly composed of such converts, was becoming a kind of second centre of Christian influence, and of itself sending forth mission-agencies to plant and organize churches in other regions of heathendom. (Acts 13:1-52, Acts 14:1-28. It hence became necessary to give forth a formal decision on the matter; and a council of the apostles and elders was held for the explicit purpose of determining whether, along with faith in Christ, it was necessary in order to salvation that men should be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. (Acts 15:1-41) It is not needful here to go into the details of this council; but the judgment of the assembly as to the main point at issue was clear and peremptory—namely, that the legal observances were no longer binding, and that Gentile believers should only be enjoined so far to respect the feelings and usages of their Jewish brethren, as to abstain, not merely from the open licentiousness which custom had made allowable in heathendom, but also from liberties in food which those trained under the law could not regard otherwise than as dangerous or improper. Notwithstanding this decision, however, so tenaciously did the old leaven cleave to the Jewish mind, that the ancient observances retained their place in Jerusalem till the city and temple were laid in ruins; and the Judaizing spirit even insinuated itself into some of the Gentile churches, those especially of Galatia. But it only led to a more vigorous exposure and firm denunciation of the error through the apostle to the Gentiles—who affirmed, that now neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availed any thing for salvation, but faith, or the regeneration which comes through faith; that if men betook to circumcision and the Jewish yoke to secure their spiritual good, Christ should profit them nothing; that the teaching which led to the imposition of such a yoke was really another gospel, not to be encouraged, but anathematized by all who knew the mind of Christ. (Galatians 1:6; Galatians 1:9; Galatians 2:14, etc.) And the cycle of Christian instruction on the subject was completed by the explanation given in the epistle to the Hebrews of the general nature and design of the Old Testament ritual, as at once fulfilled and abolished in Christ. So that there was here on the negative side, a very full revelation and authoritative deliverance of the will of God. (The considerations adduced in the text plainly shew that the apostles, in the later period of their agency, were of one mind as to the cessation of the ceremonial law in its binding form even upon Jewish Christians; while still they continued, especially when resident in Jerusalem, to observe its provisions and take part in its more peculiar services. They did so, of course, from no feeling of necessity, but partly from custom, and partly also, apparently indeed still more, from regard to the strong prejudices of their less enlightened brethren. Of these there were multitudes, as James intimated to Paul (Acts 21:20), who were zealous of the law, and actuated by strong jealousy toward Paul himself because of the freedom maintained alike in his teaching and his example from the legal observances. They were in the position of those described by our Lord in Luke 5:39—like persons who, having been accustomed to old wine, did not straightway desire new, although in this case the new was really better. But the apostles felt that it was necessary to deal tenderly with them, lest, by a too sudden wrench from their old associations, their faith in the Gospel might sustain too great a shock. They therefore pursued a conciliatory policy, doubtless waiting and looking for the time when the Lord Himself would interpose, and, by the prostration of the Temple and the scattering of the Jewish nation, would formally take the Old Covenant institutions out of the way, and render their observance in great measure impossible. The history of the early church but too clearly proves how necessary this solemn dispensation was for the Christian church itself, and how dangerous an element even the partial observance of the old law to some sections of the Jewish believers after the destruction of the Temple, became to the purity of their faith in Christ.) This result, however, not unnaturally gives rise to another question. If the new state and spiritual life of Christians was thus expressly dissociated from the old law of ordinances, was it not directly linked to another taking its place? The answer to this may be variously given, according to the sense in which it is understood. We have no law of ordinances in the New Testament writings at all corresponding to that which is contained in the Old. There was a fulness and precision formerly in the ceremonials of worship, because these belonged to a provisional and typical economy, and required to be adjusted with Divine skill to the coming realities for which they were intended to prepare. But the realities themselves having come, there is no longer any need for such carefully adjusted observances. Hence, neither by our Lord Himself, nor by His apostles, have any definite appointments been made to things which were of great importance under the law—to the kind of place, for example, in which the members of the Christian community were to meet for worship—or the form of service they were to observe when they met—or the officials who were to conduct it, and whether any particular mode of consecration were required to fit them for doing so. Even in those ordinances of the new dispensation, which in character approached most nearly to the old—the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper—while no doubt is left as to the permanent place they were to occupy in the Christian church, how widely different is the manner of their appointment from that of the somewhat corresponding ordinances of Circumcision and the Passover? In Circumcision, the precise thing to be done is prescribed, and the precise day also on which it must be done; and in the Passover, the kind of sacrifice to be provided, the time when, and the place where it was to be killed, the modes of using the blood and of preparing the food, the manner also in which the feast was to be partaken, and even the disposal that was to be made of the fragments. In the Christian sacraments, on the other hand, the substance alone is brought into view—the kind of elements to be employed, and the general purport and design with which they are to be given and received; all, besides, as to the time, the place, the subordinate acts, the ministerial agency, is left entirely unnoticed, as but of secondary moment, or capable of being readily inferred from the nature of the ordinances. The converts on the day of Pentecost were baptized—so the inspired record distinctly testifies; but where, how, or by whom, is not indicated. The Ethiopian eunuch was both converted and baptized by Philip, one of the seven, who, so far as ordination was concerned, were ordained merely to ‘serve tables;’ and the person who baptized Paul is simply designated ‘a certain disciple at Damascus.’ When the Spirit had manifestly descended on Cornelius and his household, Peter ‘commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord;’ but the statement implies that the brethren accompanying Peter, rather than Peter himself, administered the rite. Paul, even when claiming to have founded the church at Corinth, expressly disclaims the administration of baptism to more than a very few—this being not what he had specially received his apostolic mission to perform: ‘Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel.’ (1 Corinthians 1:17.) He even thanks God he had baptized but a few; could he possibly have done so, if, in his view, baptizing had been all one with regenerating? When he speaks of those whom he was the means of regenerating, he says they were ‘begotten through the Gospel.’ (1 Corinthians 4:15.) And in the pastoral instructions given by him through Timothy and Titus to the bishops or presbyters of the apostolic church, we read only of what they should be as men of Christian piety and worth, and how they should minister and apply the word; but not so much as a hint is dropt as to their exclusive right to dispense and give validity to the Christian sacraments. All shewing, as clearly as could well be done by the facts of history, that nothing absolutely essential in this respect depends upon circumstances of person, and mode, and time; and that whatever restrictions might then be observed, or after wards introduced, it could only be for the sake of order and general edification, not to give validity or impart saving efficacy to what were otherwise but empty symbols or unauthorised ceremonies. Nor does it appear to have been materially otherwise with the ordinance of the Supper. The original institution merely represents our Lord, at the close of the paschal feast, as taking bread and wine, and, after giving thanks, presenting them to the disciples, the one to be eaten the other to be drunk in the character of His body and blood, and in remembrance of Him. This is all; and when the church fairly entered on its new career, the record of its proceedings merely states, with reference to this part of its observances, that the disciples ‘continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread;’ that ‘they continued in breaking bread from house to house,’ and were wont to ‘come together on the first day of the week to break bread.’ (Acts 2:42; Acts 2:46; Acts 20:7; Acts 20:11.) St Paul, too, while rebuking certain flagrant abuses which had crept into the church at Corinth in the celebration of the ordinance, and rehearsing what he says he had received from the Lord concerning it, maintains a profound silence as to every thing of a ritualistic description: he mentions only a Lord’s table with its bread and cup, and the action of giving and receiving, after the offering of thanks, in commemoration of Christ; but says nothing of the particular kinds of bread and wine, of the status, dress, or actions of the administrator, or the proper terms of celebration, or the attitude of the people when partaking, whether sitting, reclining, or kneeling. These, plainly, in the apostle’s account, were the non-essentials, the mere circumstantial adjuncts, which it was left to the church to regulate—not arbitrarily indeed, and assuredly not so as to change a simply commemorative and sealing ordinance into a propitiatory sacrifice and a stupendous mystery, but with a suitable adaptation to the nature of the feast and the circumstances of place and time. This reserve, too, was the more remarkable, since the apostle did occasionally speak of Christian gifts and services in sacrificial language; only never in connection with the ordinance of the Supper. He spake of the sacrifice of praise, but explains Himself by calling it the fruit of the lips, (Hebrews 13:15.) and a sacrifice to be offered, not by a priest on earth, but by the one High Priest, Christ. Charitable contributions to the poor, or to the service of the Gospel, are in like manner designated sacrifices well-pleasing to God; also the presentations of the persons of believers to God’s service, and His own presentation of converted heathen before the heavenly throne; (Hebrews 13:16; Php 4:18; Romans 12:1; Romans 15:16.) but not in one passage is the commemoration of our Lord’s death in the Supper so represented, or any expression employed which might seem to point in that direction. (Desperate efforts have been made by Roman Catholic writers to give another version to the whole matter, and even to find in the words of institution direct sacrificial language. Professedly Protestant writers are now treading to the full in their footsteps, and applying (we may say, perverting) the simple words of the original to a sense altogether foreign to them. They call the address of Christ, ‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ a sacrificial word; and one paraphrases the words after the sense which he says the words (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε) ‘bear in the Septuagint, Offer this as my memorial’ (‘The Church and the World,’ pp. 499, 564). It is enough to give the substance of the comment made on these extraordinary statements by the learned editor of the Contemporary Review, No. 21, who says, ‘The words which our Lord employed nowhere bear a sacrificial sense in the Septuagint. In not one place does such an expression as ποιεῖν τοῦτο occur in a sacrificial sense; it would have been absurd, and even impossible, that it should, unless τοῦτο referred to some concrete thing then and there represented and designated—as, for example, Leviticus 9:10—προσήνεγκε τὸ ὁλοκαύτωμα, καὶ ἐποίησεν αὐτο ὡς καθήκει. To this, perhaps, the superficial ritualist will reply, that such a concrete object is present in the bread, of which it had just been said by our Lord, This is my body. If he committed himself so far, we should have to take him back to his school-days, and to remind him that the demonstrative pronoun, when applied to a concrete object, designates that and that alone, as distinguished from all others: so that if τοῦτο ποιεῖτε signified, “Offer this,” then, in order to obey it, that very bread must have been reserved to have been offered continually. We are driven, then, to the abstract reference, “this which I am doing;” and this will rule the meaning of the verb to be “do,” and not “offer.” Such, indeed, is the only sense of the phrase τοῦτο ποιεῖν wherever it occurs (see Genesis 3:13-14; Genesis 12:18; Genesis 20:5, etc.; Luke 7:8; Luke 10:28; Luke 12:18; Acts 16:18, etc.; Romans 7:15-16; Romans 7:20; Romans 12:20; 1 Corinthians 9:23). Is it conceivable that two authors (Luke and Paul), accustomed to the use of the phrase in its simple everyday meaning, should use it once only, and that once, on its most solemn occurrence, in a sense altogether unprecedented, and therefore certain not to be apprehended by their readers? The reviewer goes on further to state that the historical evidence is also wholly against it: the church has, as a rule, understood the ‘Do this’ to mean doing, as he did, namely, taking the bread, breaking, and distributing it; and adds, ‘Can anything be plainer than that, but for the requirements of the sacrificial theory of the Eucharist, such an interpretation would never have been heard of? And even with all the warping which men’s philology gets from their peculiar opinions, can, even now, a single Greek or Hellenistic scholar be found who would, as a scholar, venture to uphold it?’ It is not too much to say, that the whole that is written respecting the original observance of the sacraments, the whole also that St Paul says respecting his own peculiar calling as an ambassador of Christ, and what he wrote for the instruction of others on the pastoral office, is a virtual protest against the priestly character of the ministry of the New Testament; and the one must be ignored before the other can be accepted by sound believers.) This, however, is a conclusion which many refuse to acquiesce in. They think that the indeterminateness spoken of must somehow have been supplied; and that if the needed materials are not furnished by Scripture, they must be sought in some collateral source adequate to meet the deficiency. Hence the Romish theory of unwritten traditions, eking out and often superseding the teaching of Scripture; the theory of development, claiming for the church the inherent right and power to supplement and authoritatively impose what was originally defective in her ordinances; and the theory of the apostolic succession and the impressed character. It were out of place here, where we have to do merely with the revelation of law in God’s kingdom, to go into an examination of such theories, as none of them, except by an abuse of terms, can be brought within that description. The things for which those theories are intended to account, have no distinct place in the expressed mind of our Lord and His apostles; and so, even if allowable, cannot be deemed of essential moment. If it is asked—as Dodwell, for example, asked (Paraenesis, 34),—‘Cannot God justly oblige men, in order to obtain the benefits which it is His good pleasure to bestow, to employ the means which His good pleasure has instituted?’ We reply, if He had seen reason to institute them in such a sense as to render them in any way essential to salvation, the same reason which led Him to provide salvation would doubtless also have led Him to make His pleasure in this respect known—nay, to have inscribed it, in the most conspicuous manner on the foundations of the Christian faith; which assuredly has not been done. Undoubtedly, the form and mode (as has been further alleged) may be, and sometimes have been, of indispensable moment: ‘God was not pleased to cleanse Naaman the Syrian from his leprosy by the water of any other river than the Jordan; so that, had Naaman used the rivers of Syria for this purpose, he would have had no title to expect a cure.’ Certainly; but on this very account God made His meaning perfectly explicit: He hung the cure of the Syrian leper on the condition, not of a sevenfold dipping in water merely, but of such a dipping in the waters of the Jordan; these particular waters entered as an essential element into the method of recovery. And so, doubtless, would have been the points referred to in connection with the Christian sacraments, if the same relative place had belonged to them; they would have been noted and prescribed, in a manner not to be mistaken, in the fundamental records of the Christian faith; and since they are awanting there, to introduce and press them in the character of essentials to salvation, is virtually to disparage those records, and to do so in a way that runs counter to the whole genius of Christianity, which exalts the spiritual in comparison with the outward and formal—retains, we may say, the minimum of symbolism because it exhibits the maximum of reality. But while we thus contend against any law of ordinances in the Christian church of the circumstantial and specific kind which existed under the old economy, the two sacraments undoubtedly have the place of ordinances; their observance has been prescribed with legislative sanction and authority; and there can be no question as to the duty of observing them among the genuine disciples of Christ; the only, or at least, the main question is, in what relation do they stand to their possession of the Spirit and of the life that is in Christ Jesus? Do they aim at originating, or rather at establishing and nourishing, the Divine life in the soul? That it is this latter in the case of the Lord’s Supper admits of no doubt; the very name implies that the participants are contemplated as having Spirit and life, since no one thinks of presenting a feast to the dead. The same also is implied in the formal design of its appointment, to keep alive the remembrance of Jesus and of His great redemptive act in the minds of those who own Him as their Lord and Saviour—presupposing, therefore, the existence of a living bond between their souls and Him. Hence, the one essential pre-requisite to a right and profitable participation in the ordinance indicated by the apostle is the possession and exercise of the life of faith: ‘Let a man examine himself (viz., as to his state and interest in Christ), and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.’ (1 Corinthians 11:28.) Not, then, to convert or quicken, but to nourish and strengthen the life already implanted in the soul, by bringing it into fresh contact and communion with the one source of all life and blessing to sinful men, is the direct good to be sought in the ordinance of the Supper. And though the other sacrament, Baptism, has to do with the commencement of a Christian state, not its progressive advancement, and is hence termed initiatory, it is so, according to the representations of Scripture, only in a qualified sense; that is, not as being absolutely originative, or of itself conditioning and producing the first rise of life in the soul, but associated with this early stage, and bringing it forth into distinct and formal connection with the service and kingdom of Christ. Such, certainly, is the relation in which the two stand to each other in the command of Christ, and the ministry of His immediate representatives—‘Go and teach all nations, baptizing them,’ etc.; ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.’ Not, therefore, baptized in order to believing, but believing in order to be baptized; so that, ideally or doctrinally considered, baptism presupposes faith, and sets the Divine seal on its blessings and prospects. And so we never find the evangelists and apostles thrusting baptismal services into the foreground, as if through such ministrations they expected the vital change to be produced, but first preaching the Gospel, and then, when this had come with power into the heart, recognising and confirming the result by the administration of the ordinance. So did Peter, for example, on the day of Pentecost; he made proclamation of the truth concerning Christ and His salvation; and only when this appeared to have wrought with convincing power and energy on the people, he pressed the matter home by urging them to ‘repent and be baptized every one in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and they should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.’ It was a call to see that they had every thing involved in a sound conversion; for the kind of repentance spoken of is the metanoia, the change of mind which has its root in faith, and implies a spiritual acquaintance with Christ and the things of His salvation. At a later period, Peter justifies himself for receiving, through baptism, the household of Cornelius, on the ground that they had ‘heard of the Gospel and believed,’ or, as he again puts it, that ‘God purified their hearts by faith.’ (Acts 15:7-9.) Such was the process also with the Ethiopian eunuch, with Lydia, with the jailer at Philippi; so that baptism was administered by the apostles, not for the purpose of creating a relation between the individual and Christ, but of accrediting and completing a relation already formed. And if baptism also is said to save, and is specially associated with the work of regeneration—as it undoubtedly is (Romans 6:4-5; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 3:21.)—it can only be because baptism is viewed, in the case of the adult believer, as the proper consummation and embodiment of faith’s actings in the reception of Christ. For, constituting in such a case the solemn response of a believing soul and a purged conscience to the Gospel call, it fitly represents the whole process, marks by a significant action the passing of the boundary-line between nature and grace, and a formal entrance on the state and privileges of the redeemed. But apart from this spiritual change presupposed and implied, nothing is effected by the outward administration; and to be regenerated in the language of Scripture and the estimation of the apostles, is not to find admission merely into the Christian church; it is to become a new creature, and enjoy that witness of the Spirit which is the pledge and foretaste of eternal life. What is said of regeneration, is equally said of faith in Christ (John 3:18-36; 2 Corinthians 5:17, etc.). (See Litton on ‘The Church of Christ,’ p. 291, seq., where this subject is fully handled.) A certain accommodation, it will be understood, requires to be made in applying this Scriptural view to the baptism of infants much as in the Old Testament rite of circumcision, which took its beginning with Abraham in advanced life, and, as so begun, had its proper significance and bearing determined for all time, (Romans 4:10-12.) though appointed also to embrace the children of the patriarch. Our object is merely to indicate the general purport and place of baptism, as also of the Lord’s Supper, in relation to the spiritual life of the believer in Christ; and to shew that, in this respect, their place is not primary, but secondary, seeing that they presuppose a relation of the individual to Christ, a spiritual life already begun through faith in the word of Christ, which it is their design to confirm and build up. They themselves rest upon that word, and derive from it their meaning and use. Apart from the Gospel of Christ and an intelligent belief in its contents, they become, no matter by whom administered or with what punctuality received, but formal observances, without life and power. So that the grand ordinance, if we may so use the term, which has to do with the formation of Christ in the soul, or the actual participation of the life that is in Him, is this word of the kingdom the Gospel, as the apostle calls it, of Christ’s glory (2 Corinthians 4:4.)—by the faith of which, through the Spirit, we are begotten as of incorruptible seed, are justified from sin, and have Christ Himself dwelling in us. (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23; Romans 5:1; Ephesians 3:17.) To abide in the doctrine of Christ and keep His word, is to have Him revealed in our experience for fellowship with that undying life which is hid with Him in God; it is to have both the Father and the Son; as, on the other hand, to be without His word abiding in the soul, is to be in a state of estrangement from Him, spiritually dead. (John 8:31; John 8:37; John 8:51; John 15:7; Colossians 3:3; 2 John 1:9.) The position, therefore, which we are called to maintain toward Christ, rests more immediately upon the presentation of His person and work through the word; it has its most decisive touch stone in the relation in which, as to spirit and behaviour, we stand to this word. And as the word comes into the heart, and abides in the heart through faith, so, of necessity, faith is the peculiar organ of spiritual life, since it is that whereby we humbly receive and appropriate what is freely given us in Christ—‘whereby we trust in Him, instead of trusting in ourselves—whereby, when sinking under the consciousness of our blindness and helplessness, the effect of our habitual sins, we take God’s word for our rule, God’s strength for our trust, God’s mercy and grace for the sole ground of peace and comfort and hope.’ (Hare’s ‘Victory of Faith,’ p. 78.) It is of incalculable moment for the interests of vital Christianity, that these things should be well understood and borne in mind; for with the position now assigned to the word, as connected with the life of Christ, and the apprehension of that word by a reliant faith, is bound up the doctrine of a salvation by grace, as contradistinguished from that of salvation by works; or, as we may otherwise put it, the attainment of a state of peace and blessing by fallen man, in a way that is practicable, as contrasted with a striving after one which is utterly impracticable. For whatever does not spring freshly and livingly from faith, can neither be well-pleasing in the eyes of God, nor can it secure that imperishable boon of eternal life in God’s kingdom, which comes to sinners only as His free and sovereign gift. And precisely as this is lost sight of, whether in the. case of individuals, or in the church at large, is there sure to discover itself, if not a total carelessness and insensibility about spiritual things, then the resuscitation of a law of ordinances, an excessive regard to outward forms and ceremonial observances, as if these were the things of paramount importance, and there could be no salvation without them; for these are things which the natural man can do, and, by taking pains to do them, may readily fancy himself to be something before God. It is true that, in a certain aspect, this relation of the believer to the word, the salvation, and the life of Christ, may be regarded as coming within the domain of law; for in every thing that concerns it—both the provision of grace and blessing in Christ, and the way in which this comes to be realized in the experience of men—there is a revelation of the will of God, which necessarily carries with it an obligation to obedience—has the essence and the force of law. Men ought to receive the Gospel of Christ, and enter into the fellowship of His death and resurrection: they are commanded to do so, and in doing it they are said to be obedient to the Gospel, or to the truth therein exhibited. (John 3:23; Acts 16:31; Romans 10:16; 1 Peter 1:14.) It is even set forth as pre-eminently the work which God calls or enjoins us in our fallen condition to do, to believe on Him whom He hath sent, and the refusing to do this work, and thereby rejecting the grace of God provided and offered in Christ, is the crowning sin of those to whom the Gospel comes in vain. (John 6:29; John 15:22; John 16:9; Luke 19:27.) The more special and distinctive acts, also, of the new life which is given to those who yield themselves to the calls of the Gospel, are occasionally pressed on them as duties to be discharged—such as seeking from the Lord the gifts of grace, being converted to His love and service, or transformed into the image of Christ, by putting off the old man and putting on the new. (Matthew 7:7; Acts 3:19; Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:22-24.) And so, speaking from this point of view, the Apostle Paul does not hesitate, even while striving to exclude the idea of merit, or of salvation as attainable by obedience to any law of works, to represent the whole as proceeding in conformity to law—‘the law of faith;’ and the individuals themselves are described as, in consequence of their believing reception of the Gospel, ‘children of obedience,’ or such as have become obedient to the faith. (Romans 1:5; Romans 3:27; 1 Peter 1:14; Acts 6:17.) Undoubtedly the matter admits of being so represented. It is a mode of representation grounded in the essential nature of things, since by the very constitution of their being, men are bound to render account of the light they enjoy and the advantages placed within their reach; are responsible to God for what with His help they can attain of good, as well as for what they are expressly commanded to do. It is, too, a mode of representation which may justly be pressed when the object is to arouse men’s dormant energies, and bring them to consider what solemn issues depend on the treatment they personally give to the claims and Gospel of Christ. But it still were a grievous mistake to suppose, that this is either the only or the principal light, in which our relation to the grace and truth of the Gospel ought to be contemplated. It is not that in which the Gospel formally presents itself, or is fitted to produce its happiest results; and on the ground of such a mode of representation, only incidentally, and for purposes of moral suasion introduced, to do what Luther had too much reason for saying many great and excellent men had done—that they not only ‘knew not how to preach Moses rightly, but sought to make a Moses out of Christ, out of the Gospel a law-book, out of the word works,’—is the most effectual method to render Gospel and law alike of no avail for salvation. The direct and immediate aspect under which Christ is made known to us in the Gospel is unquestionably that of a bestower of blessing, not a master of laws and services; a gracious and merciful Redeemer, who has at infinite cost wrought out the plan of our salvation, and laid freely open to our acceptance the whole treasury of its unsearchable riches. It is, therefore, with invitation and promise, rather than with any thing bearing the aspect of law, that the genuine disciple of Jesus will ever find that he has immediately to do: his part is to receive, in the use of Gospel privileges and the exercise of a living faith, the gifts so freely tendered to him; and endeavour increasingly to apprehend that for which he is apprehended of Christ, so as to grow up unto a close and living fellowship with his Divine Head in all that is His. II. But leaving now this branch of the subject, we turn to the other—to consider the relation in which, as exhibited in the apostolic writings, the church of the New Testament stands to the moral law—the law as summarily comprised in the precepts of the Decalogue, or in the two great commandments of love to God and man. Here, we must not forget, the prime requisite for a right perception of the truth is a proper personal relation to the truth. We must start from the position just described—that, namely, of a believing appropriation of the word of Christ, and the consequent possession of the Spirit of life which flows from Christ to the members of His spiritual body. It is from this elevated point of view that the matter is contemplated in the doctrinal portions of New Testament Scripture; and hence statements are sometimes made concerning it, which, while entirely consonant with the experience of those who have received with some degree of fulness the powers of that higher life, cannot be more than imperfectly understood, and may even be regarded as inconsistent, by such as either stand altogether without the spiritual sphere, or have but partially imbibed its spirit. It was so in a measure under the law, the statements regarding which, in the recorded experience of Old Testament believers—as to its excellence, its depth and spirituality of meaning, their delight in its precepts yet tremblings of soul under its searching and condemning power, their desire to be conformed to its teaching yet perpetual declining from the way of its commandments—could not appear otherwise than strange and enigmatical to persons who, not having come practically under the dominion of the law, necessarily possessed but a superficial knowledge of it. And the same may justly be expected in a still higher degree now, amid the complicated and delicate relations as between Moses and Christ, law and grace, through which the experience of believers may be said to lie. There is here very peculiarly needed the spiritual discernment which belongs only to those who are living in the Spirit; and if it may be affirmed of such that, having a mind to do the will of God, they shall know of the doctrine that it is of God, (John 7:17.) with equal confidence may it be affirmed of others not thus spiritually minded, that they cannot adequately know it, because wanting the proper frame and temper of soul for justly appreciating it. The most distinguishing characteristic of the Gospel dispensation undoubtedly is its prominent exhibition of grace, as connected with the mediatorial work of Christ. The great salvation has come; and, in consequence, sins are not merely pretermitted to believers, as in former times, through the forbearance of God, but fully pardoned through the blood of the Lamb, (Romans 3:25, where the πάρεσις of the past stands in a kind of contrast to the ἄφεσις of the present.) freedom of access is gained for them into the presence of God, and the gift of the Spirit to abide with them, and work in them much more copiously than had been done before. But there is a gradation only, not a contrast; and as under the Old Covenant the law-giving, was also the loving God, so under the New, the loving God is also the law-giving. (See Wuttke, ‘Handbuch der Sitt.,’ chap. ii. sec. 208.) We have seen how much it was so, as represented in the personal ministry and work of Christ—how completely He appropriated for Himself and His followers the perfect law of God, and how also He continually issued precepts for their observance, in conformity with its tenor, though in form bearing the impress of His own mind and mission. The apostles, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the formal entrance of the new economy, pursued substantially the same course. Thus James, whose style of thought and expression approaches nearest to those of Old Testament Scripture, designates the law of brotherly love the royal law—as that which, in a manner, governs and controls every other in the sphere of common life—and tells the Christians that they would do well if they fulfilled it. (James 2:8.) St Peter, though he specifies no particular precept of the law, yet points to an injunction in the book of the law, which is comprehensive of all its righteousness, ‘Be ye holy in all manner of conversation; for it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.’ (1 Peter 1:16.) St John also speaks freely in his epistles of the Lord’s commandments, and of the necessity of keeping them, especially of the great commandment of love; he speaks of the law as of the well-known definite rule of righteousness, and of sin as the transgression of the law, to live in which is to abide in death. (1 John 2:7-8; 1 John 3:7-8; 1 John 3:23-24; 1 John 5:2-3; 2 John 1:5-6.) And St Paul, who in a very peculiar manner was the representative and herald of the grace that is in Christ, is, if possible, still more express: ‘Ye have been called to liberty,’ says he to the Galatians, ‘only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another; for all the law is fulfilled in one word—in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,’ (Galatians 5:13-14.)—plainly identifying the love binding upon Christians with the love enjoined in the law. The same use is made by him of the fifth commandment of the Decalogue, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, (Ephesians 6:1-3.) when urging the duty of obedience to parents. And in the Epistle to the Romans, when the course of thought has brought him to the enforcement of vital godliness and the duties of a Christian life, the reference made to the perfection and abiding authority of the written law is even more full and explicit; for he gives it as the characteristic of the spiritual mind, that it assents to the law as ‘holy and just and good,’ and ‘serves it;’ (Romans 7:12; Romans 7:25.) while of the carnal mind he says, ‘it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.’ (Romans 8:7.) And when speaking of Christian obligation in its varied manifestations of kindness between man and man, he sums up the whole, first in the specific precepts of the Decalogue, and then in the all-embracing precept of loving one’s neighbour as one’s-self. (Romans 13:8-10.) I should reckon it next to impossible for any one of unbiassed mind—with no peculiar theory to support—with no desire of any kind, but that of giving a fair and natural interpretation to the teaching of Scripture—to weigh calmly the series of statements now adduced, and to derive from them any other impression than this—that the moral law, as revealed in the Old Testament, had with the apostles of our Lord a recognised place in the Christian church, and was plainly set forth by them as the grand test of excellence, and the authoritative rule of life. They recognised and appealed to it thus simply as it stood in the written revelation of God, and because so written;—knowing nothing, apparently, of the refined explanations of modern thought, which would hold the morality of the law, indeed, to be binding on Christians, but not as commanded in the law—that while the substance or principles of the law may be said to be still living, in its outward and commanding form it is dead—or that, as formally expressed law, it is no longer obligatory, whether with reference to justification, or as a rule of life. (See the references in Lec. I.) And yet, unquestionably, there is something in the apostolic mode of contemplating the law which gives a certain colour to these representations. A marked distinction is made in various places between the position which Israel occupied toward the law, and that now occupied by believers in Christ; such, that there is a sense in which Israel was placed under it, and in which Christians are not; that it had a purpose to serve till the fulfilment of the covenant of promise in Christ, for which it is no longer specifically required; (Galatians 3:19-25; Galatians 4:1-6.) that somehow it is done away or abolished, (2 Corinthians 3:11; Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 2:14.) or, as it is again put, that we are done away from it, that is, set free, in regard to its right to lord it over us; (Romans 7:6.) that we are even dead to it, or are no longer under it; (Romans 6:14; Romans 7:4.) and that the scope or end for which the law was given is accomplished, and alone can be accomplished, in Christ for those who are spiritually united to Him. (Romans 8:3-4; Romans 10:4.) These are certainly very strong, at first sight even startling statements, and if looked at superficially, or taken up and pressed in an isolated manner, might easily be made to teach a doctrine which would conflict with the passages previously quoted, or with the use of the law actually made in them with reference to the Christian life. That there must be a mode of harmonizing them, we may rest perfectly assured—though it can only be satisfactorily made out by a careful examination of the particular passages, viewed in their proper connection, and with due regard to the feelings and practices of the time. For the present, a general outline is all that can be given; the detailed exegesis on which it leans must be reserved for another place. Very commonly, indeed, a comparatively brief method of explanation has been adopted by divines, according to which Christians are held to be, not under the law as a covenant, but under it as a rule of life. Doctrinally, this gives the substance of the matter, but with a twofold disadvantage: it leaves one point regarding it unexplained, and in form also it is theological rather than Scriptural. In respect to form, Scripture no doubt represents the covenant of law, the old covenant, as in some sense done away, or abolished; but then not exactly in the sense understood by the expression in the theological statement just noticed. That covenant of law, as actually proposed and settled by God, did not stand opposed to grace, but in subordination to grace, as revealed in a prior covenant, whose spiritual ends it was designed to promote; therefore, though made to take the form of a covenant, its object still was not to give, but to guide life; (Galatians 3:21.) in other words, to shew distinctly to the people, and take them bound to consider, how it behoved them to act toward God, and toward each other as an elect generation, God’s seed of blessing in the earth. But this, in the language of theology, does not materially differ from the use of the law as a rule of life; whereas to be under the law as a covenant, means in theology to be bound by it as a covenant of works, to make good, through obedience to its precepts, a title to life. In such a sense the Israelites were not placed under it any more than our selves; and hence Witsius was disposed to regard it as not possessing for them the form of a covenant properly so called, but as presenting merely the rule of duty. (De Œcon. Foed, L. iv. chap. 4. sec. 56.) That, however, were only to abandon a Scriptural for a theological mode of expression, for undoubtedly it is called a covenant in Scripture. But apart from the question of form, the manner of statement under consideration is, in one point of view, defective; for it does not indicate any difference between the relation of Israel and the relation of Christians to the law, while still it is clear, from several of the passages referred to, that there is some considerable difference: the law had a function to perform for Israel, and through them for the world, which is not needed in the same manner or to the same extent now. Wherein does this difference lie? There is here evidently room for more careful and discriminating explanations. And, in endeavouring to make them, we must distinguish between what was common to Israel with the people of God generally, and what was peculiar to them as belonging to a particular stage in the Divine plan, riving under a still imperfectly developed form of the Divine dispensations. Viewed in the former of these aspects, the Israelites were strictly a representative people; they were chosen from among mankind, as in the name of mankind, to hear that law of God, which revealed His righteousness for their direction and obedience; and though this came in connection with another revelation, a covenant of promise through which life and blessing were to be obtained, yet, considered by itself, it brought out before them, and charged upon their consciences, the sum of all moral obligation—whatever is due from men as men, as moral and responsible beings, to God Himself, and to their fellow-men. In this the law demanded only what was right and good—what therefore should have been willingly rendered by all to whom it came—what, the more it was considered, men could not but the more feel must be rendered, if matters were to be put on a solid footing between them and God, and they were to have a free access to His presence and glory. But the law could only demand the right, could not secure the performance of it; it could condemn sin, but not prevent its commission, which, by reason of the weakness of flesh, and the heart’s innate tendency to alienation from God, continued still to proceed in the face of the commands and threatenings of law:—so that the law, in its practical working, necessarily came to stand over against men as a righteous creditor with claims of justice which had not been satisfied, and deserved retributions of judgment which were ready to be executed. In this respect, it had to be taken out of the way, got rid of or abolished, in a manner consistent with the moral government of God—its curse for committed sin borne—and its right to lord it over men to condemnation and death brought to an end. It is this great question—a question which only primarily concerned the Jews, as having been the direct recipients of the revelation of law, but in which all men as sinners were alike really interested—that the apostle chiefly treats in the larger proportion of the passages recently referred to. It is of the law in this point of view, that he speaks of it as a minister of death—of believers being no longer married to it or under it—yea, of their being dead to it, dead through the law itself to the law—and of the law being consequently removed as a barrier between them and the favour and blessing of God. And he was led to do so the rather because of the deep-rooted and prevailing tendency of the time to look at the law by itself—apart from the covenant of promise—and to find in obedience to its commands a title to life and blessing. This, the apostle argues, is utterly to mistake its meaning and pervert its design. Taken so, the law works wrath, not peace; instead of delivering from sin, it is itself the very sting of sin; hence brings not blessing, but a curse; not life, but condemnation; and never till men renounce confidence in their deeds of law, and lay hold of the hope set before them in Him who for sinners has satisfied its just demands, and made reconciliation for iniquity, can they obtain deliverance from fear and guilt, and enter into life. Thus Christ becomes ‘the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth:’ (Romans 10:4.) in Him alone it reaches its proper aim as regards the interests of righteousness, for He has perfectly fulfilled its commands, in death as well as life has honoured its claims: and this not for Himself properly, but for those who through faith join themselves to Him, and become partakers, both in the work of righteousness He has accomplished, and the spirit of righteousness He puts into their hearts. Such, briefly, is the import of that class of statements in St Paul’s writings; and in this sense only do they warrant us to speak of the moral law being done away, or of our having been set free from it—a sense which really enhances the importance of the law, most strikingly exhibits its eternal validity, because shewing us to be delivered from it, only that we may be brought into conformity to its spirit and requirements. And, in this respect, as we have said, there is no difference between the believer under the old covenant, and the believer under the new—except that what was little more than hope before is realization now, what was then but dimly apprehended, and received only as by way of provisional forestalments, is now disclosed in all its fulness, and made the common heritage of believers in Christ. But there was another respect in which the position of Israel is to be considered, one in which it was peculiar, since, according to it, they occupied a particular, and that a comparatively early, place in the history of the Divine dispensations. In this respect, the revelation of law had a prominence given to it which was also peculiar, which was adapted only to the immature stage to which it be longed, and was destined to undergo a change when the more perfect state of things had come. Considered in this point of view, the law must be taken in its entire compass, with the Decalogue, indeed, as its basis, yet with this not in its naked elements and standing alone, but, for the sake of greater prominence and stringency, made the terms of a covenant; and not only so, but, even while linked to a prior covenant of grace, associated with pains and penalties which, in the case of deliberate transgression, admitted of no suspension or repeal—associated, moreover, with a complicated system of rites and ordinances which were partly designed to teach and enforce upon men’s minds its great principles and obligations of moral duty, and partly to provide the means of escape from the guilt incurred by their imperfect fulfilment or their occasional violation. It was in this complex form that the law was imposed upon Israel, and interwoven with the economical arrangements under which, as a people, they were placed. It is in that form that it was appointed to serve the design of an educational or pedagogical institute, preparatory to the introduction of Gospel times; and in the same form only that St Paul, in various places—especially in the Epistle to the Galatians, also in Ephesians 2:14-17; Colossians 2:14-23—contended for its having been displaced or taken out of the way by the work of Christ. In all the passages the moral law is certainly included in the system of enactment spoken of, but still always in the connection now mentioned—as part and parcel of a disciplinary yoke, a pedagogy suited only to the season of comparative childhood, therefore falling into abeyance with the arrival of a manhood condition. And the necessity of this change, it will be observed, he presses with special reference, not to the strictly moral part of the law, but to the subsidiary rules and observances with which it was associated—the value of which, as to their original design, ceased with the introduction of the Gospel. His view was, not that men were disposed to make more of the Decalogue, or of the two great commandments of love, than he thought altogether proper—precisely the reverse: it was, because they were allowing the mere temporary adjuncts, and ritualistic accompaniments of these fundamental requirements, to overshadow their importance, and pave the way for substituting a formal and fictitious pietism for true godliness and virtue. And hence to prevent, as far as possible, any misunderstanding of his meaning, he does not close the epistles in question without pointing in the most explicit terms to the simply moral demands of the law as now, not less than formerly, binding on the consciences of men. (Galatians 5:13-22; Ephesians 6:1-9; Colossians 3:14, seq.) In short, the question handled by the apostle in this part of his writings upon the law, was not whether the holiness and love it enjoined were to be practised, but how the practice was to be secured. The utterance of the law’s precepts in the most peremptory and solemn form could not do it. The converting of those precepts into the terms of a covenant, and taking men bound under the weightiest penalties to observe them, could not do it. Nor could it be done by a regulated machinery of means of instruction and ordinances of service, intended to minister subsidiary help and encouragement to such as were willing to follow the course of obedience. All these had been tried, but never with more than partial success—not because the holiness required was defective, but because the moral power was wanting to have it realized. And now there came the more excellent way of the Gospel—the revelation of that love which is the fulfilling of the law, in the person of the New Head of humanity, the Lord from heaven—the revelation of it in full-orbed completeness, even rising to the highest point of sacrifice, and making provision for as many as would in faith receive it, that the spirit of this noble, pure, self-sacrificing love should dwell as a new life, an absorbing and controlling power, also in their bosom. So that, ‘what the law could not do in that, it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.’ He who is replenished with this spirit of life and love, no longer has the law standing over him, but, as with Christ in His work on earth, it lives in him, and he lives in it; the work of the law is written on his heart, and its spirit is transfused into his life. ‘The man (it has been justly said) who is truly possessor of “the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” cannot have any other gods but his Father in heaven; cannot commit adultery; cannot bear false witness; cannot kill; cannot steal. Such a man comes down upon all the exercises and avocations of life from a high altitude of wise and loving homage to the Son of God, and expounds practically the saying of the apostle, “Whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” .... Christ’s cross, then, delivers Christians from what may be termed moral drudgery; they are not oppressed and pined serfs, but freemen and fellow-heirs, serving the Lord Christ with all gladness of heart. It magnifies the law and makes it honourable, yet delivers those who accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour from the bondage of the letter. Instead of throwing the commandments into contempt, it gave them a higher moral status, and even Sinai itself becomes shorn of its greatest terrors when viewed from the elevation of the cross. Love was really the reason of the law, though the law looked like an expression of anger. We see this, now that we love more; love is the best interpreter of God, for God is love.’ (‘Ecce Deus,’ chap. xvi.) Thus it is that the Gospel secures liberty, and, at the same time, guards against licentiousness. To look only, or even principally, to the demands of law, constituted as human nature now is, cramps and deadens the energies of the soul, generates a spirit of bondage, which, ever vacillating between the fear of doing too little, and the desire of not doing more than is strictly required, can know nothing of the higher walks of excellence and worth. On the other hand, to look to the grace and liberty of the Gospel away from the law of eternal rectitude, with which they stand inseparably connected, is to give a perilous licence to the desires and emotions of the heart, nurses a spirit of individualism, which, spurning the restraints of authority, is apt to become the victim of its own caprice, or the pliant slave of vanity and lust; for true liberty, in the spiritual as well as in the civil sphere, is a regulated freedom; it moves within the bonds of law, in a spirit of rational obedience; and the moment these are set aside, self-will rises to the ascendant, bringing with it the witchery and dominion of sin. (Romans 6:16.) It is only, therefore, the combined operation of the two which can secure the proper result; and with whom is that to be found except with those who have received the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? To be replenished with this Spirit, is to be brought within the sphere of Divine love, which, so far from recoiling from the law’s demands, can give expression even to its noblest enthusiasm in a cordial response to the obligations they impose, and a faithful obedience to the course of action they prescribe. (So in the most emphatic moments of our Lord’s life, as at Matthew 11:26; Matthew 26:39; John 10:18. Nor is a certain correspondence wanting in the finer exemplifications of the good in civil life—as in Lord Nelson with his famous watchword, ‘England expects every man to do his duty’—patriotism at its highest stretch being deemed capable of no loftier aspiration or more glorious service than to give honourable satisfaction to the calls of duty. Statements are often made by religious writers respecting service done with a special regard to such calls, which is not strictly correct; as when it is said, ‘Duty is the very lowest conception of our relation to God—privilege is a higher—honoura higher—happiness and delight a higher still’ (Irving’s Works, Vol. I. p. 23). Doubtless, in certain states of mind it is so; and he who does a service merely because he deems it a duty, feeling himself dragged to it as by a chain, will be universally regarded as in a low moral condition. But this is by no means necessary. A sense of the dutiful may be felt, may even be most intensely realized, when it is associated with the purest feelings and emotions; and in the higher spheres of spiritual light and excellence—with the elect angels in heaven, or even the more advanced saints on earth, in their seasons of deepest moral earnestness—a supreme regard to the dutiful, to the will of God as the absolutely right and good, we may not hesitate to say, is the profoundest sentiment in the bosom. All else, with such nobler spirits, is lost sight of in the completeness of their surrender to the mind and will of the Eternal.) Besides, by thus calling into play the higher elements of a Divine life, there is necessarily set to work a spring or principle of goodness in the heart, which in aim is one with the law, but which in its modes of operation no law can exactly define. Experience shews, that in the complicated affairs of human life, it is impossible to prescribe a set measure to the exercise of any of the Christian graces, not even to justice, which in its own nature is the most determinate of them all. Numberless instances will arise in which, after all our attempts at precision, principle alone will need to guide our course, and not any definite landmarks previously set up on the right hand or the left. But especially is this the case with love, which of all the graces is the most free and elastic in its movements, and, if strong and fervent, adapts itself with a kind of sacred instinct to existing wants and opportunities. There still is, in every variety of state and circumstances, a right and a wrong—a bad course to be shunned, a good course to be followed, and possibly a better course still, a higher and nobler development of love, which it might be practicable to adopt, were there but grace and strength adequate to the occasion. But the proper path cannot be marked out beforehand by formulated rules and legal precedents. Love must in many respects be a law to itself, though still under law to God; and the more its flame has been kindled at the altar of Heaven, and it has caught the spirit of that Divine philanthropy, which, with the greatness of its gifts and sacrifices, triumphs over human enmity and corruption, the more always will it be disposed to do and sacrifice in return. In this sense it may be said of Christianity, that it is more characterized by spirit than by law; that it does ‘not prescribe any system of rules,’ as was connected with the Old Covenant, that ‘instead of precise rules it rather furnishes sublime principles of conduct.’ (Whately, ‘Essay on Abol. of Law.’) But such general statements have their limitations; and if understood in an absolute sense, with reference either to the past or the present, they will only serve to mislead. It was characteristic of the Old Covenant that it had a system of rules, dealt in exact and definite prescriptions; but these, it ought to be remembered, were far from defining every thing in the wide field of duty: a very large proportion of them related merely to the sacrificial worship of the Temple, and to particular conditions and circumstances of life; while in a great variety of things besides, things pertaining to the weekly service of God and the procedure of ordinary life, men were to a large extent thrown upon principle for their guidance, and if this failed, then they had no specific rule to fall back upon. They were commanded, for example, to honour the Lord with their substance—to be kind to the stranger sojourning amongst them—to treat with compassion and generosity their poor—to love a brother, and in love rebuke him, if sin were found to be upon him:—but for carrying out such commands in all supposable cases, no precise rules either were or could be given. Some leading instances only are specified by way of example, but in the great majority of cases the exact mode of behaviour was necessarily left to the individual. Look, for example, to the poor widow who cast in her two mites into the treasury—her whole living—who bade her do so? What legal enactment prescribed it? Or that other woman, who with her penitent and grateful tears washed the feet of our Lord, and wiped them with the hair of her head—what explicit word had so required it at her hands? In both cases alike, we may say, love was their only law, prompting them to do what breathed, indeed, the inmost spirit of the law, but what no express enactment of law either did or properly could demand. Yet such things belonged rather to the Old than to the New dispensation; they occurred while the New was still only in the forming; and things similar in kind should much more be expected now, since the great redemption has come, elevating the whole sphere of the Divine kingdom, and giving the Spirit to its real members as an abiding monitor and guide. This Spirit, in his directive influence, is himself a living law (Spirit us Sanctus est viva lex), and renders unnecessary a detailed system of rules and prescriptions concerning all that should be done, and how exactly to do it. (Hence, the apostle Paul, when exhorting to the support of a Christian ministry, and liberality to the poor, specifies no definite proportion, such as the tenth, but calls upon believers to give according to their ability and as the Lord had prospered them (1 Corinthians 16:2; 2 Corinthians 8:1-24, 2 Corinthians 9:1-15; Galatians 6:6.). In like manner, when dealing with Philemon respecting Onesimus, he refrains from prescribing any stringent rule, but plies him with great principles and moving considerations. But we are not thence warranted to speak of a morality in the Gospel which ‘exceeds duty and outstrips requirement’ (‘Ecce Homo,’ p. 145); or, which is but another form of the same thing, prompts us to deeds of supererogation. There can be no such deeds now, any more than in former times; no one can do more than is required of him in the law of God; for that law is the expression of God’s will, and man’s will cannot be better than God s. To love the Lord with all one’s heart, soul, and strength, and one’s neighbour as one’s self, is the perfection of moral excellence: and what is beyond or beside this, is not a higher attainment, but a vicious excess or partial development, There may well enough, indeed, be particular acts of love, or sacrifices of self-interest, which are not specifically demanded in any formal requirement; for, as already stated, it never was meant to traverse the whole field of moral action with such special demands, and the thing is practically impossible. But those higher moral deeds still come within the sphere of the law’s general requirement of love; and not properly as to the degree of love to be manifested, but only as to the particular form or direction which may be given to the manifestation, can the course of duty ever be said to lie at the option of the individual. For a safe statement and application of the distinction between principles and rules, so far as it can be said to exist in Christianity, see the admirable sermon of Augustus W. Hare, entitled ‘Principles above Rules.’) But as regards the grand outlines of moral obligation set forth in the law’s requirements, these not the less remain in force; and that love which is the peculiar fruit and evidence of the indwelling Spirit, can only be recognised as in any proper sense a law to itself, so long as it runs in the channel of those requirements, and is controlled by a sense of duty. When turning into other directions, it met once and again, even in the case of the chiefest apostles, with our Lord’s prompt and stern rebuke. (Matthew 16:23; Luke 9:55.) And St John—the most spiritual of all the apostles, if we may distinguish among them—has in this respect most distinctly expressed the very heart and substance of the whole matter, when he says, ‘This is the love of God that we keep His commandments;’ (1 John 5:3.)—or, as it should rather be, ‘This is the love of God, in order that we may keep His commandments,’—ἵνα τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν—not that we do it as a fact, but that we may and should do it as a scope or aim. It is as if the love of God were implanted in the bosom for no other end than to dispose and enable us to keep His commandments; for only in so far as these are kept, does the love of God in us reach its proper destination. And, therefore, the sense of duty, or the felt obligation to keep God’s commandments, has with good reason been called the very backbone of a religious character. (Temple’s ‘Sermons at Rugby,’ p. 36.) It is that which more especially gives strength and consistency to the soul’s movements, and saves love itself from degenerating into a dreamy sentimentalism, from yielding to improper solicitations, or running into foolish and fanciful extremes. ‘He that saith I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him.’ (1 John 2:4-5.) It was but a special application of this truth, when Mr Maurice, in a recent production, along with a gentle rebuke to a Scotch friend, expressed his belief that ‘the reverence for an unchangeable law and a living lawgiver, has given to the Scottish character its strength and solidity;’ (Preface to ‘Sermons on the Ten Commandments.’) and if so, surely an element of healthful vigour, which the friends of enlightenment and progress, instead of trying to weaken where it exists, would do well rather to encourage and strengthen where it is comparatively wanting. It was an utterance, too, in the same line, but with a more general reference and in a higher tone, when Ewald, who is often as true in his moral perceptions as loose and arbitrary in his theological positions, thus wrote, ‘There exists among men no free and effective guidance but when the individual human spirit submits to be directed and governed by the eternal, all-ruling Spirit, because it has recognised that to resist His truths and demands is to oppose its own good. But whatever else may result from the many kinds of direction and government of men by men, this can only then prove just and beneficial when it does not run counter to this supreme law.’ (Geschichte, II. p. 165.) Enough, however, of human testimonies, and also of the general argument. We merely sum up in a few closing sentences what the church is entitled to hold respecting the still abiding use of the law. (1.) Though not by any means the sole, it yet is the formal, authoritative teacher of the eternal distinctions between right and wrong in conduct; the special instrument, therefore, for keeping alive in men’s souls a sense of duty. Nothing has yet occurred in the history of mankind which can with any show of reason be said to supersede this use of the moral law. The theorists of human progression, who conceive such landmarks to be no longer needed, who fancy the world has outgrown them, are never long in meeting with what is well fitted to rebuke their ground less satisfaction:—in the disputes, for example, among themselves as to what oftentimes should be deemed virtuous conduct in the spread of those philosophic systems, of the materialistic or pantheistic school, which would sap the very foundations of piety, and unsettle the distinctions between good and evil—or, after a coarser fashion, in the atrocities which are ever and anon bursting forth in society, and even finding their unscrupulous apologisers. There is, we know, a condition of righteousness for which the law is not ordained; (1 Timothy 1:9.) but it is clear as day, that not only not the world at large, but not even the most Christian nation in the world, has as yet approached such a condition. (2.) The law, as the measure of moral excellence and commanded duty, provides what is needed to work conviction of shortcomings and sins—by looking steadfastly into which, men may come to be sensible of the deep corruption of their natures, their personal inability to rectify the evil, their guilt and danger, so that they may betake for refuge to where alone it can be found—in the blood and Spirit of Christ. The experience of the apostle must be ever repeating itself anew, ‘I had not known sin but by the law;’ ‘Through the law I am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.’ Thus we come to the practical knowledge of our case; and ‘to know ourselves diseased is half our cure.’ (3.) Finally, the imperfections too commonly cleaving to the work of grace in the redeemed, call for a certain coercive influence of law even for them. If it has not the function to discharge for such which it once had, it still has a function, there being so little of that perfect love which casteth out fear, and fear being needed to awe where love has failed to in spire and animate. So, even St Paul, replenished as he was with the life-giving Spirit, found it necessary at times to place the severer alternative before him: ‘If I preach the gospel willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed to me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.’ (1 Corinthians 9:16-17.) He even delighted to think of himself as in a peculiar sense the servant, the bondman, of God or Christ. (Romans 1; Galatians 1:10; Titus 1:1.) And for believers generally the two are thus mingled together, ‘Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God accept ably, with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.’ (Hebrews 12:29.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: 04.10. LECTURE 9. ======================================================================== Lecture 9. The Re-Introduction Of Law Into The Church Of The New Testament, In The Sense In Which Law Was Abolished By Christ And His Apostles. THE history of the law, considered as a revelation of God, reaches its close in the personal work of Christ and the formal institution of His kingdom among men; every thing pertaining to it had then, as on God’s part, assumed its final norm. But there is an instructive, though at the same time a mournful sequel to that history, which it will be proper briefly to trace before we take leave of the subject. It is the history of man’s additions to God’s testimony—claiming, however, equally with this, the sanction of Divine authority, and, by gradual and successive innovations, re-imposing upon the church a legalism, precisely similar in kind to that which had been done away in Christ, but greatly more pervasive and exacting in its demands, and in its practical operation fundamentally at variance with the true spirit of the Gospel. The rise of this false direction in the Christian church is the more remarkable, that it not only had the clear revelations of the Gospel against it, but even ran counter to what may be called the later development of practical Judaism itself. The tendency of things under the Old Covenant, especially from the time that the Theocracy began outwardly to decay, we formerly saw, was to give increasing prominence to the spiritual element in the legal economy, and to make relatively less account of the merely outward and ceremonial. This tendency was considerably strengthened by the prolonged dispersion of the Jewish people, and what everywhere accompanied it, the synagogal institution, which, to a large extent, took the place of the priestly ministrations and sacrificial worship of the Temple. The synagogue, in its constitution and services, was founded upon what was general, rather than upon what was distinctive and peculiar, in Judaism; it made account only of the common priesthood of believers, and the essential elements of truth and righteousness embodied in the records and institutions of the Old Covenant; and, consequently, the worship to which it accustomed the people at their stated meetings was entirely of a spiritual kind—prayer, the reading of inspired Scripture, and occasionally the word of brotherly counsel or admonition from some one disposed and qualified to impart it. Priests, as such, had no peculiar place either in its organization or its services; and the rulers who presided over every thing connected with it were nominated by the people on the ground simply of personal gifts and reputed character. There still remained, of course, the observance of such things as the rite of circumcision, of the distinction of meats, and of days sacredly set apart from a common to a religious use, which depended upon nothing local or individual—might be practised anywhere and by any member of the community. It was this kind of legalism which first sought to press into the Christian church—the only kind that could press into it from the synagogue; but which, though hallowed by ancient usage, and, besides, possessing nothing of a sacerdotal or ascetic nature, was yet firmly repressed by the apostles, and ejected from the bosom of the churches which had begun to follow it. No taint of evil, therefore, was allowed to insinuate itself from this quarter—not even at first, when not a few from the synagogue passed over into the membership of the church; and much less afterwards, when the synagogue everywhere arrayed itself in fierce antagonism to the church:—while, on the other hand, in the simple polity of the synagogue and its spiritual, non-ritualistic, if somewhat imperfect worship, the church found a starting-point fashioned out of those elements in the Old Covenant, which had at once their correspondence and their more complete exhibition in the New. Yet, with all this, one can easily understand, if due regard be had to the circumstances of the early church, how a disposition might arise and grow—if not very carefully guarded against—to assimilate the state of things in it to that of the preceding dispensation, and effect a virtual return to the oldness of the letter. There was the general relation between the two economies to begin with. Christianity sprang out of Judaism, and stood related to it as the substance to the shadow. More than that, a principal part of the Christian, as of the Jewish synagogal worship, consisted in the reading of the Scriptures of the Old Testament—proportionally a much larger part than in later times; for the function of preaching was at first but imperfectly exercised, and the Scriptures of the New Testament were only by and by gathered into a volume, and made to share with those of the Old in the services of the sanctuary. Hence, the minds of the Christian people were kept habitually conversant with the religion, as well as the other affairs of the Old Covenant, with the Temple and its priesthood, its rites of purification and ever-recurring oblations; and what might, perhaps, be still more apt to bias their views, they heard in the prophetical Scriptures delineations of Gospel times couched in legal phraseology—intimations, for example, of the Lord coming to His temple, that He might purify the sons of Levi, and receive from them an offering of righteousness; of incense and a pure offering being presented to the Lord from the rising to the setting sun; or of kings and far-off heathen bringing gifts to His temple. Inversely, also, in New Testament Scripture, spiritual things are sometimes described in the language of the Old as when believers are said by St John to have an anointing from the Holy One; or when, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, they are represented as having an altar, which those who served the tabernacle had no right to partake of, and are exhorted to have their bodies washed with pure water. Such passages, if superficially considered, and interpreted otherwise than in accordance with the true spirit of the Gospel, might readily beget a disposition, might create even a kind of pious desire, to have the things of the New dispensation fashioned in some sort after the pattern of the Old, and so to give to the descriptions a concrete and sensible form, similar to what they had in the past. There was, also, it must be added, a class of services and requirements occupying from the first an important place in the activities of the Christian church, in which the New necessarily came into a formal approximation to the Old. I refer to the pious and charitable contributions which the members of the Christian community brought for the relief of the poor, the support of the ministry, and the celebration of Divine ordinances. These contributions were essentially the same in kind with the tithes and free will offerings of the elder economy; and the apostle, when treating of them in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, brought the one into express comparison with the other; and on the ground that they who were wont to minister about holy things lived of the Temple-offerings, he argued that they also who preached the Gospel should live of the Gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:12-14.) In such a case the transition might seem natural from an essential to a formal agreement. Why, it might be asked, not give the New somewhat of the same sacrificial character as the Old, and invest it with the same sort of ritual accompaniments? Such thoughts might the more readily occur, if there were influences at work to dispose the early believers to forsake the channels of Christian simplicity for the more sensuous attractions of ritualistic observance. Now, there were influences of this description not only existing in all the centres of Christian agency, but also very actively at work. There was a current of opinion and feeling perpetually bearing in from the scenes and inter course of every-day life, in behalf of temples, altars, sacrifices, priestly ministrations and dedicatory offerings, as so essential to Divine worship that the one could hardly be conceived of without the other; the absence of such outward materials and instruments of devotion seemed incompatible with the very existence of the religious element. Hence, the reproach which was not infrequently thrown out against the Christians as being godless—ἄθεοι—because they refused to approach the altars, and take part in the sacrificial rites of heathenism, without appearing to have any of their own as a substitute for them. (Justin, ‘Apol.,’ chap. 6; ‘Athenagoras,’ chap. 4.) The proper way to meet this prevailing sentiment was to point to the one great High-Priest, the minister of a higher than any earthly temple, and to the one perfect sacrifice, by which, once for all, He accomplished what never could be done by sacrifices of an inferior kind, and which, by its infinite worth and ever-prevailing efficacy, imparts to those interested in it a position so high, and a character so sacred, that their services of faith and love become in the sight of God sacrifices of real value. This is the light in which the matter is presented in New Testament Scripture, where Christ is the one and all of a believer’s confidence, and the whole company of the faithful have the character assigned them of the royal priesthood, to whom belongs the privilege of offering up in Him spiritual sacrifices, which for His sake are accepted and blessed—the sacrifices, namely, of thanksgivings, alms-deeds, works of beneficence and well-doing, which, when springing from genuine faith and love in Christ, are regarded as offerings of sweet-smelling savour to God. (1 Peter 2:5; Php 4:8; Hebrews 13:15-16.) But the church had not proceeded far on her course when she lost to some extent this clear discernment of the truth, and correct apprehension of the things relating to her proper calling and work in Christ; and continually as men who had been educated in heathenism pressed into the ranks of the visible church, the number increased of those within her pale whose preparation for the kingdom of God had been imperfect, and who had been too long accustomed to identify religion with the outward and the visible to be able to grasp sufficiently the spiritual realities of the Gospel. There consequently arose a temptation to accommodate the form of Christianity to the taste of a lower class of persons, and by means of its external services work upon their natures, as by a new law of observance and discipline. They might thus hope, without foregoing the realities of the faith, to retain the allegiance of the less informed, and accomplish by symbolical and ritual appliances what seemed less likely to be reached by means of a more elevated and spiritual kind. In these circumstances, it devolved upon the church as a primary duty to take order for having proper counter acting checks and agencies brought into play; especially to see to it that those who were chosen to direct her counsels and preside over her assemblies, had become soundly instructed, not only in the principles of the Christian faith, but also in the organic connection between the Christian and Jewish dispensations, their respective differences as well as agreements, and the points wherein it was necessary to guard Christianity against any undue approach either to Judaic or heathen observance. But this was precisely what the early church failed to do—perhaps, we may say, the greatest failure into which she fell, the one fraught with the longest train of disastrous results. For centuries there was no specific theological training generally adopted for such as aspired to become her guides in spiritual things, or actually attained to this position. By much the larger portion even of those who contributed in the most especial manner to mould her character and government (Justin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, etc.), were in their early days total or comparative strangers to the exact knowledge of Scripture; their period of culture and training was spent under heathen guides, with a view to civic or military life; and when they passed, after a brief process of trial and instruction, into the ecclesiastical sphere, it could scarcely be otherwise than with many of the influences of the age still cleaving to them. Coming to know Christianity before they knew much of what preceded it, they wanted what they yet very peculiarly needed—the discipline of a gradual and successive study of the plan of God’s dispensations, and the directive light of a well-digested scheme of Scriptural theology. They knew the Bible in portions, rather than as an organic and progressive whole; and even for that knowledge, especially in its earlier parts, they were but poorly furnished with grammatical helps or with judicious expositions. Should it surprise us if, in such circumstances, they should often have caught but imperfectly the meaning of Old Testament Scripture—if they should even sometimes have shewn themselves to be insufficiently acquainted with its contents—and, in regard to the institutions and history of former times, should occasionally leave us at a loss to say whether the true or the false predominated—spiritualizing the most arbitrary going hand in hand with the crudest literalisms, profound thoughts intermingling with puerile conceits, and the most palpable Judaistic tendencies discovering themselves while evangelical principles were alone professedly maintained? Such are the actual results; and if there be one point more than another on which the spiritual discernment of those early Fathers was obviously defective, and their authority is least to be regarded, it is in respect to the connection between the New and the Old in the Divine economy. In this particular department, so far from having any special lights to guide them, they laboured under peculiar disadvantages; and their proper place in regard to it is that, not of the venerable doctors of the Christian church, but of its junior students. Now let us mark the effect of the unfortunate combination of circumstances we have indicated, and see how, by gradual, yet by sure and successive steps, the tendency in the wrong direction, which was scarcely discernible at the outset, wrought till it became an evil of gigantic magnitude, and reduced the church to a worse than Judaic bondage. In the earlier writings—such as have come down to us with probable marks of authenticity and genuineness—we notice nothing in the respect now under consideration, except a somewhat too close and formal application of the ritualistic language of the Old Testament to Christian times, coupled with certain puerile and mistaken interpretations of its meaning, in the line of extravagant literalisms. Thus, to begin with the Epistle of Clement, which in point of character as well as time is entitled to the first place, when exhorting the Corinthians to lay aside their self-will and conform to the settled and becoming order of God’s house, he refers to the prescriptions given under the old economy respecting services and offerings, which were to be done at the appointed times and according to God’s good pleasure, nor any where men might please, but at the one altar and temple in Jerusalem. This Clement assigns as a reason why believers now should perform their offerings (προσφοράς) and services (λειτουργίας) at their appointed seasons, and that each should give thanks to God in his own order, and not going beyond the rule of the ministry prescribed to him (c. 40, 41). The passage cannot, as Romish controversialists and some others have alleged, point otherwise than by way of example to the legal sacrifices and services; for it would then, against the whole spirit and many express statements in the epistle, absolutely merge the functions and services of the Christian church in those of the Jewish. On the contrary, in the Christian church he recognises only two orders, those of bishops or presbyters and deacons, and these standing related not to any Jewish functionaries, as to the reason of their appointment, but to a passage in the prophecies of Isaiah. (Isaiah 40:17.) The only exception that can justly be taken to the statement of Clement is, that, in referring to legal prescriptions, he did not mark with sufficient distinctness the diversity existing between Old and New Testament times; and, in describing the work proper to Christian pastors, characterized it in ritual language as consisting ‘in a holy and blameless manner of offering the gifts (προσενεγκόντας τὰ δῶρα).’ It is undoubtedly a departure from the style of New Testament Scripture, and shews how readily, from the predominant use of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, their language was transferred to Christian acts and objects. In this respect it formed a commencement which was but too generally followed, though not quite immediately. For in the epistle of Polycarp, which in its approach to apostolic simplicity stands next to Clement s, there is not even such a slight departure from the mode of representation current in New Testament Scripture as we have marked in Clement; the epistle is throughout practical in its tone and bearing; the presbyters, deacons, and common believers are each exhorted to be faithful in their respective duties; and for the proper discharge of these, and for security against the spiritual dangers of the times, mention is made only of prayer, fasting, and a steadfast adherence to the teaching of the pure word of God. Nor is it materially otherwise in the epistles of Ignatius, if with Cureton we take the Syriac form of the three preserved in that language as he only genuine ones, for in these there is nothing whatever of rites and ceremonies, priesthood and sacrifice, but only exhortations to prayer, watchfulness, steadfastness, and unity, with somewhat of an excessive deference to the bishop in respect especially to the formation of marriages. Even in the seven epistles, in their shorter Greek form (which is as much as almost any one not hopelessly blinded by theory is now disposed to accept), omitting a few extravagant statements respecting the bishop, such as that ‘nothing connected with the church should be done without him,’ that ‘it is not lawful without him either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast,’ (‘Smyr.,’ chap. 8.) the style of exhortation and address, though often passionate and hyperbolical, can scarcely be deemed unscriptural: believers are spoken of as the temple or building of God, they break one and the same bread, are related to one and the same altar (spiritually understood of course, for it is the entire body of the faithful that is the subject of discourse), and have many practical admonitions addressed to them. (Eph. ix, xi, xxi; Phil. iv., etc.) From the uncertainty, however, which hangs around the epistles of Ignatius, both as to their authorship and the time of their appearance, it is impossible to assign them any definite place in the chain of evidences of which we speak. The epistle to Diognetus, being entirely spiritual and evangelical in its spirit, going even to a kind of extreme in its depreciation of the Jewish religion, does not come within the scope of our argument. But the so-called epistle of Barnabas, though in all probability a production not earlier than the middle of the second century, while quite evangelical in its sentiments, knowing no proper sacrifice but the one offering of Christ, no temple but the regenerated souls of believers, is very arbitrary in the use it makes generally of Old Testament Scripture, and especially in the many outward, superficial agreements and prefigurations of Gospel realities—as if the past had in its very form and outline been intended for an image of the future. (See, in particular, the fancied prefigurations of regeneration, baptism, Christ and the cross, in chap. 7-12.) Passing on to Justin, he, too, designates no select class, but the entire company of believers, ‘the true priestly race of God, who have now the right to offer sacrifices to Him;’ (‘Tryp.,’ chap. 116, 117.) and the sacrifices themselves are with him, sometimes prayers and thanksgivings, sometimes again the bread and the wine of the Supper, but these simply as gratefully offered by the Christian people out of their earthly abundance. (‘Tryp.,’ chap. 117; ‘Apol.,’ chap. 65-67.) Sacrifices of blood and libations of incense, he again says, are no longer required; the only perfect sacrifices are prayer and thanksgiving, and such things as can be distributed to the poor; (‘Apol.,’ chap. 13; ‘Tryp.’ chap. 117.) nor does he know of any functionary who has to do with one or other of these distinctive offerings but a presiding brother, or the deacons of the church. In Justin, the Eucharist, or, as he also puts it, the Eucharistic bread and the Eucharistic cup, being especially connected with prayers and thanksgivings for the great mercies of God, come into view merely as a peculiar embodiment or representation of these, and as such are classed with sacrifices and offerings—marking a certain departure from the language of our Lord and the apostles, and that in the Old Testament direction—though he also speaks of the celebration as done in remembrance of Christ’s suffering unto death for men. (‘Tryp.,’ chap. 41.) But Irenaeus makes a further advance in the same line by representing the Eucharist not merely as having, like other spiritual acts, somewhat of a sacrificial character, but as being emphatically the Christian oblation. ‘The Lord gave instruction to His disciples to offer unto God the first-fruits of His own creatures, not as if He needed them, but, that they themselves might be neither unfruitful nor ungrateful, He took that which by its created nature was bread, and gave thanks, saying, This is my body. In like manner, also, the cup, which is of that creation whereto we belong, He confessed to be His own blood; and taught the new oblation of the New Testament, which the church, receiving from the apostles, offers throughout the whole world to God, to Him who gives us the means of support the first-fruits of His gifts in the New Testament.’ (Irenaeus, iv. chap. 17, sec. 5.) It can scarcely be doubted, that the close connection which in early times subsisted between the love-feast, in which the poor of the congregation partook of the charitable donations of their richer brethren, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, materially contributed to the formation and entertainment of this view. But in the view itself, at least when so prominently exhibited, we cannot but perceive an evident approach to the symbolism of the Old Covenant, and a corresponding departure from the mode of representation in New Testament Scripture. (See, in preceding Lecture, p. 258.) For, though in Irenaeus we find nothing of a priestly caste within the Christian church, and no altar or temple but such as are in Heaven, (Irenaeus, iv. chap. 18, sec. 6.) yet once distinctly connect the communion elements (as he did) with the idea of an oblation—the oblation by way of eminence—an oblation, moreover, involving some mysterious change in the thing offered, and the thought was natural that a priest, a priest in the strictly official sense, must be required to offer it. So that we might presently expect to hear that the presiding brother of Justin, the episcopus or presbyter of Irenaeus, had risen to the dignity of a pontifex. And this is precisely the fresh advance that meets us in the next writer of eminence. (It is quite true, that the ordinance of the Supper may, without the least violation of its Scriptural character, be spoken of as the Eucharist, or the distinctively thanksgiving service. For, calling to remembrance, as it does, the great gift of God, and even pressing home on each individual a palpable representation and offer of that gift, it should call forth in a very peculiar manner the fervent and united thanksgivings of the church. Hence, from the first it was accompanied with the special offering of thanks to God and singing of hymns of praise; and the service might not unjustly be regarded as the culmination of the church’s adoring gratitude, poured forth over the crowning act of God’s goodness. But this is still rather the proper and fitting accompaniment of the sacrament than the sacrament itself; and when taken as the one and all in a manner of the service (as it plainly was from the time of Tertullian and onwards), the primary idea and end of the institution naturally fell into comparative abeyance, and the commemoration of a sacrifice became identified with the ever renewed presentation of it. This, beyond doubt, was the actual course which the matter took in the hands of the Fathers, though their language is not uniform or consistent. But the commemorative character of the ordinance, and that with reference to our common participation in the benefits of the great act commemorated (its sealing virtue or purport as a communion), this is pre-eminently its Scriptural aspect; and in proportion as it departed from that view, the church lost the key to the ordinance.) The writer referred to was Tertullian, who flourished at the close of the second and the beginning of the third century in North Africa. Christianity had taken early root in that region, especially in the cities, where a vigorous race of Roman or Italian colonists formed the governing part of the population. From the character of the people, the church there became peculiarly distinguished for its strength and moral earnestness, and, in many respects, exercised a formative influence over the government and polity of the church of Rome, and through her upon Christendom at large. Tertullian was the first distinguished representative of this African church, and he brought into it the notions of order, and discipline, and stern administration, which he derived from his position and training as the son of a Roman centurion, and his education as a Roman lawyer—naturally, therefore, predisposed in a legal and ritualistic direction. His writings, accordingly, contain much tending in this direction. And in respect to the matter now immediately before us, he distinctly names the bishop the summus sacerdos or high-priest, though the dignity was still only in a provisional and fluctuating state—growing into definiteness and fixity rather than having actually attained to it. In his treatise on baptism, and speaking of the right of administration, c. 17, he says, ‘The high-priest, indeed, who is the bishop, has the right of giving it; thereafter presbyters and deacons, not, however, without the bishop’s authority, for the sake of the church’s honour, by the preservation of which peace is secured. Apart from this (alioquin), the right belongs also to laics; for what is received on a footing of equality (ex aequo), on the same footing can be given. The word of the Lord should not be hid by any one: therefore ;also baptism, which is not less a thing of God, can be dispensed by all.’ Elsewhere he applies the term clerus to denote the body holding ecclesiastical positions, with evident reference to the previous use of it in the Old Testament, as a collective designation of the priests and Levites, as the Lord’s peculiar lot or heritage. (‘De Monog.,’ chap. 12.) And for the same purpose he transfers the Homan official term ordo to the governing, the ecclesiastical body, while the laity are the plebs, but with the same kind of shifting flexibility as before. Urging his favourite point of absolute monogamy, (‘De Exhort. Castitatis,’ chap. 7.) he says, ‘It is written, He has made us a kingdom and priests to God and our Father. The authority of the church has made a difference between the order and the laity (ordinem et plebem), and a stamp of sacredness is set upon her honour by the meeting of the order. Moreover, where there is no meeting of the ecclesiastical order, you both offer (i.e. dispense the communion) and baptize, and alone are a priest to yourself. But when three are present, though laics, there is a church; for every one lives by his own faith, nor is there respect of persons with God.’ It was impossible, however, that matters could remain long in this kind of suspense—ecclesiastical orders with their appropriate functions, yet others on occasions taking their place—a priestly standing for some, yea, a high-priesthood, with sacrificial work to perform, rising out and apart from the common priesthood of believers, and yet, in the absence of those possessing it, the work allowed to be performed by unconsecrated hands. Once acknowledge the distinction as the normal and proper one, and it was sure soon to develop into a regular and stereotyped, yea, indispensable arrangement; as, indeed, we presently find it doing in the hands of Tertullian’s immediate disciple—Cyprian of Carthage. Bred, like the other, to the legal profession, and practising in the courts of law till within a comparatively short period of his elevation to the episcopate, Cyprian, even more than Tertullian, partook of the imperial impress, and carried into ecclesiastical life its regard for official distinctions and the observances of a regulated discipline. Every thing, according to him, seemed to hang upon this. Presbyters, as priests and bishops, still more as high-priests, held God’s appointment; His authority was with them; by them His judgment was pronounced; evils of every kind ensue if obedience is not paid to them; and in their daily service at the altar ‘they act in Christ’s stead, imitating what Christ did, and offering a true and full sacrifice in the church to God the Father.’ (Epp. 57, sec. 2; 63, sec. 11.) Such is the style of thought and speech introduced by Cyprian on this subject, in practice also vigorously carried out; and here, still more than in the writings of those who preceded him, the affairs and incidents of Old Testament Scripture are in the roughest and most literal manner applied to those of the New, as if there were no characteristic difference between them. The passages which describe the functions and services, the calling and privileges, of the priests and Levites, are transferred wholesale to the Christian ministry and diaconate: the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, has its exact counterpart in the deacon who treats his bishop with disrespect; (Ephesians 3:1-21, sec. 1.) and all sorts of external things are freely employed, which, from their colour or their use, presented any kind of likeness to the sacraments of the New Testament. Even in the lament able defection of Noah in his latter days—in the fact that he drank wine to excess, with all that followed, there was, according to Cyprian, ‘exhibited a type of the future truth, since he drank not water, but wine, and so portrayed a figure of the passion of the Lord.’ (Ep. 63, sec. 2.) Such a mode of interpretation, so singularly oblivious of the distinction between letter and spirit—carried, indeed, to peculiar excess in Cyprian, but in a great degree common to early Patristic writers generally—could not stop till it had assimilated the form of things in the new dispensation to that of the old; since it found, not the principle and germ merely of Christianity, but its very shape and lineaments in the rites and institutions of Judaism. There was, however, another and a confluent stream of influence from the prevailing heathenism, which bore powerfully in the same direction, and in respect to nothing more than the Christian sacraments, around which the ritualistic tendency had been more peculiarly concentrating itself. For, besides what was ever flowing from the temples, the altars, the festal processions, and other public rites of idolatry, to beget and foster a sensuous spirit, there was the more specific and also more fascinating influence derived throughout the more cultivated portions of the Roman empire, from the celebration of the mysteries. Uncertain as these singular institutions were as to their origin and design, and associated, in the later periods of their history at least, with much that was disorderly and demoralizing, they still possessed a most powerful attraction to the popular mind, and, for ages after the introduction of Christianity, contributed immensely to deepen the hold which the existing religion had on men’s imaginations and feelings. A sort of charmed virtue was ascribed to them, whereby the participants were supposed to be raised to a higher elevation—to become commingled in some mysterious way with the Divine. And by intensifying to the uttermost the sacerdotal element in the sacraments, especially in the celebration of the Supper, it came to be thought by the leaders of the Christian church, that an attractive and spell-like sway might be found within her pale, similar in kind to the other, but higher in character and aim. Hence, every distinguishing epithet applied to the heathen mysteries, with the view of heightening their sacredness and magnifying their importance, was transferred without limitation or reserve to the sacraments: they were called expressly the mysteries, and with every variety of designation (μυήσεις, τελετάς, τελειώσεις, ἐποπτείας), etc., the Eucharist, in particular, was the mystery by way of eminence, ‘the great and terrible mystery;’ to partake of it was to be initiated (μυεῖσδαι); the officiating priest was the initiator (μύστης, μυσταγωγός), who, in his action upon the elements, was said conftcere Deum (to make God), or to make the body and blood of Christ, and, in respect to the initiated, to impart a kind of deification (θείωσιν), or confer the vision (ἐποψίαν)—meaning such an insight into Divine things as the supernaturally illuminated alone can enjoy. The comparison might be, and has been, drawn out into the fullest circumstantiality of detail; (See the striking passage quoted from Is. Casaubon, in B. ii. p. 2 of ‘Divine Leg. of Moses.’ It is of no moment, for the point of view under consideration , whether the priestly act in the sacrament was considered as actually transubstantiating the elements, or in some mysterious way changing their character, so as to make them in power and efficacy the body and blood of Christ. Dr Goode has adduced apparently conclusive arguments, in the work previously referred to, for shewing that it was the latter, not the former, that was meant; but he has not, we think, made due account of the priestly and sacrificial representations of the ordinance given by the Fathers, which were such as to render their view of it, in practical effect, scarcely less sensuous, and equally fitted to minister to superstitious uses as the Roman mass; so that, in spite of all explanations, the Anglo-Catholic ritualists can claim the great body of Patristic writers, from the middle of the third century, as, at least, virtually on their side.) but ‘the thing (as Warburton says) is notorious;’ the Fathers, who at first denounced in unmeasured terms the heathen mysteries, afterwards adopted the fatal counsel of bringing the most sacred Christian ordinances into the closest formal resemblance to them. So that, far asunder as Judaism and Heathenism were in their spirit and aims, there still was a class of things in which they wrought together with disastrous influence on the course of events in the Christian church. What the one, when applied at an earlier period to the institutions of the Gospel, began, the other, at a more advanced stage, consummated and crowned as with a super-earthly glory. The Christian ministry, under the one class of influences, passed into a vicarious priesthood, having somewhat of its own to effect or offer; and this priesthood, yielding to the seductive power of the other, became transformed into a kind of magic hierophants, in whose hands the symbolical ordinances of the Gospel exchanged their original simplicity for the cloudy magnificence of potent charms and indescribable wonders. A formal gain in the external show and aspect of things, but purchased at an incalculable loss as to their real virtue! For it was the loss of the truth in its Scriptural directness and power; and in comparison of this, the most attractive influences of an outward ceremonialism (even if it had borne the explicit sanction of Heaven) must ever prove a miserable compensation. But if the legal and ritualistic elements of this new discipline might be said to concentrate itself here, it could not, in the nature of things, be confined to one department of the religious life; it was sure to spread, and actually did spread, in all directions. Baptism, for example, was accompanied with a whole series of symbolical services, preceding and following the rite itself;—the disrobing of the shoes and the ordinary garments; the turning to the west with a formal renunciation of the devil; the exorcism, and sanctification both of the subject of baptism, and the water; the three-fold immersion; then, after the action with water, the anointing with oil, the administration of milk and honey, etc.,—the greater part of which, though confessedly without any warrant in Scripture, are testified by Tertullian to have been traditionally observed in his time, and the prevailing custom is pleaded in their behalf as having virtually won for them the force of law. (De Cor.,c. 3, 4.) Cyprian presses several of them as indispensable. (Ep. 70.) In like manner, postures in devotion for particular times and seasons were religiously practised, the signing of one’s forehead or breast with the mark of the cross (which already, in Tertullian’s time, seems to have reached its height), the observance of days of fasting and prescribed seasons of watching and prayer, as necessary, to some extent, for all who would lead the Christian life, and, in the case of those who aspired to be religious in the stricter sense, growing into a regular and enforced system of discipline. And the sad thing was, that while this new and complicated legalism was everywhere in progress, the leading minds in the church, overlooking the fundamental agreements between it and the things they were bound to reject, deemed themselves sufficiently justified in countenancing the course pursued, on account of certain superficial differences. It was true that, after having been abolished, a vicarious, sacrificing priesthood had found its way again into the church; but then it differed from the Jewish in being held, not by fleshly descent, but by ecclesiastical ordination, and having to do directly with Christian, not with typical, events and objects. The observance of Easter on the part of the Asiatics was characterized as Jewish, in contradistinction to that of the church at large, which was Christian not because the services in the former partook more, in the latter less, of a ritualistic and sacrificial character, but merely because the mode of determining the day coincided with the Jewish in the one case, and in the other somewhat differed from it. (So the merits of the question are exhibited on the occasion of its final settlement at the council of Nicaea, in the letter addressed, in the name of the council, by Constantine to the Asiatic churches: ‘It seemed, in the first place, to be a thing unworthy and unbecoming, that, in the celebration of that most holy solemnity, we should follow the usage of the Jews, who, being persons that have defiled themselves with a most detestable sin, are deservedly given up to blindness of mind. Let nothing, therefore, be common to us with that most hostile multitude of the Jews’ (Euseb. ‘Vit. Const.,’ iii. 18).) And so, in other things, Tertullian, when contending with the Psychical (as he called them), in behalf of more frequent fastings than either New Testament Scripture or ecclesiastical usage had sanctioned, vindicates his view on the ground of the same sort of circumstantial distinctions. ‘We, therefore,’ says he, ‘in observing times and days, and months and years, plainly galatianize (i.e. imitate the folly of the Galatians), if, in doing so, we observe Jewish ceremonies, legal solemnities; for the apostle dissuades us from these, disallowing the continued observance of the Old Testament, which has been buried in Christ, and urging that of the New. But, if there is a new condition in Christ, it will be right that there should be new solemnities.’ (‘De Jejunio,’ c. 14.) And then he goes on to press, not only the now universal observance of Easter, but of fifty days of exuberant joy after its celebration, and certain stated fasts, as a proof that the church had already conceded the principle of the matter, and needed only to proceed farther in the same line to reach a higher perfection. So that, in the estimation of Tertullian, it was enough to escape the condemnation pronounced by the apostle on the Galatians, and to save the imposition of a new yoke of carnal services from the charge of Judaism, if only fresh periods and occasions were fixed for their observance; that is, if, in respect to the mere accident of time, they underwent a change:—as if the apostle had said that he was afraid of the Galatians, and regarded them as imperilling the interests of the Gospel, not simply because they made their resort to fleshly ordinances, and observed times and days, and months and years, but because the resort was to precisely Jewish things of this description! What the apostle really condemned was the commingling with the Gospel of a law of carnal ordinances (no matter whence derived), as inevitably tending to cloud the freeness of its salvation, and bring the filial spirit proper to it into bondage. Chrysostom saw a little further into the matter than Tertullian; and yet did not see far enough, or possess sufficient strength of conviction, to pierce to the root of the evil. While, therefore, not unconscious of the aspect of legalism which had been settling down upon the church, he rather sought to throw a gloss over it, than rouse his energies to resist and expose it. Contending against the Jews, and endeavouring to shew how, though the Christians had been discharged from observing times and seasons, they should yet celebrate Easter with a true oblation, and should have their minds prepared and purged for it by exercising themselves for forty days beforehand ‘to prayers, and alms, and vigils, and tears, and confession, and other such things,’ it is all only that the soul may get free from consciousness of sin not as if any observation of days were in itself necessary or commendable. ‘If, therefore (he counsels), a Jew or a Greek should ask you, Why do you fast? Do not say, on account of the Passover [i.e., the Christian oblation], nor on account of the cross, since thus you would give him a great handle. For we do not fast because of the Passover, nor because of the cross, but because of our sins, since we are going to approach the mysteries.’ (‘Adv. Jud.,’ iii. 4.) But for what other purpose, one might justly ask in reply, were the times and seasons of the Old Covenant, with their confessions, purgations, and sacrifices, appointed? Was it not also because of sin, and, in the absence of the more perfect way of deliverance from it, to have the minds of the people exercised aright concerning it? And should the same be substantially continued now—yea, greatly increased and intensified (for Judaism knew of nothing like such a regularly recurring forty days of penitence and mortification),—after this new and better way has come? Such a mode of procedure was neither more nor less than the Galatian policy of seeking to perfect in the flesh what had been begun in the spirit. It virtually said, ‘These are legalisms, indeed, if you regard them as absolutely tied to particular times, or indispensable to the actual accomplishment of Christ’s salvation in the soul: you would judaize if you so observed them.’ What then? Reject the impositions as fraught with danger to your spiritual good? as sure to take off the regard of your soul from Christ, and find, at least, a partial saviour in your prolonged asceticism? No; the Fathers (says Chrysostom), ‘have seen it meet to enjoin such things; it is wise and dutiful for you to keep to the appointed order; only, see that you do not lose sight of the great realities of the faith, and feel as if you might do every day what you more systematically do in the course of these special solemnities.’ (See also Origen, Horn. xi. in Lev. sec. 10—who draws well the distinction between the new and the old in regard to fast days, but practically drops the difference when he com.es to the now stated and customary observances.) All this shews but too plainly, that the light of the church had become grievously darkened. The men of might, if in certain respects they had not lost their hands, had here, at least virtually, lost their eyes. They did not perceive that there might be the essence of Judaism—a bondage even surpassing the bondage of its necessary symbolism and prescribed ritual of service—though not a day might be kept, nor a rite observed, in exact conformity with the ancient institutions. It was the return to observances the same in kind, however differing in the accidents of time and mode, with those of the Old Covenant—it was the overshadowing of Christ and His blessed Gospel by a long procession of penitential exercises and awe-inspiring solemnities, regulated by the canons o/,an approved ecclesiastical order—it was this which constituted the essentially legal element, and therewith the anti-evangelical, perilous tendency of such a line of things—the very same substantially, only in a more developed form, which, at the beginning of the Gospel, crept into the churches of Galatia, and drew forth the earnest expostulation and warning of the apostle. This is no mere conjecture. We can appeal in proof of it to the testimony of the very greatest of the Fathers, though in giving it he might be said to bear witness against himself. Augustine was plainly conscious of a misgiving about the vast multiplication of rites and ceremonies in his day, as tending to the reproduction, in its worst form, of a spirit of legalism, while still he conceded to mere usage the virtual right of perpetuating and enlarging the burden. Take as an example his two letters to Januarius. (‘Classis, ii.; Epp. 54, 55.) He is there returning an answer to certain questions, which had been proposed to him by his correspondent concerning the propriety, or otherwise, of observing some fasts and ordinances, in which the practice of the church was not uniform; and in doing so he sets out with a broad enunciation of the principle, which he wished Januarius to hold by—namely, that our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His own declaration in the Gospel, placed His people under a gentle yoke and a light burden, binding the community of the New Testament together by sacraments very few in number, quite easy of observance, in their purport altogether excellent, and relieving them of those things which lay as a yoke of bondage on the members of the Old Covenant. These sacraments, of course, He would have everywhere observed—yet not these alone, but what things besides ecclesiastical councils and long continued usage had sanctioned, though without any authority in Sacred Scripture; nay, even the special usages of particular localities, if they had obtained a settled footing—such as fasting on the Sabbath (viz. , Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath) at Home or Carthage, but not at Milan and other places, where the practice had not yet established itself—thus leaving the door open for the entrance of a state of things very different from what he declared to be the manifest design and appointment of Christ in the Gospel. And so the Christian feeling in his bosom expresses itself before he reaches the close of his second epistle. ‘But this (says he, sec. 35) I very much grieve at, that many salutary prescriptions which are given in the Divine Scriptures are too little heeded; and all things are so full of manifest prejudices, that if one have but touched the ground with his naked foot during his octaves (the week of holidays succeeding the Easter baptisms), he is more severely reprimanded than one who has buried his soul in intemperance. Therefore, all such ceremonies as are neither enjoined by the authority of Sacred Scripture, nor have been decreed by the councils of bishops, nor have been confirmed by the usage of the church universal, should in my judgment be cut off, where one has the power to do so. For, although it could not be discovered in what respects they are contrary to the faith, yet they oppress with servile burdens the religion which the mercy of God wished to be free, with very few and simple observances; so that the condition of the Jews was more tolerable, since though they knew not the time of liberty, yet they were subjected only to legal burdens, not to human impositions. But the church of God (he plaintively adds) , having in her constitution much chaff and many tares, is tolerant of many things, without, however, approving or doing what is directly at variance with the faith or a good life.’ We have here a right apprehension of the evil which had been making way, but by no means a right conception of the proper mode of dealing with it. It was not by such a temporizing policy, and such a faint resistance, that the swelling tide of ritualism was to be checked then, any more than now. The question should have been boldly raised: Since the effect of yielding to usage and ecclesiastical councils has been to load the church with impositions, which have marred its primitive simplicity, and brought in upon it a worse than Judaic bondage, why not withstand and reject whatever has not its clear warrant or implied justification in Scripture? This position, however, was not taken, in regard to the points now under consideration, either by Augustine, or by any of the more prominent guides of the church in the centuries succeeding the apostolic age. On the contrary, they allowed the untoward influences which were at work to fashion, by gradual and stealthy advances, a yoke of order and discipline, which, by connivance first, then by authoritative enactment, acquired the force of law, and stopt not till the whole spirit and character of the new dispensation had been brought under its sway. The principle of Augustine, that in respect to those things on which Scripture is silent, ‘the custom of the people of God, or the appointments of our ancestors, must be held as law’—a principle substantially enunciated nearly two centuries before by Tertullian, and systematically carried out by Cyprian and others (See Aug.’s ‘Ep. to Casulanuss,’ sec. 2. ‘In his rebu de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura divina, mos populi Dei, vel institute majorum pro lege tenenda sunt.’ Also Ep. ad Januarium; Tertul. de Corona, sec. 3; ‘Observationes, quas sine ullius Scripturae instrumento, solius traditionis titulo, et exinde consuetudinis patrocinio vindicamus.’)—had not failed even under the legal economy to introduce certain things that were at variance with its fundamental scope and design; but with the comparative freedom which exists in the New Testament from detailed enactments and formal restraints, the entire field in a manner lay open to it, and it was impossible to say how far, in process of time, and with external circumstances favouring its development, it might go in multiplying the materials of the church’s bondage to form and symbol. The practical result has been, that Rome has found in it a sufficient basis for her mighty mass of ritual observance and ascetic discipline. Bellarmine’s principle here is little else than a repetition of Augustine’s, (‘De Verbo Dei,’ L. iv. c. 2. ‘Ecclesiasticae traditiones proprie dicuntur consuetudines quaedam antiquae, vel a praelatis vel a populis inchoatae, quae paulatim, tacito consensu populorum, vim legis obtinuerunt.’) ‘What are properly called ecclesiastical traditions are certain ancient customs, originating either with prelates or the people, which by degrees, through the tacit consent of the people, have obtained the force of law.’ And so the legalizing tendency proceeded, gathering and consolidating its materials, till it reached its culmination in the edifice of the Tridentine Council, which has been justly said to rest on the two great Pillars—that Christ is a lawgiver in the same sense in which Moses was, and that the Gospel is a new law presenting, in a spiritualized form, the same features which the old did (Litton ‘On the Church,’ p. 122.)—the same, indeed, in kind, though far surpassing them in its multifarious and irksome character, and operating also after the same disciplinary style, as the very eulogies of its adherents indicate. In the church, they tell us, ‘we are placed, as it were, under the discipline of childhood—God having constituted an order which shall bear rule over His people, and shall bring them under the yoke of obedience to Himself.’ (Manning ‘On the Unity of the Church,’ p. 254.) What is this but in effect to say of the Romish church, that she has brought back her people, through the carnal elements she has infused into her worship and polity, to the condition out of which it was the declared purpose of Christ’s mission to raise and elevate the members of His kingdom?—not her glory, therefore, but her reproach. The new in her hands has relapsed into the old; what was begun in the Spirit, she has vainly sought to perfect in the flesh, and has only succeeded in displacing a religion of spirit for a religion of forms and ceremonies, and getting the dead works of a mechanical routine, for the fruits of a living faith and responsive love. This were itself bad enough. For it completely inverts the proper order and relation of things as set forth in New Testament Scripture—makes more account of external rites than of essential truths—and, while all-solicitous for the rightful administration of the one, provides no effectual guarantee for the due maintenance and inculcation of the other. The primary aim of the church comes to be the securing of legitimate dispensers of ordinances, who may, at the same time, be teachers of heretical doctrine, and abettors of practical corruption—and in reality have often been such. But this is by no means the whole of the evil. For, while avowedly designed to render salvation sure to those who keep to the prescribed channel of external order and ritualistic observance, it really brings uncertainty into the whole matter; and places New Testament believers not only under a more complicated service than was imposed on those of the Old Testament, but under a great disadvantage as regards the assurance of their heart before God. The ancient worshipper, as regards the mediating of his services and their acceptance with Heaven, had to do only with objective realities, about which he could, with comparative ease, satisfy himself. There was for him the one well-known temple with which Jehovah associated His name—the one altar of burnt-offering, also perfectly known and obvious to all—the officiating priesthood, with their local habitations and carefully preserved genealogies, descending from age to age, and excluding almost the possibility of doubt; and the confession of sin which required to be made, and the offerings on account of it which were to be presented, in order to the obtaining of forgiveness, both had their explicit ordination from God, and were directly rendered to Him: they depended in no degree for their success on the caprice or the intention of him who served the altar. But the spiritual element, which it has been impossible to exclude from the new law of ordinances, has, in the ritualistic system, changed all this, and introduced in its stead the most tantalizing and vexatious uncertainty. The validity of the sacraments depends on the impressed character of the priesthood, and this, again, on a whole series of circumstances, of none of which can the sincere worshipper certainly assure himself. It depends, first of all, on the ministering priest having been canonically ordained, after having been himself baptized and admitted to deacons orders; and if, as will commonly happen, several priests have to be dealt with, then the same conditions must be found to meet in each. But these are only the earlier links. The validity of ordinances depends not less upon the spiritual pedigree of the priesthood, who must have received ordination from a bishop, and he again have been consecrated by at least three bishops, none of whom has been without baptism, or deacons and priests orders, nor at the time under excommunication, or in deadly heresy and sin; and so also must it have been with their predecessors, up through all the ages of darkness, ignorance, and disorder, to the time of the apostles. ‘The chance of one’s possessing the means of salvation is (upon the ritualistic theory) just the chance of there having been no failure of any single link in this enormous chain from the apostles time to ours. The chance against one’s possessing the means of salvation is the chance of such a failure having once occurred. And is it thus that the Christian is to give diligence to make his calling and election sure? Is it thus he is to run not as uncertainly, and to draw near to God in full assurance of faith?’ (‘Cautions for the Times,’ p. 312.) It is easy to affirm, as Dr Hook does, ‘There is not a bishop or priest or deacon, among us, who may not, if he please, trace his spiritual descent from Peter and Paul.’ But where is the proof of the assertion? ‘It is probable,’ says Macaulay, ‘that no clergyman in the church of England can trace up his spiritual genealogy from bishop to bishop so far back even as the time of the Conquest. There remain many centuries during which the history of the transmission of his orders is buried in utter darkness. And whether he be a priest by succession from the apostles, depends on the question, whether during that long period some thousands of events took place, any one of which may, without any gross improbability, be supposed not to have taken place. We have not a tittle of evidence for any of these events.’ (Essay on Gladstone’s ‘Church and State.’) It is therefore justly concluded by the preceding authority, that ‘there is not a minister in all Christendom who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty his own spiritual pedigree. Irregularities could not have been wholly excluded without a perpetual miracle; and that no such miraculous interference existed, we have even historical proof.’ (‘Cautions,’ etc., p. 302.) Even this, however, is not the end of the uncertainties. For, in this new, man-made law of ordinances, there is required the further element of the knowledge and intention of the parties—those of the worshippers in confessing to the priest, receiving from him absolution and the sacraments; and those again of the priest in administering the rites—the utter want, or essential defect of which, on either side, vitiates the whole. And who can tell for certain, whether they really exist or not? The poor penitent is at the mercy of circumstances, connected with the character and position of his spiritual confidant, which he not only cannot control, but which, from their remote or impalpable nature, he cannot even distinctly ascertain: he must either refuse to entertain a doubt, or be a stranger to solid peace. On every account, therefore, this retrogressive policy, this confounding of things which essentially differ, is to be condemned and deplored as the source of incalculable evils. It is a disturbing as well as an enslaving system, shackles the souls which Christ has set free, and robs the Gospel of its essential glory as glad tidings of great joy to mankind. Men may disguise it from themselves; they may resolutely shut their eyes on its more objectionable features, or refuse to make full application of its more distinctive principles; but its native tendency and working unquestionably are to place the believer under the Gospel in much closer dependence than even the disciple of Moses on the carnal elements of a merely external polity and human administration; and, were it left to his choice, he might well exchange the fuller knowledge he has obtained of the eternal world for the larger freedom from arbitrary impositions, and the more assured possession of peace with God, which were enjoyed by those who lived in the earlier periods of the Divine dispensations. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: 04.11. SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS. ======================================================================== Supplementary Dissertations. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: 04.12. I. THE DOUBLE FORM OF THE DECALOGUE, AND THE QUESTIONS TO WHICH IT HAS GIVEN RISE. ======================================================================== I. The Double Form Of The Decalogue, And The Questions To Which It Has Given Rise. IT is to the Decalogue, as recorded in Exodus 20:1-17, that respect is usually had in discussions on the law; and in the lecture directly bearing upon the subject (Lect. IV.), it has been deemed unnecessary to notice the slightly diversified form in which the ten words appear in a subsequent part of the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 5:6-21). It were improper, however, in so full an investigation as the present, to leave the subject without adverting to this other form, and noticing the few variations from the earlier which occur in it variations which, however unimportant in themselves, have given rise to grave enough inferences and conclusions, which we hold to be erroneous. The differences are the following:—The fourth command begins with ‘keep (ùÑÈëåÉø) the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God commanded thee,’ instead of simply, as in Exodus, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it;’ also, in the body of the precept, we have, ‘nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou,’ instead of ‘nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates;’ then, at the close, instead of the reference to God’s work at creation in Exodus, ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,’ etc., as the primary ground and reason of the command, there is merely an enforcement, from the people’s own history, of the merciful regard already enjoined toward the servile class, ‘And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.’ In the fifth command there is, precisely as in the fourth, a formal recognition of the previous announcement of the command, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God commanded thee;’ and in the annexed promise, after ‘that thy days may be long (or prolonged),’ it is added, ‘and that it may go well with thee’ in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee—both of the additions existing only in Deuteronomy. In the last four commands, there is used at the commencement the connecting particle and (vau), which is wanting in Exodus (for which, in the English Bible, there is used the disjunctive neither). Finally, the last precept, which in Exodus runs, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s,’ stands thus in Deuteronomy, ‘Thou shalt not covet (úÇçÀîÉã) thy neighbour’s wife, and thou shalt not desire (The renderings of the two verbs are unfortunately inverted in the authorized version.) úÄçÀàÇåÌÆä thy neighbour’s house, his field, nor his man servant, nor his maid-servant, his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.’ 1. Now, it is clear, first of all, in respect to the whole of these alterations in the form of the Decalogue, that in no case do they affect the substance of the things enjoined: the commands are the same throughout, and stand in the same order in both the records. So that, viewed simply in the light of law, there is properly no difference between the earlier and the later form. For we must distinguish between what is commanded in God’s moral law, and the considerations by which, in whole or in part, it may be enforced: the one, having its ground in the nature of God, must remain essentially the same; the other, depending to a large extent on the circumstances of the people, and God’s methods of dealing with them, may readily admit of variety. It is chiefly in regard to the law of the Sabbath that, even in this respect, any notable change has been introduced—the more general reason derived from the Divine procedure at creation being altogether unnoticed in Deuteronomy, and stress laid only on what had been done for Israel by the redemption from bondage, and what in turn they were bound to do for those among themselves whose condition somewhat resembled theirs in Egypt. Why there should have been, in this later record, so entire an ignoring of the one kind of motive, and so prominent an exhibition of the other, no definite information has been given us, and we are perhaps but imperfectly able to understand. The one, however, is no way incompatible with the other, and no more in this case than in many others are we entitled to regard the special consideration adduced as virtually cancelling the general, and narrowing the sphere of the obligation imposed. It is always dutiful, and is only a specific branch of the great law of brotherly love, to deal justly toward the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and beware of defrauding them of their rights: yet such duties are expressly charged upon the Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy, on the ground that they had been redeemed from the condition of bondmen in Egypt (Deuteronomy 24:17-18). In other cases, the general duties of compassion to the poor and help to the needy are in like manner enforced, and are said, on this special account, to have been commanded (Deuteronomy 15:15; Deuteronomy 16:12; Deuteronomy 24:19-22). Yet surely no one would think of asserting that duties of such a description had been imposed upon the Israelites merely because they had been so redeemed, and had not both a prior and a more general ground of obligation. All that is meant is, that from what God had done for them as a people, and the relation in which they stood to Him, they were in a very peculiar manner bound to the observance of such things—that, if they failed to do them, they would disregard the special lessons of their history, and defeat the ends of their corporate existence. And nothing more, nothing else, than this is the legitimate interpretation to be put on the similar reference to Israelitish history in the case before us. The primary ground of the Sabbath law lay still, as before, in the primeval sanctifying and blessing of the day at the close of creation, as indicative of man’s calling to enter into God’s rest, as well as to do His work, and to make ‘the pulsation of the Divine life in a certain sense his own.’ But now that Israel had become not only a free and independent people, but, as such, were already occupying a prominent place, having laid several powerful tribes at their feet, and were presently to rise to a still higher position, it was of the greatest importance for them to feel that the power and the opportunities thus given them were to be used in subservience to the great ends of their calling, and not for any carnal interests and purposes of their own. As masters, with many helpless captives and needy dependants subject to their control, it behoved them to remember that they had themselves escaped from servitude through God’s merciful interposition, that as such they stood under law to Him, and so were specially bound, alike for His glory and for the common wellbeing of themselves and their dependants, to keep that ever-recurring day of sacred rest, which, when observed as it was designed, brings all into living fellowship with the mercy and goodness of Heaven. By this there was no narrowing of the obligation, but only, in respect to a particular aspect of it, a special ground of obedience pressed upon Israel—the same, indeed, which prefaced the entire Decalogue. It is scarcely necessary, perhaps, to refer to the slight addition made to the reason employed in enforcing the observance of the fifth precept; for nothing new is introduced by it, but only an amplification of what had been originally presented. That their days might be prolonged in the land which the Lord had given them is the promise connected, in Exodus, with the honouring of parents; and this was evidently all one with having a continued enjoyment of the Lord’s favour, or of being prospered in their national affairs. It was virtually to say, that a well-trained youth, growing up in reverent obedience to the constituted authorities in the family and the state, would be the best, and, in the long run, the only effective preparation for a well-ordered and thriving community. And this is just a little more distinctly expressed by the additional clause in Deuteronomy, that it may go well with thee: thus and thus only expect successive generations of a God-fearing and blessed people. 2. But allowing the fitness of such explanations, why, it may be asked, should they have been necessary? Why, when professing to rehearse the words which were spoken by God from Sinai, and which formed the basis of the whole legal economy, should certain of those words have been omitted, and certain others inserted? Do not such alterations, even though not introducing any change of meaning, seem to betray some tampering with the original sources, or at least militate against the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures? So it has been argued by some modern critics; but with no solid ground, if the matter is contemplated from the true Scriptural point of view. For it is clear that Moses, in the rehearsal he made on the plains of Moab of what had been said and done nearly forty years before at Sinai, intended only to give the substance of the past, but not the exact reproduction, not the identical words with the same fulness, and in precisely the same order. A rhetorical element pervades the book, mingling with and to some extent qualifying the use made of historical data. The expression, twice repeated in the rehearsal of the Decalogue, ‘As the Lord thy God commanded thee,’ was alone sufficient to shew, that while Moses was giving afresh the solemn utterances of God, he was doing so with a certain measure of freedom—intent rather upon the object of reviving wholesome impressions upon the minds of a comparatively untutored people, than of presenting to critical ears an exact and literal uniformity. The same freedom also appears in other rehearsals given by him of what passed in his inter views with God. (Compare, for example, Deuteronomy 10:1-2, with Exodus 34:1-2; Deuteronomy 10:11, with Exodus 33:1.) And if the general principle be still pressed, that, on the theory of plenary inspiration, every word of God is precious, and any addition to it or detraction from it must tend to mar its completeness or purity, we reply that this is applicable to the case in hand only when there is an interference with the contents of Scripture by an unauthorized instrument, or beyond certain definite limits. Slight verbal deviations, while the sense remains unaffected, or such incidental changes as serve the purpose of throwing some explanation on the word, while substantially repeating it, and so as to give it a closer adaptation to existing circumstances, are of frequent occurrence in Scripture, and perfectly accord with its character and design. (See, as specimens, the manner of quoting Old Testament Scripture in such passages as Matthew 2:6; Matthew 11:10; Romans 11:26-27; Hebrews 8:8-10, etc.) For this also is of God. In the cases supposed, it is He who employs the second instrumentality as well as the first, and thereby teaches the church, while holding fast by the very word of God as revealed in Scripture, to use it with a reasonable freedom, and with a fitting regard to circumstances of time and place. It should also be remembered, that such slight alterations as those now under consideration have an exegetical value of some importance: they strongly corroborate the Mosaic authorship of the Look of Deuteronomy. For, is it conceivable, as Hävernick justly asks, (‘Introd. to Pent.,’ c. 25.) ‘that a later author would have permitted himself in such an alteration of what he himself most expressly attributes to Moses, and with the sacredness and inviolability of which he is deeply impressed, and not rather have observed the most conscientious exactness in the repetition of the Mosaic form?’ Nothing, he adds, would be gained by the supposition of some simple forms of the commands traditionally preserved; for as soon as any form was committed to writing, we may be certain that, in the case especially of so very peculiar and fundamental a piece of legislation, that form would become identified in the popular mind with the thing itself. So that the alterations in question, which could not but be regarded as improper if coming from any one except the Mediator Himself of the Old Covenant, lend important confirmation to the Mosaic authorship of the book in which they occur. 3. The most important alteration, however, in the later form of the Decalogue, has yet to be noticed—one, also, which, has given rise to considerable discussion respecting the structure of the Decalogue itself. It occurs at the commencement of what, in the Protestant church, is usually designated the tenth command. The insertion, somewhat later, of the field of one’s neighbour, immediately after his house, as among the things not to be coveted, calls for no special remark; as it is in the same line with a similar addition in the fifth command already noticed—being only a further specification, for the sake of greater explicitness. But the change at the commencement is of a different sort; for here the two first clauses are placed in the inverse order to that adopted in Exodus. There it is: ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife;’ but in Deuteronomy, ‘thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, thou shalt not desire thy neighbour’s house’—there being, along with a different order, a different verb, expressive of the same general import, but of a less intensive meaning, in regard to house and other possessions, than that employed in regard to wife. And occasion has been taken, partly at least from this, to advocate a division of the Decalogue, which makes here two separate commands—one, the ninth, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,’ and another, the tenth, ‘Thou shalt not desire (so as to covet) thy neighbour’s house, his field,’ etc. The view in question can only be partly ascribed to this source; for Augustine, who is the earliest representative of it known to us (though he speaks of it as held by others in his day), and from whom it has descended to the Roman Catholic, as also to the Lutheran church, was evidently influenced in its favour fully as much by doctrinal as by exegetical considerations. By splitting the command against coveting into two, and throwing the prohibitions against the introduction of false gods and the worship of the true God by means of idols into one, a division was got of the Decalogue into three and seven—both sacred numbers, and the first deemed of special importance, because significant of the great mystery of ‘the Trinity.’ ‘To me, therefore,’ says Augustine, (‘Quæst. in Exodium,’ 71.) ‘it appears more fitting that the division into three and seven should be accepted, because in those things which pertain to God there appears to more considerate minds (diligentius intuentibus) an indication of the Trinity.’ It was quite in accordance with his usual style of interpretation, which found intimations of the Trinity, as of other Divine mysteries, in the most casual notices; in the mention, for example, of the three water-pots at Cana, the three loaves which the person in the parable is represented as going to ask from his friend, etc. Stress, however, is also laid by Augustine, as by those who follow him, on the twofold prohibition, ‘Thou shalt not covet,’ in both forms of the Decalogue, though coupled in the one with the house first, and in the other with the wife—as apparently implying that the coveting in the one case belonged to a different category from that in the other; and he thinks there is even a greater difference between the two kinds of covetous desire, as directed towards a neighbour’s wife and a neighbour’s property, than between the setting up of other gods beside Jehovah, and the worshipping of Jehovah by idols. But this view, though it has recently been vindicated by some writers of note (in particular, by Sonntag and Kurtz), is liable to several, and in our judgment quite fatal objections. In the first place, it is without any support from Jewish authority, which, in such a matter, is entitled to considerable weight. A measure of support in its behalf, has, indeed, been sought in the Parashoth, or sectional arrangement of the Heb. MSS. In the larger proportion of these MSS. (460 out of 694 mentioned by Kennicott) the Decalogue is divided into ten Parashoth, with spaces between them commonly marked by a Sethuma (ñ); and one of these does stand, in the MSS. referred to, between the two commands against coveting, while it is wanting between the prohibition against having any other gods, and that against worshipping God by idols. But the principle of these Parashoth is unknown, and has yet found no satisfactory explanation. For it is at variance with the only two divisions of the Decalogue, which are certainly known to have prevailed among the Jewish authorities—an older one, which is found alike in Philo (‘Quis rerum div. haer.,’ sec. 35.) and Josephus, (‘Ant.,’ iii. c. 6, sec. 5.) the only one, indeed, mentioned by them, making the division into two fives, the first closing with the command to honour father and mother; and a later one, adopted by the Talmudical Jews, according to which there still remain the two fives, and in the second only one command against coveting, but in the earlier part the command against images is combined with that against false gods, and the first command is simply the declaration, ‘I am Jehovah thy God.’ This last classification is certainly erroneous; for in that declaration, as Origen long ago objected, (‘Hom. in Ex.’ 8.) [3] there is nothing that can be called a command, but an announcement merely as to who it is that does command (quis sit, qui mandat, ostendit.) Without, however, going further into Jewish sentiment or belief upon the subject, it may justly be held as an argument of some weight against the Augustinian division of the command about coveting into two separate parts, and still more against the division as a whole into three and seven, that it appears to have been ignored by both earlier and later Jews, that it has also no representative among the Greek Fathers, nor even among the Latins till Augustine. Another reason against the view is, that it would oblige us to take the form of the tenth command in Deuteronomy—that which forbids the coveting of a neighbour’s wife first, and his house afterwards—as the only correct form of the command; consequently, to suppose the different order presented in Exodus to be the result of an error in the text. For, were both texts held to be equally correct, then, on the supposition of the command against coveting being really twofold, there would be an absolute contrariety: according to the one text, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house,’ would be the ninth in order, while, according to the other, it would be, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.’ If, however, all the objects of covetous desire were embraced in one command, it becomes a matter of no moment in what precise order they are placed: standing first, as it does in Exodus, the house is a general name for all that belongs to a man in his domestic relationship, and wife, man-servant, maid-servant, which follow, are the more prominent particulars included in it; while in Deuteronomy, the second place only being assigned to house, and wife standing first, the latter has an independent position of her own, and house must be understood as comprising whatever else of a domestic nature is dear and precious to a man. So under stood, there is only a slight diversity in the mode of representation, but no contrariety; and such a view is, therefore, greatly to be preferred to the other, which requires, without any support from the evidence of MSS., that there is a textual error in one of the accounts, and that in this respect that which professes to be the later and is obviously the freer account of the matter, is to be held as the more exact representation of the original utterance:—both of them extremely improbable and entirely hypothetical. Besides, while there undoubtedly is a specific difference between evil concupiscence as directed toward the wife of another man, and the same as directed toward his goods and possessions—sufficient to entitle the one to a formal repetition after the other—there still is no essential diversity; nothing like a difference in kind. The radical affection in each case alike is an inordinate desire to possess what is another’s—only, in the one case with more of a regard to sensual gratification, in the other to purposes of gain. Hence, also in the more distinct references made to it in the New Testament, it is evidently presented as a unity.(Romans 7:7; James 1:15; James 4:5.) It is quite otherwise, however, with the commands to have no God but Jehovah, and to make no use of images in His worship; for here there is a real and an easily recognised distinction—the one having respect to the proper object of worship, and the other to its proper mode of celebration. True, no doubt, from the very intimate connection which in ancient times subsisted between the use of idols in worship, and the doing homage to distinct deities, the two are not unfrequently identified in Old Testament Scripture—being indeed but different stages in one course of degeneracy; (Exodus 32:32; 2 Corinthians 13:8.) [1] still, when formal respect is had to the two phases of evil, a very marked distinction is drawn between them, as when the sin of Jeroboam is spoken of as a light thing compared with that of Ahab, in avowedly setting up the worship of Baal, and thereby supplanting the worship of Jehovah. (1 Kings 16:31.) [2] The one was a corrupting of the idea of God’s character and service, the other was an ignoring of His very existence. On every account, therefore, the use which has been made of the concluding portion of the Decalogue, as given in the book of Deuteronomy, in the interest of a particular division of its contents, is to be rejected as untenable. A more obvious and palpable ground of distinction between the commands must have existed to lay the basis of a proper division. And if this may be said of the distinction attempted to be drawn between one part and another of the command against coveting, still more may it be said of the supposed reference in the Decalogue at large to the sacred numbers of three and seven, which has from the first chiefly swayed the minds of those who favour the division introduced by Augustine. It is of too inward and refined a nature to have occurred to any one but a contemplative, semi-mystic student of Scripture; while in things pertaining to the form and structure of a popular religion, it is rather what may commend itself to the intelligence of men of ordinary shrewdness and discernment, than what may strike the fancy of a profound thinker in his closet, which is entitled to consideration. Contemplated from this point of view, no distribution of the commands of the Decalogue can be compared, for naturalness and convenience, to that which comes down to us, on the testimony of Philo and Josephus, as the one generally accepted by the ancient Jews, which has also received the suffrage, in modern times, of the great body of the Reformed theologians; nor does any appropriation for the two tables so readily present itself, or appear so simple, as that of the two fives—though probable reasons can also be alleged for the division into four and six. But the difference in the latter respect is of no practical moment. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: 04.13. II. THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN GOD’S REVELATIONS OF TRUTH AND DUTY... ======================================================================== II. The Historical Element In God’s Revelations Of Truth And Duty, Considered With An Especial Respect To Their Claim On Men’s Responsibilities And Obligations. THE fact that a historical element enters deeply into God’s revelations of Himself in Scripture, and exercises a material influence as well in respect to the things presented in them, at different periods, to men’s faith and observance, as to the form or manner in which it was done, has been throughout assumed in our discussions on the law, but not made the subject of direct inquiry. The fact itself admits of no doubt. It is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Scripture as a Divine revelation, and as such is prominently exhibited at the commencement of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the words, ‘God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.’ God’s voice has been sounding through the ages, now in this manner, now in that, and with varying degrees of perspicuity and fulness, but culminating in the appearance and mission of the Son, as that wherein it found its deepest utterance and its most perfect form of manifestation. The simple fact, however, no longer satisfies; it comes at certain points into conflict with the critical, individualizing spirit of the age. But, to have the matter distinctly before us, we must first look at the consequences necessarily growing out of the fact with regard to the character it imparts to Divine revelation, and then consider the exceptions taken against it in whole or in part. I. First, in respect to the fact, we have to take into account the extent to which the characteristic in question prevails. There is not merely a historical element in Scripture, but this so as even to impart to the revelation itself a history. Though supernatural in its origin, it is yet perfectly natural and human in its mode of working and its course of development. It stands associated with human wants and emergencies, as the occasions which called it forth; human agencies were employed to minister it; and, for transmission to future times, it has been written in the common tongues and dialects of men, and under the diversified forms of composition with which they are otherwise familiar. So little does this revelation of God affect a merely ideal or super-earthly style—so much does it let itself down among the transactions and movements of history, that it has ever been with outstanding and important facts that it has associated its more fundamental ideas. In these, primarily, God has made Himself known to man. And hence, alike in the Old and the New Testament Scriptures, the historical books stand first; the foundation of all is there; the rest is but the structure built on it; and just as is the reality and significance of the facts recorded in them, such also is the truth of the doctrines, and the measure of the obligations and hopes growing out of them. But since revelation thus has a history, it necessarily has also a progress; for all history, in the proper sense, has such. It is not a purposeless moving to and fro, or a wearisome iteration, a turning back again upon itself, but an advance—if at times halting, or circuitous, still an advance—toward some specific end. So, in a peculiar manner, is it with the book of God’s revelation; there is an end, because it is of Him, who never can work but for some aim worthy of Himself, and with unerring wisdom subordinates every thing to its accomplishment. That end may be variously described, according to the point of view from which it is contemplated; but, speaking generally, it may be said to include such an unfolding of the character and purposes of God in grace, as shall secure for those who accept its teachings, salvation from the ruin of sin, practical conformity to the will of God, and the bringing in of the everlasting kingdom of righteousness and peace, with which both the good of His people and the glory of His own name are identified. This is the grand theme pursued throughout; the different parts and stages of revelation are but progressive developments of it, and, to be rightly understood, must be viewed with reference to their place in the great whole. So that the revelation of God in Scripture finds, in this respect, its appropriate image in those temple-waters seen in vision by the prophet—issuing at first like a little streamlet from the seat of the Divine majesty, but growing apace, and growing, not by supplies ministered from without, but as it were by self-production, and carrying with it the more—the more it increased in volume and approached its final resting-place—the vivifying influences which shed all around them the aspect of life and beauty. Now, this characteristic of Divine revelation, as being historically developed, and thence subject to the law of progress, has undoubtedly its dark side to our view; there are points about it which seem mysterious, and which we have no means of satisfactorily explicating. In particular, the small measures of light which for ages it furnished respecting the more peculiar things of God, the imperfect form of administration under which the affairs of His kingdom were necessarily placed till the fulness of the time had come for the manifested Saviour, and still in a measure cleaving to it—such things undoubtedly appear strange to us, and are somewhat difficult to reconcile with our abstract notions of wisdom and benevolence. Why should the world have been kept so long in comparative darkness, when some further communications from the upper Sanctuary might have relieved it? Why delay so long the forthcoming of the great realities, on which all was mainly to depend for life and blessing? Or, since the realities have come, why not take more effective means for having them brought everywhere to bear on the under standings and consciences of men? Questions of this sort not unnaturally present themselves; and though, in regard at least to the first of them, we can point to a wide-reaching analogy in the natural course of providence (as has been already noticed at p. 62), yet, in the general, we want materials for arriving at an intelligent view of the whole subject, such as might enable us to unravel the mysteries which hang around it. It behoves us to remember, that in things which touch so profoundly upon the purposes of God, and the plan of His universal government, we meanwhile know but in part; and instead of vainly agitating the questions, why it is thus and not otherwise, should rather apply our minds to the discovery of the practical aims, which we have reason to believe stand associated with the state of things as it actually exists, and as we have personally to do with it. Looking at the matter in this spirit, and with such an object in view, we can readily perceive various advantages arising from such an introduction of the historical element as has been described into the method of God’s revelation of His mind and will to men. First of all, it serves (if we may so speak) to humanize the revelation—does, in a measure, for its teachings of truth and duty what, in a still more peculiar manner, was done by the Incarnation. The Divine word spoken from the invisible heights, out of the secret place of Godhead, and the same word uttered from the bosom of humanity, linked on every side to the relations and experience of actual life, though they might perfectly coincide in substance, yet in form how widely different! And in the one how greatly more fitted than in the other to reach the sympathies and win the homage of men! It is, indeed, at bottom, merely a recognising and acting on the truth, that man was made in the image of God, and that only by laying hold of what remains of this image, and sanctifying it for higher uses, can the Spirit of God effectually disclose Divine things, and obtain for them a proper lodgment in the soul: the rays of the eternal Sun must reach it, not by direct effulgence, but ‘through the luminous atmosphere of created minds.’ Then, as another result, let it be considered how well this method accords with and secures that fulness and variety, which is necessary to Scripture as the book which, from its very design, was to provide the seed-corn of spiritual thought and instruction for all times—a book for the sanctification of humanity, and the developing in the soul of a higher life than that of nature. An end like this could never have been served by some general announcements, systematized exhibitions of doctrine, or stereotyped prescriptions of order and duty, without respect to diversities of time, and the ever-varying evolutions of the world’s history. There was needed for its accomplishment precisely what we find in Scripture—a rich and various treasury of knowledge, with ample materials for quiet meditation, the incitement of active energy, and the soothing influences of consolation and hope—and so, resembling more the freedom and fulness of nature than the formality and precision of art. Hence, as has been well said, ‘Scripture cannot be mapped or its contents catalogued; but, after all our diligence to the end of our lives, and to the end of the church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our path, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures.’ (Quoted in Trench’s ‘Hulsean Lectures,’ p. 94.) One may readily enough master a system of doctrine, or become conversant with even a complicated scheme of religious observance; but a history, a life, especially such lives and memorable transactions as are found in Scripture, above all, what is written of our blessed Lord, His marvellous career, His Divine works and not less Divine discourses, His atoning death and glorious resurrection who can ever say he has exhausted these? Who does not rather feel if he really makes himself at home with them—that there belongs to them a kind of infinite suggestiveness, such as is fitted to yield perpetually fresh life and instruction to thoughtful minds? And this, not as in the case of human works, for a certain class merely of mankind, but for all who will be at pains to search into its manifold and pregnant meaning. Hence the Word of God stands so closely associated with study, meditation, and prayer, without which it cannot accomplish its design—cannot even make its treasures properly known. And on this account, ‘the church and theology must, while they are in the flesh, eat their bread by the sweat of their brow; which is not only not a judgment, but, for our present state, a great blessing. If the highest were indeed so easy and simple, then the flesh would soon become indolent and satisfied. God gives us the truth in His word, but He takes care that we must all win it for ourselves ever afresh. He has therefore with great wisdom arranged the Bible as it is.’ (Auberlen ‘On Divine Revelation,’ p. 237, Eng. Trans.) Still further, in the actual structure of revelation, there is an interesting exhibition of the progressive character of the Divine plan, and of the organic connection between its several parts—in this a witness of the general organism of the human family, and, for individual members thereof, a type of the progress through which the divinely educated mind must ever pass, as from childhood to youth, and from youth to the ripeness and vigour of manhood. It thus has, as it could no otherwise have done, its milk for babes and its meat for strong men. And the scheme of God for the highest wellbeing of His people, is seen to be no transient or fitful conception, but a purpose lying deep in the eternal counsel of His will—thence gradually working itself into the history of the world—proceeding onwards from age to age, rising from one stage of development to another, the same grand principles maintained, the same moral aims pursued, through all external changes of position and varying forms of administration, till the scheme reached its consummation in the appearance and kingdom of Christ. How assuring such a prearranged and progressive course to the humble heart of faith, which desires in earnest to know its God! And how instructive also to mark the organic unity pervading the external diversity, and to learn, from the earlier and simpler manifestations of the truth, the lessons of wisdom, which are equally applicable, but often more difficult of apprehension, under its higher and more spiritual revelations! So that, for those living now in the ends of the world, there is a rich heritage of instruction, counsel, and admonition laid up for them in the Word of God, associated with every period of the church’s progress: Jehovah, the unchangeable One, speaks to them in all; all has been ‘written for their learning, that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures they might have hope.’ II. If the account now given of the matter, and the conclusion just drawn as to its practical bearing—drawn in the language of Scripture—be correct, then the historical and progressive character of revelation, the circumstance of God’s mind and will being communicated, in the first instance, to particular individuals, and associated with specific times and places in the past, does not destroy its application or impair its usefulness to men of other times: we, too, are interested in the facts it records, we are bound by the law of righteousness it reveals, we have to answer for all its calls and invitations, its lessons of wisdom and its threatenings of judgment. But here exception is taken by the representatives and advocates of individualism, sometimes under a less, sometimes under a more extreme form; in the one case denying any direct claim on our faith and obedience, in respect to what is written in Old Testament Scripture, but yielding it in respect to the New; in the other, placing both substantially in the same category, and alleging, that because of the remoteness of the period to which the Gospel era belongs, and the historical circumstances of the time no longer existing, the things recorded and enjoined also in New Testament Scripture are without any binding authority on the heart and conscience. It may be the part of wisdom to accredit and observe them, but there can be no moral blame if we should feel unable to do that, if we should take up an unbelieving and independent position. 1. Persons of the former class, who claim only a partial exemption from the authoritative teaching of Scripture—from the binding power of its earlier revelations speak after this fashion: We were not yet alive, nor did the economy under which we live exist, when the things were spoken or done, through which God made revelation of Himself to men of the olden time—when Abraham, for example, at the Divine command, left his father’s house, and was taken into covenant with God, or when Israel, at a subsequent period, were redeemed from the land of Egypt, that they might occupy a certain position and calling; and however important the transactions may have been in themselves, or how ever suitable for the time being the commands given, they still can have no direct authority over us; nor can we have to do with them as grounds of moral obligation, except in so far as they have been resumed in the teaching of Christ, or are responded to in our Christian consciousness. Of late years this form of objection has been so frequently advanced, that it is unnecessary to produce quotations; and not uncommonly the reasons attached especially to the fifth command in the Decalogue, and also to the fourth as given in Deuteronomy 5:15, pointing, the one to Israel’s heritage of Canaan, and the other to their redemption from Egypt, are regarded as conclusive evidences of the merely local and temporal nature in particular of the commands imposed in the Decalogue. The mode of contemplation on which this line of objection proceeds is far from new; in principle it is as old as Christianity. For the view it adopts of Old Testament Scripture was firmly maintained by the unbelieving Jews of apostolic times, though applied by them rather to the blessings promised than to the duties enjoined. They imagined that, because they were the descendants of those to whom the word originally came, they alone were entitled to appropriate the privileges and hopes it secured to the faithful, or if others, yet only by becoming proselytes to Judaism, and joining themselves to the favoured seed. Fierce conflicts sprung up on this very point in subsequent times. Tertullian mentions a disputation of great keenness and length, which took place in his neighbourhood, between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte, and in which the latter sought ‘to claim the law of God for himself’ (sibi vindicare dei legem instituerit). Conceiving the merits of the question to have been darkened, rather than otherwise, by words without knowledge, Tertullian took occasion from it to write his treatise against the Jews, in which he endeavoured to shew that God, as the Creator and Governor of all men, gave the law through Moses to one people, but in order that it might be imparted to all nations, and in a form which was destined, according to Old Testament Scripture itself, to undergo an important change for the better. Nearly two centuries later we find Augustine resuming the theme, and, after adducing various passages from Moses and the prophets about the redemption God had wrought for men, and the greater things still in prospect, the Jews are introduced as proudly erecting themselves and saying, ‘We are the persons; this is said of us; it was said to us; for we are Israel, God’s people.’ (‘Adv. Judæos,’ sec. 9. Both Augustine and Tertullian have sharply exhibited, in their respective treatises, the substantial identity of the calling of believers in Christian and pre-Christian times. But in respect to the general principles of duty, they both except the law of the weekly Sabbath; with them, as with the Fathers generally, this was a prominent distinction between the believing Jew and the believing Christian—the Sabbath being viewed, in common with many of the later Jews, as a day of simple rest from work—a kind of sanctimonious idleness and repose—hence, no further related to the Christian than as a prefiguration of his cessation from sin, and spiritual rest in Christ. All the precepts of the Decalogue they regarded as strictly binding but this (so expressly Aug., ‘De Spiritu et Lit.’ c. xiv.; also Tert, ‘De Idolatria,’ c. 14; ‘Adv. Jud.,’ c. 4); or this only in the sense now specified. It was a branch of the Patristic misconceptions respecting Old Testament subjects, and one of the most unfortunate of them. Had they rightly understood the law of the Sabbath, they would undoubtedly have spoken otherwise of it. Those who dispute my assertion of this will perhaps judge differently when they hear what Ewald has to say of it. In his remarks on the Decalogue, he speaks most properly of the design and tendency of the Sabbath (though wrong, as I conceive, in ascribing its origin to Moses): ‘It was necessary (he says) for the community to have had such a pause in the common lower cares and avocations of life, that they might collect their energies with the greater zeal for the life of holiness.’ He thinks ‘no institution could be devised which could so directly lead man both to supply what is lost in the tumult of life, and effectually to turn his thoughts again to the higher and the eternal. Thus the Sabbath, though the simplest and most spiritual, is at the same time the wisest and most fruitful of institutions, the true symbol of the higher religion which now entered into the world, and the most eloquent witness to the greatness of the human soul which first grasped the idea of it.’ However, Tertullian in one place, ‘Adv. Marcionem,’ iv. 12, reasons with substantial correctness as to our Lord’s treatment of the Sabbath, and His views regarding it, maintaining that it allowed certain kinds of work.) Thus the historical element in revelation, from the time it became peculiarly associated with the family of Abraham, was turned by them into an argument for claiming a kind of exclusive right to its provisions—as if Jehovah were the God of the Jews only; just as now it is applied to the purpose of fixing on the Jews an exclusive obligation to submit to its requirements of duty—except in so far as the matter therein containedmay be coincident with the general principles of moral obligation. The ground of both applications is the same—namely, by reason of the historical accompaniments of certain parts of Divine revelation, to circumscribe its sphere, and confine its authoritative teaching within merely local and temporary channels. Now, as this is a point which concerns the proper bearing and interpretation of Scripture, it is to Scripture itself that the appeal must be made. But on making such an appeal, the principle that emerges is very nearly the converse of that just mentioned: it is, that the particular features in revelation, derived from its historical accompaniments, were meant to be, not to the prejudice or the subversion, but rather for the sake, of its general interest and application. They but served to give more point to its meaning, and render more secure its preservation in the world. So that, instead of saying, in respect to one part or another of the sacred volume, I find therein a word of God to such a person, or at such a period in the past, therefore not strictly for me; I should rather, according to the method of Scripture, say, Here, at such a time and to such a party, was a revelation of the mind and will of Him who is Lord of heaven and earth, made to persons of like nature and calling with myself—made, indeed, to them, but only that it might through them be conveyed and certified to others; and coming, as it does to me, a component part of the Word, which reveals the character of the Most High, and which, as such, He delights most peculiarly to magnify, I also am bound to listen to it as the voice of God speaking to me through my brother-man, and should make conscience of observing it—in so far as it is not plainly of a local and temporary nature, and consequently unsuited to my position and circumstances. There are, no doubt, things of this latter description in the Word of God—things which, in their direct and literal form, are in applicable to any one now; for this is a necessary consequence of the play that has been given to the historical element in Scripture. But then it is in a measure common to all Scripture—not wanting even in its later communications. Our Lord Himself spake words to His disciples, addressed to them both commands and promises, which are no longer applicable in the letter, as when He called some to leave their ordinary occupations and follow Him, or gave them assurance of an infallible direction and supernatural gifts. And how many things are there in the epistles to the churches, which had special reference to the circumstances of the time, and called for services which partook of the local and temporary? But such things create no difficulty to the commonest understanding; nor, if honestly desirous to learn the mind of God, can any one fail to derive from such portions of Scripture the lessons they were designed to teach—on the supposition of the requisite care and pains being applied to them. It is, therefore, but a difference in degree which in this respect exists between the Scriptures of the New and those of the Old Testament; there is in the Old Testament merely a larger proportion of things which, if viewed superficially, are not, in point of form, applicable to the circumstances, or binding on the consciences of believers in Christian times; while yet they are all inwrought with lines of truth, and law, and promise, which give them a significance and a value for every age of the church. Nay, such is the admirable order and connection of God’s dispensations, so closely has He knit together the end with the beginning, and so wisely adjusted the one to the other, that many things in those earlier revelations have a light and meaning to us which they could not have to those whom they more immediately concerned: the ultimate aim and object of what was done was more important than its direct use. Read from the higher vantage-ground of the Gospel, and lighted up by its Divine realities, Moses and the prophets speak more intelligibly to us of God, and the life that is from Him, than they could do to those who had only such preliminary instructions to guide them. From the time that God began to select a particular line as the channel of His revealed will to man, He made it clear that the good of all was intended. A special honour was in this respect to be conferred on the progeny of Shem, as compared with the other branches of Noah’s posterity; but it was not doubtfully intimated that those other branches should participate in the benefit. (Genesis 9:26-27.) When, however, the Divine purpose took effect, as it so early did, in the selection of Abraham and his seed, the end aimed at was from the first announced to be of the most comprehensive kind—namely, that in Abraham and his seed ‘all the families of the earth should be blessed.’ It was but giving expression in another form to. this announcement, and breathing the spirit couched in it, when Moses, pointing to the destiny of Israel, exclaimed, ‘Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people;’ (Deuteronomy 32:43.) and when the Psalmist prayed, ‘God be merciful to us and bless us, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations’ (Psalms 67:1-7)—the true prosperity of Israel being thus expressly coupled with the general diffusion of God’s knowledge and blessing, and the one sought with a view to the other. Hence also the temple, which was at once the symbol and the centre of all that God was to Israel, was designated by the prophet ‘an house of prayer for all peoples.’ (Isaiah 56:7.) And hence, yet again, and as the proper issue of the whole, Jesus—the Israel by way of eminence, the impersonation of all that Israel should have been, but never more than most imperfectly was—the One in whom at once the calling of Israel and the grand purpose of God for the good of men found their true realization—He, while appearing only as a Jew among Jews, yet was not less the life and light of the world revealing the Father for men of every age and country, and making reconciliation for iniquity on behalf of all who should believe on His name, to the farthest limits of the earth and to the very end of time. Looking thus, in a general way, over the field of Divine revelation, we perceive that it bears respect to mankind at large; and that what is special in it as to person, or time, or place, was not designed to narrow the range of its application, or render it the less profitable to any one for ‘doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.’ And when we turn to particular passages of Scripture, and see how God-inspired men under stood and used what came from Heaven, in other times and places than those in which themselves lived, the same impression is yet more deepened on our minds—for we find them personally recognising and acting on the principle in question. In the Book of Psalms, for instance, how constantly do the sacred writers, when seeking to revive and strengthen a languishing faith, throw themselves back upon the earlier manifestations of God, and recal what He had said or done in former times, as having permanent value and abiding force even for them! ‘I will remember the works of the Lord, surely I will remember thy wonders of old. Thou art the God that doest wonders: Thou has declared thy strength among the people. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph.’ It was virtually saying, Thou didst it all, that we might know and believe what Thou canst, and what Thou wilt do still. The principle is even more strikingly exhibited in Hosea 12:3-6, ‘He (namely, Jacob) took Ins brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication unto Him: he found Him in Bethel, and there He (God) spake with us—even Jehovah, God of hosts, Jehovah is His name.’ That is, Jehovah, the I am, He who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, in speaking ages ago with Jacob at Bethel, and at Peniel giving him strength over the angel, did in effect do the same with us: the record of these transactions is a testimony of what He is, and what He is ready to do in our behalf. And so, the prophet adds, by way of practical application, Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually. Passing to New Testament times, the principle under consideration is both formally vindicated, and practically carried out. Not only does our Lord generally recognise as of God whatever was written in the Law and the Prophets, and recognise it as what He had come, not to destroy, but to fulfil—not only this, but He ever appeared as one appropriating, and, in a manner, living on the word contained in them. Thus, when plied by the tempter with the plausible request to turn the stones of the desert into bread, the ready reply was, ‘It is written, Man liveth not by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God’—man does it; man, namely, as the humble, docile, confiding child of God—he lives thus; so it was written ages ago in the ever-living Word of God—written, therefore, also for Him, who is pre-eminently such a man, as much as if it had been immediately addressed to Himself. And the same course was followed in the other temptations: they were successively met and repelled by what was written aforetime, as equally valid and binding at that time as when originally penned. To say nothing of the other apostles, who freely quote Old Testament Scripture, St Paul both formally sets forth and frequently applies the same great principle:—some times in a more general manner, as when he affirms, ‘that the things written aforetime were written for our learning;’ (Romans 15:3.) or, more particularly, when speaking of the dealings of God with Israel in the wilderness, he states that ‘they happened unto them for ensamples (types), and are written for our admonition;’ (1 Corinthians 10:11.) or, again, when identifying believers under the Gospel with Abraham, he asserts that ‘they who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham’ (Galatians 3:9.)—the blessing pronounced upon him being regarded as virtually pronounced also upon those in later times who exercise his faith. And still more striking is another exposition given of the principle, as connected with the Abrahamic blessing, in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 6:1-20), where, referring to the promise and the oath confirming it, it is said, God thereby shewed ‘to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel,’ so that ‘by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us’—not that he merely, to whom it was directly given, but that we too might have it. Therefore, the promise of blessing and its confirmatory oath were, according to the author of the epistle, designed as well for believers in Gospel times as for the father of the faithful; and why? Simply because they reveal the character and purpose of God in respect to the covenant of salvation, which, in all that essentially pertains to them, are independent of place and time, like their Divine Author changing not, but perpetually entitled to the faith and confidence of those who seek an interest in their provisions. Such is the spirit or principle in which we are taught, on inspired authority—by Psalmists and Prophets of the Old Testament, by Christ and His apostles in the New—to regard and use that revelation of truth and duty, which comes to us bound up with the history of God’s dispensations. If any thing can be deemed certain regarding it, it is that we must look through the external accompaniments of what is revealed to its heart and substance; in other words, that we must not allow what is merely circumstantial in the Divine communications to interfere with that which is essential, and which, from the organic unity pervading those communications, is properly of no age or time. The false principle, which in various forms has from early to present times been put forth, is to invert this relation to employ the circumstantial as a lever to undermine or drive into abeyance the essential. Had such been our Lord’s method of interpreting ancient Scripture, what would it have availed Him to remember, in His hour of temptation, that man liveth not by bread only, but by every word of God, since that was written of Israel as redeemed from Egypt and fed with manna, while He was a stranger to both? Or, had it been Paul’s, how should he ever have thought of transferring such special transactions and assurances of blessing as those connected with the faith of Abraham and the offering of Isaac, to believers generally of subsequent times? In acting as they did, they looked beyond the mere form and appearances of things, and entered into the faith of God’s elect, which ever penetrates beneath the surface, and rather desires to know how much it is entitled to derive or learn from the written word of God, than to find how much it is at liberty to reject. But if there be any portion of Old Testament Scripture which more than another should be dealt with after this manner, it is surely that master-piece of legislation—the ten words proclaimed from Sinai—in which the substance is so easily distinguished from the accessories of time and place, and the substance itself is so simple, so reasonable, so perfectly accordant in all it exacts with the dictates of conscience and the truest wellbeing of mankind, that there seems to be needed only the thoughtful and earnest spirit of faith, to say, Lord, here is the manifestation of thy most just and righteous will toward me—incline my heart to keep these thy laws. And here, indeed, lies the root of the whole matter—whether we have this spirit of faith or not. The possession and exercise of this spirit makes all, even the earliest parts of God’s revelation to men, instinct with life and power, because, connecting the whole in our minds with the ever-abiding presence and immutable verity of God, it disposes us to feel that we have to do with the evolution of an eternal purpose, which step by step has been conducting fallen man to the righteousness and blessing of Heaven. Nothing in such a case properly dies. Whatever may be the aspect of God’s word and ways we more immediately contemplate—whether the doom pronounced on the ungodliness of men, and the judgments inflicted on their impenitence and guilt—or the deliverances wrought for the children of faith in their times of danger and distress—or, finally, the fiery law issued as from the secret place of thunder, and prescribing the essential principles of a holiness which is the reflection of God’s own pure and blessed nature—whichever it may be, the more profoundly we regard it as a still living word, ‘for ever settled in the heavens,’ and apply ourselves in earnest to have its teaching realized in our experience, the more do we appreciate its true character, accord with the design for which it was given, and illustrate the wisdom and goodness of Him who gave it. 2. But there is another and more extreme class of objectors, who make no distinction in this respect between New and Old Testament Scripture—who, as regards every thing of a supernatural kind that has a place in the sacred records, disallow any strict and proper obligation either to accredit what is testified, or to comply with its calls of duty. They were not personally present when the things so marvellous, so remote from one’s every-day observation and experience, are reported to have taken place; and no evidence of a simply historical kind can give them a claim upon their conscience. A divinely inspired attestation might, indeed, carry such a claim, did we certainly possess it; but then inspiration belongs to the supernatural, and itself requires confirmation. So Mr Froude, for example: ‘Unless the Bible is infallible, there can be no moral obligation to accept the facts which it records; and though there may be intellectual error in denying them, there can be no moral sin. Facts may be better or worse authenticated; but all the proofs in the world of the genuineness and authenticity of the human handiwork, cannot establish a claim upon the conscience. It might be foolish to question Thucydides’ account of Pericles, but no one would call it sinful. Men part with all sobriety of judgment when they come on ground of this kind.’ (Essay on ‘Theological Difficulties.’) The objection is very adroitly put, and, if the alleged parallel instance from Grecian history were a fair one, the conclusion would be inevitable, that it were the height of absurdity to think of establishing on such a basis a claim of moral responsibility. One is only disposed to wonder that so palpable an absurdity did not suggest to such a writer as Mr Froude the possibility of some hitch in his own reasoning on the subject, and that it was scarcely probable the whole race of Christian apologists (comprising many of the most thoughtful and sagacious intellects of past as well as present times) should have committed themselves to positions which bespoke an utter absence of sobriety of judgment. The argument is really one-sided and sophistical; it proceeds on the supposition of there being only one element requiring to be taken into account in the cases represented as parallel—the one, namely, that is, or might be, common to them both; while others, in which they differ, are thrown entirely into the background. The account of Pericles in Thucydides, and the evangelical narratives of Christ’s person and work on earth, could easily be conceived to be alike genuine and authentic; but it would not thence follow that they stood upon a footing as regards their claim on men’s moral responsibilities. For as men occupy no specific moral relation to the life and transactions of Pericles, they might be true, or they might be false, for any thing that concerns the conduct we have to maintain in this world, or the expectations we are warranted to cherish respecting the next; they might even remain to us a total blank, without materially affecting the course we pursue in respect either to God or to our fellow-men. Therefore, let the facts themselves be ever so certain, and the account transmitted of them beyond the slightest shade of suspicion, they still do not in the least touch our conscience; we could at most be but somewhat less intelligent, if we refused to read or to accredit what is told of them, but we should not be one whit less happy or virtuous. It is entirely otherwise, however, with the recorded life and works of Jesus Christ. These carry on the very face of them a respect to every man’s dearest interests and moral obligations; if true, they bear in the closest manner on our present condition, and are fraught with results of infinite moment on our future destinies. And, unless the accounts we have of them present such obvious and inherent marks of improbability or imposture, as ipso facto to relieve us of all need for investigation, we are bound—morally bound by the relation in which the course of providence has placed us to them, as well as by the possible results to our own wellbeing—to consider the evidence on which they claim our belief, and make up our minds either to accredit or reject them. There are undoubtedly persons who do assume the position just noticed, who hold the supernatural character of the events of Gospel history as alone sufficient to warrant their peremptory rejection of its claims to their belief. With them the miraculous is but another name for the incredible. This, however, is not the aspect of the question we have here to deal with. Mr Froude’s exception is taken against the facts of Christianity, as connected with our moral obligations, not because they are miraculous, but simply because they are facts—reported to be such—matters of historical statement, which, as such, he alleges, however authentically related, cannot bind the conscience, or constitute, if disowned, a ground of moral blame. Is it really so in other things? Do the properly parallel instances in the transactions of human life bear out the position? Quite the reverse. A great part of men’s obligations of duty, in the actual pursuits and intercourse of life, root themselves in facts, of which they can have nothing more than probable evidence. The whole range of filial duties, and those belonging to the special claims of kindred, are of this description; they spring out of facts, for which one can have nothing more than probable evidence, and evidence which sometimes, though fortunately not often, requires to be sifted in order to get assurance of the truth. In the department of political life, what statesman, or even comparatively humble citizen, can act in accordance with the spirit of the constitution—vindicate his own or his country’s rights, provide against emergencies, devise and prosecute measures for the common good—without taking account of things near or remote, which he can only learn through the probabilities of historical testimony? And in the ordinary pursuits of business or commercial enterprise, every thing for men’s success may be said to turn on their industry and skill in ascertaining what the probabilities are of things supposed to have emerged, or in the act of emerging—yea, in threading their way often through apparently competing probabilities; duty to themselves and their families obliges them to search thus into the facts they have to deal with, and to shape their course accordingly. Is not this, indeed, the very basis of Butler’s conclusive argument in behalf of the kind of evidence on which all Christian obligation rests? ‘Probable evidence’ (he says), ‘in its very nature, affords but an imperfect kind of information, and is to be considered as relative only to beings of limited capacities. For nothing which is the possible object of knowledge, whether past, present, or future, can be probable to an infinite intelligence; since it cannot but be discerned absolutely as it is in itself, certainly true, or certainly false. But to us, probability is the very guide of life.’ (‘Analogy,’ Introduction.) And, as he elsewhere states in the application of this principle, ‘no possible reason can be given why we may not be in a state of moral probation, with regard to the exercise of our understanding upon the subject of religion, as we are with regard to our behaviour in common affairs.’ And the circumstance, ‘that religion is not intuitively true, but a matter of deduction and inference; that a conviction of its truth is not forced upon every one, but left to be, by some, collected with heedful attention to premises—this as much constitutes religious probation, as much affords sphere, scope, opportunity for right and wrong behaviour, as any thing whatever does.’ (Ibid., P. II. c. 6.) Mr Fronde, in his ‘Short Studies on Grave Subjects,’ has too evidently not found leisure to make himself acquainted with the principles of Butler’s argument; else he could scarcely have written in the style he has done. But as we fear there are many in the same position, and others in some danger of being carried away by the false gnosis of the school to which he belongs, it may not be improper to give the subject the benefit of the sharp and characteristic exposition of Mr Rogers. ‘The absurdity, if anywhere, is in the principle affirmed, namely, that God cannot have constituted it man’s duty to act in cases of very imperfect knowledge; and yet we see that He has perpetually compelled him to do so; nay, often in a condition next door to stark ignorance. To vindicate the wisdom of such a constitution may be impossible; but the fact cannot be denied. The Christian admits the difficulty alike in relation to religion and the affairs of this world. He believes, with Butler, that probability is the guide of life; that man may have sufficient evidence in a thousand cases to warrant his action, and a, reasonable confidence in its results, though that evidence is very far removed from certitude:—that, similarly, the mass of men are justified in saying, that they know a thousand facts of history to be true, though they have never had the opportunity or capacity of thoroughly investigating them; that the statesman, the lawyer, and the physician, are justified in acting, when they yet are compelled to acknowledge that they act only on most unsatisfactory calculations of probabilities, and amidst a thousand doubts and difficulties: all which, say we Christians, is true in relation to the Christian religion, the evidence for which is plainer, after all, than that on which man, in ten thousand cases, is necessitated to hazard his fortune or his life. . . . Those whom we call profoundly versed in the more difficult matters, which depend on moral evidence, are virtually in the same condition as their humbler neighbours. When men must act, the decisive facts may be pretty equally grasped by all; and as for the rest, the enlargement of the circle of a man’s knowledge is, in still greater proportion, the enlargement of the circle of his ignorance; for the circumscribing periphery is in darkness. If, as you suppose, it cannot be our duty to act in reference to an “historical religion,” because a satisfactory investigation is impossible to the mass of mankind, the argument may be retorted on your own theory [that, namely, of F. Newman, which, as with Mr Froude, would place its chief reliance on the inner consciousness]. You assert, indeed, that in relation to religion we have an internal spiritual faculty, which evades this difficulty; yet men persist in saying, in spite of you, that it is doubtful, first, whether they have any such; second, whether, if there be one, it be not so debauched and sophisticated by other faculties, that they can no longer trust it implicitly; third, what is the amount of its genuine utterances; fourth, what that of its aberrations; fifth, whether it is not so dependent on development, education, and association, as to leave room enough for an auxiliary external revelation—on all which questions the generality of mankind are just as incapable of deciding as about any historical question whatever.’ (‘Eclipse of Faith,’ pp. 254-6.) It is clear from such considerations, that certainty in religion cannot be attained by attempting to remove it from an historical to an internal, or .strictly spiritual foundation; and also that the kind of certainty demanded to constitute the ground of moral obligation, is different from what is universally regarded as constituting such a .ground in the common affairs and relations of life. Besides, the principle against which we argue, were it valid, would render a general and progressive scheme of revelation impracticable—since such a thing could be possible only by the historical element entering into the dispensation of religion, and the historical developments of one age becoming the starting-point of the next. Even in the more general field of the world’s progress it would evacuate, for all essentially moral purposes, the principle, acknowledged also by the more thoughtful and observant class of theists, that ‘God is in history’—for this implies, that, as in the facts of history God reveals Himself, so it is the duty of His rational creatures both to take cognizance of the facts, and to mark in them the character of the revelation. Much more must such be man’s duty with the higher revelation which God gives of Himself in Scripture, and which man needs for the relief of his profoundest wants, and the quickening of his moral energies. For this, the history of God’s kingdom among men has an important part to play, as well as the direct teaching of truth and duty. And for the greater and more essential acts of that history, the genuineness and authenticity of the sacred records must of necessity form the more immediate evidence and the indispensable guarantee. Not, however, as if this were the whole; for the facts which constitute the substance of the Gospel, and form the ground of its distinctive hopes and obligations, are commended to our belief by many considerations, which strengthen the direct historical evidence—in particular, by a whole line of prophetic testimonies, of which they were the proper culmination; by the high moral aim of the writings which record them, and of the witnesses who perilled their lives in attestation of them; by their adaptation to the more profound convictions of the soul, and the spiritual reformation which the sincere belief of them has ever carried in its train. But the misfortune is, this varied and manifold congruity of evidence receives little patient regard from the literary, self-sufficient individualism of the age. And here also there is some ground for the complaint, which has been uttered by a late writer of superior thought and learning, in respect to the rationalistic criticism of Germany: ‘Men of mere book learning, who have never seen what the Spirit of God is working in the church, and who know little of life in general, take it upon themselves to pronounce final judgment upon the greatest revelations of spirit and life the world has ever seen; upon the greatest of men, and the greatest outward and inward conflicts; upon events which, more than all others, have moved the world; upon words and writings which, more than all others, have been productive of life. What does not occur in our days, or at least what is not seen by certain eyes, cannot (it is thought) have happened in an earlier age, the products of which yet lie before us the greatest in the world, and to which we have nothing even remotely similar.’ (Auberlen, ‘The Divine Revelation,’ p. 274. Trans.) Too manifestly, as the writer adds, there is in such things the evidence of an inward opposition to the truth, and hostility to the church of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: 04.14. III. WHETHER A SPIRIT OF REVENGE IS COUNTENANCED IN THE WRITINGS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. ======================================================================== III. Whether A Spirit Of Revenge Is Countenanced In The Writings Of The Old Testament. WHEN a spirit of revenge has been charged upon the morality of the Old Testament, the charge has usually been associated with passages in the Psalms and the Prophets, rather than with the precepts of the law. Superficial writers have sometimes, indeed, endeavoured to find it also in the latter, but without any proper warrant in the law itself. This, we trust, has been satisfactorily established at the proper place. (Lec. IV., pp. 98, 103.) But there are portions of the Psalms, and occasional passages in the prophetical writings, which are very commonly regarded as breathing a spirit of revenge, and, as such, not unusually have the term vindictive applied to them. The lyrical character of the Psalms, which not only admitted, but called for, a certain intermixture of personal feeling with the thoughts appropriate to the particular theme, naturally afforded larger scope for utterances of a kind which might with some plausibility be viewed in that light, than could well be found in the writings of the Prophets. In the Psalms, the train of thought often runs in such a strain as this: the Psalmist finds himself surrounded with enemies, who are pursuing him with bitter malice, and are even plotting for his destruction; and in pouring out his heart before God with reference to his position, he prays, not only that their wicked counsels might be frustrated, and that he might be delivered from their power, but that they might themselves be brought to desolation and ruin—that he might see his desire upon them, in the recoil of mischief upon their own heads, and the blotting out of their memorial from the land of the living. In a few Psalms, more particularly the 69th and the 109th, imprecations of this nature assume so intense a form, and occupy so large a space, that they give a quite distinctive and characteristic impress to the whole composition. In others, for the most part, they burst forth only as brief, but fiery, ebullitions of indignant or wrathful feeling, amid strains which are predominantly of a cheerful, consolatory, or stimulating description:—as in Psalms 63, one of the most stirring and elevated pieces of devotional writing in existence, which yet is not brought to a close without an entreaty in respect to those who were seeking to compass the Psalmist’s destruction, that they should fall by the sword, and become a portion for foxes; Psalms 139, in which, after the most vivid portraiture of the more peculiar attributes of God, and the closest personal dealing with God in reference to them, the Psalmist declares his cordial hatred of the wicked, and asks God to slay them; or Psalms 68, written in a predominantly hopeful and jubilant tone, yet opening with the old war-note of the wilderness, ‘Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered,’ and identifying the future prosperity and exaltation of the Lord’s people with their wounding the head, yea, dipping their feet in the blood, of their enemies, and the tongue of their dogs in the same. Somewhat corresponding passages are to be found in Jeremiah 11:20, Jeremiah 18:23, Jeremiah 20:12, where the prophet asks the Lord that he might see his vengeance on those who sought his life; also in Micah 7:9-10. The late author of ‘The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry,’ having referred to passages of this description, says: ‘Undoubtedly we stay the course of our sympathy at such points as these. It could only be at rare moments of national anguish and deliverance that expressions of this order could be assimilated with modern feelings.’ (Isaac Taylor, ‘The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry,’ p. 152.) He so far, however, vindicates them as to hold them consistent with genuine piety in the writers, and suitable to their relative position. ‘These war-energies of the Hebrew mind, in a past time, were proper to the people and to the age; and would continue to be so until that revolution in religious thought had been brought about, which, in abating national enthusiasm, and in bringing immortality into the place of earthly welfare, gave a wholly new direction to every element of the moral system.’ This explanation may be said to point in the right direction, though, if taken alone, it would go far to antiquate such portions of Old Testament Scripture as no longer suitable, and even appears to concede to the force of circumstances a power of determination in respect to what is right or wrong in spiritual feeling, which it is scarcely proper to allow. The explanation, however, is partial and defective rather than in correct; and, did the choice necessarily lie between them, it were greatly to be preferred to that often adopted in the more popular class of commentaries, which would silence objection by turning the imprecations into predictions. So Horne, for example: ‘The offence taken at the supposed uncharitable and vindictive spirit of the imprecations, which occur in some of the Psalms, ceases immediately if we change the imperative for the future, and read, not, “Let them be confounded,” etc., but “They shall be confounded” of which the Hebrew is equally capable. Such passages will then have no more difficulty in them than the other frequent predictions of Divine vengeance in the writings of the prophets, or denunciations of it in the Gospels.’ In a grammatical respect, the explanation will not stand; for the Hebrew imperative is not so interchangeable as it supposes with the future, and is not so regarded either by the ancient translators or by the more exact of modern scholars. But even if it were, what would be gained by it? The real difficulty would be only shifted from one position to another; and, indeed, from a lower to a higher, because placed in more immediate connection with the mind and will of God. Acute rationalists have not been slow to perceive this; and one of them (Bauer), proceeding on the moral ground assumed in it, though with a different intent, asks, ‘How could David think otherwise, than that he had a perfect right to curse his enemies, when he had before him, according to his conviction, the example of God?’ Bauer saw well enough that if the matter stood so with reference to God, there was no need for any change of mood in the verb; since it could not be wrong for the Psalmist to desire and pray for what he had reason to believe God was purposed to do. Grant that to curse, or take vengeance on, one’s enemies is known to be the will of God, and how can it be supposed otherwise than proper to pray that it be done? The only room for inquiry and discrimination must be, on what ground, and with respect to what sort of persons, can such a line of desire and entreaty be deemed justifiable and becoming? Considered with reference to this point, the language in question will be found to have nothing in it at variance with sound morality. First of all, a strong consideration in favour of another view of the passages than one that would find in them the exhibition of a spirit of revenge, is the circumstance already noticed, that such a spirit is expressly discouraged in the precepts of the law. For it was thus stamped as unrighteous for those who lived under that economy; and to have given way to it in those writings which are intended to unfold the workings of a devout and earnest spirit in its more elevated and spiritual moods, would have been a palpable incongruity. One great object of the Psalmodic literature was to extract the essence of the law, and turn it into matter both for communion with God and practical application to the affairs of life. Nothing, therefore, that jars with the morality or religion inculcated in the law could find a place here; and the less so on this particular point, as in other passages there is a distinct response to the teaching of the law regarding it, and a solemn repudiation of the contrary spirit. In the Proverbs, which stand in close affinity with the Psalms, there are various passages of this description; (Proverbs 10:12; Proverbs 16:32; Proverbs 19:11; Proverbs 24:17-18.) and one so explicit and full, that when St Paul would recommend such an exercise of love as might triumph over all hostile feelings and repay evil with good, he could find nothing better to express his mind than the language thus provided to his hand. (Proverbs 25:21-22; Romans 12:19-20.) In like manner, in the Book of Job, which partly belongs to the same class, the patriarch is represented as declaring, that he would allow his friends to hold all his calamities sufficiently accounted for if he had rejoiced over the misfortune of an enemy, or had so much as wished a curse to his soul. (Job 31:29-30.) Similarly, also, the royal Psalmist—who goes so far as to invoke the Divine vengeance on his head, if he had done evil to him that was at peace with him, or had spoiled him that without cause was his enemy (for so the words should be rendered in Psalms 7:4); and once and again, during the course of his eventful history, when by remarkable turns in providence it came to be in the power of his hand to avenge himself in a manner that would at once have opened for him the way to freedom and enlargement, he put from him the thought with righteous indignation. (1 Samuel 24:5-6; 1 Samuel 26:8-10.) He even expressed his gratitude to Abigail, and to the restraining hand of God through her interposition, that he had been kept from avenging himself on Nabal, and thereby doing what he knew, in the inmost convictions of his soul, to be evil. (1 Samuel 25:31-33.) Is it, then, to be imagined that the spirit which David, as an individual believer, and in the most critical moments of his life, rejected as evil, should yet have been infused by him into his Psalms—the writings which he composed in his holiest seasons, and destined to permanent and general use in the sanctuary of God? This is against all probability, and can only be believed when it is forgotten what the real position of David was, whether as a servant of God, or as one supernaturally endowed for the purpose of aiding the devotions and stimulating the faith and hope of the covenant people. In both respects he would have acted unworthily of his calling, had he given expression to revengeful feelings. This, however, is only the negative aspect of the matter; we turn now, in the second place, to the positive. David, and other men of faith in former times, could neither teach nor practise revenge; but they could well enough ask for the application of the law of recompense, as between them and those who sought their hurt—on the supposition that the right was on their side, that their cause was essentially the cause of God. And this supposition is always, in the cases under consideration, either distinctly made or not doubtfully implied. If the Psalmist speaks of hating certain persons and counting them his enemies, it is because they hate God and are in a state that justly exposes them to His wrath. If he expects to see his desire upon his enemies, their counsels defeated, their mischievous devices made to return upon their own heads, it is because God was upon his side and against theirs—because he was engaged in doing God’s work, while they were seeking to impede and frustrate it. So, also, with the prophet Jeremiah, and other servants of God; it was as wrestlers in the cause of righteousness, and in a manner identified with it, that they besought the retributions of judgment upon their keen and inveterate opponents. The question, therefore, between the contending parties must of necessity come to an issue on the law of recompense; and so the Psalmist sometimes formally puts it, as in Psalms 18:23-27, ‘I was upright before Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His eyesight. With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright; with the pure thou wilt shew thy self pure; for thou wilt save the afflicted people, but wilt bring down high looks.’ To the same effect also in the history. (1 Samuel 24:12-15.) This law or principle of recompense is merely an application of the Divine righteousness according to the parts men take in the conflict between good and evil. It is confined, therefore, to no particular age, but, like every other distinguishing characteristic in the Divine procedure, has its fullest manifestation in the work and kingdom of Christ. Hence we find our Lord taking frequent opportunities to unfold it, as well in its benign aspect and operation toward the righteous, as in its contrary and punitive bearing upon the wicked; and not merely in respect to these two parties considered individually and separately, but also in their relation to each other. As regards individuals, some very striking and prominent exhibitions are given of it,—first, in the form of encouragements to the good, in such passages as the following, Matthew 5:7-10, Matthew 10:40-42, Matthew 19:28-29; Luke 12:37; then, also, by way of warning to the careless and impenitent, in the terrible woes and judgments pronounced by Jesus upon the cities of Galilee, which heard His words and saw His mighty works, yet knew not the day of their merciful visitation; in the like judgments and woes that were gathering to alight upon the Scribes and Pharisees, upon Jerusalem, and the Jewish people generally, or more generally still, in the aggravated doom declared to be the portion of those who (like the unforgiving servant in the parable (Matthew 18:1-35)) have acted with severity or injustice toward their fellow-men. On the law of recompense in this form, however, we are not called at present to remark; we have to do with it only as bearing on the relative position of parties, who have espoused antagonistic interests—the one hazarding all for the truth and cause of God, the other setting themselves in determined array against it. In such cases, the triumph of the one interest inevitably carries along with it the overthrow of the other; and though it is a sad alternative, yet the heart that is true to its principles cannot but wish for it. The ungodly world must perish, if Noah and the faithful remnant are to be saved; at a later period, the Egyptian host must be drowned in the sea, if the ransomed of the Lord are to reach a place of safety and enlargement. And so still onwards—the discomfiture of the enemies of God is the indispensable condition of security and wellbeing to His elect—whose cry to Heaven in their times of trial and conflict must ever in substance be, that God would revenge their cause. (Luke 18:7-8.) Why should not David and other ancient wrestlers in that cause have sought such a vindication when the claims of righteousness demanded it? Why should they not have wished and prayed that the good should prevail, by confusion being poured on the bands of evil who had brought it into peril? Indeed, as matters then stood, no other course was left for them. There was proceeding a trial of outward strength between spiritual light and darkness a contest between forces essentially antagonistic, in which, if the right should be able to maintain its position and carry out its designs, the contrary part, with all its adherents, must be driven from the field. And who can for a moment hesitate on which side the wishes and prayers of God’s people should have run? With this agreement, however, in the main between the things relating to this subject in the past and present dispensations of God, there is to be noted, thirdly, a difference in outward circumstances, which necessarily involves also a certain difference in the mode of giving effect to the principle of recompense. It is not that now—since life and immortality have been brought to light by the Gospel recompenses of evil as well as good in the cause of God have ceased to have a place in the present administration of the Divine kingdom, and that God will do in eternity what He cannot do in time; but that every thing respecting the kingdom has taken a higher direction; the outward is relatively less, the inward more; God’s favour and the wellbeing it secures are no longer to be measured, to the extent they once were, by national prosperity or temporal distinctions of a palpable kind. Both for individual believers and for the church at large, the conflict with the powers of evil has lost certain of its grosser elements; it has now greatly less to do with weapons of fire and sword, more with such as directly affect the reason and conscience; and it is the special duty of Christ’s followers to strive that the means of this latter description placed at their command should be employed so as to subdue the corruption of ungodly men—to destroy them as enemies, in order that as friends they may pass over into the ranks of God’s people. But in desiring and pleading for such spiritual results, the Christian now, as the Psalmists of old, must pray for the discomfiture of all adverse influences, and of all interests, personal or national, which have linked themselves to the principles of evil. The prayer of the church must still be, ‘Let all thine enemies perish, let them that hate thee flee before thee:’—only in pressing it, one may, and indeed should, have respect to a change for the better in the spiritual relation of the parties concerned, rather than in what concerns their temporal condition and their secular resources. For in the existing state of the world, it is usually by the one much more than by the other that the cause of truth and righteousness will be affected, and the tide of battle most effectually turned. Finally, it must not be forgotten, in regard to the portions of Old Testament Scripture in question, that while the change of circumstances has necessarily brought along with it a certain change in the application of the principle embodied in them, their employment for religious culture and devotion has by no means lost either its reason or its importance. It serves to keep alive a right sense of the sins prevailing in the world, as dishonouring to God and deserving of His righteous condemnation; of the calling, also, of the church to wage with these a perpetual warfare, not the less real and earnest that it has immediately to concern itself with matters of a spiritual nature. A corrective of this sort is needed very particularly in the present age, when loose views of holiness and sin are ready from so many quarters to press in upon the minds of those who are but partially established in the truth. And it can only be found in revelations which teach that there is severity as well as goodness, justice as well as mercy, in the character of God, which must have its manifestation in a measure even here, but shall have it pre-eminently in the final issues of His kingdom; and this for the good of His people, not less than the glory of His own name. Hence, as justly remarked by Lange, (In Hertzog, ‘Zorn Gottes.’) ‘Christ recognises, in the fact of His crucifixion having been determined on, (Matthew 23:39; Matthew 24:1, seq.) the certain advent of the great day of wrath which is to bring the visitation of fire upon all the world. And indeed this inseparable combination stands in no contrariety to the reconciliation accomplished through the death of Christ; for as His death provides for the world the redemption which could meet all its necessities, so is the day of wrath the consummating act of redemption for all Believers; (Luke 21:28; 1 Thessalonians 1:7; 2 Peter 3:7-10.) and the judgment of fire, which with the day of wrath falls on the impenitent, is grounded in this very circumstance, that they had not accepted the salvation of God in the death of Christ, but in this death had sealed the judgment of God upon their blindness. They have turned the Gospel into a savour of death unto death.’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: 04.15. EXPOSITION OF THE MORE IMPORTANT PASSAGES ON THE LAW IN ST PAUL’S EPISTLES. ======================================================================== Exposition Of The More Important Passages On The Law In St Paul’s Epistles. IT was St Paul more especially who, among the apostles of our Lord, was called to discuss the subject of the law, as well in its remoter as its more immediate bearings—in its relation to New as well as Old Testament times. There is hence a very considerable variety in the mode of treatment given to it in his epistles, according to the specific point of view from which it is contemplated; and, at times, an apparent contrariety, when the passages are isolated from the context and the occasion, between what is said respecting it in one place, as compared with what is said in another. It is necessary, therefore, in order to ground securely the exhibition of doctrine contained in the Lectures, to give an exegesis of the passages in question, and to do so as nearly as possible in the order of time in which they proceeded from the pen of the apostle; for we thus more readily perceive how the matter grew upon the mind of the apostle, and developed itself in the history of his apostolical career. I have, therefore, begun with the passage in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, which has all the appearance of a general outline or first draft of his views upon the economy of law, and its relation to that of the Gospel—an outline which is filled up in the Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans. According to the common chronology, the Epistle to the Galatians dates earlier than the Second to the Corinthians. But Dr Lightfoot, I think, has made the inverse relation appear more than probable; (See his Comm. on the Epistle, Introd., sec. iii.) and even were the actual succession otherwise, the passage in Corinthians must still be held to go first in the order of nature. In the other cases, the succession is sufficiently ascertained. I deem it unnecessary to preface the exposition by an inquiry respecting the different meanings of the term νόμος (law), as used by the apostle, and whether any appreciable difference is made on the meaning, according as it has or wants the article. Much time might be, and often has been, expended to little purpose in general investigations of this sort; for the actual sense in each case must be ascertained by an analysis of the particular passages. There can be no doubt that the term is used by St Paul in a considerable variety of senses, and in the same senses sometimes with, sometimes without, the article. In respect to many of these, such as when it is used of the writings or books containing the law, or part of the Old Testament Scriptures generally,—or when employed by a sort of figure to designate any thing which works like a rule or principle of action, as in the expressions, what sort of law, law of faith, law of sin, law in one’s members, law of sin and death, law of the spirit of life, etc.,—there is only a popular form of speech, which can scarcely occasion any serious difficulty even to unlettered readers. But when, as not unfrequently happens, the question to be determined is, whether the law meant by the apostle is moral law in the abstract, or that law as embodied in the Decalogue, or the ceremonial law of the Old Covenant as contradistinguished from the moral, or, finally, these two conjointly in their economical adjustment, there is no way of reaching a safe conclusion but by a careful examination of the context. For the most part, even in these uses of the term, no great difficulty will be experienced by an intelligent and unbiassed mind in determining which sense is to be preferred.—For the sake of precision, an exact rendering has been given of all the passages, which occasionally differs from that of the authorized version. Exposition Of The More Important Passages On The Law In St Paul’s Epistles. IT was St Paul more especially who, among the apostles of our Lord, was called to discuss the subject of the law, as well in its remoter as its more immediate bearings—in its relation to New as well as Old Testament times. There is hence a very considerable variety in the mode of treatment given to it in his epistles, according to the specific point of view from which it is contemplated; and, at times, an apparent contrariety, when the passages are isolated from the context and the occasion, between what is said respecting it in one place, as compared with what is said in another. It is necessary, therefore, in order to ground securely the exhibition of doctrine contained in the Lectures, to give an exegesis of the passages in question, and to do so as nearly as possible in the order of time in which they proceeded from the pen of the apostle; for we thus more readily perceive how the matter grew upon the mind of the apostle, and developed itself in the history of his apostolical career. I have, therefore, begun with the passage in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, which has all the appearance of a general outline or first draft of his views upon the economy of law, and its relation to that of the Gospel—an outline which is filled up in the Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans. According to the common chronology, the Epistle to the Galatians dates earlier than the Second to the Corinthians. But Dr Lightfoot, I think, has made the inverse relation appear more than probable; (See his Comm. on the Epistle, Introd., sec. iii.) and even were the actual succession otherwise, the passage in Corinthians must still be held to go first in the order of nature. In the other cases, the succession is sufficiently ascertained. I deem it unnecessary to preface the exposition by an inquiry respecting the different meanings of the term νόμος (law), as used by the apostle, and whether any appreciable difference is made on the meaning, according as it has or wants the article. Much time might be, and often has been, expended to little purpose in general investigations of this sort; for the actual sense in each case must be ascertained by an analysis of the particular passages. There can be no doubt that the term is used by St Paul in a considerable variety of senses, and in the same senses sometimes with, sometimes without, the article. In respect to many of these, such as when it is used of the writings or books containing the law, or part of the Old Testament Scriptures generally,—or when employed by a sort of figure to designate any thing which works like a rule or principle of action, as in the expressions, what sort of law, law of faith, law of sin, law in one’s members, law of sin and death, law of the spirit of life, etc.,—there is only a popular form of speech, which can scarcely occasion any serious difficulty even to unlettered readers. But when, as not unfrequently happens, the question to be determined is, whether the law meant by the apostle is moral law in the abstract, or that law as embodied in the Decalogue, or the ceremonial law of the Old Covenant as contradistinguished from the moral, or, finally, these two conjointly in their economical adjustment, there is no way of reaching a safe conclusion but by a careful examination of the context. For the most part, even in these uses of the term, no great difficulty will be experienced by an intelligent and unbiassed mind in determining which sense is to be preferred.—For the sake of precision, an exact rendering has been given of all the passages, which occasionally differs from that of the authorized version. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: 04.16. 2CO_3:2-18. ======================================================================== 2 Corinthians 3:2-18. ‘Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men, Manifested as being an epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables of flesh, those of the heart. But such confidence have we through Christ toward God: Not as if we were sufficient as of ourselves to think any thing of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God; Who also has made us sufficient [to be] ministers of the new covenant, not of letter, but of Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death in the letter, engraven on stones, came in glory, so that the children of Israel were not able steadfastly to look on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, [though a glory that was] to vanish away; How shall not rather the ministration of the Spirit be in glory? For if the ministration of condemnation was in glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness abound in glory. For even that which has been made glorious has not had glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which vanisheth away was in glory, much more is that which abideth in glory. Having then such hope, we use great boldness of speech; And not as Moses put a veil on his face, in order that the children of Israel might not steadfastly look to the end of that which was to vanish away: But their understandings were blinded; for until this very day the same veil remaineth at the reading of the old covenant, without having it unveiled (or discovered), that it is vanished away in Christ. But unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart. But whenever it shall have turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord the Spirit.’ This section has at first sight a somewhat parenthetical appearance, and introduces, in a manner that seems quite incidental, a subject not elsewhere discussed in either of the Epistles to the Corinthians—the difference in certain respects between the ministration of law and the ministration of the Gospel. Closer examination, however, shews that it was not done without reason, being intended to meet the unworthy insinuations, and incorrect or superficial views of the teachers, who by fair speeches, recommendatory letters or otherwise, had been seeking to supplant the apostle’s authority at Corinth. That a certain Judaistic leaven existed also among some of these, may not doubtfully be inferred from their calling themselves by the name of Cephas or Peter (1 Corinthians 1:12). And though the apostle had reason to conclude that the influence of those designing teachers had already received its death-blow from the effect produced by his first epistle, we cannot wonder that he should still have deemed it needful—though only as it were by the way—to bring out the higher ground which he had won for himself at Corinth, and the practical evidence this afforded of the Divine power of his ministry, being in such perfect accordance with the spiritual nature of the Gospel dispensation, and the superior glory that properly belonged to it. This, then, is the apostle’s starting-point—his own fitness or sufficiency as a minister of Christ: this, as to power and efficiency, is of God; it is proved to be so by the life-giving effects which it had produced among the Corinthians themselves, these having become like a living epistle of the truth and power of the Gospel; and this, again, the apostle goes on to shew, is the best of all testimonials, as being most thoroughly in accordance with the character of the new covenant, which in this very respect differs materially from the old. 2 Corinthians 3:6. Passing over the two or three earlier verses which, for the purpose we have more immediately in view, call for no special consideration, the apostle, after stating at the close of 2 Corinthians 3:5 that his sufficiency (ἱκανότης) was of God, adds, ‘who also has made us sufficient to be ministers’ (ἱκάνωσεν—not, as in the authorized version, ‘made us able ministers’), that is, has qualified us for the work of ministers, ‘of the new covenant.’ The καὶ must be taken in the sense of also, or thus too: our sufficiency in general is of God, who thus too has made us sufficient—in this particular line has given proof of His qualifying grace, by fitting us for the ministry of the new covenant. It is here first that the term ‘new covenant’ is introduced, suggested, however, by what had been said of the effects of the apostle’s ministry in 2 Corinthians 3:3, as having constituted the members of the church at Corinth his recommendatory letter, written neither with ink, nor on tables of stone, but by God’s Spirit on the heart. The mention of tables of stone on the one side, and Spirit on the other, naturally called up the thought of the two covenants—the old and the new—the old, that which was established at Sinai, and which, as to its fundamental principles or terms, stood in the handwriting of the two tables; the new, that indicated by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34), according to which there was to be a writing of God’s law upon the hearts of men, an engraving on their inward parts. Of this new covenant the apostle speaks as a thing perfectly known and familiar to the minds of his readers: hence simply new covenant, without the article, not to be rendered ‘a new covenant,’ with Meyer, Stanley, and others, as if of something indeterminate, and there was still room for inquiry which new covenant. This cannot be supposed; it is rather assumed, that the readers of the epistle knew both what covenant the expression pointed to, and what was the specific character of the covenant. The definite article, therefore, may be quite appropriately used, the new covenant. But then, standing related as ministers to this new covenant, the apostle goes on to say, they were ministers (for διακόνους must be again supplied), not of letter, but of Spirit (not of γράμμα, but of πνεῦμα). The expression is peculiar, and can only be understood by a reference to the state of things then existing; for in themselves there is no necessary contrast between letter and spirit. The apostle himself elsewhere uses the word letter in the plural, in connection with sanctifying and saving effects: the τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα, the sacred letters, or writings, he says to Timothy—meaning the Scriptures of the Old Testament—‘are able to make thee wise unto salvation.’ (2 Timothy 3:15.) And as letters are but the component parts of words, we may apply here what our Lord Himself affirmed of His words or sayings (ῤήματα), ‘The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and life.’ (John 6:63.) Hence, without pointing to any contrast between old and new, or outward and inward, we find Justin Martyr, or the author of ‘Expositio Fidei,’ denoting by the term a passage of Scripture, saying, in proof of the essential divinity of the Son and Spirit, ‘Hear the passage’ (ἄκουε τοῦ γράμματος, sec. 6); and Cyrill Alex, applies it specifically to the Scriptures of the New Testament, speaking of what is fitting according to the scope of the New Scripture (κατὰ τὸν τοῦ σέου γράμματος σκοπὸν) and ecclesiastical usage.’ (De Ador., L. xii.) Paul might, therefore, in perfect accordance with Greek usage, have spoken of himself as a minister of letter or word, if he had so qualified and used the expression as to shew that he merely meant by it the oral or written testimony of God in Christ, which he elsewhere characterizes as ‘the sword of the Spirit,’ and as ‘quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword.’ (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12.) But putting, as he here does, letter in contrast with spirit, it is quite clear that the apostle had respect to the written testimony or law of God, considered by itself, and taken apart from all the spiritual influences with which, as given by Him, it was meant to be associated. And he was naturally led to this use of the term, with reference especially to Old Testament Scripture, by the undue, and, in many cases, exclusive regard paid, at and long before the Gospel era, by the Jewish authorities to the bare terms, or precise letter, of the written word. Their scribes (γραμματεῖς) had become very much men of the letter (γράμμα), as if every thing which a Divine revelation had to aim at might be accomplished by an exact and proper adherence to the terms in which it was expressed. Hence arose a contrariety between Rabbinism, the system of the scribes, and Christianity, but which might equally be designated a contrariety to the true scope and spirit of the old covenant itself: the aim of each was substantially one, namely, to secure a state of things conformable to the revealed will of God; but the modes taken to accomplish it were essentially different, according to the diversity in the respective modes of contemplation. ‘Christianity demanded conversion, Rabbinism satisfied itself with instruction; Christianity insisted on a state of mind, Rabbinism on legality; Christianity expected from the communication of the Holy Spirit the necessary enlightenment, in order to discern in all things the will of God, Rabbinism thought it must go into the minutest prescriptions to shew what was agreeable to the law; Christianity expected from the gift of the Holy Spirit the necessary power to fulfil the Divine will, Rabbmism conceived this fulfilment might be secured through church discipline.’ (‘Rabbinismus,’ in Hertzog, by Pf. Pressel.) The inevitable result was, that; ‘by the external position thus given to the law, there was nothing Divine in the heart; no repentance, faith, reformation, and hope, wrought by God’s Spirit; no kingdom of God within, but all merely external;’ and, in like manner, the prophets were viewed in a superficial manner, as if pointing, when they spake of Messias, to a mere worldly kingdom, no true kingdom of Heaven. But this senseless adherence to the letter was at variance, as we have said, not merely with Christianity, but with the teaching of the prophets, and the design of the old covenant itself (when taken in its proper bearing and connection). And hence (as Schöttgen long ago remarked, in his ‘Hor. Heb.,’ on the passage before us), by the letter is not to be understood the literal sense of the Divine word (in which sense many things in the Gospel were equally liable to abuse with those in the law, as the call of Christ to follow Him, to bear His cross, etc.), for that word, as having been given by the Spirit for the direction, not so much of man’s body as his soul, is mainly spiritual, and the law itself is expressly so called by the apostle in Romans 7:14. But by letter must be understood the outward form merely of what is taught or commanded in the word, as contra-distinguished from its spiritual import or living power—the shell apart from the kernel; and, in this sense, neither the apostles nor any true messengers of God, in earlier any more than later times, were ministers of the letter. Not even circumcision, Paul elsewhere says, was of this description, that is, as designed by God, and properly entered into on the part of the people: ‘Circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter;’ (Romans 2:29.) and the same might, of course, be said of all the precepts and ordinances of the law; none of them were intended to be taken and observed in what he calls ‘the oldness of the letter.’ (Romans 7:6.) So that it is utterly to mistake the apostle’s meaning here, to suppose that he draws a distinction betwixt the old and the new in God’s revelations; the distinction intended has respect mainly and primarily to a right and wrong understanding of these revelations, no matter when given; and only hints, though it cannot be said distinctly to express, a difference between law and Gospel in this respect—that letter or formal prescription had a more prominent place in the one than it has in the other. The meaning was given with substantial correctness by Luther in his marginal gloss—greatly better than by many later expositors—‘To teach letter is to teach mere law and work, without the knowledge of God’s grace, whereby every thing that man is and does becomes liable to condemnation and death, for he can do nothing good without God’s grace. To teach spirit is to teach grace without law and works [i.e., without these as the ground of peace and blessing], whereby men come to life and salvation.’ ‘For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (quickeneth).’ This the apostle assigns as a reason why he and his fellow-labourers were ministers of the new covenant, in the sense just explained, not of letter but of spirit; when done otherwise, it is but a ministration of death. And this, whatever the nature of the word ministered, whether carrying the aspect of law or of Gospel. More obviously, the result took place with a ministration of law, since this consisted of requirements which were opposed to the natural tendencies of the heart, and which, when seriously looked into, demanded what man was not able of himself to perform; hence not peace and life, but trouble and death, were the inevitable consequence—although the law itself, if viewed in its proper connection, and taken as designed by God, as the apostle elsewhere testifies, ‘was ordained for life.’ (Romans 7:10.) But the Gospel, too, when similarly treated, that is, when turned either by preacher or hearer into a letter or form of requirement concerning things to be believed and done without any higher agencies being called into play, in reality achieves nothing more; it is, in such a case, as the apostle had stated but a few verses before, (Romans 2:16.) ‘a savour of death unto death;’ for to take up the yoke of Christ, to repent and be converted, to become new creatures and lay hold of everlasting life, is as far above nature as any thing in the law, and if isolated from the grace with which it ought ever to be associated, and in its bare terms pressed on men’s responsibilities and obligations, or by men themselves so taken, the result can only be deeper condemnation, death in its more settled and aggravated forms. (Matthew 11:25; John 1:5; John 5:40; John 6:44, &c.) From the preceding exposition, it will be seen that we cannot, with the older expositors (also Bengel, Meyer, Alford), identify letter with the old covenant, and spirit with the new; nor altogether hold, with Stanley, that letter here denotes ‘not simply the Hebrew Scriptures, but the more outward book or ordinance, as contrasted with the living power of the Gospel:’ we take it generally of outward book or ordinance, whether pertaining to Old or New Testament times. Only, as from the ostensible and formal character of the two dispensations, there was more of letter in the one, more of spirit in the other: what he says of the letter, and of its tendency to kill, admitted of a more ready and obvious application to the things of the old covenant, than to those of the new—an application the apostle proceeds immediately to make. The kind of killing or death (we may add) ascribed to the letter is certainly not, with some, and, among others, Stanley, to be understood of physical death, the common heritage of men on account of sin, but of the spiritual death, which consists in a painful sense of guilt, and the agonies of a troubled conscience. What is here briefly indicated in this respect is more fully developed in Romans 7., and the one passage should be taken in connection with the other. 1 Corinthians 3:7. ‘But if the ministration of death in the letter, (Here there is a diversity in the copies, which are about equally divided between the singular and the plural form of the word: B D F G exhibit γράμματι, and א A C E K L γράμμασιν, the latter outweighing the others somewhat in number, but not much in authority, as the last three (E K L) belong to the ninth century; and the natural tendency was to change from γράμματι to γράμμασι, as a f lording a more obvious sense when coupled with ἐντετυπωμένη, since it would hardly do to say of the ten commandments, ‘engraven in letter,’ while ‘engraven in letters’ was quite simple. Hence also, in D, while at first hand it presents γράμματι, afterwards has this changed into the plural; and, both in its later form, and in E K L, ἐν is inserted before λίθοις, to help out the sense, which had been injured by joining ἐντετυπωμένη to γράμμασιν. This also accounts for the versions following this later form. But the whole has arisen from adopting an obvious and superficial, in preference to the real and only proper sense. It is of a revelation, not in letters, but in the letter that the apostle is speaking throughout, and the change to the plural here brings confusion into the whole passage. Lachmann and also Alford adopt γράμματι.) engraven on stones, came in glory.’—(The authorized version is unfortunate here.) We adopt, as stated in the note below, the reading γράμματι (instead of that of the received text, γράμμασιν) in the letter, and couple this immediately with what precedes, not with what follows. The first clause is, ‘If the ministration of death in the letter’—it being in this respect alone that the apostle is going to speak of it; to speak, that is, of the Decalogue in its naked terms and isolated position, as contemplated by a spirit utterly opposed to the Gospel—the spirit of Rabbinism already described. The law itself, so contemplated, is called a ministration of death, because, in its native tendency and operation, certain to prove the occasion of death; and there can be little doubt that it was from overlooking the peculiar or qualified sense in which the apostle thus spake of the law, that some copyists substituted the plural for the singular, and, instead of ‘ministration of death in the letter,’ took the meaning to be ‘ministration of death engraved in letters’—leaving the subsequent expression, in stones (λίθοις), as a mere appendage to the engraving. The change was altogether unhappy; for, first, it loses sight of that which renders the law a ministration of death—namely, its being viewed merely in the letter—and then the sense is weakened by a needless redundancy about the engraving: engraved in letters! how could it be engraved otherwise, if engraved at all! This was to be understood of itself, and adds nothing to the import; but the engraving in stones does add something, for it was the distinctive peculiarity of the ten commandments to be so engraved, as compared with the other parts of the Mosaic legislation. We therefore get the proper sense only by reading, ‘If the ministration of death in the letter, engraven on stones, came in glory.’ To speak of a ministration being engraven sounds somewhat strange; but it is to be understood as a pregnant expression for, ‘the law as ministered by Moses being engraven.’ And when said to have come in glory (ἐγενήθη ἐν δόξῃ), the meaning more fully expressed is, came into existence in glory, had its introduction so among the covenant-people. What sort of glory is meant, the apostle, before going further, explains by pointing specifically to the radiance which shone from the face of Moses when he returned from the mount with the two tables of the covenant, and which, though not actually the whole, might yet justly be regarded as the symbol of the whole, of that glory which accompanied the formal revelation of law. This glory was such that ‘the children of Israel were not able steadfastly to look on the face of Moses, because of the glory of his face [though a glory that was] to vanish away.’ The corresponding statement in the history is, that when ‘Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.’ (Exodus 34:30.) Dazzled with the supernatural appearance, it seemed to them as if something of the majesty of Heaven now rested upon Moses, and they durst not approach to fix their eyes intently on the sight—though still the glory was but transient. The original record does not directly state this, but plainly enough implies it, as it associates the shining of Moses’ face only with his descent from the mount, and afterwards with his coming out from the Lord’s presence in the tabernacle: the children of Israel, it is said, saw it then, but not, we naturally infer, at other times—the shining gradually vanished away, till brightened up afresh by renewed intercourse with Heaven. The train of thought, then, in this case, is, that the law written upon tables of stone, which was the more special and fundamental part of the legislation brought in by Moses, was, when taken apart and viewed as a scheme of moral obligation, a ministration of death, because, while requiring only what was good, requiring what man could not perform; that still there was a glory connected with it as the revelation of God’s mind and will—a glory partly expressed, partly symbolized, by the radiance that occasionally shone from the face of Moses, dazzling and affrighting the Israelites, but, at the same time, a glory which was not abiding, one that, after a little, again disappeared. 1 Corinthians 3:8. Having stated this respecting the glory of the law, which formed, in the sense explained, a ministration of death, the apostle asks, ‘How shall not rather the ministration of the Spirit be in glory?’ Why does he not say, the ministration of life, which would have been the more exact counterpart to the ministration of death? The chief reason probably was, that this might have created a false impression: a ministration of law taken in the letter, or simply by itself, can be nothing else for fallen man than a ministration of death; but there is no ministration in New Testament times which, with like regularity and certainty, carries life in its train. No doubt, if spirit here were to be understood directly and simply of the Holy Spirit (as Chrysostom, ‘He no longer puts what is of the Spirit, viz., life and righteousness, ἀλλ̓ αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα, but the Spirit itself, which makes the word greater’), it might well enough be held to involve life—life would be its inseparable accompaniment, as death of unmitigated law; for in so far as the Spirit ministers, the result can only be in life and blessing. But the apostle could not thus identify his apostolic agency with the third person of the Godhead, and call it absolutely a ministration or service (διακονία) of the Holy Ghost as if ministration of the Spirit were all one with dispensation of the Spirit. In popular language they are often so confounded, but not in Scripture; and the expression in Galatians 3:5, ‘He who ministereth (ἐπιχορηγῶν) to you the Spirit,’ points not to the apostle as a minister of the new covenant, but to God or Christ: it is He alone who can minister, in the sense of bestowing, the Holy Spirit. The ministration or service here meant is undoubtedly the evangelical ministry of the apostles and their followers—the teaching-function of the Gospel, as Meyer terms it, and called, he thinks, the ministration of the Spirit, because it is ‘the service which mediates the Holy Spirit.’ Strictly speaking, it is a ministration of word and ordinance, but such as carries along with it, in a quite peculiar degree as compared with former times, the regenerative, life-giving power of spiritual influence (the working of the Holy Ghost); and, named from this as its most distinctive feature, it is characterized as the ministration of the Spirit—much as a man is often called a soul, because it is from that more especially he derives what gives him his place and being in creation:—the Spirit, therefore, not hypostatically considered, but as a Divine power practically operative through word and ordinance in bringing life and blessing to the soul. 2 Corinthians 3:9-10; ‘For if the ministration of condemnation was in glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness abound in glory.’ This is substantially a repetition of the same idea as that expressed in the immediately preceding passage—only with this difference, that the law in the letter is here presented in its condemnatory, instead of its killing, aspect—condemnatory, of course, not directly, or in its own proper nature, but incidentally, and as the result of men’s inability to fulfil its requirements. Accordingly, on the other side, righteousness is exhibited as the counterpart brought in by the Gospel: what the one requires, and from not getting becomes an occasion of condemnation, the other, through the mediation and grace of Christ, actually provides. A far greater thing, assuredly—hence in connection with it a surpassing glory; such, the apostle adds in 2 Corinthians 3:10, that the glory which had accompanied the one might be regarded as nothing in comparison of the other. 2 Corinthians 3:11. A still further aspect of the subject is here presented, one derived from the relative place of the two ministrations in respect to stability or continuance: ‘for if that which vanisheth away was in glory, much more is that which abideth in glory.’ In this form of the comparison, reference is had to what had been already indicated in the mention of the new covenant, implying that, with the introduction of this, there was a superseding or vanishing away of what went before. The two tables—the law in the letter, which is all one with the service or ministration of Moses—formed the material of a covenant, which was intended to last only till the great things of redemption should come; when a new covenant, and along with that a new service or form of administration, should be introduced, adapted to the progression made in the Divine economy. The former, therefore, being from its very nature transitory, could not possibly be so replete with glory as the other; the higher elements of glory must be with the ultimate and abiding. Here properly ends the apostle’s contrast between the ministration of letter, and the ministration of spirit—for what follows is rather an application of the views unfolded in the passage we have been considering, than any additional revelation of doctrine. From the pregnant brevity of the passage, and the peculiar style of representation adopted in it, mistaken notions have often been formed of the apostle’s meaning—as if the contrast he presents were to be understood of the Old and New Testament dispensations generally, of all on the one side that was connected with the covenant of law for Israel, and what on the other is provided and accomplished for mankind in the Gospel of Christ. So understood, the passage becomes utterly irreconcilable both with the truth of things and with statements elsewhere made by the apostle himself. If the law as given by God, and intended to be used by the covenant people, was simply a service of condemnation and death, it could have had no proper glory connected with it, and Moses, instead of being entitled to regard and honour as the mediator that introduced it, would have been the natural object of repugnance and aversion. If also the doing or vanishing away spoken of had respect to the law in its substance, as a revelation of moral truth and duty, where could be the essential oneness of God’s moral character? and how could the apostle here assert that to be done away, the very thought of doing away with which he elsewhere rejects as an impiety? ‘Do we then,’ says he, ‘make void (καταργούμενον, put away, abolish, the very word in 2 Corinthians 3:11 here) the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law’ (ἰστάνομεν, give it fixed and stable existence). (Romans 3:31.) The apostle, we may be sure, could not involve himself in such inconsistencies, nor could he mean to speak so disparagingly of the revelation of law brought in by Moses, if viewed in its proper connection, and kept in the place designed for it by the lawgiver. Moses himself, also, is a witness against the view under consideration; for he expressly declared that, if the people hearkened to the voice of God, they should live, and that he set before them life as well as death, blessing as well as cursing. (Exodus 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 30:15-19.) But, certainly, he could not have said this, if he had had nothing to point to but the terms of a law, which required perfect love to God, and the love of one’s neighbour as one’s-self. This law branched out into the ten commandments, which were engraved on the tables of stone, and were by Moses ministered to the people at Sinai, taken apart and read in the letter of its requirements, could never be for fallen men the path way to life, and could only, by reason of their frailty and corruption, be the occasion of more certain and hopeless perdition. And here lay the folly of so many of the Jews, and of some Judaizing teachers also in the Christian church, that they would thus take it apart, and would thus press it in the letter, as a thing by which life and salvation might be attained. It is against this that the apostle is here arguing. He is exposing the idea of Moses being taken for the revealer and minister of life through the law he introduced, and as such the author of a polity which was destined to perpetuity. No, he in effect says, Moses, as the in-bringer of the law, did but shew what constituted life, but could not give it; he exhibited the pattern, and imposed the obligations of righteousness, but could not secure their realization; this was reserved for another and higher than he, who is the Life and the Light of men; therefore, only condemnation and death can come from understanding and teaching Moses in the letter—while still, his ministration of law, if considered as an ordinance of God, and with due regard to its place in the economy of Heaven—that is, in its relation to the antecedent covenant of promise, and its subservience to the higher ends of that covenant—has in it a depth, a spirituality and perpetual significance for the church, which constitute the elements of a real glory—a glory that was but faintly imaged by the supernatural brightness on the face of Moses. This is in truth what the apostle presently states, when shewing, as he proceeds to do, what the carnal Jews missed by their looking at the ministration of the old covenant merely in the letter, instead of finding in it, as they should have done, a preparation for the better things to come, and a stepping-stone to the higher form of administration which was to be brought in by Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:12. ‘Having then such hope, we use great boldness of speech.’ He had said before, 2 Corinthians 3:4, that he had such, or so great confidence toward God—on account of the grace and power which were made to accompany his ministrations; he knew and felt that he was owned by God in his work. Now, he says he has such hope—such, namely, as arises out of the surpassing greatness of the blessing and glory connected with the Gospel and its ministration of spirit, and this not passing away, but abiding and growing into an eternal fulness and sufficiency of both; so that hope, as well as confidence, here has its proper scope. And having it, he could be perfectly open and bold in his speech, as one who had nothing to conceal, who had nothing to gain by the ignorance or imperfect enlightenment of the people, who also needed to practise no reserve in his communications, because the great realities being come, the clear light was now shining, and the whole counsel of God lay open. 2 Corinthians 3:13. ‘And not’—he adds, as a negative confirmation of what he had just stated, and also as an introduction to the notice he is going to take of the culpable blindness and carnality of the Jews—‘And not as Moses put a veil on his face (an elliptical form of expression for, and we do not put a veil on our face, or mode of manifestation, as Moses put a veil on his face), in order that the children of Israel might not steadfastly look to the end (or cessation) of that which was to be done away.’ The fact only, as already noticed, is mentioned in the history of the transaction, that Moses put a veil over his face, but not the purpose for which it was done—which is left to be inferred from the nature of the act, and the circumstances that led to its being done. Nor is it very distinctly indicated either here or in Exodus, whether the veil was put on by Moses while he addressed the people, or after he had done speaking with them. The authorized version, at Exodus 34:33 expresses the former view. ‘And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face;’ but there is nothing in the original corresponding to the till; it merely states that he finished speaking with them, and put a veil on his face, which seems to imply, regarding that first discourse at least, that the veiling was subsequent to the speaking. And so the ancient versions give it (Sept. ἐπειδὴ κατέπαυσε λαλῶν ἐπέθηκεν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ κάλυμμα; Vul. Impletisque sermonibus posuit veelamen super faciem suum). But as to the future, it is merely said that Moses took the veil off when he went in to speak with the Lord ‘until he came out;’ and when he came out and spake, the children of Israel perceived that his face shone: ‘And he put the veil upon his face again until he went in to speak with Him’ (Exodus 34:34-35). The natural impression, however, is, that the method adopted at first was still followed (though Meyer still takes the other view), namely, that Moses did not veil his countenance quite immediately when he came out, but only after he had spoken what he received to say to the people; and that the direct object of the veil was to conceal from the view of the people the gradual waning and disappearance of the super natural brightness of his skin. But viewing this brightness as a symbol of the Divine mission of Moses, the apostle ascribes to him a still further intention in the veiling of it—namely, that the children of Israel might not, by the perception of its transience, be led to think of the transitory nature of the service or ministration of Moses itself—for this, I think with Meyer, whom Alford follows, must be held to be the natural sense of the words, ‘in order that they might not steadfastly look πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι- πρὸς τὸ, with the infinitive always denoting the purpose in the mind of the actor), (Matthew 5:12; Matthew 6:1; Matthew 13:30; Ephesians 6:11; 1 Thessalonians 2:9, etc.) to the end of that which was vanishing away (transitory).’ The vanishing-away or transitory (τοῦ καταργουμένου) here is a resumption of the same (τὸ καταργούμενον) in ver. 11; and which, as we there explained, was the service of Moses as the bringer in of objective, written law. There was a glory connected with this, indicated by the shining of his skin (the seal, in a manner, of his Divine authority), but as the symbol of the glory was transient, so also was the ministration itself; and Moses, the apostle would have us to understand, was aware of this; but lest the children of Israel should also perceive it and at the very time the service was introduced might begin to look forward to its cessation, he concealed from them the fact of the passing away of the external glory by drawing over it a veil. (I take the concealing to be the whole that is indicated by the veil as most indeed do. Alford would find also the idea of suspension or interruption; but this seems fanciful; for no ministry is perfectly continuous. St Paul’s was liable to suspension as well as that of Moses.) Many commentators have rejected this view, because appearing to them to ascribe something derogatory, a kind of dissimulation, to Moses, while legislating for the people, he wished to hide from them the provisional nature of that legislation, and its relation to the future coming and kingdom of the Messiah. But this is to extend the object of the concealment too far: what Moses did in respect to the veil, he doubtless did under the direction of God; and what is affirmed by the apostle concerning it is, that the service of Moses as the minister of law engraven on stones (with all, of course, that became connected with this), was to be thought of as the service which they were specially to regard and profit by, according to its proper intent, without needlessly forestalling the time when it should be superseded by another ministration, that of the Gospel. For the former was the kind of service meanwhile adapted to their circumstances; and to have shot, as it were, ahead of it, and fixed their eyes on the introduction of a higher service, would have but tended to weaken their regard to that under which they were placed, and rendered them less willing and anxious to obtain from it the benefits it was capable of yielding. But this did not imply that they were to be kept ignorant of a coming Messiah, or were not to know that a great rise was to take place in the manifestations of God’s mind and will to men; for Moses himself gave no doubtful intimation of this, (Deuteronomy 18:15-18.) and it was one of the leading objects of later prophets, to make still more distinct announcements on the subject, and foretell the greater glory of the dispensation which was to come. But even with these, a certain concealment or reserve was necessary; and though a mighty change was indicated as going to take place, and the passing away of the old covenant itself into another, which, in comparison of it, was called new, yet so carefully was the ministration of Moses guarded, and so strongly was its authority pressed during the time set for its administration, that one the very last words of ancient prophecy to the members of the old covenant was, ‘Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.’ (Malachi 4:4.) 2 Corinthians 3:14. At the same time, the language used by the apostle implies that this was not what should have been; it was an imperfect state of things, and involved a measure of blame; but the blame lay with the people, not with Moses. He could not make use of such boldness of speech, regarding Divine things, as was now done by apostles and preachers of the Gospel; he was even obliged to practise a kind of disguise, with the view of concealing the transitory nature of the ministration with which he was more peculiarly charged. And this for the sake of the spiritual good of the people themselves; because, considering their state of mind, more of insight in that particular direction might have turned to evil; and the ultimate reason follows: ‘But their understandings were hardened (νοήματα, thoughts=thinking powers, understandings).’ The connection is not, I conceive, that given by Stanley: ‘Nay, so true is this, that not their eyes, but their thoughts were hardened and dulled’— substantially concurred in by Alford, who takes ἀλλὰ in the sense of But also, and regards it as introducing a further assertion of their ignorance or blindness—blindness in respect to things not purposely concealed from them, but which they might be said to see: such modes of connection are somewhat unnatural, and scarcely meet the requirements of the case; for something is needed as a ground for what precedes as well as for what follows. I take it to be this: Moses practised the concealment and reserve in question, not as if it were what he himself wished, or thought abstractedly the best; but he did so because the understandings of the people were hardened, they had little aptitude for spiritual things, perfectly free and open discourse was not suited to them. And the apostle goes on to say, it was not peculiar to that generation to be so—it was a common characteristic of the covenant people (so Stephen also says (Acts 7:51.)), ‘for until this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant (that is, the book or writings of the covenant), without having it unveiled (discovered) that it (viz., the old covenant) is vanished away in Christ.’ Such appears to be the most natural construction and rendering of this last clause— ἀνακαλυπτόμενον being taken as the nominative absolute, and the vanishing or being done away being viewed, in accordance with the use of the expression in the preceding context, as having respect, not to the veil, but to the old covenant, or the ministration of Moses. Having been so used once and again, it manifestly could not, without very express warrant, be understood now of something entirely different. It is not, therefore, as in our authorized version, the veil which is done away in Christ, but the old covenant; and the evidence of the veil being still spiritually on the hearts of the Jews, the apostle means to say, consists in their not having it unveiled or discovered to them that the old does vanish away in Christ. This was a far more grievous sign of a hardened understanding in the Jews of the apostle’s time, than the hardening spoken of in the time of Moses; for now the disguise or concealment regarding the cessation of the Mosaic service was purposely laid aside; the time of reformation had come; and not to see the end of that which was transitory was to miss the grand design for which it had been given. 2 Corinthians 3:15-16. ‘But unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon the heart.’ This is merely to be regarded as an explanation of what was meant in the preceding sentence by the want of discernment, as to the cessation of the old covenant in Christ. It arose from a veil being, not upon Moses, or upon the book of the covenant (for the advance of the Divine dispensations had taken every thing of that sort out of the way), but upon their own heart. There was the real seat and cause of the blindness. ‘But (adds the apostle) whenever it shall have turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away’ (περιαιρεῖται, a different word from that in the preceding verse, and confining the application there made of καταργεῖται to the old covenant, not to the veil). There is a certain indefiniteness in the statement, and opinions differ concerning the subject of the turning—some taking it quite generally: when any one shall have done so; some supplying Moses as the symbol or representative of the old covenant: when application is made of this covenant to the Lord; others, and, indeed, a much greater number, understand Israel; with substantial correctness—though it seems better, with Meyer and Alford, to find the subject in the ‘their heart’ of the immediate context: when the heart of the people, whether individually or collectively, shall have turned to the Lord, then the veil as a matter of course is taken away, it drops off. The language undoubtedly bears respect to what is recorded of Moses when he went into God’s presence—as often as he did so putting off the veil; but it cannot be taken for more than a mere allusion, as the actions themselves were materially different. 2 Corinthians 3:17. ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit.’ This is undoubtedly the natural and proper construction, taking spirit for the predicate, not (as Chrysostom, Theodoret, and several moderns) Lord; and the apostle is to be understood as resuming the expression in the preceding verse, and connecting it with what had been said before of spirit; q. d., Now the Lord, to whom the heart of Israel turns when converted, is the spirit which has been previously spoken of as standing in contrast to the letter, and the ministration of which has been given as the distinctive characteristic apostolic agency. By spirit, therefore, must here be understood, not the Holy Spirit hypostatically or personally considered—for in that case it could not have been so identified with the Lord (by whom is certainly meant Christ), nor would it properly accord with the sense of spirit, in verses 2 Corinthians 3:6 and 2 Corinthians 3:8—but the Spirit in His work of grace on the souls of men—or Christ Himself in His divine energy manifesting Himself through the truth of His Gospel to the heart and conscience, as the author of all spiritual life and blessing. So that it is the inseparable unity of Christ and the Spirit in the effect wrought by the ministration of word and ordinance, not their hypostatical diversity, which here comes into consideration: Christ present in power, present to enlighten and vivify,—that, as here understood by the apostle, is the Spirit (in contradistinction to the mere ‘form of knowledge and of truth in the law’); ‘but (the apostle adds—δὲ as the particle of transition from an axiom to its legitimate conclusion) where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’—not there in the local sense (for ἐκεῖ is wanting in the best authorities, à A B C D, also in the Syriac and Coptic versions, nor is its employment in such a manner quite in accordance with the usage of the apostle); but merely as, along with the substantive verb, declarative of a certain fact: the man who is spiritually conversant with Christ, who knows Him in the spirit of His grace and truth, there is for such an one a state of liberty—he is free to commune with Christ himself, and to deal with the realities of His work and kingdom, as at home in the region to which they belong, and possessing, in relation to them, the spirit of sonship. (Romans 8:15.) Not merely is the hardened understanding gone which prevents one from seeing them aright, but a frame of mind is acquired, which is in fitting adaptation to them, relishing their light and breathing their spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18. A still further deduction follows, the climax of the whole passage, rising from the matter discoursed of to the persons in whom it is realized: ‘but we all with unveiled face beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord the Spirit.’ The but at the beginning indicates a certain implied contrast to the state of others—the bondmen of the house of Israel, who knew not the Lord as the Spirit, and the spiritual liberty such knowledge brings, but it is otherwise with us. We all—that is, we who are Christians, not apostles merely, or Christian ministers and evangelists, for the expression is purposely made quite general, in order to comprehend, along with himself, the whole of those whose case the apostle is now handling—‘We all with unveiled face behold.’ The last reference to the veil had represented it as being upon the heart of the Israelites; for it was as hearers of the law that he then contemplated them; but now, as it is in connection with the sight that he is going to unfold the privilege of New Testament believers, he returns to the thought of the face in relation to the veil—the face of Moses having been veiled, indeed, to the people, but unveiled in the presence of the Lord, whence it received impressions of the glory that shone upon it from above. So we all—after the manner of Moses, though in a higher, because more spiritual, sense, but unlike the people for whom the glory reflecting itself on his countenance was veiled—‘behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord.’ I adhere to this as the most natural and also the most suitable sense of the somewhat peculiar word κατοπτριζόμενοι, as opposed to that of ‘reflecting as in a mirror,’ adopted by Chrysostom. Luther, Calov, also by Olshausen and Stanley. There is no evidence of the word having been employed in this sense. In the active, it signifies to ‘mirror,’ or shew in a glass; in the middle usually, to ‘mirror one’s-self,’ or; ‘look at one’s-self in a mirror,’ of which examples may be seen in Wetstein on the passage, but which is manifestly out of place here; and to turn the seeing one’s-self in a mirror, into reflecting one’s likeness from it, is to introduce an entirely new and unwarranted idea into the meaning. Nor could it, if allowable, afford an appropriate sense; for the mention of the unveiled face undoubtedly presents a contrast to the representation in vers. 2 Corinthians 3:14-16, and has respect to the free, untrammelled seeing of the Divine glory. There is also in Philo one undoubted use of the word in this sense ( Leg. Allegor., III. 33, μηδὲ κατοπτρισαίμην ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ τὴνσὴν ιδέαν ἤ ἐν σοί τῷ θεῷ, neither would I see mirrored in any other, etc.) The plain meaning, therefore, is, ‘We all with unveiled face (the veil having been removed in conversion) beholding in a mirror (or seeing mirrored) the glory of the Lord.’ The apostle does not say where or how this mirrored glory is to be seen, but he supplies the deficiency in the next chapter, when at 2 Corinthians 3:4 he speaks of the light, or rather shining forth of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (which Satan prevents natural men from perceiving), and at 2 Corinthians 3:6 (when speaking of the contrary result in the case of believers), he represents God as ‘shining in their hearts to the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ The glory, therefore, in so far as it is now accessible to the view of believers, is to be seen mirrored in the face or person of Jesus Christ, or, as it is otherwise put, in the Gospel of the glory of Christ—that is, the Gospel which reveals what He is and has done, and thereby unfolds His glory. This is now freely opened to the inspection of believers, and by beholding it with the eye of faith, we are transformed into the same image (τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα, the accusative, according to some, to be explained as that of nearer determination; but better, perhaps, with Bernhardy, Meyer, and others, to be regarded as expressive of the form implied in the action of the verb, and so indirectly governed by it; but either way capable of being rendered into English only by the help of the preposition, ‘transformed into the same image’), the image, namely, of Christ’s glory seen in the mirror of His Gospel, the living impression of which on our hearts is all one with having Christ formed in them; (Galatians 4:19.) hence, a deeper change than that which passed upon the skin of Moses, and indicative of a more intimate connection with the Lord; for it is now heart with heart, one spiritual image reproducing itself in another. And this from ‘glory to glory’—either from glory in the image seen, to glory in the effect produced, or rather perhaps from one stage in the glorious transformation to another, till coming at last to see Him as He is, we are made altogether like Him. (1 John 3:3.) Very different, therefore, from an impression of glory, which was evanescent, always ready to lose its hold, and tending to vanish away. ‘Even as (the apostle adds) from the Lord the Spirit’—so, I think, the words should be rendered with Chrysostom, Theodoret, Luther, Beza, and latterly Stanley, Alford, seeing in them the same kind of identification of Lord and Spirit as in 2 Corinthians 3:17; not, with Fritzsche, Olshausen, De Wette, Meyer, ‘from the Lord of the Spirit,’ which would introduce at the close a new idea, and one not very much to the purpose here, for, in the only sense in which the expression can be allowed, the Lord has ever been the Lord of the Spirit—as much in Old Testament times as now. The English version, ‘from the Spirit of the Lord,’ is inadmissible, as doing violence to the order of the words. The meaning of the apostle in this closing sentence is, that the result is in accordance with the Divine agency accomplishing it—it is such as comes from the operation of Him who makes Himself know r n and felt through the vital energy of the Spirit—whose working is Spirit upon spirit—therefore penetrating, inward, powerful—seizing the very springs of thought and feeling in the soul, and bringing them under the habitual influence of the truth as it is in Christ. This is a mode of working far superior to that of outward law, because in its very nature quickening, dealing directly with the conscience, and with the idea of spiritual excellence, giving also the power to realize it in the heart and conduct. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: 04.17. GAL_2:14-21. ======================================================================== Galatians 2:14-21. ‘But when I saw that they were not walking uprightly, according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, why constrainest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We by nature Jews, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing, however, that a man is not justified by the works of the law, [not justified] except through the faith of Jesus Christ, we also put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified out of the faith of Christ, and not out of the works of the law, because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found to be sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? God forbid. For if the things which I pulled down, these I again build up, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law, in order that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; but no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me; and that which I now live in the flesh I live in faith that [namely] of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not make void the grace of God; for if righteousness [come] through the law, then Christ died without cause.’ There is not much of difficulty in this passage considered exegetically. nor will it call here for any lengthened exposition; but it is of importance as being, in point of time, the first recorded statement of a mode of representation by the apostle, respecting the relation of believers to the law, which was afterwards more than once repeated, and with greater fulness brought out. The historical occasion of it, as related in the preceding verses, was the vacillating conduct of Peter during a temporary sojourn at Antioch, of uncertain date, but probably not long after the council which met at Jerusalem concerning circumcision. (Acts 15:2) At first he mingled freely with Gentile believers, in food as well as other things, in token that all legal distinctions in this respect were abolished; but on the arrival of some of the stricter party of Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, he again withdrew, as afraid to offend their religious scruples and meet their censure. For this he was generally condemned (κατεγνωσμένος ἦν, Galatians 2:11); and St Paul, with Christian fidelity, brought the charge distinctly against him, and, in the verses just cited, shewed how fitted his conduct was to prejudice the truth of the Gospel. In this he, first of all, points to what, by their very position as Christians, they had acknowledged as to the way of salvation—that they had attained to it, not by what properly belonged to them as Jews, but by having become believers in Christ. By assuming even for a time the Gentile mode of life, assuming it as a thing in itself perfectly proper and legitimate for a Christian, Peter had confessed that salvation had come to him otherwise than by conformity to the Jewish law; and how, then, asks Paul, ‘dost thou constrain the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?’ (literally, to Judaize). He uses a strong expression—ἀναγκάζεις, constrain—to indicate the moral force which the conduct of one so high in authority as Peter was sure to carry along with it. With many it would have the weight of a Divine sanction while yet, as he goes on to shew, it was in the very face of their Christian profession and hope: ‘We by nature Jews, and not sinners of the Gentiles’—that is, not sinners after such an extreme type, the expression being used much as in the phrase publicans and sinners in the Gospels; their birth within the bonds of the covenant had saved them from such a state of degradation. ‘Knowing, however (such plainly is the force of δὲ here, introducing something of a qualifying nature, materially different, though not strictly opposite, Winer, sec. 53, b), that a man is not justified by the works of the law, except (ἐὰν μὴ, the two particles, have no other sense, but, as εἰ μὴ in Matthew 12:4, Revelation 9:4, perhaps also Galatians 1:19, refer only to the predicate in the preceding clause, which must be again supplied, ‘not justified except’) through the faith of Jesus Christ, we also put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified.’ The meaning is, that though they were not sinners like the Gentiles, still they were sinners, and as such conscious of the impossibility of being justified with God on the ground of any works of law; hence had sought their justification by simply believing in Christ. By the works of the law here, as at Romans 3:20, and elsewhere in Paul’s writings, are undoubtedly to be understood the works required generally by the law of the old covenant—not ceremonial as contradistinguished from moral, nor moral as contradistinguished from ceremonial—but whatever of one kind or another it imposed in the form of precept—the law, in short, as a rule of right and wrong laid in its full compass upon the consciences of men; but pre-eminently, of course, the law of the ten commandments which lay at the heart of the whole, and was, so to speak, its pervading root and spirit. By deeds of conformity to this law they knew they could not be justified, because they had not kept it; they could be justified only through the faith of Jesus Christ. The apostle purposely varies the prepositions—not ἐξ ἔργων, out of works as the ground, or formal cause of justification, but διὰ πίστεως, through faith, as the instrument or medium by which it is accepted. Coming through faith, it is acknowledged and received as God’s gift in Christ, whereas, had it been of works of law, it had possessed the character of a right or claim. In the closing part of the passage, however, he uses the same preposition in respect to both modes of justification: ‘that we might be justified out of (ἐκ) the faith of Christ, not out of the works of the law.’ The words resume, with a personal application to Peter and Paul, what had just been affirmed of men at large; they knew the general truth, and for themselves had sought justification in this way—the out of or from being here put in both cases alike, either as a formal variation, or rather perhaps because faith and works are contemplated merely as the diverse quarters from whence the justification might be looked for. And the reason of their seeking it simply of faith follows, ‘because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.’ Neither here, nor at Romans 3:20, where it is again repeated, is this weighty utterance given as a quotation from Old Testament Scripture—though substantially it is so, being to a nearness the words of the Psalmist, (Psalms 143:2.) ‘For in thy sight shall no man living be justified;’ and there can be little doubt, that the apostle uses it in both places as a word which all who knew Scripture would readily acknowledge and acquiesce in. The no flesh (οὐ … πᾶσα σάρξ) in the one passage is, according to a common Hebrew usage, (Genesis 6:12; Numbers 16:22; Psalms 65:2; Isaiah 12:5, etc.) substantially equivalent to the no one living (οὐ … πᾶς ζῶν) of the other. So that here we have the great truth of the Gospel as to the way of salvation announced both in its positive and its negative form: through faith because of grace not of works of law, because then necessarily on the ground of merit, which no one, be he Jew or Gentile, possesses before God. Galatians 2:17. The apostle now proceeds to draw a conclusion from the preceding, taken in connection with what was involved in the inconsistent conduct of Peter : ‘But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ (ἐν Χριστῷ, to be taken strictly, in mystical union with Him, as the ground or element into which faith brings us), we ourselves also were found to be sinners (that is, found still to be such; the fact of our seeking justification in Christ implied that we knew ourselves to be sinners prior to our coming to Him; but if still found to be so, and therefore failing—as your conduct would seem to betoken—to get justification, left as before in the condition of sinners, and needing to resort again for a ground of justification to works of law), is Christ therefore a minister of sin?’ Is this really the character in which we contemplate Him, and are going to present Him to the view of men? Such appears to be the natural sense of the words, and the train of thought they suggest. The apostle brings out, with a kind of ironical surprise in the mode of doing it, what was fairly involved in Peter’s behaviour, and would be its inevitable impression upon others; namely, that having gone as a sinner to Christ for justification, and still finding himself in the condition of a sinner, he had fallen back again upon observances of law for what was needed. Could Christ possibly in such a way be a minister of sin? for, if failing thus to remove its guilt, in the behalf of those who trusted in Him, He necessarily ministered to its interests. The question is indignantly answered by the apostle, ‘God forbid:’—the thought is abhorrent, and nothing must be done which would tend in the least degree to countenance such an idea. The expression (μὴ γένοιτο), as used by the apostle, always imports this, and is always, too, preceded by a question; so that the ἆρα of the received text is rightly accented, and must be taken interrogatively. In substance, the view now given is concurred in by the best recent commentators—Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot, and indeed by the great majority of commentators of every age, with only such minor shades of difference as do not affect the main ideas. Galatians 2:18. In this verse the apostle confirms what was involved in the denial (μὴ γένοιτο) in respect to Christ, and shews where the real ministration of sin in such a case lies: ‘For if the things which I pulled down, these I again build up, I prove myself to be a transgressor.’ It is Peter’s doing that is actually described, but out of delicacy Paul speaks in his own name. In repairing to Christ, he virtually pulled down the fabric of law as the ground of justification (formally did so, under the Divine direction, in the house of Cornelius); but in now returning to its observance as a matter of principle, he was again building it up; and in this he proved himself to be a transgressor—but how? Was it merely by the inconsistency of his conduct, which, if right in the first instance, must have been wrong in the second? Or, if right in the building up, involved his condemnation for previously pulling down? This is all that some commentators find in it (among whom are Alford and Lightfoot), and who regard the act of transgression as chiefly consisting in the previous pulling down that is, deemed to be such by the person himself, as proved in his again attempting to build up. This seems to be an inadequate view of the matter, and to fix the idea of transgression on the wrong point—on the pulling down instead of, as the context requires, on the building up again; it would make the proving or constituting of the person a transgressor turn on his own mistaken view of the law, not on the relation in which he actually stood to the law. The conduct in question, however, was plainly chargeable as an act of transgression under two aspects—one more general, and another more specific: first, such vacillation, playing fast and loose, in so palpable a manner, with the things of God, was itself a grave error, a serious moral obliquity; and secondly, in the retrogression complained of, there was involved a misapprehension of or departure from the very aim of the law, which was (considered in its preparatory aspect) to lead men to Christ. The law was not given to form the ground of men’s justification, but to make them see that another ground was needed; and, after this had come, to return again to the other was, in a most important particular, to defeat the intention of the law, to act toward it the part of a transgressor. That this last idea was also in the view of the apostle may be inferred, not only from the nature of the case, but also from what immediately follows, in which this very idea respecting the law is brought prominently into view. Galatians 2:19. ‘For I through the law died to the law, in order that I might live to God’—the emphatic position of the ἐγὼ at the commencement is evidently intended to individualize very particularly the speaker. ‘I for myself;’ it is Paul’s own experience that he relates, and relates for the purpose of shewing how the law, when rightly apprehended, recoils as it were upon itself, renders an escape from its dominion necessary for the sinner. And the proof contained in this declaration, for the purpose more immediately in hand, lies, as noted by Meyer, specially in the result being said to have been reached διὰ νόμου; ‘for he who through the law has been delivered from the law, in order that he might stand in a higher relation, and again falls back into the legal relation, acts against the law.’ There can be no reasonable doubt, that the law through which the death is accomplished, is the same as that to which the death is represented as taking place—not, as Jerome, Ambrose, Erasmus, Luther, Bengel, etc., the Gospel law, the law of the spirit of life in Christ in the one case, and the Mosaic law in the other; for even if it were admissible to take the term law in such different senses, the point of the apostle’s argument would be lost. It was the law itself in its accusing, condemning power upon his conscience, which made him die to it as a ground of justification and hope; so that it was in the interest of the law that he died to it (νόμῳ ἀπέθανον, dat. commodi), (See Ellicott here, and Fritzsche on Romans 14:7.) the object and result being that he might live to God. It is the same thought which, at greater length, is unfolded, also in connection with Paul’s own experience, in Romans 7:1-25. But the process is briefly indicated also here, in what follows. Galatians 2:20. ‘I have been crucified with Christ’— συνεσταύρωμαι, the perfect, pointing therefore to the past, but extending also to the present time, and so may be understood indifferently of the one or the other. It gives the explanation of his death to the law without defeating, but rather promoting the law’s interests. Realizing that through sin he had fallen under the curse of the law, and that Christ died to bear its curse for them that believe on Him, he entered in the spirit of faith into Christ’s death, and became partaker in the benefits of His crucifixion. As put by Chrysostom, ‘When he said I died, lest any one should say, How then dost thou live? he subjoined also the cause of his life, and showed that the law, indeed, killed him when living, but that Christ taking hold of him when dead quickened him through death; and he exhibits a double wonder, both that He (Christ) had recalled the dead to life, and through death had imparted life.’ This higher kind of life, growing out of his fellowship with Christ’s crucifixion, the apostle describes as one not properly his own, not belonging to his natural self, but flowing into him from Christ his living Head. It is difficult to render his words here, so as to give them the precise point and meaning of the original. The authorized version, adopting a punctuation formerly common (ζῶ δὲ· οὐκέτι ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χρ.), translates, ‘Nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me,’—which, however, would have required an ἀλλὰ before οὐκέτι, and is now, therefore, wisely abandoned. The apostle assumes that his crucifixion with Christ was, as in Christ’s case, but the channel to a higher life, and so he does not simply tell us that he lives, but whence he has the source and power of life: ‘I have been crucified with Christ; but no longer is it I who live (or, a little more paraphrastically, thus: but as for living, it is no longer I that do so), but Christ liveth in me.’ It is the appropriation of Christ’s own words: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ ‘As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me;’ (John 6:51-57.) it is expressed also by others of the apostles, as by John,—‘He that hath the Son hath life.’ (1 John 5:12; compare 1 Peter 1:2-3.) Christ dwelling by faith in the heart has become the principle of a new life—a life hid with him in God, from which, as an inexhaustible fountain-head, the believer ever draws to the supply of his wants and his fruitfulness in well-doing. And so, the apostle adds, ‘that which I now live in the flesh (so far, that is, as I now live in the flesh) I live in faith—that of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ What he now regards as his life in the flesh, what properly distinguishes and makes it what it is, is its being in the faith of Christ, finding in such faith its proper element, and being thereby kept in perpetual fellow ship with the fulness of life and blessing that is in Him. And recognising again the great truth, that it was as the dying and atoning Saviour that Jesus thus became the new source of life for mankind, he allows his faith to run out into the touching expression of appropriating confidence, ‘who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ Galatians 2:21. I do not make void (ἀθετῶ, set at nought, or rather, render nought) the grace of God,’—namely, as manifested in the gift and death of Christ, for our deliverance from sin and justification by faith in His blood; then follows the reason, ‘for if righteousness [come] through the law (through this, that is, as the ground or medium of attaining to justification), then Christ died without cause:’ not in vain, or to no effect (for δωρεὰν never bears that sense, but always that of the Latin gratis], though this too might have been said; but the exact meaning is, there would have been no occasion for his death, or, as Chrysostom expresses it, the death of Christ would have been superfluous (περιττὸς ὁ τοῦ Χριστοῦ θάνατος). Thus ends the argumentation, which throughout magnifies the grace of God in the salvation of men through the sacrificial death and risen life of Christ, and depreciates, in comparison of it, works of law but depreciates them simply on the ground that they are, in the proper sense, unattainable by fallen man—that the law’s requirements of holiness only reveal man’s sin and ensure his condemnation—and that, consequently, obedience to these can never be made the ground of a sinner’s confidence and hope toward God, but to his own shame and confusion. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: 04.18. GAL_3:19-26. ======================================================================== Galatians 3:19-26. Τί οὖν ὁ νόμος; etc. ‘Wherefore, then, the law? It was added because of the transgressions, until the seed shall have come to whom the promise has been made, being appointed through angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one; but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid! For if a law were given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been of the law. But, on the contrary, the Scripture shut up all under sin, in order that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before the faith came we were kept in ward, shut up under the law for the faith which was going to be revealed. So that the law has become our pedagogue in respect to Christ, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that the faith has come, we are no longer under a pedagogue. For ye are all sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus.’ This section respecting the law comes in as a natural sequel to the line of argumentation which had been pursued by the apostle from the beginning of the chapter. In that his object was to prove that salvation or blessing was now, and had always been, of promise—of promise as unfolding the free grace of God to sinful men, and by them apprehended and rested on in faith; it had been so in the case of Abraham hundreds of years before the law was given at Sinai—nor for Abraham as an individual merely, but as the head of a family, of Gentile as well as of Jewish origin, who were all destined along with himself, and in the same manner, to receive the blessing; and the law, which came so long after, could not by possibility disannul the provisions thus secured by promise to the believing; least of all could they be secured by the law, which carries with it a curse to as many as are under its dominion, because they have all violated its precepts (Galatians 3:10-11). But if the promise did so much, it might seem as if the law were disparaged; hence the question that follows. Galatians 3:19. ‘Wherefore then the law?’ Literally, ‘What then the law?’ viz., What does it do? What is its place and object? The τί, therefore, may be taken in its usual sense, and the passage regarded as elliptical; but, as to the import, it is all one as if it were put for διὰ τί, wherefore. The answer is, ‘It was added because of the transgressions’—τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν. Does this mean in their interest, for their sake? So Hilgenfeld, Meyer, Jowett, Alford, Lightfoot (Meyer, ‘It was added in favour, zu Gunsten, of transgressions’; Lightfoot, still more strongly, ‘to create transgressions’). But to this view, Ellicott justly objects, that ‘it ascribes a purpose [viz., in respect to the existence of transgressions] directly to God;’ it would imply not the fact merely, that by means of the law, and, as Paul elsewhere states, by reason of the weakness or perversity of the flesh, (Romans 7:5; Romans 7:8; Romans 8:3.) transgressions were multiplied, but that the production of these was one of the purposes for which it was given—which seems to come very near making God the intentional author of sin. Alford explains, that St Paul is here treating of the law in its propaedeutic office, as tending to prepare the way for Christ, and says that this office consisted ‘in making sin into transgression, so that what was before not a transgression might now become one’—surely a somewhat arbitrary distinction, as if sin and transgression (παράβασις) differed materially from each other, and what were the one might not also be the other. Neither Paul’s writings generally, nor the statements in this particular section, afford any ground for such a distinction; for what is here called transgression, and as such is associated with the law, is presently called sin (Galatians 3:22), as it is also elsewhere. (Romans 5:13; Romans 5:20; Romans 7:7, etc.) And the apostle John expressly identifies sin and transgression: ‘He that committeth sin, transgresseth also the law (τὴν ἀνομίαν ποιεῖ, does lawlessness, violation of law=transgression); for sin is transgression’ (violation of law). (1Jn 3:-4.) To speak of the law as creating either sin or transgression, is to present moral evil as something arbitrary or factitious; consequently something that might, and, but for the creative power of formal law, should, not have come into existence. The earliest extant interpretation, the one adopted by the Greek commentators, and by the Fathers generally, takes the expression of the apostle in a quite opposite sense, that the law was added for the purpose of preventing or restraining the spirit of transgression. Thus Chrysostom, ‘The law was given because of transgressions; that is, that the Jews might not be allowed to live without check, and glide into the extreme of wickedness, but that the law might be laid on them like a bridle, disciplining, moulding them, restraining them from transgression, if not in regard to all, yet certainly in regard to some of the commandments; so that no small profit accrues from the law.’ To the same effect Jerome, ‘Lex transgressiones prohibitura successit,’ referring to 1 Timothy 1:9; also Occum. Theoph., with a great multitude of modern commentators—Erasmus, Grotius, Morus, Rosenmüller, Olshausen, De Wette, etc. This view, however, is rejected by recent scholars, as attributing to χάριν a sense which is without support—a kind of practically reversed meaning of the natural one—importing, not in favour, but in contravention of, opposed to. It is further alleged, that the sense thus yielded, if it were grammatically tenable, would not suit the connection; as the apostle’s object in the whole of this part of the epistle is to shew, not what benefit might be derived from the law in the conflict with sin, but rather what power sin derives from the law. There is, undoubtedly, force in both of these objections—though, in Regard to the former, the readiness and unanimity with which the Greek expositors ascribed such an import to χάριν, may fairly be taken to indicate, that the sense was not altogether strange to them, and, if rarely found in written compositions, may have been not unknown in colloquial usage. But it appears better, with Ellicott and others, to take χάριν in the somewhat general sense of propter, causa, on account of—a sense it un questionably bears. (See Liddell and Scott, Host and Palm, on the word.) The sense of the passage will then be, the law was given on account of the proneness of the people to transgress; pointing merely to the fact, but with a certain implication in the very manner of expression, that the evil would not thereby be cured, that transgressions would become but the more conspicuous. For the law of itself could not repress the tendency, or diminish the number of transgressions; on the contrary, its tendency was to render them both more palpable and more aggravated—while still, if contemplated and used according to the design of God, as an handmaid to the covenant of promise, it would have helped most effectually to promote the cause of holiness, and consequently to repress and limit the manifestation of sin. But the apostle is here viewing it, as the Jews of his day generally viewed it, and as the Judaizing teachers in Galatia were evidently doing, in its separate character and working—as a great institute commanding one class of things to be done, and the opposite class not to be done—an institute, therefore, taking to do with transgressions, on account of which it actually came into being, but which it served rather to expose and bring to light, than to put down. Thus the law was given on account of transgressions. And the apostle subjoins a definition of the period up to which the law in this objective and covenant form was to continue: ‘until the seed shall have come to whom the promise has been made’—the form of the sentence to be explained from the circumstance, that the apostle puts himself in the position of one at the giving of the law, and from that as his starting-point looks forward to the moment in the future, when the seed shall have appeared in whom the promise was to reach its fulfilment. The meaning is, that while the covenant of promise was in a provisional state, travelling on to its accomplishment, the law was needed and was given as an outstanding revelation; but when the more perfect state of things pointed to in the promise entered, the other would cease to occupy the place which had previously belonged to it. A clause of some difficulty is added as to the spiritual agencies entrusted with its introduction, ‘being ordained through angels (ordered or enjoined through the medium of angels), in the hand of a mediator.’ Very much the same thought is expressed by Stephen on his trial, when he says the Israelites received the law εἰς διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων, at the ordination (according to the arrangements) of angels; and again in Hebrews 2:2, where the law is characterized as ‘the word spoken by angels.’ It is rather singular that in these passages such prominence should have been given to the ministration of angels at the giving of the law, while in the history no notice is taken of them, nor any allusion even to the presence of angels in connection with the law, except the passing one in the blessing of Moses on the tribes: ‘The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; He shined forth from mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints (literally, from amid myriads of holiness); from His right hand went a fiery law for them.’ (Deuteronomy 33:2.) The presence of myriads at the giving of the law is referred to also in Psalms 68:17; and their mediating agency is more distinctly expressed by Josephus (ἡμῶν δὲ τὰ κάλλιστα τῶν δογμάτων καὶ ὀσιώτατα τῶν τοῖς νόμος δἰ ἀγγέλων παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ μαθόντωμ, Ant. 5:5, sec. 3), and by Philo (‘De Somn.,’ p. 642, M.). But how this change in the mode of representation came about, or what might be its precise object, we are unable to say. The passages in Old Testament Scripture referred to, speak merely of the presence of angelic hosts as attendants on the Lord at Sinai, but say nothing of their active service in communicating the law to Moses; throughout Old Testament Scripture it is simply from the Lord that Moses is said to have received the law; and the introduction of an angelic ministry as mediating between the two, could scarcely have been thought of for the purpose of enhancing the glory of the law, since it appeared to remove this a step farther from its Divine source. Accordingly, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the ministration through angels is regarded as a mark of relative inferiority, when compared with the direct teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ; but when not so compared, as in the speech of Stephen, or in the passages of Philo and Josephus, it is fitly enough associated with the ideas of peculiar majesty and sacredness. Here, I am inclined to think with Meyer and Alford, that the mention of angels cannot justly be under stood in a depreciatory sense; for the covenant of promise itself, as established with Abraham, which is the more immediate object of comparison with the law, was also connected with angelic administration more expressly so connected than the giving of the law. (Genesis 22:11.) The fact alone of an angelic medium is stated by the apostle, as a matter generally known and believed—though how it should have been worked into the beliefs of the people, while Old Testament Scripture is so silent upon the subject, we have no specific information; all we can say is, that it had come somehow to be understood. As to the mediator, in whose hands the law was established at Sinai, there can be no reason able doubt that Moses was meant; he literally bore in his hand to the people, from the mount, the tables that contained its fundamental principles. (Exodus 31:18; Exodus 32:15.) Philo and the Rabbinical Jews so regarded Moses; (See Schöttgen and Wetstein here.) the Fathers (Basil and Theodoret excepted) mistook the meaning of the apostle when, under mediator, they understood him to point to Christ; and they are followed by several modern interpreters of note—Calvin, Pareus, Calov, etc. But the other view is so much the more natural one, and is now so generally acquiesced in, that there is no need for enlarging on it. In the mention of a mediator, however, I see no ground for discovering (with Ellicott) an intentional note of inferiority in the law as compared with the covenant of promise. A mark of difference it certainly formed, but we have no reason to think of any thing more. Galatians 3:20. This point of difference is here more distinctly exhibited: ‘Now a mediator is not of one; but God is one. The passage is somewhat famous for the variety of interpretations to which it has given rise. (This circumstance, however, has been very loosely stated, and in a way fitted to produce erroneous impressions. Ellicott notes that it is said to have received interpretations ‘which positively exceed 400.’ Jowett is more explicit, and affirms, ‘It has received 430 interpretations;’ but in what sense or on what authority nothing is indicated. Lightfoot, however, is more moderate, and speaks of only 250 or 300; but he, equally with the others, conveys the impression that the interpretations all differ from each other, which is by no means the case. It is apparently a remark of Winer, in his Excursus on the passage, which has occasioned this manner of speech. He says that some had set forth, in separate publications, varias et antiquorum et recentioram theologorum explicationes (ducentae fere sunt et quinquaginta); and he refers in a note particularly to a person of the name of Keil who had done so, and Weigaud, who had brought together 243 interpretations. But these various expositions were not all different; there were so many interpreters, but nothing like so many interpretations. Winer himself coincides with Keil; and among English interpreters, a great many are substantially agreed. If the same mode were adopted with other passages, there is scarcely a text of any difficulty in the New Testament, on which hundreds of interpretations might not be produced.) A very considerable number, however, are manifestly fanciful and arbitrary; and among recent commentators of note there has been a substantial agreement in regard to the leading thoughts presented in the words, a difference chiefly discovering itself in the application. ‘A mediator is not of one’—a general proposition; the office from its very nature bespeaks more than one party, between whom it is the part of the mediator to negotiate—hence (though this is left to be inferred, suggested rather than indicated), involving a certain contingency as to the fulfilment of the contract, since this depends upon the fidelity of both parties engaging in it. ‘But God is one,’—the God, namely, who gave to Abraham the promise; lie gave it of His own free and sovereign goodness, therefore it depends for its fulfilment solely on Him, and as such is sure to the seed, since the oneness which belongs to His being, equally belongs to His character and purposes. That sort of distance, or diversity of state and mind, implied in the work of mediation, is totally awanting here; every thing hangs on the will and efficient power of the God of the promise. But then the thought naturally arises, that to bring in, subsequent to the promise, a covenant requiring mediation, and consequently involving dependence on other wills than one, is fraught with danger to the promise, and renders its fulfilment after all uncertain. This is the thought which the apostle raises in the form of a question in the next verse, and answers negatively by pointing to the different purposes for which law and promise were respectively given. Galatians 3:21. ‘Is the law then against the promises of God? (promises in the plural, with reference, not only to the frequent repetitions of the word of promise, Genesis 12:7, Genesis 15:5, Genesis 15:18, Genesis 17:1-27, Genesis 22:1-24, etc., but also to the different blessings exhibited in it). God forbid! for if a law were given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been of the law.’ The expression, νόμος ὁ δυνάμενος (the article with a participle following the noun serving to define and limit the sense in which the idea in the noun is to be understood, Winer, Gr., sec. 20, 4), means precisely a law which could, or, a law such as could, possess the power of giving life. The apostle had already said that the covenant of grace or promise bestowed life (Galatians 3:11), and in the previous chapter had enlarged upon it with special reference to his own experience; and he now adds, that if this inestimable boon for a perishing world could have been obtained by a legal medium, this would certainly have been chosen; for in that case man would only have been enjoined to do what lay within the reach of his capacities and powers, and the humiliation, and shame, and agony of the cross had been unnecessary. But the thing was impossible; to give life to a sinful, perishing world is essentially Divine work; if it comes at all it must come as the fruit of God’s free grace and quickening energy. Whatever ends, therefore, the law might be intended to serve, this could not possibly be one of them; and to look to it for such a purpose was entirely to mistake its design, and seek from it what it was powerless to yield. Not, however, after the fashion of Jowett, who represents the meaning thus: ‘The powerlessness of the law was the actual fact; in modern language it had become effete; it belonged to a different state of the world; nothing spiritual or human remained in it.’ What the apostle means is, that, for the object here in view, it never was otherwise: as regards life-giving, the law in its very nature was powerless. Galatians 3:22. ‘But on the contrary (ἀλλὰ, a strong adversative, and requiring more than a simple but to bring out its force) the Scripture shut up all under sin’—συνέκλεισεν, not shut together, as remarked by Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, against Bengel, as if the συν had respect to the numbers embraced in the action, and whom it coerced into one and the same doomed condition. It merely strengthens the meaning of the verb, so as to indicate the completeness of the action—the closing in, or shutting up under sin was, so to speak, on every side. And this is further strengthened by the τὰ πάντα, in the neuter, as if he would say, men and all about them. (Elsewhere, however, he uses the masculine, in a very similar declaration.) (Romans 11:32.) The act is justly represented as done by the Scripture, not by the law—for the law by itself merely required holiness, and forbade or condemned sin; but the Scriptures of the Old Testament, or God in these, had (as already indicated, Galatians 2:16, Galatians 3:10-11) pronounced all to be guilty of sin, and so had, in a manner, shut them up without exception under this, as their proper state or condition—marked them off as violators of law. Not, however, for the purpose of leaving them there, but ‘that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.’ The word promise is here evidently used concretely for all that the word of promise contained—the blessing of life and salvation; which is again said to be ‘of faith,’ ἐκ πίστεως, out of this as the source whence it is derived, but of faith as related to Jesus Christ, and finding all its sufficiency in Him. And to render the matter still more explicit, to shut out the possibility of the good being supposed to come through any other channel than faith, it is added, ‘to them that have faith,’ or believe—faith’s promised blessing is realized simply through the exercise of faith. Galatians 3:22. ‘But before the faith came’—faith, that is, in the specific sense just mentioned, but with reference more particularly to its objective reality in Christ, with which it is in a manner identified—‘we were kept in ward (such is the exact and proper meaning of ἐφρουρούμεθα, Vulg. custodiebamur; kept ὥστε ἐν τειχίω τινί, Chrysostom), shut up under the law for the faith which was going to be revealed.’ The apostle here associates himself with believers in legal times, personifies the entire body and succession of such, and represents them as in the hands of a sort of jailer, who by reason of their transgressions had them at his mercy, or rather in strict and jealous surveillance, waiting the time of their deliverance, when it should be given them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So far from being able to set them free from their guilt and liability to punishment, the law was their perpetual monitor in respect to these—bound these upon them, but only that they might the more earnestly and believingly look for the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, as the only way of escape. The εἰς, for—for the faith which was going to be revealed—is to be taken ethically, denoting the aim or destination which the law, in this respect, was intended to serve: ‘to the intent, that we should pass over into the state of faith.’ (Meyer.) And the μέλλουσαν, as Meyer also notes, stands before the πίστιν, an inversion of the usual order, because the subsequent manifestation of faith in the future was set over against the existing state, in which it was still wanting. Galatians 3:24. The apostle now draws the proper conclusion from this wardship under law, ‘so that the law has become (γέγονεν) our pedagogue for (in respect to) Christ, in order that we might be justified by faith.’ The rendering in the authorized version, ‘our schoolmaster,’ does certainly not give the exact idea of παιδαγωγὸς; for it suggests simply teaching or instruction, which was not properly the part of the ancient pedagogue, but that rather of the slave, who had to take charge of the boy on his way to and from the school, and to watch over his behaviour when at play. The pedagogue was the guardian and moral trainer of the boy till he arrived at puberty. And this corresponds to the office of the law, which, in the respect now under consideration, was not so much to teach as to discipline, to restrain, and direct to the one grand aim—namely, Christ, ‘the end of the law for righteousness.’ (Romans 10:4.) The old Latin translation, however, gave the same sense as our English Testament; and Ambrose refers to it with approbation: Paidagogus enim, sicut etiam interpretatio Latina habet, doctor est pueri; qui utique imperfectae aetati non potest perfecta adhibere praecepta, quae sustinere non queat. (Ep. Classis, II. lxxi. 2.) Such a rendering, and the comment founded on it, may fairly be regarded as evidence, that a certain amount of instruction was not unusually communicated by the pedagogue to the boy under his charge—for Ambrose could scarcely be ignorant whether such was the case or not; but this was certainly not the predominant idea; and, as applied by Ambrose, it serves to give a wrong turn to the allusion here. Instruction, of course, respecting moral truth and duty, was inseparable from the law; but it is the strict, binding, and imperative form in which this was given that the apostle has in view, and, consequently, not so much the amount of knowledge imparted, as the restraining and disciplinary yoke it laid upon those subject to it. The law would not have men to rest in itself, but to go on to Christ, where alone they could get what they needed, and enjoy the liberty which is suitable to persons in the maturity of spiritual life. Galatians 3:25-26. But now that the faith has come, we are no longer under a pedagogue; for ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,’—the advance from the nonage state, which required the services of a pedagogue, to that of comparative maturity, in which the youth is able to take charge of himself. Ye are sons, υἱοὶ—not τέκνα, merely, not even παίδες, in a mere boyish condition—but sons, with the full powers and privileges that belong to such; and this ‘through the faith in Christ Jesus,’ that is, through the faith which rests in Christ, and brings the soul into living fellowship with Him. In plain terms, the law as an external bond and discipline is gone, because as partakers of Christ we have risen to a position in which it is no longer needed—the Spirit of the law is within. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: 04.19. GAL_4:1-7 ======================================================================== Galatians 4:1-7 ‘Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs in nothing from a bond-servant, though he be lord of all; But is under guardians and stewards, until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world. But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, That He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. But because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father. So then thou art no more a bond-servant, but a son; and if a son, an heir also through God.’ (The correct text here seems to be κληρονόμος διὰ θεοῦ, which is the reading of א A B C, Vulg., Cop, and many of the Fathers.) It is unnecessary to enter into a detailed explanation of these verses, for they are merely a fresh illustration (under a slightly diversified figure) of the thought expressed in vers. Galatians 3:24-26 of the preceding chapter. In this respect, however, they are important, as they unfold more distinctly how the transition is made from the legal to the Christian state, not only without any danger to the moral condition of those who make it, but to their great gain. The figure is still that of a child (νήπιός), but a child with reference to the inheritance to which he has been born, not to his personal liberty. However sure his title to the inheritance, and however direct his relation to it, he is still kept from the proper fruition of it, during the period of his childhood, because wanting the mind necessary to make the proper use of it: therefore, placed under guardians and stewards, in a virtual position of servitude, till the time set by his father for his entering on the possession. Of a quite similar nature, the apostle affirms, was the state of men in pre-Christian times: ‘We too,’ says he, identifying himself with them, ‘when we were children, were kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world’—τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου. It is a strong mode of expression, but intention ally made so, for the purpose of shaming the Galatians out of their backsliding position. The term στοιχεῖον originally signifies a pin or peg, then a letter, a component part or element of a word, then an element of any sort—whether physically, in respect to the composition of material nature, or morally, in respect to what goes to constitute a system of truth or duty. Once only in New Testament Scripture is the word employed with reference to the physical sphere of things—namely, in 2 Peter 3:10, where ‘the elements’ are spoken of as melting with fervent heat under the action of that purifying fire which is one day to wrap the world in flames. Misled by this passage, and by the common use of the word in this sense, most of the Fathers took it here also in a kind of physical sense, as pointing to the festivals, such as new moons and sabbatical days, which are ruled by the course of the sun and moon (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Ambrose), or to the worship of the stars and other objects in nature (Augustine), in which they have been followed by a few moderns. But this is unsuitable to the connection which, however it may include a respect also to heathenish forms of worship, undoubtedly has to do mainly with the observances of Judaism, which had no immediate relation to the powers or elements of nature, but were strictly services of God’s appointment. It is necessary, therefore, to take the word here in an ethical sense, and to understand it of the elementary forms or rudiments of a religious state—the A, B, C, in a manner, of men’s moral relationship to God. The apostle says, the world’s rudiments, not simply those of the covenant people; for, while the ritual of the old covenant was specially for the seed of Israel, it was never meant to be for them exclusively; others also were invited to share in its services and blessings; and, such as it was, it formed the best, indeed, the sole divinely authorized form of religious homage and worship for the world in pre-Christian times. In it the world had, whether consciously or not, the style of worship really adapted to its state of spiritual non-age. Besides, as it was not merely, nor even chiefly, to Jewish Christians that the apostle was writing, but to those who are presently said to have formerly done service to false gods (Galatians 4:8), an allusion is made, in the very form of the expression, to the religious rites of heathendom, which, in their prevailing carnality and outwardness, had a point of affinity with those of the law. The mode of speech is purposely made comprehensive of heathen as well as Jewish ceremonialism. And though, as Meyer notes, Paul had to do only with backslidings of a Judaistic nature, yet this does not prevent him, with the view of making his readers more thoroughly ashamed of the trammelled condition to which they had returned, from designating it in such a manner as to bring it under one idea, and place it in the same category, with the worship of heathendom. While there was a spiritual element in the one which was wanting in the other, it was not on this account that the Galatians had fallen back upon it, but rather for the sake of that outwardness which was common to both (Galatians 4:10)—a palpable proof, therefore, of their still low, childish tone of thought and feeling. The expression στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου is found much in the same sense at Colossians 2:8. Having noticed this proof of inferiority or servitude in pre-Christian times, the apostle proceeds (Galatians 4:4) to speak of the time and mode of deliverance: ‘When the fulness of the time was come (τὸ πλήρωμα, what filled up, or gave completeness, namely, to the preparatory period of the world’s history, parallel therefore to ἄχρι τῆς προθεσμίας τοῦ πατρός, in Galatians 4:2), God sent forth from Himself (ἐξαπέστειλεν, denoting both pre-existence in Christ and close proximity to the Father) His Son, born of a woman, born under law.’ Born is here the more exact equivalent to γενόμενον, rather than made—nothing being indicated by the expression but the fact of our Lord’s coming into the world with the nature, and after the manner, of men. The birth, we know, was the result of an altogether peculiar, supernatural operation of Godhead; but that belongs to an earlier stage than the one here referred to by the apostle, which has to do simply with Christ’s actual appearance among men. Born under law—not become man merely, but become also subject to the bonds and obligations of law. The definite article is better omitted in English before law, as it is in the Greek (ὑπὸ νόμον); for, while special respect is no doubt had to the law as imposed on the Jews, yet the meaning is not, as too many (including Meyer, Alford, Ellicott) would put on it, that our Lord appeared as a Jew among Jews, and entered into the relations of His countrymen. For the whole nature and bearings of His work are here spoken of—His salvation in its entire compass and efficacy for mankind; and so, not what was distinctly Jewish must have been contemplated in the bond which lay upon Him, but the common burden of humanity. All this, however, was in the law, rightly considered, which was revealed at Sinai; the heart and substance of its requirements of duty, and (implied) threatenings against sin, relate to Gentile as well as Jew; they belong to man as man; and no otherwise was redemption possible for mankind than by our Lord’s perfect submission, in their behalf, to its demands and penalties. (Compare the comment on Romans 3:20, where there is noted a precisely similar fulness of reference in what is said of law.) His atoning death, therefore, was, in this point of view, the climax of His surrender to the claims of law; as said in Hebrews 10:10, ‘By the which will (fulfilled even unto the bearing of an accursed death) we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’ The result, as stated in the words that follow here, has a threefold issue, ‘in order that He might redeem (ἐξαγοράσῃ, might buy off by paying what was due, as from a state of hopeless servitude) those that were under the law; [and this] in order that they might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons (not, with Chrysostom, Theodoret, and not a few moderns, that ye are sons, or in proof and token of your being such, but because, or since ye are so, on the ground of your having received this place and privilege), God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father.’ All follows by natural consequence from the spiritual union through faith of the soul with Christ: this brings, first, deliverance from the law’s curse, which falls into abeyance by the removal of sin; then, it secures admission into the family of which Christ is the head, makes them sons after the pattern of His sonship; and, finally, because the soul and spirit here must correspond with the condition, the Spirit of sonship, with its sense of joyous freedom and enlargement, comes forth to rule in their hearts. Hence, as the apostle concludes in Galatians 4:7, having risen to such a condition of sonship, and become endowed with the spirit proper to it, they could be no more bondmen; they were free, yet not to do what was contrary to, but only what was in accordance with, the spirit and tenor of the law. This latter point is brought out distinctly in another passage—the last we select from this epistle. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: 04.20. GAL_5:13-15. ======================================================================== Galatians 5:13-15. ‘For ye were called for freedom, brethren; only [use] not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by your love serve (do the part of bondmen to) one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.’ The thought expressed in these words is much more fully unfolded in the epistle to the Romans, so that a few remarks here may suffice. The for at the commencement connects the passage with the wish expressed in the preceding verse, that the zealots of the law, who had been disturbing the Galatians, might be cut off, as tending to mar the very end of their Christian calling. ‘For ye were called for freedom’— ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ, the purpose or aim for this as your proper condition, called that you might be free. (Winer, sec. 48, c.) Yet this freedom, from its very nature, involves a species of service—if free in one respect, bound in another—bound by love to serve one another, and, of course, also to serve God. He therefore defines the freedom: ‘only not the liberty (μόνον τὴν ἐλευθερίαν) which is for an occasion to the flesh’—so the sentence might be construed, taking μόνον μὴ τὴν ἐλευ in opposition to the previous sentence, and explanatory of it; but it is better perhaps to regard this part of the verse as elliptical, supplying ποιεῖτε, or some such verb, and thus giving the sentence an independent, hortatory meaning, ‘only use not your liberty,’ etc. It is a liberty, the apostle would have them to understand, very different from an unrestrained license, or fleshly indulgence; and the reason follows, that though the external bond and discipline of the law is gone, its spirit ever lives, the spirit of love, which Christians are most especially bound to cherish and exhibit. In this respect, the law speaks as much as ever to the conscience of the believer, and can no more be set aside than the great principles of God’s moral government can change. The explanation of Meyer here is excellent: ‘The question, how Paul could justly say of the whole law, that it is fulfilled through the love of one’s neighbour, must not be answered by taking νόμος to signify the Christian law (Koppe), nor by understanding it only of the moral law (Estius and others), or of the second table of the Decalogue (Beza and others), or of every divinely revealed law in general (Schott); for ὁ πᾶς νόμος can mean nothing else, from the connection of the entire epistle, than the whole law of Moses—but by placing one’s-self on the elevated spiritual level of the apostle, from which he looked down upon all the other commands of the law, and saw them so profoundly subordinated to the law of love, that whosoever has fulfilled this command, is not to be regarded otherwise than as having fulfilled all. Contemplated from this point of view, every thing which does not accord with the precept of love, falls so entirely into the background, (Romans 13:8-10.) that it can no more come into consideration, but the whole law appears to have been already fulfilled in love.’ Brotherly love alone was mentioned by the apostle, because what is here specially in view was the relation of Christians to each other—their imperative duty to serve one another by the mutual exercise of love, instead of, as he says in Galatians 5:15, biting and devouring one another. But no one can fail to understand, that what holds of love in this lower direction, equally holds of it in the higher; indeed, rightly understood, the one, as stated by Meyer, may be said to include the other. Galatians 5:13-15. ‘For ye were called for freedom, brethren; only [use] not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by your love serve (do the part of bondmen to) one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.’ The thought expressed in these words is much more fully unfolded in the epistle to the Romans, so that a few remarks here may suffice. The for at the commencement connects the passage with the wish expressed in the preceding verse, that the zealots of the law, who had been disturbing the Galatians, might be cut off, as tending to mar the very end of their Christian calling. ‘For ye were called for freedom’— ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ, the purpose or aim for this as your proper condition, called that you might be free. (Winer, sec. 48, c.) Yet this freedom, from its very nature, involves a species of service—if free in one respect, bound in another—bound by love to serve one another, and, of course, also to serve God. He therefore defines the freedom: ‘only not the liberty (μόνον τὴν ἐλευθερίαν) which is for an occasion to the flesh’—so the sentence might be construed, taking μόνον μὴ τὴν ἐλευ in opposition to the previous sentence, and explanatory of it; but it is better perhaps to regard this part of the verse as elliptical, supplying ποιεῖτε, or some such verb, and thus giving the sentence an independent, hortatory meaning, ‘only use not your liberty,’ etc. It is a liberty, the apostle would have them to understand, very different from an unrestrained license, or fleshly indulgence; and the reason follows, that though the external bond and discipline of the law is gone, its spirit ever lives, the spirit of love, which Christians are most especially bound to cherish and exhibit. In this respect, the law speaks as much as ever to the conscience of the believer, and can no more be set aside than the great principles of God’s moral government can change. The explanation of Meyer here is excellent: ‘The question, how Paul could justly say of the whole law, that it is fulfilled through the love of one’s neighbour, must not be answered by taking νόμος to signify the Christian law (Koppe), nor by understanding it only of the moral law (Estius and others), or of the second table of the Decalogue (Beza and others), or of every divinely revealed law in general (Schott); for ὁ πᾶς νόμος can mean nothing else, from the connection of the entire epistle, than the whole law of Moses—but by placing one’s-self on the elevated spiritual level of the apostle, from which he looked down upon all the other commands of the law, and saw them so profoundly subordinated to the law of love, that whosoever has fulfilled this command, is not to be regarded otherwise than as having fulfilled all. Contemplated from this point of view, every thing which does not accord with the precept of love, falls so entirely into the background, (Romans 13:8-10.) that it can no more come into consideration, but the whole law appears to have been already fulfilled in love.’ Brotherly love alone was mentioned by the apostle, because what is here specially in view was the relation of Christians to each other—their imperative duty to serve one another by the mutual exercise of love, instead of, as he says in Galatians 5:15, biting and devouring one another. But no one can fail to understand, that what holds of love in this lower direction, equally holds of it in the higher; indeed, rightly understood, the one, as stated by Meyer, may be said to include the other. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: 04.21. ROM_2:13-15. ======================================================================== Romans 2:13-15. ‘For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things of the law (viz., the things prescribed in it), these, though they have not the law, are to themselves the law, being such as shew the law’s work written in their hearts, their con science jointly bearing witness, and their thoughts (or judgments) among one another accusing or also excusing.’ I take this to be a section by itself, and cannot concur with those commentators (including, certainly, some men of note—Calvin, Koppe, Harless, Hodge), who would connect what is said in Romans 2:14-15 about Gentiles doing the law, and being a law to themselves, not with the immediately preceding verse, but with the statement in Romans 2:12, that those who have been without the written law shall be judged without it, and those who have been under such law shall be judged by it. This seems arbitrary and unnatural, and could only be justified if the statement in the immediately preceding verse were obviously parenthetical, and incapable of forming a suitable transition to the assertions that follow. But such is by no means the case. The apostle’s line of thought proceeds in the most regular and orderly manner. There are (he virtually says) grounds for judgment in the case of all, whether they have been placed under the written law or not, and ample materials for condemnation; for the mere privilege of hearing that law does not give any one a title to be called righteous in God’s sight; this does not make the essential difference between one man and another, which turns mainly on their relation to the doing of what is required; the doers alone are justified, and though the heathen have not been hearers like the Jews, they may be viewed with reference to doing. It is no proper objection to this view of the connection, that it seems to bring in out of due place the subject of justification, and to represent the apostle as indicating the possibility of some among the heathen being justified by their works. Justification, in the full Gospel sense of the term, as acquittal from all guilt, and being treated as righteous, does not come into consideration here. The question contemplated is a narrower one—namely, what, in regard to particular requirements of the law, forms the proper ground of approval, or constitutes a good character? Is it hearing or doing? Doing, says the apostle; and then goes on to add that, on this account, Gentiles may justly be placed in the same category with Jews. ‘For when’—here comes his matter of fact proof or reason—‘Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things of the law, these are to themselves the law.’ It is not said of the Gentiles as a whole that they do this, but only when they do it, or in so far as any of them do it—implying, no doubt, that what is done by some may and should be done by others, yet this only as matter of inference. The want of the article, therefore, has its meaning—not τὰ ἔθνη, but merely ἔθνη; for, though the latter is sometimes undoubtedly used of the Gentiles in their totality (as at ch. Romans 3:29, Romans 9:24), yet this is only when the things affirmed are applicable to them universally, which is palpably not the case here. The statement is indefinite, both as to what proportion of the heathen might be characterized as doers of the law, and to what extent they were so. To do the things of the law is indeed to do what the law prescribes (x. 5; Galatians 3:12); but (here we concur with Dr Hodge) ‘whether complete or partial obedience is intended depends on the context. The man who pays his debts, honours his parents, is kind to the poor, does the things of the law; for these are things which the law prescribes. And this is all the argument of the apostle requires, or his known doctrine allows us to understand by the phrase, in the present instance.’ Indeed, that such is his meaning, we have only to look to the examples which the apostle himself adduces a few verses afterwards, which include merely the law’s precepts against stealing, adultery, and sacrilege; and the qualification which the whole current and tenor of his argument oblige us to put upon what he states here as to the doing of the law, confirms the perfectly similar qualification that we have shewn, ought to be put upon the justifying spoken of in the verse immediately preceding. It has respect simply to the actions which, in a legal point of view, are worthy of approval on the one side, or of condemnation on the other. And as regards the performance of what is ascribed to such heathen, the law-making (we are told) is of themselves—that is to say, it is the dictate of their own instinctive sense of right and wrong, forming, to a certain extent, a substitute for the written law; so also the law-doing is by nature (φύσει, causal dative, and undoubtedly to be coupled with the doing), it is such as arises from the impulse and energy of the moral faculty, naturally implanted in them, as contradistinguished from the discipline of a formal legislation, or the gift of sanctifying grace. The description in Romans 2:15 is to be taken as a further characterizing of the heathen in question, with reference to the power of being to themselves as the law, and observing it: ‘They are such as shew,’ in their behaviour outwardly exhibit, ‘the law’s work written in their hearts;’ so it is best to put the apostle’s statement in English, rather than ‘the work of the law written,’ which leaves it doubtful whether what is said to be written is the law or the law’s work. The construction in the original leaves no doubt that it is the latter—τὸ ἔργον τοῦ νόμου γραπτὸν, the law’s work written. This, however, according to some, is all one with the law itself, ‘the work of the law’ being regarded as a mere periphrase for ‘the law.’ But this is not tenable; nor is it quite correct to say with Harless, (‘Ethik,’ sec. 8.) that the work of the law is accusing and judging; so that the import of the apostle’s statement respecting the heathen comes to be, ‘They accuse themselves in their hearts and judge themselves, thereby shewing that what is the work of the positive law is written upon their hearts.’ This is to make what ought to be regarded as but the incidental and secondary effect of the law, its primary and distinctive aim. Its more immediate aim, consequently its proper work, is to teach and command; its work is done, if people know aright what they should do, and yield themselves to the obligation of doing it—failing this, it of course becomes a witness against them, a complaining and judging authority. But when the law’s work simply is spoken of, it is the direct aim and intention of the law that should be mainly understood: by doing the things of the law, they shew that they have prescribed for themselves as right what the law prescribes, and imposed on themselves the obligation which the law imposes. And then, in fitting correspondence with this testimony without, the testimony of a morally upright conduct, is the testimony of conscience within—‘their conscience co- testifying’ (so it is literally, συμμαρτυρούσης, testifying along with, viz., with the practical operation of the law appearing in the conduct), ‘and among one another, their thoughts accusing or also excusing,’ defending. The μεταξὺ ἀλλήλων, as is now generally allowed, is most exactly rendered by ‘among one another,’ μεταξὺ being taken as a preposition. But what is the reference of the ‘one another?’ Does it point to the diverse sentiments and judgments, sometimes swaying one way, sometimes another, in the minds of the individual? Or, to a like diversity among different individuals? I am inclined, with Meyer, to take it rather in the latter respect; both because, if the reference had been to the thoughts in the same mind, the τῶν λογισμῶν would naturally have been placed before μεταξὺ ἀλλήλων (the natural order being then, their thoughts among one another, or their thoughts alternately, accusing and excusing); and also because the αὐτῶν, in the preceding clause, and the ἀλλήλων, in this, appear to stand in relation to each other—the former referring to those who do the works of the law, or have its work written in their heart, conscience therein concurring and approving; and the other to the heathen generally who, in their thoughts and judgments, were ever passing sentence upon the things done around them, and thereby shewed that they had a judging power in their bosoms, according to which they accused what was wrong, and excused or defended what was right. It is so put, however, that the accusing was much more frequently exercised than the other—‘accusing or also (perhaps) excusing.’ In other words, the moral sentiment, when working properly, and exercising itself upon the doings of men generally, found more materials for condemnation than for justification and approval. This, however, is implied rather than distinctly stated; and the leading purport of the apostle’s announcement is that, beside the approving verdict given by conscience, in the case of those who understood and did what was required in the law, there was ever manifesting itself a morally judging power among the heathen, condemning what was wrong in behaviour, and vindicating what was right. But all, of course, only within certain limits, and with many imperfections and errors in detail. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: 04.22. ROM_2:19-20. ======================================================================== Romans 2:19-20. ‘Now we know, that whatsoever things the law saith, it speaks to them who are in the law; in order that every mouth may be stopt, and all the world become liable to punishment with God. Because by works of law shall no flesh be justified before Him; for through the law is the knowledge of sin.’ We have here the more direct and immediate conclusions which the apostle draws from the evidence he had furnished—that mankind at large, Jews as well as Gentiles, are alike under sin. The later and more specific evidence adduced had reference to the Jews; for, in respect to them, proud as they were of their distinctive privileges, and conscious of their superiority to the heathen, the difficulty was greatest in carrying the conviction he was seeking to establish. In their case, therefore, he did not rest satisfied with general charges of shortcoming and transgression, but produced a series of quotations from their own Scriptures, chiefly from the Psalms, but partly also from the prophets. And then he proceeds to draw his conclusion: ‘Now we know (it is a matter on which we are all agreed), that whatsoever things the law saith (λέγει), it speaks (λαλεῖ) to them who are in the law.’ There can, be no reasonable doubt that the apostle here uses the term law as virtually comprehensive of the Old Testament Scriptures; for it is on the ground of certain passages in these Scriptures that the inferential statement is now made; and the attempts of some commentators to take the expression in a narrower sense (Ammon, Van Hengel, Wardlaw, etc.), have a strained and unnatural appearance. Yet there is no reason why we should not (as, with more or less clearness has been indicated by various expositors) regard the expression as indirectly referring also to the law in the stricter sense. For, those Scriptures were the writings of prophetical men, whose primary calling it was to expound and vindicate the law; and hence, in the declarations they set forth respecting men’s relation to the demands of law, they but served as the exponents of its testimony; virtually, it was the law itself speaking through them. Moses, in this respect, might be said to be represented by the prophets, not to stand apart from them. (See at p. 198.) Whatever, then, the law thus says concerning sin and transgression, it speaks or addresses to those who are in it; that is, who stand within its bonds and obligations. The law is regarded as the sphere within which the parties in question lived; and to these, as the parties with whom it had more immediately to do, it utters its testimony—primarily to them, though by no means exclusively; for, as there was nothing arbitrary in its requirements—as, on the contrary, they proceeded on the essential relations between God and man, the testimony admitted of a world-wide application. The argument, indeed, is here à fortiori; if the law could pronounce such charges of guilt on those who had the advantage of its light, and the privileges with which it was associated, how much more might like charges be brought against those who lived beyond its pale! Hence, the apostle makes the next part of his conclusion—the design or bearing of the law’s testimony respecting actual sin quite universal: ‘in order that every mouth may be stopt (Jew as well as Gentile, and Gentile as well as Jew), and all the world become liable to punishment with God.’ Such is the exact force of the expression used here, ὑπόδικος τῷ θεῷ; it denotes one who, on account of misdemeanours, is in an actionable state, liable to be proceeded against with a view to the infliction of deserved penalties, amenable to justice. The general idea is expressed in the epithet guilty of the authorized version, but liable to punishment is preferable, as giving more distinct expression to it; and the liability is to God (as the dative τῷ θεῷ implies); it is He who has a right to exact the penalty; though, to avoid harshness in the translation, we have put, liable to punishment with God. The language of the apostle here has appeared somewhat too strong to some commentators; they cannot understand how it should be spoken of as the proper aim of the law in its announcements to stop every mouth, as culprits who have nothing to say for themselves in the Divine court of justice, and to bring all in as liable to punishment; therefore they would soften the form of the expression, and render, not in order that such might happen, but so that, as a matter of fact, it has come to be. But this is to impair the natural import of the original (which has the usual telic particle, ἵνα), and is also unnecessary; for, while the apostle sets forth such universal conviction of guilt and liability to punishment as the aim of the law, there is no need for understanding him to mean more than its aim under one particular aspect—not its sole aim, nor even its more immediate and primary aim as a part of Divine revelation, but still an aim in the view of the Lawgiver, and, as the result very clearly shewed, one which, so far as it remained unaccomplished, rendered the work and mission of Christ practically fruitless. Where the law failed to produce conviction of sin and a sense of deserved condemnation, there also failed the requisite preparation for the faith of Christ, and still continues to do so. In Romans 3:20 we have the ultimate ground or reason of the law’s deliverance upon the guilt of mankind, and their desert of punishment: ‘Because by works of law shall no flesh be justified before Him; for through the law is the knowledge of sin.’ The διότι at the commencement has no other meaning in New Testament Scripture, nor elsewhere, when used as an illative particle, than because, or for this reason. In following Beza and some other authorities for the rendering therefore, our translators have the great body of the more exact interpreters against them—though they have also the support of some men of solid learning (Pareus, Rosenmüller, Schöttgen, and others). But the apostle is not here drawing a conclusion; he is grounding the conclusion he had already drawn: the law has brought in a verdict against all men, and declared them amenable to the awards of Divine justice, because by works of law shall no flesh be justified before God—not in such a way is this great boon, as a matter of fact, attainable. The same sentiment was uttered by the apostle, and almost in the same form of words, in one of his earliest discussions on the subject, and has already been considered. (See on Galatians 2:16.) It is substantially, as we there remarked, a re-assertion of the Psalmist’s declaration in Psalms 143:2; and it undoubtedly had respect, in its Old as well as New Testament form, to men’s obligations as made known in the revelation of law through Moses. It is of no moment, therefore, whether we put the expression simply, ‘works of law,’ as in the original, without the article, or with the article, ‘works of the law’; for the works meant must be those which are required in the law, with which the apostle’s readers were familiar, and to which, as contained in Old Testament Scripture, he had just been referring. But here, as elsewhere in his discussions on this subject, the apostle has pre-eminent respect to what had the place of pre-eminent importance in the law itself—namely, its grand summary of moral and religious obligation in the two tables. This is clearly enough proved—if any specific proof were needed—by the examples which he has already given of what he means by transgressions of the law (ch. Romans 2:21-24, Romans 3:10-18), and subsequently by the positive characteristics, both general and particular, which he connects with the law (ch. Romans 7:7, Romans 7:12, Romans 7:14, Romans 8:4, Romans 13:8-10). This is the one distinction of any moment; all others seem at once unnatural and superfluous. As so contemplated, the law had nothing in it peculiarly Jewish; it was but the varied application and embodiment of the great principle of love to God and man; and, judged by these, as every man, be he Jew or Gentile, is destined to be judged, no mortal man, we are assured, can stand the test; justification by works of law is a thing impossible. And the reason follows—‘for through the law is the knowledge of sin’ (ἐπίγνωσις, is more than γνῶσις, accurate knowledge and discernment): the disclosures it makes to those who rightly understand and conscientiously apply it, is not their possession of the perfect moral excellence which it enjoins, but a manifold cherishing and exhibition of the sin which it condemns. The standard of duty which it sets up is never by fallen man practically realized; and the more thoughtfully any one looks into the nature of its claims, and becomes acquainted with the ‘exceeding breadth’ of its requirements, the more always does the conviction force itself upon him, that righteousness belongeth not to him, but guilt, and shame, and confusion of face. What is here announced only as a general principle is elsewhere formally taken up by the apostle, and at some length expounded. (See at ch. 7:7, seq.; also Galatians 3:19, seq.) But having now distinctly asserted the impossibility of obtaining justification by works of law, he goes on to shew how the grace of God has provided for its being obtained without such works, through the mediation of Christ, in behalf of all who believe on Him; and then returns to present, under other points of view, the different relations and bearings of the law. Romans 2:19-20. ‘Now we know, that whatsoever things the law saith, it speaks to them who are in the law; in order that every mouth may be stopt, and all the world become liable to punishment with God. 20. Because by works of law shall no flesh be justified before Him; for through the law is the knowledge of sin.’ We have here the more direct and immediate conclusions which the apostle draws from the evidence he had furnished—that mankind at large, Jews as well as Gentiles, are alike under sin. The later and more specific evidence adduced had reference to the Jews; for, in respect to them, proud as they were of their distinctive privileges, and conscious of their superiority to the heathen, the difficulty was greatest in carrying the conviction he was seeking to establish. In their case, therefore, he did not rest satisfied with general charges of shortcoming and transgression, but produced a series of quotations from their own Scriptures, chiefly from the Psalms, but partly also from the prophets. And then he proceeds to draw his conclusion: ‘Now we know (it is a matter on which we are all agreed), that whatsoever things the law saith (λέγει), it speaks (λαλεῖ) to them who are in the law.’ There can, be no reasonable doubt that the apostle here uses the term law as virtually comprehensive of the Old Testament Scriptures; for it is on the ground of certain passages in these Scriptures that the inferential statement is now made; and the attempts of some commentators to take the expression in a narrower sense (Ammon, Van Hengel, Wardlaw, etc.), have a strained and unnatural appearance. Yet there is no reason why we should not (as, with more or less clearness has been indicated by various expositors) regard the expression as indirectly referring also to the law in the stricter sense. For, those Scriptures were the writings of prophetical men, whose primary calling it was to expound and vindicate the law; and hence, in the declarations they set forth respecting men’s relation to the demands of law, they but served as the exponents of its testimony; virtually, it was the law itself speaking through them. Moses, in this respect, might be said to be represented by the prophets, not to stand apart from them. (See at p. 198.) Whatever, then, the law thus says concerning sin and transgression, it speaks or addresses to those who are in it; that is, who stand within its bonds and obligations. The law is regarded as the sphere within which the parties in question lived; and to these, as the parties with whom it had more immediately to do, it utters its testimony—primarily to them, though by no means exclusively; for, as there was nothing arbitrary in its requirements—as, on the contrary, they proceeded on the essential relations between God and man, the testimony admitted of a world-wide application. The argument, indeed, is here à fortiori; if the law could pronounce such charges of guilt on those who had the advantage of its light, and the privileges with which it was associated, how much more might like charges be brought against those who lived beyond its pale! Hence, the apostle makes the next part of his conclusion—the design or bearing of the law’s testimony respecting actual sin quite universal: ‘in order that every mouth may be stopt (Jew as well as Gentile, and Gentile as well as Jew), and all the world become liable to punishment with God.’ Such is the exact force of the expression used here, ὑπόδικος τῷ θεῷ; it denotes one who, on account of misdemeanours, is in an actionable state, liable to be proceeded against with a view to the infliction of deserved penalties, amenable to justice. The general idea is expressed in the epithet guilty of the authorized version, but liable to punishment is preferable, as giving more distinct expression to it; and the liability is to God (as the dative τῷ θεῷ implies); it is He who has a right to exact the penalty; though, to avoid harshness in the translation, we have put, liable to punishment with God. The language of the apostle here has appeared somewhat too strong to some commentators; they cannot understand how it should be spoken of as the proper aim of the law in its announcements to stop every mouth, as culprits who have nothing to say for themselves in the Divine court of justice, and to bring all in as liable to punishment; therefore they would soften the form of the expression, and render, not in order that such might happen, but so that, as a matter of fact, it has come to be. But this is to impair the natural import of the original (which has the usual telic particle, ἵνα), and is also unnecessary; for, while the apostle sets forth such universal conviction of guilt and liability to punishment as the aim of the law, there is no need for understanding him to mean more than its aim under one particular aspect—not its sole aim, nor even its more immediate and primary aim as a part of Divine revelation, but still an aim in the view of the Lawgiver, and, as the result very clearly shewed, one which, so far as it remained unaccomplished, rendered the work and mission of Christ practically fruitless. Where the law failed to produce conviction of sin and a sense of deserved condemnation, there also failed the requisite preparation for the faith of Christ, and still continues to do so. In Romans 3:20 we have the ultimate ground or reason of the law’s deliverance upon the guilt of mankind, and their desert of punishment: ‘Because by works of law shall no flesh be justified before Him; for through the law is the knowledge of sin.’ The διότι at the commencement has no other meaning in New Testament Scripture, nor elsewhere, when used as an illative particle, than because, or for this reason. In following Beza and some other authorities for the rendering therefore, our translators have the great body of the more exact interpreters against them—though they have also the support of some men of solid learning (Pareus, Rosenmüller, Schöttgen, and others). But the apostle is not here drawing a conclusion; he is grounding the conclusion he had already drawn: the law has brought in a verdict against all men, and declared them amenable to the awards of Divine justice, because by works of law shall no flesh be justified before God—not in such a way is this great boon, as a matter of fact, attainable. The same sentiment was uttered by the apostle, and almost in the same form of words, in one of his earliest discussions on the subject, and has already been considered. (See on Galatians 2:16.) It is substantially, as we there remarked, a re-assertion of the Psalmist’s declaration in Psalms 143:2; and it undoubtedly had respect, in its Old as well as New Testament form, to men’s obligations as made known in the revelation of law through Moses. It is of no moment, therefore, whether we put the expression simply, ‘works of law,’ as in the original, without the article, or with the article, ‘works of the law’; for the works meant must be those which are required in the law, with which the apostle’s readers were familiar, and to which, as contained in Old Testament Scripture, he had just been referring. But here, as elsewhere in his discussions on this subject, the apostle has pre-eminent respect to what had the place of pre-eminent importance in the law itself—namely, its grand summary of moral and religious obligation in the two tables. This is clearly enough proved—if any specific proof were needed—by the examples which he has already given of what he means by transgressions of the law (ch. Romans 2:21-24, Romans 3:10-18), and subsequently by the positive characteristics, both general and particular, which he connects with the law (ch. Romans 7:7, Romans 7:12, Romans 7:14, Romans 8:4, Romans 13:8-10). This is the one distinction of any moment; all others seem at once unnatural and superfluous. As so contemplated, the law had nothing in it peculiarly Jewish; it was but the varied application and embodiment of the great principle of love to God and man; and, judged by these, as every man, be he Jew or Gentile, is destined to be judged, no mortal man, we are assured, can stand the test; justification by works of law is a thing impossible. And the reason follows—‘for through the law is the knowledge of sin’ (ἐπίγνωσις, is more than γνῶσις, accurate knowledge and discernment): the disclosures it makes to those who rightly understand and conscientiously apply it, is not their possession of the perfect moral excellence which it enjoins, but a manifold cherishing and exhibition of the sin which it condemns. The standard of duty which it sets up is never by fallen man practically realized; and the more thoughtfully any one looks into the nature of its claims, and becomes acquainted with the ‘exceeding breadth’ of its requirements, the more always does the conviction force itself upon him, that righteousness belongeth not to him, but guilt, and shame, and confusion of face. What is here announced only as a general principle is elsewhere formally taken up by the apostle, and at some length expounded. (See at ch. 7:7, seq.; also Galatians 3:19, seq.) But having now distinctly asserted the impossibility of obtaining justification by works of law, he goes on to shew how the grace of God has provided for its being obtained without such works, through the mediation of Christ, in behalf of all who believe on Him; and then returns to present, under other points of view, the different relations and bearings of the law. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 95: 04.23. ROM_3:31. ======================================================================== Romans 3:31. ‘Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid! on the contrary, we establish the law.’ This important utterance respecting the law comes as a sequel to the apostle’s formal announcement of the great truth, that justification before God is attainable for fallen men, not through the works of the law, but only through faith in the propitiation of Christ. The law, he had said, so far from affording a valid ground of justification, or a plea of righteousness, brings the knowledge of sin. Then, turning from the quarter whence salvation could not be found, to the manifested grace of God, by which it had been freely provided and offered alike to Jew and Gentile through faith in Christ, the apostle sees himself met with the objection, coming as from the Jewish point of view, ‘Do we then make void (καταργοῦμεν, do away with, abolish) the law through faith?’ So it might naturally seem to one who had been wont to associate with the law all his peculiar privileges and hopes. But the apostle indignantly rejects the idea, and says: ‘God forbid! On the contrary (ἀλλὰ, a strong adversative), we establish the law’—that is, we confirm it, give effect to its authority and obligation. But the question is how? In saying these words, does the apostle utter an independent sentence, and give a deliverance on the subject, without stopping to elucidate and prove it? Or is it rather the announcement of a general position, which he presently proceeds to make good from passages and examples out of Old Testament Scripture? The former view is implied in the present division of chapters, which places this weighty sentence at the close of chapter third, as if it formed a deliverance, provisional or ultimate, on the subject as already considered, not the announcement of a theme to be handled in what immediately follows. And such has been the prevailing view with a large class of commentators—with all, indeed, who have understood by law here, law in the stricter sense, and with reference more especially to the great moral obligations it imposed on men, whether they be Jew or Gentile. But several (Theodoret, Sender, Tholuck, etc.) would understand the term here of the Old Testament Scriptures generally; and some recent commentators, while holding it to refer to the distinctively Jewish law, with all its rites and ordinances, expound in a way not materially different from the others. So, for example, De Wette, Meyer, the latter of whom says, ‘This establishing is accomplished thus, that (See chap. 4.) the doctrine of Paul sets forth and proves how the justification of God’s grace through faith was already taught in the law, so that Paul and his companions did not come into conflict with the law, as if they sought by a new doctrine to do away with this and put it in abeyance, but, through their agreement with the law and proof of their doctrine out of it, they certify and confirm its validity.’ To the like effect, also, Alford, who thus presents the substance of the apostle’s statement, ‘That the law itself belonged to a covenant, whose original recipient was justified by faith, and whose main promise was the reception and blessing of the Gentiles.’ He adds, ‘Many commentators have taken this verse (being misled in some cases by its place at the end of the chapter) as standing by itself, and have gone into the abstract grounds why faith does not make void the law (or moral obedience); which, however true, have no place here; the design being to shew that the law itself contained this very doctrine, and was founded in the promise to Abraham on a covenant embracing Jews and Gentiles—and therefore was not degraded from its dignity by the doctrine, but rather established as a part of God’s dealings—consistent with, explaining, and explained by the Gospel. One does not, however, see how this can be said to establish the law—unless by the law were under stood the Old Testament Scriptures generally; and yet both Meyer and Alford repudiate that: they alike hold that law here must mean the Mosaic law. The fact that the law given by Moses was founded in the promise to Abraham, might well enough be said to accord with the apostle’s doctrine of justification by faith, and this doctrine might in consequence be affirmed not to invalidate the law, or not to interfere with the purpose for which it was given, but this does not come up to establishing the law. The apostle’s doctrine by itself no more established the law than God’s promise to Abraham did; and unless one takes into account the moral grounds on which the plan of God in this respect proceeds—namely, the provision it makes for the vindication of the law in the work of Christ and the experience of His people—neither the one nor the other could with any propriety be said to establish the law; they merely do not conflict with it, and provide what it was neither designed nor able to accomplish. It is a further objection to the same view, that the first verse of chap, iv., instead of being connected with the last verse of the preceding chapter by a γὰρ, for, as it naturally would have been if what follows had been a direct continuation of that verse, begins with a τί οὖν, what then?—a mode of commencement very unlike the introduction of a proof of what immediately precedes, or a consequence deduced from it—one rather that seems to point farther back, and to resume consideration of the leading topic in the third chapter—the subject of justification by faith. The deliverance, on the other hand, respecting the law given in Romans 3:31, has all the appearance of a passing declaration made to silence an obtrusive objection, but left over meanwhile for its fuller vindication, till the apostle had proceeded further in his course of argumentation. Taking the passage, then, in what appears to be both its natural sense and its proper connection, we regard the apostle as giving here a brief but emphatic statement on the relation of his doctrine of justification to the law; but, having still a good deal to advance in proof and illustration of the doctrine itself, he again for the present resumes his general theme, and leaves it to be gathered from the subsequent tenor of his discourse how, or in what sense, the law is established by the doctrine in question. Referring to the portions which most distinctly bear upon the point (Romans 5:12-21, Romans 6:1-23, Romans 7:1-25, Romans 8:1-4), we find the law established by being viewed as the revelation of God’s unchangeable righteousness—the violation of which has involved all in guilt and ruin, the fulfilment of which in Christ has re-opened for the fallen the way to peace and blessing, and the perfect agreement of which, in its great principles of moral obligation, with men’s inmost convictions of the pure and good, must ever impel them to seek after conformity to its requirements—impel them always the more the nearer they stand to God, and the more deeply they are imbued with the Spirit of His grace and love. The law and the Gospel, therefore, are the proper complements of each other; and, if kept in their respective places, will be found to lend mutual support and confirmation. So, substantially, the passage is understood by the great body of evangelical expositors, of whom we may take Calvin as a specimen: ‘When recourse is had to Christ, first, there is found in Him the complete righteousness of the law, which, through imputation, becomes ours also; then sanctification, whereby our hearts are formed to the observance of the law, which, though imperfect, strives towards its aim.’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 96: 04.24. ROM_5:12-21. ======================================================================== Romans 5:12-21. ‘Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and by means of sin, death, and so death extended unto all men, because all sinned: For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not reckoned where there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who sinned not after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is a type (figure) of the future one. But not as the offence so also is the gift of grace; for if by the offence of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift in grace, which is of the one man Jesus Christ, abound toward the many. And not as through one that sinned is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is by many offences unto justification. For if by the offence of the one death reigned through the one, much more shall they who receive the abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as through one offence [it came] upon all men unto condemnation, so also through one righteous act [it came] upon all men unto justification of life. For as by the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. But the law came in besides, in order that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace superabounded; That as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness unto life eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ It is only in part that this passage has respect to the law, and, as such, calls for special consideration here. The other portions, though in themselves of great moment, may be noticed only as having an incidental bearing on the subject now more immediately in hand. There is a certain abruptness in the transition here suddenly made to the case of Adam, and the comparative view instituted between him and Christ; for, though the general sinfulness and corruption of mankind had been already portrayed, nothing had as yet been indicated as to the primal source of mischief. The discourse of the apostle hence becomes somewhat involved; since, in order to explicate the points relating to the one side of his comparison, or prevent it from being misunderstood, he is obliged to introduce some explanatory statements, before proceeding to bring out what relates to the other side of the comparison. This necessarily breaks the continuity of the line of thought in the passage, while still the general meaning and drift of the whole admit of being quite definitely ascertained. The wherefore (διὰ τοῦτο) at the outset is best referred to the immediate context, Romans 5:9-11, in which the believer’s state of reconciliation, peace, and hope, through Christ, had been stated, and which suggested to the apostle the thought of what had been lost in Adam, as a further mode of magnifying the grace of God; wherefore, since this unspeakable boon has been secured for us in Christ, we may justly compare, in order to see the wonderful riches of Divine grace, what comes to us of evil from Adam, with what comes to us of good through Christ—only, as already said, there is an interruption, after the announcement of the first member, of the comparison, to make way for some thoughts that were deemed necessary to complete it. As by one man sin entered into the world, and by means of sin, death—Adam is, of course, the one man; by his breach of the command laid upon him, or violation of the covenant of life under which he stood, sin entered into the world—entered, that is, not merely as a specific act, but as a dominant power—and in the train of sin, as its appointed recompense, death. There is nothing new in these announcements—the apostle, indeed, gives expression to them as matters too well known to require proof, being clearly exhibited in the history of the fall; (Jowett seems entirely to ignore that history, when he says that ‘the oldest trace of the belief common to the Jews in St Paul’s time, that the sin of Adam was the cause of death to him, is found in the Book of Wisdom, Wis 2:24.’ Certainly, Paul’s mode of reading Old Testament Scripture furnished him with a greatly earlier trace of it. Compare with the passage here, 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:13-15.) therefore, he goes on, and so death extended to all men (εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους διῆλθεν, passed through among, extended to, all men), because all sinned. The and so at the beginning is as much as which being done, or such being the case, Adam having died on account of sin, the evil diffused itself throughout the whole race of mankind, because all sinned—ἐφʼ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον. Not in whom, with the Vulgate, Augustine, Estius, Beza, and others, as if the Greek had been ἐν ᾧ, but propter id quod, because that (see Fritzsche here); and, besides, the antecedent (the one man) is too far removed to admit of such a construction. Nearly all the better and more recent commentators are agreed in this mode of interpretation, which is that also of our common version; and the proper import of the clause cannot be more exactly represented than in the following exposition of Meyer (as given in the later, which here differs from the earlier, editions of his work): ‘Because all sinned, namely (observe the momentary sense of the Aorist), when, through the one, sin entered into the world. Because, since Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him, the representative of the entire race of mankind, death, by reason of the original connection in Adam between sin and death, has diffused itself through all: All have become mortal through Adam’s fall, because the guilt of Adam was the guilt of all.’ Plainly, it is the relation of mankind to Adam in his sinfulness, not their own personal sin (according to the Pelagian view), which is asserted to be the procuring cause of death to mankind; and hence the absolute universality of death, the sin that caused it being in God’s reckoning the sin of humanity, and the wages of that sin, consequently, men’s common heritage. Romans 5:13. But this was a point which called for some additional explanation or proof; for it might seem strange, and even unjust, that that one sin, with its sad penalty, should involve all alike, if all were not in substantially the same state of sin and condemnation; particularly after what the apostle had himself declared but shortly before, that ‘where no law is, there is no transgression’ (Romans 4:15). Might it not, in that case, be held that those who lived before the law was given, were not chargeable with sin, and, consequently, not liable to its penalty? No, says the apostle there is no room for such a thought to enter; ‘for, until the law (ἄχρι νόμου, up to the time when it came), sin was in the world;’ that is, not only were men involved in the one act of Adam’s transgression, but sin, as a principle, continued to live and work in them onwards till the period of the law-giving at Sinai, as well as after it—shewing (for that is what it was needful to prove, and what the statement does prove) that sin in Adam was disease in the root, and that, as those who sprung from him ever manifested the same moral obliquity, they could not be placed in another category, or treated after another manner. They, too, were all sinners; but ‘sin (the apostle adds) is not reckoned where there is no law;’ sin and law are correlates of each other; hence, though not, like Israel after wards, placed under formal law, those earlier generations must have been virtually, really under the obligations of law—as, indeed, all by the very constitution of their nature are (according to what had already been stated, Romans 2:9-16). This, however, was not the whole: ‘But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression;’ that is, as I understand it, not only those who had themselves sinned, who by their violations of moral duty had given palpable evidence that actual sin was in the world from Adam to Moses, but even such as were not capable of sinning like Adam, sinning by any personal overt transgression (infants must be chiefly understood), these, as well as others, were during all that time subject to the penalty of sin—death. Relationship to Adam, therefore, renders all alike, from the first, partakers of a heritage of sin, and as such subject to condemnation; of which we have two proofs—first, that throughout past generations, before the law as well as after it, sin has been ever manifesting itself in those who were capable of committing it, and that in the case of others who, by reason of age, were not so capable, death, which is the penalty of sin, still reigned over them—though they had not sinned like Adam, they nevertheless died like Adam. Romans 5:13 and Romans 5:14 thus contain a double proof of the general position laid down in Romans 5:12—the universal prevalence of sin (in such as were capable of committing it), and the universal dominion of death (whether there had been actual sin or not). And that the former—the prevalence of actual sin is included in the apostle’s proof, as well as the latter, seems clear both from the natural import of the words (sin was in the world, the world all through has been a sinful one), but also from the account made in the comparative view which follows of the actual sins or offences of mankind. These, along with the sin of Adam, constitute the mass of guilt from which deliverance had to be brought in by the second Adam, and out of which justification unto life eternal had to be imparted; while the sin of the one man wrought for all unto condemnation and death, the righteousness of the other prevailed, not only against that sin, but against numberless offences besides, unto justification and life (Romans 5:16). Interpreted thus, every part of the apostle’s statement is taken in a quite natural sense, and has its due effect given to it; but the other interpretations which have been adopted always fail, in one part or another, to give what seems a full or natural explanation. For example, the clause respecting the reckoning or imputing of sin, is understood, by a large number of commentators (Augustine, Ambrose, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Stuart, etc.) as referring to men’s own sense of sin; being without law, they did not charge guilt upon their consciences, did not take it to heart, or, as put by Usteri, Tholuck, and others, ‘Man did not feel his sin as a punishment.’ But this is to take the verb in an arbitrary sense, which plainly denotes a formal transaction, a legal reckoning, as of a matter that may or may not justly be placed to one’s account; and it also introduces an irrelevant consideration; for the question here was not what men thought of themselves, but how they stood in reference to the judgment and procedure of God. The view of Meyer, Alford, and several recent commentators, appears equally untenable: they understand the passage to say, that while there was sin constantly existing in the world before Moses, yet it was not reckoned to men as formal transgression, or as deserving of punishment, because the law had not been given. According to Meyer, ‘it was not brought into reckoning, namely, for punishment, and indeed by God—for it is of the Divine procedure, in consequence of the fall, that the whole context treats.’ Alford modifies it a little, as if the representation of Meyer were somewhat too strong: ‘In the case of those who had not the written law, sin (ἁμαρτία) is not formally reckoned as transgression (παράβασις) set over against the command; but in a certain sense, as distinctly proved, ch. Romans 2:9-16, it is reckoned, and they are condemned for it’—that is, reckoned, indeed, but reckoned as ‘in a less degree culpable and punishable.’ But this is to put a meaning on Paul’s language, for which Paul himself gives no warrant; he is speaking, not of degrees of culpability, but of what might or might not be reckoned sin, and, as such, deserving of death. Besides, to distinguish between sin and transgression in this way, when the matter relates to actual guilt, is to make too much hang on a verbal difference; nor is it warranted by other passages of Scripture. (See the remarks at Galatians 3:19.) Unquestionably, before the giving of the law, men were not only spoken of as sinners, but formally reckoned such, judged, held deserving of the severest penalties; (Genesis 4:8-12; Genesis 6:3-7; Genesis 6:13, etc., Genesis 9:6, Genesis 11:1-8, Genesis 18:17, Genesis 19:29, etc.) and the apostle merely epitomizes this part of Old Testament history, when he states that sin was in the world up to the giving of the law, and consequently bespoke the existence of law (though not formally enacted as from Sinai) of which it constituted the violation. It is true, he does not ascribe the heritage of death to these actual violations of law, but only to the sin of Adam; this, however, does not prevent his seeing in them a proof, that all were held to have sinned in Adam, and in him to have fallen into a state of depravity and condemnation—the point immediately in hand. So far, I entirely concur with Dr Hodge: ‘If there is no sin without law, there can be no imputation of sin. As, however, sin was imputed (or reckoned), as men were sinners, and were so regarded and treated before the law of Moses, it follows that there must be some more comprehensive law in relation to which men were sinners, and in virtue of which they were so regarded and treated.’ Assuredly, but I see no reason for holding that this has reference simply to original sin, or to men’s relation to the one sin of Adam—that they were regarded and treated as sinners, merely because they were viewed as having sinned in Adam; for this would be to put rather a forced interpretation on the clause, that sin was in the world till the law, making it to mean that the sin of Adam’s first transgression was in the world. This were unnatural, especially just after that sin had been mentioned as a past act; and, besides, by fixing attention only on that one sin, the thought of actual offences would be virtually excluded; while yet these, as we presently find, form an important item in the comparative view drawn by the apostle. Take the line of thought to be that which we have presented, and there is no ground for such objections. ‘All sinned in Adam’—this is the general position; and the proof is, sin was in the world from Adam to Moses, as well as since, at once the fruit of Adam’s sin, and the parent of numberless other sins; but, apart also from these, death has reigned with undistinguishing equality over one and all, whether or not chargeable with personal transgressions. Having made this explanation about sin and death in relation to Adam’s fall, the apostle now begins to wend his course back to the comparison of the two great heads of humanity; and first notices the resemblance, by saying of Adam, that he was ‘the type of the future One’—of the Man, by way of eminence, that was afterwards to come. He was the type in regard to the great principle of headship—it being true alike of both, that their position in the Divine economy carried along with it the position of all who are connected with them—the one in nature, the other in grace. But with this general resemblance, the apostle goes on to say, there were important differences; and more especially, first, in regard to the kind of results flowing from the connection—in the one case evil, condemnation, death; in the other good, justification, life; secondly, in regard to the mode and ground of procedure—one man’s sin bringing upon the many such a heritage of evil, the righteousness of the other (because of its absolute perfection and infinite worth) prevailing over many sins to secure a heritage of good, greatly more than counterbalancing the evil; hence, thirdly, the surpassing excellence of grace as manifested in the one line of operations, as compared with the actings of nature in the other. Two points only, and these of a somewhat incidental kind, call for a brief notice. One is, as to the place where the explanatory matter ends, and the apostle formally concludes the comparison begun in Romans 5:12. It is, as all the better commentators now agree, at ver. 18, where there is a recapitulation of what had been previously stated, and a pressing of the formal conclusion: ‘Therefore as through one offence [it came] upon all men to condemnation, so also through one righteous act (διʼ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος, pointing specially to the consummation of Christ’s work on the cross) [it came] upon all men unto justification of life,’ etc. The other point has respect to what is said of the law in its bearing on the subject, which was, not to provide the means of justification, but rather to increase the number of offences from which justification was needed: ‘But the law came in besides (παρεισῆλθεν, subintravit, entered by the way as a kind of subsidiary element, therefore with power only to modify, not to alter essentially, the state of matters) in order that the offence might abound’—not, of course, in an arbitrary way to increase the number of sins, or strictly for the purpose of working in this direction, but with such a certain knowledge of its tendency so to work, that this might be said to have been its object, Prescribing to men the way of righteousness, and commanding them to observe it, the law did but shew the more clearly how far they had gone from it, and by its very explicitness as to duty, served to multiply the number and aggravate the guilt of transgressions. Substantially the same thought is expressed in Galatians 3:19, so that it is unnecessary to enlarge on the subject here. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 97: 04.25. ROM_6:14-18. ======================================================================== Romans 6:14-18. ‘For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? May we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid! Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants for obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. But thanks be to God, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye obeyed from the heart that form of instruction to which ye were delivered. And being freed from sin, ye became servants to righteousness.’ This passage respecting the relation of believers to the law, forms part of a much longer section, in which the apostle handles the connection between justification and sanctification—shews how the doctrine of a gratuitous salvation through the faith of Christ, so far from leading to a life of sin, renders such a life impossible, makes holiness, not sin, the rule and aim of the believer’s course. The fundamental ground of this result, as the apostle states at the outset (near the beginning of the chapter) lies in the believer’s relation to Christ; he becomes, by the very faith which justifies him, vitally united to Christ, and consequently participates in that death of Christ to sin, and that life to righteousness, which characterize Him as the spiritual Head and Redeemer of His people. This, therefore, is the security of the believer, and his safe guard against the dominion of sin in his soul, that the grace which saves him has, at the same time, transplanted him into a new state, has brought him into connection with holy influences, and changed the current of his desires and purposes. Hence, the apostle exhorts those who have undergone this blessed change to realize the great truth involved in it, and give themselves in earnest to the life of faith and holiness to which it called them. Sin had no longer any right to reign over them, and they should not allow it, in fact, to do so. This is what is meant in Romans 6:14; ‘For sin shall not have dominion over you’—ὑμῶν οὐ κυριεύσει, shall not domineer, or lord it over you; the power to do this was now effectually broken, and they should act under the buoyant and joyous feeling, that they did not need to be in bondage, that spiritual liberty was secured for them. Then comes the reason or ground of this freedom, ‘for ye are not under the law, but under grace. In endeavouring to get at the precise meaning of this statement, which has been variously understood, there is no need for raising any question as to what is intended by law, whether the Mosaic, or some other form of law. The proper explication cannot turn on any difference in this respect; for it is plainly of the law as a system of requirements (no matter what these might specifically be), of the law as contradistinguished from grace, God’s system of free and unmerited benevolence, that the apostle is speaking; consequently, law is taken into account merely as the appointed rule of righteousness, which men are bound as rational creatures to keep, and which, for the subjects of revelation, would naturally be identified with that of Moses. The law so understood, and by reason of its very excellence as the revelation of God’s pure righteousness, so far from being the deliverer from sin, is the strength of sin; (1 Corinthians 15:56.) for if placed simply under it, the condition of fallen man becomes utterly hopeless; it sets before him, and binds upon his conscience, a scheme of life, which lies quite beyond his reach, and he falls like a helpless slave under the mastery of sin. But believers are otherwise situated; they stand under an administration of grace, which brings the mighty power of redeeming love to work upon the heart, and, freeing it from condemnation, inspires it with the life and liberty of the children of God. This new and better constitution of things supplants, for those who are interested in it, the ground of sin’s dominion in the soul, and opens for it the way to ultimate perfection in holiness. (The point is unfolded at much greater length in chap. 7.) The apostle, however, was writing to those who were still but imperfectly acquainted with the operation of grace; and readily conceiving how they would startle at the thought of believers being no longer under the law, as involving a dangerous sort of licence, he turns as it were upon himself, and asks, ‘What then? May we sin (the proper reading is undoubtedly ἁμαρτήσωμεν, the subjunctive of deliberation, not the future ἁμαρτήσομεν) because we are not under the law, but under grace? The question is asked only that an indignant disclaimer may be given to it: ‘God forbid!’ The thought is not for a moment to be entertained; and the moral contradiction, which the supposed inclination and liberty to sin would involve, is exposed by presenting sin and obedience (much as our Lord presented God and mammon (Matthew 6:24.)) as antagonistic powers or interests, to the one or other of which all must stand in a relation of servitude. There is no middle course, as the apostle states: one must either act as the servant of sin, and receive the wages thereof in death, or in the spirit of obedience (namely, to God), and attain to righteousness. ‘Servants of obedience’ is certainly a peculiar expression, and would probably have been put, as in ver. 18, servants of righteousness, but for the purpose of keeping up the parallel—on the one side sin unto death, on the other obedience unto righteousness. This personified obedience, however, involves the idea of God, as the One to whom it is due: the servants of obedience are those who realize and feel that they must obey God, and this by aiming at righteousness. And it is implied, that as the service of sin finds in eternity the consummation of the death to which it works, so also with the righteousness which is the result of obedience; it is consummated only in the life to come, when they who have sincerely followed after it shall receive ‘the crown of righteousness from the Lord, the righteous Judge.’ (2 Timothy 4:8.) Righteousness so considered is not materially different from eternal life. Further, it is clear, that as obedience implies objection to an authoritative rule, and the life of grace is here identified with obedience, the child of grace is not more freed from the prescription of a rule than those who are in the condition of nature. The life to which he is called, and after which he must ever strive, is conformity to the Divine rule of righteousness; just as, on the other side, all sin is a deviation from such a rule. The apostle, in Romans 6:1, expresses his gratitude to God that those to whom he wrote had passed from the one kind of service to the other: ‘But thanks be to God that ye were the servants of sin (the stress should be on the were, thanks that this is a thing of the past, and can be spoken of as such), but ye obeyed from the heart that form (τύπον, type, rather) of instruction into which ye were delivered. The form of expression in this last member of the sentence is peculiar, εἰς ὃν παρεδόθητε τύπον διδαχῆς, literally, obeyed into what pattern of instruction ye were delivered; evidently a pregnant form of construction for obeyed the pattern of instruction into which ye were delivered (τῷ τύπῳ τῆς διδ. εἰς ὃν παρεδόθητε). The Christian instruction they had received is viewed as a kind of pattern or mould, into which their moral natures had been in a manner cast, so as to take on its proper impress, and give forth suitable manifestations of it. It is a question with commentators, whether this plastic sort of instruction is to be understood generally of the rule of faith and manners in the Gospel, or more specially of St Paul’s mode of teaching the Gospel, as contradistinguished from the Judaistic type of Christian doctrine. De Wette, Meyer, and some others, would take it in the latter sense; but apparently without any sufficient reason, as it would involve a closer relationship on the part of the Romish community to St Paul’s teaching than we have any ground for supposing. It is quite enough to understand by the expression, the Gospel of the grace of God in its grand outlines of truth and duty, through whatever precise channel it might have reached the believers at Rome; this they had riot only received, but from the heart obeyed. ‘Paul,’ to use the words of Calvin, ‘compares here the hidden power of the Spirit with the external letter of the law, as though he had said: Christ inwardly forms our souls in a better way, than when the law constrains them by threatening and terrifying us.” Thus is dissipated the following calumny, “If Christ free us from subjection to the law, He brings liberty to sin.” He does not, indeed, allow His people unbridled freedom, that they might frisk about without any restraint, like horses let loose in the fields; but He brings them to a regular course of life.’ It is the same truth substantially which is taught by our Lord when He says: ‘Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you;’ and again, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ (John 15:3; John 8:32. See also 1 Peter 1:22.) And finally, let there be noted here the beautiful combination in the apostle’s statement of the action of Divine grace and of man’s will. ‘They obeyed the doctrine heartily; in this they were active: yet they were cast into the mould of this doctrine, and thereby received the new form of faith, obedience, and holiness, from another hand and influence. So that they were active in obeying the truth; and at the very same time were passive with regard to the superior influence.’ (Fraser.) The apostle adds, virtually repeating what had been said before, only with special application to the Christians at Rome: ‘And being freed from sin, ye became servants to righteousness.’ This is probably as fit a rendering of the words (ἐδουλώθητε τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ) as can be obtained. The rendering of Alford, ‘Ye were enslaved to righteousness,’ though apparently nearer to the original, is in reality not so; for, to speak of enslavement in the spiritual sphere can scarcely fail to convey to an English reader the idea of unwilling constraint, a sort of compulsory service, which certainly was not what the apostle meant. It is merely a thorough, life-long, undivided surrender to the cause of righteousness. And he proceeds to unfold, to the end of the chapter, the blessed nature of the service to which they had thus given themselves, as contrasted with that from which they had been withdrawn, and to press the things which belonged to it on their regard, both from consideration of the present benefits to be derived from it, and the relation in which it stands to the eternal recompenses of blessing in God’s kingdom. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 98: 04.26. ROMANS 7. ======================================================================== Romans 7:1-25. ‘Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law), that the law has dominion over a man so long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by the law to her living husband; but if the husband have died, she is loosed (lit., made void) from the law of her husband. So, then, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she become another man’s; but if her husband have died, she is free from the law, so as not to be an adulteress though she have become another man’s. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, that you might become another’s, even His who was raised from the dead, in order that ye might bring forth fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were through the law wrought in our members to the bringing forth of fruit unto death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to that wherein we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter. What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? God forbid! On the contrary, I had not known sin except through the law; for, indeed, I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not lust. But sin, taking occasion by means of the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin is dead. I was alive, indeed, without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was for life, even this was found by me unto death. For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me. So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Did, then, the good become death to me? God forbid! [not that] but sin, in order that it might appear sin, through the good working in me death, in order that sin, through the commandment, might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I effect I know not; for not what I wish do I perform; but what I hate, that do I. But if I do that which I wish not, I consent to the law that it is good.now, however, it is no longer I that effect it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell; for to wish is present with me, but to perform that which is good is not; For not the good which I wish, but the evil which I do not wish, that I do. But if what I do not wish, that I do, it is no longer I that perform it, but sin that is dwelling in me. I find, then, this law to me, when wishing to do good, that evil is present with me. For I consent to the law of God after the inner man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity with the law of sin that is in my members. Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord. So, then, I myself with my mind indeed serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin.’ The leading object of the apostle in this section is to bring out precisely the relation of the believer to the law, with the view at once of establishing the law, and of shewing that he is not under it (ch. Romans 3:31, Romans 6:14), but, on the contrary, is freed from it, or dead to it. (The relation of this whole chapter to Romans 6:14, is very well stated by Mr Owen in his note to the translation of Calvin on Romans, at Romans 7:1 : ‘The connection of the beginning of this chapter with Romans 6:14 of the former chapter deserves to be noticed. He says there, that sin shall not rule over us, because we are not under law, but under grace. Then he asks in Romans 7:15 : “Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?” This last subject, according to his usual mode, he takes up first, and discusses it till the end of the chapter; and then, in this chapter, he reassumes the first subject—freedom from the law. This is a striking instance of the apostle’s manner of writing, quite different from what is usual with us in the present day. He mentions two things; he proceeds with the last, and then goes back to the first.’) It is the latter point which comes first, and in treating it, he avails himself of the image of the marriage-tie, which, as every one acquainted with the law in such matters knows, holds so long as the contracting parties live, but when the husband dies, the wife is set free to become united to another spouse. In like manner, says the apostle, there has been a death in our experience which has dissolved our original connection with the law, and united us to the risen Saviour, that we may bring forth fruit of righteousness to God. This is the comparison in its essential points of agreement; but as actually applied, there is a difference in detail. In the natural relation employed, as it is the woman that represents the case of believers under the Gospel, so it is not her death, but the death of her husband which dissolves the bond of her obligation, and sets her free to enter into a new alliance. But with believers it is their own death, that is, their fellowship with Christ in his death, which has changed their relationship to the law, and made them partakers of a life which it had no power to impart. It was, no doubt, to render the parallel more complete, that the received text, on the authority of Beza, adopted the reading ἀποθανόντος in Romans 7:6, instead of ἀποθανόντες, to convey the meaning that the death in question had passed upon the law, not upon us (against all the uncial MSS. à A B C K L, and other authorities). The apostle never speaks of the law as undergoing change or dying; but in ver. 4 he had expressly said of believers, that they had died—nay, had been put to death or slain (ἐθανατώθητε) to the law through the body of Christ. The form of expression is purposely made stronger here than in the case of the natural relation, to indicate that the death in this case had to do with the infliction of a penalty, and an infliction in which the law itself might be said to have a part; for it has respect to Christ’s crucifixion or death under the curse of the law, which is in effect also theirs; so that through the law they become dead to the law, (Galatians 2:19.) yet in such a sense dead as at the same time to pass into another and higher life. The comparison, therefore, only holds, and was only intended to hold, in regard to the fact of death in either party putting an end to the right and authority of law: with the intervention of death, the prior relation ceased, and it became competent to enter into a fresh alliance. But what in this connection is to be understood by the law? and what by the marriage-like relation supposed to have been held to it? Here a certain diversity meets us among commentators—though, among the better class, less now than formerly. The Grotian school, including Hammond, Locke, and some others in this country, considered the law, as here used, to be meant chiefly of religious rites and judicial institutions, or the law in its distinctively Jewish aspect, as the ground and basis of the temporal economy under which Israel was placed. But such a view is entirely arbitrary and superficial, and as such has been generally abandoned. The whole tenor of the apostle’s discourse is against it, which never once points to that part of the Old Testament legislation which was in its own nature provisional and temporary. The law of which he speaks is one that penetrates into the inmost soul, comes close to the heart and conscience, is in itself spiritual, holy, just, and good (Romans 7:7, Romans 7:12, Romans 7:14), and one’s relation to which determines the whole question of one’s peace and hope toward God (Romans 7:24-25). How any intelligent critics could ever have thought of finding what corresponded to such a description in the outward ritual and secular polity of the Hebrew commonwealth, it is difficult to conceive. There is no need, however, while rejecting this view, to go with some to the opposite extreme of maintaining that the language has respect exclusively to the moral law, and that what seemed to the Grotian school to be its one and all, must be altogether eliminated from it. Speaking, as the apostle does, without reserve or qualification of the law, and taking for granted the familiar acquaintance of those he addressed with what was implied in the term, we can here think of nothing else than the law of Moses—only, it is to be borne in mind here, as in passages already considered, that of that law the ten commandments occupied, not only the chief, but the properly fundamental place—the principle of the whole is there as to what it involved of moral obligation. When reasoning, therefore, of men’s relation to the law, the apostle must be understood to have had this part of the Mosaic legislation prominently in view; and, consequently, while there is a direct reference in what he says to the law as ministered by the hand of Moses, it is of this substantially, as the rule of God’s righteous government, that he speaks; the law as the sum of moral and religious duty. Hence, the term ‘brethren,’ by which he designates the persons whom he sought to instruct respecting the law, is to be taken in the full sense, not of the Jewish-Christians only at Rome, but of the whole body of believers; for all alike were interested in the law as here discoursed of, and stood essentially in the same relation to it. But of that relation in its earlier form, how are we to understand it? The comparison of the apostle implies, that it was somewhat like a marriage, and might be presented under that aspect—though he says nothing as to when or how such a relation was constituted. Indeed, it is not so properly the formation, or the existence of the relation in question, as its termination, on which the apostle seeks to fix the attention of his readers. ‘Wherefore,’ says he, after stating the law of marriage, or, ‘So then, my brethren, ye also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, that you might become another’s.’ Still, the dissolution of the one, that the other might be formed, bespoke a formal resemblance between the relations—a marriage to the law in the first instance; then, on the dissolution of that, a marriage to Christ. How, then, was that previous marriage formed, and when? Is it to be simply identified with the establishment of the covenant at Sinai? And shall we, with Macknight, explicate the apostle’s meaning, by referring to those passages in which God represents his connection with the Jews as their king, under the idea of a marriage solemnized at Sinai (Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:14; Ezekiel 16:8.)—a marriage which was to end when they, with the rest of mankind, should be put to death in the person of Christ? But this was altogether to shift the ground assumed by the apostle—since to be married to God, and married to the law, are very different things; God being to His people the fountainhead of grace as well as of law, and, indeed, of grace more prominently than of law. This was recognised in the Decalogue itself, which avowedly proceeded from God in the character of their most gracious Benefactor and Redeemer. To identify their being married to Him, therefore, with being married to the law (in the sense here necessarily understood), were virtually to say, that they entered into covenant with God, or stood related to God, under only one aspect of His manifestations, and that for fallen men not the primary and most essential one. It were also at variance with the view, given by the apostle in another passage, (Galatians 4:21-31.) of the relation of Israel to the law, which was no more intended, on the part of God, to be per se a spouse and a parent of children to the covenant people, than Hagar in the house of Abraham: when contemplated in such a light, it was diverted from its proper purpose, and looked to for results which it was not given to secure. We must, therefore, ascend higher in the order of God’s dispensations for the proper ground of the apostle’s representation here respecting the law. The marriage relation which he assumes to have existed between us and it, must be regarded as having its ground in the constitution of nature rather than of grace; and it is associated with the law as given to Israel, not as if that law had been formally propounded as a basis on which they might work themselves into the possession of life and blessing, but because in its great principles of truth and duty it presents the terms which men are naturally bound to comply with, in order that they may warrantably expect such things, and because Israel, whenever they sought in themselves what they so expected, acknowledged their obligation to seek for it according to the terms therein prescribed: they sought for it, ‘as it were by the works of the law.’ Here, therefore, was the natural ground of such a relationship as that indicated by the apostle. Contemplated as in substance the revelation of that righteousness which God has inherently a right to demand of His rational creatures as a title to His favour, the law holds over men, merely as such, an indefeasible claim to their fealty and obedience; they cannot, by any rig-lit or power of their own, shake themselves free from it; the bond of its obligation is upon their conscience, and they are held by it, whether they will or not (Romans 7:6): while yet, whenever they look seriously into the height and depth of its requirements, and consider the sanctions which enforce its observance, and the penalties which avenge its violation, they necessarily die to all hope of making good what it exacts at their hands to secure the blessing. As children of promise, the covenant people were not called to stand in such a relation to the law; to place themselves in it was to fall from the grace of the covenant; but with reference to the responsibilities and calling of nature, it is the relation in which not only they, but mankind generally, stood and must ever stand to it. Romans 7:5-6. The statements in these verses are more especially designed to confirm and illustrate what had been said immediately before as to the advantage yielded by the new marriage relation over the old—viz., that it is fruitful of good, while the other was not; but they also incidentally support the view just given of the first marriage relation as one pertaining to the state of nature, as contradistinguished from the state of grace. For when we were in the flesh—this stands opposed to the being killed or crucified with Christ in the immediately preceding verse, and so is much the same with being in the state of fallen nature—subject to the law, yet with a frame of mind utterly opposed to its pure and holy requirements. It is the state in which the merely human element (σάρξ) bore sway, and, according to its native tendency, fretted against and resisted the will of God. To understand it, with Grotius, Hammond, Whitby, etc., of subjection to the ordinances of the Old Testament, which, as compared with those of the New, are elsewhere called fleshly, carnal, beggarly, (Galatians 3:3; Galatians 4:9.) is entirely to mistake the meaning of the expression. For in that case it would include God’s true and faithful people, as well as others, since they also were subject to the legal observances of the old covenant, and yet, being men of faith and love, were endowed with the Spirit, and brought forth fruit to God. The state of such is always substantially identified by the apostle with that of believers under the Gospel, not set in formal opposition to it. But to be in the flesh is to be in a state of sin, working unto death as he himself, indeed, explains in chap, Romans 8:5-8, where ‘having the mind of the flesh,’ or ‘walking after the flesh,’ is represented as being in a state of ungodliness, utterly incapable of pleasing God, nay, in living and active enmity to Him. So also at Galatians 5:17-21, where the lusting of the flesh and its natural results are placed in opposition to the life and Spirit of God. In all such expressions, the flesh indicates human nature in its present depraved state; so that ‘to be in the flesh’ is merely to be under the influence or power of human depravity. And this is all one with being under the law; for it is the universal condition of men, who have not received the Spirit of God, (Gal. 8:9.) and the Spirit does not come by the law, but by the faith of Christ. Had the true members of the old covenant stood simply under the law, this would necessarily have been their condition; but they were under the law as the heir, though a child, having also the covenant of promise; (Galatians 4:1-3.) and therefore were not left merely to the dominion of flesh and law, but were in a measure partakers of grace, and as such capable of doing acceptable service to God. Of men, so long as they are in the flesh, the apostle says, that the motions (παθήματα, affections, stirrings) of sins which were through the law wrought in our members to the bringing forth of fruit unto death. The idea of this passage again recurs and is more fully expressed in Romans 7:13. We, therefore, need not dwell upon it here. Its chief peculiarity consists in saying, that the sinful emotions which work in men’s souls before they come under grace are through the law (διὰ τοῦ νόμου), ascribing to the law some sort of instrumental agency in their production. This cannot be better stated than it was long ago by Fraser: ‘It is just to say, that the precept, prohibition, and fearful threatening of the law do, instead of subduing sinful affections in an unrenewed heart, but irritate them, and occasion their excitement and more violent motion. Nor is this a strange imputation on the law of God, which is not the proper cause of these motions. These are to be ascribed to the corruption of men’s hearts, which the apostle insinuates when he ascribes these sinful motions by the law to men in the flesh. The matter has been often illustrated by the similitude of the sun, by whose light and heat roses and flowers display their fine colours, and emit their fragrant smell; whereas by its heat the dunghill emits its unsavoury steams and ill smell. So the law, which to a sanctified heart is a means of holy practice, doth, in those who are in the flesh, occasion the more vehement motions of sinful affections and lustings, not from any proper causality of the law, but from the energy of the sinful principles that are in men’s hearts and nature. There was great wrath and sinful passion in Jeroboam, by the reproof of the prophet (1 Kings 13:4.)—which was not to be imputed to the prophet, but to Jeroboam, a man in the flesh. In David, a man of very different character, Nathan’s very sharp reproof had no such effect.’ In saying that there not only were such sinful emotions, stirred rather than repressed by the law, but that they brought forth fruit unto death—had this, as it were, for their aim and result—the apostle has respect to the natural design of marriage as to yielding fruit, but characterizes the fruit in this case as the reverse of what one desires and expects a fruit not for life but for death—hence not to be hailed and rejoiced in, but to be mourned over and deplored as the just occasion of bitterness and grief. The death, also, in such a case, must evidently be of a spiritual rather than of a corporeal nature. ‘But now,’ the apostle adds, giving the reverse side of the picture, ‘we have been delivered (κατηργήθημεν, made void, discharged) from the law, having died to that wherein we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit, not in oldness of letter.’ The deliverance or freedom from the law here mentioned is that already explained—namely, release from it as the ground of justification and life. We die to it in this respect when we enter through faith into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and death; but not with the effect of getting free from any duties of service—with the effect rather of serving in a higher style of obedience—serving in newness of spirit (which is all one with bringing forth fruit to God), not in oldness of letter (bringing forth fruit to death). These expressions have been virtually explained in the exposition of 2 Corinthians 3:6, and a few words here may suffice. It is implied, that those who owned their relation to the law, and were conscious of no higher relationship, would endeavour after some sort of obedience. But then, with no power higher than human, and with tendencies in the human ever running in the opposite direction, the obedience could have no heart or life in it; it could be only such outward formal obedience as a fearful, slavish, mercenary spirit is capable of yielding—looking at the mere letter of the command, and trying to maintain such a conformity to it by a fair show in the flesh. This is what is meant by serving in oldness of letter—the only kind of service which old corrupt nature is capable of rendering, and one that can bring no real satisfaction to the conscience, or receive any blessing from God. Believers in Christ are freed from such service, because raised, through fellowship with Christ, above nature—brought into the region of the Spirit’s grace and power, so that what they do is done under the influence of things spiritual and Divine, with a sincere and loving heart, and with an unaffected desire of pleasing God. There is a newness in such service, and it is newness of spirit, as contradistinguished from the flesh’s oldness—the mere formalism of a carnal and hireling service. As to the things done, it may be the same service still (no change in this respect is here indicated), but it is service of quite another and higher kind. Romans 7:7. ‘What shall we say then? Is the law sin?’ etc. The apostle here formally states and answers a question, which naturally suggested itself from his apparent identification of the dominion of sin with subjection to the law. Was the law, then, the actual source and parent of sin? Is it in itself evil? He repels the idea with a μὴ γένοιτο, God forbid. But not satisfied with this, he proceeds to unfold, by a reference to his own experience, the true relation of the law to sin, and shews how, by reason of its very goodness, it tends to evolve the element of sin, and aggravate the sense of it in the soul. The reason for adopting this mode of representation is stated with admirable propriety and clearness by Alford: ‘I ask, why St Paul suddenly changes here to the first person? The answer is, because he is about to draw a conclusion negativing the question, Is the law sin? upon purely subjective grounds, proceeding on that which passes within, when the work of the law is carried on in the heart. And he is about to depict this work of the law by an example which shall set it forth in vivid colours, in detail, in its connection with sin in a man. What example, then, so apposite as his own? Introspective as his character was, and purified as his inner vision was by the Holy Spirit of God, what example would so forcibly bring out the inward struggles of the man, which prove the holiness of the law, while they shew its inseparable connection with the production of sin? If this be the reason why the first person is here assumed (and I can find no other which does not introduce into St Paul’s style an arbitrariness and caprice which it least of all others exhibits), then we must dismiss from our minds all exegesis which explains the passage of any other, in the first instance, than of Paul himself: himself, indeed, as an exemplar, wherein others may see themselves: but not himself in the person of others, be they the Jews, nationally or individually, or all mankind, or individual men.’ Entirely concurring in this, which is substantially the Augustinian view of the passage the view also which, with solid argument in the main, and sound evangelical feeling, was set forth and vindicated with great fulness in the last century by Mr Fraser in his work on Sanctification—we set aside as arbitrary and unnatural the view of the Grotian school, which regards Paul as personating here the Jewish people, before and after the introduction of the law of Moses; the view also of Meyer and many others, that Paul gives, in his own person, a kind of ideal history of humanity, first in its original state, then as under law, and lastly as redeemed in Christ; with various subordinate shades of difference under each of these general modes of representation. But holding the delineation of experience to be properly personal, and only as such representative, there is no need for supposing that it should in every part exhibit what is peculiar to the regenerate. The operation of law on the natural conscience will often, to a considerable extent, produce the same feelings and convictions as are experienced in a more intense and vivid form, as with more permanent results, by those who are the subjects of renewing grace. There is nothing here, however, which does not more or less find a place in the history of every one who has come under the power of the quickening Spirit—although some parts of the description belong more to the initiatory, others to the more advanced exercises of the believer, several again to those complex operations, those interminglings of the flesh and the Spirit of which all believers are at times conscious, and those always the most who are most sensitively alive to the claims of the Divine righteousness, and most watchful of the movements of their own souls in reference to these. A spirit of discrimination, therefore, is needed for the interpretation of the particular parts, even when there is a proper understanding of the general purport and bearing of the passage. The principle with which the apostle sets out in this narrative of his inward experience, and which he keeps in view throughout, is one he had already announced, that ‘by the law is the knowledge of sin’ (Romans 3:20); for, obviously, what discovers evil cannot be itself evil; it must be the opposite of evil—good. In answer therefore to the question, whether the law is sin, after a strong negation, he says, ‘On the contrary (ἀλλὰ, I cannot see why Alford should regard this simply adversative sense as not exactly suitable here—the apostle is going to state precisely the reverse of what an affirmative to the question would have implied), I had not known sin, except through the law’—literally, I was not knowing (οὐκ ἔγνων), I was in ignorance of sin, except through the law. This might be taken two ways, either that he did not know such and such a thing to be in its own nature sinful, unless the law had condemned it; or he did not know the existence and operation of sin as a principle in his soul, unless the law had brought it to light. Both to a certain extent are true, though from the context it is clear that the latter is what the apostle has mainly, if not exclusively, in view. It only holds of some things, that they could not have been known to be sinful but through the law; in regard to many, especially such as relate to breaches of the second table, the natural light of conscience is quite sufficient to pronounce upon their character (as the apostle, indeed, had already affirmed, Romans 2:14-15). But it is not specific acts of sin, and their objective character, that the apostle here has in his eye; it is the principle of sin in his own bosom, as a deep-rooted, latent evil, which was naturally at work there, but which he was not sensible of till the law, by its prohibition, discovered it. (Of this use of ἁμαρτία to denote, not actual sin, but a habitual tendency and constitution of the inward life, Müller says, in his work on Sin (B. I. P. 1, chap. 3): ‘In that passage which gives us the fullest and minutest instruction of sin and its development in man, Rom. vii., it cannot be doubted that ἁμαρτία is used in the signification of a power dwelling and working in man, including a sinful bias, a perverted constitution. So especially in Romans 7:8-11 : Sin, which before was dead, by the entrance of the law, revived, and took occasion, by the commandment, to put man to death; this can have no meaning, unless the term sin means a power dwelling in man in a concealed manner.’ He points to Matthew 12:33; Matthew 15:19; 1 John 2:16; James 1:14-15, as teaching the same truth, though the term ἁμαρτία is not always used.) And so he adds, in further explication of his meaning, ‘For indeed I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not lust.’ It is not something strictly new that is here introduced, but a particular example in illustration of the general statement made immediately before (τε γὰρ denn-ja, fortius est quam yap solum; scilicet τε istud non copulat, sed lenius affirmat quam τοι, unde natum est, Fritzsche). The lusting (ἐπιθυμία, sometimes, desire generally, but here inordinate desire, concupiscence, so elsewhere 1 Timothy 6:9; 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 John 2:17, etc.) is not to be confined to mere sensual appetite, but includes all the undue affections and desires of the heart, which, if carried out, might lead to the overt violation of any of God’s commands. The closing prohibition, therefore, of the Decalogue spreads itself over all the other precepts, and includes, in its condemnation, every sort of lusting or concupiscence which tends to the commission of the acts forbidden in them. Hence it was that the consideration of this particular command let in such a flood of light upon the apostle’s soul, as to his real state before God. ‘He had been a Pharisee, and with great zeal and earnest effort serving in the oldness of the letter, as he under stood it. His mind being biassed by corrupt teaching and sentiment, he thought himself chargeable with no sin, until the law struck at his heart within him, as subject to its authority and direction no less than the outward man. Until then he thought all his works were good. Now he sees all his works, taking into the account the evil principles, and the concupiscence which in various forms was set at the root of all his works, to be evil. Instead of keeping all the commandments from his youth up, he then saw he had truly fulfilled none of them.’ We have, indeed, the same confession substantially from the apostle as here, only more briefly unfolded, and with reference more to actual change of state than to the workings of inward experience, in Php 3:6-10. There also the apostle expresses a perfect satisfaction with his condition at one time, as if all were right, and then represents this as giving way to an entirely opposite state of feeling, when he came to see into the reality of things. What before seemed good, now was found worthless; what was thought gain, came to be reckoned loss; what had looked like life, was but death in disguise, and the true life only found when confidence in the law was forsaken for confidence in Christ. Romans 7:8. ‘But sin, taking occasion by means of the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin is dead.’ Sin here is still the principle of sin in the soul, which exists whether there is any sense or not of its contrariety to law, but only in a kind of unconscious or slumbering state, till it is confronted with the peremptory nay of the command. This rouses it into conscious and active opposition. The command here meant (ἡ ἐντολὴ) is not the law in general, but the specific precept referred to just before, ‘Thou shalt not lust.’ And the principle of the passage is very much the same with that of Proverbs 9:17, ‘Stolen waters are sweet,’ or with the nitimur in vetitum semper cutpimusque negata of Ovid. So also Augustine: ‘The law, though in itself good, yet, by forbidding, increases sinful desire; for somehow that which is desired becomes more pleasant simply by being forbidden.’ (‘De Sp. et Lit.,’ sec. 6.) It is good, but ‘weak through the flesh.’ The ungodly heart chafes against the restraint laid on it, and the evil, comparatively latent before, rises into active opposition. But when the apostle says, that ‘without the law sin was dead,’ he can only mean dead in the sense and feeling of the soul; for sin not only exists without the law as a principle in the soul, but is ever ready also to go forth in active exercise on the objects around it; living, therefore, in reality, though not consciously known and realized as such. Romans 7:9. ‘I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.’ Recognising the principle that sin, by inevitable necessity, is the source of death, it naturally follows that, according to the conscious presence and vitality of sin or the reverse, so should also be the sense of life or death in the soul. While ignorant of the depth and spirituality of the law, the apostle was unconscious of sin, and as a matter of course felt and acted as one in the enjoyment of life; but when the commandment entered with its penetrating light and Divine authority into the convictions of the inner man, it was like the opening of a new sense to him; sin sprung into conscious activity, and the pains of death took hold of him. It could be but a relative thing in the one case, the slumber of sin and the enjoyment of life, and the quickening of sin into activity, with its production of death, in the other; for the commandment did not create the evil principle or its deadly fruit, only awoke the sense and realization of them in the soul. It is of this, therefore, that the apostle speaks, primarily in his own case, and indirectly in the case of others. Up to the time that the law, in its wide reaching import and spiritual requirements, takes hold of the heart, it is as if a man’s life were whole in him: whatever errors and imperfections he may perceive in his past course, they appear but as incidental failings or partial infirmities, which can easily be excused or rectified; they seem to leave untouched the seat of life. But with the right knowledge of the law, if that ever comes, there comes also a true insight into his case as a sinner; and then all his fancied beauty and blessedness of life are felt to consume away; he sees himself corrupt at the core, and an heir of condemnation and death. Such an experience, of course, belongs to the very threshold of the Christian life, when the powers of regeneration are just beginning to make themselves known in the soul. Romans 7:10. ‘And (or, so) the commandment which was for life, even this was found by me unto death’—a mere sequel to the preceding. The commandment was designed for, or had respect to life; because making known that wherein life, in the higher sense, properly consists—the moral purity, rectitude, loving regard to God and man, which are essential to the harmonious action and blessed fellowship of the soul with God. But this delineation of life, when turned as a mirror in upon the soul, served but to bring to light the features and workings of a spiritual malady, which had its inevitable result in death. Romans 7:11. This is further explained by the statement, ‘For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me.’ The indwelling principle of sin did with the apostle, by the law, much what the tempter did with Eve by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It gave rise to false expectations, and so entailed disastrous results. How should it have done so? Simply by leading him to imagine that he should find life and blessing in another way than that prescribed by the commandment. Striving to resist the Divine call, it would have him seek his good in the gratification of forbidden desires, but only to involve him in the forlornness and misery of death, when the living force and authority of the commandment took hold of his conscience. Then experience taught him the hollowness of sin’s promises, and the stern reality of God’s prohibitions and threatenings. Romans 7:12. Now follows the legitimate inference in regard to the law: ‘So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.’ The distinction between the law and the commandment is merely between the whole and a principal part: all is alike holy, and that which more especially laid its bond on the desires and affections of the soul, so far from being excepted, has even two additional epithets applied to it (just and good), as if on purpose to shew how entirely accordant even these more spiritual demands are with the claims of rectitude and the truth of things. The experience of the apostle certified such to be the character of the law, as being in no proper sense the cause of the death which he felt had come upon him, but only the means of discovering the real nature and tendency of what the sinful principle in his soul had prompted him to covet and seek after. Romans 7:13. ‘Did then the good become death to me?’ The question might seem unnecessary after the statements already made; but to remove the possibility of misapprehension, and present the matter in a little different light, the apostle puts it. The reply is very explicit in meaning, but in form somewhat elliptical: ‘God forbid! [not the law of God, which is good, was made death to me], but sin [was so]; in order that it might appear sin, through the good working death in me, in order that sin through the commandment might become exceeding sinful.’ A twofold design—that sin might be exposed in its real character, and that the heinousness of its evil might appear in turning the good itself into the occasion and instrument of bringing home to his experience the pains and sorrows of death. It is here with life in the spiritual precisely as in the natural sphere. When a deadly disease has taken possession of the bodily frame, what is the class of things that most conclusively prove the presence of such a disease? Not those which are in themselves unfavourable to health, and tend to impair bodily vigour—for, in that case, one naturally associates the evil with these, to which no doubt they partly contribute. But let the reverse supposition be made—let the circumstances of one’s position be altogether favourable—let the subject of disease have the benefit of the most bracing atmosphere, the most nourishing diet, and of every thing fitted to minister support and comfort: if still the frame continues to languish, and the symptoms of death come on apace under the very regimen of health, who can then shut his eyes to the fact, that a fatal malady has seized the vitals of his constitution, since the good with which it is plied, instead of mastering the evil, serves but to discover its strength, and develop its working? So exactly with the good exhibited in the law of God: when this is brought to bear on the corrupt nature of man, the evil not being thereby subdued, but only rendered more clearly patent to the view, and more sensibly destructive of all proper life and blessing, it is then especially seen to be what it really is; namely, sin—and, as such, hateful, pernicious, deadly. Romans 7:14-25. It is unnecessary here to go into a detailed exposition of these concluding verses; for, with the exception of the first clause, ‘We know that the law is spiritual’—which is also but another form of the statement in Romans 7:12, that the law is holy—the passage has respect, not properly to the apostle’s relation to the law, but to his relation to indwelling sin. And the chief question it gives rise to is, whether the apostle, in the description he gives of the conflict between good and evil, represents what he, as a settled believer, and as an example of believers generally, was conscious of at the time he wrote the epistle, or what he merely, as a natural man, thought and felt, personating what natural men generally must think and feel, when awaking to a right knowledge of truth and duty, but still without the grace needed to conform them in spirit to it? Both sides of this alter native question have been espoused by commentators from comparatively early times, as they still are; and it is quite possible to make the latter alternative, which is usually the one that commends itself to the less deeply exercised and spiritual class of minds, appear the more plausible and safe, by pressing one class of expressions to the utter most, and passing lightly over another. But undoubtedly the natural supposition is, that as the apostle had, in the verses immediately preceding, exhibited his own experience as one just awaking under the power of Divine grace to a right view of his own condition, so, continuing as he does still to speak in his own person, but in the present tense, he should be understood to utter the sentiments of which he was presently conscious. Any view inconsistent with this, or materially differing from it, would require for its support very conclusive proof, from the nature of the representation itself. This, however, does not exist. Certainly, when he describes himself as being carnal, sold under sin, ‘doing what he did not wish,’ ‘not having good dwelling in him,’ ‘brought into captivity by the law of sin in his members,’—if such declarations were isolated, and the full sense put upon them which, taken apart, they are capable of bearing, the conclusion would be inevitable that they cannot be understood of one who is in any measure a partaker of the Divine life. But this would not be a fair mode of dealing with them, especially when they are coupled with statements that point in the opposite direction—statements which cannot with any propriety be applied to those who are strangers to the life and grace of the Spirit. The very first announcement is of this description: ‘We know that the law is spiritual’—for who can be truly said to know this, except such as really have the discernment in Divine things which it is the part of the Spirit to bestow? (1 Corinthians 2:14.) In like manner, to wish sincerely what is spiritually good, to consent to it as good, to hate what is of an opposite nature, to hate it so truly and fixedly that it could be said when done not to be done by that which constituted one’s proper personality as a man of God, to delight in the law of God, and with his mind to serve it, these are things which plainly distinguish the regenerated and spiritual man from one still remaining in the carnality and corruption of nature. And pointing as they do to the state of thought and feeling in the higher region of his being, in what the apostle calls ‘the inner man,’ they necessarily include the more essential characteristics of the personal state—those which relate to the deeper springs of its moral being—and must ultimately determine its place and destiny. What, therefore, the apostle says on the other and lower side must be taken in a sense not incompatible with those higher characteristics must be understood, in short, of that other self, that old man of flesh or corruption, which, though no longer predominant, was still not utterly destroyed. Indeed, the apostle himself furnishes the key to this interpretation, when he distinguishes so sharply between the me in one sense and the me in another (‘in me, that is in my flesh,’ Romans 7:18, ‘I myself with my mind,’ Romans 7:25), between the law in his members, working unto sin, and the law of his mind, consenting unto and desiring the good. He is conscious of a sort of double personality, or rather a twofold potency in his person, the one derived from nature still adhering to him and troubling him with its vexatious importunities and fleshly tendencies, the other holding of the risen Me of Christ, and ardently desirous of the pure and good. And it is, it can only be, of the sinful emotions, and usually repressed, but sometimes also successful, workings of that old self, that he speaks of himself as destitute of good, carnal, and in bondage to the power of evil. Entirely similar confessions of the dominancy of indwelling sin, and lamentations over it, have often been heard in every age of the church, from spiritually-minded persons; and are to be regarded as the indication, not of the absence of grace, nor of the prevalence of sinful habit, but of that tenderness of conscience, that delicate perception of the pure and good, and sensitive recoil from any thing, even in the inner movements of the soul, that is contrary to the holiness of God, which is the characteristic of a properly enlightened and spiritual mind. So, in ancient times, for example, Job who, in his more advanced stage of enlightenment, confessed himself to be vile, yea abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes (Job 40:4, Job 42:6); so in many places David; (Psalms 19:12-13; Ps. 12:12; Psalms 51:3.) and very strikingly the writer of Psalms 119:1-176, who, after unfolding in every conceivable variety the thoughts and feelings, the desires and purposes, of the devout Israelite in reference to the law and service of God, after repeatedly declaring how he loved the law of God, and delighted in His commandments, winds up the whole by what cannot but seem to the mere worldling or formalist a somewhat strange and inconsistent utterance: ‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep: seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.’ It is the same still. ‘If one over heard a serious, upright Christian saying, on some occasion, with much deep regret—as many such have done—Ah! what a slave am I to carnal affections and unruly passions! How do they carry me away and captivate me!—would he hastily say, that this complaint had no foundation at all in truth? Or, would he conclude, if it had, that this man was truly and absolutely a slave of sin, and still unregenerate? A person so judging, I should think, would not deserve to be favour ably regarded.’ (Fraser.) And in respect to the relative preponderance of the two counter-forces in the apostle’s representation, the same judicious author observes: ‘What here would strike my mind free of bias is, that this I on the side of holiness against sin, is the most prevailing, and what represents the true character of the man; and that sin which he distinguishes from this I is not the prevailing reigning power in the man here represented; as it is, however, in every unregenerate man.’ So, also, Augustine happily of himself: ‘I indeed in both, but more I in that of which I approved, than in that which I disapproved of as being in me.’ (‘Confes.,’ L. viii. 5.) We must not enlarge further in this line; but two points of great importance for our present investigation come prominently out in this disclosure of the apostle’s experience. One is, that, though writing under the clear light of the Gospel, and a spiritual acquaintance with its truths, he has no fault to find with the law as a revelation of duty, or a pattern of moral excellence. What he misses in the law is not the perfect exhibition to our knowledge of moral goodness, but the power to communicate moral life. The only reason specified why it cannot help one to the possession of righteousness, is because of the preventing flesh, or law of sin in the members, which works in opposition to the better knowledge derived from the law of God, and the better impulse implanted by grace. So that, viewed as an exhibition of good, the law is represented as in unison with the desires of the regenerated moral nature, and simply by reason of its goodness, coupled with remaining imperfections in himself, giving rise to trouble and distress. The other point is, that so far from there being any contrariety between the scope of the law’s requirements and the spirit of the new life, the apostle rejoiced in the higher powers and privileges of this life, chiefly because through these the hope had come to him of gaining the victory over the contrariety in his nature to the good in the law, and having it yet realized in his experience. As thus replenished from above, his more settled bent and purpose of mind were now on the side of the righteousness exhibited and enjoined in the law—nay, with his mind he served it (Romans 7:25); or, as he expresses himself in the following chapter, his general characteristic now was to walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, and, in proportion as this was the case, to have the righteousness of the law fulfilled in him (Romans 8:4). Hence, also, in this epistle, precisely as in that to the Galatians, when he comes to the practical exhortations, he points to the law still as the grand outline, for Christian not less than earlier times, of moral obligation, and urges his readers to the regular and faithful exercise of that love, which is the heart and substance of its precepts, as for them also the sum of all duty (Romans 13:8-10). As regards men’s relation to the law, therefore, in the sense meant by the apostle throughout this discussion, the difference between Old and New Testament times can have respect only to relative position, or to the form and mode of administration, not to the essentials of duty to God and man. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 99: 04.27. ROM_10:4-9. ======================================================================== Romans 10:4-9. ‘For Christ is the end of the law for (or unto) righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, that the man who has done those things shall live in them. (The reading here is a little different in three of the older MSS. א A D and the Vulgate, which omit the ἀυτὰ (those things), and change (with the exception of D, but here B takes its place) the ἀυτοῖς at the close into αὐτῃ. But the sense is much the same, only, instead of those things, in the doing of which the righteousness consists, the righteousness itself becomes prominent; it then reads, ‘the man who has done [it] shall live in it.’) But the righteousness which is of faith speaks thus, Say not in thine heart, Who shall go up into heaven? that is to bring Christ down. Or, Who shall go down into the deep (abyss)? that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach; That if thou wilt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ The subject which gave rise to this fresh statement respecting the law and its righteousness, as contrasted with the way of salvation by Christ, was the sad case of the unbelieving Israelites. They had sought righteousness, indeed, but sought it in the way which lies beyond the reach of fallen man the way of their own goodness; hence they had not submitted themselves to, but strenuously resisted the righteousness of God. The statement implies, that what, in such a case, is of man, and what is of God, belong to quite different categories—they are mutually antagonistic. And this is confirmed by the declaration in Romans 10:4 as to God’s method of making righteous, For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. The general meaning is plain enough; it affirms that Christ is set for righteousness as well as the law, and that for the believer in Christ this righteousness is made practically available—he actually attains it. But it is a matter of dispute in what sense precisely the end (τέλος) of the law is to be under stood. Does it denote simply the termination of the legal dispensation—its termination in the death of Christ, which provided the new method of justification? Or does it, along with this, indicate the aim and object of the law—as having found in the work of Christ its destined completion? There is no lack of authorities on both sides of this question (for the first, Augustine, Koppe, Rückert, De Wette, Olshausen, Meyer, Hodge, &c.; for the other, Chrysostom, Therphylact, Beza, Grotius, Wetstein, Tholuck, Alford, &c.). I am inclined to agree with the latter class, on the ground that the simple fact of the law’s termination in its provisional character as for a time forming an essential part in the revealed plan of salvation, scarcely comes up to what seems required for the occasion. Beyond all doubt, the law had an aim in this matter, as well as a period of service; nay, just because it had an aim, and that aim reached its accomplishment in Christ, in a way it never had done or could do of itself, it therefore ceased from the place it had occupied. And as the expression here quite naturally carries this idea, there seems no valid reason why it should not be included. The law, taken in its complete character, certainly aimed at righteousness; so also does Christ in His mission as the Redeemer; with this all-important difference, that what could never be properly accomplished by the one is accomplished by the other—hence, also, the provisional character of the one, while the other is permanent. The sense could scarcely be better given than it was by Chrysostom: ‘If Christ is the end of the law, he who has not Christ, though he may appear to have it, has it not; but he who has Christ, though he have not fulfilled the law, has yet obtained all. So, too, the end of the medical art is health. As, therefore, he who has proved able to give health, though haply unskilled in medicine, has every thing, while he who is unable to cure, however he may seem capable of administering the art, has altogether failed. So also in respect to the law and faith; he who has this has also attained to the end of that; but he who is destitute of the former, is an alien from both. For what did the law seek? To make a man righteous; but it was not able to do so; for no one fulfilled it. . . . . This same end, however, is better accomplished by Christ through faith.’ The verses that follow give the proof of this proposition—give it out of Moses—the lawgiver himself being called as a witness against his misguided and foolish adherents in apostolic times. For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, that the man who has done those things shall live in them. (The same use is made of the passage in Galatians 3:12, but without any formal citation of it.) The passage referred to, and almost literally quoted, is Leviticus 18:5; and the those things are the statutes and judgments mentioned immediately before; for the whole passage runs thus: ‘Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein; I am Jehovah your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them.’ Taken in its original connection, the passage undoubtedly points to Israel’s happy privilege as well as sacred calling. Their condition is contrasted with that of the Egyptians and Canaanites, whose ordinances and customs, especially in regard to the gratification of lust, are declared to be matters of horror and abomination before God (Leviticus 18:3, Leviticus 18:30); they are solemnly charged to avoid these, and to keep the Lord’s ordinances, statutes, and judgments, both because Jehovah is their God, and because by doing them they should find life in them, while practices of an opposite kind had brought judgment and destruction on the Canaanites. Such is the connection and the import of the original statement. And it seems, at first sight, somewhat strange, that the apostle should here refer to it in the way he does, as describing the righteousness which is obtained by doing in contradistinction to that which comes by believing, as if the way of attaining life for the members of the Theocracy were essentially different from, and in some sort antagonistic to, that under the Gospel. He has so often asserted the reverse of that, and in this very epistle (ch. Galatians 2:17-21, Galatians 3:19-20, Galatians 4:1-31, etc.), that it would certainly be to misunderstand the application to take it in that absolute sense. The life which Israel had, whether viewed with respect to the earthly inheritance, or to the everlasting kingdom of which that was but the shadow, unquestionably came from their relation to Jehovah in the covenant of promise, and not from what was imposed in the covenant of law; the law, with its demands of holiness, its statutes of right, and ordinances of service, was no further ordained for life than as describing the moral characteristics in which life, so far as it existed, must exhibit itself, or, when these failed, appointed what was needed to obtain cleansing and restoration. The amplest proof has been already adduced of this (in the exposition of the passages in Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians, also in Lee. III.). Yet from the prominence of law in the Theocracy—which was such that even the things which pertained to forgiveness and the promise of blessing usually took a legal form—the language employed respecting the calling of the people and their prospects of good were naturally thrown in many cases into the same form. The people were told that they should live and prosper, only if they obeyed God’s voice, or kept the statutes and ordinances imposed on them—but without intending to convey the impression, that they were actually placed under a covenant of works, and that they could attain to the good promised, and avoid the evil threatened, only if they did what was enjoined without failure or imperfection. On the contrary, those very statutes and ordinances had bound up with them pro visions of grace for all but obstinate and presumptuous offenders; by the terms of the covenant—that is, by the law in its wider sense they were called to avail themselves of these, and to make their resort to God as rich in mercy, and plenteous in redemption. Still, the language even in such parts carried a legal impress; it linked the promised good to a prescribed ritual of service; and if people were minded, in their pride and self-sufficiency, to lay the stress mainly on the legal element in the covenant—if they should imagine that every thing was to be earned by the completeness and merit of their obedience, then it must be meted to them according to their own principle, and they should have to face the sentence uttered from the sterner side of the covenant: ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.’ (Deuteronomy 27:26; Galatians 3:10.) Now, keeping these considerations in mind, it is not difficult to understand how St Paul should have singled out the brief passage under examination as being, when looked at merely by itself, descriptive of the righteousness which is won by obedience to precepts of law, while yet it was not meant that Israel were expected to attain to such righteousness, or were, in the strict and absolute sense, dependent on the attainment of it for life and blessing. It set before them the ideal which they should earnestly endeavour to realize—which also to a certain extent they must realize as partakers, if only in an incipient state, of the Divine life; but not unless they were minded (as the unbelieving Jews of the apostle’s day certainly were) to stand simply upon the ground of law, and be in no respect debtors of grace, was a complete and faultless doing to form the condition of receiving the promised heritage of life. In this case, it assuredly was. The words must then be pressed in the full rigour and extent of their requirement; for life could only be ministered and maintained on a legal basis, if the condition of perfect conformity to law had been made good. That Moses, however, no more than the apostle, intended to assert for Israel such a strictly legal basis as the condition of life, is evident, not only from the connection in which that particular declaration stands, but also from other parts of his writings, in which the evangelical element comes distinctly into view, in his words to the covenant people. To one of these, the apostle now turns (vers. Romans 10:6-9) for a proof of the righteousness of faith; for it must be held with Meyer, Fritzsche, and others, that it is Moses himself who speaks in the words contained in these verses. ‘The δὲ in Romans 10:6 places the righteousness of faith over against the just-mentioned righteousness of the law, for both of which kinds of righteousness the testimony of the lawgiver himself is adduced. The expression, “for Moses describes,” in Romans 10:5, does not merely apply to the word in that verse, but also stretches over vers. Romans 10:6-8; and so the objection is not to be urged against our view of the want of a citation formula at these verses.’ (Meyer.) The passage quoted, though with some freedom, is in Deuteronomy 30:10-14. And it is to be noticed, as a confirmation of the explanation we have given of the preceding passage from Leviticus, that this also, though embodying the evangelical element, and for that very purpose quoted, also carries the form of law. In the original it stands thus, ‘For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.’ The general import is here again quite plain; namely, that the way of peace and blessing had been made alike clear and accessible; no one could justly say it was difficult to be understood, or mocked their efforts with impossibilities, as if, in order to reach it, heaven had to be scaled, or the boundless ocean to be crossed:—no, the word was nigh them, and every thing provided to their hand which was needed to secure what it set before them. But commentators are divided on the points, whether the passage as spoken by Moses properly bears the spiritual sense put upon it by the apostle, or has this sense infused into it by giving it a kind of secondary prophetical bearing—whether the questions, also, considered with regard to this spiritual sense, are questions of unbelief, questions of embarrassment, or questions of anxiety. It is not necessary for our immediate purpose to go into the examination of such points; and for any purpose of a strictly expository nature, it appears to me that very little depends on them. A somewhat too specific or realistic view is taken of the words by those who chiefly raise the questions. The description, in itself, is so far general, that it might be applied to the calling of the church of God in every age. Moses applied it, in the first instance, to the members of the old covenant; Paul, on the ground of this original application, points to Moses as a witness of the way of salvation by faith; but in doing so, intersperses comments by way of guiding its application to Christian times. He takes for granted that those to whom he wrote looked for salvation, or the righteousness connected with it, only in Christ; to them, if Christ was near or remote, salvation would be accessible or the reverse. And the original import of the word, with this fresh application of it, amounts to nothing more than the following: God’s method of salvation is such, so easy, so accessible, that no one needs to speak about climbing heaven on the one hand, or diving into the lowest depths on the other, in order to have the Saviour brought near to him—He is already near, yea, present, with all His fulness of life and blessing, in the word of His Gospel; and all that is necessary for the sinner is to receive this word with an implicit faith, and give evidence of his hearty appropriation of it, in order to his finding righteousness and salvation. Between the case of believers, in this respect, under the old, and that of believers under the new covenant, there is no other difference than that now the way of salvation by faith is more gloriously displayed and more easily apprehended by those who are in earnest to find it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 100: 04.30. ROM_14:1-7. ======================================================================== Romans 14:1-7. Now, him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not for judgments of thoughts. One believes he may eat all things; but he that is weak eateth (only) herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth; for God has accepted him. Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; but he shall be made to stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One esteems one day above another [lit., day above day]; another esteems every day: let each be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regards the day, to the Lord regards it; and he that eats, to the Lord eats, for he gives God thanks; and he that eats not (viz., flesh), to the Lord eats not, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself; for if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord,’ &c. The subject handled in these verses, as in the chapter generally from which they are taken, is the treatment that should be given by Christians of enlightened understandings and ripe judgment in Divine things to those whom the apostle calls weak in the faith—persons who, while holding the faith of Christ, were restrained by some scruples of conscience, or some apprehensions of evil, from using the liberty in certain respects to which they were called in Christ. But from the imperfect description which is given of their case, it is extremely difficult to arrive at an intelligent view of their religious position, and consequently to determine the precise bearing of the apostle’s remarks concerning them on questions of legal obligation or Christian duty in present times. The general principle announced at the commencement, that persons weak in the faith should be received, that is, acknowledged as of the brotherhood of faith, must be understood as implying, that the weakness did not touch any vital doctrine, or commonly recognised Christian duty; for in that case it had been the part of the more intelligent and steadfast believers to endeavour to convince them of their error, and, till this was accomplished, keep them at some distance, lest others should become infected with their leaven. So much is plain; and hence the negative prescription given in connection with the receiving of them, that it should not be for judgments of thoughts (εἰς διακρίσεις διαλογισμῶν)—that is, for doing the part of censorious critics and judges on the views peculiar to the persons in question. This, certainly, is the meaning of the expression,—not, as in the English Bible, to doubtful disputations, which the original words will not strictly bear, and which also, in its natural import, seems to point rather in the wrong direction. For the apostle could not mean to say, that it was doubtful which of the two parties occupied the right position, since he characterized the one as relatively weak, and as such, of course, falling below the mark, which they should have aimed at and might have attained. But he means to say, that the specific weakness having its seat in the thoughts of the mind, and these thoughts exercising themselves about matters of no great moment to the Christian life, no harsh judgments should be passed upon them; the persons should be treated with forbearance and kindness. But to what type or class of early Christian converts shall the persons spoken of be assigned? On this point there has been a considerable diversity of opinion, and the materials apparently are wanting for any very certain conclusions. They could not be, as some have supposed, Jewish-Christians, who stood upon the legal distinctions respecting meat and drink; for these distinctions said nothing about total abstinence from flesh, or the ordinary use of wine. Nor, with others, can we account for those self-imposed restraints, by supposing that it was flesh and wine which had been used in heathen offerings that the persons in question would not taste; for no limitation of this sort is so much as hinted at in the apostle’s words, nor, if that had been the precise ground of their refusal, would he have characterized it as simply a weakness; in another epistle he has at great length urged abstinence from such kinds of food as a matter of Christian duty. (1 Corinthians 8:1-13, 1 Corinthians 9:1-27, 1 Corinthians 10:1-33) Then, in regard to the distinguishing of days, so as to make account of some above others, it is difficult to understand how this could be meant of a scrupulous adherence to the Jewish observances as to times and seasons, as if any thing depended on such observances for salvation; for, in the case of the Galatians, the apostle had characterized such adherence to the Jewish ritual, not as a tolerable weakness, but as a dangerous error—a virtual departure from the simplicity of the faith. That the parties are to be identified with Christians of the Ebionite school (according to Baur), who were tinged with the Gnostic-aversion to every thing of a fleshly and materialistic nature, while they retained their Jewish customs, is altogether improbable—both because there was no such distinctly formed Ebionite party at the time this epistle was written, and because, if there had, they could certainly not have been treated so indulgently by Paul, whose teaching stood in such direct antagonism to their views. (See Neander, ‘History of Planting of Christian Church,’ B. iii. c. 7.) And though there is a nearer approach to the apparent circumstances of the case in the supposition of others (Ritschll, Meyer, etc.), that the weak Christians of our passage were a class of supra-legal religionists, believers probably of the Essene sect, who brought with them into Christianity some of their rigid observances and ascetic practices, yet there is no proper historical evidence of such converts to the faith of Christ existing anywhere, and particularly at so great a distance from the seat of the Essene party, at the early period to which the epistle to the Romans belongs. Besides, as the ascetic and ritualistic peculiarities of the Essenes were essentially of that type, against which Paul, in other places, (Colossians 2:1-23, 1 Timothy 4:1-16) so earnestly protested, and in which he descried the beginnings of the great apostacy, one is at a loss to understand how, on the supposition of its representatives being found at Rome, he should have made so little account of the fundamentally erroneous principles interwoven with their beliefs. Amid this uncertainty as to the specific position of the persons referred to, it is necessary to proceed with caution in the interpretation of what is written, and to beware of deducing more general inferences from it than the expressions absolutely warrant. It was one of the exhibitions given, the apostle tells us, of weakness of faith, that one believed he should eat simply vegetables or herbs, while the relatively strong was persuaded he might partake of whatever was edible; and it is implied, in Romans 14:21, that the weakness also shewed itself with some in a religious abstinence from wine. But on what grounds the abstinence was practiced—whether as a species of fasting, with a view to the mortifying of the flesh, or as a protest and example for the good of others in respect to prevailing excesses in meat and drink, or, finally, from lingering doubts, originating in ascetic influences, as to the Divine permission to use such articles of diet—on such points nothing is here indicated, and we are entitled to make no positive assertion. The personal incident mentioned by Josephus, that, after having in early life sought to make himself acquainted with the distinctive Jewish sects, he took up for a time with one Banos, who lived in the desert, and scrupulously abstained from any clothing but what grew on the trees, and ate no food but the spontaneous products of the earth; and the additional fact given in the same direction, that two priests, whom he describes as excellent men, and whom he accompanied to Rome to plead their cause, chose for their food only figs and nuts, (‘Life,’ sees. 2, 3.) clearly shew that peculiarities of this sort were not of infrequent occurrence at that time among the Jews, though they were probably of too irregular and arbitrary a character to come under any common religious definition. Of the persons here referred to by the apostle, we merely know that, for some conscientious reasons (adopted by them as individuals, not as belonging to certain sects), they had thought it their duty neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine; and the apostle’s advice respecting them was, that they should not on this account be treated with harshness or contempt. It was a weakness, no doubt, but still one of a comparatively harmless nature; it had approved itself to their own conscience; let the matter, therefore, be left to Him who is Lord of the conscience, and who would not fail to sustain and guide them, if their hearts were right with Him in the main. It is scarcely possible to be more particular in regard to the other form of weakness specified; it is not even very definitely indicated on which side the weakness lay, or how far there was a weakness. Two facts only are stated: ‘One man esteems one day above another; another esteems every day’ (the alike added in the authorized version is better omitted). We naturally infer, from the mode of putting the statement, that the weaker was he who made the distinction of day above day; but then how was the distinction made? Wherein did he shew his esteeming of it? Could this have consisted only in his considering it proper to devote one day in the week more especially to religious employments and works of mercy? This had surely been a strange manifestation of weakness, to be marked as such by the apostle, who himself was wont, along with the great body of the early Christians, to appropriate the first day of the week to such purposes, and to style it emphatically the Lord’s day. (Acts 21:17; 1 Corinthians 15:2; Revelation 1:10.) Nor has the experience of the past shewn it to be a weakness, but, on the contrary, to be at once a source and an indication of strength, to avail one’s-self of those statedly recurring opportunities to withdraw from worldly toil, and have the soul braced up by more special communion with itself and Heaven for the work of a Christian calling. Wherever such opportunities are neglected, and no distinction of days is made as to religious observance, the result that inevitably ensues is a general decay and gradual extinction of the religious sentiment. This is admitted by all thoughtful men, whether they hold the strictly Divine institution of the Lord’s day or not. It is impossible St Paul could be insensible to it, or could wish to say any thing that tended to such a result. If, therefore, the esteeming of one day above another is represented as a weakness, one may suppose that some specific value was attached to the day per se, as if it had the power of imparting some virtue of its own to the thing’s done on it, apart from their own inherent character. To attach such ideas, either to the Jewish weekly and other Sabbaths, or even to the Christian Lord’s day, might be regarded as a weakness; since, while the setting apart of such days for special exercises had important ends to serve under both economies, it was only as means to an end; the time by itself carried no peculiar virtue; and, in contradistinction from any feeling of this description, every day should be esteemed. But no day should, in that case, be disesteemed, or regarded as unfit for religious and beneficent action. Nor does the apostle say so, when the correct form of his statement is given, as by Lachmann (approved also by Mill, Griesbach, Meyer (These authorities omit the clause in ver. 6, καὶ ὁ μὴ φρονῶν τὴν ἡμέραν κυρίῳ οὐ φρονεῖ, with all the best MSS., א A B C D E F G, the Italic, Vulgate, Aeth. Copt, versions, Jer., Aug., and other authorities. To admit a text with such evidence against it, and only one uncial MS. L. of no great antiquity for it, were to violate all the established canons of criticism; besides that, it makes no proper sense; at least not without some considerable straining.)). The words run thus: ‘He that regards the day to the Lord regards it; and he that eats (viz., flesh), eats to the Lord; for he gives God thanks; and he that eats not, to the Lord eats not, and gives God thanks.’ The negative, as well as the positive side is exhibited as regards the eating; for both alike eat, and give thanks for what they eat, only the one in his eating confines himself to a vegetable diet. But in the other case, the positive alone is exhibited; for while one may, with a true religious feeling, regard one day more than another, and even carry this to a kind of superstitious extreme; yet not to regard the day can scarcely be represented as a thing done to the Lord. Not the regarding of no particular day is the counter-position indicated by the apostle, but the regarding of every day—this, it is implied, would bespeak the strong man, if so be the other betrayed something of weakness; and the strength in that case would necessarily consist in giving one’s-self to do every day what others deemed it enough, or at least best, to do more especially on one—to do, that is, what may more peculiarly be called works of God. So to employ one’s-self would put all the days on a kind of equality; but, certainly, not by depriving them alike of regard, or by reducing them to the same worldly level; on the contrary, by raising them to a common elevation, devoting them to the special service of Heaven, and the best interests of humanity. So did our Lord, the highest exemplar of healthful and sustained energy in the Divine life; His works were all works of God, proper therefore for one day as well as another; (John 5:17.) so that it might be truly said of Him, He regarded every day. And yet it was deemed by Him no way incompatible with this, that He should shew His regard to the seventh day in a somewhat different manner from what He did in respect to the other days of the week. In principle, the works done on this and other days were alike, yet they took, to some extent, their distinctive forms of manifestation. So that, however often the passage before us has been held by certain interpreters to argue something at variance with the religious observance of a Christian Sabbath, this is found rather by ascribing to it an imaginary sense, than by evolving its legitimate and proper import. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 101: 04.31. EPH_2:11-17. ======================================================================== Ephesians 2:11-17. ‘Wherefore remember, that once ye, Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh wrought by hands; That ye were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and estranged from the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who once were far off were brought nigh in the blood of Christ, For He is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of the partition—the enmity—in His flesh, having done away the law of commandments in ordinances, that he might make the two in Himself into one new man, making peace; and that He might reconcile both of us in one body to God through the cross, having slain on it the enmity. And having come, He preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to them that were nigh; For through Him we have our access, both of us, in one Spirit to the Father.’ This passage has obviously a monitory aim, and is chiefly designed to awaken a sense of gratitude in the minds of the Ephesians on account of the wonderful change which, through the mercy of God in Christ, had been made to pass over their condition. Their elevated state, as participants in the benefits of Christ’s death and the glory of His risen life, had been described in the preceding verses; and now the apostle calls upon them to remember how far otherwise it was with them in their original heathenism, and how entirely they were indebted for the change to the work of reconciliation accomplished by Christ. The first two verses delineate in dark colours their position prior to their interest in Christ. Remember that once ye (ποτὲ ὑμεῖς, the ποτὲ before ὑμεῖς with the best MSS.א A B D), Gentiles in the flesh (a compound expression denoting the category or class to which they belonged—Gentiles, or heathen, as contradistinguished from Jews, and this ἐν σαρκί—without the article, because forming one idea with the τὰ ἔθνη, Winer, Gr. 20, sec. 2—in their corporeal frame without the mark of covenant relationship to God, hence visibly in an unsanctified condition), who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh wrought by hands. This points to the hereditary antipathy cherished, or the sacred recoil felt toward them on the part of the covenant people, so long as they were in their heathenish state; for to be called Uncircumcision by them was all one with being accounted reprobate or profane. But when the apostle speaks of the Circumcision, who so called them being the Circumcision in the flesh wrought by hands, he insinuates that those who applied the reproachful epithet to the heathen, and cherished the feelings it expressed, might not themselves possess the reality which the rite of circumcision symbolized; it might be, after all, in their case but an out ward distinction. The apostle does not venture to say it was more, knowing well how commonly the rite had lost to his countrymen its spiritual significancy, and with how many circumcision was no more than a mere conventional sign or fleshly distinction. But even so, it drew a line of demarcation between them and the Gentile world, and bespoke their external nearness to the God of the covenant: it constituted them, as to position and privilege, the chosen people, on whom God’s name was called, while the others wanted even the formal badge of consecration. In so far as the circumcision was only in the flesh, these who possessed it had of course little reason to boast it over the uncircumcised Gentiles, for in that case both alike needed the real sanctification which is required for true access to God; and while this thought could not but appear to aggravate the former degradation of these believing Gentiles, as having been counted profane by those who were themselves but nominally otherwise, it at the same time implied that, as regarded effectual rectification, both parties were substantially on a footing—what was needed for the one was needed also for the other. Ephesians 2:12. The apostle here resumes his interrupted sentence, commences afresh: that ye were at that time (corresponding to the ὅτι ποτὲ ὑμεῖς in Ephesians 2:11) without Christ; that is, not only destitute of the actual knowledge of Him, but away from any real connection with Him—or friendly relation to Him so that the hope of a Saviour (which the Jews had) was as much wanting as the personal enjoyment of His salvation. What this separation implied, and how far it reached, is stated in what follows, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and estranged from the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world. By the πολιτεία, or commonwealth of Israel, is evidently meant the theocratic constitution and people of the old covenant, as those alone which had associated with them the elements of life and blessing—the one state and community in which fellowship with God was to be found. From this they were in their heathen condition alienated— ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι—at the opposite pole, as it were, from the rights of citizenship, but without implying any thing as to a prior state of connection; for such an idea, which some would find in the description, would be out of place here; it is the actual state alone which the apostle characterizes. Further, they were estranged from (lit., strangers of, ξένοι τῶν, the ξένοι being put as a sort of antithesis to κληρόνομοι, heirs or possessors of) the covenants of promise. Under covenants of promise, the apostle could scarcely mean to include the covenant of law along with the covenant of Abraham, for the former is not of promise; so that we must either understand by the expression the successive and somewhat varied forms given to the Abrahamic covenant, or perhaps that covenant itself in conjunction with the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31, which was also justly entitled to be called a covenant of promise. As heathen, the Ephesians, in their unconverted state, were entirely out of the region of these covenants—strangers to the field they embraced with their blessed prospects of better things to come. And, as the necessary consequence of this unhappy isolation, they had not hope—that is, were devoid of this in any such sense as might properly meet the wants of their condition; hope, as the well-grounded and blessed expectation of a recovery from the evils of sin, was unknown to them; and they were without God in the world, unconscious of, and incapable of finding where they were, any spiritual link of connection with Him. ‘They had not God, but only thoughts about Him; Israel, however, had God and the living word of His mouth. Hence there belonged to the covenant people what did not come from themselves, but from that which is greater than man’s heart, the hope of the coming salvation. Heathenism, however, had but the product of its own state, hopes which had no better security than the uncertain [utterly inadequate] ground of personal piety.’ (Harless.) Ephesians 2:13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were far off were brought nigh in the blood of Christ—the contrast to the former state, and strikingly exhibited as a change that was once for all effected (potentially) in the atoning work of Christ—though actually experienced, of course, only when they came to a personal interest in His salvation. So, too, St Peter speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as having begotten believers to a lively hope (1 Peter 1:3)—as if the accomplishment of the one carried the other also in its bosom. The blood of Jesus Christ, by making provision for the pardon of sin, lays open the way for all to the bosom of God’s household, and of any individual who enters into the fellow ship of this blood, or who takes up his standing in the faith of Jesus as the crucified for sin, it may be said he was brought nigh in the blood of Christ; in the shedding of that blood, he sees for ever removed the alienation caused by sin. And to mark very distinctly the efficacious ground or living source of the boon, the apostle designates the recipients as first ‘in Christ Jesus,’ and again as finding all ‘in the blood of Christ.’ Ephesians 2:14-15. A further grounding and explanation of the statement follows: for He is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of the partition. The language here also is very forcible and pregnant. The work of incorporation into God’s blessed household is represented as done once for all in Christ—ideally, the reunion has attained to realization in Him. Hence, he is called ‘Our Peace’—not simply as Bengel notes, our Pacificator, peacemaker, but the one who, by the sacrifice of Himself, has procured peace, and is Himself the bond of union to both (ipse vinculum utrorumque). lie is such as regards Jew and Gentile, having made the twain (the divided parts, τὰ ἀμφότερα) one, riot by acting directly upon their mutual antagonism, and applying Himself to heal the breach it occasioned, but by elevating both to a higher unity—effecting for them alike reconciliation with God through the blood of His cross. Brought through this one medium of reconciliation into a common relation to God, and recognising themselves as alike children of the one Father of a redeemed and blessed family, the cause of enmity and alienation as a matter of course fell away—both parties being lifted into a position where it no longer had room to operate. This is the apostle’s solution of the difficulty, as to the existing separation between Jew and Gentile: he regards it as the offshoot of a higher and graver quarrel—the sinful departure and alienation of both from God; and the healing of the grand breach carries in its train the healing of the smaller one, by taking out of the way the circum stances that incidentally ministered to it. The apostle expresses the mode of accomplishing the result by saying that Christ broke down the middle wall of the partition, or the fence; figurative language, proceeding on the assumption, that the two parties—the one of whom had been outwardly near, the other far off from, the region of life and blessing were both in a manner fenced off from that region—the one more palpably so, indeed, than the other; separated and fenced off even from those who were comparatively near, because wanting the very appearance and formal badge of a consecrated condition. But the apostle sees in this only the outer line, as it were, or lower half of that partition-boundary which lay between men and the proper fellowship of love in God; for those who were called near, were still, while the old state of things existed, at some distance; they had not free access to the presence of God (as the veil in the temple, and the manifold restrictions of its appointed ritual, too clearly indicated), and were rather, for the time, tolerated in a measure of nearness, than frankly, and as of right, admitted into the joyous liberty of Divine communion and blessedness of life. For both parties, therefore, something had to be broken down, in order to have the way laid open into the holiest, and through this into the full brotherhood of love with each other. What it was, the apostle more distinctly expresses in the next term, the enmity (‘broke down the middle wall of the partition—the enmity—in His flesh’—so the passage should be pointed and read). The enmity stands in apposition to the middle wall of partition in the preceding clause, and more exactly defines it. That this enmity has a certain respect to the hostile feeling and attitude subsisting between Jew and Gentile, seems clear from the reference going before to that antagonistic relationship and its abolition in Christ (‘made both one,’ Ephesians 2:14, though previously one stood aloof from the other as profane and out cast, Ephesians 2:11). But it seems equally clear, that no explanation can be satisfactory which would limit the expression to this lower sphere; for the enmity, which Christ destroyed in His flesh, or, as again said, which He slew through His cross, naturally carries our thoughts up to the great breach in man’s condition, and the great work done by Christ to heal it. In other expressions, also, the apostle plainly identifies the removing of this enmity with the reunion of sinners to God; for it is in reconciling the parties spoken of to God that he describes the enmity as being slain; and, by the act of gracious mediation which effects this, Christ is represented as becoming the peace of those who were near, as well as those who were far off—implying that the one, as well as the other, notwithstanding their relative advantages, had in their condition an obstructive barrier to be thrown down, an enmity to be overcome. Both alike also are represented as partaking of the same regenerating process—raised together, so as to become not one man merely, but one new man, as contradistinguished from the old state of each. Throughout the passage, Christ is plainly described as doing substantially one and the same work for both, and that a work which bore directly on their relation to God, while it carried along with it also conciliatory and peaceful results in respect to their mutual relationship to each other. There is no way of understanding this but by supposing that the apostle saw, in the one class of relations, the fruit and reflex of the other. The mutual enmity which, like a partition-wall, shut off Jew from Gentile, had in his view no independent existence; it was merely the shadow and incidental effect of that common alienation which sin had produced between man and God; and it was, he would have his readers to understand, by striking an effectual blow at that tap-root of the evil (as it might be called) that Christ had become the medium of a proper reconciliation in regard to the other and merely consequential form of alienation. That the destruction of the enmity, through the introduction and establishment of a state of blessed nearness to God, is said to have been done in the flesh of Christ, can only be regarded as a brief expression for His great work in the flesh—virtually synonymous with the words ‘in His blood’ in Ephesians 2:13, and ‘through His cross’ in Ephesians 2:16. The expression itself might be coupled either with what precedes, or with what follows: we might either say [having destroyed] ‘the enmity in His flesh,’ or, ‘in His flesh having abolished (made void) the law of commandments,’ etc. The latter is the connection adopted in the authorized version, ‘having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments,’ etc., including also in the sentence the τὴν ἔχθραν, and taking the enmity as parallel with the law of commandments. But this, though supported by many commentators, proceeds on a somewhat unnatural mode of construing the words; and it better accords with the proper parallelism of the passage, and also with the general usage of the two verbs (as one can readily-enough speak of dissolving or breaking down an enmity, but not so well of making it void, and so abolishing it). But the general sense still remains much the same; and certainly with the breaking down of the partition-wall, or dislodging the enmity, the apostle couples the annulling or doing away of the law of commandments in ordinances as either coincident with the other, or somehow essential to it. How then was it so? What precisely is meant by the law of commandments in ordinances? And in what sense was the doing away of this in Christ necessary to the bringing about of the reconciliation and enmity? The law of commandments in ordinances is but another name for the Sinaitic legislation, or the old covenant. This was, by way of eminence, the law, and as such composed of specific enactments; these formed its contents; and when further said to be ἐν δόγμασιν (the latter without the article, because expressive of one notion with τῶν ἐντολῶν, commandments in individual ordinances (Winer, sees. 31, 10, obs. 1.)), it points to the form of the contents as being of an imperative or decretory character, so that the expression may be fitly enough rendered, with Alford, ‘the law of decretory commandments,’ or of ‘decretory ordinances,’ with Ellicott. It comprised the whole system of precepts, moral and religious, which were introduced by Moses, and peremptorily enjoined on the covenant people: the law, in its economical character, as a scheme of enactments or form of administration, which was intended, indeed, to mediate the intercourse between God and man, but was perceived, even while it stood, to be imperfect, and declared as such to be transitory, destined one day to be supplanted by another and better. (Jeremiah 31:31.) The apostle had already, in various passages, given forth a similar judgment; had affirmed it to be incapable of providing an effectual remedy for the evils adhering to human nature, fitted rather to make known and multiply transgression than deliver from its guilt and doom, hence done away in Christ who brings in the real deliverance. (2 Corinthians 3:11; 2 Corinthians 3:14; Galatians 3:19; Romans 5:20; Romans 7:5-8.) So, here again, when setting forth Christ as the only true Peace of the world, the apostle represents the system of law, with its commands and ordinances, as done away, in order that humanity might, through faith in the incarnation and atoning death of Christ, be lifted out of its condemned and alienated condition, might be formed into a kind of corporate body with Himself, and participate in that fellowship of peace and blessing which He ever enjoys with the Father. But this, obviously, is a kind of doing away, or making void, which at the same time confirms. It loosens men’s relation to the law in one respect, but establishes it in another; releases them from it as a provisional arrangement for coming at the righteousness and life which are essential to an interest in God, but only that they might find the end it aimed at in this respect through faith in Christ (Romans 10:4.)—find it as a gift brought to their hand through the infinite grace and prevailing mediation of Christ. Thus, there is nothing arbitrary in the change here indicated by the apostle: it is a change of form, but not of substance, for the same great principles of truth and duty characterize both economies, only brought now to their proper establishment in Christ, and associated with results which, till then, had been but faintly apprehended or partially experienced. (The rendering of the two verses (Ephesians 2:14-15), in the authorized version, is in several respects unfortunate—first, inserting between us, namely, Jew and Gentile, after the words, ‘broken down the middle wall of partition,’ thereby confining this to the earthly sphere; second, separating between the middle wall and the enmity, by throwing the latter into the next clause, and joining it to καταργήσας, instead of to the preceding λύσας; third, identifying the enmity with the law of commandments, ‘the enmity, even the law of commandments.’ In the general structure and connection of the passage, I follow Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, who, especially the two former, have clearly shewn the advantage in naturalness and grammatical accuracy of the mode preferred by them over others, also the inadmissibility of joining ἐν δόγμασιν with καταργήσας; (with the Vulgate, Chrysostom, Theodore, also Grotius, Bengel, Fritzsche, Harless), as if the meaning were, having abolished, by means of Christian doctrines, the law of commandments, or, as Harless, abolished the law on the side of, or in respect to, the commanding form of its precepts. The New Testament usage will not admit of either mode of exposition. But the Greek commentators (Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Œcunienius) were substantially right in their general view of the passage, understanding the separation and enmity on the one side, and the reconciliation and peace on the other, to have respect, not merely to Jew and Gentile, but primarily and mainly to men’s relation to God, and only subordinately to the other. Meyer, with many more, take the other view of the partition-wall and the enmity; the expositions of Calvin, and many of the earlier Protestant commentators, were by no means satisfactory in the treatment of the passage.) There is, it is proper to add, a certain difference in the doctrinal statements here made respecting the law, and those elsewhere given; but it is merely a formal one, and such as naturally arose from the nature of the subject. The point more immediately handled here has to do, not with justification before God, but with reconciliation and peace toward Him, and between one portion of the human family and another. These, however, are but diverse aspects of the same question; and the necessity of doing away with the decretory ordinances and precepts of the old covenant, in order to meet the wants of man’s condition, and placing in its stead the atoning work of Christ, holds alike in both aspects of the matter. But in none of the passages can the doing away be understood in an absolute sense; it must be taken relatively. And here, in particular, the apostle, as justly remarked by Harless, indicating also the connection between this and other statements of the apostle, ‘does not treat of the law as regards any part of its contents, but of the form, the legal externality of its demand, which, as unfulfilled, wrought enmity, because it pronounced the judgment of condemnation upon men’s guilt, and hence is rendered without effect. This is done objectively without us, through the atoning death of Christ. (Colossians 2:14.) Subjectively, it is realized in us, when, as the apostle elsewhere expresses himself, the word of faith comes to be in the mouth and in the heart, (Romans 10:8.) or, as stated presently here, when Christians, through the redemption in one Spirit, have access to the Father, and are built into an habitation of God in the Spirit. This is the subjective realization of the law’s displacement. The apostle speaks of it in Romans 7:6, when he says, “We are delivered (κατηργήθημεν) from the law,” as, inversely, they who would be justified by the law are delivered (κατηργήθητε) from Christ.’ (Galatians 5:4.) All, therefore, depends upon the sense in which such expressions are understood, or the respect in which they are applied. They merely tell us that we have the law made of no force and effect to us, done away as the ground of justification before God, or as the means of obtaining a solid reconciliation and peace with Him: but this simply on account of the high and holy nature of the requirements it sets forth, which for fallen men made the good it aimed at practicably unattainable. Its relation to men’s responsibilities as the revelation of God’s righteousness, in the sphere of human life and duty, remains thereby untouched. Ephesians 2:16-18. These verses, which contain merely some further expansion and application of the principles exhibited in the preceding context, call for no lengthened remark here. And that He might reconcile both of us in one body to God through the cross: this was the higher end of Christ’s work on earth—the lower having been mentioned just before, namely, the uniting of the divided human family into one new corporate body; and the former, though the last to be named, the first in order, as being that on which the other depends. It is the reconciliation of both parties to God through the peace-speaking blood of Christ’s cross, which carries them over the fence of earthly divisions and antipathies. And this being said to be done in one body, points—not, as some would understand it, to the corporeal frame of Christ, in which respect the idea of plurality was, from the nature of things, excluded—but to the compact society, the one corporate, mystical body which Christ forms for Himself out of the scattered and too often antagonistic members of the human family. Alike drawn through the cross to God, (John 12:32.) their common enmity to Him, and their individual enmities one toward another, receive, in a sense, their death-blow; they melt away under the redeeming love of the cross; but only, of course, as regards men’s personal experience, when this comes to be realized as a Divine power in the heart. To this the next clause refers, which says of Christ, ‘And having come, He preached peace to you who were far off, and peace (the εἰρήνην should be again repeated, with all the better MSS., and most of the ancient versions) to them that were nigh. This also is ascribed to Christ, for His agency was continued in that of the apostles, who, in preaching the tidings of salvation to Jew and Gentile, derived their authority from His commission, and their success from His presence. (Matthew 28:20; John 14:18; Acts 3:26; Acts 24:23.) So that to Christ belongs at once the effective means of reconciliation, and the bringing of these to bear on the personal state of mankind. The relatively near (Jews) and the relatively far off (Gentiles) alike need the salvation provided, and they alike have it brought within their reach. Then follows the ground or reason on which the proclamation and assurance of peace proceeds, for through Him we have our access, both of us, in one spirit to the Father to (πρὸς) the Father as representing the Godhead, through (διὰ) the Son as Mediator, and by or in (ἐν) the Spirit as the effective agent—shewing clearly the pre-eminent regard had by the apostle in the whole matter, to the peaceful relationship of the parties to God. It is this more especially that is mentioned here, because this is what is primarily and directly secured by the death of Christ; and the distinction between Jew and Gentile falls away, because, as component parts of one redeemed family, they are animated by one Spirit (the Spirit of life and holiness in Christ Jesus), and in that Spirit are enabled to draw near, and abide near, to God—equally inmates of His spiritual house, and alike free to participate in its blessed privileges and hopes. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 102: 04.32. COL_2:11-17. ======================================================================== Colossians 2:11-17. ‘In whom (Christ) ye also were circumcised with a circumcision not wrought by hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; Buried together with Him in your baptism, wherein also ye were raised up with Him through your faith in the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He quickened together with Him, (The better authorities (אACKL) have here a second ὑμᾶς, repeated for the sake of emphasis, ‘you who were dead ... He quickened you.’) having forgiven us all our trespasses; Having wiped out the handwriting in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; Having put off principalities and powers, He boldly made a show of them, while in it (viz., the cross) He triumphed over them. Let no one, therefore, judge you in eating or in drinking, or in the matter of a feast, or of a new moon, or of Sabbaths; Which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.’ The phase of false teaching which the apostle meets in this and other parts of the epistle to the Colossians, is somewhat different from any thing that presents itself in his other epistles. That it contained a strong Judaistic element, is plain from the injunctions pressed against a return to the distinctive rites and services of Judaism; but the parties espousing and propagating it cannot be regarded as simply Judaising Christians. For evidently a philosophical or Gnostic element mingled with the Judaistic, in this peculiar form of false teaching, laying an undue stress upon the possession of a speculative sort of knowledge, which sought to carry the mind beyond the province of Scripture, and to elevate the tone of the religious life by fancied revelations of the angelic world, and by the practices of an ascetic piety. Apparently, therefore, the false teaching warned against was a compound of Jewish and Gnostic peculiarities, somewhat after the fashion of what is reported to have become known at a later period as the doctrine of Cerinthus, or is associated with the Gnostic Ebionites, who were probably a sect of Christianized Essenes. Neither the time at which this epistle was written, nor the region in which it contemplates the false teaching in question to have appeared (Phrygia), admits of our connecting it with the heretical parties just referred to. But there were tendencies working in the same directions, which found a congenial soil in that part of Asia Minor, and which, notwithstanding the remonstrances and warnings here addressed to the church of Colossae, continued long to hold their ground and to prove a snare to believers. In one of the earliest councils of which the canons have been preserved, that of Laodicea, a place quite near to Colossae, it was found necessary to prohibit the practice of angel worship, and also of adherence to some Jewish customs. (Neander, ‘Planting of Christian Church,’ B. iii. ch. 9.) So late as the fifth century, Theodoret makes mention, in his comment on this epistle, of oratories still existing in that quarter dedicated to the Archangel Michael. In the passage more immediately before us, it is the Judaistic element in the false doctrine beginning to prevail about Colossae which the apostle has in view, and which he endeavours to expose by shewing how the design and object of the Jewish law, with its religious observances, had found their realization in the work and Gospel of Christ. Pointing first to the initiatory ordinance of the old religion, he declares circumcision, not in form, but in spirit, to belong to those who have heartily embraced the Gospel of Christ—the great truth underlying it, and for the sake of which it was appointed, having, in the most effective manner, become exemplified in their experience. In whom ye also were circumcised with a circumcision not wrought by hands; that is, a work accomplished by the power of the operation of God upon the soul, as contradistinguished from a mere fleshly administration, which is elsewhere characterized as a thing wrought by hands. (Ephesians 2:11.) When applying the term circumcision in this way, the definite article should be wanting in the English, as it is in the Greek—for it could not be referred to as a thing familiarly known to the Colossians: it was not the, but a, circumcision, yet one which rose immensely in importance above the other, and could be made good only by a Divine agency. It was nothing, however, absolutely new; for in Old Testament Scripture, also, it was spoken of as a thing that should have gone along with the external rite, though too frequently wanting in the outwardly circumcised. (Deuteronomy 10:16; Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 44:7.) So much was this the case, that the apostle, in describing circumcision according to its true idea, denies it of the act performed on the body, as apart from the spiritual change this symbolized, ‘it is of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter,’ (Romans 2:29.) and what was merely in the letter he stigmatizes with the name of the concision—as if it were nothing more than a corporeal cutting. (Php 3:2) The spiritual act, the inward circumcision, is described as the putting off of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ. By the body of the flesh is undoubtedly meant the same as what is elsewhere called ‘the old man which is corrupt,’ (Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9.) and by a still stronger term, ‘the body of sin,’ (Romans 6:6.) and ‘sinful flesh,’ literally, ‘flesh of sin;’ (Romans 8:3.) the bodily or fleshly part of our natures being viewed as the seat of the lusts, which are the prolific source of sin, and bring forth fruit unto death. To have this put off, therefore, in a spiritual respect, is to be delivered from the dominion of sin, to die to sin as a controlling and regulating power, by the pure and holy principles of a Divine life taking root in the soul, and giving another tone and direction to the general procedure. When this spiritual change is accomplished, the flesh is, so to speak, evacuated of its sinful quality—instead of domineering, it becomes subservient to the good; and the change is wrought, the apostle says, in the circumcision of Christ, that is, in the spiritual renewal which a union to Him brings along with it. We are not, with some, to think here of Christ’s personal circumcision, which is entirely against the connection, since it would introduce an objective ground where the discourse is of a subjective personal operation. The forming of Christ in the soul as the author of a new spiritual life—that is for the individual soul the circumcision of Christ, or, as we may otherwise call it, the new birth, which, by the Divine impulses of a higher nature, casts off the power of corruption. Essentially, it is the action of Spirit upon spirit; and the apostle elsewhere describes it as wrought by the Lord the Spirit, (2 Corinthians 3:18.) or as the result of Christ dwelling in him by faith. (Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 2:5-8.) But here, in what immediately follows, he couples it with baptism, to shew that, in this higher style of things belonging to New Testament times, there is substantially the same relation of the inward reality to an outward ordinance that there was in the Old. Colossians 2:12. Buried along with him in your baptism, wherein also ye were raised through your faith in the operation of God, who raised him from the dead. It is clear that baptism is viewed here, as in the corresponding passage of Romans 6:3-4, in its full import and design, ‘in the spirit and not in the letter,’ as a practical and living embodiment of the great things which had already taken place in the experience of the believing soul. Baptism, in this sense, formed a kind of rehearsal of the believer’s regeneration to holiness—solemnly attesting and sealing, both on his part and God’s, that fellowship with Christ in His death and resurrection, on which all personal interest in the benefits of His redemption turns. Commentators very generally assume that a reference is made to the form of baptism by immersion, as imaging the spiritual death, burial, and resurrection of those who truly receive it. This is not, however, quite certain, especially as, at the passage in Romans, he couples with the burial a quite different image—that, namely, of being planted together with Christ. Nor is it really of any moment; for beyond doubt the meaning actually conveyed in the language has respect to the spiritual effect of baptism as sealing the participation of believers in the great acts of Christ’s mediation—identifying them with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection. The apostle brings prominently out the latter point of this fellowship with Christ, because the other was but as the necessary channel to it: wherein also (ἐν ᾧ καὶ) ye were raised up together with Him, so I think it is most naturally rendered, taking the ἐν ᾧ as referring to the baptism. It might certainly be understood, with many commentators, of Christ (in whom also); but it seems more natural to confine the reference to the immediate antecedent, and to regard the apostle as indicating, that the whole process of a spiritual renovation—the rise to newness of life as well as the death to the corruption of nature—has its representation and embodiment in baptism. And to shew how the outward is here based on the inward, and derives from this whatever it has of vital force, he adds, through the faith of the operation of God (that is, as the great majority of the better commentators understand it, faith in God’s operation, the genitive after πίστις being usually expressive of the object on which it rests); the spirit of faith in the baptized appropriates the act of God’s mighty power in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, as an act which transmits its virtue to all who in faith realize and lay hold of it. Spiritually, they have thus already risen with Him; and therein have the pledge of a literal rising also, when the time for it shall have come. (All this, of course, is to be understood directly of adult baptism—the baptism of actual believers, or such as had the profession and appearance of believers. The application of it to the children of believers necessarily calls for certain modifications in the doctrinal aspect of the matter, as already stated in Lecture VIII. But it is unnecessary to enter on these here.) Colossians 2:13-15. In these verses, there is nothing properly additional to what has been already stated regarding the work of Christ in its effect upon the soul; but there is a specific application of this to the believing Gentiles whom the apostle was addressing, and a more detailed explanation of the matters involved in it. First, their personal quickening out of a state of spiritual death and defilement: you being dead (or when you were dead) in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh; that is, the uncleanness which attached to them as abiding in their still unsanctified fleshly natures; this as the root of the evil, though from his particular point of view placed last in the apostle’s statement, and the other, the death in trespasses, the fruit that sprung from it, and gave evidence of its malignant nature; both alike were put away by the renewing and quickening energy which flowed into their experience from the risen life of Christ. Then, as the essential groundwork and condition of this quickening, there was the free pardon of their sins: having forgiven us (the apostle including himself, and making the statement general) all our trespasses—χαρισάμενος, the indefinite past, indicating that the thing was virtually done at once, that forgiveness was secured through the vicarious work of Christ, as a boon ready to be bestowed on every one who might in a living faith appropriate the gift. Hence, thirdly, as the necessary condition of this, or its indispensable accompaniment, there was the removing of what stood in the way of their acquittal from guilt—the condemning power and authority of the law: having wiped out the hand writing in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross. What here is meant by the handwriting in ordinances (χειρόγραφον τοῖς δόγμασιν) must be the same with that which fastened on them the charge of guilt and condemnation, and, as such, formed the great barrier against forgiveness. This, there can be no doubt, was the law, not in part but in whole—the law in the full compass of its requirements; called here the handwriting, with reference to the frequent mention of writing in connection with it; (Exodus 31:18; Exodus 34:1; Exodus 34:27; Deuteronomy 10:4; Deuteronomy 27:3, etc.) and this in, or with ordinances, namely, decretory enactments (the dative of instrument, as γράμμασιν at Galatians 6:11, the enactments forming the material with which the writing was made), pointing to the peremptory form which the revelation of law assumed. The expression has already been under consideration at Ephesians 2:15. It cannot be limited to outward observances, though it is clear, from the use of the verb and its connection in Colossians 2:20, that these were here specially in view. Of the law thus described, the apostle says, it was against us, and as if this were not explicit enough, he adds the separate statement, which was contrary, or hostile, to us: not meaning, of course, that it was in itself of a grievous or offensive nature (he elsewhere calls it ‘holy, just, and good’ (Romans 7:12.)), but that it bore injuriously upon our condition, and, from its righteous demands not being satisfied, had come to stand over against us like a bill of indictment, or Divine summary of undischarged obligations. But Christ, says the apostle, or God in Him, wiped out the writing (ἐξαλείψας, precisely as in Acts 3:19, with reference to sins, and in Revelation 3:5, with reference to a name in a book); that is, in effect deleted it, and so took it out of the way, carried it from among us, namely, so far as, or in the respect in which, it formed an accusing witness against us. But, plainly, this could not be done by an arbitrary abolition of the thing itself; moral and religious obligations cannot be got rid of in such a way; they must be met by a just and proper satisfaction; and this is what was stated by the apostle in the next clause under the figurative expression, nailing it to His cross. Ostensibly and really Christ’s body was the only thing nailed there; but suffering, as He did, to bear the curse of the law for sin, and actually enduring the penalty, it was as if the law itself in its condemnatory aspect toward men was brought to an end—its power in that respect was exhausted. ‘Never,’ says Chrysostom, ‘did the apostle speak so magniloquently (but this applies also to Colossians 2:15). Do you see what zeal he exhibits to have the handwriting made to disappear? To wit, we were all under sin and punishment: He being punished, made an end both of sin and punishment; and He was punished on the cross. There, therefore, He transfixed it (the handwriting), and then, as having power, He tore it asunder.’ Did with it, in short, what the satisfied creditor does with his charge of debt, or the appeased judge with his bill of indictment; cancelled it as a claim that could involve us any more in guilt and condemnation, if we receive and trust in Him as He is there presented to our view. (It was chiefly on the ground of this passage, including also Ephesians 2:13-17, that a mode of representation, once very common among a certain class of preachers in this country, was adopted—namely, that in respect to sinners generally ‘all legal barriers to salvation have been removed by Christ.’ The representation is perfectly Scriptural and legitimate, if understood with reference to the objective manifestation of Christ, and the exhibition of His offered grace to the souls of men. It is undoubtedly under this aspect that the truth is here presented by the apostle; and it is quite in accordance with his statement, to go to sinners of every name and degree, and tell them to look in faith to Christ, and to rest assured, if they do so, that, by His work on the cross, all legal barriers have been removed to their complete salvation. But the expression may be, and undoubtedly has sometimes been, used as importing more than this; and consequently, if still employed, should be cleared of all ambiguity.) Finally, a statement is made respecting the relation of Christ’s work for His people on the cross to what he calls the principalities and powers: the original is, ἀπεκδυσάμενος τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ἐξουσίας ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησίᾳ, θριαμβεύσας αὐτοὺς ἐν αὐτῷ. The exact import of some of the words, and the proper mode of explicating the sentiment contained in them, have given rise to some difference of opinion, and are not quite easily determined. The general bearing of the statement, however, on the more immediate subject of discourse, is plain enough, and this, amid the diversity of opinion which exists in other respects, should not be forgotten. Obviously, it is intended in the first instance to convey an impression of the completeness of Christ’s work on the cross as to the procuring of forgiveness for sin, and the effecting of a true cleansing or renewal of state in as many as believed: in this point of view, the scene of deepest humiliation had become the chosen theatre of Divine glory—the place and moment of victory over evil. Then, in token of this, we are told that whatever orders or powers of a higher kind had, or were anyhow supposed to have, an interest in retaining things as they were, and consequently in opposing this result, these, instead of triumphing, as might to the bodily eye have seemed to be the case, were themselves effectually overthrown on the cross—the ground and occasion of their power to carry it against men, being thereby taken out of their hand. So much seems plain; no one can well fail to derive this amount of instruction from the words; but when we go into detail, and ask, what precisely are to be understood by those principalities and powers, who are here said to have lost their ascendency and their means of strength, or how explain the specific acts to which the result is ascribed, there is some difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory answer. By far the commonest, as it was also the earliest, view of commentators regarding the principalities and powers, holds them to be demons, the spirits of darkness, who, as instruments of vengeance, ever seek to press home upon men the consequences of their sin, but who by reason of the satisfaction given to the demands of God’s law through the death of Christ on the cross, have had the ground of their successful agency taken from them—the curse given them to execute has been fully borne and, instead of now being at liberty to spoil, and ravage, and destroy, they are themselves, as regards believers in Christ, in the condition of spoiled and vanquished forces—their prey gone, their weapons of war perished. Some, however (Suicer, Rosenmüller, etc.), have conceived that the principalities and powers in question are to be sought for in the earthly sphere, and are none other than the authorities, priestly and secular, who arrayed themselves in opposition to Christ, and thought by crucifying Him to put an end to His cause. More recently, Hofmann, (‘Schriftb.’ I. p. 350, seq.) Alford, and a few more, take the expression to refer to good angels, as having ministered at the introduction of the law, and thereby thrown around God a sort of veil, which hindered the free outgoing of His love, and shrouded His glory to the view of the heathen, and in a measure also to the covenant people—this, like an old vesture, being now rent off and cast aside through the atoning death of Christ, the angelic powers associated with it are said to be put aside along with it, exhibited as in a state of complete subjection to Christ, and made to follow, as it were, in the triumphal procession of Him who is the one Lord and Saviour of men. This last mode of explanation manifestly carries a strained and unnatural appearance, and represents the angels of Heaven as standing in a relation to Christ and His people, which is without any real parallel in other parts of Scripture. According to it, they did the part not of subordinate agents merely in God’s earlier dispensation, but in some sense of antagonistic forces, and required to be exposed in no very agreeable aspect, nay, triumphed over, and driven from the field. There is nothing at all approaching to this in any other passage touching on the ministry of angels, and the endeavour to accommodate the language of the apostle so understood to the general doctrine of angels in Scripture, can only be regarded as a play of fancy. The second view, also, which has never met with much acceptance, has this fatal objection against it, that the terms, principalities and powers, always bear respect in St Paul’s writings to spiritual beings and angelic orders; (Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 1:16; Colossians 2:10.) whether of a good or of an evil nature, is left to be gathered from the context. Of the two passages just referred to in the Epistle to the Ephesians, the first applies the terms to good, the second to malignant, spirits; and it can, therefore, be no valid objection to a like application in the latter sense here, that in two earlier passages of this epistle they have been used of the higher intelligences in the heavenly places. The things asserted of them in each case leave little room to doubt to what region they should be assigned, and with what kind of agency associated. And here, both the natural import of the language, and the very general consent among commentators of all ages in the interpretation of it, seem to shut us up to the first view specified, and oblige us to regard the principalities and powers, whose ascendency and influence for evil received a fatal blow on the death of Christ, as belonging to the empire of darkness, and not of light. It is no valid objection to this view, that the definite article is used before the terms in question, as if pointing to the kind of principalities and powers mentioned in preceding passages; (Alford.) for at Ephesians 6:12 also, where the terms undoubtedly refer to hostile agencies, the definite article is employed, notwithstanding that, in the earlier passage where they occur, the words were used in a good sense. There can be no reason why the same peculiarity might not occur here; especially as the very nature of the subject implies a certain individualizing—the principalities and powers, not all such, but those who, from their antagonism to the good, occupied a hostile relation to Him who undertook the cause of our redemption. But allowing this to be the kind of intelligences referred to, there is still room for difference of opinion respecting the specific acts of dealing said to have been practised upon them. These are in our version spoiled, made an open show of, triumphed over. The diversity turns chiefly on the first, and whether it should be having spoiled, divested them of, or having stripped off from himself, divested himself of. The former is the rendering of the Vulgate, expolians, which has been followed by all the English versions, and by the great body of modern expositors: ‘it contemplates the principalities and powers as having been equipped with armour, which God as their conqueror took from them and removed away.’ (Meyer.) And this, as preparatory to their being exhibited in humble guise and carried off in triumph, undoubtedly presents a quite suitable meaning, and has hence met with general acceptance. But exception has been taken to it by some (Deyling, Hofmann, Ellicott, Alford, Wordsworth), on the ground that the verb ἀπεκδύω, in the middle, never bears that sense, and that the apostle himself very shortly after, in Colossians 3:9, uses exactly the same part of it as here, ἀπεκδυσάμενος, in the sense, not of having spoiled, but of having put off, or divested oneʼs-self of, namely, the old man and his deeds. This also is the meaning ascribed to the word by Origen (exuens principatus et potestates (Hom. in Joshua 8.)), by Chrysostom, who says the apostle speaks of diabolical powers here, ‘either because human nature had put on these, or, since it had them as a handle, He having become a man, put off the handle;’ and, to the like effect, Theophylact and others. Such, undoubtedly, is the more natural and best supported meaning of the expression; and the exact idea seems to be that our Lord (whom, and not God, against Meyer and Alford, we take to be the proper subject), when He resigned His body to an accursed death, that He might pay the deserved penalty for our sin, at the same time put off, or completely reft from Him, and from as many as should share with Him in His work of victory, those diabolical agencies who, by reason of sin, had obtained a kind of right to afflict and bruise humanity; this, as the house of their usurped dominion, or the victim they hung around with deadly and destructive malice, was now wrung from their grasp, and they were cast adrift like baffled and discomfited foes, their cause hopelessly and for ever gone. So that, by suffering for righteousness, Christ most effectually prevailed against the evil in our condition; (Hebrews 2:14; 1 Peter 3:18-22.) and thus turned the shame of the cross into the highest glory, (John 3:14-15; John 12:32.) made it the instrument and occasion of boldly (ἐν παρρησίᾳ, in an assured and confident manner) putting to shame the patrons and abettors of the evil, or exposing their weakness in this mortal conflict, and triumphing over them even amidst their apparent victory. Thus explained, though the radical idea is a little different, the general meaning is much the same as in the authorized version. In Colossians 2:16-17, we have the practical inference from the view that had been given of the work of Christ: let no one, therefore, judge you in eating or in drinking, or in the matter of a feast, or of a new moon, or of Sabbaths; which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. The term βρώσις is not exactly food, but eating, the act of taking food—as appears by comparing Romans 14:17, 1 Corinthians 8:4, 2 Corinthians 9:10, with others in which the passive form, βρώμα, is employed for the thing eaten, or the food itself. (1 Corinthians 3:2; 1 Corinthians 6:13; 1 Corinthians 10:3, &c.) But what, of course, is meant by the expression is the kind of food which one takes, and which was limited by express enactment in the law of Moses. And the same also in regard to drink (πόσις)—though here there was no general limitation under the ancient economy; only in the case of the ministering priest, and of persons under the Nazarite vow, was a restraint laid in respect to the temperate use of wine. (Leviticus 10:9; Numbers 6:3.) These cases, however, were so partial and peculiar, that some have supposed (in particular Meyer, Ellicott) that among the parties referred to additional practices of an ascetic kind had been introduced respecting drinks, of a theosophic or rabbinical origin. This is possible enough; but no special account can be made of it here, as the distinctions in question are presently affirmed to stand in a definite relation to the realities of the Gospel, and, consequently, are contemplated as of Divine appointment. When he says, Let no one judge you on the subject of eating and drinking, he may be understood generally to refer to articles of diet; in respect to these, the distinction as between clean and unclean was now gone; and whatever one might take he must not on this score be judged, or held to act unsuitably to the true ideal of a Christian life. And, in like manner, with respect to, or in the matter of (for such undoubtedly is the meaning of ἐν μέρει (2 Corinthians 3:10; 2 Corinthians 9:3.)) a feast, a stated solemnity (such as the Passover or Pentecost), or of a new moon (not strictly a holy day, except the seventh, but one marked by a few additional observances), or of Sabbaths. That the latter include, and indeed chiefly designate, the weekly Sabbath of the Jews, can admit of no reasonable doubt, both from days of that description comprising by far the greater part of those bearing the name of Sabbaths, and also because nearly, if not all, the other days to which the term Sabbath was applied, were already embraced in the feasts and new moons previously specified. Thus the distinctively sacred days appointed in the Mosaic law, together with its stated festivals, its distinctions of clean and unclean in food, and, by parity of reason, other things of a like outward and ceremonial nature, are here placed in one category, and declared to be no longer binding on the consciences of believers, or needful to their Christian progress. And for this reason, that they were all only shadows of things to come, while the body is of Christ; that is, they were no more than imperfect and temporary prefigurations of the work lie was to accomplish, and the benefits to be secured by it to those who believe; and as such, of course, they fell away when the great reality appeared. It might seem as if something further should have been concluded—not merely the non-obligatory observance of those shadowy institutions of the old covenant, but, as in the Epistle to the Galatians, the essential antichristiauism of their observance. There is, however, a difference in the two cases; the churches of Galatia had actually fallen back upon Jewish observances as necessary to their salvation, but the Colossians were as yet only exposed to the temptation of having in their neighbourhood persons whose teaching and practice lay in a similar direction.So far as yet appeared, correct views of the truth and of their liberty in Christ might be all that was required to guard against the danger. But was there no danger from the apostle’s own doctrine in another direction? In coupling Sabbath days with the other peculiar observances of Judaism, as things done away in Christ, does he not strike at the obligation of maintaining the observance of one day in seven for the more especial service of God, and break the connection between the Lord’s day of Christians and the Sabbath of earlier times? So it has often been alleged, and, among others, very strongly by Alford, who says, ‘If the observance of the Sabbath had been, in any form, of lasting obligation on the Christian church, it would have been quite impossible for the apostle to have spoken thus. The fact of an obligatory rest of one day, whether the seventh or the first, would have been directly in the teeth of his assertion here: the holding of such would have been still to retain the shadow, while we possess the substance.’ To this Ellicott justly replies, that such an assertion ‘cannot be substantiated. The Sabbath of the Jews (he adds), as involving other than mere national reminiscences, was a σκιὰ (shadow) of the Lord’s day: that a weekly seventh part of our time should be specially devoted to God, rests on considerations as old as the creation: that that seventh portion of the week should be the first day, rests on apostolical, and perhaps, inferentially, Divine usage and appointment.’ Substantially concurring in this, I still deem it better to say, that in so far as the Sabbath was a shadow of any thing in Christian times, it was, with all of a like nature, abolished in Christ; and on that account particularly (though also for other reasons), the day which took its place from the beginning of the Gospel dispensation, and had become known and observed, wherever the Christian church was established, as emphatically the Lord’s day, was changed from the last to the first day of the week. The seventh day Sabbath had been so long regarded as one of the more distinctive badges of Judaism, and had also, as an important factor, entered into many of the other institutions of the old covenant (the stated feasts, the sabbatical year, the year of Jubilee), that it necessarily came to partake, to some extent, of their typical character, and, in so far as it did so, must, like them also, pass away when the time of reformation came. But this is only one aspect of the sabbatical institution—not the original and direct, but rather a subsidiary and incidental one. As in a peculiar sense the day of God—the day, as Jesus Himself testified, which was made for man, and of which He claimed to be the Lord, (Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:27-28.) the Sabbath was essentially one with the Lord’s day of the Christian church, which, when the apostle wrote, was everywhere recognised and observed by believers. For in that respect there was nothing in the Sabbath of earlier times properly shadowy, or typical of redemption. It commenced before sin had entered, and while yet there was no need for a Redeemer. Nor was there any thing properly typical in the observance of it imposed in the fourth commandment; for this was a substantial re-enforcement of the primary institution, in its bearing on the general relation of men to God, and of members of society to each other. When associated with the typical services of the old covenant, the same thing virtually happened to it as with circumcision, which was the sign and seal of the Abrahamic covenant of grace, and had no immediate connection with the law of Moses; while yet it became so identified with that law, that it required to be supplanted by another ordinance of nearly similar import when the seed of blessing arrived, in which the Abrahamic covenant was to find its fulfilment. So great had the necessity become for the abolition of the one ordinance and the introduction of the other, that the apostle virtually declares it to have been indispensable, when he affirms (in his Epistle to the Galatians). of those who would still be circumcised, that they were debtors to do the whole law. At the same time, as regards the original design and spiritual import of circumcision, this he makes coincident with baptism (Romans 2:28-29; Romans 4:11.)—speaks here (Colossians 2:11) of baptized believers as the circumcision of Christ; and so presents the two ordinances as in principle most closely associated with each other, differing in form rather than in substance. We have no reason to suppose his meaning to be different in regard to the Sabbath; it is gone so far as its outward rest on the seventh day formed part of the typical things of Judaism, but no further. Its primeval character and destination remain. As baptism in the Spirit is Christ’s circumcision, so the Lord’s day is His Sabbath; and to be in the Spirit on that day, worshipping and serving Him in the truth of His Gospel, is to carry out the intent of the fourth commandment. (See ‘Typology of Scripture,’ Vol. II. p. 146, from which some of these later remarks are taken.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 103: 04.33. 1TI_1:6-11. ======================================================================== 1 Timothy 1:6-11. ‘In respect to which things [viz., love out of a pure heart and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned], some having gone astray, turned aside to vain talk; Wishing to be teachers of the law, without understanding either the things they say, or concerning what things they make asseveration. Now we know that the law is good, if one use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for lawless and unruly persons, for impious and sinful, for unholy and profane, for smiters of fathers and smiters of mothers; For fornicators, abusers of themselves with mankind, slave-dealers, liars, perjurers, and if there is any thing else that is contrary to the sound teaching; According to the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God, with which I was put in trust.’ This passage contains the last recorded statement of St Paul regarding the law; and it is of importance, for a correct understanding of its import, and bearing on the Christian life, to have a distinct perception of the point of view from which the apostle is here contemplating it. This was determined by the class of errorists against whom he was now seeking to warn Timothy—a class differing materially from those whom he found it necessary to contend against in his other epistles (to the Galatians, the Romans, and the Colossians) on the subject of the law. The latter were sincere, but mistaken and superficial, adherents of the law in the letter of its requirements, and the full compass of its ceremonial observances—legalists of the Pharisaical type. But those here in the eye of the apostle were obviously of a quite different stamp. So far from being sincere and earnest in their convictions, they are represented as morally in a very degenerate and perverted condition; entirely lapsed, or erring from (ἀστοχήσαντες), what must ever distinguish the genuine believer, whether altogether enlightened or not in his apprehensions of the truth the love which springs from a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. They not only wanted this essential characteristic of a sound moral condition, but had, in a spirit of error and declension, gone into another direction, and for the exercise of a pure and elevating love had fallen into a kind of empty talk. Then as to the manner in which this empty talk exhibited itself, he tells us, that while it turned somehow upon the law, of which they wished to be more especially the teachers, yet so little were they qualified for the task, that they neither understood what they spake about it, nor had any proper acquaintance with the things on which they made asseveration, or delivered themselves with an assured confidence (διαβεβαιοῦνται). How could they, indeed, since they wanted the love which is the very essence of the law, and the purity of heart and conscience, which a real conformity to its demands must ever pre suppose and require? In such a case, if they continued to make any account of the law, they necessarily turned aside to some arbitrary or fanciful applications of it, which were fitted rather to gratify an idle curiosity or a vain conceit, than to promote its spiritual ends. What precisely, then, was the character of their perverted ingenuity? Baur has endeavoured to prove that it took the form of antinomianism; that the assumed teachers of the law were in reality opponents of the law; that they were in fact heretics of the Marcionite school, who repudiated the Divine authority of the law, and were anti-legalists of the most advanced type. But to call such parties ‘teachers of the law’ would be an abuse of terms, besides involving, as a matter of course, the spurious character of the epistle, since the school of Marcion belongs to a period considerably subsequent to the apostolic age. The view, therefore, has met with few supporters even in Germany; and, indeed, carries improbability on the face of it; for, not only are the parties in question represented as in some sort teachers of the law, but contemplating them as such, and conceding somewhat to them in that respect, the apostle begins his counter-statement by saying, ‘Now we know that the law is good’—as much as to say, on that common principle we are agreed; we have no quarrel with them as to the excellence of the law. The parties, therefore, were legalists, yet not after the fashion of the Jewish-Christians of Galatia and Colossae, for the manner of meeting them here is entirely different from that adopted in the epistles to those churches; they are charged, not with pressing the continued observance of what about it was temporary, or with exalting it as a whole out of its proper place, but with ignorance of its real nature, and making confident assertion of things respecting it which had no just foundation. Now, one can readily understand how well such a description would apply to persons of a dreamy and speculative mood—disposed formally to abide by the revealed law of God; but, instead of taking its prescriptions in their plain and natural sense, seeking to refine upon them, and use them chiefly as an occasion or handle for certain mystical allegorizings and theosophic culture. And this is precisely the form of evil which (as is now generally believed—for example, by De Wette, Luther, Ellicott, Alford) prevailed among a class of Jewish believers about Ephesus—a class combining in itself certain heterogeneous elements derived from an incipient Gnosticism on the one side, and a corrupt Judaism on the other. The parties in question would keep by the law, they would even make more of it than the apostle did; but then it was the law understood after their own fashion, lifted out of its proper sphere, and linked to airy speculations or fanciful conceits. In the works of Philo—probably the soberest, certainly the best surviving specimens of this tendency—we find the law to a large extent evacuated of its moral import, and much that should have been applied to the heart and conscience turned into the channel of a crude and ill-digested physics. But in the case of inferior men, morally as well as intellectually inferior, men of a perverted and sophistical cast of mind, both the fancifulness of the expositions given of the law, and its application to other than the moral and religious purposes for which it was revealed, would naturally be of a more marked description. There would now be wild extravagance, and, under lofty pretensions to superior wisdom, a mode of interpretation adopted which aimed at establishing a licentious freedom. And so, indeed, the corresponding passage in Titus distinctly informs us, (Titus 1:10.) where the apostle, evidently referring to the same sort of pretensions and corrupt legalists, says, ‘There are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopt, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake.’ He further characterizes them as persons who give heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, which turn from the truth, in their actings abominable, and in their very mind and conscience defiled. So that their fanciful and perverted use of the law must have led them quite away from its practical aim, into purely speculative or allegorical applications. And in such writings of the apostle John, as were more immediately addressed to the churches in the same Asiatic region, but at a period somewhat later, we find indications of a perfectly similar state of mind, only in a more advanced stage of development. They make mention of the ‘blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan,’ of persons who taught the doctrine of Balaam, who practised the seductions of Jezebel, who were familiar with the depths of Satan, etc.: (Revelation 2:9; Revelation 2:14; Revelation 2:20; Revelation 2:24.)—statements which could only be made of such as had given way to foolish imaginations, and lost the right moral perception of things. To teach the law, therefore, as those persons did, must have been virtually to defeat its end, because keeping it apart from the practical designs and purposes which it aimed at securing. 1 Timothy 1:8-9. In opposition to this misuse of the law, the apostle proceeds to indicate its proper use—which he makes to consist in a plain, direct, and peremptory repression of the corruption and vicious practices which are at variance with its precepts. Now we know that the law is good; so far we are perfectly agreed; in itself, the law is unimpeachable, and can work only good, if one use it lawfully; in other words, apply it to the great moral ends for which it was given. Then, as regards this legitimate use, the apostle indicates just one condition, a single guiding principle, but this perfectly sufficient to check the pernicious errors now more immediately in view: knowing this, that the lair is not made for a righteous man. Though the article is not used before νόμος, it must plainly be taken (as the great majority of expositors, Chrysostom, Theophylact, and latterly De Witte, Huther, Weisinger, Alford, Ellicott) in the specific sense of God’s law—the law by way of eminence—the Decalogue. While, grammatically, Middleton’s explanation, ‘No law is enacted,’ might be adopted—understanding law in the general sense, but inclusive of the law of Moses—the connection and obvious bearing of the passage does not properly admit of such a comprehensive reference; it is the law, emphatically so called, in the view of God’s professing people, as is clear alone from the respect had in the enumeration of crimes (1 Timothy 1:9-10) to the successive precepts of the Decalogue. By the just or righteous person (δίκαιος), for whom the law is not made (κεῖται), that is, constitutionally enacted or ordained, must be under stood not such merely, as in the estimation of the world, are morally correct, but those who, in the higher Christian sense, are right before God—very much the same with the class of persons described in 1 Timothy 1:5, as having attained to the end of the commandment, by the possession of love, out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. This certainly includes their justification through faith in the blood of Christ, but it includes sanctification as well; it is indeed their complex condition that is indicated, as persons in whose experience the great principles of righteousness had come to the ascendant and bore rule. As such, they already have what the law aims at producing; they are moving in the way which it prescribes; and so, for them it may justly be said not to have been enacted. Then, on the other side, the apostle goes on to describe the different sorts of persons for whom it is enacted—those whom it is given to check and restrain, and bring to a better state; beginning with designations of a more general kind, and after wards employing the more specific. There is no need for dwelling on them: they are, the lawless and unruly, persons of a self-willed, way ward, and rebellious spirit; the ungodly and sinful, the same characters again, only contemplated from a more distinctly religious point of view, as devoid of respect to the authority and will of God; the unholy and profane, differing from the immediately preceding epithets, only as pointing to the more positive aspect of the ungodly disposition, its tendency to run into what is openly wicked and irreligious—all, though general in their nature, having respect to men’s relation to God, and their contrariety to the things enjoined in the earlier precepts of the Decalogue. Then follow a series of terms which, in regular succession, denote the characters in question, with reference to the later precepts of the Decalogue: smiters of fathers and smiters of mothers—breakers of the fifth command of the law, yet not perhaps strictly parricides and matricides, as the verb ἀλοάω, or ἀλοιάω, which enters into the composition of πατρολῴαις and μητρολῴαις, signifies merely to thresh, smite, and such like, so that the compound terms do not necessarily import more than the dishonouring in an offensive manner, the contemptuous and harsh treatment of parents; men-slayers, the violators of the sixth command; fornicators, abusers of themselves with mankind (Sodomites, ἀρσενοκοίταις), the violators of the seventh; men-stealers, kidnappers and slave-dealers, the most obnoxious class of transgressors in respect to the eighth; finally, liars and perjurers, the open and flagrant breakers of the ninth. But the apostle had no intention of making a full enumeration; he points only to the more manifest and palpable forms of transgression under the several kinds; and, therefore, he winds up the description by a comprehensive delineation, and if there is any thing else that is contrary to the sound teaching—that, namely, which proceeds from the true servants and ambassadors of Christ, and which is characterised as sound, healthful (ὑγιαινούσῃ), in opposition to the sickly and unwholesome kind of nutriment ministered by the corrupt teachers of whom he had been speaking. This term, though used only in the two epistles to Timothy, is aptly descriptive of the persons referred to—a class of theosophists, who thought themselves above the ordinary teaching of the Gospel, and the plain precepts of the law, who, in their aspirations after what they deemed the higher kind of life, restrained themselves from things in themselves lawful and good; while, on the other hand, they were dealing falsely with their consciences as to the fundamental distinctions between right and wrong in their behaviour, and, under the cloak of godliness, were prosecuting their own selfish ends. In 1 Timothy 1:11 a word is added to indicate the conformity of the apostle’s view of the matter with the Divine commission he had received: according to the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I was put in trust. The connection with what precedes is general rather than particular; and the utterance is not to be limited merely to the sound teaching going before (as if it had been διδασκαλίᾳ τῇ, or τῇ ὀύσῃ, κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον), but must be taken as embracing the whole of the preceding statement. His view of the law, and of the classes of character against whom it was more especially directed, its use rather in repressing evil and convicting of sin than carrying the spiritual and good to the higher degrees of perfection, so far from being a doctrine of his own devising, was in accordance with that Gospel which is emphatically the revelation of God’s glory. It was not therefore to be thought of or characterized as a low doctrine, but was in accordance with the essential nature of Godhead, and the high aims of redeeming love. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 104: 05.00.1. THE TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE ======================================================================== THE TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE: VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE WHOLE SERIES OF THE DIVINE DISPENSATIONS BY PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D., PRINCIPAL, AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW. In vetere Testamento novum latet, et in novo vetus patet. AUGUST. QUAEST. IN EX. LXXIII. VOLUME I-II. FOURTH EDITION. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO. MDCCCLXIV. MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. Text from Bill Anderson at StillTruth.com e-Sword/theWord Module by BibleSupport.com ======================================================================== CHAPTER 105: 05.00.2. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. ======================================================================== Preface To The Fourth Edition. THE issue of a Fourth Edition of the following Treatise, however gratifying in one respect, is in another not unaccompanied with a measure of regret. This arises from the number of alterations which it has been found necessary to introduce into it, and which will naturally prove of injurious consequence to the Editions that have preceded. But, in truth, no alternative was left me, if the work was to keep pace with the age, and maintain relatively the place it occupied in the earlier stages of its existence. When I first gave to the public the fruit of my investigations upon the subject of Scripture Typology, not only was there great diversity of opinion among theologians respecting its fundamental principles, but many specific topics connected with it were only beginning to receive the benefit of modern research and independent inquiry. It is much otherwise now. Even during the last ten years, since the Second Edition was published, from which the Third did not materially differ, productions, in very considerable number and variety, have appeared, especially on the Continent, in which certain portions of the field have been subjected to careful examination not unfrequently have become the occasion of earnest controversy; and to have sent forth another Edition of my Treatise, without regard being had to the fresh discussions that have taken place, would only have been to leave it in a state of imperfect adaptation to the present times. It is proper to mention, however, that the alterations in question have respect to the literature of the subject and modes of representation on particular parts, rather than to the views and principles which have been exhibited in connection with its general treatment. These have undergone no essential alteration; indeed, with the exception of a few minor points, which it is unnecessary to particularize, they remain much as they were in the two last Editions. The progress of discussion, however, with its varying tides of opinion, naturally called for an extension of the historical review in the introductory chapter, which has been coupled with a slight abridgment in some of its earlier details, and in the later with a softening of the controversial tone, which seemed occasionally to possess too keen an edge. The views, also, which in certain influential quarters have of late been ventilated, respecting the relation of God’s work in creation to the destined incarnation of the Son, appeared render the introduction of a new chapter (the fourth in Vol. I.) almost indispensible, that the subject, with reference more especially to its typological bearing, might receive the consideration that was due to it. These additions, with some other changes growing out of them, and the employment of a somewhat larger type for the Notes and Appendices, have together brought an enlargement of about fifty pages to the First Volume. The alterations in the Second Volume, though more numerous, are not quite so extensive in respect to quantity of matter; and, partly consisting of more compressed statements, where such were practicable, they have not added very materially to the entire bulk of the Volume. They occur most frequently in the portions which treat of the institutions and offerings of the Mosaic economy, on which there has recently been much discussion; and, in particular, the question respecting the relation of the sin-offerings to transgressions of a moral kind (Ch. III., sec. 5), and the topics handled in one or two of the Appendices, are here for the first time formally considered. On the whole, I trust it will be found that the work has been, both in form and substance, materially improved; and having now again (probably for the last time) traversed the field with some care, and expressed what may be considered my matured views on the topics embraced in it, I leave the fruit of my labours to the candid consideration of others, and commend it anew to the blessing of Him whose word it seeks to explain and vindicate. As regards the general plan pursued in the investigation of the subject, I have only in substance to repeat what was said in previous editions. It might, no doubt, have been practicable to narrow at various points the field of discussion, and especially to abridge the space devoted to the consideration of the law in Volume Second (which some have thought disproportionate), if the object had been simply to extract from the earlier dispensations such portions as more peculiarly possess a typical character. But to have treated the typical in such an isolated manner would have conduced little either to the elucidation of the subject itself, or to the satisfaction of thoughtful inquirers. The Typology of the Old Testament touches at every point on its religion and worship. It is part of a complicated system of truth and duty; and it is impossible to attain to a correct discernment and due appreciation of the several parts, without contemplating them in the relation they bear both to each other and to the whole. Hence the professed aim of the work is to view the Typology of Scripture, not by itself, but in connection with the entire series of the Divine dispensations. It is possible some may think, that there is an occasional extreme on the other side, and that less has been said than might justly have been expected on certain controversial topics, which are ever rising afresh into notice, and which find, if not their root, at least a considerable part of their support, in the view that is taken of things pertaining to the institutions of former times. The proper aim, however, of a work of this sort is hermeneutical and expository, rather than controversial: it may, and indeed ought, to lay the foundation for a legitimate use of Old Testament materials, to the settlement of various important questions belonging to Christian times; but the actual application of the materials to the diversified phases of polemical discussion, belongs to other departments of theology. In certain cases the application is so natural and obvious, that it could not fitly be avoided; but even in these it had been improper to go beyond comparatively narrow limits; and if I have not erred by excess, I scarcely think judicious critics will consider me to have done so by defect. Still more limited is the relation in which the inquiry pursued in a work like the present stands to the much agitated question respecting the historical verity of the earlier books of Scripture, and in particular to the authenticity and truthfulness of the books of Moses. Incidentally, not a few opportunities have occurred of noticing, and to some extent repelling, the objections that have been thrown out upon the subject. But, as a rule, it was necessary to take for granted the historical truthfulness of the sacred records; for, apart from the reality and Divine character of the transactions therein related, Typology in the proper sense has no foundation to stand upon. The service which investigations of this kind, when rightly pursued, are fitted to render to the inspiration and authority of Scripture, is of a less formal description, and relates to points of agreement, of a somewhat veiled and hidden nature, between one part of the Divine scheme and another. To obtain a clear and comprehensive view of these one must stand, as it were, within the sacred edifice of God’s revelation, and survey with an attentive eye its interior harmony and proportions. They who do so will certainly find in the careful study of the Typology of Scripture many valuable confirmations to their faith. Evidences of the strictly supernatural character of the plan it discloses will press themselves on their notice, such as altogether escape the observation of more superficial inquirers; and to them such evidences will be the more convincing and satisfactory, that it is only through patient research they come to be perceived in their proper variety and fulness. If one may have, as Dean Milman justly states (Hist, of Jews, i., p. 133, 3d ed.), “great faith in internal evidence, which rests on broad and patent facts, on laws, for instance, which belong to a peculiar age and state of society, and which there can be no conceivable reason for imagining in later times, and during the prevalence of other manners, and for ascribing them to an ancient people,” not less may such faith be called forth and exercised by that evidence, which arises from the perception of a profound harmony of principle and nicely adjusted relations, preserved amid the endless diversities of form and method naturally incident to a scheme of progressive development. P. F. GLASGOW, 2d November 1863. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 106: 05.01. BOOK FIRST ======================================================================== Book First.—Inquiry Into The Principles Of Typical Interpretation, With A View Chiefly To The Determination Of The Real Nature And Design Of Types, And The Extent To Which They Entered Into God’s Earlier Dispensations. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 107: 05.02. CHAPTER FIRST ======================================================================== Chapter First.—Historical And Critical Survey Of The Past And Present State Of Theological Opinion On The Subject. THE Typology of Scripture has been one of the most neglected departments of theological science. It has never altogether escaped from the region of doubt and uncertainty; and some still regard it as a field incapable, from its very nature, of being satisfactorily explored, or cultivated so as to yield any sure and appreciable results. Hence it is not unusual to find those who otherwise are agreed in their views of divine truth, and in the general principles of biblical interpretation, differing materially in the estimate they have formed of the Typology of Scripture. Where one hesitates, another is full of confidence; and the landmarks that are set up to-day are again shifted to-morrow. With such various and contradictory sentiments prevailing on the subject, it is necessary, in the first instance, to take an historical and critical survey of the field, that from the careful revision of what has been done in the past, we may the more readily perceive what still remains to be accomplished, in order that we may arrive at a well-grounded and scriptural Typology. I. We naturally begin with the Christian Fathers. Their typological views, however, are only to be gathered from the occasional examples to be met with in their writings; as they nowhere lay down any clear and systematic principles for the regulation of their judgments in the matter. Some exception might, perhaps, be made in respect to Origen. And yet with such vagueness and dubiety has he expressed himself regarding the proper interpretation of Old Testament Scripture, that by some he has been understood to hold, that there is a fourfold, by others a threefold, and by others again only a twofold, sense in the sacred text. The truth appears to be, that while he contended for a fourfold application of Scripture, he regarded it as susceptible only of a twofold sense. And considered generally, the principles of interpretation on which he proceeded were not essentially different from those usually followed by the great majority of the Greek Fathers. But before stating how these bore on the subject now under consideration, it will be necessary to point out a distinction too often lost sight of, both in earlier and in later times, between allegorical and typical interpretations, properly so called. These have been very commonly confounded together, as if they were essentially one in principle, and differed only in the extent to which the principle may be carried. There is, however, a specific difference between the two, which it is not very difficult to apprehend, and which it is of some importance to notice in connection especially with the interpretations of patristic writers. An allegory is a narrative, either expressly feigned for the purpose, or—if describing facts which really took place—describing them only for the purpose of representing certain higher truths or principles than the narrative, in its literal aspect, whether real or fictitious, could possibly have taught. The ostensible representation, therefore, if not invented, is at least used, simply as a cover for the higher sense, which may refer to things ever so remote from those immediately described, if only the corresponding relations are preserved. So that allegorical interpretations of Scripture properly comprehend the two following cases, and these only: 1. When the scriptural representation is actually held to have had no foundation in fact—to be a mere myth, or fabulous description, invented for the sole purpose of exhibiting the mysteries of divine truth; or, 2. When—without moving any question about the real or fictitious nature of the representation—it is considered incapable as it stands of yielding any adequate or satisfactory sense, and is consequently employed, precisely as if it had been fabulous, to convey some meaning of an entirely different and higher kind. The difference between allegorical interpretations, in either of these senses, and those which are properly called typical, cannot be fully exhibited till we have ascertained the exact nature and design of a type. It will be enough meanwhile to say, that typical interpretations of Scripture differ from allegorical ones of the first or fabulous kind, in that they indispensably require the reality of the facts or circumstances stated in the original narrative. And they differ also from the other, in requiring, beside this, that the same truth or principle be embodied alike in the type and the antitype. The typical is not properly a different or higher sense, but a different or higher application of the same sense. Returning, then, to the writings of the Fathers, and using the expressions typical and allegorical in the senses now respectively ascribed to them, there can be no doubt that the Fathers generally were much given both to typical and allegorical explanations,—the Greek Fathers more to allegorical than to typical,—and to allegorical more in the second than in the first sense, described above. They do not appear, for the most part, to have discredited the plain truth or reality of the statements made in Old Testament history. They seem rather to have considered the sense of the latter true and good, so far as it went, but of itself so meagre and puerile, that it was chiefly to be regarded as the vehicle of a much more refined and ethereal instruction. Origen, however, certainly went farther than this, and expressly denied that many things in the Old Testament had any real existence. In his Principia (Lib. iv.) he affirms, that “when the Scripture history could not otherwise be accommodated to the explanation of spiritual things, matters have been asserted which did not take place, nay, which could not have taken place; and others again, which, though they might have occurred, yet never actually did so.” Again, when speaking of some notices in the life of Rebecca, he says—“In these things, I have often told you, there is not a relation of histories, hut a concoction of mysteries.”[1] And, in like manner, in his annotations on the first chapters of Genesis, he plainly scouts the idea of God’s having literally clothed our first parents with the skins of slain beasts—calls it absurd, ridiculous, and unworthy of God, and declares that in such a case the naked letter is not to be adhered to as true, but exists only for the spiritual treasure which is concealed under it.[2] [1] Opera, Vol. II., p. 88, Ed. Delarue. [2] Ibid., p. 29. Statements of this kind are of too frequent occurrence in the writings of Origen to have arisen from inadvertence, or to admit of being resolved into mere hyperboles of expression. They were, indeed, the natural result of that vicious system of interpretation which prevailed in his age, when it fell, as it did in his case, into the hands of an ardent and enthusiastic follower. At the same time it must be owned, in behalf of Origen, that however possessed of what has been called a “the allegorical fury,” he does not appear generally to have discredited the facts of sacred history; and that he differed from the other Greek Fathers, chiefly in the extent to which he went in decrying the literal sense as carnal and puerile, and extolling the mystical as alone suited for those who had become acquainted with the true wisdom. It would be out of place here, however, to go into any particular illustration of this point, as it is not immediately connected with our present inquiry. But we shall refer to a single specimen of his allegorical mode of interpretation, for the purpose chiefly of showing distinctly how it differed from what is of a simply typological character. We make our selection from Origen’s homily on Abraham’s marriage with Keturah (Horn. vi. In Genes.). He does not expressly disavow his belief in the fact of such a marriage having actually taken place between the parties in question, though his language seems to point in that direction; but he intimates that this, in common with the other marriages of the patriarchs, contained a sacramental mystery. And what might this be? Nothing less than the sublime truth, “that there is no end to wisdom, and that old age sets no bounds to improvement in knowledge. The death of Sarah (he says) is to be understood as the perfecting of virtue. But he who has attained to a consummate and perfect virtue, must always be employed in some kind of learning—which learning is called by the divine Word, his wife. Abraham, therefore, when an old man, and his body in a manner dead, took Keturah to wife. I think it was better, according to the exposition we follow, that the wife should have been received when his body was dead, and his members were mortified. For we have a greater capacity for wisdom when we bear about the dying of Christ in our mortal body. Then Keturah, whom he married in his old age, is, by interpretation, incense, or sweet odour. For he said, even as Paul said, (We are a sweet savour of Christ. Sin is a foul and putrid thing; but if any of you in whom this no longer dwells, have the fragrance of righteousness, the sweetness of mercy, and by prayer continually offer up incense to God, ye also have taken Keturah to wife.” And forthwith he proceeds to show, how many such wives may be taken: hospitality is one, the care of the poor another, patience a third,—each Christian excellence, in short, a wife; and hence it was, that the patriarchs are reported to have had so many wives, and that Solomon is said to have possessed them even by hundreds, he having received plenitude of wisdom like the sand on the sea-shore, and consequently grace to exercise the largest number of virtues. We have here a genuine example of allegorical interpretation, if not actually holding the historical matter to be fabulous, at least treating it as if it were so. It is of no moment, for any purpose which such a mode of interpretation might serve, whether Abraham and Keturah had a local habitation among this world’s families, and whether their marriage was a real fact in history, or an incident fitly thrown into a fictitious narrative, constructed for the purpose of symbolizing the doctrines of a divine philosophy. If it had been handled after the manner of a type, and not as an allegory, whatever specific meaning might have been ascribed to it as a representation of gospel mysteries, the story must have been assumed as real, and the act of Abraham made to correspond with something essentially the same in kind some sort of union, for example, between parties holding a similar relation to each other, that Abraham did to Keturah. In this, though there might have been an error in the particular application that was made of the story, there would at least have been some appearance of a probable ground for it to rest upon. But sublimated into the ethereal form it receives from the fertile genius of Origen, the whole, history and interpretation together, presently acquires an uncertain and shadowy aspect. For what connection, either in the nature of things, or in the actual experience of the Father of the Faithful, can be shown to exist between the death of a wife, and the consummation of virtue in the husband; or the wedding of a second wife, and his pursuit of knowledge? Why might not the loss sustained in the former case as well represent the decay of virtue, and the acquisition in the latter denote a relaxation in the search after the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge?There would evidently be as good reason for asserting the one as the other; and, indeed, with such an arbitrary and elastic style of interpretation, there is nothing, either false or true in doctrine, wise or unwise in practice, which might not claim support in Scripture. The Bible would be made to reflect every hue of fancy, and every shade of belief in those who assumed the office of interpretation; and instead of being rendered serviceable to a higher instruction, it would be turned into one vast sea of uncertainty and confusion. In proof of this we need only appeal to the use which Clement of Alexandria, Origen’s master, has made of another portion of sacred history which relates to Abraham’s wives (Strom. L. I. p. 333). The instruction which he finds couched under the narrative of Abraham’s marriage successively to Sarah and Hagar, is that a Christian ought to cultivate philosophy and the liberal arts before he devotes himself wholly to the study of divine wisdom. This he endeavours to make out in the following manner:—Abraham is the image of a perfect Christian, Sarah the image of Christian wisdom, and Hagar the image of philosophy or human wisdom (certainly a far from agreeable likeness!). Abraham lived for a long time in a state of connubial sterility; whence it is inferred that a Christian, so long as he confines himself to the study of divine wisdom and religion alone, will never bring forth any great or excellent fruits. Abraham, then, with the consent of Sarah, takes to him Hagar, which proves, according to Clement, that a Christian ought to embrace the wisdom of this world, or philosophy, and that Sarah, or divine wisdom, will not withhold her consent. Lastly, after Hagar had borne Ishmael to Abraham, he resumed his inter course with Sarah, and of her begat Isaac; the true import of which is, that a Christian, after having once thoroughly grounded himself in human learning and philosophy, will, if he then devotes himself to the culture of divine wisdom, be capable of propagating the race of true Christians, and of rendering essential service to the Church. Thus we have two entirely different senses extracted from similar transactions by the master and the disciple; and still, far from being exhausted, as many more might be obtained, as there are fertile imaginations disposed to turn the sacred narrative into the channel of their own peculiar conceits. It was not simply the historical portions of Old Testament Scripture which were thus allegorized by Origen, and the other Greek Fathers who belonged to the same school. A similar mode of interpretation was applied to the ceremonial institutions of the ancient economy; and a higher sense was often sought for in these, than we find any indication of in the epistle to the Hebrews, Clement even carried the matter so far as to apply the allegorical principle to the ten commandments, an extravagance in which Origen did not follow him; though we can scarcely tell why he should not have done so. For, even the moral precepts of the Decalogue touch at various points on the common interests and relations of life; and it was the grand aim of the philosophy, in which the allegorizing then prevalent had its origin, to carry the soul above these into the high abstractions of a contemplative theosophy. The Fathers of the Latin church were much less inclined to such airy speculations, and their interpretations of Scripture, consequently, possessed more of a realistic and common sense character. Allegorical interpretations are, indeed, occasionally found in them, but they are more sparingly introduced, and less extravagantly carried out.[3] Typical meanings, however, are as frequent in the one class as in the other, and equally adopted without rule or limit. If in the Eastern church we find such objects as the tree of life in the garden of Eden, the rod of Moses, Moses himself with his arms extended during the conflict with Amalek, exhibited as types of the cross; in the Western church, as represented, for example, by Augustine, we meet with such specimens as the following:—“Wherefore did Christ enter into the sleep of death? Because Adam slept when Eve was formed from his side, Adam being the figure of Christ, Eve as the mother of the living, the figure of the church. And as she was formed from Adam while he was asleep, so was it when Christ slept on the cross, that the sacraments of the church flowed from His side.”[4] So, again, Saul is represented as the type of death, because God unwillingly appointed him king over Israel, as He unwillingly subjected His people to the sway of death; and David’s deliverance from the hand of Saul foreshadowed our deliverance through Christ from the power of death; while in David’s escape from Saul’s hand, coupled with the destruction that befell Ahimelech on his account, if not in his stead, there was a prefiguration of Christ’s death and resurrection.[5] In the treatment of New Testament Scripture also, the same style of interpretation is occasionally resorted to,—as when in the six waterpots of John’s Gospel he finds imaged the six ages of prophecy; and in the two or three firkins which they severally held, the two are taken to indicate the Father and the Son, the three the Trinity; or, as he also puts it, the two represent the Jews and the Gentiles, and the third, Christ, making the two one (Tract ix. in Joan.). But we need not multiply examples, or prosecute the subject further into detail. Enough has been adduced to show, that the earlier divines of the Christian church had no just or well-defined principles to guide them in their interpretations of Old Testament Scripture, which could either enable them to determine between the fanciful and the true in typical applications, or guard them against the worst excesses of allegorical licence.[6] [3] See, however, a thorough specimen of allegorizing after the manner of Origen, on the “Sacramentum,” involved in the name and office of Abishag, in Jerome’s letter to Nepotianus (Ep. 52 Ed. Yallars.), indicating, as he thinks, the larger development of wisdom in men of advanced age. [4] On Psalms 41:1-13. [5] On Psalms 42:1-11. [6] The major part of our readers, perhaps, may be of opinion that they have already been detained too long with the subject, believing that such interpretations are for ever numbered among the things that were. So we were ourselves disposed to think. And yet we have lived to see a substantial revival of the allegorical style of interpretation, in a work of comparatively recent date, and a work that bears the marks of an accomplished and superior mind. We refer to that portion of Mr Worsley’s Produce of the Intellect in Religion, which treats of the Patriarchs in their Christian Import, and the Apostles as the Completion of the Patriarchs. His notion respecting the Patriarchs briefly is, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob respectively, “present to us the eternal triune object” of worship,—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that the marriages of the Patriarchs symbolize God’s union with His church, and with each member of it; and especially is this done through the wives and children of Jacob, at least in regard to its practical tendency and sanctifying results. In making out the scheme, the names of the persons mentioned in the history are peculiarly dwelt upon, as furnishing a sort of key to the allegorical interpretation. Thus Leah, whose name means wearisome and fatiguing labour, was the symbol of “services and works which are of little worth in themselves—labours rather of a painful and reluctant duty, than of a free and joyful love.” “She sets forth to us that fundamental repulsiveness or stubbornness of our nature, whose proper and ordained discipline is the daily taskwork of duty, as done not to man, nor to self, but to God.” Afterwards, Leah is identified with the ox, as the symbol of stubbornness and wearisome labour; and so “with Leah the ox symbolizes our taskwork of duty, and our capacity for it,” while the sheep (Rachel signifying sheep) symbolizes “our labours of love, i.e., our real rest and capacity for it.” (P. 71, 113, 128.) It may be conjectured from this specimen what ingenuities require to be plied before the author can get through all the twelve sons of Jacob, so as to make them symbols of the different graces and operations of a Christian life. We object to the entire scheme.—1. Because it is perfectly arbitrary. Though Scripture sometimes warrants us in laying stress on names, as expressive of spiritual ideas or truths connected with the persons they belong to, yet it is only when the history itself draws attention to them, and even then they never stand alone, as the names often do with Mr Worsley, the only keys to the import of the transactions: as if, where acts entirely fail, or where they appear to be at variance with the symbolical ideal, the key were still to be found in the name. Scripture nowhere, for example, lays any stress upon the names of Leah and Rachel; while it very pointedly refers to the bad eyes of the one, and the attractive comeliness of the other. And if we were inclined to allegorize at all, we should deem it more natural, with Justin Martyr (Trypho, c. 42) and Jerome (on Hosea 12:3), to regard Leah as the symbol of the blear-eyed Jewish church, and Rachel of the beloved church of the Gospel. Even this, however, is quite arbitrary, for there is nothing properly in common between the symbol and the thing symbolized—no real bond of connection uniting them together. And if by tracing out such lines of resemblance, we might indulge in a pleasing exercise of fancy, we can never deduce from them a revelation of God’s mind and will. 2. But further, such explanations offend against great fundamental principles—the principle, for example, that the Father cannot be represented as entering into union with the Church, viewed as distinct from the Son and the Spirit; and the principle that a sinful act or an improper relation cannot be the symbol of what is divine and holy. In such a case there never can be any real agreement. “Who, indeed, can calmly contemplate the idea of Abraham’s connection with Hagar, or Jacob’s connection with the two sisters and their handmaids—in themselves both manifestly wrong, and receiving on them manifest tokens of God’s displeasure in providence—should be the chosen symbol of God’s own relation to the Church? How very different an allegorizing of this sort is from the typical use made of them in Scripture will be shown in the sequel. II. Passing over the period of the middle ages, which produced nothing new in this line, we come to the divines of the Reformation. At that memorable era a mighty advance was made, not only beyond the ages immediately preceding, but also beyond all that had passed from the commencement of Christianity, in the sound interpretation of Scripture. The original text then at last began to be examined with something like critical exactness, and a stedfast adherence was generally professed, and in good part also maintained, to the natural and grammatical sense. The leading spirits of the Reformation were here also the great authors of reform. Luther denounced mystical and allegorical interpretations as “trifling and foolish fables, with which the Scriptures were rent into so many and diverse senses, that silly poor consciences could receive no certain doctrine of anything.”[7] Calvin, in like manner, declares that “the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning, by which we ought resolutely to abide;” and speaks of the “licentious system” of Origen and the allegorists, as “undoubtedly a contrivance of Satan to undermine the authority of Scripture, and to take away from the reading of it the true advantage.”[8] In some of his interpretations, especially on the prophetical parts of Scripture, he even went to an extreme in advocating what he here calls the natural and obvious meaning, and thereby missed the more profound import, which, according to the elevated and often enigmatical style of prophecy, it was the design of the Spirit to convey. On the other hand, in spite of their avowed and generally followed principles of interpretation, the writers of the Reformation-period not unfrequently fell into the old method of allegorizing, and threw out typical explanations of a kind that cannot stand a careful scrutiny. It were quite easy to produce examples of this from the writings of those who lived at and immediately subsequent to the Reformation; but it would be of no service as regards our present object, since their attention was comparatively little drawn to the subject of types; and none of them attempted to construct any distinct typological system. [7] On Galatians 4:26. [8] On Galatians 4:22. III. We pass on, therefore, to a later period—about the middle of the seventeenth century—when the science of theology began to be studied more in detail, and the types consequently received a more formal consideration. About that period arose what is called the Cocceian school, which, though it did not revive the double sense of the Alexandrian (for Cocceius expressly disclaimed any other sense of Scripture than the literal and historical one), yet was chargeable in another respect with a participation in the caprice and irregularity of the ancient allegorists. Cocceius himself, less distinguished as a systematic writer in theology than as a Hebrew scholar and learned expositor of Scripture, left no formal enunciation of principles connected with typical or allegorical interpretations; and it is chiefly from his annotations on particular passages, and the more systematic works of his followers, that these are to be gathered. How freely, however, he was disposed to draw upon Old Testament history for types of Gospel things, may be understood from a single example—his viewing what is said of Asshur going out and building Nineveh, as a type of the Turk or Mussulman power, which at once sprang from the kingdom, and shook the dominion of Antichrist (cur. Prior, in Genesis 10:11). He evidently conceived that every event in Old Testament history, which had a formal resemblance to something under the New, was to be regarded as typical. And that, even notwithstanding his avowed adherence to but one sense of Scripture, he could occasionally adopt a second, appears alone from his allegorical interpretation of the eighth Psalm; according to which the sheep there spoken of, as being put under man, are Christ’s flock the oxen, those who labour in Christ’s service—the beasts of the field, such as are strangers to the city and kingdom of God, barbarians and savages—the fowl of the air and fish of the sea, persons at a still greater distance from godliness; so that, as he concludes, there is nothing so wild and intractable on earth but it shall be brought under the rule and dominion of Christ. It does not appear, however, that the views of Cocceius differed materially from those which were held by some who preceded him; and it would seem rather to have been owing to his eminence generally as a commentator than to any distinctive peculiarity in his typological principles, that he came to be so prominently identified with the school, which from him derived the name of Cocceian. If we turn to one of the earlier editions of Glass’s Philologia Sacra, published before Cocceius commenced his critical labours (the first was published before he was born), we shall find the principles of allegorical and typical interpretations laid down with a latitude which Cocceius himself could scarcely have quarrelled with. Indeed, we shall find few examples in his writings that might not be justified on the principles stated by Glass; and though the latter, in his section on allegories, has to throw himself back chiefly on the Fathers, he yet produces some quotations in support of his views, both on these and on types, from some writers of his own age. There seems to have been no essential difference between the typological principles of Glass, Cocceius, Witsius, and Vitringa; and though the first wrote some time before, and the last about half a century later than Cocceius, no injustice can be done to any of them by classing them together, and referring indifferently to their several productions. Like the Fathers, they did not sufficiently distinguish between allegorical and typical interpretations, but regarded the one as only a particular form of the other, and both as equally warranted by New Testament Scripture. Hence, the rules they adopted were to a great extent applicable to what is allegorical in the proper sense, as well as typical, though for the present we must confine ourselves to the typical department. They held, then, that there was a twofold sort of types, the one innate, consisting of those which Scripture itself has expressly asserted to possess a typical character; the other inferred, consisting of such as, though not specially noticed or explained in Scripture, were yet, on probable grounds, inferred by interpreters as conformable to the analogy of faith, and the practice of the inspired writers in regard to similar examples.[9] This latter class were considered not less proper and valid than the other; and pains were taken to distinguish them from those which were sometimes forged by Papists, and which were at variance with the analogies just mentioned. Of course, from their very nature they could only be employed for the support and confirmation of truths already received, and not to prove what was in itself doubtful. But not on that account were they to be less carefully searched for, or less confidently used, because thus only, it was maintained, could Christ be found in all Scripture, which throughout testifies of Him. [9] Philologia Sac. Lib. II. P. I. Tract. II. Sect. 4. Vitringa Obs. Sac. Vol. II. Lib. VI. c. 20. Witsius De (Econom. Lib. IV. c. 6. It is evident alone, from this general statement, that there was something vague and loose in the Cocceian system, which left ample scope for the indulgence of a luxuriant fancy. Nor can we wonder that, in practice, a mere resemblance, however accidental or trifling, between an occurrence in Old, and another in New Testament times, was deemed sufficient to constitute the one a type of the other. Hence in the writings of the eminent and learned men above referred to, we find the name of Abel (emptiness) viewed as prefiguring our Lords humiliation; the occupation of Abel, Christ’s office as the Shepherd of Israel; the withdrawal of Isaac from his father’s house to the land of Moriah, Christ’s being led out of the temple to Calvary; Adam’s awaking out of sleep, Christ’s resurrection from the dead; Samson’s meeting a young lion by the way, and the transactions that followed, Christ’s meeting Saul on the road to Damascus, with the important train of events to which it led; David’s gathering to himself a party of the distressed, the bankrupt, and discontented, Christ’s receiving into His Church publicans and sinners; with many others of a like nature. Multitudes of examples perfectly similar—that is, equally destitute of any proper foundation in principle—are to be found in writers of our own country, such as Mather,[10] Keach,[11] Worden,[12] J. Taylor,[13] Guild,[14] who belonged to the same school of interpretation, and who nearly all lived toward the latter part of the seventeenth century. Excepting the two first, they make no attempt to connect their explanations with any principles of interpretation, and these two very sparingly. Their works were all intended for popular use, and rather exhibited by particular examples, than systematically expounded the nature of their views. They, however, agreed in admitting inferred as well as innate types, but differed more perhaps from constitutional temperament than on theoretical grounds in the extent to which they respectively carried the liberty they claimed to go beyond the explicit warrant of New Testament Scripture. Mather in particular, and Worden, usually confine themselves to such types as have obtained special notice of some kind from the writers of the New Testament; though they held the principle, that “where the analogy was evident and manifest between things under the law and things under the Gospel, the one were to be concluded (on the ground simply of that analogy) to be types of the other.” How far this warrant from analogy was thought capable of leading, may be learned from Taylor and Guild, especially from the latter, who has no fewer than forty-nine typical resemblances between Joseph and Christ, and seven teen between Jacob and Christ, not scrupling to swell the number by occasionally taking in acts of sin, as well as circumstances of an altogether trivial nature. Thus, Jacob’s being a supplanter of his brother, is made to represent Christ’s supplanting death, sin, and Satan; his being obedient to his parents in all things, Christ’s subjection to His heavenly Father and His earthly parents; his purchasing his birthright by red pottage, and obtaining the blessing by presenting savoury vension to his father, clothed in Esau’s garment, Christ’s purchasing the heavenly inheritance to us by His red blood, and obtaining the blessing by offering up the savoury meat of His obedience, in the borrowed garment of our nature, etc. [10] The Figures and Types of the Old Testament. [11] Key to open the Scripture Metaphors and Types. [12] The Types Unveiled; or, The Gospel Picked out of the Legal Ceremonies. [13] Moses and Aaron. [14] Moses Unveiled. Now, we may affirm of these, and many similar examples occurring in writers of the same class, that the analogy they found upon was a merely superficial resemblance appearing between things in the Old and other things in the New Testament Scriptures. But resemblances of this sort are so extremely multifarious, and appear also so different according to the point of view from which they are contemplated, that it was obviously possible for anyone to take occasion through them to introduce the most frivolous conceits, and to caricature rather than vindicate the grand theme of the Gospel. Then, if such weight was fitly attached to mere resemblances between the Old and the New, even when they were altogether of a slight and superficial kind, why should not profane as well as sacred history be ran sacked for them? What, for example, might prevent Romulus (seeing that God is in all history, if this actually were history) assembling a band of desperadoes, and founding a world-wide empire on the banks of the Tiber, from serving, as well as David in the circumstances specified above, to typify the procedure of Christ in calling to him publicans and sinners at the commencement of His kingdom? As many points of resemblance might be found in the one case as in the other; and the two transactions in ancient history, as here contemplated, stood much on the same footing as regards the appointment of God; for both alike were the offspring of human policy, struggling against outward difficulties, and endeavouring with such materials as were available to supply the want of better resources. And thus, by pushing the matter beyond its just limits, we reduce the sacred to a level with the profane, and, at the same time, throw an air of uncertainty over the whole aspect of its typical character.[15] [15] In the reference made above to the beginnings of David’s kingdom, it will be understood that the characters he associated with himself are simply viewed in the light contemplated by the writers more immediately in view. My own conviction is, that 1 Samuel 22:2, if rightly interpreted, would present those who gathered themselves to David as spiritually the better sort in Israel those who were partly made bankrupt by oppression, and partly were grieved and vexed in their minds at the existing state of things. That the Cocceian mode of handling the typical matter of ancient Scripture so readily admitted of the introduction of trifling, far-fetched, and even altogether false analogies, was one of its capital defects. It had no essential principles or fixed rules by which to guide its interpretations set up no proper landmarks along the field of inquiry—left room on every hand for arbitrariness and caprice to enter. It was this, perhaps, more than anything else, which tended to bring typical interpretations into disrepute, and disposed men, in proportion as the exact and critical study of Scripture came to be cultivated, to regard the subject of its typology as hopelessly involved in conjecture and uncertainty. Yet this was not the only fault inherent in the typological system now under consideration. It failed, more fundamentally still, in the idea it had formed of the connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations between the type and the thing typified which came to be thrown mainly upon the mere forms and accidents of things, to the comparative neglect of the great fundamental principles which are common alike to all dispensations, and in which the more vital part of the connection must be sought. It was this more radical error, which in fact gave rise to the greater portion of the extravagances that disfigured the typical illustrations of our elder divines; for it naturally led them to make account of coincidences that were often unimportant, and sometimes only apparent. And not only so; but it also led them to undervalue the immediate object and design of the types in their relation to those who lived amongst them. While these as types speak a language that can be distinctly and intelligently understood only by us, who are privileged to read their meaning in the light of Gospel realities, they yet had, as institutions in the existing worship, or events in the current providence of God, a present purpose to accomplish, apart from the prospective reference to future times, and we might almost say, as much as if no such reference had belonged to them. IV. These inherent errors and imperfections in the typo logical system of the Cocceian school, were not long in leading to its general abandonment. But theology had little reason to boast of the change. For the system that supplanted it, without entering at all into a more profound investigation of the subject, or attempting to explain more satisfactorily the grounds of a typical connection between the Old and the New, simply contented itself with admitting into the rank of types what had been expressly treated as such in the Scripture itself, to the exclusion of all besides. This seemed to be the only safeguard against error and extravagance.[16] And yet, we fear, other reasons of a less justifiable nature contributed not a little to produce the result. An unhappy current had begun to set in upon the Protestant Church in some places while Cocceius still lived, and in others soon after his death, which disposed many of her more eminent teachers to slight the evangelical element in Christianity, and, if not utterly to lose sight of Christ Himself, at least to disrelish and repudiate a system which delighted to find traces of Him in every part of revelation. It was the redeeming point of the earlier typology, which should be allowed to go far in extenuating the occasional errors connected with it, that it kept the work and kingdom of Christ ever prominently in view, as the grand scope and end of all God’s dispensations. It felt, if we may so speak, correctly, whatever it may have wanted in the requisite depth and precision of thought. But towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, a general coldness very commonly discovered itself, both in the writings and the lives of even the more orthodox sections of the Church. The living energy and zeal which had achieved such important results a century before, either inactively slumbered, or spent itself in doctrinal controversies; and the faith of the Church Was first corrupted in its simplicity, and then weakened in its foundations by the pernicious influence of a widely cultivated, but essentially anti-Christian philosophy. In such circumstances Christ was not allowed to maintain His proper place in the New Testament; and it is not to be wondered at if He should have been nearly banished from the Old. [16] The following critique of Buddeus, which belongs to the earlier part of last century, already points in this direction: “It cannot certainly be denied that the Cocceians, at least some of them, have carried this matter too far. For, besides that they everywhere seem to find images and types of future things, where other people can discern none, when they come to make the application to the antitype, they not unfrequently descend to minute and even trifling things, nay, advance what is utterly insignificant and ludicrous, exposing holy writ to the mockery of the profane. And here it may be proper to notice the fates of exegetical theology; since that in temperate rage for allegories which appeared in Origen and the Fathers, and which had been condemned by the schoolmen, was again, after an interval, though under a different form, produced anew upon the stage. For this typical interpretation differs from the allegorical only in the circumstance, that respect is had in it to the future things which are adumbrated by the types; and so, the typical may be regarded as a sort of allegorical interpretation. But in either way the amplest scope is afforded for the play of a luxuriant fancy and a fertile invention.”—I. F. Buddei Isagoge II. hist. Theolog. 1830. Vitringa, who lived when this degeneracy from better times had made considerable progress, attributed to it much of that distaste which was then beginning to prevail in regard to typical interpretations of Scripture. With special reference to the work of Spencer on the Laws of the Hebrews,—a work not less remarkable for its low-toned, semi-heathenish spirit, than for its varied and well-digested learning,—he lamented the inclination that appeared to seek for the grounds and reasons of the Mosaic institutions in the mazes of Egyptian idolatry, instead of endeavouring to discover in them the mysteries of the Gospel. These, he believed, the Holy Spirit had plainly intimated to be couched there; and they shone, indeed, so manifestly through the institutions themselves, that it seemed impossible for anyone not to perceive the type, who recognised the antitype. Nor could he conceal his fear, that the talent, authority, and learning of such men as Spencer would gain extensive credit for their opinions, and soon bring the Typology of Scripture, as he understood it, into general contempt.[17] In this apprehension he was certainly not mistaken. Another generation had scarcely passed away when Dathe published his edition of the Sacred Philology of Glass, in which the section on types, to which we have already referred, was wholly omitted, as relating to a subject no longer thought worthy of a recognised place in the science of an enlightened theology. The rationalistic spirit, in the progress of its anti-Christian tendencies, had now discarded the innate, as well as the inferred types of the elder divines; and the convenient principle of accommodation, which was at the same time introduced, furnished an easy solution for those passages in New Testament Scripture which seemed to indicate a typical relationship between the past and the future. It was regarded as only an adaptation, originating in Jewish prejudice or conceit, of the facts and institutions of an earlier age to things essentially different under the Gospel; but now, since the state of feeling that gave rise to it no longer existed, deservedly suffered to fall into desuetude. And thus the bond was virtually broken by the hand of these rationalizing theologians between the Old and the New in Revelation; and the records of Christianity, when scientifically interpreted, were found to have marvellously little in common with those of Judaism. [17] Obs. Sac. Vol. II., p. 460, 461. In Britain various causes contributed to hold in check this downward tendency, and to prevent it from reaching the same excess of dishonour to Christ, which it soon attained on the Continent. Even persons of a cold and philosophical temperament, such as Clarke and Jortin, not only wrote in defence of types, as having a certain legitimate use in Revelation, but also admitted more within the circle of types than Scripture itself has expressly applied to Gospel times.[18] They urged, indeed, the necessity of exercising the greatest caution in travelling beyond the explicit warrant of Scripture; and in their general cast of thought they undoubtedly had more affinity with the Spencerian than the Cocceian school. Yet a feeling of the close and pervading; connection between the Old and the New Testament dispensations restrained them from discarding the more important of the inferred types. Jortin especially falls so much into the vein of earlier writers, that he employs his ingenuity in reckoning up as many as forty particulars in which Moses typically prefigured Christ. A work composed about the same period as that to which the Remarks of Jortin belong, and one that has had more influence than any other in fashioning the typological views generally entertained in Scotland—the production of a young dissenting minister in Dundee (Mr M’Ewen)[19]—is still more free in the admission of types not expressly sanctioned in the Scriptures of the New Testament. The work itself being posthumous, and intended for popular use, contains no investigation of the grounds on which typical interpretations rest, and harmonizes much more with the school that had flourished in the previous century, than that to which Clarke and Jortin belonged. As indicative of a particular style of biblical interpretation, it may be classed with the productions of Mather and Taylor, and partakes alike of their excellences and defects. [18] Clarke’s Evidences, p. 420, sq. Jortin’s Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, Vol. I., p. 138-152. [19] Grace and Truth, or the Glory and Fulness of the Redeemer displayed, in an attempt to explain the Types, Figures, and Allegories of the Old Testament, by the Rev. AY. M’Ewen. There was, therefore, a considerable unwillingness in this country to abandon the Cocceian ground on the subject of types. The declension came in gradually, and its progress was rather marked by a tacit rejection in practice of much that was previously held to be typical, than by the introduction of views specifically different. It became the practice of theologians to look more into the general nature of things for the reasons of Christianity, than into the pre-existing elements and characteristics of former dispensations; and to account for the peculiarities of Judaism by its partly antagonistic, partly homogeneous relation to Paganism, rather than by any covert reference it might have to the coming realities of the Gospel. As an inevitable consequence, the typological department of theology fell into general neglect, from which the Old Testament Scriptures themselves did not altogether escape. Those portions of them especially which narrate the history and prescribe the religious rites of the ancient Church, were but rarely treated in a manner that bespoke any confidence in their fitness to minister to the spiritual discernment and faith of Christians. It seems, partly at least, to have been owing to this growing distaste for Old Testament inquiries, and this general depreciation of its Scriptures, that what is called the Hutchinsonian school arose in England, which, by a sort of recoil from the prevailing spirit, ran into the opposite extreme of searching for the elements of all knowledge, human and divine, in the writings of the Old Testament. This school possesses too much the character of an episode in the history of biblical interpretation in this country, and was itself too strongly marked by a spirit of extravagance, to render any formal account of it necessary here. It was, besides, chiefly of a physico-theological character, combining the elements of a natural philosophy with the truths of revelation, both of which it sought to extract from the statements, and sometimes even from the words and letters of Scripture. The most profound meanings were consequently discovered in the sacred text, in respect alike to the doctrines of the Gospel and the truths of science. One of the maxims of its founder was, that “every passage of the Old Testament looks backward and forward, and every way, like light from the sun; not only to the state before and under the law, but under the Gospel, and nothing is hid from the light thereof.”[20] When such a depth and complexity of meaning was supposed to be involved in every passage, we need not be surprised to learn, respecting the exactness of Abraham’s knowledge of future events, that he knew from preceding types and promises, that “one of his own line was to be sacrificed, to be a blessing to all the race of Adam;” and not only so, but that when he received the command to offer Isaac, he proceeded to obey it, “not doubting that Isaac was to be that person who should redeem man.”[21] [20] Hutchinson’s Works, Vol. I., p. 202. [21] Ibid., Vol. VII., p. 325. The cabalistic and extravagant character of the Hutchinsonian system, if it had any definite influence on the study of types and other cognate subjects, could only tend to increase the suspicion with which they were already viewed, and foster a disposition to agree to whatever might keep investigation within the bounds of sobriety and discretion. Accordingly, while nothing more was done to unfold the essential and proper ground of a typical connection between Old and New Testament things, and to prevent abuse by tracing the matter up to its ultimate and fundamental principles, the more scientific students of the Bible came, by a sort of common consent, to acquiesce in the opinion, that those only were to be reckoned types to which Scripture itself, by express warrant, or at least by obvious implication, had assigned that character. Bishop Marsh may be named as perhaps the ablest and most systematic expounder of this view of the subject. He says, —“There is no other rule by which we can distinguish a real from a pretended type, than that of Scripture itself. There are no other possible means by which we can know that a previous design and a pre-ordained connection existed. Whatever persons or things, therefore, recorded in the Old Testament, were expressly declared by Christ or by His apostles to have been designed as prefigurations of persons or things relating to the New Testament, such persons or things so recorded in the former, are types of the persons or things with which they are compared in the latter. But if we assert that a person or thing was designed to prefigure another person or thing, where no such prefiguration has been declared by divine authority, we make an assertion for which we neither have, nor can have, the slightest foundation.”[22] This is certainly a very authoritative and peremptory decision of the matter. But the principle involved in this statement, though seldom so oracularly announced, has long been practically received. It was substantially adopted by Macknight, in his Dissertation on the Interpretation of Scripture, at the end of his Commentary on the Epistles, before Bishop Marsh wrote; and it has been followed since by Vanmildert and Conybeare in their Bampton Lectures, by Nares in his Warburtonian Lectures, by Chevalier in his Hulsean Lectures, by Home in his Introduction, and a host of other writers. [22] Lectures, p. 373. Judging from an article in the American Biblical Repository, which appeared in the number for January 1841, it would appear that the leading authorities on the other side of the Atlantic concurred in the same general view. The reviewer himself advocates the opinion, that “no person, event, or institution, should be regarded as typical, but what may be proved to be such from the Scriptures,” meaning by that their explicit assertion in regard to the particular case. And in support of this opinion he quotes, besides English writers, the words of two of his own countrymen, Professor Stowe and Moses Stuart, the latter of whom says,—“That just so much of the Old Testament is to be accounted typical as the New Testament affirms to be so, and no more. The fact, that anything or event under the Old Testament dispensation was designed to prefigure something under the New, can be known to us only by revelation; and of course all that is not designated by divine authority as typical, can never be made so by any authority less than that which guided the writers of the New Testament.”[23] [23] Stuart’s Ernesti, p. 13. Now, the view embraced by this school of interpretation lies open to one objection, in common with the school that preceded it. While the field, as to its extent, was greatly circumscribed, and in its boundaries ruled as with square and compass, nothing was done in the way of investigating it internally, or of unfolding the grounds of connection between type and antitype. Fewer points of resemblance are usually presented to us between the one and the other by the writers of this school than arc found in works of an older date; but the resemblances themselves are quite as much of a superficial and outward kind. The real harmony and connection between the Old and the New in the divine dispensations, stood precisely where it was. But other defects adhere to this more recent typological system. The leading excellence of the system that preceded it was the constant reference it conceived the Scriptures of the Old Testament to bear toward Christ and the Gospel dispensation; and the practical disavowal of this may be said to constitute the great defect of the more exact, but balder system, which supplanted it with the general suffrage of the learned. It drops a golden principle for the sake of avoiding a few lawless aberrations. With such narrow limits as it sets to our inquiries, we cannot indeed wander far into the regions of extravagance. But in the very prescription of these limits, it wrongfully withholds from us the key of knowledge, and shuts us up to evils scarcely less to be deprecated than those it seeks to correct. For it destroys to a large extent the bond of connection between the Old and the New Testament Scriptures, and thus deprives the Christian Church of much of the instruction in divine things which they were designed to impart. Were men accustomed, as they should be, to search for the germs of Christian truth in the earliest Scriptures, and to regard the inspired records of both covenants as having for their leading object “the testimony of Jesus,” they would know how much they were losers by such an undue contraction of the typical element in Old Testament Scripture. And in proportion as a more profound and spiritual acquaintance with the divine word is cultivated, will the feeling of dissatisfaction grow in respect to a style of interpretation that so miserably dwarfs and cripples the relation which the preparatory bears to the ultimate in God’s revelations. It is necessary, however, to take a closer view of the subject. The principle on which this typological system takes its stand, is, that nothing less than inspired authority is sufficient to deter mine the reality and import of anything that is typical. But what necessary reason or solid ground is there for such a principle? No one holds the necessity of inspiration to explain each particular prophecy, and decide even with certainty on its fulfilment; and why should it be reckoned indispensable in the closely related subject of types?This question was long ago asked by Witsius, and yet waits for a satisfactory answer. A part only, it is universally allowed, of the prophecies which refer to Christ and His kingdom have been specially noticed and interpreted by the pen of inspiration. So little necessary, indeed, was inspiration for such a purpose, that even before the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, our Lord reproved His disciples as “fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken.” And from the close analogy between the two subjects—for what is a type but a prophetical act or institution?— we might reasonably infer the same liberty to have been granted, and the same obligation to be imposed, in regard to the typical parts of ancient Scripture. But we have something more than a mere argument from analogy to guide us to this conclusion. For the very same complaint is brought by an inspired writer against private Christians concerning their slowness in understanding the typical, which our Lord brought against His disciples in respect to the prophetical portions of ancient Scripture. In the epistle to the Hebrews a sharp reproof is administered for the imperfect acquaintance believers among them had with the typical character of Melchizedek, and subjects of a like nature—thus placing it beyond a doubt that it is both the duty and the privilege of the Church, with that measure of the Spirit’s grace which it is the part even of private Christians to possess, to search into the types of ancient Scripture, and come to a correct understanding of them. To deny this, is plainly to withhold an important privilege from the Church of Christ; to dissuade from it, is to encourage the neglect of an incumbent duty. But the unsoundness of the principle, which would thus limit the number of types to those which New Testament Scripture has expressly noticed and explained, becomes still more apparent when it is considered what these really are, and in what manner they are introduced. Leaving out of view the tabernacle, with its furniture and services, which, as a whole, is affirmed in the epistles to the Hebrews and the Colossians to have been of a typical nature, the following examples are what the writers now referred to usually regard as having something like an explicit sanction in Scripture: 1. Persons or characters: Adam (Romans 5:11-12;1 Corinthians 15:22; Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:1-28); Sarah and Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, and by implication Abraham (Galatians 4:22-31); Moses (Galatians 3:19; Acts 3:22-26); Jonah (Matthew 12:40); David (Ezekiel 37:24; Luke 1:32, etc.); Solomon (2 Samuel 7:1-29); Zerubbabel and Joshua (Zechariah 3:1-10, Zechariah 4:1-14; Haggai 2:23). 2. Transactions or events: the preservation of Noah and his family in the ark (1 Peter 3:20); the redemption from Egypt and its passover-memorial (Luke 22:15-16; 1 Corinthians 5:7; the exodus (Matthew 2:15); the passage through the Red Sea, the giving of manna, Moses veiling of his face while the law was read; the water flowing from the smitten rock; the serpent lifted up for healing in the wilderness, and some other things that befell the Israelites there (1 Corinthians 10:1-33; John 3:14; John 5:33; Revelation 2:17).[24] [24] We don’t vouch, of course, for the absolute completeness of the above list. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to know what would be regarded as a complete list—some feeling satisfied with an amount of recognition in Scripture which seems quite insufficient in the eyes of others. There have been those who, on the strength of Genesis 49:24, would insert Joseph among the specially mentioned types, and claim also Sampson, on account of what is written in Judges 13:5. But scriptural warrants of such a kind are out of date now—they can no longer be regarded as current coin. On the other hand, there are not a few who deem the scriptural warrant insufficient for some of those we have specified, and think the passages where they are noticed refer to them merely in the way of illustration. The list, however, comprises what are usually regarded as historical types, possessing distinct scriptural authority, by writers belonging to the school of Marsh. The arguments of those who would discard them altogether will be considered under next division. Now, let any person of candour and intelligence take his Bible, and examine the passages to which reference is here made, and then say, whether the manner in which these typical characters and transactions are there introduced, is such as to indicate, that these alone were held by the inspired writers to be prefigurative of similar characters and transactions under the Gospel? that in naming them they meant to exhaust the typical bearing of Old Testament history? On the contrary, we deem it impossible for anyone to avoid the conviction, that in whatever respect these particular examples may have been adduced, it is simply as examples adapted to the occasion, and taken from a vast storehouse, where many more were to be found. They have so much at least the appearance of having been selected merely on account of their suitableness to the immediate end in view, that they cannot fairly be regarded otherwise than as specimens of the class they belong to. And if so, they should rather have the effect of prompting further inquiry than of repressing it; since, instead of themselves comprehending and bounding the whole field of Scriptural Typology, they only exhibit practically the principles on which others of a like description are to be discovered and explained. Indeed, were it otherwise, nothing could be more arbitrary and inexplicable than this Scriptural typology. For, what is there to distinguish the characters and events, which Scripture has thus particularized, from a multitude of others, to which the typical element might equally have been supposed to belong? Is there anything on the face of the inspired record to make us look on them in a singular light, and attribute to them a significance altogether peculiar respecting the future affairs of God’s kingdom? So far from it, that we instinctively feel, if these really possessed a typical character, so also must others, which hold an equally, or perhaps even more prominent place in the history of God’s dispensations. Can it be seriously believed, for example, that Sarah and Hagar stood in a typical relation to Gospel times, while no such place was occupied by Rebekah, as the spouse of Isaac, and the mother of Jacob and Esau? What reason can we imagine for Melchizedek and Jonah having been constituted types—persons to whom our attention is comparatively little drawn in Old Testament history—while such leading characters as Joseph, Sampson, Joshua, are omitted? Or, for selecting the passage through the Red Sea, and the incidents in the wilderness, while no account should be made of the passage through Jordan, and the conquest of the land of Canaan? We can scarcely conceive of a mode of interpretation which should deal more capriciously with the word of God, and make so anomalous a use of its historical records. Instead of investing these with a homogeneous character, it arbitrarily selects a few out of the general mass, and sets them up in solitary grandeur, like mystic symbols in a temple, fictitiously elevated above the sacred materials around them. The exploded principle, which sought a type in every notice of Old Testament history, had at least the merit of uniformity to recommend it, and could not be said to deal partially, however often it might deal fancifully, with the facts of ancient Scripture. But according to the plan now under review, for which the authority of inspiration itself is claimed, we perceive nothing but arbitrary distinctions and groundless preferences. And though unquestionably it were wrong to expect in the word of God the methodical precision and order which might naturally have been looked for in a merely human composition, yet as the product, amid all its variety, of one and the same Spirit, we are warranted to expect that there shall be a consistent agreement among its several parts, and that distinctions shall not be created in the one Testament, which in the other seem destitute of any just foundation or apparent reason. But then, if a greater latitude is allowed, how shall we guard against error and extravagance? Without the express authority of Scripture, how shall we be able to distinguish between a happy illustration and a real type?In the words of Bishop Marsh: “By what means shall we determine, in any given instance, that what is alleged as a type, was really designed for a type?The only possible source of information on this subject is Scripture itself. The only possible means of knowing that two distant, though similar historical facts, were so connected in the general scheme of Divine Providence that the one was designed to prefigure the other, is the authority of that book in which the scheme of Divine Providence is unfolded.”[25] This is an objection, indeed, which strikes at the root of the whole matter, and its validity can only be ascertained by a thorough investigation into the fundamental principles of the subject. That Scripture is the sole rule, on the authority of which we are to distinguish what is properly typical from what is not, we readily grant—though not in the straitened sense contended for by Bishop Marsh and those who hold similar views, as if there were no way for Scripture to furnish a sufficient direction on the subject, except by specifying every particular case. It is possible, surely, that in this, as well as in other things, Scripture may indicate certain fundamental views or principles, of which it makes but a few individual applications, and for the rest leaves them in the hand of spiritually enlightened consciences. The rather may we thus conclude, as it is one of the leading peculiarities of New Testament Scripture to develop great truths, much more than to dwell on minute and isolated facts. It is a presumption against, not in favour of, the system we now oppose, that it would shut up the Typology of Scripture, in so far as connected with the characters and events of sacred history, within the narrow circle of a few scattered and apparently random examples. And the attempt to rescue it from this position, if in any measure successful, will also serve to exhibit the unity of design which pervades the inspired records of both covenants, the traces they contain of the same Divine hand, the subservience of the one to the other, and the mutual dependence alike of the Old upon the New, and of the New upon the Old. [25] Lectures, p. 372. V. We have still, however, another stage of our critical survey before us, and one calling in some respects for careful discrimination and inquiry. The style of interpretation which we have connected with the name of Marsh could not, in the nature of things, afford satisfaction to men of thoughtful minds, who must have something like equitable principles as well as external authority to guide them in their interpretations. Such persons could not avoid feeling that, if there was so much in the Old Testament bearing a typical relation to the New, as was admitted on Scriptural authority by the school of Marsh, there must be considerably more; and also, that underneath that authority there must be a substratum of fundamental principles capable of bearing what Scripture itself has raised on it, and whatever besides may fitly be conjoined with it. But some, again, might possibly be of opinion that the authority of Scripture cannot warrantably carry us so far; and that both Scriptural authority, and the fundamental principles involved in the nature of the subject, apply only in part to what the disciples of Marsh regarded as typical. Accordingly, among more recent inquirers we have examples of each mode of divergence from the formal rules laid down by the preceding school of interpretation. The search for first principles has disposed some greatly to enlarge the typological field, and it has disposed others not less to curtail it. 1. To take the latter class first, as they stand most nearly related to the school last discoursed of, representatives of it are certainly not wanting on the Continent, among whom may be named the hermeneutical writer Klausen, to whom reference will presently be made in another connection. But it is the less needful here to call in foreign authorities, as the view in question has had its advocates in our own theological literature. It was exhibited, for example, in Dr L. Alexander’s Connection and Harmony of the Old and New Testament (1841), in which, while coinciding substantially with Bahr in his mode of explaining and applying to Gospel times the symbolical institutions of the Old Covenant, he yet declared himself opposed to any further extension of the typical sphere. He would regard nothing as entitled to the name of typical, which did not possess the character of “a divine institution;” or, as he formally defines the entire class, “they are symbolical institutes expressly appointed by God to prefigure to those among whom they were set up certain great transactions in connection with that plan of redemption which, in the fulness of time, was to be unfolded to mankind.” Hence the historical types of every description, even those which the school of Marsh recognised on account of the place given to them in New Testament Scripture, were altogether disallowed; the use made of them by the inspired writers was held to be “for illustration merely, and not for the purpose of building anything on them;” they are not thereby constituted or proved to be types. The same view, however, was taken up and received a much keener and fuller advocacy by the American writer Mr. Lord, in a periodical not unknown in this country—the Ecclesiastical and Literary Journal (No. XV). This was done in connection with a fierce and elaborate review of the first edition of the Typology, in the course of which its system of exposition was denounced as “a monstrous scheme,” not only “without the sanction of the word of God,” but “one of the boldest and most effective contrivances for its subversion.” It is not my intention now less, indeed, when issuing this new edition (the fourth) than formerly to attempt to rebut such offensive charges, or to expose the misrepresentations on which to a large extent they were grounded. I should even have preferred, had it been in my power to do so, repairing to some vindication of the same view, equally strenuous in its advocacy, but conducted in a calmer and fairer tone, in order that the discussion might bear less of a personal aspect. But as my present object is partly to unfold the gradual progress and development of opinion upon the subject of Scriptural Typology, justice could scarcely be done to it without hearing what Mr Lord has to say for the section of British and American theologians he represents, and meeting it with a brief rejoinder. The writer’s mode was a comparatively easy one for proving a negative to the view he controverted. He began with setting forth a description of the nature and characteristics of a type, so tightened and compressed as to exclude all from the category but what pertained to “the tabernacle worship, or the propitiation and homage of God.” And having thus with a kind of oracular precision drawn his enclosure, it was not difficult to dispose of whatever else might claim to be admitted; for it is put to flight the moment he presents his exact definitions, and can only be considered typical by persons of dreamy intellect, who are utter strangers to clearness of thought and precision of language. In this way it is possible, we admit, and also not very difficult, to make out a scheme and establish a nomenclature of one’s own; but the question is, Does it accord with the representations of Scripture? and will it serve, in respect to these, as a guiding and harmonizing principle? We might, in a similar way, draw out a series of precise and definite characteristics of Messianic prophecy,—such as, that it must avowedly bear the impress of a prediction of the future—that it must in the most explicit terms point to the person or times of Messiah that it must be conveyed in language capable of no ambiguity or double reference; and then, with this sharp weapon in our hand, proceed summarily to lop off all supposed prophetical passages in which these characteristics are wanting—holding such, if applied to Messianic times, to be mere accommodations, originally intended for one thing, and afterwards loosely adapted to another. The rationalists of a former generation were great adepts in this mode of handling prophetical Scripture, and by the use of it dexterously got rid of a goodly number of the passages which in the New Testament are represented as finding their fulfilment in Christ. But we have yet to learn, that by so doing they succeeded in throwing any satisfactory light on the interpretation of Scripture, or in placing on a Scriptural basis the connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations. How closely the principles of Mr Lord lead him to tread in the footsteps of these effete interpreters, will appear presently. But we must first lodge our protest against his account of the essential nature and characteristics of a type, as entirely arbitrary and unsupported by Scripture. The things really possessing this character, he maintains, must have had the three following distinctive marks: They must have been specifically constituted types by God; must have been known to be so constituted, and contemplated as such by those who had to do with them; and must have been continued till the coming of Christ, when they were abrogated or superseded by something analogous in the Christian dispensation. These are his essential elements in the constitution of a type; and an assertion of the want of one or more of them forms the perpetual refrain, with which he disposes of those characters and transactions that in his esteem are falsely accounted typical. We object to every one of them in the sense understood by the writer, and deny that Scriptural proof can be produced for them, as applying to the strictly religious symbols of the Old Testament worship, and to them alone. These were not specifically constituted types, or formally set up in that character, no more than such transactions as the deliverance from Egypt, or the preservation of Noah in the deluge, which are denied to have been typical. In the manner of their appointment, viewed by itself, there is no more to indicate a reference to the Messianic future in the one than in the other. Neither were they for certain known to be types, and used as such by the Old Testament worshippers. They unquestionably were not so used in the time of our Lord; and how far they may have been at any previous period, is a matter only of probable inference, but nowhere of express revelation. Nor, finally, was it by any means an invariable and indispensable characteristic, that they should have continued in use till they were superseded by something analogous in the Christian dispensation. Some of the anointings were not so continued, nor the Shekinah, nor even the Ark of the Covenant; and some of them stood in occasional acts of service, such as the Nazarite vow, in its very nature special and temporary. The redemption from Egypt was in itself a single event, yet it was closely allied to the symbolical services; for it was linked to an ever-recurring and permanent ordinance of worship. It was a creative act, bringing Israel as a people of God into formal existence, and as such capable only of being commemorated, but not of being repeated. It was commemorated, however, in the passover-feast. In that feast the Israelites continually freshened the remembrance of it anew on their hearts. They in spirit re-enacted it as a thing that required to be constantly renewing itself in their experience, as in the Lord’s Supper is now done by Christians in regard to the one great redemption-act on the cross. This, too, considered simply as an act in God’s administration, is incapable of being repeated; it can only be commemorated, and in its effects spiritually applied to the conscience. Yet so far from being thereby bereft of an antitypical character, it is the central antitype of the Gospel. Why should it be otherwise in respect to the type?The analogy of things favours it; and the testimony of Scripture not doubt fully requires it. To say nothing of other passages of Scripture which bear less explicitly, though to our mind very materially, upon the subject, our Lord Himself, at the celebration of the last passover, declared to His disciples, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”—(Luke 22:15-16) That is, there is a prophecy as well as a memorial in this commemorative ordinance,—a prophecy, because it is the rehearsal of a typical transaction, which is now, and only now, going to meet with its full realization. Such appears to be the plain and unsophisticated import of our Lord’s words. And the Apostle Paul is, if possible, still more explicit when he says, “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us (more exactly, For also our passover has been sacrificed, Christ): therefore let us keep the feast,” etc.—(1 Corinthians 5:7-8) What, we again ask, are we to understand by these words, if not that there is in the design and appointment of God an ordained connection between the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Passover, so that the one, as the means of redemption, takes the place of the other? In any other sense the language would be only fitted to mislead, by begetting apprehensions regarding a mutual correspondence and connection which had no existence. It is alleged on the other side, that “Christ is indeed said to be our passover, but it is by a metaphor, and indicates only that it is by His blood we are saved from everlasting death, as the first-born of the Hebrews were saved by the blood of the paschal lamb from death by the destroying angel.” Were this all, the Apostle might surely have expressed himself less ambiguously. If there was no real connection between the earlier and the later event, and the one stood as much apart from the other as the lintels of Goshen in themselves did from the cross of Calvary, why employ language that forces upon the minds of simple believers the reality of a proper connection?Simply, we believe, because it actually existed; and our “exegetical conscience,” to use a German phrase, refuses to be satisfied with Mr Lord’s mere metaphor. But when he states further, that the passover, having been “appointed with a reference to the exemption of the first born of the Israelites from the death that was to be inflicted on the first-born of the Egyptians, it cannot be a type of Christ’s death for the sins of the world, as that would imply that Christ’s death also was commemorative of the preservation from an analogous death,” who does not perceive that this is to confound between the passover as an original redemptive transaction, and as a commemorative ordinance, pointing back to the great fact, and perpetually rehearsing it?It is as a festal solemnity alone that there can be anything commemorative belonging either to the Paschal sacrifice or to Christ’s. Viewed, however, as redemptive acts, there was a sufficient analogy between them: the one redeemed the first-born of Israel (the firstlings of its families), and the other redeems “the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.” There is manifested a like tendency to evacuate the proper meaning of Scripture in most of the other instances brought into consideration. Christ, for example, calls Himself, with pointed reference to the manna, “the bread of life;” and in Revelation 2:17, an interest in His divine life is called “an eating of the hidden manna,” but it is only “by a metaphor,” precisely as Christ elsewhere calls Himself the vine, or is likened to a rock. As if there were no difference between an employment of these natural emblems and the identifying of Christ with the supernatural food given to support His people, after a provisional redemption, and on the way to a provisional inheritance! It is not the simple reference to a temporal good on which, in such a case, we rest the typical import, but this in connection with the whole of the relations and circumstances in which the temporal was given or employed. Jonah was not, it is alleged, a type of Christ; for he is not called such, but only a “sign;” neither was Melchizedek called by that name. Well, but Adam is called a type τύπος τοῦ μέλλαντος, Romans 5:14), and baptism is called is the antitype to the deluge ὃ καὶ ὑμᾶς ἀντίτυπον νῦν σῴζει βάπτισμα, 1 Peter 3:21). True, but then, we are told, the word in these passages only means a similitude; it does not mean type or antitype in the proper sense. What, then, could denote it?Is there any other term more properly fitted to express the idea?And if the precise term, when it is employed, still does not serve, why object in other cases to the want of it?Strange, surely, that its presence and its absence should be alike grounds of objection. But if the matter is to come to a mere stickling about words, shall we have any types at all? Are even the tabernacle and its institutions of worship called by that name? Not once; but inversely, the designation of antitypes is in one passage applied to them: “The holy places made with hands, the antitypes of the true” (ἀντίτυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν, Hebrews 9:24). So little does Scripture, in its teachings on this subject, encourage us to hang our theoretical explanations on a particular epithet! It varies the mode of expression with all the freedom of common discourse, and even, as in this particular instance, inverts the current phraseology; but still, amid all the variety, it indicates with sufficient plainness a real economical connection between the past and the present in God’s dispensations,—such as is commonly understood by the terms type and antitype; and this is the great point, however we may choose to express it. The passage in Galatians respecting Sarah and Isaac on the one side, and Hagar and Ishmael on the other, naturally formed one of some importance for the view sought to be established in the Typology, and as such called for Mr Lord’s special consideration. Here, as in other cases, he begins with the statement that the characters and relations there mentioned have not the term type applied to them, and hence should not be reckoned typical. “It is only said,” he continues, “that that which is related of Hagar and Sarah is exhibited allegorically; that is, that there are other things that, used as allegorical representatives of Hagar and Sarah, exhibit the same facts and truths. The object of the allegory is to exemplify them by analogous things; not by them to exemplify something else, to which they present a resemblance. It is they who are said to be allegorized, that is, represented by something else; not something else that is allegorized by them. They are accordingly said to be the two covenants, that is, like the two covenants; and Mount Sinai is used to represent the covenant that genders to bondage; and Jerusalem from above—that is, the Jerusalem of Christ’s kingdom—the covenant of freedom or grace. And they accordingly are employed [by the Apostle] to set forth the character and condition of the bond and the free woman, and their offspring. He attempts to illustrate the lot of the two classes who are under law and under grace; first, by referring to the different relations to the covenant, and different lot of the children of the bond and the free woman; and then, by using Mount Sinai to exemplify the character and condition of those under the Mosaic law, and the heavenly Jerusalem, to exemplify those who are under the Gospel. The places from which the two covenants are proclaimed are thus used to represent those two classes; not Hagar and Sarah to represent those places, or the covenants that are proclaimed from them.” Now, this show of exact criticism—professing to explain all, and yet leaving the main thing totally unexplained—is introduced, let it be observed, to expose an alleged “singular neglect of discrimination” in the use we had made of the passage. We had, it seems, been guilty of the extraordinary mistake of supposing Hagar and Sarah to be themselves the representatives in the Apostle’s allegorization, and not, as we should have done, the objects represented. Does any of our readers, with all the advantage of the reviewer’s explanation, recognise the importance of this distinction? Or can he tell how it serves to explicate the Apostle’s argument?I cannot imagine how any one should do so?In itself it might have been of no moment, though it is of much for the Apostle’s argument, whether Hagar and Sarah be said to represent the two covenants of law and grace, or the two covenants be said to represent them; as in Hebrews 9:24, it is of no moment whether the earthly sanctuary be called the antitype of the heavenly, or the heavenly of the earthly. There is in both cases alike a mutual representation, or relative correspondence; and it is the nature of the correspondence, inferior and preparatory in the one case, spiritual and ultimate in the other, which is chiefly important. It is that (though entirely overlooked by the reviewer) which makes the Apostle’s appeal here to the historical transactions in the family of Abraham suitable and appropriate to the object he has in view. For it is by the mothers and their natural offspring he intends to throw light on the covenants, and their respective tendencies and results. It was the earlier that exemplified and illustrated the later, not the later that exemplified and illustrated the earlier; otherwise the reference of the Apostle is misplaced, and the reasoning he founds on it manifestly inept. One specimen more of this school of interpretation, and we leave it. Among the passages of Scripture that were referred to, as indicating a typical relationship between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, is Matthew 2:15, where the evangelist speaks of Christ being in Egypt till the death of Herod, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called My Son.” The allusion to this passage in the first, as well as in the present, edition of this work, was never meant to convey the idea that it was the only Scriptural authority for concluding a typical relationship to have subsisted between Israel and Christ. It was, however, referred to as one of the passages most commonly employed by typological writers in proof of such a relationship, and in itself most obviously implying it. But what says our opponent? “The language of Matthew does not imply that it (the passage in Hosea) was a prophecy of Christ; he simply states, that Jesus continued in Egypt till Herod’s death, so that that occurred in respect to Him which had been spoken by Jehovah by the prophet, Out of Egypt have I called My Son; or, in other words, so that that was accomplished in respect to Christ which had been related by the prophet of Israel.” Was there not good reason for indicating a close affinity between the typological principles of this writer, and the loose interpretations of rationalism? One might suppose that it was a comment of Paulas or Kuinoel that we are here presented with, and we transfer their paraphrase and notes to the bottom of the page, to show how entirely they agree in spirit.[26] If the Evangelist simply meant what is ascribed to him, it was surely strange that he should have taken so peculiar a way to express it. But if the words he employs plainly intimate such a connection between Christ and Israel, as gave to the testimony in Hosea the force of a prophecy (which is the natural impression made by the reference), who has any right to tame down his meaning to a sense that would entirely eliminate this prophetical element,—the very element to which, apparently, he was anxious to give prominence? What we have here to deal with is inspired testimony respecting the connection between Israel and Christ; and it cannot have justice done to it, unless it is taken in its broad and palpable import. (See further, under Ch. IV., and Appendix A., c. 4.) [26] Kuinoel: Ut adco hie recte possit laudari, quod dominus olim interprete propheta dixit, nempe: ex AEgypto vocavi filium meum. Paulus: “πληροῦσθαι is here fulfilling, as denoting a completion after the resemblance;” and he adopts as his own Ernesti’s paraphrase, “Here one might say with greater justice (in a fuller sense) what Hosea said of Israel.” 2. We turn now to the other class of writers, whose aim it has been in recent times to enlarge and widen the typological field. The chief, and for some time the only distinguished representatives of it were to be found in Germany; as it was there also that the new and more profound spirit of investigation began to develop itself. Near the commencement of the present century the religions of antiquity began to form the subject of more thoughtful and learned inquiry, and a depth of meaning was discovered (sometimes perhaps only thought to be discovered) in the myths and external symbols of these, which in the preceding century was not so much as dreamt of. Creuzer, in particular, by his great work (Symbolik) created quite a sensation in this department of learning, and opened up what seemed to be an entirely new field of research. He was followed by Baur (Symbolik und Mythologie), Görres (Mythengeschichte), Müller, and others of less note, each endeavouring to proceed farther than preceding inquirers into the explication of the religious views of the ancients, by weaving together and interpreting what is known of their historical legends and ritual services. These inquiries were at first conducted merely in the way of antiquarian research and philosophical speculation; and the religion of the Old Testament was deemed, in that point of view, too unimportant to be made the subject of special consideration. Creuzer only here and there throws out some passing allusions to it. Even Baur, though a theologian, enters into no regular investigation of the symbols of Judaism, while he expatiates at great length on all the varieties of Heathenism. By and by, however, a better spirit appeared. Mosaism, as the religion of the Old Testament is called, had a distinct place allotted it by Görres among the ancient religions of Asia. And at last it was itself treated at great length, and with distinguished learning and ability, in a separate work the Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus of Bähr (published in 1837-9). This continues still (1863) to hold an important place in Germany on the subject of the Mosaic symbols, although it is pervaded by fundamental errors of the gravest kind (to which we shall afterwards have occasion to advert), and not unfrequently falls into fanciful views on particular parts. Some of these were met by Hengstenberg in the second volume of his Authentie des Pentateuchus, who has also furnished many good typical illustrations in his Christology and other exegetical works. Tholuck, in his Commentary on the Hebrews, has followed in the same tract, generally adopting the explanations of Hengstenberg, and still more recently (chiefly since the publication of our first edition), further contributions have been made particularly by Kurtz, Baumgarten, Delitzsch. Even De Wette, in his old age, caught something of this new spirit; and after many an effort to depreciate apostolic Christianity by detecting in it symptoms of Judaical weakness and bigotry, he made at least one commendable effort in the nobler direction of elevating Judaism, by pointing to the manifold germs it contained of a spiritual Christianity. In a passage quoted by Bähr (vol. i., p. 16, from an article by De Wette on the “Characteristik des Hebraismus”), he says—“Christianity sprang out of Judaism. Long before Christ appeared, the world was prepared for His appearance: the entire Old Testament is a great prophecy, a great type of Him who was to come, and has come. Who can deny that the holy seers of the Old Testament saw in spirit the advent of Christ long before He came, and in prophetic anticipations, sometimes more, sometimes less clear, descried the new doctrine? The typological comparison, also, of the Old Testament with the New, was by no means a mere play of fancy; nor can it be regarded as altogether the result of accident, that the evangelical history, in the most important particulars, runs parallel with the Mosaic. Christianity lay in Judaism as leaves and fruits do in the seed, though certainly it needed the divine sun to bring them forth.” Such language, especially as coming from such a quarter, undoubtedly indicated a marked change. Yet it must not be supposed, on reading so strong a testimony, as if everything were already conceded; for what by such writers as De Wette is granted in the general, is often denied or explained away in the particular. Even the idea of a coming Messiah, as expressed in the page of prophecy, was held to be little more than a patriotic hope, the natural product of certain circumstances connected with the Israelitish nation (see Hengs. Christology, vol. iv., p. 391, Trans.). Nor did the new light thus introduced lead to any well-grounded and regularly developed system of typo logy, based on a clear and comprehensive view of the Divine dispensations. Bähr confined himself almost entirely to the mere interpretation of the symbols of the Mosaic dispensation, and hence, even when his views were correct, rather furnished the materials for constructing a proper typological system, than himself provided. And it has been noted by Tholuck and other learned men as a defect in their literature, that they are without any work on the subject suited to the existing position and demands of theological science.[27] [27] This defect cannot yet be said to have been supplied; not by the Symbolique du Culte de L’ Ancienne Alliance (1860) of Neumann, published since the above was written the work of a German, though written—in French. For not only is the work incomplete (the first part only having appeared), but it possesses more the nature of a condensed sketch or outline of the subject, than a full investigation. So far as it goes, it is written with clearness and vigour, contains some fine thoughts, and is pervaded by an earnest and elevated spirit. Justice requires me to add, that it appears to be marred by two misleading tendencies: one of excess attempting to carry religion too much into the domain of science (for example, in the use made of Goethe’s Theory of Colours to explain some of the Old Testament symbols); the other of defect—viewing religion almost, if not altogether exclusively, on the subjective side, which necessarily leads to certain meagre and arbitrary explanations. Reference may possibly be made to some of them in the sequel. It is to be observed, however, that this new current of opinion among the better part of theologians on the Continent, leads them to find the typical element widely diffused through the historical and prophetical, as well as the more strictly religious portions of the Old Testament. No one who is in any degree acquainted with the exegetical productions of Hengstenberg and Olshausen, now made accessible to English readers, can have failed to perceive this, from the tone of their occasional references and illustrations. Their unbiassed exegetical spirit rendered it impossible for them to do otherwise; for the same connection, they perceived, runs like a thread through all the parts, and binds them together into a consistent whole. Indeed, the only formal attempt made to work out a new system of typological interpretation, prior to the incomplete treatise mentioned in the last note,—the essay of Olshausen (published in 1824, and consisting only of 124 widely printed pages), entitled, Ein Wort uber tiefern Schriftsinn,—has respect almost exclusively to the historical and prophetical parts of ancient Scripture. When he comes distinctly to unfold what he calls the deeper exposition of Scripture, he contents himself with a brief elucidation of the following points:—That Israel’s relation to God is represented in Scripture as forming an image of all and each of mankind, in so far as the divine life is possessed by them—that Israel’s relation to the surrounding heathen in like manner imaged the conflict of all spiritual men with the evil in the world that a parallelism is drawn between Israel and Christ as the one who completely realized what Israel should have been—and that all real children of God again image what, in the whole, is found imperfectly in Israel and perfectly in Christ (pp. 87-110). These positions, it must be confessed, indicate a considerable degree of vagueness and generality; and the treatise, as a whole, is defective in first principles and logical precision, as well as fulness of investigation. Klausen, in the following extract from his Hermeneutik, pp. 334-345, has given a fair outline of Olshausen’s views: “We must distinguish between a false and a genuine allegorical exposition, which latter has the support of the highest authority, though it alone has it, being frequently employed by the inspired writers of the New Testament. The fundamental error in the common allegorizing, from which all its arbitrariness has sprung, bidding defiance to every sound principle of exposition, must be sought in this, that a double sense has been attributed to Scripture, and one of them consequently a sense entirely different from that which is indicated by the words. Accordingly, the characteristic of the genuine allegorical exposition must be, that it recognises no sense besides the literal one none differing from this in nature, as from the historical reality of what is recorded; but only a deeper-lying sense ὑπόνοια, bound up with the literal meaning by an internal and essential connection a sense given along with this and in it; so that it must present itself whenever the subject is considered from the higher point of view, and is capable of being ascertained by fixed rules. Hence, if the question be regarding the fundamental principles, according to which the connection must be made out between the deeper apprehension and the immediate sense conveyed by the words, these have their foundation in the law of general harmony, by which all individuals, in the natural as well as in the spiritual world, form one great organic system the law by which all phenomena, whether belonging to a higher or a lower sphere, appear as copies of what essentially belongs to their respective ideas; so that the whole is represented in the individual, and the individual again in the whole. This mysterious relation comes most prominently out in the history of the Jewish people and their worship. But something analogous everywhere discovers itself; and in the manner in which the Old Testament is expounded in the New, we are furnished with the rules for all exposition of the Word, of nature, and of history.” The vague and unsatisfactory character of this mode of representation, is evident almost at first sight; the elements of truth contained in it are neither solidly grounded nor sufficiently guarded against abuse; so that, with some justice, Klausen remarks, in opposition to it,—“The allegorizing may perhaps be applied with greater moderation and better taste than formerly; but against the old principle, though revived as often as put down,—viz., that every sense which can be found in the words has a right to be regarded as the sense of the words,—the same exceptions will always be taken.” If the Typology of Scripture cannot be rescued from the domain of allegorizings, it will be impossible to secure for it a solid and permanent footing. It cannot attain to this while coupled with allegorical licence, or with a nearer and deeper sense. It is proper to add, that Klausen himself has no place in his Hermeneutik for typical, as distinguished from allegorical interpretations. In common with Hermeneutical writers generally, he regards these as substantially the same in kind; and the one only as the excess of the other. Some application he would allow of Old Testament Scripture to the realities of the Gospel, in consideration of what is said by inspired writers of the relation subsisting between the two; but he conceives that relation to be of a kind which scarcely admits of being brought to the test of historical truth, and that the examples furnished of it in the New Testament arose from necessity rather than from choice. Later writers generally, however, on the Continent, who have meditated with a profound and thoughtful spirit on the history of the Divine dispensations, have shown a disposition to tread in the footsteps of Olshausen rather than of Klausen. And it cannot but be regarded as a striking exemplification of the revolving cycles through which theological opinion is sometimes found to pass, that after two centuries of speculation and inquiry, a substantial return has been made by some of the ablest of these divines—though by diverse routes—to the more fundamental principles of the Cocceian school. It was characteristic of that school to contemplate the dispensations chiefly from the divine point of view; according to which, the end being eyed from the beginning, the things pertaining to the end were often, by a not unnatural consequence, made to throw back their light too distinctly on those of the beginning, and the progressive nature of the Divine economy was not sufficiently regarded. It was further characteristic of the same school, that, viewing everything in the scheme of God as planned with reference to redemption, they were little disposed to discriminate in this respect between one portion of the earlier things belonging to it and another; wherever they could trace a resemblance, there also they descried a type; and everything in the history as well as in the institutions of the Old Covenant, was brought into connection with the realities of the Gospel. Now, these two fundamental characteristics of Cocceianism, somewhat differently grounded, and still more differently applied, are precisely those to which peculiar prominence is given in the writings of such men as Hofmann, Kurtz, Lange, and others of the present day. The first of these, in a work (Weissagung und Erfüllung, 1841-44) which, from its spirit of independent inquiry, and the fresh veins of thought it not unfrequently opened up, exerted an influence upon many who had no sympathy with the doctrinal conclusions of the author, made even more of the typical element in Old Testament history than was done by the Cocceians. It is in the typical character of history, rather than in the prophetic announcements which accompanied it, that he would find the germ and presage of the future realities of the Gospel: the history foreshadowed these; the prophets, acting as the men of superior discernment, simply perceived and interpreted what was in the history. Therefore, to elevate the historical and depress the prophetical in Old Testament Scripture, might be regarded as the general aim of Hofmann’s undertaking; yet only formally and relatively to do so: for, as expressive of the religious state and development of the covenant people, both were in reality depressed, and the sacred put much on a level with the profane. This will sufficiently appear from the following illustration:—“Every triumphal procession which passed through the streets of Rome was a prophecy of Augustus Cassar; for what he displayed through the whole of his career, was here displayed by the triumphant general on his day of honour,—namely, the God in the man, Jupiter in the Roman citizen. In the fact that Rome paid such honours to its victorious commanders, it pointed to the future, when it should rule the world through the great emperor, to whom divine honours would be paid.” This he brings into comparison with the allusion made in John 19:36 to the ordinance respecting the passover lamb, that a bone of it should not be broken; and then adds, “The meaning of the triumph was not fully realized in the constantly recurring triumphal processions; and so also the meaning of the passover was not fully realized in the yearly passover meals; but the essential meaning of both was to be fully developed at some future period, when the prophecy contained in them should also be fully confirmed” (I., p. 15). But what, one naturally asks, did the prophecy in such cases amount to?It will scarcely be alleged, that even the most gifted Roman citizen, who lived during the period of triumphal processions, could with any certainty have descried in these the future possessor of the imperial throne. It could at the most have been but a vague anticipation or probable conjecture,—if so much as that; for, however the elevation of Augustus to that dignity might, after the event actually occurred, have come to be regarded “as the top-stone and culminating point in the history,” assuredly the better spirits of the commonwealth were little disposed to long for such a culmination, or to think of it beforehand as among the destinies of the future. It is only as contemplated from the divine point of view, that the triumphal procession could with any propriety be said to foreshadow the imperial dignity,—a point of view which the event alone rendered it possible for men to apprehend; and the so-called prophecy, therefore, when closely considered and designated by its proper name, was merely the divine purpose secretly moulding the events which were in progress, and, through these, marching on to its accomplishment. This, and nothing more (since Zion is put on a footing with Rome) is the kind of prophecy which Hofmann would find, and find exclusively, in the facts and circumstances of Israelitish history. Because they in reality culminated in the wonders of redemption, they might be said to mark the progression of the Divine procedure toward that as its final aim. But who could meanwhile conjecture that there was any such goal in prospect? The prophets, it is affirmed, could not rise above the movements of the current history; not even the seers, by way of eminence, could penetrate further into the future than existing relations and occurrences might carry them. What signified it, then, that a latent prophecy lay enwrapped in the history?There was no hand to remove the veil and disclose the secret. The prophecy as such was known only in the heavenly sphere; and the whole that could be found in the human was some general conviction or vague hope that principles were at work, or a plan was in progress, which seemed to be tending to loftier issues than had yet been reached. This scheme of Hofmann is too manifestly an exaggeration of a particular aspect of the truth to be generally accepted as a just explanation of the whole; by soaring too high in one direction, fixing the eye too exclusively on the Divine side of things, it leaves the human bereft of its proper significance and value—reduces it, in fact, to a rationalistic basis. Hengstenberg has justly said of it, in the last edition of his Christology (vol. iv., p. 389), that “by overthrowing prophecy, in the strict sense, it necessarily involves acted prophecy (or type) in the same fate; and that it is nothing but an illusion to attempt to elevate types at the expense of prophecy.” Without, however, attempting after this fashion to sacrifice the one of these for the sake of the other, various theologians have sought to combine them, so as to make the one the proper complement of the other two divinely-appointed factors in the production of a common result, such as the necessities of the Church required. Thus Kurtz (Hist, of Old Cov., Introd., § 7, 8), while he contends for the proper function of prophecy, as having to do with the future not less than the present, maintains that the history also of the Old Covenant was prophetic, “both because it fore shadows, and because it stands in living and continuous relation to, the plan of salvation which was going to be manifested.” He thinks it belongs to prophecy alone to disclose, with requisite freedom and distinctness, the connection between what at any particular time was possessed and what was still wanted, or between the fulfilments of promise already made and the expectations which remained to be satisfied; but, in doing this, prophecy serves itself of the history as not only providing the occasion, but also containing the germ of what was to come. He therefore holds that the sacred history possesses a typical character, which appears prominently, continuously, markedly in decided outlines, and in a manner patent not only to posterity, but, by the assistance of prophecy, to contemporaries also, according to the measure that their spiritual capacity might enable them to receive it. This character belongs alike to events, institutions, and dispensations; but in what manner or to what extent it is to be carried out in particular cases, nothing beyond a few general lines have been indicated. These views of the typical element contained in the history and institutions of the Old Covenant, while they present certain fundamental agreements with the principles of the Cocceian school, have this also in common with it, that they take the need for redemption—the fall of man—as the proper starting-point alike for type and prophecy. But another and influential class of theologians, having its representatives in this country as well as on the Continent, has of late advanced a step further, and holds that creation itself, and the state and circumstances of man before as well as after the fall, equally possessed a typical character, being from the outset inwrought with prophetic indications of the person and kingdom of Christ. To this class belong all who have espoused the position (not properly a new one, for it is well known to have been maintained by some of the scholastic divines), that the incarnation of Godhead in the person of Christ was destined to take place irrespective of the fall, and that the circumstances connected with this only determined the specific form in which He was to appear, and the nature of the work He had to do, but not the purpose itself of a personal indwelling of Godhead in the flesh of man, which is held to have been indispensable for the full manifestation of the Divine character, and the perfecting of the idea of humanity. The advocates of this view include Lange, Dorner, Liebner, Ebrard, Martensen, with several others of reputation in Ger many, and in this country, Dean Trench (in his Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge). Along with these there are others—in particular, Dr M’Cosh, the late Hugh Miller, also the late Mr M Donald of Edinkillie—who, without properly committing themselves to this view of the incarnation, yet, on the ground of the analogy pervading the fields alike of nature and redemption in respect to the prevalence of typical forms, on this ground at least, more especially and peculiarly, hold not less decidedly than the theologians above named, the existence of a typical element in the original frame and constitution of things. Such being the turn that later speculations upon this subject have taken, it manifestly becomes necessary to examine all the more carefully into the nature and properties of a type. We must endeavour to arrive (if possible) at some definite ideas and fundamental principles on the general subject, before entering on the consideration of the particular modes of revelation by type, which undoubtedly constitute the great mass of what in Scripture is invested with such a character, and to which, with a view to the right understanding and proper application of these, our inquiry must be mainly directed. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 108: 05.03. CHAPTER SECOND ======================================================================== Chapter Second.—The Proper Nature And Province Of Typology.—1. Scriptural Use Of The Word Type Comparison Of This With The Theological Distinctive Characteristics Of A Typical Relationship, Viewed With Respect To The Religious Institutions Of The Old Testament. THE language of Scripture being essentially popular, its use of particular terms naturally partakes of the freedom and variety which are wont to appear in the current speech of a people; and it rarely if ever happens, that words are employed, in respect to topics requiring theological treatment, with such precision and uniformity as to enable us, from this source alone, to attain to proper accuracy and fulness. The word type (τύπος) forms no exception to this usage. Occurring once, at least, in the natural sense of mark or impress made by a hard substance on one of softer material (John 20:25), it commonly bears the general import of model, pattern, or exemplar, but with such a wide diversity of application as to comprehend a material object of worship, or idol (Acts 7:43), an external framework constructed for the service of God (Acts 7:44, Hebrews 8:5), the form or copy of an epistle (Acts 23:25), a method of doctrinal instruction delivered by the first heralds and teachers of the Gospel (Romans 6:17), a representative character, or, in certain respects, normal example (Romans 5:14, 1 Corinthians 10:11, Php 3:17, 1 Thessalonians 1:7, 1 Peter 5:3). Such in New Testament Scripture is the diversified use of the word type (disguised, however, under other terms in the authorized version). It is only in the last of the applications noticed, that it has any distinct bearing on the subject of our present inquiry; and this also comprises under it so much of diversity, that if we were to draw our definition of a type simply from the Scriptural use of the term, we could give no more specific description of it than this—a certain pattern or exemplar exhibited in the position and character of some individuals, to which others may or should be conformed. Adam stood, we are told, in the relation of a type to the coming Messiah, backsliding Israelites in their guilt and punishment to similar characters in Christian times, faithful pastors to their flocks, first converts to those who should afterwards believe,—a manifestly varied relationship, closer in some than in others, yet in each implying a certain resemblance between the parties associated together; something in the one that admitted of being virtually reproduced in the other. Thus defined and understood, it will be observed, also, that a type is no more peculiar to one dispensation than another. It is to be found now in the true pastor or the exemplary Christian as well as formerly in Adam or in Israel; and since believers generally are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, he might, of course, be designated for all times emphatically and preeminently the type of the Church. But presented in this loose and general form, there is nothing in the nature of a type that can be said to call for particular investigation, or that may occasion material difference of opinion. The subject involves only a few leading ideas, which are familiar to every intelligent reader of Scripture, and which can prove of small avail to the satisfactory explication of what is peculiar in the history of the Divine dispensations. When, however, with reference more to the subject itself than to the mere employment of a particular word in connection with it, we pursue our researches into the testimony of Scripture, we presently find relations indicated between one class of things and another, which, while the same in kind, perhaps, with those just noticed, have yet distinctive features of their own, which call for thoughtful inquiry and discriminating treatment. These have already to some extent come into consideration in the historical and critical review that has been presented of past opinion (see p. 41 sq.). It is enough to refer here to such passages as Hebrews 9:24 where the holy places of the earthly tabernacle are called the antitypes (ἀντίτυπα) of the true or heavenly; the latter, of course, according to this somewhat peculiar phraseology, being viewed as the types of the other: Hebrews 8:5—where the whole structure of the tabernacle, with its appointed ritual of service, is designated an example and shadow (ὑπόδειγμα σκία) of heavenly things: Psalms 110:4; Hebrews 6:10-12; Hebrews 6:7—where Melchizedek is exalted over the ministering priesthood of that tabernacle, as bearing in some important respects a still closer relationship to Christ than was given them to occupy: 1 Peter 3:21—where Christian baptism is denominated the antitype to the deluge, and by implication the deluge is made the type of baptism: Matthew 2:15; Luke 22:16; 1 Corinthians 5:7; John 2:19; John 6:31-33; 1 Corinthians 10:4—where Christ is in a manner identified with the corporate Israel, the passover, the temple, the manna, the water-giving rock. When reading these passages, and others of a like description, our minds instinctively inquire—what is the nature of the connection indicated by them between the past and the present in God’s economy? Is it such as subsists between things alike in principle, but diverse in form? Between things on the same spiritual level, or things rising from a lower to a higher level? Is the connection strictly the same in all, or does it vary with the objects and parties compared?What light is thrown by the different elements entering into it upon the revealed character of God, and the progressive condition of His Church?Can we discover in them the lines of a divine harmony in the one respect, and of a human harmony in the other?Such are the questions which here naturally press on us for solution; and they are questions altogether occasioned by peculiarities in preceding dispensations as compared with that of the Gospel. The relation of the present to the still coming future—which is that simply of the initial to the terminal processes of the salvation already accomplished—is of a much less complicated and embarrassing kind, and can scarcely be said to give rise to questions of the class now specified. In another respect, however, substantially the same questions arise namely, in connection with much that is indicated of the anticipated future of the Christian Church, pointing, as it does, even after Christian realities had come, to further developments of the forms and relations of earlier times. For in the prospective delineations which are given us in Scripture respecting the final issues of Christ’s kingdom among men, while the foundation of all undoubtedly lies in the mediatorial work and offices of Christ Himself, it still is through the characters, ordinances, and events of the Old Covenant, not those of the New (with the exception just specified), that the things to comeare shadowed forth to the eye of faith; the forms of things in the remote past have here also, it would seem, to find their proper complement and destined realization. Thus, Israel still appears, among the prophetic glimpses in question, with his twelve tribes, his marvellous redemption, wilderness-sojourn, and rescued inheritance (Matthew 19:28; Revelation 7:4-17; Revelation 12:14; Revelation 15:3); and the tabernacle or temple, with its courts and sanctuaries, its ark of testimony and cherubim of glory, its altars and offerings (2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 4:7-8; Revelation 8:3; Revelation 11:1-2; Revelation 15:6-8; Revelation 21:3); and the ancient priesthood, with their linen robes and angel-like service (Revelation 4:4; Revelation 15:6); Zion and Jerusalem, Babylon and Euphrates, Sodom and Egypt (Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 11:8; Revelation 14:1-8; Revelation 16:12; Revelation 21:2); and more remote still, especially when the mystery of God in Christ is seen approaching its consummation, paradise with its tree of life and rivers of gladness, its perennial delights, and over all its heaven-crowned Lord, with the spouse formed from Himself to share with Him in the glory, and yield Him faithful service in the kingdom (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 7:17; Revelation 19:7; Revelation 21:9). No more, amid the anticipations of Christian faith and hope, are we permitted to lose sight of the personages and materials of the earlier dispensations, than in those which took shape under pre-Christian times. Having respect, therefore, to the nature of the subject under consideration, and the more peculiar difficulties attending it, rather than to the infrequent and variable use of the word type in Scripture, theologians have been wont to distinguish between existing relationships (such as of a pastor to his people, or of Christ to the heirs of His glory) and those which connect together bygone with Christian times—the things pertaining to the Old with those pertaining to the New Covenant. The former alone they have usually designated by the name of types, the latter by that of antitypes. This mode of distinguishing by theologians has been represented as an unwise departure from Scriptural usage, and in itself necessarily fitted to mislead.[28] It admits, however, of a reasonable justification; and to treat the subject with anything like scientific precision and fulness, without determining after such a method the respective provinces of type and antitype, would be found extremely inconvenient, if not impracticable. The testimony of Scripture itself, when fairly consulted, affords ground for the distinction indicated, in a great measure apart from and beyond the application of the specific terms. By adhering closely to its usage in respect to these, and disregarding other considerations, one might readily enough, indeed, present some popular illustrations, or throw off a few general outlines of the typical field; but to get at its more distinctive characteristics, and explicate with some degree of satisfaction the difficulties with which it invests, to our view, the evolution of God’s plan and ways, is a different thing, and demands a greatly more exact and comprehensive line of investigation. The extravagance which has too often characterized the speculations of divines upon the subject has arisen, not from their devising a theological sense for the word type (which Scripture itself might be said to force on them), but from their failure to search out the fundamental principles involved in the whole representations of Scripture, and to make a judicious and discriminating application of the light thence arising to the different parts of the subject.[29] [28] “We do not know what right divines have to construct a system of theological types, instead of a system of Scripture types. We are sure that had they kept to the Scripture use of the term, instead of devising a theological sense, they would have been saved from much extravagance, and evolved much truth.”—M’Cosh, in “Typical Forms,” p. 523. [29] The question, whether the things of creation should be formally treated as typical, will be considered in Ch. IV. Understanding the word type, then, in the theological sense,—that is, conceiving its strictly proper and distinctive sphere to lie in the relations of the old to the new, or the earlier to the later, in God’s dispensations,—there are two things which, by general consent, are held to enter into the constitution of a type. It is held, first, that in the character, action, or institution which is denominated the type, there must be a resemblance in form or spirit to what answers to it under the Gospel; and secondly, that it must not be any character, action, or institution occurring in Old Testament Scripture, but such only as had their ordination of God, and were designed by Him to foreshadow and prepare for the better things of the Gospel. For, as Bishop Marsh has justly remarked, “to constitute one thing the type of another, something more is wanted than mere resemblance. The former must not only resemble the latter, but must have been designed to resemble the latter. It must have been so designed in its original institution. It must have been designed as something preparatory to the latter. The type as well as the antitype must have been pre-ordained; and they must have been pre-ordained as constituent parts of the same general scheme of Divine Providence. It is this previous design and this pre-ordained connection [together, of course, with the resemblance], which constitute the relation of type and antitype.”[30] We insert, together with the resemblance; for, while stress is justly laid on the previous design and pre-ordained connection, the resemblance also forms an indispensable element in this very connection, and is, in fact, the point that involves the more peculiar difficulties belonging to the subject, and calls for the closest investigation. [30] Marsh’s Lectures, p. 371. I. We begin, therefore, with the other point the previous design and pre-ordained connection necessarily entering into the relation between type and antitype. A relation so formed, and subsisting to any extent between Old and New Testament things, evidently presupposes and implies two important facts. It implies, first, that the realities of the Gospel, which constitute the antitypes, are the ultimate objects which were contemplated by the mind of God, when planning the economy of His successive dispensations. And it implies, secondly, that to prepare the way for the introduction of these ultimate objects, He placed the Church under a course of training, which included instruction by types, or designed and fitting resemblances of what was to come. Both of these facts are so distinctly stated in Scripture, and, indeed, so generally admitted, that it will be unnecessary to do more than present a brief outline of the proof on which they rest. 1. In regard to the first of the two facts, we find the designation of “the ends of the world” applied in Scripture to the Gospel-age;[31] and that not so much in respect to its posteriority in point of time, as to its comparative maturity in regard to the things of salvation the higher and better things having now come, which had hitherto appeared only in prospect or existed but in embryo. On the same account the Gospel dispensation is called “the dispensation of the fulness of times;”[32] indicating, that with it alone the great objects of faith and hope, which the Church was from the first destined to possess, were properly brought within her reach. Only with the entrance also of this dispensation does the great mystery of God, in connection with man’s salvation, come to be disclosed, and the light of a new and more glorious era at last breaks upon the Church. “The day-spring from the height,” in the expressive language of Zacharias, then appeared, and made manifest what had previously been wrapt in comparative obscurity, what had not even been distinctly conceived, far less satisfactorily enjoyed.[33] Here, therefore, in the sublime discoveries and abounding consolations of the Gospel, is the reality, in its depth and fulness, while in the earlier endowments and institutions of the Church there was no more than a shadowy exhibition and a partial experience;[34] and as a necessary consequence, the most eminent in spiritual light and privilege before, were still decidedly inferior even to the less distinguished members of the Messiah’s kingdom.[35] In a word, the blessed Redeemer, whom the Gospel reveals, is Himself the beginning and the end of the scheme of God’s dispensations; in Him is found alike the centre of Heaven’s plan, and the one foundation of human confidence and hope. So that before His coming into the world, all things of necessity pointed toward Him; types and prophecies bore testimony to the things that concerned His work and kingdom; the children of blessing were blessed in anticipation of His promised redemption; and with His coming, the grand reality itself came, and the higher purposes of Heaven entered on their fulfilment.[36] [31] 1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 11:40. [32] Ephesians 1:10. [33] Luke 1:78; 1 John 2:8; Romans 16:25-26; Colossians 1:27; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 1 Corinthians 2:10. [34] Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 8:5. [35] Matthew 11:11, where it is said respecting John the Baptist, “notwithstanding he that is least (ὁ μικρότερος) in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. The older English versions retained the comparative, and rendered “he that is less in the kingdom of heaven”—(Wickliffe, Tyndale, Cranmer, the Geneva); and so also Meyer in his Comm., “he who occupies a proportionately lower place in the kingdom of heaven.” Lightfoot, Hengstenberg, and many others, approve of this milder sense, as it may be called; but Alford in his recent commentary adheres still to the stronger, “the least;” and so does Stier in his Reden Jesu, who, in illustrating the thought, goes so far as to say, “A mere child that knows the catechism, and can say the Lord’s prayer, both knows and possesses more than the Old Testament can give, and so far stands higher and nearer to God than John the Baptist.” One cannot but feel that this is putting something like a strain on our Lord’s declaration. [36] Revelation 1:8; Luke 2:25; Acts 10:43; Acts 4:12; Romans 3:25; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 1 Peter 1:20. 2. The other fact presupposed and implied in the relation between type and antitype,—namely, that God subjected the Church to a course of preparatory training, including instruction by types, before He introduced the realities of His final dispensation,—is written with equal distinctness in the page of inspiration. It is scarcely possible, indeed, to dissociate even in idea the one fact from the other; for, without such a course of preparation being perpetually in progress, the long delay which took place in the introduction of the Messiah’s kingdom would be quite inexplicable. Accordingly, the Church of the Old Testament is constantly represented as having been in a state of comparative childhood, supplied only with such means of instruction, and subjected to such methods of discipline as were suited to so imperfect and provisional a period of her being. Her law, in its higher aim and object, was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ (Galatians 3:24); and everything in her condition—what it wanted, as well as what it possessed, what was done for her, and what remained yet to be done—concurred in pointing the way to Him who was to come with the better promises and the perfected salvation (Hebrews 7:1-28, Hebrews 8:1-13, Hebrews 9:1-28). Such is the plain import of a great many scriptures bearing on the subject. It is to be noted, however, in regard to this course of preparation, continued through so many ages, that everything in the mode of instruction and discipline employed ought not to be regarded as employed simply for the sake of those who lived during its continuance. It was, no doubt, primarily introduced on their account, and must have been wisely adapted to their circumstances, as under preparation for better things to come. But, at the same time, it must also, like the early training of a well-educated youth, have been fitted to tell with beneficial effect on the spiritual life of the Church in her more advanced state of existence, after she had actually attained to those better things themselves. The man of mature age, when pursuing his way amid the perplexing cares and busy avocations of life, finds himself continually indebted to the lessons he was taught and the skill he has acquired during the period of his early culture. And, in like manner, it was undoubtedly God’s intention that. His method of procedure toward the Church in her state of minority, not only should minister what was needed for her immediate instruction and improvement, but should also furnish materials of edification and comfort for believers to the end of time. If the earlier could not be made perfect without the things belonging to the later Church (Hebrews 11:40), so neither, on the other hand, can the later profitably or even safely dispense with the advantage she may derive from the more simple and rudimentary things that belonged to the earlier. The Church, considered as God’s nursery for training souls to a meetness for immortal life and blessedness, is substantially the same through all periods of her existence; and the things which were appointed for the behoof of her members in one age, had in them also something of lasting benefit for those on whom the ends of the world are come (1 Corinthians 10:6; 1 Corinthians 10:11). It is farther to be noted, that in this work of preparation for the more perfect future, arrangements of a typical kind, being of a somewhat recondite nature, necessarily occupied a relative and subsidiary, rather than the primary and most essential place. The Church enjoyed from the first the benefit of direct and explicit instruction, imparted either immediately by the hand of God, or through the instrumentality of His accredited messengers. From this source she always derived her knowledge of the more fundamental truths of religion, and also her more definite expectations of the better things to come. The fact is of importance, both as determining the proper place of typical acts and institutions, and as indicating a kind of extraneous and qualifying element, that must not be overlooked in judging of the condition of believers under them. Yet they were not, on that account, rendered less valuable or necessary as constituent parts of a preparatory dispensation; for it was through them, as temporary expedients, and by virtue of the resemblances they possessed to the higher things in prospect, that the realities of Christ’s kingdom obtained a kind of present realization to the eye of faith. What, then, was the nature of these resemblances. Wherein precisely did the similarity which formed more especially the preparatory elements in the Old, as compared with the New, really lie? This is the point that mainly calls for elucidation. II. It is the second point we were to investigate, as being that which would necessarily require the most lengthened and careful examination. And the general statement we submit respecting it is, that two things were here essentially necessary: there must have been in the Old the same great elements of truth as in the things they represented under the New; and then, in the Old, these must have been exhibited in a form more level to the comprehension, more easily and distinctly cognizable by the minds of men. 1. There must have been, first, the same great elements of truth,—for the mind of God, and the circumstances of the fallen creature, are substantially the same at all times. What the spiritual necessities of men now are, they have been from the time that sin entered into the world. Hence the truth revealed by God to meet these necessities, however varying from time to time in the precise amount of its communications, and however differing also in the external form under which it might be presented, must have been, so far as disclosed, essentially one in every age. For, otherwise, what anomalous results would follow! If the principles unfolded in God’s communications to men, and on which he regulates His dealings toward them, were materially different at one period from what they are at another, then either the wants and necessities of men’s natural condition must have undergone a change,—or these being the same, as they undoubtedly are—the character of God must have altered—He cannot be the immutable Jehovah. Besides, the very idea of a course of preparatory dispensations were, on the supposition in question, manifestly excluded; since that could have had no proper ground to rest on, unless there was a deep-rooted and fundamental agreement between what was merely provisional and what was final and ultimate in the matter. The primary and essential elements of truth, therefore, which are embodied in the facts of the Gospel, and on which its economy of grace is based, cannot, in the nature of things, be of recent origin—as if they were altogether peculiar to the New Testament dispensation, and had only begun with the entrance of it to obtain a place in the government of God. On the contrary, their existence must have formed the groundwork, and their varied manifestation the progress, of any preparatory dispensations that might be appointed. And whatever ulterior respect the typical characters, actions, or institutions of those earlier dispensations might carry to the coming realities of the Gospel, their more immediate intention and use must have consisted in the exhibition they gave of the vital and fundamental truths common alike to all dispensations. 2. If a clear and conclusive certainty attaches to this part of our statement, it does so in even an increased ratio to the other. Holding that the same great elements of truth must of necessity pervade both type and antitype, we must also assuredly believe, that in the former they were more simply and palpably exhibited—presented in some shape in which the human mind could more easily and distinctly apprehend them—than in the latter. It would manifestly have been absurd to admit into a course of preparation for the realities of the Gospel, certain temporary exhibitions of the same great elements of truth that were to pervade these, unless the preparatory had been of more obvious meaning, and of more easy comprehension, than the ultimate and final. The transition from the one to the other must clearly have involved a rise in the mode of exhibiting the truth from a lower to a higher territory—from a form of development more easily grasped, to a form which should put the faculties of the mind to a greater stretch. For thus only could it be wise or proper to set up preparatory dispensations at all. These, manifestly, had been better spared, if the realities themselves lay more, or even so much, within the reach and comprehension of the mind, as their temporary and imperfect representations. Standing, then, on the foundation of these two principles, as necessarily forming the essential elements of the resemblance that subsisted between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, we may now proceed to consider how far they can legitimately carry us in explaining the subject in hand; or, in other words, to answer the question, how on such a basis the typical things of the past could properly serve as preparatory arrangements for the higher and better things of the future? We shall endeavour to answer this question, in the first instance, by making application of our principles to the symbolical institutions of the Mosaic dispensation, which are usually denominated the ritual or legal types. For, in respect to these we have the advantage of the most explicit assertion in Scripture of their typical character; and we are also furnished with certain general descriptions of their nature as typical, which may partly serve as lights to direct our inquiries, and partly provide a test by which to try the correctness of our results. Now, viewing the institutions of the dispensation brought in by Moses as typical, we look at them in what may be called their secondary aspect; we consider them as prophetic symbols of the letter things to come in the Gospel. But this evidently implies, that in another and more immediate respect they were merely symbols, that is, outward and sensible representations of Divine truth, in connection with an existing dispensation and a religious worship. It was only from their being this, in the one respect, that they could, in the other, be prophetic symbols, or types, of what was afterwards to appear under the Gospel; on the ground already stated, that the preparatory dispensation to which they belonged was necessarily inwrought with the same great elements of truth which were afterwards, in another form, to pervade the Christian. Had there not been the identity in the truths here supposed, assimilating amid all outward diversities the two dispensations in spirit to each other, the earlier would rather have blocked up, than prepared and opened, the way for the latter. A partial exhibition of a truth, or an embodiment of it in things comparatively little, easily grasped by the understanding, and but imperfectly satisfying the mind, may certainly make way for its exhibition in a manner more fully adapted to its proper nature:—The mind thus familiarized to it in the little, may both have the desire created, and the capacity formed for beholding its development in things of a far higher and nobler kind. But a partial or defective representation of an object, apart from any principles common to both, must rather tend to pre-occupy the mind, and either entirely prevent it from anticipating, or fill it with mistaken and prejudiced notions of, the reality. If such a representation of the mere objects of the Gospel had been all that was aimed at in the symbolical institutions of the Old Testament—if their direct, immediate, and only use had been to serve, as pictures, to prefigure and presentiate to the soul the future realities of the divine kingdom—then who could wonder if these realities should have been wholly lost sight of before, or misbelieved and repudiated when they came? For, in that case, the preparatory dispensation must have been far more difficult for the worshipper than the ultimate one. The child must have had a much harder lessen to read, and a much higher task to accomplish, than the man of full-grown and ripened intellect. And Divine wisdom must have employed its resources, not to smooth the Church’s path to an enlightened view and a believing reception of the realities of the Gospel, rather but to shroud them in the most profound and perplexing obscurities. Every serious and intelligent believer will shrink from this conclusion. But if he does so, he will soon find that there is only one way of effectually escaping from it; and that is, by regarding the symbolical institutions of the Old Covenant as not simply or directly representations of the realities of the Gospel, but in the first instance as parts of an existing dispensation, and, as such, expressive of certain great and fundamental truths, which could even then be distinctly understood and embraced. This was what might be called their more immediate and ostensible design. Their further and prospective, reference to the higher objects of the Gospel, was of a more indirect and occult nature; and stood in the same essential truths being exhibited by means of present and visible, but inferior and comparatively inadequate objects. So that in tracing out the connection from the one to the other, we must always begin with inquiring, What, per se, was the native import of each symbol?What truths did it symbolize merely as part of an existing religion? and from this proceed to unfold how it was fitted to serve as a guide and a stepping-stone to the glorious events and issues of Messiah’s kingdom. This—which it was the practice of the elder typological writers in great measure to overlook—is really the foundation of the whole matter; and without it every typological system must either contract itself within very narrow bounds, or be in danger of running out into superficial or fanciful analogies. The Mosaic ritual had at once a shell and a kernel,—its shell, the outward rites and observances it enjoined; its kernel, the spiritual relations which these indicated, and the spiritual truths which they embodied and expressed. Substantially, these truths and relations were, and must have been, the same for the Old that they are for the New Testament worshippers; for the spiritual wants and necessities of both are the same, and so also is the character of God, with whom they have to do. There, therefore, in that fundamental agreement, that internal and pre-established harmony of principle, we are to find the bond of union between the symbolical institutions of Judaism and the permanent realities of Messiah’s kingdom. One truth in both—but that truth existing first in a lower, then in a higher stage of development; in the one case appearing as a precious bud embosomed and but partially seen amid the imperfect relations of flesh and time; in the other expanding itself under the bright sunshine of heaven into all the beauty and fruitfulness of which it was susceptible. To make our meaning perfectly understood, however, we must descend from the general to the particular, and apply what has been stated to a special case. In doing so, we shall go at once to what may justly be termed the very core of the religion of the Old Covenant—the rite of expiatory sacrifice. That this was typically or prophetically symbolical of the death of Christ, is testified with much plainness and frequency in New Testament Scripture. Yet, independently of this connection with Christ’s death, it had a meaning of its own, which it was possible for the ancient worshipper to understand, and, so understanding, to present through it an acceptable service to God, whether he might perceive or not the further respect it bore to a dying Saviour. It was in its own nature a symbolical transaction, embodying a threefold idea: first, that the worshipper, having been guilty of sin, had forfeited his life to God; then, that the life so forfeited must be surrendered to Divine justice; and finally, that being surrendered in the way appointed, it was given back to him again by God, or he became re-established, as a justified person, in the Divine favour and fellowship. How far a transaction of this kind, done symbolically and not really—by means of an irrational creature substituted in the sinner’s room, and unconsciously devoted to lose its animal in lieu of his intelligent and rational life—might commend itself as altogether satisfactory to his view; or how far he might see reason to regard it as but a provisional arrangement, proceeding on the contemplation of something more perfect yet to come;—these are points which might justly be raised, and will indeed call for future discussion, but they are somewhat extraneous to the subject itself now under consideration. We are viewing the rite of expiatory sacrifice simply as a constituent part of ancient worship,—a religious service which formally, and without notification from itself of anything farther being required, presented the sinner with the divinely appointed means of reconciliation and restored fellowship with God. In this respect it symbolically represented, as we have said, a threefold idea, which if properly understood and realized by the worshipper, he performed, in offering it, an acceptable service. And when we rise from the symbolical to the typical view of the transaction—when we proceed to consider the rite of expiation as bearing a prospective reference to the redemption of Christ, we are not to be understood as ascribing to it some new sense or meaning; we merely express our belief that the complex capital idea which it so impressively symbolized, finds its only true, as from the first its destined realization, in the work of salvation by Jesus Christ. For in Him alone was there a real transference of man’s guilt to one able and willing to bear it; in His death alone, the surrender of a life to God, such as could fitly stand in the room of that forfeited by the sinner; and in faith alone on that death, a full and conscious appropriation of the life of peace and blessing obtained by Him for the justified. So that here only it is we perceive the idea of a true, sufficient, and perfect sacrifice converted into a living reality—such as the holy eye of God, and the troubled conscience of man, can alike repose in with unmingled satisfaction. And while there appear precisely the same elements of truth in the ever-recurring sacrifices of the Old Testament, and in the one perfect sacrifice of the New, it is seen, at the same time, that what the one symbolically represented, the other actually possessed; what the one could only exhibit as a kind of acted lesson for the present relief of guilty consciences, the other makes known to us, as a work finally and for ever accomplished for all who believe in the propitiation of the cross. The view now given of the symbolical institutions of the Old Testament, as prophetic symbols of the realities of the Gospel, is in perfect accordance with the general descriptions we have of their nature in Scripture itself. These are of two classes. In the one they are declared to have been shadows of the better things of the Gospel; as in Hebrews 10:1, where the law is said to have had “a shadow, and not the very image of good things to come;” in Hebrews 8:5, where the priests are described as “serving unto the example (copy) and shadow of heavenly things;” and again in Colossians 2:16, where the fleshly ordinances in one mass are denominated “shadows of good things to come,” while it is added, “the body is of Christ.” Now, that the tabernacle, with the ordinances of every kind belonging to it, were shadows of Christ and the blessings of His kingdom, can only mean that they were obscure and imperfect resemblances of these; or that they embodied the same elements of Divine truth, but wanted what was necessary to give them proper form and consistence as parts of a final and abiding dispensation of God. And when we go to inquire wherein did the obscurity and imperfection consist, we are always referred to the carnal and earthly nature of the Old as compared with the New. The tabernacle itself was a material fabric, constructed of such things as this present world could supply, and hence called “a worldly sanctuary;” while its counterpart under the Gospel is the eternal region of God’s presence and glory, neither discernible by fleshly eye, nor made by mortal hands. In like manner, the ordinances of worship connected with the tabernacle were all ostensibly directed to the preservation of men’s present existence, or the advancement of their well-being as related to an outward sanctuary and a terrestrial commonwealth; while in the Gospel it is the soul’s relation to the sanctuary above, and its possession of an immortal life of blessedness and glory, which all is directly intended to provide for. In these differences between the Old and the New, which bespeak so much of inferiority on the part of the former, we perceive the darkness and imperfection which hung around the things of the ancient dispensation, and rendered them shadows only of those which were to come. But still shadows are resemblances. Though unlike in one respect, they must be like in another. And as the unlikeness stood in the dissimilar nature of the things immediately handled and perceived—in the different materiel, so to speak, of the two dispensations, wherein should the resemblance be found but in the common truths and relations alike pervading both?By means of an earthly tabernacle, with its appropriate services, God manifested toward His people the same principles of government, and required from them substantially the same disposition and character, that He does now under the higher dispensation of the Gospel. For look beyond the mere outward diversities, and what do you see?You see in both alike a pure and holy God, enshrined in the recesses of a glorious sanctuary, unapproachable by sinful flesh but through a medium of powerful intercession and cleansing efficacy; yet when so approached, ever ready to receive and bless with the richest tokens of His favour and loving-kindness as many as come in the exercise of genuine contrition for sin, and longing for restored fellowship with Him whom they have offended. The same description applies equally to the service of both dispensations; for in both the same impressions are conveyed of God’s character respecting sin and holiness, and the same gracious feelings necessarily awakened by them in the bosom of sincere worshippers. But then, as to the means of accomplishing this, there was only, in the one case, a shadowy exhibition of spiritual things through earthly materials and temporary expedients; while in the other, the naked realities appear in the one perfect sacrifice of Christ, the rich endowments of the Spirit of grace, and the glories of an everlasting kingdom. The other general description given in New Testament Scripture of the prophetic symbols or types of the Old dispensation does not materially differ from the one now considered, and, when rightly understood, leads to the same result. According to it, the religious institutions of earlier times contained the rudiments or elementary principles of the world’s religious truth and life. Thus in Colossians 2:20, the now antiquated ordinances of Judaism are called “the rudiments of the world;” and in Galatians 4:3, the Church, while under these ordinances, is said to have been “in bondage under the elements (or rudiments) of the world.” The expression, also, which is found in Galatians 3:24 of this Epistle to the Galatians, “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ,” conveys much the same idea; since it is the special business of a schoolmaster to communicate to those under his charge the rudiments of learning, by which their minds may in due time be prepared for the higher walks of science and literature. The law certainly did this, to a considerable extent, by direct instructions in the great principles of truth and duty. But it did so not less by means of its symbolical institutions and ordinances, which were in themselves inherently defective, and yet in their spirit and design entirely analogous to the higher things of the Gospel. The animal, the fleshly, the material, the temporal, was what alone appeared in them, when viewed in respect merely to their ostensible character and object; yet all was arranged in a manner fitted to exhibit ideas and relations that reached far beyond these, and could only, indeed, find their suitable development in things spiritual, heavenly, and eternal. The Church had then to be dealt with after the manner of a child. But the child must have instruction administered to him in a form adapted to his juvenile capacities. If he is to be prepared for apprehending the outlines and proportions of the globe, these must be presented to his view on diagrams of a few spans long. Or, if he is to be made acquainted with the laws and principles which bear sway throughout the material universe, he must again see them exemplified in miniature among the small and familiar objects of everyday life. In like manner, the Church of the Old Testament, while in bondage to fleshly institutions and services, yet received through these the rudiments of all Divine truth and wisdom. In a form which the eye of a spiritual babe could scan, and its hand, in a manner, grasp, she had constantly exhibited before her the essential truths and principles of God’s everlasting kingdom. And nothing more was needed than that the instruction thus imparted should have been impartially received and properly cultivated, in order to fit the disciple of Moses for passing with intelligence and delight from his rudimental tutelage, under the shadows of good things, into the free use and enjoyment of the things themselves. The general descriptions, then, given of the symbolical institutions and services of the Old Testament, in their relation to the Gospel, perfectly accord with the principles we have advanced. And viewed in the light now presented, we at once see the essential unity that subsists between the Old and the New dispensations, and the nature of that progression in the Divine plan which rendered the one a fitting preparation and stepping-stone to the other. In its fundamental elements the religion of both covenants is thus found to be identical. Only it appears under the Old covenant as on a lower platform, disclosing its ideas, and imparting its blessings through the imperfect instrumentalities of fleshly relations and temporal concerns; while under the New everything rises heavenwards, and eternal realities come distinctly and prominently into view. But as ideas and relations are more palpable to the mind, and lie more within the grasp of its comprehension, when exhibited on a small scale, in corporeal forms, amid familiar and present objects, than on a scale of large dimensions, which stretches into the unseen, and embraces alike the Divine and human, time and eternity; so the economy of outward symbolical institutions was in itself simpler than the Gospel, and, as a lower exhibition of Divine truth, prepared the way for a higher. But they did this, let it be observed, in their character merely as symbolical institutions, or parts of a dispensation then existing, not as typically foreshadowing the things belonging to a higher and more spiritual dispensation yet to come. It was comparatively an easy thing for the Jewish worshipper to understand how, from time to time, he stood related to a visible sanctuary and an earthly inheritance, or to go through the process of an appointed purification by means of water and the blood of slain victims applied externally to his body: much more easy than for the Christian to apprehend distinctly his relation to a heavenly sanctuary, and realize the cleansing of his conscience from all guilt by the inward application of the sacrifice of Christ and the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. But for the Jewish worshipper to do—both his own and the Christian’s part both to read the meaning of the symbol as expressive of what was already laid open to his view, and to descry its concealed reference to the yet undiscovered realities of a better dispensation, would have required a reach of discernment and a strength of faith far beyond what is now needed in the Christian. For this had been, not like him to discern the heavenly, when the heavenly had come, but to do it amid the obscurities and imperfections of the earthly; not simply to look with open eye into the deeper mysteries of God’s kingdom, when these mysteries are fully disclosed, but to do so while they were still buried amid the thick folds of a cumbrous and overshadowing drapery. Yet let us not be mistaken. We speak merely of what was strictly required, and what might ordinarily be expected of the ancient worshipper, in connection with the institutions and services of his symbolical religion, taken simply by themselves. We do not say that there never was, much less that there could not be, any proper insight obtained by the children of the Old Covenant into the future mysteries of the Gospel. There were special gifts of grace then, as well as now, occasionally imparted to the more spiritual members of the covenant, which enabled them to rise to unusual degrees of knowledge; and it is a distinctive property of the spiritual mind generally to be dissatisfied with the imperfect, to seek and long for the perfect. Even now, when the comparatively perfect has come, what spiritual mind is not often conscious to itself of a feeling akin to melancholy, when it thinks of the yet abiding darkness and disorders of the present, or does not fondly cling to every hopeful indication of a brighter future? But even the best things of the Old Covenant bore on them the stamp of imperfection. The temple itself, which was the peculiar glory and ornament of Israel, still in a very partial and defective manner realized its own grand idea of a people dwelling with God, and God dwelling with them; and hence, because of that inherent imperfection (it was plainly declared), a higher and better mode of accomplishing the object should one day take its place.—(Jeremiah 3:16-17) So, too, the palpable disproportion already noticed in the rite of expiatory sacrifice between the rational life forfeited through sin, and the merely animal life substituted in its room, seemed to proclaim the necessity of a more adequate atonement for human guilt, and could not but dispose intelligent worshippers to give more earnest heed to the announcements of prophecy regarding the coming purposes of Heaven. But yet, when we have admitted all this, it by no means follows that the people of God generally, under the Old Covenant, could attain to very definite views of the realities of the Gospel; nor does it furnish us with any reason for asserting that such views must ever of necessity have mingled with the service of an acceptable worshipper. For his was the worship of a preparatory dispensation. It must, therefore, have been simpler and easier than what was ultimately to supplant it. And this, we again repeat, it could only be by being viewed in its more obvious and formal aspect, as the worship of an existing religion, which provided for the time then present a fitting medium of access to God, and hallowed intercourse with heaven. The man who humbly availed himself of what was thus provided to meet his soul’s necessities, stood in faith, and served God with acceptance,—though still with such imperfections in the present, and such promises for the future, that the more always he reflected, he would become the more a child of desire and hope.[37] [37] If any one will take the trouble to look into the elder writers, who formally examined the typical character of the ancient symbolical institutions, he will find them entirely silent in regard to the points chiefly dwelt upon in the above discussion. Lowman, for example, on the Rational of the Hebrew Worship, and Outram de Sac., Lib. i., c. 18, where he comes to consider the nature and force of a type, gave no proper or satisfactory explanation of the questions, wherein precisely did the resemblance stand between the type and the antitype, or how should the one have prepared the way for the other. We are told frequently enough that the “Hebrew ritual contained a plan, or sketch, or pattern, or shadow of Gospel things:” that “the type adumbrated the antitype by something of the same sort with that which is found in the antitype,” or “by a symbol of it,” or “by a slender and shadowy image of it,” or “by something that may somehow be compared with it,” etc. But we look in vain for anything more specific. Townley, in his Reasons of the Laws of Moses, still advances no farther in the Dissertation he devotes to the Typical Character of the Mosaic Institutions. Even Olshausen, in the treatise formerly noticed (Ein Wort über tiefern Schriftsinn), when he comes to unfold what he calls his deeper exposition, confines himself to a brief illustration of the few general statements formerly mentioned. See p. 46. We have spoken as yet only of the symbolical institutions and services of the Old Testament; and of these quite generally, as one great whole. For it is carefully to be noted, that the Scriptural designations of rudiments and shadows, which we have shown to be the same as typical, when properly understood, are applied to the entire mass of the ancient ordinances in their prospective reference to Gospel realities. And yet, while New Testament Scripture speaks thus of the whole, it deals very sparingly in particular examples; and if it furnishes, in its language and allusions, many valuable hints to direct inquiry, it still contains remarkably few detailed illustrations. It nowhere tells us, for example, what was either immediately symbolized, or prophetically shadowed forth, by the Holy Place in the tabernacle, or the shew-bread, or the golden candlestick, or the ark of the covenant, or, indeed, by anything connected with the tabernacle, excepting its more prominent offices and administrations. Even the Epistle to the Hebrews, which enters with such comparative fulness into the connection between the Old and the New, and which is most express in ascribing a typical value to all that belonged to the tabernacle, can yet scarcely be said to give any detailed explanation of its furniture and services beyond the rite of expiatory sacrifice, and the action of the high priest in presenting it, more particularly on the great day of atonement. So that those who insist on an explicit warrant and direction from Scripture in regard to each particular type, will find their principle conducts them but a short way even through that department, which, they are obliged to admit, possesses throughout a typical character. A general admission of this sort can be of little use, if one is restrained on principle from touching most of the particulars; one might as well maintain that these stood entirely disconnected from any typical property. So, indeed, Bishop Marsh has substantially done; for, “that such explanations,” he says, referring to particular types, “are in various instances given in the New Testament, no one can deny. And if it was deemed necessary to explain one type, where could be the expediency or moral fitness of withholding the explanation of others?Must not, therefore, the silence of the New Testament in the case of any supposed type, be an argument against the existence of that type?”[38] [38] Lectures, p. 392. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 109: 05.04. CHAPTER THIRD ======================================================================== Chapter Third.—The Proper Nature And Province Of Typology—2. The Historical Characters And Transactions Of The Old Testament, Viewed As Exemplifying The Distinctive Characters Of A Typical Relationship—Typical Forms In Nature Necessity Of The Typical As A Preparation For The Dispensation Of The Fulness Of Times. IN the preceding chapter we have seen in what sense the religious institutions and services of the Old Covenant were typical. They were constructed and arranged so as to express symbolically the great truths and principles of a spiritual religion—truths and principles which were common alike to Old and New Testament times, but which, from the nature of things, could only find in the New their proper development and full realization. On the limited scale of the earthly and perishable—in the construction of a material tabernacle, and the suitable adjustment of bodily ministrations and sacrificial offerings,—there was presented a palpable exhibition of those great truths respecting sin and salvation, the purification of the heart, and the dedication of the person and the life to God, which in the fulness of time were openly revealed and manifested on the grand scale of a world’s redemption, by the mediation and work of Jesus Christ. In that pre-arranged and harmonious, but still inherently defective and imperfect, exhibition of the fundamental ideas and spiritual relations of the Gospel, stood the real nature of its typical character. Nor, we may add, was there anything arbitrary in so employing the things of flesh and time to shadow forth, under a preparatory dispensation, the higher realities of God’s everlasting kingdom. It has its ground and reason in the organic arrangements or appearances of the material world. For these are so framed as to be ever giving forth representations of Divine truth, and are a kind of ceaseless regeneration, in which, through successive stages, new and higher forms of being are continually springing out of the lower. It is on this constitution of nature that the figurative language of Scripture is based. And it was only building on a foundation that already existed, and which stretches far and wide through the visible territory of creation, when the outward relations and fleshly services of a symbolical religion were made to image and prepare for the more spiritual and divine mysteries of Messiah’s kingdom. Hence, also, some of the more important symbolical institutions were expressly linked (as we shall see) to appropriate seasons and aspects of nature. But was symbol alone thus employed?Might there not also have been a similar employment of many circumstances and transactions in the province of sacred history?If the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the blessings of His great salvation, was the object mainly contemplated by God from the beginning of the world, and with which the Church was ever travailing as in birth if, consequently, the previous dispensations were chiefly designed to lead to, and terminate upon, Christ and the things of His salvation,—what can be more natural than to suppose that the evolutions of Providence throughout the period during which the salvation was in prospect, should have concurred with the symbols of worship in imaging and preparing for what was to come?It is possible, indeed, that the connection here, between the past and the future, might be somewhat more varied and fluctuating, and in several respects less close and exact, than in the case of a regulated system of symbolical instruction and worship, appointed to last till it was superseded by the better things of the New dispensation. This is only what might be expected from the respective natures of the subjects compared. But that a connection, similar in kind, had a place in the one as well as in the other, we hold to be not only in itself probable, but also capable of being satisfactorily established. And for the purpose of showing this we lay down the following positions:—First, That the historical relations and circumstances recorded in the Old Testament, and typically applied in the New, had very much both the same resemblances and defects in respect to the realities of the Gospel, which we have found to belong to the ancient symbolical institutions of worship; secondly, that such historical types were absolutely necessary, in considerable number and variety, to render the earlier dispensations thoroughly preparative in respect to the coming dispensation of the Gospel; and, thirdly, that Old Testament Scripture itself contains undoubted indications, that much of its historical matter stood related to some higher ideal, in which the truths and relations exemplified in them were again to meet and receive a new but more perfect development. I. The first consideration is, that the historical relations and circumstances recorded in the Old Testament, and typically interpreted in the New, had very much the same resemblances and defects, in respect to the Gospel, which we have found to belong to the ancient symbolical institutions of worship. Thus—to refer to one of the earliest events in the world’s history so interpreted—the general deluge that destroyed the old world, and preserved Noah and his family alive, is represented as standing in atypical relation to Christian baptism (1 Peter 3:21). It did so, as will be explained more at large hereafter, from its having destroyed those who by their corruptions destroyed the earth, and saved for a new world the germ of a better race. Doing this in the outward and lower territory of the world’s history, it served substantially the same purpose that Christian baptism does in a higher; since this is designed to bring the individual that receives it under those vital influences that purge away the corruption of a fleshly nature, and cause the seed of a divine life to take root and grow for the occupation of a better inheritance. In like manner Sarah, with her child of promise, the special and peculiar gift of heaven, and Hagar, with her merely natural and fleshly offspring, are explained as typically foreshadowing, the one a spiritual church, bringing forth real children to God, in spirit and destiny as well as in calling, the heirs of His everlasting kingdom; the other, a worldly and corrupt church, whose members are in bondage to the flesh, having but a name to live, while they are dead.—(Galatians 4:22; Galatians 4:31) In such cases, it is clear that the same kind of resemblances, coupled also with the same kind of differences, appear between the preparatory and the final, as in the case of the symbolical types. For here also the ideas and relations are substantially one in the two associated transactions; only in the earlier they appear ostensibly connected with the theatre of an earthly existence, and with respect to seen and temporal results; while in the later it is the higher field of grace and the interests of a spiritual and immortal existence that come directly into view. Or, let the use be considered that is made of the events which befell the Israelites on their way to the land of Canaan, as regards the state and prospects of the Church of the New Testament on its way to heaven. Look at this, for example, as unfolded in Hebrews 3:1-19 and Hebrews 4:1-16, and the essential features of a typical connection will at once be seen. For the exclusion of those carnal and unbelieving Israelites who fell in the wilderness is there exhibited, not only as affording a reasonable presumption, but as providing a valid ground, for asserting that persons similarly affected now toward the kingdom of glory cannot attain to heaven. Indeed, so complete in point of principle is the identity of the two cases, that the same expressions are applied to both alike, without intimation of any differences existing between them: “the Gospel is preached” to the one class as well as to the other; God gives to each alike “a promise of rest,” while they equally “fall through unbelief,” having hardened their hearts against the word of God. Yet there were the same differences in kind as we have noted between the type and the antitype in the symbolical institutions of worship—the visible and earthly being employed in the one to exhibit such relations and principles as in the other appear in immediate connection with what is spiritual and heavenly. In the type we have the prospect of Canaan, the Gospel of an earthly promise of rest, and, because not believed, issuing in the loss of a present life of honour and blessing; in the antitype, the prospect of a heavenly inheritance, the Gospel promise of an everlasting rest, bringing along with it, when treated with unbelief and neglect, an exclusion from eternal blessedness and glory. Again, and with reference to the same period in the Church’s history, it is said in John 3:14-15, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The language here certainly does not necessarily betoken by any means so close a connection between the Old and the New, as in the cases previously referred to; nor are we disposed to assert that the same connection in all respects really existed. The historical transaction in this case had at first sight the aspect of something occasional and isolated, rather than of an integral and essential part of a great plan. And yet the reference in John, viewed in connection with other passages of Scripture bearing on the subject, sufficiently vindicates for it a place among the earlier exhibitions of Divine truth, planned by the foreseeing eye of God with special respect to the coming realities of the Gospel. As such it entirely accords in nature with the typical prefigurations already noticed. In the two related transactions there is a fitting correspondence as to the relations maintained: in both alike a wounded and dying condition in the first instance, then the elevation of an object apparently inadequate, yet really effectual, to accomplish the cure, and this through no other medium on the part of the affected, than their simply looking to the object so presented to their view. But with this pervading correspondence, what marked and distinctive characteristics! In the one case a dying body, in the other a perishing soul. There, an uplifted serpent—of all instruments of healing from a serpent’s bite the most unlikely to profit; here the exhibition of one condemned and crucified as a malefactor—of all conceivable persons apparently the most impotent to save. There, once more, the fleshly eye of nature deriving from the outward object visibly presented to it the healing virtue it was ordained to impart; and here the spiritual eye of the soul, looking in stedfast faith to the exalted Redeemer, and getting the needed supplies of His life-giving and regenerating grace. In both the same elements of truth, the same modes of dealing, but in the one developing themselves on a lower, in the other on a higher territory; in the former having immediate respect only to things seen and temporal, and in the latter to what is unseen, spiritual, and eternal. And when it is considered how the Divine procedure in the case of the Israelites was in itself so extraordinary and peculiar, so unlike God’s usual methods of dealing in providence, in so far as these have respect merely to inferior and perishable interests, it seems to be without any adequate reason—to want, in a sense, its just explanation, until it is viewed as a dispensation specially designed to prepare the way for the higher and better things of the Gospel. Similar explanations might be given of the other historical facts recorded in Old Testament Scripture, and invested with a typical reference in the New. But enough has been said to show the essential similarity in the respect borne by them to the better things of the Gospel, and of that borne by the ritual types of the law. The ground of the connection in the one class, precisely as in the other, stands in the substantial oneness of the ideas and relations pervading the earlier and the later transactions, as corresponding parts of related dispensations; or in the identity of truth and principle appearing in both, as different yet mutually depending parts of one great providential scheme. In that internal agreement and relationship, rather than in any mere outward resemblances, we are to seek the real bond of connection between the Old and the New. At first sight, perhaps, a connection of this nature may appear to want something of what is required to satisfy the conditions of a proper typical relationship. And there are two respects more especially, in which this deficiency may seem to exist. 1. It has been so much the practice to look at the connection between the Old and the New in an external aspect, that one naturally fancies the necessity of some more palpable and arbitrary bond of union to link together type and antitype. The one is apt to be thought of as a kind of pre-ordained pantomime of the other—like those prefigurative actions which the prophets were sometimes instructed, whether in reality or in vision, to perform (as Isaiah in Isaiah 20:1-6, or Ezekiel in Ezekiel 12:1-28), meaningless in themselves, yet very significant as foreshadowing intimations of coming events in providence. Such prophecies in action, certainly, had something in common with the typical transactions now under consideration. They both alike had respect to other actions or events yet to come, without which, preordained and foreseen, they would not have taken place. They both also stood in a similar relation of littleness to the corresponding circumstances they foreshadowed—exhibiting on a comparatively small scale what was afterwards to realize itself on a large one, and thereby enabling the mind more readily to anticipate the approaching future, or more distinctly to grasp it after it had come. But they differed in this, that the typical actions of the prophets had respect solely to the coming transactions they prefigured, and but for these would have been foolish and absurd; while the typical actions of God’s providence, as well as the symbolical institutions of His worship, had a moral meaning of their own, independently of the reference they bore to the future revelations of the Gospel. To overlook this independent moral element, is to leave out of account what should be held to constitute the very basis of the connection between the past and the future. But if, on the other hand, we make due account of it, we establish a connection which, in reality, is of a much more close and vital nature, and one, too, of far higher importance, than if it consisted alone in points of outward resemblance. For it implies not only that the entire plan of salvation was all along in the eye of God, but that, with a view to it, He was ever directing His government, so as to bring out in successive stages and operations the very truths and principles which were to find in the realities of the Gospel their more complete manifestation. He showed that He saw the end from the beginning, by interweaving with His providential arrangements the elements of the more perfect, the terminal plan. And, therefore, to lay the groundwork of the connection between the preparatory and the final in the elements of truth and principle common alike to both, instead of placing it in merely formal resemblances, is but to withdraw it from a less to a more vital and important part of the transactions—from the outer shell and appearance, to the inner truth and substance of the history; so that we can discern, not only some perceptible coincidences between the type and the antitype, but the same fundamental character, the same spirit of life, the same moral import and practical design. To render this more manifest, as it is a point of considerable moment to our inquiry, let us compare an alleged example of historical type, where the resemblance between it and the supposed antitype is of an ostensible, but still only of an outward kind, with one of those referred to above—the brazen serpent, for example, or the deluge. In this latter example there was scarcely any outward resemblance presented to the Christian ordinance of baptism; as in no proper sense could Noah and his family be said to have been literally baptized in the waters. But both this and the other historical transaction presented strong lines of resemblance, of a more inward and substantial kind, to the things connected with them in the Gospel—such as enable us to recognise without difficulty the impress of one Divine hand in the two related series of transactions, and to contemplate them as corresponding parts of one grand economy, rising gradually from its lower to its higher stages of development. Take, however, as an example of the other class, the occupation of Abel as a shepherd, which by many, among others by Witsius, has been regarded as a prefiguration of Christ in His character as the great Shepherd of Israel. A superficial likeness, we admit; but what is to be found of real unity and agreement?What light does the one throw upon the other?What expectation beforehand could the earlier beget of the later, or what confirmation afterwards can it supply?Admitting that the death of Abel somehow foreshadowed the infinitely more precious blood to be shed on Calvary, what distinctive value could the sacrifice of life in His case derive from the previous occupation of the martyr? Christ, certainly, died as the spiritual shepherd of souls, but Abel was not murdered on account of having been a keeper of sheep; nor had his death any necessary connection with his having followed such an employment. For what purpose, then, press points of resemblance so utterly disconnected, and dignify them with the name of typical prefigurations?Resemblances in such a case are worthless even if real, and from their nature incapable of affording any insight into the mind and purposes of God. But when, on the contrary, we look into the past records of God’s providence, and find there, in the dealings of His hand and the institutions of His worship, a coincidence of principle and economical design with what appears in the dispensation of the Gospel, we cannot but feel that we have something of real weight and importance for the mind to rest upon. And if, farther, we have reason to conclude, not only that agreements of this kind existed, but that they were all skilfully planned and arranged,—the earlier with a view to the later, the earthly and temporal for the spiritual and heavenly,—we find ourselves possessed of the essential elements of a typical connection. We have reason, however, so to conclude, as has partly been shown already, and will still farther be shown in the sequel. 2. But granting what has now been stated—allowing that the connection between type and antitype is more of an internal than of an external kind, it may still be objected, in regard to the historical types, that they wanted for the most part something of the necessary correspondence with the antitypes; the one did not occupy under the Old the same relative place that the other did under the New—existing for a time as a shadow, until it was superseded and displaced by the substance. Perhaps not; but is such a close and minute correspondence absolutely necessary? Or is it to be found even in the case of all the symbolical types? With them also considerable differences appear; and we look in vain for anything like a fixed and absolute uniformity. The correspondence assumed the most exact form in the sacrificial rites of the tabernacle worship. There, certainly, part may be said to have answered to part; there was priest for priest, offering for offering, death for death, and blessing for blessing—throughout, an inferior and temporary substitute in the room of the proper reality, and continuing till it was superseded and displaced by the latter. We find a relaxation, however, in this closely adjusted relationship, whenever we leave the immediate province of sacrifice; and in many of the things expressly denominated shadows of the Gospel, it can hardly be said to have existed. In regard, for example, to the ancient festivals, the new moons, the use or disuse of leaven, the defilement of leprosy and its purification, there was no such precise and definite superseding of the Old by something corresponding under the New—nothing like office for office, action for action, part for part. The symbolical rites and institutions referred to were typical—not, however, as representing things that were to hold specifically and palpably the same place in Gospel times, but rather as embodying, in set forms and ever-recurring bodily services, the truths and principles that, in naked simplicity and by direct teaching, were to pervade the dispensation of the Gospel. There is quite a similar diversity in the case of the historical types. In some of them the correspondence was very close and exact; in others more loose and general. Of the former class was the calling of Israel as an elect people, their relation to the land of Canaan as their covenant portion, their redemption from the yoke of Egypt, and their temporary sojourn in the wilderness as they travelled to inherit it—all of which continued (the two latter by means of commemorative ordinances) till they were superseded by corresponding but higher objects under the Gospel. In respect to these we can say, the new dispensation presents people for people, redemption for redemption, inheritance for inheritance, and one kind of wilderness-training for another; objects in both precisely corresponding as regards the places they respectively held, and the one preserving their existence or transmitting their efficacy, till they were supplanted by the other. But we do not pretend to see the same close connection and the same exact correspondence between the Old arid the New in all, or even the greater part, of the historical transactions of the past which we hold to have been typical; nor are we warranted to look for it. The analogy of the symbolical types would lead us to expect, along with the more direct typical arrangements, many acts and institutions of a somewhat incidental and subordinate kind, in which a typical representation should be given of ideas and relations, that could only find in the realities of the Gospel their full and proper manifestation. If they were not appointed as temporary substitutes for these realities, and made to occupy an ostensible place in the divine economy till the better things appeared, they were still fashioned after the ideal of the better, and were thereby fitted to indoctrinate the minds of God’s people with certain notions of the truth, and to familiarize them with its spiritual ideas, its modes of procedure, and principles of working. And in this they plainly possessed the more essential elements of a typical connection. II. Enough, however, for the first point. We proceed to the second; which is, that such historical types as those under consideration were absolutely necessary, in considerable number and variety, to render the earlier dispensations thoroughly preparative in respect to the coming dispensation of the Gospel. This was necessary, first of all, from the typical character of the position and worship of the members of the Old Covenant. The main things respecting them being, as we have seen, typical, it was inevitable but that many others of a subordinate and collateral nature should be the same; for otherwise they would not have been suitably adapted to the dispensation to which they belonged. But we have something more than this general correspondence or analogy to appeal to. For the nature of the historical types themselves, as already explained, implies their existence, in considerable number and variety. The representation they were designed to give of the fundamental truths and principles of the Gospel, with the view of preparing the Church for the new dispensation, would necessarily have been incomplete and inadequate, unless it had embraced a pretty extensive field. The object of their appointment would have been but partially reached, if they had consisted only of the few straggling examples which have been particularly mentioned in New Testament Scripture. Nor, unless the history in general of Old Testament times, in so far as its recorded transactions bore on them the stamp of God’s mind and will, had been pervaded by the typical element, could it have in any competent measure fulfilled the design of a preparatory economy. So that whatever distinctions it may be necessary to draw between one part of the transactions and another, as to their being in themselves sometimes of a more essential, sometimes of a more incidental character, or in their typical bearing being more or less closely related to the realities of the Gospel, their very place and object in a preparatory dispensation required them to be extensively typical. To be spread over a large field, and branched out in many directions, was as necessary to their typical as to their more immediate and temporary design. Thus the one point grows by a sort of natural necessity out of the other. But the argument admits of being consider ably strengthened by the manner in which the historical types that are specially mentioned in New Testament Scripture are there referred to. So far from being represented as singular in their typical reference to Gospel times, they have uniformly the appearance of being only selected for the occasion. Nay, the obligation on the part of believers generally to seek for them throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, and apply them to all the purposes of Christian instruction and improvement, is distinctly asserted in the Epistle to the Hebrews; and the capacity to do so is represented as a proof of full-grown spiritual discernment (Hebrews 5:11-14). There is, therefore, a sense in which the saying of Augustine, “The Old Testament, when rightly understood, is one great prophecy of the New,”[39] is strictly true even in regard to those parts of ancient Scripture which, in their direct and immediate bearing, partake least of the prophetical. Its records of the past are, at the same time, pregnant with the germs of a corresponding but more exalted future. The relations sustained by its more public characters, the parts they were appointed to act in their day and generation, the deliverances that were wrought for them and by them, and the chastisements they were from time to time given to experience, did not begin and terminate with themselves. They were parts of an unfinished and progressive plan, which finds its destined completion in the person and kingdom of Christ; and only when seen in this prospective reference do they appear in their proper magnitude and their full significance. [39] Vetus Testamentum recte intelligentibus prophetia est Novi Testamenti (Contra Faust. L. xv. 2). And again, Ille apparatus veteris Testamenti In generationibus, factis etc. parturiebat esse venturum (Ib. L. xix. 31). Christ, then, is the end of the history as well as of the law, of the Old Testament. It had been strange, indeed, if it were otherwise; strange if its historical transactions had not been ordained by God to bear a prospective reference to the scheme of grace unfolded in the Gospel. For what is this scheme itself, in its fundamental character, but a grand historical development? What are the doctrines it teaches, the blessings it imparts, and the prospects it discloses of coming glory, but the ripened fruit and issue of the wondrous facts it records? The things which are there written of the incarnation and life, the death and resurrection, of the Lord Jesus Christ, are really the foundation on which all rests the root from which everything springs in Christianity. And shall it, then, be imagined, that the earlier facts in the history of related and preparatory dispensations did not point, like so many heralds and forerunners, to these unspeakably greater ones to come? If a prophecy lay concealed in their symbolical rites, could it fail to be found also in the historical transactions that were often so closely allied to these, and always coincident with them in purpose and design? Assuredly not. In so far as God spake in the transactions, and gave discoveries by them of His truth and character, they pointed on ward to the one “Pattern Man,” and the terminal kingdom of righteousness and blessing of which He was to be the head and centre. Here only the history of God’s earlier dispensations attained its proper end, as in it also the history of the world rose to its true greatness and glory.[40] [40] Compare the remarks made by the author in “Prophecy viewed with respect to its Distinctive Nature,” etc., P. I., c. 2; also what has been said here in p. 54 sq. of the views which have obtained currency in Germany respecting the typical character of Old Testament history. Hartmann, in his Verbinnung des Alten Test, mit den Newen, p. 6, gives the following from a German periodical on the subject of Old Testament history, and its connection with the Gospel:—“Must not Judaism be of great moment to Christianity, since both stand in brotherly and sisterly relations to each other? The historical books of the Hebrews are also religious books; the religious import is involved in the historical. The history of the people, as a divine leading and management in respect to them, was at the same time a training for religion, precisely as the Old Testament is a preparation for the New.” Still more strongly Jacobi, as quoted by Sack, Apologetik, p. 356, on the words of Christ, that “as the serpent was lifted up, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (ὑψωθὴναι δεὶ): “ History is also prophecy. The past unfolds the future as a germ, and at certain points, discernible by the eye of the mind, the greater may be seen imaged in the smaller, the internal in the external, the present or future in the past. Here there is nothing whatever arbitrary: throughout there is a divine must, connection, and arrangement, pregnant with mutual relations.” More recently, Hofmann, in his Weissagung und Erfüllung, as noticed in Ch. I., has run to an extreme this view of Old Testament history, and in his desire to magnify the importance of it has depreciated prophecy—really, however, to the disparagement of the prophetical element in both departments. III. The thought, however, may not unnaturally occur, that if the historical matter of the Old Testament possess as much as has been represented of a typical character, some plain indications of its doing so should be found in Old Testament Scripture itself; we should scarcely need to draw our proof of the existence and nature of the historical types entirely from the writings of the New Testament. It was with the view of meeting this thought that we advanced our third statement; which is, that Old Testament Scripture does contain undoubted marks and indications of its historical personages and events being related to some higher ideal, in which the truths and relations exhibited in them were again to meet, and obtain a more perfect development. The proof of this is to be sought chiefly in the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, in which the more select instruments of God’s Spirit gave expression to the Church’s faith respecting both the past and the future in His dispensations. And in looking there we find, not only that an exalted personage, with His work of perfect righteousness, and His kingdom of consummate bliss and glory, was seen to be in prospect, but also that the expectations cherished of what was to be, took very commonly the form of a new and higher exhibition of what had already been. In giving promise of the better things to come, prophecy to a large extent availed itself of the characters and events of history. But it could only do so on the two fold ground, that it perceived in these essentially the same elements of truth and principle which were to appear in the future; and in that future anticipated a nobler exhibition of them than had been given in the past. And what was this but, in other words, to indicate their typical meaning and design? The truth of this will more fully appear when we come to treat of the combination of type with prophecy, which, on account of its importance, we reserve for the subject of a separate chapter. Meanwhile, it will be remembered how even Moses speaks before his death of “the prophet which the Lord their God should raise up from among his brethren like to himself” (Deuteronomy 18:18)—one that should hold a similar position and do a similar work, but each in its kind more perfect and complete—else, why look out for another 1 In like manner, David connects the historical appearance of Melchizedek with the future Head of God’s Church and kingdom, when He announces Him as a priest after the order of Melchizedek (Psalms 110:4); he foresaw that the relations of Melchizedek’s time should be again revived in this divine character, and the same part fulfilled anew, but raised, as the connection intimates, to a higher sphere, invested with a heavenly greatness, and carrying a world-wide signifcance and power. So again we are told (Malachi 3:1, Malachi 4:5) another Elias should arise in the brighter future, to be succeeded by a more glorious manifestation of the Lord, to do what had never been done but in fragments before; namely, to provide for Himself a true spiritual priesthood, a regenerated people, and an offering of righteousness. But the richest proofs are furnished by the latter portion of Isaiah’s writings; for there we find the prophet intermingling so closely together the past and the future, that it is often difficult to tell of which he actually speaks. He passes from Israel to the Messiah, and again from the Messiah to Israel, as if the one were but a new, a higher and perfect development of what belonged to the other. And the Church of the future is constantly represented under the relations of the past, only freed from the imperfections that attached to its state, and rendered in every respect blessed and glorious. Such are a few specimens of the way in which the more spiritual and divinely enlightened members of the Old Covenant saw the future imaged in the past or present. They discerned the essential oneness in truth and principle between the two; but, at the same time, were conscious of such inherent imperfections and defects adhering to the past, that they felt it required a more perfect future to render it altogether worthy of God, and fully adequate to the wants and necessities of His people. And there is one entire book of the Old Testament which owes in a manner its existence, as it now stands, to this likeness in one respect, but diversity in another, between the past and the future things in God’s administration. We refer to the Book of Psalms. The pieces of which this book consists are in their leading character devotional summaries, expressing the pious thoughts and feelings which the consideration of God’s ways, and the knowledge of His revelations, were fitted to raise in reflecting and spiritual bosoms. But the singular thing is, that they are this for the New as well as for the Old Testament worshipper. They are still incomparably the most perfect expression of the religious sentiment, and the best directory to the soul in its meditations and communings about divine things, which is anywhere to be found. There is not a feature in the divine character, nor an aspect of any moment in the life of faith, to which expression, more or less distinct, is not there given. How could such a book have come into existence, centuries before the Christian era, but for the fact that the Old and the New dispensations—however they may have differed in outward form, and the ostensible nature of the transactions belonging to them were founded on the same relations, and pervaded by the same essential truths and principles? No otherwise could the Book of Psalms have served as the great hand-book of devotion to the members of both covenants. There the disciples of Moses and Christ meet as on common ground—the one still readily and gratefully using the fervent utterances of faith and hope, which the other had breathed forth ages before. And though it was comparatively carnal institutions under which the holy men lived and worshipped, who indited those divine songs; though it was transactions bearing directly only on their earthly and temporal condition, which formed the immediate ground and occasion of the sentiments they uttered; yet, where in all Scripture can the believer, who now “worships in spirit and in truth,” more readily find for himself the words that shall fitly express his loftiest conceptions of God, embody his most spiritual and enlarged views of the Divine government, or tell forth the feelings and desires of his soul even in many of its most lively and elevated moods? But with this manifold adaptation to the spiritual thoughts and feelings of the Christian, there is still a perceptible difference between the Psalms of David and the writings of the New Testament. With all that discovers itself in the Psalms of a vivid apprehension of God, and of a habitual confidence in His faithfulness and love, one cannot fail to mark the indications of something like a trembling restraint and awe upon the soul; it never rises into the filial cry of the Gospel, Abba Father. There is a fitfulness also in its aspirations, as of one dwelling in a dusky and changeful atmosphere. Continually, indeed, do we see the Psalmist flying, in distress and trouble, under the shelter of the Almighty, and trusting in His mercy for deliverance from the guilt of sin. Even in the worst times he still prays and looks for redemption. But the redemption which dispels all fear, and satisfies the soul with the highest good, he knew not, excepting as a bright day-star glistening in the far-distant horizon. It was in his believing apprehensions a thing that should one day be realized by the Church of God; and he could tell also somewhat of the mighty and glorious personage destined in the Divine counsels to accomplish it of His unparalleled struggles in the cause of righteousness, and of His final triumphs, resulting in the extension of His kingdom to the farthest bounds of the earth. But no more—the veil still hangs; expectation still waits and longs; and it is only for the believer of other times to say, “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation;” “I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ;” or again, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know, that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Such is the agreement, and such also the difference, between the Old and the New. “There we see the promise and prelude of the blessings of salvation; here, these blessings themselves, far surpassing all the previous foreshadowings of them. There, a fiducial resting in Jehovah; here, an unspeakable fulness of spiritual and heavenly blessings from the opened fountain of His mercy. There, a confidence that the Lord would not abandon His people; here, the Lord Himself assuming their nature, the God-man connecting Himself in organic union with humanity, and sending forth streams of life through its members. There, in the background, night, only relieved by the stars of the word of promise, and operations of grace in suitable accordance with it; here, in the background, day, still clouded, indeed, by our human nature, which is not yet completely penetrated by the Spirit, and is ever anew manifesting its sinfulness, but yet such a day as gives assurance of the cloudless sunshine of eternity, of which God Himself is the light.”[41] [41] Delitzsch, Biblisch-prophetische Theologie, p. 232. We here conclude the direct proof of our argument for the typical character of the religion and history of the Old Testament; but it admits of confirmation from two distinct though related lines of thought,—the one analogical, derived from the existence of typical forms in physical nature, coupled with the evidences of a progression in the Divine mode of realizing them; the other founded inferentially on what might seem requisite to render the progression, apparent in the spiritual economy, an effective growth towards “the dispensation of the fulness of times.” With a few remarks on each of these, we shall close this branch of our inquiry. 1. The subject of typical forms in nature has only of late risen into prominence, and taken its place in scientific investigations. It had the misfortune to be first distinctly broached by men who were more distinguished for their powers of fancy, and their bold spirit of speculation, than for patient and laborious inquiry in any particular department of science; so that their peculiar ideas respecting a harmony of structure running through the organic kingdoms, and bearing relation to a pattern-form or type, were for a time treated with contempt, or met with decided opposition. But further research has turned the scale in their favour: the ideas in question may now be reckoned among the established conclusions of natural science; and so far from occasioning any just prejudice to the interests of a rational deism (as was once supposed), they have turned rather to its advantage. For, in addition to the evidences of design in nature, which show a specific direction toward a final cause (and which remain untouched), there have been brought to light evidences, not previously observed, of a striking unity of plan. The general principle has been made good, that in organic structures, while there is an infinite variety of parts, each with its specific functions and adaptations, there is also a normal shape, which it more or less approaches, both in its construction as a whole, and in each of its organs. Thus, in plants which have leaves that strike the eye, the leaf and plant are typically analogous: the leaf is a typical plant or branch, and the tree or branch a typical leaf, with certain divergences or modifications necessary to adapt them to their respective places. In the animal kingdom the structural harmony is not less perceptible, and still more to our purpose. It has been found by a wide and satisfactory induction, that the human is here the pattern-form—the archetype of the vertebrate division of animated being. In the structure of all other animal forms there are observable striking resemblances to that of man, and resemblances of a kind that seem designed to assimilate the lower, as near as circumstances would admit, to the higher. In all vertebrate animals it is found that the vertebrate skeleton is composed of a series of parts of essentially the same order, only modified in a great variety of ways to suit the particular functions it has to discharge in the different animal frames to which it belongs. Thus, every segment, and almost every bone, present in the human hand and arm, exist also in the fin of the whale, though apparently not required for the movement of this inflexible paddle, and the specific uses for which it is designed; apparently, therefore, retained more for the sake of symmetry, than from any necessity connected with the proper function of the organ.[42] Most strikingly, however, does the studied conformity to the human archetype appear in the formation of the brain, which is the most peculiar and distinguishing part of the animal frame. “Nature,” says Hugh Miller, “in constructing this curious organ in man, first lays down a grooved cord, as the carpenter lays down the keel of his vessel; and on this narrow base the perfect brain, as month after month passes by, is gradually built up, like the vessel from the keel. First it grows up into a brain closely resembling that of a fish; a few additions more impart the perfect appearance of the brain of a bird; it then developes into a brain exceedingly like that of a mammiferous quadruped; and finally, expanding atop, and spreading out its deeply corrugated lobes, till they project widely over the base, it assumes its unique character as a human brain. Radically such at the first, it passes through all the inferior forms, from that of the fish upwards, as if each man were in himself, not the microcosm of the old fanciful philosopher, but something greatly more wonderful—a compendium of all animated nature, and of kin to every creature that lives. Hence the remark, that man is the sum total of all animals—‘the animal equivalent,’ says Oken, ‘to the whole animal kingdom.’”[43] [42] It is right to say, only apparently retained, though not strictly required; for, as Dr M`Cosh has justly stated, there may still be uses and designs connected with arrangements of the kind which science has not discovered; and the respect to symmetry may be but an incidental and subordinate, not the primary or sole reason. See Typical Forms, p. 449. [43] Footprints, p. 291. This, however, is not the whole. For, as geology has now learned to read with sufficient accuracy the stony records of the past, to be able to tell of successive creations of vertebrate animals, from fish, the first and lowest, up to man, the last and highest; so here also we have a kind of typical history—the less perfect animal productions of nature having throughout those earlier geological periods borne a prospective reference to man, as the complete and ultimate form of animal existence. In the language of theology, they were the types, and he is the antitype, in the mundane system. Or, as more fully explained by Professor Owen, “All the parts and organs of man had been sketched out in anticipation, so to speak, in the inferior animals; and the recognition of an ideal exemplar in the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a being as man must have existed before man appeared. For the Divine mind which planned the archetype, also foreknew all its modifications. The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been committed, we are as yet ignorant. But if, without derogation of the Divine power, we may conceive the existence of such ministers, and personify them by the term NATURE, we learn from the past history of our globe, that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light amidst the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the human form.” It is curious to notice that considerably before the progress of physical science had enabled its cultivators to draw this deduction from the lower to the higher forms of organic being, the same line of thought had suggested itself to the inventive mind of Coleridge from a thoughtful meditation of the successive stages of creation as described in Genesis, viewed in the light of progressive developments in the mental as well as material world. The passage as a whole is singularly characteristic of its distinguished author; but the part we have properly to do with is the following: “Let us carry ourselves back in spirit to the mysterious week, the teeming work-days of the Creator; as they rose in vision before the eye of the inspired historian of the generations of the heavens and of the earth, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And who that hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, could, as the vision evolving still advanced toward him, contemplate the filial and loyal Bee; the home-building, wedded, and divorceless Swallow; and, above all, the manifoldly intelligent Ant tribes, with their commonwealths and confederacies, their warriors and miners, the husband-folk that fold in their tiny flocks on the honeyed leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy instincts of maternal love, detached and in selfless purity—and not say to himself, Behold the shadow of approaching humanity, the sun rising from behind, in the kindling morn of creation! Thus all lower natures find their highest good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better.” (Aids to Reflection, i. p. 85.)[44] [44] Now, this destined rise in the kingdom founded in David, and its culmination in a Divine-human Head, is also the theme of many prophecies. David himself took the lead in announcing it; for he already foresaw, through the Spirit, what in this respect would be required to verify the wonderful promise made to him.—(2 Samuel 7:1-29, Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7; also Isaiah 7:14; Isaiah 9:6, etc.) But as David was himself the root of this new order of things, and the whole was to take the form of a verification of the word spoken to him, or of the perfectionment of the germ that was planted in him, so in his personal history there was given a compendious representation of the nature and prospects of the kingdom. In the first brief stage was exhibited the embryo of what it should ultimately become. Thus, the absoluteness of the Divine choice in appointing the king; his seeming want, but real possession, of the qualities required for administering the affairs of the kingdom; the growth from small, because necessarily spiritual, beginnings of the interests belonging to it—still growing, however, in the face of an inveterate and ungodly opposition, until judgment was brought forth unto victory;—these leading elements in the history of the first possessor of the kingdom must appear again they must have their counterpart in Him on whom the prerogatives and blessings of the kingdom were finally to settle. There was a real necessity in the case, such as always exists where the end is but the development and perfection of the beginning; and we may not hesitate to say, that if they had failed in Christ, He could not have been the anointed King of David’s line, in whom the purpose of God to govern and bless the world in righteousness was destined to stand. Here, again, we have another and lengthened series of predictions, connecting, in this respect, the past with the future, the beginning with the ending (for example, Psalms 16:1-11, Psalms 22:1-31, Psalms 40:1-17, Psalms 49:1-20, Psalms 109:1-31, Isaiah 53:1-12; Zechariah 9:9; Zechariah 12:10; Zechariah 13:1-7). In this view of the matter, what a striking analogy does the history of God’s operations in nature furnish to His plan in providence, as exhibited in the history of redemption! Here, in like manner, there is found in the person and kingdom of Christ a grand archetypal idea, towards which, for successive ages, the Divine plan was continually working. Partial exhibitions of it appear from time to time in certain remarkable personages, institutions, and events, which rise prominently into view as the course of providence proceeds, but all marred with obvious faults and imperfections in respect to the great object contemplated; until at length the idea, in its entire length and breadth, is seen embodied in Him to whom all the prophets gave witness—the God-man, fore-ordained before the foundation of the world. “The Creator—to adopt again the exposition of Mr Miller—in the first ages of His workings, appears to have been associated with what He wrought simply as the producer or author of all things. But even in those ages, as scene after scene, and one dynasty of the inferior animals succeeded another, there were strange typical indications which pre-Adamite students of prophecy among the spiritual existences of the universe might possibly have aspired to read; symbolical indications to the effect that the Creator was in the future to be more intimately connected with His material works than in the past, through a glorious creature made in His own image and likeness. And to this semblance and portraiture of the Deity—the first Adam—all the merely natural symbols seem to refer. But in the eternal decrees it had been for ever determined, that the union of the Creator with creation was not to be a mere union by proxy or semblance. And no sooner had the first Adam appeared and fallen, than a new school of prophecy began, in which type and symbol were mingled with what had now its first existence on earth verbal enunciations; and all pointed to the second Adam, ‘the Lord from heaven.’ In Him, creation and the Creator meet in reality, and not in semblance. On the very apex of the finished pyramid of being sits the adorable Monarch of all:—as the son of Mary, of David, of the first Adam—the created of God; as God and the Son of God—the eternal Creator of the universe. And these—the two Adams—form the main theme of all prophecy, natural and revealed. And that type and symbol should have been employed with reference not only to the second, but—as held by men like Agassiz and Owen—to the first Adam also, exemplifies, we are disposed to think, the unity of the style of Deity, and serves to show that it was He who created the worlds that dictated the Scriptures.”[45] [45] Witness newspaper, 2d August 1851. It is indeed a marvellous similitude, and one, it will be perceived, which is not less fitted to stimulate the aspirations of hope toward the future, than to strengthen faith in what the Bible relates concerning the history of the past. For, if the archetypal idea in animated nature has been wrought at through long periods and successive ages of being till it found its proper realization in man; now that the nature of man is linked in personal union with the Godhead for the purpose of rectifying what is evil, and raising manhood to a higher than its original condition, who can tell to what a height of perfection and glory it shall attain, when the work of God “in the regeneration” has fully accomplished its aim? “We know not what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him,” in whom the earthly and human have been for ever associated with, and assimilated to, the spiritual and divine. But the parallel between the method of God’s working in nature, and that pursued by Him in grace, especially as presented in the above graphic extract, naturally raises the question (to which reference has already been made, p. 62), whether, or how far, the creation as constituted and headed in Adam, is to be regarded as typical of the incarnation and kingdom of Christ? As the question is one that cannot be quite easily disposed of, while still it has a very material bearing on our future investigations, we must reserve it for separate discussion.[46] [46] See next chapter. 2. If now we turn from God’s plan in nature to His plan in grace, and think of the conditions that were required to meet in it, in order to render the progression here also exhibited fitly conducive to its great end, we shall find a still farther confirmation of our argument for the place and character of Scripture Typology. This plan, viewed with respect to its progressive character, certainly presents something strange and mysterious to our view, especially in the extreme slowness of its progression; since it required the postponement of the work of redemption for so many ages, and kept the Church during these in a state of comparative ignorance in respect to the great objects of her faith and hope. Yet what is it but an application to the moral history of the world of the principle on which its physical development has proceeded, and which, indeed, is constantly exhibited before us in each man’s personal history, whose term of probation upon earth is, in many cases half, in nearly all a third part consumed, before the individual attains to a capacity for the objects and employments of manhood? Constituted as we personally are, and as the world also is, progression of some kind is indispensable to happiness and well-being; and the majestic slowness that appears in the plan of God’s administration of the world, is but a reflection of the nature of its Divine Author, with whom a thousand years are as one day. Starting, then, with the assumption, that the Divine plan behoved to be of a progressive character, the nature of the connection we have found to exist between its earlier and later parts, discovers the perfect wisdom and fore sight of God. The terminating point in the plan was what is called emphatically “the mystery of godliness,”—God manifest in the flesh for the redemption of a fallen world, and the establishment through Him of a kingdom of righteousness that should not pass away. It was necessary that some intimation of this ulterior design should be given from the first, that the Church might know whither to direct her expectations. Accordingly, the prophetic Word began to utter its predictions with the very entrance of sin. The first promise was given on the spot that witnessed the fall; and that a promise which contained, within its brief but pregnant utterance, the whole burden of redemption. As time rolled on, prophecy continued to add to its communications, having still for its grand scope and aim “the testimony of Jesus.” And at length so express had its tidings become, and so plentiful its revelations, that when the purpose of the Father drew near to its accomplishment, the remnant of sincere worshippers were like men standing on their watch-towers, waiting and looking for the long-expected consolation of Israel; nor was there anything of moment in the personal history or work of the Son, of which it could not be written, It was so done, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. It is plain, however, on a little consideration, that something more was needed than the hopeful announcements of prophecy. The Church required training as well as teaching, and training of a very peculiar kind; for she had to be formed for receiving things “which men had not heard, nor had the ear perceived, neither had the eye seen—the things which God had prepared for those that waited for Him” (Isaiah 64:4). “The new dispensation was to be wholly made up of things strange and wonderful; all that is seen and heard of it is contrary to carnal wisdom. The appearance of the Son of God in a humble condition—the discharge by Him in person of a Gospel ministry, with its attendant circumstances—His shame and sufferings—His resurrection and ascension into heaven—the nature of the kingdom instituted by Him, which is spiritual—the blessings of His kingdom, which are also spiritual—the instruments employed for advancing the kingdom, men devoid of worldly learning, and destitute of outward authority—the gift of the Holy Spirit, the calling of the Gentiles, the rejection of so many among the Jewish people:—these, among other things, were indeed such as the carnal eye had never seen, and the carnal ear had never heard; nor could they without express revelation, by any thought or natural ingenuity on the part of man, have been foreseen or understood.”[47] But lying thus so far beyond the ken of man’s natural apprehensions, and so different from what they were disposed of themselves to expect, if all that was done beforehand respecting them had consisted in the necessarily partial and obscure intimations of prophecy, there could neither have been any just anticipation of the things to be revealed, nor any suitable training for them; the change from the past to the future must have come as an invasion, rather than as the result of an ever-advancing development, and men could only have been brought by a sort of violence to submit to it. [47] Vitringa on Isaiah 64:4. To provide against this, there was required, as a proper accompaniment to the intimations of prophecy, the training of preparatory dispensations, that the past history and established experience of the Church might run, though on a lower level, yet in the same direction with her future prospects. And what her circumstances in this respect required, the wisdom and fore sight of God provided. He so skilfully modelled for her the institutions of worship, and so wisely arranged the dealings of His providence, that there was constantly presented to her view, in the outward and earthly things with which she was conversant, the cardinal truths and principles of the coming dispensation. In everything she saw and handled, there was something to attemper her spirit to a measure of conformity with the realities of the Gospel; so that if she could not be said to live directly under “the powers of the world to come,” she yet shared their secondary influence, being placed amid the signs and shadows of the true, and conducted through earthly transactions that bore on them the image of the heavenly. It is to this preparatory training, as being on the part of God sufficiently protracted and complete, that we are to regard the Apostle as chiefly referring, when he speaks of Christ having appeared, “when the fulness of the time was come.”—(Galatians 4:4) Chiefly, though not by any means exclusively. For there is a manifold wisdom in all God’s arrangements. In the moral as well as in the physical world He is ever making numerous operations conspire to the production of one result, as each result is again made to contribute to several important ends. It is, therefore, a most legitimate object of inquiry, to search for all the lines of congruity to be seen in the world’s condition, that opportunely met at the time of Christ’s appearing, and together rendered it in a peculiar manner suited for the institution of His kingdom, and advantageously circumstanced for the diffusion of its truths and blessings among the nations of the earth. But whatever light may be gathered from these external researches, it should never be forgotten that God’s own record must furnish the main grounds for determining the special fitness of the selected time, and the state of His Church the paramount reason. In everything that essentially affects the interests of the Church, pre-eminently therefore in what concerns the manifestation of Christ, which is the centre-point of all that touches her interests, the state and condition of the Church herself is ever the first thing contemplated by the eye of God; the rest of the world holds but a secondary and subordinate place. Hence, when we are told that Christ appeared in the fulness of time, the fact of which we are mainly assured is, that all was done which was properly required for bringing the Church, whether as to her internal state or to her relations to the world, into a measure of preparedness for the time of His appearing. Not only had the period anticipated by prophecy arrived, and believing expectation, rising on the wings of prophecy, reached its proper height, but also the long series of preliminary arrangements and dealings was now complete, which were designed to make the Church familiar with the fundamental truths and principles of Messiah’s kingdom, and prepare her for the erection of this kingdom with its divine realities and eternal prospects. It is true that we search in vain for the general and wide spread success which we might justly expect to have arisen from the plan of God, and to have made conspicuously manifest its infinite wisdom. With the exception of a comparatively small number, the professing Church was found so completely unprepared for the doctrine of Christ’s kingdom, as to reject it with disdain, and oppose it with unrelenting violence. But this neither proves the absence of the design, nor the unfitness of the means for carrying it into effect. It only proves how in sufficient the best means are of themselves to enlighten and sanctify the human mind, when its thoughts and imaginations have become fixed in a wrong direction proves how the heart may remain essentially corrupt, even after undergoing the most perfect course of instruction, and still prefer the ways of sin to those of righteousness. But while we cannot overlook the fatal ignorance and perversity that pervaded the mass of the Jewish people, we are not to forget that there still was among them a pious remnant, “the election according to grace,” who, as the Church in the world, so they in the Church ever occupy the foremost place in the mind and purposes of God. In the bosom of the Jewish Church, as is justly remarked by Thiersch, “there lay a domestic life so pure, noble, and tender, that it could yield such a person as the holy Virgin,” and could furnish an atmosphere in which the Son of God might grow up sinless from childhood to manhood. There were Simeon and Anna, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, the company of Apostles, the converts, no small number after all, who flocked to the standard of Jesus, as soon as the truths of His salvation came to be fully known and understood, and the believing Jews and proselytes scattered abroad, who, in almost every city, were ready to form the nucleus of a Christian Church, and greatly facilitated its extension in the world. Did not the course of God’s preparatory dispensations reach its end in regard to these? Does not even the style of argument and address used by the Apostles imply that it did? How much do both their language and their ideas savour of the sanctuary! How constantly do they throw themselves back for illustration and support, not only on the prophecies, but also on the sacred annals and institutions of the Old Testament! They spake and reasoned on the assumption, that the revelations of the Gospel were but a new and higher exhibition of the principles which appeared alike in the events of their past history and the services of their religious worship. By means of these an appropriate language was already furnished to their hand, through which they could discourse aright of spiritual and divine things. But more than that, as they had no new language to invent, so they had no new ideas to discover, or unheard-of principles to promulgate. The scheme of truth which they were called to expound and propagate, had its foundations already laid in the whole history and constitution of the Jewish commonwealth. In labouring to establish it, they felt that they were treading in the footsteps, and, on a higher vantage-ground, maintaining the faith of their illustrious fathers. In short, they appear as the heralds and advocates of a cause which, in its essential principles, had its representation in all history, and gathered as into one glorious orb of truth the scattered rays of light and consolation which had been emanating from the ways of God since the world began. Thus wisely were the different parts of the Divine plan adjusted to each other; and, for the accomplishment of what was required, the training by means of types could no more have been dispensed with, than the glimpse-like visions and hopeful intimations of prophecy. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 110: 05.05. CHAPTER FOURTH. ======================================================================== Chapter Fourth.—The Proper Nature And Province Of Typology—3. God’s Work In Creation, How Related To The Incarnation And Kingdom Of Christ. THE analogy presented near the close of the preceding chapter—in an extract from Hugh Miller[48]—between pre-Adamite formations in the animal kingdom, rising successively above each other, and those subsequent arrangements in the religious sphere which were intended to herald and prepare for the personal appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, is stated with becoming caution and reserve. It keeps strictly within the limits of revelation, and assumes the existence of nothing in the work of creation itself, with respect to typical forms or otherwise, such as could, even to the most profound intelligences of the universe, have suggested the idea of a further and more complete manifestation of God in connection with humanity. The commencement of the new school of prophecy, allying itself to type and symbol of another kind than had yet appeared, is dated from the era of Adam’s fall, as that which at once furnished the occasion and opened the way for their employment; while still, in the mind of Deity itself, or “in the eternal decrees,” as it is expressed in the extract, it had been for ever determined that there should yet be a closer union between the Creator and creation than was accomplished in Adam. In other words, God had from eternity purposed the Incarnation; though the events in providence which were to exhibit its need, and give rise to the prophetic announcements and foreshadowing symbols which should in due time point the eye of hope toward it came in subsequently to creation, and by reason of sin; so that the Incarnation was predestined, because the fall was foreseen. [48] See page 107. The same caution, however, has not been always observed not even in ancient, and still less in recent times. The spirit of Christian speculation, in proportion as the circumstances of particular times have called it into play, has striven to connect in some more distinct and formal manner God’s work in creation with a higher destiny for man in the future; but the modes of doing so have characteristically differed. Among the patristic writers the tendency of this speculation was to find in the original constitution of things pre-intimations or pledges of a higher and more ethereal condition to be reached by Adam and his posterity, as the reward of obedience to the will of God, and perseverance in holiness. The sense of various passages upon the subject gathered out of their writings has been thus expressed: “That Paradise was to Adam a type of heaven; and that the never-ending life of happiness promised to our first parents, if they had continued obedient, and grown up to perfection under that economy wherein they were placed, should not have continued in the earthly paradise, but only have commenced there, and been perpetuated in a higher state.”[49] It is impossible to say that such should not have been the case; for what in the event supposed might have been the ultimate intentions of God respecting the destinies of mankind, since revelation is entirely silent upon the subject, can be matter only of uncertain conjecture, or, at the very most, of probable inference. It is quite conceivable that some other region might have been prepared for their reception, where, free from any formal test of obedience, free even from the conditions of flesh and blood, and “made like unto the angels,” they should have reaped the fruits of immortality. But it is equally conceivable, that this earth itself, which “the Lord hath given to the children of men,” might have become every way suited to the occasion; that as, on the hypothesis in question, it should have escaped the blighting influence of sin, so other and happier changes might have passed over it, and the condition of its inhabitants, not only than they have actually undergone, but than any we can distinctly apprehend; until by successive developments of latent energies, as well of a natural as of a moral kind, the highest attainable good for creation might have been reached. For anything we can tell, there may have been powers and susceptibilities inherent in the original constitution of things, which, under the benign and fostering care of its Creator, were capable of being conducted through such an indefinite course of progressive elevation. But everything of this sort belongs to speculation, not to theology; it lies outside the record which contains the revelation of God’s mind and will to man; and to designate paradise simply, and in its relation to our first parents, a type of heaven, is even more than to speak without warrant of Scripture,—it is to regard paradise and man’s relation to it in another light than Scripture has actually presented them. For there the original frame and constitution of things appears as in due accordance with the Divine ideal,—in itself good, therefore relatively perfect; and not a hint is dropped, or, so far as we know, an indication of any kind given, that could beget in man’s bosom the expectation or desire of another state of being and enjoyment than that which he actually possessed—none, till the entrance of sin had created new wants in his condition, and opened a new channel for the display of God’s perfections in regard to him. It was the influence of the ancient philosophy, which associated with matter in every form the elements of evil, or, at least, of imperfection, that so readily disposed the Fathers of the Christian Church to see in what was at first given to Adam only the image of some higher and better inheritance destined for him elsewhere. They did not consider what refinements matter itself might possibly undergo, in order to its adaptation to the most exalted state of being. But the same influence naturally kept them from connecting with this prospective elevation to a higher sphere the necessary or probable incarnation of the Word; since rather by detaching the human more from the environments of matter, than by bringing the divine into closer contact with it, did the prospect of a higher and more perfect condition for man seem possible to their apprehensions. Hence, also, in what may be fitly called the great symbol of the early Church’s faith respecting the incarnation—the Nicene creed—goes no farther than this, that “for us men, and for the sake of our salvation, the Word was made flesh.”[50] [49] This proposition, with the authorities that support it, may be found in the discourses of Bishop Bull, Works, Vol. II., p. 67. His proofs from the earlier Fathers—Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus—are somewhat inadequate. The first explicit testimony is from Theophilus of Antioch, who speaks of Adam being “at length canonized or consecrated and ascending to heaven,” if he had gone on to perfection. The testimony becomes more full, as the speculative tendency of the Greek philosophy gains strength in the Church. And Clement of Alexandria expressly says in his Liturgy, that “if Adam had kept the commandments, he would have received immortality as the reward of his obedience,” meaning thereby, eternal life in a higher sphere. [50] The divines of the Reformation very commonly concurred, to a certain extent, in the view of the Fathers, and hence the position is defended by Turretine, that Adam had the promise of being carried to heaven and enjoying eternal life there as the reward of his obedience (Loc. Oct., Qwest. VI.). But he admits that Scripture makes no distinct mention of this, and that it is only matter of inference. The grounds of inference are in this case, however, rather far to seek. In recent times the speculative tendency, especially among the German divines, has shown a disposition to take the other direction—namely, to make the incarnation of itself, and apart altogether from the fall of man, the necessary and, from the first, the contemplated medium of man’s elevation to the final state of perfection and blessedness destined for him. Some of the scholastic theologians had already signalized themselves by the advocacy of this opinion—in particular, Rupprecht of Deutz, Alexander of Hales, Aquinas, Duns Scotus; but it was so strongly discountenanced by Calvin and the leading divines of the Reformation, who denounced the idea (propounded afresh by Osiander) of an incarnation without a fall as rash and groundless,[51] that it sunk into general oblivion, till the turn given to speculative thought by the revival of the pantheistic theology served, among other results, to bring it again into favour. This philosophy, while resisted by all believing theologians in its strivings to represent the created universe as but the self-evolution and the varied form of Deity, has still left its impress on the views of many of them as to the nature of the connection between Creator and creature—as if an actual commingling between the two were, in a sense, mutually essential; since a personal indwelling of Godhead in the form of humanity is conceived necessary to complete the manifestation of Godhead begun in Adam, and only by such a personal indwelling could the work of creation attain its end, either in regard to the true ideal of humanity, on the one side, or to the revealed character of God and the religion identified with it, on the other. Adam, therefore, in his formation after the divine image, was the type of the God-man, or the God-man was the true archetype and only proper realization of the idea exhibited in Adam; the fall, with its attendant consequences, only determined the mode of Christ’s appearance among men, but by no means originated the necessity of his appearing. [51] See, for example, Calvin’s Inst. L. ii. 12, 5. Maestricht, Theol. Lib. v., c. 4, § 17. The representatives of this transcendental school of Typology, as it may not inaptly be called— which undoubtedly includes some of the most learned theologians of the present day—differ to some extent in their mode of setting forth and vindicating the view they hold in common, according to the particular aspect of it which more especially strikes them as important. To give only a few specimens—Martensen presents the incarnation in its relation to the nature of God: the true idea of God is that of the absolute personality; and as the union of Christ with God is a personal union, the individual with whom God historically entered into an absolute union, must be free from everything individually subjective—he must reveal nothing save the absolute personality. Christ is not to be subsumed under the idea of humanity, but, inversely, humanity must be subsumed under Him, since it was He in whom and for whom all things were created (Colossians 1:15). He is at once the centre of humanity and the revealed centre of Deity—the point at which God and God’s kingdom are personally united, and who reveals in fulness what the kingdom of God reveals in distinct and manifold forms. The second Adam is both the redeeming and the world-completing principle; the incarnate Logos, and as such the head not merely of the human race, but of all creation, which was made by Him and for Him, and is again to be recapitulated in Him.[52] Lange makes his starting-point the final issues of the incarnation, and from these argues its primary and essential place in the scheme of the Divine manifestations. The post-temporal, eternal glory of the humanity of Christ points back to its eternal, ideal existence in God. The eternal Son of God cannot, in the course of His temporal existence, have saddled Himself (behaftet sich) for ever with something accidental; or have assumed a form which, as purely historical, does not correspond to His eternal essence. We must therefore distinguish between incarnation and assumption of the form of a servant (so as, he means, to place the latter alone in a relation of dependence to the fall of man); must also learn to understand the eternal beginnings of Christ’s humanity, in order to perceive how intimate a connection it has with the past—with the work of creation, with primeval times, and the history of the Old Testament. The whole that appeared in these of good is to be regarded as so many vital evolutions of the Divine life that is in Christ; but in Him alone is the idea of it fully realized.[53] Both of the writers just referred to, also Liebner, Kothe, and, greater than them all, Dorner, lay special stress on the argument derived from the headship of humanity indissolubly linked to Christ. Humanity, according to Dorner, as it appears before God—redeemed humanity—is not merely a mass or heap of unconnected individuals, but an organism, forming, with the world of higher spirits and nature, which is to be glorified for and through it, a complete and perfect organic unity. Even the natural world is an unity, solely because there is indissolubly united with it a principle which stands above it and comprises it within itself—namely, the Divine Logos, by whom the world was formed and is sustained, who is the vehicle and the representative of its eternal idea. But in a higher sense the world of humanity and spirits is an unity, because through the God-man who stands over it, and by His personal self-communication of Godhead-fulness pervades it, its creaturely susceptibility to God is filled; it now enters into the circle of the Divine life, and stands in living harmony with the centre of all good. But a matter so essential to the proper idea of humanity cannot belong to the sphere of contingency; it must be viewed as inseparably connected with the purpose of God in creation. And there is another thought, which Dorner conceives establishes beyond doubt the belief, that the incarnation had not its sole ground in sin, but had a deeper, an eternal, and abiding necessity in the wise and free love of God,—namely, that Christianity is the perfect religion, the religion absolutely, the eternal Gospel; and that for this religion Christ is the centre, without which it cannot be so much as conceived. Whoso, says he, maintains that Adam might have become perfect even without Christ, inasmuch as no one can deem it possible to conceive of perfection without the perfect religion, maintains, either consciously or unconsciously, two absolute religions, one without, and one with Christ—which is a bare contradiction. No Christian, he thinks, will deny that it makes an essential difference, whether Christ, or only God in general, is the central point of a religion. At the same time, with Christian candour he admits, that the necessity of the truth he advocates will not so readily commend itself to theologians, who are wont to proceed in an experimental and anthropological manner (that is, who look at the matter as it has been evolved in the history and experience of mankind), as it must, and actually does, to those who recognise both the possibility and the necessity of a Christian speculation, that takes the conception of God for its starting-point.[54] [52] Dogmatik, § 130, 131. [53] See the outline of his views in Dorner on the Person of Christ, note 23, Vol. II., P. II. Of the original, note 34 of the Eng. Trans. [54] Person of Christ, Vol. II., Pt. II., p. 1241. Eng. Trans., Div. II., Vol. III., p. 232, sq. While this mode of contemplating the incarnation of Christ, and of connecting it with the idea of creation, has in its recent development had its origin in the philosophy, and its formal exhibition in the theology, of Germany, it is no longer confined to that country; and both the view itself, and its application to the Typology of Scripture, have already found a place in our own. theological literature. Dean Trench, in his Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, although he advances nothing strictly new upon the subject, yet he speaks not less decidedly respecting the necessity of the incarnation, apart altogether from the fall, to enable the race of Adam “to attain the end of its creation, the place among the families of God, for which from the first it was designed.” Special stress is laid by him, as by Lange, on the issues of the incarnation, as reflecting light on its original intention: “The taking on Himself of our flesh by the Eternal Word was no makeshift to meet a mighty, yet still a particular, emergent need; a need which, conceding the liberty of man’s will, and that it was possible for him to have continued in his first state of obedience, might never have occurred. It was not a mere result and reparation of the fall,—such an act as, except for that, would never have been; but lay bedded at a far deeper depth in the counsels of God for the glory of His Son, and the exaltation of that race formed in His image and His likeness. For, against those who regard the incarnation as an arbitrary, or as merely an historic event, and not an ideal one as well, we may well urge this weighty consideration, that the Son of God did not, in and after His ascension, strip off this human nature again; He did not regard His humanity as a robe, to be worn for a while and then laid aside; the convenient form of His manifestation, so long; as He was conversing with men on earth, but the fitness of which had with that manifestation passed away. So far from this, we know, on the contrary, that He assumed our nature for ever, married it to Himself, glorified it with His own glory, carried it as the form of His eternal subsistence into the world of angels, before the presence of His Father. Had there been anything accidental here, had the assumption of our nature been an afterthought (I speak as a man), this marriage of the Son of God with that nature could scarcely be conceived. He could hardly have so taken it, unless it had possessed an ideal as well as an historic fitness; unless pre-established harmonies had existed, such harmonies as only a divine intention could have brought about between the one and the other.” The application of the view to Typology is apparent from the very statement of it; but it has also been formally made, and so as to combine the results obtained from the geological territory, with those of a more strictly theological nature. Thus, the late Mr Macdonald[55] speaks of “the scheme of nature, read from the memorials of creation inscribed on the earth’s crust, or recorded in the opening pages of Genesis, as progressive, and from its very outset prophetic;” and a little farther on he says, “There is no reason whatever for confining the typical to the events and institutions subsequent to the fall. The cause of this arbitrary limitation lies in regarding as typical only what strictly prefigured redemption, instead of connecting it with God’s manifestation of Himself and His purposes in all His acts and administrations, which, however varied, had from the very first one specific and expressed object in view—His own glory through man, at first created in the Divine image, and since the fall to be transformed into it; inasmuch as that moral disorder rendered such a change necessary. The whole of the Divine acts and arrangements from the beginning formed parts of one system; for, as antecedent creations reached their end in man, so man himself in his original constitution prefigured a new and higher relation of the race than the incipient place reached in creation” (p. 457). The fall is consequently to be understood, and is expressly represented, merely as a kind of interruption or break in the march of providence toward its aim, in nature akin to such events as the death of Abel and the flood in after times; while the Divine plan not the less proceeded on its course, only with special adaptations to the altered state of things. [55] Introd. To the Pent., Vol. II., p. 451. I. It is this more special bearing of the subject, its relation to a well-grounded and properly adjusted Scriptural Typology, with which we have here chiefly to do; and to this, accordingly, we shall primarily address ourselves. In doing so, we neither directly question nor defend the truth of the view under consideration; we leave its title to a place in the deductions of a scientific theology for the present in abeyance; and merely regard it in the light in which it is put by its most learned and thoughtful advocates, as a matter of inference from some of the later testimonies of Scripture concerning the purposes of God; and this, too, only as informed and guided by a spirit of Christian speculation, having for its starting-point the conception of God. Now the matter standing thus, it would, as appears to us, be extremely unwise to lay such a view at the foundation of a typological system, or even to give it in such a system a distinctly recognised place. For this were plainly to bring a certain measure of uncertainty into the very structure of the system—founding upon a few incidental hints and speculative considerations concerning the final purposes of God, in which it were vain to expect a general concurrence among theologians, rather than upon the broad stream and current of His revelations. It were also, as previously noticed (p. 58), to make our Typology, in a very important respect, return to the fundamental error of the Cocceian school; that is, would inevitably lead to the too predominant contemplation of everything in the earlier dispensations of God as from the Divine point of view, and with respect to the great archetypal idea in Christ, as from the beginning foreseen and set up in prospect. This tendency, indeed, has already in a remarkable manner discovered itself among the divines who bring into the fore ground of God’s manifestations of Himself the idea of the God-man. Lange, for instance, has given representations of the “Divine-human life” in the patriarchs and worthies of ancient times, which seem to leave no very distinctive difference between the action of divinity in them and in the person of Jesus. Nägelsbach (in his work Der Gottmensch) even represents our first parent as Elohim-Adam (God-man), on the ground of his spiritual essence being of a divine nature; and both in Adam after the fall, and the better class who succeeded, there was what he calls an artificial realization of the idea of the God-manhood attempted, and in part accomplished. Hence, not without reason has Dorner delivered a caution to those who coincide with him in his view respecting the incarnation, to beware of darkening the preparation for Christ by throwing into their delineation of early times too much of Christ Himself, or of becoming so absorbed in the typical as to overlook the historical life and struggles of the people of the Old Covenant.[56] The caution, we are persuaded, will be of little avail, so long as the idea of the incarnation is placed in immediate relationship with God’s work in creation; for in that case it must ever seem natural to make that idea shine forth in all the more peculiar instruments and operations of God, and generally to assimilate humanity in its better phases too closely to the altogether singular and mysterious person of Immanuel—to find in it, in short, a kind of God-manhood, whereby the God-man hood itself would inevitably come to be in danger of gliding into the shadowy form of a Sabellian manifestation. [56] Vol. II., Ft. II., No. 23, or Eng. Trans., No. 34. Even if this serious error could be avoided, another and slighter form of the same erroneous tendency would be sure to prevail,—if the incarnation, as the archetypal idea of creation, were formally introduced, and made the guiding-star of our Typology. It would inevitably lead us, in our endeavours to read out the meaning of God’s working in creation and providence, to put a certain strain upon the things which appear, in order to bring out what is conceived to have been the ultimate design in them; we should be inclined to view them rather as an artificial representation of what God predestined and foresaw, than a natural and needed exhibition of things to be believed or hoped for by partially enlightened but God-fearing men. The Divine here must not be viewed as moving in a kind of lofty isolation of its own; it should rather be contemplated as letting itself down into the human. We should feel that we have to do, not simply with Heaven’s plan as it exists in the mind and is grasped by the all-comprehending eye of God, but with this plan as gradually evolving itself in the sphere of human responsibility, and developed step by step, in the manner most fitly adapted to carry forward the corporate growth of the Church toward its destined completeness, yet so as, at the same time, to mould the character and direct the hopes of successive generations in conformity with existing relations and duties. It is the proper aim and business of Typology to trace the progress of this development, and to show how, amid many outward diversities of form and ever-varying measures of light, there were great principles steadily at work, and in their operations forecasting, with growing clearness and certainty, the appearance and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. To such a method also, Typology must owe much of the interest with which it may be able to invest its proper line of inquiry, and its success in throwing light on the history and mutual interconnection of the Divine dispensations. But it were to depart from this safe and profitable course, if we should attempt to bring all that, by dint of inference and speculation, expatiating in the strictly Divine sphere of things, we might find it possible to connect with the earlier acts and operations of God. These should rather be brought out in the aspect and relation they bore to those whom they immediately respected; in order that, from the effect they were designed and fitted to produce in the spiritual instruction and training of men who had in their respective generations to maintain the cause and manifest the life of God, the place and purpose may be learned that properly belonged to them in the general scheme of a progressive revelation. The statement of Mr Macdonald may be referred to in proof of what is likely to happen from the neglect of such considerations, and from attempting to carry the matter higher. The scheme of God, he says, as well that which commenced with Adam as the preceding one which culminated in him, was “from the outset prophetic;” and again: “The whole of the Divine acts and arrangements from the beginning formed parts of one system; for, as antecedent creations reached their end in man, so man himself, in his original constitution, prefigured a new and higher relation of the race to the Creator, than the incipient place reached in creation.” Now, taking the terms here used in their ordinary sense, we must understand by this statement that the work of creation in Adam carried in its very constitution the signs and indications of better things to come for man; for, to speak of it as being prophetic, or having a pre-figuration of a higher relation to the Creator than then actually existed, imports more than that such a destiny was in the purpose and decrees of the Almighty (which no one will dispute): it denotes, that the creation itself was of such a kind as to proclaim its own relative imperfection, and at the same time, by means of certain higher elements interwoven with it, to give promise of a state in which such imperfection should be done away. The question, then, is, How did it do so, or for whom?The Lord Himself, at the close of creation, pronounced it all very good; and the charge given to Adam and his partner spake only of a continuance of that good as the end they were to aim at, and of the loss of it as the evil they were to shun. What ground is there for supposing that more was either meant on God’s part, or perceived on man’s, than what thus appears on the broad and simple testimony of the divine record?Adam, indeed, was made, and doubtless knew that he was made, in the image of God; as such he was set over God’s works, and appointed in God’s name, to exercise the rights of a terrestrial lordship; but how should he have imagined from this, that it was in the purposes of Heaven to enter into some closer relationship with humanity, and that he, as the image of God, was but the figure of one who should be actually God and man united? Yet, supposing he could not. Might he not have been so in fact without himself knowing it, as in subsequent times we find prefigurations of Gospel realities, which were but imperfectly, sometimes perhaps not at all, understood in that character by those who had directly to do with them? But the cases are by no means parallel. For, in regard to those later prefigurations, the promise had already entered of a restored and perfected condition; and believing men were not only warranted, but in a sense bound, to search into them for signs and indications of the better future. If they failed to perceive them, it was because of their feebleness of faith and defect of spiritual discernment. In the primeval constitution of things it was quite otherwise: man was altogether upright, and creation apparently in all respects as it should be; the Creator Himself rested with satisfaction in the works of His hand, and by the special consecration of the seventh day invited His earthly representative to do the same. How, in such a case, should the thought of imperfection and deficiency have entered, or any prospect for the future seemed natural, save such as might associate itself with the progressive development and expansion of that which already existed? Beyond this, whatever there might be in the purpose and decrees of God, it is hard to conceive how room could yet have been found for any expression being given by Him, or hope cherished on the part of man. Unquestionably there was much beyond in the Divine mind and purpose. “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.” With infallible certainty He foresaw ere time began the issues of that constitution of things which was to be set up in Adam; foresaw also, and predetermined, the introduction of that covenant of grace by which other and hap Her issues for humanity were to be secured. On this account it is said of Christ, as the destined Mediator of that covenant, that He was “fore-ordained before the foundation of the world;” and of those who were ultimately to share in the fruits of His mediation, that they also were chosen in Him before the world was made (1 Peter 1:20; Ephesians 1:4). But it is one thing to assign a place to such ulterior thoughts and purposes in the eternal counsels of the Godhead, and another thing to regard them as entering into the objective revelation He gave of His mind and will at the creation of the world, so as to bring them within the ken of His intelligent creatures. In doing the one, we have both the warrant of Scripture and the reason of things to guide us; while the other would involve the introduction, out of due time, of those secret things which as yet belonged only to the Lord. According to what may be called the palpable and prevailing testimony of Scripture on the subject, the work of God in creation is to be regarded as the adequate reflection of His own infinite wisdom and goodness, adapted in all respects to the special purposes for which it was designed; but the sin of man through the cunning of the tempter presently broke in to mar the good; and following thereupon the predestined plan of grace began to give intimation of its purpose, and to open for itself a path whereby the lost good should be won back, and the destroyer be himself destroyed. This plan starts on its course with the avowed aim of rectifying the evil which originated in man’s defection; and it not less avowedly reaches its end when the restitution, or bringing back again, of all things is accomplished (Acts 3:21). It carries throughout the aspect of a remedial scheme, or restoration of that which had come forth in the freshness and beauty of life from the hand of God. A rise, no doubt, accompanies the process; and the work of God at its consummation shall assuredly be found on a much higher level than at the beginning, as it shall also present a much fuller and grander exhibition of the Divine character and perfections. But still, in the Scriptural form of representation, the original work continues to occupy the position of the proper ideal: all things return, in a manner, whence they came; and a new heavens and a new earth, with paradise restored and perennial springs of life and blessing, appear in prospect as the glorious completion to which the whole scheme is gradually tending. Since thus the things of creation are exhibited in a relation so markedly different to those of redemption, from that possessed by the preliminary, to the final processes of redemption itself, it were surely to intro duce an unjustifiable departure from the method of Scripture, and also to confound things that materially differ, were we, in a typological respect, to throw all into one and the same category. Creation cannot possibly be the norm or pattern of redemption, after the same manner that an imperfect or provisional execution of God’s work in grace is to that work in its full development and ripened form. Yet, for the very reason that redemption assumes the aspect of a restoration, not the introduction of something absolutely new, creation assuredly is a norm or pattern, to which the Divine agency in redemption assimilates its operations and results: the one bases itself upon the other, and does not aim at supplanting, but only at rectifying, reconstructing, and perfecting it. Twin-ideals they may be called, and as such they cannot but present many points of agreement, bespeaking the unity of one contriving and all-directing mind, which it may well become us on proper occasions to mark. But the distinct ground this relationship occupies in Scripture should also find its correspondence in our mode of treating the things that belong to it; and for the province of Typology proper, we cannot but deem it on every account wise, expedient, and fitting that it should confine itself to what pertains to God’s work in grace, and should move simply in the sphere of “the regeneration.” II. Passing now to the more general aspect of the view in question respecting the incarnation and kingdom of Christ, or its title to rank among the deductions of theological inquiry, it would be out of place here to go into a lengthened examination of it; and the indication of a few leading points is all that we shall actually attempt. The direction already taken on the typological bearing of the subject, is that also which I feel constrained to take regarding its general aspect. For, though it scarcely professes to be more than a speculation, and one purposely intended to exalt the doctrine of the incarnation, yet the tendency of it, I am persuaded, cannot be unattended with danger, as it seems in various respects opposed to the form of sound doctrine delivered to us in Scripture. 1. First of all, it implies, as already stated, a view of creation not only discountenanced by the general current of Scriptural representation, but not easily reconcileable with the perfect wisdom and goodness of the Creator. As a matter of fact, creation in Adam certainly fell short of its design; or, to express it otherwise, humanity, as constituted in our first parent, failed to realize its idea. But as so constituted, was it not endowed with all competent powers and resources for attaining the end in view? Was it absolutely and inherently incapable of doing so apart from the incarnation? In that case, one does not see how either the work of God could possess that character of relative perfection constantly ascribed to it in Scripture, or the defection of man should have drawn after it such fearful penalties. Both God’s work and man’s, on the hypothesis in question, seem to take a position different from what properly belongs to them; and the manifestation of God’s moral character in this world enters on its course amid difficulties of a very peculiar and embarrassing kind. The perplexity thus arising is not relieved by the supposition, that mankind will be raised to a higher state of perfection and blessedness through the medium of the incarnation than had otherwise been possible, and that this was hence implied in creation as the means necessary to creation’s end; for we have here to do with the character of God’s work considered by itself, and what immediately sprang from it. Nor is it by any means certain, or we may even say probable, that if humanity had stood faithful to its engagements, the ultimate destiny of its members would have been in any respect lower than that which they may attain through sin and redemption. But on such a theme we have no sure light to guide us. 2. The view presented by this theory of the mission of Christ, however, is a still more objectionable feature in it; for, exalting the incarnation as of itself necessary to the higher ends of creation, apart from the concerns of sin and redemption, it inevitably tends to depress the importance of these, and gives to something else, which was no way essentially connected with them, the place of greatest moment for the interests of humanity. The earlier Socinians, it is well known, on this very ground favoured the scholastic speculations on the subject; they espoused the view, not, indeed, of an incarnation without a fall (for in no proper sense did they hold what these terms import), but of the necessity of the mission of Christ, independently of the sin of Adam and the consequences thence arising; in this they appeared to find some countenance for the comparatively small account they made alike of the evil of sin, and of the wondrous grace and glory of redemption. And to a simple, unbiassed mind it must be all but incredible, that if the incarnation of our Lord were traceable to some higher and more fundamental reason than that occasioned by the fall, no explicit mention should have been made of it, even in a single passage of Scripture. All the more direct statements presented there respecting the design and purpose of our Lord’s appearance among men stand inseparably connected with their deliverance from the ruin of sin, and restoration to peace and blessing. The distinctive name He bore (Jesus) proclaimed SALVATION to be the grand burden of His undertaking; or, as He Himself puts it, “He came to save the lost,” “to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 18:11; Matthew 20:28); or still again, “that men might have life, and might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He was made of a woman, made under the law, in order that He might redeem them who were held under the condemnation of law (Galatians 4:4). He took part of flesh and blood, in order that by His death He might destroy him that had the power of death was made like in all things to His brethren, as it behoved Him to be, that He might be for them a faithful high priest and make reconciliation for their sins (Hebrews 2:14-17). It is but another form of the same mode of representation, when St John says of Christ, that He was manifested to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8); and that as the gift of God’s love to the world, it was to the end that men might not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). In the Supper also, the most distinctive ordinance of the Gospel, not the incarnation, but redemption is presented as the central fact of Christianity. Such is the common testimony of Scripture: redemption in some one or other of its aspects is perpetually associated with the purpose which Christ assumed our nature to accomplish; and the greatness of the remedy is made to throw light upon the greatness of the evil which required its intervention. But according to the view we now oppose, “both the consequences of sin and the value of redemption are lowered, since not the incarnation, but only its special form, is traceable to sin. That God became man is in itself the greatest humiliation; and yet this adorable mystery of divine love is not to stand in any [necessary] connection with sin! Only the comparatively smaller fact, that that man in whom God would at any rate have become incarnate had undergone sufferings and death, is due to sin! And what is even more dangerous, redemption ceases to be a free act of Divine pity, and is represented as a necessity implied in creation, which would have taken place whether man had remained obedient or not. Thus sin is not the sole cause of man’s present state; and however the incarnation might remain an adorable mystery of love, redemption could no longer do so, since it had been involved in the decree of the incarnation, and could not be regarded as proceeding solely from divine mercy and compassion toward fallen man.”[57] [57] Kurtz, Bible and Astronomy, Chap. II., § 12. Trans. There are passages of Scripture sometimes appealed to on the other side, but they have no real bearing on the point which they are adduced to establish. One of these is Ephesians 1:10, in which the purpose of God is represented as having this for its object, that “in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth.” The passage simply indicates, among the final issues of Christ’s work, the recapitulating or summing up (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι) of all things in Him, heavenly as well as earthly; but it is the historical Christ that is spoken of—the Christ in whom (as is stated immediately before) believers have redemption through His blood, and are predestinated to life eternal; and there is not a hint conveyed of the purpose or predestination of God, except in connection with the salvation of fallen man, and the work of reconciliation necessary to secure it. What might have been the Divine purpose apart from this, we may indeed conjecture, but it must be without any warrant whatever from the passage before us; and, as Calvin has justly said, not without the audacity of seeking to go beyond the immutable ordination of God, and attempting to know more of Christ than was predestinated concerning Him even in the Divine decree (Inst., B. ii., c. 12, § 5). The somewhat corresponding but more comprehensive passage in Colossians 1:15-17, has been also referred to in this connection, but with no better result. For though expressions are there applied to Christ, which, if isolated from the context, might with some plausibility be explained to countenance the idea of an incarnation irrespective of a fall, yet when taken in their proper connection they contain nothing to justify such an application. The starting-point here also is redemption (Colossians 1:14, “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins”); and the statements in what immediately follows (Colossians 1:15-17), have evidently for their main object the setting forth of the divine greatness of Him by whom it is effected—as the One by whom and for whom all things were created Himself,—consequently, prior to them all, and infinitely exalted above them. But this plainly refers to Christ as the Logos, or Word, through whom as such the agency is carried on, and the works are performed, by which the Godhead is revealed and brought out to the view of finite intelligence. In that respect He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15); because in Him exists with perfect fulness, and from Him goes forth into actual embodiment, that which forms a just representation of the mind and character of the Eternal. On the same account also, and with reference simply to His creative agency, He is “the first-born of every creature;” being the causal beginning, whence the whole sprang into existence, and the natural head, under whom all its orders of being must ever stand ranged before God. His divine Sonship is consequently the living root, in which the filial relationship of men and angels had its immediate ground; and His image of Godhead that which reflected itself in their original righteousness and purity. Hence, as all things came from Him at first in the character of the revealing Word, so they shall be again recapitulated in Him as the Word made flesh—though in degrees of affinity to Him, and with diverse results corresponding to the relations they respectively occupied to His redemptive agency. Hence, also, the Divine image, which by Him as the Creator was imparted to Adam, is again restored upon all who become related to Him as the Redeemer: they are renewed after the image of Him that created them (Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:24); implying that His work in redemption, as to its practical effect on the soul, is a substantial reproduction of that which proceeded from Him at creation. We have looked at the only passages worth naming which have been pressed in support of the theory under consideration; and can see nothing in them, when fairly interpreted, that seems at variance with the general tenor of the testimony of Scripture on the subject. But this so distinctly and constantly associates the incarnation of Christ with the scheme of redemption, that to treat it otherwise must be held to be essentially anti-scriptural. 3. The matter is virtually disposed of, in a theological point of view, when we have brought to bear upon it with apparent collusiveness the testimony of Scripture; nor is there anything in the collateral arguments employed by the advocates of the theory, as indicated in the outline formerly given of their views, which ought to shake our confidence in the result. That, for example, derived from the wonderful relationship, the personal and everlasting union, into which humanity has been brought with Godhead, as if the purpose concerning it should be turned into a kind of after-thought, and it should sink, in a manner derogatory to its high and unspeakably important nature, into something arbitrary and contingent, if placed in connection merely with the fall:—Such an argument derives all its plausibility from the limitations and defects inseparable from a human mode of contemplation. To the eye of Him who sees the end from the beginning, whose purpose, embracing the whole compass of the providential plan, was formed before even the beginning was effected, there could be nothing really contingent or uncertain in any part of the process. Nor, on the other hand, was the creation of man necessary (in the absolute sense of the term), any more than the fall of man: it depended on the movements of a will sovereignly free; and, hypothetically, must be placed among the things which, prior to their existence, might or might not, to human view, have taken place. Besides, since anyhow the mode of the incarnation was determined by the circumstances of the fall, and the mode, as well as the thing itself, decreed from the very first, how can we with propriety distinguish between the two? The one, as well as the other, has a most intimate connection with the perfections of Deity; and, for anything we know, the reality in any other form might not have approved itself to the infinitely wise and absolutely perfect mind of God. Otherwise than it is, we can have no right to say it would have been at all. The argument founded on the supposed necessity of the incarnation to the proper unity of the human race, is entitled to no greater weight than the one just noticed. It assumes a necessity which has not and cannot be proved to have existed. Situated as the human family now is, it may no doubt be fitly designated, with Dorner, “a mere mass,” an aggregate of individuals, without any pervading principle to constitute them into an organism. But this is itself one of the results of the fall; and no one is entitled to argue from what actually is, to what would have been, if the race had stood in its normal condition. In the transmission of Adam’s guilt to his posterity, with its fearful heritage of suffering, corruption, and death, we have continually before us the remains of a living organism,—the reverse side, as it were, of the original likeness of humanity. Why might there not have been, had its divinely constituted head proved stedfast to his engagements, the transmission through that head of a yet more powerful as well as happy influence to all the members of the family? We have no reason to affirm such a thing to have been impossible, especially as the human head was but the representative and medium of communication appointed by and for Him who was the causal or creative head of the family. Dorner himself admits, that even the natural world is an unity, because in the Divine Logos, as the world-former and preserver, who in Himself bears and represents its eternal idea, it has a principle which is above it, yet pervades it, and comprises it within itself.[58] If so much can be said even now, how much more might it have been said of the world viewed as it came from the hand of its Maker,—with no moral barrier to intercept the flow of life and blessing from its Divine fountainhead, and paralyze the constitution of nature in its more vital functions! In that case the unity in diversity, which is now the organic principle of the Christian Church, might, and doubtless would, have been that also of the Adamic family: only, in the one case, having its recognised seat and effective power in Christ as the incarnate Redeemer; in the other, in Him as the eternal and creative Word. Indeed, from the general relation of the two economies to each other, we are warranted in assuming, that as, in regard to individuals, Christ, the Redeemer, restores the Divine image, which, as to all essential properties, was originally given by Christ, the Word, so in regard to the race (considered as the subject of blessing), He restores in the one capacity what, as to germ and principle, He had implanted in the other. There are, of course, gradations and differences, but with these also fundamental agreements. [58] Vol. II, Pt. II., p. 1242; Eng. Trans., Div. II., Vol. III., p. 235. As to the argument that Christianity is the absolute religion, and that without an incarnation there could be no Christianity in the proper sense, little more need be said, than that it starts a problem which, in our present imperfect condition, we want the materials for solving,—if, indeed, we shall ever possess them. To speak of the absolute in connection with what, from its very nature, and with a view to its distinctive aims, must be inter woven with much that pertains to the individual and the relative, is to employ terms to which we find it impossible to attach a very definite meaning. But if a religion is entitled to be called absolute, it surely ought to be because it is alike adapted to all, who through it are to contemplate and adore God—the whole universe of intelligent and moral creatures. How this, however, could have been found in a revelation which had the incarnation for its central fact,—found precisely on this account, and no otherwise,—is hard to be understood, since, to say nothing of the incarnation as now indissolubly linked to the facts of redemption, even an incarnation dissociated from everything relating to a fall, must still be viewed as presenting aspects, and bearing a relation, to the human family, which it could not have done to angelic natures. But, apart from this apparent incongruity, if there be such a thing possible as a religion that can justly be entitled to the name of absolute, we know as yet too little of the created universe, and the relations in which other portions of its inhabitants stand to the Creator, to pronounce with confidence on the conditions which would be required to meet in it. We stand awed, too, by the solemn utterance, “No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son may reveal Him;” and assured that the Son has nowhere revealed what, according to the mind of the Father, would be needed to constitute for all times and regions the absolute religion, we feel that on such a theme silence is our true wisdom. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 111: 05.06. CHAPTER FIFTH ======================================================================== Chapter Fifth.—Prophetical Types, Or The Combination Of Type With Prophecy—Alleged Double Sense Of Prophecy. A TYPE, as already explained and understood, necessarily possesses something of a prophetical character, and differs in form rather than in nature from what is usually designated prophecy. The one images or prefigures, while the other foretells, coming realities. In the one case representative acts or symbols, in the other verbal delineations, serve the purpose of indicating beforehand what God was designed to accomplish for His people in the approaching future. The difference is not such as to affect the essential nature of the two subjects, as alike connecting together the Old and the New in God’s dispensations. In distinctness and precision, however, simple prophecy has greatly the advantage over informations conveyed by type. For prophecy, however it may differ in its general characteristics from history, as it naturally possesses something of the directness, so it may also descend to something of the definiteness, of historical description. But types having a significance or moral import of their own, apart from anything prospective, must, in their prophetical aspect, be somewhat less transparent, and possess more of a complicated character. Still the relation between type and antitype, when pursued through all its ramifications, may produce as deep a conviction of design and pre-ordained connection, as can be derived from simple prophecy and its fulfilment, though, from the nature of things, the evidence in the latter case must always be more obvious and palpable than in the former. But the possession of the same common character is not the only link of connection between type and prophecy. Not only do they agree in having both a prospective reference to the future, but they are often also combined into one prospective exhibition of the future. Prophecy, though it sometimes is of a quite simple and direct nature, is not always, nor even commonly, of this description; it can scarcely ever be said to delineate the future with the precision and exactness that history employs in recording the past. In many portions of it there is a certain degree of complexity, if not dubiety, and that mainly arising from the circumstances and transactions of the past being in some way interwoven with its anticipations of things to come. Here, however, we approach the confines of a controversy on which some of the greatest minds have expended their talents and learning, and with such doubtful success on either side, that the question is still perpetually brought up anew for discussion, whether there is or is not a double sense in prophecy? That some portion of debateable ground will always remain connected with the subject, appears to us more than probable. But, at the same time, we are fully persuaded that the portion admits of being greatly narrowed in extent, and even reduced to such small dimensions as not materially to affect the settlement of the main question, if only the typical element in prophecy is allowed its due place and weight. This we shall endeavour, first of all, to exhibit in the several aspects in which it actually presents itself; and shall then subjoin a few remarks on the views of those who espouse either side of the question, as it is usually stated. From the general resemblance between type and prophecy, we are prepared to expect that they may sometimes run into each other; and especially, that the typical in action may in various ways form the groundwork and the materials by means of which the prophetic in word gave forth its intimations of the coming future. And this, it is quite conceivable, may have been done under any of the following modifications. 1. A typical action might, in some portion of the prophetic word, be historically mentioned; and hence the mention being that of a prophetical circumstance or event, would come to possess a prophetical character. 2. Or something typical in the past or the present might be represented in a distinct prophetical announcement, as going to appear again in the future; thus combining together the typical in act and the prophetical in word. 3. Or the typical, not expressly and formally, but in its essential relations and principles, might be embodied in an accompanying prediction, which foretold things corresponding in nature, but far higher and greater in importance. 4. Or, finally, the typical might itself be still future, and in a prophetic word might be partly described, partly pre-supposed, as a vantage-ground for the delineation of other things still more distant, to which, when it occurred, it was to stand in the relation of type to antitype. We could manifestly have no difficulty in conceiving such combinations of type with prophecy, without any violence done to their distinctive properties, or any invasion made on their respective provinces; nothing, indeed, happening but what might have been expected from their mutual relations, and their fitness for being employed in concert to the production of common ends. And we shall now show how each of the suppositions has found its verification in the prophetic Scriptures.[59] [59] It is proper to state, however, that we cannot present here anything like a full and complete elucidation of the subject; and we therefore mean to supplement this chapter by an Appendix on the Old Testament in the New, in which the subject will both be considered from a different point of view, and followed out more into detail. See Appendix A. I. The first supposition is that of a typical action being historically mentioned in the prophetic word, and the mention, being that of a prophetical circumstance or event, thence coming to possess a prophetical character. There are two classes of scriptures which may be said to verify this supposition; one of which is of a somewhat general and comprehensive nature, so that the fulfilment is not necessarily confined to any single person or period, though it could not fail in an especial manner to appear in the personal history of Christ. To this class belong such recorded experiences as the following:—“The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up” (Psalms 69:9; comp. with John 2:17); “He that eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel against Me” (Psalms 41:9; comp. with John 13:18); “They hated Me without a cause” (Psalms 69:4; comp. with John 15:25); “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner” (Psalms 118:22; comp. with Matthew 21:42; 1 Peter 2:6-7). These passages are all distinctly referred to Christ in the Gospels, and the things that befell Him are expressly said or plainly indicated to have happened, that such Scriptures might be fulfilled. Yet, as originally penned, they assume the form of historical statements rather than of prophetical announcements—recorded experiences on the part of those who indited them, and experiences of a kind that, in one form or another, could scarcely fail to be often recurring in the history of God’s Church and people. As such it might have seemed enough to say, that they contained general truths which were exemplified also in Jesus, when travailing in the work of man’s redemption. But the convictions of Jesus Himself and the inspired writers of the New Testament go beyond this; they perceive a closer connection—a prophetical element in the passages, which must find its due fulfilment in the personal experience of Christ. And this the passages contained, simply from their being, in their immediate and historical reference, descriptive of what belonged to characters—David and Israel—that bore typical relations to Christ; so that their being descriptive in the one respect necessarily implied their being prophetic in the other. What had formerly taken place in the experience of the type, must substantially renew itself again in the experience of the great antitype, whatever other and inferior renewals it may find besides. To the same class also may be referred the passage in Psalms 78:2, “I will open my mouth in a parable (lit. similitude); I will utter dark sayings (lit. riddles) of old,” which in Matthew 13:5 is spoken of as a prediction that found, and required to find, its fulfilment in our Lord’s using the parabolic mode of discourse. As an utterance in the seventy-eighth Psalm, the word simply records a fact, but a fact essentially connected with the discharge of the prophetical office, and therefore substantially indicating what must be met with in Him in whom all prophetical endowments were to have their highest manifestation. Every prophet may be said to speak in similitudes or parables in the sense here indicated, which is comprehensive of all discourses upon divine things, delivered in figurative terms or an elevated style, and requiring more than common discernment to understand it aright. The parables of our Lord formed one species of it, but not by any means the only one. It was the common prophetico-poetical diction, which was characterized, not only by the use of measured sentences, but also by the predominant employment of external forms and natural similitudes. But marking as it did the possession of a prophetical gift, the record of its employment by Christ’s prophetical types and forerunners was a virtual prediction, that it should be ultimately used in some appropriate form by Himself. The other class of passages which comes within the terms of the first supposition, is of a more specific and formal character. It coincides with the class already considered, in so far as it consists of words originally descriptive of some transaction or circumstance in the past, but afterwards regarded as prophetically indicative of something similar under the Gospel. Such is the word in Hosea 11:1, “I called my son out of Egypt,” which, as uttered by the prophet, was unquestionably meant to refer historically to the fact of the Lord’s goodness in delivering Israel from that land of bondage and oppression. But the Evangelist Matthew expressly points to it as a prophecy, and tells us that the infant Jesus was for a time sent into Egypt, and again brought out of it, that the word might be fulfilled. This arose from the typical connection between Christ and Israel. The scripture fulfilled was prophetical, simply because the circumstance it recorded was typical. But in so considering it, the Evangelist puts no new strain upon its terms, nor introduces any sort of double sense into its import. He merely points to the prophetical element involved in the transaction it relates, and thereby discovers to us a bond of connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, necessary to be kept in view for a correct apprehension of both. The same explanation in substance may be given of another example of the same class—the word in Exodus 12:46, “A bone of Him shall not be broken,” which in John 19:36 is represented as finding its fulfilment in the remarkable preservation of our Lord’s body on the cross from the common fate of malefactors. The scripture in itself was a historical testimony regarding the treatment the Israelites were to give to the paschal lamb, which, instead of being broken into fragments, was to be preserved entire, and eaten as one whole. It could only be esteemed a prophecy from being the record of a typical or prophetical action. But, when viewed in that light, the Scripture itself stands precisely as it did, without any recondite depth or subtile ambiguity being thrown into its meaning. For the prophecy in it is found, not by extracting from its words some new and hidden sense, but merely by noting the typical import of the circumstances of which the words in their natural and obvious sense are descriptive. How either Israel or the paschal lamb should have been in such a sense typical of Christ, that what is recorded of the one could be justly regarded as a prophecy of what was to take place in the other, will be matter for future inquiry, and, in connection with some other prophecies, will be partly explained in the Appendix already referred to in this chapter. It is the principle on which the explanation must proceed, to which alone for the present we desire to draw attention, and which, in the cases now under consideration, simply recognises the prophetical element involved in the recorded circumstance or transaction of the past. Neither is the Old Testament Scripture, taken by itself, prophetical; nor does the New Testament Scripture invest it with a force and meaning foreign to its original purport and design. The Old merely records the typical fact, which properly constitutes the whole there is of prediction in the matter; while the New reads forth its import as such, by announcing the co-relative events or circumstances in which the fulfilment should be discovered. And nothing more is needed for perfectly harmonizing the two together, than that we should so far identify the typical transaction recorded with the record that embodies it, as to perceive, that when the Gospel speaks of a scripture fulfilled, it speaks of that scripture in connection with the prophetical character of the subject it relates to. There is nothing, surely, strange or anomalous in this. It is but the employment of a metonymy of a very common kind, according to which what embodies or contains anything is viewed as in a manner one with the thing itself as when the earth is made to stand for the inhabitants of the earth, a house for its inmates, a cup for its contents, a word descriptive of events past or to come, as if it actually produced them.[60] Of course, the validity of such a mode of explanation depends entirely upon the reality of the connection between the alleged type and antitype—between the earlier circumstance or object described, and the later one to which the description is prophetically applied. On any other ground such references as those in the one Evangelist to Hosea, and in the other to Exodus, can only be viewed as fanciful or strained accommodations. But the matter assumes another aspect if the one was originally ordained in anticipation of the other, and so ordained, that the earlier should not have been brought into existence if the later had not been before in contemplation. Seen from this point of view, which we take to have been that of the inspired writers, the past appears to run into the future, and to have existed mainly on its account. And the record or delineation of the past is naturally and justly, not by a mere fiction of the imagination, held to possess the essential character of a prediction. Embodying a prophetical circumstance or action, it is itself named by one of the commonest figures of speech, a prophecy. [60] So, for example, in Hosea 6:5, “I have hewed them by the prophets;” Genesis 27:37, “Behold I have made him thy lord;” Genesis 48:22, “I have given thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite” —each ascribing to the word spoken the actual doing of that which it only declared to have been done. II. Our second supposition was that of something typical in the past or present being represented in a distinct prophetical announcement as going to appear again in the future,—the prophetical in word being thus combined with the typical in act into a prospective delineation of things to come. This supposition also includes several varieties, and in one form or another has its exemplifications in many parts of the prophetic word. For it is in a manner the native tendency of the mind, when either of itself forecasting, or under the guidance of a Divine impulse anticipating and disclosing the future, to see this future imaged in the past, to make use of the known in giving shape and form to the unknown; so that the things which have been, are then usually contemplated as in some respect types of what shall be, even though in the reality there may be considerable differences of a formal kind between them. How much it is the native tendency of the mind to work in this manner, when itself endeavouring to descry the events of the future, is evident from the examples, transmitted to us by the most cultivated minds, of human divination. Thus the Pythoness in Virgil, when disclosing to AEneas what he and his posterity might expect in Latium, speaks of it merely as a repetition of the scenes and experiences of former times. “You shall not want Simois, Xanthus, or the Grecian camp. Another Achilles, also of divine offspring, is already provided for Latium.”[61] In like manner Juno, in the vaticination put into her mouth by Horace, respecting the possible destinies of Rome, declares, that in the circumstances supposed, “the fortune of Troy again reviving, should again also be visited with terrible disaster; and that even if a wall of brass were thrice raised around it, it should be thrice destroyed by the Greeks.”[62] In such examples of pretended divination, no one, of course, imagines it to have been meant that the historical persons and circumstances mentioned were to be actually reproduced in the approaching or contemplated future. All we are to understand is, that others of a like kind—holding similar relations to the parties interested, and occupying much the same position—were announced before hand to appear; and so would render the future a sort of repetition of the past, or the past a kind of typical foreshadowing of the future. [61] Non Simois tibi, nee Xanthus, nee Dorica castra Defuerint. Alius Latio jam partus Achilles, Natus et ipse dea. —AEn. vi. 88-90. [62] Trojse renascens alite lugubri Fortuna tristi clade iterabitur, etc.—Carm. L. III. 3, 6l-68. See also Seneca Medea, 374, etc. As an example of Divine predictions precisely similar in form, we may point to Hosea 8:13, where the prophet, speaking of the Lord’s purpose to visit the sins of Israel with chastisement, says, “They shall return to Egypt.” The old state of bondage and oppression should come back upon them; or the things going to befall them of evil should be after the type of what, their forefathers had experienced under the yoke of Pharaoh. Yet that the New should not be by any means the exact repetition of the Old, as it might have been conjectured from the altered circumstances of the time, so it is expressly intimated by the prophet himself a few verses afterwards, when he says, “Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria” (Hosea 9:3); and again in Hosea 11:5, “He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king.” He shall return to Egypt, and still not return; in other words, the Egypt-state shall come back on him, though the precise locality and external circumstances shall differ. In like manner Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 4:1-17, foretells, in his own peculiar and mystical way, the return of the Egypt-state; and in ch. Ezekiel 20:1 speaks of the Lord as going to bring the people again into the wilderness; but calls it “the wilderness of the peoples,” to indicate that the dealing should be the same only in character with what Israel of old had been subjected to in the desert, not a bald and formal repetition of the story. Indeed, God’s providence knows nothing in the sacred any more than in the profane territory of the world’s history, of a literal reproduction of the past. And when prophecy threw its delineations of the future into the form of the past, and spake of the things yet to be as a recurrence of those that had already been, it simply meant that the one should be after the type of the other, or should in spirit and character resemble it. By type, however, in such examples as those just referred to, is not to be understood type in the more special or theological sense in which the term is commonly used in the present discussions, as if there was anything in the past that of itself gave prophetic intimation of the coming future. It is to be understood only in the general sense of a pattern-form, in accordance with which the events in prospect were to bear the image of the past. The prophetical element, therefore, did not properly reside in the historical transaction referred to in the prophecy, but in the prophetic word itself, which derived its peculiar form from the past, and through that a certain degree of light to illustrate its import. There were, however, other cases in which the typical in circumstance or action—the typical in the proper sense—was similarly combined with a prophecy in word; and in them we have a twofold prophetic element one more concealed in the type, and another more express and definite in the word, but the two made to coalesce in one prediction. Of this kind is the prophecy in Zechariah 6:12-13, where the prophet takes occasion, from the building of the literal temple in Jerusalem under the presidency of Joshua, to foretell a similar but higher and more glorious work in the future: “Behold the man, whose name is the Branch; and He shall grow up out of His place, and lie shall build the temple of the Lord; even He shall build the temple of the Lord,” etc. The building of the temple was itself typical of the incarnation of God in the person of Christ, and of the raising up in Him of a spiritual house that should be “an habitation of God through the Spirit.”—(John 2:19; Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 2:20; Ephesians 2:22) But the prophecy thus involved in the action is expressly uttered in the prediction, which at once explained the type, and sent forward the expectations of believers toward the contemplated result. Similar, also, is the prediction of Ezekiel, in chap. Ezekiel 34:23, in which the good promised in the future to a truly penitent and believing people, is connected with a return of the person and times of David: “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.” And the closing prediction of Malachi, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” David’s kingdom and reign in Israel were from the first intended to foreshadow those of Christ; and the work also of Elias, as preparatory to the Lord’s final reckoning with the apostate commonwealth of Israel, bore a typical respect to the work of preparation that was to go before the Lord’s personal appearance in the last crisis of the Jewish state. Such might have been probably conjectured or dimly apprehended from the things themselves; but it became comparatively clear, when it was announced in explicit predictions, that a new David and a new Elias were to appear. The prophetical element was there before in the type; but the prophetical word brought it distinctly and prominently out; yet so as in no respect to materially change or complicate the meaning. The specific designation of “David, My servant,” and “Elijah the prophet,” are in each case alike intended to indicate, not the literal reproduction of the past, but the full realization of all that the past typically foretokened of good. It virtually told the people of God, that in their anticipations of the coming reality, they might not fear to heighten to the uttermost the idea which those honoured names were fitted to suggest; their anticipations would be amply borne out by the event, in which still higher prophecy than Elijah’s, and unspeakably nobler service than David’s, was to be found in reserve for the Church.[63] [63] Those who contend for the actual reappearance of Elijah, because the epithet of “the prophet,” they think, fixes down the meaning to the personal Elijah, may as well contend for the reappearance of David as the future king; for “David, My servant,” is as distinctive an appellation of the one, as “Elijah the prophet” of the other. But in reality they are thus specified as both exhibiting the highest known ideal—the one of king-like service, the other of prophetic work as preparatory to a Divine manifestation. And in thinking of them, the people could get the most correct view they were capable of entertaining of the predicted future. III. We pass on to our third supposition, which may seem to be nearly identical with the last, yet belongs to a stage further in advance. It is that the typical, not expressly and formally, but in its essential relations and principles, might be embodied in an accompanying prediction, which foretold things corresponding in nature, but of higher moment and wider import. So far this supposed case coincides with the last, that in that also the things predicted might be, and, if referring to Gospel times, actually were, higher and greater than those of the type. But it differs, in that this superiority did not there, as it does here, appear in the terms of the prediction, which simply announced the recurrence of the type. And it differs still farther, in that there the type was expressly and formally introduced into the prophecy, while here it is tacitly assumed, and only its essential relations and principles are applied to the delineation of some things analogous and related, but conspicuously loftier and greater. In this case, then, the typical transactions furnishing the materials for the prophetical delineation, must necessarily form the background, and the explanatory prediction the foreground, of the picture. The words of the prophet must describe not the typical past, but the corresponding and grander future, describe it, however, under the form of the past, and in connection with the same fundamental views of the Divine character and government. So that there must here also be but one sense, though a twofold prediction: one more vague and indefinite, standing in the type or prophetic action; the other more precise and definite, furnished by the prophetic word, and directly pointing to the greater things to come. The supposition now made is actually verified in a considerable number of prophetical scriptures. Connected with them, and giving rise to them, there were certain circumstances and events so ordered by God as to be in a greater or less degree typical of others under the Gospel. And there was a prophecy linking the two together, by taking up the truths and relations embodied in the type, and expanding them so as to embrace the higher and still future things of God’s kingdom,—thus at once indicating the typical design of the past, and announcing in appropriate terms the coining events of the future. Let us point, in the first instance, to an illustrative example, in which the typical element, indeed, was comparatively vague and general, but which has the advantage of being the first, if we mistake not, of this species of prophecy, and in some measure gave the tone to those that followed. The example we refer to is the song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10), indited by that pious woman under the inspiration of God, on the occasion of the birth of Samuel. The history leaves no room to doubt that this was its immediate occasion; yet, if viewed in reference to that occasion alone, how comparatively trifling is the theme! How strained and magniloquent the expressions! Hannah speaks of her “mouth being enlarged over her enemies,” of “the bows of the mighty men being broken,” of the “barren bearing seven,” of the “full hiring themselves out for bread,” and other things of a like nature,—all how far exceeding, and we might even say caricaturing, the occasion, if it has respect merely to the fact of a woman, hitherto reputed barren, becoming at length the joyful mother of a child! Were the song an example of the inflated style not uncommon in Eastern poetry, we might not be greatly startled at such grotesque exaggerations; but being a portion of that word which is all given by inspiration of God, and is as silver tried in a furnace, we must banish from our mind any idea of extravagance or conceit. Indeed, from the whole strain and character of the song, it is evident that, though occasioned by the birth of Samuel, it was so far from having exclusive reference to that event, that the things concerning it formed one only of a numerous and important class pervading the providence of God, and closely connected with His highest purposes. In a spiritual respect it was a time of mournful barrenness and desolation in Israel: “the word of the Lord was precious, there was no open vision;” and iniquity was so rampant as even to be lifting up its insolent front, and practising its foul abominations in the very precincts of the sanctuary. How natural, then, for Hannah, when she had got that child of desire and hope, which she had devoted from his birth as a Nazarite to the Lord’s service, and feeling her soul moved by a prophetic impulse, to regard herself as specially raised up to be “a sign and a wonder” to Israel, and to do so particularly in respect to that principle in the Divine government, which had so strikingly developed itself in her experience, but which was destined to receive its grandest manifestation in the work and kingdom which were to be more peculiarly the Lord’s! Hence, instead of looking exclusively to her individual case, and marking the operation of the Lord’s hand in what simply concerned her personal history, she wings her flight aloft, and takes a comprehensive survey of the general scheme of God; noting especially, as she proceeds, the workings of that pure and gracious sovereignty which delights to exalt an humble piety, while it pours contempt on the proud and rebellious. And as every exercise of this principle is but part of a grand series which culminates in the dispensation of Christ, her song runs out at the close into a sublime and glowing delineation of the final results to be achieved by it in connection with His righteous administration. “The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall He thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and He shall give strength unto His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.”[64] [64] The last clause might as well, and indeed better, have been rendered, “Exalt the horn of His Messiah.” Even the Jewish interpreter, Kimchi, understands it as spoken directly of the Messiah, and the Targum paraphrases, “He shall multiply the kingdom of Messiah.” It is the first pas sage of Scripture where the word occurs in its more distinctive sense, and is used as a synonym for the consecrated or divine king. It may seem strange that Hannah should have been the first to introduce this epithet, and to point so directly to the destined head of the Divine kingdom: it will even be inexplicable, unless we understand her to have been raised up for a “sign and a wonder” to Israel, and to have spoken as she was moved by the Holy Ghost. But the other expressions, especially “the adversaries of the Lord shall be destroyed, and the ends of the earth shall be judged,” show that it really was of the kingdom as possessed of such a head that she spoke. And the idea of Grotius and the Rationalists, that she referred in the first instance to Saul, is without foundation. This song of Hannah, then, plainly consists of two parts, in the one of which only—the concluding portion—it is properly prophetical. The preceding stanzas are taken up with unfolding, from past and current events, the grand spiritual idea; the closing ones carry it forward in beautiful and striking application to the affairs of Messiah’s kingdom. In the earlier part it presents to us the germ of sacred principle unfolded in the type; in the latter, it exhibits this rising to its ripened growth and perfection in the final exaltation and triumph of the King of Zion. The two differ in respect to the line of things immediately contemplated,—the facts of history in the one case, in the other the anticipations of prophecy; but they agree in being alike pervaded by one and the same great principle, which, after floating down the stream of earthly providences, is represented as ultimately settling and developing itself with resistless energy in the affairs of Messiah’s kingdom. And as if to remove every shadow of doubt as to this being the purport and design of Hannah’s song, when we open the record of that better era, which she only descried afar off in the horizon, we find the Virgin Mary, in her song of praise at the announcement of Messiah’s birth, re-echoing the sentiments, and sometimes even repeating the very words, of the mother of Samuel: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of His hand maiden. He hath showed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath holpen His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy; as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.” “Why should the Spirit, breathing at such a time in the soul of Mary, have turned her thoughts so nearly into the channel that had been struck out ages before by the pious Hannah?Or why should the circumstances connected with the birth of Hannah’s Nazarite offspring have proved the occasion of strains which so distinctly pointed to the manifestation of the King of Glory, and so closely harmonized with those actually sung in celebration of the event?Doubtless to mark the connection really subsisting between the two. It is the Spirit’s own intimation of His ulterior design in transactions long since past, and testimonies delivered centuries before,—namely, to herald the advent of Messiah, and familiarize the children of the kingdom with the essential character of the coming dispensation.[65] [65] The view now given of Hannah’s song presents it in a much higher, as we conceive it does also in a truer light, than that exhibited by Bishop Jebb, who speaks of it in a style that seems scarcely compatible with any proper belief in its inspiration. The song appears, in his estimation, to have been the mere effusion of Hannah’s private, and, in great part, unsanctified feelings. “We cannot but feel,” he says, “that her exultation partook largely of a spirit far beneath that which enjoins the love of our enemies, and which forbids personal exultation over a fallen foe.” He regards it as “unquestionable, that previous sufferings had not thoroughly subdued her temper, that she could not suppress the workings of a retaliative spirit, and was thus led to dwell, not on the peaceful glories of his (Samuel’s) priestly and prophetic rule, but on his future triumphs over the Philistine armies” (Sacred Literature, p. 397). If such were indeed the character of Hannah’s song, we may be assured it would not have been so closely imitated by the blessed Virgin. But it is manifestly wrong to regard Hannah as speaking of her merely personal enemies,—her language would otherwise be chargeable with vicious extravagance, as well as unsanctified feeling. She identifies herself throughout with the Lord’s cause and people; and it is simply her zeal for righteousness which expresses itself in a spirit of exultation over prostrate enemies. Hannah’s song was the first specimen of that combination of prophecy with type, which is now under consideration; but it was soon followed by others, in which both the prophecy was more extended, and the typical element in the transactions that gave rise to it was more marked and specific. The examples we refer to are to be found in the Messianic psalms, which also resemble the song of Hannah in being of a lyrical character, and thence admitting of a freer play of feeling on the part of the individual writer than could fitly be introduced into simple prophecy. But this again principally arose from the close connection typically between the present and the future, whereby the feelings originated by the one naturally incorporated themselves with the delineation of the other. And as it was the institution of the temporal kingdom in the person and house of David which here formed the ground and the occasion of the prophetic delineation, there was no part of the typical arrangements tinder the ancient dispensation which more fully admitted, or, to prevent misapprehension, more obviously required, the accompaniment of a series of lyrical prophecies such as that contained in the Messianic psalms. For the institution of a temporal kingdom in the hands of an Israelitish family involved a very material change in the external framework of the theocracy; and a change that of itself was fitted to rivet the minds of the people more to the earthly and visible, and take them off from the invisible and Divine. The constitution under which they were placed before the appointment of a king—though it did not absolutely preclude such an appointment—yet seemed as if it would rather suffer than be improved by so broad and palpable an introduction of the merely human element. It was till then a theocracy in the strictest sense; a commonwealth that had no recognised head but God, and placed everything essentially connected with life and well-being under His immediate presidence and direction. The land of the covenant was emphatically God’s land[66]—the people that dwelt in it were His peculiar property and heritage[67]—the laws which they were bound to obey were His statutes and judgments[68]—and the persons appointed to interpret and administer them were His representatives, and on this account even sometimes bore His name.[69] It was the peculiar and distinguishing glory of Israel as a nation, that they stood in this near relationship to God, and that which more especially called forth the rapturous eulogy of Moses,[70] “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee! The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” It was a glory, however, which the people themselves were too carnal for the most part to estimate aright, and of which they never appeared more insensible than when they sought to be like the Gentiles, by having a king appointed over them. For what was it but, in effect, to seek that they might lose their peculiar distinction among the nations? that God might retire to a greater distance from them, and might no longer be their immediate guardian and sovereign? [66] Leviticus 25:23; Psalms 10:16; Isaiah 14:25; Jeremiah 2:7, etc. [67] Exodus 19:5; Psalms 94:5; Jeremiah 2:7; Joel 3:2. [68] Exodus 15:26; Exodus 18:16, etc. [69] Exodus 22:28; Psalms 77:6. [70] Deuteronomy 33:26; Deuteronomy 33:29. Nor was this the only evil likely to arise out of the proposed change. Everything under the Old Covenant bore reference to the future and more perfect dispensation of the Gospel; and the ultimate reason of any important feature or material change in respect to the former, can never be understood without taking into account the bearing it might have on the future state and prospects of men under the Gospel. But how could any change in the constitution of ancient Israel, and especially such a change as the people contemplated, when they desired a king after the manner of the Gentiles, be adopted without altering matters in this respect to the worse?The dispensation of the Gospel was to be, in a peculiar sense, the “kingdom of heaven, or of God,” having for its high end and aim the establishment of a near and blessed intercourse between God and men. It attains to its consummation when the vision seen by St John, and described after the pattern of the constitution actually set up in the wilderness, comes into fulfillment—when “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He dwells with them.” Of this consummation it was a striking and impressive image that was presented in the original structure of the Israelitish common wealth, wherein God Himself sustained the office of king, and had His peculiar residence and appropriate manifestations of glory in the midst of His people. And when they, in their carnal affection for a worldly institute, clamoured for an earthly sovereign, they not only discovered a lamentable indifference towards what constituted their highest honour, but betrayed also a want of discernment and faith in regard to God’s prospective and ultimate design in connection with their provisional economy. They gave conclusive proof that “they did not see to the end of that which was to be abolished,” and preferred a request which, if granted according to their expectation, would in a most important respect have defeated the object of their theocratic constitution. We need not, therefore, be surprised that God should have expressed His dissatisfaction with the proposal made by the people for the appointment of a king to them, and should have regarded it as a substantial rejection of Himself, and a desire that He should not reign over them.—(1 Samuel 8:7) But why, then, did He afterwards accede to it?And why did He make choice of the things connected with it, as an historical occasion and a typical ground for shadowing forth the nature and glories of Messiah’s kingdom? The Divine procedure in this, though apparently capricious, was in reality marked by the highest wisdom, and affords one of the finest examples to be found in Old Testament history of that overruling providence, by which God so often averts the evil which men’s devices are fitted to produce, and render them subservient to the greatest good. The appointment of a king as the earthly head of the commonwealth, we have said, was not absolutely precluded by the theocratic constitution. It was from the first contemplated by Moses as a thing which the people would probably desire, and in which they were not to be gainsayed, but were only to be directed into the proper method of accomplishing it.—(Deuteronomy 17:14-20) It was even possible—if the matter was rightly gone about, and the Divine sanction obtained respecting it—to turn it to profitable account, in familiarizing the minds of men with what was destined to form the grand feature of the Messiah’s kingdom—the personal indwelling of the Divine in the human nature—and so to acquire for it the character of an important step in the preparatory arrangements for the kingdom. This is what was actually done. After the people had been solemnly admonished of their guilt in requesting the appointment of a king on their worldly principles, they were allowed to raise one of their number to the throne—not, however, as absolute and independent sovereign, but only as the deputy of Jehovah; that he might simply rule in the name, and in subordination to the will, of God.[71] For this reason his throne was called “the throne of the Lord,”[72] on which, as the Queen of Sheba expressed it to Solomon, he was “set to be king for the Lord his God;”[73] and the kingly government itself was afterwards designated “the kingdom of the Lord.”[74] For the same reason, no doubt, it was that Samuel “wrote in a book the manner of the kingdom, and laid it up before the Lord;”[75] that the testimony in behalf of its derived and vicegerent nature might be perpetuated. And to render the Divine purpose in this respect manifest to all who had eyes to see and ears to hear, the Lord allowed the choice first to fall on one who as the representative of the people’s earthly wisdom and prowess—was little disposed to rule in humble subordination to the will and authority of Heaven, and was therefore supplanted by another who should act as God’s representative, and bear distinctively the name of His servant.[76] [71] See Warburton’s Legation of Moses, B. V. sect. 3. [72] 1 Chronicles 29:23. [73] 2 Chronicles 9:8. [74] 2 Chronicles 13:8. [75] 1 Samuel 10:25. [76] This appellation is used of David far more frequently than of any other person. Upwards of thirty times it is expressly spoken of David; and in the Psalms he is ever presenting himself in the character of the Lord’s servant. It was, therefore, in this second person, David, that the kingly administration in Israel properly began; he was the root and founder of the kingdom—as a kingdom, in which the Divine and human stood first in an official, as they were ultimately to stand in a personal union. And to make the preparatory and the final in this respect properly harmonize and adapt themselves to each other, the Lord, in the first instance, ordered matters connected with the institution of the kingly government, so as to render the beginning an image of the end—typical throughout of Messiah’s work and kingdom. And then, lest the typical bearing of things should be lost sight of in consequence of their present interest or importance, He gave in connection with them the word of prophecy, which, proceeding on the ground of their typical import, pointed the expectations of the Church to corresponding but far higher and greater things still to come. In this way, what must otherwise have tended to veil the purpose of God, and obstruct the main design of His preparatory dispensation, was turned into one of the most effective means of revealing and promoting it. The earthly head, that now under God stood over the members of the commonwealth, instead of overshadowing His authority, only presented this more distinctly to their view, and served as a stepping-stone to faith, in enabling it to rise nearer to the apprehension of that personal indwelling of Godhead the true Immanuel—which was to constitute the foundation and the glory of the Gospel dispensation. Not only was the work of God’s preparatory arrangements not arrested, and the prospective anticipation of the future not marred; but occasion was taken to unfold this future in its more essential features with an air of individuality and distinctness, with a variety of detail and vividness of colouring, not to be met with in any other portions of prophetic Scripture. We refer for illustration to a single example of this combination of prophecy with type (others will be noticed, and in a somewhat different connection, in the Appendix)—Psalms 2:1-12. The production as to form is a kind of inaugural hymn, intended to celebrate the appointment and final triumph of Jehovah’s king. The heathen nations are represented as foolishly opposing it (Psalms 2:1-2); they agree among themselves, if the appointment should be made, practically to disown and resist it (Psalms 2:3); the Almighty, however, perseveres in His purpose, scorning the rebellious opposition of such impotent adversaries (Psalms 2:4); the eternal decree goes forth, that the anointed King is enthroned on Zion; that being Jehovah’s Son, He is made the heir of all things, even to the uttermost bounds of the habitable globe (Psalms 2:5-9). And in consideration of what has thus been decreed and ratified in heaven, the psalm concludes with a word of friendly counsel and admonition to earthly potentates and rulers, exhorting them to submit in time to the sway of this glorious King, and forewarning them of the inevitable ruin of resistance. That in all this we can trace the lines of Messiah’s history, is obvious at a glance. Even the old Jewish doctors, as we learn by the quotation from Solomon Jarchi, given by Venema, agreed that “it should be expounded of King Messiah;” but he adds, “In accordance with the literal sense, and that it may be used against the heretics (i.e., Christians), it is proper to explain it as relating to David himself.” Strange, that this idea, the offspring of rabbinical artifice, seeking to withdraw an argument from the cause of Christianity, should have so generally commended itself to Christian interpreters! But if by literal sense is to be understood the plain and natural import of the words employed, what ground is there for such an interpretation?David was not opposed in his appointment to the throne of Israel by heathen nations or rulers, who knew and cared comparatively little about it; nor was his being anointed king coincident with his being set on the holy hill of Zion; nor, after being established in the kingdom, did he ever dream of pressing any claims of dominion on the kings and rulers of the earth: his wars were uniformly wars of defence, and not of conquest. So palpable, indeed, is the discordance between the lines of David’s history, and the lofty terms of the psalm, that the opinion which ascribes it in the literal sense to David, may now be regarded as comparatively antiquated; and some even of those who formerly espoused it (such as Rosenmüller), have at length owned, that “it cannot well be understood as applying either to David or to Solomon, much less to any of the later Hebrew kings, and that the judgment of the more ancient Hebrews is to be followed, who considered it as a celebration of the mighty King whom they expected under the name of the Messiah.” But has the psalm, then, no connection with the life and kingdom of David? Unquestionably it has; and a connection so close, that what took place in him was at once the beginning and the image of what, amid higher relations, and on a more extended scale, was to be accomplished by the subject of the psalm. While the terms in which the King and the kingdom there celebrated are spoken of, stretch far above the line of things that belonged to David, they yet bear throughout the mark and impress of these. In both alike we see a sovereign choice and fixed appointment, on the part of God, to the office of king in the fullest sense among men—an opposition of the most violent and heathenish nature to withstand and nullify the appointment—the gradual and successive overthrow of all the obstacles raised against the purpose of Heaven, and the extension of the sphere of empire (still partly future in the case of Messiah) till it reached the limits of the Divine grant. The lines of history in the two cases are entirely parallel; there is all the correspondence we expect between type and antitype; but the prophecy which marks the connection between them, while it was occasioned by the purpose of God respecting David, and derived from his history the particular mould in which it was cast, was applicable only to Him who, with the properties of a human nature and an earthly throne, was to possess those also of the heavenly and divine. We shall not here go further into detail respecting this class of prophecies, which belong chiefly to the Psalms; but we must remark, that as it was their object to explain the typical character of David’s calling and kingdom, and to connect this with the higher things to come, we may reasonably expect there will be some portions in the Messianic psalms which are alike applicable to type and antitype; and also entire psalms, in which there may be room for doubting to which of the two they may most fitly be referred. In some the distinctive, the superhuman and divine, properties of the Messiah’s person and kingdom are so broadly and characteristically delineated (as in Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 22:1-31, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7), that it is impossible by any fair interpretation of the language to understand the description of another than Christ. But there are others in which the merely human elements are so strongly depicted (such as Psalms 40:1-17, Psalms 49:1-20, Psalms 109:1-31), that not a few of the traits might doubtless be found in the bearer also of the earthly kingdom; while still the excessive darkness of the picture, as a whole, on the one side, and the magnitude of the results and interests connected with it, on the other, shut us up to the conclusion that Christ, in His work of humiliation and His kingdom of blessing and glory, is the real subject of the prophecy. Viewed as an entire and prospective delineation, the theme is still one, and the sense not manifold, but simple. There are again others, however, of which Psalms 41:1-13 may be taken as a specimen, in which the delineation throughout is as applicable to the bearer of the earthly as to that of the heavenly kingdom; so that, if regarded as a prophecy at all, it can only be in the way explained under our first supposition, as an historical description of things that happened under typical relations, from which they derived a prophetical element. Such varieties are no more than what might have been expected in the class of sacred lyrics now under consideration; and the rather so, as they were composed for the devotional use of the Church at a time when she required as well to be refreshed and strengthened by the faith of the typical past, as to be cheered and animated by the hope of the still grander antitypical future. It was necessary that she should be taught so to look for the one as not to lose sight of the other; but rather, in what had already occurred, to find the root and promise of what was to be hereafter. The word of Nathan to David (2 Samuel 7:4-16), which properly began the series, and laid the foundation of further developments, presented the matter in this light. David is there associated with his filial successor, as alike connected with the institution of the kingdom in its primary and inferior aspect; and the high honour was conceded to his house of furnishing the royal dynasty that was destined to preside for ever in God’s name over the affairs of men. But this for ever, emphatically used in the promise, evidently pointed to a time when the relations of the kingdom, in its then provisional and circumscribed form, should give way to others immensely greater and higher. It pointed to a commingling of the divine and human, the heavenly and the earthly, in another manner than could possibly be realized in the case either of David himself, or of any ordinary descendant from his loins. And it became one of the leading objects of David’s prophetical calling, and of those who were his immediate successors in the prophetical function, to unfold, after the manner already described, something of that ulterior purpose of Heaven, which, though included, was still but obscurely indicated, in the fundamental prophecy of Nathan.[77] [77] According to the view now given, there is no need for that alternating process which is so commonly resorted to in the explanation of Nathan’s prophecy, by which this one part is made to refer to Solomon and his immediate successors, and that other to Christ. There is no need for formally splitting it up into such portions, each pointing to different quarters; nor can the understanding find satisfaction in this method. The prophecy is to be taken as an organic whole, as the kingdom also is of which it speaks. David reigned in the Lord’s name, and the Lord, in the fulness of time, was born to occupy David’s throne—a mutual interconnection. The kingdom throughout is God’s, only existing in an embryo state, while presided over by David and his merely human descendants; and rising to its ripened form, as soon as it passes into the hands of one who, by virtue of His Divine properties, was fitted to bear the glory. The prophecy, therefore, is to be regarded as a general promise of the connection of the kingdom with David’s person and line, including Christ as belonging to that line, after the flesh; but in respect to the element of eternity, the absolute perpetuity guaranteed in the promise, it not only admitted, but required, the possession of a nature in Christ higher unspeakably than He could derive from David. IV. But we have still to notice another conceivable combination of type with prophecy. It is possible, we said, that the typical transactions might themselves be still future; and might, in a prophetic word, be partly described, partly presupposed, as a ground for the delineation of other things still more distant, in respect to which they were to hold a typical relation. The difference between this and the last supposition is quite immaterial, in so far as any principle is involved. It makes no essential change in the nature of the relation, that the typical transactions forming the groundwork of the prophetical delineation should have been contemplated as future, and not as past or present. It is true that the prophet was God’s messenger, in an especial sense, to the men of his own age; and as such usually delivered messages, which were called forth by what had actually occurred, and bore its peculiar impress. But he was not necessarily tied to that. As from the present he could anticipate the still undeveloped future, so there was nothing to hinder—if the circumstances of the Church might require it—that he should also at times realize as present a nearer future, and from that anticipate another more remote. In doing so he would naturally transport himself into the position of those who were to witness that nearer future, which would then be contemplated as holding much the same relation typically to the higher things in prospect, as in the case last considered: that is, the matter-of-fact prophecy involved in the typical transactions viewed as already present, would furnish to the prophet’s eye the form and aspect under which he would exhibit the corresponding events yet to be expected. The only addition which the view now suggested makes to the one generally held, is, that we suppose the prophet, while he spake as from the midst of circumstances future, though not distant, recognised in these something of a typical nature; and on the basis of that as the type, unfolded the greater and more distant antitype. There is plainly nothing incredible or even improbable in such a supposition, especially if the nearer future already lay within the vision of the Church. The circumstances, however, giving rise to prophecies of this description were not likely to be of very frequent occurrence. They could only be expected in those more peculiar emergencies when it became needful for the Church’s warning or consolation to over shoot, as it were, the things more immediately in prospect, and fix the eye on others more remote in point of time, though in nature most closely connected with them. Now, at one remarkable period of her history, the Old Testament Church was certainly in such circumstances—the period preceding and during the Babylonish exile. From the time that this calamity had become inevitable, the prophets, as already noticed, had spoken of it as a second Egypt—a new bondage to the power of the world, from which the Church required to be delivered by a new manifestation of redemptive grace. But a second redemption after the manner of the first would obviously no longer suffice to restore the heart of faith to assured confidence, or fill it with satisfying expectations of corning good. The redemption from Egypt, with all its marvellous accompaniments and happy results, had yet failed to provide an effectual security against overwhelming desolation. And if the redemption from Babylon might have brought, in the fullest sense, a restoration to the land of Canaan, and the re-establishment of the temple service; yet, if this were all the spirit of prophecy could descry of coming good, there must still have been room for fear to enter: there could scarcely fail even to be sad forebodings of new desolations likely to arise and undo again the whole that had been accomplished. At such a period, therefore, the prophet had a double part to perform, when charged with the commission to comfort the people of God. He had, in the first instance, to declare the fixed purpose of Heaven to visit Babylon for her sins, and thereby afford a door of escape for the captive children of the covenant, that as a people saved anew they might return to their ancient heritages. But he had to do more than this. He had to take his station, as it were, on the floor of that nearer redemption, and from thence direct the eye of hope to another and higher, of which it was but the imperfect shadow—a redemption which should lay the foundation of the Church’s well-being so broad and deep, that the former troubles could no longer return, and heights of prosperity and blessing should be reached entirely unknown in the past. Thus alone could a ground of consolation be provided for the people of God, really adequate to the emergencies of that dismal time, when all that was of God seemed ready to perish, under the combined force of internal corruption and outward violence. It was precisely in this way that the prophet Isaiah sought to comfort the Church of God by inditing the later portion of his writings (Isaiah 40:1-31, Isaiah 41:1-29, Isaiah 42:1-25, Isaiah 43:1-28, Isaiah 44:1-28, Isaiah 45:1-25, Isaiah 46:1-13), in which we have the most important example of the class of prophecies now under consideration The central object in the whole of this magnificent chain of prophecy, is the appearance, work, and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ—His spirit and character, His sufferings and triumphs, the completeness of His redemption, the safety and blessedness of His people, the certain overthrow of His enemies, and the final glory of His kingdom. The manner in which this prophetic discourse is entered on, might alone satisfy us that such is in reality its main theme. For the voice which there meets us, of one crying in the wilderness, is that to which, according to all the evangelists, John the Baptist appealed, as announcing beforehand his office and mission to the Church of God. And if the forerunner is found at the threshold, who should chiefly occupy the interior of the building but He whom John was specially sent to make known to Israel? The substance of the message also, as briefly indicated there, entirely corresponds: for it speaks not, as is often loosely represented, of the people’s return to Jerusalem, but of the Lord’s return to His people; it announces a coming revelation of His glory, which all flesh should see; and proclaims to the cities of Judah the tidings, Behold your God! We are not to be understood as meaning, that the Lord might not in a sense be said to come to His people, when in their behalf He brought down the pride of Babylon, and laid open for them a way of return to their native land. A reference to this more secret and preparatory revelation of Himself may certainly be understood, both here and in several kindred representations that follow; yet not as their direct and immediate object, but rather as something presupposed, similar in kind, though immensely inferior in degree, to the proper reality. There are passages, indeed, so general in the truths and principles they enunciate, that they cannot with propriety be limited to one period of the Church’s history any more than to another. And again, there are others, especially the portion reaching from Isaiah 44:24-28, Isaiah 45:1-25, Isaiah 46:1-13, Isaiah 47:1-15, Isaiah 48:1-22, as also ch. Isaiah 51:1-23, Isaiah 52:1-15, which refer more immediately to the events connected with the deliverance from Babylon, as things in themselves perfectly certain, and fitted to awaken confidence in regard to the greater things that were yet destined to be accomplished. He who could speak of Babylon as already prostrate in the dust, though no shade had yet come over the lustre of her glory—who, at the very moment she was the scourge and terror of the nations, could picture to himself the time when she should be seen as a spoiled and forlorn captive—who could behold the once weeping exiles of Judea, escaped from her grasp, and sent back with honour to revive the glories of Jerusalem, while the proud destroyer was left to sink and moulder into irrecoverable ruin—He who could foresee all this as in a manner present, and commit to His Church the prophetic announcement generations before it had been fulfilled, might well claim from His people an implicit faith, when giving intimation of a work still to be done, the greatness of which should surpass all thought, as its blessings should extend to all lands (Isaiah 45:17, Isaiah 45:22, Isaiah 49:18-26). Thus the deliverance accomplished from the yoke of Babylon formed a fitting prelude and stepping-stone to the main subject of the prophecy—the revelation of God in the person and work of His Son. The certainty of the one—a certainty soon to be realized—was a pledge of the ultimate certainty of the other; and the character also of the former, as a singular and unexpected manifestation of the Lord’s power to deliver His people and lay their enemies in the dust, was a prefiguration of what was to be accomplished once for all in the salvation to be wrought out by Jesus Christ.[78] [78] The same view substantially of this portion of Isaiah’s writings was given by Vitringa, who thus sums up the leading topics of discourse:—“The great mystery of the manifestation of the kingdom of God and His righteousness in the world through the Messiah, His forerunner, and apostles, with the revival of an elect Church, then reduced to a very small number, with its more remarkable preceding signs, and the means that should be subservient to the whole work of grace,—among which preceding signs the deliverance from Babylon by Cyrus, in connection with the destruction of Babylon itself, as typical of the overthrow of all idolatrous and Satanic power, are chiefly dwelt upon, in like manner as the conviction both of Jews and Gentiles concerning the vanity of idols and the truth of God and His spiritual worship, hold the most prominent place among the concurrent means.” There are few portions of Old Testament prophecy, which altogether resemble the one we have been considering. Perhaps that which approaches nearest to it, in the mode of combining type with prophecy, is Isaiah 34:1-17, which is not a direct and simple delineation of the judgments that were destined to alight upon Idumea, but rather an ideal representation of the judgments preparing to alight on the enemies generally of God’s people, founded upon the approaching desolations of Edom, which it contemplates as the type of the destruction that awaits all the adversaries. Still more closely corresponding, however, is our Lord’s prophecy regarding the destruction of Jerusalem and His own final advent to judge the world, in Matthew 24:1-51; in which, undoubtedly, the nearer future is regarded as the type of the higher and more remote. It would almost seem as if the two events were, to a certain extent, thrown together in the prophetic delineation; for the efforts that have been made to separate the portions strictly applicable to each, have never wholly succeeded; and more, perhaps, than any other part of prophetic Scripture is there the appearance here of something like a double sense. What reasons may have existed for this we can still but imperfectly apprehend. One principal reason, we may certainly conclude, was, that it did not accord with our Lord’s design, as it would not have consisted with His people’s good, to have exhibited very precise and definite prognostics of His second coming. The exact period behoved to be shrouded almost to the very last in mystery, and it seemed to Divine wisdom the fittest course to order the circumstances connected with the final act of judgment on the typical people and territory, so as to serve, at the same time, for signs and tokens of the last great act of judgment on the world at large. As the acts themselves corresponded, so there should also be a correspondence in the manner of their accomplishment; and to contemplate the one as imaged in the other, without being able in all respects to draw the line very accurately between them, was the whole that could safely be permitted to believers. The result, then, of the preceding investigation is, that there is in Scripture a fourfold combination of type with prophecy. In the first of these the prophetic import lies in the type, and in the word only as descriptive of the type. In the others there was not a double sense, but a double prophecy—a typical prophecy in action, coupled with a verbal prophecy in word; not uniformly combined, however, but variously modified: in one class a distinct typical action, having associated with it an express prophetical announcement; in another, the typical lying only as the background on which the spirit of prophecy raised the prediction of a corresponding but much grander future; and in still another, the typical belonging to a nearer future, which was realized as present, and taken as the occasion and groundwork of a prophecy respecting a future greater, and also more distant. It is in this last department alone that there is anything like a mixing up of two subjects together, and a consequent difficulty in determining when precisely the language refers to the nearer, and when to the more remote transactions. Even then, however, only in rare cases; and with this slight exception, there is nothing that carries the appearance of confusion or ambiguity. Each part holds its appropriate place, and the connection subsisting between them, in its various shapes and forms, is very much what might have been expected in a system so complex and many-sided as that to which they belonged. II. We proceed now to offer some remarks on the views generally held on the subject of the prophecies which have passed under our consideration. They fall into two opposite sections. Overlooking the real connection in such cases between type and prophecy, and often misapprehending the proper import of the language, the opinion contended for, on the one side, has been, that the predictions contain a double sense—the one primary and the other secondary, or the one literal and the other mystical; while, on the contrary side, it has been maintained that the predictions have but one meaning, and when applied in New Testament Scripture, in a way not accordant with that meaning, it is held to be a simple accommodation of the words. A brief examination of the two opposing views will be sufficient for our purpose. 1. And, first, in regard to the view which advocates the theory of the double sense. Here it has been laid down as a settled canon of interpretation, that “the same prophecies frequently refer to different events, the one near and the other remote—the one temporal, the other spiritual, and perhaps eternal; that the expressions are partly applicable to one and partly to another; and that what has not been fulfilled in the first, we must apply to the second.” If so, the conclusion seems inevitable, that there must be a painful degree of uncertainty and confusion resting on such portions of prophetic Scripture. And the ambiguity thus necessarily pervading them, must, one would think, have rendered them of comparatively little value, whether originally as a ground of hope to the Old Testament Church, or now as an evidence of faith to the New. Great ingenuity was certainly shown by Warburton in labouring to establish the grounds of this double sense, without materially impairing in any respect the validity of the prophecy. The view advocated by him, however, lies open to two serious objections, which have been powerfully urged against it, especially by Bishop Marsh, and which have demonstrated its arbitrariness. 1. In the first place, while it proceeds upon the supposition, that the double sense of prophecy is quite analogous to the double sense of allegory, there is in reality an essential difference between them. “When we interpret a prophecy, to which a double meaning is ascribed, the one relating to the Jewish, the other to the Christian dispensation, we are in either case concerned with an interpretation of words. For the same words which, according to one interpretation, are applied to one event, are, according to another interpretation, applied to another event. But in the interpretation of an allegory, we are concerned only in the first instance with an interpretation of words; the second sense, which is usually called the allegorical, being an interpretation of things. The interpretation of the words gives nothing more than the plain and simple narratives themselves (the allegory generally assuming the form of a narrative); whereas the moral of the allegory is learnt by an application of the things signified by those words to other things which resemble them, and which the former were intended to suggest. There is a fundamental difference, therefore, between the interpretation of an allegory, and the interpretation of a prophecy with a double sense.”[79] 2. The view of Warburton is, besides, liable to the objection, that it not only affixes a necessary darkness and obscurity to the prophecies having the double sense, but also precludes the existence of any other prophecies more plain, direct, and explicit— until at least the dispensation, under which the prophecies were given, and for which the double sense specially adapted them, was approaching its termination. He contends that the veiled meaning of the prophecies was necessary, in order at once to awaken some general expectations among the Jews of better things to come, and, at the same time, to prevent these from being so distinctly understood as to weaken their regard to existing institutions. It is fatal to this view of the matter, that in reality many of the most direct and perspicacious prophecies concerning the Messiah were contemporaneous with those which are alleged to possess the double meaning and the veiled reference to the Messiah. If, therefore, the Divine method were such as to admit only of the one class, it must have been defeated by the other. And it must also have been not so properly a ground of blame as a matter of necessity, arising from the very circumstances of their position, that the Jews “could not stedfastly look to the end of that which was to be abolished.”—(2 Corinthians 3:13) The reverse, however, was actually the case; for the more clearly they perceived the meaning of the prophecies, and the end of their symbolical institutions, the more heartily did they enter into the design of God, and the more nearly attain the condition which it became them to occupy. [79] Marsh’s Lectures, p. 444. These objections, however, apply chiefly to that vindication of the double sense which came from the hand of Warburton, and was interwoven with his peculiar theory. The opinion has since been advocated in a manner that guards it against both objections, and is put, perhaps, in its most approved form by Davison. “What,” he asks, “is the double sense?Not the convenient latitude of two unconnected senses, wide of each other, and giving room to a fallacious ambiguity, but the combination of two related, analogous, and harmonizing, though disparate, subjects, each clear and definite in itself; implying a twofold truth in the prescience, and creating an aggravated difficulty, and thereby an accumulated proof, in the completion. For a case in point: to justify the predictions concerning the kingdom of David in their double force, it must be shown of them, that they hold in each of their relations, and in each were fulfilled. So that the double sense of prophecy, in its true idea, is a check upon the pretences of a vague and unappropriated prediction, rather than a door to admit them. But this is not all. For if the prediction distribute its sense into two remote branches or systems of the Divine economy; if it show not only what is to take place in distant times, but describe also different modes of God’s appointment, though holding a certain and intelligent resemblance to each other; such prediction becomes not only more convincing in the argument, but more instructive in the doctrine, because it expresses the correspondence of God’s dispensations in their points of agreement, as well as His fore knowledge.”[80] [80] Davison on Prophecy, p. 196. This representation so far coincides with the one given in the preceding pages, that it virtually recognises a combination of type with prophecy; but differs in that it supposes both to have been included in the prediction, the one constituting the primary, the other the secondary, sense of its terms. And, undoubtedly, according to this scheme as well as our own, the correspondence between God’s dispensations might be sufficiently exhibited, both in regard to doctrine and general harmony of arrangement. But when it is contended further, that prophecy with such a double sense, instead of rendering the evidence it furnishes of Divine foresight more vague and unsatisfactory, only supplies an accumulated proof of it by creating an aggravated difficulty in the fulfilment, it seems to be forgotten that the terms of the prediction, to admit of such a duplicate fulfilment, must have been made so much more general and vague. But it is the precision and definiteness of the terms in a prediction which, when compared with the facts in providence that verify them, chiefly produce in our minds a conviction of Divine foresight and direction. And in so far as prophecies might have been constructed to comprehend two series of disparate events, holding in each of the relations, and in each fulfilled, it could only be by dispensing with the more exact criteria, which we cannot help regarding in such cases as the most conclusive evidence of prophetic inspiration. But as it was by no means the sole object of prophecy to provide this evidence, so predictions without such exact criteria are by no means wanting in the word of God. There are prophecies which were not so much designed to foretell definite events, as to unfold great prospects and results, in respect to the manifestation of God’s purposes of grace and truth toward men. Such prophecies were of necessity general and comprehensive in their terms, and admitted of manifold fulfilments. It is of them that we would understand the singularly pregnant and beautiful remark of Lord Bacon in the Second Book of the Advancement of Learning, that “Divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, are therefore not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment; though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one age.” The very first prophecy ever uttered to fallen man,—the promise given of a seed through the woman which should bruise the head of the serpent,—and that afterwards given to Abraham of a seed of blessing, may be fitly specified as illustrations of the principle; since in either case—though by virtue, not of a double sense, but of a wide and comprehensive import—a fulfilment from the first was constantly proceeding, while “the height and fulness” of the predicted good could only be reached in the redemption of Christ and the glories of His kingdom. To return, however, to the matter at issue, we have yet to press our main objection to the theory of the double sense of prophecy; we dispute the fact on which it is founded, that there really are prophecies (with the partial exceptions already noticed) predictive of similar though disparate series of events, strictly applicable to each, and in each finding their fulfilment. This necessarily forms the main position of the advocates of the double sense; and when brought to particulars, they constantly fail to establish it. The terms of the several predictions are sure to be put to the torture, in order to get one of the two senses extracted from them. And the violent interpretations resorted to for the purpose of effecting this, afford one of the most striking proofs of the blinding influence which a theoretical bias may exert over the mind. Such psalms, for example, Psalms 2:1-12 and Psalms 45:1-17, which are so distinctly characteristic of the Messiah, that some learned commentators have abandoned their early predilections to interpret them wholly of Him, are yet ascribed by the advocates of the double sense as well to David as to Christ. Nay, by a singular inversion of the usual meaning of words, they call the former the literal, and the latter their figurative or secondary sense,—although this last is the only one the words can strictly bear. There is no greater success in most other cases; let us take but one example: “Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt make known to me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; and at Thy right hand are pleasures for ever more.” These words in Psalms 16:1-11 were applied by the Apostle Peter to Christ, as finding in the events of His history their only proper fulfilment. David, he contends, could not have been speaking directly of himself, since he had seen corruption; and instead of regaining the path of life, and ascending into the presence of God (namely, in glorified humanity), had suffered, as all knew, the common lot of nature. And so, the Apostle infers, the words should be understood more immediately of Christ, in whose history alone they could properly be said to be accomplished. Warburton, however, inverts this order. Of the deliverance from hell, the freedom from corruption, and the return to the paths of life, he says, “Though it literally signifies security from the curse of the law upon transgressors, viz., immature death, yet it may very reasonably be understood in a spiritual sense of the resurrection of Christ from the dead; in which case the words or terms translated soul and hell are left in the meaning they bear in the Hebrew tongue of body and grave!” He does not, of course, deny that Peter claimed the passage as a prophecy of Christ’s resurrection; but maintains that he does so, “no otherwise than by giving it a secondary or spiritual sense.” In such a style of interpretation, one cannot but feel as if the terms primary and secondary, literal and spiritual, had somehow come to exchange places; since the plain import of the words seems to carry us directly to Christ, while it requires a certain strain to be put upon them before they can properly apply to the case of David. Such, indeed, is what usually happens with the instances selected by the advocates of this theory. The double sense they contend for does not strictly hold in both of the relations; and very commonly what is contended for as the immediate and primary, is the sense that is least accordant with the grammatical import of the words. We, therefore, reject it as a satisfactory explanation of a numerous class of prophecies, and on three several grounds: First, because it so ravels and complicates the meaning of the prophecies to which it is applied, as to involve us in painful doubt and uncertainty regarding their proper application. Secondly, should this be avoided, it can only arise from the prophecies being of so general and comprehensive a nature, as to be incapable of a very close and specific fulfilment. And, finally, when applied to particular examples, the theory practically gives way, as the terms employed in all the more important predictions are too definite and precise to admit of more than one proper fulfilment. 2. We turn now, in the last place, to the mode of prophetical interpretation which has commonly prevailed with those who have ranged themselves in opposition to the theory of the double sense. The chief defect in this class of interpreters consists in their having failed to take sufficiently into account the connection subsisting between the Old and the New Testament dispensations. They have hence generally given only a partial view of the relations involved in particular prophecies, and not unfrequently have confined the application of these to circumstances which only supplied the occasion of their delivery, and the form of their delineations. The single sense contended for has thus too often differed materially from the real sense. And many portions of the Psalms and other prophetical Scriptures, which in New Testament Scripture itself are applied to Gospel times, have been stript of their evangelical import, on the ground that the writer of the prophecy must have had in view some events immediately affecting himself or his country, and that no further use, except by way of accommodation, can legitimately be made of the words he uttered. Such, for example, has been the way that the remarkable prophecy in Isaiah, respecting the son to be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14-16), has often been treated. The words of the prophecy are, “Behold the virgin conceiveth and beareth a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. Butter [rather milk] and honey shall he eat, when he shall know (or that he may know) to refuse what is evil and choose what is good; for before this child shall know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land shall become desolate, by whose two kings thou art distressed.” We have what may justly be called two inspired commentaries on this prediction, one in the Old, and another in the New Testament. The prophet Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah, evidently referring to the words before us, says, immediately after announcing the birth of the future Ruler of Israel at Bethlehem, “Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who shall bear hath brought forth” (Micah 5:3). The peculiar expression, “she who shall bear,” points to the already designated mother of the Divine King, but only in this prediction of Isaiah designated as the virgin; so that, in the language of Rosenmüller, “both predictions throw light on each other. Micah discloses the Divine origin of the Person predicted; Isaiah the wonderful manner of His birth.” The other allusion in inspired Scripture is by St Matthew, when, relating the miraculous circumstances of Christ’s birth, he adds, “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child,” etc. And the prophecy, as Bishop Lowth has well stated, “is introduced in so solemn a manner; the sign is so marked, as a sign selected and given by God himself, after Ahaz had rejected the offer of any sign of his own choosing out of the whole compass of nature; the terms of the prophecy are so peculiar, and the name of the child so expressive, containing in them much more than the circumstances of the birth of a common child required, or even admitted; that we may easily suppose, that in minds prepared by the general expectation of a great deliverer to spring from the house of David, they raised hopes far beyond what the present occasion suggested; especially when it was found, that in the subsequent prophecy, delivered immediately afterward, this child, called Immanuel, is treated as the Lord and Prince of Judah.—(Isaiah 8:8-10) Who could this be, other than the heir of the throne of David? under which character a great and even a Divine person had been promised.” These things leave little doubt as to the real bearing of the prophecy. But as originally delivered, it is connected with two peculiarities: the one that it is given as a sign to the house of David, then represented by the wicked Ahaz, and trembling for fear on account of the combined hostility of Syria and Israel; the other that it is succeeded by a word to the prophet concerning a son to be born to him by the prophetess, which should not be able to cry, My Father, before the king of Assyria had spoiled both the kingdoms of Syria and Israel.—(Isaiah 8:1-4) And it has been thought, from these peculiarities, that it was really this son of the prophet that was meant by the Immanuel, as this alone could be a proper sign to Ahaz of the deliverance that was to be so speedily granted to him from the object of his dread. So Grotius, who holds that St Matthew only applied it mystically to Christ, and a whole host of interpreters since, of whom many can think of no better defence for the Evangelist than that, as the words of the prophet were more elevated and full than the immediate occasion demanded, they might be said to be fulfilled in what more nearly accorded with them. Apologies of this kind, it is easy to be seen, will not avail much in the present day to save the honesty or discernment, to say nothing of the inspired authority, of the Evangelist. But there is really no need for them. It is quite arbitrary to suppose that the child to be born of the prophetess (an ideal child, we should imagine, conceived and born in prophetic vision—since otherwise it would seem to have been born in fornication) is to be identified with the virgin’s son; the rather so, as an entirely different name is given to it (Maher-shalal-hash-baz)—an ideal but descriptive name, and pointing simply to the spoliation that was to be effected on the hostile kingdoms. Immanuel has another, a higher import, and bespeaks what the Lord should be to the covenant-people, not what He should do to the enemies. Nor is the other circumstance, of the word being uttered as a sign to the house of David, any reason for turning it from its natural sense and application. A sign in the ordinary sense had been refused, under a pretence of pious trust in God, but really from a feeling of distrust and improper reliance on an arm of flesh. And now the Lord gives a sign in a peculiar sense,—much as Jesus met the craving of an adulterous gene ration for a sign from heaven, by giving the sign of the prophet Jonas—the reverse of what they either wished or expected,—a sign, not from heaven, but from the lower parts of the earth. So here, by announcing the birth of Immanuel, the prophet gave a sign suited to the time of backsliding and apostacy in which he lived. For it told the house of David, that, wearying God as they were doing by their sins, He would vindicate His cause in a way they little expected or desired; that He would secure the establishment of His covenant with the house of David, by raising up a child in whom the Divine should actually commingle with the human; but that this child should be the offspring of some unknown virgin, not of Ahaz or of any ordinary occupant of the throne; and that, meanwhile, everything should go to desolation and ruin—first, indeed, in the allied kingdoms of Israel and Syria (Isaiah 7:16), but afterwards also in the kingdom of Judah (Isaiah 7:17-25); so that the destined possessor of the throne, when he came, should find all in a prostrate condition, and grow up like one in an impoverished and stricken country, fed with the simple fare of a cottage shepherd (comp. Isaiah 7:16 with Isaiah 7:22). Thus understood, the whole is entirely natural and consistent; and the single sense of the prophecy proves to be identical, as well with the native force of the words, as with the interpretations of inspired men. We have selected this as one of the most common and plausible specimens of the false style of interpretation to which we have referred. It is needless to adduce more, as the explanations given in the earlier part of the chapter have already met many of them by anticipation; and the supplementary treatise in the Appendix will supply what further may be needed. If but honestly and earnestly dealt with, the Scripture has no reason to fear, in this or in other departments, the closest investigation; the more there is of rigid inquiry, displacing superficial considerations, the more will its inner truth and harmony appear. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 112: 05.07. CHAPTER SIXTH. ======================================================================== Chapter Sixth.—The Interpretation Of Particular Types—Specific Principles And Directions. IT was one of the objections urged against the typological views of our elder divines, that their system admitted of no fixed or definite rules being laid down for guiding us to the knowledge and interpretation of particular types. Everything was left to the discretion or caprice of the individual who undertook to investigate them. The few directions that were sometimes given upon the subject were too vague and general to be of any material service. That the type must have borne, in its original design and institution, a pre-ordained reference to the Gospel antitype—that there is often more in the type than in the antitype, and more in the antitype than the type—that there must be a natural and appropriate application of the one to the other—that the wicked as such, and acts of sin as such, must be excluded from the category of types—that one thing is sometimes the type of different and even contrary things, though in different respects and that there is sometimes an interchange between the type and the antitype of the names respectively belonging to each:—These rules of interpretation, which are the whole that Glassius and other hermeneutical writers furnish for our direction, could not go far, either to restrain the licence of conjecture, or to mark out the particular course of thought and inquiry that should be pursued. They can scarcely be said to touch the main difficulties of the subject, and throw no light on its more distinguishing peculiarities. Nor, indeed, could any other result have been expected. The rules could not be precise or definite, when the system on which they were founded was altogether loose and indeterminate. And only with the laying of a more solid and stable foundation could directions for the practical treatment of the subject come to possess any measure of satisfaction or explicitness. Even on the supposition that some progress has now been made in laying such a foundation, we cannot hold out the prospect, that no room shall be left for dubiety, and that all may be reduced to a kind of dogmatical precision and certainty. It would be unreasonable to expect this, considering both the peculiar character and the manifold variety of the field embraced by the Typology of Scripture. That there may still be particular cases in which it will be questionable whether anything properly typical belonged to them, and others in which a diversity of view may be allowable in explaining what is typical, seems to us by no means improbable. And in the specific rules or principles of interpretation that follow, we do not aim at dispelling every possible doubt and ambiguity connected with the subject, but only at fixing its more prominent and characteristic outlines. We believe, that with ordinary care and discretion, they will be sufficient to guard against material error. 1. The first principle we lay down has respect merely to the amount of what is typical in Old Testament Scripture; it is, that nothing is to be regarded as typical of the good things under the Gospel, which was itself of a forbidden and sinful nature. Something approximating to this has been mentioned among the too general and obvious directions which philological writers have been accustomed to give upon the subject. It is, indeed, so much of that description, that though in itself a principle most necessary to be observed and acted on, yet we should have refrained from any express announcement or formal proof of it here, were it not still frequently set at naught, alike in theological discussions and in popular discourses. The ground of the principle, in the form here given to it, lies in the connection which the type has with the antitype, and consequently with God. The antitype standing in the things which belong to God’s everlasting kingdom, is necessarily of God; and so, by a like necessity, the type, which was intended to fore shadow and prepare for it, must have been equally of Him. Whether a symbol in religion or a fact in providence, it must have borne upon it the Divine sanction and approval; otherwise there could have been no proper connection between the ultimate reality and its preparatory exhibitions. So far as the institutions of religion are concerned, this is readily admitted; and no one would think of contending for the idolatrous rites of worship which were sometimes introduced into the services of the sanctuary, being ranked among the shadows of the better things to come. But there is not the same readiness to perceive the incongruity of admitting to the rank of types, actions which were as far from being accordant with the mind of God, as the impurities of an idolatrous worship. Such actions might, no doubt, differ in one respect from the forbidden services of religion; they might in some way be overruled by God for the accomplishment of His own purposes, and thereby be brought into a certain connection with Himself. This was never more strikingly done than in respect to the things which befell Jesus—the great antitype—which were carried into effect by the operation of the fiercest malice and wickedness, and yet were the very things which the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God had appointed before to be done. It is one thing, however, for human agents and their actions being controlled and directed by God, so as, amid all their impetuosity and uproar, to be constrained to work out His righteous purposes; but another thing for them to stand in such close relationship to Him, that they become express and authoritative revelations of His will. This last is the light in which they must be contemplated, if a typical character is ascribed to them. For the time during which typical things lasted, they stood as temporary representations under God’s own hand of what He was going permanently to establish under the Gospel. And, therefore, as amid those higher transactions, where the antitype comes into play, we exclude whatever was the offspring of human ignorance or sinfulness; so in the earlier and inferior transactions, which were typical of what was to come, we must, in like manner, exclude the workings of all earthly and sinful affections. The typical and the antitypical alike must bear on them the image and superscription of God. Violations of this obvious principle are much less frequently met with now, than they were in the theological writings of last century. Still, however, instances are occasionally forcing themselves on one’s notice. And in popular discourses, none perhaps occurs more frequently than that connected with Jacob’s melancholy dissimulation and cunning policy for obtaining the blessing. His receiving the blessing, we are sometimes told, in the garments of Esau, which his mother arrayed him with, “is to be viewed as a faint shadow of our receiving the blessing from God in the garments of Jesus Christ, which all the children of the promise wear. It was not the feigned venison, but the borrowed garments, that procured the blessing. Even so, we are not blessed by God for our good works, however pleasing to Him, but for the righteousness of our Redeemer.” What a confounding of things that differ! The garments of the “profane” Esau made to image the spotless righteousness of Jesus! And the fraudulent use of the one by Jacob, viewed as representing the believer’s simple and confiding trust in the other! Between things so essentially different there can manifestly be nothing but superficial resemblances, which necessarily vanish the moment the real facts of the case rise into view. It was not Jacob’s imposing upon his father’s infirmities, either with false venison or with borrowed garments, which in reality procured for him the blessing. The whole that can be said of these is, that in the actual circumstances of the case they had a certain influence, of an instrumental kind, in leading Isaac to pronounce it. But what had been thus spoken on false grounds and under mistaken apprehensions, might surely have been recalled when the truth came to be known. The prophet Nathan, at a later age, found no difficulty in revoking the word he had too hastily spoken to David respecting the building of the temple, though it had been elicited by something very different from falsehood by novel and unexpected display of real goodness.—(2 Samuel 7:3) And in the case now under consideration, if there had been nothing more in the matter than the mock venison and the hairy garments of Esau, there can be little doubt that the blessing that had been pronounced would have been instantly withdrawn, and the curse which Jacob dreaded made to take its place. In truth, Isaac erred in what he purposed to do, not less than Jacob in beguiling him to do what he had not purposed. He was going to utter in God’s name a prophetic word, which, if it had taken effect as he intended, would have contravened the oracle originally given to Rebekah concerning the two children, even prior to their birth—that the elder should serve the younger. And there were not wanting indications in the spirit and behaviour of the sons, after they had sprung to manhood, which might have led a mind of spiritual discernment to descry in Jacob, rather than Esau, the heir of blessing. But living as Isaac had done for the most part of his life in a kind of luxurious ease, in his declining years especially yielding too much to the fleshly indulgences assiduously ministered to by the hand of Esau, the eye of his mind, like that of his body, grew dim, and he lost the correct perception of the truth. But when he saw how the providence of God had led him to bestow the blessing, otherwise than he himself had designed, the truth rushed at once upon his soul. “He trembled exceedingly”—not simply, nor perhaps chiefly, because of the deceit that had been practised upon his blindness, but because of the worse spiritual blindness which had led him to err so grievously from the revealed purpose of God. And hence, even after the discovery of Jacob’s fraudulent behaviour, he declared with the strongest emphasis, “Yea, and he shall be blessed.” Thus, when the real circumstances of the case are considered, there appears no ground whatever for connecting the improper conduct of Jacob with the mode of a sinner’s justification. The resemblances that may be found between them are quite superficial or arbitrary. And such always are the resemblances which appear between the workings of evil in man, and the good that is of God. The two belong to essentially different spheres, and a real analogy or a divinely ordained connection cannot possibly unite them together. The principle, however, may be carried a step farther. As the operations of sin cannot prefigure the actings of righteousness, so the direct results and consequences of sin cannot justly be regarded as typical representations of the exercises of grace and holiness. When, therefore (to refer again to the history of Jacob), the things that befell him in God’s providence, on account of his unbrotherly and deceitful conduct, are represented as typical foreshadowings of Christ’s work of humiliation—Jacob’s withdrawal from his father’s house, prefiguring Christ’s leaving the region of glory and appearing as a stranger on the earth—Jacob’s sleeping on the naked ground with nothing but a stone for his pillow, Christ’s descent into the lowest depths of poverty and shame, that he might afterwards be exalted to the head-stone of the corner, and so forth;[81] —in such representations there is manifestly a stringing together of events which have no fundamental agreement, and possess no mutual relations. In the one case Jacob was merely suffering the just reward of his misdeeds; while the Redeemer in the other and alleged parallel transactions, was voluntarily giving the highest display of the holy love that animated His bosom for the good of men. And whatever there might be in certain points of an outward and formal resemblance between them, it is in the nature of things impossible that there could be a real harmony and an ordained connection. [81] Kanne’s Christus in Alleii Testament, Th. ii., p. 133, etc. It is to be noted, however, that we apply the principle now under consideration to the extent merely of denying a typical connection between what in former times appeared of evil on the part of man, and the good subsequently introduced by God. And we do so on the ground that such things only as He sanctioned and approved in the past, could foreshadow the higher and better things which were to be sanctioned and approved by Him in the future. But as all the manifestations of truth have their corresponding and antagonistic manifestations of error, it is perfectly warrantable and scriptural to regard the form of evil which from time to time confronted the type, as itself the type of something similar, which should afterwards arise as a counter form of evil to the antitype. Antichrist, therefore, may be said to have had his types as well as Christ. Hagar was the type of a carnal church, that should be in bondage to the elements of the world, and of a spirit at enmity with God, as Sarah was of a spiritual church, that should possess the freedom and enjoy the privileges of the children of God. Egypt, Edom, Assyria, Babylon without, and Saul, Ahithophel, Absalom, and others within the circle of the Old Covenant, have each their counterpart in the things belonging to the history of Christ and His Church of the New Testament. In strictness of speech, it is the other class of relations alone which carry with them the impress and ordination of God; but as God’s acts and operations in His Church never fail to call into existence the world’s enmity and opposition, so the forms which this assumed in earlier times might well be regarded as prophetic of those which were after wards to appear. And if so with the evil itself, still more with the visitations of severity sent to chastise the evil; for these come directly from God. The judgments, therefore, He inflicted on iniquity in the past, typified like judgments on all similar aspects of iniquity in the future. And the period when the good shall reach its full development and final triumph, shall also be that in which the work of judgment shall pour its floods of perpetual desolation upon the evil. II. We pass on to another, which must still also be a somewhat negative principle of interpretation, viz., that in determining the existence and import of particular types, we must be guided, not so much by any knowledge possessed, or supposed to be possessed, by the ancient worshippers concerning their prospective fulfilment, as from the light furnished by their realization in the great facts and revelations of the Gospel. Whether we look to the symbolical or to the historical types, neither their own nature, nor God’s design in appointing them, could warrant us in drawing very definite and conclusive inferences regarding the insight possessed by the Old Testament worshippers into their prospective or Gospel import. The one formed part of an existing religion, and the other of a course of providential dealings; and in that more immediate respect there were certain truths they embodied, and certain lessons they taught, for those who had directly to do with them. Their fitness for unfolding such truths and lessons formed, as we have seen, the groundwork of their typical connection with Gospel times. But though they must have been understood in that primary aspect by all sincere and intelligent worshippers, these did not necessarily perceive their further reference to the things of Christ’s kingdom. Nor does the reality or the precise import of their typical character depend upon the correctness or the extent of the knowledge held respecting it by the members of the Old Covenant. For the connection implied in their possessing such a character between the preparatory and the final dispensations was not of the Church’s forming, but of God’s; and a very considerable part of the design which He intended these to serve with ancient believers, may have been accomplished, though they knew little, and perhaps in some cases nothing, of the germs that lay concealed in them of better things to come. These germs were concealed in all typical events and institutions, considered simply by themselves—since the events and institutions had a significance and use for the time then present, apart from what might be evolved in the future purposes of God. Now, we are expressly told, even in regard to direct prophecies of Gospel times, that not only the persons to whom they were originally delivered, but the very individuals through whom they were communicated, did not always or necessarily understand their precise meaning. Sometimes, at least, they had to assume the position of inquirers, in order to get the more exact and definite information which they desired (Daniel 12:8; 1 Peter 1:12); and it would seem, from the case of Daniel, that even then they did not always obtain it. The prophets were not properly the authors of their own predictions, but spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Their knowledge, therefore, of the real meaning of the prophecies they uttered, was an entirely separate thing from the prophecies themselves; and if we knew what it was, it would still by no means conclusively fix their full import. Such being the case in regard even to the persons who uttered the spoken and direct prophecies of the Old Testament, how preposterous would it be to make the insight obtained by believers generally into the indirect and veiled prophecies (as the types may be called), the ground and standard of the Gospel truth they embodied! In each case alike, it is the mind of God, not the discernment or faith of the ancient believer, that we have properly to do with. Obvious as this may appear to some, it has been very commonly overlooked; and typical explanations have in consequence too often taken the reverse direction of what they should have done. Writers in this department are constantly telling us, how in former times the eye of faith looked through the present to the future, and assigning that as the reason why our present should be contemplated in the remote past. Thus, in a once popular work, Adam is represented as having “believed the promise concerning Christ, in whose commemoration he offered continual sacrifice; and in the assurance thereof he named his wife Eve, that is to say, life, and he called his son Seth, settled, or persuaded in Christ.”[82] Another exalts in like manner the faith of Zipporah, and regards her, when she said to Moses, “A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision,” as announcing “through one of her children, the Jehovah as the future Redeemer and bridegroom.”[83] Another presents Moses to our view as wondering at the great sight of the burning bush, “because the great mystery of the incarnation and sufferings of Christ was there represented; a great sight he might well call it, when there was represented God manifest in the flesh, suffering a dreadful death, and rising from the dead.”[84] And Owen, speaking of the Old Testament believers generally, says, “Their faith in God was not confined to the outward things they enjoyed, but on Christ in them, and represented by them. They believed that they were only resemblances of Him and His mediation, which, when they lost the faith of, they lost all acceptance with God in their worship.”[85] Writers of a different class, and of later date, have followed substantially in the same track. Warburton maintains with characteristic dogmatism, that the transaction with Abraham, in offering up Isaac, was a typical action, in which the patriarch had scenically represented to his view the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ; and that on any other supposition there can be no right understanding of the matter.[86] Dean Graves expresses his concurrence in this interpretation, as does also Mr Faber, who says that “Abraham must have clearly understood the nature of that awful transaction by which the day of Christ was to be characterized, and could not have been ignorant of the benefits about to be procured by it.”[87] And, to mention no more, Chevallier intimates a doubt concerning the typical character of the brazen serpent, because “it is not plainly declared, either in the Old or the New Testament, to have been ordained by God purposely to represent to the Israelites the future mysteries of the Gospel revelation.”[88] [82] Fisher’s Marrow of Modern Divinity, P. 1, c. 2. [83] Kanne’s Christus in Alt. Test., I., p. 100. [84] History of Redemption, by Jonathan Edwards. Period I., p. 4. [85] Owen on Hebrews 8:5. In another part of his writings, however, we find him saying, “Although those (Old Testament) things are now full of light and instruction to us, evidently expressing the principal works of Christ’s mediation, yet they were not so unto them. The meanest believer may now find out more of the work of Christ in the types of the Old Testament, than any prophet or wise man could have done of old.”—On the Person of Christ, ch. 8. [86] Legation of Moses, B. vi., sec. 5. [87] Treatise on the Three Dispensations, vol. ii., p. 57. [88] Historical Types, p. 221. These quotations sufficiently show how current the opinion has been, and still is, that the persons who lived amid the types must have perfectly understood their typical character, and that by their knowledge in this respect we are bound in great measure, if not entirely, to regulate ours. It is, however, a very difficult question, and one (as we have already had occasion to state) on which we should seldom venture to give more than an approximate deliverance, how far the realities typified even by the more important symbols and transactions of ancient times were distinctly perceived by any individual who lived prior to their actual appearance. The reason for this uncertainty and probable ignorance is the same with that which has been so clearly exhibited by Bishop Horsley, and applied in refutation of an infidel objection, in the closely related field of prophecy. It was necessary, for the very ends of prophecy, that a certain disguise should remain over the events it foretold, till they became facts in providence; and therefore, “whatever private information the prophet might enjoy, the Spirit of God would never permit him to disclose the ultimate intent and particular meaning of the prophecy.”[89] Types being a species of prophecy, and from their nature less precise and determinate in meaning, they must certainly have been placed under the veil of a not inferior disguise. Whatever insight more advanced believers might have had into their ultimate design, it could neither be distinctly announced, nor, if announced, serve as a sufficient directory for us; it could only furnish, according to the measure of light it contained, comfort and encouragement to themselves. [89] Horsley’s Works, vol. i., p. 271-273. And whether that measure might be great or small, vague and general, or minute and particular, we should not be bound, even if we knew it, to abide by its rule; for here, as in prophecy, the judgment of the early Church “must still bow down to time as a more informed expositor.” That the sincere worshippers of God in former ages, especially such as possessed the higher degrees of spiritual thought and discernment, were acquainted not only with God’s general purpose of redemption, but also with some of its more prominent features and results, we have no reason to doubt. It is impossible to read those portions of Old Testament Scripture which disclose the feelings and expectations of gifted minds, without being convinced that considerable light was sometimes obtained respecting the work of salvation. We shall find an opportunity for inquiring more particularly concerning this, when we come to treat, in a subsequent part of our investigations, respecting the connection between the moral legislation and the ceremonial institutions of Moses. But that the views even of the better part of the Old Testament worshippers must have been comparatively dim, and that their acceptance as worshippers did not depend upon the clearness of their discernment in regard to the person and kingdom of Christ, is evident from what was stated in our second chapter as to the relatively imperfect nature of the earlier dispensations, and the childhood-state of those who lived under them. It was the period when, as is expressly stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 9:8), “the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest;” or, in other words, when the method of salvation was not fully disclosed to the view of God’s people. And though we may not be warranted to consider what is written of the closing age of Old Testament times as a fair specimen of their general character, yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that not only did much prevailing ignorance then exist concerning the better things of the New Covenant, but that instances occur even of genuine believers, who still betrayed an utter misapprehension of their proper nature. Thus Nathaniel was pronounced “an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile,” while he obviously laboured under inadequate views of Christ’s person and work. And no sooner had Peter received the peculiar benediction bestowed, on account of his explicit confession of the truth, than he gave evidence of his ignorance of the design, and his repugnance to the thought, of Christ’s sufferings and death. Such things occurring on the very boundary-line between the Old and the New, and after the clearer light of the New had begun to be partially introduced, render it plain, that they may also have existed, and in all probability did not unfrequently prevail, even among the believing portion of Israel in remoter times. But such being the case, it would manifestly be travelling in the wrong direction to make the knowledge, which was possessed by ancient believers regarding the prospective import of particular types, the measure of our own. The providential arrangements and religious institutions which constitute the types, had an end to serve, independently of their typical design, in ministering to the present wants of believers, and nourishing in their souls the life of faith. Their more remote and typical import was for us, even more than for those who had immediately to do with them. It does not rest upon the more or less imperfect information such persons might have had concerning it; but chiefly on the light furnished by the records of the New Testament, and thence reflected on those of the Old. “It is Christ who holds the key of the types, not Moses;” and instead of making everything depend upon the still doubtful inquiry, What did pious men of old descry of Gospel realities through the shadowy forms of typical institutions?we must repair to these realities themselves, and by the light radiating from them over the past, as well as the present and future things of God, read the evidence of that “testimony of Jesus,” which lies written in the typical not less than in the prophetical portions of ancient Scripture. III. But if in this respect we have comparatively little to do with the views of those who lived under former dispensations, there is another respect in which we have much to do with them. And our next principle of interpretation is, that we must always, in the first instance, be careful to make ourselves acquainted with the truths or ideas exhibited in the types, considered merely as providential transactions or religious institutions. In other words, we are to find in what they were in their immediate relation to the patriarchal or Jewish worshipper, the foundation and substance of what they typically present to the Christian Church. There is no contrariety between this principle and the one last announced. We had stated, that in endeavouring to ascertain the reality and the nature of a typical connection between Old and New Testament affairs, we are not to reason downward from what might be known of this in earlier times, but rather upward from what may now be known of it, in consequence of the clearer light and higher revelations of the Gospel. What we farther state now is, that the religious truths and ideas which were embodied in the typical events and institutions of former times, must be regarded as forming the ground and limit of their prospective reference to the affairs of Christ’s kingdom. That they had a moral, political, or religious end to serve for the time then present, so far from interfering with their destination to typify the spiritual things of the Gospel, forms the very ground and substance of their typical bearing. Hence their character in the one respect, the more immediate, may justly be regarded as the essential key to their character in respect to what was more remote. This principle of interpretation grows so necessarily out of the views advanced in the earlier and more fundamental parts of our inquiry, that it must here be held as in a manner proved. Its validity must stand or fall with that of the general principles we have sought to establish, as to the relation between type and antitype. That relation, it has been our object to show, rests on something deeper than merely outward resemblances. It rests rather on the essential unity of the things so related, on their being alike embodiments of the same principles of Divine truth; but embodiments in the case of the type, on a lower and earthly scale, and as a designed preparation for the higher development afterwards to be made in the Gospel. That, therefore, which goes first in the nature of things, must also go first in any successful effort to trace the connection between them. And the question, What elements of Divine truth are symbolized in the type I must take precedence of the other question, How did the type foreshadow the greater realities of the antitype?For it is in the solution we obtain for the one, that a foundation is to be laid for the solution of the other. It is only by keeping stedfastly to this rule, that we shall be able, in the practical department of our inquiry, to direct our thoughts to substantial, as opposed to merely superficial and fanciful, resemblances. The palpable want of discrimination in this respect, between what is essential and what is only accidental, formed one of the leading defects in our elder writers. And it naturally sprang from too exclusive a regard to the antitype, as if the things belonging to it being fully ascertained, we were at liberty to connect it with everything formally resembling it in ancient times, whether really akin in nature to it or not. Thus, when Kanne, in a passage formerly referred to, represents the stone which Jacob took for his pillow at Bethel, as a type of Christ in His character as the foundation-stone of His Church, there is, no doubt, a kind of outward similarity, so that the same language may, in a sense, be applied to both; but there is no common principle uniting them together. The use which Jacob made of the stone was quite different from that in respect to which Christ is exhibited as the stone laid in Zion—being laid not for the repose or slumber, but for the stability and support, of a ransomed people. For this the strength and durability of a rock were absolutely indispensable; but they contributed nothing to the fitness of what Jacob’s necessities drove him to employ as a temporary pillow. It was his misfortune, not his privilege, to be obliged to resort to a stone for such a purpose. We had occasion formerly to describe in what manner the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness might be regarded as typical of the lifting up of a crucified Redeemer; by showing how the inferior objects and relations of the one had their correspondence in the higher objects and relations of the other![90] But suppose we should proceed in the opposite direction, and should take these higher objects and relations of the antitype as the rule and measure of what we are to expect in the type; then, having a far wider and more complicated subject for our starting-point, we should naturally set about discovering many slight and superficial analogies in the type, to bring it into a fuller correspondence with the antitype. This is what many have actually done who have treated of the subject. Hence we find them expatiating upon the metal of which the serpent was formed, and which, from being inferior to some others, they regard as foreshadowing Christ’s outward meanness, while in its solidity they discern His Divine strength, and in its dim lustre the veil of His human nature![91] What did it avail to the Israelite, or for any purpose the serpent had to serve, of what particular stuff it was made? A dead and senseless thing in itself, it must have been all one for those who were called to look to it, whether the material was brass or silver, wood or stone. And yet, as if it were not enough to make account of these trifling accidents, others were sometimes invented, for which there is no foundation in the inspired narrative, to obtain for the greater breadth of the one subject a corresponding breadth in the other. Thus Guild represents the serpent as not having been forged by man’s hand or hammer, but by a mould, and in the fire, to image the Divine conception of Christ’s human nature; and Justin Martyr, with still greater licence, supposes the serpent to have been made in the form of a cross, the more exactly to represent a suffering Redeemer. Suppose it had been modelled after this form, would it have been rendered thereby a more effective instrument for healing the diseased? Or would one essential idea have been added to what either an Israelite or a Christian were otherwise at liberty to associate with it? All such puerile straining of the subject arose from an inverted order being taken in tracing the connection between the spiritual reality and the ancient shadow. It would no longer be thought of, if the principle of interpretation here advanced were strictly adhered to; that is, if the typical matter of an event or institution were viewed simply as standing in the truths or principles which it brought distinctly into view; and if these were regarded as actually comprising all that in each particular case could legitimately be applied to the antitypical affairs of Christ’s kingdom. [90] Chap. III., p. 81. [91] Guild’s Moses Unveiled, and Watson’s Holy Eucharist. The judicious application of this principle will serve also to rid us of another class of extravagances, which are of frequent occurrence in writers of the Cocceian school, and which mainly consist, like those already noticed, of external resemblances, deduced with little or no regard to any real principle of agreement. We refer to the customary mode of handling typical persons or characters, with no other purpose apparently than that of exhibiting the greatest possible number of coincidences between these and Christ. As many as forty of such have been reckoned between Moses and Christ, and even more between Joseph and Christ. Of course, a great proportion of such resemblances are of a quite superficial and trifling nature, and are of no moment, whether they happen to be perceived or not. For any light they throw on the purposes of Heaven, or any advantage they yield to our faith, we gain nothing by admitting them, and we lose as little by rejecting them. They would never have been sought for had the real nature of the connection between type and antitype been understood, and the proper mode of exhibiting it been adopted; nor would typical persons or individuals, sustaining a typical character through the whole course and tenor of their lives, have been supposed to exist. It was to familiarize the Church with great truths and principles, not to occupy her thoughts with petty agreements and fanciful analogies, that she was kept so long conversant with preparatory dispensations. And as that end might have been in part served by a single transaction, or a special appointment in a lifetime; so, whenever it was served, it must have been by virtue of its exhibiting important aspects of Divine truth—such as were to reappear in the person and work of Christ. It is not, in short, individuals throughout the entire compass of their history, but individuals in certain divinely appointed offices or relations, in which we are to seek for what is typical in this province of sacred history.[92] [92] Scarcely any of the late works on the types, published in this country, are free from the extravagances we have referred to respecting personal types. They assume, however, the most extreme form in the German work of Kanne, published in 1818. There the mere similarity of names is held as a conclusive proof of a typical connection; so that Miriam, sister of Moses, was a type of Mary, for the Jews call the former Maria, as well as the latter. The work is full of such puerilities. It is the same tendency, however, to rest in merely superficial resemblances which led Schöttgen, for example, in his Horse Heb. On 1 Corinthians 10:2, and leads some still, to hold that the Israelites must have been “bedewed and refreshed” by the cloud. It is true the sacred narrative is silent about that, nor is any support to be found for it in the Jewish writings; but it seemed to the learned author necessary to make out a typical relation to baptism, and so he regards it as in a manner self-evident. On the same ground, of course, Noah and his family must have been all sprinkled or dipped in the flood, since this too was the type of baptism! IV. Another conclusion flowing not less clearly than the foregoing from the views already established, and which we propose as our next leading principle of interpretation, is, that while the symbol or institution constituting the type has properly but one radical meaning, yet the fundamental idea or principle exhibited in it may often be capable of more than one application to the realities of the Gospel; that is, it may bear respect to, and be developed in, more than one department of the affairs of Christ’s kingdom. But in illustrating this proposition, we must take in succession the several parts of which it consists. 1. The first part asserts each type to be capable of but one radical meaning. It has a definite way of expressing some fundamental idea—that, and no more. Were it otherwise, we should find any consistent or satisfactory interpretation of typical things quite impracticable, and should often lose ourselves in a sea of uncertainty. An example or two may serve to show how far this has actually been the case in the past. Glassius makes the deluge to typify both the preservation of the faithful through baptism, and the destruction of the wicked in the day of judgment; and the rule under which he adduces this example is, that “a type may be a figure of two, and even contrary things, though in different respects.”[93] In like manner, Taylor, taking the full liberty of such a canon, when interpreting the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea as a type of baptism, sees in that event, first, “the offering of Jesus Christ to their faith, through the Red Sea, of whose death and passion they should find a sure and safe way to the celestial Canaan;” and then this other truth, that “by His merit and mediation He would carry them through all difficulties and dangers, as deep as the bottom of the sea, unto eternal rest.”[94] In this last specimen the Red Sea is viewed as representing at the same time, and in relation to the same persons, both the atoning blood of Christ and the outward trials of life. The other example is not so palpably incorrect, nor does it in fact go to the entire length, which the rule it is designed to illustrate properly warrants; for the action of the waters in the deluge is considered by it with reference to different persons, as well as in different respects. It is at fault, however, in making one event typical of two diverse and unconnected results. Many other examples might be produced of similar false interpretations from what has been written of the tabernacle and its services, equally indicative, on the part of the writers, of a capricious fancy, and in themselves utterly destitute of any solid foundation. [93] Philolog. Sac. Lib. II., p. 1, Trac. II., sec. 4, § 8. He quotes from Cornelius à Lapide, but adopts the rule as good. [94] Moses and Aaron, p. 237. Our previous investigations, we trust, have removed this prolific source of ambiguity and confusion; for, if we have not entirely failed of our object, we have shown that the typical transactions and symbols of the Old Testament are by no means so vague and arbitrary as to be capable of bearing senses altogether variable and inconsistent. Viewed as a species of language, which they really were—a speaking by action instead of words—they could only reach the end they had to serve by giving forth a distinct and intelligible meaning. Such language can no more do this than oral or written discourse, if constructed so as to be susceptible of the most diverse and even opposite senses. By the necessities of the case, therefore, we are constrained to hold, that whatever instruction God might design to communicate to the Church, either in earlier or in later times, by means of the religious institutions and providential arrangements of past times, it must have been such as admits of being derived from them by a fixed and reasonable mode of interpretation. To suppose that their virtue consisted in some capacity to express meanings quite variable and inconsistent with each other, would be to assimilate them to the uncertain oracles of heathenism. 2. This is to be understood in the strictest sense of such typical acts and symbols, as, from their nature, were expressive of a simple, uncompounded idea. In that case, it would be an incongruity to make what was one in the type, present, like a revolving light, a changeful and varying aspect toward the antitype. But the type itself might possibly be of a complex nature; that is, it might embody a process which branched out into two or more lines of operation, and so combined two or more related ideas together. In such a case, there will require to be a corresponding variety in the application that is made from the type to the antitype. The twofold, or perhaps still more complicated, idea contained in the one must have its counterpart in the other, as much as if each idea had received a separate representation; though due regard must be paid to the connection which they appear to have one with another, as component elements of the same type. For example, the event of the deluge, recently adverted to, which at once bore on its bosom an elect seed, in safe preservation for the peopling of a new world, and overwhelmed in perdition the race of ungodly men who had corrupted the old, unquestionably involves a complex idea. It embodies in one great act a double process—a process, however, which was accomplished simultaneously in both its parts; since the doing of the one carried along with it the execution of the other. In thinking, therefore, of the New Testament antitype, we must have respect not only to the two ideas themselves severally represented, but also to their relation to each other; we must look for some spiritual process, which in like manner combines a work of preservation with a work of destruction. In the different fates of the righteous and the wicked,—the one as appointed to salvation, and the other to perdition,—we have certainly a twofold process and result; but have we the two in a similar combination? We certainly have them so combined in the personal history and work of Christ, as His triumph and exaltation inevitably involved the bruising of Satan; and the same shall also be found in the final judgment, when, by putting down for ever all adverse authority and rule, Christ shall raise His Church to the dominion and the glory. If the typical connection between the deluge and God’s grander works of preservation and destruction, is put in either of these lights, the objection we lately offered to the interpretation of Glassius will be obviated, and the requirements of a Scriptural exegesis satisfied. A like combination of two ideas is found in the application made of the deluge by the Apostle Peter to the ordinance of baptism, as will be shown in due time. And there are, besides, many things connected with the tabernacle and its services—for example, the use made in them of symbolical numbers, the different kinds of sacrifice, the ritual of cleansing—which are usually so employed as to convey a complex meaning, and a meaning that of necessity assumes different shades, according to the different modifications employed in the use of the symbolical materials. Such differences, however, can only be of a minor kind; they can never touch the fundamental character of the typical phenomena, so as to render them expressive in one relation of something totally unlike to what they denoted in another. A symbolical act or institution can as little be made to change its meaning arbitrarily, as a term in language. Its precise import must always be determined first by an intelligent consideration of its inherent nature, and then by the connection in which it stands. 3. It is one thing, however, to maintain that a type, either as a whole or in its component parts, can express only one meaning; and another, to allow more than one application of it to the affairs of Christ’s kingdom. Not only is there an organic connection between the Old and the New dispensations, giving rise to the relation of type and antitype, but also an organic connection between one part and another of the Gospel dispensation; in consequence of which the ideas and principles exhibited in the types may find their realization in more than one department of the Gospel system. The types, as well as the prophecies, hence often admit of “a springing and germinant accomplishment.” They do so especially in those things which concern the economical relation subsisting between Christ and His people; by reason of which He is at once the root out of which they grow, and the pattern after which their condition and destiny are to be formed. If, on this account, it be necessary that in all things He should have the pre-eminence, it is not less necessary that they should bear His image, and share in His heritage of blessing. So closely are they identified with Him. In their present experience and their future prospects, that they are now spoken of as having “fellowship with him in His sufferings,” being “planted with Him in the likeness of His death,” and again “planted with Him in the likeness of His resurrection,” “sitting with Him in heavenly places,” having “their life hid with Him in God,” and being at last raised to “inherit His kingdom, and sit with Him upon His throne.” In short, the Church as a whole is conformed to His likeness; while, again, in each one of her members is reproduced an image of the whole. Therefore the principles and ideas which, by means of typical ordinances and transactions, were perpetually exhibited before the eye of the Old Testament Church, while they must find their grand development in Christ Himself, must also have further developments in the history of His Church and people. They have respect to our relations and experiences, our state and prospects, in so far as these essentially coincide with Christ’s; for, so far, the one is but a partial renewal or a prolonged existence of the other. There are things of a typical nature, it is proper to add, which in a more direct and special manner bear respect to the Church and people of Christ. The rite of circumcision, for example, the passage through the Red Sea, the judgments in the wilderness, the eating of manna, and many similar things, must obviously have their antitypes in the heirs of salvation rather than in Him, who, in this respect, stood alone; He was personally free from sin, and did not Himself need the blessings He provided for others. So that, when the Apostle writes of the ordinances of the law, that they were “shadows of good things to come, but the body is of Christ” (Colossians 2:17), he is not to be understood as meaning that Christ personally and alone is the object they prospectively contemplated, but Christ together with His body the Church—the events and interests of the Gospel dispensation. In this collective sense Christ is mentioned also in 1 Corinthians 12:12, and Galatians 3:16. Nor is it by any means an arbitrary sense; for it is grounded in the same vital truth, on which we have based the admissibility of a twofold application or bearing of typical things, viz., the organic union subsisting between Christ and His redeemed people—“He in them, and they in Him.” V. Another principle of interpretation arising out of the preceding investigations, and necessary to be borne in mind for the right understanding of typical symbols and transactions, is, that due regard must be had to the essential difference between the nature of type and antitype. For, as the typical is Divine truth on a lower stage, exhibited by means of outward relations and terrestrial interests, so, when making the transition from this to the antitypical, we must expect the truth to appear on a loftier stage, and, if we may so speak, with a more heavenly aspect. What in the one bore immediate respect to the bodily life, must in the other be found to bear immediate respect to the spiritual life. While in the one it is seen and temporal objects that ostensibly present themselves, their proper counterpart in the other are the unseen and eternal:—there, the outward, the present, the worldly; here, the inward, the future, the heavenly. A change and advance of the kind here supposed, enters into the very vitals of the subject, as unfolded in the earlier part of our inquiry. The reason why typical symbols and institutions were employed by God in His former dealings with His Church, arose from the adoption of a plan which indispensably required that very progression in the mode of exhibiting Divine truth. The world was treated for a period as a child that must be taught great principles, and prepared for events of infinite magnitude and eternal interest, by the help of familiar and sensible objects, which lay fully open to their view, and came within the grasp of their comprehension. But now that we have to do with the things themselves, for which those means of preparation were instituted, we must take care, in tracing the connection between the one and the other, to keep steadily in view the essential difference between the two periods, and with the rise in the Divine plan give a corresponding rise to the application we make of what belonged to the ancient economy. To proceed without regard to this—to look for the proper counterpart of any particular type in the same class of objects and interests, as that to which the type itself immediately referred, would be to act like those Judaizing Christians, who, after the better things had come, held fast at once by type and antitype, as if they stood upon the same plane, and were constructed of the same materials. It would be to remain at the old foundations, while the scheme of God has risen to a higher place, and laid a new world, as it were, open to our view. If, therefore, we enter aright into the change which has been effected in the position of the Divine kingdom, and give to that its proper weight in determining the connection between type and antitype, we must look for things in the one, corresponding, indeed, to those in the other, but, at the same time, proportionally higher and greater; and, in particular, must remember that, according to the rule, internal things now take the place of external, and spiritual of bodily. Much discretion, however, which it is impossible to bound by such precise and definite rules as might meet all conceivable cases, will be necessary in applying the principle now indicated to individual examples. In the majority of cases there will be no difficulty; for the distinction we mention between the Old and the New is so manifest, as to secure a certain degree of uniformity even among those who are not remarkable for discrimination. And, indeed, the writers most liable to err in other respects,—persons of delicate sensibilities and spiritual feeling,—are less in danger of erring here, as they have usually a clear perception of the more inward and elevated character of the Gospel dispensation. The point in regard to which they are most likely to err concerning it, and that which really forms the chief difficulty in applying the principle now under consideration, arises from what may be called the mixed nature of the things belonging to Messiah’s kingdom. As contradistinguished from those of earlier dispensations, and rising above them, we denominate the realities of the Gospel spiritual, heavenly, eternal. And yet they are not totally disconnected with the objects of flesh and time. The centre-point of the whole, Jesus Christ, not only sojourned in bodily form upon the earth, but had certain conditions to fulfil of an outward and bodily kind, which were described beforehand in prophecy, and may also, of course, have had their typical adumbrations. In the case of the Church, too, her life of faith is not altogether of an inward nature, and confined to the hidden man of the heart. It touches continually on the corporeal and visible; and certain events essentially connected with her progress and destiny—such as the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, the calling of the Gentiles, the persecutions of the world, the doom of Antichrist—could not take place without assuming an outward and palpable form. What, then, it may be asked, becomes of the characteristic difference between the Old and the New, so far as such things are concerned? Must not type and antitype still be found substantially on the same level? By no means. The proper inference is, that there are cases in which the difference is less broadly marked; but it still exists. The operations, experiences, and blessings peculiar to the dispensation of the Gospel, are not all of a simply inward and spiritual nature; but they all bear directly on the interests of a spiritual salvation, and the realities of a heavenly and eternal world. The members of Christ’s kingdom, so long as they are in flesh and blood, must have their history interwoven on every side with the relations of sense and time, and be themselves dependent upon outward ordinances for the existence and nourishment of their spiritual life. Yet, whatever is external in their privileges and condition, has its internal side, and even its avowed reason, in things pertaining to the soul’s salvation, and the coming inheritance of glory. So that the spiritual and heavenly is here always kept prominently in view, as the end and object of all; while in Old Testament times everything was veiled under the sensible relations of flesh and time, and, excepting to the divinely illuminated eye, seemed as if it did not look beyond them. For example, the deluge and baptism so far agree in form, that they have both an outward operation; but the operation, in the one case, has to do directly with the preservation and destruction of an earthly life, while in the other it bears immediately upon the life of immortality in the soul. The crucifixion of Christ and the slaying of the paschal lamb were alike outward transactions; but the direct and ostensible result contemplated in the first, was salvation from the condemnation and punishment of sin; in the second, escape from corporeal death, and deliverance from the yoke of an earthly bondage. In like manner, it might be said to be as much an outward transaction for Christ to ascend personally into the presence of the Father, as for the high priest to go within the veil with the blood of the yearly atonement; but to rectify men’s relation to a worldly sanctuary and an earthly inheritance, was the immediate object sought by this action of the high priest, while the appearance of Christ in the heavenly places was to secure for His people access to the everlasting kingdom of light and glory. In such cases, the common property of a certain outwardness in the acts and operations referred to, is far from placing them on the same level; a higher element still appears in the one as compared with the other. But if, on the other hand, we should say, as has often been said, that Isaac’s bearing the wood for the altar typified Christ’s bearing His cross to Calvary, we bring together two circumstances which do stand precisely upon the same level, are alike outward in their nature, and in the one no more than in the other involve any rise to a higher sphere of truth. Else, how should a common man, Cimon the Cyrenian, have shared with Christ in the bearing of the burden? But, undoubtedly, the most pernicious examples of this false style of typical applications are those which, from comparatively early times, have been employed to assimilate the New Testament economy in its formal appearance and administration to the Old, and for which Koine is able to avail herself of the authority of many of the more distinguished fathers. By means chiefly of mistaken parallels from Jewish to Christian times, mistaken, because they virtually ignored the rise that had taken place in the Divine economy,—everything was gradually brought back from the apostolic ideal of a spiritual community, founded on the perfect atonement and priesthood of Christ, to the outwardness and ritualism of ancient times. The sacrifices of the law, it was thought, must have their correspondence in the offering of the Eucharist; and as every sacrificial offering must have a priest to present it, so the priest hood of the Old Covenant, determined by genealogical descent, must find its substitute in a priesthood determined by apostolical succession. It was but a step farther, and one quite natural in the circumstances, to hold that as the ancient hierarchy culminated in a High-priest of Jerusalem, so the Christian must have a similar culmination in the Bishop of Rome. In these and many similar applications of Old Testament things to the ceremonial institutions and devices of Romanism, there is a substantial perpetuation of the Judaizing error of apostolic times an adherence to the oldness and carnality of the letter, after the spiritual life and more elevated standing of the New has come. According to it, everything in Christianity as well as in Judaism is made to turn upon formal distinctions and ritual observances: and that not the less because of a certain introduction of the higher element, as in the substitution of apostolical succession and the impressed character of the new priesthood, for the genealogical descent and family relationship of the old. Such slight alterations only affect the mode of getting at the outward things established, but leave the outwardness itself unaffected; they are of no practical avail in lifting Christianity above the old Judaistic level.[95] [95] See this subject admirably treated in Mr Litton’s work on the Church, p. 53 5, sec. 7; also his Bampton Lecture, Sermon viii. The Protestant Church, however, has not been without its false typical applications, proceeding on the same fundamental mistake. They are found especially among the Grotian school of divines, whose low and carnal tone is continually betraying itself in a tendency to depress and lower the spiritual truths of the Gospel to a conformity with the simple letter of Old Testament Scripture. The Gospel is read not only through a Jewish medium, but also in a Jewish sense, and nothing but externals admitted in the New, wherever there is descried, in the form of the representation, any reference to such in the Old. It is one of the few services which neological exegesis has rendered to the cause of Divine truth, that by a process of exhaustion it has nearly emptied this meagre style of interpretation of the measure of plausibility it originally possessed. But it is still occasionally followed, in the particular respect now under consideration, by theological writers of a higher stamp. Thus, the doctrine of election, as unfolded in the epistles of the New Testament, is held by the advocates of a modified Arminianism to be improperly understood of an appointment to personal salvation and an eternal life, on the special ground that the election of the Jewish people was only their calling as a nation to outward privileges and a temporal inheritance. Rightly understood, however, this is rather a reason why election in the Christian sense should be made to embrace something higher and better. For the proper counterpart under the Gospel to those external relations of Judaism is the gift of grace and the heirship of glory—the lower in the one case shadowing the higher in the other—the outward and temporal representing the spiritual and eternal. Even Macknight, who cannot certainly be charged with any excess of the spiritual element in his interpretations, perceived the necessity of making, as he expresses it, “the natural seed the type of the spiritual, and the temporal blessings the emblems of the eternal.” Hence, he justly regards the outward professing Church in the one case, with its election to the earthly Canaan, as answering in the other to the “invisible Church, consisting of believers of all nations, who, partaking the nature of God by faith and holiness, are truly the sons of God, and have the inheritance of His blessing.”[96] [96] On Romans 9:8. For the other side see Whitby on the same chapter, and on 1 Peter 2:9; Graves Works, vol. iii., p. 233. Archbishop Whately, in his Essays on the Peculiarities of the Gospel, p. 95, gives the representation a somewhat different turn from Whitby and Graves. He regards the Israelites as not having been “elected absolutely and infallibly to enter the promised land, to triumph over their enemies, and live in security, wealth, and enjoyment; but only to the privilege of having these blessings placed within their reach, on the condition of their obeying the law which God had given them.” Whence, he infers, Christians are only elected in the same sense to the privileges of a Gospel condition and the promise of final salvation. In regard to election in the Gospel sense, such a representation vanishes before a few plain texts,—such as, “Many are called, but few are chosen;” “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus;” “according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world . . . having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.” If such passages do not imply election to a state of personal salvation, it is not in the power of language to express the idea. In regard to the Israelites, also, the election and the promise were made absolutely, “to thy seed will I give this laud,” and the proper inference respecting those who afterwards perished in the wilderness, without being permitted to enter the land, is simply, that they were not of that portion of the seed who were elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, to the promised inheritance. It is true they might justly be said to have lost it for disobeying the law; but viewed in respect to their connection with the calling and promise of God, it was their want of faith to connect them with these, their unbelief, which was the source of perdition, the root at once of their disobedience, and of the disinheritance which ensued. (Hebrews 3:19). The characteristic differences, with their respective limitations and apparent anomalies, may be briefly stated thus:—It belongs properly to the New dispensation to reveal divine and spiritual things distinctly to the soul, while in the Old they are presented under the veil of something outward and earthly. The spiritual and divine itself, which always, as a living undercurrent, ran beneath this exterior veil, might, even during the existence of the Old, come directly into view; but whenever it did so, there was no longer a figure or type of the true, but the true itself. Thus, in so far as the seed of Israel were found an election of God, actually partaking of the grace and blessing of the covenant,—in so far as they were a royal priesthood, circumcised in heart to the Lord,—they showed themselves to be possessed of the reality of a justified condition and a regenerated life. The exhibitions that may have been given by any of them of such a state, were not typical in the sense of foreshadowing something higher and better under the Gospel; and if those in whom they appeared are spoken of as types, it must be as specimens, not as adumbrations—patterns of what is common to the children of faith in every age. The only connection possible in such a case, is that which subsists between type and impression, exemplar and copy, not that between type and antitype. Turning to the things of the New dispensation, we have simply to reverse the statement now made. While here the spiritual and divine are exhibited in unveiled clearness, it is quite conceivable that they may at times have appeared under the distinctive guise of the Old, imbedded in fleshly and material forms. Especially might this be expected to happen at the beginning of the Gospel, when the transition was in the course of being made from the Old to the New, as the Messiah came forth to lay the foundations of His spiritual and everlasting kingdom on the external theatre of a present world. It was natural at such a time for God graciously to accommodate His ways to a weak faith, and facilitate its exercise, by making the things that appeared under the New, wear the very livery of those that prefigured them under the Old. This is precisely what was done in some of the more noticeable parts of Christ’s earthly history. But in so far as it was done,—that is, in so far as some outward transaction in the Old reappeared in a like outward transaction in the New,—their relation to each other could not properly be that of type and antitype, but only of exemplar and copy, unless the New Testament transaction, while it bore a formal resemblance to that of the Old, was itself at the same time the sensible exponent of some higher truth. If it were this, then the relation would still be substantially that of type and antitype. And such indeed it is, in the few cases which actually fall within the range of these remarks, and which, when superficially viewed, seem at variance with the principle of interpretation we are seeking to establish. Let us, in conclusion, glance at the cases themselves. The recall of the infant Jesus from the land of Egypt, after a temporary sojourn there, is regarded by the Evangelist Matthew as the correlative in New Testament times to the deliverance of Israel under the Old. It is impossible to overlook the indication of a similar connection, though none of the evangelists have expressly noticed it, between Israel’s period of trial and temptation for forty years in the wilderness, and Christ’s withdrawal into the wilderness to be tempted forty days of the devil. The Evangelist John sets the singular and apparently accidental preservation of Christ’s limbs on the cross, beside the prescription regarding the paschal lamb, not to let a bone of him be broken, and sees in the one a divinely appointed compliance with the other (John 19:36). And in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 13:12), the crucifixion of Jesus beyond the gates of Jerusalem is represented, not indeed as done to establish a necessary, but still as exhibiting an actual, correspondence with the treatment of those sin-offerings which were burned without the camp. There can be no doubt that in each of these instances of formal agreement between the Old and the New, the transactions look as if they were on the same level, and appear equally outward in the one as in the other. Shall we say then, that on this account they do not really stand to each other in the relation of type and antitype? or that there was some peculiarity in the later transactions, which still, amid the apparent sameness, raised them to a sufficient elevation above the earlier? This last supposition we conceive to be the correct one. First of all, it was not unnatural, when there was so little faith in the Church, and when such great things were in the course of being accomplished, that certain outward and palpable correspondences, such as we have noticed, should have been exhibited. It was a kind and gracious accommodation on the part of God to the ignorance and weakness of the times. The people were almost universally looking in the wrong direction for the things connected with the person and kingdom of Messiah; and He mercifully controlled in various respects the course and progress of events, so as, in a manner, to force on their notice the marvellous similarity of His working now to what He had done in the days of old. He did what was fitted to impress visibly upon the darker features of the evangelical history His own image and superscription, and to mark them out to men’s view as wrought according to the law of a foreseen and pre-established harmony. Yet we should not expect such obvious and palpable marks of agreement to be commonly stamped by the hand of God upon the new things of His kingdom, as compared with the old; we should rather regard them as a sort of extraordinary and peculiar helps granted to a weak and unenlightened faith at the beginnings of the kingdom. And even when so granted, we should not expect them to constitute the whole of the matter, but should suppose something farther to be veiled under them than immediately meets the eye—a deeper agreement, of which the one outwardly appearing was little more than the sign and herald. This supposition gathers strength when we reflect that the outward agreement, however manifest and striking in some respects, is still never so uniform and complete as to convey the impression that the entire stress lay there, or that it was designed to be anything more than a stepping-stone for the mind to rise higher. Thus, while the child Jesus was for a time located in Egypt, and again brought out of it by the special providence of God, like Israel in its youth; yet what a difference between the two cases—in the length of time spent in the transactions, and the whole circumstances connected with their accomplishment! Jesus and Israel alike underwent a period of temptation in a wilderness before entering on their high calling; but again, how widely different in the actual region selected for the scene of trial, and the time during which it was continued! Christ’s crucifixion beyond the gates of Jerusalem, and the preservation of His limbs from external violence, exhibited a striking resemblance to peculiarities in the sacrifices of the passover and sin-offering—enough to mark the overruling agency of God; but in other outward things there were scarcely less marked discrepancies—nothing, for example, in the sacrifices referred to, corresponding with the pierced side of Jesus, or His suspension on the cross; and nothing again in Jesus formally answering to the sacrificial rites of the imposition of hands, the sprinkling of blood, or the burning of the carcase. These, and other defects that might be named in the external correspondence between the New and the Old, plainly enough indicate that the outward agreement was, after all, not the main thing, nor the thing that properly constituted the typical connection between them. Else, where such agreement failed, the connection must have failed too; and in many respects Christ should not have been the “body” of the ancient shadows in more, perhaps, than those in which He actually was. Who would not shrink from such a conclusion?But we can find no consistent reason for avoiding it, except on the ground that the occasional outward coincidences between our Lord’s personal history and things in God’s earlier dispensations, were the signs of a typical relationship rather than that relationship itself,—a likeness merely on the surface, that gave notice of a deeper and more essential agreement. This peculiarity in some of the typical applications of Scripture, has its parallel in the applications also sometimes made of the prophecies. We merely point for examples to the employment by St John, John 19:37, of Zechariah 12:10, “They shall look on Me whom they have pierced,” or by St Matthew in Matthew 2:23, Matthew 8:17. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 113: 05.08. CHAPTER SEVENTH ======================================================================== Chapter Seventh.—The PlaceDue To The Subject OfTypology As A Branch Of Theological Study, And The Advantages Arising From Its Proper Cultivation. THE loose and incorrect views which so long prevailed on the subject of Typology, and which, till recently, had taken a direction tending at once to circumscribe their number and lessen their importance, have had the effect of reducing it to little more than a nominal place in the arrangement of topics calling for exact theological discussion. For any real value to be attached to it in the order of God’s revelations, or any light it is fitted to throw, when rightly understood, on the interpretation of Scripture, we search in vain amid the writings of our leading hermeneutical and systematic divines. The treatment it has most commonly received at their hands is rather negative than positive. They appear greatly more concerned about the abuses to which it may be carried, than the advantages to which it may be applied. And were it not for the purpose of exploding errors, delivering cautions, and disowning unwarrantable conclusions, it is too plain the subject would scarcely have been deemed worthy of any separate and particular consideration. If the discussion pursued through the preceding chapters has been conducted with any success, it must have tended to produce a somewhat different feeling upon the subject. Various points of moment connected with the purposes of God and the interpretation of Scripture must have suggested themselves to the reflective reader, as capable both of receiving fresh light, and of acquiring new importance from a well-grounded system of Typology. One entire branch of the subject its connection with the closely related field of prophecy—has already, on account of the principles involved in it, been considered in a separate chapter. At present we shall look to some other points of a more general kind, which have, however, an essential bearing on the character of a Divine revelation, and which will enable us to present, in a variety of lights, the reasonableness and importance of the views we have been endeavouring to establish. I. We mark, first, an analogy in God’s methods of preparatory instruction, as adopted by Him at different but somewhat corresponding periods of the Church’s history. In one brief period of its existence, the Church of the New Testament might be said to stand in a very similar relation to the immediate future, that the Church of the Old Testament generally did to the more distant future of Gospel times. It was the period of our Lord’s earthly ministry, during which the materials were in preparation for the actual establishment of His kingdom, and His disciples were subjected to the training which was to fit them for taking part in its affairs. The process that had been proceeding for ages with the Church, had, in their experience, to be virtually begun and completed in the short space of a few years. And we are justly warranted to expect, that the method adopted during this brief period of special preparation toward the first members of the New Testament Church, should present some leading features of resemblance to that pursued with the Old Testament Church as a whole, during her immensely more lengthened period of preparatory training. Now, the main peculiarity, as we have seen, of God’s method of instruction and discipline in respect to the Old Testament Church, consisted in the use of symbol and action. It was chiefly by means of historical transactions and symbolical rites that the ancient believers were taught what they knew of the truths and mysteries of grace. For the practical guidance and direction of their conduct they were furnished with means of information the most literal and express; but in regard to the spiritual concerns and objects of the Messiah’s kingdom, all was couched under veil and figure. The instruction given addressed itself to the eye rather than to the ear. It came intermingled with the things they saw and handled; and while it necessarily made them familiar with the elements of Gospel truth, it not less necessarily left them in comparative ignorance as to the particular events and operations in which the truth was to find its ultimate and proper realization. How entirely analogous was the course pursued by our Lord with His immediate disciples during the period of His earthly ministry! The direct instruction He imparted to them was, with few exceptions, confined to lessons of moral truth and duty—freeing the law of God from the false glosses of a carnal and corrupt priesthood, which had entirely overlaid its meaning, and disclosing the pure and elevated principles on which His kingdom was to be founded. But in regard to what might be called the mysteries of the kingdom,—the constitution of Christ’s person, the peculiar character of His work as the Redeemer of a sinful and fallen world, and the connection of all with a higher and future world,—little instruction of a direct kind was imparted up to the very close of Christ’s earthly ministry. On one or two occasions, when He sought to convey more definite information upon such points, the disciples either completely misunderstood His meaning, or showed themselves incapable of profiting by His instructions (Matthew 16:21-23; Luke 18:34; John 2:19-22, John 6). So that in the last discourse He held with them before His death, He spoke of the many things He had yet to say to them, but which, as they still could not bear them, had to be reserved to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, who should come and lead them into all the truth. Were they, therefore, left without instruction of any kind respecting those higher truths and mysteries of the kingdom?By no means; for throughout the whole period of their connection with Christ, they were constantly receiving such instruction as could be conveyed through action and symbol; or more correctly, through action and allegory, which was here made to take the place of symbol, and served substantially the same design. The public life of Jesus was full of action, and in that, to a large extent, consisted its fulness of instruction. Every miracle He performed was a type in history; for, on the outward and visible field of nature, it revealed the Divine power He was going to manifest, and the work He came to achieve in the higher field of grace. In every act of healing men’s bodily diseases, and supplying of men’s bodily wants, there was an exhibition to the eye of sense at once of His purpose to bring salvation to their souls, and of the principles on which that salvation should proceed. In like manner, when He resorted to the parabolic method of instruction, it was but another employment of the familiar and sensible things of nature, under the form of allegory, to convey still farther instruction respecting the spiritual and Divine things of His kingdom. The procedure, no doubt, involved a certain exercise of judgment toward those who had failed to profit, as they ought, by His more simple and direct teaching (Matthew 13:11-15). But for His own disciples it formed a cover, through which He could present to them a larger amount of spiritual truth, and impart a more correct idea of His kingdom, than it was possible for them, as yet, by any other method to obtain. Every parable contained an allegorical representation of some particular aspect of the kingdom, which, like the types of an earlier dispensation, only needed to be illuminated by the facts of Gospel history, to render it a clear and intelligible image of spiritual and Divine realities. In all, the outward and earthly was made to present the form of the inward and heavenly. Thus, the special training of our Lord’s disciples very closely corresponded to the course of preparatory dispensations through which the Church at large was conducted before the time of His appearing. Such an analogy, pursued in circumstances so altered, and through periods so widely different, bespeaks the consistent working and presiding agency of Him “who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” It furnishes also a ready and effective answer to the Socinian argument against the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, on account of the comparative silence maintained respecting them in the direct instructions of Christ. “Can such doctrines,” they have sometimes asked, “enter so essentially, as is alleged, into the original plan of Christianity, when its Divine author Himself says so little about them—when in all He taught His disciples there is at most but a limited number of passages which seem even to point with any definiteness in that direction?” Look, we reply, to the analogy of God’s dealings with His Church, and let that supply the answer. Christ and the mysteries of His redemption were the end of all the earlier proceedings of God, and of the institutions of worship He gave to His Church; and yet many centuries of preparatory instruction and discipline were permitted to elapse before the objects themselves were brought distinctly into view. Should it then be deemed strange or unaccountable that the persons immediately chosen by Christ to announce them, were made to undergo a brief but perfectly similar preparatory course, under the eye of their Divine Master? It could not have been otherwise. The facts of Christianity are the basis of its doctrines; and until those facts had become matter of history, the doctrines could neither be explicitly taught nor clearly understood. They could only be obscurely represented to the mind through the medium of typical actions, symbolical rites, or parabolical narratives. And it results as much from the essential nature of things as from the choice of its Divine Author, that the mode of instruction, which was continued through the lengthened probation of the Old Testament Church, should have found its parallel in “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” II. But there is an analogy of faith and practice which is of still greater importance than any analogy that may appear in the methods of instruction. However important it may be to note resemblances in the mode of communicating Divine truth, at one period as compared with another, it is more so to know that the truth, however communicated, has always been found one in its tendency and working; that the earlier and the later, the Old and the New Testament Churches, though differing widely in light and privilege, yet breathed the same spirit, walked by the same rule, possessed and manifested the same elements of character. A correct acquaintance with the Typology of Scripture alone explains how, with such palpable differences subsisting between them, there should still have been such essential uniformity in the result. In the writings of the New Testament, especially in the epistles, it is very commonly the differences between the Old and the New, rather than the agreements, that are pressed on our notice. A necessity for this arose from the abuse to which the Jews had turned the handwriting of ordinances delivered to them by Moses. In the carnality of their minds, they mistook the means for the end, embraced the shadow for the substance, and so converted what had been set up for the express purpose of leading them to Christ, into a mighty stumbling-block to obstruct the way of their approach to Him. On this account it became necessary to bring prominently out the differences between the preparatory and the ultimate schemes of God, and to show that what was perfectly suited to the one was quite unsuited to the other. But there were, at the same time, many real agreements of a most essential nature between them, and these also are often referred to in New Testament Scripture. Moses and Christ, when closely examined and viewed as to the more fundamental parts of their respective systems, are found to teach in perfect harmony with each other. The law and the prophets of the Old Testament, and the gospels and epistles of the New, exhibit but different phases of the same wondrous scheme of grace. The light varies from time to time in its clearness arid intensity, but never as to the elements of which it is composed. And the very differences which so broadly distinguish the Gospel dispensation from all that went before it, when taken in connection with the entire plan and purpose of God, afford evidence of an internal harmony and a profound agreement. The truth of what we say, if illustrated to its full extent, would require us to traverse almost the entire field of Scripture Typology. We shall therefore content ourselves here with selecting a single point, which, in its most obvious aspect, belongs rather to the differences than the agreements between the Old and the New dispensations. For in what do the two more apparently and widely differ from each other than in regard to the place occupied in them respectively by the doctrine of a future state? In the Scriptures of the New Testament, the eternal world comes constantly into view; it meets us in every page, inspirits every religious character, mingles with every important truth and obligation, and gives an ethereal tone and an ennobling impress to the whole genius and framework of Christianity. Nothing of this, however, is to be found in the earlier portions of the Word of God. That these contain no reference of any kind to a future state of rewards and punishments, we are far from believing, as will abundantly appear in the sequel. But still the doctrine of such a state is nowhere broadly announced, as an essential article of faith, in the revelations of Old Testament Scripture; it has no distinct and easily recognised place either in the patriarchal or the Levitical dispensations; it is never set forth as a formal ground of action, and is implied, rather than distinctly affirmed or avowedly acted on, excepting when it occasionally appears among the confessions of pious individuals, or in the later declarations of prophecy; so that, though itself one of the first principles of all true religion, there yet was maintained respecting it a studied caution and reserve in the revelations of God to men, up to the time when He came who was to “bring life and immortality to light.[97] [97] A clear proof in a single instance of what is here said of the Old Testament in respect to an eternal world, may be found in what is written of Enoch, “He was not, for God took him,” and this because he had walked with God. A causal connection plainly existed between his walk on earth and his removal to God’s presence; and yet this is so indicated as clearly to show that it was the Divine purpose to spread a veil of secrecy over the future world, as if the distinct knowledge of it depended on conditions that could not then be formally brought out. This obvious difference between the Old and the New Testament revelations, in respect to a future state, has been deemed such a palpable incongruity, that sometimes the most forced interpretations have been resorted to with the view of getting rid of the fact, while, at other times, extravagant theories have been proposed to account for it. But we have no need to look farther than to the typical character of God’s earlier dispensations for a satisfactory explanation of the difficulty and we shall find it in nothing else. For, leave this out of view suppose that God’s method of teaching and training the Old Testament Church was not necessarily formed on the plan of unfolding Gospel ideas and principles by means of earthly relations and fleshly symbols, then we see not how it could have consisted with Divine wisdom to keep such a veil hanging for so many ages over the realities of a coining eternity. But let the typical element be duly taken into account; let it be understood that inferior and earthly things were systematically employed of old to image and represent those which are heavenly and Divine; and then we shall be equally unable to see how it could have consisted with Divine wisdom to have disclosed the doctrine of a future state, otherwise than under the figures and shadows of what is seen and temporal. For this doctrine, in its naked form, stands inseparably connected with the facts of Christ’s death and resurrection, on which it is entirely based as a ground of consolation, and an object of hope to the believer. And if the one had been openly disclosed, while the other still remained under the veil of temporary shadows, utter confusion must necessarily have been introduced into the dispensations of God: the Old Covenant, with ordinances suited only to an inferior and preparatory course of training, should have possessed a portion of the light properly belonging to a complete and finished revelation. The ancient Church, with her faith in that case professedly directed on the eternal world, must have lost her symbolical relation to the present; her experiences must have been as spiritual, her life as hidden, her conflict with temptation, and victory over the world, as inward as those of believers under the Gospel. But then the Church of the Old Testament, being without the clear knowledge of Christ and His salvation, still wanted the true foundation for so much of a spiritual, inward, and hidden nature; and it must have been next to impossible to prevent false confidences from mingling with her expectations of the future, since she had only the shadowy and carnal in worship with which to connect the real and eternal in blessing. Is this not what actually happened in the case of the later Jews? In the course of that preparatory training through which they were conducted, an increasing degree of light was at length imparted, among other things, in respect to a future state of reward and punishment; the later Scriptures contained not a few quite explicit intimations on the subject (as in Hosea 13:14; Daniel 12:2; Isaiah 26:19); and by the time of Christ’s appearing, the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead to a world of endless happiness or misery, formed nearly as distinct and prominent an article in the Jewish faith as it does now in the Christian.—(Acts 23:6; Acts 26:6-8; Matthew 5:29; Matthew 10:28, etc.) Now, this had been well, and should have only disposed the Jews to give to Jesus a more enlightened and hearty reception, had they been careful to couple with the clearer view thus obtained, and the more direct introduction of a future world, the intimations that accompanied it of a higher and better dispensation—of the old things, under which they lived, being to be done away, that others of a nobler description might take their place. But this was what the later Jews, as a class, failed to do. Partial in their knowledge of Scripture, and confounding together the things that differed, they took the prospect of immortality as if it had been directly unfolded, and ostensibly provided for in the shadowy dispensation itself. The result necessarily was, that that dispensation ceased in their view to be shadowy; it contained in itself, they imagined, the full apparatus required for sinful men, to redeem them from the curse of sin, and bring them to eternal life; and whatever purposes the Messiah might come to accomplish, that He should supplant its carnal observances by something of a higher nature, and more immediately bearing on the immortal interests of man, formed no part of their expectations concerning Him. Thus, by coming to regard the doctrine of a future state of happiness and glory, as, in its naked or direct form, an integral part of the revelations of the Old Covenant, they naturally fell into two most serious mistakes. They first overlooked the shadowy nature of their religion, and exalted it to an undue rank by looking to it for blessings which it was never intended, unless typically, to impart; and then, when the Messiah came, they entirely misapprehended the great object of His mission, and lost all participation in His kingdom. So much, then, for the palpable difference in this respect between the Old and the New. There was a necessity in the case, arising from the very nature of the Divine plan. So long as the Church was under symbolical ordinances and typical relations, the future world must fall into the background; the things concerning it could only appear imaged in the seen and present. But that they did appear so imaged—in this, with all the outward diversity that prevailed, there still lay an essential agreement between the Old dispensation and the New. The minds of believers under the former neither were, nor could be, an entire blank in regard to a future state of being. From the very first—as we shall see afterwards, when we come to trace out the elements of the primeval religion—there was in God’s dealings and revelations toward them, what in a manner compelled them to look beyond a present world; it was so manifestly impossible to realize here, with any degree of completeness, the objects He seemed to have in view. And the under-current of thought and expectation thus silently awakened toward the future, was continually fed by everything being arranged and ordered in the present, so as to establish in their minds a profound conviction of a Divine retribution. The things connected with their relation to a worldly sanctuary, and an earthly inheritance of blessing, were one continued illustration of the principle so firmly expressed by Abraham, “that the Judge of all the earth must do right;” and, consequently, that in the final issues of things, “it must be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked.” The bringing distinctly out of this present recompense in the Divine administration, and with infinite variety of light and vividness of colouring, impressing it on the consciences of God’s people, was the peculiar service rendered by the ancient economy in respect to a coming eternity; and the peculiar service which, as a preparatory economy, it required to render. For the belief of a present retribution must, to a large extent, form the basis of a well-grounded belief in a future one. And for the believing Israelite himself, who lived under the operation of such strong temporal sanctions, and who was habituated to contemplate the unseen in the seen, the future in the past, there was everything in the visible movements of Providence around him, both to confirm in him the expectation of a coming state of reward and punishment, and to form him to the dispositions and conduct which might best prepare him for meeting it. His position so far differed from that of believers now, that he was not formally called to direct his views to the coming world, and he had comparatively slender means of information concerning its realities. But it agreed in this, that he too was a child of faith, believing in the retributive character of God’s administration; and in him, as well as in us, only in a more outward and sensible manner, this faith had its trials and dangers, its discouragements, its warrings with the flesh and the world, its times of weakness and of strength, its blessed satisfactions and triumphant victories. In short, his light, so far as it went, was the same with ours; it was the same also in the nature of its influence on his heart and conduct; and if he but faithfully did his part amid the scenes and objects around him, he was equally prepared at its close to take his place in the mansions of a better inheritance, though he might have to go to them as one not knowing whither he went.[98] [98] See Appendix B. Thus it appears, on careful examination, that all was in its proper place. A mutual adaptation and internal harmony binds together the Old and the New dispensations, even under the striking diversity that characterizes the two in respect to a future world. And the further the investigation is pursued, the more will such be found to be the case generally. It will be found that the connection of the Old with the New is something more than typical, in the sense of foreshadowing, or pre-figurative of what was to come; it is also inward and organic. Amid the ostensible differences, there is a pervading unity and agreement—one faith, one life, one hope, one destiny. And while the Old Testament Church, in its outward condition and earthly relations, typically shadowed forth the spiritual and heavenly things of the New, it was also, in so far as it realized and felt the truth of God presented to it, the living root out of which the New ultimately sprang. The rude beginnings were there, of all that exists in comparative perfection now. III. Another advantage resulting from a correct knowledge and appreciation of the Typology of ancient Scripture, is the increased value and importance with which it invests the earlier portions of revelation. This has respect more especially to the historical parts of Old Testament Scripture; yet not to these exclusively. For the whole of the Old Testament will be found to rise in our esteem, in proportion as we understand and enter into its typological bearing. But the point may be more easily and distinctly illustrated by a reference to its records of history. Many ends, undoubtedly, had to be served by these; and we must beware of making so much account of one, as if it were the whole. Even the least interesting and instructive parts of the historical records, the genealogies, are not without their use; for they supply some valuable materials both for the general knowledge of antiquity, and for our acquaintance, in particular, with that chosen line of Adam’s posterity which was to have its culmination in Christ. But the narratives in which these genealogies are imbedded, which record the lives of so many individuals, portray the manners and customs of such different ages and nations, and relate the dealings of God’s providence and the communications of His mind with so many of the earliest characters and tribes in the world’s history—these, in themselves, and apart altogether from any prospective reference they may have to Gospel times, are on many accounts interesting and instructive. Nor can they be attentively perused, as simple records of the past, without being found “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.” Yet when viewed only in that light, one-half their worth is still not understood; nor shall we be able altogether to avoid some feeling of strangeness occasionally at the kind of notices embraced in the inspired narrative. For whatever interest and instruction may be connected with it, how trifling often are the incidents it records! how limited the range to which it chiefly draws our attention! and how easy might it seem, at various points, to have selected other histories, which would have led the mind through scenes more obviously important in themselves, and less closely, perhaps, interwoven with evil! Unbelievers have often given to such thoughts as these an obnoxious form, and have endeavoured by means of them to bring sacred Scripture into discredit. But in doing so, they have only displayed their own onesidedness and partiality; they have looked at this portion of the Word of God in a contracted light, and away from its proper connection with the entire plan of revelation. Let the notices of Old Testament history be viewed in their subservience to the scheme of grace unfolded in the Gospel—let the field which it traverses, however limited in extent, and the transactions it describes, however unimportant in a political respect, be regarded as that field, and those transactions, through which, as on a lower and common stage, the Lord sought to familiarize the minds of His people with the truths and principles which were ultimately to appear in the highest affairs of His kingdom—let the notices of Old Testament history be viewed in this light, which is the one that Scripture itself brings prominently forward, and then what dignity and importance is seen to attach to every one of them! The smallest movements on the earth’s surface acquire a certain greatness, when connected with the law of gravitation; since then even the fall of an apple from the tree stands related to the revolution of the planets in their courses. And, in like manner, the relation which the historical facts of ancient Scripture bear to the glorious work and kingdom of Christ, gives to the least of them such a character of importance, that they are brought within the circle of God’s highest purposes, and are perceived to be in reality “the connecting links of that golden chain which unites heaven and earth.” This, however, is not all. While a proper understanding of the Typology of Scripture imparts an air of grandeur and importance to its smallest incidents, and makes the little relatively great, it does more. It warrants us to proceed a step farther, and to assert, that such personal narratives and comparatively little incidents as fill up a large portion of the history, not only might, without impropriety, have been admitted into the sacred record, but that they must to some extent have been found there, in order to adapt it properly to the end which it was intended to serve. It was precisely the limited and homely character of many of the things related, which rendered them such natural and easy stepping-stones to the discoveries of a higher dispensation. It is one thing that an arrangement exists in nature, which comprehends under the same law the falling of an apple to the ground, and the vast movements of the heavenly bodies; but it is another thing, and also true, that the perception of that law, as manifested in the motion of the small and terrestrial body—because manifested there on a scale which man could bring fully within the grasp of his comprehension—was what enabled him to mount upwards and scan the similar, though incomparably grander, phenomena of the distant universe. In this case, there was not only a connection in nature between the little and the great, but also such a connection in the order of man’s acquaintance with both, that it was the knowledge of the one that conducted him to the knowledge of the other. The connection is much the same that exists between the facts of Old Testament history and the all-important revelations of the Gospel—with this difference, indeed, that the laws and principles developed amid the familiar objects and comparatively humble scenes of the one, were not so properly designed to fit man for discovering, as for receiving when discovered, the sublime mysteries of the other. But to do this, it was not less necessary here than in the case above referred to, that the earlier developments should have been made in connection with things of a diminutive nature, such as the occurrences of individual history, or the transactions of a limited kingdom. A series of events considerably more grand and majestic could not have accomplished the object in view. They would have been too far removed from the common course of things; and would have been more fitted to gratify the curiosity and dazzle the imagination of those who witnessed or read of them, than to indoctrinate their minds with the fundamental truths and principles of God’s spiritual economy. This result could be best produced by such a series of transactions as we find actually recorded in the Scriptures of the Old Testament—transactions infinitely varied, yet always capable of being quite easily grasped and understood. And thus, what to a superficial consideration appears strange, or even objectionable, in the structure of the inspired record, becomes, on a more comprehensive view, an evidence of wise adaptation to the wants of our nature, and of supernatural foresight in adjusting one portion of the Divine plan to another. It will be readily understood, that what we have said of the purpose of God with reference more immediately to those who lived in Old Testament times, applies, without any material difference, to such as are placed under the Christian dispensation. For what the transactions required to be for the accomplishment of God’s purpose in regard to the one, the record of these transactions required to be for the accomplishment of His purpose in regard to the other. Whatever confirmation such things may lend to our faith in the mysteries of God—whatever force or clearness to our perceptions of the truth whatever encouragement to our hopes or direction to our walk in the life of holiness and virtue, it may all be said to depend upon the history being composed of facts so homely in their character and so circumscribed in their range, that the mind can without difficulty both realize their existence and enter into their spirit. IV. Another service, the last we shall notice, which a truly Scriptural Typology is fitted to render to the cause of Divine knowledge and practice, is the aid it furnisher to help out spiritual ideas in our minds, and enable us to realize them with sufficient clearness and certainty. This follows very closely on the consideration last mentioned, and may be regarded rather as a further application of the truth contained in it, than the advancement of something altogether new. But we wish to draw attention to an important advantage, not yet distinctly noticed, connected with the typical element in Old Testament Scripture, and on which to a considerable extent the people of God are still dependent for the strength and liveliness of their faith. It is true, they have now the privilege of a full revelation of the mind of God respecting the truths of salvation; and this elevates their condition as to spiritual things far above that of the Old Testament believers. But it does not thence follow, that they can in all respects so distinctly apprehend the truth in its naked spirituality, as to be totally independent of some outward exhibition of it. We are still in a state of imperfection, and are so much creatures of sense, that our ideas of abstract truth, even in natural science, often require to be aided by visible forms and representations. But things strictly spiritual and divine are yet more difficult to be brought distinctly within the reach and comprehension of the mind.—It was a relative advantage possessed by the Old Testament worshipper, in connection with his worldly sanctuary, and the more fleshly dispensation under which he lived, that spiritual and divine things, so far as they were revealed to him, acquired a sort of local habitation to his view, and assumed the appearance of a life-like freshness and reality. Hence chiefly arose that “impression of passionate in individual attachment,” as it has been called, which, in the authors of the Old Testament Scriptures, appears mingling with and vivifying their faith in the invisible, and which breathes in them like a breath of supernatural life. What Hengstenberg has said in this respect of the Book of Psalms, may be extended to Old Testament Scripture generally: “It has contributed vast materials for developing the consciousness of mankind, and the Christian Church is more dependent on it for its apprehensions of God than might at first sight be supposed. It presents God so clearly and vividly before men’s eyes, that they see Him, in a manner, with their bodily sight, and thus find the sting taken out of their pains. In this, too, lies one great element of its importance for the present times. What men now most of all need, is to have the blanched image of God again freshened up in them. And the more closely we connect ourselves with these sacred writings, the more will God cease to be to us a shadowy form, which can neither hear, nor help, nor judge us, and to which we can present no supplication.”[99] [99] Supplem. Treatises on Psalms, § 7. Besides, there are portions of revealed truth which relate to events still future, and. Do not at all come within the range of our present observation and experience, though very important as objects of faith and hope to the Church. It might materially facilitate our conception of these, and strengthen our belief in the certainty of their coming existence, if we could look back to some corresponding exemplar of things, either in the symbolical handwriting of ordinances, or in the typical transactions of an earthly and temporal kingdom. But this also has been prepared to our hand by God in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. And to show how much may be derived from a right acquaintance, both in this and in the other respect mentioned, with the typical matter of these Scriptures, we shall give here a twofold illustration of the subject—the one referring to truths affecting the present state and condition of believers, and the other to such as respect the still distant future. 1. For our first illustration we shall select a topic that will enable us, at the same time, to explain a commonly misunderstood passage of Scripture. The passage is 1 Peter 1:2, where, speaking of the elevated condition of believers, the Apostle describes them as “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” The peculiar part of the description is the last—“sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ—“which, being represented along with obedience as the end to which believers are both elected of the Father and sanctified of the Spirit, seems at first sight to be out of its proper place. The application of the blood of Christ is usually thought of in reference to the pardon of sin, or its efficacy in the matter of the soul’s justification before God; when, of course, its place stands between the election of the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit. Nor, in that most common reference to the effect of Christ’s blood, is it of small advantage for the attainment of a clear and realizing faith, that we have in many of the Levitical services, and especially in those of the great day of yearly atonement, an outward form and pattern of things by which more distinctly to picture out the sublime spiritual reality. It is plain, however, that the sprinkling of Christ’s blood, mentioned by St Peter, is not that which has for its effect the sinner’s pardon and acceptance (although Leighton and most commentators have so understood it); for it is not only coupled with a personal obedience, as being somewhat of the same nature, but the two together are set forth as the result of the electing and sanctifying grace of God upon the soul. The good here intended must be something inward and personal; something not wrought for us, but wrought upon us and in us; implying our justification, as a gift already received, but itself belonging to a higher and more advanced stage of our experience—to the very top and climax of our sanctification. What, then, is it? Nothing new, certainly, or of rare occurrence in the Word of God, but one often described in the most explicit terms; while yet the idea involved in it is so spiritual and elevated, that we greatly need the aid of the Old Testament types to give strength and vividness to our conceptions of it. The blood of the sacrifices, by which the covenant was ratified at the altar in the wilderness, was divided into two parts, with one of which Moses sprinkled the altar, and with the other the people (Exodus 24:6-8). A similar division and application of the blood was made at the consecration of Aaron to the priesthood (Exodus 29:20-21); and though it does not appear to have been formally, it was yet virtually, done on the day of the yearly atonement, since all the sprinklings on that day were made by the high priest, for the cleansing of defilements belonging to himself, his household, and the whole congregation. “Now” (says Steiger on 1 Peter 1:2), “if we represent to ourselves the whole work of redemption, in allusion to this rite, it will be as follows:—The expiation of one and of all sin, the propitiation, was accomplished when Christ offered His blood to God on the altar of the accursed tree. That done, He went with His blood into the most Holy Place. Whoso ever looks in faith to His blood, has part in the atonement (Romans 3:25); that is, he is justified on account of it, receiving the full pardon of all his sins (Romans 5:9). Thenceforth he can appear with the whole community of believers (1 John 1:7), full of boldness and confidence before the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), in order that he may be purified by Christ, as high priest, from every evil lust.” It is this personal purifying from every evil lust, which the Apostle describes in ritual language as “the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” and which is also described in the Epistle to the Hebrews, with a similar reference to the blood of Christ, by having “the heart sprinkled from an evil conscience,” and again, “by having the conscience purged from dead works to serve the living God.” The sprinkling or purging spoken of in these several passages, is manifestly the cleansing of the soul from all internal defilement, so as to dispose and fit it for whatever is pure and good, and the purifying effect is produced by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, or its spiritual application to the conscience of believers, because the blessed result is attained through the holy and divine life, represented by that blood, becoming truly and personally theirs. Now, this great truth is certainly taught with the utmost plainness in many passages of Scripture,—as, when it is written of believers, that “their hearts are purified by faith;” that they “purify themselves, even as Christ is pure;” or when it is said, that “Christ lives in them,” that “their life is hid with Him in God,” that “they are in Him that is true, and cannot sin, because their seed (the seed of that new, spiritual nature, to which they have been quickened by fellowship with the life of Jesus) remains in them;” and, in short, in every passage which connects with the pure and spotless life-blood of Jesus an impartation of life-giving grace and holiness to His people. I can understand the truth, even when thus spiritually, and, if I may so say, nakedly expressed. But I feel that I can obtain a more clear and comforting impression of it, when I keep my eye upon the simple and striking exhibition given of it in the visible type. For, with what effect was the blood of atonement sprinkled upon the true worshippers of the Old Covenant? With the effect of making whatever sacredness, whatever virtue (symbolically) was in that blood, pass over upon them: the life, which in it had flowed out in holy offering to God, was given to be theirs, and to be by them laid out in all pure and faithful ministrations of righteousness. Such precisely is the effect of Christ’s blood sprinkled on the soul; it is to have His life made our life, or to become one with Him in the stainless purity and perfection which expressed itself in His sacrifice of sweet-smelling savour to the Father. What a sublime and elevating thought! It is much, assuredly, for me to know, that, by faith in His blood, the crimson guilt of my sins is blotted out, Heaven itself reconciled, and the way into the holiest of all laid freely open for my approach. But it is much more still to know, that by faith in the same blood, realized and experienced through the power of the Holy Spirit, I am made a partaker of its sanctifying virtue; the very holiness of the Holy One of Israel passes into me; His life-blood becomes in my soul the well-spring of a new and deathless existence. So that to be sealed up to this fountain of life, is to be raised above the defilement of nature, to dwell in the light of God, and sit as in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And, amid the imperfections of our personal experience, and the clouds ever and anon raised in the soul by remaining sin, it should unquestionably be to us a matter of unfeigned thankfulness, that we can repair to such a lively image of the truth as is presented in the Old Testament service, in which, as in a mirror, we can see how high in this respect is the hope of our calling, and how much it is God’s purpose we should enter into the blessing. 2. There are revelations in the Gospel, however, which point to events still future in the Messiah’s kingdom; and in respect to these, also, the typical arrangements of former times are capable of rendering important service: a service, too, which is the more needed, as the things indicated, in regard to these future developments of the kingdom, are not only remote from present observation, but also in many respects different from what the ordinary course of events might lead us to expect. We do not refer to the last issues of the Gospel dispensation, when the concerns of time shall have become finally merged in the unalterable results of eternity; but to events, of which this earth itself is still to be the theatre, in the closing periods of Messiah’s reign. This prospective ground is in many points overlaid with controversy, and much concerning it must be regarded as matter of doubtful disputation. Yet there are certain great landmarks, which intelligent and sober-minded Christians can scarcely fail to consider as fixed. It is not, for example, a more certain mark of the Messiah who was to come, that He should be a despised and rejected man, should pass through the deepest humiliation, and, after a mighty struggle with evil, attain to the seat of empire, than it is of the Messiah who has thus personally fought and conquered, that He shall totally subdue all the adversaries of His Church and kingdom, make His Church co-extensive with the boundaries of the habitable globe, and exalt her members to the highest position of honour and blessing. For my own part, I should as soon doubt that the first series of events were the just object of expectation before, as the other have become since, the personal appearing of Christ; and for breadth and prominence of place in the prophetical portions, especially of New Testament Scripture, this has all that could be desired in its behalf. But how far still is the object from being realized? How unlikely, even, that it should ever be so, if we had nothing more to found upon than calculations of reason, and the common agencies of providence. That the progress of society in knowledge and virtue should gradually lead, at however distant a period, to the extirpation of idolatry, the abolition of the grosser forms of superstition, and a general refinement and civilisation of manners, requires no great stretch of faith to believe. Such a result evidently lies within the bounds of natural probability, if only sufficient time were given to accomplish it. But, suppose it already done, how much would still remain to be achieved, ere the glorious King of Zion should have His promised ascendancy in the affairs of men, and the spiritual ends for which He especially reigns should be adequately secured! This happy consummation might still be found at an unapproachable distance, even when the other had passed into a reality; nor are there wanting signs in the present condition of the world to awaken our fears lest such may actually be the case. For in those countries where the light of Divine truth and the arts of civilisation have become more widely diffused, we see many things prevailing that are utterly at variance with the purity and peace of the Gospel—numberless heresies in doctrine, disorders that seem to admit of no healing, and practical corruptions which set at defiance all authority and rule. In the very presence of the light of Heaven, and amid the full play of Christian influences, the god of this world still holds possession of by far the larger portion of mankind; and innumerable obstacles present themselves on every side against the universal diffusion and the complete ascendancy of the pure principles of the Gospel of Christ. When such things are taken into account, how hopeless seems the prospect of a triumphant Church and a regenerated world! of a Saviour holding the undivided empire of all lands! of a kingdom, in which there is no longer anything to offend, and all appears replenished with life and blessing! The partial triumphs which Christianity is still gaining in single individuals and particular districts, can go but a little way to assure us of so magnificent a result. And it may well seem as if other influences than such as are now in operation, would require to be put forth before the expected good can be realized. Something, no doubt, may be done to reassure the mind, by looking back on the past history of Christianity, and contrasting its present condition with the point from which it started. The small mustard-seed has certainly sprung into a lofty tree, stretching its luxuriant branches over many of the best regions of the earth. See Christianity as it appeared in its Divine Author, when He wandered about as a despised and helpless individual, attended only by a little band of followers as despised and helpless as Himself; or again, when He was hanging on a malefactor’s cross, His very friends ashamed or terrified to avow their connection with Him; or even at another and more advanced stage of its earthly history, when its still small, and now resolute company of adherents, unfurled the banner of salvation, with the fearful odds everywhere against them of hostile kings and rulers, an ignorant and debased populace, a powerful and interested priesthood, and a mighty host of superstitions, which had struck their roots through the entire framework of society, and had become venerable, as well as strong, by their antiquity. See Christianity as it appeared then, and see it now standing erect upon the ruins of the hierarchies and superstitions which once threatened to extinguish it—planted with honour in the regions where, for a time, it was scarcely suffered to exist—the recognised religion of the most enlightened nations of the earth, the delight and solace of the good, the study of the wise and learned, at once the source and the bulwark of all that is most pure, generous, free, and happy in modern civilisation. Comparing thus the present with the past—looking down from the altitude that has been reached upon the low and unpromising condition out of which Christianity at first arose, we are not without considerable materials in the history of the Gospel itself, for confirming our faith in the prospects which still wait for their fulfilment. On this ground alone it may scarcely seem more unlikely, that Christianity should proceed from the elevation it has already won to the greatly more commanding attitude it is yet destined to attain, than to have risen from such small beginnings, and in the face of obstacles so many and so powerful, to its present influential and honourable position. But why not revert to a still earlier period in the Church’s history?Why withhold from our wavering hearts the benefit which they might derive from the form and pattern of divine things, formerly exhibited in the parallel affairs of a typical and earthly kingdom?It was the Divine appointment concerning Christ, that He should sit upon the throne of David, to order and to establish it. In the higher sphere of God’s administration, and for the world at large, He was to do what had been done through David in the lower and on the limited territory of an earthly kingdom. The history of the one, therefore, may justly be regarded as the shadow of the other. But it is still only the earlier part of the history of David’s kingdom which has found its counterpart in the events of Gospel times. The Shepherd of Israel has been anointed King over the heritage of the Lord, and the impious efforts of His adversaries to disannul the appointment have entirely miscarried. The formidable train of evils which obstructed His way to the throne of government, and which were directed with the profoundest cunning and malice by him who, on account of sin, had been permitted to become the prince of this world, have been all met and overcome—with no other effect than to render manifest the Son’s indefeasible right to hold the sceptre of universal empire over the affairs of men. Now, therefore, He reigns in the midst of His enemies; but He must also reign till these enemies themselves are put down till the inheritance has been redeemed from all evil, and universal peace, order, and blessing have been established. Is not this also what the subsequent history of the earthly kingdom fully warrants us to expect? It was long after David’s appointment to the throne, before his divine right to reign was generally acknowledged; and still longer before the overthrow of the last combination of adversaries, and the termination of the last train of evils, admitted of the kingdom entering on its ultimate stage of settled peace and glory. The affairs of David himself never wore a more discouraging arid desperate aspect, than immediately before his great adversary received the mortal blow which laid him in the dust. After this, years had to elapse before the adverse parties in Israel were even externally subdued, and brought to render a formal acknowledgment to the Lord’s anointed. When this point again had been reached, what internal evils festered in the kingdom, and what smouldering fires of enmity still burned! Notwithstanding the vigorous efforts made to subdue these, we see them at last bursting forth in the dreadful and unnatural outbreak of Absalom’s rebellion, which threatened for a time to involve all in hopeless ruin and confusion. And with these internal evils and insurrections, how many hostile encounters had to be met from without! some of which were so terrible, that the very earth was felt, in a manner, to shake under the stroke (Psalms 60:1-12). Yet all at length yielded; and partly by the prowess of faith, partly by the remarkable turns given to events in providence, the kingdom did reach a position of unexampled prosperity, peace, and blessing. But in all this we have the development of a typical dispensation, bringing the assurance, that the same position shall in due time be reached in the higher sphere and nobler concerns of Messiah’s kingdom. The same determinate counsel and foreknowledge, the same living energy, the same overruling Providence, is equally competent now, as it is alike pledged, to secure a corresponding result. And if the people of God have but discernment to read aright the history of the past, and faith and patience to fulfil their appointed task, they will find that they have no need to despair of a successful issue, but every reason to hope that judgment shall at length be brought forth into victory. This one illustration may meanwhile be sufficient to show (others will afterwards present themselves), how valuable an handmaid to the unfulfilled prophecies of Scripture may be found in a correct acquaintance with its Typology. Its province does not, indeed, consist in definitely marking out before hand the particular agents and transactions that are to fill up the page of the eventful future. It performs the service which in this respect it is fitted to accomplish, when it enables us to obtain some insight—not into the what, or the when, or the instruments by which—but rather into the how and the wherefore of the future,—when it instructs us respecting the nature of the principles that must prevail, and the general lines of dealing that shall be adopted, in conducting the affairs of Messiah’s kingdom to their destined results. The future here is mirrored in the past; and the thing that hath been, is, in all its essential features, the same that shall be. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 114: 05.09. BOOK SECOND ======================================================================== Book Second. The Dispensation Of Primeval And Patriarchal Times. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 115: 05.10. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. ======================================================================== Preliminary Remarks. HITHERTO we have been occupied chiefly with an investigation of principles. It was necessary, in the first instance, to have these ascertained and settled, before we could apply, with any prospect of success, to the particular consideration of the typical materials of Old Testament Scripture. And in now entering on this, the more practical, as it is also the more varied and extensive, branch of our subject, it is proper to indicate at the outset the general features of the arrangement we propose to adopt, and notice certain landmarks of a more prominent kind that ought to guide the course of our inquiries. 1. As all that was really typical formed part of an existing dispensation, and stood related to a religious worship, our primary divisions must connect themselves with the Divine dispensations. These dispensations were undoubtedly based on the same fundamental truths and principles. But they were also marked by certain characteristic differences, adapting them to the precise circumstances of the Church and the world at the time of their introduction. It is from these, therefore, we must take our starting-points; and in these also should find the natural order and succession of the topics which must pass under our consideration. In doing so we shall naturally look, first, to the fundamental facts on which the dispensation is based; then to the religious symbols in which its lessons and hopes were embodied; and finally, to the future and subsidiary transactions which afterwards carried forward and matured the instruction. 2. In the whole compass of sacred history we find only three grand eras that can properly be regarded as the formative epochs of distinct religious dispensations. For, according to the principles already set forth (in Ch. IV.), the things directly belonging to creation, however they may have to be taken into account as presupposed and referred to in what followed, still do not here come into consideration as a distinct class, and calling for independent treatment. The three eras, then, are those of the fall, of the redemption from Egypt, and of the appearance and work of Christ, as they are usually designated; though they might be more fitly described, the first as the entrance of faith and hope for fallen man, the second as the giving of the law, and the third as the revelation of the Gospel. For it was not properly the fall, but the new state and constitution of things brought in after it, that, in a religious point of view, forms the first commencement of the world’s history. Neither is it the redemption from Egypt, considered by itself, but this in connection with the giving of the law, which was its immediate aim and object, that forms the great characteristic of the second stage, as the coming of grace and truth by Jesus Christ does of the third. Between the first and second of these eras two very important events intervened the deluge and the call of Abraham—both alike forming prominent breaks in the history of the period. Hence, not unfrequently, the antediluvian is distinguished from the patriarchal Church, and the Church as it existed before, from the Church as it stood after, the call of Abraham. But important as these events were, in the order of God’s providential arrangements, they mark no material alteration in the constitutional basis, or even formal aspect, of the religion then established. As regards the institutions of worship, properly so called, Abraham and his descendants appear to have been much on a footing with those who lived before the flood; and therefore not primary and fundamental, but only subsidiary, elements of instruction could be evolved by means of the events referred to. The same may also be said of another great event, which formed a similar break during the currency of the second period the Babylonish exile and return. This occupies a very prominent place in Scripture, whether we look to the historical record of the event or to the announcements made beforehand concerning it in prophecy. Yet it introduced no essential change into the spiritual relations of the Church, nor altered in any respect the institutions of her symbolical worship. The restored temple was built at once on the site and after the pattern of that which had been laid in ruins by the Chaldeans; and nothing more was aimed at by the immediate agents in the work of restoration, than the re-establishment of the rites and services enjoined by Moses. Omitting, therefore, the Gospel dispensation, as the antitypical, there only remain for the commencement of the earlier dispensations, in which the typical is to be sought, the two epochs already mentioned—those of Adam and Moses. 3. It is not simply the fact, however, of these successive dispensations which is of importance for our present inquiry. Still more depends for a well-grounded and satisfactory exhibition of Divine truth as connected with them, upon a correct view of their mutual and interdependent relation to each other; the relation not merely of the Mosaic to the Christian, but also of the Patriarchal to the Mosaic. For as the revelation of law laid the foundation of a religious state which, under the moulding influence of providential arrangements and prophetic gifts, developed and grew till it had assumed many of the characteristic features of the Gospel; so the original constitution of grace settled with Adam after the fall, comparatively vague and indistinct at first, gradually became more definite and exact, and, in the form of heaven-derived or time-honoured institutions, exhibited the germ of much that was afterwards established as law. In the primeval period nothing wears a properly legal aspect; and it has been one of the current mistakes, especially in this country, of theological writers,—a source of endless controversy and arbitrary explanations,—to seek there for law in the direct and obtrusive, when, as yet, the order of the Divine plan admitted of its existing only in the latent form. We read of promise and threatening, of acts and dealings of God, pregnant with spiritual light and moral obligation, meeting from the very first the wants and circumstances of fallen man; but of express and positive enactments there is no trace. Some of the grounds and reasons of this will be adverted to in the immediately following chapters. At present we simply notice the fact, as one of the points necessary to be kept in view for giving a right direction to the course of inquiry before us. Yet, on the other hand, while in the commencing period of the Church’s history we find nothing that bears the rigid and authoritative form of law, we find on every hand the foundations of law; and these gradually enlarging and widening, and sometimes even assuming a distinctly legal aspect, before the patriarchal dispensation closed. So that when the properly legal period came, the materials, to a considerable extent, were already in existence, and only needed to be woven and consolidated into a compact system of truth and duty. It is enough to instance, in proof of what has been stated, the case of the Sabbath, not formally imposed, though divinely instituted from the first the rite of piacular sacrifice, very similar (as we shall show) as to its original institution the division of animals into clean and unclean the consecration of the tenth to God—the sacredness of blood—the Levirate usage—the ordinance of circumcision. The whole of these had their foundations laid, partly in the procedure of God, partly in the consciences of men, before the law entered; and in regard to some of them the law’s prescriptions might be said to be anticipated, while still the patriarchal age was in progress. As the period of law approached, there was also a visible approach to its distinctive characteristics. And, without regard had to the formal difference yet gradual approximation of the two periods, we can as little hope to present a solid and satisfactory view of the progressive development of the Divine plan, as if we should overlook either their fundamental agreement with each other, or their common relation to the full manifestation of grace and truth in the kingdom of Christ. It must be borne in mind, that the Law—the intermediate point between the fall and redemption—had its preparation as well as the Gospel. 4. In regard to the mode of investigation to be pursued respecting particular types, as the first place is due to those which belonged to the institutions of religion, so our first care must be, according to the principles already established, to ascertain the views and impressions which, as parts of an existing religion, they were fitted to awaken in the ancient worshipper. It may, of course, be impossible to say, in any particular case, that such views and impressions were actually derived from them, with as much precision and definiteness as may appear in our description;for we cannot be sure that the requisite amount of thought and consideration was actually addressed to the subject. But due care should be taken in this respect, not to make the typical symbols arid transactions indicative of more than what may, with ordinary degrees of light and grace, have been learned from them by men of faith in Old Testament times. It is not, however, to be forgotten that, in their peculiar circumstances, much greater insight was attainable through such a medium, than it is quite easy for us now to realize. At first, believers were largely dependent upon it for their knowledge of Divine truth; it was their chief talent, and would hence be cultivated with especial care. Even afterwards, when the sources of information were somewhat increased, the disposition and capacity to learn by means of symbolical acts and institutions, would be materially aided by that mode of contemplation which has been wont to distinguish the inhabitants of the East. This proceeds (to use the language of Bähr) “on the ground of an inseparable connection subsisting between the spiritual and the bodily, the ideal and the real, the seen and the unseen. According to it, the whole actual world is nothing but the manifestation of the ideal one; the entire creation is not only a production, but, at the same time, also an evidence and a revelation of Godhead. Nothing real is merely dead matter, but is the form and body of something ideal; so that the whole world, even to its very stones, appears instinct with life, and on that account especially becomes a revelation of Deity, whose distinguishing characteristic it is to have life in Himself. Such a mode of viewing things in nature may be called emphatically the religious one; for it contemplates the world as a great sanctuary, the individual parts of which are so many marks, words, and letters of a grand revelation-book of Godhead, in which God speaks and imparts information respecting Himself. If, therefore, that which is seen and felt was generally regarded by men as the immediate impression of that which is unseen, a speech and revelation of the invisible Godhead to them, it necessarily follows, that if they were to have unfolded to them a conception of His nature, and to have a representation given them of what His worship properly consists in, the same language would require to be used which God spake with them; the same means of representation would need to be employed which God Himself had sanctioned—the sensible, the visible, the external.”[100] [100] Bähr’s Symbolik, B. I., p. 24. The conclusion here drawn appears to go somewhat farther than the premises fairly warrant. If the learned author had merely said that there was a propriety or fitness in employing the same means of outward representation, as they fell in with the prevailing cast of thought in those among whom they were instituted, and were thus wisely adapted to the end in view, we should have entirely concurred in the statement. But that such persons absolutely required to be addressed by means of a symbolical language in matters of religion could scarcely be admitted, without conceding that they were incapable of handling another and more spiritual one, and that consequently a religion of symbols must have held perpetual ascendancy in the East. Besides, it may well be questioned, whether this “peculiarly religious mode of viewing things,” as it is called, was not, to a considerable extent, the result of a symbolical religion already established, rather than the originating cause of such a religion. At all events, the real necessity for the preponderating carnality and outwardness of the earlier dispensations was of a different kind. It arose from the very nature of the institutions belonging to them, as temporary substitutes for the better and the more spiritual things of the Gospel; rendering it necessary that symbols should then hold the place of the coming reality. It is the capital error of Bähr’s system to give to the symbolical in religion a place higher than that which properly belongs to it; and so to assimilate too nearly the Old and the New—to represent the symbolical religion of the Old Testament as less imperfect than it really was, and inversely to convert the greatest reality of the New Testament—the atoning death of Christ—into a merely symbolical representation of the placability of Heaven to the penitent. But with this partial exception to the sentiments expressed in the quotation above given, there can be no doubt that the mode of contemplation and insight there described has remarkably distinguished the inhabitants of the East, and that it must have peculiarly fitted them for the intelligent use of a symbolical worship. They could give life and significance, in a manner we can but imperfectly understand, to the outward and corporeal emblems through which their converse with God was chiefly carried on. To reason from our own case to theirs would be to judge by a very false criterion. Accustomed from our earliest years to oral and written discourse, as the medium through which we receive our knowledge of Divine truth, and express the feelings it awakens in our bosom, we have some difficulty in conceiving how any definite ideas could be conveyed on the one side or the other, where that was so sparingly employed as the means of communication. But the “grey fathers of the world” were placed in other circumstances, having from their childhood been trained to the use of symbolical institutions as the most expressive and appropriate channels of Divine communion. So that the native tendency first, and then the habitual use strengthening and improving the tendency, must have rendered them adepts, as compared with Christian communities now, in perceiving the significance and employing the instrumentality of religious symbols. 5. When the symbolical institutions and services of former times shall have been explained in the manner now indicated, the next step will be to consider in detail the import and bearing of the typical transactions which took place during the continuance of each dispensation. In doing this, care will require, in the first instance, to be taken, that the proper place be assigned them as intended only to exhibit ideas subsidiary to those embodied in the religion itself. And as in reading the typical symbols, so in reading the typical transactions connected with them, we must make the views and impressions they were fitted to convey to those whom they immediately respected, concerning the character and purposes of God, the ground and measure of that higher bearing which they carried to the coming events of the Gospel. Nor are we here again to overlook that religious tendency and habit of mind which has been noticed as a general characteristic of the inhabitants of the East; for they would certainly be disposed to do with the acts of providence as with the works of creation—would contemplate them as manifestations of Godhead, or revelations in the world of sense of what was thought and felt in the higher world of spirit. Besides, it is to be borne in mind, that the historical transactions referred to were all special acts of Providence. While they formed part of the current events of history, they were, at the same time, so singularly planned arid adjusted, that the persons immediately concerned in them could scarcely overlook either their direct appointment by God, or their intimate connection with His plans and purposes of grace. It is the hand of God Himself that ever appears to be directing the transactions of Old Testament history. And the acts in which He more peculiarly discovers Himself being the operations of One whose grand object, from the period of the fall, was the foiling of the tempter and the raising up of a seed of blessing, they could scarcely fail to be regarded by intelligent and pious minds as standing in a certain relation to this centre-point of the Divine economy. In proportion as the people of God had faith to “wait for the consolation of Israel,” they would also have discernment to read, with a view to the better things to come, the disclosures of His mind and will, which were interwoven with the history of His operations. It is in this way we are chiefly to account for God’s frequent appearance on the stage of patriarchal history, and His more direct personal agency in the affairs of His chosen people. The things that happened to them could not otherwise have accomplished the great ends of their appointment; for through these God was continually making revelation of Himself, and bringing those who stood nearest to Him to a fuller acquaintance with His character as the God of life and blessing. It was therefore of essential moment to the object in view, that His people should be able without hesitation to regard them as indications of His mind: that they should not merely consider them as His, in the general sense in which it may be said that “God is in history;” but His also in the more definite and peculiar sense of conveying specific and progressive discoveries of the Divine administration. How could they have been recognised as such, unless the finger of God had, in some form, laid its distinctive impress upon them? Taking into account, therefore, all the peculiarities belonging to the typical facts of Old Testament history—the close relation in which they commonly stood to the rites and institutions of a religion of hope—the evident manner in which many of them bore upon them the interposition of God, and the place occupied by others in the announcements of prophecy;—they had quite enough to distinguish them from the more general events of providence, and were perfectly capable of ministering to the faith and the just expectations of the people of God. 6. We simply note farther, that when passing under review acts and institutions of God which stretch through successive ages and dispensations, there will necessarily recur, under somewhat different forms, substantially the same exhibitions of Divine truth. It was unavoidable but that all the more fundamental ideas of religion, and the greater obligations connected with it, should be the subject of many an ordinance in worship, and many a transaction in providence. The briefest mode of treatment, as it would naturally involve fewest repetitions, would be to classify, first the primary heads of doctrine and duty, and then arrange under them the successive exhibitions given of each in the future enactments and dealings of God, without adhering rigidly to the period of their appearance. This plan was partially followed in our first edition, but was found impracticable as a whole. We deem it necessary to keep by the historical order, though it may be occasionally attended with the disadvantage of having the same truths brought anew before us. For thus alone can we mark aright the course of development, which in a work of this nature is too important an element to be sacrificed to the fear of at times trenching on ground that may have been partially trodden before. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 116: 05.11. CHAPTER FIRST. ======================================================================== Chapter First. The Divine Truths Embodied In The Historical Transactions On Which The First Symbolical Religion For Fallen Man Was Based. ASSUMING our proper starting-point here to be the fall of man from his primeval state of integrity and bliss,—since it was that which opened the way for the manifestation of grace and the hope of redemption,—we are still not to throw into abeyance whatever belonged to the primeval state itself. For, while all was sadly changed by the unhappy event which had taken place, all was not absolutely lost. The knowledge which our first parents had of the work of creation, and of the character of God as therein displayed, could not altogether vanish from their minds; it had formed the groundwork of that adoration of God and fellowship with Him which constituted the religion of Paradise; and even after Paradise was lost, they must still have derived from it, and preserved in the depths of their spiritual being, some of the more fundamental elements of truth and duty. That all things were made by God, after the manner described in the commencing chapters of Genesis (whether in the precise terms there used or not); that as they came from His hand they were, one and all, very good; that the work of creation in six days was succeeded by a day of peculiar sacredness and rest; that man himself was made on the sixth day, as the crowning-point of creation—made in the image of God, and as such had all here below placed in a relation of subservience to him, while, just because he bore God’s image, he was bound to use all in obedience to the will of God, and for the glory of His name; these, and various other collateral points of knowledge, which must have been familiar to man before the fall,—since otherwise he should have been ignorant alike of his proper place and calling in creation,—could not fail to abide also with him after it. And since it pleased God not to destroy His fallen creature, but to perpetuate his existence on earth, and amid mingled experiences of good and evil to animate him with the prospect of ultimate recovery, it was to be understood of itself that all creation privileges and gifts stood as at first conferred, except in so far as they might be expressly recalled, or through the altered constitution of things placed in another relation to man than they originally held. Paradise itself, with its ample heritage of life and blessing, had ceased to be to him what it had been: though it was there still, and spoke as before of good, it spoke otherwise to him. But the mutual relation of the fallen pair themselves, the one to the other; their common relation to the world around them, with its living creatures and manifold productions; their farther and higher relation to God, as still bearing, though now sadly marred, His divine image, and called to reflect it by a becoming imitation of His example: these all remained in principle, only modified in action by the workings of sin on man’s part, and on God’s by the introduction of an economy of grace. Speaking generally, one may say, that in so far as a withdrawal took place of what had been originally given, or nature’s heritage of good was supplanted by experiences of evil, there was the bringing home to man’s bosom of the salutary truths and principles which required to enter as fundamental conditions into any religion which could be adapted to him as fallen. But in so far as the old things were allowed to remain, under altered relations or with other accompaniments than before, there was a linking of the past to the future, of creation to redemption—turning the one into a pledge, or requiring it to be understood as an image of a corresponding, though higher, good yet to be realized. The justice of these remarks will more distinctly appear when we come to the consideration of the particulars. In looking at these, however, with a view to estimate aright their religious aspect and bearing, we must keep in mind what has already been indicated respecting the position of our first parents, as the recent possessors of a holy nature, and the occupants of an elevated moral condition. For, while they had miserably fallen and become guilty before God, they had not sunk into total ignorance and perversion; and so were not dealt with by means of rigid enactments and a minutely prescribed directory of service, but rather with such consideration and regard as implied a recognition in them of a measure of that capacity and intelligence which had so lately been conversant with all that is pure and good. Possessing in God’s works and ways, along with the records of their own painful experience, the materials of knowing what concerning Him they should believe and do, they were left by the help of these, and with such grace as might now be expected by the penitent and believing, to discover the path of life and blessing. It was only as time proceeded, and dark events in providence betrayed the deep-seated and virulent corruption which had entered into humanity, that other and more stringent measures were resorted to, as well to inculcate lessons of necessary instruction, as to enforce a becoming obedience. Meanwhile, however, and looking to the conspicuous and intentional absence of these, we have to inquire what of divine truth and principle might be involved, first in the facts connected with the fall, then with the symbols and institutions of worship appointed to the fallen—indicating, as we proceed, the typical bearing which any of them might present to the future things of redemption. To the former of these, as the first in order, we now direct our attention. 1. What, in such an enumeration, is obviously entitled to rank first, is the doctrine of human guilt and corruption. From the moment of their transgression, our first parents knew that their relation to God had become sadly altered. The calm of their once peaceful bosoms was instantly agitated and disturbed by tormenting fears of judgment. Nor did these prove to be groundless alarms; they were the forerunners of a curse which was soon thundered in their ears by the voice of God, and written out in their exiled and blighted condition. It was impossible for them to escape the conviction, that they were no longer in the sight of God very good. And as their posterity grew, and one generation sprung up after another, the story of the lost heritage of blessing (no doubt perpetually repeated), and the still continued exclusion from the hallowed region of life, must have served to keep up the impression that sin had wholly corrupted the nature and marred the inheritance of man. Evidences were not long wanting to show, that sin in the first pair was evil in the root, which must, more or less, communicate itself to every branch of the human family. In the first-born of the family it sprang at once into an ill-omened maturity, as if to give warning of the disastrous results that might be expected in the future history of mankind. And constantly as the well-spring of life flowed on, the stream of human depravity swelled into a deeper and broader flood. There were things in God’s earlier procedure that were naturally fitted to check its working, and repress its growth—especially the mild forbearance and paternal kindness with which He treated the first race of transgressors—the wonderful longevity granted to them—the space left for repentance even to the greatest sinners, while still sufficient means were employed to convince them of their guilt and danger,—all seeming to betoken the tender solicitude of a father yearning over his infant offspring, and restraining for a season the curse that now rested on their condition, if so be they might be won to His love and service. But it was the evil, not the good, in man’s nature, which took advantage of this benign treatment on the part of God, to ripen into strength and fruitfulness. And, ere long, the very goodness of God found it needful to interpose, and relieve the earth of the mass of violence and corruption which, as in designed contrast to the benignity of Heaven, had come to usurp possession of the world. So that, looking simply to the broad facts of history, the doctrine of human guilt and depravity stands forth with a melancholy prominence and particularity which could leave no doubt concerning it upon thoughtful minds. 2. Another doctrine, which the facts of primeval history rendered it equally impossible for thoughtful minds to gainsay or overlook, is the righteousness of God’s character and government. For, that mankind should have been expelled from the region of life, and made subject to a curse which doomed them to sorrow and trouble, disease and death, in consequence of their violation of a single command of Heaven, was a proof patent to all, and memorable in the annals of the world, that everything in the Divine government is subordinate to the principles of rectitude. “There was in it,” as was strikingly and beautifully said by Irving, “a most sublime act of holiness. God, after making Adam a creature for an image and likeness of Himself, did resolve him into vile dust through viler corruption, when once he had sinned; proving that one act of sin was, in God’s sight, of far more account than a whole world teeming with beautiful and blessed life, which He would rather send headlong into death than suffer one sin of His creature to go unpunished. And though creation’s teeming fountain might flow on ever so long, still the flowing waters of created life must ever empty themselves into the gulph of death. This is a most sublime exaltation of the moral above the material, showing that all material beauty and blessedness of life is but, as it were, the clothing of one good thought, which, if it become evil, straightway all departs like the shadow of a dream.” Who could seriously reflect on this—on the good that was lost, and the inheritance of evil that came in its place—without being solemnly impressed with the conviction, that the sceptre of God’s government is a sceptre of righteousness, and that blessing might be expected under it only by such as love righteousness and hate iniquity? 3. But if nothing more had been manifested of God in the facts of primeval history than this—had He appeared only as a righteous judge executing deserved condemnation on the guilty, Adam and his fallen offspring might have been appalled and terrified before Him, but they could not have ventured to approach Him with acts of worship. We notice, therefore, as another truth brought out in connection with the circumstances of the fall, and an essentially new feature in the Divine character, the exhibition of grace which was then given on the part of God to the fallen. That everything was not subjected to instantaneous and overwhelming destruction, was itself a proof of the introduction of a principle of grace into the Divine administration. The mere respite of the sentence of death (which, if justice alone had prevailed, must have been executed on the very day of transgression), and the establishment of an order of things which still contained many tokens of Divine goodness, gave evidence of thoughts of mercy and loving-kindness in God toward man. But as no vague intimations, or even probable conclusions of reason, from the general course of Providence, could be sufficient to re-assure the heart on such a matter as this, an explicit assurance was given, that “the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent,”—which, however dimly understood at first, could not fail even then to light up the conviction in the sinful heart, that it was the purpose of God to aid man in obtaining a recovery from the ruin of the fall. The serpent had been the ostensible occasion and instrument of the fall,—the visible and living incarnation of the evil power which betrayed man to sell his birthright of life and blessing. And that this power should be destined to be not only successfully withstood, but bruised in the very head by the offspring of her over whom he had so easily prevailed, clearly bespoke the intention of God to defeat the malice of the tempter, and secure the final triumph of the lost. But this, if done at all, must evidently be done in a way of grace. All natural good had been forfeited by the fall, and death—the utter destruction of life and blessing—had become the common doom of humanity. Whatever inheritance, therefore, of good, or whatever opportunity of acquiring it, might be again presented, could be traced to no other source than the Divine beneficence freely granting what could never have been claimed on the ground of merit. And as the recovery promised necessarily implied a victory over the might and malice of the tempter, to be won by the very victims of his artifice, how otherwise could this be achieved than through the special interposition and grace of the Most High?Manhood in Adam and Eve, with every advantage on its side of a natural kind, had proved unable to stand before the enemy, to the extent of keeping the easiest possible command, and retaining possession of an inheritance already conferred. How greatly more unable must it have felt itself, if left unaided and alone, to work up against the evil, and destroy the destroyer! In such a case, hope could have found no solid footing to rest upon for the fulfilment of the promise, excepting what it descried in the gracious intentions and implied aid of the Promiser. And when it appeared, as the history of the world advanced, how the evil continued to take root and grow, so as even for a time to threaten the extermination of the good, the impression must have deepened in the minds of the better portion of mankind, that the promised restoration must come through the intervention of Divine power and goodness,—that the saved must owe their salvation to the grace of God. 4. Thus far the earliest inhabitants of the world might readily go in learning the truth of God, by simply looking to the broad and palpable facts of history. And without supposing them to have possessed any extraordinary reach of discernment, they might surely be conceived capable of taking one step more respecting the accomplishment of that salvation or recovery which was now the object of their desire and expectation. Adam saw—and it must have been one of the most painful reflections which forced itself on his mind, and one, too, which subsequent events came, not to relieve, but rather to embitter and aggravate—he saw how his fall carried in its bosom the fall of humanity; that the nature which in him had become stricken with pollution and death, went down thus degenerate and corrupt to all his posterity. It was plain, therefore, that the original constitution of things was based on a principle of headship, in virtue of which the condition of the entire race was made dependent on that of its common parent. And the thought was not far to seek, that the same constitution might somehow have place in connection with the work of recovery. Indeed, it seems impossible to understand how, excepting through such a principle, any distinct hope could be cherished of the attainment of salvation. By the one act of Adam’s disobedience, he and his posterity together were banished from the region of pure and blessed life, and made subject to the law of sin and death. Whence, in such a case, could deliverance come? How could it so much as be conceived possible, to re-open the way of life, and place the restored inheritance of good on a secure and satisfactory footing, except through some second head of humanity supernaturally qualified for the undertaking? A fallen head could give birth only to a fallen offspring—so the righteousness of Heaven had decreed; and the prospect of rising again to the possession of immortal life and blessing, seemed, by its very announcement, to call for the institution of another head, unfallen and yet human, through whom the prospect might be realized. Thus only could the Divine government retain its uniformity of principle in the altered circumstances that had occurred; and thus only might it seem possible to have the end it proposed accomplished. We do not suppose that the consideration of this principle of headship, as exhibited in the case of Adam and his posterity, could, of itself, have enabled those who lived immediately sub sequent to the fall, to obtain very clear or definite views in regard to the mode of its application in the working out of redemption. We merely suppose, that, in the circumstances of the case, there was enough to suggest to intelligent and discerning minds that it should in some way have a place. But the full understanding of the principle, and of the close harmony it establishes between the fall and redemption, as to the descending curse of the one and the distributive grace and glory of the other, can be perceived only by us, whose privilege it is to look from the end of the world to its beginnings, and to trace the first dawn of the Gospel to the effulgence of its meridian glory. Even the Jewish Rabbins, who were far from occupying the vantage-ground we have reached, could yet discern some common ground between the heritage of evil derived from Adam, and the good to be effected by Messiah. “The secret of Adam,” one of them remarks, “is the secret of the Messiah;” and another, “As the first man was the one that sinned, so shall the Messiah be the one to do sin away.”[101] They recognised in Adam and Christ the two heads of humanity, with whom all mankind must be associated for evil or for good. On surer grounds, however, than lay within the ken of their apprehension, we know that Adam was in this respect “the type of Him that was to come.”[102]—(Romans 5:14) But in this respect alone; for in all other points we have to think of differences, not of resemblances. The principle that belongs to them in common, stands simply in the relation they alike hold, the one to a fallen, the other to a restored offspring. The natural seed of Adam are dealt with as one with himself, first in transgression, and then in death, the wages of transgression. And, in like manner, the spiritual seed of Christ are dealt with as one with Him, first in the consummate righteousness He brought in, and then in the eternal life, which is its appointed recompense of blessing. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive”—all, namely, who stand connected with Christ in the economy of grace, as they do with Adam in the economy of nature. How could this be, but by the sin of Adam being regarded as the sin of humanity, and the righteousness of Christ as the property of those who by faith rest upon His name I Hence, in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, along with the facts which in the two cases attest the doctrine of headship, we find the parallel extended, so as to include also the respective grounds out of which they spring: “As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” [101] See Tholuck Comm. On Romans 5:12. [102] It is literally, “type of the future one” (τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος) the other or second Adam: not, however, generally, or in his creation state simply, for of that the Apostle is not speaking, but of his relation to an off spring whose case was involved in his own. The sentiment of the Apostle, taken in its proper connection, was quite correctly given by Theophylact, “For as the old Adam rendered all subject to his own fall, though they had not fallen, so Christ justified all, though they did nothing worthy of justification.” The Apostle’s authority, therefore, cannot be fairly quoted for anything more than we have stated in the text; and to isolate his expression, as some do, from the subject immediately discoursed of, and turn it into a general statement respecting a prefiguration of the second Adam irrespective of the fall in the first, is to bring in the Apostle as a witness to a point not distinctly before him. These statements of the Apostle are no more than an explanation of the facts of the case by connecting them with the moral government of God; and it is not in the power of human reason to give either a satisfactory view of his meaning, or a rational account of the facts themselves, on any other ground than this principle of headship. It has also many analogies in the constitution of nature and the history of providence to support it. And though, like every other peculiar doctrine of the Gospel, it will always prove a stone of stumbling to the natural man, it will never fail to impart peace and comfort to the child of faith. Some degree of this he will derive from it, even by contemplating it in its darkest side—by looking to the inheritance of evil which it has been the occasion of transmitting from Adam to the whole human race. For, humbling as is the light in which it presents the natural condition of man, it still serves to keep the soul possessed of just and elevated views of the goodness of God. That all are naturally smitten with the leprosy of a sore disease, is matter of painful experience, and cannot be denied without setting aside the plainest lessons of history. But how much deeper must have been the pain which the thought of this awakened, and how unspeakably more pregnant should it have appeared with fear and anxiety for the future, if the evil could have been traced to the operation of God, and had existed as an original and inherent element in the state and constitution of man! It was a great relief to the wretched bosom of the prodigal, and was all, indeed, that remained to keep him from the blackness of despair, to know that it was not his father who sent him forth into the condition of a swine-herd, and bade him satisfy his hunger with the husks on which they fed; a truly consolatory thought, that these husks and that wretchedness were not emblems of his father. And can it be less comforting for the thoughtful mind, when awakening to the sad heritage of sin and death, under which humanity lies burdened, to know that this ascends no higher than the first parent of the human family, and that, as originally settled by God, the condition of mankind was in all respects “very good?” The evil is thus seen to have been not essential, but incidental; a root of man’s planting, not of God’s; an intrusion into Heaven’s workmanship, which Heaven may again drive out. But a much stronger consolation is yielded by the consideration of this principle of headship, when it is viewed in connection with the second Adam; since it then assumes the happier aspect of the ground-floor of redemption—the actual, and, as far as we can perceive, the only possible foundation on which a plan of complete recovery could have been formed. Excepting in connection with this principle, we cannot imagine how a remedial scheme could have been devised, that should have been in any measure adequate to the necessities of the case. Taken individually and apart, no man could have redeemed either his own soul or the soul of a brother; he could not in a single case have recovered the lost good, far less have kept it in perpetuity if it had been recovered: and either Divine justice must have fore gone its claims, or each transgressor must have sunk under the weight of his own guilt and helplessness. But by means of the principle which admits of an entire offspring having the root of its condition and the ground of its destiny in a common head, a door stood open in the Divine administration for a plan of recovery co-extensive (hypothetically) with the work of ruin. And unless we could have assured ourselves of an absolute and continued freedom from sin (which even angelic natures could not do), we may well reconcile ourselves to such a principle in the Divine government as that which, for one man’s transgression, has made us partakers of a fallen condition, since in that very principle we perceive the one channel, through which access could he found for those who have fallen, to the peace and safety of a restored condition. He must know nothing aright of sin or salvation, who is in capable of finding comfort in this view of the subject. And yet there is a ground of comfort higher still, arising from the prospect it secures for believers of a condition better and safer than what was originally possessed by man before the fall. For the second Adam, who, as the new head of humanity, gives the tone and character to all that belongs to the kingdom of God, is incomparably greater than the first, and has received for Himself and His redeemed an inheritance corresponding to His personal worth and dignity. So that if the principle of which we speak appears, in the first instance, like a depressing load weighing humanity down to the very brink of perdition, it becomes at length a divine lever to raise it to a height far beyond what it originally occupied, or could otherwise have had any prospect of reaching. As the Apostle graphically describes in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” What an elevating prospect! destined to be conformed to the image of the Son of God, and in consequence to share with Him in the life, the blessedness, and the glory which He inherits in the kingdom of the Father! Coupling, then, the end of the Divine plan with the beginning, and entering with childlike simplicity into its arrangements, we find that the principle of headship, on which the whole hinges for evil and for good, is really fraught with the richest beneficence, and should call forth our admiration of the manifold wisdom and goodness of God; for through this an avenue has been laid open for us into the realms above, and our natures have become linked in fellowship of good with what is best and highest in the universe. It thus appears that there were four fundamental principles or ideas, which the historical transactions connected with the fall served strikingly to exhibit, and which must have been incorporated as primary elements with the religion then introduced. 1. The doctrine of human guilt and depravity; 2. Of the righteousness of God’s character and government; 3. Of grace in God as necessary to open, and actually opening, the door of hope for the fallen; 4. And, finally, of a principle of headship, by which the offspring of a common parent were associated in a common ruin, and by which again, under a new and better constitution, the heirs of blessing might be associated in a common restoration. In these elementary principles, however, we have rather the basis of the patriarchal religion, than the religion itself. For this, we must look to the symbols and institutions of worship. And, as far as appears from the records of that early time, the materials out of which these had at first to be fashioned were: The position assigned to man in respect to the tree of life, the placing before him of the cherubim and the flaming sword at the east of Eden, the covering of his guilt by the sacrifice of animal life, and his still subsisting relation to the day of rest originally hallowed and blessed by God. To this last may be added the marriage-relationship; for here also the general principle holds, that no formal change was introduced after the fall, and what was done at the first was virtually done for all times. But there still was a perceptible difference between the institution of marriage and the other things mentioned, viewed with respect to the matters now more immediately under consideration. This will be explained in the sequel; at present it is enough to state, that while we do not exclude marriage from our point of view, neither do we assign it exactly the same place as the other ordinances of primeval times. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 117: 05.12. CHAPTER SECOND. ======================================================================== Chapter Second.—The Tree Of Life. THE first mention made of the tree of life has respect to its place and use, as part of the original constitution of things, in which all presented the aspect of relative perfection and completeness. “Out of the ground,” it is said, “made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The special notice taken of these two trees plainly indicates their singular and preeminent importance in the economy of the primeval world; but in different respects. The design of the tree of knowledge was entirely moral: it was set there as the test and instrument of probation; and its disuse, if we may so speak, was its only allowable use. The tree of life, however, had its natural use, like the other trees of the garden; and both from its name, and from its position in the centre of the garden, we may infer that the effect of its fruit upon the human frame was designed to be altogether peculiar. But this comes out more distinctly in the next notice we have of it—when, from being simply an ordinance of nature, it passed into a symbol of grace. “And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground, from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” These words seem plainly to indicate, that the tree of life was originally intended for the food of man; that the fruit it yielded was the divinely appointed medium of maintaining in him the power of an endless life; and that now, since he had sinned against God, and had lost all right to the possession of such a power, he was debarred from access to the natural means of sustaining it, by being himself rigorously excluded from the garden of Eden. What might be the peculiar properties of that tree—whether in its own nature it differed essentially from the other trees of the garden, or differed only by a kind of sacramental efficacy attached to it—is not distinctly stated, and can be matter only of conjecture or of probable inference. But in its relation to man’s frame, there apparently was this difference between it and the other trees, that while they might contribute to his daily support, it alone could preserve in undecaying vigour a being to be supported. In accordance with its position in the centre of the garden, it possessed the singular virtue of ministering to human life in the fountainhead of upholding that life in its root and principle, while the other trees could only furnish what was needed for the exercise of its existing functions. They might have kept nature alive for a time, as the fruits of the earth do still; but to it belonged the property of fortifying the vital powers of nature against the injuries of disease and the dissolution of death.[103] [103] I have given here only what seems to be the fair and the general import of what is written in Genesis respecting the tree of life; but have avoided any deliverance on the much disputed point, whether by inherent virtue, or by a kind of sacramental efficacy, the fruit of this tree was intended to produce its life-giving influence upon man. The great majority of Protestant divines incline to the latter view; although it must be allowed, the idea of a sacramental virtue in a natural constitution of things seems somewhat out of place, and cannot very easily be distinguished from the Catholic view, which holds certain things to have been supernaturally conferred on Adam, and others to have belonged to him by natural constitution. But the subject, with reference to that specific question, is one on which we want materials for properly deciding, and regarding which opinions are almost sure to differ in the future, as they have done in the past. We could not well have a clearer proof of this, than is afforded by two of the latest commentators on Genesis two also, who are so generally agreed in sentiment, that they are engaged together in producing a commentary on the entire books of the Old Testament—Delitzsch and Keil. The former is of opinion that the passage, Genesis 3:22, distinctly intimates that the tree in question had “the power of life in itself,” “a power of perpetually renewing and gradually transforming the natural life of man.” (Comm. über die Genes., p. 154, 194, 2d ed.) And from this he draws the inference, that the fruit of the tree of knowledge also had the power of death in itself, rendering the participation of it deadly. Keil, however, is equally decided on the other side; he says, “We must not seek the power of the tree of life in the physical property of its fruit. No earthly fruit possesses the power of rendering immortal the life, to the support of which it ministers. Life has its root, not in the corporeity of man, but in his spiritual nature, in which it finds its stability and continuance, as well as its origin. The body formed of the dust of earth could not, as such, be immortal; it must either again return to earth and become dust, or through the Spirit be transformed into the immortal nature of the soul. The power is of a spiritual kind, which can transfuse immortality into the bodily frame. It could have been imparted to the earthly tree, or its fruit, only through a special operation of God’s word, through an agency which we can no otherwise represent to ourselves than as of a sacramental nature, whereby earthly elements are consecrated to become vessels and bearers of super natural powers.” (Bib. Comm. über die Bücher Moses, I. p. 45.) That such is the case now, there can be no doubt; but it may be questioned whether it does not proceed on too close an assimilation of matters in the primeval, to those of the existing, state of things. This was undoubtedly well known to Adam, as it was an essential part of the constitution of things around him. And if he had remained stedfast in his allegiance to God, ever restraining his desire from the tree of knowledge, and partaking only of the tree of life, he would have continued to possess life, in incorrupt purity and blessedness, as he received it from the hand of God, possibly also might have been conscious of a growing enlargement and elevation in its powers and functions. But choosing the perilous course of transgression, he forfeited his inheritance of life, and became subject to the threatened penalty of death. The tree of life, however, did not lose its life-sustaining virtue, because the condition on which man’s right to partake of it had been violated. It remained what God origin ally made it. And though effectual precautions must now be taken to guard its sacred treasure from the touch of polluted hands, yet there it stood in the centre of the garden still, the object of fond aspirations as well as hallowed recollections though enshrined in a sacredness which rendered it for the present inaccessible to fallen man. Why should its place have been so carefully preserved?and the symbols of worship, the emblems of fear and hope, planted in the very way that led to it? If not to intimate, that the privilege of partaking of its immortal fruit was only for a season withheld, not finally withdrawn waiting till a righteousness should be brought in, which might again open the way to its blessed provisions. For as the loss of righteousness had shut up the way, it was manifest that only by the return of righteousness could a fresh access to the forfeited food be attained. And hence it became, as we shall see, one of the leading objects of God’s administration, to disclose the necessity and unfold the nature and conditions of such a work of righteousness as might be adequate to so important an end. The relation man now occupied to the tree of life could of itself furnish no information on this point. It could only indicate that the inheritance of immortal life was still reserved for him, on the supposition of a true and proper righteousness being attained. So that in this primary symbolical ordinance, the hope which had been awakened in his bosom by the first promise, assumed the pleasing aspect of a return to the enjoyment of that immortal life from which, on account of sin, he was appointed to suffer a temporary exclusion. But, coupled as this hope was with the present existence of a fallen condition, and the certainty of a speedy return for the body to the dust of death, it of necessity carried along with it the expectation of a future state of being, and of a resurrection from the dead. The prospect of a deliverance from evil, and of a restored immortality of life and blessing, was not to be immediately realized. The now forbidden tree of life was to continue unapproachable, so long as men bore about with them the body of sin and death. They could find the way of life only through the charnel-house of the grave. And it had been a mocking of their best feelings and aspirations, to have held out to them the promise of a victory over the tempter, or to have embodied that promise in a new direction of their hopes toward the tree of life, if there had not been couched under it the assured prospect of a life after death, and out of it. In truth, religious faith and hope could not have taken form and being in the bosom of fallen men, excepting on the ground of such an anticipated futurity. Nor were there long wanting events in the history of Divine providence which would naturally tend to strengthen, in thoughtful and considerate minds, this hopeful anticipation of a future existence. The untimely death of Abel, and the translation of Enoch in the mid-time of his days, must especially have wrought in this direction; since, viewed in connection with the whole circumstances of the time, they could scarcely fail to produce the impression, that not only was the real inheritance of blessing to be looked for in a scene of existence beyond the present, but that the clearest title to this might be conjoined with a comparatively brief and contracted portion of good on earth. Such facts, read in the light of the promise, that the destroyer was yet to be destroyed, and a pathway opened to the lost for par taking anew of the food of immortality, could lead to but one conclusion that the good to be inherited by the heirs of promise necessarily involved a state of life and blessing after this. We find the later Jews—notwithstanding their false views respecting the Messiah—indicating in their comments some knowledge of the truth thus signified to the first race of worshippers by their relation to the tree of life. For, of the seven things which they imagined the Messiah should show to Israel, two were, the garden of Eden and the tree of life; and again, “There are also that say of the tree of life, that it was not created in vain, but the men of the resurrection shall eat thereof, and live for ever.”[104] These were but the glimmerings of light obtained by men who had to grope their way amid judicial blindness and the misguiding influence of hereditary delusions. Adam and his immediate offspring were in happier circumstances for the discernment of the truth now under consideration. And unless the promise of recovery remained absolutely a dead letter to them, and nothing was learned from their symbolical and expectant relationship to the tree of life (a thing scarcely possible in the circumstances), there must have been cherished in their minds the conviction of a life after death, and the hope of a deliverance from its corruption. Religion at the very first rooted itself in the belief of immortality.[105] [104] R. Elias ben Mosis, and R. Menahem, in Ainsworth on Genesis 3:1-24. [105] See farther at beginning of Ch. VI., sec. 6. So much for what the things connected with the tree of life imported to those whom they more immediately respected. Let us glance for a little to the fuller insight afforded into them for such as possess the later revelations of Scripture. “To-day,” said Jesus on the cross to the penitent malefactor, “to-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”—showing how confidently He regarded death as the way to victory, and how completely He was going to bruise the head of the tempter, since He was now to make good for Himself and His people a return to the region of bliss, which that tempter had been the occasion of alienating. “To him that overcometh,” says the same Jesus, after having entered on His glory, “will I give to eat of the tree of life, that is in the midst of the paradise of God.” And again, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”—(Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:14) The least we can gather from such declarations is, that everything which was lost in Adam, shall be again recovered in Christ for the heirs of His salvation. The far distant ends of revelation are seen embracing each other; and the last look we obtain into the workmanship of God corresponds with the first, as face answers to face. The same God of love and beneficence who was the beginning, proves Himself to be also the ending. It is the intermediate portion alone which seems less properly to hold of Him—being in so many respects marred with evil, and chequered with adversity to the members of His family. There, indeed, we see much that is unlike God—His once beautiful workmanship defaced the comely order of His government disturbed—the world He had destined for “the house of the glory of His kingdom,” rendered the theatre of a fierce and incessant warfare between the elements of good and evil, in which the better part is too often put to the worse—and humanity, which He had made to be an image of Himself, smitten in all its members with the wound of a sore disease, beset when living with numberless calamities, and becoming, when dead, the prey of its most vile and loathsome adversaries. How cheering to know that this unhappy state of disorder and confusion is not to be perpetual—that it occupies but the mid-region of time—and is destined to be supplanted in the final issues of providence by the restitution of all things to their original harmony and blessedness of life! The tempter has prevailed long, but, God be thanked, he is not to prevail for ever. There is yet to come forth from the world, which he has filled with his works of evil, new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness shall dwell—another paradise with its tree of life—and a ransomed people created anew after the image of God, and fitted for the high destiny of manifesting His glory before the universe. But great as this is, it is not the whole. The antitype is always higher than the type; and the work of grace transcends in excellence and glory the work of nature. When, therefore, we are told of a new creation, with its tree of life, and its paradisiacal delights yet to be enjoyed by the people of God, much more is actually promised than the simple recovery of what was lost by sin. There will be a sphere and condition of being similar in kind, but, in the nature of the things belonging to it, immensely higher and better than what was originally set up by the hand of God. All things proceeding from Him are beautiful in their place and season. And it is true of the paradise which has been lost, that its means of life and enjoyment were in every respect wisely adapted to the frames of those who were made for occupying it. But of these it is written, that they were “of the earth, earthy”—only relatively, not absolutely good—in themselves lumpish and infirm tenements of clay, and as such necessarily imperfect in their tastes, their faculties of action and enjoyment, as compared with what is found in the higher regions of existence. But, undoubtedly, the same adaptation that existed in the old creation between the nature of the region and the frames of its inhabitants, shall exist also in the new. And as the occupants here shall be the second Adam and His seed—the Lord from heaven, in whom humanity has been raised to peerless majesty and splendour there must also be a corresponding rise in the nature of the things to be occupied. A higher sphere of action and enjoyment shall be brought in, because there is a higher style of being to possess it. There shall not be the laying anew of earth’s old foundations, but rather the raising of these aloft to a nobler elevation—not nature revived merely, but nature glorified—humanity, no longer as it was in the earthy and natural man, but as it is and ever shall be in the spiritual and heavenly, and that placed in a theatre of life and blessing every way suitable to its exalted condition. Such being the case, it will readily be understood, that the promise, symbolically exhibited in the Old, and distinctly expressed in New Testament Scripture, of a return to paradise and its tree of life, is not to be taken literally. The dim shadow only, not the very image of the good to be possessed, is presented under this imperfect form. And we are no more to think of an actual tree, such as that which originally stood in the centre of Eden, than of actual manna, or of a material crown, which are, in like manner, promised to the faithful. These, and many similar representations found respecting the world to come, are but a figurative employment of the best in the past or present state of things, to aid the mind in conceiving of the future; as thus alone can it attain to any clear or distinct conception of them. Yet while all are figurative, they have still a definite and intelligible meaning. And when the assurance is given to sincere believers, not only of a paradise for their abode, but also of a tree of life for their participation, they are thereby certified of all that may be needed for the perpetual refreshment and support of their glorified natures. These shall certainly require no such carnal sustenance as was provided for Adam in Eden; they shall be cast in another mould. But as they shall still be material frameworks, they must have a certain dependence on the material elements around them for the possession of a healthful and blessed existence. The internal and the external, the personal and the relative, shall be in harmonious and fitting adjustment to each other. All hunger shall be satisfied, and all thirst for ever quenched. The inhabitant shall never say, “I am sick.” And like the river itself, which flows in perennial fulness from the throne of God, the well-spring of life in the redeemed shall never know interruption or decay. Blessed, then, it may be truly said, are those who do the commandments of God, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. What can a doomed and fleeting world afford in comparison of such a prospect? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 118: 05.13. CHAPTER THIRD ======================================================================== Chapter Third.—The Cherubim (And The Flaming Sword). THE truths symbolized by man’s new relation to the tree of life have still to be viewed in connection with the means appointed by God to fence the way of approach to it, and the creaturely forms that were now planted on its borders. “And the Lord God,” it is said, “placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” We can easily imagine that the sword, with its flaming brightness and revolving movements, might be suspended there simply as the emblem of God’s avenging justice, and as the instrument of man’s exclusion from the region of life. In that one service the end of its appointment might be fulfilled, and its symbolical meaning exhausted. Such, indeed, appears to have been the case. But the cherubim, which also had a place assigned them toward the east of the garden, must have had some farther use, as the sword alone would have been sufficient to prevent access to the forbidden region. The cherubim must have been added for the purpose of rendering more complete the instruction intended to be conveyed to man by means of the symbolical apparatus here presented to his contemplation. And as these cherubic figures hold an important place also in subsequent revelations, we shall here enter into a somewhat minute and careful investigation of the subject. The view we mean to exhibit cannot be said to differ radically from that presented in the first edition of this work; but it will certainly differ considerably in the mode of investigation pursued, and in some also of the results obtained. We leant formerly too much upon the representations of Bähr, which we now perceive to be in themselves, as well as in the purpose to which they are applied, of a more fanciful and objectionable nature than they at one time appeared. There is nothing to be expected here from etymological researches. Many derivations and meanings have been ascribed to the term cherub; but nothing certain has been established regarding it; and it may now be confidently assigned to that class of words, whose original import is involved in hopeless obscurity.[106] In the passage of Genesis above cited, where the word first occurs, not only is no clue given in regard to the meaning of the name, but there is not even any description presented of the objects it denoted; they are spoken of as definite forms or existences, of which the name alone afforded sufficient indication. This will appear more clearly if we adhere to the exact rendering: “And He placed (or, made to dwell) at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim—“not certain unknown figures or imaginary existences, but the specific forms of being, familiarly designated by that name. [106] Hofmann has lately revived the notion, that כְּרוּב (cherub) is simply: רְכוּב(chariot),with a not unusual transposition of letters; and conceives the name to have been given to the cherubim on account of their being employed as the chariot or throne of Jehovah (Weissagung und Erfüllung, L, p. 80). Delitzsch, too, is not disinclined to this derivation and meaning, though he would rather derive the term from כָּרַב (to lay hold of), and understands it of the cherubim as laying hold of and bearing away the throne of Jehovah (Die Genesis Ausgelegt, p. 46). Thenius in his Comm. on Kings also adopts this derivation, but applies it differently. Both derivations, and the ideas respecting the cherubim they are intended to support, are quite conjectural. In other parts of Scripture, however, the defect is in great measure supplied; and by comparing the different statements there contained with each other, and putting the whole together, we may at least approximate, if not absolutely arrive at, a full and satisfactory knowledge of the symbol. But in ascertaining the sense of Scripture on the subject, there are two considerations which ought to be borne in mind, as a necessary check on extreme or fanciful deductions. The first is, that in this, as well as in other religious symbols (those, for example, connected with food and sacrifice), there may have been, and most probably was, a progression in the use made of it from time to time. In that case, the representations employed at one period must have been so constructed as to convey a fuller meaning than those employed at another. Whatever aspects of Divine truth, therefore, may be discovered in the later passages which treat of the cherubim, should not, as a matter of course, be ascribed in all their entireness to the earlier. Respect must always be had to the relative differences of place and time. Another consideration is, that whatever room there may be for diversity in the way now specified, we must not allow any representation that may be given in one place—a specific representation—to impose a generic meaning on the symbol, which is not borne out, but possibly contradicted, by representations in others. Progressive differences can only affect what is circumstantial, not what is essential to the subject; and all that is properly fundamental in the cherubic imagery, must be found in accordance, not with a partial, but with the complete testimony of Scripture respecting it. With these guiding principles in our eye, we proceed to exhibit what may be collected from the different notices of Scripture on the subject—ranging our remarks under the following natural divisions: the descriptions given of the cherubim as to form and appearance, the designations applied to them, the positions assigned them, and the kinds of agency with which they are associated. 1. In regard to the first of these points—the descriptions given of the cherubim as to form and appearance—there is nothing very definite in the earlier Scriptures, nor are the accounts in the later perfectly uniform. Even in the detailed narrative of Exodus respecting the furniture of the tabernacle, it is still taken for granted, that the forms of the cherubim were familiarly known; and we are told nothing concerning their structure, besides its being incidentally stated that they had faces and wings. (Exodus 25:1-40, Exodus 37:1-29) It would seem, however, that while certain elements were always understood to enter into the composition of the cherub, the form given to it was not absolutely fixed, but admitted of certain variations. The cherubim seen by Ezekiel beneath the throne of God, are represented as having each four faces and four wings (Ezekiel 1:6); while in the description subsequently given by him of the cherubic representations on the walls of his visionary temple (Ezekiel 41:18-19), mention is made of only two faces appearing in each. In Revelation, again (Revelation 4:7-8), while four composite forms, as in Ezekiel, are adhered to throughout, the creatures are represented as not having each four faces, but having each a face after one of the four types; and the number of wings belonging to each is also different—not four, but six.[107] In the Apocalyptic vision the creatures themselves appear full of eyes, before and behind, as they do also in Ezekiel 10:12, where “their whole flesh, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings,” are said to have been full of eyes; but in Ezekiel’s first vision, the eyes were confined only to the wheels connected with the cherubim (Ezekiel 1:18). It is impossible, therefore, without doing violence to the accounts given in the several delineations, to avoid the conviction, that a certain latitude was allowed in regard to the particular forms: and that, as exhibited in vision at least, they were not altogether uniform in appearance. They were uniform, however, in two leading respects, which may hence be regarded as the more important elements in the cherubic form. They had, first, the predominating appearance of a man—a man’s body and gesture—as is evident, first, from their erect posture; then from Ezekiel 1:5, “they had the appearance of a man;” and also from the peculiar expression in Revelation 4:7, where it is said of the third, “that it had a face as a man”—which is best understood to mean, that while the other creatures were unlike man in the face, though like in the body, this was like in the face as well. The same inference is still further deducible from the part taken by the cherubim in the Apocalypse, along with the elders and the redeemed generally, in celebrating the praise of God. The other point of agreement is, that in all the descriptions actually given, the cherubim have a composite appearance with the form of a man, indeed, predominating, but with other animal forms combined those, namely, of the lion, the ox, and the eagle. [107] Vitringa justly remarks as to the difference between St John’s representation and Ezekiel’s respecting the faces, that “it is not of essential moment; for the beasts most intimately connected together form, as it were, one beast-existence, and it is a matter of indifference whether all the properties are represented as belonging to each of the four, or singly to each.” Now, there can be no doubt that these three creatures, along with man, make up together, according to the estimation of a remote antiquity, the most perfect forms of animal existence. They belong to those departments of the visible creation which constitute the first in rank and importance of its three kingdoms—the kingdom of animal life. And in that kingdom they belong to the highest class—to that which possesses warm blood and physical life in its fullest development. Nay, in that highest class they are again the highest; for the ox in ancient times was placed above the horse, on account of his fitness for useful and patient labour in the operations of husbandry. And hence the old Jewish proverb—“Four are the highest in the world—the lion among wild beasts, the ox among tame cattle, the eagle among birds, man among all (creatures); but God is supreme over all.” The meaning is, that in these four kinds are exhibited the highest forms of creature-life on earth, but that God is still infinitely exalted above these; since all creature-life springs out of His fulness, and is dependent on His hand. So that a creature compounded of all these—bearing in its general shape and structure the lineaments of a man, but associating with the human the appearance and properties also of the three next highest orders of animal existence—might seem a kind of concrete manifestation of created life on earth—a sort of personified creaturehood. But the thought naturally occurs, why thus strangely amalgamated and combined? If the object had been simply to afford a representation of creaturely existence in general by means of its higher forms, we would naturally have expected them to stand apart as they actually appear in nature. But instead of this they are thrown into one representation; and so, indeed, that however the representation may vary, still the inferior forms of animal life constantly appear as grafted upon, and clustering around, the organism of man. There is thus a striking unity in the diversity—a human ground and body, so to speak—in the grouped figures of the representation, which could not fail to attract the notice of a contemplative mind, and must have been designed to form an essential element in the symbolical representation. It is an ideal combination; no such composite creature as the cherub exists in the actual world; arid we can think of no reason why the singular combination it presents of animal forms, should have been set upon that of man as the trunk and centre of the whole, unless it were to exhibit the higher elements of humanity in some kind of organic connection with certain distinctive properties of the inferior creation. The nature of man is incomparably the highest upon earth, and towers loftily above all the rest by powers peculiar to itself. And yet we can easily conceive how this very nature of man might be greatly raised and ennobled by having superadded to its own inherent qualities, those of which the other animal forms now before us stand as the appropriate types. Thus, the lion among ancient nations generally, and in particular among the Hebrews, was the representative of king-like majesty and peerless strength. All the beasts of the field stand in awe of him, none being able to cope with him in might; and his roar strikes terror wherever it is heard. Hence the lion is naturally regarded as the king of the forest, where might is the sole ground of authority and rule. And hence, also, lions were placed both at the right and left of Solomon’s throne, as symbols of royal majesty and supreme power. As the lion among quadrupeds, so the eagle is king among birds, and stands preeminent in the two properties that more peculiarly distinguish the winged creation those of vision and flight. The term eagle-eyed has been quite proverbial in every age. The eagle perceives his prey from the loftiest elevation, where he himself appears scarcely discernible; and it has even been believed, that he can descry the smallest fish in the sea, and look with undazzled gaze upon the sun. His power of wing, however, is still more remarkable: no bird can fly either so high or so far. Moving with king-like freedom and velocity through the loftiest regions and the most extended space, we naturally think of him as the fittest image of something like angelic nimbleness of action. It is this more especially, or, we should rather say, this exclusively, which is symbolically associated with the eagle in Scripture. No reference is made there to the eagle’s strength of vision, but very frequent allusion to his extraordinary power of flight (Deuteronomy 28:49; Job 9:26; Proverbs 23:5; Habakkuk 1:8, etc.). And hence, too, in Revelation 4:7, the epithet flying is attached to the eagle, to indicate that this is the quality specially made account of.—Finally, the ox was among the ancients the common image of patient labour and productive energy. It naturally came to bear this signification from its early use in the operations of husbandry in ploughing and harrowing the ground, then bearing home the sheaves, and at last treading out the corn. On this account the bovine form was so frequently chosen, especially in agricultural countries like Egypt, as the most appropriate symbol of Deity, in its inexhaustible productiveness. And if associated with man, the idea would instinctively suggest itself of patient labour and productive energy in working. Such, then, not by any conjectural hypothesis or strained interpretations, but by the simplest reading of the descriptions given in the Bible, appear to have been the generic form and idea of the cherubim. It is absolutely necessary that we should apply the light furnished by those passages in which they are described, to those also in which they are not; and that what are expressly named and described as the cherubim, when seen in prophetic vision, must be regarded as substantially agreeing with those which had a visible appearance and a local habitation on earth—for, otherwise, the subject would be involved by Scripture itself in inextricable confusion. Assuming these points, we are warranted to think of the cherubim, wherever they are mentioned, as presenting in their composite structure, and having as the very basis of that structure, the form of man the only being on earth that is possessed of a rational and moral nature; yet combining, along with this, and organically uniting to it, the animal representatives of majesty and strength, winged velocity, patient and productive labour. Why united and combined thus, the mere descriptions of the cherubic appearances give no intimation; we must search for information concerning it in the other points that remain to be considered. So far, we have been simply putting together the different features of the descriptions, and viewing the cherubic figures in their individual characteristics and relative bearing.[108] [108] Hengstenberg, in his remarks on Revelation 4:7, regarding the cherubim as simple representations of the animal creation on earth, objects to any symbolical meaning being attached to the separate animal forms, on the special ground, that in that passage of Revelation it is the calf, not the ox, which is mentioned in the description—as it is also found once in the description of Ezekiel 1:7. He thinks this cannot be accidental, but must have been designed to prevent our attributing to it the symbolical meaning of productiveness, or such like; as no one would think of associating that idea with a calf. We are surprised at so weak an objection from such a quarter. There can be no doubt—and it is not only admitted but contended for by Hengstenberg himself in his Beiträge, i., p. 161, sq.—that in connection with that symbolical meaning the ox-worship of Egypt was erected, and from Egypt was introduced among the Israelites at Sinai, and again by Jeroboam at a later period. Yet in Scripture it is always spoken of, not as ox, or bull, or cow, but as calf-worship. This conclusively shows that, symbolically viewed, no distinction was made between ox and calf. And in the description of such figures as the cherubim, calf might very naturally be substituted for ox, simply on account of the smaller and more delicate outline which the form would present. It is possible the same appearance may partly have contributed to the idols at Bethel and Dan being designated calves rather than oxen. 2. We named, as our second point of inquiry, the designations applied to the cherubim in Scripture. The term cherubim itself being the more common and specific of these, would naturally call for consideration first, if any certain key could be found to its correct import. But this we have already assigned to the class of things over which a hopeless obscurity may be said to hang. There is another designation, however, originally applied to them by “Ezekiel, and the sole designation given to them in the Apocalypse, from which some additional light may be derived. This expression is in the original חַיוֹת, animantia, living ones, or living creatures. The Septuagint uses the quite synonymous term ζῶα; and this, again, is the word uniformly employed by St John, when speaking of the cherubim. It has been unhappily rendered by our translators beasts in the Revelation; thus incongruously associating with the immediate presence and throne of God mere animal existences, and identifying in name the most exalted creaturely forms of being in the heavenly places, with the grovelling symbolical head of the antichristian and ungodly powers of the world. This is what bears, in the Apocalypse, the distinctive name of the beast (θηρίον) ; and the name should never have been applied to the ideal creatures, which derive their distinctive appellation from the fulness of life belonging to them—the living ones. The frequency with which this name is used of the cherubim is remarkable. In Ezekiel and the Apocalypse together it occurs nearly thirty times, and may consequently be regarded as peculiarly expressive of the symbolical character of the cherubim. It presents them to our view as exhibiting the property of life in its highest state of power and activity; therefore, as creatures altogether instinct with life. And the idea thus conveyed by the name is further substantiated by one or two traits associated with them in Ezekiel and the Apocalypse. Such, especially, is the very singular multiplicity of eyes attached to them, appearing first in the mystic wheels that regulated their movements, and after wards in the cherubic forms themselves. For the eye is the symbol of intelligent life; the living spirit’s most peculiar organ and index. And to represent the cherubim as so strangely replenished with eyes, could only be intended to make them known to us as wholly inspirited. Accordingly, in the first vision of Ezekiel, in which the eyes belonged immediately to the wheels, “the spirit of the living creatures “is said to have been in the wheels (Ezekiel 1:20); where the eye was, there also was the intelligent, thinking, directive spirit of life. Another and quite similar trait, is the quick and restless activity ascribed to them by both writers—by Ezekiel, when he represents them as “running and returning” with lightning speed; and by St John, when he describes them as “resting not day or night.” Incessant motion is one of the most obvious symptoms of a plenitude of life. We instinctively associate the property of life even with the inanimate things that exhibit motion—such as fountains and running streams, which are called living, in contradistinction to stagnant pools, that seem dead in comparison. And in the Hebrew tongue, these two symbols of life—eyes and fountains—have their common symbolical meaning marked by the employment of the same term to denote them both (עַיִן). So that creatures which appeared to be all eyes and all motion, are, in plain terms, those in which the powers and properties of life were quite peculiarly displayed. We believe there is a still further designation applied to the same objects in Scripture—the seraphim of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-13). It is in the highest degree improbable, that the prophet should by that name, so abruptly introduced, have pointed to an order of existences, or a form of being, nowhere else mentioned in Scripture; but quite natural that he should have referred to the cherubim in the sanctuary, as the scene of the vision lay there; and the more especially, as three characteristics—the possession by each of six wings, the position of immediate proximity to the throne of God, and the threefold proclamation of Jehovah’s holiness—are those also which reappear again, at the very outset, in St John’s description of the cherubim. That they should have been called by the name of seraphim (burning ones) is no way inconsistent with this idea, for it merely embodies in a designation the thought symbolized in the vision of Ezekiel under the appearance of fire, giving forth flashes of lightning, which appeared to stream from the cherubim (Ezekiel 1:13). In both alike, the fire, whether connected with the name or the appearance, denoted the wrath, which was the most prominent feature in the Divine manifestation at the time. But as, in thus identifying the cherubim with the seraphim, we tread on somewhat doubtful ground, we shall make no further use of the thoughts suggested by it. It is right to notice, however, that the designation we have more particularly considered, and the emblematic representations illustrative of it, belong to the later portions of Scripture, which treat of the cherubim; and while we cannot but regard the idea thus exhibited, as essentially connected with the cherubic form of being, a fundamental element in its meaning, it certainly could not be by any means so vividly displayed in the cherubim of the tabernacle, which were stationary figures. Nor can we tell distinctly how it stood in this respect with the cherubim of Eden; we know not what precise form and attitude were borne by them. But not only the representations we have been considering—the analogy also of the cherubim in the tabernacle, with their outstretched wings, as in the act of flying, and their eyes intently directed toward the mercy-seat, as if they were actually beholding and pondering what was there exhibited, may justly lead us to infer, that in some way or another a life-like appearance was also presented by the cherubim of Eden. Absolutely motionless or dead-like forms would have been peculiarly out of place in the way to the tree of life. Yet of what sort this fulness of life might be, which was exhibited in the cherubim, we have still had no clear indication. From various things that have pressed themselves on our notice, it might not doubtfully have been inferred to be life in the highest sense—life spiritual and divine. But this comes out more prominently in connection with the other aspects of the subject which remain to be contemplated. 3. We proceed, therefore, to the point next in order—the positions assigned to the cherubim in Scripture. These are properly but two, and, by having regard only to what is essential in the matter, might possibly be reduced to one. But as they ostensibly and locally differ, we shall treat them apart. They are the garden of Eden, and the dwelling-place or throne of God in the tabernacle. The first local residence in which the cherubim appear, was the garden of Eden—the earthly paradise. What, however, was this, but the proper home and habitation of life? of life generally, but emphatically of the divine life? Everything there seemed to breathe the air, and to exhibit the fresh and blooming aspect of life. Streams of water ran through it to supply all its productions with nourishment, and keep them in perpetual healthfullness; multitudes of living creatures roamed amid its bowers, and the tree of life, at once the emblem and the seal of immortality, rose in the centre, as if to shed a vivifying influence over the entire domain. Most fitly was it called by the Rabbins “the land of life.” But it was life, we soon perceive, in the higher sense—life, not merely as opposed to bodily decay and dissolution, but as opposed also to sin, which brings death to the soul. Eden was the garden of delight, which God gave to man as the image of Himself, the possessor of that spiritual and holy life which has its fountainhead in God. And the moment man ceased to fulfil the part required of Him as such, and yielded himself to the service of unrighteousness, he lost his heritage of blessing, and was driven forth as an heir of mortality and corruption from the hallowed region of life. When, therefore, the cherubim were set in the garden to occupy the place which man had forfeited by his transgression, it was impossible but that they should be regarded as the representatives, not of life merely, but of the life that is in God, and in connection with which evil cannot dwell. This they were by their very position within the sacred territory—whatever other ideas may have been symbolized by their peculiar structure and more special relations. The other and more common position assigned to the cherubim is in immediate connection with the dwelling-place and throne of God. This connection comes first into view when the instructions were given to Moses regarding the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. As the tabernacle was to be, in a manner, the habitation of God, where He was to dwell and manifest Himself to His people, the whole of the curtains forming the interior of the tent were commanded to be inwoven with cherubic figures. But as the inner sanctuary was more especially the habitation of God, where He fixed His throne of holiness, Moses was commanded, for the erection of this throne, to make two cherubim, one at each end of the ark of the covenant, and to place them so, that they should stand without stretched wings, their faces toward each other, and toward the mercy-seat, the lid of the ark, which lay between them. That mercy-seat, or the space immediately above it, bounded on either side by the cherubim, and covered by their wings (Exodus 25:20), was the throne of God, as the God of the Old Covenant, the ideal seat of the Divine commonwealth in Israel. I said God to Moses, “will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment to the children of Israel.”—(Exodus 25:22) This is the fundamental passage regarding the connection of the cherubim with the throne of God; and it is carefully to be noted, that while the seat of the Divine presence and glory is said to be above the mercy-seat, it is also said to be between the cherubim. The same form of expression is used also in another passage in the Pentateuch, which may likewise be called a fundamental one, Numbers 7:89, “And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation (more properly, the tent of meeting) to speak with Him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy-seat that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cherubim.” Hence the Lord was spoken of as the God “who dwelleth between the cherubims,” according to our version, and correctly as to the sense; though, as the verb is used without a preposition in the original, the more exact rendering would be, the God who dwelleth-in (inhabiteth,) שׁכַן, or occupies יָשַׁבviz., as a throne or seat) the cherubim. These two verbs are interchanged in theform of expression, which is used with considerable frequency (for example, 1 Samuel 4:4; 2 Samuel 6:2; Psalms 80:1; Psalms 99:1, etc.); and it is from the use of the first of them that the Jewish term Shekinah (the indwelling), in reference to the symbol of the Divine presence, is derived. The space above the mercy-seat, enclosed by the two cherubim with their outstretched wings, bending and looking toward each other, was regarded as the local habitation which God possessed as a peculiar dwelling-place or occupied as a throne in Israel. And it is entirely arbitrary, and against the plain import of the two fundamental passages, to insert above, as is still very often done by interpreters (“dwelleth,” or “sitteth enthroned above the cherubim”); still more so to make anything depend, as to the radical meaning of the symbol, on the seat of God being considered above rather than between the cherubim. Hengstenberg is guilty of this error, when he represents the proper place of the cherubim as being under the throne of God, and holds that to be their first business though he disallows the propriety of regarding them as material supports to the throne (Comm. on Revelation 4:6). The meaning he adopts of the symbol absolutely required them to be in this position; since only by their being beneath the throne of God, could they with any fitness be regarded as imaging the living creation below, as subject to the overruling power and sovereignty of God. Hofmann and Delitzsch go still farther in this direction; and, adopting the notion repudiated by Hengstenberg, consider the cherubim as the formal bearers of Jehovah’s throne. Delitzsch even affirms, in opposition (we think) to the plainest language, that wherever the part of the cherubim is distinctly mentioned in Old Testament Scripture, they appear as the bearers of Jehovah and His throne, and that He sat enthroned upon the cherubim in the midst of the worldly sanctuary (Die Genesis Ausgelegt, p. 145). There are, in fact, only two representations of the kind specified. One is in Psalms 18:10, where the Lord is described as coming down for judgment upon David’s enemies, and in doing so, “riding upon a cherub, and flying upon the wings of the wind”—obviously a poetical delineation, in which it would be as improper to press closely what is said of the position of the cherub, as what is said of the wings of the wind. The one image was probably introduced with the view merely of stamping the Divine manifestation with a distinctively covenant aspect, as the other for the purpose of exhibiting the resistless speed of its movements. But if the allusion is to be taken less ideally, it must be borne in mind, that the manifestation described is primarily and pre-eminently for judgment, not as in the temple, for mercy; and this may explain the higher elevation given to the seat of Divine Majesty. The same holds good also of the other representation, in which the throne or glory of the Lord appears above the cherubim. It is in Ezekiel, where, in two several places (Ezekiel 1:26, Ezekiel 10:1), there is first said to have been a firmament upon the heads of the living creatures, and then above the firmament the likeness of a throne. The description is so palpably different from that given of the Sanctuary, that it would be absurd to subordinate the one to the other. We must rather hold, that in the special and immediate object of the theophany exhibited to Ezekiel, there was a reason for giving such a position to the throne of God—one somewhat apart from the cherubim, and elevated distinctly above them. And we believe that reason may be found, in its being predominantly a manifestation for judgment, in which the seat of the Divine glory naturally appeared to rise to a loftier and more imposing elevation than it was wont to occupy in the Holiest. This seems to be clearly indicated in Ezekiel 10:4, where, in proceeding to the work of judgment, the glory of the Lord is represented as going up from the cherub, and standing over the threshold of the house; immediately after which the house was filled with the cloud—the symbol of Divine wrath and retribution. We may add, that the statement in Revelation 4:6, where the cherubic forms are said to have appeared “in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne,” is plainly at variance with the idea of their acting as supports to the throne. The throne itself is described in Ezekiel 5:2, as being laid (ἐκεῖτο) in heaven, which excludes the supposition of any instruments being employed to bear it aloft. And from the living creatures being represented as at once in the midst of the throne, and round about it, nothing further or more certain can be inferred beyond their appearing in a position of immediate nearness to it. The elders sat round about the throne; but the cherubim appeared in it as well as around it—implying that theirs was the place of closest proximity to the Divine Being who sat on it. The result, then, which arises, we may almost say with conclusive certainty from the preceding investigation, is, that the kind of life which was symbolized by the cherubim, was life most nearly and essentially connected with God־־life as it is, or shall be, held by those who dwell in His immediate presence, and form, in a manner, the very inclosure and covering of His throne: pre-eminently, therefore, spiritual and holy life. Holiness becomes God’s house in general; and of necessity it rises to its highest creaturely representation in those who are regarded as compassing about the most select and glorious portion of the house—the seat of the living God Himself. Whether His peculiar dwelling were in the garden of Eden, or in the recesses of a habitation made by men’s hands, the presence of the cherubim alike proclaimed Him to be One, who indispensably requires of such as are to be round about Him, the property of life, and in connection with that the beauty of holiness, which is, in a sense, the life of life, as possessed and exercised by His intelligent offspring. 4. Our last point of scriptural inquiry was to be respecting the kinds of agency attributed to the cherubim. We naturally again revert, first, to what is said of them in connection with the garden of Eden, though our information there is the scantiest. It is merely said that the cherubim were made to dwell at the east of the garden, and a flaming sword, turning every way to keep the way to the tree of life. The two instruments the cherubim and the sword are associated together in regard to this keeping; and, as the text draws no distinction between them, it is quite arbitrary to say, with Bähr, that the cherubim alone had to do with it, and to do with it precisely as Adam had. It is said of Adam, that “God put him into the garden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15)—not the one simply, but both together. He had to do a twofold office in respect to the garden to attend to its cultivation, as far as might then be needful, and to keep or preserve it, namely, from the disturbing and desolating influence of evil. The charge to keep plainly implied some danger of losing. And it became still plainer, when the tenure of possession was immediately suspended on a condition, the violation of which was to involve the penalty of death. The keeping was to be made good against a possible contingence, which might subvert the order of God, and change the region of life into a charnel-house of death. Now it is the same word that is used in regard to the cherubim and the flaming sword: These now were to keep—not, however, like Adam, the entire garden, but simply the way to the tree of life; to maintain in respect to this one point the settled order of Heaven, and that more especially by rendering the way inaccessible to fallen man. There is here also, no doubt, a present occupancy; but the occupancy of only a limited portion, a mere pathway, and for the definite purpose of defending it from unhallowed intrusion. Still, not simply for defence; for occupancy as well as defence. And the most natural thought is, that as in the keeping there was a twofold idea, so a twofold representation was given to it; that the occupancy was more immediately connected with the cherubim, and the defence against intrusion with the flaming sword. One does not see otherwise what need there could have been for both. Nor is it possible to conceive how the ends in view could otherwise have been served. It was beyond all doubt for man’s spiritual instruction, that such peculiar instruments were employed at the east of the garden of Eden, to awaken and preserve in his bosom right thoughts of the God with whom he had to do. But an image of terror and repulsion was not alone sufficient for this. There was needed along with it an image of mercy and hope; and both were given in the appearances that actually presented themselves. When the eye of man looked to the sword, with its burnished and fiery aspect, he could not but be struck with awe at the thought of God’s severe and retributive justice. But when he saw, at the same time, in near and friendly connection with that emblem of Jehovah’s righteousness, living or life-like forms of being, cast pre-eminently in his own mould, but bearing along with his the likeness also of the choicest species of the animal creation around him־־when he saw this, what could he think but that still for creatures of earthly rank, and for himself most of all, an interest was reserved by the mercy of God in the things that pertained to the blessed region of life? That region could not now, by reason of sin, be actually held by him; but it was provisionally held—by composite forms of creature-life, in which his nature appeared as the predominating element. And with what design, if not to teach, that when that nature of his should have nothing to fear from the avenging justice of God, it should regain its place in the holy and blissful haunts from which it had mean while been excluded? So that, standing before the eastern approach to Eden, and scanning with intelligence the appearances that there presented themselves to his view, the child of faith might say to himself, That region of life is not finally lost to me. It has neither been blotted from the face of creation, nor entrusted to natures of another sphere. Earthly forms still hold possession of it. The very natures that have lost the privilege continue to have their representation in the new and unreal-like occupants that are meanwhile appointed to keep it. Better things, then, are doubtless in reserve for them; and my nature, which stands out so conspicuously above them all, fallen though it be at present, is assuredly destined to rise again, and enjoy in the reality what is there ideally and representatively assigned to it. There is nothing surely unnatural or far-fetched in such a line of reflection. It manifestly lay within the reach of the very earliest members of a believing seed; especially since the light it is supposed to have conveyed did not stand alone, but was only supplementary to that embodied in the first grand promise to the fallen, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. The supernatural machinery at the east of the garden merely showed how this bruising was to proceed, and in what result it might be expected to issue. It was to proceed, not by placing in abeyance the manifestation of Divine righteousness, but by providing for its being exercised without the fallen creature being destroyed. Nor should it issue in a partial, but in a complete recovery—nay, in the possession of a state higher than before. For the creaturehood of earth, it would seem, was yet to stand in a closer relation to the manifested glory of God, and was to become capable of enduring sights and performing ministrations which were not known in the original constitution of things on earth. It might not be possible, perhaps, for the primeval race of worshippers to go farther, or to get a more definite insight into the purposes of God, by contemplating the cherubim. We scarcely think it could. But we can easily conceive how the light and hope therewith connected would be felt to grow, when this embodied creaturehood—or, if we rather choose so to regard it, this ideal manhood was placed in the sanctuary of God’s presence and glory, and so as to form the immediate boundary and covering of his throne. A relation of greater nearness to the Divine was there evidently won for the human and earthly. And not that only, but a step also in advance toward the actual enjoyment of what was ideally exhibited. For while, at first, men in flesh and blood were not permitted to enter into the region of holy life occupied by the cherubim, but only to look at it from without, now the way was at length partially laid open, and in the person of the high priest, through the blood of atonement, they could make an approach, though still only at stated times, to the very feet of the cherubim of glory. The blessed and hopeful relation of believing men to these singular attendants of the Divine majesty rose thus more distinctly into view, and in more obvious connection also with the means through which the ultimate realization was to be attained. But the information in this line, and by means of these materials, reaches its furthest limit, when, in the Apocalyptic vision of a triumphant Church, the four and twenty elders, who represent her, are seen sitting in royal state and crowned majesty close beside the throne, with the cherubic forms in and around it. There, at last, the ideal and the actual freely meet together—the merely symbolical representatives of the life of God, and its real possessors, the members of a redeemed and glorified Church. And the inspiring element of the whole, that which at once explains all and connects all harmoniously together, is the central object appearing there of “a Lamb, as if it had been slain, in the midst of the throne, and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders.” Here the mystery resolves itself; in this consummate wonder all other wonders cease, all difficulties vanish. The Lamb of God, uniting together heaven and earth, human gilt and Divine mercy, man’s nature and God’s perfections, has opened a pathway for the fallen to the very height and pinnacle of created being. With Him in the midst, as a sun and shield, there is ground for the most secure standing, and for the closest fellowship with God. We must glance, however, at the other kinds of agency connected with the cherubim. In the first vision of Ezekiel, it is by their appearance, which we have already noticed, not by their agency, properly speaking, that they convey instruction regarding the character of the manifestations of Himself which the Lord was going to give through the prophet. But at Ezekiel 10:7, where the approaching judgment upon Jerusalem is symbolically exhibited by the scattering of coals of fire over the city, the fire is represented as being taken from between the cherubim, and by the hand of one of them given to the ministering angel to be cast forth upon the city. It was thus indicated— so far we can easily understand the vision—that the coming execution of judgment was not only to be of God, but of Him in connection with the full consent and obedient service of the holy powers and agencies around Him. And the still more specific indication might also be meant to be conveyed, that as the best interest of humanity required the work of judgment to be executed, so a fitting human instrument should be found for the purpose. The wrath of God, represented by the coals of fire, should not want the service of an appropriate earthly agency, as the coals were ministered by a cherub’s hand for the work of destruction. An entirely similar action, differing only in the form it assumes, is connected with the cherubim in Revelation 15:1-8 of Revelation, where one of the living creatures is represented as giving into the hands of the angels the seven last vials of the wrath of God. The rational and living creaturehood of earth, in its state of alliance and fellowship with God, thus appeared to go along with the concluding judgments, which were necessary to bring the evil in the world to a perpetual end. Nor is the earlier and more prominent action ascribed to them materially different—that connected with the seven-sealed Book. This book, viewed generally, unquestionably represents the progress and triumph of Christ’s kingdom upon earth over all that was there naturally opposed to it. The first seal, when opened, presents the Divine King riding forth in conquering power and majesty; the last exhibits all prostrate and silent before Him. The different seals, therefore, unfold the different stages of this mighty achievement; and as they successively open, each of the living creatures in turn calls aloud on the symbolic agency to go forth on its course. That agency, in its fundamental character, represents the judicial energy and procedure of God toward the sinfulness of the world, for the purpose of subduing it to Himself, of establishing righteousness and truth among men, and bringing the actual state of things on earth into conformity with what is ideally right and good. Who, then, might more fitly urge forward and herald such a work, than the ideal creatures in which earthly forms of being appeared replete with the life of God, and in closest contact with His throne?Such might be said to be their special interest and business. And hence, as there were only four of them in the vision (with some reference, perhaps, to the four corners of the earth),[109] and so one for but the first four seals of the book, the remaining symbols of this part of the Apocalyptic imagery were thrown into forms which did not properly admit of any such proclamation being uttered in connection with them.[110] [109] We say only perhaps; for though Hengstenberg and others lay much stress upon the number four, as the signature of the earth, yet there being only two in the tabernacle, would seem to indicate that nothing material depends on the number. We think that the increase from the original two to four may, with more probability of truth, be accounted for historically. When the temple was built, two cherubim of immense proportions were put into the Most Holy Place, and under these were placed the ark with its old and smaller cherubim: so that there were henceforth actually four cherubim over the ark. And as the form of Ezekiel’s vision, in its leading elements, was evidently taken from the temple, and John’s again from that, it seems quite natural to account for the four in this way. [110] Compare what is said on this subject in “Prophecy in its Distinctive Nature,” etc., p. 404, 5. We can discern the same leading characteristics in the farther use made of the cherubic imagery in the Apocalypse. They are represented as ceaselessly proclaiming, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come,” thereby showing it to be their calling to make known the absolute holiness of God, as infinitely removed, not merely from the natural, but also, and still more, from the moral imperfections and evils of creation. In their ascriptions of praise, too, they are represented not only as giving honour and glory, but also thanks, to Him that sitteth on the throne, and as joining with the elders in the new song that was sung to the Lamb for the benefits of His salvation.—(Revelation 4:9; Revelation 5:8) So that they plainly stand related to the redemptive as well as the creative work of God. And yet in all, from first to last, only ideal representatives of what pertains to God’s kingdom on earth, not as substantive existences themselves possessing it. They belong to the imagery of faith, not to her abiding realities. And so, when the ultimate things of redemption come, their place is no more found. They hold out the lamp of hope to fallen man through the wilderness of life, pointing his expectations to the better country. But when this country breaks upon our view—when the new heavens and the new earth supplant the old, then also the ideal gives way to the real. We see another paradise, with its river and tree of life, and a present God, and a presiding Saviour, and holy angels, and a countless multitude of redeemed spirits rejoicing in the fulness of blessing and glory provided for them; but no sight is anywhere to be seen of the cherubim of glory. They have fulfilled the end of their temporary existence; and when no longer needed, they vanish like the guiding stars of night before the bright sunshine of eternal day. To sum up, then: The cherubim were in their very nature and design artificial and temporary forms of being—uniting in their composite structure the distinctive features of the highest kinds of creaturely existence on earth—man’s first, and chiefly. They were set up for representations to the eye of faith of earth’s living creaturehood, and more especially of its rational and immortal, though fallen head, with reference to the better hopes and destiny in prospect. From the very first they gave promise of a restored condition to the fallen; and by the use afterwards made of them, the light became clearer and more distinct. By their designations, the positions assigned them, the actions from time to time ascribed to them, as well as their own peculiar structure, it was intimated that the good in prospect should be secured, not at the expense of, but in perfect consistence with, the claims of God’s righteousness; that restoration to the holiness must precede restoration to the blessedness of life; and that only by being made capable of dwelling beside the presence of the only Wise and Good, could man hope to have his portion of felicity recovered. But all this, they further betokened, it was in God’s purpose to have accomplished; and so to do it, as, at the same time, to raise humanity to a higher than its original destination—in its standing nearer to God, and greatly ennobled in its powers of life and capacities of working. Before passing from the subject of the cherubim, we must briefly notice some of the leading views that have been entertained by others respecting them. These will be found to rest upon a part merely of the representations of Scripture to the exclusion of others, and most commonly to a neglect of what we hold it to be of especial moment to keep prominently in view—the historical use of the cherubim of Scripture. That such must be the case with an opinion once very prevalent both among Jews and Christians, and not without its occasional advocates still,[111] which held them to be celestial existences, or more specifically angels, is obvious at first sight. For, the component parts of the cherubic appearance being all derived from the forms of being which have their local habitation on earth, it is terrestrial, as contradistinguished from celestial objects, which we are necessitated to think of. And their original position at the east of Eden would have been inexplicable, as connected with a religion of hope, if celestial and not earthly natures had been represented in them. The natural conclusion in that case must have been, that the way of life was finally lost for man. In the Apocalypse, too, they are expressly distinguished from the angels; and in Revelation 5:1-14 the living creatures and the elders form one distinct chorus (Revelation 5:8), while the angels form another (Revelation 5:11). There is more of verisimilitude in another and at present more prevalent opinion, that the cherubim represent the Church of the redeemed. This opinion has often been propounded, and quite recently has been set forth in a separate work on the cherubim.[112] It evidently fails, however, to account satisfactorily for their peculiar structure, and is of a too concrete and specific character to have been represented by such ideal and shifting formations as the cherubim of Scripture. [111] Elliott’s Horse Apoc. Introd.; partially adopted also, and especially in regard to the cherubim of Eden, by Mr Mills in a little work on Sacred Symbology, p. 136. [112] Doctrine of the Cherubim, by George Smith, F.A.S. These are more naturally conceived to have had to do with natures than with persons. Besides, it is plainly inconsistent with the place occupied by the cherubim in the Apocalyptic vision, where the four and twenty crowned elders obviously represent the Church of the redeemed. To ascribe the same office to the cherubim would be to suppose a double and essentially different representation of the same object. To avoid this objection, Vitringa (Obs. Sac. i. 846) modified the idea so as to make the cherubim in the Revelation (for he supposed those mentioned in Genesis 3:24 to have been angels) the representatives of such as hold stations of eminence in the Church, evangelists and ministers, as the elders were of the general body of believers. But it is an entirely arbitrary notion, and destitute of support in the general representations of Scripture; as, indeed, is virtually admitted by the learned author, in so peculiarly connecting it with the vision of St John. An opinion which finds some colour of support only in a single passage, and loses all appearance of probability when applied to others, is self-confuted. It was the opinion of Michaelis, an opinion bearing a vivid impress of the general character of his mind, that the cherubim were a sort of “thunder horses “of Jehovah, somewhat similar to the horses of Jupiter among the Greeks. This idea has so much of a heathen aspect, and so little to give it even an apparent countenance in Scripture, that no further notice need be taken of it. More acceptance on the continent has been found for the view of Herder, who regards the cherubim as originally feigned monsters, like the dragons or griffins, which were the fabled guardians among the ancients of certain precious treasures. Hence he thinks the cherubim are represented as first of all appointed to keep watch at the closed gates of paradise; and for the same reason were afterwards placed by Moses in the presence-chamber of God, which the people generally were not permitted to enter. Latterly, however, he admits they were differently employed, but more after a poetical fashion, and as creatures of the imagination. This admission obviously implies that the view will not stand an examination with all the passages of Scripture bearing on the subject. Indeed, we shall not be far wrong if we say, that it can stand an examination with none of them. The cherubim were not set up even in Eden as formidable monsters to fray sinful man from approaching it. They were not needed for such a purpose, as this was sufficiently effected by the flaming sword. Nor were they placed at the door, or about the threshold of the sanctuary, to guard its sanctity, as on that hypothesis they should have been, but formed a part of the furniture of its innermost region. And the later notices of the cherubim in Scripture, which confessedly present them in a different light, are not by any means independent and arbitrary representations: they have a close affinity, as we have seen, with the earlier statements; and we cannot doubt that the same fundamental character is to be found in all the representations. Spencer’s idea of the cherubim was of a piece with his views generally of the institutions of Moses: they were of Egyptian origin, and were formed in imitation of those monstrous compounds which played so prominent a part in the sensuous worship of that cradle of superstition and idolatry. Such composite forms, however, were by no means so peculiar to Egypt as Spencer represents. They were common to heathen antiquity, and are even understood to have been more frequently used in the East than in Egypt. Nor is it unworthy of notice, that of all the monstrous combinations which are mentioned in ancient writings, and which the more successful investigations of later times have brought to light from the remains of Egyptian idolatry, not one has an exact resemblance to the cherub: the four creature-forms combined in it seem never to have been so combined in Egypt; and the only thing approaching to it yet discovered, is to be found in India. It is quite gratuitous, therefore, to assert that the cherubim were of Egyptian origin. But even if similar forms had been found there, it would not have settled the question, either as to the proper origin or the real nature of the cherubim. If they were placed in Eden after the fall, they had a known character and habitation in the world many centuries before Egypt had a being. And then, whatever composite images might be found in Egypt or other idolatrous nations, these, in accordance with the whole character of heathen idolatry, which was essentially the deification of nature, must have been representations of the Godhead itself, as symbolized by the objects of nature; while the cherubim are uniformly represented as separate from God, and as ministers of righteousness before Him. So well was this understood among the Israelites, that even in the most idolatrous periods of their history, the cherubim never appear among the instruments of their false worship. This separate and creaturely character of the cherubim is also fatal to the opinion of those who regard them as “emblematical of the ever-blessed Trinity in covenant to redeem man,” which is, besides, utterly at variance with the position of the cherubim in the temple; for how could God be said to dwell between the ever-blessed Trinity?[113] And the same objections apply to another opinion, closely related to this, according to which the cherubim represent, not the Godhead person ally, but the attributes and perfections of God; are held to be symbolical personifications of these as manifested in God’s works and ways. This view has been adopted with various modifications by persons of great name, and of very different tendencies—such as Philo, Grotius, Bochart, Rosenmüller, De Wette; but it is not supported either by the fundamental nature of the cherubim or by their historical use. We cannot perceive, indeed, how the cherubim could really have been regarded as symbols of the Divine perfections, or personifications of the Divine attributes, without falling under the ban of the second commandment. It would surely have been an incongruity to have forbidden, in the strongest terms and with the severest penalties, the making of any likeness of God, and, at the same time, to have set up certain symbolical images of His perfections in the very region of His presence, and in immediate contact with His throne. No corporeal representation could consistently be admitted there of anything but what directly pointed to creaturely existences, and their relations and interests. And the nearest possible connection with God which we can conceive the cherubim to have been intended to hold, was that of shadowing forth how the creatures of His hand, and (originally) the bearers of His image on earth, might become so replenished with His spirit of holiness as to be, in a manner, the shrines of His indwelling and gracious presence. [113] It is Parkhurst, and the Hutchinsonian school, who are the patrons of this ridiculous notion. Horsley makes a most edifying improvement upon it, with reference to modern times: “The cherub was a compound figure, the calf (of Jeroboam) single. Jeroboam, therefore, and his subjects were Unitarians!”—(Works, vol. viii., 241). He forgot, apparently, that there were four parts in the cherub; so that not a trinity, but a quaternity, would have been the proper co-relative under the Gospel. Bähr, in his Symbolik, approaches more nearly to this view than any of the preceding ones, and theoretically avoids the more special objection we have urged against it; but it is by a philosophical refinement too delicate, especially without some accompanying explanation, to catch the apprehension of a comparatively unlearned and sensuous people. The cherubim, he conceives, were images of the creation in its highest parts—combining in a concentrated shape the most perfect forms of creature-life on earth, and, as such, serving as representatives of all creation. But the powers of life in creation are the signs and witnesses of those which, without limit or imperfection, are in God; and so the relative perfection of life exhibited in the cherubim symbolized the absolute perfection of life that is in God—His omniscience, His peerless majesty, His creative power, His unerring wisdom. The cherub was not an image of the Creator, but it was an image of the Creator’s manifested glory. We repeat, this is far too refined and shadowy a distinction to lie at the base of a popular religion, and to serve for instruction to a people surrounded on every hand by the gross forms and dense atmosphere of idolatry. It could scarcely have failed, in the circumstances, to lead to the worship of the cherubim, as, reflectively at least, the worthiest representations of God which could be conceived by men on earth. But if this evil could have been obviated, which we can only think of as an inseparable consequence, there is another and still stronger attaching to the view, which we may call an inseparable ingredient. For if the cherubim were representatives of created life, and thence factitious witnesses of the Creator’s glory; if such were the sum and substance of what was represented in them, then it was after all but a symbol of things in nature; and, unlike all the other symbols in the religion of the Old Testament, it must have borne no respect to God’s work, and character, and purposes of grace. That religion was one essentially adapted to the condition, the necessities, and desires of fallen man; and the symbolical forms and institutions belonging to it bear respect to God’s nature and dealings, not so much in connection with the gifts and properties of creation, as with the principles of righteousness and the hopes of salvation. If the cherubim are held to be symbolical only of what is seen of God in nature, they stand apart from this properly religious province: they have no real adaptation to the circumstances of a fallen world; they have to do simply with creative, not with redemptive manifestations of God; and so far as they are concerned, the religion of the Old Testament would after all have been, like the different forms of heathenism, a mere nature-religion. No further proof surely is needed of the falseness of the view in question; for, in a scheme of worship so wonderfully compact, and skilfully arranged toward a particular end, the supposition of a heterogeneous element at the centre is not to be entertained. We have already referred to the view of Hengstenberg, and shown its incompatibility to some extent with the scriptural representations. His opinions upon this subject, indeed, appear to have been somewhat fluctuating. In one of his earlier productions, his work on the Pentateuch, he expresses his concurrence with Bähr, and even goes so far as to say, that he regarded Bähr’s treatment of the cherubim as the most successful part of the Symbolik. Then in his Egypt and the Books of Moses, he gave utterance to an opinion at variance with the radical idea of Bähr, that the cherubim had a connection, both in nature and origin, with the sphinxes of Egypt. And in his work on the Revelation, he expressly opposes Bähr’s view, and holds that the living forms in the cherubim were merely the representation of all that is living on the earth. But representing the higher things on earth, they also naturally serve as representations of the earth itself; and God’s appearing enthroned above the cherubim symbolized the truth, that He is the God of the whole earth, and has everything belonging to it, matter and mind, subject to His control. As mentioned before, this view, if correct, would have required the position of the cherubim to be always very distinctly and manifestly below the throne of God; which, however, it does not appear to have been, except when the manifestation described was primarily for judgment. It leaves unexplained also the prominence given in the cherubic delineations to the form and likeness of man, and the circumstance that the cherubim should, in the Revelation, be nearer to the throne than the elders— placing, according to that view, the creation, merely as such, nearer than the Church. But the representation errs, rather as giving a partial and limited view of the truth, than maintaining what is absolutely contrary to it. It approaches, in our judgment, much nearer to the right view than that more recently set forth by Delitzsch, who considers the cherubim as simply the bearers of Jehovah’s chariot, and as having been placed originally at the eastern gate of Paradise, as if to carry Him aloft to heaven for the execution of judgment, should mankind proceed farther in the course of iniquity. A conceivable notion certainly! but leaving rather too much to the imagination for so early an age, and scarcely taking the form best fitted for working either on men’s fears or hopes! In the second edition of his work, published since the preceding was written, the learned author has somewhat modified his view of the cherubim. He still regards them as the bearers of Jehovah’s chariot; but lays stress chiefly upon the general idea that they appeared as the jealous guardians of Jehovah’s presence and glory—therefore, watchers by way of eminence. As this view has been already noticed, it does not call for any fresh consideration. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 119: 05.14. CHAPTER FOURTH. ======================================================================== Chapter Fourth.—Sacrificial Worship THE symbols to which our attention has hitherto been directed, were simply ordinances of teaching. They spake in language not to be mistaken of the righteous character of God, of the evil of sin, of the moral and physical ruin it had brought upon the world, of a purpose of grace and a prospect of recovery; but they did no more. There were no rites of service associated with them; nor of themselves did they call men to embody in any outward action the knowledge and principles they were the means of imparting. But religion must have its active services as well as its teaching ordinances. The one furnish light and direction, only that the other may be intelligently performed. And a symbolical religion, if it could even be said to exist, could certainly not have perpetuated itself, or kept alive the knowledge of Divine truth in the world, without the regular employment of one or more symbolical institutions fitted for the suitable expression of religious ideas and feelings. Now the only thing of this description which makes its appearance in the earlier periods of the world’s history, and which continued to hold, through all the after stages of symbolical worship, the paramount place, is the rite of sacrifice. We are not told, however, of the actual institution of this rite in immediate connection with the fall; and the silence of inspired history regarding it till Cain and Abel had reached the season of manhood, and the mention of it then simply as a matter of fact in the narrative of their lives, has given rise to much disputation concerning the origin of sacrifice—whether it was of Divine appointment, or of human invention? And if the latter, to what circumstances in man’s condition, or to what views and feelings naturally arising in his mind, might it owe its existence? In the investigation of these questions, a line of inquiry has not unfrequently been pursued by theologians, more befitting the position of philosophical reasoners than of Christian divines. The solution has been sought for chiefly in the general attributes of human nature, and the practices of a remote and semi-barbarous heathenism, as if Scripture were entirely silent upon the subject till we come far down the stream of time. Discarding such a mode of conducting the investigation, and looking to the notices of Scripture for our only certain light upon the subject, we hope, without material difficulty, to find our way to conclusions on the leading points connected with it, which may be generally acquiesced in as legitimately drawn and firmly established. 1. In regard, first of all, to the Divine authority and accept able nature of worship by sacrifice,—which is often mixed up with the consideration of its origin,—Scripture leaves very little room for controversy. The only debateable ground, as concerns this aspect of the matter, respects that very limited period of time which stretches from the fall of Adam to the offerings of Cain and Abel. From this latter period,—verging, too, on the very commencement of the world’s history,—we are expressly informed that sacrifice of one kind had a recognised place in the worship of God, and met with His acceptance. Not only did Abel appear before God with a sacrificial offering, but by a visible token of approval—conveyed in all probability through some action of the cherubim or the flaming sword, near which, as the seat of the manifested presence of God, the service would naturally be performed—the seal was given of the Divine acceptance and blessing. Thenceforth, at least, sacrifice presented after the manner of Abel’s might be regarded as of Divine authority. It bore distinctly impressed upon it the warrant and approbation of Heaven; and whatever uncertainty might hang around it during the brief space which intervened between the fall and the time of Abel’s accepted offering, it was from that time determined to be a mode of worship with which God was well pleased. We might rather say the mode of worship; for sacrifice, accompanied, it is probable, with some words of prayer, is the only stated act of worship by which believers in the earlier ages appear to have given more formal expression to their faith and hope in God. When it is said of the times of Enos, the grandson of Adam in the pious line of Seth, that “then men began to call upon the name of the Lord,” there can be little doubt that they did so after the example of Abel, by the presentation of sacrifice—only, as profiting by the fatal result of his personal dispute with Cain, in a more public and regularly concerted manner. It appears to have been then agreed among the worshippers of Jehovah, what offerings to present, and how to do so; as, in later times, it is frequently reported of Abraham and his family, in connection with their having built an altar, that they then “called upon the name of the Lord.”—(Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:4; Genesis 26:25) That sacrifice held the same place in the instituted worship of God after the deluge, which it had done before, we learn, first of all, from the case of Noah—the connecting link between the old and new worlds—who no sooner left the ark than he built an altar to the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings of every clean beast and fowl, from which the Lord is said to have smelled a sweet savour. In the delineation given of the earlier patriarchal times in the Book of Job, we find him not only spoken of as exhibiting his piety in the stated presentation of burnt-offerings, but also as expressly required by God to make sacrifice for the atonement of his friends, who had sinned with their lips in speaking what was not right. And as we have undoubted testimonies respecting the acceptable character of the worship performed by Abraham and his chosen seed, so we learn that in this worship sacrificial offerings played the principal part, and were even sometimes directly enjoined by God.—(Genesis 15:9-10; Genesis 15:17; Genesis 22:2; Genesis 22:13; Genesis 35:1, etc.) The very latest of these notices in sacred history carry us up to a period far beyond that to which the authentic annals of any heathen kingdom reach, while the earliest refer to what occurred only a few years subsequent to the fall. From the time of Abel, then, downwards through the whole course of antediluvian and patriarchal history, it appears that the regular and formal worship of God mainly consisted in the offering of sacrifice, and that this was not rendered by a sort of religious venture on the part of the worshippers, but with the known sanction, and virtual, if not explicit, appointment of God. As regards the right of men to draw near to God with such offerings, and their hope of acceptance at His hands, no shadow of doubt can fairly be said to rest upon any portion of the field of inquiry, except what may relate to the worship of the parents themselves of the human family. 2. It is well to keep in view the clear and satisfactory deliverance we obtain on this branch of the subject. And if we could ascertain definitely what were the views and feelings expressed by the worshippers in the kind of sacrifice which was accepted by God, the question of its precise origin would be of little moment; since, so recently after the institution of the rite, we have unequivocal evidence of its being divinely owned and approved, as actually offered. But it is here that the main difficulty presents itself, as it is only indirectly we can gather the precise objects for which the primitive race of worshippers came before God with sacrificial offerings. The question of their origin still is of moment for ascertaining this, and at the same time for determining the virtue possessed by the offerings in the sight of God. If they arose simply in the devout feelings of the worshipper, they might have been accepted by God as a natural and proper form for the expression of these feelings; but they could not have borne any typical respect to the higher sacrifice of Christ, as, in the things of redemption, type and antitype must be alike of God. And on this point we now proceed to remark negatively, that the facts already noticed concerning the first appearance and early history of sacrifice, present insuperable objections to all the theories which have sought on simply natural grounds to account for its human origin. The theory, for example, which has received the suffrage of many learned men, both in this country and on the Continent,[114] and which attempts to explain the rise of sacrifice by a reference to the feelings of men when they were in the state of rudest barbarism, capable of entertaining only the most gross and carnal ideas of God, and consequently disposed to deal with Him much as they would have done with a fellow-creature, whose favour they desired to win by means of gifts,—this theory is utterly at variance with the earlier notices of sacrificial worship. It is founded upon a sense of the value of property, and of the effect wont to be produced by gifts of property between man and man, which could not have been acquired at a period when society as yet consisted only of a few individuals, and these the members of a single family. And whether the gift were viewed in the light of a compensation, a bribe, or a feast (for each in different hands has had its share in giving a particular shape to the theory), no sacrifice offered with such a view could have met with the Divine favour and acceptance. The feeling that prompted it must in that case have been degrading to God, indeed essentially idolatrous; and the whole history of patriarchal worship, in which God always appears to look so benignly on the offerings of believing worshippers, reclaims against the idea. [114] Spencer de Leg. Heb. L. iii., c. 9. So also substantially, Priestly, H. Taylor, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Hofmann, etc. Of late, however, it has been more commonly sought to account for the origin of sacrifice, by viewing it as a symbolical act, such as might not unnaturally have suggested itself to men, in any period of society, from the feelings or practices with which their personal experience, or the common intercourse of life, made them familiar. But very different modes of explaining the symbol have been resorted to by those who concur in the same general view of its origination. Omitting the minor shades of difference which have arisen from an undue regard being had to distinctively Mosaic elements, Sykes, in his Essay on Sacrifice, raised his explanation on the ground, that “eating and drinking together were the known ordinary symbols of friendship, and were the usual rites of engaging in covenants and leagues.” And in this way some plausible things may doubtless be said of sacrifice, as it appeared often in the later ages of heathenism, and also on some special occasions among the covenant people. But nothing that can seem even a probable account is thereby given of the offerings presented by believers in the first ages of the world. For it is against all reason to suppose that such a symbol of friendship should then have been in current use,—not to mention that the offerings of that period seem to have been precisely of the class in which no part was eaten by the worshippers—holocausts. Warburton laid the ground more deeply, and with greater show of probability, when he endeavoured to trace the origin of sacrifice to the ancient mode of converse by action, to aid the defects and imperfections of early language,—this being, in his opinion, sufficient to account for men being led to adopt such a mode of worship, whether the sacrifice might be eucharistical, propitiatory, or expiatory. Gratitude for good bestowed, he conceives, would lead the worshipper to present, by an expressive action, the first-fruits of agriculture or pasturage—the eucharistical offering. The desire of the Divine favour or protection in the business of life would, in like manner, dispose him to dedicate a portion of what was to be sown or propagated—the propitiatory. And for sacrifices of an expiatory kind, the sense of sin would prompt him to take some chosen animal, precious to the repenting criminal who deprecated, or supposed to be obnoxious to the Deity who was to be appeased, and slay it at the altar, in an action which, in all languages when translated into words, speaks to this purpose: “I confess my transgressions at Thy footstool, O my God; and with the deepest contrition implore Thy pardon, confessing that I deserve the death which I inflict on this animal.”[115] If for the infliction of death, which Warburton here represents as the chief feature in the action of expiatory sacrifice, we substitute the pouring out of the blood, or simply the giving away of the life to God, there is no material difference between his view of the origin of such sacrifices, and that recently propounded by Bähr. This ingenious and learned writer rejects the idea of sacrifice having come from any supernatural teaching or special appointment of God, as this would imply that man needed extraneous help to direct him, whether he was to sacrifice, or how he was to do it. He maintains, that “as the idea of God, and its necessary expression, was not something that came upon humanity from without, nothing taught it, but something immediate, an original fact; so also is sacrifice the form of that expression. From the point of view at which we are wont to contemplate things, separating the divine from the natural, the spiritual from the corporeal, this form must indeed always present a strange appearance. But if we throw ourselves back on that mode of contemplation which views the divine and spiritual as inseparable from the natural and corporeal, we shall find nothing so far out of the way in man’s feeling himself constrained to represent the internal act of the giving up of his whole life and being to the Godhead—and in that all religion lives and moves through the external giving away of an animal, perhaps, which he loved as himself, or on which he himself lived, and which stood in the closest connection with his own existence.”[116] Something of a like nature (though exhibited in a form more obviously liable to objection) has also received the sanction of Tholuck, who, in the Dissertation on Sacrifices, appended to his Commentary on Hebrews, affirms, that “an offering was originally a gift to the Deity—a gift by which man strives to make up the deficiency of the always imperfect surrender of himself to God.” And in regard especially to burnt-offerings, he says: “Both objects, that of thanksgiving and of propitiation, were connected with them: on the one hand, gratitude required man to surrender what was external as well as internal to God; and, on the other hand, the surrender of an outward good was considered as a substitution, a propitiation for that which was still deficient in the internal surrender.”[117] A salvation, it would seem, by works so far, and only where these failed,—a calling in of extraneous and supplementary resources! [115] Warburton’s Div. Legation, B. ix., c. 2. Davison substantially adopts this view, with no other difference than that he conceives it unnecessary to make any account of the defects and imperfections of early language in explaining the origin of sacrifice; but, regarding “representation by action as gratifying to men who have every gift of eloquence," and as singularly suited to great purposes of solemnity and impression,” he thinks “not simple adoration, not the naked and unadorned oblations of the tongue, but adoration invested in some striking and significative form, and conveyed by the instrumentality of material tokens, would be most in accordance with the strong energies of feeling, and the insulated condition of the primitive race.”—(Inquiry into the Origin and Intent of Sacrifice, p. 19, 20.) [116] Bähr’s Symbolik, B. ii., p. 272. [117] Biblical Cabinet, vol. xxxix., p. 252. These different modes of explanation are manifestly one in principle, and are but varying aspects of the same fundamental view. In each form it lies open to three serious objections, which together appear to us quite conclusive against it. 1. First, the analogy of God’s method of dealing with His Church in the matter of Divine worship, at other periods in her history, is opposed to the simply human theory in any of its forms. Certainly at no other era did God leave His people altogether to their own inventions for the discovery of an acceptable mode of approaching Him, and of giving expression to their religious feelings. Some indications He has always given of what in this respect might be accordant with His mind, and suitable to the position which His worshippers occupied in His kingdom. The extent to which this directing influence was carried, formed one of the leading characteristics of the dispensation brought in by Moses; the whole field of religious worship was laid under Divine prescription, and guarded against the inventions of men. But even in the dispensation of the Gospel, which is distinguished for the spirituality of its nature, and its comparative freedom from legal enactments and the observance of outward forms, the leading ordinances of Divine worship are indicated with sufficient plainness, and what has no foundation in the revealed word is expressly denounced as “will-worship.” And if the Church of the New Testament, with all her advantages of a completed revelation, a son-like freedom, and an unction from the Holy One, that is said to “teach her all things,” was not without some direction and control in regard to the proper celebration of God’s service, is it conceivable that all should have been left utterly loose and indeterminate, when men were still in the very infancy of a fallen condition, and their views of spiritual truth and duty only in the forming? Where, in that case, would have been God’s jealousy for the purity of His worship?And where, we may also ask, His compassion toward men?He had disclosed to them purposes of grace, and awakened in their bosoms the hope of a recovery from the ruin they had incurred; but to set them adrift without even pointing to any ordinance fitted to meet their sense of sin, and reassure their hearts before God, would have been to leave the exhibition of mercy strangely defective and incomplete. For while they knew they had to do with a God of grace and forgiveness, they should still have been in painful uncertainty how to worship and serve Him, so as to get a personal experience of His blessing, and how, especially when conscience of sin troubled them anew, they might have the uneasiness allayed. Never surely was the tenderness of God more needed to point the way to what was acceptable and right, than in such a day of small things for the children of hope. And if it had not been shown, the withholding of it could scarcely seem otherwise than an exception to the general analogy of God’s dealings with men. 2. But, secondly, the simply human theory of the origin of sacrifice is met by an unresolved, and, on that supposition we are persuaded, an unresolvable difficulty in respect to the nature of ancient sacrifice. For as the earliest, and indeed the only recorded mode of sacrifice in primitive times, among acceptable worshippers of God, consisted in the offering of slain victims, it seems impossible that this particular form of sacrifice should have been fallen upon at first, without some special direction from above. Let the symbolical action be viewed in either of the shades of meaning formerly described,—as expressive of the offerer’s deserved death, or of the surrender of his life to God, or as a propitiatory substitution to compensate for the conscious defect of such surrender,—either way, how could he have imagined that the devoting to death of a living creature of God should have been the appropriate mode of expressing the idea? Death is so familiar to us, as regards the inferior creation, and so much associated with the means of our support and comfort, that it might seem a light thing to put an animal to death for any purpose connected with the wants or even the convenience of men. But the first members of the human family were in different circumstances. They must have shrunk unless divinely authorized from inflicting death on any, and especially on the higher forms of the animal creation; since death, in so far as they had themselves to do with it, was the peculiar expression of God’s displeasure on account of sin. All, indeed, belonging to that creation were to be subject to them. Their appointment from the very first was to subdue the earth, and render everything in it subservient to their legitimate use. But this use did not originally include a right to deprive animals of their life for the sake of food; the grant of flesh for that end was only given at the deluge. And that they should yet have thought it proper and becoming to shed the blood of animals merely to express a religious idea, nay, should have regarded that as so emphatically the appropriate way of worshipping God, that for ages it seems to have formed the more peculiar medium of approach to Him, can never be rationally accounted for without something on the part of God directing them to such a course. 3. Finally, the theories now under consideration are still farther objectionable, in that they are confronted by a specific fact, which was evidently recorded for the express purpose of throwing light on the original worship of fallen man, and with which their advocates have never been able to reconcile them—the fact of Abel’s accepted offering from the flock, as contrasted with the rejection of Cain’s from the produce of the field.—(Genesis 4:1-26; Hebrews 11:4) The offerings of the two brothers differed, we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the account in Genesis implies as much, not only in regard to the outward oblation—the one being a creature with life, the other without it—but also in the principle which moved the two brothers respectively to present them. That principle in Abel was faith; not this, therefore, but something else, in Cain. And as it was faith which both rendered Abel’s sacrifice in itself more excellent than Cain’s, and drew down upon it the seal of Heaven’s approval, the kind of faith meant must obviously have been something more than a mere general belief in the being of God, or His readiness to accept an offering of service from the hands of men. Faith in that sense must have been possessed by him who offered amiss, as well as by him who offered with acceptance. It must have been a more special exercise of faith which procured the acceptance of Abel—faith having respect not simply to the obligation of approaching God with some kind of offering, but to the duty of doing so with a sacrifice like that actually rendered, of the flock or the herd. But whence could such faith have come, if there had not been a testimony or manifestation of God for it to rest upon, which the one brother believingly apprehended, and the other scornfully slighted?We see no way of evading this conclusion, without misinterpreting and doing violence to the plain import of the account of Scripture on the subject. Taking this in its obvious and natural meaning, Cain is presented to our view as a child of nature, not of grace as one obeying the impulse and direction only of reason, and rejecting the more explicit light of faith as to the kind of service he presented to his Maker. His oblation is an undoubted specimen of what man could do in his fallen state to originate proper ideas of God, and give fitting expression to these in outward acts of worship. But unhappily for the advocates of nature’s sufficiency in the matter, it stands condemned in the inspired record as a presumptuous and disallowed act of will-worship. Abel, on the other hand, appears as one who through grace had become a child of faith, and by faith first spiritually discerning the mind of God, then reverently following the course it dictated, by presenting that more excellent sacrifice (πλείονα θυσίαν) of the firstlings of the flock, with which God was well pleased. On every account, therefore, the conclusion seems inevitable, that the institution of sacrifice must have been essentially of Divine origin; for though we cannot appeal to any record of its direct appointment by God, yet there are notices concerning sacrificial worship which cannot be satisfactorily explained on the supposition, in any form, of its merely human origin. There is a recorded fact, however, which touches the very borders of the subject, and which, we may readily perceive, furnished a Divine foundation on which a sacrificial worship, such as is mentioned in Scripture, might be built. It is the fact noticed at the close of God’s interview with our first parents after the fall: “And unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them.” The painful sense of nakedness that oppressed them after their transgression, was the natural offspring of a consciousness of sin—an instinctive fear lest the unveiled body should give indication of the evil thoughts and dispositions which now lodged within. Hence, to get relief to this uneasy feeling, they made coverings for themselves of such things as seemed best adapted to the purpose, out of that vegetable world which had been freely granted for their use. They girded themselves about with fig-leaves. But they soon found that this covering proved of little avail to hide their shame, where most of all they needed to have it hidden; it left them miserably exposed to the just condemnation of their offended God. If a real and valid covering should be obtained, sufficient to relieve them of all uneasiness, God Himself must provide it. And so He actually did. As soon as the promise of mercy had been disclosed to the offenders, and the constitution of mingled goodness and severity brought in, he made coats to clothe them with, and these coats of skins. But clothing so obtained argued the sacrifice of life in the animal that furnished them; and thus, through the death of an inferior yet innocent living creature, was the needed relief brought to their disquieted and fearful bosoms. The outward and corporeal here manifestly had respect to the inward and spiritual. The covering of their nakedness was a gracious token from the hand of God, that the sin which had alienated them from Him, and made them conscious of uneasiness, was henceforth to be in His sight as if it were not; so that in covering their flesh, He at the same time covered their consciences. If viewed apart from this higher symbolical aim, the outward act will naturally appear small and unworthy of God; but so to view it were to dissever it from the very reason of its performance. It was done purposely to denote the covering of guilt from the presence of God—an act which God alone could have done. But He did it, as we have seen, by a medium of death, by a sacrifice of life in those creatures which men were not yet permitted to kill for purposes of food, and in connection with a constitution of grace which laid open the prospect of recovered life and blessing to the fallen. Surely it is not attributing to the venerable heads of the human family, persons who had so recently walked with God in paradise, an incredible power of spiritual discernment, or supposing them to stretch unduly the spiritual import of this particular action of God, if we should conceive them turning the Divine act into a ground of obligation and privilege for themselves, and saying, Here is Heaven’s own finger pointing out the way for obtaining relief to our guilty consciences; the covering of our shame is to be found by means of the skins of irrational creatures, slain in our behalf; their life for our lives, their clothing of innocence for our shame; and we cannot err, we shall but show our faith in the mercy and forgiveness we have experienced, if, as often as the sense of shame and guilt returns upon our consciences, we follow the footsteps of the Lord, and, by a renewed sacrifice of life, clothe ourselves anew with His own appointed badge of acquittal and acceptance. We are not to be understood as positively affirming that our first parents and their believing posterity reasoned thus, or that they actually had no more of instruction to guide them. We merely say, that they may quite naturally have so reasoned, and that we have no authority from the inspired record to suppose that any further instruction was communicated. Indeed, nothing more seems strictly necessary for the first beginnings of a sacrificial worship. And it was still but the age for beginnings; in what was taught and done, we should expect to find only the simplest forms of truth and duty. The Gospel, in its clearer announcements, even the law with its specific enactments, would then have been out of place. All that was absolutely required, and all that might be fairly expected, was some natural and expressive act of God toward men, laying, when thoughtfully considered, the foundation of a religious service toward Him. The claims of the Sabbatical institution, and of the marriage union, had a precisely similar foundation—the one in God’s personal resting on the seventh day, hallowing and blessing it; the other in His formation of the first wife out of the first husband. It was simply the Divine procedure in these cases which formed the ground of man’s obligations; because that procedure was essentially a revelation of the mind and will of Godhead for the guidance of the rational beings who, being made in God’s image, were to find their glory and their well-being in appropriating His acts, and copying after His example. So here, God’s fundamental act in removing and covering out of sight the shame of conscious guilt in the first offenders, would both naturally and rightfully be viewed as a revelation of God, teaching them how, in henceforth dealing with Him, they were to proceed in effecting the removal of guilt, and appearing, notwithstanding it, in the presence of God. They found, in this Divine act, the key to a justified condition, and an acceptable intercourse with Heaven. Had they not done so, it would have been incapable of rational explanation, how a believing Abel should so soon have appeared in possession of it. Yet it could not have been rendered so palpable as to obtrude itself on the carnal and unbelieving; otherwise it would scarcely be less capable of explanation, how a self-willed Cain should so soon have ventured to disregard it. The ground of dissension between the two brothers must have been of a somewhat narrower and more debateable character, than if an explicit and formal direction had been given. And in the Divine act referred to—viewed in its proper light, and taken in connection with the whole circumstances of the time—there was precisely what might have tended to originate both results: enough of light to instruct the humble heart of faith, mainly intent on having pardon of sin and peace with God, and yet not too much to leave proud and unsanctified nature without an excuse for following a course more agreeable to its own inclinations.[118] [118] Substantially the correct view was presented of this subject in a work by Dr Croly, though, like several other things in the same volume, attended with the twofold disadvantage, of not being properly grounded, and of being encumbered with some untenable positions. “God alone is described as in act, and His only act is that of clothing the two criminals. The whole passage is but one of many in which a rigid adherence to the text is the way of safety. The literal meaning at once exalts the rite and illustrates its purposes. . . . Adam in Paradise has no protection from the Divine wrath, but he needs none; he is pure. In his hour of crime, he finds the fatal difference between good and evil, feels that he requires protection from the eye of justice, and makes an ineffectual effort to supply that protection by his own means. But the expedient which cannot be supplied by man, is finally supplied by the Divine interposition. God clothes him, and his nakedness is the source of anguish and terror no more. The contrast of the materials of his imperfect and perfect clothing is equally impressive. Adam, in his first consciousness of having provoked the Divine displeasure, covers himself with the frail produce of the ground, the branch and leaf; but from the period of forgiveness he is clothed with the substantial product of the flock, the skin of the slain animal. If circumstances apparently so trivial as the clothing of our original parents are stated, what other reason can be assigned, than that they were not trivial, that they formed a marked feature of the Divine dispensation, and that they were important to be recorded for the spiritual guidance of man?—(Divine Providence, p. 194-196) 3. We thus hold sacrifice—sacrifice in the higher sense, not as expressive of dependence and thankfulness merely, but as connected with sin and forgiveness, expiatory sacrifice to have been, as to its foundation, of Divine origin. It had its rise in an act of God, done for the express purpose of relieving guilty consciences of their sense of shame and confusion; and from the earliest periods of recorded worship it stands forth to our view as the religious solemnity in which faith had its most peculiar exercise, and for which God bestowed the tokens of His acceptance and blessing. For the discussion of some collateral points belonging to the subject, and the disposal of a few objections, we refer to the Appendix.[119] And we now proceed here briefly to inquire what sacrifice, as thus originating and thus presented, symbolically expressed. What feelings on the part of the worshipper, what truths on the part of God, did it embody? [119] Appendix D. Partly, indeed, the inquiry has been answered already. It was impossible to conduct the discussion thus far without indicating the leading ideas involved in primitive sacrifice. It must be remembered, however, that we are still dealing with sacrifice in its simplest and most elementary form—radically, no doubt, the same as it was under the more complex and detailed arrangements of the Mosaic ritual, but in comparison of that wanting much in fulness and variety. As employed by the first race of believing worshippers, a few leading points are all that it can properly be regarded as embracing. (1.) Both from the manner of its origin, and its own essential nature, as involving in every act of worship the sacrifice of a creature’s life, it bore impressive testimony to the sinfulness of the offerer’s condition. Those who presented it could not but know that God was far from delighting in blood, and that death, either in man or beast, was not a thing in which He could be supposed to take pleasure. The explicit connection of death, also, with the first transgression, as the proper penalty of sin, was peculiarly fitted to suggest painful and humiliating thoughts in the minds of those who stood so near to the awful moment of the fall. And when death, under God’s own directing agency, was brought so prominently into the Divine service, and every act of worship, of the more solemn kind, carried in its bosom the life-blood of an innocent creature, what more striking memorial could they have had of the evil wrought in their condition by sin? With such an element of blood perpetually mingling in their services, they could not forget that they stood upon the floor of a broken covenant, and were themselves ever incurring anew the just desert of transgression. (2.) Then, looking more particularly to the sanction and encouragement of God given to such a mode of worshipping Him, it bespoke their believing conviction of His reconcileable and gracious disposition toward them, notwithstanding their sinfulness. They gave here distinct and formal expression to their faith, that as they needed mercy, so they recognised God as ready to dispense it to those who humbly sought Him through this channel of communion. Such a faith, indeed, had been presumption, the groundless conceit of nature’s arrogancy or ignorance, if it had not had a Divine foundation to rest upon, and tokens of Divine acceptance in the acts of service it rendered. But these, as we have seen, it plainly had. So that a sacrificial worship thus performed bore evidence as well to the just expectations of mercy and forgiveness on the part of those who presented it, as to their uneasy sense of guilt and shame prompting them to do so. (3.) But, looking again to the original ground and authority of this sacrificial worship,—the act of God in graciously covering the shame and guilt of sin,—and to the seal of acceptance after wards set so peculiarly and emphatically on it, the great truth was expressed by it, on the part of God, that the taking away of life stood essentially connected with the taking away of sin; or, as expressed in later Scripture, that a without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” In accordance with the general character of the primeval constitution of things, this truth comes out, not as a formal enunciation of principle, or an authoritative enactment of Heaven, but as an embodied fact; a fact, in the first instance, of God’s hand, significantly indicating His mind and will, and then believingly contemplated, acted upon, substantially re-enacted by His sincere worshippers, with His clearly marked approval. The form may be regarded as peculiar, but not so the truth enshrined in it. This is common to all times, and, after holding a primary place in every phase of a preparatory religion, it rose at last to a position of transcendent importance in the work and kingdom of Christ. How far Adam and his immediate descendants might be able to descry, under their imperfect forms of worship, and the accompanying intimations of recovery, the ultimate ground in this respect of faith and hope for sinful men, can be to us only matter of vague conjecture or doubtful speculation. Their views would, perhaps, consider ably differ, according as their faith was more or less clear in its discernment, more or less lively in its perceptions of the truth couched under the symbolical acts and revelations of God. But unless more specific information was given them than is found in the sacred record (and we have no warrant to suppose there was more), the anticipations formed even by the most enlightened of those primitive believers, regarding the way and manner in which the blood of sacrifice was ultimately to enter into the plan of God, must have been comparatively vague and indefinite. (4.) For us, however, who can read the symbol before us by the clear light of the Gospel, and from the high vantage-ground of a finished redemption can look back upon the temporary institutions that foreshadowed it, there is neither darkness nor uncertainty respecting the prophetic import of the primeval rite of sacrifice. We perceive there in the germ the fundamental truth of that scheme of grace which was to provide for the complete and final restoration of a seed of blessing—the truth of a suffering Mediator, giving His life a ransom for many. Here again we behold the ends of revelation mutually embracing and contributing to throw light on each other. And as amid the perfected glories of Messiah’s kingdom all appears clustering around the Lamb that was slain, and doing homage to Him for His matchless humiliation and triumphant victory, so the earliest worship of believing humanity points to His coming sacrifice as the one ground of hope and security to the fallen. At a subsequent period, when believers were furnished with a fuller revelation and a more complicated worship, symbolical representations were given of many other and subordinate parts of the work of redemption. But when that worship existed in its simplest form, and embodied only the first elements of the truth, it was meet that what was ultimately to form the groundwork of the whole, should have been alone distinctly represented. And we shall not profit, as we should, by the contemplation of that one rite which stands so prominently out in the original worship of the believing portion of mankind, if it does not tend to deepen upon our minds the incomparable worth and importance of a crucified Redeemer, as the wisdom and power of God unto salvation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 120: 05.15. CHAPTER FIFTH. ======================================================================== Chapter Fifth.—The Marriage Relation And The Sabbatical Institution. THE two ordinances of marriage and the Sabbath are here coupled together, as having so much in common, that they alike belonged to the primeval constitution of things, and were alike intended, without any formal alteration, to transmit their validity to times subsequent to the fall. They carried an import, and involved obligations, which should be co-extensive with the generations of mankind. Yet with this general agreement there is a specific difference, which is of moment as regards the point of view from which the subjects must here be contemplated. The formation of a partner for Adam out of a portion of his own frame, and the junction of the two under the direct sanction of their Maker, so as to form in a manner one flesh, however important in a social and economical respect, however fitted also to bear indirectly on the higher interests of the world, was still not formally of a religious nature. For the world’s secular well-being alone there were reasons amply sufficient to account for its Divine author resorting to such a method, when bringing into being the first family pair, and in them laying the foundations of the world’s social existence. For it was by an instructive and appropriate act, entwined with the very beginnings of social life on earth, that the essential conditions were to be exhibited—if exhibited so as to tell with permanent effect—of its right constitution and healthful working. And so far from being, as some have alleged, an unbecoming representation of the Divine character, a lowering of the Divine Majesty, that Eve should have been said to be formed out of Adam’s side, and thereafter presented to him as his own flesh and bone, on account of which they would turn the whole narrative into a myth, it will be found, when duly considered and viewed in the light of the important interests depending on it, every way worthy of the wise foresight and paternal goodness of Deity. He has thus interwoven with the closing act of creation an imperishable moral lesson,—made it, indeed, the perpetual and impressive symbol of the great truth,—that the fundamental relation in family life was to consist in the union of one man and one woman; and these so bound together as that, while distinctions as to authority and power on the one side, and subordination and dependence on the other, should exist between them, they should still be regarded as a social unity—corporate manhood. So far from the Divine procedure in this violating our sense of the fitting and proper, or doing more than the circumstances of the case required, the records of history were not long in furnishing mournful evidence that it proved all too little to secure the end in view; it failed to perpetuate the intended unity and good order of families. Even among the chosen people, the practical inference drawn from it with instinctive sagacity and true spiritual insight by the first Adam. (“Therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh,” Genesis 2:24), came to be so much lost sight of, that it required to be announced afresh, and with sterner authority imposed, by the second Adam (Matthew 19:5-6). The Scriptural evidence for the deep significance of the Divine act in respect to the formation of Eve, and the nature of the marriage union founded on it, is both explicit and ample. But in the circumstances of the parents themselves of the human family, and also of those of their posterity who lived in the earlier ages of the world, it could scarcely have occurred to them to carry that significance into any sphere beyond that of the family life. Nothing in the prospect as yet held out to them of a restored condition, was fitted to give their ideas so definite a shape as to suggest a spiritual relationship formed after the model of this natural one; and in the religion of patriarchal, or even much later times, scarcely anything is found that bears this specific impress. As the result of God’s fuller manifestation of Himself and closer intimacy with His people in the wilderness, a kind of marriage union indeed is implied to have sprung up between them, since their defection from His service is represented under the light of an adultery or whoredom (Numbers 14:33),—a style of representation which became of frequent occurrence in the writings of the later prophets (Isaiah 57:3; Jeremiah 3:9; Jeremiah 13:27; Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 23:1-49, Hosea 1:1-11, Hosea 2:1-23, etc.). In one or two passages also the Lord expressly takes to Himself the name of the husband of Israel, or speaks of Himself as having been married to them (Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 3:14). In the Book of Canticles this relation even forms the scene of a kind of spiritual drama; and in Psalms 45:1-17 the hero of the piece, the King of Zion, is even represented as standing formally related to a queen who shares with Him in the honours of the kingdom, and by whom can only be understood the true Israel of God. It is not to be denied, however, that this series of Old Testament representations took its formal rise in the covenant engagement entered into at Sinai, and merely availed itself of the marriage-bond as one peculiarly adapted for portraying the obligations and advantages connected with fidelity to the engagement, or the guilt and folly of the reverse. In none of the passages does there seem any distinct reference to the primeval union in Eden; and rather as a fitting emblem, than a type in the proper sense, is the marriage relation in such cases employed much as also the relations of a pastor to his flock (Psalms 23:1-6, Ezekiel 36:1-38; Zechariah 11:1-17), of a husbandman to his vineyard (Psalms 80:1-19; Isaiah 5:1-7; Ezekiel 15:1-8), or of a king to his subjects (1 Samuel 8:7; Psalms 2:1-6,etc.). We are not, therefore, disposed to connect with the religious worship or hopes which came in after the fall, any distinct reference to the marriage relation, viewed as growing out of Eve’s derivation from Adam, and subjection to him. In that particular form, and as an ideal pattern for the nourishment of faith and hope, it belongs to New rather than Old Testament times—the times, namely, when the Lord from heaven stands distinctly revealed in the character of the second Adam. As such, He also must have His spouse, and has it in part now; but shall have it in completeness hereafter, in the company of faithful souls who have been washed from their sins in His blood—the elect Church, which in all its members grows out of His root, lives by His life, and is called at once to share in His glory, and as an handmaid to minister to His will. So that the mystery of the primeval spouse (“a bone of Adam’s bone, flesh of his flesh”) may justly be regarded as the mystery of the Church in her relation to Christ (Ephesians 5:30-32; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 19:7; Revelation 21:2). But in this special aspect of the matter,—an aspect that belongs to creation rather than to strictly historical times,—it must be allowed to stand in some respects apart from the typical relations with which we have now properly to deal, and which all in a greater or less degree contributed to mould the religious views and feelings of fallen men. It is otherwise in the respects now mentioned with the Sabbatical institution, which also belongs to the primeval constitution of things. This at once bore a directly religious aspect, and pointed to the future as well as the present. The record given of it tells us that “on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:2-3). This procedure of God appears in such immediate contact with the work of creation (for in that respect the passage admits but of one fair interpretation), that the bearing it was intended to have on man’s views and obligations must primarily have had respect to his original destination; and if designed to lay the foundation of a stated order, this must have been one perfectly suited to the paradisiacal state. Yet a slight reflection might have sufficed to convince any thoughtful mind, that whatever significance it might have for the occupants of such a state, that could not be lost, but must even have been deepened and increased, by the circumstances of their fall from it. In the procedure itself of God there may be noted a threefold stage, each carrying a distinct and important meaning. First, the rest itself: “He rested on the seventh day from all His work;” and in Exodus 31:17, the yet stronger expression is used, of God’s refreshing Himself on that day. Figurative language this must, no doubt, be understood to be,—for “the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary,” that being rendered impossible by the infinitude of His perfections,—yet it is not the less expressive of a great truth, and one just as cognizable by man as the acts of creative energy by which it was preceded. What was it, indeed, but the proper complement of creation—the immediate result at which it aimed, and in which, when realized, there was set the seal of Heaven on its beauty and completeness?The glorious Creator is presented to our view at the close of His six days work,—brought at length to its proper consummation in man, as clothed with the Divine image, and charged with the oversight and development of the territory assigned him,—surveying His own workmanship, looking with complacence on the product of His hands, taking it, as it were, to His bosom, and in the freshness of its joy and the prospect of its goodly order finding satisfaction to Himself. How near does not this show God to be to His creatures in particular to the rational and upright portion of them?And must there not have been on their part the response of an intelligent appreciation and living fellowship?Must not man, endowed as he was with God’s likeness, and crowned with glory and honour as God’s representative, here also have communion with his Maker?How could he fail to do so?As it was his calling to enter into God’s work—to take it up, as it were, where God left it, and carry it forward to its proper results; so it was his privilege to enter into God’s rest—making this in a sense his own, and thereby rendering earth the reflex of heaven. It was for this end that God disclosed His manner of distinguishing the seventh day from those which preceded, viz., to teach His earthly representative to go and do likewise; so that this day so kept might be an ever-recurring memorial and sign, both how man’s ordinary work should form a continuation and image of God’s, and man’s rest be a conscious appropriation and enjoyment of that blessed satisfaction and repose with which God was Himself refreshed. But this was not left to be simply inferred; for if even the first stage of this Divine act has respect to man, still more has the second, which points directly and exclusively to him: “And God blessed the seventh day.” This blessing of the day is not to be confounded with the sanctifying of it, which immediately follows, as if the meaning were, God blessed it by sanctifying it. The blessing is distinct from the sanctification, and is, so to speak, the settling of a special dowry on it for every one, who should give due heed to its proper end and object. Let man—the Divine act of blessing virtually said—only enter into God’s mind, and tread in His footsteps, by resting every seventh day from his works, and he shall undoubtedly find it to his profit; the blessing, which is life for evermore, shall descend on him. What he may lose for the moment in productive employment, shall be amply compensated by the refreshment it will bring to his frame—by the enlargement and elevation of his soul—above all, by the spiritual fellowship and interest in God which becomes the abiding portion of those who follow Him in their ways, and perpetually return to Him as the supreme rest of their souls. Then, the last stage in the procedure of God on this occasion, indicates how the two earlier ones were to be secured: “He sanctified it,” set it sacredly apart from the others. Having appointed it to a distinctive end, he conferred on it a distinctive character, that His creature, man, might from time to time be doing in his line of things what the Creator had already done in His own—might, after six successive days of work, take one to reinvigorate his frame, to reflect calmly on the past, and view the part he has taken and the relations he occupies on the outward and visible theatre of the world, in the light of the spiritual and the eternal. It was to be his calling and his destiny on earth, not simply to work, but to work as a reasonable and moral being, after the example of his Maker, for specific ends. And for this he needed seasons of quiet repose and thoughtful consideration, not less than time and opportunity for active labour; as, otherwise, he could neither properly enjoy the work of his hands, nor obtain for the higher part of his nature that nobler good which is required to satisfy it. God, therefore, when He had finished the work of creation by making man, sanctified the seventh day—His own seventh, but man’s first; for man had not first to work and then to reap, but as God’s vicegerent, nature’s king and high-priest, could at once enter into his Maker’s heritage of blessing. And henceforth, in the career that lay before him, ever and anon returning from the field of active labour assigned him in cultivating and subduing the earth, he must on the hallowed day of rest gather in his thoughts and desires from the world, and, retiring into God as his sanctuary, hold with Him a sabbatism of peaceful and blessed communion. The Divine procedure, then, in every one of its stages, plainly points to man, and aims at his participation in the likeness and enjoyment of God. “With the Sabbath,” says Sartorius happily, and we rejoice and hail it as a token for good, that such thoughts on the Sabbath are finding utterance in the high places of Germany—“with the Sabbath begins the sacred history of man the day on which he stood forth to bless God, and, in company with Eve, entered on his Divine calling upon earth. The creation without the creation-festival, the world’s unrest without rest in God, is altogether vain and transitory. The sacred day appointed, blessed, consecrated by God, is that from which the blessing and sanctification of the world and time, of human life and human society, proceed. Nor is anything more needed than the recognition of its original appointment and sacred destination, for our receiving the full impression of its sanctity. How was it possible for the first man ever to forget it?From the very beginning was it written upon his heart, Remember the Sabbath-day to sanctify it.”[120] There is nothing new in such views. Substantially the same interpretation that we have given is put on the original notice in Genesis, in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 4), where the record of God’s rest at the close of creation is referred to as the first form of the promise made to man of entering into, God’s rest. The record, then, of what God in that respect did, was a revelation. It embodied a call and a promise to man of high fellowship with the Creator in His peculiar felicity, and, consequently, inferred an obligation on man’s part both to seek the end proposed, and to seek it in the method of God’s appointment. But did the obligation cease when man fell?or was the promise cancelled?Assuredly not—not, at least, after the time that the introduction of an economy of grace laid open for the fallen the prospect of a new inheritance in God. So far from having lost its significance or its value, the Creator’s Sabbatism then acquired fresh meaning and importance, and became so peculiarly adapted to the altered condition of the world, that we cannot but regard it as having from the first contemplated the physical and moral evils that were to issue from the fall. In the language of Hengstenberg, with whom we gladly concur on this branch of the subject, though on too many others we shall be constrained to differ from him, “It presupposes work, and such work as has a tendency to draw us away from God. It is the remedy for the injuries we are apt to incur through this work. If anything is clear, it is the connection between the Sabbath arid the fall. The work which needs intermission, lest the divine life should be imperilled by it, is not [we would rather say, is not so much] the cheerful and pleasant employment of which we read in Genesis 2:15; it is [rather] the oppressive and degrading toil spoken of in Genesis 3:19, work done in the sweat of the brow, upon a soil that brings forth thorns and thistles.”[121] We would put the statement comparatively rather than absolutely; for the rest of God being held on the first seventh day of the world’s existence, and the day being immediately consecrated and blessed, it must have had respect to the place and occupation of man even in paradise. Why should work there be supposed to have differed in kind from work elsewhere and since?There could be room only for a difference in degree; and being work from its very nature that led the soul to aim at specific objects, and put forth continuous efforts on what is outward, it required to be met by a stated periodical institution, that would recall the thoughts and feelings of the soul more within itself. Man’s perfection in that original state was only a relative one. It needed certain correctives and stimulants to secure the continued enjoyment of the good belonging to it. It needed, in particular, perpetual access to the tree of life for the preservation of the bodily, and an ever-returning Sabbatism for that of the spiritual life. But if such a Sabbatism was required even for man’s well-being in paradise, where the work was so light, and the order so beautiful, how could it be imagined that the Sabbatical institution might be either safely or lawfully disregarded in a world of sorrow, temptation, and hardship? [120] Sartorius über den alt und neu-Test. Cultus, p. 17. [121] Ueber den Tag des Herrn, p. 12. Was there really, however, any Sabbatical institution? There is no command respecting it in this portion of the inspired record. And may not the mention there made of God’s keeping the Sabbath, and blessing and sanctifying the day, have been made simply with a prospective reference to the precept that was ultimately to be imposed on the Israelites? So it has been alleged with endless frequency by those who can find no revelation of the Divine will, and no obligation or moral duty excepting what comes in the authoritative form of a command; and it is still substantially reiterated by Hengstenberg, who certainly cannot be charged with such a bluntness of spiritual discernment. We meet the allegation with the statement that has already been repeatedly urged—that it was not yet the time for the formal enactments of law, and that it was by other means man was to learn God’s mind and his own duty. The ground of obligation lay in the Divine act; the rule of duty was exhibited in the Divine example: for these were disclosed to men from the first, not to gratify an idle curiosity, but for the express purpose of leading them to know and do what is agreeable to the will of God. If such means were not sufficient to speak with clearness and authority to men’s consciences, then it may be affirmed that the first race of mankind were free from all authoritative direction and control whatever. They were not imperatively bound either to fear God or to regard man; for, excepting in the manner now stated, no general obligations of service were laid on them. But to suppose this; to suppose, even in regard to what is written of the original Sabbatism of God, that it did not bear directly upon the privileges and duties of the very first members of the human family, is in truth to make void that portion of revelation—to treat it as if, where it stands, it were a superfluity or a blemish. We cannot so regard it. We hold by the truthfulness and natural import of the Divine record. And doing this, we are shut up to the conclusion, that it was at first designed and appointed by God, that mankind should sanctify every returning seventh day, as a season of comparative rest from worldly labour, of spiritual contemplation and religious employment, that so they might cease from their own works and enter into the rest of God. But we shall not pursue the subject farther at present. We even leave unnoticed some of the objections that have been raised against the existence of a primeval Sabbath, as the subject must again return, and in a more controversial aspect, when we come to consider the place assigned to the law of the Sabbath in the revelation from Sinai. It is enough, at this stage of our inquiry, to have exhibited the foundation laid for the perpetual celebration of a seventh-day Sabbath, in the original act of God at the close of His creation work. In that we have a foundation broad and large as the theatre of creation itself and the general interests of humanity, free from all local restrictions and national peculiarities. That in the infancy of the world, and during the ages of a remote antiquity, there would be much simplicity in the mode of its observance, may readily be supposed. Indeed, where all was so simple, both in the state of society and the institutions of worship, the symbolical act itself of resting from ordinary work, and in connection with that, the habit of recognising the authority of God, and realizing the Divine call to a participation in the blessed rest of the Creator, must have constituted no inconsiderable part of the practical observance of the day. And that this also in process of time should have fallen into general desuetude, is only what might have been expected from the fearful depravity and lawlessness which overspread the earth as a desolation. When men daringly cast off the fear of God Himself, they would naturally make light of the privilege and duty set before them of entering into His rest. And considering how partial and imperfect the observance of the day, in the earlier periods of the world’s history, was likely to become, it is not to be wondered at, that, beside the original record of its Divine origin and authoritative obligation, traces of its existence should be found only in some scattered notices of history, and in the wide-spread sacredness of the number seven, which has left its impress on the religion and literature of nearly every nation of antiquity. But however neglected or despised, the original fact remains for the light and instruction of the world in all ages; and there perpetually comes forth from it a call to every one who has ears to hear, to sanctify a weekly rest unto the Lord, and rise to the enjoyment of His blessing. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 121: 05.16. CHAPTER SIXTH ======================================================================== Chapter Sixth.—Typical Things In History During The Progress Of The First Dispensation. HAVING now considered the typical bearing of the fundamental facts and symbolical institutions belonging to the first dispensation of grace, it remains that we endeavour to ascertain what there might afterwards be evolved of a typical nature during the progress of that dispensation, by means of the transactions and events that took place under it. These, it was already noted in our preliminary remarks, could only be employed to administer instruction of a subsidiary kind. In their remoter reference to Gospel times, as in their direct historical aspect, they can rank no higher than progressive developments—not laying a foundation, but proceeding on the foundation already laid, and giving to some of the points connected with it a more specific direction, or supplementing them with additional discoveries of the mind and will of God. It is impossible here, any more than in the subjects treated of in the preceding chapters, to isolate entirely the portions that have a typical bearing from others closely connected with them. And even in those which exhibit something of the typical element, it can scarcely be expected, at so early a period in the world’s history, to possess much of a precise and definite character; for in type, as in prophecy, the progress must necessarily have been from the more general to the more particular. In tracing this progress, we shall naturally connect the successive developments with single persons or circumstances; yet without meaning thereby to indicate that these are in every respect to be accounted typical. Section First.—The Seed Of Promise Abel, Enoch. THE first distinct appearance of the typical in connection with the period subsequent to the fall, is to be found in the case of Abel; but in that quite generally. Abel was the first member of the promised seed; and through him supplementary knowledge was imparted more especially in one direction, viz., in regard to the principle of election, which was to prevail in the actual fulfilment of the original promise. That promise itself, when viewed in connection with the instituted symbols of religion, might be perceived—if very thoughtfully considered—to have implied something of an elective process; but the truth was not clearly expressed. And it was most natural that the first parents of the human family should have overlooked what but obscurely intimated a limitation in the expected good. They would readily imagine, when a scheme of grace was introduced, which gave promise of a complete destruction of the adversary, with the infliction only of a partial injury on the woman’s seed, that the whole of their offspring should attain to victory over the power of evil. This joyous anticipation affectingly discovers itself in the exclamation of Eve at the birth of her first-born son, “I have gotten a man from (or, as it should rather be, with) the Lord”—gratefully acknowledging the hand of God in giving her, as she thought, the commencement of that seed which was assured through Divine grace of a final triumph. This she reckoned a real getting—gain in the proper sense—calling her child by a name that expressed this idea (Cain); and she evidently did so by regarding it as the precious gift of God, the beginning and the pledge of the ascendency that was to be won over the malice of the tempter.[122] Never was mother destined to receive a sorer disappointment. She did not want faith in the Divine word, but her faith was still without knowledge, and she must learn by painful experience how the plan of God for man’s recovery was to be wrought out. A like ignorance, though tending now in the opposite direction, again discovers itself at the birth of Abel, whose name (breath, emptiness) seems, as Delitzsch has remarked, to have proceeded from her felt regard to the Divine curse, as that given to Cain did from a like regard to the Divine promise. It is possible that, between the births of the two brothers, what she had seen of the helpless and suffering condition of infancy in the first-born may have impressed the mind of Eve with such a sense of the evils entailed upon her offspring by the curse, as to have rendered her for the time forgetful of the better things disclosed in the promise. It is also possible, and every way probable, that the name by which this child is known to history, and which is not, as in the case of Cain, expressly connected with his birth, may have been occasioned by his unhappy fate, and expressed the feelings of vexation and disappointment which it awakened in the bosoms of his parents. However it might be, the result at least showed how little the operations of grace were to pursue the course that might seem accordant with the views and feelings of nature. In particular, it showed that, so far from the whole offspring of the woman being included, there was from the first to pervade the Divine plan a principle of election, in virtue of which a portion only, and that by no means the likeliest, according to the estimation of nature, were to inherit the blessing; while the rest should fall in with the designs of the tempter, and be reckoned to him for a seed of cursing. Abel, therefore, in his acceptance with God, in his faith respecting the Divine purposes, and his presentation of offerings that drew down the Divine favour, stands as the type of an elect seed of blessing—a seed that was ultimately to have its root and its culmination in Him who was to be peculiarly the child of promise. In Cain, on the other hand, the impersonation of nature’s pride, waywardness, and depravity, there appeared a representative of that unhappy portion of mankind who should espouse the interest of the adversary, and seek by unhallowed means to establish it in the world. [122] I think it quite impossible, in the circumstances, that the faith of Eve should have gone farther than this, as the promise of recovery had as yet assumed only the most general aspect; and though it might well have been understood to depend upon the grace and power of God for its accomplishment, yet who, from the revelations actually given, could have anticipated these to manifest themselves in the birth of Jehovah Himself as a babe? The supposition of Baumgarten,—who here revives the old explanation, “I have gotten a man, Jehovah,” that Eve thought she saw in Cain “the redeeming and coming God,” is arbitrary and incredible. The יְהוֹה אֵת should be taken as in ch. 5:24, 6:9, 43:16; Judges 1:16, with, in fellowship with, the Lord; or, as in Judges 8:7, with, with the help of. The former idea seems to be the more natural one, as in that sense also the אֵת is more frequently used. The assertion of Dr Pye Smith (Testimony, vol. i., p. 228), that there “seems no option to an interpreter, who is resolved to follow the fair and strict grammatical signification of the words before him, but to translate the passage, I have obtained a man, Jehovah,” is greatly too strong, and against the judgment of the best Hebrew scholars. He is himself obliged to repudiate the sense which such a rendering yields, as embodying too gross a conception; and the idea which he thinks Eve meant to express of “something connected with the Divine Being” in the child produced, is simply what is conveyed by the perfectly legitimate rendering we have preferred. The brief notices of antediluvian history are evidently framed for the purpose of exhibiting the antagonistic state and tendencies of these two seeds, and of rendering manifest the mighty difference which God’s work of grace was destined to make in the character and prospects of man. The name given by Eve to her third son (Seth, appointed), with the reason assigned for it, “For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew,” bespoke the insight the common mother of mankind had now obtained into this mournful division in her offspring. Cain she regards as having, in a manner, ceased to belong to her seed; he had become too plainly identified with that of the adversary. He seems now to her view to stand at the head of a God-opposing interest in the world; and as in contrast to him, the destroyer of the true seed, God is seen mercifully providing another in its room.[123] So that there were again the two seeds in the world, each taking root, and bringing forth fruit after its kind. But how different! On the one hand appears the Cainite section, smitten with the curse of sin, yet proudly shunning the path of reconciliation—retiring to a distance from the emblems of God’s manifested presence—building a city, as if to lighten, by the aid of human artifice and protection, the evils of a guilty conscience and a blighted condition—cultivating with success the varied elements of natural strength and worldly greatness, inventing instruments of music and weapons of war, trampling under foot, as seemed good to the flesh, the authority of heaven and the rights of men, and at last, by deeds of titanic prowess and violence, boldly attempting to bring heaven and earth alike under its sway.—(Genesis 4:13-24; Genesis 6:4-6)[124] On the other hand appears the woman’s seed of promise, seeking to establish and propagate itself in the earth by the fear of God, and the more regular celebration of His worship (Genesis 4:26), trusting for its support in the grace and blessing of God, as the other did in the powers and achievements of corrupt nature; and so continuing uninterrupted its line of godly descendants, yet against such fearful odds, and at last with such a perilous risk of utter extinction, that Divine faithfulness and love required to meet violence with violence, and bring the conflict in its first form to a close by the sweeping desolation of the flood. It terminated, as every such conflict must do, on the side of those who stood in the promised grace and revealed testimony of God. These alone live for ever; and the triumph of all that is opposed to them can be but for a moment. [123] It is to be noted, however, that both the parents of the human family, Adam as well as Eve, are associated with this seed of blessing. It is a circumstance that has been too much overlooked; but for the very purpose of marking it, a fresh commencement is made at Genesis 5:1-32 of the genealogical chain that links together Adam and Christ: “This is the book of the gene rations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him. . . . And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth:”—as if his progeny before this were not to be reckoned—the child of grace had perished, and the other in a spiritual sense was not. Adam, therefore, is here distinctly placed at the head of a spiritual offspring—himself, with his partner, the first link in the grand chain of blessing. And the likeness in which he begat his son “his own image”—must not be limited, as it too often is, to the corruption that now marred the purity of his nature—as if his image stood simply in contrast to God’s. It is as the parental head of the whole lineage of believers that he is represented, and such a sharp contrast would here especially be out of place. [124] It is in connection with this later development of evil in the Cainites that Lamech’s song is introduced, and with special reference to that portion of his family who were makers of instruments in brass and iron—instruments, no doubt, chiefly of a warlike kind. It is only by viewing the song in that connection that we perceive its full meaning and its proper place, as intended to indicate that the evil was approaching its final stage: “And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech: for men (the word is quite indefinite in the original, and may most fitly be rendered in the plural) I slay for my wound, and young men for my hurt: for Cain is avenged seven times, and Lamech seventy times seven.” He means apparently, that, with such weapons as he now had at command, he could execute at will deeds of retaliation and revenge. So that his song may be regarded, to use the words of Drechsler, “as an ode of triumph on the invention of the sword. He stands at the top of the Cainite development, from thence looks back upon the past, and exults at the height it has reached. How far has he got ahead of Cain! what another sort of ancestor he! No longer needing to look up in feebleness to God for protection, he can provide more amply for it himself than God did for Cain’s; and he congratulates his wives on being the mothers of such sons. Thus the history of the Cainites began with a deed of murder, and here it ends with a song of murder.” This seed of the woman, however,—the seed that she produces in faith upon the promise of God, and in which the grace of God takes vital effect, is found, not only as to its existence, to be associated with a principle of election, but also as to the relative place occupied by particular members in its line. All have by faith an interest in God, and in consequence triumph over the power of the adversary. But some have a larger interest than others, and attain to a higher victory. There was an election within the election. So it appeared especially in the case of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, and again in Noah, who, as they alone of the antediluvians were endowed with the spirit of prophecy, so they alone, also, are said to have “walked with God” (Genesis 5:22; Genesis 6:9),—an expression never used of any who lived in later times, and denoting the nearest and most confidential intercourse, as if they had all but regained the old paradisiacal freedom of communion with Heaven. And as the Divine seal upon this higher elevation of the life of God in their souls, they were both honoured with singular tokens of distinction—the one having been taken, without tasting of death, to still nearer fellowship with God, to abide in His immediate presence (“He was not, for God took him”), while the other became under God the saviour and father of a new world. Of the latter we shall have occasion to speak separately, as there were connected with his case other elements of a typical nature. But in regard to Enoch, as the short and pregnant notice of his life and of his removal out of it, plainly indicates something transcendently good and great, so, we cannot doubt, the contemporaries of the patriarch knew it to be such. They knew—at least they had within their reach the means of knowing—that in consideration of his eminent piety, and of the circumstances of the time in which he lived, he was taken direct to a higher sphere, without undergoing the common lot of mortality. That there should have been but one such case during the whole antediluvian period, could not but be regarded as indicating its exceptional character, and stamping it the more emphatically as a revelation from Heaven. Nor could the voice it uttered in the ears of reflecting men sound otherwise than as a proclamation that God was assuredly with that portion of the woman’s seed who served and honoured Him—that He manifested Himself to such, as a chosen people, in another manner than He did to the world, and made them sure of a complete and final victory over all the malice of the tempter and the evils of sin. If not usually without death, yet notwithstanding it, and through it, they should certainly attain to eternal life in the presence of God. In this respect Enoch—as being the most distinguished member of the seed of blessing in its earlier division, and the most honoured heir of that life which comes through the righteousness of faith—is undoubtedly to be viewed as a type of Christ. Something he had in common with the line as a whole—he was a partaker of that electing grace and love of God, in virtue of which alone any could rise from the condemnation of sin to the inheritance of life in the Divine kingdom. But apart from others in the same line, and above them, he passed to the inheritance by a more direct and triumphant path—a conqueror in the very mode of his transition from time to eternity. These characteristics, which in Enoch’s case were broadly marked, though in themselves somewhat general and incapable of being understood to have reference to a personal Messiah, till such a Messiah had been more distinctly announced, are yet pre-eminently the characteristics of Christ, and in the full and absolute sense could be found only in Him. He is, as no other individual among men could be, the seed of the woman, considered as the seed of promise, destined by God’s purpose of grace to bruise the head of the tempter, and reverse the process of nature’s corruption. In Him, as present from the first to the “determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” was the ultimate root of such a seed to be found which should otherwise have had no existence in the world. He therefore, beyond all others, was the chosen of God, “His elect in whom His soul delights.” And though to the eye of a carnal and superficial world, which judges only by the appearance, He wanted what seemed necessary to justify His claim to such a position, yet He in reality gave the clearest proof of it, by a faith that never faltered in the hardest trials, a righteousness free from every stain of impurity, and a life that could only underlie for a moment the cloud of death, but even then could see no corruption, and presently rose, as to its proper home, in the regions of eternal light and glory. With our eyes resting on this exalted object in the ends of time, we have no difficulty in perceiving, that what appeared of supernatural in such men as Abel and Enoch, only foreshadowed the higher and greater good that was to come. The foreshadowing, however, was not such that from the appearance of Abel and Enoch a personal Messiah could have been descried, or as if, from the incidents in their respective lives, precisely similar ones might have been inferred as likely to happen in the eventful career of the man Christ Jesus. We could not descend thus to individual and personal marks of coincidence between the lives of those early patriarchs and the life of Messiah, without, in the first instance, anticipating the order of Providence, which had not yet directed the eye of faith and hope to a personal manifestation of Godhead, and then entangling ourselves in endless difficulties of practical adjustment—as in the case of Enoch’s translation, who went to heaven without tasting death, while Christ could not enter into glory till He had tasted it. But let those patriarchs be contemplated as the earlier links of a chain which, from its very nature, must have some higher and nobler termination; let them be viewed as characters that already bore upon them the lineaments and possessed the beginnings of the new creation: what do they then appear but embodied prophecies of a more general kind in respect to “Him who was to come?” They heralded His future redemptive work by exhibiting in part thesigns and fruits of its prospective achievements. The beginning was prophetic of the end; for if the one had not been in prospect, the other could not have come into existence. And in their selection by God from the general mass around them, their faith in God’s word, and their possession of God’s favour and blessing, as outwardly displayed and manifested in their histories, we see struggling, as it were, into being the first elements of that new state and destiny, which were only to find their valid reason, and reach their proper elevation, in the person and kingdom of Messiah. Section Second.—Noah And The Deluge. THE case of Noah, we have already stated, embodied some new elements of a typical kind, which gave to it the character of a distinct stage in the development of God’s work of grace in the world. It did so in connection with the deluge, which had a gracious as well as a judicial aspect, and, by a striking combination of opposites, brought prominently out the principle, that the accomplishment of salvation necessarily carries along with it a work of destruction. This was not absolutely a new principle at the period of the deluge. It had a place in the original promise, and a certain exemplification in the lives of believers from the first. By giving to the prospect of recovery the peculiar form of a bruising of the tempter’s head, the Lord plainly intimated, that somehow a work of destruction was to go along with the work of salvation, and was necessary to its accomplishment. No indication, however, was given of the way in which this twofold process was to proceed, or of the nature of the connection between the one part of it and the other. But light to a certain extent soon began to be thrown upon it by the consciousness in each man’s bosom of a struggle between the evil and the good,—a struggle which so early as the time of Cain drew forth the solemn warning, that either his better part must vindicate for itself the superiority, or it must itself fall down vanquished by the destroyer. Still farther light appeared, when the contending elements grew into two great contending parties, which by an ever-widening breach, and at length by most serious encroachments from the evil on the good, rendered a work of judgment from above necessary to the peace and safety of the believing portion of mankind. The conviction of some approaching crisis of this nature had become so deep in the time of Enoch, that it gave utterance to itself in the prophecy ascribed in the Epistle of Jude to that patriarch: “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have committed against Him.” The struggle, it was thus announced, should ere long end in a manifestation of God for judgment against the apostate faction, and by implication for deliverance to the children of faith and hope. By the period of Noah’s birth, however, the necessity of a Divine interposition had become much greater, and it appeared manifest to the small remnant of believers that the era of retribution, which they now identified with the era of deliverance, must be at hand. Indication was then given of this state of feeling by the name itself of Noah, with the reason assigned for its adoption, “This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” The feeling is too generally expressed, to enable us to determine with accuracy how the parents of this child might expect their troubles to be relieved through his instrumentality. But in their words we hear, at least, the groaning of the oppressed—the sighing of righteous souls, vexed on account of the evils which were thickening around them, from the unrestrained wickedness of those who had corrupted the earth; and, at the same time, not despairing, but looking up in faith, and even confident that in the lifetime of that child the God of righteousness and truth would somehow avenge the cause of His elect. Whether they had obtained any correct insight or not into the way by which the object was to be accomplished, the event proved that the spirit of prophecy breathed in their anticipation. Their faith rested upon solid grounds, and in the hope which it led them to cherish they were not disappointed. Salvation did come in connection with the person of Noah, and it came in the way of an overwhelming visitation of wrath upon the adversaries. When we look simply at the outward results produced by that remarkable visitation, they appear to have been twofold—on the one side preservation, on the other destruction. But when we look a little more closely, we perceive that there was a necessary connection between the two results, and that there was properly but one object aimed at in the dispensation, though in accomplishing it there was required the operation of a double process. That object was, in the words of St Peter, “the saving of Noah and his house” (1 Peter 3:20)—saving them as the spiritual seed of God. But saving them from what? Not surely from the violence and desolation of the waters; for the watery element would then have acted as the preservative against itself, and instead of being saved by the water, according to the apostolic statement, the family of Noah would have been saved from it.[125] From what, then, were they saved? Undoubtedly from that which, before the coming of the deluge, formed the real element of danger—the corruption, enmity, and violence of ungodly men. It was this which wasted the Church of God, and brought it to the verge of destruction. All was ready to perish. The cause of righteousness had at length but one efficient representative in the person of Noah; and he much “like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, like a besieged city,”—the object of profane mockery and scorn, taunted, reviled, plied with every weapon fitted to overcome his constancy, and, if not in himself, at least in his family, in danger of suffering shipwreck amid the swelling waves of wickedness around him. It was to save him—and with him, the cause of God—from this source of imminent danger and perdition, that the flood was sent; and it could only do so by effectually separating between him and the seed of evil-doers—engulphing them in ruin, and sustaining him uninjured in his temporary home. So that the deluge, considered as Noah’s baptism, or the means of his salvation from an outward form of spiritual danger, was not less essentially connected with a work of judgment than with an act of mercy. It was by the one that the other was accomplished; and the support of the ark on the bosom of the waters was only a collateral object of the deluge. The direct and immediate object was the extermination of that wicked race, whose heaven-daring impiety and hopeless impenitence was the real danger that menaced the cause and people of God,—“the destroying of those (to use the language that evidently refers to it in Revelation 11:18) who destroyed the earth.” [125] I am aware many eminent scholars give a different turn to this expression in the first Epistle of Peter, and take the proper rendering to be, “saved through (i.e., in the midst of) the water”—contemplating the water as the space or region through which the ark was required to bear Noah and his family in safety. So Beza, who says that “the water cannot be taken for the instrumental cause, as Noah was preserved from the water, not by it;” so also Tittmann, Bib. Cab., vol. xviii., p. 251; Steiger in his Comm., with only a minute shade of difference; Robinson, in Lex., and many others. But this view is open to the following objections: 1. The water is here mentioned, not in respect to its several parts, or to the extent of its territory from one point to another, but simply as an instrumental agent. Had the former been meant, the expression would have been, “saved through the waters,” rather than saved by water. But as the case stood, it mattered nothing whether the ark remained stationary at one point on the surface of the waters, or was borne from one place to another; so that through, in the sense of passing through, or through among, gives a quite unsuitable meaning. That Noah needed to be saved from the water, rather than by it, is a superficial objection, proceeding on the supposition that the water had the same relation to Noah that it had to the world in general. For him, the water and the ark were essentially connected together; it took both to make up the means of deliverance. In the same sense, and on the same account, we might say of the Red Sea, that the Israelites were saved by it; for though in itself a source of danger, yet, as regarded Israel’s position, it was really the means of safety (1 Corinthians 10:2). 2. The application made by the Apostle of Noah’s preservation requires the agency of the water as well as of the ark to be taken into account. Indeed, according to the best authorities (which read ὅ καὶ), the reference in the antitype is specially to the water as the type. But apart from that, baptism is spoken of as a saving, in consequence of its being a purifying ordinance, which implies, as in the deluge, that the salvation be accomplished through means of a destruction. This is virtually admitted by Steiger, who, though he adopts the rendering “through the water,” yet in explaining the connection between the type and the antitype, is obliged to regard the water as also instrumental to salvation. “The flood was for Noah a baptism, and as such saved; the same element, water, also saves us now—not, however, as mere water, but in the same quality as a baptism.” This principle of salvation with destruction, which found such a striking exemplification in the deluge, has been continually appearing anew in the history of God’s dealings among men. It appeared, for example, at the period of Israel’s redemption from Egypt, when a way of escape was opened for the people of God by the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host; and again at the era of the return from Babylon, when the destruction of the enemy and the oppressor broke asunder the bands with which the children of the covenant were held captive. But it is in New Testament times, and in connection with the work of Christ, that the higher manifestation of the principle appears. Here alone perfection can be said to belong to it. Complete as the work in one respect was in the days of Noah, in another it soon gave unmistakeable evidence of its own imperfection. The immediate danger was averted by the destruction of the wicked in the waters of a deluge, and the safe preservation of Noah and his family as a better seed to replenish the depopulated earth. But it was soon found that the old leaven still lurked in the bosom of the preserved remnant itself; and another race of apostates and destroyers, though of a less ferocious spirit, and under more of restraint in regard to deeds of violence and bloodshed, rose up to prosecute anew the work of the adversary. In Christ, however, the very foundations of evil from the first were struck at, and nothing is left for a second beginning to the cause of iniquity. He came, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 61:2), “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God,” which was, at the same time, to be the “year of His redeemed.” And, accordingly, by the work He accomplished on earth, “the prince of this world was judged and cast out” (John 12:31); or, as it is again written, “principalities and powers were spoiled,” and “he that had the power of death destroyed” (Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14), thereby giving deliverance to those who were subject to sin and death. He did this once for all, when He fulfilled all righteousness, and suffered unto death for sin. The victory over the tempter then achieved by Christ no more needs to be repeated than the atonement made for human guilt; it needs to be appropriated merely by His followers, and made effectual in their experience. Satan has no longer any right to exercise lordship over men, and hold them in bondage to his usurped authority; the ground of his power and dominion is taken away, because the condemnation of sin, on which it stood, has been for ever abolished. Christ, therefore, at once destroys and saves—saves by destroying—casts the cruel oppressor down from his ill-gotten supremacy, and so relieves the poor, enthralled, devil-possessed nature of man, and sets it into the glorious liberty of God’s children. In the case of the Redeemer Himself, this work is absolutely complete; the man Christ Jesus thoroughly bruised Satan under His feet, and won a position where in no respect whatever He could be any more subject to the power of evil. Theoretically, we may say, the work is also complete in behalf of His people; on His part, no imperfection cleaves to it. By virtue of the blood of Jesus, the house of our humanity, which naturally stood accursed of God, and was ready to be assailed by every form of evil, is placed on a new and better foundation. It is made holiness to the Lord. The handwriting of condemnation that was against us is blotted out. The adversary has lost his bill of indictment; and nothing remains but that the members of the human family should, each for themselves, take up the position secured for them by the salvation of Christ, to render them wholly and for ever superior to the dominion of the adversary. But it is here that imperfection still comes in. Men will not lay hold of the advantage obtained for them by the all-prevailing might and energy of Jesus, or they will but partially receive into their experience the benefits it provides for them. Yet there is a measure of success also here, in the case of all genuine believers. And it is to this branch of the subject more immediately that the Apostle Peter points, when he represents Christian baptism as the antitype of the deluge. In the personal experience of believers, as symbolized in that ordinance, there is a re-enacting substantially of what took place in the outward theatre of the world by means of the deluge. “The like figure whereunto (literally, the antitype to which, viz., Noah’s salvation by water in the ark) even baptism doth also now save us; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 3:21) Like the Apostle’s delineations generally, the passage briefly indicates, rather than explicitly unfolds, the truths connected with the subject. Yet, on a slight consideration of it, we readily perceive, that, with profound discernment, it elicits from the ordinance of baptism, as spiritually understood and applied, the same fundamental elements, discovers there the same twofold process, which appeared so strikingly in the case of Noah. Here also there is a salvation reaching its accomplishment by means of a destruction—“not the putting away of the filth of the flesh” not so superficial a riddance of evil, but one of a more important and vital character, bringing “the answer of a good conscience,” or the deliverance of the soul from the guilt and power of iniquity. The water of baptism—let the subject be plunged in it ever so deep, or sprinkled ever so much—can no more of itself save him than the water of the deluge could have saved Noah, apart from the faith he possessed, and the preparation it led him to make in constructing and entering into the ark. It was because he held and exercised such faith, that the deluge brought salvation to Noah, while it overwhelmed others in destruction. So is it in baptism, when received in a spirit of faith. There is in this also the putting off of the old man of corruption—crucifying it together with Christ, and at the same time a rising through the resurrection of Christ to the new and heavenly life, which satisfies the demands of a pure and enlightened conscience. So that the really baptized soul is one in which there has been a killing and a making alive, a breaking up and destroying of the root of corrupt nature, and planting in its stead the seed of a divine nature, to spring, and grow, and bring forth fruit to perfection. In the microcosm of the individual believer, there is the perishing of an old world of sin and death, and the establishment of a new world of righteousness and life everlasting. Such is the proper idea of Christian baptism, and such would be the practical result were the idea fully realized in the experience of the baptized. But this is so far from being the case, that even the idea is apt to suffer in people’s minds from the conscious imperfections of their experience. And it might help to check such a tendency—it might, at least, be of service in enabling them to keep themselves well informed as to what should be, if they looked occasionally to what actually was, in the outward pattern of these spiritual things, given in the times of Noah. Are you disinclined, we might say to them, to have the axe so unsparingly applied to the old man of corruption? Think, for your warning, how God spared not the old world, but sent its mass of impurity headlong into the gulph of perdition. Seems it a task too formidable, and likely to prove hope less in the accomplishment, to maintain your ground against the powers of evil in the world? Think again, for your encouragement, how impotent the giants of wickedness were of old to defeat the counsels of God, or prevail over those who held fast their confidence in His word; with all their numbers and their might, they sunk like lead in the waters, while the little house hold of faith rode secure in the midst of them. Or does it appear strange, at times perhaps incredible, to your mind, that you should be made the subject of a work which requires for its accomplishment the peculiar perfections of Godhead, while others are left entire strangers to it, and even find the word of God—the chosen instrument for effecting it—the occasion of wrath and condemnation to their souls? Remember “the few, the eight souls” of Noah’s family, alone preserved amid the wreck and desolation of a whole world—preserved, too, by faith in a word of God, which carried in its bosom the doom of myriads of their fellow-creatures, and so, finding that which was to others a minister of condemnation, a source of peace and safety to them. Rest assured, that as God Himself remains the same through all generations, so His work for the good of men is essentially the same also; and it ever must be His design and purpose, that Noah’s faith and salvation should be perpetually renewing themselves in the hidden life and experience of those who are preparing for the habitations of glory. Section Third.—The New World And Its Inheritors The Men Of Faith. IN one respect the world seemed to have suffered material loss by the visitation of the deluge. Along with the agents and instruments of evil, there had also been swept away by it the emblems of grace and hope—paradise with its tree of life and its cherubim of glory. We can conceive Noah and his house hold, when they first left the ark, looking around with melancholy feelings on the position they now occupied, not only as being the sole survivors of a numerous offspring, but also as being themselves bereft of the sacred memorials which bore evidence of a happy past, and exhibited the pledge of a yet happier future. An important link of communion with heaven, it might well have seemed, was broken by the change thus brought through the deluge on the world. But the loss was soon fully compensated, and, we may even say, more than compensated, by the advantages conferred on Noah and his seed from the higher relation to which they were now raised in respect to God and the world. There are three points that here, in particular, call for attention. 1. The first is, the new condition of the earth itself, which immediately appears in the freedom allowed and practised in regard to the external worship of God. This was no longer confined to any single region, as seems to have been the case in the age subsequent to the fall. The cherubim were located in a particular spot, on the east of the garden of Eden; and as the symbols of God’s presence were there, it was only natural that the celebration of Divine worship should there also have found its common centre. Hence the two sons of Adam are said to have “brought their offerings unto the Lord”—which can scarcely be understood otherwise than as pointing to that particular locality which was hallowed by visible symbols of the Lord’s presence, and in the neighbourhood of which life and blessing still lingered. In like manner, it is said of Cain, after he had assumed the attitude of rebellion, that “he went out from the presence of the Lord,” obviously implying that there was a certain region with which the Divine presence was considered to be more peculiarly connected, and which can be thought of nowhere else than in that sanctuary on the east of Eden. But with the flood the reason for any such restriction vanished. Noah, therefore, reared his altar, and presented his sacrifice to the Lord where the ark rested. There immediately he got the blessing, and entered into covenant with God—proving that, in a sense, old things had passed away, and all had become new. The earth had risen in the Divine reckoning to a higher condition; it had passed through the baptism of water, and was now, in a manner, cleansed from defilement; so that every place had become sacred, and might be regarded as suitable for the most solemn acts of worship.[126] [126] If we are right as to the centralization of the primitive worship of mankind (and it seems to be only the natural inference from the notices referred to), then the antediluvian population cannot well be supposed to have been of vast extent, or to have wandered to a very great distance from the original centre. The employment also of a special agency after the flood to disperse the descendants of Noah, and scatter them over the earth, seems to indicate, that an indisposition to go to a distance, a tendency to crowd too much about one locality, was one of the sources of evil in the first stage of the world’s history, the recurrence of which well deserved to be prevented, even by miraculous interference; and it is perfectly conceivable, indeed most likely, that the tower of Babel, in connection with which this interference took place, was not intended to be a palladium of idolatry, or a mere freak of ambitious folly, but rather a sort of substitution for the loss of the Edenic symbols, and, as such, a centre of union for the human family. It follows, of course, from the same considerations, that the deluge might not absolutely require, so far as the race of man was concerned, to extend over more than a comparatively limited portion of the earth. But its actual compass is not thereby determined. This more sacred and elevated position of the earth after the deluge appears, farther, in the express repeal of the curse originally laid upon the ground for the sin of Adam: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake” (Genesis 8:21), was the word of God to Noah, on accepting the first offering presented to Him in the purified earth. It is, no doubt, to be understood relatively; not as indicating a total repeal of the evil, but only a mitigation of it; yet such a mitigation as would render the earth a much less afflicted and more fertile region than it had been before. But this again indicated that, in the estimation of Heaven, the earth had now assumed a new position; that by the action of God’s judgment upon it, it had become hallowed in His sight, and was in a condition to receive tokens of the Divine favour, which had formerly been withheld from it. 2. The second point to be noticed here, is the heirship given of this new world to Noah and his seed—given to them expressly as the children of faith. Adam, at his creation, was constituted the lord of this world, and had kingly power and authority given him to subdue it and rule over it. But on the occasion of his fall, this grant, though not formally recalled, suffered a capital abridgment; since he was sent forth from Eden as a discrowned monarch, to do the part simply of a labourer on the surface of the earth, and with the discouraging assurance that it should reluctantly yield to him of its fruitfulness. Nor, when he afterwards so distinctly identified himself with God’s promise and purpose of grace, by appearing as the head only of that portion of his seed who had faith in God, did there seem any alleviation of the evil: the curse that rested on the ground, rested on it still, even for the seed of blessing (Genesis 5:29); and not they, but the ungodly Cainites, acquired in it the ascendency of physical force and political dominion. A change, however, appears in the relative position of things, when the flood had swept with its purifying waters over the earth. Man now rises, in the person of Noah, to a higher place in the world; yet not simply as man, but as a child of God, standing in faith. His faith had saved him, amid the general wreck of the old world, to become in the new a second head of mankind, and an inheritor of earth’s domain, as now purged and rescued from the pollution of evil. “He is made heir,” as it is written in Hebrews, “of the righteousness which is by faith,”—heir, that is, of all that properly belongs to such righteousness, not merely of the righteousness itself, but also of the world, which in the Divine purpose it was destined to possess and occupy. Hence, as if there had been a new creation, and a new head brought in to exercise over it the right of sovereignty, the original blessing and grant to Adam are substantially renewed to Noah and his family: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hand are they delivered.” Here, then, the righteousness of faith received direct from the grace of God the dowry that had been originally bestowed upon the righteousness of nature—not a blessing merely, but a blessing coupled with the heirship and dominion of the world. There was nothing strange or arbitrary in such a proceeding; it was in perfect accordance with the great principles of the Divine administration. Adam was too closely connected with the sin that destroyed the world, to be reinvested, even when he had through faith become a partaker of grace, with the restored heirship of the world. Nor had the world itself passed through such an ordeal of purification, as to fit it, in the personal lifetime of Adam, or of his more immediate offspring, for being at all represented in the light of an inheritance of blessing. The renewed title to the heirship of its fulness was properly reserved to the time when, by the great act of Divine judgment at the deluge, it had passed into a new condition; and when one was found of the woman’s seed, who had attained in a peculiar degree to the righteousness of faith, and along with the world had undergone a process of salvation. It was precisely such a person that should have been chosen as the first type of the righteousness of faith, in respect to its world-wide heritage of blessing. And having been raised to this higher position, an additional sacredness was thrown around him and his seed: the fear of them was to be put into the inferior creatures; their life was to be avenged of every one that should wrongfully take it; even the life-blood of irrational animals was to be held sacred, because of its having something in common with man’s, while their flesh was now freely surrendered to their use;—the whole evidently fitted, and, we cannot doubt, also intended to convey the idea, that man had by the special gift of God’s grace been again constituted heir and lord of the world, that, in the words of the Psalmist, “the earth had been given to the children of men,” and given in a larger and fuller sense than had been done since the period of the fall.[127] [127] It presents no contrariety to this, when rightly considered, that the Lord should also have connected His purpose of preserving the earth in future with the corruption of man: “And the Lord smelled a sweet savour (viz., from Noah’s sacrifice); and the Lord said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”—(Genesis 8:21) The meaning is, that God delighted so much more in the offerings of righteousness than in the inflictions of judgment, that He would now direct His providence so as more effectually to secure the former—would not allow the imaginations of man’s evil heart to get such scope as they had done before; but, perceiving and remembering their native existence in the heart, would bring such remedial influences into operation that the extremity of the past should not again return. 3. The remaining point to be noticed in respect to this new order of things, is the pledge of continuance, notwithstanding all appearances or threatenings to the contrary, given in the covenant made with Noah, and confirmed by a fixed sign in the heavens. “And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish My covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant” (more exactly: My bow I have set in the cloud, and it shall be for a covenant-sign) “between Me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.”—(Genesis 9:8-15) There can be no doubt that the natural impression produced by this passage in respect to the sign of the covenant, is, that it now for the first time appeared in the lower heavens. The Lord might, no doubt, then, or at any future time, have taken an existing phenomenon in nature, and by a special appointment made it the instrument of conveying some new and higher meaning to the subjects of His revelation. But in a matter like the present, when the specific object contemplated was to allay men’s fears of the possible recurrence of the deluge, and give them a kind of visible pledge in nature for the permanence of her existing order and constitution, one cannot perceive how a natural phenomenon, common alike to the antediluvian and the postdiluvian world, could have fitly served the purpose. In that case, so far as the external sign was concerned, matters stood precisely where they were; and it was not properly the sign, but the covenant itself, which formed the guarantee of safety for the future. We incline, therefore, to the opinion that, in the announcement here made, intimation is given of a change in the physical relations or temperature of at least that portion of the earth where the original inhabitants had their abode; by reason of which the descent of moisture in showers of rain came to take the place of distillation by dew, or other modes of operation different from the present. The supposition is favoured by the mention only of dew before in connection with the moistening of the ground (Genesis 2:6); and when rain does come to be mentioned, it is rain in such flowing torrents as seems rather to betoken the outpouring of a continuous stream, than the gentle dropping which we are wont to understand by the term, and to associate with the rainbow. The fitness of the rainbow in other respects to serve as a sign of the covenant made with Noah, is all that could be desired. There is an exact correspondence between the natural phenomenon it presents, and the moral use to which it is applied. The promise in the covenant was not that there should be no future visitations of judgment upon the earth, but that they should not proceed to the extent of again destroying the world. In the moral, as in the natural sphere, there might still be congregating vapours and descending torrents; indeed, the terms of the covenant imply that there should be such, and that by means of them God would not fail to testify His displeasure against sin, and keep in awe the workers of iniquity. But there should be no second deluge to diffuse universal ruin; mercy should always so far rejoice against judgment. Such in the field of nature is the assurance given by the rainbow, which is formed by the lustre of the sun’s rays shining on the dark cloud as it recedes; so that it may be termed, as in the somewhat poetical description of Langé, “the sun’s triumph over the floods; the glitter of his beams imprinted on the rain-cloud as a mark of subjection.” How appropriate an emblem of that grace which should always show itself ready to return after wrath! Grace still sparing and preserving, even when storms of judgment have been bursting forth upon the guilty! And as the rainbow throws its radiant arch over the expanse between heaven and earth, uniting the two together again as with a wreath of beauty, after they have been engaged in an elemental war, what a fitting image does it present to the thoughtful eye of the essential harmony that still subsists between the higher and the lower spheres! Such undoubtedly is its symbolic import, as the sign peculiarly connected with the covenant of Noah; it holds out, by means of its very form and nature, an assurance of God’s mercy, as engaged to keep perpetually in check the floods of deserved wrath, and continue to the world the manifestation of His grace and goodness. Such also is the import attached to it, when forming a part of prophetic imagery in the visions of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:28) and of St John (Revelation 4:3); it is the symbol of grace, as ever ready to return after judgment, and to stay the evil from proceeding so far as to accomplish a complete destruction.[128] [128] Far too general is the explanation often given of the symbolic import of the rainbow by writers on such topics—as when it is described to be “in general a symbol of God’s willingness to receive men into favour again” (Wemyss’ Clavis Symbolica), or that “it indicates the faithfulness of the Almighty in fulfilling the promises that He has made to His people.”—(Mill’s Sacred Symbology.) Sound Christian feeling, with something of a poetic eye for the imagery of nature, finds its way better to the meaning as in the following simple lines of John Newton:— “When the sun with cheerful beams Smiles upon a low ring sky, Soon its aspect softened seems, And a rainbow meets the eye; While the sky remains serene, This bright arch is never seen. Thus the Lord’s supporting power Brightest to His saints appears. When affliction’s threat’ning hour Fills their sky with clouds and fears; He can wonders then perform, Paint a rainbow on the storm. Favoured John a rainbow saw Circling round the throne above; Hence the saints a pledge may draw Of unchanging covenant-love: Clouds awhile may intervene, But the bow shall still be seen.” Yet gracious as this covenant with Noah was, and appropriate and beautiful the sign that ratified it, all bore on it still the stamp of imperfection; there was an indication and a prelude of the better things needed to make man truly and permanently blessed, not these things themselves. For what was this new world, which had its perpetuity secured, and over which Noah was set to reign, as heir of the righteousness that is by faith? To Noah himself, and each one in succession of his seed, it was still a region of corruption and death. It had been sanctified, indeed, by the judgment of God, and as thus sanctified it was not to perish again as it had done before. But this sanctification was only by water—enough to sweep away into the gulf of perdition the mass of impurity that festered on its surface, but not penetrating inwards, to the elements of evil which were bound up with its very framework. Another agency, more thoroughly pervasive in its nature, and in its effects more nobly sublimating, the agency of fire, is required to purge out the dross of its earthliness, and render it a home and an inheritance fit for those who are made like to the Son of God.—(2 Peter 3:7-13) And Noah himself, though acknowledged heir of the righteousness by faith, and receiving on his position the seal of heaven, in the salvation granted to him and his household, yet how far from being perfect in that righteousness, or by this salvation placed beyond the reach of evil! Ere long he miserably fell under the power of temptation; and unmistakeable evidence appeared that the serpent’s seed had found a place among the members of his household. High, therefore, as Noah stood compared with those who had gone before him, he was, after all, but the representative of an imperfect righteousness, and the heir of a corruptible and transitory inheritance. He was the type, but no more than the type, of Him who was to come—in whom the righteousness of God should be perfected, salvation should rise to its higher sphere, and all, both in the heirs of glory, and the inheritance they were to occupy, should by the baptism of fire be rendered incorruptible and undefiled, and unfading. Section Fourth.—The Change In The Divine Call From The General To The Particular—Shem, Abraham. THE obvious imperfections just noticed, both in the righteousness of the new head of the human family, and in the constitution of the world over which he was placed, clearly enough indicated that the divine plan had only advanced a stage in its progress, but had by no means reached its perfection. As the world, however, in its altered condition, had become naturally superior to its former state, so—in necessary and causal connection with this—it was in a spiritual respect to stand superior to it: secured against the return of a general perdition, it was also secured against the return of universal apostasy and corruption. The cause of righteousness was not to be trodden down as it had been before, nay, was to hold on its way and ultimately rise to the ascendant in the affairs of men. Not only was this presupposed in the covenant of perpetuity established for the world, as the internal ground on which it rested, but it was also distinctly announced by the father of the new world, in the prophetic intimation he gave of the future destinies of his children. It was a melancholy occasion which drew this prophecy forth, as it was alike connected with the shameful backsliding of Noah himself, and the wanton in decency of his youngest son. When Noah recovered from his sin, and understood how this son had exposed, while the other two had covered, his nakedness, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants (i.e., a servant of the lowest grade) shall he be to his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”—(Genesis 9:25-27) There are various points of interest connected with this prophecy, and the occurrence that gave rise to it, which it does not fall within our province to notice. But the leading scope of it, as bearing on the prospective destinies of mankind, is manifestly of a hopeful description; and in that respect it differs materially from the first historical incident that revealed the conflict of nature and grace in the family of Adam. The triumph of Cain over righteous Abel, and his stout-hearted resistance to the voice of God, gave ominous indication of the bad pre-eminence which sin was to acquire, and the fearful results which it was to achieve in the old world. But the milder form of this outbreak of evil in the family of Noah—the immediate discouragement it meets with from the older members of the family—the strong denunciation it draws down from the venerable parent—above all, the clear and emphatic prediction it elicits of the ascendancy of the good over the evil in these seminal divisions of the human family,—one and all perfectly accorded with the more advanced state which the world had reached; they bespoke the cheering fact, that righteousness should now hold its ground in the world, and that the dominant powers and races should be in league with it, while servility and degradation should rest upon its adversaries. This, any one may see at a glance, is the general tendency and design of what was uttered on the occasion; but there is a marked peculiarity in the form given to it, such as plainly intimates the commencement of a change in the Divine economy. There is a striking particularism in the prophetic announcement. It does not, as previously, give forth broad principles, or fore tell merely general results of evil and of good; but it explicitly announces—though still, no doubt, in wide and comprehensive terms the characteristic outlines of the future state and relative positions of Noah’s descendants. Such is the decided tendency here to the particular, that in the dark side of the picture it is not Ham, the offending son and the general head of the worse portion of the postdiluvian family, who is selected as the special object of vengeance, nor the sons of Ham generally, but specifically Canaan, who, it seems all but certain, was the youngest son.—(Genesis 10:6) Why this son, rather than the offending father, should have been singled out for denunciation, has been ascribed to various reasons; and resort has not unfrequently been had to conjecture, by supposing that this son may probably have been present with the father, or some way participated with him in the offence. Even, however, if we had been certified of this participation, it could at most have accounted for the introduction of the name of Canaan, but not for that being substituted in the room of the father’s. Nor can we allow much more weight to another supposition, that the omission of the name of Ham may have been intended for the very purpose of proving the absence of all vindictive feeling, and showing that these were the words, not of a justly indignant parent giving vent to the emotions of the passing moment, but of a divinely inspired prophet calmly anticipating the events of a remote futurity. Undoubtedly such is their character; but no extenuating consideration of this kind is needed to prove it, if we only keep in view the judicial nature of this part of the prophecy. The curse pronounced is not an ebullition of wrathful feeling, not a wish for the infliction of evil, but the announcement of a doom, or punishment for a particular offence; and one that was to take, as so often happens in Divine chastisements, the specific form of the offence committed. Noah’s affliction from the conduct of Ham was in the most peculiar manner to find its parallel in the case of Ham himself: He, the youngest son of Noah,[129] had proved a vexation and disgrace to his father, and in meet retaliation his own youngest son was to have his name in history coupled with the most humiliating and abject degradation. [129] Genesis 9:24. The expression in the original is בּנוֹ הַקָּטָן, and is the same that is applied to David in 1 Samuel 17:14. There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt that it means youngest, and not tender or dear, as some would take it. It is not so expressly said that Canaan was Ham’s youngest son; but the inference that he was such is fair and natural, as he is mentioned last in the genealogy, ch. 10:6, where no sufficient reason can be thought of for deviating from the natural order. It was, therefore, in the first instance at least, for the purpose of marking more distinctly the connection between the sin and its punishment, that Hävernick statesin his Introduction to the Pentateuch—that the curse, properly belonging to Ham, was to concentrate itself in the line of Canaan; and, beyond doubt, it is more especially in connection with that line that Scripture itself traces the execution of the curse. But these are somewhat remote and incidental considerations; the more natural and direct is the one already given—which Hofmann, we believe, was the first to suggest.[130] And as the word took the precise form it did, for the purpose more particularly of marking the connection between the sin and the punishment, it plainly indicated that the evil could not be confined to the line of Ham’s descendants by Canaan; the same polluted fountain could not fail to send forth its bitter streams also in other directions. The connection is entirely a moral one. Even in the case of Canaan there was no arbitrary and hapless appointment to inevitable degradation and slavery; as is clearly proved by the long forbearance and delay in the execution of the threatened doom, expressly on the ground of the iniquity of the people not having become full, and also from the examples of individual Canaanites, who rose even to distinguished favour and blessing, such as Melchizedek and Rahab in earlier, and the Syrophenician woman in later times. Noah, however, saw with prophetic insight, that in a general point of view the principle should here hold, like father like child; and that the irreverent and wanton spirit which so strikingly betrayed itself in the conduct of the progenitor, should infallibly give rise to an offspring whose dissolute and profligate manners would in due time bring upon them a doom of degradation and servitude. Such a posterity, with such a doom, beyond all question were the Canaanites, to whom we may add also the Tyrians and Sidonians, with their descendants the Carthaginians. The connection of sin and punishment might be traced to other sections besides, but it is not necessary that we pursue the subject farther. [130] Weissagung und Erfüllung, i., p. 89. Our course of inquiry rather leads us to notice the turn the prophecy takes in regard to the other side of the representation, and to mark the signs it contains of a tendency toward the particular, in connection with the future development of the scheme of grace. This comes out first and pre-eminently in the case ofShem: “And he said, Blessed is (or be) Jehovah, the God of Shem”—a blessing not directly upon Shem, but upon Jehovah as his God! Why such a peculiarity as this?No doubt, in the first instance, to make the contrast more palpable between this case and the preceding; the connection with God, which was utterly wanting in the one, presenting itself as everything, in a manner, in the other. Then it proclaims the identity as to spiritual state between Noah and Shem, and designates this son as in the full sense the heir of blessing: “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem,” My God is also the God of my son; I adore Him for Himself; and now, before I leave the world, declare Him to be the covenant God of Shem. Nor of Shem only as an individual, but as the head of a certain portion of the world’s inhabitants. It was with this portion that God was to stand in the nearest relation. Here He was to find His peculiar representatives, and His select instruments of working among men here emphatically were to be the priestly people. A spiritual distinction, therefore—the highest spiritual distinction, a state of blessed nearness to God, and special interest in His fullness—is what is predicated of the line of Shem. And in the same sense—namely, as denoting a fellowship in this spiritual distinction—should that part of the prophecy on Japheth also be understood, which points to a connection with Shem: “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” It obviously, indeed, designates his stock generally as the most spreading and energetic of the three—pre-eminent, so far as concerns diffusive operations and active labour in occupying the lands and carrying forward the business of the world and thus naturally tending, as the event has proved, to push their way, even in a civil and territorial respect, into the tents of Shem. This last thought may therefore not unfairly be included in the compass of the prediction, but it can at most be regarded as the subordinate idea. The prospect, as descried from the sacred heights of prophecy, of dwelling in the tents of Shem, must have been eyed, not as an intrusive conquest on the part of Japheth, subjecting Shem in a measure to the degrading lot of Canaan, but rather as a sacred privilege—an admission of this less honoured race under the shelter of the same Divine protection, and into the partnership of the same ennobling benefits with himself. In a word, it was through the line of Shem that the gifts of grace and the blessings of salvation were more immediately to flow—the Shemites were to have them at first hand; but the descendants of Japheth were also to participate largely in the good. And by reason of their more extensive ramifications and more active energies, were to be mainly instrumental in working upon the condition of the world. It is evident, even from this general intimation of the Divine purposes, that the more particular direction which was now to be given to the call of God, was not to be particular in the sense of exclusive, but particular only for the sake of a more efficient working and a more comprehensive result. The exaltation of Shem’s progeny into the nearest relationship to God, was not that they might keep the privilege to themselves, but that first getting it, they should admit the sons of Japheth, the inhabitants of the isles, to share with them in the boon, and spread it as wide as their scattered race should extend. The principle announced was an immediate particularism for the sake of an ultimate universalism. And this change in the manner of working was not introduced arbitrarily, but in consequence of the proved inadequacy of the other, and, as we may say, more natural course that had hitherto been pursued. Formally considered, the earlier revelations of God made no difference between one person and another, or even between one stem and another. They spoke the same language, and held out the same invitations to all. The weekly call to enter into God’s rest—the promise of victory to the woman’s seed—the exhibition of grace and hope in the symbols at the east of Eden—the instituted means of access to God in sacrificial worship—even the more specific promises and pledges of the Noachic covenant, were offered and addressed to men without distinction. Practically, however, they narrowed themselves; and when the effect is looked to, it is found that there was only a portion, an elect seed, that really had faith in the Divine testimony, and entered into possession of the offered good. Not only so, but there was a downward tendency in the process. The elect seed did not grow as time advanced, but proportionally decreased; the cause and party that flourished was the one opposed to God’s. And the same result was beginning to take place after the flood, as is evident from what occurred in the family of Noah itself, and from other notices of the early appearance of corruption. The tendency in this direction was too strong to be effectually met by such general revelations and overtures of mercy. The plan was too vague and indeterminate. A more specific line of operations was needed from the particular to the general; so that a certain amount of good, within a definite range, might in the first instance be secured; and that from this, as a fixed position, other advantages might be gained, and more extensive results achieved. It is carefully to be noted, then, that a comprehensive object was as much contemplated in this new plan as in the other; it differed only in the mode of reaching the end in view. The earth was to be possessed and peopled by the three sons of Noah; and of the three, Shem is the one who was selected as the peculiar channel of Divine gifts and communications—but not for his own exclusive benefit; rather to the end that others might share with him in the blessing. The real nature and bearing of the plan, however, became more clearly manifest, when it began to be actually carried into execution. Its proper commencement dates from the call of Abraham, who was of the line of Shem, and in whom, as an individual, the purpose of God began practically to take effect. Why the Divine choice should have fixed specially upon him as the first individual link in this grand chain of providences, is not stated; and from the references subsequently made to it, we are plainly instructed to regard it as an example of the absolutely free grace and sovereign election of God.—(Joshua 24:2; Nehemiah 9:7) That he had nothing whereof to boast in respect to it, we are expressly told; and yet we may not doubt, that in the line of Shem’s posterity, to which he belonged, there was more knowledge of God, and less corruption in His worship, than among other branches of the same stem. Hence, perhaps, as being addressed to one who was perfectly cognizant of what had taken place in the history of his progenitors, the revelation made to him takes a form which bears evident respect to the blessing pronounced on Shem, and appears only indeed as the giving of a more specific direction to Shem’s high calling, or chalking out a definite way for its accomplishment. Jehovah was the God of Shem that in the word of Noah was declared to be his peculiar distinction. In like manner, Jehovah from the first made Himself known to Abraham as his God; nay, even took the name of “God of Abraham” as a distinctive epithet, and made the promise, “I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee,” a leading article in the covenant established with him. And as the peculiar blessing of Shem was to be held with no exclusive design, but that the sons of Japheth far and wide might share in it, so Abraham is called not only to be himself blessed, but also that he might be a blessing,—a blessing to such an extent, that those should be blessed who blessed him, and in him all the families of the earth should be blessed. Yet with this general similarity between the earlier and the later announcement, what a striking advance does the Divine plan now make in breadth of meaning and explicitness of purpose! How wonderfully does it combine together the little and the great, the individual and the universal! Its terminus a quo the son of a Mesopotamian shepherd; and its terminus ad quem the entire brotherhood of humanity, and the round circumference of the globe! What a Divine-like grasp and comprehensiveness! The very projection of such a scheme bespoke the infinite understanding of Godhead; and minds altogether the reverse of narrow and exclusive, minds attempered to noble aims and inspired by generous feeling, alone could carry it into execution. By this call Abraham was raised to a very singular preeminence, and constituted in a manner the root and centre of the world’s future history, as concerns the attainment of real blessing. Still, even in that respect not exclusively. The blessing was to come chiefly to Abraham, and through him; but, as already indicated also in the prophecy on Shem, others were to stand, though in a subordinate rank, on the same line; since those also were to be blessed who blessed him; that is, who held substantially the same faith, and occupied the same friendly relation to God. The cases of such persons in the patriarch’s own day, as his kinsman Lot, who was not formally admitted into Abraham’s covenant, and still more of Melchizedek, who was not even of Abraham’s line, and yet individually stood in some sense higher than Abraham himself, clearly showed, and were no doubt partly provided for the express purpose of showing, that there was nothing arbitrary in Abraham’s position, and that the ground he occupied was to a certain extent common to believers generally. The peculiar honour conceded to him was, that the great trunk of blessing was to be of him, while only some isolated twigs or scattered branches were to be found elsewhere; and even these could only be found by persons coming, in a manner, to make common cause with him. In regard to himself, however, the large dowry of good conveyed to him in the Divine promise could manifestly not be realized through himself personally. There could at the most be but a beginning made in his own experience and history; and the widening of the circle of blessing to other kindreds and regions, till it reached the most distant families of the earth, could only be effected by means of those who were to spring from him. Hence the original word of promise, which was, “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed,” was afterwards changed into this, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”—(Genesis 22:18) Yet the original expression is not without an important meaning, and it takes the two, the earlier as well as the later form, to bring out the full design of God in the calling of Abraham. From the very nature of the case, first, as having respect to so extensive a field to be operated on, and then from the explicit mention of the patriarch’s seed in the promise, no doubt whatever could be entertained, that the good in its larger sense was to be wrought out, not by himself individually and directly, but by him in connection with the seed to be given to him. And when the high character as well as the comprehensive reach of the good was taken into account, it might well have seemed as if even that seed were somehow going to have qualities associated with it which he could not perceive in himself—as if another and higher connection with the heavenly and Divine should in due time be given to it, than any he was conscious of enjoying in his state of noblest elevation. We, at least, know from the better light we possess, that such actually was the case; that the good promised neither did nor could have come into realization but by a personal commingling of the Divine with the human; and that it has become capable of reaching to the most exalted height, and of diffusing itself through the widest bounds, simply by reason of this union in Christ. He, therefore, is the essential kernel of the promise; and the seed of Abraham, rather than Abraham himself, was to have the honour of blessing all the families of the earth. This, however, by no means makes void the in thee of the original promise; for by so expressly connecting the good with Abraham as well as with his seed, the organic connection was marked between the one and the other, and the things that belonged to him were made known as the beginning of the end. The blessing to be brought to the world through his line had even in his time a present though small realization—precisely as the kingdom of Christ had its commencement in that of David, and the one ultimately merged into the other. And so, in Abraham as the living root of all that was to follow, the whole and every part may be said to take its rise; and not only was Christ after the flesh of the seed of Abraham, but each believer in Christ is a son of Abraham, and the entire company of the redeemed shall have their place and their portion with Abraham in the kingdom of God. Such being the case with the call of Abraham,—in its objects, so high, and its results so grand and comprehensive,—it is manifest that the immediate limitations connected with it, in regard to a fleshly offspring and a worldly inheritance, must only have been intended to serve as temporary expedients and fit stepping-stones for the ulterior purposes in view. And such statements regarding the covenant with Abraham, as that it merely secured to Abraham a posterity, and to that posterity the possession of the land of Canaan for an inheritance, on the condition of their acknowledging Jehovah as their God, is to read the terms of the covenant with a microscope—magnifying the little, and leaving the great altogether unnoticed—in the preliminary means losing sight of the prospective end.[131] Another thing also, and one more closely connected with our present subject, is equally manifest; which is, that since the entire scheme of blessing had its root in Abraham, it must also have had its representation in Him—he, in his position and character and fortunes, must have been the type of that which was to come. Such uniformly is God’s plan, in respect to those whom it constitutes heads of a class, or founders of a particular dispensation. It was so, first of all, with Adam, in whom humanity itself was imaged. It was so again in a measure with the three sons of Noah, whose respective states and procedure gave prophetic indication of the more prominent characteristics that should distinguish their offspring. Such, too, at a future period, and much more remarkably, was the case with David, in whom, as the beginning and root of the everlasting kingdom, there was presented the foreshadowing type of all that should essentially belong to the kingdom, when represented by its Divine head, and set up in its proper dimensions. Nor could it now be properly otherwise with Abraham. The very terms of the call, which singled him out from the mass of the world, and set him on high, constrain us to regard him as in the strictest sense a representative man—in himself and the things belonging to his immediate heirs, the type at once of the subjective and the objective design of the covenant, or, in other words, of the kind of persons who were to be the subjects arid channels of blessing, and of the kind of inheritance with which they were to be blessed. It is for the purpose of exhibiting this clearly and distinctly, and thereby rendering the things written of Abraham and his immediate offspring a revelation, in the strictest sense, of God’s mind and will regarding the more distant future, that this portion of patriarchal history was constructed. [131] This is exactly the course taken in a late volume, Israel after the Flesh, by the Rev. William H. Johnstone, pp. 7, 8. He appears also to slump together the covenant with Abraham and the covenant at Sinai, as if the one were simply a renewal of the other. And this notwithstanding the distinction drawn so pointedly between them in the Epistle to the Galatians, and while the author, too, professes to have gone to work with the thorough determination to be guided only by Scripture! Abraham himself, in the first instance, was the covenant head and the type of what was to come; but as the family of the Israelites were to be the collective bearers and representatives of the covenant, so, not Abraham alone, but the whole of their immediate progenitors, who were alike heads of the covenant people, along with Abraham, Isaac also, and Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs,—possess a typical character. It shall be our object, therefore, in the two remaining sections,—which must necessarily extend to a considerable length,—to present the more prominent features of the instruction intended to be conveyed in both of the respects now mentioned first in regard to the subjects and channels of blessing, and then in regard to the inheritance destined for their possession. Section Fifth.—The Subjects And Channels Of Blessing—Abraham And Isaac, Jacob And The Twelve Patriarchs. WHILE we class the whole of these together, on account of their being alike covenant heads to the children of Israel, who became in due time the covenant people, we are not to lose sight of the fact, that Abraham was more especially the person in whom the covenant had its original root and representation. It is in his case, accordingly, that we might expect to find, and that we actually have, the most specific and varied information respecting the nature of the covenant, and the manner in which it was to reach its higher ends. We shall therefore look, in the first instance, to what is written of him, coupling Isaac, however, with him; since what is chiefly interesting and import ant about Isaac concerns him as the seed, for which Abraham was immediately called to look and wait: so that, as to the greater lines of instruction, which are all we can at present notice, the lives of the two are knit inseparably together. And the same is, to a considerable extent, the case also with Jacob and the twelve patriarchs. The whole may be said to be of one piece, viewed as a special instruction for the covenant people, and through them for the Church at large, in respect to her calling and position in the world. I. Abraham, then, is called to be in a peculiar sense the possessor and dispenser of blessing; to be himself blessed, and through the seed that is to spring from him, to be a blessing to the whole race of mankind. A divine-like calling and destiny! for it is God alone who is properly the source and giver of blessing. Abraham, therefore, by his very appointment, is raised into a supranatural relationship to God; he is to be in direct communication with heaven, and to receive all from above; God is to work, in a special manner, for him and by him; and the people that are to spring out of him, for a blessing to other peoples, are to arise, not in the ordinary course of nature, but above and beyond it, as the benefits also they should be called to diffuse belong to a higher region than that of nature. As a necessary counterpart to this, and the in dispensable condition of its accomplishment, there must be in Abraham a principle of faith, such as might qualify him for transacting with God, in regard to the higher things of the covenant. These were not seen or present, and were also strange, supernatural, in the view of sense unlikely or even impossible; yet were not the less to be regarded as sure in the destination of heaven, and to be looked, waited, or, if need be, also striven and suffered for by men. This principle of faith must evidently be the fundamental and formative power in Abraham’s bosom—the very root of his new being, the life of his life—at once making him properly receptive of the Divine goodness, and readily obedient to the Divine will in the one respect giving scope for the display of God’s wonders in his behalf, and in the other prompting him to act in accordance with God’s righteous ends and purposes. So it actually was. Abraham was pre-eminently a man of faith; and on that account was raised to the honourable distinction of the Father of the Faithful. And faith in him proved not only a capacity to receive, but a hand also to work; and is scarcely less remarkable for what it brought to his experience from the grace and power of God, than for the sustaining, elevating, and sanctifying influence which it shed over his life and conduct. There are particularly three stages, each rising in succession above the other, in which it is important for us to mark this. 1. The first is that of the Divine call itself, which came to Abraham while still living among his kindred in the land of Mesopotamia.—(Genesis 12:1-3) Even in this original form of the Divine purpose concerning him, the supernatural element is conspicuous. To say nothing of its more general provisions, that he, a Mesopotamian shepherd, should be made surpassingly great, and should even be a source of blessing to all the families of the earth—to say nothing of these, which might appear in credible only from their indefinite vastness and comprehension, the two specific promises in the call, that a great nation should be made of him, and that another land—presently afterwards determined to be the land of Canaan—should be given him for an inheritance, both lay beyond the bounds of the natural and the probable. At the time the call was addressed to Abraham, he was already seventy-five years old, and his wife Sarah, being only ten years younger, must have been sixty-five.—(Genesis 12:4; Genesis 17:17) For such persons to be constituted parents, and parents of an offspring that should become a great nation, involved at the very outset a natural impossibility, and could only be made good by a supernatural exercise of Divine Omnipotence—a miracle. Nor was it materially different in regard to the other part of the promise; for it is expressly stated, when the precise land to be given was pointed out to him, that the Canaanite was then in the land.—(Genesis 12:6) It was even then an inhabited territory, and by no ordinary concurrence of events could be expected to become the heritage of the yet unborn posterity of Abraham. It could only be looked for as the result of God’s direct and special interposition in their behalf. Yet, incredible as the promise seemed in both of its departments, Abraham believed the word spoken to him; he had faith to accredit the Divine testimony, and to take the part which it assigned him. Both were required—a receiving of the promise first, and then an acting with a view to it; for, on the ground of such great things being destined for him, he was commanded to leave his natural home and kindred, and go forth under the Divine guidance to the new territory to be assigned him. In this command was discovered the inseparable connection between faith and holiness; or between the call of Abraham to receive distinguishing and supernatural blessing, and his call to lead a life of sincere and devoted obedience. He was singled out from the world’s inhabitants to begin a new order of things, which were to bear throughout the impress of God’s special grace and almighty power; and he must separate himself from the old things of nature, to be in his life the representative of God’s holiness, as in his destiny he was to be the monument of God’s power and goodness. It is this exercise of faith in Abraham which is first exhibited in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as bespeaking a mighty energy in its working; the more especially as the exchange in the case of Abraham and his immediate descendants did not prove by any means agreeable to nature. “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; arid he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” It may seem, indeed, at this distance of place and time, as if there were no great difference in the condition of Abraham and his household, in the one place as compared with the other. But it was quite otherwise in reality. They had, first of all, to break asunder the ties of home and kindred, which nature always feels painful, especially in mature age, even though it may have the prospect before it of a comfortable settlement in another region. This sacrifice they had to make in the fullest sense: it was in their case a strictly final separation; they were to be absolutely done with the old and its endearments, and to cleave henceforth to the new. Nor only so, but their immediate position in the new was not like that which they had before in the old: settled possessions in the one, but none in the other; instead of them, mere lodging-room among strangers, and a life on Providence. Nature does not love a change like that, and can only regard it as quitting the certainties of sight for the seeming uncertainties of faith and hope. These, however, were still but the smaller trials which Abraham’s faith had to encounter; for, along with the change in his outward condition, there came responsibilities and duties altogether alien to nature’s feelings, and contrary to its spirit. In his old country he followed his own way, and walked after the course of the world, having no special work to do, nor any calling of a more solemn kind to fulfil. But now, by obeying the call of Heaven, he was brought into immediate connection with a spiritual and holy God, became charged in a manner with His interest in the world, and bound, in the face of surrounding enmity or scorn, faithfully to maintain His cause, and promote the glory of His name. To do this was in truth to renounce nature, and rise superior to it. And it was done, let it be remembered, out of regard to prospects which could only be realized if the power of God should forsake its wonted channels of working, and perform what the carnal mind would have deemed it infatuation to look for. Even in that first stage of the patriarch’s course, there was a noble triumph of faith, and the earnest of a life replenished with the fruits of righteousness. It is true, the promise thus given at the commencement was not uniformly sustained; and Abraham was not long in Canaan till there seemed to be a failure on the part of God toward him, and there actually was a failure on his part toward God. The occurrence of a famine leads him to take refuge for a time in Egypt, which was even then the granary of that portion of the East; and he is tempted, through fear of his personal safety, to equivocate regarding Sarah, and call her his sister. The equivocation is certainly not to be justified, either on this or on the future occasion on which it was again resorted to; for though it contained a half truth, this was so employed as to render “the half truth a whole lie.” We are rather to refer both circumstances—his repairing to Egypt, and when there betaking to such a worldly expedient for safety—as betraying the imperfection of his faith, which had strength to enable him to enter on his new course of separation from the world and devotedness to God, but still wanted clearness of discernment and implicitness of trust sufficient to meet the unexpected difficulties that so early presented themselves in the way. Strange indeed had it been otherwise. It was necessary that the faith of Abraham, like that of believers generally, should learn by experience, and even grow by its temporary defeats. The first failure on the present occasion stood in his seeking relief from the emergency that arose by withdrawing, without the Divine sanction, to another country than that into which he had been conducted by the special providence of God. Instead of looking up for direction and support, he betook to worldly shifts and expedients, and thus became entangled in difficulties, out of which the immediate interposition of God alone could have rescued him. In this way, however, the result proved beneficial. Abraham was made to feel, in the first instance, that his backsliding had reproved him; and then the merciful interposition of Heaven, rebuking even a king for his sake, taught him the lesson, that with the God of heaven upon his side, he had no need to be afraid for the outward evils that might beset him in his course. He had but to look up in faith, and get the direction or support that he needed. The conduct of Abraham, immediately after his return to Canaan, gave ample evidence of the general stedfastness and elevated purity of his course. Though travelling about as a stranger in the land, he makes all around him feel that it is a blessed thing to be connected with him, and that it would be well for them if the land really were in his possession. The quarrel that presently arose between Lot’s herdsmen and his own, merely furnished the occasion for his disinterested generosity, in waiving his own rights, and allowing to his kinsman the priority and freedom of choice. And another quarrel of a graver kind, that of the war between the four kings in higher Asia, and of the five small dependent sovereigns in the south of Canaan, drew forth still nobler manifestations of the large and self-sacrificing spirit that filled his bosom. Regarding the unjust capture of Lot as an adequate reason for taking part in the conflict, he went courageously forth with his little band of trained servants, overthrew the conquerors, and recovered all that had been lost. Yet, at the very moment he displayed the victorious energy of his faith, by discomfiting this mighty army, how strikingly did he, at the same time, exhibit its patience in declining to use the advantage he then gained to hasten forward the purposes of God concerning his possession of the land, and its moderation of spirit, its commanding superiority to merely worldly ends and objects, in refusing to take even the smallest portion of the goods of the king of Sodom! Nay, so far from seeking to exalt self by pressing outward advantages and worldly resources, his spirit of faith, leading him to recognise the hand of God in the success that had been won, causes him to bow down in humility, and do homage to the Most High God in the person of His priest Melchizedek. He gave this Melchizedek tithes of all, and as himself the less, received blessing from Melchizedek as the greater. Viewed thus merely as a mark of the humble and reverent spirit of Abraham, the offspring of his faith in God, this notice of his relation to Melchizedek is interesting. But other things of a profounder nature were wrapt up in the transaction, which the pen of inspiration did not fail afterwards to elicit (Psalms 110:4; Hebrews 7:1-28), and which it is proper to glance at before we pass on to another stage of the patriarch’s history. The extraordinary circumstance of such a person as a priest of the Most High God, whom even Abraham acknowledged to be such, starting up all at once in the devoted land of Canaan, and vanishing out of sight almost as soon as he appeared, has given rise, from the earliest times, to numberless conjectures. Ham, Shem, Noah, Enoch, an angel, Christ, the Holy Spirit, have each, in the hands of different persons, been identified with this Melchizedek; but the view now almost universally acquiesced in is, that he was simply a Canaanite sovereign, who combined with his royal dignity as king of Salem[132] the office of a true priest of God. No other supposition, indeed, affords a satisfactory explanation of the narrative. The very silence observed regarding his origin, and the manner of his appointment to the priesthood, was intentional, and served to draw more particular attention to the facts of the case, as also to bring it into a closer correspondence with the ultimate realities. The more remarkable peculiarity was, that to this person, simply because he was a righteous king and priest of the Most High God, Abraham, the elect of God, the possessor of the promises, paid tithes, and received from him a blessing; and did it, too, at the very time he stood so high in honour, and kept himself so carefully aloof from another king then present—the king of Sodom. He placed himself as conspicuously below the one personage as he raised himself above the other. Why should he have done so? Because Melchizedek already in a measure possessed what Abraham still only hoped for—he reigned where Abraham’s seed were destined to reign, and exercised a priesthood which in future generations was to be committed to them. The union of the two in Melchizedek was in itself a great thing—greater than the separate offices of king and priest in the houses respectively of David and Aaron; but it was an expiring greatness: it was like the last blossom on the old rod of Noah, which thenceforth became as a dry tree. In Abraham, on the other hand, was the germ of a new and higher order of things: the promise, though still only the budding promise, of a better inheritance of blessing; and when the seed should come in whom the promise was more especially to stand, then the more general and comprehensive aspect of the Melchizedek order was to reappear, and reappear in one who could at once place it on firmer ground, and carry it to unspeakably higher results. Here, then, was a sacred enigma for the heart of faith to ponder, and for the spirit of truth gradually to unfold: Abraham, in one respect, relatively great, and in another relatively little; personally inferior to Melchizedek, and yet the root of a seed that was to do for the world incomparably more than Melchizedek had done; himself the type of a higher than Melchizedek, and yet Melchizedek a more peculiar type than he! It was a mystery that could be disclosed only in partial glimpses beforehand, but which now has become comparatively plain by the person and work of Immanuel. What but the wonder-working finger of God could have so admirably fitted the past to be such a singular image of the future! [132] No stress is laid on the particular place of which he was king, excepting that, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, its meaning (Peace) is viewed as symbolic;—only, however, for the purpose of bringing out the idea, that this singular person was really what his name and the name of his place imported. He was in reality a righteous king, and a prince of peace. But there seems good reason to believe the Jewish tradition well-founded, that it is but the abbreviated name of Jerusalem. Hence the name Salem is also applied to it in Psalms 76:2. And the correctness of the opinion is confirmed by the mention of the king’s dale, in Genesis 14:17, which from 2 Samuel 18:18 can scarcely be supposed to have been far from Jerusalem. The name also of Adonaizedek, synonymous with Melchizedek, as that of the king of Jerusalem in Joshua’s time (Joshua 10:3), is a still farther confirmation. There are points connected with this subject that will naturally fall to be noticed at a later period, when we come to treat of the Aaronic priesthood, and other points also, though of a minor kind, belonging to this earlier portion of Abraham’s history, which we cannot particularly notice. We proceed to the second stage in the development of his spiritual life. 2. This consisted in the establishment of the covenant between him and God; which falls, however, into two parts: one earlier in point of time, and in its own nature incomplete; the other, both the later and the more perfect form. It would seem as if, after the stirring transactions connected with the victory over Chedorlaomer and his associates, and the interview with Melchizedek, the spirit of Abraham had sunk into depression and fear; for the next notice we have respecting him represents God as appearing to him in vision, and bidding him not to be afraid, since God Himself was his shield and his exceeding great reward. It is not improbable that some apprehension of a revenge on the part of Chedorlaomer might haunt his bosom, and that he might begin to dread the result of such an unequal contest as he had entered on with the powers of the world. But it is clear also, from the sequel, that another thing preyed upon his spirits, and that he was filled with concern on account of the long delay that was allowed to intervene before the appearance of the promised seed. He still went about child less; and the thought could not but press upon his mind, of what use were other things to him, even of the most honourable kind, if the great thing, on which all his hopes for the future turned, were still withheld? The Lord graciously met this natural misgiving by the assurance, that not any son by adoption merely, but one from his own loins, should be given him for an heir. And to make the matter more palpable to his mind, and take external nature, as it were, to witness for the fulfilment of the word, the Lord brought him forth, and, pointing to the stars of heaven, declared to him, “So shall thy seed be.” “And he believed in the Lord,” it is said, “and He counted it to him for righteousness.”—(Genesis 15:1-6) This historical statement regarding Abraham’s faith is remarkable, as it is the one so strenuously urged by the Apostle Paul in his argument for justification by faith alone in the righteousness of Christ.—(Romans 4:18-22) And the question has been keenly debated, whether it was the faith itself which was in God’s account taken for righteousness, or the righteousness of God in Christ, which that faith prospectively laid hold of. Our wisdom here, however, and in all similar cases, is not to press the statements of Old Testament Scripture so as to render them explicit categorical deliverances on Christian doctrine,—in which case violence must inevitably be done to them,—but rather to catch the general principle embodied in them, arid give it a fair application to the more distinct revelations of the Gospel. This is precisely what is done by St Paul. He does not say a word about the specific manifestation of the righteousness of God in Christ, when arguing from the statement respecting the righteousness of faith in Abraham. He lays stress simply upon the natural impossibilities that stood in the way of God’s promise of a numerous offspring to Abraham being fulfilled—the comparative deadness both of his own body and of Sarah’s—and on the implicit confidence Abraham had, notwithstanding, in the power and faithfulness of God, that He would perform what He had promised. “Therefore,” adds the Apostle, “it was imputed to him for righteousness.” Therefore—namely, because through faith he so completely lost sight of nature and self, and realized with undoubting confidence the sufficiency of the Divine arm, and the certainty of its working. His faith was nothing more, nothing else, than the renunciation of all virtue and strength in himself, and a hanging in childlike trust upon God for what He was able and willing to do. Not, therefore, a mere substitute for a righteousness that was wanting, an acceptance of something that could be had for something better that failed, but rather the vital principle of a righteousness in God the acting of a soul in unison with the mind of God, and finding its life, its hope, its all in Him. Transfer such a faith to the field of the New Testament—bring it into contact with the manifestation of God in the person and work of Christ for the salvation of the world, and what would inevitably be its language but that of the Apostle: “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ,”—“not my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is of God through faith!” To return to Abraham. When he had attained to such confiding faith in the Divine word respecting the promised seed, the Lord gave him an equally distinct assurance respecting the promised land; and in answer to Abraham’s question, “Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” the Lord “made a covenant with him” respecting it, by means of a symbolical sacrificial action. It was a covenant by blood; for in the very act of establishing the union, it was meet there should be a reference to the guilt of man, and a provision for purging it away. The very materials of the sacrifice have here a specific meaning; the greater sacrifices, those of the heifer, the goat, and the ram, being expressly fixed to be of three years old—pointing to the three generations which Abraham’s posterity were to pass in Egypt; and these, together with the turtle-dove and the young pigeon, comprising a full representation of the animals afterwards offered in sacrifice under the law. As the materials, so also the form of the sacrifice was symbolical—the animals being divided asunder, and one piece laid over against another; for the purpose of more distinctly representing the two parties in the transaction—two, and yet one—meeting and acting together in one solemn offering. Recognising Jehovah as the chief party in what was taking place, Abraham waits for the Divine manifestation, and contents himself with mean while driving away the ill-omened birds of prey that flocked around the sacrifice. At last, when the shades of night had fallen, “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces”—the glory of the Lord Himself, as so often after wards, in a pillar of cloud and fire. Passing under this emblem through the divided sacrifice, He formally accepted it, and struck the covenant with His servant.—(Jeremiah 34:18-19) At the same time, also, a profound sleep had fallen upon Abraham, and a horror of great darkness,—symbolical of the outward humiliations and sufferings through which the covenant was to reach its accomplishment; and in explanation the announcement was expressly made to him, that his posterity should be in bondage and affliction four hundred years in a foreign land, and should then, in the fourth generation, be brought up from it with great substance.[133] In justification, also, of the long delay, the specific reason was given, that “the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full,”—plainly importing that this part of the Divine procedure had a moral aim, and could only be carried into effect in accordance with the great principles of the Divine righteousness. [133] The notes of time here given for the period of the sojourn in Egypt are somewhat indefinite. The 400 years is plainly mentioned as a round sum; it was afterwards more precisely and historically defined as 430 (Exodus 12:40-41). From the juxtaposition of the 400 years and the fourth generation in the words to Abraham, the one must be understood as nearly equivalent to the other, and the period must consequently be regarded as that of the actual residence of the children of Israel in Egypt, from the descent of Jacob—not, as many after the Septuagint, from the time of Abraham. For the shortest genealogies exhibit four generations between that period and the exodus. Looking at the genealogical table of Levi (Exodus 6:16, sq.), 120 years might not unfairly be taken as an average life time or generation; so that three of these complete, and a part of the fourth, would easily make 430. In Galatians 3:17, the law is spoken of as only 430 years after the covenant with Abraham; but the Apostle merely refers to the known historical period, and regards the first formation of the covenant with Abraham as all one with its final ratification with Jacob. The covenant was thus established in both its branches, yet only in an imperfect manner, if respect were had to the coming future, and even to the full bearing and import of the covenant itself. Abraham had got a present sign of God’s formally entering into covenant with him for the possession of the land of Canaan; but it came and went like a troubled vision of the night. There was needed something of a more tangible and permanent kind,—an abiding, sacramental covenant signature,—which by its formal institution on God’s part, and its regular observance on the part of Abraham and his seed, might serve as a mutual sign of covenant engagements. This was the more necessary, as the next step in Abraham’s procedure but too clearly manifested that he still wanted light regarding the nature of the covenant, and in particular regarding the super natural, the essentially Divine, character of its provisions. From the prolonged barrenness of Sarah, and her now advanced age, it began to be imagined that Sarah possibly might not be included in the promise,—the rather so, as no express mention had been made of her in the previous intimations of the Divine purpose; and so despairing of having herself any share in the fulfilment of the promised word, she suggested, and Abraham fell in with the suggestion, that the fulfilment should be sought by the substitution of her bondmaid Hagar. This was again resorting to an expedient of the flesh to get over a present difficulty, and it was soon followed by its meet retribution in providence—domestic troubles and vexations. The bondmaid had been raised out of her proper place, and began to treat Sarah, the legitimate spouse of Abraham, with contempt. And had she even repressed her improper feelings, and brought forth a child in the midst of domestic peace and harmony, yet a son so born—after the ordinary course of nature, and in compliance with one of her corrupter usages—could not have been allowed to stand as the representative of that seed through which blessing was to come to the world. On both accounts, therefore, first,—to give more explicit information regarding the son to be born, and then to provide a significant and lasting signature of the covenant,—another and more perfect ratification of it took place. The word which introduced this new scene, expressed the substance and design of the whole transaction: “I am God Almighty: walk before Me, and be thou perfect” (Genesis 17:1):—On My part there is power amply sufficient to accomplish what I have promised: whatever natural difficulties may stand in the way, the whole shall assuredly be done; only see that on your part there be a habitual recognition of My presence, and a stedfast adherence to the path of rectitude and purity. What follows is simply a filling up of this general outline—a more particular announcement of what God on His part should do, and then of what Abraham and his posterity were to do on the other. “As for Me” (literally, I— i.e., on My part), “behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram; but thy name shall be Abraham: for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” This was God’s part in the covenant, to which He immediately subjoined, by way of explanation, that the seed more especially meant in the promise was to be of Sarah as well as Abraham; that she was to renew her youth, and have a son, and that her name also was to be changed in accordance with her new position. Then follows what was expected and required on the other side: “And God said unto Abraham, And thou” (this now is thy part), “My covenant shalt thou keep, thou, and thy seed after thee; Every male among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be for a covenant-sign betwixt Me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised to you, every male in your generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, that is not of thy seed. . . . . And My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And uncircumcision” (i.e., pollution, abomination) “is the male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin; and cut off is that soul from his people; he has broken My covenant.” There is no need for going into the question, whether this ordinance of circumcision was now for the first time introduced among men; or whether it already existed as a practice to some extent, and was simply adopted by God as a fit and significant token of His covenant. It is comparatively of little moment how such a question may be decided. The same principle may have been acted on here, which undoubtedly had a place in the modelling of the Mosaic institutions, and which will be discussed and vindicated when we come to consider the influence exercised by the learning of Moses on his subsequent legislation—the principle, namely, of taking from the province of religion generally a symbolical sign or action, that was capable, when associated with the true religion, of fitly expressing its higher truths and principles. The probability is, that this principle was recognised and acted on here. Circumcision has been practised among classes of people and nations who cannot reasonably be supposed to have derived it from the family of Abraham—among the ancients, for example, by the Egyptian priesthood, and among the moderns by native tribes in America and the islands of the Pacific. Its extensive prevalence and long continuance can only be accounted for on the ground that it has a foundation in the feelings of the natural conscience, which, like the distinctions into clean and unclean, or the payment of tithes, may have led to its employment before the time of Abraham, and also fitted it afterwards for serving as the peculiar sign of God’s covenant with him. At the same time, as it was henceforth intended to be a distinctive badge of covenant relationship, it could not have been generally practised in the region where the chosen family were called to live and act. From the purpose to which it was applied, we may certainly infer that it formed at once an appropriate and an easily recognised distinction between the race of Abraham and the families and nations by whom they were more immediately surrounded. Among the race of Abraham, however, it had the widest application given to it. While God so far identified it with His covenant, as to suspend men’s interest in the one upon their observance of the other, it was with His covenant in its wider aspect and bearing—not simply as securing either an offspring after the flesh, or the inheritance for that offspring of the land of Canaan. It was comparatively but a limited portion of Abraham’s actual offspring who were destined to grow into a separate nation, and occupy as their home the territory of Canaan. At the very outset Ishmael was excluded, though constituted the head of a great nation. And yet not only he, but all the members of Abraham’s household, were alike ordered to receive the covenant signature. Nay, even in later times, when the children of Israel had grown into a distinct people, and everything was placed under the strict administration of law, it was always left open to people of other lands and tribes to enter into the bonds of the covenant through the rite of circumcision. This rite, therefore, must have had a significance for them, as well as for the more favoured seed of Jacob. It spoke also to their hearts and consciences, and virtually declared that the covenant which it symbolized had nothing in its main design of an exclusive and contracted spirit; that its greater things lay open to all who were willing to seek them in the appointed way; and that if at first there were individual per sons, and afterwards a single people, who were more especially identified with the covenant, it was only to mark them out as the chosen representatives of its nature and objects, and to constitute them lights for the instruction and benefit of others. There never was a more evident misreading of the palpable facts of history, than appears in the disposition so often manifested to limit the rite of circumcision to one line merely of Abraham’s posterity, and to regard it as the mere outward badge of an external national distinction. It is to be held, then, as certain in regard to the sign of the covenant as in regard to the covenant itself, that its more special and marked connection with individuals was only for the sake of more effectually helping forward its general objects. And not less firmly is it to be held, that the outwardness in the rite was for the sake of the inward and spiritual truths it symbolized. It was appointed as the distinctive badge of the covenant, because it was peculiarly fitted for symbolically expressing the spiritual character and design of the covenant. It marked the condition of every one who received it, as having to do both with higher powers and higher objects than those of corrupt nature, as the condition of one brought into blessed fellowship with God, and therefore called to walk before Him and be perfect. There would be no difficulty in perceiving this, nor any material difference of opinion upon the subject, if people would but look beneath the surface, and in the true spirit of the ancient religion, would contemplate the outward as an image of the inward. The general purport of the covenant was, that from Abraham as an individual there was to be generated a seed of blessing, in which all real blessing was to centre, and from which it was to flow to the ends of the earth. There could not, therefore, be a more appropriate sign of the covenant than such a rite as circumcision—so directly connected with the generation of offspring, and so distinctly marking the necessary purification of nature the removal of the filth of the flesh that the off spring might be such as really to constitute a seed of blessing. It is through ordinary generation that the corruption incident on the fall is propagated; and hence, under the law, which contained a regular system of symbolical teaching, there were so many occasions of defilement traced to this source, and so many means of purification appointed for them. Now, therefore, when God was establishing a covenant, the great object of which was to reverse the propagation of evil, to secure for the world a blessed and a blessed-making seed, he affixed to the covenant this symbolical rite—to show that the end was to be reached, not as the result of nature’s ordinary productiveness, but of nature purged from its uncleanness—nature raised above itself, in league with the grace of God, and bearing on it the distinctive impress of His character and working. It said to the circumcised man, that he had Jehovah for his bridegroom, to whom he had become espoused, as it were, by blood (Exodus 4:25), and that he must no longer follow the unregulated will and impulse of nature, but live in accordance with the high relation lie occupied, and the sacred calling he had received.[134] [134] It may also be noted, that by this quite natural and fundamental view of the ordinance, subordinate peculiarities admit of an easy explanation. For example, the limitation of the sign to males—which in the circumstances could not be otherwise; though the special purifications under the law for women might justly be regarded as providing for them a sort of counterpart. Then, the fixing on the eighth day as the proper one for the rite—that being the first day after the revolution of an entire week of separation from the mother, and when fully withdrawn from connection with the parent’s blood, it began to live and breathe in its own impurity. (See further Imperial Bible Diet. Art. Circumcision.) Most truly, therefore, does the Apostle say, that Abraham received circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had (Romans 4:11)—a Divine token in his own case that he had attained through faith to such fellowship with God, and righteousness in Him and a token for every child that should afterwards receive it; not indeed that he actually possessed the same, but that he was called to possess it, and had a right to the privileges and hopes which might enable him to attain to the possession. Most truly also does the Apostle say in another place (Romans 2:28-29): “He is not a Jew which is one outwardly (i.e., not a Jew in the right sense, not such an one as God would recognise and own); neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew which is one inwardly: and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” The very design of the covenant was to secure a seed with these inward and spiritual characteristics; and the sign of the covenant, the outward impression in the flesh, was worthless, a mere external concision—as the Apostle calls it, when it came to be alone, Php 3:2—excepting in so far as it was the expression of the corresponding reality. Isaac, the first child of promise, was the fitting type of such a covenant. In the very manner and time of his production he was a sign to all coming ages of what the covenant required and sought;—not begotten till Abraham himself bore the symbol of nature’s purification, nor born till it was evident the powers of nature must have been miraculously vivified for the purpose; so that in his very being and birth Isaac was emphatically a child of God. But in being so, he was the exact type of what the covenant properly aimed at, and what its expressive symbol betokened, viz., a spiritual seed, in which the Divine and human, grace and nature, should meet together in producing true subjects and channels of blessing. But its actual representation—the one complete and perfect embodiment of all it symbolized and sought—was the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom the Divine and human met from the first, not in co-operative merely, but in organic union; and consequently the result produced was a Being free from all taint of corruption, holy, harmless, undefiled, the express image of the Father, the very righteousness of God. He alone fully realized the conditions of blessing exhibited in the covenant, and was qualified to be in the largest sense the seed-corn of a harvest of blessing for the whole field of humanity. It is true—and those who take their notions of realities from appearances alone, will doubtless reckon it a sufficient reply to what has been said—that the portion of Abraham’s seed who afterwards became distinctively the covenant people—Israel after the flesh—were by no means such subjects and channels of blessing as we have described, but were to a large extent carnal, having only that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. What then? Had they still a title to be recognised as the children of the covenant, and a right, as such, to the temporal inheritance connected with it?By no means. This were substantially to make void God’s ordinance, which could not, any more than His other ordinances, be merely outward. It arises from His essential nature, as the spiritual and holy God, that He should ever require from His people what is accordant with His own character; and that when He appoints outward signs and ordinances, it is only with a view to spiritual and moral ends. Where the outward alone exists, He cannot own its validity. Christ certainly did not. For, when arguing with the Jews of His own day, He denied on this very ground that their circumcision made them the children of Abraham: they were not of his spirit, and did not perform his works; and so, in Christ’s account, their natural connection both with Abraham and with the covenant went for nothing.—(John 8:34-44) Their circumcision was a sign without any signification. And if so then, it must equally have been so in former times. The children of Israel had no right to the benefits of the covenant merely because they had been outwardly circumcised; nor were any promises made to them simply as the natural seed of Abraham. Both elements had to meet in their condition, the natural and the spiritual; the spiritual, however, more especially, and the natural only as connected with the spiritual, and a means for securing it. Hence Moses urged them so earnestly to circumcise their hearts, as absolutely necessary to their getting the fulfilment of what was promised (Deuteronomy 10:16); and when the people as a whole had manifestly not done this, circumcision itself, the sign of the covenant, was suspended for a season, and the promises of the covenant were held in abeyance, till they should come to learn aright the real nature of their calling.—(Joshua 5:3-9) Throughout, it was the election within the election who really had the promises and the covenants; and none but those in whom, through the special working of God’s grace, nature was sanctified and raised to another position than itself could ever have attained, were entitled to the blessing. If in the land of Canaan, they existed by sufferance merely, and not by right. The bearing of all this on the ordinance of Christian baptism cannot be overlooked, but it may still be mistaken. The relation between circumcision and baptism is not properly that of type and antitype; the one is a symbolical ordinance as well as the other, and both alike have an outward form and an inward reality. It is precisely in such ordinances that the Old and the New dispensations approach nearest to each other, and, we might almost say, stand formally upon the same level. The difference does not so much lie in the ordinances themselves, as in the comparative amount of grace and truth respectively exhibited in them—necessarily less in the earlier, and more in the later. The difference in external form was in each case conditioned by the circumstances of the time. In circumcision it bore respect to the propagation of offspring, as it was through the production of a seed of blessing that the covenant, in its preparatory form, was to attain its realization. But when the seed in that respect had reached its culminating point in Christ, and the objects of the covenant were no longer dependent on natural propagation of seed, but were to be carried forward by spiritual means and influences used in connection with the faith of Christ, the external ordinance was fitly altered, so as to express simply a change of nature and state in the individual that received it. Undoubtedly the New Testament form less distinctly recognises the connection between parent and child—we should rather say, does not of itself recognise that connection at all: so much ought to be frankly conceded to those who disapprove of the practice of infant baptism, and will be conceded by all whose object is to ascertain the truth rather than contend for an opinion. On the other hand, however, if we look, not to the form, but to the substance, which ought here, as in other things, to be chiefly regarded, we perceive an essential agreement—such as is, indeed, marked by the Apostle, when, with reference to the spiritual import of baptism, he calls it “the circumcision of Christ.”—(Colossians 2:11) So far from being less indicative of a change of nature in the proper subjects of it, circumcision was even more so; in a more obvious and palpable manner it bespoke the necessity of a deliverance from the native corruption of the soul in those who should become the true possessors of blessing. Hence the Apostle makes use of the earlier rite to explain the symbolical import of the later, and describes the spiritual change indicated and required by it, as “a putting-off of the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ,” and “having the uncircumcision of the flesh quickened together with Christ.” It would have been travelling entirely in the wrong direction, to use such language for purposes of explanation in Christian times, if the ordinance of circumcision had not shadowed forth this spiritual quickening and purification even more palpably and impressively than baptism itself; and shadowed it forth, not prospectively merely for future times, but immediately and personally for the members of the Old Covenant. For, by the terms of the covenant, these were ordained to be, not types of blessing only, but also partakers of blessing. The good contemplated in the covenant was to have its present commencement in their experience, as well as in the future a deeper foundation and a more enlarged development. And the outward putting away of the filth of the flesh in circumcision could never have symbolized a corresponding inward purification for the members of the New Covenant, if it had not first done this for the members of the Old. The shadow must have a substance in the one case as well as in the other. Such being the case as to the essential agreement between the two ordinances, an important element for deciding in regard to the propriety of infant baptism may still be derived from the practice established in the rite of circumcision. The grand principle of connecting parent and child together for the attainment of spiritual objects, and marking the connection by an impressive signature, was there most distinctly and broadly sanctioned. And if the parental bond and its attendant obligations be not weakened, but rather elevated and strengthened, by the higher revelations of the Gospel, it would be strange indeed if the liberty at least, nay, the propriety and right, if not the actual obligation, to have their children brought by an initiatory ordinance under the bond of the covenant, did not belong to parents under the Gospel. The one ordinance no more than the other ensures the actual transmission of the grace necessary to effect the requisite change; but it exhibits that grace—on the part of God pledges it—and takes the subject of the ordinance bound to use it for the accomplishment of the proper end. Baptism does this now, as circumcision did of old; and if it was done in the one case through the medium of the parent to the child, one does not see why it may not be done now, unless positively prohibited, in the other. But since this is matter of inference rather than of positive enactment, those who do not feel warranted to make such an application of the principle of the Old Testament ordinance to the New, should unquestionably be allowed their liberty of thought and action; if only, in the vindication of that liberty, they do not seek to degrade circumcision to a mere outward and political distinction, and thereby break the continuity of the Church through successive dispensations.[135] [135] It is not necessary to do more than notice the statements of Coleridge regarding circumcision (Aids to Reflection, i., p. 296), in which, as in some others on purely theological subjects in his writings, one is even more struck with the unaccountable ignoring of fact displayed in the deliverance given, than with the tone of assurance in which it is announced. “Circumcision was no sacrament at all, but the means and mark of national distinction. . . Nor was it ever pretended that any grace was conferred with it, or that the right was significant of any inward or spiritual operation.” Delitzsch, however, so far coincides with this view, as to deny (Genesis Ausgelegt, p. 281) the sacramental character of circumcision. But he does so on grounds that, in regard to circumcision, will not stand examination; and, in regard to baptism, evidently proceed on the high Lutheran view of the sacraments. He says, that while circumcision had a moral and mystical meaning, and was intended ever to remind the subject of it of his near relation to Jehovah, and his obligation to walk worthy of this, still it was “no vehicle of heavenly grace, of Divine sanctifying power,” “in itself a mere sign without substance,”—as if it were ever designed to be by itself! or as if baptism with water, by itself, were anything more than a mere sign! Circumcision being stamped upon Abraham and his seed as the sign of the covenant, and so far identified with the covenant, in the appointment of God, must have been a sign on God’s part as well as theirs; it could not otherwise have been the sign of a covenant, or mutual compact; it must, therefore, have borne respect to what God promised to be to His people, not less than what His people were to be to Him. This is manifestly what the Apostle means, when he calls it a seal which Abraham received, a pledge from God of the ratification of the covenant, and consequently of all the grace that covenant promised. It had otherwise been no privilege to be circumcised; since to be bound to do righteously, without being entitled to look for grace corresponding, is simply to be placed under an intolerable yoke. I leave this latter statement unaltered, notwithstanding that Mr Litton points me (Bampton Lectures, p. oil) to Acts 15:10; Hebrews 2:15; and Galatians 4:24, in proof that the apostles did actually regard the elder covenant as an intolerable yoke; for it seems plain to me, that such passages point to the covenant of law rather than the covenant of promise, with which circumcision in its original appointment and proper character was associated. I have much pleasure, however, in substituting here, for what was given in a previous edition, the following remarks of Mr Litton, regarding the connection between circumcision and baptism, which substantially coincide with what has been stated: “In a looser sense, circumcision may be considered as a sacrament. For baptism, too, is a symbolical ordinance, perpetually reminding the Christian what his vocation is. Circumcision, moreover, was to the Jewish infant a seal, or formal confirmation, of the promises of God, first made to the patriarch Abraham, and then to his seed; just as baptism now seals to us the higher promises of the evangelical covenant.” Then, after noticing a change of view in regard to the place held by circumcision in the Old Covenant, he says: “The (natural) birth of the Jew, which was the real ground of his privileges, answers to the new birth of the Christian in its inner or essential aspect; while circumcision, the rite by which the Jewish infant became a publicly acknowledged member of the theocracy, corresponds to baptism, or the new birth in its external aspect, to which sacrament the same function, of visibly incorporating in the Church, now belongs.” It is, therefore, not? In respect to the soul’s inward and personal state, that either ordinance can properly be called initiatory (for in that respect blessing might be had initially without the one as well as the other), but in respect to the person’s recognised connection with the corporate society of those who are subjects of blessing. This begins now with baptism, and it began of old with circumcision: till the individual was circumcised, he was not reckoned as belonging to that society; and if passing the proper time for the ordinance without it, he was to be held as ipso facto cut off. Under both covenants there is an inward and an outward bond of connection with the peculiar blessing: the inward, faith in God’s word of promise (of old, faith in God; now more specifically, faith in Christ); the outward, circumcision formerly, now baptism. Yet the two in neither case should be viewed as altogether apart, but the one should rather be held as the formal expression and seal of the other. 3. But we must now hasten to the third stage of Abraham’s career, which presents him on a still higher moral elevation than he has yet reached, and view him as connected with the sacrifice of Isaac. Between the establishment of the covenant by the rite of circumcision, and this last stage of development, there were not wanting occasions fitted to bring out the preeminently holy character of his calling, and the dependence on his maintaining this toward God of what God should be and do toward him. This appears in the order he received from God to cast Ishmael out of his house, when the envious, mocking spirit of the youth too clearly showed that he had not the heart of a true child of the covenant, and would not submit aright to the arrangements of God concerning it. It appears also in the free and familiar fellowship to which Abraham was admitted with the three heavenly visitants, whom he entertained in his tent on the plains of Mamre, and the disclosure that was made to him of the Divine counsel respecting Sodom and Gomorrah, expressly on the ground that the Lord “knew he would command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.” And most of all it appears in the pleading of Abraham for the preservation of the cities of the plain,—a pleading based upon the principles of righteousness, that the Judge of all the earth would do right, and would not destroy the righteous with the wicked,—and a pleading that proved in vain only from there not being found the ten righteous persons in the place mentioned in the patriarch’s last supposition. So that the awful scene of desolation which the region of those cities afterwards presented on the very borders of the land of Canaan, stood perpetually before the Jewish people, not only as a monument of the Divine indignation against sin, but also as a witness that the father of their nation would have sought their preservation also from a like judgment only on the principles of righteousness, and would have even ceased to plead in their behalf, if righteousness should sink as low among them as he ultimately supposed it might have come in Sodom. But the topstone of Abraham’s history as the spiritual head of a seed of blessing, is only reached in the Divine command to offer up Isaac, and the obedience which the patriarch rendered to it. “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.” That Abraham understood this command rightly, when he supposed it to mean a literal offering of his son upon the altar, and not, as Hengstenberg and Langé have contended, a simple dedication to a religious life, needs no particular proof. Had anything but a literal surrender been meant, the mention of a burnt-offering as the character in which Isaac was to be offered to God, and of a mountain in Moriah as the particular spot where the offering was to be presented, would have been entirely out of place. But why should such a demand have been made of Abraham?And what precisely were the lessons it was intended to convey to his posterity, or its typical bearing on future times! In the form given to the required act, special emphasis is laid on the endeared nature of the object demanded: thine only son, and the son whom thou lovest. It was, therefore, a trial in the strongest sense, a trial of Abraham’s faith, whether it was capable of such implicit confidence in God, such profound regard to His will, and such self-denial in His service, as at the Divine bidding to give up the best and dearest—what in the circumstances must even have been dearer to him than his own life. Not that God really intended the surrender of Isaac to death, but only the proof of such a surrender in the heart of His servant; and such a proof could only have been found in an unconditional command to sacrifice, and an unresisting compliance with the command up to the final step in the process. This, however, was not all. In the command to perform such a sacrifice, there was a tempting as well as a trying of Abraham; since the thing required at his hands seemed to be an enacting of the most revolting rite of heathenism; and, at the same time, to war with the oracle already given concerning Isaac, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” According to this word, God’s purpose to bless was destined to have its accomplishment especially and peculiarly through Isaac; so that to slay such a son appeared like slaying the very word of God, and extinguishing the hope of the world. And yet, in heart and purpose at least, it must be done. It was no freak of arbitrary power to command the sacrifice; nor was it done merely with the view of raising the patriarch to a kind of romantic moral elevation. It had for its object the outward and palpable exhibition of the great truth, that God’s method of working in the covenant of grace must have its counterpart in man’s. The one must be the reflex of the other. God, in blessing Abraham, triumphs over nature; and Abraham triumphs after the same manner in proportion as he is blessed. He receives a special gift from the grace of God, and he freely surrenders it again to Him who gave it. He is pre-eminently honoured by God’s word of promise, and he is ready in turn to hazard all for its honour. And Isaac, the child of promise,—the type in his outward history of all who should be proper subjects or channels of blessing,—also must concur in the act: on the altar he must sanctify himself to God, as a sign to all who would possess the higher life in God, how it implies and carries along with it a devout surrender of the natural life to the service and glory of Him who has redeemed it. We have no account of the workings of Abraham’s mind, when going forth to the performance of this extraordinary act of devotedness to God; and the record of the transaction is, from the very simplicity with which it narrates the facts of the case, the most touching and impressive in Old Testament history. But we are informed on inspired authority, that the principle on which he acted, and which enabled him—as, indeed, it alone could enable him—to fulfil such a service, was faith: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”—(Hebrews 11:17-19) His noblest act of obedience was nothing more than the highest exercise and triumph of his faith. It was this which removed the mountains that stood before him, and hewed out a path for him to walk in. Grasping with firm hand that word of promise which assured him of a numerous seed by the line of Isaac, and taught by past experience to trust the faithfulness of Him who gave it even in the face of natural impossibilities, his faith enabled him to see light where all had otherwise been darkness—to hope while in the very act of destroying the great object of his hope. I know—so he must have argued with himself that the word of God, which commands this sacrifice, is faithfulness and truth; and though to stretch forth my hand against this child of promise is apparently destructive to my hopes, yet I may safely risk it, since He commands it from whom the gift and the promise were alike received. It is as easy for the Almighty arm to give me back my son from the domain of death, as it was at first to bring him forth out of the dead womb of Sarah; and what He can do, His declared purpose makes me sure that He will, and even must.—Thus nature, even in its best and strongest feelings, was overcome, and the sublimest heights of holiness were reached, simply because faith had struck its roots so deeply within, and had so closely united the soul of the patriarch to the mind and perfections of Jehovah. This high surrender of the human to the Divine, and holy self-consecration to the will and service of God, was beyond all doubt, like the other things recorded in Abraham’s life, of the nature of a revelation. It was not intended to terminate in the patriarch and his son, but in them, as the sacred roots of the covenant people, to show in outward and corporeal representation what in spirit ought to be perpetually repeating itself in their individual and collective history. It proclaimed to them through all their generations, that the covenant required of its members lives of unshrinking and devoted application to the service of God—yielding to no weak misgivings or corrupt solicitations of the flesh—staggering at no difficulties presented by the world; and also that it rendered such a course possible by the ground and scope it afforded for the exercise of faith in the sustaining grace and might of Jehovah. And undoubtedly, as the human here was the reflex of the Divine, whence it drew its source and reason, so inversely, and as regards the ulterior objects of the covenant, the Divine might justly be regarded as imaged in the human. An organic union between the two was indispensable to the effectual accomplishment of the promised good; and the seed in which the blessing of Heaven was to concentrate, and from which it was to flow throughout the families of the earth, must on the one side be as really the Son of God, as on the other he was to be the offspring of Abraham. Since, therefore, the two lines were ultimately to meet in one, and that one, by the joint operation of the Divine and human, was once for all to make good the provision of blessing promised in the covenant, it was meet, and it may reasonably be supposed, was one end of the transaction, that they should be seen from the first to coalesce in principle; that the surrender Abraham made of his son, for the world’s good, in the line after the flesh, and the surrender willingly made by that son himself at the altar of God, was designed to foreshadow in the other and higher line the wonderful gift of God in yielding up His Son, and the free-will offering and consecration of the Son Himself to bring in eternal life for the lost. Here, too, as the things done were in their nature unspeakably higher than in the other, so were they thoroughly and intensely real in their character. The representative in the Old becomes the actual in the New; and the sacrifice performed there merely in the spirit, passes here into that one full and complete atonement, which for ever perfects them that are sanctified.[136] [136] Presented as it is above, the typical relationship is both quite natural and easy of apprehension, if only one keeps distinctly in view the necessary connection between the Divine and the human for accomplishing the ends of the covenant,—a connection influential and co-operative as regards the immediate ends, organic and personal as regards the ultimate. That the action was, as Warburton represents, a scenical representation of the death and resurrection of Christ, appointed expressly to satisfy the mind of Abraham, who longed to see Christ’s day, is to present it in a fanciful and arbitrary light; and what is actually recorded requires to be supplemented by much that is not. Nor do we need to lay any stress on the precise locality where the offering was appointed to be made. It must always remain somewhat doubtful whether the “land of Moriah” was the same with “Mount Moriah,” on which the temple was afterwards built, as the one, indeed, is evidently a more general designation than the other; and, at all events, it was not on that mount that the one great sacrifice of Christ was offered. And the minor circumstances, excepting in so far as they indicate the implicit obedience of the father and the filial submission and devotedness of the son, should be considered as of no moment. In the preparatory and typical line, however, Abraham’s conduct on this occasion was the perfect exemplar which all should have aspired to copy. He stood now on the highest elevation of the righteousness of faith; and to show the weight God attached to that righteousness, and how inseparably it was to be bound upwith the provisions of the covenant, the Lord consummated the transaction by a new ratification of the covenant. After the angel of Jehovah had stayed the hand of Abraham from slaying Isaac, and provided the ram for a burnt-offering, he again appeared and spake to Abraham, “By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies: and in thy seed shall the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice.” The things promised, it will be observed, are precisely the things which God had already of His own goodness engaged in covenant to bestow upon Abraham: these, indeed, to their largest extent, but still no more, no other than these,—a seed numerous as the sand upon the sea-shore or the stars of heaven, shielded from the malice of enemies, itself blessed, and destined to be the channel of blessing to all nations. But it is also to be observed, that while the same promises of good are renewed, they are now connected with Abraham’s surrender to the will of God, and are given as the reward of his obedience. To render this more clear and express, it is announced both at the beginning and the end of the address: “Because thou hast done this . . . because thou hast obeyed My voice.” And even afterwards, when the covenant was established with Isaac, an explicit reference is made to the same thing. The Lord said, He would perform the oath He had sworn to Abraham, “because he obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”—(Genesis 26:5) What could have more impressively exhibited the truth, that though the covenant, with all its blessings, was of grace on the part of God, and to be appropriated by faith on the part of men, yet the good promised should not be actually conferred by Him, unless the faith should approve itself by deeds of righteousness! Their faith would otherwise be accounted dead, the mere semblance of what it should be. And as if to bind the two more solemnly and conspicuously together, the Lord takes this occasion to superadd His oath to the covenant,—not to render the word of promise more sure in itself, but to make it more palpably sure to the heirs of promise, and to deepen in them the impression, that nothing should fail of all that had been spoken, if only their faith and obedience should accord with that now exhibited! II. We must leave to the reflection of our readers the application of this to Christian times and relations, which is indeed so obvious as to need no particular explanation; and we proceed to take a rapid glance at the leading features of the other branch of the subject—that which concerns Jacob and the twelve patriarchs. This forms the continuation of what took place in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, and a continuation not only embodying the same great principles, but also carrying them forward with more special adaptation to the prospective condition of the Israelites as a people. Towards the close of the patriarchal period, the covenant, even in its more specific line of operations, began to widen and expand, to rise more from the particular to the general, to embrace a family circle, and that circle the commencement of a future nation. And the dealings of God were all directed to the one great end of showing, that while this people should stand alike outwardly related to the covenant, yet their real connection with its promises, and their actual possession of its blessings, should infallibly turn upon their being followers in faith and holiness of the first fathers of their race. Unfortunately, the later part of Isaac’s life did not altogether fulfil the promise of the earlier. Knowing little of the trials of faith, he did not reach high in its attainments. And in the more advanced stage of his history he fell into a state of general feebleness and decay, in which the moral but too closely corresponded with the bodily decline. Notwithstanding the very singular and marked exemplification that had been given in his own case of the pre-eminent respect had in the covenant to something higher than nature, lie failed so much in discernment, that he was disposed only to make account of the natural element in judging of the respective states and fortunes of his sons. To the neglect of a Divine oracle going before, and the neglect also of the plainest indications afforded by the subsequent behaviour of the sons themselves, he resolved to give the more distinctive blessing of the covenant to Esau, in preference to Jacob, and so to make him the more peculiar type and representative of the covenant. In this, however, he was thwarted by the overruling providence of God—not, indeed, without sin on the part of those who were the immediate agents in accomplishing it, but yet so as to bring out more clearly and impressively the fact, that mere natural descent and priority of birth was not here the principal, but only the secondary thing, and that higher and more important than any natural advantage was the grace of God manifesting itself in the faith and holiness of men. Jacob, therefore, though the youngest by birth, yet from the first the child of faith, of spiritual desire, of heartfelt longings after the things of God, ultimately the man of deep discernment, ripened experience, prophetic insight, wrestling and victorious energy in the Divine life—he must stand first in the purpose of Heaven, and exhibit in his personal career a living representation of the covenant, as to what it properly is and really requires. Nay, opportunity was taken from his case, as the immediate founder of the Israelitish nation, to begin the covenant history anew; and starting, as it were, from nothing in his natural position and circumstances, it was shown how God, by His supernatural grace and sufficiency, could vanquish the difficulties in the way, and more than compensate for the loss of nature’s advantages. In reference partly to this instructive portion of Jacob’s history, and to renew upon their minds the lesson it was designed to teach, the children of Israel were appointed to go to the priest in after times with their basket of first-fruits in their hand, and the confession in their mouth, A Syrian ready to perish was my father.—(Deuteronomy 26:5) It was clear, even as noon-day, that all Jacob had to distinguish him outwardly from others, the sole foundation and spring of his greatness, was the promise of God in the covenant, received by him in humble faith, and taken as the ground of prayerful and holy striving. As the head of the covenant people, he was not less really, though by a different mode of operation, the child of Divine grace and power, than his father Isaac. And as his whole life, in its better aspects, was a lesson to his posterity respecting the superiority of the spiritual to the merely natural element in things pertaining to the covenant of God; so, when his history drew toward its close, there were lessons of a more special kind, and in the same direction, pressed with singular force and emphasis upon his family. It was a time when such were peculiarly needed. The covenant was now to assume more of a communal aspect. It was to have a national membership and representation, as the more immediate designs which God sought to accomplish by means of it could not be otherwise effected. Jacob was the last separate impersonation of its spirit and character. His family, in their collective capacity, were henceforth to take this position. But they had first to learn, that they could take it only if their natural relation to the covenant was made the means of forming them to its spiritual characteristics, and fitting them for the fulfilment of its righteous ends. They must even learn, that their individual relation to the covenant in these respects should determine their relative place in the administration of its affairs and interests. And for this end, Reuben, the first-born, is made to lose his natural pre-eminence, because, like Esau, he presumed upon his natural position, and in the lawless impetuosity of nature broke through the restraints of filial piety. Judah, on the other hand, obtains one of the prerogatives Reuben had lost—Judah, who became so distinguished for that filial piety as to hazard his own life for the sake of his father. Simeon and Levi, in like manner, are all but excluded from the blessings of the covenant on account of their unrighteous and cruel behaviour: a curse is solemnly pronounced upon their sin, and a mark of inferiority stamped upon their condition; while, again, at a later period, and for the purpose still of showing how the spiritual was to rule the natural, rather than the natural the spiritual, the curse in the case of Levi was turned into a blessing. The tribe was, indeed, according to the word of Jacob, scattered in Israel, and was thereby rendered politically weak; but the more immediate reason of the scattering was the zeal and devotedness which the members of that tribe had exhibited in the wilderness, on account of which they were dispersed as lights among Israel, bearing on them the more peculiar and sacred distinctions of the covenant—thereby acquiring a position of great moral strength. Most strikingly, however, does the truth break forth in connection with Joseph, who in the earlier history of the family was the only proper representative of the covenant. He was the one child of God in the family, though, with a single exception, the least and youngest of its members. God, therefore, after allowing the contrast between him and the rest to be sharply exhibited, ordered His providence so as to make him pre-eminently the son of blessing. The faith and piety of the youth draw upon him the protection and loving-kindness of Heaven wherever he goes, and throw a charm around everything he does. At length he rises to the highest position of honour and influence—blessed most remarkably himself, and on the largest scale made a blessing to others the noblest and most conspicuous personal embodiment of the nature of the covenant, as first rooting itself in the principles of a spiritual life, and then diffusing itself in healthful and blessed energy on all around. At the same time, and as a foil to set off more brightly the better side of the truth represented in him, while he was thus seen riding upon the high places of the earth, his unsanctified brethren appear famishing for want; the promised blessing of the covenant has almost dried up in their experience, because they possessed so little of the true character of children of the covenant. And when the needful relief comes, they have to be indebted for it to the hand of him in whom that character is most luminously displayed. Nay, in the very mode of getting it, they are conducted through a train of humiliating and soul-stirring providences, tending to force on them the conviction that they were in the hands of an angry God, and to bring them to repentance of sin and amendment of life. So that, by the time they are raised to a position of honour and comfort, and settled as covenant patriarchs in Egypt, they present the appearance of men chastened, subdued, brought to the knowledge of God, fitted each to take his place among the heads of the future covenant people; while the double portion, which Reuben lost by his iniquity, descends on him who was, under God, the instrument of accomplishing so much good for them and for others. And here, again, we cannot but notice that when the chosen family were in the process of assuming the rudimentary form of that people through whom salvation and blessing were to come to other kindreds of the earth, the beginning was rendered prophetic of the end; the operations both of the evil and the good in the infancy of the nation, were made to image the prospective manifestation that was to be given of them when the things of the Divine kingdom should rise to their destined maturity. Especially in the history of Joseph, the representative of the covenant in its earlier stage, was there given a wonderful similitude of Him in whom its powers and blessings were to be concentrated in their entire fulness, and who was therefore in all things to obtain the pre-eminence among His brethren. Like Joseph, the Son of Mary, though born among brethren after the flesh, was treated as an alien; envied and persecuted even from His infancy, and obliged to find a temporary refuge in the very land that shielded Joseph from the fury of his kindred. His supernatural and unblemished righteousness continually provoked the malice of the world, and, at the same time, received the most unequivocal tokens of the Divine favour and blessing. That very righteousness, exhibited amid the greatest trials and indignities, in the deepest debasement, and in worse than prison-house affliction, procured His elevation to the right hand of power and glory, from which He was thenceforth to dispense the means of salvation to the world. In the dispensation, too, of these blessings, it was the hardened and cruel enmity of His immediate kindred which opened the door of grace and blessing to the heathen; and the sold, hated, and crucified One becomes a Prince and Saviour to the nations of the earth, while His famishing brethren reap in bitterness of soul the fruit of their inexcusable hatred and malice. Nor is there a door of escape to be found for them until they come to acknowledge, in contrition of heart, that they are verily guilty concerning their brother. Then, however, looking unto Him whom they have pierced, and owning Him as, by God’s appointment, the one channel of life and blessing, their hatred shall be repaid with love, and they shall be admitted to share in the inexhaustible fulness that is treasured up in Christ. What a succession, then, of lessons for the children of the covenant in regard to what constituted their greatest danger—lessons stretching through four generations—ever varying in their precise form, yet always bearing most directly and impressively upon the same point—writing out on the very foundations of their history, and emblazoning on the banner of their covenant, the important truth, that the spiritual element was ever to be held the thing of first and most essential moment, and that the natural was only to be regarded as the channel through which the other was chiefly to come, and the safeguard by which it was to be fenced and kept! From the first the call of God made itself known as no merely outward distinction; and the covenant that grew out of it, instead of being but a formal bond of interconnection between its members and God, was framed especially to meet the spiritual evil in the world, and required as an indispensable condition, a sanctified heart in all who were to experience its blessings, and to work out its beneficent results. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? How could the spiritual Jehovah, who has, from the first creation of man upon the earth, been ever manifesting Himself as the Holy One, and directing His administration so as to promote the ends of righteousness, enter into a covenant of life and blessing on any other principle? It is impossible—as impossible as it is for the unchangeable God to act contrary to His nature—that the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,—the covenant of grace and blessing, which embraces in its bosom Christ Himself, and the benefits of His eternal redemption,—could ever have contemplated as its real members any but spiritual and righteous persons. And the whole tenor and current of the Divine dealings in establishing the covenant seem to have been alike designed and calculated to shut up every thoughtful mind to the conclusion, that none but such could either fulfil its higher purposes, or have an interest in its more essential provisions. What thus appears to be taught in the historical revelations of God connected with the establishment of the covenant, is also perpetually re-echoed in the later communications by His prophets. Their great aim, in the monitory part of their writings, is to bring home to men’s minds the conviction, that the covenant had pre-eminently in view moral ends, and that in so far as the people degenerated from these, they failed in respect to the main design of their calling. Let us point, in proof of this, merely to the last of the prophets, that we may see how the closing witness of the Old Covenant coincides with the testimony delivered at the beginning. In the second chapter of his writings, the prophet Malachi, addressing himself to the corruptions of the time, as appearing first in the priesthood, and then among the people generally, charges both parties expressly with a breach of covenant, and a subversion of the ends for which it was established. In regard to the priests, he points to their ancestral holiness in the personified tribe of Levi, and says, “My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared Me, and was afraid before My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with Me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. . . . But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, but have been partial in the law.” In a word, the covenant, in this particular branch of it, had been made expressly on moral grounds and for moral ends; and in practically losing sight of these, the priests of that time had made void the covenant, even though externally complying with its appointments, and were consequently visited with chastisement instead of blessing. Then, in regard to the people, a reproof is first of all administered on account of the unfaithfulness, which had become comparatively common, in putting away their Israelitish wives, and taking outlandish women in their stead—“the daughters of a strange god.” This the prophet calls “profaning the covenant of their fathers.” And then pointing in this case, as in the former, to the original design and purport of their covenant calling, he asks, in a question which has been entirely misunderstood, from not being viewed in relation to the precise object of the prophet, “And did not He make one? Yet had He the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.” The one, which God made, is not Adam, nor Abraham, to either of whom the commentators refer it, though the case of neither of them properly suits the point more immediately in question. The oneness referred to is that distinctive species of it on which the whole section proceeds as its basis—Israel’s oneness as a family. God had chosen them—them alone of all the nations of the earth—to be His peculiar treasure. If He had pleased, He might have chosen more; the residue of the Spirit was still with Him, by no means exhausted by that single effort. He could have either left them like others, or chosen others besides them. But He did not; He made one, one alone, to be peculiarly His own, setting it apart from the rest. And wherefore that one? Simply that He might have a godly seed; that they might be an holy people, and transmit the true fear of God from generation to generation. How base, then, how utterly subversive of God’s purposes concerning them, to act as if no such separation had taken place,—to put away their proper wives, and by heathenish alliances bring into the bosom of their families the very defilement and corruption against which God had especially called them to contend! Such was this prophet’s understanding of the covenant made with the fathers of the Israelitish people; and no other view of it, we venture to say, would ever have prevailed, if its nature had been sought primarily in those fundamental records which describe the procedure of God in bringing it originally into existence. Section Sixth.—The Inheritance Destined For The Heirs Of Blessing. THE covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was connected not only with a seed of blessing, but also with an inheritance of blessing destined for their possession. And in order to get a correct view both of the immediate and of the ultimate bearing of this part of the covenant promise, it is not less necessary than in the other case, to consider the specific object proposed in its relation to the entire scheme of God, and especially to bear in mind, that it forms part of a series of arrangements in which the particular or the individual was selected with a view to the general, the universal. In respect to the good to be inherited, as well as in respect to the persons who might be called to inherit it, the end proposed on the part of God was from the first of the most comprehensive nature; and if for a time there was an immediate narrowing of the field of promise, it could be only for the sake of an ultimate expansion. To see more distinctly the truth of this, it may be proper to take a brief retrospect of the past. From the outset, the earth, in its entire extent and compass, was given for the domain and the heritage of man. He was placed in paradise as his proper home. There he had the throne of his kingdom, but not that he might be pent up within that narrow region; rather that he might from that, as the seat of his empire and the centre of his operations, go forth upon the world around, and bring it under his sway. His calling was to multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; so that it might become to its utmost bounds an extended and peopled paradise. But when the fall entered, though the calling was not withdrawn, nor the possession finally lost, yet man’s relative position was changed. He had now, not to work from paradise as a rightful king and lord, but from the blighted outfield of nature’s barrenness to work as a servant, in the hope of ultimatelyreaching a new and better paradise than he had lost. The first promise of grace, and the original symbols of worship, viewed in connection with the facts of history, out of which they grew, presented him with the prospect of an ultimate recovery from the evils of sin and death, and put him in the position of an expectant through faith in God, and toil and suffering in the flesh, of good things yet to come. The precise hope he cherished respecting these good things, or the inheritance he actually looked for, would at first naturally take shape in his imagination from what he had lost. He would fancy, that though he must bear the deserved doom for his transgression, and return again to dust, yet the time would come, when, according to the revealed mercy and loving-kindness of God, the triumph of the adversary would be reversed, the dust of death would be again quickened into life, and the paradise of delight be occupied anew, with better hopes of continuance, and with enlarged dimensions suited to its destined possessors. He could scarcely have expected more with the scanty materials which faith and hope yet had to build upon; and with the grace revealed to him, he could scarcely, if really standing in faith and hope, have expected less. We deem it incredible, that with the grant of the earth so distinctly made to man for his possession, and death so expressly appointed as the penalty of his yielding to the tempter, he should, as a subject of restoring grace, have looked for any other domain as the result of the Divine work in his behalf, than the earth itself, or for any other mode of entering on the recovered possession of it, than through a resurrection from the dead. For how should he have dreamt of a victory over evil in any other region than that where the evil had prevailed?Or how could the hope of restitution have formed itself in his bosom, excepting as a prospective reinstatement in the benefits he had forfeited?A paradise such as he had originally occupied, but prepared now for the occupation of redeemed multitudes,—made to embrace, it may be, the entire territory of the globe,—wrested for ever from the serpent’s brood, and rendered through all its borders beautiful and good: that, and nothing else, we conceive, must have been what the first race of patriarchal believers hoped and waited for, as the objective portion of good reserved for them. But in process of time the deluge came, changing to a considerable extent the outward appearance of the earth, and in certain respects also the government under which it was placed, and so preparing the way for a corresponding change in the hopes that were to be cherished of a coming inheritance. The old world then perished, leaving no remnant of its original paradise, any more than of the giant enormities which had caused it to groan, as in pain to be delivered. But the new world, cleansed and purified by the judgment of God, was now, without limit or restriction, given to Noah, as the saved head of mankind, that he might keep it for God, replenish and subdue it,—might work it, if such a thing were possible, into the condition of a second paradise. It soon became too manifest, how ever, that this was not possible; and that the righteousness of faith, of which Noah was heir, was still not that which could prevail to banish sin and death, corruption and misery, from the world. Another and better foundation yet remained to be laid for such a blessed prospect to be realized. But the promise of this very earth was nevertheless given for man’s inheritance, and with a promise securing it against any fresh destruction. The needed righteousness was somehow to be wrought upon it, and the region itself reclaimed so as to become a habitation of blessing. This was now the heritage of good set before mankind; to have this realized was the object which they were called of God to hope and strive for. And it was with this object before them,—an object, however, to which the events immediately subsequent to the deluge did not seem to be bringing them nearer, but rather to be carrying them more remote,—that the call to Abraham entered. This call, as we have already seen, was of the largest and most comprehensive nature as to the personal and subjective good it contemplated. It aimed at the bestowal of blessing—blessing, of course, in the Divine sense, including the fullest triumph over sin and death (for where these are, there can be but the beginnings or smaller drops of blessing); and the bestowal of them on Abraham and his lineal offspring, first and most copiously, but only as the more effectual way of extending them to all the families of mankind. The grand object of the covenant made with him was to render the world truly blessed in its inhabitants, himselfforming the immediate starting-point of the design, which was thereafter to grow and germinate, till the whole circle of humanity were embraced in its beneficent provisions. But in connection with this higher and grander object, there was singled out a portion of the earth for the occupation of his immediate descendants in a particular line—the more special line of blessing; and the conclusion is obvious, even before we go into an examination of particulars, that unless this select portion of the world were placed in utter disagreement with the higher ends of the covenant, it must have been but a stepping-stone to their accomplishment a kind of first-fruits of the proper good—the occupation of a part of the promised inheritance by a portion of the heirs of blessing to image and prepare for the inheritance of the whole by the entire company of the blessed. The particular must here also have been for the sake of the general, the universal, the ultimate. Proceeding, however, to a closer view of the subject, we notice, first, the region actually selected for a possession of an inheritance to the covenant people. The land of Canaan occupied a place in the ancient world that entirely corresponded with the calling of such a people. It was of all lands the best adapted for a people who were at once to dwell in comparative isolation, and yet were to be in a position for acting with effect upon the other nations of the world. Hence it was said by Ezekiel, Ezekiel 5:5, to have been “set in the midst of the countries and the nations”—the umbilicus terrarum. In its immediate vicinity lay both the most densely-peopled countries and the greater and more influential states of antiquity—on the south, Egypt, and on the north and east, Assyria and Babylon, the Medes and the Persians. Still closer were the maritime states of Tyre and Sidon, whose vessels frequented every harbour then known to navigation, and whose colonies were planted in each of the three continents of the old world. And the great routes of inland commerce between the civilised nations of Asia and Africa lay either through a portion of the territory itself, or within a short distance of its borders. Yet, bounded as it was on the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by the desert, on the east by the valley of the Jordan with its two seas of Tiberias and Sodom, and on the north by the towering heights of Lebanon, the people who inhabited it might justly be said to dwell alone, while they had on every side points of contact with the most influential and distant nations. Then the land itself, in its rich soil and plentiful resources, its varieties of hill and dale, of river and mountain, its connection with the sea on one side and with the desert on another, rendered it a kind of epitome of the natural world, and fitted it peculiarly for being the home of those who were to be a pattern people to the nations of the earth. Altogether, it were impossible to conceive a region more wisely selected, and in itself more thoroughly adapted, for the purposes on account of which the family of Abraham were to be set apart. If they were faithful to their covenant engagements, they might there have exhibited, as on an elevated platform, before the world the bright exemplar of a people possessing the characteristics and enjoying the advantages of a seed of blessing. And the finest opportunities were, at the same time, placed within their reach of proving in the highest sense benefactors to mankind, and extending far and wide the interest of truth and righteousness. Possessing the elements of the world’s blessing, they were placed where these elements might tell most readily and powerfully on the world’s inhabitants; and the present possession of such a region was at once an earnest of the whole inheritance, and, as the world then stood, an effectual step towards its realization. Abraham, as the heir of Canaan, was thus also “the heir of the world,” considered as a heritage of blessing.—(Romans 4:13) But, next, let us mark the precise words of the promise to Abraham concerning this inheritance. As it first occurs, it runs, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation,” etc. (Genesis 12:1). Then, when he reached Canaan, the promise was renewed to him in these terms: “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Genesis 12:7). More fully and definitely, after Lot separated from Abraham, was it again given: “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and east ward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever” (Genesis 13:14-15). Again, in Genesis 15:7, “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it;” and toward the close of the same chapter, it is said, “In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river.” In Genesis 17:1-27, the promise was formally ratified as a covenant, and sealed by the ordinance of circumcision; and there the words used respecting the inheritance are, “I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” We read only of one occasion in the life of Isaac, when he received the promise of the inheritance; and the words then used were, “Unto thee, and unto thy seed, will I give all these countries; and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father” (Genesis 26:3). Such also were the words addressed to Jacob at Bethel, “I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;” and in precisely the same terms was the promise again made to Jacob many years afterwards, as recorded in Genesis 35:12. It cannot but appear striking, that to each one of these patriarchs successively, the promise of the land of Canaan should have been given, first to themselves, and then to their posterity; while, during their own lifetimes, they never were permitted to get beyond the condition of strangers and pilgrims, having no right to any possession within its borders, and obliged to purchase at the marketable value a small field for a burying ground. How shall we account for the promise, then, so uniformly running, “to thee,” and to “thy seed?” Some, as Ainsworth and Bush, tell us that and here is the same as even, to thee, even to thy seed; as if a man were all one with his off spring, or the name of the latter were but another name for himself! Gill gives a somewhat more plausible turn to it, thus: “God gave Abram the title to it now, and to them the possession of it for future times; gave him it to sojourn in now where he pleased, and for his posterity to dwell in hereafter.” But the gift was the land for an inheritance, not for a place of sojourn; and a title, which left him personally without a foot’s-breadth of possession, could not be regarded in that light as any real boon to him. Warburton, as usual, confronts the difficulty more boldly: “In the literal sense, it is a promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham and to his posterity; and in this sense it was literally fulfilled, though Abraham was never personally in possession of it: since Abraham and his posterity, put collectively, signify the RACE OF ABRAHAM; and that race possessed the land of Canaan. And surely God may be allowed to explain His own promise: now, though He tells Abraham, He would give him the land, yet, at the same time, He assures him that it would be many hundred years before his posterity should be put in possession of it (Genesis 15:13, etc.). And as concerning himself, that he should go to his fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age. Thus we see, that both what God explained to be His meaning, and what Abraham understood Him to mean, was, that his posterity, after a certain time, should be led into possession of the land.”[137] [137] Legation of Moses, B. vi., sec. 3. But if this were really the whole meaning, the thought naturally occurs, it is strange so plain a meaning should have been so ambiguously expressed. Why not simply say, “thy posterity,” if posterity alone were intended, and so render unnecessary the somewhat awkward expedient of sinking the patriarch’s individuality in the history of his race?Why, also, should the promise have been renewed at a later period, with a pointed distinction between Abraham and his posterity, yet with an assurance that the promise was to him as well as to them: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger?” And why should Stephen have made such special reference to the apparent incongruity between the personal condition of Abraham and the promise given to him, as if there were some further meaning in what was said than lay on the surface: “He gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him?”—(Acts 7:5) We do not see how these questions can receive any satisfactory explanation, so long as no account is made of the personal standing of the patriarchs in regard to the promise. And there are others equally left without explanation. For no sufficient reason can be assigned on that hypothesis, for the extreme anxiety of Jacob and Joseph to have their bones carried to the sepulchre of their fathers, in the land of Canaan—betokening, as it evidently seemed to do, a conviction, that to them also be longed a personal interest in the land. Neither does it appear how the fact of Abraham and his immediate offspring, “confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth,”—which they did no otherwise, that we are aware of, than by living as strangers and pilgrims in Canaan,—should have proved that they were looking for and desiring a better country, that is, an heavenly one. And then, strange to think, if nothing more were meant by the promise than the view now under consideration would imply, when the posterity who were to occupy the land did obtain possession of it, we find the men of faith taking up exactly the same confession as to their being strangers and pilgrims in it, which was witnessed by their, forefathers, who never had it in possession. Even after they became possessors, it seems they were still, like their wandering ancestors, expect ants and heirs of something better; and faith had to be exercised, lest they should lose the proper fulfilment of the promise (Psalms 39:12; Psalms 95:1-11; Psalms 119:19; 1 Chronicles 29:15). Surely if the earthly Canaan had been the whole inheritance they were war ranted to look for, after they were settled in it, the condition of pilgrims and strangers no longer was theirs—they had reached their proper destiny—they were dwelling in their appointed home—the promise had received its intended fulfilment. These manifold difficulties and apparent inconsistencies will vanish—(and we see no other way in which they can be satisfactorily removed)—by supposing, what is certainly in accordance with the tenor of revelation, that the promise of Canaan as an inheritance to the people of God was part of a connected and growing scheme of preparatory arrangements, which were to have their proper outgoing and final termination in the establishment of Christ’s everlasting kingdom. Viewed thus, the grant of Canaan must be regarded as a kind of second Eden, a sacred region once more possessed in this fallen world—God’s own land—out of which life and blessing were to come for all lands the present type of a world restored and blessed. And if so, then we may naturally expect the following consequences to have arisen:—First, that whatever transactions may have taken place concerning the actual Canaan, these would be all ordered so as to subserve the higher design, in connection with which the appointment was made; and second, that as a sort of veil must have been allowed meanwhile to hang over this ultimate design (for the issue of redemption could not be made fully manifest till the redemption itself was brought in), a certain degree of dubiety would attach to some of the things spoken regarding it: these would appear strange or impossible, if viewed only in reference to the temporary inheritance; and would have the effect with men of faith, as no doubt they were intended, to compel the mind to break through the outward shell of the promise, and contemplate the rich kernel enclosed within. Thus the promise being made so distinctly and repeatedly to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while personally they were allowed no settled footing in the inheritance bestowed, could scarcely fail to impress them, and their more pious descendants, with the conviction that higher and more important relations were included under those in which they stood to the land of Canaan during their earthly sojourn, and such as required another order of things to fulfil them. They must have been convinced, that for some great and substantial reason, not by a mere fiction of the imagination, they had been identified by God with their posterity as to their interest in the promised inheritance. And so they must have felt shut up to the belief, that when God’s purposes were completely fulfilled, His word of promise would be literally verified, and that their respective deaths should ultimately be found to raise no effectual barrier in the way of their actual share in the inheritance; as the same God who would have raised Isaac from the dead, had he been put to death, to maintain the integrity of His word, was equally able, on the same account, to raise them up. Certainly the exact and perfect manner in which the other line of promise—that which respected a seed to Abraham—was fulfilled, gave reason to expect a fulfilment in regard to this also, in the most proper and complete sense. Abraham did not at first understand how closely God’s words were to be interpreted; and after waiting in vain for some years for the promised seed by Sarah, he began to think that God must have meant an offspring that should be his only by adoption, and seems to have thought of constituting the son of his steward his heir. Then, when admonished of his error in entertaining such a thought, and informed that the seed was to spring from his own loins, lie acceded, after another long period of fruitless waiting, to the proposal of Sarah regarding Hagar, under the impression, that though he was to be the father of the seed, yet it should not be by his proper wife; the expected good was to be obtained by a worldly expedient, and to become his only through a tortuous policy. Here again, however, he was admonished of error, commanded to cease from such unworthy devices, and walk in uprightness before God; was reminded that He who made the promise was the Almighty God, to whom, therefore, no impossibility connected with the age of Sarah could be of any moment, and assured that the long promised child was to be the son of him and his lawful spouse.[138] Now, when Abraham was thus taught to interpret one part of the promise in the most exact and literal sense, how natural was it to infer, that he must do the same also with the other part! If, when God said, “Thou shalt be the father of a seed,” it became clear that the word could receive nothing short of the strictest fulfilment; what else, what less, could be expected, when God said, “Thou shalt inherit this land,” than that the fulfilment was to be equally proper and complete? The providence of God, which furnished such an interpretation in the one case, could not but beget the conviction, that a similar principle of interpretation was to be applied to the other; and that as the promise of the inheritance was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as to their seed, so it should be made good in their experience, not less than in that of their posterity. [138] Genesis 17:1-17. No doubt, such a belief implied that there must be a resurrection from the dead before the promise could be realized; and to those who conceive that immortality was altogether a blank page to the eye of an ancient Israelite, the idea may seem to carry its own refutation along with it. The Rabbis, however, with all their blindness, seemed to have had juster, because more scriptural, notions of the truth and purposes of God in this respect. For, on Exodus 6:4, the Talmud in Gemara, in reply to the question, “Where does the law teach the resurrection of the dead?” thus distinctly answers, “In that place where it is said, I have established My covenant with thee, to give thee the land of Canaan. For it is not said with you., but with thee (lit., yourselves).”[139] The same answer, substantially, we are told, was returned by Rabbi Gamaliel, when the Sadducees pressed him with a similar question. And in a passage quoted by Warburton (B. vi., sec. 3) from Manasseh Ben-Israel, we find the argument still more fully stated: “God said to Abraham, I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger. But it appears that Abraham and the other patriarchs did not possess that land; therefore it is of necessity that they should be raised up to enjoy the good promises, else the promises of God should be in vain and false. So that we have here a proof, not only of the immortality of the soul, but also of the essential foundation of the law, namely, the resurrection of the dead.” It is surely not too much to suppose, that what Jewish Rabbis could so certainly draw from the word of God, may have been perceived by wise and holy patriarchs. And the fact, of which an inspired writer assures us, that Abraham so readily believed in the possible resurrection of Isaac to a present life, is itself conclusive proof that he would not be slow to believe in his own resurrection to a future life, when the word of promise seemed no otherwise capable of receiving its proper fulfilment. Indeed, the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead—not that of the immortality of the soul—is the form which the prospect of an after state of being must have chiefly assumed in the minds of the earlier believers, because that which most obviously and naturally grew out of the promises made to them, as well as most accordant with their native cast of thought. And nothing but the undue influence of the Gentile philosophy on men’s minds could have led them to imagine, as they generally have done, the reverse to have been the case. [139] Sic habetur traditio Rab. Simai; quo loco astruit Lex resurrectionem mortuorum? Nempe ubi dicitur, “Aque etiam coustabilivi foedus meum cum ipsis, ut dem ipsis terram Canaan.” Non enim dicitur vobis sed ipsis. In the writings of the Greeks and Romans, especially those of the former, we find the distinction constantly drawn between matter and spirit, body and soul; and the one generally represented as having only elements of evil inhering in it, and the other elements of good. So far from looking for the resurrection of the body as necessary to the final well-being of men, full and complete happiness was held to be impossible so long as the soul was united to the body. Death was so far considered by them a boon, that it emancipated the ethereal principle from its prison-house; and their visions of future bliss, when such visions were entertained, presented to the eye of hope scenes of delight, in which the disembodied spirit alone was to find its satisfaction and repose. Hence it is quite natural to hear the better part of them speaking with contempt of all that concerned the body, looking upon death as a final as well as a happy release from its vile affections, and promising themselves a perennial enjoyment in the world of spirits. “In what way shall we bury you?” said Crito to Socrates, immediately before his death. “As you please,” was the reply. “I cannot, my friends, persuade Crito that I am the Socrates that is now conversing and ordering everything that has been said; but he thinks I am that man whom he will shortly see a corpse, and asks how you should bury me. But what I have all along been talking so much about that when I shall have drunk the poison, I shall no longer stay with you, but shall, forsooth, go away to certain felicities of the blest—this I seem to myself to have been saying in vain, whilst comforting at the same time you and myself.” And in another part of the same dialogue (Phaedo), after speaking of the impossibility of attaining to the true knowledge and discernment of things, so long as the soul is kept in the lumpish and impure body, he is represented as congratulating himself on the prospect now immediately before him: “If these things are true, there is much reason to hope, that he who has reached my present position shall there soon abundantly obtain that for the sake of which I have laboured so hard during this life; so that I encounter with a lively hope my appointed removal.” No doubt such representations give a highly coloured and far too favourable view of the expectations which the more speculative part of the heathen world cherished of a future state of being; for to most of them the whole was overshadowed with doubt and uncertainty too often,—indeed, the subject of absolute unbelief. But in this respect the idea it presents is perfectly correct, that so far as hope was exercised toward the future, it connected itself altogether with the condition and destiny of the soul; and so abhorrent was the thought of a resurrection of the body to their notions of future good, that Tertullian did not hesitate to affirm the heresy, which denied that Christian doctrine, to be the common result of the whole Gentile philosophy.[140] [140] Ut carnis restitutio negetur, de una omnium philosophorum scliola sumitur, De Praesc. adv. Haeret. § 7. It was precisely the reverse with believers in ancient and primitive times. Their prospects of a blessed immortality were mainly associated with the resurrection of the body; and the dark period to them was the intermediate state between death and the resurrection, which even at a comparatively late stage in their history presented itself to their view as a state of gloom, silence, and forgetfulness. They contemplated man, not in the light in which an abstract speculative philosophy might regard him, but in the more natural and proper one of a compound being, to which matter as essentially belongs as spirit, and in the well-being of which there must unite the happy condition both of soul and body. Nay, the materials from which they had to form their views and prospects of a future state of being pointed most directly to the resurrection, and passed over in silence the period intervening between that and death. Thus, the primeval promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, taught them to live in expectation of a time when death should be swallowed up in victory; for death being the fruit of the serpent’s triumph, what else could his complete overthrow be than the reversal of death—the resurrection from the dead? So also the prophecy embodied in the emblems of the tree of life, still standing in the midst of the garden of Eden, with its way of approach meanwhile guarded by the flaming sword, and possessed by the cherubim of glory—implying, that when the spoiler should be himself spoiled, and the way of life should again be laid open for the children of promise, they should have access to the food of immortality, which they could only do by rising out of death and entering on the resurrection state. The same conclusion grew, as we have just seen, most naturally, and we may say inevitably, out of that portion of the promises made to the fathers of the Jewish race, which assured them of a personal inheritance in the land of Canaan; for dying, as they did, without having obtained any inheritance in it, how could the word of promise be verified to them, but by their being raised from the dead to receive what it warranted them to expect? In perfect accordance with these earlier intimations, or, as they may fitly be called, fundamental promises, we find, as we descend the stream of time, and listen to the more express utterances of prophecy regarding the hopes of the Church, that the grand point on which they are all made to centre is the resurrection from the dead; and it is so, doubtless, for the reason, that as death is from the first represented as the wages of sin, the evil pre-eminently under which humanity groans, so the abolition of death by mortality being swallowed up of life, is understood to carry in its train the restitution of all things. The Psalms, which are so full of the experiences and hopes of David, and other holy men of old, while they express only fear and discomfort in regard to the state after death, not unfrequently point to the resurrection from the dead as the great consummation of desire and expectation: “My flesh also shall rest in hope: for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”—Psalms 16:9-10. “Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; for He shall receive me” (Psalms 49:14-15). The prophets, who are utterly silent regarding the state of the disembodied soul, speak still more explicitly of a resurrection from the dead, and evidently connect with it the brightest hopes of the Church. Thus Isaiah, “He will swallow up death in victory” (Isaiah 25:8); and again, “Thy dead men shall live, together with My dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust” (Isaiah 26:19). To the like effect, Hosea 13:14, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” The vision of the dry bones, in Ezekiel 37:1-28, whether understood of a literal resurrection from the state of the dead, or of a figurative resurrection, a political resuscitation from a downcast and degraded condition, strongly indicates, in either case, the characteristic nature of their future prospects. Then, finally, in Daniel we read, Daniel 12:1-13, not only that he was himself, after resting for a season among the dead, “to stand in his lot at the end of the days,” but also that at the great crisis of the Church’s history, when they should be for ever rescued from the power of the enemy, “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth should awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Besides these direct and palpable proofs of a resurrection in the Jewish Scriptures, and of the peculiar place it holds there, the Rabbinical and modern Jews, it is well known, refer to many others as inferentially teaching the same doctrine. That the earlier Jews were not behind them, either in the importance they attached to the doctrine, or in their persuasion of its frequent recurrence in the Old Testament Scriptures, we may assuredly gather from the tenacity with which all but the Sadducees evidently held it in our Lord’s time, and the ready approval which He met with when inferring it from the declaration made to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.” It is nothing to the purpose, therefore, to allege, as has often been done, against any clear or well-grounded belief on the part of the ancient Jews regarding a future and immortal state of being, such passages as speak of the darkness, silence, and nothingness of the condition immediately subsequent to death, and during the sojourn of the body in the tomb; for that was precisely the period in respect to which their light failed them. Of a heathenish immortality, which ascribed to the soul a perpetual existence separate from the body, and considered its happiness, when thus separate, as the ultimate good of man, they certainly knew and believed nothing. But we are persuaded no tenet was more firmly and sacredly held among them from the earliest periods of their history, than that of the resurrection from the dead, as the commencement of a final and everlasting portion of good to the people of God. And when the Jewish doctors gave to the resurrection of the dead a place among the thirteen fundamental articles of their faith, and cut off from all inheritance in a future state of felicity those who deny it, we have no reason to regard the doctrine as attaining to a higher place in their hands, than it did with their fathers before the Christian era.[141] [141] See Appendix B. There was something more, however, in the Jewish faith concerning the resurrection, than its being simply held as an article in their creed, and held to be a fact that should one day be realized in the history of the Church. It stood in the closest connection with the promise made to the fathers, as some of the foregoing testimonies show, and especially with the work and advent of Messiah. They not only believed that there would be a resurrection of the dead, to a greater or less extent, when Messiah came (see Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. John 1:21, John 5:25), but that His work, especially as regards the promised inheritance, could only be carried into effect through the resurrection. Levi[142] holds it as a settled point, that “the resurrection of the dead will be very near the time of the redemption,” meaning by the redemption the full and final enjoyment of all blessing in the land of promise, and that such is the united sense of all the prophets who have spoken of the times of Messiah. In this, indeed, he only expresses the opinion commonly entertained by Jewish writers, who constantly assert that there will be a resurrection of the whole Jewish race, to meet and rejoice with Christ, when He comes to Jerusalem, and who often thrust forward their views regarding it, when there is no proper occasion to do so. Thus, in Sohar, Genes, fol. 77, as quoted by Schoettgen, II. p. 367, R. Nehorai is reported to have said, on Abraham’s speaking to his servant, Genesis 24:2, “We are to understand the servant of God, his senior domus. And who is He? Metatron (Messiah), who, as we have said, will bring forth the souls from their sepulchres.” But a higher authority still may be appealed to. For the Apostle to the Gentiles thus expresses—and with evident approval as to the general principle the mind—of his countrymen in regard to the Messiah and the resurrection: “I now stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come: for which hope’s sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?”[143] The connection in which the resurrection of the dead is here placed with the great promise of a Messiah, for which the Jews are represented as so eagerly and intently looking, evidently implies, that the two were usually coupled together in the Jewish faith, nay, that the one could reach its proper fulfilment only through the performance of the other; and that in believing on a Messiah risen from the dead, the Apostle was acting in perfect accordance with the hopes of his nation. [142] Dissertations on the Prophecies of Old Test., vol. i., p. 56. [143] Acts 26:6-8. But now, to apply all this to the subject under consideration,—the earthly inheritance: If that inheritance was promised in a way which, from the very first, implied a resurrection from the dead, before it could be rightly enjoyed; and if all along, even when Canaan was possessed by the seed of Abraham, the men of faith still looked forward to another inheritance, when the curse should be utterly abolished, the blessing fully received, and death finally swallowed up in victory,—then a twofold boon must have been conveyed to Abraham and his seed, under the promise of the land of Canaan; one to be realized in the natural, and the other in the resurrection state,—a mingled and temporary good before, and a complete and permanent one after, the restitution of all things by the Messiah. So that, in regard to the ultimate designs of God, the land of Canaan would serve much the same purpose as the garden of Eden, with its tree of life and cherubim of glory—the same, and yet more; for it not only presented to the eye of faith a type, but also gave in its possession an earnest, of the inheritance of a paradisiacal world. The difference, however, is not essential, and only indicates an advance in God’s revelations and purposes of grace, making what was ultimately designed for the faithful more sure to them by an instalment, through a singular train of providential arrangements, in a present inheritance of good. They thus enjoyed a real and substantial pledge of the better things to come, which were to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. But what were these better things themselves? What was thus indicated to Abraham and his believing posterity, as their coming inheritance of good? If it was clear that they must have attained to the resurrection from the dead before they could properly enjoy the possession, it could not be Canaan in its natural state, as a region of the present earth, that was to be inherited; for that, considered as the abode of Abraham and all his elect posterity, when raised from the tomb and collected into an innumerable multitude, must have appeared of far too limited dimensions, as well as of unsuitable character. Though it might well seem a vast inheritance for any living generation that should spring from the loins of Abraham, yet it was palpably inadequate for the possession of his collected seed, when it should have become like the stars of heaven for multitude. And not only so; but as the risen body is to be, not a natural but a glorified one, the inheritance it is to occupy must be a glorified one too. The fairest portions of the earth, in its present fallen and corruptible state, could be a fit possession for men only so long as in their persons they are themselves fallen and corruptible. When redeemed from the power of the grave, and entered on the glories of the new creation, the natural Canaan will be as unfit to be their proper home and possession, as the original Eden would have been with its tree of life. Much more so, indeed—for the earth in its present state is adapted to the support and enjoyment of man, as constituted not only after the earthly Adam, but after him as underlying the pernicious effects of the curse. And the ultimate inheritance destined for Abraham and the heirs of promise, which was to become theirs after the resurrection from the dead, must be as much higher and better than anything which the earth, in its present state, can furnish, as man’s nature, when glorified, shall be higher and better than it is while in bondage to sin and death. Nothing less than this certainly is taught in what is said of the inheritance, as expected by the patriarchs, in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city.”[144] Without entering into any minute commentary on this passage, it cannot but be regarded as perfectly conclusive of two points: First, that Abraham, and the heirs with him of the same promise, did understand and believe, that the inheritance secured to them under the promise of Canaan (for that was the only word spoken to them of an inheritance) was one in which they had a personal interest. And then, secondly, that the inheritance, as it was to be occupied and enjoyed by them, was to be, not a temporary, but a final one,—one that might fitly be designated a “heavenly country,” a city built by Divine hands, and based on immovable foundations, in short, the ultimate and proper resting-place of redeemed and glorified natures. This was what these holy patriarchs expected and desired,—what they were warranted to expect and desire;—for their conduct in this respect is the subject of commendation, and is justified on the special ground, that otherwise God must have been ashamed to be called their God. And, finally, it was what they found contained in the promise to them, of an inheritance in the land in which they were pilgrims and strangers; for to that promise alone could they look for the special ground of the hopes they cherished of a sure and final possession. [144] Hebrews 11:13-16. But the question again returns, what is that possession itself really to be?That it cannot be the country itself of Palestine, either in its present condition or as it might become under any system of culture of which nature is capable, is too obvious to require any lengthened proof. The twofold fact, that the possession was to be man’s ultimate and proper inheritance, and that it could be attained only after the resurrection from the dead, clearly forbids the supposition of its being the literal land of Canaan, under any conceivable form of renovated fruitfulness and beauty. This is also evident from the nature of the promise that formed the ground of Abraham’s hope,—which made mention only of the land of Canaan,—and which, as pointing to an ulterior inheritance, must have belonged to that combination of type with prophecy which we placed first, viz., having the promise, or prediction, not in the language employed, but in the typical character of the object which that language described. The promise made to Abraham was simple enough in itself. It gave assurance of a land distinctly marked off by certain geographical boundaries. It was not properly in the words of that promise that he could read his destiny to any future and ultimate inheritance; but putting together the two things, that the promised good could only be realized fully in an after-state of being, and that all the relations of the time then present were preparative and temporary representations of better things to come, he might hence perceive that the earthly Canaan was a type of what was finally to be enjoyed. Thus the establishment of his offspring there would be regarded as a prophecy, in fact, of the exaltation of the whole of an elect seed to their destined state of blessing and glory. But such being the case,—the prediction standing altogether in the type,—the thing predicted and promised must, in conformity with all typical relations, have been another and far higher thing than that which served to predict and promise it. Canaan could not be the type of itself: it could only represent, on the lower platform of nature, what was hereafter to be developed on the loftier arena of God’s ever lasting kingdom; and as far as the things of fallen and corrupt nature differ from, and are inferior to, those of redemption, so far must the rest of Canaan have differed from, and been inferior to, “that rest which remaineth for the people of God.”[145] What that final rest or inheritance, which forms the antitype to Canaan, really is, we may gather from the words of the Apostle concerning it in Ephesians 1:14, where he calls the Spirit “the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.”[146] It is plain, that the subject here discoursed of, is not our persons, but our goods; not what believers in their souls and bodies are to be hereafter, but what is prepared for their enjoyment. For the inheritance which belongs to a person, must always be separate from the person himself. And as that which is called an inheritance in the one clause, is undoubtedly the same with that which in the other is named a possession, purchased or acquired, but not yet redeemed, the redemption of the possession must be a work to be accomplished for us, and not to be wrought in us. It must be a change to the better, effected not upon our persons, but upon the outward provision secured for their ulterior happiness and well-being. [145] See Appendix D. [146] That the received translation gives here the sense of the original with substantial correctness, I am fully satisfied. The latter part of it, εἰς ἀτολύρωσιντῆς περιποιὴσεως, has been variously understood, and its natural import too commonly overlooked. Robinson, in his Lexicon, makes it = ἀπολύτρωσιν τὴν περιποιηθεὶσαν, the redemption acquired for us,—a violent change, which could only be justified if absolutely necessary. The only two senses in which the word occurs in the New Testament, are—1. Acquiring, acquisition, obtaining, 1 Thessalonians 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; Hebrews 10:39; Hebrews 2:1-18. The thing obtained or acquired, possession, in which sense, unquestionably, it is used in Malachi 3:17, and in 1 Peter 2:9. In both of these places it is applied to the Church, as God’s acquired, purchased possession, and is equal to His peculium, or property in the stricter sense, His select treasure, which is related to Him as nothing else is, which He has acquired or purchased, περιεποιήσατο, by His own blood, Acts 20:28, comp. Also Exodus 19:6; Deuteronomy 7:6; Titus 2:14. The great majority of interpreters, from Calvin to Ellicott, are of opinion, that because in these passages περιποίὴσις is used as a designation of the Church, considered as God’s peculiar property, it has the same meaning here, “unto, or until, the redemption of His purchased people,” as Boothroyd expressly renders. But this view is liable to three objections. 1. The word περιποίησις, is nowhere absolutely and by itself put for “purchased people,” or “Church;” when so used, it has the addition of λαός. 2. The redemption of the Church would then be regarded as future, whereas it is always represented as past. We read of the redemption of the bodies of believers as yet to take place, but never of the redemption of the Church; that is uniformly spoken of as having been effected by the death of Christ. 3. It does not suit the connection: for the Apostle is speaking of the indwelling of the Spirit as the earnest of the inheritance to which believers are destined; and as an earnest is given as a temporary substitute for the inheritance or possession, the term to which, or the end in respect to which it is given, must be, not some other event of a Collateral nature, but the coming or receiving of the possession itself. Then, while these objections apply to the common view, there is no need for resorting to it: while it does violence to the word, it only obscures the sense. Εἰς περιποίησιν, both CEcumenius and Theophylact, on 1 Peter 2:9, hold to be εἰς κτῆσιν εἰκληρονομίαν, for a possession, for an inheritance. And Didymus on the same place, as quoted by Steiger, says, “that is περιποίησις which, by way of distinction, is reckoned among our substance and possessions.” Therefore the correct meaning here is that given by Calov: “Περιποίησις, the abstract being placed for the concrete, is to be understood of the acquired inheritance, for the Holy Spirit is the pledge and earnest until the full redemption of the acquired inheritance.” It is true, that the Church of God, the company of sound and genuine believers, is sometimes called the inheritance or purchased possession of God. In Old Testament Scripture His people are styled His “heritage,” “His treasure;” and in New Testament Scripture we find St Peter addressing them as “a peculiar people,” or literally, a people for a possession—namely, a possession of God, acquired or purchased by the precious blood of His dear Son. The question here, however, is not of what may be called God’s inheritance, but of ours; not of our redemption from the bondage of evil as a possession of God, which He seeks to enjoy free from all evil, but of that which we are ourselves to possess and occupy as our final portion. And as we could with no propriety be called our own inheritance, or our own possession, it must be something apart from, and out of ourselves, which is here to be understood,—not a state of being to be held, but a portion of blessing and glory to be enjoyed. Now, whatever the inheritance or possession may be in itself, and whatever the region where it is to be enjoyed, when it is spoken of as needing to be redeemed, we are evidently taught to regard it as something that has been alienated from us, but is again to be made ours; not a possession altogether new, but an old possession, lost, and again to be reclaimed from the powers of evil, which now overmaster and destroy it. So was it certainly with our persons. They were sold under sin. With our loss of righteousness before God, we lost at the same time our spiritual freedom, and all that essentially belonged to the pure and blessed life, in the possession of which we were created. Instead of this, we became subject to the tyrannous dominion of the prince of darkness, holding us captive in our souls to the foul and wretched bondage of sin, and in our bodies to the mortality and corruption of death. The redemption of our persons is just their recovery from this lost and ruinous state, to the freedom of God’s children, and the blessedness of immortal life in His presence and glory. It proceeds at every step by acts of judgment upon the great adversary and oppressor, who took advantage of the evil, and ever seeks to drive it to the uttermost. And when the work shall be completed by the redemption of the body from the power of the grave, there shall then be the breaking up of the last bond of oppression that lay upon our natures, the putting down of the last enemy, that the son of wickedness may no longer vex or injure us. In this redemption-process, which is already begun upon the people of God, and shall be consummated in the glories of the resurrection, it is the same persons, the same soul and body, which have experience both of the evil and of the good. Though the change is so great and wonderful, that it is sometimes called a new creation, it is not in the sense of anything being brought into existence, which previously had no being. Such language is simply used on account of the happy and glorious transformation that is made to pass upon the natures which already exist, but exist only in a state of misery and oppression. And when the same language is applied to the inheritance, which is used of the persons of those who are to enjoy it, what can this indicate, but that the same things are true concerning it?The bringing in of that inheritance, in its finished state of fulness and glory, is in like manner called “the making of all things new;” but it is so called only in respect to the wonderful transformation which is to be wrought upon the old things, which are thereby to receive another constitution, and present another aspect, than they were wont to do before. For that the possession is to be redeemed, bespeaks it as a thing to be recovered, not to be made,—a thing already in being, though so changed from its original destination, so marred and spoiled, overlaid with so many forms of evil, and so far from serving the ends for which it is required, that it may be said to be alienated from us, in the hands of the enemy, for the prosecution of his purposes of evil. Now, what is it, of which this can be affirmed? If it is said heaven, and by that is meant what is commonly understood, some region far removed from this lower world, in the sightless realms of ether, then we ask, was heaven in that sense ever man’s? Has it become obnoxious to any evils, from which it must be delivered? or has it fallen into the hands of an enemy and an oppressor, from whose evil sway it must again be redeemed? None of these things surely can be said of such a heaven. It would be an altogether new inheritance, a possession never held, consequently never lost, and incapable of being redeemed. And there is nothing that answers such a description, or can possibly realize the conditions of such an inheritance, but what lies within the bounds and compass of this earth itself, with which the history of man has hitherto been connected both in good and evil, and where all the possession is, that he can properly be said either to have held or to have lost. Let us again recur to the past. Man’s original inheritance was a lordship or dominion, stretching over the whole earth, but extending no farther. It entitled him to the ministry of all creatures within its borders, and the enjoyment of all fruits and productions upon its surface—one only excepted, for the trial of his obedience.—(Genesis 1:28-31; Psalms 8:1-9) When he fell, he fell from his dominion, as well as from his purity; the inheritance departed from him; he was driven from paradise, the throne and palace of his kingdom; labour, servitude, and suffering, became his portion in the world; he was doomed to be a bondsman, a hewer of wood and drawer of water, on what was formed to be his inheritance; and all that he has since been able, by hard toil and industry, to acquire, is but a partial and temporary command over some fragments of what was at first all his own. Nor is that the whole. For with man’s loss of the inheritance, Satan was permitted to enter, and extend his usurped sway over the domain from which man has been expelled as its proper lord. And this he does by filling the world with agencies and works of evil, —spreading disorder through the elements of nature, and disaffection among the several orders of being,—above all, corrupting the minds of men, so as to lead them to cast off the authority of God, and to use the things he confers on them for their own selfish ends and purposes, for the injury and oppression of their fellow-men, for the encouragement of sin and suppression of the truth of God,—for rendering the world, in short, as far as possible, a region of darkness and not of light, a kingdom of Satan and not of God, a theatre of malice, corruption, and disorder, not of love, harmony, and blessedness. Now, as the redemption of man’s person consists in his being rescued from the dominion of Satan—from the power of sin in his soul, and from the reign of death in his body, which are the two forms of Satan’s dominion over man’s nature; what can the redemption of the inheritance be, but the rescuing of this earth from the manifold ills which, through the instrumentality of Satan, have come to lodge in its bosom,—purging its elements of all mischief and disorder,—changing it from being the vale of tears and the charnel-house of death, into a paradise of life and blessing,—restoring to man, himself then redeemed and fitted for the honour, the sceptre of a real dominion over all its fulness,—in a word, rendering it in character and design what it was on creation’s morn, when the sons of God shouted for joy, and God Himself looked with satisfaction on the goodness and order and beauty which pervaded this portion of His universe?To do such a work as this upon the earth, would manifestly be to redeem the possession which man by disobedience forfeited and lost, and a new title to which has been purchased by Christ for all His spiritual seed; for were that done, the enemy would be completely foiled and cast out, and man’s proper inheritance restored. But some are perhaps ready to ask, Is that, then, all the inheritance that the redeemed have to look for?Is their abode still to be upon earth, and their portion of good to be confined to what may be derived from its material joys and occupations?Is paradise restored to be simply the re-establishment and enlargement of paradise lost?We might reply to such questions by putting similar ones regarding the persons of the redeemed. Are these still, after all, to be the same persons they were during the days of their sojourn on earth?Is the soul, when expatiating amid the glorious scenes of eternity, to live in the exercise of the same powers and faculties which it employed on the things of time? And is the outward frame, in which it is to lodge, and act, and enjoy itself, to be that very tabernacle which it bore here in weakness, and which it left behind to rot and perish in the tomb?Would any one feel at a moment’s loss to answer such questions in the affirmative? Does it in any respect shock our feelings, or lower the expectations we feel warranted to cherish concerning our future state, when we think that the very soul and body which together constitute and make up the being we now are, shall also constitute and make up the being we are to be hereafter?Assuredly not; for however little we know what we are to be hereafter, we are not left in ignorance that both soul and body shall be freed from all evil; and not only so, but in the process shall be unspeakably refined and elevated. We know it is the purpose of God to magnify in us the riches of His grace by raising our natures higher than the fall has brought them low—to glorify, while He redeems them, and so to render them capable of spheres of action and enjoyment beyond not only what eye has seen or ear has heard, but even what has entered into the mind of man to conceive. And why may we not think and reason thus also, concerning the inheritance which these redeemed natures are to occupy? Why may not God do a like work of purification and refinement on this solid earth, so as to transform and adapt it into a fit residence for man in glory? Why may not, why should not, that which has become for man, as fallen, the house of bondage and the field of ruin, become also for man redeemed the habitation of peace and the region of pre-eminent delight?Surely He, who from the very stones can raise up children unto Abraham, and who will bring forth from the noisome corruption of the tomb, forms clothed with honour and majesty, can equally change the vile and disordered condition of the world, as it now is, and make it fit to be “the house of the glory of His kingdom,”—a world where the eye of redeemed manhood shall be regaled with sights of surpassing loveliness, and his ear ravished with sounds of sweetest melody, and his desires satisfied with purest delight,—ay, a world, it may be, which, as it alone of all creation’s orbs has been honoured to bear the footsteps of an incarnate God, and witness the performance of His noblest work, so shall it be chosen as the region around which He will pour the richest manifestations of His glorious presence, and possibly send from it, by the ministry of His redeemed, communications of love and kindness to the farthest bounds of His habitable universe! No; when rightly considered, it is not a low and degrading view of the inheritance which is reserved for the heirs of salvation, to place it in the possession of this very earth which we now inhabit, after it shall have been redeemed and glorified. I feel it for myself to be rather an ennobling and comforting thought; and were I left to choose, out of all creation’s bounds, the place where my redeemed nature is to find its local habitation, enjoy its Redeemer’s presence, and reap the fruits of His costly purchase, I would prefer none to this. For if destined to so high a purpose, I know it will be made in all respects what it should be,—the paradise of delight, the very heaven of glory and blessing, which I desire and need. And then, the connection between what it now is, and what it shall have become, must impart to it an interest which can belong to no other region in the universe. If anything could enhance our exaltation to the lordship of a glorious and blessed inheritance, it would surely be the feeling of possessing it in the very place where we were once miserable bondsmen of sin and corruption. And if anything should dispose us to bear meekly our present heritage of evil, to quicken our aspirations after the period of deliverance, and to raise our affections above the vain and perishable things around us, it should be the thought that all we can now either have or experience from the world is part of a possession forfeited and accursed, but that it only waits for the transforming power of God to be changed into the inheritance of the saints in light, when heaven and earth shall be mingled into one. But if this renovated earth is to be itself the inheritance of the redeemed,—if it, in the first instance at least, is to be the heaven where they are to reap life everlasting, how, it may be asked, can heaven be spoken of as above us, and represented as the higher region of God’s presence?Such language is never, that we are aware of, used in Scripture to denote the final dwelling-place of God’s people; and if it were used there, as it often is in popular discourse, it would need, of course, to be understood with that limitation which requires to be put upon all our more definite descriptions of a future world. To regard expressions of the kind referred to, as determining our final abode to be over our heads, were to betray a childish ignorance of the fact, that what is such by day, is the reverse of what is so by night. Such language properly denotes the superior nature of the heavenly inheritance, and not its relative position. God can make any region of His universe a heaven, since heaven is there, where He manifests His presence and glory; and why might He not do so here, as well as in any other part of creation?—But is it not said, that the kingdom in which the redeemed are to live and reign for ever, was prepared for them before the foundation of the world; and how, then, can the scene of it be placed on this earth, still waiting to be redeemed for the purpose? The preparation there meant, however, cannot possibly be an actual fitting up of the place which believers are to occupy with their Lord; for wherever it is, the Apostle tells us it still needs to be redeemed: in that sense it is not yet ready; and Christ Himself said, when on the eve of leaving the world, that lie was going to prepare it, as He does by directing, on His throne of glory, the events which are to issue in its full establishment. Still, from the first it might be said to be prepared, because destined for Christ and His elect people in the mind of God, even as they were all chosen in Him before the foundation of the world; and every successive act in the history of the mediatorial kingdom is another step toward the accomplishment of the purpose.—Are we not again told, however, that the earth is to be destroyed, its elements made to melt with fervent heat, and all its works consumed?Unquestionably this is said, though not by any means necessarily implying that the earth is really to be annihilated. We know that God is perpetually causing changes to pass over the works of His hands; but that He actually annihilates any, we have no ground, either in nature or in Scripture, to suppose. If in the latter, we are told of man’s body, that it perishes, and is consumed by the moth; yet of what are we more distinctly assured, than that it is not doomed to absolute destruction, but shall live again?When we read of the old world being destroyed by the flood, we know that the material fabric of the earth continued as before. Indeed, much the same language that is applied to the earth in this respect, is also extended to the heavens themselves; for they too are represented as ready to pass away, and to be changed as a vesture, and the promise speaks of new heavens as well as a new earth. And in regard to this earth in particular, there is nothing in the language used concerning it to prevent us from believing, that the fire which, in the day of God’s judgment, is to burst forth with consuming violence, may, like the waters of the deluge, and in a far higher respect than they, act as an element of purification—dissolving, indeed, the present constitution of things, and leaving not a wreck behind of all we now see and handle, but at the same time rectifying and improving the powers of nature, refining and elevating the whole framework of the earth, and impressing on all that belongs to it a transcendent, imperishable glory; so that in condition and appearance it shall be substantially a new world, and one as far above what it now is, as heaven is above the earth. There is nothing, then, in the other representations of Scripture, which appears, when fairly considered, to raise any valid objection against the renovated earth being the ultimate inheritance of the heirs of promise. And there is much to shut us up to the conclusion that it is so. We have enlarged on one testimony of inspiration, not because it is the only or the chief one on the subject, but because it is so explicit, that it seems decisive of the question. For an inheritance which has been already acquired or purchased, but which must be redeemed before it can really be our possession, can be understood of nothing but that original domain which sin brought, together with man, into the bondage of evil at the fall. And of what else can we understand the representation in Psalms 8:1-9, as interpreted by the pen of inspiration itself, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 2:5-9, and in 1 Corinthians 15:27-28? These passages in the New Testament put it beyond a doubt, that the idea of perfect and universal dominion delineated in the Psalm, is to be realized in the world to come, over which Christ, as the head of redeemed humanity, is to rule, in company with His redeemed people. The representation itself in the Psalm, is evidently borrowed from the first chapter of Genesis, and, considered as a prophecy of good things to come, or a prediction of the dignity and honour already obtained for man in Christ, and hereafter to be revealed, it may be regarded as simply presenting to our view the picture of a restored and renovated creation. “It is just that passage in Genesis which describes the original condition of the earth,” to use the words of Hengstenberg, “turned into a prayer for us,” and we may add, into an object of hope and expectation. When that prayer is fulfilled,—in other words, when the natural and moral evils entailed by the fall have been abolished, and the earth shall stand to man, when redeemed and glorified, in a similar relation to what it did at the birth of creation,—then shall the hope we now possess of an inheritance of glory be turned into enjoyment. In Isaiah 11:6-9, the final results of Messiah’s reign are in like manner delineated under the aspect of a world which has obtained riddance of all the disorders introduced by sin, and is restored to the blessed harmony and peace which characterized it when God pronounced it very good. And still more definitely, though with reference to the same aspect of things, the Apostle Peter (Acts 3:21) represents the time of Christ’s second coming as “the time of the restitution of all things,” that is, when everything should be restored to its pristine condition,—the same condition in kind, all pure and good, glorious and blessed, but higher in degree, as it is the design and tendency of redemption to ennoble whatsoever it touches.[147] [147] That this is simply the force of the original here, it may be enough to give the meaning of the main word from the lexicographer Hesychius: ἀποκατάστασις, “is the restoration of a thing to its former state, or to a better; restitution, consummation, a revolution of the grander kind, from which a new order of things arises, rest after turmoil.” It is precisely on the same object, a redeemed and glorified earth, that the Apostle Paul, in Romans 8:1-39, fixes the mind of believers as the terminating point of their hopes of glory. An incomparable glory is to be revealed in them; and in connection with that, “the deliverance of a suffering creation from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” What can this deliverance be, but what is marked in the Epistle to the Ephesians, as “the redemption of the purchased possession?” Nor is it possible to connect with anything else the words of Peter in his second Epistle, where, after speaking of the dreadful conflagration which is to consume all that belongs to the earth in its present form, he adds,—as if expressly to guard against supposing that he meant the actual and entire destruction of this world as the abode of man,—“Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” It is only by understanding the words of Christ Himself, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” of the earth in that new condition, its state of blessedness and glory, that any full or adequate sense can be attached to them. He could not surely mean the earth as it then was, or as it is to be during any period of its existence, while sin and death reign in it. So long as it is in that condition, not only will the saints of God have many things to suffer in it, as our Lord immediately foretold, when He spake of the persecutions for righteousness sake which His people should have to endure, and on account of which He bade them look for their “reward in heaven;” but all the treasure it contains must be of the moth-eaten, perishable kind, which they are expressly forbidden to covet, and the earth itself must be that city without continuance, in contrast to which they are called to seek one to come. To speak, therefore, as many commentators do, of the tendency of piety in general, and of a mild and gracious disposition in particular, to secure for men a prosperous and happy life on earth, is to say comparatively little as regards the fulfilment of the promise, that they shall “inherit the earth.” If it could even command for them the whole that earth now can give, would Christ on that account have called them blessed?Would he not rather have warned them to beware of the deceitfulness of riches, and the abundance of honours thus likely to flow into their bosom? To be blessed in the earth as an inheritance, must import that the earth has become to them a real and proper good, such as it shall be when it has been transformed into a fit abode for redeemed natures. This view is also confirmed, and apparently rendered as clear and certain as language can make it, by the representations constantly given by Christ and the inspired writers, of His return to the earth and manifestation on it in glory, as connected with the last scenes and final issues of His kingdom. When He left the world, it was as a man going into a far country, from which He was to come again;[148] the heaven received Him at His resurrection, but only until the times of the restitution of all things;[149] the period of His residence within the veil, is coincident with that during which His people have to maintain a hidden life, and is to be followed by another, in which they and He together are to be manifested in glory.[150] And in the book of Revelation, while unquestionably the scenes are described in figurative language, yet when exact localities are mentioned as the places where the scenes are to be realized, and that in connection with a plain description of the condition of those who are to have part in them, we are compelled by all the ordinary rules of composition to regard such localities as real and proper habitations. What, then, can we make of the ascription of praise from the elders, representatives of a redeemed church, when they give glory to the Messiah, as “having made them kings and priests unto God, and they shall reign with Him upon the earth?” Or what of the closing scenes, where the Evangelist sees a new heaven and a new earth in the room of those which had passed away, and the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to settle on the renovated earth, and the tabernacle of God fixed amongst men?[151] Granting that the delineations of the book are a succession of pictures, drawn from the relations of things in the former ages of the world, and especially under the Old Testament economy, and that the fulfilment to be looked for is not as of a literal description, but as of a symbolical representation, yet there must be certain fixed landmarks as to time and place, persons and objects, which, in their natures or their names, are so clearly defined, that by them the relation of one part to another must be arranged and interpreted. For example, in the above quotations, we cannot doubt who are kings and priests, or with whom they are to reign; and it were surely strange, if there could be any doubt of the theatre of their dominion, when it is so expressly denominated the earth. And still more strange, if, when heaven and earth are mentioned relatively to each other, and the scene of the Church’s future glory fixed upon the latter as contradistinguished from the former, earth should yet stand for heaven, and not for itself. Indeed, the most striking feature in the representations of the Apocalypse is the uniformity with which they connect the higher grade of blessing with earth, and the lower with the world of spirits. As Hengstenberg has justly remarked on Revelation 20:4-5, it invariably points to a double stage of blessedness,—the one awaiting believers immediately after their departure out of this life, the other what they are to receive when they enter the New Jerusalem, and reign with Christ in glory. But we find the same in our Lord’s teaching, as when He said to the thief on the cross, “To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,” and yet pointed His disciples to the state of things on earth after the resurrection for their highest reward.—(Matthew 19:28) And, on the whole, we are forced to conclude with Usteri, that “the conception of a transference of the perfected kingdom of God into the heavens is, properly speaking, modern, seeing that, according to Paul and the Apocalypse (and, he might also have added, Peter and Christ Himself), the seat of the kingdom of God is the earth, inasmuch as that likewise partakes in the general renovation.”[152] [148] Matthew 25:14; Luke 19:12; John 14:3. [149] Acts 3:21. [150] Colossians 3:4; Hebrews 9:28; 1 John 3:2; Revelation 1:7. [151] Revelation 5:9-10; Revelation 21:1-5. [152] The above passage is quoted by Tholuck, on Romans 8:19, who himself there, and on Habakkuk 2:1-29, concurs in the same view. He also states, what cannot be denied, that it is the view which has been adopted by the greatest number and the most ancient of the expositors, amongst whom he mentions, though he does not cite, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Luther, etc. And Rivet, on Genesis 8:22, states that the opinion which maintains only a change, and not an utter destruction of the world, has most supporters, both among the elder and the more recent writers, so that it may be called, says he, “the common one, and be said to prevail by the number of its adherents.” In the present day, the opposite opinion would probably be entitled to be regarded as by much the most common; and the view here set forth will perhaps by some be eyed with jealousy, if not condemned as novel. It may be proper, therefore, to give a few quotations from the more eminent commentators. Jerome, on Isaiah 65:17, quotes Psalms 102:26-27, which he thinks “clearly demonstrates, that the perdition spoken of is not a reducing to nothing, but a change to the better;” and having referred to what Peter says of the new heavens and the new earth, he remarks that the Apostle “does not say, we look for other heavens and another earth, but for the old and original ones transformed into a better state.” Of the fathers generally, as of Justin Martyr in particular, Semisch states that they regarded the future destruction of the world by fire “far more frequently as a trans formation than as an annihilation.”—(Life and Times of Justin, Bib. Cab., vol. xlii., p. 366.) Calvin, while he discourages minute inquiries and vain speculations regarding the future state, expresses himself with confidence, on Romans 8:21, as to this world being the destined theatre of glory, and considers it as a proof of the incomparable glory to which the sons of God are to be raised, that the lower creation is to be renewed for the purpose of manifesting and ennobling it, just as the disorders and troubles of creation have testified to the appalling evil of our sin. So also Haldane, as little inclined to the fanciful as Calvin, on the same passage, after quoting from 2 Pet. And Rev., continues: “The destruction of the substance of things differs from a change in their qualities. When metal of a certain shape is subjected to fire, it is destroyed as to its figure, but not as to its substance. Thus the heavens and the earth will pass through the fire, but only that they may be purified and come forth anew, more excellent than before. This hope—the hope of deliverance—was held out in the sentence pronounced on man, for in the doom of our first parents the Divine purpose of providing a deliverer was revealed. We know not the circumstances of this change, how it will be effected, or in what form the creation—those new heavens and that new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, suited for the abode of the sons of God—shall then exist; but we are sure it shall be worthy of the Divine wisdom, although at present beyond our comprehension.” To the same effect Fuller, in his Gospel its own Witness, ch. v. Thiersch says of the promise to Abraham, “Undoubtedly it pointed to a kingdom of God upon earth, not in an invisible world of spirits. Paradise itself had been upon earth, much more should the earth be the centre of the world to come.”—(History, i., p. 20.) See Olshausen also on Matthew 8:1-34. Mr Stuart, in his work on Romans, expresses his strong dissent from such views, on the ground of their being opposed to the declarations of Christ, and requiring such a literal interpretation of prophecy as would lead to absurd and ridiculous expectations in regard to other predictions. We can perceive no contrariety, however, to any declaration of Christ or His apostles; and the other predictions he refers to belong to quite another class, and do not require, or even admit, as might quite easily be shown, of a strictly literal fulfilment. Having now closed our investigation, we draw the following conclusions from it. 1. The earthly Canaan was neither designed by God, nor from the first was it understood by His people to be the ultimate and proper inheritance which they were to occupy; things having been spoken and hoped for concerning it which plainly could not be realized within the bounds of Canaan. 2. The inheritance was one which could be enjoyed only by those who had become the children of the resurrection, themselves fully redeemed in soul and body from all the effects and consequences of sin,—made more glorious and blessed, indeed, than if they had never sinned, because constituted after the image of the heavenly Adam. And as the inheritance must correspond with the inheritor, it can only be man’s original possession restored,—the earth redeemed from the curse which sin brought on it, and, like man himself, rendered exceedingly more beautiful and glorious than in its primeval state,—the fit abode of a Church made like, in all its members, to the Son of God. 3. The occupation of the earthly Canaan by the natural seed of Abraham was a type, and no more than a type, of this occupation by a redeemed Church of her destined inheritance of glory; and consequently everything concerning the entrance of the former on their temporary possession, was ordered so as to represent and foreshadow the things which belong to the Church’s establishment in her permanent possession. Hence, between the giving of the promise, which, though it did not terminate in the land of Canaan, yet included that, and through it prospectively exhibited the better inheritance, a series of important events intervened, which are capable of being fully and properly explained in no other way than by means of their typical bearing on the things hereafter to be disclosed respecting that better inheritance. If we ask, why did the heirs of promise wander about so long as pilgrims, and withdraw to a foreign region before they were allowed to possess the land, and not rather, like a modern colony, quietly spread, without strife or bloodshed, over its surface, till the whole was possessed?Or why were they suffered to fall under the dominion of a foreign power, from whose cruel oppression they needed to be redeemed, with terrible executions of judgment on the oppressor, before the possession could be theirs?Or why, before that event also, should they have been put under the discipline of law, having the covenant of Sinai, with its strict requirements and manifold obligations of service, superadded to the covenant of grace and promise?Or why, again, should their right to the inheritance itself have to be vindicated from a race of occupants who had been allowed for a time to keep possession of it, and whose multiplied abominations had so polluted it, that nothing short of their extermination could render it a fitting abode for the heirs of promise?The full and satisfactory answer to all such questions can only be given by viewing the whole in connection with the better things of a higher dispensation, as the first part of a plan which was to have its counterpart and issue in the glories of a redeemed creation, and for the final results of which the Church needed to be prepared by standing in similar relations, and passing through like experiences, in regard to an earthly inheritance. No doubt, with one and all of these there were connected reasons and results for the time then present, amply sufficient to justify every step in the process, when considered simply by itself. But it is only when we take the whole as a glass, in which to see mirrored the far greater things which from the first were in prospect, that we can get a comprehensive view of the mind of God in appointing them, and know the purposes which He chiefly contemplated. For example, the fact of Abraham and his immediate descendants being appointed to wander as pilgrims through the land of Canaan, without being allowed to occupy any part of it as their own possession, may be partly explained, though in that view it must appear somewhat capricious, by its being considered as a trial to their own faith, and an act of forbearance and mercy toward the original possessors, whose iniquities were not yet full. But if we thus find grounds of reason to explain why it may have been so ordered, when we come to look upon the things which happened to them, as designed to image other things which were afterwards to belong to the relation of God’s people to a higher and better inheritance, we see it was even necessary that those transactions should have been so ordered, and that it would have been unsuitable for the heirs of promise, either entering at once on the possession, or living as pilgrims and expectants, anywhere but within its borders. For thus alone could their experience fitly represent the case of God’s people in Gospel times, who have not only to wait long for the redemption of the purchased possession, but while they wait, must walk up and down as pilgrims in the very region which they are hereafter to use as their own, when it shall have been delivered from the powers of evil who now hold it in bondage, and purged from their abominations. Hence, if they know aright their relation to the world as it now is, and their calling as the heirs of promise, they must sit loose to the things of earth, even as the patriarchs did to the land of their sojourn,—must feel that it cannot be the place of their rest so long as it is polluted, and that they must stedfastly look for the world to come as their proper home and possession. And thus also the whole series of transactions which took place between the confirmation of the covenant of promise with Jacob, and the actual possession of the land promised, and especially of course the things which concerned that greatest of all the transactions, the revelation of the law from Sinai, is to be regarded as a delineation in the type, of the way and manner in which the heirs of God are to obtain the inheritance of the purchased possession. Meanwhile, apart from these later transactions, there are two important lessons which the Church may clearly gather from what appears in the first heirs of promise, and which she ought never to lose sight of:—First, that the inheritance, come when and how it may, is the free gift of God, bestowed by Him, as sovereign lord and proprietor, on those whom He calls to the fellowship of His grace: And, second, that the hope of the in heritance must exist as an animating principle in their hearts, influencing all their procedure. Their spirit and character must be such as become those who are the expectants as well as heirs of that better country, which is an heavenly; nor can Christ ever be truly formed in the heart, until He be formed as “the hope of glory.” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 122: 05.17. APPENDICES. ======================================================================== Appendices. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 123: 05.18. APPENDIX A. ======================================================================== Appendix A.—The Old Testament In The New. I.—THE HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PORTIONS. BESIDES numberless allusions of various kinds in the New Testament to the Old, there are somewhat more than two hundred and fifty express citations in the writings of the one from those of the other. These citations are of unequal length; they consist often of a single clause, but sometimes also extend to several verses. They are taken indiscriminately from the different parts of Old Testament Scripture; though, with very few exceptions, they belong to the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the writings of the prophets. Not a few of these citations from the Old Testament are citations of the simplest kind; they appear merely as passages quoted in their plain sense from the previously existing canon of Scripture. Such, for example, are the passages out of the books of Moses, with which our Lord, after the simple notification, “It is written,” thrice met the assaults of the tempter in the wilderness; and such also are those with which Stephen, in his historical speech before the Jewish council, sought, through appropriate references to the past, to enlighten the minds and alarm the consciences of his judges. In examples of this description, there is nothing that can be said to wear even the semblance of a difficulty, unless it may be regarded as such, that occasionally a slight difference appears in the passages as quoted, from what they are as they stand in the original Scripture. But the difference is never more than a verbal one; the sense of the original is always given with substantial correctness by the inspired writers in the New Testament; and so far as the great principles of interpretation are concerned, there is no need for dwelling on a matter so comparatively minute. But there still remains a considerable variety of Old Testament passages, so cited in the New as plainly to involve certain principles of interpretation; because they are cited as grounds of inference for some authoritative conclusion, or as proofs of doctrine respecting something connected with the person, the work, or the kingdom of Christ. And on the supposition of the authors of the New Testament being inspired teachers, the character of these citations is of the gravest importance—first, as providing, in the hermeneutical principles they involve, a test to some extent of the inspiration of the writers; and then as furnishing in those principles an infallible direction for the general interpretation of ancient Scripture. For there can be no doubt that the manner in which our Lord and His apostles understood and applied the Scriptures of the Old Testament, was as much in tended to throw light generally on the principles of interpretation, as to administer instruction on the specific points, for the sake of which they were more immediately appealed to. What, then, is the kind of use made of the passages in question, and the spirit in which they are explained?Is it natural and proper? Is there nothing strained, nothing paradoxical, nothing arbitrary and capricious, in the matter?Does it altogether commend itself to our understandings and consciences?Undoubtedly it does so in the great majority of cases. And yet it is not to be denied that there are certain peculiarities connected with the treatment of the Old Testament in the New, which are very apt to stagger inquirers in their first attention to the subject. Nay, there are real difficulties attaching to some parts of it, which have long exercised the ingenuity of the ablest interpreters, and of which no satisfactory solution can be given, without a clear and comprehensive insight being first obtained into the connection subsisting between the preparatory and the ultimate things in God’s kingdom. In a small publication, which materially contributed to the solution of some of these difficulties, issued so far back as 1824, Olshausen remarks concerning the use made of the Old Testament in the New:—“This has been for all more recent expositors a stone of stumbling, over which not a few of them have actually fallen. It has appeared to them difficult, and even impossible, to discover a proper unity and connection in the constructions put upon the passages by the New Testament writers, or to refer them to rules and principles. Without being able to refer them to these, they could not properly justify and approve of them; neither could they, on the other hand, altogether disapprove and reject them, without abandoning everything. So that, in explaining the passages of the Old Testament which pointed to the New, and again explaining the passages of the New Testament which expressly referred to and applied the Old, expositors for the most part found themselves involved in the greatest difficulties, and, on the one side or the other, resorted to the most violent expedients. But the explanation of the Old Testament in the New is the very point from which alone all exposition that listens to the voice of Divine wisdom must set out. For we have here presented to us the sense of Holy Scripture as understood by inspired men themselves, and are furnished with the true key of knowledge.”[153] [153] Ein Wort über tiefern Schriftsinn, pp. 7, 8. It is more especially, however, in the application made by New Testament writers of the prophecies of the Old Testament, that the difficulties in question present themselves. Nor are they by any means of one kind: they are marked by a considerable diversity; and the passages will require to be taken in due order and connection, if we are to arrive at a well-grounded and satisfactory view of the subject. This is what we mean to do. But as there are other portions of Old Testament Scripture, besides the prophecies, referred to and quoted in the New,—as much use also is made there of the historical and didactic portions,—it is important, in the first instance, to notice that this use, with only one or two apparent, and no real exceptions, is always of a quite natural and unsophisticated character; free from any ridiculous or extravagant conceits, and entirely approving itself to the judgments of profound and thoughtful readers. Such readers, indeed, so naturally expect it to be so, that they scarcely take cognizance of the fact, or ever think of the possibility of its having been otherwise. But it is the rather to be noted, as, at the period the New Testament was written, there was, both in the age generally, and in the Jewish section of it in particular, a strong tendency to the allegorical in interpretation—to the strained, the fanciful, the puerile. The records of Gospel history contain many plain indications of this. Our Lord even charged the Jewish scholars and interpreters of His day with rendering of no effect the law of God by their traditions (Mark 7:11-13); and evidently had it as His chief aim, in a considerable part of His public teaching, to vindicate the real sense of ancient Scripture from their false glosses and sophistical per versions. The oldest Rabbinical writings extant, which profess to deliver the traditional interpretations of the leading doctors of the synagogue, sufficiently evince what need there was for our Lord adopting such a course. Such as know these only from the quotations adduced by Ainsworth, Lightfoot, and similar writers, see them only in what is at once by far their best side and their smallest proportions. For, to a large extent, they consist of absurd, incredible, and impure stories; abound with the most arbitrary and ridiculous conceits; and, as a whole, tend much more to obscure and perplex the meaning of Old Testament Scripture than explain it. It was even regarded as a piece of laudable ingenuity to multiply as much as possible the meanings of every clause and text; for, as Jeremiah had compared the word of God to a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces, so, it was thought, the word must admit of as many senses as the rock smitten with the hammer might produce splinters. Some Rabbinical authorities, therefore, contend for forty-nine, and others for as many as seventy, meanings to each verse.[154] [154] Eisenmenger, Entwectes Judenthum, vol. i., cb. 9. This laborious investigator of Jewish writings justly calls their expositions “foolish and perverted,” and supports the assertion with ample proof. Thus—to refer only to one or two—on the passage which narrates the meeting of Esau and Jacob, it is gathered in the Bereschith Eabba, from a small peculiarity in one of the words, that Esau did not come to kiss, but to bite, and that “our father Jacob’s neck was changed into marble, so that the teeth of the ungodly man were broken.” The passage in Psalms 92:10—“My horn shalt Thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil “is explained in the Jalkut Chudash by the statement, that while in “anointing the other sons of Jesse the oil was poured out, when David’s turn came, the oil of itself flowed and ran upon his head.” These, indeed, are among the simpler specimens; for, by giving a numerical value to the letters, the most extravagant and senseless opinions were thus obtained. The fact, however, is of importance, as it provides a sufficient answer to the mode of interpretation adopted by many modern expositors, who think it enough, to justify the Evangelists in putting what they regard as a false meaning upon words of prophecy, to say that the Jewish writers were in the habit of applying Scripture in the same way—applying it in a sense different from its original import. It is forgoten in this case that the Jewish writers actually believed Scripture to have many senses, and that when they speak of its being fulfilled, they meant that the words really had the sense they ascribe to them. When we pass out of the strictly Jewish territory to the other theological writings of the first ages, we are seldom allowed to travel far without stumbling on something of the same description. To say nothing of the writings of Philo, which are replete with fanciful allegorical meanings, but which could have little if any influence in Judea, in the epistle of Barnabas (a production probably of the second century) we find among other frivolous things, the circumcision of 318 persons in Abraham’s house interpreted as indicating that the patriarch had received the mystery of three letters. For the numerical value of the two leading letters that stand for the name of Jesus Isaiah 18, and the letter T, the figure of the cross, is 300; “wherefore by two letters he signified Jesus, and by the third His cross. He who has put the engrafted gift of His doctrine within us, knows that I never taught to any one a more certain truth.” In the epistle of Clement, a still earlier production, the scarlet thread which Rahab suspended from her window, is made to signify that there should be redemption through the blood of Jesus to all that believe and hope on Him; and the fable of the Phoenix, dying after five hundred years, and giving birth, when dead, to another destined to live for the same period, is gravely treated as a fact in natural science, and held up as a proof of the resurrection. Some things of a similar nature are also to be met with in Irenaeus, and many in the writings of Justin Martyr. Let the following suffice for a specimen:— “When the people fought with Amalek, and the son of Nun, called Jesus, led on the battle, Moses was praying to God, having his arms extended in the form of a cross. As long as he remained in that posture, Amalek was beaten; but if he ceased in any degree to preserve it, the people were worsted, all owing to the power of the cross; for the people did not conquer because Moses prayed, but because the name of Jesus was at the head of the battle, and Moses himself made the figure of the cross.”—(Dial. Tryph., p. 248, Ed. Sylburg.) Now, it is surely no small proof of the Divine character of the New Testament writings, that they stand entirely clear from such strained and puerile interpretations, notwithstanding that they were the production of the very age and people peculiarly addicted to such things. Though Jesus of Nazareth, from the circumstances of His early life, could not have enjoyed more than the commonest advantages, He yet came forth as a public teacher nobly superior to the false spirit of the times; never seeking for the frivolous or the fanciful, but penetrating with the profoundest discernment into the real import of the Divine testimony. And even the Apostle Paul, though brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, whose name is still held in veneration in the schools of Rabbinical learning, betrays nothing of the sinister bias in this respect, which his early training must have tended to impart. He writes as one well skilled, indeed, to reason and dispute, but still always as one thoroughly versant in the real meaning of Scripture, and incapable of stooping to anything trifling and fantastical. And that there should thus have been, in persons so circumstanced, along with a frequent handling of Old Testament Scripture, a perfectly sober and intelligent use of it,—a spirit of interpretation pervading and directing that use, which can stand even the searching investigations of the nineteenth century,—cannot fail to raise the question in candid and thoughtful minds, “Whence had these men this wisdom?” It is alone fitted to impress us with the conviction, that they were men specially taught by God, and that the inspiration of the Almighty gave them understanding. We have stated, however, that though there are no real departures in the writings of the New Testament from a sound and judicious explanation of the historical and didactic parts of the Old, there are a few apparent ones—a few that may seem to be such on a superficial consideration. One passage, and only one, in our Lord’s history, belongs to this class. It is His scriptural proof of the resurrection, in reply to the shallow objection of the Sadducees, which He drew from the declaration of God to Moses at the bush, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” It is clear from this alone, our Lord argued, that the dead are raised; “for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him.” (Matthew 22:32; Luke 20:38) The argument was openly stigmatized by the notorious Wolfenbuttle-fragmentist of the last century, as of the Rabbinical hairsplitting kind; and more recently, Strauss, with some others of a kindred spirit in Germany, have both regarded it as a “cabalistical exposition,” and urged as an additional reason for so regarding it, that the doctrine of a future state was derived by the Jews from other nations, and cannot be proved from the writings of the Old Testament. Most worthy successors truly to those Sadducean objectors whom our Lord sought to confute—equally shallow in their notions of God, and equally at fault in their reading of His written word! So far from deriving the notion of a future state, in the particular aspect of it now under consideration,—a resurrection from the dead,—from the heathen nations around them, the Jews were the only people in antiquity who held it; the Gentile philosophy in all its branches rejected it as incredible. And the construction put by our Lord on the words spoken to Moses, so far from being cabalistical or hairsplitting, simply penetrates to the fundamental principles involved in the relation they indicate between God and His servants. “The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob”—theirs in the full and proper sense, to be to them, and to do for them, whatever such a Being, standing in such a relation, could be and do; therefore, most assuredly, to raise them from the dead, since, if one part of their natures were to be left there the prey of corruption, He might justly be ashamed to be called their God.—(Hebrews 11:16) “How could God,” Neander properly asks, “place Himself in so near a relation to individual men, and ascribe to them so high a dignity, if they were mere perishable appearances, if they had not an essence akin to His own, and destined for immortality? The living God can only be conceived of as the God of the living.”[155] Yes, the whole law, in a sense, bore witness to that; for there death constantly appears as the embodiment of foulness and corruption, with which the pure and holy One cannot dwell in union. So that for those who are really His, He must manifest Himself as the conqueror of death; their relation to Him, as His peculiar people, is a nonentity, if it does not carry this in its train. How profound, then, yet how simple and how true, is the insight which our Lord here discovers into the realities of things, compared either with His ancient adversaries or His modern assailants! And how little does His argument need such diluted explanations to recommend it as those of Kuinoel,—“God is called the God of any one, in so far as He endows them with benefits; but He cannot be stow benefits upon the dead, therefore they live!” [155] Life of Jesus, § 248. A passage that has much more commonly been regarded by commentators as breathing the dialectics of the Jewish schools, is Galatians 4:21-31, where the Apostle, in arguing against the legal and fleshly tendencies of the Galatians, summons them to “hear the law.” And then he calls to their remembrance the circumstances recorded of the two wives of Abraham and their offspring; the one Sarah, the free woman, the mother of the children of promise, or the spiritual seed, corresponding to the heavenly Jerusalem and its true worshippers; the other, Hagar, the bond woman, the mother of a seed born after the flesh, carnal and ungodly in spirit, and so corresponding to the earthly Jerusalem, or Sinai, with its covenant of law, and its slavish carnal worshippers. And the Apostle declares it as certain, that worshippers of this class must all be cast out from any inheritance in the kingdom of God, even as Hagar and her fleshly son were, by Divine command, driven out of Abraham’s house, that the true child of promise might dwell in peace, and inherit the blessing. It is true, the Apostle himself calls this an allegorizing of the history, which is quite enough with some to stamp it as fanciful and weak. And there are others, looking merely to the superficial appearances, who allege that the exposition fails, since the child of Hagar had nothing to do with the law, while it was precisely the posterity of Sarah, by the line of Isaac, who stood bound by its requirements. This is an objection that could be urged only by those who did not perceive the real drift of the Apostle’s statement. We shall have occasion to unfold this in a subsequent part of our inquiry, when we come to speak of what the law could not do. Meanwhile, we affirm that the Apostle’s comment proceeds on the sound principle, that the things which took place in Abraham’s house in regard to a seed of promise and blessing were all ordered specially and peculiarly to exhibit at the very outset the truth, that such a seed must be begotten from above, and that all not thus begotten, though encompassed, it might be, with the solemnities and privileges of the covenant, were born after the flesh—Ishmaelites in spirit, and strangers to the promise. The Apostle merely reads out the spiritual lessons that lay enfolded in the history of Abraham’s family as significant of things to come; and to say that the similitude fails, because the law was given to the posterity of Sarah and not of Hagar, betrays an utter misapprehension, of what the real design of the law was, and what should have been expected from it. The interpretation of the Apostle brings out the fundamental principles involved in the transactions, and it does no more. Those who would fasten on the Apostle the charge of resorting to Rabbinical arbitrariness and conceit, point with considerable confidence to a passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The passage is 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, where the Apostle reminds the Corinthians how their fathers had been under the cloud, and had passed through the sea; and had been baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and had all eaten the same spiritual food, and all drunk of the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ. In this latter part of the description, it has been alleged (latterly by De Wette, Ruckert, Meyer) that the Apostle adopts the Jewish legends respecting the rock at Horeb having actually followed the Israelites in their wanderings, and puts a feigned allegorical construction on the other parts to suit his purpose. The passage will naturally present itself for explanation when we come to the period in Israel’s history to which it refers.[156] At present it is enough to say, that we have merely to take the Apostle’s statements in their proper connection, and make due allowance for the figurative use of language. He is representing the position of the Israelites in the desert as substantially one with that of the Corinthians. And, to make it more manifest, he even applies the terms fitted to express the condition of the Corinthians to the case of the Israelites:—These, says he, were baptized like you, had Christ among them like you, and like you were privileged to eat and drink as guests in the Lord’s house. Of course, language transferred thus from one part of God’s dispensations to another, could never be meant to be taken very strictly; no more could it be so, when the new things of the Christian dispensation were applied to the Israelites, than when the old things of the Jewish are applied to the members of the Christian Church. In this latter mode of application, the Christian Church is spoken of as having a temple as Israel had, an altar, a passover-lamb and feast, a sprinkling with blood, a circumcision. Yet every one knows that what is meant by such language is, not that the very things themselves, the things in their outward form and appearance, but that the inward realities signified by them, belong to the Church of Christ. The old name is retained, though actually denoting something higher and better. And we must interpret in the same way when the transference is made in the reverse order—when the new things of the Christian Church are ascribed to the ancient Israelites. By the cloud passing over and resting between them and the Egyptians, and afterwards by their passing under its protection through the Red Sea in safety, they were baptized into Moses: for thus the line of demarcation was drawn between their old vassalage and the new state and prospects on which, under Moses, they had entered; and Christ Himself, whose servant Moses was, was present with them, feeding them as from His own hands with direct supplies of meat and drink, till they reached the promised inheritance. In short, these were to them relatively what Christian baptism and the Lord’s Supper are to believers now. But not in themselves formally the same. Christ was there only in a mystery; Gospel ordinances were possessed only under the shadow of means and provisions, adapted immediately to their bodily wants and temporal condition. Yet still Christ and the Gospel were there; for all that was then given and done linked itself by a spiritual bond with the better things to come, and as in a glass darkly reflected the benefits of redemption. So that, as the Israelites in the desert stood relatively in the same position with the professing Church under the Gospel, the language here used by the Apostle merely shows how clearly he perceived the points of resemblance, and how profoundly he looked into the connection between them. [156] See vol. ii., Ch. L, § 4. II.—PROPHECIES REFERRED TO BY CHRIST. We no sooner open the evangelical narratives of New Testament Scripture, than we meet with references and appeals to the prophecies of the Old. The leading personages and transactions of Gospel times are constantly presented to our view as those that had been foreseen and described by ancient seers; and at every important turn in the evolution of affairs, we find particular passages of prophecy quoted as receiving their fulfilment in what was taking place. But we soon perceive that the connection between the predictions referred to and their alleged fulfilment, is by no means always of the same kind. It appears sometimes as more natural and obvious in its nature, and sometimes as more mystical and recondite. The latter, of course, in an inquiry like the present, are such as more especially call for consideration and remark; but the others are not on that account to be passed over in silence: for they are so far at least of importance, that they show what class of predictions, in the estimation of our Lord and His apostles, most obviously point to the affairs of the Messiah’s kingdom, and afford also an opportunity of marking how the transition began to be made to a further and freer application of Old Testament prophecy. In this line of inquiry, however, it will not do to take up the references to the prophets precisely as they occur in the Gospels; for the evangelists did not write their narratives of our Lord’s personal history till a consider able time after the events that compose it had taken place—not till the deeper as well as the more obvious things connected with it had become known to them; and not a few of the prophetical references found in their narratives were only understood by themselves at a period much later than that at which the events occurred. It is in Christ’s own teaching, communicated as the events were actually in progress, that we may expect to find the most simple and direct applications of prophecy, and the key to the entire use of it subsequently made by His apostles. For the present, therefore, we shall throw ourselves back upon the transactions of the Gospel age, and with our eye upon Him who was at once the centre and the prime agent of the whole, we shall note the manner in which He reads to those around Him the prophecies that bore on Himself and His times. We shall take them, not in the historical order they occupy in the narratives of the evangelists, but in the antecedent order which belonged to them, as quoted in the public ministry of Christ. We shall thus see how He led those around Him, step by step, to a right understanding of the prophecies in their evangelical import. Not far from the commencement of our Lord’s public ministry, and on the occasion, as it would seem, of His first public appearance in the synagogue of Nazareth, He opened the book of the prophet Isaiah that had been put into His hands, and read from Isaiah 61:1-11. The following words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor: He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book,” it is added by the Evangelist, “and began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” The passage thus quoted, and so emphatically applied by Jesus to Himself, is one of those in the later portion of Isaiah’s writings (comprehending also Isaiah 42:1-25, Isaiah 49:1-26, Isaiah 53:1-12) which evidently treat of one grand theme,—“the Lord’s servant,” His “elect” one, Him “in whom His soul delighted;” unfolding what this wonderful and mysterious personage was to be, to do, and to suffer for the redemption of the Lord’s people, and the vindication of His cause in the earth. It is matter of certainty that, in the judgment of the ancient Jewish Church, the person spoken of in all these passages was the Messiah;[157] so that, in applying to Himself that particular passage in Isaiah, Jesus not only advanced the claim, but He must have been perfectly understood by those present to advance the claim, to be the Messiah of the Jewish prophets. [157] See Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. On Matthew 12:20, and John 5:19; Schöttgen de Messia. pp. 113, 192; Hengstenberg’s Christology on Isaiah 42:1-9; Isaiah 49:1-26; Isaiah 53:2. Also Alexander on the same passages, and Isaiah 61:1-11. The modern Jews, and a considerable number also of Christian expositors (chiefly on the Continent), have endeavoured to prove that the immediate and proper reference in this, and the other passages in Isaiah connected with it, is to the Jewish nation as a whole, or to the prophetical class in particular. But these attempts have signally failed. It stands fast, as the result of the most careful and searching criticism, that the words of the prophet can only be understood of a single individual, in whom far higher than human powers were to develop themselves, and who was to do, as well for Israel as for the world at large, what Israel had been found utterly in competent, even in the lighter departments of the work, to accomplish. In a word, they can be understood only of the promised Messiah. And of all that had been spoken concerning Him by the prophet Isaiah, there is not a passage to be found that could more fitly have been appropriated by Jesus than the one He read at that opening stage of His career; as it describes Him in respect to the whole reach and compass of His Divine commission, with all its restorative energies and beneficent results. We see as well the wisdom of the selection as the justness of the application. It is also to be noted, that the appropriation by our Lord of the passage in this sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, gives the virtual sanction of His authority to the applications elsewhere made of other passages in the same prophetical discourse to Gospel times such as Matthew 12:18-21; Acts 8:32-35; Acts 13:47; Romans 10:21; 1 Peter 2:23-25, where portions of Isaiah 42:1-25, Isaiah 49:1-26, Isaiah 53:1-12, are so applied. The next open and public appeal made by our Lord to an ancient prophecy, was made with immediate respect to John the Baptist. It was probably about the middle of Christ’s ministry, and shortly before the death of John. Taking occasion from John’s message to speak of the distinguished place he held among God’s servants, the Lord said: “This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, and he shall prepare Thy way before Thee.” The words are taken from the beginning of the third chapter of Malachi, with no other difference than that He who there sends is also the one before whom the way was to be prepared: “He shall prepare the way before Me.” The reason of this variation will be noticed presently. But in regard to John, that he was the person specially intended by the prophet as the herald-messenger of the Lord, can admit of no doubt on the part of any one who sincerely believes that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, and personally tabernacling among men. John himself does not appear to have formally appropriated this passage in Malachi. But he virtually did so when he described himself in the words of a passage in Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord;” for the passage in Malachi is merely a resumption, with a few additional characteristics, of that more ancient one in Isaiah. And on this account they are both thrown together at the commencement of St Mark’s Gospel, as if they formed indeed but one prediction: “As it is written in the prophets (many copies even read, by Isaiah the prophet ), Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” And there is still another prediction—one at the very close of Malachi—which is but a new, and in some respects more specific, announcement of what was already uttered in these earlier prophecies. In this last prediction, the preparatory messenger is expressly called by the name of Elias the prophet; and the work he had to do “before the coming of the Lord,” is described as that of turning “the heart of the fathers (or making it return) to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.” As this was the last word of the Old Testament, so it is in a manner the first word of the New; for the prophecy was taken up by the angel, who announced to Zacharias the birth of John, and at once applied and explained it in connection with the mission of John. “Many of the children of Israel,” said the angel, “shall he turn to the Lord their God; and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”—(Luke 1:16-17). Here the coming of the Lord, as in all the passages under consideration, was the grand terminating point of the prophecy, and, as preparatory to this, the making ready of a people for it. This making ready of the people, or turning them back again (with reference to the words of Elijah in 1 Kings 18:37) to the Lord their God, is twice mentioned by the angel as the object of John’s mission. And, between the two, there is given what is properly but another view of the same thing, only with express reference to the Elijah-like character of the work: John was to go before the Lord as a new Elias, in the spirit and power of that great prophet, and for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation between the degenerate seed of Israel and their pious forefathers making them again of one heart and soul, so that the fathers might not be ashamed of their children, nor the children of their fathers; in a word, that he might effect a real reformation, by turning “the disobedient (offspring) to the wisdom of the just (ancestors).” Thus in all these passages—to which we may also add the private testimony of our Lord to the disciples as to Elias having indeed come (Mark 9:13)—there is a direct application of the Old Testament prophecy, in a series of closely related predictions, to the person and mission of John the Baptist. And so far from any violence or constraint appearing in this application, the predictions are all taken in their most natural and obvious meaning. For that the literal Elias was no more to be expected from the last of these predictions, than the literal David from Ezekiel 34:23, seems plain enough: the person meant could only be one coming in the spirit of Elias, and commissioned to do substantially his work. So, also, Jezebel and Balaam are spoken of as reviving in the teachers of false doctrine and the ringleaders of corruption who appeared in some of the churches of Asia.—(Revelation 2:14; Revelation 2:20) But we must pass on to another instance of fulfilled prophecy. It will be observed, that in all those passages out of Isaiah and Malachi applied to John the Baptist, there was involved an application also to Christ Himself, as being the person whose way John was sent to prepare. The assertion, that John was the herald-messenger foretold in them, clearly implied that Jesus of Nazareth was the Lord who was to come to His people, or “the Angel of the Covenant that was to come suddenly to His temple.” He, therefore, was the Lord of the temple, or the Divine head and proprietor of the covenant people whom that temple symbolized, and in the midst of whom He appeared as God manifest in the flesh. But this the Lord merely left to be inferred from what He said of John; He even seems to have purposely drawn a sort of veil over it, by the slight change He introduced into the words of Malachi, saying, Not “before Me,” but “before Thy face.” For He well knew, that those to whom He spake could not bear in this respect the plain announcement of the truth, indeed, least of all here; they could not even bear to hear Jesus call Himself by the milder epithet of the Son of God. Sometime, however, if not at present, the Lord must give them to know, that in this rooted antipathy to the essentially Divine character of Messiah, they had their own Scriptures against them. And so, in the next public appeal He made to the prophetical Scriptures, He selected this point in particular for proof. But that the appeal might come with more power to their consciences, He threw it into the form, not of an assertion, but of an interrogation. He put it to themselves, “What think ye of Christ?whose Son is He?They say unto Him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool?If David then call Him Lord, how is He his son?”—(Matthew 22:42-45) The familiar allusion here, and in other passages of the New Testament, to this psalm as descriptive of the Messiah, clearly evinces what was the view taken of it by the ancient Jewish Rabbis. Such an argumentative use of it could only have been made on the ground that it was held by general consent to be a prophecy of Christ. Efforts have again and again been made in modern times to controvert this view, but without any measure of success. And, indeed, apart altogether from the explicit testimony of our Lord and His apostles, looking merely to what is said of the hero of this psalm,—that He stood to David himself in the relation of Lord; that He was to sit on Jehovah’s right hand, that is, should be invested with the power and sovereignty of God; that He should, like Melchizedek, be a priest on the throne, and that for ever,—it is impossible to take these parts of the description in their natural meaning, and understand them of any one but the Messiah,—a Messiah, too, combining in His mysterious person properties at once human and divine. The silence of our Lord’s adversaries then, and the fruitless labours of His detractors since, are confirmatory testimonies to the soundness of this application of the psalm as the only tenable one. Another purpose—one immediately connected with His humiliation—led our Lord, very shortly after the occasion last referred to, to point to another prophecy as presently going to meet with its fulfilment. It was when, fresh from the celebration of the paschal feast and His own supper, He had retired with His disciples, under the shade of night, to the Mount of Olives: “Then said Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.”—(Matthew 26:31) So it had been written in Zechariah 13:7, respecting that peculiar Shepherd and His flock, who was to be Jehovah’s fellow, or rather His near relation for so the word in the original imports; and hence, when spoken of any one’s relation to God, it cannot possibly denote a mere man, but can only be understood of one who, by virtue of His Divine nature, stands on a footing of essential equality with God. All other interpretations, whether by Jews or Christians, can only be regarded as shifts, devised to explain away or get rid of the plain meaning of the prophecy. And it was here more especially chosen by our Lord, as, more distinctly and emphatically perhaps than any other prediction in Old Testament Scripture, it combined with the peerless dignity of Christ’s nature the fearful depth of His humiliation and suffering; and so was at once fitted to instruct and comfort the disciples in respect to the season of tribulation that was before them. It told them, indeed, that the suffering was inevitable; but at the same time imparted the consolation, that so exalted a sufferer could only suffer for a time. But though this was the only prophetical passage particularly noticed, as having been explained by Christ with reference to His sufferings, we are expressly informed that, after His resurrection at least, He made a similar application of many others. He reproved the two disciples on their way to Emmaus for their dulness and incredulity, because they had not learned from the prophets how Christ must suffer before entering into His glory: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Indeed, it would appear that, even before His death, He had referred to various Scriptures bearing on this point; for, at Luke 24:44, we find Him saying to the disciples as a body: “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me.” But as what had been spoken previously had been spoken to little purpose, He then “opened their understandings, that they might understand the Scriptures; “and said unto them, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day,” etc. Nor are we left altogether without the means of knowing what portions of Old Testament Scripture our Lord thus applied to Himself. The apostles undoubtedly proceeded to act upon the instruction they had received, and to make use of the light that had been imparted to them. And when, on opening the Acts of the Apostles, we find Peter, in Acts 1:1-26, applying without hesitation or reserve what is written in Psalms 109:1-31, of the persecutions of Jesus and the apostasy of Judas: again, in Acts 2:1-47, applying in like manner what is written in Psalms 16:1-11 to Christ’s speedy resurrection; Psalms 110:1-7, to His exaltation to power and glory; and Joel 2:28-32, to the gift of the Spirit; in chap. Acts 3:1-26, affirming Jesus to be the prophet that Moses had foretold should be raised up like to himself; in Acts 4:1-37, speaking of Jesus as the stone rejected by the builders, but raised by God to the head of the corner, as written in Psalms 118:1-29 (an application that had already been indicated at least by Christ in a public discourse with the Jews, Matthew 21:42); and, along with the other apostles, describing Christ as the anointed king in Psalms 2:1-12, against whom the heathen raged, and the people imagined vain things; when we read all this, it is scarcely possible to doubt that we have in it the fruit of that more special instruction which our Lord gave to His disciples, when He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. It is Christ’s own teaching made known to us through the report of those who had received it from His lips. And any interpretation of those passages of Old Testament Scripture which would deny their fair and legitimate application to Christ and the things of His kingdom, must be regarded as a virtual reflection on the wisdom and authority of Christ Himself. But it does not follow from this, that Christ and Gospel events must in all of them have been exclusively intended; it may be enough if in some they were more peculiarly included. More could scarcely be meant, especially in respect to Psalms 109 and Psalms 118:1-29, in both of which the language is such as to comprehend classes of persons, and whole series of events. That the proper culmination of what is written should be found in Christ and the Gospel dispensation, is all that could justly be expected. But of this it will be necessary to speak more fully, as it touches on a more profound and hidden application of Old Testament things to those of the New. There were other parts also of our Lord’s personal teaching which still more strikingly bore on such an application, but which, from their enigmatical character, we have purposely omitted referring to in this section. Mean while, in those more obvious and direct references which have chiefly passed under our review, what a body of well-selected proof has our Lord given from the prophecies of the Old Testament, to the truth of His own Messiahship! And how clear and penetrating an insight did He exhibit into the meaning of those prophecies, compared with what then prevailed among His countrymen! III.—THE DEEPER PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN CHRIST’S USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. We have seen that nearly all the prophecies of Old Testament Scripture, which our Lord applied to Himself and the affairs of His kingdom, during the period of His earthly ministry, were such as admitted of being so applied in their most direct and obvious sense. In nothing else could they have found a proper and adequate fulfilment. This can scarcely, however, be said of the whole of them. When His ministry was drawing to a close, He on one occasion publicly, and on several occasions with the disciples privately, made application to Himself and the things of His kingdom, of prophecies which could not be said to bear immediate and exclusive respect to New Testament times. And we have now to examine these later and more peculiar applications of prophetical Scripture, in order to perceive the deeper principles of connection between the Old and the New, involved in our Lord’s occasional use of the word of prophecy. The public occasion we have referred to was when, a few days before His death, Christ solemnly pointed the attention of the Jews to a passage in Psalms 118:1-29 “Did ye never read,” He asked (Matthew 21:42), “in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” Though Jesus did not say in respect to this psalm, as He said shortly after in respect to the Psalms 110:1-7, that in inditing it the Psalmist spake through the Spirit of Christ; yet both the question itself He put regarding the passage, and the personal application He presently afterwards made of it, clearly implied, that He considered Himself and the Jewish authorities of His time to be distinctly embraced in the Psalmist’s announcement. And the same opinion was still more explicitly avowed by the Apostle Peter, after he had been instructed more fully by Christ respecting the Old Testament Scriptures, when, standing before the Jewish council, He exclaimed, “This is the stone which was set at nought by you builders, which is become the head of the corner.”—(Acts 4:11) Yet when we turn to the psalm itself, the passage thus quoted and applied to Christ, in His relation to the Jewish rulers, has the appearance rather of a statement then actually verified in the history and experience of the covenant people, than of a prediction still waiting to be fulfilled. The psalm throughout carries the aspect of a national song, in which priests and people joined together to celebrate the praise of God, on some memorable occasion when they saw enlargement and prosperity return after a period of depression and contempt. It was peculiarly an occasion of this kind, when the little remnant that escaped from Babylon, amid singular tokens of Divine favour, found themselves in a condition to set about the restoration of God’s house and kingdom in Jerusalem. Indeed, Ezra 3:11 seems not doubtfully to indicate that the psalm owes its origin to that happy occasion, as we are there told, that when they met to lay anew the foundation of the temple, the assembled multitude began to praise the Lord in such strains as occur at the commencement of this psalm. There could not be a more seasonable moment for the joyous burst of thanksgiving which the people seem in the psalm, as with one heart and soul, to pour forth to God, on account of His distinguishing goodness in having rescued them from the deadly grasp of their heathen adversaries, and for the elevating and assured hope they express of the final and complete ascendancy of His kingdom. Of this, the eye of faith was presented with an encouraging pledge in current events. By a remarkable turn in God’s providence, the apparently dead had become alive again; the stone rejected by the mighty builders of this world as worthless and contemptible, was marvellously raised to the head of the corner; and, in connection with it, a commencement was made, however feebly, toward the universal triumph of the truth of God over the corruption and idolatry of the world. But such being the natural and direct purport of the psalm, how could the sentiment uttered in it concerning the stone be so unconditionally applied to Christ? The right answer to this question presupposes the existence of a peculiarly close relation between the commonwealth of Israel and Christ, and such a relation as can only be understood aright when we have first correctly apprehended the real calling and destiny of Israel. Now, this was declared at the outset by anticipation to Abraham, when the Lord said concerning His seed, that it should be blessed and made a blessing—made so peculiarly the channel of blessing, that in it all the families of the earth were to be blessed. To fulfil this high destination, was the calling of Israel as an elect people. Viewed, therefore, according to their calling, they were the children of God, Jehovah’s first-born (Deuteronomy 14:1; Exodus 4:22); Jehovah was the father that begot them—that is, raised them into the condition of a people possessing a kind of filial relationship to Himself (Deuteronomy 32:6; Deuteronomy 32:18; Jeremiah 31:9), but possessing it only in so far as they were a spiritual and holy people, abiding near to God, and fitted for executing His righteous purposes for so far only did their actual state correspond with their destination.—(Exodus 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 14:2; Psalms 73:15) For the most part, this correspondence palpably failed. God was true to His engagements, but not Israel to theirs. He gave freely to them of His goodness—gave often when He might have withheld; but their history is replete with backslidings and apostasies, shame and reproach. Even within the limits of Canaan, the real children of God—the seed of blessing—were usually in a grievous minority; they were, for the most part, the comparatively poor, the afflicted, the needy, amid multitudes of an opposite spirit the internal heathen, who differed only in name and outward position from the heathen abroad. But this very imperfection in the reality, as compared with the idea, was here, as in other things, made to contribute toward the great end in contemplation. For it was this especially that showed the necessity of something higher and better to accomplish what was in prospect. So long as God stood related to them merely as He did or had done to their fathers, believers in Israel felt that they had to wage an unequal conflict, in which fearful odds were generally against them, even on Israelitish ground. And how could they expect to attain to a righteousness and acquire a position that should enable them to bless the whole world? For this, manifestly, there was needed another and still closer union than yet existed between Israel and God,—a union that should somehow interpenetrate their condition with the very power and sufficiency of Godhead. Only if the relation between earth and heaven could be made to assume a more vital and organic form—only if the Divine and human, the Angel of the Covenant and the seed of Abraham, Jehovah, and Israel, could become truly and personally one—only then could it seem possible to raise the interest of righteousness in Israel to such an elevation as should bring the lofty destination of Abraham’s seed to bless the world within the bounds of probability. It was one leading object of prophecy to give to such thoughts and anticipations a definite shape, and convert what might otherwise have been but the vague surmises or uncertain conjectures of nature into a distinct article of faith. Especially does this object come prominently out in the latter portion of Isaiah’s writings, where, in a lengthened and varied discourse concerning the calling and destiny of Israel, we find the Lord perpetually turning from Israel in one sense to Israel in another; from an Israel full of imperfection, false, backsliding, feeble, and perverse (for example, in Isaiah 42:19, Isaiah 43:22, Isaiah 48:4, Isaiah 58:1-14, Isaiah 59:1-21), to an Israel full of excellence and might, the beloved of Jehovah, the very impersonation of Divine life and goodness, in whom all righteousness should be fulfilled, and salvation for ever made sure to a numerous and blessed offspring. (Isaiah 42:1-7, Isaiah 49:1-26, Isaiah 52:13-15, Isaiah 53:1-12, Isaiah 55:1-13, Isaiah 61:1-3). So that what Israel, as a whole, had completely failed to realize—what, even in the spiritual portion of Israel, had been realized in a very partial and inadequate manner,—that, the prophet gave it to be understood, was one day to be accomplished without either failure or imperfection. But let it be marked well how it was to be accomplished;—simply by there being raised up in Israel One who should link together in His mysterious person the properties of the seed of Abraham and the perfections of Jehovah; in whom, by the singular providence of God, should meet on the one side all that distinctively belonged to Israel of calling and privilege, and all, on the other, that was needed of Divine power and sufficiency to make good the determinate counsel of Heaven to bless all the families of the earth. But this is still only one, and what may be called the more general, aspect of the matter. Within the circle of the chosen seed, a special arrangement was from the first contemplated (Genesis 49:8-10), and came at last to be actually made, which was rendered yet more remarkably subservient to the design of at once nourishing the expectation of a Messiah, and exhibiting the difference, the antagonism even, that should exist between Him and the fleshly Israel. We refer to the appointment of a royal house, in which Israel’s peculiar calling to bless the world was to rise to its highest sphere, and by which it was more especially to reach its fulfilment. To render more clearly manifest God’s real purpose in this respect, He allowed a false movement to be made, in the first instance, concerning it. The choice was virtually given to the people, who sought merely to have a king and kingdom like the nations around them (1 Samuel 8:5; 1 Samuel 9:20; 1 Samuel 12:13); and so the king they got, being carnal, like themselves, soon proved incapable, notwithstanding the peculiar means that were employed to elevate his spiritual condition, of reigning as God’s vicegerent, and his kingdom equally incapable of establishing righteousness within, or resisting assaults from without. It was but a human institution, and fell alike unblessed and unblessing. Therefore the Lord stepped in to exercise His choice in the matter, and found David, who, by special training and gifts, was prepared to wield the kingdom for the Lord. So thoroughly did he enter into the Lord’s mind in the matter, and act as the Lord’s servant, that the kingdom was made to stand in him as its living root, and the right to administer a kingdom of blessing in the earth was connected in perpetuity with his line.—(2 Samuel 7:1-29) But here, again, the same kind of results presently began to discover themselves as in the former case. It was with the utmost difficulty at first, and never more than in the most imperfect manner, that David himself, or any of his successors, could succeed in establishing righteousness and dispensing blessing even among the families of Israel. The kingdom, too, with all its imperfections, lasted but for a brief period, and then fell into hopeless confusion. So that if the Divine purpose in this matter was really to stand; if there was to be a kingdom of truly Divine character, administered by the house of David, and encompassing the whole earth with its verdant and fruitful boughs (Ezekiel 17:22-24; Daniel 7:13-14), it was manifest that some other link of connection must be formed than any that still existed, between the Divine source and the earthly possessor of the sovereignty,—a connection not merely of delegated authority, but of personal contact and efficient working; on the one side humanizing the Diety, and on the other deifying humanity. For not otherwise than through such intermingling of the Divine and human could the necessary power be constituted for establishing and directing such a kingdom throughout the nations of the earth. Now, this destined rise in the kingdom founded in David, and its culmination in a Divine-human Head, is also the theme of many prophecies. David himself took the lead in announcing it; for he already foresaw, through the Spirit, what in this respect would be required to verify the wonderful promise made to him.—(2 Samuel 7:1-29; Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7; also Isaiah 7:14; Isaiah 9:6, etc.) But as David was himself the root of this new order of things, and the whole was to take the form of a verification of the word spoken to him, or of the perfectionment of the germ that was planted in him, so in his personal history there was given a compendious representation of the nature and prospects of the kingdom. In the first brief stage was exhibited the embryo of what it should ultimately become. Thus, the absoluteness of the Divine choice in appointing the king; his seeming want, but real possession, of the qualities required for administering the affairs of the kingdom; the growth from small, because necessarily spiritual, beginnings of the interests belonging to it—still growing, however, in the face of an inveterate and ungodly opposition, until judgment was brought forth unto victory;—these leading elements in the history of the first possessor of the kingdom must appear again they must have their counterpart in Him on whom the prerogatives and blessings of the kingdom were finally to settle. There was a real necessity in the case, such as always exists where the end is but the development and perfection of the beginning; and we may not hesitate to say, that if they had failed in Christ, He could not have been the anointed King of David’s line, in whom the purpose of God to govern and bless the world in righteousness was destined to stand. Here, again, we have another and lengthened series of predictions, connecting, in this respect, the past with the future, the beginning with the ending (for example, Psalms 16:1-11, Psalms 22:1-31, Psalms 40:1-17, Psalms 49:1-20, Psalms 109:1-31, Isaiah 53:1-12; Zechariah 9:9; Zechariah 12:10; Zechariah 13:1-7). Such, then, is the close and organic connection, in two important respects, between God’s purpose concerning Israel and His purpose in Christ. And if we only keep this distinctly in view, we shall have no difficulty in perceiving that a valid and satisfactory ground existed for the application of Psalms 118:22 to Christ, and many applications of a similar kind made both by Him and by the apostles. In the psalm now mentioned, the calling and destination of Israel to be blessed, and to bless mankind, notwithstanding that they were in themselves so small in number, and had to hold their ground against all the might and power of the world—this is the theme which is chiefly unfolded there, and it is unfolded in connection with the singular manifestation of Divine power and goodness, which had even then given such a striking token of the full accomplishment of the design. But this accomplishment, as we have seen, could only be found in Christ, in whom was to meet what distinctively belonged to Israel on the one side, and, on the other, what exclusively belongs to God. In Him, therefore, the grand theme of the psalm must embody itself, and through Him reach its complete realization. He pre-eminently and peculiarly is the stone, rejected in the first instance by the carnalism of the world, as presented in the Jewish rulers, but at length raised by God, on account of its spiritual and Divine qualities, to be the head of the corner. And all that formerly occurred of a like nature in the history of Israel, was but the germ of what must again, and in a far higher manner, be developed in the work and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. The same thing, with no material difference, holds of an entire class of passages in the Psalms, only in most of them respect is chiefly had to the covenant made with the house of David, rather than to the more general calling and destination of Israel. Such, for example, are the too closely related Psalms 49:1-20. And Psalms 109:1-31, parts of which were first privately applied by Christ, and afterwards more publicly by Peter, to the case of Judas (John 15:25; Acts 1:20, comp. with Psalms 69:4; Psalms 69:25; Psalms 109:3; Psalms 109:8); but to him only as the worst embodiment and most palpable representative of the malice and opposition of which the Messiah was the object: for such Judas was in reality, and such also is the kind of enmity described in these Psalms,—an enmity that had many abettors, though concentrating itself in one or more individuals. Hence St Paul applies the description to the Jews generally.—(Romans 11:9-10) Other passages in the same two psalms are applied by the evangelists and apostles to Christ.—(Matthew 27:34; Matthew 27:48; John 2:17; Romans 15:3) And to these psalms we may add, as belonging to the same class, Psalms 41:1-13, a verse of which—“He that did eat of My bread, lifted up His heel against Me”—is pointed to by our Lord as finding its fulfilment in the treachery of Judas (John 13:18); Psalms 22:1-31, of which several similar appropriations are made concerning Christ (Matthew 27:46; John 14:24, etc.); and Psalms 40:1-17, which contains the passage regarding the insufficiency of animal sacrifices, and the necessity of a sublime act of self-devotion, quite unconditionally applied to Christ in Hebrews 10:4-10. The references to these psalms, it will be observed, were made either by Christ, near the close of His ministry, when seeking to give the disciples a deeper insight into the bearing of Old Testament Scripture on Gospel times, or by the evangelists and apostles after His work on earth was finished, and all had become plain to them. The Psalms themselves are so far alike, that they are all the productions of David, and productions in which he, as the founder and root of the kingdom, endeavoured, through the Spirit, out of the lines of his own eventful history, to throw a prospective light on the more important and momentous future. That his eye was chiefly upon this future is evident, as well from the extremity of the sufferings described, which greatly exceeded what David personally underwent (Psalms 22:8; Psalms 22:14-18; Psalms 69:8; Psalms 69:21; Psalms 109:24-25), as from the world-wide results, the everlasting and universal benefits that are spoken of as flowing from the salvation wrought, far beyond anything that David could have contemplated respecting himself.—(Psalms 22:27; Psalms 40:5; Psalms 40:10; Psalms 40:16; Psalms 41:12; Psalms 69:35) But still, while the future is mainly regarded, it is seen by the Psalmist under the form and lineaments of the past;—his own sufferings and deliverances were like the book from which he read forth the similar but greater things to come. And why should not David, who so clearly foresaw the brighter, have foreseen also the darker and more troubled aspect of the future?If it was given him through the Spirit to descry, as the proper heir and possessor of the kingdom, One so much higher in nature and dignity than himself, that he felt it right to call him Lord and God (Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 110:1-7), why should it not also have been given him to see that this glorious personage, as his son, should bear his father’s image alike in the more afflicting and troubled, and in the better and more glorious part of his career?This is simply what David did see, and what he expressed with great fulness and variety in the portion of his writings now under consideration. And hence their peculiar form and structure, as partaking so much of the personal. When unfolding the more divine aspect and relations of the kingdom, the Psalmist speaks of the possessor of it as of another than himself, nearly related to him, but still different, higher and greater.—(Psalms 22:1-31, Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7) But when he discourses, in the psalms above referred to, concerning its more human aspect and relations, he speaks as of himself: the sufferings to be borne and overcome seemed like a prolongation, or rather like a renewal in an intenser form, of his own; the father, in a manner, identifies himself with the son, as the son again, in alluding to what was written, identifies himself with the father; for so it behoved to be—the past must here foreshadow the future, and the future take its shape from the past. The view now given of this series of psalms, it will be observed, differs materially, not only from that which regards them as properly applicable only to David, and merely accommodated to Christ and Gospel things, but also from that of Hengstenberg and others, according to which the psalms in question describe the suffering righteous person in general, and apply to Christ only in so far as He was pre-eminently a righteous sufferer. We hold them to be, in a much closer sense, prophecies of Christ, and regard them as delineations of what, in its full sense, could only be expected to take place in Him who was to fulfil the calling and destination, of which the mere foreshadow and announcement was to be seen in David. And this connection between David and Christ, on which the delineation proceeds, seems to us satisfactorily to account for two peculiarities in the structure of these psalms, which have always been the occasion of embarrassment. The first is the one already noticed—their being written as in the person of the Psalmist. This arose from his being led by the Spirit to contemplate the coming future as the continuation and only adequate completion of what pertained to himself—to descry the Messiah as the second and higher David. The other peculiarity is the mention that is made in some of these psalms of sin as belonging to the person who speaks in them; as in Psalms 40:1-17, for example, where he confesses his sins to be more in number than the hairs of his head—and that, too, presently after he had declared it to be his purpose and delight to do the will of God in a way more acceptable than all sacrifice—This has been deemed inexplicable, on the supposition of Christ being the speaker. And if Christ alone, directly and exclusively, had been contemplated, we think it would have been inexplicable. His connection with sin would not have been represented exactly in that form. But let the ground of the representation be what we have described; let it be understood that David wrote of the Messiah as the Son, who, however higher and greater than himself, was still to be a kind of second self, then the description must have taken its form from the history and position of David, and should be read as from that point of view. If it is true in some respects that “things take the signature of thought” (Coleridge), here the reverse necessarily happened—the thought, imaging to itself the future as the reflection and final development of the past, naturally took the signature of things; and sin, with which the second as well as the first David had much to do in establishing the kingdom, must be confessed as from the bosom of the royal Psalmist. It is merely a part of the relatively imperfect nature of all the representations of Christ’s work and kingdom, which were unfolded under the image and shadow of past and inferior, but closely related circumstances. And this imperfection in the form was the more necessary in psalms, since, being destined for public use in the worship of God, they could only express such views and feelings as the congregation might be expected to sympathize with, and should, even when carrying forward the desires and expectations of the soul to better things to come, still touch a chord in every believer’s bosom. There is, however, another and more peculiar indeed, the most peculiar—application made by our Lord of the Old Testament Scriptures; but an application proceeding on a quite similar, though more specific, connection between the past and the future in God’s kingdom. We refer to what our Lord said after the transfiguration respecting John the Baptist. Before this, He had even publicly asserted John to be the Elias predicted by Malachi: “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”—(Matthew 11:14-15) It was a profound truth, our Lord would have them to know, which He was now delivering one that did not lie upon the surface, and could only be received by spiritual and divinely-enlightened souls. This much is implied in the words, “If ye will receive it,” if ye have spiritual discernment so far as to know the mind of God; and still more by the call that follows, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,”—a call which is never uttered but when something enigmatical, or difficult to the natural mind, requires to be understood. The disciples themselves, however, still wanted the capacity for understanding what was said, as they betrayed, when putting the question to Christ after the transfiguration, “Why, then, do the scribes say, that Elias must first come?” This led our Lord again to assert what He had done before, and also to give some explanation of the matter: “And He answered and said unto them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things. . . . But I say unto you, That Elias has indeed come, and they have done to him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.”—(Mark 9:12-13) Here He so nearly identifies John with Elias, that what had been recorded of the one He considers as in a manner written of the other; for certainly the things that had happened to this second Elias were no other wise written of him, than as things of a similar kind were recorded in the life of the first. The essential connection between the two characters rendered the history of the one, in its main elements, a prophecy of the other. If John had to do the work of Elias, he must also enter into the experience of Elias; coming as emphatically the preacher of repentance, he must have trial of hatred and persecution from the ungodly; and the greater he was than Elias in the one respect, it might be expected he should also be greater in the other. It must, therefore, have been merely in regard to his commission from above, that he was said to “come and restore all things;” for here again, as of old, the sins of the people—headed at last by a new Ahab and Jezebel, in Herod and Herodias—cut short the process: “they rejected the counsel of God against themselves,” and only in a very limited degree experienced the benefit which the mission of John was in itself designed and fitted to impart. Nor could John have been the new Elias, unless, amid all outward differences, there had been such essential agreements as these between his case and that of his great predecessor. We have now adverted to all the applications of Old Testament prophecy which are expressly mentioned by the evangelists to have been made by our Lord to Himself and Gospel times, with the exception of a mere reference in Matthew 24:15, to Daniel’s “abomination of desolation,” and the use made of Isaiah 6:9-10, as describing the blind and hardened state of the men of his own generation, not less than of those of Isaiah’s. Besides those passages, however, expressly quoted and applied by our Lord, it is right to notice, as preparatory to the consideration of what was done in this respect by evangelists and apostles, that He not unfrequently appropriated to Himself, as peculiarly true of Him, the language and ideas of the Old Testament; as when He takes the words descriptive of Jacob’s vision, and says to Nathanael, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man;” or when He said to the Jews of His own body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up;” or when He speaks of Himself as going to be lifted up for the salvation of men, as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, and of the sign of the prophet Jonas going to appear again in Him. Such appropriations of Old Testament language and ideas evidently proceeded on the ground of that close connection between the Old and the New which we have endeavoured to unfold, as one that admitted of being carried out to many particulars. If, therefore, we shall find the evangelists and apostles so carrying it out, they have the full sanction of Christ’s authority as to the principle of their interpretation. And on the ground even of Christ’s own expositions, we may surely see how necessary it is, in explaining Scripture, to keep in view the pre-eminent place which Christ from the first was destined to hold in the Divine plan, and how everything in the earlier arrangements of God tended to Him as the grand centre of the whole. Let us indeed beware of wresting any passages of the Old Testament for the purpose of finding Christ where He is not to be found; but let us also be ware of adopting such imperfect views as would prevent us from finding Him where He really is. And especially let it ever be borne in mind, that the union of the Divine and the human in Christ, while in itself the great mystery of godliness, is, at the same time, the grand key to the interpretation of what else is mysterious in the Divine dispensations; and that in this stands the common basis of what ancient seers were taught to anticipate, and what the Church now is in the course of realizing. IV.—THE APPLICATIONS MADE BY THE EVANGELISTS OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES. It is to be borne carefully in mind, then, that the stream of Old Testament prophecy respecting the Messiah, in its two great branches,—the one originating in the calling and destination of Israel, the other in the purpose to set up a kingdom of righteousness and blessing for the world in the house of David,—flowed in the same direction, and pointed to the same great event. The announcements in both lines plainly contemplated and required an organic or personal connection between the Divine and human natures as the necessary condition of their fulfilment; so that if there was any truth in the pretensions of Jesus of Nazareth—if He was indeed that concentrated Israel, and that peerless son of David, in whom the two lines of prophecy were to meet and be carried out to their destined completion, the indwelling of the Divine in His human nature must have existed as the one foundation of the whole building. That very truth which the Jews of our Lord’s time could not bear even to be mentioned in their presence, the truth of His proper Deity,—was the indispensable preliminary to the realization of all that was predicted. Hence it is that the four Evangelists, each in his own peculiar way, but with a common insight into the import of Old Testament prophecy and the real necessities of the case, all begin with laying this foundation. St John opens his narrative with a formal and lengthened statement of Christ’s relation to the Godhead, and broadly asserts that in Him the Divine Word was made flesh. St Luke also relates at length the circumstances of the miraculous conception, and with the view evidently of conveying the impression, that this mode of being born into the world stood in essential connection with Christ’s being, in the strictest sense, “the Son of the Highest.” Even Mark, while observing the greatest possible brevity, does not omit the essential point, and begins his narrative with the most startling announcement that ever headed an historical composition: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And the first Evangelist, who wrote more immediately for his Jewish brethren, and continually selects the points that were best fitted to exhibit Jesus as the Messiah of the Jewish Scriptures, characteristically enters on his narrative by describing the circumstances of Christ’s miraculous birth as the necessary fulfilment of one of the most marvellous prophecies of the incarnation: “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us.” Commentators, it is well known, are not agreed as to the precise manner in which this prediction should be applied to Christ; and not a few hold that it is to be understood, in the first instance, of an ordinary child born after the usual manner in the prophet’s own time, and only in a secondary, though higher and more complete sense, applicable to the Messiah. Their chief reason for this is, that they see no other way of understanding how the facts announced in the prophecy could properly have been a sign to Ahaz and his people, as they were expressly called by the prophet. Without entering into the discussion of this point, we simply state it as our conviction, that the difficulty felt arises mainly from a wrong view of what is there meant by a sign—as if the prophet intended by it something which would be a ground of comfort to the wicked king and kingdom of Judah. On the contrary, the prediction manifestly bears the character of a threatening to these, though with a rich and precious promise enclosed for a future generation. Between the promise of the child and its fulfilment, there was to be a period of sweeping desolation; for the child was to be born in a land which should yield to him “butter and honey,”—the spontaneous products of a desolated region, as opposed to one well-peopled and cultivated.—(Comp. Isaiah 7:15 with Isaiah 7:22; also Matthew 3:4, where honey is mentioned as a portion of the Baptist’s wilderness food.) This state of desolation the prophet describes to the end of the chapter as ready to fall on the kingdom of Judah, and as inevitably certain, notwithstanding that a present temporary deliverance was to be granted to it; so that, from the connection in which the promise of the child stands, coupled with the loftiness of the terms in which it is expressed, there appears no adequate occasion for it till the impending calamities were overpast, and the real Immanuel should come. Indeed, as Dr Alexander justly states (on Isaiah 7:14), “There is no ground, grammatical, historical, or logical, for doubt as to the main point, that the Church in all ages has been right in regarding the passage as a signal and explicit prediction of the miraculous conception and nativity of Jesus Christ.” Even Ewald, whose views are certainly low enough as to his mode of explaining the prediction, yet does not scruple to say, that “every interpretation is false which does not admit that the prophet speaks of the coming Messias.” (I have discussed the subject at some length in my Hermeneutical Manual, p. 416-26.) We have no hesitation, therefore, in regarding the application of this prophecy of Isaiah to Christ as an application of the more direct and obvious kind. And such also is the next prophecy referred to by St Matthew,—the prophecy of Micah regarding Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birth-place. The Evangelist does not formally quote this prophecy as from himself, but gives it from the mouth of the chief priests and scribes, of whom Herod demanded where Christ should be born. The prediction is so plain, that there was no room for diversity of opinion about it. And as both the prediction itself, and its connection with Isaiah 7:14, have already been commented on in the earlier part of this volume (p. 171), there is no need that we should further refer to it here. Presently, however, we come in Matthew 2:1-23 to another and different application of a prophecy. For, when relating the providential circumstances connected with Christ’s temporary removal to Egypt, and His abode there till the death of Herod, he says it took place, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called My Son.”—(Matthew 2:15) It admits of no doubt that this word of the prophet Hosea was uttered by him rather as an historical record of the past, than as a prophetical announcement of the future. It pointed to God’s faithfulness and love in delivering Israel from His place of temporary sojourn,—“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my Son out of Egypt.” When regarded by the Evangelist, therefore, as a word needing to have its accomplishment in Christ, it manifestly could not be because the word itself was prophetical, but only because the event it recorded was typical. Describing a prophetical circumstance or event, it is hence, by a very common figure of speech, itself called a prophecy; since what it records to have been done in the type, must again be done in the antitype. And the only point of moment respecting it is, how could the calling of Israel out of Egypt be regarded as a prophetical action in such a sense, that it must be repeated in the personal history of Jesus? This question has already been answered by anticipation, as to its more important part, in the last section, where the relation was pointed out between Christ and Israel. This relation was such that the high calling and destination of Israel to be not only blessed, but also the channel of blessing to the world, necessarily stood over for its proper accomplishment till He should come who was to combine with the distinctive characteristics of a child of Abraham the essential properties of the Godhead. All that could be done before this, was no more than the first feeble sproutings of the tree, as compared with the gigantic stature and expansion of its full growth. So that, viewed in respect to the purpose and appointment of God, Israel, in so far as they were the people of God, possessed the beginnings of what was in its completeness to be developed in Jesus; they, God’s Son in the feebleness and imperfection of infancy, He the Israel of God in realized and concentrated fulness of blessing. And hence to make manifest this connection between the Old and the New, between Israel in the lower and Israel in the higher sense, it was necessary not only that there should belong to Christ, in its highest perfection, all that was required to fulfil the calling and destination of Israel, as described in prophetic Scripture, but that there should also be such palpable and designed correspondences between His history and that of ancient Israel, as would be like the signature of Heaven to His pretensions, and the matter-of-fact testimony to His true Israelite destiny. Such a correspondence was found especially in the temporary sojourn in Egypt, and subsequent recall from it to the proper field of covenant life and blessing. If, as our Lord Himself testified, even the things that befell the Elias of the Old Testament were a prophecy in action of the similar things that were to befall the still greater Elias of the New, how much more might Israel’s former experience in this respect be taken for a prophecy of what was substantially to recur in the so closely related history of Jesus! That the old things were thus so palpably returning again, was God’s sign in providence to a slumbering Church, that the great end of the Old was at length passing into fulfilment. It proclaimed—and as matters stood there was a moral necessity that it should proclaim—that He who of old loved Israel, so as to preserve him for a time in Egypt, and then called him out for the lower service he had to render, was now going to revive His work, and carry it forward to its destined completion by that Child of Hope, to whom all the history and promises of Israel pointed as their common centre. In such a case, of course, when both the prophecy and the fulfilment are deeds, and deeds connected, the one with a lower, the other with a higher sphere of service, there could only be a general, not a complete and detailed, agreement. There must be many differences as well as coincidences. It was so in the case of John the Baptist as compared with his prototype Elias. It was so, too, with our Lord in His temporary connection with Egypt, as compared with that of ancient Israel. Amid essential agreements there are obvious circumstantial differences; but these such only as the altered circumstances of the case naturally, and indeed necessarily, gave rise to. Enough, if there were such palpable correspondences as clearly bespoke the same overruling hand in Providence, working toward the accomplishment of the same great end. These limitations hold also, they hold with still greater force, in respect to the next application made by St Matthew, when he says of the slaughter by Herod of the infants at Bethlehem, “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Here the relation is not so close between the Old and the New as in the former case; and the words of the Evangelist imply as much, when he puts it merely, “Then was fulfilled,” not as before, “That it might be fulfilled.” It is manifest, indeed, that when a word originally spoken respecting an event at Rama (a place some miles north of Jerusalem) is applied to another event which took place ages afterwards at Bethlehem (another place lying to the south of it), the fulfilment meant in the latter case must have been of an inferior and secondary kind. Yet there must also have been some such relation between the two events, as rendered the one substantially a repetition of the other; and something, too, in the whole circumstances, to make it of importance that the connection between them should be marked by their being ranged under one and the same prophetical testimony. Now, the matter may be briefly stated thus: It was at Rama, as we learn incidentally from Jeremiah 40:1, that the Chaldean conqueror of old assembled the last band of Israelitish captives before sending them into exile. And being a place within the territory of Benjamin, the ancestral mother of the tribe, Rachel, is poetically represented by the prophet as raising a loud cry of distress, and giving way to a disconsolate grief, because getting there, as she thought, the last look of her hapless children, seeing them ruthlessly torn from her grasp, and doomed to an apparently hopeless exile. The wail was that of a fond mother, whose family prospects seemed now to be entirely blasted. And, amid all the outward diversities that existed, the Evangelist descried substantially the same ground for such a disconsolate grief in the event at Bethlehem. For here, again, there was another, though more disguised enemy, of the real hope of Israel, who struck with relentless severity, and struck what was certainly meant to be an equally fatal blow. Though it was but a handful of children that actually perished, yet, as among these the Child of Promise was supposed to be included, it might well seem as if all were lost; Rachel’s offspring, as the heritage of God, had ceased to exist; and the new covenant, with all its promises of grace and glory, was for ever buried in the grave of that Son of the virgin—if so be that He had fallen a victim to the ruthless jealousy of the tyrant. So that, viewed in regard to the main thing, the Chaldean conqueror had again revived in the cruel Edomite, who then held the government of Judea; and the slaughter at Bethlehem was, in spirit and design, as fatal a catastrophe as the sweeping away of the last remnant of Jews into the devouring gulph of Babylon. As vain, therefore, for the Church of the New Testament to look for a friend in Herod, in respect to the needed redemption, as for the Church of the Old to have looked for such in Nebuchadnezzar. Such is the instruction briefly contained in the Evangelist’s application of the prophecy of Jeremiah; an instruction much needed then, when so many were disposed to look for great things from the Herods, instead of regarding them as the deadliest enemies of the truth, arid the manifest rods of God’s displeasure. The lesson, indeed, was needed for all times, that the Church might be warned not to expect prosperity and triumph to the cause of Christ from the succour of ungodly rulers of this world, but from God, who alone could defend her from their ceaseless machinations and violence. In this last application of a prophetic word by St Matthew to the events of the Gospel, there is a remarkable disregard of external and superficial differences, for the sake of the more inward and vital marks of agreement. It is somewhat singular, that, in his next application, the reverse seems rather to be the case—a deep spiritual characteristic of Messiah is connected with the mere name of a city. The settling of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth, it is said, at the close of ch. Matthew 2:23, took place “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” There is here a preliminary difficulty in regard to the thing said to have been spoken by the prophets, which is not in so many words to be found in any prophetical book of the Old Testament; and, indeed, from its being said to have been spoken by the prophets generally, we are led to suppose that the Evangelist does not mean to give us the precise statement of any single prophet, but rather the collected sense of several. He seems chiefly to refer to those passages in Isaiah and Zechariah, where the Messiah was announced as the Nezer or sprouting branch of the house of David, pointing to the unpretending lowliness of His appearance and His kingdom. It is understood that the town Nazareth had its name from the same root, and on account of its poor and despised condition. That it was generally regarded with feelings of contempt even in Galilee, appears from the question of Nathanael, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”—(John 1:46) And it is quite natural to suppose that this may have been expressed in its very name. So that the meaning of the Evangelist here comes to be, that the providence of God directed Joseph to Nazareth, as a place in name, as well as general repute, peculiarly low and despised, that the prophecies respecting Jesus as the tender shoot of David’s stem might be fulfilled. The meaning, certainly, thus becomes plain enough; but it seems strange that so outward and comparatively unimportant a circumstance should be pointed to as a fulfilment of prophecy. In this, however, we are apt to judge too much from the present advanced position of Christ’s cause and kingdom; and also from the greatly altered tone of thinking in respect to the significance of names. The Jews were accustomed to mark everything by an appropriate name: with them, the appellations of men, towns, and localities everywhere uttered a sentiment or told a history. A respect to this prevalent tone of thinking pervades the whole Gospel narrative, and appears especially in the names given to the place of Christ’s birth (Bethlehem, house of bread), to the Baptist (John, the Lord’s favour), and Jesus (Saviour); in the surnames applied by Christ to Simon (Cephas), to James and John (Boanerges). So natural was this mode of viewing things to the disciples, that the Evangelist John even finds a significance in the name of Siloam as connected with one of the miracles of Jesus.—(John 9:7) It was fitly called Siloam, sent, since one was now sent to it for such a miracle of mercy; its name would hence forth acquire a new significancy. It might, therefore, be perfectly natural for those who lived in our Lord’s time, to attach considerable importance to the name of the town where He was brought up, and whence He was to manifest Himself to Israel. And in that state of comparative infancy, when a feeble faith and a low spiritual sense required even outward marks, like finger-posts, to guide them into the right direction, it was no small token of the overruling providence of God, that He made the very name of Christ’s residence point so distinctly to the lowly condition in which ancient prophets had foretold He should appear. By no profound sagacity, or deep spiritual insight, but even as with their bodily eyesight, they might behold the truth, that Jesus was the predicted Nezer, or tender shoot of David. Thus the word of the prophets was fulfilled in a way peculiarly adapted to the times. The same kind of outwardness and apparent superficiality, but coupled with the same tender consideration and spiritual discernment, discovers itself in some of the other applications made by the Evangelists of ancient prophecy. Thus, in Matthew 8:17, Christ is said to have wrought His miraculous cures on the diseases of men, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” Was this the whole that the prophet meant?Was it even the main thing? The Evangelist does not, in fact, say that it was: he merely says that Christ was now engaged in the work of which the prophet spake in these words; and so, indeed, He was. Christ was sent into the world to remove by His mediatorial agency the evil that sin had brought into the world. He began this work when He cured bodily diseases, as these were the fruits of sin; and the removal of them was intended to serve as a kind of ladder to guide men to the higher and more spiritual part that still remained to be done. It was this very connection which our Lord Himself marked, when He said alternately to the man sick of the palsy, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” and, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk:” it was as much as to say, the doing of the one goes hand in hand with the other; they are but different parts of the same process. That Matthew knew well enough which was the greater and more important part of the process, is evident from the explanation he records of the name of Jesus (Matthew 1:21, “He shall save His people from their sins”); and his reporting such a declaration of Christ as this, “The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many.”—(Matthew 20:28) We have similar examples in John 19:36, where the preservation of our Lord’s limbs from violence is regarded as a fulfilment of the prophecy in type—“A bone of Him (the Paschal Lamb) shall not be broken;” and in John 19:37, where the piercing of Christ’s side is connected with the prediction in Zechariah—“They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” It is evident that in both cases alike the original word looked farther than the mere outward circumstances here noticed, and had respect mainly to spiritual characteristics. But this Evangelist, who had a quick eye to the discerning of the spiritual in the external, who could even see in the slight elevation of the cross something that pointed, as it were, to heaven (John 12:33), saw also the hand of God in those apparently accidental and superficial distinctions in Christ’s crucified body the—finger-mark of heaven, giving visible form and expression to the great truths they embodied, that they might be the more readily apprehended. It was not as if these outward things were the whole in his view, but that they were the heaven-appointed signs and indications of the whole: seeing these, he, in the simplicity of faith, saw all—in the unbroken leg, the all-perfect Victim; in the pierced side, the unutterable agony and distress of the bleeding heart of Jesus. We need do little more than refer to the other applications made of Old Testament prophecy to Jesus by the Evangelists. They are either applications in the most direct and obvious sense of predictions, that can be understood of no other circumstances and events than those they are applied to, or applications of some of the psalms and other prophecies, which had already been employed in part by Christ Himself. Thus, Matthew 4:15-16, which regards the light diffused by the preaching of Jesus in the land of Naphtali and Zebulun as a fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah 9:1-2; Matthew 21:4; John 12:15, which connect Christ’s riding into Jerusalem on an ass with the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 27:9, which, in like manner, connects the transactions about the thirty pieces of money given to Judas with the prophecy in Zechariah 11:13;—these are admitted by all the more learned and judicious interpreters of the present day to be applications of prophecy of the most direct and simple kind. Portions of Psalms 22:1-31, and of Isaiah 42:1-4; Isaiah 53:1; Isaiah 53:12, of which we have already had occasion to speak, in connection with our Lord’s own use of ancient Scripture, are referred to, as finding their fulfilment in Christ, in Matthew 27:35; John 12:38; John 12:40; John 19:24; Mark 15:28. The only remaining passage in the Gospels, in which there is anything like a peculiar application of Old Testament Scripture, is Matthew 13:34-35, where the Evangelist represents our Lord’s resorting to the parabolical method of instruction as a fulfilment of what is written in Psalms 78:2, and which has been explained in the chapter to which this Appendix refers. See p. 139. Thus we see, that no arbitrary or unregulated use is made by the Evangelists of ancient prophecy in regard to the events of Gospel history, but such only as evinced a profound and comprehensive view of the connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations. They had Christ’s own authority for all they did—either as to the principle on which their applications were made, or the precise portions of Scripture applied by them. And nothing more is needed to ensure for them our entire sympathy and concurrence, than, first, that we clearly apprehend the relation of Christ, as the God-man, to the whole scheme and purposes of God, and then that we realize the peculiar circumstances of the Church at the time when the higher and more spiritual things of the Gospel began to take the place of those that were more outward and preparatory. The want of these has been the chief source of the embarrassment that has been experienced on the subject. V.APPLICATIONS IN THE WRITINGS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL. No one can fail to perceive that very frequent use is made of Old Testament Scripture in the writings of the Apostle Paul. Sometimes the use he makes of it is quite similar to that made by the Apostle Peter in his epistles—one, namely, of simple reference or appropriation. He adopts the language of Old Testament Scripture as his own, as finding in that the most suitable expression of the thoughts he wished to convey (Romans 2:24, Romans 10:18, Romans 12:19-20, Ephesians 4:26, etc.); or he refers to the utterances it contained of God’s mind and will, as having new and higher exemplifications given to them under the Gospel.—(Romans 1:17; 1 Corinthians 1:19, 1 Corinthians 1:31; 2 Corinthians 6:16-17; 2 Corinthians 8:15; 2 Corinthians 9:9, etc.) Of this latter sort also, substantially, is the application he makes to Christ in Ephesians 4:8, of a passage in Psalms 68 (“He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive,” etc.),—a psalm which is nowhere else in New Testament Scripture applied to Christ, nor is it one of those which, from their clear and pointed reference to the things of Christ’s kingdom, are usually distinguished Messianic. In applying the words of the psalm to the ascension of Christ, and His subsequent bestowal of Divine gifts, the Apostle can hardly be understood to mean more than that what was done figuratively and in an inferior sense in the times of David by God, was now most really and gloriously done in Christ. And there is also another application of an Old Testament Scripture by the Apostle Paul, which might, perhaps, without violence be understood, and by some evangelical interpreters is understood, in a similar manner, not as a direct prophecy, uttered in respect to Christian times, but as the announcement of a principle in God’s dealing with His ancient people, which came again to be most strikingly exemplified under the Gospel. We allude to the passage in Isaiah 28:16 (combined with Isaiah 8:14-15), which is adduced by Paul in Romans 9:33 (as it is also, and still more emphatically, by Peter in his first Epistle, 1 Peter 2:7-8) as bearing upon Christ, and the twofold effect of His manifestation upon the destinies of men, “Behold I lay in Zion a stone,” etc. We regard it, however, as by much the most natural method, to take the word of the prophet there as a direct prediction of Gospel times. The difficulty in finding a specific object of reference otherwise, is itself no small proof of the correctness of this view—some understanding it of the temple, some of the law, others of Zion, and others still again of Hezekiah. The prophet, we are persuaded, is looking above and beyond all these. Contemplating the people in their guilt and waywardness as engaged in contriving, by counsels and projects of their own, to secure the perpetuity of their covenant blessings, he introduces the Lord as declaring that there was to be a secure and abiding perpetuity, but not by such vain and lying devices as theirs, nor for the men who followed such corrupt courses as they were doing; but God Himself would lay the sure and immoveable foundation in Zion, by means of which every humble believer would find ample confidence and safety; while to the perverse and unbelieving this also should become but a new occasion of stumbling and perdition. It can be understood of nothing properly but Christ. And we, therefore, have no hesitation in considering the word as a direct prediction of Gospel times, of which the only proper fulfilment was to be found in the events of Christ’s history. It is not so much, however, by way of simple reference or application, that Paul makes either his most frequent or his most peculiar application of Old Testament Scripture; he is more remarkable for the argumentative use he makes of it. He often introduces it in express and formal citations to establish his doctrinal positions, or to show the entire conformity of the views he unfolded of Divine truth with those which had been propounded by the servants of God in former times. It is in connection with this use of ancient Scripture by Paul, that the only difficulties of any moment in his application of it are to be found. And as we have already referred (in the first section) to his use, in this respect, of the historical and didactic portions, we have at present only to do with his employment of the prophecies. In respect to these also, the subject, in so far as it calls for consideration here, narrows itself to a comparatively limited field; for it is only in the application made of a few prophecies, and these bearing on the questions agitated in the Apostle’s day between Jew and Gentile, that any marked peculiarity strikes us. In saying this, however, we must be under stood as leaving out of view the Epistle to the Hebrews; in which such a distinctive use of Old Testament Scripture is made as will require a separate consideration. Now, the chief peculiarity is this, that while the Apostle, in the portions of his writings referred to, wrote argumentatively. And consequently behoved to employ his weapons in the most unequivocal and uniform manner, he seems to vary considerably in his manner of handling the prophecies: he even seems to use a strange freedom with the literal and spiritual mode of interpretation; now, apparently, taking them in the one, and now, again, in the other sense, as suited his convenience. So, at least, the depreciators of the Apostle’s influence have not unfrequently alleged it to be. But is it so in reality? The matter certainly demands a close and attentive consideration. I. The passage that naturally comes first in order is that in Romans 4:11-16, where the Apostle refers to the promises of blessing made to Abraham, and in particular to the two declarations, that he should be a father of many nations, and should have a seed of blessing—or rather, should be the head of the seed of blessing throughout all the families of the earth. In reasoning upon these promises, the object of the Apostle is plainly to show, that as they were made to Abraham before he received circumcision,—that is, while he was still, as to any legal ground of distinction, in a heathen state,—so they bore respect to a posterity as well without as within the bounds of lineal descent and legal prescription; to those, indeed, within, but even there only to those who believed as he did, and attained to the righteousness of faith: and besides these, to all who should tread “in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had when still uncircumcised.” According, therefore, to the Apostle’s interpretation, the seed promised to Abraham in the original prophecy was essentially of a spiritual kind; it comprehended all the children of faith, wherever they might be found,—as well the children of faith apart from the law, as the children of faith under the law. The justness of this wide and profoundly spiritual interpretation, the Apostle specially bases, as we have said, on the time when circumcision—the sign and seal of the covenant—began to be administered; not before, but after the promises were given. And he might also have added, as a collateral argument, the persons to whom it was administered—not to that portion only of Abraham’s lineal descendants, of whom the Jews sprung, nor even to his lineal descendants alone as a body; but to all collectively, who belonged to him at the first as a household, and all afterwards who, by entering into the bond of the covenant, should seek to belong to him.—(Exodus 12:48, etc.) What could more evidently show that Abraham’s seed, viewed in the light contemplated in the promise as a seed of blessing, was to be pre-eminently of a spiritual nature? a seed that was only in part to be found among the corporeal offspring of the patriarch; but, wherever found, was to have for its essential and most distinctive characteristic his faith and righteousness? It is the positive side of the matter that the Apostle seeks to bring out at this stage of his argument: his object is to manifest how far the spiritual element in the promise reaches. But at another stage, in Romans 9:6-13, he exhibits with equal distinctness the negative side; he shows how the same spiritual element excludes from the promised seed all, even within the corporeal descent and the outward legal boundary, who at any period did not possess the faith and righteousness of Abraham. All along the blessing was to descend through grace by faith; and such as might be destitute of these were not, in the sense of the original prophecy, the children of Abraham: they were rather, as our Lord expressly called the Jews of His day, the children of the devil, John 8:44,—a declaration that rests on the same fundamental view of the promise as that unfolded in the argument of the Apostle. II. But now, if we turn to another portion of the Apostle’s writings, to the Epistle to the Galatians, where he is substantially handling the same argument as to the alone sufficiency of faith in the matter of justification,—we find what, at first sight, appears to be in one respect a quite opposite principle of interpretation; we find the mere letter of the promise so much insisted on, that even the word seed, being in the singular, is regarded as limiting it to an individual. In Galatians 3:6-18 of this epistle, the argument of the Apostle is of the following nature:—Abraham himself attained to blessing simply through faith; and when he was told that even all nations should come to partake in his blessing, it was implied that they also should attain to it through the same faith that dwelt in him. The law entered long after this promise of blessing had been given; and if the blessing were now made to depend upon the fulfilment of the law, then the promise would be virtually disannulled. Not only so, but the promise was expressly made to Abraham’s seed, as of one, not as of many—“to thy seed,” which, says the Apostle, “is Christ;” thus apparently making the promise point exclusively to the Messiah, and in order to this, forcing on the collective noun seed a properly singular meaning. Yet, on the other hand, it would be very strange if the Apostle had actually done so. For every one knows, who is in the least degree acquainted with the language of the Old Testament, that seed, when used of a person’s offspring, is always taken collectively; it never denotes a single individual, unless that individual were the whole of the offspring. Educated as Paul was, it was impossible he could be ignorant of this; nay, in this very chapter, he shows himself to be perfectly cognizant of the comprehensive meaning of the word seed; and the drift of his whole argument is to prove that every child of faith is a component part of the seed promised to Abraham that “they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham;” or, as he again puts it at the close, “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” It is thus clear as day, that the Apostle here took the same comprehensive view of the promise to Abraham that he did in the fourth chapter of Romans; so that the distinction between seed and seeds, when properly understood, can only be meant to draw the line of demarcation between one class of Abraham’s family and another—between posterity and posterity. For though it would be quite against the ordinary usage to speak of individuals in the same line as so many seeds, it would by no means be so to speak thus of so many distinct lines of offspring; these might fitly enough be regarded as so many seeds or posterities. Such, actually, is the meaning of the Apostle here. In his view, Abraham’s seed of blessing in the promise are his believing posterity—these alone, and not the descendants of Abraham in every sense. “Had this latter been expressed in the words,” as Tholuck justly remarks, “seeds would require to have been used; as then only could it have been inferred that all the posterity of Abraham, including those by natural descent, were embraced. But since the singular is used, this shows that the prophecy had a definite posterity in view,—namely, a believing posterity. The Jew must have been the more disposed to admit this, as for him also it would have proved too much, if the prophecy had been made to embrace absolutely the whole of Abraham’s offspring. He, too, would have wished the lines by Ishmael and Esau excluded.” So that, viewed in respect to the promised inheritance of blessing, those, on the one hand, who were merely born after the flesh, in the common course of nature, were not reckoned of the seed—they were still, in a sense, unborn, because they have wanted the indispensable spiritual element; while, on the other hand, those are reckoned, who, though they want the natural descent, have come to possess the more important spiritual affinity—they have been born from above, and have their standing and inheritance among the children. But if such be the import of the Apostle’s statement, why, then, it may be asked, does he in Galatians 3:16 so expressly limit the seed of blessing to Christ? He does it, we reply, in the very same sense in which at Galatians 3:8 he limited the blessing to Abraham: in the one case, he identifies Abraham with all the posterity of blessing, and in the other Christ; in both cases alike, the two heads comprehend all who are bound up with them in the same bundle of life. “The Scripture foreseeing,” he says at Galatians 3:8, “that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, ‛In thee shall all nations be blessed.’” In thee, combining the blessing of Abraham and all his spiritual progeny of believers into compact unity; he, the head, and those who spiritually make one body with him, being viewed together, and blessed in the same act of God. In like manner, when at Galatians 3:16 the Apostle passes from the parent to the seed, and regards the seed as existing simply in Christ, it is because he views Christ as forming one body with His people; in Him alone the blessing stands as to its ground and merit, and in Him, therefore, the whole seed of blessing have their life and being. So that the term seed is still used collectively by the Apostle; it is applied to Christ, not as an individual, but to Christ as comprehending in Himself all who form with Him a great spiritual unity—those who in this same chapter of the Galatians are said to have “put on Christ,” and to have become “all one in Him” (a personal mystical unity, Galatians 3:27-28). We find precisely the same identification of Christ and His people, when the Apostle elsewhere says of the Church, that it is “His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23); and yet again, when he says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, “As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ”—that is, Christ taken in connection with His Church; He and they together. III. Reverting again to the Epistle to the Romans, to that part of it in which the Apostle discusses the subject of the present unbelief and rejection, together with the future conversion of the Jews, Romans 9:1-33, Romans 10:1-21, Romans 11:1-36, we find an apparent want of uniformity somewhat more difficult to explain. If we look at one part, there is the greatest freeness; but if at another, there seems the greatest strictness and literality in the manner he handles and applies the words of prophecy. In Romans 9:25-26, he introduces from Hosea what was unquestionably spoken in immediate reference to ancient Israel, and gives it a quite general application. Speaking of Israel as now apostate and rejected, but afterwards to be converted, the prophet had said that those who had been treated without mercy should yet obtain mercy, and those who had been called, “Not My people,” should yet be called, “The children of the living God.”—(Hosea 1:10, Hosea 2:23) This the Apostle adduces in proof of the statement, that God was now calling to the blessings of salvation vessels of mercy, “not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.” It is certainly possible, that in applying the words thus, the Apostle did not mean to press them as in the strict sense a prophecy of the calling and conversion of the Gentiles. He may have referred to them simply as exhibiting a display of Divine mercy, precisely similar in kind to what was now exemplified in the salvation of the Gentiles; that is, mercy exercised on persons who previously were cut off from any interest in its provisions, and in themselves had lost all claims to its enjoyment. That was to be done, according to the prophet, in the case of many in Israel; and if it was now also done in the case of a people called alike from among Jews and Gentiles, it was no new thing; it was but the old principle of the prophecy finding a new exemplification. Such, perhaps, is all the Apostle means by this application of prophecy to Gospel times. But we cannot so explain another application made in the next chapter of the epistle. There, in proof of the declaration that “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, the same Lord over all being rich unto all that call upon Him,” he quotes what is said in Joel 2:32, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” As found in Joel, the prediction has throughout an Israelitish aspect. It is “in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem” that the deliverance or salvation is said to be provided; and while the Spirit is spoken of as going to be poured out on “all flesh,” still it seems to be flesh only as belonging to the Israelitish territory: for in describing the effect of the outpouring, the prophet says, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men,” etc. Referring to it, therefore, as the Apostle does, for a formal proof of the position, that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek in the matter of salvation, he must have considered the prophet as simply addressing the Church of God, without respect to the Jewish element, which at that time so largely entered into its composition. He must have understood the prophecy as uttered respecting the visible Church of God no matter of what element composed, or how constituted; otherwise there would have been room for plying him with the objection, that by the connection the “all flesh,” and the “every one that calleth,” should be understood of such only among the circumcised Jews, not of those who belonged to the uncircumcised Gentiles. In this more restricted sense, St Peter plainly applied the words of the prediction on the day of Pentecost; for not till some years afterwards did he entertain any thought of comprehending in its provisions the Gentiles as such. Paul’s application of it, therefore, is much freer than Peter’s, and proceeds on the ground of converted Gentiles, not less than believing Jews, being interested in the promises of salvation addressed to the Israelitish Church. We find also the same broad principle of interpretation in the fourth chapter of Galatians, where, in regard to the Church of the New Testament, the Apostle quotes Isaiah 54:1, “Sing, barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.” It is distinctly as a proof text that the Apostle introduces this passage from Isaiah, prefacing it with the words,—“for it is written,” a proof that the “Jerusalem that is above,” in other words, the real Church, is “the mother of us all” who are Christians, and as such is “free,” the real and proper spouse of the Lord. Yet there can be no doubt, that in uttering the word the prophet addressed more immediately the Jewish Church; of that, no one who reads the prophecy in its original connection can entertain the slightest doubt. Hence, according to the interpretation of St Paul, it is not the Jewish element at that time existing in the Church which is now to be respected; it is simply the element of her being the spouse of God (“For thy Maker is thine husband”), which consequently gives to the Church of the New Testament, though formed mainly of believers from among the Gentiles, an equal interest in the grace promised in that prophetic word, with the Church as it was when composed almost exclusively of the descendants of Jacob. But then the Apostle seems suddenly to abandon this broad principle of prophetical interpretation, when in Romans 11:26 he comes to speak of the future conversion of the natural Israel,—“And so (that is, after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, till which blindness in part has happened to Israel) all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” Appealed to as in itself a sufficient proof that the natural seed of Israel as a whole shall be saved, is not this prophecy from Isaiah 59:20-21, here understood as spoken to the Jewish people not as a Church, but merely as a race?Are not those “in Jacob” the fleshly descendants merely of the patriarch, with the literal Zion as the centre of their commonwealth? And if so here, why not elsewhere? Why not also in the prophecies already referred to?And how, then, should the Apostle in them have made account only of the spiritual element in Israel as the Church of God, and regarded the natural (as expressed in the words, Jacob, Zion, Jerusalem) as but incidental and temporary? Such questions not unnaturally arise here; and the rather so, as the Apostle has somewhat altered the words of the prophecy, apparently as if to make them suit better the immediate object to which he applied it. In the prophet it is to Zion, not out of it, that the Redeemer was to come; and He was to come, not to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, but “to those that turn from transgression in Jacob.” Such deviations from the scope and purport of the original have appeared to some so material, that they have come to regard the Apostle here, not so properly interpreting an old prediction, as uttering a prediction of his own, clothed as nearly as possible in the familiar language of an ancient prophecy. But this is an untenable position; for how could we, in that case, have vindicated the Apostle from the want of godly simplicity, using, as he must then have done, his accustomed formula for prophetical quotations (“As it is written”), only to disguise and recommend an announcement properly his own? We can acquiesce in no solution of the difficulty which would represent the Apostle as sailing under false colours. Nor can we regard the alterations as the result of accident or forgetfulness. They have manifestly sprung from design. The correct view, both of the use made of the prediction, and of the line of thought connected with it, we take to be this: The Apostle gives the substantial import of the prophecy in Isaiah, but in accordance with his design gives it also a more special direction, and one that pointed to the kind of fulfilment it must now be expected in that direction to receive. According to the prophet, the Redeemer was to come, literally for Zion—somehow in its behalf; and in the behalf also of penitent souls in it those turning from transgression. So, indeed, He had come already, in the most literal and exact manner, and the small remnant who turned from transgression recognised Him and hailed His coming. But the Apostle is here looking beyond these; he is looking to the posterity of Jacob generally, for whom, in this and other similar predictions, he descries a purpose of mercy still in reserve. For while he strenuously contends that the promise of a seed of blessing to Abraham, through the line of Jacob, was not confined to the natural offspring, he explicitly declares this to have been always included—not the whole, indeed, yet an elect portion out of it. At that very time, when so many were rejected, he tells us there was such an elect portion; and there must still continue to be so, “for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance:” that is, God having connected a blessing with Abraham and his seed in perpetuity, he could never recall it again; there should never cease to be some in whom that blessing was realized. But besides, here also there must be a fulness: the first fruits of blessing gave promise of a coming harvest; and the fulness of the Gentiles itself is a pledge of it: for if there was to be a fulness of these coming in to inherit the blessing, because of the purpose of God to bless the families of the earth in Abraham and his seed, how much more must there be such a fulness in the seed itself! The overflowings of the stream could not possibly reach farther than the direct channel. But then this fulness, in the case of the natural Israel, was not to be (as they themselves imagined, and as many along with them still imagine) separate and apart; as if by providing some channel, or appointing for them some place of their own. Of this the Apostle gives no intimation whatever. Nay, on purpose, we believe, to exclude that very idea, he gives a more special turn to the prophecy, so as to make it out of Zion that the Redeemer was to come, and to turn away ungodliness from those in Jacob. For the old literal Zion, in the Apostle’s view, was now gone: its external frame work was presently to be laid in ruins; and the only Zion, in connection with which the Redeemer could henceforth come, was that Zion in which He now dwells, which is the same with the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church of the New Testament. He must come out of it, at the same time that He comes for it, in behalf of the natural seed of Jacob; and this is all one with saying, that these could only now attain to blessing in connection with the Christian Church; or, as the Apostle himself puts it, could only obtain mercy through their mercy—namely, by the reflux of that mercy which has been bearing in the fulness of believing Gentiles. Thus alone, now, could the prophecy as the result of a Saviour’s gracious presence coming forth from His dwelling-place in Zion, and acting through the instrumentality of a Christian Church. So explained, this part of the Apostle’s argument is in perfect accordance with his principles of interpretation and reasoning elsewhere; and it holds out the amplest encouragement in respect to the good yet in store for the natural Israel. It holds out none, indeed, in respect to the cherished hope of a literal re-establishment of their ancient polity. It rather tends to discourage any such expectations; for the Zion in connection with which it tells us the Messiah is to come, is the one in which He at present dwells—the Zion of the New Testament Church; to which He can no longer come, except at the same time by coming out of it. Let the Church, therefore, that already dwells with Him in this Zion (Hebrews 12:22), go forth in His name, and deal in faith and love with these descendants of the natural Israel. Let her feel that the presence and the blessing of the Lord are with her, that she may bring His word to bear with living power on the outcasts of Jacob, as well as on those ready to perish among the heathen. Let her do it now, not waiting for things that, if they shall ever happen, lie beyond the limits alike of her responsibility and her control; and remembering that, for anything we can tell, the fulness of converted Israel may be brought about gradually, somewhat like the fulness of converted Gentiles. This also was spoken of as one great event by our Lord, when He warned the Jews that the Gospel would be taken from them, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.—(Matthew 21:43) Yet how slow and progressive the accomplishment! Converted Jews, step by step, diffused the leaven of the kingdom among the Gentiles, and converted Gentiles may have to do the part of similarly diffusing it among the Jews that still remain in unbelief. And so “the life from the dead,” which the conversion of Israel is to bring to the Christian Church, may be no single revival effected by a stroke, but a succession of reviving and refreshing influences coming in with every new blessing vouchsafed to the means used for turning away ungodliness from Jacob. VI.—THE APPLICATIONS MADE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS—CONCLUSION. Apart altogether from the doubts which, since an early period, have hung around the authorship of this epistle (on which it were impossible to give any satisfactory deliverance here), there are peculiarities in the use made of Old Testament Scripture, which call for separate treatment, whether it proceeded from the pen of St Paul or not. The epistle abounds with references to Old Testament Scripture, and with direct quotations from it; as was, indeed, unavoidable from the nature of the subject it discusses. It is in its main theme a reasoning from the Old to the New; not, however, for the purpose of proving that Jesus was the Christ promised to the fathers, but rather, taking for granted this as a point mutually held, and showing, from the dignity of Christ’s person, and the perfection of His work, as indicated even in Old Testament Scripture, the completeness of His dispensation in itself, and the mingled folly and danger of keeping up the shadowy services of Judaism, which had lost all their importance when their design was accomplished in Christ. To continue still to adhere to them, of necessity betokened at the very outset defective views of the superlative glory of Christ, and a tendency to look to those merely temporary representations of it for more than they were ever intended to impart; and the probability was, that, if persevered in, the carnal element would carry it entirely over the spiritual, and complete shipwreck of the faith would be made amid the dead observances of an obsolete and now annulled Judaism. Such, briefly, is the aim and drift of this epistle; and it very naturally leads us to expect that the author, in treating the subject, would make considerable use of passages in Old Testament Scripture bearing on Gospel times; that he would lay especial emphasis on those passages which either substantially implied or expressly announced the pre-eminent greatness of Christ’s person, and work, and kingdom; and that he would also draw largely upon the accredited memorials of the past for warnings and expostulations against the danger of backsliding and apostasy, and for incentives to progress in the higher degrees of knowledge and virtue. All this we might have expected, and all this we find, in an epistle full of doctrinal expositions, happily combined with the earnest enforcement of practical duty. But there are some peculiarities in the application of Old Testament passages that appear in the course of the argument, which are not to be met with, at least to the same extent, in any other portions of the New Testament, and which call for some explanation. 1. First of all, there is a peculiarity in the mode of selection. Out of thirty-two or thirty-three passages in all that are quoted from the Scriptures, no fewer than sixteen, or one-half, are taken from the book of Psalms; and these, with only one or two exceptions in the two first chapters, comprise all that are referred to as bearing immediately on the person or work of Christ. There is something very singular in this, and something, we are disposed to think, which should have a degree of importance attached to it in connection with the author’s manner of dealing with Scripture. For some reason or another, he felt himself, if not absolutely shut up, yet practically influenced to confine almost entirely his proof passages, respecting Christ as the Head of the new dispensation, to such as might be found in the book of Psalms. What that reason might be we can only conjecture, or with some probability infer from the nature and object of the epistle. Possibly it arose from the constant use made of the psalter in the Jewish worship, whereby it was not only rendered more familiar to the minds of the Judaizing Christians than any other portion of ancient Scripture, but was also most naturally regarded as of special authority in matters connected with the devotional service of God. So that arguments drawn from this source in behalf of a more spiritual worship, and for the disuse of those fleshly services with which it had been wont to be associated, could scarcely fail to tell with peculiar force on the subject of controversy—might even seem to come like a voice from the temple itself in testimony against its antiquated usages. At all events, the fact of the Apostle’s quotations on this point being derived almost wholly from the Psalms, may justly be regarded as resting on some important consideration which it was necessary to keep in view. And this being the case, we should not so much wonder at testimonies respecting Christ being taken from passages there where He is not so plainly exhibited, while no reference is made to others in the prophetical books of Scripture more direct and explicit. The author deemed it right to draw his materials from a limited field, and he naturally pressed these as far as he properly could. 2. But does he not press them too far? Does he not really seek for materials in proof of Christ’s personal or mediatorial greatness where they are not to be found? So it has been supposed; and it is not to be denied that another peculiarity meets us here, in the extent to which the book of Psalms is used in this epistle for testimonies respecting Christ. Particular psalms are employed in the discussion which are nowhere else in the New Testament applied to Christ. Not, however, it should be observed, to the neglect of those which are elsewhere applied to Him; not as if the author were hunting for concealed treasures, and making light of such as lay open to his view. The more remarkable Messianic psalms—the Psalms 2:1-12, the Psalms 22:1-31, the Psalms 40:1-17, the Psalms 45:1-17, the Psalms 110:1-7 are all referred to at different places as testifying of the things belonging to the Messiah. But besides these (to which we do not need now to refer more particularly), we find in the first chapter alone two other psalms, the Psalms 97:1-12 and the Psalms 102:1-28, quoted without a note of explanation as portions bearing respect to Christ. Thus, at Hebrews 1:6, it is said, “When He bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him,” quoting the latter clause of Psalms 97:7. And the concluding part of Psalms 102:1-28 is brought forward as spoken directly to the Son, “To the Son He saith, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands,” etc. It should be carefully remembered, however, in respect to the use made of such passages, that the Apostle is not appealing to them for the purpose of proving that Jesus was the Messiah, or that He who became the Messiah in the fulness of time originally brought the universe into being. The Apostle is writing to persons who understood and believed these points—believed both that Jesus was the Christ, and that by Him, as God’s Word and Son, the worlds had been at first made, as well as redemption now accomplished for a believing people. The question was, What honour and respect might be due to Him as such?and whether there was not a glory in Him that overshadowed, and in a manner extinguished, the glory of all preceding revelations?Now, for this purpose the passages referred to were perfectly in point, and contained a testimony which must have been quite valid with believing Hebrews. According to their belief also (in fact, they could not have been in any proper sense Christians without having first come to the belief that), the Messiah was, as to His Divine nature, the Son of God, and the immediate agent of Godhead in the creation of the world. Hence, as a matter of course, the word, in the concluding portion of the Psalms 102:1-28 Psalm, addressed to God as the Creator, must have been held as immediately applicable to the Son; it is of necessity His creative energy, and uncreated, unchangeable existence that is there more directly celebrated. No one can doubt this who knows the relation of the Son to the Father as the revealer of Godhead, in the works of creation and of providence. And, in like manner, the Psalms 97:1-12 Psalm, which points to the manifestation of God’s power and glory in the world, as going to bring discomfiture on all the worshippers of idols, and joy to the Church. What believer can really doubt that this was mainly to be accomplished in the person and the work of Christ? Even Rabbinical writers have understood it of Messiah. There is no other manifestation of God, either past or to come, fitted to produce such results but the personal manifestation given in Christ; and the call to worship God, written in the psalm, was most properly connected with the incarnation of the Divine Word. When by that event the First-begotten was literally brought into the world, there was the loudest matter-of-fact proclamation, calling upon all to worship Him. It was only then, indeed, that the peculiar displays of Divine power and glory began to be put forth, which the psalm announces; and the spiritual results it speaks of always appear according as Christ comes to be known and honoured as the manifested God. But the use made in the second chapter of the eighth Psalm is thought by some still more peculiar and difficult of explanation. For in that psalm the glory of God is celebrated in the most general way, as connected with the place and dignity of man upon the earth; and how can it be produced as a testimony for Christ?But is it so produced?As far as we can see, the Apostle does not understand what is written in that psalm as pointing at all, directly or exclusively, to Christ. He is answering an objection, which, though not formally proposed, yet was plainly anticipated as ready to start up in the minds of his readers, to what he had advanced concerning the Divine honour and glory due to Christ, as the Eternal Son of God. However He may be so when viewed simply in respect to His Divine nature, yet as known to us, He was a man like ourselves; yea, a man compassed about with infirmity, and subject to suffering above the common lot of humanity; and might not the consideration of this detract somewhat from His dignity? Might it not even be justly regarded as placing Him below the angels?By no means, says the Apostle, there is a glory of God connected also with man’s estate; the Psalmist was filled with wonder and admiration at the imperfect indications he beheld of it in his day, regarding these as pledges of the more complete realizations of it yet to come; and it must be realized and perfected, not in connection with the nature of angels, but in connection with the nature of man. In allying Himself with man, the Son of God, indeed, stooped for a time below the dignity of angels, but it was only that He might raise manhood to a higher position even than theirs; He made Godhead incarnate, that He might, in a manner, deify humanity, that is, raise it to a participation in His own peerless majesty and fulness of blessing. In a word, the lordship of this world, which from the first was destined for man, and the thought of which filled the Psalmist with rapture and astonishment—this, in all its perfection and completeness, is still to be the inheritance of redeemed man, because the Eternal Son, as Redeemer, has, by becoming man, secured the title to it for Himself and as many as are joined to Him by a living faith. So that Christ has lost nothing of His proper glory by assuming the nature of man, but has simply made provision for a redeemed people sharing with Him in it. It is in connection with this branch of the argument also that the Apostle refers to a passage in Isaiah, which has been thought not strictly applicable to Christ. It is Isaiah 8:17-18, where the prophet, in his own name or another, says, “I will wait (or trust) upon the Lord; behold, I and the children which the Lord hath given me, are for signs and wonders,” etc. The prophet, it has been thought, speaks there of himself, and of his own proper children, as specially raised up by the Lord, to encourage the people to trust in the Divine power and faithfulness for deliverance. That, however, is by no means so clear as some would have it. It is fully as probable, and the opinion is certainly growing among commentators, that the prophet rather rises here above himself and his children to those whom they represented to the Angel of the Covenant, and His spiritual seed; for he says immediately before, “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples, and I will wait,” etc. Who could speak thus of his disciples, and command the testimony to be bound up? Surely a higher than Isaiah is there. But even supposing that the prophet spoke of himself—supposing that in what follows, at least in the words quoted here, he does speak of himself and his own children; yet, as these must unquestionably have been viewed as personating the Immanuel and His spiritual offspring, the pas sage, even in that view of it, was a perfectly valid proof of the point for which it is quoted. It plainly indicates a oneness of nature in the Head and the members of the Lord’s covenant people, and a common exposure to the ills of humanity. 3. A third peculiarity, and one that has been thought still more characteristic of the Old Testament quotations in this epistle from those elsewhere made in the New Testament, is, that they are uniformly taken from the Septuagint (i.e., the old Greek translation of the Old Testament), even where that differs materially from the original Hebrew. The New Testament writers generally, and the Apostle Paul in particular, very frequently quoted from that version, because it was in common use in the synagogues, and had acquired a kind of standard value. But they also, in many cases, departed from it, when it did not give at least the general sense of the original. This, however, is never done in the Epistle to the Hebrews; the Septuagint version is almost uniformly quoted from, whether it gives or deviates from the exact meaning. Thus the words of Psalms 99:1-9, rendered in Hebrews 1:6, “Let all the angels of God worship Him,” are literally, “Worship Him, all ye gods.” So again in the quotation from the eighth Psalm in the second chapter, what is literally, “Thou hast made Him want a little of God,” is given from the Septuagint, “Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels.” A still greater deviation occurs in Hebrews 10:5, where the words from Psalms 40:1-17, which are in the original, “Mine ears hast Thou bored,” or opened, stand thus, “A body hast Thou prepared me.” And once more, a passage taken from Habakkuk, in Hebrews 10:38, which, according to the Hebrew, is, “Behold, his soul is lifted up, it is not upright in him,” appears in the much altered form of the Greek version, “If any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him.” We omit other and less important variations. Those we have adduced undoubtedly show a close adherence to the Greek version, even where it is not strictly correct. At the same time, it is to be observed, that nothing in the way of argument is built upon the differences between that version and the original; and the sentiment it expresses, so far as used by the Apostle, would not have been materially affected by a more literal translation. Indeed, in the last instance referred to, the passage from the prophet Habakkuk is not formally given as a citation at all; and as the order of the clauses also stands differently in the epistle from what it does in the Septuagint, so as to suit more exactly the object of the writer, we may rather regard him as adopting for his own what was found in the Septuagint, and giving it the sanction of his authority, than intending to convey the precise sense of the ancient prophet. And, after all, it is only a differently expressed, not by any means a discordant, sense from that of the prophet. The swollen, puffed-up soul is not upright, or does not maintain the even course of integrity. When the prophet says this, he only expresses more generally what is more fully and specifically intimated by the Apostle, when he speaks of such as draw back in times of trial, and incur thereby the displeasure of God. The passage taken from the fortieth Psalm admits of a similar explanation. The Apostle lays no stress upon the words, “A body hast Thou prepared me;” he lays stress only on the declared readiness of the speaker in the psalm to do the will of God, by a personal surrender to its requirements; and as to say, “Mine ears hast Thou opened,” means, Thou hast made me ready to listen to all the demands of Thy service; so to say, “A body hast Thou prepared me,” is but to turn it from a part of the body to the whole, and to intimate that his body itself was provided for the purpose of yielding the obedience required. The difference is quite a superficial one as regards the vein of thought running through the passage. And such also is the case with the other quotations, in which the angels are substituted for God or gods. It is plain that, in such expressions as, “Worship Him, ye gods,” and, “Thou hast made him to want but a little of God,” something else than the supreme Jehovah is meant by the Elohim of the original—it must denote more generally something divine or divine-like in condition and dignity, whether esteemed such on earth, or actually such in heavenly places. And the angels being the creatures nearest to God that we are acquainted with, they were not unnaturally regarded as substantially answering to the idea indicated in the expression. Many, even of the most learned interpreters, still think, that it is best to abide by the word angels in the passages referred to. 4. In conclusion, we shall make only two remarks—the one more immediately applicable to the peculiarity just noticed in this epistle, and the other common to it with the New Testament generally, in respect to the use of the Old Testament Scriptures. The first is, that it perfectly consists with a profound regard to Scripture as given by inspiration of God, to employ a measure of freedom in quoting it, if no violence is done to its general import. There are cases in which much hangs on a particular expression; and in these cases the utmost exactness is necessary. In this very epistle a striking example is furnished of the pregnancy of single words, in the comment made upon those of Psalms 110:1-7, “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,” where every expression is shown to be important. And it is not too much to affirm, from such specimens of inspired interpretation, that the very words of Scripture are to be held as bearing on them the stamp of the Spirit’s guidance. On the other hand, the free renderings adopted in other places where it was enough to obtain the general import, teach us to avoid the errors of superstitious Jews and learned pedants, and to be more anxious to imbibe the spirit of Scripture, than to canonize its mere words and letters. We must contend for every jot and tittle of the word, when the adversary seeks, by encroaching on these, to impair or corrupt the truth of God. But we are not absolutely bound up to that; we may freely use even a general or incomplete representation of its meaning, if by so doing we are more likely to get a favourable hearing for the important truths it unfolds. Correctness without scrupulosity should be the rule here, as in the Christian life generally. Our second remark is, that the chief thing necessary for enabling us to go heartily along with the applications made both here and elsewhere, of the Old Testament in the New, is a correct apprehension of the relation between the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. It is because the inspired writers went so much farther in this respect than many of their readers and commentators are disposed to do now, that the great difficulty is experienced in sympathizing with this part of their writings. They saw everything in the Old pointing and tending towards the manifestation of God in Christ; so that not only a few leading prophecies and more prominent institutions, but even subordinate arrangements and apparently incidental notices in matters connected with the ancient economy, were regarded as having a significance in respect to Christ and the Gospel. No one can see eye to eye with them in this, if he has been wont practically to divorce Christ from the Old Testament. And in proportion as an intelligent discernment of the connection between the two economies is acquired, the course actually adopted by the New Testament writers will appear the more natural and justifiable. Let there only be a just appreciation of the things written and done in former times, as preparatory to the better things to come in Christ, and there will be found nothing to offend even the science and the taste of the nineteenth century in the principles of interpretation sanctioned in the writings of the New Testament. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 124: 05.19. APPENDIX B. ======================================================================== Appendix B.—The Doctrine Of A Future State.. IN the text we have merely vindicated the Old Testament Scriptures from any charge of inconsistence in the reserve these maintained regarding the doctrine of a future state. It is desirable, however, to present the subject in a fuller light, and to consider both the state of opinion that prevailed respecting it in heathen antiquity, and the relation in which the Old and the New Testament Scriptures alike stand to it. We shall thus have an opportunity of pointing out several erroneous views, as we conceive, that are still of frequent occurrence in discussions upon the subject. 1. First of all, we look to the general fact that—somehow, and in some form or another, a belief in the doctrine of the soul’s immortality has prevailed in nations which had only natural resources to guide them in their religious views and tenets. We are not aware of any considerable people, either in ancient or in modern times, of whom this might not be affirmed; and among all nations that have reached any degree of intelligence and civilisation, it is notorious that the doctrine has always held a recognised and prominent place in the articles of popular belief. In no age or country has a public religion existed, which did not associate with it the prospect of a future state of happiness or misery as one of its leading elements and most influential considerations. So much is this the case, that the fear of the gods in heathen states was very commonly looked upon as identified with the expectation of good and evil in a life after the present; and the ancient legislators, who established, and the sages who vindicated, the importance of religion, with one consent agree in deriving its main virtue from the salutary hopes and terrors it inspired respecting the life to come.[158] We are perfectly entitled, therefore, from the existence and prevalence of religion among men, to infer, in a corresponding degree, the existence and prevalence of a belief in the immortality of the soul, or its destination in some form hereafter to a better or a worse state than belongs to it here. And as nothing ever attains to the rank of a universal belief, or general characteristic of mankind, which is not rooted in some common instinct of man’s nature, we may further assert it as an undoubted fact, that this idea of a future state is one that springs from the spiritual instincts which belong to man as man; or, in the expressive language of Coleridge, that “its fibres are to be traced to the taproot of humanity.” [158] See Warburton’s Div. Leg., B. III. § 1, for the proof of this; and Russell’s Connection, vol. i., p. 308, seq. Exceptions, no doubt, are to be found to it, even among those who externally joined in the popular religion of their country; but only in the case of persons, or parties, who were unfavourably situated for the development of their spiritual instincts, and who have seldom, in any age or country, formed more than a small minority of their generation. Such an exception, for example, appeared in the case of the Sadducees in the latter days of the Hebrew commonwealth,—a sect small in point of numbers, and one that sprang up, partly as a reaction from the superstitions and frivolities of Pharisaism, and partly from the spread of Grecian culture among the richer and more ambitious classes in Judea. It was essentially a sect of philosophy, and had drunk too deeply of the sceptical influences of heathenism to be much impressed with any religious beliefs; though its repulsion to Pharisaism probably led it to take up more of an extreme position in respect to them than it might otherwise have done. But it is impossible for any one to read the occasional notices given of the sect in Josephus, without perceiving that, as a party, they habitually did violence to the moral as well as the spiritual instincts of their nature; that they exhibited the usual characteristics of the infidel spirit, and would very soon have ceased even from the profession of religion, if they had not been surrounded by a religious atmosphere. So that they can scarcely be regarded as exceptions to the natural union of the religious sentiment with the prospect of an hereafter; for the religious sentiment had but a shadowy existence in their bosom. Substantially the same explanation is to be given of the views entertained by individual writers, and by some whole sects of heathen philosophers. Their intellectual culture unfitted them for sympathizing with the popular forms, into which either the worship of the gods or the belief of a future state of existence had thrown itself. They saw the grossness and manifold absurdity of what had obtained the general assent, without having anything of their own clearly defined and thoroughly ascertained to put in its place; and the inevitable result was, that many of them became sceptical on the whole subject of religion, and others wavered from side to side in a kind of half-belief sometimes giving utterance to the hopes and fears that naturally sprang from the conviction of a Supreme Governor, and again expressing themselves as if all heaven were a fable, and all futurity a blank. It was not that nature in them wanted the spiritual instincts it seems to possess in other men, or that these instincts failed to link themselves with the prospect of a future existence; but that, situated as they were, the instincts wanted appropriate forms in which to clothe their feelings and expectations, and thus had either to hew out a channel of their own for faith and hope to flow in (which they were often too weak to do), or collapsed into a state of painful uncertainty or sceptical disbelief. We take this to be both a fairer and a more rational account of the state of opinion prevalent among the more thoughtful and speculative part of ancient heathens, than that given by Bishop Warburton, and argued anew in recent times by Archbishop Whately. Warburton has laboured, with a great profusion of learning, to show that all the ancient philosophers, with the exception of Socrates, were in their real sentiments disbelievers in a future state of reward and punishment, and only taught it in their exoteric writings as a doctrine profitable to the vulgar. We think it is impossible to make out this by any fair interpretation of the better writings of heathen antiquity, and without giving far too much weight to the explanations and statements of the later Sophists and Neo-Platonists, who are no proper authorities on such questions. The doctrine of the soul’s immortality, and of its destination to a future state of reward or punishment, comes out too frequently in the higher and even more philosophical productions of the ancients, to admit of being explained on the ground of a mere paltering to vulgar superstition and prejudice. And both the frequency of its recurrence, and the variety of forms in which the belief is uttered, force on us the conviction that the writers, in uttering it, often expressed the native sentiments of their hearts. But then the crude representations and incredible absurdities with which the doctrine was mixed up in the only authoritative form known to them, as often again drove them back from the ground they were inclined to occupy, and set speculation, with her daughters, doubt and uncertainty, wholly adrift. They could not fall in, heart and soul, with what had been embodied in the religion of their country, and had established itself in the popular belief; and it was, therefore, perfectly natural, that many inconsistencies on the subject should appear in their writings; that they should be found retracting at one time what they seemed to have conceded at another; and that in their recoil of feeling from the palpably erroneous on one side, they should often have lost themselves in thick darkness on the other. All this, however, is to be understood only of the more learned and speculative portion of heathen antiquity; of those who either formally attached themselves to some sect of philosophy, or were, to a certain extent, imbued with the spirit of philosophy. Such persons were manifestly in the most unfavourable position for the free development of their spiritual instincts. Policy alone, or a sense of public duty, led them to take any part in defending the existence, or in observing the rites, of the prevailing religion; so that they were continually doing the part of dissemblers and hypocrites. But, undoubtedly, they would not have done in this respect what they did, or avowed so often their belief in a moral government above, and a state of recompense before them, unless these ideas had been inter woven with the established religion, and had come, through it, to pervade the minds of their countrymen. Warburton’s declarations to this effect may be regarded as substantially correct, when he lays down the position, that a future state of rewards and punishments was not only taught and propagated by lawgivers, priests, and philosophers, but was also universally received by the people throughout the whole earth.[159] [159] Div. Leg., B. III., § 2. Dr Whately, however, who, in his Essay on the Revelation of a Future State, generally re-echoes, as before stated, the sentiments of Warburton, expresses discordant views on this part of the subject. He seems to think that the people generally had as little belief in the existence of a future state of reward and punishment as the philosophers. From an expression in Plato, that “men in general were highly incredulous as to the soul’s future existence,” he concludes it to have been “notoriously the state of popular opinion” at the time, that “the accounts of Elysium and Tartarus were regarded as mere poetical fables, calculated to amuse the imagination, but unworthy of serious belief.” Let us test this conclusion by a parallel declaration from a Platonic English philosopher—Lord Shaftesbury. This nobleman, ridiculing the fear of future punishment as fit at best only for the vulgar, adds regarding others, “Such is the nature of the liberal, polished, and refined part of mankind; so far are they from the mere simplicity of babes and sucklings, that, instead of applying the notion of a future reward or punishment to their immediate behaviour in society, they are apt much rather, through the whole course of their lives, to show evidently that they look on the pious narrations to be indeed no better than children’s tales, and the amusement of the mere vulgar.”[160] This is, in fact, a far stronger and more sweeping assertion of a general disbelief among the learned now regarding the expectation of a future state, than that made by Plato of the generality of men in ancient times; but who would think of founding on such a statement, though uttered with the greatest assurance, as if no one could doubt what was said, a conclusion as to the all but universal rejection by educated men in modern times of the Scripture representations of the future world? Who does not know that the conclusion would be notoriously false? But the inference drawn from the remark of Plato rests on a still looser foundation. And, indeed, if the matter had been as Dr Whately represents it, even in Plato’s time, where should have been the temptation to the philosophers who lived then and afterwards, for so often speaking and writing differently, as is alleged, from what they really thought, respecting the world to come? They did so, we are told, in accommodation to the popular belief—that is (if this representation were correct), in accommodation to a belief which was known to have had no actual existence. [160] Characteristics, vol. iii., p. 177. Dr Whately lays special stress in this part of his essay on the account given by Thucydides, of the effects produced among the Athenians by the memorable plague which ravaged the city and neighbourhood. Many at first, the historian tells us, “had recourse to the offices of their religion, with a view to appease the gods; but when they found their sacrifices and ceremonies availed nothing against the disease, and that the pious and impious alike fell victims to it, they at once concluded that piety and impiety were altogether indifferent, and cast oft all religious and moral obligations.” “Is it not evident from this,” the Archbishop asks, “that those who did reverence the gods had been accustomed to look for none but temporal rewards and punishments from them? Can we conceive that men who expected that virtue should be rewarded, and vice punished, in the other world, would, just at their entrance into that world, begin to regard virtue and vice as indifferent?” We take this to be an entire misapplication of the historian’s facts; and a misapplication that has arisen from an error very prevalent among English theologians, and shared in by Archbishop Whately, in the mode of contemplating the doctrine of a future recompense—as if the expectation of a future were somehow incompatible with the experience of a present recompense. We shall have occasion to expose this error by and bye. But, meanwhile, we assert that such a dissolution of manners and general lawlessness as took place at Athens under the awful visitation of the plague, and as always to some extent attends similar calamities, is rather a proof of men’s expecting a future state of reward and punishment than the reverse—that is, of their doing so in their regular and ordinary state of mind, when they appear to pay some regard to virtue, and to wait on the offices of religion. The recklessness of what may be called their abnormal condition, bespeaks how much their normal one was under the restraining and regulating influences of fear and hope. We hold it, then, as an established fact, that the expectation of a future state of reward and punishment has been the general characteristic of men in every age, wherever they have been so situated as to find free scope to the spiritual instincts of their nature. The general prevalence alone of religious worship is a proof of it; for religion, whether in the nation or the individual, has never long flourished—it soon languishes and expires, when divorced from the belief of a coming state of happiness or misery. The expectation, no doubt, of such a state, in all heathen forms of belief, has never failed to connect itself with many grievous errors, especially as to the mode of existence in the future world, and the kinds of reward and punishment that have been anticipated. There human reason and conjecture have always proved miserable guides; and the doctrines of the metempsychosis, from one fleshly form to another, the higher doctrine of the absorption into the Divine unity, and the fables of Tartarus and Elysium, were but so many efforts on the part of the human mind to give distinct shape and form to its expectations of the future. These efforts were necessarily abortive. And the facts of the case will bear us no farther in the right direction, than in enabling us to assert the prevalence of a wide-spread, well-nigh universal belief of a future existence, mainly depending for the good or evil to be experienced in it, on the conduct maintained during the present life. But so far, we are thoroughly satisfied, they do bear us. Before leaving this point, we must be allowed to say, that there is a manifest unfairness in the way in which the sentiments of heathen antiquity, especially of its more profound thinkers, are very commonly represented by Warburton and his followers. This is particularly apparent in the use that is made of the alleged secret doctrine amongst them. It cannot be denied that their writings contain strong statements in favour of a future state; but then, it is affirmed, these were only the writings that contained their exoteric doctrines: their real, or more strictly philosophical and esoteric doctrines, must be sought elsewhere. In this way the whole argumentation in Plato’s Phaedo goes for nothing; because that, it is alleged, belonged to the exoteric class, or his writings for the vulgar. A strange sort of vulgar it must have been, that could be supposed to enter with relish into the line of argumentation pursued in that discourse! We should like also, on that supposition, to see the line described that separates, as to form and style, between the philosophical and the popular, the esoteric and the exoteric, in ancient writings. But the ground for such a distinction at all has been enormously exaggerated, and was very much the invention of the later Platonists. Recent criticism has come to a different mind: thus, Professor Brandis, in the article on Plato in Smith’s Dictionary, treats “the assumption of a secret doctrine as groundless;” and the late Professor Butler holds the division of Plato’s dialogues into exoteric and esoteric to be a mere hypothesis.—(Lect., vol. ii., p. 33.) We cannot but reckon it unfair, also, in regard to Cicero, the next great writer of antiquity, who has treated at large of the question of the soul’s immortality, to set against his deliberate and formal statements on the subject, a few occasional sentences culled from his private letters, and but too commonly written when the calamities of life had enveloped him in gloom and despondency. In the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, c. 15, he enunciates both his own and the general belief, as one growing out of the rational instincts of humanity; and we have no reason to question the sincerity of the statement: Nescio quomodo, inhaeret in mentibus quasi seculorum quoddam augurium futurorum; idque in maximis ingenüs, altissimisque animis, et existit maxime, et apparet facillime. He ridicules, indeed, the popular belief about Hades, as contrary to reason, and says enough to indicate how much of darkness and uncertainty mingled with his anticipations of the future; but the belief itself of a state of being after the present is never disparaged or denied, but rather clung to throughout. It admits, however, of no doubt, that in the age of Cicero the general tone of society at Rome among the more refined and influential classes was deeply tinctured with infidelity. The sceptical spirit of the later philosophy of Greece, which regarded nothing as true, except that everything was involved in uncertainty, had become extensively prevalent among the rulers of the world. And such public disclaimers respecting the future punishments of Hades as are to be found in Caesar’s speech against Catiline, ascribed to him by Sallust, or in Cicero’s oration for Cluentius, and the nox est perpetua, una dormienda, of the loose but refined epicurean Catullus (on which Dr Whately lays stress), are no more to be regarded as fair indications of the general belief of heathendom, than the infidel utterances of the French philosophers of last century are to be taken as just representations of the general belief of Christendom. 2. Let us proceed, however, in the next place, to look at the natural grounds for this belief. And here, at the outset, we are to bear in mind a truth which is often verified in respect to men’s convictions and judgments, as well in secular matters as in those of a moral and spiritual kind, viz., that a belief may be correctly formed, or a fact may be truly stated, and yet the reasons assigned for it in individual cases may be, if not absolutely wrong, at least very in adequate and inconclusive. It was the advice of a learned judge to a man of much natural shrewdness and sagacity, when appointed to a judicial function in the colonies, to give his decisions with firmness, but to withhold the reasons on which they were grounded; for in all probability the decisions would be right, while the reasons would be incapable of standing a close examination. We need, not wonder, therefore, if in the higher field of religious thought and inquiry—if, especially in respect to those anticipations which men are prompted to form respecting a future existence—anticipations originating in the instincts of their rational nature, and nourished by a great variety of thoughts and considerations insensibly working upon their minds, both from within and from without—when they began to reason out the matter in their own minds, they should often have rested their views on partial or erroneous grounds. This is what has actually happened, both in ancient and in modern times.[161] [161] Plato’s Repub., B. L, § 5. If we look, for example, into the most systematic and far-famed treatise which has come down to us from heathen antiquity on this subject the Phaedo of Plato—we can scarcely help feeling some surprise at the manifest fancifulness of some of the reasons advanced for a future state of existence, and their utter inconclusiveness as a whole. It is the greatest of Grecian sages who is represented as unfolding them—Socrates;—Socrates, too, when on the very eve of his martyrdom; and his thoughts have the advantage of being developed by one of the greatest masters of reasoning, and the very greatest master of dialectical skill, of whom antiquity could boast. But what are the arguments adduced? There are altogether five. The first is the soul’s capacity and desire for knowledge, beyond what it can ever attain to in the present life: for, at present, it is encumbered on every side by the body, and obliged to spend a large portion of its time and resources in providing for bodily wants; so that it can never penetrate, as it desires, into the real nature and essence of things, and can even get very imperfectly acquainted with their phenomenal appearances. Hence the soul being made for the acquisition of knowledge, and having capacities for making indefinite progress in it, there must be a future state of being where, in happier circumstances, the end of its being in this respect shall be realized. The second argument is from the law of contraries—according to which things in nature are ever producing their opposites—rest issuing in labour, and labour again in rest—heat terminating in cold, and cold returning to heat—unity resolving itself into plurality, and plurality into unity;—and so, since life terminates in death, death must in turn come back to life; not, however, through the body which perishes, but in the soul itself that survives it. Then, thirdly, there are the soul’s reminiscences of a previous life, by which are meant the ideas which it possesses other than those it has derived from the five senses—such as of matter and space, cause and effect, truth and duty,—ideas which, it is supposed, must have been brought by the soul from a previous state of existence; and if it has already passed out of one state of existence in coming into this world, the natural supposition is, that in leaving it the soul shall again pass into another. The simple and indivisible nature of the soul is advanced as a fourth argument for immortality;—the soul in its essence is not, like bodily substances, compounded, divisible, and hence corruptible, but is itself, like the ideas it apprehends, immaterial, spiritual, incapable of change or dissolution into other elements. Then, lastly, there is the consideration of the soul’s essential vitality, being the principle of life that animates and supports the body, and which, like the element of heat in material substances, may leave its former habitation, but must still retain its own inherent properties—must be vital still, though the body it has left necessarily falls into inertness, corruption, and death. Such are the arguments advanced in this celebrated discourse for the soul’s immortality—every one of them, it will be observed, except the first, of a metaphysical nature; though toward the close a kind of moral application is made of them, by urging the cultivation of mental, as opposed to sensual, desires and properties. “On account of these things,” Socrates is made to say, “a man ought to be confident about his soul, who during this life has disregarded all the pleasures and ornaments of the body as foreign to his nature, and who, having thought they do more harm than good, has zealously applied himself to the acquirement of knowledge, and who, having adorned his soul, not with a foreign, but with its own proper ornament, temperance, justice, fortitude, freedom, and truth, thus waits for his passage to Hades, as one who is ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him.” The meaning is, not that the enjoyment of immortality depends upon the cultivation of such tendencies and virtues, for the reasons are all derived from the soul’s inherent nature, and if good for anything are good for every one who possesses a soul, but that, by being so exercised here, the soul becomes ready for at once entering on its better destiny; while in the case of others, a sort of purgatory has first to be gone through—processes of shame and humiliation to detach it from the grosser elements that have gained the ascendancy over it. But in regard to the arguments themselves, who would now be convinced by them?There is manifestly nothing in that derived from the law of contraries; for in how many things does it not hold?how many evils in nature appear to issue in no countervailing good?Neither is there anything in that derived from the supposed reminiscences of a former life—there being in reality no such reminiscences. And the reason found in the soul’s essential vitality is a simple begging of the question; for, apart from what has appeared of this in its connection with the body, what is known of it?What proof otherwise exists of the soul’s vitality? Of the two remaining arguments, the one placed in the soul’s simple and indivisible nature has often been revived. Not only does it recur in Cicero, among the ancients, and in such modern metaphysical productions as those of Clarke and Cudworth; but the sagacious Bishop Butler also makes use of it in his Analogy, and puts it, perhaps, in its least objectionable form. Dr Thomas Brown even lays the chief stress on it: “The mind,” he contends, “is a substance, distinct from the bodily organ, simple, and in capable of addition or subtraction.” That is his first proposition; and his next is, “Nothing which we are capable of observing in the universe has ceased to exist since the world began.” The two together, he conceives, establish the conclusion, so far as analogy can have influence, that “the mind does not perish in the dissolution of the body.” And he adds: “In judging according to the mere light of nature, it is on the immaterialism of the thinking principle that I consider the belief of its immortality to be most reasonably founded; since the distinct existence of a spiritual substance, if that be admitted, renders it incumbent on the asserter of the soul’s mortality to assign some reason which may have led the only Being who has the power of annihilation, to exert His power in annihilating the mind, which He is said, in that case, to have created only for a few years of life.” As if there were here no alternative between the annihilation of the substance of mind, and the destruction of its existence and identity as a living agent! The matter of the body, it is true, is not annihilated at death; the particles of which it is composed still continue to exist, but not surely as the component elements of an organized structure. In that respect the body is destroyed—as far as our present observation goes, annihilated. And why may it not be so in respect to the mind?Allow that this is an immaterial substance, and as such, essentially different from the body; yet, for aught we can tell, it might be capable of being resolved into some condition as far from a continuation of its present state, as that of the dead body is in respect to its living state. The phenomena of swoons and sleep clearly show that immateriality is no security against the suspension of thought and consciousness; and who shall be able to assure us, on merely natural considerations, that death is not a destruction of them? In truth, no sure footing can be obtained here on metaphysical grounds. It was the error and misfortune of the ancient philosophers so far we certainly agree with Bishop Warburton[162]—that they suffered themselves to be determined by metaphysical rather than by moral arguments on the subject; for this naturally took off their minds from the considerations that have real weight, and involved them in many absurd and subtle speculations, which could not stand with the soul’s personal existence hereafter. When he excepts Socrates from the number, and accounts for his firm belief in a future state on the ground of his avoiding metaphysical and adhering only to moral studies, he certainly gives us a very different view of the reasonings of Socrates on the subject from that presented in Plato. And we are persuaded, that neither was Socrates so singular in his belief, nor the others so universal in their disbelief, of a future state, as Warburton would have us to believe. But, undoubtedly, there would have been far more of belief among them, if their reasonings had taken less of a meta physical direction, and they had looked more to those moral considerations connected with man’s nature and God’s government, on which the stay of the argument should alone be placed. [162] Div. Leg., B. III., § 4. Let us now endeavour to indicate briefly the different steps of the ratiocination, which it is possible for unassisted nature, when rightly directed, to take in the way of establishing the belief of the soul’s existence after death in a state of reward or punishment. (1.) First of all, there is an argument furnished by the analogies of nature,—an argument partly, indeed, of a simply negative character, and amounting to nothing more than that, notwithstanding the visible phenomena of death, the soul may survive and pass into another state of painful or blessed consciousness. For, however nearly connected the soul is with the body, it still is capable of many things that argue the possibility of its maintaining a separate and independent existence. Bodily organs may be lost—even great part of the body be reduced to an inactive lump by paralysis, while the mind exists in full vigour. In dreaming, and the exercise of abstract thought, there is sometimes found the most lively exercise of mind, when its connection with the body is the slightest, and, as far as we can discern, mind alone is at work. Why may it not, then, live and act when it is altogether released from the body—especially when we see the period of its release is often the moment of its highest perfection and most active energy? Those preceding analogies render it not unreasonable to imagine, that such at least may be the case. Besides, life here is seen to move in cycles. It proceeds from one stage to another each end proving only the starting-point of a new beginning. Man himself exists in two entirely different conditions—before and after birth; and throughout his whole course of life on earth, he is perpetually undergoing change. Other creatures have still more marked changes and progressions in their career. Thus in many insects there is first the egg, then the worm, then the chrysalis, then the fully developed insect. And there are cases (of Aphides) in which as many as six or eight generations of successive change and development pass away, before a return is made to the original type. Such things appearing in the present operations of nature, afford, indeed, no positive proof that life in man is destined to survive the body, and enter on a sphere entirely different from the present; but they are well fitted to suggest the thought—and they meet the objection, which might not unnaturally arise, when the thought was suggested, from the great diversity necessarily existing between the present and that supposed future life. For they show that it is part of the Divine plan to continue life through very different circumstances and conditions. It is manifest, however, that such analogies in nature cannot be pressed farther than this—they simply render possible or conceivable the soul’s destination to another life, and answer objections apt to arise against it; but they contain no positive proof of the fact. Indeed, proceeding as they do upon the constitution of man’s physical nature, and what is common to him with the inferior creation, they start the objection on the other side—that if on such grounds immortality might be predicated of man, it might also be predicated of all animals alike. But there is another class of analogies, to which this objection does not apply, which bring out the essential difference between man and the inferior animals; and are not simply negative in their character, but contain something of presumptive evidence in favour of a future state, closely connected with the present. The analogies in question are those presented by the adaptations so largely pervading the Divine administration on earth, by means of which every being and every part of being is wisely fitted to its place and condition. We see this adaptation in the construction of the organs of the human body—the eye, the ear, the taste, the limbs,—all so nicely adjusted to the positions they occupy, both in respect to the human frame itself, and to the purposes they have to serve in connection with the material objects around them. We see it in the masticating and digestive apparatus, with which the various kinds of animals are furnished—one after one fashion, another after another, but each most appropriately suited to the nature and habits of the specific animal, and the kind of aliment required for its support. We see it even in the general condition of the inferior creation, which is so ordered in the great majority of instances, that each living creature gets the measure of good of which it is capable, and with which it is satisfied. And then there are prospective contrivances in connection with all animal natures,—contrivances formed at one stage of their existence, and preparing them for entering upon and enjoying another still before them—such as the eyes that are already fashioned in the foetus, and the second row of teeth that lie for a time buried in the mouth of the child, and spring up only when they are required. Now, when we turn to man with his large capacities and lofty aspirations,—growing and rising as he proceeds through life, but still capable of indefinite expansion, and conscious of desires that can find no satisfaction here, does it not impress itself on our minds, that there would be something anomalous—at variance with the analogies everywhere appearing around us—if man, so formed and constituted, should terminate his existence on earth? He would, in that case, be the only creature that might seem out of place in the world, and that always the more, the higher he rose in the scale of intelligence and purity: in him alone there would be powers implanted, which seemed to fail of their proper end and object. “A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass: in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of His infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries? Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can He delight in such abortive intelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings? How can we find that wisdom, which shines through all His works in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick succession, are only to receive the rudiments of their existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may flourish to all eternity?”[163] [163] Addison, in Spectator, Brit. Essayists, vi., No. 111. The essay is a fine specimen of that delicate sensibility and admirably-balanced judgment, which enabled Addison often to seize on thoughts that had escaped profound thinkers. He introduces the argument merely as a “hint that he had not seen opened and improved by others who had written on the subject,” and as something subsidiary to the reasons derived from the essence and immateriality of the soul, which were then chiefly pressed. Bishop Butler contents himself with those current reasons, and has in consequence left his chapter on a future life the most imperfect and unsatisfactory of his whole book. This argument might be presented as one merely arising out of the general law of adaptation, and is so presented by Dr Chalmers in his Institutes. But it is the analogies connected with that law which give it all its power to awaken any presumption in favour of a future state of being for man, as separate and distinct from the inferior creation; for the presumption arises on the contemplation of the apparent discrepancy between man’s present condition and his present capacities, viewed in the light of analogous arrangements in providence. It properly belongs, therefore, to the argument from analogy, and shows how that argument is capable also of assuming a positive form. It bears, too, quite appositely on the real state of the question,—which is not, as Bishop Butler and most others in his day seemed to think, whether the soul is naturally and essentially immortal; but whether we are warranted to conclude it to be the will and design of God, as indicated in our own natures and His government of the world, that it should have a prolonged existence in a future state, different from, yet closely connected with, the present. (2.) A second and still stronger ground for the general belief in such a state is furnished by the actings of conscience. For it belongs to this faculty to pronounce authoritatively on what men should and should not do, and to record in the secret chambers of the breast sentences of approval or condemnation, according as the things done are perceived to have been right or wrong. But there is always a felt incompleteness about these judgments of the moral faculty, viewed simply by themselves; and they rather indicate, that the things so judged are fit subjects of reward and punishment, than that they have thereby received what is properly due. In short, the authority of conscience, by its very nature, stands related to a higher authority, whose will it recognises, whose verdict it anticipates. And, as Bishop Butler justly remarks concerning it in his sermons, “if not forcibly stopt, it naturally and always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sentence which shall hereafter second and affirm its own.” It is from the powerful sway that conscience has in awakening such anticipations, and its tendency to connect its own awards with those of a righteous lawgiver, that we are to account for the predominantly fearful and gloomy character of men’s native thoughts respecting a future state. There is much in their natural condition to dispose them, when looking forward to another region of existence, to clothe the prospect in the most agreeable and fascinating colours, that they might find in it an effectual counterbalance to the manifold troubles of life, and a support amid the approaching agonies of death. But the reverse is so much the case, that it is the apprehension, rather than the expectation, of a future state, which the belief of immortality most commonly awakens. And the vividness with which the mind of heathen antiquity pictured to itself the punishments of Tartarus, appear strangely contrasted with the dim and ghost-like pleasures of Elysium. A ready explanation of this peculiarity presents itself in uncommon operations of conscience, in which the notes of condemnation, if not more frequent, are at least greatly more distinct and impressive, than those of satisfaction; and hence, as in glancing upwards, its sense of guilt naturally awoke the idea of an offended deity, requiring to be appeased by the blood of sacrifice, so in pointing forward, its sentences of reproof not less naturally cast ominous shadows before them, and threw a sombre and forbidding aspect over the coming eternity. The convictions thus produced in men’s minds respecting a future world by the natural workings of conscience, it is plain, involve the recognition of a moral government of the world, and one that is accompanied with sanctions which are destined to take effect in a state of being after the present. It is, if we may so speak, on the background of such a government with such sanctions, that conscience raises in the bosom its forebodings of a judgment to come.—Nor, indeed, on any other ground could it beget either fear or hope for the future. (3.) But closely connected with this, and strongly corroborative of the argument it affords for a coming existence after the present, is the evidence that appears of a moral government in the actual course of things—a government accompanied by present sanctions. And this we announce as a third, and, upon the whole, the most tangible and convincing, reason for the anticipation of a future state of retribution. But here it will be necessary to go into some detail, as it is in connection with this part of the argument that divines in this country have most commonly erred, and, by a strange inversion, have sought for proof of a future state of retribution rather in the inequalities of the Divine government, or its apparent want of moral rectitude and present sanctions, than in what it possesses of these. Thus, it is mentioned by Jeremy Taylor, in his sermon on the death of Sir George Dalston, as one of the things “which God has competently taught to all mankind, that the soul of man does not die; that though things may be ill here, yet to the good, who usually feel most of the evils of this life, they should end in honour and advantages. When virtue,” he adds, “made man poor, and free speaking of brave truths made the wise to lose their liberty: when an excellent life hastened an opprobrious death, and the obeying reason and our conscience lost us our lives, or at least all the means and conditions of enjoying them, it was but time to look about for another state of things, where justice should rule, and virtue find her own portion.” The want of justice here, and virtue’s bereavement of her proper reward, is thus represented as the main reason and impelling motive for anticipating a better state of things hereafter. And a long array of similar representations might be produced from the works of English moralists and theologians. But we would rather point to the manifestation of this error—the error of overlooking the connection between a present and a future recompense—as exhibited in a more doctrinal form, and with a more direct injustice to the character of Scripture, by those who have treated of the religious tenets and prospects of the Jews. Not unfrequently do we find the one presented as the antithesis of the other—as if the expectation of a future recompense could only begin to take effect when the other began to give way. This is done in the coarsest manner by Spencer, in his work, De Leg. Hebraeorum (L. I., c. vi.), where it is alleged the ancient Israelites were so gross and sensual, so addicted to the flesh and the world, as to be incapable of being moved by anything but present rewards and punishments;—and which is but another modification of the same view—since idol-worship owed its influence chiefly to the expectations of present good or ill, which its imaginary deities were supposed to have at their command, so the tendency to idolatry among the Israelites required to be met by temporal threatenings and promises. As if God were willing by any sort of means to attach men to His service, and were content to fight idolatry with its own weapons, provided only He could induce His people to render Him a formal and mercenary homage! The view of Warburton, as usual, differs only in a slight degree from Spencer’s. It proceeds on the idea, that down to the later periods of the Jewish commonwealth, everything was administered by what he calls an extraordinary providence of present rewards and punishments, which supplied the place of the yet undiscovered and altogether unknown future world; and that in proportion as the extraordinary providence broke down, the belief of a future state of reward and punishment rose in its stead. Dean Graves, in his work on the Pentateuch, follows much in the same track, although he would not so absolutely exclude the belief of a future world from the remoter generations of God’s people. Among the secondary reasons which he assigns for the employment of merely temporal sanctions. To the law, he mentions “the intellectual and moral character of the Jewish nation, which was totally incapable of that pure and rational faith in the sanctions of a future state, without which these sanctions cannot effectually promote the interests of piety and virtue. Their desires and ideas being confined to the enjoyments of a present world, they would pay little attention to the promises of a future retribution, which they could never be sure of being fulfilled.”—(Works, ii., p. 222.) No doubt, if their desires and ideas were, and must have been, confined to a present world;—but why such a necessity?Would it not have been the most likely way to give their desires and ideas a loftier direction, to lay open to their view something of the good and evil to be inherited in the world to come?And if it had consisted with the Divine plan to impart this, is it to be imagined that the Israelites, who were so immeasurably superior to all the nations of antiquity in the knowledge of Divine truth, should on this point alone have been incapable of entertaining ideas which the very rudest of these were found in some measure to possess? But not to spend farther time in the disproof of a notion so manifestly weak and untenable, we must refer more particularly to what Dean Graves, in common with many British divines, regards as the great reason for the silence observed by Moses in respect to a future state. “I contend,” he says (Works, ii., p. 208), “that the reality of an extraordinary providence (i.e., an administration of present rewards and punishments) being established by unquestioned authority, and by the general nature of the Mosaic code, we can thence satisfactorily account for the omission of a future sanction, and that this is the only way in which it can be accounted for.” That is, the present administration of rewards and punishments is the only way of accounting for the omission of future rewards and punishments! This might have been said with some degree of truth, if it had been meant, that through the present the future might be descried; but not in the sense understood by Dr Graves, as if the one had been to some extent incompatible with the other. The truth and reality of the temporal sanction should rather have been viewed as the necessary foundation and undoubted evidence of a future retribution. On this point Hengstenberg forcibly remarks, “Where this foundation—that, namely, of a moral government on earth, a temporal recompense—is not laid, there the building of a faith in immortality is raised on sand, and must fall before the first blast. He who does not recognise the temporal recompense, must necessarily find in his heart a response to the scoff of Vanini at the revelation, ‛which, indeed, promises retributions for good and bad actions, but only in the life to come, lest the fraud should be discovered.’ There is to be found in Barth on Claudian, p. 1078 sq., a rich collection from heathen authors, in which despair as to a future recompense is raised on the ground of unbelief as to a present one. And does not the history of our own age render it clear and palpable, how closely the two must hang together? The doubt was first directed against the temporal recompense; and it seemed as if the belief of immortality was going to rise, in consequence of this very misapprehension, to a higher significance and greater stability. Supra-naturalistic theologians themselves, such as Knapp and Steudel, derived one of their leading proofs of a future retribution from deficiencies of the present one. But the real consequence was not long in discovering itself. The doctrine of reward, driven from the lower region, could not long maintain its ground in the higher. It became manifest that the hope of immortality had fed itself with its own heart’s blood. ‛If ye enjoy not such a recompense on earth,’ says Richter justly, according to the conceptions of the age, ‛God is by no means truly righteous, and you find yourselves in opposition to your own doctrine.’ Where the sentiment that the world’s history is a world’s judgment, is first of all heartily received in the true, the scriptural sense, there the advance becomes certain and inevitable to faith in the (final) judgment of the world.”—(Pent., ii., p. 573.) Earlier and more appalling illustrations than those referred to in this extract, might have been produced of the certainty with which disbelief in a present, tends to beget disbelief also in a future recompense. In those great and sweeping calamities, in which all distinctions seem to be lost between the good and the bad, all alike standing in jeopardy of life, or ruthlessly mowed down by the destroyer, it is seldom long till a general relaxation of principle, and even total regardlessness of future consequences, comes to prevail. It seems at such times as if the very foundations of religion and virtue were destroyed, and nothing remained but a selfish and convulsive struggle for the interests of the moment: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” This is the right reading of the account given by Thucydides of the plague at Athens, formerly adverted to, in which the historian tells us, “Men were restrained neither by fear of the gods, nor by human law; deeming it all one whether they paid religious worship or not, since they saw that all perished alike, and not expecting they should live till judgment should be passed on their offences here.” Similar visitations in later times have always been observed to produce similar effects, excepting where religious principle has been so deeply rooted and so generally diffused, as to triumph over present appearances. During the plague of Milan in 1630, deeds of savage cruelty and wholesale plunder were committed that would never have been thought of in ordinary times. Even in London during the great plague in 1665, while there were not wanting proofs of sincere devotion and living principle, there was also a terrific display of the worst passions of human nature. And of times of pestilence generally, Niebuhr says in one of his letters, “They are always those in which the animal and the devilish in human nature assume prominence.” The lurid light reflected from such apparent temporary suspensions of God’s moral government, abundantly shows what results might be anticipated, if its ordinary sanctions did not exist, and the present recompenses of good and evil were withdrawn. It would no longer be the utterance merely of the fool, but the general sentiment of mankind, that there is no God—none judging in the earth now, and therefore none to judge in eternity hereafter. For, as Hengstenberg remarks again, “what God does not do here, neither will He do hereafter. If He is indeed the living and the righteous God, He cannot merely send forth letters of credit for blessing, nor terrify with simple threatenings of future evil.”[164] [164] How strongly the more thinking portion of heathen antiquity clung to the doctrine of a retributive providence as the abiding ground of hope amid appearances fitted to shake it, may be seen alone from the train of argument pursued by Juvenal in his 13th Book, where, treating of the prosperities of bad men, he finds consolation in the thought, that they suffer from the inflictions of an evil conscience, itself the heaviest of punishments; that hence, things naturally pleasant and agreeable, such as delicious food and wines, fail to give them satisfaction; that their sleep is disturbed; that they are frightened with thunder and disease, seeing in such things the signs of an offended deity; and that they go on to worse stages of iniquity, till they are overwhelmed with punishment; and concludes, that if these things are considered, —Poena guadebis amara Numinis iuvisi tandemque fatebere ketus. Nee surdum, nee Tiresiam quemquam esse Deorum. The ground on which we here rest the natural expectation of a future state of reward and punishment, is precisely that which has been so solidly laid by Bishop Butler in the second and third chapters of his Analogy; and it may well excite our wonder, that especially English divines, who must be well acquainted with the train of thought there pursued, should suppose an extraordinary providence, or an exact distribution of reward and punishment on earth, to militate against either the revelation or the belief of a future state. It is simply the want, the apparent or real want, of exactness in these temporal distributions in the usual course of providence, which mars the completeness of Butler’s argument. Yet, as things actually stand, he does not hesitate to draw from the present aspect and constitution of providence the following conclusions: First, That the Author of nature is not indifferent to virtue and vice; secondly, that if God should reward virtue and punish vice, as such, so that every one may upon the whole have his deserts, this distributive justice would not be a thing different in kind, but only in degree, from what we experience in His present government. It would be that in effect, toward which we now see a tendency. It would be no more than the completion of that moral government, the principles and beginning of which have been shown, beyond all dispute, discernible in the present constitution and course of nature. And from hence it follows, thirdly, that as under the natural government of God, our experience of those kinds and degrees of happiness and misery which we do experience at present, gives just ground to hope for and to fear higher degrees and other kinds of both in a future state, supposing a future state admitted; so, under His moral government, our experience that virtue and vice are actually rewarded and punished at present, in a certain degree, gives just ground to hope and to fear, that they may be rewarded and punished in a higher degree hereafter. And there is ground to think that they actually will be so, from the good and bad tendencies of virtue and vice, which are essential, and founded in the nature of things; whereas the hindrances to their becoming effect are, in numberless cases, not necessary, but artificial only. And it is much more likely that these tendencies, as well as the actual rewards and punishments of virtue and vice, which arise directly out of the nature of things, will remain hereafter, than that the accidental hindrances of them will. The solid foundation which these considerations lay for the expectation of a future state of reward and punishment, and which, growing out of the observation of what is constantly taking place here, must be felt in thousands of bosoms that never thought of turning it into the form of an argument, is entirely overlooked by Archbishop Whately in the essay formerly referred to. He does not, indeed, like Warburton and Graves, place the temporal rewards and punishments in direct antagonism to the disclosure of a future state; but neither does he make any account of the one as constituting a proper ground for the expectation of the other, and forming a kind of natural stepping-stone to it. His line of argument rather implies that it would have the reverse tendency, and that the Jews were only prepared to receive the doctrine of immortality when their present temporal blessings ceased (§ 10). He deems it absolutely incredible that the Israelites, as a people, should have looked for an after state of being, seeing that their attention was so very rarely, if at all, directed to such a state, and seeing also that they so seldom believed what was of much easier credence—the temporal promises and threatenings held out to them. The presumption against it he thinks greatly strengthened by the difficulty still experienced in getting people to realize the prospect of a future world, notwithstanding the comparative clearness and frequency with which it is pressed on their notice in the Gospel. In this, however, two things are evidently confounded together—the speculative knowledge or notional belief, and the practical faith of a future state of happiness and misery. For, on the same ground that Dr Whately denies the hope of immortality to those who lived under the Jewish dispensation, he might hold it to be very doubtfully or darkly propounded to believers now. Besides, he is obliged after all to admit, that somehow the doctrine and belief of a future state did become prevalent among the Jews long before the revelations of the Gospel,—an admission which is totally subversive of his main positions; for, beyond all dispute, this prevalent belief arose without the doctrine being frequently and directly inculcated in any book of authoritative Scripture. It is fatal, also, to the argument from 2 Timothy 1:10, “Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” For, if the knowledge of a future state existed at all before Christ, this could not have been brought to light by Him, as a thing till then wrapt in utter darkness and obscurity. Nor does the statement of the Apostle imply so much. It merely declares, that by means of Christ’s Gospel a clear light has been shed on the concerns of a future life; they have been brought distinctly into view, and set in the foreground of His spiritual kingdom. And we have no more reason to maintain, from such a declaration, that all was absolute darkness before, than to argue from Christ being called “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9), that a total ignorance reigned before His coming in regard to the things of God’s kingdom. In truth, it is no more the specific object of the Christian, than it was of the earlier dispensations, to disclose and formally establish the doctrine of a future state. They both alike take it for granted, and have it for their immediate aim to prepare men for entering on its realities. Only, in the dispensation of the Gospel, as there the adequate provision for eternity is made, and the way laid open into its abiding mansions, a light shines upon its momentous interests, which, from the nature of things, could not be imparted previously, without confounding shadow and substance together, and merging the preparatory in the final. But still the existence of a future state of reward and punishment was implied from the very first in the history of the Divine dispensations, and is not doubtfully indicated in many of the earlier notices of Scripture, as among the settled beliefs of God’s people. It was implied even in the first institution of a religion of mercy and hope for fallen man; since, connecting with God’s worship the prospect of a recovery from the ruin of sin, it would have only mocked the worshippers with false expectations, unless an immortal state of blessedness had been the issue it contemplated for such as faithfully complied with the appointed services. It was implied in the special dealings of God with His more honoured servants,—such as Abel and Enoch before the flood, and after it Abraham and the patriarchs,—whose history, in many of its bearings, is an inexplicable riddle, if viewed apart from the hope of better things to come in their future destiny. It is implied again, as an object of well-grounded faith and expectation, to such persons and their spiritual seed, in the relation which God acknowledged Himself to hold towards them, as their and their Father—titles that manifestly bespoke for them an abiding interest in his eternal power and Godhead.—(Genesis 6:2; Exodus 3:6; Exodus 4:22; Matthew 22:32; Hebrews 11:16) Could such special dealings and revelations have been made to the ancestors of the Jewish race without awakening a response in the bosoms of those that received them? Could they have failed to stimulate and call forth that instinctive belief in a future state, which even common providences were sufficient to evoke in all other nations of the earth?The idea is utterly incredible: and scanty as the notices are which are given us of their feelings and prospects (for a supernatural restraint was laid upon the sacred penmen in this respect), they yet tell us of a hope in death which was enjoyed by the good,—a hope which it was the highest wish of Balaam in his better moods to possess as his own last heritage the hope of being gathered, in the first instance, to their fathers in the peaceful chambers of Sheol, and of ultimately attaining to a better resurrection.—(Genesis 25:8; Genesis 49:33; Numbers 23:10; Hebrews 11:13; Hebrews 11:35) These views respecting the earlier dispensations, as connected with the doctrine and belief of a future state, are strongly confirmed by the argument maintained in the Epistle to the Romans, and that to the Hebrews. The professed object of these Epistles is to prove the necessity of the Christian religion, and its superiority over even the true, though imperfect, forms of religion that existed before it. And if there had been such an utter lack of any just ground for the expectation of a future state in the Old Testament dispensations, as is supposed by those we are now contending against, the chief stress would naturally have been laid upon the great omission in this respect which had been supplied by the Gospel. But is it so in reality?So far from it, that the reverse is frequently stated, and uniformly assumed. Ancient as well as present believers looked and hoped for a better existence after this. The main discussion in both epistles turns on man’s relation to the law of God, and (to use the words of Coleridge, “Aids to Reflection,” vol. i., p. 293), “to the point, of which this law, in its own name, offered no solution—the mystery which it left behind the veil, or in the cloudy tabernacle of types and figurative sacrifices. It was not whether there was a judgment to come, and souls to suffer the dread sentence; but rather, what are the means of escape?where may grace be found, and redemption? Not, therefore, that there is a life to come, and a future state; but what each individual soul may hope for itself therein; and on what grounds: and that this state has been rendered an object of aspiration and fervent desire, and a source of thanksgiving and exceeding great joy; and by whom, and through whom, and for whom, and by what means, and under what conditions these are the peculiar and distinguishing fundamentals of the Christian faith. These are the revealed lights and obtained privileges of the Christian dispensation. Not alone the knowledge of the boon, but the precious inestimable boon itself, is the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ.” To return, however, to our main theme: We hold it to be a great and unhappy oversight that has been committed by many, who, in ignoring the connection between a present and a future recompense, have thereby left out of view the very strongest of nature’s grounds for anticipating an hereafter of weal or woe. But it is quite possible to err on the one side as well as on the other. “There is no error so crooked, as not to have in it some lines of truth.” And it seems to us, that Hengstenberg, in the treatise already quoted from, has, to some extent, overlooked the lines of truth which are in the error he controverts. It is quite true, as he has correctly and vigorously stated, that the temporal is the necessary basis of the future recompense; and that it is from what God does here men are to argue, and in fact do argue and infer, regarding what He will do hereafter. It is also true, as farther stated by him, that a clear knowledge of the breadth and purity of God’s law, and of the various spiritual ends God aims at in His dealings with men on earth, are sufficient to explain many seeming irregularities in His outward providence; as it discovers enough of imperfection in the righteousness of the good to account for their liability to sufferings, and enough of evil in the prosperity of the bad to render their condition destitute of real blessing. All this is admitted, and yet one cannot but feel that there is something which is left unexplained by it, or not thoroughly met. The assertion of a perfect administration of right holds in the full sense, only when eternity is added to time: that is, when the point now under consideration is virtually taken for granted. Looking simply to a present world, it is impossible to maintain that the administration is perfect; the more impossible, the clearer and more spiritual our views are of the law of righteousness. For how, then, could the doers of righteousness be found to suffer, as is sometimes the case, for their good deeds?or how could prosperity of any kind be accorded to the enemies of righteousness?True, their prosperity may prove in the long run their punishment, but only in respect to its bearing on the issues of a coming eternity; and even then only as abused on their part, not as given on the part of God. In themselves, His gifts are all good; and the commonest bounties of providence, if conferred on the unworthy, mark a relative imperfection, at least, in the administration of justice on earth. Without some measure even of real imperfection, where would there be room for the cry of an oppressed Church, “Lord, how long?” Or where again the necessity for the righteous looking so much away from the present world, and fixing their expectations on what is to come?In truth, a certain degree of imperfection here is as much to be expected, and, in a sense also, as necessary, as in all the preparatory dispensations of God. For it is the feeling of imperfection within definite limits, which more especially prompts the soul to look and long for a more perfect future. To bring the discussion to a close: It is indispensably necessary, in order to ground the conviction and belief of a future state of reward and punishment, that there should be in the present course of the Divine administration palpable and undoubted evidences of a moral government of the world. And in furnishing these in such manifold variety, and with such singular clearness, consisted the peculiar service rendered by the Mosaic dispensation to the doctrine of a future state. But enough being seen in the providence of God to establish this doctrine in the convictions of men, the appearance, along with that, of anomalies and imperfections, must naturally tend to confirm its hold on serious minds, and foster the expectation of its future realities; as they cannot but feel convinced, that a righteousness which gives such indubitable marks of its stringent operation, shall sometime remove every defect, and perfect its work. They deem it certain, that under the government of a God to whom such righteousness belongs, the apparent must at length be adjusted to the real state of things, and that all instances of prosperous villany and injured worth must be brought to an end. “There is much, therefore,” to use the words of Dr Chalmers, “in the state of our present world, when its phenomena are fully read and rightly interpreted, to warrant the expectation, that a time for the final separation of all those grievous unfitnesses and irregularities is yet coming—when the good and the evil shall be separated into two distinct societies, and the same God, who, in virtue of His justice, shall appear to the one in the character of an avenger, shall, in virtue of His love, stand forth to the other as the kind and munificent Father of a duteous offspring, shielded by His paternal care from all that can offend or annoy in mansions of unspotted holiness.”[165] Were it not, he justly adds, for the element of justice visible in God’s administration, we should have no stepping-stone to arrive at this conclusion. And yet the partial defects and imperfections apparent in its present exercise have their share in contributing to the result; as they materially tend, when once the conclusion itself is established in the mind, to nourish the expectation of another and more perfect state to come. [165] Institutes, vol. i., p. 131. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 125: 05.20. APPENDIX C. ======================================================================== Appendix C.—On Sacrificial Worship. THE great, and, we may say, fundamental mistake in the sounder portion of English theologians, who have written upon primitive sacrifice, has been their holding the necessity of a Divine command to prove the existence of a Divine origin. They have conceived that the absence of such a command would inevitably imply the want of such an origin. And hence the whole strength of the argument, as it has been usually conducted, is directed to show, that though no command is actually recorded, yet the facts of the case prove it to have been issued. As a specimen of this style of reasoning, we take the following from Delany:—“Nothing but God’s command could create a right to take away the lives of His creatures. And it is certain that the destruction of an innocent creature is not in itself an action acceptable to God; and therefore nothing but duty could make it acceptable, and nothing but the command of God could make it dutiful.”—(Revelation examined with Candour, vol. i., p. 136.) And so generally. Uncommanded sacrifice, it has been presumed, would necessarily have been unwarranted and unacceptable; and therefore the right to kill animals for clothing, but still more the duty of sacrificing their lives in worship, has appeared conclusively to argue the prior existence of a Divine command to use them in acts of worship. The opponents of this view, on the other hand, have maintained, and, we think, have maintained successfully, that if such a command, expressly and positively enjoining the sacrifice of animal life in worship, had actually been given, it is unaccountable that it should not have been recorded; since, to drop it from the record, if so certainly given, and so essentially necessary, as is alleged on the other side, was like leaving out the foundation of the whole edifice of primitive worship. The only warrantable conclusion we can be entitled to draw from the silence of Scripture in such a case, is, that no command of the kind was really given. So with some reason it is alleged; but when the persons who argue and conclude thus, proceed, as they invariably do, to the farther conclusion, that since there was no command, there was nothing properly Divine in the offerings of sacrificial worship, they unduly contract the boundaries of the Divine in human things, and betray, besides, an entire misapprehension of the nature of the first dispensation of God toward fallen man. This, as we have said, is distinguished by the absence of command in everything; throughout, it exhibits nothing of law in the strict and proper sense; and yet it would surely be a piece of extravagance to maintain that there were not, in the procedure of God, and in the relation man was appointed to hold toward Him, the essential grounds and materials of Divine obligation. How readily these were discovered in the Divine operations, where still there was no Divine command, may be inferred from what is written of the formation of Eve: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman (Isha), because she was taken out of man (Ish).” He had come to know the manner of her formation; the Divine act had been disclosed to him, as it had, doubtless, been in all others in which he was personally interested, because in the act there was contained a revelation of God, involving responsibilities and duties for His creatures. “Therefore,” it is added, by way of inference from the act of God, and an inference, if not drawn on the spot by Adam, yet undoubtedly expressing the mind of God, as to what might even then have been drawn, and what actually was drawn, by the better portion of his immediate descendants, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The act of God alone, without any accompanying command, laid the foundation for all coming time of the conjugal relation, and not only entitled, but bound men to hold, as of Divine appointment, its virtual incorporations of persons, and corresponding obligations of mutual love and fidelity. The principle that ought to be laid as the foundation of all just reasoning on such subjects, is, that whatever man can plainly learn from the revelations God gives of Himself, to be in accordance with the Divine mind and will, that is of God, and it is man’s duty to believe and act accordingly. But the issuing of authoritative commands is not the only way God has of revealing His mind and will; nor, to creatures made after His own it and even though fallen, yet capable within certain limits of understanding and imitating His procedure, is it even the first and most natural way of doing so. It is rather the manifestations which God gives of Himself in His works and ways, in which they might be expected to find the primary grounds of their faith and practice; and only when such had proved to be inadequate, might they require to be supplemented by explicit commands and stringent enactments. Holding, therefore, as we do, that the command to sacrifice was not necessary to establish the Divine authority of the rite of sacrifice,—holding, moreover, that in the Divine act of covering man’s person by the skins of slain beasts, as the symbol of his guilt being covered before God, there was an actual revelation of the mind of God in regard to His purposes of mercy and forgiveness to the sinful, precisely such as was afterwards embodied in animal sacrifice,—we can satisfactorily account for the absence of the command, and, at the same time, maintain the essentially Divine origin of the rite. And the reasoning of Davison and others, on the principle of no command, therefore no Divine authority, falls to the ground of itself as a false deduction. Of course the soundness of our own view, respecting the essentially Divine origin of sacrifice and its properly expiatory character, depends upon the correctness of the interpretation we have put upon the Divine act referred to. Davison, in common with British divines generally, regards it in a merely natural light. He sees in it simply “an instance of the Divine wisdom and philanthropy; interposing, by the dictation and provision of a more durable clothing, to veil the nakedness and cherish the modesty of our fallen nature, by sin made sensible to shame.”—(P. 24.) This he deems an object worthy of a special intervention of God, worthy also of a sacrifice of animal life to secure its accomplishment; and being so secured, he thinks it quite natural that the first pair might afterwards have felt themselves perfectly at liberty to use, for the sacred purposes of worship, what they had been taught to consider at their service for the lower purposes of corporeal clothing. This inference might certainly have been legitimate, if the premises on which it is founded had been accurately stated. But there we object. If corporeal clothing alone had been the intention of the act, it would have been the fruit of a needless interposition—the more so, as our first parents were themselves powerfully prompted to seek for clothing, and had already found a temporary relief. When the instincts and feelings of nature were manifestly so alive to the object, is it to be conceived that the ingenuity and skill which proved sufficient to accomplish so many other operations for their natural support and comfort, should have been in competent here? It is altogether incredible. On simply natural grounds, the action admits of no adequate explanation, and must ever appear above the occasion—consequently unworthy of God. Besides, how anomalous, especially in a historical revelation, which ever gives the foremost place to the moral element in God’s character and ways, if He should have appeared thus solicitous about the decent and comfortable clothing of men’s bodies, and yet have left them wholly in the dark as to the way of getting peace and quietness to their consciences?Such must have been the case with our first parents, if they were thrown entirely upon their own resources in the presentation of sacrificial offerings. And so Mr Davison himself substantially admits. For, while he endeavours to account naturally, and by means of the ordinary principles and feelings of piety, for the offering of animal life in sacrifice to God, considered simply as an expression of penitence in the offerer, or of His sense of deserved punishment for sin, he denies it could properly be regarded as an expiation or atonement of guilt; and hence postpones this higher aspect of sacrifice altogether, till the law of Moses, when he conceives it was for the first time introduced. Up till that period, therefore, sacrificial worship was but a species of natural religion; and man had no proper ground from God to expect, in answer to His offerings, the assurance of Divine pardon and acceptance. But this, we contend, had it been real, would have been anomalous. It would have been to represent God as caring originally more for the bodies than for the souls of His people; and as utterly ignoring at one period of His dealings, what at another He not only respects, but exalts to the highest place of importance. How could we vindicate the pre-eminently moral character of God’s principles of dealing, and the unchangeable nature of His administration, if He actually had been at first so indifferent in regard to the removal of guilt from the conscience, and afterwards so concerned about it as to make all religion hinge on its accomplishment? Any satisfactory vindication, in such a case, must necessarily be hopeless. But we are convinced it is not needed; the moral element is pre-eminent in God’s dealings toward men. It was this which gave its significance and worth to His act of clothing our first parents, as painfully conscious of guilt, with the skins of living creatures, whose covering of innocence was in a manner put on them. And on the ground alone of what was moral in the transaction, symbolically disclosing itself (as usual in ancient times) through the natural and corporeal, can we account for the sacrifice of slain victims becoming so soon, and continuing so long, the grand medium of acceptable communion with God. If, in so clothing man, God did mean to give indication respecting the covering of man’s guilt, and men of faith understood Him to do so, all becomes intelligible, consistent, and even comparatively plain. But if otherwise, all appears strange, irregular, and mysterious,[166] respecting sacrifice, which will be taken up at its proper place. See vol. ii., ch. 2, sec. 5. [166] Davison’s internal reason, as he calls it (p. 84), against the atoning character of the ante-legal oblations—that such oblations, even under the law, atoned only for ceremonial offences, which of necessity had no existence in earlier times, proceeds on a not uncommon misconception of the law of Moses We are not disposed, in a matter of this kind, to lay much stress upon philological considerations. Yet it is not unimportant to notice, that the technical and constantly recurring expression under the law, for the design of expiatory offerings (לָכַפֵּר עָלָיו), seems to have its most natural explanation by reference to that fundamental act of God, considered in respect to its moral import. To cover upon him, as the words really mean, is so singular an expression for making an atonement for guilt, that it could scarcely have arisen without some significant fact in history naturally suggesting it.We certainly have such a fact in the circumstance of God’s covering upon our first parents with the skins of animals, slain for them, if that was intended to denote the covering of their guilt and shame, as pardoned and put away by God. The first great act of forgiveness in connection with the sacrifice of life, would thus not unfitly have supplied a sacrificial language, as well as formed the basis of a sacrificial worship. But if some collateral support may be derived from this quarter to the view we have advanced, we certainly must disclaim being indebted to another philological consideration, more commonly urged by the advocates of the Divine origin of sacrifice. We refer to the argument so much pressed by Lightfoot, Magee, and others still in the present day, and based on what is regarded as a more exact rendering of Genesis 4:7, as if it should be, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?and if thou doest not well, a sin-offering lieth at the door.” Magee calls this “the plain, natural and significant interpretation” of the words, and vindicates it at great length—more especially on three grounds: 1. That the word translated sin (חטאת) is very frequently used in the sense of sin-offering; 2. That when so used, it is usually coupled (though a feminine noun) with a verb in the masculine; and 3. That the verb connected with it here, properly has respect to an animal (רבץ), and literally denotes couching or lying down—quite appropriately said of a beast, but not so of sin. A single fact is perfectly sufficient to dispose of the whole; the fact, namely, that the Hebrew term for sin never bears the import of sin-offering till the period of the law, and could not indeed do so, as till then what were distinctively called sin-offerings were unknown. To give the passage this turn, therefore, is to put an arbitrary and unwarranted sense upon the principal word, as there used; and nothing but the high authority of such men as Lightfoot and Magee could have given it the currency which it has so long obtained in this country. The real explanation of the feminine noun being coupled with a masculine verb, is to be found in the personification of sin as a wild beast, or cunning tempter to evil. And the whole passage bears respect to the circumstances of the first temptation, and can only, indeed, be correctly understood when these are kept in view: “And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen?Shall there not, if thou doest good (viz., in regard to the sacrifice), be acceptance (or lifting up)?and if thou doest not good, sin coucheth at the door. And unto thee shall be its desire, and thou shalt rule over it.” The last words are simply a transference to sin, in its relation to Cain, of what was originally said of Eve in her relation to Adam (Genesis 3:16); and many Jewish (see, for example, the exposition of Sola, Lindenthall, and Raphall) as well as Christian interpreters have discerned the allusion, and had respect to it in their exposition. Our translators, however, have unhappily understood the parties spoken of to be Cain and Abel, instead of Cain and sin, and thereby greatly obscured the meaning. The object of the Divine expostulation with Cain is evidently to show him, in the first instance, that the evil he frowned at really lay with himself, in his refusing to acknowledge and serve God, as his brother did. If he would still take this course, the ground of complaint should be removed; he would find acceptance, as well as his brother. But if he refused, then there was but one alternative—he could not get rid of sin: like an evil genius, it lay couching at the door, ready to prevail over him; but it was for him to do the manly part, and assert his superiority over it. In short, he is reminded by a silent reference to the sad circumstances of the fall, that giving way to sin, as he was doing, was allowing the weaker principle of his nature (represented by the woman in that memorable transaction) to gain the ascendant, while it became him, by cleaving to the right, to keep it in subjection; and it was implied, that if he failed in this, a second fall should inevitably follow—instead of rising, he must sink. While, however, we reject the argument commonly derived from this passage in behalf of the Divine origin of sacrifice, we derive an argument from it of another kind—viz., from the explicit manner in which it connects doing good with the acceptable presentation of sacrifice, and its representing sin as unforgiven, unsubdued, reigning in the heart and conduct, if sacrifice was not so performed. Had sacrifice not been essentially of God; had it not required the humble and childlike heart of faith to present it aright; had it not carried along with it, when so presented, the blessing of forgiveness and grace from Heaven, we cannot understand how such singular importance should have been attached to it. Like the sacrifice of Christ now, it has all the appearance of having then been the great touchstone of an accepted and blessed, or a guilty and rejected condition; not one of many, as it would have been if devised by man, but standing comparatively alone as an all-important ordinance of God. Appendix C.—On Sacrificial Worship. THE great, and, we may say, fundamental mistake in the sounder portion of English theologians, who have written upon primitive sacrifice, has been their holding the necessity of a Divine command to prove the existence of a Divine origin. They have conceived that the absence of such a command would inevitably imply the want of such an origin. And hence the whole strength of the argument, as it has been usually conducted, is directed to show, that though no command is actually recorded, yet the facts of the case prove it to have been issued. As a specimen of this style of reasoning, we take the following from Delany:—“Nothing but God’s command could create a right to take away the lives of His creatures. And it is certain that the destruction of an innocent creature is not in itself an action acceptable to God; and therefore nothing but duty could make it acceptable, and nothing but the command of God could make it dutiful.”—(Revelation examined with Candour, vol. i., p. 136.) And so generally. Uncommanded sacrifice, it has been presumed, would necessarily have been unwarranted and unacceptable; and therefore the right to kill animals for clothing, but still more the duty of sacrificing their lives in worship, has appeared conclusively to argue the prior existence of a Divine command to use them in acts of worship. The opponents of this view, on the other hand, have maintained, and, we think, have maintained successfully, that if such a command, expressly and positively enjoining the sacrifice of animal life in worship, had actually been given, it is unaccountable that it should not have been recorded; since, to drop it from the record, if so certainly given, and so essentially necessary, as is alleged on the other side, was like leaving out the foundation of the whole edifice of primitive worship. The only warrantable conclusion we can be entitled to draw from the silence of Scripture in such a case, is, that no command of the kind was really given. So with some reason it is alleged; but when the persons who argue and conclude thus, proceed, as they invariably do, to the farther conclusion, that since there was no command, there was nothing properly Divine in the offerings of sacrificial worship, they unduly contract the boundaries of the Divine in human things, and betray, besides, an entire misapprehension of the nature of the first dispensation of God toward fallen man. This, as we have said, is distinguished by the absence of command in everything; throughout, it exhibits nothing of law in the strict and proper sense; and yet it would surely be a piece of extravagance to maintain that there were not, in the procedure of God, and in the relation man was appointed to hold toward Him, the essential grounds and materials of Divine obligation. How readily these were discovered in the Divine operations, where still there was no Divine command, may be inferred from what is written of the formation of Eve: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman (Isha), because she was taken out of man (Ish).” He had come to know the manner of her formation; the Divine act had been disclosed to him, as it had, doubtless, been in all others in which he was personally interested, because in the act there was contained a revelation of God, involving responsibilities and duties for His creatures. “Therefore,” it is added, by way of inference from the act of God, and an inference, if not drawn on the spot by Adam, yet undoubtedly expressing the mind of God, as to what might even then have been drawn, and what actually was drawn, by the better portion of his immediate descendants, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The act of God alone, without any accompanying command, laid the foundation for all coming time of the conjugal relation, and not only entitled, but bound men to hold, as of Divine appointment, its virtual incorporations of persons, and corresponding obligations of mutual love and fidelity. The principle that ought to be laid as the foundation of all just reasoning on such subjects, is, that whatever man can plainly learn from the revelations God gives of Himself, to be in accordance with the Divine mind and will, that is of God, and it is man’s duty to believe and act accordingly. But the issuing of authoritative commands is not the only way God has of revealing His mind and will; nor, to creatures made after His own it and even though fallen, yet capable within certain limits of understanding and imitating His procedure, is it even the first and most natural way of doing so. It is rather the manifestations which God gives of Himself in His works and ways, in which they might be expected to find the primary grounds of their faith and practice; and only when such had proved to be inadequate, might they require to be supplemented by explicit commands and stringent enactments. Holding, therefore, as we do, that the command to sacrifice was not necessary to establish the Divine authority of the rite of sacrifice,—holding, moreover, that in the Divine act of covering man’s person by the skins of slain beasts, as the symbol of his guilt being covered before God, there was an actual revelation of the mind of God in regard to His purposes of mercy and forgiveness to the sinful, precisely such as was afterwards embodied in animal sacrifice,—we can satisfactorily account for the absence of the command, and, at the same time, maintain the essentially Divine origin of the rite. And the reasoning of Davison and others, on the principle of no command, therefore no Divine authority, falls to the ground of itself as a false deduction. Of course the soundness of our own view, respecting the essentially Divine origin of sacrifice and its properly expiatory character, depends upon the correctness of the interpretation we have put upon the Divine act referred to. Davison, in common with British divines generally, regards it in a merely natural light. He sees in it simply “an instance of the Divine wisdom and philanthropy; interposing, by the dictation and provision of a more durable clothing, to veil the nakedness and cherish the modesty of our fallen nature, by sin made sensible to shame.”—(P. 24.) This he deems an object worthy of a special intervention of God, worthy also of a sacrifice of animal life to secure its accomplishment; and being so secured, he thinks it quite natural that the first pair might afterwards have felt themselves perfectly at liberty to use, for the sacred purposes of worship, what they had been taught to consider at their service for the lower purposes of corporeal clothing. This inference might certainly have been legitimate, if the premises on which it is founded had been accurately stated. But there we object. If corporeal clothing alone had been the intention of the act, it would have been the fruit of a needless interposition—the more so, as our first parents were themselves powerfully prompted to seek for clothing, and had already found a temporary relief. When the instincts and feelings of nature were manifestly so alive to the object, is it to be conceived that the ingenuity and skill which proved sufficient to accomplish so many other operations for their natural support and comfort, should have been in competent here? It is altogether incredible. On simply natural grounds, the action admits of no adequate explanation, and must ever appear above the occasion—consequently unworthy of God. Besides, how anomalous, especially in a historical revelation, which ever gives the foremost place to the moral element in God’s character and ways, if He should have appeared thus solicitous about the decent and comfortable clothing of men’s bodies, and yet have left them wholly in the dark as to the way of getting peace and quietness to their consciences?Such must have been the case with our first parents, if they were thrown entirely upon their own resources in the presentation of sacrificial offerings. And so Mr Davison himself substantially admits. For, while he endeavours to account naturally, and by means of the ordinary principles and feelings of piety, for the offering of animal life in sacrifice to God, considered simply as an expression of penitence in the offerer, or of His sense of deserved punishment for sin, he denies it could properly be regarded as an expiation or atonement of guilt; and hence postpones this higher aspect of sacrifice altogether, till the law of Moses, when he conceives it was for the first time introduced. Up till that period, therefore, sacrificial worship was but a species of natural religion; and man had no proper ground from God to expect, in answer to His offerings, the assurance of Divine pardon and acceptance. But this, we contend, had it been real, would have been anomalous. It would have been to represent God as caring originally more for the bodies than for the souls of His people; and as utterly ignoring at one period of His dealings, what at another He not only respects, but exalts to the highest place of importance. How could we vindicate the pre-eminently moral character of God’s principles of dealing, and the unchangeable nature of His administration, if He actually had been at first so indifferent in regard to the removal of guilt from the conscience, and afterwards so concerned about it as to make all religion hinge on its accomplishment? Any satisfactory vindication, in such a case, must necessarily be hopeless. But we are convinced it is not needed; the moral element is pre-eminent in God’s dealings toward men. It was this which gave its significance and worth to His act of clothing our first parents, as painfully conscious of guilt, with the skins of living creatures, whose covering of innocence was in a manner put on them. And on the ground alone of what was moral in the transaction, symbolically disclosing itself (as usual in ancient times) through the natural and corporeal, can we account for the sacrifice of slain victims becoming so soon, and continuing so long, the grand medium of acceptable communion with God. If, in so clothing man, God did mean to give indication respecting the covering of man’s guilt, and men of faith understood Him to do so, all becomes intelligible, consistent, and even comparatively plain. But if otherwise, all appears strange, irregular, and mysterious,[166] respecting sacrifice, which will be taken up at its proper place. See vol. ii., ch. 2, sec. 5. [166] Davison’s internal reason, as he calls it (p. 84), against the atoning character of the ante-legal oblations—that such oblations, even under the law, atoned only for ceremonial offences, which of necessity had no existence in earlier times, proceeds on a not uncommon misconception of the law of Moses We are not disposed, in a matter of this kind, to lay much stress upon philological considerations. Yet it is not unimportant to notice, that the technical and constantly recurring expression under the law, for the design of expiatory offerings (לָכַפֵּר עָלָיו), seems to have its most natural explanation by reference to that fundamental act of God, considered in respect to its moral import. To cover upon him, as the words really mean, is so singular an expression for making an atonement for guilt, that it could scarcely have arisen without some significant fact in history naturally suggesting it.We certainly have such a fact in the circumstance of God’s covering upon our first parents with the skins of animals, slain for them, if that was intended to denote the covering of their guilt and shame, as pardoned and put away by God. The first great act of forgiveness in connection with the sacrifice of life, would thus not unfitly have supplied a sacrificial language, as well as formed the basis of a sacrificial worship. But if some collateral support may be derived from this quarter to the view we have advanced, we certainly must disclaim being indebted to another philological consideration, more commonly urged by the advocates of the Divine origin of sacrifice. We refer to the argument so much pressed by Lightfoot, Magee, and others still in the present day, and based on what is regarded as a more exact rendering of Genesis 4:7, as if it should be, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?and if thou doest not well, a sin-offering lieth at the door.” Magee calls this “the plain, natural and significant interpretation” of the words, and vindicates it at great length—more especially on three grounds: 1. That the word translated sin (חטאת) is very frequently used in the sense of sin-offering; 2. That when so used, it is usually coupled (though a feminine noun) with a verb in the masculine; and 3. That the verb connected with it here, properly has respect to an animal (רבץ), and literally denotes couching or lying down—quite appropriately said of a beast, but not so of sin. A single fact is perfectly sufficient to dispose of the whole; the fact, namely, that the Hebrew term for sin never bears the import of sin-offering till the period of the law, and could not indeed do so, as till then what were distinctively called sin-offerings were unknown. To give the passage this turn, therefore, is to put an arbitrary and unwarranted sense upon the principal word, as there used; and nothing but the high authority of such men as Lightfoot and Magee could have given it the currency which it has so long obtained in this country. The real explanation of the feminine noun being coupled with a masculine verb, is to be found in the personification of sin as a wild beast, or cunning tempter to evil. And the whole passage bears respect to the circumstances of the first temptation, and can only, indeed, be correctly understood when these are kept in view: “And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen?Shall there not, if thou doest good (viz., in regard to the sacrifice), be acceptance (or lifting up)?and if thou doest not good, sin coucheth at the door. And unto thee shall be its desire, and thou shalt rule over it.” The last words are simply a transference to sin, in its relation to Cain, of what was originally said of Eve in her relation to Adam (Genesis 3:16); and many Jewish (see, for example, the exposition of Sola, Lindenthall, and Raphall) as well as Christian interpreters have discerned the allusion, and had respect to it in their exposition. Our translators, however, have unhappily understood the parties spoken of to be Cain and Abel, instead of Cain and sin, and thereby greatly obscured the meaning. The object of the Divine expostulation with Cain is evidently to show him, in the first instance, that the evil he frowned at really lay with himself, in his refusing to acknowledge and serve God, as his brother did. If he would still take this course, the ground of complaint should be removed; he would find acceptance, as well as his brother. But if he refused, then there was but one alternative—he could not get rid of sin: like an evil genius, it lay couching at the door, ready to prevail over him; but it was for him to do the manly part, and assert his superiority over it. In short, he is reminded by a silent reference to the sad circumstances of the fall, that giving way to sin, as he was doing, was allowing the weaker principle of his nature (represented by the woman in that memorable transaction) to gain the ascendant, while it became him, by cleaving to the right, to keep it in subjection; and it was implied, that if he failed in this, a second fall should inevitably follow—instead of rising, he must sink. While, however, we reject the argument commonly derived from this passage in behalf of the Divine origin of sacrifice, we derive an argument from it of another kind—viz., from the explicit manner in which it connects doing good with the acceptable presentation of sacrifice, and its representing sin as unforgiven, unsubdued, reigning in the heart and conduct, if sacrifice was not so performed. Had sacrifice not been essentially of God; had it not required the humble and childlike heart of faith to present it aright; had it not carried along with it, when so presented, the blessing of forgiveness and grace from Heaven, we cannot understand how such singular importance should have been attached to it. Like the sacrifice of Christ now, it has all the appearance of having then been the great touchstone of an accepted and blessed, or a guilty and rejected condition; not one of many, as it would have been if devised by man, but standing comparatively alone as an all-important ordinance of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 126: 05.21. APPENDIX D. ======================================================================== Appendix D.—Does The Original Relation Of The Seed Of Abraham To The Land Of Canaan Afford Any Ground For Expecting Their Final Return To It? THIS question very naturally suggests itself in connection with the subject discussed in the text, although, from its involving matter of controversy, we deemed it better not to enter upon it there. The view presented, however, of the relations of the covenant people, as connected with the occupation of Canaan, leads naturally to the conclusion, that their peculiar connection with that territory has ceased with the other temporary expedients and shadows to which it belonged. The people had certain ends of an immediate kind to fulfil, by means of their residence in the land—being placed there as representatives and bearers of the covenant, more fully to exhibit its character and tendencies, and to operate with more effect upon the nations around. But while intended to serve this present purpose, their possession of the land was also designed to be to the eye of faith an car and a pledge of the final occupation of a redeemed and glorified earth by Christ, and His elect seed of blessing. This is the proper antitype to the possession of the inheritance by the natural seed, in so far as that could justly be accounted typical. One can easily perceive, therefore, that the representation entirely fails in its foundation, which is often made by recent writers on unfulfilled prophecy, viz., that the original possession of the land of Canaan by the seed of Jacob, was “only a token and earnest of a more glorious occupation of the land hereafter to be enjoyed by them.” It is contrary to the nature of prophecies of this sort, as determined by the history of previous fulfilments, to make an event foreshadow itself—to make one occupation of the land of Canaan the type of another and future occupation of it. As well might it be alleged, that the natural Israel having eaten manna in the desert, was a type of their having to eat it again, or that their former killing of the passover-lamb foreshadowed their doing so hereafter in some new style, as that their ancient occupation of the land of Canaan typified a future and better possession of it. It is possible enough, however, that what we have put here in the form of extravagant suppositions, will be readily embraced by many, who believe in the future restoration of Israel to Canaan. An entire reproduction of the old is now contended for, as necessary to establish the literal truthfulness of Scripture. And among other things to be expected, we are told, in connection with the return of Israel to Canaan, is the building anew, and on a style of higher magnificence, of the material temple, the resuscitation of the Levitical priesthood, and the re-institution of the fleshly sacrifices and pompous ceremonial of the ancient worship. To hold this, indeed, is only to follow to its legitimate results the idea, that the former possession of Canaan was typical of another; since, if that earlier possession gave promise of a later one, the establishment of the religious economy connected with it must have foreshadowed its future restoration. But the notion, in this form of it, stands in direct antithesis to the whole genius of the New Testament dispensation, and to some of the most explicit statements also of New Testament Scripture. If anything be plain in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is, that everything there assumes a spiritual character and a universal aspect, as contradistinguished from the local and fleshly. Foreseeing this, the prophet Malachi had said, that in the coming age, “incense and a pure offering should in every place be offered to the Lord;” and our Lord Himself announced to the woman of Samaria the approaching abolition of all local distinctions: “The hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father;” that is, shall not regard worship rendered in these places as more sacred or more acceptable than worship paid elsewhere. The law, with all its limitations of time and place, its bodily lustrations and prescribed services, was for the nonage of the Church, and in form falls away, remains only in spirit, when the Church reaches her maturity. Such, unquestionably, is the argument of the Apostle in his Epistle to the Galatians; and it would surely be to run counter to all sense and reason, if, when the furthest extreme from the nonage condition is attained, the nonage food and discipline should return. As well might one expect to hear of angels being put into leading-strings! Nay, it is expressly declared, that the abolition of the outward forms and services of Judaism was on account of its “weakness and unprofitableness” (Hebrews 7:18); and that the law, which ordained such things, was of necessity changed or disannulled with the introduction of a new priesthood made after the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:12). And hence those who, in the apostolic age, insisted on the continued observance of the now antiquated rites of Judaism, were expostulated with by the Apostle as virtually making void the work of Christ, and acting as if the Church stood at where it was before He came into the world (Galatians 5:2-4; Colossians 2:14-23). Where such scriptural testimonies, so plain in their terms, and so conclusive in their import, have failed to produce conviction, it would be vain to expect anything from human argumentation. It may be proper, however, to present briefly, and more formally than has yet been done, what we deem the proper view of Israel’s typical relations, with respect more immediately to the subject now under consideration. The natural Israel, then, as God’s chosen people from among the peoples of the earth, were types of the elect seed, the spiritual and royal priesthood, whom Christ was to choose out of the world, and redeem for His everlasting kingdom. When this latter purpose began to be carried into effect, the former, as a matter of course, began to give way—precisely as the shedding of Christ’s blood upon the cross antiquated the whole sacrificial system of Moses. Hence, to indicate that the type, in this respect, has passed into the antitype, believers in Christ, of Gentile as well as of Jewish origin, are called Abraham’s seed (Galatians 3:29); Israelites (Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:12; Ephesians 2:19); comers unto Mount Zion (Hebrews 12:22); citizens of the free or heavenly Jerusalem (ib.; Galatians 4:26); the circumcision (Php 3:3; Colossians 2:11); and in the Apocalypse, which is written throughout in the language of symbol and type, they are even called Jews (Revelation 2:9); while the sealed company, in Revelation 7:1-17, who undoubtedly represent the whole multitude of the redeemed, are identified with the sealed of the twelve tribes of Israel. Further, this spiritual Israel of the New Testament are expressly declared to be “heirs according to the promise”—(Galatians 3:29) the promise, namely, given to Abraham; for it is as Abraham’s seed that they are designated heirs; and, of course, the possession of which they are heirs can be no other than that given by promise to Abraham. But then, as the antitypical things have now entered, not the old narrow and transitory inheritance is to be thought of, but that which it typically represented—“the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away,” which now as an object of hope takes its place. Accordingly, when the higher things of the Gospel are fairly introduced, it is to this nobler inheritance, as alone remaining, that the desires and expectations of the heirs of salvation are pointed. The Apostles never allude to any other, when handling the case either of believing Jews or converted Gentiles; and when that inheritance of endless blessing and glory,—the in heritance, as we believe it to be, of this earth itself in a state of heavenly perfection,—when this shall become the possession of a redeemed and glorified Church, then shall the promise contained in the Old Testament type be fully realized. But may not something specially belonging to Israel be included in the antitype? Something to distinguish the natural line of believers from those who belong to the seed only by spiritual ties?So, sometimes, it is argued, as in Israel Restored, p. 193: “Do they tell us the literal Israel was a type of the spiritual?We instantly grant it. Do they tell us again, that therefore there is a spiritual fulfilment of the covenant to believers?We grant it also. But all this, we say, is nothing to the point. You must go farther. What you need to prove is, that Israel of old, whose descendants still exist, was so a type of the spiritual Israel, that they were finally to merge, and be lost in them whom they typified.” There is no need for any such proof: the point in question is implied in the very fact of their being types; for, as such, they of necessity merged and became lost in the antitype. Was not the Paschal Lamb merged and lost in Christ?And the veil of the temple in Christ’s body?And David in the Son of Mary?Every type must, as a matter of necessity, share the same fate; and if anything peculiar is reserved for the land or people, who served a typical purpose, it must be on some other account than this that it shall belong to them. More commonly, however, the stress of the argument, as connected with the original position of the Israelites, is laid upon the terms of the covenant with Abraham, in which Canaan is spoken of as their sure and abiding possession. So, among many others, Kurtz (Geschichte des Alien Bundes, p. 128), who says, “In the renewed promise (Genesis 17:8), the possession of the land is called an everlasting possession, as the covenant is also called an everlasting covenant.—(Genesis 17:7, Genesis 7:13) That the covenant should be called an everlasting one cannot appear strange, as it is a covenant that must reach its end. If the fruit of the covenant is of a permanent kind, such also must be the covenant itself, of which it is the fulfilment. The promise of an everlasting possession of the land had respect primarily to the pilgrim-condition of Abraham, which was such as not to admit of his possessing a single foot-breadth in it as his own. But the land of promise is the inheritance and possession of his seed, and remains so for ever, though Israel may have been exiled from the land, and whether the exile may have lasted seventy or two thousand years.” True, no doubt, if the relative position of things continues substantially the same during the longer, as during the shorter period of exile; but not, surely, if they have undergone an essential change. The seed of Abraham has become unspeakably ennobled in Christ, and it is but natural to infer that the inheritance also should be correspondingly ennobled. The peculiar distinction of Canaan, and that which most of all rendered it an inheritance of blessing, was its being. God’s land. And if in Christ the whole earth becomes in the same sense the Lord’s, that Canaan was of old claimed to be His, then the promise will embrace the earth; nor will it be, in such a case, as if Canaan were lost to any portion of the seed, but rather as if Canaan were indefinitely widened and enlarged to receive them. In like manner, believers have the promise, that they shall worship God in His heavenly temple; and yet, when the heavenly appears to John in its glory, he sees no temple in it. Does the promise therefore fail? On the contrary, it is in the highest sense fulfilled. The no-temple simply means, that all has become temple, alike sacred and glorious; just as we may say, the no-Canaan in Christ has become all-Canaan. The inheritance is not lost; it has only ceased to become a part, and extends as far and wide as Christ’s peculiar possession reaches.—(Psalms 2) Here, however, we tread on the confines of prophecy, a field on which at present we do not mean to enter. We simply add, in confirmation of what has now been advanced regarding the Abrahamic covenant, that as the covenant is called everlasting, and the land also an everlasting possession, so circumcision is called everlasting: “My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.”—(Genesis 17:13) But we know for certain, that this was not intended to be in the strict sense perpetual. Baptism has virtually taken the place of circumcision; and circumcision should have been dropped when Christ appeared. It is the sin of the Jews to continue it, and it cannot now be to them the pledge of blessing. (See “Prophecy in its Distinctive Nature,” etc., Part ii., ch. ii., where the subject is discussed at some length.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 127: 05.22. APPENDIX E. ======================================================================== Appendix E.—The Relation Of Cannan To The State Of Final Rest (Hebrews 4:1; Hebrews 4:10) THE view presented in the text upon this subject, and the conclusion arrived at, substantially coincide with the argument maintained in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. And as a somewhat intricate turn is there given to the line of thought pursued in the epistle, I shall here refer a little more particularly to the passage, as well for the purpose of explicating its proper meaning, as for confirmation of what has been said upon the subject itself. This part of the epistle is introduced by an exhortation in chapter Hebrews 3. To stedfastness in the faith, and to diligence in the use of the means naturally fitted to secure it; and the exhortation is further confirmed by a reference to the words employed for the same purpose by the Psalmist in Psalms 95, who there calls upon the men of his day to beware of falling into the apostasy, and incurring the doom of their forefathers in the desert, when they provoked God by refusing to go forward in faith upon His word to occupy the land of Canaan, and He, in consequence, sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest. Catching up this word rest—God’s rest—contained in the divine utterance of judgment (as given by the Psalmist), the inspired writer goes on, at Hebrews 4:1, to discourse of the relation in which believers under the Gospel stand to it. He reminds them that they had, as a matter of course, succeeded to the heritage of promise given in former ages to God’s people concerning it; it had come down as an entail of blessing to them, and might now, precisely as of old, be either appropriated by faith or forfeited by unbelief. Not only does He thus connect believers under the Gospel with believers under the law in respect to the promised rest, but the promise itself He connects with the very commencement of the world’s history with that rest of God which He is said to have taken, when He ceased from all His works which He created and made.—(Genesis 2:2) This was emphatically God’s rest, the only thing expressly characterized as such in the history of the Divine dispensations; and the Apostle points to it as a noteworthy thing, that while the works, from which God is thus said to have rested, were finished at the creation of the world, the promise of the land of Canaan should somehow, thousands of years afterwards, have been associated with it. Yet he does not (as is too commonly supposed) simply identify the two; while both he and the Psalmist speak of exclusion from Canaan as involving for ancient Israel exclusion from an interest in God’s rest: they both also conceive the possibility of having an inheritance in Canaan, and yet wanting a participation in the rest of God. On this account the Psalmist had plied his contemporaries when they were in Canaan with the admonition to beware, lest, by provoking God, they should still lose their interest in God’s rest. And now, again, the writer of this epistle, laying hold of the words of the Psalmist, repeats the same warning, and calls upon Christians to take good heed, that by stedfastly adhering to the faith and obedience of the Gospel, they should secure their entrance into that rest of God which remains for them, as it has remained for God’s people in every age—the blessed result and consummation of a life of faith. Such are the leading points in the line of thought pursued in this portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews, viewed simply in itself, and without regard to the debateable questions and conflicting views which have been too often brought into it. The plainest reader can easily perceive the connection, when it is put in a distinct and orderly manner before him. But there is a marked peculiarity in the representation as first given by the Psalmist, and silently adopted by the Apostle, which must be noticed in order to make the inspired exposition appear altogether natural, and to apprehend the full depth of meaning involved in it. For, it will be observed, the language of the psalm in naming the rest in question strikingly differs from that of the original passage which relates to it, though no comment is made on the diversity by the author of the epistle. He takes the word just as he finds it. But it is remarkable that the utterance which it connects with the oath of God is nowhere found in the earlier Scriptures precisely in the form there given to it. In the passage more directly referred to by the Psalmist, the words are, “As truly as I live .... if they shall see” (that is, they shall certainly not see) “the land which I sware unto their fathers.”—(Numbers 14:21-23) In another verse of the same chapter (Numbers 14:30), the declaration is again repeated, and very nearly in the same words. It was undoubtedly these sayings which the Psalmist refers to, when he speaks of God reversing, as it were, His oath—swearing in regard to the generation that had provoked him, that they should not possess what he had previously sworn to their fathers to give them. But why, in pointing to this fresh oath or asseveration, should he have so remarkably departed from the language of Moses?Why, instead of saying, They shall not see, or they shall not come into the land, which I sware to give to their fathers, should he have represented God as swearing, They shall not enter into My rest?There must have been some reason for this; and, indeed, there needs no great search to discover it. The Psalmist would give the old word in its substance, but with a difference, such as might serve to convey an insight into the spiritual meaning involved in it, and let the men of his own generation see—the carnal and ungodly among them—that they were substantially on a footing with those who perished in the wilderness. They were living, indeed, in the land promised to their fathers; but what of that?The promise was never made to secure for them simply the possession of so much territory, as if in that alone they could find a proper and satisfying good. It could only be realized in the sense meant by God. And necessary to His people’s well-being, if the land was held as God’s land, and the rest it brought was enjoyed as a participation in God’s rest. If such, however, were the case, it must plainly follow, that for those who had entered the land, but who had not also entered into rest in this higher sense, the promise still remained essentially unfulfilled; they were but formally in possession of the children’s heritage, while in reality they knew nothing of the children’s blessing, and were in danger of being cast out as aliens. So that to them also reached the words of excision pronounced by God against their fathers, “They shall not enter into My rest:” no, it is not with Me they are sojourners; and whatever rest they may enjoy, it is not that rest which I engaged to share with My chosen. But what precisely is meant by this rest of God in its relation to God’s people?It has, we see, been set before them under all dispensations, as the one grand good which they are invited to make their own; but which those who in ancient times provoked God by their unbelief and waywardness were cut off from inheriting—which still also professing Christians are in danger, on similar accounts, of forfeiting. What, then, is it?Or how in reality is it to be entered on?That it is not simply to be identified with heaven is evident; since otherwise it could not have been so connected, as it was by the Psalmist, with a proper realization of the promised inheritance of Canaan, as at least a partial enjoyment of the blessing; nor, indeed, can it be absolutely tied to any one place, region, or time. “For they that have believed enter into the rest;” that is, they do it by virtue of their belief, and, in a measure, whenever they have it. In proof of this, the inspired writer carries his readers back to the creation of the world, and shows how, by the sanctification and blessing of the seventh day, it was from the first man’s calling and destination to share in God’s rest. But this destination, and God’s purpose in connection with it, were interrupted by the fall. They were for the moment foiled, and rendered incapable of being carried into execution after the primeval pattern; but they were by no means abandoned. The eternal purpose could not be frustrated; the calling of God was here necessarily without repentance; and the economy of grace entered, that it might be made good in a way consistent with the attributes of His character. Perpetually, therefore, as the plan of God proceeds, there must in substance be sounded in men’s ears the call to share alike in God’s works and God’s rest—to imbibe the spirit of the one, and enter into the participation of the other. And sometimes, as in the passages now under consideration, the call takes a more explicit form in this direction, in order to keep before us the thought, how God’s purpose in redemption coalesces with His original purpose in creation, and how the final issue of the one shall bring the realization of the good contemplated in the other. It tells us that redemption in all its stages—even in such preliminary and typical movements as were connected with the possession of Canaan, and still more, of course, in the riper movements and results pertaining to the work of Christ—ever aims at the restoration of man to the right knowledge and use of God’s works, and the blessed participation of God’s rest. The aim can be attained only in part now, but shall be perfectly so hereafter, when the work of God in this higher aspect of it being finished by the bringing in of the new heavens and the new earth, there shall be administered to all the redeemed a full as well as final entrance into the joy of their Lord. But for those who lived in the times preceding the Gospel, and who had spiritual insight to discern the meaning of what was established, the external rest of Canaan should (according to both the Psalmist and the Apostle) have been regarded, not as the ultimate boon they were to look for, but as the sign and earnest of an everlasting fellowship with God, in a sabbatism which shall be in complete accordance with His own perfect and glorious nature. END OF VOL. I. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 128: 05.23. BOOK THIRD. ======================================================================== Book Third. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 129: 05.24. CHAPTER FIRST ======================================================================== Chapter First.—The Divine Truths Embodied In The Historical Transactions Connected With The Redemption From Egypt, Viewed As Preliminary To The Symbolical Institutions Brought In By Moses. Section I.—The Bondage. THE history of what is called the Patriarchal religion may be said to terminate with the descent of the children of Israel into Egypt, or at least with the prosperous circumstances which attended the earlier period of their sojourn there; for the things which afterwards befell them in that land, rather belong to the dispensation of Moses. They tended, in various respects, to prepare the way for this new dispensation, more especially by furnishing the facts in which its fundamental ideas were to be embodied, and on which its institutions were to be based. The true religion, as formerly noticed, has ever distinguished itself from impostures, by being founded on great facts, which, by bringing prominently out the character of God’s purposes and government, provide the essential elements of the religion He prescribes to His people. This characteristic of the true religion, like every other, received its highest manifestation in the Gospel of Christ, where every distinctive element of truth and duty is made to grow out of the facts of His eventful history. The same characteristic, however, belongs, though in a less perfect form, to the Patriarchal religion, which was based upon the transactions connected with man’s fall, his expulsion from the garden of Eden, and the promise then given of a future Deliverer;—these formed, in a manner, the ground-floor of the symbolical and typical religion under which the earlier inhabitants of the world were placed. Nor was it otherwise with the religious dispensation which stood midway between the Patriarchal and the Christian—the dispensation of Moses. For here also the groundwork was laid in the facts of Israel’s history, which were so arranged by the controlling hand of God, as clearly to disclose the leading truths and principles that were to pervade the entire dispensation, arid that gave to its religious institutions their peculiar form and character. When we speak of fundamental truths and principles in reference to the Mosaic religion, it will be readily understood that these necessarily required to be somewhat more full and comprehensive than those which constitute the foundation of the first and simplest form of religion. The Mosaic religion did not start into being as something original and independent; it grew out of the Patriarchal, and was just, indeed, the Patriarchal religion in a farther state of progress and development. So much was this the case, that the mission of Moses avowedly begins where the communications of God to the patriarchs end; and, resuming what had been for a time suspended, takes for its immediate object the fulfilment of the purpose which the Lord had, ages before, pledged His word to accomplish.[167] Its real starting-point is the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with an especial reference to that part of it which concerned the occupation of the land of Canaan. And as the one dispensation thus commenced with the express design of carrying out and completing what the other had left unfinished, the latter of the two must be understood to have recognised and adopted as its own all the truths and principles of the first. What might now be regarded as fundamental, and required as such to be interwoven with the historical transactions by which the dispensation of Moses was brought in, must have been, to a considerable extent, super-additional,—including those, indeed, which belonged to the Patriarchal religion, but coupling with them such others as were fitted to constitute the elements of a more advanced state of religious knowledge and attainment. [167] Exodus 3:7-17. We are not to imagine, however, that the additional religious truths and principles which were to be historically brought out at the commencement of the Mosaic dispensation, must have appeared there by themselves, distinct and apart from those which descended from Patriarchal times. We might rather expect, from the common ground on which the true religion always erects itself, and the common end it aims at, that the New would be intermingled with the Old; and that the ideas on which the first religion was based, must reappear and stand prominently forth in the next, and indeed in every religious dispensation. The Patriarchal religion began with the loss of man’s original inheritance, and pointed, in all its institutions of worship and providential dealings, to the recovery of what was lost. It was the merciful provision of Heaven to light the way and direct the steps of Adam’s fallen family to a paradise restored. The religion brought in by the ministry of Moses began with an inheritance, not lost, indeed, but standing at an apparently hopeless distance, though conferred in free grant, and secured by covenant promise for a settled possession. As an expression of the good-will of God to men, and the object of hope to His people, the place originally held by the garden of Eden, with the way barred to the tree of life, but ready to be opened whenever the righteousness should be brought in for which the Church was taught to wait and strive, was now substantially occupied by that land flowing with milk and honey, which had become the destined inheritance of the heirs of promise. It was the immediate design and object of the mission of Moses to conduct the Church, as called to cherish this new form of hope, into the actual possession of its promised blessings; and to do this, not simply with the view of having the hope turned into reality, but so as at the same time, and in accordance with God’s general plan, to unfold the great principles of His character and government, and raise His people to a higher position in all religious knowledge and experience. In a word, God’s object, then, was, as it has ever been, not merely to bring His Church to the possession of a promised good, but to furnish by His method of doing it the elements of a religion corresponding in its nature and effects to the inheritance possessed or hoped for, and thus to render the whole subservient to the highest purposes of His moral government. When we speak, however, of the inheritance of Canaan being in the time of Moses the great object of hope to Israel, and the boon which his mission was specially designed to realize, we must take into account what, we trust, was satisfactorily established concerning it, in the earlier part of our investigations.[168] 1. The earthly Canaan was never designed by God, nor could it from the first have been understood by His people, to be the ultimate and proper inheritance which they were to occupy; things having been spoken and hoped for concerning it, which plainly could not be realized within the bounds of Canaan, nor on the earth at all, as at present constituted. 2. The inheritance, in its full and proper sense, was one which could be enjoyed only by those who had become children of the resurrection, themselves fully redeemed in soul and body from the effects and consequences of sin. 3. The occupation of the earthly Canaan by the natural seed of Abraham, in its grand and ultimate design, was a type of the occupation by a redeemed Church of her destined inheritance of glory. Hence everything concerning the entrance of Israel on that temporary possession had necessarily to be ordered, so as fitly to represent and fore shadow the things which belong to the Church’s establishment in her final and permanent possession. The matter may thus be briefly stated: God selected a portion—for the special ends in view, the fairest portion—of the earth,[169] which He challenged as His own in a peculiar sense, that He might convert it into a suitable habitation and inheritance for the people whom He had already chosen to be peculiarly His own. On this people, settled in this possession, He purposed to bestow the highest earthly tokens of His gracious presence and blessing. But what He was going to do for them in temporal and earthly things, was only a representation and a pledge of what, from before the birth of time, He had purposed to do in heavenly things, when the period should come for gathering into one His universal Church, and planting her in His everlasting inheritance of life and glory. There is, therefore, a twofold object to be kept in view, while we investigate this part of the Divine procedure and arrangements, as in these also there was a twofold design. The whole that took place between the giving of the hope to the patriarchs, and its realization in their posterity, we must, in the first instance, view as demonstrating on what principles God could, consistently with His character and government, bestow upon them such an inheritance, or keep them in possession of its blessings. But we must, at the same time, in another point of view, regard the whole as the shadow of higher and better things to come. We must take it as a glass, in which to see mirrored the form and pattern of God’s everlasting kingdom, and that with an especial reference to the grand principles on which the heirs of salvation were to be brought to the enjoyment of its future and imperishable glories. [168] Vol. i., see section on the hope of the inheritance. [169] Ezekiel 20 : “A land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands.” We are furnished at the very outset with no doubtful indication of the propriety of keeping in view this twofold bearing, in the condition of the heirs of promise. These, when the promise was first given, and for two generations afterwards, were kept in the region of the inheritance; and if the purposes of God respecting them had simply been directed to their occupation of it as a temporal and earthly good, the natural, and in every respect the easiest plan, would manifestly have been, to give them a settled place in it at the first, and gradually to have opened the way to their complete possession of the promised territory. But instead of this, they were absolutely prohibited from having then any fixed habitation within its borders; and by God’s special direction and overruling providence, were carried altogether away from the land, and planted in Egypt. There they found a settled home and dwelling-place, which they were not only permitted, but obliged, to keep for generations, before they were allowed to possess any interest in the promised inheritance. And it was precisely their long-continued sojourn in that foreign country, the relations into which it brought them, the feelings and associations which there grew upon them, and the interests with which they became connected, that so greatly embarrassed the mission of Moses, and rendered the work given him to do so peculiarly difficult and complicated. Had nothing more been contemplated by their settlement in Canaan than their simply being brought to the possession of a pleasant and desirable inheritance, after the manner of this world, nothing could have been more unfortunate and adverse than such a deep and protracted entanglement with the affairs of Egypt. Considered merely in that point of view, there is much in the Divine procedure, which could neither be vindicated as wise, nor approved as good; and the whole plan would manifestly lie open to the most serious objections. But matters present themselves in a different light, when we understand that everything connected with the earthly and temporal inheritance was ordered so as to develop the principles on which alone God could righteously confer upon men even that inferior token of His regard; and this, again, as the type or pattern according to which He should afterwards proceed in regulating the concerns of His everlasting kingdom. Viewed thus, as the whole ought to be, it will be found in every part consistent with the highest reason, and, indeed, could not have been materially different, without begetting erroneous impressions of the mind and character of God. So that, in proceeding to read what belongs to the work and handwriting of Moses, we must never lose sight of the fact, that we are tracing the footsteps of One whose ways on earth have ever been mainly designed to disclose the path to heaven, and whose procedure in the past was carefully planned to prepare the way for the events and issues of “the world to come.” The first point to which our attention is naturally turned, is the one already alluded to, respecting the condition of the Israelites, the heirs of promise, when this new stage of God’s proceedings began to take its course. We find them not only in a distant country, but labouring there under the most grievous hardship and oppression. When this adverse position of affairs took its commencement, or how, we are not further told, than in the statement that “a new king arose up over Egypt, who knew not Joseph,”—a statement which has not unfrequently been thought to indicate a change of dynasty in the reigning family of Egypt. This ignorance, it would seem, soon grew into estrangement, and that again into jealousy and hatred; for, afraid lest the Israelites, who were increasing with great rapidity in numbers and influence, should become too powerful, and should usurp dominion over the country, or, at least, in time of war prove a formidable enemy within the camp, the then reigning Pharaoh took counsel to afflict them with heavy burdens, and to keep them down by means of oppression. It is quite possible there may have been peculiar circumstances connected with the civil affairs of Egypt, which tended to foster and strengthen this rising enmity, and seemed to justify the harsh and oppressive policy in which it showed itself. But we have quite enough to account for it, in the character which belonged to the family of Jacob, when they entered Egypt, coupled with the extraordinary increase and prosperity which attended them there. It was as a company of shepherds they were presented before Pharaoh, and the land of Goshen was assigned them for a dwelling-place, expressly on account of its rich pasturage.[170] But “every shepherd,” it is said, “was an abomination to the Egyptians;” and with such a strong feeling against them in the national mind, nothing but an overpowering sense of the obligation under which the Egyptians lay to the Israelites, could have induced them to grant to this shepherd race such a settlement within their borders. Nor can it be wondered at, that when the remembrance of the obligation ceased to be felt, another kind of treatment should have been experienced by the family of Jacob than what they at first received, and that the native, deep-seated repugnance to those who followed their mode of life should begin to break forth. That there was such a repugnance, is a well-ascertained fact, apart altogether from the testimony of Scripture. The monuments of Egypt furnish ample evidence of it, as they constantly present shepherds in an inferior or despicable aspect, sometimes even as the extreme of coarseness and barbarity, and the objects of unmingled contempt.[171] We cannot suppose this hatred towards shepherds to have arisen simply from their possessing flocks and herds; for we have the clearest evidence in the Pentateuch that Pharaoh possessed these, and that they existed in considerable numbers throughout the land.[172] It seems rather to have been occasioned by the general character and habits of the nomade or shepherd tribes,[173] who have ever been averse to the arts of cultivation and civilised life, and most unscrupulous in seizing, when they had the opportunity, the fruits that have been raised by the industry and toil of others. From the earliest times the rich and fertile country of Egypt has suffered much from these marauding hordes of the desert, to whose incursions it lies open both on the east and on the west. And as the land of Goshen skirted the deserts of Arabia, where especially the Bedouin or wandering tribes, from time immemorial, have been accustomed to dwell, we can easily conceive how the native Egyptians would watch with jealousy and dread the rising power and importance of the Israelites. By descent they were themselves allied with those shepherd tribes; and, by the advantage of their position, they held the key on an exposed side to the heart of the kingdom; so that, if they became strong enough, and chose to act in concert with their Arab neighbours, they might have over-spread the land with desolation. Indeed, it is a historical fact, that “the Bedouin Arabs settled in Egypt have always made common cause with the Arabs (of the Desert) against the communities that possessed the land. They fought against the Saracen dynasty in Egypt; against the Turkomans, as soon as they had acquired the ascendancy; against the Mamlook sultans, who were the successors of the Turkomans; and they have been at war with the Osmanlis without intermission, since they first set foot upon Egypt more than 300 years ago.”[174] [170] Genesis 47:11 : “And Joseph gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses.” “The land of Goshen,” says Robinson, in his Biblical Researches, “was the best of the land; and such, too, the province of Esh-Shŭrkiyeh has ever been, down to the present time. In the remarkable Arabic document translated by De Sacy, containing a valuation of all the provinces and villages of Egypt in the year 1376, this province comprises 383 towns and villages, and is valued at 1,411,875 dinars,—a larger sum than is put on any other province, with one exception. During my stay in Cairo, I made many inquiries respecting this district; to which the uniform reply was, that it was considered the best province in Egypt…. There are here more flocks and herds than anywhere else in Egypt, and also more fishermen.” Wilkinson also states, that “no soil is better suited to many kinds of produce than the irrigated edge of the desert (where Goshen lay), even before it is covered by the fertilizing deposit of the inundation.” Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, i., p. 222. How such a rich and fertile region should have been so little occupied at the time of Jacob’s descent into Egypt, as to afford room for his family settling in it, and enlarging themselves as they did, need occasion no anxiety, as the fact itself is indisputable. And Robinson states, that even at present there are many villages wholly deserted, and that the province is capable of sustaining another million. [171] Rossellini, vol. i., p. 178; Wilkinson, vol. ii., p. 16; also Heeren’s Africa, ii., p. 146, Trans. [172] Genesis 47:16-17; Exodus 9:3, etc. [173] See Heeren’s Africa, ii., p. 157; Rossellini, Mon. dell’ Eg., i., p. 177, etc.; Hengstenberg, Beitr., ii., p. 437. [174] Prokesch, Errinnerungen aus Eg., as quoted by Hengstenberg in his Eg. and the books of Moses, p. 78. If Egypt had previously been overrun, and for some generations held in bondage, by one of these nomade tribes of Asia, there would have been a still stronger ground for exercising toward the family of Jacob the jealous antipathy in question. Of the fact of such an invasion and possession of Egypt by a shepherd race, later investigations into the antiquities of Egypt have left little room to doubt; but the period of its occurrence, as connected with the history of the Israelites, is still a matter of uncertainty. A full review of the opinions and probabilities connected with the subject, may be seen in Kurtz, Geschichte des Alten Bund, ii., p. 178, sq. Hence, when the Israelites appeared so remarkably to flourish and multiply in their new abode, it was no unnatural policy for the Egyptians to subject them to hard labour and vexatious bur dens. They would thus expect to repress their increase, and break their spirit; and, by destroying what remained of their pastoral habits, and training them to the arts and institutions of civilised life, as these existed in Egypt, to lessen at once their desire and their opportunities of leaguing for any hostile purpose with the tribes of the desert. At the same time, while such reasons might sufficiently account for the commencement of a hard and oppressive policy, there were evidently other reasons connected at least with the severer form, which it ultimately reached, and such as argued some acquaintance with the peculiar prospects of Israel. It was only one ground of Pharaoh’s anxiety respecting them, that they might possibly join hands with an enemy and fight against Egypt; another fear was, that they “might get them up out of the land.”[175] This seems to bespeak a knowledge of the fact, that some other region than Goshen belonged to the Israelites as their proper home, for which they were disposed, at a fitting time, to leave their habitations in Egypt. Nor, indeed, would it be difficult for the king of Egypt to obtain such knowledge, as, in the earlier period of their sojourn, the Israelites had no motive to hold it in concealment. Then, the announcement of Jacob’s dying command to carry up his remains to the land of Canaan, of which the whole court of Pharaoh was apprized, and afterwards the formal withdrawal of Joseph and his family from the court of Pharaoh, to identify themselves with the state and prospects of their kindred, were more than sufficient to excite the suspicion of a jealous and unfriendly government, that they did not expect to remain always connected with the land and fortunes of Egypt. “It is clear that Pharaoh knew of a home for these stranger-Israelites, while he could on no account bear to think of it; and also that though his forefather had treated them to a possession in the land of Egypt, he now considered them as his servants, whom he was determined not to lose. It is precisely because he would know nothing of freedom and a home for Israel, that the increase of Israel was so great an annoyance to him. The seed of Abraham were, according to the promise, to be a blessing to all nations, and should, therefore, have been greeted with joy by the king of Egypt. But, since the reverse was the case, we can easily see, at this first aspect of Israel’s affairs, that the further fulfilment of the promise could not develop itself by the straightest and most direct road, but would have to force its way through impediments of great strength and difficulty.”[176] [175] Exodus 1:10. [176] Baumgarten, Theol. Com., i., p. 393. The kinds of service which were imposed with so much rigour upon the Israelites, though they would doubtless comprehend the various trades and employments which were exercised in the land, consisted chiefly, as might be expected in such a country, in the several departments of field labour. It was especially “in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, that their lives were made bitter with hard bondage.”[177] The making of bricks formed of clay and straw appears, during the later period of the bondage, to have been the only servile occupation in which they were largely engaged, and, of course, along with that, the erection of the buildings for which the bricks were made. As the hard and rigorous service to which they were subjected in this department of labour did not seem to answer the end intended, but the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied and grew, the gloom and distress that hung around their condition were fearfully deepened by the issuing of a cruel edict, commanding that their male children should be killed as soon as they were born. This was too atrocious an edict even for the despot of a heathen land to enforce, and he could not find instruments at his command wicked enough to carry it into execution. In all probability it was soon recalled, or allowed gradually to fall into abeyance; for though it was in force at the birth of Moses, we hear nothing of it afterwards; and its only marked effect, so far as we are informed, was to furnish the occasion of opening a way for that future deliverer into the temples and palaces of Egypt. So marvellously did God, by His overruling providence, baffle the design of the enemy, and compel “the eater to give forth meat!” The only evil in their condition which seems to have become general and permanent, was the hard service in brick-making and collateral kinds of servile labour, and which, so far from suffering relaxation by length of time, was rather, on slight pretexts, increased and aggravated. It became at last so excessive, that one universal cry of misery and distress arose from the once happy land of Goshen,—a cry which entered into the ear of the God of Abraham, and which would no longer permit Him to remain an inactive spectator of a controversy which, if continued, must have made void His covenant with the father of the faithful.[178] [177] Exodus 1:4; Exodus 5:6-19. [178] A modern rationalist (Von Bohlen, Einleitung zur Genesis) has attempted to throw discredit on the above account of the hard service of the Israelites, by alleging that the making of bricks at that early period belonged only to the region of Babylonia, and that the early Egyptians were accustomed to build with hewn stone. “We can scarcely trust our own eyes,” says Hengstenberg, “when we read such things,” and justly, as all well-informed writers concerning ancient Egypt, whether of earlier or of later times, have concurred in testifying that building with brick was very common there so common, indeed, that private edifices were generally of that material. Herodotus mentions a pyramid of brick, which is thought to be one of those still standing (ii. 136). Modern inquirers, such as Champollion, Rossellini, and Wilkinson, speak of tombs, ruins of great buildings, lofty walls, and pyramids, being formed of bricks, and found in all parts of Egypt. (See the quotations in Hengstenberg’s Eg. and books of Moses, p. 2, 80) Wilkinson says (Ancient Egyptians, ii., p. 96), “The use of crude brick, baked in the sun, was universal in Upper and Lower Egypt, both for public and private buildings; and the brick-field gave abundant occupation to numerous labourers throughout the country.…. Inclosures of gardens, or granaries, sacred circuits encompassing the courts of temples, walls of fortifications and towns, dwelling-houses, and tombs,—in short, all but the temples themselves, were of crude brick; and so great was the demand, that the Egyptian government, observing the profit which would accrue from a monopoly of them, undertook to supply the public at a moderate price,—thus preventing all unauthorized persons from engaging in the manufacture. And in order the more effectually to obtain this end, the seal of the king, or of some privileged person, was stamped upon the bricks at the time they were made.” He says, farther, “It is worthy of remark, that more bricks bearing the name of Thothmes II. (whom I suppose to have been king of Egypt at the time of the Exodus) have been discovered than of any other period.” And not only have multitudes of bricks been thus identified with the period of Israel’s bondage, and these sometimes made of clay mingled with chopped straw, but a picture has been discovered in a tomb at Thebes, which so exactly corresponds with the delineation given by Moses of the hard service of the Israelites,—some digging and mixing the clay, others fetching water for it; others, again, adjusting the clay to the moulds, or placing the bricks in rows; the labourers, too, being of Asiatic, not Egyptian aspect, but amongst them four Egyptians, two of whom carry sticks in their hands, taskmasters,—that Rossellini did not hesitate to call it, whether correctly or not, “a picture representing the Hebrews as they were engaged in making brick.” So much for the condition itself of hard bondage and oppressive labour to which the heirs of the inheritance were reduced, before the time came for their being actually put in possession of its blessings. And situated as they were within the bounds of a foreign kingdom, at first naturally jealous, and then openly hostile towards them, it is not difficult to account for the kind of treatment inflicted on them, viewing the position they occupied merely in its worldly relations and interests. But what account can we give of it in its religious aspect—as an arrangement settled and ordained on the part of God? Why should He have ordered such a state of matters concerning His chosen seed? For the Egyptians “though their hearts thought not so”—were but instruments in His hands, to bring to pass what the Lord had long before announced to Abraham as certainly to take place, viz., “that his seed should be strangers in a land that was not theirs, and should serve them, and be afflicted by them four hundred years.” (Genesis 15:13) 1. Considered in this higher point of view, the first light in which it naturally presents itself is that of a doom or punishment, from which, as interested in the mercy of God, they needed redemption. For the aspect of intense suffering, which it latterly assumed, could only be regarded as an act of retribution for their past unfaithfulness and sins. We should be perfectly warranted to infer this, even without any express information on the subject, from the general connection in the Divine government between sin and suffering. And when placed by the special appointment of Heaven in circumstances so peculiarly marked by what was painful and afflicting to nature, the Israelites should then, no doubt, have read in their marred condition, what their posterity were, in like circumstances, taught to read by the prophet—“that it was their own wickedness which corrected them, and their blackslidings which reproved them.” But we are not simply warranted to draw this as an inference. It is matter of historical certainty, brought out in the course of the Mosaic narrative by many and painful indications, that the Israelites were not long in Egypt till they became partakers in Egypt’s sins; and that the longer their stay was protracted there, they only sunk the deeper into the mire of Egyptian idolatry and corruption, and became the more thoroughly alienated from the true knowledge and worship of God. Not only had they, as a people, completely lost sight of the great temporal promise of the covenant, the inheritance of the land of Canaan, but God himself had become to them as a strange God; so that Moses had to inquire for the name by which he should reveal Him to their now dark and besotted minds.[179] The very same language is used concerning their connection with the abominations of Egyptian idolatry, while they sojourned among them, as is afterwards used of their connection with those of Canaan: “they served other gods,” “went a whoring after them;” and even long after they had left the region, would not “forsake the idols of Egypt,” but still carried its abominations with them, and in their hearts turned back to it.[180] Of the truth of these charges they gave too many affecting proofs in the wilderness; and especially by their setting up, so recently after the awful demonstrations of God’s presence and glory on Sinai, and their own covenant engagements, the worship of the golden calf, with its bacchanalian accompaniments. Their conduct on that occasion was plainly a return to the idolatrous practices of Egypt in their most common form.[181] And, indeed, if their bondage and oppression in its earlier stages did not, as a timely chastisement from the hand of God, check their tendency to imitate the manners and corruptions of Egypt, as it does not appear to have done, it could scarcely fail to be productive of a growing conformity to the evil. For it destroyed that freedom and elevation of spirit, without which genuine religion can never prosper. It robbed them of the leisure they required for the worship of God and the cultivation of their minds (their Sabbaths seem altogether to have perished), and it brought them into such close contact with the proper possessors of Egypt, as was naturally calculated to infect them with the grovelling and licentious spirit of Egyptian idolatry. So that probably true religion was never at a lower ebb, in the family of Abraham, than toward the close of their sojourn in Egypt; and the swelling waves of affliction, which at last overwhelmed them, only marked the excessive strength and prevalence of that deep under-current of corruption which had carried them away. Now this condition of the heirs of promise, viewed in reference to its highest bearing, its connection with the inheritance, was made subservient to the manifestation of certain great principles, necessarily involved in this part of the Divine procedure, in respect to which it could not properly have been dispensed with. (1.) It first of all clearly demonstrated, that, apart from the covenant of God, the state and prospects of those heirs of promise were in no respect better than those of other men—in some respects it seemed to be worse with them. They were equally far off from the inheritance, being in a state of hopeless alienation from it; they had drunk into the foul and abominable pollutions of the land of their present sojourn, which were utterly at variance with an interest in the promised blessing; and they bore upon them the yoke of a galling bondage, at once the consequence and the sign of their spiritual degradation. They differed for the better only in having a part in the covenant of God. (2.) Therefore, secondly, whatever this covenant secured for them of promised good, they must have owed entirely to Divine grace. In their own condition and behaviour, they could see no ground of preference; they saw, indeed, the very reverse of any title to the blessing, which must hence descend upon them as Heaven’s free and undeserved gift. This they were after wards admonished by Moses to keep carefully in remembrance: “Speak not thou in thy heart, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land. Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess the land, but that the Lord may perform the word which He sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”[182] (3.) Hence, finally, the promise of the inheritance could be made good in their experience only by the special kindness and interposition of God, vindicating the truth of His own faithful word, and in order to this, executing in their behalf a work of redemption. While the inheritance was sure, because the title to it stood in the mercy and faithfulness of God, they had of necessity to be redeemed before they could actually possess it. Having become the victims of corruption, they were also the children of wrath; sin had brought them into bondage; and before they could escape to the land of freedom and rest, the snare must be broken. But the hand of Omnipotence alone could do it. If nature had been left to itself, the progress would only have been to a fouler corruption and a deeper ruin. It was simply as the Lord’s chosen people that they held the promise of the inheritance, and they could enter on its possession no otherwise than as a people ransomed by His power and goodness. So that the great principles of their degenerate and lost condition, of their absolutely free election and calling to the promised good, of redemption by the grace and power of God in order to obtain it, were interwoven as essential elements with this portion of their history, and imprinted as indelible lines upon the very foundations of their national existence. [179] Exodus 3:13. [180] Joshua 24:14; Leviticus 17:7; Ezekiel 23:3; Ezekiel 20:8; Amos 5:25-26; Acts 7:39. [181] It is admitted on all hands, that the worship of the gods under symbolical images of irrational creatures had its origin in Egypt, and was especially cultivated there in connection with the cow, or bovine form. It was noticed by Strabo, 1, xvii., as singular, that “no image formed after the human figure was to be found in the temples of Egypt, but only that of some beasts” (τῶν ἀλόγων ζώων τινός). And no images seem to have been so generally used as those of the calf or cow, though authors differ as to the particular deity represented by it. It would rather seem that there were several deities worshipped under this symbol. Most of the available learning on the subject has been brought together by Bochart, Hieroz. Lib. ii., ch. 34; to which Hengstenberg has made some addition in his Beit., ii., p. 155-163. The latter would connect the worship of the golden calf in the desert with the worship of Apis; Wilkinson connects it with that of Mnevis (Manners of Ancient Eg., 2d series, ii., p. 96); and Jerome had already given it as his opinion, that Jeroboam set up the two golden calfs in Dan and Bethel, in imitation of the Apis and Mnevis of Egypt.—(Com. on Hosea 4:15) But however that may be, there can be no doubt, that if the Israelites were disposed to Egyptize in their worship, the most likely and natural method for them to do so, was by forming to themselves the image of a golden cow or calf, and then by engaging in its worship with noisy and festive rites. For it is admitted by those (for example, Creuzer, Symbol., i., p. 448) who are little in the habit of making any concessions in favour of a passage of Scripture, that the rites of the Egyptians partook much of the nature of orgies, and that a very prominent feature in their religion was its bacchanalian character. [182] Deuteronomy 9:4-6. The parallel here, in each particular, between the earthly and the spiritual, or, as we more commonly term it, between the type arid the antitype, must so readily present itself to all who are conversant with New Testament Scripture, that we need do nothing more than indicate the agreement. It is most expressly declared, and indeed is implied in the whole plan of redemption unfolded in the Gospel, that those who become heirs of salvation are in their natural state no better than other men,—they are members of the same fallen family,—the same elements of corruption work in them,—they are children of wrath even as others.[183] When, therefore, the question is put, who makes them to differ, so that while others perish in their sins, they obtain the blessed hope of everlasting life? the only answer that can be returned is, the distinguishing goodness and mercy of God. The confession of Paul for himself, “By the grace of God I am what I am,” is equally suited to the whole company of the redeemed; nor is there anything in the present, or the future heritage of blessing, which it shall be given them to experience, that can be traced, in the history of any of them, to another source than the one foundation of Divine goodness and compassion.[184] And as the everlasting inheritance, to the hope of which they are begotten, is entirely the gift of God, so the way which leads to it can be that only which His own outstretched arm has laid open to them; and if as God’s elect they are called to the inheritance, it is as His redeemed that they go to possess it.[185] [183] Ephesians 2:1-3; Romans 3:9-20; Romans 3:7; Matthew 9:13; Luke 13:3, etc. [184] 1 Corinthians 4:7; 1 Corinthians 15:10; Ephesians 1:4; John 3:27; John 6:44; Matthew 11:25; Php 1:29, etc. [185] Ephesians 1:6-7; Ephesians 1:18-19; Colossians 1:12-14; 2 Timothy 1:9-10; Hebrews 2:14-15; 1 Peter 1:3-5, etc. 2. We have as yet, however, mentioned only one ultimate reason for the oppressed and suffering condition of the Israelites in Egypt, though in that one were involved various principles bearing upon their relation to the inheritance. But there was another also of great importance it formed an essential part of the preparation which they needed for occupying the inheritance. This preparation, in its full and proper sense, must, of course, have included qualities of a religious and moral kind; and of these we shall have occasion to speak at large afterwards. But apart from these, there was needed what might be called a natural preparation; and that especially consisting of two parts,—a sufficient desire after the inheritance, and a fitness in temper and habit for the position which, in connection with it, they were destined to occupy. (1.) It was necessary by some means to have a desire awakened in their bosoms towards Canaan, for the pleasantness of their habitation had become a snare to them. The fulness of its natural delights by degrees took off their thoughts from their high calling and destiny as the chosen of God; and the more they became assimilated to the corrupt and sensual manners of Egypt, the more would they naturally be disposed to content themselves with their present comforts. To such an extent had this feeling grown upon them, that they could scarcely be kept afterwards from returning back, notwithstanding the hard service and cruel inflictions with which they had latterly been made to groan in anguish of spirit. What must have been their state if no such troubles had been experienced, and all had continued to go well with them in Egypt? How vain would have been the attempt to inspire them with the love of Canaan, and especially to make good their way to it through formidable difficulties and appalling dangers! The affliction of Israel in Egypt is a testimony to the truth, common to all times, that the kingdom of God must be entered through tribulation. The tribulation may be ever so varied in its character and circumstances; but in some form it must be experienced, in order to prevent the mind from becoming wedded to temporal enjoyments, and to kindle in it a sincere desire for the better part, which is reserved in heaven for the heirs of salvation. Hence it is so peculiarly hard for those who are living in the midst of fulness and prosperity to enter into the kingdom of God. And hence, also, must so many trying dispensations be sent even to those who have entered the kingdom, to wean them from earthly things, and constrain them to seek for their home and portion in heaven. (2.) But if we look once more to the Israelites, we shall see that something besides longing desire for Canaan was needed to prepare them for what was in prospect. For that land, though presented to their hopes as a land flowing with milk and honey, was not to be by any means a region of inactive repose, where everything was to be done for them, and they had only to take their rest, and feast themselves with the abundance of peace. The natural imagination delights to riot in the thought of such an untaxed existence, and such a luxurious home. But He who made man, and knows what is best suited to the powers and capacities of his nature, never destined him for such a state of being. Even the garden of Eden, replenished as it was with the tokens of Divine beneficence, was to some extent a field of active exertion: the blissful region had to be kept and dressed by its possessor as the condition of his partaking of its fruitfulness. And now, when Canaan took for a time the place of Eden, and the covenant people were directed to look thither for their present home and inheritance, while they were warranted to expect there the largest amount of earthly blessing, they were by no means entitled to look for a state of lazy inaction and uninterrupted rest. There was much to be done, as well as much to be enjoyed; and they could neither have fulfilled, in regard to other nations, the elevated destiny to which they were appointed, as the lamp and witness of heaven, nor reaped in their own experience the large measure of good which was laid up in store for themselves, unless they had been prepared by a peculiar training of vigorous action, and even compulsive labour, to make the proper use of all their advantages. Now, in this point of view, the period of Israel’s childhood as a nation in Egypt might be regarded as, to some extent, a season of preparation for their future manhood. It would not have done for them to go and take possession of Canaan as a horde of ignorant barbarians, or as a company of undisciplined and roving shepherds. It was fit and proper that they should carry with them a taste for the arts and manners of civilised life, and habits of active labour, suited to the scenes of usefulness and glory which awaited them in the land of their proper inheritance. But how were such tastes and habits to become theirs? They did not naturally possess them, nor, if suffered to live at ease, would they probably ever have attained to any personal acquaintance with them. They must be brought, in the first instance, under the bands of a strong necessity; so that it might be no doubtful contingence, but a sure and determinate result, that they left Egypt with all the learning, the knowledge of art and manufacture, the capacity for active business and useful employment, which it was possible for them there to acquire. And thus they went forth abundantly furnished with the natural gifts, which were necessary to render them, not only an independent nation, but also fit instruments of God for His work and service in the new and not less honourable than arduous position they were destined to occupy.[186] [186] The view given in the text may be said to strike a middle course between that of Kitto, in his History of Palestine, vol. i., p. 150, etc., and that of Hengstenberg, in his Authen., i., p. 431, etc. (We mention these two writers, chiefly as being among the last who have held respectively the views in question, not as if there was anything substantially new in either. Deyling has a clear and, in the main, well-conducted argumentation for the view adopted by Hengstenberg, and against the opposite, at the end of P. I. of his Obs. Sac.) The former regards the Israelites, at the period of their descent into Egypt, as distinguished by all the characteristics of the wandering and barbarous shepherd tribes, and not improbably giving occasion at first, by some overt acts of plunder, to the Egyptian government to adopt harsh measures toward them. Most German writers of the rationalist school not only go to the full length of maintaining this, but, apparently forgetting the discipline to which the Israelites were subjected in Egypt, consider it to have been their condition also when they left the country; and object to the account given of the erection of the tabernacle in the wilderness, as implying too much skill in various kinds of arts and manufactures for a simple shepherd race. So, in particular, Winer and Vatke. Hengstenberg, on the other hand, maintains that the roughness and barbarity properly distinguishing the shepherd tribes never belonged to the Hebrews—that their possessing the character of shepherds at all, arose chiefly from the circumstances in which they were placed during their early sojourn in Canaan—that they were glad to abandon their wandering life and dwell in settled habitations, whenever an opportunity afforded—that, set down, as they afterwards were, in one of the most fertile and cultivated regions of Egypt, which they held from the first as a settled possession (Genesis 47:11; Genesis 47:27), their manner of life was throughout different from the nomadic, was distinguished by possessions in lands and houses, and by the various employments and comforts peculiar to Egyptian society. This view must be adopted with some modification as to the earlier periods of their history; for, though the Israelites never entered fully into the habits of the nomade tribes, yet they were manifestly tending more and more in that direction toward the time of their descent into Egypt. The tendency was there gradually checked, and the opposite extreme at last reached as it appears, that at the time of the Exodus they had all houses with door-posts (Exodus 12:4; Exodus 12:7, etc.), lived to a considerable extent intermingled with the Egyptians in their cities (Exodus 3:20-22; Exodus 11:1-3; Exodus 12:35-36), were accustomed to the agricultural occupations peculiar to the country (Deuteronomy 11:10), took part even in its finest manufactures, such as were prepared for the king (1 Chronicles 4:21-23), and enjoyed the best productions both of the river and the land (Numbers 11:5; Numbers 20:5). It is but natural to suppose, however, that some compulsion was requisite to bring them to this state of civilisation and refinement; and as it was a state necessary to fit them for setting up the tabernacle and occupying aright the land of Canaan, we see the overruling hand of God in the very compulsion that was exercised. For an example of a modern Arab tribe settling down to agricultural occupations in the same region, see Robinson’s Researches, i., p. 77. The correspondence here between the type and the antitype has been too much overlooked, and even the more direct intimations of New Testament Scripture, respecting the state and employment of saints in glory, have too seldom been admitted to their full extent, and followed out to their legitimate practical results, as regards the condition of believers on earth. The truth in this respect, however, has been so happily developed by a well-known writer, that we must take leave to present it in his own words: “Heaven, the ultimate and perfected condition of human nature, is thought of, amidst the toils of life, as an elysium of quiescent bliss, exempt, if not from action, at least from the necessity of action. Meanwhile, every one feels that the ruling tendency and the uniform intention of all the arrangements of the present state, and almost all its casualties, is to generate and to cherish habits of strenuous exertion. Inertness, not less than vice, is a seal of perdition. The whole course of nature, and all the institutions of society, and the ordinary course of events, and the explicit will of God declared in His word, concur in opposing that propensity to rest which belongs to the human mind; and combine to necessitate submission to the hard yet salutary conditions under which alone the most extreme evils may be held in abeyance, and any degree of happiness enjoyed. A task and duty is to be fulfilled, in discharging which the want of energy is punished even more immediately and more severely than the want of virtuous motives.” He proceeds to show that the notices we have of the heavenly world imply the existence there of intelligent and vigorous agents:— “But if there be a real and necessary, not merely a shadowy, agency in heaven as well as on earth; and if human nature is destined to act its part in such an economy, then its constitution, and the severe training it undergoes, are at once explained; and then also the removal of individuals in the very prime of their fitness for useful labour, ceases to be impenetrably mysterious. This excellent mechanism of matter and mind, which, beyond any other of His works, declares the wisdom of the Creator, and which, under His guidance, is now passing the season of its first preparation, shall stand up anew from the dust of dissolution, and then, with freshened powers, and with a store of hard-earned and practical wisdom for its guidance, shall essay new labours in the service of God, who by such instruments chooses to accomplish His designs of beneficence. That so prodigious a waste of the highest qualities should take place, as is implied in the notions which many Christians entertain of the future state, is indeed hard to imagine. The mind of man, formed as it is to be more tenacious of its active habits than even of its moral dispositions, is, in the present state, trained, often at an immense cost of suffering, to the exercise of skill, of forethought, of courage, of patience; and ought it not to be inferred, unless positive evidence contradicts the supposition, that this system of education bears some relation of fitness to the state for which it is an initiation? Shall not the very same qualities which here are so sedulously fashioned and finished, be actually needed and used in that future world of perfection? Surely the idea is inadmissible, that an instrument wrought up at so much expense to a polished fitness for service, is destined to be suspended for ever on the palace-walls of heaven, as a glittering bauble, no more to make proof of its temper? “Perhaps a pious but needless jealousy, lest the honour due to Him, ‘who worketh all in all,’ should be in any degree compromised, has had influence in concealing from the eyes of Christians the importance attributed in the Scriptures to subordinate agency; and thus, by a natural consequence, has impoverished and enfeebled our ideas of the heavenly state. But, assuredly, it is only while encompassed by the dimness and errors of the present life, that there can be any danger of attributing to the creature the glory due to the Creator. When once with open eye that excellent glory has been contemplated, then shall it be understood that the Divine wisdom is incomparably more honoured by the skilful and faithful performances, and by the cheerful toils of agents who have been fashioned and fitted for service, than it could be by the bare exertions of irresistible power; and then, when the absolute dependence of creatures is thoroughly felt, may the beautiful orders of the heavenly hierarchy, rising and still rising toward perfection, be seen and admired, without hazard of forgetting Him who alone is absolutely perfect, and who is the only fountain and first cause of whatever is excellent.”[187] [187] Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 150-154. Section Second.—The Deliverer And His Commission. THE condition to which the heirs of promise were reduced in the land of Egypt, we have seen, called for a deliverance, and this again for a deliverer. Both were to be pre-eminently of God the work itself, and the main instrument of accomplishing it. In the execution of the one here was not more need for the display of Divine power, than for the exercise of Divine wisdom in the selection and preparation of the other. It is peculiar to God’s instruments, that, though however to man’s view they may appear unsuited for the service, they are found on trial to possess the highest qualifications. “Wisdom is justified of all her children,” and especially of those who are appointed to the most arduous and important undertakings. But in the extremity of Israel’s distress, where was a deliverer to be found with the requisite qualifications? From a family of bondsmen, crushed and broken in spirit by their miserable servitude, who was to have the boldness to undertake their deliverance, or the wisdom, if he should succeed in delivering them, to make suitable arrangements for their future guidance and discipline? If such a person was anywhere to be found, he must evidently have been one who had enjoyed advantages very superior to those which entered into the common lot of his brethren—one who had found time and opportunity for the meditation of high thoughts, and the acquirement of such varied gifts as would fit him to transact, in behalf of his oppressed countrymen, with the court of the proud and the learned Pharaohs, and amidst the greatest difficulties and discouragements to lay the foundation of a system which should nurture and develop through coming ages the religious life of God’s covenant people. Such a deliverer was needed for this peculiar emergency in the affairs of God’s kingdom; and the very troubles which seemed, from their long continuance and crushing severity, to preclude the possibility of obtaining what was needed, were made to work toward its accomplishment. It is not the least interesting and instructive point in the history of Moses, the future hope of the Church, that his first appearance on the stage of this troubled scene was in the darkest hour of affliction, when the adversary was driving things to the uttermost. His first breath was drawn under a doom of death, and the very preservation of his life was a miracle of Divine mercy. But God here also “made the wrath of man to praise Him;” and the bloody decree which, by destroying the male children as they were born, was designed by Pharaoh to inflict the death-blow on Israel’s hopes of honour and enlargement, was rendered subservient, in the case of Moses, to prepare and fashion the living instrument through whom these hopes were soon to be carried forth into victory and fruition. Forced by the very urgency of the danger on the notice of Pharaoh’s daughter, and thereafter received, under her care and patronage, into Pharaoh’s house, the child Moses possessed, in the highest degree, the opportunity of becoming “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” and grew up to manhood in the familiar use of every advantage which it was possible for the world at that time to confer. Bat with such extraordinary means of advancement for the natural life, with what an atmosphere of danger was he there encompassed for the spiritual! He was exposed to the seductive and pernicious influence of a palace, where not only the world was met with in its greatest pomp and splendour, but where also superstition reigned, and a policy was pursued directly opposed to the interests of God’s kingdom. How he was enabled to with stand such dangerous influences, and escape the contamination of so unwholesome a region, we are not informed; nor even how he first became acquainted with the fact of his Hebrew origin, and the better prospects which still remained to cheer and animate the hearts of his countrymen. But the result shows, that somehow he was preserved from the one, and brought to the knowledge of the other; for when about forty years of age, we are told, he went forth to visit his brethren, and that with a faith already so fully formed, that he was not only prepared to sympathize with them in their distress, but to hazard all for their deliverance.Exodus 2:11-15; Acts 7:23; Hebrews 11:24. [188]And, indeed, when he once understood and believed that his brethren were the covenant people of God, who held in promise the inheritance of the land of Canaan, and whose period of oppression he might also have learned was drawing near its termination, it would hardly require any special revelation, besides what might be gathered from the singular providences attending his earlier history, to conclude that he was destined by God to be the chosen instrument for effecting the deliverance. [188] Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 150-154. But it is often less difficult to get the principle of faith, than to exercise the patience necessary in waiting God’s time for its proper and seasonable exercise. Moses showed he possessed the one, but seems yet to have wanted the other, when he slew the Egyptian whom he found smiting the Hebrew. For though the motive was good, being intended to express his brotherly sympathy with the suffering Israelites, and to serve as a kind of signal for a general rising against their oppressors, yet the action itself appears to have been wrong. He had no warrant to take the execution of vengeance into his own hand; and that it was with this view, rather than for any purpose of defence, that Moses went so far as to slay the Egyptian, seems not obscurely implied in the original narrative, and is more distinctly indicated in the assertion of Stephen, who assigns this as the reason of the deed, “for he supposed they would have understood, how that God by his hand would deliver them.” The consequence was, that by anticipating the purpose of God, and attempting to accomplish it in an improper manner, he only involved himself in danger and difficulty; his own brethren misunderstood his conduct, and Pharaoh threatened to take away his life. On this occasion, therefore, we cannot but regard him as acting unadvisedly with his hand, as on a memorable one in the future he spake unadvisedly with his lips. It was the hasty and irregular impulse of the flesh, not the enlightened and heavenly guidance of the Spirit, which prompted him to take the course he did; and without contributing in the least to improve the condition of his countrymen, he was himself made to reap the fruit of his misconduct in a long and dreary exile.[189] [189] We can scarcely have a better specimen of the characteristic difference between the stern impartiality of ancient inspired history, and the falsely coloured partiality of what is merely human, than in the accounts preserved of the first part of Moses life in the Bible and Josephus respectively. All is plain, unadorned narrative in the one, a faithful record of facts as they took place; while in the other, everything appears enveloped in the wonderful and miraculous. A prediction goes before the birth of Moses to announce how much was to depend upon it a Divine vision is also given concerning it to Amram the mother is spared the usual pains of labour—the child, when discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter, refuses to suck any breast but that of its mother—when grown a little, he became so beautiful that strangers must needs turn back and look after him, etc. But with all these unwarranted additions, in the true spirit of Jewish, or rather human partiality, not a word is said of his killing the Egyptian; he is obliged to flee, indeed, but only because of the envy of the Egyptians for his having delivered them from the Ethiopians (Antiq., ii., 9, 10, 11). In Scripture his act in killing the Egyptian is not expressly condemned as sinful; but, as often happens there, this is clearly enough indicated by the results in providence growing out of it. Many commentators justify Moses in smiting the Egyptian, on the ground of his being moved to it by a Divine impulse. There can be no doubt that he supposed himself to have had such an impulse, but that is a different thing from his actually having it; and Augustine judged rightly, when he thought Moses could not be altogether justified, “quia nullam adhuc legitimam potestatem gerebat, nee acceptam divinitus, nee humana societate ordinatam.”—Quaest. in Exodum, ii. We cannot, therefore, justify Moses in the deed he committed, far less say of him with Buddeus (Hist. Eccles. Vet. Test., i., p. 492), Patrick, and others, that he was stirred up to it by a Divine impulse, nor regard the impulse of any other kind than that which prompted David’s men to counsel him to slay Saul, when an occasion for doing so presented itself (1 Samuel 24),—an impulse of the flesh presuming upon and misapplying a word of God. The time for deliverance was not yet come. The Israelites, as a whole, were not sufficiently prepared for it; and Moses himself also was far from being ready for his peculiar task. Before he was qualified to take the government of such a people, and be a fit instrument for executing the manifold and arduous part he had to discharge in connection with them, he needed to have trial of a kind of life altogether different from what he had been accustomed to in the palaces of Egypt,—to feel himself at home amid the desolation and solitudes of the desert, and there to become habituated to solemn converse with his God, and formed to the requisite gravity, meekness, patience, and subduedness of spirit. Thus God overruled his too rash and hasty interference with the affairs of his kindred, to the proper completion of his own preparatory training, and provided for him the advantage of as long a sojourn in the wilderness to learn Divine wisdom, as he had already spent in learning human wisdom in Egypt. We have no direct information of the manner in which his spirit was exercised during this period of exile, yet the names he gave to his children show that it did not pass unimproved. The first he called Gershom, “because he was a stranger in a strange land,”—implying that he felt in the in most depths of his soul the sadness of being cut off from the society of his kindred, and perhaps also at being disappointed of his hope in regard to the promised inheritance. The second he named Eliezer, saying, “The God of my father is my help,—betokening his clear, realizing faith in the invisible Jehovah, the God of his fathers, to whom his soul had now learnt more thoroughly and confidingly to turn itself, since he had been compelled so painfully to look away from the world. And now having passed through the school of God in its two grand departments, and in both extremes of life obtained ample opportunities for acquiring the wisdom which was peculiarly needed for Israel’s deliverer and lawgiver, the set time for God was come, and He appeared to Moses at the bush for the special purpose of investing him with a Divine commission for the task. But here a new and unlooked-for difficulty presented itself, in his own reluctance to accept the commission. We know how apt, in great enterprises, which concern the welfare of many, while one has to take the lead, a rash and unsuccessful attempt to accomplish the desired end, is to beget a spirit of excessive caution and timidity—a sort of shyness and chagrin—especially if the failure has seemed in any measure attributable to a want of sympathy and support on the part of those whose co-operation was most confidently relied on. Something not unlike this appears to have grown upon Moses in the desert. Remembering how his precipitate attempt to avenge the wrongs of his kindred, and rouse them to a combined effort to regain their freedom, had not only provoked the displeasure of Pharaoh, but was met by insult and reproach from his kindred themselves, he could not but feel that the work of their deliverance was likely to prove both a heartless and a perilous task,—a work that would need to be wrought out, not only against the determined opposition of the mightiest kingdom in the world, but also under the most trying discouragements, arising from the now degraded and dastardly spirit of the people. This feeling, of which Moses could scarcely fail to be conscious even at the time of his flight from Egypt, may easily be conceived to have increased in no ordinary degree amid the deep solitudes and quiet occupations of a shepherd’s life, in which he was permitted to live till he had the weight of fourscore years upon his head. So that we cannot wonder at the disposition he manifested to start objections to the proposal made to him to undertake the work of deliverance; we are only surprised at the unreasonable and daring length to which, in spite of every consideration and remonstrance on the part of God, he persisted in urging them. The symbol in which the Lord then appeared to Moses, the bush burning but not consumed, was well fitted on reflection to inspire him with encouragement and hope. It pointed, Moses could not fail to remember, when he came to meditate on what he had seen and heard, to “the smoking furnace and the burning lamp,” which had passed in vision before the eye of Abraham, when he was told of the future sufferings of his posterity in the land that was not theirs.—(Genesis 15:17) Such a furnace now again visibly presented itself; but the little thorn-bush, emblem of the covenant people, the tree of God’s planting, stood uninjured in the midst of the flame, because the covenant God Himself was there. Why, then, should Moses despond on account of the afflictions of his people, or shrink from the arduous task now committed to him?—especially when the distinct assurance was given to him of all needful powers and gifts to furnish him aright for the undertaking, and the word of God was solemnly pledged to conduct it to a successful issue. It is clear from the whole interview at which Moses received his commission, that the difficulties and discouragements which pressed most upon his mind were those connected with the sunk and degenerate condition of the covenant people themselves, who appeared to have lost heart in regard to the promise of the covenant, and even to have become deeply estranged from the God of the covenant. His concern on the latter point led him to ask what he should say to them when they inquired for the name of the God of their fathers, under whose authority he should go to them? His question was met with the sublime reply, “I AM THAT I AM: thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, JEHOVAH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.” In this striking revelation we have to look, not merely to the name assumed by God, but to the historical setting that on each side is given to it, whereby it is linked equally to the past and the future, and becomes in a great measure self-explanatory. He who describes Himself as the “I AM THAT I AM,” and turns the description into the distinctive name of JEHOVAH, does so for the express purpose of enabling Israel to recognise Him as the God of their fathers—the God who, in the past, had covenanted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who now, in the immediate future, was going to make good for their posterity what He had promised to them. Obviously, therefore, we have here to do, not with the metaphysical and the abstract, not with being simply in the sense of pure absolute existence,—an idea unsuitable alike to the circumstances and the connection; nor can we think of a manifestation of the attributes of being with respect alone to the future—as if God would represent Himself in relation only to what was to come—the God pre-eminently and emphatically of the coming age (“I will be what I will be”). For this were to narrow men’s ideas of the Godhead, and limit the distinctive name to but one sphere of the Divine agency—making it properly expressive of what was to be, in God’s manifestations, not as connected with, but as contradistinguished from, what had been—therefore separating, in some sense, the God of the offspring from the God of the fathers. If, looking to the derivation of the word Jehovah (from the substantive verb to be), we must hold fast to simple being as the root of the idea; yet, seeing how this is imbedded in the historical relations of the past and the future, we must understand it of being in the practical sense: independent and unalterable existence in respect to principles of character and consistency of working. As the Jehovah, He would show that He is the God who changeth not (Malachi 3:6),—the God who, having made with the patriarchs an everlasting covenant, continued to abide in the relations it established, and who could no more resile from its engagements than He could cease to be what He was. Nothing, therefore, could be better suited to the urgencies of the occasion, as well as to the stage generally that had been reached in the Divine dispensations, than the revelation here made to Israel through Moses, summed up and ratified by the signature of the peculiar covenant name of God. The people were thus assured, that however matters might have changed to the worse with them, and temporary darkness have come over their prospects, the God of their fathers remained without variableness or shadow of turning—the God of the present and the future, as well as of the past. And so, in the development now to be given to what already existed in germ and promise, they might justly expect a higher manifestation than had yet appeared of Divine faithfulness and love, and a deeper insight into the manifold perfections of the Divine nature.[190] [190] The view given above substantially accords with what appears now, after not a little controversy, and the exhibition of extremes on both sides, to be the prevailing belief among the learned on the name Jehovah, as brought out in Exodus 3:14-15; Exodus 6:3-8. A summary of the different views may be seen in the article Jehovah, by Œhler, in Hertzog’s Enclycopaedia. The name itself has been much disputed: Ewald maintaining that the proper form can be nothing but Jahve, Caspari and Delitzsch with equal confidence affirming we can only choose between Jahaveh and Jahavah; while Œhler thinks it may be read either Jahveh or Javah. It is admitted to be derived from the imperfect, or from the future used as the imperfect, of the substantive verb, after its older form (הוה). As to the meaning, had it been viewed more with reference to the occasion and the context, there would have probably been less disputation; but the result comes virtually to the same thing. “God,” says Œhler, “is Jehovah, in so far as for the sake of men He has entered into an historical relationship, and in this constantly proves Himself to be that which He is, and, indeed, is who He is.” According to him, it comprises two fundamental ideas—God’s absolute independence (not as arbitrariness, or as free grace, but generally) in his historical procedure, and this absolute continuity or unchangeableness remaining ever in essential agreement with Himself in all He does and says. In this absolute independence or self-existence of God, lies, of course, His eternity (which the Jewish interpreters chiefly exhibit), in so far as He is thereby conditioned in His procedure by nothing temporal, or as He is Himself, the first and the last (Isaiah 44:6; Isaiah 48:12). But the idea of unchangeableness, as through all vicissitudes remaining and showing Himself to be one and the same, is (Œhler admits) the element in the name most frequently made prominent in Scripture (Malachi 3:6; Deuteronomy 32:40; Isaiah 41:3; Isaiah 43:13, etc.). Much the same also Keil (on Genesis, 1861), only with a somewhat closer reference to the historical connection: “Jehovah is God of the history of salvation.” But this signification, he admits, limiting it to the history of salvation, does not lie in the etymology of the word; it is gathered only from the historical evolution of the name Jehovah. From the very import of the name as thus explained, it is evident that the patriarchs could not know it in anything like its full significance; they could not know it as it became known even to their posterity in the wilderness of Canaan; and this is all that can fairly be understood by what is said in Exodus 6:3. It is altogether improbable, as Œhler states, that Moses, when bringing to his people a revelation from the God of their fathers, should have done so under a name never heard of by them before. Only, therefore, a relative ignorance is to be understood as predicated of the patriarchs. With such strong encouragements and exalted prospects, was Moses sent forth to execute in the name of God the commission given to him. And as a pledge that nothing would fail of what had been promised, he was met at the very outset of his arduous course by Aaron his brother, who came from Egypt at God’s instigation, to concert with him measures for the deliverance of their kindred from the now intolerable load of oppression under which they groaned. The personal history of the deliverer and his commission, viewed in reference to the higher dispensation of the Gospel, exhibits the following principles, on which it will be unnecessary to offer any lengthened illustration:—1. The time for the deliverer appearing and entering on the mighty work given him to do, as it should be the one fittest for the purpose, so it must be the one chosen and fixed by God. It might seem long in coming to many, whose hearts groaned beneath the yoke of the adversary; and they might sometimes have been disposed, if they had been able, to hasten forward its arrival. But the Lord knew best when it should take place, and with unerring precision determined it beforehand. Hence we read of Christ’s appearance having occurred “in due time,” or “in the fulness of time.” There were many lines then meeting in the state of the Church and the world, which rendered that particular period above all others suitable for the manifestation of the Son of God. Then for the first time were all things ready for the execution of Heaven’s grand purpose, and the vast issues that were to grow out of it. 2. The Deliverer, when II came, must arise within the Church itself. He must be, in the strictest sense, the brother of those whom He came to redeem; bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh; partaker not merely of their nature, but also of their infirmities, their dangers, and their sufferings. Though He had to come from the highest heavens to accomplish the work, still it was not as clad with the armoury and sparkling with the glory of the upper sanctuary that He must enter on it, but as the seed of the vanquished woman, the child of promise in the family of God, and Himself having experience of the lowest depths of sorrow and abasement which sin had brought upon them. He must, however, make His appearance in the bosom of that family; for the Church, though ever so depressed and afflicted in her condition, cannot be indebted to the world for a deliverer; the world must be indebted to her. With her is the covenant of God; and she alone is the mother of the victorious seed, that destroys the destroyer. 3. Yet the deliverance, even in its earlier stages, when existing only in the personal history of the deliverer, is not altogether independent of the world. The blessing of Israel was interwoven with acts of kindness derived from the heathen; and the child Moses, with whom their very existence as a nation and all its coming glory was bound up, owed his preservation to a member of Pharaoh’s house, and in that house found a fit asylum and nursing-place. Thus the earth “helped the woman,” as it has often done since. The Captain of our salvation had in like manner to be helped; for, though born of the tribe of Judah, He had to seek elsewhere the safety and protection which “His own” denied Him, and partly—not because absolutely necessary to verify the type, but to render its fulfilment more striking and palpable—was indebted for his preservation to that very Egypt which had sheltered the infancy of Moses. So that in the case even of the Author and Finisher of our faith, the history of redemption links itself closely to the history of the world. 4. Still the deliverer, as to his person, his preparation, his gifts and calling, is peculiarly of God. That such a person as Moses was provided for the Church in the hour of her extremity, was entirely the result of God’s covenant with Abraham: and the whole circumstances connected with his preparation for the work, as well as the commission given him to undertake it, and the supernatural endowments fitting him for its execution, manifestly bespoke the special and gracious interposition of Heaven. But the same holds true in each particular, and is still more illustriously displayed in Christ. In His person, mysteriously knitting together heaven and earth; in His office as Mediator, called and appointed by the Father; prepared also for entering on it, first by familiar converse with the world, and then by a season of wilderness-seclusion and trial; replenished directly from above with gifts adequate to the work, even to His being filled with the whole fulness of the Godhead;—everything, in short, to beget the impression, that while the Church is honoured as the channel through which the Deliverer comes, yet the Deliverer Himself is in all respects the peculiar gift of God, and that here especially it may be said, “Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things.” Section Third.—The Deliverance. WE have now come to the actual accomplishment of Israel’s deliverance from the house of bondage. One can easily imagine that various methods might have been devised to bring it about. And had the Israelites been an ordinary race of men, and had the question simply been, how to get them most easily and quickly released from their state of oppression, a method would probably have been adopted very different from the one that was actually pursued. It is by viewing the matter thus, that shallow and superficial minds so often form an erroneous judgment concerning it. They see nothing peculiar in the case, and form their estimate of the whole transactions as if only common relations were concerned, and nothing more than worldly ends were in view. Hence, because the plan from the first savoured so much of judgment, because, instead of seeking to have the work accomplished in the most peaceful and conciliatory manner, the Lord rather selected a course that was likely to produce bloodshed,—nay, is even represented as hardening the heart of Pharaoh, that an occasion might be found for pouring a long series of troubles and desolations on the land, because the plan actually chosen was of such a kind, many have not scrupled to denounce it as unworthy of God, and more befitting a cruel and malignant than a wise and beneficent being. Now, in rising above this merely secular view, and the erroneous conclusions that naturally spring from it, it is first of all to be borne in mind that higher relations were here concerned, and more important objects at stake, than those of this world. The Israelites were the chosen people of God, standing in a covenant relation to Him. However far most of them had been living beneath their obligations and their calling, they still occupied a position which was held by no other family on earth. With them was identified, in a peculiar sense, the honour of God and the cause of heaven; and the power that oppressed and afflicted them, was trampling at every step on rights which God had conferred, and provoking the execution of a curse which He had solemnly denounced. If the cause and blessing of Heaven were bound up with the Israelites, then Pharaoh, in acting toward them as an enemy and oppressor, must of necessity have espoused the interest and become liable to the doom of Satan. Besides, it must be carefully borne in mind, that here especially, where God had immediately to work, His dealings and dispensations were of a preparatory nature. They were planned and executed in anticipation of the grand work of redemption, which was afterwards to be accomplished by Christ, and were consequently directed in such a manner as to embody on the comparatively small scale of their earthly transactions and interests, the truths and principles which were afterwards to be developed in the affairs of a divine and everlasting kingdom.[191] This being the case, the deliverance of Israel from the land of Egypt must have been distinguished at least by the following features:—1. It must, in the first instance, have appeared to be a work of peculiar difficulty, requiring to be accomplished in the face of very great and powerful obstacles, rescuing the people from the strong grasp of an enemy, who, though a cruel tyrant and usurper, yet, on account of their sin, had acquired over them a lordly dominion, and by means of terror kept them subject to bondage. 2. Then, from this being the case, the deliverance must necessarily have been effected by the execution of judgment upon the adversary; so that, as the work of judgment proceeded on the one hand, the work of deliverance would proceed on the other, and the freedom of the covenant people be completely achieved only when the principalities and powers which held them in bondage were utterly spoiled and vanquished. 3. Finally, this twofold process of salvation with destruction, must have been of a kind fitted to call forth the peculiar powers and perfections of Godhead; so that all who witnessed it, or to whom the knowledge of it should come, might be constrained to own and admire the wonder-working hand of God, and instinctively, as it wore, exclaim, “Behold what God hath wrought! It is His doing, and marvellous in our eyes.”—We say, all this must have been on the supposition of the scriptural account of the work being taken; and, excepting on that supposition, we cannot be in a fit position to judge of the things which concerned it. [191] Vol. i., Book I., c. 3. On this scriptural ground we take our stand, when proceeding to examine the affairs connected with this method of deliverance; and we assert them not only to be capable of a satisfactory vindication, but to have been incapable of serving the purposes which they were designed to accomplish, if they had not been ordered substantially as they were. It is manifestly impossible that here, any more than in what afterwards befell Christ, the order of events should have been left to any law less power, working as it pleased, but that all must have been arranged “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” and arranged precisely as they occurred. The outstretching of the Divine arm to inflict the most desolating judgments on the land of Egypt, the slaying of the first-born, and the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host, were essential parts of the Divine plan. But since these appear as the result of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, this also must have formed an essential element in the plan; and was therefore announced to Moses from the first as an event that might certainly be expected, and which would give a peculiar direction to the whole series of transactions.[192] For this hardening of the heart of Pharaoh was the very hinge, in a sense, on which the Divine plan turned, and could least of all be left to chance or uncertainty. It presents itself not simply as an obstacle to be removed, but as a circumstance to be employed for securing a more illustrious display of the glorious attributes of God, and effecting the redemption of His people in the way most consistent with His righteous purposes. It could not, therefore, be allowed to hang merely upon the will of Pharaoh; somehow the hand of God must have been in the matter, as it belongs to Him to settle and arrange all that concerns the redemption of His people and the manifestation of His own glory. Nor, otherwise, could there have been any security for the Divine plan proceeding to its accomplishment, or for its possessing such features as might render it a fitting preparation for the greater redemption that was to come. [192] Exodus 3:19; Exodus 4:21. It seems to us impossible to look at the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in the connection which it thus holds with the entire plan of God, or to consider the marked and distinct manner in which it is ascribed to His agency, and yet to speak of Pharaoh being simply allowed to harden his own heart, as presenting a sufficient explanation of the case. It is true, he is often affirmed also to have himself hardened his heart; and in the very first announcement of it ch. (Exodus 3:19, “I am sure, or rather, I know, that the king of Egypt will not let you go”), as acutely remarked by Baumgarten, “the Lord characterizes the resistance of Pharaoh as an act of freedom, existing apart from the Lord Himself; for I know that which objectively stands out and apart from me.”[193] At the same time, it is justly noticed by Hengstenberg, that as the hardening is ascribed to God, both in the announcement of it beforehand, and in the subsequent recapitulation (Exodus 4:21; Exodus 7:3; Exodus 11:10), “Pharaoh’s hardening appears to be enclosed within that of God’s, and to be dependent on it. It seems also to be intentional, that the hardening is chiefly ascribed to Pharaoh at the beginning of the plagues, and to God toward the end. The higher the plagues rise, the more does Pharaoh’s hardening assume a supernatural character, and the reference was the more likely to be made to its supernatural cause.”[194] [193] Commentary on Ex. iii. 19, 20. [194] Authentie, ii., p. 462. Some stress is laid by Hengstenberg on the hardening being ascribed seven times to Pharaoh, and the same number of times to God, as indicating that it has respect to the covenant of God, of which seven is the sign. Baumgarten also lays some stress on the numbers, but finds each to be ten times repeated, the sign of completeness. Both have to deal arbitrarily with the sacred text to make out their respective numbers (for example, Hengstenberg leaves out the three hardenings of God in ch. 14; and Baumgarten treats ch. 7:13 and 14, as if they spoke of two distinct hardenings). It is also against the simplicity of the Scripture narrative to draw from the incidental form of its historical statements such hidden meanings. The conclusion, indeed, is inevitable. It is impossible, by any fair interpretation of Scripture, or on any profound view of the transactions referred to, to get rid of the Divine agency in the matter. Even Tholuck says, “That the hardening of the Egyptian was, on one side, ordained by God, no disciple of Christian theology can deny. It is an essential doctrine of the Bible, that God would not permit evil, unless He were Lord over it: and that He permits it, because it cannot act as a check upon His plan of the world, but must be equally subservient to Him as good— the only difference being, that the former is so compulsorily, the latter optionally.”[195] That God had no hand in the sin, which mingles itself with evil, is clearly implied in the general doctrine of Scripture; since He everywhere appears there as the avenger of sin, and hence cannot possibly be in any sense its author. In so far, therefore, as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart partook of sin, it must have been altogether his own; his conduct, considered as a course of heady and high-minded opposition to the Divine will, was pursued in the free though unrighteous exercise of His own judgment. This, however, is noway inconsistent with the idea of there being a positive agency of God in the matter, to the effect of limiting both the manner and extent of the opposition. “It is in the power of the wicked to sin,” says Augustine, “but that in sinning they do this or that by their wickedness, is not in their own power, but in God’s, who divides and arranges the darkness.”[196] A later authority justly discriminates thus: “God’s providence extendeth itself to all sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing them, in a manifold dispensation, unto His own holy ends; yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God.”[197] It is wholly chargeable on man himself, if there is a sinful disposition at work in his bosom; but that disposition existing there, and resisting the means which God employs to subdue it, the man has no longer any control over the course and issue of events. This is entirely in the hands of God, to be directed by Him in the way, and turned into the form and channel, which is best adapted to promote the ends of His righteous government. “He places the sinner in such situations, that precisely this or that temptation shall assail him—links the thoughts to certain determinate objects of sinful desire, and secures their remaining attached to these, and not starting off to others. The hatred in the heart belonged to Shimei himself; but it was God’s work that this hatred should settle so peculiarly upon David, and should show itself in exactly the manner it did. It was David’s own fault that he became elated with pride; the course of action which this pride was to take was accidental, so far as he was concerned; it belonged to God, who turns the hearts of kings like the rivers of waters. Hence it is said, 2 Samuel 24:1, ‘The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.’ Yet was he not thereby in the least justified, and therefore, 2 Samuel 24:10, he confesses that he had greatly sinned, and prays the Lord to take away his iniquity.”[198] [195] On Romans 9:19, note furnished to English translation, Bib. Cab., xii., p. 249. Bush, however, in his notes on Exodus, still speaks of the mere permission as sufficient: “God is said to have done it, because He permitted it to be done.” His criticism on the words does not in the least contribute to help this meaning. Dean Graves, as Arminian writers generally, hold the same view.—(Works, vol. iii., p. 321, etc.) [196] Liber, de Praedestinatione Sanctorum, § 33. [197] Westminster Confession, ch. v. [198] Authentie, ii., p. 466. See also Calvin’s Institutes, B. I., c. 18, and B. II., c. 4, for the proof, rather than the explanation, of the fact, that “bare permission is too weak to stand, and that it is the merest trifling to substitute a bare permission for the providence of God, as if He sat in a watch-tower, waiting for fortuitous events, His judgments meanwhile depending on the will of man.” Now, applying these views to the case of Pharaoh, it was certainly his own proud and wicked heart which prompted him to refuse the command of God to let Israel go. But he might have retained that disposition in all its force, and yet have acted differently from what he did. Mere selfishness, or considerations of policy, might have induced him to restrain it, as from like motives, not from any proper change of heart, his magicians first, and afterwards his counsellors, appear to have wished.—(Exodus 8:19; Exodus 10:7) But the hand of God exerted such control over him, so bounded and hedged him in, that while he clung to the evil principle, he must pursue his infatuated and foolhardy course: this one path lay open to him. And for his doing so, two things were necessary, and in these the action of Omnipotence was displayed:—1. First, the strong and courageous disposition capable of standing fast under formidable dangers and grappling with gigantic difficulties—a natural endowment which could only have been derived from God. That such a disposition should have been possessed in so eminent a degree by the Pharaoh who then occupied the throne of Egypt, was the result of God’s agency, though Pharaoh alone was responsible for its abuse. 2. But, besides, there was needed such a disposal of circumstances as might tend to prompt and stimulate to the utmost this disposition of Pharaoh; for otherwise it might have lain comparatively dormant, or, at least, might have been far from running such a singularly perverse and infatuated course. Here also the hand of God manifested its working. It was He who, in the language of Tholuck, “brought about those circumstances which made the heart disposed to evil still harder.” Many writers, who substantially admit this, limit the circumstances tending to produce the result in question to the lenity and forbearance of God, in so readily and frequently releasing Pharaoh from the execution of judgment. There can be no doubt that this was one of the circumstances which, on such a mind as his, would be fitted to produce a hardening effect; but it was not the only nor the chief one: there were others, which must have had a still more powerful tendency in the same direction, and which were also more properly judicial in their character. Such, in the first instance, and most evidently, was the particular kind of miracles which Moses was instructed to work at the commencement of his operations—the transforming of his rod into a serpent, and back again to a rod; for this was precisely the field on which Pharaoh might be tempted to think he could successfully compete with Moses, and might rival at least, if not outdo, the pretended messengers of Heaven. However inexplicable the fact may be, of the fact itself there can be no question, that from time immemorial the art of working extraordinary, and to all appearance supernatural, effects on serpents, has been practised by a particular class of persons in Egypt—the Psylli. Many of the ancients have written of the wonderful exploits of those persons, and celebrated their magical power, both to charm serpents at their will, and to resist unharmed the bites of the most venomous species. And it would seem, by the accounts of some of the most recent inquirers, that descendants of the ancient brotherhood still exist in Egypt, forming an association by themselves, and able to handle without fear or injury the most noxious serpents, to walk abroad with numbers of them coiling around their necks and arms, and to make certainly one species of them rigid like a rod, and feign themselves dead.[199] It is also certain, that when they do these wonders, they are in a sort of phrenzied or ecstatical condition, and are believed by the multitude to be under divine influence. That this charming influence was, at least in its origin and earlier stages, the offspring to some extent of demoniacal power, is not inconsistent with what Scripture testifies concerning the workings of that power generally, and is most naturally implied in the particular statements made respecting the magicians when contending with Moses. For although we might, without much violence to the interpretation of the text, suppose it to represent that as being done which to all appearance was done, without being understood positively to affirm that the effect was actually produced; yet the language used of their changing the rods into serpents, and on a small scale also turning water into blood, and producing frogs, does in its proper import indicate something supernatural—corresponding, as we conceive, to the wonders of the demoniacal possessions of our Lord’s time, and still more closely perhaps to “the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders,” which is made to characterize the coming of Antichrist.—(Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation 13:13) But even without pressing this, the mere fact of there being then a class of persons in the service of Pharaoh, who themselves pretended, and were generally believed, to be possessed of a divine power to work the wonders in question, must evidently have acted as a temptation with Pharaoh to resist the demands of Moses, being confident of his ability to contend with him on this peculiar field of prodigies. And having fairly ventured on the arena of conflict, we can easily understand how, with a proud and heaven-defying temper like his, he would scorn to own himself vanquished; even though the miraculous working of Moses clearly established its superiority to any act or power possessed by the magicians, and they themselves were at last compelled to retire from the field, owning the victory to be Jehovah’s. [199] See the quotations from the ancients in Bochart, Hieroz., ii., p. 393 and 4; and for the account of the moderns, Hengstenberg’s Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 98-103. See also Mr Lane’s account of the modern serpent-charmers (Modern Eg., c. 20), who represents them as certainly doing extraordinary feats, but states it as an ascertained fact, that they do not carry serpents of a venomous nature about their persons till they have extracted the poisonous teeth. It is to be inferred that the ancient Psylli did the same, though they professed differently. This, however, was only one class of the circumstances which were arranged by God, and fitted to harden the heart of Pharaoh. To the same account we must also place the progressive nature of the demands made upon him, in beginning first with a request for leave of three days absence to worship God; then, when this was granted for all who were properly capable of taking part in the service, insisting on the same liberty being extended to the wives and children; and again, when even this was conceded, claiming to take with them also their flocks and herds: so that it became evident an entire escape from the land was meditated. There was no deceit, as the adversaries of revelation have sometimes alleged, in this gradual opening of the Divine plan; nor, when the last and largest demand was made, was more asked than Pharaoh should from the first have voluntarily granted. But so little was sought at the beginning to make the unreasonableness of his conduct more distinctly apparent, and the gradual and successive enlargement of the demand was intended to act as a temptation, to prove him, and bring out the real temper of his heart. Finally, of the same character also was the last movement of Heaven in this marvellous chain of providences—the leading of the children of Israel, as into a net, between the Red Sea and the mountains of the wilderness, fitted, as it so manifestly was, to suggest the thought to Pharaoh, when he had recovered a little from his consternation, and felt the humiliation of his defeat, that now an opportunity presented itself of retrieving his lost honour, and with one stroke avenging himself on his enemies. He was thus tempted, in the confident hope of victory, to renew the conflict, and, when apparently sure of his prey, was led, by the opening of the sea for the escape of the Israelites, and the removal of the Divine cloud to the rear, so as to cover their flight, into the fatal snare which involved him in destruction. In the whole, we see the directing and controlling agency of God, not in the least interfering with the liberty of Pharaoh, or obliging him to sin, but still, in judgment for his sinful oppression of the Church of God, and unjust resistance to the claims of Heaven, placing him in situations which, though fitted to influence aright a well-constituted mind, were also fitted, when working on such a temperament as his, to draw him into the extraordinary course he took, and to render the series of transactions, as they actually occurred, a matter of moral certainty. But to return to the wonders which Moses was commissioned to perform: it is to be borne in mind, that the humiliation of Pharaoh was not their only design, nor even the redemption of Israel their sole end. The manifestation of God’s own glory was here, as in all His works, the highest object in view; and this required that the powers of Egyptian idolatry, with which the interest of Satan was at that time peculiarly identified, should be brought into the conflict, and manifestly confounded. For this reason, also, it was that the first wonders wrought had such distinct reference to the exploits of the magicians or serpent-charmers, who were the wonder-workers connected with that gigantic system of idolatry, and the main instruments of its support and credit in the world. They were thus naturally drawn, as well as Pharaoh, into the contest, and became, along with him, the visible heads and representatives of the “spiritual wickednesses” of Egypt. And since they refused to own the supremacy and accede to the demands of Jehovah, on witnessing that first and, as it may be called, harmless triumph of His power over theirs; since they resolved, as the adversaries of God’s and the instruments of Satan’s interest in the world, to prolong the contest, there remained no alternative but to visit the hind with a series of judgments, such as might clearly prove the utter impotence of its fancied deities to protect their votaries from the might and vengeance of the living God. It is when considered in this point of view, that we see the agreement in principle between the wonders proceeding from the instrumentality of Moses, and those wrought by the hand of Christ. They seem at first sight to be entirely opposite in their character—the one being severe and desolating plagues; the other, miracles of mercy and healing. This seeming contrariety arises from their having been wrought on entirely different fields—those of Moses on an avowedly hostile territory, those of Christ on a land and among a people that were peculiarly His own. But as in both cases alike there was a mighty adversary, whose power and dominion were to be brought clown, so the display given in each of miraculous working, told with the same effect on his interest, though somewhat less conspicuously in the one case than in the other. While Christ’s works were, in the highest sense, miracles of mercy, supernatural acts of beneficence towards “His own,” they were, at the same time, triumphant displays of Divine over satanic agency. “The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.” As often as His hand was stretched out to heal, it dealt a blow to the cause of the adversary; and the crowning part of the Redeemer’s work on earth, His dying the accursed death of the cross, was that which at once perfected the plan of mercy for the faithful, and judged and spoiled the prince of darkness. In like manner we see mercy and judgment going hand in hand in the wonders that were done by the instrumentality of Moses on the “field of Zoan;” only, from that being the field of the adversary, and the wonders being done directly upon him, the judgment comes more prominently into view. It was essentially a religious contest between the God of heaven on the one side, and the powers of Egyptian idolatry on the other, as represented by Pharaoh and his host; and as one stroke after another was inflicted by the arm of Omnipotence, there was discovered the nothingness of the divinities whose cause Pharaoh maintained, and in whose power he trusted, while “the God of Israel triumphed gloriously, and in mercy led forth the people whom He had redeemed, to His holy habitation.” It is not necessary that we should show, by a minute examination of each of the plagues, how thoroughly they were fitted to expose the futility of Egyptian idolatry, and to show how completely everything there was at the disposal of the God of Israel, whether for good or evil. The total number of the plagues was ten, indicating their completeness for the purposes intended by their infliction. The first nine were but preparatory, like the miraculous works which Christ performed during His active ministry; the last was the great act of judgment, which was to carry with it the complete prostration of the adversary, and the deliverance of the covenant people. It was therefore, from the first, announced as the grand means to be employed for the accomplishment of Israel’s redemption.—(Exodus 4:22-23) But the preceding miracles were by no means unnecessary, as they tended to disclose the absolute sovereignty of Jehovah over the whole province of nature, as well as over the lives of men (which came out in the last plague), and His power to turn whatever was known of natural good in Egypt into an instrument of evil, and to aggravate the evil into tenfold severity. This was manifestly the general design; and it is not necessary to prove, either that these plagues were quite different in their nature from anything commonly known in Egypt, or that each one of them struck upon some precise feature of the existing idolatry. In reference to the first of these points, we by no means think, with Hengstenberg, that in the natural phenomena of Egypt there was a corresponding evil to each one of the plagues, and that the plague only consisted in the super natural degree to which the common evil was carried; nor can any proof be adduced in support of this at all satisfactory. But as the evil principle (Typhon) was worshipped in Egypt not less than the good, and worshipped, doubtless, because of his supposed power over the hurtful influences of nature,[200] we might certainly expect that some at least of the plagues would appear to be only an aggravation of the natural evils to which that land was peculiarly exposed: so that these, as well as its genial and beneficent properties, might be seen to be under the control of Jehovah. Of this kind unquestionably was the third plague (that of lice, or, as is now generally agreed, of the gnats, with which Egypt peculiarly abounds, and which all travellers, from Herodotus to those of the present day, concur in representing as a source of great trouble and annoyance in that country).[201] Of the same kind, also, was the plague of flies, which swarm in Egypt, and that also of the locusts;[202] to which we may add the plague of boils, which Scripture itself mentions as possessing a peculiarly Egyptian character.—(Deuteronomy 28:27) But while we can easily account for the production, on a gigantic scale, of these natural evils, the same object viz., the executing of judgment upon the gods of Egypt—would also lead us to expect other plagues of an entirely different kind, in which the natural good was restrained, and even converted into a source of evil. For in this way alone could confusion be poured upon the worship of the good principle, and which, there as elsewhere, took the form of a deification of the genial and productive powers of nature. Some of these belonged to Egypt in a quite extraordinary degree, and were regarded as constituting its peculiar glory. Such especially was the Nile, which was looked upon as identical with Osiris, the highest god, and to which Pharaoh himself is evidently represented as paying divine honours, in Exodus 7:15; Exodus 8:20.[203] Such, also, are its almost cloudless sky and ever-brilliant sun, rendering the climate so singularly clear and settled, that a shade is seldom to be seen; and not only the more violent tempests, but even the gentlest showers of rain, are a rarity. Hence of the earlier plagues, the two first those of the turning of the water into blood, and the frogs—took the form of a judgment upon the Nile, converting it from being the most beneficial and delightful, into the most noxious and loathsome, of terrestrial objects; while in the two later plagues of the tempest and the thick darkness, the Egyptians saw their crystal atmosphere and resplendent heavens suddenly compelled to wear an aspect of indescribable terror and appalling gloom. So that whether nature were worshipped there in respect to her benignant or her hurtful influences, the plagues actually inflicted were equally adapted to confound the gods of Egypt in the one case by changing the natural good into its opposite evil, and in the other by imparting to the natural evil a supernatural force and intensity.[204] [200] Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, p. 362, 380. See also the note of Mosheim to Cudworth’s Intellectual System, vol. i., p. 353. Tegg’s ed., and Bochart, Hieroz. Lib. ii., c. 34. [201] See the note in the Pictorial Bible on Exodus 8:17. Also Hengstenberg’s Eg. and Books of Moses, for quotations from various authorities. [202] Ibid. [203] Hengstenberg, p. 109, where the authorities are given. Also Vossius, de Origine et Prog. Idolatriae, L. ii., c. 74, 75. [204] We are surprised that Hengstenberg (also Kurtz) did not see the necessity of the one class of wonders as well as of the other, for the object in view. He has hence laboured to find a corresponding natural evil to all the plagues, and in some of the cases has most palpably laboured in vain. He is at pains to prove, that the Nile, when swollen, has somewhat of a reddish colour, and that it is not without frogs—the wonder, indeed, would be, if it were otherwise in either respect; but he has not produced even the shadow of proof that these things belonged to it to such an extent as to render it nauseous or unwholesome, or so much as to suggest the idea of a plague. On the contrary, the redness of the water is rather a sign of its becoming again fit for use. (See Pictorial Bible on Exodus 7:17) Resort is had by Kurtz, and some others, for a natural basis, to a lately discovered fact, that a slightly red tinge is occasionally given to the waters of the Nile by certain microscopical fungi or infusoria. But microscopical observations in such a case are entirely out of the question, so long as the people know nothing of it as a practical evil. The same virtually may be said of storms and thunder, which are all but unknown in Egypt. Taking this general and comprehensive view of the preliminary plagues, it will easily be seen that there is no need for our seeking to find in each of them a special reference to some individual feature of Egyptian idolatry. If they struck at the root of that system in what might be called its leading principles, there was obviously no necessity for dealing a separate and successive blow against its manifold shades and peculiarities of false worship. For this an immensely greater number than nine or ten would have been required. And as it is, in attempting to connect even these ten with the minutiae of Egyptian idolatry, much that is fanciful and arbitrary must be resorted to. So long as we keep to the general features and design, the bearing of the wonders wrought can be made plain enough; but those who would lead us more into detail, take for granted what is not certain, and sometimes even affirm what is manifestly absurd. To say, for example, that the plague of flies had any peculiar reference to the worship of Baal-zebub, the Fly-god, assumes a god to have been worshipped there who is not known for certain to have had a place in the mythology of Egypt. It is equally arbitrary to connect the plague of locusts with the worship of Serapis. And it is surely to draw pretty largely on one’s credulity, to speak of the miracle on the serpents as intended to destroy these, on account of their being the objects of worship; or to set forth the plague on cattle as aimed at the destruction of the entire system of brute worship, as if no cattle were killed in Egypt, because the Deity was there worshipped under that symbol![205] The general argument is weakened by being coupled with such puerilities; and the solemn impression also, which the wonders were designed to produce, would have been frittered down and impaired, rather than deepened, by so many allusions to the mere details of the system. [205] The contrary needs no proof, as every one knows who is in the least acquainted with ancient Egypt, that “oxen generally were used both for food and sacrifice” (Heeren, Af., ii., p. 147); and evidence has even been found among the ancient documents, of a company of curriers, or leather-dressers.—(Ib.. p. 137) Bryant, in his book on the plagues, led the way to those weak and frivolous opinions, and he has been followed by many without examination. See, for example, the Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, chapter iii. But now, when God had by the first nine plagues vindicated His power over all that was naturally good or evil in Egypt, and had thus smitten with judgment their nature-worship in both of its leading characteristics, the adversary being still determined to maintain his opposition, it was time to inflict that last and greatest judgment, the execution of which was from the first designed to be the death-blow of the adversary, and the signal of Israel’s deliverance. This was the slaying of the first-born, in which the Lord manifested His dominion over the highest region of life. Indeed, in this respect, there is clearly discernible, as was already noticed by Abenezra and other Jewish writers,[206] a gradual ascent in the plagues from the lower to the higher provinces of nature, which also tends to confirm the view we have presented of their character and design. The first two come from beneath—from the waters, which may be said to be under the earth (the Nile-blood and the frogs); the next two from the ground or surface of the earth (the lice and the flies); the murrain of beasts and the boils on men belong to the lower atmosphere, as the tempest, the showers of locusts, and the darkness, to the higher; so that one only remains, that which is occupied by the life of man, and which stands in immediate connection with the Divine power and glory. And as in the earlier plagues God separated between the land of Goshen and the rest of Egypt, to show that He was not only the Supreme Jehovah, but also the covenant God of Israel, so in this last and crowning act of judgment it was especially necessary, that while the stroke of death fell upon every dwelling of Egypt, the habitations of Israel should be preserved in perfect peace and safety. But two questions naturally arise here: Why in this judgment upon the life of man should precisely the first-born have been slain? and if the judgment was for the overthrow of the adversary and the redemption of Israel, why should a special provision have been required to save Israel also from the plague? [206] See in Baumgarten’s Commentary, i., p. 459. 1. In regard to the first of these points, there can be no doubt that the slaying of the first-born of Egypt had respect to the relation of Israel to Jehovah: “Israel,” said God, “is My son, My first-born: if thou refuse to let him go, I will slay thy son, thy first-born.”—(Exodus 4:22-23) But in what sense could Israel be called God’s first-born son? Something more is plainly indicated by the expression, though no more is very commonly found in it, than that Israel was peculiarly dear to God, had a sort of first-born’s interest in His regard. It implies this, no doubt, but it also goes deeper, and points to the divine origin of Israel as the seed of promise; in their birth the off spring of grace, as contradistinguished from nature. Such pre-eminently was Isaac, the first-born of the family, the type of all that was to follow; and such now were the whole family, when grown into a people, as contradistinguished from the other nations of the earth. They were not the whole that were to occupy this high and distinctive relation; they were but the beginning of the holy seed, the first-born of Jehovah, the first-fruits of a redeemed world, which in the fulness was to comprehend “all kindreds, peoples, and tongues.” Hence the promise to Abraham was, that he should be the father, not of one, but “of many nations.” But these first-fruits represent the whole, and, themselves alone existing as yet, might now be said to comprehend the whole. If they were to be destroyed, the rest cannot come into existence, for a redeemed Israel was the only seed-corn of a redeemed world; while if they should be saved, their salvation would be the pledge and type of the salvation of all. And, therefore, to make it clearly manifest that God was here acting upon the principle which connects the first-fruits with the whole lump, acting not for that one family merely, and that moment of time then present, but for His people of every kindred and of every age, He takes that principle for the very ground of His great judgment on the enemy, and the redemption thence accruing to His people. As the first-born in God’s elect family is to be spared and rescued, so the first-born in the house of the enemy, the beginning of his increase, and the heir of his substance, must be destroyed: the one a proof that the whole family were appointed to life and blessing; the other, in like manner, a proof that all who were aliens from God’s covenant of grace, equally deserved, and should certainly in due time inherit, the evils of perdition. 2. In regard to the other question which concerns Israel’s liability to the judgment which fell upon Egypt, this arose from Israel’s natural relation to the world, just as their redemption was secured by their spiritual relation to God. For, whether viewed in their individual or in their collective capacity, they were in themselves of Egypt: collectively, a part of the nation, without any separate and independent existence of their own, vassals of the enemy, and inhabitants of his doomed territory; individually, also, partakers of the guilt and corruption of Egypt. It is the mercy and grace alone of God’s covenant which makes them to differ from those around them; and, therefore, to show that while, as children of the covenant, the plague should not come nigh them, not a hair of their head should perish, they still were in themselves no better than others, and had nothing whereof to boast, it was, at the same time, provided that their exemption from judgment should be secured only by the blood of atonement. This blood of the lamb, slain and sprinkled upon their door-posts, was a sign between them and God: the sign on His part, that, according to the purport of His covenant, He accepted a ransom in their behalf, in respect to which He would spare them, “as a man spareth his son;” and the sign on their part, that they owned the God of Abraham as their God, and claimed a share in the privileges which He so freely vouchsafed to them. Thus, in their case, “mercy rejoiced against judgment;” yet so as clearly to manifest, that had they been dealt with according to their desert, and with respect merely to what they were in themselves, they too must have perished under the rebuke of Heaven. It was in consideration of the perfectly gratuitous nature of this salvation, and to give due prominence and perpetuity to the principle on which the judgment and the mercy alike proceeded that the Lord now claimed the first-born of Israel as peculiarly His own.—(Exodus 13) The Israelites in their collective capacity were His first-born, and as such were saved from death, the just desert and doom of sin which others inherited; but within that election there was henceforth to be another election,—a first-born among these first-born, who, as having been the immediate subjects of the Divine deliverance, were to be peculiarly devoted to Him. They were to be set apart, or literally, “to be made to pass over to God” (Exodus 13:12),—leaving what might be called the more common ground of duty and service, and connecting themselves with that which belonged exclusively to Himself. It implied that they had in a sense derived a new life from God lived, in a sense, out of death, and consequently were bound to show that they did so, by living after a new manner, in a course of holy consecration to the Lord. This was strikingly taught in the ordinance regarding the first-born of cattle and beasts, afterwards introduced, of which the clean were to be presented as an offering to the Lord, that is, wholly given up to Him by death (Exodus 22:29-30; Exodus 34:19-20); while in the case of the unclean, such as the ass, a lamb was to be sacrificed in its stead. The meaning evidently was, that the kind of consecration to Himself which the Lord sought from the first-born, as it sprung from an act of redemption, saving them from guilt and death, so it was to be made good by a separation, on the one hand, from what was morally unclean, and, on the other, by a self-dedication to all holy and spiritual services. But then, as the redemption in which they had primarily participated was accorded to them in their character as the first-fruits, the representatives of their respective households, and all the households equally shared with them in the deliverance achieved, so it was manifestly the mind of God that their state and calling should be regarded as substantially belonging to all, and that in them were only to be seen the more eminent and distinguished examples of what should characterize the people as a whole. Hence they were in one mass presently addressed as “a kingdom of priests and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6); they were called to be generally what the first-born were called to be pre-eminently and peculiarly. In short, as these first-born had been as to their redemption the proxies, in a manner, of the whole, so were they in their subsequent consecration to be the symbolical lights and patterns of the whole. Nor was any change in this respect made by the substitution of the tribe of Levi in their room.—(Numbers 3:12) For this, as will appear in its proper place, was only the supplanting of a less by a more perfect arrangement, which was also done in such a way as to render most distinctly manifest the representative character of the tribe, which entered into the place of the first-born;—so that we see here, at the very outset, what was God’s aim in the redemption of His people, and how it involved not simply their release from the thraldom and the oppression of Egypt, but also their standing in a peculiar relation to Himself, and their call to show forth His glory. We perceive in this act of redemption the kernel of all that was afterwards developed, as to duty and privilege, by the revelations of law and the institutions of worship. And we see also what a depth of meaning there is in the expression used in Hebrews 12:23, where it is represented as the ennobling distinction of Christians, that they have “come to the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.” To designate the Church as that of the first-born, is to present it to our view in its highest character as being in a state of most blessed nearness to God, having a peculiar interest in His favour, and a singular destination to promote the ends of His righteous government; it is the calling and destination of those who have been ransomed from the yoke of servitude, to live henceforth to His glory, and minister and serve before Him.[207] [207] It is singular how frequently commentators have missed the proper force of this passage in Hebrews. The first-born to which Christians are come, says Whitby, are the apostles, who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit. But it is of the New Testament Church generally, of which the apostles were a part, that the declaration is made; and the explanation amounts simply to this:—Ye who have the first-fruits of the Spirit are come to those who have the first-fruits of the Spirit! Macknight is no better: “The first-born of man and beast being reckoned more excellent than the subsequent births, were appropriated to God. Hence the Israelites had the name of God’s first-born given them, to show that they belonged to God, and were more excellent than the rest of the nations.” A poor distinction, surely, on which, as a basis, to raise the peculiar privileges and hopes of the redeemed! When we come to consider the commemorative institution of the Passover, we shall see how admirably its services were adapted to bring out and exhibit to the eye of the Church the great principles of truth and duty, which were involved in the memorable event in providence we have now been reviewing. But before we leave the consideration of it as an act of providence, there is another point connected with it, at which we would briefly glance, and one in which the Egyptians and Israelites were both concerned. We refer to what has been not less unscripturally than unhappily called “the borrowing of jewels” from the Egyptians by the Israelites on the eve of their departure.[208] That the sacred text in the original gives no countenance to this false view of the transaction, we have explained in the note below; and, indeed, the whole circumstances of the case render it quite incredible that there should have been a borrowing and lending in the proper sense of the term. It is not conceivable that now, when Moses had refused to move, unless they were allowed to take with them all their flocks and herds, any thought should have been entertained of their return. Nor could this, at such a time, have been wished by any; for after the land had been smitten by so many plagues on account of them, and when, especially by the last awful judgment,every heart was paralyzed with fear and trembling, the desire of the Egyptians must have run entirely in the opposite direction. Such, we are expressly told, was the case; for “the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste: for they said, We be all dead men.” Besides, what possible use could they have had for articles of gold, silver, and apparel, if they were only to be absent for a few days? The very request must have betrayed the intention, and the utmost credulity on the part of the Egyptians could not have induced them to give on such a supposition. It is farther evident that this must have been the general understanding in Egypt, from the numbers—“the mixed multitude,” as they are called—who went along with the Israelites, and who must have gone with them under the impression that the Israelites were taking a final leave of Egypt. Hence the reasoning of Calvin and other commentators who, under the idea of its being a proper borrowing and lending, endeavour to justify the transaction by resting on the absolute authority of God, who has a right to command what He pleases—falls of itself to the ground. [208] The sense of borrowing was, by a mistranslation of the Septuagint on ch. 12:35, first given to the Hebrew word. This misled the fathers, who were generally unacquainted with Hebrew; and even Jerome adopted that meaning, though possessed of learning sufficient to detect the error. The Hebrew word is שאל, which simply means to ask or demand: “Speak now to the ears of the people, and let every man ask of his neighbour jewels (rather, articles) of gold,” etc. (ch. 11:1-3). It is the same word that is used in 12:36, and which has there so commonly obtained the sense of lending. Here it is in the Hiphil or causeform, and strictly means, “to cause another to ask,” = give, or present. Rendered literally, the first part of the verse would stand, “And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, and they made them to ask or desire.” This can only mean, that the Lord produced such an impression upon the minds of the Egyptians in favour of the Israelites, that, so far from needing to be cozened or constrained to part with the articles of gold, silver, and apparel, they rather invited the Israelites to ask them: take what you will, we are willing to give all. Even Ewald, though the narrative is merely a tradition in his account, which he handles after his own fashion, yet affirms it to be the self-evident import of the account, that the plundering was no act of theft, that only Pharaoh’s subsequent breach of promise rendered the restoration of the goods impracticable, and that the turn matters took was to be regarded as a kind of Divine recompense.—(Gesch., ii., p. 87) Now, that this giving on the part of the Egyptians, and receiving on the part of the Israelites, was intimately connected with God’s great work of judgment on the one, and mercy to the other, is manifest from the place it holds in the Divine record. It was already foretold to Abraham, that his posterity should come forth from the land of their oppression with much substance. That the prediction should be fulfilled in this particular way, was declared to Moses in God’s first interview with him.—(Exodus 3:21-22) And both then, and immediately before it took place, and still again when it did take place, the Lord constantly spoke of it as His own doing a result accomplished by the might of His outstretched arm upon the Egyptians. We can never imagine that so much account would have been made of it, if the whole end to be served had simply been to provide the Israelites with a certain supply of goods and apparel. A much higher object was unquestionably aimed at. As regards the Egyptians, it was a part of the judgment which God was now visiting upon them for their past misdeeds, and which here, as not infrequently happened, was made to take a form analogous to the sin it was designed to chastise. Thus, in another age, when the Israelites themselves became the objects of chastisement, they said, “We will flee upon horses; therefore (said God) ye shall flee, and they that pursue you shall be swift.”—(Isaiah 30:16) And again, in Jeremiah, “Like as ye have forsaken Me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”—(Jeremiah 5:19) In like manner here, the Egyptians had been long acting the part of oppressors of God’s people, seeking by the most harsh and tyrannical measures to weaken and impoverish them. And now, when God comes down to avenge their cause, He constrains Egypt to furnish them with a rich supply of her treasures and goods. No art or violence was needed on their part to accomplish this; the thing was in a manner done to their hand. The enemies themselves became at last so awed and moved by the strong hand of God upon them, that they would do anything to hasten forward His purpose. Their proud and stubborn hearts bow beneath His arm, like tender willows before the blast; and they feel impelled by an irresistible power to send forth, with honour and great substance, the very people they had so long been unjustly trampling under foot. What a triumphant display of the sovereign might and dominion of God over the adversaries of His cause! What a striking manifestation of the truth, that He can not only turn their counsels into foolishness, but also render them unconscious instruments of promoting His glory in the world! And what a convincing proof of the folly of those who would enrich themselves at the expense of God’s interest, or would enviously prevent His people from obtaining what they absolutely need of worldly means to accomplish the service He expects at their hands! Yet, palpable as these lessons were, and affectingly brought home to the bosoms of the Egyptians, they proved insufficient to disarm their hostility. The pride of their monarch was only for the moment quelled, not thoroughly subdued; and as soon as he had recovered from the recoil of feeling which the stroke of God’s judgment had produced, he summoned all his might to avenge on Israel the defeat he had sustained; but only with the effect of leaving, in his example, a more memorable type of the final destruction that is certain to overtake the adversaries of God. In a few days more the shores of the Red Sea resounded with the triumphant song of Moses: “I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea….The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou hast overthrown them that rose up against Thee: Thou sentest forth Thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were gathered together,” etc. Of this song, “composed on the instant of deliverance, and chanted to the music of the timbrel,” Milman justly says: “What is the Roman arch of triumph, or the pillar crowded with sculpture, compared, as a memorial, to the Hebrew song of victory; which, having survived so many ages, is still fresh and vivid as ever, and excites the same emotions of awe and piety in every human breast susceptible of such feelings, which it did so many ages past in those of the triumphant children of Israel?”[209] How closely also the act of victorious judgment this ode celebrates stands related to future acts of a like kind,—how, especially, it was intended to foreshadow the final putting down of all power and authority that exalts itself against the kingdom of Christ, is manifest from Revelation 15:3, where the glorious company above are represented as singing at once the song of Moses and of the Lamb, in the immediate prospect of the last judgments of God, and of all nations being thereby led to come and worship before Him. It is also in language entirely similar, and indeed manifestly borrowed from that song of Moses, that the Apostle, in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, describes the sure destruction of Antichrist, “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit (or breath) of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.” Overlooking the scriptural connection between the earlier and the later here in God’s dealings, between the type and the antitype,—overlooking, too, the rise that has taken place in the position of the Church, and its relations to the world, by the introduction of Christianity, not a few writers have sought to fasten upon those prophetic passages of the New Testament an interpretation which is too grossly literal even for the original passage in the Old, as if nothing would fulfil their import but a corporeally present Saviour, inflicting corporeal and overwhelming judgments on adversaries in the flesh. The work of judgment celebrated in the song of Moses is ascribed entirely to the Lord: it is He who throws the host of Pharaoh into the sea, and by the strength of His arm lays the enemy low. But did He do so by being corporeally present? or did He work without any inferior instrumentality? Was there literally a stretching out of his own arm? or did He actually send forth a blast from His nostrils? But if no one would affirm such things in regard to the over throw of Pharaoh, how much less should it be affirmed in regard to the destruction of Antichrist, with his ungodly retainers! Here the Church has to do, not with a single individual, an actual king and his warlike host, as in the case of Pharaoh, but with an antichristian system and its wide-spread adherents; and the real victory must be won, not by acts of violence and bloodshed, but by the spiritual weapons which shall undermine the strong holds of error and diffuse the light of Divine truth. Whenever the Lord gives power to those weapons to overcome, He substantially repeats anew the judgments of the Red Sea; and when all that exalteth itself against the knowledge of Christ shall be put down by the victorious energy of the truth, then shall be the time to sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. [209] History of the Jews, third ed., vol. i., p. 95. Section Fourth.—The March Through The Wilderness—Manna—Water From The Rock—The Pillar Of Cloud And Fire. THE children of Israel are now in the condition of a ransomed people, delivered from the yoke of the oppressor, and personally in a state of freedom and enlargement. They have been redeemed for the inheritance, but still the inheritance is not theirs; they are separated from it by a great and terrible wilderness, where many trials and difficulties must certainly be encountered, and nature, if left to itself, will inevitably perish. They were not long in feeling this. To the outward eye, the prospect which lay immediately before them, when they marched from the shores of the Red Sea, was peculiarly dark and disheartening. The country they had left behind, with all the hardships and oppressions it had latterly contained for them, was still a rich and cultivated region. It presented to the eye luxuriant fields, and teemed with the best of nature’s productions; they had there the most delicious water to drink, and were fed with flesh and bread to the full. But now, even after the most extraordinary wonders had been wrought in their behalf, and the power that oppressed them had been laid low, everything assumes the most dismal and discouraging aspect: little to be seen but a boundless waste of burning sand and lifeless stones; and a tedious march before them, through trackless and inhospitable deserts, where it seemed impossible to find for such an immense host even the commonest necessaries of life. What advantage was it to them in such a case, to have been brought out with a high hand from the house of bondage? They had escaped, indeed, from the yoke of the oppressor, but only to be placed in more appalling circumstances, and exposed to calamities less easy to be borne. And as death seemed inevitable anyhow, it might have been as well, at least, to have let them meet it amid the comparative comforts they enjoyed in Egypt, as to have it now coining upon them through scenes of desolation and the lingering horrors of want. Such were the feelings expressed by the Israelites shortly after their entrance on the wilderness, and more than once expressed again as they became sensible of the troubles and perils of their new position.[210] If they had rightly interpreted the Lord’s doings, and reposed due confidence in His declared purposes concerning them, they would have felt differently. They would have understood, that it was in the nature of things impossible for God to have redeemed them for the inheritance, and yet to suffer any inferior difficulties by the way to prevent them from coming to the possession of it. That redemption carried in its bosom a pledge of other needful manifestations of Divine love and faithfulness. For, being in itself the greatest, it implied that the less should not be withheld; and being also the manifestation of a God who, in character as in being, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, it bespoke His readiness to give, in the future, similar manifestations of Himself, in so far as such might be required. [210] Exodus 15:24; Exodus 16:2; Exodus 17:2-3; Numbers 11, 12. The Israelites, however, who were still enveloped in much of the darkness and corruption of Egypt, though they were outwardly delivered from its thraldom, understood as yet comparatively little of this. They knew not how much they had to expect from God, as the JEHOVAH, the self-existent and unchangeable, who, as such, could not leave the people whom He had redeemed to want and desolation, but must assuredly carry on and perfect what He had so gloriously begun. They readily gave way, therefore, to fears and doubts, and even broke out into open murmuring and discontent. But this only showed how much they had still to learn in the school of God. They had yet to obtain a clearer insight into God’s character, and a deeper consciousness of their covenant relation to Him. And they could not possibly be in a better position for getting this, than in that solitary desert where the fascinating objects of the world no longer came between them and God. There they were in a manner forced into intimate dealings with God; being constantly impelled by their necessities, on the one hand, to throw themselves upon His care, and drawn, on the other, by His gracious interpositions in their behalf, into a closer acquaintance with His character and goodness. By the things they suffered, not less than those they heard, they were made to learn obedience, and were brought through a fitting preparation for the calling and destiny that was before them. Even with all the advantages which their course of wilderness-training possessed for this purpose, it proved insufficient for the generation that left Egypt with Moses; and the promise of God required to be suspended till another generation had sprung up, in whom that training, by being longer continued, was to prove more thoroughly effectual. So again, in later times, when their posterity had fallen from their high calling, the Lord had again to put them through a discipline so entirely similar to the one now undergone, that it is spoken of as a simple repetition of what took place after the deliverance from Egypt.[211] And is it not substantially so still with the sincere believer in Christ? Spiritually he enters upon a desert the moment he takes up his Master’s cross and begins to die to the world, and never altogether leaves it till he enters the rest which remains for the people of God. But what life to him here may be, will necessarily depend to a large extent on the use he makes of his privileges as a believer, and the manner in which he prosecutes his calling in the Saviour. If his soul prospers, he may, as to other things, be in health and prosperity, and his present condition may approach nearer and nearer to that which awaits him here after. [211] See Ezekiel 20:35-36, and the beautiful passage, Hosea 2:14-23, which describe the course to be adopted for restoring a degenerate Church, and God’s future dealings with her, as if the whole were to be a re-enacting of the transactions which occurred at the beginning of her history. The same mode of procedure was to be adopted now which had been pursued then, though the actual scenes and operations were to be widely different. In regard to the Lord’s manifestations and dealings toward Israel during this peculiar portion of their history, the general principle unfolded is, that while He finds it needful to prescribe to His ransomed people a course of difficulty, trial, and danger, before putting them in possession of the inheritance, He gives them meanwhile all that is required for their support and well-being, and brings to them discoveries of His gracious nearness to them, and unfailing love, such as they could not otherwise have experienced. I. This appeared, first of all, in the supply of food provided for them, and especially in the giving of manna, which the Lord sent them in the place of bread. It is true that the manna might not necessarily form, nor can scarcely be supposed to have actually formed, their only means of subsistence during the latter and longer period of their sojourn in the wilderness; for, to say nothing of the quails, of which at first in kindness, and again in anger, a temporary supply was furnished them (Exodus 16; Numbers 11), there were within reach of the Israelites not a few resources of a common kind. The regions which they traversed, though commonly designated by the name of desert, are by no means uniform in their character, and contain in many places pasturage for sheep and cattle. Hence considerable tribes have found it possible, from the most distant times, to subsist in them such as the Ishmaelites, Midianites, Amalekites. That the Israelites afterwards availed themselves of the means of support which the wilderness afforded them, in common with these tribes of the desert, is clear from what is mentioned of their flocks and herds. They are expressly said to have left Egypt with large property in these (Exodus 12:38); and that they were enabled to preserve, and even perhaps to increase, these possessions, we may gather from the notices subsequently given concerning them, especially from the mention made of the cattle, when they sought liberty to pass through the territory of Edom (Numbers 20:19); and from the very large accumulation of flocks and herds by Gad and Reuben, which led to their obtaining a portion beyond the bounds of what was properly the promised land.—(Numbers 32) The Israelites thus had within themselves considerable resources as to the supply of food; and the sale of the skins and wool, and what they could spare from the yearly increase of their possessions, would enable them to purchase again from others. Besides, the treasure which they brought with them from Egypt, and the traffic which they might carry on in the fruit, spices, and other native productions of the desert, would furnish them with the means of obtaining provisions in the way of commerce. Nor have we any reason to think that the Israelites neglected these natural opportunities, but rather the reverse; for Moses retained his father-in-law with them, that, from his greater experience of the wilderness-life, he might be serviceable to them in their journeyings and abodes (Numbers 10:31); and it would seem that during the thirty-eight years of their sojourn, appointed in punishment for their unbelief, their encampment was in the neighbourhood of Mount Seir, where they had considerable advantages, both for trade and pasturage. So that the period of their sojourn in the wilderness may have been, and most probably was, far from being characterized by the inactivity and destitution which is commonly supposed; for Moses not only speaks of their buying provisions, but also of the Lord having “blessed them in all the works of their hands, and suffered them to lack nothing.” (Deuteronomy 2:6-7)[212] [212] The view given in the text was maintained by several writers long before the controversies which have recently sprung up respecting the numbers of Israel in the wilderness, and the difficulties connected with their support. See, for example, Vitringa, Obs. Sac., Lib. v., c. 15; Hengstenberg’s Bileam, p. 280. A distinction must be made between the case of the people themselves, and that of their flocks and herds. The exact numbers of the latter are not stated, though such epithets as great and very much are applied to them; but no mention is made of any miraculous supply of food for them; and we are led to infer, that ordinarily sufficient pasturage was found for them in the desert. Two considerations are here to be taken into account, by way of explanation. One is, that in point of fact large tracts of good pasture land exist in what goes generally by the name of desert. The desert of Suez, in which before the Exodus, and partly perhaps even after it, the Israelites, pastured their flocks, is “full of rich pasture and pools of water during winter and spring.” So says Burckhardt (Syria and Palestine, ii., p. 462), confirmed by later authorities. In the neighbourhood of Sinai itself, in the El Tyh ridge of mountains, which form the northern boundary, Burckhardt testifies that they are peculiarly “the pasturing places of the Sinai Bedouins,” and that these “are richer in camels and flocks than any other of the Towara tribes (p. 481). Again and again he speaks of falling in with wadys (Wady Genne, Feiran, Kyd, etc.), which were covered with pasturage, sometimes even presenting an appearance of deep verdure. Leake, who edited the travels of Burckhardt, in his preface gives this as the result of B.’s testimony: “The upper region of Sinai, which forms an irregular circle of thirty or forty miles in diameter, possessing numerous sources of water, a temperate climate, and a soil capable of supporting animal and vegetable nature, was the part of the peninsula best adapted to the residence of near a year, during which the Israelites were numbered and received their laws” (p. xiii). But another important consideration is, that there is good reason to believe changes to the worse have passed over the region in question—some of them even at no very distant date—which have rendered it greatly less fertile than it once was. Burckhardt and other travellers have found large tracts, which not long previous had been well wooded and clothed with pasture, from various causes reduced to a state of desolation. Ewald admits the fact as incontrovertible, that the peninsula could at the time of the Exodus “support more human beings (of course also more flocks and herds) than at present.” So also Stanley (Sinai and Pales., p. 24), who reckons it as certain that “the vegetation of the wadys has considerably decreased,” and mentions various circumstances to account for it. There is nothing, therefore, to argue the improbability of this part of the scriptural narrative, when due allowance is made for all the circumstances of the case; and if anything more might be required, we cannot reasonably doubt, that, as the Psalmist suggests, the extraordinary nature of the occasion called forth from above special showers of refreshment (Psalms 68:9). As regards the people themselves, their numbers are more specifically given; and if the numbers are correct, the whole, young and old, cannot be estimated at less than two millions. Nor, after all the conjectures and modes of solution that have been tried on the one side and the other, does it seem probable that the number is exaggerated, or that a body materially smaller could have sufficed for the extensive work of conquest and possession afterwards accomplished by it. That considerable portions of them would often be at some distance from the main body—the camp is extremely probable, and would hence more readily find a measure of support from natural sources. But still, that for such a body large supplies of a supernatural kind would be required, is certain, and is admitted in the sacred narrative. The growth of Jacob’s family into such a host seems to imply both the existence of very special influences favouring it (plainly indicated also in Exodus 1:7-12), and a longer residence in Egypt (so, at least, I believe) than is assigned it in the common chronology. I think the statement in Exodus 12:40, of 430 years sojourn, should be taken in the strictest sense, and that the genealogies, which seem to conflict with this, should be regarded as abbreviated a practice well known to have been in frequent use. It is clear, however, that these natural resources could not well become available to the Israelites till they had lived for some time in the desert, and had come to be in a manner naturalized to it. To whatever extent they may have been indebted to such means of subsistence, it must have been chiefly during those thirty-eight years that they were doomed by the judgment of God to make the wilderness their home. And as that period formed an arrest in their progress, a sort of moral blank in their history, during which, as we shall see at the close of this chapter, the covenant and its more distinctive ordinances were suspended, we need not wonder if the things properly typical in their condition should also have suffered a measure of derangement. It is to these things, as they happened to them during their march through the wilderness and encampment around Sinai, that we are to look for the types (in their stricter sense) of Gospel realities. And there can be no doubt that, with reference to this period, the entire people were dependent upon manna for the chief part of their daily support. With a considerable proportion of the people, those who were in humbler circumstances, it must, indeed, have been so to the last. Therefore the nocturnal supply could not cease, though it may have varied in amount, till the people actually entered the territory of Canaan. It was the peculiar provision of Heaven for the necessities of the wilderness.[213] [213] In Exodus 16:35, the supply of manna is spoken of as continuing till the people “came to a land inhabited,” or to their reaching “the borders of Canaan.” In Josh. v. 12, its actual cessation is said to have taken place only when they had entered Canaan, and ate the corn of the land. Hengstenberg’s explanation of the matter does not seem to us quite satisfactory. But why might not the first passage, written in anticipation of the future, indicate generally the period during which the manna was given, viz., the exclusion of the people from a land in such a sense inhabited, that they were still dependent on miraculous supplies of food? Then the passage in Joshua is the fact, that this dependence actually ceased only when they had crossed the Jordan, and lay before Jericho; so that we may conclude their conquests to the east of Jordan, though in lands inhabited, had not sufficed till the period in question to furnish an adequate supply to their wants. In regard to the manna itself, which formed the chief part of this extraordinary provision, the description given is, that it fell round about the camp by night with the dew; that it consisted of small whitish particles, compared to hoar-frost, coriander-seed, and pearls (for soבְּרֹלַח in Numbers 11:7 should be rendered, not bdellium; see Bochart, Hieroz., P. ii., p. 675-7); that it melted when exposed to the heat of the sun, and tasted like wafers made with honey, or like fresh oil. Now it seems that in certain parts of Arabia, and especially in that part which lies around Mount Sinai, a substance has been always found very much resembling this manna, and also bearing its name the juice or gum of a kind of tamarisk tree, which grows in that region, called tarfa, oozing out chiefly by night in the month of June, and collected before sunrise by the natives. Such a fact was deemed perfectly sufficient to entitle modern rationalists to conclude that there was no miracle in the matter, and that the Israelites merely collected and used a natural production of the region where they sojourned for a period. But even supposing the substance called manna to have been in both cases precisely the same, there was still ample room for the exertion of miraculous power in regard to the quantity; for the entire produce of the manna found in the Arabian peninsula, even in the most fruitful years, does not exceed 700 pounds, which, on the most moderate calculation, could not have furnished even the thousandth part necessary for one day’s supply to the host of Israel! Besides the enormous disproportion, however, in regard to quantity, there were other things belonging to the manna of Scripture which clearly distinguished it from that found by naturalists—especially its falling with the dew, and on the ground as well as on plants; its consistence, rendering it capable of being used for bread, while the natural is rather a substitute for honey; its corrupting, if kept beyond a day; and its coming in double quantities on the sixth day, and not falling at all on the seventh. If these properties, along with the immense abundance in which it was given, be not sufficient to constitute the manna of Scripture a miracle, and that of the first magnitude, it will be difficult to say where anything really miraculous is to be found. But this by no means proves the absence of all resemblance between the natural and the supernatural productions in question; and so far from there being aught in that resemblance to disturb our ideas regarding the truth and reality of the miracle, we should rather see in it something to confirm them. For though not always, yet there very commonly is a natural basis for the supernatural, or, at least, an easily recognised connection between the two. Thus, when our Lord proceeded to administer a miraculous supply of food to the hungry multitudes around Him, He did not call into being articles of food unknown in Judea, but availed Himself of the few loaves and fishes that were furnished to His hand. In like manner, when Jehovah was going to provide in the desert a substitute for the corn of cultivated lands, was it not befitting that He should take somenatural production of the desert, and increase or otherwise modify it, in adaptation to the end for which it was required? It is in accordance with all reason and analogy, that this corn of the desert should, to some extent, have savoured of the region with which it was connected; and the few striking resemblances it is found to bear to the produce of the Arabian tamarisk are the stamp of verisimilitude, and not of suspicion; the indication of such an affinity between the two as might justly be expected, from their being the common production of the same Divine hand, only working miraculously in the one case, and naturally in the other.[214] [214] There has been a considerable controversy among the learned, whether the manna of Scripture is to be held as formally the same with that of the shrub in question, or essentially different (see Kurtz’s Hist, of Cor., vol. iii., s. 3, Trans.). The two main points of difference urged by Kurtz viz., that the food ate by the Israelites for forty years was not produced by the tarfa shrubs of the desert, and that the one had nutritive qualities which the other has not must be allowed to constitute most material differences between the two. But still it is important not to overlook the agreements, for these were evidently designed as well as the other. They may be of service also in exposing the fanciful and merely superficial nature of many of the resemblances specified by typical writers between the manna and Christ: for example, the roundness of the manna, which was held to signify His eternal nature; its whiteness, which was viewed as emblematic of His holiness; and its sweetness, of the delight the participation of Him affords to believers. These qualities the manna had simply as manna, as possessing to a certain extent the properties of that production of the desert. In such things there was nothing peculiar or supernatural; and it is as unwarrantable to search for spiritual mysteries in them, as it would be for a like purpose to analyze the qualities and appearance of the water which issued from the rock, and which, so applied, would convey in some respects a directly opposite instruction. It is obvious that this miraculous supply of food for the desert was in itself a provision for the bodily, and not for the spiritual nature of the Israelites. Hence it is called by our Lord, “not the true bread that cometh down from heaven,” because the life it was given to support was the fleshly one, which terminates in death: “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” (John 6:32, John 6:49-50) And even in this point of view the things connected with it have a use for us, apart altogether from any higher, typical, or prospective reference they might also bear to Gospel things. Lessons may be drawn from the givingand receiving of manna in regard to the interests and transactions of our present temporal life— properly and justly drawn; only we must not confound these, as is too commonly done, with the lessons of another and higher kind, which it was intended, as part of a preparatory dispensation, to teach regarding the food and nourishment of the soul. For example, the use made of it by the Apostle in the second Epistle to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 8:15), to enforce on the rich a charitable distribution of their means to the needy, so that there might be provided for all a sufficiency of these temporal goods, such as was found by the children of Israel on gathering the manna: this has no respect to any typical bearing in the transaction, as in both cases alike it is the bodily and temporal life alone that is contemplated. In like manner, we should regard it, not in a typical, but only in a common or historical point of view, if we should apply the fact of their being obliged to rise betimes and gather it with their own hands, to teach the duty of a diligent industry in our worldly callings; or the other fact of its breeding worms when unnecessarily hoarded and kept beyond the appointed time, to show the folly of men labouring to heap up possessions which they cannot profitably use, and which must be found only a source of trouble and annoyance. Such applications of the historical details regarding the manna, are in themselves perfectly legitimate and proper, but are quite out of place when put, as they often are, among its typical bearings; as may be seen even by those who do so, when they come to certain of the details to the double portion, for example, on the last day of the week, that there might be an unbroken day of rest on the Sabbath; for, if considered, as in the examples given above, with reference merely to what is to be done or enjoyed on earth, the instruction would be false—the day of rest being the season above all others on which, in a spiritual point of view, men should gather and lay up for their souls. They are here, therefore, under the necessity of mixing up the present with the future, making the six days represent time, during which salvation is to be sought, and the seventh eternity, during which it is to be enjoyed. Yet there is an important use of this part also of the arrangement regarding the manna, in reference to the present life, apart altogether from the typical bearing. For when the Lord sent that double portion on the last day of the week, and none on the next, it was as much as to say, that in His providential arrangements for this world, He had given only six days out of the seven for worldly labour, and that if men readily concurred in this plan they should find it to their advantage: they should find, that in the long run they got as much by their six days labour as they either needed or could profitably use, and should have, besides, their weekly day of rest of spiritual refreshment and bodily repose. Nor can we regard this lesson of small moment in the eye of Heaven, when we see no fewer than three miracles wrought every week for forty years to enforce it, viz., a double portion of manna on the sixth day, none on the seventh, and the preservation of the portion for the seventh from corrupting when kept beyond the usual time. When we come, however, to consider the Divine gift of manna in its typical aspect, as representative of the higher and better things of the Gospel, we must remember that there are two distinct classes of relations—corresponding, indeed, yet still distinct, since the one has immediate respect only to the seen and the temporal, and the other to the unseen and the eternal. In both cases alike there is a redeemed people, travelling through a wilderness to the inheritance promised to them, and prepared for them, and receiving as they proceed the peculiar provision they require for the support of life, from the immediate hand of God. But in the one case it is the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, redeemed from the outward bondage and oppression of Egypt, at the most from bodily death; in the other, the spiritual members of an elect Church redeemed from the curse and condemnation of sin: in the one, the literal wilderness of Arabia, lying between Egypt and Palestine; in the other, the figurative wilderness of a present world: in the one, manna; in the other, Christ. That we are warranted to connect the two together in this manner, and to see the one, as it were, in the other, is not simply to be inferred from some occasional passages of Scripture, but is rather to be grounded on the general nature of the Old Testament dispensation, as intended to prepare the way, by means of its visible and earthly relations, for the spiritual and Divine realities of the Gospel. Whatever is implied in this general connection, however, is in the case of the manna not obscurely intimated by our Lord in the sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel, where He represents Himself, with evident reference to it, as “the bread which cometh down from heaven;” and is clearly taken for granted by the Apostle Paul, when he calls it “the spiritual meat “of which the Israelites did all eat.—(1 Corinthians 10:3) Not as if, in eating that, they of necessity found nourishment to their souls; but such meat being God’s special provision for a redeemed people, had an ordained connection with the mysteries of God’s kingdom, and, as such, contained a pledge that He who consulted so graciously for the life of the body, would prove Himself equally ready to administer to the necessities of the soul, as He did in a measure even then, and does now more fully in Christ. The following may be presented as the chief points of instruction which in this respect are conveyed by the history of the manna:— (1.) It was given in consideration of a great and urgent necessity. A like necessity lies at the foundation of God’s gift of His Son to the world; it was not possible in the nature of things for any other resource to be found; and the actual bestowment of the gift was delayed, till the fullest demonstration had been given in the history of the Church and the world that such a provision was indispensable. (2.) The manna was peculiarly the gift of God, coming freely and directly from His hand. It fell by night with the dew (Numbers 11:9), which is itself the gift of heaven, sent to fertilize the earth, and enable it to yield increase for the food of man and beast. But in the wilderness, where, as there is no sowing, there can be no increase, if bread still comes with the dew, it must be, in a sense quite peculiar, the produce of heaven hence called “the corn,” or “bread of heaven.”—(Psalms 78:24; Psalms 105:40) How striking a representation in this respect of Christ, who, both as to His person and to the purchased blessings of His redemption, is always presented to our view as the free gift and offer of Divine love! (3.) But plentiful as well as free; the whole fulness of the Godhead is in Jesus, so that all may receive as their necessities require; no one needs to grudge his neighbour’s portion, but all rather may rejoice together in the ample beneficence of Heaven. So was it also with the manna; for when distribution was made, there was enough for all, and even he who had gathered least had no lack. (4.) Then, falling as it did round about the camp, it was near enough to be within the reach of all; if any should perish for want, it could be from no outward necessity or hardship, for the means of supply were brought almost to their very hand. Nor is it otherwise in regard to Christ, who, in the Gospel of His grace, is laid, in a manner, at the door of every sinner: the word is nigh him; and if he should still perish, he must be without excuse—he perishes in sight of the bread of life. (5.) The supply of manna came daily, and faith had to be exercised on the providence of God, that each day would bring its appointed provision; if they attempted to hoard for the morrow, their store became a mass of corruption. In like manner must the child of God pray for his soul every morning as it dawns, “Give me this day my daily bread.” He can lay up no stock of grace which is to save him from the necessity of constantly repairing to the treasury of Christ; and if he begins to live upon former experiences, or to feel as if he already stood so high in the life of God, that, like Peter, he can of himself confidently reckon on his superiority to temptation, his very mercies become fraught with trouble, and he is the worse rather than the better for the fulness imparted to him. His soul can be in health and prosperity only while he is every day “living by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him, and gave Himself for him.” (6.) Finally, as the manna had to be gathered in the morning of each day, and a double portion provided on the sixth day, that the seventh might be hallowed as a day of sacred rest; so Christ and the things of His salvation must be sought with diligence and regularity, but only in the appointed way, and through the divinely-provided channels. There must be no neglect of seasonable opportunities on the one hand, nor, on the other, any over valuing of one ordinance to the neglect of another. We cannot prosper in our course, unless it is pursued as God Himself authorizes and appoints. There is nothing uncertain or fanciful in such analogies; for they have not only the correspondence between Israel’s temporal and the Church’s spiritual condition to rest upon, but the character also of an unchangeable God. His principles of dealing with His Church are the same for all ages. When transacting with His people now directly for the support of the spiritual life, He must substantially re-enact what He did of old, when transacting with them directly for the support of their bodily life. And as even then there was an under current of spiritual meaning and instruction running through all that was done, so the faith of the Christian now has a most legitimate and profitable exercise, when it learns from that memorable transaction in the desert the fulness of its privilege, and the extent of its obligations in regard to the higher provision presented to it in the Gospel. II. But Israel in the wilderness required something more than manna to preserve them in safety and vigour for the inheritance; they needed refreshment as well as support “a stay of water,” not less than “a staff of bread.” And the account given respecting this is contained in the chapter immediately following that which records the appointment of God respecting the manna.—(Exodus 17) Here also the gift was preceded by a murmuring and discontent on the part of the Israelites. So little had they yet learned from the past manifestations of Divine power and faithfulness, and so much had sight the ascendancy over faith in their character, that they even spoke as if certain destruction were before them, and caused Moses to tremble for his life. But however improperly they demeaned themselves, as there was a real necessity in their condition, which nothing but an immediate and extraordinary exertion of Divine power could relieve, Moses received the command from God, after supplicating His interposition, to go with the elders of Israel and smite the rock in Horeb with his rod, under the assurance, which was speedily verified, that water in abundance would stream forth.[215] [215] This occurrence must not be confounded with another considerably similar, of which an account is given in Numbers 20. This latter occurrence took place at Kadesh, and not till the beginning of the fortieth year of the sojourn in the wilderness, when the period of their abode there was drawing to a close.—(Comp. ch. 20 with ch. 33:36-39) On account of the rebellious conduct of the people, Moses called the rock smitten, in both cases, by the name of Meribah, or Strife. But as the occasions were far separate, both as to space and time, the last was also unhappily distinguished from the first, in that Moses and Aaron so far transgressed as to forfeit their right to enter the promised land. Aaron was coupled with Moses both in the sin and the punishment; but it is the case of Moses which is most particularly noticed. His sin is characterized in ch. 20:12 by his “not believing God,” and in ver. 24, and ch. 17:14, as a “rebelling against the word of God.” Again, in Deuteronomy 1:37; Deuteronomy 3:26; Deuteronomy 4:21, the punishment is said to have been laid on Moses “for their sakes,” or, as it should rather be, “because of their words.” The proper account of the matter seems to be this: Moses, through their chiding, lost command of himself, and did the work appointed not as God’s messenger, in a spirit of faith and holiness, but in a state of carnal and passionate excitement, under the influence of that wrath which worketh not the righteousness of God. The punishment he received, it may seem, was peculiarly severe for such an offence; but it was designed to produce a salutary impression upon the people, in regard to the evil of sin: for when they saw that their misconduct had so far prevailed over their venerable leader as to prevent even him from entering Canaan, how powerfully was the circumstance fitted to operate as a check upon their waywardness in the time to come! And then, as Moses and Aaron were in the position of greatest nearness to God, and had it as their especial charge to represent God’s holiness to the people, even a comparatively small backsliding in them was of a serious nature, and required to be marked with some impressive token of the Lord’s displeasure. The Apostle says of this rock, that it followed the Israelites. (1 Corinthians 10:4) And some of the Jewish Rabbis have fabled that it actually moved from its place in Horeb and accompanied them through the wilderness; so that the rock, which nearly forty years after was smitten in Kadesh, was the identical rock which had been originally smitten in Horeb. We need scarcely say that such was not the meaning of the Apostle.[216] But as the rock at Horeb comes into view, not as something by itself, but simply as connected with the water which Divine power constrained it to yield, it might justly be spoken of as following them, if the waters flowing from it pursued for a time the same course. That this, to some extent, was actually the case, may be inferred from the great profusion with which they are declared to have been given “gushing out,” it is said, “like overflowing streams,” “and running like a river in the dry places.”—(Psalms 78:20; Psalms 105:41; Isaiah 48:21). It is also the nearly unanimous opinion of interpreters, both ancient and modern, and the words of the Apostle so manifestly imply this, that we can scarcely call it anything but a conceit in St Chrysostom (who is followed, however, by Horsley, on Exodus 17), to regard the Apostle there as speaking of Christ personally. But we are not thereby warranted in supposing, with some Jewish writers, that the waters flowing from the rock in Horeb so closely and necessarily connected themselves with the march of the Israelites, that the stream rose with them to the tops of mountains, as well as descended into the valleys.[217] Considering how nearly related the Lord’s miraculous working in regard to the manna stood to His operations in nature, and how He required the care and instrumentality of His people to concur with His gift in making that miraculous provision effectual to the supply of their wants, we might rather conceive that their course was directed so as to admit of the water easily following them, though not, perhaps, without the application of some labour on their part to open for it a passage, and provide suitable reservoirs. Nor are we to imagine that they would require this water, any more than the manna, always in the same quantities during the whole period of their sojourn in the wilderness. They might even be sometimes wholly independent of it; as we know for certain it had failed them when they reached the neighbourhood of Kadesh, and were on their way to the country of the Moabites.—(Numbers 20 and Numbers 21:1-35) It was God’s special provision for the desert for the land of drought; and did not need to be given in any quantities, or directed into any channel, but such as their necessities when traversing that land might require.[218] [216] Yet the charge has been made, and is still kept up (for example, by De Wette, Rückert, Meyer), that the Apostle does here fall in with the Jewish legends, and uses them for a purpose. We utterly disavow this; but we cannot, with Tholuck (Das Alte Test, im neue, p. 39), deny the existence of the Jewish legends, and hold that the passages usually referred to on the subject, speak only of the water of the well dug by Moses and the princes out of the earth. Some of them certainly do, but not all. Those produced by Schöttgen on 1 Cor. x. 4, clearly show it to have been a Jewish opinion, that, not the water indeed by itself, but the rock ready to give forth its supplies of water, did somehow follow the Israelites. [217] Lightfoot on 1 Corinthians 10:4. [218] The exact route pursued by the Israelites from Sinai to Canaan is still a matter of uncertainty. At some of the places where they are supposed to have rested, there are considerable supplies of water.—(See Bib. Cyclop., Art. Wandering) It is, however, certain that the region of Sinai is very elevated, and that not only are the mountain ridges immensely higher than the south of Palestine, but the ground slopes from the base to a considerable distance all round, so that the water would naturally flow so far with the Israelites; but how far can never be ascertained. Understanding this, however, to be the sense in which the rock followed the Israelites, what does the Apostle farther mean by saying, that “that rock was Christ?” Does he wish us to understand that the rock typically represented Christ? and so represented Him, that in drinking of the water which flowed from it, they at the same time received Christ? Was the drink furnished to the Israelites in such a sense spiritual, that it conveyed Christ to them? In that case the flowing forth and drinking of the water must have had in it the nature of a sacrament, and answered to our spiritually eating and drinking of Christ in the Supper. This, unquestionably, is the view adopted by the ablest and soundest divines; although there are certain limitations which must be understood. The Apostle is evidently drawing a parallel between the case of the Church in the wilderness and that of the Church under the Gospel, with an especial reference to the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Sapper. The passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, under the guidance and direction of Moses, he represents as a sort of baptism to him; because in the same manner in which Christian baptism seals spiritually the believer’s death to sin, his separation from the world, and his calling of God to sit in heavenly places with Christ, in the very same, outwardly, did the passage through the Red Sea seal the death of Israel to the bondage of Pharaoh, their separation from Egypt, and their expectation of the inheritance promised them by Moses. In what he says regarding the manna and the rock, he does not expressly name the ordinance of the Supper; but there can be no doubt that he has its sacred symbols in view, when he calls the manna the spiritual food of which the Israelites ate, and the water from the rock the spiritual drink of which they drank, and even gives to the rock the name of Christ. Such language, however, cannot have been meant to imply that the manna and the water directly and properly symbolized Christ, in the same sense that this is done by the bread and wine of the Supper; for the gift of the manna and the water had immediate respect to the supply of the people’s bodily necessities. For this alone they were directly and ostensibly given; and hence our Lord, speaking of what the manna was in itself, depreciates its value in respect to men’s higher natures, and declares to the Jews it was not the true bread of heaven, as was evident alone from the fact that the life it was sent more immediately to nourish, actually perished in the wilderness. Not, therefore, directly and palpably, but only in a remote, concealed, typical sense, could the Apostle intend his expressions of spiritual food and drink to be understood. Still less could he mean, that all who partook of these, did consciously and believingly receive Christ through them to salvation. The facts he presently mentions regarding so many of them being smitten down in the wilderness by the judgments of God for their sins, too clearly proved the reverse of that. The very purpose, indeed, for which he there introduces their case to the notice of the Corinthian Church, is to warn the disciples to beware lest they should fall after the same example of unbelief; lest, after enjoying the privileges of the Christian Church, they should, by carnal indulgence, lose their interest in the heavenly inheritance, as so many had done in regard to the earthly inheritance, notwithstanding that they had partaken of the corresponding privileges of the ancient economy. But as the bread and wine in the Supper might still be called spiritual food and drink, might even be called by the name of Christ, who is both the living bread and the living water, which they represent, although many partake of them unworthily, and perish in their sins; so manifestly might the manna and the water of the desert be so called, since Christ was typically represented in them, though thousands were altogether ignorant of any reference they might have to Him, and lived and died as far estranged from salvation as the wretched idolaters of Egypt. In perceiving the higher things typically represented by the water flowing from the rock, the Israelites stood at an immense disadvantage compared with believers under the Gospel; and how far any did perceive them, it is impossible for us to determine. In regard to the great mass, who both now and on so many other occasions showed themselves incapable of putting forth even the lowest exercises of faith, it is but too evident that they did not descry there the faintest glimpse of Christ. But, for such as really were children of faith, we may easily understand how they might go a certain way at least, in rising through the provisions then administered, to the expectation of better things to come. They must, then, have discerned in the inheritance which they were travelling to inherit, not the ultimate good itself which God had destined for His chosen, but only its terrestrial type and pledge—something which would be for the present life, what, in the resurrection, the other would be for the spiritual and immortal life. But, discerning this, it could not be difficult for them to proceed one step farther, and apprehend, that what God was now doing to them on their way to the temporal inheritance, by those outward, material provisions for the bodily life, He did not for that alone, but also as a sign and pledge, that such provision as He had made for the lower necessities of their nature, He must assuredly have made, and would in His own time fully disclose, for the higher. And thus, while receiving from the hand of their redeeming God the food and refreshment required for those bodily natures which were to enjoy the pleasant mountains and valleys of Canaan, they might at the same time be growing in clearness of view and strength of assurance, as regarded their interest in the imperishable treasures which belonged to the future kingdom of God, and their relation to Him who was to be pre-eminently the seed of blessing, and the author of eternal life to a dying world. But, whether or not those for whom the rock poured out its refreshing streams may have attained to any such discernment of the better things to come, for us who can look back upon the past from the high vantage-ground of Gospel light, there may certainly be derived not a little of clear and definite instruction. In seeking for this, however, we must be careful to look to the real and essential lines of agreement, and pay no regard to such as are merely incidental. It is not the rock properly that we have to do with, or to any of its distinctive qualities, as is commonly imagined, but the supply of water issuing from it, to supply the thirst and refresh the natures of the famishing Israelites. No doubt, the Apostle, when referring to the transaction, speaks of the rock itself, and of its following them, but plainly meaning by this, as we have stated, the water that flowed from it. No doubt, also, Christ is often in Scripture represented as a rock; but when He is so, it is always with respect to the qualities properly belonging to a rock—its strength, its durability, or the protection it is capable of affording from the heat of a scorching sun. These natural qualities of the rock, however, do not come into consideration here; they did not render it in the least degree fitted for administering the good actually derived from it, but rather the reverse. There was not only no seeming, but also no real aptitude in the rock to yield the water; while in Christ, though He appeared to have no form or comeliness, there still was everything that was required to constitute Him a fountain-head of life and blessing. Then, the smiting of the rock by Moses with the rod, could not suggest the idea of anything like violence done to it; nor was the action itself done by Moses as the lawgiver, but as the mediator between God and the people; while the smiting of Christ, which is commonly held to correspond with this, consisted in the bruising of His soul with the suffering of death, and that not inflicted, but borne by Him as Mediator. There is no real correspondence in these respects between the type and the antitype; and the manner in which it is commonly made out, is nothing more than a specious accommodation of the language of the transaction, to ideas which the transaction itself could never have suggested.[219] [219] This has been done most strikingly by Toplady, in the beautiful hymn, “Rock of Ages cleft for me,” which derives its imagery in part from this transaction in the wilderness. Considered, however, in a critical point of view, or with reference to the real meaning of the transaction, it is liable to the objections stated in the text; it confounds things which essentially differ. Ainsworth produces a Jewish comment, which seems to justify the interpretation usually put on it: “The turning of the rock into water, was the turning of the property of judgment, signified by the rock, into the property of mercy, signified by the water.” But Jewish comments on this, as well as other subjects, require to be applied with discrimination, as there is scarcely either an unsound or a sound view, for confirmation of which something may not be derived from them. Water may as well symbolize judgment as mercy, and was indeed the instrument employed to inflict the greatest act of judgment that has ever taken place in the world the deluge. The points of instruction are chiefly the following:— (1.) Christ ministers to His people abundance of spiritual refreshment, while they are on their way to the heavenly inheritance. They need this to carry them onward through the trials and difficulties that lie in their way; and He is ever ready to impart it. “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” What He then did in the sphere of the bodily life, He cannot but be disposed to do over again in the higher sphere of the spiritual life; for there the necessity is equally great, and the interests involved are unspeakably greater. Let the believer, when parched in spirit, and feeling in heaviness through manifold temptations, throw himself back upon this portion of Israel’s history, and he will see written, as with a sunbeam, the assurance that the Saviour of Israel, who fainteth not, nor is weary, will satisfy the longing soul, and pour living water upon him that is thirsty. (2.) In providing and ministering this refreshment, He will break through the greatest hindrances and impediments. If His people but thirst, nothing can prevent them from being partakers of the blessing. “He makes for them rivers in the desert;” the very rock turns into a flowing stream; and the valley of Baca (weeping) is found to contain its pools of refreshment, at which the travellers to Zion revive their flagging spirits, and go from strength to strength. How often have the darkest providences, events that seemed beforehand pregnant only with evil, become, through the gracious presence of the Mediator, the source of deepest joy and consolation! (3.) “The rock by its water accompanied the Israelites—so Christ by His Spirit goes with His disciples even to the end of the world.” (Grotius) The refreshments of His grace are confined to no region, and last through all ages. Wherever the genuine believer is, there they also are. And more highly favoured than even Israel in the wilderness, he has them in his own bosom—he has there “a well of water springing up unto life everlasting,” so that “out of his belly can flow rivers of living water.” III. The only other point apart from the giving of the law, occurring in the march through the wilderness, and calling for notice here, was the pillar of fire and cloud, in which from the first the Lord accompanied and led the people. The appearance of this symbol of the Divine Presence was various, but it is uniformly spoken of as itself one—a lofty column rising toward heaven. By day it would seem to have expanded as it rose, and formed itself into a kind of shade or curtain between the Israelites and the sun, as the Lord is said by means of it to have “spread a cloud for a covering” (Psalms 105:39), while by night it exchanged the cloudy for the illuminated form, and diffused throughout the camp a pleasant light. At first it went before the army, pointing the way; but after the tabernacle was made, it became more immediately connected with this, though sometimes appearing to rest more closely on it, and sometimes to rise higher aloft.[220] The lucid or fiery form seems to have been the prevailing one, or rather, to have always essentially belonged to it (hence called, not only “pillar of fire,” but “light of fire,” אוּר אֵשׁ i.e., lucid matter presenting the appearance of fire), only during the day the circumambient cloud usually prevented the light from being seen. Sometimes, however, as when a manifestation of Divine glory needed to be given to overawe and check the insolence of the people, or when some special revelation was to be given to Moses, the fire discovered itself through the cloud. So that it may be described as a column of fire surrounded by a cloud, the one or the other appearance be coming predominant, according as the Divine purpose required, but that of fire being more peculiarly identified with the glory of God.—(Numbers 16:42) [220] Exodus 13:21-22; Exodus 14:19; Exodus 40:34-38; Numbers 9:15-23. This subject has been carefully investigated by Vitringa in his Obs. Sac., L. v., c. 14-17, to which we must refer for more details than can be given here. What is stated in the text claims to be little more than an abstract of his observations. Those who wish to see the attempts of German rationalists to bring down the miraculous appearance to ordinary caravan-fires, may consult Kurtz, Geschichte des Alteu Bundes, p. 149, sq. (1.) Now, as the Lord chose this for the visible symbol, in which He would appear as the Head and Leader of His people when conducting them through the wilderness, there must have been, first of all, in the symbol itself, something fitted to display His character and glory. There must have been a propriety and significance in selecting this, rather than something else, as the seat in which Jehovah, or the angel of His presence, appeared, and the form in which He manifested His glory. But fire, or a shining flame enveloped by a cloud, is one of the fittest and most natural symbols of the true God, as dwelling, not simply in light, but “in light that is inaccessible and full of glory,”—light and glory within the cloud. The fire, however, was itself not uniform in its appearance, but, according to the threefold distinction of Isaiah (Isaiah 4:5), sometimes appeared as light, sometimes as a radiant splendour or glory, and sometimes again as flaming or burning fire. In each of these respects it pointed to a corresponding feature in the Divine character. As light, it represented God as the fountain of all truth and purity.—(Isaiah 40:1; Isaiah 40:19; 1 John 1:5; Revelation 21:23; Revelation 22:5) As splendour, it indicated the glory of His character, which consists in the manifestation of His infinite perfections, and especially in the display of His surpassing goodness as connected with the redemption of His people; on which account the “showing of His glory” is explained by “making His goodness pass before Moses.”—(Exodus 33:18-19; comp. also Isaiah 40:5) For as nothing appears to the natural eye more brilliant than the shining brightness of fire, so nothing to the spiritual eye can be compared with these manifestations of the gracious attributes of God. And as nothing in nature is so awfully commanding and intensely powerful in consuming as the burning flame of fire, so in this respect again it imaged forth the terrible power and majesty of His holiness, which makes Him jealous of His own glory, and a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity. Hence the cloud assumed this aspect pre-eminently on Mount Sinai, when the Lord came down to give that fundamental revelation of His holiness, the law of the ten commandments.—(Exodus 24:17; Deuteronomy 4:24; Isaiah 33:14-15; Hebrews 12:29) Still, whatever the Lord discovered of Himself in these respects to His ancient people, it was with much reserve and imperfection: they saw Him, indeed, but only through a veil; and therefore the glory shone forth through a cloud of thick darkness. This, it is true, is the case to a great extent still. God even yet has His dwelling in unapproachable light; and with all the discoveries of the Gospel, He is only seen “as through a glass darkly.” This feature, however, of the Divine manifestations falls more into the background in the Gospel; since God has now in very deed dwelt with men mi the earth, and given such revelations of Himself by Christ, that “he who hath seen Him,” may be said to “have seen the Father.” It seems now, comparing the revelations of God in the New with those of the Old Testament, as if the pillar of cloud were in a measure removed, and the pillar of light and fire alone remained. And in each of the aspects which this pillar assumed, we find the corresponding feature most fully verified in Christ. He is the light of men. The glory of the Father shines forth in Him as full of grace and truth. He alone has revealed the Father, and can give the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Therefore He is the Word or revelation of God, and the effulgence of His glory. And while merciful and compassionate in the last degree to sinners—the very personification of love—He yet has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet as of burning brass; and He walks amid the golden candlesticks, as He did in the camp of Israel, to bring to light the hidden works of darkness, and cause His indignation to smoke against the hypocrites.[221] [221] John 1:4-5; John 1:11; John 8:12; John 9:5; Matthew 11:21; Ephesians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3; Revelation 1:14-15; Revelation 1:2-3, etc. (2.) But besides being a symbol of the Lord’s revealed character, the pillar of fire and cloud had certain offices to perform to the Israelites. These were for guidance and protection. It was by this that the Lord directed their course through the dreary and trackless waste which lay between Egypt and Canaan, showing them when to set forth, in what direction to proceed, where to abide, and also affording light to their steps when the journey was by night. For this purpose, when the course was doubtful, the ark of the covenant with its attendant symbol went foremost (Numbers 10:33); but when there was no doubt regarding the direction that was to be taken, it appears rather to have occupied the centre (Numbers 10:17; Numbers 10:21),—in either case alike appearing in the place that was most suitable, as connected with the symbol of the Lord’s presence. In addition to these important benefits, the pillar also served as a shade from the heat of a scorching sun; and on one occasion at least, when the Israelites were closely pursued by the Egyptians, it stood as a wall of defence between them and their enemies. That in all this the pillar of fire and cloud performed externally and visibly the part which is now discharged by Christ toward His people in the spiritual and divine life, is too evident to require any illustration. He reveals Himself to them as the Captain of salvation, by whom they are conducted through the wilderness of life, and brings them in safety to His Father’s house. He leaves them not alone, but is ever present with His word and Spirit, to lead them into all the truth, to refresh their souls in the time of trouble, and minister support to them in the midst of manifold temptations. He presents Himself to their view as having gone before them in the way, and appoints them to no field of trial or conflict with evil, through which He has not already passed as their forerunner. Whatever wisdom is needed to direct, whatever grace to overcome, He encourages them to expect it from His hand; and “when the blast of the terrible ones comes as a storm against the wall,” they have in Him a “refuge from the storm, and a shadow from the heat.” Does it seem too much to expect so great things from Him? Or does faith, struggling with the infirmities of the flesh and the temptations of the world, find it hard at times to lay hold of the spiritual reality? It will do well in such a case to revive its fainting spirit by recurring to the visible manifestations of God in the wilderness. Let it mark there the goings of the Divine Shepherd with His people; and rest in the assurance, that as He cannot change or deny Himself, but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, so what He then did amid the visible realities of sense and time, He cannot but be ready to perform anew in the spiritual experience of His believing people to the end of time. The record of what was done in the one case, stands now, and for all time, as a ground for faith and hope in respect to the other. The whole of what has been said regarding the sojourn in the wilderness, has reference more immediately to the comparatively brief period during which properly the Israelites should have been there. The frequent outbreakings of a rebellious spirit, and especially the dreadful revolt which arose on the return of the spies from searching the land of Canaan, so manifestly proved them to be unfit for the proper occupation of the promised land, that the Lord determined to retain them in the wilderness till the older portion—those who were above twenty years when they left Egypt—had all perished. It was some time in the second year after their departure, that this decree of judgment was passed; and the period fixed in the decree being, in round numbers, forty years,—a year for every day the spies had been employed in searching the land, including, however, what had been already spent,—there remained the long term of upwards of thirty-eight years, during which the promise of God was suffered to fall into abeyance. Of what passed during the greater part of this unfortunate period scarcely anything is recorded. The only circumstances noticed respecting it, till near the close, are those connected with the case of the Sabbath-breaker, and the rebellion of Korah and his company. How far the miraculous provision for the desert was affected by the change in question, we are not told, though we may naturally infer it to have been to some extent—to such an extent as might render it proper, if not necessary, to bring into play all the available resources naturally belonging to the region. It was a time of judgment, and the very silence of Scripture regarding it is ominous. That their state during its continuance was to be viewed as alike sad and anomalous, may be inferred alone from what is recorded at the close of the period in Joshua 5:2-9, where we are told, that from the period of their coming under the judgment of the Lord up till that time, they had not been circumcised; the reason of which, though not very explicitly stated, is yet distinctly connected with the people’s detention in the wilderness, as a punishment for their having “not obeyed the voice of the Lord.” And now, when the circumcision was renewed, and the whole company became a circumcised people, “the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.” What is meant here by the reproach of Egypt, is not the reproach or shame of the sin they had contracted in Egypt, as if now at length that impure state had come to an end, and had been publicly purged away: this were too remote an allusion to have been connected with such an occasion. The thing meant is the reproach which the people of Egypt were all this time casting upon them for the unhappy circumstances in which they were placed; the genitive in such cases always denoting the party from whom the reproach comes.—(Isaiah 51:7; Ezekiel 16:57; Zephaniah 2:8) It was that reproach which Moses so much dreaded on a former occasion, when he prayed the Lord not to pour out His indignation on the people to consume them: “For wherefore (says he) should the Egyptians say, For mischief did He bring them out to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?”—(Exodus 32:12) And this reproach was again the first thought that presented itself to the mind of Moses, when, on the occasion of the return of the spies, the Lord threatened to consume the mass of the people, and raise a new seed from Moses himself: “Then the Egyptians shall hear it (for Thou broughtest up this people in Thy might from among them), and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land,” etc.—(Numbers 14:13-16) The ground and occasion of the reproach was, that the Lord had not fulfilled in their behalf the great promise of the covenant, for the realization of which they had left Egypt with such high hopes and such a halo of glory. So far from having obtained what was promised, they had been made to wander like forlorn outcasts through the wilds and wildernesses of Arabia, where their car cases were continually falling into a dishonoured grave. The covenant, in short, was for a time suspended—the people were lying under the ban of Heaven; and it was fitting that the ordinance of circumcision, the sacrament of the covenant, should be suspended too. But now that they were again received through circumcision into the full standing and privileges of a covenant condition, it was a proof that the judgment of God had expired—that their proper relation to Him was again restored—that He was ready to carry into execution the promise on which He had caused them to hope; and that, consequently, the ground of Egypt’s reproach, as would presently be seen, was entirely rolled away.[222] [222] See Hengstenberg’s Authentie, ii., p. 17; also Keil on the passage. It is scarcely necessary to notice the various opinions which have been entertained respecting the reproach that was removed the Egyptian state of bondage (Theodoret), the state of uncircumcision itself, which was eyed with disfavour or contempt in Egypt (Spencer, Clericus, etc.), unfitness for war (Maurer): all fanciful, and unsuited to the circumstances. Kurtz (Gechichte des alt. Bundes, ii., p. 414; Eng. Trans., iii., p. 414) lays stress simply upon the expression in Joshua 5:7, which states, that those who had come out of Egypt “were not circumcised by the way.” and views the omission of the rite in the wilderness as a matter merely of convenience. But in that case no explanation is given of the rolling away of the reproach of Egypt by the performance of the rite, nor of the express reference to the judgment of God in keeping them in the wilderness, at ver. 6. Besides, during the forty years how many opportunities must they have had of performing the rite, if it had seemed in itself a suitable thing to be done at the time! The circumstance of their being by the way might account for the suspension of the rite during the first period, when they really were on their way to Canaan, but not for the delay afterwards. It would seem, as might also have naturally been expected, on the supposition of this view of the case being correct, that the celebration of what might now be called the other sacrament of the covenant, the Passover, was suspended during the same period. We read of its having been celebrated at the beginning of the second year after their departure from Egypt (Numbers 9), but never again till the renewal of circumcision on the borders of Canaan.—(Joshua 5:10) The same cause which brought a suspension of the one ordinance, naturally led to a disuse of the other, since the circumcised alone could partake of it. The more so, indeed, as it was the children who were more directly concerned in the ceasing of circumcision, while the non-celebration of the passover directly touched the parents themselves. Even in regard to the ordinance of circumcision, the parents could not but conclude, that as that rite had ceased to be performed, which was the peculiar sign of the covenant, their circumcision had become in a manner uncircumcision. On their account, the flow of the Divine goodness toward the congregation had meanwhile received a check as to its outward manifestation; and even what was promised and in reserve for their children, must for the present lie over, till the revival of a better spirit opened the way for the possession of a more privileged condition. But the question will naturally occur, Did the whole of that generation, which came out of Egypt as full-grown men, actually perish without an interest in the mercy of God? Did they really live and die under the solemn ban of Heaven, aliens from His commonwealth, and strangers to His covenant of promise? Was not Aaron, was not Moses himself, among those who bore in this respect the punishment of iniquity, and died while the covenant was without its sacraments? Undoubtedly, and this alone may suffice to show that there was mercy mingled with the judgment. The Lord did not cease to be the gracious God, long-suffering, and plenteous in goodness to those who truly sought Him. His grace was still there, as it is in every judgment He executes on those who have come near to him in privilege; but it was grace in a disguise—grace as breaking through an impending cloud, rather than as shining forth from a clear and serene sky. Hence, while the two greatest ordinances of the covenant were suspended, others were still left to encourage their hope in the Lord’s mercy: there was the pillar of fire and cloud, the tabernacle of testimony, the altar of sacrifice, not to mention others of inferior note. So that, to use the words of Calvin, who had a far better discernment of the anomalous state of things which then existed than the great majority of commentators since: “In one part only were the people excommunicated; there still were means of support to bear them up, that (the truly penitent) might not sink into despair. As if a father should lift up his hand to drive from him a disobedient son, and yet with the other should hold him back—at once terrifying him with frowns and chastisements, and still unwilling that he should go into exile.” The feelings to which this very peculiar state of Israel gave rise are beautifully expressed in the (Psalms 90) Psalm,—whether actually written by Moses or not,—which breathes throughout the mournful language of a people suffering under the judgment of God, and yet exercising hope in His mercy. We need have no doubt, therefore, that subjects of grace died in the wilderness, just as afterwards, when the covenant with most of its ordinances was again suspended, subjects of grace, even pre-eminent grace, were carried to Babylon and died in exile. Yet there is much reason to fear, in regard to the Israelites in the wilderness, that the number of such was comparatively small, both on account of the nature of the judgment itself, and also from the testimonies of the prophets (especially Exodus 20 and Amos 5:25-26), concerning the extent to which the leaven of Egypt still wrought in the midst of them. This remarkable portion of God’s dealings brings strikingly out a few important truths, which are of equal moment for all times. 1. The tendency of sin to root itself in the soul: seeing that, when once fairly dominant within, it can resist all that is wonderful in mercy and terrible in judgment. For what astonishing sights had not those men witnessed! what awful displays of God’s justice! what glorious exhibitions of His goodness! Yet, with the vast majority, all proved to be in vain. 2. The honour God puts upon His ordinances, especially the sacraments of His covenant. These are for the true children of the covenant; and when those who profess to belong to it have flagrantly departed from its obligations and aims, they thereby cease to be the proper subjects of its more peculiar ordinances. 3. The inseparable connection between the promise of God’s covenant and the holiness of His people. The inheritance cannot be entered into and possessed but by a believing, spiritual, and holy seed. God must have such a people, and will rather let His inheritance lie waste than have persons of another stamp to possess it, who could only abuse it to their sinful ends. Hence He waits so long now, as of old He waited for the fit occupants of Canaan. The kingdom is for those who are of clean hands and a pure heart; and till the destined number of such is prepared and ready, it must be known only as an “inheritance reserved in heaven.” 4. Finally, how heavy a guilt attaches to a backsliding and unfaithful community! It stays the fountain of God’s mercy; it brings reproach on His name and cause, and compels Him, in a manner, to visit evil upon those whom He would rather—how much rather!—encompass with his favour, and with the blessings of His well-ordered covenant. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 130: 05.25. CHAPTER SECOND. ======================================================================== Chapter Second.—The Direct Instruction Given To The Israelites Before The Erection Of The Tabernacle, And The Institution Of Its Symbolical Services The Law. Section I.—What Properly, And In The Strictest Sense, Termed The Law, Viz., The Decalogue—Its Perfection And Completeness Both As To The Order And Substance Of Its Precepts. THE historical transactions connected with the redemption of Israel from the land of Egypt, were not immediately succeeded by the introduction of that complicated form of symbolical worship which peculiarly distinguishes the dispensation of Moses. There was an intermediate space occupied by revelations which were in themselves of the greatest moment, and which also stood in a relation of closest intimacy with the symbolical religion that followed. The period we refer to is that to which belongs the giving of the law. And it is impossible to understand aright the nature of the tabernacle and its worship, or the purposes they were designed to accomplish, without first obtaining a clear insight into the prior revelation of law, and the place it was intended to hold in the dispensation brought in by Moses. What precisely formed this revelation of law, and what was the nature of its requirements? This must be our first subject of inquiry; and by a careful investigation of the points connected with it, we hope to avoid some prolific sources of confusion and error, and prepare the way for a correct understanding of the dispensation as a whole, and the proper adjustment of its several parts. I. There can be no doubt that the word law is used both in the Old and the New Testament Scriptures with some latitude, and that what is meant by “the law” in one place, is sometimes considerably different from what is meant by it in another. It is used to designate indifferently precepts and appointed observances of any kind, as well as the books in which they are enjoined. This only implies, however, that the things commanded by Moses had so much in common, that they might be all comprehended in one general term. It does not prevent that the law of the ten commandments may have been properly and distinctively the law to Israel, and on that account might have a peculiar and pre-eminent place assigned it in the dispensation. We are convinced that such in reality was the case, and present the following considerations in support of it. 1. The very manner in which these commandments were delivered is sufficient to vindicate for them a place peculiarly their own. For these alone, of all the precepts which form the Mosaic code, were spoken immediately by the voice of God; while the rest were privately communicated to Moses, and by him delivered to the people. Nor was the mode of revelation merely peculiar, but it was attended also by demonstrations of Divine majesty such as were never witnessed on any other occasion. So awfully grand and magnificent was the scene, and so overwhelming the impression produced by it, that the people, we are told, could not endure the sight, and Moses himself exceedingly feared and quaked. That this unparalleled display of the infinite majesty and greatness of Jehovah should have been made to accompany the deliverance of only these ten commandments, seems to have been intended to invest them with a very peculiar character and bearing. 2. The same also may be inferred from their number—ten, the symbol of completeness. It indicates that they formed by themselves an entire whole, made up of the necessary, and no more than the necessary, complement of parts. A good deal of what, if not altogether fanciful, is at least incapable of any solid proof, has recently been propounded, especially by Bähr and Hengstenberg, regarding the symbolical import of numbers. But there are certain points which may be considered to have been thoroughly established respecting them; and none more so than the symbolical import of ten, as indicating completeness. The ascribing of such an import to this number appears to have been of very ancient origin; for traces are to be found of it in the earliest and most distant nations; and even Spencer, who never admits a symbol where he can possibly avoid it, is constrained to allow a symbolical import here.[223] “The ten,” to use the words of Bähr,[224] “by virtue of the general laws of thought, shuts up the series of primary numbers, and comprehends all in itself. Now, since the whole numeral system consists of so many decades (tens), and the first decade is the type of this endlessly repeating series, the nature of number in general is in this last fully developed, and the entire course comprised in its idea. Hence the first decade, and of course also the number ten, is the representative of the whole numeral system. And as number is employed to symbolize being in general, ten must denote the complete perfect being,—that is, a number of particulars necessarily connected together, and combined into one whole. So that ten is the natural symbol of perfection and completeness itself a definite whole, to which nothing is wanting.” It is on account of this symbolical import of the number ten that, the plagues of Egypt were precisely of that number—forming as such a complete round of judgments; and it was for the same reason that the transgressions of the people in the wilderness were allowed to proceed till the same number had been reached when they had “sinned ten times,” they had filled up the measure of their iniquities.—(Numbers 14:22) Hence also the consecration of the tenths or tithes, which had grown into an established usage so early as the days of Abraham. (Genesis 14:20) The whole increase was represented by ten, and one of these was set apart to the Lord, in token of all being derived from Him and held of Him. So this revelation of law from Sinai, which was to serve for all coming ages as the grand expression of God’s holiness, and the summation of man’s duty, was comprised in the number ten, to indicate its perfection as one complete and comprehensive whole—“the all that a divinely called people, as well as a single individual, should and should not do in reference to God and their neighbour.”[225] [223] De Leg. Hebrews 3, Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in Matthew 25:1 : Numero denario gavisa plurimum est gens Judaica et in sacris et in civilibus. But see the proof fully given in Bähr, Symb. i., p. 175 ss. Among other ancient authorities he produces the following: Etymol. Mgn., s.v. δεκὰς· ἡ ἔχουσα ἐν αὐτῇ πάντα ἀριθμὸν. Cyrill. In Hos. iii.: σύμβολον δὲ τελειότητος :ὁ δὲκα ἐστὶν ἀριθμος, παντέλειος ὤν. Herm. Trismeg. Poemand. 13: ἡ ἐνὰς οὖν κατα λόγον τὴν δεκάδα ἔχει καὶ ἡ δέκας τὴν ἑνάδα. [224] Symabolik, i.. p. 175. [225] Sack’s Apologetik, p. 180. As further examples of the scriptural import of ten, we might have mentioned the ten men in Zechariali laying hold of the skirt of a Jew, ch. 8:23, the parable of the ten virgins, and the ten horns or kingdoms in Revelation. 3. It perfectly accords with this view of the ten commandments, and is a farther confirmation of it, that they were written by the finger of God on two tables of stone—written on both sides, so as to cover the entire surface, and not leave room for future additions, as if what was already given might admit of improvements; and written on durable tables of stone, while the rest of the law was written only on parchment or paper. It was for no lack of writing materials, as Hengstenberg has fully shown,[226] that in this and other cases the engraving of letters upon stones was used in that remote period; for materials in great abundance existed in Egypt and its neighbourhood, and are known to have been used from the earliest times, in the papyrus, the byssus-manufacture, and the skins of beasts. “The stone,” he justly remarks, “points to the perpetuity which belongs to the law, as an expression of the Divine will, originating in the Divine nature. It was an image of the truth uttered by our Lord, ‘Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.’” [226] Authentie, i., p. 481 ss. So Buddeus, Hist. Eccl., i., p. 606: Argumento vero id etiam erat, perennem istam legem esse atque perpetuam, etc., and Calvinistic divines generally. 4. Then these ten words, as they are called, had the singular honour conferred on them of being properly the terms of the covenant formed at Sinai. Thus Moses, when rehearsing what had taken place, says, Deuteronomy 4:13, “And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.” Again, in Deuteronomy 9:9, Deuteronomy 9:11, he calls these tables of stone “the tables of the covenant.” So also in Exodus 34:28, “the words written upon the tables, the ten commandments,” are expressly called “the words of the covenant.” To mark more distinctly the covenant nature of these words, it is to be observed (as remarked by Deyling, Obs. Sac., L. ii., obs. 47), that the Scripture never once uses the expression, “the tables of the law,” but always simply the tables, or the testimony, or, conjoining the two, the tables of the testimony, or tables of the covenant. It is true, some other commands are coupled with the ten, when, in Exodus 34:27, the Lord said to Moses, that “after the tenor of (at the month of, according to) these words he had made a covenant with Israel.” It is true, also, that at the formal ratification of the covenant, Exodus 24, we read of the book of the covenant, which comprehended not only the ten commandments, but also the precepts contained in Exodus 21 -Exodus 23; for it is clear that this book comprised all that the Lord had then said, either directly or by the instrumentality of Moses, and to which the people answered, “We will do it.” But it is carefully to be observed, that a marked distinction is still put between the ten commandments and the other precepts; for the former are called emphatically “the words of the Lord,” while the additional words given through Moses are called “the judgments” (Exodus 24:3). They are, indeed, peculiarly rights or judgments, having respect, for the most part, to what should be done from one man to another, and what, in the event of violations of the law being committed, ought to be enforced judicially, with the view of rectifying or checking the evil. Their chief object was to secure, through the instrumentality of the magistrate, that if the proper lore should fail to influence the hearts and lives of the people, still the right should be maintained. Yet while these form the great body of the additional words communicated to Moses and written in the book of the covenant, the symbolical institutions had also a certain place assigned them; for both in Exodus 23:1-33, and again in Exodus 24:1-18, the three yearly feasts, and one or two other points of this description, are noticed. But still these directions and judgments formed no proper addition to the matter of the ten commandments, considered as God’s revelation of law to His people. The terms of the covenant still properly stood, as we are expressly and repeatedly told, in the ten commandments; and what, besides, was added before the ratification of the covenant, cannot justly be regarded as having had any other object in view, in so far as they partook of the nature of laws, than as subsidiary directions and restraints to aid in protecting the covenant, and securing its better observance. The feast-laws, in particular, so far from forming any proper addition to the terms of the covenant, had respect primarily to the people’s profession of adherence to it, and contained directions concerning the sacramental observances of the Jewish Church. 5. What has been said in regard to the ten commandments, as alone properly constituting the terms of the covenant, is fully established, and the singular importance of these commandments further manifested, by the place afterwards assigned them in the tabernacle. The most sacred portion of this, that which formed the very heart and centre of all the services connected with it, was the ark of the covenant. It was the peculiar symbol of the Lord’s covenant presence and faithfulness, and immediately above it was the throne on which He sat as King in Jeshurun. But that ark was made on purpose to contain the two tables of the law, and was called “the ark of the covenant,” simply because it contained “the tables of the covenant.” The book of the law was afterwards placed by Moses at the side of the ark (Deuteronomy 31:26), that it might serve as a check upon the Levites, who were the proper guardians and keepers of the book; it was a wise precaution lest they should prove unfaithful to their charge. But the tables on which the ten commandments were written alone kept possession of the ark, and were thus plainly recognised as containing in themselves the sum and substance of what in righteousness was held to be strictly required by the covenant. 6. Finally, our Lord and His apostles always point to the revelation of law engraven upon these stones as holding a preeminent place, and, indeed, as comprising all that in the strict and proper sense was to be esteemed as law. The Scribes and Pharisees of that age had completely inverted the order of things. Their carnality and self-righteousness had led them to exalt the precepts respecting ceremonial observances to the highest place, and to throw the duties inculcated in the ten commandment! comparatively into the background, thus treating the mere appendages of the covenant as of more account than its very ground and basis. Hence, when seeking to expose the insufficient and hollow nature of “the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees,” our Lord made His appeal to the testimony engraved on the two tables, and most commonly, indeed, though not exclusively, to the precepts of the second table, because He had to do more especially with hypocrites, whose defects and shortcomings might most readily be exposed by a reference to the duties of the second table.—(Matthew 19:16; Luke 10:25; Luke 18:18, etc.) The object of our Lord naturally led Him to give prominence to those things by which a man approves himself to be just, or the reverse. Those parts of duty which more immediately relate to God in their proper observance, have to do so peculiarly with the heart, that it is comparatively easy, on the one hand, for hypocrites to feign compliance with them, and difficult, on the other, to make a direct exposure of their pretensions. For the same reason, Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which was chiefly intended to be an exposition of the real nature and far-reaching import of the ten commandments, bears most respect to those commandments which belonged to the second table, and which had suffered most from the corruption of the times. But the prophets of the Old Testament had done precisely the same thing in reproving the ungodliness prevalent in their day. They were continually striving to recall men from the mere outward observances which the most worth less hypocrites could perform, to the sincere piety toward God, and deeds of substantial kindness toward man, required by the law of the two tables; so that the prophets, as well as the law, were truly said to hang upon one and the same commandment of love.[227] In like manner, the Apostle Paul, after Christ, as the prophets before, when discoursing in regard to the law, what it was or was not, what it could or could not do, always has in view pre-eminently the law of the two tables. Without an exception, his examples are taken from the very words of these, or what they clearly prohibited and required.—(Romans 2:17-23; Romans 3:10-18; Romans 7:7; Romans 13:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:7-10) This could not, of course, be expected in the argument maintained in the Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians, where the error met and opposed consisted in an undue exaltation of the ceremonial institutions by themselves, as if the observance of these by the Christian Church were essential to salvation. In this case he could not possibly avoid referring chiefly to precepts of a ceremonial nature, and discussing them with respect to the light in which they were improperly viewed by certain parties in the apostolic Church. But when the question was, what the law in its strict and proper sense really required, and what were the ends it was fitted to serve, he never fails to manifest his concurrence with the other inspired writers, in taking the ten words as the law and the testimony, by which everything was to be judged and determined. [227] See especially Psalms 15, 24, which describe the righteousness required under the covenant, by obedience to the ten commandments, and more particularly to those of the second table; specially indited, no doubt, to meet the tendency which the more attractive and orderly celebration then introduced into the ritual service was fitted to awaken. See also Psalms 40, 50, 51; Isaiah 1, 42., etc.; Micah 6. We should despair of proving anything respecting the Old Testament dispensation, if these considerations do not prove that the law of the ten commandments stood out from all the other precepts enjoined under the ministration of Moses, and were intended to form a full and comprehensive exhibition of the righteousness of the law, in its strict and proper sense. No doubt, many of the other precepts teach substantially what these commandments did, or contain statements and regulations bearing some way upon their violation or observance. But this was not done with the view of supplying any new or additional matter of obligation; it was merely intended to explain their real import, or to give instructions how to adapt to them what might be called the jurisprudence of the state. We cannot but regard it as an unhappy circumstance, tending to perpetuate much misunderstanding and confusion regarding the legislation of Moses, that the distinction has been practically overlooked, which it so manifestly assigns to the ten commandments, and that they have so frequently been regarded by the more learned theologians as the kind of quintessence of the whole Mosaic code, as the few general or representative heads under which all the rest are to be ranged. Thus Calvin, while he held the ten commandments to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and gave for the most part a correct as well as admirable exposition of their tenor and design, yet failed to bring out distinctly their singular and prominent place in the Mosaic economy, and in his commentary reduces all the ceremonial institutions to one or other of these ten commandments. They were therefore regarded by him as standing to the entire legislation of Moses in the relation of general summaries or compends. And in that case there must have been, as he partially admits there was, something shadowy in the one as well as in the other. But what was chiefly a defect of arrangement in Calvin and many subsequent writers, has in Bähr assumed the form of a guiding principle, and is laid as the foundation of his view of the whole Mosaic system. Agreeing substantially with Spencer, whom he here quotes with approbation, and who considered the decalogue as a brief compend or tabular exhibition of the several classes of precepts in the law, he says: “The decalogue is representative of the whole law; it contains religious and political, not less than moral, precepts. The first command is a purely religious one; as is also the fourth, which belongs to the ceremonial law; and indeed, generally, by reason of the theocratic constitution, all civil commands were at the same time religious and moral ones, and inversely; so that the old division into moral, ceremonial, and political, or judicial, appears quite untenable.”[228] There is an element of truth in this. The theocracy, doubtless, stamped all with a religious impress, and brought the ceremonial and political into close connection with the moral. But it by no means follows that these were all indiscriminately fused together; otherwise, they must also have been retained, or have fallen together. The view overlooks distinctions which are both real and important, as will appear in the course of our remarks upon some parts of the decalogue itself, and also afterwards, when unfolding the relation of the decalogue to the ceremonial institutions. It is such an error as confounds the means of salvation with the great principles of religious and moral obligation, and leaves, if followed out, no solid basis for the doctrine of a vicarious atonement to rest on. With perfect consistence, Bahr constructs his system without the help of such an atonement; sacrifice in all its forms was but an expression of pious feeling on the part of the worshipper, and consequently fell under one or other of the duties man owed to his Maker. [228] Symbolik, i., p. 384. He elsewhere, p. 181, seeks to justify this view from the number ten, in which the law was contained; and which number he considers to have been employed in the promulgation of this law, because “it was the fundamental law of Israel, in a religious and political respect—the representative of the whole Israelitish constitution.” It certainly might be called the fundamental law of Israel, but that is a different thing from its being also the representative of the whole Israelitish constitution. In this case the ten must have been individually and conjunctly comprehensive of the whole, and that in their distinctive character as component elements of the Israelitish constitution. But what has any of them in that sense to do, for example, with sacrifice for sin? or with thankofferings for mercies? or with distinctions in meat and drink? If the whole law had been comprised in ten groups, and the decalogue had consisted of one from each group, we could then, but only then, have seen the force and justice of the interpretation. II. We proceed now to consider the excellence of this law of the ten commandments, and to show, by an examination of its method and substance, how justly it was regarded as a complete and perfect summary of religious and moral duty. It is scarcely possible, even at this stage of the world’s history, to consider with any care the precepts of the decalogue, without in some measure apprehending its high character as a standard of rectitude. And could we throw ourselves back to the time when it was first promulgated—instead of looking at it, as we now do, from the eminence of a fuller and more perfect revelation—could we distinctly contemplate it, as given seventeen centuries before the Christian era, and received as the summary of all that is morally right and dutiful by a people who had just left the polluted atmosphere of Egypt, we could not fail to discern, in the very existence of such a law, one of the most striking proofs of the Divine character of the Mosaic legislation. We should be much more disposed to exclaim here, than in regard to the outward prodigy which first called forth the declaration, “This is the finger of God.” A remarkable testimony was given to the general excellence of the decalogue, and its vast superiority, as a code of morality, to anything found among the native superstitions of the East, in the language of those Indians referred to by Dr Claudius Buchanan: “If you send us a missionary, send us one who has learned your ten commandments.”[229] modern idolaters were thus taken with the Divine beauty and singular preciousness of these commandments, we know those could have no less reason to be so to whom they were first delivered; for the land of Egypt, out of which they had recently escaped, was as remarkable for the grossness of its superstition as for the superiority of its learning and civilisation. As far back as our information respecting it carries us,—at a period certainly more remote than that in which Israel sojourned within its borders,—the Egyptians appear to have been immersed in the deepest mire of idolatry and its kindred abominations; and on them, in an especial sense, was chargeable the guilt and folly of “having changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” “The innermost sanctuary of their temples,” says Clement of Alexandria, “is overhung with gilded tapestry; but let the priest remove the covering, and there appears a cat or a crocodile, or a domesticated serpent, wrapt in purple.” Worshipping the Deity thus under the image of even the lower creature-forms, the religion of Egypt must have been of an essentially grovelling tendency, and could scarcely fail to have carried along with it many foul excesses and pollutions. There are not wanting indications of this in Herodotus, and several allusions are also made to it in the Books of Moses. But some of the most profound inquirers into the religion of the ancients have recently shown, on evidence the most complete, that the worship of ancient Egypt was essentially of a bacchanalian character, full of lust and revelry; that its most frequented rites were accompanied with scenes of wantonness and impure indulgence; and that it sometimes gave rise to enormities not fit to be mentioned.[230] [229] Essay on the Estab. of an Episcopal Church in India, p. 61. If [230] Creuzer, Symbolik, i., p. 448, ss.; comp. also, Hengstenberg, Authentie, i., p. 118, ss.; Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 203, ss. Such was the atmosphere in which the Israelites had lived during their abode in Egypt; and it was when fresh from such a region that the law of the ten commandments was proclaimed in their hearing, and given to be enshrined in the innermost recess of their sacred structure,—a law which unfolds the clearest views of God’s character and service—which denounces every form and species of idolatry as inconsistent with the spirituality of the Divine nature which enjoins the purest worship and the highest morality, and in its very form is a model of perfection and completeness. Wisdom of this kind Moses could least of all have learned from the Egyptians; nor could it have been his, unless it had descended to him from above.[231] [231] See the subject again referred to at B. iii., c. 5. It is one of the few correct things which Tacitus states concerning the religion of the Jews, that they counted it profanity to make images in the likeness of man, and that they worshipped only one supreme, eternal, unchangeable, and everlasting God.—(Hist., v. 5) It would be difficult, however, to throw together a larger amount of ignorance and error in the same space, than is expressed in this and the preceding chapter, by Tacitus, respecting the religious customs and rites of the Jews. 1. This revelation of law is equally remarkable for the order and arrangement of its several parts, and for the roundness and completeness of its summary of moral obligation; in both respects a certain perfection belongs to it. As regards the former, there are general features which strike one at the first glance, and about which there can be no difference of opinion. This is the case especially with the relative place assigned in it to those things which have more immediate respect to God, and those which concern the rights and interests of one’s fellow-men. However the line of demarcation may be drawn between the two, there can be no doubt—for it stands upon the surface of the code—that the forms and manifestations of love to God occupy the first and most prominent place, while those which are expressive of love to man take a secondary and, in a sense, dependent rank. Religion was made the basis of morality—piety toward God the living root of good-will and integrity toward men; and on this great principle, that unless there were maintained a dutiful and proper regard to the great Head of the human family, it could not reasonably be expected that men would feel and act aright to the different members of the family. We have here, therefore, the true knowledge and love of God virtually proclaimed to be, what was so happily expressed by Augustine, the parent, in a sense, and guardian of all the virtues (mater quodammodo omnium custosque virtutum); or, as it is put by Josephus, “religion was not made a part of virtue, but other virtues were ordained to be parts of religion.”—(Apion., ii:17) There may, no doubt, be a measure of love and fair dealing between man and man, where there is no spiritual acquaintance with God, and no principle of dutiful allegiance to Him. Were it not so, indeed, society in countries where the true religion is unknown would fall to pieces. But in such cases, the love is destitute of what might give it either the requisite stability or the proper spirit; it is not sustained by adequate views of men’s relationship to God, nor animated by the motives which are supplied by a consideration of their higher calling and destiny: hence it is necessarily defective, partial, irregular, in its manifestations. It was, therefore, in accordance with the truest wisdom, that the things which belong to God were, in this condensed summary of Divine requirement, exalted to the first place; and in farther attestation of their pre-eminent rank and importance, it is to the commands connected with this branch of duty chiefly, if not exclusively, that special reasons have been attached enforcing the obedience required. In all the later precepts there is a simple enunciation of the command. So far all are agreed; but in regard to the manner of making out the division between what is called the first and the second tables of the law, there is not the same general unanimity among theologians. Scripture itself gives no explicit deliverance on the subject. It frequently enough affirms the law to have been written on two tables; but it never intimates how many of the ten words were inscribed on the one, how many on the other; and while it more than once comprises the ten in two still more fundamental and comprehensive precepts—to love the Lord with all the heart, and one’s neighbour as one’s self (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18; Matt. 19:37)—it leaves altogether undecided the question, how much of the decalogue is embraced in the one, and how much in the other. We cannot but think that there is a profound design in this reserve of Scripture, which it had been good for Christian divines to have inquired into, rather than to have insisted on sharply distinguishing, some in one way, some in another, what perhaps is incapable of a complete and formal separation. For in this revelation of law, while there is a diversity of parts, there is a pervading unity of principle; and, branching out, as it does, the whole sphere of obligation into two great lines of duty, it would yet have us to regard these as cognate and affiliated, rather than absolutely diverse the one merging into the other, and both to a certain extent mutually overlapping each other. Thus, the command enjoining the sacred observance of the weekly Sabbath, in its most obvious and direct aspect, bears on the duty one owes to God, and is in consequence, by all classes of theologians, associated with the first table of the law; while yet the rest to which it calls is inseparably bound up with the best interests of mankind; and the violation of it by the rich was sternly denounced by the prophets among other acts of hardship and oppression.—(Deuteronomy 5:15; Isaiah 58:13; Jeremiah 17:20-22) In His exposition of the sixth commandment, our Lord has given a striking illustration of the manner in which the love it demands toward a fellow-creature intertwines itself with the love which is due to God, and the service He requires of man.—(Matthew 5:23-24) So also the command to honour father and mother has points of affinity with both departments of duty, according as parents are contemplated in the light of Heaven’s representatives, clothed with a measure of supernal authority, or as standing merely in the highest rank of earthly relations. Philo, in his treatise on the decalogue, draws attention to this peculiarity, and represents the command as having its place on the confines of the two tables, because of the parental relationship appearing to partake partly of the Divine and partly of the human element. Formally, however, he assigns it to the first table; and makes the division of the ten to consist of two fives—the first terminating with the command to honour father and mother. Josephus follows exactly the same method, throwing the whole into two equal halves, and making the command to honour parents the closing member of the first five.—(Ant., iii., c. 6, § 6) There can be no reasonable doubt that these ancient Jewish writers expressed in this matter the common belief of their countrymen; and the division of the decalogue into two fives, with an acknowledgment that the boundary line was not very broadly marked, or altogether free from dubiety, is the one which has the highest claim to antiquity. It has also the advantage of being the most natural and simple; for as the whole law is comprehended in ten, the number of completeness, and from its very nature falls into two grand divisions, we naturally think of two fives—each by itself the symbol of incompleteness, but, as related to each other, the component parts of a perfect whole—for the proper distribution of the commands. Other considerations come in aid of this conclusion: in particular, the circumstance that the fifth command is, like those preceding it, enforced by a reason which places it in immediate connection with the great ends of the covenant; and the sacredness attached by the Apostle Paul to the discharge of the duties enjoined in it, as being, on the part of the young, the showing of piety at home (1 Timothy 5:4),—a spirit characteristically different from that of brotherly love. And, indeed, the relation of a child to a parent is not strictly that of neighbour to neighbour. “It is through the parents that the creative power of God, on which all life depends, is communicated to the children; so that God, as the Creator of life, appears to the children primarily in the parents—the earthly divinities (diis terrestribus), as Grotius calls them. But since the relation between parents and children is the basis of all the divinely-constituted relations of human society, which involve stations of superiority and inferiority, since the names also of father and mother have been made to stretch over the whole natural circle (Genesis 45:8; Judges 5:7)—[and even the name of God, it might have been added, is sometimes given to the judges, who represented Him, Exodus 22:8; Exodus 22:28; Psalms 82:6]—it is certainly in the spirit of the law to explain this command, with Luther, in reference to the sphere of the civil life” (Baumgarten). Hence, also, we may most easily explain why this should be called the first commandment with promise (Ephesians 6:2), because it is the one in respect to which we have first to do with the authority of God, as appearing in those earthly representatives; and on which the greater stress is justly laid, since in them that authority is associated with so much of a winning and attractive nature, that if it fails to elicit from those placed under it a reverential and obedient spirit, much more may the same failure be expected when account has to be made only of the mysterious and dread majesty of Heaven. These considerations, it seems to us, are sufficient to establish the propriety of this ancient division of the ten commandments into two halves; one which was acquiesced in by the two most learned of the fathers,—Origen (in his 8th Homily on Genesis), and Jerome (on Ephesians 6:2),—and became also the received opinion in the Greek Church. It is preferable to that which has so generally prevailed in the Reformed Church, and which so far concurs with the earlier view as to hold the command respecting parents to be the fifth in order, but differs in laying the chief stress upon the human element in the parental relation, and consequently assigning the fifth command to the second table of the law. The division then falls into four and six, and thereby loses sight of the significance of number in the two divisions, though making account of it in the totality, and, at the same time, overlooks the more distinctive peculiarities of the precept respecting the honouring of parents. But if, in comparison of this view, the other seems deserving of preference (though the difference between them, it must be owned, is not very material), much more is it so when compared with another view which received the sanction of Augustine, and from him has descended to the Romish, and in great part also to the Lutheran Church. According to it, the division falls into three and seven—the three, however, terminating with the fourth command, while the first and second are thrown into one; and the seven is made out by splitting the tenth into two, and placing the coveting of a man’s wife in a different category from the coveting of his house and other possessions. Augustine expressed his preference for this distribution primarily on the ground, that in the three directly pertaining to God he saw an indication of the mystery of the Trinity.—(Quaest. in Ex., § 71) This was evidently the consideration that chiefly weighed with him, although he also thought there was ground for coupling the prohibition against idol-worship with that against the acknowledgment of another God than Jehovah, and for distinguishing between concupiscence toward a neighbour’s wife, and concupiscence in respect to material possessions. Kurtz, along with not a few Lutherans of the present day, still adheres to this view, and very much also from regard to the sacred three and seven, which is thereby obtained.—(Hist, of Old Cov., ii., sec. 47, § 3) But in a grand objective revelation, any to numbers, except such as is quite natural and simple, would be entirely out of place; and the recondite considerations which are required here to discover and elevate into significance a three and a seven, betray the character of their origin: they might do for the speculations of the closet, but were greatly too far to seek for what was required in the fundamental document of a popular religion. Besides, the acknowledgment of one God is not by any means inconsistent with the worship of that God by idols—as, indeed, the history of the Old Testament renders manifest by the marked distinction it draws between the sin of Jeroboam, who corrupted the worship of Jehovah by idols, and the much greater sin of Ahab, who introduced the worship of strange gods: therefore, what are usually called the first and second commandments, are not to be identified; the one has respect to the object, the other to the mode, of worship. On the other hand, the concupiscence condemned in the tenth commandment is substantially one, whatever possession or property of a neighbour’s may be its more immediate object: to regard it when directed towards his wife as specifically different from what it is when directed to other objects, were virtually to identify it with what is forbidden in the seventh commandment. And then there is this fatal objection to the rending of the tenth into two, that it obliges us to discard the form of the precept as given in Exodus, and substitute that in Deuteronomy 5:21 as the more correct: for in this last alone does the wife, as an object of prohibition, stand first; while in Exodus 20:17, first the house is forbidden to be coveted, then the wife, afterwards man-servant, and whatever may belong to one’s neighbour. A theory which requires for its support either a corruption in the text of Exodus, of which there is no evidence, or the assertion of a higher claim in respect to originality for the form of the decalogue given in Deuteronomy as compared with that in Exodus, has manifestly but a poor foundation to stand upon.[232] [232] It seems strange that any one should view the passage in Deuteronomy 5:6-21 in any other light than as a free rehearsal of the commands given as originally uttered in Exodus 20. The account itself professes to be nothing else than such a rehearsal; and, in connection with one of the commands, gives explicit intimation of this: “Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God commanded thee.” The addition, also, at ver. 15, in connection with the fourth commandment, where the people are, as by a separate word of exhortation, called upon to remember that they had been bondmen in Egypt, and had been redeemed by the Lord, has all the appearance of an after-thought, thrown in at a later period, when Israel was farther removed from the era of redemption. Holding then by the generally received view in the Reformed Church, that, in making out the ten commands of the law, the prohibition against idol-worship ranks independently of the first, and that the prohibition against concupiscence is not diverse, but one; holding, farther, that the simplest and most natural, as it is also the oldest, division of the whole, is into two fives,—though the division is not to be understood as very sharply drawn, or as involving anything like an abrupt and formal separation of the one portion from the other,—there is found in this summary of moral and religious obligation a beautiful order and progression in the precepts which compose it. In that part which has more immediate reference to God, it demands for Him the supreme love and homage of mankind—(1) in respect to His being, as the one living God; (2) to His worship, as, like Himself, spiritual, and abhorrent to the rites of idolatry; (3) to His name; (4) to His day of holy rest; (5) to His earthly representatives. Then, as the two last commands have already brought the duties of God’s service into contact with the interests of one’s fellow-men and the relations of social life, the Divine revelation now passes formally over to the things which directly concern the well-being of our neighbour, claiming for him what is due successively in regard to his life, his domestic happiness, his property, his good name in the world, his place in the feelings and affections of our heart. Nothing could be more orderly, and at the same time more compact. 2. But it is of more importance to note the character of the decalogue in regard to the revelation of duty contained in it, or the substance of its precepts. Does it prove itself here, on examination, to be indeed a comprehensive summary of all moral and religious duty; and that with reference to the heart as well as the outward behaviour? An extremely low estimate, in this respect, is formed of the ten commandments by Spencer and his school, as well as of the other portions of the law of Moses. Spencer himself smiles at the idea of all religious and moral obligation being contained here in its fundamental principles, and affirms that such an extent of meaning can be brought out of it only by forcing on its worth an import quite foreign to their proper sense. He can find nothing more in it than a few plain and disconnected precepts, aimed at the prohibition of idolatry and its natural effects.[233] “In the Mosaic covenant,” says one, who here trod in the footsteps of Spencer, “God appeared chiefly as a temporal prince, and therefore gave laws intended rather to direct the outward conduct than to regulate the actings of the heart. A temporal monarch claims from his subjects only outward honour and obedience. God, therefore, acting in the Sinai covenant as King of the Jews, demanded from them no more.”[234] What! the holy and righteous God stoop to form a mock covenant like this, and resort to such a wretched expedient to uphold His honour and authority! Could it possibly become Him to descend from heaven amid the awful manifestations of Divine power and glory, in order to proclaim and settle the terms of a covenant, the only aim of which was to draw around Him a set of formal attendants and crouching hypocrites—men of show and parade—the mere ghosts and shadows of obedient children! It is the worst part of an earthly monarch’s lot to be so often surrounded with creatures of this description; but to suppose that the living God, who from the spirituality of His nature must ever look mainly on the heart, and so far from seeking, must indignantly reject, any profession of obedience which does not flow from the wellspring of a loving spirit—to suppose that He should have been at pains to establish a covenant of blood for the purpose of securing such a worthless display,—betrays an astonishing misapprehension of the character of God, or the most shallow and unsatisfactory view of the whole transactions connected with the revelation of Moses.[235] [233] De Legibus Heb., L,, i., c. 2. [234] Theol. Dissertations by Dr John Erskine, p. 5, 37. [235] It is strange that this notion, so unworthy of God, and so obviously inconsistent with the nature of the law itself, and the recorded facts of Israelitish history, still holds its ground among us. The shades of Spencer and Warburton still rest even upon many minds of vigorous thought. The covenant of law is with the utmost confidence, and with the tone of one who had made a sort of discovery in the matter, represented by Mr Johnstone, in his Israel after the Flesh, as a simply national covenant, having no other object than to maintain the national recognition of God, and no respect whatever to individuals.—(Ch. i) Mr Litton, in his Bampton Lecture, has, however, taken a more correct view, and brought out distinctly the spiritual element in the law. See especially Lect. III. The ten commandments express the spirit and essence of the whole economy, and only the first of them refers to the national acknowledgment of God. If that had been all they required, how could the Israelites in the wilderness have been treated as guilty of a breach of the covenant for simply failing to exercise faith in a particular word of God? Or how could our Lord charge the Scribes and Pharisees of His time with being condemned by their law, while they rigidly adhered to the acknowledgment of God? Besides, the law is not now, and never was intended, to be viewed as standing by itself. It was a mere appendage to the covenant of Abraham, and the revelations therewith connected. And if these were express on any point, it was, as we have shown in vol. 1st, on the necessity of personal faith and heart-holiness, to fulfil the calling of a son of Abraham. If the law did not require spiritual service, it must have been a retrogression, not an advance, in the revelation of God’s character. Indeed, if no more had been required by God in His law than what these divines imagine, the commendations bestowed on it, and the injunctions given to study and weigh its precepts, as a masterpiece of Divine wisdom, could only be regarded as extravagant and bombastical. What, on such a supposition, could we make of the command laid upon Joshua to meditate in it day and night (Joshua 1:8); or of the celebration of its matchless excellence and worth by the Psalmist, as better than thousands of gold and silver (Psalms 119:72); or of his prayer, that his eyes might be opened to behold the wondrous things contained in it?—(Psalms 119:18) Such things clearly imply a latent depth of meaning, and a large compass of requirement in the law of Moses, more especially in that part of it which formed the very heart and centre of the whole—the decalogue. Nor would the low and shallow views respecting it, on which we have animadverted, ever have been propounded, if, as Calvin suggests,[236] men properly considered the Lawgiver, by whose character that of the law must also be determined. An earthly monarch who is capable of taking cognisance only of the outward actions, must prescribe laws which have respect simply tothese. But, for a like reason, the King of heaven, who is Himself a Spirit, and a Spirit of infinite and unchanging holiness, can never prescribe a law but such as is in accordance with His own Divine nature; one, therefore, which pre-eminently aims at the regulation of the heart, and takes cognisance of the outward behaviour only in so far as this may be expressive of what is felt within. And it is justly inferred by Bähr from this view of God’s character even in regard to the ceremonial part of the law of Moses, that the outward observances of worship it imposed could not possibly be in themselves an end; that they must have been intended to be only an image and representation of internal and spiritual relations; and that the command not to make any likeness or graven image, is of itself an incontestable proof of the symbolical character of the Mosaic religion.[237] [236] Institutes, B. ii., c. 8, § 6. [237] Symbolik, i., p. 14. Perhaps nothing has tended more to prevent the right perception of the spirituality and extent of the law of the ten commandments, than a mistaken view of the generally negative aspect they assume, as if their aim were more to impose restraints on the doing of what is evil, than to enforce the practice of what is pure and good. If this, however, were the right view of the matter, there manifestly would have been no exception to the negative form of the precepts; they would one and all have possessed the character simply of prohibitions. But the fourth and fifth have been made to run in the positive form; and one of these—the fourth—combines both together, as if on purpose to show, that along with the prohibition of the specified sins, each precept was to be understood as requiring the corresponding duties. In truth, this predominantly negative character is rather a testimony to their deep spiritual import, as confronting at every point the depravity and sinfulness of the human heart. The Israelites then, as professing believers now, admitted by divine grace into a covenant relation to God, and made heirs of His blessed inheritance, should have been disposed of themselves to love and serve God; they should not even have needed the stringent precepts and binding obligations of law to do so. But as a solemn proof and testimony how much the reverse was the case, the law was thrown chiefly into the prohibitory form: “Thou shalt not do this or that;” as much as to say, Thou art of thyself ready to do it this is the native bent of thy inclination but it must be restrained, and things of a contrary nature sought after and performed. It is perhaps too much to say, with Hengstenberg, that the law was called the testimony (Exodus 25:16; Exodus 30:6, etc.), and the tables on which it was written, the tables of the testimony (Exodus 31:18; Exodus 34:29), simply on account of the revelation therein made of God’s judgment against man’s sin (Pent., ii., p. 600); for this was rather an incidental result, than the direct object of the law: yet it was a result which so inevitably took place, that the name could scarcely have been imposed without some reference to it. In one passage we even find the idea distinctly exhibited, though with reference to the book generally of the law, when Moses was commanded to have a copy of it placed beside the ark of the covenant, that it might be for a witness against Israel.—(Deuteronomy 31:26) The same, undoubtedly, was done in a pre-eminent degree by the two tables, which, as containing the essence of the whole legislation, were put within the ark. And their position there directly under the mercy-seat, where the blood of atonement was perpetually sprinkled, could signify nothing else than that the accusation which was virtually borne against Israel by the law of the covenant, required to be covered from the eye of Heaven by the propitiatory above it. In itself, however, the law was simply the revelation of God’s holiness, with its circle of demands upon the faith, love, and obedience of His people: it testified of what was in His heart as the invisible Head of the kingdom, in respect to the character and conduct of those who should be its members. But the testimony it thus delivered for Him necessarily involved a testimony against them, because of the innate tendency to corruption which existed in their bosoms. And this incidental testimony against the sinfulness of the people,—which is, at the same time, an evidence of the law’s inherent spirituality and goodness,—has its reflection in the very form of the precepts in which it is contained. The more closely we examine these precepts themselves, the more clearly do we perceive their spiritual and comprehensive character. That they recognise love as the root of all obedience, and hatred as inseparable from transgression, is plainly intimated in the description given of the doers and transgressors of the law in the second commandment; the latter being characterized as “those that hate God,” and the former as “those that love Him and keep His commandments.” And that the love required was no slight and superficial feeling, such as might readily give manifestation of itself in a few external acts of homage,—that, on the contrary, it embraced the entire field of man’s spiritual agency, and bore respect alike to his thoughts, words, and deeds,—is manifest from the following analysis and explanation of the second table, given by Hengstenberg:[238] “Thou shalt not injure thy neighbor—1. In deed, and that (1) not in regard to his life, (2) not in regard to his dearest property, his wife, (3) not in regard to his property generally [in other words, in regard to his person, his family, or his property]. 2. In word (‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’). 3. In thought (‘Thou shalt not covet’). While it may be admitted, however, that the prohibition of lust or covetousness has an internal character, it may still with some plausibility be maintained, that on this very account the preceding commands are to be taken externally—that we are not in them to go beyond the word and deed—that the mere outward acts, for example, of murder and adultery, are prohibited, so that the four first precepts of the second table may be satisfied without any in ward feeling of holiness, this being required only in the last. There is certainly some degree of truth in this remark. That a special prohibition of sinful lust should follow the rest, shows that what had been said in reference to word and deed primarily has respect to these. Still it must not be overlooked, on the other hand, that precisely through the succession of deed, word, and thought, the deed and word are stript of their merely outward character, and referred back to their root in the mind, are marked simply as the end of a process, the commencement of which is to be sought in the heart. If this is duly considered, it will appear, that what primarily refers only to word and deed, carried at the same time an indirect reference to the emotions of the heart. Thus, the only way to fulfil the command, Thou shalt not kill, is to have the root extirpated from the heart, out of which murder springs. Where that is not done, the command is not fully complied with, even though no outward murder is committed. For this must then be dependent upon circumstances which lie beyond the circle of man’s proper agency.” [238] Authentie, ii., p. 600. Substantially the same analysis was made by Thomas Aquinas, in a short but very clear quotation given by Hengstenberg from the Summa i 2, q. 100, § 5. There is no less depth and comprehensiveness in the first table, as the same learned writer has remarked; and a similar regard is had in it to thought, word, and deed, only in the reverse order, and lying somewhat less upon the surface. The fourth and fifth precepts demand the due honouring of God in deed; the third in word; and the two first, pointing to His sole God head and absolute spirituality, require for Himself personally, and for His worship, that place in the heart to which they are entitled. Very striking in this respect is the announcement in the second commandment, of a visitation of evil upon those that hate God, and an extension of mercy to thousands that love Him. As much as to say, It is the heart of love I require; and if ever My worship is corrupted by the introduction of images, it is only to be accounted for by the working of hatred instead of love in the heart. So that the heart may truly be called the alpha and the omega of this wonderful revelation of law: it stands prominently forth at both ends; and had no inspired commentary been given on the full import of the ten words, looking merely to these words themselves, we cannot but perceive that they stretch their demands over the whole range of man’s active operations, and can only be fulfilled by the constant and uninterrupted exercise of love to God and man, in the various regions of the heart, the conversation, and the conduct. We have commentaries, however, both in the Old and the New Testament Scriptures, upon the law of the ten commandments, and such as plainly confirm what has been said of its perfection and completeness as a rule of duty. With manifest reference to the second table, and with the view of expressing in one brief sentence the essence of its meaning, Moses had said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18); and in like manner regarding the first table, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”—(Deuteronomy 6:5) It is against all reason to suppose, that these precepts should require more than what was required in those which formed the very groundwork and heart of the whole Mosaic legislation; and we have the express authority of our Lord for holding, that the whole law, as well as the prophets, hung upon them.—(Matthew 22:40) Nor only so, but, as already noticed, in the Sermon on the Mount, He has Himself given us an insight into the wide reach and deep spiritual meaning of the ten commandments, clearing them from the false and superficial glosses of the carnal Pharisees. That this is the true character and design of that portion of our Lord’s discourse, that it was intended to bring distinctly out the full import of the old, and not to introduce any new and higher legislation, is now generally admitted by at least the sounder portion of exegetical writers.[239] And, to mention no more, the Apostle Paul, referring to the law of the ten commandments, calls it “spiritual,” “holy, just, and good,”—represents it as the grand instrument in the hands of the Spirit for convincing of sin, and declares the only fulfilment of it to be perfect love.—(Romans 7:7-14; Romans 13:10) [239] Tholuck, indeed, as usual on such points, holds a sort of middle opinion here in his Comm. on the Sermon on the Mount, although he is substantially of the opinion expressed above, and opposed to the view of Catholic, Socinian, and Arninian writers. See, however, Baumgarten, Doc. Christi de Lege Mosaica in Oratione Mon., with whom also Hengstenberg concurs, loc. cit. We trust enough has been said to establish the claim of the law of the ten commandments to be regarded in the light in which it has commonly been viewed by evangelical divines of this country, as a brief but comprehensive summary of all religious and moral duty. And, as a necessary consequence, the two grand rules with which they have been wont to enter on the exposition of the decalogue are fully justified. These rules are—1. That the same precept which forbids the external acts of sin, forbids likewise the inward desires and motions of sin in the heart; as also, that the precept which commands the external acts of duty, requires at the same time the inward feelings and principles of holiness, of which the external acts could only be the fitting expression. 2. That the negative commands include in them the injunction of the contrary duties, and the positive commands the prohibition of the contrary sins, so that in each there is something required as well as forbidden. Nor is the language too strong, if rightly understood, which has often been applied to this law, that it is a kind of transcript of God’s own pure and righteous character,—i.e., a faithful and exact representation of that spiritual excellence which eternally belongs to Himself, and which He must eternally require of His accountable creatures. The idea which such language conveys is undoubtedly correct, if understood in reference to the great principles of truth and holiness embodied in the precepts, though it can be but partially true if regard is had to the formal acts in which those principles were to find their prescribed manifestation; for the actual operation of the principles had of necessity to be ordered in suitable adaptation to men’s condition upon earth, to which, as there belong relations, so also there are relative duties, not only different from anything with which God Himself has properly to do, but different even from what His people shall have to discharge in a coming eternity. There, such precepts as the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, or the eighth, as to the formal acts they prohibit or require, shall manifestly have lost their adaptation. And of the whole law we may affirm, that the precise form it has assumed, or the mould into which it has been cast, is such as fitly suits it only to the circumstances of the present life. But the love to God and man, which constitutes its all-pervading element, and for which the several precepts only indicate the particular ways and channels wherein it should flow—this love man is indispensably bound in all times and circumstances to cherish in his heart, and manifest in his conduct. For the God in whom he lives, and moves, and has his being, is love; and as the duty and perfection of the creature is to bear the image of the Creator, so to love as He loves—Himself first and supremely, and His offspring in Him and for Him must ever be the bounden obligation and highest end of those whom He calls His children. Section 2.—The Law Continued—Apparent Exceptions To Its Perfection And Completeness As The Permanent And Universal Standard Of Religious And Moral Obligation—Its References To The Special Circumstances Of The Israelites, And Representation Of God As Jealous. IT is necessary to pause here for a little, and enter into some examination of the objections which have been raised out of the ten commandments themselves, against the character of perfection and completeness which we have sought to establish for them. For if any doubt should remain on this point, it will most materially interfere with and mar the line of argument we mean afterwards to pursue, and the views we have to propound in connection with this revelation of law to Israel. By a certain class of writers, we are met at the very threshold with a species of objection which they seem to regard as perfectly conclusive against its general completeness and universal obligation. For it contains special and distinct references to the Israelites as a people. The whole is prefaced with the declaration, “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt,” while the fifth commandment embodies in it the promise of the land of Canaan as their peculiar inheritance. And this, we are told, makes it clear as noon-day, that the decalogue was not given as a revelation of God’s will to mankind at large, but was simply and exclusively intended for the Israelites binding, indeed, on them so long as the peculiar polity lasted under which they were placed, but also ceasing as an obligatory rule of conduct when that was abolished.[240] But, on this ground, the Gospel itself will be found scarcely less imperfect, and we might almost at every step question the fitness or obligation of its precepts in respect to men in general. For it carries throughout a reference to existing circumstances; and by much the fullest development of its principles and duties,—that, namely, contained in the epistles, was given directly and avowedly to particular persons and churches, with the primary design of instructing them as to the things they were respectively to believe or do. So that, if the specialties found in the law of the two tables were sufficient to exempt men now from its obligation, or to deprive it at any time of an ecumenical value, most of the revelations of the Gospel might, for the same reason, be shorn of their virtue; and in both alike, men would be entitled to pick and choose for themselves, what they were to regard as of temporary moment, and what of perpetual obligation. [240] Bialloblotzky, de Legis Mos. abrogatione, p. 131. Archb. Whately also repeats the same objection, in his Essay on the Abolition of the Law, p. 186—(Second Series of Essays) The view of both these authors, which is radically the same, regarding the abolition of the law under the Christian economy, we shall have occasion to notice afterwards. The affirmation of the Archbishop, at p. 191, that “the Gospel requires a morality in many respects higher and more perfect in itself than the law, and places morality on higher grounds,” has already been met in the preceding section. We admit, of course, that the Gospel contains far higher exemplifications of the morality enjoined in the law than are to be found in the Old Testament, and presents far higher motives for exercising it; but that is a different thing from maintaining that this morality itself is higher, or essentially more perfect. But were not this egregious trifling? The objection overlooks one of the most distinctive features—and, indeed, one of the greatest excellences—of God’s revelation, which at no period was given in the form of abstract delineations of truth and duty, but has ever developed itself in immediate connection with the circumstances of individuals and the leadings of Providence. From first to last it comes forth entwined with the characters and events of history. Not a little of it is written in the transactions themselves of past time, which are expressly declared to have been “written for our learning.” And it is equally true of the law and the Gospel, that the historical lines with which they are interwoven, while serving to increase their interest and enhance their didactic value, by no means detract from their general bearing, or interfere with their binding obligation. The ground of this lies in the unchangeableness of God’s character, which may be said to generalize all that is particular in His revelation, and impart a lasting efficacy to what was but occasional in its origin. Without variableness or shadow of turning in Himself, He cannot have a word for one, and a different word for another. And unless the things spoken and required were so manifestly peculiar as to be applicable only to the individuals to whom they were first addressed, or from their very nature possessed a merely temporary significance, we must hold them to be the revelation of God’s mind and will for all persons and all times. That the Lord uttered this law to Israel in the character of their Redeemer, and imposed it on them as the heirs of His inheritance, made no alteration in its own inherent nature; neither contracted nor enlarged the range of its obligation; only established its claim on their observance by considerations peculiarly fitted to move and influence their minds. Christ’s enforcing upon His disciples the lesson of humility, by His own condescension in stooping to wash their feet, or St Paul’s entreating his Gentile converts to walk worthy of their vocation, by the thought of his being, for their sakes, the prisoner of the Lord, are not materially different. The special considerations, coupled in either case alike with the precept enjoined, leave perfectly untouched the ground of the obligation or the rule of duty. Their proper and legitimate effect was only to win obedience, or, failing that, to aggravate transgression. And when the things required are such as those enjoined in the ten commandments,—things growing out of the settled relations in which men stand to God and to each other,—the obligation to obey is universal and permanent, whether or not there be any considerations of the kind in question tending to render obedience more imperative, or transgression more heinous. But what if some of the considerations employed to enforce the observance of the duties enjoined, involve views of the Divine character and government partial and defective, at variance with the principles of the Gospel, and repulsive even to enlightened reason? Can that really have been meant to be of standing force and efficacy as a revelation of duty, which embodies in it such elements of imperfection? Such is the form the objection takes in the hands of another large class of objectors, who think they find matter of the kind referred to in the declarations attached to the second commandment. The view there given of God as a jealous being, and of the manner in which His jealousy was to appear, has by some been represented as so peculiarly Jewish, by others as so flagrantly obnoxious to right principle, that they cannot tolerate the idea of the decalogue being considered as a perfect revelation of the mind and will of God. The subject has long afforded a favourite ground of railing accusation to avowed infidels and rationalist divines; and Spinosa could not think of anything in Scripture more clearly and manifestly repugnant to reason, than that the attribute of jealousy was ascribed to God in the decalogue itself. The treatment which this article in the decalogue has met with, is quite a specimen of the shallow and superficial character of infidelity. It proceeds on the supposition that jealousy, when ascribed to God, must carry precisely the same meaning, and be understood to indicate the same affections, as when spoken of men. Considered as a disposition in man, it is commonly indicative of something sickly and distempered. But as every affection of the human mind must, when referred to God, be understood with such limitations as the infinite disparity between the Divine and human natures renders necessary, it might be no difficult matter to modify the common notion of jealousy, so far as to render it perfectly compatible with the other representations given of God as absolutely pure and good. But even this is scarcely necessary; for every scholar knows that the word in the original is by no means restricted to what is distinctively meant by jealousy, and that the radical and proper idea, unless otherwise determined by the context, has respect merely to the zeal or ardour with which any one is disposed to vindicate his own rights. Applied to God, it simply presents Him to our view as the one Supreme Jehovah, who as such claims—cannot indeed but claim—He were not the One, Eternal God, but an idol, if He did not claim—the undivided love and homage of His creatures, and who, consequently, must resist with holy zeal and indignation every attempt to deprive Him of what is so peculiarly His own. It is only to give vividness to this idea, by investing it with the properties of an earthly relation, that the Divine affection is so often presented under the special form of jealousy. It arises, as Calvin has remarked, from God’s condescending to assume toward His people the character of a husband, in which respect He cannot bear a partner. “As He performs to us all the offices of a true and faithful husband, so He stipulates for love and conjugal chastity from us. Hence, when He rebukes the Jews for their apostasy, He complains that they have cast off chastity, and polluted themselves with adultery. Therefore, as the purer and chaster the husband is, the more grievously is he offended when he sees his wife inclining to a rival; so the Lord, who has betrothed us to Himself in truth, declares that He burns with the hottest jealousy, whenever, neglecting the purity of His holy marriage, we defile ourselves with abominable lusts; and especially when the worship of His Deity, which ought to have been most carefully kept unimpaired, is transferred to another, or adulterated with some superstition; since, in this way, we not only violate our plighted troth, but defile the nuptial couch, by giving access to adulterers.”[241] [241] Inst., B. 2., c. 8, § 18. Allowing, however, that the notion of jealousy, when thus explained, is a righteous and necessary attribute of Jehovah, does not the objection hold, at least in regard to the particular form of its manifestation mentioned in the second commandment? If it becomes God to be jealous, yet is it not to make His jealousy interfere with His justice, when He declares His purpose to visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation? So one might judge, if looking not merely to the attacks of infidels, but to the feeble and unsatisfactory attempts which have too often been made to explain the declaration by Christian divines. Grotius, for example, resolves it simply into the absolute sovereignty of God, who has a right to do what He will with His own.[242] Warburton represents it as a temporary expedient to supply the lack of a future state of reward and punishment under the law; and in his usual way, contends that no otherwise could the principle be vindicated, and the several Scriptures referring to it harmonized.[243] Michaelis,[244] Paley,[245] and a host besides, while they also regard it as, to a great extent, a temporary arrangement, rest their defence of it mainly on the ground of its having to do only with temporal evils, and in no respect reaching to men’s spiritual and eternal interests. It is fatal to all these attempts at explanation, that none of them fairly grapples with the visitation of evil threatened as a punishment; for, viewed in this light, which is unquestionably the scriptural one, such attempts are manifestly nothing more than mere shifts and evasions of the point at issue. When resolved into the sovereignty of God, it still remains to be asked, whether such an exercise of His sovereignty is consistent with those ideas of immutable justice which are implanted in the human breast. When viewed as a temporary expedient to supply a want which, to say the least, might, if real, have admitted of a very simple remedy, the question still waits for solution, whether the expedient itself was in proper accordance with the righteous principles which should regulate every government, whether human or divine. And when it is affirmed, that the penalties denounced in the threatening were only temporal, the reply surely is competent, Why might not God do in eternity what He does in time? Or, if the principle on which the punishment proceeds be not in all respects justifiable, how could it be acted on by God temporarily, any more than eternally? Is it consistent with the notion of a God of infinite rectitude, that He should do on a small scale what it would be impious to conceive Him doing on a large one? [242] De Jure Belli et Pacis, 2., p. 593. [243] Divine Legation, B. v., sec. 5. [244] Laws of Moses. [245] Sermons. The fundamental error in the false explanations referred to, lies in the supposition of the children, who are to suffer, being in a different state morally from that of their parents—innocent children bearing the chastisement due to the transgressions of their wicked parents. But the words of the threatening purposely guard against such an idea, by describing the third and fourth generation, on whom the visitation of evil was to fall, as of those that hate God; just as, on the other hand, the mercy which was pledged to thousands was promised as the dowry of those that love Him. Such children alone are here concerned, who, in the language of Calvin, “imitate the impiety of their progenitors!” Indeed, Augustine has substantially expressed the right principle of interpretation on the subject, though he has sometimes failed in making the proper application of it, as when he says: “But the carnal generation also of the people of God belonging to the Old Testament, binds the sons to the sins oftheir parents; but the spiritual generation, as it has changed the inheritance, so also the threatenings of punishment, and the promises of reward.”[246] And still more distinctly in his commentary on Ps. 114:14, where he explains the visiting of the “iniquities of the fathers upon them that hate Me,” by saying, “that is, as their parents hated Me; so that, just as the imitation of the good secures that even one’s own sins are blotted out, so the imitation of the bad renders one obnoxious to the deserved punishment, not only of one’s own sins, but also of the sins of those whose ways have been followed.” In short, the Lord contemplates the existence among His professing worshippers of two entirely different kinds of generations: the one haters of God, and manifesting their hatred by depraving His worship, and pursuing courses of transgression; the other lovers of God, and manifesting their love by stedfastly adhering in all dutiful obedience to the way of His holy commandments. To these last, though they should extend to thousands of generations, He would show His mercy, causing it to flow on from age to age in a perennial stream of blessing. But as He is the righteous God, to whom vengeance as well as mercy belongs, the free outpouring of His beneficence upon these, could not prevent or prejudice the execution of His justice upon that other class, who were entirely of a different spirit, and merited quite opposite treatment. It is an unwelcome subject, indeed; the merciful and gracious God has no delight in anticipating the day of evil, even for His must erring and wayward children. He shrinks, as it were, from contemplating the possibility of thousands being in this condition, and will not suffer Himself to make mention of more than a third or a fourth generation rendering themselves the objects of His just displeasure. But still the wholesome truth must be declared, and the seasonable warning uttered. If men were determined to rebel against His authority, He could not leave Himself without a witness, not even in regard to the first race of transgressors, that He hated their iniquities, and must take vengeance of their inventions. But if, notwithstanding, the children embraced the sinfulness of their parents, with the manifest seal of Heaven’s displeasure on it, as their iniquity would be more aggravated, so its punishment should become more severe; the descending and entailed curse would deepen as it flowed on, increasing with every increase of depravity and corruption, till, the measure of iniquity being filled up, the wrath should fall on them to the uttermost. [246] Contra Julianum Polagianutu, Lib. vi., § 82. That this is the aspect of the Divine character and government which the declaration in the second commandment was meant to exhibit, is evident alone from the glowing delineations of mercy and goodness with which the visitation of evil upon the children of disobedient parents is here and in other places coupled.[247] But it is confirmed beyond all doubt by two distinct lines of reflection, and, first, by the facts of Israelitish history. These fully confirm the principle of God’s government as now expounded, but give no countenance to the idea of a punishment being inflicted on the innocent for the guilty. However sinful one individual or one generation might be, yet if the next in descent heartily turned to the Lord, they were sure of being received to pardon and blessing. We are furnished with a striking instance of this in the 14th chapter of Numbers, where we find Moses pleading for the pardon of Israel’s transgressions on the very ground of that revelation of the Divine name or character in Exodus 34:6-7, which precisely, as in the second commandment, combines the most touching representation of the Divine mercy with the threat to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. It never occurred to Moses that this threat stood at all in the way of their obtaining a complete forgiveness. He found, indeed, that the Lord had determined to visit upon that generation their iniquities, so far as to exclude them from the land of Canaan, but without in the least marring the better prospects of their children, who had learned to hate the deeds of their fathers. And when, indeed, was it otherwise? Is it not one of the most striking features in the whole history of ancient Israel, that, so far from suffering for the sins of former generations, they did not suffer even for their own when they truly repented, but were immediately visited with favour and blessing? And, on the other hand, how constantly do we find the Divine judgments increasing in severity when successive generations hardened themselves in their evil courses? Nor did it rarely happen that the series of retributions reached their last issues by the third or fourth generation. It was so in particular with those who were put upon a course of special dealing—such as the house of Jeroboam, of Jehu, of Eli, etc. [247] Compare besides Exodus 34:5-6; Numbers 14:18; Psalms 103:8-9. Another source of confirmation to the view now presented we find in the explanations given concerning it in the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. These prophets lived at the time when the descending curse had utterly failed, so far as it had gone, to turn the children from the sinful courses of their fathers, and was fast running to a fatal termination. But the infatuated people being not less distinguished for self-righteous pride than for their obstinate perseverance in wickedness, they were constantly complaining, as stroke after stroke fell upon them, that they were made unjustly to bear the sins of their fathers. Anticipating our modern infidels, they charged God with injustice and inequality in His ways of dealing, instead of turning their eye inward, as they should have done, upon their own unrighteousness, and forsaking it for the way of peace. The Ezekiel 18:1-32 chapter of Ezekiel contains a lengthened expostulation with these stout-hearted offenders, in the course of which he utterly disclaims the interpretation they put upon the word and providence of God, and assures them, that if they would only turn from their evil doings, they should not have to suffer either for their own or their fathers guilt. And Jeremiah, in his Jeremiah 31:1-40 chapter, speaking of the new covenant, and of the blessed renovation it would accomplish on those who should be partakers of its grace, foretells that there would be an end of such foolish and wicked charges upon God for the inequity of His ways of dealing; for such an increased measure of the Spirit would be given, such an inward conformity to His laws would be produced, that His dealing with transgressors would in a manner cease—His ways would be all acquiesced in as holy, just, and good. Section 3.—The Law Continued—Further Exceptions—The Weekly Sabbath. OBJECTIONS have been raised against the decalogue as a complete and permanent summary of duty, from the nature of its requirements, as well as from the incidental considerations by which it is enforced. It is only, however, in reference to the fourth commandment, the law of the Sabbath, that any objection in this respect is made. The character of universal and permanent obligation, it is argued, which we would ascribe to the decalogue, cannot properly belong to it, since one of its precepts enjoins the observance of a merely ceremonial institution—an institution strictly and rigorously binding on the Jews, but, like other ceremonial and shadowy institutions, done away in Christ. It would be impossible to enumerate the authors, ancient and modern, who in one form or another have adopted this view. There can be no question that they embrace a very large proportion of the more learned and eminent divines of the Christian Church, from the fathers to the present time. Much diversity of opinion, however, prevails among those who agree in the same general view, as to the extent to which the law of the Sabbath was ceremonial, and in what sense the obligation to observe it lies upon the followers of Jesus. In the judgment of some, the distinction of days is entirely abolished as a Divine arrangement, and is no further obligatory upon the conscience, than as it may be sanctioned by competent ecclesiastical authority for the purposes of social order and religious improvement. By others, the obligation is held to involve the duty of setting apart an adequate portion of time for the due celebration of Divine worship,—the greater part leaving that portion of time quite indefinite, while some would insist upon its being at least equal to what was appointed under the law, or possibly even more. Finally, there are still others, who consider the ceremonial and shadowy part of the institution to have more peculiarly stood in the observance of precisely the seventh day of the week as a day of sacred rest, and who conceive the obligation still in force, as requiring another whole day to be consecrated to religious exercises. It would require a separate treatise, rather than a single chapter, to take up separately such manifold subdivisions of opinion, and investigate the grounds of each. We must for the present view the subject in its general bearings, and endeavour to have some leading principles ascertained and fixed. In doing this, we might press at the outset the consideration of this law being one of those engraved upon tables of stone, as a proof that it, equally with the rest, possessed a peculiarly important and durable character. For the argument is by no means disposed of, as we formerly remarked, by the supposition of Bähr and others, that the ceremonial as well as the other precepts of the law were represented in the ten commandments; and still less by the assertion of Paley, that little regard was practically paid in the books of Moses to the distinction between matters of a ceremonial and moral, of a temporary and perpetual kind. It is easy to multiply assertions and suppositions of such a nature; but the fact is still to be accounted for, why the law of the Sabbath should have been deemed of such paramount importance, as to have found a place among those which were “written as with a pen in the rock for ever?” Or why, if in reality nothing more than a ceremonial and shadowy institute, this, in particular, should have been chosen to represent all of a like kind? Why not rather, as the whole genius of the economy might have led us in such a case to expect, should the precept have been one respecting the observance of the great annual feasts, or a faithful compliance with the sacrificial services?[248] It is impossible to answer these questions satisfactorily, or to show any valid reason for the introduction of the Sabbath into the law of the two tables, on the supposition of its possessing only a ceremonial character. But we shall not press this argument more fully, or endeavour to explain the futility of the reasons by which it is met, as in itself it is rather a strong presumption than a conclusive evidence of the permanent obligation of the fourth command. [248] The Catholics have felt the force of this in reference to their own Church, which, like the Jewish, deals so much in ceremonies, and therefore have sometimes in their catechism presented the fourth commandment thus: Remember the festivals, to keep them holy. It deserves more notice, however, than it usually receives in this point of view, and should alone be almost held conclusive, that the ground on which the obligation to keep the Sabbath is based in the command, is the most universal in its bearing that could possibly be conceived. “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” There is manifestly nothing Jewish here; nothing connected with individual interests or even national history. The grand fact out of which the precept is made to grow, is of equal significance to the whole world; and why should not the precept be the same, of which it forms the basis? God’s method of procedure in creating the visible heavens and earth, produced as the formal reason for instituting a distinctive, temporary Jewish ordinance! Could it be possible to conceive a more “lame and impotent conclusion?” And this, too, in the most compact piece of legislation in existence! It seems, indeed, as if God, in the appointment of this law, had taken special precautions against the attempts which He foresaw would be made to get rid of the institution, and that on this account He laid its foundations first in the original framework and constitution of nature. The law as a whole, and certain also of its precepts, He was pleased to enforce by considerations drawn from His dealings toward Israel, and the peculiar relations which He now held to them. But when He comes to impose the obligation of the Sabbath, He rises far beyond any consideration of a special kind, or any passing event of history. He ascends to primeval time, and, standing as on the platform of the newly created world, dates from thence the commencement and the ordination of a perpetually recurring day of rest. Since the Lord has thus honoured the fourth commandment above the others, by laying for it a foundation so singularly broad and deep, is it yet to be held in its obligation and import the narrowest of them all? Shall this, strange to think, be the only one which did nut utter a voice for all times and all generations? How much more reasonable is the conclusion of Calvin, who in this expressed substantially the opinion of all the more eminent reformers: “Unquestionably God assumed to Himself the seventh day, and consecrated it when He finished the creation of the world, that He might keep His worshippers entirely free from all other cares, while they were employed in meditating on the beauty, excellence, and splendour of His works. It is not proper, indeed, to allow any period to elapse, without our attentively considering the wisdom, power, justice, and goodness of God, as displayed in the admirable workmanship and government of the world. But because our minds are unstable, and are thence liable to wander and be distracted, God in His own mercy, consulting our infirmities, sets apart one day from the rest, and commands it to be kept free from all earthly cares and employments, lest anything should interrupt that holy exercise.... In this respect the necessity of a Sabbath is common to us with the people of old, that we may be free on one day (of the week), and so may be better prepared both for learning and for giving testimony to our faith.”[249] [249] Comm. on Exodus 20:11. The same view is taken in his notes on Genesis 2:3 : “God, therefore, first rested, then He blessed that rest, that it might be sacred among men through all coming ages. He consecrated each seventh day to rest, that His own example might continually serve as a rule,” etc. To the same effect, Luther on that passage, who holds, that “if Adam had continued in innocence, he would yet have kept the seventh day sacred;” and concludes, “Therefore the Sabbath was, from the beginning of the world, appointed to the worship of God.” We have already treated of this branch of the subject in vol. i., and need not go farther into it at present. It is proper to state, however, that the leading divines of the Reformation, and the immediately subsequent period, were of one mind regarding the appointment of a primeval Sabbath. The idea, that the Sabbath was first given to the Israelites in the wilderness, and that the words in Genesis 2 only proleptically refer to that future circumstance, is an after-thought, originating in the fond conceit of some Jewish Rabbins, who sought thereby to magnify their nation, and was adopted only by such Christian divines as had already made up their minds on the temporary obligation of the Sabbath. But then it is argued, that whatever may have been the reason for admitting the law of the Sabbath into the ten commandments, and engraving it on the tables of stone, it still is in its own nature different from all the rest. They are moral, and because moral, of universal force and obligation; while this is ceremonial, owing its existence to positive enactment, and therefore binding only so far as the enactment itself might be extended. The duties enjoined in the former are founded in the nature of things, and the essential relations in which men stand to God or to their fellow-men: hence they do not depend on any positive enactment, but are co-extensive in their obligation with reason and conscience. But the law of the Sabbath, prescribing one day in seven to be a day of sacred rest, has its foundation simply in the authoritative appointment of God, and hence, unlike the rest, is not fixed and universal, but special and mutable. There is unquestionably an element of truth in this, but the application made of it in the present instance is unwarranted and fallacious. It is true that the Sabbath is a positive institution, though intimately connected with God’s work in creation; and apart from His high command, it could not have been ascertained by the light of reason, that one entire day should at regular intervals be consecrated for bodily and spiritual rest, and especially that one in seven was the proper period to be fixed upon. In this respect we can easily recognise a distinction between the law of the Sabbath, and the laws which prohibit such crimes as lying, theft, or murder. But it does not therefore follow, that the Sabbath is in such a sense a positive, as to be a merely partial, temporary, ceremonial institution, and, like others of this description, done away in Christ. For a law may be positive in its origin, and yet neither local nor transitory in its destination; it may be positive in its origin, and yet equally needed and designed for all nations and ages of the world. For of what nature, we ask, is the institution of marriage? The seventh commandment bears respect to that institution, and is thrown as a sacred fence around its sanctity. But is not marriage in its origin a positive institution? Has it any other foundation than the original act of God in making one man and one woman, and positively ordaining that the man should cleave to the woman, and the two be one flesh?[250] Wherever this is not recognised, as it is not, in part at least, in Mahommedan and heathen lands, and by certain infidels of the baser sort in Christendom, there also the moral and binding obligation of the ordinance is disowned. But can any humble Christian disown it? Would he not indignantly reject the thought of its being only a temporary ordinance, because standing, as to its immediate origin, in God’s method of creation, and the natural obligations growing out of it? Or does he feel himself warranted to assume, that because, after Christ’s appearing, the marriage-union was treated as an emblem of Christ’s union to the Church, the literal ordinance is thereby changed or impaired? Assuredly not. And why should another course be taken with the Sabbath? This too, in its origin, is a positive institution, and was also, it may be, from the first designed to serve as an emblem of spiritual things—an emblem of the blessed rest which man was called to enjoy in God. But in both respects it stands most nearly on a footing with the ordinance of marriage: both alike owed their institution to the original act and appointment of God; both also took their commencement at the birth of time—in a world unfallen, when, as there was no need for the antitypes of redemption, so no ceremonial types or shadows of these could properly have a place; and both are destined to last till the songs of the redeemed shall have ushered in the glories of a world restored. [250] Genesis 2:23-24. This has a great deal more the look of a proleptical statement than what is written at the beginning of the chapter about the Sabbath, for it speaks of leaving father and mother, while still Adam and Eve alone existed. Yet our Lord regards it as a statement fairly and naturally drawn from the facts of creation, and as applicable to the earlier as to the later periods of the world’s history.—(Matthew 19:4-5) The distinction, we apprehend, is often too broadly drawn, in discussions on this subject, between the positive and the moral; as if the two belonged to entirely different regions, and but incidentally touched upon each other; as if also the strictly moral part of the world’s machinery were in itself so complete and in dependent, that its movements might proceed of themselves, in a course of lofty isolation from all positive enactments and institutions. This was not the case even in paradise, and much less could it be so afterwards. A certain amount of what is positive in appointment, is absolutely necessary to settle the relations in connection with which the moral sentiments are to work and develop themselves. The banks which confine and regulate the current of a river, are not less essential to its existence than the waters that flow within them; for the one mark out and fix the channel which keeps the other in their course. And, in like manner, the moral feelings and affections of our nature must have something outward and positive, determining the kind of landmarks which they are to observe, and the channels through which they are to flow. There may, no doubt, be many things of this nature at different times appointed by God that are variable and temporary, to suit the present condition of His Church and the immediate ends He has in view. But there may also be some coeval with the existence of the world, founded in the very nature and constitution of things, so essential and necessary, that the love which is the fulfilment of all obligation cannot operate stedfastly or beneficially without them. The real question, then, in regard to the Sabbath, is, whether such love can exist in the heart, without disposing it to observe the rest there enjoined? Is not the present constitution of nature such as to render this necessary for securing the purposes which God contemplated in creation? Could mankind, as one great family, properly thrive and prosper even in their lower interests, as we may suppose their beneficent Creator intended, without such a day of rest perpetually coming round to refresh their wearied natures? Could they otherwise command sufficient time, amid the busy cares and occupations of life, to mind the higher interests of themselves and their households? Without such a salutary monitor ever and anon returning, and bringing with it time and opportunity for all to attend to its admonitions, would not the spiritual and eternal be lost sight of amid the seen and temporal? Or, to mount higher still, how, without this ordinance, could any proper and adequate testimony be kept up throughout the world in honour of the God that made it? Must not reason herself own it to be a suitable and becoming homage rendered to His sole and supreme lordship of creation, for men on every returning seventh day to cease from their own works, and take a breathing-time to realize their dependence upon Him, and give a more special application to the things which concern His glory? In short, abolish this wise and blessed institution, and must not love both to God and man be deprived of one of its best safeguards and most appropriate methods of working? Must not God Himself become practically dishonoured and forgotten, and His creature be worn down with deadening and oppressive toil? Experience has but one answer to give to these questions. Hence, where the true religion has been unknown, it has always been found necessary to appoint, by some constituted authority, a certain number of holidays, which have often, even in heathen countries, exceeded, rarely anywhere have fallen short of, the number of God’s instituted Sabbaths. The animal and mental, the bodily and spiritual nature of man, alike demand them. Even Plato deemed the appointment of such days of so benign and gracious a tendency, that he ascribed them to that pity which “the gods have for mankind, born to painful labour, that they might have an ease and cessation from their toils.”[251] And what is this but an experimental testimony to the wisdom and goodness of God’s having ordered His work of creation with a view to the appointment of such an institution in providence? It is manifest, besides, that while men may of themselves provide substitutes to a certain extent for the Sabbath, yet these never can secure more than a portion of the ends for which it has been appointed, nor could anything short of the clear sanction and authority of the living God command for it general respect and attention. The inferior benefits which it carries in its train are not sufficient, as experience has also too amply testified, to maintain its observance, if it loses its hold upon men’s minds in a religious point of view. So that there can scarcely be a plainer departure from the duty of love we owe alike to God and man, than to attempt to weaken the foundations of such an ordinance, or to encourage its habitual neglect. [251] De Leg., ii., p. 787. If the broad and general view of the subject which has now been given were fairly entertained, the other and minuter objections which are commonly urged in support of the strictly Jewish character of the Sabbatical institution would be easily disposed of. Even taken apart, there is none of them which, if due account is made of special circumstances, may not be satisfactorily removed. 1. No notice is taken of the institution during the antediluvian and earlier patriarchal periods of sacred history; the profanation of it is not mentioned among the crimes for which the flood was sent, or fire and brimstone rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah; it never rises distinctly into view as a Divine institution till the time of Moses; whence it is inferred, it only then took its commencement. But how many duties of undoubtedly perpetual and universal obligation might be cut off on similar grounds? And how few comparatively of the sins which we may infer with the utmost certainty to have been practised, are noticed in those brief records of the world’s history! It is rather, as we might have expected, the general principles that were acted upon; or, in regard to heinous transgressors, the more flagrant misdeeds into which their extreme depravity ran out, that find a place in the earliest portions of sacred history. Besides, even in the later and fuller accounts, it is usual, through very long periods of time, to omit any reference to institutions which were known to have had a settled existence. There is no notice, for example, of circumcision from the time of Joshua to the Babylonish exile; but how fallacious would be the conclusion from such silence, that the rite itself was not observed! Even the Sabbath, notwithstanding the prominent place it holds in the decalogue and the institutions of Moses, is never mentioned again till the days of Elisha (nearly seven hundred years later), when we meet with an incidental and passing allusion to it.—(2 Kings 4:23) Need we wonder then, that in such peculiarly brief compends of history as are given of antediluvian and patriarchal times, there should be a similar silence? And yet it can by no means be affirmed that they are without manifest indications of the existence of a seventh day of sacred rest. The record of its appointment at the close of the creation period, as we have already noticed, is of the most explicit kind, and is afterwards confirmed by the not less explicit reference in the fourth commandment, of its origin and commencement to the same period. Nor can any reason be assigned one-half so natural and probable as this, for the sacredness attached from the earliest times to the number seven, and for the division of time into weeks of seven days, which meets us in the history of Noah and the later patriarchal times, and of which also very early traces occur in profane history.[252] Then, finally, the manner in which it first presents itself on the field of Israelitish history, as an existing ordinance which God Himself respected, in the giving of the manna, before the law had been promulgated (Exodus 16), is a clear proof of its prior institution. True, indeed, the Israelites themselves seem then to have been in a great measure ignorant of such an institution; not perhaps altogether ignorant, as is too commonly taken for granted, but ignorant of its proper observance, so far as to wonder that God should have bestowed a double provision on the sixth day, to relieve them from any labour in gathering and preparing it on the seventh. Habituated as they had become to the manners, and bowed down by the oppression, of Egypt, it had been strange indeed if any other result should have occurred. Hence it is mentioned by Moses and by Nehemiah, as a distinguishing token of the Lord’s goodness to them, that in consequence of bringing them out of Egypt, He made them to know or gave them His Sabbaths.—(Exodus 16:29; Deuteronomy 5:15; Nehemiah 9:14) [252] Genesis 8:10; Genesis 8:12; Genesis 29:27. A large portion of the Jewish writers hold that the Sabbath was instituted at the creation, and was observed by the patriarchs, although some thought differently. References to various of their more eminent writers are given in Meyer, De Temporibus Sacris et Festis Diebus Hebraeorum, P. ii., c. 9. Selden (De Jure Nat. et Gent., L. iii. 12) has endeavoured to prove that the elder Jewish writers all held the first institution of the Sabbath to have been in the wilderness, though by special revelation made known previously to Abraham, and that the notice taken of the subject at the creation is by prolepsis. This, however, does not appear to have been the general opinion among them certainly not that of some of their leading writers; and, as Meyer remarks, it by no means follows from their having sometimes held the proleptical reference in Genesis to the institution of the Sabbath in the wilderness, that they therefore denied its prior institution in paradise. See also Owen’s Preliminary Dissertations to his Com. on Heb. Exodus 36; where, further, the notices are gathered which are to be found in ancient heathen sources regarding the primitive division of time into sevens, and the sacredness of the seventh day. As to the ancient nations of the world not observing it, or not being specially charged with neglecting it, the same may be said in reference to the third commandment, the fifth, many of the sins of the seventh, eighth, and ninth. Besides, when they forsook God Himself, of how little importance was it how they spent His Sabbaths? 2. But the institution of the Sabbath was declared to be a sign between God and the Israelites, that they might know that He was the Lord who sanctified them.—(Exodus 31:13) And if a sign or token of God’s covenant with Israel, then it must have been a new and positive institution, and one which they alone were bound to observe, since it must separate between them and others. So Warburton,[253] and many besides. We say nothing against its having been, as to its formal institution, of a positive nature; for there, we think, many defenders of the Sabbath have lost themselves.[254] But its being constituted a sign between God and Israel, neither inferred its entire novelty, nor its special and exclusive obligation upon them. Warburton himself has contended, that the bow in the cloud was not rendered less fit for being a sign of the covenant with Noah, that it had existed in the antediluvian period. And still less might the Sabbath’s being a primeval institution have rendered it unfit to stand as a sign of the Israelitish covenant, as this had respect not so much to its appointment on the part of God, as to its observance on the part of the people. He wished them simply to regard it as one of the chosen means by which He intended them to become, not only a comfortable and blessed, but also an holy nation. Nor could its being destined for such an use among them, in the least interfere with its obligation or its observance among others. Circumcision was thus also made the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, although it had been observed from time immemorial by various surrounding tribes and nations, from whom still the members of the covenant were to keep themselves separate. For it was not the merely external rite or custom which God regarded, but its spiritual meaning and design. When connected with His covenant, or embodied in His law, it was stamped as a religious institution; it acquired a strictly religious use; and only in so far as it was observed with a reference to this, could it fitly serve as a sign of God’s covenant. [253] Divine Leg., B. iv., Note R. R. R. R. [254] It has been called a moral-positive command, partly moral and partly positive; in itself a positive enactment, but with moral grounds to recommend or enforce it. See, for example, Ridgeley’s Body of Divinity, ii., p. 267, who expressess the view of almost all evangelical divines of the same period in this country. The distinction, however, is not happy, as the same substantially may be said of all the ceremonial institutions. Moral reasons were connected with them all, and yet they are abolished. Indeed, a conclusion exactly the reverse of the one just referred to, should rather be drawn from the circumstance of the Sabbath having been taken for a sign that God sanctified Israel. There can be no question that holiness in heart and conduct was the grand sign of their being His chosen people. In so far as they fulfilled the exhortation, “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” they possessed the mark of His children. And the proper observance of the Sabbatical rest being so specially designated a sign in this respect, was a proof of its singular importance to the interests of religion and morality. These, it was virtually said, would thrive and flourish if the Sabbath was duly observed, but would languish and die if it fell into desuetude. Hence, at the close of a long expostulation with the people regarding their sins, and such especially as indicated only a hypocritical love to God, and a palpable hatred or indifference to their fellow-men, the prophet Isaiah presses the due observance of the Sabbath as in itself a sufficient remedy for the evil: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”—(Isaiah 58:13-14) This passage may fitly be regarded as an explanation of the sense in which the Lord meant them to regard the Sabbath as a sign between them and Him. And it is clear, on a moment’s reflection, that the prophet could never have attached the importance he did to the Sabbath, nor so peculiarly connected it with the blessing of the covenant, if the mere outward rest had been all that the institution contemplated. This is what the objectors we now argue with seem uniformly to take for granted; as if the people were really sanctified when they simply rested every Sabbath-day from their labours. The command had a far deeper import, and much more was involved in such a compliance with it, as should prove a sign between them and God. It was designed at once to carry the heart up in holy affection to its Creator, and outwards in acts of good-will and kindness to men on earth. Hence its proper observance is so often put, both in the law and the prophets, for the sum of religion. This is frankly admitted by some who urge the objection (for example, Barrow), while they still hold it to have been a ceremonial institution. But we would ask, if any other ceremonial institution can be pointed to as having been thus honoured? Are they not often rather comparatively dishonoured, by being placed in a relation of inferiority to the weightier matters of the law? And we might also ask, if precisely the same practical value is not attached to the strict religious observance of the Lord’s day now, by all writers of piety, and even by those who, with strange perversion or inconsistency, labour to establish the freedom of Christians from the obligation of the Sabbath? It is one of the burdens, says Barrow, which the law of liberty has taken off from us; and yet he has no sooner said it, than he tells us, in regard to the very highest and most spiritual duties of this law, that we are much more obliged to discharge them than the Jews could be.[255] Paley, too, presently after he has endeavoured to relax the binding obligation of the Sabbath, proceeds to show the necessity of dedicating the Sunday to religious exercises, to the exclusion of all ordinary works and recreations; and still more expressly in his first sermon, written at a more advanced stage of life, when he knew more personally of the power of religion, he speaks of “keeping holy the Lord’s day regularly and most particularly,” as an essential mark of a Christian.[256] The leading Reformers were unanimous on this point, holding it to be the duty of all sound Christians to use the Lord’s day as one of holy rest to Him, and that by withdrawing themselves not only from sin and vanity, but also from those worldly employments and recreations which belong only to a present life, and by yielding themselves wholly to the public exercises of God’s worship, and to the private duties of devotion, excepting only in cases of necessity or mercy. The learned Rivet, also, who unhappily argued (in his work on the decalogue) against the obligation of keeping the Sabbath as imposed in the fourth commandment, yet deplored the prevailing disregard of the Lord’s day as one of the crying evils of the times; and Vitringa raised the same lamentation in his day (on Isaiah 58:13). [255] Works, v., p. 565, 568. [256] Moral and Polit. Philosophy, B. v., c. 7 and 8, comp. with 1st of the Sermons on several subjects. What, then, should induce such men to contend against the strict and literal obligation of the fourth command? They must be influenced by one of two reasons: either they dislike the spirit of holiness that breathes in it, or, relishing this, they somehow mistake the real nature of the obligation there imposed. There can be no doubt that the former is the cause which prompts those who are mere formalists in religion to decry this obligation; and as little doubt, we think, in regard to the Reformers and pious divines of later times, that the latter consideration was what influenced them. This we shall find occasion to explain under the next form of objection. 3. It is objected that the Sabbath, as imposed on the Jews, had a rigour and severity in it quite incompatible with the genius of the Gospel: the person who violated its sacredness, by doing ordinary work on that day, was to be punished with death; and so far was the cessation from work carried, that even the kind ling of a fire or going out of one’s place was interdicted.—(Exodus 16:29; Exodus 35:3) It looks as if men were determined to get rid of the Sabbath by any means, when the capital punishment inflicted on the violators of it in the Jewish state is held up as a proof of its transitory and merely national character. For there is nothing of this in the fourth commandment itself; and it was afterwards added to this, in common with many other statutes, as a check on the presumptuous violation of what God wished them to regard as the fundamental laws of the kingdom. A similar violation of the first, the second, the third, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh commandments, had the same punishment annexed to it; but who would thence argue, that the obligation to practise the duties they required, was binding only during the Old Testament dispensation? The other part of the objection demands a longer answer; in which we must first distinctly mark what is the exact point to be determined. The real question is, Did the fourth commandment oblige the Jews to anything which the people of God are under no obligation now to perform? Did it simply enjoin a rigid cessation from all ordinary labour, every seventh day, and did such cessation constitute the kind of sanctification it required? Such unquestionably was the opinion entertained by Calvin and most of the Reformers; who consequently held the Sabbath exacted of the Israelites under this precept to be chiefly of a ceremonial nature, foreshadowing through its outward repose the state of peaceful and blessed rest which believers were to enjoy in Christ, and like other shadows, vanishing when He appeared. There is certainly a measure of truth in this idea, as we shall have occasion to notice under the next objection, but not in the sense understood by such persons. Their opinion of what the Jewish Sabbath should have been, almost entirely coincided with what it actually was, after a cold and dead formalism had taken the place of a living piety. But so far from being justified by the law itself, it is the very notion which our Lord sought repeatedly to expose, by showing the practical impossibility of carrying it out under the former dispensation itself. Parents performed on the Sabbath the operation of circumcising their children; priests did the work connected with the temple service; persons of all sorts went through the labours necessary to preserve or sustain life in themselves or their cattle; and yet they were blameless—the command stood unimpaired, notwithstanding the performance of such works on the seventh day, for they were not inconsistent with its real design. In regard to all such cases, Christ announced the maxim, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,”—meaning, of course, the Sabbath in its original purport and existing obligation not under any change or modification now to be introduced; for had there been any intention of that sort, it would manifestly have been out of place then to speak of it but the Sabbath as imposed in the fourth commandment upon the Israelites: this Sabbath was made for man, as a means to promote his real interests and well-being, and not as a remorseless idol, to which these were to be sacrificed. “To work in the way of doing good to a fellow-creature (such was the import of Christ’s declaration), or entering into the employments of God’s worship, is not now, nor ever was, any interference with the proper duties of the Sabbath, but rather a fulfilment of them. Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath, He who is Lord of man must needs also be Lord of that which was made for man’s good—but its Lord, not to turn it to any other purpose than that for which it was originally given—no, merely to use it Myself, and teach you how to use it for the same. You do therefore grievously err in supposing it possible for Me to do anything inconsistent with the design of this institution; for though, as the Father worketh hitherto, I also must work on this day (John 5:17), so far as the ends of the Divine government may require, yet nothing is or can be done by Me, which is not in the strictest sense a Divine work, and as such suitable to the day of God.”[257] [257] No texts have been more perverted from their obvious meaning, by the opponents of the Sabbath, than those referred to in Mark 2:27-28, about the Son of Man being Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath being made for man, as if the Lord had been there bringing in something new, instead of explaining what was old. The latter is also held “as manifestly implying that the observance of the Sabbath was not a duty of an essential and unchangeable nature, such as those for which man is especially constituted and ordained.”—(Bib. Cyclop., Art. Sabbath) But the same may be said of marriage—it was made for man, and not man for it; and seeing, if there be no marriage, there can be no adultery, is therefore the seventh command only of temporary obligation? Or, since where there is no property there can be no theft, and man was not made for property, is the eighth command also out of date? The main point is, Were they not all alike coeval with man’s introduction into his present state, and needful to abide with him till its close? It is to wrest our Lord’s words quite beside the purpose for which they were spoken, to represent Him in those declarations He made respecting the Sabbath, as intending to relax the existing law, and bring in some new modification of it. His discourse was clearly aimed at convincing the Jews that this law did not, as they erroneously conceived, absolutely prohibit all work, but work only in so far as the higher ends of God’s glory and man’s best interests might render needful. Precisely as in the second commandment, the prohibition regarding the making of any graven image or similitude was not intended simply to denounce all pictures and statues—both, in fact, had a place in the temple itself but to interdict their employment in the worship of God, so that His worshippers might be free to serve Him in spirit and in truth. And as men might have abstained from using these, while still far from yielding the spiritual worship which the second command really required, so they might equally have ceased from ordinary labour on the seventh day, and yet been far from sanctifying it according to the fourth commandment. This was distinctly enough perceived by some of the more thinking portion of the Jews themselves. Hence, not only does Philo speak of “the custom of philosophizing,” as he calls it, on the seventh day, but we find Abenezra expressly stating, that “the Sabbath was given to man, that he might consider the works of God, and meditate in His law.” To the same effect Abarbanel: “The seventh day has been sequestered for learning the Divine law, and for remembering well the explanations and inquiries regarding it. As is taught in Gemara Hierosol.: ‘Sabbaths and holidays were only appointed for meditating on the law of God; and therefore it is said, in Medrash Schamoth Rabba, that the Sabbath is to be prized as the whole law.’” Another of their leading authorities, R. Menasse Ben Isr., even characterizes it as “a notable error to imagine the Sabbath to have been instituted for idleness; for as idleness is the mother of all vice, it would then have been the occasion of more evil than good.”[258] [258] See Meyer de Temp. Sacris et Festis diebus Hub., p. 197-199, where the authorities are given at length. These comments, wonderfully good to come from such a quarter, are in perfect accordance with the import of the fourth commandment; that is, if this commandment is to be subjected to the same mode of interpretation which is made to rule the meaning of the rest—if it is to be regarded simply as prohibiting one kind of works, that those of an opposite kind may be performed. Yet, in strange oversight of this, perhaps also unwittingly influenced by the mistaken views and absurd practices of the Jews, such men even as Calvin and Vitringa held, that in the Jewish law of the Sabbath there was only inculcated a cessation from bodily labour, and that the observance of this cessation formed the substance of Sabbatical duty.[259] Their holding this, however, did not, we must remember, lead them to deny the fact of God’s having set apart, and men’s being in all ages bound to observe, one day in every seven to be specially devoted to the worship and service of God. This with one voice they held: but they conceived the primeval and lasting institution of the Sabbath to have been so far accommodated to the ceremonial character of the Jewish religion, as to demand almost nothing from the Jews but a day of bodily rest. And this rest they farther conceived to have been required, not as valuable in itself, but as the legal shadow of better things to come in Christ: so that they might at once affirm the Jewish Sabbath to be abolished, and yet hold the obligation binding upon Christians to keep, by another mode of observance, one day in seven sacred to the Lord. This is simply what they did. And therefore Gualter, in his summary of the views of the divines of the Reformation upon this subject, has brought distinctly out these two features in their opinions—what they parted with, and what they retained: “The Sabbath properly signifies rest and leisure from servile work, and at the same time is used to denote the seventh day, which God at the beginning of the world consecrated to holy rest, and afterwards in the law confirmed by a special precept. And although the primitive Church abrogated the Sabbath, in so far as it was a legal shadow, lest it should savour of Judaism; yet it did not abolish that sacred rest and repose, but transferred the keeping of it to the following day, which was called the Lord’s day, because on it Christ rose from the dead. The use of this day, therefore, is the same with what the Sabbath formerly was among the true worshippers of God.” Only, the particular way, or kind of service, in which it is now to be turned to this sacred use, is different from what it was in Judaism; and he goes on to describe how the Reformers thought the day should be spent, viz., in a total withdrawing from worldly cares and pleasures, as far as practicable, and employing the time in the public and private exercises of worship.[260] [259] Calvin, Inst., ii., c. 8. Vitringa Synagog. vet., ii., c. 2, and Com. in Isa., c. 56. [260] I have entered so fully into the views of the Reformers, because their sentiments on this subject are almost universally misunderstood, even by theologians, and their names have often been and still are abused, to support views which they would themselves have most strongly reprobated. The ground of the whole error lay in their not rightly understanding—what, indeed, is only now coming to be properly understood—the symbolical character of the Jewish worship. They viewed it too exclusively in a typical aspect, in its reference to Gospel things, and saw but very dimly and imperfectly its design and fitness to give a present expression to the faith and holiness of the worshipper. Hence, positive institutions were considered as altogether the same with ceremonial, and the services connected with them as all of necessity bodily, typical, shadowy—therefore done away in Christ. In this way superficial readers, who glance only at occasional passages in their writings, and do not take these in connection with the whole state of theological opinion then prevalent regarding the Old and New dispensations, find no difficulty in exhibiting the Reformers as against all Sabbatical observances; while, if it suited their purpose to look a little farther, another set of passages might be found which seem to establish the very reverse. Archbishop Whately says (Second Series of Essays, p. 206) that the English Reformers were almost unanimous in disconnecting the obligation regarding the keeping of the Lord’s day among Christians from the fourth commandment, and resting it simply on the practice of the apostles and the early Church—thus making the Christian Lord’s day an essentially different institution from the Jewish Sabbath. We don’t need to investigate the subject separately as it affects them; for their opinions, as the Archbishop indeed asserts, agreed with those of the Continental Reformers. But we affirm that the Reformers, as a body, did hold the Divine authority and binding obligation of the fourth command, as requiring one day in seven to be employed in the worship and service of God, admitting only of works of necessity and of mercy to the-poor and afflicted. The release from legal bondage, of which they speak, included simply the obligation to keep precisely the seventh day of the week, and the external rest, which they conceived to be so rigorously binding on the Jews, that even the doing of charitable works was a breach of it the very mistake of the Pharisees. In its results, however, the doctrinal error regarding the fourth commandment has been very disastrous even in England, but still more so on the Continent. However strict the Reformers were personally, as to the practical observance of the Lord’s day—so strict, especially in Geneva, that they were charged by some with Judaizing the separation they made here between the law and the Gospel soon wrought most injuriously upon the life of religion; and the saying of Owen was lamentably verified: “Take this day off from the basis whereon God hath fixed it, and all human substitutions of anything in the like kind will quickly discover their own vanity.” See Appendix A. It presents no real contrariety to the interpretation we have given of the fourth commandment, as affecting the Jews, that Moses on one occasion enjoined the people not to go out of their place or tents on the Sabbath-day. For that manifestly had respect to the gathering of manna, and was simply a prohibition against their going out, as on other days, to obtain food. Neither is the order against kindling a fire on the Sabbath any argument for an opposite view; for it was not less evidently a temporary appointment, suitable to their condition in a wilderness of burning sand—necessary there, perhaps, to ensure even a decent conformity to the rest of the Sabbath, but palpably unsuitable to the general condition of the people, when settled in a land which is subject to great vicissitudes, and much diversity as to heat and cold. It was, in fact, plainly impracticable as a national regulation; and was not considered by the people at large binding on them in their settled state, as may be inferred from Josephus noticing it as a peculiarity of the Essenes, that they would not kindle a fire on the Sabbath.—(Wars, ii., c. § 8, 9) Indeed, it is no part of the fourth commandment, fairly interpreted, to prohibit ordinary labour, excepting in so far as it tends to interfere with the proper sanctification of the time to God; and this in most cases would rather be promoted than hindered by the kindling of a fire for purposes of comfort and refreshment. So we judge, for example, in regard to the sixth commandment, which, being intended to guard and protect the sacredness of man’s life, does not absolutely prevent all manner of killing, nay, may sometimes rather be said to require this, that life may be preserved. In like manner, it was not work in the abstract that was forbidden in the fourth commandment, but work only in so far as it interfered with the sanctified use of the day, as was already indicated in the Sabbath of the Passover, which, while prohibiting ordinary work from being done, expressly excepted what was necessary for the preparation of food.—(Exodus 7:16) And the endless restrictions and limitations of the Jews, in our Lord’s time and since, about the Sabbath-day’s journey, and the particular acts that were or were not lawful on that day, are only to be regarded as the wretched puerilities of men in whose hands the spirit of the precept had already evaporated, and for whom nothing more remained than to dispute about the bounds and lineaments of its dead body. 4. But then there is an express abolition of Sabbath-days in the Gospel, as the mere shadows of higher realities; and the Apostle expressly discharges believers from judging one another regarding their observance, and even mourns over the Galatians, as bringing their Christian condition into doubt by observing days and months and years. We shall not waste time by considering the unsatisfactory attempts which have frequently been made to account for such statements, by many who hold the still abiding obligation of the fourth commandment. But supposing this commandment simply to require, as we have endeavoured to show it does, the withdrawal of men’s minds from worldly cares and occupations, that they might be free to give themselves to the spiritual service of God, is it conceivable, from all we know of the Apostle’s feelings, that he would have warned the disciples against such a practice as a dangerous snare to their souls, or raised a note of lamentation over those who had adopted it, as if all were nearly gone with them? Is there a single unbiassed reader of his epistles, who would not rather have expected him to rejoice in the thought of such a practical ascendancy being won for spiritual and eternal things over the temporal and earthly? It is the less possible for any one to doubt this, when it is so manifest from his history, that he did make a distinction of days in this sense, by everywhere establishing the practice of religious meetings on the first day of the week, and exhorting the disciples to observe them aright. When he, therefore, writes against the observing of days, it must plainly be something of a different kind he has in view. And what could that be but the lazy, corporeal, outward observance of them, which the Jews had now come to regard as composing much of the very substance of religion, and by which they largely fed their self-righteous pride? Sabbath-days in this sense it is certainly no part of the Gospel to enforce; but neither was it any part of the law to do so: Moses, had he been alive, would have denounced them, as well as the ambassador of Christ. But this, it may perhaps be thought, scarcely reaches the point at issue; for the Apostle discharges Christians from the observance of Sabbath-days, not in a false and improper sense, but in that very sense in which they were shadows of good things to come, placing them on a footing in this respect with distinctions of meat and drink. It is needless to say here, that certain feast-days of the Jews, being withdrawn from a common to a sacred use, were called Sabbaths, and that the Apostle alludes exclusively to these.[261] There can be no doubt, indeed, that they were so called, and are also included here; but not to the exclusion of the seventh-day Sabbath, which, from the very nature of the case, was the one most likely to be thought of by the Colossians. Unless it had been expressly excepted, we must in fairness suppose it to have been at least equally intended with the others. But the truth is simply this: what the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath was not necessarily, or in itself, it came to acquire in the general apprehension, from the connection it had so long held with the symbolical services of Judaism. In its original institution there was nothing in it properly shadowy or typical of redemption; for it commenced before sin had entered, and while yet there was no need for a Redeemer. Nor was there anything properly typical in the observance of it imposed in the fourth commandment; for this was a substantial re-enforcement of the primary institution, only with a reference in the letter of the precept to the circumstances of Israel, as the destined possessors of Canaan. But, becoming then associated with a symbolical religion, in which spiritual and divine things were constantly represented and taught by means of outward and bodily transactions, the bodily rest enjoined in it came to partake of the common typical character of all their symbolical services. The same thing happened here as with circumcision, which was the sign and seal of the Abrahamic covenant of grace, and had no immediate connection with the law of Moses; while yet it became so identified with this law, that it required to be supplanted by another ordinance of nearly similar import, when the seed of blessing arrived, which the Abrahamic covenant chiefly respected. So great was the necessity for the abolition of the one ordinance and the introduction of the other, that the Apostle virtually declares it to have been indispensable, when he affirms those who would still be circumcised to be debtors to do the whole law. At the same time, the original design and spiritual import of circumcision he testifies to have been one and the same with baptism—speaks of baptized believers, indeed, as the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:11)—and consequently, apart from the peculiar circumstances arising out of the general character of the Jewish religion, the one ordinance might have served the purpose contemplated as well as the other. [261] This is Haldane’s explanation in his Appendix to his Com. on Romans, as it had also been Ridgeley’s and others in former times. But if that explanation were right—if the Apostle really intended to except what the world at large pre-eminently understood by Sabbath-days—it would be impossible to acquit him of using language almost sure to be misunderstood. So with the Sabbath. Having been engrafted into a religion so peculiarly symbolical as the Mosaic, it was unavoidable that the bodily rest enjoined in it should acquire, like all the other outward things belonging to the religion, a symbolical and typical value. For that rest, though by no means the whole duty required, was yet the substratum and groundwork of the whole; the heart, when properly imbued with the religious spirit, feeling in this very rest a call to go forth and employ itself on God. To aid it in doing so, suitable exercises of various kinds would doubtless be commonly resorted to;[262] but not as a matter of distinct obligation, rather as a supplementary help to that quiet rest in God, and imitation of His doings, to which the day itself invited. This end is the same also which the Gospel has in view, but which it seeks to accomplish by means of more active services and direct instruction. The end under both dispensations was substantially the same, with a characteristic difference as to the manner of attaining it, corresponding to the genius of the respective dispensations—the one making more of the outward, the other addressing itself directly to the inward man; the one also having more of a natural, the other more of a spiritual, redemptive basis. Hence the mere outward bodily rest of the Sabbath came, by a kind of unavoidable necessity, to acquire of itself a sacred character, although ultimately carried to an improper and unjustifiable excess by the carnality of the Jewish mind. And hence, too, when another state of things was introduced, it became necessary to assign to such Sabbaths the Jewish seventh day of rest a place among the things that were done away, and so far to change the ordinance itself as to transfer it to a different day, and even call it by a new name. But as baptism in the Spirit is Christ’s circumcision, so the Lord’s day is His Sabbath; and to be in the Spirit on that day, worshipping and serving Him in the truth of His Gospel, is to take up the yoke of the fourth commandment. [262] 2 Kings 4:23, where the Shunammite woman’s husband expressed his wonder that she should go to the prophet when it was neither new moon nor Sabbath, implies that it was customary to meet for social exercises on these days. 5. This touches on, and partly answers, another objection—the only one of any moment that still remains to be adverted to—that derived from the change of day, from the last to the first day of the week. This was necessary, not merely, as Horsely states,[263] to distinguish Christian from Jew, but also to distinguish Sabbath from Sabbath a Sabbath growing up amid symbolical institutions, which insensibly imparted to it a spirit of outward ritualism, and a Sabbath not less marked, indeed, by a withdrawal from the cares and occupations of worldly business, but much more distinguished by spiritual employment and active energy, both in doing and receiving good. Such a change in its character was clearly indicated by our Lord in those miracles of healing which He purposely performed on the Sabbath, that His followers might now see their calling, to use the opportunities presented to them on the day of bodily rest, to minister to the temporal or the spiritual necessities of those around them. And in fitting correspondence with this, the day chosen for the Christian Sabbath was the first day of the week—the day on which Christ rose from the dead, that He might enter into the rest of God, after having finished the glorious work of redemption. But that rest, how to be employed? Not in vacant repose, but in an incessant, holy activity, in directing the affairs of His mediatorial kingdom, and diffusing the inestimable blessings He had purchased for men. A new era then dawned upon the world, which was to give an impulse hitherto unknown to all the springs of benevolent and holy working; and it was meet that this should communicate its impress to the day through which the Gospel was specially to develop its peculiar genius and proper tendency. But pre-eminent as this Gospel stands above all earlier revelations of God, for the ascendancy it gives to the unseen and eternal over the seen and temporal, it would surely be a palpable contrariety to the whole spirit it breathes, and the ends it has in view, if now, on the Lord’s day, the things of the world were to have more, and the things of God less, of men’s regard than formerly on the Jewish Sabbath. Least of all could any change have been intended in this direction; and the only variation in the manner of its observance, which the Gospel itself warrants us to think of, is the greater amount of spiritual activity to be put forth on it, flowing out in suitable exercises of love to God, and acts of kindness and blessing towards our fellow-men. [263] Works, vol. i., p. 356. The greater part of his three Sermons is excellent, though he does not altogether avoid, we think, some of the misapprehensions referred to above. What though the Gospel does not expressly enact this change of day, and in so many words enjoin the disciples to hallow the ordinance after the manner now described? It affords ample materials to all for discovering the mind of God in this respect, who are really anxious to learn it; and what more is done in regard to the ordinances of worship generally, or to anything in God’s service connected with external arrangements? It is the characteristic of the Gospel to unfold great truths and principles, and only briefly to indicate the proper manner of their development and exercise in the world. But can any one in reality have imbibed these, without cordially embracing, and to the utmost of his power improving, the advantages of such a wise and beneficent institution? Or does the Christian world now not need its help, as much as the Jewish did of old? Even Tholuck, though he still does not see how to give the Christian Sabbath the right hold upon the conscience, yet deplores the prevailing neglect of it as destructive to the life of piety, and proclaims the necessity of a stricter observance. “Spirit, spirit! we cry out: but should the prophets of God come again, as they came of old, and should they look upon our works—Flesh, flesh! they would cry out in response. Of a truth, the most spiritual among us cannot dispense with a rule, a prescribed form, in his morality and piety, without allowing the flesh to resume its predominance. The sway of the Spirit of God in your minds is weak; carry, then, holy ordinances into your life.”[264] [264] Sermons, Bib. Cab., vol. xxviii., p. 13. The absolute necessity of a strict observance of the Lord’s day to the life of religion, is well noted in a comparison between Scotland and Germany, by a shrewd and intelligent observer—Mr Laing, in his Notes on the Pilgrimage to Treves, ch. x. He does not profess to state the theological view of the subject, and even admits there may be some truth in what is sometimes pleaded for a looser observance of the day, especially in regard to those situated in large towns; but still holds the necessity of a well-spent Sabbath to produce and maintain a due sense of religion, and attributes the low state of religion in Germany very much to their neglect of the Sabbath. He justly says, the strict observance of Sunday “is the application of principle to practice by a whole people; it is the working of their religious sense and knowledge upon their habits; it is the sacrifice of pleasures, in themselves innocent and these are the most difficult to be sacrificed—to a higher principle than self-indulgence. Such a population stands on a much higher moral and intellectual stop than the population of the Continent,” etc. It is not unimportant to state farther, in regard to the change of day from the last to the first day of the week, that while strong reasons existed for it in the mighty change that had been introduced by the perfected redemption of Christ, no special stress appears, even in the Old Testament Scripture, to have been laid on the precise day. Manifestly the succession of six days of worldly occupation, and one of sacred rest, is the point chiefly contemplated there. So little depended upon the exact day, that on the occasion of renewing the Sabbatical institution in the wilderness, the Lord seems to have made the weekly series run from the first giving of the manna. His example, therefore, in the work of creation, was intended merely to fix the relative proportion between the days of ordinary labour and those of sacred rest—and with that view is appealed to in the law. Nay, even there the correspondence is closer than is generally considered between the Old and the New; for while the original Sabbath was the seventh day in regard to God’s work of creation, it was man’s first. He began his course of weekly service upon earth by holding Sabbath with his Creator; much as the Church was called to begin her service to Christ on His finishing the work of the new creation. Nor, since redemption is to man a still more important work than creation, can it seem otherwise than befitting to a sanctified mind, that some slight alteration should have taken place in the relative position of the days, as might serve for a perpetual memorial that this work also was now finished. By the resurrection of Christ, as the Apostle shows, in 1 Corinthians 15:20, sq., a far higher dignity has been won for humanity than was given to it by the creation of Adam; and one hence feels, as Sartorius has remarked (Cultus, p. 154), that it would be alike unnatural and untrue, if the Church now should keep the creation-Sabbath of the Old, and not the resurrection-Sabbath of the New—if she should honour, as her holy-day, that day on which Christ was buried, and not rather the one on which He rose again from the dead. It was on the eve of the resurrection-day that He appeared to the company of the disciples, announced to them the completion of His work, gave them His peace, and authorized and commissioned them to preach salvation and dispense forgiveness to all nations in His name.—(Luke 24) So that, if Adam’s Sabbath was great by the Divine blessing and sanctification, Christ’s Sabbath was still greater through the Divine blessing of peace, grace, and salvation, which He sheds forth upon a lost world, in order to reestablish the Divine image in men’s souls, in a higher even than its original form, and bring in a better paradise than that which has been lost. In conclusion, we deem the law of the Sabbath, as interpreted in this section, to have been fully entitled to a place in the standing revelation of God’s will concerning man’s duty, and to have formed no exception to the perfection and completeness of the law:— (1.) Because, first, there is in such an institution, when properly observed, a sublime act of holiness. The whole rational creation standing still, as it were, on every seventh day as it returns, and looking up to its God—what could more strikingly proclaim in all men’s ears, that they have a common Lord and Master in heaven! It reminds the rich that what they have is not properly their own that they hold all of a Superior—a Superior who demands that on this day the meanest slave shall be as his master—nay, that the very beast of the field shall be released from its yoke of service, and stand free to its Creator. No wonder that proud man, who loves to do what he will with his own, and that the busy world, which is bent on prosecuting with restless activity the concerns of time, would fain break asunder the bands of this holy institution; for it speaks aloud of the overruling dominion and rightful supremacy of God, which they would willingly cast behind their backs. But the heart that is really imbued with the principles of the Gospel, how can it fail to call such a day the holy of the Lord, and honourable? Loving God, it cannot but love what gives it the opportunity of holding undisturbed communion with Him. (2.) Secondly, because it is an institution of mercy. In perfect harmony with the Gospel, it breathes good-will and kindness to men. It brings, as Coleridge well expressed it, fifty-two spring-days every year to this toilsome world; and may justly be regarded as a sweet remnant of paradise, mitigating the now inevitable burdens of life, and connecting the region of bliss that has been lost with the still brighter glory that is to come. As in the former aspect there is love to God, so here there is love to man. (3.) Lastly, we uphold its title to a place in the permanent revelation of God’s will to man, because of its eminent use and absolute necessity to promote men’s higher interests. Religion cannot properly exist without it, and is always found to thrive as the spiritual duties of the day of God are attended to and discharged. It is, when duly improved, the parent and the guardian of every virtue. In this practical aspect of it, all men of serious piety substantially concur; and as a specimen of thousands which might be produced, we conclude with simply giving the impressive testimony of Owen: “For my part, I must not only say, but plead, whilst I live in this world, and leave this testimony to the present and future ages, that if ever I have seen anything of the ways and worship of God, wherein the power of religion or godliness hath been expressed—anything that hath represented the holiness of the Gospel and the Author of it—anything that looked like a prelude to the everlasting Sabbath and rest with God, which we aim, through grace, to come unto,—it hath been there, and with them, where, and among whom, the Lord’s day hath been held in highest esteem, and a strict observation of it attended to, as an ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ. The remembrance of their ministry, their walk and conversation, their faith and love, who in this nation have most zealously pleaded for, and have been in their persons, families, parishes or churches, the most strict observers of this day, will be precious to them that fear the Lord, whilst the sun and moon endure. Let these things be despised by those who are otherwise minded; to me they are of great weight and importance.”—(On Heb., vol. i., 726, Tegg’s ed.) Section Fourth.—What The Law Could Not Do—The Covenant Standing And Privileges Of Israel Before It Was Given. HAVING now considered what the law, properly so called, was in itself, we proceed to inquire into the ends and purposes for which it was given, and the precise place which it was designed to hold in the ancient economy. Any misapprehension entertained, or even any obscurity allowed to hang upon these points, would, it is plain, materially affect the result of our future investigations. And there is the more need to be careful and discriminating in our inquiries here, as, from the general and deep-rooted carnality of the Jewish people, the effect which the law actually produced upon the character of their religion was, to a considerable extent, different from what it ought to have been. This error on their part has also mainly contributed to the first rise and still continued existence of some mistaken views regarding the law among many Christian divines. There can be no doubt that the law held relatively a different place under the Old dispensation from what it does under the New. The most superficial acquaintance with the statements of New Testament Scripture on the subject, is enough to satisfy us of this. “The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” There is, however, one point—the first that properly meets us in this department of our subject in regard to which both dispensations are entirely on a footing. This point has respect to the condition of those to whom the law was given, and which, being already possessed, the law could not possibly have been intended to bring. So that an inquiry into the nature of that condition, of necessity carries along with it the consideration of what the law could not do. Now, as the historical element is here of importance, when was it, we ask, that this revelation of law was given to Israel? Somewhere, we are told, about the beginning of the third month after their departure from the land of Egypt.[265] Hence, from the very period of its introduction, the law could not come as a redeemer from evil, or a bestower of life and blessing. Its object could not possibly be to propose anything which should have the effect of shielding from death, rescuing from bondage, or founding a title to the favour and blessing of Heaven—for all that had been already obtained. By God’s outstretched arm, working with sovereign freedom and almighty power in behalf of the Israelites, they had been brought into a state of freedom and enlargement, and under the banner of Divine protection were travelling to the laud settled on them as an inheritance, before one word had been spoken to them of the law in the proper sense of the term. And whatever purposes the law might have been intended to serve, it could not have been for any of those already accomplished or provided for. [265] Exodus 19:1. It is of great importance to keep distinctly in view this negative side of the law; what it neither could, nor was ever designed to do. For if we raise it to a position which it was not meant to occupy, and expect from it benefits which it was not fitted to yield, we must be altogether at fault in our reckoning, and can have no clear knowledge of the dispensation to which it belonged. It is in reference to this that the Apostle speaks in Galatians 3:17-18 : “And this I say, that the covenant, which was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.” The Jews had come in the Apostle’s time, and most of them, indeed, long before, to look to their deeds of law as constituting their title to the inheritance; and the same leaven of self-righteousness was now beginning to work among the Galatian converts. To check this tendency in them, and convince them of the fundamental error on which it proceeded, he presses on their consideration the nature and design of God’s covenant with Abraham, which he represents as having been “confirmed before of God in Chart,” became in making promise of a seed of blessing it had respect pre-eminently to Christ, and might justly be regarded, in its leading objects and provisions, as only an earlier and imperfect exhibition of the Christian covenant of redemption. But that covenant expressly conferred on Abraham’s posterity, as Heaven’s free gift, the inheritance of the land of Canaan; and it must also have secured their redemption from the house of bondage, and their safe conduct through the wilderness, since these were necessary to their entering on the possession of the inheritance. Hence, as the Apostle argues, their title to these things could not possibly need to be acquired over again by deeds of law afterwards performed; for this would manifestly have been to give to the law the power of disannulling the covenant of promise, and would have made one revelation of God overthrow the foundation already laid by another. But that God never meant the law to interfere with the gifts and promises of the covenant, is clear from what He said to the children of the covenant immediately before the law was given: “Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now therefore, if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”—(Exodus 19:5) Here God addresses them as already standing in such a relation of nearness to Him, as secured for them an interest in His faithfulness and love. He appeals to the proofs which He had given of this, as amply sufficient to dispel every doubt from their mind, and to warrant them in expecting whatever might still be needed to complete their felicity. “Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice”—not because ye have obeyed it, have the great things which have just been accomplished in your experience taken place; but these have been done, that you might feel your calling to obey, and by obeying fulfil the high destiny to which you are appointed. In this call to obedience we already have the whole law, so far as concerns the ground of its obligation and the germ of its requirements. And when the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai to proclaim the words of the law, He is simply to be regarded as giving utterance to that voice which they were to obey. Hence, also, in prefacing the words then spoken by the declaration, “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” He rests his claim to their obedience on precisely the same ground as here: He resumes what He had previously said in regard to the peculiar relation in which He stood to them, as proved by the grand deliverance He had achieved in their behalf, and on that founds His special claim to the return of dutiful obedience which He justly expected at their hands. And when it was proclaimed as the result of this obedience, that they should be to God “a peculiar people, a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation,” they were given to understand, that thus alone could they continue to occupy the singular place they now held in the regard of Heaven, enjoy intimate fellowship with God, and be fitting instruments in His hand for carrying out the wise and holy purposes of His Divine government. This, however, belongs to another part of the subject, and has respect to what the law was given to do. We see, then, from the very time and manner in which the law was introduced, that it could not have been designed to interfere with the covenant of promise; and as all that pertained to redemption, the inheritance, and the means of life and blessing, came by that covenant, the law was manifestly given to provide none of them. Nor could it make any alteration on the law in this respect, that it was made to assume the form of a covenant. Why this was done, we shall inquire in the sequel. But looking at the matter still in a merely negative point of view, it is obvious that the law’s coming to possess the character of a covenant could give it no power to make void the provisions of that earlier covenant, which secured for the seed of Abraham, as Heaven’s free gift, the inheritance, and everything properly belonging to it. And if the Israelites should at any time come to regard the covenant of law as having been made for the purpose of founding a title to what the covenant with Abraham had previously bestowed, they would evidently misinterpret the meaning of God, and confound the proper relations of things. This, however, is what they actually did on a large scale, the grievous error and pernicious consequences of which are pointed out in Galatians 4:21-31 : “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons; the one by a bond maid, the other by a five woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is (i.e., corresponds to) Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written (Isaiah 54:1), Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise,” etc. Here the proper wife of Abraham, Sarah, and his bond maid Hagar, are viewed as the representatives of the two covenants respectively; and the children of the two mothers as, in like manner, representatives of the kind of worshippers whom the covenants were fitted to produce. Sarah, the only proper spouse of Abraham, stands for the heavenly Jerusalem; that is, the true Church of God, in which He perpetually resides, and begets children to Himself. Whoever belong to it are born from above, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” And that Sarah’s son might be the fit representative of all such, his birth was delayed till she had attained an advanced age. Born as Isaac was, it was impossible to overlook the immediate and supernatural operation of God’s hand in his birth; and if ever mother had reason to say, “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” it was Sarah, when she brought forth Isaac. But what was true of Isaac’s natural birth, is equally true of the spiritual birth of God’s people in every age. The Church, as a heavenly society, is their mother. But that Church is so, simply because she is the habitation of God, and the channel through which His grace, flowing into the dead heart of nature, quickens it into newness of life. And the covenant in the hand of this Church, by which she is empowered to bring forth such children to God, must be substantially the same in every age—viz., the covenant of grace, which began to be disclosed in part on the very scene of the fall—which was again more distinctly revealed to Abraham, when he received the promises of a seed of blessing, and an inheritance everlasting, and which has been clearly brought to light and finally confirmed in Christ for the whole elect family of God. This unquestionably is the covenant which answers to Sarah, and belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem: to this covenant all the real children of God owe their birth, their privileges, and their hopes; those who are born of it, in whatever age of the Church, are born in freedom, and heirs of the inheritance. It is this Church, standing in and growing out of this covenant, that the prophet Isaiah addresses, in the passage quoted by the Apostle, as a “barren woman, a widow, and desolate,” and whom he comforts with the promise of a numerous offspring. He does not expressly name Sarah, but he evidently has her in his eye, and draws his delineation both of the present and the future in language suggested by her history. For, as in her case, so the seed of the true Church was long in coming, and slow of increase, compared with those born after the flesh. It seemed often, especially in such times of backsliding and desolation as those contemplated by the prophet, as if the spouse were absolutely forsaken, or utterly incapable of being a mother; and she appeared all the more in need of consolation, as her carnal rival even then possessed a large and numerous offspring. But the prophet cheers her with the prospect of better days to come; and gives her the assurance, that in the long run her spiritual seed would greatly outnumber the fleshly seed of the other. This prospect began (as the Apostle intimates, Galatians 4:31) to be more especially realized when the kingdom opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles. The other covenant, which answers to Hagar, was the covenant of law, ratified at Sinai; but that by no means corresponding, as is often represented, to the Old Testament dispensation as a whole. For, viewed in the light of mothers, the two covenants are spoken of as directly opposite in their nature, tendency, and effects, while the Old and New Testament dispensations present no such contrast to each other. They are rather to be regarded as in all essential respects the same. They differ, not as Ishmael differed from Isaac, but only as the heir when a child differs from the heir when arrived at maturity. Of all the true members of both Churches, Abraham is the common parent and head; and whether outwardly descended from his loins or not, they constitute properly but one people. They are all the children of faithful Abraham, possessing his covenant relation to God, and his interest in the promises of good things to come.—(Romans 4:11-13; Galatians 3:29) But the seed that came by Hagar, which was born, not properly of God, but of the will of the flesh, was entirely of another kind, and represented no part of the true Church in any age: it represented only the carnal portion of the professing Church—the unregenerate, idolatrous, or self-righteous Israelites of former times, who deemed it quite enough that they were able to trace their descent from Abraham; and the merely nominal believers now, who satisfy themselves with an outward standing among the followers of Jesus, and a formal attendance on some of the ordinances of His appointment. These are they “who say they are Jews, but are not;” they no more belonged to the seed of God under the Old Testament, than they do under the New; they are Ishmaelites, not Israelites—a spurious fleshly offspring, that should never have been born, and when born, without any title to the inheritance and the blessing. It was the prevailing delusion of the Jews in our Lord’s time, as it had been also of many in former times, not to perceive this—failing to understand, what yet God had taken especial pains to teach them, that the subjects of His love and blessing were always an elect seed. From the time of Abraham, they had chiefly belonged to his stock, but never had they at any period embraced all his offspring: not the sons of Gagar and Keturah, but only the son of Sarah; not both the sons of Isaac, but only Jacob; not all the sons of Jacob, but only such as possessed his faith, and were, like him, princes with God. The principle, “not all Israel who are of Israel,” runs through the entire history; and too often also do the facts of history afford ground for the conclusion, that those who were simply of Israel had greatly the preponderance in numbers and influence over such as truly were Israel. But how did such children come to exist at all? How did they get a being within the bosom of the Church of God? They also had a mother, represented by Hagar, and that mother, as well as the other, a covenant of God—the covenant of Sinai. But why should it have produced such children? In one way alone could it possibly have done so; viz., by being elevated out of its proper place, and turned to an illegitimate use. God never designed it to be a mother; no more than Hagar, respecting whom Abraham sinned when he turned aside to her, and took her for a mother of children: her proper place was that only of an handmaid to Sarah. And it was, in like manner, to pervert the covenant of law from Sinai to an improper purpose, to look to it as a parent of life and blessing; nor could any better result come from the error. “It gendereth unto bond age,” says the Apostle; that is, in so far as it gave birth to any children, these were not true children of God, free, spiritual, with hearts of filial confidence and devoted love; but miserable bondmen, selfish, carnal, full of mistrust and fear. Of these children of the Sinaitic covenant we are furnished with the most perfect exemplar in the Scribes and Pharisees of our Lord’s time—men who were chiefly remarkable for the full and ripened development of a spirit of bondage in religion who were complete in all the garniture of a sanctified demeanour, while they were full within of ravening and wickedness—worshipping a God, whom they eyed only as the taskmaster of a laborious ritual, by the punctual observance of which they counted themselves secure of His favour and blessing—crouching like slaves beneath their yoke of bondage, and loving the very bonds that lay on them, because nothing better than the abject and hireling spirit of slavery breathed in their hearts. Such were the children whom the covenant of law produced, as its natural and proper offspring. But did God ever seek such children? Could He own them as members of His kingdom? Could He bestow on them an interest in its promised blessings? Assuredly not; and therefore it was entirely against His mind, when His professing people looked in that direction for life and blessing. If really His people, they already had these by another and earlier covenant which could give them; and those who still looked for them to the covenant of law, only got a serpent for bread—instead of a blessing, a curse.[266] [266] On this negative side of the law, may be consulted Bell on the Covenants, which, though full of repetition, is clear and satisfactory on this part of the subject; it forms a sort of expanded, though certainly rather tedious, illustration of Vitringa’s Com. on Isaiah 54:1. On the positive side of the law, or what it was designed to do, the work is by no means so successful. It seems very strange that so many Christian divines, especially of such as hold evangelical principles, should here have fallen into substantially the Jewish error, representing the Israelites as being in such a sense under the covenant of law, that by obedience to it they had to establish their title to the inheritance. Not only does Warburton call the dispensation under which they were placed, roundly “a dispensation of works,”[267] but we find Dr John Erskine, an evangelical writer, among many similar things, writing thus: “He who yielded an external obedience to the law of Moses, was termed righteous, and had a claim in virtue of his obedience to the land of Canaan, so that doing these things he lived by them. Hence Moses says, Deuteronomy 6:25, ‘It shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God;’ i.e., it shall be the cause and matter of our justification—it shall found our title to covenant blessings. But to spiritual and heavenly blessings, we are entitled by the obedience of the Son of God, not by our own.”[268] It was very necessary, when the learned author made obedience to the covenant of Sinai the ground of a title to the inheritance of Canaan, that he should bring down its terms as low as possible; for had these not been of a superficial and formal nature, it would manifestly have been a mockery to make the people’s obedience the ground of their title. But what, then, becomes of the covenant of Abraham, if the inheritance, which it gave freely in promise to his seed, had to be acquired over again by deeds of law? And what, indeed, becomes of the spiritual and unchangeable character of God, if, in one age of the Church, He should appear to have imposed duties of an external kind, as the ground of a title to His blessing, while in another all is given of grace, and the duties required are pre-eminently inward and spiritual? In such a case, there not only could have been no proper correspondence between the earlier and the later dispensations, but the revealed character of God must have undergone an essential change: He could not be “the Jehovah, that changeth not.” The confusion arises from assigning to the covenant of law a wrong place, and ascribing to it what it was never intended to do or give. “God did never make a new promulgation of the law by revelation to sinful men, in order to keep them under mere law, without set ting before them, at the same time, the promise and grace of the new covenant, by which they might escape from the curse which the law denounced. The legal and evangelical dispensations have been but different dispensations of the same covenant of grace, and of the blessings thereof. Though there is now a greater degree of light, consolation, and liberty, yet if Christians are now under a kingdom of grace, where there is pardon upon repentance, the Lord’s people under the Old Testament were (as to the reality and substance of things) also under a kingdom of grace.”[269] So that it is quite wrong, as the judicious author states, to represent those “who were under the pedagogy of the law, as if they had been under a proper and strict covenant of works.” [267] Div. Leg., B. v., Note C. [268] Theological Dissertations, p. 41. [269] Fraser on Sanctification; Explic. of Romans 7:8. Bähr, who rises immeasurably above all who, have imbibed their notions of the legal dispensation in the school of Spencer and Warburton, and who everywhere exhibits a due appreciation of the moral and religious element in Judaism, still so far coincides with them, that he elevates the law to a place not properly its own. After investigating the descriptions given of the decalogue, he draws the conclusion, that “for Israel this formed the foundation of its whole existence as a people, the root of its religious and political life, the highest, best, most precious thing the people had their one and all.”[270] So also again, when speaking of the covenant and the law being entirely the same, he says to the like effect: “This covenant first properly gave Israel as a people its being; it was the root and basis of the life of Israel as a people.”[271] No doubt understanding, as he does, by the law or covenant all the precepts and institutions of Moses, which he holds to have been represented in the decalogue, the idea here expressed is not quite so wide of the truth as it might otherwise appear. But still the statement is by no means correct; it is utterly at variance with the facts of Israel’s history, and calculated to give a false impression of the whole nature and design of the Mosaic legislation. It presents this to our view simply as a dispensation of works, having law for the root of life, and consequently the deeds of law for the only ground of blessing. In plain contrariety to the assertion of the Apostle,[272] it virtually says that a law was given which brought life, and that righteousness was by the law. Finally, it gives such a place to the mere requirements and operations of law, that nothing remained for grace to do, but merely to pardon the shortcomings and transgressions of which men might be guilty, as subject to law: all else was earned by the obedience performed; even forgiveness itself in a manner was thus earned, because obtained as the result of services rendered in compliance with the terms and prescriptions of law. [270] Symbolik, i., 386, 387. [271] Symbolik, ii., 389. [272] Galatians 3:21. This glorification of law, however, has not been confined to the Old Testament Church. There are not a few Christian divines who are so enamoured of law, that the Gospel of the grace of God has become in their hands only a kind of modified covenant of works; and they can only account for faith holding the peculiar place assigned to it in the work of salvation, because in their view it comprises all other graces and virtues in its bosom. Salvation appears not directly and properly as the free gift of Divine grace in Christ, but rather as the acquired result of man’s evangelical righteousness, or, as it is generally termed, his sincere though imperfect obedience. The title to heaven must still be earned, only the satisfaction of Christ has secured its being done on much easier conditions. There is no need for our entering into any exposure of this New Testament legalism, as we have seen that its prototype under the Old Testament, though it had more seemingly to countenance it, was still without any proper foundation. But we may briefly advert to the statements of another class of theologians, who, while they admit that the Old as well as the New Testament Church was under a dispensation of grace, to which it owed all its privileges, blessings, and hopes, at the same time regard the covenant of Sinai as in itself properly the covenant of works, by obedience to which, if faithfully and fully rendered, men would have founded a title to life and blessing. They justly regard it as in substance a republication of the law of holiness originally impressed upon the soul of Adam; but fall into perplexity and confusion by adopting a somewhat erroneous view of the primary design and object of that law. The righteousness there required they are accustomed to represent as that “by the doing of which man was to found his right to promised blessings;”[273] or, to use the language of another, “in virtue of which he might thereon plead and demand the reward of eternal life.”[274] Then, viewing such a law or covenant of works in reference to men as sinful, the works required in it are necessarily considered as “the condition of a sinner’s justification and acceptance with God,” “a law to be done that he might be saved.”[275] [273] Bell on Covenants, p. 198. [274] Boston’s Notes on Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. 1, Introd. [275] Ib. P. 1, c. 1, and the Marrow itself there; also Fraser on Romans 7:4, and Chalmers’ Works, vol. x., p.207. But was a law ever given, or a covenant ever made with man, with any such professed design? Was it even propounded thus to Adam in paradise? Had he not received as a free gift from the hand of God, before anything was exacted of him in the way of obedience, both the principle of a divine life and an inheritance of blessing? So far from needing to found by deeds of righteousness a title to these, he came forth at the very first fully fraught with them; and the question with him was, not how to obtain what he had not, but how to continue in the enjoyment of what he already possessed. This he could no otherwise do than by fulfilling the righteous ends for which he had been created. To direct him towards these, therefore, must have been, if not the sole, at least the direct and ostensible object of whatever law was outwardly proposed to him, or inwardly impressed upon his conscience. If the word to him might be said to be, “Do this and live,” it could only be in the sense of his thereby continuing in the life, in the possession and blessedness of which he was created. And it was the fond conceit of the Pharisaical Jews, that their law was given for purposes higher even than those for which any law was given to man in innocence; that they might, by obedience to law, work out a righteousness, and acquire a title to life and glory, which did not naturally belong to them. It is simply against this groundless and perverse notion, which had come latterly to diffuse its leaven through the whole Jewish mind, that our Lord and His apostles are to be understood as speaking, when in a manifold variety of ways they endeavour to withdraw men’s regards from the law as a source of life, and point them to the riches of Divine grace.[276] [276] Romans 3, 7; 2 Corinthians 3:6-7; Galatians 3:11; Galatians 3:21; Php 3:8-9; Ephesians 1:3-7; Titus 3:4-7; 1 John 5:11; also of our Lord’s discourses, Luke 15; Luke 19:1-10; John 3:16-18; John 6:51. When He directed the lawyer, who tempted Him with the question, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” to the commandments of the law, and in reference to the perfect love there required to God and man, said, “This do and thou shalt live,” it is clear He merely met the inquirer on his own ground, and aimed at sending him away with an impression of the impossibility of obtaining life by perfecting himself in the law’s requirements. So, also, such expressions as that in Romans 7:10, of “the commandment being ordained to life” (lit., which was for, or unto life), cannot mean that it was given to confer life, or to show the way of obtaining it, for this is denied of any law that ever could have been given to sinful men (Galatians 3:21). It simply means, that the law was given to subserve or promote the purposes of God in respect to life. It is, then, carefully to be remembered, in regard to the Old Testament Church, that she had two covenants connected with her constitution—a covenant of grace as well as of law; and that the covenant of law, as it came last, so it took for granted the provisions of the elder covenant of grace. It was grafted upon this, and grew out of it. Hence, in revealing the terms of the legal covenant, the Lord spake to the Israelites as already their God, from whom they had received life and freedom (Exodus 20:2),—proclaimed Himself as the God of mercy as well as of holiness (Exodus 20:5-6),—recognised their title to the inheritance as His own sovereign gift to them (Exodus 20:12),—thus making it clear to all, that the covenant of law raised itself on the ground of the previous covenant of grace, and sought to carry out this to its legitimate consequences and proper fruits.[277] [277] The relation between the two covenants is briefly but correctly stated by Sack in his Apologetik, p. 179: “The matter of the law is altogether grounded upon the covenant of promise made with Abraham. . . . The law neither could nor would withdraw the exercise of faith from the covenant of promise, or render that superfluous, but merely formed an intermediate provision until the fulfilment came.” The relation is seldom correctly made out by writers of the class last referred to. For example, Boston would have the two covenants to have been revealed simultaneously from Sinai, making the Sinaitic covenant as much a covenant of grace as of law (on the Marrow, p. 1, c. 2). Burgess (on Mural Law and Covenants, p. 224) represents it as properly a covenant of grace. That this also is the order of God’s procedure with men under the Gospel, nothing but the most prejudiced mind can fail to perceive. Everywhere does God there present Himself to His people as in the first instance a giver of life and blessing, and only afterwards as an exacter of obedience to His commands. Their obedience, so far from entitling to salvation, can never be acceptably rendered till they have become partakers of the blessings of salvation. These blessings are altogether of grace, and are therefore received through faith. For what is faith, but the acceptance of Heaven’s grant of salvation, or a trusting in the record in which the grant is conveyed? So that, in the order of each man’s experience, there must be, as is fully brought out in the Epistle to the Romans, first a participation in the mercies of God, and then growing out of this a felt and constraining obligation to run the way of God’s commandments. How can it, indeed, be otherwise? How were it possible for men, laden with sin, and underlying the condemnation of Heaven, to earn anything at God’s hands, or do what might seem good in His sight, till they become partakers of grace? Can they work up to a certain point against the stream of His displeasure, and prosecute of themselves the process of recovery, only requiring His supernatural aid to perfect it? To imagine the possibility of this, were to betray an utter ignorance of the character of God in reference to His dealings with the guilty. He can, for His Son’s sake, bestow eternal life and blessing on the most unworthy, but He cannot stoop to treat and bargain with men about their acquiring a title to it through their own imperfect services. They must first receive the gift through the channel of His own providing; and only when they have done this, are they in a condition to please and honour Him. Not more certainly is faith without works dead, than all works are dead which do not spring from the living root of faith already implanted in the heart. Section Fifth.—The Purposes For Which The Law Was Given, And The Mutual Interconnection Betwixt It And The Symbolical Institutions. WE proceed now to advance a step farther, and to consider what the law was designed to do for Israel. That it did not come with a hostile intent, we have already seen. Its object was not to disannul the covenant of promise, or to found a new title to gifts and blessings already conferred. It was given rather as an handmaid to the covenant, to minister, in an inferior but still necessary place, to the higher ends and purposes which the covenant itself had in view. And hence, when considered as standing in that its proper place, it is fitly regarded as an additional proof of the goodness of God towards His people: “He made known His ways unto Moses, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel; He hath not dealt so with any people.” 1. The first and immediate purpose for which the law was given to Israel, was that it might serve as a revelation of the righteousness which God expected from them as His covenant people in the land of their inheritance. It was for this inheritance they had been redeemed. They were God’s own peculiar people, His children and heirs, proceeding, under the banner of His covenant, to occupy His land. And that they might know the high ends for which they were to be planted there, and how these ends were to be secured, the Lord took them aside by the way, and gave them this revelation of His righteousness. As the land of their inheritance was emphatically God’s land, so the law which was to reign paramount there must of necessity be His law, and that law itself the manifestation of His righteousness. With no other view could God have stretched out His hand to redeem a people to Himself, and with no other testimony set them as His witnesses before the eye of the world, on a territory peculiarly His own. For His glory, viewed in respect to His moral government, is essentially bound up with the interests of righteousness; and those whom He destined to be the chosen instruments for showing forth that glory in the region prepared for them, must go thither with the revelation of His righteousness in their hand, as the law which they were to carry out into all the relations of public and private life. The same thing might be said in this respect of the land as a whole, which the Psalmist declares in reference to its spiritual centre—the place on which the tabernacle was pitched: “Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in Thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.”—(Psalms 15) And again in Psalms 24 : “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” There can be no doubt that the character here meant to be delineated is that of the true servants of God as contradistinguished from hypocrites—of the real denizens of His kingdom, whose high distinction it was to be dwellers and sojourners with Him. The going up to the hill of God, standing in His holy place, or abiding in His tabernacle, is merely an image to express this spiritual idea. The land as a whole being God’s land, the people as a whole should also have been found dwelling as guests, or sojourning with Him.—(Leviticus 25:23) But this they could only be in reality, the Psalmist means to say, if they possessed the righteous character he delineates. In both of the delineations he gives, it is impossible to overlook a reference to the precepts of the decalogue. And that such delineations should have been given at a time when the tabernacle service was in the course of being set up anew with increased splendour, was plainly designed to sound a warning in the ears of the people, that whatever regard should be paid to the solemnities of worship, it was still the righteousness in thought, word, and deed, as required in the precepts of the decalogue, which God pre-eminently sought. This was what peculiarly fitted them for the place they occupied, and the destiny they had to fill. Hence, not only the righteousness of the decalogue in general, but that especially of the second table, is made prominent in the description, because hypocrites have so many ways of counterfeiting the works of the first table.[278] [278] See Hengstenberg and Calvin on Psalms 15:2. It makes no essential alteration on the law in this point of view, that it was made to assume the form of a covenant. For what sort of covenant was it? And with what object ratified? Not as an independent and separate revelation; but only, as already stated, an handmaid to the previously existing covenant of promise. On this last, as the divine root of all life and blessing, it was grafted; and rising from the ground which that former covenant provided, it proceeded to develop the requirements of righteousness, which the members of the covenant ought to have fulfilled. It was merely to impart greater solemnity to this revelation of righteousness—to give to its calls of duty a deeper impression and firmer hold upon the conscience—to render it clear and palpable, that the things required in it were not of loose and uncertain, but of most sure and indispensable obligation it was for such reasons alone that the law, after being proclaimed from Sinai, was solemnly ratified as a covenant. By this most sacred of religious transactions the Israelites were taken bound as a people to aim continually at the fulfilment of its precepts. But its having been turned into a covenant did not confer on it a different character from that which belonged to it as a rule of life and conduct, or materially affect the results that sprung either from obedience or disobedience to its demands; nor was any effect contemplated beyond that of adding to its moral weight and deepening its hold upon the conscience. And the very circumstance of its being ratified as a covenant, having God in the relation of a Redeemer for one of the contracting parties, was fraught with comfort and encouragement; since an assurance was thus virtually given, that what God in the one covenant of law required His people to do, He stood pledged in the other covenant of promise with His Divine help to aid them in performing. The blood of the covenant as much involved a Divine obligation to confer the grace to obey, as it bound them to render the obedience. So that, while there was in this transaction something fitted to lighten rather than to aggravate the burden of the law’s yoke, there was, at the same time, what involved the necessity of compliance with the tenor of its requirements, and took away all excuse from the wilfully disobedient. The sum of the matter, then, was this: The seed of Abraham, as God’s acknowledged children and heirs, were going to receive for their possession the land which He claimed as more peculiarly His own. But they must go and abide there partakers also of His character of holiness, for thus alone could they either glorify His name or enjoy His blessing. And so, bringing them as He did from the region of pollution, He would not suffer them to plant their foot within its sacred precincts, until He had disclosed to them the great lines of religious and moral duty, in which the resemblance most essentially stands to His character of holiness, and taken them bound by the most solemn engagement to have the pattern of excellence set before them, as far as possible, realized in practice, through all the dwellings of Canaan. Had they been but faithful to their engagement—had they as a people striven in earnest through the grace offered them in the one covenant to exemplify the character of the righteous man exhibited in the other, “delighting in the law of the Lord, and meditating therein day and night,” then in their condition they should assuredly have been “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, whose leaf doth not wither, and whatsoever he doth prospereth.” Canaan would then, indeed, have verified the description of a land flowing with milk and honey. We thus see, in the immediate purposes of God respecting Israel, a sufficient reason for the introduction of the law, and for the prominent place assigned to it in the Divine dispensation. But if we connect the immediate with the ultimate design of God in this portion of His dealings, we see the absolute necessity of what was done, in order to make the past a faithful representation of the future. Canaan stood to the eye of faith the type of heaven; and the character and condition of its inhabitants should have presented the image of what theirs shall be, who have entered on the kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world. The condition of such, we are well assured, shall be all blessedness and glory. The region of their inheritance shall be Immanuel’s land, where the vicissitudes of evil and the pangs of suffering shall be alike unknown,—where everything shall reflect the effulgent glory of its Divine Author, and streams of purest delight shall be ever flowing to satisfy the souls of the redeemed. But it is never to be forgotten, that their condition shall be thus replenished with all that is attractive and good, because their character shall first have become perfect in holiness. No otherwise than as conformed to Christ’s image can they share with Him in His inheritance; for the kingdom of which they are the destined heirs is one which the unrighteous cannot inherit, nor shall corruption in any form or degree be permitted to dwell in it. “Its people shall be till righteous”—that is their first characteristic; and the second, depending upon this, and growing out of it as its proper result, is, that they shall be all filled with the goodness and glory of the Lord. Hence, in addition to the moral ends of a direct and immediate kind which required to be accomplished, it was necessary also, in this point of view, to make the experience of God’s ancient people, in connection with the land of promise, turn upon their relation to the law. As He could not permit them to enter the inheritance without first placing them under the discipline of the law, so neither could He permit them after wards to enjoy the good of the land, while they lived in neglect of the righteousness the law required. In both respects, the type became sadly marred in the event; and the image it presented of the coming realities of heaven, was to be seen only in occasional lines and broken fragments. The people were so far from being all righteous, that the greater part were ever hardening their hearts in sin. On their part, a false representation was given of the moral perfection of the future world; and it was in the highest degree impossible that God on His part should countenance their backsliding so as notwithstanding to render their state a full representation of its perfection in outward bliss. He must of necessity trouble the condition and change the lot of His people, in proportion as sin obtained a footing among them. The less there was of heaven’s righteousness in their character, the less always must there be of its blessedness and glory in their condition;—until at last the Lord was constrained to say: “Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, neither walked therein; but have walked after the imagination of their own heart: therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the heathen, and will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.”[279] Such were the imperfections of the type; let us rejoice that in the antitype similar imperfections can have no place. All there stands firm and secure in the unchanging faithfulness of Jehovah; and it will be as impossible for sin as for adversity and trouble to have a place in the heavenly Canaan. The view now presented as to the primary reason for the giving of the law, is in perfect accordance with what is stated by the Apostle in Galatians 3:19 : “Wherefore, then, serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” The meaning is, it was added to the provisions and blessings secured in the earlier covenant of promise, because of the disposition in the hearts of the people to transgress the obligations under which they stood, and fall in with the corruptions of the world. To check this disposition—to keep their minds under the discipline of a severe and holy restraint—and circumscribe and limit their way, so that no excuse or liberty should be left them to turn aside from the right path—for this reason the law was added to the covenant. But for that inherent proneness to sin, now sufficiently made manifest, there should have been no need for such an addition. Had the members of the covenant thoroughly imbibed its spirit, and responded as they should have done to the love God had manifested toward them in making good its provisions, they would of themselves have been inclined to do the things which were contained in the law. This, however, they were not; and hence the law came, presupposing and building upon the moral aim of the covenant, and more stringently binding upon their consciences the demands of righteousness, in order to stem the current of their sinful inclinations. It was to these inclinations alone that the law carried a hostile and frowning aspect: in respect to the people themselves, it came as a minister of good, and not of evil; and so far from being opposed to the promises of the covenant, it was rather to be viewed as a friendly monitor and guide, directing the people how to continue in the blessing of the covenant, and fulfil the ends for which it was established. [279] Jeremiah 9:13-16. 2. There was, however, another great reason for the law being given, which is also perhaps alluded to by the Apostle in the passage just noticed, when he limits the use of the law, in reference to transgressions, to the period before Christ’s appearance. Christ was to be pre-eminently the seed of promise, through whom the blessings of the covenant were to be secured; and when He should come, as a more perfect state of things would then be introduced, the law would no longer be required as it was before. While, therefore, it had an immediate and direct purpose to serve in restraining the innate tendency to transgression, it might be said to have had the further end in view of preparing the minds of men for that coining seed. And this it was fitted to do precisely through the same property which rendered it suitable for accomplishing the primary design, viz., the perfect revelation it gave of the righteousness of Heaven. It brought the people into contact with the moral character of God, and bound them by covenant sanctions and engagements to make that the standard after which they should endeavour to regulate their conduct. But conscience, enlightened and aroused by the lofty ideal of truth and duty thus presented to it, became but the more sensible of transgressions committed against the righteousness required. Instead of being a witness to which men could appeal in proof of their having fulfilled the high ends for which they had been chosen and redeemed by God, the law rather did the part of an accuser, testifying against them of broken vows and violated obligations. And thus keeping perpetually alive upon the conscience a sense of guilt, it served to awaken in the hearts of those who really understood its spiritual meaning, a feeling of the need, and a longing expectation of the coming, of Him who was to bring in the more perfect state of things, and take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. The certainty of this effect both having been from the first designed, and also to some extent produced, by the law, will always appear the more obvious, the more clearly we perceive the connection between the law and the ritual of worship, and see how inadequately the violations of the one seemed to have been met by the provisions of the other. We shall have occasion to refer to this more fully under the next division. But in some of the confessions of the Old Testament saints, we have undoubted indications of the feeling that the law, which they stood bound to obey, contained a breadth of spiritual requirement which they were far from having reached, and brought against them charges of guilt from which they could obtain no satisfactory deliverance by any means of expiation then provided. The dread which God’s manifested presence inspired, even in such seraphic bosoms as Isaiah’s, “Wo is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts,” is itself a proof of this; for it betokened a conscience much more alive to impressions of guilt than to the blessings of forgiveness and peace. It showed that the law of righteousness had written its convictions of sin too deeply on the tablet of the heart for the ceremonial institutions thoroughly to supplant them by the full sense of reconciliation. But a still more decided testimony to the same effect was given by the Psalmist, when, in compositions designed for the public service of God, and of course expressing the sentiments of all sincere worshippers, he at once celebrated the law of God as every way excellent and precious, and at the same time spake of it as “exceeding broad,”—felt that it accused him of iniquities “more in number than the hairs of his head;” so that if “the Lord were strict to mark them, none should be able to stand before Him”—nay, sometimes found himself in such a sense a sinner, that no sacrifice or offering could be accepted, and his soul was left without any ostensible means of atonement and cleansing, with nothing indeed to rest upon, but an unconditional forgiveness on God’s part, and renewed surrender on its own.—(Psalms 51) It was this tendency of the law to beget deep convictions of sin, and to leave upon the mind such a felt want of satisfaction, which truly disposed enlightened consciences to give a favourable hearing to the doctrines of the Gospel, and to rejoice in the consolation brought in by Christ. It was this which gave in their minds such emphasis to the contrast, “The law came by Muses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” and which led St Paul to hold it out as an especial ground of comfort to believers in Christ, that “by Him they might be justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.” It was this feature also of the law which the same Apostle had more particularly in his eye, when he described it as a “schoolmaster to lead men to Christ,” shutting them up, by its stern requirements and wholesome discipline, to the faith which was afterwards to be revealed. And the contrast which he draws in the third chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, between the law and the Gospel, proceeds entirely upon the same ground in reference to the law; that is, it is viewed simply as by itself, in the matter of its precepts, a revelation of the perfect righteousness of God, and, apart from the covenant of promise, with which it was connected, fitted only to inspire fear and trembling, or to bring condemnation and death. He therefore calls it the ministration of condemnation, a letter that killeth, as in Romans 7:10 he testifies of having found it in his own experience to be unto death. The Apostle does not mean to say that this was properly the object for which the law was given, for then it had come directly to oppose and subvert the covenant of promise; but that it was an inseparable effect attending it, arising from the perfection of its character as a rule of righteousness, compared with the manifold imperfections and sins ever discovering themselves among men. And hence it only required spiritual minds, such as would enter thoroughly into the perception of the law’s character, first to make them deeply sensible of their own guilt, and then to awaken in them the desire of something higher and better than was then provided for the true consolation of Israel. An important connection thus arises between the law and the Gospel, and both are seen to hold respectively their proper places in the order of the Divine dispensations. “It is true,” as Tholuck has remarked with sound discrimination, “that the New Testament speaks more of grace than of sin; but did it not on this very account presuppose the existence of the Old Covenant with the law, and a God who is an holy and jealous God, that will not pass by transgression and sin? The Old Covenant was framed for the conviction of sin, the New for the forgiveness of sin. The moral law, which God has written in indelible lines upon the heart of every man, was once also proclaimed with much solemnity from Sinai, that it might be clear that God, who appeared in fire and flame as the revealer of His holy law, is the same who has imprinted the image of holiness deep in the secret chambers of the bosom. Is not Israel, incessantly resisting with his stiff neck the God of love, until he has always again been reduced to subjection by the God of fiery indignation, an image of proud humanity in its constant war fare against God, who seeks to conquer them by anger and love?”[280] Hence the order of God’s dispensations is substantially also the order of each man’s experience. The sinner must be humbled and bruised by the law—that is, through the manifestation of God’s righteousness, he must have his conscience aroused to a sense of sin—before he can be brought heartily to acquiesce in the Gospel method of salvation. Therefore, not only had the way of Christ to be prepared by one who with a voice of terror preached anew the law’s righteousness and threatenings, but Christ Himself also needed to enter on the blessed work of the world’s evangelization, by unfolding the wide extent and deep spirituality of the law’s requirements. For how large a portion of the Sermon on the Mount is taken up in giving a clear and searching exposition of the law’s righteousness, and rescuing it from the false and extenuating glosses under which it had been buried! Nay, Christ, during His personal ministry, could proceed but a small way in openly revealing the grace of the Gospel, because, after all, the work of the law was so imperfectly done in the hearts even of His own disciples. And so still in the experience of men at large; it is because the sense and condemnation of sin are so seldom felt, that the benefits of salvation are so little known.[281] [280] From a work, Die Lehre von der Sünde und von Versöhner, as quoted by Bialloblotzky, De Abrogatione Legis, p. 82, 83. [281] The use of the law now described, though properly but its secondary design, is very commonly given by popular writers of this country as its chief, or almost only, use to the Israelites. Thus Bell, on Cov., p. 142, speaking of God’s design in giving the law from Sinai, says, “God gave it in subserviency to the promise, to show unto sinners their transgression and their guilt, and of consequence to drive them unto it.” So another still more strongly: “God made it (viz., the covenant of law, which is regarded by the author as the same with the covenant of works) with the Israelites for no other end than that man, being thereby convinced of his weakness, might flee unto Christ.”—(Marrow of Modern Div., P. i., c. 2) Their put ting this design first, and making it in a manner all, arose from their viewing the religion of the Old Covenant too exclusively in a typical aspect, as if the things belonging to it had not also had another and more direct bearing. 3. The necessary connection that subsisted between the law and the ceremonial institutions of the Old Testament, may be given as a still further reason of its revelation and enactment; although, when properly understood, this was not so much a distinct and separate end, as a combination of the two already specified. This law, perfect in its character and perpetual in its obligation, formed the groundwork of all the symbolical services afterwards imposed; as was distinctly implied in the place chosen for its permanent position. For as the centre of all Judaism was the tabernacle, so the centre of this again was the law—the ark, which stood enshrined in the Most Holy Place, being made for the sole purpose of keeping the two tables of the covenant. So that the reflection could hardly fail to force itself on all considerate and intelligent worshippers, that the observance of this law was the great end of the religion then established. Nor could any other use be imagined, of the strictly religious rites and institutions which so manifestly pointed to this law as their common ground and centre, than either to assist as means in preserving alive the knowledge of its principles, and promoting their observance, or as remedies to provide against the evils naturally arising from its neglect and violation. These two objects plainly harmonize with the reasons already assigned for the giving of the law, and present the ceremonial services and institutions to our view as partly subservient to the righteousness it enjoined, and partly conducive to its ulterior end of drawing men to Christ. It will be our endeavour in the next Book to bring fully out and illustrate this relation between the law of the two tables and the symbols of Judaism; but at present we must content ourselves with briefly indicating its general nature. (1.) In so far as those symbols had in view the first of the objects just mentioned, they are to be regarded in the same general light as the means and ordinances of grace under the New Testament. It is through these that the knowledge of the Gospel is diffused, its divine principles implanted in the hearts of men, and a suitable channel also provided for expressing the thoughts and feelings which the reception of the Gospel tends to awaken. Such also was one great design of the law’s symbolical institutions, though with a characteristic difference suited to the time of their appointment. They were formal, precise, imperative, as for persons in comparative childhood, who required to be kept under the bonds of a rigid discipline, and a discipline that should chiefly work from without inwards, so as to form the soul to right thoughts and feelings, while, at the same time, it provided appropriate services for the exercise of such when formed. Appointed for these ends, the institutions could not be of an arbitrary nature, as if the authoritative command of God were the only reason that could be assigned for their appointment, or as if the external service were required simply on its own account. They stood to the law in the stricter sense—the law of the ten commandments—in the relation of expressive signs and faithful monitors, perpetually urging upon men’s consciences, and impressing, as it were, upon their senses, the essential distinctions between right and wrong, which the law plainly revealed and established. The symbolical ordinances did not create these distinctions; they did not of themselves even indicate wherein the distinctions stood; and in this partly appeared their secondary and subservient position as compared with the law of the two tables. The ordinance, for example, respecting clean and unclean in food, pointed to a distinction in the moral sphere—to one class of things to be avoided as evil, and another to be sought after as good; but it gave no intimation as to what the one or the other actually was: for this, it pointed to the two tables of the covenant. Or, to look to another ordinance, why should the touch of the dead have defiled? The touch might come by accident, or even in the discharge of domestic duty; yet defilement was not the less its result; and only after a series of lustrations could the subjects of it return to the freedom and privileges of God’s covenant. The reason was, that as the children of the living God, they should have been conscious only of righteousness and life: neither sin nor death (which is the wages of sin) should have been found within their borders. And so, to constitute the visitation of death, or even the touch of a dead man’s bone, into a ground of defilement, was virtually to admonish them of the accursed nature of sin, and of their still abiding connection with the region where sin was working. In short, it ought to be held as a most certain principle, that in the ceremonialism of the Old Covenant nothing was simply ceremonial: the spirit of the whole was the spirit of the ten commandments. Such being the connection between the moral law in the legislation of Moses, and the symbolical rites and services annexed to it, it was plainly necessary that the latter required to be wisely arranged, both in kind and number, so as fitly to promote the ends of their appointment. They were not outward rites and services of any sort. The outward came into existence merely for the sake of the religious and moral elements embodied in it, for the spiritual lessons it conveyed, or the sentiments of godly fear and brotherly love it was fitted to awaken. And that such ordinances should not only exist, but also be spread out into a vast multiplicity of forms, was a matter of necessity; as the dispensation then set up admitted so very sparingly of direct instruction, and was comparatively straitened in its supplies of inward grace. Imperfect as those outward ordinances were, so imperfect, that they were at last done away as unprofitable, the members of the Old Covenant were still chiefly dependent upon them for having the character of the Divine law exhibited to their minds, and its demands kept fresh upon the conscience. It was therefore fit that they should not only pervade the strictly religious territory, but should even be carried beyond it, embracing all the more important relations of life, that the Israelite might thus find something in what he ordinarily saw and did,—in the very food he ate, and the garments he wore,—to remind him of the law of his God, and stimulate him to the cultivation of that righteousness which it was his paramount duty to cherish and exemplify. Were these things duly considered, another and worthier reason would easily be discovered for the occasional intermingling of the moral and the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic legislation, than what is very commonly assigned. This did not arise from a confounding of the positive and moral, the shadowy and the abiding, as if they stood upon the same level, and no distinction were recognised betwixt them. The position of the law of the ten commandments in the ark of the covenant, as we have already stated, to say nothing of the other marks of distinction belonging to it, stood as a perpetual sign before the eyes of the people, that the things there enjoined held immeasurably the highest rank. It is, in truth, the most sublime exaltation of the moral above all material symbols of revelation, or ceremonial forms of worship, to be found in the religious annals of antiquity. In heathendom there is nothing to be compared with it, nor in the after-history of the covenant people is there anything that can justly be placed above it. The elevated moral teaching of the prophets is but the reflection, or specific and varied application, of what stood embodied before them in the lofty pattern exhibited in the handwriting of Moses, wherein the ceremonial was appointed only for the sake of the moral, and in a relation of subservience to it. From the views now unfolded, an important conclusion follows of a practical kind: for, since the symbolical institutions of Judaism continually bore respect to the moral law, and in a manner re-echoed its testimony, it is plain that God never could be satisfied with a mere outward conformity to the letter of the Mosaic ritual. Support has often been sought in Scripture itself for such an idea, especially in regard to the sacrifices; and the prophets have not unfrequently been represented as by their teaching serving to correct the tendency of the law in this respect, and going far in advance of it. The prophets, however, only comparatively depreciated the ceremonial institutions of the law (for at fitting times they also zealously enjoined their observance, Psalms 51:19; Psalms 118:27; Isaiah 43:23-24; Isaiah 56:7; Malachi 1:11; Malachi 3:9; Malachi 4:4, etc.), and for the purpose of meeting a corrupt tendency among the people, to lay undue stress on merely outward rites and services. But, in reality, the law itself, when properly understood, did the same. No one who looked into it with a considerate spirit could avoid the impression, that “to obey was better than sacrifice;” and that they who made the outward ceremonies of one part a substitute for the spiritual requirements of another, were taking counsel of their own hearts, rather than sitting at the feet of Moses, Hengstenberg justly remarks, that “there cannot be produced out of the whole Old Testament one single passage, in which the notion that sacrifices of themselves, and apart from the state of mind in the offerers, are well-pleasing to God, is noticed, except for the purpose of vigorously opposing it. When, for example, in Leviticus 26:31, it is said in reference to the ungodly, I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours; and when, in Genesis 4:4-5, we find that, along with an outward similarity, the offerings of Cain and Abel met with such a different reception from God, and that this difference is represented as being based on something personal to the individuals, it is all but expressly asserted, that sacrifices were regarded only as expressive of the inner sentiment.”[282] And again: “That the law, with all its appearance of outwardness, still possessed throughout a religious-moral, an internal, spiritual character, is manifest from the fact, that the two internal commands of love to God and one’s neighbour are in the law itself represented as those in which all the rest lie enclosed, the fulfilment of which carried along with it the fulfilment of all individual precepts, and without which no obedience was practicable: ‘And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God require of thee,’ etc.—(Deuteronomy 10:12; Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 11:1; Deuteronomy 11:13; Deuteronomy 13:3; Deuteronomy 30:15; Deuteronomy 30:20; Leviticus 19:18) If everything in the law is made to turn upon love, it is self-evident that a dead bodily service could not be what was properly required. Besides, in Leviticus 26:41, the violation of the law is represented as the necessary product of an uncircumcised heart; and in Deuteronomy 10:16 we find the remarkable words: ‘And ye shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked,’— which condemn all Pharisaism, that is ever expecting good fruit from bad trees, and would gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles.”[283] What is called the ceremonial law, therefore, was, in its more immediate and primary aspect, an exhibition by means of symbolical rites and institutions of the righteousness enjoined in the decalogue, and a discipline through which the heart might be wrought into some conformity to the righteousness itself. [282] Introduc. to Psalms 32. [283] Authentie, ii., p. 611, 612. (2.) But the more fully the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic legislation were fitted to accomplish this end, they must so much the more have traded to help forward the other end of the law, viz., to produce conviction of sin, and prepare the heart for Christ. “By the law is the knowledge of sin”—the sense of shortcomings and transgressions is in exact proportion to the insight that has been obtained into its true spiritual meaning. And the manifold restrictions and services of a bodily kind which were imposed upon the Israelites, as they all spoke of holiness and sin, so, where their voice was honestly listened to, it must have been with the effect of begetting impressions of guilt. They were perpetually uttering without the sanctuary the cry of transgression, which was rising within, under the throne of God, from the two tables of testimony. They might even be said to do more; for of them more peculiarly does it hold, “They entered that the offence might abound,” since, while calling upon men to abstain from sin, they at the same time multiplied the occasions of offence. The strict limitations and numerous requirements of service, through which they did the one, render it unavoidable that they should also do the other; as they thus necessarily made many things to be sin which were not so before, or in their own nature, and consequently increased both the number of transgressions, and their burden upon the conscience. How comparatively difficult must it have been to apprehend through so many occasions and witnesses of guilt the light of God’s reconciliation and love! How often must the truly spiritual heart have felt as heavy laden with its yoke, and scarcely able to bear it! And how glad should have been to all the members of the covenant the tidings of that “liberty with which Christ makes His people free!” This, however, was not the whole. Had the ceremonial institutions and services simply co-operated with the decalogue in producing upon men’s minds a conviction of guilt, and shut ting them up to the necessity of salvation, the yoke of bondage would have been altogether intolerable, and despair rather than the hope of salvation must have been the consequence. They so far differed, however, from the precepts of the law, that they provided a present atonement for the sin which the law condemned—met the conscious defect of righteousness which the law produced, with vicarious sacrifices and bodily lustrations. But these, as formerly noticed, were so manifestly inadequate to the end in view, that though they might, from being God’s own appointed remedies, restore the troubled conscience to a state of peace, they could not thoroughly satisfy it. First of all, they betrayed their own insufficiency, by allowing certain fearful gaps in the list of transgressions to stand unprovided for. Be sides, the comparatively small distinction that was made, as regards purification, between mere bodily defilements and moral pollution, and the absolute necessity of resorting anew to the blood of atonement, as often as the sense of guilt again returned, were plain indications that such services “could not make the comers thereunto perfect as pertaining to the conscience.” To the thoughtful mind it must have seemed as if a struggle was continually proceeding between God’s holiness and the sin of His creatures, in which the former found only a most imperfect vindication. For what just comparison could be made between the forfeited life of an accountable being and the blood of an irrational victim? Or between the defilements of a polluted conscience and the external washings of the outward man? Surely considerate and pious minds must have felt the need of something greatly more valuable to compensate for the evil done by sin, and must have seen, in the existing means of purification, only the temporary substitutes of better things to come. Such, at least, was the ultimate design of God; and whatever may have been the extent or clearness of view in those who lived among the shadows of the law, regarding the coming realities of the Gospel, it is impossible that they should have entered into the spirit of the former dispensation without being prepared to hail a suffering Messiah as the only true consolation of Israel; and prepared also to join in the song of the redeemed, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.”[284] [284] It is assumed here, that the sacrifices appointed under the law were intended to meet the sense of guilt produced by the law, and provide for it a present relief—the one, therefore, having to do with moral considerations as well as the other. But see this point formally discussed in connection with the sin-offering, Ch. III., sec. 7. At the same time, there can be no doubt that here peculiarly lay the danger of the members of the Old Covenant—a danger, which the issue too clearly proved, that but a small proportion of them were able properly to surmount. Not seeing to the end of the things amid which they were placed, and wanting the incalculable advantage of the awful revelation of God’s righteousness in Christ, the law failed to teach them effectually of the nature of that righteousness, or to convince them of sin, or to prepare them for the reception of the Saviour. But failing in these grand points, the law became a stumbling-block and a hindrance in their path. For now men’s consciences adjusted themselves to the imperfect appearances of things, and acted much in the spirit of those in present times, who, as a sensible and pious writer expresses it, “try to bring up the power of free-will to holiness, by bringing holiness down to the power of free-will.”[285] The dead letter, consequently, became everything with them; they saw nothing beneath the outward shell, nor felt any need for other and higher realities than those with which they had immediately to do. Self-righteousness was the inevitable result; and that, rooting itself the more deeply, and raising more proudly aloft its pretensions, that it had to travel the round of so complicated a system of laws and ordinances. For, great as the demand was which the observance of these made upon the obedience, still, as viewed by the carnal eye, it was something that could be measured and done—not so huge but that the mind could grapple with its accomplishment; and hence, instead of undermining the pride of nature, only supplying it with a greater mass of materials for erecting its claims on the favour of Heaven. The spirit of self-righteousness was the prevailing tendency of the carnal mind under the Old Dispensation, as an unconcern about personal righteousness is under the New. How many were snared by it! and how fatally bound! Of all “the spirits in prison” to whom the word of the Gospel came with its offers of deliverance, those proved to be the most hopelessly incarcerated in the strongholds of error, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and stumbled at the rock of a free salvation. [285] Fraser on Sanctification, p. 298. Section Sixth.—The Relation Of Believers Under The New Testament To The Law—In What Sense They Are Free From It—And Why It Is No Longer Proper To Keep The Symbolical Institutions Connected With It THE relation of believers under the New Testament to the law has been a fruitful subject of controversy among divines. This has arisen chiefly from the apparently contradictory statements made respecting it in New Testament Scripture; and this, again, partly from the change introduced by the setting up of the more spiritual machinery of the Gospel dispensation, and partly also in consequence of the mistaken views entertained regarding the law by those to whom the Gospel first came, which required to be corrected by strong representations of an opposite description. Thus, on the one hand, we find our Lord saying, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whoso ever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”[286] Stronger language could not possibly be employed to assert the abiding force and obligation of the law’s requirements under the New Testament dispensation; for that this is specially meant by “the kingdom of heaven,” is too obvious to require any proof. In perfect conformity with this statement of our Lord, we find the apostles everywhere enforcing the duties enjoined in the law; as when St James describes the genuine Christian by “his looking into the perfect law of liberty, and continuing therein,” and exhorts the disciples “not to speak evil of the law, or to judge it, but to fulfil it;”[287] or when the Apostle Paul not only speaks of himself as “being under the law to Christ,”[288] but presses on the disciples at Koine and Galatia the constant exercise of love on the ground of its being “the fulfilling of the law;”[289] and in answer to the question, “Do we then make void the law through faith?” he replies, “God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”[290] [286] Matthew 5:17-19. [287] James 1:25; James 2:8-12. [288] 1 Corinthians 9:21. [289] Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:14. [290] Romans 3:31. But, on the other hand, when we turn to a different class of passages, we meet with statements that seem to run in the precisely opposite direction, especially in the writings of St Paul. There alone, indeed, do we meet with them in the form of dogmatical assertions, although in a practical form the same element of thought occurs in the other epistles. In the first Epistle to Timothy he lays this down as a certain position, that “the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.”[291] And in the Epistle to the Romans he indicates a certain contrast between the present state of believers in this respect with what it was under the former dispensation, and asserts that the law no longer occupies the place it once did: “Now we are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”[292] And again: “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”[293] [291] 1 Timothy 1:9. [292] Romans 7:6. [293] Romans 6:14. That in all these passages the law, in the strict and proper sense, is meant,—the law of the ten commandments, the sum of whose precepts is perfect love to God and man,—we may here take for granted, after what has been said regarding it in the first section of this chapter. It seems perfectly unaccountable, on any grounds of criticism at least, that so many English writers should have thought of solving the difficulty arising from the use of such language, by alleging the Apostle to have had in view simply the ceremonial law, as contradistinguished from the moral. This view, we should imagine, is now nearly exploded among the better-informed students of Scripture; for not only does the Apostle, as Archbishop Whately states, speak of the freedom of Christians from the law, “without limiting or qualifying the assertion, without even hinting at any distinction between moral and ceremonial or civil precepts,” but there can be no doubt that it is what is commonly understood by the moral part of the Mosaic legislation the decalogue—that he has specially and properly in view.[294] [294] The work of Fraser on Sanctification, which has been less known in England than it should have been, is perfectly conclusive against Locke, Hammond, Whitby, and others, that the Apostle in Romans had in view the moral rather than the ceremonial law. It is impossible, indeed, that such a notion could ever have been entertained by such men except through strong doctrinal prejudices. In what respect, then, can it be said of Christians, that they are freed from this law, or are not under it? We must first answer the question in a general way; after which only can we be prepared for pointing out distinctly wherein the relation of the members of the New Covenant to the law differs from that of those who lived under the Old. 1. Believers in Christ are not under the law as to the ground of their condemnation or justification before God. It is not the law, but Christ, that they are indebted to for pardon and life; and receiving these from Him as His gift of grace, they cannot be brought by the law into condemnation and death. The reason is, that Christ has, by His own pure and spotless obedience, done what the law, in the hands of fallen humanity, could not do—He has brought in the everlasting righteousness, which, by its infinite worth, has merited eternal life for as many as believe upon Him. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; “Whosoever believeth upon Him is justified from all things; “or, in the still stronger and more comprehensive language of Christ Himself, “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but hath passed from death to life.”[295] [295] Romans 8:1; Acts 13:39; John 5:24. This, it will be perceived, is what is commonly understood by deliverance from the law as a covenant. But it is proper to remark, that though the idea expressed in such language is scriptural, the language itself is not so, and is rather fitted to mislead; for it appears to imply that, as the law certainly formed the basis of a covenant with the Old Testament Church, its being so formed made it something else than a rule of life, and warranted the Israelites to look to it, in the first instance at least, for life and blessing. This, we have already shown, was not the purpose for which the law was either given or established as a covenant among them; and deliverance from it in the sense mentioned above, marks no essential distinction between the case of believers under the Old and that of those under the New Testament dispensation. The standing of the one as well as the other was in grace; and when the law came, it came not for the purpose of subverting or changing that constitution, but only to direct and oblige men to carry out the important ends for which they had been made partakers of grace and blessing. Strictly speaking, therefore, the Church never was under the law as a covenant, in the sense commonly understood by the term; it was only the mistake of the carnal portion of her members to suppose themselves to have been so. But as God Himself is unchangeable in holiness, the demands of His law, as revealed to men in grace, must be substantially the same as those which they are bound in nature to comply with under pain of His everlasting displeasure. In this respect all may be said, by the very constitution of their being, to be naturally under law to God, and, as transgressors of law, liable to punishment. But through the grace of God we have ceased to be so under it, if we have become true believers in Christ. We have pardon and acceptance through faith in His blood; and even though “in many things offending, and in all coming short,” yet, while faith abides in us, we cannot come into condemnation. To this belong all such passages as treat of justification, and declare it to be granted without the law, or the deeds of the law, to the ungodly, and as God’s gift of grace in Christ. 2. But this is not the only respect in which the Apostle affirms believers now to be free from the law, nor the respect at all which he has in view in the sixth and seventh chapters of his Epistle to the Romans; for the subject he is there handling is not justification, but sanctification. The question he is discussing is not how, as condemned and sinful creatures, we may be accepted as righteous before God; but how, being already pardoned and accepted in the Beloved, we ought to live. In this respect, also, he affirms that we are dead to the law, and are not under it, but under grace the grace,—that is, of God’s in dwelling Spirit, whose quickening energy and pulse of life takes the place of the law’s outward prescriptions and magisterial authority. And if it were not already clear, from the order of the Apostle’s thoughts, and the stage at which he has arrived in the discussion, that it is in this point of view he is now considering the law, the purpose for which he asserts our freedom to have been obtained would put it beyond all reasonable doubt, viz., “that sin might not have dominion over us” (Romans 6:14), or, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.”—(Romans 8:4)[296] [296] It seems very strange, considering bow plain and explicit the Apostle’s meaning is, that the late Professor Lee of Cambridge should still say: “The main question, I think, here discussed (viz., in ch. 7) by the Apostle is, How is a man to be justified with God?” (Dissertations, i., sec. 10) Haldane, also, in his Commentary, maintains the same obviously untenable view. Fraser (Sanctification, on Romans 7:4) justly remarks, that though the similitude of marriage used by the Apostle in ch. 7 “might be explained to show that the sinner cannot attain justification or any of its comfortable consequences by the law,” yet that it is another consequence of the marriage covenant and relation that he hath in his eye,” viz., “the bringing forth of fruit unto God; “in other words, the maintaining of such holy lives as constitute our sanctification. According to the doctrine of the Apostle, then, believers are not under the law as to their walk and conduct; or, as he says elsewhere, “the law is not for the righteous:” believers “have the Spirit of the Lord; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” But is not this dangerous doctrine? For where now is the safeguard against sin? May not each one do as he lists, oblivious of any distinction between holiness and sin, or even denying its existence, as regards the children of God, on the ground that where no law is, there is no transgression? To such questions the Apostle’s reply is, “God forbid,”—so far from it, that the freedom he asserts from the law has for its sole aim a deliverance from sin’s dominion, and a fruitfulness in all well-doing to God. The truth more fully stated is simply this: When the believer receives Christ as the Lord his righteousness, he is not only justified by grace, but he comes into a state of grace, or gets grace into his heart as a living, reigning, governing principle of life. What, however, is this grace but the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? And this Spirit is emphatically the Holy Spirit; holiness is the very element of His being, and the essential law of His working; every desire He breathes, every feeling He awakens, every action He disposes and enables us to perform, is according to godliness. And if only we are sufficiently possessed of this Spirit, and yield ourselves to His direction and control, we no longer need the restraint and discipline of the law; we are free from it, because we are superior to it. Quickened and led by the Spirit, we of ourselves love and do the things which the law requires. Does not nature itself teach substantially the same lesson in its line of things? The child, so long as he is a child, must be subject to the law of his parents; his safety and well-being depend on his being so; he must on every side be hemmed in, checked, and stimulated by that law of his parents, otherwise mischief and destruction will infallibly overtake him. But as he ripens toward manhood he becomes freed from this law, because he no longer needs such external discipline and restraint. He is a law to himself, putting away childish things, and of his own accord acting as the parental authority, had he still been subject to it, would have required and enforced him to do. In a word, the mind has become his from which the parental law proceeded, and he has consequently become independent of its outward prescriptions. And what is it to be under the grace of God’s Spirit, but to have the mind of God?—the mind of Him who gave the law simply as a revelation of what was in His heart respecting the holiness of His people. So that the more they have of the one, the less obviously they need of the other; and if only they were complete in the grace of the Spirit, they should be wholly independent of the bonds and restrictions of the law. Or let us bring into comparison the relation in which a good man stands to the laws of his country. In one sense, indeed, he is under them; but in another and higher sense he is above them, and moves along his course with conscious freedom, as if he scarcely knew of their existence. For what is the object of such laws but to prevent, under severe penalties, the commission of crime? Crime, however, is already the object of his abhorrence; he needs no penalties to keep him from it. He would never harm the person or property of a neighbour, though there were not a single enactment in the statute-book on the subject. His own love of good and hatred of evil keep him in the path of rectitude, not the fines, imprisonments, or tortures which the law hangs around the path of the criminal. The law was not made for him. It is not otherwise with one who has become a partaker of grace. The law, considered as an outward discipline placing him under a yoke of manifold commands and prohibitions, has for him ceased to exist. But it has ceased in that respect only by taking possession of him in another. It is now within his heart. It is the law of the Spirit of life in his inner man; emphatically, therefore, “the law of liberty:” his delight is to do it; and it were better for him not to live, than to live otherwise than the tenor of the law requires. We see in Jesus, the holy child of God, the perfect exemplar of this free-will service to Heaven: for while He was made under the law, He was so replenished with the Spirit, that He fulfilled it as if He fulfilled it not; it was His very meat to do the will of Him that sent Him; and not more certainly did the law enjoin, than He in His inmost soul loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Such also, in a measure, will ever be the case with the devout believer in Jesus—in the same measure in which he has received of his Master’s Spirit. Does the law command him to bear no false witness against his neighbour? He is already so renewed in the spirit of his mind, as to speak the truth in his heart, and be ready to swear to his own hurt. Does the law demand, through all its precepts, supreme love to God, and brotherly love to men? Why should this need to be demanded as matter of law from him who has the Eternal Spirit of love bearing sway within, who therefore may be said to live and breathe in an atmosphere of love? Like Paul, he can say with king-like freedom, “I can do all things through Christ strengthening me;” even in chains I am free; I choose what God chooses for me: His will in doing or suffering I embrace as my own; for I have Him working in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Now it is here that the difference properly comes in between the Old and the New Testament dispensations,—a difference. however, it must be carefully marked, of degree only, and not of kind. The saying is here especially applicable, “On the outside of things look for differences, on the inside for likenesses.”[297] In correspondence with the change that has taken place in the character of the Divine administration, the relative position of believers to the law and the Spirit has changed; but under both covenants alike, an indispensable place belongs to each of them. In the former dispensation the law stood more prominently out, and was the more peculiar means for leading men to holiness—supplying, as by a sort of artificial stimulant and support, the still necessary defect in the inward gift of the Spirit’s grace. We say the necessary defect; for the proper materials of the Spirit’s working, not yet being provided or openly revealed, the Spirit could not be fully given, nor could His work be carried on otherwise than in a mystery. It was so carried on, however; every true member of the covenant was a partaker of the Spirit, because he stood in grace at the same time that he stood under the law. But his relation to the Spirit was of a more hidden and secret, to the law of a more ostensible and manifest, character. In the New Testament dispensation this relation is exactly reversed, although in each respect it still exists. The work of Christ, which furnishes the proper materials of the Spirit’s operations, having been accomplished, and Himself glorified, the Spirit is now fully and unreservedly given. Through the power of His grace, in connection with the word of the Gospel, the Divine kingdom avowedly purposes to effect its spiritual designs, and bring forth its fruits of righteousness to God. This, therefore, it is to which the believer now stands immediately and ostensibly related, as the agency through which he is to fulfil the high ends of his calling; while the law retires into the background, or should be known only as existing within, impressed in all its essential lines of truth and duty upon the tablet of the heart, and manifesting itself in the deeds of a righteous life. But whether the law or the Spirit stand more prominently forward, the end is the same—namely, righteousness. The only difference that exists, is as to the means of securing this end more outward in the one case, more inward in the other; yet in each a measure of both required, and one and the same point aimed at. Hence the words of the Apostle: “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” i.e., both alike are for righteousness—this is the one great end which Christ and the law have equally in view. But in Christ it is secured in a far higher way than it could possibly be through the law, since He has not only perfected Himself as the Divine Head and Surety of His people in the righteousness which the law requires, but also endows them with the plentiful grace of His Spirit, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in them, walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” [297] Hares, Guesses after Truth, ii., p. 3. With these distinctions clearly perceived, we shall easily understand what is said in the New Testament Scriptures of the difference, in a practical point of view, as to the condition of believers under the past and the present dispensations respectively. This is spoken of as a state of comparative freedom, that of a certain species of restraint or bondage—not the bondage, indeed, of slaves and mercenaries, which belonged only to the carnal, as opposed to the believing portion of the Church—but the bondage of those who, though free-born children, are still in nonage, and must be kept under the restraint and discipline of an external law. This, however, could in no case be the whole of the agency with which the believer was plied, for then his yoke must have been literally the galling bondage of the slave. He must have had more or less the Spirit of life within, begetting and prompting him to do the things which the law outwardly enjoined—making the pulse of life in the heart beat in harmony with the rule of life prescribed in the law; so that, while he still felt as under tutors and governors, it was not as one needing to be “held in with bit and bridle,” but rather as one disposed readily and cheerfully to keep to the appointed course. This would be the case with him always the more, the more diligently he employed the measure of grace within his reach; and if in a spirit of faith he could indeed “lift the latch and force his way” onwards to the end of those things which were then established, he might even have become insensible to the bonds and trammels of his childhood-condition, and attained to the free and joyful spirit of the perfect man. So it unquestionably was with the Psalmist, and doubtless might have been with all, if they had but used, as he did, the privileges granted them. For such, the law was not a mere outward yoke, nor in any proper sense a burden: it was “within their heart;” they delighted in its precepts, and meditated therein day and night; to listen to its instructions was sweeter to them than honey, and to obey its dictates was better than thousands of gold and silver.[298] [298] See especially Psalms 1, 15, 24, 40, 119. It is only, therefore, in a comparative sense, that we are to understand the passages in the New Testament Scripture formerly referred to; and in the same sense, also, that similar passages are to be interpreted in Old Testament Scripture,—such, for example, as Jeremiah 31:31-34 : “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt . . . but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour,” etc. (Comp. Ezekiel 36:25-27, which differs only in particularizing the agency by which the better state of things was to be introduced—the larger gift of the Spirit.) “The discourse here cannot be of a new and more complete revelation of the law of God, for this is common to both economies: no jot or tittle of it can be lost under the New Testament, nor can a jot or tittle be added to it; God’s law rests on His nature, and this is eternally immutable.—(Malachi 3:6) Just as little can the discourse be of the introduction of an entirely new relation, which by no means has the former for its groundwork. In this respect Kimchi rightly remarks: ‘Non erit foederis novitas, sed stabilimentum ejus’ (not a change, but an establishing of the covenant). The covenant with Israel is eternal; Jehovah would not be Jehovah, if an absolutely new beginning could take place.—(Romans 15:8) When, therefore, the subject of discourse is here the antithesis of an Old and New covenant, the former must designate, not the relation of God to Israel in itself, and in all its extent, but rather only the former manifestation of this relation—that through which the Lord, until the time of the prophet, had made Himself known as the God of Israel.”[299] And in regard to the difference indicated by the prophet, as to the believer’s connection with the law under the two covenants, the learned author, expressing his concurrence in particular with Calvin and Buddeus, goes on to show that this also is not absolute, but only relative. He justly states that the idea of a purely outward giving of the law is inconceivable, as God would then have done for Israel nothing farther than He did for the traitor Judas, in whose conscience He proclaimed His holy law, without giving him any power to repent—that the terms in which the law is spoken of by the Psalmist, in the name of the Old Testament saints, shows it to have been in their experience no longer a law that worketh wrath, but a law in connection with the Spirit, whose commands are not grievous; and that the antithesis between the Old and the New state of things, though in itself but relative, was expressed in the absolute form, merely because the gift of the Old Testament appeared, when compared with the infinitely more important and richer blessing of the New, as so small, that it vanished out of sight. [299] Hengstenberg’s Christology on Jeremiah 31:31. But something else than that should also vanish from our sight. For if we enter as we should into these views, the idea of the law’s abrogation or abolition under the New Testament, in whatever form proposed, will be repudiated as equally dangerous and ungrounded. The law is in no proper sense abolished by the revelations of the Gospel; nor does the Apostle in any fair construction of his language say that it is. He merely says, that through grace we are not under it, and in a conjugal respect are dead to it. In a certain qualified sense, believers in Old Testament times might be said to have been married to it, or to have been under it; only, however, in a qualified sense, for God Himself—the God of grace as well as of law—was properly their husband (Jeremiah 31:32), and they stood under the covenant of grace before they came under the covenant of law. But though, even in that qualified sense, believers are not now under the law, or married to it, the righteousness required is as much binding upon their consciences, and expected at their hands, as it ever was at any former period of the Church’s history. More so, indeed; for the very reason, as the Apostle tells us, why they are placed less directly under the law, and more under the Spirit, is, that the end of the law might be more certainly attained, and a richer harvest yielded of its fruits of righteousness. Therefore it is, that in the same epistle in which those expressions are used, conformity to the law’s requirements is still held out, and inculcated as the very perfection of Christian excellence.—(Romans 13:8-10) For it is not as if these two, the law and the Spirit, were contending authorities, or forces drawing in two distinct and separate lines. On the contrary, they are essentially and thoroughly agreed—alike emanations of the unchanging holiness of Godhead—the one its outward form and character in which it was to appear, the other its inward spring and pulse of life. What the one teaches, the other wills—what the one requires, the other prompts and qualifies to perform; and as the law at first came as an hand maid to the previously existing covenant of grace, so does it still remain in the hand of the Spirit to aid Him, amid the workings of the flesh and the imperfections of grace, in carrying out the objects for which He condescends to dwell and act in the bosoms of men. Hence appears the monstrous absurdity and error of Antinomianism, which proceeds on the supposition of the law and the Spirit being two distinct, possibly contending, authorities a doctrine not so much opposed to any particular portion of Scripture, as the common antithesis of all its revelations, and the subversion of all its principles. But let it once be understood that the law and the Spirit have but one end in view, and one path, in a sense, to reach it—that the motions of the Spirit within, invariably, and by the highest of all necessities, take the direction prescribed by the law without—let this be understood, and Antinomianism wants even the shadow of a ground to stand upon.—It is not merely the Antinomians, however, who contend for the abrogation of the law; the same thing is substantially done by many divines who belong to an entirely different class. For example, Archbishop Whately, in his Essay on the Abolition of the Law, maintains this position: “The simplest and clearest way then of stating the case, is to lay down, on the one hand, that the Mosaic law was limited both to the nation of the Israelites, and to the period before the Gospel; but, on the other hand, that the natural principles of morality which, among other things, it inculcates, are, from their own character of universal obligation, and that Christians are bound to obey the moral commandments it contained, not because they are commandments of the Mosaic law, but because they are moral.” This view, which puts the decalogue on a footing with the laws of Solon or Mahomet, in so far as any obligation on the conscience is concerned, is that also maintained, and with a considerable show of learning supported, by Bialloblotzky, in his work De Abrogatione Legis. The form into which the learned author throws his statement is, that the nomothetical authority of the Mosaic law is abolished, but its didactical authority remains; in other words, it has no binding force as a law upon the conscience, but may still be profitably used for direction in the way of duty,—due allowance of course being made for all that belonged to it of temporary appointment and ceremonial observance, which is no longer even a matter of duty. His chief arguments in supporting this view are, that in some things, especially in regard to the Sabbath, marriage, the symbolical rites (for all are thrown, as we observed before, into one mass), Christ and His apostles have corrected the law, and that they oppose the authority of the Spirit to the external tyranny of the law (as if these were two contending masters; and we actually have the passage, “No man can serve two masters,” produced in proof of the argument, p. 63). Such views have been substantially met already; and we simply remark farther, that they necessarily open the widest door for Antinomians and Rationalists: for if, as possessors of the Spirit, we must first judge what part of the law is moral or didactic,—and even when we have ascertained this, still are permitted to hold that we are not connected with it as a matter of binding and authoritative obligation,—it is easy to see what slight convictions of sin will be felt, what loose notions of duty entertained, how feeble a barrier left against either the carnal or the fanatical spirit ridding itself of the plainest obligations. It is quite possible, no doubt, to produce unguarded statements, easily susceptible of an improper meaning, and partly, indeed, expressing such, from Luther’s works on the law. But his real views, when carefully and doctrinally, not controversially expressed, were substantially correct, as will appear from a quotation to be given presently, or from Melancthon’s works, which Luther is well known to have held to be better expositions than his own of their doctrinal views. For example, after speaking (vol. i., p. 309) of the Mosaic law as not availing to justification, and in its civil and ceremonial parts done away, Melancthon adds: “But the moral law, since it is the wisdom of God and His eternal rule of righteousness, and has been revealed that man should be like God, cannot be abolished, but remains perpetually (Romans 3:31; Romans 8:4).” The question, however, naturally arises, Of what use is the law to those who really are under the Spirit? We answer, it would be of none, if the work of spiritual renovation, which His grace is given to effect, were perfected in us. But since this is far from being the case—since imperfection still cleaves to the child of God, and the flesh, in a greater or less degree, still wars against the Spirit, the outward discipline of the law can never be safely dispensed with. Even St Paul was obliged to confess that he found the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and that though he was ever following after, he was conscious of not having yet attained to the full measure of grace and excellence in Christ. Therefore, for his own quickening and direction, as well as for that of others, he felt it needful to press the demands of law, and to look to the exceeding breadth of its requirements. Luther also, and his fellow-labourers, although their views were not always correct as to the relation in which Israel stood to the law, nor by any means clear regarding the precise nature of the change introduced by the Gospel, yet were sound enough on this point. Thus they say in one of their symbolical books: “Although the law was not made for the righteous (as the Apostle testifies, 1 Timothy 1:9), yet this is not to be understood as if the righteous might live without law; for the Divine law is written upon their hearts. The true and genuine meaning, therefore, of Paul’s words is, that the law cannot bring those who have been reconciled to God through Christ under its curse, and that its restraint cannot be irksome to the renewed, since they delight in the law of God after the inner man. . . . But believers are not completely and perfectly renewed in this life; and though their sins are covered by the absolutely perfect obedience of Christ, so as not to be imputed to believers to their condemnation, and though the mortification of the old Adam and the renovation in the spirit of their mind has been begun by the Holy Spirit, yet the old Adam still remains in nature’s powers and affections,” etc.[300] [300] De Abrog. Legis.. p. 72-73. There are three different respects in which we still need the law of God, and which it will be enough briefly to indicate: 1. To keep us under grace, as the source of all our security and blessing. This we are ever apt, through the pride and self-confidence of the flesh, to forget, even though we have already in some measure known it. Therefore the law must be our schoolmaster, not only to bring us to Christ at the beginning of a Christian life, but also afterwards to keep us there, and force continually back upon us the conviction, that we must be in all respects the debtors of grace. For when we see what a spirituality and breadth is in the law of God, how it extends to the thoughts and affections of the heart as well as to our words and actions, and demands, in regard to all, the exercise of an unswerving devoted love, then we are made to feel that the law, if trusted in as a ground of confidence, must still work wrath, and that, convinced by it as transgressors, we must betake for all peace and consolation to the grace of Christ. Here alone, in His atonement, can we find satisfaction to our consciences; and here alone also, in the strengthening aid of His Spirit, the ability to do the things which the law requires. 2. The law, again, is needed to restrain and hold us back from those sins which we might otherwise be inclined to commit. It is true, that in one who is really a subject of grace, there can be no habitual inclination to live in sin; for he is God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus, created in Him unto good works. But the temptations of the world, and the devices of the spiritual adversary, may often be too much for any measure of grace he has already received, successfully to resist: he may want in certain circumstances the willing and faithful mind either to withstand evil or to prosecute as he should the path of righteousness; and therefore the law is still placed before him by the Spirit, with its stem prohibitions and awful threatenings to move with fear, whenever love fails to prompt and influence the heart. Thus the Apostle: “I am determined to know nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified”—it is my delight, my very life, to preach the doctrines of His salvation; but if the flesh should recoil from the work, and render the spirit unwilling, “a dispensation is committed to me, yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel.” Thus the discipline of the law comes in to supply the imperfections of the Spirit, and curb the still remaining tendencies of sin. 3. And it is yet farther needed to present continually before the eye of the mind a clear representation of the righteousness which, through the grace of the Spirit, believers should be ever striving to attain. While that grace is still imperfect, they are necessarily in danger of entertaining low and defective views of duty; nay, in times of peculiar temptation or undue excitement, they might even mistake the motions of the flesh for the promptings of the Spirit, and under the guise of truth embrace the way of error. But the law stands before them, with its revelation of righteousness, as a faithful and resplendent mirror, in which they may behold, without any danger of delusion or mistake, the perfect image of that excellence which they should be ever yielding to God. “We are free we have the Spirit, and are not subject to bondage.” True, but free only to act as servants of Christ, and not to throw around you a cloak of maliciousness. Believers are free, not to introduce what they please into the service of God, for He is a jealous God, and will not allow His glory to be associated with the vain imaginations of men; they are free to worship Him only in spirit and in truth. Shall any one say he is free to give or withhold, as seems good to him, what may be needed to advance the cause of God in the world to employ or not for holy ends the means and opportunities he enjoys! How impossible! seeing that if he is really filled with the Spirit, the love of God must have been breathed into his soul, so as of necessity to make it his delight to do what he can for the Divine glory, and to engage in the services which bring him into nearest fellowship with Heaven. Thus the freedom of the Spirit is a freedom only within the bounds and limits of the law; and the law itself must stand, lest the flesh, taking advantage of the weakness of the Spirit’s grace, should in its wantonness break forth into courses which are displeasing to the mind of God. So much for the law in the strict and proper sense,—the law of the ten commandments,—the freedom from which enjoyed by the Christian is not absolute, but relative only; just as the Israelites want of the Spirit was also of a simply relative description. But in regard to what is called the ceremonial law, the freedom is absolute; and to keep up the observance of its symbolical institutions and services after the new dispensation entered, was not only to retain a yoke that might be dispensed with, but also an incongruity to be avoided, and even a danger to be shunned. For, viewed simply as teaching ordinances, intended to represent and inculcate the great principles of truth and duty, they were superseded at the introduction of the Gospel by the appointment of other means, more suitable as instruments in the hand of the Spirit for ministering instruction to the minds of men. The change then brought into the divine administration was characterized throughout by a more immediate and direct handling of the things of God. They were now things no longer hid under a veil, but openly disclosed to the eye of the mind. And ordinances which were adapted to a state of the Church when neither the Spirit was fully given, nor the things of God were clearly revealed, could not possibly be such as were adapted to the Church of the New Testament. The grand ordinance here must be the free and open manifestation of the truth—written first in the word of inspiration, and thenceforth continually proclaimed anew by the preaching of the Gospel; and such symbolical institutions as might yet be needed, must be founded upon the clear revelations of this word not—like those of the former dispensation, spreading a veil over the truth, or affording only a dim shadow of better things to come. Hence the old ritual of service should have fallen into desuetude whenever the new state of things entered; and the tenacity with which the Judaizing Christians clung to it, was the indication of an imperfect enlightenment and a perverted taste. Had they known aright the new wine, they would straightway have forsaken the old. So long as they could get the kernel only through the shell, it was their duty to take the one for the sake of the other. But now, when the kernel itself was presented to them in naked simplicity, still to insist upon having the shell along with it, was the clear sign of a disordered condition,—an undoubted proof that they had not yet come to the full knowledge and appreciation of Gospel truth, and were disposed to rest unduly in mere outward observances. The Apostle, therefore, on this ground alone, justly denounces such Judaizers as carnal,—in spiritual things acting the part of persons who, though of full age, have not put away childish things, but continue in a willing “bondage to the elements of the world.” This, however, was by no means the whole of the misapprehension which such conduct betrayed. For while those ordinances of the former dispensation were in one point of view means of instruction and grace, in another they were signs and acknowledgments of debt. Calling, as they did, continually for acts of atonement and cleansing, and yet presenting nothing that could satisfactorily purge the conscience, they were, even when rigorously performed, testimonies that the heavy reckoning for guilt was not yet properly met—bonds of obligation for the time relieved, but standing over to some future period for their full and adequate discharge. This discharge in full was given by Christ when He suffered on the cross, and brought in complete satisfaction for all the demands of the violated law. He is therefore said to have “blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” The charges of guilt and condemnation which that handwriting had been perpetually making against men as transgressors, were now laid in one mass upon the body of the crucified Redeemer, and with its death were for ever abolished. So that those ceremonies being, as Calvin justly terms them, “attestations of men’s guilt, and instruments witnessing their liability,” “Paul with good reason warned the Colossians how seriously they would relapse, if they allowed a yoke in that way to be imposed upon them. By so doing, they at the same time deprived themselves of all benefit from Christ, who, by His eternal sacrifice once offered, had abolished those daily sacrifices, which were indeed powerful to attest sin, but could do nothing to destroy it.”[301] It was in effect to say, that they did not regard the death of Christ as in itself a perfect satisfaction for the guilt of their sins, but required the purifications of the law to make it complete—at once dishonouring Christ, and showing that they took the Old Testament ceremonies for something else than they really were. [301] Inst., B. 2., c. 7, § 17. It has sometimes been alleged, that in the case of the Jewish believers there was still a sort of propriety, or even of obligation, in continuing to observe the ceremonies of Moses—until, at least, the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, formally discharging them from all further attendance upon such services. But there is no real foundation for such an opinion. It is true that no express and authoritative injunction was given at first for the discontinuance of those services; but this arose simply out of accommodation to their religious prejudices, which might have received too great a shock, and among their unbelieving neighbours excited too outrageous an opposition, if the change had at once been introduced. But so far as obligation and duty were concerned, they should have required no explicit announcement on the subject different from what had already been given in the facts of Gospel history. When the veil was rent in twain, abolishing the distinction at the centre, all others of an outward kind of necessity gave way. When the great High Priest had fulfilled His work, no work remained to be done by any other priest. The Gospel of shadows was conclusively gone, the Gospel of realities come. And the compliances which the apostles generally, and Paul himself latterly, made (Acts 21) to humour the prejudices and silence the senseless clamours of the Jews, though necessary at first, were yet carried to an undue and dangerous length. They palpably failed, in Paul’s case, to accomplish the end in view; and, in the case of the Jewish Christians themselves, were attended with jealousies, self-righteous bigotry, growing feebleness, and ultimate decay. “Before Messiah’s coming, the ceremonies were as the swaddling bands in which He was wrapt; but after it, they resembled the linen clothes which He left in the grave. Christ was in the one, not in the other. And using them as the Galatians did, or as the Jews do at this day, they and their language are a lie; for they say He is still to come who is come already. They are now beggarly elements, having nothing of Christ, the true riches, in them.”[302] [302] Bell on Cov., p.140. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 131: 05.26. CHAPTER THIRD ======================================================================== Chapter Third.—The Religious Truths And Principles Embodied In The Symbolical Institutions And Services Of The Mosaic Dispensation, And Viewed In Their Typical Reference To The Better Things To Come. Section First.—Introductory On The Question Why Moses Was In Structed In The Wisdom Of The Egyptians, And What Influence This Might Be Expected To Exercise On His Future Legislation. THE learning of Moses was briefly adverted to in an earlier part of our investigations.[303] But this is the proper place for a more formal discussion of it, when we are entering on the explanation of the Mosaic symbols of worship and service. That an acquaintance with Egyptian learning was advantageous to Moses, to the extent formerly stated, no one will be disposed to question. Whatever might be its peculiar character, it would at least serve the purpose of expanding and ripening the faculties of his mind, would render him acquainted with the general principles and methods of political government, would furnish him with an insight into the religious and moral system of the most intelligent and civilised nation of heathen antiquity, and so would not only increase his fitness, in an intellectual point of view, for holding the high commission that was to be entrusted to him, but would also lend to the commission itself, when bestowed, the recommendation which superior rank or learning ever yields, when devoted to a sacred use. [303] Vul. 2., Chap. I., s. 2. Such advantages, it is obvious, Moses might derive from his Egyptian education, irrespective altogether of the precise quality of the wisdom with which he thus became acquainted. It is another question, how far he might be indebted to that wisdom itself, as an essential element in his preparation, or to what extent the things belonging to it might be allowed to mould and regulate the institutions which he was commissioned to impose on Israel. Scripture throws no direct light upon this question; it affords materials only for general inferences and probable conclusions. And yet the view we actually entertain on the subject cannot fail to exert a considerable influence on the spirit in which we investigate the whole Mosaic system, and give a distinctive colouring to our interpretations of many of its parts. 1. The opinion was undoubtedly very prevalent among the Christian fathers, that no small portion of the institutions of Moses were borrowed from those of Egypt, and were adopted as Divine ordinances only in accommodation to the low and carnal state of the Israelites, who had become inveterately attached to the manners of Egypt. With the view, it was supposed, of weaning them more easily from the errors and corruptions which had grown upon them there, the Lord indulged them with the retention of many of the customs of Egypt, though in themselves indifferent or even somewhat objectionable, and gave a place in His own worship to what they had hitherto seen associated with the service of idols. They rarely enter into particulars, and never, so far as we remember, formally discuss the grounds of their opinion; but very commonly think it enough to refer, in support of it, to Ezekiel 20:25, where the Lord is said to have given Israel “statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” This passage is also much pressed by Spencer, and, indeed, is the main authority of a scriptural kind to which both he, and after him, Warburton (Div. Legation, B. iv., c. 6), appeal in confirmation of their general view of the Mosaic ritual. By an arbitrary interpretation of the passage referred to, they regard the decalogue as the statutes in themselves really and properly good, for breaking which in the wilderness, others namely, the ceremonial observances were imposed on them: “Because they had violated my first system of laws,—the decalogue,—I added to them my second system, the ritual law, very aptly characterized (when set in opposition to the moral law) by statutes that were not good, and by judgments whereby they should not live.”—(Warburton) A quite groundless distinction in the circumstances; for certainly they could least of all have lived by the moral law, which, as the Apostle testifies, brings the knowledge of sin, and the judgment of death; and through whatever channel the life they possessed might come, it could by no possibility come from such a source. Besides, Moses had got all the instruction regarding the tabernacle and its ordinances before the revolt with the golden calf took place; so that the tabernacle-worship went before this, and was no after-thought, resorted to in consequence of the revolt. But it is quite beside the purpose of the prophet to compare one part of the law with another: “it is impossible that he could, especially after his own declarations regarding the law, designate it by such terms; the laws not good, bringing death and destruction, are opposed to those of God; they are the heathen observances which were arbitrarily put in the room of the other.”—(Hävernick) So also Calvin, Vitringa, Obs. Sacrae, L. ii., c. 1, sec.17. Indeed, Jerome, though he hesitates as to the proper meaning, has correctly enough expressed it in these words: “Hoc est, dimisit eos cogitationibus, et desideriis suis, ut facerent quae non conveniunt.” Parallel is Psalms 81:12, “So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts, and they walked in their own counsels;” Acts 7:42, “He gave them up to worship the host of heaven;” Romans 1:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:11.[304] [304] The references to the fathers may be found in Spencer, De Leg. Hebrews 1, c. 1. Deyling has an acute dissertation on this passage (Obs. Sac., P. ii., ch. 23), in which he very successfully refutes the interpretation of the fathers, Spencer, and those of later times, who substantially adopt his view, but also objects to the view given of it here, and contends, that the statutes not good, and the laws by which they could not live, were God’s chastisements, punishing them for their violations of His good and life-giving ordinances. We have no doubt that these chastisements were in the eye of the prophet, but not to the exclusion of the other: God gave them up to foolish counsels and a reprobate mind, that they might manifestly appear to be undeserving of His care, and be left to inherit the recompense that meet for their perversity. Spencer, supporting himself on the authority of the fathers, and by a distorted interpretation of one or two passages of Scripture, has, with great learning and industry (in his work De Legibus Hebraeorum), endeavoured to make good the proposition, that the immediate and proper design of the Mosaic law was to abolish idolatry, and preserve the Israelites in the worship of the one true God; and that, for the better effecting of this purpose, the Lord introduced many heathenish, chiefly Egyptian, customs into His service, and so changed or rectified others, as to convert them into a bulwark against idolatry. He coupled with this, no doubt, a secondary design, “the mystic and typical reason,” as he calls it—that, namely, of adumbrating the better things of the Gospel. But this occupies such an inferior and subordinate place, and is occasionally spoken of in such disparaging terms, that one cannot avoid the conviction of his having held it in very small estimation. He even represents this mystical reference to higher things than those immediately concerned, as done partly in accommodation to the early bent given to the mind of Moses.[305] And of course, when he comes to particulars, it is only in regard to a few things of greater prominence, such as the tabernacle, the ark, and the more important institutions, that he can deem it advisable to search for any mystical meaning whatever. To go more minutely to work, he characterizes as a kind of “sporting with sacred things;” and declares his concurrence in a sentiment of Chrysostom, that “all such things were but venerable and illustrious memorials of Jewish ignorance and stupidity.”[306] [305] .De Leg. Heb., p. 210. [306] Ibid., p. 215. It is not so much, however, in this depreciation of the symbolical and typical import of the Mosaic ritual, that the work of Spencer was fitted to give a false impression of its real character and object, as in the connection he necessarily sought to establish, while endeavouring to prove his main proposition, between the institutions of Moses and the rites of heathenism. Though charged with a Divine commission, Moses appears, in point of fact, only as an improved Egyptian, and his whole religious system is nothing more than a refinement on the customs and polity of Egypt. Not a few of the rites introduced were useless (legibus et ritibus inutilibus, p. 26), some were viewed as only tolerable fooleries (quos ineptias norat esse tolerabiles, p. 640), and would never have found a place in the institutions of Moses, but for the currency they had already obtained in Egypt, and the liking the Israelites had there acquired for them. But on such a view, it is impossible to conceive how to worship God according to the ritual of Moses could have been an acceptable service, and the very imposition of such a ritual in the name of God must have been a kind of pious fraud. “God,” to use the language of Bähr, “appears as a Jesuit, who makes use of bad means to accomplish a good end. Spencer, for example, considers sacrifice as an invention of religious barbarity—an evidence of superstitious views of the Divine nature. Now, when God by Moses not only confirmed for ever the offerings already in common use, but also extended and enlarged the sacrificial code, instead of thereby extirpating the mistaken views, He would really have sanctioned and most strongly enforced them. . . . Besides, the relation of Israel to the Egyptians, and that in particular of Moses, as represented in the Pentateuch at the time of the Exodus, would lead us to expect an intentional shunning of everything Egyptian, especially in religious matters, rather than an imitating and borrowing. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt is set forth as the special token of Divine love and power, as the greatest salvation wrought for Israel, as the peculiar pledge of the covenant with Jehovah; and a separate feast was devoted to the commemoration of this Divine goodness. It is unquestionable that there was here every inducement for Moses making the separation of Israel from Egypt as broad as possible. For this, however, it was indispensably necessary to brand everything properly Egyptian, and extirpate by all means the very remembrance of it. But by adopting the Egyptian ritual, Moses would have directly sanctioned what was Egyptian, and would have perpetuated the remembrance of the land of darkness and servitude.”[307] [307] Symbolik, B. i., s. 41, 42. The later part is stated rather too comprehensively, as we shall show by and by. The circumstances were such as to have led Moses rather to avoid than to seek an imitation of what was Egyptian, but it was impossible altogether to exclude it, or precisely to brand everything properly Egyptian. Indeed, the objectionable character of Spencer’s views could scarcely be better exposed than in the words of Lord Bolingbroke, when railing in his usual style against the current theology of his day: “In order to preserve the purity of His worship, God prescribes to them a multitude of rites and ceremonies, founded on the superstitions of Egypt, from which they were to be weaned, or in some analogy to them. They were never weaned entirely from all the superstitions; and the great merit of the law of Moses was teaching the people to adore one God, much as the idolatrous nations adored several. This may be called sanctifying pagan rites and ceremonies in theological language, but it is profaning the pure worship of God in the language of common sense.”[308] [308] Philosophical Works, vol. v., p. 377. It is remarked by Archbishop Magee, that Spencer’s work “has always been resorted to by infidel writers, in order to wing their shafts more effectively against the Mosaic revelation.” See note 60 to his work on the Atonement, where also are to be found some good remarks on such views generally, although, in resting upon the ground of Witsius, he does not place the opposition to them on its proper basis. He speaks of Tillotson as having been beforehand with Spencer in propounding the general view regarding the nature of the Mosaic ritual; and certainly Barrow (in his Sermon on the Imperfection of the Jewish Religion) exhibits to the full as low a view of the legislation of Moses as Spencer himself did shortly afterwards. We have no doubt that the view itself was an offshoot of the semi-deistical philosophy which sprang up at that period in England as a kind of reaction from Puritanism, and almost simultaneously insinuated itself into various productions of the more learned theologians. But while Spencer’s views lay open to such formidable objections, and were opposed to the more serious theology of the age, they gradually made way both in this country and on the Continent; and the influence of his work may be traced through a very large portion of the theological literature connected with the Old Testament down even to a recent period. The work owed this extraordinary success to the immense pains that had been bestowed upon it its exact method, comprehensive plan, and lucid expression—and also to the great skill which the author displayed in availing himself of all the learning then accessible upon the subject, and bringing it to bear upon the general argument. His views were eagerly embraced on the Continent by Le Clerc, and (in his work on the Pentateuch) pushed to consequences from which Spencer himself would have shrunk. Then Michaelis came with his masculine intellect, his stores of oriental learning, but low and worldly sense, discovering so many sanatory, medicinal, political, and, in short, all kinds of reasons but moral and religious ones, for the laws and institutions of Moses, that if the Jewish lawgiver was in some measure vindicated from the charge of accommodating his policy to heathenish notions and customs, it was only to establish for him the equally questionable reputation of a well-skilled Egyptian sage, or an accomplished worldly legislator. In this case, as well as in the other, it was impossible to avoid the conviction, that it was somewhat out of character to claim for Moses a properly divine commission, and quite incredible that signs and wonders should have been wrought by Heaven to confirm and establish it. After such pioneers, the way was open for the subtle explanations of rationalism, and the rude assaults of avowed infidelity.[309] [309] Michaelis did not himself positively avow his disbelief of the miraculous in the history of Moses, but he plainly betrayed his anxiety to get rid of it as far as possible, by his questions to Niebuhr in regard to the passage through the lied Sea. In Britain the influence of Spencer’s work has also been very marked, though, from the character of the national mind, and other counteracting influences, the results were not so directly and extensively pernicious. The more learned works that have since issued from the press, connected with the interpretation of the Books of Moses, have for the most part borne no unequivocal indications of the weight of Spencer’s name; while the better convictions and the more practical aim of the authors, generally kept them from embracing his views in all their grossness, and carrying them out to their legitimate conclusions. Even Warburton, who espouses in its full extent Spencer’s view regarding the primary and immediate design of the Mosaic institutions, as being intended to “preserve the doctrine of the unity by means of institutions partly in compliance to their Egyptian prejudices, and partly in opposition to those and the like superstitions,”[310] yet gives a decidedly higher place to the typical bearing of the Mosaic ritual, and comes much nearer the truth in representing both its religious use under the Old Testament dispensation, and its prospective reference to the New.[311] Such writers as Lowman[312] and Shaw[313] gave only a partial and reluctant assent to some of Spencer’s positions; and chiefly, it would seem, because they did not see how to dispose of his proofs and authorities. The latter, in particular, though he afterwards substantially grants what Spencer contended for, yet expresses his dissatisfaction with the general aim of Spencer’s work, by saying, that “upon the whole he was still apt to imagine, that however it might have been one part of the Divine purpose to guard Israel against a corruption from the Egyptian idolatry, by the institution of the Mosaic economy, this was not the principal design of it.” It would have been strange, indeed, if such had been its principal design. And strange it certainly was, that men, not to say of penetration and learning, but with their eyes open, could ever have imagined that it was so. For what do we not see, when we direct our view to the latter days of the Jewish commonwealth? We see this end most completely attained. A people never existed that were more firmly established in the doctrine of the unity, and more thoroughly alienated from the superstitions of heathenism; and yet never were a people less intelligently and properly acquainted with the true knowledge of God, and more hostile to the claims of Heaven. So that, in adopting the hypothesis in question, one must be prepared to maintain the monstrous proposition, that the principal and primary design of that religious economy might have been accomplished, while still the persons subject to it were neither true worshippers of the living God, nor fitted to enter into the kingdom of His Son. [310] Divine Leg., B. iv., s. 6, and v., s. 1. [311] Ibid., B. vi., s. 5 and 6. [312] Rational of the Ritual of the Hebrew Worship. [313] Philosophy of Judaism. The same considerations hold in regard to the other reason commonly assigned by this class of writers for the rites of Judaism—the separation of the people from the other nations of the earth. Indeed, from the very nature of things, that could not have been more than an incidental and temporary end. The covenant, out of which all Judaism grew, containing the promise that in the seed of Abraham all the families of the earth should be blessed, it could never be the direct intention and design of the ordinances connected with it, to place them in formal antagonism to other nations. This effect was no farther to have been produced than by the Israelites becoming too holy for intercourse with their Gentile neighbours. In so far as this distinction did not exist, both were virtually alike: the Israelites also were uncircumcised, virtually heathen; and the circum stance of their being placed under such sanctifying ordinances, was chiefly designed to have a salutary influence on the surrounding nations, and induce them to seek for light and blessing from Israel. Hence, Deuteronomy 32:43, “Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people;” and Isaiah 56:7, “Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.” 2. A widely different, and in many respects entirely opposite, view of the institutions of Moses, has also been maintained. Its chief expounder and advocate, as opposed to Spencer, was Witsius, whose AEgyptiaca was published with the express design of meeting the arguments and counteracting the influence of the work of Spencer.[314] In this production, Witsius admits at the outset that there is a striking similarity between the rites of the Mosaic law and those of other ancient nations, in particular of the Egyptians; and he even quotes with approbation a passage from Kircher, in which this similarity is asserted to have been so manifest, that “either the Egyptians must have Hebraized, or the Hebrews must have Egyptized.” Nor does he think it improbable that this may have been the reason why the Egyptian and Jewish rites were so often classed together at Home, and enactments made for restraining them as alike pernicious.[315] But he contends, at the same time, that some of the things in which this resemblance stood were not peculiar to the Egyptians, but common to them with other nations of heathen antiquity; and especially, that in so far as there might be any borrowing in the case, it was more likely the Egyptians borrowed from the Hebrews than the Hebrews from the Egyptians. His positions were generally acquiesced in by the more orthodox and evangelical divines of Britain; and it is a somewhat singular fact, that the commencement of a false theology in regard to the Old Testament had its rise in this country, and this country itself derived the chief corrective against the evil from abroad. In two important respects, however, the argument of Witsius was not satisfactory, and failed to provide a sufficient antidote to the work of Spencer. 1. He failed in proving, or even in rendering it probable, that the Egyptians borrowed from the Israelites the rites and ceremonies in which the customs of the two nations resembled each other. Warburton is quite successful here in meeting the positions of Witsius and his followers, both on account of the unquestionable antiquity of the Egyptian institutions, and the want of any such connection between the two nations as to render a borrowing on the part of the Egyptians from the Israelites in the least degree likely. And the more recent investigations which have been made into the history and condition of ancient Egypt, and the better knowledge that has been obtained of its religious rites and ceremonies, have given such confirmation to the views of Warburton in this respect, that they may now be regarded as conclusively established. It is not only against probability, but we may even say against the well-authenticated facts of history, to allege that the Egyptians had to any extent borrowed from the Israelites. 2. If in this respect the argument of Witsius was erroneous, in another it was defective; it made no attempt to supply what had partly occasioned the work of Spencer, and certainly contributed much to its success—a more solid and better grounded system of typology. This still remained as arbitrary and capricious in its expositions of Old Testament events and institutions as it had been before like a nose of wax, as Spencer somewhere sneeringly, though not without reason, terms it, which might be bent any way one pleased. Orthodox divines should, as Hengstenberg remarks, “have directed all their powers to a fundamental and profitable investigation into the symbolical and typical meaning of the ceremonial institutions.”[316] But not having done this, though they succeeded in weakening some of Spencer’s statements, and proving the connection between the Jewish and Egyptian customs to be less in certain cases than he imagined, yet his system, as a whole, had the advantage of an apparently settled and consistent groundwork, while theirs seemed to swim only in doubt and uncertainty. [314] Spencer’s work called forth many other opponents, but Witsius continued to hold the highest place. The AEgyptiaca was followed by a respectable work of Meyer, De Temporibus et Festis diebus Hebraeorum the first part against Sir John Marsham, the second against Spencer, taking up substantially the same ground as Witsius. Vitringa also opposes the leading views of Spencer, in various parts of his Obs. Sacrae, as is done by Deyling also, in his Obs. Sac. In this country, Shuckford in the first vol. of his Connection of Sacred and Profane History, and Graves in his Lectures on the Pentateuch (he has only one lecture on the subject, P. ii., Lee. v), with various other writers of inferior note, have opposed Spencer, on the ground of Witsius, but without adding to its strength. Daubeny’s Connection between the Old and the New Testament, though praised by Magee in his notes on this subject, does not touch on the controversy, and, in a critical point of view, is an inferior work. [315] Lib. i., c. 2. [316] Authentie, i., p. 8. 3. In recent times, considerable advances have been made toward the supplying of this deficiency on the part of Witsius and his followers. Much praise is due especially to Bähr, for having laid the foundation of a more profound and systematic explanation of the symbols of the Mosaic dispensation, although, from some radical defects in his doctrinal views, the meaning he brings out is often far from being satisfactory. On the particular point now under consideration, he substantially agrees with Witsius, holding the institutions of Moses to have been in no respect derived from Egypt; but differing so far, that he conceives the Egyptians to have been as little indebted to the Israelites, as the Israelites to the Egyptians. He maintains, that whatever similarity existed between their respective institutions, arose from the necessity of employing like symbols to express like ideas, which rendered a certain degree of similarity in all symbolical religions unavoidable. “Even if we should grant,” he says, “a direct borrowing in particular cases, why should not the lawgiver have adopted that which appeared formally suitable to him? The natural and the sensible is by no means in itself heathenish, and the sensible things of which the heathens availed themselves, to represent religious ideas, did not become in the least heathenish from having been applied to such a use. The main inquiry still is, what was indicated by these signs, and that not merely in the particulars, but pre-eminently in their combination into one entire system. Besides, no case is known to us, in which any such borrowing can with certainty be proved.”[317] “The investigations,” he again says, “recently prosecuted in such a variety of ways into the religions of the eastern nations show, that what was formerly regarded as peculiarly Egyptian in the religion of Moses, is also to be found among other nations of the East, especially amongst the Indians, and yet nobody would maintain that Moses borrowed his ceremonial institutions from India.”[318] Unquestionably not; but there may still be sufficient ground for holding that, without travelling to India to see what was there, he took what suited his purpose near at hand. Besides, Hengstenberg, in his Egypt and the Books of Moses, has endeavoured to prove and in some cases we think has successfully proved—that there are distinct traces to be found in the Mosaic legislation of Egyptian usages, and that Bähr is not borne out by his authorities in alleging the same usages to have existed elsewhere. We are disposed, therefore, to regard Bähr’s position as somewhat extreme; and on the whole subject of the Egyptian education of Moses, and the influence this might warrantably be supposed to exert upon the institutions he was afterwards honoured to introduce,—a subject not formally discussed by either of these authors,—we submit the following propositions, as at once grounded in reason, and borne out by the analogy of the Divine procedure. [317] Symbolik, i., p. 34. [318] Ibid., 42. (1.) It is, in the first instance, to be held as a sacred principle, that whatever might be the acquaintance Moses possessed with the customs and learning of Egypt, this could in no case be the direct and formal reason of his imposing anything as an obligation on the Israelites. For the whole and every part of his work he had a commission from above; and nothing was admitted into his institutions which did not first approve itself to Divine wisdom, and carry with it the sanction of Divine authority. “When the Lord was going to found a new commonwealth, as it was really new, He wished it also to appear such to the Israelites. Hence its form or appearance, not as fabricated from the rubbish of Canaanite or Egyptian superstitions, but as let down from heaven, was first shown to Moses on the sacred mount, that everything in Israel might be ordered and settled after that pattern. Nor did He wish liberty to be granted to the people, to determine by their own judgment even the smallest points in religion. He determined all things Himself, even to the minutest circumstances; so that, on pain of instant death, they were for bidden either to omit or to change anything. Thus, it became the majesty of the supreme God to subdue His people to Himself, not by the wiles of a tortuous and crooked policy, but by a royal path—the simple exercise of His own authority; and so to accustom them from the first to lay aside all carnal considerations, and to take the will alone of their King and Lord as their common rule in all things.”[319] The passage in Deuteronomy 12:30-32 is alone sufficient to establish the truth of this: “Take heed that thou inquire not after their gods (viz., of the nations of Canaan), saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord which He hateth have they done unto their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” [319] Witsius, AEgyptiaca, L. iii., c.14, § 3. That, in point of fact, there was a marked difference between the religious customs and sacrificial system of the Israelites and those of other nations, sufficient to stamp theirs as peculiarly their own, even heathen writers have in the strongest terms affirmed.[320] That it would be so, was implied in the declaration of Moses to Pharaoh, when he insisted upon being allowed to leave the land of Egypt, lest “they should sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians.” In whatever respects this might be the case,—whether in the kind of victims offered, or in the manner of offering them,—the statement at least indicates a strong contrariety between the worship to be instituted among them, and that already established among the Egyptians. And in the further statement of Moses, “We shall sacrifice to the Lord our God as He shall command us” (Exodus 8:27), he grounds their entire worship, whether it might in some respects resemble or differ from that of the Egyptians, on the sole and absolute authority of God. [320] Moses, quo sibi in posterum gentem firmaret, novos ritus, contrariosque caeteris mortalibus, indidit. Profana illie omnia, quae apud noa sacra, etc.—Tacitus, Hist., 50:5:4; also Plin. II. N. xiii. 4. (2.) But as the laws and institutions which God prescribes to His people in any particular age, must be wisely adapted to the times and circumstances in which they live, so it is impossible but that the fact of the lawgiver of the Jewish people having been instructed in all the wisdom of the most civilised nation of antiquity, must have to some extent modified both the civil and religious polity of which he was instrumentally the author. No man legislates in the abstract: there must be in every code of laws an adaptation to the existing state and aspect of society; and this always the more, the higher the skill and wisdom of the legislator. Moses, it must be remembered, did not stand alone in his connection with what was counted wise and polished among the Egyptians; he only possessed in a more eminent degree what belonged also in some degree to his brethren. And that the people for whom he was to legislate had grown up in a civilised country and an artificial state of society, familiar, at least, with the results of Egyptian learning, if but little initiated into the learning itself, naturally called for a corresponding advancement in the whole structure of his religious polity; for what was needed to develop and express either the civil or the religious life of a people so reared, would in many respects differ from what might have suited a rude and uncultivated horde. So that a certain regard to the state of things in Egypt was absolutely necessary in the Hebrew polity, if it was to possess a suitable adaptation to the real progress of society in the arts and manners of civilised life. To instance only in one particular—the knowledge of the art of writing must alone have exercised a most material influence on the code of laws prescribed to this new people. Where such an art is unknown, the laws must necessarily be few, the institutions natural and simple, and the degree of instruction connected with them of the most elementary nature—such as oral tradition might be sufficient to preserve, or the verses of some popular bards to teach. But if, on the other hand, the legislation is for a people among whom writing is known and familiarly used, it will naturally embrace a much wider range, and branch itself out into a far greater variety of particulars. Nor can we doubt that, for this reason among others, the Israelites were associated with the manners of Egypt, and Moses was from his youth instructed in all its learning. For, whatever mystery hangs over the first invention of letters, there can no longer be any doubt that Egypt was the country where the art of writing was first brought into general practice, and that at a period long prior to the birth of Moses. But, without an intimate and familiar acquaintance with this art, Moses could not have delivered such a system of laws as constituted the framework of his dispensation—which, from their multiplicity, it had been impossible to have accurately preserved, and from their prevailing character, as opposed to the corrupt tendencies of the people, the people themselves were but too willing to forget. It was therefore necessary that they should all be written, and that what was pre-eminently the law should even be engraved, for the sake of greater durability, upon tables of stone. All this implies a certain amount of learning on the part of the lawgiver, as requisite to fit him for being instrumentally the author of such a dispensation, and a certain influence necessarily exerted by his learning on his legislation. It implies also a considerable degree of civilisation on the part of the people, whose circumstances were such as to admit of and call for such a legislator.[321] [321] We have already spoken, toward the close of Chap. I., s. 1, of the connection between the civilisation of the Israelites, and the ultimate purposes of God in respect to them. The particular point more especially noticed in the text here—the existence and familiar use of the art of writing in Egypt, at the time of Israel’s sojourn there—has given rise to a good deal of controversy, but is now virtually settled, so far as our immediate purpose is concerned. How alphabetical writing was invented, or by whom, or whether it was not transmitted from the ages before the flood, and might consequently be claimed by each of the more eminent races or nations that afterwards arose as their own, these are still unexplored mysteries, and likely to remain such. The opinion is now very prevalent, that the invention belongs to Egypt, and grew out of a gradual improvement of the original hieroglyphic or picture writing. So especially Warburton, Div. Leg., B. iv., s. 4, and many of the recent writers on hieroglyphics. But this opinion is by no means universal, and it stands connected with such difficulties, that some of those who have devoted most attention to the subject, hold the order of things to have been precisely the reverse. They conceive that the most complicated was also the last that out of the alphabetical writing came the phonetic hieroglyphic, and this again gave rise to the ideographic and figurative. So, in part at least, Zoega, also Klaproth, Latronne, and Hengstenberg, who remarks, in confirmation of this view, that “the hieroglyphic writing was exclusively a sacred one, and hence conveys the impression, that it was intended to darken what already existed in a simple form; if we seek in hieroglyphic writing the commencement of writing in general, we can scarcely comprehend how it should from the first have been exclusively employed by the priests.” (Authentie, des Pent., i., p. 444-6, where also see quotations from the other writers mentioned as holding this view.) But, however this may be, it is certain that the knowledge and use of writing by letters reaches back to a period beyond all authentic profane history, and dates from the very infancy of the human race. Hence, by most early nations, the invention of it was ascribed to one of their gods—by the Phoenicians to Thaaut, by the Egyptians to Thot or Hermes, etc. The fact, also, that a person, whether personally designated, or characterized by the name of Cadmus, a supposed contemporary of Moses, brought letters from Phoenicia to Greece, is a sufficient proof that letter-writing was then in current use in the East. Even Winer (Real Wört., art. Screib-Kunst) admits that Moses might possibly have become acquainted with it in Egypt. The Greek writers, Diodorus (iii., c. 3), Plato (De Leg., L. vii), speak of it as customary in Egypt for the multitude learning letters; and the name given by Herodotus to the alphabetic kind of writing, demotic (popular), and by Clemens and Porphyry, epistolic, implies it to have been generally known and used. “In Egypt,” says Wilkinson, “nothing was done without writing. Scribes were employed on all occasions, whether to settle public or private questions, and no bargain of any consequence was made without the voucher of a written document.”—(Vol. i., p.183) He tells us also, that papyri of the most remote Pharaonic period have been found with the same mode of writing as that of the age of Cheops. (Vol. iii., p. 150) Rosselini says, that “they probably wrote more in ancient Egypt, and on more ordinary occasions than among us” that “the steward of the house kept a written register” that “their names used to be inscribed upon their implements and garments” that “in levying soldiers, persons wrote down their names as the commanders brought the men up,” etc. (Vol. 2., p. 241, ss.) That this accords with the representations given in the Pentateuch, and that the Israelites partook in the privilege, is evident from the name given to their officers both in Egypt and Canaan, shoterim, or scribes (Exodus 5:15; Deuteronomy 20:5), and also from the very frequent references to writing in the books of Moses, for example, Exodus 32:16; Deuteronomy 4:9; Deuteronomy 11:20; Deuteronomy 11:27, where they were enjoined to have the whole law written upon stones covered with chalk or plaster (according to a practice common in Egypt, Wilkinson, iii., p. 300), that all might see it and read it. (3.) We can very easily, however, advance a step farther, and perceive how a still more direct and intimate connection might in some respects be legitimately, and even advantageously, established, between the state of matters in Egypt, and that introduced by Moses among the Israelites. In things, for example, required for the maintenance of a due order and discipline among the people, or for the becoming support of the ministers and ordinances of religion,—things which human nature is disposed, if not altogether to shun, at least improperly to curtail and limit,—it might have been the part of the highest wisdom to adopt substantially the arrangements which already existed in Egypt; for as these must, from their very nature, have imposed a species of burden upon the Israelites, the thought that the same had been borne even by the depraved and idolatrous people from whom they were now separated, would the more easily reconcile them to its obligations. This is a principle which we find recognised and acted on in Gospel times. There must be self-denial, and a readiness to undergo labour and fatigue, in the Christian; and this the Apostle enforces by a reference to the toils of the husbandman, the hardships of the soldier, and even the painstaking laborious diligence of the combatant in the Grecian games.—(2 Timothy 2:3-6; 1 Corinthians 9:24) There must be a decent maintenance provided for those who devote their time and talents to the spiritual work of the ministry; and the reasonableness and propriety of this, he in part grounds on what was usually done amongst men in the commonest occupations of life, as well as the custom, prevalent alike among Jews and Gentiles, for those who ministered at the altar to live of the altar.—(1 Corinthians 9:7-14; 1 Corinthians 10:21) It was absolutely necessary, however distasteful it might be to men of corrupt minds, that proper means should be employed in the Church for the preservation of order, and the enforcement of a wholesome discipline; and the state of things among the Gentiles is appealed to as in itself constituting a call to attend to this, sufficient even to shame the churches into its observance.—(1 Corinthians 5; 1 Corinthians 11:1-16) Not only so, but the officers appointed in the Christian Church to take charge of its internal administration, and preside over its worship and discipline, it is well known, were derived, even to their very names, from those of the Jewish synagogue, which was not immediately of Divine origin, but gradually arose out of the exigencies of the times: the Holy Spirit choosing, in this respect, to make use of what was known and familiar to the minds of the disciples, rather than to invent an entirely new order of things.[322] [322] Abrogate templi liturgia et cultu, utpote ceremoniali, cultum atque publicam Dei adorationem in Synagogis, quae quidem moralis erat, Deus in ecclesiam transplantavit Christianam, publicum scilicet ministerium, etc. Hine ipsissima nomina ministrorum evangilii, Angelus ecclesiae, atque Episcopus, quae ministrorum in Synagogis, etc., Lightfoot, Op. ii., p. 279. But the full and satisfactory proof is to be found only in Vitringa, De Synagoga Vet., in the third part of which it is demonstrated, that the form of government and ministry belonging to the synagogues was in a great measure transferred to the Christian Church. We should not, therefore, be surprised to find the application of this principle in the Mosaic dispensation to find that some things there, especially of the kind supposed, bore a substantial conformity to those of Egypt. The officers, or shoterim, mentioned in Deuteronomy 20, were evidently of this class. And such also were some of the arrangements respecting the apportionment of the land, and the support ministered from its produce to those who were regarded more especially as the representatives of God. In these respects there was the closest resemblance between the Egyptian and Jewish polities, and in the points in which they agreed they differed from all the other nations of antiquity with which we are acquainted. It is an ascertained fact, confirmed by the reports of the Greek historians, that the king was regarded as sole proprietor of the land in Egypt, with the exception of what belonged to the priests, and that the cultivators were properly fanners under the king. Diodorus, indeed (L. i. 73), represents the military caste as having also a share in the land; and Wilkinson (vol. i., p. 263) says, that kings, priests, and the military order, these, but these only, appear to have been landowners. Herodotus, however, explains this apparent contradiction in regard to the military order, by stating (B. 2., sec. 141) that their land properly belonged to the king; that they differed from the common cultivators only in holding it free of rent, and in lieu of wages; that hence, while it had been given them by one king, it had been taken away by another. He also mentions, that not only had the priests property in land connected with the temples in which they served, but also that they had allowances furnished them out of the public or royal treasures, and along with the soldiers received a salary from the king (ii. 37, 168). These are very striking peculiarities, and, as Hengstenberg justly remarks,[323] imply, at least in regard to the king’s proprietorship in the land, a historical fact through which it was brought about. We have such a fact in the history of Joseph (Genesis 47), when he bought the land for Pharaoh, but rented it out again to the people, on condition of their paying a fifth of the produce, with the exception, however, of the land of the priests, whose land Pharaoh had no opportunity indeed of purchasing, because they had a stated allowance from his stores. [323] Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 62, Trans. It is perhaps not too much to say, that one of the reasons why this singular state of things was introduced into Egypt by the instrumentality of Joseph, was, that a similar arrangement in regard to the land of Canaan might the more readily be gone into on the part of the Israelites. The similarity is too striking to have been the result of anything but an intentional copying from the Egyptian constitution. For in the Jewish common wealth God is represented as King, to whom the whole land belonged, and the people were as tenants under Him—obliged also, by the tenure on which they held it, to yield two-tenths, or a fifth, of the yearly produce unto God, who again provided out of this fifth for the support of the priests and Levites, the widow and the orphan, His peculiar representatives.[324] This large contribution from the regular increase of the land was necessary for the proper administration of Divine ordinances, and the beneficent support of those who, according to the plan adopted, had no other resources to trust to for their comfortable maintenance. But it implied too entire a dependence upon God, and exacted too much at their hands, to meet with a ready compliance. And it was not only compatible, but we should rather say in perfect accordance with the highest wisdom, to adopt an arrangement for securing it, which was thus grounded in the history and constitution of Egypt, rather than to contrive one altogether new: for it thus came to them, on its first proposal, recommended and sanctioned by ancient usage. And the thought was obvious, that if the citizens even of a heathen empire, in consideration of a great act of kindness in the time of famine, gave so much to their earthly sovereign, and held so dependently of him, it was meet that they should willingly yield the same to the God who had redeemed them, and freely bestowed upon them everything they possessed. [324] Deuteronomy 18; Leviticus 25; comp. also Michaelis’ Laws of Moses, vol. ii., p. 258, and Hengstenberg’s Authentie, ii., p. 401, ss. In these, and probably some other matters of a similar kind, we can easily understand how the Egyptian learning of Moses, without the slightest derogation to his Divine commission, might be turned to valuable account in executing the work given him to do. Nor have we any reason to suppose that the Divine direction and counsel imparted to him superseded the light he had obtained, or the benefit he had derived by his opportunities of becoming acquainted with the internal affairs of Egypt. (4.) But there is a still farther point of connection between the Egyptian learning of Moses, coupled with the Egyptian training of the people, and what might justly be expected in the institutions under which they were to be placed, and one still more directly bearing on the religious aspect of the dispensation. For the handwriting of ordinances brought in by Moses was predominantly of a symbolical nature. But a symbol is a kind of language, and can no more than ordinary speech be framed arbitrarily; it must grow up and form itself out of the elements which are furnished by the field of nature or art, and be gathered from it by daily observation and experience. The language which we use as the common vehicle of our thoughts, and which forms the medium of our most hallowed intercourse with heaven, is constructed from the world of sin and sorrow around us, and, if viewed as to its origin, savours of things common and unclean. But in its use simply as a vehicle of thought or a medium of intercourse, it is not the less fitted to utter the sentiments of our heart, and convey even our loftiest aspirations to heaven. Why should it be thought to have been otherwise with the language of symbol? This too must have its foundation to a great extent in nature and custom, in observation and experience; for as it is addressed to the eye, it must, to be intelligible, employ the signs which, by previous use, the eye is able to read and understand. Plow should I imagine that white, as a symbol, represents purity, or crimson guilt, unless something in my past history or observation had taught me to regard the one as a fit emblem of the other? It would not in the least mar the natural import of the symbol, or destroy its aptitude to express, even on the most solemn occasions, the idea with which it has become associated in my mind, if I should have learned its meaning amid employments not properly sacred, or the practices of a forbidden superstition. No matter how acquired, the bond of connection exists in my mind between the external symbol and the spiritual idea; and to reject its religious use because I may have seen it abused to purposes of superstition, would not be more reasonable than to have proscribed every epithet in the language of Greece or Rome, which had been anyhow connected with the worship and service of idolatry. Now, it so happened in the providence of God, that the children of Israel were brought into contact with the religious rites and usages of a people deeply imbued, no doubt, with a spirit of depravity and superstition, but abounding, at the same time, with symbolical arts and ordinances. And it was in the nature of things impossible that another religion abounding with the same could be framed, without adopting to a large extent the signs with which, from the accident of their position, they had become familiar. The religion introduced might differ—in point of fact, it did differ—from that already established, as far as light from darkness, in regard to the spirit they respectively breathed and the great ends they aimed at. But being alike symbolical, the one must avail itself of the signs which the other had already seized upon as fitted to express to the eye certain ideas. This had become, so to speak, the current language, which might to some extent be modified and improved, but could not be arbitrarily set aside. And as such language consists for the most part of a figurative use of the sensible things of nature, the assertion of Bähr is undoubtedly correct, that a very large proportion of the symbols so employed must be common to all religions of a like nature. Yet as each nation also has its peculiarities of thought, of custom, of scenery, of art and commerce, it can scarcely fail to have some corresponding peculiarities of symbolical expression. And it should by no means surprise us it is rather in accordance with just and rational expectation, if, since the Egyptians were in various respects so peculiar a people, and the Israelites in general, and Moses in particular, had been brought into such close and intimate connection with their entire system, the symbols of the Jewish worship should in some points bear a resemblance to those of Egypt, which cannot be traced in those of any other nation of heathen antiquity. Such in reality is the case, as will afterwards appear; and we perceive in it a mark, not of suspicion, but of credibility and truth. It bears somewhat of the same relation to the authenticity of the Books of Moses, and the original genuineness of the revelation contained in them, that the language of the New Testament Scripture, the peculiar type of the period to which it belonged, does in reference to the truths and statements contained in them. Though certain critics, of more zeal than discretion, have thought it would be a great achievement for the literature of the New Testament, if they could establish its claim to be ranked in point of purity with the best of the Greek classics, no individual of sound judgment will dispute, that if they had succeeded in this, the loss would have been immensely greater than the gain; that one most important proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament record would have perished, and that the language itself would have become less pliant and expressive as a medium for communicating the spiritual ideas of the Gospel. In like manner, it is no discredit to the religion of Moses, that its symbols can so generally be identified with those currently employed at the period when it arose; and the peculiar resemblance borne by some of them to the customs and usages of Egypt, is like a stamp of veritableness impressed upon its very structure, testifying of its having originated in the time and circumstances mentioned in the original record. Nor can we fail to see in this the marvellous wisdom of the Divine working, in connection with the history of the undertaking of Moses, that while he was to be commissioned to set up a symbolical religion among the Israelites, the reverse in all its great features of that prevalent in Egypt, he should yet have been thoroughly qualified by his original training to serve himself of whatever suitable materials were furnished by the land of his birth. These were in a sense part of the spoils taken from the enemy, out of which the tabernacle of the wilderness was reared—though still all things there were made after the Divine pattern shown to Moses in the mount; and in the truths it symbolized, and the purposes for which it was erected, it was an embodiment, not of the things pertaining to a corrupt nature-worship, but of those which reveal the character of a righteous God, and the duty of service which His redeemed owe to Him. It is not certainly for the purpose of finding any continuation in a theological point of view, to the argument maintained in the preceding pages, but only to show the foundation in nature, or the scientific basis which it also has to rest upon, that we produce the following quotation from C. O. Müller. The quotation is farther valuable, as it exhibits the view of a profound thinker, and one who has made himself intimately conversant with the thoughts and customs of remote antiquity, in regard to the meaning treasured up in the symbols of ancient worship, and the aptitude of the people to understand them. It is possible, that in the work from which we give the extract he carries his views to an extreme, as we certainly think he does, in often making too much of particular transactions, and also in making the instruction by myths and symbols not only independent of, but in some sort inconsistent with, direct instruction in doctrine. The general soundness, however, of his view regarding the significance of those ancient forms of instruction, especially of symbol, there are few men of learning or judgment who will now be disposed to call in question. “That this connection of the idea with the sign when it took place, was natural and necessary to the ancient world; that it occurred in voluntarily; and that the essence of the symbol consists in this supposed real connection of the sign with the thing signified, I here assume. Now, symbols in this sense are evidently coeval with the human race; they result from the union of the soul with the body in man; nature has implanted the feeling for them in the human heart. How is it that we understand what the endless diversities of human expression and gesture signify? How comes it, that every physiognomy expresses to us spiritual peculiarities, without any consciousness on our part of the cause? Here experience alone cannot be our guide; for without having ever seen a countenance like that of Jupiter Olympus, we should yet, when we saw it, immediately understand its features. An earlier race of mankind, who lived still more in sensible impressions, must have had a still stronger feeling for them. It may be said that all nature wore to them a physiognomical aspect. Now, the worship which represented the feelings of the Divine in visible external actions, was in its nature thoroughly symbolical. No one can seriously doubt that prostration at prayer is a symbolic act; for corporeal abasement very evidently denotes spiritual subordination: so evidently, that language cannot even describe the spiritual, except by means of a material relation. But it is equally certain that sacrifice also is symbolical; for bow would the feeling of acknowledgment, that it is a God who supplies us with food and drink, display itself in action, but by withdrawing a portion of them from the use of man, and setting it apart in honour of the Deity? But precisely because the symbolical has its essence in the idea of an actual connection between the sign and the thing signified, was an inlet left for the superstitious error, that something palatable was really offered to the gods—that they tasted it. But it will scarcely do to derive the usage from this superstition; in other words, to assign the intention of raising a savoury steam as the original foundation of all sacrifice. It would then be necessary to suppose, that at the ceremony of libation the wine was poured on the earth, in order that the gods might lick it up! I have here only brought into view one side of the idea, which forms the basis of sacrifice, and which the other, certainly not less ancient, always accompanied, namely, the idea of atonement by sacrifice; which was from the earliest times expressed in numberless usages and legends, and which could only spring from the strongest and most intense religious feeling: ‘We are deserving of death; we offer as a substitute the blood of the animal.’”[325]—He states a little further on, that we must not always presuppose that a particular symbol corresponds exactly to a particular idea, such as we may be accustomed to conceive of it; that the symbols will partly, indeed, remain the same as long as external nature continues unchanged, but that their signification will vary with the different national modes of intuition and other circum stances; so that a moral and religious economy, like that of Judaism, might be engrafted on the nature-worship of Egypt,—meaning thereby, we suppose, that while many of the symbols were retained, a new and higher meaning would be imparted to them.[326] [325] Müller’s Introd. to Scientific System of Mythology, p. 196, Eng. Trans.] [326] Ibid., 219, 222. Having given the sentiments of one high authority, bearing on the external resemblance in some points between Judaism and the religions of heathen antiquity, we shall give the sentiments of another as to the radical difference in spirit and character which distinguished the true from the false, an authority whose defective views on some vital points of doctrine only render his opinion here the less liable to suspicion. “Heathenism,” says Bähr, “as is now no longer disputed, was in all its parts a nature-religion; that is, the deification of nature in its entire compass. That mode of contemplation which was wont to perceive the ideal in the real, proceeded in heathenism a step farther; it saw in the world and nature not merely a manifestation of Godhead, but the very essence and being of nature were regarded in it as identical with the essence and being of Godhead, and as such thrown together: the ultimate foundation of all heathenism is pantheism. Hence the idea of the oneness of the Divine Being was not absolutely lost; but this oneness was not at all that of a personal existence, possessing self-consciousness and self-determination, but an impersonal One, the great It, a neuter abstract, the product of mere speculation, which is at once everything and nothing. Wherever the Deity appeared as a person, it ceased to be one, and resolved itself into an infinite multiplicity. But all these gods were mere personifications of the different powers of nature. From a religion which was so physical in its fundamental character, there could only be developed an ethics which should bear the hue and form of the physical. Above all that is moral rose natural necessity fate, to which gods and men were alike subject; the highest moral aim for man was to yield an absolute submission to this necessity, and generally to transfuse himself into nature as being identified with Deity, to represent in himself its life, and especially that characteristic of it, perfect harmony, conformity to law and rule.—The Mosaic religion, on the other hand, has for its first principle the oneness and absolute spirituality of God. The Godhead is no neuter abstract, no It, but I; Jehovah is altogether a personal God. The whole world, with everything it contains, is His work, the offspring of His own free act, His creation. Viewed as by itself, this world is nothing; He alone is—absolute being. He is in it, indeed, but not as property one with it; He is infinitely above it, and can clothe Himself with it as with a garment, or fold it up and lay it aside as He pleases. Now this God, who reveals and manifests Himself through all creation, in carrying into execution His purpose to save and bless all the families of the earth, revealed and manifested Himself in an especial manner to one race and people. The centre of this revelation is the word which He spoke to Israel; but this word is His law, the expression of His perfect holy will. The essential character, therefore, of the special revelation of God is holiness. Its substance is, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” So that the Mosaic religion is throughout ethical; it always addresses itself to the will of man, and deals with him as a moral being. Everything that God did for Israel, in the manifestations He gave of Himself, aims at this as its final end, that Israel should sanctify the name of Jehovah, and thereby be himself sanctified.”[327] [327] Symbolik, i., p. 35-37, where also confirmatory testimonies are produced from Creuzer, Görres, Hegel, Schlegel. There can be no doubt that this view of the being and character of God, unfolded in the books of Moses, entered as a pervading element into the religion of the Old Covenant, and gave a tone altogether peculiar to everything connected with it. Even where the form of Egyptian laws and institutions was retained, these became informed with another spirit, and directed to a nobler aim. Religious worship itself assumed a new character; it ceased to be, as in heathenism, an abject prostration of spirit before powers known only as working in nature, and subject to it,—powers that might be worshipped with cringing homage or dread, but could not be properly loved or adored,—and became a free and elevated communion with the Great Parent of the universe, Himself the lofty ideal of all that is pure and good. From his relation to such a Being, each individual was raised to a higher sphere of life and action. It was a kind of sacrilege now to view him as the simple property of his fellow-men, the creature of circumstances, or the tool of arbitrary sway; he had become the subject and servant of Jehovah, in whose covenant he stood, and whose image he bore. All the relations, too, which he filled,—domestic, social, and public, were brought under the influence of the same hallowed and elevated spirit; and the object he was called to realize in the midst of them was, not a mere conformity to external order or hereditary custom,—the common aim of heathenism,—but the cultivation, the exercise, of that moral excellence and purity which was seen in the character and law of his God. Section Second.—The Tabernacle In Its General Structure And Design. BY the establisliment of the Sinaitic covenant the relation between God and Israel had been brought into a state of formal completeness. The covenant of promise, which pledged the Divine faithfulness to bestow upon them every essential blessing, was now properly supplemented by the covenant of law, which took them bound to yield the dutiful return of obedience He justly expected from them. The foundation was thus outwardly laid for a near relationship subsisting, and a blessed intercourse developing itself between the God of Abraham on the one hand, and the seed of Abraham on the other. And it was primarily with the design of securing and furthering this end, that the ratification of the covenant of Sinai was so immediately followed up by the adoption of measures for the erection of the tabernacle. I. The command is first of all given for the children of Israel bringing the necessary materials: “And let them make Me,” it is added, “a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”—(Exodus 25:8) The different parts are then minutely described, after which the general design is again indicated thus: “And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God.”—(Exodus 29:45-46) With this representation of its general design, the names or designations applied to it perfectly correspond. (1.) Most commonly, when a single name is used, it is that which answers to our word dwelling or habitation,[328] although the word generally employed in our translation is tabernacle. Sometimes we find the more definite term house,[329] the house of God, or the Lord’s house (Exodus 23:19; Deuteronomy 23:18; Joshua 9:23; Judges 18:31), or tent.[330]—(Exodus 26:11) The dwelling in its original form was a tent, because the people among whom God came to reside and hold converse were then dwelling in tents, and had not yet come to their settled habitation. But afterwards this tent was supplanted by the temple in Jerusalem, which bore the same relation to the ceiled houses in the land of Israel, that the original tabernacle held to the tents in the wilderness. And coming, as the temple thus did, in the room of the tabernacle, and holding the same relative position, it was sometimes spoken of as the tent of God (Ezekiel 41:1), though more commonly it received the appellation of the house of God, or His habitation. [328] מֹשְכָן [329] בֵּית [330] אֹהֶל (2.) Besides these names, certain descriptive epithets were applied to the tabernacle. It was called the tent of meeting[331] for which our version has unhappily substituted the tent of the congregation. The expression is intended to designate this tent or dwelling as the place in which God was to meet and converse with His people; not, as is too commonly supposed, the place where the children of Israel were to assemble, and in which they had a common interest. It was this certainly; but merely because it was another and higher thing—because it formed for all of them the one point of contact and channel of intercourse between heaven and earth. This is clearly brought out in Exodus 29:42-43, where the Lord Himself gives an explanation of the “tabernacle of meeting,” and says concerning it, “Where I will meet with you, to speak there unto thee; and there I will meet with the children of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by My glory.” [331] אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד (3.) The tabernacle is again described as the tabernacle of the testimony, or tent of witness.[332] —(Exodus 38:21; Numbers 9:15; Numbers 17:7; Numbers 18:2) It received this designation from the law of the two tables, which were placed in the ark or chest that stood in the innermost sanctuary. These tables were called “the testimony” (Exodus 31:18; Exodus 34:29), and the ark which contained them “the ark of the testimony” (Exodus 25:21-22); whence, also, the whole tabernacle was called the tabernacle or tent of the testimony. For God dwells in His law, which makes known what He Himself is, and on what terms He will hold fellowship with men. The witnessing, as previously noticed (Ch. II., sec.1), had respect more immediately to the holiness of God, but by necessary implication also to the sinfulness of the people. While the tables expressed the righteous demands of the former, they necessarily witnessed in a condemnatory manner respecting the latter. So that the meeting which God’s people were to have with Him in His habitation, was not simply for receiving the knowledge of the Divine will, or holding fellowship with God in general: it was for that, indeed, more directly; but it also bore a prominent respect to the sins on their part, against which the law was ever testifying, and the means of their restoration to His favour and blessing. [332] מִשְׁכָן חָעֵדוֻת אֹהֶל הָעֵדוֻת Viewing the tabernacle, then (or the temple), in this general aspect, we may state its immediate object and design to have been the bringing of God near to the Israelites in His true character, and keeping up an intercourse between Him and them. It was intended to satisfy the desire so feelingly expressed by Job, “O that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat;” and to provide, by means of a local habitation, with its appropriate services, for the attainment of a livelier apprehension of God’s character, and the maintenance of a closer and more assured fellowship with Him. To some extent this end might have been reached without the intervention of such an apparatus; for in itself it is a spiritual thing, and properly consists in the exercise of suitable thoughts and affections towards God, calling forth in return gracious manifestations of His love and blessing. But, under a dispensation so imperfect as to the measure of light it imparted, the Israelites would certainly, without such outward and visible help as was afforded by a worldly sanctuary, have either sunk into practical ignorance and forgetfulness of God, or betaken themselves to some wrong methods of bringing divine things more distinctly within the grasp and comprehension of their minds. It was thus that idol-worship arose, and was with such difficulty repressed in the chosen family itself. Till God was made manifest in flesh, in the person of Christ, even the pious mind anxiously sought to lay hold of some visible link of communion with the higher region of glory. So Jacob, after he had seen the heavenly vision on the plains of Bethel, could not refrain from anointing the stone on which his head was laid, and calling it “the house of God.” He felt as if that stone now formed a peculiar point of contact with heaven; and had his mind been less enlightened in the knowledge of God, he would assuredly have converted it in the days of his future prosperity into an idol, and erected on the spot a fane where it might be enshrined and worshipped. It was therefore with the view of meeting this natural tendency, or of assisting the natural weakness of men in dealing with divine and spiritual things, that God condescended to provide for Himself a local habitation among His people. His doing so was an act of great kindness and grace to them. At the same time, it manifestly bespoke an imperfect state of things, and was merely an adaptation or expedient to meet the existing deficiencies of their religious condition, till a more perfect dispensation should come. Had they been able to look, as with open eye, on the realities of the heavenly world, they would have been raised above the necessity of any such external ladder to place them in apposition with its affairs; they would have found every place alike suitable for communing with God. And hence, when the intercourse between Him and His redeemed shall be brought to absolute perfection—when “the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He shall dwell with them,” no temple shall any longer be seen;[333] for the fleshly weakness, which at one time required this, shall have finally disappeared: everywhere the presence of God will be realized, and direct communion with him maintained. But it was otherwise amid the dim shadows of the earthly inheritance. There a visible pattern of divine things was required to help out in men’s minds the imperfection of the spiritual idea; a habitation was needed for the more peculiar manifestations of God’s presence, such as could be scanned and measured by the bodily eye, and by serving itself of which the eye of the mind might rise to a clearer apprehension both of His abiding nearness to His people, and of the more essential attributes of His character and glory. [333] Revelation 21:3; Revelation 21:22. II. But that this material dwelling-place of God might be a safe guide and real assistance in promoting fellowship with Heaven—that it might convey only right impressions of divine things, and form a suitable channel of communication between God and man, it must evidently be throughout of God’s, and not of man’s devising. Hence there was presented to Moses on the mount, the pattern form after which it was in every particular to be constructed (Exodus 25:40); and though it was to be a tabernacle built with men’s hands, yet these—from Moses, who was charged with the faithful execution of the whole, to the artificers who were to be employed in the preparation of the materials—must all be guided by the Spirit of God, supplying “wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge “for the occasion. This plainly indicates the high importance which was attached in the mind of God to the proper construction of this Divine habitation, and what a plenitude of meaning was designed to be expressed by it. Yet here, also, there is a middle path which is the right one; and it is possible, in searching for the truths embodied in those patterns of heavenly things, to err by excess as well as by defect. Due regard must be had to the connection and order of the parts one with another—their combination so as to form one harmonious whole—the circumstances in which, and the purposes for which, that whole was constructed. And it is no more than we might expect beforehand, that in this sacred structure, as in erections of an ordinary kind, some things may have been ordered as they were from convenience, others from necessity, others again from the general effect they were fitted to produce, rather than from any peculiar significance belonging to them in other respects. Such, we think, will appear to be the case in regard to the only two points we are called to consider in the present section the materials of which the tabernacle was formed, and its general structure and appearance. (1.) In regard to the materials, one thing is common to them all—that they were to be furnished by the people, and presented as an offering, most of them also as a free-will offering, to the Lord: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take My offering.”—(Exodus 25:2) That the materials were to be brought by the people as an offering, implied that the structure for which they were given was altogether of a sacred character, being made of things consecrated to the Lord. And that the offering should have been of a free-will description, implied that there was to be no constraint in anything connected with it, and that, as in the erection of the dwelling, so in the carrying out of the purposes for which it was erected, there must be the ready concurrence of man’s sanctified will with the grace and condescension of God. And the people, who had recently experienced the Lord’s pardoning mercy, after their shameful violation of the covenant, gave expression to their grateful feelings by the readiness and abundance of their contributions. Other ideas have sometimes been sought in connection with the source from which the materials were derived, but without any warrant from Scripture. For example, much has frequently been made of the circumstance that these materials formed a portion of the spoils of Egypt. There can be no doubt that they were, to a considerable extent at least, of that description; but the text is silent upon the subject, and at the time when they were brought in free-will offering by the people they were their own property, and simply as such (not as having been in any particular manner obtained) were the people called upon to give them. Again, a portion of the materials—the whole of the silver, it would seem, which was employed in the erection—was formed of the half-shekel of redemption money, which Moses was ordered to levy from every male in the congregation; and as this was chiefly used in making the sockets of the sanctuary, special meanings have been derived from the circumstance. But that nothing peculiar was designed to be intimated by that, is clear from the twofold consideration, that a part of this silver was applied to a quite different use, to the making of hooks and ornaments for the pillars, and that all the sockets were not made of it; for those of the door or entrance were formed of the free-will offerings of brass.—(Exodus 38:25-28) The materials themselves were of various sorts, according to the uses for which they were required: Precious stones, of several kinds; gold, silver, and brass; shittim-wood; linen or cotton fabrics of blue, purple, and scarlet, and skins for external coverings. Separate and distinct meaning have been found in each of these, derived either from their inherent qualities or from their colours, and by none with so much learning and ingenuity as Bähr; but still without any solid foundation. That the wood, for example, should have been that of the shittah-tree, or the acacia, as it is now generally supposed to have been, had a sufficient reason in the circumstance, which Bähr himself admits,[334] that it is the tree chiefly found in that part of Arabia where the tabernacle was constructed, and the only one of such dimensions as to yield boards suitable for the purpose. It was not, therefore, as if a choice lay between this and some other kinds of trees, and this in particular fixed upon on account of some inherent qualities peculiar to itself. Besides, in the temple, which for all essential purposes was one with the tabernacle, the wood employed was not the acacia, but the cedar; and that, no doubt, for the same reason as the other had been, being the best and most suitable for the purpose which the region afforded. The lightness of the acacia wood, and its being less liable to corrupt than some other species,[335] were incidental advantages peculiarly fitting it for the use it was here applied to. But we have no reason to suppose that anything further, or more recondite, depended on them; according to the just remark of Hengstenberg, that in so far as things in the tabernacle differed from those in the temple, they must have been of an adventitious and external nature.[336] [334] Symbolik, i., p. 262. [335] That it was absolutely incorruptible, is not of course to be imagined, though the language of Josephus, Philo, and some heathen writers, would seem to imply as much. It is called ζύλον ἄσηπτον by the LXX., and Joseph us affirms it could not “suffer corruption.” For other authorities, in Bähr, i., p. 262. The simple truth seems to have been, that it was light, and stood the water well; hence was much used by the Egyptians in making boats, and was loosely talked of as incorruptible. [336] Authentie, ii., p. 639. In regard to the other articles used, it does not appear that any higher reason can be assigned for their selection, than that they were the best and fittest of their several kinds. They consisted of the most precious metals, of the finest stuffs in linen manufacture, with embroidered workmanship, the richest and most gorgeous colours, and the most beautiful and costly gems. It was absolutely necessary, by means of some external apparatus, to bring out the idea of the surpassing glory and magnificence of Jehovah as the King of Israel, and of the singular honour which was enjoyed by those who were admitted to minister and serve before Him. But this could only be done by the rich and costly nature of the materials which were employed in the construction of the tabernacle, and of the official garments of those who were appointed to serve in its courts. It is expressly said of the high priest’s garments, that they were to be made “for glory (or ornament) and for beauty” (Exodus 23:2); for which purpose they were to consist of the fine byss or linen cloth of Egypt (Genesis 41:42; Luke 16:19), embroidered with needlework done in blue, purple, and scarlet, the most brilliant colours. And if means were thus taken for producing effect in respect to the garments of those who ministered in the tabernacle, it is but reasonable to infer that the same would be done in regard to the tabernacle itself. Hence we read of the temple, the more perfect form of the habitation, that it was to be made “so exceeding magnifical as to be of fame and glory throughout all countries” (1 Chronicles 22:5), and that among other things employed by Solomon for this purpose, “the house was garnished with precious stones for beauty.”—(2 Chronicles 3:6) Such materials, therefore, were used in the construction of the tabernacle, as were best fitted for conveying suitable impressions of the greatness and glory of the Being for whose peculiar habitation it was erected. And as in this we are furnished with a sufficient reason for their employment, to search for others were only to wander into the regions of uncertainty and conjecture. We therefore discard (with Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, and others) the meanings derived by Bähr, as well as those of the elder theologians, from the intrinsic qualities of the metals, and the distinctive colours employed in the several fabrics. They are here out of place. The question is not, whether such things might not have been used so as to convey certain ideas of a moral and religious nature, but whether they actually were so employed here; and neither the occasion of their employment, nor the manner in which this was done, in our opinion, gives the least warrant for the supposition. So far as the metals were concerned, we see no ground in Scripture for any symbolical meaning being attached to them, separate from that suggested by their costliness and ordinary uses. That brass should have been the prevailing metal in the fittings and furniture of the outer court, where the people at large could come with their offering, and in the sanctuary itself silver and gold, might undoubtedly be regarded as imaging the advance that is made in the discovery of the Divine excellence and glory, the more one gets into the secret of His presence and is prepared for be holding His beauty. A symbolical use of certain colours we undoubtedly find, such as of white, in expressing the idea of purity, or of red, in expressing that of guilt; but when so used, the particular colour must be rendered prominent, and connected also with an occasion plainly calling for such a symbol. This was not the case in either respect with the colours in the tabernacle. The colours there, for the most part, appeared in a combined form; and if it had been possible to single them out, and give to each a distinctive value, there was nothing to indicate how the ideas symbolized were to be viewed, whether in reference to God or to His worshippers. Indeed, the very search would necessarily have led to endless subtleties, and prevented the mind from receiving the one direct and palpable impression which we have seen was intended to be conveyed. As examples of the arbitrariness necessarily connected with such meanings, Bähr makes the red significant, in its purple shade, of the majesty, in its scarlet, of the life-giving property of God; while Neumann, after fresh investigations into the properties of light and colour, sees in the red the expression of God’s love, inclining as purple to the mercy of grace, as scarlet to the jealousy of judgment. With Bähr, the blue is the symbol of the skyey majesty whence God manifests His glory; with Neumann, it points to the depth of ocean, and is the symbol of God’s substance, which dwells in light inaccessible, and lays in the stability of the Creator the foundation of the covenant. Such diverse and arbitrary meanings, rivalling the caprice of the elder typologists, show the fancifulness of the ground on which they are raised. And interwoven as the colours were in works of embroidery, not standing each apart in some place of its own, we have no reason to imagine they had any other purpose to serve than similar works of art in the high priest’s dress, viz., for ornament and beauty. The total value of the materials used in the construction of the tabernacle must have been very great. Estimated according to the present commercial value, the twenty-nine talents of gold alone would be equal to about L.173,000; and Dr Kitto’s aggregate sum of L.250,000 might probably come near the mark of the entire cost. But there can be no doubt that the precious metals and stones were much more common, consequently of much less comparative value, in remote antiquity than they are now. In some of the ancient temples, as well as treasure-houses of kings, we read, on good authority, of almost incredible stores of them. For example, in the temple of Belus at Babylon, there was a single statue of Belus, with a throne and table, weighing together 800 talents of gold; and in the temple altogether about 7170 talents. Still, even this was greatly outdone by the amount of treasure which, on the most moderate calculation, we have reason to think was expended on the temple at Jerusalem. In such vast expenditure, whether on the tabernacle or the temple, it is not necessary to think of an accommodation to heathen prejudices, nor of anything but an intention to represent symbolically the greatness and glory of the Divine Inhabitant. (2.) Looking now to the general structure and appearance of the tabernacle, we might certainly expect the following characteristics: that, being a tent, or moveable habitation, it would be constructed in such a manner as to present somewhat of the general aspect of such tenements, and be adapted for removals from place to place; and that, being the tent of God, it would be fashioned within and without so as to manifest the peculiar sacredness and grandeur of its destination. This is precisely what we find to have been the case. Like tents generally, it was longer than broad—thirty cubits long by ten broad; and while on three of the sides possessing wooden walls, which assimilated it in a measure to a house, yet these were composed of separate gilded boards or planks, rising perpendicularly from silver sockets, kept together by means of golden rings, through which transverse bars were passed, and hence easily taken asunder when a removal was made. So also the larger articles of furniture belonging to the tabernacle, the ark, the table, and the altars of incense and burnt-offering, were each furnished with rings and staves, for the greater facility of transportation. But neither within nor without must the wooden walls be seen, otherwise the appearance of a tent would not be preserved. Hence a series of curtains was provided, the inner most of which was formed of fine linen—ten breadths, five of which were joined together to make each one curtain, and the two curtains were again united together by means of fifty loops. This innermost curtain or covering was not only made of the finest material, but was also variegated with diverse colours and cherubic figures inwrought. Hence it is probably to be regarded as the tent in its interior aspect, consequently not merely forming the roof (where there were no wooden boards), but also attached by some means to the pillars (like the veil in Exodus 36:33) so as to hang down inside to near the floor of the dwelling. In this way at least, one can more easily understand why it should be called simply the tabernacle or dwelling (mishkan) both at Exodus 36:1, where the direction is given for making the curtains, and again at Exodus 36:8, where, when joined together, they are represented as forming one dwelling (mishkan). Then over this another set of curtains, made of goats hair, was thrown, certainly forming an external covering, and, being two cubits longer than the other, reaching to well-nigh the bottom of the boards. To this day, the usual texture of Arabian tents is of goats hair; and this being the tent proper as to its external aspect, it was designated the tent (Ohel, Exodus 26:11), as the other, which appeared from within, was called the habitation or dwelling. And above both these sets of curtains a double coating of skins was thrown, but merely for the purpose of protection from the elements the first consisting of rams skins dyed red, the other and outermost of skins of tachash, which have often been rendered, as in our version, badgers skins, but which are now more commonly understood to be those of the seal, or, perhaps, some kind of deer.[337] [337] We have purposely confined our description to the leading features, for the minute questions about the thickness of the planks, the setting of the pillars, etc., which are still agitated, would be here out of place. The chief point of dispute in regard to what is stated, has respect to the innermost set of curtains,—whether, after covering the top, they hung over outside: or, as we are rather inclined still to believe, though stating it only as a probability, were made to fall inside, and cover to within a cubit or so of the bottom the interior of the boards. This latter view was given by Bähr, (Symbolik, i., p. 222, 223), and is concurred in by Neuman (Die Stiftshütte, p. 65), also by Keil, Kurtz, Torneil, etc.; while the opposite is held by Lund, Ewald, Friedrich, Umbreit, and latterly with some keenness by Riggenbach (Die Mosaische Stiftshütte, p. 12 sq., 1862). Upon the whole, the former seems the more natural view, as it both affords an easy explanation of the designations employed for the two sets of coverings, and shows how the tent-form of the erection would still be preserved. Indeed, the boards in the original description appear only as a sort of accessory, and are not referred to till after the two sets of curtains which properly formed the tent are described.—(Exodus 26:18, sq.) They were merely instead of the usual poles for bearing up the curtains, and the curtains hence occupy the chief prominence in the description, and are spoken of in their relation to each other as if the boards were not regarded. The view has also in its support the analogy of the temple, all the interior walls of which were ornamented by carved figures of cherubims. These parts and properties, or things somewhat similar, were essential to this sacred erection as a tent; it could not have possessed its tent-like appearance without them, or been adapted for moving from place to place. Therefore, to seek for some deeper and spiritual reasons for such things as the boards and bars, the rings and staves, the different sorts of coverings, the loops and taches, etc., is to go entirely into the region of conjecture, and give unbounded scope to the exercise of fancy. A plain and palpable reason existed for them in the very nature and design of the erection; and why should this not suffice? Or, if licence be granted for the introduction of other reasons, who shall determine, since it must ever remain doubtful, which ought to be preferred? It is enough to account for the things referred to, that as God’s house was made in the fashion of a tent, these, or others somewhat similar, were absolutely necessary: they as properly belonged to it in that character, as the members of our Lord’s body and the garments He wore be longed to His humanity; and it is as much beside the purpose to search for an independent and separate instruction in the one, as for an independent and separate use in the other. Hence, when the house of God exchanged the tent for the temple form, it dropt the parts and properties in question, as being no longer necessary or suitable; which alone was sufficient to prove them to have been only outward and incidental. But other things, again, were necessary, on account of the tabernacle being not simply a tent, but the tent of the Most High God, for purposes of fellowship between Him and His people,—such as the ornamental work on the tapestry, the division of the tabernacle into more than one apartment, and the encompassing it with a fore-court by means of an enclosure of fine linen, which in a manner proclaimed to the approaching worshippers, Procul profani! That the apartments should have consisted of no more than an outer and inner sanctuary, or that the figures wrought into the tapestry should have been precisely those of the cherubim,—in these we may well feel ourselves justified in searching for some more special instruction; for they might obviously have been ordered otherwise, and were doubt less ordered thus for important purposes. On which account, both characteristics reappear in the temple as being of essential and abiding significance. The square form of the erection itself, and of the court also,—the predominant regard to certain numbers in the several parts, especially to five, ten, seven, and twelve,—could not be without some reason for the preference, of which occasion will afterwards be found to speak. But considered in a general point of view, the external form, the embroidery, the separate apartments, and the surrounding enclosure, may all be regarded as having the reason of their appointment in the sacred character of the tabernacle itself, and the high ends for which it was erected. Such things became it as the tent which God took for His habitation. III. This habitation of God, whether existing in the form of a tent or of a temple, was at once the holiest and the greatest thing in Israel, and therefore required not only to be constructed of such materials and in such a manner as have now been described, but also to be set apart by a special act of consecration. For it was the seat and symbol of the Divine kingdom on earth. The one seat and symbol; because Jehovah, the God of Israel, being the one living God, and though filling heaven and earth with His presence, yet condescending to exhibit, in an outward, material form, the things concerning His character and glory, behoved to guard with especial care against the idea so apt to intrude from other quarters, of a divided personality. In heathen lands generally, and particularly in Canaan, every hill and grove had its separate deity, and its peculiar solemnities of worship.—(Deuteronomy 12) God therefore sought to check this corruption in its fountain-head, by presenting Himself to His people as so essentially and absolutely one, that He could have but one proper habitation, and one throne of government. Here alone must they come to transact with God in the things that concerned their covenant relation to Him. To present elsewhere the sacrifices and services which became His house, was a violation of the order and solemnities of His kingdom;[338] while, on the other hand, to have free access to this chosen residence of Deity, was justly prized by the wise among the people as their highest privilege. Exclusion from this was like banishment from God’s presence, and excision from His covenant. And, as appears from the experience of the Psalmist, pious Israelites, in the more nourishing periods of the Theocracy, counted it among the most dark and trying dispensations of Providence, when events occurred to compel their separation from this appointed channel of communion with the Highest. [338] Hence sacrificing in the high places, though occasionally done by true worshippers, always appears as an imperfection. In times of war or great internal disorder, such as those of Samuel, when the ark was separated from the tabernacle, and the stated ordinances suffered a kind of suspension, sacrifices in different places became necessary. Still enlightened worshippers understood that the enjoyment of God’s presence and blessing was by no means confined to that outward habitation, and that while it was the seat, it was also the symbol, of the kingdom of God. They perceived in it the image of His character and administration in general, and understood that the relations there unfolded were proper to the whole Church of God. Hence the Psalmist represents it as the common privilege of an Israelite to dwell in the house of God, and abide in His tabernacle (Psalms 15, 24), though in the literal sense not even the priests could be said to do so. Of himself he speaks as desiring to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life (Psalms 27), by which he could only mean, that he earnestly wished continually to realize and abide in that connection and fellowship with God which he saw so clearly symbolized in the form and services of the tabernacle. And, indeed, this symbolical import of the tabernacle was plainly indicated by the Lord Himself to Moses, in the words, “And I will set My tabernacle among you, and I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people.”—(Leviticus 26:11-12) The least in spiritual discernment could scarcely fail to learn here, that what was outwardly exhibited in the tabernacle of God’s nearness and familiarity with His people, was designed to be the image of what should always and everywhere be realizing itself among the members of His covenant; that the tabernacle, in short, was the visible symbol of the church or kingdom of God. Now, to fit it for this high destination and use, a special act of consecration was necessary. It was not enough that the materials of which it was built were all costly, and so far possessing a sacred character that they had been all dedicated by the people to God’s service; nor that the pattern after which the whole was constructed, was received by direct communication from above. After it had been thus constructed, and before it could be used as the Lord’s tabernacle, it had to be consecrated by the application to all its parts and furniture of the holy anointing oil, for the preparation of which special instructions were given.—(Exodus 30:22, sq.)[339] “And thou shalt sanctify them,” was the word to Moses regarding this anointing oil, “that they may be most holy; whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy.” [339] It consisted of olive-oil, mixed with the four best kinds of spices, myrrh, sweet cinnamon, calamus, and cassia, producing, when compounded together, the moat fragrant smell. Old Testament Scripture itself provides us with abundant materials for explaining the import of this action. It expressly connects it with the communication of the Spirit of God; as in the history of Saul’s consecration to the kingly office, to whom it was said by Samuel, after having poured the vial of oil upon his head, “And the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee.” (1 Samuel 10:6) And still more explicitly in the case of David is the sign coupled with the thing signified: “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.”—(1 Samuel 16:13-14) The gift, symbolized by the anointing, having been conferred upon the one, it was necessarily withdrawn from the other. More emphatically, however, than even here, is the connection between the outward rite and the inward gift, marked in the prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah 61:1 : “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach good things,” etc. This passage may fitly be regarded as the connecting link between the Old and the New Testament usage in the matter. It designated the Saviour as the Christ, or Anointed One, and because anointed, filled without measure by the Spirit, that in the plenitude of spiritual grace and blessing He might proceed to the accomplishment of our redemption. In His case, however, we know there was no literal anointing. The symbolical rite was omitted as no longer needed, since the direct action of the Spirit’s descent in an outward form gave assurance of the reality. He was hence said by Peter to have been “anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.”—(Acts 10:38) And because believers are spiritually united to Christ, and what He has without measure is also in a measure theirs, they too are said to be “anointed by God,” or “to have the unction (χρίσμα) of the Holy One, which teacheth them all things.”—(2 Corinthians 1:21; 1 John 2:20) Even under the dispensation of the New Testament, in regard to its earlier and more outward, its miraculous operations, we find the external symbol still retained: “The apostles anointed many sick persons with oil, and made them whole in the name of the Lord” (Mark 6:13); and James even couples this anointing with prayer, as means proper to be employed by the elders of the Church for drawing down the healing power of God (v. Mark 6:14). But the external rite could now only be regarded as appropriate in such operations of the Spirit as those referred to, in which the natural and symbolical use of oil ran, in a manner, into each other. This sacred use of oil, however foreign to our apprehensions, grew quite naturally out of its common use in the East, especially in Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine. There it has from the earliest times been regarded as singularly conducive to bodily health and comfort, and the custom has descended to modern times. Niebuhr tells us that the inhabitants of Yemen always anoint their bodies when the intense heat comes in, because it serves to protect them from excessive perspiration and other enervating effects of the climate. The inhabitants of Africa do the same, and find in it a sort of light clothing both for sun and shade.—(Livingstone’s Travels, p. 246) Even in Greece, where the heat is less enervating, the bodies of the combatants in the public games, it is well known, were always copiously rubbed and suppled with oil. And when mixed with perfumes, as the oil appears generally to have been, the copious application of it to the body, partly from usage, and partly also from physical causes, produced the most agreeable and invigorating sensations. So much, indeed, was this the case, especially in respect to the head, that the Psalmist even mentions his “being anointed with oil” among the tokens of kindness he had received from the hand of God; and in entertainments, it was so customary to administer this species of refreshment to the guests, that our Lord charges the omission of it by Simon the Pharisee as an evident mark of disrespect (Luke 7:46); and in ancient Egypt “it was customary for a servant to attend every guest as he seated himself, and to anoint his head.”[340] [340] Wilkinson, Manners, etc., of Eg., ii. 213. As the body, therefore, which was anointed with such oil, felt itself enlivened and refreshed, and became expert and agile for the performance of any active labour, it was an apt and becoming symbol of the Spirit-replenished soul, which is thus endowed with such a plenitude of grace, as disposes and enables it to engage heartily in the Divine service, and to run the way of God’s commandments. So that, in the language of Vitringa, “the anointed man was he who, being chosen and set apart by God for accomplishing something connected with God’s glory, was furnished for it by His good hand with necessary gifts. And the more noble the office to which any one was anointed, the greater was the supply of the Spirit’s grace which the anointing brought him.”[341] Understood thus in reference to persons, to whom the outward symbol was both most naturally and most commonly applied, we can have no difficulty in apprehending its import when applied to the tabernacle and its furniture. This being a symbol of the true Church as the peculiarly consecrated, God-inhabited region, the anointing of it with the sacred oil was a sensible representation of the effusion of the Holy Spirit, whose part it is to sanctify the unclean, and draw them within the sphere of God’s habitation, as well as to fit them for occupying it. And as the anointing not only rendered the tabernacle and its vessels holy, but made them also the imparters of holiness to others,—“whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy,”—the important lesson was thereby taught, that while all beyond is a region of pollution and death, they who really come into a living connection with the Church or kingdom of God are brought into communion with His spiritual nature, and made partakers of His holiness. It is only within the sphere of that kingdom that true purification and righteousness proceed.[342] [341] Com. in Isa., vol. ii., p. 494; comp. also i., p. 289. [342] In connecting the spiritual with the natural use of this symbol, Bähr does not appear to us to be happy. He throws together the two properties of oil, as does more recently Neumann (Symbolique, p. 149), its capacity for giving light, and for imparting vigour and refreshment,—and holds the anointing symbolical of the Spirit’s gift, as the source of spiritual light and life in general; or rather (for he evidently does not hold the personality of the Spirit), as symbolical of the principle of light and life, or, in one word, of the holiness which was derived from the knowledge of God’s law.—(ii., p. 173) But to say nothing of the doctrinal errors here involved, why should those two quite distinct properties of oil be confounded together? The qualities and uses of oil as an ointment had nothing to do with those which belong to it as a source of light, and should no more be conjoined symbolically than they are naturally. Oil as an ointment does not give light, and it is of no moment whether it were capable of doing so or not. When used as an ointment, it was also usually mixed with spices, which still more took off men’s thoughts from its light-giving property; and especially was this the case in regard to its symbolical application in the tabernacle.—When oil began to be applied symbolically for consecrating persons and things, is unknown. It was so used by Jacob on the plains of Bethel, and there is undoubted proof of its having been used in consecrating kings and priests in Egypt.—(Wilkinson, v. 279, ss.) But the spirit of the action in Egypt, it must be remembered, was very different from what it was in Canaan, inasmuch as consecrating or setting apart to a heathen god or temple bespoke nothing of that separation from sin, that high and holy calling, which consecration to Jehovah necessarily carried along with it. The oil was the symbol of sacredness, indeed, but not of moral purity. IV. In turning now to Gospel times for the spiritual and heavenly things which answer to the pattern exhibited in that worldly sanctuary, we are not, of course, to think of outward and material buildings, which, however necessary for the due celebration of Divine worship, must occupy an entirely different place from that anciently possessed by the Jewish tabernacle or temple. “What is true of the Divine kingdom generally, must especially hold in respect to the heart and centre of its administration, viz., that everything about it rose, when the antitypes appeared, to a higher and more elevated stage; and that the ideas which were formerly symbolized by means of outward and temporary materials are now seen embodied in great and abiding realities. Of what, then, was the tabernacle a type? Plainly of Christ, as God manifest in the flesh, for the redemption of His people, and their participation in the life and blessing of God. This is Heaven’s grand and permanent provision for securing what the tabernacle, as a temporary substitute, aimed at accomplishing. In Christ personally the idea began, in the first instance, to be realized when, as the Divine Word, “He became flesh, and dwelt (ἐσκήνωσεν, tabernacled) among us.” For the flesh of Jesus, though literally flesh of our flesh, yet, being sanctified in the womb of the Virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost, possessed in it “the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily “(σωματικῶς in a bodily receptacle or habitation); and held such pre-eminence over other flesh, as the tent of God had formerly done over the tents of Israel. But this was still merely the first stage in the development of the great mystery of godliness; only as in the seed-corn was the indwelling of God with men seen in the person of the incarnate Word. For Christ’s flesh was the representative and root of all flesh as redeemed; in Him the whole of an elect humanity stands as its living Head, and therein finds the bond of its connection with God the channel of a real and blessed fellowship with Heaven. So that, as the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, He again dwells in the Church of true believers as His fulness; and the idea symbolized in the tabernacle is properly realized, not in Christ personally and apart, but in Him as the Head of a redeemed offspring, vitally connected with Him, and through Him having access even into the Holiest. Consequently the idea, as to its realization, is still in progress; and it shall have readied its perfect consummation only when the number of the redeemed has been made up, and all are set down with Jesus amid the light and glories of the New Jerusalem. Every reader of New Testament Scripture is aware how prominently the truths involved in this representation are brought out there, and how much the language it employs of divine things bears respect to them. The transition from the outward and shadowy to the final and abiding state of things, is first marked by our Lord in the words, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), by which He plainly wished it to be understood that His body had now become what the temple had hitherto been—or rather, that the great idea symbolized in the temple was now actually embodied in His person, in which Godhead had really and properly taken up its dwelling, that men might draw near and have fellowship with it. As there could be but one such place and medium of intercourse, Christ’s saying this of His body, of necessity implied that the outward temple, built with men’s hands, had served its purpose, and was among the things ready to vanish away. But the peculiar expression he uses implies somewhat more than this. For when He speaks of the destroying of the temple, and the raising of it up again in three days, He so identified His body with the temple, as in a manner to declare that the destruction of the one would carry along with it the destruction of the other; that that alone should henceforth be the proper dwelling-place of Deity, which, from being instinct with the principle of an immortal life, could be destroyed only for a season, and should presently be raised up again to be the perpetual seat and centre of God’s kingdom. From that time, therefore, the other must necessarily lose its significance and use, and had, indeed, as our Lord intimated, become as a house left desolate.—(Matthew 23:38) But this inhabitation of God in the man Christ Jesus, being not for Himself alone, but only as the medium of intercourse and communion between God and the Church, we find the idea extended so as to embrace both each individual believer and the entire company of believers as one body. The Church is “the house of God,” or “His habitation through the Spirit” (1 Timothy 3:15; Ephesians 2:21-22); and as the Church universal of believers is only an aggregate of individuals, who must each be in part what the whole is, so they also are designated “a building of God,” and more especially “the temple of the living God;” or, as St Peter describes them, “lively stones built up on Christ the living stone, into a spiritual house.”—(1 Corinthians 3:9; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Ephesians 3:17; 1 Peter 2:5-6) In this apparent complexity of meaning there is still a radical oneness; and it is by no means as if the tabernacle or temple idea were applied to so many objects properly distinct and apart. There is an essential unity in the diversity, arising from the vital connection subsisting between Christ and His people; for all redeemed humanity is linked with His, as His is linked with the Godhead, so that what belongs to the one is the common property and distinction of the whole. This was unfolded in the sublime words of Christ Himself, which describe the ultimate realization of what was typified in the temple: “And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.”—(John 17:22-23) And as everything in the original tabernacle required to be sprinkled with the holy anointing oil to fit it for its sacred destination and use, so in these higher and ultimate realities of the Divine kingdom all is pervaded and consecrated by the living Spirit of God. It is as replenished with His fulness that Jesus accomplished in His own person the work of reconciliation, and placed on a secure foundation the intercommunion between God and man. It is, again, as having received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, and shedding forth His regenerating grace upon the members of the kingdom, that it becomes a hallowed region, consecrating whatever really comes within its borders, and that every one whom a living faith brings into contact with Christ, is made partaker of His holiness. It is thus, indeed, that all becomes instinct with life and blessing. The ordinances of the Church are made fruitful of good because they are the ordained channels of the Spirit’s communications. He who has become really united to the one spiritual body, has done so by bring baptized into it by the one Spirit.—(1 Corinthians 12:13) He who, through the word of the Gospel, has been convinced of sin, righteousness, and judgment, is a monument in what he has experienced of the powerful and blessed agency of that Spirit. (John 16:8, John 16:14) And of wry grace he exhibits, and every work of acceptable service he performs, it may be said, that the will and the power to perform it have been wrought by the self same Spirit. In the preceding remarks we have made no allusion to the views of other writers respecting the tabernacle, but have simply unfolded what we conceive to be the true idea of it, and its relation to Christ and His kingdom. It may be proper, however, to give here a brief outline of other views, noticing, as we proceed, what is mainly erroneous or defective in them. 1. By Philo, the tabernacle was taken for a pattern of the universe: to the two sanctuaries belonged τά ὀνοητὰ, and to the open fore-court τὰ ἀισθητά; the linen, blue, purple, and scarlet, were the four elements; the seven-branched candlestick represented the seven planets, the light in the centre, however, at the same time representing the sun; the table with the twelve loaves pointed to the twelve signs of the zodiac and months of the year, etc. Josephus adopts the same view, only differing in some of the details; as do also many of the fathers,—in particular, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Chrysostom, and Theodoret. Several of the Jewish Rabbis also concur in regarding the erection as an image of creation both in heaven and earth, references to whom, as well as the others, are given by Bähr, i., p. 104, 105. The view proceeds on an entire misapprehension of the true spirit of the Old Testament worship, and would place its symbols substantially on a footing with those of heathenism; both alike would have been employed in the service of a mere nature-worship. Not only would the peculiar ideas and principles of the true religion have been excluded from the one sanctuary and centre of all its services, but religious symbols of a precisely opposite kind must have occupied their place. This was plainly impossible. 2. But Bähr’s own view so far coincides with the one just mentioned, that he also holds the tabernacle to have been a representation of the creation of God, which he endeavours to show is frequently exhibited in Scripture as the house or building of God; not, however, in the heathen sense—not as if the Deity and creation were identified, but in the sense of creation being the workmanship and manifestation of God—the outgoing and witness of His glorious perfections. In like manner, the tabernacle was the place and structure through which God gave to Israel a. testimony or manifestation of Himself; and, therefore, it must contain in miniature a representation of the universe—the habitation, in its two compartments, representing heaven, God’s peculiar dwelling-place, and the fore-court the earth, which He has given to the sons of men. It may be regarded as alone fatal to this view, that amid the many allusions in Scripture to the tabernacle, and express explanations of the things belonging to it, no idea of the kind is ever once distinctly brought out. And as a great deal is found there in direct confirmation of the view we have presented, we are fully entitled to consider it as involving a substantial repudiation of the other. No doubt heaven and earth are often represented in Scripture as a building of God; but, as Hengstenberg justly remarks,[343] “there is not to be found in all Scripture a single passage in which the universe is described as the building or dwelling-place of God; so that the view of Bähr fails in its very foundation.” He further remarks, that it provides no proper ground for explaining the separation between the Holy and the Most Holy Place, and that Bähr has hence been obliged to put a false interpretation upon the furniture belonging to the Holy Place. As for the confirmation which the learned author seeks for the basis of his view, in the opinion of Philo and Josephus, as if that were the originally Jewish mode of contemplating the tabernacle, no one unbiassed by theory can regard it in any other light than as the fruit of that anxiety, which these writers constantly display, to bring the Jewish Scriptures and religion into some degree of conformity with the heathen philosophy. It is proper to note, however, that in his later treatise on the temple of Solomon (1848), Bähr has considerably modified his original view, and represents the sanctuary as a symbol of the covenant relation of God to Israel, for holy aims and purposes; so that in the outer court there was a kind of concentrated covenant land, as in the sanctuary a like concentrated dwelling of Jehovah. In this later work also he recognised an organic connection between the Old and the New, rendering the one strictly typical of the other. [343] Authentie, ii., p. 639. 3. The work of Bähr has called forth a laboured defence of another view, equally unsupported in Scripture, and still more arbitrary according to which the tabernacle was made in imitation of man as the image of God. This view had been briefly indicated by Luther, not as a formal explanation of the proper design and purpose of the tabernacle, but rather by way of illustration and similitude, when expounding the words of Mary’s song: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour.” There, after mentioning the different divisions of the tabernacle, he says: “In this figure there is represented a Christian man; his spirit is the Holy of Holies, God’s dwelling, in dark faith without light; for he believes what he sees not. His soul is the Holy Place, where are the seven lights, that is, all sorts of understanding, discernment, knowledge, and perception of corporeal and visible things. His body is the fore-court which is open to all, so that every one can see what it does, and how it lives.” Bähr had justly said of this, that it was only an allegorical explanation, and intimated that he conceived it impossible to carry out such a view into the particulars. But a zealous Lutheran, Ferdinand Friederich, offended at the slight thus put upon “the words of the blessed Luther,” has undertaken a vindication of the view, in a volume of considerable size, and accompanied by twenty-three plates. The work contains some good remarks on the more objectionable parts of Bähr’s system, yet adopts a number of its errors, displays throughout, indeed, the want of a sound discrimination, and utterly fails to establish the main point at issue. The objections given above to Bähr’s view apply with increased force to this. 4. The view of what are distinctively called the typical writers, errs primarily and fundamentally in considering the tabernacle as too exclusively typical, in seeking for the adumbration of Christ and His salvation as the only reason of the things belonging to it. Hence no proper ground or basis was laid for the work of interpretation; and unless where Scripture itself had furnished the explanation, the most arbitrary and even puerile meanings were often resorted to, without the possibility of applying, on that system, any proper check to them. Not keeping in view the complex idea or design of the tabernacle, everything for the most part was understood personally of Christ; and oven where a measure of discretion was observed in abstaining from too great minutiae, and keeping in view the larger features of the Christian system, as in Witsius (Miscellanea Sacra), still all swims in a kind of uncertainty, because no care was taken to investigate the meaning of the symbols before they were interpreted as types. 5. The only remaining view requiring a separate notice is what is commonly regarded as the Spencerian, although Spencer did not originate it, but found its leading principles already laid down by Maimonides.[344] It proceeds on the ground of an accommodation in the grossest sense to the heathenish tendencies and dispositions of the people. The Egyptians and other nations had dwellings for their gods; it was not convenient or practicable at once to abolish the custom; and God must, therefore, to prevent His people from lapsing into heathenism, suit Himself to this state of things, and have a tabernacle for His dwelling, with its appropriate furniture and ministering servants. We have already, in the introductory chapter, substantially met this view; as it rests upon the same false principles which pervade the whole system of Spencer. According to it, God accommodates Himself not merely to what is weak and imperfect in His creatures, but to what is positively wrong; and lowers and adjusts His requirements to suit their depraved tastes and inclinations. Consequently the views of God which such a structure was fitted to impart, and the services connected with it, must have been quite opposed to the spiritual nature of God, and an obstruction, rather than a help, to pious Israelites in their endeavours to worship and serve Him aright. It was not a temporary and fitting expedient to aid men’s conceptions of divine things, and to render the divine service more intelligible and attractive; but a sop put into the mouth of a rude and heathenish people, to keep them away from the grosser pollutions of idolatry. God’s house could never be reared on such a foundation.—Some of the elder typical writers, such as Outram (De Sac., L. i. 3), trod too closely upon this view of the tabernacle, as regards its primary intention for Israel; and so also, we regret to say, does Dr Kitto among recent writers (Hist, of Palestine, i. 245-6). [344] He is substantially followed by many of the Later Rabbis, who represent the tabernacle and temple as constructed with the view of imitating, and at the same time outdoing, the palaces of earthly monarchs. Various quotations may be seen in Outram. That from R. Shem Tob is the most distinct and graphic, and is held in great account by Spencer: “God, to whom be praise, commanded a house to be built for Himself, such as a royal house is wont to be. In a royal house all these things are to be found of which we have spoken: namely, there are some to guard the palace; others, whose part it is to do things belonging to the royal dignity, to prepare banquets, and do other things necessary for the monarch. There are others, besides, who serve with vocal and instrumental music. There is a place also for making ready victuals; a place for burning perfumes; a table also for the king, and an apartment appropriated to himself, where none are permitted to enter, excepting his prime minister, and those who are specially favoured by him. In like manner God,” etc. Section Third.—The Ministers Of The Tabernacle—The Priests And Levites. THE general divisions of the tabernacle, and even its particular parts and services, were so peculiarly connected with the persons who were appointed to tread its courts, that it is necessary, before proceeding farther, to understand distinctly the place which these held in the Mosaic dispensation, and especially how they stood related to God on the one hand, and to the people on the other. This section must therefore be devoted to the consideration of the Levitical priesthood. I. It is somewhat singular, that the earliest notices we have of a priesthood in Scripture, refer to other branches of the human family than that of the line of Abraham. The first person with whom the name of priest is there associated, is Melchizedek, who is described as “king of Salem, and priest of the Most High God.” To him Abraham, though the head of the whole chosen family, paid tithes of all, and thus virtually confessed himself to be no priest as compared with Melchizedek. Then, in the days of Joseph, we meet with Potipherah, priest of On, or Heliopolis in Egypt, and of the priests generally, as a distinct and highly privileged order in that country (Genesis 41:45; Genesis 47:22); and a few generations later still, mention is made of Jethro, the priest of Midian. Not till the children of Israel left the land of Egypt, and were placed under that peculiar polity which was set up among them by the hand of Moses, do we hear of any individual, or class of individuals, holding the office of the priesthood as a distinct and exclusive prerogative. How, then, did they make their approach to God and present their oblations? Did each worshipper transact for himself with God? Or did the father of a family act as priest for the members of his household? Or was the priestly function among the privileges of the first-born? This last position has been maintained by many of the leading Jewish authorities (Jonathan, Onkelos, Saadias, Jarchi, Abenezra, etc.), and also by some men of great learning in Christian times (Grotius, Selden, Bochart, etc.). They have chiefly grounded their opinion on the circumstance of Moses having employed certain young men to offer the sacrifices, by the blood of which the covenant was ratified (Exodus 24:5), connecting this fact, on the one hand, with the profaneness of Esau in having despised his birthright, which is thought to have been a slighting of the priesthood, and, on the other, with God’s special consecration of the first born after their redemption in Egypt. This opinion, however, may now be regarded as almost universally abandoned. The consecration of the first-born on the eve of Israel’s departure from Egypt did not, as we shall see, include their appointment to the priestly office; nor was this reckoned among the rights of primogeniture. These rights Scripture itself has plainly restricted to pre-eminence in authority among the brethren, and the possession of a double portion in the inheritance.—(1 Chronicles 5:1-4) And it would appear, from the scattered notices of patriarchal history, that there was no bar then in the way of any one drawing near and presenting oblations to God, who might feel himself called to do so. So long, however, as the patriarchal constitution prevailed, it was by common consent felt due to the head of the family, as the highest in honour, and the proper representative of the whole, that he should be the medium of their communications with God in sacrificial offerings. By degrees, as families grew into communities, and the patriarchal became merged in more general and public authorities, the sacerdotal office also naturally came to be vested, at least on all great and special occasions, in the persons of those who occupied the rank of heads in their respective communities, or of others, who, being regarded as peculiarly qualified for exercising the priestly function, were expressly chosen and delegated to discharge it. So in particular with the chosen family. In earlier times each patriarch did the work of a sacrifice; but when they had become a numerous people, and were going as a people to offer sacrifice to God, while they were primarily represented by Moses, whom God had raised up for their head, and who, therefore, alone properly did the part of a priest at the ratification of the covenant, by sprinkling the blood, they appear, as was natural, to have appointed certain of their number, pre-eminent in rank, in comeliness of person, or qualities of mind, to assist in priestly offices. These, no doubt, were the persons from whom Moses selected a few to furnish him with the blood of sprinkling on the occasion referred to, and who had previously been spoken of as a body under the name of priests.—(Exodus 19:22)[345] [345] Vitringa, Obs. Sac., i., De Praerogativis Primogenitorum in Eccl. Vet. This subject, and the closely related one of the consecration of the Levites in the room of the first-born, is so ably and satisfactorily discussed there, that little has been left for subsequent inquirers. Of the general practice in appointing persons to exercise priestly functions, where no separate order existed for the purpose, and which prevailed in common with God’s more ancient worshippers and many heathen nations, he says, “Nothing is more certain, than that the ancients required sacrifices to be performed, either by princes and heads of families, or by persons singularly gifted in body and mind, as being deemed more deserving than others of the Divine fellowship.” This holds especially of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Of the former, C. O. Müller says, that “the worship of a deity peculiar to any tribe was, from the beginning, common to all the members of the tribe; that those who governed the people in the other concerns of life, naturally presided over their religious observances, the heads of families in private, and the rulers in the community; and that it might be said with just as much truth, that the kings were priests, as that the priests were kings.” And so much was it the practice in the properly historical periods of Greece, to have priestly offices performed by means of public magistrates, or persons delegated by the community, that he does not think “there ever was in Greece a priesthood, strictly speaking, in contradistinction to the laity.”—(Introd. to Mythology, p. 187, 188, Trans.) Livy testifies that, among the early Romans, the care of the sacred things devolved upon their kings, and that after the expulsion of these, an officer was appointed for the purpose, with the name of Rex Sacrorum.—(L. 2. 2) It was still customary, however, as is well known, for private families to perform their own peculiar sacrifices and libations to the gods. On special occasions, besides, persons were temporarily appointed for the performance of sacred officess, as on the occasion of the taking of Veiae, thus related by Livy, v. c. 22: “Delecti ex omni exeritu juvenes, pure lotis corporibus, candida veste, quibus deportanda Romam Regina Juno assignata erat, veneribundi templum iniere, primo religiose admoventes manus; quod id signum more Etrusco, nisi certae gentis sacerdos, attrectare non esset solitus.” In Virgil, we find: “Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phoebique sacerdos” (AEn., iii. 80), on which Servius remarks: “Sane majorum haec erat consuetudo, ut rex etiam esset sacerdos vel pontifex, unde bodieque Imperatores pontifices dicimus.” So also Aristotle, speaking of the heroic times, says: στπατηγὸς γὰρ ἦν καὶ δικαστὴς ὁ βασιλεὺς καὶ τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς κύριος.—(Pol. iii. 14) There was nothing peculiar, therefore, in the fact of Melchizedek having been at once a king and a priest. The only remarkable thing was, that among such a people he should have been a priest of “the Most High God,” and so certainly called of God to the office, that even Abraham recognised his title to the honour. It is impossible with any certainty to trace the transition from this to that other state of things which prevailed in some ancient countries, and in which the priests existed as an entirely separate class a distinct caste. Yet, in regard especially to Egypt, the country where such a state of things probably originated, the transition may have implied no very great change, and may have been quite easily effected. For it is now understood that the earlier kings there were priest-kings, either belonging to the priest caste, or held in great dependence by that body; that the land was originally peopled by a kind of priest colonies, who either appointed one of their number to rule in the name of a certain god, or at least formed, in connection with the ruler, the reigning portion of the community. The members of this caste consequently were the first proprietors of lands in each district. Even by the account of Herodotus, they appear still in his day to have been the principal landed proprietors; each temple in a particular district had extensive estates, as well as a staff of priests connected with it, which formed the original territory of the settlement, and were subsequently farmed out for the good of the whole: so that “the families of priests were the first, the highest, and the richest in the country; they had exclusively the transacting of all state affairs, and carried on many of the most profitable branches of business (judges, physicians, architects, etc.), and were to a certain extent a highly privileged nobility.”—(Heeren. Af., i., p. 368, ii., p. 122-129; Wilkinson, i. 245, etc.) Indeed, so far from wondering that there was no distinct class invested with the office of priesthood during the patriarchal period of sacred history, it should rather have been matter of surprise if any had appeared. For, in those times, everything in religion among the true worshippers of God was characterized by the greatest simplicity and freedom. They possessed as yet no temple, nor even any select consecrated place in which their offerings were to be presented, and their vows paid. Wherever they happened to dwell, in the open field, or under the shade of a spreading tree, they built an altar and called upon the name of God. And it would have been a sort of anomaly, an institution at variance with the character of the worship and the general condition of society, if there had been so artificial an arrangement as a distinct order of persons appointed exclusively to minister in holy things. But this being the case, does it not seem like a travelling in the wrong direction, to institute at last an order of priests for that purpose? Was not this to mar the simplicity of God’s worship, and throw a new restraint around the freedom of access to Him? In one sense unquestionably it was; and separating, as it did, between the offering and him in whose behalf it was presented, it introduced into the worship of God an element of imperfection which cleaves to all the sacrifices under the law. In this respect, it was a more perfect state of things which permitted the offerer himself to bring near his offering to God, and one that has, therefore, been restored under the Gospel dispensation. But, in other respects, the worship of God made a great advance under the ministration of Moses, and an advance of such a nature as imperatively to require the institution of a separate priesthood. So that what was in itself an imperfection became relatively an advantage, and an important handmaid to something better.—The patriarchal religion, while it was certainly characterized by simplicity, was at the same time vague and general in its nature. The ideas it imparted concerning Divine things were few, and the impressions it produced upon the minds of the worshippers must, from the very character of the worship, have been somewhat faint and indefinite. By the time of Moses, however, the world had already gone so far in the pomps and ceremonies of a false worship, that on that ground alone it became necessary to institute a much more varied and complicated service; and the Lord, taking advantage of the evil to accomplish a higher good, ordered the religion He now set up in such a manner as to bring out far more fully His own principles of government, and prepare the way more effectually for the work and kingdom of Christ. The groundwork of this new form of religion stood in the erection of the tabernacle, which God chose for His peculiar dwelling-place, and through which He meant to keep up a close and lively intercourse with His people. But this intercourse would inevitably have grown on their part into too great familiarity, and would thus have failed to produce proper and salutary impressions upon the minds of the worshippers, unless something of a counteracting tendency had been introduced, fitted to beget feelings of profound and reverential awe toward the God who condescended to come so near to them. This could no otherwise be effectually done, than by the institution of a separate priesthood, whose prerogative alone it should be to enter within the sacred precincts of God’s house, and perform the ministrations of His worship. And so wisely was everything arranged concerning the work and service of this priesthood, that an awful sense of the holiness and majesty of the Divine Being could hardly fail to be awakened in the most unthinking bosom, while still there was given to the spiritual worshipper a visible representation of his near relationship to God, and his calling to intimate communion with Him. For the Levitical priesthood was not made to stand, as the priesthood of Egypt certainly stood, in a kind of antagonism to the people, or in such a state of absolute independence and exclusive isolation as gave them the appearance of a class entirely by themselves. On the contrary, this priesthood in its office was the representative of the whole people in its divine calling as God’s seed of blessing; it was a priesthood formed out of a kingdom of priests; and, consequently, the persons in whom it was vested could only be regarded as having, in the higher and more peculiar sense, what essentially belonged to the entire community. In them were concentrated and manifestly displayed the spiritual privileges and dignity of all true Israelites. And as these were represented in the priesthood generally, so especially in the person of the high priest, in whom again everything belonging to the priesthood gathered itself up and reached its culmination. “This high priest,” to use the words of Vitringa,[346] “represented the whole people. All Israelites were reckoned as being in him. The prerogative held by him be longed to the whole of them, but on this account was transferred to him, because it was impossible that all Israelites should keep themselves holy, as became the priests of Jehovah. But that the Jewish high priest did indeed personify the whole body of the Israelites, not only appears from this, that he bore the names of all the tribes on his breast and his shoulders, which unquestionably imported that he drew near to God in the name and of all,—but also from the circumstance that when he committed any heinous sin, his guilt was imputed to the people. Thus, in Leviticus 4:3, ‘If the priest that is anointed sin to the trespass or guilt of the people’ (improperly rendered in the English version, ‘according to the sin of the people’). The anointed priest was the high priest. But when he sinned, the people sinned. Wherefore? Because he represented the whole people. And on this account it was that the sacrifice for a sin committed by him had to be offered as the public sacrifices were which were presented for sin committed by the people at large: the blood must be brought into the Holy Place, and the body burnt without the camp.” [346] Obs. Sac., i., p. 292. There was even more than what is here mentioned to impress the idea, that the priesthood possessed only transferred rights: for as the sins of the high priest were regarded as the people’s, so theirs also were regarded as his; and on the great day of atonement, when the most peculiar part of his work came to be discharged, he had, in their name and stead, to enter into the Most Holy Place with the blood of sprinkling, and thereafter confess all their sins and iniquities over the head of the live goat. On other occasions, also, we find this impersonation of Israel by the high priest coming distinctly out, as in Judges 20:27-28, where, not the people (as the construction in our version might seem to imply), but Phinehas, in the name of the people, asks, “Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin, my brother? “and receives the answer, “Go up, for to-morrow I will deliver them into thine hand.” Besides, in one most important respect, the priestly function was still allowed to remain in the hands of the people, even after the consecration of Aaron and his family. The paschal lamb, which might justly be regarded as in a peculiar sense the sacrifice of the covenant, was by the covenant people themselves presented to the Lord, and its flesh eaten; which was manifestly designed to keep up a perpetual testimony to the truth of their being a kingdom of priests. So Philo plainly understood it, when he describes it as the custom at the passover, “not that the laity should bring the sacrificial animals to the altar, and the priests offer them, but the whole people,” says he, “according to the prescription of the law, exercise priestly functions, since each one, for his own part, presents the appointed sacrifices.”[347] And as thus the priestly functions of the people were plainly not intended to be destroyed by the institution of the Aaronic priesthood, but were only, at the most, transferred to that body, and represented in them, we can easily understand how pious Israelites, like the Psalmist, could read their own privileges in those of the priests, and speak of “coming into the house of God,” and even of “dwelling in it all the days of their life.”[348] Betokening, however, as the institution of such a priesthood did, a relative degree of imperfection on the part of the people, we can also easily understand how the spirit of prophecy, when pointing to a higher and more perfect dispensation, should have intimated the purpose of God to make the priestly order again to cease, by the unreserved communication to the people of its distinctive privileges: “Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord, men shall call you the ministers of our God.”[349] This purpose began to be realized from the time that, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, believers were constituted a “royal priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God,” and is destined to be realized in the fullest sense in the future kingdom of glory, when the redeemed shall be able with one voice to say, “Thou hast made us kings and priests unto our God.” [347] Vita Mosis. iii., p. 686. [348] Psalms 5:7; Psalms 27:4, etc. [349] Isaiah 61:6; Isaiah 66:21; Jeremiah 33:22; on which last see Hengstenberg’s Christol.; as also on Zechariah 3:1, for some good remarks on the subject now under discussion. The relation, then, in which the Levitical priesthood stood to the people, still consisted with the preservation, to a considerable extent, of their spiritual privileges. Even through such an institution they could see the dignity of their standing before God, and their right to hold near fellowship with Him. But if, in this part of the arrangement, care was taken to keep up a sense of the grace and condescension of God toward the whole covenant people, care was also taken, on the other hand, by means of the priesthood’s peculiar relation to God, to keep up a sense of His adorable majesty and untainted righteousness; for how ever the people were warranted to regard themselves as admitted by representation into the dwelling-place of God, they were yet obliged personally to stand at an awful distance. One tribe alone was selected and set apart to the office of handling the things that concerned it. But not even the whole of this tribe was permitted to enter the sacred precincts of God’s house, and minister in its appropriate services. That honour was reserved for one family of the tribe—the family of Aaron; and even the members of that family could not be allowed to discharge the duties of their priestly office without the most solemn rites of consecration; nor, when consecrated, could they all alike traverse with freedom the courts of the tabernacle: one individual of them alone could pass the veil into its innermost region, the presence-chamber of God, and he only in such a manner as must have impressed his soul with the intense sanctity of the place, and made him enter with trembling step. Guarded by so many restrictions, and rising through so many gradations, how high must have seemed the dignity, how sublime and sacred the privilege, of standing in the presence of the Holy One of Israel, and ministering before Him! And as regards the people generally, how clearly did all show, that while God dwelt among them, He was yet at some distance from them! At once a manifested and a concealed God! in whose courts the darkness still intermingled with light, and fear alternated with love. II. But we must now inquire into the leading characteristics of this priestly office: what peculiarly distinguished those who exercised it from the nation at large? Nothing for certain can here be learned from the name (כֹּהֵן, cohen) the derivation of which is differently given by the learned, and the original import of which cannot now be correctly ascertained. But looking at their position and office in a general light, we cannot fail to regard them as occupying somewhat of the place of God’s friends and familiars.[350] Their part was not to do much in the way of active and laborious service, but rather to receive and present to God, as His nearest friends and associates, what properly belonged to Him. And on this account also was a great proportion of the sacrifices divided between God and them; and the shew-bread, as well as other meat-offerings, were consumed by them, there being such a close relationship and intimacy between them and God, that it might be regarded as immaterial whether anything were appropriated by them or consumed on the altar of God. But there were evidently three elements entering into this general view of their position and office, which together made up the characteristics of the priestly calling, and which are distinctly brought out as such in the description given by Moses on the occasion of Koran’s rebellion: “And he spake unto Korah, and unto all his company, saying, To-morrow the Lord will show who is His, and who is holy; and whom He makes to draw near to Him: and him whom He chooses will He make to draw near to Himself.”—(Numbers 16:5) There can be no doubt, from the connection in which this stands, that it was intended to be a description of the properties or personal characteristics of a Divine calling to the priesthood; for it was intended to meet the assumption of Korah and his company, that as the whole congregation was holy, they had an equal right with Aaron to enter into the tabernacle of God, and minister in holy things. The person to whom such a right belonged, must be in a peculiar sense the choice or property of God—must be a possessor of holiness, and have the privilege of drawing near to God; and these qualities it was declared belonged to the family of Aaron as to no other. It could only be, however, as having these things in a peculiar sense that the Aaronic priesthood were here meant to be characterized; for they were also the characteristics of the congregation generally as a kingdom of priests, and are mentioned as such in the 19th chapter of Exodus. The people are there described as having been “brought unto God,” as being chosen for “a peculiar treasure to Him,” and as “an holy nation.” So that everything was affirmed to be theirs, which was peculiarly to distinguish the family of Aaron. And there can be no doubt, that it was on the ground of this passage which had made a deep impression upon all the people, that the rebellion of Korah was raised. The differences were those of degree, not of kind; but still, as matters now stood, they were differences on the side of the family of Aaron. [350] Vitringa (Obs. Sac., i., p. 272) gives this even as the radical signification of the name cohen, “familiarioris accessionis amicum,” appealing for proof to Isaiah 61:10. In this he followed Cocceius, who makes the fundamental idea of the verb to be that of drawing near to a superior. Many, after Kimchi, understand it of the performing of honourable and dignified service; while many again in recent times resort to the Arabic, and find the sense of discovering secret things, prophesying, which they consider as the original one.—(Pye Smith on Priesthood of Christ, p. 82) There can he no doubt, however, that, whether from usage or from original meaning, the word came to convey the idea of something like a familiar or chosen friend and counsellor. Hence, David’s sons being priests (2 Samuel 8:18), is explained in 1 Chronicles 18:17 by their being at the hand of the king. (1.) They were in a peculiar sense God’s property, or the objects of His election—for these two expressions properly involve but one idea. The choice of God, as well in respect to the priesthood as to the people at large, exercised itself in selecting a particular portion from the general property of God, to be His peculiar possession. As thus chosen and set apart for God, Israel was His heritage among the nations; and as similarly chosen and set apart for the special work of the priesthood, the family of Aaron was his heritage in Israel. The privilege was to be theirs of drawing peculiarly near to God, and their first qualification for using it was that they were the objects of His choice. Their designation and appointment must be from above—not assumed as of their own authority, or derived from the choice of their fellow-men—“for no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.”—(Hebrews 5:4) Referring to this, and recognising in it the essential distinction of every true Israelite, the Psalmist says, “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, and causest to approach unto Thee, that he may dwell in Thy courts.”—(Psalms 65:4) The grounds of the Divine choice in the case of Aaron are nowhere given; nor even when Korah contested with him the right to the office, did the Lord condescend to assign any reason for having selected that family in preference to the other families of Israel. He wished His own election to be regarded as the ultimate ground of the distinction; and by making the office hereditary in the family of Aaron, He kept the appointment for all coming time, as it were, in His own hands. This does not, however, preclude the possibility of such ostensible grounds of preference existing in Aaron and his family, as might have been sufficient to commend the Divine choice to the people; such as his distinguished rank as the first-born of the house to which Moses belonged, the services he had already rendered to the cause of Israel, or his personal fitness for the office. But there is no authority for holding, with Philo, Maimonides, and other Jewish writers, that the priesthood was conferred on this family as a reward for their zeal and devotedness to the service of God. So far from this, at the very time when the appointment of Aaron was intimated to Moses, he was going along with the people in the worship of the golden calf.[351] [351] Spencer, De Leg., L. i., c. 8, concurs with the Jewish writers in the reason they assign, and quotes Philo with approbation: naturally enough, as his grand reason for the institution of the priesthood was simply the prevention of idolatry! (2.) The second element in the distinctive properties of the priesthood, was the possession of holiness. Expressly on the ground of holiness being the general characteristic of the people, did the company of Korah assert their claim to the prerogatives of the priesthood; and on this point especially was the trial by means of the twelve rods laid up before the Lord designed to bear a decisive testimony. The rod of the house of Aaron alone being made to bud, and blossom, and yield almonds, was a visible miraculous sign from heaven, of a holiness belonging to the family of Aaron, which did not belong to the congregation at large. For what is holiness but spiritual life and fruitfulness? And of this there could not be a more natural emblem than a rod flourishing and yielding fruit after its kind. Such singular and pre-eminent holiness became those who were to be known as the immediate attendants and familiars of Jehovah, who revealed Himself as “the Holy One of Israel.” Hence, not only is it said in the general, that “holiness becometh God’s house,”—that is, those who dwell and minister in its courts,—but Aaron is called by way of distinction “the saint of the Lord;” and the law enjoins with special emphasis respecting the priests as a body, that they should be “holy unto their God:” “for,” it is added, “I the Lord, that sanctify you, am holy.”—(Psalms 93:5; Psalms 106:16; Leviticus 21:8) Hence also, as holiness in the priesthood derived the necessity of its existence from the holiness of the Being whose attendants they were, it must have been holiness of the same character and description as His; the law of the ten commandments, which was the grand expression of the one, must undoubtedly have been intended to form the fixed standard of the other. It was an excellence which, however it might be symbolized by outward things, could not possibly be formed of these, but must have been a real and personal distinction. This is forcibly brought out in the description given of the character of those who were originally appointed to fill the sacred functions of the priesthood in Malachi 2:1-7; and it is also clearly implied in the threatenings uttered against the house of Eli, and their ultimate degradation and ruin, on account of the moral impurities into which they fell. Their wicked course of life disqualified them from holding the sacred office, which must therefore have indispensably required purity in heart and conduct. (3.) The last distinction belonging to the priesthood, was their right to draw near to God,—a right which grew out of their election of God, and their eminent holiness, as the end and consummation to which these pointed. The question in the rebellion of Korah was, Who were in such a sense chosen by God, and holy, as to be privileged to draw near to Him? And the decision of God was given on the two former, with a special respect to this latter prerogative: “And him whom He chooses will He make to draw near to Himself.” Hence, “those who draw near to Jehovah,” is not uncommonly given as a description of the priests (Exodus 19:22; Leviticus 21:17; Ezekiel 42:13, Ezekiel 44:13); and the distinctive priestly act in all sacrificial services is called “the bringing near” (הקריב); as also the thing sacrificed is called, in its most general designation, corban (קרבן) the thing brought near, offering. On this account, what is mentioned in one place as “an offering of burnt-offerings,” is described in another as a “bringing near” of them.—(2 Samuel 6:17; 1 Chronicles 16:1) But this right of the priesthood to come into the immediate presence of God, and submit to His acceptance the gifts and offerings of the congregation, of necessity involved the idea of their occupying an intermediate position between God and the people, and gave to their entire work the character of a mediation. “They were ordained for men in things pertaining to God,” charged to a certain extent with the interests of both parties, but having especially to transact with God in the behalf of those whom sin had removed to a distance from Him. Through them the families of Israel were blessed, as through Israel—the kingdom of priests—all the families of the earth were to be blessed. In the high priest alone, however, was this function fully realized, as was plainly indicated by the outward distinctions held by him above the other priests, as well as above the people at large. “For to the outward of the high priest it be longed: First, that while the people, remaining at a greater or less distance from the sanctuary, approached to it only at befit ting times, the high priest, on the contrary, was always in the midst—so that though his functions were few, and confined to certain times, yet his whole existence appeared consecrated; and secondly, that though the people presented their offerings to God by the collective priesthood, still the sacrifice of the great day of atonement was necessary as an universal completion of the rest; and this the high priest alone could present. The idea, therefore, of his office seems to be, that while to the Jewish people their national life appeared as an alternation of drawing near to God, and withdrawing again from Him, the high priest was the individual whose life, compared with these vacillating movements, was in perpetual equipoise; and as the people were always in a state of impurity, he was the only person who could present himself as pure before God.”[352] [352] Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre, as quoted by Tholuck, in Diss. ii., in Com. on Ep. to Hebr., Bib. Cabinet, xxxix., p. 265. III. It was not, however, the sole end of the appointment of the priesthood, to represent the people in the sanctuary, and mediate between them and God and holy things. It belonged also to their office to secure the diffusion among the people of sound knowledge and instruction; so that there might be a right understanding among the people of the nature of God’s service, and a fitness for entering in spirit into its duties, while the priests were personally employed in discharging them. A certain amount of such knowledge was necessary, in order that the people might be disposed to bring their gifts and offerings at suitable times; and a still greater, that, in the presentation of these by the hand of the priests, they might be blessed as acceptable worshippers. With the oversight of this, therefore, so nearly connected with their sacred employments about the tabernacle, the priesthood were charged: “And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.”—(Leviticus 10:11) So again in Deuteronomy 33:10, “They shall teach Jacob Thy judgments, and Israel Thy law.” The words of Malachi also are express on this point: “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.”—(Malachi 2:7) As a teacher, he had a divine mission to accomplish; and it was hence justly charged against the priesthood of his day by the prophet, as an entire subversion of the great end of their appointment, that instead of teaching others the law, “they caused many to stumble at it.” The prophet Hosea even ascribes the general ruin to their neglect of this part of their functions: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me.”—(Malachi 4:6) The office of the priesthood thus necessarily involved somewhat of a prophetical or teaching character; and in after times, when those destined lights of Israel became themselves sources of darkness and corruption, prophets were raised up, and generally from among the priesthood, for the express purpose of correcting the evil, and supplying the information which the others had failed to impart. It is plain, however, that even if the priests had been faithful to this part of their calling, they were quite inadequate, from their limited number, to be personally in any proper sense the teachers of all Israel. It is true, they enjoyed peculiar advantages for this in the frequent recurrence of the stated feasts, which caused the people to assemble in one place thrice every year, and kept them on each returning solemnity for a week at the very centre of priestly influence. But much beside what could then be accomplished would require to be done, to diffuse a sufficient acquaintance with the law of God, and give instruction from time to time concerning numberless cases of doubt or difficulty, which in daily life would be certain to arise. On this account, more particularly, were the Levites associated with the priesthood, and planted at proper distances in certain cities throughout the tribes of Israel. They were “given to Aaron and his sons,” to minister unto him in subordinate and preparatory offices, while he was doing the service of the tabernacle, and generally “to execute the service of the Lord.”—(Numbers 3:5-10; Numbers 8:2)[353] In fulfilling this appointment, it fell to them to keep the tabernacle and its instruments in a proper state for the divine service, to bear its different parts when removing from place to place, to occupy in later times the post of door-keepers in the temple, to take part in the musical arrangements connected with the public service, to assist at the larger feasts in the killing and flaying of victims, etc.—(1 Chronicles 23:28-32; 2 Chronicles 35:6; 2 Chronicles 35:11) But separated as the Levites were from secular employments, without lands to cultivate, and “wholly given to the service of the Lord,” it was obviously but a small number of them who could be regularly occupied with such ministrations about the sanctuary; and as both their abundant leisure and their dispersion through the land gave them many opportunities of acting as the spiritual instructors of the people, it must have been chiefly through their instrumentality that the priests were to keep the people acquainted with the statutes and judgments of the Lord. This is clearly implied, indeed, in those passages which speak most distinctly of the obligation laid upon the priesthood to diffuse the knowledge of the law, and which refer equally to the priests and the Levites. Thus their common calling to “teach Jacob God’s judgments and Israel His law,” is announced in the blessing of Moses upon the whole tribe (Deuteronomy 33:8-11); and in Malachi the failure of the priesthood to instruct the people in divine knowledge, and their guilt in causing many to err from the law, is called a “corruption of the covenant of Levi.” [353] They were given to Aaron, the Lord’s familiar, as a sacrifice offered up and consecrated to the Lord in the room of the first-born. The first-born, at the deliverance from Egypt, had represented all the people,—in them, all the people were redeemed; so now the people, when substituting the Levites in their place, had to lay their hands on their heads, and Aaron waved them before the Lord as an offering; and as originally God accepted the blood of the lamb for the blood of the first-born, so now He accepted a burnt-offering and a sin-offering for the Levites, on which they had to place their hands.—(Numbers 3, 8) Common discretion and self-interest, concurring with the principles of piety, must have enforced upon them this obligation, and dictated the employment of active measures for the diffusion of divine knowledge by the instrumentality of the Levites. If these possessed the spirit of their office as men dedicated to the Lord’s service, in subordination to the priest hood, they must have felt it their duty to prepare the minds of the people for the solemnities of the tabernacle-worship, much more than to prepare the instruments of the tabernacle itself for the same. A moment’s reflection must have taught them, that their services, as ministering helps, to promote the ends of the priesthood, were greatly more necessary for the one purpose than the other. But if higher considerations should fail to influence them in the matter, they were still urged to exert themselves in this direction from a regard to their own comfortable maintenance, which was made principally to depend upon the tithes and offerings of the people. The chief source of revenue was the tithe, which belonged to the tribe of Levi, from their being more peculiarly the Lord’s; the whole property being represented by the number ten, and one of these being constantly taken as a tribute-money or pledge, that the whole was held in fief or dependence upon Him. Then, out of this tithe accruing to the entire tribe, another tithe was taken and devoted to the family of Aaron, as the peculiarly sacred portion of the tribe. But for the actual payment of these tithes and the other offerings of the people in which they had a share, the priests and Levites were dependent on the enlightened and faithful consciences of the people. The rendering of what was due, was simply a matter of religious obligation; and where this failed, the claim could not be enforced by any constraint of law. It consequently became indispensable to the very existence of the sacred tribe, that they should be at pains to preserve and elevate the religious sense of the community, as with this their own respect and comfort were inseparably connected. And when they proved unfaithful to their charge, as the representatives of God’s interest, and the expounders of His law among the people (as they appear to have done in the age of Malachi), their sin was visited upon them, in just retribution, by a withdrawal on the part of the people of the appointed offerings. So that, although nothing was said as to the particular means proper to be employed for the purpose (the Church being left then, as in New Testament times, to discharge the obligation laid upon it by suitable arrangements), there can be no doubt that the obligation was imposed upon the priesthood to be partly themselves, and still more through their ministers the Levites, the teachers of the people in divine knowledge. The proper discharge of the priestly, presupposed and required a certain discharge of the prophetical function; and prophets, as extraordinary messengers, after having been occasionally sent to chastise their unfaithfulness and rouse them from their lethargy, were at last instituted as a distinct and separate order, only to supply what was found to be a lack of service on the part of those regular instructors. Indeed, as the members of the prophetical order seem generally to have been taken from the tribe of Levi, the institution of that order may be regarded as a perfecting of the Levitical office in one of its departments of duty.[354] [354] Vitr. Synag. Vet., L. i., P. 2, c. 8, where also see various Jewish authorities in proof of the calling of the Levites to be teachers and expounders of the law, and especially one from Baal Hattarim, which expressly assigns this as the reason of the dispersion of the Levites among the Israelites (dispergentur per omnes Israelitas ad docendam legem). See also Mover’s Kronik, p. 300, and Graves on Pent., ii., Lec. 4. Michaelis (Com. on Laws of Moses, i., art. 35, 52) has asserted, that a great many civil and literary offices belonged to the priests and Levites—that they were not only ministers of religion, but physicians, judges, scribes, mathematicians, etc., holding the same place in Israelitish that the Egyptian priesthood did in Egyptian society—and that on this account alone were such large revenues assigned them. This view has been too often followed by divines, especially by the rationalist portion of them, and is still too much countenanced in the Bib. Cyclop., art. Priest, and even by Mr Taylor in his Spiritual Despotism, p. 99. It is entirely, however, without foundation, and has been thoroughly disproved by Bähr (Symbolik, ii., p. 34, 53), and by Hengstenberg, who has shown that the Levites, as well as the priests, were set apart only for religious purposes, and that in particular the civil constitution as to judges, as settled by Moses, was merely the revival and improvement of that patriarchal government which had never been altogether destroyed in Egypt. (Authentie, 2., p. 260, 341, 654, etc.) There can be no doubt that the Egyptian and Indian priests held many of the offices referred to; that their political went hand in hand with their religious influence; and that, especially in Egypt, the most fertile lands belonged to them, with many other lucrative privileges. It was very different with the Levitical priesthood—no lands worth naming—a dependence upon the offerings of the people for their livelihood; so that they are commended to the care of the people as objects of kindness with the widow and orphan (Deuteronomy 12:12; Deuteronomy 16:11; Deuteronomy 16:14), and were often, from the low state of religion, in comparative want. IV. Now, the outward and bodily prescriptions which were given respecting the priesthood, were merely intended to serve, by their observance, as symbolical expressions of the ideas we have seen to be involved in the nature of their calling and office. It is not necessary for us to enter into any minute detail concerning them; and we shall content ourselves with briefly noticing some of the leading points. (1.) There were, first, personal marks and distinctions of a bodily kind, the possession of which was necessary to qualify any one for the priesthood, and the absence of which was to prove an utter disqualification. These, therefore, being manifestly given or withheld by God, bore upon the question of a person’s election; and when not possessed, bespoke the individual not to be chosen by God in the peculiar sense required for the priestly office. Such were all kinds of bodily defects; it was declared a profanation of the altar or the sanctuary, for any one to draw near in whom they appeared.—(Leviticus 21:16-24) Not that the Lord cared for the bodily appearance in itself, but through the body sought to convey suitable impressions regarding the soul. For completeness of bodily parts is to the body what, in the true religion, holiness is to the soul. To the requirement or the production of this holiness, as the perfection of man’s spiritual nature, the whole of the Mosaic institutions were bent. And as signs and witnesses to Israel concerning it, those who occupied the high position of being at once God’s and the people’s representatives, must bear upon their persons that external symbol of the spiritual perfection required of them. The choice of God had to be verified by their possessing the outward symbol of true holiness.[355]—The age prescribed for the Levites (which would probably be regarded as the usual rule also for the priests) entering upon their office, and again ceasing from active service, carried substantially the same meaning. It comprehended the period of the natural life’s greatest vigour and completeness, and, as such, indicated that the spiritual life should be in a corresponding state. The age of entry is stated in Numbers 4 at thirty, while in chap.Numbers 8:1-26 twenty-five is given; but the former has respect simply to the work of the Levites about (not at or in) the tabernacle, in transporting it from place to place; the latter speaks of the period of their entering on their duties generally; and it would seem that the practice latterly made it even so early as twenty.—(1 Chronicles 23:27; 2 Chronicles 31:17)[356] [355] The Greeks and Romans, it is well known, were very particular in regard to the corporeal soundness and even beauty of their priests. Among the former, every one underwent a careful examination as to his bodily frame before he entered on the priestly office; and among the Romans there are instances of persons resigning the office on receiving some corporeal blemish—such as M. Sergius, who lost his hand in the defence of his country. But holiness was not the perfection aimed at in those religions; and such regard was paid to bodily completeness merely because it was thought a token of Divine favour, and an omen of good success. Hence Seneca, Controv. iv. 2: Sacerdos non integri corporis quasi mali omiuis res vitanda est. See Bähr, ii., p. 59. [356] Hengstenberg, Authentie, ii. 2., p. 393; Relandi, Antiq., ii., 6, 3; Lightfoot, Op., ii., p. 691. (2.) Then, certain restrictions of an external kind were laid upon the priests, as to avoiding occasions of bodily defilement; such as contact with the dead, excepting in cases of nearest relationship; cutting and disfiguring the hair of the beard, as in times of mourning; marrying a person of bad fame, or one that had been divorced. And the high priest, as being in his own person the most sacred, was still farther restricted, so that he was not to defile himself even for his father or mother, and should marry only a virgin. These observances were enjoined as palpable symbols of the holiness, in walk and conduct, which became those who stood so near to the Holy One of Israel. Occupying the blessed region of life and purity, they must exhibit, in their external relations and deportment, the care and jealousy with which it behoves every one to watch against all occasions of sin, who would live in fellowship with the righteous Jehovah. (3.) The garments appointed to be worn by the priesthood in their sacred ministrations were also, in some respects, strikingly expressive of the holiness required in their personal state, while in certain parts of the high priest’s dress other ideas be sides were symbolized. The stuff of all of them was linen, and, with the exception of the more ornamental parts of the high priest’s dress, must be understood to have been white. They are not expressly so called in the Pentateuch, but are incidentally described as white in 2 Chronicles 5:12; and such also was known to be the usual colour of the linen of Egypt, as worn by the priests. The coolness and comparative freedom from perspiration attending the use of linen garments, had led men to associate with them, especially in the burning clime of Egypt, the idea of cleanliness. Their symbolical use, therefore, in an ethical religion like the Mosaic, must have been expressive of inward purity; and hence, in the symbolical language of Revelation, we read so often of the white and clean garments of the heavenly inhabitants, which are expressly declared to mean “the righteousness of saints.”—(Revelation 19:8; Revelation 4:4; Revelation 6:11, etc.) Hence also, on the day of atonement, the plain white linen garments which the high priest was to wear, are called “garments of holiness”—evidently implying that holiness was the idea more peculiarly imaged by clothing of that description. It was this idea, too, that was emblazoned in the plate of gold which was attached to the front of the high priest’s bonnet or mitre, by the engraving on it of the words, “Holiness to the Lord.” This became the more necessary in his case, on account of the rich embroidery and manifold ornaments which belonged to other parts of his dress, and which were fitted to lessen the impression of holiness, that the fine white linen of some of them might otherwise have been sufficient to convey. The representative character of the high priest was symbolized by the breast-plate of the Ephod, which in twelve precious stones bore the names of the tribes of the children of Israel, indicating that in their name and behalf he appeared in the presence of God. The Urim and Thummim (lights and perfections) connected with the breast-plate, if not identical with it, and through which, in cases of emergency, he obtained unerring responses from heaven, bespoke the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the mind and will of God, with which he should be endowed to fit him for giving a clear direction to the people in the things of God, and the perfect rectitude of the decisions he would consequently pronounce respecting them.—The girdle with which his flowing garments were bound together, denoted the high and honourable service in which he was engaged; and the bells and pomegranates, which were wrought upon the lower edge of the tunic below the Ephod, bespoke the distinct utterances he was to give of the Divine word, and the fruitfulness in righteousness of which this should be productive. Finally, the fine quality of the stuff of which all the garments of the priests were made, and the gold, and diversified colours, and rich embroidery appearing in the ordinary garments of the priesthood, expressly said to have been for ornament and beauty, (Exodus 28:40), were manifestly designed to express the elevated rank and dignity of those who are recognised by God as sons in His house, permitted to draw near with confidence to His presence, and to go in and out before Him.[357] [357] We have not specified in detail the different parts of the priest’s garments; they consisted, in the case of the priesthood generally, of breeches or drawers of linen, a coat or tunic reaching from the neck to the ankles and wrists, an embroidered girdle, and a mitre or turban (the usual parts, in fact, of an Oriental dress). But in the case of the high priest, there were, beside these, a mantle or robe of blue, worn over the inner coat or tunic, and immediately under the ephod; then the ephod itself, a sort of short coat, very richly embroidered and ornamented, with its corresponding girdle and breast-plate, with the Urim and Thummim, which was regarded as the peculiar and distinctive garment of the high priest, who is thence often described as he “who wore the ephod.” (Common linen ephods, however, were worn by the priests generally, and sometimes even by laymen.) That there was much in these garments peculiar to the Israelites, and differing from what existed in Egypt, we think Bähr has sufficiently established. For example, the tunics of the Egyptian priests appear to have reached only from the haunch to the feet, leaving the upper part naked; the mitres were of a different shape, and fell back upon the neck; the girdle seems not to have been used, but they wore shoes, and on great occasions leopard skins, which the Israelitish priests did not.—(Symbolik, ii., p. 92) It is clear, therefore, there could be no slavish imitation, as Spencer and others have laboured to show. Yet this by no means proves that there might not have been in some leading particulars the same symbols employed to represent substantially the same ideas. That this was the case in regard to the white linen garments, seems indisputable; Spencer’s proofs there, as Hengstenberg remarks against Bähr (Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 146), are quite conclusive. Such dresses were peculiar only to the priests of Egypt and Palestine as symbolic of cleanliness or purity; hence the former were called by Juvenal “grex liniger,” by Ovid “linigera turba,” by Martial “linigeri calvi,” by Seneca “liuteali senes.”—(Spencer, de Leg., l. iii., c. 5, s. 2) There does seem also to have been a reference in the Urim and Thummim to the practice in Egypt of suspending the image of the goddess Thmei, who was honoured under the twofold character of truth and justice, from the neck of the chief judge.—(See Hengstenberg as above, p. 150, with the quotations there, especially from Wilkinson.) Still there was a very characteristic difference, in that the high priest did not act properly as a judge, but as a spiritual servant of God, and was only represented as having a sure revelation if ho faithfully waited upon God, and sought in earnest to guide the people into the right knowledge of God, and a true judgment of matters as between them and God. For direct consultation with God, the Urim and Thummim seems only to have been used in cases of emergency, when ordinary resources failed. And what it was precisely, or how responses were obtained by it, cannot now be ascertained. (4.) Lastly, the rites of consecration proclaimed the necessity of holiness—a holiness not their own, but imputed to them by the grace of God; and following upon this, and flowing from the same source, a plentiful endowment of gifts for their sacred office, with the manifest seal of Heaven’s fellowship and approval. They were first brought to the door of the tabernacle and washed—as in themselves impure, and requiring the application of water—the simplest and commonest element of cleansing. Then, the body being thus purified, the pontifical garments were put on; and on the high priest first, afterwards on the other priests, was poured the holy anointing oil, which ran down upon their garments.—(Exodus 28:21; Exodus 30:30, etc.) And in the case of the sons the anointing is declared to have constituted them “an everlasting priesthood through all their generations” (Exodus 40:15)—meaning, apparently, and as has been commonly understood, that the act did not need to be renewed in respect to the ordinary members of the priesthood. This was the peculiar act of consecration, and symbolized the bestowal upon those who received it, of the Spirit’s grace, so as to make them Ht and active instruments in discharging the duties of God’s service. As such anointing had already stamped the tabernacle as God’s hallowed abode, so now did it hallow them to be His proper agents and servitors within its courts (p. 243). But, different from the senseless materials of the tabernacle, these anointed priests have consciences defiled with the pollution and laden with the guilt of sin. And how, then, can they stand in the presence of Him who is a consuming fire to sinners, and minister before Him? The more they partook of the unction of the Holy One, the more must they have felt the necessity of another kind of cleansing than they had yet received, and raised in their souls a cry for the blood of atonement and reconciliation. This, therefore, was what was next provided, and through an entire series of sacrifices and offerings they were conducted, as from the depths of guilt and condemnation, to what indicated their possession of a state of blessed peace and most friendly intercourse with God. Even Jewish writers did not fail to mark the gradation in the order of the sacrifices. “For first of all,” says one of them, “there was presented for the expiation of sin the bullock of sin-offering, of which nothing save a little fat was offered (on the altar) to God (the flesh being burned without the camp); because the offerers were not yet worthy to have any gift or offering accepted by God. But after they had been so far purged, they slew the burnt-offering to God, which was wholly laid upon the altar. And after this came a sacrifice like a peace-offering (which was wont to be divided between God, the priests, and the offerers), showing they were now so far received into favour with God, that they might eat at His table.”[358] [358] R. Levi Ben Gerson, as quoted by Outram, De Sac., p. 56. This last offering is called the “ram of consecration,” or of “filling,” because the portions of it to be consumed upon the altar, with its accompanying meat-offering, were put into Aaron’s hands, that he might present and wave them before the Lord. Being counted worthy to have his hands filled with these, the representatives of what he was to be constantly presenting and eating before the Lord, he was thereby, in a manner, installed in his office. But first he had to be sprinkled with the blood of the victim the blood in which the life is, and which, after being sprinkled on the altar, and so uniting him to God, was applied to his body, signifying the conveyance of a new life to him, a life out of death from God, and in union with God. Nor was Aaron’s body in the general only sprinkled with this holy life-giving blood, but also particular members apart:—his right ear, to sanctify it to a ready and attentive listening to the law of God, according to which all His service must be regulated; his right hand, and his right foot, that the one might be hallowed for the presentation of sacred gifts to God, and the other for treading His courts and running the way of His commandments. And now, to complete the ceremony, he receives on his person and his garments a second anointing—not simply with the oil, but with the oil and this blood of consecration mingled together—symbolizing the new life of God, in which he is henceforth to move and have his being, in conjunction with the Spirit, on whose softening, penetrating, invigorating influence all the powers and movements of that divine life depend. So that the Levitical priesthood appeared emphatically as one coming “by water and by blood.” It spoke aloud, in all its rites of consecration, of sin on man’s part, and holiness on God’s. The memorials of human guilt, and the emblems of divine sanctity, must at once meet on the persons of those who exercised it. Theirs must be clean hands and a pure heart, sanctified natures, a heaven-derived and heaven-sustained life, such as betokened a real connection with God, and a personal interest in the benefits of His redemption. The full meaning, however, of the offerings connected with the consecration of the priests will only appear when we have considered the various kinds of sacrifices employed on the occasion. It is enough at present to have given the general import. The whole was repeated seven times, on as many successive days—because seven was the symbol of the oath or covenant, and indicated here that the consecration to the priestly office was a strictly covenant transaction. That it was done, not merely seven times, but on seven successive days, might also be intended to indicate its completeness—a week of days being the shortest complete revolution of time. That the parts of the peace and the bread-offering, which were put into Aaron’s hand, and which were to be his for ever, were burnt on the altar, and not eaten by Moses (who here acted, by virtue of his special commission, as priest), may have simply arisen from Moses not being able to eat the whole; he had to eat the wave bread, which might be enough; hence also what remained over of the parts given to Aaron to be eaten, were to be burnt.—(Exodus 29:34) We see nothing, therefore, in that arrangement to be regarded as a difficulty, though Kurtz has noted it as one. (Mosaische Opfer, p. 249) The action of the second anointing we have explained substantially with Baumgarten, and not differing very materially from Bähr.—(Symb., 2., 424, etc.) We cannot, with Mr Bonar (Comm. on Lev., p. 160), regard the first anointing as the consecration of the man, and the second as that of the priest; for at the first as well as the second, Aaron had on the priest’s garments, and nothing could more distinctly intimate, that what was afterwards done had respect to him as priest. The fire which came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt-offering on the altar, the first which Aaron presented for the people (Leviticus 9:24), was the solemn seal and recognition of Heaven to the office and work of the high priest. It inaugurated not Aaron merely, but the priesthood generally of the covenant, as the elect of God. The rites of consecration differ materially from those used in Egypt. In particular, the shaving of the whole body, which was practised in Egypt every three days (Herod., ii. 37), and kept the head as well as the body generally bald, was entirely omitted here. It was done at first, but only then, with the Levites (Numbers 8) as an act of cleansing, along with the sprinkling of water and washing of the clothes. It hence appears to have been regarded as a symbol of an inferior kind, as the consecration of the Levites was much less solemn than that of the priests. V. In applying now what was ordained respecting the Levitical priesthood to the higher things of Christ’s kingdom, we find, indeed, everywhere a shadow of these, but “not the very image” of them. The resemblances were such as imperfect, earthly materials, and an instrumentality of sinful beings, could present to the heavenly and divine—inevitably presenting, therefore, some important and palpable differences. Thus, from the high priest being taken from among men, he necessarily partook of their sinfulness, and required to be himself cleansed by rites and offerings, to be invested with what might be denominated an artificial, imputed holiness, in order that he might mediate between the holy God and his sinful fellow-men. And then, that he might go through such a process of purification as should raise him to a proper religious elevation above his brethren, there were meanwhile needed the ministrations of one standing between him and God. The mediator of the covenant, who consecrated, had of necessity to be different from, and higher than, the person who was consecrated for high priest. These were obvious though unavoidable imperfections, even as regarded the preparatory dispensation itself; and it must have suggested itself as manifestly a more perfect arrangement, could it have been obtained, if the high priest had been possessor of the nature, without being partaker of the guilt of his brethren, and by his inherent qualities had united in his own person what fitted him to be at once mediator and high priest over the house of God. Now, this is precisely what first meets us in the Gospel constitution of the kingdom; and the defects and imperfections which gave a sort of anomalous and arbitrary character to the arrangements under the Old Testament, have no place whatever here. He who is the Mediator, is also the High Priest of His people; and while partaker of flesh and blood like the brethren, yet being “without sin,” “holy, harmless, and undefiled,” He needed no offerings and ablutions to consecrate Him to the office of priesthood. At once very God and true man, the Eternal Son in personal union with real though spotless humanity, He was thoroughly qualified to act the part of the day’s-man between the Father and His sinful children, being able to “lay His hand upon them both.” Who could appear as He the friend and familiar of God?—He, who was in the bosom of the Father, and who could say in the fullest sense, “I and the Father are one?”—who even as the Son of Man, appearing in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet Himself had no fellowship with the accursed thing, but ever shunned and abhorred it? With the divine and human thus meeting all purely in His person, He has everything that could be desired to render Him the proper Head and High Priest of His people. The arrangement for reconciling heaven and earth, and re-establishing the intercourse between lost man and his Creator, is absolutely perfect, and leaves nothing to be desired. On the one side, as the Beloved Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased, He has at all times free access to the presence of the Father, and in whatever He asks must also have power as a prince to prevail. On the other, as the representative of His people, and one in nature with themselves, they can at all times make known with confidence to Him the sins and sorrows of their condition, and, recognising what is His as also theirs, can rise with filial boldness to realize their near relationship to God, and their full participation in the favour and blessing of Heaven. It is impossible, surely, to contemplate the God-man as the head of restored humanity, and the pattern after which all believers shall be formed, without feeling constrained to say, not only how admirable is the arrangement, but also how amazing the condescension! How wonderful, that the Most High should thus accommodate Himself to man’s nature and necessities! And how wonderful, on the other hand, that He should elevate this nature into such near and personal union with Himself, and, for the sake of establishing a fit medium of communication and intercourse between the creature and the Creator, should make it His own eternal habitation and instrument of working! It is this pre-eminently which crowns our nature with dignity and honour, and tells to what a peerless height our humanity is destined. We know not what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him in whom our nature is linked in closest union with the Godhead; and to have our lot and destiny bound up with His, is to be assured of all that it is possible for us to enjoy of blessing and glory. In accomplishing this great work of mediation, however, the High Priest of our profession, like the earthly type, “must have somewhat to offer.” And here, again, where the very heart and centre of His work is concerned, such differences appear as betoken the one to have been only the imperfect shadow, not the exact image, of the other. For, under the Old Testament priesthood, the offerer was different, not only from the thing offered, but also, for the most part, from the person on whose behalf the offering was presented. And so impossible was it, amid the imperfections of the shadow, to combine these properly together, that on the great day of atonement it was found necessary to cause the high priest to offer first for himself apart, and then for the people apart. But now that the perfect things of God’s kingdom have come, this imperfection also has disappeared. The one grand offering, through which Christ has finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in the everlasting righteousness, was at once furnished by Himself, and offered by Himself. He gave Himself to death as thus laden with their guilt, an offering of a sweet-smelling savour to God, and rose again for their justification, as one fully able of Himself to provide and to do everything that was needed to close up the breach which sin had made between man and God. Yet, while there were such imperfections as we have noted, rendering the Levitical priesthood but a defective representation of the Christian, there were, at the same time, many striking resemblances, and the fundamental principles connected with the priesthood of Christ were as fully embodied there as it was possible for them to be in a single institution. For, (1.) The Levitical priesthood was for Israel the one medium of acceptable approach to God. Aaron and his sons were called, and alone called, to the office of presenting all the offerings of the people at the house of God, and securing for them the blessing. And the attempt made on one occasion to supersede the appointment, and dispense with their ministrations, only led to the discomfiture and perdition of those who impiously attempted it. What else can be the result of any similar attempt under the Gospel? A far higher necessity, indeed, reigns here, and any dishonour done to Jesus in His priestly function must be revenged with a much sorer condemnation. The one Mediator between God and man, no one can come to the Father but by Him; and they only who are redeemed by His blood, and presented by Him to the Father as His own ransomed and elect Church, can be accepted to blessing and glory. Therefore it is the Father’s will that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father; and salvation by any other name than that of Jesus is absolutely unattainable. (2.) The personal holiness of Christ in His priesthood was also strikingly typified in the consecrations and garments of the Levitical priesthood, and especially in the purifications by water and blood. In His case, however, the holiness was not acquired, but original, inherent, and complete, manifesting itself in the fulfilment of all righteousness, and magnifying the law of God to the fearful extent of bearing the penalty it had denounced against numberless transgressions. His obedience was such as left no demand of righteousness unsatisfied, and His blood was that of the Lamb of God, without spot or blemish—blood of infinite value. If God accepted the services and heard the intercessions of the priesthood of old, all lame and imperfect as their righteousness was, how much more may His people now count on the blessing, if they approach in humble reliance on the worth and sufficiency of Christ? (3.) Then we see the representative character of His priest hood, and all its functions, imaged in that of the high priest, possessing as he did the names of the twelve tribes upon his breast when he entered the tabernacle, and having their cause and interest ever before him. Christ, in like manner, does nothing for Himself, but only as the Shepherd and Saviour of His people. “For their sakes He sanctified Himself,” by laying down His life to purchase their redemption. And none of them escapes His regard. “He knows His sheep.” All the real Israel whom the Father has given to Him, are borne upon His bosom within the veil, and shall assuredly reap the fruits of His successful mediation. (4.) Further, his thorough insight into the mind of God, and capacity to give forth clear revelations and unerring judgments of His will, was prefigured in the Urim and Thummim of the Jewish high priest, through which the priesthood gave oracular decisions in regard to the things of God, and in the authority generally committed to the priesthood of declaring the Divine will. “No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Himself the Divine Word, through whom Godhead, as it were, speaks and makes itself known to the creatures, it is His part in all His operations, but especially in the discharge of His priestly functions, to declare the Father. In Him, as fulfilling the work connected with these, is seen, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord; and while He conducts His people to an interest in what He has done for their redemption, it is as the truth that He manifests Himself to them. He has even promised to lead them into all the truth, and to fill them with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (5.) Once more, in the anointing of the high priest, we plainly read the connection between the work of Christ and the agency of the Holy Spirit. As the oil there sanctified all, so the Spirit here seals and works in all. By the power of the Spirit was the flesh of Christ conceived; with the fulness of the Spirit was He endowed at His baptism: all His works were wrought in the Spirit, and by the Spirit He at last offered Himself without spot to God. The Father had given the Spirit not by measure to Him; and as the oil that was poured on the head of Aaron flowed down upon his garments, so is this Spirit ever ready to descend from Christ upon all who are members of His body. The priesthood of Aaron was certainly highly honoured in being made to represent beforehand, in so many points, the eternal priesthood of Christ. But in one respect a manifest blank presents itself, which required to be met by a special corrective. As seen in the Old Testament institution, the priestly bore a distinct and easily recognised connection with the prophetical or teaching office; but none, or at least a very distant and obscure one, with the kingly. This of necessity arose from God Himself being King in Israel when the priesthood was instituted; so that no nearer approximation to the ruling authority could be allowed to the members of the priesthood, than that of being expounders and revealers of the law of the Divine-King. Something more than this, however, was required to bring out the true character of the Eternal priesthood, especially after the time that an earthly head of the kingly function was appointed, and the priesthood became still less immediately connected with an authority to rule in the house of God. Hence, no doubt, it was that the Spirit of prophecy, in directing the expectations of the Church to the coming Messiah, began then so peculiarly to supply what was lacking in the intimations of the existing type, and to make promise of Him as “a priest after the order of Melchizedek.”—(Psalms 110) There were in reality far more points of similitude to Christ’s office in the priesthood of Aaron than in that of Melchizedek; but in one very important and prominent respect the one supplied what the other absolutely wanted Melchizedek—being at once a king and a priest, a priest upon the throne. And it was more especially to teach that Messiah should be the same, and in this should differ from the Aaronic priesthood, that such a prediction was then given. It was virtually an assurance to the Church, that the sacerdotal and regal functions, then obviously dissevered, should be united in the person of Him who was to come; and that as the power and splendour of royalty was, in His hands, to be tempered by the tenderness and compassion of the priest, the coming of His kingdom should on that account be looked for with eager expectation. The prediction was again renewal, though without any specific reference to Melchizedek, by Zechariah after the restoration.—(Zechariah 6:13) But while this was the main reason and design of the reference,—when the Jews of our Lord’s time not only overlooked the leading point of the prediction, but entirely misconceived also the relation that the Levitical priesthood bore to Christ’s work and kingdom, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews took occasion to bring out various other and subordinate points of instruction from the prophecy in the Psalms 110:1-7 Psalm, which it was also fitted to convey. These were mainly directed to the purpose of establishing the conclusion, that the priesthood of our Lord must, by that reference to Melchizedek, have been designed to supersede the priesthood of Aaron, and to be constituted after a higher model; that both in His person and His office He was to stand pre-eminent above the most honoured of the sons of Abraham, as Melchizedek appears in the history rising above Abraham himself. It only remains to notice, that in virtue of the law in Christ’s kingdom, by which all His people are vitally united to Him, and partake, to some extent, in every gift and distinction which belongs to Himself, sincere believers are priests after His order and pattern. Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, consecrated by the sprinkling of His blood on their consciences, and the unction of His Spirit, and brought near to God, they are “an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” It is their privilege to go nigh through Him even unto the holiest of all, and minister and serve before Him as sons and daughters in His kingdom. And as in their Great Head, so in them the priestly calling bears relation to the prophetical office on the one hand, and to the kingly on the other. As those who are privileged to stand so high and come so near to God, they obtain the “unction which teaches them all things” “leads them into all the truth,” makes them “children of light,” and constitutes them “lights of the world.” And along with this spirit of wisdom and revelation, there also rests on them the spirit of power, which renders them a “royal priesthood.” Even now, in a measure, they reign as kings over the evil in their natures, and in the world around them; and when Christ’s work in them is brought to its proper consummation, they shall, as kings and priests, share with Him in the glories of His everlasting kingdom. Hence, in the Christian priesthood as well as in the Jewish, everything in the first instance depends upon the condition of the person. It is not the offering that makes the priest, but the priest that makes the offering. He only who has attained to a state of peace and fellowship with God, who has been regenerated by Divine grace, and brought to a personal interest in the blessings of Christ’s salvation, is in a fit condition for presenting to God the spiritual sacrifices of the New Testament. For what are these sacrifices? They are the fruits of grace, yielded by a soul that has become truly alive to God; and simply consist in the willing and active consecration of the person himself, through the varied exercises of love to God and his fellow-men. It is only, therefore, in so far as he is already a subject of grace standing on the ground of Christ’s perfected redemption, and replenished with the life-giving influences of the Holy Spirit, that his good deeds possess the character of sacrifices, acceptable to God. They are, otherwise, but dead works, of no account in the sight of Heaven, because presented by unclean hands, and coining from those who are unsanctified; and even though formally right, they must rank among the things of which God declares that He has not required them at men’s hands.—(Isaiah 1:12; Haggai 2:10-13) But those, on the other hand, who are in the spiritual condition now described, have freedom of access for themselves and their offerings to God; and let no man spoil them of their privilege. Chosen as they are in Christ, and constituted in Him a royal priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, to interpose any others as priests between them and Christ, were to traverse the order of God, and subvert the arrangements of His house. It were to block up anew the path into the Holiest, which Christ has laid fully open. It were to degrade those whom He has called through glory and virtue nay, to disparage Christ Himself, the living root out of which His people grow, in whose life they live, and in whose acceptance they are accepted. A priesthood, in the strict and proper sense, apart from what be longs to believers as such, can have no place in the Church of the New Testament; and the institution of a distinct priestly order, such as exists in the Greek and Roman communities, is an unlawful usurpation, proceeding from the spirit of error and of antichrist. In such a kingdom as Christ’s, where every real member is a priest, there can be room only for ministerial functions necessary for the maintenance of order and the general good. But as regards fellowship with Heaven, there can be no essential difference, since all have access to God by faith, through the grace wherein they stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Section Fourth.—The Tabernacle In Its Several Divisions—1. The Forecourt, With Its Two Articles, The Laver And The Altar Of Burnt-Offering—Sacrifice By Blood In Its Fundamental Idea And Ritual Accompaniments (Choice Of The Victims, Imposition Of Hands, And Sprinkling Of The Blood). IN the preceding chapters we have contemplated the tabernacle and its officiating priesthood in a somewhat general light,—with reference simply to the great design of the one, and the distinctive character and privileges of the other. It is necessary now to descend to particulars, and look at the several compartments into which it fell, with their respective furniture and services, so as to apprehend with some distinctness the religious ideas more particularly associated with each, the relation in which they stood one to another, and the regulated system of worship, both in its primary and in its typical character, which found here its common centre and development. The divisions of the tabernacle will form in this part of our inquiry the most appropriate divisions of the subject. The tabernacle proper had merely a twofold division, an outer and an inner compartment—a Holy and a Most Holy Place, or, as they are sometimes called, the Sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. The innermost of the two was the smallest in compass, but the most perfect in its proportions, being an exact cube of ten cubits—the length, height, and breadth being all equal. It is scarcely possible to doubt that the number ten here was symbolic, as well as in the number of commandments written upon the two tables, which belonged to this compartment; for in both cases alike it stood quite prominently out, and, from the modes of thought prevalent in ancient times respecting number, would quite readily convey the idea of completeness. The cube form alone, with whatever number associate might have suggested this—as in the case of the New Jerusalem seen in the apocalyptic vision, where attention is specially called to the circumstance that “the length, and the breadth, and the height were equal” (Revelation 21:16); but the cube being formed of ten, itself a symbol of perfection, would naturally serve to strengthen the impression. This region of inner most sacredness and perfection was separated from the other part of the tabernacle by a curtain or veil, which was formed of the same kind of material, and inwrought with the same figures as the curtain which formed the interior of the roof, and, most probably, also of the walls of the structure. The curtain was suspended from four pillars, overlaid with gold. Then from this to the door of the tabernacle was a space of twenty cubits in length by ten in breadth and height—the proportions, though larger, being manifestly less perfect; while also the curtain which hung over the doorway or entrance was without the cherubic figures inwoven, though otherwise resembling the interior curtain, and was suspended by golden hooks upon five pillars. Here there were evidently certain marks of incompleteness, which seemed to denote this as relatively the inferior place, and standing at some remove from the region of absolute perfection. But there was a sacred region without, as well as these two hallowed compartments within, the tabernacle; an outer court, surrounding the tabernacle on every side, and consisting of 100 cubits long and 50 cubits broad. This court was enclosed by a screen of linen, of fine quality, but not embroidered, five cubits in height, and was supported by 60 pillars, 20 on each side, and 10 at each end, to which the linen was attached by hooks and fillets of silver, while the pillars themselves rested in sockets of brass. The veil, or curtain, however, which hung at the doorway, of 20 cubits broad, was made after the pattern of the outer veil of the tabernacle, and similarly embroidered. The exact position of the tabernacle within this court is not given, though we naturally suppose it to have been such as to leave more space at the entrance than at the further end, as there more room was required for the laver, which stood immediately in front, and the altar of burnt-offering in front of that again. But in the prevalence of the number five, in the use of silver where before there was gold, and of brass where there was silver,—in the employment also of plain instead of embroidered linen, and the unprotected openness of the court above, one descries still farther signs of relative imperfection. The tabernacle, it may be added, with its surrounding court, was appointed to stand with the entrance fronting the east; so that the two sides looked the one toward the north, the other towards the south, and the end, containing the Most Holy Place, toward the west. That in the general position a respect was had to the four quarters of the earth, as emblems of universality, may readily be conceived: the sacred structure, however limited in dimensions, was still the habitation of Him to whom the earth and all his fulness belongs, and whose kingdom, spiritually as well as naturally, must rule over all. But why the more peculiarly sacred region should have looked towards the west, no certain reason has been discovered. Some have supposed it was with reference to the site of paradise, as understood to lie in a somewhat westerly direction. But more commonly the reason has been sought in the relation which was thereby secured for the entrance towards the east—that the tabernacle might catch the earliest rays of morn, or that in worshipping men might have their backs towards the sun and their faces towards God, the real source of light and blessing; and such like. It is, however, better to confess ignorance than to multiply reasons of this description, which are mere conjectures, and can yield no real satisfaction. Not attempting to explain all the adjustments in this sacred erection, or to go into the minute details in which many of the more learned expositors have lost themselves, there still are connected with the great outlines of the matter certain easily recognised principles, both of agreement and diversity, in the revelation God made of Himself to Israel, and the extent to which this might be entered into, and appropriated by, the people. Being collectively, at least by profession, a kingdom of priests to Jehovah, or members and subjects of the theocracy He established among them, they, one and all, stood in a definite relation to the whole and every part of the tabernacle, which He constituted the seat of the kingdom. There could be no more than relative differences between one part and another, as also among the people themselves the distinction subsequently introduced of priesthood and laity was only relative, not absolute; and hence, isolated and withdrawn as the Most Holy Place seemed to be, there was yet a point of contact between it and the remotest article in the outer court: for it was with blood taken from the altar of burnt-offering that the mercy-seat, under the very throne of God, was propitiated in the one yearly service connected with it, and that, too, a service in which the entire community were formally represented. In the furniture, therefore, and service of the Most Holy Place, as well as in those of the sanctuary and the outer court, the covenant people as a body had a representation of what, on the one side, Jehovah was to them, and what, on the other, they should be and do to Jehovah: in the whole, they were to read their privileges, their calling, their obligations. But seeing that, in point of fact, they were only allowed directly to enter the outer court, and even there had to transact with God through the mediation of the priesthood, this plainly spoke of imperfection in their actual condition; ordinarily, and as a whole, they were not able to be very close in their relation and very intimate in their walk with God. A higher stage, however, they might reach, if they distinctly realized their calling, and pressed anxiously forward in the course it set before them: they might in spirit do what was visibly done by a representative priesthood, when daily entering into the sanctuary and performing the service of God. Nay, higher still, if they but rose to the nobler exercises of faith and love which lay within their reach, they might even approach as near to God, and be as close in their communings with Him as the high priest, when, with the cloud of incense and the blood of sprinkling, he went to the footstool of the Divine Majesty, and stood in the presence of His manifested glory. That this action could be done so seldom by the high priest too clearly indicated that, as matters then stood, such spiritual elevation was one that should be but rarely reached by the children of the covenant. And yet, what less is it than this, that we see so strenuously aimed at, and in a measure also realized, by the Psalmist, when he speaks of abiding in God’s tabernacle—seeing God’s glory in the sanctuary,—nay, making it, in a manner, the one desire of his soul to dwell in the house of God, that he might there behold His beauty, and inquire in His temple?—(Psalms 15:1; Psalms 27:4; Psalms 63:2). This, surely, savoured of priestly, even of high-priestly privilege and service; not the less, we may rather say the more, that it was experienced and done in the Spirit; and being by him represented as so done, it but told distinctly out to all Israel, what, in the silent yet expressive language of symbol, the structure and services of the tabernacle were continually witnessing before them. While, therefore, we are ready to admit with Kurtz (Sac., Worship of Old Test., B. i., c. 2), that the court of the tabernacle imaged the stage of Israel, in so far as Israel generally attained, the sanctuary with its priestly freedom and service before God that of the Christian Church, and the Most Holy Place that of the beatific vision, we hold it not less clear and certain, that in respect to each of the successive stages, a measure of attainment lay open also for Israel, and that nothing represented in any of the divisions of the tabernacle was absolutely peculiar to any one class, or to any particular age of the Church of God. Again, looking simply to the general aspect of things, and considering how, in the tabernacle proper, while all bore the name of God’s dwelling and served as His meeting-place with Israel, still the Most Holy Place was the apartment which He most peculiarly identified with Himself: there was His throne, His law, the symbol of His glory—the region, in short, of His immediate presence; and it is, consequently, in connection with the furniture and services of this place of pre-eminent sacredness that we may expect to find the things which most expressly revealed Jehovah, and showed what He, as King of Zion, should be toward His people, and how His purposes in their behalf should proceed. The other division, or the sanctuary, being that into which the priesthood, as representatives of the people, could enter daily and perform certain ministrations, had obviously somewhat of the same relation to them that the other had to God; and though everything here also bore on it the name and impress of God’s character, yet it was through its furniture and services that one might chiefly expect to see imaged what should be ever appearing in their walk before Him. In neither respect are we to be understood as indicating an absolute and unqualified distinction, but merely such general and predominant characteristics as were reflected in the formal aspect and appearance of things. And in the examination of the particulars, we shall find everything in accordance with the impressions which the relative adjustment and bearing of the parts are fitted to produce. THE FORE-COURT AND ITS FURNITURE. What is meant by the fore-court was that part of the enclosure surrounding the tabernacle which stood directly in front of the erection. It probably occupied a space of about 50 cubits (or eight yards) square, and was the only part of the entire area to which the people had access. In this spot, however, by far the greater number of the actions connected with the tabernacle-worship proceeded; and though in one respect it might be said to represent the lowest stage of religious privilege and communion, in another it stood associated with whatever was most fundamental and important in the religious state and prospects of Israel. This relative importance it derived from the two pieces of sacred furniture belonging to it the laver, and the altar of burnt-offering but especially from the latter, which was the proper centre of the whole sacrificial system. 1. The laver. This utensil is nowhere very exactly described; but it was a sort of wash-pot or basin, usually supposed to have been of a roundish shape, and placed on a foot or basement.—(Exodus 30:17-21) Both were of brass (more strictly, indeed, of bronze, as what is now known by the name of brass, a composition of copper and zinc, was not known to the ancients), and the material in this case was derived from a specific source. Moses, we are told (Exodus 38:8), “made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the looking-glasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation;” or, as it should rather be, “of the serving-women who served at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” The expression in the original (עבא) is the term commonly applied to designate military service; but it is also used of the stated services of the priests in their sacred vocation (Numbers 4:23; Numbers 4:35; Numbers 4:49; Numbers 8:25), and is here transferred to a class of females who appear from early times to have devoted themselves to regular attendance on the worship of God, for the purpose of performing such services as they might be capable of rendering. In process of time, a distinct place was assigned them somewhere in the precincts of the tabernacle. Latterly, and probably not till the post-Babylonian times, the service of the women in question appears to have consisted much in exercises of fasting and prayer. Hence the Septuagint, interpreting rather than translating, renders, “the looking-glasses of the fasting-women who fasted.” And Abenezra, as quoted by Lightfoot (vol. ix., p. 419, Pitman’s ed.), thus explains: “It is the custom of all women to behold their face every morning in a mirror, that they may be able to dress their hair; but To! there were women in Israel that served the Lord, who abandoned this worldly delight, and gave away their glasses as a free-will offering, for they had no more use of them; but they came every day to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation to pray, and hear the words of the commandments.” Such a woman in the Gospel age was Anna (Luke 2:37), and it is interesting to know that she had her representatives at the very commencement of the tabernacle-worship, in the women who, whatever other service they might be in the habit of rendering, gave a becoming example of devotedness, in the consecration of their metallic mirrors to the higher ends of God’s worship. There can be no reasonable doubt that it was of or from the metal of these glasses that the laver was formed; for the sense put upon the passage by Bähr, that the laver was “furnished with mirrors of the women” (i., p. 485), or by Knobel, “with forms, likenesses of women,” is both in itself unsuitable and grammatically untenable. The same construction again occurs in Exodus 30:30, where the preposition (ב) is used of the material of which certain articles were made, as also generally of all the materials employed in the construction of the tabernacle at Exodus 31:4; and here it can with no propriety be understood in any other sense. So also the ancient translators all understood it. The laver thus made was placed between the door of the tabernacle and the altar of burnt-offering, in the most convenient position for the ministering priests, who were always to wash at it their hands and their feet, before either serving at the altar or going into the tabernacle, lest they should die.—(Exodus 30:20-21) That merely the hands and the feet were to be washed at the laver, arose simply from these being the organs immediately employed in the service; the hands being engaged in presenting the sacred oblations, and the feet in treading ground that was hallowed. The action, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Mosaic institutions, was symbolical of inward purity; it bespoke the freedom from pollution which should characterize those who would present an acceptable service to Jehovah. As the sanctification or holiness of Israel was the common end aimed at in all the institutions under which they were placed, it was indispensable that they who ministered for them in holy things should be in this respect their exemplars, and in the daily service of the sanctuary should have a perpetual admonition of the nature of their calling. The Psalmist clearly indicates the meaning of the rite, and shows also how, according to the spirit of the ordinance, he held it to be not less applicable to himself than to the priests, when he says, “I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass Thine altar, O Lord” (Psalms 26:6) and that he spoke of no corporeal ablution, but of the state of his heart and conduct, is evident from the whole tenor of the Psalm, which is throughout moral in its import, protesting his separation from the ways of “evil-doers” and “dissemblers,” and even praying God to “try his reins and his heart.” In like manner, when describing the true worshipper in Psalms 24, in answer to the question, “Who shall ascend into the hill of God, or who shall stand in His holy place?” he replies, “He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” As much as to say, such an one is the true priest in God’s house, whether he have the outward calling of a priest or not; he alone serves Him in spirit and in truth. The symbol here employed is of so natural a kind, and so fitly adapted for purposes of spiritual instruction, that it has been in a sense retained, and raised to still higher significance in the Christian Church. For in the rite of baptism, whatever may be the precise mode of administration adopted, there can be no doubt that the cleansing nature of the element is the natural basis of the ordinance, and that from which it derives its appropriate character, as the formal initiation into a Christian state. Symbolically, it conveys the salutary instruction, that he who becomes Christ’s, and through Christ would dedicate himself to the work and service of God, must be purified from the guilt and pollution of sin—must be regenerated unto holiness of life. Genuine believers are therefore described as “having their bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22), as if the outwardness of the old economy were still in force, though it is unquestionably the real sanctification of the person that is meant. Or they are said to have undergone “the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5), where the internal nature of the work is distinctly intimated, as it is also presently afterwards coupled with the efficient cause in the mention that is made of “the renewal of the Holy Ghost.” Or, still again, the entire body of the redeemed Church is represented as brought into its present condition by having been “sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26), where the same result is exhibited, but the instrumental cause in connection with it made prominent. However represented, both the initiatory rite of baptism, and the general language of New Testament Scripture, proclaim the fact, that they only who have been cleansed from the defilements of sin, and made partakers of a new nature, can be recognised as the true servants of Christ, and heirs of His salvation. Or, as our Lord himself put it, after the symbolical service He had performed in the circle of His disciples, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.”—(John 13:8) 2. The Altar of Burnt-offering.—This formed, as to its position, the outermost of all the sacred furniture of the tabernacle, having its place immediately before the door of the court, while still it was on many accounts the most important article connected with the whole apparatus of worship. Nothing, in a manner, could be done without it—neither in the more common rites of sacrifice and oblation, which were every day proceeding, nor in the more peculiar services of the great religious festivals. In its construction it was of the most simple and unpretending character; indeed, the general direction given for the formation of altars seemed scarcely to leave room for any exercise of art: a sort of rude mound, rather than a regular structure, was the ideal presented. “An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings,” etc.; “in all places where I record My name I will come unto thee and bless thee.” It was added, that if they would employ stones instead of earth, the stones should at least be unhewn; for should a tool be lifted upon it, the altar would be polluted. (Exodus 20:24-25) This, at first sight, appears somewhat strange, especially when viewed in connection with the many costly materials and elaborate workmanship which were expended on the tabernacle itself and its internal furnishings. The repudiation of human skill and outward pomp here could have arisen from no abstract dislike to these, but must have had its reason in the leading object and design of the erection itself. What was this altar? It was emphatically the meeting-place between God and men the one as infinitely holy and good, the other as sinful that they might transact together respecting sin and salvation, that the fallen might be again restored, or if already restored, might be enabled to grow in the fellowship and blessing of Heaven. That such a meeting-place should be somewhat raised above the common level of the ground, and carry in its very form a heavenward aspect, could not but seem natural to the feelings of the worshipper. Hence this is the idea which was embodied in the names most generally adopted in antiquity for the designation of altar.[359] But in the true religion this idea required to be tempered by another, derived from the unworthiness of those who might come there to present the worship, as compared with the surpassing greatness and glory of Him who was the object of it—something to image the wonderful condescension which appeared in His appointing any place in this sinful world, where He would record His name and meet with men. Naturally, His curse rests upon the ground for man’s sake, and man himself cannot remove it. By no art or elaboration on his part can the natural relation of things be changed: these would but serve to disguise its real character, or dispose men to forget it; and only in the condescension of God, stooping in His rich grace to meet the necessities of His fallen creature, and by a kind of new creation to renovate the face of nature, can the evil be properly dealt with and overcome. This, therefore, is what must especially express itself in His chosen meeting-place with men as sinful: it must be of God’s workmanship rather than man’s—naked, simple, unadorned, such as might convey the impression of a direct contact between the God of heaven and the earth which Himself had made. [359] The Heb. בָמָה, bamah, high place; Gr., βωμός, primarily an elevation of any sort, then a sacred elevation for worship; Latin, altare, from altus, high, or ara, cognate with the Gr. ἄιρω, I raise, or lift up. The prominent idea thus intended to be impressed on the form of the altar, was also confirmed and deepened by the name specially appropriated to it. For here we meet in Scripture with a departure from the common usage of antiquity, and one that brings vividly out the humbling element on man’s side, and the condescension and grace on God’s. The distinctive name for it was misbeach (from זבח, to kill or slaughter), the slaughtering-place, or the place where slaughtered victims were to be brought and laid, as it were, on the table of God. This denoted how pre-eminently the communion between God and sinful men must be through an avenue of blood, and the sentence of death must ever be found lying across the threshold of life. In such a case, pomp and ornament, such as man himself could have furnished, had been altogether out of place. Materials directly fashioned by the hand of God were alone suitable, and these not of the more rare and costly description, but the simple earth formed originally for man’s support and nourishment, but now the witness of his sin, the drinker-in of the blood of his forfeited life, the theatre and home of death. Contemplating a stationary provision for the offerings of God’s people in the altar before the sanctuary, it was necessary so far to depart from this simple erection of earth as might be required to secure for it a regular form and consistence. Hence directions were given for the construction of a kind of case, made, like all other wooden portions of the tabernacle, of the shittim or acacia tree, and overlaid, not with gold, but with brass—whence it not unusually got the name of the brazen altar. Of the same material were made the several instruments attached to it pans, shovels, flesh-hooks, etc. The boards that formed the external walls of the altar, were a square of five cubits (somewhere about eight feet), and in height three (or from four and a half to five feet). No stress, perhaps, is here to be laid on the five and the three, as they were probably adopted more from their convenient and suitable proportions than anything else; the rather as in the altar subsequently erected at the temple, not only are the dimensions greatly enlarged, but the ratio is also different—twenty being now the number for the length and breadth, and ten for the height which were again changed, as we learn from Joseph us (Wars, 5:5, 6), in the Herodian temple into fifty cubits for the length and breadth, and fifteen for the height. In the altar connected with the ideal temple of Ezekiel, the dimensions correspond with none of these (Ezekiel 43:13-16); but as in all the square-form was retained, we can scarcely err in imputing to this a symbolic meaning, indicating the relative order and perfection which must ever characterize the institutions of God’s kingdom. In respect to the boards, however, it must be remembered they formed only the exterior case or shell of the altar; the interior part, and what more properly constituted the altar as the place of sacrifice, would undoubtedly be composed, according to the original prescription, of earth or stones, and so we find Jewish writers interpreting the matter.[360] “Hollow with boards shalt thou make it,” that is, with a vacant or hollow space to be partially filled up and adjusted, so as to adapt it to the various purposes of sacrifice. But this is naturally left to be understood; and almost the only other part of the description which requires explanation is what is said of a kind of lattice-work connected with it. “Thou shalt make for it,” we read in Exodus 27:4, “a trellis, network, of brass . . . and thou shalt put it under the compass (כַּרְכֹּב, karkob, environment) of the altar from beneath, arid the net shall be unto the half of the altar.” Such is the literal rendering, and it points, not, as used commonly to be supposed, to an internal grating (Lightfoot, “a grate of brass hanging within it for the fire and sacrifice to lie upon”), but to an external framework, reaching from the ground to the middle of the altar, and compassing it outside. The karkob was a kind of projecting bank or ledge, and under it, and supporting it, was the network of brass, surrounding the altar on all sides. “It formed,” says Fr. von Meyer,[361] who has the merit of bringing distinctly out this part of the structure, “along with the encompassing bank or karkob, a projecting shelf, by menus of which the lower half of the altar appeared broader than the upper. Upon this bank or ledge the priest stood when he offered sacrifice, laid down wood, or performed anything about the altar.” This can only be rendered quite plain by a pictorial representation.[362] But as the altar was furnished with the projecting ledge and its supporting network for the convenience of priestly ministrations, it was also furnished with projecting horns at each corner, which were to have the appearance of coming out of it.—(Exodus 27:2) These horns were undoubtedly to be regarded as shaped like those of oxen (Jos., as above, κεπατοειδεῖς προανέχων γωνίας, jutting up horn-like corners), and, according to the emblematic sense ever ascribed to these in Scripture, were intended to symbolize that divine strength which necessarily distinguishes the place of God’s manifested grace and love, and which forms, in a manner, its crowning elevation. Hence, to lay hold of the horns of the altar, if only it were warrantably done, was to grasp the almighty and protecting arm of Jehovah.—(1 Kings 1:50; 1 Kings 2:28) [360] Altare terreum est hoc ipsum aeneum altare, cujus concavum terra implebatur.—Jarchi, on Exodus 27:5. Cavitas vero altaris terra replebatur, quo tempore castra ponebunt.—Bechai, in ibid. [361] Bibeldeutungen, p. 206. [362] See Appendix B. Such, briefly, was the altar of burnt-offering, the peculiarly chosen and consecrated place where Jehovah condescended to reveal His grace to sinners, and accept the offerings they brought in token of their self-dedication to Him. These offerings were to be consumed there, in part by His appointed representatives, and in part by fire. This fire, once at least issuing directly from the clouds of glory in the tabernacle (Leviticus 9:24), was the visible symbol of Jehovah’s acceptance of the offerings; but it did so then, as appears, only for the purpose of giving a visible seal to Aaron and his sons in their official ministrations. The altar had been for several days before that the scene of sacrificial action, in which fire must have been employed; and on the particular occasion referred to, the lightning-flash which came out from the Most Holy Place and consumed the burnt-offering and the fat of Aaron’s sacrifice, is not said to have left any permanent flame behind. It was a sign, however, to testify that the acceptance then openly given to Aaron’s offering, as the consecrated head of the priestly order, would be equally given to the sacrifices which in time coming might be offered through him or his successors at that altar. Consumed there by fire under the hand of God’s accredited priesthood, they were owned to be in accordance with God’s holiness (which the fire symbolized), and, if not marred by sin, stamped with His approval. Hence the expression so commonly used of those offerings by fire, that they were a sweet-smelling savour, or a savour of rest for Jehovah, ascending up, as it were, to the region of His presence like a grateful and refreshing odour.[363] [363] There appears to be no need for contemplating the action of fire in sacrifice in any other light than that here presented. The express and authoritative sanction of God for it was enough. And the traditionary belief, that it was first kindled from heaven, then perpetually preserved by the priesthood, has no distinct warrant in Scripture. It is more, indeed, a heathenish than a scriptural notion. 3. Sacrifice by Blood in its fundamental idea, and Ritual Accompaniments.—From what has been said respecting the altar of burnt-offering, the conclusion forces itself upon us, that the great object of its appointment, and the essential ground of its importance in the Old Testament worship, arose from the connection in which it stood with the presentation before God of the blood of slain victims. And we have now to inquire into the truths involved in this fundamental part of the tabernacle service, with the view of ascertaining distinctly both its direct and its prospective bearing. In doing so, we shall present in as brief a manner as possible what appears to us the correct account of the institution and its related service; and throw into an appendix the discussion of some of the points which have been made matter of special controversy.[364] [364] See Appendix C. The grand reason of the singular place which, in the hand writing of Moses, is assigned to sacrifice by blood, is that expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where it is said, that “without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins,” consequently no peace or fellowship with God for the sinner. The principle was still more fully brought out, however, in a declaration of Moses himself, which in this connection is entitled to the most careful consideration. The passage is in Leviticus 17:11, which, according to the correct rendering, runs thus: “For the soul (נפש) of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to atone for your souls, for the blood atones through the soul” (בנפש). It is scarcely possible to mistake the general souse of this important passage; but its precise and definite meaning has been often obscured, by not perceiving that the soul at the close of the verse refers back to the soul at the beginning, and expresses the principle or seat of life, not in him who is to be atoned for, but in the creature by which the atonement is made for him. And the full and correct import of the passage is to the following effect: “You must not eat the blood, because God has appointed it as the means of atonement for your sins. But it is the means of atonement, as the bearer of the soul. It is not, therefore, the matter of the blood that atones, but the soul or life which resides in it; so that the soul of the offered victim atones for the soul of the man who offers it.” The passage, indeed, is intended simply to provide an answer to two questions: Why they should not eat blood? viz., because the blood was appointed by God for making atonement. And, why should blood have been appointed for this purpose? viz., because the soul or life is there, and hence is most suitably taken for the soul or life of man forfeited by sin. This is also the only sense of the passage that can be grammatically justified; for the particular preposition (ב) here used after the verb to atone(כפר), invariably denotes that by which the atonement is made; while as invariably the person or object for which it is made is denoted by another preposition(ל orעל). And the general form of expression upon the subject is, that such a person is atoned for concerning his sin, or he is covered upon in respect to that which needed to be put out of sight. (Leviticus 4:35; Leviticus 5:13; Exodus 30:15; Leviticus 16:11, etc.) The ground upon which this merciful arrangement plainly proceeds, is the doomed condition of men as sinners, and the purpose of God to save them from its infliction. Their soul or life has, through sin, been forfeited to God, and, as a debt due to His justice, it should in right be rendered back again to Him who gave it. The enforcement of this claim, of course, inevitably involves the death of transgressors, according to the sentence from the very first hung over the commission of sin, denouncing its penalty to be death. But as God appears in the institution of sacrifice providing a way of escape from this deserved doom, He mercifully appoints a substitute—the soul or life of a beast, for the soul or life of the transgressor; and as the seat of life is in the blood, so the blood of the beast, its life-blood, was given to be shed in death, and served up on the altar of God, in the room of that other and higher but guilty life, which had become due to Divine justice. When this was done, when the blood of the slain victim was poured out or sprinkled upon the altar, and thereby given up to God, the sinner’s guilt was atoned (covered); a screen, as it were, was thrown between the eye of God and his guilt, or between his own soul and the penalty due to his transgression. In other words, a life that had not been forfeited was accepted in the room of the sinner’s that was forfeited; and this was yielded back to him as now again a life in peace and fellowship with God—a life out of death. It is clear, however, that while in one respect the life or soul of the sacrifice was a suitable offering or atonement for that of the sinner, as being unstained by guilt, innocent; in another it was entirely the reverse, and could not in any proper and satisfactory sense take away sin. This imperfection or inadequacy arose from the vast disproportion between the two—the one soul being that of a rational and accountable creature, free to think and act, to determine and choose for itself; the other that of an irrational creature, destitute of independent thought and moral feeling, and so incapable alike of sin or of holiness. It is therefore only in a negative sense that the sacrificed victim could be regarded even as innocent; for, strictly speaking, the question of guilt or innocence belongs to a higher region than that which, by the very law of its being, it was appointed to occupy. And being thus so inferior in nature, how far was it from possessing what yet the slightest reflection could easily discern to be necessary to constitute a real and valid atonement or covering for the sinner’s deficiency, viz., an equivalent for his life! The life-blood, then, which God gave for this purpose upon the altar, must obviously have been but a temporary expedient; His offended holiness could not rest in that, nor could He have intended more by the appointment than the keeping up of a present testimony to the higher satisfaction which justice demanded for the sinner’s guilt, and a symbolical representation of it. Then, out of these radical defects there inevitably arose others, which still further marked with imperfection and inadequacy the sacrifices of irrational victims. For here there was necessarily wanting that oneness of nature between the sinner and his substitute, and in the latter that consent of will to the mutual interchange of parts, which are indispensably requisite to the idea of a perfect sacrifice. Nor could the sacrifice itself—which was a still more palpable incongruity—be, like the sin for which it was offered in atonement, a voluntary and personal act: the priest and the sacrifice were of necessity divided, and the work of atonement was done, not by the victim in willing self-dedication, but upon it, all unconsciously, by the hand of another. Such defects and imperfections inhering in the very nature of ancient sacrifice, it could not possibly have been introduced or sanctioned by God as a satisfactory and ultimate arrangement. Nor could He have adopted it even as a temporary one, so far as to warrant the Israelitish worshipper to look for pardon and acceptance by complying with its enactments, unless there had already been provided in His eternal counsels, to be in due time manifested to the world, a real and adequate sacrifice for human guilt. Such a sacrifice, we need scarcely add, is to be found in Christ; who is therefore called emphatically “the Lamb of God”—“fore-ordained before the foundation of the world”—and of whose precious blood it is written, that “it cleanseth from all sin.” How far, however, the Jewish worshippers themselves were alive to the necessity of this alone adequate provision, and realized the certainty of its future exhibition, can only be matter of probable conjecture or reasonable inference. As the light of the Church, generally, differed at different times and in different individuals, so undoubtedly would the apprehension of this portion of Divine truth have its diversities of comparative clearness and obscurity in the Jewish mind. If there were faith only to the extent of embracing and acting upon the existing arrangements,—faith to present the appointed sacrifices for sin, and to believe in humble confidence, that imperfect and defective as these manifestly were, they would still be accepted for an atonement, and that God Himself would know how to supply what His own provision needed to complete its efficacy,—if only such faith existed, we have no reason to say it was insufficient for salvation; it might be faith very much in the dark, hut still it was faith in a revealed word of God, implicitly following the path which that word prescribed. It was the child relying on a father’s goodness, and committing itself to the guidance of a father’s wisdom, while still unable to see the end and reason of the course by which it was led. But it was scarcely possible for thoughtful and reflective minds, for any length of time at least, to stand simply at this point. The felt imperfection and deficiency in the appointed sacrifices could not fail in such minds to connect itself with the Messiah, with whose coming there was always associated the introduction of a state of order and perfection. Some even of the Rabbinical writers speak as expressly upon this point as the New Testament itself does.[365] And “when the conscience of the Israelite (to use the words of Kurtz, Mos. Opfer, p. 43, 44) was fairly awakened to the insufficiency of the blood of irrational creatures to effect a real atonement for sin, there was no other way for him to obtain satisfaction than in the supposition that a perfect, ever available sacrifice lay in the future. This supposition was the more natural to him, and must have readily suggested itself, as the Israelite, according to his constitutional temperament, was “a man of desire,” and was farther stimulated and encouraged by the whole genius and tendency of his religion to look forward to the future. Besides, his entire life and history, his ancestors, his land, his people, his law, all bore a typical character, which his own spiritual tendency prompted him to search for, and which antecedent Divine revelations instructed him to find. . . . And had not Moses himself given some indication of the typical character of the whole ritual introduced by him, when he testified that the Eternal Archetype of it was shown him upon the holy mount? How natural was it, moreover, to bring the heart and centre of the entire worship into connection with the promises respecting the seed of the woman and of the patriarchs, and possibly with still other elements in the earlier revelations or devout breathings! How natural to connect together the centre of his expectations with the centre of his worship—to descry a secret though still perhaps incomprehensible connection between them, and in that to seek the explication of the sacred mystery!” [365] Schoettgen (Hor. Heb. et Tal., ii., p. 612) produces from Jewish authorities the following plain declarations: “In the times of the Messiah all sacrifices will cease, but the sacrifice of praise will not cease.” “When the Israelites were in the holy land, they took away all diseases and punishments from the world, through the acts of worship and the sacrifices which they performed; but now Messiah takes these away from the sons of men.” One quoted by Bahr from Eisenmenger (Entdectes Judenthum, ii., p. 720) goes so far as to say, “that He would pour out His soul unto death, and that His blood would make atonement for the people of God.” It is right to state, however, that the value of such testimonies is greatly diminished by the multitude of directly opposite ones, which are also to be found in the Rabbinical writings. In the very next page, Schoettgen has passages affirming that the day of expiation should never cease, and the mass of the Jews in our Lord’s time certainly believed in the perpetuity of the law of Moses. The utmost that can be fairly deduced from the quotations noticed above is, that there were minds among them seeking relief from felt wants and deficiencies, in the expectation of that more perfect state of things which was to be brought in by Christ. The ritual directions given respecting the sacrificial blood, as well before as after its being shed in death, tend in every respect to confirm the views now exhibited of its vicarious import. They relate chiefly to the selection of the victim—the imposition of the offerer’s hands on its head—and the action with (the sprinkling of) the blood. (1.) The selection of the victim. This was limited to “the herd and the flocks” (oxen, sheep, and goats), and to individuals of these without any manifest blemish. Why animals from such classes alone were to be taken, was briefly but correctly answered even by Witsius,[366] when treating of the connection between the restriction as to clean animals for food, and the appointment of the same for sacrifice upon the altar: “God wished (says he) these two to be joined together, partly that man might thereby exhibit the more clearly his gratitude to God, in offering what had been given him for the support of his own life, and partly that the substitution of the sacrifice in his stead might be rendered the more palpable. For man offering the support of his own life, appeared to offer that life itself.” This last thought, we have no doubt, indicates what may be called the primary reason, and brings the selection of the victim into closest contact with the essential nature of the sacrifice. It was not permitted to offer in sacrifice human victims, because none such could be found free from guilt, and so they were utterly unfit for being presented as a substitution for sinful men. But to make the gap as small as possible between the offerer and the victim—to secure that at least the animal natures of the two should stand in the nearest relation, the offerer was obliged to select his representative from the tame domestic animals of his own property and of his own rearing, the most human in their natural disposition and mode of life; and not only that, but such also as might in a certain sense be regarded as of one flesh with himself—so far homogeneous, that the flesh of the one was fit nutriment for the flesh of the other. The fact, however, that the animal was the representative of the offerer, and on that account alone was either desired or accepted by God, is a vitally important one in this connection. God did not, and as a spiritual Being could not, care for material offerings, considered simply by themselves; and in Scripture He often repudiates in the strongest terms the offerings of those who so presented them. What He sought was the worshipper himself, and pre-eminently the heart of the worshipper: the offerings laid upon His altar were acceptable only in so far as they represented and embodied this. Then they became in a sense His food, and yielded Him holy delight. (See next section.) But as regards the principle which lay at the bottom of the selection of victims for the altar, like every other in the ancient economy, it is seen rising to its perfect form and highest manifestation in Christ, who, while the eternal Son of God, and as such infinitely exalted above man, yet brought Himself down to man’s sphere, became literally flesh of man’s flesh, and, sin alone excepted, was found in all things like to man, that He might be a suitable offering, as well as High Priest, for the heirs of His salvation.[367] [366] Miscel. Sac., Lib. ii., Diss. ii, § 14. [367] The reasons often given for the choice of the victims being confined to the flock and the herd, such as that these were the more valuable, were more accessible, ever at hand, horned (emblematical of power and dignity), and such like, fall away of themselves, when the subject is viewed in its proper connection and bearings. It is, of course, quite easy to find many analogies in such respects between the victims and Christ; but they are rather beside the purpose, and tend to lead away the mind from the main idea. The thought also of the animal being, as a living creature, dear to the offerer, as a part of his domestic establishment, on which some, among others Kurtz, would lay stress, is rather fanciful than solid. The offerer might gel his ox or sheep anywhere only it required to be his own property, that he might be free to use it for such a purpose as this. But to make its special fitness or worth sacrificially depend on its value qua property, as Hofmann and many more do, is another thing, and one which has no warrant in Scripture. It was for a reason very closely related to the one noticed, that the particular animal offered in sacrifice was to be always perfect in its kind. In the region of the animal life it was to be a fitting representative of what man should be what his real and proper representative must be, in the region of the moral and spiritual life. Any palpable defect or blemish, rendering it an imperfect specimen of the natural species it belonged to, would have visibly marred the image it was intended to present of the holy beauty which was sought by God first in man, and now in man’s substitute and ransom. For the reality we are again pointed by the inspired writers of the New Testament to Christ, whose blood is described as that “of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” and who is declared to have been such an High Priest as became us, because “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” In cases of extreme poverty, when the worshipper could not afford a proper sacrifice, the law permitted him to bring pigeons or turtle-doves, the blood of which was to be brought to the altar as that of the animal victim. That these rather than poultry are specified, the domestic fowls of modern times, arose from the manners prevalent among the ancient Israelites. These doves were, in fact, with them the tame, domesticated fowls, and in the feathered tribe corresponded to sheep and oxen among animals. No mention whatever is made of home-bred fowls or chickens in Old Testament Scripture. (2.) The second leading prescription regarding the victim,—viz., that before having its blood shed in death, the offerer should lay his hand or hands upon its head,—was still more essentially connected with the great idea of sacrifice. This imposition of hands was common to all the bloody sacrifices, and is given as a general direction before each of the several kinds of them, except the trespass-offering (Leviticus 1:4; Leviticus 3:2; Leviticus 4:4-15; Leviticus 16:21; 2 Chronicles 29:23), and was no doubt omitted in regard to it on account of its being so much of the same nature with the sin-offering, that the regulation would naturally be understood to be applicable to both. There can be no question that the Jewish writers held the necessity of the imposition of hands in all the animal sacrifices except the Passover.[368] What the rite really imported would be easily determined, if the explanation were sought merely from the materials furnished by Scripture itself. There the custom, viewed generally, appears as a symbolical action, bespeaking the communication of something in the person who imposes his hands, to the person or being on whom they are imposed. Hence it was used on such occasions as the bestowal of blessing (Genesis 48:14; Matthew 19:15); and the communication of the Holy Spirit, whether to heal bodily disease (Matthew 9:18; Mark 6:5; Acts 9:12-17, etc.), or to endow with supernatural gifts (Acts 19:6), or to designate or qualify for a sacred office.—(Numbers 27:18; Acts 6:6; 1 Timothy 5:22) In all such cases there was plainly a conveyance to one who wanted from another who possessed; and the hand, the usual instrument of communication in the matter of gifts, simply denoted, when laid upon the head of the recipient, the fact of the conveyance being actually made. What, then, in the case of the bloody sacrifices, did the offerer possess which did not belong to the victim? What had the one to convey to the other? Primarily, and indeed always, guilt. This, as we have already shown, was the grand and fundamental distinction between the offerer and his victim. It was especially as being the representative of him in his state of guilt and condemnation, that its blood required to be shed in death, to pay the wages of his sin. And as God had given it to be used for such a purpose, so the offerer’s laying his hands upon its head, indicated that he willingly devoted it to the same, and made over to it as innocent the burden of guilt with which he felt himself to be charged. Besides this, however, other things in the offerer might also be symbolically transferred to the sacrifice, according to the more special design and object of the sacrifice. As his substitute, presented to God in his room and stead, it might be made to embody and express whatever feelings toward God had a place in his bosom—not merely convictions of sin and desires of forgiveness, but also such feelings as gratitude for benefits received, or humble confidence in the Divine mercy and loving-kindness. And when the law entered with its more complete sacrificial arrangements, appointing sin and trespass-offerings as a distinct species of sacrifice, there can be no doubt that in these would more especially be represented the sense of guilt on the part of the offerer, while in the peace or thank-offerings it would be the other class of feelings, those of gratitude or trust, which were more particularly expressed. But still not to the exclusion of the other. In whatever circumstances, and with whatever special design, man may approach God, he must come as a sinner, conscious of his unworthiness and his guilt. Nor, if he comprehends aright the relation in which he naturally stands to God, will anything tend more readily to awaken in his bosom this humble and contrite feeling, than a sensible participation of the mercies of God; for he will regard them as tokens of Divine goodness, of which his sinfulness has made him altogether unworthy. So that the nearer God may have come to him in the riches of His grace, the more will he always be inclined to say with Jacob, “I am not worthy of all the mercies and the truth which Thou hast shown unto Thy servant;” or with the Psalmist, “Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” It was therefore of necessity that there should have been even in such offerings a sense of guilt and unworthiness on the part of the worshipper, and hence the stress laid in all the animal sacrifices under the law on the shedding and sprinkling of the blood, a peculiarity quite unknown to heathenism. Even in the thank-offerings, the atoning property of the blood was kept prominently in view. [368] Omnibus victimis, quae a quopiam privato offerebantur, sive ex praecepto, sive ex arbitrio offerentur, oportebat ipsum impouere manus dum vivebant adhuc, exceptis tantum primitiis, decimis, et agno paschali. Maimon. Hilc. Korbanoth 3. See also Outram, De Sac., L. i., c. 15; Ainsworth, on Leviticus 1:4; Leviticus 16:6; Leviticus 16:11. Magee on Atonement, Note 39. It is impossible, then, we conceive, to separate in any case the imposition of hands on the head of the victim from the expression and conveyance of guilt; because the worshipper could never approach God in any other character than that of a sinner, consequently in no other way than through the shedding of blood. The specific service the blood had to render in all the sacrifices, was to be an atonement for the sinner’s guilt upon the altar; and in reference to that part of the victim—always the most essential part the imposition of the offerer’s hands was the expression of his desire to find deliverance through the offering from his burden of iniquity, and acceptance with God. In those offerings especially—such as sin and trespass-offerings in which the feeling of sin was peculiarly prominent in the sinner’s bosom, the outward ceremony would naturally be used with more of this respect to the imputation of guilt; the whole desire of the offerer would concentrate itself here. And in perfect accordance with what has been said, we learn from Jewish sources that the imposition of hands was always accompanied with confession of sin, but this varying, as to the particular form it assumed, according to the nature of the sacrifice presented. And in the only explanation which Moses himself has given of the meaning of the rite,—namely, as connected with the services of the day of atonement,—it is represented as being accompanied not only with confession of sin, but also with the sin’s conveyance to the body of the victim: “Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.”[369] [369] Leviticus 16:21. The Jewish authorities referred to may be seen in Outram, L. i., c. 15, 10, 11; Ainsworth, on Leviticus 1:4; Magee, Note 39. Upon the sin-offering the offerer confessed the iniquity of sin, upon the trespass-offering the iniquity of trespass, upon the burnt-offeriug the iniquity of doing what he should not have done, and not doing what he ought, etc. Outram gives several forms of confession, of which we select merely the one for a private individual, when confessing with his hands on his sin-offering: “I beseech Thee, Lord, I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have rebelled, I have done so and so (mentioning the particular transgression); but now I repent, and let this victim be my expiation.” So closely was imposition of hands associated in Jewish minds with confession of sins, that it passed with them for a maxim, “Where there is no confession of sins there is no imposition of hands; “and they also held it equally certain, that the design of this imposition of hands “was to remove the sins from the individual and transfer them to the animal.”—(Outram, L. i., c. xv. 8, xxii. 5) The circumstance of the hearers of blasphemy being appointed to lay their Lands on the head of the blasphemer before he was stoned (Leviticus 24:14), is no contradiction to what has been said, but rather a confirmation; for till the guilt was punished, it was looked upon as belonging to the congregation at large (comp. Joshua , 7; 2 Samuel 21), and by this rite it was devolved entirely upon himself, that he might bear the punishment. Bähr finds nothing in the rite but a symbolical declaration, that the victim was the offerer’s own property, and that he was ready to devote it to death. The principle involved in this transaction is equally applicable to New Testament times, and, stripped of its external form, is simply this, that the atonement of Jesus becomes available to the salvation of the sinner only when he comes to it with heartfelt convictions of sin, and with mingled sorrow and confidence disburdens himself there of the whole accumulation of his guilt. Repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ must grow and work together, like twin sisters, in the experience of his soul. And assuredly, if there be no genuine sense of sin, showing itself in a readiness to make full confession of the short comings and transgressions in which it has appeared, and an earnest desire to turn from it and be delivered from its just condemnation through the blood of sprinkling, as there is then no real preparedness of heart to receive, so there can be no actual participation in, the benefits of Christ’s redemption. (3.) The only remaining direction of a general kind, applicable to all the sacrifices of blood, was the killing of the victim, and the action with the blood after it was shed. The killing is merely ordered to be done by the offerer, and on the north side of the altar (Leviticus 1:11), at least in the case of sheep, but is understood also to have been the same with oxen. Why on that side, however, rather than on any other of the altar, has never been distinctly ascertained. And perhaps nothing more can be gathered from it, than that the killing also was matter of specific arrangement, ordered by God as the necessary consequence and result of the destination of the animal to bear the burden and doom of sin. The blood was collected by the priest, and by him was sprinkled—on ordinary occasions—upon the altar round about; but on the day of atonement, also upon the mercy-seat in the inner, and the altar of incense in the outer apartment of the tabernacle. For the present we confine our attention to the ordinary use of it. “This sprinkling of the blood,” Outram remarks, “was by much the most sacred part of the entire service, since it was that by which the life and soul of the victim were considered to be given to God as supreme Lord of life and death; for what was placed upon the altar of God was supposed, according to the religion of the Old Testament, to be rendered to him.”[370] But in what relation did the blood stand, when thus rendered to God? Was it as still charged with the guilt of the offerer, and underlying the sentence of God’s righteous condemnation? So the language just quoted would seem to import. But how then shall we meet the objection, which naturally arises on such a supposition, that a polluted thing was laid upon the altar of God? And how could the blood with propriety be regarded as so holy when sprinkled on the altar, that it sanctified whatever it touched? We present the following as in our judgment the true representation of the matter: By the offerer’s bringing his victim, and with imposition of hands confessing over it his sins, it became symbolically a personation of sin, and hence must forthwith bear the penalty of sin—death. When this was done, the offerer was himself free alike from sin and from its penalty. But was the transaction by which this was effected owned by God? And was the offerer again restored, as one possessed of pure and blessed life, to the favour and fellowship of God? It was to testify of these things—the most important in the whole transaction—that the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar took place. Having with his own hands executed the deserved penalty on the victim, the offerer gave the blood to the priest, as God’s representative. But that blood had already paid, in death, the penalty of sin, and was no longer laden with guilt and pollution. The justice of God was (symbolically) satisfied concerning it; and by the hands of His own representative He could with perfect consistence receive it as a pure and spotless thing, the very image of His own holiness, upon His table or altar. In being received there, however, it still represented the blood or soul of the offerer, who thus saw himself, through the action with the blood of his victim, re-established in communion with God, and solemnly recognised as possessing life, holy and blessed, as it is in God Himself. His soul had been accepted as a holy thing on the place where God most peculiarly recorded His name, and he could now go forth as one received under the shadow of the Almighty.—(Psalms 91:1) [370] De Sac., L. i., c. 16, 4. How exactly this representation accords with what is written of Christ, must be obvious on the slightest reflection. When dying as man’s substitute and representative, He appeared laden with the guilt of innumerable sins, as one who, though He knew no sin, yet had “been made sin,” bearing in His person the concentrated mass of His people’s pollution; and on this account He received upon His head the curse due to sin, and sank under the stroke of death, as an outcast from heaven. But the moment He gave up the ghost, an end was made of sin. With the pouring out of His soul unto death, its guilt and curse were exhausted for all who should be heirs of salvation. Godhead was completely glorified concerning it; and when the life laid down in ignominy and shame was again resumed in honour and triumph, and this, or the blood in which it resided, was presented before the Father in the heavenly places, it bespoke His people’s acceptance in Him to the possession of a life out of death, to nearest fellowship with God, and the perpetual enjoyment of the Divine favour; so that they are even said to “sit with Him in heavenly places,” and to have “their life hid with Him in God.” Hence also the peculiar force and significancy of the expression in 1 Peter 1:2, formerly explained (vol. i., p. 220 sq.), “unto,” not only obedience, but also “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus;” in other words, unto the participation of His risen, divine, heavenly life—a life that is replete with the favour and partakes of the blessedness of God. It is there spoken of as the end and consummation of a Christian calling. Not as if such a calling could really be entered upon without a participation in Christ’s risen life; but there must be a growing participation; and the spiritual life of a child of God approaches to perfection, according as he becomes “complete in Jesus,” and is through Him “filled into the fulness of God.” But it is unnecessary here to enter into a full exhibition of the truth, as it will again occur, especially in connection with the service of the day of atonement. When formerly explaining the passage in First Peter, the sprinkling was viewed with a more special reference to the service at the ratification of the covenant, when the blood was partly sprinkled on the altar and partly on the people, to denote more distinctly their participation and fellowship in what belonged to it. In the case of ordinary sacrifices, however, this was not done; nor could it be said to be necessary to complete the symbolical action. The offerer, after having brought his victim to the altar, laid his hands on its head with confession of sin, and having solemnly given it up for his expiation, could have no difficulty in realizing his connection with the blood, and his interest in its future application. The difficulty rather stood in his realizing God’s acceptance of such blood in his behalf, and on its account restoring him to life and blessing. Now, however, the difficulty is entirely on the other side, and stands in realizing not the acceptance of Christ’s soul or blood by the Father, but our personal interest in it,—in apprehending ourselves to be really and truly represented in the pouring out of His soul for sin, and its presentation for acceptance and blessing in the heavenly places. Hence, while respect is also had to the former in the New Testament, yet, in the practical application of the doctrine of redemption, the latter is commonly made more prominent, viz., “the sprinkling of the believer’s heart,” or “the purging of his conscience” with the blood of Jesus. This is done, however, simply out of respect to the difficulty referred to; and stript of their symbolical colouring, the essential and radical idea in all such representations is, God’s owning in the behalf of His people, and receiving into fellowship with Himself, as pure and holy, that life which has borne in death the curse and penalty of sin; so that the recompense of blessing and glory due to it becomes also their heritage of good. This owning and receiving on the part of God, is what is meant by Christ’s sprinkling with His blood the heavenly places. And to realize on solid grounds the fact of its having been done for us, is on our part to come to the blood of sprinkling, and enter into the participation of its divine life.[371] [371] See further in Appendix C. Section Fifth.—The Different Kinds Of Offerings Connected With The Brazen Altar In The Court Of The Tabernacle—Sin-Offerings—Trespass-Offerings—Burnt-Offerings—Peace Or Thank-Offerings—Meat-Offerings. WE here take for granted what has been unfolded in the preceding section, and the appendix attached to it, respecting the proper nature and design of sacrifice by blood, and the symbolical actions therewith associated. It was common, as we have seen, to all sacrifices of that description, that there should be in them, on the part of the offerer, a remembrance of sin, and, on the part of God, a provision made for his reconciliation and pardon. The death of the animal represented the desert due to him for sin, the wages of which is death. God’s appointing the life-blood of His own guiltless creature to be shed for such a purpose, and afterwards sprinkled on His altar, denoted that He accepted this symbolically as an atonement or substitution for the life of the guilty offerer, and typically implied that He would in due time provide and accept a real atonement or substitution in Christ. In so far as the ancient believer might present the blood of his sacrifice according to the manner prescribed, and in so far as the believer now appropriates by faith the atoning blood of Christ, in each case alike the blessed result is—He is justified from sin, and has peace with God. But it is evident on a moment’s consideration, that while the things now mentioned form what must have been the fundamental and most essential part of every sacrifice, various other things, of a collateral and supplementary kind, were necessarily required to bring out the whole truth connected with the sinner’s reconciliation and restored fellowship with God, as also to give suitable expression to the diversified feelings and affections which it became him at different times to embody in his acts of worship. If anything like a complete representation was to be given, by means of sacrifice, of the sinner’s relation to God, there must, at least, have been something in the appointed rites to indicate the different degrees of guilt, the sense entertained by the sinner, not only of his own sinfulness, but also of his obligations to the mercy of God for restored peace, his several states of comparative distance from God and nearness to Him, and the manifold consequences, both in respect to his condition and his character, growing out of his acceptable approach to God. This could not otherwise be done than by the institution of a complicated ritual of sacrifice, suited to the ever varying circumstances of the worshipper, prescribing for particular states and occasions the kinds of victims to be employed, the application that should be made with the blood, the specific destination of the several parts of the offering, or the supplementary services with which the main act of sacrifice should be accompanied. In these respects, opportunity was afforded for the symbolical expression of a very considerable variety of states and feelings. And it was more particularly by its minute prescriptions and diversified arrangements for this purpose, that the Mosaic ritual formed so decided an improvement on the sacrificial worship of the ancient world. Before the time of Moses, this species of worship was comparatively vague and indefinite in its character. There appear to have been at most but two distinct forms of sacrifice, and these probably but slightly varied—the burnt-offering and the peace-offering. That such distinctions did exist, as to constitute two kinds of sacrifice under these respective appellations, seems unquestionable, from mention being made of both at the ratification of the covenant (Exodus 24:5), prior to the introduction of the peculiar distinctions of the Mosaic ritual; and also from the indications that exist in earlier times of a feast in connection with certain sacrifices, while it was always the characteristic of the burnt-offering that the whole was consumed by fire.—(Genesis 31:54) But the line of demarcation between the two was probably restricted to the participation or non-participation on the part of the offerers of a portion of the sacrifice, leaving whatever else might require to be signified respecting the state or feeling of the worshipper, to be either expressed in words, or to exist only in the silent consciousness of his own mind. It is, no doubt, partly on account of this greater antiquity, especially of the burnt-offering and of its more comprehensive character, that the precedence was given to it in the sacrificial ritual.—(Leviticus 1) Yet only partly on that account; for as this kind of offering is the only one that had no special occasions connected with it, and was that also which every morning and every evening was presented for all Israel, it was plainly intended to be viewed as the normal sacrifice of the covenant people,—embodying the thoughts and feelings which should habitually prevail in the bosom and regulate the life of a pious Israelite. Hence, also, the altar of sacrifice bore the name of the altar of burnt-offering. As they who really were children of the covenant stood already in an accepted condition before God, the idea of expiation could manifestly not hold the most prominent place in the sacrifice; this place rather belonged to the sense of entire dependence on God, and devoted surrender to His service, which Israel was called as God’s redeemed heritage to profess and manifest. Yet, with this as the more predominant idea in the burnt-offering, there could not fail also to be associated with it thoughts of sin and atonement: for the proper idea of their calling was never fully realized by even the better portion of Israel; and with every day’s expression of devout acknowledgment of God’s goodness, and renewed surrender to His service, there behoved to be also such consciousness of sin and unworthiness as called for fresh application to the blood of atonement. In the burnt-offering both of these were provided in that general form which was suited to a people who were presumed to be in a state of reconciliation with God; while, for the more explicit confession of sin, and the blotting out of its guilt, the yearly service of the great day of atonement was specially appropriated for Israel as a whole, and the occasional sin and trespass-offerings for those who had been guilty of particular offences, which seemed to call for more immediate personal dealing with God. But while the considerations now mentioned enable us to explain why, in the ritual for the different kinds of offering (Leviticus 1-7), they stand in the order there exhibited, if respect be had to the natural order and succession of ideas connected with sacrifice, especially after the introduction of the law, the offerings which made most distinct recognition of sin properly took rank before the others. By the law is the knowledge of sin. It did not, indeed, originate that knowledge, but it contributed both to impart much clearer views and awaken a deeper consciousness of sin than generally existed before its promulgation. And as, with fallen man, the consciousness of sin must ever be regarded as the starting-point of all acceptable worship, those offerings which, in a sacrificial system, that had specially to do with sin and forgiveness, could not fail to be regarded as being of a more fundamental character than the others. It was to them that resort was naturally first made by those who had not yet attained to a covenant standing, or had by transgression fallen from it. Accordingly, on those occasions which called for a complete round of sacrificial offerings, in order to express every kind and gradation of feeling appropriate to the worship of God, the offerings for sin invariably come first (Exodus 19; Leviticus 8, 9, 11): the order was, sin-offering or trespass-offering (occasionally even both), burnt-offering, peace-offering, the two latter supplemented with a meat-offering. Such, also, will be the most appropriate order in which to take them here, where they must be chiefly viewed with respect to the religious ideas and feelings expressed in them. It is proper, however, to draw attention—before entering on the several kinds of sacrifice to the general name by which they are designated in the law namely, offerings (corbanini). This is the more deserving of notice, as the term was a more general one even than sacrifice, and included whole classes of things which were not for presentation at the altar, while yet the common name sufficiently indicated that in some fundamental point they coincided. The word corban(קָרְבָּן), signifying literally a gift (Mark 7:11), everything which was solemnly dedicated or presented for holy uses, might be called generally a gift or an offering to God. The free-will contributions which were made by the people for the erection of the tabernacle were so called (Exodus 25:2, etc.), though consisting of all sorts of materials; and what was afterwards required for the maintenance of the daily service, bore the same character: in particular, the half-shekel, which was first levied of all grown males at the institution of the tabernacle, and called their ransom-money—this, though originally applied to the construction of the tabernacle (Exodus 38:25-31), was afterwards, according to the manifest design of the ordinance, regularly levied, and was the memorial-offering from the children of Israel, “to make atonement for their souls,” that, namely, which served as a connecting link between the members of the congregation and the atonement services of the sanctuary.—(Exodus 30:16; Nehemiah 10:32; Matthew 17:24) Through this, which ministered the supplies, they gave formal expression to their desire to have an interest in all the expiatory rites of the daily service; and there were also occasional offerings which had the same end in view.—(Numbers 7:3; Numbers 31:50) Beside these, however, which stood in close proximity to the sacrificial institution, though they did not strictly belong to it, there were the contributions which went to support the ministers of the sanctuary, but which, in their proper nature and design, were offerings of a religious kind— tithes, first-fruits, and free-will offerings. These bore in common the name of corbanim) or offerings, because solemnly dedicated to a sacred use (Exodus 23:15; Numbers 18:15-18; Deuteronomy 16:16-17); and, along with the others mentioned before, were required by God from His people to maintain in due consideration and regard the house which for their advantage and honour He condescended to set up among them. But it was of His own they gave to Him; they took a select portion for tribute-offerings, in token of their holding all of Him as the supreme Lord of the land which they had received for a possession, and in the hope that they might obtain His blessing on what remained. It was really this feeling of dependence, coupled with spiritual desire and expectation of the Divine favour, which the Lord sought in the offerings, and without which they could be of no avail in His sight. On the other hand, where these feelings were actually experienced, the heart could not rest satisfied with an inward consciousness of them, but would seek, and with an earnestness proportioned to their strength, to have them embodied in outward manifestations, such as the nature of God’s service required. “While the people,” as happily expressed by Œhler (Hertzog, x., p. 625), “in appearing before God, did not come before Him empty, but brought Him gifts of the increase they had gained in their ordinary calling, they not only gave a practical testimony that all their gain, all the fruits of their labour, were from the Divine blessing, but they at the same time consecrated their worldly activity, and along therewith their life itself, with all its powers, to the Lord, who had taken them for His peculiar treasure.” But still more would such feelings prevail in regard to another class of offerings—those which pertained to the altar of God, which consequently were rendered directly to Him. It was on that altar most especially and peculiarly that He gave promise of meeting with them to bless them. There, in a manner, was His table; and in return for the offerings which His people laid on it, if they only did so in a right spirit, presenting their offerings as the expression of what they themselves thought and felt,—He came near and visited them with such favour as He bore to His own. The altar-offerings were hence called in a more peculiar sense the bread of Jehovah, a fire-offering of sweet savour to Jehovah.—(Leviticus 1:9; Leviticus 8:21; Leviticus 24:9) If this should appear to infringe on the propitiatory character of sacrifice, by presenting it simply in the light of a gift rendered, or a homage paid, by man to God, it must be remembered that here also the gifts were not primarily man’s: they had been received from the hand of God, that they might be applied to the purposes for which they were intended; and, in particular, the blood or soul of the victims was expressly given by God, that it might be employed as the medium of atonement.—(Leviticus 17:11) As all life is of God, so it belonged only to Him to make such a destination of it, even in the lower sphere of the animal creation, and for the ends of a symbolical worship. And the principle has its noblest exemplification in the higher sphere of the New Covenant; for the infinitely precious life, by the surrender of which the real atonement was accomplished, is made known as pre-eminently the Father’s gift to a perishing world. Yet in each case alike the divine must reach its end through the instrumentality of a human agency: the altar of God must be furnished by the offerings and ministrations of those who are warranted to approach it from among men; and not as a matter thrust on the Church by arbitrary appointment, but thankfully appropriated, and by a living devoted faith rendered back to God from a soul respondent to the will of Heaven, must the work of sacrifice and atonement equally in the lower and the higher sphere proceed. The place of this could no otherwise be the one where God recorded His name to come unto His people and bless them (Exodus 22:24), or the propitiatory where heaven and earth meet in loving accord.—(Romans 3:25-26) THE SIN-OFFERING. The offering so called was that which had specially to do with the consciousness of sin and its atonement; and on this account, being so identified with sin, it came to receive its distinctive name—the same word (חַטָּאת) denoting both. In the great majority of cases, perhaps, it was offered on special occasions, when some particular act of sin had interrupted the covenant relationship, and called for a specific atonement to reestablish the offender’s position. But to impress upon Israel the conviction that such sins were always proceeding, even though they might not be distinctly brought home to the people’s consciousness, and made the subject of individual confession and forgiveness, the service of the day of yearly atonement was appointed, which derived its peculiar character from the regard that was to be had in it to all the sins and transgressions of Israel, and the purging of them away by a grand sin-offering. In this case, of course, the sins of the people were contemplated in their totality, and not with reference to particular kinds or occasions. And the same was the case when there was the introduction to a new sphere of covenant relationship, as at the consecration of Aaron and his sons, or at the joint consecration of priesthood and people in their relation one to another (Leviticus 8:9); in such services we find the sin-offering taking precedence of all others, not because of any formal acts of sin committed, but because the transaction proceeded on the idea of a new stage or development going to be reached of covenant standing, and it was fit that the sin and unworthiness of the parties concerned should be brought to remembrance and purged away. Although no express instances are on record, yet it will be understood of itself—the analogy of the preceding cases clearly involves it—that when persons for the first time sought to be admitted into the bond of the covenant, it would need to be done, among other services, with confession of sin and the presentation of a sin-offering. And as sins generally had to be thought of in connection with those greater occasions which called for the sin-offering, it plainly unwarrantable to limit its application, as necessarily and in its own nature referring only to sins of a subordinate or inferior kind. It is true, when we turn to the ritual of the sin-offering as prescribed for special occasions, there is a certain limitation, not so properly in the kind of sins to be atoned, as in the mode of their commission. The sins themselves are characterized quite generally,—“If a soul shall sin against any of the commandments of the Lord” (Leviticus 4:2); this is the common description which is afterwards in succession applied to priest, congregation as a body, ruler, private individual, in almost the same words, and in each case varied by the explanatory statement of something having been done which should not be done. But the doing is qualified by the term bishgagah (בִשְׁגָגָה), not strictly in ignorance, as the English Bible puts it, but by erring, by mistake, or oversight. The expression is partly explained by an additional clause, as at Leviticus 4:13, where the thing said to have been done bishgagah is represented as “hid from the eyes of the congregation,” and only afterwards becomes known to them; and again, at Leviticus 4:23, Leviticus 4:28, where the discovery of the sin is spoken of as the occasion of offering the sacrifice. Some light is thrown on it also by being used in one place of the manslayer (Numbers 35:11), as compared with the later description, which distinguishes him from the murderer by his having done the deed “without knowing”—(בִּבְלִי דַעַת), and “not hating him in times past.” (Deuteronomy 4:42) Then, finally, we have sins of this description further distinguished by being contrasted with sins of presumption, literally “sins with a high hand” (Numbers 15:28-30), that is, sins committed in deliberate and open defiance of the authority of Heaven, and as with a wilful determination to contest with Him the supremacy. For sins of this description no sin-offering was to be allowed, while it should be accepted for the others.[372] [372] There was undoubtedly a rigour in the Old Testament regarding presumptuous sins, which is not found in the New. The greater manifestation of grace in the latter called for a difference, though still it is a difference only in degree; for here also there is a hardened impenitence which is practically beyond the reach of mercy a phase of sin for which there is no forgiveness, as the following passages show: Matthew 12:31; Hebrews 10:26-29; 1 Timothy 1:20; 1 John 5:16, etc. Now, however, the range and compass of mercy has become greater. It is quite plain, by putting together these comparative and explanatory statements, what are to be understood by the sins under consideration. If one might say, with Kurtz, that from the stress laid on the sins being at first hid from the guilty party, and only afterwards becoming known, unconscious and unintentional sins were those primarily meant—the normal sins, in a manner, of this class yet it is impossible to think only of such; and Kurtz himself (Sacred Offerings, § 90) has latterly found it needful to include many that were done knowingly and intentionally—sins of infirmity, committed in the violence of passion, under some powerful temptation, or from some motive appealing to the weaker part of the soul, as contradistinguished from deliberate and settled malice. Some of the cases specified at the beginning of Leviticus 5, as among those for which sin-offerings might be presented,[373] put it beyond a doubt that sins of that description were to be understood. For while we have there such things mentioned as touching, even unwittingly, the carcase of an unclean beast, or the person of a man who at the time happened to be in a state of uncleanness, there is also the case of one who, when solemnly called upon to give evidence regarding a matter of which he had been cognizant, yet, for some selfish reason operating on him at the time, withheld the testimony he should have given (Leviticus 5:1), and the case of one who had pronounced a rash vow or oath, committing himself to do what should either not at all or not in the circumstances have been under taken (Leviticus 5:4). These were plainly things which could not have happened without knowledge or consciousness on the part of the transgressor; but they betrayed hastiness of spirit, or the moral weakness which could not resist a present temptation. Viewed in this light, too, they cannot be regarded otherwise than as specimens of a class; for no one could possibly imagine, that moral weakness displaying itself in the matter of rash swearing, or in a cowardly refusal to give faithful testimony on fitting occasions, was different in kind from such weakness when taking many other directions. On this account, and also on account of the close connection between the sin and trespass-offering (which differed only, as will appear, in subordinate points), we are certainly warranted to include the sins mentioned in Leviticus 6:1-5, as belonging to the class now under consideration; and among these are lying, deceit, betrayal of trust, false swearing, fraudulent behaviour. In farther proof of the same thing, we find even adultery mentioned elsewhere (Leviticus 19:20), if committed with a bondmaid, as an offence which might be expiated by this class of offerings. [373] There is an unfortunate division and heading of chapters here; for the law of the sin-offering should include all ch. 4, and also ch. 5 of Leviticus to the end of ver. 13. It is only at ver. 14, where a new section opens with, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,” that the law of the trespass-offering begins, while there is no such formal introduction of a new subject it the commencement of the chapter. With the exception of Bahr and Hofmann, most commentators of note are now agreed on this as the proper division. That the word trespass sometimes occurs in the earlier part of ch. 5, merely arose from the two kinds of offering having much in common, though still the proper sacrifice here is once and again called a sin-offering (vers. (1, 7, 9, 11, 12), and the victims appointed are also those of the sin-offering. From this induction of particulars several important conclusions follow, in respect to the nature and design of the offerings for sin and trespass, as indeed of the sacrificial worship generally of the Old Covenant, which, if duly considered, should put an end to certain partial and mistaken views, that occasionally appear in quarters and obtain a countenance they are not entitled to. (1.) One of these is, that sin-offerings availed only for special acts of sin, or sins committed on special occasions,—a view that we are surprised to see Kurtz still adhering to. Undoubtedly special sins formed appropriate occasions—and, indeed, the greater number of occasions on which such offerings were expected to be presented; but not by any means the whole. The grand sin-offering of every year was alone conclusive proof against such an idea, since in it a remembrance was made of sins without distinction, and the object was to cleanse the people from all their impurities. The sin-offerings at the consecration of Aaron, and the formal entrance of the people on the tabernacle-worship, constitute another proof. Coupling with such things the specific instructions given for the presentation of a sin-offering, as often as conviction of some particular sin bore in upon their souls, conscientious and thoughtful Israelites must have felt, that whenever a sense of sin troubled their conscience, and made them afraid of God’s rebuke, it was through an offering of this description that relief should be sought. (2.) Another and greatly more common, though equally ungrounded notion, is, that offerings for sin, or, as it is sometimes put, all offerings under the Old Covenant, availed only for the atonement of ceremonial transgression, or the removal of ceremonial uncleanness. Bähr has exhibited this view of the sin-offering, holding it to have contemplated only theocratical sins, but not such as were in the stricter sense moral, though he has in this met with little support from the abler theologians of his own country, as in his view of sacrifice by blood generally. But there has ever been a tendency on the part of Unitarian writers, or such as are opposed to the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, to restrict the object of the sin-offerings to merely ceremonial and slighter offences. So zealously was the idea advocated by them about the close of last century, that Magee found it necessary to give the subject a measure of consideration.—(On Atonement, Note 27) Since then, however, it has occasion ally appeared in the writings of evangelical divines, who hold entirely orthodox views on the person and the work of Christ, and who would explain the connection between the Old and the New as to sin and sacrifice, by all being outward and ceremonial in the one, inward and real in the other. According to them, the sins atoned, not merely by the special sin-offerings, but also on the day of yearly atonenent, are to be regarded as mere “breaches of legal order and ceremonial etiquette, involving neither moral guilt nor even bodily soil or stain.” As a necessary consequence, the purification effected was entirely of the same kind: it rectified the worshipper’s relation merely in an outward respect to the camp of God’s people, or the courts of His house, secured for him a right of access to these, and to the external privileges therewith connected; but left all the sins which really wounded his conscience and disturbed his spiritual relation to God untouched, except in so far as he could descry through the outward and ceremonial services the type and assurance of a higher redemption.[374] There can be no doubt that the essentials of Christian doctrine can in this way be set forth and maintained, and also that the connection between type and antitype can be formally preserved; but it seems scarcely less certain, that the character of the Old Testament religion, and the organic relation which especially its sacrificial institute held to the work of Christ, would suffer material damage, and be virtually undermined. For what could we seriously think of a religion which took specially to do with the moral and religious training of a people, gave them the purest law, and, in connection therewith, often charged them with the gravest sins, which yet in its most solemn services contemplated nothing higher than points of religious etiquette—matters simply of conventional propriety, and lying outside the strictly moral sphere? Could the means, in such a case, seem to have been in fitting correspondence with the aim ostensibly pursued? And the punctilios of Pharisaism, instead of being the improvable follies and perversions of men who had lost sight of the spirit and design of the institutions under which they lived, should they not have been the native tendency and proper development of the system? If the most solemn parts of their religion spoke only of religious etiquette and outward decorum, it had surely been hard to blame them if they made this their chief concern: they but took the impress of the economy they lived under. And yet this economy, strange to think, was set up by the God of the Bible, which is throughout so predominently ethical in its tone, and sets so little by the outward where the outward alone was to be found! The whole, on such a view, appears full of in consistencies and practical contradictions. Nor can the objections thus raised be met by pointing to the higher things typified by those ceremonial expiations; for this typical element had no formal place in the system: it existed no otherwise than as something underlying or implied in the great principles and relations on which the system was constructed; and how, even after such a fashion, could it exist, if the moral element was wanting in the typical? In the antitypical things of Christ’s redemption the moral is the one and all; and if the ritual of Old Testament sacrifice had carried no proper respect to it, either as to guilt or purification, then the most vital link of connection between the two systems was missing. But when we look to the sacrificial institute itself, we find the view we contend against destitute of foundation in fact. Hengstenberg, in his treatise on the sacred offerings, has justly said, in opposition to Bähr, that “such a separation between the moral and the ceremonial law was quite foreign to the spirit of the Old Testament; and it can only be upheld with any appearance of truth by those who utterly misconceive the symbolical character of the ceremonial law.”[375] Indeed, as we have shown in an earlier part of this volume (Ch. II., sec. 5), there was nothing merely ceremonial in the Old Covenant: the moral element pervaded the whole, and every part of it; and neither an exclusion nor a privilege was rightly understood, till it was seen in a moral light. Besides, in the ritual prescriptions concerning offerings for sin and trespass, breaches of the moral law (as we have seen) not only are included, but even occupy by much the largest place; and both in that ritual and in the service of the day of atonement, “all transgressions,” or sins against “any of the commandments of God, in doing what should not be done,” are expressly mentioned. [374] See, for one of the latest exhibitions of this view, Dr Candlish’s work on the Atonement, ch. v. [375] See also Keil, Archaeologie, i, p. 220, who repeats the same sentiments; and Kurtz, in his Sacred Offerings, § 92. Both hold the division between positively religious or ceremonial and moral laws, to have no existence the Mosaic economy as to sacrifice. (3.) A still further though closely related form of error, regarding this part of the ancient sacrificial system, consists in distinguishing, not between moral and ceremonial (for this is held by the parties concerned chiefly, though not exclusively, of the school of Spencer to be untenable), but between external and internal, or sin as a political and social misdemeanour, and sin as a spiritual evil and disease of the heart. The law of Moses generally, it is alleged, and its prescriptions especially respecting offerings for sin, had to do with transgressions only in the one aspect, but not in the other. The code which regulated penalties and atonements among the Jews, was “a mere system of external control, exactly parallel to the penal codes of other nations, except so far as it was modified by its recognising no sovereign but God Himself.” This exception, however, was an all-important one; for as the Sovereign, so of necessity His law; the one being holy,—holy in the sense of spiritual, inward, requiring truth in the heart,—the other could not be different. And yet the theory in question proceeds on the supposition that they were different. It acknowledges that, from the state being a theocracy, sins were necessarily regarded as crimes, and vice versa; but holds overt acts only to have possessed this character. These alone exposed to excision; and it being the object of expiatory sacrifice to prevent excision, its atoning value went no further. What the worshipper gained by his offerings for sin, was simply to have the overt acts covered which violated its code of external jurisprudence; but sin as a defilement of the conscience, or a moral depravity, was alike beyond legal punishment and legal sacrifice. How, then, on such a view, shall we reconcile the Lawgiver with His law? They stand in ill agreement with each other; for, by the supposition, the spiritual and holy Jehovah legislated much like an earthly sovereign, and dealt with things rather than with persons. Now, the law of the sin-offering, as the law of sacrifice in general, was based upon the exactly opposite principle: it had respect to persons, and to these as related to a God of righteousness and truth, in the proper sense of the terms; and to the offerings only in so far as they represented what belonged to the persons, not to anything they might or could be by themselves. Their object, consequently, was not alone to prevent excision from the theocracy, but rather to secure continuance therein with the favour and blessing of Him who presided over its interests, without which, to the true Israelite, the theocracy was but a shell without a kernel. Such an one knew perfectly that the God with whom He had to do, tried the reins and the hearts; that, however blameless outwardly, still if he regarded iniquity in his heart, God would not hear or bless him; and so, when called to think of having atonement made for whatever he had done against any of the commandments of God, and which should cleanse him from all his transgressions, it was inevitable that the inward as well as the outward, the moral as well as the political, defections, should have risen into view. It mattered not that the theocracy itself had a local habitation and a temporal history, and that its penalties partook of the same local and temporal character; for not the less on that account did they bear on them the impress of God’s will and character, and it was this with which all the laws and services of the religion of the Israelite were designed to bring him into harmony. The higher and future worlds were comparatively veiled to his view: with the present alone he had directly and ostensibly to do; but with this as subject to the oversight and control of One who, in His method of dealing, could not but show that He loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And the sprinkling of the blood of atonement, whether on the horns of the altar (as in the private sin-offerings) or on the mercy-seat (as in the day of atonement), could not have properly met His case, if it had not furnished him with a present deliverance from any burden of guilt under which he groaned. It is not, in truth, so much a consideration of the passages of Old Testament Scripture which treat of the sacrificial offerings for sin, that has given rise to the views we have been controverting, as certain passages in the New Testament, which appear to deny to those ancient sacrifices any validity as to the purifying of the soul. Thus it is said by Paul, “that by Christ all who believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.”—(Acts 13:39) And still more strongly and expressly in Hebrews, it is declared, that the gifts and sacrifices of the law “could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience” (Hebrews 9:9); that it was “not possible the blood of bulls and of goats could take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4); and that such blood, as the ashes also of the heifer sprinkling the unclean, could but avail to the purifying of the flesh, while the blood of Christ, and this alone, can purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:13-14). If such passages were to be taken absolutely, they would certainly deny any spiritual benefit whatever to the Old Testament worshipper from his legal sacrifices. But that they cannot be so taken, is evident alone from this, that even when viewed as offerings for such offences as affected the out ward and theocratical position of an Israelite, and satisfying for these, they did not, and could not, stand altogether apart from his conscience; to a certain extent, at least, conscience had been aggrieved by what was done, and must have been purged by the atonement presented. But in all the passages the Apostle is speaking of what, in the proper sense, and in the estimation of God, or of a soul fully enlightened by His truth, can afford a real and valid satisfaction for the guilt of sin, not of what might or might not provide for it a present and accepted though inadequate atonement. The matter stood thus: A certain visible relationship was established under the old economy between Israel and God admitting of being re-established, as often as it was interrupted by sin, through a system of animal sacrifices and corporeal ablutions. But all was, from the nature of the case, imperfect. The sanctuary itself, in connection with which the relationship was maintained, was a worldly one—the mere image of the heavenly or true. And even that was in its inner glory veiled to the worshipper: God hid at the very time He revealed Himself—kept Himself at some distance, even when He came nearest, so that manifestly the root of the evil was as not yet reached: the conscience was not in such a sense purged as to be made perfect, or capable of feeling thoroughly at its ease in the presence of the Holy One; for that another and higher, medium of purification was needed, and should be looked for. At the same time, there was such a purification administered as secured for those who experienced it a certain measure of access to God’s fellowship and sense of His favour; it sanctified their flesh, so as to admit of their personal approach to the place where God recorded His name, and met with His people to bless them. The flesh of the worshipper, in such a connection, becomes the correlative to the worldly sanctuary, on the part of God; not as if these were actually the whole, though ostensibly they were such; and while atonements mediated between the two, removing from time to time the barrier which sin was ever tending to raise, yet it was by so imperfect a medium, and with results so transitory, that the conscience of the worshipper could not feel as if the proper and efficient remedy had yet been found. Hence, as elsewhere it is said of the difference between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, “The law came by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ,” or, “The darkness is past, the clear light now shineth”—not as if there had been no light, no grace and truth before, but merely none worthy to be compared with what now appeared; so in the passages under consideration, the measure of relief and purification to guilty consciences which were afforded by the provisional institutions of the tabernacle, because of their inadequate character, and the imperfect means employed in their accomplishment, are for the occasion overlooked or placed out of sight, in order to bring prominently out the real, the ultimate, and perfect salvation that had been at length brought in by Christ. With these explanations in regard to the general nature of the sin-offering, and the objects for which it was presented, we turn now to the ritual concerning the offering itself. And first in respect to the choice of victims: where we meet with a striking diversity, according to the position of the party for whom the offering was to be made. When the sin was that merely of a private member of the congregation, the offering was to consist of a female kid of the goat or lamb (Leviticus 4:28; Leviticus 5:6)—so also at the discharge of the Nazarite, and the purification of the leper (Numbers 6:14; Leviticus 14:10)—or, in cases of poverty, two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, but merely as a substitute for the normal offering; and when even such would have proved too heavy a tax on the circumstances of the offerer, a little flour was allowed to be used, though without oil or frankincense. When the offender was a ruler in the congregation, the offering was to be a male kid,—when it was the congregation or the high priest, on ordinary occasions, a young bullock; while on the day of atonement the offering for the congregation consisted of two goats, and that for the high priest was a bullock; because not only in his official capacity did he represent the congregation, but, from his standing in a relation of peculiar nearness to God, sinfulness in him assumed a more offensive and aggravated character. There was thus, by means of a graduated scale in the offerings, brought out the important lesson, that while all sin is offensive in the sight of God, so as by whomsoever committed to deserve a penalty, which can only be averted by the blood of atonement, it grows in offensiveness with the position and number of transgressors; and the higher in privileges, the nearer to God, so much greater also is the guilt to be atoned. Hence, in Ezekiel’s vision of judgment, the words, “Slay utterly young and old, and begin at my sanctuary” (Ezekiel 9:6) where, namely, the sin was most aggravated. But the chief and most distinctive peculiarity in this species of sacrifice, was the action with the blood, which, though variously employed, was always used so as to give a relatively strong and intense expression to the ideas of sin and atonement. When the offering had respect to a single individual, a ruler or a private member of the congregation, the blood was not simply to be poured round about the altar, but some of it also to be sprinkled upon the horns of the altar its prominent points, its insignia, as they may be called, of honour and dignity. When the offering was of an inferior kind, and consisted only of doves, as in the case of very poor persons, this latter action was not prescribed.—(Leviticus 5:9) But if it was for the sin of the high priest (“the priest that is anointed,” Leviticus 4:3, meaning, however, the high priest, because he had the anointing in a pre-eminent sense; comp. Leviticus 16:32; Psalms 133:2), or of the congregation at large, besides these actions in the outer court, a portion of the blood was to be carried into the Sanctuary, where the priest was to sprinkle with his finger seven times before the inner veil, and again upon the horns of the altar of incense. It was to be done in the Holy Place before the veil, because that was the symbolical dwelling-place of the high priest, or of the congregation as represented by him; and upon the altar of incense in particular, because that was the most important article of furniture there, and one also that stood in a near relation to the altar of burnt-offering. A still higher expression, and the last, the highest expression which could be given of the ideas in question by means of the blood,—was presented when the high priest, on the day of atonement, went with the blood of his own and the people’s sin-offering into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkled the mercy-seat—the very place of Jehovah’s throne. In this action the sin appeared, on the one hand, rising to its most dreadful form of a condemning witness in the presence-chamber of God, and, on the other, the atonement assumed the appearance of so perfect and complete a satisfaction, that the sinner could come nigh to the seat of God, and return again not only unscathed, but with a commission from Him to banish the entire mass of guilt into the gulph of utter oblivion. It is from the peculiar character of the sin-offering as God’s special provision for removing the guilt of sin, from what might be called the intensely atoning power of its blood, that the other arrangements, especially in regard to the flesh, were ordered. The blood was so sacred, that if any portion of it should by accident have come upon the garments of the persons officiating, the garment “whereon it was sprinkled was to be washed in the Holy Place” (Leviticus 6:27); it must not be carried out beyond the proper region of consecrated things. The flesh was not consumed upon the altar—the fat alone was burned, as standing in near connection with the more vital parts, and the indication of life in its greater healthfulness and vigour (but see under Peace-offering, in which the burning of the fat formed a more distinguishing feature); and though the kidneys and the caul above the liver, or rather, the greater lobe of the liver, which had the caul attached to it, are also mentioned as parts to be burnt, yet it was simply from their being so closely connected with the fat, that they were regarded as in a manner one with it (whence, in Leviticus 3:16; Leviticus 7:30-31, all the parts actually burnt are called simply the fat). These portions, as specially set apart for Jehovah, were burnt upon the altar, in token of His acceptance of the offering, and were declared to be “a sweet savour” to Him (Leviticus 4:31)—so completely had the guilt been abolished by the blood of expiation. But while the flesh itself was not consumed upon the altar, it was declared to be most holy (literally, “a holy of holies”), and could be eaten by none but the officiating priests, not even by their families, and by themselves only within the sacred precincts of the tabernacle. And if the vessel in which it was prepared was earthen, receiving as it must then have done a portion of the substance, it was required to be broken, as too sacred to be henceforth applied to a common use; or if of brass, it was ordered to be scoured and rinsed in water, that not even the smallest fragment of flesh so holy might come in contact with common things, or be carried beyond the bounds of the sanctuary.—(Leviticus 6:25-29; Leviticus 7:6) In connection with this eating of the flesh of the sin-offering by the priesthood, there is a passage which has given rise to a good deal of controversy; it is that in which Moses said to Aaron of this offering, “It is most holy, and it is given you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord.”—(Leviticus 10:17) This cannot mean that the flesh of the sin-offering still had the iniquities of the people, as it were, inhering in it, and that the priests, by devouring the one, made finally away with the other. In that case, the flesh must rather have been regarded as most polluted, instead of being most holy. And it seems strange that Hengstenberg should still adhere to that view, which was adopted by some of the older commentators. But the atonement, in the strict and proper sense, was made when, after the imposition of hands, the penalty of death was inflicted on the victim, and its blood sprinkled on the altar of God. This denoted that its life-blood was not only given, but also accepted by God, in the room of the sinful; which was further exhibited by the burning of the fatty parts as a sweet savour. And the eating of the flesh by the priests, as at once God’s familiars and the people’s representatives, could only be intended to give a symbolical representation of the completeness of the reconciliation—to show by their incorporation with the sacrifice, how entirely through it the guilt had been removed, and the means of removing it converted even into the sustenance of the holiest life. The “bearing of the iniquity,” if viewed in reference to the eating of the flesh by the priesthood, could only be viewed as a still farther exhibition of the same idea—completing the transaction by the surrender of the Lord’s portion to His chosen servants for their enjoyment, and thereby showing the perfected result of the atonement. But it is not necessary to connect what is said in the passage referred to specifically with the eating of the flesh: the view of Hofmann, adopted by Kurtz and several others, seems the more correct, viz., that it is of the sin-offering itself, not of the eating of its flesh, that God had given it to the priesthood to take away the iniquity of the congregation; and this is mentioned for the purpose of showing why it should be regarded by them as a most holy thing, and therefore fit to be eaten. When, however, Kurtz says (Sac. Offerings, § 118), that “the eating of the flesh by the priests had no other signification than to set forth the idea that the priests, as the servants of God and the members of His household, were supplied from the table of God,” this seems to carry the matter somewhat too far on the other side; for it was surely a most natural inference to draw from such eating, that God intended thereby to set before the offerer how completely his sin had been taken away, and his restoration to the favour of Heaven had been effected.[376] [376] The elder, and indeed most also of the recent typologists, completely misunderstood this eating of the flesh of the sin-offering, regarding it as a kind of eating of the sin, and so bearing it, or making it their own. See, for example, Gill on Leviticus 10:17; Bush on ibid, and ch. 6:30; also Deyling, Obs. Sac., i., sect. 65, § 2. It was thought in this way to afford the best adumbration of Christ, whom the priests typified, being made a sin for His people, or taking their guilt upon His own person and bearing it away. But it proceeds upon a wrong foundation, and utterly confounds the proper relation of things; the flesh as most holy, and appointed to be eaten, must have represented the acceptableness or completeness of the sacrifice, not the sinfulness of the sin atoned. Keil’s statement in support of the other view, that the priests, by virtue of their office, and as the holy ones, who themselves needed no atonement, took the sins of the people on themselves and consumed them, would place the atoning power in the priesthood rather than in the sacrifice, and would also regard the flesh as being still charged with sin, after it had become most holy. Philo, De Viet., § 13, as quoted by Œhler, who takes the view we advocate, gave the sense correctly when he said, God would not have allowed His priests to partake of such a meal, if full forgiveness of sin had not entered. By this view also the correspondence is best preserved between the sin-offering and Christ. For, as soon as He completed His offering by bearing the penalty of death, the relative impurity was gone; He was immediately treated as the Holy One and the Just; His Spirit passed into glory, and even His body was preserved as a sacred thing and treated with honour, providentially kept from violence, sought for and received by the rich among the people, and committed to the tomb with the usages of an honourable burial. Christ’s work of humiliation was consummated in His death, and from that moment began to appear the precursors of His exaltation to glory. But it was only in the case of sin-offerings for the private member, or the single ruler in the congregation, that the flesh was to be eaten by the priesthood: in those cases in which the blood was carried within the sanctuary, that is, when the offering had respect to a sin of the high priest, or of the congregation at large with whom, as the public representative, he was nearly identified then the flesh was appointed to be carried without the camp, and burnt in a clean place.—(Leviticus 4:12, Leviticus 4:21, Leviticus 6:30) These being sacrifices of a higher value, and bearing on them a stamp of still greater sacredness than those whose flesh was eaten by the priesthood, the injunction not to eat of it here, but to carry it without the camp and burn it, could not, as Bähr remarks (ii., p. 397), have arisen from any impurity supposed to reside in the flesh. It is true that all impure things were ordered to be carried out of the camp, but it does not follow from this, that everything taken without the camp was impure; and in this case it was expressly provided, that the place to which the flesh was brought should be clean, implying that it was itself pure. The arrangement both as to the not eating, and the burning without the camp, seems to have arisen from the nature and object of the offering. In the cases referred to, the high priest was himself concerned, directly or indirectly, in the atonement, and could not properly partake of the flesh of the victim, as this would have given it the character of a peace-offering. The flesh, as well as the blood, must therefore be given to the Lord. But it could not be burnt on the altar, for this would have given it the character of a burnt-offering; neither could there in that case have been so clear an expression of the ideas which were here to be rendered prominent, viz., first, the identification of the offering with the sinner’s guilt, then the completeness of the satisfaction, and the entire removal of the iniquity. These ends were best served—as in private cases by the priest eating the flesh—so here, by the carrying of the carcase to a clean place without the camp, and consuming it there as a holy of holies to the Lord; for as all in the camp had to do with it, it was thus taken apart from them all, and out of sight of all devoted by fire to the Lord.[377] [377] The same fundamental error here also pervades most of the typical interpretations, which generally proceed on the supposition of the flesh being still charged with sin, and very commonly regard the consuming of it with fire as representing either the intense suffering of Christ, or the personal sufferings of the lost hereafter. Besides going on a wrong supposition, this notion is still further objectionable on account of its deriving the idea of suffering from what was absolutely incapable of feeling it. The dead carcase was unconscious alike both of pain and pleasure; and then, as it was entirely consumed, if referring to Christ, it must have signified His absolutely perishing under the curse—if to the lost sinner, His annihilation by the sufferings.—The reference made in Hebrews 13:11, to the burning of the carcase of the sin-offerings without the camp, is in perfect accordance with the explanation given above: “For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin (i.e., the sin-offerings), are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us, therefore,” etc. It is rather an allusion to the rite than an explicit and proper interpretation of it. The real city, to which God’s people belong, and out of which Christ suffered, is heaven, as the inspired writer, indeed, intimates in ver. 14. But the overruling providence of God so ordered matters, that there should be an image of this in the place of Christ’s sufferings as compared with the earthly Jerusalem. In His case it was designed to be a mark of infamy, to make Him suffer without the gate—a sign that He could not be the Messiah. But viewed in reference to the ancient type, it proved rather the reverse, as, in addition to all the proper and essential marks of agreement between the two, it served to provide even a formal and external resemblance. Though the bodies of those sin-offerings were burnt without the camp, they were still a holy of holies to the Lord: they did not on that account become a polluted thing; and Christ’s having, in like manner, suffered without the gate, though certainly designed by men to exhibit Him as an object of ignominy and shame, did not render Him the less the holy child of God, whose blood could fitly be taken into the highest heavens. But if He suffered Himself to be cast out, that He might bear our doom, it surely would ill become us to be unwilling to go out and bear His reproach. This is the general idea; but the passage is rather of the hortatory than the explanatory kind, and passes so rapidly from one point to another, that to press each particular closely would be to make it yield a false and inconsistent meaning. The only additional regulation regarding the sin-offering was, that of no meat or drink-offering accompanying it; and in those cases of extreme poverty, in which an offering of flour was allowed to be presented, instead of the pigeons or the goat, no oil or frankincense was to be put on it, “for it is a sin-offering.”—(Leviticus 5:11) The meaning of this is correctly given by Kurtz: “Oil and incense symbolized the Spirit of God and the prayer of the faithful; the meat-offering, always good works; but these are then only good works and acceptable to God, when they proceed from the soil of a heart truly sanctified, when they are yielded and matured by the Spirit of God, and when, farther, they are presented to God as His own work in man, accompanied on the part of the latter with the humble and grateful acknowledgment that the works are the offspring, not of his own goodness, but of the grace of God. The sin-offering, however, was pre-eminently the atonement-offering; the idea of atonement came so prominently out, that no room was left for the others. The consecration of the person, and the presentation of his good works to the Lord, had to be reserved for another stage in the sacrificial institute.”[378] [378] Mosaische Opfer, p. 192. [The occasions on which the private and personal sin-offerings were presented, beside those mentioned in Leviticus 4 and Leviticus 5, were: when a Nazarite had touched a dead corpse, or when the time of his vow was completed (Numbers 6:10-14); at the purification of the leper (Leviticus 14:19-31), and of women after long-continued haemorrhage or after child-birth (Leviticus 12:6-8; Leviticus 15:25-30), pointing to the corruption not only indicated by the bodily disease, but also strictly connected with the powers and processes of generation—the fountain-head, as they might be called, of human depravity. This also accounts for the case mentioned in Leviticus 15:2; Leviticus 15:14, being an occasion for presenting a sin-offering; as it does also for the relative impurity connected in so many ways with the same, even where an atonement was not actually required, but washing only enjoined.] THE TRESPASS-OFFERING. That the trespass, or, as it should rather be called, the guilt or debt-offering (אָשָׁם, asham) stood in a very near relation to the sin-offering, and to a great extent was identified with it in nature, is evident from the description given of the trespass-offering in Leviticus 5:14 to Leviticus 6:17, and in particular from the declaration in Leviticus 7:7, “as the sin-offering is, so is the trespass-offering: there is one law for them.” But great difficulty has been found in drawing precisely the line of demarcation between the two kinds of offerings, and in pointing out, regarding the trespass-offering, what constituted the specific difference between it and the sin-offering. The difficulty, if not altogether caused, has been very much increased, by the mistake adverted to in a preceding note, of supposing the directions regarding the trespass-offering to begin with Leviticus 5, whereas they really commence with the new section at Leviticus 5:14, where, as usual, the new subject is introduced with the words: “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying.” These words do not occur at the beginning of the chapter itself; the section to the end of the Leviticus 5:13verse was added to the preceding chapter regarding the sin-offering, with the view of specifying certain occasions on which it should be presented, and making provision for a cheaper sort of sacrifice to persons in destitute circumstances. But in each case the sacrifice itself, without exception, is called a sin-offering, Leviticus 5:6, Leviticus 5:7, Leviticus 5:8, Leviticus 5:9, Leviticus 5:11, Leviticus 5:12. In one verse, indeed (the Leviticus 5:6), it is said in our version, “And he shall bring his trespass-offering;” but this is a mere mistranslation, and should have been rendered, as it is in the very next verse, where the expression in the original is the same, “And he shall bring for (or as) his trespass.” Throughout the section the sin is denominated an asham, that is, a matter of guilt or debt; and all sin is such, viewed in reference to the law of God, so that every sin-offering might also be called an asham, as well as a hattah, or sin-offering. The same mode of expression is used in respect to what was unquestionably the sin-offering (see Leviticus 4:3, Leviticus 4:13, etc.). But what were distinctively called by the name of asham, were offerings for sins in which the offence given, or the debt incurred by the misdeed, admitted of some sort of estimation and recompense; so that, in addition to the atonement required for the iniquity, in the one point of view, there might also, in the other, be the exaction and the payment of a restitution. That this is the real import of the asham, as distinguished from the hattah or sin, is clear from the passage Numbers 5:5-8, where the former is marked as a consequence of the latter, and such a consequence as admitted and demanded a material recompense: “When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass (or deal fraudulently) against the Lord, and that person be guilty (אָשְׁמָה); then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and he shall recompense his asham with the principal thereof, and add to it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed (literally, to whom he has become guilty). But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the asham unto, let the asham be recompensed unto the Lord, to the priest, besides the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall be made for him.” The Lord, in this latter case, as being the original proprietor of the land, slept into the room of the deceased person who had sustained the injury, and received, through His representative, the priest, the earthly restitution, while the sacrifice was also given to the Lord for the offence committed against His authority. In the primary law on the subject in Leviticus, there are two sections, each beginning with the formula, “And the Lord spake to Moses,”—Leviticus 5:14-17, Leviticus 6:1-7, and each including a distinct class of cases for trespass-offerings. The relation of the two to each other has been matter of much controversy of late; but the order and succession of topics may be briefly stated, and in a perfectly clear and natural manner. In the first section are mentioned in the front rank sins committed against the holy things of God, i.e., anything devoted or vowed to Him, tithes, first-fruits, etc.,—a want of faithfulness in respect to these, and done in ignorance or oversight; then, besides these, in Leviticus 5:17-19, all sins whatever against the commandments of the Lord are included, if done in a similar manner, unconsciously, or from want of due consideration. In the other section, beginning with the next chapter, a different class of cases is introduced, and one in which there must have been a perfect consciousness on the part of the person offending, viz., violation of a pledge or trust committed to any one, swearing falsely regarding it, or regarding lost property which had been found, and generally acting in a deceitful and fraudulent way concerning the property of another. It is impossible but that there must here have been a clear perception of the nature of the things done, and a sense of their wrongness; while yet, if no reconciliation and atonement had been allowed for the offender, the law would have proved too rigorous for human frailty and imperfection. This, consequently, was allowed. But in all such cases a debt was manifestly incurred; and, indeed, a twofold debt: a debt, first of all, to the Lord as the only supreme Head of the commonwealth whose laws had been transgressed, and a debt also to a party on earth whose constitutional rights had been invaded. In both respects alike the priest was to make an estimate of the wrong done; and in the first respect, the debt (whatever might be the valuation) was discharged by the presentation of a ram for the asham or trespass-offering, Leviticus 5:15; while in the other, the actual sum was to be paid to the party wronged, with an additional fifth. The same limitations as to the manner of committing the sins in question, were evidently intended to apply here, as in respect to those for which the sin-offering was presented. They were such as had been done in ignorance, unawares, through the influence of passion or temptation; and it is plain, that those most distinctly specified could not possibly have been committed without a consciousness of sin at the very time of their being done. But the precise aspect under which the sins were considered, was taken from a somewhat lower point of view than in the case of the sin-offering. It was a reckoning for sin with a predominant respect to the social and economical evils growing out of it, or to the violation of rights involved in its commission; the higher and primary relations not being, indeed, overlooked,—for every violation of duty is also a sin against God,—but only less prominently exhibited. Hence, while, to mark the amount of evil done, a ram from the flock was always to be the offering, the manner of dealing with it, when presented, was such as to indicate that a relatively inferior place belonged to it as compared with the sin-offering; the blood was only poured around the altar, not sprinkled on the horns, nor carried within the sanctuary; and on those more public and solemn occasions on which a whole series of offerings was to be presented, we never find the trespass-offering taking the place of the sin-offering, or occurring in addition to it.—(Exodus 19; Leviticus 16; Numbers 7, Numbers 28, Numbers 29) So that the trespass-offering may justly be regarded as a kind of sin-offering of the second rank, intended for such cases as were peculiarly fitted for enforcing upon the sinner’s conscience the moral debt he had incurred by his transgression, in the reckoning of God, and the necessity of his at once rendering satisfaction to the Divine justice he had offended, and making restitution in regard to the brotherly relations he had violated.[379] [379] This view of the trespass-offering is now generally concurred in, also by Hengstenberg in his last treatise, Mos. Op., p. 21, as well as by Bähr, Kurtz, and others. For the reason of a trespass-offering being required in the purification of a leper, and also of a Nazarite who had broken his vow, see what is said in connection with the two cases. There can be little doubt that this more restricted and inferior character of the trespass-offering is the reason why, in New Testament Scripture, the one great sacrifice of Christ is never spoken of with special reference to it, while so often presented under the aspect of a sin-offering. We find there, however, mention frequently enough made of sin as a debt incurred toward God, rendering the sinner liable to the exaction of a suitable recompense to the offended justice of Heaven. This satisfaction it is possible for him to pay only in the person of his substitute, the Lamb of God, whose blood is so infinitely precious, that it is amply sufficient to cancel, in behalf of every believer, the guilt of numberless transgressions. But while this one ransom alone can satisfy for man’s guilt the injured claims of God’s law of holiness; wherever the sin committed assumes the form of a wrong done to a fellow-creature, God justly demands, as an indispensable condition of His granting an acquittal in respect to the higher province of righteousness, that the sinner show his readiness to make reparation in this lower province, which lies within his reach. He who refuses to put himself on right terms with an injured fellow-mortal, can never be received into terms of peace and blessing with an offended God. And if he should even proceed so far as to bring his gift to the altar, while he there remembers that his brother has somewhat against him, he must not presume to offer it, as he should then offer it in vain, but go and render due satisfaction to his brother, and then come and offer the gift.—(Matthew 5:23-24 THE BURNT-OFFERING. The name commonly given in Scripture to this species of sacrifice is olah (עֹלָה), an ascension, so called from the whole being consumed and going up in a flame to the Lord. It also received the name kalil (כּלִיל), the whole, with reference also to the entire consumption, and possibly not without respect to its general and comprehensive character. For in this respect it was distinguished from all the other sacrifices, and raised above them. The sin and trespass-offerings were presented with the view simply of making atonement for sin, very commonly particular sins, and had for their object the restoring of the offerer to a state of peace and fellowship with God, which had been interrupted by the commission of iniquity. But the burnt-offering was for those who were already standing within the bonds of the covenant, and without any such sense of guilt lying upon their conscience as exposed them to excision from the covenant. We are not, however, to suppose on this account, that there was to be no conscience of sin in the offerer when he presented this sacrifice; for he was required to lay his hand on the head of the victim (with which confession of sin was always accompanied), and it was expressly said “to be accepted for him, to make atonement for him.”—Leviticus 1:4, and also Leviticus 16:24) But the guilt for which atonement here required to be made, was not that properly of special and formal acts of transgression, but rather of those shortcomings and imperfections which perpetually cleave to the servant of God, and mingle even with his best services. Along, however, with this sense of unworthiness and sin, which enters as an abiding element into the state of his mind, there is invariably coupled, especially in his exercises of devotion, a surrender and consecration of his person and powers to the service of God. While he is conscious of, and laments the deficiencies of the past, he cannot but desire to manifest a spirit of more complete devotedness in the time to come. And it was to express this complicated state of feeling, to which the whole and every individual of the covenant people should have been continually exercising themselves, that the service of the burnt-offering was appointed. Hence this offering, combining in itself to a considerable extent what belonged to the other sacrifices, might be regarded as embodying the general idea of sacrifice, and as in a sense representing the whole sacrificial institute. So it appears in Deuteronomy 33:10, where the office of the priesthood in the presentation of offerings is described simply with a reference to this species of sacrifice: “They shall put incense before Thee, and whole burnt-sacrifice upon Thy altar.” On the same account, it was the kind of offering which was to be presented morning and evening in behalf of the whole covenant people, and which, especially during the night, when the altar was required for no other use, was to be so slowly consumed that it might last till the morning.—(Exodus 29:38-46; Numbers 28:3; Leviticus 6:9) So that it was the daily and nightly, in a sense the perpetual sacrifice—the symbolical expression of what Israel should have been ever receiving from Jehovah as the God of the covenant, and what they, as children of the covenant, should ever have yielded to Him in return. And on account of its having such a position in the sacrificial institute, as formerly noticed, the altar of sacrifice came to be familiarly called “the altar of burnt-offering.” All the more special directions regarding particular burnt-offerings agree with the view now exhibited. In conformity with its general and comprehensive character, or its connection with the abiding and habitual state of the worshipper, much was left to his own discretion, both as to the kind of victim to be presented, the greater or less amount of the sacrifice (which on very joyful occasions rose to an immense height, 1 Kings 3:4, etc.), and the particular times for presenting it. It might be chosen either from the herd or the flock, but in each case must be a male without blemish, the best and most perfect of its kind; or he might even go to the genus of fowls, and choose a turtle dove or young pigeon. The blood of the victim was simply poured around the altar, the most general form of the atoning action; and, with the exception of the skin, which was all that could be given to the priests without detracting from the completeness of the offering, the whole carcase, after being cut into suitable pieces, and the filth that might adhere to any of them washed off, was laid upon the altar and burnt. (In the case of the pigeons, the crop was first removed, as but imperfectly belonging to the bird, not properly a part of its flesh and blood.) In that consumption of the whole, after the outpouring of the blood, for his acceptance, the offerer, if he entered into the spirit of the service, saw expressed his own dedication of himself, soul and body, to the service of God—self-dedication following upon, and growing out of, pardon and acceptance with God. And as such consecration of the person to God must again appear, and express itself in the fruits of a holy life, the burnt-offering was always accompanied with a meat and drink-offering, through which the worshipper pledged himself to the diligent performance of the deeds of righteousness.—(Numbers 15:3-11; Numbers 28:7-15) For the thankful consecration of the person to the Lord must show itself in a life and conduct conformed to the Divine will, responding to the word of Christ, “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” That Christ was here also the end of the law, and realized to the full what the burnt-offering thus symbolized, will readily be understood. In so far as it contained the blood of atonement, ever in the course of being presented for the covenant people, it shadowed forth Christ as the one and all for His people, in regard to deliverance from the guilt of sin—the fountain to which they must daily and hourly repair, to be washed from their uncleanness. And in so far as it expressed, through the consumption of the victim and the accompaniment of food, the dedication of the offerer to God for all holy working and fruitfulness in well-doing, the symbol met with unspeakably its highest realization in Him who came not to do His own will, but the will of the Father that sent Him; who sought not His own glory, but the glory of His Father; who said, even in the last extremities, and in reference to the most appalling trials, “Not My will, but Thine, be done. I have glorified Thee on earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” But in this the blessed Redeemer did not stand alone; here it could no longer be said, “Of the people there was none with Him.” As bearing the doom and penalty of sin, He is infinitely exalted above the highest and holiest of His brethren. None of them can share with Him either in the burden or the glory of the work given Him to do. These are exclusively His own, and it is for them simply to receive from His hand, as the debtors of His grace, and enter into the spoils of His dear-bought victory. But in the spirit of self-dedication and holy obedience, which animated Him throughout the whole of His undertaking, He was the forerunner of His people, and the same spirit must breathe and operate in them. As He yielded Himself to the Father, so they must yield themselves to Him, drawn by the constraint of His love and the mercies of His redemption to present themselves in Him as living sacrifices, that they may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. And the more always they realize their interest in His blood for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, the more will they be disposed to yield themselves to the Lord for a ready submission to His righteous will, and to say with the Psalmist, “O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, the son of Thine handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds.” THE PEACE-OFFERING. The general name for this species of offering is shelamim (שְׁלָמִים): it comes from a root which signifies to make up, to supply what is wanting or deficient, to pay or recompense; and hence it very naturally came to express a state in which, all misunderstandings having been removed and good experienced, there was room for friendship, joy, and thankfulness.[380] And the sacrifice which went by this name, might be employed in reference to any occasion on which such ideas became strikingly displayed. [380] Some recent commentators would derive the terra from the Piel of the verb (שִׁלֵם), which means to compensate or repay; and hence the idea of thankfulness comes more distinctly out. Thank-offerings, rather than peace-offerings, they regard as the proper appellation. The peace-offerings appear under three divisions—the sacrifice of thanksgivings or praise (תוֹדָה), of a vow (נֶדֶר), and of free-will (נְדָבָה). The last of these is marked as being somewhat inferior, by the circumstance that an animal with something lacking or superfluous in its parts might be offered (Leviticus 22:23), while in both the other sorts the rule, of being without blemish, was strictly enforced (Leviticus 22:21). And again a difference is marked, a measure of inferiority in both of the two last as compared with the first, in that they are treated conjointly, as coming under the same general laws (Leviticus 7:16-21), while the first has a section for itself (Leviticus 7:11-15); and also that the flesh of those two might be eaten, either on the first or the second day, while the flesh of the thank-offering required to be eaten on the first, or else burnt with fire. These are certainly rather slight distinctions; but they are quite sufficient to indicate degrees of excellence or worth in the respective offerings, in which the sacrifice of praise holds the highest, and that of free-will the lowest place. While also the free-will and the votive peace-offering had much in common, and are made to stand under one general law as to the service connected with them, they are not unfrequently presented as in a kind of contrast to each other.—(Leviticus 7:16; Leviticus 22:21; Leviticus 22:23, etc.) This. however, merely arose from the different circumstances in which they were usually presented. Persons, who received some striking interpositions of Providence at a time when they could not make any suitable outward return,—or, more commonly, persons who were involved in danger or distress, and greatly desired the interposition of the Divine hand to bring deliverance,—were accustomed to vow certain offerings to the Lord in respect to the goodness either actually vouchsafed or fervently sought. From the moment that the vow was made, they lay under an express obligation to perform what was specified; their sacrifice as to its obligation ceased to be a voluntary service; and if some time elapsed between the promise and the performance, there was considerable danger of the feeling that dictated the vow suffering abatement, and the worshipper either failing to make good his obligation, or doing so under a constraint. Jacob himself, the father of the covenant people, formed a memorable example of this; having failed in the strict and proper sense to pay the vow he made at Bethel, after he returned to Canaan, until, reproved by judgments in his family, and warned by God, he repaired to the place.—(Genesis 35:1-7). Hence not only the sort of contrast sometimes indicated between the votive and the free will offerings, but also the pointed allusions to the necessity of fulfilling such vows after they were made, and the care which pious men took to maintain in this respect a good conscience.—(Psalms 22:25; Psalms 66:13; Psalms 76:11; Proverbs 20:25; Ecclesiastes 5:4-5, etc.) When actually presented, such votive offerings must have partaken chiefly of the nature of thanksgivings, as in the mode of their origination they possessed somewhat of the character of a prayer. In ordinary circumstances, however, and when the worshipper was in a condition to give outward and immediate expression to his feelings in an act of worship, it would seem that the free-will peace-offering was the embodied prayer, as we find peace-offerings presented in circumstances which naturally called for supplication, and which preclude the thought of any other free-will offerings.—(Judges 20:26; Judges 21:4; 1 Samuel 13:9; 2 Samuel 24:25) And the relation of the three kinds to each other, with their respective gradations, may be indicated with probable correctness as follows: The thank or praise-offering was the expression of the worshipper’s feelings of adoring gratitude on account of having received some spontaneous tokens of the Lord’s goodness—this was the highest form, as here the grace of God shone prominently forth. The vow-sacrifice was the expression of like feelings for benefits received from the Divine beneficence, but which were partly conferred in consideration of a vow made by the worshipper—this was of a lower grade, baying something of man connected with it. And the free-will offering, which was presented without any constraint of necessity, and either without respect to any special acts of mercy experienced, or with a view to the obtaining of such, occupied a still lower ground, as the worshipper here took the initiative, and appeared in the attitude of one seeking after God.[381] [381] Kurtz, Mosaische Opfer, p. 138-9. The view given above is substantially the same also with that of Scholl, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, Œhler (in Hertzog), and in its leading features was already given by Outram. i. 11, § 1. Bähr differs on some points, and is far, indeed, from being a safe guide in regard to any of the sacrifices. In regard to the offerings themselves, they were all to be accompanied with imposition of hands and the sprinkling of the blood round about the altar, which implied that they had, to some extent, to do with sin, and, like all the other offerings of blood, brought this to remembrance. The occasion of their presentation being some manifestation of God, of His mercy and goodness, whether desired or obtained, it fitly served to remind the worshipper of his unworthiness of the boon, and his unfitness in himself to stand before God in peace when God should be drawing near. It was this feeling which gave rise to the sentiment, that no one could see God’s face and live, and which so often found vent for itself in the ancient worshipper, even when the manifestation actually given of God was of the most gracious kind. This is well brought out by Bähr in reference to the matter now under discussion, however his defective views have led him to misapply the statement, or to overlook the plain inferences deducible from it: “The reference to sin and atonement discovers itself in the most striking and decided manner, precisely in regard to that species of peace-offerings which was the most important and customary, and which might seem at first sight to have least to do with such a reference, viz., in the praise-offering. The word (תוֹדָה) comes from a verb, which signifies as well to confess to Jehovah sin, guilt, misconduct, as to ascribe adoration and praise to His name.—(Comp. Psalms 32:4; 1 Kings 8:33; also Joshua 7:19) The confession of sin can only be made in the light of God’s holiness; hence, when man confesses his sin before God, he at the same time confesses the holiness of God. But as holiness is the expression of the highest name of Jehovah, the confession of sin with Israel carries along with it the confession of the name of Jehovah; and every confession of this name, as the front and centre of all Divine manifestations, is at the same time glory and praise to God. Accordingly, the Hebrews necessarily thought in their praise-offerings of the confession of sin, and with this coupled the idea of an atonement; so that an atoning virtue was properly regarded as essentially belonging to this sacrifice.”[382] [382] Symbolik, ii., p. 379, 380. It was not peculiar to the peace-offerings (for the same also had place in the ordinary sin-offerings), but it was a more marked and pervading characteristic in them, that the fat, with the parts on which it chiefly lay (the kidneys and the greater lobe of the liver), had to be burnt on the altar. In such offerings this was the one part reserved for consumption by fire; and the reason undoubtedly was, that the fat stood nearest to the blood as the representative of life. It was in a manner “the efflorescence of the animal life “the sign of its full healthfulness and vigour; and hence, in well-fed animals, found clustering in greatest fulness around the more inward and vital parts of the system; though in the sheep also growing into a lump on the tail. On this account the term fat was commonly applied to everything that was best and most excellent of its kind (Genesis 45:18; Deuteronomy 32:14, etc.); and the fat of the offering, as the richest portion of the flesh, was fitly set apart for Jehovah. It was, however, peculiar to the peace-offerings that certain parts of the flesh were, by a special act of consecration, waving and heaving, set apart for the priests, and given them as their portion. These parts were the breast and the right shoulder. Why such in particular were chosen is nowhere stated; but it probably arose from their being somehow considered the more excellent parts. And in regard to the ceremony of consecration, according to Jewish tradition, it was performed by laying the parts on the hands of the offerer, and the priest putting his hands again underneath, then moving them in a horizontal direction for the waving, and in a vertical one for the heaving. It would appear that the ceremony was commonly divided, that one part of it alone was usually performed at a time, and that in regard to the peace-offerings the waving was peculiarly connected with the breast,—which is thence called the wave-breast, Leviticus 7:30; Leviticus 7:32; Leviticus 7:34,—and the heaving with the shoulder, for this reason called the heave-shoulder. There can be little doubt that the rite was intended to be a sort of presentation of the parts to God, as the supreme Ruler in all the regions of this lower world and in the higher regions above: the more suitable in connection with the peace-offerings, as these were acknowledgments of the Lord’s power and goodness in all the departments of Providence, and in the blessings which come down from above. When those parts were thus presented and set apart to the priesthood, the Lord’s familiars, the rest of the flesh, it was implied, was given up to the offerer, to be partaken of by himself and those he might call to share and rejoice with him. Among these he was instructed to invite, beside his own friends, the Levite, the widow, and the fatherless.—(Deuteronomy 12:18; Deuteronomy 16:11) This participation by the offerer and his friends, this family feast upon the sacrifice, may be regarded as the most distinctive characteristic of the peace-offerings. It denoted that the offerer was admitted to a state of near fellowship and enjoyment with God, shared part and part with Jehovah and His priests, had a standing in His house, and a seat at His table. It was therefore the symbol of established friendship with God, and near communion with Him in the blessings of His kingdom; and was associated in the minds of the worshippers with feelings of peculiar joy and gladness, but these always of a sacred character. The feast and the rejoicing were still to be “before the Lord,” in the place where He put His name, and in company with those who were ceremonially pure. And with the view of marking how far all impurity and corruption must be put away from such entertainments, the flesh had to be eaten on the first, or at farthest the second day, after which, as being no longer in a fresh state, it became an abomination. Turning our view to Christian times, we find the ideas symbolized in the peace-offering reappearing, and obtaining their adequate expression, both in Christ Himself and in His people. What it indicated in regard to the presenting of an atonement, could of course find its antitype only in Christ, as all the blood shed in ancient sacrifice pointed to that blood of His which alone cleanseth from sin. And inasmuch as all the blessing which Christ obtained for His Church were received in answer to intercessory prayer, and when received, formed the occasion also on His part of giving praise and glory to the Father, so here also we see the grand realization of the peace-offering in Him who, in the name and the behalf of His redeemed, could say, “My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation: I will pay My vows before them that fear Him.”—(Psalms 22:25) Viewed, however, as a representation of the state and feelings of the worshipper, the service of the peace-offering bears respect more directly and properly to the people of Christ than to Christ Himself. And so viewed, it exhibits throughout an elevated and faithful pattern of their spiritual condition, and the righteous principles and feelings by which that is pervaded. In the feast upon the sacrifice, the feeding at the Lord’s own table, and on the provisions of His house, we see the blessed state of honour and dignity to which the child of God is raised; his nearness to the Father, and freedom of access to the best things in His kingdom; so that he can rejoice in the goodness and mercy which are made to pass before him, and can say, “I have all, and abound.” But let it be remembered, that the very place where the feast was held—“before the Lord”—and the careful exclusion of all putrid appearances, give solemn warning that such a high dignity and blessed satisfaction can be held only by the sanctified mind, and the spiritual delight which is reaped cannot possibly consist with the love and practice of sin. Nay, in the prayers, the vows, the thanksgivings and praises with which those peace-offerings were accompanied, and of which they were but the outward expression, let it be perceived how much the possessors of this elevated condition should be exercised to the work of communion with Heaven, and especially how sweet should be to them “the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of the lips!”—(Hebrews 13:15) And then, in the way by which the worshipper attained to a fitness for enjoying the privilege referred to, namely, through the life-blood of atonement, how impressive a testimony was borne to the necessity of seeking the road to all dignity and blessing in the kingdom of God through faith in a crucified Redeemer! By Him has the provision been made, and the door opened, and the invitation issued to go in and partake. Such only as have been covered upon by His atoning blood can be admitted to taste, or be prepared to relish, the feast of fat things He sets before them; for through Him, as the grand medium of reconciliation and acceptance, must their persons be brought nigh, their devotions presented, and their souls prepared for communion and fellowship with God. The unsanctified by the blood of Christ must of necessity be aliens from God’s house hold, and strangers at His table. THE MEAT-OFFERING. The proper and distinctive name for what is called the meat offering, was mincha (מִנְחַה), although the word is sometimes used in a more extended sense, as a general name for offerings or things presented to the Lord. It is not expressly said that this kind of offering was only to be an addition to the two last species of bloody sacrifices (the burnt-offering and peace-offering), and that it could never be presented as something separate and independent. But the whole character of the Mosaic institutions, and the analogy of particular parts of them, certainly warrants the inference, that it was not the intention of God that the meat offering should ever be presented alone; as there was here no confession of sin and no expiation of guilt. And accordingly, when the children of Israel were enjoined to bring, on two separate occasions, special offerings of this kind,—the sheaf of first-fruits, and the two loaves (Leviticus 23:10-12; Leviticus 23:17-20),—on both occasions alike the offering had to be accompanied with the sacrifice of slain victims. The ordinary employment of the meat-offering was in connection with the burnt and peace-offerings, which were always to have it as a necessary and proper supplement.—(Numbers 15:1-13) The meat-offering, as to its materials, consisted principally of a certain portion of flour or cakes, with which, it would seem, there was always connected a suitable quantity of wine for a drink-offering. The latter is not mentioned in Leviticus 2, which expressly treats of the meat-offering, but is elsewhere spoken of as a usual accompaniment (Exodus 29:40; Leviticus 23:13; Numbers 15:5; Numbers 15:10, etc.), and was probably omitted in the second chapter of Leviticus for the same reason that it is also noticed only by implication with the show-bread, viz., that it formed quite a subordinate part of the offering, and was merely a sort of accessory. Being of the same nature with the show-bread, which will be treated of in next section, we need not enter here on any investigation into the design of the offering; but may simply mention, in respect to this generally, that it was appended to the two kinds of offerings specified, to show that the object of such offerings was the sanctification of the people by fruitfulness in well-doing, and that without this the end aimed at never could be attained. This meat-offering was not to be prepared with leaven or honey, but always with salt, oil, and frankincense. Leaven is a piece of dough in a state of putrefaction, the atoms of which are in a continual motion; hence it very naturally became an image of moral corruption. Plutarch assigns as the reason why the priest of Jupiter was not allowed to touch leaven, that “it comes out of corruption, and corrupts that with which it is mingled.”[383] This, however, has been thought by some to be too recondite a reason for the prohibition, especially as there can be no doubt that leavened bread was used in ordinary life by the covenant people, without apparently suggesting any idea of corruption. It is thought to be more natural, and altogether more in accordance with the original prohibition of leaven, to understand by it simply the old, that which savoured of the state of things to be done away, whereas the unleavened was the new, the fresh, the unmixed, consequently pure.—(Ewald, Keil, Baur, Legrer, etc.) Such, certainly, may have been the original ground on which leaven was forbidden, though in this way also it came to be viewed as a symbol of corruption—corruption as a penetrating and pervading power. The New Testament usage leaves no room to doubt, that while leaven might be viewed simply with reference to its penetrating and expansive qualities (Matthew 13:33), it was commonly understood to symbolize malice and wickedness—whatever tends to mar the simplicity and corrupt the purity of the people of God—from which, therefore, the symbolical offerings that represented the good works and holy lives of the worshipper must be kept separate.—(Matthew 16:6; Luke 12:1; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:9) The prohibition of honey is variously understood; and is very commonly regarded as interdicted for the same reason substantially which excluded leaven, as being both in itself, and as an article of diet, when taken in any quantity, liable to become sour and corrupt. So Winer, Bähr, Baumgarten, and many others. But this seems rather far-fetched, and has little to countenance it in the references made to honey in the Old Testament. There it almost uniformly appears as of all things in nature the most sweet and gratifying to the natural taste the fitting representative, therefore, of whatever is most pleasing to the flesh. Hence, as Jarchi says, “All sweet fruit was called honey;” and another Jewish authority, connecting the natural with the spiritual here, testifies that “the reason why honey was forbidden, was because evil concupiscence is sweet to a man as honey.”—(See Ainsworth on Leviticus 2:11.) As, therefore, the corrupting element of leaven was forbidden, to indicate the contrariety of everything spiritually corrupt to the pure worship and service of God, so here the most luscious production of nature was also prohibited, to indicate that what is peculiarly pleasing to the flesh is distasteful to God, and must be renounced by His faithful servants.[384] [383] Qu. Nom. ii. 289. [384] The prohibition of leaven and honey was only for the usual meat-offering, and did not apply to the first-fruits, as the first-fruits of everything had to be presented to the Lord; hence the wave-loaves were leavened, Leviticus 23:17, and honey is mentioned among the first-fruits presented in 2 Chronicles 31:5. These, however, did not come upon the altar, but were only presented to the Lord, and given to the priests. In regard to the ingredients with which the meat-offering was to be accompanied, there is scarcely any room for diversity of opinion. Salt is the great preservative of animal nature, opposing the tendency to putrefaction and decay. It was therefore well fitted to serve as a symbol of that moral and religious purity which is essential to the true worship of God, and on which all stability and order ultimately depend. Hence, also, it is called “the salt of the covenant of God,” being an emblem at once of the perpetuity of this, and of the principles of holy rectitude, the true elements of incorruption, for the maintenance of which it was established. When our Lord said to His disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth,” He wished them to know that it was their part to exercise in a moral respect the same sanatory, healthful, purifying, and preservative influence which salt did in the things of nature. And when again asserting that everyone should have “salt in themselves, and that every sacrifice must be salted with salt” (Mark 9:49-50), He intimates that the property which enters into the lives of God’s people, and renders them a sort of spiritual salt, must be within, consisting in the possession of a good conscience toward God.—The oil, symbol of the grace of God’s Spirit, with which the meat-offering was to be intermingled, implied that every good work, capable of being presented to God, must be inwrought by the Spirit of God. And that frankincense was to be put upon it, bespoke the connection between good works and prayer, and that all righteous action should be presented to God in the spirit of devotion. So that “the good works of the faithful are represented by the oil, as prompted, quickened, and matured by the Holy Spirit—by the frankincense, as made acceptable and borne heavenwards in prayer—and by the salt, as incorruptible, perpetually abiding signs and fruits of God’s covenant of grace.”Kurtz, Mos. Opfer, p. 102. Compare also what is said on the shew-bread in next section.[385] [385] The prohibition of leaven and honey was only for the usual meat-offering, and did not apply to the first-fruits, as the first-fruits of everything had to be presented to the Lord; hence the wave-loaves were leavened, Leviticus 23:17, and honey is mentioned among the first-fruits presented in 2 Chronicles 31:5. These, however, did not come upon the altar, but were only presented to the Lord, and given to the priests. Section Sixth.—The Holy Place—The Altar Of Incense—The Table Of Shew-Bread—The Candlestick. As the court of the Tabernacle was the place where the body of the covenant people could have access to God, so the Sanctuary or Holy Place was the more hallowed ground, where they could only appear by representation. Into this apartment the priests, in their behalf, went every day to accomplish the service of God, having freedom at all times to go in and out. It might therefore be justly regarded as their proper habitation; and the furniture and services belonging to it might as naturally be made to express their relation to God, as those of the Most Holy Place the relation of God to them. We shall find this fully borne out by a consideration of the several particulars. The first of these is— THE ALTAR OF INCENSE. Its position appears to have been the nearest to the veil, which formed the entrance into the Most Holy Place, and, indeed, immediately in front of it. “Thou shalt put it before the veil, that is, by the ark of the testimony; before the mercy-seat, that is, over the testimony, where I will meet with thee.” —(Exodus 30:6) The meaning of the direction obviously is, that this altar was to be placed directly before the veil, in close relationship to it, and in the middle of the apartment; and this for the reason that, being so placed, it might the more readily be viewed as standing in a kind of juxtaposition to the mercy-seat. Hence also, in Leviticus 16:18, it is called “the altar that is before the Lord,” being as near to His throne as the daily service to be performed at it admitted. In regard to its form and structure, it was a square-like box, on the top one cubit each way, and two cubits in height (i.e., about 3½ feet high, and 21 inches square on the top); made of shittim-wood overlaid with gold, with jutting points or corners called horns, and a crown or ornamented edge of gold. The name of misbeach (sacrificing place), commonly rendered altar, was applied to it, not from there being any sacrifices, in the strict sense, or slain victims presented on it,—for it served merely as a stand for the pot of incense which was placed on it,—but probably from the intimate connection in which it stood to the altar of burnt-offering. It was with live coals taken from this altar that the incense daily offered in the sanctuary was to be kindled; so that the one altar might be regarded as a kind of appanage to the other, serving to carry forward the intercourse with God, which it had begun. In its position nearer to the peculiar dwelling-place of Jehovah, this altar of incense bespoke intercourse with Him of a more advanced and intimate kind; and what we naturally expect to find in connection with it is a symbolical expression of the innermost desires and feelings of a devout spirit. On this account, also, it probably was, that of all the articles belonging to the Holy Place, the altar of incense alone was sprinkled with blood on the day of atonement, as being the highest in order of them all, and the one that held a peculiarly intimate relation to the mercy-seat; hence most fitly taken to represent them all. The incense, for the presentation of which before the Lord this altar was erected, was a composition formed of four kinds of sweet spices, stacte, onycha, galbanum, and pure frankincense—of which the latter alone is known with certainty. The composition was made, we have every reason to think, with the view of yielding the most fragrant and refreshing odour. The people were expressly forbidden to use it on any ordinary occasion, and the priests restricted to it alone for burning on the altar that there might be associated with it a feeling of the deepest sacredness. It possessed the threefold characteristic of “salted (not tempered together, as first in the LXX., and from that transferred into our version, Exodus 30:35; see Ainsworth there, and Bähr, i., p. 424), pure, holy;” that is, having in it a mixture of salt, the symbol of uncorruptness, but otherwise unmixed or unadulterated, and set apart from a common to a sacred use. And the ordinance connected with it was, that when the officiating priest went in to light the lamps in the evening, and again when he dressed the lamps in the morning, he was to place on this golden altar a pot of the prescribed incense with live coals taken from the altar without, that there might be “a perpetual incense “ascending before the Lord in this apartment of His house.—(Exodus 30:8) The meaning of the symbol is indicated with sufficient plainness even in Old Testament Scripture, and in perfect accordance with what might have been conjectured from the nature and position of the altar. Thus the Psalmist says, “Let my prayer be set before Thee as the incense” (Psalms 141:2), literally, Let my prayer, incense, be set in order before Thee, implying that prayer was in the reality what incense was in the symbol. The action also in Isaiah 6:3-4, where the voice of adoration is immediately followed by the filling of the temple with smoke, proceeds on the same ground; as by the smoke we are doubtless to understand the smoke of the incense, the only thing of that description commonly found there, and which, as an appropriate symbol, appeared to accompany the ascription of praise by the seraphim. Passing to New Testament Scripture, though still only to that portion which refers to Old Testament times, we are told of the people without being engaged in prayer, while Zacharias was offering incense within the sanctuary (Luke 1:10); they were in spirit going along with the priestly service. And in the book of Revelation the prayers of saints are once and again identified with the offering of incense on the golden altar before the throne.—(Revelation 5:8; Revelation 8:3-4)[386] [386] In the last of these passages the incense is said to have been offered “with the prayers of saints,” whence some have inferred that the two were different—that the incense symbolized only Christ’s intercession, and not the prayers of saints. But in ch. 5:8 the incense is expressly called “the prayers of saints.” And it is the usual style of the Apocalypse to couple the symbol with the reality, as, besides the instance before us, the golden candlesticks and the churches, the white linen and the righteousness of the saints, etc. That the devotional exercises, the prayers of God’s believing people, should have been symbolized by this offering of incense, may appear to some in our age and country to carry a somewhat fanciful appearance. Yet there is a very natural connection between the two, which persons accustomed to the rites of a symbolical worship could have had no difficulty in apprehending. For what are the odours of plants and flowers, but a kind of sweet breath, which they are perpetually exhaling? It is the free and genial outpouring of that spirit of fragrance which is in them. And taking prayer in its largest sense, which we certainly ought to do here, as consisting in the exercise of all devout feeling and spiritual desire towards God—in the due celebration of His adorable perfections—in thanksgiving for the rich and innumerable mercies received from His bountiful hand in humble supplications for His favour and blessing, if we understand prayer in this wide and comprehensive sense, how can it be more suitably regarded than as the breath of the Divine life in the soul? Here especially there is the pouring out before God of the best and holiest affections of the renewed heart. There is the earnest reaching forth of the soul to unite itself in appropriate actings with the great centre of Being, and to consecrate its best energies to Him. Of such spiritual sacrifices it is saying little, that the presentation of them at fitting times is a homage due to God from His redeemed offspring. The permission to offer them is, on their part, a high and ennobling privilege, in the exercise of which they rise to sit in heavenly places with Christ, and occupy the lofty position of princes with God. Nor, when done in sincerity and truth, can it ever fail, on God’s part, to meet with His cordial reception and most favourable regard. In such breathings of childlike confidence and holy affection He takes especial delight; and hence chose for a symbol of these the incense of sweet spices, that by the gratefulness of the one to the bodily sense, might be understood the spiritual satisfaction yielded by the other. But it ought ever to be considered what kind of devotions it is that rise with such acceptance to the sanctuary above. That the altar of incense stood before the Lord, under His immediateeye, intimates that the adorations and prayers He regards must be no formal service, in which the lip rather than the heart is employed; but a felt approach to the presence of the living God, and a real transaction between the soul and Him. That this altar, from its very position, stood in a close relation to the mercy-seat or propitiatory, on the one hand, and by its character and the live coals that ever burned in its golden vials, stood in an equally close relation to the altar of burnt-offering, on the other, tells us, that all acceptable prayer must have its foundation in the manifested grace of a redeeming God,—must draw its breath of life, in a manner, from that work of propitiation which He has in His own person accomplished for the sinful. And since it was ordained that a “perpetual incense before the Lord” should be ever ascending from the altar—since injunctions so strict were given for having the earthly sanctuary made peculiarly and constantly to bear the character of a house of prayer, most culpably deaf must we be to the voice of instruction that issues from it, if we do not hear enforced on all who belong to the spiritual temple of an elect Church, such a lesson as this—Pray without ceasing; the spirit of devotion is the very element of your being, the indispensable condition of health and fruitfulness; all, from first to last, must be sanctified by prayer; and if this be neglected, neither can you fitly be named a house of God, nor have you any ground to expect the blessing of Heaven on your means of grace and works of well-doing. THE TABLE OF SHEW-BREAD. This table was made of the same materials as the other articles in the tabernacle of the same height as the ark of the covenant, but half a cubit narrower in breadth; and as the table was for a service of food, a provision-board, it had connected with it what, in our version, are called “dishes, spoons, covers, and bowls,” the usual accompaniments of such a table among men. It is proper to notice, however, that these names scarcely suggest what is understood to have been the exact nature and design of the articles in question. What on such a table could be the use of spoons or covers, it is impossible to understand. The rendering, accordingly, of these parts of the description may with good reason be inferred to be erroneous, and in regard to the latter of them most certainly was so. Of the four subsidiary articles mentioned (Exodus 25:29), the first (קְעָרוֹת) were probably a sort of platters for carrying the bread to and from the table, on which also it might stand there; the second (פַפוֹת, fromכף , the hollow of the hand), some sort of hollow cups, or vessels, possibly for the frankincense (the LXX. have expressly censers); the third and the fourth, (קְשָׂווֹת) and (מְנַקְיוֹת), with the latter of which in Exodus 25:29, and with the former in Numbers 4:7, there is coupled the additional expression, “to pour withal “(not “to cover withal,” as in our version), were most likely the vessels appropriated for the wine, and are probably rendered with substantial correctness by the LXX. by words corresponding to “bowls and cups.” That we cannot fix more definitely the form and use of these inferior utensils, is of little moment; as we can have no doubt that they were simply such as were required for the provisions and services connected with the table itself. The vessels were all of pure gold. Turning, therefore, to the provisions here mentioned, the main part, we find, consisted of twelve cakes, which, when placed on the table, were formed into two rows or piles. The twelve, the signature of the covenant people, evidently bore respect to the twelve tribes of Israel, and implied, that in the symbolical design of these cakes the whole covenant people were equally interested and called to take a part. These cakes, as a whole, were called the “show-bread,” literally “bread of faces or presence.” The meaning of the expression may, without difficulty, be gathered from Exodus 25:30, where the Lord Himself names it “show-bread before Me always; “it was to be continually in His presence, or exhibited before His face, and was hence appropriately designated “show-bread,” or “bread of presence.” The table was never to be without it; and on the return of every Sabbath morning, the old materials were to be withdrawn, and a new supply furnished. Why precisely on the Sabbath, will be explained when we come to speak of the Moadeem, or stated feast-days. It has been thought that something more must have been intended by the peculiar designation “bread of presence,” than we have now mentioned, since, if this were all, the altar of incense and the golden candlestick might, with equal propriety, have been called the altar and candlestick of presence which, however, they never are (Bähr). But a special reason can easily be discovered for the peculiar appropriation of this epithet to the bread, viz., to prevent the Israelites from supposing,—what they might otherwise, perhaps, in their carnality, have done,—that this bread was, like bread in general, simply for being eaten; to instruct them, on the contrary, that it was rather for being seen and looked on with complacency by the holy and ever-watchful eye of God. They would thus more easily rise from the natural to the spiritual use, from the symbol to the reality. The bread, no doubt, was eaten by the officiating priests each Sabbath; not on the table, however, but only after having been removed from it, and simply because, being most holy, it might not be turned to a profane use, but must be consumed by God’s representatives in His own house. As connected with the table, its design was served by being exhibited and seen, for the well-pleased satisfaction and favourable regard of a righteous God; so that it is not possible to conceive a fitter designation than the one given to it, of shew-bread, or bread of presence. But in what character precisely was this bread laid upon the table? We are furnished with the answer in Leviticus 24:8, where it is described as “an offering from the children of Israel by a perpetual covenant;” a portion, therefore, of their substance, and consecrated to the honour of God. It was, consequently, a kind of sacrifice; and as the altar of God was, in a sense, His table, so this table of His in turn possessed somewhat of the nature of an altar:[387] the provision laid on it had the character of an offering. Hence, also, there was placed upon the top of each of the two rows a vessel with pure frankincense (Leviticus 24:7), which was manifestly designed to connect the offering on the table with the offering on the altar of incense, and to show that they not only possessed the same general character of offerings presented by the people to the Lord, but also that there existed a near internal relationship between the two: “Thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row for the bread, for a memorial (a calling to remembrance, viz., of the covenant people before the Lord), an offering of fire unto the Lord.” Now, the offering of incense was simply, as we have seen, an embodied prayer; and the placing of a vessel of incense upon this bread was like sending it up to God on the wings of devotion. It implied that the spiritual offering symbolized by the bread was to be ever presented with supplication, and only when so presented could it meet with the favour and blessing of Heaven. Thus hallowed and thus presented, the bread became a most sacred thing, and could only be eaten by the priests in the sanctuary: “for it is most holy (a holy of holies) unto him, of the offerings of the Lord, made by fire by a perpetual statute.” [387] Sicut enim ara mensa Dei, ita mensa Dei ara quaedam erat, araeque plane vicera praestabat. (Outram. Do Sac., L. i., c. 8, 7) It is also to be borne in mind, with the view of helping us to understand the symbolical import of the show-bread, that there was not only frankincense set upon each row, but also a vessel, or possibly two vessels, of wine placed beside them. This is not, indeed, stated in so many words, but is clearly implied in the mention made of bowls or vessels for “pouring out withal,” or making libation with them to God. Wine is well known to have been the kind of drink constantly used for the purpose; and the simple mention of such vessels, for such a purpose, must have been perfectly sufficient to indicate to the priesthood what was meant by this part of the provisions. Still, from the table deriving its name from the bread placed on it, and from the bread alone being expressly noticed, we are certainly entitled to regard it as by much the more important of the two, the main part of the provisions, and the wine only as a kind of accessory, or fitting accompaniment. But these two, bread or corn and wine, were always regarded in the ancient world as the primary and leading articles of bodily nourishment, and were most commonly put as the representatives of the whole means of life.—(Genesis 27:28; Genesis 27:37; Judges 19:19; Psalms 4:7; Haggai 2:12; Luke 7:33; Luke 22:19-20, etc.) And from the two being placed together on this table, with precisely such a prominence to the bread as properly belongs to it in the field of nature, it is impossible to doubt that something must have been symbolized here which bore a respect to the Divine life, similar to what these did in the natural. But the things presented here, we have already stated, possessed the character of an offering to the Lord: if spiritual food was symbolized, it must have been so in respect to Him. And how, it will naturally be asked, could His people present anything to Him that might with propriety be regarded as ministering nourishment or support to the all-sufficient God? Not certainly as if He needed anything from their hands, or could derive actual refreshment from whatever they might be capable of yielding in His service. But we must remember the relation in which Israel stood to God, and He again to Israel,—their relation first in respect to what was visible and outward,—and then we shall have no difficulty in perceiving how fitly what was here presented in that lower region shadowed forth what was due in respect to things spiritual and divine. The children of the covenant were sojourners with God in that land which was peculiarly His, and on which His blessing, if they only remained faithful to the covenant, was perpetually to rest. On their part, they were to obtain bread and wine in abundance for the comfortable support of their bodily natures, as the fruit of their labours in the cultivated fields and luxuriant vineyards of Canaan. And even in this point of view they owed a return of tribute-money to God, as the absolute Lord and Sovereign of the land, in token of their holding all in fief of Him, and deriving their increase from the riches of His bounty. This they were called to render in their tithes, and first-fruits, and free will offerings. But as the table of shew-bread was part of the furniture of God’s house, where all bore a religious and moral character, it is with the spiritual alone we have here to do, and with the outward and natural only as the symbol of the other. The children of the covenant, as God’s royal priesthood, had a spiritual relation to fill; they had a spiritual work to do for the interests of God’s kingdom, and in the doing of which they had also from His hand the promise of fruitfulness and blessing. How was such a result to appear? What here corresponds to the bread and wine obtained in the province of nature? It can only be the fruits of righteousness, for which the spiritual mind ever hungers and thirsts, and which, the more it grows in the Divine life, the more must it desire to have realized. But as the Divine life exists in its perfection with God, He must also supremely desire the same: a becoming return of righteousness from His people cannot be otherwise than a refreshment to His nature; and with such a spiritual increase, they must never leave His house unfurnished. Had they been the subjects of an earthly king, it would have been their part to keep his table replenished with provisions of a material kind, suited to the wants of a present life. But since God is a Spirit, infinitely exalted above the pressure of outward necessities, and seeking what is good only from His love to the interests of righteousness, it is their fruitful obedience to His commandments, their abounding in whatsoever things are just, honest, pure, lovely, and of good report, on which, as the very end of all the privileges He had conferred, His soul ever was, as it still is, supremely set. These are the provisions which, as labourers in His kingdom, they must be ever presenting before Him; and on these His eye ever rests with holy satisfaction, when sent up with the incense of true devotion from the humble and pious worshipper. Hence, while in Psalms 1, 13, 14, he repudiates the idea of His requiring such gross materials of refreshment as the blood and flesh of slain victims, He earnestly desires (Leviticus 24:14, Leviticus 24:23) the spiritual gifts of a pure and holy life. Sacrifices of any kind were acceptable only in so far as they expressed the feelings and desires of a righteous soul. If the community of Israel at large had entered aright into the mind of God, they would, in the ordinance of the shew-bread, have seen this to be their calling, and laboured with unfeigned earnestness to fulfil it. It was in reality done only by the spiritual members of the seed, who too frequently formed but a small portion of the whole. To such, however, Cornelius is plainly represented as belonging, even though he had not yet been admitted to an outward standing in the community of the faithful, when, in the language of this ordinance, it is said of him, that “his alms-deeds and his prayers came up for a memorial before God”—for a memorial or bringing to remembrance of the worshipper for his good; the very description given of the design of the shew-bread with its pot of incense. For God never calls His people to serve Him for nought. He seeks from them the fruits of righteousness, only that He may send them in return abundant recompenses of blessing. And every act of grace or deed of righteousness that proceeds from their hands, does for them in the upper sanctuary the part of a remembrancer, putting their heavenly Father, as it were, in mind of His promises of love and kindness. What encouragement to be faithful! How does God strew the path of obedience with allurements to the practice of every good and pious work! And in proportion to His anxiety in securing these happy results of righteousness and blessing, so must be His disappointment and indignation when scenes of an opposite kind present themselves to His view. Of this a striking representation was given by the symbolical action of our Lord in blasting the fig-tree, on which He went to seek fruit but found none (Matthew 21:19), and in the parables of the barren fig-tree in the vineyard, and of the wicked husbandman to whom a certain householder let out his vineyard.—(Luke 13:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43; comp. also Isaiah 5:1-7) It is scarcely necessary to add, that the lesson taught in the ordinance of the shew-bread speaks with a still louder voice to the Christian than it could possibly do to the Jewish believer; as the gifts of grace conferred now are much larger than formerly, and the revenue of glory which God justly expects to accrue from them should also be proportionally increased. We accordingly find in New Testament Scripture the strongest calls addressed to believers, urging them to fruitfulness in all well doing; and every doctrine, as well as every privilege of grace, is employed as a motive for inciting them to run the way of God’s commandments. So much is this the characteristic of the Gospel, that its highest demands on the obedience of men come always in connection with its fullest exhibitions of grace to their souls; and nothing can be more certain than that, according as they become subject to its influence, they are effectually taught to “deny themselves to all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world.”[388] [388] The provisions of the table of shew-bread were but another and higher mode of exhibiting what was constantly being presented directly by the people in the outer court by means of the meat and drink-offerings. THE GOLDEN CANDLESTICK. This is the only remaining article of sacred furniture in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle. Its position was to be on the south side, opposite the table of shew-bread, the altar of incense being in the middle, and somewhat nearer to the veil of separation. It was not so properly a candlestick, as a stand or support for lamps. It was ordered to be made with one erect stem in the centre, and on each side three branches rising out of the main stem in regular gradation, and each having at the top a place fitted for holding a lamp, on the same level and of the same construction with the one in the centre. The material was of solid gold, and of a talent in weight; so that it must have been one of the costliest articles in the tabernacle. In the description given of the candlestick, nothing is said of its height, or of the proportions of its several parts. Both in the stem, however, and in the branches, there was to be a threefold ornament wrought into the structure, called “bowls, knops, and flowers.” The bowls or cups appear to have been fashioned so as to present some resemblance to the almond-tree (Exodus 25:33), as, in the passage referred to, they are called “almond-shaped cups.” The knops or globes are supposed by Josephus to have been pomegranates, and by the ancient Jewish writers generally to have been apples; but the word used in the original is not that elsewhere employed for apples or pomegranates, and there is no certain ground for holding such to be the meaning of the term here. That they were some sort of rounded figures, is all we can certainly know of them. And from the relative position of the three, according to which the flowers come last, it seems out of place to find in the candlestick a representation of a fruit-bearing tree, with a trunk, and on each side three flowering and fruitful branches. We should at least proceed on fanciful ground, did we make anything depend for the interpretation of the symbol on this notion; and for aught we can see to the contrary, the figures in question may have been designed simply as graceful and appropriate ornaments. Its being of solid gold denoted the excellency of that which it symbolized; and the light it diffused being sevenfold (seven being the signature of the holy covenant, hence of sanctification, holiness) denoted that all was of an essentially pure and sacred character. In the lamps on this candlestick Aaron was ordered to burn pure olive oil; but only, it would seem, during the night. For in Exodus 27:21 he is commanded to cause the lamps to burn “from evening to morning before the Lord;” and in Exodus 30:7-8, his “dressing the lamps in the morning “is set in opposition to his “lighting them in the evening.” The same order is again repeated in Leviticus 24:3. And in accordance with this we read in 1 Samuel 3:3 of the Lord’s appearing to Samuel “before the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord “—which can only mean early in the morning, before sunrise. Josephus, indeed, mentions that the custom was to keep the lamps burning night and day; but this only shows that the arrangement in the second temple varied from the original constitution. The candlestick appears to have been designed in its immediate use to form a substitute for the natural light of the sun; and it must hence have been intended that the outer veil should be drawn up at break of day, as in ordinary tents, so far as might be needed to give light for any ministrations that should be performed in the sanctuary. This symbol has received such repeated illustration in other parts of Scripture, that there is scarcely any room for difference of opinion as to its fundamental import and main idea. In the first chapter of Revelation, the image occurs in its original form, “the seven golden lamps” (not candlesticks, as in our version, but the seven lamps on the one candlestick), which are explained to mean “the seven churches.” These churches, however, are to be understood not merely as so many organized communities, but as replenished by the Spirit of God, and full of Divine light and power; and hence in the 4th chapter of the same book we again meet with seven lamps of fire before the throne of God, which are said to be “the seven spirits of God”—either the One Spirit of God in His varieties of holy and spiritual working, or seven presiding spirits of light fitted by that Spirit for the ministrations referred to in the heavenly vision. Throughout Scripture—as we have already seen in ch. iii. of this part—oil is uniformly taken for a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It is so not less with respect to its light-giving property than to its qualities for anointing and refreshment; and hence the prophet Zechariah, Zechariah 4, represents the exercise of the Spirit’s gracious working and victorious energy in behalf of the Church, under the image of two olive trees pouring oil into the golden candle stick the Church being manifestly imaged in the candlestick, and the Spirit’s assisting grace in the perpetual current of oil with which it was supplied. Clearly, therefore, what we see in the candlestick of the tabernacle is the Church’s relation to God as the possessor and reflector of the holy light that is in Him, which she is privileged to receive, and bound again to give forth to others, so that where she is there must be no darkness, even though all around should be enveloped in the shades of night. It is her high distinction to dwell in a region of light, and to act under God as the bountiful dispenser of its grace and truth. But what exactly is meant by darkness and light in this relation? Darkness, in a moral sense, is the element of error, of corruption and sin; the rulers of darkness are the heads and instigators of all malice and wickedness; and the works of darkness are the manifold fruits of unrighteous principle. Light, on the other hand, is the element of moral rectitude, of sound know ledge or truth in the understanding, and of holiness in the heart and conduct. The children of light are those who, through the influence of the Spirit of Truth, have been brought to love and practise the principles of righteousness; and the deeds of light are such as may stand the examination and receive the approval of God. When of God Himself it is said, that “He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,” it implies not only that He is possessed of all spiritual discernment so as to be able to distinguish with unerring precision between the evil and the good, but also that this good itself, in all its principles of truth and forms of manifestation, alone bears sway in His character and government. And so, when the Apostle writes to believers (Ephesians 5:8), “Ye are light in the Lord, walk as children of the light,” he immediately adds, with the view at once of explaining and of enforcing the statement, “for the fruit of the Spirit (or of light, as it is now generally read) is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth:” these are the signs and manifestations of spiritual light; and only in so far as your life is distinguished by these, do you prove and verify your title to the name of children of light. The ordinance, therefore, of the golden candlestick, with its sevenfold light, told the Church of that age—tells the Church, indeed, of every age—that she must bear the image of God, by walking in the light of His truth, and shining forth in the garments of righteousness for the instruction and edification of others. Our Lord virtually gives a voice to the ordinance, when He says to His disciples, “Ye are the light of the world: let your light so shine before men, that they seeing your good works may glorify your Father in heaven.” Or it may be heard in the stirring address of Isaiah, pointing to Christian times: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord has arisen upon thee.” As much as to say, Now, since the true light has shone, since He has come who is Himself the life and the light of men, it is day with thee; therefore, not a time to slumber and take thy rest, but to be up and doing in thy Master’s service. Self-pleasing inaction, or unhallowed enjoyment, is no privilege in God’s kingdom. He has brought to thy hand the richest talents of grace, not that they may be wrapt up in a napkin, but faithfully laid out for the glory of Him who conferred them. Arise, therefore, and shine; reflect the light which has shone from heaven upon thy soul; give forth, in the acts of a consistent and godly life, becoming manifestations of that glory which the Spirit of Glory has poured around thy spiritual condition. In the preceding discussions regarding the Holy Place, we have avoided referring to the interpretations of the elder typologists, or the views of commentators. It would have taken too long to notice every diversity, and it seemed better to notice none till we had unfolded what we conceive to be the correct view of the several parts. And this, we trust, has appeared so natural, and is so fully borne out by the language of Scripture, that the contrary opinions may be left without special consideration. Indeed, little more is needed than to look at them, to see how uncertain and unsatisfactory they commonly are, even to those who propound them. Bähr, indeed, speaks dogmatically enough, although his fundamental error regarding the general design of the tabernacle, formerly referred to, carried him here also for the most part in the wrong direction. But take, for example, what Scott says in his commentary regarding the shew-bread, which may be paralleled by many similar explanations: “They (the cakes) might typify Christ as the bread of life and the continual food of the souls of His people, having offered Himself unto God for them; or they may denote the services of believers, presented before God through Him, and accepted for His sake; or, the whole may mean the communion betwixt our reconciled Father and His adopted children in Christ Jesus, who, as it were, feast at the same table,” etc. What can any one make of this diversity of meaning? When the mind is treated to so many and such different notions under one symbol, it necessarily takes in none distinctly; they become merely so many perhapses; and instead of multiplying the benefit and instruction of the ordinance, we only leave it without any clear or definite import. The ground of most of the erroneous interpretations on the furniture and services of the Holy Place, lay in understanding all directly and peculiarly of Christ. And this, again, arose from not perceiving that the Tabernacle was intended to symbolize what concerned the people as dwelling with God, not less than what concerned God’s dwelling with them. It is not to be forgotten, however, that when Christ is contemplated, not as the substitute, but as the Head, the Pattern, and Forerunner of His people, everything that was here shadowed forth concerning them is true in a pre-eminent sense of Him. His prayers, His work of righteousness, and His exhibition of the light of Divine truth and holiness, take precedence of all that in a like kind ever has been, or ever may be, presented by the members of His body. But as Christ’s whole undertaking is something sui generis, and chiefly to be viewed as the means of securing salvation and peace, provided by God for His people as under this view it is more especially symbolized in the furniture and services of the Most Holy Place, it is better, and more agreeable to the design of the tabernacle, to consider the things belonging to the Holy Place as having immediate respect to the calling and services of Christ’s people. Section Seventh.—The Most Holy Place, With Its Furniture, And The Great Annual Service Connected With It On The Day Of Atonement. THOUGH the tabernacle, as a whole, was God’s house or dwelling-place among His people, yet the innermost of its two apartments alone was appropriated for His peculiar place of abode the seat and throne of His kingdom. It was there, in that hallowed recess, where the awful symbol of His presence appeared, or possibly had its fixed abode, and from which, as from His very presence-chamber, the high priest was to receive the communications of His grace and will, to be through Him made known to others. The things, therefore, which concern it, most immediately and directly respect God: we have here, in symbol, the more special revelation of what God Himself is in relation to His people. I. The apartment itself was a perfect cube of ten cubits, thus bearing on all its dimensions the symbol of completeness—an image of the all-perfect character of the Being who condescended to occupy it as the region of His manifested presence and glory. The ark of the covenant, with the tables of the testimony, and the mercy-seat, with the two cherubims at each end, formed originally and properly its whole furniture. The ark or chest, which was simply made as a depository for holding the two tables of the law, the tables of the covenant, was formed of boards of shittim-wood, overlaid with gold, two and a half cubits long by one and a half broad, with a crown, or raised and ornamented border of gold, around the top. This latter it had in common with the table of shew-bread and the altar of incense; so that it could not have been meant to denote anything connected with the peculiar design of the ark, and in all the cases, indeed, it seems merely to have been added for the purpose of forming a suitable and becoming ornament. The mercy-seat, as it is called in our version, was a piece of solid gold, of precisely the same dimensions in length and breadth as the ark, and ordered to be placed above, on the top of it, probably so as to go within the crown of gold, and fit closely in with it. The Hebrew name is capporeth, or covering; but not exactly in the sense of being a mere lid or covering for the ark of the covenant. This might be said rather to suggest than to express the real meaning of the term, as used in the present connection. For the capporeth is never mentioned as precisely the lid of the ark, or as simply designed to cover and conceal what lay within. It rather appears as occupying a place of its own, though connected with and attached to the ark, yet by no means a mere appendage to it; and hence, both in the descriptions and the enumerations given of the holy things in the tabernacle, it is mentioned separately.—(Exodus 25:17; Exodus 26:34; Exodus 35:12; Exodus 39:35; Exodus 40:20) It sometimes even appears to stand more prominently out than the ark itself, and to have been peculiarly that for which the Most Holy Place was set apart; as in Leviticus 16:2, where this Place is described by its being ”within the veil before the mercy-seat,” and in 1 Chronicles 28:11, where it is simply designated “the house of the capporeth,” or mercy-seat. What, then, was the precise object and design of this portion of the sacred furniture? It was for a covering, indeed, but for that only in the sense of atonement. The word is never used for a covering in the ordinary sense; wherever it occurs, it is always as the name of this one article—a name which it derived from being peculiarly and pre-eminently the place where covering or atonement was made for the sins of the people. There was here, therefore, in the very name, an indication of the real meaning of the symbol, as the kind of covering expressed by it is covering only in the spiritual sense—atonement. Hence the rendering of the LXX. was made with the evident design of bringing out this: ἱλαστήριον ἐπίθεμα (a propitiatory covering). Yet, while the name properly conveys this meaning, it was not given without some respect also to the external position of the article in question, which was immediately above and upon, not the ark merely, but also the tables of the testimony within: “And thou shalt put the mercy-seat upon the ark of the testimony” (Exodus 26:34); “the mercy-seat that is over the testimony” (Exodus 16:34); “that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy-seat that is upon the testimony.”—(Leviticus 16:13) The tables of the covenant, as formerly explained (p. 110), contained God’s testimony, primarily indeed for what, in His character of holiness, He required of His people, but not without regard to the counter tendency which existed in them; so that incidentally it became also a testimony against them on account of sin; and as they could not stand before it when thundered with terrific majesty in their ears from Mount Sinai, neither could they spiritually stand before the accusations it was constantly raising against them in the presence of God, in the Most Holy Place. A covering was therefore needed for them between it, on the one hand, and God on the other—but an atonement-covering. A mere external covering would not do; for the searching, all-seeing eye of Jehovah was there, from which nothing outward can conceal; and the law itself also, from which the covering was needed, is spiritual, reaching to the inmost thoughts of the heart, as well as to every action of the life. That the mercy-seat stood over the testimony, and shut it out from the bodily eye, was a kind of shadow of the provision required; but still, even under that dispensation, no more than the shadow, and fitted not properly to be, but only to suggest, what was really required, viz., a covering in the sense of an atonement. The covering required must be a propitiatory, a place on which the holy eye of God may ever see the blood of reconciliation; and the Most Holy Place, as designated from it, and deriving thence its most essential characteristic, might fitly be called “the house of the propitiatory,” or the “atonement-house.”—(1 Chronicles 28:11) At the two ends of this mercy-seat, and rising, as it were, out of it—a part of the same piece, and constantly adhering to it—there were two cherubim, made of beaten gold, without stretched wings overarching the mercy-seat, and looking inwards towards each other, and towards the mercy-seat, with an appearance of holy wonder and veneration. The symbolical import of these ideal figures has already been fully investigated,[389] and nothing more is necessary here than a brief indication of their design as connected with the mercy-seat. Placed as they were with their outstretched wings rising aloft and overshadowing the mercy-seat, they gave to this the appearance of a glorious seat or throne, suited for the occupation or residence of God in the symbolic cloud as the King of Israel. That forms of created beings were made to surround this throne of Deity, and impart to it an appearance of becoming grandeur and majesty—this was simply an outward embodiment of the fact, that God ever makes Himself known as the God of the living, of whom not only have countless myriads been formed by His hand, but attendant hosts also continually minister around Him and celebrate His praise. And that the particular forms here used were compound figures, representations of ideal beings, and beings whose component parts consisted of the highest kinds of life on earth in its different spheres,—man first and chiefly, and with him the ox, the lion, and the eagle,—this, again, denoted that the forms and manifestations of creature-life, among whom and for whom God there revealed Himself, were not of heaven, but of earth chiefly,—indeed, and pre-eminently man, who, when the work of redemption is complete, and he is fitted to dwell in the most excellent glory of the Divine presence, shall be invested with the properties of what is still to Him but an ideal perfection, and be made possessor of a yet higher nature, and stand in yet nearer fellowship with God than he did in the paradise that was lost. But these new hopes of fallen humanity all centre in the work of reconciliation and love shadowed forth upon the mercy-seat: thither, therefore, must the faces of these ideal heirs of salvation ever look, and with outstretched wing hang around the glorious scene, as in wondering expectation of the things now proceeding in connection with it, and hereafter to be revealed. So that God sitting between the cherubim is God revealing Himself as on a throne of grace, in mingled majesty and love, for the recovery of His fallen family on earth, and their final elevation to the highest region of life, and blessedness, and glory. This explanation applies substantially to the curtains, which appear to have formed the whole interior of the tabernacle, and which were throughout inwrought with figures of cherubim. Not the throne merely, but the entire dwelling of God, was in the midst of these representatives (as we conceive them to have chiefly been) of redeemed and glorified humanity. [389] Vol. i., B. ii., s. 3. The articles now described formed properly the whole furniture of the Most Holy Place, being all that was required to give a suitable representation of the character and purposes of God in relation to His people. But three other things were after wards added, and placed, as it is said, before the Lord, or before the testimony—the pot of manna, the rod of Aaron, and the entire book of the law. These were all lodged there in the immediate presence of God, as in a safe and appropriate depository—lodged partly as memorials of the past, and partly as signs and witnesses for the future. The manna testified of God’s power and willingness to give food for the life of His people even in the most destitute circumstances—to sustain life in parched lands—and was ready to witness against them in all time coming, if they should distrust His goodness or repair to other sources for life and blessing. The rod of Aaron, which in itself was as dry and lifeless as the rods of the other tribes, but which, through the peculiar grace and miraculous power of God, “brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds,” testified of the appointment of Aaron to the priestly office—of him alone, though not, as some wickedly affirmed, to the detriment and death of the congregation, but rather for their life and fruitfulness in all that is pure and good. It was therefore well fitted to serve as a witness in every age against those who might turn aside from God’s appointed channel of grace, and choose to themselves other modes of access to Him than such as He had Himself chosen and ordained. Finally, the book of the law, which contained all the statutes and ordinances, the precepts and judgments, the threatenings and promises, delivered by the hand of Moses, and which it was the part of the priests and Levites to teach continually, and on the seventh or sabbatical year to read throughout in the audience of the people,—this being put beside, or in the ark of the covenant, testified God’s care to provide His people with a full revelation of His will, and stood there as a perpetual witness before God against His ministering servants, in case they should prove unfaithful to their charge.—(Deuteronomy 31:26) But these things were rather accessories to the furniture of the Most Holy Place, than essential parts of it. The ark of the covenant, with the tables of testimony within, and the mercy-seat with the cherubim of glory above, upon the testimony, these alone were the sacred things, for the reception of which that interior sanctuary was properly reserved and set apart. It is only with these, therefore, that we have now to do. II. Now, considered in themselves, and without respect to any service connected with them, what a clear and striking representation did they present to the Israelite of the spiritual and holy nature of God! How much was here to be learned of His perfections and character! It is true, as certain writers have been at pains to tell us, there was nothing absolutely original in the plan of a sacred building or structure having an inner sanctuary, with a chest or shrine of the Deity deposited there, in whose honour the house was erected. But what then? Does this general similarity account for what we have here, or place the one upon a level with the other? Far from it. For what do we perceive, when we look into those shrines that stood in the innermost recesses, more especially of Egyptian temples? Some paltry or hideous idol, formed after the similitude of a beast, sacredly preserved and worshipped as a representative of the Deity, and this only as a substitute for the living creatures themselves, which appear to have been kept in the larger temples. “Living animals (says Jablonsky, Pan. Proll., p. 86), such as were worshipped for images or statues, and treated with all Divine honours, were to be found only in temples solemnly consecrated to the gods, and indeed only in certain of these. But effigies of these animals were to be seen in many other temples through the whole of Egypt, and are still discovered among their ruins; And another says, “Some of the sacred boats or arks contained the emblems of life and stability, which, when the veil was drawn aside, were partially seen; and others presented the sacred beetle of the sun, overshadowed by the wings of two figures of the goddess Thmei or Truth.”[390] But what, on the other hand, do we perceive, when we turn from these instruments of a debasing and abominable superstition, to look into the inner most sanctuary of the tabernacle? No outward similitude of any kind that might be taken for an emblem or an image of God; nor any representation of Him but what was to be found in that revelation of law which unfolds what He is in Himself, by disclosing what He requires of moral and religious duty from His people,—a law which, the more reason is enlightened, the more does it consent to as “holy, just, and good,” and which, therefore, reveals a God infinitely worthy of the adoration and love of His creatures. We here discern an immeasurable gulph between the religion of Moses and that of the nations of heathen antiquity; and see also how the Israelites were taught, in the most central arrangements of their worship, the necessity of serving God in spirit, and of rendering all their worship subservient to the cultivation of the great principles of holiness and truth. [390] Wilkinson, v., p. 265, last ed. We should doubt if in any case emblems of life and stability formed the only or even the chief figures, since beast-worship was the leading characteristic of Egyptian idolatry. But even in external form, none of the articles referred to present any proper resemblance of the ark of God. They always possess the ship or boat form, with something like an altar in the midst; they have nothing corresponding to the mercy-seat; and the chief purpose for which they appear to have been used, was to preserve an image of the creature that was worshipped as emblematical of the god. But, considered farther, with reference to the professed object and design of the whole, what correct and elevated views were here presented of the fellowship between God and men! Had God only appeared as represented by the law of perfect holiness, who then could stand before Him? Or if without law, as a God of mercy and compassion, stooping to hold converse with sinful men, and receiving them back to His favour, what security should have been taken for guarding the rectitude of His government? But here, with the ark and the mercy-seat together, we behold Him, in perfect adaptation to the circumstances of men, appearing at once as the just God and the Saviour—keeping in His innermost sanctuary, nay, placing underneath His throne, as the very foundation on which it rested, the revelation of His pure and holy law, and, at the same time, providing for the transgressions of His people a covering of mercy, that they might still draw near to Him and live. It is already in principle the mystery of redemption—the manifestation of a God essentially just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly—of a God whose throne is alike the dwelling-place of righteousness and mercy—righteousness upholding the claims of law, mercy stretching out the sceptre of grace to the penitent: both, even then, continually exercised, but rising at length to unspeakably their grandest display on the cross of Calvary, where justice is seen rigidly exacting of the Lamb of God the penalty due to transgression, and mercy providing, at an infinite cost, a way for the guilty to peace and blessing. Since the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat contained such a complete revelation of what God was in Himself and toward His people, we can easily understand why the symbol of His presence, the overshadowing cloud of glory, should have been immediately in connection with that, and why the life and soul of the whole Jewish theocracy should have been contemplated as residing there. There peculiarly was “the place of the Lord’s throne, and the place of the soles of His feet, where He had His dwelling among the children of Israel.”—(Ezekiel 43:7) Hence it was called emphatically “the glory of the Lord;” and on their possession or loss of this sacred treasure, the people of God felt that all which properly constituted their glory depended.—(Psalms 78:61; 1 Samuel 4:21-22) It was before this, as containing the symbol of a present God, that they came to worship (Joshua 7:6; 2 Chronicles 5:6); and from a passage in the life of David (2 Samuel 15:32), where it is said, according to the proper rendering, “And it came to pass that when David was come to the top (of the Mount of Olives, where the last look could be obtained of the sacred abode), where it is wont to do homage to God,” it would appear, that as soon as they came in sight of the place of the ark, or obtained their last view of it, they were in the habit of prostrating themselves in adoration. Happy, if they had but sufficiently remembered that Jehovah, being in Himself, and even there representing Himself, as a spiritual and holy God, while He condescended to make the ark His resting-place, and to connect with it the symbol of His glory (Leviticus 16:2, “for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat”), yet could not so indissolubly bind His presence and His glory to it, as if the one might not be separated from the other! By terrible things in righteousness the Israelites were once and again made to learn this salutary lesson, when, rather than appear their patron and guardian in sin, the Lord showed that He would, in a manner, leave His throne empty, and surrender His glory into the enemy’s hands. The cloud of glory was still but a symbol, which must disappear when the glorious Being who resided in it could no longer righteously manifest His goodness, and the ark itself, and the tabernacle that contained it, became as a common thing. Nor is it otherwise now, whenever men come to hold the truth of God in unrighteousness. The partial extent to which they exercise belief in the truth utterly fails to secure for them any real tokens of His regard. Even while they handle the symbols of His presence, He is to them an absent God; and when the hour of trial comes, they find themselves forsaken and desolate. III. But it is only when viewed in connection with the service of the day of atonement,—the one day on which the Most Holy Place was entered by the high priest,—that we can fully perceive either the symbolical import or the typical bearing of its sacred furniture. We therefore notice this service here, in connection with the place which it chiefly respected, rather than postpone the consideration of it to the time when it was performed. That not only no Israelite, but that no consecrated priest, not even the high priest himself, was permitted at all times to enter within the veil, that even he was limited in the exercise of this high privilege to one day in the year, “lest he should die,”—this most impressively bespoke the difficulties which stood in the way of a sinner’s approach to the righteous God, and how imperfectly these could be removed by the ministrations of the earthly tabernacle, and the blood of slain beasts. It indicated that the holiness which reigned in the presence of God, required on the part of men a work of righteousness to lay open the way of access, such as could not then be brought in, and that while the Church should gladly avail itself of the temporary and imperfect means of reconciliation then placed within her reach, she should be ever looking forward to a brighter period, when every obstruction being removed, her members would be able to go with freedom into the presence of God, and with open face behold the manifestations of His glory. 1. In considering more closely the service in question, we have first to notice the leading character of the day’s solemnities. The day, which was the tenth of the seventh month, and usually happened about the beginning of our October, was to be “a Sabbath of rest” (Leviticus 16:31), yet not, like other Sabbaths, a day of repose and satisfaction, but a day on which “they should afflict their souls.” It is not expressly said they were to fast (nor is fasting as an ordinance ever prescribed in the Pentateuch), but it would very naturally come to be observed in that way, and in later times was familiarly styled the fast.—(Acts 27:9) This striking peculiarity in the mode of its observance arose from the nature of the service peculiar to it; it was the day of atonement, or, literally, of atonements (Leviticus 23:27), not a day so much for one act of atonement, as for atonement in general—for the whole work of propitiation. The main part of the Mosaic worship consisted in the presentation of sacrifice, as the guilt of sin was perpetually calling for new acts of purification; but on this one day the idea of atonement by sacrifice rose to its highest expression, and became concentrated in one grand comprehensive series of actions. In suitable correspondence to this design, the sense of sin was in like manner to be deepened to its utmost intensity in the national mind, and exhibited in appropriate forms of penitential grief. It was a day of humiliation and godly sorrow working unto repentance. But why all this peculiarity on the day of entrance into the Most Holy Place? Was it not a good and joyful occasion for men personally, or through their representative, to be admitted into such near fellowship with God? Doubtless it was; but that dwelling-place of God is a region of absolute holiness: the fiery law is there which reveals the purity of heaven, and is ready to flame forth in indignation and wrath against all unrighteousness of men. And so the day of nearest approach to God, as it was on His part the day of atonement, must be on the part of His people a day for the remembrance of sin, and for the exercise of that godly sorrow and contrition which it ought to awaken. For to the penitent alone is there forgiveness; not simply to men as sinners, but to men convinced of sin, and humbling themselves before God on account of it. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive them;” but without confession there can be no forgiveness, no atonement, as we have not yet entered into God’s mind respecting the character and desert of sin. 2. But if the remembrance of iniquity which was made on this day, gave to it a character of depression and gloom, the purpose and design of its services could not fail to render it in the result a season of blessed rest and consolation. For atonement was then made for all sin and transgression. It was virtually implied, that the acts of expiation which were ever taking place throughout the year, but imperfectly satisfied for the iniquities of the people, since the people were still kept outwardly at some distance from the immediate dwelling-place of God, and could not even through their consecrated head be allowed to go within the veil. So that when a service was instituted with the view of giving a representation of complete admission to God’s presence and fellowship, the mass of sin must again be brought into consideration, that it might be blotted out by a more perfect atonement. And not only so, but as God’s dwelling and the instruments of His worship were ever contracting defilement, from “remaining among men in the midst of their uncleanness,” so these also required to be annually purified on this day by the more perfect atonement, which was then made in the presence of God. Not that these things were in themselves capable of contracting guilt; they were so viewed merely in respect to the sins of the people, which were ever proceeding around them, and, in a sense, in the very midst of them. For the structure and arrangements of the tabernacle proceeded on the idea, that the people there dwelt (symbolically) with God, as God with them; and consequently the sins of the people in all their families and habitations were viewed as coming up into the sanctuary, and defiling by their pollutions the holy things it contained. No separate offering, therefore, was presented for these holy things, but they were sprinkled with the blood that was shed for the sins of the land, as these properly were what defiled the sanctuary. And that no remnant of guilt, or of its effects, might appear to be left behind, the atonement was to be made and accepted for sin in all its bearings—for the high priest and his house, for the people in all their families, for the tabernacle and all its utensils. 3. In this service, then, which contained the quintessence of all sacrifice, and gave the most exact representation the ancient worship could afford of the all-perfect atonement of Christ, there was everything in the manner of accomplishing it to mark its singular importance and solemnity. The high priest alone had here to transact with God; and as the representative of the entire spiritual community, he entered with their sins as well as his own, into the immediate presence of God. After the usual morning oblations, at which, if he had personally officiated, he had to strip himself of the rich and beautiful garments with which he was wont to be attired, as unsuitable for the services of a day which was fitted to stain the glory of all flesh; and after having washed himself, he put on the plain garments, which, from the stuff (linen) and from the colour (white), were denominated “garments of holiness” (Leviticus 16:4), and were peculiarly appropriated for the work of this day. Then, when thus prepared, he had first of all to take a bullock for a sin-offering for himself and his house, that is, the whole sacerdotal family, and go with the blood of this offering within the veil. Yet not with this alone, but also it is said with a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord (viz., the altar of incense, though the coals for it had to be obtained from the altar of burnt-offering); and to this he was to apply handfuls of incense, that there might arise a cloud of fragrant odours as he entered the Most Holy Place—the emblem of acceptable prayer. The meaning was, that with all the pains he had taken to purify himself, and with the blood, too, of atonement in his hand, he must still go as a suppliant into that region of holiness, as one who had no right to demand admittance, but humbly imploring it from the hand of a gracious God. Having thus entered within, he had to sprinkle with the blood upon the mercy-seat, and again before the mercy-seat seven times: the seven the number of the oath or the covenant; and the double act of atonement, first, apparently, having respect to the persons interested, and then to the apartments and furniture of the sanctuary, as defiled by their uncleanness. When this more personal act of expiation was completed, that for the sins of the people commenced. Two goats were presented at the door of the tabernacle, which, though two, are still expressly named one victim (Leviticus 16:5, “two kids of the goats for a sin-offering”), so that the sacrifice consisted of two, merely from the natural impossibility of otherwise giving a full representation of what was to be done; the one being designed more especially to exhibit the means, the other the effect, of the atonement. And this circumstance, that the two goats were properly but one sacrifice, and also that they were together presented by the high priest before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle (Leviticus 16:7), indisputably stamped the sacrifice as the Lord’s. Nor was the same obscurely intimated in the action which there took place respecting them, viz., the casting of lots upon them; for this was wont to be done only with what peculiarly belonged to God, and for the purpose of ascertaining what might be His mind in the matter. The point to be determined respecting the two, was not, which God might claim for Himself, and which might belong to another, but simply to what particular destination He appointed the two parts of a sacrifice, which was wholly and exclusively His own. And, indeed, the destination itself of each as thus determined could not be materially different; it could not have been an entirely diverse or heterogeneous destination, since it appeared in itself an immaterial thing which should take the one place arid which the other, and was only to be determined by the casting of the lot.[391] [391] See Bähr, Symbolik, ii., p. 678. Of these lots, it is said that the one was to be for the Lord, and the other for the scape-goat, as in our version, but literally for Azazel. The one on which the Lord’s lot fell was forthwith to be slain as a sin-offering for the sins and transgressions of the people; and with its blood, as with that of the bullock previously, the high priest again entered the Most Holy Place, and sprinkled, as before, the mercy-seat first, and then before it seven times; making atonement for the guilt of the congregation, both as regarded their persons and the furniture of the tabernacle. After which, having come out from the Most Holy into the Holy Place, he sprinkled the altar of incense seven times with the blood both of the bullock and of the goat, “to cleanse and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.”—(Leviticus 16:19, comp. with Exodus 30:10) It was now, after the completion of the atonement by blood, that the high priest confessed over the live goat still standing at the door of the tabernacle, “all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions,” and thereafter sent him away, laden with his awful burden, by a fit person into the wilderness, into a land of separation, where no man dwelt. It is expressly said, Leviticus 16:22, that this was done with the goat that he might bear all their iniquities thither; but these iniquities, as already atoned by the blood of the other goat—the other half, so to speak, of the sacrifice—for as, on the one hand, without shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin by the law of Moses, so, on the other hand, where blood was duly shed, in the way and manner the law required, remission followed as a matter of course. The action with this second goat, therefore, is by no means to be dissevered from the action with the first; but rather to be regarded as the continuation of the latter, and its proper complement. Hence the second or live goat is represented as standing at the door of the tabernacle, Leviticus 16:10, while atonement was being made with the blood of the first, as being himself interested in the work that was proceeding, and in a sense the object of it. He was presented there, not to have atonement made with him, as is incorrectly expressed in our version, but as the people’s substitute in a process of absolution. And it is only after this process of absolution or atonement is accomplished that the high priest returns to him, and, as from God, lays on him the now atoned for iniquities, that he might carry them away into a desert place. So that the part he has to do in the transaction, is simply to bear them off and bury them out of sight, as things concerning which the justice of God had been satisfied, no more to be brought into account—fit tenants of a land of separation and forgetfulness.[392] [392] That the sense here given to the expression in ver. 10 respecting the live goat, לְכַפֵר עָלָּין, cover upon him, or to make atonement for him, is the correct and only well-grounded one, may now be regarded as conclusively established. Bochart, Witsius, Stiel, also Kurtz and some others, would render it, as in our version, to make atonement with him. But Cocceius already stated that he could find no case in which the expression was used, “excepting for the persons in whose behalf the expiation was made, or of the sacred utensils,” when spoken of as expurgated, Bähr expressly affirms that the means of atonement is never marked by על, but always by ב, and that the former regularly marks the object of the atonement. (Symbolik, ii., p. 683) Hengstenberg also concurs in this view (Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 165), who further remarks, that by the live goat being said to be atoned for, “he was thereby identified with the first, and the nature of the dead was transferred to the living; so that the two goats stand here in a relation entirely similar to that of the two birds in the purification of the leper, of which the one let go was first dipped in the blood of the one slain.” The minute special objections plied against this view by Kurtz (Sac. Offerings, § 209), seem to me an exemplification of that hair splitting tendency, which, in searching for an overstrained exactness, is apt to overlook the more natural and obvious aspect of things. (See App. C.) Thus, from the circumstances of the transaction, when correctly put together and carefully considered, we can have no difficulty in ascertaining the main object and intent of the action with the live goat—without determining anything as to the exact import of the term Azazel. We shall give in the Appendix a brief summary of the views which have been entertained regarding it, and state the one which we are inclined to adopt.[393] But for the right interpretation of this part of the service, nothing material, we conceive, depends on it. What took place with the live goat was merely intended to unfold, and render palpably evident to the bodily eye, the effect of the great work of atonement. The atonement itself was made in secret, while the high priest alone was in the sanctuary; and yet, as all in a manner depended on its success, it was of the utmost importance that there should be a visible transaction, like that of the dismissal of the scape-goat, embodying in a sensible form the results of the service. Nor is it of any moment what became of the goat after being conducted into the wilderness. It was enough that he was led into the region of drought and desolation, where, as a matter of course, he should never more be seen or heard of. With such a destination, he was obviously as much a doomed victim as the one whose life-blood had already been shed and brought within the veil: he went where “all death lives and all life dies;” and so exhibited a most striking image of the everlasting oblivion into which the sins of God’s people are thrown, when once they are covered with the blood of an acceptable atonement. [393] See Appendix D. The remaining parts of the service were as follows: The high priest put off the plain linen garments in which, as alone appropriate for such a service, the whole of it had been performed, and laid them up in the sanctuary till the next day of atonement should come round. Then, having washed himself with water—which he had to do at the beginning and end of every religious service—and having put on his usual garments, he came forth and offered a burnt-offering for himself, and another for the people; by the blood of which, atonement was again made for sin (implying that sin mingled itself even in these holiest services), as by the action with the other parts there was expressed anew the dedication of their persons and services to the Lord. The fat of the sin-offering also—as in cases of sin-offering generally—the high priest burnt upon the altar; while the bodies of the victims were—as in the case of sin-offerings generally for the congregation, or the high priest as its head, Leviticus 4:1-21—carried without the camp into a clean place, and burned there. The import of these rites has already been explained in connection with sin-offerings as a class, and need not be repeated here. Finally, the person employed in burning them, as also the person who had conducted the scape-goat into the wilderness, were, on their return to the congregation, to wash themselves, as being relatively impure: not in the strict and proper sense; for if they had really contracted guilt, an atonement would have had to be offered for them; and the relative impurity could only have arisen from their having been engaged in handling what, though in itself not unclean, but rather the reverse, yet in its meaning and design carried a respect to the sins of the people. IV. It is the less necessary that we should enlarge on the correspondence between this most important service of the Old Testament dispensation, and the work of Christ under the New, since it is the part of the Mosaic ritual which of all others has received the most explicit application from the pen of inspiration. It is to this that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews most especially and frequently refers when pointing to Christ for the great realities which were darkly revealed under the ancient shadows. He tells us that through the flesh of Christ, given unto death for the sins of the world, a new and living way has been provided into the Holiest, as through a veil, no longer concealing and excluding from the presence of God, but opening to receive every penitent transgressor; of which, indeed, the literal rending of the veil at Christ’s death (Matthew 27:51) was a matter-of-fact announcement;—that through the blood of Jesus we can enter not only with safety, but even with boldness, into the region of God’s manifested presence; that this arises from Christ Himself having gone with His own blood into the heavens, that is, presenting Himself there as the perfected Redeemer of His people, who had borne for them the curse of sin, and for ever satisfied the justice of God concerning it;—and that the sacrifice by which all this has been accomplished, being that of one infinitely worthy, is attended with none of the imperfections belonging to the Old Testament service, but is adequate to meet the necessities of a guilty conscience, and to present the sinner, soul and body, with acceptance before God. (Hebrews 9:10)[394] This is the substance of the information given us respecting the things of Christ’s kingdom, in so far as these were foreshadowed by the services of the day of atonement; in which, it will be observed, our attention is chiefly drawn to a correspondence in the two cases of essential relations and ideas. We find no countenance given to the merely outward and superficial resemblances, which have so often been arbitrarily, and sometimes even with palpable incorrectness, drawn by Christian writers; such as, that in the high priest’s putting on and again laying aside the white linen garments, was typified Christ’s assuming, and then, when His work on earth was finished, renouncing, the likeness of sinful flesh; in the two goats, His twofold nature; in their being taken from the congregation, His being purchased with the public money; in the slain goat a dying, in the live goat a risen Saviour; or, in the former Christ, in the latter Barabbas, or, as the elder Cocceians more commonly have it, the Jewish people sent into the desert of the wide world, with God’s curse upon them. This last notion has been revived by Professor Bush in the Biblical Repository for July 1842, and in his notes on Leviticus, who gravely states, that the live goat made an atonement simply by being let go into the desert, and that the Jewish people made propitiation for their sins by being judicially subjected to the wrath of Heaven! [394] The only part of the statement, perhaps, which calls for a little explanation is what is said of the veil: “the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (ch. 10:20), identifying apparently our Lord’s body with the veil which separated between the Holy and the Most Holy Place. It is clear that this is only meant to be taken in a kind of figurative or popular sense; for the veil had already been referred to as, in spiritual things, forming the ideal boundary line between the state of believers here and their prospective condition in glory (ver. 19). Yet one can easily perceive certain points of resemblance, on account of which Christ’s flesh might in that general way be identified with the veil. For the use of this was, first to conceal the Most Holy Place from common view, and second to provide at proper times the way of entrance. So the flesh or humanity of Christ, so long as it existed in the life of His humiliation, concealed the most excellent glory of the Godhead—nay, by its very holiness seemed to put this at a greater distance from mankind; but when given to death for their sin, and received in their behalf to glory, it then laid open the way for the guilty. The rent veil was therefore the proper symbol of the access opened through Christ’s death into the very presence of God. But as it was the atoning value of Christ’s death which gave it this power, while in the veil, considered by itself, there was nothing similar, it is obvious the analogy cannot be carried very far, and must necessarily be understood with some license. We inevitably run into such erroneous and puerile conceits, or move at least amid shifting uncertainties, so long as we isolate the different parts of the outward transaction, and seek a distinct and separate meaning in each of them singly, apart from the grand idea and relations with which they are connected. But, rising above this defective and arbitrary mode of interpretation, fixing our view on the real and essential elements in the respective cases, we then find all that is required to satisfy the just conditions of type and antitype, as well as much to confirm and establish the hearts of believers in the faith. For what do we not behold? On the one side the high priest, the head and representative of a visible community, all stricken with the sense of sin, going under the felt load of innumerable transgressions into the awful presence of Jehovah, as connected with the outward symbols of an earthly sanctuary; permitted to stand there in peace and safety, because entering with the incense of devout supplication and the blood of an acceptable sacrifice; and in token that all sin was forgiven, and all defilement purged away, sending the mighty mass of atoned guilt into the waste howling wilderness, to remain for ever buried and forgotten. On the other side, corresponding to this, we behold Christ, the head and representative of a spiritual and invisible Church, charging Himself with all their iniquities, and, having poured out His soul unto death for them, thereafter ascending into the presence of the Father, as with His own life-blood shed in their behalf; so that they also, sprinkled with this blood, or spiritually interested in this work of atonement and intercession, can now personally draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, having their sins blotted out from the book of God’s remembrance, and shall in due time be admitted to dwell amid the bright effulgence of His most excellent glory. Does faith stagger while it contemplates so free an absolution, ventures on so near an approach, or cherishes so elevating a prospect? Or, having once apprehended, is it apt to lose the clearness of its view and the firmness of its grasp, from having to do with things which lie so much within the territory of the unseen and eternal? Let it throw itself back upon the plain and palpable transactions of the type, which on this account also are written for our learning and assured consolation. And if truly conscious of the burden of sin, and turning from it with unfeigned sorrow to that Lamb of God who has been set forth as a propitiation to take away its guilt, then, with what satisfaction Israel of old beheld the high priest, when the work of reconciliation was accomplished, send their iniquities away into a land of forgetfulness, and with what joy they then rejoiced, let not the humble believer doubt that the same may also, with yet more propriety, be his; since in what was then transacted there were but the imperfect adumbrations of the symbol, while now he has to do with the grand and abiding realities of the substance. Section Eighth.—Special Rites And Institutions Chiefly Connected With Sacrifice—The Ratification Of The Covenant The Trial And Offering Of Jealousy—Purgation From An Uncertain Murder—Ordinance Of The Red Heifer—The Leprosy And Its Treatment—Defilements And Purifications Connected With Corporeal Issues And Child-Birth—The Nazarite And His Offerings—Distinctions Of Clean And Unclean Food. THE subjects which we bring together in this section are of a somewhat peculiar and miscellaneous nature, though they have also certain points in common. We mean to introduce, respecting them, only so much as may be necessary for the explanation of what more particularly belongs to each, as the more general principles they embodied and illustrated have already been fully considered. The remarks to be submitted must, therefore, be taken in connection with what goes before respecting the greater and more important sacrificial institutions, and presupposes an acquaintance with it. THE RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT. The account given of this solemn transaction is referred to in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 9:18-22), with an especial respect to the use then made of the sacrificial blood, and for the purpose of proving, that as the inferior and temporary covenant then ratified required the shedding of animal blood, blood of a far higher and more precious kind must have been required to seal the everlasting covenant brought in by Christ. The whole ceremony stood thus: Moses had on the previous day read the law of the ten commandments, “the words of the Lord,” in the audience of the people, with the few precepts and judgments that had been privately communicated to him after their promulgation. Then, on the following morning, he caused an altar to be built under the hill, and twelve stones erected beside it, to represent the twelve tribes of the congregation; certain young men, appointed as helps to the mediator to do priestly service for the occasion, were next sent to kill oxen for burnt-offerings and peace-offerings; and the blood of these slain victims being received in basins, Moses divided it into two parts—the one of which he sprinkled on the altar, thereby making atonement for their sins, and so rendering them ceremonially fit for being taken into a covenant of peace with God; and with the other half—after having again read the terms of the covenant, and obtained anew from the people a promise of obedience he sprinkled the people themselves, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”—(Exodus 24:5-8) It is added in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the book of the covenant was also sprinkled; which, we presume, must have been done with the first half of the blood, and with somewhat of the same meaning and design with which the mercy-seat, that was afterwards placed over the tables of the covenant, was annually sprinkled in the Most Holy Place. The grand peculiarity in this service was manifestly the division of the blood between Jehovah and the people, and the sprinkling of the latter with the portion appropriated to them. We found something similar in the consecration of Aaron, whose extremities were touched with the blood of the ram of consecration. But the action here differed in various respects from the other, and was directed to the special purpose of giving a palpable exhibition of the oneness that now subsisted between the two parties of the covenant. Naturally they stood quite apart from each other. Sin had formed an awful gulph between them. But God having first accepted in their behalf the blood of atonement, by that portion which was sprinkled on the altar, they were brought into a capacity of union and fellowship with Him; and then, when they had solemnly declared their adherence to the terms on which this agreement was to be maintained, as declared in the tables of the covenant and the judgments therewith connected, the agreement was formally cemented by the sprinkling of the other part of the blood upon them. Thus they shared part, and part with God: the pure and innocent life He provided and accepted in their behalf became (symbolically) theirs; a vital and hallowed bond united the two into one; God’s life was their life; God’s table their table; and as a farther sign of this conjunction of feeling and interest, they partook of the meat of the peace-offerings, which formed the second kind of sacrifices presented. There were, of course, obvious imperfections marring the completeness of this service; and in Christ alone and His kingdom is a reality to be found, such as the necessities of the case and the demands of God’s righteousness properly required. Here, too, the parties are naturally far asunder, the members of the covenant being all by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And that the covenant of reconciliation and peace might be established on a solid, satisfactory, and permanent basis, it was necessary not only that there should be the shed ding of blood, but also that it should be blood having a common relation to both the contracting parties, and as such, fit to become the blood of reconciliation. Such, in the strictest sense, was the blood of Jesus; and in it, therefore, we discern the real bond and only sure foundation of a covenant of peace between man and God. He whose conscience is sprinkled with this, is thereby made partaker of a Divine nature; he is received into the participation of the life of God, and is consecrated for ever more to live at once in the enjoyment of God’s favour and for the interests of His kingdom. But a question may here, perhaps, suggest itself in respect to the covenant itself, which was ratified between God and Israel in the manner we have noticed. For if the terms of that covenant were, as we formerly endeavoured to show, specially and peculiarly the law of the ten commandments, and if this law is equally binding on the Church now as a permanent rule of duty, how should it have been taken as the distinctive covenant or bond of agreement with Israel? Was not this, after all, to place Israel simply on a footing with men universally? And does it not appear something like an incongruity, to ratify such a covenant by such symbolical and shadowy services? There would undoubtedly be room for such questions, if this covenant were entirely isolated from what went before and came after—if it were not viewed in connection with the circumstances out of which it grew, and with the ordinances and institutions by which it was presently followed up. On the one hand, the covenant was prescribed by God as having redeemed His people from a state of bondage and conferred on them a title to an inheritance of blessing, thereby pledging Himself to give whatever was essentially needed, to aid them in striving after conformity to its requirements of duty. But while these requirements of necessity pointed to the great lines of religious and moral duty binding on the Church in every age—for God’s own character of holiness being perpetually the same, He could not then take His people bound to live according to other principles of duty than are always obligatory—while, therefore, they necessarily possessed that broad and general character, still, in the peculiar circumstances in which Israel stood, many things were needed to go along with what properly constituted the terms of the covenant, which were of a merely national, shadowy, and temporary kind. The redemption they had obtained was itself but a shadow of a greater one to come, and so also was the inheritance to which they were appointed. No adequate provision was yet made for the higher wants of their nature; and though, even in that lower territory, on which God was avowedly acting for them, and openly revealing Himself to them, He could not but exact from them a faithful endeavour after conformity to His law of holiness, as the condition of their abiding fellowship with Him, yet the ostensible provision for securing this was also manifestly inadequate, and could only be regarded as temporary. So that the covenant on every hand stood related to the symbolical and typical, though itself neither the one nor the other. As it grew out of relations having a typical bearing, so it of necessity brought with it ordinances and institutions which had a typical character; “it had (appended to it, or bound up with it) ordinances of Divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.”—(Hebrews 9:1) These could not be dispensed with during the continuance of that covenant; and the members of the covenant were bound to observe them, so long as the covenant itself in that temporary form lasted. The new covenant, however, can dispense with them, because it brings directly into view the things that belong to salvation in its higher interests and ultimate realities. The inheritance now held out in prospect is the final portion of the redeemed, and the redemption that provides for their entrance into it is replete with all that their necessities require. It is, therefore, a better covenant, both because established upon better promises, and furnished with ampler resources for carrying its objects to a successful accomplishment. Yet, in respect to fundamental principles and leading aims, both covenants are at one: a people established in friendly union with God, and bound up to holiness that they may experience the blessedness of such a union this is the paramount object of the one covenant as well as of the other. THE TRIAL AND OFFERING OF JEALOUSY. The prescribed ritual upon this subject, recorded in Numbers 5:11-31, is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in the Mosaic code; and we introduce it here because it can only be rightly understood when it is viewed in relation to the covenant engagement between God and Israel. The national covenant had its parallel in every family of Israel, in the marriage-tie that bound together man and wife. This relation, so important generally for the welfare of individuals and the prosperity of states, was chosen as an expressive image of that in which the whole people stood to God; and on the understood connection between the two, Moses represents in another place (Numbers 15:39), as the later prophets constantly do, the people’s unfaithfulness to the covenant as a committing of whoredom toward God. It was, therefore, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Mosaic legislation, that the strongest enactments should be made respecting this domestic relation, that the behaviour of man and wife to each other throughout the families of Israel might present a faithful image of the behaviour Israel should maintain toward God; or if otherwise, that exemplary judgment might be inflicted. This was the more appropriate under the Mosaic dispensation, as it was in connection with the propagation of a pure and holy seed that the covenant was to reach its great end of blessing the world. So that to bring corruption and defilement into the marriage-bed, was to pollute the very channel of covenant blessing, and in the most offensive manner violate the obligation to purity imposed in the fundamental ordinance of circumcision. Adultery, therefore, if fully ascertained, must be punished with death (Leviticus 20:10), as a practice subversive of the whole design of the theocratic constitution. And not only must ascertained guilt in this respect be so dealt with, but even strong suspicions of guilt must be furnished with an opportunity of bringing the matter by solemn appeal to God, since guilt of this description, more than any other, is apt to escape detection by arts of concealment, and particularly in the case of the woman has many facilities of doing so. It is also on the woman that most depends for the preservation of the honour and integrity of families, and hence of greater moment that incipient tendencies in the wrong direction should in her case be met by wholesome checks. It was on this account that the ritual respecting the trial and offering of jealousy was prescribed. The terms of the ritual itself imply, and the understanding of the Jews we know actually was, that the rite was to be put in force only when very strong grounds of suspicion existed in regard to the fidelity of the wife. But when suspicion of such a kind arose, the man was ordained to go with his wife to the sanctuary, and appear before the priest. They were to take with them, as a corban or meat-offering, the tenth part of an ephah of barley-meal, but without the usual accompaniments of oil and frankincense. The priest was then to take holy water—whence derived, it is not said, but most probably water from the laver is meant, and so the Chaldee paraphrast expressly renders it. This water the priest was to put into an earthen vessel, and mingle it with some particles of dust from the floor of the sanctuary. He was then to uncover the woman’s head, and administer a solemn oath to her—she meanwhile holding in her hand the corban, and he in his the vessel of water, which is now called “the bitter water that causeth the curse.” The oath was to run thus: “If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside unto uncleanness under thy husband (so it should be rendered, meaning, while under the law and authority of thy husband), be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse. But if thou hast gone aside under thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee, while under thy husband, the Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, by the Lord making thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; and this water that causeth the curse, shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot.” To this the woman was to say, Amen, amen; and the priest, proceeding meanwhile on the supposition of the woman’s innocence, was then to blot out the words of the curse with the bitter water, and afterwards to wave the offering of barley-flour before the Lord, burning a portion of it on the altar;—which done, he was to close the ceremony by giving the woman the remainder of the water to drink. The most important part of the rite, undoubtedly, was the oath of purification. The spirit of the whole may be said to concentrate itself there. And, in accordance with the character generally of the Mosaic economy,—a character that attached to the little as well as the great, to the individual as well as the general things belonging to it, the oath took the form of the lex talionis; on the one side announcing exemption from punishment, if there was freedom from guilt; and on the other denouncing and imprecating, when guilt had been incurred, a visitation of evil corresponding to the iniquity committed—viz., corruption and unfruitfulness in those parts of the body which had been prostituted to purposes of impurity. The draught of water was added merely for the purpose of giving increased force and solemnity to the curse, and supplying a kind of representative agency for certifying its execution. It was called bitter, partly because the very subjection to such a humiliating service rendered it a bitter draught, and also because it was to be regarded as (representatively) the bearer of the Lord’s righteous jealousy against sin, and His purpose to avenge Himself of it. Hence, also, the water itself was to be holy water, the more plainly to denote its connection with God; and to be mingled with dust, the dust of God’s sanctuary, in token of its being employed by God with reference to a curse, and to show that the person who really deserved it was justly doomed to share in the original curse of the serpent.—(Genesis 3:14; comp. Psalms 72:9; Micah 7:17) Of course, the actual infliction of the curse depended upon the will and power of God, whose interference was at the time so solemnly invoked; and the action proceeded on the belief of a particular providence extending to individual cases, such as would truly distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. But the whole Mosaic economy was founded upon this assumption, and justly—since that God, without whom a sparrow falleth not to the ground, could not fail to make His presence and His power felt among the people upon whom He more peculiarly put His name; nor refuse to make His appointed ordinances of vital efficacy, when they were employed in the way and for the purposes to which He had destined them. From not being acquainted with the whole of the circumstances, the principle might often appear to men involved in difficulty as regarded its uniform application. But that it was, especially then, and, with certain modifications, is still, a principle in the Divine government, no believer in Scripture can reasonably doubt. The other and subordinate things in the ceremonial such as the use of an earthen vessel to contain the water, the appointment of barley-meal for an offering, without oil or incense, and the uncovering of the woman’s head admit of an easy explanation. The two former, being the cheapest things of their respective kinds, were marks of abasement, and were intended to convey the impression, that every woman should regard herself as humbled, on whose account they had to be employed. The impression was deepened by the absence of oil, the symbol of the Spirit, and of incense, the symbol of acceptable prayer. By the uncovering of the head, this was still more strikingly signified, as it deprived the woman of the distinctive sign of her chastity, and reduced her to the condition of one who had either to confess her guilt, or to be put on trial for her innocence. The only parts of the transaction that are attended with real difficulty, are those which concern the presentation of the corban of barley-meal. Many both defective and erroneous views have been given of what relates to these; but without referring more particularly to them, we simply state our concurrence generally with the view of Kurtz (Mosaische Opfer, p. 326), who has placed the matter, we think, in its proper light. This offering, which in Numbers 5:25 is called “the jealousy offering,” is also in Numbers 5:15 called expressly the woman’s offering. And that it is to be identified with her rather than with the man, is plain also from the circumstance, that she was appointed, during the administration of the oath, to hold this in her hands. Nor can we justly understand more by the direction in Numbers 5:15, to the man to bring it, than that, as the whole property of the family belonged to him, he should be required to furnish out of his means what was necessary for the occasion. And as the woman was obliged to go with him to the sanctuary for this service, whenever the spirit of jealousy so far took possession of his mind, the offering, though more properly hers, might with perfect propriety be also called the offering of jealousy, being itself the offspring of the spirit of jealousy in the husband. The woman, as was stated, during the more important part of the ceremony, held the offering in her hands, while the priest held in his the water of the curse. The priest then appears, not as the representative and advocate of the man who holds his wife guilty (for there, we think, Kurtz has slightly deviated from the natural view), but as the minister of Jehovah, whose it was to see the right vindicated, and, as such, fitly places himself before her with the symbol and pledge of the curse. The woman, on the other hand, maintaining her innocence, as fitly stands before him with the symbol of her innocence, the meat-offering, which was an image of good works, and which could only be rendered by those who were in a full state of acceptance with God. As soon as the curse was pronounced, and the woman had responded her double Amen, then the articles changed hands. The priest received from the woman her meat-offering, waved and presented it to God, the heart-searching and righteous; so that, if He found it a true symbol of her innocence, He might give her to know in her experience, that “the curse causeless should not come.” The woman, on her part, received from the priest the water of the curse, and drank it; so that, if it were a true symbol of her guilt, it might be like the pouring out of the Lord’s indignation in her innermost parts. Thus the matter was left in the hands of Him who is the searcher of hearts. If there was guilt before Him, then the offering was a remembrancer of iniquity; but if not, it would be a memorial of innocence, and a call to defend the just from false accusations of guilt. The whole service, viewed in respect to individuals, was fitted to convey a deep impression of the jealous care with which the holy eye of God watched over even the most secret violations of the marriage vow, and the certainty with which He would avenge them. And viewed more generally, as an image of things pertaining to the entire commonwealth of Israel, it proclaimed in the ears of all the necessity of an unswerving and faithful adherence to covenant engagements with God, otherwise the curse of indelible shame, degradation, and misery would inevitably befall them. PURIFICATION FROM AN UNCERTAIN MURDER. The rite appointed to be observed in this case so far resembles the preceding one, that they both alike had respect, not to the actual, but only to the possible, guilt of the persons concerned. They differed, however, in the probable estimate that was formed of the relation of the parties to the hypothetical charge. The presumption in the last case was against the accused, here it is rather in their favour; and so the rite in the one seemed more especially framed for bringing home the charge of iniquity, and in the other for purging it away. The rite in this case, however, should not be termed, as it is in the heading of our English Bibles, and as it is also very commonly treated by divines, the expiation of an uncertain murder; for there is no proper atonement prescribed. The law is given in Deuteronomy 21:1-9, and is shortly this:—When a dead body was found in the field, in circumstances fitted to give rise to the suspicion of the person having come to a violent end, while yet no trace could be discovered of the murderer, it was then to be presumed that the guilt attached to the nearest city, either by the murderer having come from it, or from his having found concealment in it. That city, therefore, had a certain indefinite charge of guilt lying upon it indefinite as to the parties really concerned in the charge, but most definite and particular as regards the greatness of the crime involved in it, and the treatment due to the perpetrator. For deliberate murder the law provided no expiation. Even for the infliction of death, not deliberately, but by some fortuitous and unintentional stroke, it did not appoint any rite of expiation, but only a way of escape by means of a partial exile. Here, therefore, where the question is respecting a murder the prescribed ritual cannot contemplate a work of expiation. Nor is the language employed such as to convey that idea. The elders of the city were enjoined to go down into a valley with a stream in it, bringing with them a heifer which had never been yoked, and there strike off its head by the neck. Then in presence of the priests, the representatives and ministers of God, they were to wash their hands over the carcase of the slain heifer in token of their innocence, and to say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O Lord, unto Thy people Israel, whom Thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto Thy people of Israel’s charge. And (it is added) the blood shall be forgiven them.” The forgiveness here meant was evidently forgiveness in the more general sense; the guilt in question would not be laid to the charge of the elders of the city, nor would the punishment due on account of it be inflicted on them. They were personally cleared from the guilt, but the guilt itself was not atoned; there was a purgation, but not an expiation. And, accordingly, none of the usual sacrificial terms are applied to the transaction with the heifer. It is not called an oblation, a sacrifice, a sin or trespass-offering; nor was there any sprinkling of its blood upon the altar; and even the mode of killing it was different from that followed in all the proper sacrifices—not by the shedding of the blood, but by the lopping off of the head. Indeed, the process was merely a symbolical action of judgment and acquittal before the priests, not as ministers of worship, but as officers of justice. The heifer, young and unaccustomed to the yoke, in the full flush and beauty of life, was yet subjected to a violent death—a palpable representative of the case of the person whose life had been wantonly and murderously taken away. The carcase of this slain heifer is placed before the elders, and over it, as if it were the very carcase of the slain man, they wash their hands, and solemnly declare their innocence respecting the violent death that had been inflicted on him. The priests, sit ting as judges, receive the declaration as satisfactory, and hold the city absolved of guilt. The washing of the hands in water was merely to give additional solemnity to this declaration, and exhibited symbolically what was presently afterwards announced in words. Hence, among other allusions to this part of the rite, the declaration of the Psalmist, “I will wash mine hands in innocence “(Psalms 26:6); and the action of Pilate, when wishing to establish his innocence respecting the death of Jesus, though it cannot be considered as done with any allusion to the part here performed by the elders over the body of the heifer, yet serves to show how natural it was in the circumstances, according to the customs of antiquity. The leading object of the rite was to impress upon the people a sense of God’s hatred of deeds of violence and blood, and make known the certainty with which He would make inquisition concerning such deeds, if they were allowed to proceed in the land. It was one of the fences thrown around the second table of the law; and if performed on all suitable occasions, must have powerfully tended to cherish sentiments of humanity in the minds of the covenant people, and promote feelings of love between man and man. ORDINANCE OF THE RED HEIFER The ordinance regarding the Red Heifer (described in Numbers 19) had respect to actual defilements, though only of a particular kind, and to the means of purification from them. The defilements in question were such as arose from personal contact with the dead, such as the touching of a dead body, or dwelling in a tent where death had entered, or lighting on the bone of a dead man, or having to do with a grave in which a corpse had been deposited. In such cases a bodily uncleanness was contracted, which lasted seven days, and even then could not be removed but by a very peculiar element of cleansing, viz., the application of the ashes, mixed with water, of the body of a heifer, red-coloured, without blemish, unaccustomed to the yoke, burnt without the camp, and with cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet cast into the midst of the burning. In regard, first, to the occasion of this very peculiar service, it will readily be understood that, in accordance with the general nature of the symbolical institutions, the body stands as the representative and image of the soul, and its defilement and cleansing for actual guilt and spiritual purification. This, indeed, was clearly indicated in the ordinance being called “a purification for sin “(Numbers 19:9). But it is the soul, not the body, which is properly chargeable with sin; and the whole, therefore, of what is here described, was evidently intended to serve as the mere shell and representation of inward and spiritual realities. Divine truths and lessons were embodied in it for all times and ages. For what, according to the uniform language of Scripture, is death? It is the direful wages of sin—the visible earthly recompense with which God visits transgression; and being in itself the end and consummation of all natural evils, the state from which flesh naturally and most of all shrinks with abhorrence, it is the proper image of sin, both as regards its universal prevalence and its inherent loathsomeness. This may be said of death merely in the aspect it carries to men’s natural state and feelings, but much more does such language become applicable to it when viewed in relation to the Most High. For it belongs to Him to have life in Himself, yea, to stand in such close connection with the powers and blessings of life, that no corruption can dwell in His presence. But death is the very climax of corruption; it is therefore most abhorrent to His nature, and has been appointed as the proper doom of sin, the awful seal and testimony of His displeasure on account of it. Hence, the priests who had to minister before Him were forbidden to come into contact with the dead, except in the case of their nearest relatives (Leviticus 21:1-4), and the high priest even in the case of his father or mother (Leviticus 21:11). This is the painful truth which lies at the foundation of the whole of the rite respecting the Red Heifer. It is a rite which presents in bold relief what was one grand design of the law’s observances—the bringing of sin to remembrance, and teaching the necessity of men’s being purified from its pollution. It is true there was no actual sin in simply touching a dead body, or being in the place where such a body lay. In the case of ordinary persons it was even a matter of duty to defile one’s self in connection with the death of near relatives. But, as the corporeal relations were here made the signs and interpreters of the spiritual, there was, in such cases, the coming, on the part of the living body, into contact with what bore on it the awful mark and impress of sin—a breathing of the polluted atmosphere of corruption, most alien to the region where Jehovah has his peculiar dwelling, and which corruption cannot inherit. Therefore, in a symbolical religion like the Mosaic, the neighbourhood or touch of a dead body was most fitly regarded as forming an interruption to the intercourse between God and His people,—as placing them in a condition of external unfitness for approaching the sanctuary of His presence and glory, or even for having freedom to go out and in among the living in Jerusalem. That sin, which is the bitter well-spring of death, is utterly at variance with the soul’s peace and fellowship with God,—that it should, therefore, be most carefully watched against and shunned,—that on finding his conscience defiled with its pollution, the sinner should regard himself as incapacitated for holding intercourse with Heaven, or performing any work of righteousness, and should betake himself without delay to the appointed means of purification,—these are the important and salutary truths which the Lord sought continually to impress upon the people by means of the bodily defilements in question, and the channel provided for obtaining purification. In regard now to the purifying apparatus, there are certainly some points connected with it, which it is scarcely possible to explain quite satisfactorily, and which probably refer to customs or notions too familiar and prevalent in the age of Moses to have then appeared at all strange or arbitrary. But the leading features of the ordinance would present, we conceive, little difficulty, were it not that the whole has been viewed in a somewhat mistaken light. Recent as well as former writers have gene rally gone on the supposition that the ideas concerning sin, and atonement or cleansing, are here represented in a peculiarly intense form, and that from this point of view everything must be explained. We regard the occasion as pointing rather in the opposite direction. It was not an ordinance for purging away the guilt of actual sin, although it had the character of a sin-offering (Numbers 19:9, Numbers 19:17), but for a sort of incidental corporeal connection with the effect and fruit of sin,—the means of purification not from personal transgression, but from a merely external contact with the consequence of transgression,—a symbolical ordinance of cleansing for what, in itself, was only a symbolical defilement. Directly, therefore, and properly it is the flesh and not the spirit that is concerned; and we might certainly expect a marked inferiority in various respects between this ordinance and the offerings which had for their object the expiation of real guilt. This is what we actually find. The victim appointed was a female, while in all the proper sin-offerings for the congregation, a male, an ox, was required. And of this victim no part came upon the altar; even the blood was only sprinkled before the tabernacle of the congregation, and that not by the high priest, but only by the son of the high priest; and while the carcase was burnt entire without the camp, not even the skin or the dung was removed from it. From the respect the offering had to bodily defilements, the priest and the other persons engaged in the work contracted a similar defilement, and had to wash their clothes, and bathe themselves in water. That the ashes were regarded as in themselves clean, is obvious from a clean person being required to gather them up and put them in a clean place; as also from their being the appointed means of purification. For this it was necessary that living or running water should be poured upon them; and then during the seven days that the defilement from contact with the dead lasted, the persons or articles requiring it were twice sprinkled, first on the third, then on the seventh day; after which the restraint was taken off, as to fellowship with the camp. The mixture of the ashes strengthened the cleansing property of the water, not, however (as Bähr and Kurtz), by rendering it a sort of wash, if that had been all, common ashes might have served the purpose, but rather from their connection with the sin-offering, through which the curse of death was taken away. That the wash should be called the water of abomination (מֵי נָדּה), not of purification, as in the English Bible, is to be explained in the same way as the application of the term sin to the sin-offering: it was water which had specially to do with abominations, or defilements, but to do with them for the purpose of taking them away. And the bearing of the whole on Christian times, with respect to the higher work of Christ, is so plainly and distinctly intimated in the epistle to the Hebrews, that there is no need for any further comment: “If the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!” Whoever looks with this view to the ordinance, will see in it the perfect purity and completeness of Christ’s character, the corrupt and loathsome nature of that for which He died, and the sole as well as perfect efficacy of His blood, so that he who has not this applied to his conscience must inevitably perish.[395] [395] For the contrast indicated in the passage from Hebrews between the bodily and the spiritual purifications,—as not absolute, but relative,—see under SIN-OFFERING, in sec. 5. [We have taken little or no notice of some of the peculiarities connected with this ordinance, which have given rise to much discussion, but have as yet ended in no satisfactory result. The female sex of the victim (sufficiently accounted for, we trust, above) has been thought by Bähr to point to Eve, or the female sex generally, as the mother of life among men, and others have produced equally fanciful reasons. The colour was by the Jewish doctors accounted of such difficult interpretation, that they conceived the wisdom of Solomon to have been inadequate to the discovery of it. With Bähr, Keil, Kurtz, etc., it is the colour of blood, life in an intensive form; with Hengstenberg, of sin, etc. And the latter recently, as well as many others in former times, have found an allusion in it to the Egyptian notion, that the evil god Typhon was of red colour, and the practice prevalent in Egypt of sacrificing red bullocks to him. Only, that the rite here might savour somewhat less of heathenism, not a bullock, but an heifer, was required, to discountenance the idolatrous veneration paid in Egypt to the cow. We deem it quite unnecessary to enter upon any particular examination of these different opinions. None of them can be regarded as quite natural and satisfactory. And it is possible that the colour of the animal had originally some ideas associated with it, of which later times lost the key. Of the two reasons suggested above, that which connects it -with the life—life in its more intensive form—is certainly the preferable; but one does not readily perceive, either why in this one case the red colour should so distinctly symbolize life, or why in this particular ordinance that idea should be so prominently displayed, when only the ashes of a slain creature were to be employed. Possibly red may have been chosen as emphatically the flesh colour, since the ordinance pointed in a peculiar manner to the purification of the flesh. But we would lay no stress on any reason that can now be assigned. The burning, along with the victim, of cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool, has also given rise to a great variety of suppositions. The cedar from its loftiness, and the hyssop from its smallness, have been regarded by Hengstenberg (Egypt and Books of Moses, and again in Commen. on Psalms 51:7) as emblems, the one of the Divine majesty, and the other of the Divine condescension. But the supposition is quite arbitrary, and has nothing properly to support it in Scripture. Besides, it could scarcely be the lofty cedar which was meant to be used in the ordinance, for such were not to be found in the desert; it must rather have been some species of juniper. It is more commonly regarded as an emblem of life or immortality. The hyssop, it would appear, was anciently thought to possess some sort of medicinal or abstergent properties, and on that account is supposed to have been used in purifications. It appears to have been usually employed among the Hebrews in sprinklings, along with some portion of scarlet wool.—(Comp. Exodus 12:22; Leviticus 14:6-7; Psalms 51:7; Hebrews 9:19) It is quite possible that notions and customs regarding these articles, of which now no certain information is to be had, may have led to their use on such occasions as the present. It would seem, however, from what is said in the case of the leper (Leviticus 14:6-7), that their use was merely to apply the cleansing or purifying element—the scarlet and hyssop being probably attached to a stick of cedar. On this account a portion of each was here burnt along with the carcase of the heifer, as the whole together were to furnish the means of purification. But it is needless to pursue the matter farther, as certainty is unattainable, and little comparatively depends on it for a general understanding of the purport and design of the ordinance.] THE LEPROSY AND ITS PURIFICATION. The case of the leper, with its appointed means of purification, stood in a very close relation to the one just considered, and the lessons taught in each are to a considerable extent the same. As disease generally is the fruit and evidence of sin, every form of disease might have been held to be polluting, and to have required separate purifications. This, however, would have rendered the ceremonial observances an intolerable burden. One disease, therefore, was chosen in particular, and that such an one as might fitly be regarded at the head of all diseases, the most affecting symbol of sin. This disease, that of leprosy (the white leprosy, as it is sometimes called, to distinguish it from other forms of the same malady), is described with much minuteness by Moses (Leviticus 13, 14), and various marks are given to distinguish it from others, which, though somewhat resembling it, yet did not possess its inveterate and virulent character. It began in the formation of certain spots upon the skin, small at first, but gradually increasing in dimensions; at their first appearance of a reddish colour, but by and by presenting a white, scaly shining aspect, attended by little pain, but incapable of being healed by any known remedy. Slowly, yet regularly, the spots continued to increase, till the whole body came to be over spread with them, and assumed the appearance of a white, dry, diseased, unwholesome scurf. But the corruption extended inwardly while it spread outwardly, and affected even the bones and marrow: the joints became first relaxed, then dislocated; fingers, toes, and even limbs, dropt off; and the body at length fell to pieces, a loathsome mass of dissolution and decay. Such is the description of the disease given in Scripture, taken in connection with what is known of certain bodily disorders which still go by the name of leprosy. It was disease manifesting itself peculiarly in the form of corruption—a sort of living death. Persons on whom any apparent symptoms were found of this disease, were ordered to go to the priests for inspection; and if it was ascertained to be real leprosy, then the diseased was removed into a separate apartment, and shut out of the camp, or the city, as a person politically dead. So rigidly was this regulation enforced, that even Miriam, the sister of Moses, could not obtain exemption from it; nor at a later period king Uzziah, since we are told, that from the time he was smitten with leprosy to the day of his death, “he dwelt in a several house” (2 Kings 15:5)—literally, a house of emancipation, as one discharged from the ordinary service and occupations of the Lord’s people. Even in the kingdom of Samaria, where the Divine laws were by no means so strictly observed, the history presents to our view lepers dwelling in a separate house before the gate, which they were not permitted to leave even during the straitness of a siege.—(2 Kings 7:3-10) And that there was a place or hill set apart for such in Jerusalem, and called by their name, may be inferred from Jeremiah 31:39, where mention is made of the hill Gareb, which means, the hill of the leprous. Besides this careful separation of the leper, he was to carry about with him every mark of sorrow and distress, going with rent clothes, with bare and uncovered head, with a bandage on the chin or lip; and when he saw any one approaching, was to give timely warning of his condition by crying out, “Unclean, unclean!” Why, we naturally ask, all this in the case only of leprosy? It could not be simply because it was a severe and dangerous disease, for no other disease was ordered to have such signs of grief attached to it; nor did they give occasion to uncleanness, excepting in disorders connected with generation and birth, presently to be noticed. Neither could such singular precautions and painful treatment have been employed here on account of the infectious character of the disease, as if the great object were to prevent it spreading around. For had that been all, several of the things prescribed would have been needless aggravations of the distress, such as the rent clothes, bare head, and covered chin; and, besides, the diseases which go by the name of leprosy, and which are understood to possess the same general character, though hereditary, are now known not to be infectious; while the really infectious diseases, such as fevers or the plague, have no place whatever in the law, either as regards uncleanness or purification. The only adequate reason that can be assigned for the manner in which leprosy was thus viewed and treated, was its fitness to serve as a symbol of sin, and of the treatment those who indulge in sin might expect at the hand of God. It was the visible sign and expression upon the living, of what God thought and felt upon the subject. Hence, when He manifested His righteous severity toward particular persons, and testified His displeasure against their sins by the infliction of a bodily disease, it was in the visitation of leprosy that the judgment commonly took effect, as in the cases of Miriam, Uzziah, and Gehazi. Hence, also, Moses warned the people against incurring such a plague (Deuteronomy 24:9); and when David besought the infliction of God’s judgment upon the house of Joab, leprosy was one of the forms in which he wished it might appear.—(2 Samuel 3:29) So general was the feeling in this respect, that the leprous were proverbially called the smitten, i.e., the smitten of God; and from the Messiah being described in Isaiah as so smitten, certain Jewish interpreters inferred that He should be afflicted with leprosy.—(Hengst., Christol. on Isaiah 53:4) Now, viewing the disease thus, as a kind of visible copy or image of sin, judicially inflicted by the immediate hand of God on the living body of the sinner, it is not difficult to understand how the leper especially should have been regarded as an object of defilement, as theocratically dead, until he was recovered and purified. He bore upon him the impress and mark of iniquity, the begun and spreading corruption of death, the appalling seal of Heaven’s condemnation. He was a sort of death in life, a walking sepulchre (Spencer, “sepulchrum ambulans”), unfit while in such a state to draw near to the local habitation of God, or to have a place among the living in Jerusalem. And his exiled and separate condition, his disfigured dress, and lamentable appearance, while they proclaimed the sadness of his case, bore striking testimony at the same time to the holiness of God, and solemnly warned all who saw him to beware how they should offend against Him. But these things are written also for our learning; and the malady, with its attendant evils, though but rarely visible to the bodily eye, speaks still to the ear of faith. It tells us of the insidious and growing nature of sin, spreading, if not arrested by the merciful interposition of God, from small beginnings to a universal corruption—of the inevitable exclusion which it brings when indulged in from the fellowship of God and the society of the blessed—of the deplorable and unhappy condition of those who are still subject to its sway and of the competency of Divine grace alone to bring deliverance from the evil. The purification of the leper had three distinctly marked stages. The first of these bore respect to his reception into the visible community of Israel, the next to his participation in their sacred character, and the last to his full re-establishment in the favour and fellowship of God. When God was pleased to recover him from the leprosy, and the priest pronounced him whole, before he was permitted to leave his isolated position outside the camp or city, two living clean birds were to be taken for him; the one of which was then to be killed over a vessel of living or fresh water, so that the blood might intermingle with the water, and the other, after being dipt in this blood-water, was let loose into the open field. That the two birds were to be regarded as ideally one, like the two goats on the day of atonement, and that they together represented what was adjudged to belong to the recovered leper, is clear as day. The life-blood of the one, mingled with pure fresh water, imaged life in its state of greatest purity; and by the other bird being dipt in this, showed its participation in what it signified, as did also the sprinkling of the recovered leper seven times with the same. Then, as thus alike identified with that life of freshness and purity, the recovered leper saw represented in the bird’s dismissal, to fly wherever it pleased among the other fowls of heaven, his own liberty to enter into the society of living men, and move freely up and down among them. But in token of his actual participation in the whole, and his being now separated from his uncleanness, he must wash his clothes and his flesh also, even shave his hair, that every remnant of his impurity might appear to be removed, and nothing be left to mar the freedom of his intercourse with his fellow-men. In all this, however, there was no proper atonement; and though the ban was so far removed, that the leper was now regarded as a living man, and could enter into the society of other living men, he was by no means admitted to the privileges of a member of God’s covenant. He had to remain for an entire week out of his own dwelling. Then, for his restoration to the full standing of an Israelite, he had to bring a lamb for a trespass-offering, another for a sin-offering, and another still for a burnt-offering, with the usual meat-offering, and a log of oil. It was a peculiarity in the case, that both a trespass and a sin-offering were required among the means of purification. But it may be explained by the consideration, that the leper was regarded by his leprosy as having become unfitted for doing the part of a proper citizen, and in consequence lying under debt to the commonwealth of God from failure in what it had a right to expect of all its members. The lamb for the trespass-offering, and the log of oil, were for his consecration—the second stage of the process; and for this purpose they were first waved before the Lord. Then with a portion of the blood of the trespass-offering the priest sprinkled his right ear, the thumb of his right hand, the great toe of his right foot, repeating the same action after wards with the oil, and pouring also some upon his head. This action with the blood and oil was much the same with that observed in the consecration of the priesthood; but differed, in that the blood used on this occasion was that of a trespass-offering, whereas the blood used on the other was that of a peace-offering. The service still further differed, in that here the consecration came first, whereas, as in the case of Aaron, the sin and burnt-offering preceded it. The differences, however, are such as naturally arose out of the peculiar situation of the restored leper. As a man under the ban of God and the doom of death, he had lost his place in the priestly kingdom, and a fitness for the discharge of its obligations. By a special act of consecration he must be received again into the number of this family, before he can be admitted to take any part in the usual services of the congregation. And the blood by which this was chiefly done was most appropriately taken from the blood of a trespass-offering, because, having forfeited his life to God, there was here, according to the general nature of such an offering, the payment of the required ransom, the (symbolical) discharge of the debt; so that he was at one and the same time installed as the Lord’s freeman, and consecrated for His service. The consecration of Aaron, on the other hand, was that of one who already belonged to the kingdom of priests, and only required an immediate sanctification for the peculiar and distinguished office to which he was to be raised. It therefore came last, and the blood used was fitly taken of the peace-offering. But when the recovered leper had been thus far restored,—his feet standing within the sacred community of God’s people, his head and members anointed with the holy oil of Divine refreshment and gladness,—he was now permitted and required to consummate the process, by bringing a sin-offering, a burnt-offering, and a meat offering, that his access to God’s sanctuary, and his fellowship with God Himself, might be properly established. What could more impressively bespeak the arduous and solemn nature of the work, by which the outcast, polluted, and doomed sinner regains an interest in the kingdom and blessing of God! The blood and Spirit of Christ, appropriated by a sincere repentance and a living faith this, but this alone, can accomplish the restoration. Till that is done, there is only exclusion from the family of God, and alienation from the life that is in Him. But that truly done, the child of death lives again he that was lost is again found.We have said nothing of what is called the leprosy of clothes and houses, for nothing certain is known of the thing itself, although Michaelis speaks dogmatically enough about both. The whole of what he says upon the leprosy is a striking specimen of the thoroughly earthly tone of the author’s mind; and if Moses had looked no higher than he represents him to have done, he would certainly have been little entitled to be regarded as a messenger of Heaven. The leprosy in garments and houses was evidently considered and treated as an image of that in man; and on that account alone was purification or destruction ordered. See Hengstenberg’s Christol. on Jeremiah 31:38; Baumgarten on Leviticus 13, 14.[396] [396] For the contrast indicated in the passage from Hebrews between the bodily and the spiritual purifications,—as not absolute, but relative,—see under SIN-OFFERING, in sec. 5. DEFILEMENTS AND PURIFICATIONS CONNECTED WITH CORPOREAL ISSUES AND THE PROPOGATION OF SEED. A considerable variety of prescriptions exists in the books of Leviticus and Numbers, relating to these defilements and purifications; but, for obvious reasons, we refrain from going into particulars, and content ourselves with giving their general scope and design. The laws upon the subject are to be found chiefly in the Leviticus 12:1-8 and the Leviticus 15:1-33 chap. of Leviticus, the one relating to the uncleanness arising from the giving birth to children, and the other to that arising from issues in the organs therewith connected. The impurities of this class were all more or less directly connected with the production of life. And it may seem strange, at first sight, that production and birth, as well as disease and death, should have been marked in the law as the occasions of defilement. It would be not only strange, but in explicable, were it not for the doctrine of the fall, and the inherent depravity of nature growing out of it. By reason of this the powers of human life are tainted with corruption, and all that pertains to the production of life, as well as to its cessation appears enveloped in the garments of impurity. That the whole was viewed in this strictly moral light, and not in relation to natural health or cleanliness, is evident, not only from the predominantly ethical character of the whole legislation of Moses, but also from the kind of purifications prescribed, in which atonement is spoken of as being made in behalf of the parties concerned (Leviticus 12:6; Leviticus 15:30); and also from the references made to the cases under consideration in other parts of Scripture—as in Ezekiel 36:17; Lamentations 1:17—which point to them as defilements in a moral respect. There is no possibility of obtaining a satisfactory view of the subject, or accounting for the place assigned such things in the symbolical ritual of Moses, excepting on the ground of that moral taint which was believed to pervade all the powers and productions of human nature, and thus regarding them as an external embodiment of the truth uttered by the Psalmist, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”—(Psalms 51:5) Some of the Hebrew doctors themselves have virtually expressed this idea, as in the following quotation produced from one of them by Ainsworth on Leviticus 12:4 : “No sin-offering is brought but only for sin; and it seemeth unto me, that there is a mystery in this matter, concerning the sin of the old serpent”—the sin, namely, introduced by the temptation of the old serpent, and in immediate connection with the moral weakness of the woman. Indeed, it is by a reference to that original act of transgression that we can most easily explain, both the general nature of the legal prescriptions respecting defilements and purifications of this sort, and some of the more striking peculiarities belonging to them. In what took place in that fundamental transaction, an image was presented of what was to be ever afterwards occurring. The woman having taken the leading part in the transaction, she was made to reap in her natural destiny most largely of its bitter fruits, and that especially in respect to child-bearing: “Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, and in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.” No doubt, the evil originating in the fall was to cleave to the nature, and appear in the condition of each portion of the human family; but in the female portion the signs of it were to be most apparent, and particularly in connection with the bearing of children. Hence, perhaps, the emphasis laid on this side by the Psalmist, “In sin did my mother conceive me.”—(Psalms 51:5) This one fact, prominently written in God’s word, and perpetually exemplified in history, sufficiently accounts for the peculiar stress laid on the case of the female in the regulations of the law. The occasions that called for purification on the other side were comparatively rare; but in hers they were of constant recurrence. And hence also, partly at least, is to be explained the difference in regard to the continuance of the period of her uncleanness when the birth was a female child, as compared with what it was at the birth of a male. In the one case a term of seven days only of total separation from the usual business and intercourse of life, and three and thirty more from the sanctuary; but in the other, a term of fourteen days of total separation, and sixty-six more from the sanctuary. It was not from any physical diversity in the cases, as regards the mother herself, that the two periods in the latter case were exactly the double of those in the former; but because it was the birth of one of that sex with which the signs of corruption in this respect were more peculiarly connected. Partly, we say, on this account, not wholly; for the express mention of circumcision in the case of the male child (Leviticus 12:3), seems plainly intended to ascribe to that circumstance a portion of the difference. The first stage of the mother’s cleansing terminated with the circumcision of her son. On the eighth day he had the corruption of his fleshly nature (symbolically) removed, and stood, as it were, by himself, as the mother also by herself. The terms of separation, therefore, were fitly shortened, so as to make the one only a full week, and the other a full month. But in the case of a female child there was no ordinance to distinguish so precisely between the mother and her offspring; and as if there were a prolonged connection in what occasioned the defilement, so there was for her a prolonged period of separation from social life and access to the sanctuary. Together with the other circumstances referred to, this is enough to account for the seeming anomaly; and serves also to render more obviously and conclusively certain the reference in the whole matter to moral considerations. There is no necessity for enlarging on the prescribed means of purification. They were such, both in the case of men and women, as to bear distinct reference to guilt, and to renewed surrender to the Lord’s service. A sin-offering, as well as a burnt-offering, was necessary. But to render the way of pardon and acceptance open to all, turtle-doves or pigeons were allowed to be substituted for the more expensive offerings. THE NAZARITE AND HIS OFFERINGS. The institution of the Nazarite vow is introduced without any explanation (Numbers 6), either as to the manner or the reason of its original appointment; and some have hence inferred that its origin is to be sought in Egypt, and only its proper regulation to be ascribed to Moses. But no traces of it have been found among the antiquities of Egypt, nor could it properly exist there. The Nazarite was to be a living type and image of holiness; he was to be, in his person and habits, a symbol of sincere consecration and devotedness to the Lord. It was no mere ascetical institution, as if the outward bonds and restraints, the self-denials in meat and drink, were in themselves well-pleasing to the Lord. Such a spirit was as foreign to Judaism as it is to Christianity. The Nazarite was an acted, symbolical lesson in a religious and moral respect; and the out ward observances to which he was bound were merely intended to exhibit to the bodily eye the separation from everything sinful and impure required of the Lord’s servants. The import of the name Nazarite, is simply the separate one; and the vow he took in all ordinary cases, voluntarily took—upon him, is said to have been (Numbers 6:2) “for separating to the Lord.” What was implied in this separation? There must have been, unquestionably, a withdrawing from one class of things as unbefitting, that there might be the more free and devoted application to another class, as proper and becoming. And we shall best understand what both were by glancing at the requirements of the vow. The first was an entire abstinence from all strong drink; from whatever was made of grapes—from grapes themselves, whether moist or dried from everything belonging to the vine. There can be no doubt that it was the intoxicating property of the fruit of the vine which formed the ground of this prohibition; for special stress is laid upon the strength of the drink; and as the vine in Eastern countries was the chief source of such drink (although other ingredients, it would seem, were sometimes added to increase the strength), not only wine itself, but the fruit of the vine in every shape, even in forms without any intoxicating tendency, was interdicted, that the separation might be the more marked and complete. A like abstinence was imposed upon the priests when engaged in sacred ministrations.—(Leviticus 10:8) Like the ministering priest, the Nazarite was peculiarly separated to the Lord; and in his drink, not less than other things, he was to be an embodied lesson regarding the manner in which the Divine service was to be performed. This service—such was the import of that part of the Nazarite institution—requires a withdrawal and separation from whatever unfits for active spiritual employment from everything which stupifies and benumbs the powers of a divine life, and disposes the heart to carnal ease and pleasurable excitement rather than to sacred duty. There must, indeed, be a careful and becoming reserve in regard to the means and occasions of a literal intoxication; but not in respect to these alone. The more inward and engrossing love of money, the eager pursuit after worldly aggrandizement, or the delights of a soft and luxurious ease, may as thoroughly intoxicate the brain, and incapacitate the soul for spiritual employment, as the more grovelling vice of indulgence to excess in liquor. From all such, therefore, the true servant of God is here wanied to abstain, and admonished to keep his vessel, in soul and body, as holiness to the Lord. The next thing exacted of the Nazarite was to leave his hair unshorn. And this was so different from the prevailing custom, yet so strictly enjoined upon him, that it might be regarded as the peculiar badge of his condition. Hence, if, by accidentally coming into contact with any unclean object, his vow was broken, he had to shave his head and enter anew on his course of service. So also, when the period of the vow had expired, his hair was cropt, and burned as a sacred thing upon the altar. Thus he was said to bear “the consecration (literally the separation, the distinctive mark, the crown) of his God upon his head.” The words readily suggest to us those of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:10, and the appointment itself is best illustrated by a reference to the idea there expressed. Speaking of the propriety of the women wearing long hair, as given to her by nature for a modest covering, and a token of subjection to her husband, the Apostle adds, that “for this reason she must have power upon her head;” i.e. (taking the sign for the thing signified, as circumcision for the covenant, Genesis 17:10), she must wear long hair, covering her head, as a symbol of the power under which she stands, a sign of her subjection to the authority of the man. For the same reason, because the hair did not cover the face, a veil was added, to complete the sign of subjection. But the man, on the other hand, having no earthly superior, and being in his manly freedom and dignity the image of the glory of God, should have his face unveiled, and his hair cropt. Hence it was counted even a shame, a renouncing of the proper standing of a man, a mark of effeminate weakness and degeneracy, for men, like Absalom, to cultivate long tresses. But the Nazarite, who gave himself up by a solemn vow of consecration to God, and who should therefore ever feel the authority and the power of his God upon him, most fitly wore his hair long, as the badge of his entire and willing subjection to the law of his God. By the wearing of this badge he taught the Church then,—and the Church, indeed, of all times,—that the natural power and authority of man, which in nature is so apt to run out into self-will, stubbornness, and pride, must in grace yield itself up to the direction and supremacy of Jehovah. The true child of God has renounced all claim to the control and mastery of his own condition. He feels he is not his own, but bought with a price, and therefore bound to glorify God with his body and spirit, which are His.[397] [397] We deem this by much the most natural and appropriate view of the Nazarite’s long hair. It is not a new one, but may be found (though only, indeed, as one among other reasons) in Ainsworth, and later commentators; last and best in Baumgarten, Comm. on Numbers 6. It also renders the best explanation of the loss of power in Samson, flowing from his allowing his hair to be shorn; for this, viewed in the light presented above, betokened the breaking of his allegiance to his God, ceasing to make God’s arm his dependence, and God’s will his rule. The idea of Hengstenberg—(Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 190), that the long hair was the sign of the Nazarite’s withdrawing from the world to give himself to the Lord, separating from the world’s habits and business, is not sufficiently grounded, more especially as it does not appear that the Nazarite vow bound men actually to bound worldly employments. The idea of Bähr, that the hair of men corresponds to the grass of the earth, the blossoms and leaves of trees, and thus imaged the spiritual blossoms and productions of men, the fruits of holiness, is too fanciful and far-fetched to need any special refutation. The only other restriction laid upon the Nazarite, of a special kind, was in regard to contracting defilement from the dead; for, like the priest, he was discharged from entering into the chamber of death and mourning for his nearest relatives. Separated for God, in whose presence death and corruption can have no place, the Nazarite must ever be found in the habitations and the society of the living. He must have no fellowship with what bore so distinctly impressed on it the curse and wages of sin. But this sin itself is, in the sphere of the spiritual life, what death is in the natural. It is the corruption and death of the soul. And as the Nazarite was here also an embodied lesson regarding things spiritual and divine, he was a living epistle, that might be known and read of all men, warning them to resist temptation and flee from sin—teaching them that, if they would live to God, they must walk circumspectly, and strive to keep themselves unspotted from the world. Such persons in Israel must have been eminently useful, if raised up in sufficient number, and going with fidelity and zeal through the fulfilment of their vow, in keeping alive upon men’s consciences the holy character of God’s service, and stimulating them to engage in it. The Nazarites are hence mentioned by Amos along with prophets, as among the chosen instruments whom God provided for the good of His people, in proof of His covenant faithfulness and love: “And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites” (Amos 2:11). They were a kind of inferior priesthood in the land by their manner of life, as the priests by the duties of their office, acting the part of symbolical lights and teachers to Israel. And the institution was farther honoured by being connected with three of the most eminent servants of God,—Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist,—on whom the vow was imposed from their very birth, to show that they were destined to some special and important work of God. This destination to a high and peculiar service, in connection with the Nazarite vow, still more clearly indicated its symbolical character; the more so, as the end of the institution appears to be always the more fully realized, the higher the individual’s calling, and the more entirely he consecrated himself to its fulfilment. Of the three Nazarites referred to, Samson was unquestionably the least, because in him the spiritual separation and surrender to the Lord was most imperfect: he did not resist the temptation, to which his singular gift of corporeal strength exposed him, of trusting too much to self; and the gift, when exercised, led him to act chiefly on the lower and merely physical territory. Though in one respect a remarkable witness of the wonderful things which God could do, even on that territory, by a single instrument of working, he yet proved in another a sad monument of the inefficacy of such instruments to regenerate and save Israel. A far higher manifestation of Divine power and goodness developed itself in Samuel, by whom, more than all the other judges, the cause of God was revived; and a higher yet again in John the Baptist. But highest and greatest of all was Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the idea of the Nazarite rises to its grand and consummate—realization although in this, as in other things, the outward symbol was dropt, as no longer needed. In Him alone has one been found who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners,” light of light, perfect even as the Father is perfect; so that, without the least flaw of sin or failing of weakness, he executed immeasurably the mightiest undertaking that ever was committed to the charge of a messenger of Heaven. The offerings prescribed for the Nazarite refer to two points in his history—to his contracting defilement, whereby the vow was broken, and to the period of its fulfilment. In the first case, he had to bring a lamb for a trespass-offering, having, like the leper, contracted a debt in the reckoning of God, by failing to fulfil what he had vowed, and so requiring to be discharged from this bond before anything could be accepted at his hands. One pigeon or turtle-dove for a sin-offering, and another for a burnt-offering, had also to be brought, that he might enter anew on his vow, as from the starting-point of full peace and fellowship with God; and the time past being all lost, his hair had to be cut or shaved, to mark the entirely new commencement. Then, when his period of consecration was finished, he had to bring a whole round of offerings: a sin-offering, in token that, however carefully he might have kept himself for the Lord, sin had still mingled itself with his service, and that he was far from having anything to boast of before God; a burnt-offering, to indicate his desire that not only the sins of the past might be blotted out, but that the imperfection of his obedience to the will of God might be supplemented by a more full, an entire surrender; lastly, a peace-offering, with various kinds of bread and drink-offerings (including wine, of which he also now partook), to manifest that he had ceased from his peculiar state of consecration, and entered upon the more ordinary path of dutiful obedience, in settled friendship and near communion with God. DISTINCTIONS OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN IN FOOD. The distinctions made in the Mosaic law regarding food (Leviticus 11), are quite analogous in their nature to some of the prescriptions already noticed under the preceding heads, and stand also in several respects very closely related to the sacrificial institutions. From this latter respect, certain portions of all animals were forbidden to be used as food: the blood, the fat that covered the inwards, probably, also, these inwards themselves, and the tail of the sheep, which, in the Syrian sheep, is a mass of fat. These were the portions which were set apart in sacrifice for the altar of the Lord, and were hence regarded as too sacred for common use.—(Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 17:11) Why such parts in particular were devoted to the altar, has already been considered. With the exception of the parts just mentioned, the bodies of all creatures that could be used in sacrifice were considered as clean, and given for food. More, indeed, than these; for the permission extended to all animals that at once chew the cud and divide the hoof, comprising chiefly the ox, sheep, goat, and deer species—to such fish as have both fins and scales—and in regard to fowls, though no general rule is given, but only individuals are mentioned, yet it would appear that such as feed on grain or grass were allowed. All others, such as birds of prey, feeding on other birds or carrion, or fish, or insects, serpents, and creeping things, fishes without scales or fins, and animals that do not both divide the hoof and chew the cud, were accounted unclean, and expressly forbidden.[398] [398] There is very considerable difficulty in making out the precise species of birds interdicted. Several of the modern names given to them, are given merely on the authority of the rabbinical writers, which is not greatly to be depended on. There are twenty in all named; and even as given in our English Bibles, they are, with scarcely an exception, such as are in modern times thought unfit as articles of diet. Now, in thinking of what was thus prohibited and allowed in respect to food, we can see at a glance that the restrictions could not have been issued for the purpose properly of forming a check upon the gratification of the palate. The articles permitted include, with very few exceptions, all that the most refined and civilised nations still choose for their food. And whether from a certain natural correspondence between the bodily taste and the kinds of meat in question, or from these possessing the qualities best adapted for food and nourishment, or perhaps from both together, one thing is manifest, that the restrictions under which the Israelites were here laid imposed upon them no heavy burden; and that, practically, they were allowed to eat nearly all that it was desirable or proper for them to consume.[399] [399] The kind of flesh that seems principally to form an exception is pork, which is now in common use, and yet was forbidden food to the Israelites. Indeed, it was regarded as so peculiarly forbidden, that it was sometimes put as the representative of whatever is most foul and abominable.—(Isaiah 65:4; Isaiah 66:3; Isaiah 66:17) But though in common use now, it is still esteemed an inferior sort of butcher meat, and chiefly consumed by persons in humble life. And the special dislike to it among the Israelites probably arose in part from their connection with Egypt, where, though once a year every house sacrificed a pig to Osiris, yet the animal itself was accounted unclean; and the swineherds formed an inferior race, with whom the other tribes would not intermarry, and who were not permitted even to enter the temples of the gods.—See Heeren, Afr. ii., p. 148; Wilkinson, i. 239, 3:34, 4:46. The filthy habits of the sow also rendered it a very natural and fitting image of what is impure. Reference to this is expressly made in 2 Peter 2:22.] Some commentators have rested the whole matter upon this ground; and have thought that the prohibition to use other kinds of flesh was sufficiently accounted for by those allowed being the most easy of digestion, the fullest of nourishment, the best adapted to prevent disease and promote a healthful state of body. In these respects the kinds permitted were certainly of the highest order; but this is the whole that can be said, as some of those prohibited were not absolutely either distasteful or unhealthy. And it was a proof of the Divine wisdom and goodness in this part of the legal arrangements, that the articles appointed for food were among the best which the earth affords. But higher grounds than this must have entered into the distinction; otherwise the line of demarcation would not have been drawn as between clean and unclean, but rather as between wholesome and unwholesome. That the different species permitted were pronounced clean, this evidently brought them within the territory of religion; defilement, excision, death, was the consequence of trespassing the appointed landmarks.—(Leviticus 11:43-47) The law respecting the two classes is made to rest, in the passage referred to, upon the same footing with all the rights and institutions of Judaism, viz., the holiness of God, demanding a corresponding holiness on the part of His people. So that the outward distinctions could only have been intended to be observed as symbolical of something inward and spiritual. Of what, then, symbolical? If we look to the Jewish doctors for the answer, we shall certainly find that they understood by the unclean animals different sorts of people, with whom the Jews were to have no communion, as between brethren—such as the Babylonians, Modes, Persians, Romans, etc. And we can readily perceive how the restrictions in question would, in point of fact, operate to prevent any free and friendly intercourse at meals; for at the table of a heathen, not only might the eye of a Jew be offended by seeing articles served up for food which his law taught him to regard as abominations, but he would scarcely feel at liberty to taste of others, lest in the preparation the flesh had not been carefully separated from the blood and fat. Practically, there can be no doubt, the distinctions as to clean and unclean, lawful and unlawful in food, did, to a great degree, cut off the Jews from social intercourse in meat and drink from the rest of the world. But if we ask, why the forbidden articles of diet should have represented idolatrous nations, rather than any other sources of defilement within the land of Israel itself; or what fitness there was in the particular things prohibited for food, to stand as images of the persons or things to be shunned in the daily intercourse of life,—we shall look in vain for any satisfaction to the Jewish doctors, nor is it possible to find this by treading in their footsteps. We must look somewhat deeper; and if we do, the leading principles at least of the distinction will be found intelligible enough, and in perfect accordance with the general spirit of the Mosaic economy. The body requires food; and as in all its relations the body was made to image relations of a higher and more important nature, so, in particular, the manner it was dealt with in respect to food must be of a kind fitted to represent what concerned the proper sustenance and enjoyment of the soul. The food, therefore, could not be everything that might come in the way capable of being turned into an article of diet; for in a fallen world the soul that would be in health and prosper, must continually exercise itself to a choosing between the evil and the good. Hence, to present a shadow of this in the lower province of the bodily life, there must here also be an evil and a good—a permitted and a forbidden—a class of things to be taken as lawful and proper, and another class to be rejected as abominable. It must also be God’s own word which should regulate the distinction, which should single out and sanctify certain kinds of food from the animal creation (within which alone the distinction could properly be drawn) for the comfort able support of the body. But, in doing this, the word of God did not act capriciously or without regard to the natural constitution or fitting order of things; and while it prescribed, with an absolute authority, what should or should not be eaten, it selected in each department for man’s use the highest of its kind—whatever it was best and most agreeable to its nature to partake of. But in choosing out such things in the sphere of the bodily life, putting on them a stamp of sacredness, that they might be adapted to the use of a consecrated people, and commanding them to look upon all that lay beyond as common and unclean, what was it but to make the things of that lower sphere speak as a kind of elbow monitor in regard to the higher—to bring perpetually to the remembrance of the covenant people, that they must restrain and regulate the dispositions of their nature, and that, surrounded as they were on every hand with the instruments and occasions of evil, they must be ever directed by a spiritual taste, formed after the pattern of the law of God? The object of the whole was, as expressly stated in Leviticus 11:44, that as Jehovah, the Holy One, was their God, they should sanctify themselves, and be also holy. It said—it says still, for though the outward ordinance is gone, its spiritual meaning remains—Child of God, thou must put a bridle in thy mouth, and a rein upon the neck of thy lust; thy path must be chosen with the most careful discrimination, and a holy reserve maintained in thy intercourse with the objects and beings around thee. For the world has a thousand channels through which to pour in upon thee its pollution, and separate between thy soul and God. Let His word, therefore, in all things be thy directory; make the precepts of His mouth thy choice; and since “evil communications corrupt good manners,” set a watch upon thy companionships as well as thy doings: go not in the way of sinners, nor be desirous to eat of their dainties; for righteousness has no part with unrighteousness, and the companion of fools shall be destroyed. Taking this view of the ordinance, we get at once at the root of the matter, and have no need to search for recondite and fanciful reasons in the scales and fins, or the chewing of the cud and the dividing of the hoof. Neither do we need to stop at the merely external, and in part arbitrary, distinction between one nation and another; for we have here a principle which comprehends that, and much more, within its bosom. We see also how completely the Jews of our Lord’s time erred regarding this ordinance, from their carnal sense and want of spiritual insight. They erred here, as in other things, by resting in the mere outward distinction as if God cared with what sort of flesh the body was sustained! or as if the holiness He was mainly in quest of depended upon the things which ministered to men’s corporeal necessities! Gross and carnal in their ideas, they practically forgot that God is a Spirit, who, in all His ordinances, deals with men as spiritual beings, and seeks to form them to the love and practice of what is morally good. Christ, therefore, sharply rebuked their folly, and declared, with the utmost plainness, that defilement in the eye of God is a disease and corruption of the heart, and that not the kind of food which enters into the body, but the kind of thoughts and affections which come out of the soul, is what properly renders men clean or unclean. This obviously implied that the outward distinction was from the first appointed only for the sake of the spiritual instruction it was fitted to convey. It implied, further, that the outward, as no longer needed, and as now rather tending to mislead, was about to vanish away, that the spiritual and eternal alone might remain. And the vision shortly after unfolded to St Peter, with the direction immediately following, to go and open the door of faith to the Gentiles, as in God’s sight on a footing with those who had eaten nothing common or unclean, made it manifest to all, that as at first the outward symbol had been established for the sake of the spiritual reality, so again, for the sake of that reality which could now be better secured otherwise, the symbol was finally and for ever abolished. By looking back upon this ancient ordinance, the follower of Christ may be taught to remember: 1. That he is constantly in danger of contracting spiritual defilement, through the love of improper objects, or entering into unhallowed alliances. 2. That he is therefore bound to exercise himself to watchfulness, and to practise self-denial, apart from which the graces of religion can never grow and flourish in the world. 3. But that still, so far from losing by this restraint and discipline of his nature, he is a gainer in everything essential to his real happiness and well-being. The Lord withholds nothing that is good; and the enjoyments He does interdict are only such dangerous and hurtful gratifications as never fail to bring with them a painful recompense of evil. Section Ninth.—Stated Solemnities Or Feasts—The Weekly Sabbath—The Feast Of The Passover—Of Pentecost—Of Trumpets And New Moons—The Day Of Atonement—TheFeast Of Tabernacles—The Sabbatical Year AndYear Of Jubilee. IN a symbolical religion like that of the Old Covenant, it was unavoidable that time should be brought within the circle of sacred things, and that, among other means for accomplishing its important ends, there should be the consecration of particular days and seasons. By the perpetual burnt-offering on the altar, every day might be said to be sanctified, as a call was thereby addressed to all the members of the covenant to dedicate their daily life to God. But this was manifestly not enough; and as nature itself requires an alternation of rest with work,—seasonable periods of relief perpetually coming round to break the monotony of its daily taskwork,—so, to keep up in Israel the proper feeling of a community chosen and set apart for the service of Jehovah, it was necessary to take advantage of such periods, and turn them into occasions for freshening up in the minds of the people a sense of their sacred calling. Not only was this actually done, but the extent to which it was carried out rendered it one of the more distinguishing features of the Old Testament ritual. The term feasts, which in the English Bible has been applied as a general designation to the most of these sacred seasons, is far from being appropriate, and is even apt to suggest mistaken ideas. It is the common rendering of two Hebrew words which differ considerably in regard to their exact shade and compass of meaning. The one is hag (חַג), the root meaning of which is to move in a circle, to whirl round, or dance, and was doubtless applied to certain of the greater solemnities, on account of the joyful processional movements with which they were wont to be celebrated. Indeed, in the beginnings of their national existence, the covenant people (as might be inferred from their Egyptian sojourn, and as actually appears from the first solemnity they kept in the wilderness (Exodus 32:5; Exodus 32:19) would associate with such occasions the excitement and even revelry of the joyous throng as their chief attraction. But when the true character of the religion established among them became better understood, their ideas in this respect necessarily changed; and while the name was still retained for some of the sacred seasons and the observances accompanying them, the thoughts it suggested would be more in accordance with the spirit of the Mosaic institutions. The word is very rarely applied, excepting to the passover and the feast of tabernacles (Exodus 12:14; Leviticus 23:39; Numbers 29:12; Deuteronomy 16:13), which were both regarded as occasions for special manifestations of joy and gladness; and, in later times, the term became almost appropriated to the feast of tabernacles, which was called emphatically the hag, on account of the greater hilarity which used to mingle in its processions and services. The name which is employed to denote the entire series of the stated solemnities connected with particular seasons, in the passage which treats of these in order (Leviticus 23), is moadeem (מווֹעֲדִים). There is a difference of opinion as to the sense in which the word should be understood when so applied—whether it should be meetings, or places of meeting; if of meetings, whether not such only as were held around the tabernacle. But while the word undoubtedly sometimes bears the sense of places of meeting, the manner in which it is used in the passage referred to points simply, and at the same time distinctly, to the meetings themselves. In Leviticus 23:2 it is said, “The moadeem of Jehovah, on which ye shall call holy convocations, these are the moadeem” Their prominent characteristic is here plainly declared to be one that should express itself in convocations or meetings for holy purposes.[400] And though the tabernacle would certainly be regarded as the proper place of holding thorn, in so far as it might be accessible, yet as attendance there was enjoined, and indeed practicable, only in the case of a limited number, it could never have been designed to associate the convocations generally with that particular locality. Those held around the tabernacle at the three stated solemnities (the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles) would naturally be of a kind better adapted for realizing the idea of such meetings than the others, and, as such, fitted to give a tone to the rest. But wherever or however held, the holiness so expressly connected with them clearly distinguishes the meetings in question from mere social or political gatherings. That they might have been designed—those especially which were to be kept at the tabernacle—to foster the spirit of brotherhood among the covenant people, and strengthen the bond of their national unity, may readily be admitted; but this could be no more than an incidental and secondary result. The oneness aimed at, as justly stated by Bähr, “was primarily and chiefly a religious, and not merely a political one; the people were not simply to meet as among themselves, but with Jehovah, and to present themselves before Him as one body. The meeting together was in its very nature a binding of themselves in fellowship with Jehovah; so that it was not politics and commerce that had here to do, but the soul of the Mosaic dispensation, the foundation of the religious and political existence of Israel, the covenant of Jehovah. To keep the people’s consciousness alive to this; to revive, strengthen, and perpetuate it, nothing could be so well adapted as such meetings together.”[401] [400] There can be no doubt that such is the meaning of the expression, מָקְדָא קִדֶש, and that Cocceius and Vitringa, after some Jewish authorities, quite misunderstood it, when they explained it by an announcement of holiness, or a proclamation (at the sanctuary) that the day or time was holy. [401] Symbolik, ii., p. 543. It was no doubt to keep up this idea of sacredness in connection with the festal solemnities, that the number seven played so prominent a part in them. The seventh day Sabbath the day peculiarly set apart from the period of creation, and stamped with an impression of sacredness—not only forms the starting-point of the whole series, but also imparts its distinctive character to each of them, and determines the periods of their celebration. In each of the three greater feasts, the solemnity commenced with a Sabbath, and in two of them also the passover and tabernacles— it ended with a Sabbath, after completing a week of sacred observances. Seven times seven days, or a week of weeks, separated the feast of first-fruits (Pentecost) from that of the passover. The seventh month of the year was made the peculiarly sacred one, distinguished by three solemnities—the feast of trumpets on the first day, of the yearly atonement on the tenth, and of tabernacles on the fifteenth. And then, though not strictly belonging to the cycle of feasts, yet nearly allied to them, came, at the distance of seven annual revolutions, the Sabbatical year; and again, after seven times seven, the year of jubilee. Throughout, we see a predominant regard to that sacred seven, which, originating with the work of God in creation, perpetually recalled the thoughts of His people to Him, as the One by whom and for whom all was made; and finding, as it did from the first, its culmination in a day of hallowed rest, it also served, when thus associated with their peculiar seasons of worship, to impress them with a sense of their calling, as the people who were themselves sanctified and set apart for Jehovah. Hence the seven as a number, and the seventh as a portion of time, might be regarded as in an especial sense the signature of the covenant, viewed in respect to its higher ends and obligations.—(Exodus 31:12-17) The number appears again with this meaning in the seven-branched candle stick, and in the seven sprinklings practised in some of the more solemn services of purification. Beside this regard to the number seven, however, and the idea of holiness associated with it, a respect was had in the order and relative adjustment of the sacred festivals both to the historical periods, which were of special importance to Israel, and to the continued manifestations of God’s goodness to them in the land of Canaan. The three greater festivals were all linked at once to fitting seasons in nature, and to great moments in the national history of the people. In an historical respect, the passover recalled the deliverance from the land of Egypt, which gave birth to their national existence; the feast of first-fruits pointed to the miraculous preservation of the first-born, and the consecration practically grounding itself therein of all their increase to the Lord; while the feast of tabernacles reminded them of their long sojourn in the wilderness, and of the lessons this was intended to render perpetual in their experience as to faith and holiness. In beautiful accordance with these historical grounds for the different ordinances, were the seasons appropriated to each: the passover being assigned to Abib (the ear-month), when the fresh hopes of spring began to take distinct shape; the first-fruits to summer, when the harvest-field had already yielded its produce; and tabernacles to the period of late autumn, when, all the year’s fruits being gathered, the experience of another season’s heritage of good brought anew the call to rejoice before the Lord, heightened by the comparison of what they now had with what they had wanted in the earlier period of their existence. Thus nature and grace, the ordinary providences of the present, and the more special providences of the past, were marvellously combined together in the general arrangements which were made respecting the feasts. Other points of a like nature will suggest themselves as we proceed to particulars. THE WEEKLY SABBATH. When this ever-recurring day of rest was placed by the Lawgiver at the head of the moadeem (Leviticus 23:3), it was viewed as an existing institution, not now imposed for the first time, and merely needing to have its relation determined to other institutions which had certain points of agreement with it. The words employed in this connection regarding it are very few: “Six days shall work be done: the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest (literally, Sabbath of sabbatism), an holy convocation; ye shall do no work: a Sabbath to Jehovah is it in all your dwellings.” The reference in the last clause to the private dwellings of the people, as scenes that ought to witness the due observance of the Sabbath, is a proof that the day is here contemplated in its general aspect, and not simply with respect to the observances of the sanctuary. The additions, also, that were required to be made to the ceremonial of worship for that day would have been mentioned, if the matter had been viewed in its more special light. As actually presented, however, in the sacred text, there are just two points on which stress is laid—the distinctive character of the Sabbath among the days of the week, and the appointment to hold on it holy convocations. The former was, doubtless, the more fundamental point, and that which constituted the ground or occasion of the other. The day is for sabbatism, or resting; but this not as in itself all: for it is resting to Jehovah that is spoken of; namely, keeping the day apart from ordinary business, that the soul might be at leisure for the things of God—resting from the world in order to rest in God. Hence also was it so expressly connected with the manifestations which God had given of Himself, not merely in the work of creation, but also in His covenant dealings with Israel, so that its observance might fitly serve, as already noticed, for a characteristic sign of the covenant between God and His people.—(Exodus 31:17; Deuteronomy 5:15) The simple return of the Sabbath, therefore, brought with it a call to lift their minds to the believing contemplation of God, and to long after the nearer communications of His presence and favour. Mere repose from worldly labour, however, would have gone but a short way to accomplish such an end, had it stood alone; and without any employment of a religious kind to take the place of the occupations of ordinary life, the listless inactivity of the seventh day could have been of little service in promoting the higher ends of the covenant. Holy convocations, or meetings for sacred purposes, were hence declared to be appropriate to the day. They were simply indicated in this connection, not specifically defined. Separate households and local parties were left to regulate them in the manner they might find most profitable or convenient—as, indeed, in the peculiar circumstances of the Israelites, first sojourning in the wilderness, then occupying a territory which for generations was not wholly theirs, it was impossible that any uniform rule should be observed. But they were from the first taught to regard meetings for religious purposes as adapted to the Sabbath, and tending, by the interchange of spiritual thought and the exercises of devotion they would naturally lead to, to render it subservient to the duties of their calling. Nor can we well conceive how, without some such helps, they could in any proper measure realize the description given by Isaiah of a well-spent Sabbath: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride on the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father” (Isaiah 58:13-14). In recent times this view of the Mosaic legislation, regarding the practical observance of the Sabbath, has been vindicated by impartial writers, even though in other respects their opinions are somewhat loose. Bähr maintains expressly enough that the Sabbath had a positive as well as a negative side; that it was not merely for the withdrawal of the soul from worldly business, but, along with this, for the sake of its participation in the rest of God; and that it was a day for the Israelites having holy convocations among themselves, as well as at the tabernacle (ii., p. 542). In the practical treatment of the matter, however, he seems to make little account of such meetings. Hengstenberg goes farther. He not only opposes the view of Vitringa, as to the Jewish Sabbath aiming at nothing higher than bodily rest, but holds it as certain that meetings for the reading of the law, prayer, and sacred song, were in accordance both with the letter and the spirit of the Mosaic legislation.—(Tag des Herrn, p. 33, 34) Keil represents the Sabbath as designed for quickening the souls of the people, by bringing them into fellowship with God’s rest; and regards the holy convocations mentioned as among the means appointed for attaining this end, by reason of the edifying converse to which they would necessarily lead in the law of the Lord.—(Archaeol., i., p. 363) Yet Moses Stuart (Old Testament Canon, p. 66) could speak of there being no command in the whole Pentateuch to keep the Sabbath by attendance on public worship, and affirms that, in point of fact, the covenant people, up to the Babylonish exile, had no public, social devotional worship. What, then, could have been meant by the holy assemblies prescribed for every Sabbath, whether stated or occasional? And if, in earlier times, God had never given nor the people enjoyed such, how could they be said to be again taken away?—(Hosea 2:11) Josephus showed a better insight into the Mosaic legislation, when he stated that Moses “commanded not that they should hear the law once, or twice, or frequently, but that every week they should leave their work, and assemble to hear the law, and learn it accurately.”—(Ap., ii., 17) If it be asked, Who were to preside over and conduct those assemblies I the law, it should be remembered, called every parent, and, in particular, every elder in Israel, to be a teacher of its truths and precepts: the people were still, to some extent, a kingdom of priests; but those who were specially set apart to Levitical and priestly service had it as their more peculiar charge, “to teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord had spoken to them by the hand of Moses.”— (Deuteronomy 33:10; Leviticus 10:11) And for the purpose of securing facilities toward the discharge of this important mission, they were at once separated from ordinary business, and dispersed at convenient distances throughout the land. Whatever grounds there may be for holding that the synagogal institution, with its separate buildings, official organization, regulated discipline, and prescribed ritual of service, came into being only after the Babylonish exile,—and so far we think the arguments of Vitringa conclusive (De Synag., L. i), there is nothing in this to invalidate the obligation imposed in the law to observe the weekly meetings under consideration, or to disprove the fact, that in the better periods of Israel’s history such meetings were generally observed. (See at sec. iii., p. 2 68.) The special services appointed for the Sabbath at the sanctuary are in perfect accordance with the views now advanced. These consisted first in the doubling of the daily burnt-offering—two lambs instead of one, with a corresponding increase in the meat-offering (Numbers 28:9)—stamping the Sabbath, to use the expression of Bähr, as the day of days, the most important of all the days of the week in its bearing on the people’s calling to dedicate themselves, soul and body, to the Lord’s service. The other service, which consisted in presenting the fresh loaves of shew-bread on the Lord’s table (Leviticus 24:5-9), was of quite similar import; for this bread, like the meat-offering generally, was a symbol of the fruitful and holy lives which the members of the covenant were to be ever rendering to the Lord. And that the Sabbath should have been chosen as the day for the perpetual renewal of this offering, clearly indicated the place it was intended to hold then, and which the Lord’s day must hold still, in disposing and enabling the people to abound in such fruitfulness. It virtually declared, that “while diligence in good works should pervade the whole life, yet this would soon flag did it not receive fresh invigoration on the day of rest and meeting together before the Lord. Without the day of the Lord, the Church can never reach its aim of doing righteousness and justice.”—(Hengs., as above, p. 60) Such also is the instruction conveyed on the subject by that psalm which is entitled a Psalm-song for the Sabbath-day (Psalms 92), the main theme of which is the characteristic of the true Israelite as called to the meditation of God’s work, and finding therein an incitement to perseverance in the duties of an upright and godly life. Such was to be specially his Sabbath employment; and the mere circumstance of a psalm having been indited to indicate this, besides conveying the instruction in question, incidentally furnishes a testimony to the religious meetings proper to the day, and the kind of exercises with which they should be accompanied. THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER. This, in point of order, was the first of the annual feasts, and fitly stands next the weekly Sabbath. It was called the feast of unleavened bread, as well as of the passover, and especially when there was need for distinguishing between the sacrifice and the other parts of the solemnity.—(Leviticus 23:5-8, etc.) It could be held only in the place where the altar and house of God were stationed, and all the males—with such females, of course, as could conveniently accompany them—were ordered to repair thither at the appointed time for its celebration. This time was the month Abib (literally the ear-month, when the corn was in the ear), the first month in the Jewish calendar, and usually corresponding with the time between the beginning and middle of our April. The actual commencement, as in all the other Jewish months, was determined by the moon. On the tenth day of that month, each head of a household was required to separate a kid, or a lamb,—in later times apparently always the latter,—without blemish, and on the fourteenth to kill it toward the evening (literally between the evenings, or, as the phrase strictly means, between sunset and total darkness, but according to later Jewish usage, any time between three in the afternoon and sunset). The feast did not commence till the fifteenth day, or the time immediately after sunset on the fourteenth, though the sacrificial action with the lamb would usually take place before the close of the fourteenth. The blood, after the erection of the tabernacle, was given to the priests to be sprinkled upon the altar, which determined it to be a sacrifice; and indeed the Lord more than once calls it, by way of eminence, My sacrifice.—(Exodus 23:18; Exodus 34:25; see Ainsworth, Rivet, in loc., and Hengstenberg, Authen., 2., p. 372.[402]) The body of the lamb was immediately roasted entire, none of its bones being allowed to be broken, nor its flesh to be boiled; if any portion should remain uneaten, to prevent it from seeing corruption, or being put to a common use, it was to be consumed with fire. [402] This has never been denied except for some polemical reasons, as by Chemnitz, Calov, and some other Lutherans, in their controversies with the Catholics about the Supper, and by Socinians and Rationalists of later times, in their efforts to make void the doctrine of a vicarious atonement. In the present day, no one will scarcely attempt to establish for the passover a different character from that which he concedes to the other sacrifices by blood. At the original institution the Israelites were commanded to eat the passover with their loins girt, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand; but this appears to have been enjoined only in consideration of the circumstances in which they were then placed, as ready to take their departure from Egypt, and, like the sprinkling of the blood on the door-posts, seems afterwards to have been discontinued. The only permanent accompaniments of the feast appear to have been the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs with which the lamb was to be eaten. So strict was the prohibition regarding leaven, that they were ordered to make the most careful search for it in their several dwellings before the slaying of the paschal lamb; so that it might not be killed upon leaven (as the expression literally is in the passage last referred to), that there might be nothing of this about them at the time of the sacrifice. And the prohibition extended throughout the whole of the seven days during which the feast lasted. Finally, in addition to the daily offerings for the congregation, there was presented on each of the seven days a goat for a sin-offering, and two bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs for a burnt-offering, with meat and drink-offerings. The feast was, in the first instance, of a commemorative character, being intended to keep in everlasting remembrance the execution of judgment upon Egypt by the slaying of the first-born, and the consequent liberation of Israel from the house of bondage. That was the birth-season of their existence as a people. It was the stretching out of Jehovah’s arm to save them from destruction, and vindicate them to Himself as a peculiar treasure above all the nations of the earth. By mighty acts the Lord then did what He afterwards expressed when he said, “I have formed thee, O Jacob; I have redeemed thee, O Israel: thou art Mine.” Above all others, then, this event deserved to be embalmed in the hearts of the people, and held in everlasting remembrance. But while thus instituted to commemorate the past, the ordinance of the passover at the same time pointed to the future. It did this partly in common with all other acts in which God executed judgment upon the adversary, and brought redemption to His people. For what Bacon said of history in general—“All history is prophecy”—holds with special application to such portions of it. They are the manifestations of God’s character in His relation to His covenant people; and that character being unchangeably the same, He cannot but be inclined substantially to repeat for them in the future what He has done in the past. Hence we find the inspired writers, in the Psalms and elsewhere, when feeling their need of God’s interposition in their behalf, constantly throwing themselves back upon what He had formerly done in avenging the enemies of His cause, and delivering it from adversity; assured that He who had so acted once, had in that given them a clear warrant to look for a like procedure again. But another and still higher element of prophetical import mixed with that singular work of God, which gave rise to the institution of the passover. For the earthly relations then exiting, and the operations of God in connection with them, framed on purpose to represent and foreshadow corresponding but immensely superior ones, connected with the work and kingdom of Christ. And as all adverse power, though rising here to its most desperate and malignant working, was destined to be put down by Christ, that the salvation of His Church might be finally and for ever accomplished, so the redemption from the land of Egypt, with its ever recurring memorial, necessarily contained the germ and promise of what was to come; the lamb perpetually offered to commemorate the past, pointed the expecting eye of faith to the Lamb of God, one day to be slain for the yet unatoned sins of the world; and only when it could be said, “Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us,” did the purpose of God, which lay enclosed as an embryo in the paschal institution, meet with its full development. This twofold bearing runs also through the subordinate and accompanying arrangements. The lamb had to be prepared for food to those in whose behalf its blood was accepted, that the sacrifice, by which they were ransomed from destruction, might become to them the food of a new and better life.[403] And for this purpose the lamb must be preserved entire, and roasted, so that it might not be served up to them in a mutilated form, nor have part of its substance wasted by being boiled in water. Itself whole and undivided, it was to be partaken of at one and the same time by entire households, and by an entire community, that all might realize their Divine calling to the same life, and the oneness as well as completeness of the means by which it was procured and sustained. So also, in the higher things of Christ’s work and kingdom, while He gave Himself unto death for sinners, and suffered the doom He voluntarily took upon Him amid the furious assaults of men and devils, yet a special providence secured that His body, after it had received the stroke of death, should be dealt with as a sacred thing, and be preserved free from mutilation or violence—the sign and token of its preciousness in the sight of the Father, and of the completeness of the redemption it had been given to provide. But this Saviour, even in death whole and undivided, must also be received as such by His people. No more in their experience than in His own person, can He be divided. He is, in the fulness of His perfected redemption, the one bread of life; and by partaking of this in a simple and confiding faith,—thus, but no otherwise,—do sinners become in Him one bread and one body—possessors of His life, and fellow-heirs of His glory.—(1 Corinthians 10:17; John 4:43-54) [403] It was in this personal eating of the flesh by each household, rather than the killing of the victim, that the people exercised a priestly dignity at the annual celebration of the passover. At the original celebration, a separate priesthood had not yet been appointed, and so each head of a house hold did the whole. But afterwards the priests alone could sprinkle the blood, though the households still ate the flesh of the sacrifice. We mention this in qualification of the opinion of Philo, formerly quoted, which erroneously makes the mere killing a priestly act. The bitter herbs, with which the lamb was to be eaten, may possibly have borne respect to the affliction and bondage which the Israelites had endured in Egypt; on which account it is thought by many, both Jewish and Christian, commentators, to have been omitted in the later passages of the Pentateuch which refer to the ordinance. But we should rather regard them as pointing, at least chiefly, to that intermingling of sorrow and grief, amid which the soul enters into the fellowship of the life which is of God. That life itself, when actually established in the soul, is one of serene and elevated joy; but, as it can only be entered on by the deep in working of a sense of sin, and the crucifixion of nature’s affections and lusts, there must be painful experiences in the way that leads to its possession. The Israelites were made conscious of this in the lower territory of a present life, when, at the very time that they were brought to the participation of the goodness and mercy of God, the judgment of Heaven was awakening all around the wail of sorrow, and they were obliged to flee in haste and for ever from a land in which they had found many natural delights. And in the higher region of Christ’s everlasting kingdom, the same thing in principle is experienced by all who, through the godly sorrow that worketh repentance unto salvation, take up their cross and follow Jesus. The putting away of the leaven, that there might be the use only of unleavened bread, may also be regarded as carrying some respect to the circumstances of the people at the first institution of the feast. And on this account it seems to be called “the bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3), because of the trembling haste and anguish of spirit amid which their departure was taken from Egypt. But there can be no doubt that it mainly pointed, as already shown in connection with the meat-offering to holiness in heart and conduct, which became the ransomed people of the Lord—the uncorrupt sincerity and truth that should appear in all their behaviour. Hence, while the bitter herbs were only to be eaten with the lamb itself, the unleavened bread was to be used through the whole seven days of the feast,—the primary sabbatical circle, as a sign that the religious and moral purity which it imaged was to be their abiding and settled character. It taught in symbol what is now directly revealed, when it is declared, that the end for which Christ died is, that He might redeem to Himself a people, who must put off the old man with his evil deeds, and be created anew after the image of God. The only remaining part of the solemnity was the presentation to the Lord of a sheaf of barley, which took place on the second day of the feast, and was done by waving it before the Lord, accompanied by a burnt-offering, with its meat-offering (Leviticus 23:12), expressive of that sense of sin, and renewed dedication of heart and life to God, which was proper to such a season. On this account, in part at least, the time for the celebration of the feast was fixed at a season when it was possible to obtain a few handfuls of ripening corn. The natural thus fitly corresponded with the spiritual. The religious presentation of the first ripe grain of the season was like presenting the whole crop to God, acknowledging it to be His property, and receiving it as under the signature of His hand. It thereby acquired throughout a sacred character; for “if the first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy.” The service bore respect to the consecration of the first-born at the original institution of the passover, and was therefore most appropriately connected with this ordinance. Those first-born, as previously noticed, represented the whole people of Israel, and in their personal deliverance and future consecration all Israel were saved and sanctified to the Lord. So, after they had reached the inheritance for which all was done, there was the yearly presentation of the first of their increase to the Lord, in token of all being derived and held of Him; and as the passover feast served as a perpetual renewal of their birth to the Lord, so the waving of the first sheaf was a sort of perpetual consecration of their substance to His glory. Whence, also, being thus connected with the very existence of the people in their redeemed condition, and with the first of their annual increase, the month on which the passover was celebrated was fitly made to stand at the commencement of the Jewish calendar. In Christian times, in like manner, everything may be said to date from the work of Christ in the flesh; everything in the history of the believer from his new birth in Christ to God. Till then he was dead, now he is alive in the Lord; and partaking of the life of Him who is the first-born among many brethren, he grows up to a meetness for the same blessed and glorious immortality. THE FEAST OF WEEKS, PENTECOST. This feast was appointed to be held at the distance of seven weeks complete, a week of weeks, from the second day of the passover, when the first ripe barley sheaf was presented—therefore on the fiftieth day after the former. The males were then again to repair to the house of God. And from the Greek word for fifty being Pentecoste, the feast itself in the New Testament, and in later times generally, came to be designated Pentecost. But its Bible name is rather that of Weeks, being determined by the complete cycle of weeks that followed the waving of the barley sheaf at the time of the passover, and forming the close of that period which stretched from the one solemnity to the other; whence it was frequently called by the ancient Jews Atzereth (Josephus, 3:10, 6, Asartha), i.e., the closing or shut ting up. There are, however, two other names applied to it in the Pentateuch. In Exodus 23:16 it is called “the Feast of Harvest,” because it was kept at the close of the whole harvest, wheat as well as barley—the intervening weeks between it and the passover forming the season of harvest. And in the same passage, as again in Numbers 28:26, it is also called “the Feast of the First-fruits,” because it was the occasion on which the Israelites were to present to God the first-fruits of their crop, as now actually realized and laid up for use. This was done by the high priest waving two loaves in the name of the whole congregation. But, besides this, as they wore enjoined to give “the first of all the fruit of the earth to the Lord,” to whom it all properly belonged, it was ordered that at this feast they should bring these first-fruits along with them. The precise amount to be rendered of such was not fixed, but was left as a free-will offering to the piety of the individual.—(Deuteronomy 16:10) The offering itself, however, was a matter of strict obligation; whence the precept of the wise man: “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of thine increase.” (Proverbs 3:9) The form of confession and thanksgiving recorded in Deuteronomy 26 was commonly used on such occasions. In later times the feast is understood to have been held for an entire week, like the passover; and is often regarded as having been appointed to continue for the same period. But no time is specified in Scripture for its continuance, and as a holy solemnity it appears to have been limited to one day, when the same number and kind of offerings were presented as on each day of the Paschal Feast.—(Numbers 28:26-30) But as the people were specially required at this feast to extend their liberality to their poorer brethren, and to invite not only their servants, but also the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the Levite, to share with them in the goodness which the Lord had conferred upon them (Deuteronomy 16:10), it is obvious that a succession of days must have been required for its due celebration. This feast has been very commonly viewed as at least partly intended to commemorate the giving of the law, which certainly took place within a very little of fifty days after the slaying of the passover—although the time cannot be determined to a day. But not a hint occurs of this in Scripture, nor is any trace to be found of it either in Philo or in Josephus. It was maintained by Maimonides and one class of Rabbinical writers, but denied by Abarbanel and another class; and it seems somewhat strange that the opinion should so readily have found acceptance with so many Christian authors. The points of ascertained and real moment in connection with the feast are—(1.) Its reference to the second day of the passover, when the first barley sheaf was presented the former being the commencement, the latter the completion, of the harvest period. Hence, all being now finished, and the year’s provision ready to be used, the special offering here was, not of ripe corn, but of loaves, baked as usual with leaven, representing the whole staff of bread. In this case the fermenting property of leaven was not taken into account. But the loaves were not placed upon the altar, to which the prohibition about leaven strictly referred; they were simply waved before the Lord, and given to the priests. (2.) Then, secondly, there was the reference it bore to the week of weeks—the complete revolution of time, shut in on each hand by a stated solemnity, and thus marked off as a time peculiarly connected with God, a select season of divine working. Why should this season in particular have been so distinguished? Simply because it was the reaping time of the year. Canaan was in a peculiar sense God’s land: the people were guests and sojourners with Him upon it; He was bound by the relation in which He stood to them (so long as they continued faithful in their allegiance to Him) to provide for their wants, and satisfy them with good things. The harvest was the season more especially for His doing this; it was His peculiar time of working in their behalf, when He crowned the year with His goodness, and laid up, as it were, in His storehouses what was required to furnish them with supplies, till the return of another season. Hence it was fitting that he should be acknowledged both at the beginning and ending of the period—that as the first of the ripening ears of corn, so the first of the baked loaves of bread, should be presented to Him—and that as guests well cared for, and plentifully furnished with the comforts of life, they should at the close come before the Lord to praise Him for His mercies, and give substantial expression to their gratitude, by sharing with His representatives a portion of their increase, and causing the poor and needy to sing for joy. There are important lessons of instruction here for every age of the Church, in respect even to the sphere of the natural life. For as God still pours into the lot of His people of the bounties of His providence, the same regard to His hand, amid the operations by which this is accomplished, and the same grateful and liberal acknowledgment of it when the results have been obtained, which were required of the ancient Israelite, should now in substance be exercised by Christians. But looking to the higher things of grace and salvation, which alone form the antitype to the other, we are reminded by the arrangements of this feast of the two great seasons in the history of Chris’s redemption—the one of working towards the provision of its blessings, the other of participation and enjoyment in what has been provided. The eventful period of our Lord’s ministry on earth, with all its trials and triumphs, its perfect obedience to the will of the Father, and in doing and suffering, accomplishing whatever was needed for laying anew the foundation of man’s peace with God—this was the peculiar season of divine working, during which the rich provisions of grace were, in a manner, brought to maturity, and reaped for the benefit of those who should be the heirs of salvation. Then, when this work of preparation was over, and the feast of fat things so long in prospect was now ready to be enjoyed, there came, after our Lord’s ascension in glorified humanity, the actual dispensation to believing souls of the treasured good, through the free outpouring of the Holy Spirit. What day could be more fitly chosen for such a purpose than that of Pentecost? The Spirit was expressly promised and given for the purpose of taking of the things of Christ, and showing them to His people; in other words, to turn the riches of His purchased redemption from being a treasure laid up among the precious things of God, into a heritage of good actually possessed by His people, so that they might be able to rejoice, and call others to rejoice with them, in the goodness of His house. It was the day of the Church’s first-fruits, and these were a pledge from the Spirit of the whole that remains to complete the fulness of the purchased possession. THE FEAST OF TRUMPETS AND THE NEW MOONS. We couple these together, for, to a certain extent, they were of the same description. Strictly speaking, the New Moons were not feasts, and have no place among the moadeem in the Leviticus 23twenty-third chapter of Leviticus. They were not days of sacred rest, nor of holy convocations. But being the commencement of a new portion of time, and of that monthly revolution of time which might be said to rule the whole year, they were so far distinguished from other days, that the same special offerings were presented on them which were presented on the moadeem.—(Numbers 28:11-15) And they were further distinguished by the blowing of trumpets over the burnt-offerings.—(Numbers 10:10; Psalms 83:3) This latter service brought them into a close connection with the Feast of Trumpets, which took place on one of them, and was a day of rest and holy convocation: it had its peculiar and distinctive characteristic, from the blowing of trumpets; and it is hence probable, that on it the blowing of these would then be continued longer, and made to give forth a louder sound than on other days. The feast so characterized took place on the first day of the seventh month, which fell about the latter end of September or the beginning of October; and though the people were not required to appear at the tent of meeting, yet, in token of the importance of the day, an additional series of offerings was presented, beside those appointed for the new moons in general. There can be no doubt that the sacred use of the trumpet had its reason in the loud and stirring noise it emits. Hence it is described as a cry in Leviticus 25:9 (the English word sound there is too feeble), which was to be heard throughout the whole land. The references to it in Scripture generally suggest the same idea.—(Zephaniah 1:16; Isaiah 58:1; Hosea 8:1, etc.) On this account the sound of the trumpet is very commonly employed in Scripture as an image of the voice or word of God. The voice of God, and the voice of the trumpet on Mount Sinai, were heard together (Exodus 19:16; Exodus 19:18-19), first the trumpet-sound as the symbol, then the reality. So also St John heard the voice of the Lord as that of a trumpet (Revelation 1:10; Revelation 4:1), and the sound of the trumpet is once and again spoken of as the harbinger of the Son of Man, when coming in power and great glory, to utter the almighty word which shall quicken the dead to life, and make all things new.—(Matthew 24:31; 1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16) The sound of the trumpet, then, was a symbol of the majestic, omnipotent voice or word of God; but of course only in those things in which it was employed in respect to what God had to say to men. It might be used also as from man to God, or by the people as from one to another. In this case, it would be a call to a greater than the usual degree of alacrity and excitement in regard to the work and service of God. And such, probably, was the more peculiar design of the blowing of trumpets at the festivals generally, and especially at the festival of trumpets on the first day of the seventh month. That month was distinguished above all the other months of the year, for the sacred services to be performed in it: as noticed near the commencement of this section, it was emphatically the sacred month. For not only was its first day consecrated to sacred rest and spiritual employment, but the tenth was the great day of yearly atonement, when the high priest was permitted to sprinkle the mercy-seat with the blood of sacrifice, and the liveliest exhibition was given which the materials of the earthly sanctuary could afford of the salvation of Christ. And then on the fifteenth of the same month commenced the Feast of Tabernacles, which was intended to present a striking image of the glory that should follow, as the former of the humiliation and sufferings by which the salvation was accomplished. In perfect accordance with all this, not only is the feast named the Feast of Trumpets, but “a memorial of blowing of trumpets,” a bringing to remembrance, or putting God, as it were, in mind of the great things by which (symbolically) He was to distinguish the month that was thus introduced; precisely as, when they went to war against an enemy that oppressed them, they were to blow the trumpet; and it is added, “Ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies.” (Numbers 10:9)[404] [404] Most commonly by the Jews, and generally also by Christian writers, the Feast of Trumpets is called that of the New Year, viz., of the civil year, as distinguished from the sacred. But Bähr justly remarks, there is nothing in Old Testament Scripture of this twofold year, nor does any record of it exist till after the Babylonish captivity. It is therefore quite arbitrary to regard this feast as pointing at all in such a direction. THE DAY OF ATONEMENT. This day formed the most distinguishing solemnity of the seventh month, and indeed of the whole sacrificial ritual. But we have already treated of it in another connection, and refer to what is written there. (Sec. VII) THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. This had all the marks of a great and solemn feast. The males were to repair for its celebration to the place where God put His name; it was to be begun and ended by a day of holy convocation, and the last the eighth, an additional day, so that the whole reached a day beyond the feast of unleavened bread. It is sometimes called “the Feast of Ingathering in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field” (Exodus 23:16; Deuteronomy 16:13); for it took place immediately before the winter months, and after the labours, not only of the harvest, but also of the vintage and the fruit season generally, were past. The year might, therefore, with an agricultural population like the Israelites, be then considered as tending towards its close; and the comparative leisure of the winter months being before them, they would have ample time for the celebration of the feast. But we remark in passing, that this feast, which began on the fifteenth of the seventh month, being spoken of as falling about the close of the year, is a clear enough proof how little, in the mind of the lawgiver, the Feast of Trumpets at the beginning of it had to do with a New Year. The more distinctive appellation, however, of this feast was that of Tabernacles, or, as it should rather be, of booths (חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת), because during the continuance of the feast the people were to dwell in booths. A booth is not precisely the same as a tent or tabernacle, though the names are frequently interchanged. It properly means a slight, temporary dwelling, easily run up, and as easily taken down again,—a house or shed for a day or two; such as Jacob made for his cattle in the place which, on that account, was called Succoth (booths, Genesis 33:17), and Jonah, for himself, which was so slim and insufficient, that he was glad of the foliage of a gourd to cover him. Tents might also be called booths, as being habitations of a very imperfect description, light and moveable, speedily pitched, and easily transported, the proper domiciles of a yet unsettled and wandering population. In this respect they form a contrast to solid, fixed, and comfortable houses; as with the Rechabites, whose father commanded them not to build houses, but to dwell in tents; and with the Israelites at large before, as compared with their condition after, they entered the promised land. There seems no necessity for pressing the matter further in regard to the use of booths at this feast; and for saving, with Bähr, that they were intended to recall the deprivations and troubles of the wilderness life; or with Keil, that respect was had in them rather to the gracious care and protection of God, while they were exposed to these. It is enough to say, that the booth-like structures, which were to serve for tents in the feast, were symbols of the wilderness state, leaving all besides, which this was fitted to suggest, to be supplied. The reason assigned for the ordinance in Scripture indicates so much, and no more: the people had to dwell in booths, “that their generations might know that the Lord made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.”—(Leviticus 23:43) In this respect it was designed, in the first instance, to serve what may always be regarded as the immediate end of all commemorative religious institutions,—that, namely, of keeping properly alive the remembrance of the historical fact they refer to. In every case of this nature, it is of course understood, that the fact itself be one of a primary and fundamental character, containing the germ of spiritual ideas vitally important for every age of the Church. Such certainly was the character of the period of Israelitish history, when the people were made to dwell in tents or booths after they had left the land of Egypt. It was, in a manner, the connecting link between their house of bondage on the one hand, and their inheritance of blessing on the other. Then especially did the Lord come near and reveal Himself to them, pitching His own tabernacle in the midst of theirs, communicating to them His law and testimony, and setting up the entire polity which was to continue unimpaired through succeeding ages. Hence, the annual celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles was like a perpetual renewing of their religious youth; it was keeping in fresh recollection the time of their espousals, and re-enforcing upon their minds the views and feelings proper to that early and formative period of their history.—On this account we have no doubt it was, that the Feast of Tabernacles was the time chosen, every seventh year, for reading the whole law to the people (Deuteronomy 31:10-13), and not, as Bähr thinks, because it was the greatest feast, and the one most largely frequented. The law was given them in the wilderness on their way to the land of Canaan, as the law by which all their doings were to be regulated, when they were settled in the land, and on the faithful observance of which their continued possession of it depended. So that nothing could be more appropriate, when commemorating the period and reviving the thoughts and feelings of their religious youth, than to have the law read in their hearing. But this shows, at the same time, that the Feast of Pentecost could not have been intended to commemorate the giving of the law; as in that case, unquestionably, the time of its celebration would rather have been chosen for the purpose. Even in this point of view, there was a much closer connection between the wilderness-life, the booth-dwelling portion of Israel’s history, than if it had formed the mere passage from Egypt to Canaan. But the same will appear still more, if we look to the bearing it had upon the personal preparation of Israel for the coming inheritance. It was not simply the time of God’s manifesting His shepherd care and watchfulness toward them, guiding them through great and terrific dangers, and giving them such astonishing proofs of His goodness in the midst of these, as were sufficient to assure them in all time coming of His faithfulness and love. It was this, doubtless; but, at the same time, much more than this. While the whole period was strewed with such tokens of goodness from the hand of God, by which He sought to draw and allure the people to Himself, it was also the period emphatically of temptation and trial, by which the Lord sought to winnow and sift their hearts into a state of meetness for the inheritance. Hence the words of Moses, Deuteronomy 8:2-5 : “Thou shalt remember all the way by which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or not. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that He might make thee know that man liveth not by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord,” etc. This alternating process of want and supply, of great and appalling danger, ever ready to be met by sudden and extraordinary relief, was the grand testing process in their history, by which the latent evil in their bosoms was brought fully to light, that it might be condemned and purged out, and by which they were formed to that humble reliance on God’s arm, and single-hearted devotedness to His fear, which alone could prepare them for taking possession of, and permanently occupying, the promised land. It proved in the issue too severe for by far the greater portion of the original congregation; or, in other words, the evil in their natures was too deeply rooted to be effectually purged out, even by such well-adjusted and skilfully applied means of purification; so that they could not be allowed to enter the promised land. But for those who did enter, and their posterity to latest generations, it was of the greatest moment to have kept perpetually alive upon their minds the peculiar dealing of God during that transition period of their history, in order to their clearly and distinctly realizing the connection between their continued enjoyment of the land, and the refined and elevated state, the lively faith, the binding love, the firm and devoted purpose, to which the training in the wilderness conducted. They must, in this respect, be perpetually connecting the present with the past—at the close of every season renewing their religious youth; as it was only by their entering into the spirit of that period, and making its moral results their own, that they had any warrant to look forward to another season of joy and plenty. For this high purpose, therefore, the feast was more especially instituted. And while the fulness of supply and comfort amid which it was held, as contrasted with their formerly poor and unsettled condition, called them to rejoice, the solemn respect it bore to the desert-life taught them to rejoice with trembling: reminded them that their delights were all connected with a state of nearness to God, and fitness for His service and glory: and warned them, that if they forsook the arm of God, or looked to mere fleshly ease and carnal gratifications, they should inevitably forfeit all title to the goodly inheritance they possessed. Hence, also, when this actually came to be the case, when the design of this feast had utterly failed of its accomplishment, when Israel “knew not that it was the Lord who gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold,” He resolved to send her again through the rough and sifting process of her youth: “Therefore will I return, and take away My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, and I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees; and I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and will speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope,” etc.—(Hosea 2:8-15; compare Ezekiel 20) Not that the literal scenes were to be enacted over again; but that a like process of humiliation, trial, and improvement had to be undergone—the severe training first, and then the holy, earnest spirit of the past revived, that they might be fitted for being partakers of the goodness of the Lord. This view of the nature and design of the feast, which we take to be the only scriptural one, sufficiently discovers the fallacy of those representations which would make the celebration of this feast to have been an occasion merely for carnal merriment, dancing, feasting, and revelry. When the people themselves became carnal, it would, no doubt, partake too much of that character; but such was by no means the manner in which God designed it to be kept. They were, indeed, to rejoice over all the goodness and mercy which the Lord had given them to experience; but their joy was still to be the joy of saints, and nothing was to be done or relished which might have the effect of weakening the graces of a divine life, or disturbing their fellowship with God. It is, no doubt, in connection with the joy that was to characterize the feast, and as symbolical of it, that branches of palms and other trees were to be taken (whether in their hands or on their booths, is not said, Leviticus 23:40). Having taken these, they were to “rejoice before the Lord,”—the joy having respect more immediately to the gathered produce of the year, and more remotely to the abundance of Canaan, as contrasted with the barrenness of the desert. The palm-tree was specially selected, most probably from having the richest foliage, and thus presenting the fittest symbol of joy. The history of our Lord shows how naturally the people associated the palm leaf with joy.—(John 12:12) In regard to the mode of celebrating the feast, beside the dwelling in booths, there was a great peculiarity in the offerings to be presented. The sin-offering was the same as on the other feast-days, a single goat; but for the burnt-offering the rams and lambs were double the usual number, two and fourteen instead of one and seven; while, in place of the two young bullocks of other days, there were to be in all, during the seven days of the feast, seventy, and these so divided, that on the last day there were to be seven, eight on the day preceding, and so on up to thirteen, the number offered on the first day of the feast. The eighth day did not properly belong to the feast, but was rather a solemn winding-up of the whole feast season: the offerings for it, therefore, were much of the usual description. But for those peculiarities in the offerings properly connected with this feast,—the double number of one kind, and the constant and regular decrease in another, till they reached the number of seven,—we are still without any very satisfactory reason. The greater number may possibly be accounted for by the occasion of the feast, as intended to mark the grateful sense of the people for the Lord’s goodness, after having reached not only Canaan, but the close of another year of its plentiful increase in all natural delights. We make no account of its being called in a passage often quoted from Plutarch (Sympos., i. 4, 5), “the greatest of the Jewish feasts,” as also by Philo, Josephus, and most of the Rabbins; for there is no ground in Scripture for making it in itself greater than the passover, and in deep solemnity both of them fell below the day of atonement. The other point is more obscure. That some stress was intended to be laid on the whole number seventy, ten times seven, the two most sacred and complete numbers, is probable. But the gradual diminution till seven is reached, remains a sacred enigma. The views of the Rabbins are mere conjectures, most of them frivolous and nonsensical. To see in it, with Bähr, a reference to the waning moon, is entirely fanciful; nor is it less so to understand it, with the greater part of the elder typologists, of the gradual ceasing of animal sacrifice, for there should then have been none on the last day, or at most one, whereas there were still seven—the very symbol of the covenant. We might rather regard it as intended to signalize this covenant, as designed to impress upon the people the conviction that, however their blessings might increase, and however many their grateful oblations might be, yet they must still settle and rest in the covenant, as that with which all their privileges and hopes were bound up. But we can scarcely venture to present this as a satisfactory explanation. We only mention farther, regarding the observance of the feast, that several things were added in later times, and, in particular, the practice of drawing water from the fountain of Siloam, and pouring it on the sacrifice, together with wine, amid shouts of joy, and every manifestation of exuberant delight. This was done, however, only during the seven days of the feast, not on the eighth or last, as is commonly represented.—(See Winer’s Real-wört, on the Feast; also Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. Ev. Joh., vii. 37) And if our Lord, in John 7:37, when He said, on the last, the great day of the feast, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,” made any reference to the libations connected with the feast, it must have been to what had taken place on the previous days, and of which there was a marked absence on this last day. Taking advantage of the cessation, He intimated that in Him the reality was to be found of the symbolical service that had been performed with such demonstrations of joy on the preceding days. The Israelites, in their outward history, were a collective type of the real children of God; and, therefore, in this feast, which brought the beginnings and the endings of their history together, we naturally look for a condensed representation of a spiritual life, whether in individuals or in the Church at large. We see its antitype first of all, and without its imperfections, in the man Christ Jesus,—who also was led up, after an obscure and troubled youth, into a literal wilderness to be tempted forty days, a day for a year, that the people might the more readily identify Him with the true Israel; and when Satan could find nothing in Him, so that He was proved to be fitted for accomplishing the work of God, and casting out the wicked one from his usurped dominion, He came forth to enter on the great conflict of man’s and the world’s redemption. In this great work, too, the beginning and the end meet together, and are united by a bond of closest intimacy. The sufferings necessarily go before, and lay the foundation for the glory. Jesus must personally triumph over sin and death, before He can receive the kingdom from the Father, or be prepared to wield the sceptre of its government, and enjoy with His people the riches of its fulness. And, therefore, even now, when He has entered on His glory, to show the bond of connection between the one and the other, He still presents Himself as “the Lamb that was slain,” and receives the adorations of His people, as having, by His obedience unto death, redeemed them from sin, and made them kings and priests unto God. With a still closer resemblance to the type, because with a greater similarity of condition in the persons respectively concerned, is the spiritual import of the feast to be realized in the case of all genuine believers. And on this account the Prophet Zechariah, when speaking of what is to take place after the final overthrow of the Church’s enemies, represents all her members as going up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah 14:16). She shall then rejoice in the fulness of her purchased and redeemed inheritance, and have her experiences of heavenly enjoyment heightened and enhanced by the remembrance of the past tribulation and conflict. Now she is passing through the wilderness; it is her period of trial and probation; she must be sifted and prepared for her final destiny, by constant alter nations of fear and hope, of danger and deliverance, of difficulties and conquests. By these she must be reminded of her own weakness and insufficiency, her proneness to be overcome of evil, and the dependence necessary to be maintained on the word and promises of God; the dross must be gradually purged out, and the pure gold of the divine life refined and polished for the kingdom of glory. Then shall she ever hold with her Divine Head a feast of tabernacles, rejoicing in His presence, satisfied with His fulness; and so far from grudging at the trials and difficulties of the way, rather reflecting on them with thankfulness, because seeing in them the course of discipline that was needed for the fulfilment of her final destiny. The blessed company in Revelation 7, clothed in white robes, and with palms in their hands, representatives of a redeemed and triumphant Church, are the final antitypes of the Israelites keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. THE SABBATICAL YEAR. The appointment of a sabbatical year does not strictly belong to the stated festivals, nor is it included among these in the Leviticus 23 chapter of Leviticus; but it was very closely related to them, and in some respects had the same purposes to serve. It is hence called by the name moed, festival, in Deuteronomy 31:10. The principal law on the subject is given in Leviticus 25:1-7. There it is enjoined, that after the children of Israel came into possession of the land of Canaan, they were to allow it every seventh year an entire season of rest. The land was to be untilled—a promise being also given of such plenty on the sixth year as would render the people independent of a harvest on the seventh. They might enjoy a year’s respite from their toils, and yet be no losers in their worldly condition. But as there would still be a certain return yielded from the fruit-trees and the ground, so whatever grew spontaneously was to be used, partly indeed by the owner, but by him in common with the poor and the stranger that might sojourn among them. And along with this freedom to the humbler classes of the community, there was also ordained, by a subsequent law (Deuteronomy 15), a release from all personal bondage and a cancelling of debts. The name given to this year, “a Sabbath of rest,” and “a Sabbath to the Lord,” alone denotes its close connection with the weekly Sabbath; and this was farther confirmed by the promise of a larger increase than usual on the sixth year, corresponding to the double portion of manna that fell on the sixth day in the wilderness. On account of this connection and resemblance, Calvin has assigned it (in his Commentary), as one of the reasons of the appointment, that “God wished the observance of the Sabbath to be inscribed upon all the creatures, so that wherever the Jews turned their eyes, they might have it forced on their notice.” The sacredness of the rest during this year was more especially indicated by the prescription, that the whole law should be road at the Feast of Tabernacles. Such a prescription indicated something more than that provision should be made for this purpose at the feast; for that might have been done, so far as the necessary time, was concerned, any year. It must rather have been designed to teach the Israelites, that the year, as a whole, should be much devoted to the meditation of the law, and engaging in exercises of devotion. If they entered, as they should have done, into the Divine appointment, the release from ordinary work would be gladly taken as an opportunity to direct the mind more to Divine things, to be more frequent in conversing with each other upon the history of God’s dealings, and to take order that anything which seemed to be out of course in respect to the Divine appointments might be rectified. How much, too, would the periodical return of such a season tend to impress upon all ranks and classes of the people the important truth, that the land, with every plant and creature in it, was the Lord’s! Nor could it be less fitted to impress upon the richer members of the community the image of God’s beneficence and tender consideration of the poor and needy. Such an institution was utterly opposed to the niggardly and selfish spirit which would mind only its own things, and would grind the face of the poor with hard exactions or oppressive toil, in order to gratify some worldly desires. No one could imbibe the spirit of the institution without being as distinguished for his humanity and justice toward his fellow-men, as for his piety toward God. It may possibly be thought, that the encouragement given to idleness by such a long cessation from the ordinary labours of the field, would be apt to counterbalance the advantages arising from the ordinance. The cessation, however, could only be comparative, not absolute; and each day would still present certain calls for labour in the management of household affairs, the superintendence or care of the cattle, the husbanding of the provisions laid up from preceding years, and the execution, perhaps, of improvements and repairs. The appointment was abused, if it was turned to an occasion for begetting habits of idleness. But the solemn pause which it created in the common occupations and business of life—the arrest it laid on men’s selfish and worldly dispositions—and the call it addressed to them to cultivate the graces of a pious, charitable, and beneficent life, these things conveyed to the Israelites, and they convey still to the Church of God (though the outward ordinance has ceased), salutary lessons, which in some form or another must have due regard paid to them, if the interest of God is to prosper in the world. THE YEAR OF JUBILEE. This institution stood in the closest relation to the sabbatical year, and may be regarded as the higher form of the same. It was appointed that when seven weeks of years had run their course, this great Sabbath-year, the year of jubilee, should come; when not only, as in the ordinary sabbatical year, the land should be allowed to rest, the fruit-trees to grow unpruned, and debts to be cancelled, but also every personal bond should be broken, every alienated possession restored to its proper owner, and a general restitution should take place.—(Leviticus 25:9, sq.) The sabbatical idea, as involving a participation in the perfect order and peaceful rest of God, rose here, so far as social arrangements were concerned, to its proper consummation; it could ascend no higher in the present imperfect state of things, nor accomplish any more. Its object was one of deliverance from trouble, grievance, and oppression, a restitution to order and repose, so that the face of nature and the aspect of society might reflect somewhat of the equable, brotherly, well-ordered condition of the heavenly world. As such it fitly began, not at the usual commencement of the year, but on the day after the yearly atonement, in the seventh month, when the sins of the people in all their transgressions were (symbolically) atoned for and forgiven by God—when all, in a manner, being set right between them and God, it became them to see that everything was also set right between one person and another. It implied, however, that Canaan was not the region of bliss in which the desire of the righteous was to find its proper satisfaction, but only an imperfect type and shadow of what should actually possess this character. It implied that everything there was constantly tending, through human infirmity and corruption, to change and deteriorate what God had settled; so that times of restoration must perpetually come round to check the downward tendency of things, to rectify the disorders which were ever rising into notice, and especially to maintain and exhibit the principle, that every one entitled to dwell with God was also entitled to share in His inheritance of blessing (Leviticus 25:23). Happy had it been for Israel if he had heartily fallen in with these restorative sabbatical institutions. But they struck too powerfully against the current of human depravity, and drew too largely upon the faith of the people, to be properly observed. Considered in respect to the people generally, there is but too much reason to believe that the breach of the law here was greatly more common than the observance; since the seventy years desolation of the Babylonish exile is represented as a paying of the long arrears due to the land for the want of its sabbatical repose, “until the land had fulfilled her Sabbaths.”—(2 Chronicles 36:21) The promise, however, contained in this year of jubilee for the Church and people of God, cannot ultimately fail. A presage and earnest of its complete fulfilment was given in the work of Christ, when at the very outset He declared that He was anointed to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound—to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. But it is from His finished work of reconciliation on the cross, from the great day of atonement, that the commencement of the proclamation properly dates, respecting the world’s coming jubilee. Sin still causes innumerable troubles and sorrows. Even in the best governed states, the true order of absolute righteousness and peace is to be found only in scattered fragments or occasional examples. Darkness and corruption are everywhere contending for the mastery; but the truth shall certainly prevail. The prince of this world shall be finally cast out; and amid the manifested power and glory of God all evil shall be quelled, and sorrow and sighing shall for ever flee away. Then shall the joyful anthem be sung, “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; let the field be joyful, and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world with righteousness, and His people with His truth.” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 132: 05.27. CHAPTER FOURTH ======================================================================== Chapter Fourth.—Historical Developments. IN the course of the preceding discussions, we have so often had occasion to refer to the greater events in Israelitish history, that it would be alike needless and unprofitable, as regards our present object, to go at any length into the consideration of its particular parts. It will be enough to take a brief survey of the more prominent points connected with the state of the covenant people, while under the law and the promises. And we shall do so under two leading divisions,—the one having respect to their actual settlement in the land of Canaan, and the other to their subsequent condition, as placed under the Theocratic constitution, with its peculiar privileges and obligations of duty. The two subjects together will afford opportunities for meeting various objections against the history of the Old Testament, and also for exhibiting the distinctive excellences of its economy, and the gradual preparation made by its actual working for the kingdom of Christ. Section First.—The Conquest Of Canaan. The conquest and actual possession of Canaan by the children of Israel, both in point of time and importance, deserves the first place. The possession of that hind formed one of the things most distinctly promised in the Abrahamic covenant; and as matters actually stood when the fulfilment came to be accomplished, the possession could be made good only by the overthrow and destruction of the original inhabitants. This mode of entrance on the possession has been often denounced by infidel writers as cruel and unjust, and has not unfrequently met with a lame defence from the advocates of a Divine revelation. Even heathen morality is said to have been offended at it; and we learn from Augustine and Epiphanius, that the ancient sect of the Manicheans, who were more Pagan than Christian in their sentiments, placed it among “the many cruel things which Moses did and commanded,” and which went to prove, according to their view, that the God of the Old Testament could not be the God of the New. All the leading abettors of infidelity in this country—Tindal, Morgan, Chubb, Bolingbroke, Paine have decried it as the highest enormity; and Boling broke, in his usual style, did not scruple to denounce the man “as worse even than an atheist, who would impute it to the Supreme Being.” Voltaire, and the other infidels, with their allies the neologians on the Continent, have not been behind their brethren here in the severity of their condemnation and the plentifulness of their abuse. And it would even seem as if the more learned portion of the Jews themselves had been averse to undertake the defence of the transaction in its naked and scriptural form, as we find their elder Rabbinical writers attempting to soften down the rugged features of the narrative, by affirming that “Joshua sent three letters to the land of the Canaanites before the Israelites invaded it; or rather, he proposed three things to them by letters: that those who preferred flight, might escape; that those who wished for peace, might enter into covenant; and that such as were for war, might take up arms.”[405] [405] Nachman, as quoted by Selden, dc Jure Nat., etc., L. vi., c. 13. This apparently more humane and agreeable view of the transaction has been substantially adopted by many Christian writers,—among others, by Selden, Patrick, Graves,—who conceive that the execution of judgment upon the Canaanites was only designed to take effect in case of their refusing to surrender, and their obstinate adherence to idolatry; but that in every case peace was to be offered to them on the ground of their acknowledging the God of Israel, and submitting to the sway of their conquerors. The sacred narrative, however, contains nothing to warrant such a supposition. Indeed, the supposition is made in despite of an express line of demarcation on that very point, drawn between the Canaanites and the surrounding nations. To the latter only were the Israelites allowed to offer terms of peace: “But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth, but thou shalt utterly destroy them.”—(Deuteronomy 20:16-17) And as they were not permitted to propose terms of peace, so neither were they at liberty to accept of articles of agreement: “Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land;” “they shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against Me.”—(Exodus 23:33; Exodus 34:12) Such explicit commands manifestly did not contemplate any plans of reconciliation, and left no alter native to the Israelites but to destroy. According to the view of Scripture, the inhabitants of Canaan were in the condition of persons placed under the cherem or ban of Heaven,—that is, devoted to God by a solemn appointment to destruction, as no otherwise capable of being rendered subservient to the Divine glory. The part assigned to the Israelites was simply to execute the final sentence as now irrevocably passed against them; and in so far as they failed to do so, it is charged upon them as their sin; and their failure was converted into a judgment on themselves a judgment that involved them in many troubles and calamities during the earlier period of their residence in Canaan. (Judges 2:1-5) Another series of attempts has been made to soften the alleged harshness and severity of the Divine command in reference to the Canaanites, by asserting for the Israelites some kind of prior right to the possession of the country. A Jewish tradition, espoused with this view by many of the Fathers, claims the land of Canaan for the seed of Abraham, as their destined share of the allotted earth in the distribution made by Noah of its different regions among his descendants. Michaelis, justly rejecting this distribution as a fable, holds, notwithstanding that Canaan was originally a tract of country that belonged to Hebrew herdsmen; that other tribes gradually encroached upon and usurped their possessions, taking advantage of the temporary descent of Israel into Egypt to appropriate the whole; and that the seed of Abraham were hence perfectly justified in vindicating their right anew, when they had the power, and expelling the intruders sword in hand. This opinion has found many abettors in Germany, and quite recently has been supported by Ewald and Jahn; though the original right of the Israelites is now commonly held to have reached only to the pastoral portions of the territory. A more baseless theory, however, never was constructed. Scripture is entirely silent respecting such a claim on the part of the Israelites. But there is more than its silence to condemn the theory; for at the very first appearance of the chosen family on the ground of Palestine, it is expressly stated that “the Canaanite was then in the land” (Genesis 12:6); and in it, not merely as a wandering shepherd or temporary occupant, but as its settled and rightful possessor, to whom Abraham and his immediate descendants stood in the relation of sojourners. Hence the promise given to Abraham was, that he and his seed should get for an everlasting possession “the land wherein he was a stranger.” The testimony of Scripture is quite uniform on the two points that—Canaan, as an inheritance, was bestowed as the free gift of God on the seed of Abraham, and that the gift was to be made good by a forcible dispossession of the original occupants of the land. It is plain, therefore, that according to the representations of Scripture, the family of Abraham had no natural right to the inheritance of Canaan. Nor would it be hard to prove that such false attempts to smooth down the inspired narrative, and adapt it to the refinement of modern taste, instead of diminishing, really aggravate, the difficulties attending it; that if, in one respect, they seem to bring the transaction into closer agreement with Christian principle, they place it, in another, at a much greater and absolutely irreconcilable distance. For, on the supposition that the posterity of Abraham were the original possessors, why should God have kept them for an entire succession of generations at a distance from the region, making their right—if they ever had any virtually to expire,—and rendering it capable of vindication no otherwise than by force of arms? Surely, on any ground of righteous principle, a right at best so questionable in its origin, and so long suffered to fall into abeyance, ought rather to have been altogether abandoned, than pressed at the expense of so much blood and desolation. And if the situation of the Canaanites had been such as to admit of terms of peace being proposed to them, then the decree of their extermination must have been in contrariety with the great principles of truth and righteousness. It will never be by such methods of defence, that the objections of the infidel to this part of the Divine procedure can be successfully met, or, what is more important, that the God of the Old Testament can be shown to be the same, in character and working, with the God of the New. There will still be room for the sneer of Gibbon, that the accounts of the wars commanded by Joshua “are read with more awe than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the present age.”[406] On the contrary, we affirm, that if contemplated in the broad and comprehensive light in which Scripture itself presents them to our view, they may be read with the most perfect satisfaction; that there is not an essential element belonging to them, which does not equally enter into the principles of the Gospel dispensation; and that any difference which may here present itself between the Old and the New is, as in all other cases, a difference merely in form, but founded upon an essential agreement. This will appear whether it is viewed in respect to the Canaanites, to the Israelites, or to the times of the Gospel dispensation. [406] History, c. 50. 1. Viewed, first of all, in respect to the Canaanites, as the execution of deserved judgment on their sins (in which light Scripture uniformly represents it, so far as they are concerned), there is nothing in it to offend the feelings of any well-constituted Christian mind. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, God appears as the righteous Judge and avenger of sin, and does so not unfrequently by the infliction of fearful things in righteousness. If we can contemplate Him bringing on the cities of the plain the vengeance of eternal fire, because their sins had waxed great, and were come up to heaven; or, at a later period, even in Gospel times, can reflect how the wrath was made to fall on the Jewish nation to the uttermost; or, finally, can think of impenitent sinners being appointed, in the world to come, to the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever;—if we can contemplate such things entering into the administration of God, without any disturbance to our convictions that the Judge of all the earth does only what is right, it were surely unreasonable to complain of the severities exercised on the foul inhabitants of Canaan. Their abominations were of a kind that might be said emphatically to cry to Heaven—such idolatrous rites as tended to defile their very consciences, and the habitual practice of pollutions which were a disgrace to humanity. The land is represented as incapable of bearing any longer the mass of defilements which overspread it, as even “vomiting out its inhabitants;” and “therefore,” it is added, “the Lord visited their iniquity upon them.”—(Leviticus 18:25) Nor was this vengeance taken on them summarily; the time of judgment was preceded by a long season of forbearance, during which they were plied with many calls to repentance. So early as the age of Abraham, the Lord manifested Himself toward them both in the way of judgment and of mercy—of judgment, by the awful destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, cutting off the most infected portion, that the rest might fear, and turn from their evil ways; of mercy, by raising up in the midst of them such eminent saints as Abraham and Melchizedek. That period, and the one immediately succeeding, was peculiarly the day of their merciful visitation. But they knew it not; and so, according to God’s usual method of dealing, He gradually removed the candlestick out of its place—withdrew His witnesses to another region, in consequence of which the darkness continually deepened, and the iniquity of the people at last became full. Then only was it that the cloud of Divine wrath began to threaten them with overwhelming destruction—not, however, even then, without giving awful indications of its approach by the wonders wrought in Egypt and at the Red Sea, and again hanging long in suspense during the forty years sojourn in the wilderness, as if waiting till a little further space was given for repentance. But as all proved in vain, mercy at length gave place to judgment, according to the principle common alike to all dispensations, “He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy;” and, “Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” In plain terms, whenever iniquity has reached its last stage, the judgment of Heaven is at hand. This principle was as strikingly exemplified in the case of the Jews after our Lord’s appearing, as in the case of these Canaanites before. In the parables of the barren fig-tree and the wicked husbandmen in the vineyard, the same place is assigned it in the Christian dispensation which it formerly held in the Jewish. And in the experience of all who, despite of merciful invitations and solemn threatenings, perish from the way of life, it must find an attestation so much more appalling than the one now referred to, as a lost eternity exceeds in evil the direst calamities of time. In fine, the very same may be said of the objections brought against the destruction of the Canaanites, which was said by Richard Baxter of many of the controversies started in his day, “The true root of all the difference is, whether there be a God and a life to come.” Grant only a moral government and a time of retribution, and such cases as those under consideration become not only just, but necessary. 2. Again, let the judgment executed upon the Canaanites be viewed in respect to the instruments employed in enforcing it—the Israelites—and in this aspect also nothing will be found in it at variance with the great principles of truth and righteousness. The Canaanites, it is to be understood, in this view of the matter, deserved destruction, and were actually doomed to it by a Divine sentence. But must not the execution of such a sentence by the hand of the Israelites, have tended to produce a hardening effect upon the minds of the conquerors? Was it not fitted to lead them to regard themselves as the appointed executors of Heaven’s vengeance, wherever they themselves might deem this to be due, and to render their example a most dangerous precedent for every wild enthusiast, who might choose to allege a commission from Heaven to pillage and destroy his fellow-men? So it has sometimes been alleged, but without any just foundation. Such charges evidently proceed on the tacit assumption, that there was in reality no doom of Heaven pronounced against the Canaanites, and no special commission given to the Israelites to execute it thus ignoring one part of the sacred narrative for the purpose of throwing discredit on another. Or, it is implied that God must be debarred from carrying mi Ills administration in such a way as may best suit the ends of Divine wisdom, because human fraud or folly may take encouragement from thence to practise an unwarranted and improper imitation. Thoughts of this description carry their own refutation along with them. The commission given to the Israelites was limited to the one task of sweeping the land of Canaan of its original occupants. But this manifestly conferred on them no right to deal out the same measure of severity to others; and so far from creating a thirst for human blood, in cases where they had no authority to shed it, they even fainted in fulfilling their commission to extirpate the people of Canaan. This, however, is only the negative side of the question; and viewed in another and more positive aspect, the employment of the Israelites to execute this work of judgment was eminently calculated to produce a salutary impression upon their minds, and to promote the ends for which the judgment was appointed. For what could be conceived so thoroughly fitted to implant in their hearts an abiding conviction of the evil of idolatry and its foul abominations—to convert their abhorrence of these into a national, permanent characteristic, as their being obliged to enter on their settled inheritance by a terrible infliction of judgment upon its former occupants for polluting it with such enormities? Thus the very foundations of their national existence raised a solemn warning against defection from the pure worship of God; and the visitation of Divine wrath against the ungodliness of men accomplished by their own hands, and interwoven with the records of their history at its most eventful period, stood as a perpetual witness against them, if they should ever turn aside to folly. Happy had it been for them, if they had been as careful to remember the lesson, as God was to have it suitably impressed upon their minds. 3. But the propriety and even moral necessity of the course pursued become manifest, when we view the proceeding in its typical bearing the respect it had to Gospel times. There were reasons, as we have seen, connected with the Canaanites themselves and the surrounding nations, sufficient to justify the whole that was done; but we cannot sec the entire design of it, or even perceive its leading object, without looking farther, and connecting it with the higher purposes of God respecting His kingdom among men. What He sought in Canaan was an inheritance—a place of rest and blessing for His people, but still only a temporary inheritance, and as such a type and pledge of that final rest which remains for the people of God. All, therefore, had to be arranged concerning the one, so as fitly to represent and image the higher and more important things which belong to the other that the past and the temporary might serve as a mirror in which to foreshadow the future and abiding, and that the principles of God’s dealing toward His Church might be seen to be essentially the same, whether displayed on the theatre of present or of eternal realities. It was partly, at least, on this account, that the place chosen for the inheritance of Israel was allowed, in the first instance, to become in a peculiar sense the region of pollution—a region that required to be sanctified by an act of Divine judgment upon its corrupt possessors, and thereby fitted for becoming the home and heritage of saints. In this way alone could the things done concerning it shadow forth and prepare for the final possession of a glorified world,—an inheritance which also needs to be redeemed from the powers of darkness that meanwhile over spread it with their corruptions, and which must be sanctified by terrible acts of judgment upon their ungodliness, before it can become the meet abode of final bliss. The spirit of Antichrist must be judged and cast out; Babylon, the mother of abominations, which has made the earth drunk with the wine of her fornications, must come in remembrance before God, and receive the due reward of her sins; so that woes of judgment and executions of vengeance must precede the Church’s occupation of her purchased inheritance, similar in kind to those which put Israel in possession of the land of Canaan. What, indeed, are the scenes presented to our view in the concluding chapters of Revelation, but an expansion to the affairs of a world, and the destinies of a coming eternity, of those which we find depicted in the wars of Joshua? In these awful scenes we behold, on the one hand, the Captain of Salvation, of whom Joshua was but an imperfect type, going forth to victory with the company of a redeemed and elect Church, supported by the word of God, and the resistless artillery of heaven; while, on the other hand, we see the doomed enemies of God and the Church long borne with, but now at last delivered to judgment—the wrath falling on them to the uttermost,—and, when the world has been finally relieved of their abominations, the new heavens and the new earth rising into view, where righteousness, pure and undefiled, is to have its perennial habitation. We have said that the work of judgment in the one case was similar in kind to what shall be executed in the other; but we should couple with this the qualification, that it may be very different in form. It both may and should be expected to possess less of an external or compulsory character, according to the general change that has taken place in the spirit of the Divine economy. Outward visitations of evil may, no doubt, still be looked for, upon such as act a hostile part toward the kingdom of Christ; yet not by any means to the same extent as in former times. Christ’s own personal conquest over evil has struck in this respect a higher key for future conflicts with the adversary,—a conquest effected not by external violence, but by the exhibition of truth and righteousness putting to shame the adherents of falsehood and corruption. Conquests of this kind should now be regarded as the proper counterpart to those of the earlier dispensation. And while the Church has still, as she had in the days of Joshua, a two-edged sword in her hand to execute vengeance on the heathen (Psalms 149:6), the noblest vengeance she can execute, and the only vengeance she should seek to execute, is that of destroying their condition as heathen by the sword of the Spirit, and turning their antagonistic into a friendly position. If such views of Israel’s conquest and occupation of the land of Canaan are just, the more striking and peculiar facts connected with it admit of an easy and natural explanation. The administration, for example, of the rite of circumcision to the whole adult population, was most fitly done before they formally entered on the work (Joshua 5:2-9); as it is never more necessary for the Lord’s people to be in the full enjoyment of the privileges of a saved condition, and in a state of greater nearness to Himself, than when they are proceeding in His name to rebuke and punish iniquity. The work given Israel to do in this respect was emphatically a work of God, bearing on it the impress alike of His greatness and His holiness. And both a living faith and a sanctified heart were needed, on the part of Israel, to fulfil what was required of them. On this account special supports were given to faith in the miracles wrought by God at the commencement of the work, in the separation of the waters of the river, and the falling of the walls of Jericho, as afterwards in the extraordinary prolongation of the day at the request of Joshua; showing it was God’s work rather than their own they were accomplishing, and that His power was singularly exerted in their behalf. And not only in the charges given to Joshua regarding his careful meditation of the law of God, and punctual observance of all that was commanded in it; but also, and more particularly, in the discomfiture appointed on account of the sin of Achan, was the necessity forcibly impressed upon the people of the maintenance of holiness: they were made to feel the inseparable connection between being themselves faithful to God, and having power to prevail. It served also impressively to teach them their unity as a people, and how the holiness which they were bound collectively to maintain, must be individual, in order that it might be national. Nor was the instruction disregarded by the immediate agents in the work of judgment. They cast out from among them the sin that was discovered in Achan; and, at a later period, their jealousy regarding the tribes on the other side of Jordan, lest they would separate themselves from the one altar and common wealth of Israel, and the protestations of allegiance to God which Joshua made before his death, and they again to him, clearly showed that much of the spirit of faith and holiness rested upon that generation. In them the covenant found, in no small degree, a faithful representation, as well in regard to its requirements of duty, as to its promises of grace and blessing. Section Second.—The Theory, Working, And Development Of The Jewish Theocracy. THE term theocracy, as used to indicate a specific form of government, that has found a place among the politics of nations, belongs exclusively to the Jewish people: the term itself had to be invented by their historian Josephus, to express what peculiarly distinguished their national polity from that of any other people who had figured in the history of the world. “There are,” says he (Contra Revelation 2:16), “endless differences, in respect to individual nations and laws among mankind, which may be briefly reduced under the following heads: for some have committed the power of civil administration to monarchies, others to the sway of a few (oligarchies), others again to the body of the people (democracies); but our lawgiver, making account of none of these, proclaimed a theocracy as the form of government, ascribing to God alone the authority and the power.” In drawing this contrast between his own and other nations, the Jewish historian, beyond doubt, intended to prefer a claim to special honour and distinction for his people. He pointed to their theocratic polity as an evident proof of superior insight on the part of their great legislator, and the ground of distinguished excellence in the community. He did so more especially on this account, that by such a constitution, “Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he considered and ordained other virtues to be parts of religion;” that is, he elevated all to the religious sphere, gave to men’s studies and actions generally “a reference to piety towards God,” and thereby stamped them with the highest authority, and secured for them the firmest hold on the hearts and manners of the people. In this estimate, however, of the theocratic element in Judaism, Josephus has not had many followers among those who have made political science their study, and who have tried to cast the balance as between different political constitutions. More commonly it has been regarded by such in the light of an arbitrary and abnormal state of things one that neither actually had, nor could theoretically be expected to have, any other effect than that of producing a singular race of men—isolated, intractable, antagonistic in their habits and feelings to all but their own community. In this light the Jewish people and their theocratic constitution were certainly regarded by Tacitus and other writers in heathen antiquity. And the picture which they drew of Jewish bigotry and exclusiveness, senseless hatred and intolerance, as a kind of practical commentary on the system under which they were reared, has often been reproduced in modern times, and charged not unfrequently with still darker and more revolting features. Such, especially, has been the course adopted by men of the stamp of Bolingbroke and Voltaire, who have had it for their main object, in writing on things connected with Divine revelation, to find as many grounds of censure as possible, and present what they found in the most obnoxious form. With them the polity of Judaism was founded in injustice and cruelty; the spirit which it breathed was “detestable;” since, “by the very constitution of the law itself, the Jews found that they were the natural enemies of all mankind, and were reduced to such a necessity, that either they must enslave the whole world, or they, in their turn, must be crushed and destroyed.”[407] Even writers of a higher stamp—professed apologists and expounders of the legislation of Moses have felt themselves sadly embarrassed by the theocratic form it assumed. And when we turn to the learned pages of Spencer, Le Clerc, Michaelis, partly, too, of Warburton, we find them either virtually ignoring it, as a thing which could scarcely be treated otherwise than as a devout imagination, or viewing it merely as an accommodation on the part of God to the heathenish tendencies of the people, and an expedient to check the introduction of palpable idolatry. [407] See the quotations given in Warburton’s Legation, B. v., c. 1; and Works, vol. xii., on Bolingbroke’s Philosophy. Properly understood, the theocratic constitution of the Old Covenant as little needs such lame apologies from the one class, as it is open to such rude assaults from the other. The favourable estimate of Josephus in no degree overshot the mark, nay, failed, from the defective nature of his moral position, in various respects, to reach it. The singularity of the phenomenon presented by the theocracy in the history of nations, and the imperfect character of its results, is the world’s shame rather than its condemnation; for the ideal it embodied is that which should have been, and which, but for the world’s blindness and self-idolatry, also would have been, regarded as the normal state of things, which it is the misfortune, and not the excellence, of earthly administrations, that they are so far from being able to realize. In that very theocratic element lay the foundation of Israel’s past greatness and future glory; more than that, and far from breaking on the world as a novelty in the revelations of Sinai, it formed the most essential principle in the primeval constitution of things; and surviving, as an indestructible seed, both the general ruin of the fall, and the special perversities of the people with whom it became more peculiarly identified, it is destined, in another form and under better auspices, to over shadow the world with its greatness, and bring under its sway every tribe and people of the earth. That this is no exaggerated statement, will, I trust, appear, when we have considered the subject of the theocracy under the three following aspects:—first, in respect to its true idea; secondly, in respect to its actual working; and, thirdly, in respect to its ulterior development and final issues. I. First, then, in respect to the true idea of the theocracy—wherein stood its distinctive nature? It stood in the formal exhibition of God as King or Supreme Head of the common wealth, so that all authority and law emanated from Him; and, by necessary consequence, there were not two societies in the ordinary sense, civil and religious, but a fusion of the two into one body, or, as we might express it from a modern point of view, a merging together of Church and State. This, it will be observed, is a different thing from giving religion, or the priesthood appointed to represent its interests and perform its rites, a high and influential place in the general administration of affairs. Not a nation in heathen antiquity can be named, in which that was not, to some extent, done, nor any, perhaps, in which it was carried altogether so far, as the one from which Israel was taken to be a separate people. The religious interest was peculiarly powerful in Egypt. The priestly caste stood nearest to the throne, and furnished from its members the supreme council of state. Much of the property, and many of the higher functions of government, were in their hands; so that they formed a kind of ruling hierarchy. But while this naturally gave to religion and its offices a peculiar ascendancy in the political administration of Egypt, it by no means rendered the constitution a theocracy. The civil and the religious were still distinct provinces; and it was more as “a highly privileged nobility” (to use an expression of Heeren) that the priesthood had such a sway in the government, than as persons acting in their religious capacity. Indeed, in that, as in all heathen countries, the loss of a belief in the Divine Unity, and the worship of many separate deities, with their diversified and rival claims of service, rendered a theocracy in the proper sense impracticable. It was only at particular points and in individual cases, not as an organic whole, that the civil and the divine could possibly meet together: there might be an occasional commingling of the two, or a dominant influence flowing from the religious into the political sphere; but an actual identification, a proper fusion between them, could not come into play. It was otherwise, however, in Israel, where the doctrine of one living and true God formed, as it were, the Alpha and the Omega of all instruction. Here there was, what was elsewhere wanted, a proper religious centre, whence a sovereign and presiding agency might issue its injunctions upon every department of the state, as well as upon all the spheres of domestic and social life. And this is simply the idea embodied in the Jewish theocracy; it is the fact of Jehovah condescending to occupy, in Israel, such a centre of power and authority. He proclaimed Himself “King in Jeshurun.” Israel became the common wealth with which He more peculiarly associated His presence and His glory. Not only the seat of His worship, but His throne also, was in Zion—both His sanctuary and His dominion.[408] The covenant established with the people, laid its bond upon their national not less than their individual interests; and the laws and precepts which were “written in the volume of the book,” formed at once the directory of each man’s life and the statute-book of the entire kingdom. Nor was this state of things materially interfered with by the special commissions given to prophets, the temporary elevation of judges, or the more settled government of the kings; for these had no authority to do or prescribe aught but as the ambassadors and delegates of Him who dwelt between the cherubim. Nay, the higher any one might stand in office, he was only held the more specially bound to “meditate in the law of the Lord, and observe to do all that was written therein.”[409] Hence, also, as being alike formally and really at the head of the kingdom, Jehovah charged Himself with the practical results of its administration: He held in His own hand the sanctions of reward and punishment; and according to the loyalty or disobedience of His subjects, made distribution to them in good or evil. [408] Exodus 19:5-6; Psalms 132:13; Psalms 149:2; Psalms 114:2, etc. [409] Joshua 1:8; 1 Samuel 13:14; 1 Kings 2:3, etc. Now, that we may more distinctly apprehend the essential nature and tendency of this fundamental idea, let us endeavour to follow it out into a few leading particulars. 1. Let its bearing, in the first instance, be marked on the position of the people as members of such a kingdom. It was emphatically God’s kingdom, wherein all were directly subject to His sway, and placed under His immediate counsel and protection. On their part, therefore, it was “a kingdom of priests,” as being composed of those who were called to occupy a state of peculiar nearness to God, were divinely instructed in the knowledge of His will, and appointed to minister and serve before Him. What an elevated position, as compared with the worshippers of senseless idols, and the tools of arbitrary power, in heathen monarchies! Manly thoughts and lofty aims, consciousness of personal dignity, the liberty to do, and the right to expect great things, might seem to belong to such a position, as plants to their native soil. Hence it was precisely that close relationship to God, with the noble aspirations and exalted prospects to which it instinctively gave rise, that kindled such a glow of delight in the aged bosom of Moses, and drew from him the exclamation, “Happy art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord! the Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” True, there was in Israel also a select priesthood, separated from the rest of their brethren, to serve at the altar of God, and in sacred things to mediate between Him and the people. But this priesthood was not, as in heathen countries, invested with rights antagonistic to those of the people, nor made depositaries of secrets, to be confined to their own fraternity, nor charged with any kind of arbitrary and irresponsible power in religious matters. They were but a narrower and more privileged circle, within a large one of essentially the same priestly standing and character, chosen and set apart simply for the purpose of providing more effectively for the preservation of the knowledge of God, and the due administration of the solemnities of His worship. They had no statutes to teach, no mysteries to celebrate, but what lay open to the cognizance of all; and if they failed in their own peculiar province, it was competent for judges, rulers, prophets, from any tribe or family of Israel, to rebuke their unfaithfulness, and, to a certain extent, supplement their deficiency. The existence, indeed, of such a priesthood, bespoke prevailing imperfection in the community of Israel. It told of a practical inaptitude to attain to the proper height of their vocation, and live habitually in the observance of the duties it imposed. On this account they needed to have representatives of their number, who might discharge the more sacred functions of the theocracy, and act the part of watchmen in respect to the law of God. But still the same covenant relationship belonged to all; all ministered and partook together in the ordinance of the passover, which was emphatically the Feast of the Covenant; the same book of the law was open to the inspection of every member of the community, nay, enjoined upon his thoughtful consideration; and even the more solemn ministrations, which were assigned to the priesthood in the sanctuary of the Lord, were but an outward exhibition of what should constantly have been in spirit proceeding among the people throughout their habitations. In this one point, then—the high position accorded to the community by the theocratic principle of the constitution—what a boon was conferred on Israel! It gave to every one who imbibed the spirit of the constitution, the lofty sense of a proprietorship in God, and not only warranted, but in a manner constrained him to view everything connected with his state in the light of the Divine will and glory. What he possessed, he held as a sacred charge committed to him from above; what he did, he behoved to do as a steward of the great Lord of heaven and earth. Then, in the oneness of this covenant standing among the families of Israel, what a sacred bond of brotherhood was established! what a security for the maintenance of equal rights and impartial administrations between man and man! Members alike of one divinely constituted community—subjects of one Almighty King—partakers together of one inheritance, and that an inheritance held in simple fee of the same Lord; surely nowhere could the claims of rectitude and love have been more deeply grounded—nowhere could acts of injustice and oppression have worn a character more hateful and unbecoming. 2. Let the bearing of the theocratic principle of Judaism, again, be noted on the calling of the Jewish people. The principle itself bound them in close alliance with Jehovah, as subjects to their king; but for what ends and purposes? This must necessarily have been determined by the character of Him whose people they were. And from the first no uncertainty or doubt was allowed to exist in respect to that; the same word which declared them to have been taken by God for a peculiar treasure, and a kingdom of priests, called them to be an holy nation—to be holy, even as God Himself was holy.—(Exodus 19:5-6) And throughout all the revelations of the law, and its manifold ordinances of service, the voice which continually sounded in the ears of the people was, in substance, this: “I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. And ye shall be holy unto Me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be Mine.”—(Leviticus 20:24; Leviticus 20:26) Next to the fundamental principle of the Divine unity, the point in respect to which the object of Jewish worship differed most essentially from the gods of the heathen, was the absolute holiness of His character. The heathen objects of worship, being but in some form or another the deification of nature, always partook of nature’s changeableness and corruption; they could not rise materially above the world of imperfection from which they derived their own imaginary being. But Jehovah, the God of Israel, made Himself known as the supreme and only good, the irreconcilable opponent of every form and manifestation of sin. And the law which He imposed upon Israel, which He inwove into all their institutions, which He charged their priests to teach, their judges to enforce, and their people to keep—this law was the expression, in a form suited to the existing time and circumstances, of His own peer less excellence; its one tendency and aim were to mould the people into the likeness of their Divine Sovereign. Doubtless, in so far as it might accomplish this aim, it would place the Israelitish people in a state of isolation, in respect to the corrupt and idolatrous masses of heathendom. As the servants of a holy God, and the children of a covenant which sought to have the law of holiness inscribed upon every bond and relation of life, Israel must dwell comparatively alone, and shun familiar intercourse with the Gentiles. But simply on this account, and only in so far as it might imperatively require; not, as so often falsely represented, from any essential faultiness in their position, or a kind of indigenous hatred of the human race. No—the very theory of their constitution embodied a perpetual protest against the indulgence of such a spirit; since the God whom it called them as obedient subjects to serve and imitate, made Himself known as also the God of the whole earth; and the ulterior design it contemplated was, through their instrumentality, to bring all nations to share in their peculiar blessing.[410] But as called to be the representatives of God in holiness, they were bound to keep aloof from the region of pollution; they must of necessity do the part of witnesses against the false imaginations and corrupt practices of idolatry. In this, however, was there not again conferred a mighty boon upon Israel? What better or higher thing can a people have, than being made partakers of the holiness of God? What nobler object can any institution propose for its accomplishment, than the extirpation of sin, and nourishing in its stead the seeds of genuine piety and worth? All history and experience, if interpreted aright, give testimony in this respect to the wisdom of the Jewish lawgiver, and to the distinguishing goodness of God in establishing, through him, a constitution for Israel, which had for its great practical end the training of a people to the love and practice of righteousness. [410] Exodus 19:5-6. “Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is mine,” etc. On the grounds stated in the text, we entirely object to the appellation often given to Jehovah, even by Christian divines, as “the tutelary God of the Jews.” The language savours too much of heathenism to afford a fitting expression of the truth, even if it were formally correct. But it is not so. The God of Israel was no more the tutelary God of the Jews, than Christ is the particular Saviour of the Jews. The manifested relations in both cases had an immediate respect to the seed of Israel, but in neither case were they by any means restricted to these. The God of the Jews was the God also of the Gentiles; and what He did and promised to the one, was at the same time done and promised to the other. Not only was the door open for any believing Gentile to come in and obtain the blessing of Israel, but the path itself of God’s dispensations continually pointed from the more special to the more general of these relations. Everything done for and given to Israel, was for others as well as for themselves; and their peculiar privileges and priestly calling could reach their proper end only when the Abrahamic covenant of blessing was made coextensive with the world. 3. The bearing of the theocratic principle of government on the quality of their actions as good or evil, is another point that calls for consideration. The ordinary constitution of earthly kingdoms has here necessitated a division; it has led to the contemplation of actions under a twofold aspect—the one having respect to civil, the other to moral and spiritual relations the one dealing with actions in a materialistic manner, as objectively beneficial or hurtful, criminal or commendable; the other, making account mainly of the principle involved in them, and adjudging them to the category of sin or of holiness. Every one may see, at a glance, how superficial the former of these aspects is, as compared with the latter; and how, when actions are dealt with merely in relation to a human tribunal, considered as criminal or commendable in the eye of law, depths remain still unexplored concerning them: nothing, or next to nothing, is determined as to the real nature of what is done, or the moral condition of him from whom it has proceeded. Now, in a theocracy, where God Himself is King—where, consequently, everything comes to be tried by a divine standard, and with reference to the principle which it exhibits, as well as to the formal character it assumes—this division, with the superficiality involved in one of the aspects of it, disappears; the inherent nature and the outward tendency of actions become inseparably linked together. The distinction no longer exists between sin and crime; for whatever is a crime in respect to the community, is also a sin in respect to God, the Head of the community; and, indeed, a crime in their reckoning, because it was already a sin in His. Is it not always really so, however commonly over looked? And is it not the great weakness and imperfection of a merely political administration, that it must concern itself only with actions as criminal, and not also as sinful? On this account, earthly polities do the work of effective government but half, since they only lay their hand on the exterior of the sores which mar the well-being and endanger the interests of society; they contemplate and handle the evil with the view rather of checking the violent eruptions to which it tends, than of quenching the latent fires out of which it originates. But bring in the higher element of essential right and wrong, establish the theocratic principle, which places every member of the community in the presence of His God, and weighs every action in the balance of eternal rectitude, and you then touch the evil in its root,—not, it may be, with the effect of thoroughly eradicating it, yet surely with the tendency of awakening men’s consciousness of its existence, and engaging their common sympathies and strivings to have it brought into subjection. To do this, is to aim directly at the moral healthfulness of a people; and by setting the springs of life and goodness in motion, to accomplish a far higher work in their behalf, than can ever be effected by the machinery of civil jurisprudence, and the enactments of a criminal code. But in saying this, we again indicate the happy privilege of Israel in their singular constitution. The design and tendency of this was to raise them to the level of which we now speak. Its policy was to prevent crime by subduing sin. The same law which said, “Thou shalt not steal,” said also, “Thou shalt not covet,” and thereby laid the axe to the root of the tree. It said not merely, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” but, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and strength, and mind. And so, through all the departments of religious and social life, the object of the theocratic constitution ever was to lay upon the conscience the claims of God, to bring men into contact with truth and righteousness; and thus to make their fidelity to Heaven the gauge and measure of their dutifulness to the interests of the commonwealth. Where, if not on such a territory, should we look for a morally strong and healthful community? 4. Once more, let the bearing be noted of the theocratic constitution on the mode of treatment to be given to men’s actions, and the extent to which it should be applied. The Jewish theocracy, it must be remembered, was an attempt to realize on the visible theatre of a present world, and within a circumscribed region, the idea of a divine kingdom, to establish a community of saints; and so to do this, as to render manifest to all at once the moral dignity and the high blessedness attainable by such a community. That being the case, it is obvious that there required to be, not only a strict recognition of actions as good or bad in the eye of the Divine Head, but also a corresponding treatment of them an administrative system of reward and punishment. Nor should it scarcely be less obvious, however often it has been overlooked, that to serve the ends of the institution, the rewards and punishments connected with it—so far, at least, as they were to be formally announced and acted upon—must have been of a temporal nature; they must have been such as immediately and palpably to affect the interests ofcommunity where the actions to be visited by them were done. For nations, as has been well remarked on this subject, “can only be visited in this life, that is, with temporal inflictions. To have inserted in the public code of the nation eternal sanctions, would have been virtually to dissolve it as an earthly polity, and to reduce it to a collection of individuals, or at best to a Church in the Christian sense of the word; that is, a purely religious society, and therefore unable to exercise the stringent powers necessary to suppress the visible excesses of idolatry and corruption.”[411] There were reasons, besides, of a deeper kind,—reasons connected with the shadowy nature of the religious institutions of Judaism, and their merely temporary place in a scheme of progressive dispensations,—which also required that the issues of eternity should be, for the time then present, kept in comparative abeyance, however certainly they might be implied or anticipated.[412] These reasons must be taken into account, if we would give a satisfactory explanation of the difference in this respect, doctrinally considered, between the old and the new economies. But apart from them, and looking simply to the formal character and proposed ends of the theocracy, temporal sanctions are the only ones that, from the nature of the case, could be brought distinctly into notice; since to have in any measure overleapt the present, and transferred the distribution of good and evil to a future world, must inevitably have tended to relax the whole framework of the polity, and mar its uniformity of plan and purpose. The objection so often urged on this ground against the Mosaic legislation, turns rather, when the matter is considered from the right point of view, into an argument in its behalf; the more especially so, when it is farther considered that the establishment in so remarkable a manner of recompenses, in the temporal and earthly sphere, laid the surest foundation for the expectation of them hereafter.[413] [411] Litton’s Bampton Lectures, p. 33. [412] See vol. i., p. 210 sq. [413] In truth, the point now under consideration is not quite fairly dealt with when presented under the aspect of rewards and punishments on this side of eternity as contradistinguished from the other; and it is rather out of accommodation to the common mode of contemplating it, than from a conviction of its essential Tightness, that the matter has been so presented in the text. Canaan, according to the idea of the theocracy, was the temporary substitute or type of heaven; and so the constitution of things appointed for those who were to occupy it was framed with a view to render the affairs of time as nearly as possible an image of eternity. The temporal and eternal were not so properly distinct and separate regions, when contemplated from the theocratic point of view, as the counterparts of each other. Ideally, the dwellers in Canaan were in their proper home; the land was the habitation of holiness, therefore also of life and blessing; death was regarded as something abnormal, hence treated as a pollution and put out of sight; and every needful precaution was taken both to avoid death as the great evil, and to prevent the alienation of inheritances from those who were entitled to live and enjoy the good. The representation was, of course, imperfect, like everything under the old economy, and rendered still more so by prevailing unfaithfulness on the part of the people; but the nature and object of the representation itself should not the less be taken into account. And if it is, instead of deeming it strange that the issues of eternity were not formally brought into view and placed over against those of time, we shall rather wonder that any one should seriously have expected such an incongruity; for, in the formal aspect of things, there was not a state of probation for a coming good (though in reality it was such), but the good itself,—a good destined, no doubt, with the antagonistic evil, to be reproduced in a higher sphere of being, but only under that aspect to be anticipated as a matter of hope or expectation. The same, substantially, may be said in respect to another and closely related point, on which also a ground of accusation has been raised; we mean the extent to which, in such a commonwealth, those temporal sanctions should have been applied. From the very nature of its constitution, matters of religious belief and practice were among the things subject to reward and punishment; for on the basis of these was the entire polity framed, and with a view to their efficient maintenance was its administration to be carried on. What in other states might be regarded as matter of personal predilection, or, at most, harm less devotion—namely, the introduction of new gods must here, of necessity, be held at variance with the first principles of the constitution, and be dealt with as treasonable conduct was elsewhere; it must be repressed as a capital offence against the laws of the state. The ablest defenders of civil and religious liberty in modern times have admitted this, as an essential part of the ancient theocracy, and forming a broad line of demarcation between it and worldly states. Thus Mr Locke, in his treatise on Toleration, says, in reference to those who apostatized from the worship of the God of Israel, that they were justly “proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high treason. For the commonwealth of the Jews, different in that from all others, was an absolute theocracy; nor was there, nor could there be, any difference between the commonwealth and the church. The laws established there concerning the worship of the one invisible Deity, were the civil laws of that people, and a part of their political government, in which God Himself was the Legislator.” In short, with the theocratic principle for the basis of the polity, the tolerance of idolatry and its accompanying rites would have been as incongruous, as it were, in the bosom of a Christian community, to allow the claims of Mahommed to rank beside those of the Saviour. But must any abatement be made on this account from the privileged condition of Israel? Viewing the matter simply in connection with the old theocracy (as it ought to be), and with reference to the real interests of the people, was it a disadvantage to have idolatry prohibited there under the penalty of death? Let it only he considered what that idolatry was, especially in Egypt and the licentious countries of the East, with which Israel came more immediately into contact. Changing the truth of God into a lie, it did, in the moral and religious sphere, what, in the province of the intellect, Bacon justly called the greatest evil of all, “the apotheosis of error, since, when folly is worshipped, it is, as it were, a plague-spot upon the understanding,” and we may add here, upon the heart. For while thus it corrupted the very fountain-head of knowledge, and stifled the better aspirations of the soul, it also served, by its fouler practices, to bring the unholy desires of the flesh and the pollutions of lust within the sanctuary of religion. Yet, with such inherent evils in idolatry, and tendencies on the side of corruption, so great, in the ancient world, was the disposition to fall in with the practice, that it spread everywhere like a moral contagion; causing Egypt, with her mystic lore, and even Greece, with her fine intellect, and manly heart, and philosophic culture, to bow down before it. In such circumstances, what should reasonably be esteemed the wisest legislation? Should it not be that which raised the strongest barriers against the tide of heathenism, and tended to hold its abominations in check? If we may not say—as some have unadvisedly done that the one great object of the theocracy, with all its ritual observances, and the rigid sanctions by which they were enforced, was to guard the doctrine of the Divine unity against the encroachments of idolatry, we must still hold that this was an object of fundamental importance, an object that at once deserved and called for the most stringent measures of defence. And, assuredly, when read in the light of history, the real ground for complaint lies, not in that guardianship being too vigilant, and those defences too stern, but that practically they proved all too feeble to resist the assaults of the giant and insidious adversary against which the truth had to struggle. Such, then, was the Jewish theocracy, both in respect to its general idea, and to some of the more distinctive peculiarities which it threw around the aspect and constitution of affairs in Israel. Viewed simply as an ideal, after which their views of truth and their strivings in duty were to aim at being conformed, it was a great thing for Israel to be placed under such a polity. For, in bringing them acquainted, as it did, with the being and character of God, with the relation in which they stood to Him, the connection between the lower and the higher elements of their welfare, and the dependence of all upon their fidelity to the interests of truth and righteousness, it placed them, as it were, on sure foundations, and set full before them the path to glory and virtue. If “noble deeds are but noble truths realized,” then in Israel, above all other people in ancient times, might such deeds be looked for; the seeds were there sown in the very framework of their constitution, from which the richest harvest should have sprung. But did it actually do so? Did the reality in any measure correspond to the idea? Can we appeal to the actual working of the theocratic principle in proof of its heaven-derived origin and practical importance? II. This was to form our second branch of inquiry—the actual working of the theocracy. That the reality should, in many respects, come far short of the idea, is only what might have been expected; considering that the pattern of the kingdom, though heavenly in its origin, and in itself wisely adapted to the circumstances of the time, was necessarily committed, for its ordinary administration, to the hands of men—and this at a comparatively immature stage of the Divine dispensations. It was therefore inevitable that human weakness and perversity should have mingled in the results actually produced, so as materially to mar the completeness of the work; yet not (we may conceive) so as wholly to defeat the design, or to render its execution altogether unworthy of the source from which it came. For the method of administration was also of God. And the real question is, how such a polity, having such Divine and human elements entering alike into its theory and its administration, wrought on the theatre of earthly things? whether, in this respect also, there was enough to attest the wisdom and the agency of God? 1. In answer to such questions, let the matter be viewed, first, in relation to the knowledge of the being and character of God Himself. The foundation of all lies there, as already intimated; the foundation, not only of the affairs of the old economy, but of all genuine religion and true moral excellence. Most deeply, therefore, does it concern the world to possess that knowledge, and have it preserved in living energy and power. But where was it so preserved and possessed? In what land, or by what people, was anything like a clear and faithful testimony borne in ancient times to the existence and perfections of God? Nowhere but in the land and by the people of Israel; it was confined to the favoured region of the theocracy. Even there, no doubt, the light was too often obscured by the surrounding darkness, and the national testimony was far from being so uniform and distinct as it should have been. But still it was maintained and perpetuated; the truth never ceased to have its faithful witnesses; and while the gross polytheism, which brooded over the other nations of the earth, suffered only a few glimmerings of the truth at times to break through the gloom, the monotheism of Israel shone clear and bright upon the world, down even to the closing epoch of the theocracy. It were difficult to imagine a nobler proof of the superiority in this respect of ancient Israel, and a finer contrast between their polity and that of other nations, in the results yielded concerning the knowledge of God, than was presented by the Apostle Paul at Athens, when, appearing on Mars Hill, a solitary representative of the theocratic kingdom, standing there as on the very summit of heathen civilisation, and in the presence of its most wonderful achievements in art and science, he could descry but one element of truth in the whole; and that not a revelation of knowledge, but a confession of ignorance, embodied in the altar dedicated to the unknown god. On that confession the virtual acknowledgment of heathendom, that it had not yet attained to any true acquaintance with the things of God—the Apostle disclosed that certain knowledge which he possessed; and not he alone, but which, under the fostering care of the theocracy, had become the common heritage of the families of Israel. It is not merely, however, the possession of this knowledge concerning God, in the midst of surrounding ignorance and superstition, which here deserves our notice, but the fulness of that knowledge, and the living freshness and power by which it was characterized. The relation held by God to His people as King of Zion, with the many special appointments of service and interpositions of Providence to which it naturally gave rise, served to bring out, in almost endless variety and minuteness of detail, the revelation of His mind and will. Every attribute of His character received in turn its appropriate manifestations; and nothing that essentially concerned His wisdom and power, His faithfulness and love, His inflexible hatred of sin or supreme regard to righteousness and truth, could remain hid from those who meditated aright in His word and ways. Not only so; but the things connected with these, which might have been known, and yet have continued dim and shadowy to men’s view, became, through the working of the theocratic institution, clothed as with flesh and blood; the Eternal was brought as from the depths of infinitude, whither the human spirit labours in vain to find Him, and rendered objectively present to the soul, by being on every hand allied to the relations of sense and time. The children of the covenant, continually as they came to draw near to His habitation, and witness or take part in the outward ministrations of His service, were made, in a manner, to feel as if they saw His form and heard His voice. They stood comparatively under a clear sun and an open sky,—walked where communications were ever passing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; so that the experiences of their bosom, and the lines of their history, became as a mirror on which the face of God’s countenance reflected itself in traits of life and truthfulness. Oh! what a happiness had it been for the heathen world, what an advance should it have made in divine knowledge, had it but known to look there for light and blessing! And even we, amid the higher privileges and ampler revelations furnished to our hand, yet how much do not we owe for our clearness of conception in the things of God, and for fitting terms to tell forth our conceptions, to the records of those dealings of God with Israel, and the impressions produced by them on the hearts of the people! What a loss should we not have sustained had we but wanted the more special reflection given of them in the Book of Psalms,—a book to which even the French theosophists of the last century were fain to betake themselves when seeking to compose a liturgical service to their god of nature,—and of which one of the profoundest of modern historians (John von Müller) writes, “My most delightful hour every day is furnished by David. His songs sound to the depth of my heart, and never in all my life have I so seen God before my eyes.” 2. We may find another and closely related proof of the actual working of the theocracy in the elevated moral tone of the writings it produced. The writings of a people, the better class of writings especially, are the fruits and evidences of its inner life; and if they have been called forth by the genius and interests of the constitution, they may justly be taken as among the best exponents of its real tendency and operation. Of no writings may this be so emphatically said as of those included in Old Testament Scripture. For these were no random or scattered effusions; they were the productions of men who may be said to have lived and laboured for the great ends of the theocracy. To this, indeed, they owed their existence,—having been indited by the sacred penmen partly for the purpose of explaining the nature and objects of the theocracy, partly to inculcate the duties it imposed, and partly, again, to exhibit the failures and achievements, the fears and hopes, connected with its history. We speak, it will be understood, of the writings belonging to the theocracy, only in respect to their immediate occasion and formal design,—not in that higher respect in which they stand related to the supernatural workings of God’s Spirit, and the special communications of His grace to men; for as such they might have stood apart from the theocratic polity, and have come forth as independent spiritual communications from heaven. But, in reality, the higher and the lower met together in them. They had a human, a national, and we may even say a political side, which formed the specific ground of their appearance and character; since they appeared as representations of the mind and feelings of those who were themselves the fittest representatives of the state. But, considered simply in this aspect, what a spirit of moral life and energy breathes in them! What treasures of practical wisdom have they laid up in store for all future times and generations of men! Reflecting the character of the great Head of the theocracy, a profoundly earnest and ethical tone everywhere pervades them,—one that looks through the appearances into the realities of things, brings prominently into view the principles of eternal truth and righteousness, and subordinates all interests to those of justice, goodness, and mercy. Even in dealing with the natural attributes of God, the natural becomes penetrated with the moral; not the naked reality, but the bearing of that reality upon the heart and conscience, is what comes prominently into view; as (to take but one example) in the earnest and lofty meditation on the omniscience and almightiness of God which is contained in the Psalms 139:1-24 Psalm, and in which the thought, woven like a thread throughout the whole discourse, is the respect borne by those Divine attributes to the psalmist himself, in his relation to the character of Jehovah. We shall search in vain among the other nations of antiquity for any productions comparable in this respect to those of the Old Testament,—in vain, more especially, in those regions of Asia which lay around the territory of the chosen people,—regions which have been from remotest times the favourite haunts, not of the practical, but of the contemplative, and which have given birth to many an airy speculation and philosophical reverie, but to nothing, save what came from the bosom of the theocracy, which has exercised the slightest influence for good on the character and destinies of the world. Whence, then, the mighty and permanent influence of the writings now under consideration, but that they sprung under the shade and breathed the spirit of the theocratic constitution? On this account they possessed, and have carried along with them wherever they have gone, the elements of a higher wisdom, and a more ennobling morality than can be learned from the pages even of the most thoughtful and enlightened of other lands. For that heritage of good in the ethical sphere, the world again stands indebted to the theocracy of Moses.[414] [414] It is marvellous that the practical working of the theocracy, as thus seen reflected in its writings,—the pervading and intensely ethical spirit that characterizes these, and that in respect to the heart not loss than the outward conduct,—should not alone have been sufficient to convince all of the fundamentally spiritual character of the theocratic constitution and its ordinances of service. If these had been, as some even evangelical writers assert, “quite irrespective of personal character, conduct, or faith,”—if the covenant and its institutions “had nothing to do with any single individual, but only with the nation of Israel,” and was “quite irrespective of individual righteousness,”—if, in short, all was merely national, outward, ceremonial, in the framework of the polity, would it not be an inexplicable anomaly, that the writings connected with it—its histories, songs, didactic and prophetical discourses—should all be so peculiarly ethical in their tune, and personal in their application. But it was morally impossible that the laws and ordinances of the theocracy could be of such a merely formal and outward character; the spiritual and holy nature of God forbade it; and from that nature, as shown in the second and third particulars of the first division, everything took its determining and influential form. 3. For a still further proof of the actual working of the theocracy on the side of good, we look to the results it produced in the personal and family life of the people. Here, also, there is evidence of a fruit in Israel which was nowhere else produced in the ancient world. Not, indeed, to the extent it should have been among the subjects of the theocracy, even in the better periods of its history; while, at times, corruption came in with such sweeping violence, that it seemed as if all were to be borne along by the current. But look to the history as a whole—look to it more especially as it appears in the better and more prominent members of the theocracy, and the superiority of Israel will be seen to be beyond dispute, in the things which more peculiarly constitute the worth and well-being of a people. With many of the nations of antiquity they could stand no comparison, as regards matters of secondary moment—the cultivation of science and learning, and whatever may be included in the sphere of taste, refinement, and art. But where did life exhibit so many of the purer graces and the more solid virtues? Or where, on the side of truth and righteousness, were such perils braved, and such heroic deeds performed? There alone were the interests of truth and righteousness even known in such a manner as to reach the depths of conscience, and bring fully into play the nobler feelings and affections of the heart. What elsewhere was contemplated by a select few merely as a fine ideal, or reckoned fit and proper to be done should circumstances favour the attempt, assumed here the form of lofty principle, and laid upon the spirit the bonds of a sacred obligation, which, instead of weakly bending to circumstances, sought rather to make circumstances bend to it. It is to Israel, therefore, alone of all the nations of antiquity, that we must turn alike for the more pure and lovely, and for the more stirring examples of moral excellence. Sanctified homes, where the relations of domestic and family life stood under law to God, and where something was to be seen of the confiding simplicity, the holy freedom, and peaceful repose of heaven; lives of patient endurance and suffering, or of strong wrestling for the rights of conscience, and the privilege of yielding to the behests of duty; manifestations of zeal and love, in behalf of the higher interests of mankind, such as could scorn all inferior considerations of flesh and blood, and even rise at times in “the elected saints” to such a noble elevation, that they have “wished themselves razed out of the book of life, in an ecstacy of charity and feeling of infinite communion” (Bacon);—for refreshing sights and ennobling exhibitions like these, we must repair to the annals of that chosen seed, who were trained under the eye of God, and moulded by the sacred institutions of His kingdom. How different from what is recorded of the worldly, self-willed, and luxurious Asiatics around them! And how fraught with lessons of wisdom and heroic example to future times and other generations of men! It is impossible, however, by any general survey, to apprehend aright the difference that here separates Jew from Gentile, or to make fully palpable the wide chasm that lies between life as formed and maintained under the Jewish theocracy, and as groping its devious way or rioting at will amid the darkness and corruption of heathenism. “We should need to descend into the particular details of comparative history. But merely to indicate what might be done, let it just be thought, how peculiar to Israel, how unlike to what is elsewhere to be met with, are such family pictures as those of Boaz and Ruth, Elimelech and Hannah! or such characters as those of Samuel, Elijah, and the more distinguished prophets! Let but one be selected, who had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the theocracy, and entered cordially into its design: take David, for example, of whom this may strictly be said, notwithstanding a few mournful failures, which he himself most bitterly deplored; and where, in those ancient times, shall any approach be found to his marvellous combination of gifts and graces? Where may we descry a character, at once so high-toned and so fully orbed? Think of this man as passing from the rustic simplicities of shepherd-life to the throne of the kingdom, yet bearing with him still the same tender, open, and glowing heart; treated on his way to the throne with the basest ingratitude and most ruthless persecution, forced even to become for many tedious years the tenant of savage wilds and caves of the desert, yet never lifting, when it was in his power to do so, the arm of vengeance, but ever repaying evil with good, and over the fall of his fiercest persecutor raising the notes of a most pathetic lamentation; distinguished above others by deeds of chivalry and military prowess, by which the kingdom was raised from its oppression and widely extended in its domain, yet reigning not for selfish ambition or personal glory, but as Jehovah’s servant for the establishment of truth and righteousness in the land; gifted, moreover, with a genius so fine, with sympathies so fresh and strong, as to be able to originate a new species of poetry, yet consecrating all to the service of the same Lord, in celebrating the praise of His doings, and telling forth the moods and experiences of the soul in its efforts to be conformed to the will of Heaven; and doing it in strains of such touching pathos and power, that they have found an echo in every pious bosom through succeeding generations, and to myriads of tempted souls have proved the greatest solace and support. The history of remote times can, indeed, tell of individuals who have risen from humble and sequestered life to sit with princes of the earth, or extend the glory of their country; but it can tell of no individual fitted by many degrees to be placed beside the shepherd-king and sweet psalmist of Israel. Nor could it have told of him, but for the training he enjoyed under that theocracy with which he was so closely identified, and of which, in the grand features of his character, he was at once the legitimate offspring and the noblest representative. May we not appeal, in proof of all we have said, to the common sentiments of Christendom? Why have the thoughts and feelings, not of the superstitious or devout merely, but of the most enlightened and spiritual in later times, hung around the region of the old theocracy, with an attraction which no other has been able to exercise. Why still, after centuries of desolation have passed over it, does it seem invested with so peculiar a glory? No doubt, in great part, because on it were performed formed the marvellous transactions of gospel history because there are “The holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed, For our advantage, on the bitter cross.” Yet not by any means on that account alone. The interest thence arising, is but the enhancement and consummation of that which is awakened by the long train of similar characters and events which had distinguished it in the ages preceding. These did of themselves raise the land of Israel to a height, in moral estimation, above all the kingdoms of the earth—rendering it emphatically the region of light and valley of vision—the land of uprightness, where were found the habitations of the righteous, where angels visited, where prophets witnessed and struggled for the cause of God, and men of faith and piety hazarded their lives for the kingdom of heaven. There, in short, as nowhere else in the ancient world, were moral elements of a high and ennobling kind, not only embodied in the ideal of the theocratic polity of Israel, but exhibited also in the results actually produced by it among the people; and the hallowed feelings and associations of which the land itself is the object, are a standing and hereditary evidence of the fact. So much, then, for the favourable side of the picture; but undoubtedly there is another, that must go along with it to give a fair exhibition of the reality. The Jewish theocracy contained also elements of weakness and imperfection, which materially hindered the fulness of its efficiency, and rendered its termination in the original form ultimately a matter of necessity. The existence of such elements, to some extent, was unavoidable, on account of the comparatively immature stage of the Divine economy to which the old theocracy belonged; for, as that economy is formed on the plan of a regular progression, it was inevitable but that there should be imperfections in the earlier as compared with the later forms of administration. What, then, were those elements of weakness? It will be enough if here they are briefly indicated. (1.) First of all may be named the local and earthly conditions with which it was entwined. These, as already stated, were of great service in giving objectivity to the truths and principles of the theocracy, rendering them more palpable to men’s view, and lending, as it were, outward sense to faith, that it might, through the near and visible, realize the unseen and eternal. But there was, at the same time, a tendency formed to contract the idea of God, and the interests of the economy, too much within those local and earthly bounds—to rest in them, instead of rising through them to a higher sphere and more enlarged considerations. From want of discernment and faith, multitudes were always giving way to this tendency, looking simply to the temporal recompense, and thereby becoming selfish and sordid in their minds; regarding God as little more than, in the restricted heathen sense, the tutelary God of the land and people of Israel—yea, regarding Him as, even within that local territory, chiefly confining the manifestations of His presence to the place and ordinances in which He chose to put His name, and, by natural consequence, regarding themselves as in a position of privileged antagonism to the heathen, rather than as furnished with peculiar endowments and opportunities to do them service. All this, doubtless, proceeded on a misinterpretation and abuse of the local and earthly conditions amid which the theocracy was set, and tended, in so far as it might be practised, virtually to subvert the ends of the institution. But there can be no doubt that, with a large portion of the people, matters took very much the direction now indicated, and that this feature in the Jewish theocracy proved, in the result, a material element of weakness. (2.) As another thing of this description, must be mentioned the predominantly outward character of the means employed to maintain the knowledge of God, and a course of obedience to His will. These took the distinctive form of law, and, consequently, even when they conveyed direct instruction as to the things to be believed and done, they were imposed from without, and formed a yoke of service resting upon the individual, rather than a spirit of life springing up and working within. Not only so, but a great part of the instruction thus conveyed, and of the moral training connected with it, was tied to ritual forms and observances, in which the external act was always the first and most prominent thing to be attended to, since the object aimed at by them was first to form the habit of obedience, and through the habit to establish the principle. Imperfection was obviously stamped upon this mode of action; and the result was, that many stopt short at the earlier stage of the course, satisfied themselves with the mere form of knowledge and of truth in the law, and never attained to the inward power of life, which becomes a law to itself. Coldness, formality, distrust of God, selfishness of spirit, corruption of manners, necessarily ensued—how commonly and fatally, the records of the nation but too amply testify—yet how far from being an inevitable result of the polity, how certainly arising from a failure in apprehending or using aright the privileges belonging to it, equally appears from the examples of faith, and spirituality, and love, always found in a select portion of the community. In short, the system, in its ostensible aspect, had a tendency to the formal and outward, and, on the part of the great majority, it was not met by a sufficient counteractive. (3.) Difficulties, and, by reason of difficulties, imperfections of administration, must be named as a third great element of weakness in the theocratic constitution, and of comparative failure in its working. The administration of affairs, as to its ultimate authority and power, was in the hands of God Himself; but, in ordinary circumstances, it was necessarily exercised by those who were put in stations of trust, and were more peculiarly called to act as His servants. Now, these were not only beset by the difficulties arising from human frailty and imperfection in themselves, but, by special difficulties, adhering to the law they had to administer. For this law, as we have said, however outward in form, was still essentially inward in principle; it was the law of Him who is emphatically a Spirit, and required nothing less than habitual holiness in heart and conduct. To administer such a law properly required discernment of spirits, as well as observance of outward actions; it required often dealings with the conscience; and this, again, could not be adequately performed except by those who had themselves a conscience void of offence toward God and man. Then the sanctions of the law, which, for deliberate overt transgressions, imposed the penalty of death—necessarily imposed it, for otherwise there could have been no proper exhibition of sin and holiness, as they are known in the Divine government these sanctions brought other difficulties into the administration. For men who had themselves imperfect views of sin and holiness, naturally felt averse to the enforcement of what was threatened; offences were suffered to proceed with impunity; “the law was slacked, and judgment did not proceed;” and, from the mixed state of things which in consequence resulted, neither could the blessing nor the curse be made good in such a way as to manifest fully the righteousness of God. First, partial disorders; then general decay; finally, total decrepitude and dissolution came on. (4.) Once more, an element of weakness and imperfection in the old theocracy, and the fundamental ground, indeed, of all the others, consisted in the defective nature of its revelations, in those things especially which concern the relation of God to man. Near as God was to Israel, and accessible in worship, compared with what He was to the heathen, there was still a great gulph. Satisfaction was not yet made to the deeper wants and necessities of the soul. The demands of law and the guilt of sin stood more prominently out than the riches of Divine grace, and righteousness, and love. A thick veil hung over the things which were to form the great redemption of man, and which, when they came, were to exert the mightiest influence upon the soul for good, and in a manner transfigure the entire state of a believer’s condition. For want of these, the theocracy in Israel was necessarily defective in the more vital functions, and naturally became partial and imperfect in its actual working. On this account, also, it had to stand so much in the outer sphere of things, the higher and better being as yet not directly available; and so, in comparison of what was to come, it might fitly be designated “weak and unprofitable.” On the whole, therefore, we perceive that the Jewish theocracy, as to its actual working, was of a mixed description. It had results connected with it of a most important and interesting character, on account of which the world then, and, indeed, for all time, has become largely its debtor. But, at the same time, there were imperfections in its framework, which gave rise to many failures in the accomplishment of what it aimed at; so that the idea it embodied of a kingdom of God on earth was never more than very partially realized, and, as became but too manifest in the progress of time, could not be realized under so imperfect and provisional a state of things. III. Still it did not properly die; for nothing that is of God perishes, or ultimately fails of its destination: in so far as there may be change, it can only be in the particular form assumed, or the mode of operation. This will appear in regard to the subject before us, if we turn now, in the third place, to consider the Jewish theocracy in respect to its ulterior development and final issues. There was a striking difference, in this respect, between the kingdom of God in Israel, and the worldly kingdoms by which it was surrounded, and for a time overborne. “Their end and aim,” so even the semi-rationalist Ewald writes, in his History of the Jewish People, “lay only in themselves, rose into strength through human power and caprice, and again passed away. But here (viz., in the Jewish theocracy) we have for the first time in history, a kingdom which finds its origin and its aim external to itself, which did not come into being of man, nor of man attained to its future increase; therefore a kingdom which, itself affecting only what is divine, carries also in its bosom the germ of an eternal duration, in spite of all incidental change, preserves still its inner truth, and revives anew in Christianity as with the freshness of a second youth.”[415] It was not, however, reserved for the historian of the past to discover this mark of superiority in the theocratic kingdom; it was done as well by the prophets of the future, and never more clearly and emphatically than when the external fortunes of the kingdom were in the most enfeebled or prostrate condition. “Unto us a child is born,” said Isaiah in the time of Ahaz, when everything was tottering to its fall, “unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.” Not only so, but when the kingdom had fallen to its very foundations, and to the eye of sense lay smitten by the rod of Babylon as with an irrecoverable doom, that precisely was the time, and Babylon itself the place, chosen by God to reveal, through His servant Daniel, the certain resurrection of the kingdom, and its ultimate triumph over all rival powers and adverse influences. In contradistinction to the Chaldean and other worldly kingdoms, which were all destined to pass away, and become as the dust of the summer threshing-floor, he announced the setting up of a kingdom by the God of heaven, which should never be destroyed,—a kingdom which, in principle, should be the same with the Jewish theocracy, and in history should form but a renewal and prolongation, in happier circumstances, of its existence; for it was to be, as of old, a kingdom of priests to God, or of the people of the saints of the Most High; and, as such, an everlasting kingdom, which all dominions were to serve and obey. And as this kingdom was imaged in the visions of Daniel by one having the appearance of a son of man, so did it begin, in the last days of the Jewish theocracy, to assume a formal existence in the person of Him who purposely took the title of Son of Man to Himself, that He might be the more easily recognised as the Head of Daniel’s kingdom of saints—the Reviver of the Old, and, at the same time, the Founder of the New—coming to establish, as of Himself, the kingdom of heaven, and yet coming to occupy the throne of His father David. What, indeed, was the end and purpose of His mission? What the design of His sufferings and death? Simply to raise up for Himself a community of saints a royal priesthood, with whom, and through whom, He might exercise dominion in the earth. And so, as the world began with a theocratic paradise, in which God associated Himself in closest fellowship with man, and man, in turn, acknowledged no law, was subject to no authority, but God’s; in like manner, it shall end with a paradise and theocracy restored, when no kingdom shall any longer appear but the Lord’s, and to the farthest bounds of the earth the saints shall live and reign with Him in glory. [415] Geschichte, ii. 138. It is, undoubtedly, with Christ’s appearance and work for the salvation of men—in other words, with the institution of the New Testament Church—that we are to connect the theocracy in its new, more expanded, and permanent form. And yet, in what may be designated the most fundamental characteristic of this form, in the comparative disuse of the outward and carnal for the more inward and spiritual elements of strength, it might not improperly be said, that the times of Daniel and the captivity formed the turning-point from the Old to the New, and that thenceforward the one was continually shading into the other. The external framework and political aspect of the kingdom, in its original and independent state, had assimilated it too much to the kingdoms of this world, had always had the effect of taking off the minds of the people from the things in which their polity differed from that of others—had led them, in short, from undue regard to the external and secular features in the constitution of the kingdom, to lose sight of the great truths and principles which constituted the real elements of its strength and permanence. The special efforts put forth from time to time to check this carnalizing tendency, had proved unavailing. The mission, for example, of Samson,—the externally strong, but internally weak, Nazarite,—so singularly furnished, and yet accomplishing so little (in each respect the exact type of the people); the higher and more successful mission of Samuel, who, shortly after the times of Samson, and by no weapons of war, but by the spiritual agency of God’s word, and the labours of like-minded men, trained and drawn together by the schools of the prophets, brought in a period of revival; the occasional missions and still higher gifts of the later prophets; as also, the earnest spiritual strivings of David, and some of his better successors, in the administration of the kingdom: these things, and others of a like kind, though all pointing in one direction, and perpetually sounding in the ears of the people a call to look to the realities of Divine truth and righteousness, enshrined in their peculiar polity as the bulwarks of their safety and well-being, were never more than partial and transitory in their influence. The more carnal elements of power—worldly resources and expedients—the things in which they resembled, not those in which they differed from, the nations of heathendom, always rose to the ascendant, and marred the proper working of the theocracy by the carnality and corruption of the world. Hence, as a last resort, the Lord laid prostrate the in dependence of the kingdom, annihilated its political power by the hand of the King of Babylon, and by the captivity and subsequent dispersion of the people, suspended, to a large extent, even the more peculiar observances of worship. They were thus driven more from the outward shell to the inward kernel, and led to seek the ground of their strength and relative superiority in the grand truths and principles of the theocracy. And seeking it thus, they found that, even amid external ruin, the way was still open to the greatest power and glory. Daniel, and his companions in Babylon, by their uncompromising adherence to the truth, and the special direction and support they in consequence received from the hand of God, showed in Babylon itself that a might slumbered in their arm which was capable of the greatest things, which could carry them at the very seat of the world’s empire to the highest place of power and influence,—a type of that victorious energy and progressive advancement to glory which were destined to appear in the true, the spiritual members of the theocracy. And sad and humiliating as they were in one respect, yet in another and higher respect, important benefits were derived by the covenant people from their period of exile, from the comparative meanness of their circumstances after the time of restoration, and their prolonged dispersion throughout the cities of heathendom. For these led, among other things, to the institution of the synagogue, with its simpler forms of worship, and helped materially to work the people into a greater freedom from what was local and outward, spiritualized and elevated their ideas of divine things, and enlarged their opportunities of displaying the banner, which God had given them because of the truth, in the sight of the heathen. A great advance was thus made in the fortunes that befell the theocracy and its people, in preparation for the coming of Christ, and the institution of the New Testament Church. What was earthly and carnal in it was made to fall into comparative abeyance, that the glory of its spiritual excellence might be brought more prominently into view. But it was only by the mission of Christ that the change was properly effected, and that provision was fully made for the establishment of a theocratic kingdom among men. By the union in His person of the Divine and human, by the infinite satisfaction accomplished in His death for sin, by the clear revelations of His word, and the plentiful endowments of His Spirit, the truth embodied in the old theocracy was extricated from its cumbrous environments, and raised to a nobler elevation. And by the institution of a church founded in this truth—a church confined to no local territory or temporal jurisdictions, but chartered with the rights of universal citizenship, holding directly of Christ as its Divine Head, and committed to the hands of those who in every place might receive His Gospel and exhibit the virtues of His Divine life—by such an institution He set the theocratic principle on a new course of development, and gave it, as it were, a commission to take possession of the habitable globe. A noble calling, indeed, for the Church to have received! Would that she had always understood aright its nature, and entered into the mind of Christ as to the way by which it should be carried into effect! How plain did all seem to have been made to her hand by the course of preparation going before, and still more by the actual teaching of Christ and His apostles! In laying the foundations of the Church, and labouring to give the right tone as well as the needed impulse to all future times, how carefully did they abstain from intermeddling with anything but the truth of God, and its manifestation to the hearts and consciences of men! How clear was it that the weapons of their warfare were not carnal, but spiritual! They had perfect confidence in the higher elements of power; and, rejecting all others as unsuitable to their vocation, they sought “by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left”—by such means, but only by such, they sought to raise men into living fellowship with God, and bring God’s will and authority to rule in the affairs of men. But the Church had not proceeded far on her course till she began to distrust these spiritual weapons, and by a retrograde movement fell back upon the weak and beggarly elements which in earlier times had proved the constant source of imperfection and failure, and from which the Church of the New Testament should have counted it her distinctive privilege to be free. Instead of the common priesthood of believing souls, anointed by the Spirit of holiness, and dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, a select priesthood of artificial distinctions and formal service were constituted the chief depositaries of grace and virtue; instead of the simple manifestation of the truth to the heart, there came the muffled drapery of symbolical rites and bodily ministrations; and for the patient endurance of evil, or the earnest endeavour to overcome it with good, resort was had to the violence of the sword, and the coercive measures of arbitrary power. Strange delusion! As if the mere form and shadow of the truth were mightier than the truth itself—or the circumstantial adjuncts of the faith were of more worth than its essential attributes—or the crouching dread and enforced subjection of bondmen were a sacrifice to God more acceptable than the childlike and ready obedience of loving hearts! Such a depravation of the spirit of the Gospel could not fail to carry its own curse and judgment along with it; and history leaves no room to doubt, that as men’s views went out in this false direction, the tide of carnality and corruption flowed in; the Christian theocracy, as of old the Jewish, was carried captive by the world; the spouse became an harlot. This mournful defection was descried from the outset, and in vivid colours was portrayed on the page of prophetic revelation, as a warning to the Church to beware of compromising the truth of God, or attempting to seek the living among the dead. What constitutes the peculiar glory of the Gospel, and should ever have been regarded as forming the main secret of its strength, is the extent to which its tidings furnish an insight into the mind of God, and the power it confers on those who receive it to look as with open face into the realities of the Divine kingdom. Doing this in a manner altogether its own, it reaches the depths of thought and feeling in the bosom, takes possession of the inner man, and implants there a spirit of life, which works with sovereign power on the things around it, and casts aside, as being no longer needed, the external props and appliances that were required by the demands of a feebler age. Not that Christianity is altogether independent of outward things, and refuses the aid of the world in so far as this may be of service in providing defences for the truth, or securing for it a free course and a favourable consideration among men. There are respects in which the earth can help the woman. And the very tendency of the truth to work from within outwards to work on till it bring under its sway the whole domain, first of the personal relations, then of the social, finally of the public and political,—naturally leads, and in a sense compels, those who are conscious of its power, to make everything under their control subservient to its design. How far they may right fully go in this direction can only, with good men, be a question of fitness and propriety, viewed in connection with the state of the Church, the condition of the world, and the spirit of Christianity itself. But with such men it never ought to be, it never can justly be, a question, whether the external should so far be brought in upon the internal affairs of the Divine kingdom, as to allow the truth to be overshadowed by outward pomp and circumstance, impeded in its working by the restraints of worldly power, or thrust upon men’s consciences by weapons of violence. For, the kingdom established by the Gospel is essentially spiritual: it is a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; and when true to itself, and conducted in harmony with the mind of its Divine Head, it must ever give to the spiritual the ascendancy over the carnal, and look for its gradual extension and final triumph to the power and influence of the truth itself. Therefore—to sum up the whole matter, and to indicate, in a word, how one part links itself with another, and all with the responsibilities of a Christian calling—the Church of Christ, according to its idea, is the theocracy in its new, its higher, its perennial form; since it is that in which God peculiarly dwells, and with which He identifies His character and glory. Every individual member of this Church, according to the proper idea of his calling, is a king and a priest to God; therefore not in bondage to the world, nor dividing between the world and God, but recognising God in all, honouring and obeying God, and receiving power, as a prince with God, to prevail over the opposition and wickedness of the world. Every particular Church, in like manner, is, according to the idea of its calling, an organized community of such kings and priests; therefore bound to strive that the idea may be realized by the united strenuousness of its exertions in the cause of Christ, and the steady growth of its members toward a state in which they shall be without spot and blameless. The more this is the case, the more is the prayer of the Church fulfilled, “Thy kingdom come;” and the nearer shall we be to that happy time, when all power, and authority, and rule, shall give way before the one heaven-anointed King, to whom the heritage of the earth belongs. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 133: 05.28. APPENDICES ======================================================================== Appendices ======================================================================== CHAPTER 134: 05.29. APPENDIX A ======================================================================== Appendix A.—Views Of The Reformers Regarding The Sabbath. WE regret that Hengstenberg, in his recent treatise on the Lord’s day, takes much the same course with those referred to in the note, of producing quotations from the writings of the Reformers, that present only one side of their opinions, and without any qualifying statement as to there being grounds on which they also acknowledged the abiding obligation of a weekly Sabbath. Any one would conclude, from the representation he has given, that the stream of sentiment ran entirely in one direction. There are undoubtedly very strong, as we think, unguarded, and improper, and, as might seem at first sight, quite conclusive declarations in the writings and authorized standards of the Reformers, against Sabbatical observances. Thus Luther, in his larger Catechism, says, ‘God set apart the seventh day, and appointed it to be observed, and commanded that it should be considered holy above all others; and this command, as far as the outward observance was concerned, was given to the Jews alone, that they should abstain from hard labour and rest, in order that both man and beast might be refreshed, and not be worn out by constant work. Therefore this commandment, literally understood, does not apply to us Christians; for it is entirely outward, like other ordinances of the Old Testament, bound to modes, and persons, and times, and customs, all of which are now left free by Christ.’ So again, in the Augsburg Confession, expressing not only the mind of Luther, but also of Melancthon and the leading Lutheran Reformers, ‘Great disputes have arisen concerning the change of the law, concerning the ceremonies of the new law, concerning the change of the Sabbath, which have all sprung from the false persuasion, that the worship in the Church ought to correspond to the Levitical service. They who think that the observance of the Lord’s day was instituted by the Church in place of the Sabbath, as a necessary thing, completely err. Scripture grants that the observance of the Sabbath now is free; for it teaches, that since the introduction of the Gospel, Mosaic ceremonies are no longer necessary.’ To add only one more, and that from the Reformed Church, the Helvetic Confession drawn up in 1566, after referring to the observance of Sunday in early times, and the advantages derived from it, adds the following statement: ‘But we do not tolerate here either superstition or the Jewish mode of observance. For we do not believe that one day is holier than another, or that rest in itself is pleasing to God. We keep the Sunday, not the Sabbath, by a voluntary observance.’ Now, we freely admit that such statements, taken by themselves, and viewed apart from the circumstances of the time, might very naturally be understood to imply an absolute freedom from any proper obligation to keep the Lord’s day. But it ought, first of all, to be borne in mind, that the subject engaged a comparatively small share of the attention of the Reformers, and that, in so far as it did, they were placed in circumstances fitted to give a peculiar bias to their thoughts and language. There is no regular and systematic treatise on the Sabbath in the works of the more eminent divines of that period; it is only incidentally alluded to in connection with other points, such as the power of the Church in decreeing ceremonies, or briefly discussed in their commentaries on Scripture, or, finally, made the subject of a few paragraphs under the Fourth Commandment, in their elements of Christian doctrine. A few minutes might suffice to read what each one of the Reformers has left on record concerning the permanent obligation of the Sabbath; indeed, that part of the question is rather summarily decided on, than calmly and satisfactorily examined. It was only about the beginning of the seventeenth century, when a controversy arose concerning it in Holland, that it began to attract much notice on the Continent, and that a careful investigation was made into the grounds of its existing obligation. Before the meeting of the famous Synod of Dort, considerable heats had been occasioned by the subject in the province of Zealand; and with the view of somewhat allaying these, or at least restraining them within certain bounds, that Synod, in one of its last sederunts, held on the 17th May 1618, and after the departure of the foreign deputies, passed certain resolutions, which were intended to serve as interim rules for the direction of those who might still choose to agitate the controversy, until it might be fully and formally discussed in a future synod. These resolutions were passed in the course of one day, and were carried with the consent of the Zealand brethren themselves, so that they may be regarded as embodying the nearly unanimous judgment of the Dutch Church at that period. They are as follows:—1. “In the Fourth Commandment there is something ceremonial and something moral; 2. The ceremonial was; of the seventh day, and the rigid observance of that day prescribed to the Jewish people; 3. but the moral is, that a certain and stated day was appointed for the worship of God, and such rest as is necessary for the worship of God, and devout meditation upon Him; 4. The Sabbath of the Jews having been abrogated, the Lord’s day must be solemnly sanctified by Christians; 5. From the time of the apostles, this day was always observed in the ancient Catholic Church; 6. The day must be so consecrated to Divine worship, that there shall be a cessation from all servile works, excepting those which are done on account of some present necessity, and from such recreations as are discordant with the worship of God.” The publishing of these resolutions had not the desired effect; for neither did the controversy cease, nor was it carried on within the prescribed bounds. A few years afterwards, a treatise on the subject was published by Gomar, then at the head of the Calvinists, disputing two or three of the resolutions. Ho was soon replied to at considerable length by Walaeus; and still more elaborately, some years later, by J. Altingius. It was then first that the points connected with the permanent obligation of the Fourth Commandment came to be fully discussed in the churches of the Reformation. And if certain mistakes in the way of handling the matter appeared in the writings of the earlier divines, we may be the lees surprised, when we know the comparatively small share it had in their inquiries and meditations.[416] [416] For a full, interesting, and impartial account of the controversies waged in Holland, and also in this country, during the seventeenth century, see the excellent work on the Sabbath by the Rev. James Gilfillan, published since this Appendix was written. But if we further take into account the circumstances in which they were placed, we shall be still less surprised at the particular error they adopted; for these naturally gave their minds the bias which led them to embrace it. The gigantic system of heresy and corruption against which they had to contend, was chiefly distinguished by the multitude of its superstitious rites and ceremonies, and the substitution of an outward attendance upon these for a simple faith in Christ, as the ground of men’s acceptance before God. This false method of salvation by works had branched itself out into so many ramifications, and had taken such a powerful hold of the minds of men, that the Reformers were in a manner constrained to speak of all outward observances as in themselves worthless, and not properly required to the salvation of sinners. They represented, in the strongest terms, the inward nature of the kingdom of God, its independence of things in themselves, outward and ceremonial, so that no bodily service, merely as such, was incumbent upon Christians as it had been in Judaism, but was only to be used as a help for ministering to, or an occasion for exercising, the graces of a Christian life. Hence, in the Augsburg Confession, difference of days and distinctions of food are classed together, as things about which so many false opinions had gathered, that “though in themselves indifferent, they had become no longer so.” And the false opinions are particularly specified to be such as tended to produce the conviction, that people thought themselves entitled by those corporeal satisfactions to deserve the remission of their sins. Melancthon, in his defence of that Confession, arguing against the idea so prevalent regarding the Church and her external ceremonies, affirms that “the apostles did not wish us to consider such rites as necessary to our justification before God. They did not wish to impose any burden of that kind upon our consciences; did not wish that righteousness and sin should be placed in the observance of days, of food, and such things. Nay, Paul declares opinions of such a kind to be doctrines of devils.” In like manner, Calvin, in his remarks upon the Fourth Commandment, contained in his Institutes, says that as the Jewish Sabbath was but a shadow of Christ, “there ought to be amongst Christians no superstitious observance of days:” and that to regard the sanctification of every seventh, though not precisely the last, day of the week, as the moral part of the Fourth Commandment, was “only to change the day in despite of the Jews, and at the same time to keep up in the mind the conviction of its sanctity.” Quotations of a like import might be multiplied almost indefinitely; but there can be no need for it, as all who are even moderately acquainted with the times and writings of the Reformers must know, that from the circumstances in which they were placed, and the peculiar nature of the warfare they were called to wage, such expressions regarding outward ceremonies in general, and the sanctification of the Lord’s day in particular, are both of frequent occurrence and easily accounted for. At the same time, though such expressions unquestionably involve a doctrinal error, so far as the Lord’s day at least is concerned, no one really acquainted with the spirit of their writings can need to be told that it is the mere opus operatum,—the outward service alone that is there spoken of. Nothing more, after all, is meant, than that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink,—that there is no essential inherent sanctity in the days and observances considered by themselves, as apart from the way in which they are used, and the ends for which they are appointed. That the Reformers did not mean the statements referred to, to be taken in the most unqualified sense, is evident alone from their views of the primeval Sabbath. They held, we believe, without any exception worth naming, that the weekly Sabbath appointed at the creation had a universal aspect, and has a descending obligation to future times. We have already given the judgment of Calvin, and also of Luther, on this subject.—(See p. 142.) Beza was of the same mind, as will appear from a quotation to be produced shortly. So also Peter Martyr, who, in his Loci Com., says,—“God could indeed have appointed all or many days for His own worship; but since He knew that we were doomed to eat our bread by the sweat of our face, He rested one in seven, on which, discarding other works, we should apply to that alone.” And Bullinger, who says on Matthew 12,—“Sabbath signifies rest, and is taken for that day which was consecrated to rest. But the observance of that rest was always famous and of highest antiquity, not invented and brought forth for the first time by Moses when he introduced the law; for in the Decalogue it is said, ‘Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,’ thereby admonishing them that it was of ancient institution.” And to pass over many of the learned writers, from whom similar extracts might be taken, we conclude with the testimony of Pareus, who, though not properly a Reformer, was yet the disciple of the Reformers, and who, in his commentary on Genesis 2:3, says,—“It pertains to us to keep holy the day sanctified by God, by imitating His rest. To imitate the rest of God is not to be idle, to do nothing, for God was not idle, nor did He bless idleness; neither is it to feign that a sanctity was impressed upon that day (as hypocrites do, who make an idol of the Sabbath); but it is, according to God’s example, to cease from our works, that is, from sins, which properly are our works, tending most of all to desecrate the Sabbath, and from the labours of this life, to which the six days are destined. It is, further, to apply the Sabbath to Divine worship, by teaching, hearing, meditating, doing those things which pertain to the true knowledge and worship of God, to the love of our neighbour, and our own salvation. Such sanctification is suitable lay; for in blessing the seventh day, God did not curse other days; but the sanctification was, by way of distinction, pronounced upon that day, on which no other labours were to entangle us.” It is evident, that with such views regarding the original appointment and descending obligation of a weekly Sabbath, the Reformers could only have disowned the duty of keeping a Christian Sabbath by being inconsistent with themselves, and could only have denied the abiding obligation of the Fourth Commandment by holding some peculiar notions (different from those now generally entertained) respecting the import of that commandment. We believe that they were at one in holding the Decalogue to be the revelation of the moral law, and as such, therefore, binding in all its precepts upon men of every age and condition of life. As a specimen, we may take what Melancthon says of it in the introduction to his treatise on the Decalogue, contained in vol. 2. of his works, which he begins with these words: “It is necessary to retain the usual division; the principal part of the law is called the moral, which is the Decalogue rightly understood.” Then, shortly after, describing this Decalogue, as a whole, he says,—“THE MORAL LAW is the eternal and unchangeable wisdom that is in God, and a rule of life, distinguishing what is right from what is wrong, commanding the one, and with severe indignation forbidding the other, the knowledge of which was in creation implanted in rational creatures, and afterwards often repeated, and by Divine voice proclaimed, that men might know that God is, and what He is, and that He is a Judge who obliges all His rational creatures to be conformed to Himself, to yield our obedience entirely accordant with His law, and accusing and destroying all that are not possessed of this conformity.” In like manner, Calvin, in his Institutes, heads the chapter which treats of the Decalogue, “An explanation of the Moral Law,” describes it as “the rule of perfect righteousness,” and gives it as the reason why God has set up this law in writing before us, “both that it might testify with more certainty what in the law of nature was too obscure, and might more vividly, as by a palpable form, strike our mind and memory.” Regarding the Decalogue in this light, the Reformers plainly ought to have considered the Fourth Commandment, as well as the others, of universal and permanent obligation. And yet it is certain they did not. They laid down right premises on the subject, while, by some strange over sight or misapprehension, they failed to draw the conclusion these inevitably lead to. It was the unanimous opinion of those divines, that the rest enjoined in the Fourth Commandment was of a ceremonial and typical nature,—that, as Luther expresses himself, “it was entirely outward,” and as such, therefore, consummated and done away in Christ. Even Alting could not get rid of this view of the matter, and consequently feels himself necessitated to maintain the extreme position, that man was not only made, but also sinned and fell on the sixth day, and that the rest of the Sabbath having been brought in subsequent to the fall, was even, in its first observance, a type of redemption. By such a position, though too improbable to be generally received, he of course vindicated his consistence, in regard to the rest of the Sabbath, as being from the first of a typical nature. The Reformers, however, cannot receive the benefit of the same vindication, not having broached the opinion that the original institution of the Sabbath was subsequent to the fall. The inconsistence probably never struck them, from the subject having occupied so comparatively small a share of their attention. And what seems more than anything else to have misled them, was the passage in Colossians, where, “Sabbath days “are classed by the Apostle among the things which were shadows of Gospel truth, and hence done away when Christ, the substance, came. They constantly bring forward this passage when speaking of the ceremonial and typical nature of the Jewish Sabbath. But how did they reconcile to their own minds the manifest inconsistence of at once holding the Fourth Commandment to be of moral and perpetual obligation, and, at the same time, of considering the sacred rest imposed in that commandment as of a ceremonial nature, and only of temporary obligation! There was here a real difficulty in the way; and though we find some variety in their endeavours to get rid of it, yet they all concurred in introducing into this part of the Decalogue the distinction—at variance as it was with the general view they entertained of that code of precepts—that the precept was partly ceremonial and partly moral. It was ceremonial, as interdicting all servile work, and enjoining a day of outward unbroken rest,—thus typifying the peaceful and blessed rest which believers enjoy in Christ; free alike from the labours of sin and the fears of guilt. But did the typical stand in that day of rest being simply one in every seven, or in its being precisely the seventh and last of the ever-returning cycle? Here we find great diversity of opinion. And did the moral stand in the appointment of one day in every seven, though not precisely the last in order, as a day of bodily rest and spiritual employment, or more generally, in its requiring adequate and proper times to be set apart for these merciful and holy purposes? Here also no less diversity. Some of the Reformers descended so little into particulars, that we cannot, for certain, know what opinion they held on these points. For example, Melancthon, in his Loci Theol., and in his treatise, De Lege Divina (using almost the same words), writes thus:—“In this commandment there are properly said to be two parts—the one natural, the other moral; the one the genus, the other the species. Of the former it is said, that the natural part or genus is perpetual, and cannot be abrogated, as being a command concerning the maintenance of the public ministry, so that on some one day the people should be taught, and divinely appointed ceremonies handled. But the species, which bears respect to the seventh day in particular, is abrogated.” He carefully avoids saying whether he looked upon the abolition as standing in the change of the day from the seventh to some other; and also, whether the morality of the commandment required the day preserved to be some one day in every week. His language does not necessarily imply any positive decision on these points, although the natural inference is, that by the day still to be observed for pious purposes, he meant one day in each week; and by the abrogation of the species, the mere removal of that day from the last to another day of the week, the first. The opinions of the reformed divines, however, are generally expressed with sufficient distinctness upon the points in question; and they divide themselves into two leading classes. One class, with Calvin at their head, maintained that the typical mystery of the sabbatical rest stood not simply in its being held on the seventh or last day, but in that along with the other six preceding days of work—in the number seven viewed as one whole, and terminating in the most strict and rigorous cessation from all labour; hence the removal of the day from the last to the first of the week, if the day itself was still viewed in precisely the same character, did not essentially alter the nature of the institution: the number seven was still preserved, and if viewed in the same light, and in all its parts held equally binding as before, the Jewish ordinance, in their estimation, was substantially retained. Considering the sabbatical rest, therefore, of every seventh day as a shadow of Gospel realities, they conceived that the moral obligation couched under the figure could be carried no further than to impose the necessity of setting apart such times as might be sufficient to maintain the worship of God; but that it did not strictly bind Christians to confine themselves to one day in seven, as if to take more would be to err in excess, or to take fewer would be to err by deficiency. The exact length of the period which was to separate one day of rest from another, under the Christian dispensation, they held should be determined by other considerations. But did they, therefore, question that that should be one in seven? Not in the least, for there were considerations enough besides to fix that as the proper rotation. Gomar, indeed, says that days for the solemn worship and service of God ought to be more frequent now than under the Jewish dispensation; and he gives us to understand, that to impress this upon the minds of Christians, was one of his reasons for undertaking to show the abrogation of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath: for God, he contends in sec. 5th, imposes only one day in seven upon the Jews, because they were a carnal and stiff-necked people, and were burdened with many heavy ceremonies; and hence arises a clear obligation, in the altered and improved circumstances of Christians, to have, when they can, more frequent days of sacred rest for the worship of God. Gomar, therefore, held the propriety, and even the obligation, if circumstances permitted, to have a more frequent than a seventh-day sabbath. But he seems to stand alone in connecting such an obligation with the Fourth Commandment. The Reformers, at any rate, appear to have had no doubt that the day to be observed for holy purposes was to be one in each week, not excepting those of them who took the most general view of the moral obligation imposed in the Fourth Commandment, feeling themselves drawn to that conclusion by a regard to the other purposes for which it was given, as well as from the primeval character of the ordinance, and the recorded procedure of the Apostolic Church in keeping the first day of the week. Luther, in his German annotations on the Fourth Commandment, says,—“Although the Sabbath is now abolished, and the conscience is freed from it, it is still good, and even necessary, that men should keep a particular day in the week for the sake of the word of God, on which they are to meditate, hear, and learn, for all cannot command everyday; and nature also requires that one day in the week should be kept quiet, without labour either for man or beast.” In like manner, in his Larger Catechism, after stating that the worship of God is “not now bound to certain times, as it was among the Jews, as if this day or that were to be preferred for such a purpose, for no day is better or more excellent than another,” he goes on to remark, that “since the mass of men cannot attend on it every day, from the entanglements of business, some one day, at the least, in the week must be chosen for giving heed to that matter,”—mentioning the example set by the Apostolic Church in choosing the first day of the week as what ought to determine the Church in succeeding times. Calvin is, if possible, still more decided; for he holds, that even as imposed upon the children of Israel in the Fourth Commandment, the Sabbath was designed not merely to prefigure spiritual rest, but also to afford an opportunity for engaging in religious exercises, and for a respite from labour to the humbler classes of society. And, “since these two latter reasons,” he remarks in his Institutes, “ought not to be numbered amongst the ancient shadows, but alike concern all ages, although the Sabbath is abolished, it yet has that place among us, that on stated days we meet for hearing the word of God, for partaking of the Lord’s Supper, and for public prayers; also that servants and work-people may have a respite from labour.” And a little afterwards, more expressly, bespeaks of “the Apostle having retained the Sabbath” for the poor of the Christian community, so far keeping up the distinction of days, and of the danger of superstition being almost taken away by the substitution of another day of the week for religious purposes, instead of that which the Jews held to be peculiarly sacred. There was, however, another class of opinions, or rather of divines holding the opinion, that the sabbatical rest, as enjoined upon the Jews in the Fourth Commandment, was indeed typical of the spiritual rest of the Gospel, but that the mystery or type existed in the day of rest being precisely the seventh or last day of the week—that the moral obligation contained in the precept for all times and ages, was its imposing the duty of hallowing one day in seven,—and that, consequently, by changing the day from the last to the first, which was done by the apostles under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the moral part of the commandment was retained in full force, while the Jewish mystery necessarily ceased. This more correct opinion was, I should say, more generally adopted by the earlier divines after the Reformation, than the one just considered. Beza may first be mentioned, who thus writes on Revelation 1:10 : “He calls that day the Lord’s, which Paul names the first of the week (μία σαββάτων), 1 Corinthians 16:2, on which day it appears that even then the Christians were accustomed to hold their own regular meetings, as the Jews were wont to meet in the synagogue on the Sabbath, for the purpose of showing that the Fourth Commandment, concerning the sanctification of every seventh day, was ceremonial, as far as it respected the particular day of rest and the legal services, but that, as regards the worship of God, it was a precept of the moral law, which is perpetual and unchanging during the present life. That day of rest had stood, indeed, from the creation of the world to the resurrection of our Lord, which being as another creation of a new spiritual world (according to the language of the prophets), was made the occasion (the Holy Spirit, beyond doubt, directing the apostles) for assuming, instead of the Sabbath of the former age, or the seventh day, the first day of this world, on which, not the corporeal and corruptible light created on the first day of the old world, but this heavenly and eternal light, hath shone upon us. Therefore the assemblies of the Lord’s day are of apostolical and truly divine tradition; yet so that a Jewish cessation from all work should not be observed, since this would manifestly be not to abolish Judaism, but only to change what respected the particular day. This, however, was afterwards introduced by Constantine, as appears from Eusebius and the laws of the emperor, and was afterwards, by succeeding emperors, restrained within still narrower bounds: till at length, what was first instituted for a good purpose, and is still properly retained, namely, that he mind, freed from its daily labours, should give it itself wholly up to the hearing of the word of God,—came to degenerate into mere Judaism, or rather the most vain will-worship, innumerable other holy-days having been added to it.” This passage puts it beyond a doubt that, according to Beza, the ceremonial part of the Fourth Commandment consisted only in the particular day, and the bodily rest, and that the moral part required still one day in seven to be set apart for the worship of God. What he says of the manner in which the rest should now be observed, will fall to be noticed under the next head. Peter Martyr expresses the same opinion in his Loci Communes, under the Fourth Commandment, remarking, that “as in other ceremonies there is something abiding and eternal, and something changeable and temporal (as in circumcision and baptism, it is perpetual that they who belong to the covenant of God, and are admitted among His people, should be distinguished by some outward sign), the kind of sign was changeable and temporary; for that it might be done, either by the cutting off of the fore skin, or by the washing with water, God manifested by His appointment. In like manner, that one fixed day in seven should be set free (mancipetur) for the worship of God, is fixed and determined; but whether this or that day should be appointed, is temporary and changeable.” To the same effect also, Ursinus, the friend of Melancthon, in his Catechism,—“That the first part of the command (that, namely, which enjoins the keeping holy of a seventh-day Sabbath) is moral and perpetual, appears from the end of the institution, and the reasons assigned for it, which are perpetual.” Then, mentioning these, he concludes, that as “they relate to no definite period, but to all times and ages of the world, it follows that God wished to bind men from the beginning of the world even to its end, to keep a certain Sabbath.” And again: “Though the ceremonial Sabbath is abrogated in the New Testament, a moral Sabbath still remains, and itself therefore a kind of ceremonial Sabbath, i.e., some regular time must be set apart for the ministry. For it is not less needful now in the Christian than it was formerly in the Jewish Church, that there be some fixed day on which the word of God may be taught, and the sacraments publicly administered, which, however, we are not strictly bound to make either the third, fourth, fifth, or any other determinate day of the week.” He evidently means that, so far as the morality of the Fourth Commandment is concerned, it simply obliges us to one day in the seven. It is almost unnecessary to mention the names of more who adhered to this opinion. We may just add, that it seems to have been that of Bucer, and of Viret, the colleague of Calvin; that it was the opinion of Pareus is certain, as it seems also to have been that of the Synod of Dort, if we may judge from what may be regarded as the natural import of their resolutions; and both Walaeus and Altingius have not only affirmed it as their opinion, but are at considerable pains to prove that the very substance of the Fourth Commandment is its requiring the sanctifying of one day in seven for the service of God,—that unless it included an obligation to this, there could be no proper meaning in the express mention of six days as the appointed period of weekly labour, continually succeeded by another of rest, and no force in the appeal to God’s example and work in creation,—and consequently, that while the moral requires the observance of one day in seven, the ceremonial ceased when the change took place from the last to the first day of the week. There is still another point, on which it is of importance to give a correct exhibition of the views of the Reformers, viz., in regard to the due observance of the Lord’s day, the Christian Sabbath. Here it is necessary to premise at the outset, what must have occasionally struck those who have read the preceding quotations, that some of the reformed divines looked upon the cessation from work on Sabbath as more strictly and absolutely required of the Jews than is now binding on Christians, and that the entireness of the prohibition in that respect was essential to the mystery wrapt up in the Sabbath. In proof of this they generally refer to such passages as Exodus 16:23; Exodus 35:3, which they understand as prohibiting all preparation of food even on Sabbath. Altingius has endeavoured to show, and I think with perfect success, that such was not really the meaning of those passages, and that such works as were necessary for the ordinary support and refreshment of the body were always permitted, and practised too, among the Jews. We have already discussed this point, however, and shall not further refer to it here. But the Reformers undoubtedly did believe that a degree of rigour, an extent of prohibition, belonged to the Jewish Sabbath, for which we find no proper warrant in Scripture; and well knowing, from New Testament Scripture, that no such yoke was laid upon the Christian Church, they naturally drew the equally unwarranted conclusion, that the strictness of prohibition as to the performance of works requiring labour was somewhat relaxed. In using such language, they still did not mean that ordinary works might be performed on any plea of worldly convenience or pleasure, but such only as were performed by our Lord,—works required for the necessary support or the comfort of men, and some of which at least they conceived to have been interdicted to the Jews, for the purpose of rendering their sabbatical rest more exactly typical of the spiritual rest enjoyed by believers in Christ. For the proof of this we can appeal to a case which will put the matter, in regard to one great man at least, beyond a doubt,—we mean the venerable Calvin. During his lifetime a book was published by some Dutchman, in which the lawfulness of images in Divine worship, to a certain extent, was maintained on the following ground:—That though all use of images, and consequently all kinds of image-worship, were prohibited in the Second Commandment, yet this was not to be understood too rigorously; for we have the same exclusive prohibition of all work on Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment, and yet we know that Christ both did and allowed certain kinds of work on that day: so that either He must be held to have violated the Sabbath, or the commandment must be regarded as less strict in its prohibitions of work than the plain import of its words would lead us to suppose,—an alternative, he contended, which would render it equally consistent with the purport of the Second Commandment to make some use of images in the worship of God. Calvin wrote a reply to this treatise, which is contained in vol. 8 of the Amsterdam edition of his works. We quote only that part of it which bears upon our present subject. At p. 486 he says, “They who profess Christianity have always understood that the obligation by which the Jews were bound to observe the Sabbath-day was temporary. But it is quite otherwise in regard to idolatry. I grant it, indeed (that is, the Sabbath), as the bark of a spiritual substance, the use of which is still in force, of denying ourselves, of renouncing all our own thoughts and affections, and of bidding farewell to one and all of our own employments (operibus nostris universis valedicendi), so that God may reign in us, then of employing ourselves in the worship of God, learning from His word, in which is to be found our salvation, and of meeting together for making public profession of our faith,—all which differ from the Jewish shadows; for it was so servile a yoke to the Jews, that they were bound on one day of each week to abstain from all work, so that it was even a capital offence to gather wood or bear any burden.” And then he goes on to defend Jesus from the charge of having broken the Fourth Commandment by performing works of healing on the Sabbath, on the ground that such works did not fall within the prohibition,—that they were properly God’s works, and in no age, on no occasion, were unseasonable or improper. It is singular that this great man did not here perceive the full force of his own argument, and is another proof that the subject had not, in all its bearings, been fully weighed by his masterly mind. For the same argument which he applied to the defence of Christ in the liberties He personally took with the sabbatical rest, would, if properly carried out, have equally availed to show that the Sabbath, as imposed upon the Jews, was not the servile yoke it is here represented; that all work was not absolutely forbidden to them on that day,—not simply the engaging in any worldly employment, or the bearing of any burden, for whatever purpose, but only such as was done in the way of ordinary traffic or worldly business,—for purposes merely of temporal profit or carnal pleasure, not immediately called for by any proper plea of necessity or mercy. It is strange also that Calvin, and many of the other Reformers, should have spoken so often of the Sabbath enjoined in the Fourth Commandment, as if it had been an ordinance of mere bodily rest. They did not so interpret the other commandments. They did not make the fulfilment of the second to stand in the mere rejection of idolatry, nor that of the sixth in the simple withholding of the hand from murder; and why should they ever have thought or spoken as if the fourth only enjoined a day of outward rest, and not that rather as a means for the higher end of sanctification? But with such mistakes regarding the Jewish Sabbath, properly considered, the above passage from Calvin gives us very distinctly to understand how he conceived the ordinance of the Sabbath, as still binding on the Church, should be observed; that though the obligation was not the same in his judgment as in the Jewish Church, yet so much was it to be made a day of spiritual and sacred rest, that not only is it to be hallowed by the denying and crucifying of our sinful affections, but also by taking a solemn leave of our own, that is, undoubtedly, our common worldly occupations, and employing ourselves in the public and private exercises of God’s worship. The distinction, as he regarded it, between the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath, was not that the latter did, while the other did not admit, of manual labour or worldly employments, without any urgent plea of necessity or mercy, but that the Jewish Sabbath so rigorously enforced the outward rest, as to prevent things being done which were necessary to the ordinary comfort, or conducive to the higher interests of man. He held the obligation still in force to keep the Sabbath, as a day set apart for the peculiar worship and service of God, liable to be interrupted only by doing what might be required for the relief of our present wants, or by labours of love for our fellow-creatures. At the risk of being tedious, and for the sake of removing all possible doubt about the real sentiments of Calvin concerning the way in which the Christian Sabbath ought to be spent, we produce other two extracts from his works,—passages found in his discourses (in French) to the people of Geneva on the Ten Commandments. The fifth and sixth of these treat of the Sabbath. And in the fifth, after having stated his views regarding the Sabbath as a typical mystery, in which respect he conceived it to be abolished, he comes to show how far it was still binding, and declares that, as an ordinance of government for the worship and service of God, it pertains to us as well as to the Jews. “The Sabbath, then,” says he, “should be to us a tower whereon we should mount aloft to contemplate afar the works of God, when we are not occupied nor hindered by anything besides, from stretching forth all our faculties in considering the gifts and graces which He has bestowed on us. And if we properly apply ourselves to do this on the Sabbath, it is certain that we shall be no strangers to it during the rest of our time, and that this meditation shall have so formed our minds, that on Monday, and the other days of the week, we shall abide in the grateful remembrance of our God,” etc. Again: “It is for us to dedicate ourselves wholly to God, renouncing ourselves, our feelings, and all our affections; and then, since we have this external ordinance, to act as becomes us, that is, to lay aside our earthly affairs and occupations, so that we may be entirely free (vaquions du tout) to meditate the works of God, may exercise ourselves in considering the gifts which He has afforded us, and, above all, may apply ourselves to apprehend the grace which He daily offers us in His Gospel, and may be more and more conformed to it. And when we shall have employed the Sabbath in praising and magnifying the name of God, and meditating His works, we must, through the rest of the week, show how we have profited thereby.” It is only necessary to bear in mind the explanation already given regarding the sentiments generally entertained by the Reformers of the Jewish Sabbath, to see that Beza, in his remarks on Revelation 1:2, is of the same mind with Calvin, as to the exclusion of worldly employments from the proper observance of the Lord’s day. When he speaks there of a Jewish cessation from all work not being now imperative, he evidently means in the sense already explained—the mistaken sense, as we have endeavoured to show; for he not only affirms that the sanctification of the seventh day was a part of the moral law, as regards the worship of God, ceremonial only in so far as it respected the particular day and the legal services, but also expresses it as proper, on that day, for the mind to be freed from its daily labours, that it may give itself wholly up to the hearing of the word of God. And that Viret, another of Calvin’s colleagues, entirely concurred with him regarding the due sanctification of the Lord’s day, his discourse on the Fourth Commandment is abundant evidence. For he thus expresses himself there:—“Since we have from God everything we possess, soul, body, and outward estate, we ought never to do anything else all our lives, than what He requires and demands of us for the true and entire sanctification of the day of rest. Nevertheless, we see that He assigns and permits us six days for doing our own business, and of the seven He reserves for Himself only one—as if He had contented Himself with the seventh part of the time which was specially given up and consecrated to Him, and that all the rest was to be ours. . . . . What ingratitude is it, if, in yielding us six parts of the seven, which we owe Him, we do not at the least strive with all our power to surrender the other part, which He exacts of us, as a token of our fidelity and homage!” Then, in reference to the objection that it seemed to follow from his views of the Sabbath, that after the public duties were over men might spend the remaining hours of the day in other occupations, he replies,—“Since we are permitted all other days of the week excepting this for attending to our bodily concerns, it seems to me that we hold very cheap the service of God and the ministry of the Church, on which we ought to wait more diligently on that day than any other, if we cannot find means for employing one whole day of the week in things which God requires of us upon it. For they are of such weight, and consequence that we must take care, in every manner possible, lest we occupy ourselves with anything which might turn our attention elsewhere; so that we may not bring our hearts by halves, but that ourselves and all our family may without detraction apply,” etc. Bucer, the friend both of Luther and Calvin, expresses sentiments quite similar in the fifteenth chapter of his work on the kingdom of Christ: ”Since our God, with singular goodness towards us, has sanctified one day out of seven, for the quickening of our faith, and so of life eternal, and blessed that day, that the sacred exercises of religion performed on it might be effectual to the promoting of our salvation, he verily shows himself to be a wretched despiser, at once of his own salvation and of the wonderful kindness of our God towards us, and therefore utterly unworthy of living among the people of God, who does not study to sanctify that day to the glorifying of his God, and the furthering of his own salvation, especially since God has granted six days for our works and employments, by which we may support a present life to His glory.” Then, in reference to the neglect of daily worship, through the carelessness of some and the impediments in the way of others, he asks, “Who, therefore, does not see how advantageous it is to the people of Christ, that one day in seven should be so consecrated to the exercises of religion, that it is not lawful (fas) to do any other kind of work than assemble in the sacred meeting, and there hear the word of God, pour out prayers before God, make profession of faith, and give thanks to God,—present sacred offerings, and receive divine sacraments, and so, with undivided application, glorify God, and make increase in faith? For these are the true works of religious holy-days.” And he goes on to mention, with satisfaction, the laws made by Constantine, and other emperors, to prohibit by penalties the transaction of ordinary business, the exhibition of spectacles, and such things, on the Lord’s day. It is abundantly obvious, from the quotations already given, that the Reformers, from whom they are taken, inculcated the duty of keeping the Lord’s day not in part merely, but as a day of spiritual rest and sacred employment; and of doing this, first of all, by ceasing from all ordinary labours and occupations, in so far as the claims of necessity might permit; then, by giving attendance upon the means of grace in public; and finally, by ordering our thoughts and behaviour during the other parts of the day, so as still to make it available to our spiritual improvement. The more express and definite statements contained in these quotations prove, that though frequently in the writings of the Reformers the duties proper to the observance of the Lord’s day are spoken of in a general way, as consisting in doing what pertains to the preservation and improvement of the public ministry, they did not, by so speaking, mean to intimate, that, excepting what was spent at church, the time might be taken up in any worldly business or recreation. They are most pointed in excluding all worldly occupations whatever,—the proper work of the six days, whether done for profit or for pleasure. And in dwelling so specially as they sometimes do upon the public ministry, it was not as if they slighted the more private and family duties—for these, we see, they also enforced—but only because they regarded them as in a manner bound up with a faithful attendance upon the public services of religion. For the school of Geneva, in particular, as it existed under the teaching of Calvin, Viret, and Beza, nothing can be more satisfactory than the manner in which they practically inculcated the devout and solemn observance of the Lord’s day; and that their own practice, and their general doctrine upon the subject, was in perfect accordance with the extracts that have been produced, we have a striking proof in the taunt which Calvin, in his Institutes, says was thrown out against them by some restless spirits, as he calls them (probably the libertine Anabaptists), “that the Christian people were nursed in Judaism,” because they keep the Lord’s day. The very accusation bespeaks how strict was the enforcement of that day, and how orderly its observance at Geneva during the ascendancy of those great men. In reality, the observance of the Lord’s day practised at Geneva, and enforced by Calvin and the other Reformers, differed very materially from the Judaical observance, according to the notions of the later Jews; and it was, no doubt, partly their regard to these notions, which led the Reformers astray as to their ideas of the import of the Fourth Commandment. They suffered themselves to be unduly biassed by the maxims and the legislation of the synagogue on the subject, as if these were properly grounded in the Divine command, and not rather the turning of its benignant spirit into an oppressive and irksome yoke. How much they made it of this description, and how justly the Reformers might speak of our being delivered from the Jewish yoke, in the sense now mentioned, may be seen by looking into that portion of the Mischna which treats of the Sabbath. There, the securing of a merely outward, corporeal rest, as opposed to labour or work, is treated as the whole object of the command; and a yoke of numberless restrictions and prohibitions is imposed, for the purpose of determining what is work and what is not, with reference to the law of the Sabbath. As specimens of the vexatious trifling to which this Rabbinical legislation has descended, the following may be taken. The question is asked, With what species of wick the lamps may be lighted on the Sabbath, and with what not? And as many as fourteen substances are specified which might not be used, and about half as many which might. “He that extinguishes the lamp, because he is afraid of heathen, of robbers, of an evil spirit, or that the sick may sleep, is absolved; but if to save his lamp, oil, or wick, he is guilty.” “The tailor must not go out with his needle near dusk [on the Sabbath eve], lest he forget and carry it out with him [after the Sabbath has begun]. The scribe is not to go out with his writing-reed; nor must a man cleanse his garments of vermin, or read by candle-light.” “An egg must not be put at the side of a hot kettle, that it become seethed, nor must it be wrapt in hot cloths, nor must it be put into hot sand or dust, that it be roasted.” “Into a pot or kettle, which has been moved from the fire boiling, a man must not put spice; but he may do so in a dish or on a plate.” “If a man carries a loaf into the public reshuth, he is guilty; if two carry it they are absolved [namely, because in the one case a man does a complete work, but in the other not].” “He who pairs his nails, or who pulls the hair out of his head, or off his lip, or out of his beard; likewise a woman who plaits her hair, or dyes her eyebrows, or who parts the hair on her forehead; the sages prohibit all these, on the score of their violating the Sabbath rest.” Thus the subject is prosecuted through twenty-four chapters, setting forth all manner of frivolous distinctions for the purpose of deciding what is work and what not, and, by consequence, what may and what may not be done on the Sabbath. Had this miserable and petty legislation really been warranted by the Fourth Commandment, we need not say it had been utterly at variance with the spirit of the Gospel; since it would place the most selfish and inactive formalist in the highest rank of observers of the Divine law. But a Sabbath observance made up of such external punctilios never was required by God: it is the ignorance and folly of the Rabbinical Jews, as of modern Anti-Sabbatarians, to suppose that it was; and it was in some degree, also the mistake of the Reformers, to think that the command, as imposed upon the Jews, gave a certain countenance to the error. The kind of observance really required by the Divine precept was of a far higher kind; and it is that which the better part of the Reformers in past times, as well as evangelical Christians in the present, hold to be matter of abiding obligation. It appears, then, upon a full and careful examination of the whole matter, that the Reformers and the most eminent divines, for about a century after the Reformation, were substantially sound upon the question of the Sabbath, in so far as concerns the obligation and practice of Christians. Amid some mistaken and inconsistent representations, they still, for the most part, held that the Fourth Commandment strictly and morally binds men in every age to set apart one whole day in seven for the worship and service of God. They all held the institution of the Sabbath at the creation of the world, and derived thence the obligation upon men of all times to cease every seventh day from their own works and occupations. Finally, they held it to be the duty of all sound Christians to use the Lord’s day as a Sabbath of rest to Him,—withdrawing themselves not only from sin and vanity, but also from those worldly employments and recreations which belong only to a present life, and yielding themselves wholly to the public exercises of God’s worship and to the private duties of devotion, excepting only in so far as any urgent call of necessity or mercy might come in the way to interrupt them. We avow this to be a fair and faithful representation of the sentiments of those men upon the subject, after a patient consideration of what they have written concerning it. We trust we have furnished materials enough from their writings, for enabling our readers to concur intelligently in that representation. They will see that the summary given by Gualter of their views (as quoted at p. 141) is greatly nearer the mark than the one-sided representation of Hengstenberg. And they will henceforth know how to estimate the assertions of those who, after dancing into the works of the Reformers, and picking up a few partial and disjointed statements, presently set themselves forth as well acquainted with the whole subject, and as fully entitled to say that the Reformers agree with them in holding men at liberty, after they may have been at church, to work, or travel, or enjoy themselves as they please, on other parts of the Sabbath. Such persons may be honest in representing this as the mind of the Reformers, but it must not be forgotten that their credit for honesty in the matter rests upon no better ground than that of ignorance and presumption. It were wrong to bring our remarks on this subject to a close without pointing to the important lesson furnished, both to private Christians and to the Church at large, by the melancholy consequences which soon manifested themselves as the fruit of that one doctrinal error into which the Reformers did certainly fall regarding the Sabbath. For, though there was much in their circumstances to account for their falling into it, and though it left untouched, in their opinion, the obligation resting on all Christians to keep the day of weekly rest holy to the Lord,—yea, though some of them seemed to think that one day in seven was scarcely enough for such a purpose, yet their view about the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, as a Jewish ordinance, told most unfavourably upon the interests of religion on the Continent. There can be little doubt that this was the evil root from which chiefly sprung, so soon afterwards, such a mass of Sabbath desecration, and which has rendered it so difficult ever since to restore the day of God to its proper place in the feelings and observances of the people. It was well enough so long as men of such zeal and piety as the Reformers kept the helm of affairs—their lofty principles, and holy lives, and self-denying labours, rendered their error meanwhile comparatively innoxious. But a colder age both for ministers and people succeeded; when men came to have so little relish for the service of God, and were so much less disposed to be influenced by the privileges of grace than to be awed by the commands and terrors of law, that the loss of the Fourth Commandment, which may be said to be the only express and formal revelation of law upon the subject, was found to be irreparable. The other considerations which were sufficient to move such men of faith and piety as the Reformers, fell comparatively powerless upon those who wanted their spiritual life. Strict and positive law was what they needed to restrain them, which being now in a manner removed, the religious observance of the day of God no longer pressed upon them as a matter of conscience. The evil once begun, proceeded rapidly from bad to worse, till it scarcely left in many places so much as the form of religion. No doubt many other causes were at work in bringing about so disastrous a result, but much was certainly owing to the error under consideration. And it reads a solemn and impressive warning to both ministers and people, not only to resist any improper encroachments upon the sanctity of the Lord’s day, but also to beware of weakening any of the foundations on which the obligation to keep that day is made to rest; and in this as well as in other things, to pray with heighten, that they may “be saved from the errors of wise men, yea, and of good men.” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 135: 05.30. APPENDIX B. ======================================================================== Appendix B.—Altar Of Burnt Offering. THE subjoined cut represents the altar of burnt-offering, as understood and explained in the text. It no farther differs from the figure given in F. Von Meyer, than that the horns at the four corners are made in imitation of actual horns (of cattle), while in Meyer they are merely little perpendicular projections. A is the open space within the boards, in which an earthen or stone fire place was constructed. B is the network of brass, supporting the projecting ledge. C is the projecting ledge itself (the carcob of Exodus 27:4-5). D is the incline, made of stones or earth, by which the priest readied the ledge. a b c d are the horns of the altar. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 136: 05.31. APPENDIX C. ======================================================================== Appendix C.—Supplementary Remarks On The Subject Of Sacrifice By Blood. IN the earlier editions of this work, it was deemed unnecessary to do more, by way of supplement on the subject under consideration, than to indicate with some fulness the defective, though somewhat plausible, views of Bähr respecting atonement, and expose their essential contrariety to the teaching of Scripture. Since then, however, a great deal has been written upon sacrifice, both in regard to the blood which formed the more vital clement of its efficacy, and the actions which were appointed to accompany its presentation; so that the views of Bähr no longer hold the prominence in the false direction which they once did. Latterly, indeed, Hofmann (in his Schriftbeweis), with no higher views than Bähr, has endeavoured, by a still more careful and elaborate exegesis, to unsettle the received doctrines of the Church upon the points at issue. In this, however, he has been vigorously met by Kurtz, Delitzsch, and many besides, who, with solid learning as well as distinguished ability, have maintained and vindicated, on Old Testament ground, the great principles involved in the doctrine of vicarious atonement. It has been, I think, a misfortune, naturally indeed, yet unhappily, growing out of this minute and controversial discussion of the topics in question, that a degree of precision and exactness has sometimes been sought by the defenders of the church doctrine, as well as their opponents, to be imposed upon the Old Testament symbols, which they cannot fairly be expected to convey. A symbolical religion, from its very nature, addresses itself to the popular apprehension rather than the analytic and discriminating reason: it deals in what may be called the broader aspects of things; and while admirably adapted to express the more fundamental articles of belief, and impress them vividly on the mind, yet, when the question comes to be respecting the minuter shades of belief, or the preference due to one as compared with another mode of explicating the same radical idea, religious symbols are not the proper means for determining the dispute; and the probability is, that if they are turned to such an account, they will serve the purpose of a perverted ingenuity as well as of a scriptural faith. It had been well if some of the distinguished men above referred to had refused to be led upon such uncertain ground. With this general remark, for the application of which some occasion will presently be found, we proceed to notice certain of the disputed points on the subject of sacrifice by blood. 1. What may fitly be taken first, is the sacrificial import of the blood. Was this in the room of the offerer’s blood or life? and if so, did it convey the idea of a penal quid pro quo? On this point, it is scarcely necessary to refer to the differences which still exist on the proper translation of Leviticus 17:11. Instead of, “for the blood makes atonement through or by means of the soul,” which, after Bähr, Delitzsch, Keil, Kurtz, etc., we conceive to be the correct rendering, Hofmann would take the preposition (ב) as indicative of the essence, “the blood atones as the soul,” or in that character; Ebrard adheres to the old meaning of for, with reference to the idea of barter or exchange, the soul of the one for the soul of the other,—an idea altogether out of place in connection with the word atone; and Hengstenberg makes the preposition refer to the object, “blood expiates the soul;”—all strained and untenable interpretations, as Kurtz has conclusively shown (Sac. Worship. B. ii.. Pt. 1). also Delitzsch (Psychologie, p. 197). Keil (Archäol., i. 23) has raised the question,—a very needless one, we think,—whether the passage ascribes atoning value to the blood simply as God’s appointment for the purpose, or as this along with its being the seat of animal life. He decides in favour of the former; but without any solid ground in the reason of things (see Kurtz as above, B. i., c. 1), and certainly against the plain and natural import of the words, which distinctly mention, first, the fact that the soul of the flesh is in the blood, then that God has given it upon the altar to make atonement for men’s souls; whence comes the conclusion, “for the blood maketh atonement by means of the soul.” But, practically, it is of no moment whether we hold the atoning property of the blood to consist in a twofold ground, or simply in God’s appointing it to such a purpose, and this because the life of the animal is in the soul; for either way we have the natural fitness exhibited, as well as the explicit appointment. The question is one that should never have been raised. Another and more important question has respect to this atoning power in the blood, whether it was simply as blood, or as blood that had been shed in death—in other words, whether we are to emphasize the blood alone, or the blood in connection with the death which preceded, and in which it flowed out. Bähr had sought to separate the blood, as containing the nephesh or life, from the death going before, and to make account only of the former: he would have the blood, and not the death, to be regarded as the core of the sacrifice; although on his system, which makes all to stand in the giving away of the natural life in death, as being all one with giving it away or surrendering it to God, he found it impossible to properly dissociate the two. But Hofmann goes straight to the point; with him it is the blood, and nothing else. “The nephesh of the offering is not that which comes upon the altar, but the blood which streamed forth in the slaying, and which had been the animal’s life or soul while it was in the creature; therefore, also, not a life that had been killed, but that wherein the beast had had its life.”—(Schriftbeweis, p. 240) And again, on Leviticus 17:11 : “In this passage we neither find the blood and the soul treated as one; nor are we told how far the blood, when it was applied to the altar, had an expiatory effect,” etc. His object is to destroy as much as possible the peculiar significance of sacrifice by blood, to identify the bloody and unbloody offerings, and make sacrifice generally the payment of a sort of redemption-fee, or compensation, with faith on God’s pardoning mercy. There was in it merely the parting with one’s own property, which had been acquired with labour, and which, in the case of an animal, was besides related, as a living creature, to the offerer, and dear to him. But as the radical idea of atoning in Scripture is that of covering, it can never be identified with a compensatory payment, which, as Delitzsch justly remarks (Hebr., p. 740), is a metaphor entirely foreign to the Hebrew language. According to its mode of representation, it is not the thing exigible which was covered by the ransom, but the person in whose behalf the ransom was paid. It is also a vain attempt at hair splitting to distinguish, as Hofmann seeks to do, between the blood and the nephesh of the animal as devoted to death for the offerer. It was plainly the soul contained in and represented by the blood, which gave its value and significance to the blood; and in the common apprehension the two could not fail to be regarded, in a sacrificial respect, as one. Manifestly, to use the words of Delitzsch, “the soul of the beast, when given to make atonement for the soul of the offerer, entered into the place of the soul of the man; since, being poured out in the blood, it covered the death-deserving soul of the man before an angry God.” So much for the general idea; but if we ask, How or in what sense covered? the answers given take different shades in the hands of different interpreters, as we have no doubt the matter itself did in the experience of different worshippers; for they are but various phases of the same idea, in respect to which the symbol could not sharply distinguish. Thus Delitzsch: “The blood in the sacrifice atones, i.e., covers for sinful man, as a third thing entering between him and God, and brought upon the place of God. It enters there for the man; and as it enters for the man, whose sin, though in respect to God’s dispensation of grace a peccatum veniale, yet as sin has worked death, so there is no getting rid of this, that it enters as a substitution for the man.” Œhler (in Hertzog, Opfercultus): “The guilt is covered, and hence no longer exists for the Divine observation, is wiped away; as also the forgiveness of sin is expressed by a covering of iniquity, and a casting of it away into the depths of the sea.—(Psalms 32:1; Micah 7:19) The immediate consequence is, that by means of such covering the sinful man is protected before the punishing Judge, and without danger can draw nigh to the holy God.” Kurtz is not quite satisfied with these explanations, and thinks they scarcely come up to the definiteness which is attainable by a careful consideration of the language of Scripture. According to him, “the covering of sin in the sacrificial worship is a covering by which the accusing or condemnatory power of sin—its power to excite the anger and wrath of God—is broken; by which, in fact, it is rendered both harmless and impotent. And, understood in this sense, the sacrificial covering was not merely an apparent conventional expiation of sin (which would have been the case if it had been merely removed from the sight of Jehovah), but a process by which it was actually rendered harmless, which is equivalent to cancelling and utterly annihilating.” In reality, there is no proper difference between the several explanations, except that some particular aspect or bearing of the truth gets greater prominence in one than another. The basis of the whole plainly lay in the life-blood of the victim taking the place and bearing the doom (symbolically, of course) of the offerer; for this alone, in the presence of a righteous God, could warrant the covering of the guilt, or the person who had committed it, so that it ceased in a manner to exist as an object of wrath before the Holy One. 2. The laying on of hands, which stood in a very close relation to the blood in its sacrificial import, is another point about which there has been much recent discussion. In the course of it, Kurtz has been led to modify the view he formerly entertained and set forth in his treatise on the Mosiac offerings, though we think his difficulties and change of view are the result chiefly of that over-refinement in discussion, to which this series of topics has given rise. Formerly, indeed, he carried the idea understood to be expressed by the action of a transference of guilt to an extreme; for in all the offerings, peace and burnt-offerings, as well as those for sins and trespasses, he connected it with that idea alone. This was certainly too exclusive; and by the greater part of orthodox writers, the transference of guilt is supposed to have been exclusively indicated only in the case of the sin and trespass-offerings, while in the others this would to a certain extent fall into the background, that expression might also be given to the other feelings proper to the particular offering; though latterly the tendency has been to give too little prominence to the sense and imputation of guilt. So, for example, Delitzsch: “By the imposition of hands, the persons presenting the sacrifice dedicated the victim to that particular object which he hoped to attain by its means. He transferred directly to it the substance of his own inner nature. Was it an expiatory sacrifice? he laid his sins upon it that it might bear them, and so relieve him of them.” So also Hengstenberg, who takes it to indicate “the rapport between the person sacrificing and the sacrifice itself. Anything more precise must necessarily be learned from the nature of the particular sacrifice.” Hofmann, however, sought to explode this view of the imposition of hands, with all its subordinate shades of meaning; and to show that it meant simply “the appointing of the animal to be slain, for the double aim of obtaining its blood for the altar, and its flesh for food of fire to Jehovah—and this equally whether it was destined for supplicating God’s favour toward the sinner, or presenting thanks and prayers in respect to the goods of life.” He asks, in regard to the laying on of hands, when the person doing so was going to impart a blessing, or accomplish a cure, whether he exchanged places with the individual benefited, or conveyed over to him what he himself had? And if, in such cases, he did not give his own peace, or his own soundness, why should it be thought that in animal sacrifices the offerer transferred his own, either guilt or thanksgiving, to the victim? So also, in appointing to an office, those who laid their hands on the person designated did not make over to him their own official standing, but simply destined him to some specific undertaking. Kurtz has yielded to these considerations so far. He thinks it improbable that the imposition of hands in the different kinds of sacrifice could have been intended to effect the transfer of different objects, unless some indication had been given of the difference. He thinks, and justly thinks, that there could not be a total difference between the meaning of the action in sin-offerings and burnt-offerings, or even peace-offerings, because what followed in respect to the life-blood was so nearly akin in all, viz. the slaughtering and sprinkling with blood. “Take (he says) the burnt-offering, in connection with which, in the very front of the sacrificial law, in Leviticus 1:4, expiation is so evidently, expressly, and emphatically mentioned as one point, if not as the main point, and placed in the closest relation to the laying on of hands (‘He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him’). Is it really the fact, that even here the imposition of hands stood in no relation whatever to the expiation? Certainly, if there were nothing to overthrow such a view, the passage just quoted would suffice, and before this alone it would be compelled inevitably to yield” (ch. iii). And this proves the inadequacy of Hofmann’s view, that the laying on of hands was only a matter-of-fact declaration that the animal brought to the altar was destined to the purpose of sacrifice: for the very bringing of it there declared that; and to connect the further act of laying on of hands in so peculiar a manner with the acceptance of the offering and the forgiveness of the offerer, would have been unaccountable. In all the other acts, too, of imposition of hands, such as ordination to a particular office, there is always implied something more than a mere declaration of the end in view; there is a formal destination to the purpose, and solemn devolving on the party concerned all that is necessary to its accomplishment. Now it is this more general sense which Kurtz is disposed to attribute to the action of laying on of bauds, which (Elder also, and others, have come to adopt. Œhler’s definition is, “that the offerer, when, through the presentation of his victim, he had declared his readiness to present it as a gift to God, now through the laying on of his hands made to pass over upon the animal the intention with which he brought the gift, and so dedicated it to the sacrifice, which represented his person in the specific direction intended.”—(Hertzog, x., p. 627) Kurtz, also, is disposed to rest in the general sense of dedication, as what the act involves in all cases, but with a specific aim according to the nature of the particular service or occasion. In some cases, there was indicated by the dedication the substitution of one person for another, as when the Levites were put in the place of the first-born, and Joshua in the place of Moses (Numbers 8:10; Deuteronomy 34:9); but in others there was no room for this. In sacrificial offerings, however, there was room, and the special object of the service was to set apart the victim as the offerer’s representative and substitute to the ends for which it was presented. Thus, in the burnt-offering, Leviticus 1:4, it denoted “the dedication of the sacrificial animal as the medium of atonement for the sins of the person whose hands were kid on its head.” Or, as he otherwise puts it, there was in the act “the transference of an obligation by the person sacrificing to the animal to be sacrificed, that it might render or suffer all that was due from him to God, or, vice versa, on account of his sin; and through this, the blood of the animal, in which is its soul, became the medium of expiation for the soul of the person sacrificing “(ch. iii., § 43). It is only, therefore, as to the form of the representation that Kurtz has changed his opinion: instead of a transference of sin, he would make it a transference of obligation to take the offerer’s room, and do or suffer all that he owned him-elf bound to; but as the shedding of blood always had respect to sin and its atonement, the obligation in question necessarily earned with it a prominent reference to the hearing of death as the wages of sin. Yet the learned author thinks he has greatly improved his view by this change, and has got rid of an otherwise insuperable difficulty; since, if the sins adhering to the sold of the person sacrificing were to be atoned or covered by the blood of the sacrifice, as is affirmed in Leviticus 17:11, then these sins could not have been communicated to the blood itself, or the soul that was in the blood: they must have adhered to the soul of the sacrificer after the imposition of hands as well as before, viz., to render it possible for them to covered. I confess I cannot see the force of this argument, although Kurtz seems to think it almost self-evident; and it appears to me, that the difficulties which have been thrown around the subject are but another exemplification of the effort so apt to be made by learned men, studying and writing in their closets, to distinguish where common minds could see no essential difference, and to make the symbolical action in question speak with more precision and definiteness than it was properly designed or fitted to do. First of all, the view has against it the explanation given of the action on the one occasion, where an explanation was given; namely, on the great day of atonement, when the high priest was instructed “to lay his hands on the head of the goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, putting them on the head of the goat.” This, Kurtz is obliged, without any reason in the nature of things, to regard as an exceptional case. One would rather imagine that, being by way of eminence the atonement day for Israel, it was that which might be expected, in some degree, to throw light on atonements generally. Then, if the personation of the offerer, as a sinner, with the destination to bear the penalty due to his sin, was the more immediate and prominent aim of sacrifice by blood, what could it signify for the great mass of worshippers, whether one should say his obligation to suffer was transferred to it, or his sins as to their guilt were so transferred? To them it would make no appreciable difference which form were adopted. And the argument derived with such apparent satisfaction from the circumstance of the offerer’s sins being covered by the blood of the offering, consequently still regarded as adhering to him, is precisely such an argument as might occur to a scholar, criticising and scanning the exact meaning of the words, but would scarcely be dreamt of by a worshipping people, who had to do with the complex transaction. Nay, how does it square with Kurtz’s own explanation already given, about the covering of the offerer’s sin? This was covered, he says, by being rendered harmless, cancelled, extinguished, so that it had ceased to exist anyhow; and how, then, could it still be viewed as adhering to the offerer? Or how could the obligation to suffer for it be transferred without the guilt, which involved the obligation, being transferred along with it? Apart from the guilt, the obligation could have had no meaning wanted, indeed, the very ground on which it was based. In short, the matter is to be viewed in its complexity, perfectly intelligible and impressive if so viewed—adapted, one might say, even to the capacity of a child; but if curiously analyzed and split into parts, instead of becoming more transparent and satisfactory under our hands, it will inevitably become involved in disorder and confusion. Let it be enough for us, as it doubtless was for the pious worshipper of old, that the victim brought to the altar was, by the imposition of hands, solemnly set apart to take his place, to bear his burden of guilt, and along with that, by the action taken with particular parts of the sacrifice, to express any other subordinate desires and feelings which may have exercised his soul. These were the grand features that appeared on the very face of the transaction: no criticism will ever be able to explain them away; and any criticism that would serve itself of minute observations and subtle distinctions, can do little to make them appear more consistent or reasonable. 3. The Slaughtering, and the Sprinkling of the Blood.—These two actions, which immediately followed the imposition of hands, go in a manner together, for they are properly but different parts of the same transaction; but a great deal depends upon the light in which they are contemplated, and the relation which they are conceived to hold one to another. It was one of Bähr’s great efforts to get rid of the slaying of the victim as a thing of any moment: he would have it regarded as simply the medium whereby the blood was obtained; and in the blood as symbolizing the giving away of the sinner’s soul, or selfish life, through repentance to God, the sacrifice really stood. The penal character of the transaction, or the juridical view, as it is called, of the atonement, was thus sought to be exploded; the slaying merely completed the exhibition of the sinner’s self-surrender. Hofmann, of course, follows in the same line, though on other grounds; for with him the compensatory value of the offering was the grand thing, and the killing of the animal could certainly no way enhance its value, and so far hangs as an embarrassment around the theory. But others, of much sounder views on the general subject, have recently joined hands with these writers in disparaging the slaughter of the animal, and making account only of the sprinkling of its blood. Delitzsch holds “the schehitah, or killing, to have served only as the means of obtaining the blood of atonement, and of making the beast an altar-gift; and the giving up of the gift in fire is only the means of the giving away to God, and being taken away by Him.”—(On Hebr., p. 742) He finds a proof of this in the circumstance, that the killing is never called a putting to death (המית), but always a slaughtering (שׁחט). In this, however, there is nothing; for the latter verb is frequently used for killing, when the idea of punishment was involved (Numbers 14:16; Judges 12:6; 1 Kings 18:40, etc.), which is quite in point here, and is, indeed, the appropriate word for any sudden or violent infliction of death. In the general view, however, and even in this argument for it, Œhler concurs with Delitzsch: “In the Mosaic ritual the slaying of the victim has evidently no other significance than a transition-process; it merely serves as the means for obtaining the blood.” And, in support of the view, he urges the consideration, which was much pressed by Bähr—that the slaying was no priestly act, but usually done by the offerer himself. Keil slightly differs, yet substantially concurs; for while he admits that the slaying of the animal was “a symbol of the surrender of life to death,” he at the same time maintains that the death was not to be viewed as the punishment of sin. And his special reason is. that “although (he death (symbolizing the death of the sacrificer) was a fruit and effect of sin, yet it did not come under the aspect of punishment; because sacrifice was an institution of Divine grace, intended to secure to the sinner not the merited punishment, but, on the contrary, the forgiveness of sins; whereas the death which follows sin is, and remains, as a rule, a punishment only for that sinner for whom there is no redemption.” The death, therefore, he thinks, should be regarded as “the medium of transition from a state of separation from God into one of grace and living fellowship with Him, or as the only way into the divine life out of the ungodly life of this world.”—(Archaeol., i., p. 206) Now, in all this attempt to shade nicely off and distinguish between something, which the slaughtering might very readily be taken to be, and some other thing which it is held to have actually been, we have but a fresh exhibition of the tendency to give way to learned and unimportant minutiæ, which is out of place for the occasion, and which, for the sake of a small distinction, is apt to endanger great principles. Appealing, as the rite did, to popular sense and apprehension, the slaying of the sinner’s offering, solemnly destined to death, that its soul might be accepted in lieu of the sinner’s, could not but wear the aspect of a doom or judgment: it was a death not incidentally alone, but formally associated with sin as its immediate cause; and whatever grace it might instrumentally be the channel of conveying to the offerer, it manifestly fell with all the severity of a curse on the victim. People were not in a condition, at the sight of such a spectacle, to make nice discriminations: here, on the one hand, was the sin crying for condemnation, and there, on the other, was the slain victim that the cry might be silenced. Could people look at this, or take part in it, and feel that there was nothing of punishment? We may judge of the unlikelihood, when we find authors with fine-spun theories to support, which would lead them to exclude the idea of punishment, insensibly gliding into a mode of speech regarding it which ill accords with the demands of their system. Thus Keil, when he conies to speak of the sin-offering, says, that “by being slain the animal is given to death, and suffers for the sinner—i.e., as a substitute for the offerer—the death which is the wages of sin.” And on the trespass-offering, “The ram,” says he, “stood for the person of the guilty man, and by being slain, suffered death in his stead as the punishment for his guilt.” Such language stands in irreconcilable opposition to the author’s theory. And the theory itself, as Kurtz has justly remarked (ch. 4, § 53), is at variance with the relative position of things in the ordinance; if the expiation was simply in the sprinkling of the blood, while the death of the victim imaged the transition of the offerer, as a redeemed person, into the eternal and blessed life of God, the expiation should obviously have gone first, for then only was the offerer redeemed. Death before that would rather be the image of life expiring under a load of unpardoned guilt. And if the idea is admitted, as it is by Keil and the others who here go along with him, that the animal was the offerer’s substitute and representative, and as such had to make expiation for him, it must have been practically impossible to dissociate the thought of a penal suffering from the infliction of death. Many of the individual objections pressed on the subject are so weak and frivolous a nature, that it is needless to refer to them particularly.[417] One of the most plausible that raised on the ground of the slaying being effected by the offerer himself, and not by the priest was long ago satisfactorily met by Kurtz, in reply to Bähr (Mosaische Opfer, p. 65): “The relation of punishment to sin is a necessary one; the punishment is the continuation no longer depending on the sinner’s choice—of the sin, its filling up or complement. Sin is a violation of the righteous government of the world, an impression against the law: the punishment is the law’s counter-impression, striking the sinner and paralyzing his sin. But all punishment runs out into death, which is the wages of sin. ‘Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ Sin, therefore, is a half, incomplete thing, calling for its proper completion in death, which again is not something foreign and arbitrary, but essentially belonging to sin; so that the sinner himself may justly be regarded as self-punished. No doubt, the execution of the punishment might also be properly ascribed to God as the righteous Governor of the world; but there is a special propriety in allowing the sinner himself, in the rite of sacrifice, to perform the symbolical act of punishment: for there God appears as the merciful Being, who wills not the death of the sinner, but his atonement, his deliverance and salvation—of course in the way of righteousness; the sinner, again, as one who has drawn upon himself, through his sin, condemnation and death, and conscious of this being the case. Here, then, especially was it peculiarly proper and significant that he should accuse himself, should pronounce his own judgment, should bring it down symbolically upon himself. Whoever can explain how the criminal who has deserved death should ever desire this, and so put himself out of the reach of the grace of his monarch, can find no difficulty in explaining how the symbolical act of punishment in sacrifice should have been left to the execution of the sinner himself.” [417] They may be seen fully discussed in Kurtz’s work on the Sacred Offerings, already referred to, now made accessible to the English reader. It was otherwise, however, with the sprinkling of the blood, which completed the work of atonement; for this respected the acceptance of the substituted life for that of the offerer, and could only be done by God’s accredited representatives—the consecrated priesthood. The mere bringing of the victim to the altar, laying on it the guilt which burdened the sinner’s conscience, with other collateral acknowledgments, and taking from it its life-blood in token of what the offerer felt himself bound to render, however necessary and important, were still not sufficient to restore peace to his conscience. There must be the formal approval of Heaven, or the palpable acceptance of the one soul as a covering for the guilt of the other. And this was done by the pouring out or sprinkling of the sacrificial blood on the altar—not as that which, according to Hofmann, had once had the life of the animal (for apart from this it was only so many particles of blood, meaningless and worth less), but which, as flowing fresh and warm, still in a sense had it—the very life of the animal in its immediate seat and proper representation. This blood so presented, gave assurance to the offerer both of a satisfaction rendered for him by death, and of a pure life granted to him in the presence of God. It is proper to add, in regard to some of those whose views on particular points have, in the preceding pages, been controverted—especially Delitzsch, Œhler, Keil—that they, not less than Kurtz, hold the strictly vicarious character of Old Testament sacrifice, and also the orthodox doctrine of atonement in relation to Christ’s work on the cross, in which the other rose to its proper consummation. It is only on certain parts of the symbolic ritual that they have adopted what we conceive to be mistaken and untenable views. Delitzsch, in particular, has done good service by maintaining, in his work on the Epistle to the Hebrews, the more essential features of the Church doctrine. Even comparatively slight departures, however, from the simplicity of scriptural statement on such a matter, are fraught with danger, and call for earnest resistance. And it seems somewhat strange and illogical, that he and the others just mentioned, who concur in holding the strictly vicarious and penal character of Christ’s death, should yet appear so anxious to eliminate the idea of punishment from the sacrificial institution of the law—as if (and so they often put it) because, being an institution of grace, it were incongruous to represent justice punishing where grace was forgiving. For, with Kurtz, we naturally reply, Could grace do under the Old Testament what it cannot do under the New—forgive without the satisfaction of justice? If on Calvary there was a real demonstration of Divine justice against sin, why should there not have been a symbolical one at the altar of burnt-offering? In both cases alike there was grace exhibited as reigning, but reigning, as the Apostle says, through righteousness,—pardon, indeed, freely extended to the guilty, but simply on the ground—indispensably demanded by Divine righteousness—of a vicarious or penal death having been borne by the sacrifice. Leave out this, and no satisfactory explanation can be given, why the soul of the sacrifice, in itself guiltless, should cover or wipe out the guilt of the sinner. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 137: 05.32. APPENDIX D. ======================================================================== Appendix D.—On The Term Azazel. THE term Azazel, which is four times used in connection with the ceremony of the day of atonement, and nowhere else, is still a matter of controversy, and its exact and determinate import is not to be pronounced on with certainty. It is not precisely applied to the live-goat as a designation; but this goat is said to be “for Azazel” (לעזאזל). 1. Yet one of the earliest opinions prevalent upon the subject regards it as the name of the goat himself; Symmachus τράγος ἀπερξόμενος, Aquila τρ. ἀπολελυμμένος, Vulg. hircus emissarius; so also Theodoret, Cyrill, Luther, Heine, Vater, and the English translators, scape-goat. When taken in this sense, it is understood to be compounded of az (עז), a goat, and azal (אזל), to send away. The chief objections to it are, that az never occurs as a name for a buck or he-goat (in the plural it is used as a general designation for goats, but in the singular occurs elsewhere only as the name for a she-goat), and that in Leviticus 16:10 and Leviticus 16:26, Azazel is expressly distinguished from the goat, the one being said to be for the other. For these reasons, this view is now almost entirely abandoned. 2. It is the name of a place, either a precipitous mountain, in the wilderness to which the goat was led, and from which he was thrown headlong, or a lonely region where he was left; so Pseudo-Jonathan, Abenezra, Jarchi, Bochart, Deyling, Reland, Carpzov, etc. The chief objection to this view is, that it does not seem to accord with what is said in Leviticus 16:10 : “to let him go for Azazel into the wilderness,” which would then mean, for a desert place into a desert place. 3. It is the name of Satan, or an evil spirit: So the LXX. ἀποπεμπαῖος (which does not mean “the sent away,” the scape-goat, as most of the older interpreters took it, and as we are still rather surprised to see it rendered by Sir J. Brenton in his recent translation of the LXX., but “the turner away,” “the averter.” See Gesen. Thes., Kurtz, Mos. Opfer, p. 270.) So probably Josephus, Antiq., 3:10, 3, and many of the Rabbins. In the strongest and most offensive sense this opinion was espoused by Spencer, Ammon, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, who all concur in holding, that by Azazel is to be understood what was called by the Romans averruncus, a sort of cacodaemon, inhabiting the desert, and to be propitiated by sacrifice, so that the evils he had power to inflict might be averted. The opinion was first modified by Witsius (who is also substantially followed by Meyer, Turretin, Alting, etc.) to indicate Christ’s relation to the devil, to whom He was given up to be tried and vexed, but whom He overcame. And in recent times it has been still further modified by Hengstenberg, who says in his Christology on Genesis 3, “The sending forth of the goat was only a symbolical transaction. By this act the kingdom of darkness and its prince were renounced, and the sins to which he had tempted, and through which he had sought to make the people at large or individuals among them his own, were in a manner sent back to him; and the truth was expressed in symbol, that he to whom God grants forgiveness, is freed from the power of evil.” The opinion has been still further explained and vindicated by the learned author in his Eg. and Books of Moses, where he supposes the action to carry a reference to the practice so prevalent in Egypt, of propitiating, in times especially of famine or trouble, the evil god Typhon, who was regarded as peculiarly delighting in the desert. This reference he holds, however, not in the gross sense of the goat being a sacrifice to the evil spirit; for both goats he considers to have been the Lord’s, and this latter only to have been given up by the Lord to the evil spirit, after the forgiven sins were laid on it, as indicating that that spirit had in such a case no power to injure or destroy. Comp. Zechariah 3:1-5. Ewald, Keil, Vaihinger (in Hertzog’s Encycl.), concur substantially in the same view. 4. Many of the greatest scholars on the Continent—Tholuck first, then Steudel, Winer, Bähr—take the word as the Pealpal-form of azal (אזל), to remove, with the omission of the last letter, and the putting in its place of an unchangeable vowel; so that the meaning comes to be, for a complete removing or dismissal. Kurtz hesitates between this view and that of Hengstenberg, but in the result rather inclines to the latter. Certainly the contrast presented respecting the destinations of the two goats, is best preserved by Hengstenberg’s. But still, to bring Satan into such prominence in a religious rite,—to place him in a sort of juxtaposition with Jehovah, in any form,—has an offensive appearance, and derives no countenance from any other part of the Mosaic religion. And however, on a thoughtful consideration, it might have been found to oppose a tendency to demon-worship, with the less thinking multitude, we suspect it would be found to operate in a contrary direction. Besides, if it may be objected, as it has been, to Tholuck’s view, that it takes a very rare and peculiar way of expressing a quite common idea, so unquestionably to designate, according to the other view, the evil spirit about whom, if really intended, there should have been no room for mistake, by a name never again occurring, appropriated solely for this occasion, is yet more strange and unaccountable. This very circumstance of a word having been coined for the occasion, and entirely appropriated to it, suggests what seems to me the right view. That appears to have been done on two accounts: partly, that no one might suppose a known and real personage to be meant; and partly, that the idea, which the occasion was intended to render peculiarly prominent, might thus be presented in the most palpable form—might become for the time a sort of personified existence. The idea of utter separation or removal is what Hengstenberg, as well as the other eminent scholars who hold the last opinion specified, regard as the radical meaning of the term; and by its form being properly a substantive, he conceives that it denotes Satan as the apostate, or separate one. But there is nothing in the whole transaction to lead us to suppose that such an adversary is brought forward; and when the goat is sent away, it is simply said to be “that he might bear the iniquities of Israel into a land of separation: “the conductor of the goat has fulfilled his commission when he has “let go the goat into the wilderness,” Leviticus 16:22. To have the iniquities conveyed by a symbolical action into that desert and separate region, into a state of oblivion, was manifestly the whole intention and design of the rite. And why might not this condition of utter separateness or oblivion, to render the truth symbolized more distinct and tangible, be represented as a kind of existence, to whom God sent and consigned over the forgiven iniquities of His people? Till these iniquities were atoned for, they were in God’s presence, seen and manifest before Him; but now, having been atoned, He dismisses them by a symbolical bearer to the realms of the ideal prince of separation and oblivion, that they may never more appear among the living.—(Micah 7:19) From the great peculiarity of the service, it is impossible to support this view by anything exactly parallel; but there is certainly something not very unlike, in the personification which so often meets us of Sheol or Hades, as the great devourer and concealer of men.—Comp. especially Psalms 16:10; Psalms 49:14; Isaiah 14; Isaiah 25:8, etc. Still, the difference is only in the mode of explanation, the results arrived at are substantially the same; and it may be well to add that the following are the ideas which Vaihinger (in Hertzog) finds in the transaction: “(1) That the sins must not belong to the congregation of the Lord, which is appointed to holiness, nor be suffered to abide with it; (2) that the horrible wilderness, the abode of impure spirits, is alone the place to which they, as originally foreign to human nature and society, properly belong; (3) that Azazel, the abominable, the sinner from the beginning (John 8:44), is the one from whom they have proceeded, to whom they must again with abhorrence be sent back, after the solemn atonement and absolution of the congregation had been accomplished; (4) that the person who would not accept of the atonement effected, was not set free from them, consequently could be no true member of the congregation, but belonged with his sins to Azazel, and should be cut off from the congregation of the Lord.” Hence, as the author concludes, there is nothing also, on this view, of a sacrifice to the wicked one supposed to be designated by Azazel. ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-patrick-fairbairn/ ========================================================================