THE

Typology of Scripture:

VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE WHOLE SERIES OF
THE DIVINE DISPENSATIONS

PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D.,

PRINCIPAL, AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW.

In vetere Testamento novum latet, et in novo vetus patet.

AUGUST. QUAEST. IN EX. LXXIII.

VOLUME I & II.

FOURTH EDITION.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO.

MDCCCLXIV.

MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

Preface to The Fourth Edition.

THE issue of a Fourth Edition of the following Treatise, however gratifying in one respect, is in another not unaccompanied with a measure of regret. This arises from the number of alterations which it has been found necessary to introduce into it, and which will naturally prove of injurious consequence to the Editions that have preceded. But, in truth, no alternative was left me, if the work was to keep pace with the age, and maintain relatively the place it occupied in the earlier stages of its existence. When I first gave to the public the fruit of my investigations upon the subject of Scripture Typology, not only was there great diversity of opinion among theologians respecting its fundamental principles, but many specific topics connected with it were only beginning to receive the benefit of modern research and independent inquiry. It is much otherwise now.

Even during the last ten years, since the Second Edition was published, from which the Third did not materially differ, productions, in very considerable number and variety, have appeared, especially on the Continent, in which certain portions of the field have been subjected to careful examination not unfrequently have become the occasion of earnest controversy; and to have sent forth another Edition of my Treatise, without regard being had to the fresh discussions that have taken place, [[@Page:4]] would only have been to leave it in a state of imperfect adaptation to the present times.

It is proper to mention, however, that the alterations in question have respect to the literature of the subject and modes of representation on particular parts, rather than to the views and principles which have been exhibited in connection with its general treatment. These have undergone no essential alteration; indeed, with the exception of a few minor points, which it is unnecessary to particularize, they remain much as they were in the two last Editions. The progress of discussion, however, with its varying tides of opinion, naturally called for an extension of the historical review in the introductory chapter, which has been coupled with a slight abridgment in some of its earlier details, and in the later with a softening of the controversial tone, which seemed occasionally to possess too keen an edge. The views, also, which in certain influential quarters have of late been ventilated, respecting the relation of God’s work in creation to the destined incarnation of the Son, appeared render the introduction of a new chapter (the fourth in Vol. I.) almost indispensible, that the subject, with reference more especially to its typological bearing, might receive the consideration that was due to it. These additions, with some other changes growing out of them, and the employment of a somewhat larger type for the Notes and Appendices, have together brought an enlargement of about fifty pages to the First Volume.

The alterations in the Second Volume, though more numerous, are not quite so extensive in respect to quantity of matter; and, partly consisting of more compressed statements, where such were practicable, they have not added very materially to the entire bulk of the Volume. They occur most frequently in the [[@Page:5]] portions which treat of the institutions and offerings of the Mosaic economy, on which there has recently been much discussion; and, in particular, the question respecting the relation of the sin-offerings to transgressions of a moral kind (Ch. III., sec. 5), and the topics handled in one or two of the Appendices, are here for the first time formally considered. On the whole, I trust it will be found that the work has been, both in form and substance, materially improved; and having now again (probably for the last time) traversed the field with some care, and expressed what may be considered my matured views on the topics embraced in it, I leave the fruit of my labours to the candid consideration of others, and commend it anew to the blessing of Him whose word it seeks to explain and vindicate.

As regards the general plan pursued in the investigation of the subject, I have only in substance to repeat what was said in previous editions. It might, no doubt, have been practicable to narrow at various points the field of discussion, and especially to abridge the space devoted to the consideration of the law in Volume Second (which some have thought disproportionate), if the object had been simply to extract from the earlier dispensations such portions as more peculiarly possess a typical character. But to have treated the typical in such an isolated manner would have conduced little either to the elucidation of the subject itself, or to the satisfaction of thoughtful inquirers. The Typology of the Old Testament touches at every point on its religion and worship. It is part of a complicated system of truth and duty; and it is impossible to attain to a correct discernment and due appreciation of the several parts, without contemplating them in the relation they bear both to each other and to the whole. Hence the professed aim of the work is to [[@Page:6]] view the Typology of Scripture, not by itself, but in connection with the entire series of the Divine dispensations.

It is possible some may think, that there is an occasional extreme on the other side, and that less has been said than might justly have been expected on certain controversial topics, which are ever rising afresh into notice, and which find, if not their root, at least a considerable part of their support, in the view that is taken of things pertaining to the institutions of former times. The proper aim, however, of a work of this sort is hermeneutical and expository, rather than controversial: it may, and indeed ought, to lay the foundation for a legitimate use of Old Testament materials, to the settlement of various important questions belonging to Christian times; but the actual application of the materials to the diversified phases of polemical discussion, belongs to other departments of theology. In certain cases the application is so natural and obvious, that it could not fitly be avoided; but even in these it had been improper to go beyond comparatively narrow limits; and if I have not erred by excess, I scarcely think judicious critics will consider me to have done so by defect.

Still more limited is the relation in which the inquiry pursued in a work like the present stands to the much agitated question respecting the historical verity of the earlier books of Scripture, and in particular to the authenticity and truthfulness of the books of Moses. Incidentally, not a few opportunities have occurred of noticing, and to some extent repelling, the objections that have been thrown out upon the subject. But, as a rule, it was necessary to take for granted the historical truthfulness of the sacred records; for, apart from the reality and Divine character of the transactions therein related, Typology in the proper sense has no foundation to stand upon. The [[@Page:7]] service which investigations of this kind, when rightly pursued, are fitted to render to the inspiration and authority of Scripture, is of a less formal description, and relates to points of agreement, of a somewhat veiled and hidden nature, between one part of the Divine scheme and another. To obtain a clear and comprehensive view of these one must stand, as it were, within the sacred edifice of God’s revelation, and survey with an attentive eye its interior harmony and proportions. They who do so will certainly find in the careful study of the Typology of Scripture many valuable confirmations to their faith.

Evidences of the strictly supernatural character of the plan it discloses will press themselves on their notice, such as altogether escape the observation of more superficial inquirers; and to them such evidences will be the more convincing and satisfactory, that it is only through patient research they come to be perceived in their proper variety and fulness. If one may have, as Dean Milman justly states (Hist, of Jews, i., p. 133, 3d ed.), “great faith in internal evidence, which rests on broad and patent facts, on laws, for instance, which belong to a peculiar age and state of society, and which there can be no conceivable reason for imagining in later times, and during the prevalence of other manners, and for ascribing them to an ancient people,” not less may such faith be called forth and exercised by that evidence, which arises from the perception of a profound harmony of principle and nicely adjusted relations, preserved amid the endless diversities of form and method naturally incident to a scheme of progressive development.

P. F.
GLASGOW, 2d November 1863.

Book First.—Inquiry into The Principles of Typical Interpretation, with a View Chiefly to The Determination of The Real Nature and Design of Types, and The Extent to which they Entered into God’s Earlier Dispensations.

Chapter First.—Historical and Critical Survey of the Past and Present State of Theological Opinion on The Subject.

[[@Page:17]] THE Typology of Scripture has been one of the most neglected departments of theological science. It has never altogether escaped from the region of doubt and uncertainty; and some still regard it as a field incapable, from its very nature, of being satisfactorily explored, or cultivated so as to yield any sure and appreciable results. Hence it is not unusual to find those who otherwise are agreed in their views of divine truth, and in the general principles of biblical interpretation, differing materially in the estimate they have formed of the Typology of Scripture. Where one hesitates, another is full of confidence; and the landmarks that are set up to-day are again shifted to-morrow. With such various and contradictory sentiments prevailing on the subject, it is necessary, in the first instance, to take an historical and critical survey of the field, that from the careful revision of what has been done in the past, we may the more [[@Page:18]] readily perceive what still remains to be accomplished, in order that we may arrive at a well-grounded and scriptural Typology.

I. We naturally begin with the Christian Fathers. Their typological views, however, are only to be gathered from the occasional examples to be met with in their writings; as they nowhere lay down any clear and systematic principles for the regulation of their judgments in the matter. Some exception might, perhaps, be made in respect to Origen. And yet with such vagueness and dubiety has he expressed himself regarding the proper interpretation of Old Testament Scripture, that by some he has been understood to hold, that there is a fourfold, by others a threefold, and by others again only a twofold, sense in the sacred text. The truth appears to be, that while he contended for a fourfold application of Scripture, he regarded it as susceptible only of a twofold sense. And considered generally, the principles of interpretation on which he proceeded were not essentially different from those usually followed by the great majority of the Greek Fathers. But before stating how these bore on the subject now under consideration, it will be necessary to point out a distinction too often lost sight of, both in earlier and in later times, between allegorical and typicalinterpretations, properly so called. These have been very commonly confounded together, as if they were essentially one in principle, and differed only in the extent to which the principle may be carried. There is, however, a specific difference between the two, which it is not very difficult to apprehend, and which it is of some importance to notice in connection especially with the interpretations of patristic writers.

An allegory is a narrative, either expressly feigned for the purpose, or—if describing facts which really took place—describing them only for the purpose of representing certain higher truths or principles than the narrative, in its literal aspect, whether real or fictitious, could possibly have taught. The ostensible representation, therefore, if not invented, is at least used, simply as a cover for the higher sense, which may refer to things ever so remote from those immediately described, if only the corresponding relations are preserved. So that allegorical interpretations of Scripture properly comprehend the two following [[@Page:19]] cases, and these only: 1. When the scriptural representation is actually held to have had no foundation in fact—to be a mere myth, or fabulous description, invented for the sole purpose of exhibiting the mysteries of divine truth; or, 2. When—without moving any question about the real or fictitious nature of the representation—it is considered incapable as it stands of yielding any adequate or satisfactory sense, and is consequently employed, precisely as if it had been fabulous, to convey some meaning of an entirely different and higher kind. The difference between allegorical interpretations, in either of these senses, and those which are properly called typical, cannot be fully exhibited till we have ascertained the exact nature and design of a type. It will be enough meanwhile to say, that typical interpretations of Scripture differ from allegorical ones of the first or fabulous kind, in that they indispensably require the reality of the facts or circumstances stated in the original narrative. And they differ also from the other, in requiring, beside this, that the same truth or principle be embodied alike in the type and the antitype. The typical is not properly a different or higher sense, but a different or higher application of the same sense.

Returning, then, to the writings of the Fathers, and using the expressions typical and allegorical in the senses now respectively ascribed to them, there can be no doubt that the Fathers generally were much given both to typical and allegorical explanations,—the Greek Fathers more to allegorical than to typical,—and to allegorical more in the second than in the first sense, described above. They do not appear, for the most part, to have discredited the plain truth or reality of the statements made in Old Testament history. They seem rather to have considered the sense of the latter true and good, so far as it went, but of itself so meagre and puerile, that it was chiefly to be regarded as the vehicle of a much more refined and ethereal instruction. Origen, however, certainly went farther than this, and expressly denied that many things in the Old Testament had any real existence. In his Principia (Lib. iv.) he affirms, that “when the Scripture history could not otherwise be accommodated to the explanation of spiritual things, matters have been asserted which did not take place, nay, which could not have taken place; and others again, which, though they might [[@Page:20]] have occurred, yet never actually did so.” Again, when speaking of some notices in the life of Rebecca, he says—”In these things, I have often told you, there is not a relation of histories, hut a concoction of mysteries.”[1] And, in like manner, in his annotations on the first chapters of Genesis, he plainly scouts the idea of God’s having literally clothed our first parents with the skins of slain beasts—calls it absurd, ridiculous, and unworthy of God, and declares that in such a case the naked letter is not to be adhered to as true, but exists only for the spiritual treasure which is concealed under it.[2]

Statements of this kind are of too frequent occurrence in the writings of Origen to have arisen from inadvertence, or to admit of being resolved into mere hyperboles of expression. They were, indeed, the natural result of that vicious system of interpretation which prevailed in his age, when it fell, as it did in his case, into the hands of an ardent and enthusiastic follower. At the same time it must be owned, in behalf of Origen, that however possessed of what has been called a “the allegorical fury,” he does not appear generally to have discredited the facts of sacred history; and that he differed from the other Greek Fathers, chiefly in the extent to which he went in decrying the literal sense as carnal and puerile, and extolling the mystical as alone suited for those who had become acquainted with the true wisdom. It would be out of place here, however, to go into any particular illustration of this point, as it is not immediately connected with our present inquiry. But we shall refer to a single specimen of his allegorical mode of interpretation, for the purpose chiefly of showing distinctly how it differed from what is of a simply typological character. We make our selection from Origen’s homily on Abraham’s marriage with Keturah (Horn. vi. In Genes.). He does not expressly disavow his belief in the fact of such a marriage having actually taken place between the parties in question, though his language seems to point in that direction; but he intimates that this, in common with the other marriages of the patriarchs, contained a sacramental mystery. And what might this be? Nothing less than the sublime truth, “that there is no end to wisdom, and that old age sets no bounds to improvement in knowledge. The [[@Page:21]] death of Sarah (he says) is to be understood as the perfecting of virtue. But he who has attained to a consummate and perfect virtue, must always be employed in some kind of learning—which learning is called by the divine Word, his wife. Abraham, therefore, when an old man, and his body in a manner dead, took Keturah to wife. I think it was better, according to the exposition we follow, that the wife should have been received when his body was dead, and his members were mortified. For we have a greater capacity for wisdom when we bear about the dying of Christ in our mortal body. Then Keturah, whom he married in his old age, is, by interpretation, incense, or sweet odour. For he said, even as Paul said, (We are a sweet savour of Christ. Sin is a foul and putrid thing; but if any of you in whom this no longer dwells, have the fragrance of righteousness, the sweetness of mercy, and by prayer continually offer up incense to God, ye also have taken Keturah to wife.” And forthwith he proceeds to show, how many such wives may be taken: hospitality is one, the care of the poor another, patience a third,—each Christian excellence, in short, a wife; and hence it was, that the patriarchs are reported to have had so many wives, and that Solomon is said to have possessed them even by hundreds, he having received plenitude of wisdom like the sand on the sea-shore, and consequently grace to exercise the largest number of virtues.

We have here a genuine example of allegorical interpretation, if not actually holding the historical matter to be fabulous, at least treating it as if it were so. It is of no moment, for any purpose which such a mode of interpretation might serve, whether Abraham and Keturah had a local habitation among this world’s families, and whether their marriage was a real fact in history, or an incident fitly thrown into a fictitious narrative, constructed for the purpose of symbolizing the doctrines of a divine philosophy. If it had been handled after the manner of a type, and not as an allegory, whatever specific meaning might have been ascribed to it as a representation of gospel mysteries, the story must have been assumed as real, and the act of Abraham made to correspond with something essentially the same in kind some sort of union, for example, between parties holding a similar relation to each other, that Abraham did to [[@Page:22]] Keturah. In this, though there might have been an error in the particular application that was made of the story, there would at least have been some appearance of a probable ground for it to rest upon. But sublimated into the ethereal form it receives from the fertile genius of Origen, the whole, history and interpretation together, presently acquires an uncertain and shadowy aspect. For what connection, either in the nature of things, or in the actual experience of the Father of the Faithful, can be shown to exist between the death of a wife, and the consummation of virtue in the husband; or the wedding of a second wife, and his pursuit of knowledge? Why might not the loss sustained in the former case as well represent the decay of virtue, and the acquisition in the latter denote a relaxation in the search after the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge? There would evidently be as good reason for asserting the one as the other; and, indeed, with such an arbitrary and elastic style of interpretation, there is nothing, either false or true in doctrine, wise or unwise in practice, which might not claim support in Scripture. The Bible would be made to reflect every hue of fancy, and every shade of belief in those who assumed the office of interpretation; and instead of being rendered serviceable to a higher instruction, it would be turned into one vast sea of uncertainty and confusion.

In proof of this we need only appeal to the use which Clement of Alexandria, Origen’s master, has made of another portion of sacred history which relates to Abraham’s wives (Strom. L. I. p. 333). The instruction which he finds couched under the narrative of Abraham’s marriage successively to Sarah and Hagar, is that a Christian ought to cultivate philosophy and the liberal arts before he devotes himself wholly to the study of divine wisdom. This he endeavours to make out in the following manner:—Abraham is the image of a perfect Christian, Sarah the image of Christian wisdom, and Hagar the image of philosophy or human wisdom (certainly a far from agreeable likeness!). Abraham lived for a long time in a state of connubial sterility; whence it is inferred that a Christian, so long as he confines himself to the study of divine wisdom and religion alone, will never bring forth any great or excellent fruits. Abraham, then, with the consent of Sarah, takes to him Hagar, [[@Page:23]] which proves, according to Clement, that a Christian ought to embrace the wisdom of this world, or philosophy, and that Sarah, or divine wisdom, will not withhold her consent. Lastly, after Hagar had borne Ishmael to Abraham, he resumed his inter course with Sarah, and of her begat Isaac; the true import of which is, that a Christian, after having once thoroughly grounded himself in human learning and philosophy, will, if he then devotes himself to the culture of divine wisdom, be capable of propagating the race of true Christians, and of rendering essential service to the Church. Thus we have two entirely different senses extracted from similar transactions by the master and the disciple; and still, far from being exhausted, as many more might be obtained, as there are fertile imaginations disposed to turn the sacred narrative into the channel of their own peculiar conceits.

It was not simply the historical portions of Old Testament Scripture which were thus allegorized by Origen, and the other Greek Fathers who belonged to the same school. A similar mode of interpretation was applied to the ceremonial institutions of the ancient economy; and a higher sense was often sought for in these, than we find any indication of in the epistle to the Hebrews, Clement even carried the matter so far as to apply the allegorical principle to the ten commandments, an extravagance in which Origen did not follow him; though we can scarcely tell why he should not have done so. For, even the moral precepts of the Decalogue touch at various points on the common interests and relations of life; and it was the grand aim of the philosophy, in which the allegorizing then prevalent had its origin, to carry the soul above these into the high abstractions of a contemplative theosophy. The Fathers of the Latin church were much less inclined to such airy speculations, and their interpretations of Scripture, consequently, possessed more of a realistic and common sense character. Allegorical interpretations are, indeed, occasionally found in them, but they are more sparingly introduced, and less extravagantly carried out.[3] [[@Page:24]] Typical meanings, however, are as frequent in the one class as in the other, and equally adopted without rule or limit. If in the Eastern church we find such objects as the tree of life in the garden of Eden, the rod of Moses, Moses himself with his arms extended during the conflict with Amalek, exhibited as types of the cross; in the Western church, as represented, for example, by Augustine, we meet with such specimens as the following:—”Wherefore did Christ enter into the sleep of death? Because Adam slept when Eve was formed from his side, Adam being the figure of Christ, Eve as the mother of the living, the figure of the church. And as she was formed from Adam while he was asleep, so was it when Christ slept on the cross, that the sacraments of the church flowed from His side.”[4] So, again, Saul is represented as the type of death, because God unwillingly appointed him king over Israel, as He unwillingly subjected His people to the sway of death; and David’s deliverance from the hand of Saul foreshadowed our deliverance through Christ from the power of death; while in David’s escape from Saul’s hand, coupled with the destruction that befell Ahimelech on his account, if not in his stead, there was a prefiguration of Christ’s death and resurrection.[5] In the treatment of New Testament Scripture also, the same style of interpretation is occasionally resorted to,—as when in the six waterpots of John’s Gospel he finds imaged the six ages of prophecy; and in the two or three firkins which they severally held, the two are taken to indicate the Father and the Son, the three the Trinity; or, as he also puts it, the two represent the Jews and the Gentiles, and the third, Christ, making the two one (Tract ix. in Joan.). But we need not multiply examples, or prosecute the subject further into detail. Enough has been adduced to show, that the earlier divines of the Christian church had no just or well-defined principles to guide them in their interpretations of Old Testament Scripture, which could either enable them to determine between the fanciful and the true in typical applications, or guard them against the worst excesses of allegorical licence.[6]

[[@Page:25]] II. Passing over the period of the middle ages, which produced nothing new in this line, we come to the divines of the Reformation. At that memorable era a mighty advance was made, not only beyond the ages immediately preceding, but also beyond all that had passed from the commencement of Christianity, in the sound interpretation of Scripture. The original text then at last began to be examined with something like critical exactness, and a stedfast adherence was generally professed, and in good part also maintained, to the natural and grammatical sense. The leading spirits of the Reformation were here also the great authors of reform. Luther denounced mystical and allegorical interpretations as “trifling and foolish fables, with which the Scriptures were rent into so many and diverse senses, that silly poor consciences could receive no certain [[@Page:26]] doctrine of anything.”[7] Calvin, in like manner, declares that “the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning, by which we ought resolutely to abide;” and speaks of the “licentious system” of Origen and the allegorists, as “undoubtedly a contrivance of Satan to undermine the authority of Scripture, and to take away from the reading of it the true advantage.”[8] In some of his interpretations, especially on the prophetical parts of Scripture, he even went to an extreme in advocating what he here calls the natural and obvious meaning, and thereby missed the more profound import, which, according to the elevated and often enigmatical style of prophecy, it was the design of the Spirit to convey. On the other hand, in spite of their avowed and generally followed principles of interpretation, [[@Page:27]] the writers of the Reformation-period not unfrequently fell into the old method of allegorizing, and threw out typical explanations of a kind that cannot stand a careful scrutiny. It were quite easy to produce examples of this from the writings of those who lived at and immediately subsequent to the Reformation; but it would be of no service as regards our present object, since their attention was comparatively little drawn to the subject of types; and none of them attempted to construct any distinct typological system.

III. We pass on, therefore, to a later period—about the middle of the seventeenth century—when the science of theology began to be studied more in detail, and the types consequently received a more formal consideration. About that period arose what is called the Cocceian school, which, though it did not revive the double sense of the Alexandrian (for Cocceius expressly disclaimed any other sense of Scripture than the literal and historical one), yet was chargeable in another respect with a participation in the caprice and irregularity of the ancient allegorists. Cocceius himself, less distinguished as a systematic writer in theology than as a Hebrew scholar and learned expositor of Scripture, left no formal enunciation of principles connected with typical or allegorical interpretations; and it is chiefly from his annotations on particular passages, and the more systematic works of his followers, that these are to be gathered. How freely, however, he was disposed to draw upon Old Testament history for types of Gospel things, may be understood from a single example—his viewing what is said of Asshur going out and building Nineveh, as a type of the Turk or Mussulman power, which at once sprang from the kingdom, and shook the dominion of Antichrist (cur. Prior, in Gen. 10:11). He evidently conceived that every event in Old Testament history, which had a formal resemblance to something under the New, was to be regarded as typical. And that, even notwithstanding his avowed adherence to but one sense of Scripture, he could occasionally adopt a second, appears alone from his allegorical interpretation of the eighth Psalm; according to which the sheep there spoken of, as being put under man, are Christ’s flock the oxen, those who labour in Christ’s service—[[@Page:28]] the beasts of the field, such as are strangers to the city and kingdom of God, barbarians and savages—the fowl of the air and fish of the sea, persons at a still greater distance from godliness; so that, as he concludes, there is nothing so wild and intractable on earth but it shall be brought under the rule and dominion of Christ.

It does not appear, however, that the views of Cocceius differed materially from those which were held by some who preceded him; and it would seem rather to have been owing to his eminence generally as a commentator than to any distinctive peculiarity in his typological principles, that he came to be so prominently identified with the school, which from him derived the name of Cocceian. If we turn to one of the earlier editions of Glass’s Philologia Sacra, published before Cocceius commenced his critical labours (the first was published before he was born), we shall find the principles of allegorical and typical interpretations laid down with a latitude which Cocceius himself could scarcely have quarrelled with. Indeed, we shall find few examples in his writings that might not be justified on the principles stated by Glass; and though the latter, in his section on allegories, has to throw himself back chiefly on the Fathers, he yet produces some quotations in support of his views, both on these and on types, from some writers of his own age. There seems to have been no essential difference between the typological principles of Glass, Cocceius, Witsius, and Vitringa; and though the first wrote some time before, and the last about half a century later than Cocceius, no injustice can be done to any of them by classing them together, and referring indifferently to their several productions. Like the Fathers, they did not sufficiently distinguish between allegorical and typical interpretations, but regarded the one as only a particular form of the other, and both as equally warranted by New Testament Scripture. Hence, the rules they adopted were to a great extent applicable to what is allegorical in the proper sense, as well as typical, though for the present we must confine ourselves to the typical department. They held, then, that there was a twofold sort of types, the one innate, consisting of those which Scripture itself has expressly asserted to possess a typical character; the other inferred, consisting of such as, though not specially noticed or explained in [[@Page:29]] Scripture, were yet, on probable grounds, inferred by interpreters as conformable to the analogy of faith, and the practice of the inspired writers in regard to similar examples.[9] This latter class were considered not less proper and valid than the other; and pains were taken to distinguish them from those which were sometimes forged by Papists, and which were at variance with the analogies just mentioned. Of course, from their very nature they could only be employed for the support and confirmation of truths already received, and not to prove what was in itself doubtful. But not on that account were they to be less carefully searched for, or less confidently used, because thus only, it was maintained, could Christ be found in all Scripture, which throughout testifies of Him.

It is evident alone, from this general statement, that there was something vague and loose in the Cocceian system, which left ample scope for the indulgence of a luxuriant fancy. Nor can we wonder that, in practice, a mere resemblance, however accidental or trifling, between an occurrence in Old, and another in New Testament times, was deemed sufficient to constitute the one a type of the other. Hence in the writings of the eminent and learned men above referred to, we find the name of Abel (emptiness) viewed as prefiguring our Lords humiliation; the occupation of Abel, Christ’s office as the Shepherd of Israel; the withdrawal of Isaac from his father’s house to the land of Moriah, Christ’s being led out of the temple to Calvary; Adam’s awaking out of sleep, Christ’s resurrection from the dead; Samson’s meeting a young lion by the way, and the transactions that followed, Christ’s meeting Saul on the road to Damascus, with the important train of events to which it led; David’s gathering to himself a party of the distressed, the bankrupt, and discontented, Christ’s receiving into His Church publicans and sinners; with many others of a like nature.

Multitudes of examples perfectly similar—that is, equally destitute of any proper foundation in principle—are to be found in writers of our own country, such as Mather,[10] Keach,[11] [[@Page:30]] Worden,[12] J. Taylor,[13] Guild,[14] who belonged to the same school of interpretation, and who nearly all lived toward the latter part of the seventeenth century. Excepting the two first, they make no attempt to connect their explanations with any principles of interpretation, and these two very sparingly. Their works were all intended for popular use, and rather exhibited by particular examples, than systematically expounded the nature of their views. They, however, agreed in admitting inferred as well as innate types, but differed more perhaps from constitutional temperament than on theoretical grounds in the extent to which they respectively carried the liberty they claimed to go beyond the explicit warrant of New Testament Scripture. Mather in particular, and Worden, usually confine themselves to such types as have obtained special notice of some kind from the writers of the New Testament; though they held the principle, that “where the analogy was evident and manifest between things under the law and things under the Gospel, the one were to be concluded (on the ground simply of that analogy) to be types of the other.” How far this warrant from analogy was thought capable of leading, may be learned from Taylor and Guild, especially from the latter, who has no fewer than forty-nine typical resemblances between Joseph and Christ, and seven teen between Jacob and Christ, not scrupling to swell the number by occasionally taking in acts of sin, as well as circumstances of an altogether trivial nature. Thus, Jacob’s being a supplanter of his brother, is made to represent Christ’s supplanting death, sin, and Satan; his being obedient to his parents in all things, Christ’s subjection to His heavenly Father and His earthly parents; his purchasing his birthright by red pottage, and obtaining the blessing by presenting savoury vension to his father, clothed in Esau’s garment, Christ’s purchasing the heavenly inheritance to us by His red blood, and obtaining the blessing by offering up the savoury meat of His obedience, in the borrowed garment of our nature, etc.

Now, we may affirm of these, and many similar examples occurring in writers of the same class, that the analogy they [[@Page:31]] found upon was a merely superficial resemblance appearing between things in the Old and other things in the New Testament Scriptures. But resemblances of this sort are so extremely multifarious, and appear also so different according to the point of view from which they are contemplated, that it was obviously possible for anyone to take occasion through them to introduce the most frivolous conceits, and to caricature rather than vindicate the grand theme of the Gospel. Then, if such weight was fitly attached to mere resemblances between the Old and the New, even when they were altogether of a slight and superficial kind, why should not profane as well as sacred history be ran sacked for them? What, for example, might prevent Romulus (seeing that God is in all history, if this actually were history) assembling a band of desperadoes, and founding a world-wide empire on the banks of the Tiber, from serving, as well as David in the circumstances specified above, to typify the procedure of Christ in calling to him publicans and sinners at the commencement of His kingdom? As many points of resemblance might be found in the one case as in the other; and the two transactions in ancient history, as here contemplated, stood much on the same footing as regards the appointment of God; for both alike were the offspring of human policy, struggling against outward difficulties, and endeavouring with such materials as were available to supply the want of better resources. And thus, by pushing the matter beyond its just limits, we reduce the sacred to a level with the profane, and, at the same time, throw an air of uncertainty over the whole aspect of its typical character.[15]

That the Cocceian mode of handling the typical matter of ancient Scripture so readily admitted of the introduction of trifling, far-fetched, and even altogether false analogies, was one of its capital defects. It had no essential principles or fixed rules by which to guide its interpretations set up no proper [[@Page:32]] landmarks along the field of inquiry—left room on every hand for arbitrariness and caprice to enter. It was this, perhaps, more than anything else, which tended to bring typical interpretations into disrepute, and disposed men, in proportion as the exact and critical study of Scripture came to be cultivated, to regard the subject of its typology as hopelessly involved in conjecture and uncertainty. Yet this was not the only fault inherent in the typological system now under consideration. It failed, more fundamentally still, in the idea it had formed of the connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations between the type and the thing typified which came to be thrown mainly upon the mere forms and accidents of things, to the comparative neglect of the great fundamental principles which are common alike to all dispensations, and in which the more vital part of the connection must be sought. It was this more radical error, which in fact gave rise to the greater portion of the extravagances that disfigured the typical illustrations of our elder divines; for it naturally led them to make account of coincidences that were often unimportant, and sometimes only apparent. And not only so; but it also led them to undervalue the immediate object and design of the types in their relation to those who lived amongst them. While these as types speak a language that can be distinctly and intelligently understood only by us, who are privileged to read their meaning in the light of Gospel realities, they yet had, as institutions in the existing worship, or events in the current providence of God, a present purpose to accomplish, apart from the prospective reference to future times, and we might almost say, as much as if no such reference had belonged to them.

IV. These inherent errors and imperfections in the typo logical system of the Cocceian school, were not long in leading to its general abandonment. But theology had little reason to boast of the change. For the system that supplanted it, without entering at all into a more profound investigation of the subject, or attempting to explain more satisfactorily the grounds of a typical connection between the Old and the New, simply contented itself with admitting into the rank of types what had been expressly treated as such in the Scripture itself, to the [[@Page:33]] exclusion of all besides. This seemed to be the only safeguard against error and extravagance.[16] And yet, we fear, other reasons of a less justifiable nature contributed not a little to produce the result. An unhappy current had begun to set in upon the Protestant Church in some places while Cocceius still lived, and in others soon after his death, which disposed many of her more eminent teachers to slight the evangelical element in Christianity, and, if not utterly to lose sight of Christ Himself, at least to disrelish and repudiate a system which delighted to find traces of Him in every part of revelation. It was the redeeming point of the earlier typology, which should be allowed to go far in extenuating the occasional errors connected with it, that it kept the work and kingdom of Christ ever prominently in view, as the grand scope and end of all God’s dispensations. It felt, if we may so speak, correctly, whatever it may have wanted in the requisite depth and precision of thought. But towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, a general coldness very commonly discovered itself, both in the writings and the lives of even the more orthodox sections of the Church. The living energy and zeal which had achieved such important results a century before, either inactively slumbered, or spent itself in doctrinal controversies; and the faith of the Church [[@Page:34]] Was first corrupted in its simplicity, and then weakened in its foundations by the pernicious influence of a widely cultivated, but essentially anti-Christian philosophy. In such circumstances Christ was not allowed to maintain His proper place in the New Testament; and it is not to be wondered at if He should have been nearly banished from the Old.

Vitringa, who lived when this degeneracy from better times had made considerable progress, attributed to it much of that distaste which was then beginning to prevail in regard to typical interpretations of Scripture. With special reference to the work of Spencer on the Laws of the Hebrews,—a work not less remarkable for its low-toned, semi-heathenish spirit, than for its varied and well-digested learning,—he lamented the inclination that appeared to seek for the grounds and reasons of the Mosaic institutions in the mazes of Egyptian idolatry, instead of endeavouring to discover in them the mysteries of the Gospel. These, he believed, the Holy Spirit had plainly intimated to be couched there; and they shone, indeed, so manifestly through the institutions themselves, that it seemed impossible for anyone not to perceive the type, who recognised the antitype. Nor could he conceal his fear, that the talent, authority, and learning of such men as Spencer would gain extensive credit for their opinions, and soon bring the Typology of Scripture, as he understood it, into general contempt.[17] In this apprehension he was certainly not mistaken. Another generation had scarcely passed away when Dathe published his edition of the Sacred Philology of Glass, in which the section on types, to which we have already referred, was wholly omitted, as relating to a subject no longer thought worthy of a recognised place in the science of an enlightened theology. The rationalistic spirit, in the progress of its anti-Christian tendencies, had now discarded the innate, as well as the inferred types of the elder divines; and the convenient principle of accommodation,which was at the same time introduced, furnished an easy solution for those passages in New Testament Scripture which seemed to indicate a typical relationship between the past and the future. It was regarded as only an adaptation, originating in Jewish prejudice or conceit, of the facts and institutions of an earlier age to things essentially [[@Page:35]] different under the Gospel; but now, since the state of feeling that gave rise to it no longer existed, deservedly suffered to fall into desuetude. And thus the bond was virtually broken by the hand of these rationalizing theologians between the Old and the New in Revelation; and the records of Christianity, when scientifically interpreted, were found to have marvellously little in common with those of Judaism.

In Britain various causes contributed to hold in check this downward tendency, and to prevent it from reaching the same excess of dishonour to Christ, which it soon attained on the Continent. Even persons of a cold and philosophical temperament, such as Clarke and Jortin, not only wrote in defence of types, as having a certain legitimate use in Revelation, but also admitted more within the circle of types than Scripture itself has expressly applied to Gospel times.[18] They urged, indeed, the necessity of exercising the greatest caution in travelling beyond the explicit warrant of Scripture; and in their general cast of thought they undoubtedly had more affinity with the Spencerian than the Cocceian school. Yet a feeling of the close and pervading; connection between the Old and the New Testament dispensations restrained them from discarding the more important of the inferred types. Jortin especially falls so much into the vein of earlier writers, that he employs his ingenuity in reckoning up as many as forty particulars in which Moses typically prefigured Christ. A work composed about the same period as that to which the Remarks of Jortin belong, and one that has had more influence than any other in fashioning the typological views generally entertained in Scotland—the production of a young dissenting minister in Dundee (Mr M’Ewen)[19]—is still more free in the admission of types not expressly sanctioned in the Scriptures of the New Testament. The work itself being posthumous, and intended for popular use, contains no investigation of the grounds on which typical interpretations rest, and harmonizes much more with the school that had flourished in [[@Page:36]] the previous century, than that to which Clarke and Jortin belonged. As indicative of a particular style of biblical interpretation, it may be classed with the productions of Mather and Taylor, and partakes alike of their excellences and defects.

There was, therefore, a considerable unwillingness in this country to abandon the Cocceian ground on the subject of types. The declension came in gradually, and its progress was rather marked by a tacit rejection in practice of much that was previously held to be typical, than by the introduction of views specifically different. It became the practice of theologians to look more into the general nature of things for the reasons of Christianity, than into the pre-existing elements and characteristics of former dispensations; and to account for the peculiarities of Judaism by its partly antagonistic, partly homogeneous relation to Paganism, rather than by any covert reference it might have to the coming realities of the Gospel. As an inevitable consequence, the typological department of theology fell into general neglect, from which the Old Testament Scriptures themselves did not altogether escape. Those portions of them especially which narrate the history and prescribe the religious rites of the ancient Church, were but rarely treated in a manner that bespoke any confidence in their fitness to minister to the spiritual discernment and faith of Christians. It seems, partly at least, to have been owing to this growing distaste for Old Testament inquiries, and this general depreciation of its Scriptures, that what is called the Hutchinsonian school arose in England, which, by a sort of recoil from the prevailing spirit, ran into the opposite extreme of searching for the elements of all knowledge, human and divine, in the writings of the Old Testament. This school possesses too much the character of an episode in the history of biblical interpretation in this country, and was itself too strongly marked by a spirit of extravagance, to render any formal account of it necessary here. It was, besides, chiefly of a physico-theological character, combining the elements of a natural philosophy with the truths of revelation, both of which it sought to extract from the statements, and sometimes even from the words and letters of Scripture. The most profound meanings were consequently discovered in the sacred text, in respect alike to the doctrines of the Gospel and the truths of [[@Page:37]] science. One of the maxims of its founder was, that “every passage of the Old Testament looks backward and forward, and every way, like light from the sun; not only to the state before and under the law, but under the Gospel, and nothing is hid from the light thereof.”[20] When such a depth and complexity of meaning was supposed to be involved in every passage, we need not be surprised to learn, respecting the exactness of Abraham’s knowledge of future events, that he knew from preceding types and promises, that “one of his own line was to be sacrificed, to be a blessing to all the race of Adam;” and not only so, but that when he received the command to offer Isaac, he proceeded to obey it, “not doubting that Isaac was to be that person who should redeem man.”[21]

The cabalistic and extravagant character of the Hutchinsonian system, if it had any definite influence on the study of types and other cognate subjects, could only tend to increase the suspicion with which they were already viewed, and foster a disposition to agree to whatever might keep investigation within the bounds of sobriety and discretion. Accordingly, while nothing more was done to unfold the essential and proper ground of a typical connection between Old and New Testament things, and to prevent abuse by tracing the matter up to its ultimate and fundamental principles, the more scientific students of the Bible came, by a sort of common consent, to acquiesce in the opinion, that those only were to be reckoned types to which Scripture itself, by express warrant, or at least by obvious implication, had assigned that character. Bishop Marsh may be named as perhaps the ablest and most systematic expounder of this view of the subject. He says, —”There is no other rule by which we can distinguish a real from a pretended type, than that of Scripture itself. There are no other possible means by which we can know that a previous design and a pre-ordained connection existed. Whatever persons or things, therefore, recorded in the Old Testament, were expressly declared by Christ or by His apostles to have been designed as prefigurations of persons or things relating to the New Testament, such persons or things so recorded in the former, are types of the persons or things with which they are compared in the latter. But if we assert that a person or thing [[@Page:38]] was designed to prefigure another person or thing, where no such prefiguration has been declared by divine authority, we make an assertion for which we neither have, nor can have, the slightest foundation.”[22] This is certainly a very authoritative and peremptory decision of the matter. But the principle involved in this statement, though seldom so oracularly announced, has long been practically received. It was substantially adopted by Macknight, in his Dissertation on the Interpretation of Scripture, at the end of his Commentary on the Epistles, before Bishop Marsh wrote; and it has been followed since by Vanmildert and Conybeare in their Bampton Lectures, by Nares in his Warburtonian Lectures, by Chevalier in his Hulsean Lectures, by Home in his Introduction, and a host of other writers.

Judging from an article in the American Biblical Repository, which appeared in the number for January 1841, it would appear that the leading authorities on the other side of the Atlantic concurred in the same general view. The reviewer himself advocates the opinion, that “no person, event, or institution, should be regarded as typical, but what may be proved to be such from the Scriptures,” meaning by that their explicit assertion in regard to the particular case. And in support of this opinion he quotes, besides English writers, the words of two of his own countrymen, Professor Stowe and Moses Stuart, the latter of whom says,—”That just so much of the Old Testament is to be accounted typical as the New Testament affirms to be so, and no more. The fact, that anything or event under the Old Testament dispensation was designed to prefigure something under the New, can be known to us only by revelation; and of course all that is not designated by divine authority as typical, can never be made so by any authority less than that which guided the writers of the New Testament.”[23]

Now, the view embraced by this school of interpretation lies open to one objection, in common with the school that preceded it. While the field, as to its extent, was greatly circumscribed, and in its boundaries ruled as with square and compass, nothing was done in the way of investigating it internally, or of unfolding the grounds of connection between type and antitype. Fewer points of resemblance are usually presented to us between the [[@Page:39]] one and the other by the writers of this school than arc found in works of an older date; but the resemblances themselves are quite as much of a superficial and outward kind. The real harmony and connection between the Old and the New in the divine dispensations, stood precisely where it was. But other defects adhere to this more recent typological system. The leading excellence of the system that preceded it was the constant reference it conceived the Scriptures of the Old Testament to bear toward Christ and the Gospel dispensation; and the practical disavowal of this may be said to constitute the great defect of the more exact, but balder system, which supplanted it with the general suffrage of the learned. It drops a golden principle for the sake of avoiding a few lawless aberrations. With such narrow limits as it sets to our inquiries, we cannot indeed wander far into the regions of extravagance. But in the very prescription of these limits, it wrongfully withholds from us the key of knowledge, and shuts us up to evils scarcely less to be deprecated than those it seeks to correct. For it destroys to a large extent the bond of connection between the Old and the New Testament Scriptures, and thus deprives the Christian Church of much of the instruction in divine things which they were designed to impart. Were men accustomed, as they should be, to search for the germs of Christian truth in the earliest Scriptures, and to regard the inspired records of both covenants as having for their leading object “the testimony of Jesus,” they would know how much they were losers by such an undue contraction of the typical element in Old Testament Scripture. And in proportion as a more profound and spiritual acquaintance with the divine word is cultivated, will the feeling of dissatisfaction grow in respect to a style of interpretation that so miserably dwarfs and cripples the relation which the preparatory bears to the ultimate in God’s revelations.

It is necessary, however, to take a closer view of the subject. The principle on which this typological system takes its stand, is, that nothing less than inspired authority is sufficient to deter mine the reality and import of anything that is typical. But what necessary reason or solid ground is there for such a principle? No one holds the necessity of inspiration to explain each particular prophecy, and decide even with certainty on its [[@Page:40]] fulfilment; and why should it be reckoned indispensable in the closely related subject of types? This question was long ago asked by Witsius, and yet waits for a satisfactory answer. A part only, it is universally allowed, of the prophecies which refer to Christ and His kingdom have been specially noticed and interpreted by the pen of inspiration. So little necessary, indeed, was inspiration for such a purpose, that even before the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, our Lord reproved His disciples as “fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken.” And from the close analogy between the two subjects—for what is a type but a prophetical act or institution?— we might reasonably infer the same liberty to have been granted, and the same obligation to be imposed, in regard to the typical parts of ancient Scripture. But we have something more than a mere argument from analogy to guide us to this conclusion. For the very same complaint is brought by an inspired writer against private Christians concerning their slowness in understanding the typical, which our Lord brought against His disciples in respect to the prophetical portions of ancient Scripture. In the epistle to the Hebrews a sharp reproof is administered for the imperfect acquaintance believers among them had with the typical character of Melchizedek, and subjects of a like nature—thus placing it beyond a doubt that it is both the duty and the privilege of the Church, with that measure of the Spirit’s grace which it is the part even of private Christians to possess, to search into the types of ancient Scripture, and come to a correct understanding of them. To deny this, is plainly to withhold an important privilege from the Church of Christ; to dissuade from it, is to encourage the neglect of an incumbent duty.

But the unsoundness of the principle, which would thus limit the number of types to those which New Testament Scripture has expressly noticed and explained, becomes still more apparent when it is considered what these really are, and in what manner they are introduced. Leaving out of view the tabernacle, with its furniture and services, which, as a whole, is affirmed in the epistles to the Hebrews and the Colossians to have been of a typical nature, the following examples are what the writers now referred to usually regard as having something [[@Page:41]] like an explicit sanction in Scripture: 1. Persons or characters: Adam (Rom. 5:11, 12; 1 Cor. 15:22; Melchizedek (Heb. 7); Sarah and Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, and by implication Abraham (Gal. 4:22-35); Moses (Gal. 3:19; Acts 3:22-26); Jonah (Matt. 12:40); David (Ezek. 37:24; Luke 1:32, etc.); Solomon (2 Sam. 7); Zerubbabel and Joshua (Zech. 3, 4; Hag. 2:23). 2. Transactions or events: the preservation of Noah and his family in the ark (1 Pet. 3:20); the redemption from Egypt and its passover-memorial (Luke 22:15, 16; 1 Cor. 5:7; the exodus (Matt. 2:15); the passage through the Red Sea, the giving of manna, Moses veiling of his face while the law was read; the water flowing from the smitten rock; the serpent lifted up for healing in the wilderness, and some other things that befell the Israelites there (1 Cor. 10; John 3:14, 5:33; Rev. 2:17).[24]

Now, let any person of candour and intelligence take his Bible, and examine the passages to which reference is here made, and then say, whether the manner in which these typical characters and transactions are there introduced, is such as to indicate, that these alone were held by the inspired writers to be prefigurative of similar characters and transactions under the Gospel? that in naming them they meant to exhaust the typical bearing of Old Testament history? On the contrary, we deem it impossible for anyone to avoid the conviction, that in whatever respect these particular examples may have been adduced, it is simply as examples adapted to the occasion, and taken from [[@Page:42]] a vast storehouse, where many more were to be found. They have so much at least the appearance of having been selected merely on account of their suitableness to the immediate end in view, that they cannot fairly be regarded otherwise than as specimens of the class they belong to. And if so, they should rather have the effect of prompting further inquiry than of repressing it; since, instead of themselves comprehending and bounding the whole field of Scriptural Typology, they only exhibit practically the principles on which others of a like description are to be discovered and explained.

Indeed, were it otherwise, nothing could be more arbitrary and inexplicable than this Scriptural typology. For, what is there to distinguish the characters and events, which Scripture has thus particularized, from a multitude of others, to which the typical element might equally have been supposed to belong? Is there anything on the face of the inspired record to make us look on them in a singular light, and attribute to them a significance altogether peculiar respecting the future affairs of God’s kingdom? So far from it, that we instinctively feel, if these really possessed a typical character, so also must others, which hold an equally, or perhaps even more prominent place in the history of God’s dispensations. Can it be seriously believed, for example, that Sarah and Hagar stood in a typical relation to Gospel times, while no such place was occupied by Rebekah, as the spouse of Isaac, and the mother of Jacob and Esau? What reason can we imagine for Melchizedek and Jonah having been constituted types—persons to whom our attention is comparatively little drawn in Old Testament history—while such leading characters as Joseph, Sampson, Joshua, are omitted? Or, for selecting the passage through the Red Sea, and the incidents in the wilderness, while no account should be made of the passage through Jordan, and the conquest of the land of Canaan?

We can scarcely conceive of a mode of interpretation which should deal more capriciously with the word of God, and make so anomalous a use of its historical records. Instead of investing these with a homogeneous character, it arbitrarily selects a few out of the general mass, and sets them up in solitary grandeur, like mystic symbols in a temple, fictitiously elevated above the sacred materials around them. The exploded principle, which [[@Page:43]] sought a type in everynotice of Old Testament history, had at least the merit of uniformity to recommend it, and could not be said to deal partially, however often it might deal fancifully, with the facts of ancient Scripture. But according to the plan now under review, for which the authority of inspiration itself is claimed, we perceive nothing but arbitrary distinctions and groundless preferences. And though unquestionably it were wrong to expect in the word of God the methodical precision and order which might naturally have been looked for in a merely human composition, yet as the product, amid all its variety, of one and the same Spirit, we are warranted to expect that there shall be a consistent agreement among its several parts, and that distinctions shall not be created in the one Testament, which in the other seem destitute of any just foundation or apparent reason.

But then, if a greater latitude is allowed, how shall we guard against error and extravagance? Without the express authority of Scripture, how shall we be able to distinguish between a happy illustration and a real type? In the words of Bishop Marsh: “By what means shall we determine, in any given instance, that what is alleged as a type, was really designed for a type? The only possible source of information on this subject is Scripture itself. The only possible means of knowing that two distant, though similar historical facts, were so connected in the general scheme of Divine Providence that the one was designed to prefigure the other, is the authority of that book in which the scheme of Divine Providence is unfolded.”[25] This is an objection, indeed, which strikes at the root of the whole matter, and its validity can only be ascertained by a thorough investigation into the fundamental principles of the subject. That Scripture is the sole rule, on the authority of which we are to distinguish what is properly typical from what is not, we readily grant—though not in the straitened sense contended for by Bishop Marsh and those who hold similar views, as if there were no way for Scripture to furnish a sufficient direction on the subject, except by specifying every particular case. It is possible, surely, that in this, as well as in other things, Scripture may indicate certain fundamental views or principles, of which it makes but [[@Page:44]] a few individual applications, and for the rest leaves them in the hand of spiritually enlightened consciences. The rather may we thus conclude, as it is one of the leading peculiarities of New Testament Scripture to develop great truths, much more than to dwell on minute and isolated facts. It is a presumption against, not in favour of, the system we now oppose, that it would shut up the Typology of Scripture, in so far as connected with the characters and events of sacred history, within the narrow circle of a few scattered and apparently random examples. And the attempt to rescue it from this position, if in any measure successful, will also serve to exhibit the unity of design which pervades the inspired records of both covenants, the traces they contain of the same Divine hand, the subservience of the one to the other, and the mutual dependence alike of the Old upon the New, and of the New upon the Old.

V. We have still, however, another stage of our critical survey before us, and one calling in some respects for careful discrimination and inquiry. The style of interpretation which we have connected with the name of Marsh could not, in the nature of things, afford satisfaction to men of thoughtful minds, who must have something like equitable principles as well as external authority to guide them in their interpretations. Such persons could not avoid feeling that, if there was so much in the Old Testament bearing a typical relation to the New, as was admitted on Scriptural authority by the school of Marsh, there must be considerably more; and also, that underneath that authority there must be a substratum of fundamental principles capable of bearing what Scripture itself has raised on it, and whatever besides may fitly be conjoined with it. But some, again, might possibly be of opinion that the authority of Scripture cannot warrantably carry us so far; and that both Scriptural authority, and the fundamental principles involved in the nature of the subject, apply only in part to what the disciples of Marsh regarded as typical. Accordingly, among more recent inquirers we have examples of each mode of divergence from the formal rules laid down by the preceding school of interpretation. The search for first principles has disposed some greatly to enlarge the typological field, and it has disposed others not less to curtail it.

[[@Page:45]] 1. To take the latter class first, as they stand most nearly related to the school last discoursed of, representatives of it are certainly not wanting on the Continent, among whom may be named the hermeneutical writer Klausen, to whom reference will presently be made in another connection. But it is the less needful here to call in foreign authorities, as the view in question has had its advocates in our own theological literature. It was exhibited, for example, in Dr L. Alexander’s Connection and Harmony of the Old and New Testament (1841), in which, while coinciding substantially with Bahr in his mode of explaining and applying to Gospel times the symbolical institutions of the Old Covenant, he yet declared himself opposed to any further extension of the typical sphere. He would regard nothing as entitled to the name of typical, which did not possess the character of “a divine institution;” or, as he formally defines the entire class, “they are symbolical institutes expressly appointed by God to prefigure to those among whom they were set up certain great transactions in connection with that plan of redemption which, in the fulness of time, was to be unfolded to mankind.” Hence the historical types of every description, even those which the school of Marsh recognised on account of the place given to them in New Testament Scripture, were altogether disallowed; the use made of them by the inspired writers was held to be “for illustration merely, and not for the purpose of building anything on them;” they are not thereby constituted or proved to be types.

The same view, however, was taken up and received a much keener and fuller advocacy by the American writer Mr. Lord, in a periodical not unknown in this country—the Ecclesiastical and Literary Journal (No. XV). This was done in connection with a fierce and elaborate review of the first edition of the Typology, in the course of which its system of exposition was denounced as “a monstrous scheme,” not only “without the sanction of the word of God,” but “one of the boldest and most effective contrivances for its subversion.” It is not my intention now less, indeed, when issuing this new edition (the fourth) than formerly to attempt to rebut such offensive charges, or to expose the misrepresentations on which to a large extent they were grounded. I should even have preferred, had [[@Page:46]] it been in my power to do so, repairing to some vindication of the same view, equally strenuous in its advocacy, but conducted in a calmer and fairer tone, in order that the discussion might bear less of a personal aspect. But as my present object is partly to unfold the gradual progress and development of opinion upon the subject of Scriptural Typology, justice could scarcely be done to it without hearing what Mr Lord has to say for the section of British and American theologians he represents, and meeting it with a brief rejoinder.

The writer’s mode was a comparatively easy one for proving a negative to the view he controverted. He began with setting forth a description of the nature and characteristics of a type, so tightened and compressed as to exclude all from the category but what pertained to “the tabernacle worship, or the propitiation and homage of God.” And having thus with a kind of oracular precision drawn his enclosure, it was not difficult to dispose of whatever else might claim to be admitted; for it is put to flight the moment he presents his exact definitions, and can only be considered typical by persons of dreamy intellect, who are utter strangers to clearness of thought and precision of language. In this way it is possible, we admit, and also not very difficult, to make out a scheme and establish a nomenclature of one’s own; but the question is, Does it accord with the representations of Scripture? and will it serve, in respect to these, as a guiding and harmonizing principle? We might, in a similar way, draw out a series of precise and definite characteristics of Messianic prophecy,—such as, that it must avowedly bear the impress of a prediction of the future—that it must in the most explicit terms point to the person or times of Messiah that it must be conveyed in language capable of no ambiguity or double reference; and then, with this sharp weapon in our hand, proceed summarily to lop off all supposed prophetical passages in which these characteristics are wanting—holding such, if applied to Messianic times, to be mere accommodations, originally intended for one thing, and afterwards loosely adapted to another. The rationalists of a former generation were great adepts in this mode of handling prophetical Scripture, and by the use of it dexterously got rid of a goodly number of the passages which in the New Testament are represented as finding their fulfilment [[@Page:47]] in Christ. But we have yet to learn, that by so doing they succeeded in throwing any satisfactory light on the interpretation of Scripture, or in placing on a Scriptural basis the connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations.

How closely the principles of Mr Lord lead him to tread in the footsteps of these effete interpreters, will appear presently. But we must first lodge our protest against his account of the essential nature and characteristics of a type, as entirely arbitrary and unsupported by Scripture. The things really possessing this character, he maintains, must have had the three following distinctive marks: They must have been specifically constituted types by God; must have been known to be so constituted, and contemplated as such by those who had to do with them; and must have been continued till the coming of Christ, when they were abrogated or superseded by something analogous in the Christian dispensation. These are his essential elements in the constitution of a type; and an assertion of the want of one or more of them forms the perpetual refrain, with which he disposes of those characters and transactions that in his esteem are falsely accounted typical. We object to every one of them in the sense understood by the writer, and deny that Scriptural proof can be produced for them, as applying to the strictly religious symbols of the Old Testament worship, and to them alone. These were not specifically constituted types, or formally set up in that character, no more than such transactions as the deliverance from Egypt, or the preservation of Noah in the deluge, which are denied to have been typical. In the manner of their appointment, viewed by itself, there is no more to indicate a reference to the Messianic future in the one than in the other. Neither were they for certain known to be types, and used as such by the Old Testament worshippers. They unquestionably were not so used in the time of our Lord; and how far they may have been at any previous period, is a matter only of probable inference, but nowhere of express revelation. Nor, finally, was it by any means an invariable and indispensable characteristic, that they should have continued in use till they were superseded by something analogous in the Christian dispensation. Some of the anointings were not so continued, nor the Shekinah, nor even the Ark of the Covenant; and some of them stood in occasional acts of [[@Page:48]] service, such as the Nazarite vow, in its very nature special and temporary. The redemption from Egypt was in itself a single event, yet it was closely allied to the symbolical services; for it was linked to an ever-recurring and permanent ordinance of worship. It was a creative act, bringing Israel as a people of God into formal existence, and as such capable only of being commemorated, but not of being repeated. It was commemorated, however, in the passover-feast. In that feast the Israelites continually freshened the remembrance of it anew on their hearts. They in spirit re-enacted it as a thing that required to be constantly renewing itself in their experience, as in the Lord’s Supper is now done by Christians in regard to the one great redemption-act on the cross. This, too, considered simply as an act in God’s administration, is incapable of being repeated; it can only be commemorated, and in its effects spiritually applied to the conscience. Yet so far from being thereby bereft of an antitypical character, it is the central antitype of the Gospel. Why should it be otherwise in respect to the type? The analogy of things favours it; and the testimony of Scripture not doubt fully requires it.

To say nothing of other passages of Scripture which bear less explicitly, though to our mind very materially, upon the subject, our Lord Himself, at the celebration of the last passover, declared to His disciples, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”—(Luke 22:15, 16) That is, there is a prophecy as well as a memorial in this commemorative ordinance,—a prophecy, because it is the rehearsal of a typical transaction, which is now, and only now, going to meet with its full realization. Such appears to be the plain and unsophisticated import of our Lord’s words. And the Apostle Paul is, if possible, still more explicit when he says, “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us (more exactly, For also our passover has been sacrificed, Christ): therefore let us keep the feast,” etc.—(1 Cor. 5:7, 8) What, we again ask, are we to understand by these words, if not that there is in the design and appointment of God an ordained connection between the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Passover, so that the one, as the means of redemption, takes the place of the [[@Page:49]] other? In any other sense the language would be only fitted to mislead, by begetting apprehensions regarding a mutual correspondence and connection which had no existence. It is alleged on the other side, that “Christ is indeed said to be our passover, but it is by a metaphor, and indicates only that it is by His blood we are saved from everlasting death, as the first-born of the Hebrews were saved by the blood of the paschal lamb from death by the destroying angel.” Were this all, the Apostle might surely have expressed himself less ambiguously. If there was no real connection between the earlier and the later event, and the one stood as much apart from the other as the lintels of Goshen in themselves did from the cross of Calvary, why employ language that forces upon the minds of simple believers the reality of a proper connection? Simply, we believe, because it actually existed; and our “exegetical conscience,” to use a German phrase, refuses to be satisfied with Mr Lord’s mere metaphor. But when he states further, that the passover, having been “appointed with a reference to the exemption of the first born of the Israelites from the death that was to be inflicted on the first-born of the Egyptians, it cannot be a type of Christ’s death for the sins of the world, as that would imply that Christ’s death also was commemorative of the preservation from an analogous death,” who does not perceive that this is to confound between the passover as an original redemptive transaction, and as a commemorative ordinance, pointing back to the great fact, and perpetually rehearsing it? It is as a festal solemnity alone that there can be anything commemorative belonging either to the Paschal sacrifice or to Christ’s. Viewed, however, as redemptive acts, there was a sufficient analogy between them: the one redeemed the first-born of Israel (the firstlings of its families), and the other redeems “the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.”

There is manifested a like tendency to evacuate the proper meaning of Scripture in most of the other instances brought into consideration. Christ, for example, calls Himself, with pointed reference to the manna, “the bread of life;” and in Rev. 2:17, an interest in His divine life is called “an eating of the hidden manna,” but it is only “by a metaphor,” precisely as Christ elsewhere calls Himself the vine, or is likened to a rock. As if [[@Page:50]] there were no difference between an employment of these natural emblems and the identifying of Christ with the supernatural food given to support His people, after a provisional redemption, and on the way to a provisional inheritance! It is not the simple reference to a temporal good on which, in such a case, we rest the typical import, but this in connection with the whole of the relations and circumstances in which the temporal was given or employed. Jonah was not, it is alleged, a type of Christ; for he is not called such, but only a “sign;” neither was Melchizedek called by that name. Well, but Adam is called a type τύποςτοῦ μέλλαντος, Rom. 5:14), and baptism is called is the antitype to the deluge ὃ καὶ ὑμᾶς ἀντίτυπον νῦν σῴζειβάπτισμα, 1 Pet. 3:21). True, but then, we are told, the word in these passages only means a similitude; it does not mean type or antitype in the proper sense. What, then, could denote it? Is there any other term more properly fitted to express the idea? And if the precise term, when it is employed, still does not serve, why object in other cases to the want of it? Strange, surely, that its presence and its absence should be alike grounds of objection. But if the matter is to come to a mere stickling about words, shall we have any types at all? Are even the tabernacle and its institutions of worship called by that name? Not once; but inversely, the designation of antitypes is in one passage applied to them: “The holy places made with hands, the antitypes of the true” (ἀντίτυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν, Heb. 9:24).

So little does Scripture, in its teachings on this subject, encourage us to hang our theoretical explanations on a particular epithet! It varies the mode of expression with all the freedom of common discourse, and even, as in this particular instance, inverts the current phraseology; but still, amid all the variety, it indicates with sufficient plainness a real economical connection between the past and the present in God’s dispensations,—such as is commonly understood by the terms type and antitype; and this is the great point, however we may choose to express it.

The passage in Galatians respecting Sarah and Isaac on the one side, and Hagar and Ishmael on the other, naturally formed one of some importance for the view sought to be established in the Typology, and as such called for Mr Lord’s special consideration. Here, as in other cases, he begins with the statement that [[@Page:51]] the characters and relations there mentioned have not the term type applied to them, and hence should not be reckoned typical. “It is only said,” he continues, “that that which is related of Hagar and Sarah is exhibited allegorically; that is, that there are other things that, used as allegorical representatives of Hagar and Sarah, exhibit the same facts and truths. The object of the allegory is to exemplify them by analogous things; not by them to exemplify something else, to which they present a resemblance. It is they who are said to be allegorized, that is, represented by something else; not something else that is allegorized by them. They are accordingly said to be the two covenants, that is, like the two covenants; and Mount Sinai is used to represent the covenant that genders to bondage; and Jerusalem from above—that is, the Jerusalem of Christ’s kingdom—the covenant of freedom or grace. And they accordingly are employed [by the Apostle] to set forth the character and condition of the bond and the free woman, and their offspring. He attempts to illustrate the lot of the two classes who are under law and under grace; first, by referring to the different relations to the covenant, and different lot of the children of the bond and the free woman; and then, by using Mount Sinai to exemplify the character and condition of those under the Mosaic law, and the heavenly Jerusalem, to exemplify those who are under the Gospel. The places from which the two covenants are proclaimed are thus used to represent those two classes; not Hagar and Sarah to represent those places, or the covenants that are proclaimed from them.” Now, this show of exact criticism—professing to explain all, and yet leaving the main thing totally unexplained—is introduced, let it be observed, to expose an alleged “singular neglect of discrimination” in the use we had made of the passage. We had, it seems, been guilty of the extraordinary mistake of supposing Hagar and Sarah to be themselves the representatives in the Apostle’s allegorization, and not, as we should have done, the objects represented. Does any of our readers, with all the advantage of the reviewer’s explanation, recognise the importance of this distinction? Or can he tell how it serves to explicate the Apostle’s argument? I cannot imagine how any one should do so? In itself it might have been of no moment, though it is of much for the Apostle’s [[@Page:52]] argument, whether Hagar and Sarah be said to represent the two covenants of law and grace, or the two covenants be said to represent them; as in Heb. 9:24, it is of no moment whether the earthly sanctuary be called the antitype of the heavenly, or the heavenly of the earthly. There is in both cases alike a mutual representation, or relative correspondence; and it is the nature of the correspondence, inferior and preparatory in the one case, spiritual and ultimate in the other, which is chiefly important. It is that (though entirely overlooked by the reviewer) which makes the Apostle’s appeal here to the historical transactions in the family of Abraham suitable and appropriate to the object he has in view. For it is by the mothers and their natural offspring he intends to throw light on the covenants, and their respective tendencies and results. It was the earlier that exemplified and illustrated the later, not the later that exemplified and illustrated the earlier; otherwise the reference of the Apostle is misplaced, and the reasoning he founds on it manifestly inept.

One specimen more of this school of interpretation, and we leave it. Among the passages of Scripture that were referred to, as indicating a typical relationship between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, is Matt. 2:15, where the evangelist speaks of Christ being in Egypt till the death of Herod, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called My Son.” The allusion to this passage in the first, as well as in the present, edition of this work, was never meant to convey the idea that it was the only Scriptural authority for concluding a typical relationship to have subsisted between Israel and Christ. It was, however, referred to as one of the passages most commonly employed by typological writers in proof of such a relationship, and in itself most obviously implying it. But what says our opponent? “The language of Matthew does not imply that it (the passage in Hosea) was a prophecy of Christ; he simply states, that Jesus continued in Egypt till Herod’s death, so that that occurred in respect to Him which had been spoken by Jehovah by the prophet, Out of Egypt have I called My Son; or, in other words, so that that was accomplished in respect to Christ which had been related by the prophet of Israel.” Was there not good [[@Page:53]] reason for indicating a close affinity between the typological principles of this writer, and the loose interpretations of rationalism? One might suppose that it was a comment of Paulas or Kuinoel that we are here presented with, and we transfer their paraphrase and notes to the bottom of the page, to show how entirely they agree in spirit.[26] If the Evangelist simply meant what is ascribed to him, it was surely strange that he should have taken so peculiar a way to express it. But if the words he employs plainly intimate such a connection between Christ and Israel, as gave to the testimony in Hosea the force of a prophecy (which is the natural impression made by the reference), who has any right to tame down his meaning to a sense that would entirely eliminate this prophetical element,—the very element to which, apparently, he was anxious to give prominence? What we have here to deal with is inspired testimony respecting the connection between Israel and Christ; and it cannot have justice done to it, unless it is taken in its broad and palpable import. (See further, under Ch. IV., and Appendix A., c. 4.)

2. We turn now to the other class of writers, whose aim it has been in recent times to enlarge and widen the typological field. The chief, and for some time the only distinguished representatives of it were to be found in Germany; as it was there also that the new and more profound spirit of investigation began to develop itself. Near the commencement of the present century the religions of antiquity began to form the subject of more thoughtful and learned inquiry, and a depth of meaning was discovered (sometimes perhaps only thought to be discovered) in the myths and external symbols of these, which in the preceding century was not so much as dreamt of. Creuzer, in particular, by his great work (Symbolik) created quite a sensation in this department of learning, and opened up what seemed to be an entirely new field of research. He was followed by Baur (Symbolik und Mythologie), Görres (Mythengeschichte), Müller, and others of less note, each [[@Page:54]] endeavouring to proceed farther than preceding inquirers into the explication of the religious views of the ancients, by weaving together and interpreting what is known of their historical legends and ritual services. These inquiries were at first conducted merely in the way of antiquarian research and philosophical speculation; and the religion of the Old Testament was deemed, in that point of view, too unimportant to be made the subject of special consideration. Creuzer only here and there throws out some passing allusions to it. Even Baur, though a theologian, enters into no regular investigation of the symbols of Judaism, while he expatiates at great length on all the varieties of Heathenism. By and by, however, a better spirit appeared. Mosaism, as the religion of the Old Testament is called, had a distinct place allotted it by Görres among the ancient religions of Asia. And at last it was itself treated at great length, and with distinguished learning and ability, in a separate work the Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus of Bähr (published in 1837-9). This continues still (1863) to hold an important place in Germany on the subject of the Mosaic symbols, although it is pervaded by fundamental errors of the gravest kind (to which we shall afterwards have occasion to advert), and not unfrequently falls into fanciful views on particular parts. Some of these were met by Hengstenberg in the second volume of his Authentie des Pentateuchus, who has also furnished many good typical illustrations in his Christology and other exegetical works. Tholuck, in his Commentary on the Hebrews, has followed in the same tract, generally adopting the explanations of Hengstenberg, and still more recently (chiefly since the publication of our first edition), further contributions have been made particularly by Kurtz, Baumgarten, Delitzsch. Even De Wette, in his old age, caught something of this new spirit; and after many an effort to depreciate apostolic Christianity by detecting in it symptoms of Judaical weakness and bigotry, he made at least one commendable effort in the nobler direction of elevating Judaism, by pointing to the manifold germs it contained of a spiritual Christianity. In a passage quoted by Bähr (vol. i., p. 16, from an article by De Wette on the “Characteristik des Hebraismus”), he says—”Christianity sprang out of Judaism. Long before Christ appeared, the world [[@Page:55]] was prepared for His appearance: the entire Old Testament is a great prophecy, a great type of Him who was to come, and has come. Who can deny that the holy seers of the Old Testament saw in spirit the advent of Christ long before He came, and in prophetic anticipations, sometimes more, sometimes less clear, descried the new doctrine? The typological comparison, also, of the Old Testament with the New, was by no means a mere play of fancy; nor can it be regarded as altogether the result of accident, that the evangelical history, in the most important particulars, runs parallel with the Mosaic. Christianity lay in Judaism as leaves and fruits do in the seed, though certainly it needed the divine sun to bring them forth.”

Such language, especially as coming from such a quarter, undoubtedly indicated a marked change. Yet it must not be supposed, on reading so strong a testimony, as if everything were already conceded; for what by such writers as De Wette is granted in the general, is often denied or explained away in the particular. Even the idea of a coming Messiah, as expressed in the page of prophecy, was held to be little more than a patriotic hope, the natural product of certain circumstances connected with the Israelitish nation (see Hengs. Christology, vol. iv., p. 391, Trans.). Nor did the new light thus introduced lead to any well-grounded and regularly developed system of typo logy, based on a clear and comprehensive view of the Divine dispensations. Bähr confined himself almost entirely to the mere interpretation of the symbols of the Mosaic dispensation, and hence, even when his views were correct, rather furnished the materials for constructing a proper typological system, than himself provided. And it has been noted by Tholuck and other learned men as a defect in their literature, that they are without any work on the subject suited to the existing position and demands of theological science.[27]

[[@Page:56]] It is to be observed, however, that this new current of opinion among the better part of theologians on the Continent, leads them to find the typical element widely diffused through the historical and prophetical, as well as the more strictly religious portions of the Old Testament. No one who is in any degree acquainted with the exegetical productions of Hengstenberg and Olshausen, now made accessible to English readers, can have failed to perceive this, from the tone of their occasional references and illustrations. Their unbiassed exegetical spirit rendered it impossible for them to do otherwise; for the same connection, they perceived, runs like a thread through all the parts, and binds them together into a consistent whole. Indeed, the only formal attempt made to work out a new system of typological interpretation, prior to the incomplete treatise mentioned in the last note,—the essay of Olshausen (published in 1824, and consisting only of 124 widely printed pages), entitled, Ein Wort uber tiefern Schriftsinn,—has respect almost exclusively to the historical and prophetical parts of ancient Scripture. When he comes distinctly to unfold what he calls the deeper exposition of Scripture, he contents himself with a brief elucidation of the following points:—That Israel’s relation to God is represented in Scripture as forming an image of all and each of mankind, in so far as the divine life is possessed by them—that Israel’s relation to the surrounding heathen in like manner imaged the conflict of all spiritual men with the evil in the world that a parallelism is drawn between Israel and Christ as the one who completely realized what Israel should have been—and that all real children of God again image what, in the whole, is found imperfectly in Israel and perfectly in Christ (pp. 87-110).

These positions, it must be confessed, indicate a considerable degree of vagueness and generality; and the treatise, as a whole, is defective in first principles and logical precision, as well as [[@Page:57]] fulness of investigation. Klausen, in the following extract from his Hermeneutik, pp. 334-345, has given a fair outline of Olshausen’s views: “We must distinguish between a false and a genuine allegorical exposition, which latter has the support of the highest authority, though it alone has it, being frequently employed by the inspired writers of the New Testament. The fundamental error in the common allegorizing, from which all its arbitrariness has sprung, bidding defiance to every sound principle of exposition, must be sought in this, that a double sense has been attributed to Scripture, and one of them consequently a sense entirely different from that which is indicated by the words. Accordingly, the characteristic of the genuine allegorical exposition must be, that it recognises no sense besides the literal one none differing from this in nature, as from the historical reality of what is recorded; but only a deeper-lying sense ὑπόνοια, bound up with the literal meaning by an internal and essential connection a sense given along with this and in it; so that it must present itself whenever the subject is considered from the higher point of view, and is capable of being ascertained by fixed rules. Hence, if the question be regarding the fundamental principles, according to which the connection must be made out between the deeper apprehension and the immediate sense conveyed by the words, these have their foundation in the law of general harmony, by which all individuals, in the natural as well as in the spiritual world, form one great organic system the law by which all phenomena, whether belonging to a higher or a lower sphere, appear as copies of what essentially belongs to their respective ideas; so that the whole is represented in the individual, and the individual again in the whole. This mysterious relation comes most prominently out in the history of the Jewish people and their worship. But something analogous everywhere discovers itself; and in the manner in which the Old Testament is expounded in the New, we are furnished with the rules for all exposition of the Word, of nature, and of history.”

The vague and unsatisfactory character of this mode of representation, is evident almost at first sight; the elements of truth contained in it are neither solidly grounded nor sufficiently guarded against abuse; so that, with some justice, Klausen [[@Page:58]] remarks, in opposition to it,—”The allegorizing may perhaps be applied with greater moderation and better taste than formerly; but against the old principle, though revived as often as put down,—viz., that every sense which can be found in the words has a right to be regarded as the sense of the words,—the same exceptions will always be taken.” If the Typology of Scripture cannot be rescued from the domain of allegorizings, it will be impossible to secure for it a solid and permanent footing. It cannot attain to this while coupled with allegorical licence, or with a nearer and deeper sense. It is proper to add, that Klausen himself has no place in his Hermeneutik for typical, as distinguished from allegorical interpretations. In common with Hermeneutical writers generally, he regards these as substantially the same in kind; and the one only as the excess of the other. Some application he would allow of Old Testament Scripture to the realities of the Gospel, in consideration of what is said by inspired writers of the relation subsisting between the two; but he conceives that relation to be of a kind which scarcely admits of being brought to the test of historical truth, and that the examples furnished of it in the New Testament arose from necessity rather than from choice.

Later writers generally, however, on the Continent, who have meditated with a profound and thoughtful spirit on the history of the Divine dispensations, have shown a disposition to tread in the footsteps of Olshausen rather than of Klausen. And it cannot but be regarded as a striking exemplification of the revolving cycles through which theological opinion is sometimes found to pass, that after two centuries of speculation and inquiry, a substantial return has been made by some of the ablest of these divines—though by diverse routes—to the more fundamental principles of the Cocceian school. It was characteristic of that school to contemplate the dispensations chiefly from the divine point of view; according to which, the end being eyed from the beginning, the things pertaining to the end were often, by a not unnatural consequence, made to throw back their light too distinctly on those of the beginning, and the progressive nature of the Divine economy was not sufficiently regarded. It was further characteristic of the same school, that, viewing everything in the scheme of God as planned with reference[[@Page:59]] to redemption, they were little disposed to discriminate in this respect between one portion of the earlier things belonging to it and another; wherever they could trace a resemblance, there also they descried a type; and everything in the history as well as in the institutions of the Old Covenant, was brought into connection with the realities of the Gospel. Now, these two fundamental characteristics of Cocceianism, somewhat differently grounded, and still more differently applied, are precisely those to which peculiar prominence is given in the writings of such men as Hofmann, Kurtz, Lange, and others of the present day. The first of these, in a work (Weissagung und Erfüllung, 1841-44) which, from its spirit of independent inquiry, and the fresh veins of thought it not unfrequently opened up, exerted an influence upon many who had no sympathy with the doctrinal conclusions of the author, made even more of the typical element in Old Testament history than was done by the Cocceians. It is in the typical character of history, rather than in the prophetic announcements which accompanied it, that he would find the germ and presage of the future realities of the Gospel: the history foreshadowed these; the prophets, acting as the men of superior discernment, simply perceived and interpreted what was in the history. Therefore, to elevate the historical and depress the prophetical in Old Testament Scripture, might be regarded as the general aim of Hofmann’s undertaking; yet only formally and relatively to do so: for, as expressive of the religious state and development of the covenant people, both were in reality depressed, and the sacred put much on a level with the profane. This will sufficiently appear from the following illustration:—”Every triumphal procession which passed through the streets of Rome was a prophecy of Augustus Cassar; for what he displayed through the whole of his career, was here displayed by the triumphant general on his day of honour,—namely, the God in the man, Jupiter in the Roman citizen. In the fact that Rome paid such honours to its victorious commanders, it pointed to the future, when it should rule the world through the great emperor, to whom divine honours would be paid.” This he brings into comparison with the allusion made in John 19:36 to the ordinance respecting the passover lamb, that a bone of it should not be broken; and [[@Page:60]] then adds, “The meaning of the triumph was not fully realized in the constantly recurring triumphal processions; and so also the meaning of the passover was not fully realized in the yearly passover meals; but the essential meaning of both was to be fully developed at some future period, when the prophecy contained in them should also be fully confirmed” (I., p. 15). But what, one naturally asks, did the prophecy in such cases amount to? It will scarcely be alleged, that even the most gifted Roman citizen, who lived during the period of triumphal processions, could with any certainty have descried in these the future possessor of the imperial throne. It could at the most have been but a vague anticipation or probable conjecture,—if so much as that; for, however the elevation of Augustus to that dignity might, after the event actually occurred, have come to be regarded “as the top-stone and culminating point in the history,” assuredly the better spirits of the commonwealth were little disposed to long for such a culmination, or to think of it beforehand as among the destinies of the future. It is only as contemplated from the divine point of view, that the triumphal procession could with any propriety be said to foreshadow the imperial dignity,—a point of view which the event alone rendered it possible for men to apprehend; and the so-called prophecy, therefore, when closely considered and designated by its proper name, was merely the divine purpose secretly moulding the events which were in progress, and, through these, marching on to its accomplishment. This, and nothing more (since Zion is put on a footing with Rome) is the kind of prophecy which Hofmann would find, and find exclusively, in the facts and circumstances of Israelitish history. Because they in reality culminated in the wonders of redemption, they might be said to mark the progression of the Divine procedure toward that as its final aim. But who could meanwhile conjecture that there was any such goal in prospect? The prophets, it is affirmed, could not rise above the movements of the current history; not even the seers, by way of eminence, could penetrate further into the future than existing relations and occurrences might carry them. What signified it, then, that a latent prophecy lay enwrapped in the history? There was no hand to remove the veil and disclose the secret. The prophecy as such was known only in [[@Page:61]] the heavenly sphere; and the whole that could be found in the human was some general conviction or vague hope that principles were at work, or a plan was in progress, which seemed to be tending to loftier issues than had yet been reached.

This scheme of Hofmann is too manifestly an exaggeration of a particular aspect of the truth to be generally accepted as a just explanation of the whole; by soaring too high in one direction, fixing the eye too exclusively on the Divine side of things, it leaves the human bereft of its proper significance and value—reduces it, in fact, to a rationalistic basis. Hengstenberg has justly said of it, in the last edition of his Christology (vol. iv., p. 389), that “by overthrowing prophecy, in the strict sense, it necessarily involves acted prophecy (or type) in the same fate; and that it is nothing but an illusion to attempt to elevate types at the expense of prophecy.” Without, however, attempting after this fashion to sacrifice the one of these for the sake of the other, various theologians have sought to combine them, so as to make the one the proper complement of the other two divinely-appointed factors in the production of a common result, such as the necessities of the Church required. Thus Kurtz (Hist, of Old Cov., Introd., § 7, 8), while he contends for the proper function of prophecy, as having to do with the future not less than the present, maintains that the history also of the Old Covenant was prophetic, “both because it fore shadows, and because it stands in living and continuous relation to, the plan of salvation which was going to be manifested.” He thinks it belongs to prophecy alone to disclose, with requisite freedom and distinctness, the connection between what at any particular time was possessed and what was still wanted, or between the fulfilments of promise already made and the expectations which remained to be satisfied; but, in doing this, prophecy serves itself of the history as not only providing the occasion, but also containing the germ of what was to come. He therefore holds that the sacred history possesses a typical character, which appears prominently, continuously, markedly in decided outlines, and in a manner patent not only to posterity, but, by the assistance of prophecy, to contemporaries also, according to the measure that their spiritual capacity might enable them to receive it. This character belongs alike to events, institutions,[[@Page:62]] and dispensations; but in what manner or to what extent it is to be carried out in particular cases, nothing beyond a few general lines have been indicated.

These views of the typical element contained in the history and institutions of the Old Covenant, while they present certain fundamental agreements with the principles of the Cocceian school, have this also in common with it, that they take the need for redemption—the fall of man—as the proper starting-point alike for type and prophecy. But another and influential class of theologians, having its representatives in this country as well as on the Continent, has of late advanced a step further, and holds that creation itself, and the state and circumstances of man before as well as after the fall, equally possessed a typical character, being from the outset inwrought with prophetic indications of the person and kingdom of Christ. To this class belong all who have espoused the position (not properly a new one, for it is well known to have been maintained by some of the scholastic divines), that the incarnation of Godhead in the person of Christ was destined to take place irrespective of the fall, and that the circumstances connected with this only determined the specific form in which He was to appear, and the nature of the work He had to do, but not the purpose itself of a personal indwelling of Godhead in the flesh of man, which is held to have been indispensable for the full manifestation of the Divine character, and the perfecting of the idea of humanity. The advocates of this view include Lange, Dorner, Liebner, Ebrard, Martensen, with several others of reputation in Ger many, and in this country, Dean Trench (in his Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge). Along with these there are others—in particular, Dr M’Cosh, the late Hugh Miller, also the late Mr M Donald of Edinkillie—who, without properly committing themselves to this view of the incarnation, yet, on the ground of the analogy pervading the fields alike of nature and redemption in respect to the prevalence of typical forms, on this ground at least, more especially and peculiarly, hold not less decidedly than the theologians above named, the existence of a typical element in the original frame and constitution of things.

Such being the turn that later speculations upon this subject [[@Page:63]] have taken, it manifestly becomes necessary to examine all the more carefully into the nature and properties of a type. We must endeavour to arrive (if possible) at some definite ideas and fundamental principles on the general subject, before entering on the consideration of the particular modes of revelation by type, which undoubtedly constitute the great mass of what in Scripture is invested with such a character, and to which, with a view to the right understanding and proper application of these, our inquiry must be mainly directed.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Opera, Vol. II., p. 88, Ed. Delarue.

[2] Ibid., p. 29.

[3] See, however, a thorough specimen of allegorizing after the manner of Origen, on the “Sacramentum,” involved in the name and office of Abishag, in Jerome’s letter to Nepotianus (Ep. 52 Ed. Yallars.), indicating, as he thinks, the larger development of wisdom in men of advanced age.

[4] On Psalm 41.

[5] On Psalm 42.

[6] The major part of our readers, perhaps, may be of opinion that they have already been detained too long with the subject, believing that such interpretations are for ever numbered among the things that were. So we were ourselves disposed to think. And yet we have lived to see a substantial revival of the allegorical style of interpretation, in a work of comparatively recent date, and a work that bears the marks of an accomplished and superior mind. We refer to that portion of Mr Worsley’s Produce of the Intellect in Religion, which treats of the Patriarchs in their Christian Import, and the Apostles as the Completion of the Patriarchs. His notion respecting the Patriarchs briefly is, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob respectively, “present to us the eternal triune object” of worship,—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that the marriages of the Patriarchs symbolize God’s union with His church, and with each member of it; and especially is this done through the wives and children of Jacob, at least in regard to its practical tendency and sanctifying results. In making out the scheme, the names of the persons mentioned in the history are peculiarly dwelt upon, as furnishing a sort of key to the allegorical interpretation. Thus Leah, whose name means wearisome and fatiguing labour, was the symbol of “services and works which are of little worth in themselves—labours rather of a painful and reluctant duty, than of a free and joyful love.” “She sets forth to us that fundamental repulsiveness or stubbornness of our nature, whose proper and ordained discipline is the daily taskwork of duty, as done not to man, nor to self, but to God.” Afterwards, Leah is identified with the ox, as the symbol of stubbornness and wearisome labour; and so “with Leah the ox symbolizes our taskwork of duty, and our capacity for it,” while the sheep (Rachel signifying sheep) symbolizes “our labours of love, i.e., our real rest and capacity for it.” (P. 71, 113, 128.) It may be conjectured from this specimen what ingenuities require to be plied before the author can get through all the twelve sons of Jacob, so as to make them symbols of the different graces and operations of a Christian life. We object to the entire scheme.—1. Because it is perfectly arbitrary. Though Scripture sometimes warrants us in laying stress on names, as expressive of spiritual ideas or truths connected with the persons they belong to, yet it is only when the history itself draws attention to them, and even then they never stand alone, as the names often do with Mr Worsley, the only keys to the import of the transactions: as if, where acts entirely fail, or where they appear to be at variance with the symbolical ideal, the key were still to be found in the name. Scripture nowhere, for example, lays any stress upon the names of Leah and Rachel; while it very pointedly refers to the bad eyes of the one, and the attractive comeliness of the other. And if we were inclined to allegorize at all, we should deem it more natural, with Justin Martyr (Trypho, c. 42) and Jerome (on Hos. 12:3), to regard Leah as the symbol of the blear-eyed Jewish church, and Rachel of the beloved church of the Gospel. Even this, however, is quite arbitrary, for there is nothing properly in common between the symbol and the thing symbolized—no real bond of connection uniting them together. And if by tracing out such lines of resemblance, we might indulge in a pleasing exercise of fancy, we can never deduce from them a revelation of God’s mind and will. 2. But further, such explanations offend against great fundamental principles—the principle, for example, that the Father cannot be represented as entering into union with the Church, viewed as distinct from the Son and the Spirit; and the principle that a sinful act or an improper relation cannot be the symbol of what is divine and holy. In such a case there never can be any real agreement. “Who, indeed, can calmly contemplate the idea of Abraham’s connection with Hagar, or Jacob’s connection with the two sisters and their handmaids—in themselves both manifestly wrong, and receiving on them manifest tokens of God’s displeasure in providence—should be the chosen symbol of God’s own relation to the Church? How very different an allegorizing of this sort is from the typical use made of them in Scripture will be shown in the sequel.

[7] On Gal. 4:26.

[8] On Gal. 4:22.

[9] Philologia Sac. Lib. II. P. I. Tract. II. Sect. 4. Vitringa Obs. Sac. Vol. II. Lib. VI. c. 20. Witsius De (Econom. Lib. IV. c. 6.

[10] The Figures and Types of the Old Testament.

[11] Key to open the Scripture Metaphors and Types.

[12] The Types Unveiled; or, The Gospel Picked out of the Legal Ceremonies.

[13] Moses and Aaron.

[14] Moses Unveiled.

[15] In the reference made above to the beginnings of David’s kingdom, it will be understood that the characters he associated with himself are simply viewed in the light contemplated by the writers more immediately in view. My own conviction is, that 1 Sam. 22:2, if rightly interpreted, would present those who gathered themselves to David as spiritually the better sort in Israel those who were partly made bankrupt by oppression, and partly were grieved and vexed in their minds at the existing state of things.

[16] The following critique of Buddeus, which belongs to the earlier part of last century, already points in this direction: “It cannot certainly be denied that the Cocceians, at least some of them, have carried this matter too far. For, besides that they everywhere seem to find images and types of future things, where other people can discern none, when they come to make the application to the antitype, they not unfrequently descend to minute and even trifling things, nay, advance what is utterly insignificant and ludicrous, exposing holy writ to the mockery of the profane. And here it may be proper to notice the fates of exegetical theology; since that in temperate rage for allegories which appeared in Origen and the Fathers, and which had been condemned by the schoolmen, was again, after an interval, though under a different form, produced anew upon the stage. For this typical interpretation differs from the allegorical only in the circumstance, that respect is had in it to the future things which are adumbrated by the types; and so, the typical may be regarded as a sort of allegorical interpretation. But in either way the amplest scope is afforded for the play of a luxuriant fancy and a fertile invention.”—I. F. Buddei Isagoge II. hist. Theolog. 1830.

[17] Obs. Sac. Vol. II., p. 460, 461.

[18] Clarke’s Evidences, p. 420, sq. Jortin’s Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, Vol. I., p. 138-152.

[19] Grace and Truth, or the Glory and Fulness of the Redeemer displayed, in an attempt to explain the Types, Figures, and Allegories of the Old Testament, by the Rev. AY. M’Ewen.

[20] Hutchinson’s Works, Vol. I., p. 202.

[21] Ibid., Vol. VII., p. 325.

[22] Lectures, p. 373.

[23] Stuart’s Ernesti, p. 13.

[24] We don’t vouch, of course, for the absolute completeness of the above list. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to know what would be regarded as a complete list—some feeling satisfied with an amount of recognition in Scripture which seems quite insufficient in the eyes of others. There have been those who, on the strength of Gen. 49:24, would insert Joseph among the specially mentioned types, and claim also Sampson, on account of what is written in Judges 13:5. But scriptural warrants of such a kind are out of date now—they can no longer be regarded as current coin. On the other hand, there are not a few who deem the scriptural warrant insufficient for some of those we have specified, and think the passages where they are noticed refer to them merely in the way of illustration. The list, however, comprises what are usually regarded as historical types, possessing distinct scriptural authority, by writers belonging to the school of Marsh. The arguments of those who would discard them altogether will be considered under next division.

[25] Lectures, p. 372.

[26] Kuinoel: Ut adco hie recte possit laudari, quod dominus olim interprete propheta dixit, nempe: ex AEgypto vocavi filium meum. Paulus: “πληροῦσθαι is here fulfilling, as denoting a completion after the resemblance;” and he adopts as his own Ernesti’s paraphrase, “Here one might say with greater justice (in a fuller sense) what Hosea said of Israel.”

[27] This defect cannot yet be said to have been supplied; not by the Symbolique du Culte de L’ Ancienne Alliance (1860) of Neumann, published since the above was written the work of a German, though written—in French. For not only is the work incomplete (the first part only having appeared), but it possesses more the nature of a condensed sketch or outline of the subject, than a full investigation. So far as it goes, it is written with clearness and vigour, contains some fine thoughts, and is pervaded by an earnest and elevated spirit. Justice requires me to add, that it appears to be marred by two misleading tendencies: one of excess attempting to carry religion too much into the domain of science (for example, in the use made of Goethe’s Theory of Colours to explain some of the Old Testament symbols); the other of defect—viewing religion almost, if not altogether exclusively, on the subjective side, which necessarily leads to certain meagre and arbitrary explanations. Reference may possibly be made to some of them in the sequel.

Chapter Second.—The Proper Nature and Province of Typology.—1. Scriptural Use of The Word Type Comparison of This with The Theological Distinctive Characteristics of a Typical Relationship, Viewed with Respect to The Religious Institutions of The Old Testament.

[[@Page:64]] THE language of Scripture being essentially popular, its use of particular terms naturally partakes of the freedom and variety which are wont to appear in the current speech of a people; and it rarely if ever happens, that words are employed, in respect to topics requiring theological treatment, with such precision and uniformity as to enable us, from this source alone, to attain to proper accuracy and fulness. The word type (τύπος) forms no exception to this usage. Occurring once, at least, in the natural sense of mark or impress made by a hard substance on one of softer material (John 20:25), it commonly bears the general import of model, pattern, or exemplar, but with such a wide diversity of application as to comprehend a material object of worship, or idol (Acts 7:43), an external framework constructed for the service of God (Acts 7:44, Heb. 8:5), the form or copy of an epistle (Acts 23:25), a method of doctrinal instruction delivered by the first heralds and teachers of the Gospel (Rom. 6:17), a representative character, or, in certain respects, normal example (Rom. 5:14, 1 Cor. 10:11, Phil. 3:17, 1 Thess. 1:7, 1 Pet. 5:3). Such in New Testament Scripture is the diversified use of the word type (disguised, however, under other terms in the authorized version). It is only in the last of the applications noticed, that it has any distinct bearing on the subject of our present inquiry; and this also comprises under it so much of diversity, that if we were to draw our definition of a type simply from the Scriptural use of the term, we could give no more specific description of it than this—a certain pattern or exemplar exhibited in the position and character of some individuals, [[@Page:65]] to which others may or should be conformed. Adam stood, we are told, in the relation of a type to the coming Messiah, backsliding Israelites in their guilt and punishment to similar characters in Christian times, faithful pastors to their flocks, first converts to those who should afterwards believe,—a manifestly varied relationship, closer in some than in others, yet in each implying a certain resemblance between the parties associated together; something in the one that admitted of being virtually reproduced in the other. Thus defined and understood, it will be observed, also, that a type is no more peculiar to one dispensation than another. It is to be found now in the true pastor or the exemplary Christian as well as formerly in Adam or in Israel; and since believers generally are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, he might, of course, be designated for all times emphatically and preeminently the type of the Church.

But presented in this loose and general form, there is nothing in the nature of a type that can be said to call for particular investigation, or that may occasion material difference of opinion. The subject involves only a few leading ideas, which are familiar to every intelligent reader of Scripture, and which can prove of small avail to the satisfactory explication of what is peculiar in the history of the Divine dispensations. When, however, with reference more to the subject itself than to the mere employment of a particular word in connection with it, we pursue our researches into the testimony of Scripture, we presently find relations indicated between one class of things and another, which, while the same in kind, perhaps, with those just noticed, have yet distinctive features of their own, which call for thoughtful inquiry and discriminating treatment. These have already to some extent come into consideration in the historical and critical review that has been presented of past opinion (see p. 41 sq.). It is enough to refer here to such passages as Heb. 9:24 where the holy places of the earthly tabernacle are called the antitypes (ἀντίτυπα) of the true or heavenly; the latter, of course, according to this somewhat peculiar phraseology, being viewed as the types of the other: Heb. 8:5—where the whole structure of the tabernacle, with its appointed ritual of service, is designated an example and shadow (ὑπόδειγμα σκία) of heavenly things: Ps. 110:4; Heb. 6:10-12, 7—where Melchizedek is [[@Page:66]] exalted over the ministering priesthood of that tabernacle, as bearing in some important respects a still closer relationship to Christ than was given them to occupy: 1 Pet. 3:21—where Christian baptism is denominated the antitype to the deluge, and by implication the deluge is made the type of baptism: Matt. 2:15; Luke 22:16; 1 Cor. 5:7; John 2:19, 6:31-33; 1 Cor. 10:4—where Christ is in a manner identified with the corporate Israel, the passover, the temple, the manna, the water-giving rock. When reading these passages, and others of a like description, our minds instinctively inquire—what is the nature of the connection indicated by them between the past and the present in God’s economy? Is it such as subsists between things alike in principle, but diverse in form? Between things on the same spiritual level, or things rising from a lower to a higher level? Is the connection strictly the same in all, or does it vary with the objects and parties compared? What light is thrown by the different elements entering into it upon the revealed character of God, and the progressive condition of His Church? Can we discover in them the lines of a divine harmony in the one respect, and of a human harmony in the other? Such are the questions which here naturally press on us for solution; and they are questions altogether occasioned by peculiarities in preceding dispensations as compared with that of the Gospel. The relation of the present to the still coming future—which is that simply of the initial to the terminal processes of the salvation already accomplished—is of a much less complicated and embarrassing kind, and can scarcely be said to give rise to questions of the class now specified.

In another respect, however, substantially the same questions arise namely, in connection with much that is indicated of the anticipated future of the Christian Church, pointing, as it does, even after Christian realities had come, to further developments of the forms and relations of earlier times. For in the prospective delineations which are given us in Scripture respecting the final issues of Christ’s kingdom among men, while the foundation of all undoubtedly lies in the mediatorial work and offices of Christ Himself, it still is through the characters, ordinances, and events of the Old Covenant, not those of the New (with the exception just specified), that the things to come[[@Page:67]] are shadowed forth to the eye of faith; the forms of things in the remote past have here also, it would seem, to find their proper complement and destined realization. Thus, Israel still appears, among the prophetic glimpses in question, with his twelve tribes, his marvellous redemption, wilderness-sojourn, and rescued inheritance (Matt. 19:28; Rev. 7:4-17, 12:14, 15:3); and the tabernacle or temple, with its courts and sanctuaries, its ark of testimony and cherubim of glory, its altars and offerings (2 Thess. 2:4; Rev. 4:7, 8, 8:3, 11:1, 2, 15:6-8, 21:3); and the ancient priesthood, with their linen robes and angel-like service (Rev. 4:4, 15:6); Zion and Jerusalem, Babylon and Euphrates, Sodom and Egypt (Heb. 12:22; Rev. 11:8, 14:1-8, 16:12, 21:2); and more remote still, especially when the mystery of God in Christ is seen approaching its consummation, paradise with its tree of life and rivers of gladness, its perennial delights, and over all its heaven-crowned Lord, with the spouse formed from Himself to share with Him in the glory, and yield Him faithful service in the kingdom (Rev. 2:7, 7:17, 19:7, 21:9). No more, amid the anticipations of Christian faith and hope, are we permitted to lose sight of the personages and materials of the earlier dispensations, than in those which took shape under pre-Christian times.

Having respect, therefore, to the nature of the subject under consideration, and the more peculiar difficulties attending it, rather than to the infrequent and variable use of the word type in Scripture, theologians have been wont to distinguish between existing relationships (such as of a pastor to his people, or of Christ to the heirs of His glory) and those which connect together bygone with Christian times—the things pertaining to the Old with those pertaining to the New Covenant. The former alone they have usually designated by the name of types, the latter by that of antitypes. This mode of distinguishing by theologians has been represented as an unwise departure from Scriptural usage, and in itself necessarily fitted to mislead.[1] It [[@Page:68]] admits, however, of a reasonable justification; and to treat the subject with anything like scientific precision and fulness, without determining after such a method the respective provinces of type and antitype, would be found extremely inconvenient, if not impracticable. The testimony of Scripture itself, when fairly consulted, affords ground for the distinction indicated, in a great measure apart from and beyond the application of the specific terms. By adhering closely to its usage in respect to these, and disregarding other considerations, one might readily enough, indeed, present some popular illustrations, or throw off a few general outlines of the typical field; but to get at its more distinctive characteristics, and explicate with some degree of satisfaction the difficulties with which it invests, to our view, the evolution of God’s plan and ways, is a different thing, and demands a greatly more exact and comprehensive line of investigation. The extravagance which has too often characterized the speculations of divines upon the subject has arisen, not from their devising a theological sense for the word type(which Scripture itself might be said to force on them), but from their failure to search out the fundamental principles involved in the whole representations of Scripture, and to make a judicious and discriminating application of the light thence arising to the different parts of the subject.[2]

Understanding the word type, then, in the theological sense,—that is, conceiving its strictly proper and distinctive sphere to lie in the relations of the old to the new, or the earlier to the later, in God’s dispensations,—there are two things which, by general consent, are held to enter into the constitution of a type. It is held, first, that in the character, action, or institution which is denominated the type, there must be a resemblance in form or spirit to what answers to it under the Gospel; and secondly, that it must not be any character, action, or institution occurring in Old Testament Scripture, but such only as had their ordination of God, and were designed by Him to foreshadow and prepare for the better things of the Gospel. For, as Bishop Marsh has justly remarked, “to constitute one thing the type of another, something more is wanted than mere resemblance. [[@Page:69]] The former must not only resemble the latter, but must have been designed to resemble the latter. It must have been so designed in its original institution. It must have been designed as something preparatory to the latter. The type as well as the antitype must have been pre-ordained; and they must have been pre-ordained as constituent parts of the same general scheme of Divine Providence. It is this previous design and this pre-ordained connection [together, of course, with the resemblance], which constitute the relation of type and antitype.”[3] We insert, together with the resemblance; for, while stress is justly laid on the previous design and pre-ordained connection, the resemblance also forms an indispensable element in this very connection, and is, in fact, the point that involves the more peculiar difficulties belonging to the subject, and calls for the closest investigation.

I. We begin, therefore, with the other point the previous design and pre-ordained connection necessarily entering into the relation between type and antitype. A relation so formed, and subsisting to any extent between Old and New Testament things, evidently presupposes and implies two important facts. It implies, first, that the realities of the Gospel, which constitute the antitypes, are the ultimate objects which were contemplated by the mind of God, when planning the economy of His successive dispensations. And it implies, secondly, that to prepare the way for the introduction of these ultimate objects, He placed the Church under a course of training, which included instruction by types, or designed and fitting resemblances of what was to come. Both of these facts are so distinctly stated in Scripture, and, indeed, so generally admitted, that it will be unnecessary to do more than present a brief outline of the proof on which they rest.

1. In regard to the first of the two facts, we find the designation of “the ends of the world” applied in Scripture to the Gospel-age;[4] and that not so much in respect to its posteriority in point of time, as to its comparative maturity in regard to the things of salvation the higher and better things having now come, which had hitherto appeared only in prospect or existed [[@Page:70]] but in embryo. On the same account the Gospel dispensation is called “the dispensation of the fulness of times;”[5] indicating, that with it alone the great objects of faith and hope, which the Church was from the first destined to possess, were properly brought within her reach. Only with the entrance also of this dispensation does the great mystery of God, in connection with man’s salvation, come to be disclosed, and the light of a new and more glorious era at last breaks upon the Church. “The day-spring from the height,” in the expressive language of Zacharias, then appeared, and made manifest what had previously been wrapt in comparative obscurity, what had not even been distinctly conceived, far less satisfactorily enjoyed.[6] Here, therefore, in the sublime discoveries and abounding consolations of the Gospel, is the reality, in its depth and fulness, while in the earlier endowments and institutions of the Church there was no more than a shadowy exhibition and a partial experience;[7]and as a necessary consequence, the most eminent in spiritual light and privilege before, were still decidedly inferior even to the less distinguished members of the Messiah’s kingdom.[8] In a word, the blessed Redeemer, whom the Gospel reveals, is Himself the beginning and the end of the scheme of God’s dispensations; in Him is found alike the centre of Heaven’s plan, and the one foundation of human confidence and hope. So that before His coming into the world, all things of necessity pointed toward [[@Page:71]] Him; types and prophecies bore testimony to the things that concerned His work and kingdom; the children of blessing were blessed in anticipation of His promised redemption; and with His coming, the grand reality itself came, and the higher purposes of Heaven entered on their fulfilment.[9]

2. The other fact presupposed and implied in the relation between type and antitype,—namely, that God subjected the Church to a course of preparatory training, including instruction by types, before He introduced the realities of His final dispensation,—is written with equal distinctness in the page of inspiration. It is scarcely possible, indeed, to dissociate even in idea the one fact from the other; for, without such a course of preparation being perpetually in progress, the long delay which took place in the introduction of the Messiah’s kingdom would be quite inexplicable. Accordingly, the Church of the Old Testament is constantly represented as having been in a state of comparative childhood, supplied only with such means of instruction, and subjected to such methods of discipline as were suited to so imperfect and provisional a period of her being. Her law, in its higher aim and object, was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ (Gal. 3:24); and everything in her condition—what it wanted, as well as what it possessed, what was done for her, and what remained yet to be done—concurred in pointing the way to Him who was to come with the better promises and the perfected salvation (Heb. 7, 8, 9). Such is the plain import of a great many scriptures bearing on the subject.

It is to be noted, however, in regard to this course of preparation, continued through so many ages, that everything in the mode of instruction and discipline employed ought not to be regarded as employed simply for the sake of those who lived during its continuance. It was, no doubt, primarily introduced on their account, and must have been wisely adapted to their circumstances, as under preparation for better things to come. But, at the same time, it must also, like the early training of a well-educated youth, have been fitted to tell with beneficial effect on the spiritual life of the Church in her more advanced state of existence, after she had actually attained to those better things [[@Page:72]] themselves. The man of mature age, when pursuing his way amid the perplexing cares and busy avocations of life, finds himself continually indebted to the lessons he was taught and the skill he has acquired during the period of his early culture. And, in like manner, it was undoubtedly God’s intention that. His method of procedure toward the Church in her state of minority, not only should minister what was needed for her immediate instruction and improvement, but should also furnish materials of edification and comfort for believers to the end of time. If the earlier could not be made perfect without the things belonging to the later Church (Heb. 11:40), so neither, on the other hand, can the later profitably or even safely dispense with the advantage she may derive from the more simple and rudimentary things that belonged to the earlier. The Church, considered as God’s nursery for training souls to a meetness for immortal life and blessedness, is substantially the same through all periods of her existence; and the things which were appointed for the behoof of her members in one age, had in them also something of lasting benefit for those on whom the ends of the world are come (1 Cor. 10:6, 11).

It is farther to be noted, that in this work of preparation for the more perfect future, arrangements of a typical kind, being of a somewhat recondite nature, necessarily occupied a relative and subsidiary, rather than the primary and most essential place. The Church enjoyed from the first the benefit of direct and explicit instruction, imparted either immediately by the hand of God, or through the instrumentality of His accredited messengers. From this source she always derived her knowledge of the more fundamental truths of religion, and also her more definite expectations of the better things to come. The fact is of importance, both as determining the proper place of typical acts and institutions, and as indicating a kind of extraneous and qualifying element, that must not be overlooked in judging of the condition of believers under them. Yet they were not, on that account, rendered less valuable or necessary as constituent parts of a preparatory dispensation; for it was through them, as temporary expedients, and by virtue of the resemblances they possessed to the higher things in prospect, that the realities of Christ’s kingdom obtained a kind of present realization to the [[@Page:73]] eye of faith. What, then, was the nature of these resemblances. Wherein precisely did the similarity which formed more especially the preparatory elements in the Old, as compared with the New, really lie? This is the point that mainly calls for elucidation.

II. It is the second point we were to investigate, as being that which would necessarily require the most lengthened and careful examination. And the general statement we submit respecting it is, that two things were here essentially necessary: there must have been in the Old the same great elements of truth as in the things they represented under the New; and then, in the Old, these must have been exhibited in a form more level to the comprehension, more easily and distinctly cognizable by the minds of men.

1. There must have been, first, the same great elements of truth,—for the mind of God, and the circumstances of the fallen creature, are substantially the same at all times. What the spiritual necessities of men now are, they have been from the time that sin entered into the world. Hence the truth revealed by God to meet these necessities, however varying from time to time in the precise amount of its communications, and however differing also in the external form under which it might be presented, must have been, so far as disclosed, essentially one in every age. For, otherwise, what anomalous results would follow! If the principles unfolded in God’s communications to men, and on which he regulates His dealings toward them, were materially different at one period from what they are at another, then either the wants and necessities of men’s natural condition must have undergone a change,—or these being the same, as they undoubtedly are—the character of God must have altered—He cannot be the immutable Jehovah. Besides, the very idea of a course of preparatory dispensations were, on the supposition in question, manifestly excluded; since that could have had no proper ground to rest on, unless there was a deep-rooted and fundamental agreement between what was merely provisional and what was final and ultimate in the matter. The primary and essential elements of truth, therefore, which are embodied in the facts of the Gospel, and on which its economy of grace is based, cannot, in the nature of things, be of recent origin—as if they [[@Page:74]] were altogether peculiar to the New Testament dispensation, and had only begun with the entrance of it to obtain a place in the government of God. On the contrary, their existence must have formed the groundwork, and their varied manifestation the progress, of any preparatory dispensations that might be appointed. And whatever ulterior respect the typical characters, actions, or institutions of those earlier dispensations might carry to the coming realities of the Gospel, their more immediate intention and use must have consisted in the exhibition they gave of the vital and fundamental truths common alike to all dispensations.

2. If a clear and conclusive certainty attaches to this part of our statement, it does so in even an increased ratio to the other. Holding that the same great elements of truth must of necessity pervade both type and antitype, we must also assuredly believe, that in the former they were more simply and palpably exhibited—presented in some shape in which the human mind could more easily and distinctly apprehend them—than in the latter. It would manifestly have been absurd to admit into a course of preparation for the realities of the Gospel, certain temporary exhibitions of the same great elements of truth that were to pervade these, unless the preparatory had been of more obvious meaning, and of more easy comprehension, than the ultimate and final. The transition from the one to the other must clearly have involved a rise in the mode of exhibiting the truth from a lower to a higher territory—from a form of development more easily grasped, to a form which should put the faculties of the mind to a greater stretch. For thus only could it be wise or proper to set up preparatory dispensations at all. These, manifestly, had been better spared, if the realities themselves lay more, or even so much, within the reach and comprehension of the mind, as their temporary and imperfect representations.

Standing, then, on the foundation of these two principles, as necessarily forming the essential elements of the resemblance that subsisted between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, we may now proceed to consider how far they can legitimately carry us in explaining the subject in hand; or, in other words, to answer the question, how on such a basis the typical things of the past could properly serve as preparatory arrangements [[@Page:75]] for the higher and better things of the future? We shall endeavour to answer this question, in the first instance, by making application of our principles to the symbolical institutions of the Mosaic dispensation, which are usually denominated the ritual or legal types. For, in respect to these we have the advantage of the most explicit assertion in Scripture of their typical character; and we are also furnished with certain general descriptions of their nature as typical, which may partly serve as lights to direct our inquiries, and partly provide a test by which to try the correctness of our results.

Now, viewing the institutions of the dispensation brought in by Moses as typical, we look at them in what may be called their secondary aspect; we consider them as prophetic symbols of the letter things to come in the Gospel. But this evidently implies, that in another and more immediate respect they were merely symbols, that is, outward and sensible representations of Divine truth, in connection with an existing dispensation and a religious worship. It was only from their being this, in the one respect, that they could, in the other, be prophetic symbols, or types, of what was afterwards to appear under the Gospel; on the ground already stated, that the preparatory dispensation to which they belonged was necessarily inwrought with the same great elements of truth which were afterwards, in another form, to pervade the Christian. Had there not been the identity in the truths here supposed, assimilating amid all outward diversities the two dispensations in spirit to each other, the earlier would rather have blocked up, than prepared and opened, the way for the latter. A partial exhibition of a truth, or an embodiment of it in things comparatively little, easily grasped by the understanding, and but imperfectly satisfying the mind, may certainly make way for its exhibition in a manner more fully adapted to its proper nature:—The mind thus familiarized to it in the little, may both have the desire created, and the capacity formed for beholding its development in things of a far higher and nobler kind. But a partial or defective representation of an object, apart from any principles common to both, must rather tend to pre-occupy the mind, and either entirely prevent it from anticipating, or fill it with mistaken and prejudiced notions of, the reality. If such a representation of the mere objects of the Gospel had been all [[@Page:76]] that was aimed at in the symbolical institutions of the Old Testament—if their direct, immediate, and only use had been to serve, as pictures, to prefigure and presentiate to the soul the future realities of the divine kingdom—then who could wonder if these realities should have been wholly lost sight of before, or misbelieved and repudiated when they came? For, in that case, the preparatory dispensation must have been far more difficult for the worshipper than the ultimate one. The child must have had a much harder lessen to read, and a much higher task to accomplish, than the man of full-grown and ripened intellect. And Divine wisdom must have employed its resources, not to smooth the Church’s path to an enlightened view and a believing reception of the realities of the Gospel, rather but to shroud them in the most profound and perplexing obscurities.

Every serious and intelligent believer will shrink from this conclusion. But if he does so, he will soon find that there is only one way of effectually escaping from it; and that is, by regarding the symbolical institutions of the Old Covenant as not simply or directly representations of the realities of the Gospel, but in the first instance as parts of an existing dispensation, and, as such, expressive of certain great and fundamental truths, which could even then be distinctly understood and embraced. This was what might be called their more immediate and ostensible design. Their further and prospective, reference to the higher objects of the Gospel, was of a more indirect and occult nature; and stood in the same essential truths being exhibited by means of present and visible, but inferior and comparatively inadequate objects. So that in tracing out the connection from the one to the other, we must always begin with inquiring, What, per se, was the native import of each symbol? What truths did it symbolize merely as part of an existing religion? and from this proceed to unfold how it was fitted to serve as a guide and a stepping-stone to the glorious events and issues of Messiah’s kingdom. This—which it was the practice of the elder typological writers in great measure to overlook—is really the foundation of the whole matter; and without it every typological system must either contract itself within very narrow bounds, or be in danger of running out into superficial or fanciful analogies. The Mosaic ritual had at once a shell and a kernel,—its shell, [[@Page:77]] the outward rites and observances it enjoined; its kernel, the spiritual relations which these indicated, and the spiritual truths which they embodied and expressed. Substantially, these truths and relations were, and must have been, the same for the Old that they are for the New Testament worshippers; for the spiritual wants and necessities of both are the same, and so also is the character of God, with whom they have to do. There, therefore, in that fundamental agreement, that internal and pre-established harmony of principle, we are to find the bond of union between the symbolical institutions of Judaism and the permanent realities of Messiah’s kingdom. One truth in both—but that truth existing first in a lower, then in a higher stage of development; in the one case appearing as a precious bud embosomed and but partially seen amid the imperfect relations of flesh and time; in the other expanding itself under the bright sunshine of heaven into all the beauty and fruitfulness of which it was susceptible.

To make our meaning perfectly understood, however, we must descend from the general to the particular, and apply what has been stated to a special case. In doing so, we shall go at once to what may justly be termed the very core of the religion of the Old Covenant—the rite of expiatory sacrifice. That this was typically or prophetically symbolical of the death of Christ, is testified with much plainness and frequency in New Testament Scripture. Yet, independently of this connection with Christ’s death, it had a meaning of its own, which it was possible for the ancient worshipper to understand, and, so understanding, to present through it an acceptable service to God, whether he might perceive or not the further respect it bore to a dying Saviour. It was in its own nature a symbolical transaction, embodying a threefold idea: first, that the worshipper, having been guilty of sin, had forfeited his life to God; then, that the life so forfeited must be surrendered to Divine justice; and finally, that being surrendered in the way appointed, it was given back to him again by God, or he became re-established, as a justified person, in the Divine favour and fellowship. How far a transaction of this kind, done symbolically and not really—by means of an irrational creature substituted in the sinner’s room, and unconsciously devoted to lose its animal in lieu of his intelligent and rational [[@Page:78]] life—might commend itself as altogether satisfactory to his view; or how far he might see reason to regard it as but a provisional arrangement, proceeding on the contemplation of something more perfect yet to come;—these are points which might justly be raised, and will indeed call for future discussion, but they are somewhat extraneous to the subject itself now under consideration. We are viewing the rite of expiatory sacrifice simply as a constituent part of ancient worship,—a religious service which formally, and without notification from itself of anything farther being required, presented the sinner with the divinely appointed means of reconciliation and restored fellowship with God. In this respect it symbolically represented, as we have said, a threefold idea, which if properly understood and realized by the worshipper, he performed, in offering it, an acceptable service. And when we rise from the symbolical to the typical view of the transaction—when we proceed to consider the rite of expiation as bearing a prospective reference to the redemption of Christ, we are not to be understood as ascribing to it some new sense or meaning; we merely express our belief that the complex capital idea which it so impressively symbolized, finds its only true, as from the first its destined realization, in the work of salvation by Jesus Christ. For in Him alone was there a real transference of man’s guilt to one able and willing to bear it; in His death alone, the surrender of a life to God, such as could fitly stand in the room of that forfeited by the sinner; and in faith alone on that death, a full and conscious appropriation of the life of peace and blessing obtained by Him for the justified. So that here only it is we perceive the idea of a true, sufficient, and perfect sacrifice converted into a living reality—such as the holy eye of God, and the troubled conscience of man, can alike repose in with unmingled satisfaction. And while there appear precisely the same elements of truth in the ever-recurring sacrifices of the Old Testament, and in the one perfect sacrifice of the New, it is seen, at the same time, that what the one symbolically represented, the other actually possessed; what the one could only exhibit as a kind of acted lesson for the present relief of guilty consciences, the other makes known to us, as a work finally and for ever accomplished for all who believe in the propitiation of the cross.

[[@Page:79]] The view now given of the symbolical institutions of the Old Testament, as prophetic symbols of the realities of the Gospel, is in perfect accordance with the general descriptions we have of their nature in Scripture itself. These are of two classes. In the one they are declared to have been shadows of the better things of the Gospel; as in Heb. 10:1, where the law is said to have had “a shadow, and not the very image of good things to come;” in ch. [[8:5 >> Bible:He 8:5]] , where the priests are described as “serving unto the example (copy) and shadow of heavenly things;” and again in Col. 2:16, where the fleshly ordinances in one mass are denominated “shadows of good things to come,” while it is added, “the body is of Christ.” Now, that the tabernacle, with the ordinances of every kind belonging to it, were shadows of Christ and the blessings of His kingdom, can only mean that they were obscure and imperfect resemblances of these; or that they embodied the same elements of Divine truth, but wanted what was necessary to give them proper form and consistence as parts of a final and abiding dispensation of God. And when we go to inquire wherein did the obscurity and imperfection consist, we are always referred to the carnal and earthly nature of the Old as compared with the New. The tabernacle itself was a material fabric, constructed of such things as this present world could supply, and hence called “a worldly sanctuary;” while its counterpart under the Gospel is the eternal region of God’s presence and glory, neither discernible by fleshly eye, nor made by mortal hands. In like manner, the ordinances of worship connected with the tabernacle were all ostensibly directed to the preservation of men’s present existence, or the advancement of their well-being as related to an outward sanctuary and a terrestrial commonwealth; while in the Gospel it is the soul’s relation to the sanctuary above, and its possession of an immortal life of blessedness and glory, which all is directly intended to provide for. In these differences between the Old and the New, which bespeak so much of inferiority on the part of the former, we perceive the darkness and imperfection which hung around the things of the ancient dispensation, and rendered them shadows only of those which were to come. But still shadows are resemblances. Though unlike in one respect, they must be like in another. And as the unlikeness stood in the dissimilar [[@Page:80]] nature of the things immediately handled and perceived—in the different materiel, so to speak, of the two dispensations, wherein should the resemblance be found but in the common truths and relations alike pervading both? By means of an earthly tabernacle, with its appropriate services, God manifested toward His people the same principles of government, and required from them substantially the same disposition and character, that He does now under the higher dispensation of the Gospel. For look beyond the mere outward diversities, and what do you see? You see in both alike a pure and holy God, enshrined in the recesses of a glorious sanctuary, unapproachable by sinful flesh but through a medium of powerful intercession and cleansing efficacy; yet when so approached, ever ready to receive and bless with the richest tokens of His favour and loving-kindness as many as come in the exercise of genuine contrition for sin, and longing for restored fellowship with Him whom they have offended. The same description applies equally to the service of both dispensations; for in both the same impressions are conveyed of God’s character respecting sin and holiness, and the same gracious feelings necessarily awakened by them in the bosom of sincere worshippers. But then, as to the means of accomplishing this, there was only, in the one case, a shadowy exhibition of spiritual things through earthly materials and temporary expedients; while in the other, the naked realities appear in the one perfect sacrifice of Christ, the rich endowments of the Spirit of grace, and the glories of an everlasting kingdom.

The other general description given in New Testament Scripture of the prophetic symbols or types of the Old dispensation does not materially differ from the one now considered, and, when rightly understood, leads to the same result. According to it, the religious institutions of earlier times contained the rudiments or elementary principles of the world’s religious truth and life. Thus in Col. 2:20, the now antiquated ordinances of Judaism are called “the rudiments of the world;” and in Gal. 4:3, the Church, while under these ordinances, is said to have been “in bondage under the elements (or rudiments) of the world.” The expression, also, which is found in ch. [[3:24 >> Bible:Ga 3:24]] of this Epistle to the Galatians, “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ,” conveys much the same idea; since it is the special [[@Page:81]] business of a schoolmaster to communicate to those under his charge the rudiments of learning, by which their minds may in due time be prepared for the higher walks of science and literature. The law certainly did this, to a considerable extent, by direct instructions in the great principles of truth and duty. But it did so not less by means of its symbolical institutions and ordinances, which were in themselves inherently defective, and yet in their spirit and design entirely analogous to the higher things of the Gospel. The animal, the fleshly, the material, the temporal, was what alone appeared in them, when viewed in respect merely to their ostensible character and object; yet all was arranged in a manner fitted to exhibit ideas and relations that reached far beyond these, and could only, indeed, find their suitable development in things spiritual, heavenly, and eternal. The Church had then to be dealt with after the manner of a child. But the child must have instruction administered to him in a form adapted to his juvenile capacities. If he is to be prepared for apprehending the outlines and proportions of the globe, these must be presented to his view on diagrams of a few spans long. Or, if he is to be made acquainted with the laws and principles which bear sway throughout the material universe, he must again see them exemplified in miniature among the small and familiar objects of everyday life. In like manner, the Church of the Old Testament, while in bondage to fleshly institutions and services, yet received through these the rudiments of all Divine truth and wisdom. In a form which the eye of a spiritual babe could scan, and its hand, in a manner, grasp, she had constantly exhibited before her the essential truths and principles of God’s everlasting kingdom. And nothing more was needed than that the instruction thus imparted should have been impartially received and properly cultivated, in order to fit the disciple of Moses for passing with intelligence and delight from his rudimental tutelage, under the shadows of good things, into the free use and enjoyment of the things themselves.

The general descriptions, then, given of the symbolical institutions and services of the Old Testament, in their relation to the Gospel, perfectly accord with the principles we have advanced. And viewed in the light now presented, we at once see the essential unity that subsists between the Old and the New dispensations, [[@Page:82]] and the nature of that progression in the Divine plan which rendered the one a fitting preparation and stepping-stone to the other. In its fundamental elements the religion of both covenants is thus found to be identical. Only it appears under the Old covenant as on a lower platform, disclosing its ideas, and imparting its blessings through the imperfect instrumentalities of fleshly relations and temporal concerns; while under the New everything rises heavenwards, and eternal realities come distinctly and prominently into view. But as ideas and relations are more palpable to the mind, and lie more within the grasp of its comprehension, when exhibited on a small scale, in corporeal forms, amid familiar and present objects, than on a scale of large dimensions, which stretches into the unseen, and embraces alike the Divine and human, time and eternity; so the economy of outward symbolical institutions was in itself simpler than the Gospel, and, as a lower exhibition of Divine truth, prepared the way for a higher. But they did this, let it be observed, in their character merely as symbolical institutions, or parts of a dispensation then existing, not as typically foreshadowing the things belonging to a higher and more spiritual dispensation yet to come. It was comparatively an easy thing for the Jewish worshipper to understand how, from time to time, he stood related to a visible sanctuary and an earthly inheritance, or to go through the process of an appointed purification by means of water and the blood of slain victims applied externally to his body: much more easy than for the Christian to apprehend distinctly his relation to a heavenly sanctuary, and realize the cleansing of his conscience from all guilt by the inward application of the sacrifice of Christ and the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. But for the Jewish worshipper to do—both his own and the Christian’s part both to read the meaning of the symbol as expressive of what was already laid open to his view, and to descry its concealed reference to the yet undiscovered realities of a better dispensation, would have required a reach of discernment and a strength of faith far beyond what is now needed in the Christian. For this had been, not like him to discern the heavenly, when the heavenly had come, but to do it amid the obscurities and imperfections of the earthly; not simply to look with open eye into the deeper mysteries of God’s kingdom, when these mysteries [[@Page:83]] are fully disclosed, but to do so while they were still buried amid the thick folds of a cumbrous and overshadowing drapery.

Yet let us not be mistaken. We speak merely of what was strictly required, and what might ordinarily be expected of the ancient worshipper, in connection with the institutions and services of his symbolical religion, taken simply by themselves. We do not say that there never was, much less that there could not be, any proper insight obtained by the children of the Old Covenant into the future mysteries of the Gospel. There were special gifts of grace then, as well as now, occasionally imparted to the more spiritual members of the covenant, which enabled them to rise to unusual degrees of knowledge; and it is a distinctive property of the spiritual mind generally to be dissatisfied with the imperfect, to seek and long for the perfect. Even now, when the comparatively perfect has come, what spiritual mind is not often conscious to itself of a feeling akin to melancholy, when it thinks of the yet abiding darkness and disorders of the present, or does not fondly cling to every hopeful indication of a brighter future? But even the best things of the Old Covenant bore on them the stamp of imperfection. The temple itself, which was the peculiar glory and ornament of Israel, still in a very partial and defective manner realized its own grand idea of a people dwelling with God, and God dwelling with them; and hence, because of that inherent imperfection (it was plainly declared), a higher and better mode of accomplishing the object should one day take its place.—(Jer. 3:16, 17) So, too, the palpable disproportion already noticed in the rite of expiatory sacrifice between the rational life forfeited through sin, and the merely animal life substituted in its room, seemed to proclaim the necessity of a more adequate atonement for human guilt, and could not but dispose intelligent worshippers to give more earnest heed to the announcements of prophecy regarding the coming purposes of Heaven. But yet, when we have admitted all this, it by no means follows that the people of God generally, under the Old Covenant, could attain to very definite views of the realities of the Gospel; nor does it furnish us with any reason for asserting that such views must ever of necessity have mingled with the service of an acceptable worshipper. For his was the worship of a preparatory dispensation. [[@Page:84]] It must, therefore, have been simpler and easier than what was ultimately to supplant it. And this, we again repeat, it could only be by being viewed in its more obvious and formal aspect, as the worship of an existing religion, which provided for the time then present a fitting medium of access to God, and hallowed intercourse with heaven. The man who humbly availed himself of what was thus provided to meet his soul’s necessities, stood in faith, and served God with acceptance,—though still with such imperfections in the present, and such promises for the future, that the more always he reflected, he would become the more a child of desire and hope.[10]

We have spoken as yet only of the symbolical institutions and services of the Old Testament; and of these quite generally, as one great whole. For it is carefully to be noted, that the Scriptural designations of rudiments and shadows, which we have shown to be the same as typical, when properly understood, are applied to the entire mass of the ancient ordinances in their prospective reference to Gospel realities. And yet, while New Testament Scripture speaks thus of the whole, it deals very sparingly in particular examples; and if it furnishes, in its language and allusions, many valuable hints to direct inquiry, it still contains remarkably few detailed illustrations. It nowhere [[@Page:85]] tells us, for example, what was either immediately symbolized, or prophetically shadowed forth, by the Holy Place in the tabernacle, or the shew-bread, or the golden candlestick, or the ark of the covenant, or, indeed, by anything connected with the tabernacle, excepting its more prominent offices and administrations. Even the Epistle to the Hebrews, which enters with such comparative fulness into the connection between the Old and the New, and which is most express in ascribing a typical value to all that belonged to the tabernacle, can yet scarcely be said to give any detailed explanation of its furniture and services beyond the rite of expiatory sacrifice, and the action of the high priest in presenting it, more particularly on the great day of atonement. So that those who insist on an explicit warrant and direction from Scripture in regard to each particular type, will find their principle conducts them but a short way even through that department, which, they are obliged to admit, possesses throughout a typical character. A general admission of this sort can be of little use, if one is restrained on principle from touching most of the particulars; one might as well maintain that these stood entirely disconnected from any typical property. So, indeed, Bishop Marsh has substantially done; for, “that such explanations,” he says, referring to particular types, “are in various instances given in the New Testament, no one can deny. And if it was deemed necessary to explain one type, where could be the expediency or moral fitness of withholding the explanation of others? Must not, therefore, the silence of the New Testament in the case of any supposed type, be an argument against the existence of that type?”[11]

FOOTNOTE

[1] “We do not know what right divines have to construct a system of theological types, instead of a system of Scripture types. We are sure that had they kept to the Scripture use of the term, instead of devising a theological sense, they would have been saved from much extravagance, and evolved much truth.”—M’Cosh, in “Typical Forms,” p. 523.

[2] The question, whether the things of creation should be formally treated as typical, will be considered in Ch. IV.

[3] Marsh’s Lectures, p. 371.

[4] 1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 11:40.

[5] Eph. 1:10.

[6] Luke 1:78; 1 John 2:8; Rom. 16:25, 26; Col. 1:27; 1 Cor. 2:7, 10.

[7] Col. 2:17; Heb. 8:5.

[8] Matt. 11:11, where it is said respecting John the Baptist, “notwithstanding he that is least (ὁ μικρότερος) in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. The older English versions retained the comparative, and rendered “he that is less in the kingdom of heaven”—(Wickliffe, Tyndale, Cranmer, the Geneva); and so also Meyer in his Comm., “he who occupies a proportionately lower place in the kingdom of heaven.” Lightfoot, Hengstenberg, and many others, approve of this milder sense, as it may be called; but Alford in his recent commentary adheres still to the stronger, “the least;” and so does Stier in his Reden Jesu, who, in illustrating the thought, goes so far as to say, “A mere child that knows the catechism, and can say the Lord’s prayer, both knows and possesses more than the Old Testament can give, and so far stands higher and nearer to God than John the Baptist.” One cannot but feel that this is putting something like a strain on our Lord’s declaration.

[9] Rev. 1:8; Luke 2:25; Acts 10:43, 4:12; Rom. 3:25; 1 Pet. 1:10-12, 20.

[10] If any one will take the trouble to look into the elder writers, who formally examined the typical character of the ancient symbolical institutions, he will find them entirely silent in regard to the points chiefly dwelt upon in the above discussion. Lowman, for example, on the Rational of the Hebrew Worship, and Outram de Sac., Lib. i., c. 18, where he comes to consider the nature and force of a type, gave no proper or satisfactory explanation of the questions, wherein precisely did the resemblance stand between the type and the antitype, or how should the one have prepared the way for the other. We are told frequently enough that the “Hebrew ritual contained a plan, or sketch, or pattern, or shadow of Gospel things:” that “the type adumbrated the antitype by something of the same sort with that which is found in the antitype,” or “by a symbol of it,” or “by a slender and shadowy image of it,” or “by something that may somehow be compared with it,” etc. But we look in vain for anything more specific. Townley, in his Reasons of the Laws of Moses, still advances no farther in the Dissertation he devotes to the Typical Character of the Mosaic Institutions. Even Olshausen, in the treatise formerly noticed (Ein Wort über tiefern Schriftsinn), when he comes to unfold what he calls his deeper exposition, confines himself to a brief illustration of the few general statements formerly mentioned. See p. 46.

[11] Lectures, p. 392.

Chapter Third.—The Proper Nature and Province of Typology—2. The Historical Characters and Transactions of The Old Testament, Viewed as Exemplifying The Distinctive Characters of a Typical Relationship—Typical Forms in Nature Necessity of The Typical as a Preparation for The Dispensation of The Fulness of Times.

[[@Page:87]] IN the preceding chapter we have seen in what sense the religious institutions and services of the Old Covenant were typical.

They were constructed and arranged so as to express symbolically the great truths and principles of a spiritual religion—truths and principles which were common alike to Old and New Testament times, but which, from the nature of things, could only find in the New their proper development and full realization. On the limited scale of the earthly and perishable—in the construction of a material tabernacle, and the suitable adjustment of bodily ministrations and sacrificial offerings,—there was presented a palpable exhibition of those great truths respecting sin and salvation, the purification of the heart, and the dedication of the person and the life to God, which in the fulness of time were openly revealed and manifested on the grand scale of a world’s redemption, by the mediation and work of Jesus Christ. In that pre-arranged and harmonious, but still inherently defective and imperfect, exhibition of the fundamental ideas and spiritual relations of the Gospel, stood the real nature of its typical character.

Nor, we may add, was there anything arbitrary in so employing the things of flesh and time to shadow forth, under a preparatory dispensation, the higher realities of God’s everlasting kingdom. It has its ground and reason in the organic arrangements or appearances of the material world. For these are so framed as to be ever giving forth representations of Divine truth, and are a kind of ceaseless regeneration, in which, through [[@Page:88]] successive stages, new and higher forms of being are continually springing out of the lower. It is on this constitution of nature that the figurative language of Scripture is based. And it was only building on a foundation that already existed, and which stretches far and wide through the visible territory of creation, when the outward relations and fleshly services of a symbolical religion were made to image and prepare for the more spiritual and divine mysteries of Messiah’s kingdom. Hence, also, some of the more important symbolical institutions were expressly linked (as we shall see) to appropriate seasons and aspects of nature.

But was symbol alone thus employed? Might there not also have been a similar employment of many circumstances and transactions in the province of sacred history? If the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the blessings of His great salvation, was the object mainly contemplated by God from the beginning of the world, and with which the Church was ever travailing as in birth if, consequently, the previous dispensations were chiefly designed to lead to, and terminate upon, Christ and the things of His salvation,—what can be more natural than to suppose that the evolutions of Providence throughout the period during which the salvation was in prospect, should have concurred with the symbols of worship in imaging and preparing for what was to come? It is possible, indeed, that the connection here, between the past and the future, might be somewhat more varied and fluctuating, and in several respects less close and exact, than in the case of a regulated system of symbolical instruction and worship, appointed to last till it was superseded by the better things of the New dispensation. This is only what might be expected from the respective natures of the subjects compared. But that a connection, similar in kind, had a place in the one as well as in the other, we hold to be not only in itself probable, but also capable of being satisfactorily established. And for the purpose of showing this we lay down the following positions:—First, That the historical relations and circumstances recorded in the Old Testament, and typically applied in the New, had very much both the same resemblances and defects in respect to the realities of the Gospel, which we have found to belong to the [[@Page:89]] ancient symbolical institutions of worship; secondly, that such historical types were absolutely necessary, in considerable number and variety, to render the earlier dispensations thoroughly preparative in respect to the coming dispensation of the Gospel; and, thirdly, that Old Testament Scripture itself contains undoubted indications, that much of its historical matter stood related to some higher ideal, in which the truths and relations exemplified in them were again to meet and receive a new but more perfect development.

I. The first consideration is, that the historical relations and circumstances recorded in the Old Testament, and typically interpreted in the New, had very much the same resemblances and defects, in respect to the Gospel, which we have found to belong to the ancient symbolical institutions of worship. Thus—to refer to one of the earliest events in the world’s history so interpreted—the general deluge that destroyed the old world, and preserved Noah and his family alive, is represented as standing in atypical relation to Christian baptism (1 Pet. 3:21). It did so, as will be explained more at large hereafter, from its having destroyed those who by their corruptions destroyed the earth, and saved for a new world the germ of a better race. Doing this in the outward and lower territory of the world’s history, it served substantially the same purpose that Christian baptism does in a higher; since this is designed to bring the individual that receives it under those vital influences that purge away the corruption of a fleshly nature, and cause the seed of a divine life to take root and grow for the occupation of a better inheritance. In like manner Sarah, with her child of promise, the special and peculiar gift of heaven, and Hagar, with her merely natural and fleshly offspring, are explained as typically foreshadowing, the one a spiritual church, bringing forth real children to God, in spirit and destiny as well as in calling, the heirs of His everlasting kingdom; the other, a worldly and corrupt church, whose members are in bondage to the flesh, having but a name to live, while they are dead.—(Gal. 4:22, 31) In such cases, it is clear that the same kind of resemblances, coupled also with the same kind of differences, appear between the preparatory and the final, as in the case of the symbolical types. For here also [[@Page:90]] the ideas and relations are substantially one in the two associated transactions; only in the earlier they appear ostensibly connected with the theatre of an earthly existence, and with respect to seen and temporal results; while in the later it is the higher field of grace and the interests of a spiritual and immortal existence that come directly into view.

Or, let the use be considered that is made of the events which befell the Israelites on their way to the land of Canaan, as regards the state and prospects of the Church of the New Testament on its way to heaven. Look at this, for example, as unfolded in the third and fourth chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the essential features of a typical connection will at once be seen. For the exclusion of those carnal and unbelieving Israelites who fell in the wilderness is there exhibited, not only as affording a reasonable presumption, but as providing a valid ground, for asserting that persons similarly affected now toward the kingdom of glory cannot attain to heaven. Indeed, so complete in point of principle is the identity of the two cases, that the same expressions are applied to both alike, without intimation of any differences existing between them: “the Gospel is preached” to the one class as well as to the other; God gives to each alike “a promise of rest,” while they equally “fall through unbelief,” having hardened their hearts against the word of God. Yet there were the same differences in kind as we have noted between the type and the antitype in the symbolical institutions of worship—the visible and earthly being employed in the one to exhibit such relations and principles as in the other appear in immediate connection with what is spiritual and heavenly. In the type we have the prospect of Canaan, the Gospel of an earthly promise of rest, and, because not believed, issuing in the loss of a present life of honour and blessing; in the antitype, the prospect of a heavenly inheritance, the Gospel promise of an everlasting rest, bringing along with it, when treated with unbelief and neglect, an exclusion from eternal blessedness and glory.

Again, and with reference to the same period in the Church’s history, it is said in John 3:14, 15, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have [[@Page:91]] everlasting life.” The language here certainly does not necessarily betoken by any means so close a connection between the Old and the New, as in the cases previously referred to; nor are we disposed to assert that the same connection in all respects really existed. The historical transaction in this case had at first sight the aspect of something occasional and isolated, rather than of an integral and essential part of a great plan. And yet the reference in John, viewed in connection with other passages of Scripture bearing on the subject, sufficiently vindicates for it a place among the earlier exhibitions of Divine truth, planned by the foreseeing eye of God with special respect to the coming realities of the Gospel. As such it entirely accords in nature with the typical prefigurations already noticed. In the two related transactions there is a fitting correspondence as to the relations maintained: in both alike a wounded and dying condition in the first instance, then the elevation of an object apparently inadequate, yet really effectual, to accomplish the cure, and this through no other medium on the part of the affected, than their simply looking to the object so presented to their view. But with this pervading correspondence, what marked and distinctive characteristics! In the one case a dying body, in the other a perishing soul. There, an uplifted serpent—of all instruments of healing from a serpent’s bite the most unlikely to profit; here the exhibition of one condemned and crucified as a malefactor—of all conceivable persons apparently the most impotent to save. There, once more, the fleshly eye of nature deriving from the outward object visibly presented to it the healing virtue it was ordained to impart; and here the spiritual eye of the soul, looking in stedfast faith to the exalted Redeemer, and getting the needed supplies of His life-giving and regenerating grace. In both the same elements of truth, the same modes of dealing, but in the one developing themselves on a lower, in the other on a higher territory; in the former having immediate respect only to things seen and temporal, and in the latter to what is unseen, spiritual, and eternal. And when it is considered how the Divine procedure in the case of the Israelites was in itself so extraordinary and peculiar, so unlike God’s usual methods of dealing in providence, in so far as these have respect merely to inferior and perishable interests, it seems to [[@Page:92]] be without any adequate reason—to want, in a sense, its just explanation, until it is viewed as a dispensation specially designed to prepare the way for the higher and better things of the Gospel.

Similar explanations might be given of the other historical facts recorded in Old Testament Scripture, and invested with a typical reference in the New. But enough has been said to show the essential similarity in the respect borne by them to the better things of the Gospel, and of that borne by the ritual types of the law. The ground of the connection in the one class, precisely as in the other, stands in the substantial oneness of the ideas and relations pervading the earlier and the later transactions, as corresponding parts of related dispensations; or in the identity of truth and principle appearing in both, as different yet mutually depending parts of one great providential scheme. In that internal agreement and relationship, rather than in any mere outward resemblances, we are to seek the real bond of connection between the Old and the New.

At first sight, perhaps, a connection of this nature may appear to want something of what is required to satisfy the conditions of a proper typical relationship. And there are two respects more especially, in which this deficiency may seem to exist.

1. It has been so much the practice to look at the connection between the Old and the New in an external aspect, that one naturally fancies the necessity of some more palpable and arbitrary bond of union to link together type and antitype. The one is apt to be thought of as a kind of pre-ordained pantomime of the other—like those prefigurative actions which the prophets were sometimes instructed, whether in reality or in vision, to perform (as Isaiah in ch. [[20 >> Bible:Is 20]] , or Ezekiel in ch. [[12 >> Bible:Eze 12]] ), meaningless in themselves, yet very significant as foreshadowing intimations of coming events in providence. Such prophecies in action, certainly, had something in common with the typical transactions now under consideration. They both alike had respect to other actions or events yet to come, without which, preordained and foreseen, they would not have taken place. They both also stood in a similar relation of littleness to the corresponding circumstances they foreshadowed—exhibiting on a comparatively [[@Page:93]] small scale what was afterwards to realize itself on a large one, and thereby enabling the mind more readily to anticipate the approaching future, or more distinctly to grasp it after it had come. But they differed in this, that the typical actions of the prophets had respect solely to the coming transactions they prefigured, and but for these would have been foolish and absurd; while the typical actions of God’s providence, as well as the symbolical institutions of His worship, had a moral meaning of their own, independently of the reference they bore to the future revelations of the Gospel. To overlook this independent moral element, is to leave out of account what should be held to constitute the very basis of the connection between the past and the future. But if, on the other hand, we make due account of it, we establish a connection which, in reality, is of a much more close and vital nature, and one, too, of far higher importance, than if it consisted alone in points of outward resemblance. For it implies not only that the entire plan of salvation was all along in the eye of God, but that, with a view to it, He was ever directing His government, so as to bring out in successive stages and operations the very truths and principles which were to find in the realities of the Gospel their more complete manifestation. He showed that He saw the end from the beginning, by interweaving with His providential arrangements the elements of the more perfect, the terminal plan. And, therefore, to lay the groundwork of the connection between the preparatory and the final in the elements of truth and principle common alike to both, instead of placing it in merely formal resemblances, is but to withdraw it from a less to a more vital and important part of the transactions—from the outer shell and appearance, to the inner truth and substance of the history; so that we can discern, not only some perceptible coincidences between the type and the antitype, but the same fundamental character, the same spirit of life, the same moral import and practical design.

To render this more manifest, as it is a point of considerable moment to our inquiry, let us compare an alleged example of historical type, where the resemblance between it and the supposed antitype is of an ostensible, but still only of an outward kind, with one of those referred to above—the brazen serpent, for [[@Page:94]] example, or the deluge. In this latter example there was scarcely any outward resemblance presented to the Christian ordinance of baptism; as in no proper sense could Noah and his family be said to have been literally baptized in the waters. But both this and the other historical transaction presented strong lines of resemblance, of a more inward and substantial kind, to the things connected with them in the Gospel—such as enable us to recognise without difficulty the impress of one Divine hand in the two related series of transactions, and to contemplate them as corresponding parts of one grand economy, rising gradually from its lower to its higher stages of development. Take, however, as an example of the other class, the occupation of Abel as a shepherd, which by many, among others by Witsius, has been regarded as a prefiguration of Christ in His character as the great Shepherd of Israel. A superficial likeness, we admit; but what is to be found of real unity and agreement? What light does the one throw upon the other? What expectation beforehand could the earlier beget of the later, or what confirmation afterwards can it supply? Admitting that the death of Abel somehow foreshadowed the infinitely more precious blood to be shed on Calvary, what distinctive value could the sacrifice of life in His case derive from the previous occupation of the martyr? Christ, certainly, died as the spiritual shepherd of souls, but Abel was not murdered on account of having been a keeper of sheep; nor had his death any necessary connection with his having followed such an employment. For what purpose, then, press points of resemblance so utterly disconnected, and dignify them with the name of typical prefigurations? Resemblances in such a case are worthless even if real, and from their nature incapable of affording any insight into the mind and purposes of God. But when, on the contrary, we look into the past records of God’s providence, and find there, in the dealings of His hand and the institutions of His worship, a coincidence of principle and economical design with what appears in the dispensation of the Gospel, we cannot but feel that we have something of real weight and importance for the mind to rest upon. And if, farther, we have reason to conclude, not only that agreements of this kind existed, but that they were all skilfully planned and arranged,—the earlier with a view to [[@Page:95]] the later, the earthly and temporal for the spiritual and heavenly,—we find ourselves possessed of the essential elements of a typical connection. We have reason, however, so to conclude, as has partly been shown already, and will still farther be shown in the sequel.

2. But granting what has now been stated—allowing that the connection between type and antitype is more of an internal than of an external kind, it may still be objected, in regard to the historical types, that they wanted for the most part something of the necessary correspondence with the antitypes; the one did not occupy under the Old the same relative place that the other did under the New—existing for a time as a shadow, until it was superseded and displaced by the substance. Perhaps not; but is such a close and minute correspondence absolutely necessary? Or is it to be found even in the case of all the symbolical types? With them also considerable differences appear; and we look in vain for anything like a fixed and absolute uniformity. The correspondence assumed the most exact form in the sacrificial rites of the tabernacle worship. There, certainly, part may be said to have answered to part; there was priest for priest, offering for offering, death for death, and blessing for blessing—throughout, an inferior and temporary substitute in the room of the proper reality, and continuing till it was superseded and displaced by the latter. We find a relaxation, however, in this closely adjusted relationship, whenever we leave the immediate province of sacrifice; and in many of the things expressly denominated shadows of the Gospel, it can hardly be said to have existed. In regard, for example, to the ancient festivals, the new moons, the use or disuse of leaven, the defilement of leprosy and its purification, there was no such precise and definite superseding of the Old by something corresponding under the New—nothing like office for office, action for action, part for part. The symbolical rites and institutions referred to were typical—not, however, as representing things that were to hold specifically and palpably the same place in Gospel times, but rather as embodying, in set forms and ever-recurring bodily services, the truths and principles that, in naked simplicity and by direct teaching, were to pervade the dispensation of the Gospel.

[[@Page:96]] There is quite a similar diversity in the case of the historical types. In some of them the correspondence was very close and exact; in others more loose and general. Of the former class was the calling of Israel as an elect people, their relation to the land of Canaan as their covenant portion, their redemption from the yoke of Egypt, and their temporary sojourn in the wilderness as they travelled to inherit it—all of which continued (the two latter by means of commemorative ordinances) till they were superseded by corresponding but higher objects under the Gospel. In respect to these we can say, the new dispensation presents people for people, redemption for redemption, inheritance for inheritance, and one kind of wilderness-training for another; objects in both precisely corresponding as regards the places they respectively held, and the one preserving their existence or transmitting their efficacy, till they were supplanted by the other. But we do not pretend to see the same close connection and the same exact correspondence between the Old arid the New in all, or even the greater part, of the historical transactions of the past which we hold to have been typical; nor are we warranted to look for it. The analogy of the symbolical types would lead us to expect, along with the more direct typical arrangements, many acts and institutions of a somewhat incidental and subordinate kind, in which a typical representation should be given of ideas and relations, that could only find in the realities of the Gospel their full and proper manifestation. If they were not appointed as temporary substitutes for these realities, and made to occupy an ostensible place in the divine economy till the better things appeared, they were still fashioned after the ideal of the better, and were thereby fitted to indoctrinate the minds of God’s people with certain notions of the truth, and to familiarize them with its spiritual ideas, its modes of procedure, and principles of working. And in this they plainly possessed the more essential elements of a typical connection.

II. Enough, however, for the first point. We proceed to the second; which is, that such historical types as those under consideration were absolutely necessary, in considerable number and variety, to render the earlier dispensations thoroughly preparative in respect to the coming dispensation of the Gospel. [[@Page:97]] This was necessary, first of all, from the typical character of the position and worship of the members of the Old Covenant. The main things respecting them being, as we have seen, typical, it was inevitable but that many others of a subordinate and collateral nature should be the same; for otherwise they would not have been suitably adapted to the dispensation to which they belonged.

But we have something more than this general correspondence or analogy to appeal to. For the nature of the historical types themselves, as already explained, implies their existence, in considerable number and variety. The representation they were designed to give of the fundamental truths and principles of the Gospel, with the view of preparing the Church for the new dispensation, would necessarily have been incomplete and inadequate, unless it had embraced a pretty extensive field. The object of their appointment would have been but partially reached, if they had consisted only of the few straggling examples which have been particularly mentioned in New Testament Scripture. Nor, unless the history in general of Old Testament times, in so far as its recorded transactions bore on them the stamp of God’s mind and will, had been pervaded by the typical element, could it have in any competent measure fulfilled the design of a preparatory economy. So that whatever distinctions it may be necessary to draw between one part of the transactions and another, as to their being in themselves sometimes of a more essential, sometimes of a more incidental character, or in their typical bearing being more or less closely related to the realities of the Gospel, their very place and object in a preparatory dispensation required them to be extensively typical. To be spread over a large field, and branched out in many directions, was as necessary to their typical as to their more immediate and temporary design.

Thus the one point grows by a sort of natural necessity out of the other. But the argument admits of being consider ably strengthened by the manner in which the historical types that are specially mentioned in New Testament Scripture are there referred to. So far from being represented as singular in their typical reference to Gospel times, they have uniformly the appearance of being only selected for the occasion. Nay, [[@Page:98]] the obligation on the part of believers generally to seek for them throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, and apply them to all the purposes of Christian instruction and improvement, is distinctly asserted in the Epistle to the Hebrews; and the capacity to do so is represented as a proof of full-grown spiritual discernment (Heb. 5:11-14). There is, therefore, a sense in which the saying of Augustine, “The Old Testament, when rightly understood, is one great prophecy of the New,”[1] is strictly true even in regard to those parts of ancient Scripture which, in their direct and immediate bearing, partake least of the prophetical. Its records of the past are, at the same time, pregnant with the germs of a corresponding but more exalted future. The relations sustained by its more public characters, the parts they were appointed to act in their day and generation, the deliverances that were wrought for them and by them, and the chastisements they were from time to time given to experience, did not begin and terminate with themselves. They were parts of an unfinished and progressive plan, which finds its destined completion in the person and kingdom of Christ; and only when seen in this prospective reference do they appear in their proper magnitude and their full significance.

Christ, then, is the end of the history as well as of the law, of the Old Testament. It had been strange, indeed, if it were otherwise; strange if its historical transactions had not been ordained by God to bear a prospective reference to the scheme of grace unfolded in the Gospel. For what is this scheme itself, in its fundamental character, but a grand historical development? What are the doctrines it teaches, the blessings it imparts, and the prospects it discloses of coming glory, but the ripened fruit and issue of the wondrous facts it records? The things which are there written of the incarnation and life, the death and resurrection, of the Lord Jesus Christ, are really the foundation on which all rests the root from which everything springs in Christianity. And shall it, then, be imagined, that the earlier facts in the history of related and preparatory dispensations did not point, like so many heralds and forerunners, to these unspeakably[[@Page:99]] greater ones to come? If a prophecy lay concealed in their symbolical rites, could it fail to be found also in the historical transactions that were often so closely allied to these, and always coincident with them in purpose and design? Assuredly not. In so far as God spake in the transactions, and gave discoveries by them of His truth and character, they pointed on ward to the one “Pattern Man,” and the terminal kingdom of righteousness and blessing of which He was to be the head and centre. Here only the history of God’s earlier dispensations attained its proper end, as in it also the history of the world rose to its true greatness and glory.[2]

III. The thought, however, may not unnaturally occur, that if the historical matter of the Old Testament possess as much as has been represented of a typical character, some plain indications of its doing so should be found in Old Testament Scripture itself; we should scarcely need to draw our proof of the existence and nature of the historical types entirely from the writings [[@Page:100]] of the New Testament. It was with the view of meeting this thought that we advanced our third statement; which is, that Old Testament Scripture does contain undoubted marks and indications of its historical personages and events being related to some higher ideal, in which the truths and relations exhibited in them were again to meet, and obtain a more perfect development. The proof of this is to be sought chiefly in the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, in which the more select instruments of God’s Spirit gave expression to the Church’s faith respecting both the past and the future in His dispensations. And in looking there we find, not only that an exalted personage, with His work of perfect righteousness, and His kingdom of consummate bliss and glory, was seen to be in prospect, but also that the expectations cherished of what was to be, took very commonly the form of a new and higher exhibition of what had already been. In giving promise of the better things to come, prophecy to a large extent availed itself of the characters and events of history. But it could only do so on the two fold ground, that it perceived in these essentially the same elements of truth and principle which were to appear in the future; and in that future anticipated a nobler exhibition of them than had been given in the past. And what was this but, in other words, to indicate their typical meaning and design? The truth of this will more fully appear when we come to treat of the combination of type with prophecy, which, on account of its importance, we reserve for the subject of a separate chapter. Meanwhile, it will be remembered how even Moses speaks before his death of “the prophet which the Lord their God should raise up from among his brethren like to himself” (Deut. 18:18)—one that should hold a similar position and do a similar work, but each in its kind more perfect and complete—else, why look out for another 1 In like manner, David connects the historical appearance of Melchizedek with the future Head of God’s Church and kingdom, when He announces Him as a priest after the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 110:4); he foresaw that the relations of Melchizedek’s time should be again revived in this divine character, and the same part fulfilled anew, but raised, as the connection intimates, to a higher sphere, invested with a heavenly greatness, and carrying a world-wide signifcance [[@Page:101]] and power. So again we are told (Mal. 3:1, [[4:5 >> Bible:Ml 4:5]] ) another Elias should arise in the brighter future, to be succeeded by a more glorious manifestation of the Lord, to do what had never been done but in fragments before; namely, to provide for Himself a true spiritual priesthood, a regenerated people, and an offering of righteousness. But the richest proofs are furnished by the latter portion of Isaiah’s writings; for there we find the prophet intermingling so closely together the past and the future, that it is often difficult to tell of which he actually speaks. He passes from Israel to the Messiah, and again from the Messiah to Israel, as if the one were but a new, a higher and perfect development of what belonged to the other. And the Church of the future is constantly represented under the relations of the past, only freed from the imperfections that attached to its state, and rendered in every respect blessed and glorious.

Such are a few specimens of the way in which the more spiritual and divinely enlightened members of the Old Covenant saw the future imaged in the past or present. They discerned the essential oneness in truth and principle between the two; but, at the same time, were conscious of such inherent imperfections and defects adhering to the past, that they felt it required a more perfect future to render it altogether worthy of God, and fully adequate to the wants and necessities of His people. And there is one entire book of the Old Testament which owes in a manner its existence, as it now stands, to this likeness in one respect, but diversity in another, between the past and the future things in God’s administration. We refer to the Book of Psalms. The pieces of which this book consists are in their leading character devotional summaries, expressing the pious thoughts and feelings which the consideration of God’s ways, and the knowledge of His revelations, were fitted to raise in reflecting and spiritual bosoms. But the singular thing is, that they are this for the New as well as for the Old Testament worshipper. They are still incomparably the most perfect expression of the religious sentiment, and the best directory to the soul in its meditations and communings about divine things, which is anywhere to be found. There is not a feature in the divine character, nor an aspect of any moment in the life of faith, to which expression, more or less distinct, is not there [[@Page:102]] given. How could such a book have come into existence, centuries before the Christian era, but for the fact that the Old and the New dispensations—however they may have differed in outward form, and the ostensible nature of the transactions belonging to them were founded on the same relations, and pervaded by the same essential truths and principles? No otherwise could the Book of Psalms have served as the great hand-book of devotion to the members of both covenants. There the disciples of Moses and Christ meet as on common ground—the one still readily and gratefully using the fervent utterances of faith and hope, which the other had breathed forth ages before. And though it was comparatively carnal institutions under which the holy men lived and worshipped, who indited those divine songs; though it was transactions bearing directly only on their earthly and temporal condition, which formed the immediate ground and occasion of the sentiments they uttered; yet, where in all Scripture can the believer, who now “worships in spirit and in truth,” more readily find for himself the words that shall fitly express his loftiest conceptions of God, embody his most spiritual and enlarged views of the Divine government, or tell forth the feelings and desires of his soul even in many of its most lively and elevated moods?

But with this manifold adaptation to the spiritual thoughts and feelings of the Christian, there is still a perceptible difference between the Psalms of David and the writings of the New Testament. With all that discovers itself in the Psalms of a vivid apprehension of God, and of a habitual confidence in His faithfulness and love, one cannot fail to mark the indications of something like a trembling restraint and awe upon the soul; it never rises into the filial cry of the Gospel, Abba Father. There is a fitfulness also in its aspirations, as of one dwelling in a dusky and changeful atmosphere. Continually, indeed, do we see the Psalmist flying, in distress and trouble, under the shelter of the Almighty, and trusting in His mercy for deliverance from the guilt of sin. Even in the worst times he still prays and looks for redemption. But theredemption which dispels all fear, and satisfies the soul with the highest good, he knew not, excepting as a bright day-star glistening in the far-distant horizon. It was in his believing apprehensions a thing that should one day be [[@Page:103]] realized by the Church of God; and he could tell also somewhat of the mighty and glorious personage destined in the Divine counsels to accomplish it of His unparalleled struggles in the cause of righteousness, and of His final triumphs, resulting in the extension of His kingdom to the farthest bounds of the earth. But no more—the veil still hangs; expectation still waits and longs; and it is only for the believer of other times to say, “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation;” “I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ;” or again, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know, that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Such is the agreement, and such also the difference, between the Old and the New. “There we see the promise and prelude of the blessings of salvation; here, these blessings themselves, far surpassing all the previous foreshadowings of them. There, a fiducial resting in Jehovah; here, an unspeakable fulness of spiritual and heavenly blessings from the opened fountain of His mercy. There, a confidence that the Lord would not abandon His people; here, the Lord Himself assuming their nature, the God-man connecting Himself in organic union with humanity, and sending forth streams of life through its members. There, in the background, night, only relieved by the stars of the word of promise, and operations of grace in suitable accordance with it; here, in the background, day, still clouded, indeed, by our human nature, which is not yet completely penetrated by the Spirit, and is ever anew manifesting its sinfulness, but yet such a day as gives assurance of the cloudless sunshine of eternity, of which God Himself is the light.”[3]

We here conclude the direct proof of our argument for the typical character of the religion and history of the Old Testament; but it admits of confirmation from two distinct though related lines of thought,—the one analogical, derived from the existence of typical forms in physical nature, coupled with the evidences of a progression in the Divine mode of realizing them; the other founded inferentially on what might seem requisite [[@Page:104]] to render the progression, apparent in the spiritual economy, an effective growth towards “the dispensation of the fulness of times.” With a few remarks on each of these, we shall close this branch of our inquiry.

1. The subject of typical forms in nature has only of late risen into prominence, and taken its place in scientific investigations. It had the misfortune to be first distinctly broached by men who were more distinguished for their powers of fancy, and their bold spirit of speculation, than for patient and laborious inquiry in any particular department of science; so that their peculiar ideas respecting a harmony of structure running through the organic kingdoms, and bearing relation to a pattern-form or type, were for a time treated with contempt, or met with decided opposition. But further research has turned the scale in their favour: the ideas in question may now be reckoned among the established conclusions of natural science; and so far from occasioning any just prejudice to the interests of a rational deism (as was once supposed), they have turned rather to its advantage. For, in addition to the evidences of design in nature, which show a specific direction toward a final cause (and which remain untouched), there have been brought to light evidences, not previously observed, of a striking unity of plan. The general principle has been made good, that in organic structures, while there is an infinite variety of parts, each with its specific functions and adaptations, there is also a normal shape, which it more or less approaches, both in its construction as a whole, and in each of its organs. Thus, in plants which have leaves that strike the eye, the leaf and plant are typically analogous: the leaf is a typical plant or branch, and the tree or branch a typical leaf, with certain divergences or modifications necessary to adapt them to their respective places. In the animal kingdom the structural harmony is not less perceptible, and still more to our purpose. It has been found by a wide and satisfactory induction, that the human is here the pattern-form—the archetype of the vertebrate division of animated being. In the structure of all other animal forms there are observable striking resemblances to that of man, and resemblances of a kind that seem designed to assimilate the lower, as near as circumstances would admit, to the higher. In all vertebrate animals it is [[@Page:105]] found that the vertebrate skeleton is composed of a series of parts of essentially the same order, only modified in a great variety of ways to suit the particular functions it has to discharge in the different animal frames to which it belongs. Thus, every segment, and almost every bone, present in the human hand and arm, exist also in the fin of the whale, though apparently not required for the movement of this inflexible paddle, and the specific uses for which it is designed; apparently, therefore, retained more for the sake of symmetry, than from any necessity connected with the proper function of the organ.[4] Most strikingly, however, does the studied conformity to the human archetype appear in the formation of the brain, which is the most peculiar and distinguishing part of the animal frame. “Nature,” says Hugh Miller, “in constructing this curious organ in man, first lays down a grooved cord, as the carpenter lays down the keel of his vessel; and on this narrow base the perfect brain, as month after month passes by, is gradually built up, like the vessel from the keel. First it grows up into a brain closely resembling that of a fish; a few additions more impart the perfect appearance of the brain of a bird; it then developes into a brain exceedingly like that of a mammiferous quadruped; and finally, expanding atop, and spreading out its deeply corrugated lobes, till they project widely over the base, it assumes its unique character as a human brain. Radically such at the first, it passes through all the inferior forms, from that of the fish upwards, as if each man were in himself, not the microcosm of the old fanciful philosopher, but something greatly more wonderful—a compendium of all animated nature, and of kin to every creature that lives. Hence the remark, that man is the sum total of all animals—’the animal equivalent,’ says Oken, ‘to the whole animal kingdom.’”[5]

This, however, is not the whole. For, as geology has now learned to read with sufficient accuracy the stony records of the [[@Page:106]] past, to be able to tell of successive creations of vertebrate animals, from fish, the first and lowest, up to man, the last and highest; so here also we have a kind of typical history—the less perfect animal productions of nature having throughout those earlier geological periods borne a prospective reference to man, as the complete and ultimate form of animal existence. In the language of theology, they were the types, and he is the antitype, in the mundane system. Or, as more fully explained by Professor Owen, “All the parts and organs of man had been sketched out in anticipation, so to speak, in the inferior animals; and the recognition of an ideal exemplar in the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a being as man must have existed before man appeared. For the Divine mind which planned the archetype, also foreknew all its modifications. The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been committed, we are as yet ignorant. But if, without derogation of the Divine power, we may conceive the existence of such ministers, and personify them by the term NATURE, we learn from the past history of our globe, that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light amidst the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the human form.”[[|Text: It is curious to notice that considerably before the progress of physical science had enabled its cultivators to draw this deduction from the lower to the higher forms of organic being, the same line of thought had suggested itself to the inventive mind of Coleridge from a thoughtful meditation of the successive stages of creation as described in Genesis, viewed in the light of progressive developments in the mental as well as material world. The passage as a whole is singularly characteristic of its distinguished author; but the part we have properly to do with is the following: “Let us carry ourselves back in spirit to the mysterious week, the teeming work-days of the Creator; as they rose in vision before the eye of the inspired historian of the generations of the heavens and of the earth, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And who that hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, could, as the vision evolving still advanced toward him, contemplate the filial and loyal Bee; the home-building, wedded, and divorceless Swallow; and, above all, the manifoldly intelligent Ant tribes, with their commonwealths and confederacies, their warriors and miners, the husband-folk that fold in their tiny flocks on the honeyed leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy instincts of maternal love, detached and in selfless purity—and not say to himself, Behold the shadow of approaching humanity, the sun rising from behind, in the kindling morn of creation! Thus all lower natures find their highest good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better.” (Aids to Reflection, i. p. 85.)[6]

In this view of the matter, what a striking analogy does the [[@Page:107]] history of God’s operations in nature furnish to His plan in providence, as exhibited in the history of redemption! Here, in like manner, there is found in the person and kingdom of Christ a grand archetypal idea, towards which, for successive ages, the Divine plan was continually working. Partial exhibitions of it appear from time to time in certain remarkable personages, institutions, and events, which rise prominently into view as the course of providence proceeds, but all marred with obvious faults and imperfections in respect to the great object contemplated; until at length the idea, in its entire length and breadth, is seen embodied in Him to whom all the prophets gave witness—the God-man, fore-ordained before the foundation of the world. “The Creator—to adopt again the exposition of Mr Miller—in the first ages of His workings, appears to have been associated with what He wrought simply as the producer or author of all things. But even in those ages, as scene after scene, and one dynasty of the inferior animals succeeded another, there were strange typical indications which pre-Adamite students of prophecy among the spiritual existences of the universe might possibly have aspired to read; symbolical indications to the effect that the Creator was in the future to be more intimately connected with His material works than in the past, through a glorious creature made in His own image and likeness. And to this semblance and portraiture of the Deity—the first Adam—all the merely natural symbols seem to refer. But in the eternal decrees it had been for ever determined, that the union of the Creator with creation was not to be a mere union by proxy or semblance. And no sooner had the first Adam appeared and fallen, than a new school of prophecy began, in which type and symbol were mingled with what had now its first existence on earth verbal enunciations; and all pointed to the second Adam, ‘the Lord from heaven.’ In Him, creation [[@Page:108]] and the Creator meet in reality, and not in semblance. On the very apex of the finished pyramid of being sits the adorable Monarch of all:—as the son of Mary, of David, of the first Adam—the created of God; as God and the Son of God—the eternal Creator of the universe. And these—the two Adams—form the main theme of all prophecy, natural and revealed. And that type and symbol should have been employed with reference not only to the second, but—as held by men like Agassiz and Owen—to the first Adam also, exemplifies, we are disposed to think, the unity of the style of Deity, and serves to show that it was He who created the worlds that dictated the Scriptures.”[7]

It is indeed a marvellous similitude, and one, it will be perceived, which is not less fitted to stimulate the aspirations of hope toward the future, than to strengthen faith in what the Bible relates concerning the history of the past. For, if the archetypal idea in animated nature has been wrought at through long periods and successive ages of being till it found its proper realization in man; now that the nature of man is linked in personal union with the Godhead for the purpose of rectifying what is evil, and raising manhood to a higher than its original condition, who can tell to what a height of perfection and glory it shall attain, when the work of God “in the regeneration” has fully accomplished its aim? “We know not what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him,” in whom the earthly and human have been for ever associated with, and assimilated to, the spiritual and divine. But the parallel between the method of God’s working in nature, and that pursued by Him in grace, especially as presented in the above graphic extract, naturally raises the question (to which reference has already been made, p. 62), whether, or how far, the creation as constituted and headed in Adam, is to be regarded as typical of the incarnation and kingdom of Christ? As the question is one that cannot be quite easily disposed of, while still it has a very material bearing on our future investigations, we must reserve it for separate discussion.[8]

2. If now we turn from God’s plan in nature to His plan in grace, and think of the conditions that were required to meet in it, in order to render the progression here also exhibited fitly [[@Page:109]] conducive to its great end, we shall find a still farther confirmation of our argument for the place and character of Scripture Typology. This plan, viewed with respect to its progressive character, certainly presents something strange and mysterious to our view, especially in the extreme slowness of its progression; since it required the postponement of the work of redemption for so many ages, and kept the Church during these in a state of comparative ignorance in respect to the great objects of her faith and hope. Yet what is it but an application to the moral history of the world of the principle on which its physicaldevelopment has proceeded, and which, indeed, is constantly exhibited before us in each man’s personal history, whose term of probation upon earth is, in many cases half, in nearly all a third part consumed, before the individual attains to a capacity for the objects and employments of manhood? Constituted as we personally are, and as the world also is, progression of some kind is indispensable to happiness and well-being; and the majestic slowness that appears in the plan of God’s administration of the world, is but a reflection of the nature of its Divine Author, with whom a thousand years are as one day. Starting, then, with the assumption, that the Divine plan behoved to be of a progressive character, the nature of the connection we have found to exist between its earlier and later parts, discovers the perfect wisdom and fore sight of God. The terminating point in the plan was what is called emphatically “the mystery of godliness,”—God manifest in the flesh for the redemption of a fallen world, and the establishment through Him of a kingdom of righteousness that should not pass away. It was necessary that some intimation of this ulterior design should be given from the first, that the Church might know whither to direct her expectations. Accordingly, the prophetic Word began to utter its predictions with the very entrance of sin. The first promise was given on the spot that witnessed the fall; and that a promise which contained, within its brief but pregnant utterance, the whole burden of redemption. As time rolled on, prophecy continued to add to its communications, having still for its grand scope and aim “the testimony of Jesus.” And at length so express had its tidings become, and so plentiful its revelations, that when the purpose of the Father drew near to its accomplishment, the remnant of sincere worshippers [[@Page:110]] were like men standing on their watch-towers, waiting and looking for the long-expected consolation of Israel; nor was there anything of moment in the personal history or work of the Son, of which it could not be written, It was so done, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

It is plain, however, on a little consideration, that something more was needed than the hopeful announcements of prophecy. The Church required training as well as teaching, and training of a very peculiar kind; for she had to be formed for receiving things “which men had not heard, nor had the ear perceived, neither had the eye seen—the things which God had prepared for those that waited for Him” (Isa. 64:4). “The new dispensation was to be wholly made up of things strange and wonderful; all that is seen and heard of it is contrary to carnal wisdom.

The appearance of the Son of God in a humble condition—the discharge by Him in person of a Gospel ministry, with its attendant circumstances—His shame and sufferings—His resurrection and ascension into heaven—the nature of the kingdom instituted by Him, which is spiritual—the blessings of His kingdom, which are also spiritual—the instruments employed for advancing the kingdom, men devoid of worldly learning, and destitute of outward authority—the gift of the Holy Spirit, the calling of the Gentiles, the rejection of so many among the Jewish people:—these, among other things, were indeed such as the carnal eye had never seen, and the carnal ear had never heard; nor could they without express revelation, by any thought or natural ingenuity on the part of man, have been foreseen or understood.”[9] But lying thus so far beyond the ken of man’s natural apprehensions, and so different from what they were disposed of themselves to expect, if all that was done beforehand respecting them had consisted in the necessarily partial and obscure intimations of prophecy, there could neither have been any just anticipation of the things to be revealed, nor any suitable training for them; the change from the past to the future must have come as an invasion, rather than as the result of an ever-advancing development, and men could only have been brought by a sort of violence to submit to it.

To provide against this, there was required, as a proper [[@Page:111]] accompaniment to the intimations of prophecy, the training of preparatory dispensations, that the past history and established experience of the Church might run, though on a lower level, yet in the same direction with her future prospects. And what her circumstances in this respect required, the wisdom and fore sight of God provided. He so skilfully modelled for her the institutions of worship, and so wisely arranged the dealings of His providence, that there was constantly presented to her view, in the outward and earthly things with which she was conversant, the cardinal truths and principles of the coming dispensation. In everything she saw and handled, there was something to attemper her spirit to a measure of conformity with the realities of the Gospel; so that if she could not be said to live directly under “the powers of the world to come,” she yet shared their secondary influence, being placed amid the signs and shadows of the true, and conducted through earthly transactions that bore on them the image of the heavenly.

It is to this preparatory training, as being on the part of God sufficiently protracted and complete, that we are to regard the Apostle as chiefly referring, when he speaks of Christ having appeared, “when the fulness of the time was come.”—(Gal. 4:4) Chiefly, though not by any means exclusively. For there is a manifold wisdom in all God’s arrangements. In the moral as well as in the physical world He is ever making numerous operations conspire to the production of one result, as each result is again made to contribute to several important ends. It is, therefore, a most legitimate object of inquiry, to search for all the lines of congruity to be seen in the world’s condition, that opportunely met at the time of Christ’s appearing, and together rendered it in a peculiar manner suited for the institution of His kingdom, and advantageously circumstanced for the diffusion of its truths and blessings among the nations of the earth. But whatever light may be gathered from these external researches, it should never be forgotten that God’s own record must furnish the main grounds for determining the special fitness of the selected time, and the state of His Church the paramount reason. In everything that essentially affects the interests of the Church, pre-eminently therefore in what concerns the manifestation of Christ, which is the centre-point of all that [[@Page:112]] touches her interests, the state and condition of the Church herself is ever the first thing contemplated by the eye of God; the rest of the world holds but a secondary and subordinate place. Hence, when we are told that Christ appeared in the fulness of time, the fact of which we are mainly assured is, that all was done which was properly required for bringing the Church, whether as to her internal state or to her relations to the world, into a measure of preparedness for the time of His appearing. Not only had the period anticipated by prophecy arrived, and believing expectation, rising on the wings of prophecy, reached its proper height, but also the long series of preliminary arrangements and dealings was now complete, which were designed to make the Church familiar with the fundamental truths and principles of Messiah’s kingdom, and prepare her for the erection of this kingdom with its divine realities and eternal prospects.

It is true that we search in vain for the general and wide spread success which we might justly expect to have arisen from the plan of God, and to have made conspicuously manifest its infinite wisdom. With the exception of a comparatively small number, the professing Church was found so completely unprepared for the doctrine of Christ’s kingdom, as to reject it with disdain, and oppose it with unrelenting violence. But this neither proves the absence of the design, nor the unfitness of the means for carrying it into effect. It only proves how in sufficient the best means are of themselves to enlighten and sanctify the human mind, when its thoughts and imaginations have become fixed in a wrong direction proves how the heart may remain essentially corrupt, even after undergoing the most perfect course of instruction, and still prefer the ways of sin to those of righteousness. But while we cannot overlook the fatal ignorance and perversity that pervaded the mass of the Jewish people, we are not to forget that there still was among them a pious remnant, “the election according to grace,” who, as the Church in the world, so they in the Church ever occupy the foremost place in the mind and purposes of God. In the bosom of the Jewish Church, as is justly remarked by Thiersch, “there lay a domestic life so pure, noble, and tender, that it could yield such a person as the holy Virgin,” and could furnish an atmosphere [[@Page:113]] in which the Son of God might grow up sinless from childhood to manhood. There were Simeon and Anna, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, the company of Apostles, the converts, no small number after all, who flocked to the standard of Jesus, as soon as the truths of His salvation came to be fully known and understood, and the believing Jews and proselytes scattered abroad, who, in almost every city, were ready to form the nucleus of a Christian Church, and greatly facilitated its extension in the world. Did not the course of God’s preparatory dispensations reach its end in regard to these? Does not even the style of argument and address used by the Apostles imply that it did? How much do both their language and their ideas savour of the sanctuary! How constantly do they throw themselves back for illustration and support, not only on the prophecies, but also on the sacred annals and institutions of the Old Testament! They spake and reasoned on the assumption, that the revelations of the Gospel were but a new and higher exhibition of the principles which appeared alike in the events of their past history and the services of their religious worship. By means of these an appropriate language was already furnished to their hand, through which they could discourse aright of spiritual and divine things. But more than that, as they had no new language to invent, so they had no new ideas to discover, or unheard-of principles to promulgate. The scheme of truth which they were called to expound and propagate, had its foundations already laid in the whole history and constitution of the Jewish commonwealth. In labouring to establish it, they felt that they were treading in the footsteps, and, on a higher vantage-ground, maintaining the faith of their illustrious fathers. In short, they appear as the heralds and advocates of a cause which, in its essential principles, had its representation in all history, and gathered as into one glorious orb of truth the scattered rays of light and consolation which had been emanating from the ways of God since the world began. Thus wisely were the different parts of the Divine plan adjusted to each other; and, for the accomplishment of what was required, the training by means of types could no more have been dispensed with, than the glimpse-like visions and hopeful intimations of prophecy.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Vetus Testamentum recte intelligentibus prophetia est Novi Testamenti (Contra Faust. L. xv. 2). And again, Ille apparatus veteris Testamenti In generationibus, factis etc. parturiebat esse venturum (Ib. L. xix. 31).

[2] Compare the remarks made by the author in “Prophecy viewed with respect to its Distinctive Nature,” etc., P. I., c. 2; also what has been said here in p. 54 sq. of the views which have obtained currency in Germany respecting the typical character of Old Testament history. Hartmann, in his Verbinnung des Alten Test, mit den Newen, p. 6, gives the following from a German periodical on the subject of Old Testament history, and its connection with the Gospel:—”Must not Judaism be of great moment to Christianity, since both stand in brotherly and sisterly relations to each other? The historical books of the Hebrews are also religious books; the religious import is involved in the historical. The history of the people, as a divine leading and management in respect to them, was at the same time a training for religion, precisely as the Old Testament is a preparation for the New.” Still more strongly Jacobi, as quoted by Sack, Apologetik, p. 356, on the words of Christ, that “as the serpent was lifted up, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (ὑψωθὴναι δεὶ): “ History is also prophecy. The past unfolds the future as a germ, and at certain points, discernible by the eye of the mind, the greater may be seen imaged in the smaller, the internal in the external, the present or future in the past. Here there is nothing whatever arbitrary: throughout there is a divine must, connection, and arrangement, pregnant with mutual relations.” More recently, Hofmann, in his Weissagung und Erfüllung, as noticed in Ch. I., has run to an extreme this view of Old Testament history, and in his desire to magnify the importance of it has depreciated prophecy—really, however, to the disparagement of the prophetical element in both departments.

[3] Delitzsch, Biblisch-prophetische Theologie, p. 232.

[4] It is right to say, only apparently retained, though not strictly required; for, as Dr M`Cosh has justly stated, there may still be uses and designs connected with arrangements of the kind which science has not discovered; and the respect to symmetry may be but an incidental and subordinate, not the primary or sole reason. See Typical Forms, p. 449.

[5] Footprints, p. 291.

[6] Now, this destined rise in the kingdom founded in David, and its culmination in a Divine-human Head, is also the theme of many prophecies. David himself took the lead in announcing it; for he already foresaw, through the Spirit, what in this respect would be required to verify the [[@Page:440]] wonderful promise made to him.—(2 Sam. 7; Ps. 2, 45, 72, 110; also Isa. 7:14, 9:6, etc.) But as David was himself the root of this new order of things, and the whole was to take the form of a verification of the word spoken to him, or of the perfectionment of the germ that was planted in him, so in his personal history there was given a compendious representation of the nature and prospects of the kingdom. In the first brief stage was exhibited the embryo of what it should ultimately become. Thus, the absoluteness of the Divine choice in appointing the king; his seeming want, but real possession, of the qualities required for administering the affairs of the kingdom; the growth from small, because necessarily spiritual, beginnings of the interests belonging to it—still growing, however, in the face of an inveterate and ungodly opposition, until judgment was brought forth unto victory;—these leading elements in the history of the first possessor of the kingdom must appear again they must have their counterpart in Him on whom the prerogatives and blessings of the kingdom were finally to settle. There was a real necessity in the case, such as always exists where the end is but the development and perfection of the beginning; and we may not hesitate to say, that if they had failed in Christ, He could not have been the anointed King of David’s line, in whom the purpose of God to govern and bless the world in righteousness was destined to stand. Here, again, we have another and lengthened series of predictions, connecting, in this respect, the past with the future, the beginning with the ending (for example, Ps. 16, 22, 40, 49, 109; Isa. 53; Zech. 9:9, 12:10, 13:1-7).

[7] Witness newspaper, 2d August 1851.

[8] See next chapter.

[9] Vitringa on Isa. 64:4.

Chapter Fourth.—The Proper Nature and Province of Typology—3. God’s Work in Creation, how Related to The Incarnation and Kingdom Of Christ.

[[@Page:114]] THE analogy presented near the close of the preceding chapter—in an extract from Hugh Miller[1]—between pre-Adamite formations in the animal kingdom, rising successively above each other, and those subsequent arrangements in the religious sphere which were intended to herald and prepare for the personal appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, is stated with becoming caution and reserve. It keeps strictly within the limits of revelation, and assumes the existence of nothing in the work of creation itself, with respect to typical forms or otherwise, such as could, even to the most profound intelligences of the universe, have suggested the idea of a further and more complete manifestation of God in connection with humanity. The commencement of the new school of prophecy, allying itself to type and symbol of another kind than had yet appeared, is dated from the era of Adam’s fall, as that which at once furnished the occasion and opened the way for their employment; while still, in the mind of Deity itself, or “in the eternal decrees,” as it is expressed in the extract, it had been for ever determined that there should yet be a closer union between the Creator and creation than was accomplished in Adam. In other words, God had from eternity purposed the Incarnation; though the events in providence which were to exhibit its need, and give rise to the prophetic announcements and foreshadowing symbols which should in due time point the eye of hope toward it came in subsequently to creation, and by reason of sin; so that the Incarnation was predestined, because the fall was foreseen.

The same caution, however, has not been always observed not even in ancient, and still less in recent times. The spirit [[@Page:115]] of Christian speculation, in proportion as the circumstances of particular times have called it into play, has striven to connect in some more distinct and formal manner God’s work in creation with a higher destiny for man in the future; but the modes of doing so have characteristically differed. Among the patristic writers the tendency of this speculation was to find in the original constitution of things pre-intimations or pledges of a higher and more ethereal condition to be reached by Adam and his posterity, as the reward of obedience to the will of God, and perseverance in holiness. The sense of various passages upon the subject gathered out of their writings has been thus expressed: “That Paradise was to Adam a type of heaven; and that the never-ending life of happiness promised to our first parents, if they had continued obedient, and grown up to perfection under that economy wherein they were placed, should not have continued in the earthly paradise, but only have commenced there, and been perpetuated in a higher state.”[2] It is impossible to say that such should not have been the case; for what in the event supposed might have been the ultimate intentions of God respecting the destinies of mankind, since revelation is entirely silent upon the subject, can be matter only of uncertain conjecture, or, at the very most, of probable inference. It is quite conceivable that some other region might have been prepared for their reception, where, free from any formal test of obedience, free even from the conditions of flesh and blood, and “made like unto the angels,” they should have reaped the fruits of immortality. But it is equally conceivable, that this earth itself, which “the Lord hath given to the children of men,” might have become every way suited to the occasion; that as, on the hypothesis in question, it should have escaped the blighting [[@Page:116]] influence of sin, so other and happier changes might have passed over it, and the condition of its inhabitants, not only than they have actually undergone, but than any we can distinctly apprehend; until by successive developments of latent energies, as well of a natural as of a moral kind, the highest attainable good for creation might have been reached. For anything we can tell, there may have been powers and susceptibilities inherent in the original constitution of things, which, under the benign and fostering care of its Creator, were capable of being conducted through such an indefinite course of progressive elevation. But everything of this sort belongs to speculation, not to theology; it lies outside the record which contains the revelation of God’s mind and will to man; and to designate paradise simply, and in its relation to our first parents, a type of heaven, is even more than to speak without warrant of Scripture,—it is to regard paradise and man’s relation to it in another light than Scripture has actually presented them. For there the original frame and constitution of things appears as in due accordance with the Divine ideal,—in itself good, therefore relatively perfect; and not a hint is dropped, or, so far as we know, an indication of any kind given, that could beget in man’s bosom the expectation or desire of another state of being and enjoyment than that which he actually possessed—none, till the entrance of sin had created new wants in his condition, and opened a new channel for the display of God’s perfections in regard to him. It was the influence of the ancient philosophy, which associated with matter in every form the elements of evil, or, at least, of imperfection, that so readily disposed the Fathers of the Christian Church to see in what was at first given to Adam only the image of some higher and better inheritance destined for him elsewhere. They did not consider what refinements matter itself might possibly undergo, in order to its adaptation to the most exalted state of being. But the same influence naturally kept them from connecting with this prospective elevation to a higher sphere the necessary or probable incarnation of the Word; since rather by detaching the human more from the environments of matter, than by bringing the divine into closer contact with it, did the prospect of a higher and more perfect condition for man seem possible to their apprehensions. Hence, [[@Page:117]] also, in what may be fitly called the great symbol of the early Church’s faith respecting the incarnation—the Nicene creed—goes no farther than this, that “for us men, and for the sake of our salvation, the Word was made flesh.”[3]

In recent times the speculative tendency, especially among the German divines, has shown a disposition to take the other direction—namely, to make the incarnation of itself, and apart altogether from the fall of man, the necessary and, from the first, the contemplated medium of man’s elevation to the final state of perfection and blessedness destined for him. Some of the scholastic theologians had already signalized themselves by the advocacy of this opinion—in particular, Rupprecht of Deutz, Alexander of Hales, Aquinas, Duns Scotus; but it was so strongly discountenanced by Calvin and the leading divines of the Reformation, who denounced the idea (propounded afresh by Osiander) of an incarnation without a fall as rash and groundless,[4] that it sunk into general oblivion, till the turn given to speculative thought by the revival of the pantheistic theology served, among other results, to bring it again into favour. This philosophy, while resisted by all believing theologians in its strivings to represent the created universe as but the self-evolution and the varied form of Deity, has still left its impress on the views of many of them as to the nature of the connection between Creator and creature—as if an actual commingling between the two were, in a sense, mutually essential; since a personal indwelling of Godhead in the form of humanity is conceived necessary to complete the manifestation of Godhead begun in Adam, and only by such a personal indwelling could the work of creation attain its end, either in regard to the true ideal of humanity, on the one side, or to the revealed character of God and the religion identified with it, on the other. Adam, therefore,[[@Page:118]] in his formation after the divine image, was the type of the God-man, or the God-man was the true archetype and only proper realization of the idea exhibited in Adam; the fall, with its attendant consequences, only determined the mode of Christ’s appearance among men, but by no means originated the necessityof his appearing.

The representatives of this transcendental school of Typology, as it may not inaptly be called— which undoubtedly includes some of the most learned theologians of the present day—differ to some extent in their mode of setting forth and vindicating the view they hold in common, according to the particular aspect of it which more especially strikes them as important. To give only a few specimens—Martensen presents the incarnation in its relation to the nature of God: the true idea of God is that of the absolute personality; and as the union of Christ with God is a personal union, the individual with whom God historically entered into an absolute union, must be free from everything individually subjective—he must reveal nothing save the absolute personality. Christ is not to be subsumed under the idea of humanity, but, inversely, humanity must be subsumed under Him, since it was He in whom and for whom all things were created (Col. 1:15). He is at once the centre of humanity and the revealed centre of Deity—the point at which God and God’s kingdom are personally united, and who reveals in fulness what the kingdom of God reveals in distinct and manifold forms. The second Adam is both the redeeming and the world-completing principle; the incarnate Logos, and as such the head not merely of the human race, but of all creation, which was made by Him and for Him, and is again to be recapitulated in Him.[5] Lange makes his starting-point the final issues of the incarnation, and from these argues its primary and essential place in the scheme of the Divine manifestations. The post-temporal, eternal glory of the humanity of Christ points back to its eternal, ideal existence in God. The eternal Son of God cannot, in the course of His temporal existence, have saddled Himself (behaftet sich) for ever with something accidental; or have assumed a form which, as purely historical, does not correspond to His eternal essence. We must therefore distinguish [[@Page:119]] between incarnation and assumption of the form of a servant (so as, he means, to place the latter alone in a relation of dependence to the fall of man); must also learn to understand the eternal beginnings of Christ’s humanity, in order to perceive how intimate a connection it has with the past—with the work of creation, with primeval times, and the history of the Old Testament. The whole that appeared in these of good is to be regarded as so many vital evolutions of the Divine life that is in Christ; but in Him alone is the idea of it fully realized.[6] Both of the writers just referred to, also Liebner, Kothe, and, greater than them all, Dorner, lay special stress on the argument derived from the headship of humanity indissolubly linked to Christ. Humanity, according to Dorner, as it appears before God—redeemed humanity—is not merely a mass or heap of unconnected individuals, but an organism, forming, with the world of higher spirits and nature, which is to be glorified for and through it, a complete and perfect organic unity. Even the natural world is an unity, solely because there is indissolubly united with it a principle which stands above it and comprises it within itself—namely, the Divine Logos, by whom the world was formed and is sustained, who is the vehicle and the representative of its eternal idea. But in a higher sense the world of humanity and spirits is an unity, because through the God-man who stands over it, and by His personal self-communication of Godhead-fulness pervades it, its creaturely susceptibility to God is filled; it now enters into the circle of the Divine life, and stands in living harmony with the centre of all good. But a matter so essential to the proper idea of humanity cannot belong to the sphere of contingency; it must be viewed as inseparably connected with the purpose of God in creation. And there is another thought, which Dorner conceives establishes beyond doubt the belief, that the incarnation had not its sole ground in sin, but had a deeper, an eternal, and abiding necessity in the wise and free love of God,—namely, that Christianity is the perfect religion, the religion absolutely, the eternal Gospel; and that for this religion Christ is the centre, without which it cannot be so much as conceived. Whoso, says he, maintains that Adam might have [[@Page:120]] become perfect even without Christ, inasmuch as no one can deem it possible to conceive of perfection without the perfect religion, maintains, either consciously or unconsciously, two absolute religions, one without, and one with Christ—which is a bare contradiction. No Christian, he thinks, will deny that it makes an essential difference, whether Christ, or only God in general, is the central point of a religion. At the same time, with Christian candour he admits, that the necessity of the truth he advocates will not so readily commend itself to theologians, who are wont to proceed in an experimental and anthropological manner (that is, who look at the matter as it has been evolved in the history and experience of mankind), as it must, and actually does, to those who recognise both the possibility and the necessity of a Christian speculation, that takes the conception of God for its starting-point.[7]

While this mode of contemplating the incarnation of Christ, and of connecting it with the idea of creation, has in its recent development had its origin in the philosophy, and its formal exhibition in the theology, of Germany, it is no longer confined to that country; and both the view itself, and its application to the Typology of Scripture, have already found a place in our own. theological literature. Dean Trench, in his Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, although he advances nothing strictly new upon the subject, yet he speaks not less decidedly respecting the necessity of the incarnation, apart altogether from the fall, to enable the race of Adam “to attain the end of its creation, the place among the families of God, for which from the first it was designed.” Special stress is laid by him, as by Lange, on the issues of the incarnation, as reflecting light on its original intention: “The taking on Himself of our flesh by the Eternal Word was no makeshift to meet a mighty, yet still a particular, emergent need; a need which, conceding the liberty of man’s will, and that it was possible for him to have continued in his first state of obedience, might never have occurred. It was not a mere result and reparation of the fall,—such an act as, except for that, would never have been; but lay bedded at a far deeper depth in the counsels of [[@Page:121]] God for the glory of His Son, and the exaltation of that race formed in His image and His likeness. For, against those who regard the incarnation as an arbitrary, or as merely an historic event, and not an ideal one as well, we may well urge this weighty consideration, that the Son of God did not, in and after His ascension, strip off this human nature again; He did not regard His humanity as a robe, to be worn for a while and then laid aside; the convenient form of His manifestation, so long; as He was conversing with men on earth, but the fitness of which had with that manifestation passed away. So far from this, we know, on the contrary, that He assumed our nature for ever, married it to Himself, glorified it with His own glory, carried it as the form of His eternal subsistence into the world of angels, before the presence of His Father. Had there been anything accidental here, had the assumption of our nature been an afterthought (I speak as a man), this marriage of the Son of God with that nature could scarcely be conceived. He could hardly have so taken it, unless it had possessed an ideal as well as an historic fitness; unless pre-established harmonies had existed, such harmonies as only a divine intention could have brought about between the one and the other.”

The application of the view to Typology is apparent from the very statement of it; but it has also been formally made, and so as to combine the results obtained from the geological territory, with those of a more strictly theological nature. Thus, the late Mr Macdonald[8] speaks of “the scheme of nature, read from the memorials of creation inscribed on the earth’s crust, or recorded in the opening pages of Genesis, as progressive, and from its very outset prophetic;” and a little farther on he says, “There is no reason whatever for confining the typical to the events and institutions subsequent to the fall. The cause of this arbitrary limitation lies in regarding as typical only what strictly prefigured redemption, instead of connecting it with God’s manifestation of Himself and His purposes in all His acts and administrations, which, however varied, had from the very first one specific and expressed object in view—His own glory through man, at first created in the Divine image, and since the fall to be transformed into it; inasmuch as that moral disorder [[@Page:122]] rendered such a change necessary. The whole of the Divine acts and arrangements from the beginning formed parts of one system; for, as antecedent creations reached their end in man, so man himself in his original constitution prefigured a new and higher relation of the race than the incipient place reached in creation” (p. 457). The fall is consequently to be understood, and is expressly represented, merely as a kind of interruption or break in the march of providence toward its aim, in nature akin to such events as the death of Abel and the flood in after times; while the Divine plan not the less proceeded on its course, only with special adaptations to the altered state of things.

I. It is this more special bearing of the subject, its relation to a well-grounded and properly adjusted Scriptural Typology, with which we have here chiefly to do; and to this, accordingly, we shall primarily address ourselves. In doing so, we neither directly question nor defend the truth of the view under consideration; we leave its title to a place in the deductions of a scientific theology for the present in abeyance; and merely regard it in the light in which it is put by its most learned and thoughtful advocates, as a matter of inference from some of the later testimonies of Scripture concerning the purposes of God; and this, too, only as informed and guided by a spirit of Christian speculation, having for its starting-point the conception of God.

Now the matter standing thus, it would, as appears to us, be extremely unwise to lay such a view at the foundation of a typological system, or even to give it in such a system a distinctly recognised place. For this were plainly to bring a certain measure of uncertainty into the very structure of the system—founding upon a few incidental hints and speculative considerations concerning the final purposes of God, in which it were vain to expect a general concurrence among theologians, rather than upon the broad stream and current of His revelations. It were also, as previously noticed (p. 58), to make our Typology, in a very important respect, return to the fundamental error of the Cocceian school; that is, would inevitably lead to the too predominant contemplation of everything in the earlier dispensations of God as from the Divine [[@Page:123]] point of view, and with respect to the great archetypal idea in Christ, as from the beginning foreseen and set up in prospect. This tendency, indeed, has already in a remarkable manner discovered itself among the divines who bring into the fore ground of God’s manifestations of Himself the idea of the God-man. Lange, for instance, has given representations of the “Divine-human life” in the patriarchs and worthies of ancient times, which seem to leave no very distinctive difference between the action of divinity in them and in the person of Jesus.

Nägelsbach (in his work Der Gottmensch) even represents our first parent as Elohim-Adam (God-man), on the ground of his spiritual essence being of a divine nature; and both in Adam after the fall, and the better class who succeeded, there was what he calls an artificial realization of the idea of the God-manhood attempted, and in part accomplished. Hence, not without reason has Dorner delivered a caution to those who coincide with him in his view respecting the incarnation, to beware of darkening the preparation for Christ by throwing into their delineation of early times too much of Christ Himself, or of becoming so absorbed in the typical as to overlook the historical life and struggles of the people of the Old Covenant.[9] The caution, we are persuaded, will be of little avail, so long as the idea of the incarnation is placed in immediate relationship with God’s work in creation; for in that case it must ever seem natural to make that idea shine forth in all the more peculiar instruments and operations of God, and generally to assimilate humanity in its better phases too closely to the altogether singular and mysterious person of Immanuel—to find in it, in short, a kind of God-manhood, whereby the God-man hood itself would inevitably come to be in danger of gliding into the shadowy form of a Sabellian manifestation.

Even if this serious error could be avoided, another and slighter form of the same erroneous tendency would be sure to prevail,—if the incarnation, as the archetypal idea of creation, were formally introduced, and made the guiding-star of our Typology. It would inevitably lead us, in our endeavours to read out the meaning of God’s working in creation and providence, to put a certain strain upon the things which appear, in [[@Page:124]] order to bring out what is conceived to have been the ultimate design in them; we should be inclined to view them rather as an artificial representation of what God predestined and foresaw, than a natural and needed exhibition of things to be believed or hoped for by partially enlightened but God-fearing men. The Divine here must not be viewed as moving in a kind of lofty isolation of its own; it should rather be contemplated as letting itself down into the human. We should feel that we have to do, not simply with Heaven’s plan as it exists in the mind and is grasped by the all-comprehending eye of God, but with this plan as gradually evolving itself in the sphere of human responsibility, and developed step by step, in the manner most fitly adapted to carry forward the corporate growth of the Church toward its destined completeness, yet so as, at the same time, to mould the character and direct the hopes of successive generations in conformity with existing relations and duties. It is the proper aim and business of Typology to trace the progress of this development, and to show how, amid many outward diversities of form and ever-varying measures of light, there were great principles steadily at work, and in their operations forecasting, with growing clearness and certainty, the appearance and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. To such a method also, Typology must owe much of the interest with which it may be able to invest its proper line of inquiry, and its success in throwing light on the history and mutual interconnection of the Divine dispensations. But it were to depart from this safe and profitable course, if we should attempt to bring all that, by dint of inference and speculation, expatiating in the strictly Divine sphere of things, we might find it possible to connect with the earlier acts and operations of God. These should rather be brought out in the aspect and relation they bore to those whom they immediately respected; in order that, from the effect they were designed and fitted to produce in the spiritual instruction and training of men who had in their respective generations to maintain the cause and manifest the life of God, the place and purpose may be learned that properly belonged to them in the general scheme of a progressive revelation.

The statement of Mr Macdonald may be referred to in proof of what is likely to happen from the neglect of such considerations,[[@Page:125]] and from attempting to carry the matter higher. The scheme of God, he says, as well that which commenced with Adam as the preceding one which culminated in him, was “from the outset prophetic;” and again: “The whole of the Divine acts and arrangements from the beginning formed parts of one system; for, as antecedent creations reached their end in man, so man himself, in his original constitution, prefigured a new and higher relation of the race to the Creator, than the incipient place reached in creation.” Now, taking the terms here used in their ordinary sense, we must understand by this statement that the work of creation in Adam carried in its very constitution the signs and indications of better things to come for man; for, to speak of it as being prophetic, or having a pre-figuration of a higher relation to the Creator than then actually existed, imports more than that such a destiny was in the purpose and decrees of the Almighty (which no one will dispute): it denotes, that the creation itself was of such a kind as to proclaim its own relative imperfection, and at the same time, by means of certain higher elements interwoven with it, to give promise of a state in which such imperfection should be done away. The question, then, is, How did it do so, or for whom? The Lord Himself, at the close of creation, pronounced it all very good; and the charge given to Adam and his partner spake only of a continuance of that good as the end they were to aim at, and of the loss of it as the evil they were to shun. What ground is there for supposing that more was either meant on God’s part, or perceived on man’s, than what thus appears on the broad and simple testimony of the divine record? Adam, indeed, was made, and doubtless knew that he was made, in the image of God; as such he was set over God’s works, and appointed in God’s name, to exercise the rights of a terrestrial lordship; but how should he have imagined from this, that it was in the purposes of Heaven to enter into some closer relationship with humanity, and that he, as the image of God, was but the figure of one who should be actually God and man united? Yet, supposing he could not. Might he not have been so in fact without himself knowing it, as in subsequent times we find prefigurations of Gospel realities, which were but imperfectly, sometimes perhaps not at all, understood in that character by those who had directly [[@Page:126]] to do with them? But the cases are by no means parallel. For, in regard to those later prefigurations, the promise had already entered of a restored and perfected condition; and believing men were not only warranted, but in a sense bound, to search into them for signs and indications of the better future. If they failed to perceive them, it was because of their feebleness of faith and defect of spiritual discernment. In the primeval constitution of things it was quite otherwise: man was altogether upright, and creation apparently in all respects as it should be; the Creator Himself rested with satisfaction in the works of His hand, and by the special consecration of the seventh day invited His earthly representative to do the same. How, in such a case, should the thought of imperfection and deficiency have entered, or any prospect for the future seemed natural, save such as might associate itself with the progressive development and expansion of that which already existed? Beyond this, whatever there might be in the purpose and decrees of God, it is hard to conceive how room could yet have been found for any expression being given by Him, or hope cherished on the part of man.

Unquestionably there was much beyond in the Divine mind and purpose. “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.” With infallible certainty He foresaw ere time began the issues of that constitution of things which was to be set up in Adam; foresaw also, and predetermined, the introduction of that covenant of grace by which other and hap Her issues for humanity were to be secured. On this account it is said of Christ, as the destined Mediator of that covenant, that He was “fore-ordained before the foundation of the world;” and of those who were ultimately to share in the fruits of His mediation, that they also were chosen in Him before the world was made (1 Pet. 1:20; Eph. 1:4). But it is one thing to assign a place to such ulterior thoughts and purposes in the eternal counsels of the Godhead, and another thing to regard them as entering into the objective revelation He gave of His mind and will at the creation of the world, so as to bring them within the ken of His intelligent creatures. In doing the one, we have both the warrant of Scripture and the reason of things to guide us; while the other would involve the introduction, out of due time, of those secret things which as yet belonged only to the Lord.

[[@Page:127]] According to what may be called the palpable and prevailing testimony of Scripture on the subject, the work of God in creation is to be regarded as the adequate reflection of His own infinite wisdom and goodness, adapted in all respects to the special purposes for which it was designed; but the sin of man through the cunning of the tempter presently broke in to mar the good; and following thereupon the predestined plan of grace began to give intimation of its purpose, and to open for itself a path whereby the lost good should be won back, and the destroyer be himself destroyed. This plan starts on its course with the avowed aim of rectifying the evil which originated in man’s defection; and it not less avowedly reaches its end when the restitution, or bringing back again, of all things is accomplished (Acts 3:21). It carries throughout the aspect of a remedial scheme, or restoration of that which had come forth in the freshness and beauty of life from the hand of God. A rise, no doubt, accompanies the process; and the work of God at its consummation shall assuredly be found on a much higher level than at the beginning, as it shall also present a much fuller and grander exhibition of the Divine character and perfections. But still, in the Scriptural form of representation, the original work continues to occupy the position of the proper ideal: all things return, in a manner, whence they came; and a new heavens and a new earth, with paradise restored and perennial springs of life and blessing, appear in prospect as the glorious completion to which the whole scheme is gradually tending. Since thus the things of creation are exhibited in a relation so markedly different to those of redemption, from that possessed by the preliminary, to the final processes of redemption itself, it were surely to intro duce an unjustifiable departure from the method of Scripture, and also to confound things that materially differ, were we, in a typological respect, to throw all into one and the same category. Creation cannot possibly be the norm or pattern of redemption, after the same manner that an imperfect or provisional execution of God’s work in grace is to that work in its full development and ripened form. Yet, for the very reason that redemption assumes the aspect of a restoration, not the introduction of something absolutely new, creation assuredly is a norm or pattern, to which the Divine agency in redemption assimilates its operations [[@Page:128]] and results: the one bases itself upon the other, and does not aim at supplanting, but only at rectifying, reconstructing, and perfecting it. Twin-ideals they may be called, and as such they cannot but present many points of agreement, bespeaking the unity of one contriving and all-directing mind, which it may well become us on proper occasions to mark. But the distinct ground this relationship occupies in Scripture should also find its correspondence in our mode of treating the things that belong to it; and for the province of Typology proper, we cannot but deem it on every account wise, expedient, and fitting that it should confine itself to what pertains to God’s work in grace, and should move simply in the sphere of “the regeneration.”

II. Passing now to the more general aspect of the view in question respecting the incarnation and kingdom of Christ, or its title to rank among the deductions of theological inquiry, it would be out of place here to go into a lengthened examination of it; and the indication of a few leading points is all that we shall actually attempt. The direction already taken on the typological bearing of the subject, is that also which I feel constrained to take regarding its general aspect. For, though it scarcely professes to be more than a speculation, and one purposely intended to exalt the doctrine of the incarnation, yet the tendency of it, I am persuaded, cannot be unattended with danger, as it seems in various respects opposed to the form of sound doctrine delivered to us in Scripture.

1. First of all, it implies, as already stated, a view of creation not only discountenanced by the general current of Scriptural representation, but not easily reconcileable with the perfect wisdom and goodness of the Creator. As a matter of fact, creation in Adam certainly fell short of its design; or, to express it otherwise, humanity, as constituted in our first parent, failed to realize its idea. But as so constituted, was it not endowed with all competent powers and resources for attaining the end in view? Was it absolutely and inherently incapable of doing so apart from the incarnation? In that case, one does not see how either the work of God could possess that character of relative perfection constantly ascribed to it in Scripture, or the defection of man should have drawn after it such fearful penalties. Both God’s [[@Page:129]] work and man’s, on the hypothesis in question, seem to take a position different from what properly belongs to them; and the manifestation of God’s moral character in this world enters on its course amid difficulties of a very peculiar and embarrassing kind. The perplexity thus arising is not relieved by the supposition, that mankind will be raised to a higher state of perfection and blessedness through the medium of the incarnation than had otherwise been possible, and that this was hence implied in creation as the means necessary to creation’s end; for we have here to do with the character of God’s work considered by itself, and what immediately sprang from it. Nor is it by any means certain, or we may even say probable, that if humanity had stood faithful to its engagements, the ultimate destiny of its members would have been in any respect lower than that which they may attain through sin and redemption. But on such a theme we have no sure light to guide us.

2. The view presented by this theory of the mission of Christ, however, is a still more objectionable feature in it; for, exalting the incarnation as of itself necessary to the higher ends of creation, apart from the concerns of sin and redemption, it inevitably tends to depress the importance of these, and gives to something else, which was no way essentially connected with them, the place of greatest moment for the interests of humanity. The earlier Socinians, it is well known, on this very ground favoured the scholastic speculations on the subject; they espoused the view, not, indeed, of an incarnation without a fall (for in no proper sense did they hold what these terms import), but of the necessity of the mission of Christ, independently of the sin of Adam and the consequences thence arising; in this they appeared to find some countenance for the comparatively small account they made alike of the evil of sin, and of the wondrous grace and glory of redemption. And to a simple, unbiassed mind it must be all but incredible, that if the incarnation of our Lord were traceable to some higher and more fundamental reason than that occasioned by the fall, no explicit mention should have been made of it, even in a single passage of Scripture. All the more direct statements presented there respecting the design and purpose of our Lord’s appearance [[@Page:130]] among men stand inseparably connected with their deliverance from the ruin of sin, and restoration to peace and blessing. The distinctive name He bore (Jesus) proclaimed SALVATION to be the grand burden of His undertaking; or, as He Himself puts it, “He came to save the lost,” “to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 18:11, 20:28); or still again, “that men might have life, and might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He was made of a woman, made under the law, in order that He might redeem them who were held under the condemnation of law (Gal. 4:4). He took part of flesh and blood, in order that by His death He might destroy him that had the power of death was made like in all things to His brethren, as it behoved Him to be, that He might be for them a faithful high priest and make reconciliation for their sins (Heb. 2:14-17). It is but another form of the same mode of representation, when St John says of Christ, that He was manifested to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8); and that as the gift of God’s love to the world, it was to the end that men might not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). In the Supper also, the most distinctive ordinance of the Gospel, not the incarnation, but redemption is presented as the central fact of Christianity. Such is the common testimony of Scripture: redemption in some one or other of its aspects is perpetually associated with the purpose which Christ assumed our nature to accomplish; and the greatness of the remedy is made to throw light upon the greatness of the evil which required its intervention. But according to the view we now oppose, “both the consequences of sin and the value of redemption are lowered, since not the incarnation, but only its special form, is traceable to sin. That God became man is in itself the greatest humiliation; and yet this adorable mystery of divine love is not to stand in any [necessary] connection with sin! Only the comparatively smaller fact, that that man in whom God would at any rate have become incarnate had undergone sufferings and death, is due to sin! And what is even more dangerous, redemption ceases to be a free act of Divine pity, and is represented as a necessity implied in creation, which would have taken place whether man had remained obedient or not. Thus sin is not the sole cause of man’s present state; and however the incarnation [[@Page:131]] might remain an adorable mystery of love, redemption could no longer do so, since it had been involved in the decree of the incarnation, and could not be regarded as proceeding solely from divine mercy and compassion toward fallen man.”[10]

There are passages of Scripture sometimes appealed to on the other side, but they have no real bearing on the point which they are adduced to establish. One of these is Eph. 1:10, in which the purpose of God is represented as having this for its object, that “in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth.” The passage simply indicates, among the final issues of Christ’s work, the recapitulating or summing up (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι) of all things in Him, heavenly as well as earthly; but it is the historical Christ that is spoken of—the Christ in whom (as is stated immediately before) believers have redemption through His blood, and are predestinated to life eternal; and there is not a hint conveyed of the purpose or predestination of God, except in connection with the salvation of fallen man, and the work of reconciliation necessary to secure it. What might have been the Divine purpose apart from this, we may indeed conjecture, but it must be without any warrant whatever from the passage before us; and, as Calvin has justly said, not without the audacity of seeking to go beyond the immutable ordination of God, and attempting to know more of Christ than was predestinated concerning Him even in the Divine decree (Inst., B. ii., c. 12, § 5). The somewhat corresponding but more comprehensive passage in Col. 1:15-17, has been also referred to in this connection, but with no better result. For though expressions are there applied to Christ, which, if isolated from the context, might with some plausibility be explained to countenance the idea of an incarnation irrespective of a fall, yet when taken in their proper connection they contain nothing to justify such an application. The starting-point here also is redemption ([[ver. 14 >> Bible:Col 1:14]] , “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins”); and the statements in what immediately follows (vers. [[15-17 >> Bible:Col 1:15-17]] ), have evidently for their main object the setting forth of the divine greatness of Him by whom [[@Page:132]] it is effected—as the One by whom and for whom all things were created Himself,—consequently, prior to them all, and infinitely exalted above them. But this plainly refers to Christ as the Logos, or Word, through whom as such the agency is carried on, and the works are performed, by which the Godhead is revealed and brought out to the view of finite intelligence. In that respect He is “the image of the invisible God” ([[ver. 15 >> Bible:Col 1:15]] ); because in Him exists with perfect fulness, and from Him goes forth into actual embodiment, that which forms a just representation of the mind and character of the Eternal. On the same account also, and with reference simply to His creative agency, He is “the first-born of every creature;” being the causal beginning, whence the whole sprang into existence, and the natural head, under whom all its orders of being must ever stand ranged before God. His divine Sonship is consequently the living root, in which the filial relationship of men and angels had its immediate ground; and His image of Godhead that which reflected itself in their original righteousness and purity. Hence, as all things came from Him at first in the character of the revealing Word, so they shall be again recapitulated in Him as the Word made flesh—though in degrees of affinity to Him, and with diverse results corresponding to the relations they respectively occupied to His redemptive agency. Hence, also, the Divine image, which by Him as the Creator was imparted to Adam, is again restored upon all who become related to Him as the Redeemer: they are renewed after the image of Him that created them (Col. 3:10, Eph. 4:24); implying that His work in redemption, as to its practical effect on the soul, is a substantial reproduction of that which proceeded from Him at creation.

We have looked at the only passages worth naming which have been pressed in support of the theory under consideration; and can see nothing in them, when fairly interpreted, that seems at variance with the general tenor of the testimony of Scripture on the subject. But this so distinctly and constantly associates the incarnation of Christ with the scheme of redemption, that to treat it otherwise must be held to be essentially anti-scriptural.

3. The matter is virtually disposed of, in a theological point [[@Page:133]] of view, when we have brought to bear upon it with apparent collusiveness the testimony of Scripture; nor is there anything in the collateral arguments employed by the advocates of the theory, as indicated in the outline formerly given of their views, which ought to shake our confidence in the result. That, for example, derived from the wonderful relationship, the personal and everlasting union, into which humanity has been brought with Godhead, as if the purpose concerning it should be turned into a kind of after-thought, and it should sink, in a manner derogatory to its high and unspeakably important nature, into something arbitrary and contingent, if placed in connection merely with the fall:—Such an argument derives all its plausibility from the limitations and defects inseparable from a human mode of contemplation. To the eye of Him who sees the end from the beginning, whose purpose, embracing the whole compass of the providential plan, was formed before even the beginning was effected, there could be nothing really contingent or uncertain in any part of the process. Nor, on the other hand, was the creation of man necessary (in the absolute sense of the term), any more than the fall of man: it depended on the movements of a will sovereignly free; and, hypothetically, must be placed among the things which, prior to their existence, might or might not, to human view, have taken place. Besides, since anyhow the mode of the incarnation was determined by the circumstances of the fall, and the mode, as well as the thing itself, decreed from the very first, how can we with propriety distinguish between the two? The one, as well as the other, has a most intimate connection with the perfections of Deity; and, for anything we know, the reality in any other form might not have approved itself to the infinitely wise and absolutely perfect mind of God. Otherwise than it is, we can have no right to say it would have been at all.

The argument founded on the supposed necessity of the incarnation to the proper unity of the human race, is entitled to no greater weight than the one just noticed. It assumes a necessity which has not and cannot be proved to have existed. Situated as the human family now is, it may no doubt be fitly designated, with Dorner, “a mere mass,” an aggregate of individuals, without any pervading principle to constitute them into [[@Page:134]] an organism. But this is itself one of the results of the fall; and no one is entitled to argue from what actually is, to what would have been, if the race had stood in its normal condition. In the transmission of Adam’s guilt to his posterity, with its fearful heritage of suffering, corruption, and death, we have continually before us the remains of a living organism,—the reverse side, as it were, of the original likeness of humanity. Why might there not have been, had its divinely constituted head proved stedfast to his engagements, the transmission through that head of a yet more powerful as well as happy influence to all the members of the family? We have no reason to affirm such a thing to have been impossible, especially as the human head was but the representative and medium of communication appointed by and for Him who was the causal or creative head of the family. Dorner himself admits, that even the natural world is an unity, because in the Divine Logos, as the world-former and preserver, who in Himself bears and represents its eternal idea, it has a principle which is above it, yet pervades it, and comprises it within itself.[11] If so much can be said even now, how much more might it have been said of the world viewed as it came from the hand of its Maker,—with no moral barrier to intercept the flow of life and blessing from its Divine fountainhead, and paralyze the constitution of nature in its more vital functions! In that case the unity in diversity, which is now the organic principle of the Christian Church, might, and doubtless would, have been that also of the Adamic family: only, in the one case, having its recognised seat and effective power in Christ as the incarnate Redeemer; in the other, in Him as the eternal and creative Word. Indeed, from the general relation of the two economies to each other, we are warranted in assuming, that as, in regard to individuals, Christ, the Redeemer, restores the Divine image, which, as to all essential properties, was originally given by Christ, the Word, so in regard to the race (considered as the subject of blessing), He restores in the one capacity what, as to germ and principle, He had implanted in the other. There are, of course, gradations and differences, but with these also fundamental agreements.

As to the argument that Christianity is the absolute religion, [[@Page:135]] and that without an incarnation there could be no Christianity in the proper sense, little more need be said, than that it starts a problem which, in our present imperfect condition, we want the materials for solving,—if, indeed, we shall ever possess them. To speak of the absolute in connection with what, from its very nature, and with a view to its distinctive aims, must be inter woven with much that pertains to the individual and the relative, is to employ terms to which we find it impossible to attach a very definite meaning. But if a religion is entitled to be called absolute, it surely ought to be because it is alike adapted to all, who through it are to contemplate and adore God—the whole universe of intelligent and moral creatures. How this, however, could have been found in a revelation which had the incarnation for its central fact,—found precisely on this account, and no otherwise,—is hard to be understood, since, to say nothing of the incarnation as now indissolubly linked to the facts of redemption, even an incarnation dissociated from everything relating to a fall, must still be viewed as presenting aspects, and bearing a relation, to the human family, which it could not have done to angelic natures. But, apart from this apparent incongruity, if there be such a thing possible as a religion that can justly be entitled to the name of absolute, we know as yet too little of the created universe, and the relations in which other portions of its inhabitants stand to the Creator, to pronounce with confidence on the conditions which would be required to meet in it. We stand awed, too, by the solemn utterance, “No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son may reveal Him;” and assured that the Son has nowhere revealed what, according to the mind of the Father, would be needed to constitute for all times and regions the absolute religion, we feel that on such a theme silence is our true wisdom.

FOOTNOTE

[1] See page 107.

[2] This proposition, with the authorities that support it, may be found in the discourses of Bishop Bull, Works, Vol. II., p. 67. His proofs from the earlier Fathers—Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus—are somewhat inadequate. The first explicit testimony is from Theophilus of Antioch, who speaks of Adam being “at length canonized or consecrated and ascending to heaven,” if he had gone on to perfection. The testimony becomes more full, as the speculative tendency of the Greek philosophy gains strength in the Church. And Clement of Alexandria expressly says in his Liturgy, that “if Adam had kept the commandments, he would have received immortality as the reward of his obedience,” meaning thereby, eternal life in a higher sphere.

[3] The divines of the Reformation very commonly concurred, to a certain extent, in the view of the Fathers, and hence the position is defended by Turretine, that Adam had the promise of being carried to heaven and enjoying eternal life there as the reward of his obedience (Loc. Oct., Qwest. VI.). But he admits that Scripture makes no distinct mention of this, and that it is only matter of inference. The grounds of inference are in this case, however, rather far to seek.

[4] See, for example, Calvin’s Inst. L. ii. 12, 5. Maestricht, Theol. Lib. v., c. 4, § 17.

[5] Dogmatik, § 130, 131.

[6] See the outline of his views in Dorner on the Person of Christ, note 23, Vol. II., P. II. Of the original, note 34 of the Eng. Trans.

[7] Person of Christ, Vol. II., Pt. II., p. 1241. Eng. Trans., Div. II., Vol. III., p. 232, sq.

[8] Introd. To the Pent., Vol. II., p. 451.

[9] Vol. II., Ft. II., No. 23, or Eng. Trans., No. 34.

[10] [[|Text: Kurtz, Bible and Astronomy, Chap. II., § 12. Trans.

[11] Vol. II, Pt. II., p. 1242; Eng. Trans., Div. II., Vol. III., p. 235.

Chapter Fifth.—Prophetical Types, or The Combination of Type with Prophecy—Alleged Double Sense of Prophecy.

[[@Page:136]] A TYPE, as already explained and understood, necessarily possesses something of a prophetical character, and differs in form rather than in nature from what is usually designated prophecy. The one images or prefigures, while the other foretells, coming realities. In the one case representative acts or symbols, in the other verbal delineations, serve the purpose of indicating beforehand what God was designed to accomplish for His people in the approaching future. The difference is not such as to affect the essential nature of the two subjects, as alike connecting together the Old and the New in God’s dispensations. In distinctness and precision, however, simple prophecy has greatly the advantage over informations conveyed by type. For prophecy, however it may differ in its general characteristics from history, as it naturally possesses something of the directness, so it may also descend to something of the definiteness, of historical description. But types having a significance or moral import of their own, apart from anything prospective, must, in their prophetical aspect, be somewhat less transparent, and possess more of a complicated character. Still the relation between type and antitype, when pursued through all its ramifications, may produce as deep a conviction of design and pre-ordained connection, as can be derived from simple prophecy and its fulfilment, though, from the nature of things, the evidence in the latter case must always be more obvious and palpable than in the former.

But the possession of the same common character is not the only link of connection between type and prophecy. Not only do they agree in having both a prospective reference to the future, but they are often also combined into one prospective exhibition of the future. Prophecy, though it sometimes is of [[@Page:137]] a quite simple and direct nature, is not always, nor even commonly, of this description; it can scarcely ever be said to delineate the future with the precision and exactness that history employs in recording the past. In many portions of it there is a certain degree of complexity, if not dubiety, and that mainly arising from the circumstances and transactions of the past being in some way interwoven with its anticipations of things to come. Here, however, we approach the confines of a controversy on which some of the greatest minds have expended their talents and learning, and with such doubtful success on either side, that the question is still perpetually brought up anew for discussion, whether there is or is not a double sense in prophecy? That some portion of debateable ground will always remain connected with the subject, appears to us more than probable. But, at the same time, we are fully persuaded that the portion admits of being greatly narrowed in extent, and even reduced to such small dimensions as not materially to affect the settlement of the main question, if only the typical element in prophecy is allowed its due place and weight. This we shall endeavour, first of all, to exhibit in the several aspects in which it actually presents itself; and shall then subjoin a few remarks on the views of those who espouse either side of the question, as it is usually stated.

From the general resemblance between type and prophecy, we are prepared to expect that they may sometimes run into each other; and especially, that the typical in action may in various ways form the groundwork and the materials by means of which the prophetic in word gave forth its intimations of the coming future. And this, it is quite conceivable, may have been done under any of the following modifications. 1. A typical action might, in some portion of the prophetic word, be historically mentioned; and hence the mention being that of a prophetical circumstance or event, would come to possess a prophetical character. 2. Or something typical in the past or the present might be represented in a distinct prophetical announcement, as going to appear again in the future; thus combining together the typical in act and the prophetical in word. 3. Or the typical, not expressly and formally, but in its essential relations and principles, might be embodied in an accompanying [[@Page:138]] prediction, which foretold things corresponding in nature, but far higher and greater in importance. 4. Or, finally, the typical might itself be still future, and in a prophetic word might be partly described, partly pre-supposed, as a vantage-ground for the delineation of other things still more distant, to which, when it occurred, it was to stand in the relation of type to antitype. We could manifestly have no difficulty in conceiving such combinations of type with prophecy, without any violence done to their distinctive properties, or any invasion made on their respective provinces; nothing, indeed, happening but what might have been expected from their mutual relations, and their fitness for being employed in concert to the production of common ends. And we shall now show how each of the suppositions has found its verification in the prophetic Scriptures.[1]

I. The first supposition is that of a typical action being historically mentioned in the prophetic word, and the mention, being that of a prophetical circumstance or event, thence coming to possess a prophetical character. There are two classes of scriptures which may be said to verify this supposition; one of which is of a somewhat general and comprehensive nature, so that the fulfilment is not necessarily confined to any single person or period, though it could not fail in an especial manner to appear in the personal history of Christ. To this class belong such recorded experiences as the following:—”The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up” (Ps. 69:9; comp. with John 2:17); “He that eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel against Me” (Ps. 41:9; comp. with John 13:18); “They hated Me without a cause” (Ps. 69:4; comp. with John 15:25); “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner” (Ps. 118:22; comp. with Matt. 21:42; 1 Pet. 2:6, 7). These passages are all distinctly referred to Christ in the Gospels, and the things that befell Him are expressly said or plainly indicated to have happened, that such Scriptures might [[@Page:139]] be fulfilled. Yet, as originally penned, they assume the form of historical statements rather than of prophetical announcements—recorded experiences on the part of those who indited them, and experiences of a kind that, in one form or another, could scarcely fail to be often recurring in the history of God’s Church and people. As such it might have seemed enough to say, that they contained general truths which were exemplified also in Jesus, when travailing in the work of man’s redemption. But the convictions of Jesus Himself and the inspired writers of the New Testament go beyond this; they perceive a closer connection—a prophetical element in the passages, which must find its due fulfilment in the personal experience of Christ. And this the passages contained, simply from their being, in their immediate and historical reference, descriptive of what belonged to characters—David and Israel—that bore typical relations to Christ; so that their being descriptive in the one respect necessarily implied their being prophetic in the other. What had formerly taken place in the experience of the type, must substantially renew itself again in the experience of the great antitype, whatever other and inferior renewals it may find besides.

To the same class also may be referred the passage in Ps. 78:2, “I will open my mouth in a parable (lit. similitude); I will utter dark sayings (lit. riddles) of old,” which in Matt. 13:5 is spoken of as a prediction that found, and required to find, its fulfilment in our Lord’s using the parabolic mode of discourse. As an utterance in the seventy-eighth Psalm, the word simply records a fact, but a fact essentially connected with the discharge of the prophetical office, and therefore substantially indicating what must be met with in Him in whom all prophetical endowments were to have their highest manifestation. Every prophet may be said to speak in similitudes or parables in the sense here indicated, which is comprehensive of all discourses upon divine things, delivered in figurative terms or an elevated style, and requiring more than common discernment to understand it aright. The parables of our Lord formed one species of it, but not by any means the only one. It was the common prophetico-poetical diction, which was characterized, not only by the use of measured sentences, but also by the predominant employment of external forms and [[@Page:140]] natural similitudes. But marking as it did the possession of a prophetical gift, the record of its employment by Christ’s prophetical types and forerunners was a virtual prediction, that it should be ultimately used in some appropriate form by Himself.

The other class of passages which comes within the terms of the first supposition, is of a more specific and formal character. It coincides with the class already considered, in so far as it consists of words originally descriptive of some transaction or circumstance in the past, but afterwards regarded as prophetically indicative of something similar under the Gospel. Such is the word in Hos. 11:1, “I called my son out of Egypt,” which, as uttered by the prophet, was unquestionably meant to refer historically to the fact of the Lord’s goodness in delivering Israel from that land of bondage and oppression. But the Evangelist Matthew expressly points to it as a prophecy, and tells us that the infant Jesus was for a time sent into Egypt, and again brought out of it, that the word might be fulfilled. This arose from the typical connection between Christ and Israel. The scripture fulfilled was prophetical, simply because the circumstance it recorded was typical. But in so considering it, the Evangelist puts no new strain upon its terms, nor introduces any sort of double sense into its import. He merely points to the prophetical element involved in the transaction it relates, and thereby discovers to us a bond of connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, necessary to be kept in view for a correct apprehension of both.

The same explanation in substance may be given of another example of the same class—the word in Ex. 12:46, “A bone of Him shall not be broken,” which in John 19:36 is represented as finding its fulfilment in the remarkable preservation of our Lord’s body on the cross from the common fate of malefactors. The scripture in itself was a historical testimony regarding the treatment the Israelites were to give to the paschal lamb, which, instead of being broken into fragments, was to be preserved entire, and eaten as one whole. It could only be esteemed a prophecy from being the record of a typical or prophetical action. But, when viewed in that light, the Scripture itself stands precisely as it did, without any recondite depth or subtile ambiguity being thrown into its meaning. For the prophecy [[@Page:141]] in it is found, not by extracting from its words some new and hidden sense, but merely by noting the typical import of the circumstances of which the words in their natural and obvious sense are descriptive.

How either Israel or the paschal lamb should have been in such a sense typical of Christ, that what is recorded of the one could be justly regarded as a prophecy of what was to take place in the other, will be matter for future inquiry, and, in connection with some other prophecies, will be partly explained in the Appendix already referred to in this chapter. It is the principle on which the explanation must proceed, to which alone for the present we desire to draw attention, and which, in the cases now under consideration, simply recognises the prophetical element involved in the recorded circumstance or transaction of the past. Neither is the Old Testament Scripture, taken by itself, prophetical; nor does the New Testament Scripture invest it with a force and meaning foreign to its original purport and design. The Old merely records the typical fact, which properly constitutes the whole there is of prediction in the matter; while the New reads forth its import as such, by announcing the co-relative events or circumstances in which the fulfilment should be discovered. And nothing more is needed for perfectly harmonizing the two together, than that we should so far identify the typical transaction recorded with the record that embodies it, as to perceive, that when the Gospel speaks of a scripture fulfilled, it speaks of that scripture in connection with the prophetical character of the subject it relates to.

There is nothing, surely, strange or anomalous in this. It is but the employment of a metonymy of a very common kind, according to which what embodies or contains anything is viewed as in a manner one with the thing itself as when the earth is made to stand for the inhabitants of the earth, a house for its inmates, a cup for its contents, a word descriptive of events past or to come, as if it actually produced them.[2] Of course, the [[@Page:142]] validity of such a mode of explanation depends entirely upon the reality of the connection between the alleged type and antitype—between the earlier circumstance or object described, and the later one to which the description is prophetically applied. On any other ground such references as those in the one Evangelist to Hosea, and in the other to Exodus, can only be viewed as fanciful or strained accommodations. But the matter assumes another aspect if the one was originally ordained in anticipation of the other, and so ordained, that the earlier should not have been brought into existence if the later had not been before in contemplation. Seen from this point of view, which we take to have been that of the inspired writers, the past appears to run into the future, and to have existed mainly on its account. And the record or delineation of the past is naturally and justly, not by a mere fiction of the imagination, held to possess the essential character of a prediction. Embodying a prophetical circumstance or action, it is itself named by one of the commonest figures of speech, a prophecy.

II. Our second supposition was that of something typical in the past or present being represented in a distinct prophetical announcement as going to appear again in the future,—the prophetical in word being thus combined with the typical in act into a prospective delineation of things to come. This supposition also includes several varieties, and in one form or another has its exemplifications in many parts of the prophetic word. For it is in a manner the native tendency of the mind, when either of itself forecasting, or under the guidance of a Divine impulse anticipating and disclosing the future, to see this future imaged in the past, to make use of the known in giving shape and form to the unknown; so that the things which have been, are then usually contemplated as in some respect types of what shall be, even though in the reality there may be considerable differences of a formal kind between them.

How much it is the native tendency of the mind to work in this manner, when itself endeavouring to descry the events of the future, is evident from the examples, transmitted to us by the most cultivated minds, of human divination. Thus the [[@Page:143]] Pythoness in Virgil, when disclosing to AEneas what he and his posterity might expect in Latium, speaks of it merely as a repetition of the scenes and experiences of former times. “You shall not want Simois, Xanthus, or the Grecian camp. Another Achilles, also of divine offspring, is already provided for Latium.”[3] In like manner Juno, in the vaticination put into her mouth by Horace, respecting the possible destinies of Rome, declares, that in the circumstances supposed, “the fortune of Troy again reviving, should again also be visited with terrible disaster; and that even if a wall of brass were thrice raised around it, it should be thrice destroyed by the Greeks.”[4] In such examples of pretended divination, no one, of course, imagines it to have been meant that the historical persons and circumstances mentioned were to be actually reproduced in the approaching or contemplated future. All we are to understand is, that others of a like kind—holding similar relations to the parties interested, and occupying much the same position—were announced before hand to appear; and so would render the future a sort of repetition of the past, or the past a kind of typical foreshadowing of the future.

As an example of Divine predictions precisely similar in form, we may point to Hos. 8:13, where the prophet, speaking of the Lord’s purpose to visit the sins of Israel with chastisement, says, “They shall return to Egypt.” The old state of bondage and oppression should come back upon them; or the things going to befall them of evil should be after the type of what, their forefathers had experienced under the yoke of Pharaoh. Yet that the New should not be by any means the exact repetition of the Old, as it might have been conjectured from the altered circumstances of the time, so it is expressly intimated by the prophet himself a few verses afterwards, when he says, “Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria” (ch. [[9:3 >> Bible:Ho 9:3]] ); and again in ch. [[11:5 >> Bible:Ho 11:5]] , [[@Page:144]] “He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king.” He shall return to Egypt, and still not return; in other words, the Egypt-state shall come back on him, though the precise locality and external circumstances shall differ. In like manner Ezekiel, in ch. [[4 >> Bible:Eze 4]] , foretells, in his own peculiar and mystical way, the return of the Egypt-state; and in ch. [[20 >> Bible:Eze 20:1]] speaks of the Lord as going to bring the people again into the wilderness; but calls it “the wilderness of the peoples,” to indicate that the dealing should be the same only in character with what Israel of old had been subjected to in the desert, not a bald and formal repetition of the story.

Indeed, God’s providence knows nothing in the sacred any more than in the profane territory of the world’s history, of a literal reproduction of the past. And when prophecy threw its delineations of the future into the form of the past, and spake of the things yet to be as a recurrence of those that had already been, it simply meant that the one should be after the type of the other, or should in spirit and character resemble it. By type, however, in such examples as those just referred to, is not to be understood type in the more special or theological sense in which the term is commonly used in the present discussions, as if there was anything in the past that of itself gave prophetic intimation of the coming future. It is to be understood only in the general sense of a pattern-form, in accordance with which the events in prospect were to bear the image of the past. The prophetical element, therefore, did not properly reside in the historical transaction referred to in the prophecy, but in the prophetic word itself, which derived its peculiar form from the past, and through that a certain degree of light to illustrate its import. There were, however, other cases in which the typical in circumstance or action—the typical in the proper sense—was similarly combined with a prophecy in word; and in them we have a twofold prophetic element one more concealed in the type, and another more express and definite in the word, but the two made to coalesce in one prediction.

Of this kind is the prophecy in Zech. 6:12, 13, where the prophet takes occasion, from the building of the literal temple in Jerusalem under the presidency of Joshua, to foretell a similar but higher and more glorious work in the future: “Behold [[@Page:145]] the man, whose name is the Branch; and He shall grow up out of His place, and lie shall build the temple of the Lord; even He shall build the temple of the Lord,” etc. The building of the temple was itself typical of the incarnation of God in the person of Christ, and of the raising up in Him of a spiritual house that should be “an habitation of God through the Spirit.”—(John 2:19; Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:20, 2:22]] ) But the prophecy thus involved in the action is expressly uttered in the prediction, which at once explained the type, and sent forward the expectations of believers toward the contemplated result. Similar, also, is the prediction of Ezekiel, in chap. [[34:23 >> Bible:Ezek. 34:23]] , in which the good promised in the future to a truly penitent and believing people, is connected with a return of the person and times of David: “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.” And the closing prediction of Malachi, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” David’s kingdom and reign in Israel were from the first intended to foreshadow those of Christ; and the work also of Elias, as preparatory to the Lord’s final reckoning with the apostate commonwealth of Israel, bore a typical respect to the work of preparation that was to go before the Lord’s personal appearance in the last crisis of the Jewish state. Such might have been probably conjectured or dimly apprehended from the things themselves; but it became comparatively clear, when it was announced in explicit predictions, that a new David and a new Elias were to appear. The prophetical element was there before in the type; but the prophetical word brought it distinctly and prominently out; yet so as in no respect to materially change or complicate the meaning. The specific designation of “David, My servant,” and “Elijah the prophet,” are in each case alike intended to indicate, not the literal reproduction of the past, but the full realization of all that the past typically foretokened of good. It virtually told the people of God, that in their anticipations of the coming reality, they might not fear to heighten to the uttermost the idea which those honoured names were fitted to suggest; their anticipations would be amply borne out by the event, in which still higher prophecy than Elijah’s, and [[@Page:146]] unspeakably nobler service than David’s, was to be found in reserve for the Church.[5]

III. We pass on to our third supposition, which may seem to be nearly identical with the last, yet belongs to a stage further in advance. It is that the typical, not expressly and formally, but in its essential relations and principles, might be embodied in an accompanying prediction, which foretold things corresponding in nature, but of higher moment and wider import. So far this supposed case coincides with the last, that in that also the things predicted might be, and, if referring to Gospel times, actually were, higher and greater than those of the type. But it differs, in that this superiority did not there, as it does here, appear in the terms of the prediction, which simply announced the recurrence of the type. And it differs still farther, in that there the type was expressly and formally introduced into the prophecy, while here it is tacitly assumed, and only its essential relations and principles are applied to the delineation of some things analogous and related, but conspicuously loftier and greater. In this case, then, the typical transactions furnishing the materials for the prophetical delineation, must necessarily form the background, and the explanatory prediction the foreground, of the picture. The words of the prophet must describe not the typical past, but the corresponding and grander future, describe it, however, under the form of the past, and in connection with the same fundamental views of the Divine character and government. So that there must here also be but one sense, though a twofold prediction: one more vague and indefinite, standing in the type or prophetic action; the other more precise and definite, furnished by the prophetic word, and directly pointing to the greater things to come.

[[@Page:147]] The supposition now made is actually verified in a considerable number of prophetical scriptures. Connected with them, and giving rise to them, there were certain circumstances and events so ordered by God as to be in a greater or less degree typical of others under the Gospel. And there was a prophecy linking the two together, by taking up the truths and relations embodied in the type, and expanding them so as to embrace the higher and still future things of God’s kingdom,—thus at once indicating the typical design of the past, and announcing in appropriate terms the coining events of the future.

Let us point, in the first instance, to an illustrative example, in which the typical element, indeed, was comparatively vague and general, but which has the advantage of being the first, if we mistake not, of this species of prophecy, and in some measure gave the tone to those that followed. The example we refer to is the song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2:1-10), indited by that pious woman under the inspiration of God, on the occasion of the birth of Samuel. The history leaves no room to doubt that this was its immediate occasion; yet, if viewed in reference to that occasion alone, how comparatively trifling is the theme! How strained and magniloquent the expressions! Hannah speaks of her “mouth being enlarged over her enemies,” of “the bows of the mighty men being broken,” of the “barren bearing seven,” of the “full hiring themselves out for bread,” and other things of a like nature,—all how far exceeding, and we might even say caricaturing, the occasion, if it has respect merely to the fact of a woman, hitherto reputed barren, becoming at length the joyful mother of a child! Were the song an example of the inflated style not uncommon in Eastern poetry, we might not be greatly startled at such grotesque exaggerations; but being a portion of that word which is all given by inspiration of God, and is as silver tried in a furnace, we must banish from our mind any idea of extravagance or conceit. Indeed, from the whole strain and character of the song, it is evident that, though occasioned by the birth of Samuel, it was so far from having exclusive reference to that event, that the things concerning it formed one only of a numerous and important class pervading the providence of God, and closely connected with His highest purposes. In a spiritual respect it was a time of [[@Page:148]] mournful barrenness and desolation in Israel: “the word of the Lord was precious, there was no open vision;” and iniquity was so rampant as even to be lifting up its insolent front, and practising its foul abominations in the very precincts of the sanctuary. How natural, then, for Hannah, when she had got that child of desire and hope, which she had devoted from his birth as a Nazarite to the Lord’s service, and feeling her soul moved by a prophetic impulse, to regard herself as specially raised up to be “a sign and a wonder” to Israel, and to do so particularly in respect to that principle in the Divine government, which had so strikingly developed itself in her experience, but which was destined to receive its grandest manifestation in the work and kingdom which were to be more peculiarly the Lord’s! Hence, instead of looking exclusively to her individual case, and marking the operation of the Lord’s hand in what simply concerned her personal history, she wings her flight aloft, and takes a comprehensive survey of the general scheme of God; noting especially, as she proceeds, the workings of that pure and gracious sovereignty which delights to exalt an humble piety, while it pours contempt on the proud and rebellious. And as every exercise of this principle is but part of a grand series which culminates in the dispensation of Christ, her song runs out at the close into a sublime and glowing delineation of the final results to be achieved by it in connection with His righteous administration. “The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall He thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and He shall give strength unto His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.”[6]

[[@Page:149]] This song of Hannah, then, plainly consists of two parts, in the one of which only—the concluding portion—it is properly prophetical. The preceding stanzas are taken up with unfolding, from past and current events, the grand spiritual idea; the closing ones carry it forward in beautiful and striking application to the affairs of Messiah’s kingdom. In the earlier part it presents to us the germ of sacred principle unfolded in the type; in the latter, it exhibits this rising to its ripened growth and perfection in the final exaltation and triumph of the King of Zion. The two differ in respect to the line of things immediately contemplated,—the facts of history in the one case, in the other the anticipations of prophecy; but they agree in being alike pervaded by one and the same great principle, which, after floating down the stream of earthly providences, is represented as ultimately settling and developing itself with resistless energy in the affairs of Messiah’s kingdom. And as if to remove every shadow of doubt as to this being the purport and design of Hannah’s song, when we open the record of that better era, which she only descried afar off in the horizon, we find the Virgin Mary, in her song of praise at the announcement of Messiah’s birth, re-echoing the sentiments, and sometimes even repeating the very words, of the mother of Samuel: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of His hand maiden. He hath showed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath holpen His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy; as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.” “Why should the Spirit, breathing at such a time in the soul of Mary, have turned her thoughts so nearly into the channel that had been struck out ages before by the pious Hannah? Or why should the circumstances connected with the birth of Hannah’s Nazarite [[@Page:150]] offspring have proved the occasion of strains which so distinctly pointed to the manifestation of the King of Glory, and so closely harmonized with those actually sung in celebration of the event? Doubtless to mark the connection really subsisting between the two. It is the Spirit’s own intimation of His ulterior design in transactions long since past, and testimonies delivered centuries before,—namely, to herald the advent of Messiah, and familiarize the children of the kingdom with the essential character of the coming dispensation.[7]

Hannah’s song was the first specimen of that combination of prophecy with type, which is now under consideration; but it was soon followed by others, in which both the prophecy was more extended, and the typical element in the transactions that gave rise to it was more marked and specific. The examples we refer to are to be found in the Messianic psalms, which also resemble the song of Hannah in being of a lyrical character, and thence admitting of a freer play of feeling on the part of the individual writer than could fitly be introduced into simple prophecy. But this again principally arose from the close connection typically between the present and the future, whereby the feelings originated by the one naturally incorporated themselves [[@Page:151]] with the delineation of the other. And as it was the institution of the temporal kingdom in the person and house of David which here formed the ground and the occasion of the prophetic delineation, there was no part of the typical arrangements tinder the ancient dispensation which more fully admitted, or, to prevent misapprehension, more obviously required, the accompaniment of a series of lyrical prophecies such as that contained in the Messianic psalms.

For the institution of a temporal kingdom in the hands of an Israelitish family involved a very material change in the external framework of the theocracy; and a change that of itself was fitted to rivet the minds of the people more to the earthly and visible, and take them off from the invisible and Divine. The constitution under which they were placed before the appointment of a king—though it did not absolutely preclude such an appointment—yet seemed as if it would rather suffer than be improved by so broad and palpable an introduction of the merely human element. It was till then a theocracy in the strictest sense; a commonwealth that had no recognised head but God, and placed everything essentially connected with life and well-being under His immediate presidence and direction. The land of the covenant was emphatically God’s land[8]—the people that dwelt in it were His peculiar property and heritage[9]—the laws which they were bound to obey were His statutes and judgments[10]—and the persons appointed to interpret and administer them were His representatives, and on this account even sometimes bore His name.[11] It was the peculiar and distinguishing glory of Israel as a nation, that they stood in this near relationship to God, and that which more especially called forth the rapturous eulogy of Moses,[12] “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee! The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” It was a glory, however, which the people themselves were too carnal for the most part to estimate aright, and of which they never appeared more insensible than when they sought to be like the Gentiles, [[@Page:152]] by having a king appointed over them. For what was it but, in effect, to seek that they might lose their peculiar distinction among the nations? that God might retire to a greater distance from them, and might no longer be their immediate guardian and sovereign?

Nor was this the only evil likely to arise out of the proposed change. Everything under the Old Covenant bore reference to the future and more perfect dispensation of the Gospel; and the ultimate reason of any important feature or material change in respect to the former, can never be understood without taking into account the bearing it might have on the future state and prospects of men under the Gospel. But how could any change in the constitution of ancient Israel, and especially such a change as the people contemplated, when they desired a king after the manner of the Gentiles, be adopted without altering matters in this respect to the worse? The dispensation of the Gospel was to be, in a peculiar sense, the “kingdom of heaven, or of God,” having for its high end and aim the establishment of a near and blessed intercourse between God and men. It attains to its consummation when the vision seen by St John, and described after the pattern of the constitution actually set up in the wilderness, comes into fulfillment—when “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He dwells with them.” Of this consummation it was a striking and impressive image that was presented in the original structure of the Israelitish common wealth, wherein God Himself sustained the office of king, and had His peculiar residence and appropriate manifestations of glory in the midst of His people. And when they, in their carnal affection for a worldly institute, clamoured for an earthly sovereign, they not only discovered a lamentable indifference towards what constituted their highest honour, but betrayed also a want of discernment and faith in regard to God’s prospective and ultimate design in connection with their provisional economy. They gave conclusive proof that “they did not see to the end of that which was to be abolished,” and preferred a request which, if granted according to their expectation, would in a most important respect have defeated the object of their theocratic constitution.

We need not, therefore, be surprised that God should have [[@Page:153]] expressed His dissatisfaction with the proposal made by the people for the appointment of a king to them, and should have regarded it as a substantial rejection of Himself, and a desire that He should not reign over them.—(1 Sam. 8:7) But why, then, did He afterwards accede to it? And why did He make choice of the things connected with it, as an historical occasion and a typical ground for shadowing forth the nature and glories of Messiah’s kingdom? The Divine procedure in this, though apparently capricious, was in reality marked by the highest wisdom, and affords one of the finest examples to be found in Old Testament history of that overruling providence, by which God so often averts the evil which men’s devices are fitted to produce, and render them subservient to the greatest good.

The appointment of a king as the earthly head of the commonwealth, we have said, was not absolutely precluded by the theocratic constitution. It was from the first contemplated by Moses as a thing which the people would probably desire, and in which they were not to be gainsayed, but were only to be directed into the proper method of accomplishing it.—(Deut. 17:14-20) It was even possible—if the matter was rightly gone about, and the Divine sanction obtained respecting it—to turn it to profitable account, in familiarizing the minds of men with what was destined to form the grand feature of the Messiah’s kingdom—the personal indwelling of the Divine in the human nature—and so to acquire for it the character of an important step in the preparatory arrangements for the kingdom. This is what was actually done. After the people had been solemnly admonished of their guilt in requesting the appointment of a king on their worldly principles, they were allowed to raise one of their number to the throne—not, however, as absolute and independent sovereign, but only as the deputy of Jehovah; that he might simply rule in the name, and in subordination to the will, of God.[13] For this reason his throne was called “the throne of the Lord,”[14] on which, as the Queen of Sheba expressed it to Solomon, he was “set to be king for the Lord his God;”[15] and the kingly government itself was afterwards designated [[@Page:154]] “the kingdom of the Lord.”[16] For the same reason, no doubt, it was that Samuel “wrote in a book the manner of the kingdom, and laid it up before the Lord;”[17] that the testimony in behalf of its derived and vicegerent nature might be perpetuated. And to render the Divine purpose in this respect manifest to all who had eyes to see and ears to hear, the Lord allowed the choice first to fall on one who as the representative of the people’s earthly wisdom and prowess—was little disposed to rule in humble subordination to the will and authority of Heaven, and was therefore supplanted by another who should act as God’s representative, and bear distinctively the name of His servant.[18]

It was, therefore, in this second person, David, that the kingly administration in Israel properly began; he was the root and founder of the kingdom—as a kingdom, in which the Divine and human stood first in an official, as they were ultimately to stand in a personal union. And to make the preparatory and the final in this respect properly harmonize and adapt themselves to each other, the Lord, in the first instance, ordered matters connected with the institution of the kingly government, so as to render the beginning an image of the end—typical throughout of Messiah’s work and kingdom. And then, lest the typical bearing of things should be lost sight of in consequence of their present interest or importance, He gave in connection with them the word of prophecy, which, proceeding on the ground of their typical import, pointed the expectations of the Church to corresponding but far higher and greater things still to come. In this way, what must otherwise have tended to veil the purpose of God, and obstruct the main design of His preparatory dispensation, was turned into one of the most effective means of revealing and promoting it. The earthly head, that now under God stood over the members of the commonwealth, instead of overshadowing His authority, only presented this more distinctly to their view, and served as [[@Page:155]] a stepping-stone to faith, in enabling it to rise nearer to the apprehension of that personal indwelling of Godhead the true Immanuel—which was to constitute the foundation and the glory of the Gospel dispensation. Not only was the work of God’s preparatory arrangements not arrested, and the prospective anticipation of the future not marred; but occasion was taken to unfold this future in its more essential features with an air of individuality and distinctness, with a variety of detail and vividness of colouring, not to be met with in any other portions of prophetic Scripture.

We refer for illustration to a single example of this combination of prophecy with type (others will be noticed, and in a somewhat different connection, in the Appendix)—the second Psalm. The production as to form is a kind of inaugural hymn, intended to celebrate the appointment and final triumph of Jehovah’s king. The heathen nations are represented as foolishly opposing it (vers. [[1, 2 >> Bible:Ps 2:1-2]] ); they agree among themselves, if the appointment should be made, practically to disown and resist it ([[ver. 3 >> Bible:Ps. 2:3]] ); the Almighty, however, perseveres in His purpose, scorning the rebellious opposition of such impotent adversaries ([[ver. 4 >> Bible:Ps. 2:4]] ); the eternal decree goes forth, that the anointed King is enthroned on Zion; that being Jehovah’s Son, He is made the heir of all things, even to the uttermost bounds of the habitable globe (vers. [[5-9 >> Bible:Ps 2:5-9]] ). And in consideration of what has thus been decreed and ratified in heaven, the psalm concludes with a word of friendly counsel and admonition to earthly potentates and rulers, exhorting them to submit in time to the sway of this glorious King, and forewarning them of the inevitable ruin of resistance. That in all this we can trace the lines of Messiah’s history, is obvious at a glance. Even the old Jewish doctors, as we learn by the quotation from Solomon Jarchi, given by Venema, agreed that “it should be expounded of King Messiah;” but he adds, “In accordance with the literal sense, and that it may be used against the heretics (i.e., Christians), it is proper to explain it as relating to David himself.” Strange, that this idea, the offspring of rabbinical artifice, seeking to withdraw an argument from the cause of Christianity, should have so generally commended itself to Christian interpreters! But if by literal sense is to be [[@Page:156]] understood the plain and natural import of the words employed, what ground is there for such an interpretation? David was not opposed in his appointment to the throne of Israel by heathen nations or rulers, who knew and cared comparatively little about it; nor was his being anointed king coincident with his being set on the holy hill of Zion; nor, after being established in the kingdom, did he ever dream of pressing any claims of dominion on the kings and rulers of the earth: his wars were uniformly wars of defence, and not of conquest. So palpable, indeed, is the discordance between the lines of David’s history, and the lofty terms of the psalm, that the opinion which ascribes it in the literal sense to David, may now be regarded as comparatively antiquated; and some even of those who formerly espoused it (such as Rosenmüller), have at length owned, that “it cannot well be understood as applying either to David or to Solomon, much less to any of the later Hebrew kings, and that the judgment of the more ancient Hebrews is to be followed, who considered it as a celebration of the mighty King whom they expected under the name of the Messiah.”

But has the psalm, then, no connection with the life and kingdom of David? Unquestionably it has; and a connection so close, that what took place in him was at once the beginning and the image of what, amid higher relations, and on a more extended scale, was to be accomplished by the subject of the psalm. While the terms in which the King and the kingdom there celebrated are spoken of, stretch far above the line of things that belonged to David, they yet bear throughout the mark and impress of these. In both alike we see a sovereign choice and fixed appointment, on the part of God, to the office of king in the fullest sense among men—an opposition of the most violent and heathenish nature to withstand and nullify the appointment—the gradual and successive overthrow of all the obstacles raised against the purpose of Heaven, and the extension of the sphere of empire (still partly future in the case of Messiah) till it reached the limits of the Divine grant. The lines of history in the two cases are entirely parallel; there is all the correspondence we expect between type and antitype; but the prophecy which marks the connection between them, while it was occasioned by the purpose of God respecting David, [[@Page:157]] and derived from his history the particular mould in which it was cast, was applicable only to Him who, with the properties of a human nature and an earthly throne, was to possess those also of the heavenly and divine.

We shall not here go further into detail respecting this class of prophecies, which belong chiefly to the Psalms; but we must remark, that as it was their object to explain the typical character of David’s calling and kingdom, and to connect this with the higher things to come, we may reasonably expect there will be some portions in the Messianic psalms which are alike applicable to type and antitype; and also entire psalms, in which there may be room for doubting to which of the two they may most fitly be referred. In some the distinctive, the superhuman and divine, properties of the Messiah’s person and kingdom are so broadly and characteristically delineated (as in Ps. 2, 22, 45, 72, 110), that it is impossible by any fair interpretation of the language to understand the description of another than Christ. But there are others in which the merely human elements are so strongly depicted (such as Ps. 40, 49, 109), that not a few of the traits might doubtless be found in the bearer also of the earthly kingdom; while still the excessive darkness of the picture, as a whole, on the one side, and the magnitude of the results and interests connected with it, on the other, shut us up to the conclusion that Christ, in His work of humiliation and His kingdom of blessing and glory, is the real subject of the prophecy. Viewed as an entire and prospective delineation, the theme is still one, and the sense not manifold, but simple. There are again others, however, of which Ps. 41 may be taken as a specimen, in which the delineation throughout is as applicable to the bearer of the earthly as to that of the heavenly kingdom; so that, if regarded as a prophecy at all, it can only be in the way explained under our first supposition, as an historical description of things that happened under typical relations, from which they derived a prophetical element.

Such varieties are no more than what might have been expected in the class of sacred lyrics now under consideration; and the rather so, as they were composed for the devotional use of the Church at a time when she required as well to be refreshed and strengthened by the faith of the typical past, as to be [[@Page:158]] cheered and animated by the hope of the still grander antitypical future. It was necessary that she should be taught so to look for the one as not to lose sight of the other; but rather, in what had already occurred, to find the root and promise of what was to be hereafter. The word of Nathan to David (2 Sam. 7:4-16), which properly began the series, and laid the foundation of further developments, presented the matter in this light. David is there associated with his filial successor, as alike connected with the institution of the kingdom in its primary and inferior aspect; and the high honour was conceded to his house of furnishing the royal dynasty that was destined to preside for ever in God’s name over the affairs of men. But this for ever, emphatically used in the promise, evidently pointed to a time when the relations of the kingdom, in its then provisional and circumscribed form, should give way to others immensely greater and higher. It pointed to a commingling of the divine and human, the heavenly and the earthly, in another manner than could possibly be realized in the case either of David himself, or of any ordinary descendant from his loins. And it became one of the leading objects of David’s prophetical calling, and of those who were his immediate successors in the prophetical function, to unfold, after the manner already described, something of that ulterior purpose of Heaven, which, though included, was still but obscurely indicated, in the fundamental prophecy of Nathan.[19]

IV. But we have still to notice another conceivable combination of type with prophecy. It is possible, we said, that the typical transactions might themselves be still future; and might, in a prophetic word, be partly described, partly presupposed, as a ground for the delineation of other things still more distant, in [[@Page:159]] respect to which they were to hold a typical relation. The difference between this and the last supposition is quite immaterial, in so far as any principle is involved. It makes no essential change in the nature of the relation, that the typical transactions forming the groundwork of the prophetical delineation should have been contemplated as future, and not as past or present. It is true that the prophet was God’s messenger, in an especial sense, to the men of his own age; and as such usually delivered messages, which were called forth by what had actually occurred, and bore its peculiar impress. But he was not necessarily tied to that. As from the present he could anticipate the still undeveloped future, so there was nothing to hinder—if the circumstances of the Church might require it—that he should also at times realize as present a nearer future, and from that anticipate another more remote. In doing so he would naturally transport himself into the position of those who were to witness that nearer future, which would then be contemplated as holding much the same relation typically to the higher things in prospect, as in the case last considered: that is, the matter-of-fact prophecy involved in the typical transactions viewed as already present, would furnish to the prophet’s eye the form and aspect under which he would exhibit the corresponding events yet to be expected.

The only addition which the view now suggested makes to the one generally held, is, that we suppose the prophet, while he spake as from the midst of circumstances future, though not distant, recognised in these something of a typical nature; and on the basis of that as the type, unfolded the greater and more distant antitype. There is plainly nothing incredible or even improbable in such a supposition, especially if the nearer future already lay within the vision of the Church. The circumstances, [[@Page:160]] however, giving rise to prophecies of this description were not likely to be of very frequent occurrence. They could only be expected in those more peculiar emergencies when it became needful for the Church’s warning or consolation to over shoot, as it were, the things more immediately in prospect, and fix the eye on others more remote in point of time, though in nature most closely connected with them.

Now, at one remarkable period of her history, the Old Testament Church was certainly in such circumstances—the period preceding and during the Babylonish exile. From the time that this calamity had become inevitable, the prophets, as already noticed, had spoken of it as a second Egypt—a new bondage to the power of the world, from which the Church required to be delivered by a new manifestation of redemptive grace. But a second redemption after the manner of the first would obviously no longer suffice to restore the heart of faith to assured confidence, or fill it with satisfying expectations of corning good. The redemption from Egypt, with all its marvellous accompaniments and happy results, had yet failed to provide an effectual security against overwhelming desolation. And if the redemption from Babylon might have brought, in the fullest sense, a restoration to the land of Canaan, and the re-establishment of the temple service; yet, if this were all the spirit of prophecy could descry of coming good, there must still have been room for fear to enter: there could scarcely fail even to be sad forebodings of new desolations likely to arise and undo again the whole that had been accomplished. At such a period, therefore, the prophet had a double part to perform, when charged with the commission to comfort the people of God. He had, in the first instance, to declare the fixed purpose of Heaven to visit Babylon for her sins, and thereby afford a door of escape for the captive children of the covenant, that as a people saved anew they might return to their ancient heritages. But he had to do more than this. He had to take his station, as it were, on the floor of that nearer redemption, and from thence direct the eye of hope to another and higher, of which it was but the imperfect shadow—a redemption which should lay the foundation of the Church’s well-being so broad and deep, that the former troubles could no longer return, and heights of prosperity and blessing [[@Page:161]] should be reached entirely unknown in the past. Thus alone could a ground of consolation be provided for the people of God, really adequate to the emergencies of that dismal time, when all that was of God seemed ready to perish, under the combined force of internal corruption and outward violence.

It was precisely in this way that the prophet Isaiah sought to comfort the Church of God by inditing the later portion of his writings (ch. [[40-46 >> Bible:Is 40:1-46:13]] ), in which we have the most important example of the class of prophecies now under consideration The central object in the whole of this magnificent chain of prophecy, is the appearance, work, and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ—His spirit and character, His sufferings and triumphs, the completeness of His redemption, the safety and blessedness of His people, the certain overthrow of His enemies, and the final glory of His kingdom. The manner in which this prophetic discourse is entered on, might alone satisfy us that such is in reality its main theme. For the voice which there meets us, of one crying in the wilderness, is that to which, according to all the evangelists, John the Baptist appealed, as announcing beforehand his office and mission to the Church of God. And if the forerunner is found at the threshold, who should chiefly occupy the interior of the building but He whom John was specially sent to make known to Israel? The substance of the message also, as briefly indicated there, entirely corresponds: for it speaks not, as is often loosely represented, of the people’s return to Jerusalem, but of the Lord’s return to His people; it announces a coming revelation of His glory, which all flesh should see; and proclaims to the cities of Judah the tidings, Behold your God! We are not to be understood as meaning, that the Lord might not in a sense be said to come to His people, when in their behalf He brought down the pride of Babylon, and laid open for them a way of return to their native land. A reference to this more secret and preparatory revelation of Himself may certainly be understood, both here and in several kindred representations that follow; yet not as their direct and immediate object, but rather as something presupposed, similar in kind, though immensely inferior in degree, to the proper reality. There are passages, indeed, so general in the truths and principles they enunciate, that they cannot with [[@Page:162]] propriety be limited to one period of the Church’s history any more than to another. And again, there are others, especially the portion reaching from ch. [[44:24 >> Bible:Is. 44:24]] to [[48:22 >> Bible:Is. 48:22]] , as also ch. [[51 >> Bible:Is 51:1-23]] , [[52 >> Bible:Is 52:1-15]] , which refer more immediately to the events connected with the deliverance from Babylon, as things in themselves perfectly certain, and fitted to awaken confidence in regard to the greater things that were yet destined to be accomplished. He who could speak of Babylon as already prostrate in the dust, though no shade had yet come over the lustre of her glory—who, at the very moment she was the scourge and terror of the nations, could picture to himself the time when she should be seen as a spoiled and forlorn captive—who could behold the once weeping exiles of Judea, escaped from her grasp, and sent back with honour to revive the glories of Jerusalem, while the proud destroyer was left to sink and moulder into irrecoverable ruin—He who could foresee all this as in a manner present, and commit to His Church the prophetic announcement generations before it had been fulfilled, might well claim from His people an implicit faith, when giving intimation of a work still to be done, the greatness of which should surpass all thought, as its blessings should extend to all lands (ch. [[45:17 >> Bible:Is. 45:17]] , [[22 >> Bible:Is. 45:22]] , [[49:18-26 >> Bible:Is 49:18-26]] ). Thus the deliverance accomplished from the yoke of Babylon formed a fitting prelude and stepping-stone to the main subject of the prophecy—the revelation of God in the person and work of His Son. The certainty of the one—a certainty soon to be realized—was a pledge of the ultimate certainty of the other; and the character also of the former, as a singular and unexpected manifestation of the Lord’s power to deliver His people and lay their enemies in the dust, was a prefiguration of what was to be accomplished once for all in the salvation to be wrought out by Jesus Christ.[20]

There are few portions of Old Testament prophecy, which [[@Page:163]] altogether resemble the one we have been considering. Perhaps that which approaches nearest to it, in the mode of combining type with prophecy, is the thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, which is not a direct and simple delineation of the judgments that were destined to alight upon Idumea, but rather an ideal representation of the judgments preparing to alight on the enemies generally of God’s people, founded upon the approaching desolations of Edom, which it contemplates as the type of the destruction that awaits all the adversaries. Still more closely corresponding, however, is our Lord’s prophecy regarding the destruction of Jerusalem and His own final advent to judge the world, in the twenty-fourth chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel; in which, undoubtedly, the nearer future is regarded as the type of the higher and more remote. It would almost seem as if the two events were, to a certain extent, thrown together in the prophetic delineation; for the efforts that have been made to separate the portions strictly applicable to each, have never wholly succeeded; and more, perhaps, than any other part of prophetic Scripture is there the appearance here of something like a double sense. What reasons may have existed for this we can still but imperfectly apprehend. One principal reason, we may certainly conclude, was, that it did not accord with our Lord’s design, as it would not have consisted with His people’s good, to have exhibited very precise and definite prognostics of His second coming. The exact period behoved to be shrouded almost to the very last in mystery, and it seemed to Divine wisdom the fittest course to order the circumstances connected with the final act of judgment on the typical people and territory, so as to serve, at the same time, for signs and tokens of the last great act of judgment on the world at large. As the acts themselves corresponded, so there should also be a correspondence in the manner of their accomplishment; and to contemplate the one as imaged in the other, without being able in all respects [[@Page:164]] to draw the line very accurately between them, was the whole that could safely be permitted to believers.

The result, then, of the preceding investigation is, that there is in Scripture a fourfold combination of type with prophecy. In the first of these the prophetic import lies in the type, and in the word only as descriptive of the type. In the others there was not a double sense, but a double prophecy—a typical prophecy in action, coupled with a verbal prophecy in word; not uniformly combined, however, but variously modified: in one class a distinct typical action, having associated with it an express prophetical announcement; in another, the typical lying only as the background on which the spirit of prophecy raised the prediction of a corresponding but much grander future; and in still another, the typical belonging to a nearer future, which was realized as present, and taken as the occasion and groundwork of a prophecy respecting a future greater, and also more distant. It is in this last department alone that there is anything like a mixing up of two subjects together, and a consequent difficulty in determining when precisely the language refers to the nearer, and when to the more remote transactions. Even then, however, only in rare cases; and with this slight exception, there is nothing that carries the appearance of confusion or ambiguity. Each part holds its appropriate place, and the connection subsisting between them, in its various shapes and forms, is very much what might have been expected in a system so complex and many-sided as that to which they belonged.

II. We proceed now to offer some remarks on the views generally held on the subject of the prophecies which have passed under our consideration. They fall into two opposite sections. Overlooking the real connection in such cases between type and prophecy, and often misapprehending the proper import of the language, the opinion contended for, on the one side, has been, that the predictions contain a double sense—the one primary and the other secondary, or the one literal and the other mystical; while, on the contrary side, it has been maintained that the predictions have but one meaning, and when applied in New Testament Scripture, in a way not accordant with that meaning, it is held to be a simple accommodation of the words. [[@Page:165]] A brief examination of the two opposing views will be sufficient for our purpose.

1. And, first, in regard to the view which advocates the theory of the double sense. Here it has been laid down as a settled canon of interpretation, that “the same prophecies frequently refer to different events, the one near and the other remote—the one temporal, the other spiritual, and perhaps eternal; that the expressions are partly applicable to one and partly to another; and that what has not been fulfilled in the first, we must apply to the second.” If so, the conclusion seems inevitable, that there must be a painful degree of uncertainty and confusion resting on such portions of prophetic Scripture. And the ambiguity thus necessarily pervading them, must, one would think, have rendered them of comparatively little value, whether originally as a ground of hope to the Old Testament Church, or now as an evidence of faith to the New.

Great ingenuity was certainly shown by Warburton in labouring to establish the grounds of this double sense, without materially impairing in any respect the validity of the prophecy. The view advocated by him, however, lies open to two serious objections, which have been powerfully urged against it, especially by Bishop Marsh, and which have demonstrated its arbitrariness. 1. In the first place, while it proceeds upon the supposition, that the double sense of prophecy is quite analogous to the double sense of allegory, there is in reality an essential difference between them. “When we interpret a prophecy, to which a double meaning is ascribed, the one relating to the Jewish, the other to the Christian dispensation, we are in either case concerned with an interpretation of words. For the same words which, according to one interpretation, are applied to one event, are, according to another interpretation, applied to another event. But in the interpretation of an allegory, we are concerned only in the first instance with an interpretation of words; the second sense, which is usually called the allegorical, being an interpretation of things. The interpretation of the words gives nothing more than the plain and simple narratives themselves (the allegory generally assuming the form of a narrative); whereas the moral of the allegory is learnt by an application of the things signified by those words to other things which resemble [[@Page:166]] them, and which the former were intended to suggest. There is a fundamental difference, therefore, between the interpretation of an allegory, and the interpretation of a prophecy with a double sense.”[21] 2. The view of Warburton is, besides, liable to the objection, that it not only affixes a necessary darkness and obscurity to the prophecies having the double sense, but also precludes the existence of any other prophecies more plain, direct, and explicit— until at least the dispensation, under which the prophecies were given, and for which the double sense specially adapted them, was approaching its termination. He contends that the veiled meaning of the prophecies was necessary, in order at once to awaken some general expectations among the Jews of better things to come, and, at the same time, to prevent these from being so distinctly understood as to weaken their regard to existing institutions. It is fatal to this view of the matter, that in reality many of the most direct and perspicacious prophecies concerning the Messiah were contemporaneous with those which are alleged to possess the double meaning and the veiled reference to the Messiah. If, therefore, the Divine method were such as to admit only of the one class, it must have been defeated by the other. And it must also have been not so properly a ground of blame as a matter of necessity, arising from the very circumstances of their position, that the Jews “could not stedfastly look to the end of that which was to be abolished.”—(2 Cor. 3:13) The reverse, however, was actually the case; for the more clearly they perceived the meaning of the prophecies, and the end of their symbolical institutions, the more heartily did they enter into the design of God, and the more nearly attain the condition which it became them to occupy.

These objections, however, apply chiefly to that vindication of the double sense which came from the hand of Warburton, and was interwoven with his peculiar theory. The opinion has since been advocated in a manner that guards it against both objections, and is put, perhaps, in its most approved form by Davison. “What,” he asks, “is the double sense? Not the convenient latitude of two unconnected senses, wide of each other, and giving room to a fallacious ambiguity, but the combination [[@Page:167]] of two related, analogous, and harmonizing, though disparate, subjects, each clear and definite in itself; implying a twofold truth in the prescience, and creating an aggravated difficulty, and thereby an accumulated proof, in the completion. For a case in point: to justify the predictions concerning the kingdom of David in their double force, it must be shown of them, that they hold in each of their relations, and in each were fulfilled. So that the double sense of prophecy, in its true idea, is a check upon the pretences of a vague and unappropriated prediction, rather than a door to admit them. But this is not all. For if the prediction distribute its sense into two remote branches or systems of the Divine economy; if it show not only what is to take place in distant times, but describe also different modes of God’s appointment, though holding a certain and intelligent resemblance to each other; such prediction becomes not only more convincing in the argument, but more instructive in the doctrine, because it expresses the correspondence of God’s dispensations in their points of agreement, as well as His fore knowledge.”[22]

This representation so far coincides with the one given in the preceding pages, that it virtually recognises a combination of type with prophecy; but differs in that it supposes both to have been included in the prediction, the one constituting the primary, the other the secondary, sense of its terms. And, undoubtedly, according to this scheme as well as our own, the correspondence between God’s dispensations might be sufficiently exhibited, both in regard to doctrine and general harmony of arrangement. But when it is contended further, that prophecy with such a double sense, instead of rendering the evidence it furnishes of Divine foresight more vague and unsatisfactory, only supplies an accumulated proof of it by creating an aggravated difficulty in the fulfilment, it seems to be forgotten that the terms of the prediction, to admit of such a duplicate fulfilment, must have been made so much more general and vague. But it is the precision and definiteness of the terms in a prediction which, when compared with the facts in providence that verify them, chiefly produce in our minds a conviction of Divine foresight and direction. And in so far as prophecies might have [[@Page:168]] been constructed to comprehend two series of disparate events, holding in each of the relations, and in each fulfilled, it could only be by dispensing with the more exact criteria, which we cannot help regarding in such cases as the most conclusive evidence of prophetic inspiration.

But as it was by no means the sole object of prophecy to provide this evidence, so predictions without such exact criteria are by no means wanting in the word of God. There are prophecies which were not so much designed to foretell definite events, as to unfold great prospects and results, in respect to the manifestation of God’s purposes of grace and truth toward men. Such prophecies were of necessity general and comprehensive in their terms, and admitted of manifold fulfilments. It is of them that we would understand the singularly pregnant and beautiful remark of Lord Bacon in the Second Book of the Advancement of Learning, that “Divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, are therefore not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment; though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one age.” The very first prophecy ever uttered to fallen man,—the promise given of a seed through the woman which should bruise the head of the serpent,—and that afterwards given to Abraham of a seed of blessing, may be fitly specified as illustrations of the principle; since in either case—though by virtue, not of a double sense, but of a wide and comprehensive import—a fulfilment from the first was constantly proceeding, while “the height and fulness” of the predicted good could only be reached in the redemption of Christ and the glories of His kingdom.

To return, however, to the matter at issue, we have yet to press our main objection to the theory of the double sense of prophecy; we dispute the fact on which it is founded, that there really are prophecies (with the partial exceptions already noticed) predictive of similar though disparate series of events, strictly applicable to each, and in each finding their fulfilment. This necessarily forms the main position of the advocates of the double sense; and when brought to particulars, they constantly fail to establish it. The terms of the several predictions are sure to be put to the torture, in order to get one of the two [[@Page:169]] senses extracted from them. And the violent interpretations resorted to for the purpose of effecting this, afford one of the most striking proofs of the blinding influence which a theoretical bias may exert over the mind. Such psalms, for example, as the second and forty-fifth, which are so distinctly characteristic of the Messiah, that some learned commentators have abandoned their early predilections to interpret them wholly of Him, are yet ascribed by the advocates of the double sense as well to David as to Christ. Nay, by a singular inversion of the usual meaning of words, they call the former the literal, and the latter their figurative or secondary sense,—although this last is the only one the words can strictly bear.

There is no greater success in most other cases; let us take but one example: “Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt make known to me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; and at Thy right hand are pleasures for ever more.” These words in the sixteenth Psalm were applied by the Apostle Peter to Christ, as finding in the events of His history their only proper fulfilment. David, he contends, could not have been speaking directly of himself, since he had seen corruption; and instead of regaining the path of life, and ascending into the presence of God (namely, in glorified humanity), had suffered, as all knew, the common lot of nature. And so, the Apostle infers, the words should be understood more immediately of Christ, in whose history alone they could properly be said to be accomplished. Warburton, however, inverts this order. Of the deliverance from hell, the freedom from corruption, and the return to the paths of life, he says, “Though it literally signifies security from the curse of the law upon transgressors, viz., immature death, yet it may very reasonably be understood in a spiritual sense of the resurrection of Christ from the dead; in which case the words or terms translated soul and hell are left in the meaning they bear in the Hebrew tongue of body and grave!” He does not, of course, deny that Peter claimed the passage as a prophecy of Christ’s resurrection; but maintains that he does so, “no otherwise than by giving it a secondary or spiritual sense.” In such a style of interpretation, one cannot but feel as if the terms primary and [[@Page:170]] secondary, literaland spiritual, had somehow come to exchange places; since the plain import of the words seems to carry us directly to Christ, while it requires a certain strain to be put upon them before they can properly apply to the case of David.

Such, indeed, is what usually happens with the instances selected by the advocates of this theory. The double sense they contend for does not strictly hold in both of the relations; and very commonly what is contended for as the immediate and primary, is the sense that is least accordant with the grammatical import of the words. We, therefore, reject it as a satisfactory explanation of a numerous class of prophecies, and on three several grounds: First, because it so ravels and complicates the meaning of the prophecies to which it is applied, as to involve us in painful doubt and uncertainty regarding their proper application. Secondly, should this be avoided, it can only arise from the prophecies being of so general and comprehensive a nature, as to be incapable of a very close and specific fulfilment. And, finally, when applied to particular examples, the theory practically gives way, as the terms employed in all the more important predictions are too definite and precise to admit of more than one proper fulfilment.

2. We turn now, in the last place, to the mode of prophetical interpretation which has commonly prevailed with those who have ranged themselves in opposition to the theory of the double sense. The chief defect in this class of interpreters consists in their having failed to take sufficiently into account the connection subsisting between the Old and the New Testament dispensations. They have hence generally given only a partial view of the relations involved in particular prophecies, and not unfrequently have confined the application of these to circumstances which only supplied the occasion of their delivery, and the form of their delineations. The single sense contended for has thus too often differed materially from the real sense. And many portions of the Psalms and other prophetical Scriptures, which in New Testament Scripture itself are applied to Gospel times, have been stript of their evangelical import, on the ground that the writer of the prophecy must have had in view some events immediately affecting himself or his country, and that no further [[@Page:171]] use, except by way of accommodation, can legitimately be made of the words he uttered.

Such, for example, has been the way that the remarkable prophecy in Isaiah, respecting the son to be born of a virgin (ch. [[7:14-16 >> Bible:Is 7:14-16]] ), has often been treated. The words of the prophecy are, “Behold the virgin conceiveth and beareth a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. Butter [rather milk] and honey shall he eat, when he shall know (or that he may know) to refuse what is evil and choose what is good; for before this child shall know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land shall become desolate, by whose two kings thou art distressed.” We have what may justly be called two inspired commentaries on this prediction, one in the Old, and another in the New Testament. The prophet Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah, evidently referring to the words before us, says, immediately after announcing the birth of the future Ruler of Israel at Bethlehem, “Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who shall bear hath brought forth” ([[5:3 >> Bible:Mic. 5:3]] ). The peculiar expression, “she who shall bear,” points to the already designated mother of the Divine King, but only in this prediction of Isaiah designated as the virgin; so that, in the language of Rosenmüller, “both predictions throw light on each other. Micah discloses the Divine origin of the Person predicted; Isaiah the wonderful manner of His birth.” The other allusion in inspired Scripture is by St Matthew, when, relating the miraculous circumstances of Christ’s birth, he adds, “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child,” etc. And the prophecy, as Bishop Lowth has well stated, “is introduced in so solemn a manner; the sign is so marked, as a sign selected and given by God himself, after Ahaz had rejected the offer of any sign of his own choosing out of the whole compass of nature; the terms of the prophecy are so peculiar, and the name of the child so expressive, containing in them much more than the circumstances of the birth of a common child required, or even admitted; that we may easily suppose, that in minds prepared by the general expectation of a great deliverer to spring from the house of David, they raised hopes far beyond what the present occasion suggested; especially [[@Page:172]] when it was found, that in the subsequent prophecy, delivered immediately afterward, this child, called Immanuel, is treated as the Lord and Prince of Judah.—(Ch. [[8:8-10 >> Bible:Is 8:8-10]] ) Who could this be, other than the heir of the throne of David? under which character a great and even a Divine person had been promised.”

These things leave little doubt as to the real bearing of the prophecy. But as originally delivered, it is connected with two peculiarities: the one that it is given as a sign to the house of David, then represented by the wicked Ahaz, and trembling for fear on account of the combined hostility of Syria and Israel; the other that it is succeeded by a word to the prophet concerning a son to be born to him by the prophetess, which should not be able to cry, My Father, before the king of Assyria had spoiled both the kingdoms of Syria and Israel.—(Ch. [[8:1-4 >> Bible:Is 8:1-4]] ) And it has been thought, from these peculiarities, that it was really this son of the prophet that was meant by the Immanuel, as this alone could be a proper sign to Ahaz of the deliverance that was to be so speedily granted to him from the object of his dread. So Grotius, who holds that St Matthew only applied it mystically to Christ, and a whole host of interpreters since, of whom many can think of no better defence for the Evangelist than that, as the words of the prophet were more elevated and full than the immediate occasion demanded, they might be said to be fulfilled in what more nearly accorded with them. Apologies of this kind, it is easy to be seen, will not avail much in the present day to save the honesty or discernment, to say nothing of the inspired authority, of the Evangelist. But there is really no need for them. It is quite arbitrary to suppose that the child to be born of the prophetess (an ideal child, we should imagine, conceived and born in prophetic vision—since otherwise it would seem to have been born in fornication) is to be identified with the virgin’s son; the rather so, as an entirely different name is given to it (Maher-shalal-hash-baz)—an ideal but descriptive name, and pointing simply to the spoliation that was to be effected on the hostile kingdoms. Immanuel has another, a higher import, and bespeaks what the Lord should be to the covenant-people, not what He should do to the enemies. Nor is the other circumstance, of the word being uttered [[@Page:173]] as a sign to the house of David, any reason for turning it from its natural sense and application. A sign in the ordinary sense had been refused, under a pretence of pious trust in God, but really from a feeling of distrust and improper reliance on an arm of flesh. And now the Lord gives a sign in a peculiar sense,—much as Jesus met the craving of an adulterous gene ration for a sign from heaven, by giving the sign of the prophet Jonas—the reverse of what they either wished or expected,—a sign, not from heaven, but from the lower parts of the earth. So here, by announcing the birth of Immanuel, the prophet gave a sign suited to the time of backsliding and apostacy in which he lived. For it told the house of David, that, wearying God as they were doing by their sins, He would vindicate His cause in a way they little expected or desired; that He would secure the establishment of His covenant with the house of David, by raising up a child in whom the Divine should actually commingle with the human; but that this child should be the offspring of some unknown virgin, not of Ahaz or of any ordinary occupant of the throne; and that, meanwhile, everything should go to desolation and ruin—first, indeed, in the allied kingdoms of Israel and Syria ([[ver. 16 >> Bible:Is. 7:16]] ), but afterwards also in the kingdom of Judah (vers. [[17-25 >> Bible:Is 7:17-25]] ); so that the destined possessor of the throne, when he came, should find all in a prostrate condition, and grow up like one in an impoverished and stricken country, fed with the simple fare of a cottage shepherd (comp. [[ver. 16 >> Bible:Is. 7:16]] with [[22 >> Bible:Is. 7:22]] ). Thus understood, the whole is entirely natural and consistent; and the single sense of the prophecy proves to be identical, as well with the native force of the words, as with the interpretations of inspired men.

We have selected this as one of the most common and plausible specimens of the false style of interpretation to which we have referred. It is needless to adduce more, as the explanations given in the earlier part of the chapter have already met many of them by anticipation; and the supplementary treatise in the Appendix will supply what further may be needed. If but honestly and earnestly dealt with, the Scripture has no reason to fear, in this or in other departments, the closest investigation; the more there is of rigid inquiry, displacing superficial considerations, the more will its inner truth and harmony appear.

FOOTNOTE

[1] It is proper to state, however, that we cannot present here anything like a full and complete elucidation of the subject; and we therefore mean to supplement this chapter by an Appendix on the Old Testament in the New, in which the subject will both be considered from a different point of view, and followed out more into detail. See Appendix A.

[2] So, for example, in Hos. 6:5, “I have hewed them by the prophets;” Gen. 27:37, “Behold I have made him thy lord;” 48:22, “I have given thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite” —each ascribing to the word spoken the actual doing of that which it only declared to have been done.

[3] Non Simois tibi, nee Xanthus, nee Dorica castra Defuerint. Alius Latio jam partus Achilles, Natus et ipse dea. —AEn. vi. 88-90.

[4] Trojse renascens alite lugubri Fortuna tristi clade iterabitur, etc.—Carm. L. III. 3, 6l-68. See also Seneca Medea, 374, etc.

[5] Those who contend for the actual reappearance of Elijah, because the epithet of “the prophet,” they think, fixes down the meaning to the personal Elijah, may as well contend for the reappearance of David as the future king; for “David, My servant,” is as distinctive an appellation of the one, as “Elijah the prophet” of the other. But in reality they are thus specified as both exhibiting the highest known ideal—the one of king-like service, the other of prophetic work as preparatory to a Divine manifestation. And in thinking of them, the people could get the most correct view they were capable of entertaining of the predicted future.

[6] The last clause might as well, and indeed better, have been rendered, “Exalt the horn of His Messiah.” Even the Jewish interpreter, Kimchi, understands it as spoken directly of the Messiah, and the Targum paraphrases, “He shall multiply the kingdom of Messiah.” It is the first pas sage of Scripture where the word occurs in its more distinctive sense, and is used as a synonym for the consecrated or divine king. It may seem strange that Hannah should have been the first to introduce this epithet, and to point so directly to the destined head of the Divine kingdom: it will even be inexplicable, unless we understand her to have been raised up for a “sign and a wonder” to Israel, and to have spoken as she was moved by the Holy Ghost. But the other expressions, especially “the adversaries of the Lord shall be destroyed, and the ends of the earth shall be judged,” show that it really was of the kingdom as possessed of such a head that she spoke. And the idea of Grotius and the Rationalists, that she referred in the first instance to Saul, is without foundation.

[7] The view now given of Hannah’s song presents it in a much higher, as we conceive it does also in a truer light, than that exhibited by Bishop Jebb, who speaks of it in a style that seems scarcely compatible with any proper belief in its inspiration. The song appears, in his estimation, to have been the mere effusion of Hannah’s private, and, in great part, unsanctified feelings. “We cannot but feel,” he says, “that her exultation partook largely of a spirit far beneath that which enjoins the love of our enemies, and which forbids personal exultation over a fallen foe.” He regards it as “unquestionable, that previous sufferings had not thoroughly subdued her temper, that she could not suppress the workings of a retaliative spirit, and was thus led to dwell, not on the peaceful glories of his (Samuel’s) priestly and prophetic rule, but on his future triumphs over the Philistine armies” (Sacred Literature, p. 397). If such were indeed the character of Hannah’s song, we may be assured it would not have been so closely imitated by the blessed Virgin. But it is manifestly wrong to regard Hannah as speaking of her merely personal enemies,—her language would otherwise be chargeable with vicious extravagance, as well as unsanctified feeling. She identifies herself throughout with the Lord’s cause and people; and it is simply her zeal for righteousness which expresses itself in a spirit of exultation over prostrate enemies.

[8] Lev. 25:23; Ps. 10:16; Isa. 14:25; Jer. 2:7, etc.

[9] Ex. 19:5; Ps. 94:5; Jer. 2:7; Joel 3:2.

[10] Ex. 15:26, 18:16, etc.

[11] Ex. 22:28; Ps. 77:6.

[12] Deut. 33:26, 29.

[13] See Warburton’s Legation of Moses, B. V. sect. 3.

[14] 1 Chron. 29:23.

[15] 2 Chron. 9:8.

[16] 2 Chron. 13:8.

[17] 1 Sam. 10:25.

[18] This appellation is used of David far more frequently than of any other person. Upwards of thirty times it is expressly spoken of David; and in the Psalms he is ever presenting himself in the character of the Lord’s servant.

[19] According to the view now given, there is no need for that alternating process which is so commonly resorted to in the explanation of Nathan’s prophecy, by which this one part is made to refer to Solomon and his immediate successors, and that other to Christ. There is no need for formally splitting it up into such portions, each pointing to different quarters; nor can the understanding find satisfaction in this method. The prophecy is to be taken as an organic whole, as the kingdom also is of which it speaks. David reigned in the Lord’s name, and the Lord, in the fulness of time, was born to occupy David’s throne—a mutual interconnection. The kingdom throughout is God’s, only existing in an embryo state, while presided over by David and his merely human descendants; and rising to its ripened form, as soon as it passes into the hands of one who, by virtue of His Divine properties, was fitted to bear the glory. The prophecy, therefore, is to be regarded as a general promise of the connection of the kingdom with David’s person and line, including Christ as belonging to that line, after the flesh; but in respect to the element of eternity, the absolute perpetuity guaranteed in the promise, it not only admitted, but required, the possession of a nature in Christ higher unspeakably than He could derive from David.

[20] The same view substantially of this portion of Isaiah’s writings was given by Vitringa, who thus sums up the leading topics of discourse:—”The great mystery of the manifestation of the kingdom of God and His righteousness in the world through the Messiah, His forerunner, and apostles, with the revival of an elect Church, then reduced to a very small number, with its more remarkable preceding signs, and the means that should be subservient to the whole work of grace,—among which preceding signs the deliverance from Babylon by Cyrus, in connection with the destruction of Babylon itself, as typical of the overthrow of all idolatrous and Satanic power, are chiefly dwelt upon, in like manner as the conviction both of Jews and Gentiles concerning the vanity of idols and the truth of God and His spiritual worship, hold the most prominent place among the concurrent means.”

[21] Marsh’s Lectures, p. 444.

[22] Davison on Prophecy, p. 196.

Chapter Sixth.—The Interpretation Of Particular Types—Specific Principles And Directions.

[[@Page:174]] IT was one of the objections urged against the typological views of our elder divines, that their system admitted of no fixed or definite rules being laid down for guiding us to the knowledge and interpretation of particular types. Everything was left to the discretion or caprice of the individual who undertook to investigate them. The few directions that were sometimes given upon the subject were too vague and general to be of any material service. That the type must have borne, in its original design and institution, a pre-ordained reference to the Gospel antitype—that there is often more in the type than in the antitype, and more in the antitype than the type—that there must be a natural and appropriate application of the one to the other—that the wicked as such, and acts of sin as such, must be excluded from the category of types—that one thing is sometimes the type of different and even contrary things, though in different respects and that there is sometimes an interchange between the type and the antitype of the names respectively belonging to each:—These rules of interpretation, which are the whole that Glassius and other hermeneutical writers furnish for our direction, could not go far, either to restrain the licence of conjecture, or to mark out the particular course of thought and inquiry that should be pursued. They can scarcely be said to touch the main difficulties of the subject, and throw no light on its more distinguishing peculiarities. Nor, indeed, could any other result have been expected. The rules could not be precise or definite, when the system on which they were founded was altogether loose and indeterminate. And only with the laying of a more solid and stable foundation could directions for the practical treatment of the subject come to possess any measure of satisfaction or explicitness.

[[@Page:175]] Even on the supposition that some progress has now been made in laying such a foundation, we cannot hold out the prospect, that no room shall be left for dubiety, and that all may be reduced to a kind of dogmatical precision and certainty. It would be unreasonable to expect this, considering both the peculiar character and the manifold variety of the field embraced by the Typology of Scripture. That there may still be particular cases in which it will be questionable whether anything properly typical belonged to them, and others in which a diversity of view may be allowable in explaining what is typical, seems to us by no means improbable. And in the specific rules or principles of interpretation that follow, we do not aim at dispelling every possible doubt and ambiguity connected with the subject, but only at fixing its more prominent and characteristic outlines. We believe, that with ordinary care and discretion, they will be sufficient to guard against material error.

1. The first principle we lay down has respect merely to the amount of what is typical in Old Testament Scripture; it is, that nothing is to be regarded as typical of the good things under the Gospel, which was itself of a forbidden and sinful nature. Something approximating to this has been mentioned among the too general and obvious directions which philological writers have been accustomed to give upon the subject. It is, indeed, so much of that description, that though in itself a principle most necessary to be observed and acted on, yet we should have refrained from any express announcement or formal proof of it here, were it not still frequently set at naught, alike in theological discussions and in popular discourses.

The ground of the principle, in the form here given to it, lies in the connection which the type has with the antitype, and consequently with God. The antitype standing in the things which belong to God’s everlasting kingdom, is necessarily of God; and so, by a like necessity, the type, which was intended to fore shadow and prepare for it, must have been equally of Him. Whether a symbol in religion or a fact in providence, it must have borne upon it the Divine sanction and approval; otherwise there could have been no proper connection between the ultimate reality and its preparatory exhibitions. So far as the institutions [[@Page:176]] of religion are concerned, this is readily admitted; and no one would think of contending for the idolatrous rites of worship which were sometimes introduced into the services of the sanctuary, being ranked among the shadows of the better things to come.

But there is not the same readiness to perceive the incongruity of admitting to the rank of types, actions which were as far from being accordant with the mind of God, as the impurities of an idolatrous worship. Such actions might, no doubt, differ in one respect from the forbidden services of religion; they might in some way be overruled by God for the accomplishment of His own purposes, and thereby be brought into a certain connection with Himself. This was never more strikingly done than in respect to the things which befell Jesus—the great antitype—which were carried into effect by the operation of the fiercest malice and wickedness, and yet were the very things which the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God had appointed before to be done. It is one thing, however, for human agents and their actions being controlled and directed by God, so as, amid all their impetuosity and uproar, to be constrained to work out His righteous purposes; but another thing for them to stand in such close relationship to Him, that they become express and authoritative revelations of His will. This last is the light in which they must be contemplated, if a typical character is ascribed to them. For the time during which typical things lasted, they stood as temporary representations under God’s own hand of what He was going permanently to establish under the Gospel. And, therefore, as amid those higher transactions, where the antitype comes into play, we exclude whatever was the offspring of human ignorance or sinfulness; so in the earlier and inferior transactions, which were typical of what was to come, we must, in like manner, exclude the workings of all earthly and sinful affections. The typical and the antitypical alike must bear on them the image and superscription of God.

Violations of this obvious principle are much less frequently met with now, than they were in the theological writings of last century. Still, however, instances are occasionally forcing themselves on one’s notice. And in popular discourses, none [[@Page:177]] perhaps occurs more frequently than that connected with Jacob’s melancholy dissimulation and cunning policy for obtaining the blessing. His receiving the blessing, we are sometimes told, in the garments of Esau, which his mother arrayed him with, “is to be viewed as a faint shadow of our receiving the blessing from God in the garments of Jesus Christ, which all the children of the promise wear. It was not the feigned venison, but the borrowed garments, that procured the blessing. Even so, we are not blessed by God for our good works, however pleasing to Him, but for the righteousness of our Redeemer.” What a confounding of things that differ! The garments of the “profane” Esau made to image the spotless righteousness of Jesus! And the fraudulent use of the one by Jacob, viewed as representing the believer’s simple and confiding trust in the other! Between things so essentially different there can manifestly be nothing but superficial resemblances, which necessarily vanish the moment the real facts of the case rise into view. It was not Jacob’s imposing upon his father’s infirmities, either with false venison or with borrowed garments, which in reality procured for him the blessing. The whole that can be said of these is, that in the actual circumstances of the case they had a certain influence, of an instrumental kind, in leading Isaac to pronounce it. But what had been thus spoken on false grounds and under mistaken apprehensions, might surely have been recalled when the truth came to be known. The prophet Nathan, at a later age, found no difficulty in revoking the word he had too hastily spoken to David respecting the building of the temple, though it had been elicited by something very different from falsehood by novel and unexpected display of real goodness.—(2 Sam. 7:3) And in the case now under consideration, if there had been nothing more in the matter than the mock venison and the hairy garments of Esau, there can be little doubt that the blessing that had been pronounced would have been instantly withdrawn, and the curse which Jacob dreaded made to take its place. In truth, Isaac erred in what he purposed to do, not less than Jacob in beguiling him to do what he had not purposed. He was going to utter in God’s name a prophetic word, which, if it had taken effect as he intended, would have contravened the [[@Page:178]] oracle originally given to Rebekah concerning the two children, even prior to their birth—that the elder should serve the younger. And there were not wanting indications in the spirit and behaviour of the sons, after they had sprung to manhood, which might have led a mind of spiritual discernment to descry in Jacob, rather than Esau, the heir of blessing. But living as Isaac had done for the most part of his life in a kind of luxurious ease, in his declining years especially yielding too much to the fleshly indulgences assiduously ministered to by the hand of Esau, the eye of his mind, like that of his body, grew dim, and he lost the correct perception of the truth. But when he saw how the providence of God had led him to bestow the blessing, otherwise than he himself had designed, the truth rushed at once upon his soul. “He trembled exceedingly”—not simply, nor perhaps chiefly, because of the deceit that had been practised upon his blindness, but because of the worse spiritual blindness which had led him to err so grievously from the revealed purpose of God. And hence, even after the discovery of Jacob’s fraudulent behaviour, he declared with the strongest emphasis, “Yea, and he shall be blessed.”

Thus, when the real circumstances of the case are considered, there appears no ground whatever for connecting the improper conduct of Jacob with the mode of a sinner’s justification. The resemblances that may be found between them are quite superficial or arbitrary. And such always are the resemblances which appear between the workings of evil in man, and the good that is of God. The two belong to essentially different spheres, and a real analogy or a divinely ordained connection cannot possibly unite them together. The principle, however, may be carried a step farther. As the operations of sin cannot prefigure the actings of righteousness, so the direct results and consequences of sin cannot justly be regarded as typical representations of the exercises of grace and holiness. When, therefore (to refer again to the history of Jacob), the things that befell him in God’s providence, on account of his unbrotherly and deceitful conduct, are represented as typical foreshadowings of Christ’s work of humiliation—Jacob’s withdrawal from his father’s house, prefiguring Christ’s leaving the region of glory and appearing as a stranger [[@Page:179]] on the earth—Jacob’s sleeping on the naked ground with nothing but a stone for his pillow, Christ’s descent into the lowest depths of poverty and shame, that he might afterwards be exalted to the head-stone of the corner, and so forth;[1] —in such representations there is manifestly a stringing together of events which have no fundamental agreement, and possess no mutual relations. In the one case Jacob was merely suffering the just reward of his misdeeds; while the Redeemer in the other and alleged parallel transactions, was voluntarily giving the highest display of the holy love that animated His bosom for the good of men. And whatever there might be in certain points of an outward and formal resemblance between them, it is in the nature of things impossible that there could be a real harmony and an ordained connection.

It is to be noted, however, that we apply the principle now under consideration to the extent merely of denying a typical connection between what in former times appeared of evil on the part of man, and the good subsequently introduced by God. And we do so on the ground that such things only as He sanctioned and approved in the past, could foreshadow the higher and better things which were to be sanctioned and approved by Him in the future. But as all the manifestations of truth have their corresponding and antagonistic manifestations of error, it is perfectly warrantable and scriptural to regard the form of evil which from time to time confronted the type, as itself the type of something similar, which should afterwards arise as a counter form of evil to the antitype. Antichrist, therefore, may be said to have had his types as well as Christ. Hagar was the type of a carnal church, that should be in bondage to the elements of the world, and of a spirit at enmity with God, as Sarah was of a spiritual church, that should possess the freedom and enjoy the privileges of the children of God. Egypt, Edom, Assyria, Babylon without, and Saul, Ahithophel, Absalom, and others within the circle of the Old Covenant, have each their counterpart in the things belonging to the history of Christ and His Church of the New Testament. In strictness of speech, it is the other class of relations alone which carry with them the impress and ordination of God; but as God’s acts and operations [[@Page:180]] in His Church never fail to call into existence the world’s enmity and opposition, so the forms which this assumed in earlier times might well be regarded as prophetic of those which were after wards to appear. And if so with the evil itself, still more with the visitations of severity sent to chastise the evil; for these come directly from God. The judgments, therefore, He inflicted on iniquity in the past, typified like judgments on all similar aspects of iniquity in the future. And the period when the good shall reach its full development and final triumph, shall also be that in which the work of judgment shall pour its floods of perpetual desolation upon the evil.

II. We pass on to another, which must still also be a somewhat negative principle of interpretation, viz., that in determining the existence and import of particular types, we must be guided, not so much by any knowledge possessed, or supposed to be possessed, by the ancient worshippers concerning their prospective fulfilment, as from the light furnished by their realization in the great facts and revelations of the Gospel.

Whether we look to the symbolical or to the historical types, neither their own nature, nor God’s design in appointing them, could warrant us in drawing very definite and conclusive inferences regarding the insight possessed by the Old Testament worshippers into their prospective or Gospel import. The one formed part of an existing religion, and the other of a course of providential dealings; and in that more immediate respect there were certain truths they embodied, and certain lessons they taught, for those who had directly to do with them. Their fitness for unfolding such truths and lessons formed, as we have seen, the groundwork of their typical connection with Gospel times. But though they must have been understood in that primary aspect by all sincere and intelligent worshippers, these did not necessarily perceive their further reference to the things of Christ’s kingdom. Nor does the reality or the precise import of their typical character depend upon the correctness or the extent of the knowledge held respecting it by the members of the Old Covenant. For the connection implied in their possessing such a character between the preparatory and the final dispensations was not of the Church’s forming, but of God’s; [[@Page:181]] and a very considerable part of the design which He intended these to serve with ancient believers, may have been accomplished, though they knew little, and perhaps in some cases nothing, of the germs that lay concealed in them of better things to come. These germs wereconcealed in all typical events and institutions, considered simply by themselves—since the events and institutions had a significance and use for the time then present, apart from what might be evolved in the future purposes of God. Now, we are expressly told, even in regard to direct prophecies of Gospel times, that not only the persons to whom they were originally delivered, but the very individuals through whom they were communicated, did not always or necessarily understand their precise meaning. Sometimes, at least, they had to assume the position of inquirers, in order to get the more exact and definite information which they desired (Dan. 12:8; 1 Pet. 1:12); and it would seem, from the case of Daniel, that even then they did not always obtain it. The prophets were not properly the authors of their own predictions, but spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Their knowledge, therefore, of the real meaning of the prophecies they uttered, was an entirely separate thing from the prophecies themselves; and if we knew what it was, it would still by no means conclusively fix their full import. Such being the case in regard even to the persons who uttered the spoken and direct prophecies of the Old Testament, how preposterous would it be to make the insight obtained by believers generally into the indirect and veiled prophecies (as the types may be called), the ground and standard of the Gospel truth they embodied! In each case alike, it is the mind of God, not the discernment or faith of the ancient believer, that we have properly to do with.

Obvious as this may appear to some, it has been very commonly overlooked; and typical explanations have in consequence too often taken the reverse direction of what they should have done. Writers in this department are constantly telling us, how in former times the eye of faith looked through the present to the future, and assigning that as the reason why our present should be contemplated in the remote past. Thus, in a once popular work, Adam is represented as having “believed the [[@Page:182]] promise concerning Christ, in whose commemoration he offered continual sacrifice; and in the assurance thereof he named his wife Eve, that is to say, life, and he called his son Seth, settled, or persuaded in Christ.”[2] Another exalts in like manner the faith of Zipporah, and regards her, when she said to Moses, “A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision,” as announcing “through one of her children, the Jehovah as the future Redeemer and bridegroom.”[3] Another presents Moses to our view as wondering at the great sight of the burning bush, “because the great mystery of the incarnation and sufferings of Christ was there represented; a great sight he might well call it, when there was represented God manifest in the flesh, suffering a dreadful death, and rising from the dead.”[4] And Owen, speaking of the Old Testament believers generally, says, “Their faith in God was not confined to the outward things they enjoyed, but on Christ in them, and represented by them. They believed that they were only resemblances of Him and His mediation, which, when they lost the faith of, they lost all acceptance with God in their worship.”[5] Writers of a different class, and of later date, have followed substantially in the same track. Warburton maintains with characteristic dogmatism, that the transaction with Abraham, in offering up Isaac, was a typical action, in which the patriarch had scenically represented to his view the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ; and that on any other supposition there can be no right understanding of the matter.[6] Dean Graves expresses his concurrence in this interpretation, as does also Mr Faber, who says that “Abraham must have clearly understood the nature of that awful transaction by which the day of Christ was to be characterized, [[@Page:183]] and could not have been ignorant of the benefits about to be procured by it.”[7] And, to mention no more, Chevallier intimates a doubt concerning the typical character of the brazen serpent, because “it is not plainly declared, either in the Old or the New Testament, to have been ordained by God purposely to represent to the Israelites the future mysteries of the Gospel revelation.”[8]

These quotations sufficiently show how current the opinion has been, and still is, that the persons who lived amid the types must have perfectly understood their typical character, and that by their knowledge in this respect we are bound in great measure, if not entirely, to regulate ours. It is, however, a very difficult question, and one (as we have already had occasion to state) on which we should seldom venture to give more than an approximate deliverance, how far the realities typified even by the more important symbols and transactions of ancient times were distinctly perceived by any individual who lived prior to their actual appearance. The reason for this uncertainty and probable ignorance is the same with that which has been so clearly exhibited by Bishop Horsley, and applied in refutation of an infidel objection, in the closely related field of prophecy. It was necessary, for the very ends of prophecy, that a certain disguise should remain over the events it foretold, till they became facts in providence; and therefore, “whatever private information the prophet might enjoy, the Spirit of God would never permit him to disclose the ultimate intent and particular meaning of the prophecy.”[9] Types being a species of prophecy, and from their nature less precise and determinate in meaning, they must certainly have been placed under the veil of a not inferior disguise. Whatever insight more advanced believers might have had into their ultimate design, it could neither be distinctly announced, nor, if announced, serve as a sufficient directory for us; it could only furnish, according to the measure of light it contained, comfort and encouragement to themselves.

And whether that measure might be great or small, vague and general, or minute and particular, we should not be bound, even if we knew it, to abide by its rule; for here, as in prophecy, the [[@Page:184]] judgment of the early Church “must still bow down to time as a more informed expositor.”

That the sincere worshippers of God in former ages, especially such as possessed the higher degrees of spiritual thought and discernment, were acquainted not only with God’s general purpose of redemption, but also with some of its more prominent features and results, we have no reason to doubt. It is impossible to read those portions of Old Testament Scripture which disclose the feelings and expectations of gifted minds, without being convinced that considerable light was sometimes obtained respecting the work of salvation. We shall find an opportunity for inquiring more particularly concerning this, when we come to treat, in a subsequent part of our investigations, respecting the connection between the moral legislation and the ceremonial institutions of Moses. But that the views even of the better part of the Old Testament worshippers must have been comparatively dim, and that their acceptance as worshippers did not depend upon the clearness of their discernment in regard to the person and kingdom of Christ, is evident from what was stated in our second chapter as to the relatively imperfect nature of the earlier dispensations, and the childhood-state of those who lived under them. It was the period when, as is expressly stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews (chap. [[9:8 >> Bible:Heb. 9:8]] ), “the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest;” or, in other words, when the method of salvation was not fully disclosed to the view of God’s people. And though we may not be warranted to consider what is written of the closing age of Old Testament times as a fair specimen of their general character, yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that not only did much prevailing ignorance then exist concerning the better things of the New Covenant, but that instances occur even of genuine believers, who still betrayed an utter misapprehension of their proper nature. Thus Nathaniel was pronounced “an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile,” while he obviously laboured under inadequate views of Christ’s person and work. And no sooner had Peter received the peculiar benediction bestowed, on account of his explicit confession of the truth, than he gave evidence of his ignorance of the design, and his repugnance to the thought, of Christ’s sufferings and death. Such things occurring on the [[@Page:185]] very boundary-line between the Old and the New, and after the clearer light of the New had begun to be partially introduced, render it plain, that they may also have existed, and in all probability did not unfrequently prevail, even among the believing portion of Israel in remoter times.

But such being the case, it would manifestly be travelling in the wrong direction to make the knowledge, which was possessed by ancient believers regarding the prospective import of particular types, the measure of our own. The providential arrangements and religious institutions which constitute the types, had an end to serve, independently of their typical design, in ministering to the present wants of believers, and nourishing in their souls the life of faith. Their more remote and typical import was for us, even more than for those who had immediately to do with them. It does not rest upon the more or less imperfect information such persons might have had concerning it; but chiefly on the light furnished by the records of the New Testament, and thence reflected on those of the Old. “It is Christ who holds the key of the types, not Moses;” and instead of making everything depend upon the still doubtful inquiry, What did pious men of old descry of Gospel realities through the shadowy forms of typical institutions? we must repair to these realities themselves, and by the light radiating from them over the past, as well as the present and future things of God, read the evidence of that “testimony of Jesus,” which lies written in the typical not less than in the prophetical portions of ancient Scripture.

III. But if in this respect we have comparatively little to do with the views of those who lived under former dispensations, there is another respect in which we have much to do with them. And our next principle of interpretation is, that we must always, in the first instance, be careful to make ourselves acquainted with the truths or ideas exhibited in the types, considered merely as providential transactions or religious institutions. In other words, we are to find in what they were in their immediate relation to the patriarchal or Jewish worshipper, the foundation and substance of what they typically present to the Christian Church.

[[@Page:186]] There is no contrariety between this principle and the one last announced. We had stated, that in endeavouring to ascertain the reality and the nature of a typical connection between Old and New Testament affairs, we are not to reason downward from what might be known of this in earlier times, but rather upward from what may now be known of it, in consequence of the clearer light and higher revelations of the Gospel. What we farther state now is, that the religious truths and ideas which were embodied in the typical events and institutions of former times, must be regarded as forming the ground and limit of their prospective reference to the affairs of Christ’s kingdom. That they had a moral, political, or religious end to serve for the time then present, so far from interfering with their destination to typify the spiritual things of the Gospel, forms the very ground and substance of their typical bearing. Hence their character in the one respect, the more immediate, may justly be regarded as the essential key to their character in respect to what was more remote.

This principle of interpretation grows so necessarily out of the views advanced in the earlier and more fundamental parts of our inquiry, that it must here be held as in a manner proved. Its validity must stand or fall with that of the general principles we have sought to establish, as to the relation between type and antitype. That relation, it has been our object to show, rests on something deeper than merely outward resemblances. It rests rather on the essential unity of the things so related, on their being alike embodiments of the same principles of Divine truth; but embodiments in the case of the type, on a lower and earthly scale, and as a designed preparation for the higher development afterwards to be made in the Gospel. That, therefore, which goes first in the nature of things, must also go first in any successful effort to trace the connection between them. And the question, What elements of Divine truth are symbolized in the type I must take precedence of the other question, How did the type foreshadow the greater realities of the antitype? For it is in the solution we obtain for the one, that a foundation is to be laid for the solution of the other.

It is only by keeping stedfastly to this rule, that we shall be able, in the practical department of our inquiry, to direct our [[@Page:187]] thoughts to substantial, as opposed to merely superficial and fanciful, resemblances. The palpable want of discrimination in this respect, between what is essential and what is only accidental, formed one of the leading defects in our elder writers. And it naturally sprang from too exclusive a regard to the antitype, as if the things belonging to it being fully ascertained, we were at liberty to connect it with everything formally resembling it in ancient times, whether really akin in nature to it or not. Thus, when Kanne, in a passage formerly referred to, represents the stone which Jacob took for his pillow at Bethel, as a type of Christ in His character as the foundation-stone of His Church, there is, no doubt, a kind of outward similarity, so that the same language may, in a sense, be applied to both; but there is no common principle uniting them together. The use which Jacob made of the stone was quite different from that in respect to which Christ is exhibited as the stone laid in Zion—being laid not for the repose or slumber, but for the stability and support, of a ransomed people. For this the strength and durability of a rock were absolutely indispensable; but they contributed nothing to the fitness of what Jacob’s necessities drove him to employ as a temporary pillow. It was his misfortune, not his privilege, to be obliged to resort to a stone for such a purpose.

We had occasion formerly to describe in what manner the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness might be regarded as typical of the lifting up of a crucified Redeemer; by showing how the inferior objects and relations of the one had their correspondence in the higher objects and relations of the other![10] But suppose we should proceed in the opposite direction, and should take these higher objects and relations of the antitype as the rule and measure of what we are to expect in the type; then, having a far wider and more complicated subject for our starting-point, we should naturally set about discovering many slight and superficial analogies in the type, to bring it into a fuller correspondence with the antitype. This is what many have actually done who have treated of the subject. Hence we find them expatiating upon the metal of which the serpent was formed, and which, from being inferior to some others, they regard as foreshadowing Christ’s outward meanness, [[@Page:188]] while in its solidity they discern His Divine strength, and in its dim lustre the veil of His human nature![11] What did it avail to the Israelite, or for any purpose the serpent had to serve, of what particular stuff it was made? A dead and senseless thing in itself, it must have been all one for those who were called to look to it, whether the material was brass or silver, wood or stone. And yet, as if it were not enough to make account of these trifling accidents, others were sometimes invented, for which there is no foundation in the inspired narrative, to obtain for the greater breadth of the one subject a corresponding breadth in the other. Thus Guild represents the serpent as not having been forged by man’s hand or hammer, but by a mould, and in the fire, to image the Divine conception of Christ’s human nature; and Justin Martyr, with still greater licence, supposes the serpent to have been made in the form of a cross, the more exactly to represent a suffering Redeemer. Suppose it had been modelled after this form, would it have been rendered thereby a more effective instrument for healing the diseased? Or would one essential idea have been added to what either an Israelite or a Christian were otherwise at liberty to associate with it? All such puerile straining of the subject arose from an inverted order being taken in tracing the connection between the spiritual reality and the ancient shadow. It would no longer be thought of, if the principle of interpretation here advanced were strictly adhered to; that is, if the typical matter of an event or institution were viewed simply as standing in the truths or principles which it brought distinctly into view; and if these were regarded as actually comprising all that in each particular case could legitimately be applied to the antitypical affairs of Christ’s kingdom.

The judicious application of this principle will serve also to rid us of another class of extravagances, which are of frequent occurrence in writers of the Cocceian school, and which mainly consist, like those already noticed, of external resemblances, deduced with little or no regard to any real principle of agreement. We refer to the customary mode of handling typical persons or characters, with no other purpose apparently than that of exhibiting the greatest possible number of coincidences [[@Page:189]] between these and Christ. As many as forty of such have been reckoned between Moses and Christ, and even more between Joseph and Christ. Of course, a great proportion of such resemblances are of a quite superficial and trifling nature, and are of no moment, whether they happen to be perceived or not. For any light they throw on the purposes of Heaven, or any advantage they yield to our faith, we gain nothing by admitting them, and we lose as little by rejecting them. They would never have been sought for had the real nature of the connection between type and antitype been understood, and the proper mode of exhibiting it been adopted; nor would typical persons or individuals, sustaining a typical character through the whole course and tenor of their lives, have been supposed to exist. It was to familiarize the Church with great truths and principles, not to occupy her thoughts with petty agreements and fanciful analogies, that she was kept so long conversant with preparatory dispensations. And as that end might have been in part served by a single transaction, or a special appointment in a lifetime; so, whenever it was served, it must have been by virtue of its exhibiting important aspects of Divine truth—such as were to reappear in the person and work of Christ. It is not, in short, individuals throughout the entire compass of their history, but individuals in certain divinely appointed offices or relations, in which we are to seek for what is typical in this province of sacred history.[12]

[[@Page:190]] IV. Another conclusion flowing not less clearly than the foregoing from the views already established, and which we propose as our next leading principle of interpretation, is, that while the symbol or institution constituting the type has properly but one radical meaning, yet the fundamental idea or principle exhibited in it may often be capable of more than one application to the realities of the Gospel; that is, it may bear respect to, and be developed in, more than one department of the affairs of Christ’s kingdom. But in illustrating this proposition, we must take in succession the several parts of which it consists.

1. The first part asserts each type to be capable of but one radical meaning. It has a definite way of expressing some fundamental idea—that, and no more. Were it otherwise, we should find any consistent or satisfactory interpretation of typical things quite impracticable, and should often lose ourselves in a sea of uncertainty. An example or two may serve to show how far this has actually been the case in the past. Glassius makes the deluge to typify both the preservation of the faithful through baptism, and the destruction of the wicked in the day of judgment; and the rule under which he adduces this example is, that “a type may be a figure of two, and even contrary things, though in different respects.”[13]In like manner, Taylor, taking the full liberty of such a canon, when interpreting the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea as a type of baptism, sees in that event, first, “the offering of Jesus Christ to their faith, through the Red Sea, of whose death and passion they should find a sure and safe way to the celestial Canaan;” and then this other truth, that “by His merit and mediation He would carry them through all difficulties and dangers, as deep as the bottom of the sea, unto eternal rest.”[14] In this last specimen the Red Sea is viewed as representing at the same time, and in relation to the same persons, both the atoning blood of Christ and the outward trials of life. The other example is not so palpably incorrect, nor does it in fact go to the entire length, which the rule it is designed to illustrate [[@Page:191]] properly warrants; for the action of the waters in the deluge is considered by it with reference to different persons, as well as in different respects. It is at fault, however, in making one event typical of two diverse and unconnected results. Many other examples might be produced of similar false interpretations from what has been written of the tabernacle and its services, equally indicative, on the part of the writers, of a capricious fancy, and in themselves utterly destitute of any solid foundation.

Our previous investigations, we trust, have removed this prolific source of ambiguity and confusion; for, if we have not entirely failed of our object, we have shown that the typical transactions and symbols of the Old Testament are by no means so vague and arbitrary as to be capable of bearing senses altogether variable and inconsistent. Viewed as a species of language, which they really were—a speaking by action instead of words—they could only reach the end they had to serve by giving forth a distinct and intelligible meaning. Such language can no more do this than oral or written discourse, if constructed so as to be susceptible of the most diverse and even opposite senses. By the necessities of the case, therefore, we are constrained to hold, that whatever instruction God might design to communicate to the Church, either in earlier or in later times, by means of the religious institutions and providential arrangements of past times, it must have been such as admits of being derived from them by a fixed and reasonable mode of interpretation. To suppose that their virtue consisted in some capacity to express meanings quite variable and inconsistent with each other, would be to assimilate them to the uncertain oracles of heathenism.

2. This is to be understood in the strictest sense of such typical acts and symbols, as, from their nature, were expressive of a simple, uncompounded idea. In that case, it would be an incongruity to make what was one in the type, present, like a revolving light, a changeful and varying aspect toward the antitype. But the type itself might possibly be of a complex nature; that is, it might embody a process which branched out into two or more lines of operation, and so combined two or more related ideas together. In such a case, there will require to be a corresponding variety in the application that is made from the type to [[@Page:192]] the antitype. The twofold, or perhaps still more complicated, idea contained in the one must have its counterpart in the other, as much as if each idea had received a separate representation; though due regard must be paid to the connection which they appear to have one with another, as component elements of the same type. For example, the event of the deluge, recently adverted to, which at once bore on its bosom an elect seed, in safe preservation for the peopling of a new world, and overwhelmed in perdition the race of ungodly men who had corrupted the old, unquestionably involves a complex idea. It embodies in one great act a double process—a process, however, which was accomplished simultaneously in both its parts; since the doing of the one carried along with it the execution of the other. In thinking, therefore, of the New Testament antitype, we must have respect not only to the two ideas themselves severally represented, but also to their relation to each other; we must look for some spiritual process, which in like manner combines a work of preservation with a work of destruction. In the different fates of the righteous and the wicked,—the one as appointed to salvation, and the other to perdition,—we have certainly a twofold process and result; but have we the two in a similar combination? We certainly have them so combined in the personal history and work of Christ, as His triumph and exaltation inevitably involved the bruising of Satan; and the same shall also be found in the final judgment, when, by putting down for ever all adverse authority and rule, Christ shall raise His Church to the dominion and the glory. If the typical connection between the deluge and God’s grander works of preservation and destruction, is put in either of these lights, the objection we lately offered to the interpretation of Glassius will be obviated, and the requirements of a Scriptural exegesis satisfied. A like combination of two ideas is found in the application made of the deluge by the Apostle Peter to the ordinance of baptism, as will be shown in due time. And there are, besides, many things connected with the tabernacle and its services—for example, the use made in them of symbolical numbers, the different kinds of sacrifice, the ritual of cleansing—which are usually so employed as to convey a complex meaning, and a meaning that of necessity assumes different shades, according to the different modifications employed [[@Page:193]] in the use of the symbolical materials. Such differences, however, can only be of a minor kind; they can never touch the fundamental character of the typical phenomena, so as to render them expressive in one relation of something totally unlike to what they denoted in another. A symbolical act or institution can as little be made to change its meaning arbitrarily, as a term in language. Its precise import must always be determined first by an intelligent consideration of its inherent nature, and then by the connection in which it stands.

3. It is one thing, however, to maintain that a type, either as a whole or in its component parts, can express only one meaning; and another, to allow more than one application of it to the affairs of Christ’s kingdom. Not only is there an organic connection between the Old and the New dispensations, giving rise to the relation of type and antitype, but also an organic connection between one part and another of the Gospel dispensation; in consequence of which the ideas and principles exhibited in the types may find their realization in more than one department of the Gospel system. The types, as well as the prophecies, hence often admit of “a springing and germinant accomplishment.” They do so especially in those things which concern the economical relation subsisting between Christ and His people; by reason of which He is at once the root out of which they grow, and the pattern after which their condition and destiny are to be formed. If, on this account, it be necessary that in all things He should have the pre-eminence, it is not less necessary that they should bear His image, and share in His heritage of blessing. So closely are they identified with Him. In their present experience and their future prospects, that they are now spoken of as having “fellowship with him in His sufferings,” being “planted with Him in the likeness of His death,” and again “planted with Him in the likeness of His resurrection,” “sitting with Him in heavenly places,” having “their life hid with Him in God,” and being at last raised to “inherit His kingdom, and sit with Him upon His throne.” In short, the Church as a whole is conformed to His likeness; while, again, in each one of her members is reproduced an image of the whole. Therefore the principles and ideas which, by means of typical ordinances and transactions, were perpetually exhibited before the eye of the Old Testament [[@Page:194]] Church, while they must find their grand development in Christ Himself, must also have further developments in the history of His Church and people. They have respect to our relations and experiences, our state and prospects, in so far as these essentially coincide with Christ’s; for, so far, the one is but a partial renewal or a prolonged existence of the other.

There are things of a typical nature, it is proper to add, which in a more direct and special manner bear respect to the Church and people of Christ. The rite of circumcision, for example, the passage through the Red Sea, the judgments in the wilderness, the eating of manna, and many similar things, must obviously have their antitypes in the heirs of salvation rather than in Him, who, in this respect, stood alone; He was personally free from sin, and did not Himself need the blessings He provided for others. So that, when the Apostle writes of the ordinances of the law, that they were “shadows of good things to come, but the body is of Christ” (Col. 2:17), he is not to be understood as meaning that Christ personally and alone is the object they prospectively contemplated, but Christ together with His body the Church—the events and interests of the Gospel dispensation. In this collective sense Christ is mentioned also in 1 Cor. 12:12, and Gal. 3:16. Nor is it by any means an arbitrary sense; for it is grounded in the same vital truth, on which we have based the admissibility of a twofold application or bearing of typical things, viz., the organic union subsisting between Christ and His redeemed people—”He in them, and they in Him.”

V. Another principle of interpretation arising out of the preceding investigations, and necessary to be borne in mind for the right understanding of typical symbols and transactions, is, that due regard must be had to the essential difference between the nature of type and antitype. For, as the typical is Divine truth on a lower stage, exhibited by means of outward relations and terrestrial interests, so, when making the transition from this to the antitypical, we must expect the truth to appear on a loftier stage, and, if we may so speak, with a more heavenly aspect. What in the one bore immediate respect to the bodily life, must in the other be found to bear immediate respect to the spiritual [[@Page:195]] life. While in the one it is seen and temporal objects that ostensibly present themselves, their proper counterpart in the other are the unseen and eternal:—there, the outward, the present, the worldly; here, the inward, the future, the heavenly.

A change and advance of the kind here supposed, enters into the very vitals of the subject, as unfolded in the earlier part of our inquiry. The reason why typical symbols and institutions were employed by God in His former dealings with His Church, arose from the adoption of a plan which indispensably required that very progression in the mode of exhibiting Divine truth. The world was treated for a period as a child that must be taught great principles, and prepared for events of infinite magnitude and eternal interest, by the help of familiar and sensible objects, which lay fully open to their view, and came within the grasp of their comprehension. But now that we have to do with the things themselves, for which those means of preparation were instituted, we must take care, in tracing the connection between the one and the other, to keep steadily in view the essential difference between the two periods, and with the rise in the Divine plan give a corresponding rise to the application we make of what belonged to the ancient economy. To proceed without regard to this—to look for the proper counterpart of any particular type in the same class of objects and interests, as that to which the type itself immediately referred, would be to act like those Judaizing Christians, who, after the better things had come, held fast at once by type and antitype, as if they stood upon the same plane, and were constructed of the same materials. It would be to remain at the old foundations, while the scheme of God has risen to a higher place, and laid a new world, as it were, open to our view. If, therefore, we enter aright into the change which has been effected in the position of the Divine kingdom, and give to that its proper weight in determining the connection between type and antitype, we must look for things in the one, corresponding, indeed, to those in the other, but, at the same time, proportionally higher and greater; and, in particular, must remember that, according to the rule, internal things now take the place of external, and spiritual of bodily.

Much discretion, however, which it is impossible to bound by [[@Page:196]] such precise and definite rules as might meet all conceivable cases, will be necessary in applying the principle now indicated to individual examples. In the majority of cases there will be no difficulty; for the distinction we mention between the Old and the New is so manifest, as to secure a certain degree of uniformity even among those who are not remarkable for discrimination. And, indeed, the writers most liable to err in other respects,—persons of delicate sensibilities and spiritual feeling,—are less in danger of erring here, as they have usually a clear perception of the more inward and elevated character of the Gospel dispensation. The point in regard to which they are most likely to err concerning it, and that which really forms the chief difficulty in applying the principle now under consideration, arises from what may be called the mixed nature of the things belonging to Messiah’s kingdom. As contradistinguished from those of earlier dispensations, and rising above them, we denominate the realities of the Gospel spiritual, heavenly, eternal. And yet they are not totally disconnected with the objects of flesh and time. The centre-point of the whole, Jesus Christ, not only sojourned in bodily form upon the earth, but had certain conditions to fulfil of an outward and bodily kind, which were described beforehand in prophecy, and may also, of course, have had their typical adumbrations. In the case of the Church, too, her life of faith is not altogether of an inward nature, and confined to the hidden man of the heart. It touches continually on the corporeal and visible; and certain events essentially connected with her progress and destiny—such as the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, the calling of the Gentiles, the persecutions of the world, the doom of Antichrist—could not take place without assuming an outward and palpable form. What, then, it may be asked, becomes of the characteristic difference between the Old and the New, so far as such things are concerned? Must not type and antitype still be found substantially on the same level?

By no means. The proper inference is, that there are cases in which the difference is less broadly marked; but it still exists. The operations, experiences, and blessings peculiar to the dispensation of the Gospel, are not all of a simply inward and spiritual nature; but they all bear directly on the interests [[@Page:197]] of a spiritual salvation, and the realities of a heavenly and eternal world. The members of Christ’s kingdom, so long as they are in flesh and blood, must have their history interwoven on every side with the relations of sense and time, and be themselves dependent upon outward ordinances for the existence and nourishment of their spiritual life. Yet, whatever is external in their privileges and condition, has its internal side, and even its avowed reason, in things pertaining to the soul’s salvation, and the coming inheritance of glory. So that the spiritual and heavenly is here always kept prominently in view, as the end and object of all; while in Old Testament times everything was veiled under the sensible relations of flesh and time, and, excepting to the divinely illuminated eye, seemed as if it did not look beyond them.

For example, the deluge and baptism so far agree in form, that they have both an outward operation; but the operation, in the one case, has to do directly with the preservation and destruction of an earthly life, while in the other it bears immediately upon the life of immortality in the soul. The crucifixion of Christ and the slaying of the paschal lamb were alike outward transactions; but the direct and ostensible result contemplated in the first, was salvation from the condemnation and punishment of sin; in the second, escape from corporeal death, and deliverance from the yoke of an earthly bondage. In like manner, it might be said to be as much an outward transaction for Christ to ascend personally into the presence of the Father, as for the high priest to go within the veil with the blood of the yearly atonement; but to rectify men’s relation to a worldly sanctuary and an earthly inheritance, was the immediate object sought by this action of the high priest, while the appearance of Christ in the heavenly places was to secure for His people access to the everlasting kingdom of light and glory. In such cases, the common property of a certain outwardness in the acts and operations referred to, is far from placing them on the same level; a higher element still appears in the one as compared with the other. But if, on the other hand, we should say, as has often been said, that Isaac’s bearing the wood for the altar typified Christ’s bearing His cross to Calvary, we bring together two circumstances which do stand precisely upon [[@Page:198]] the same level, are alike outward in their nature, and in the one no more than in the other involve any rise to a higher sphere of truth. Else, how should a common man, Cimon the Cyrenian, have shared with Christ in the bearing of the burden?

But, undoubtedly, the most pernicious examples of this false style of typical applications are those which, from comparatively early times, have been employed to assimilate the New Testament economy in its formal appearance and administration to the Old, and for which Koine is able to avail herself of the authority of many of the more distinguished fathers. By means chiefly of mistaken parallels from Jewish to Christian times, mistaken, because they virtually ignored the rise that had taken place in the Divine economy,—everything was gradually brought back from the apostolic ideal of a spiritual community, founded on the perfect atonement and priesthood of Christ, to the outwardness and ritualism of ancient times. The sacrifices of the law, it was thought, must have their correspondence in the offering of the Eucharist; and as every sacrificial offering must have a priest to present it, so the priest hood of the Old Covenant, determined by genealogical descent, must find its substitute in a priesthood determined by apostolical succession. It was but a step farther, and one quite natural in the circumstances, to hold that as the ancient hierarchy culminated in a High-priest of Jerusalem, so the Christian must have a similar culmination in the Bishop of Rome. In these and many similar applications of Old Testament things to the ceremonial institutions and devices of Romanism, there is a substantial perpetuation of the Judaizing error of apostolic times an adherence to the oldness and carnality of the letter, after the spiritual life and more elevated standing of the New has come. According to it, everything in Christianity as well as in Judaism is made to turn upon formal distinctions and ritual observances: and that not the less because of a certain introduction of the higher element, as in the substitution of apostolical succession and the impressed character of the new priesthood, for the genealogical descent and family relationship of the old. Such slight alterations only affect the mode of getting at the outward things established, but leave the outwardness [[@Page:199]] itself unaffected; they are of no practical avail in lifting Christianity above the old Judaistic level.[15]

The Protestant Church, however, has not been without its false typical applications, proceeding on the same fundamental mistake. They are found especially among the Grotian school of divines, whose low and carnal tone is continually betraying itself in a tendency to depress and lower the spiritual truths of the Gospel to a conformity with the simple letter of Old Testament Scripture. The Gospel is read not only through a Jewish medium, but also in a Jewish sense, and nothing but externals admitted in the New, wherever there is descried, in the form of the representation, any reference to such in the Old. It is one of the few services which neological exegesis has rendered to the cause of Divine truth, that by a process of exhaustion it has nearly emptied this meagre style of interpretation of the measure of plausibility it originally possessed. But it is still occasionally followed, in the particular respect now under consideration, by theological writers of a higher stamp. Thus, the doctrine of election, as unfolded in the epistles of the New Testament, is held by the advocates of a modified Arminianism to be improperly understood of an appointment to personal salvation and an eternal life, on the special ground that the election of the Jewish people was only their calling as a nation to outward privileges and a temporal inheritance. Rightly understood, however, this is rather a reason why election in the Christian sense should be made to embrace something higher and better. For the proper counterpart under the Gospel to those external relations of Judaism is the gift of grace and the heirship of glory—the lower in the one case shadowing the higher in the other—the outward and temporal representing the spiritual and eternal. Even Macknight, who cannot certainly be charged with any excess of the spiritual element in his interpretations, perceived the necessity of making, as he expresses it, “the natural seed the type of the spiritual, and the temporal blessings the emblems of the eternal.” Hence, he justly regards the outward professing Church in the one case, with its election to the earthly Canaan, as answering in the other to the “invisible [[@Page:200]] Church, consisting of believers of all nations, who, partaking the nature of God by faith and holiness, are truly the sons of God, and have the inheritance of His blessing.”[16]

The characteristic differences, with their respective limitations and apparent anomalies, may be briefly stated thus:—It belongs properly to the New dispensation to reveal divine and spiritual things distinctly to the soul, while in the Old they are presented under the veil of something outward and earthly.

The spiritual and divine itself, which always, as a living undercurrent, ran beneath this exterior veil, might, even during the existence of the Old, come directly into view; but whenever it did so, there was no longer a figure or type of the true, but the true itself. Thus, in so far as the seed of Israel were found an election of God, actually partaking of the grace and blessing of the covenant,—in so far as they were a royal priesthood, circumcised [[@Page:201]] in heart to the Lord,—they showed themselves to be possessed of the reality of a justified condition and a regenerated life. The exhibitions that may have been given by any of them of such a state, were not typical in the sense of foreshadowing something higher and better under the Gospel; and if those in whom they appeared are spoken of as types, it must be as specimens, not as adumbrations—patterns of what is common to the children of faith in every age. The only connection possible in such a case, is that which subsists between type and impression, exemplar and copy, not that between type and antitype.

Turning to the things of the New dispensation, we have simply to reverse the statement now made. While here the spiritual and divine are exhibited in unveiled clearness, it is quite conceivable that they may at times have appeared under the distinctive guise of the Old, imbedded in fleshly and material forms. Especially might this be expected to happen at the beginning of the Gospel, when the transition was in the course of being made from the Old to the New, as the Messiah came forth to lay the foundations of His spiritual and everlasting kingdom on the external theatre of a present world. It was natural at such a time for God graciously to accommodate His ways to a weak faith, and facilitate its exercise, by making the things that appeared under the New, wear the very livery of those that prefigured them under the Old. This is precisely what was done in some of the more noticeable parts of Christ’s earthly history. But in so far as it was done,—that is, in so far as some outward transaction in the Old reappeared in a like outward transaction in the New,—their relation to each other could not properly be that of type and antitype, but only of exemplar and copy, unless the New Testament transaction, while it bore a formal resemblance to that of the Old, was itself at the same time the sensible exponent of some higher truth. If it were this, then the relation would still be substantially that of type and antitype. And such indeed it is, in the few cases which actually fall within the range of these remarks, and which, when superficially viewed, seem at variance with the principle of interpretation we are seeking to establish.

Let us, in conclusion, glance at the cases themselves. The [[@Page:202]] recall of the infant Jesus from the land of Egypt, after a temporary sojourn there, is regarded by the Evangelist Matthew as the correlative in New Testament times to the deliverance of Israel under the Old. It is impossible to overlook the indication of a similar connection, though none of the evangelists have expressly noticed it, between Israel’s period of trial and temptation for forty years in the wilderness, and Christ’s withdrawal into the wilderness to be tempted forty days of the devil. The Evangelist John sets the singular and apparently accidental preservation of Christ’s limbs on the cross, beside the prescription regarding the paschal lamb, not to let a bone of him be broken, and sees in the one a divinely appointed compliance with the other (ch. [[19:36 >> Bible:John 19:36]] ). And in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. [[13:12 >> Bible:Heb. 13:12]] ), the crucifixion of Jesus beyond the gates of Jerusalem is represented, not indeed as done to establish a necessary, but still as exhibiting an actual, correspondence with the treatment of those sin-offerings which were burned without the camp. There can be no doubt that in each of these instances of formal agreement between the Old and the New, the transactions look as if they were on the same level, and appear equally outward in the one as in the other. Shall we say then, that on this account they do not really stand to each other in the relation of type and antitype? or that there was some peculiarity in the later transactions, which still, amid the apparent sameness, raised them to a sufficient elevation above the earlier? This last supposition we conceive to be the correct one.

First of all, it was not unnatural, when there was so little faith in the Church, and when such great things were in the course of being accomplished, that certain outward and palpable correspondences, such as we have noticed, should have been exhibited. It was a kind and gracious accommodation on the part of God to the ignorance and weakness of the times. The people were almost universally looking in the wrong direction for the things connected with the person and kingdom of Messiah; and He mercifully controlled in various respects the course and progress of events, so as, in a manner, to force on their notice the marvellous similarity of His working now to what He had done in the days of old. He did what was fitted to impress visibly upon the darker features of the evangelical [[@Page:203]] history His own image and superscription, and to mark them out to men’s view as wrought according to the law of a foreseen and pre-established harmony. Yet we should not expect such obvious and palpable marks of agreement to be commonly stamped by the hand of God upon the new things of His kingdom, as compared with the old; we should rather regard them as a sort of extraordinary and peculiar helps granted to a weak and unenlightened faith at the beginnings of the kingdom. And even when so granted, we should not expect them to constitute the whole of the matter, but should suppose something farther to be veiled under them than immediately meets the eye—a deeper agreement, of which the one outwardly appearing was little more than the sign and herald.

This supposition gathers strength when we reflect that the outward agreement, however manifest and striking in some respects, is still never so uniform and complete as to convey the impression that the entire stress lay there, or that it was designed to be anything more than a stepping-stone for the mind to rise higher. Thus, while the child Jesus was for a time located in Egypt, and again brought out of it by the special providence of God, like Israel in its youth; yet what a difference between the two cases—in the length of time spent in the transactions, and the whole circumstances connected with their accomplishment! Jesus and Israel alike underwent a period of temptation in a wilderness before entering on their high calling; but again, how widely different in the actual region selected for the scene of trial, and the time during which it was continued! Christ’s crucifixion beyond the gates of Jerusalem, and the preservation of His limbs from external violence, exhibited a striking resemblance to peculiarities in the sacrifices of the passover and sin-offering—enough to mark the overruling agency of God; but in other outward things there were scarcely less marked discrepancies—nothing, for example, in the sacrifices referred to, corresponding with the pierced side of Jesus, or His suspension on the cross; and nothing again in Jesus formally answering to the sacrificial rites of the imposition of hands, the sprinkling of blood, or the burning of the carcase. These, and other defects that might be named in the external correspondence between the New and the Old, plainly enough [[@Page:204]] indicate that the outward agreement was, after all, not the main thing, nor the thing that properly constituted the typical connection between them. Else, where such agreement failed, the connection must have failed too; and in many respects Christ should not have been the “body” of the ancient shadows in more, perhaps, than those in which He actually was. Who would not shrink from such a conclusion? But we can find no consistent reason for avoiding it, except on the ground that the occasional outward coincidences between our Lord’s personal history and things in God’s earlier dispensations, were the signs of a typical relationship rather than that relationship itself,—a likeness merely on the surface, that gave notice of a deeper and more essential agreement.

This peculiarity in some of the typical applications of Scripture, has its parallel in the applications also sometimes made of the prophecies. We merely point for examples to the employment by St John, ch. [[19:37 >> Bible:John 19:37]] , of Zech. 12:10, “They shall look on Me whom they have pierced,” or by St Matthew in ch. [[2:23 >> Bible:Matt. 2:23]] , [[8:17 >> Bible:Matt. 8:17]] .

FOOTNOTE

[1] Kanne’s Christus in Alleii Testament, Th. ii., p. 133, etc.

[2] Fisher’s Marrow of Modern Divinity, P. 1, c. 2.

[3] Kanne’s Christus in Alt. Test., I., p. 100.

[4] History of Redemption, by Jonathan Edwards. Period I., p. 4.

[5] Owen on Heb. 8:5. In another part of his writings, however, we find him saying, “Although those (Old Testament) things are now full of light and instruction to us, evidently expressing the principal works of Christ’s mediation, yet they were not so unto them. The meanest believer may now find out more of the work of Christ in the types of the Old Testament, than any prophet or wise man could have done of old.”—On the Person of Christ, ch. 8.

[6] Legation of Moses, B. vi., sec. 5.

[7] Treatise on the Three Dispensations, vol. ii., p. 57.

[8] Historical Types, p. 221.

[9] Horsley’s Works, vol. i., p. 271-273.

[10] Chap. III., p. 81.

[11] Guild’s Moses Unveiled, and Watson’s Holy Eucharist.

[12] Scarcely any of the late works on the types, published in this country, are free from the extravagances we have referred to respecting personal types. They assume, however, the most extreme form in the German work of Kanne, published in 1818. There the mere similarity of names is held as a conclusive proof of a typical connection; so that Miriam, sister of Moses, was a type of Mary, for the Jews call the former Maria, as well as the latter. The work is full of such puerilities. It is the same tendency, however, to rest in merely superficial resemblances which led Schöttgen, for example, in his Horse Heb. On 1 Cor. 10:2, and leads some still, to hold that the Israelites must have been “bedewed and refreshed” by the cloud. It is true the sacred narrative is silent about that, nor is any support to be found for it in the Jewish writings; but it seemed to the learned author necessary to make out a typical relation to baptism, and so he regards it as in a manner self-evident. On the same ground, of course, Noah and his family must have been all sprinkled or dipped in the flood, since this too was the type of baptism!

[13] Philolog. Sac. Lib. II., p. 1, Trac. II., sec. 4, § 8. He quotes from Cornelius à Lapide, but adopts the rule as good.

[14] Moses and Aaron, p. 237.

[15] See this subject admirably treated in Mr Litton’s work on the Church, p. 53 5, sec. 7; also his Bampton Lecture, Sermon viii.

[16] On Rom. 9:8. For the other side see Whitby on the same chapter, and on 1 Pet. 2:9; Graves Works, vol. iii., p. 233. Archbishop Whately, in his Essays on the Peculiarities of the Gospel, p. 95, gives the representation a somewhat different turn from Whitby and Graves. He regards the Israelites as not having been “elected absolutely and infallibly to enter the promised land, to triumph over their enemies, and live in security, wealth, and enjoyment; but only to the privilege of having these blessings placed within their reach, on the condition of their obeying the law which God had given them.” Whence, he infers, Christians are only elected in the same sense to the privileges of a Gospel condition and the promise of final salvation. In regard to election in the Gospel sense, such a representation vanishes before a few plain texts,—such as, “Many are called, but few are chosen;” “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus;” “according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world . . . having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.” If such passages do not imply election to a state of personal salvation, it is not in the power of language to express the idea. In regard to the Israelites, also, the election and the promise were made absolutely, “to thy seed will I give this laud,” and the proper inference respecting those who afterwards perished in the wilderness, without being permitted to enter the land, is simply, that they were not of that portion of the seed who were elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, to the promised inheritance. It is true they might justly be said to have lost it for disobeying the law; but viewed in respect to their connection with the calling and promise of God, it was their want of faith to connect them with these, their unbelief, which was the source of perdition, the root at once of their disobedience, and of the disinheritance which ensued. (Heb. 3:19).

Chapter Seventh.—The Place Due to The Subject of Typology as A Branch of Theological Study, and The Advantages Arising from its Proper Cultivation.

[[@Page:205]] THE loose and incorrect views which so long prevailed on the subject of Typology, and which, till recently, had taken a direction tending at once to circumscribe their number and lessen their importance, have had the effect of reducing it to little more than a nominal place in the arrangement of topics calling for exact theological discussion. For any real value to be attached to it in the order of God’s revelations, or any light it is fitted to throw, when rightly understood, on the interpretation of Scripture, we search in vain amid the writings of our leading hermeneutical and systematic divines. The treatment it has most commonly received at their hands is rather negative than positive. They appear greatly more concerned about the abuses to which it may be carried, than the advantages to which it may be applied. And were it not for the purpose of exploding errors, delivering cautions, and disowning unwarrantable conclusions, it is too plain the subject would scarcely have been deemed worthy of any separate and particular consideration.

If the discussion pursued through the preceding chapters has been conducted with any success, it must have tended to produce a somewhat different feeling upon the subject. Various points of moment connected with the purposes of God and the interpretation of Scripture must have suggested themselves to the reflective reader, as capable both of receiving fresh light, and of acquiring new importance from a well-grounded system of Typology. One entire branch of the subject its connection with the closely related field of prophecy—has already, on account of the principles involved in it, been considered in a separate chapter. At present we shall look to some other points of a more general kind, which have, however, an essential bearing [[@Page:206]] on the character of a Divine revelation, and which will enable us to present, in a variety of lights, the reasonableness and importance of the views we have been endeavouring to establish.

I. We mark, first, an analogy in God’s methods of preparatory instruction, as adopted by Him at different but somewhat corresponding periods of the Church’s history. In one brief period of its existence, the Church of the New Testament might be said to stand in a very similar relation to the immediate future, that the Church of the Old Testament generally did to the more distant future of Gospel times. It was the period of our Lord’s earthly ministry, during which the materials were in preparation for the actual establishment of His kingdom, and His disciples were subjected to the training which was to fit them for taking part in its affairs. The process that had been proceeding for ages with the Church, had, in their experience, to be virtually begun and completed in the short space of a few years. And we are justly warranted to expect, that the method adopted during this brief period of special preparation toward the first members of the New Testament Church, should present some leading features of resemblance to that pursued with the Old Testament Church as a whole, during her immensely more lengthened period of preparatory training.

Now, the main peculiarity, as we have seen, of God’s method of instruction and discipline in respect to the Old Testament Church, consisted in the use of symbol and action. It was chiefly by means of historical transactions and symbolical rites that the ancient believers were taught what they knew of the truths and mysteries of grace. For the practical guidance and direction of their conduct they were furnished with means of information the most literal and express; but in regard to the spiritual concerns and objects of the Messiah’s kingdom, all was couched under veil and figure. The instruction given addressed itself to the eye rather than to the ear. It came intermingled with the things they saw and handled; and while it necessarily made them familiar with the elements of Gospel truth, it not less necessarily left them in comparative ignorance as to the particular events and operations in which the truth was to find its ultimate and proper realization.

[[@Page:207]] How entirely analogous was the course pursued by our Lord with His immediate disciples during the period of His earthly ministry! The direct instruction He imparted to them was, with few exceptions, confined to lessons of moral truth and duty—freeing the law of God from the false glosses of a carnal and corrupt priesthood, which had entirely overlaid its meaning, and disclosing the pure and elevated principles on which His kingdom was to be founded. But in regard to what might be called the mysteries of the kingdom,—the constitution of Christ’s person, the peculiar character of His work as the Redeemer of a sinful and fallen world, and the connection of all with a higher and future world,—little instruction of a direct kind was imparted up to the very close of Christ’s earthly ministry. On one or two occasions, when He sought to convey more definite information upon such points, the disciples either completely misunderstood His meaning, or showed themselves incapable of profiting by His instructions (Matt. 16:21-23; Luke 18:34; John 2:19-22, ch. [[6 >> Bible:Jn 6]] ). So that in the last discourse He held with them before His death, He spoke of the many things He had yet to say to them, but which, as they still could not bear them, had to be reserved to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, who should come and lead them into all the truth. Were they, therefore, left without instruction of any kind respecting those higher truths and mysteries of the kingdom? By no means; for throughout the whole period of their connection with Christ, they were constantly receiving such instruction as could be conveyed through action and symbol; or more correctly, through action and allegory, which was here made to take the place of symbol, and served substantially the same design.

The public life of Jesus was full of action, and in that, to a large extent, consisted its fulness of instruction. Every miracle He performed was a type in history; for, on the outward and visible field of nature, it revealed the Divine power He was going to manifest, and the work He came to achieve in the higher field of grace. In every act of healing men’s bodily diseases, and supplying of men’s bodily wants, there was an exhibition to the eye of sense at once of His purpose to bring salvation to their souls, and of the principles on which that salvation should proceed. In like manner, when He resorted to [[@Page:208]] the parabolic method of instruction, it was but another employment of the familiar and sensible things of nature, under the form of allegory, to convey still farther instruction respecting the spiritual and Divine things of His kingdom. The procedure, no doubt, involved a certain exercise of judgment toward those who had failed to profit, as they ought, by His more simple and direct teaching (Matt. 13:11-15). But for His own disciples it formed a cover, through which He could present to them a larger amount of spiritual truth, and impart a more correct idea of His kingdom, than it was possible for them, as yet, by any other method to obtain. Every parable contained an allegorical representation of some particular aspect of the kingdom, which, like the types of an earlier dispensation, only needed to be illuminated by the facts of Gospel history, to render it a clear and intelligible image of spiritual and Divine realities. In all, the outward and earthly was made to present the form of the inward and heavenly.

Thus, the special training of our Lord’s disciples very closely corresponded to the course of preparatory dispensations through which the Church at large was conducted before the time of His appearing. Such an analogy, pursued in circumstances so altered, and through periods so widely different, bespeaks the consistent working and presiding agency of Him “who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” It furnishes also a ready and effective answer to the Socinian argument against the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, on account of the comparative silence maintained respecting them in the direct instructions of Christ. “Can such doctrines,” they have sometimes asked, “enter so essentially, as is alleged, into the original plan of Christianity, when its Divine author Himself says so little about them—when in all He taught His disciples there is at most but a limited number of passages which seem even to point with any definiteness in that direction?” Look, we reply, to the analogy of God’s dealings with His Church, and let that supply the answer. Christ and the mysteries of His redemption were the end of all the earlier proceedings of God, and of the institutions of worship He gave to His Church; and yet many centuries of preparatory instruction and discipline were permitted to elapse before the objects themselves were brought distinctly [[@Page:209]] into view. Should it then be deemed strange or unaccountable that the persons immediately chosen by Christ to announce them, were made to undergo a brief but perfectly similar preparatory course, under the eye of their Divine Master? It could not have been otherwise. The facts of Christianity are the basis of its doctrines; and until those facts had become matter of history, the doctrines could neither be explicitly taught nor clearly understood. They could only be obscurely represented to the mind through the medium of typical actions, symbolical rites, or parabolical narratives. And it results as much from the essential nature of things as from the choice of its Divine Author, that the mode of instruction, which was continued through the lengthened probation of the Old Testament Church, should have found its parallel in “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

II. But there is an analogy of faith and practice which is of still greater importance than any analogy that may appear in the methods of instruction. However important it may be to note resemblances in the mode of communicating Divine truth, at one period as compared with another, it is more so to know that the truth, however communicated, has always been found one in its tendency and working; that the earlier and the later, the Old and the New Testament Churches, though differing widely in light and privilege, yet breathed the same spirit, walked by the same rule, possessed and manifested the same elements of character. A correct acquaintance with the Typology of Scripture alone explains how, with such palpable differences subsisting between them, there should still have been such essential uniformity in the result.

In the writings of the New Testament, especially in the epistles, it is very commonly the differences between the Old and the New, rather than the agreements, that are pressed on our notice. A necessity for this arose from the abuse to which the Jews had turned the handwriting of ordinances delivered to them by Moses. In the carnality of their minds, they mistook the means for the end, embraced the shadow for the substance, and so converted what had been set up for the express purpose of leading them to Christ, into a mighty stumbling-block to [[@Page:210]] obstruct the way of their approach to Him. On this account it became necessary to bring prominently out the differences between the preparatory and the ultimate schemes of God, and to show that what was perfectly suited to the one was quite unsuited to the other. But there were, at the same time, many real agreements of a most essential nature between them, and these also are often referred to in New Testament Scripture.

Moses and Christ, when closely examined and viewed as to the more fundamental parts of their respective systems, are found to teach in perfect harmony with each other. The law and the prophets of the Old Testament, and the gospels and epistles of the New, exhibit but different phases of the same wondrous scheme of grace. The light varies from time to time in its clearness arid intensity, but never as to the elements of which it is composed. And the very differences which so broadly distinguish the Gospel dispensation from all that went before it, when taken in connection with the entire plan and purpose of God, afford evidence of an internal harmony and a profound agreement.

The truth of what we say, if illustrated to its full extent, would require us to traverse almost the entire field of Scripture Typology. We shall therefore content ourselves here with selecting a single point, which, in its most obvious aspect, belongs rather to the differences than the agreements between the Old and the New dispensations. For in what do the two more apparently and widely differ from each other than in regard to the place occupied in them respectively by the doctrine of a future state? In the Scriptures of the New Testament, the eternal world comes constantly into view; it meets us in every page, inspirits every religious character, mingles with every important truth and obligation, and gives an ethereal tone and an ennobling impress to the whole genius and framework of Christianity. Nothing of this, however, is to be found in the earlier portions of the Word of God. That these contain no reference of any kind to a future state of rewards and punishments, we are far from believing, as will abundantly appear in the sequel. But still the doctrine of such a state is nowhere broadly announced, as an essential article of faith, in the revelations of Old Testament Scripture; it has no distinct and easily [[@Page:211]] recognised place either in the patriarchal or the Levitical dispensations; it is never set forth as a formal ground of action, and is implied, rather than distinctly affirmed or avowedly acted on, excepting when it occasionally appears among the confessions of pious individuals, or in the later declarations of prophecy; so that, though itself one of the first principles of all true religion, there yet was maintained respecting it a studied caution and reserve in the revelations of God to men, up to the time when He came who was to “bring life and immortality to light.[1]

This obvious difference between the Old and the New Testament revelations, in respect to a future state, has been deemed such a palpable incongruity, that sometimes the most forced interpretations have been resorted to with the view of getting rid of the fact, while, at other times, extravagant theories have been proposed to account for it. But we have no need to look farther than to the typical character of God’s earlier dispensations for a satisfactory explanation of the difficulty and we shall find it in nothing else. For, leave this out of view suppose that God’s method of teaching and training the Old Testament Church was not necessarily formed on the plan of unfolding Gospel ideas and principles by means of earthly relations and fleshly symbols, then we see not how it could have consisted with Divine wisdom to keep such a veil hanging for so many ages over the realities of a coining eternity. But let the typical element be duly taken into account; let it be understood that inferior and earthly things were systematically employed of old to image and represent those which are heavenly and Divine; and then we shall be equally unable to see how it could have consisted with Divine wisdom to have disclosed the doctrine of a future state, otherwise than under the figures and shadows of what is seen and temporal. For this doctrine, in its naked form, [[@Page:212]] stands inseparably connected with the facts of Christ’s death and resurrection, on which it is entirely based as a ground of consolation, and an object of hope to the believer. And if the one had been openly disclosed, while the other still remained under the veil of temporary shadows, utter confusion must necessarily have been introduced into the dispensations of God: the Old Covenant, with ordinances suited only to an inferior and preparatory course of training, should have possessed a portion of the light properly belonging to a complete and finished revelation. The ancient Church, with her faith in that case professedly directed on the eternal world, must have lost her symbolical relation to the present; her experiences must have been as spiritual, her life as hidden, her conflict with temptation, and victory over the world, as inward as those of believers under the Gospel. But then the Church of the Old Testament, being without the clear knowledge of Christ and His salvation, still wanted the true foundation for so much of a spiritual, inward, and hidden nature; and it must have been next to impossible to prevent false confidences from mingling with her expectations of the future, since she had only the shadowy and carnal in worship with which to connect the real and eternal in blessing.

Is this not what actually happened in the case of the later Jews? In the course of that preparatory training through which they were conducted, an increasing degree of light was at length imparted, among other things, in respect to a future state of reward and punishment; the later Scriptures contained not a few quite explicit intimations on the subject (as in Hos. 13:14; Dan. 12:2; Isa. 26:19); and by the time of Christ’s appearing, the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead to a world of endless happiness or misery, formed nearly as distinct and prominent an article in the Jewish faith as it does now in the Christian.—(Acts 23:6, 26:6-8; Matt. 5:29, 10:28, etc.) Now, this had been well, and should have only disposed the Jews to give to Jesus a more enlightened and hearty reception, had they been careful to couple with the clearer view thus obtained, and the more direct introduction of a future world, the intimations that accompanied it of a higher and better dispensation—of the old things, under which they lived, being to be done away, that others of a nobler description [[@Page:213]] might take their place. But this was what the later Jews, as a class, failed to do. Partial in their knowledge of Scripture, and confounding together the things that differed, they took the prospect of immortality as if it had been directly unfolded, and ostensibly provided for in the shadowy dispensation itself. The result necessarily was, that that dispensation ceased in their view to be shadowy; it contained in itself, they imagined, the full apparatus required for sinful men, to redeem them from the curse of sin, and bring them to eternal life; and whatever purposes the Messiah might come to accomplish, that He should supplant its carnal observances by something of a higher nature, and more immediately bearing on the immortal interests of man, formed no part of their expectations concerning Him. Thus, by coming to regard the doctrine of a future state of happiness and glory, as, in its naked or direct form, an integral part of the revelations of the Old Covenant, they naturally fell into two most serious mistakes. They first overlooked the shadowy nature of their religion, and exalted it to an undue rank by looking to it for blessings which it was never intended, unless typically, to impart; and then, when the Messiah came, they entirely misapprehended the great object of His mission, and lost all participation in His kingdom.

So much, then, for the palpable difference in this respect between the Old and the New. There was a necessity in the case, arising from the very nature of the Divine plan. So long as the Church was under symbolical ordinances and typical relations, the future world must fall into the background; the things concerning it could only appear imaged in the seen and present. But that they did appear so imaged—in this, with all the outward diversity that prevailed, there still lay an essential agreement between the Old dispensation and the New. The minds of believers under the former neither were, nor could be, an entire blank in regard to a future state of being. From the very first—as we shall see afterwards, when we come to trace out the elements of the primeval religion—there was in God’s dealings and revelations toward them, what in a manner compelled them to look beyond a present world; it was so manifestly impossible to realize here, with any degree of completeness, the objects He seemed to have in view. And the under-current [[@Page:214]] of thought and expectation thus silently awakened toward the future, was continually fed by everything being arranged and ordered in the present, so as to establish in their minds a profound conviction of a Divine retribution. The things connected with their relation to a worldly sanctuary, and an earthly inheritance of blessing, were one continued illustration of the principle so firmly expressed by Abraham, “that the Judge of all the earth must do right;” and, consequently, that in the final issues of things, “it must be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked.” The bringing distinctly out of this present recompense in the Divine administration, and with infinite variety of light and vividness of colouring, impressing it on the consciences of God’s people, was the peculiar service rendered by the ancient economy in respect to a coming eternity; and the peculiar service which, as a preparatory economy, it required to render. For the belief of a present retribution must, to a large extent, form the basis of a well-grounded belief in a future one. And for the believing Israelite himself, who lived under the operation of such strong temporal sanctions, and who was habituated to contemplate the unseen in the seen, the future in the past, there was everything in the visible movements of Providence around him, both to confirm in him the expectation of a coming state of reward and punishment, and to form him to the dispositions and conduct which might best prepare him for meeting it. His position so far differed from that of believers now, that he was not formally called to direct his views to the coming world, and he had comparatively slender means of information concerning its realities. But it agreed in this, that he too was a child of faith, believing in the retributive character of God’s administration; and in him, as well as in us, only in a more outward and sensible manner, this faith had its trials and dangers, its discouragements, its warrings with the flesh and the world, its times of weakness and of strength, its blessed satisfactions and triumphant victories. In short, his light, so far as it went, was the same with ours; it was the same also in the nature of its influence on his heart and conduct; and if he but faithfully did his part amid the scenes and objects around him, he was equally prepared at its close to take his place in the mansions of a better inheritance, though [[@Page:215]] he might have to go to them as one not knowing whither he went.[2]

Thus it appears, on careful examination, that all was in its proper place. A mutual adaptation and internal harmony binds together the Old and the New dispensations, even under the striking diversity that characterizes the two in respect to a future world. And the further the investigation is pursued, the more will such be found to be the case generally. It will be found that the connection of the Old with the New is something more than typical, in the sense of foreshadowing, or pre-figurative of what was to come; it is also inward and organic. Amid the ostensible differences, there is a pervading unity and agreement—one faith, one life, one hope, one destiny. And while the Old Testament Church, in its outward condition and earthly relations, typically shadowed forth the spiritual and heavenly things of the New, it was also, in so far as it realized and felt the truth of God presented to it, the living root out of which the New ultimately sprang. The rude beginnings were there, of all that exists in comparative perfection now.

III. Another advantage resulting from a correct knowledge and appreciation of the Typology of ancient Scripture, is the increased value and importance with which it invests the earlier portions of revelation. This has respect more especially to the historical parts of Old Testament Scripture; yet not to these exclusively. For the whole of the Old Testament will be found to rise in our esteem, in proportion as we understand and enter into its typological bearing. But the point may be more easily and distinctly illustrated by a reference to its records of history.

Many ends, undoubtedly, had to be served by these; and we must beware of making so much account of one, as if it were the whole. Even the least interesting and instructive parts of the historical records, the genealogies, are not without their use; for they supply some valuable materials both for the general knowledge of antiquity, and for our acquaintance, in particular, with that chosen line of Adam’s posterity which was to have its culmination in Christ. But the narratives in which [[@Page:216]] these genealogies are imbedded, which record the lives of so many individuals, portray the manners and customs of such different ages and nations, and relate the dealings of God’s providence and the communications of His mind with so many of the earliest characters and tribes in the world’s history—these, in themselves, and apart altogether from any prospective reference they may have to Gospel times, are on many accounts interesting and instructive. Nor can they be attentively perused, as simple records of the past, without being found “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.”

Yet when viewed only in that light, one-half their worth is still not understood; nor shall we be able altogether to avoid some feeling of strangeness occasionally at the kind of notices embraced in the inspired narrative. For whatever interest and instruction may be connected with it, how trifling often are the incidents it records! how limited the range to which it chiefly draws our attention! and how easy might it seem, at various points, to have selected other histories, which would have led the mind through scenes more obviously important in themselves, and less closely, perhaps, interwoven with evil! Unbelievers have often given to such thoughts as these an obnoxious form, and have endeavoured by means of them to bring sacred Scripture into discredit. But in doing so, they have only displayed their own onesidedness and partiality; they have looked at this portion of the Word of God in a contracted light, and away from its proper connection with the entire plan of revelation. Let the notices of Old Testament history be viewed in their subservience to the scheme of grace unfolded in the Gospel—let the field which it traverses, however limited in extent, and the transactions it describes, however unimportant in a political respect, be regarded as that field, and those transactions, through which, as on a lower and common stage, the Lord sought to familiarize the minds of His people with the truths and principles which were ultimately to appear in the highest affairs of His kingdom—let the notices of Old Testament history be viewed in this light, which is the one that Scripture itself brings prominently forward, and then what dignity and importance is seen to attach to every one of them! The smallest [[@Page:217]] movements on the earth’s surface acquire a certain greatness, when connected with the law of gravitation; since then even the fall of an apple from the tree stands related to the revolution of the planets in their courses. And, in like manner, the relation which the historical facts of ancient Scripture bear to the glorious work and kingdom of Christ, gives to the least of them such a character of importance, that they are brought within the circle of God’s highest purposes, and are perceived to be in reality “the connecting links of that golden chain which unites heaven and earth.”

This, however, is not all. While a proper understanding of the Typology of Scripture imparts an air of grandeur and importance to its smallest incidents, and makes the little relatively great, it does more. It warrants us to proceed a step farther, and to assert, that such personal narratives and comparatively little incidents as fill up a large portion of the history, not only might, without impropriety, have been admitted into the sacred record, but that they must to some extent have been found there, in order to adapt it properly to the end which it was intended to serve. It was precisely the limited and homely character of many of the things related, which rendered them such natural and easy stepping-stones to the discoveries of a higher dispensation. It is one thing that an arrangement exists in nature, which comprehends under the same law the falling of an apple to the ground, and the vast movements of the heavenly bodies; but it is another thing, and also true, that the perception of that law, as manifested in the motion of the small and terrestrial body—because manifested there on a scale which man could bring fully within the grasp of his comprehension—was what enabled him to mount upwards and scan the similar, though incomparably grander, phenomena of the distant universe. In this case, there was not only a connection in nature between the little and the great, but also such a connection in the order of man’s acquaintance with both, that it was the knowledge of the one that conducted him to the knowledge of the other. The connection is much the same that exists between the facts of Old Testament history and the all-important revelations of the Gospel—with this difference, indeed, that the laws and principles developed amid the familiar objects and comparatively humble [[@Page:218]] scenes of the one, were not so properly designed to fit man for discovering, as for receiving when discovered, the sublime mysteries of the other. But to do this, it was not less necessary here than in the case above referred to, that the earlier developments should have been made in connection with things of a diminutive nature, such as the occurrences of individual history, or the transactions of a limited kingdom. A series of events considerably more grand and majestic could not have accomplished the object in view. They would have been too far removed from the common course of things; and would have been more fitted to gratify the curiosity and dazzle the imagination of those who witnessed or read of them, than to indoctrinate their minds with the fundamental truths and principles of God’s spiritual economy. This result could be best produced by such a series of transactions as we find actually recorded in the Scriptures of the Old Testament—transactions infinitely varied, yet always capable of being quite easily grasped and understood. And thus, what to a superficial consideration appears strange, or even objectionable, in the structure of the inspired record, becomes, on a more comprehensive view, an evidence of wise adaptation to the wants of our nature, and of supernatural foresight in adjusting one portion of the Divine plan to another.

It will be readily understood, that what we have said of the purpose of God with reference more immediately to those who lived in Old Testament times, applies, without any material difference, to such as are placed under the Christian dispensation. For what the transactions required to be for the accomplishment of God’s purpose in regard to the one, the record of these transactions required to be for the accomplishment of His purpose in regard to the other. Whatever confirmation such things may lend to our faith in the mysteries of God—whatever force or clearness to our perceptions of the truth whatever encouragement to our hopes or direction to our walk in the life of holiness and virtue, it may all be said to depend upon the history being composed of facts so homely in their character and so circumscribed in their range, that the mind can without difficulty both realize their existence and enter into their spirit.

IV. Another service, the last we shall notice, which a truly [[@Page:219]] Scriptural Typology is fitted to render to the cause of Divine knowledge and practice, is the aid it furnisher to help out spiritual ideas in our minds, and enable us to realize them with sufficient clearness and certainty. This follows very closely on the consideration last mentioned, and may be regarded rather as a further application of the truth contained in it, than the advancement of something altogether new. But we wish to draw attention to an important advantage, not yet distinctly noticed, connected with the typical element in Old Testament Scripture, and on which to a considerable extent the people of God are still dependent for the strength and liveliness of their faith.

It is true, they have now the privilege of a full revelation of the mind of God respecting the truths of salvation; and this elevates their condition as to spiritual things far above that of the Old Testament believers. But it does not thence follow, that they can in all respects so distinctly apprehend the truth in its naked spirituality, as to be totally independent of some outward exhibition of it. We are still in a state of imperfection, and are so much creatures of sense, that our ideas of abstract truth, even in natural science, often require to be aided by visible forms and representations. But things strictly spiritual and divine are yet more difficult to be brought distinctly within the reach and comprehension of the mind.—It was a relative advantage possessed by the Old Testament worshipper, in connection with his worldly sanctuary, and the more fleshly dispensation under which he lived, that spiritual and divine things, so far as they were revealed to him, acquired a sort of local habitation to his view, and assumed the appearance of a life-like freshness and reality. Hence chiefly arose that “impression of passionate in individual attachment,” as it has been called, which, in the authors of the Old Testament Scriptures, appears mingling with and vivifying their faith in the invisible, and which breathes in them like a breath of supernatural life. What Hengstenberg has said in this respect of the Book of Psalms, may be extended to Old Testament Scripture generally: “It has contributed vast materials for developing the consciousness of mankind, and the Christian Church is more dependent on it for its apprehensions of God than might at first sight be supposed. It presents God so clearly and vividly before men’s eyes, that they see Him, in a [[@Page:220]] manner, with their bodily sight, and thus find the sting taken out of their pains. In this, too, lies one great element of its importance for the present times. What men now most of all need, is to have the blanched image of God again freshened up in them. And the more closely we connect ourselves with these sacred writings, the more will God cease to be to us a shadowy form, which can neither hear, nor help, nor judge us, and to which we can present no supplication.”[3]

Besides, there are portions of revealed truth which relate to events still future, and. Do not at all come within the range of our present observation and experience, though very important as objects of faith and hope to the Church. It might materially facilitate our conception of these, and strengthen our belief in the certainty of their coming existence, if we could look back to some corresponding exemplar of things, either in the symbolical handwriting of ordinances, or in the typical transactions of an earthly and temporal kingdom. But this also has been prepared to our hand by God in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. And to show how much may be derived from a right acquaintance, both in this and in the other respect mentioned, with the typical matter of these Scriptures, we shall give here a twofold illustration of the subject—the one referring to truths affecting the present state and condition of believers, and the other to such as respect the still distant future.

1. For our first illustration we shall select a topic that will enable us, at the same time, to explain a commonly misunderstood passage of Scripture. The passage is [[ >> Bible:1 Pet. 1:2]] 1 Pet. 1:2, where, speaking of the elevated condition of believers, the Apostle describes them as “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” The peculiar part of the description is the last—”sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ—”which, being represented along with obedience as the end to which believers are both elected of the Father and sanctified of the Spirit, seems at first sight to be out of its proper place. The application of the blood of Christ is usually thought of in reference to the pardon of sin, or its efficacy in the matter of the soul’s justification before God; [[@Page:221]] when, of course, its place stands between the election of the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit. Nor, in that most common reference to the effect of Christ’s blood, is it of small advantage for the attainment of a clear and realizing faith, that we have in many of the Levitical services, and especially in those of the great day of yearly atonement, an outward form and pattern of things by which more distinctly to picture out the sublime spiritual reality.

It is plain, however, that the sprinkling of Christ’s blood, mentioned by St Peter, is not that which has for its effect the sinner’s pardon and acceptance (although Leighton and most commentators have so understood it); for it is not only coupled with a personal obedience, as being somewhat of the same nature, but the two together are set forth as the result of the electing and sanctifying grace of God upon the soul. The good here intended must be something inward and personal; something not wrought for us, but wrought upon us and in us; implying our justification, as a gift already received, but itself belonging to a higher and more advanced stage of our experience—to the very top and climax of our sanctification. What, then, is it? Nothing new, certainly, or of rare occurrence in the Word of God, but one often described in the most explicit terms; while yet the idea involved in it is so spiritual and elevated, that we greatly need the aid of the Old Testament types to give strength and vividness to our conceptions of it. The blood of the sacrifices, by which the covenant was ratified at the altar in the wilderness, was divided into two parts, with one of which Moses sprinkled the altar, and with the other the people (Ex. 24:6-8). A similar division and application of the blood was made at the consecration of Aaron to the priesthood (Ex. 29:20, 21); and though it does not appear to have been formally, it was yet virtually, done on the day of the yearly atonement, since all the sprinklings on that day were made by the high priest, for the cleansing of defilements belonging to himself, his household, and the whole congregation. “Now” (says Steiger on 1 Pet. 1:2), “if we represent to ourselves the whole work of redemption, in allusion to this rite, it will be as follows:—The expiation of one and of all sin, the propitiation, was accomplished when Christ offered [[@Page:222]] His blood to God on the altar of the accursed tree. That done, He went with His blood into the most Holy Place. Whoso ever looks in faith to His blood, has part in the atonement (Rom. 3:25); that is, he is justified on account of it, receiving the full pardon of all his sins (Rom. 5:9). Thenceforth he can appear with the whole community of believers (1 John 1:7), full of boldness and confidence before the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16), in order that he may be purified by Christ, as high priest, from every evil lust.” It is this personal purifying from every evil lust, which the Apostle describes in ritual language as “the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” and which is also described in the Epistle to the Hebrews, with a similar reference to the blood of Christ, by having “the heart sprinkled from an evil conscience,” and again, “by having the conscience purged from dead works to serve the living God.” The sprinkling or purging spoken of in these several passages, is manifestly the cleansing of the soul from all internal defilement, so as to dispose and fit it for whatever is pure and good, and the purifying effect is produced by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, or its spiritual application to the conscience of believers, because the blessed result is attained through the holy and divine life, represented by that blood, becoming truly and personally theirs.

Now, this great truth is certainly taught with the utmost plainness in many passages of Scripture,—as, when it is written of believers, that “their hearts are purified by faith;” that they “purify themselves, even as Christ is pure;” or when it is said, that “Christ lives in them,” that “their life is hid with Him in God,” that “they are in Him that is true, and cannot sin, because their seed (the seed of that new, spiritual nature, to which they have been quickened by fellowship with the life of Jesus) remains in them;” and, in short, in every passage which connects with the pure and spotless life-blood of Jesus an impartation of life-giving grace and holiness to His people. I can understand the truth, even when thus spiritually, and, if I may so say, nakedly expressed. But I feel that I can obtain a more clear and comforting impression of it, when I keep my eye upon the simple and striking exhibition given of it in the visible type. For, with what effect was the blood of atonement sprinkled upon [[@Page:223]] the true worshippers of the Old Covenant? With the effect of making whatever sacredness, whatever virtue (symbolically) was in that blood, pass over upon them: the life, which in it had flowed out in holy offering to God, was given to be theirs, and to be by them laid out in all pure and faithful ministrations of righteousness. Such precisely is the effect of Christ’s blood sprinkled on the soul; it is to have His life made our life, or to become one with Him in the stainless purity and perfection which expressed itself in His sacrifice of sweet-smelling savour to the Father. What a sublime and elevating thought! It is much, assuredly, for me to know, that, by faith in His blood, the crimson guilt of my sins is blotted out, Heaven itself reconciled, and the way into the holiest of all laid freely open for my approach. But it is much more still to know, that by faith in the same blood, realized and experienced through the power of the Holy Spirit, I am made a partaker of its sanctifying virtue; the very holiness of the Holy One of Israel passes into me; His life-blood becomes in my soul the well-spring of a new and deathless existence. So that to be sealed up to this fountain of life, is to be raised above the defilement of nature, to dwell in the light of God, and sit as in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And, amid the imperfections of our personal experience, and the clouds ever and anon raised in the soul by remaining sin, it should unquestionably be to us a matter of unfeigned thankfulness, that we can repair to such a lively image of the truth as is presented in the Old Testament service, in which, as in a mirror, we can see how high in this respect is the hope of our calling, and how much it is God’s purpose we should enter into the blessing.

2. There are revelations in the Gospel, however, which point to events still future in the Messiah’s kingdom; and in respect to these, also, the typical arrangements of former times are capable of rendering important service: a service, too, which is the more needed, as the things indicated, in regard to these future developments of the kingdom, are not only remote from present observation, but also in many respects different from what the ordinary course of events might lead us to expect. We do not refer to the last issues of the Gospel dispensation, when the concerns of time shall have become finally merged in the [[@Page:224]] unalterable results of eternity; but to events, of which this earth itself is still to be the theatre, in the closing periods of Messiah’s reign. This prospective ground is in many points overlaid with controversy, and much concerning it must be regarded as matter of doubtful disputation. Yet there are certain great landmarks, which intelligent and sober-minded Christians can scarcely fail to consider as fixed. It is not, for example, a more certain mark of the Messiah who was to come, that He should be a despised and rejected man, should pass through the deepest humiliation, and, after a mighty struggle with evil, attain to the seat of empire, than it is of the Messiah who has thus personally fought and conquered, that He shall totally subdue all the adversaries of His Church and kingdom, make His Church co-extensive with the boundaries of the habitable globe, and exalt her members to the highest position of honour and blessing. For my own part, I should as soon doubt that the first series of events were the just object of expectation before, as the other have become since, the personal appearing of Christ; and for breadth and prominence of place in the prophetical portions, especially of New Testament Scripture, this has all that could be desired in its behalf. But how far still is the object from being realized? How unlikely, even, that it should ever be so, if we had nothing more to found upon than calculations of reason, and the common agencies of providence.

That the progress of society in knowledge and virtue should gradually lead, at however distant a period, to the extirpation of idolatry, the abolition of the grosser forms of superstition, and a general refinement and civilisation of manners, requires no great stretch of faith to believe. Such a result evidently lies within the bounds of natural probability, if only sufficient time were given to accomplish it. But, suppose it already done, how much would still remain to be achieved, ere the glorious King of Zion should have His promised ascendancy in the affairs of men, and the spiritual ends for which He especially reigns should be adequately secured! This happy consummation might still be found at an unapproachable distance, even when the other had passed into a reality; nor are there wanting signs in the present condition of the world to awaken our fears lest such may actually be the case. For in those countries where the [[@Page:225]] light of Divine truth and the arts of civilisation have become more widely diffused, we see many things prevailing that are utterly at variance with the purity and peace of the Gospel—numberless heresies in doctrine, disorders that seem to admit of no healing, and practical corruptions which set at defiance all authority and rule. In the very presence of the light of Heaven, and amid the full play of Christian influences, the god of this world still holds possession of by far the larger portion of mankind; and innumerable obstacles present themselves on every side against the universal diffusion and the complete ascendancy of the pure principles of the Gospel of Christ. When such things are taken into account, how hopeless seems the prospect of a triumphant Church and a regenerated world! of a Saviour holding the undivided empire of all lands! of a kingdom, in which there is no longer anything to offend, and all appears replenished with life and blessing! The partial triumphs which Christianity is still gaining in single individuals and particular districts, can go but a little way to assure us of so magnificent a result. And it may well seem as if other influences than such as are now in operation, would require to be put forth before the expected good can be realized.

Something, no doubt, may be done to reassure the mind, by looking back on the past history of Christianity, and contrasting its present condition with the point from which it started. The small mustard-seed has certainly sprung into a lofty tree, stretching its luxuriant branches over many of the best regions of the earth. See Christianity as it appeared in its Divine Author, when He wandered about as a despised and helpless individual, attended only by a little band of followers as despised and helpless as Himself; or again, when He was hanging on a malefactor’s cross, His very friends ashamed or terrified to avow their connection with Him; or even at another and more advanced stage of its earthly history, when its still small, and now resolute company of adherents, unfurled the banner of salvation, with the fearful odds everywhere against them of hostile kings and rulers, an ignorant and debased populace, a powerful and interested priesthood, and a mighty host of superstitions, which had struck their roots through the entire framework of society, and had become venerable, as well as strong, by their antiquity. [[@Page:226]] See Christianity as it appeared then, and see it now standing erect upon the ruins of the hierarchies and superstitions which once threatened to extinguish it—planted with honour in the regions where, for a time, it was scarcely suffered to exist—the recognised religion of the most enlightened nations of the earth, the delight and solace of the good, the study of the wise and learned, at once the source and the bulwark of all that is most pure, generous, free, and happy in modern civilisation. Comparing thus the present with the past—looking down from the altitude that has been reached upon the low and unpromising condition out of which Christianity at first arose, we are not without considerable materials in the history of the Gospel itself, for confirming our faith in the prospects which still wait for their fulfilment. On this ground alone it may scarcely seem more unlikely, that Christianity should proceed from the elevation it has already won to the greatly more commanding attitude it is yet destined to attain, than to have risen from such small beginnings, and in the face of obstacles so many and so powerful, to its present influential and honourable position.

But why not revert to a still earlier period in the Church’s history? Why withhold from our wavering hearts the benefit which they might derive from the form and pattern of divine things, formerly exhibited in the parallel affairs of a typical and earthly kingdom? It was the Divine appointment concerning Christ, that He should sit upon the throne of David, to order and to establish it. In the higher sphere of God’s administration, and for the world at large, He was to do what had been done through David in the lower and on the limited territory of an earthly kingdom. The history of the one, therefore, may justly be regarded as the shadow of the other. But it is still only the earlier part of the history of David’s kingdom which has found its counterpart in the events of Gospel times. The Shepherd of Israel has been anointed King over the heritage of the Lord, and the impious efforts of His adversaries to disannul the appointment have entirely miscarried. The formidable train of evils which obstructed His way to the throne of government, and which were directed with the profoundest cunning and malice by him who, on account of sin, had been permitted to become the prince of this world, have been all met and overcome[[@Page:227]] —with no other effect than to render manifest the Son’s indefeasible right to hold the sceptre of universal empire over the affairs of men. Now, therefore, He reigns in the midst of His enemies; but He must also reign till these enemies themselves are put down till the inheritance has been redeemed from all evil, and universal peace, order, and blessing have been established.

Is not this also what the subsequent history of the earthly kingdom fully warrants us to expect? It was long after David’s appointment to the throne, before his divine right to reign was generally acknowledged; and still longer before the overthrow of the last combination of adversaries, and the termination of the last train of evils, admitted of the kingdom entering on its ultimate stage of settled peace and glory. The affairs of David himself never wore a more discouraging arid desperate aspect, than immediately before his great adversary received the mortal blow which laid him in the dust. After this, years had to elapse before the adverse parties in Israel were even externally subdued, and brought to render a formal acknowledgment to the Lord’s anointed. When this point again had been reached, what internal evils festered in the kingdom, and what smouldering fires of enmity still burned! Notwithstanding the vigorous efforts made to subdue these, we see them at last bursting forth in the dreadful and unnatural outbreak of Absalom’s rebellion, which threatened for a time to involve all in hopeless ruin and confusion. And with these internal evils and insurrections, how many hostile encounters had to be met from without! some of which were so terrible, that the very earth was felt, in a manner, to shake under the stroke (Ps. 60). Yet all at length yielded; and partly by the prowess of faith, partly by the remarkable turns given to events in providence, the kingdom did reach a position of unexampled prosperity, peace, and blessing. But in all this we have the development of a typical dispensation, bringing the assurance, that the same position shall in due time be reached in the higher sphere and nobler concerns of Messiah’s kingdom. The same determinate counsel and foreknowledge, the same living energy, the same overruling Providence, is equally competent now, as it is alike pledged, to secure a corresponding result. [[@Page:228]] And if the people of God have but discernment to read aright the history of the past, and faith and patience to fulfil their appointed task, they will find that they have no need to despair of a successful issue, but every reason to hope that judgment shall at length be brought forth into victory.

This one illustration may meanwhile be sufficient to show (others will afterwards present themselves), how valuable an handmaid to the unfulfilled prophecies of Scripture may be found in a correct acquaintance with its Typology. Its province does not, indeed, consist in definitely marking out before hand the particular agents and transactions that are to fill up the page of the eventful future. It performs the service which in this respect it is fitted to accomplish, when it enables us to obtain some insight—not into the what, or the when, or the instruments by which—but rather into the howand the wherefore of the future,—when it instructs us respecting the nature of the principles that must prevail, and the general lines of dealing that shall be adopted, in conducting the affairs of Messiah’s kingdom to their destined results. The future here is mirrored in the past; and the thing that hath been, is, in all its essential features, the same that shall be.

FOOTNOTE

[1] A clear proof in a single instance of what is here said of the Old Testament in respect to an eternal world, may be found in what is written of Enoch, “He was not, for God took him,” and this because he had walked with God. A causal connection plainly existed between his walk on earth and his removal to God’s presence; and yet this is so indicated as clearly to show that it was the Divine purpose to spread a veil of secrecy over the future world, as if the distinct knowledge of it depended on conditions that could not then be formally brought out.

[2] See Appendix B.

[3] Supplem. Treatises on Psalms, § 7.

Book Second.—The Dispensation of Primeval and Patriarchal Times.

Preliminary Remarks.

[[@Page:229]] HITHERTO we have been occupied chiefly with an investigation of principles. It was necessary, in the first instance, to have these ascertained and settled, before we could apply, with any prospect of success, to the particular consideration of the typical materials of Old Testament Scripture. And in now entering on this, the more practical, as it is also the more varied and extensive, branch of our subject, it is proper to indicate at the outset the general features of the arrangement we propose to adopt, and notice certain landmarks of a more prominent kind that ought to guide the course of our inquiries.

1. As all that was really typical formed part of an existing dispensation, and stood related to a religious worship, our primary divisions must connect themselves with the Divine dispensations. These dispensations were undoubtedly based on the same fundamental truths and principles. But they were also marked by certain characteristic differences, adapting them to the precise circumstances of the Church and the world at the time of their introduction. It is from these, therefore, we must take our starting-points; and in these also should find the natural order and succession of the topics which must pass under our consideration. In doing so we shall naturally look, first, to the fundamental facts on which the dispensation is based; then to the religious symbols in which its lessons and hopes were embodied; and finally, to the future and subsidiary transactions which afterwards carried forward and matured the instruction.

[[@Page:230]] 2. In the whole compass of sacred history we find only three grand eras that can properly be regarded as the formative epochs of distinct religious dispensations. For, according to the principles already set forth (in Ch. IV.), the things directly belonging to creation, however they may have to be taken into account as presupposed and referred to in what followed, still do not here come into consideration as a distinct class, and calling for independent treatment. The three eras, then, are those of the fall, of the redemption from Egypt, and of the appearance and work of Christ, as they are usually designated; though they might be more fitly described, the first as the entrance of faith and hope for fallen man, the second as the giving of the law, and the third as the revelation of the Gospel. For it was not properly the fall, but the new state and constitution of things brought in after it, that, in a religious point of view, forms the first commencement of the world’s history. Neither is it the redemption from Egypt, considered by itself, but this in connection with the giving of the law, which was its immediate aim and object, that forms the great characteristic of the second stage, as the coming of grace and truth by Jesus Christ does of the third. Between the first and second of these eras two very important events intervened the deluge and the call of Abraham—both alike forming prominent breaks in the history of the period. Hence, not unfrequently, the antediluvian is distinguished from the patriarchal Church, and the Church as it existed before, from the Church as it stood after, the call of Abraham. But important as these events were, in the order of God’s providential arrangements, they mark no material alteration in the constitutional basis, or even formal aspect, of the religion then established. As regards the institutions of worship, properly so called, Abraham and his descendants appear to have been much on a footing with those who lived before the flood; and therefore not primary and fundamental, but only subsidiary, elements of instruction could be evolved by means of the events referred to. The same may also be said of another great event, which formed a similar break during the currency of the second period the Babylonish exile and return. This occupies a very prominent place in Scripture, whether we look to the historical record of the event or to the announcements made beforehand concerning it in [[@Page:231]] prophecy. Yet it introduced no essential change into the spiritual relations of the Church, nor altered in any respect the institutions of her symbolical worship. The restored temple was built at once on the site and after the pattern of that which had been laid in ruins by the Chaldeans; and nothing more was aimed at by the immediate agents in the work of restoration, than the re-establishment of the rites and services enjoined by Moses. Omitting, therefore, the Gospel dispensation, as the antitypical, there only remain for the commencement of the earlier dispensations, in which the typical is to be sought, the two epochs already mentioned—those of Adam and Moses.

3. It is not simply the fact, however, of these successive dispensations which is of importance for our present inquiry. Still more depends for a well-grounded and satisfactory exhibition of Divine truth as connected with them, upon a correct view of their mutual and interdependent relation to each other; the relation not merely of the Mosaic to the Christian, but also of the Patriarchal to the Mosaic. For as the revelation of law laid the foundation of a religious state which, under the moulding influence of providential arrangements and prophetic gifts, developed and grew till it had assumed many of the characteristic features of the Gospel; so the original constitution of grace settled with Adam after the fall, comparatively vague and indistinct at first, gradually became more definite and exact, and, in the form of heaven-derived or time-honoured institutions, exhibited the germ of much that was afterwards established as law. In the primeval period nothing wears a properly legal aspect; and it has been one of the current mistakes, especially in this country, of theological writers,—a source of endless controversy and arbitrary explanations,—to seek there for law in the direct and obtrusive, when, as yet, the order of the Divine plan admitted of its existing only in the latent form. We read of promise and threatening, of acts and dealings of God, pregnant with spiritual light and moral obligation, meeting from the very first the wants and circumstances of fallen man; but of express and positive enactments there is no trace. Some of the grounds and reasons of this will be adverted to in the immediately following chapters. At present we simply notice the fact, as one of the points necessary to be kept in view for giving a right direction [[@Page:232]] to the course of inquiry before us. Yet, on the other hand, while in the commencing period of the Church’s history we find nothing that bears the rigid and authoritative form of law, we find on every hand the foundations of law; and these gradually enlarging and widening, and sometimes even assuming a distinctly legal aspect, before the patriarchal dispensation closed. So that when the properly legal period came, the materials, to a considerable extent, were already in existence, and only needed to be woven and consolidated into a compact system of truth and duty. It is enough to instance, in proof of what has been stated, the case of the Sabbath, not formally imposed, though divinely instituted from the first the rite of piacular sacrifice, very similar (as we shall show) as to its original institution the division of animals into clean and unclean the consecration of the tenth to God—the sacredness of blood—the Levirate usage—the ordinance of circumcision. The whole of these had their foundations laid, partly in the procedure of God, partly in the consciences of men, before the law entered; and in regard to some of them the law’s prescriptions might be said to be anticipated, while still the patriarchal age was in progress. As the period of law approached, there was also a visible approach to its distinctive characteristics. And, without regard had to the formal difference yet gradual approximation of the two periods, we can as little hope to present a solid and satisfactory view of the progressive development of the Divine plan, as if we should overlook either their fundamental agreement with each other, or their common relation to the full manifestation of grace and truth in the kingdom of Christ. It must be borne in mind, that the Law—the intermediate point between the fall and redemption—had its preparation as well as the Gospel.

4. In regard to the mode of investigation to be pursued respecting particular types, as the first place is due to those which belonged to the institutions of religion, so our first care must be, according to the principles already established, to ascertain the views and impressions which, as parts of an existing religion, they were fitted to awaken in the ancient worshipper. It may, of course, be impossible to say, in any particular case, that such views and impressions were actually derived from them, with as much precision and definiteness as may appear in our description;[[@Page:233]] for we cannot be sure that the requisite amount of thought and consideration was actually addressed to the subject. But due care should be taken in this respect, not to make the typical symbols arid transactions indicative of more than what may,with ordinary degrees of light and grace, have been learned from them by men of faith in Old Testament times. It is not, however, to be forgotten that, in their peculiar circumstances, much greater insight was attainable through such a medium, than it is quite easy for us now to realize. At first, believers were largely dependent upon it for their knowledge of Divine truth; it was their chief talent, and would hence be cultivated with especial care. Even afterwards, when the sources of information were somewhat increased, the disposition and capacity to learn by means of symbolical acts and institutions, would be materially aided by that mode of contemplation which has been wont to distinguish the inhabitants of the East. This proceeds (to use the language of Bähr) “on the ground of an inseparable connection subsisting between the spiritual and the bodily, the ideal and the real, the seen and the unseen. According to it, the whole actual world is nothing but the manifestation of the ideal one; the entire creation is not only a production, but, at the same time, also an evidence and a revelation of Godhead. Nothing real is merely dead matter, but is the form and body of something ideal; so that the whole world, even to its very stones, appears instinct with life, and on that account especially becomes a revelation of Deity, whose distinguishing characteristic it is to have life in Himself. Such a mode of viewing things in nature may be called emphatically the religious one; for it contemplates the world as a great sanctuary, the individual parts of which are so many marks, words, and letters of a grand revelation-book of Godhead, in which God speaks and imparts information respecting Himself. If, therefore, that which is seen and felt was generally regarded by men as the immediate impression of that which is unseen, a speech and revelation of the invisible Godhead to them, it necessarily follows, that if they were to have unfolded to them a conception of His nature, and to have a representation given them of what His worship properly consists in, the same language would require to be used which God spake with them; the same means of representation would need [[@Page:234]] to be employed which God Himself had sanctioned—the sensible, the visible, the external.”[1]

The conclusion here drawn appears to go somewhat farther than the premises fairly warrant. If the learned author had merely said that there was a propriety or fitness in employing the same means of outward representation, as they fell in with the prevailing cast of thought in those among whom they were instituted, and were thus wisely adapted to the end in view, we should have entirely concurred in the statement. But that such persons absolutely required to be addressed by means of a symbolical language in matters of religion could scarcely be admitted, without conceding that they were incapable of handling another and more spiritual one, and that consequently a religion of symbols must have held perpetual ascendancy in the East. Besides, it may well be questioned, whether this “peculiarly religious mode of viewing things,” as it is called, was not, to a considerable extent, the result of a symbolical religion already established, rather than the originating cause of such a religion. At all events, the real necessity for the preponderating carnality and outwardness of the earlier dispensations was of a different kind. It arose from the very nature of the institutions belonging to them, as temporary substitutes for the better and the more spiritual things of the Gospel; rendering it necessary that symbols should then hold the place of the coming reality. It is the capital error of Bähr’s system to give to the symbolical in religion a place higher than that which properly belongs to it; and so to assimilate too nearly the Old and the New—to represent the symbolical religion of the Old Testament as less imperfect than it really was, and inversely to convert the greatest reality of the New Testament—the atoning death of Christ—into a merely symbolical representation of the placability of Heaven to the penitent.

But with this partial exception to the sentiments expressed in the quotation above given, there can be no doubt that the mode of contemplation and insight there described has remarkably distinguished the inhabitants of the East, and that it must have peculiarly fitted them for the intelligent use of a symbolical worship. They could give life and significance, in a manner we [[@Page:235]] can but imperfectly understand, to the outward and corporeal emblems through which their converse with God was chiefly carried on. To reason from our own case to theirs would be to judge by a very false criterion. Accustomed from our earliest years to oral and written discourse, as the medium through which we receive our knowledge of Divine truth, and express the feelings it awakens in our bosom, we have some difficulty in conceiving how any definite ideas could be conveyed on the one side or the other, where that was so sparingly employed as the means of communication. But the “grey fathers of the world” were placed in other circumstances, having from their childhood been trained to the use of symbolical institutions as the most expressive and appropriate channels of Divine communion. So that the native tendency first, and then the habitual use strengthening and improving the tendency, must have rendered them adepts, as compared with Christian communities now, in perceiving the significance and employing the instrumentality of religious symbols.

5. When the symbolical institutions and services of former times shall have been explained in the manner now indicated, the next step will be to consider in detail the import and bearing of the typical transactions which took place during the continuance of each dispensation. In doing this, care will require, in the first instance, to be taken, that the proper place be assigned them as intended only to exhibit ideas subsidiary to those embodied in the religion itself. And as in reading the typical symbols, so in reading the typical transactions connected with them, we must make the views and impressions they were fitted to convey to those whom they immediately respected, concerning the character and purposes of God, the ground and measure of that higher bearing which they carried to the coming events of the Gospel. Nor are we here again to overlook that religious tendency and habit of mind which has been noticed as a general characteristic of the inhabitants of the East; for they would certainly be disposed to do with the acts of providence as with the works of creation—would contemplate them as manifestations of Godhead, or revelations in the world of sense of what was thought and felt in the higher world of spirit. Besides, it is to be borne in mind, that the historical transactions referred to [[@Page:236]] were all special acts of Providence. While they formed part of the current events of history, they were, at the same time, so singularly planned arid adjusted, that the persons immediately concerned in them could scarcely overlook either their direct appointment by God, or their intimate connection with His plans and purposes of grace. It is the hand of God Himself that ever appears to be directing the transactions of Old Testament history. And the acts in which He more peculiarly discovers Himself being the operations of One whose grand object, from the period of the fall, was the foiling of the tempter and the raising up of a seed of blessing, they could scarcely fail to be regarded by intelligent and pious minds as standing in a certain relation to this centre-point of the Divine economy. In proportion as the people of God had faith to “wait for the consolation of Israel,” they would also have discernment to read, with a view to the better things to come, the disclosures of His mind and will, which were interwoven with the history of His operations.

It is in this way we are chiefly to account for God’s frequent appearance on the stage of patriarchal history, and His more direct personal agency in the affairs of His chosen people. The things that happened to them could not otherwise have accomplished the great ends of their appointment; for through these God was continually making revelation of Himself, and bringing those who stood nearest to Him to a fuller acquaintance with His character as the God of life and blessing. It was therefore of essential moment to the object in view, that His people should be able without hesitation to regard them as indications of His mind: that they should not merely consider them as His, in the general sense in which it may be said that “God is in history;” but His also in the more definite and peculiar sense of conveying specific and progressive discoveries of the Divine administration. How could they have been recognised as such, unless the finger of God had, in some form, laid its distinctive impress upon them? Taking into account, therefore, all the peculiarities belonging to the typical facts of Old Testament history—the close relation in which they commonly stood to the rites and institutions of a religion of hope—the evident manner in which many of them bore upon them the interposition of God, and the place occupied by others in the announcements of prophecy;—they had quite [[@Page:237]] enough to distinguish them from the more general events of providence, and were perfectly capable of ministering to the faith and the just expectations of the people of God.

6. We simply note farther, that when passing under review acts and institutions of God which stretch through successive ages and dispensations, there will necessarily recur, under somewhat different forms, substantially the same exhibitions of Divine truth. It was unavoidable but that all the more fundamental ideas of religion, and the greater obligations connected with it, should be the subject of many an ordinance in worship, and many a transaction in providence. The briefest mode of treatment, as it would naturally involve fewest repetitions, would be to classify, first the primary heads of doctrine and duty, and then arrange under them the successive exhibitions given of each in the future enactments and dealings of God, without adhering rigidly to the period of their appearance. This plan was partially followed in our first edition, but was found impracticable as a whole. We deem it necessary to keep by the historical order, though it may be occasionally attended with the disadvantage of having the same truths brought anew before us.

For thus alone can we mark aright the course of development, which in a work of this nature is too important an element to be sacrificed to the fear of at times trenching on ground that may have been partially trodden before.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Bähr’s Symbolik, B. I., p. 24.

Chapter First. The Divine Truths Embodied in The Historical Transactions on which The First Symbolical Religion for Fallen Man was Based.

[[@Page:238]] ASSUMING our proper starting-point here to be the fall of man from his primeval state of integrity and bliss,—since it was that which opened the way for the manifestation of grace and the hope of redemption,—we are still not to throw into abeyance whatever belonged to the primeval state itself. For, while all was sadly changed by the unhappy event which had taken place, all was not absolutely lost. The knowledge which our first parents had of the work of creation, and of the character of God as therein displayed, could not altogether vanish from their minds; it had formed the groundwork of that adoration of God and fellowship with Him which constituted the religion of Paradise; and even after Paradise was lost, they must still have derived from it, and preserved in the depths of their spiritual being, some of the more fundamental elements of truth and duty. That all things were made by God, after the manner described in the commencing chapters of Genesis (whether in the precise terms there used or not); that as they came from His hand they were, one and all, very good; that the work of creation in six days was succeeded by a day of peculiar sacredness and rest; that man himself was made on the sixth day, as the crowning-point of creation—made in the image of God, and as such had all here below placed in a relation of subservience to him, while, just because he bore God’s image, he was bound to use all in obedience to the will of God, and for the glory of His name; these, and various other collateral points of knowledge, which must have been familiar to man before the fall,—since otherwise he should have been ignorant alike of his proper place and calling in creation,—could not fail to abide also with him after it. And since it pleased God not to destroy His [[@Page:239]] fallen creature, but to perpetuate his existence on earth, and amid mingled experiences of good and evil to animate him with the prospect of ultimate recovery, it was to be understood of itself that all creation privileges and gifts stood as at first conferred, except in so far as they might be expressly recalled, or through the altered constitution of things placed in another relation to man than they originally held. Paradise itself, with its ample heritage of life and blessing, had ceased to be to him what it had been: though it was there still, and spoke as before of good, it spoke otherwise to him. But the mutual relation of the fallen pair themselves, the one to the other; their common relation to the world around them, with its living creatures and manifold productions; their farther and higher relation to God, as still bearing, though now sadly marred, His divine image, and called to reflect it by a becoming imitation of His example: these all remained in principle, only modified in action by the workings of sin on man’s part, and on God’s by the introduction of an economy of grace. Speaking generally, one may say, that in so far as a withdrawal took place of what had been originally given, or nature’s heritage of good was supplanted by experiences of evil, there was the bringing home to man’s bosom of the salutary truths and principles which required to enter as fundamental conditions into any religion which could be adapted to him as fallen. But in so far as the old things were allowed to remain, under altered relations or with other accompaniments than before, there was a linking of the past to the future, of creation to redemption—turning the one into a pledge, or requiring it to be understood as an image of a corresponding, though higher, good yet to be realized.

The justice of these remarks will more distinctly appear when we come to the consideration of the particulars. In looking at these, however, with a view to estimate aright their religious aspect and bearing, we must keep in mind what has already been indicated respecting the position of our first parents, as the recent possessors of a holy nature, and the occupants of an elevated moral condition. For, while they had miserably fallen and become guilty before God, they had not sunk into total ignorance and perversion; and so were not dealt with by means of rigid enactments and a minutely prescribed [[@Page:240]] directory of service, but rather with such consideration and regard as implied a recognition in them of a measure of that capacity and intelligence which had so lately been conversant with all that is pure and good. Possessing in God’s works and ways, along with the records of their own painful experience, the materials of knowing what concerning Him they should believe and do, they were left by the help of these, and with such grace as might now be expected by the penitent and believing, to discover the path of life and blessing. It was only as time proceeded, and dark events in providence betrayed the deep-seated and virulent corruption which had entered into humanity, that other and more stringent measures were resorted to, as well to inculcate lessons of necessary instruction, as to enforce a becoming obedience. Meanwhile, however, and looking to the conspicuous and intentional absence of these, we have to inquire what of divine truth and principle might be involved, first in the facts connected with the fall, then with the symbols and institutions of worship appointed to the fallen—indicating, as we proceed, the typical bearing which any of them might present to the future things of redemption. To the former of these, as the first in order, we now direct our attention.

1. What, in such an enumeration, is obviously entitled to rank first, is the doctrine of human guilt and corruption.

From the moment of their transgression, our first parents knew that their relation to God had become sadly altered. The calm of their once peaceful bosoms was instantly agitated and disturbed by tormenting fears of judgment. Nor did these prove to be groundless alarms; they were the forerunners of a curse which was soon thundered in their ears by the voice of God, and written out in their exiled and blighted condition. It was impossible for them to escape the conviction, that they were no longer in the sight of God very good. And as their posterity grew, and one generation sprung up after another, the story of the lost heritage of blessing (no doubt perpetually repeated), and the still continued exclusion from the hallowed region of life, must have served to keep up the impression that sin had wholly corrupted the nature and marred the inheritance of man.

Evidences were not long wanting to show, that sin [[@Page:241]] in the first pair was evil in the root, which must, more or less, communicate itself to every branch of the human family. In the first-born of the family it sprang at once into an ill-omened maturity, as if to give warning of the disastrous results that might be expected in the future history of mankind. And constantly as the well-spring of life flowed on, the stream of human depravity swelled into a deeper and broader flood. There were things in God’s earlier procedure that were naturally fitted to check its working, and repress its growth—especially the mild forbearance and paternal kindness with which He treated the first race of transgressors—the wonderful longevity granted to them—the space left for repentance even to the greatest sinners, while still sufficient means were employed to convince them of their guilt and danger,—all seeming to betoken the tender solicitude of a father yearning over his infant offspring, and restraining for a season the curse that now rested on their condition, if so be they might be won to His love and service. But it was the evil, not the good, in man’s nature, which took advantage of this benign treatment on the part of God, to ripen into strength and fruitfulness. And, ere long, the very goodness of God found it needful to interpose, and relieve the earth of the mass of violence and corruption which, as in designed contrast to the benignity of Heaven, had come to usurp possession of the world. So that, looking simply to the broad facts of history, the doctrine of human guilt and depravity stands forth with a melancholy prominence and particularity which could leave no doubt concerning it upon thoughtful minds.

2. Another doctrine, which the facts of primeval history rendered it equally impossible for thoughtful minds to gainsay or overlook, is the righteousness of God’s character and government.

For, that mankind should have been expelled from the region of life, and made subject to a curse which doomed them to sorrow and trouble, disease and death, in consequence of their violation of a single command of Heaven, was a proof patent to all, and memorable in the annals of the world, that everything in the Divine government is subordinate to the principles of rectitude. “There was in it,” as was strikingly and beautifully said by Irving, “a most sublime act of holiness. [[@Page:242]] God, after making Adam a creature for an image and likeness of Himself, did resolve him into vile dust through viler corruption, when once he had sinned; proving that one act of sin was, in God’s sight, of far more account than a whole world teeming with beautiful and blessed life, which He would rather send headlong into death than suffer one sin of His creature to go unpunished. And though creation’s teeming fountain might flow on ever so long, still the flowing waters of created life must ever empty themselves into the gulph of death. This is a most sublime exaltation of the moral above the material, showing that all material beauty and blessedness of life is but, as it were, the clothing of one good thought, which, if it become evil, straightway all departs like the shadow of a dream.” Who could seriously reflect on this—on the good that was lost, and the inheritance of evil that came in its place—without being solemnly impressed with the conviction, that the sceptre of God’s government is a sceptre of righteousness, and that blessing might be expected under it only by such as love righteousness and hate iniquity?

3. But if nothing more had been manifested of God in the facts of primeval history than this—had He appeared only as a righteous judge executing deserved condemnation on the guilty, Adam and his fallen offspring might have been appalled and terrified before Him, but they could not have ventured to approach Him with acts of worship. We notice, therefore, as another truth brought out in connection with the circumstances of the fall, and an essentially new feature in the Divine character, the exhibition of grace which was then given on the part of God to the fallen. That everything was not subjected to instantaneous and overwhelming destruction, was itself a proof of the introduction of a principle of grace into the Divine administration. The mere respite of the sentence of death (which, if justice alone had prevailed, must have been executed on the very day of transgression), and the establishment of an order of things which still contained many tokens of Divine goodness, gave evidence of thoughts of mercy and loving-kindness in God toward man. But as no vague intimations, or even probable conclusions of reason, from the general course of Providence, could be sufficient to re-assure the heart on such [[@Page:243]] a matter as this, an explicit assurance was given, that “the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent,”—which, however dimly understood at first, could not fail even then to light up the conviction in the sinful heart, that it was the purpose of God to aid man in obtaining a recovery from the ruin of the fall. The serpent had been the ostensible occasion and instrument of the fall,—the visible and living incarnation of the evil power which betrayed man to sell his birthright of life and blessing. And that this power should be destined to be not only successfully withstood, but bruised in the very head by the offspring of her over whom he had so easily prevailed, clearly bespoke the intention of God to defeat the malice of the tempter, and secure the final triumph of the lost.

But this, if done at all, must evidently be done in a way of grace. All natural good had been forfeited by the fall, and death—the utter destruction of life and blessing—had become the common doom of humanity. Whatever inheritance, therefore, of good, or whatever opportunity of acquiring it, might be again presented, could be traced to no other source than the Divine beneficence freely granting what could never have been claimed on the ground of merit. And as the recovery promised necessarily implied a victory over the might and malice of the tempter, to be won by the very victims of his artifice, how otherwise could this be achieved than through the special interposition and grace of the Most High? Manhood in Adam and Eve, with every advantage on its side of a natural kind, had proved unable to stand before the enemy, to the extent of keeping the easiest possible command, and retaining possession of an inheritance already conferred. How greatly more unable must it have felt itself, if left unaided and alone, to work up against the evil, and destroy the destroyer! In such a case, hope could have found no solid footing to rest upon for the fulfilment of the promise, excepting what it descried in the gracious intentions and implied aid of the Promiser. And when it appeared, as the history of the world advanced, how the evil continued to take root and grow, so as even for a time to threaten the extermination of the good, the impression must have deepened in the minds of the better portion of mankind, that the promised restoration must come through the intervention of Divine power [[@Page:244]] and goodness,—that the saved must owe their salvation to the grace of God.

4. Thus far the earliest inhabitants of the world might readily go in learning the truth of God, by simply looking to the broad and palpable facts of history. And without supposing them to have possessed any extraordinary reach of discernment, they might surely be conceived capable of taking one step more respecting the accomplishment of that salvation or recovery which was now the object of their desire and expectation. Adam saw—and it must have been one of the most painful reflections which forced itself on his mind, and one, too, which subsequent events came, not to relieve, but rather to embitter and aggravate—he saw how his fall carried in its bosom the fall of humanity; that the nature which in him had become stricken with pollution and death, went down thus degenerate and corrupt to all his posterity. It was plain, therefore, that the original constitution of things was based on a principle of headship, in virtue of which the condition of the entire race was made dependent on that of its common parent. And the thought was not far to seek, that the same constitution might somehow have place in connection with the work of recovery. Indeed, it seems impossible to understand how, excepting through such a principle, any distinct hope could be cherished of the attainment of salvation. By the one act of Adam’s disobedience, he and his posterity together were banished from the region of pure and blessed life, and made subject to the law of sin and death. Whence, in such a case, could deliverance come? How could it so much as be conceived possible, to re-open the way of life, and place the restored inheritance of good on a secure and satisfactory footing, except through some second head of humanity supernaturally qualified for the undertaking? A fallen head could give birth only to a fallen offspring—so the righteousness of Heaven had decreed; and the prospect of rising again to the possession of immortal life and blessing, seemed, by its very announcement, to call for the institution of another head, unfallen and yet human, through whom the prospect might be realized. Thus only could the Divine government retain its uniformity of principle in the altered circumstances that had occurred; and thus only might it seem possible to have the end it proposed accomplished.

[[@Page:245]] We do not suppose that the consideration of this principle of headship, as exhibited in the case of Adam and his posterity, could, of itself, have enabled those who lived immediately sub sequent to the fall, to obtain very clear or definite views in regard to the mode of its application in the working out of redemption. We merely suppose, that, in the circumstances of the case, there was enough to suggest to intelligent and discerning minds that it should in some way have a place. But the full understanding of the principle, and of the close harmony it establishes between the fall and redemption, as to the descending curse of the one and the distributive grace and glory of the other, can be perceived only by us, whose privilege it is to look from the end of the world to its beginnings, and to trace the first dawn of the Gospel to the effulgence of its meridian glory.

Even the Jewish Rabbins, who were far from occupying the vantage-ground we have reached, could yet discern some common ground between the heritage of evil derived from Adam, and the good to be effected by Messiah. “The secret of Adam,” one of them remarks, “is the secret of the Messiah;” and another, “As the first man was the one that sinned, so shall the Messiah be the one to do sin away.”[1] They recognised in Adam and Christ the two heads of humanity, with whom all mankind must be associated for evil or for good. On surer grounds, however, than lay within the ken of their apprehension, we know that Adam was in this respect “the type of Him that was to come.”[2]—(Rom. 5:14) But in this respect alone; for in all other points we have to think of differences, not of resemblances. [[@Page:246]] The principle that belongs to them in common, stands simply in the relation they alike hold, the one to a fallen, the other to a restored offspring. The natural seed of Adam are dealt with as one with himself, first in transgression, and then in death, the wages of transgression. And, in like manner, the spiritual seed of Christ are dealt with as one with Him, first in the consummate righteousness He brought in, and then in the eternal life, which is its appointed recompense of blessing. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive”—all, namely, who stand connected with Christ in the economy of grace, as they do with Adam in the economy of nature. How could this be, but by the sin of Adam being regarded as the sin of humanity, and the righteousness of Christ as the property of those who by faith rest upon His name I Hence, in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, along with the facts which in the two cases attest the doctrine of headship, we find the parallel extended, so as to include also the respective grounds out of which they spring: “As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”

These statements of the Apostle are no more than an explanation of the facts of the case by connecting them with the moral government of God; and it is not in the power of human reason to give either a satisfactory view of his meaning, or a rational account of the facts themselves, on any other ground than this principle of headship. It has also many analogies in the constitution of nature and the history of providence to support it. And though, like every other peculiar doctrine of the Gospel, it will always prove a stone of stumbling to the natural man, it will never fail to impart peace and comfort to the child of faith. Some degree of this he will derive from it, even by contemplating it in its darkest side—by looking to the inheritance of evil which it has been the occasion of transmitting from Adam to the whole human race. For, humbling as is the light in which it presents the natural condition of man, it still serves to keep the soul possessed of just and elevated views of the goodness of God. That all are naturally smitten with the leprosy of a sore disease, [[@Page:247]] is matter of painful experience, and cannot be denied without setting aside the plainest lessons of history. But how much deeper must have been the pain which the thought of this awakened, and how unspeakably more pregnant should it have appeared with fear and anxiety for the future, if the evil could have been traced to the operation of God, and had existed as an original and inherent element in the state and constitution of man! It was a great relief to the wretched bosom of the prodigal, and was all, indeed, that remained to keep him from the blackness of despair, to know that it was not his father who sent him forth into the condition of a swine-herd, and bade him satisfy his hunger with the husks on which they fed; a truly consolatory thought, that these husks and that wretchedness were not emblems of his father. And can it be less comforting for the thoughtful mind, when awakening to the sad heritage of sin and death, under which humanity lies burdened, to know that this ascends no higher than the first parent of the human family, and that, as originally settled by God, the condition of mankind was in all respects “very good?” The evil is thus seen to have been not essential, but incidental; a root of man’s planting, not of God’s; an intrusion into Heaven’s workmanship, which Heaven may again drive out.

But a much stronger consolation is yielded by the consideration of this principle of headship, when it is viewed in connection with the second Adam; since it then assumes the happier aspect of the ground-floor of redemption—the actual, and, as far as we can perceive, the only possible foundation on which a plan of complete recovery could have been formed. Excepting in connection with this principle, we cannot imagine how a remedial scheme could have been devised, that should have been in any measure adequate to the necessities of the case. Taken individually and apart, no man could have redeemed either his own soul or the soul of a brother; he could not in a single case have recovered the lost good, far less have kept it in perpetuity if it had been recovered: and either Divine justice must have fore gone its claims, or each transgressor must have sunk under the weight of his own guilt and helplessness. But by means of the principle which admits of an entire offspring having the root of its condition and the ground of its destiny in a common head, a [[@Page:248]] door stood open in the Divine administration for a plan of recovery co-extensive (hypothetically) with the work of ruin. And unless we could have assured ourselves of an absolute and continued freedom from sin (which even angelic natures could not do), we may well reconcile ourselves to such a principle in the Divine government as that which, for one man’s transgression, has made us partakers of a fallen condition, since in that very principle we perceive the one channel, through which access could he found for those who have fallen, to the peace and safety of a restored condition.

He must know nothing aright of sin or salvation, who is in capable of finding comfort in this view of the subject. And yet there is a ground of comfort higher still, arising from the prospect it secures for believers of a condition better and safer than what was originally possessed by man before the fall. For the second Adam, who, as the new head of humanity, gives the tone and character to all that belongs to the kingdom of God, is incomparably greater than the first, and has received for Himself and His redeemed an inheritance corresponding to His personal worth and dignity. So that if the principle of which we speak appears, in the first instance, like a depressing load weighing humanity down to the very brink of perdition, it becomes at length a divine lever to raise it to a height far beyond what it originally occupied, or could otherwise have had any prospect of reaching. As the Apostle graphically describes in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” What an elevating prospect! destined to be conformed to the image of the Son of God, and in consequence to share with Him in the life, the blessedness, and the glory which He inherits in the kingdom of the Father! Coupling, then, the end of the Divine plan with the beginning, and entering with childlike simplicity into its arrangements, we find that the principle of headship, on which the whole hinges for evil and for good, is really fraught with the richest beneficence, and should call forth our admiration of the manifold wisdom and goodness of God; for through [[@Page:249]] this an avenue has been laid open for us into the realms above, and our natures have become linked in fellowship of good with what is best and highest in the universe.

It thus appears that there were four fundamental principles or ideas, which the historical transactions connected with the fall served strikingly to exhibit, and which must have been incorporated as primary elements with the religion then introduced. 1. The doctrine of human guilt and depravity; 2. Of the righteousness of God’s character and government; 3. Of grace in God as necessary to open, and actually opening, the door of hope for the fallen; 4. And, finally, of a principle of headship, by which the offspring of a common parent were associated in a common ruin, and by which again, under a new and better constitution, the heirs of blessing might be associated in a common restoration. In these elementary principles, however, we have rather the basis of the patriarchal religion, than the religion itself. For this, we must look to the symbols and institutions of worship. And, as far as appears from the records of that early time, the materials out of which these had at first to be fashioned were: The position assigned to man in respect to the tree of life, the placing before him of the cherubim and the flaming sword at the east of Eden, the covering of his guilt by the sacrifice of animal life, and his still subsisting relation to the day of rest originally hallowed and blessed by God. To this last may be added the marriage-relationship; for here also the general principle holds, that no formal change was introduced after the fall, and what was done at the first was virtually done for all times. But there still was a perceptible difference between the institution of marriage and the other things mentioned, viewed with respect to the matters now more immediately under consideration. This will be explained in the sequel; at present it is enough to state, that while we do not exclude marriage from our point of view, neither do we assign it exactly the same place as the other ordinances of primeval times.

FOOTNOTE

[1] See Tholuck Comm. On Rom. 5:1 2.

[2] It is literally, “type of the future one” (τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος) the other or second Adam: not, however, generally, or in his creation state simply, for of that the Apostle is not speaking, but of his relation to an off spring whose case was involved in his own. The sentiment of the Apostle, taken in its proper connection, was quite correctly given by Theophylact, “For as the old Adam rendered all subject to his own fall, though they had not fallen, so Christ justified all, though they did nothing worthy of justification.” The Apostle’s authority, therefore, cannot be fairly quoted for anything more than we have stated in the text; and to isolate his expression, as some do, from the subject immediately discoursed of, and turn it into a general statement respecting a prefiguration of the second Adam irrespective of the fall in the first, is to bring in the Apostle as a witness to a point not distinctly before him.

Chapter Second.—The Tree of Life.

[[@Page:250]] THE first mention made of the tree of life has respect to its place and use, as part of the original constitution of things, in which all presented the aspect of relative perfection and completeness. “Out of the ground,” it is said, “made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The special notice taken of these two trees plainly indicates their singular and preeminent importance in the economy of the primeval world; but in different respects. The design of the tree of knowledge was entirely moral: it was set there as the test and instrument of probation; and its disuse, if we may so speak, was its only allowable use. The tree of life, however, had its natural use, like the other trees of the garden; and both from its name, and from its position in the centre of the garden, we may infer that the effect of its fruit upon the human frame was designed to be altogether peculiar. But this comes out more distinctly in the next notice we have of it—when, from being simply an ordinance of nature, it passed into a symbol of grace. “And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground, from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

These words seem plainly to indicate, that the tree of life was originally intended for the food of man; that the fruit it yielded was the divinely appointed medium of maintaining in him the power of an endless life; and that now, since he had [[@Page:251]] sinned against God, and had lost all right to the possession of such a power, he was debarred from access to the natural means of sustaining it, by being himself rigorously excluded from the garden of Eden. What might be the peculiar properties of that tree—whether in its own nature it differed essentially from the other trees of the garden, or differed only by a kind of sacramental efficacy attached to it—is not distinctly stated, and can be matter only of conjecture or of probable inference. But in its relation to man’s frame, there apparently was this difference between it and the other trees, that while they might contribute to his daily support, it alone could preserve in undecaying vigour a being to be supported. In accordance with its position in the centre of the garden, it possessed the singular virtue of ministering to human life in the fountainhead of upholding that life in its root and principle, while the other trees could only furnish what was needed for the exercise of its existing functions. They might have kept nature alive for a time, as the fruits of the earth do still; but to it belonged the property of fortifying the vital powers of nature against the injuries of disease and the dissolution of death.[1]

This was undoubtedly well known to Adam, as it was an essential part of the constitution of things around him. And if [[@Page:252]] he had remained stedfast in his allegiance to God, ever restraining his desire from the tree of knowledge, and partaking only of the tree of life, he would have continued to possess life, in incorrupt purity and blessedness, as he received it from the hand of God, possibly also might have been conscious of a growing enlargement and elevation in its powers and functions. But choosing the perilous course of transgression, he forfeited his inheritance of life, and became subject to the threatened penalty of death. The tree of life, however, did not lose its life-sustaining virtue, because the condition on which man’s right to partake of it had been violated. It remained what God origin ally made it. And though effectual precautions must now be taken to guard its sacred treasure from the touch of polluted hands, yet there it stood in the centre of the garden still, the object of fond aspirations as well as hallowed recollections though enshrined in a sacredness which rendered it for the present inaccessible to fallen man. Why should its place have been so carefully preserved? and the symbols of worship, the emblems of fear and hope, planted in the very way that led to it? If not to intimate, that the privilege of partaking of its immortal fruit was only for a season withheld, not finally withdrawn waiting till a righteousness should be brought in, which [[@Page:253]] might again open the way to its blessed provisions. For as the loss of righteousness had shut up the way, it was manifest that only by the return of righteousness could a fresh access to the forfeited food be attained. And hence it became, as we shall see, one of the leading objects of God’s administration, to disclose the necessity and unfold the nature and conditions of such a work of righteousness as might be adequate to so important an end. The relation man now occupied to the tree of life could of itself furnish no information on this point. It could only indicate that the inheritance of immortal life was still reserved for him, on the supposition of a true and proper righteousness being attained. So that in this primary symbolical ordinance, the hope which had been awakened in his bosom by the first promise, assumed the pleasing aspect of a return to the enjoyment of that immortal life from which, on account of sin, he was appointed to suffer a temporary exclusion.

But, coupled as this hope was with the present existence of a fallen condition, and the certainty of a speedy return for the body to the dust of death, it of necessity carried along with it the expectation of a future state of being, and of a resurrection from the dead. The prospect of a deliverance from evil, and of a restored immortality of life and blessing, was not to be immediately realized. The now forbidden tree of life was to continue unapproachable, so long as men bore about with them the body of sin and death. They could find the way of life only through the charnel-house of the grave. And it had been a mocking of their best feelings and aspirations, to have held out to them the promise of a victory over the tempter, or to have embodied that promise in a new direction of their hopes toward the tree of life, if there had not been couched under it the assured prospect of a life after death, and out of it. In truth, religious faith and hope could not have taken form and being in the bosom of fallen men, excepting on the ground of such an anticipated futurity. Nor were there long wanting events in the history of Divine providence which would naturally tend to strengthen, in thoughtful and considerate minds, this hopeful anticipation of a future existence. The untimely death of Abel, and the translation of Enoch in the mid-time of his days, must especially have wrought in this [[@Page:254]] direction; since, viewed in connection with the whole circumstances of the time, they could scarcely fail to produce the impression, that not only was the real inheritance of blessing to be looked for in a scene of existence beyond the present, but that the clearest title to this might be conjoined with a comparatively brief and contracted portion of good on earth. Such facts, read in the light of the promise, that the destroyer was yet to be destroyed, and a pathway opened to the lost for par taking anew of the food of immortality, could lead to but one conclusion that the good to be inherited by the heirs of promise necessarily involved a state of life and blessing after this.

We find the later Jews—notwithstanding their false views respecting the Messiah—indicating in their comments some knowledge of the truth thus signified to the first race of worshippers by their relation to the tree of life. For, of the seven things which they imagined the Messiah should show to Israel, two were, the garden of Eden and the tree of life; and again, “There are also that say of the tree of life, that it was not created in vain, but the men of the resurrection shall eat thereof, and live for ever.”[2] These were but the glimmerings of light obtained by men who had to grope their way amid judicial blindness and the misguiding influence of hereditary delusions. Adam and his immediate offspring were in happier circumstances for the discernment of the truth now under consideration. And unless the promise of recovery remained absolutely a dead letter to them, and nothing was learned from their symbolical and expectant relationship to the tree of life (a thing scarcely possible in the circumstances), there must have been cherished in their minds the conviction of a life after death, and the hope of a deliverance from its corruption. Religion at the very first rooted itself in the belief of immortality.[3]

So much for what the things connected with the tree of life imported to those whom they more immediately respected. Let us glance for a little to the fuller insight afforded into them for such as possess the later revelations of Scripture. “To-day,” said Jesus on the cross to the penitent malefactor, “to-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”—showing how confidently He [[@Page:255]] regarded death as the way to victory, and how completely He was going to bruise the head of the tempter, since He was now to make good for Himself and His people a return to the region of bliss, which that tempter had been the occasion of alienating. “To him that overcometh,” says the same Jesus, after having entered on His glory, “will I give to eat of the tree of life, that is in the midst of the paradise of God.” And again, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”—(Rev. 2:7, 22:14) The least we can gather from such declarations is, that everything which was lost in Adam, shall be again recovered in Christ for the heirs of His salvation. The far distant ends of revelation are seen embracing each other; and the last look we obtain into the workmanship of God corresponds with the first, as face answers to face. The same God of love and beneficence who was the beginning, proves Himself to be also the ending. It is the intermediate portion alone which seems less properly to hold of Him—being in so many respects marred with evil, and chequered with adversity to the members of His family. There, indeed, we see much that is unlike God—His once beautiful workmanship defaced the comely order of His government disturbed—the world He had destined for “the house of the glory of His kingdom,” rendered the theatre of a fierce and incessant warfare between the elements of good and evil, in which the better part is too often put to the worse—and humanity, which He had made to be an image of Himself, smitten in all its members with the wound of a sore disease, beset when living with numberless calamities, and becoming, when dead, the prey of its most vile and loathsome adversaries. How cheering to know that this unhappy state of disorder and confusion is not to be perpetual—that it occupies but the mid-region of time—and is destined to be supplanted in the final issues of providence by the restitution of all things to their original harmony and blessedness of life! The tempter has prevailed long, but, God be thanked, he is not to prevail for ever. There is yet to come forth from the world, which he has filled with his works of evil, new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness shall dwell—another paradise with its tree of life—and a ransomed people [[@Page:256]] created anew after the image of God, and fitted for the high destiny of manifesting His glory before the universe.

But great as this is, it is not the whole. The antitype is always higher than the type; and the work of grace transcends in excellence and glory the work of nature. When, therefore, we are told of a new creation, with its tree of life, and its paradisiacal delights yet to be enjoyed by the people of God, much more is actually promised than the simple recovery of what was lost by sin. There will be a sphere and condition of being similar in kind, but, in the nature of the things belonging to it, immensely higher and better than what was originally set up by the hand of God. All things proceeding from Him are beautiful in their place and season. And it is true of the paradise which has been lost, that its means of life and enjoyment were in every respect wisely adapted to the frames of those who were made for occupying it. But of these it is written, that they were “of the earth, earthy”—only relatively, not absolutely good—in themselves lumpish and infirm tenements of clay, and as such necessarily imperfect in their tastes, their faculties of action and enjoyment, as compared with what is found in the higher regions of existence.

But, undoubtedly, the same adaptation that existed in the old creation between the nature of the region and the frames of its inhabitants, shall exist also in the new. And as the occupants here shall be the second Adam and His seed—the Lord from heaven, in whom humanity has been raised to peerless majesty and splendour there must also be a corresponding rise in the nature of the things to be occupied. A higher sphere of action and enjoyment shall be brought in, because there is a higher style of being to possess it. There shall not be the laying anew of earth’s old foundations, but rather the raising of these aloft to a nobler elevation—not nature revived merely, but nature glorified—humanity, no longer as it was in the earthy and natural man, but as it is and ever shall be in the spiritual and heavenly, and that placed in a theatre of life and blessing every way suitable to its exalted condition.

Such being the case, it will readily be understood, that the promise, symbolically exhibited in the Old, and distinctly expressed in New Testament Scripture, of a return to paradise and [[@Page:257]] its tree of life, is not to be taken literally. The dim shadow only, not the very image of the good to be possessed, is presented under this imperfect form. And we are no more to think of an actual tree, such as that which originally stood in the centre of Eden, than of actual manna, or of a material crown, which are, in like manner, promised to the faithful. These, and many similar representations found respecting the world to come, are but a figurative employment of the best in the past or present state of things, to aid the mind in conceiving of the future; as thus alone can it attain to any clear or distinct conception of them. Yet while all are figurative, they have still a definite and intelligible meaning. And when the assurance is given to sincere believers, not only of a paradise for their abode, but also of a tree of life for their participation, they are thereby certified of all that may be needed for the perpetual refreshment and support of their glorified natures. These shall certainly require no such carnal sustenance as was provided for Adam in Eden; they shall be cast in another mould. But as they shall still be material frameworks, they must have a certain dependence on the material elements around them for the possession of a healthful and blessed existence. The internal and the external, the personal and the relative, shall be in harmonious and fitting adjustment to each other. All hunger shall be satisfied, and all thirst for ever quenched. The inhabitant shall never say, “I am sick.” And like the river itself, which flows in perennial fulness from the throne of God, the well-spring of life in the redeemed shall never know interruption or decay. Blessed, then, it may be truly said, are those who do the commandments of God, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. What can a doomed and fleeting world afford in comparison of such a prospect?

FOOTNOTE

[1] I have given here only what seems to be the fair and the general import of what is written in Genesis respecting the tree of life; but have avoided any deliverance on the much disputed point, whether by inherent virtue, or by a kind of sacramental efficacy, the fruit of this tree was intended to produce its life-giving influence upon man. The great majority of Protestant divines incline to the latter view; although it must be allowed, the idea of a sacramental virtue in a natural constitution of things seems somewhat out of place, and cannot very easily be distinguished from the Catholic view, which holds certain things to have been supernaturally conferred on Adam, and others to have belonged to him by natural constitution. But the subject, with reference to that specific question, is one on which we want materials for properly deciding, and regarding which opinions are almost sure to differ in the future, as they have done in the past. We could not well have a clearer proof of this, than is afforded by two of the latest commentators on Genesis two also, who are so generally agreed in sentiment, that they are engaged together in producing a commentary on the entire books of the Old Testament—Delitzsch and Keil. The former is of opinion that the passage, Gen. 3:22, distinctly intimates that the tree in question had “the power of life in itself,” “a power of perpetually renewing and gradually transforming the natural life of man.” (Comm. über die Genes., p. 154, 194, 2d ed.) And from this he draws the inference, that the fruit of the tree of knowledge also had the power of death in itself, rendering the participation of it deadly. Keil, however, is equally decided on the other side; he says, “We must not seek the power of the tree of life in the physical property of its fruit. No earthly fruit possesses the power of rendering immortal the life, to the support of which it ministers. Life has its root, not in the corporeity of man, but in his spiritual nature, in which it finds its stability and continuance, as well as its origin. The body formed of the dust of earth could not, as such, be immortal; it must either again return to earth and become dust, or through the Spirit be transformed into the immortal nature of the soul. The power is of a spiritual kind, which can transfuse immortality into the bodily frame. It could have been imparted to the earthly tree, or its fruit, only through a special operation of God’s word, through an agency which we can no otherwise represent to ourselves than as of a sacramental nature, whereby earthly elements are consecrated to become vessels and bearers of super natural powers.” (Bib. Comm. über die Bücher Moses, I. p. 45.) That such is the case now, there can be no doubt; but it may be questioned whether it does not proceed on too close an assimilation of matters in the primeval, to those of the existing, state of things.

[2] R. Elias ben Mosis, and R. Menahem, in Ainsworth on Gen. 3.

[3] See farther at beginning of Ch. VI., sec. 6.

Chapter Third.—The Cherubim (and The Flaming Sword).

[[@Page:258]] THE truths symbolized by man’s new relation to the tree of life have still to be viewed in connection with the means appointed by God to fence the way of approach to it, and the creaturely forms that were now planted on its borders. “And the Lord God,” it is said, “placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” We can easily imagine that the sword, with its flaming brightness and revolving movements, might be suspended there simply as the emblem of God’s avenging justice, and as the instrument of man’s exclusion from the region of life. In that one service the end of its appointment might be fulfilled, and its symbolical meaning exhausted. Such, indeed, appears to have been the case. But the cherubim, which also had a place assigned them toward the east of the garden, must have had some farther use, as the sword alone would have been sufficient to prevent access to the forbidden region. The cherubim must have been added for the purpose of rendering more complete the instruction intended to be conveyed to man by means of the symbolical apparatus here presented to his contemplation. And as these cherubic figures hold an important place also in subsequent revelations, we shall here enter into a somewhat minute and careful investigation of the subject. The view we mean to exhibit cannot be said to differ radically from that presented in the first edition of this work; but it will certainly differ considerably in the mode of investigation pursued, and in some also of the results obtained. We leant formerly too much upon the representations of Bähr, which we now perceive to be in themselves, as well as in the purpose to which they are applied, of a more fanciful and objectionable nature than they at one time appeared.

There is nothing to be expected here from etymological [[@Page:259]] researches. Many derivations and meanings have been ascribed to the term cherub; but nothing certain has been established regarding it; and it may now be confidently assigned to that class of words, whose original import is involved in hopeless obscurity.[1] In the passage of Genesis above cited, where the word first occurs, not only is no clue given in regard to the meaning of the name, but there is not even any description presented of the objects it denoted; they are spoken of as definite forms or existences, of which the name alone afforded sufficient indication. This will appear more clearly if we adhere to the exact rendering: “And He placed (or, made to dwell) at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim—”not certain unknown figures or imaginary existences, but the specific forms of being, familiarly designated by that name.

In other parts of Scripture, however, the defect is in great measure supplied; and by comparing the different statements there contained with each other, and putting the whole together, we may at least approximate, if not absolutely arrive at, a full and satisfactory knowledge of the symbol.

But in ascertaining the sense of Scripture on the subject, there are two considerations which ought to be borne in mind, as a necessary check on extreme or fanciful deductions. The first is, that in this, as well as in other religious symbols (those, for example, connected with food and sacrifice), there may have been, and most probably was, a progression in the use made of it from time to time. In that case, the representations employed at one period must have been so constructed as to convey a fuller meaning than those employed at another. Whatever aspects of Divine truth, therefore, may be discovered in the later passages [[@Page:260]] which treat of the cherubim, should not, as a matter of course, be ascribed in all their entireness to the earlier. Respect must always be had to the relative differences of place and time. Another consideration is, that whatever room there may be for diversity in the way now specified, we must not allow any representation that may be given in one place—a specific representation—to impose a generic meaning on the symbol, which is not borne out, but possibly contradicted, by representations in others. Progressive differences can only affect what is circumstantial, not what is essential to the subject; and all that is properly fundamental in the cherubic imagery, must be found in accordance, not with a partial, but with the complete testimony of Scripture respecting it.

With these guiding principles in our eye, we proceed to exhibit what may be collected from the different notices of Scripture on the subject—ranging our remarks under the following natural divisions: the descriptions given of the cherubim as to form and appearance, the designations applied to them, the positions assigned them, and the kinds of agency with which they are associated.

1. In regard to the first of these points—the descriptions given of the cherubim as to form and appearance—there is nothing very definite in the earlier Scriptures, nor are the accounts in the later perfectly uniform. Even in the detailed narrative of Exodus respecting the furniture of the tabernacle, it is still taken for granted, that the forms of the cherubim were familiarly known; and we are told nothing concerning their structure, besides its being incidentally stated that they had faces and wings. (Ex. 25, 37) It would seem, however, that while certain elements were always understood to enter into the composition of the cherub, the form given to it was not absolutely fixed, but admitted of certain variations. The cherubim seen by Ezekiel beneath the throne of God, are represented as having each four faces and four wings (ch. [[1:6 >> Bible:Ezek. 1:6]] ); while in the description subsequently given by him of the cherubic representations on the walls of his visionary temple (ch. [[41:18, 19 >> Bible:Eze 41:18-19]] ), mention is made of only two faces appearing in each. In Revelation, again (ch. [[4:7, 8 >> Bible:Re 4:7-8]] ), while four composite forms, as in Ezekiel, are adhered to throughout, the creatures are represented [[@Page:261]] as not having each four faces, but having each a face after one of the four types; and the number of wings belonging to each is also different—not four, but six.[2] In the Apocalyptic vision the creatures themselves appear full of eyes, before and behind, as they do also in Ezek. 10:12, where “their whole flesh, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings,” are said to have been full of eyes; but in Ezekiel’s first vision, the eyes were confined only to the wheels connected with the cherubim (ch. [[1:18 >> Bible:Eze 1:18]] ). It is impossible, therefore, without doing violence to the accounts given in the several delineations, to avoid the conviction, that a certain latitude was allowed in regard to the particular forms: and that, as exhibited in vision at least, they were not altogether uniform in appearance. They were uniform, however, in two leading respects, which may hence be regarded as the more important elements in the cherubic form. They had, first, the predominating appearance of a man—a man’s body and gesture—as is evident, first, from their erect posture; then from Ezek. 1:5, “they had the appearance of a man;” and also from the peculiar expression in Rev. 4:7, where it is said of the third, “that it had a face as a man”—which is best understood to mean, that while the other creatures were unlike man in the face, though like in the body, this was like in the face as well. The same inference is still further deducible from the part taken by the cherubim in the Apocalypse, along with the elders and the redeemed generally, in celebrating the praise of God. The other point of agreement is, that in all the descriptions actually given, the cherubim have a composite appearance with the form of a man, indeed, predominating, but with other animal forms combined those, namely, of the lion, the ox, and the eagle.

Now, there can be no doubt that these three creatures, along with man, make up together, according to the estimation of a remote antiquity, the most perfect forms of animal existence. [[@Page:262]] They belong to those departments of the visible creation which constitute the first in rank and importance of its three kingdoms—the kingdom of animal life. And in that kingdom they belong to the highest class—to that which possesses warm blood and physical life in its fullest development. Nay, in that highest class they are again the highest; for the ox in ancient times was placed above the horse, on account of his fitness for useful and patient labour in the operations of husbandry. And hence the old Jewish proverb—”Four are the highest in the world—the lion among wild beasts, the ox among tame cattle, the eagle among birds, man among all (creatures); but God is supreme over all.” The meaning is, that in these four kinds are exhibited the highest forms of creature-life on earth, but that God is still infinitely exalted above these; since all creature-life springs out of His fulness, and is dependent on His hand. So that a creature compounded of all these—bearing in its general shape and structure the lineaments of a man, but associating with the human the appearance and properties also of the three next highest orders of animal existence—might seem a kind of concrete manifestation of created life on earth—a sort of personified creaturehood.

But the thought naturally occurs, why thus strangely amalgamated and combined? If the object had been simply to afford a representation of creaturely existence in general by means of its higher forms, we would naturally have expected them to stand apart as they actually appear in nature. But instead of this they are thrown into one representation; and so, indeed, that however the representation may vary, still the inferior forms of animal life constantly appear as grafted upon, and clustering around, the organism of man. There is thus a striking unity in the diversity—a human ground and body, so to speak—in the grouped figures of the representation, which could not fail to attract the notice of a contemplative mind, and must have been designed to form an essential element in the symbolical representation. It is an ideal combination; no such composite creature as the cherub exists in the actual world; arid we can think of no reason why the singular combination it presents of animal forms, should have been set upon that of man as the trunk and centre of the whole, unless it were to exhibit [[@Page:263]] the higher elements of humanity in some kind of organic connection with certain distinctive properties of the inferior creation. The nature of man is incomparably the highest upon earth, and towers loftily above all the rest by powers peculiar to itself. And yet we can easily conceive how this very nature of man might be greatly raised and ennobled by having superadded to its own inherent qualities, those of which the other animal forms now before us stand as the appropriate types.

Thus, the lion among ancient nations generally, and in particular among the Hebrews, was the representative of king-like majesty and peerless strength. All the beasts of the field stand in awe of him, none being able to cope with him in might; and his roar strikes terror wherever it is heard. Hence the lion is naturally regarded as the king of the forest, where might is the sole ground of authority and rule. And hence, also, lions were placed both at the right and left of Solomon’s throne, as symbols of royal majesty and supreme power. As the lion among quadrupeds, so the eagle is king among birds, and stands preeminent in the two properties that more peculiarly distinguish the winged creation those of vision and flight. The term eagle-eyed has been quite proverbial in every age. The eagle perceives his prey from the loftiest elevation, where he himself appears scarcely discernible; and it has even been believed, that he can descry the smallest fish in the sea, and look with undazzled gaze upon the sun. His power of wing, however, is still more remarkable: no bird can fly either so high or so far. Moving with king-like freedom and velocity through the loftiest regions and the most extended space, we naturally think of him as the fittest image of something like angelic nimbleness of action. It is this more especially, or, we should rather say, this exclusively, which is symbolically associated with the eagle in Scripture. No reference is made there to the eagle’s strength of vision, but very frequent allusion to his extraordinary power of flight (Deut. 28:49; Job 9:26; Prov. 23:5; Hab. 1:8, etc.). And hence, too, in Rev. 4:7, the epithet flying is attached to the eagle, to indicate that this is the quality specially made account of.—Finally, the ox was among the ancients the common image of patient labour and productive energy. It naturally came to bear this signification from its early use in the [[@Page:264]] operations of husbandry in ploughing and harrowing the ground, then bearing home the sheaves, and at last treading out the corn. On this account the bovine form was so frequently chosen, especially in agricultural countries like Egypt, as the most appropriate symbol of Deity, in its inexhaustible productiveness. And if associated with man, the idea would instinctively suggest itself of patient labour and productive energy in working.

Such, then, not by any conjectural hypothesis or strained interpretations, but by the simplest reading of the descriptions given in the Bible, appear to have been the generic form and idea of the cherubim. It is absolutely necessary that we should apply the light furnished by those passages in which they are described, to those also in which they are not; and that what are expressly named and described as the cherubim, when seen in prophetic vision, must be regarded as substantially agreeing with those which had a visible appearance and a local habitation on earth—for, otherwise, the subject would be involved by Scripture itself in inextricable confusion. Assuming these points, we are warranted to think of the cherubim, wherever they are mentioned, as presenting in their composite structure, and having as the very basis of that structure, the form of man the only being on earth that is possessed of a rational and moral nature; yet combining, along with this, and organically uniting to it, the animal representatives of majesty and strength, winged velocity, patient and productive labour. Why united and combined thus, the mere descriptions of the cherubic appearances give no intimation; we must search for information concerning it in the other points that remain to be considered. So far, we have been simply putting together the different features of the descriptions, and viewing the cherubic figures in their individual characteristics and relative bearing.[3]

[[@Page:265]] 2. We named, as our second point of inquiry, the designations applied to the cherubim in Scripture. The term cherubim itself being the more common and specific of these, would naturally call for consideration first, if any certain key could be found to its correct import. But this we have already assigned to the class of things over which a hopeless obscurity may be said to hang. There is another designation, however, originally applied to them by “Ezekiel, and the sole designation given to them in the Apocalypse, from which some additional light may be derived. This expression is in the original חַיוֹת, animantia, living ones, or living creatures. The Septuagint uses the quite synonymous term ζῶα; and this, again, is the word uniformly employed by St John, when speaking of the cherubim. It has been unhappily rendered by our translators beasts in the Revelation; thus incongruously associating with the immediate presence and throne of God mere animal existences, and identifying in name the most exalted creaturely forms of being in the heavenly places, with the grovelling symbolical head of the antichristian and ungodly powers of the world. This is what bears, in the Apocalypse, the distinctive name of the beast (θηρίον) ; and the name should never have been applied to the ideal creatures, which derive their distinctive appellation from the fulness of life belonging to them—the living ones. The frequency with which this name is used of the cherubim is remarkable. In Ezekiel and the Apocalypse together it occurs nearly thirty times, and may consequently be regarded as peculiarly expressive of the symbolical character of the cherubim. It presents [[@Page:266]] them to our view as exhibiting the property of life in its highest state of power and activity; therefore, as creatures altogether instinct with life. And the idea thus conveyed by the name is further substantiated by one or two traits associated with them in Ezekiel and the Apocalypse. Such, especially, is the very singular multiplicity of eyes attached to them, appearing first in the mystic wheels that regulated their movements, and after wards in the cherubic forms themselves. For the eye is the symbol of intelligent life; the living spirit’s most peculiar organ and index. And to represent the cherubim as so strangely replenished with eyes, could only be intended to make them known to us as wholly inspirited. Accordingly, in the first vision of Ezekiel, in which the eyes belonged immediately to the wheels, “the spirit of the living creatures “is said to have been in the wheels (ch. [[1:20 >> Bible:Eze 1:20]] ); where the eye was, there also was the intelligent, thinking, directive spirit of life. Another and quite similar trait, is the quick and restless activity ascribed to them by both writers—by Ezekiel, when he represents them as “running and returning” with lightning speed; and by St John, when he describes them as “resting not day or night.” Incessant motion is one of the most obvious symptoms of a plenitude of life. We instinctively associate the property of life even with the inanimate things that exhibit motion—such as fountains and running streams, which are called living, in contradistinction to stagnant pools, that seem dead in comparison. And in the Hebrew tongue, these two symbols of life—eyes and fountains—have their common symbolical meaning marked by the employment of the same term to denote them both (עַיִן). So that creatures which appeared to be all eyes and all motion, are, in plain terms, those in which the powers and properties of life were quite peculiarly displayed.

We believe there is a still further designation applied to the same objects in Scripture—the seraphim of Isaiah (ch. [[6 >> Bible:Is 6]] ). It is in the highest degree improbable, that the prophet should by that name, so abruptly introduced, have pointed to an order of existences, or a form of being, nowhere else mentioned in Scripture; but quite natural that he should have referred to the cherubim in the sanctuary, as the scene of the vision lay there; and the more especially, as three characteristics—the possession [[@Page:267]] by each of six wings, the position of immediate proximity to the throne of God, and the threefold proclamation of Jehovah’s holiness—are those also which reappear again, at the very outset, in St John’s description of the cherubim. That they should have been called by the name of seraphim (burning ones) is no way inconsistent with this idea, for it merely embodies in a designation the thought symbolized in the vision of Ezekiel under the appearance of fire, giving forth flashes of lightning, which appeared to stream from the cherubim (ch. [[1:13 >> Bible:Eze 1:13]] ). In both alike, the fire, whether connected with the name or the appearance, denoted the wrath, which was the most prominent feature in the Divine manifestation at the time. But as, in thus identifying the cherubim with the seraphim, we tread on somewhat doubtful ground, we shall make no further use of the thoughts suggested by it.

It is right to notice, however, that the designation we have more particularly considered, and the emblematic representations illustrative of it, belong to the later portions of Scripture, which treat of the cherubim; and while we cannot but regard the idea thus exhibited, as essentially connected with the cherubic form of being, a fundamental element in its meaning, it certainly could not be by any means so vividly displayed in the cherubim of the tabernacle, which were stationary figures. Nor can we tell distinctly how it stood in this respect with the cherubim of Eden; we know not what precise form and attitude were borne by them. But not only the representations we have been considering—the analogy also of the cherubim in the tabernacle, with their outstretched wings, as in the act of flying, and their eyes intently directed toward the mercy-seat, as if they were actually beholding and pondering what was there exhibited, may justly lead us to infer, that in some way or another a life-like appearance was also presented by the cherubim of Eden. Absolutely motionless or dead-like forms would have been peculiarly out of place in the way to the tree of life. Yet of what sort this fulness of life might be, which was exhibited in the cherubim, we have still had no clear indication. From various things that have pressed themselves on our notice, it might not doubtfully have been inferred to be life in the highest sense—life spiritual and divine. But this comes [[@Page:268]] out more prominently in connection with the other aspects of the subject which remain to be contemplated.

3. We proceed, therefore, to the point next in order—the positions assigned to the cherubim in Scripture. These are properly but two, and, by having regard only to what is essential in the matter, might possibly be reduced to one. But as they ostensibly and locally differ, we shall treat them apart. They are the garden of Eden, and the dwelling-place or throne of God in the tabernacle.

The first local residence in which the cherubim appear, was the garden of Eden—the earthly paradise. What, however, was this, but the proper home and habitation of life? of life generally, but emphatically of the divine life? Everything there seemed to breathe the air, and to exhibit the fresh and blooming aspect of life. Streams of water ran through it to supply all its productions with nourishment, and keep them in perpetual healthfullness; multitudes of living creatures roamed amid its bowers, and the tree of life, at once the emblem and the seal of immortality, rose in the centre, as if to shed a vivifying influence over the entire domain. Most fitly was it called by the Rabbins “the land of life.” But it was life, we soon perceive, in the higher sense—life, not merely as opposed to bodily decay and dissolution, but as opposed also to sin, which brings death to the soul. Eden was the garden of delight, which God gave to man as the image of Himself, the possessor of that spiritual and holy life which has its fountainhead in God. And the moment man ceased to fulfil the part required of Him as such, and yielded himself to the service of unrighteousness, he lost his heritage of blessing, and was driven forth as an heir of mortality and corruption from the hallowed region of life. When, therefore, the cherubim were set in the garden to occupy the place which man had forfeited by his transgression, it was impossible but that they should be regarded as the representatives, not of life merely, but of the life that is in God, and in connection with which evil cannot dwell. This they were by their very position within the sacred territory—whatever other ideas may have been symbolized by their peculiar structure and more special relations.

The other and more common position assigned to the [[@Page:269]] cherubim is in immediate connection with the dwelling-place and throne of God. This connection comes first into view when the instructions were given to Moses regarding the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. As the tabernacle was to be, in a manner, the habitation of God, where He was to dwell and manifest Himself to His people, the whole of the curtains forming the interior of the tent were commanded to be inwoven with cherubic figures. But as the inner sanctuary was more especially the habitation of God, where He fixed His throne of holiness, Moses was commanded, for the erection of this throne, to make two cherubim, one at each end of the ark of the covenant, and to place them so, that they should stand without stretched wings, their faces toward each other, and toward the mercy-seat, the lid of the ark, which lay between them. That mercy-seat, or the space immediately above it, bounded on either side by the cherubim, and covered by their wings (Ex. 25:20), was the throne of God, as the God of the Old Covenant, the ideal seat of the Divine commonwealth in Israel. I said God to Moses, “will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment to the children of Israel.”—(Ex. 25:22) This is the fundamental passage regarding the connection of the cherubim with the throne of God; and it is carefully to be noted, that while the seat of the Divine presence and glory is said to be above the mercy-seat, it is also said to be between the cherubim. The same form of expression is used also in another passage in the Pentateuch, which may likewise be called a fundamental one, Num. 7:89, “And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation (more properly, the tent of meeting) to speak with Him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy-seat that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cherubim.” Hence the Lord was spoken of as the God “who dwelleth between the cherubims,” according to our version, and correctly as to the sense; though, as the verb is used without a preposition in the original, the more exact rendering would be, the God who dwelleth-in (inhabiteth,) שׁכַן, or occupies יָשַׁבviz., as a throne or seat) the cherubim. These two verbs are interchanged in the form of expression, which is used with considerable frequency (for example, 1 Sam. 4:4; 2 Sam. 6:2; Ps. 80:1, 99:1, etc.); [[@Page:270]] and it is from the use of the first of them that the Jewish term Shekinah (the indwelling), in reference to the symbol of the Divine presence, is derived. The space above the mercy-seat, enclosed by the two cherubim with their outstretched wings, bending and looking toward each other, was regarded as the local habitation which God possessed as a peculiar dwelling-place or occupied as a throne in Israel. And it is entirely arbitrary, and against the plain import of the two fundamental passages, to insert above, as is still very often done by interpreters (“dwelleth,” or “sitteth enthroned above the cherubim”); still more so to make anything depend, as to the radical meaning of the symbol, on the seat of God being considered above rather than between the cherubim.

Hengstenberg is guilty of this error, when he represents the proper place of the cherubim as being under the throne of God, and holds that to be their first business though he disallows the propriety of regarding them as material supports to the throne (Comm. on Rev. 4:6). The meaning he adopts of the symbol absolutely required them to be in this position; since only by their being beneath the throne of God, could they with any fitness be regarded as imaging the living creation below, as subject to the overruling power and sovereignty of God. Hofmann and Delitzsch go still farther in this direction; and, adopting the notion repudiated by Hengstenberg, consider the cherubim as the formal bearers of Jehovah’s throne. Delitzsch even affirms, in opposition (we think) to the plainest language, that wherever the part of the cherubim is distinctly mentioned in Old Testament Scripture, they appear as the bearers of Jehovah and His throne, and that He sat enthroned upon the cherubim in the midst of the worldly sanctuary (Die Genesis Ausgelegt, p. 145). There are, in fact, only two representations of the kind specified. One is in Ps. 18:10, where the Lord is described as coming down for judgment upon David’s enemies, and in doing so, “riding upon a cherub, and flying upon the wings of the wind”—obviously a poetical delineation, in which it would be as improper to press closely what is said of the position of the cherub, as what is said of the wings of the wind. The one image was [[@Page:271]] probably introduced with the view merely of stamping the Divine manifestation with a distinctively covenant aspect, as the other for the purpose of exhibiting the resistless speed of its movements. But if the allusion is to be taken less ideally, it must be borne in mind, that the manifestation described is primarily and pre-eminently for judgment, not as in the temple, for mercy; and this may explain the higher elevation given to the seat of Divine Majesty. The same holds good also of the other representation, in which the throne or glory of the Lord appears above the cherubim. It is in Ezekiel, where, in two several places (ch. [[1:26 >> Bible:Ezek. 1:26]] , 10:1), there is first said to have been a firmament upon the heads of the living creatures, and then above the firmament the likeness of a throne. The description is so palpably different from that given of the Sanctuary, that it would be absurd to subordinate the one to the other. We must rather hold, that in the special and immediate object of the theophany exhibited to Ezekiel, there was a reason for giving such a position to the throne of God—one somewhat apart from the cherubim, and elevated distinctly above them. And we believe that reason may be found, in its being predominantly a manifestation for judgment, in which the seat of the Divine glory naturally appeared to rise to a loftier and more imposing elevation than it was wont to occupy in the Holiest. This seems to be clearly indicated in ch. [[10:4 >> Bible:Ezek. 10:4]] , where, in proceeding to the work of judgment, the glory of the Lord is represented as going up from the cherub, and standing over the threshold of the house; immediately after which the house was filled with the cloud—the symbol of Divine wrath and retribution. We may add, that the statement in Rev. 4:6, where the cherubic forms are said to have appeared “in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne,” is plainly at variance with the idea of their acting as supports to the throne. The throne itself is described in [[5:2 >> Bible:Ezek. 5:2]] , as being laid (ἐκεῖτο) in heaven, which excludes the supposition of any instruments being employed to bear it aloft. And from the living creatures being represented as at once in the midst of the throne, and round about it, nothing further or more certain can be inferred beyond their appearing in a position of immediate nearness to it. The elders sat round about the throne; but the cherubim appeared in it as well as around it—implying [[@Page:272]] that theirs was the place of closest proximity to the Divine Being who sat on it.

The result, then, which arises, we may almost say with conclusive certainty from the preceding investigation, is, that the kind of life which was symbolized by the cherubim, was life most nearly and essentially connected with God־־life as it is, or shall be, held by those who dwell in His immediate presence, and form, in a manner, the very inclosure and covering of His throne: pre-eminently, therefore, spiritual and holy life. Holiness becomes God’s house in general; and of necessity it rises to its highest creaturely representation in those who are regarded as compassing about the most select and glorious portion of the house—the seat of the living God Himself. Whether His peculiar dwelling were in the garden of Eden, or in the recesses of a habitation made by men’s hands, the presence of the cherubim alike proclaimed Him to be One, who indispensably requires of such as are to be round about Him, the property of life, and in connection with that the beauty of holiness, which is, in a sense, the life of life, as possessed and exercised by His intelligent offspring.

4. Our last point of scriptural inquiry was to be respecting the kinds of agency attributed to the cherubim.

We naturally again revert, first, to what is said of them in connection with the garden of Eden, though our information there is the scantiest. It is merely said that the cherubim were made to dwell at the east of the garden, and a flaming sword, turning every way to keep the way to the tree of life. The two instruments the cherubim and the sword are associated together in regard to this keeping; and, as the text draws no distinction between them, it is quite arbitrary to say, with Bähr, that the cherubim alone had to do with it, and to do with it precisely as Adam had. It is said of Adam, that “God put him into the garden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15)—not the one simply, but both together. He had to do a twofold office in respect to the garden to attend to its cultivation, as far as might then be needful, and to keep or preserve it, namely, from the disturbing and desolating influence of evil. The charge to keep plainly implied some danger of losing. And it became still plainer, when the tenure of possession was immediately [[@Page:273]] suspended on a condition, the violation of which was to involve the penalty of death. The keeping was to be made good against a possible contingence, which might subvert the order of God, and change the region of life into a charnel-house of death. Now it is the same word that is used in regard to the cherubim and the flaming sword: These now were to keep—not, however, like Adam, the entire garden, but simply the way to the tree of life; to maintain in respect to this one point the settled order of Heaven, and that more especially by rendering the way inaccessible to fallen man. There is here also, no doubt, a present occupancy; but the occupancy of only a limited portion, a mere pathway, and for the definite purpose of defending it from unhallowed intrusion.

Still, not simply for defence; for occupancy as well as defence. And the most natural thought is, that as in the keeping there was a twofold idea, so a twofold representation was given to it; that the occupancy was more immediately connected with the cherubim, and the defence against intrusion with the flaming sword. One does not see otherwise what need there could have been for both. Nor is it possible to conceive how the ends in view could otherwise have been served. It was beyond all doubt for man’s spiritual instruction, that such peculiar instruments were employed at the east of the garden of Eden, to awaken and preserve in his bosom right thoughts of the God with whom he had to do. But an image of terror and repulsion was not alone sufficient for this. There was needed along with it an image of mercy and hope; and both were given in the appearances that actually presented themselves. When the eye of man looked to the sword, with its burnished and fiery aspect, he could not but be struck with awe at the thought of God’s severe and retributive justice. But when he saw, at the same time, in near and friendly connection with that emblem of Jehovah’s righteousness, living or life-like forms of being, cast pre-eminently in his own mould, but bearing along with his the likeness also of the choicest species of the animal creation around him־־when he saw this, what could he think but that still for creatures of earthly rank, and for himself most of all, an interest was reserved by the mercy of God in the things that pertained to the blessed region of life? That region could not now, by [[@Page:274]] reason of sin, be actually held by him; but it was provisionally held—by composite forms of creature-life, in which his nature appeared as the predominating element. And with what design, if not to teach, that when that nature of his should have nothing to fear from the avenging justice of God, it should regain its place in the holy and blissful haunts from which it had mean while been excluded? So that, standing before the eastern approach to Eden, and scanning with intelligence the appearances that there presented themselves to his view, the child of faith might say to himself, That region of life is not finally lost to me. It has neither been blotted from the face of creation, nor entrusted to natures of another sphere. Earthly forms still hold possession of it. The very natures that have lost the privilege continue to have their representation in the new and unreal-like occupants that are meanwhile appointed to keep it. Better things, then, are doubtless in reserve for them; and my nature, which stands out so conspicuously above them all, fallen though it be at present, is assuredly destined to rise again, and enjoy in the reality what is there ideally and representatively assigned to it.

There is nothing surely unnatural or far-fetched in such a line of reflection. It manifestly lay within the reach of the very earliest members of a believing seed; especially since the light it is supposed to have conveyed did not stand alone, but was only supplementary to that embodied in the first grand promise to the fallen, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. The supernatural machinery at the east of the garden merely showed how this bruising was to proceed, and in what result it might be expected to issue. It was to proceed, not by placing in abeyance the manifestation of Divine righteousness, but by providing for its being exercised without the fallen creature being destroyed. Nor should it issue in a partial, but in a complete recovery—nay, in the possession of a state higher than before. For the creaturehood of earth, it would seem, was yet to stand in a closer relation to the manifested glory of God, and was to become capable of enduring sights and performing ministrations which were not known in the original constitution of things on earth.

It might not be possible, perhaps, for the primeval race of [[@Page:275]] worshippers to go farther, or to get a more definite insight into the purposes of God, by contemplating the cherubim. We scarcely think it could. But we can easily conceive how the light and hope therewith connected would be felt to grow, when this embodied creaturehood—or, if we rather choose so to regard it, this ideal manhood was placed in the sanctuary of God’s presence and glory, and so as to form the immediate boundary and covering of his throne. A relation of greater nearness to the Divine was there evidently won for the human and earthly. And not that only, but a step also in advance toward the actual enjoyment of what was ideally exhibited. For while, at first, men in flesh and blood were not permitted to enter into the region of holy life occupied by the cherubim, but only to look at it from without, now the way was at length partially laid open, and in the person of the high priest, through the blood of atonement, they could make an approach, though still only at stated times, to the very feet of the cherubim of glory. The blessed and hopeful relation of believing men to these singular attendants of the Divine majesty rose thus more distinctly into view, and in more obvious connection also with the means through which the ultimate realization was to be attained. But the information in this line, and by means of these materials, reaches its furthest limit, when, in the Apocalyptic vision of a triumphant Church, the four and twenty elders, who represent her, are seen sitting in royal state and crowned majesty close beside the throne, with the cherubic forms in and around it. There, at last, the ideal and the actual freely meet together—the merely symbolical representatives of the life of God, and its real possessors, the members of a redeemed and glorified Church. And the inspiring element of the whole, that which at once explains all and connects all harmoniously together, is the central object appearing there of “a Lamb, as if it had been slain, in the midst of the throne, and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders.” Here the mystery resolves itself; in this consummate wonder all other wonders cease, all difficulties vanish. The Lamb of God, uniting together heaven and earth, human gilt and Divine mercy, man’s nature and God’s perfections, has opened a pathway for the fallen to the very height and pinnacle of created being. With Him in the midst, as a [[@Page:276]] sun and shield, there is ground for the most secure standing, and for the closest fellowship with God.

We must glance, however, at the other kinds of agency connected with the cherubim. In the first vision of Ezekiel, it is by their appearance, which we have already noticed, not by their agency, properly speaking, that they convey instruction regarding the character of the manifestations of Himself which the Lord was going to give through the prophet. But at ch. [[10:7 >> Bible:Ezek. 10:7]] , where the approaching judgment upon Jerusalem is symbolically exhibited by the scattering of coals of fire over the city, the fire is represented as being taken from between the cherubim, and by the hand of one of them given to the ministering angel to be cast forth upon the city. It was thus indicated— so far we can easily understand the vision—that the coming execution of judgment was not only to be of God, but of Him in connection with the full consent and obedient service of the holy powers and agencies around Him. And the still more specific indication might also be meant to be conveyed, that as the best interest of humanity required the work of judgment to be executed, so a fitting human instrument should be found for the purpose. The wrath of God, represented by the coals of fire, should not want the service of an appropriate earthly agency, as the coals were ministered by a cherub’s hand for the work of destruction.

An entirely similar action, differing only in the form it assumes, is connected with the cherubim in ch. [[ >> Bible:Re 15:1-8]] 15 of Revelation, where one of the living creatures is represented as giving into the hands of the angels the seven last vials of the wrath of God. The rational and living creaturehood of earth, in its state of alliance and fellowship with God, thus appeared to go along with the concluding judgments, which were necessary to bring the evil in the world to a perpetual end. Nor is the earlier and more prominent action ascribed to them materially different—that connected with the seven-sealed Book. This book, viewed generally, unquestionably represents the progress and triumph of Christ’s kingdom upon earth over all that was there naturally opposed to it. The first seal, when opened, presents the Divine King riding forth in conquering power and majesty; the last exhibits all prostrate and silent before Him. The different seals, therefore, unfold the different stages of this mighty [[@Page:277]] achievement; and as they successively open, each of the living creatures in turn calls aloud on the symbolic agency to go forth on its course. That agency, in its fundamental character, represents the judicial energy and procedure of God toward the sinfulness of the world, for the purpose of subduing it to Himself, of establishing righteousness and truth among men, and bringing the actual state of things on earth into conformity with what is ideally right and good. Who, then, might more fitly urge forward and herald such a work, than the ideal creatures in which earthly forms of being appeared replete with the life of God, and in closest contact with His throne? Such might be said to be their special interest and business. And hence, as there were only four of them in the vision (with some reference, perhaps, to the four corners of the earth),[4] and so one for but the first four seals of the book, the remaining symbols of this part of the Apocalyptic imagery were thrown into forms which did not properly admit of any such proclamation being uttered in connection with them.[5]

We can discern the same leading characteristics in the farther use made of the cherubic imagery in the Apocalypse. They are represented as ceaselessly proclaiming, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come,” thereby showing it to be their calling to make known the absolute holiness of God, as infinitely removed, not merely from the natural, but also, and still more, from the moral imperfections and evils of creation. In their ascriptions of praise, too, they are represented not only as giving honour and glory, but [[@Page:278]] also thanks, to Him that sitteth on the throne, and as joining with the elders in the new song that was sung to the Lamb for the benefits of His salvation.—(Rev. 4:9, 5:8) So that they plainly stand related to the redemptive as well as the creative work of God. And yet in all, from first to last, only ideal representatives of what pertains to God’s kingdom on earth, not as substantive existences themselves possessing it. They belong to the imagery of faith, not to her abiding realities. And so, when the ultimate things of redemption come, their place is no more found. They hold out the lamp of hope to fallen man through the wilderness of life, pointing his expectations to the better country. But when this country breaks upon our view—when the new heavens and the new earth supplant the old, then also the ideal gives way to the real. We see another paradise, with its river and tree of life, and a present God, and a presiding Saviour, and holy angels, and a countless multitude of redeemed spirits rejoicing in the fulness of blessing and glory provided for them; but no sight is anywhere to be seen of the cherubim of glory. They have fulfilled the end of their temporary existence; and when no longer needed, they vanish like the guiding stars of night before the bright sunshine of eternal day.

To sum up, then: The cherubim were in their very nature and design artificial and temporary forms of being—uniting in their composite structure the distinctive features of the highest kinds of creaturely existence on earth—man’s first, and chiefly. They were set up for representations to the eye of faith of earth’s living creaturehood, and more especially of its rational and immortal, though fallen head, with reference to the better hopes and destiny in prospect. From the very first they gave promise of a restored condition to the fallen; and by the use afterwards made of them, the light became clearer and more distinct. By their designations, the positions assigned them, the actions from time to time ascribed to them, as well as their own peculiar structure, it was intimated that the good in prospect should be secured, not at the expense of, but in perfect consistence with, the claims of God’s righteousness; that restoration to the holiness must precede restoration to the blessedness of life; and that only by being made capable of dwelling [[@Page:279]] beside the presence of the only Wise and Good, could man hope to have his portion of felicity recovered. But all this, they further betokened, it was in God’s purpose to have accomplished; and so to do it, as, at the same time, to raise humanity to a higher than its original destination—in its standing nearer to God, and greatly ennobled in its powers of life and capacities of working.

Before passing from the subject of the cherubim, we must briefly notice some of the leading views that have been entertained by others respecting them. These will be found to rest upon a part merely of the representations of Scripture to the exclusion of others, and most commonly to a neglect of what we hold it to be of especial moment to keep prominently in view—the historical use of the cherubim of Scripture. That such must be the case with an opinion once very prevalent both among Jews and Christians, and not without its occasional advocates still,[6] which held them to be celestial existences, or more specifically angels, is obvious at first sight. For, the component parts of the cherubic appearance being all derived from the forms of being which have their local habitation on earth, it is terrestrial, as contradistinguished from celestial objects, which we are necessitated to think of. And their original position at the east of Eden would have been inexplicable, as connected with a religion of hope, if celestial and not earthly natures had been represented in them. The natural conclusion in that case must have been, that the way of life was finally lost for man. In the Apocalypse, too, they are expressly distinguished from the angels; and in ch. [[5 >> Bible:Re 5:1-14]] the living creatures and the elders form one distinct chorus ([[ver. 8 >> Bible:Re 5:8]] ), while the angels form another ([[ver. 11 >> Bible:Re 5:11]] ). There is more of verisimilitude in another and at present more prevalent opinion, that the cherubim represent the Church of the redeemed. This opinion has often been propounded, and quite recently has been set forth in a separate work on the cherubim.[7] It evidently fails, however, to account [[@Page:280]] satisfactorily for their peculiar structure, and is of a too concrete and specific character to have been represented by such ideal and shifting formations as the cherubim of Scripture.

These are more naturally conceived to have had to do with natures than with persons. Besides, it is plainly inconsistent with the place occupied by the cherubim in the Apocalyptic vision, where the four and twenty crowned elders obviously represent the Church of the redeemed. To ascribe the same office to the cherubim would be to suppose a double and essentially different representation of the same object. To avoid this objection, Vitringa (Obs. Sac. i. 846) modified the idea so as to make the cherubim in the Revelation (for he supposed those mentioned in Gen. 3:24 to have been angels) the representatives of such as hold stations of eminence in the Church, evangelists and ministers, as the elders were of the general body of believers. But it is an entirely arbitrary notion, and destitute of support in the general representations of Scripture; as, indeed, is virtually admitted by the learned author, in so peculiarly connecting it with the vision of St John. An opinion which finds some colour of support only in a single passage, and loses all appearance of probability when applied to others, is self-confuted.

It was the opinion of Michaelis, an opinion bearing a vivid impress of the general character of his mind, that the cherubim were a sort of “thunder horses “of Jehovah, somewhat similar to the horses of Jupiter among the Greeks. This idea has so much of a heathen aspect, and so little to give it even an apparent countenance in Scripture, that no further notice need be taken of it. More acceptance on the continent has been found for the view of Herder, who regards the cherubim as originally feigned monsters, like the dragons or griffins, which were the fabled guardians among the ancients of certain precious treasures. Hence he thinks the cherubim are represented as first of all appointed to keep watch at the closed gates of paradise; and for the same reason were afterwards placed by Moses in the presence-chamber of God, which the people generally were not permitted to enter. Latterly, however, he admits they were differently employed, but more after a poetical fashion, and as creatures of the imagination. This admission obviously implies that the view [[@Page:281]] will not stand an examination with all the passages of Scripture bearing on the subject. Indeed, we shall not be far wrong if we say, that it can stand an examination with none of them. The cherubim were not set up even in Eden as formidable monsters to fray sinful man from approaching it. They were not needed for such a purpose, as this was sufficiently effected by the flaming sword. Nor were they placed at the door, or about the threshold of the sanctuary, to guard its sanctity, as on that hypothesis they should have been, but formed a part of the furniture of its innermost region. And the later notices of the cherubim in Scripture, which confessedly present them in a different light, are not by any means independent and arbitrary representations: they have a close affinity, as we have seen, with the earlier statements; and we cannot doubt that the same fundamental character is to be found in all the representations.

Spencer’s idea of the cherubim was of a piece with his views generally of the institutions of Moses: they were of Egyptian origin, and were formed in imitation of those monstrous compounds which played so prominent a part in the sensuous worship of that cradle of superstition and idolatry. Such composite forms, however, were by no means so peculiar to Egypt as Spencer represents. They were common to heathen antiquity, and are even understood to have been more frequently used in the East than in Egypt. Nor is it unworthy of notice, that of all the monstrous combinations which are mentioned in ancient writings, and which the more successful investigations of later times have brought to light from the remains of Egyptian idolatry, not one has an exact resemblance to the cherub: the four creature-forms combined in it seem never to have been so combined in Egypt; and the only thing approaching to it yet discovered, is to be found in India. It is quite gratuitous, therefore, to assert that the cherubim were of Egyptian origin. But even if similar forms had been found there, it would not have settled the question, either as to the proper origin or the real nature of the cherubim. If they were placed in Eden after the fall, they had a known character and habitation in the world many centuries before Egypt had a being. And then, whatever composite images might be found in Egypt or other idolatrous nations, these, in accordance with the whole character of heathen [[@Page:282]] idolatry, which was essentially the deification of nature, must have been representations of the Godhead itself, as symbolized by the objects of nature; while the cherubim are uniformly represented as separate from God, and as ministers of righteousness before Him. So well was this understood among the Israelites, that even in the most idolatrous periods of their history, the cherubim never appear among the instruments of their false worship. This separate and creaturely character of the cherubim is also fatal to the opinion of those who regard them as “emblematical of the ever-blessed Trinity in covenant to redeem man,” which is, besides, utterly at variance with the position of the cherubim in the temple; for how could God be said to dwell between the ever-blessed Trinity?[8] And the same objections apply to another opinion, closely related to this, according to which the cherubim represent, not the Godhead person ally, but the attributes and perfections of God; are held to be symbolical personifications of these as manifested in God’s works and ways. This view has been adopted with various modifications by persons of great name, and of very different tendencies—such as Philo, Grotius, Bochart, Rosenmüller, De Wette; but it is not supported either by the fundamental nature of the cherubim or by their historical use. We cannot perceive, indeed, how the cherubim could really have been regarded as symbols of the Divine perfections, or personifications of the Divine attributes, without falling under the ban of the second commandment. It would surely have been an incongruity to have forbidden, in the strongest terms and with the severest penalties, the making of any likeness of God, and, at the same time, to have set up certain symbolical images of His perfections in the very region of His presence, and in immediate contact with His throne. No corporeal representation could consistently be admitted there of anything but what directly pointed to creaturely [[@Page:283]] existences, and their relations and interests. And the nearest possible connection with God which we can conceive the cherubim to have been intended to hold, was that of shadowing forth how the creatures of His hand, and (originally) the bearers of His image on earth, might become so replenished with His spirit of holiness as to be, in a manner, the shrines of His indwelling and gracious presence.

Bähr, in his Symbolik, approaches more nearly to this view than any of the preceding ones, and theoretically avoids the more special objection we have urged against it; but it is by a philosophical refinement too delicate, especially without some accompanying explanation, to catch the apprehension of a comparatively unlearned and sensuous people. The cherubim, he conceives, were images of the creation in its highest parts—combining in a concentrated shape the most perfect forms of creature-life on earth, and, as such, serving as representatives of all creation. But the powers of life in creation are the signs and witnesses of those which, without limit or imperfection, are in God; and so the relative perfection of life exhibited in the cherubim symbolized the absolute perfection of life that is in God—His omniscience, His peerless majesty, His creative power, His unerring wisdom. The cherub was not an image of the Creator, but it was an image of the Creator’s manifested glory. We repeat, this is far too refined and shadowy a distinction to lie at the base of a popular religion, and to serve for instruction to a people surrounded on every hand by the gross forms and dense atmosphere of idolatry. It could scarcely have failed, in the circumstances, to lead to the worship of the cherubim, as, reflectively at least, the worthiest representations of God which could be conceived by men on earth. But if this evil could have been obviated, which we can only think of as an inseparable consequence, there is another and still stronger attaching to the view, which we may call an inseparable ingredient. For if the cherubim were representatives of created life, and thence factitious witnesses of the Creator’s glory; if such were the sum and substance of what was represented in them, then it was after all but a symbol of things in nature; and, unlike all the other symbols in the religion of the Old Testament, it must have borne no respect to God’s work, and character, and [[@Page:284]] purposes of grace. That religion was one essentially adapted to the condition, the necessities, and desires of fallen man; and the symbolical forms and institutions belonging to it bear respect to God’s nature and dealings, not so much in connection with the gifts and properties of creation, as with the principles of righteousness and the hopes of salvation. If the cherubim are held to be symbolical only of what is seen of God in nature, they stand apart from this properly religious province: they have no real adaptation to the circumstances of a fallen world; they have to do simply with creative, not with redemptive manifestations of God; and so far as they are concerned, the religion of the Old Testament would after all have been, like the different forms of heathenism, a mere nature-religion. No further proof surely is needed of the falseness of the view in question; for, in a scheme of worship so wonderfully compact, and skilfully arranged toward a particular end, the supposition of a heterogeneous element at the centre is not to be entertained.

We have already referred to the view of Hengstenberg, and shown its incompatibility to some extent with the scriptural representations. His opinions upon this subject, indeed, appear to have been somewhat fluctuating. In one of his earlier productions, his work on the Pentateuch, he expresses his concurrence with Bähr, and even goes so far as to say, that he regarded Bähr’s treatment of the cherubim as the most successful part of the Symbolik. Then in his Egypt and the Books of Moses, he gave utterance to an opinion at variance with the radical idea of Bähr, that the cherubim had a connection, both in nature and origin, with the sphinxes of Egypt. And in his work on the Revelation, he expressly opposes Bähr’s view, and holds that the living forms in the cherubim were merely the representation of all that is living on the earth. But representing the higher things on earth, they also naturally serve as representations of the earth itself; and God’s appearing enthroned above the cherubim symbolized the truth, that He is the God of the whole earth, and has everything belonging to it, matter and mind, subject to His control. As mentioned before, this view, if correct, would have required the position of the cherubim to be always very distinctly and manifestly below the throne of God; which, however, it does not appear to have been, except when the manifestation described was primarily for judgment. It leaves unexplained also the prominence given in the cherubic delineations to the form and likeness of man, and the circumstance that the cherubim should, in the Revelation, be nearer to the throne than the elders— placing, according to that view, the creation, merely as such, nearer than the Church. But the representation errs, rather as giving a partial and limited view of the truth, than maintaining what is absolutely contrary to it. It approaches, in our judgment, much nearer to the right view than that more recently set forth by Delitzsch, who considers the cherubim as simply the bearers of Jehovah’s chariot, and as having been placed originally at the eastern gate of Paradise, as if to carry Him aloft to heaven for the execution of judgment, should mankind proceed farther in the course of iniquity. A conceivable notion certainly! but leaving rather too much to the imagination for so early an age, and scarcely taking the form best fitted for working either on men’s fears or hopes! In the second edition of his work, published since the preceding was written, the learned author has somewhat modified his view of the cherubim. He still regards them as the bearers of Jehovah’s chariot; but lays stress chiefly upon the general idea that they appeared as the jealous guardians of Jehovah’s presence and glory—therefore, watchers by way of eminence. As this view has been already noticed, it does not call for any fresh consideration.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Hofmann has lately revived the notion, that כְּרוּב (cherub) is simply: רְכוּב (chariot), with a not unusual transposition of letters; and conceives the name to have been given to the cherubim on account of their being employed as the chariot or throne of Jehovah (Weissagung und Erfüllung, L, p. 80). Delitzsch, too, is not disinclined to this derivation and meaning, though he would rather derive the term from כָּרַב (to lay hold of), and understands it of the cherubim as laying hold of and bearing away the throne of Jehovah (Die Genesis Ausgelegt, p. 46). Thenius in his Comm. on Kings also adopts this derivation, but applies it differently. Both derivations, and the ideas respecting the cherubim they are intended to support, are quite conjectural.

[2] Vitringa justly remarks as to the difference between St John’s representation and Ezekiel’s respecting the faces, that “it is not of essential moment; for the beasts most intimately connected together form, as it were, one beast-existence, and it is a matter of indifference whether all the properties are represented as belonging to each of the four, or singly to each.”

[3] Hengstenberg, in his remarks on Rev. 4:7, regarding the cherubim as simple representations of the animal creation on earth, objects to any symbolical meaning being attached to the separate animal forms, on the special ground, that in that passage of Revelation it is the calf, not the ox, which is mentioned in the description—as it is also found once in the description of Ezekiel, ch. 1:7. He thinks this cannot be accidental, but must have been designed to prevent our attributing to it the symbolical meaning of productiveness, or such like; as no one would think of associating that idea with a calf. We are surprised at so weak an objection from such a quarter. There can be no doubt—and it is not only admitted but contended for by Hengstenberg himself in his Beiträge, i., p. 161, sq.—that in connection with that symbolical meaning the ox-worship of Egypt was erected, and from Egypt was introduced among the Israelites at Sinai, and again by Jeroboam at a later period. Yet in Scripture it is always spoken of, not as ox, or bull, or cow, but as calf-worship. This conclusively shows that, symbolically viewed, no distinction was made between ox and calf. And in the description of such figures as the cherubim, calf might very naturally be substituted for ox, simply on account of the smaller and more delicate outline which the form would present. It is possible the same appearance may partly have contributed to the idols at Bethel and Dan being designated calves rather than oxen.

[4] We say only perhaps; for though Hengstenberg and others lay much stress upon the number four, as the signature of the earth, yet there being only two in the tabernacle, would seem to indicate that nothing material depends on the number. We think that the increase from the original two to four may, with more probability of truth, be accounted for historically. When the temple was built, two cherubim of immense proportions were put into the Most Holy Place, and under these were placed the ark with its old and smaller cherubim: so that there were henceforth actually four cherubim over the ark. And as the form of Ezekiel’s vision, in its leading elements, was evidently taken from the temple, and John’s again from that, it seems quite natural to account for the four in this way.

[5] Text: Compare what is said on this subject in “Prophecy in its Distinctive Nature,” etc., p. 404, 5.

[6] Text: Elliott’s Horse Apoc. Introd.; partially adopted also, and especially in regard to the cherubim of Eden, by Mr Mills in a little work on Sacred Symbology, p. 136.

[7] Text: Doctrine of the Cherubim, by George Smith, F.A.S.

[8] It is Parkhurst, and the Hutchinsonian school, who are the patrons of this ridiculous notion. Horsley makes a most edifying improvement upon it, with reference to modern times: “The cherub was a compound figure, the calf (of Jeroboam) single. Jeroboam, therefore, and his subjects were Unitarians!”—(Works, vol. viii., 241). He forgot, apparently, that there were four parts in the cherub; so that not a trinity, but a quaternity, would have been the proper co-relative under the Gospel.

Chapter Fourth.—Sacrificial Worship.

[[@Page:286]] THE symbols to which our attention has hitherto been directed, were simply ordinances of teaching. They spake in language not to be mistaken of the righteous character of God, of the evil of sin, of the moral and physical ruin it had brought upon the world, of a purpose of grace and a prospect of recovery; but they did no more. There were no rites of service associated with them; nor of themselves did they call men to embody in any outward action the knowledge and principles they were the means of imparting. But religion must have its active services as well as its teaching ordinances. The one furnish light and direction, only that the other may be intelligently performed. And a symbolical religion, if it could even be said to exist, could certainly not have perpetuated itself, or kept alive the knowledge of Divine truth in the world, without the regular employment of one or more symbolical institutions fitted for the suitable expression of religious ideas and feelings. Now the only thing of this description which makes its appearance in the earlier periods of the world’s history, and which continued to hold, through all the after stages of symbolical worship, the paramount place, is the rite of sacrifice.

We are not told, however, of the actual institution of this rite in immediate connection with the fall; and the silence of inspired history regarding it till Cain and Abel had reached the season of manhood, and the mention of it then simply as a matter of fact in the narrative of their lives, has given rise to much disputation concerning the origin of sacrifice—whether it was of Divine appointment, or of human invention? And if the latter, to what circumstances in man’s condition, or to what views and feelings naturally arising in his mind, might it owe its existence? In the investigation of these questions, a line of inquiry has not unfrequently been pursued by theologians, more [[@Page:287]] befitting the position of philosophical reasoners than of Christian divines. The solution has been sought for chiefly in the general attributes of human nature, and the practices of a remote and semi-barbarous heathenism, as if Scripture were entirely silent upon the subject till we come far down the stream of time. Discarding such a mode of conducting the investigation, and looking to the notices of Scripture for our only certain light upon the subject, we hope, without material difficulty, to find our way to conclusions on the leading points connected with it, which may be generally acquiesced in as legitimately drawn and firmly established.

1. In regard, first of all, to the Divine authority and accept able nature of worship by sacrifice,—which is often mixed up with the consideration of its origin,—Scripture leaves very little room for controversy. The only debateable ground, as concerns this aspect of the matter, respects that very limited period of time which stretches from the fall of Adam to the offerings of Cain and Abel. From this latter period,—verging, too, on the very commencement of the world’s history,—we are expressly informed that sacrifice of one kind had a recognised place in the worship of God, and met with His acceptance. Not only did Abel appear before God with a sacrificial offering, but by a visible token of approval—conveyed in all probability through some action of the cherubim or the flaming sword, near which, as the seat of the manifested presence of God, the service would naturally be performed—the seal was given of the Divine acceptance and blessing. Thenceforth, at least, sacrifice presented after the manner of Abel’s might be regarded as of Divine authority. It bore distinctly impressed upon it the warrant and approbation of Heaven; and whatever uncertainty might hang around it during the brief space which intervened between the fall and the time of Abel’s accepted offering, it was from that time determined to be a mode of worship with which God was well pleased. We might rather say the mode of worship; for sacrifice, accompanied, it is probable, with some words of prayer, is the only stated act of worship by which believers in the earlier ages appear to have given more formal expression to their faith and hope in God. When it is said of the times of Enos, the grandson of Adam in the pious line of Seth, that “then [[@Page:288]] men began to call upon the name of the Lord,” there can be little doubt that they did so after the example of Abel, by the presentation of sacrifice—only, as profiting by the fatal result of his personal dispute with Cain, in a more public and regularly concerted manner. It appears to have been then agreed among the worshippers of Jehovah, what offerings to present, and how to do so; as, in later times, it is frequently reported of Abraham and his family, in connection with their having built an altar, that they then “called upon the name of the Lord.”—(Gen. 12:8, 13:4, 26:25) That sacrifice held the same place in the instituted worship of God after the deluge, which it had done before, we learn, first of all, from the case of Noah—the connecting link between the old and new worlds—who no sooner left the ark than he built an altar to the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings of every clean beast and fowl, from which the Lord is said to have smelled a sweet savour. In the delineation given of the earlier patriarchal times in the Book of Job, we find him not only spoken of as exhibiting his piety in the stated presentation of burnt-offerings, but also as expressly required by God to make sacrifice for the atonement of his friends, who had sinned with their lips in speaking what was not right. And as we have undoubted testimonies respecting the acceptable character of the worship performed by Abraham and his chosen seed, so we learn that in this worship sacrificial offerings played the principal part, and were even sometimes directly enjoined by God.—(Gen. 15:9, 10, 17, 22:2, 13, 35:1, etc.)

The very latest of these notices in sacred history carry us up to a period far beyond that to which the authentic annals of any heathen kingdom reach, while the earliest refer to what occurred only a few years subsequent to the fall. From the time of Abel, then, downwards through the whole course of antediluvian and patriarchal history, it appears that the regular and formal worship of God mainly consisted in the offering of sacrifice, and that this was not rendered by a sort of religious venture on the part of the worshippers, but with the known sanction, and virtual, if not explicit, appointment of God. As regards the right of men to draw near to God with such offerings, and their hope of acceptance at His hands, no shadow of doubt can fairly be said to rest upon any portion of the field of inquiry, except what may [[@Page:289]] relate to the worship of the parents themselves of the human family.

2. It is well to keep in view the clear and satisfactory deliverance we obtain on this branch of the subject. And if we could ascertain definitely what were the views and feelings expressed by the worshippers in the kind of sacrifice which was accepted by God, the question of its precise origin would be of little moment; since, so recently after the institution of the rite, we have unequivocal evidence of its being divinely owned and approved, as actually offered. But it is here that the main difficulty presents itself, as it is only indirectly we can gather the precise objects for which the primitive race of worshippers came before God with sacrificial offerings. The question of their origin still is of moment for ascertaining this, and at the same time for determining the virtue possessed by the offerings in the sight of God. If they arose simply in the devout feelings of the worshipper, they might have been accepted by God as a natural and proper form for the expression of these feelings; but they could not have borne any typical respect to the higher sacrifice of Christ, as, in the things of redemption, type and antitype must be alike of God. And on this point we now proceed to remark negatively, that the facts already noticed concerning the first appearance and early history of sacrifice, present insuperable objections to all the theories which have sought on simply natural grounds to account for its human origin.

The theory, for example, which has received the suffrage of many learned men, both in this country and on the Continent,[1] and which attempts to explain the rise of sacrifice by a reference to the feelings of men when they were in the state of rudest barbarism, capable of entertaining only the most gross and carnal ideas of God, and consequently disposed to deal with Him much as they would have done with a fellow-creature, whose favour they desired to win by means of gifts,—this theory is utterly at variance with the earlier notices of sacrificial worship. It is founded upon a sense of the value of property, and of the effect wont to be produced by gifts of property between man and man, which could not have been acquired at a period when society as [[@Page:290]] yet consisted only of a few individuals, and these the members of a single family. And whether the gift were viewed in the light of a compensation, a bribe, or a feast (for each in different hands has had its share in giving a particular shape to the theory), no sacrifice offered with such a view could have met with the Divine favour and acceptance. The feeling that prompted it must in that case have been degrading to God, indeed essentially idolatrous; and the whole history of patriarchal worship, in which God always appears to look so benignly on the offerings of believing worshippers, reclaims against the idea.

Of late, however, it has been more commonly sought to account for the origin of sacrifice, by viewing it as a symbolical act, such as might not unnaturally have suggested itself to men, in any period of society, from the feelings or practices with which their personal experience, or the common intercourse of life, made them familiar. But very different modes of explaining the symbol have been resorted to by those who concur in the same general view of its origination. Omitting the minor shades of difference which have arisen from an undue regard being had to distinctively Mosaic elements, Sykes, in his Essay on Sacrifice, raised his explanation on the ground, that “eating and drinking together were the known ordinary symbols of friendship, and were the usual rites of engaging in covenants and leagues.” And in this way some plausible things may doubtless be said of sacrifice, as it appeared often in the later ages of heathenism, and also on some special occasions among the covenant people. But nothing that can seem even a probable account is thereby given of the offerings presented by believers in the first ages of the world. For it is against all reason to suppose that such a symbol of friendship should then have been in current use,—not to mention that the offerings of that period seem to have been precisely of the class in which no part was eaten by the worshippers—holocausts. Warburton laid the ground more deeply, and with greater show of probability, when he endeavoured to trace the origin of sacrifice to the ancient mode of converse by action, to aid the defects and imperfections of early language,—this being, in his opinion, sufficient to account for men being led to adopt such a mode of worship, whether the sacrifice might be eucharistical, propitiatory, or expiatory. Gratitude for good bestowed, [[@Page:291]] he conceives, would lead the worshipper to present, by an expressive action, the first-fruits of agriculture or pasturage—the eucharistical offering. The desire of the Divine favour or protection in the business of life would, in like manner, dispose him to dedicate a portion of what was to be sown or propagated—the propitiatory. And for sacrifices of an expiatory kind, the sense of sin would prompt him to take some chosen animal, precious to the repenting criminal who deprecated, or supposed to be obnoxious to the Deity who was to be appeased, and slay it at the altar, in an action which, in all languages when translated into words, speaks to this purpose: “I confess my transgressions at Thy footstool, O my God; and with the deepest contrition implore Thy pardon, confessing that I deserve the death which I inflict on this animal.”[2] If for the infliction of death, which Warburton here represents as the chief feature in the action of expiatory sacrifice, we substitute the pouring out of the blood, or simply the giving away of the life to God, there is no material difference between his view of the origin of such sacrifices, and that recently propounded by Bähr. This ingenious and learned writer rejects the idea of sacrifice having come from any supernatural teaching or special appointment of God, as this would imply that man needed extraneous help to direct him, whether he was to sacrifice, or how he was to do it. He maintains, that “as the idea of God, and its necessary expression, was not something that came upon humanity from without, nothing taught it, but something immediate, an original fact; so also is sacrifice the form of that expression. From the point of view at which we are wont to contemplate things, separating the divine from the natural, the spiritual from the corporeal, this [[@Page:292]] form must indeed always present a strange appearance. But if we throw ourselves back on that mode of contemplation which views the divine and spiritual as inseparable from the natural and corporeal, we shall find nothing so far out of the way in man’s feeling himself constrained to represent the internal act of the giving up of his whole life and being to the Godhead—and in that all religion lives and moves through the external giving away of an animal, perhaps, which he loved as himself, or on which he himself lived, and which stood in the closest connection with his own existence.”[3] Something of a like nature (though exhibited in a form more obviously liable to objection) has also received the sanction of Tholuck, who, in the Dissertation on Sacrifices, appended to his Commentary on Hebrews, affirms, that “an offering was originally a gift to the Deity—a gift by which man strives to make up the deficiency of the always imperfect surrender of himself to God.” And in regard especially to burnt-offerings, he says: “Both objects, that of thanksgiving and of propitiation, were connected with them: on the one hand, gratitude required man to surrender what was external as well as internal to God; and, on the other hand, the surrender of an outward good was considered as a substitution, a propitiation for that which was still deficient in the internal surrender.”[4] A salvation, it would seem, by works so far, and only where these failed,—a calling in of extraneous and supplementary resources!

These different modes of explanation are manifestly one in principle, and are but varying aspects of the same fundamental view. In each form it lies open to three serious objections, which together appear to us quite conclusive against it. 1. First, the analogy of God’s method of dealing with His Church in the matter of Divine worship, at other periods in her history, is opposed to the simply human theory in any of its forms. Certainly at no other era did God leave His people altogether to their own inventions for the discovery of an acceptable mode of approaching Him, and of giving expression to their religious feelings. Some indications He has always given of what in this respect might be accordant with His mind, and suitable to the position which His worshippers occupied in His kingdom. The extent to [[@Page:293]] which this directing influence was carried, formed one of the leading characteristics of the dispensation brought in by Moses; the whole field of religious worship was laid under Divine prescription, and guarded against the inventions of men. But even in the dispensation of the Gospel, which is distinguished for the spirituality of its nature, and its comparative freedom from legal enactments and the observance of outward forms, the leading ordinances of Divine worship are indicated with sufficient plainness, and what has no foundation in the revealed word is expressly denounced as “will-worship.” And if the Church of the New Testament, with all her advantages of a completed revelation, a son-like freedom, and an unction from the Holy One, that is said to “teach her all things,” was not without some direction and control in regard to the proper celebration of God’s service, is it conceivable that all should have been left utterly loose and indeterminate, when men were still in the very infancy of a fallen condition, and their views of spiritual truth and duty only in the forming? Where, in that case, would have been God’s jealousy for the purity of His worship? And where, we may also ask, His compassion toward men? He had disclosed to them purposes of grace, and awakened in their bosoms the hope of a recovery from the ruin they had incurred; but to set them adrift without even pointing to any ordinance fitted to meet their sense of sin, and reassure their hearts before God, would have been to leave the exhibition of mercy strangely defective and incomplete. For while they knew they had to do with a God of grace and forgiveness, they should still have been in painful uncertainty how to worship and serve Him, so as to get a personal experience of His blessing, and how, especially when conscience of sin troubled them anew, they might have the uneasiness allayed. Never surely was the tenderness of God more needed to point the way to what was acceptable and right, than in such a day of small things for the children of hope. And if it had not been shown, the withholding of it could scarcely seem otherwise than an exception to the general analogy of God’s dealings with men. 2. But, secondly, the simply human theory of the origin of sacrifice is met by an unresolved, and, on that supposition we are persuaded, an unresolvable difficulty in respect to the nature of ancient sacrifice. For as the earliest, and indeed the [[@Page:294]] only recorded mode of sacrifice in primitive times, among acceptable worshippers of God, consisted in the offering of slain victims, it seems impossible that this particular form of sacrifice should have been fallen upon at first, without some special direction from above. Let the symbolical action be viewed in either of the shades of meaning formerly described,—as expressive of the offerer’s deserved death, or of the surrender of his life to God, or as a propitiatory substitution to compensate for the conscious defect of such surrender,—either way, how could he have imagined that the devoting to death of a living creature of God should have been the appropriate mode of expressing the idea? Death is so familiar to us, as regards the inferior creation, and so much associated with the means of our support and comfort, that it might seem a light thing to put an animal to death for any purpose connected with the wants or even the convenience of men. But the first members of the human family were in different circumstances. They must have shrunk unless divinely authorized from inflicting death on any, and especially on the higher forms of the animal creation; since death, in so far as they had themselves to do with it, was the peculiar expression of God’s displeasure on account of sin. All, indeed, belonging to that creation were to be subject to them. Their appointment from the very first was to subdue the earth, and render everything in it subservient to their legitimate use. But this use did not originally include a right to deprive animals of their life for the sake of food; the grant of flesh for that end was only given at the deluge. And that they should yet have thought it proper and becoming to shed the blood of animals merely to express a religious idea, nay, should have regarded that as so emphatically the appropriate way of worshipping God, that for ages it seems to have formed the more peculiar medium of approach to Him, can never be rationally accounted for without something on the part of God directing them to such a course. 3. Finally, the theories now under consideration are still farther objectionable, in that they are confronted by a specific fact, which was evidently recorded for the express purpose of throwing light on the original worship of fallen man, and with which their advocates have never been able to reconcile them—the fact of Abel’s accepted offering from the flock, as contrasted with the [[@Page:295]] rejection of Cain’s from the produce of the field.—(Gen. 4; Heb. 11:4) The offerings of the two brothers differed, we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the account in Genesis implies as much, not only in regard to the outward oblation—the one being a creature with life, the other without it—but also in the principle which moved the two brothers respectively to present them. That principle in Abel was faith; not this, therefore, but something else, in Cain. And as it was faith which both rendered Abel’s sacrifice in itself more excellent than Cain’s, and drew down upon it the seal of Heaven’s approval, the kind of faith meant must obviously have been something more than a mere general belief in the being of God, or His readiness to accept an offering of service from the hands of men. Faith in that sense must have been possessed by him who offered amiss, as well as by him who offered with acceptance. It must have been a more special exercise of faith which procured the acceptance of Abel—faith having respect not simply to the obligation of approaching God with some kind of offering, but to the duty of doing so with a sacrifice like that actually rendered, of the flock or the herd. But whence could such faith have come, if there had not been a testimony or manifestation of God for it to rest upon, which the one brother believingly apprehended, and the other scornfully slighted? We see no way of evading this conclusion, without misinterpreting and doing violence to the plain import of the account of Scripture on the subject. Taking this in its obvious and natural meaning, Cain is presented to our view as a child of nature, not of grace as one obeying the impulse and direction only of reason, and rejecting the more explicit light of faith as to the kind of service he presented to his Maker. His oblation is an undoubted specimen of what man could do in his fallen state to originate proper ideas of God, and give fitting expression to these in outward acts of worship. But unhappily for the advocates of nature’s sufficiency in the matter, it stands condemned in the inspired record as a presumptuous and disallowed act of will-worship. Abel, on the other hand, appears as one who through grace had become a child of faith, and by faith first spiritually discerning the mind of God, then reverently following the course it dictated, by presenting that more excellent sacrifice (πλείονα θυσίαν) of the firstlings of the flock, with which God was well pleased.

[[@Page:296]] On every account, therefore, the conclusion seems inevitable, that the institution of sacrifice must have been essentially of Divine origin; for though we cannot appeal to any record of its direct appointment by God, yet there are notices concerning sacrificial worship which cannot be satisfactorily explained on the supposition, in any form, of its merely human origin. There is a recorded fact, however, which touches the very borders of the subject, and which, we may readily perceive, furnished a Divine foundation on which a sacrificial worship, such as is mentioned in Scripture, might be built. It is the fact noticed at the close of God’s interview with our first parents after the fall: “And unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them.” The painful sense of nakedness that oppressed them after their transgression, was the natural offspring of a consciousness of sin—an instinctive fear lest the unveiled body should give indication of the evil thoughts and dispositions which now lodged within. Hence, to get relief to this uneasy feeling, they made coverings for themselves of such things as seemed best adapted to the purpose, out of that vegetable world which had been freely granted for their use. They girded themselves about with fig-leaves. But they soon found that this covering proved of little avail to hide their shame, where most of all they needed to have it hidden; it left them miserably exposed to the just condemnation of their offended God. If a real and valid covering should be obtained, sufficient to relieve them of all uneasiness, God Himself must provide it. And so He actually did. As soon as the promise of mercy had been disclosed to the offenders, and the constitution of mingled goodness and severity brought in, he made coats to clothe them with, and these coats of skins. But clothing so obtained argued the sacrifice of life in the animal that furnished them; and thus, through the death of an inferior yet innocent living creature, was the needed relief brought to their disquieted and fearful bosoms. The outward and corporeal here manifestly had respect to the inward and spiritual. The covering of their nakedness was a gracious token from the hand of God, that the sin which had alienated them from Him, and made them conscious of uneasiness, was henceforth to be in His sight as if it were not; so that in covering their flesh, He at the same time covered [[@Page:297]] their consciences. If viewed apart from this higher symbolical aim, the outward act will naturally appear small and unworthy of God; but so to view it were to dissever it from the very reason of its performance. It was done purposely to denote the covering of guilt from the presence of God—an act which God alone could have done. But He did it, as we have seen, by a medium of death, by a sacrifice of life in those creatures which men were not yet permitted to kill for purposes of food, and in connection with a constitution of grace which laid open the prospect of recovered life and blessing to the fallen. Surely it is not attributing to the venerable heads of the human family, persons who had so recently walked with God in paradise, an incredible power of spiritual discernment, or supposing them to stretch unduly the spiritual import of this particular action of God, if we should conceive them turning the Divine act into a ground of obligation and privilege for themselves, and saying, Here is Heaven’s own finger pointing out the way for obtaining relief to our guilty consciences; the covering of our shame is to be found by means of the skins of irrational creatures, slain in our behalf; their life for our lives, their clothing of innocence for our shame; and we cannot err, we shall but show our faith in the mercy and forgiveness we have experienced, if, as often as the sense of shame and guilt returns upon our consciences, we follow the footsteps of the Lord, and, by a renewed sacrifice of life, clothe ourselves anew with His own appointed badge of acquittal and acceptance.

We are not to be understood as positively affirming that our first parents and their believing posterity reasoned thus, or that they actually had no more of instruction to guide them. We merely say, that they may quite naturally have so reasoned, and that we have no authority from the inspired record to suppose that any further instruction was communicated. Indeed, nothing more seems strictly necessary for the first beginnings of a sacrificial worship. And it was still but the age for beginnings; in what was taught and done, we should expect to find only the simplest forms of truth and duty. The Gospel, in its clearer announcements, even the law with its specific enactments, would then have been out of place. All that was absolutely required, and all that might be fairly expected, was some natural and expressive [[@Page:298]] act of God toward men, laying, when thoughtfully considered, the foundation of a religious service toward Him. The claims of the Sabbatical institution, and of the marriage union, had a precisely similar foundation—the one in God’s personal resting on the seventh day, hallowing and blessing it; the other in His formation of the first wife out of the first husband. It was simply the Divine procedure in these cases which formed the ground of man’s obligations; because that procedure was essentially a revelation of the mind and will of Godhead for the guidance of the rational beings who, being made in God’s image, were to find their glory and their well-being in appropriating His acts, and copying after His example. So here, God’s fundamental act in removing and covering out of sight the shame of conscious guilt in the first offenders, would both naturally and rightfully be viewed as a revelation of God, teaching them how, in henceforth dealing with Him, they were to proceed in effecting the removal of guilt, and appearing, notwithstanding it, in the presence of God. They found, in this Divine act, the key to a justified condition, and an acceptable intercourse with Heaven. Had they not done so, it would have been incapable of rational explanation, how a believing Abel should so soon have appeared in possession of it. Yet it could not have been rendered so palpable as to obtrude itself on the carnal and unbelieving; otherwise it would scarcely be less capable of explanation, how a self-willed Cain should so soon have ventured to disregard it. The ground of dissension between the two brothers must have been of a somewhat narrower and more debateable character, than if an explicit and formal direction had been given. And in the Divine act referred to—viewed in its proper light, and taken in connection with the whole circumstances of the time—there was precisely what might have tended to originate both results: enough of light to instruct the humble heart of faith, mainly intent on having pardon of sin and peace with God, and yet not too much to leave proud and unsanctified nature without an excuse for following a course more agreeable to its own inclinations.[5]

[[@Page:299]] 3. We thus hold sacrifice—sacrifice in the higher sense, not as expressive of dependence and thankfulness merely, but as connected with sin and forgiveness, expiatory sacrifice to have been, as to its foundation, of Divine origin. It had its rise in an act of God, done for the express purpose of relieving guilty consciences of their sense of shame and confusion; and from the earliest periods of recorded worship it stands forth to our view as the religious solemnity in which faith had its most peculiar exercise, and for which God bestowed the tokens of His acceptance and blessing. For the discussion of some collateral points belonging to the subject, and the disposal of a few objections, we refer to the Appendix.[6] And we now proceed here briefly to inquire what sacrifice, as thus originating and thus presented, symbolically expressed. What feelings on the part of the worshipper, what truths on the part of God, did it embody?

Partly, indeed, the inquiry has been answered already. It was impossible to conduct the discussion thus far without indicating the leading ideas involved in primitive sacrifice. It must be remembered, however, that we are still dealing with sacrifice in its simplest and most elementary form—radically, no doubt, the same as it was under the more complex and detailed arrangements [[@Page:300]] of the Mosaic ritual, but in comparison of that wanting much in fulness and variety. As employed by the first race of believing worshippers, a few leading points are all that it can properly be regarded as embracing.

(1.) Both from the manner of its origin, and its own essential nature, as involving in every act of worship the sacrifice of a creature’s life, it bore impressive testimony to the sinfulness of the offerer’s condition. Those who presented it could not but know that God was far from delighting in blood, and that death, either in man or beast, was not a thing in which He could be supposed to take pleasure. The explicit connection of death, also, with the first transgression, as the proper penalty of sin, was peculiarly fitted to suggest painful and humiliating thoughts in the minds of those who stood so near to the awful moment of the fall. And when death, under God’s own directing agency, was brought so prominently into the Divine service, and every act of worship, of the more solemn kind, carried in its bosom the life-blood of an innocent creature, what more striking memorial could they have had of the evil wrought in their condition by sin? With such an element of blood perpetually mingling in their services, they could not forget that they stood upon the floor of a broken covenant, and were themselves ever incurring anew the just desert of transgression.

(2.) Then, looking more particularly to the sanction and encouragement of God given to such a mode of worshipping Him, it bespoke their believing conviction of His reconcileable and gracious disposition toward them, notwithstanding their sinfulness. They gave here distinct and formal expression to their faith, that as they needed mercy, so they recognised God as ready to dispense it to those who humbly sought Him through this channel of communion. Such a faith, indeed, had been presumption, the groundless conceit of nature’s arrogancy or ignorance, if it had not had a Divine foundation to rest upon, and tokens of Divine acceptance in the acts of service it rendered. But these, as we have seen, it plainly had. So that a sacrificial worship thus performed bore evidence as well to the just expectations of mercy and forgiveness on the part of those who presented it, as to their uneasy sense of guilt and shame prompting them to do so.

[[@Page:301]] (3.) But, looking again to the original ground and authority of this sacrificial worship,—the act of God in graciously covering the shame and guilt of sin,—and to the seal of acceptance after wards set so peculiarly and emphatically on it, the great truth was expressed by it, on the part of God, that the taking away of life stood essentially connected with the taking away of sin; or, as expressed in later Scripture, that a without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” In accordance with the general character of the primeval constitution of things, this truth comes out, not as a formal enunciation of principle, or an authoritative enactment of Heaven, but as an embodied fact; a fact, in the first instance, of God’s hand, significantly indicating His mind and will, and then believingly contemplated, acted upon, substantially re-enacted by His sincere worshippers, with His clearly marked approval. The form may be regarded as peculiar, but not so the truth enshrined in it. This is common to all times, and, after holding a primary place in every phase of a preparatory religion, it rose at last to a position of transcendent importance in the work and kingdom of Christ. How far Adam and his immediate descendants might be able to descry, under their imperfect forms of worship, and the accompanying intimations of recovery, the ultimate ground in this respect of faith and hope for sinful men, can be to us only matter of vague conjecture or doubtful speculation. Their views would, perhaps, consider ably differ, according as their faith was more or less clear in its discernment, more or less lively in its perceptions of the truth couched under the symbolical acts and revelations of God. But unless more specific information was given them than is found in the sacred record (and we have no warrant to suppose there was more), the anticipations formed even by the most enlightened of those primitive believers, regarding the way and manner in which the blood of sacrifice was ultimately to enter into the plan of God, must have been comparatively vague and indefinite.

(4.) For us, however, who can read the symbol before us by the clear light of the Gospel, and from the high vantage-ground of a finished redemption can look back upon the temporary institutions that foreshadowed it, there is neither darkness nor uncertainty respecting the prophetic import of the primeval rite of sacrifice. We perceive there in the germ the fundamental [[@Page:302]] truth of that scheme of grace which was to provide for the complete and final restoration of a seed of blessing—the truth of a suffering Mediator, giving His life a ransom for many. Here again we behold the ends of revelation mutually embracing and contributing to throw light on each other. And as amid the perfected glories of Messiah’s kingdom all appears clustering around the Lamb that was slain, and doing homage to Him for His matchless humiliation and triumphant victory, so the earliest worship of believing humanity points to His coming sacrifice as the one ground of hope and security to the fallen. At a subsequent period, when believers were furnished with a fuller revelation and a more complicated worship, symbolical representations were given of many other and subordinate parts of the work of redemption. But when that worship existed in its simplest form, and embodied only the first elements of the truth, it was meet that what was ultimately to form the groundwork of the whole, should have been alone distinctly represented. And we shall not profit, as we should, by the contemplation of that one rite which stands so prominently out in the original worship of the believing portion of mankind, if it does not tend to deepen upon our minds the incomparable worth and importance of a crucified Redeemer, as the wisdom and power of God unto salvation.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Spencer de Leg. Heb. L. iii., c. 9. So also substantially, Priestly, H. Taylor, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Hofmann, etc.

[2] Warburton’s Div. Legation, B. ix., c. 2. Davison substantially adopts this view, with no other difference than that he conceives it unnecessary to make any account of the defects and imperfections of early language in explaining the origin of sacrifice; but, regarding “representation by action as gratifying to men who have every gift of eloquence,” and as singularly suited to great purposes of solemnity and impression,” he thinks “not simple adoration, not the naked and unadorned oblations of the tongue, but adoration invested in some striking and significative form, and conveyed by the instrumentality of material tokens, would be most in accordance with the strong energies of feeling, and the insulated condition of the primitive race.”—(Inquiry into the Origin and Intent of Sacrifice, p. 19, 20.)

[3] Bähr’s Symbolik, B. ii., p. 272.

[4] Biblical Cabinet, vol. xxxix., p. 252.

[5] Substantially the correct view was presented of this subject in a work by Dr Croly, though, like several other things in the same volume, attended with the twofold disadvantage, of not being properly grounded, and of being encumbered with some untenable positions. “God alone is described as in act, and His only act is that of clothing the two criminals. The whole passage is but one of many in which a rigid adherence to the text is the way of safety. The literal meaning at once exalts the rite and illustrates its purposes. . . . Adam in Paradise has no protection from the Divine wrath, but he needs none; he is pure. In his hour of crime, he finds the fatal difference between good and evil, feels that he requires protection from the eye of justice, and makes an ineffectual effort to supply that protection by his own means. But the expedient which cannot be supplied by man, is finally supplied by the Divine interposition. God clothes him, and his nakedness is the source of anguish and terror no more. The contrast of the materials of his imperfect and perfect clothing is equally impressive. Adam, in his first consciousness of having provoked the Divine displeasure, covers himself with the frail produce of the ground, the branch and leaf; but from the period of forgiveness he is clothed with the substantial product of the flock, the skin of the slain animal. If circumstances apparently so trivial as the clothing of our original parents are stated, what other reason can be assigned, than that they were not trivial, that they formed a marked feature of the Divine dispensation, and that they were important to be recorded for the spiritual guidance of man?—(Divine Providence, p. 194-196)

[6] Appendix D.

Chapter Fifth.—The Marriage Relation and The Sabbatical Institution.

[[@Page:303]] THE two ordinances of marriage and the Sabbath are here coupled together, as having so much in common, that they alike belonged to the primeval constitution of things, and were alike intended, without any formal alteration, to transmit their validity to times subsequent to the fall. They carried an import, and involved obligations, which should be co-extensive with the generations of mankind. Yet with this general agreement there is a specific difference, which is of moment as regards the point of view from which the subjects must here be contemplated. The formation of a partner for Adam out of a portion of his own frame, and the junction of the two under the direct sanction of their Maker, so as to form in a manner one flesh, however important in a social and economical respect, however fitted also to bear indirectly on the higher interests of the world, was still not formally of a religious nature. For the world’s secular well-being alone there were reasons amply sufficient to account for its Divine author resorting to such a method, when bringing into being the first family pair, and in them laying the foundations of the world’s social existence. For it was by an instructive and appropriate act, entwined with the very beginnings of social life on earth, that the essential conditions were to be exhibited—if exhibited so as to tell with permanent effect—of its right constitution and healthful working. And so far from being, as some have alleged, an unbecoming representation of the Divine character, a lowering of the Divine Majesty, that Eve should have been said to be formed out of Adam’s side, and thereafter presented to him as his own flesh and bone, on account of which they would turn the whole narrative into a myth, it will be found, when duly considered and viewed in the light of the important interests depending on it, every way worthy of the wise foresight and [[@Page:304]] paternal goodness of Deity. He has thus interwoven with the closing act of creation an imperishable moral lesson,—made it, indeed, the perpetual and impressive symbol of the great truth,—that the fundamental relation in family life was to consist in the union of one man and one woman; and these so bound together as that, while distinctions as to authority and power on the one side, and subordination and dependence on the other, should exist between them, they should still be regarded as a social unity—corporate manhood. So far from the Divine procedure in this violating our sense of the fitting and proper, or doing more than the circumstances of the case required, the records of history were not long in furnishing mournful evidence that it proved all too little to secure the end in view; it failed to perpetuate the intended unity and good order of families. Even among the chosen people, the practical inference drawn from it with instinctive sagacity and true spiritual insight by the first Adam. (“Therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh,” Gen. 2:24), came to be so much lost sight of, that it required to be announced afresh, and with sterner authority imposed, by the second Adam (Matt. 19:5, 6).

The Scriptural evidence for the deep significance of the Divine act in respect to the formation of Eve, and the nature of the marriage union founded on it, is both explicit and ample. But in the circumstances of the parents themselves of the human family, and also of those of their posterity who lived in the earlier ages of the world, it could scarcely have occurred to them to carry that significance into any sphere beyond that of the family life. Nothing in the prospect as yet held out to them of a restored condition, was fitted to give their ideas so definite a shape as to suggest a spiritual relationship formed after the model of this natural one; and in the religion of patriarchal, or even much later times, scarcely anything is found that bears this specific impress. As the result of God’s fuller manifestation of Himself and closer intimacy with His people in the wilderness, a kind of marriage union indeed is implied to have sprung up between them, since their defection from His service is represented under the light of an adultery or whoredom (Num. 14:33),—a style of representation which [[@Page:305]] became of frequent occurrence in the writings of the later prophets (Isa. 57:3; Jer. 3:9, 13:27; Ezek. 16, 23; Hos. 1, 2, etc.). In one or two passages also the Lord expressly takes to Himself the name of the husband of Israel, or speaks of Himself as having been married to them (Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:14). In the Book of Canticles this relation even forms the scene of a kind of spiritual drama; and in the [[45th >> Bible:Ps 45]] Psalm the hero of the piece, the King of Zion, is even represented as standing formally related to a queen who shares with Him in the honours of the kingdom, and by whom can only be understood the true Israel of God. It is not to be denied, however, that this series of Old Testament representations took its formal rise in the covenant engagement entered into at Sinai, and merely availed itself of the marriage-bond as one peculiarly adapted for portraying the obligations and advantages connected with fidelity to the engagement, or the guilt and folly of the reverse. In none of the passages does there seem any distinct reference to the primeval union in Eden; and rather as a fitting emblem, than a type in the proper sense, is the marriage relation in such cases employed much as also the relations of a pastor to his flock (Ps. 23; Ezek. 36; Zech. 11), of a husbandman to his vineyard (Ps. 80; Isa. 5:1-7; Ezek. 15), or of a king to his subjects (1 Sam. 8:7; Ps. 2, etc.).

We are not, therefore, disposed to connect with the religious worship or hopes which came in after the fall, any distinct reference to the marriage relation, viewed as growing out of Eve’s derivation from Adam, and subjection to him. In that particular form, and as an ideal pattern for the nourishment of faith and hope, it belongs to New rather than Old Testament times—the times, namely, when the Lord from heaven stands distinctly revealed in the character of the second Adam. As such, He also must have His spouse, and has it in part now; but shall have it in completeness hereafter, in the company of faithful souls who have been washed from their sins in His blood—the elect Church, which in all its members grows out of His root, lives by His life, and is called at once to share in His glory, and as an handmaid to minister to His will. So that the mystery of the primeval spouse (“a bone of Adam’s bone, flesh of his [[@Page:306]] flesh”) may justly be regarded as the mystery of the Church in her relation to Christ (Eph. 5:30-32; 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7, 21:2). But in this special aspect of the matter,—an aspect that belongs to creation rather than to strictly historical times,—it must be allowed to stand in some respects apart from the typical relations with which we have now properly to deal, and which all in a greater or less degree contributed to mould the religious views and feelings of fallen men.

It is otherwise in the respects now mentioned with the Sabbatical institution, which also belongs to the primeval constitution of things. This at once bore a directly religious aspect, and pointed to the future as well as the present. The record given of it tells us that “on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:2, 3). This procedure of God appears in such immediate contact with the work of creation (for in that respect the passage admits but of one fair interpretation), that the bearing it was intended to have on man’s views and obligations must primarily have had respect to his original destination; and if designed to lay the foundation of a stated order, this must have been one perfectly suited to the paradisiacal state. Yet a slight reflection might have sufficed to convince any thoughtful mind, that whatever significance it might have for the occupants of such a state, that could not be lost, but must even have been deepened and increased, by the circumstances of their fall from it.

In the procedure itself of God there may be noted a threefold stage, each carrying a distinct and important meaning. First, the rest itself: “He rested on the seventh day from all His work;” and in Ex. 31:17, the yet stronger expression is used, of God’s refreshing Himself on that day. Figurative language this must, no doubt, be understood to be,—for “the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary,” that being rendered impossible by the infinitude of His perfections,—yet it is not the less expressive of a great truth, and one just as cognizable by man as the acts of creative energy by which it was preceded. What was it, indeed, but the proper [[@Page:307]] complement of creation—the immediate result at which it aimed, and in which, when realized, there was set the seal of Heaven on its beauty and completeness? The glorious Creator is presented to our view at the close of His six days work,—brought at length to its proper consummation in man, as clothed with the Divine image, and charged with the oversight and development of the territory assigned him,—surveying His own workmanship, looking with complacence on the product of His hands, taking it, as it were, to His bosom, and in the freshness of its joy and the prospect of its goodly order finding satisfaction to Himself. How near does not this show God to be to His creatures in particular to the rational and upright portion of them? And must there not have been on their part the response of an intelligent appreciation and living fellowship? Must not man, endowed as he was with God’s likeness, and crowned with glory and honour as God’s representative, here also have communion with his Maker? How could he fail to do so? As it was his calling to enter into God’s work—to take it up, as it were, where God left it, and carry it forward to its proper results; so it was his privilege to enter into God’s rest—making this in a sense his own, and thereby rendering earth the reflex of heaven. It was for this end that God disclosed His manner of distinguishing the seventh day from those which preceded, viz., to teach His earthly representative to go and do likewise; so that this day so kept might be an ever-recurring memorial and sign, both how man’s ordinary work should form a continuation and image of God’s, and man’s rest be a conscious appropriation and enjoyment of that blessed satisfaction and repose with which God was Himself refreshed.

But this was not left to be simply inferred; for if even the first stage of this Divine act has respect to man, still more has the second, which points directly and exclusively to him: “And God blessed the seventh day.” This blessing of the day is not to be confounded with the sanctifying of it, which immediately follows, as if the meaning were, God blessed it by sanctifying it. The blessing is distinct from the sanctification, and is, so to speak, the settling of a special dowry on it for every one, who should give due heed to its proper end and object. Let man—the Divine act of blessing virtually said—only enter into God’s [[@Page:308]] mind, and tread in His footsteps, by resting every seventh day from his works, and he shall undoubtedly find it to his profit; the blessing, which is life for evermore, shall descend on him. What he may lose for the moment in productive employment, shall be amply compensated by the refreshment it will bring to his frame—by the enlargement and elevation of his soul—above all, by the spiritual fellowship and interest in God which becomes the abiding portion of those who follow Him in their ways, and perpetually return to Him as the supreme rest of their souls.

Then, the last stage in the procedure of God on this occasion, indicates how the two earlier ones were to be secured: “He sanctified it,” set it sacredly apart from the others. Having appointed it to a distinctive end, he conferred on it a distinctive character, that His creature, man, might from time to time be doing in his line of things what the Creator had already done in His own—might, after six successive days of work, take one to reinvigorate his frame, to reflect calmly on the past, and view the part he has taken and the relations he occupies on the outward and visible theatre of the world, in the light of the spiritual and the eternal. It was to be his calling and his destiny on earth, not simply to work, but to work as a reasonable and moral being, after the example of his Maker, for specific ends. And for this he needed seasons of quiet repose and thoughtful consideration, not less than time and opportunity for active labour; as, otherwise, he could neither properly enjoy the work of his hands, nor obtain for the higher part of his nature that nobler good which is required to satisfy it. God, therefore, when He had finished the work of creation by making man, sanctified the seventh day—His own seventh, but man’s first; for man had not first to work and then to reap, but as God’s vicegerent, nature’s king and high-priest, could at once enter into his Maker’s heritage of blessing. And henceforth, in the career that lay before him, ever and anon returning from the field of active labour assigned him in cultivating and subduing the earth, he must on the hallowed day of rest gather in his thoughts and desires from the world, and, retiring into God as his sanctuary, hold with Him a sabbatism of peaceful and blessed communion.

[[@Page:309]] The Divine procedure, then, in every one of its stages, plainly points to man, and aims at his participation in the likeness and enjoyment of God. “With the Sabbath,” says Sartorius happily, and we rejoice and hail it as a token for good, that such thoughts on the Sabbath are finding utterance in the high places of Germany—”with the Sabbath begins the sacred history of man the day on which he stood forth to bless God, and, in company with Eve, entered on his Divine calling upon earth. The creation without the creation-festival, the world’s unrest without rest in God, is altogether vain and transitory. The sacred day appointed, blessed, consecrated by God, is that from which the blessing and sanctification of the world and time, of human life and human society, proceed. Nor is anything more needed than the recognition of its original appointment and sacred destination, for our receiving the full impression of its sanctity. How was it possible for the first man ever to forget it? From the very beginning was it written upon his heart, Remember the Sabbath-day to sanctify it.”[1] There is nothing new in such views. Substantially the same interpretation that we have given is put on the original notice in Genesis, in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. [[4 >> Bible:He 4]] ), where the record of God’s rest at the close of creation is referred to as the first form of the promise made to man of entering into, God’s rest. The record, then, of what God in that respect did, was a revelation. It embodied a call and a promise to man of high fellowship with the Creator in His peculiar felicity, and, consequently, inferred an obligation on man’s part both to seek the end proposed, and to seek it in the method of God’s appointment. But did the obligation cease when man fell? or was the promise cancelled? Assuredly not—not, at least, after the time that the introduction of an economy of grace laid open for the fallen the prospect of a new inheritance in God. So far from having lost its significance or its value, the Creator’s Sabbatism then acquired fresh meaning and importance, and became so peculiarly adapted to the altered condition of the world, that we cannot but regard it as having from the first contemplated the physical and moral evils that were to issue from the fall. In the language of Hengstenberg, with whom we gladly concur on this branch of [[@Page:310]] the subject, though on too many others we shall be constrained to differ from him, “It presupposes work, and such work as has a tendency to draw us away from God. It is the remedy for the injuries we are apt to incur through this work. If anything is clear, it is the connection between the Sabbath arid the fall. The work which needs intermission, lest the divine life should be imperilled by it, is not [we would rather say, is not so much] the cheerful and pleasant employment of which we read in Gen. 2:15; it is [rather] the oppressive and degrading toil spoken of in Gen. 3:19, work done in the sweat of the brow, upon a soil that brings forth thorns and thistles.”[2] We would put the statement comparatively rather than absolutely; for the rest of God being held on the first seventh day of the world’s existence, and the day being immediately consecrated and blessed, it must have had respect to the place and occupation of man even in paradise. Why should work there be supposed to have differed in kind from work elsewhere and since? There could be room only for a difference in degree; and being work from its very nature that led the soul to aim at specific objects, and put forth continuous efforts on what is outward, it required to be met by a stated periodical institution, that would recall the thoughts and feelings of the soul more within itself. Man’s perfection in that original state was only a relative one. It needed certain correctives and stimulants to secure the continued enjoyment of the good belonging to it. It needed, in particular, perpetual access to the tree of life for the preservation of the bodily, and an ever-returning Sabbatism for that of the spiritual life. But if such a Sabbatism was required even for man’s well-being in paradise, where the work was so light, and the order so beautiful, how could it be imagined that the Sabbatical institution might be either safely or lawfully disregarded in a world of sorrow, temptation, and hardship?

Was there really, however, any Sabbatical institution? There is no command respecting it in this portion of the inspired record. And may not the mention there made of God’s keeping the Sabbath, and blessing and sanctifying the day, have been made simply with a prospective reference to the precept that was ultimately to be imposed on the Israelites? So it has been alleged [[@Page:311]] with endless frequency by those who can find no revelation of the Divine will, and no obligation or moral duty excepting what comes in the authoritative form of a command; and it is still substantially reiterated by Hengstenberg, who certainly cannot be charged with such a bluntness of spiritual discernment. We meet the allegation with the statement that has already been repeatedly urged—that it was not yet the time for the formal enactments of law, and that it was by other means man was to learn God’s mind and his own duty. The ground of obligation lay in the Divine act; the rule of duty was exhibited in the Divine example: for these were disclosed to men from the first, not to gratify an idle curiosity, but for the express purpose of leading them to know and do what is agreeable to the will of God. If such means were not sufficient to speak with clearness and authority to men’s consciences, then it may be affirmed that the first race of mankind were free from all authoritative direction and control whatever. They were not imperatively bound either to fear God or to regard man; for, excepting in the manner now stated, no general obligations of service were laid on them. But to suppose this; to suppose, even in regard to what is written of the original Sabbatism of God, that it did not bear directly upon the privileges and duties of the very first members of the human family, is in truth to make void that portion of revelation—to treat it as if, where it stands, it were a superfluity or a blemish. We cannot so regard it. We hold by the truthfulness and natural import of the Divine record. And doing this, we are shut up to the conclusion, that it was at first designed and appointed by God, that mankind should sanctify every returning seventh day, as a season of comparative rest from worldly labour, of spiritual contemplation and religious employment, that so they might cease from their own works and enter into the rest of God.

But we shall not pursue the subject farther at present. We even leave unnoticed some of the objections that have been raised against the existence of a primeval Sabbath, as the subject must again return, and in a more controversial aspect, when we come to consider the place assigned to the law of the Sabbath in the revelation from Sinai. It is enough, at this stage of our inquiry, to have exhibited the foundation laid for the perpetual [[@Page:312]] celebration of a seventh-day Sabbath, in the original act of God at the close of His creation work. In that we have a foundation broad and large as the theatre of creation itself and the general interests of humanity, free from all local restrictions and national peculiarities. That in the infancy of the world, and during the ages of a remote antiquity, there would be much simplicity in the mode of its observance, may readily be supposed. Indeed, where all was so simple, both in the state of society and the institutions of worship, the symbolical act itself of resting from ordinary work, and in connection with that, the habit of recognising the authority of God, and realizing the Divine call to a participation in the blessed rest of the Creator, must have constituted no inconsiderable part of the practical observance of the day. And that this also in process of time should have fallen into general desuetude, is only what might have been expected from the fearful depravity and lawlessness which overspread the earth as a desolation. When men daringly cast off the fear of God Himself, they would naturally make light of the privilege and duty set before them of entering into His rest. And considering how partial and imperfect the observance of the day, in the earlier periods of the world’s history, was likely to become, it is not to be wondered at, that, beside the original record of its Divine origin and authoritative obligation, traces of its existence should be found only in some scattered notices of history, and in the wide-spread sacredness of the number seven, which has left its impress on the religion and literature of nearly every nation of antiquity. But however neglected or despised, the original fact remains for the light and instruction of the world in all ages; and there perpetually comes forth from it a call to every one who has ears to hear, to sanctify a weekly rest unto the Lord, and rise to the enjoyment of His blessing.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Sartorius über den alt und neu-Test. Cultus, p. 17.

[2] Ueber den Tag des Herrn, p. 12.

Chapter Sixth.—Typical Things in History During The Progress of The First Dispensation.

[[@Page:313]] HAVING now considered the typical bearing of the fundamental facts and symbolical institutions belonging to the first dispensation of grace, it remains that we endeavour to ascertain what there might afterwards be evolved of a typical nature during the progress of that dispensation, by means of the transactions and events that took place under it. These, it was already noted in our preliminary remarks, could only be employed to administer instruction of a subsidiary kind. In their remoter reference to Gospel times, as in their direct historical aspect, they can rank no higher than progressive developments—not laying a foundation, but proceeding on the foundation already laid, and giving to some of the points connected with it a more specific direction, or supplementing them with additional discoveries of the mind and will of God. It is impossible here, any more than in the subjects treated of in the preceding chapters, to isolate entirely the portions that have a typical bearing from others closely connected with them. And even in those which exhibit something of the typical element, it can scarcely be expected, at so early a period in the world’s history, to possess much of a precise and definite character; for in type, as in prophecy, the progress must necessarily have been from the more general to the more particular. In tracing this progress, we shall naturally connect the successive developments with single persons or circumstances; yet without meaning thereby to indicate that these are in every respect to be accounted typical.

Section First.—The Seed of Promise Abel, Enoch.

THE first distinct appearance of the typical in connection with the period subsequent to the fall, is to be found in the case of Abel; but in that quite generally. Abel was the first member of the promised seed; and through him supplementary knowledge was imparted more especially in one direction, viz., in regard to the principle of election, which was to prevail in the actual fulfilment of the original promise. That promise itself, when viewed in connection with the instituted symbols of religion, might be perceived—if very thoughtfully considered—to have implied something of an elective process; but the truth was not clearly expressed. And it was most natural that the first parents of the human family should have overlooked what but obscurely intimated a limitation in the expected good. They would readily imagine, when a scheme of grace was introduced, which gave promise of a complete destruction of the adversary, with the infliction only of a partial injury on the woman’s seed, that the whole of their offspring should attain to victory over the power of evil. This joyous anticipation affectingly discovers itself in the exclamation of Eve at the birth of her first-born son, “I have gotten a man from (or, as it should rather be, with) the Lord”—gratefully acknowledging the hand of God in giving her, as she thought, the commencement of that seed which was assured through Divine grace of a final triumph. This she reckoned a real getting—gain in the proper sense—calling her child by a name that expressed this idea (Cain); and she evidently did so by regarding it as the precious gift of God, the beginning and the pledge of the ascendency that was to be won over the malice of the tempter.[1] Never was [[@Page:315]] mother destined to receive a sorer disappointment. She did not want faith in the Divine word, but her faith was still without knowledge, and she must learn by painful experience how the plan of God for man’s recovery was to be wrought out. A like ignorance, though tending now in the opposite direction, again discovers itself at the birth of Abel, whose name (breath, emptiness) seems, as Delitzsch has remarked, to have proceeded from her felt regard to the Divine curse, as that given to Cain did from a like regard to the Divine promise. It is possible that, between the births of the two brothers, what she had seen of the helpless and suffering condition of infancy in the first-born may have impressed the mind of Eve with such a sense of the evils entailed upon her offspring by the curse, as to have rendered her for the time forgetful of the better things disclosed in the promise. It is also possible, and every way probable, that the name by which this child is known to history, and which is not, as in the case of Cain, expressly connected with his birth, may have been occasioned by his unhappy fate, and expressed the feelings of vexation and disappointment which it awakened in the bosoms of his parents. However it might be, the result at least showed how little the operations of grace were to pursue the course that might seem accordant with the views and feelings of nature. In particular, it showed that, so far from the whole [[@Page:316]] offspring of the woman being included, there was from the first to pervade the Divine plan a principle of election, in virtue of which a portion only, and that by no means the likeliest, according to the estimation of nature, were to inherit the blessing; while the rest should fall in with the designs of the tempter, and be reckoned to him for a seed of cursing. Abel, therefore, in his acceptance with God, in his faith respecting the Divine purposes, and his presentation of offerings that drew down the Divine favour, stands as the type of an elect seed of blessing—a seed that was ultimately to have its root and its culmination in Him who was to be peculiarly the child of promise. In Cain, on the other hand, the impersonation of nature’s pride, waywardness, and depravity, there appeared a representative of that unhappy portion of mankind who should espouse the interest of the adversary, and seek by unhallowed means to establish it in the world.

The brief notices of antediluvian history are evidently framed for the purpose of exhibiting the antagonistic state and tendencies of these two seeds, and of rendering manifest the mighty difference which God’s work of grace was destined to make in the character and prospects of man. The name given by Eve to her third son (Seth, appointed), with the reason assigned for it, “For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew,” bespoke the insight the common mother of mankind had now obtained into this mournful division in her offspring. Cain she regards as having, in a manner, ceased to belong to her seed; he had become too plainly identified with that of the adversary. He seems now to her view to stand at the head of a God-opposing interest in the world; and as in contrast to him, the destroyer of the true seed, God is seen mercifully providing another in its room.[2] So that there were [[@Page:317]] again the two seeds in the world, each taking root, and bringing forth fruit after its kind. But how different! On the one hand appears the Cainite section, smitten with the curse of sin, yet proudly shunning the path of reconciliation—retiring to a distance from the emblems of God’s manifested presence—building a city, as if to lighten, by the aid of human artifice and protection, the evils of a guilty conscience and a blighted condition—cultivating with success the varied elements of natural strength and worldly greatness, inventing instruments of music and weapons of war, trampling under foot, as seemed good to the flesh, the authority of heaven and the rights of men, and at last, by deeds of titanic prowess and violence, boldly attempting to bring heaven and earth alike under its sway.—(Gen. 4:13-24, 6:4-6)[3] On the other hand appears the woman’s seed [[@Page:318]] of promise, seeking to establish and propagate itself in the earth by the fear of God, and the more regular celebration of His worship (Gen. 4:26), trusting for its support in the grace and blessing of God, as the other did in the powers and achievements of corrupt nature; and so continuing uninterrupted its line of godly descendants, yet against such fearful odds, and at last with such a perilous risk of utter extinction, that Divine faithfulness and love required to meet violence with violence, and bring the conflict in its first form to a close by the sweeping desolation of the flood. It terminated, as every such conflict must do, on the side of those who stood in the promised grace and revealed testimony of God. These alone live for ever; and the triumph of all that is opposed to them can be but for a moment.

This seed of the woman, however,—the seed that she produces in faith upon the promise of God, and in which the grace of God takes vital effect, is found, not only as to its existence, to be associated with a principle of election, but also as to the relative place occupied by particular members in its line. All have by faith an interest in God, and in consequence triumph over the power of the adversary. But some have a larger interest than others, and attain to a higher victory. There was an election within the election. So it appeared especially in the case of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, and again in Noah, who, as they alone of the antediluvians were endowed with the spirit of prophecy, so they alone, also, are said to have “walked with God” (Gen. 5:22, 6:9),—an expression never used of any who lived in later times, and denoting the nearest and most confidential intercourse, as if they had all but regained the old paradisiacal freedom of communion with Heaven. And as the Divine seal upon this higher elevation of the life of God in their souls, they were both honoured with singular tokens of distinction—the one having been taken, without tasting of death, to still nearer fellowship with God, to abide in His immediate presence (“He was not, for God took him”), while the other became under God the saviour and father of a new world. Of the latter we shall have occasion to speak separately, as there were connected with his case other elements of a typical nature. But in regard to Enoch, as the short and pregnant notice of his life [[@Page:319]] and of his removal out of it, plainly indicates something transcendently good and great, so, we cannot doubt, the contemporaries of the patriarch knew it to be such. They knew—at least they had within their reach the means of knowing—that in consideration of his eminent piety, and of the circumstances of the time in which he lived, he was taken direct to a higher sphere, without undergoing the common lot of mortality. That there should have been but one such case during the whole antediluvian period, could not but be regarded as indicating its exceptional character, and stamping it the more emphatically as a revelation from Heaven. Nor could the voice it uttered in the ears of reflecting men sound otherwise than as a proclamation that God was assuredly with that portion of the woman’s seed who served and honoured Him—that He manifested Himself to such, as a chosen people, in another manner than He did to the world, and made them sure of a complete and final victory over all the malice of the tempter and the evils of sin. If not usually without death, yet notwithstanding it, and through it, they should certainly attain to eternal life in the presence of God.

In this respect Enoch—as being the most distinguished member of the seed of blessing in its earlier division, and the most honoured heir of that life which comes through the righteousness of faith—is undoubtedly to be viewed as a type of Christ. Something he had in common with the line as a whole—he was a partaker of that electing grace and love of God, in virtue of which alone any could rise from the condemnation of sin to the inheritance of life in the Divine kingdom. But apart from others in the same line, and above them, he passed to the inheritance by a more direct and triumphant path—a conqueror in the very mode of his transition from time to eternity. These characteristics, which in Enoch’s case were broadly marked, though in themselves somewhat general and incapable of being understood to have reference to a personal Messiah, till such a Messiah had been more distinctly announced, are yet pre-eminently the characteristics of Christ, and in the full and absolute sense could be found only in Him. He is, as no other individual among men could be, the seed of the woman, considered as the seed of promise, destined by God’s purpose of grace to [[@Page:320]] bruise the head of the tempter, and reverse the process of nature’s corruption. In Him, as present from the first to the “determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” was the ultimate root of such a seed to be found which should otherwise have had no existence in the world. He therefore, beyond all others, was the chosen of God, “His elect in whom His soul delights.” And though to the eye of a carnal and superficial world, which judges only by the appearance, He wanted what seemed necessary to justify His claim to such a position, yet He in reality gave the clearest proof of it, by a faith that never faltered in the hardest trials, a righteousness free from every stain of impurity, and a life that could only underlie for a moment the cloud of death, but even then could see no corruption, and presently rose, as to its proper home, in the regions of eternal light and glory.

With our eyes resting on this exalted object in the ends of time, we have no difficulty in perceiving, that what appeared of supernatural in such men as Abel and Enoch, only foreshadowed the higher and greater good that was to come. The foreshadowing, however, was not such that from the appearance of Abel and Enoch a personal Messiah could have been descried, or as if, from the incidents in their respective lives, precisely similar ones might have been inferred as likely to happen in the eventful career of the man Christ Jesus. We could not descend thus to individual and personal marks of coincidence between the lives of those early patriarchs and the life of Messiah, without, in the first instance, anticipating the order of Providence, which had not yet directed the eye of faith and hope to a personal manifestation of Godhead, and then entangling ourselves in endless difficulties of practical adjustment—as in the case of Enoch’s translation, who went to heaven without tasting death, while Christ could not enter into glory till He had tasted it. But let those patriarchs be contemplated as the earlier links of a chain which, from its very nature, must have some higher and nobler termination; let them be viewed as characters that already bore upon them the lineaments and possessed the beginnings of the new creation: what do they then appear but embodied prophecies of a more general kind in respect to “Him who was to come?” They heralded His future redemptive work by exhibiting in part the [[@Page:321]] signs and fruits of its prospective achievements. The beginning was prophetic of the end; for if the one had not been in prospect, the other could not have come into existence. And in their selection by God from the general mass around them, their faith in God’s word, and their possession of God’s favour and blessing, as outwardly displayed and manifested in their histories, we see struggling, as it were, into being the first elements of that new state and destiny, which were only to find their valid reason, and reach their proper elevation, in the person and kingdom of Messiah.

FOOTNOTE

[1] I think it quite impossible, in the circumstances, that the faith of Eve should have gone farther than this, as the promise of recovery had as yet assumed only the most general aspect; and though it might well have been understood to depend upon the grace and power of God for its accomplishment, yet who, from the revelations actually given, could have anticipated these to manifest themselves in the birth of Jehovah Himself as a babe? The supposition of Baumgarten,—who here revives the old explanation, “I have gotten a man, Jehovah,” that Eve thought she saw in Cain “the redeeming and coming God,” is arbitrary and incredible. The יְהוֹה אֵת should be taken as in ch. 5:24, 6:9, 43:16; Judg. 1:16, with, in fellowship with, the Lord; or, as in Judg. 8:7, with, with the help of. The former idea seems to be the more natural one, as in that sense also the אֵת is more frequently used. The assertion of Dr Pye Smith (Testimony, vol. i., p. 228), that there “seems no option to an interpreter, who is resolved to follow the fair and strict grammatical signification of the words before him, but to translate the passage, I have obtained a man, Jehovah,” is greatly too strong, and against the judgment of the best Hebrew scholars. He is himself obliged to repudiate the sense which such a rendering yields, as embodying too gross a conception; and the idea which he thinks Eve meant to express of “something connected with the Divine Being” in the child produced, is simply what is conveyed by the perfectly legitimate rendering we have preferred.

[2] It is to be noted, however, that both the parents of the human family, Adam as well as Eve, are associated with this seed of blessing. It is a circumstance that has been too much overlooked; but for the very purpose of marking it, a fresh commencement is made at Gen. 5 of the genealogical chain that links together Adam and Christ: “This is the book of the gene rations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him. . . . And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth:”—as if his progeny before this were not to be reckoned—the child of grace had perished, and the other in a spiritual sense was not. Adam, therefore, is here distinctly placed at the head of a spiritual offspring—himself, with his partner, the first link in the grand chain of blessing. And the likeness in which he begat his son “his own image”—must not be limited, as it too often is, to the corruption that now marred the purity of his nature—as if his image stood simply in contrast to God’s. It is as the parental head of the whole lineage of believers that he is represented, and such a sharp contrast would here especially be out of place.

[3] It is in connection with this later development of evil in the Cainites that Lamech’s song is introduced, and with special reference to that portion of his family who were makers of instruments in brass and iron—instruments, no doubt, chiefly of a warlike kind. It is only by viewing the song in that connection that we perceive its full meaning and its proper place, as intended to indicate that the evil was approaching its final stage: “And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech: for men (the word is quite indefinite in the original, and may most fitly be rendered in the plural) I slay for my wound, and young men for my hurt: for Cain is avenged seven times, and Lamech seventy times seven.” He means apparently, that, with such weapons as he now had at command, he could execute at will deeds of retaliation and revenge. So that his song may be regarded, to use the words of Drechsler, “as an ode of triumph on the invention of the sword. He stands at the top of the Cainite development, from thence looks back upon the past, and exults at the height it has reached. How far has he got ahead of Cain! what another sort of ancestor he! No longer needing to look up in feebleness to God for protection, he can provide more amply for it himself than God did for Cain’s; and he congratulates his wives on being the mothers of such sons. Thus the history of the Cainites began with a deed of murder, and here it ends with a song of murder.”

Section Second.—Noah and The Deluge.

[[@Page:322]] THE case of Noah, we have already stated, embodied some new elements of a typical kind, which gave to it the character of a distinct stage in the development of God’s work of grace in the world. It did so in connection with the deluge, which had a gracious as well as a judicial aspect, and, by a striking combination of opposites, brought prominently out the principle, that the accomplishment of salvation necessarily carries along with it a work of destruction. This was not absolutely a new principle at the period of the deluge. It had a place in the original promise, and a certain exemplification in the lives of believers from the first. By giving to the prospect of recovery the peculiar form of a bruising of the tempter’s head, the Lord plainly intimated, that somehow a work of destruction was to go along with the work of salvation, and was necessary to its accomplishment. No indication, however, was given of the way in which this twofold process was to proceed, or of the nature of the connection between the one part of it and the other. But light to a certain extent soon began to be thrown upon it by the consciousness in each man’s bosom of a struggle between the evil and the good,—a struggle which so early as the time of Cain drew forth the solemn warning, that either his better part must vindicate for itself the superiority, or it must itself fall down vanquished by the destroyer. Still farther light appeared, when the contending elements grew into two great contending parties, which by an ever-widening breach, and at length by most serious encroachments from the evil on the good, rendered a work of judgment from above necessary to the peace and safety of the believing portion of mankind. The conviction of some approaching crisis of this nature had become so deep in the time of Enoch, that it gave utterance to itself in the prophecy ascribed in the Epistle of Jude to that patriarch: “Behold, the Lord [[@Page:323]] cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have committed against Him.” The struggle, it was thus announced, should ere long end in a manifestation of God for judgment against the apostate faction, and by implication for deliverance to the children of faith and hope.

By the period of Noah’s birth, however, the necessity of a Divine interposition had become much greater, and it appeared manifest to the small remnant of believers that the era of retribution, which they now identified with the era of deliverance, must be at hand. Indication was then given of this state of feeling by the name itself of Noah, with the reason assigned for its adoption, “This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” The feeling is too generally expressed, to enable us to determine with accuracy how the parents of this child might expect their troubles to be relieved through his instrumentality. But in their words we hear, at least, the groaning of the oppressed—the sighing of righteous souls, vexed on account of the evils which were thickening around them, from the unrestrained wickedness of those who had corrupted the earth; and, at the same time, not despairing, but looking up in faith, and even confident that in the lifetime of that child the God of righteousness and truth would somehow avenge the cause of His elect. Whether they had obtained any correct insight or not into the way by which the object was to be accomplished, the event proved that the spirit of prophecy breathed in their anticipation. Their faith rested upon solid grounds, and in the hope which it led them to cherish they were not disappointed. Salvation did come in connection with the person of Noah, and it came in the way of an overwhelming visitation of wrath upon the adversaries.

When we look simply at the outward results produced by that remarkable visitation, they appear to have been twofold—on the one side preservation, on the other destruction. But when we look a little more closely, we perceive that there was [[@Page:324]] a necessary connection between the two results, and that there was properly but one object aimed at in the dispensation, though in accomplishing it there was required the operation of a double process. That object was, in the words of St Peter, “the saving of Noah and his house” (1 Pet. 3:20)—saving them as the spiritual seed of God. But saving them from what? Not surely from the violence and desolation of the waters; for the watery element would then have acted as the preservative against itself, and instead of being saved by the water, according to the apostolic statement, the family of Noah would have been saved from it.[1] From what, then, were they saved? Undoubtedly from that which, before the coming of the deluge, formed the real element of danger—the corruption, enmity, and violence of ungodly men. It was this which wasted the Church of God, and brought it to the verge of destruction. All was ready to perish. The cause of righteousness had at length but one efficient representative in the person of Noah; and he much “like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, like a besieged city,”—the object of profane mockery and scorn, taunted, reviled, plied with every weapon fitted to overcome his constancy, and, if not in himself, at least in his family, in danger of suffering shipwreck amid the swelling waves of wickedness around him. It was to save him—and with him, the cause of God—from this source of imminent danger and perdition, that the flood was [[@Page:325]] sent; and it could only do so by effectually separating between him and the seed of evil-doers—engulphing them in ruin, and sustaining him uninjured in his temporary home. So that the deluge, considered as Noah’s baptism, or the means of his salvation from an outward form of spiritual danger, was not less essentially connected with a work of judgment than with an act of mercy. It was by the one that the other was accomplished; and the support of the ark on the bosom of the waters was only a collateral object of the deluge. The direct and immediate object was the extermination of that wicked race, whose heaven-daring impiety and hopeless impenitence was the real danger that menaced the cause and people of God,—”the destroying of those (to use the language that evidently refers to it in Rev. 11:18) who destroyed the earth.”

This principle of salvation with destruction, which found such a striking exemplification in the deluge, has been continually appearing anew in the history of God’s dealings among men. It appeared, for example, at the period of Israel’s redemption from Egypt, when a way of escape was opened for the people of God by the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host; and again at the era of the return from Babylon, when the destruction of the enemy and the oppressor broke asunder the bands with which the children of the covenant were held captive. [[@Page:326]] But it is in New Testament times, and in connection with the work of Christ, that the higher manifestation of the principle appears. Here alone perfection can be said to belong to it. Complete as the work in one respect was in the days of Noah, in another it soon gave unmistakeable evidence of its own imperfection. The immediate danger was averted by the destruction of the wicked in the waters of a deluge, and the safe preservation of Noah and his family as a better seed to replenish the depopulated earth. But it was soon found that the old leaven still lurked in the bosom of the preserved remnant itself; and another race of apostates and destroyers, though of a less ferocious spirit, and under more of restraint in regard to deeds of violence and bloodshed, rose up to prosecute anew the work of the adversary. In Christ, however, the very foundations of evil from the first were struck at, and nothing is left for a second beginning to the cause of iniquity. He came, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah (ch. [[61:2 >> Bible:Is 61:2]] ), “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God,” which was, at the same time, to be the “year of His redeemed.” And, accordingly, by the work He accomplished on earth, “the prince of this world was judged and cast out” (John 12:31); or, as it is again written, “principalities and powers were spoiled,” and “he that had the power of death destroyed” (Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14), thereby giving deliverance to those who were subject to sin and death. He did this once for all, when He fulfilled all righteousness, and suffered unto death for sin. The victory over the tempter then achieved by Christ no more needs to be repeated than the atonement made for human guilt; it needs to be appropriated merely by His followers, and made effectual in their experience. Satan has no longer any right to exercise lordship over men, and hold them in bondage to his usurped authority; the ground of his power and dominion is taken away, because the condemnation of sin, on which it stood, has been for ever abolished. Christ, therefore, at once destroys and saves—saves by destroying—casts the cruel oppressor down from his ill-gotten supremacy, and so relieves the poor, enthralled, devil-possessed nature of man, and sets it into the glorious liberty of God’s children.

[[@Page:327]] In the case of the Redeemer Himself, this work is absolutely complete; the man Christ Jesus thoroughly bruised Satan under His feet, and won a position where in no respect whatever He could be any more subject to the power of evil. Theoretically, we may say, the work is also complete in behalf of His people; on His part, no imperfection cleaves to it. By virtue of the blood of Jesus, the house of our humanity, which naturally stood accursed of God, and was ready to be assailed by every form of evil, is placed on a new and better foundation. It is made holiness to the Lord. The handwriting of condemnation that was against us is blotted out. The adversary has lost his bill of indictment; and nothing remains but that the members of the human family should, each for themselves, take up the position secured for them by the salvation of Christ, to render them wholly and for ever superior to the dominion of the adversary. But it is here that imperfection still comes in. Men will not lay hold of the advantage obtained for them by the all-prevailing might and energy of Jesus, or they will but partially receive into their experience the benefits it provides for them. Yet there is a measure of success also here, in the case of all genuine believers. And it is to this branch of the subject more immediately that the Apostle Peter points, when he represents Christian baptism as the antitype of the deluge. In the personal experience of believers, as symbolized in that ordinance, there is a re-enacting substantially of what took place in the outward theatre of the world by means of the deluge. “The like figure whereunto (literally, the antitype to which, viz., Noah’s salvation by water in the ark) even baptism doth also now save us; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. 3:21) Like the Apostle’s delineations generally, the passage briefly indicates, rather than explicitly unfolds, the truths connected with the subject. Yet, on a slight consideration of it, we readily perceive, that, with profound discernment, it elicits from the ordinance of baptism, as spiritually understood and applied, the same fundamental elements, discovers there the same twofold process, which appeared so strikingly in the case of Noah. Here also there is a salvation reaching its accomplishment by [[@Page:328]] means of a destruction—”not the putting away of the filth of the flesh” not so superficial a riddance of evil, but one of a more important and vital character, bringing “the answer of a good conscience,” or the deliverance of the soul from the guilt and power of iniquity. The water of baptism—let the subject be plunged in it ever so deep, or sprinkled ever so much—can no more of itself save him than the water of the deluge could have saved Noah, apart from the faith he possessed, and the preparation it led him to make in constructing and entering into the ark. It was because he held and exercised such faith, that the deluge brought salvation to Noah, while it overwhelmed others in destruction. So is it in baptism, when received in a spirit of faith. There is in this also the putting off of the old man of corruption—crucifying it together with Christ, and at the same time a rising through the resurrection of Christ to the new and heavenly life, which satisfies the demands of a pure and enlightened conscience. So that the really baptized soul is one in which there has been a killing and a making alive, a breaking up and destroying of the root of corrupt nature, and planting in its stead the seed of a divine nature, to spring, and grow, and bring forth fruit to perfection. In the microcosm of the individual believer, there is the perishing of an old world of sin and death, and the establishment of a new world of righteousness and life everlasting.

Such is the proper idea of Christian baptism, and such would be the practical result were the idea fully realized in the experience of the baptized. But this is so far from being the case, that even the idea is apt to suffer in people’s minds from the conscious imperfections of their experience. And it might help to check such a tendency—it might, at least, be of service in enabling them to keep themselves well informed as to what should be, if they looked occasionally to what actually was, in the outward pattern of these spiritual things, given in the times of Noah. Are you disinclined, we might say to them, to have the axe so unsparingly applied to the old man of corruption? Think, for your warning, how God spared not the old world, but sent its mass of impurity headlong into the gulph of perdition. Seems it a task too formidable, and likely to prove hope less in the accomplishment, to maintain your ground against the [[@Page:329]] powers of evil in the world? Think again, for your encouragement, how impotent the giants of wickedness were of old to defeat the counsels of God, or prevail over those who held fast their confidence in His word; with all their numbers and their might, they sunk like lead in the waters, while the little house hold of faith rode secure in the midst of them. Or does it appear strange, at times perhaps incredible, to your mind, that you should be made the subject of a work which requires for its accomplishment the peculiar perfections of Godhead, while others are left entire strangers to it, and even find the word of God—the chosen instrument for effecting it—the occasion of wrath and condemnation to their souls? Remember “the few, the eight souls” of Noah’s family, alone preserved amid the wreck and desolation of a whole world—preserved, too, by faith in a word of God, which carried in its bosom the doom of myriads of their fellow-creatures, and so, finding that which was to others a minister of condemnation, a source of peace and safety to them. Rest assured, that as God Himself remains the same through all generations, so His work for the good of men is essentially the same also; and it ever must be His design and purpose, that Noah’s faith and salvation should be perpetually renewing themselves in the hidden life and experience of those who are preparing for the habitations of glory.

FOOTNOTE

[1] I am aware many eminent scholars give a different turn to this expression in the first Epistle of Peter, and take the proper rendering to be, “saved through (i.e., in the midst of) the water”—contemplating the water as the space or region through which the ark was required to bear Noah and his family in safety. So Beza, who says that “the water cannot be taken for the instrumental cause, as Noah was preserved from the water, not by it;” so also Tittmann, Bib. Cab., vol. xviii., p. 251; Steiger in his Comm., with only a minute shade of difference; Robinson, in Lex., and many others. But this view is open to the following objections: 1. The water is here mentioned, not in respect to its several parts, or to the extent of its territory from one point to another, but simply as an instrumental agent. Had the former been meant, the expression would have been, “saved through the waters,” rather than saved by water. But as the case stood, it mattered nothing whether the ark remained stationary at one point on the surface of the waters, or was borne from one place to another; so that through, in the sense of passing through, or through among, gives a quite unsuitable meaning. That Noah needed to be saved from the water, rather than by it, is a superficial objection, proceeding on the supposition that the water had the same relation to Noah that it had to the world in general. For him, the water and the ark were essentially connected together; it took both to make up the means of deliverance. In the same sense, and on the same account, we might say of the Red Sea, that the Israelites were saved by it; for though in itself a source of danger, yet, as regarded Israel’s position, it was really the means of safety (1 Cor. 10:2). 2. The application made by the Apostle of Noah’s preservation requires the agency of the water as well as of the ark to be taken into account. Indeed, according to the best authorities (which read ὅ καὶ), the reference in the antitype is specially to the water as the type. But apart from that, baptism is spoken of as a saving, in consequence of its being a purifying ordinance, which implies, as in the deluge, that the salvation be accomplished through means of a destruction. This is virtually admitted by Steiger, who, though he adopts the rendering “through the water,” yet in explaining the connection between the type and the antitype, is obliged to regard the water as also instrumental to salvation. “The flood was for Noah a baptism, and as such saved; the same element, water, also saves us now—not, however, as mere water, but in the same quality as a baptism.”

Section Third.—The New World and its Inheritors The Men of Faith.

[[@Page:330]] IN one respect the world seemed to have suffered material loss by the visitation of the deluge. Along with the agents and instruments of evil, there had also been swept away by it the emblems of grace and hope—paradise with its tree of life and its cherubim of glory. We can conceive Noah and his house hold, when they first left the ark, looking around with melancholy feelings on the position they now occupied, not only as being the sole survivors of a numerous offspring, but also as being themselves bereft of the sacred memorials which bore evidence of a happy past, and exhibited the pledge of a yet happier future. An important link of communion with heaven, it might well have seemed, was broken by the change thus brought through the deluge on the world. But the loss was soon fully compensated, and, we may even say, more than compensated, by the advantages conferred on Noah and his seed from the higher relation to which they were now raised in respect to God and the world. There are three points that here, in particular, call for attention.

1. The first is, the new condition of the earth itself, which immediately appears in the freedom allowed and practised in regard to the external worship of God. This was no longer confined to any single region, as seems to have been the case in the age subsequent to the fall. The cherubim were located in a particular spot, on the east of the garden of Eden; and as the symbols of God’s presence were there, it was only natural that the celebration of Divine worship should there also have found its common centre. Hence the two sons of Adam are said to have “brought their offerings unto the Lord”—which can scarcely be understood otherwise than as pointing to that particular locality which was hallowed by visible symbols of the Lord’s presence, and in the neighbourhood of which life and [[@Page:331]] blessing still lingered. In like manner, it is said of Cain, after he had assumed the attitude of rebellion, that “he went out from the presence of the Lord,” obviously implying that there was a certain region with which the Divine presence was considered to be more peculiarly connected, and which can be thought of nowhere else than in that sanctuary on the east of Eden. But with the flood the reason for any such restriction vanished. Noah, therefore, reared his altar, and presented his sacrifice to the Lord where the ark rested. There immediately he got the blessing, and entered into covenant with God—proving that, in a sense, old things had passed away, and all had become new. The earth had risen in the Divine reckoning to a higher condition; it had passed through the baptism of water, and was now, in a manner, cleansed from defilement; so that every place had become sacred, and might be regarded as suitable for the most solemn acts of worship.[1]

This more sacred and elevated position of the earth after the deluge appears, farther, in the express repeal of the curse originally laid upon the ground for the sin of Adam: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake” (Gen. 8:21), was the word of God to Noah, on accepting the first offering presented to Him in the purified earth. It is, no doubt, to be understood relatively; not as indicating a total [[@Page:332]] repeal of the evil, but only a mitigation of it; yet such a mitigation as would render the earth a much less afflicted and more fertile region than it had been before. But this again indicated that, in the estimation of Heaven, the earth had now assumed a new position; that by the action of God’s judgment upon it, it had become hallowed in His sight, and was in a condition to receive tokens of the Divine favour, which had formerly been withheld from it.

2. The second point to be noticed here, is the heirship given of this new world to Noah and his seed—given to them expressly as the children of faith.

Adam, at his creation, was constituted the lord of this world, and had kingly power and authority given him to subdue it and rule over it. But on the occasion of his fall, this grant, though not formally recalled, suffered a capital abridgment; since he was sent forth from Eden as a discrowned monarch, to do the part simply of a labourer on the surface of the earth, and with the discouraging assurance that it should reluctantly yield to him of its fruitfulness. Nor, when he afterwards so distinctly identified himself with God’s promise and purpose of grace, by appearing as the head only of that portion of his seed who had faith in God, did there seem any alleviation of the evil: the curse that rested on the ground, rested on it still, even for the seed of blessing (Gen. 5:29); and not they, but the ungodly Cainites, acquired in it the ascendency of physical force and political dominion.

A change, however, appears in the relative position of things, when the flood had swept with its purifying waters over the earth. Man now rises, in the person of Noah, to a higher place in the world; yet not simply as man, but as a child of God, standing in faith. His faith had saved him, amid the general wreck of the old world, to become in the new a second head of mankind, and an inheritor of earth’s domain, as now purged and rescued from the pollution of evil. “He is made heir,” as it is written in Hebrews, “of the righteousness which is by faith,”—heir, that is, of all that properly belongs to such righteousness, not merely of the righteousness itself, but also of the world, which in the Divine purpose it was destined to possess and occupy. Hence, as if there had been a new creation, [[@Page:333]] and a new head brought in to exercise over it the right of sovereignty, the original blessing and grant to Adam are substantially renewed to Noah and his family: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hand are they delivered.” Here, then, the righteousness of faith received direct from the grace of God the dowry that had been originally bestowed upon the righteousness of nature—not a blessing merely, but a blessing coupled with the heirship and dominion of the world.

There was nothing strange or arbitrary in such a proceeding; it was in perfect accordance with the great principles of the Divine administration. Adam was too closely connected with the sin that destroyed the world, to be reinvested, even when he had through faith become a partaker of grace, with the restored heirship of the world. Nor had the world itself passed through such an ordeal of purification, as to fit it, in the personal lifetime of Adam, or of his more immediate offspring, for being at all represented in the light of an inheritance of blessing. The renewed title to the heirship of its fulness was properly reserved to the time when, by the great act of Divine judgment at the deluge, it had passed into a new condition; and when one was found of the woman’s seed, who had attained in a peculiar degree to the righteousness of faith, and along with the world had undergone a process of salvation. It was precisely such a person that should have been chosen as the first type of the righteousness of faith, in respect to its world-wide heritage of blessing. And having been raised to this higher position, an additional sacredness was thrown around him and his seed: the fear of them was to be put into the inferior creatures; their life was to be avenged of every one that should wrongfully take it; even the life-blood of irrational animals was to be held sacred, because of its having something in common with man’s, while their flesh was now freely surrendered to their use;—the whole evidently fitted, and, we cannot doubt, also intended to convey the idea, that man had by the special gift of God’s grace been again constituted heir and lord of the world, that, in the [[@Page:334]] words of the Psalmist, “the earth had been given to the children of men,” and given in a larger and fuller sense than had been done since the period of the fall.[2]

3. The remaining point to be noticed in respect to this new order of things, is the pledge of continuance, notwithstanding all appearances or threatenings to the contrary, given in the covenant made with Noah, and confirmed by a fixed sign in the heavens. “And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish My covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant” (more exactly: My bow I have set in the cloud, and it shall be for a covenant-sign) “between Me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.”—(Gen. 9:8-15)

There can be no doubt that the natural impression produced [[@Page:335]] by this passage in respect to the sign of the covenant, is, that it now for the first time appeared in the lower heavens. The Lord might, no doubt, then, or at any future time, have taken an existing phenomenon in nature, and by a special appointment made it the instrument of conveying some new and higher meaning to the subjects of His revelation. But in a matter like the present, when the specific object contemplated was to allay men’s fears of the possible recurrence of the deluge, and give them a kind of visible pledge in nature for the permanence of her existing order and constitution, one cannot perceive how a natural phenomenon, common alike to the antediluvian and the postdiluvian world, could have fitly served the purpose. In that case, so far as the external sign was concerned, matters stood precisely where they were; and it was not properly the sign, but the covenant itself, which formed the guarantee of safety for the future. We incline, therefore, to the opinion that, in the announcement here made, intimation is given of a change in the physical relations or temperature of at least that portion of the earth where the original inhabitants had their abode; by reason of which the descent of moisture in showers of rain came to take the place of distillation by dew, or other modes of operation different from the present. The supposition is favoured by the mention only of dew before in connection with the moistening of the ground (Gen. 2:6); and when rain does come to be mentioned, it is rain in such flowing torrents as seems rather to betoken the outpouring of a continuous stream, than the gentle dropping which we are wont to understand by the term, and to associate with the rainbow.

The fitness of the rainbow in other respects to serve as a sign of the covenant made with Noah, is all that could be desired. There is an exact correspondence between the natural phenomenon it presents, and the moral use to which it is applied. The promise in the covenant was not that there should be no future visitations of judgment upon the earth, but that they should not proceed to the extent of again destroying the world. In the moral, as in the natural sphere, there might still be congregating vapours and descending torrents; indeed, the terms of the covenant imply that there should be such, and that by means of them God would not fail to testify His displeasure against [[@Page:336]] sin, and keep in awe the workers of iniquity. But there should be no second deluge to diffuse universal ruin; mercy should always so far rejoice against judgment. Such in the field of nature is the assurance given by the rainbow, which is formed by the lustre of the sun’s rays shining on the dark cloud as it recedes; so that it may be termed, as in the somewhat poetical description of Langé, “the sun’s triumph over the floods; the glitter of his beams imprinted on the rain-cloud as a mark of subjection.” How appropriate an emblem of that grace which should always show itself ready to return after wrath! Grace still sparing and preserving, even when storms of judgment have been bursting forth upon the guilty! And as the rainbow throws its radiant arch over the expanse between heaven and earth, uniting the two together again as with a wreath of beauty, after they have been engaged in an elemental war, what a fitting image does it present to the thoughtful eye of the essential harmony that still subsists between the higher and the lower spheres! Such undoubtedly is its symbolic import, as the sign peculiarly connected with the covenant of Noah; it holds out, by means of its very form and nature, an assurance of God’s mercy, as engaged to keep perpetually in check the floods of deserved wrath, and continue to the world the manifestation of His grace and goodness. Such also is the import attached to it, when forming a part of prophetic imagery in the visions of Ezekiel (ch. [[1:28 >> Bible:Eze 1:28]] ) and of St John (Rev. 4:3); it is the symbol of grace, as ever ready to return after judgment, and to stay the evil from proceeding so far as to accomplish a complete destruction.[3]

Yet gracious as this covenant with Noah was, and appropriate and beautiful the sign that ratified it, all bore on it still the stamp of imperfection; there was an indication and a prelude of the better things needed to make man truly and permanently blessed, not these things themselves. For what was this new [[@Page:337]] world, which had its perpetuity secured, and over which Noah was set to reign, as heir of the righteousness that is by faith? To Noah himself, and each one in succession of his seed, it was still a region of corruption and death. It had been sanctified, indeed, by the judgment of God, and as thus sanctified it was not to perish again as it had done before. But this sanctification was only by water—enough to sweep away into the gulf of perdition the mass of impurity that festered on its surface, but not penetrating inwards, to the elements of evil which were bound up with its very framework. Another agency, more thoroughly pervasive in its nature, and in its effects more nobly sublimating, the agency of fire, is required to purge out the dross of its earthliness, and render it a home and an inheritance fit for those who are made like to the Son of God.—(2 Pet. 3:7-13) And Noah himself, though acknowledged heir of the righteousness by faith, and receiving on his position the seal of heaven, in the salvation granted to him and his household, yet how far from being perfect in that righteousness, or by this salvation placed beyond the reach of evil! Ere long he miserably fell under the power of temptation; and unmistakeable evidence appeared that [[@Page:338]] the serpent’s seed had found a place among the members of his household. High, therefore, as Noah stood compared with those who had gone before him, he was, after all, but the representative of an imperfect righteousness, and the heir of a corruptible and transitory inheritance. He was the type, but no more than the type, of Him who was to come—in whom the righteousness of God should be perfected, salvation should rise to its higher sphere, and all, both in the heirs of glory, and the inheritance they were to occupy, should by the baptism of fire be rendered incorruptible and undefiled, and unfading.

FOOTNOTE

[1] If we are right as to the centralization of the primitive worship of mankind (and it seems to be only the natural inference from the notices referred to), then the antediluvian population cannot well be supposed to have been of vast extent, or to have wandered to a very great distance from the original centre. The employment also of a special agency after the flood to disperse the descendants of Noah, and scatter them over the earth, seems to indicate, that an indisposition to go to a distance, a tendency to crowd too much about one locality, was one of the sources of evil in the first stage of the world’s history, the recurrence of which well deserved to be prevented, even by miraculous interference; and it is perfectly conceivable, indeed most likely, that the tower of Babel, in connection with which this interference took place, was not intended to be a palladium of idolatry, or a mere freak of ambitious folly, but rather a sort of substitution for the loss of the Edenic symbols, and, as such, a centre of union for the human family. It follows, of course, from the same considerations, that the deluge might not absolutely require, so far as the race of man was concerned, to extend over more than a comparatively limited portion of the earth. But its actual compass is not thereby determined.

[2] It presents no contrariety to this, when rightly considered, that the Lord should also have connected His purpose of preserving the earth in future with the corruption of man: “And the Lord smelled a sweet savour (viz., from Noah’s sacrifice); and the Lord said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”—(Gen. 8:21) The meaning is, that God delighted so much more in the offerings of righteousness than in the inflictions of judgment, that He would now direct His providence so as more effectually to secure the former—would not allow the imaginations of man’s evil heart to get such scope as they had done before; but, perceiving and remembering their native existence in the heart, would bring such remedial influences into operation that the extremity of the past should not again return.

[3] Far too general is the explanation often given of the symbolic import of the rainbow by writers on such topics—as when it is described to be “in general a symbol of God’s willingness to receive men into favour again” (Wemyss’ Clavis Symbolica), or that “it indicates the faithfulness of the Almighty in fulfilling the promises that He has made to His people.”—(Mill’s Sacred Symbology.) Sound Christian feeling, with something of a poetic eye for the imagery of nature, finds its way better to the meaning as in the following simple lines of John Newton:— “When the sun with cheerful beams Smiles upon a low ring sky, Soon its aspect softened seems, And a rainbow meets the eye; While the sky remains serene, This bright arch is never seen. Thus the Lord’s supporting power Brightest to His saints appears. When affliction’s threat’ning hour Fills their sky with clouds and fears; He can wonders then perform, Paint a rainbow on the storm. Favoured John a rainbow saw Circling round the throne above; Hence the saints a pledge may draw Of unchanging covenant-love: Clouds awhile may intervene, But the bow shall still be seen.”

Section Fourth.—The Change in The Divine Call from The General to The Particular—Shem, Abraham.

[[@Page:339]] THE obvious imperfections just noticed, both in the righteousness of the new head of the human family, and in the constitution of the world over which he was placed, clearly enough indicated that the divine plan had only advanced a stage in its progress, but had by no means reached its perfection. As the world, however, in its altered condition, had become naturally superior to its former state, so—in necessary and causal connection with this—it was in a spiritual respect to stand superior to it: secured against the return of a general perdition, it was also secured against the return of universal apostasy and corruption. The cause of righteousness was not to be trodden down as it had been before, nay, was to hold on its way and ultimately rise to the ascendant in the affairs of men.

Not only was this presupposed in the covenant of perpetuity established for the world, as the internal ground on which it rested, but it was also distinctly announced by the father of the new world, in the prophetic intimation he gave of the future destinies of his children. It was a melancholy occasion which drew this prophecy forth, as it was alike connected with the shameful backsliding of Noah himself, and the wanton in decency of his youngest son. When Noah recovered from his sin, and understood how this son had exposed, while the other two had covered, his nakedness, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants (i.e., a servant of the lowest grade) shall he be to his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”—(Gen. 9:25-27)

There are various points of interest connected with this prophecy, and the occurrence that gave rise to it, which it does [[@Page:340]] not fall within our province to notice. But the leading scope of it, as bearing on the prospective destinies of mankind, is manifestly of a hopeful description; and in that respect it differs materially from the first historical incident that revealed the conflict of nature and grace in the family of Adam. The triumph of Cain over righteous Abel, and his stout-hearted resistance to the voice of God, gave ominous indication of the bad pre-eminence which sin was to acquire, and the fearful results which it was to achieve in the old world. But the milder form of this outbreak of evil in the family of Noah—the immediate discouragement it meets with from the older members of the family—the strong denunciation it draws down from the venerable parent—above all, the clear and emphatic prediction it elicits of the ascendancy of the good over the evil in these seminal divisions of the human family,—one and all perfectly accorded with the more advanced state which the world had reached; they bespoke the cheering fact, that righteousness should now hold its ground in the world, and that the dominant powers and races should be in league with it, while servility and degradation should rest upon its adversaries.

This, any one may see at a glance, is the general tendency and design of what was uttered on the occasion; but there is a marked peculiarity in the form given to it, such as plainly intimates the commencement of a change in the Divine economy. There is a striking particularism in the prophetic announcement. It does not, as previously, give forth broad principles, or fore tell merely general results of evil and of good; but it explicitly announces—though still, no doubt, in wide and comprehensive terms the characteristic outlines of the future state and relative positions of Noah’s descendants. Such is the decided tendency here to the particular, that in the dark side of the picture it is not Ham, the offending son and the general head of the worse portion of the postdiluvian family, who is selected as the special object of vengeance, nor the sons of Ham generally, but specifically Canaan, who, it seems all but certain, was the youngest son.—(Gen. 10:6) Why this son, rather than the offending father, should have been singled out for denunciation, has been ascribed to various reasons; and resort has not unfrequently been had to conjecture, by supposing that this son may probably [[@Page:341]] have been present with the father, or some way participated with him in the offence. Even, however, if we had been certified of this participation, it could at most have accounted for the introduction of the name of Canaan, but not for that being substituted in the room of the father’s. Nor can we allow much more weight to another supposition, that the omission of the name of Ham may have been intended for the very purpose of proving the absence of all vindictive feeling, and showing that these were the words, not of a justly indignant parent giving vent to the emotions of the passing moment, but of a divinely inspired prophet calmly anticipating the events of a remote futurity. Undoubtedly such is their character; but no extenuating consideration of this kind is needed to prove it, if we only keep in view the judicial nature of this part of the prophecy. The curse pronounced is not an ebullition of wrathful feeling, not a wish for the infliction of evil, but the announcement of a doom, or punishment for a particular offence; and one that was to take, as so often happens in Divine chastisements, the specific form of the offence committed. Noah’s affliction from the conduct of Ham was in the most peculiar manner to find its parallel in the case of Ham himself: He, the youngest son of Noah,[1] had proved a vexation and disgrace to his father, and in meet retaliation his own youngest son was to have his name in history coupled with the most humiliating and abject degradation.

It was, therefore, in the first instance at least, for the purpose of marking more distinctly the connection between the sin and its punishment, that Hävernick states[[@Page:342]] in his Introduction to the Pentateuch—that the curse, properly belonging to Ham, was to concentrate itself in the line of Canaan; and, beyond doubt, it is more especially in connection with that line that Scripture itself traces the execution of the curse. But these are somewhat remote and incidental considerations; the more natural and direct is the one already given—which Hofmann, we believe, was the first to suggest.[2] And as the word took the precise form it did, for the purpose more particularly of marking the connection between the sin and the punishment, it plainly indicated that the evil could not be confined to the line of Ham’s descendants by Canaan; the same polluted fountain could not fail to send forth its bitter streams also in other directions. The connection is entirely a moral one. Even in the case of Canaan there was no arbitrary and hapless appointment to inevitable degradation and slavery; as is clearly proved by the long forbearance and delay in the execution of the threatened doom, expressly on the ground of the iniquity of the people not having become full, and also from the examples of individual Canaanites, who rose even to distinguished favour and blessing, such as Melchizedek and Rahab in earlier, and the Syrophenician woman in later times. Noah, however, saw with prophetic insight, that in a general point of view the principle should here hold, like father like child; and that the irreverent and wanton spirit which so strikingly betrayed itself in the conduct of the progenitor, should infallibly give rise to an offspring whose dissolute and profligate manners would in due time bring upon them a doom of degradation and servitude. Such a posterity, with such a doom, beyond all question were the Canaanites, to whom we may add also the Tyrians and Sidonians, with their descendants the Carthaginians. The connection of sin and punishment might be traced to other sections besides, but it is not necessary that we pursue the subject farther.

Our course of inquiry rather leads us to notice the turn the prophecy takes in regard to the other side of the representation, and to mark the signs it contains of a tendency toward the particular, in connection with the future development of the scheme of grace. This comes out first and pre-eminently in the case of [[@Page:343]] Shem: “And he said, Blessed is (or be) Jehovah, the God of Shem”—a blessing not directly upon Shem, but upon Jehovah as his God! Why such a peculiarity as this? No doubt, in the first instance, to make the contrast more palpable between this case and the preceding; the connection with God, which was utterly wanting in the one, presenting itself as everything, in a manner, in the other. Then it proclaims the identity as to spiritual state between Noah and Shem, and designates this son as in the full sense the heir of blessing: “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem,” My God is also the God of my son; I adore Him for Himself; and now, before I leave the world, declare Him to be the covenant God of Shem. Nor of Shem only as an individual, but as the head of a certain portion of the world’s inhabitants. It was with this portion that God was to stand in the nearest relation. Here He was to find His peculiar representatives, and His select instruments of working among men here emphatically were to be the priestly people. A spiritual distinction, therefore—the highest spiritual distinction, a state of blessed nearness to God, and special interest in His fullness—is what is predicated of the line of Shem. And in the same sense—namely, as denoting a fellowship in this spiritual distinction—should that part of the prophecy on Japheth also be understood, which points to a connection with Shem: “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” It obviously, indeed, designates his stock generally as the most spreading and energetic of the three—pre-eminent, so far as concerns diffusive operations and active labour in occupying the lands and carrying forward the business of the world and thus naturally tending, as the event has proved, to push their way, even in a civil and territorial respect, into the tents of Shem. This last thought may therefore not unfairly be included in the compass of the prediction, but it can at most be regarded as the subordinate idea. The prospect, as descried from the sacred heights of prophecy, of dwelling in the tents of Shem, must have been eyed, not as an intrusive conquest on the part of Japheth, subjecting Shem in a measure to the degrading lot of Canaan, but rather as a sacred privilege—an admission of this less honoured race under the shelter of the same Divine protection, and into the partnership of the same ennobling benefits [[@Page:344]] with himself. In a word, it was through the line of Shem that the gifts of grace and the blessings of salvation were more immediately to flow—the Shemites were to have them at first hand; but the descendants of Japheth were also to participate largely in the good. And by reason of their more extensive ramifications and more active energies, were to be mainly instrumental in working upon the condition of the world.

It is evident, even from this general intimation of the Divine purposes, that the more particular direction which was now to be given to the call of God, was not to be particular in the sense of exclusive, but particular only for the sake of a more efficient working and a more comprehensive result. The exaltation of Shem’s progeny into the nearest relationship to God, was not that they might keep the privilege to themselves, but that first getting it, they should admit the sons of Japheth, the inhabitants of the isles, to share with them in the boon, and spread it as wide as their scattered race should extend. The principle announced was an immediate particularism for the sake of an ultimate universalism. And this change in the manner of working was not introduced arbitrarily, but in consequence of the proved inadequacy of the other, and, as we may say, more natural course that had hitherto been pursued. Formally considered, the earlier revelations of God made no difference between one person and another, or even between one stem and another. They spoke the same language, and held out the same invitations to all. The weekly call to enter into God’s rest—the promise of victory to the woman’s seed—the exhibition of grace and hope in the symbols at the east of Eden—the instituted means of access to God in sacrificial worship—even the more specific promises and pledges of the Noachic covenant, were offered and addressed to men without distinction. Practically, however, they narrowed themselves; and when the effect is looked to, it is found that there was only a portion, an elect seed, that really had faith in the Divine testimony, and entered into possession of the offered good. Not only so, but there was a downward tendency in the process. The elect seed did not grow as time advanced, but proportionally decreased; the cause and party that flourished was the one opposed to God’s. And the same result was beginning to take place after the flood, as [[@Page:345]] is evident from what occurred in the family of Noah itself, and from other notices of the early appearance of corruption. The tendency in this direction was too strong to be effectually met by such general revelations and overtures of mercy. The plan was too vague and indeterminate. A more specific line of operations was needed from the particular to the general; so that a certain amount of good, within a definite range, might in the first instance be secured; and that from this, as a fixed position, other advantages might be gained, and more extensive results achieved.

It is carefully to be noted, then, that a comprehensive object was as much contemplated in this new plan as in the other; it differed only in the mode of reaching the end in view. The earth was to be possessed and peopled by the three sons of Noah; and of the three, Shem is the one who was selected as the peculiar channel of Divine gifts and communications—but not for his own exclusive benefit; rather to the end that others might share with him in the blessing. The real nature and bearing of the plan, however, became more clearly manifest, when it began to be actually carried into execution. Its proper commencement dates from the call of Abraham, who was of the line of Shem, and in whom, as an individual, the purpose of God began practically to take effect. Why the Divine choice should have fixed specially upon him as the first individual link in this grand chain of providences, is not stated; and from the references subsequently made to it, we are plainly instructed to regard it as an example of the absolutely free grace and sovereign election of God.—(Josh. 24:2; Neh. 9:7) That he had nothing whereof to boast in respect to it, we are expressly told; and yet we may not doubt, that in the line of Shem’s posterity, to which he belonged, there was more knowledge of God, and less corruption in His worship, than among other branches of the same stem. Hence, perhaps, as being addressed to one who was perfectly cognizant of what had taken place in the history of his progenitors, the revelation made to him takes a form which bears evident respect to the blessing pronounced on Shem, and appears only indeed as the giving of a more specific direction to Shem’s high calling, or chalking out a definite way for its accomplishment. Jehovah was the God of Shem that in the word of Noah was declared [[@Page:346]] to be his peculiar distinction. In like manner, Jehovah from the first made Himself known to Abraham as his God; nay, even took the name of “God of Abraham” as a distinctive epithet, and made the promise, “I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee,” a leading article in the covenant established with him. And as the peculiar blessing of Shem was to be held with no exclusive design, but that the sons of Japheth far and wide might share in it, so Abraham is called not only to be himself blessed, but also that he might be a blessing,—a blessing to such an extent, that those should be blessed who blessed him, and in him all the families of the earth should be blessed. Yet with this general similarity between the earlier and the later announcement, what a striking advance does the Divine plan now make in breadth of meaning and explicitness of purpose! How wonderfully does it combine together the little and the great, the individual and the universal! Its terminus a quo the son of a Mesopotamian shepherd; and its terminus ad quem the entire brotherhood of humanity, and the round circumference of the globe! What a Divine-like grasp and comprehensiveness! The very projection of such a scheme bespoke the infinite understanding of Godhead; and minds altogether the reverse of narrow and exclusive, minds attempered to noble aims and inspired by generous feeling, alone could carry it into execution.

By this call Abraham was raised to a very singular preeminence, and constituted in a manner the root and centre of the world’s future history, as concerns the attainment of real blessing. Still, even in that respect not exclusively. The blessing was to come chiefly to Abraham, and through him; but, as already indicated also in the prophecy on Shem, others were to stand, though in a subordinate rank, on the same line; since those also were to be blessed who blessed him; that is, who held substantially the same faith, and occupied the same friendly relation to God. The cases of such persons in the patriarch’s own day, as his kinsman Lot, who was not formally admitted into Abraham’s covenant, and still more of Melchizedek, who was not even of Abraham’s line, and yet individually stood in some sense higher than Abraham himself, clearly showed, and were no doubt partly provided for the express purpose of showing, that there was nothing arbitrary [[@Page:347]] in Abraham’s position, and that the ground he occupied was to a certain extent common to believers generally. The peculiar honour conceded to him was, that the great trunk of blessing was to be of him, while only some isolated twigs or scattered branches were to be found elsewhere; and even these could only be found by persons coming, in a manner, to make common cause with him. In regard to himself, however, the large dowry of good conveyed to him in the Divine promise could manifestly not be realized through himself personally. There could at the most be but a beginning made in his own experience and history; and the widening of the circle of blessing to other kindreds and regions, till it reached the most distant families of the earth, could only be effected by means of those who were to spring from him. Hence the original word of promise, which was, “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed,” was afterwards changed into this, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”—(Gen. 22:18)

Yet the original expression is not without an important meaning, and it takes the two, the earlier as well as the later form, to bring out the full design of God in the calling of Abraham. From the very nature of the case, first, as having respect to so extensive a field to be operated on, and then from the explicit mention of the patriarch’s seed in the promise, no doubt whatever could be entertained, that the good in its larger sense was to be wrought out, not by himself individually and directly, but by him in connection with the seed to be given to him. And when the high character as well as the comprehensive reach of the good was taken into account, it might well have seemed as if even that seed were somehow going to have qualities associated with it which he could not perceive in himself—as if another and higher connection with the heavenly and Divine should in due time be given to it, than any he was conscious of enjoying in his state of noblest elevation. We, at least, know from the better light we possess, that such actually was the case; that the good promised neither did nor could have come into realization but by a personal commingling of the Divine with the human; and that it has become capable of reaching to the most exalted height, and of diffusing itself through the widest bounds, simply by reason of this union in Christ. He, therefore, is the essential [[@Page:348]] kernel of the promise; and the seed of Abraham, rather than Abraham himself, was to have the honour of blessing all the families of the earth. This, however, by no means makes void the in thee of the original promise; for by so expressly connecting the good with Abraham as well as with his seed, the organic connection was marked between the one and the other, and the things that belonged to him were made known as the beginning of the end. The blessing to be brought to the world through his line had even in his time a present though small realization—precisely as the kingdom of Christ had its commencement in that of David, and the one ultimately merged into the other. And so, in Abraham as the living root of all that was to follow, the whole and every part may be said to take its rise; and not only was Christ after the flesh of the seed of Abraham, but each believer in Christ is a son of Abraham, and the entire company of the redeemed shall have their place and their portion with Abraham in the kingdom of God.

Such being the case with the call of Abraham,—in its objects, so high, and its results so grand and comprehensive,—it is manifest that the immediate limitations connected with it, in regard to a fleshly offspring and a worldly inheritance, must only have been intended to serve as temporary expedients and fit stepping-stones for the ulterior purposes in view. And such statements regarding the covenant with Abraham, as that it merely secured to Abraham a posterity, and to that posterity the possession of the land of Canaan for an inheritance, on the condition of their acknowledging Jehovah as their God, is to read the terms of the covenant with a microscope—magnifying the little, and leaving the great altogether unnoticed—in the preliminary means losing sight of the prospective end.[3] Another thing also, and one more closely connected with our present subject, is equally manifest; which is, that since the entire scheme of blessing had its root in Abraham, it must also have had its representation in [[@Page:349]] Him—he, in his position and character and fortunes, must have been the type of that which was to come. Such uniformly is God’s plan, in respect to those whom it constitutes heads of a class, or founders of a particular dispensation. It was so, first of all, with Adam, in whom humanity itself was imaged. It was so again in a measure with the three sons of Noah, whose respective states and procedure gave prophetic indication of the more prominent characteristics that should distinguish their offspring. Such, too, at a future period, and much more remarkably, was the case with David, in whom, as the beginning and root of the everlasting kingdom, there was presented the foreshadowing type of all that should essentially belong to the kingdom, when represented by its Divine head, and set up in its proper dimensions. Nor could it now be properly otherwise with Abraham. The very terms of the call, which singled him out from the mass of the world, and set him on high, constrain us to regard him as in the strictest sense a representative man—in himself and the things belonging to his immediate heirs, the type at once of the subjective and the objective design of the covenant, or, in other words, of the kind of persons who were to be the subjects arid channels of blessing, and of the kind of inheritance with which they were to be blessed. It is for the purpose of exhibiting this clearly and distinctly, and thereby rendering the things written of Abraham and his immediate offspring a revelation, in the strictest sense, of God’s mind and will regarding the more distant future, that this portion of patriarchal history was constructed.

Abraham himself, in the first instance, was the covenant head and the type of what was to come; but as the family of the Israelites were to be the collective bearers and representatives of the covenant, so, not Abraham alone, but the whole of their immediate progenitors, who were alike heads of the covenant people, along with Abraham, Isaac also, and Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs,—possess a typical character. It shall be our object, therefore, in the two remaining sections,—which must necessarily extend to a considerable length,—to present the more prominent features of the instruction intended to be conveyed in both of the respects now mentioned first in regard to the subjects and channels of blessing, and then in regard to the inheritance destined for their possession.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Gen. 9:24. The expression in the original is בּנוֹ הַקָּטָן, and is the same that is applied to David in 1 Sam. 17:14. There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt that it means youngest, and not tender or dear, as some would take it. It is not so expressly said that Canaan was Ham’s youngest son; but the inference that he was such is fair and natural, as he is mentioned last in the genealogy, ch. 10:6, where no sufficient reason can be thought of for deviating from the natural order.

[2] Weissagung und Erfüllung, i., p. 89.

[3] This is exactly the course taken in a late volume, Israel after the Flesh, by the Rev. William H. Johnstone, pp. 7, 8. He appears also to slump together the covenant with Abraham and the covenant at Sinai, as if the one were simply a renewal of the other. And this notwithstanding the distinction drawn so pointedly between them in the Epistle to the Galatians, and while the author, too, professes to have gone to work with the thorough determination to be guided only by Scripture!

Section Fifth.—The Subjects and Channels of Blessing—Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and The Twelve Patriarchs.

[[@Page:350]] WHILE we class the whole of these together, on account of their being alike covenant heads to the children of Israel, who became in due time the covenant people, we are not to lose sight of the fact, that Abraham was more especially the person in whom the covenant had its original root and representation.

It is in his case, accordingly, that we might expect to find, and that we actually have, the most specific and varied information respecting the nature of the covenant, and the manner in which it was to reach its higher ends. We shall therefore look, in the first instance, to what is written of him, coupling Isaac, however, with him; since what is chiefly interesting and import ant about Isaac concerns him as the seed, for which Abraham was immediately called to look and wait: so that, as to the greater lines of instruction, which are all we can at present notice, the lives of the two are knit inseparably together. And the same is, to a considerable extent, the case also with Jacob and the twelve patriarchs. The whole may be said to be of one piece, viewed as a special instruction for the covenant people, and through them for the Church at large, in respect to her calling and position in the world.

I. Abraham, then, is called to be in a peculiar sense the possessor and dispenser of blessing; to be himself blessed, and through the seed that is to spring from him, to be a blessing to the whole race of mankind. A divine-like calling and destiny! for it is God alone who is properly the source and giver of blessing. Abraham, therefore, by his very appointment, is raised into a supranatural relationship to God; he is to be in direct communication with heaven, and to receive all from above; God is to work, in a special manner, for him and by [[@Page:351]] him; and the people that are to spring out of him, for a blessing to other peoples, are to arise, not in the ordinary course of nature, but above and beyond it, as the benefits also they should be called to diffuse belong to a higher region than that of nature. As a necessary counterpart to this, and the in dispensable condition of its accomplishment, there must be in Abraham a principle of faith, such as might qualify him for transacting with God, in regard to the higher things of the covenant. These were not seen or present, and were also strange, supernatural, in the view of sense unlikely or even impossible; yet were not the less to be regarded as sure in the destination of heaven, and to be looked, waited, or, if need be, also striven and suffered for by men. This principle of faith must evidently be the fundamental and formative power in Abraham’s bosom—the very root of his new being, the life of his life—at once making him properly receptive of the Divine goodness, and readily obedient to the Divine will in the one respect giving scope for the display of God’s wonders in his behalf, and in the other prompting him to act in accordance with God’s righteous ends and purposes. So it actually was. Abraham was pre-eminently a man of faith; and on that account was raised to the honourable distinction of the Father of the Faithful. And faith in him proved not only a capacity to receive, but a hand also to work; and is scarcely less remarkable for what it brought to his experience from the grace and power of God, than for the sustaining, elevating, and sanctifying influence which it shed over his life and conduct. There are particularly three stages, each rising in succession above the other, in which it is important for us to mark this.

1. The first is that of the Divine call itself, which came to Abraham while still living among his kindred in the land of Mesopotamia.—(Gen. 12:1-3) Even in this original form of the Divine purpose concerning him, the supernatural element is conspicuous. To say nothing of its more general provisions, that he, a Mesopotamian shepherd, should be made surpassingly great, and should even be a source of blessing to all the families of the earth—to say nothing of these, which might appear in credible only from their indefinite vastness and comprehension, the two specific promises in the call, that a great nation should [[@Page:352]] be made of him, and that another land—presently afterwards determined to be the land of Canaan—should be given him for an inheritance, both lay beyond the bounds of the natural and the probable. At the time the call was addressed to Abraham, he was already seventy-five years old, and his wife Sarah, being only ten years younger, must have been sixty-five.—(Gen. 12:4, 17:17) For such persons to be constituted parents, and parents of an offspring that should become a great nation, involved at the very outset a natural impossibility, and could only be made good by a supernatural exercise of Divine Omnipotence—a miracle. Nor was it materially different in regard to the other part of the promise; for it is expressly stated, when the precise land to be given was pointed out to him, that the Canaanite was then in the land.—(Gen. 12:6) It was even then an inhabited territory, and by no ordinary concurrence of events could be expected to become the heritage of the yet unborn posterity of Abraham. It could only be looked for as the result of God’s direct and special interposition in their behalf.

Yet, incredible as the promise seemed in both of its departments, Abraham believed the word spoken to him; he had faith to accredit the Divine testimony, and to take the part which it assigned him. Both were required—a receiving of the promise first, and then an acting with a view to it; for, on the ground of such great things being destined for him, he was commanded to leave his natural home and kindred, and go forth under the Divine guidance to the new territory to be assigned him. In this command was discovered the inseparable connection between faith and holiness; or between the call of Abraham to receive distinguishing and supernatural blessing, and his call to lead a life of sincere and devoted obedience. He was singled out from the world’s inhabitants to begin a new order of things, which were to bear throughout the impress of God’s special grace and almighty power; and he must separate himself from the old things of nature, to be in his life the representative of God’s holiness, as in his destiny he was to be the monument of God’s power and goodness.

It is this exercise of faith in Abraham which is first exhibited in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as bespeaking a mighty energy in its working; the more especially as the exchange in the case [[@Page:353]] of Abraham and his immediate descendants did not prove by any means agreeable to nature. “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; arid he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” It may seem, indeed, at this distance of place and time, as if there were no great difference in the condition of Abraham and his household, in the one place as compared with the other. But it was quite otherwise in reality. They had, first of all, to break asunder the ties of home and kindred, which nature always feels painful, especially in mature age, even though it may have the prospect before it of a comfortable settlement in another region. This sacrifice they had to make in the fullest sense: it was in their case a strictly final separation; they were to be absolutely done with the old and its endearments, and to cleave henceforth to the new. Nor only so, but their immediate position in the new was not like that which they had before in the old: settled possessions in the one, but none in the other; instead of them, mere lodging-room among strangers, and a life on Providence. Nature does not love a change like that, and can only regard it as quitting the certainties of sight for the seeming uncertainties of faith and hope. These, however, were still but the smaller trials which Abraham’s faith had to encounter; for, along with the change in his outward condition, there came responsibilities and duties altogether alien to nature’s feelings, and contrary to its spirit. In his old country he followed his own way, and walked after the course of the world, having no special work to do, nor any calling of a more solemn kind to fulfil. But now, by obeying the call of Heaven, he was brought into immediate connection with a spiritual and holy God, became charged in a manner with His interest in the world, and bound, in the face of surrounding enmity or scorn, faithfully to maintain His cause, and promote the glory of His name. To do this was in truth to renounce nature, and rise superior to it. And it was done, let it be remembered, out of regard to prospects which could only be realized if the power of God should forsake its wonted channels of working, and perform what the carnal mind would [[@Page:354]] have deemed it infatuation to look for. Even in that first stage of the patriarch’s course, there was a noble triumph of faith, and the earnest of a life replenished with the fruits of righteousness.

It is true, the promise thus given at the commencement was not uniformly sustained; and Abraham was not long in Canaan till there seemed to be a failure on the part of God toward him, and there actually was a failure on his part toward God. The occurrence of a famine leads him to take refuge for a time in Egypt, which was even then the granary of that portion of the East; and he is tempted, through fear of his personal safety, to equivocate regarding Sarah, and call her his sister. The equivocation is certainly not to be justified, either on this or on the future occasion on which it was again resorted to; for though it contained a half truth, this was so employed as to render “the half truth a whole lie.” We are rather to refer both circumstances—his repairing to Egypt, and when there betaking to such a worldly expedient for safety—as betraying the imperfection of his faith, which had strength to enable him to enter on his new course of separation from the world and devotedness to God, but still wanted clearness of discernment and implicitness of trust sufficient to meet the unexpected difficulties that so early presented themselves in the way. Strange indeed had it been otherwise. It was necessary that the faith of Abraham, like that of believers generally, should learn by experience, and even grow by its temporary defeats. The first failure on the present occasion stood in his seeking relief from the emergency that arose by withdrawing, without the Divine sanction, to another country than that into which he had been conducted by the special providence of God. Instead of looking up for direction and support, he betook to worldly shifts and expedients, and thus became entangled in difficulties, out of which the immediate interposition of God alone could have rescued him. In this way, however, the result proved beneficial. Abraham was made to feel, in the first instance, that his backsliding had reproved him; and then the merciful interposition of Heaven, rebuking even a king for his sake, taught him the lesson, that with the God of heaven upon his side, he had no need to be afraid for the outward evils that might beset him in his course. [[@Page:355]] He had but to look up in faith, and get the direction or support that he needed.

The conduct of Abraham, immediately after his return to Canaan, gave ample evidence of the general stedfastness and elevated purity of his course. Though travelling about as a stranger in the land, he makes all around him feel that it is a blessed thing to be connected with him, and that it would be well for them if the land really were in his possession. The quarrel that presently arose between Lot’s herdsmen and his own, merely furnished the occasion for his disinterested generosity, in waiving his own rights, and allowing to his kinsman the priority and freedom of choice. And another quarrel of a graver kind, that of the war between the four kings in higher Asia, and of the five small dependent sovereigns in the south of Canaan, drew forth still nobler manifestations of the large and self-sacrificing spirit that filled his bosom. Regarding the unjust capture of Lot as an adequate reason for taking part in the conflict, he went courageously forth with his little band of trained servants, overthrew the conquerors, and recovered all that had been lost. Yet, at the very moment he displayed the victorious energy of his faith, by discomfiting this mighty army, how strikingly did he, at the same time, exhibit its patience in declining to use the advantage he then gained to hasten forward the purposes of God concerning his possession of the land, and its moderation of spirit, its commanding superiority to merely worldly ends and objects, in refusing to take even the smallest portion of the goods of the king of Sodom! Nay, so far from seeking to exalt self by pressing outward advantages and worldly resources, his spirit of faith, leading him to recognise the hand of God in the success that had been won, causes him to bow down in humility, and do homage to the Most High God in the person of His priest Melchizedek. He gave this Melchizedek tithes of all, and as himself the less, received blessing from Melchizedek as the greater.

Viewed thus merely as a mark of the humble and reverent spirit of Abraham, the offspring of his faith in God, this notice of his relation to Melchizedek is interesting. But other things of a profounder nature were wrapt up in the transaction, which the pen of inspiration did not fail afterwards to elicit (Ps. 110:4; [[@Page:356]] Heb. 7), and which it is proper to glance at before we pass on to another stage of the patriarch’s history. The extraordinary circumstance of such a person as a priest of the Most High God, whom even Abraham acknowledged to be such, starting up all at once in the devoted land of Canaan, and vanishing out of sight almost as soon as he appeared, has given rise, from the earliest times, to numberless conjectures. Ham, Shem, Noah, Enoch, an angel, Christ, the Holy Spirit, have each, in the hands of different persons, been identified with this Melchizedek; but the view now almost universally acquiesced in is, that he was simply a Canaanite sovereign, who combined with his royal dignity as king of Salem[1] the office of a true priest of God. No other supposition, indeed, affords a satisfactory explanation of the narrative. The very silence observed regarding his origin, and the manner of his appointment to the priesthood, was intentional, and served to draw more particular attention to the facts of the case, as also to bring it into a closer correspondence with the ultimate realities. The more remarkable peculiarity was, that to this person, simply because he was a righteous king and priest of the Most High God, Abraham, the elect of God, the possessor of the promises, paid tithes, and received from him a blessing; and did it, too, at the very time he stood so high in honour, and kept himself so carefully aloof from another king then present—the king of Sodom. He placed himself as conspicuously below the one personage as he raised himself above the other. Why should he have done so? Because Melchizedek already in a measure possessed what Abraham still only hoped for—he reigned where Abraham’s [[@Page:357]] seed were destined to reign, and exercised a priesthood which in future generations was to be committed to them. The union of the two in Melchizedek was in itself a great thing—greater than the separate offices of king and priest in the houses respectively of David and Aaron; but it was an expiring greatness: it was like the last blossom on the old rod of Noah, which thenceforth became as a dry tree. In Abraham, on the other hand, was the germ of a new and higher order of things: the promise, though still only the budding promise, of a better inheritance of blessing; and when the seed should come in whom the promise was more especially to stand, then the more general and comprehensive aspect of the Melchizedek order was to reappear, and reappear in one who could at once place it on firmer ground, and carry it to unspeakably higher results. Here, then, was a sacred enigma for the heart of faith to ponder, and for the spirit of truth gradually to unfold: Abraham, in one respect, relatively great, and in another relatively little; personally inferior to Melchizedek, and yet the root of a seed that was to do for the world incomparably more than Melchizedek had done; himself the type of a higher than Melchizedek, and yet Melchizedek a more peculiar type than he! It was a mystery that could be disclosed only in partial glimpses beforehand, but which now has become comparatively plain by the person and work of Immanuel. What but the wonder-working finger of God could have so admirably fitted the past to be such a singular image of the future!

There are points connected with this subject that will naturally fall to be noticed at a later period, when we come to treat of the Aaronic priesthood, and other points also, though of a minor kind, belonging to this earlier portion of Abraham’s history, which we cannot particularly notice. We proceed to the second stage in the development of his spiritual life.

2. This consisted in the establishment of the covenant between him and God; which falls, however, into two parts: one earlier in point of time, and in its own nature incomplete; the other, both the later and the more perfect form.

It would seem as if, after the stirring transactions connected with the victory over Chedorlaomer and his associates, and the interview with Melchizedek, the spirit of Abraham had sunk into depression and fear; for the next notice we have respecting [[@Page:358]] him represents God as appearing to him in vision, and bidding him not to be afraid, since God Himself was his shield and his exceeding great reward. It is not improbable that some apprehension of a revenge on the part of Chedorlaomer might haunt his bosom, and that he might begin to dread the result of such an unequal contest as he had entered on with the powers of the world. But it is clear also, from the sequel, that another thing preyed upon his spirits, and that he was filled with concern on account of the long delay that was allowed to intervene before the appearance of the promised seed. He still went about child less; and the thought could not but press upon his mind, of what use were other things to him, even of the most honourable kind, if the great thing, on which all his hopes for the future turned, were still withheld? The Lord graciously met this natural misgiving by the assurance, that not any son by adoption merely, but one from his own loins, should be given him for an heir. And to make the matter more palpable to his mind, and take external nature, as it were, to witness for the fulfilment of the word, the Lord brought him forth, and, pointing to the stars of heaven, declared to him, “So shall thy seed be.” “And he believed in the Lord,” it is said, “and He counted it to him for righteousness.”—(Gen. 15:1-6)

This historical statement regarding Abraham’s faith is remarkable, as it is the one so strenuously urged by the Apostle Paul in his argument for justification by faith alone in the righteousness of Christ.—(Rom. 4:18-22) And the question has been keenly debated, whether it was the faith itself which was in God’s account taken for righteousness, or the righteousness of God in Christ, which that faith prospectively laid hold of. Our wisdom here, however, and in all similar cases, is not to press the statements of Old Testament Scripture so as to render them explicit categorical deliverances on Christian doctrine,—in which case violence must inevitably be done to them,—but rather to catch the general principle embodied in them, arid give it a fair application to the more distinct revelations of the Gospel. This is precisely what is done by St Paul. He does not say a word about the specific manifestation of the righteousness of God in Christ, when arguing from the statement respecting the righteousness of faith in Abraham. He [[@Page:359]] lays stress simply upon the natural impossibilities that stood in the way of God’s promise of a numerous offspring to Abraham being fulfilled—the comparative deadness both of his own body and of Sarah’s—and on the implicit confidence Abraham had, notwithstanding, in the power and faithfulness of God, that He would perform what He had promised. “Therefore,” adds the Apostle, “it was imputed to him for righteousness.” Therefore—namely, because through faith he so completely lost sight of nature and self, and realized with undoubting confidence the sufficiency of the Divine arm, and the certainty of its working. His faith was nothing more, nothing else, than the renunciation of all virtue and strength in himself, and a hanging in childlike trust upon God for what He was able and willing to do. Not, therefore, a mere substitute for a righteousness that was wanting, an acceptance of something that could be had for something better that failed, but rather the vital principle of a righteousness in God the acting of a soul in unison with the mind of God, and finding its life, its hope, its all in Him. Transfer such a faith to the field of the New Testament—bring it into contact with the manifestation of God in the person and work of Christ for the salvation of the world, and what would inevitably be its language but that of the Apostle: “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ,”—”not my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is of God through faith!”

To return to Abraham. When he had attained to such confiding faith in the Divine word respecting the promised seed, the Lord gave him an equally distinct assurance respecting the promised land; and in answer to Abraham’s question, “Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” the Lord “made a covenant with him” respecting it, by means of a symbolical sacrificial action. It was a covenant by blood; for in the very act of establishing the union, it was meet there should be a reference to the guilt of man, and a provision for purging it away. The very materials of the sacrifice have here a specific meaning; the greater sacrifices, those of the heifer, the goat, and the ram, being expressly fixed to be of three years old—pointing to the three generations which Abraham’s posterity were to pass in Egypt; and these, together with the turtle-dove [[@Page:360]] and the young pigeon, comprising a full representation of the animals afterwards offered in sacrifice under the law. As the materials, so also the form of the sacrifice was symbolical—the animals being divided asunder, and one piece laid over against another; for the purpose of more distinctly representing the two parties in the transaction—two, and yet one—meeting and acting together in one solemn offering. Recognising Jehovah as the chief party in what was taking place, Abraham waits for the Divine manifestation, and contents himself with mean while driving away the ill-omened birds of prey that flocked around the sacrifice. At last, when the shades of night had fallen, “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces”—the glory of the Lord Himself, as so often after wards, in a pillar of cloud and fire. Passing under this emblem through the divided sacrifice, He formally accepted it, and struck the covenant with His servant.—(Jer. 34:18, 19) At the same time, also, a profound sleep had fallen upon Abraham, and a horror of great darkness,—symbolical of the outward humiliations and sufferings through which the covenant was to reach its accomplishment; and in explanation the announcement was expressly made to him, that his posterity should be in bondage and affliction four hundred years in a foreign land, and should then, in the fourth generation, be brought up from it with great substance.[2] In justification, also, of the long delay, the specific reason was given, that “the iniquity of the [[@Page:361]] Amorites was not yet full,”—plainly importing that this part of the Divine procedure had a moral aim, and could only be carried into effect in accordance with the great principles of the Divine righteousness.

The covenant was thus established in both its branches, yet only in an imperfect manner, if respect were had to the coming future, and even to the full bearing and import of the covenant itself. Abraham had got a present sign of God’s formally entering into covenant with him for the possession of the land of Canaan; but it came and went like a troubled vision of the night. There was needed something of a more tangible and permanent kind,—an abiding, sacramental covenant signature,—which by its formal institution on God’s part, and its regular observance on the part of Abraham and his seed, might serve as a mutual sign of covenant engagements. This was the more necessary, as the next step in Abraham’s procedure but too clearly manifested that he still wanted light regarding the nature of the covenant, and in particular regarding the super natural, the essentially Divine, character of its provisions. From the prolonged barrenness of Sarah, and her now advanced age, it began to be imagined that Sarah possibly might not be included in the promise,—the rather so, as no express mention had been made of her in the previous intimations of the Divine purpose; and so despairing of having herself any share in the fulfilment of the promised word, she suggested, and Abraham fell in with the suggestion, that the fulfilment should be sought by the substitution of her bondmaid Hagar. This was again resorting to an expedient of the flesh to get over a present difficulty, and it was soon followed by its meet retribution in providence—domestic troubles and vexations. The bondmaid had been raised out of her proper place, and began to treat Sarah, the legitimate spouse of Abraham, with contempt. And had she even repressed her improper feelings, and brought forth a child in the midst of domestic peace and harmony, yet a son so born—after the ordinary course of nature, and in compliance with one of her corrupter usages—could not have been allowed to stand as the representative of that seed through which blessing was to come to the world.

On both accounts, therefore, first,—to give more explicit [[@Page:362]] information regarding the son to be born, and then to provide a significant and lasting signature of the covenant,—another and more perfect ratification of it took place. The word which introduced this new scene, expressed the substance and design of the whole transaction: “I am God Almighty: walk before Me, and be thou perfect” (Gen. 17:1):—On My part there is power amply sufficient to accomplish what I have promised: whatever natural difficulties may stand in the way, the whole shall assuredly be done; only see that on your part there be a habitual recognition of My presence, and a stedfast adherence to the path of rectitude and purity. What follows is simply a filling up of this general outline—a more particular announcement of what God on His part should do, and then of what Abraham and his posterity were to do on the other. “As for Me” (literally, I— i.e., on My part), “behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram; but thy name shall be Abraham: for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” This was God’s part in the covenant, to which He immediately subjoined, by way of explanation, that the seed more especially meant in the promise was to be of Sarah as well as Abraham; that she was to renew her youth, and have a son, and that her name also was to be changed in accordance with her new position. Then follows what was expected and required on the other side: “And God said unto Abraham, And thou” (this now is thy part), “My covenant shalt thou keep, thou, and thy seed after thee; Every male among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be for a covenant-sign betwixt Me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised to you, every male in your generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, that [[@Page:363]] is not of thy seed. . . . . And My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And uncircumcision” (i.e., pollution, abomination) “is the male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin; and cut off is that soul from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

There is no need for going into the question, whether this ordinance of circumcision was now for the first time introduced among men; or whether it already existed as a practice to some extent, and was simply adopted by God as a fit and significant token of His covenant. It is comparatively of little moment how such a question may be decided. The same principle may have been acted on here, which undoubtedly had a place in the modelling of the Mosaic institutions, and which will be discussed and vindicated when we come to consider the influence exercised by the learning of Moses on his subsequent legislation—the principle, namely, of taking from the province of religion generally a symbolical sign or action, that was capable, when associated with the true religion, of fitly expressing its higher truths and principles. The probability is, that this principle was recognised and acted on here. Circumcision has been practised among classes of people and nations who cannot reasonably be supposed to have derived it from the family of Abraham—among the ancients, for example, by the Egyptian priesthood, and among the moderns by native tribes in America and the islands of the Pacific. Its extensive prevalence and long continuance can only be accounted for on the ground that it has a foundation in the feelings of the natural conscience, which, like the distinctions into clean and unclean, or the payment of tithes, may have led to its employment before the time of Abraham, and also fitted it afterwards for serving as the peculiar sign of God’s covenant with him. At the same time, as it was henceforth intended to be a distinctive badge of covenant relationship, it could not have been generally practised in the region where the chosen family were called to live and act. From the purpose to which it was applied, we may certainly infer that it formed at once an appropriate and an easily recognised distinction between the race of Abraham and the families and nations by whom they were more immediately surrounded.

Among the race of Abraham, however, it had the widest [[@Page:364]] application given to it. While God so far identified it with His covenant, as to suspend men’s interest in the one upon their observance of the other, it was with His covenant in its wider aspect and bearing—not simply as securing either an offspring after the flesh, or the inheritance for that offspring of the land of Canaan. It was comparatively but a limited portion of Abraham’s actual offspring who were destined to grow into a separate nation, and occupy as their home the territory of Canaan. At the very outset Ishmael was excluded, though constituted the head of a great nation. And yet not only he, but all the members of Abraham’s household, were alike ordered to receive the covenant signature. Nay, even in later times, when the children of Israel had grown into a distinct people, and everything was placed under the strict administration of law, it was always left open to people of other lands and tribes to enter into the bonds of the covenant through the rite of circumcision. This rite, therefore, must have had a significance for them, as well as for the more favoured seed of Jacob. It spoke also to their hearts and consciences, and virtually declared that the covenant which it symbolized had nothing in its main design of an exclusive and contracted spirit; that its greater things lay open to all who were willing to seek them in the appointed way; and that if at first there were individual per sons, and afterwards a single people, who were more especially identified with the covenant, it was only to mark them out as the chosen representatives of its nature and objects, and to constitute them lights for the instruction and benefit of others. There never was a more evident misreading of the palpable facts of history, than appears in the disposition so often manifested to limit the rite of circumcision to one line merely of Abraham’s posterity, and to regard it as the mere outward badge of an external national distinction.

It is to be held, then, as certain in regard to the sign of the covenant as in regard to the covenant itself, that its more special and marked connection with individuals was only for the sake of more effectually helping forward its general objects. And not less firmly is it to be held, that the outwardness in the rite was for the sake of the inward and spiritual truths it symbolized. It was appointed as the distinctive badge of the covenant, [[@Page:365]] because it was peculiarly fitted for symbolically expressing the spiritual character and design of the covenant. It marked the condition of every one who received it, as having to do both with higher powers and higher objects than those of corrupt nature, as the condition of one brought into blessed fellowship with God, and therefore called to walk before Him and be perfect. There would be no difficulty in perceiving this, nor any material difference of opinion upon the subject, if people would but look beneath the surface, and in the true spirit of the ancient religion, would contemplate the outward as an image of the inward. The general purport of the covenant was, that from Abraham as an individual there was to be generated a seed of blessing, in which all real blessing was to centre, and from which it was to flow to the ends of the earth. There could not, therefore, be a more appropriate sign of the covenant than such a rite as circumcision—so directly connected with the generation of offspring, and so distinctly marking the necessary purification of nature the removal of the filth of the flesh that the off spring might be such as really to constitute a seed of blessing. It is through ordinary generation that the corruption incident on the fall is propagated; and hence, under the law, which contained a regular system of symbolical teaching, there were so many occasions of defilement traced to this source, and so many means of purification appointed for them. Now, therefore, when God was establishing a covenant, the great object of which was to reverse the propagation of evil, to secure for the world a blessed and a blessed-making seed, he affixed to the covenant this symbolical rite—to show that the end was to be reached, not as the result of nature’s ordinary productiveness, but of nature purged from its uncleanness—nature raised above itself, in league with the grace of God, and bearing on it the distinctive impress of His character and working. It said to the circumcised man, that he had Jehovah for his bridegroom, to whom he had become espoused, as it were, by blood (Ex. 4:25), and that he must no longer follow the unregulated will and impulse of nature, but live in accordance with the high relation lie occupied, and the sacred calling he had received.[3]

[[@Page:366]] Most truly, therefore, does the Apostle say, that Abraham received circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had (Rom. 4:11)—a Divine token in his own case that he had attained through faith to such fellowship with God, and righteousness in Him and a token for every child that should afterwards receive it; not indeed that he actually possessed the same, but that he was called to possess it, and had a right to the privileges and hopes which might enable him to attain to the possession. Most truly also does the Apostle say in another place (Rom. 2:28, 29): “He is not a Jew which is one outwardly (i.e., not a Jew in the right sense, not such an one as God would recognise and own); neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew which is one inwardly: and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” The very design of the covenant was to secure a seed with these inward and spiritual characteristics; and the sign of the covenant, the outward impression in the flesh, was worthless, a mere external concision—as the Apostle calls it, when it came to be alone, Phil. 3:2—excepting in so far as it was the expression of the corresponding reality. Isaac, the first child of promise, was the fitting type of such a covenant. In the very manner and time of his production he was a sign to all coming ages of what the covenant required and sought;—not begotten till Abraham himself bore the symbol of nature’s purification, nor born till it was evident the powers of nature must have been miraculously vivified for the purpose; so that in his very being and birth Isaac was emphatically a child of God. But in being so, he was the exact type of what the covenant properly aimed at, and what its expressive symbol betokened, viz., a spiritual seed, in which the Divine and human, grace and nature, should meet together in producing true subjects and channels of blessing. [[@Page:367]] But its actual representation—the one complete and perfect embodiment of all it symbolized and sought—was the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom the Divine and human met from the first, not in co-operative merely, but in organic union; and consequently the result produced was a Being free from all taint of corruption, holy, harmless, undefiled, the express image of the Father, the very righteousness of God. He alone fully realized the conditions of blessing exhibited in the covenant, and was qualified to be in the largest sense the seed-corn of a harvest of blessing for the whole field of humanity.

It is true—and those who take their notions of realities from appearances alone, will doubtless reckon it a sufficient reply to what has been said—that the portion of Abraham’s seed who afterwards became distinctively the covenant people—Israel after the flesh—were by no means such subjects and channels of blessing as we have described, but were to a large extent carnal, having only that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. What then? Had they still a title to be recognised as the children of the covenant, and a right, as such, to the temporal inheritance connected with it? By no means. This were substantially to make void God’s ordinance, which could not, any more than His other ordinances, be merely outward. It arises from His essential nature, as the spiritual and holy God, that He should ever require from His people what is accordant with His own character; and that when He appoints outward signs and ordinances, it is only with a view to spiritual and moral ends. Where the outward alone exists, He cannot own its validity. Christ certainly did not. For, when arguing with the Jews of His own day, He denied on this very ground that their circumcision made them the children of Abraham: they were not of his spirit, and did not perform his works; and so, in Christ’s account, their natural connection both with Abraham and with the covenant went for nothing.—(John 8:34-44) Their circumcision was a sign without any signification. And if so then, it must equally have been so in former times. The children of Israel had no right to the benefits of the covenant merely because they had been outwardly circumcised; nor were any promises made to them simply as the natural seed of Abraham. Both elements had to meet in their condition, the natural [[@Page:368]] and the spiritual; the spiritual, however, more especially, and the natural only as connected with the spiritual, and a means for securing it. Hence Moses urged them so earnestly to circumcise their hearts, as absolutely necessary to their getting the fulfilment of what was promised (Deut. 10:16); and when the people as a whole had manifestly not done this, circumcision itself, the sign of the covenant, was suspended for a season, and the promises of the covenant were held in abeyance, till they should come to learn aright the real nature of their calling.—(Josh. 5:3-9) Throughout, it was the election within the election who really had the promises and the covenants; and none but those in whom, through the special working of God’s grace, nature was sanctified and raised to another position than itself could ever have attained, were entitled to the blessing. If in the land of Canaan, they existed by sufferance merely, and not by right.

The bearing of all this on the ordinance of Christian baptism cannot be overlooked, but it may still be mistaken. The relation between circumcision and baptism is not properly that of type and antitype; the one is a symbolical ordinance as well as the other, and both alike have an outward form and an inward reality. It is precisely in such ordinances that the Old and the New dispensations approach nearest to each other, and, we might almost say, stand formally upon the same level. The difference does not so much lie in the ordinances themselves, as in the comparative amount of grace and truth respectively exhibited in them—necessarily less in the earlier, and more in the later. The difference in external form was in each case conditioned by the circumstances of the time. In circumcision it bore respect to the propagation of offspring, as it was through the production of a seed of blessing that the covenant, in its preparatory form, was to attain its realization. But when the seed in that respect had reached its culminating point in Christ, and the objects of the covenant were no longer dependent on natural propagation of seed, but were to be carried forward by spiritual means and influences used in connection with the faith of Christ, the external ordinance was fitly altered, so as to express simply a change of nature and state in the individual that received it. Undoubtedly the New Testament form less distinctly recognises [[@Page:369]] the connection between parent and child—we should rather say, does not of itself recognise that connection at all: so much ought to be frankly conceded to those who disapprove of the practice of infant baptism, and will be conceded by all whose object is to ascertain the truth rather than contend for an opinion. On the other hand, however, if we look, not to the form, but to the substance, which ought here, as in other things, to be chiefly regarded, we perceive an essential agreement—such as is, indeed, marked by the Apostle, when, with reference to the spiritual import of baptism, he calls it “the circumcision of Christ.”—(Col. 2:11) So far from being less indicative of a change of nature in the proper subjects of it, circumcision was even more so; in a more obvious and palpable manner it bespoke the necessity of a deliverance from the native corruption of the soul in those who should become the true possessors of blessing. Hence the Apostle makes use of the earlier rite to explain the symbolical import of the later, and describes the spiritual change indicated and required by it, as “a putting-off of the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ,” and “having the uncircumcision of the flesh quickened together with Christ.” It would have been travelling entirely in the wrong direction, to use such language for purposes of explanation in Christian times, if the ordinance of circumcision had not shadowed forth this spiritual quickening and purification even more palpably and impressively than baptism itself; and shadowed it forth, not prospectively merely for future times, but immediately and personally for the members of the Old Covenant. For, by the terms of the covenant, these were ordained to be, not types of blessing only, but also partakers of blessing. The good contemplated in the covenant was to have its present commencement in their experience, as well as in the future a deeper foundation and a more enlarged development. And the outward putting away of the filth of the flesh in circumcision could never have symbolized a corresponding inward purification for the members of the New Covenant, if it had not first done this for the members of the Old. The shadow must have a substance in the one case as well as in the other.

Such being the case as to the essential agreement between [[@Page:370]] the two ordinances, an important element for deciding in regard to the propriety of infant baptism may still be derived from the practice established in the rite of circumcision. The grand principle of connecting parent and child together for the attainment of spiritual objects, and marking the connection by an impressive signature, was there most distinctly and broadly sanctioned. And if the parental bond and its attendant obligations be not weakened, but rather elevated and strengthened, by the higher revelations of the Gospel, it would be strange indeed if the liberty at least, nay, the propriety and right, if not the actual obligation, to have their children brought by an initiatory ordinance under the bond of the covenant, did not belong to parents under the Gospel. The one ordinance no more than the other ensures the actual transmission of the grace necessary to effect the requisite change; but it exhibits that grace—on the part of God pledges it—and takes the subject of the ordinance bound to use it for the accomplishment of the proper end. Baptism does this now, as circumcision did of old; and if it was done in the one case through the medium of the parent to the child, one does not see why it may not be done now, unless positively prohibited, in the other. But since this is matter of inference rather than of positive enactment, those who do not feel warranted to make such an application of the principle of the Old Testament ordinance to the New, should unquestionably be allowed their liberty of thought and action; if only, in the vindication of that liberty, they do not seek to degrade circumcision to a mere outward and political distinction, and thereby break the continuity of the Church through successive dispensations.[4]

[[@Page:371]] 3. But we must now hasten to the third stage of Abraham’s career, which presents him on a still higher moral elevation than he has yet reached, and view him as connected with the sacrifice of Isaac. Between the establishment of the covenant by the rite of circumcision, and this last stage of development, there were not wanting occasions fitted to bring out the preeminently holy character of his calling, and the dependence on his maintaining this toward God of what God should be and do toward him. This appears in the order he received from God to cast Ishmael out of his house, when the envious, mocking spirit of the youth too clearly showed that he had not the heart of a true child of the covenant, and would not submit aright to the arrangements of God concerning it. It appears also in the free and familiar fellowship to which Abraham was admitted with the three heavenly visitants, whom he entertained in his tent on the plains of Mamre, and the disclosure that was [[@Page:372]] made to him of the Divine counsel respecting Sodom and Gomorrah, expressly on the ground that the Lord “knew he would command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.” And most of all it appears in the pleading of Abraham for the preservation of the cities of the plain,—a pleading based upon the principles of righteousness, that the Judge of all the earth would do right, and would not destroy the righteous with the wicked,—and a pleading that proved in vain only from there not being found the ten righteous persons in the place mentioned in the patriarch’s last supposition. So that the awful scene of desolation which the region of those cities afterwards presented on the very borders of the land of Canaan, stood perpetually before the Jewish people, not only as a monument of the Divine indignation against sin, but also as a witness that the father of their nation would have sought their preservation [[@Page:373]] also from a like judgment only on the principles of righteousness, and would have even ceased to plead in their behalf, if righteousness should sink as low among them as he ultimately supposed it might have come in Sodom.

But the topstone of Abraham’s history as the spiritual head of a seed of blessing, is only reached in the Divine command to offer up Isaac, and the obedience which the patriarch rendered to it. “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.” That Abraham understood this command rightly, when he supposed it to mean a literal offering of his son upon the altar, and not, as Hengstenberg and Langé have contended, a simple dedication to a religious life, needs no particular proof. Had anything but a literal surrender been meant, the mention of a burnt-offering as the character in which Isaac was to be offered to God, and of a mountain in Moriah as the particular spot where the offering was to be presented, would have been entirely out of place. But why should such a demand have been made of Abraham? And what precisely were the lessons it was intended to convey to his posterity, or its typical bearing on future times!

In the form given to the required act, special emphasis is laid on the endeared nature of the object demanded: thine only son, and the son whom thou lovest. It was, therefore, a trial in the strongest sense, a trial of Abraham’s faith, whether it was capable of such implicit confidence in God, such profound regard to His will, and such self-denial in His service, as at the Divine bidding to give up the best and dearest—what in the circumstances must even have been dearer to him than his own life. Not that God really intended the surrender of Isaac to death, but only the proof of such a surrender in the heart of His servant; and such a proof could only have been found in an unconditional command to sacrifice, and an unresisting compliance with the command up to the final step in the process. This, however, was not all. In the command to perform such a sacrifice, there was a tempting as well as a trying of Abraham; since the thing required at his hands seemed to be an enacting of the most revolting rite of heathenism; and, [[@Page:374]] at the same time, to war with the oracle already given concerning Isaac, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” According to this word, God’s purpose to bless was destined to have its accomplishment especially and peculiarly through Isaac; so that to slay such a son appeared like slaying the very word of God, and extinguishing the hope of the world. And yet, in heart and purpose at least, it must be done. It was no freak of arbitrary power to command the sacrifice; nor was it done merely with the view of raising the patriarch to a kind of romantic moral elevation. It had for its object the outward and palpable exhibition of the great truth, that God’s method of working in the covenant of grace must have its counterpart in man’s. The one must be the reflex of the other. God, in blessing Abraham, triumphs over nature; and Abraham triumphs after the same manner in proportion as he is blessed. He receives a special gift from the grace of God, and he freely surrenders it again to Him who gave it. He is pre-eminently honoured by God’s word of promise, and he is ready in turn to hazard all for its honour. And Isaac, the child of promise,—the type in his outward history of all who should be proper subjects or channels of blessing,—also must concur in the act: on the altar he must sanctify himself to God, as a sign to all who would possess the higher life in God, how it implies and carries along with it a devout surrender of the natural life to the service and glory of Him who has redeemed it.

We have no account of the workings of Abraham’s mind, when going forth to the performance of this extraordinary act of devotedness to God; and the record of the transaction is, from the very simplicity with which it narrates the facts of the case, the most touching and impressive in Old Testament history. But we are informed on inspired authority, that the principle on which he acted, and which enabled him—as, indeed, it alone could enable him—to fulfil such a service, was faith: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”—(Heb. 11:17-19) His noblest act of obedience was nothing more [[@Page:375]] than the highest exercise and triumph of his faith. It was this which removed the mountains that stood before him, and hewed out a path for him to walk in. Grasping with firm hand that word of promise which assured him of a numerous seed by the line of Isaac, and taught by past experience to trust the faithfulness of Him who gave it even in the face of natural impossibilities, his faith enabled him to see light where all had otherwise been darkness—to hope while in the very act of destroying the great object of his hope. I know—so he must have argued with himself that the word of God, which commands this sacrifice, is faithfulness and truth; and though to stretch forth my hand against this child of promise is apparently destructive to my hopes, yet I may safely risk it, since He commands it from whom the gift and the promise were alike received. It is as easy for the Almighty arm to give me back my son from the domain of death, as it was at first to bring him forth out of the dead womb of Sarah; and what He can do, His declared purpose makes me sure that He will, and even must.—Thus nature, even in its best and strongest feelings, was overcome, and the sublimest heights of holiness were reached, simply because faith had struck its roots so deeply within, and had so closely united the soul of the patriarch to the mind and perfections of Jehovah.

This high surrender of the human to the Divine, and holy self-consecration to the will and service of God, was beyond all doubt, like the other things recorded in Abraham’s life, of the nature of a revelation. It was not intended to terminate in the patriarch and his son, but in them, as the sacred roots of the covenant people, to show in outward and corporeal representation what in spirit ought to be perpetually repeating itself in their individual and collective history. It proclaimed to them through all their generations, that the covenant required of its members lives of unshrinking and devoted application to the service of God—yielding to no weak misgivings or corrupt solicitations of the flesh—staggering at no difficulties presented by the world; and also that it rendered such a course possible by the ground and scope it afforded for the exercise of faith in the sustaining grace and might of Jehovah. And undoubtedly, as the human here was the reflex of the Divine, whence it drew [[@Page:376]] its source and reason, so inversely, and as regards the ulterior objects of the covenant, the Divine might justly be regarded as imaged in the human. An organic union between the two was indispensable to the effectual accomplishment of the promised good; and the seed in which the blessing of Heaven was to concentrate, and from which it was to flow throughout the families of the earth, must on the one side be as really the Son of God, as on the other he was to be the offspring of Abraham. Since, therefore, the two lines were ultimately to meet in one, and that one, by the joint operation of the Divine and human, was once for all to make good the provision of blessing promised in the covenant, it was meet, and it may reasonably be supposed, was one end of the transaction, that they should be seen from the first to coalesce in principle; that the surrender Abraham made of his son, for the world’s good, in the line after the flesh, and the surrender willingly made by that son himself at the altar of God, was designed to foreshadow in the other and higher line the wonderful gift of God in yielding up His Son, and the free-will offering and consecration of the Son Himself to bring in eternal life for the lost. Here, too, as the things done were in their nature unspeakably higher than in the other, so were they thoroughly and intensely real in their character. The representative in the Old becomes the actual in the New; and the sacrifice performed there merely in the spirit, passes here into that one full and complete atonement, which for ever perfects them that are sanctified.[5]

In the preparatory and typical line, however, Abraham’s conduct on this occasion was the perfect exemplar which all should have aspired to copy. He stood now on the highest elevation of the righteousness of faith; and to show the weight God attached to that righteousness, and how inseparably it was to be bound up[[@Page:377]] with the provisions of the covenant, the Lord consummated the transaction by a new ratification of the covenant. After the angel of Jehovah had stayed the hand of Abraham from slaying Isaac, and provided the ram for a burnt-offering, he again appeared and spake to Abraham, “By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies: and in thy seed shall the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice.” The things promised, it will be observed, are precisely the things which God had already of His own goodness engaged in covenant to bestow upon Abraham: these, indeed, to their largest extent, but still no more, no other than these,—a seed numerous as the sand upon the sea-shore or the stars of heaven, shielded from the malice of enemies, itself blessed, and destined to be the channel of blessing to all nations. But it is also to be observed, that while the same promises of good are renewed, they are now connected with Abraham’s surrender to the will of God, and are given as the reward of his obedience. To render this more clear and express, it is announced both at the beginning and the end of the address: “Because thou hast done this . . . because thou hast obeyed My voice.” And even afterwards, when the covenant was established with Isaac, an explicit reference is made to the same thing. The Lord said, He would perform the oath He had sworn to Abraham, “because he obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”—(Gen. 26:5) What could have more impressively exhibited the truth, that though the covenant, with all its blessings, was of grace on [[@Page:378]] the part of God, and to be appropriated by faith on the part of men, yet the good promised should not be actually conferred by Him, unless the faith should approve itself by deeds of righteousness! Their faith would otherwise be accounted dead, the mere semblance of what it should be. And as if to bind the two more solemnly and conspicuously together, the Lord takes this occasion to superadd His oath to the covenant,—not to render the word of promise more sure in itself, but to make it more palpably sure to the heirs of promise, and to deepen in them the impression, that nothing should fail of all that had been spoken, if only their faith and obedience should accord with that now exhibited!

II. We must leave to the reflection of our readers the application of this to Christian times and relations, which is indeed so obvious as to need no particular explanation; and we proceed to take a rapid glance at the leading features of the other branch of the subject—that which concerns Jacob and the twelve patriarchs. This forms the continuation of what took place in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, and a continuation not only embodying the same great principles, but also carrying them forward with more special adaptation to the prospective condition of the Israelites as a people. Towards the close of the patriarchal period, the covenant, even in its more specific line of operations, began to widen and expand, to rise more from the particular to the general, to embrace a family circle, and that circle the commencement of a future nation. And the dealings of God were all directed to the one great end of showing, that while this people should stand alike outwardly related to the covenant, yet their real connection with its promises, and their actual possession of its blessings, should infallibly turn upon their being followers in faith and holiness of the first fathers of their race.

Unfortunately, the later part of Isaac’s life did not altogether fulfil the promise of the earlier. Knowing little of the trials of faith, he did not reach high in its attainments. And in the more advanced stage of his history he fell into a state of general feebleness and decay, in which the moral but too closely corresponded with the bodily decline. Notwithstanding the very singular and marked exemplification that had been [[@Page:379]] given in his own case of the pre-eminent respect had in the covenant to something higher than nature, lie failed so much in discernment, that he was disposed only to make account of the natural element in judging of the respective states and fortunes of his sons. To the neglect of a Divine oracle going before, and the neglect also of the plainest indications afforded by the subsequent behaviour of the sons themselves, he resolved to give the more distinctive blessing of the covenant to Esau, in preference to Jacob, and so to make him the more peculiar type and representative of the covenant. In this, however, he was thwarted by the overruling providence of God—not, indeed, without sin on the part of those who were the immediate agents in accomplishing it, but yet so as to bring out more clearly and impressively the fact, that mere natural descent and priority of birth was not here the principal, but only the secondary thing, and that higher and more important than any natural advantage was the grace of God manifesting itself in the faith and holiness of men. Jacob, therefore, though the youngest by birth, yet from the first the child of faith, of spiritual desire, of heartfelt longings after the things of God, ultimately the man of deep discernment, ripened experience, prophetic insight, wrestling and victorious energy in the Divine life—he must stand first in the purpose of Heaven, and exhibit in his personal career a living representation of the covenant, as to what it properly is and really requires. Nay, opportunity was taken from his case, as the immediate founder of the Israelitish nation, to begin the covenant history anew; and starting, as it were, from nothing in his natural position and circumstances, it was shown how God, by His supernatural grace and sufficiency, could vanquish the difficulties in the way, and more than compensate for the loss of nature’s advantages. In reference partly to this instructive portion of Jacob’s history, and to renew upon their minds the lesson it was designed to teach, the children of Israel were appointed to go to the priest in after times with their basket of first-fruits in their hand, and the confession in their mouth, A Syrian ready to perish was my father.—(Deut. 26:5) It was clear, even as noon-day, that all Jacob had to distinguish him outwardly from others, the sole foundation and spring of his greatness, was the promise of God in the covenant, [[@Page:380]] received by him in humble faith, and taken as the ground of prayerful and holy striving. As the head of the covenant people, he was not less really, though by a different mode of operation, the child of Divine grace and power, than his father Isaac. And as his whole life, in its better aspects, was a lesson to his posterity respecting the superiority of the spiritual to the merely natural element in things pertaining to the covenant of God; so, when his history drew toward its close, there were lessons of a more special kind, and in the same direction, pressed with singular force and emphasis upon his family.

It was a time when such were peculiarly needed. The covenant was now to assume more of a communal aspect. It was to have a national membership and representation, as the more immediate designs which God sought to accomplish by means of it could not be otherwise effected. Jacob was the last separate impersonation of its spirit and character. His family, in their collective capacity, were henceforth to take this position. But they had first to learn, that they could take it only if their natural relation to the covenant was made the means of forming them to its spiritual characteristics, and fitting them for the fulfilment of its righteous ends. They must even learn, that their individual relation to the covenant in these respects should determine their relative place in the administration of its affairs and interests. And for this end, Reuben, the first-born, is made to lose his natural pre-eminence, because, like Esau, he presumed upon his natural position, and in the lawless impetuosity of nature broke through the restraints of filial piety. Judah, on the other hand, obtains one of the prerogatives Reuben had lost—Judah, who became so distinguished for that filial piety as to hazard his own life for the sake of his father. Simeon and Levi, in like manner, are all but excluded from the blessings of the covenant on account of their unrighteous and cruel behaviour: a curse is solemnly pronounced upon their sin, and a mark of inferiority stamped upon their condition; while, again, at a later period, and for the purpose still of showing how the spiritual was to rule the natural, rather than the natural the spiritual, the curse in the case of Levi was turned into a blessing. The tribe was, indeed, according to the word of Jacob, scattered in Israel, and was thereby rendered [[@Page:381]] politically weak; but the more immediate reason of the scattering was the zeal and devotedness which the members of that tribe had exhibited in the wilderness, on account of which they were dispersed as lights among Israel, bearing on them the more peculiar and sacred distinctions of the covenant—thereby acquiring a position of great moral strength. Most strikingly, however, does the truth break forth in connection with Joseph, who in the earlier history of the family was the only proper representative of the covenant. He was the one child of God in the family, though, with a single exception, the least and youngest of its members. God, therefore, after allowing the contrast between him and the rest to be sharply exhibited, ordered His providence so as to make him pre-eminently the son of blessing. The faith and piety of the youth draw upon him the protection and loving-kindness of Heaven wherever he goes, and throw a charm around everything he does. At length he rises to the highest position of honour and influence—blessed most remarkably himself, and on the largest scale made a blessing to others the noblest and most conspicuous personal embodiment of the nature of the covenant, as first rooting itself in the principles of a spiritual life, and then diffusing itself in healthful and blessed energy on all around. At the same time, and as a foil to set off more brightly the better side of the truth represented in him, while he was thus seen riding upon the high places of the earth, his unsanctified brethren appear famishing for want; the promised blessing of the covenant has almost dried up in their experience, because they possessed so little of the true character of children of the covenant. And when the needful relief comes, they have to be indebted for it to the hand of him in whom that character is most luminously displayed. Nay, in the very mode of getting it, they are conducted through a train of humiliating and soul-stirring providences, tending to force on them the conviction that they were in the hands of an angry God, and to bring them to repentance of sin and amendment of life. So that, by the time they are raised to a position of honour and comfort, and settled as covenant patriarchs in Egypt, they present the appearance of men chastened, subdued, brought to the knowledge of God, fitted each to take his place among the heads of the future covenant people; while the [[@Page:382]] double portion, which Reuben lost by his iniquity, descends on him who was, under God, the instrument of accomplishing so much good for them and for others.

And here, again, we cannot but notice that when the chosen family were in the process of assuming the rudimentary form of that people through whom salvation and blessing were to come to other kindreds of the earth, the beginning was rendered prophetic of the end; the operations both of the evil and the good in the infancy of the nation, were made to image the prospective manifestation that was to be given of them when the things of the Divine kingdom should rise to their destined maturity. Especially in the history of Joseph, the representative of the covenant in its earlier stage, was there given a wonderful similitude of Him in whom its powers and blessings were to be concentrated in their entire fulness, and who was therefore in all things to obtain the pre-eminence among His brethren. Like Joseph, the Son of Mary, though born among brethren after the flesh, was treated as an alien; envied and persecuted even from His infancy, and obliged to find a temporary refuge in the very land that shielded Joseph from the fury of his kindred. His supernatural and unblemished righteousness continually provoked the malice of the world, and, at the same time, received the most unequivocal tokens of the Divine favour and blessing. That very righteousness, exhibited amid the greatest trials and indignities, in the deepest debasement, and in worse than prison-house affliction, procured His elevation to the right hand of power and glory, from which He was thenceforth to dispense the means of salvation to the world. In the dispensation, too, of these blessings, it was the hardened and cruel enmity of His immediate kindred which opened the door of grace and blessing to the heathen; and the sold, hated, and crucified One becomes a Prince and Saviour to the nations of the earth, while His famishing brethren reap in bitterness of soul the fruit of their inexcusable hatred and malice. Nor is there a door of escape to be found for them until they come to acknowledge, in contrition of heart, that they are verily guilty concerning their brother. Then, however, looking unto Him whom they have pierced, and owning Him as, by God’s appointment, the one channel of life and blessing, their hatred shall be [[@Page:383]] repaid with love, and they shall be admitted to share in the inexhaustible fulness that is treasured up in Christ.

What a succession, then, of lessons for the children of the covenant in regard to what constituted their greatest danger—lessons stretching through four generations—ever varying in their precise form, yet always bearing most directly and impressively upon the same point—writing out on the very foundations of their history, and emblazoning on the banner of their covenant, the important truth, that the spiritual element was ever to be held the thing of first and most essential moment, and that the natural was only to be regarded as the channel through which the other was chiefly to come, and the safeguard by which it was to be fenced and kept! From the first the call of God made itself known as no merely outward distinction; and the covenant that grew out of it, instead of being but a formal bond of interconnection between its members and God, was framed especially to meet the spiritual evil in the world, and required as an indispensable condition, a sanctified heart in all who were to experience its blessings, and to work out its beneficent results. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? How could the spiritual Jehovah, who has, from the first creation of man upon the earth, been ever manifesting Himself as the Holy One, and directing His administration so as to promote the ends of righteousness, enter into a covenant of life and blessing on any other principle? It is impossible—as impossible as it is for the unchangeable God to act contrary to His nature—that the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,—the covenant of grace and blessing, which embraces in its bosom Christ Himself, and the benefits of His eternal redemption,—could ever have contemplated as its real members any but spiritual and righteous persons. And the whole tenor and current of the Divine dealings in establishing the covenant seem to have been alike designed and calculated to shut up every thoughtful mind to the conclusion, that none but such could either fulfil its higher purposes, or have an interest in its more essential provisions.

What thus appears to be taught in the historical revelations of God connected with the establishment of the covenant, is also perpetually re-echoed in the later communications by His prophets. Their great aim, in the monitory part of their writings, [[@Page:384]] is to bring home to men’s minds the conviction, that the covenant had pre-eminently in view moral ends, and that in so far as the people degenerated from these, they failed in respect to the main design of their calling. Let us point, in proof of this, merely to the last of the prophets, that we may see how the closing witness of the Old Covenant coincides with the testimony delivered at the beginning. In the second chapter of his writings, the prophet Malachi, addressing himself to the corruptions of the time, as appearing first in the priesthood, and then among the people generally, charges both parties expressly with a breach of covenant, and a subversion of the ends for which it was established. In regard to the priests, he points to their ancestral holiness in the personified tribe of Levi, and says, “My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared Me, and was afraid before My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with Me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. . . . But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, but have been partial in the law.” In a word, the covenant, in this particular branch of it, had been made expressly on moral grounds and for moral ends; and in practically losing sight of these, the priests of that time had made void the covenant, even though externally complying with its appointments, and were consequently visited with chastisement instead of blessing. Then, in regard to the people, a reproof is first of all administered on account of the unfaithfulness, which had become comparatively common, in putting away their Israelitish wives, and taking outlandish women in their stead—”the daughters of a strange god.” This the prophet calls “profaning the covenant of their fathers.” And then pointing in this case, as in the former, to the original design and purport of their covenant calling, he asks, in a question which has been entirely misunderstood, from not being viewed in relation to the precise object of the prophet, “And did not He make one? Yet had He the residue of the Spirit. And [[@Page:385]] wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.” The one, which God made, is not Adam, nor Abraham, to either of whom the commentators refer it, though the case of neither of them properly suits the point more immediately in question. The oneness referred to is that distinctive species of it on which the whole section proceeds as its basis—Israel’s oneness as a family. God had chosen them—them alone of all the nations of the earth—to be His peculiar treasure. If He had pleased, He might have chosen more; the residue of the Spirit was still with Him, by no means exhausted by that single effort. He could have either left them like others, or chosen others besides them. But He did not; He made one, one alone, to be peculiarly His own, setting it apart from the rest. And wherefore that one? Simply that He might have a godly seed; that they might be an holy people, and transmit the true fear of God from generation to generation. How base, then, how utterly subversive of God’s purposes concerning them, to act as if no such separation had taken place,—to put away their proper wives, and by heathenish alliances bring into the bosom of their families the very defilement and corruption against which God had especially called them to contend! Such was this prophet’s understanding of the covenant made with the fathers of the Israelitish people; and no other view of it, we venture to say, would ever have prevailed, if its nature had been sought primarily in those fundamental records which describe the procedure of God in bringing it originally into existence.

FOOTNOTE

[1] No stress is laid on the particular place of which he was king, excepting that, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, its meaning (Peace) is viewed as symbolic;—only, however, for the purpose of bringing out the idea, that this singular person was really what his name and the name of his place imported. He was in reality a righteous king, and a prince of peace. But there seems good reason to believe the Jewish tradition well-founded, that it is but the abbreviated name of Jerusalem. Hence the name Salem is also applied to it in Ps. 76:2. And the correctness of the opinion is confirmed by the mention of the king’s dale, in Gen. 14:17, which from 2 Sam. 18:18 can scarcely be supposed to have been far from Jerusalem. The name also of Adonaizedek, synonymous with Melchizedek, as that of the king of Jerusalem in Joshua’s time (Josh. 10:3), is a still farther confirmation.

[2] The notes of time here given for the period of the sojourn in Egypt are somewhat indefinite. The 400 years is plainly mentioned as a round sum; it was afterwards more precisely and historically defined as 430 (Ex. 12:40, 41). From the juxtaposition of the 400 years and the fourth generation in the words to Abraham, the one must be understood as nearly equivalent to the other, and the period must consequently be regarded as that of the actual residence of the children of Israel in Egypt, from the descent of Jacob—not, as many after the Septuagint, from the time of Abraham. For the shortest genealogies exhibit four generations between that period and the exodus. Looking at the genealogical table of Levi (Ex. 6:16, sq.), 120 years might not unfairly be taken as an average life time or generation; so that three of these complete, and a part of the fourth, would easily make 430. In Gal. 3:17, the law is spoken of as only 430 years after the covenant with Abraham; but the Apostle merely refers to the known historical period, and regards the first formation of the covenant with Abraham as all one with its final ratification with Jacob.

[3] It may also be noted, that by this quite natural and fundamental view of the ordinance, subordinate peculiarities admit of an easy explanation. For example, the limitation of the sign to males—which in the circumstances could not be otherwise; though the special purifications under the law for women might justly be regarded as providing for them a sort of counterpart. Then, the fixing on the eighth day as the proper one for the rite—that being the first day after the revolution of an entire week of separation from the mother, and when fully withdrawn from connection with the parent’s blood, it began to live and breathe in its own impurity. (See further Imperial Bible Diet. Art. Circumcision.)

[4] It is not necessary to do more than notice the statements of Coleridge regarding circumcision (Aids to Reflection, i., p. 296), in which, as in some others on purely theological subjects in his writings, one is even more struck with the unaccountable ignoring of fact displayed in the deliverance given, than with the tone of assurance in which it is announced. “Circumcision was no sacrament at all, but the means and mark of national distinction. . . Nor was it ever pretended that any grace was conferred with it, or that the right was significant of any inward or spiritual operation.” Delitzsch, however, so far coincides with this view, as to deny (Genesis Ausgelegt, p. 281) the sacramental character of circumcision. But he does so on grounds that, in regard to circumcision, will not stand examination; and, in regard to baptism, evidently proceed on the high Lutheran view of the sacraments. He says, that while circumcision had a moral and mystical meaning, and was intended ever to remind the subject of it of his near relation to Jehovah, and his obligation to walk worthy of this, still it was “no vehicle of heavenly grace, of Divine sanctifying power,” “in itself a mere sign without substance,”—as if it were ever designed to be by itself! or as if baptism with water, by itself, were anything more than a mere sign! Circumcision being stamped upon Abraham and his seed as the sign of the covenant, and so far identified with the covenant, in the appointment of God, must have been a sign on God’s part as well as theirs; it could not otherwise have been the sign of a covenant, or mutual compact; it must, therefore, have borne respect to what God promised to be to His people, not less than what His people were to be to Him. This is manifestly what the Apostle means, when he calls it a seal which Abraham received, a pledge from God of the ratification of the covenant, and consequently of all the grace that covenant promised. It had otherwise been no privilege to be circumcised; since to be bound to do righteously, without being entitled to look for grace corresponding, is simply to be placed under an intolerable yoke. I leave this latter statement unaltered, notwithstanding that Mr Litton points me (Bampton Lectures, p. oil) to Acts 15:10; Heb. 2:15; and Gal. 4:24, in proof that the apostles did actually regard the elder covenant as an intolerable yoke; for it seems plain to me, that such passages point to the covenant of law rather than the covenant of promise, with which circumcision in its original appointment and proper character was associated. I have much pleasure, however, in substituting here, for what was given in a previous edition, the following remarks of Mr Litton, regarding the connection between circumcision and baptism, which substantially coincide with what has been stated: “In a looser sense, circumcision may be considered as a sacrament. For baptism, too, is a symbolical ordinance, perpetually reminding the Christian what his vocation is. Circumcision, moreover, was to the Jewish infant a seal, or formal confirmation, of the promises of God, first made to the patriarch Abraham, and then to his seed; just as baptism now seals to us the higher promises of the evangelical covenant.” Then, after noticing a change of view in regard to the place held by circumcision in the Old Covenant, he says: “The (natural) birth of the Jew, which was the real ground of his privileges, answers to the new birth of the Christian in its inner or essential aspect; while circumcision, the rite by which the Jewish infant became a publicly acknowledged member of the theocracy, corresponds to baptism, or the new birth in its external aspect, to which sacrament the same function, of visibly incorporating in the Church, now belongs.” It is, therefore, not? In respect to the soul’s inward and personal state, that either ordinance can properly be called initiatory (for in that respect blessing might be had initially without the one as well as the other), but in respect to the person’s recognised connection with the corporate society of those who are subjects of blessing. This begins now with baptism, and it began of old with circumcision: till the individual was circumcised, he was not reckoned as belonging to that society; and if passing the proper time for the ordinance without it, he was to be held as ipso facto cut off. Under both covenants there is an inward and an outward bond of connection with the peculiar blessing: the inward, faith in God’s word of promise (of old, faith in God; now more specifically, faith in Christ); the outward, circumcision formerly, now baptism. Yet the two in neither case should be viewed as altogether apart, but the one should rather be held as the formal expression and seal of the other.

[5] Presented as it is above, the typical relationship is both quite natural and easy of apprehension, if only one keeps distinctly in view the necessary connection between the Divine and the human for accomplishing the ends of the covenant,—a connection influential and co-operative as regards the immediate ends, organic and personal as regards the ultimate. That the action was, as Warburton represents, a scenical representation of the death and resurrection of Christ, appointed expressly to satisfy the mind of Abraham, who longed to see Christ’s day, is to present it in a fanciful and arbitrary light; and what is actually recorded requires to be supplemented by much that is not. Nor do we need to lay any stress on the precise locality where the offering was appointed to be made. It must always remain somewhat doubtful whether the “land of Moriah” was the same with “Mount Moriah,” on which the temple was afterwards built, as the one, indeed, is evidently a more general designation than the other; and, at all events, it was not on that mount that the one great sacrifice of Christ was offered. And the minor circumstances, excepting in so far as they indicate the implicit obedience of the father and the filial submission and devotedness of the son, should be considered as of no moment.

Section Sixth.—The Inheritance Destined for The Heirs of Blessing.

[[@Page:386]] THE covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was connected not only with a seed of blessing, but also with an inheritance of blessing destined for their possession. And in order to get a correct view both of the immediate and of the ultimate bearing of this part of the covenant promise, it is not less necessary than in the other case, to consider the specific object proposed in its relation to the entire scheme of God, and especially to bear in mind, that it forms part of a series of arrangements in which the particular or the individual was selected with a view to the general, the universal. In respect to the good to be inherited, as well as in respect to the persons who might be called to inherit it, the end proposed on the part of God was from the first of the most comprehensive nature; and if for a time there was an immediate narrowing of the field of promise, it could be only for the sake of an ultimate expansion. To see more distinctly the truth of this, it may be proper to take a brief retrospect of the past.

From the outset, the earth, in its entire extent and compass, was given for the domain and the heritage of man. He was placed in paradise as his proper home. There he had the throne of his kingdom, but not that he might be pent up within that narrow region; rather that he might from that, as the seat of his empire and the centre of his operations, go forth upon the world around, and bring it under his sway. His calling was to multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; so that it might become to its utmost bounds an extended and peopled paradise. But when the fall entered, though the calling was not withdrawn, nor the possession finally lost, yet man’s relative position was changed. He had now, not to work from paradise as a rightful king and lord, but from the blighted outfield of nature’s barrenness to work as a servant, in the hope of ultimately [[@Page:387]] reaching a new and better paradise than he had lost. The first promise of grace, and the original symbols of worship, viewed in connection with the facts of history, out of which they grew, presented him with the prospect of an ultimate recovery from the evils of sin and death, and put him in the position of an expectant through faith in God, and toil and suffering in the flesh, of good things yet to come. The precise hope he cherished respecting these good things, or the inheritance he actually looked for, would at first naturally take shape in his imagination from what he had lost. He would fancy, that though he must bear the deserved doom for his transgression, and return again to dust, yet the time would come, when, according to the revealed mercy and loving-kindness of God, the triumph of the adversary would be reversed, the dust of death would be again quickened into life, and the paradise of delight be occupied anew, with better hopes of continuance, and with enlarged dimensions suited to its destined possessors. He could scarcely have expected more with the scanty materials which faith and hope yet had to build upon; and with the grace revealed to him, he could scarcely, if really standing in faith and hope, have expected less.

We deem it incredible, that with the grant of the earth so distinctly made to man for his possession, and death so expressly appointed as the penalty of his yielding to the tempter, he should, as a subject of restoring grace, have looked for any other domain as the result of the Divine work in his behalf, than the earth itself, or for any other mode of entering on the recovered possession of it, than through a resurrection from the dead. For how should he have dreamt of a victory over evil in any other region than that where the evil had prevailed? Or how could the hope of restitution have formed itself in his bosom, excepting as a prospective reinstatement in the benefits he had forfeited? A paradise such as he had originally occupied, but prepared now for the occupation of redeemed multitudes,—made to embrace, it may be, the entire territory of the globe,—wrested for ever from the serpent’s brood, and rendered through all its borders beautiful and good: that, and nothing else, we conceive, must have been what the first race of patriarchal believers hoped and waited for, as the objective portion of good reserved for them.

[[@Page:388]] But in process of time the deluge came, changing to a considerable extent the outward appearance of the earth, and in certain respects also the government under which it was placed, and so preparing the way for a corresponding change in the hopes that were to be cherished of a coming inheritance. The old world then perished, leaving no remnant of its original paradise, any more than of the giant enormities which had caused it to groan, as in pain to be delivered. But the new world, cleansed and purified by the judgment of God, was now, without limit or restriction, given to Noah, as the saved head of mankind, that he might keep it for God, replenish and subdue it,—might work it, if such a thing were possible, into the condition of a second paradise. It soon became too manifest, how ever, that this was not possible; and that the righteousness of faith, of which Noah was heir, was still not that which could prevail to banish sin and death, corruption and misery, from the world. Another and better foundation yet remained to be laid for such a blessed prospect to be realized. But the promise of this very earth was nevertheless given for man’s inheritance, and with a promise securing it against any fresh destruction. The needed righteousness was somehow to be wrought upon it, and the region itself reclaimed so as to become a habitation of blessing. This was now the heritage of good set before mankind; to have this realized was the object which they were called of God to hope and strive for. And it was with this object before them,—an object, however, to which the events immediately subsequent to the deluge did not seem to be bringing them nearer, but rather to be carrying them more remote,—that the call to Abraham entered. This call, as we have already seen, was of the largest and most comprehensive nature as to the personal and subjective good it contemplated. It aimed at the bestowal of blessing—blessing, of course, in the Divine sense, including the fullest triumph over sin and death (for where these are, there can be but the beginnings or smaller drops of blessing); and the bestowal of them on Abraham and his lineal offspring, first and most copiously, but only as the more effectual way of extending them to all the families of mankind. The grand object of the covenant made with him was to render the world truly blessed in its inhabitants, himself [[@Page:389]] forming the immediate starting-point of the design, which was thereafter to grow and germinate, till the whole circle of humanity were embraced in its beneficent provisions. But in connection with this higher and grander object, there was singled out a portion of the earth for the occupation of his immediate descendants in a particular line—the more special line of blessing; and the conclusion is obvious, even before we go into an examination of particulars, that unless this select portion of the world were placed in utter disagreement with the higher ends of the covenant, it must have been but a stepping-stone to their accomplishment a kind of first-fruits of the proper good—the occupation of a part of the promised inheritance by a portion of the heirs of blessing to image and prepare for the inheritance of the whole by the entire company of the blessed. The particular must here also have been for the sake of the general, the universal, the ultimate.

Proceeding, however, to a closer view of the subject, we notice, first, the region actually selected for a possession of an inheritance to the covenant people. The land of Canaan occupied a place in the ancient world that entirely corresponded with the calling of such a people. It was of all lands the best adapted for a people who were at once to dwell in comparative isolation, and yet were to be in a position for acting with effect upon the other nations of the world. Hence it was said by Ezekiel, ch. [[5:5 >> Bible:Eze 5:5]] , to have been “set in the midst of the countries and the nations”—the umbilicus terrarum. In its immediate vicinity lay both the most densely-peopled countries and the greater and more influential states of antiquity—on the south, Egypt, and on the north and east, Assyria and Babylon, the Medes and the Persians. Still closer were the maritime states of Tyre and Sidon, whose vessels frequented every harbour then known to navigation, and whose colonies were planted in each of the three continents of the old world. And the great routes of inland commerce between the civilised nations of Asia and Africa lay either through a portion of the territory itself, or within a short distance of its borders. Yet, bounded as it was on the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by the desert, on the east by the valley of the Jordan with its two seas of Tiberias and Sodom, and on the north by the towering [[@Page:390]] heights of Lebanon, the people who inhabited it might justly be said to dwell alone, while they had on every side points of contact with the most influential and distant nations. Then the land itself, in its rich soil and plentiful resources, its varieties of hill and dale, of river and mountain, its connection with the sea on one side and with the desert on another, rendered it a kind of epitome of the natural world, and fitted it peculiarly for being the home of those who were to be a pattern people to the nations of the earth. Altogether, it were impossible to conceive a region more wisely selected, and in itself more thoroughly adapted, for the purposes on account of which the family of Abraham were to be set apart. If they were faithful to their covenant engagements, they might there have exhibited, as on an elevated platform, before the world the bright exemplar of a people possessing the characteristics and enjoying the advantages of a seed of blessing. And the finest opportunities were, at the same time, placed within their reach of proving in the highest sense benefactors to mankind, and extending far and wide the interest of truth and righteousness. Possessing the elements of the world’s blessing, they were placed where these elements might tell most readily and powerfully on the world’s inhabitants; and the present possession of such a region was at once an earnest of the whole inheritance, and, as the world then stood, an effectual step towards its realization. Abraham, as the heir of Canaan, was thus also “the heir of the world,” considered as a heritage of blessing.—(Rom. 4:13)

But, next, let us mark the precise words of the promise to Abraham concerning this inheritance. As it first occurs, it runs, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation,” etc. (Gen. 12:1). Then, when he reached Canaan, the promise was renewed to him in these terms: “Unto thy seed will I give this land” ([[ver. 7 >> Bible:Ge 12:7]] ). More fully and definitely, after Lot separated from Abraham, was it again given: “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and east ward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever” ([[13:14, 15 >> Bible:Ge 13:14-15]] ). Again, in [[@Page:391]] ch. [[15:7 >> Bible:Ge 15:7]] , “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it;” and toward the close of the same chapter, it is said, “In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river.” In ch. [[17th >> Bible:Ge 17]] , the promise was formally ratified as a covenant, and sealed by the ordinance of circumcision; and there the words used respecting the inheritance are, “I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” We read only of one occasion in the life of Isaac, when he received the promise of the inheritance; and the words then used were, “Unto thee, and unto thy seed, will I give all these countries; and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father” (ch. [[26:3 >> Bible:Ge 26:3]] ). Such also were the words addressed to Jacob at Bethel, “I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;” and in precisely the same terms was the promise again made to Jacob many years afterwards, as recorded in ch. [[35:12 >> Bible:Ge 35:12]] .

It cannot but appear striking, that to each one of these patriarchs successively, the promise of the land of Canaan should have been given, first to themselves, and then to their posterity; while, during their own lifetimes, they never were permitted to get beyond the condition of strangers and pilgrims, having no right to any possession within its borders, and obliged to purchase at the marketable value a small field for a burying ground. How shall we account for the promise, then, so uniformly running, “to thee,” and to “thy seed?” Some, as Ainsworth and Bush, tell us that and here is the same as even, to thee, even to thy seed; as if a man were all one with his off spring, or the name of the latter were but another name for himself! Gill gives a somewhat more plausible turn to it, thus: “God gave Abram the title to it now, and to them the possession of it for future times; gave him it to sojourn in now where he pleased, and for his posterity to dwell in hereafter.” But the gift was the land for an inheritance, not for a place of sojourn; and a title, which left him personally without a foot’s-breadth of possession, could not be regarded in that light as any [[@Page:392]] real boon to him. Warburton, as usual, confronts the difficulty more boldly: “In the literal sense, it is a promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham and to his posterity; and in this sense it was literally fulfilled, though Abraham was never personally in possession of it: since Abraham and his posterity, put collectively, signify the RACE OF ABRAHAM; and that race possessed the land of Canaan. And surely God may be allowed to explain His own promise: now, though He tells Abraham, He would give him the land, yet, at the same time, He assures him that it would be many hundred years before his posterity should be put in possession of it (Gen. 15:13, etc.). And as concerning himself, that he should go to his fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age. Thus we see, that both what God explained to be His meaning, and what Abraham understood Him to mean, was, that his posterity, after a certain time, should be led into possession of the land.”[1]

But if this were really the whole meaning, the thought naturally occurs, it is strange so plain a meaning should have been so ambiguously expressed. Why not simply say, “thy posterity,” if posterity alone were intended, and so render unnecessary the somewhat awkward expedient of sinking the patriarch’s individuality in the history of his race? Why, also, should the promise have been renewed at a later period, with a pointed distinction between Abraham and his posterity, yet with an assurance that the promise was to him as well as to them: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger?” And why should Stephen have made such special reference to the apparent incongruity between the personal condition of Abraham and the promise given to him, as if there were some further meaning in what was said than lay on the surface: “He gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him?”—(Acts 7:5)

We do not see how these questions can receive any satisfactory explanation, so long as no account is made of the personal standing of the patriarchs in regard to the promise. And there are others equally left without explanation. For no sufficient [[@Page:393]] reason can be assigned on that hypothesis, for the extreme anxiety of Jacob and Joseph to have their bones carried to the sepulchre of their fathers, in the land of Canaan—betokening, as it evidently seemed to do, a conviction, that to them also be longed a personal interest in the land. Neither does it appear how the fact of Abraham and his immediate offspring, “confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth,”—which they did no otherwise, that we are aware of, than by living as strangers and pilgrims in Canaan,—should have proved that they were looking for and desiring a better country, that is, an heavenly one. And then, strange to think, if nothing more were meant by the promise than the view now under consideration would imply, when the posterity who were to occupy the land did obtain possession of it, we find the men of faith taking up exactly the same confession as to their being strangers and pilgrims in it, which was witnessed by their, forefathers, who never had it in possession. Even after they became possessors, it seems they were still, like their wandering ancestors, expect ants and heirs of something better; and faith had to be exercised, lest they should lose the proper fulfilment of the promise (Ps. 39:12, 95, 119:19; [[ >> Bible:1Ch 29:15]] 1 Chron. 29:15). Surely if the earthly Canaan had been the whole inheritance they were war ranted to look for, after they were settled in it, the condition of pilgrims and strangers no longer was theirs—they had reached their proper destiny—they were dwelling in their appointed home—the promise had received its intended fulfilment.

These manifold difficulties and apparent inconsistencies will vanish—(and we see no other way in which they can be satisfactorily removed)—by supposing, what is certainly in accordance with the tenor of revelation, that the promise of Canaan as an inheritance to the people of God was part of a connected and growing scheme of preparatory arrangements, which were to have their proper outgoing and final termination in the establishment of Christ’s everlasting kingdom. Viewed thus, the grant of Canaan must be regarded as a kind of second Eden, a sacred region once more possessed in this fallen world—God’s own land—out of which life and blessing were to come for all lands the present type of a world restored and blessed. And if so, then we may naturally expect the following consequences [[@Page:394]] to have arisen:—First, that whatever transactions may have taken place concerning the actual Canaan, these would be all ordered so as to subserve the higher design, in connection with which the appointment was made; and second, that as a sort of veil must have been allowed meanwhile to hang over this ultimate design (for the issue of redemption could not be made fully manifest till the redemption itself was brought in), a certain degree of dubiety would attach to some of the things spoken regarding it: these would appear strange or impossible, if viewed only in reference to the temporary inheritance; and would have the effect with men of faith, as no doubt they were intended, to compel the mind to break through the outward shell of the promise, and contemplate the rich kernel enclosed within. Thus the promise being made so distinctly and repeatedly to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while personally they were allowed no settled footing in the inheritance bestowed, could scarcely fail to impress them, and their more pious descendants, with the conviction that higher and more important relations were included under those in which they stood to the land of Canaan during their earthly sojourn, and such as required another order of things to fulfil them. They must have been convinced, that for some great and substantial reason, not by a mere fiction of the imagination, they had been identified by God with their posterity as to their interest in the promised inheritance. And so they must have felt shut up to the belief, that when God’s purposes were completely fulfilled, His word of promise would be literally verified, and that their respective deaths should ultimately be found to raise no effectual barrier in the way of their actual share in the inheritance; as the same God who would have raised Isaac from the dead, had he been put to death, to maintain the integrity of His word, was equally able, on the same account, to raise them up.

Certainly the exact and perfect manner in which the other line of promise—that which respected a seed to Abraham—was fulfilled, gave reason to expect a fulfilment in regard to this also, in the most proper and complete sense. Abraham did not at first understand how closely God’s words were to be interpreted; and after waiting in vain for some years for the promised seed by Sarah, he began to think that God must have [[@Page:395]] meant an offspring that should be his only by adoption, and seems to have thought of constituting the son of his steward his heir. Then, when admonished of his error in entertaining such a thought, and informed that the seed was to spring from his own loins, lie acceded, after another long period of fruitless waiting, to the proposal of Sarah regarding Hagar, under the impression, that though hewas to be the father of the seed, yet it should not be by his proper wife; the expected good was to be obtained by a worldly expedient, and to become his only through a tortuous policy. Here again, however, he was admonished of error, commanded to cease from such unworthy devices, and walk in uprightness before God; was reminded that He who made the promise was the Almighty God, to whom, therefore, no impossibility connected with the age of Sarah could be of any moment, and assured that the long promised child was to be the son of him and his lawful spouse.[2] Now, when Abraham was thus taught to interpret one part of the promise in the most exact and literal sense, how natural was it to infer, that he must do the same also with the other part! If, when God said, “Thou shalt be the father of a seed,” it became clear that the word could receive nothing short of the strictest fulfilment; what else, what less, could be expected, when God said, “Thou shalt inherit this land,” than that the fulfilment was to be equally proper and complete? The providence of God, which furnished such an interpretation in the one case, could not but beget the conviction, that a similar principle of interpretation was to be applied to the other; and that as the promise of the inheritance was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as to their seed, so it should be made good in their experience, not less than in that of their posterity.

No doubt, such a belief implied that there must be a resurrection from the dead before the promise could be realized; and to those who conceive that immortality was altogether a blank page to the eye of an ancient Israelite, the idea may seem to carry its own refutation along with it. The Rabbis, however, with all their blindness, seemed to have had juster, because more scriptural, notions of the truth and purposes of God in this respect. For, on Ex. 6:4, the Talmud in Gemara, in [[@Page:396]] reply to the question, “Where does the law teach the resurrection of the dead?” thus distinctly answers, “In that place where it is said, I have established My covenant with thee, to give thee the land of Canaan. For it is not said with you., but with thee (lit., yourselves).”[3] The same answer, substantially, we are told, was returned by Rabbi Gamaliel, when the Sadducees pressed him with a similar question. And in a passage quoted by Warburton (B. vi., sec. 3) from Manasseh Ben-Israel, we find the argument still more fully stated: “God said to Abraham, I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger. But it appears that Abraham and the other patriarchs did not possess that land; therefore it is of necessity that they should be raised up to enjoy the good promises, else the promises of God should be in vain and false. So that we have here a proof, not only of the immortality of the soul, but also of the essential foundation of the law, namely, the resurrection of the dead.” It is surely not too much to suppose, that what Jewish Rabbis could so certainly draw from the word of God, may have been perceived by wise and holy patriarchs. And the fact, of which an inspired writer assures us, that Abraham so readily believed in the possible resurrection of Isaac to a present life, is itself conclusive proof that he would not be slow to believe in his own resurrection to a future life, when the word of promise seemed no otherwise capable of receiving its proper fulfilment. Indeed, the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead—not that of the immortality of the soul—is the form which the prospect of an after state of being must have chiefly assumed in the minds of the earlier believers, because that which most obviously and naturally grew out of the promises made to them, as well as most accordant with their native cast of thought. And nothing but the undue influence of the Gentile philosophy on men’s minds could have led them to imagine, as they generally have done, the reverse to have been the case.

In the writings of the Greeks and Romans, especially those of the former, we find the distinction constantly drawn between [[@Page:397]] matter and spirit, body and soul; and the one generally represented as having only elements of evil inhering in it, and the other elements of good. So far from looking for the resurrection of the body as necessary to the final well-being of men, full and complete happiness was held to be impossible so long as the soul was united to the body. Death was so far considered by them a boon, that it emancipated the ethereal principle from its prison-house; and their visions of future bliss, when such visions were entertained, presented to the eye of hope scenes of delight, in which the disembodied spirit alone was to find its satisfaction and repose. Hence it is quite natural to hear the better part of them speaking with contempt of all that concerned the body, looking upon death as a final as well as a happy release from its vile affections, and promising themselves a perennial enjoyment in the world of spirits. “In what way shall we bury you?” said Crito to Socrates, immediately before his death. “As you please,” was the reply. “I cannot, my friends, persuade Crito that I am the Socrates that is now conversing and ordering everything that has been said; but he thinks I am that man whom he will shortly see a corpse, and asks how you should bury me. But what I have all along been talking so much about that when I shall have drunk the poison, I shall no longer stay with you, but shall, forsooth, go away to certain felicities of the blest—this I seem to myself to have been saying in vain, whilst comforting at the same time you and myself.” And in another part of the same dialogue (Phaedo), after speaking of the impossibility of attaining to the true knowledge and discernment of things, so long as the soul is kept in the lumpish and impure body, he is represented as congratulating himself on the prospect now immediately before him: “If these things are true, there is much reason to hope, that he who has reached my present position shall there soon abundantly obtain that for the sake of which I have laboured so hard during this life; so that I encounter with a lively hope my appointed removal.” No doubt such representations give a highly coloured and far too favourable view of the expectations which the more speculative part of the heathen world cherished of a future state of being; for to most of them the whole was overshadowed with doubt and uncertainty too often,—indeed, the subject of absolute unbelief. [[@Page:398]] But in this respect the idea it presents is perfectly correct, that so far as hope was exercised toward the future, it connected itself altogether with the condition and destiny of the soul; and so abhorrent was the thought of a resurrection of the body to their notions of future good, that Tertullian did not hesitate to affirm the heresy, which denied that Christian doctrine, to be the common result of the whole Gentile philosophy.[4]

It was precisely the reverse with believers in ancient and primitive times. Their prospects of a blessed immortality were mainly associated with the resurrection of the body; and the dark period to them was the intermediate state between death and the resurrection, which even at a comparatively late stage in their history presented itself to their view as a state of gloom, silence, and forgetfulness. They contemplated man, not in the light in which an abstract speculative philosophy might regard him, but in the more natural and proper one of a compound being, to which matter as essentially belongs as spirit, and in the well-being of which there must unite the happy condition both of soul and body. Nay, the materials from which they had to form their views and prospects of a future state of being pointed most directly to the resurrection, and passed over in silence the period intervening between that and death. Thus, the primeval promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, taught them to live in expectation of a time when death should be swallowed up in victory; for death being the fruit of the serpent’s triumph, what else could his complete overthrow be than the reversal of death—the resurrection from the dead? So also the prophecy embodied in the emblems of the tree of life, still standing in the midst of the garden of Eden, with its way of approach meanwhile guarded by the flaming sword, and possessed by the cherubim of glory—implying, that when the spoiler should be himself spoiled, and the way of life should again be laid open for the children of promise, they should have access to the food of immortality, which they could only do by rising out of death and entering on the resurrection state. The same conclusion grew, as we have just seen, most naturally, and we may say inevitably, out of [[@Page:399]] that portion of the promises made to the fathers of the Jewish race, which assured them of a personal inheritance in the land of Canaan; for dying, as they did, without having obtained any inheritance in it, how could the word of promise be verified to them, but by their being raised from the dead to receive what it warranted them to expect? In perfect accordance with these earlier intimations, or, as they may fitly be called, fundamental promises, we find, as we descend the stream of time, and listen to the more express utterances of prophecy regarding the hopes of the Church, that the grand point on which they are all made to centre is the resurrection from the dead; and it is so, doubtless, for the reason, that as death is from the first represented as the wages of sin, the evil pre-eminently under which humanity groans, so the abolition of death by mortality being swallowed up of life, is understood to carry in its train the restitution of all things.

The Psalms, which are so full of the experiences and hopes of David, and other holy men of old, while they express only fear and discomfort in regard to the state after death, not unfrequently point to the resurrection from the dead as the great consummation of desire and expectation: “My flesh also shall rest in hope: for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”—Ps. 16:9, 10. “Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; for He shall receive me” ([[49:14, 15 >> Bible:Ps 49:14-15]] ). The prophets, who are utterly silent regarding the state of the disembodied soul, speak still more explicitly of a resurrection from the dead, and evidently connect with it the brightest hopes of the Church. Thus Isaiah, “He will swallow up death in victory” ([[25:8 >> Bible:Is 25:8]] ); and again, “Thy dead men shall live, together with My dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust” ([[26:19 >> Bible:Is 26:19]] ). To the like effect, Hosea 13:14, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” The vision of the dry bones, in the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, whether understood of a literal resurrection from the [[@Page:400]] state of the dead, or of a figurative resurrection, a political resuscitation from a downcast and degraded condition, strongly indicates, in either case, the characteristic nature of their future prospects. Then, finally, in Daniel we read, ch. [[12 >> Bible:Da 12:1-13]] , not only that he was himself, after resting for a season among the dead, “to stand in his lot at the end of the days,” but also that at the great crisis of the Church’s history, when they should be for ever rescued from the power of the enemy, “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth should awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

Besides these direct and palpable proofs of a resurrection in the Jewish Scriptures, and of the peculiar place it holds there, the Rabbinical and modern Jews, it is well known, refer to many others as inferentially teaching the same doctrine. That the earlier Jews were not behind them, either in the importance they attached to the doctrine, or in their persuasion of its frequent recurrence in the Old Testament Scriptures, we may assuredly gather from the tenacity with which all but the Sadducees evidently held it in our Lord’s time, and the ready approval which He met with when inferring it from the declaration made to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.” It is nothing to the purpose, therefore, to allege, as has often been done, against any clear or well-grounded belief on the part of the ancient Jews regarding a future and immortal state of being, such passages as speak of the darkness, silence, and nothingness of the condition immediately subsequent to death, and during the sojourn of the body in the tomb; for that was precisely the period in respect to which their light failed them. Of a heathenish immortality, which ascribed to the soul a perpetual existence separate from the body, and considered its happiness, when thus separate, as the ultimate good of man, they certainly knew and believed nothing. But we are persuaded no tenet was more firmly and sacredly held among them from the earliest periods of their history, than that of the resurrection from the dead, as the commencement of a final and everlasting portion of good to the people of God. And when the Jewish doctors gave to the resurrection of the dead a place among the thirteen fundamental articles of their faith, and cut off from all inheritance in a future state of felicity those who [[@Page:401]] deny it, we have no reason to regard the doctrine as attaining to a higher place in their hands, than it did with their fathers before the Christian era.[5]

There was something more, however, in the Jewish faith concerning the resurrection, than its being simply held as an article in their creed, and held to be a fact that should one day be realized in the history of the Church. It stood in the closest connection with the promise made to the fathers, as some of the foregoing testimonies show, and especially with the work and advent of Messiah. They not only believed that there would be a resurrection of the dead, to a greater or less extent, when Messiah came (see Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. John 1:21, [[5:25 >> Bible:Jn 5:25]] ), but that His work, especially as regards the promised inheritance, could only be carried into effect through the resurrection.

Levi[6] holds it as a settled point, that “the resurrection of the dead will be very near the time of the redemption,” meaning by the redemption the full and final enjoyment of all blessing in the land of promise, and that such is the united sense of all the prophets who have spoken of the times of Messiah. In this, indeed, he only expresses the opinion commonly entertained by Jewish writers, who constantly assert that there will be a resurrection of the whole Jewish race, to meet and rejoice with Christ, when He comes to Jerusalem, and who often thrust forward their views regarding it, when there is no proper occasion to do so. Thus, in Sohar, Genes, fol. 77, as quoted by Schoettgen, II. p. 367, R. Nehorai is reported to have said, on Abraham’s speaking to his servant, Gen. 24:2, “We are to understand the servant of God, his senior domus. And who is He? Metatron (Messiah), who, as we have said, will bring forth the souls from their sepulchres.” But a higher authority still may be appealed to. For the Apostle to the Gentiles thus expresses—and with evident approval as to the general principle the mind—of his countrymen in regard to the Messiah and the resurrection: “I now stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come: for which hope’s sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the [[@Page:402]] Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?”[7] The connection in which the resurrection of the dead is here placed with the great promise of a Messiah, for which the Jews are represented as so eagerly and intently looking, evidently implies, that the two were usually coupled together in the Jewish faith, nay, that the one could reach its proper fulfilment only through the performance of the other; and that in believing on a Messiah risen from the dead, the Apostle was acting in perfect accordance with the hopes of his nation.

But now, to apply all this to the subject under consideration,—the earthly inheritance: If that inheritance was promised in a way which, from the very first, implied a resurrection from the dead, before it could be rightly enjoyed; and if all along, even when Canaan was possessed by the seed of Abraham, the men of faith still looked forward to another inheritance, when the curse should be utterly abolished, the blessing fully received, and death finally swallowed up in victory,—then a twofold boon must have been conveyed to Abraham and his seed, under the promise of the land of Canaan; one to be realized in the natural, and the other in the resurrection state,—a mingled and temporary good before, and a complete and permanent one after, the restitution of all things by the Messiah. So that, in regard to the ultimate designs of God, the land of Canaan would serve much the same purpose as the garden of Eden, with its tree of life and cherubim of glory—the same, and yet more; for it not only presented to the eye of faith a type, but also gave in its possession an earnest, of the inheritance of a paradisiacal world. The difference, however, is not essential, and only indicates an advance in God’s revelations and purposes of grace, making what was ultimately designed for the faithful more sure to them by an instalment, through a singular train of providential arrangements, in a present inheritance of good. They thus enjoyed a real and substantial pledge of the better things to come, which were to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

But what were these better things themselves? What was thus indicated to Abraham and his believing posterity, as their coming inheritance of good? If it was clear that they must [[@Page:403]] have attained to the resurrection from the dead before they could properly enjoy the possession, it could not be Canaan in its natural state, as a region of the present earth, that was to be inherited; for that, considered as the abode of Abraham and all his elect posterity, when raised from the tomb and collected into an innumerable multitude, must have appeared of far too limited dimensions, as well as of unsuitable character. Though it might well seem a vast inheritance for any living generation that should spring from the loins of Abraham, yet it was palpably inadequate for the possession of his collected seed, when it should have become like the stars of heaven for multitude. And not only so; but as the risen body is to be, not a natural but a glorified one, the inheritance it is to occupy must be a glorified one too. The fairest portions of the earth, in its present fallen and corruptible state, could be a fit possession for men only so long as in their persons they are themselves fallen and corruptible. When redeemed from the power of the grave, and entered on the glories of the new creation, the natural Canaan will be as unfit to be their proper home and possession, as the original Eden would have been with its tree of life. Much more so, indeed—for the earth in its present state is adapted to the support and enjoyment of man, as constituted not only after the earthly Adam, but after him as underlying the pernicious effects of the curse. And the ultimate inheritance destined for Abraham and the heirs of promise, which was to become theirs after the resurrection from the dead, must be as much higher and better than anything which the earth, in its present state, can furnish, as man’s nature, when glorified, shall be higher and better than it is while in bondage to sin and death.

Nothing less than this certainly is taught in what is said of the inheritance, as expected by the patriarchs, in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is [[@Page:404]] not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city.”[8]Without entering into any minute commentary on this passage, it cannot but be regarded as perfectly conclusive of two points: First, that Abraham, and the heirs with him of the same promise, did understand and believe, that the inheritance secured to them under the promise of Canaan (for that was the only word spoken to them of an inheritance) was one in which they had a personal interest. And then, secondly, that the inheritance, as it was to be occupied and enjoyed by them, was to be, not a temporary, but a final one,—one that might fitly be designated a “heavenly country,” a city built by Divine hands, and based on immovable foundations, in short, the ultimate and proper resting-place of redeemed and glorified natures. This was what these holy patriarchs expected and desired,—what they were warranted to expect and desire;—for their conduct in this respect is the subject of commendation, and is justified on the special ground, that otherwise God must have been ashamed to be called their God. And, finally, it was what they found contained in the promise to them, of an inheritance in the land in which they were pilgrims and strangers; for to that promise alone could they look for the special ground of the hopes they cherished of a sure and final possession.

But the question again returns, what is that possession itself really to be? That it cannot be the country itself of Palestine, either in its present condition or as it might become under any system of culture of which nature is capable, is too obvious to require any lengthened proof. The twofold fact, that the possession was to be man’s ultimate and proper inheritance, and that it could be attained only after the resurrection from the dead, clearly forbids the supposition of its being the literal land of Canaan, under any conceivable form of renovated fruitfulness and beauty. This is also evident from the nature of the promise that formed the ground of Abraham’s hope,—which made mention only of the land of Canaan,—and which, as pointing to an ulterior inheritance, must have belonged to that combination of type with prophecy which we placed first, viz., having the promise, or prediction, not in the language employed, but in the typical character of the object which that language described. [[@Page:405]] The promise made to Abraham was simple enough in itself. It gave assurance of a land distinctly marked off by certain geographical boundaries. It was not properly in the words of that promise that he could read his destiny to any future and ultimate inheritance; but putting together the two things, that the promised good could only be realized fully in an after-state of being, and that all the relations of the time then present were preparative and temporary representations of better things to come, he might hence perceive that the earthly Canaan was a type of what was finally to be enjoyed. Thus the establishment of his offspring there would be regarded as a prophecy, in fact, of the exaltation of the whole of an elect seed to their destined state of blessing and glory. But such being the case,—the prediction standing altogether in the type,—the thing predicted and promised must, in conformity with all typical relations, have been another and far higher thing than that which served to predict and promise it. Canaan could not be the type of itself: it could only represent, on the lower platform of nature, what was hereafter to be developed on the loftier arena of God’s ever lasting kingdom; and as far as the things of fallen and corrupt nature differ from, and are inferior to, those of redemption, so far must the rest of Canaan have differed from, and been inferior to, “that rest which remaineth for the people of God.”[9] What that final rest or inheritance, which forms the antitype to Canaan, really is, we may gather from the words of the Apostle concerning it in Eph. 1:14, where he calls the Spirit “the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.”[10] It is plain, that the subject here discoursed [[@Page:406]] of, is not our persons, but our goods; not what believers in their souls and bodies are to be hereafter, but what is prepared for their enjoyment. For the inheritance which belongs to a person, must always be separate from the person himself. And as that which is called an inheritance in the one clause, is undoubtedly the same with that which in the other is named a possession, purchased or acquired, but not yet redeemed, the redemption of the possession must be a work to be accomplished for us, and not to be wrought in us. It must be a change to the better, effected not upon our persons, but upon the outward provision secured for their ulterior happiness and well-being.

It is true, that the Church of God, the company of sound and genuine believers, is sometimes called the inheritance or [[@Page:407]] purchased possession of God. In Old Testament Scripture His people are styled His “heritage,” “His treasure;” and in New Testament Scripture we find St Peter addressing them as “a peculiar people,” or literally, a people for a possession—namely, a possession of God, acquired or purchased by the precious blood of His dear Son. The question here, however, is not of what may be called God’s inheritance, but of ours; not of our redemption from the bondage of evil as a possession of God, which He seeks to enjoy free from all evil, but of that which we are ourselves to possess and occupy as our final portion. And as we could with no propriety be called our own inheritance, or our own possession, it must be something apart from, and out of ourselves, which is here to be understood,—not a state of being to be held, but a portion of blessing and glory to be enjoyed.

Now, whatever the inheritance or possession may be in itself, and whatever the region where it is to be enjoyed, when it is spoken of as needing to be redeemed, we are evidently taught to regard it as something that has been alienated from us, but is again to be made ours; not a possession altogether new, but an old possession, lost, and again to be reclaimed from the powers of evil, which now overmaster and destroy it. So was it certainly with our persons. They were sold under sin. With our loss of righteousness before God, we lost at the same time our spiritual freedom, and all that essentially belonged to the pure and blessed life, in the possession of which we were created. Instead of this, we became subject to the tyrannous dominion of the prince of darkness, holding us captive in our souls to the foul and wretched bondage of sin, and in our bodies to the mortality and corruption of death. The redemption of our persons is just their recovery from this lost and ruinous state, to the freedom of God’s children, and the blessedness of immortal life in His presence and glory. It proceeds at every step by acts of judgment upon the great adversary and oppressor, who took advantage of the evil, and ever seeks to drive it to the uttermost. And when the work shall be completed by the redemption of the body from the power of the grave, there shall then be the breaking up of the last bond of oppression that lay upon our natures, the putting down of the last enemy, that the son of wickedness may no longer vex or injure us.

[[@Page:408]] In this redemption-process, which is already begun upon the people of God, and shall be consummated in the glories of the resurrection, it is the same persons, the same soul and body, which have experience both of the evil and of the good. Though the change is so great and wonderful, that it is sometimes called a new creation, it is not in the sense of anything being brought into existence, which previously had no being. Such language is simply used on account of the happy and glorious transformation that is made to pass upon the natures which already exist, but exist only in a state of misery and oppression. And when the same language is applied to the inheritance, which is used of the persons of those who are to enjoy it, what can this indicate, but that the same things are true concerning it? The bringing in of that inheritance, in its finished state of fulness and glory, is in like manner called “the making of all things new;” but it is so called only in respect to the wonderful transformation which is to be wrought upon the old things, which are thereby to receive another constitution, and present another aspect, than they were wont to do before. For that the possession is to be redeemed, bespeaks it as a thing to be recovered, not to be made,—a thing already in being, though so changed from its original destination, so marred and spoiled, overlaid with so many forms of evil, and so far from serving the ends for which it is required, that it may be said to be alienated from us, in the hands of the enemy, for the prosecution of his purposes of evil.

Now, what is it, of which this can be affirmed? If it is said heaven, and by that is meant what is commonly understood, some region far removed from this lower world, in the sightless realms of ether, then we ask, was heaven in that sense ever man’s? Has it become obnoxious to any evils, from which it must be delivered? or has it fallen into the hands of an enemy and an oppressor, from whose evil sway it must again be redeemed? None of these things surely can be said of such a heaven. It would be an altogether new inheritance, a possession never held, consequently never lost, and incapable of being redeemed. And there is nothing that answers such a description, or can possibly realize the conditions of such an inheritance, but what lies within the bounds and compass of this earth [[@Page:409]] itself, with which the history of man has hitherto been connected both in good and evil, and where all the possession is, that he can properly be said either to have held or to have lost.

Let us again recur to the past. Man’s original inheritance was a lordship or dominion, stretching over the whole earth, but extending no farther. It entitled him to the ministry of all creatures within its borders, and the enjoyment of all fruits and productions upon its surface—one only excepted, for the trial of his obedience.—(Gen. 1:28-31; Ps. 8) When he fell, he fell from his dominion, as well as from his purity; the inheritance departed from him; he was driven from paradise, the throne and palace of his kingdom; labour, servitude, and suffering, became his portion in the world; he was doomed to be a bondsman, a hewer of wood and drawer of water, on what was formed to be his inheritance; and all that he has since been able, by hard toil and industry, to acquire, is but a partial and temporary command over some fragments of what was at first all his own. Nor is that the whole. For with man’s loss of the inheritance, Satan was permitted to enter, and extend his usurped sway over the domain from which man has been expelled as its proper lord. And this he does by filling the world with agencies and works of evil, —spreading disorder through the elements of nature, and disaffection among the several orders of being,—above all, corrupting the minds of men, so as to lead them to cast off the authority of God, and to use the things he confers on them for their own selfish ends and purposes, for the injury and oppression of their fellow-men, for the encouragement of sin and suppression of the truth of God,—for rendering the world, in short, as far as possible, a region of darkness and not of light, a kingdom of Satan and not of God, a theatre of malice, corruption, and disorder, not of love, harmony, and blessedness.

Now, as the redemption of man’s person consists in his being rescued from the dominion of Satan—from the power of sin in his soul, and from the reign of death in his body, which are the two forms of Satan’s dominion over man’s nature; what can the redemption of the inheritance be, but the rescuing of this earth from the manifold ills which, through the instrumentality of Satan, have come to lodge in its bosom,—purging its elements [[@Page:410]] of all mischief and disorder,—changing it from being the vale of tears and the charnel-house of death, into a paradise of life and blessing,—restoring to man, himself then redeemed and fitted for the honour, the sceptre of a real dominion over all its fulness,—in a word, rendering it in character and design what it was on creation’s morn, when the sons of God shouted for joy, and God Himself looked with satisfaction on the goodness and order and beauty which pervaded this portion of His universe? To do such a work as this upon the earth, would manifestly be to redeem the possession which man by disobedience forfeited and lost, and a new title to which has been purchased by Christ for all His spiritual seed; for were that done, the enemy would be completely foiled and cast out, and man’s proper inheritance restored.

But some are perhaps ready to ask, Is that, then, all the inheritance that the redeemed have to look for? Is their abode still to be upon earth, and their portion of good to be confined to what may be derived from its material joys and occupations? Is paradise restored to be simply the re-establishment and enlargement of paradise lost? We might reply to such questions by putting similar ones regarding the persons of the redeemed. Are these still, after all, to be the same persons they were during the days of their sojourn on earth? Is the soul, when expatiating amid the glorious scenes of eternity, to live in the exercise of the same powers and faculties which it employed on the things of time? And is the outward frame, in which it is to lodge, and act, and enjoy itself, to be that very tabernacle which it bore here in weakness, and which it left behind to rot and perish in the tomb? Would any one feel at a moment’s loss to answer such questions in the affirmative? Does it in any respect shock our feelings, or lower the expectations we feel warranted to cherish concerning our future state, when we think that the very soul and body which together constitute and make up the being we now are, shall also constitute and make up the being we are to be hereafter? Assuredly not; for however little we know what we are to be hereafter, we are not left in ignorance that both soul and body shall be freed from all evil; and not only so, but in the process shall be unspeakably refined and elevated. We know it is the purpose of [[@Page:411]] God to magnify in us the riches of His grace by raising our natures higher than the fall has brought them low—to glorify, while He redeems them, and so to render them capable of spheres of action and enjoyment beyond not only what eye has seen or ear has heard, but even what has entered into the mind of man to conceive.

And why may we not think and reason thus also, concerning the inheritance which these redeemed natures are to occupy? Why may not God do a like work of purification and refinement on this solid earth, so as to transform and adapt it into a fit residence for man in glory? Why may not, why should not, that which has become for man, as fallen, the house of bondage and the field of ruin, become also for man redeemed the habitation of peace and the region of pre-eminent delight? Surely He, who from the very stones can raise up children unto Abraham, and who will bring forth from the noisome corruption of the tomb, forms clothed with honour and majesty, can equally change the vile and disordered condition of the world, as it now is, and make it fit to be “the house of the glory of His kingdom,”—a world where the eye of redeemed manhood shall be regaled with sights of surpassing loveliness, and his ear ravished with sounds of sweetest melody, and his desires satisfied with purest delight,—ay, a world, it may be, which, as it alone of all creation’s orbs has been honoured to bear the footsteps of an incarnate God, and witness the performance of His noblest work, so shall it be chosen as the region around which He will pour the richest manifestations of His glorious presence, and possibly send from it, by the ministry of His redeemed, communications of love and kindness to the farthest bounds of His habitable universe!

No; when rightly considered, it is not a low and degrading view of the inheritance which is reserved for the heirs of salvation, to place it in the possession of this very earth which we now inhabit, after it shall have been redeemed and glorified. I feel it for myself to be rather an ennobling and comforting thought; and were I left to choose, out of all creation’s bounds, the place where my redeemed nature is to find its local habitation, enjoy its Redeemer’s presence, and reap the fruits of His costly purchase, I would prefer none to this. For if destined [[@Page:412]] to so high a purpose, I know it will be made in all respects what it should be,—the paradise of delight, the very heaven of glory and blessing, which I desire and need. And then, the connection between what it now is, and what it shall have become, must impart to it an interest which can belong to no other region in the universe. If anything could enhance our exaltation to the lordship of a glorious and blessed inheritance, it would surely be the feeling of possessing it in the very place where we were once miserable bondsmen of sin and corruption. And if anything should dispose us to bear meekly our present heritage of evil, to quicken our aspirations after the period of deliverance, and to raise our affections above the vain and perishable things around us, it should be the thought that all we can now either have or experience from the world is part of a possession forfeited and accursed, but that it only waits for the transforming power of God to be changed into the inheritance of the saints in light, when heaven and earth shall be mingled into one.

But if this renovated earth is to be itself the inheritance of the redeemed,—if it, in the first instance at least, is to be the heaven where they are to reap life everlasting, how, it may be asked, can heaven be spoken of as above us, and represented as the higher region of God’s presence? Such language is never, that we are aware of, used in Scripture to denote the final dwelling-place of God’s people; and if it were used there, as it often is in popular discourse, it would need, of course, to be understood with that limitation which requires to be put upon all our more definite descriptions of a future world. To regard expressions of the kind referred to, as determining our final abode to be over our heads, were to betray a childish ignorance of the fact, that what is such by day, is the reverse of what is so by night. Such language properly denotes the superior nature of the heavenly inheritance, and not its relative position. God can make any region of His universe a heaven, since heaven is there, where He manifests His presence and glory; and why might He not do so here, as well as in any other part of creation?—But is it not said, that the kingdom in which the redeemed are to live and reign for ever, was prepared for them before the foundation of the world; and how, then, can the scene of it be [[@Page:413]] placed on this earth, still waiting to be redeemed for the purpose? The preparation there meant, however, cannot possibly be an actual fitting up of the place which believers are to occupy with their Lord; for wherever it is, the Apostle tells us it still needs to be redeemed: in that sense it is not yet ready; and Christ Himself said, when on the eve of leaving the world, that lie was going to prepare it, as He does by directing, on His throne of glory, the events which are to issue in its full establishment. Still, from the first it might be said to be prepared, because destined for Christ and His elect people in the mind of God, even as they were all chosen in Him before the foundation of the world; and every successive act in the history of the mediatorial kingdom is another step toward the accomplishment of the purpose.—Are we not again told, however, that the earth is to be destroyed, its elements made to melt with fervent heat, and all its works consumed? Unquestionably this is said, though not by any means necessarily implying that the earth is really to be annihilated. We know that God is perpetually causing changes to pass over the works of His hands; but that He actually annihilates any, we have no ground, either in nature or in Scripture, to suppose. If in the latter, we are told of man’s body, that it perishes, and is consumed by the moth; yet of what are we more distinctly assured, than that it is not doomed to absolute destruction, but shall live again? When we read of the old world being destroyed by the flood, we know that the material fabric of the earth continued as before. Indeed, much the same language that is applied to the earth in this respect, is also extended to the heavens themselves; for they too are represented as ready to pass away, and to be changed as a vesture, and the promise speaks of new heavens as well as a new earth. And in regard to this earth in particular, there is nothing in the language used concerning it to prevent us from believing, that the fire which, in the day of God’s judgment, is to burst forth with consuming violence, may, like the waters of the deluge, and in a far higher respect than they, act as an element of purification—dissolving, indeed, the present constitution of things, and leaving not a wreck behind of all we now see and handle, but at the same time rectifying and improving the powers of nature, refining and elevating the whole framework [[@Page:414]] of the earth, and impressing on all that belongs to it a transcendent, imperishable glory; so that in condition and appearance it shall be substantially a new world, and one as far above what it now is, as heaven is above the earth.

There is nothing, then, in the other representations of Scripture, which appears, when fairly considered, to raise any valid objection against the renovated earth being the ultimate inheritance of the heirs of promise. And there is much to shut us up to the conclusion that it is so. We have enlarged on one testimony of inspiration, not because it is the only or the chief one on the subject, but because it is so explicit, that it seems decisive of the question. For an inheritance which has been already acquired or purchased, but which must be redeemed before it can really be our possession, can be understood of nothing but that original domain which sin brought, together with man, into the bondage of evil at the fall. And of what else can we understand the representation in the [[8th >> Bible:Ps 8:1-9]] Psalm, as interpreted by the pen of inspiration itself, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, [[2:5-9 >> Bible:Heb 2:5-9]] , and in 1 Cor. 15:27, 28? These passages in the New Testament put it beyond a doubt, that the idea of perfect and universal dominion delineated in the Psalm, is to be realized in the world to come, over which Christ, as the head of redeemed humanity, is to rule, in company with His redeemed people. The representation itself in the Psalm, is evidently borrowed from the first chapter of Genesis, and, considered as a prophecy of good things to come, or a prediction of the dignity and honour already obtained for man in Christ, and hereafter to be revealed, it may be regarded as simply presenting to our view the picture of a restored and renovated creation. “It is just that passage in Genesis which describes the original condition of the earth,” to use the words of Hengstenberg, “turned into a prayer for us,” and we may add, into an object of hope and expectation. When that prayer is fulfilled,—in other words, when the natural and moral evils entailed by the fall have been abolished, and the earth shall stand to man, when redeemed and glorified, in a similar relation to what it did at the birth of creation,—then shall the hope we now possess of an inheritance of glory be turned into enjoyment. In Isa. 11:6-9, the final results of Messiah’s reign are in like manner delineated [[@Page:415]] under the aspect of a world which has obtained riddance of all the disorders introduced by sin, and is restored to the blessed harmony and peace which characterized it when God pronounced it very good. And still more definitely, though with reference to the same aspect of things, the Apostle Peter (Acts 3:21) represents the time of Christ’s second coming as “the time of the restitution of all things,” that is, when everything should be restored to its pristine condition,—the same condition in kind, all pure and good, glorious and blessed, but higher in degree, as it is the design and tendency of redemption to ennoble whatsoever it touches.[11]

It is precisely on the same object, a redeemed and glorified earth, that the Apostle Paul, in the 8th [[8th >> Bible:Ro 8:1-39]] chapter of the Romans, fixes the mind of believers as the terminating point of their hopes of glory. An incomparable glory is to be revealed in them; and in connection with that, “the deliverance of a suffering creation from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” What can this deliverance be, but what is marked in the Epistle to the Ephesians, as “the redemption of the purchased possession?” Nor is it possible to connect with anything else the words of Peter in his second Epistle, where, after speaking of the dreadful conflagration which is to consume all that belongs to the earth in its present form, he adds,—as if expressly to guard against supposing that he meant the actual and entire destruction of this world as the abode of man,—”Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

It is only by understanding the words of Christ Himself, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” of the earth in that new condition, its state of blessedness and glory, that any full or adequate sense can be attached to them. He could not surely mean the earth as it then was, or as it is to be during any period of its existence, while sin and death reign in it. So long [[@Page:416]] as it is in that condition, not only will the saints of God have many things to suffer in it, as our Lord immediately foretold, when He spake of the persecutions for righteousness sake which His people should have to endure, and on account of which He bade them look for their “reward in heaven;” but all the treasure it contains must be of the moth-eaten, perishable kind, which they are expressly forbidden to covet, and the earth itself must be that city without continuance, in contrast to which they are called to seek one to come. To speak, therefore, as many commentators do, of the tendency of piety in general, and of a mild and gracious disposition in particular, to secure for men a prosperous and happy life on earth, is to say comparatively little as regards the fulfilment of the promise, that they shall “inherit the earth.” If it could even command for them the whole that earth now can give, would Christ on that account have called them blessed? Would he not rather have warned them to beware of the deceitfulness of riches, and the abundance of honours thus likely to flow into their bosom? To be blessed in the earth as an inheritance, must import that the earth has become to them a real and proper good, such as it shall be when it has been transformed into a fit abode for redeemed natures. This view is also confirmed, and apparently rendered as clear and certain as language can make it, by the representations constantly given by Christ and the inspired writers, of His return to the earth and manifestation on it in glory, as connected with the last scenes and final issues of His kingdom. When He left the world, it was as a man going into a far country, from which He was to come again;[12] the heaven received Him at His resurrection, but only until the times of the restitution of all things;[13] the period of His residence within the veil, is coincident with that during which His people have to maintain a hidden life, and is to be followed by another, in which they and He together are to be manifested in glory.[14] And in the book of Revelation, while unquestionably the scenes are described in figurative language, yet when exact localities are mentioned as the places where the scenes are to be realized, and that in connection with a plain description of the condition [[@Page:417]] of those who are to have part in them, we are compelled by all the ordinary rules of composition to regard such localities as real and proper habitations. What, then, can we make of the ascription of praise from the elders, representatives of a redeemed church, when they give glory to the Messiah, as “having made them kings and priests unto God, and they shall reign with Him upon the earth?” Or what of the closing scenes, where the Evangelist sees a new heaven and a new earth in the room of those which had passed away, and the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to settle on the renovated earth, and the tabernacle of God fixed amongst men?[15] Granting that the delineations of the book are a succession of pictures, drawn from the relations of things in the former ages of the world, and especially under the Old Testament economy, and that the fulfilment to be looked for is not as of a literal description, but as of a symbolical representation, yet there must be certain fixed landmarks as to time and place, persons and objects, which, in their natures or their names, are so clearly defined, that by them the relation of one part to another must be arranged and interpreted. For example, in the above quotations, we cannot doubt who are kings and priests, or with whom they are to reign; and it were surely strange, if there could be any doubt of the theatre of their dominion, when it is so expressly denominated the earth. And still more strange, if, when heaven and earth are mentioned relatively to each other, and the scene of the Church’s future glory fixed upon the latter as contradistinguished from the former, earth should yet stand for heaven, and not for itself. Indeed, the most striking feature in the representations of the Apocalypse is the uniformity with which they connect the higher grade of blessing with earth, and the lower with the world of spirits. As Hengstenberg has justly remarked on ch. [[20:4, 5 >> Bible:Re 20:4-5]] , it invariably points to a double stage of blessedness,—the one awaiting believers immediately after their departure out of this life, the other what they are to receive when they enter the New Jerusalem, and reign with Christ in glory. But we find the same in our Lord’s teaching, as when He said to the thief on the cross, “To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,”[[@Page:418]] and yet pointed His disciples to the state of things on earth after the resurrection for their highest reward.—(Matt. 19:28) And, on the whole, we are forced to conclude with Usteri, that “the conception of a transference of the perfected kingdom of God into the heavens is, properly speaking, modern, seeing that, according to Paul and the Apocalypse (and, he might also have added, Peter and Christ Himself), the seat of the kingdom of God is the earth, inasmuch as that likewise partakes in the general renovation.”[16]

Having now closed our investigation, we draw the following conclusions from it.

1. The earthly Canaan was neither designed by God, nor from the first was it understood by His people to be the ultimate and proper inheritance which they were to occupy; things having been spoken and hoped for concerning it which plainly could not be realized within the bounds of Canaan.

[[@Page:419]] 2. The inheritance was one which could be enjoyed only by those who had become the children of the resurrection, themselves fully redeemed in soul and body from all the effects and consequences of sin,—made more glorious and blessed, indeed, than if they had never sinned, because constituted after the image of the heavenly Adam. And as the inheritance must correspond with the inheritor, it can only be man’s original possession restored,—the earth redeemed from the curse which sin brought on it, and, like man himself, rendered exceedingly more beautiful and glorious than in its primeval state,—the fit abode of a Church made like, in all its members, to the Son of God.

3. The occupation of the earthly Canaan by the natural seed of Abraham was a type, and no more than a type, of this occupation [[@Page:420]] by a redeemed Church of her destined inheritance of glory; and consequently everything concerning the entrance of the former on their temporary possession, was ordered so as to represent and foreshadow the things which belong to the Church’s establishment in her permanent possession. Hence, between the giving of the promise, which, though it did not terminate in the land of Canaan, yet included that, and through it prospectively exhibited the better inheritance, a series of important events intervened, which are capable of being fully and properly explained in no other way than by means of their typical bearing on the things hereafter to be disclosed respecting that better inheritance. If we ask, why did the heirs of promise wander about so long as pilgrims, and withdraw to a foreign region before they were allowed to possess the land, and not rather, like a modern colony, quietly spread, without strife or bloodshed, over its surface, till the whole was possessed? Or why were they suffered to fall under the dominion of a foreign power, from whose cruel oppression they needed to be redeemed, with terrible executions of judgment on the oppressor, before the possession could be theirs? Or why, before that event also, should they have been put under the discipline of law, having the covenant of Sinai, with its strict requirements and manifold obligations of service, superadded to the covenant of grace and promise? Or why, again, should their right to the inheritance itself have to be vindicated from a race of occupants who had been allowed for a time to keep possession of it, and whose multiplied abominations had so polluted it, that nothing short of their extermination could render it a fitting abode for the heirs of promise? The full and satisfactory answer to all such questions can only be given by viewing the whole in connection with the better things of a higher dispensation, as the first part of a plan which was to have its counterpart and issue in the glories of a redeemed creation, and for the final results of which the Church needed to be prepared by standing in similar relations, and passing through like experiences, in regard to an earthly inheritance. No doubt, with one and all of these there were connected reasons and results for the time then present, amply sufficient to justify every step in the process, when considered simply by itself. But it is only when we take the whole [[@Page:421]] as a glass, in which to see mirrored the far greater things which from the first were in prospect, that we can get a comprehensive view of the mind of God in appointing them, and know the purposes which He chiefly contemplated.

For example, the fact of Abraham and his immediate descendants being appointed to wander as pilgrims through the land of Canaan, without being allowed to occupy any part of it as their own possession, may be partly explained, though in that view it must appear somewhat capricious, by its being considered as a trial to their own faith, and an act of forbearance and mercy toward the original possessors, whose iniquities were not yet full. But if we thus find grounds of reason to explain why it may have been so ordered, when we come to look upon the things which happened to them, as designed to image other things which were afterwards to belong to the relation of God’s people to a higher and better inheritance, we see it was even necessary that those transactions should have been so ordered, and that it would have been unsuitable for the heirs of promise, either entering at once on the possession, or living as pilgrims and expectants, anywhere but within its borders. For thus alone could their experience fitly represent the case of God’s people in Gospel times, who have not only to wait long for the redemption of the purchased possession, but while they wait, must walk up and down as pilgrims in the very region which they are hereafter to use as their own, when it shall have been delivered from the powers of evil who now hold it in bondage, and purged from their abominations. Hence, if they know aright their relation to the world as it now is, and their calling as the heirs of promise, they must sit loose to the things of earth, even as the patriarchs did to the land of their sojourn,—must feel that it cannot be the place of their rest so long as it is polluted, and that they must stedfastly look for the world to come as their proper home and possession. And thus also the whole series of transactions which took place between the confirmation of the covenant of promise with Jacob, and the actual possession of the land promised, and especially of course the things which concerned that greatest of all the transactions, the revelation of the law from Sinai, is to be regarded as a delineation in the type, of the way and manner in which the heirs of [[@Page:422]] God are to obtain the inheritance of the purchased possession. Meanwhile, apart from these later transactions, there are two important lessons which the Church may clearly gather from what appears in the first heirs of promise, and which she ought never to lose sight of:—First, that the inheritance, come when and how it may, is the free gift of God, bestowed by Him, as sovereign lord and proprietor, on those whom He calls to the fellowship of His grace: And, second, that the hope of the in heritance must exist as an animating principle in their hearts, influencing all their procedure. Their spirit and character must be such as become those who are the expectants as well as heirs of that better country, which is an heavenly; nor can Christ ever be truly formed in the heart, until He be formed as “the hope of glory.”

FOOTNOTE

[1] Legation of Moses, B. vi., sec. 3.

[2] Gen. 17:1-17.

[3] Sic habetur traditio Rab. Simai; quo loco astruit Lex resurrectionem mortuorum? Nempe ubi dicitur, “Aque etiam coustabilivi foedus meum cum ipsis, ut dem ipsis terram Canaan.” Non enim dicitur vobis sed ipsis.

[4] Ut carnis restitutio negetur, de una omnium philosophorum scliola sumitur, De Praesc. adv. Haeret. § 7.

[5] See Appendix B.

[6] Dissertations on the Prophecies of Old Test., vol. i., p. 56.

[7] Acts 26:6-8.

[8] Heb. 11:13-16.

[9] See Appendix D.

[10] That the received translation gives here the sense of the original with substantial correctness, I am fully satisfied. The latter part of it, εἰς ἀτολύρωσιντῆς περιποιὴσεως, has been variously understood, and its natural import too commonly overlooked. Robinson, in his Lexicon, makes it = ἀπολύτρωσιν τὴν περιποιηθεὶσαν, the redemption acquired for us,—a violent change, which could only be justified if absolutely necessary. The only two senses in which the word occurs in the New Testament, are—1. Acquiring, acquisition, obtaining, 1 Thess. 5:9; 2 Thess. 2:14; Heb. 10:39; 2. The thing obtained or acquired, possession, in which sense, unquestionably, it is used in Mal. 3:17, and in 1 Pet. 2:9. In both of these places it is applied to the Church, as God’s acquired, purchased possession, and is equal to His peculium, or property in the stricter sense, His select treasure, which is related to Him as nothing else is, which He has acquired or purchased, περιεποιήσατο, by His own blood, Acts 20:28, comp. Also Ex. 19:6; Deut. 7:6; Tit. 2:14. The great majority of interpreters, from Calvin to Ellicott, are of opinion, that because in these passages περιποίὴσις is used as a designation of the Church, considered as God’s peculiar property, it has the same meaning here, “unto, or until, the redemption of His purchased people,” as Boothroyd expressly renders. But this view is liable to three objections. 1. The word περιποίησις, is nowhere absolutely and by itself put for “purchased people,” or “Church;” when so used, it has the addition of λαός. 2. The redemption of the Church would then be regarded as future, whereas it is always represented as past. We read of the redemption of the bodies of believers as yet to take place, but never of the redemption of the Church; that is uniformly spoken of as having been effected by the death of Christ. 3. It does not suit the connection: for the Apostle is speaking of the indwelling of the Spirit as the earnest of the inheritance to which believers are destined; and as an earnest is given as a temporary substitute for the inheritance or possession, the term to which, or the end in respect to which it is given, must be, not some other event of a Collateral nature, but the coming or receiving of the possession itself. Then, while these objections apply to the common view, there is no need for resorting to it: while it does violence to the word, it only obscures the sense. Εἰς περιποίησιν, both CEcumenius and Theophylact, on 1 Pet. 2:9, hold to be εἰς κτῆσιν εἰκληρονομίαν, for a possession, for an inheritance. And Didymus on the same place, as quoted by Steiger, says, “that is περιποίησις which, by way of distinction, is reckoned among our substance and possessions.” Therefore the correct meaning here is that given by Calov: “Περιποίησις, the abstract being placed for the concrete, is to be understood of the acquired inheritance, for the Holy Spirit is the pledge and earnest until the full redemption of the acquired inheritance.”

[11] That this is simply the force of the original here, it may be enough to give the meaning of the main word from the lexicographer Hesychius: ἀποκατάστασις, “is the restoration of a thing to its former state, or to a better; restitution, consummation, a revolution of the grander kind, from which a new order of things arises, rest after turmoil.”

[12] Matt. 25:14; Luke 19:12; John 14:3.

[13] Acts 3:21.

[14] Col. 3:4; Heb. 9:28; 1 John 3:2; Rev. 1:7.

[15] Rev. 5:9, 10; 21:1-5.

[16] The above passage is quoted by Tholuck, on Rom. 8:19, who himself there, and on Heb. 2, concurs in the same view. He also states, what cannot be denied, that it is the view which has been adopted by the greatest number and the most ancient of the expositors, amongst whom he mentions, though he does not cite, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Luther, etc. And Rivet, on Gen. 8:22, states that the opinion which maintains only a change, and not an utter destruction of the world, has most supporters, both among the elder and the more recent writers, so that it may be called, says he, “the common one, and be said to prevail by the number of its adherents.” In the present day, the opposite opinion would probably be entitled to be regarded as by much the most common; and the view here set forth will perhaps by some be eyed with jealousy, if not condemned as novel. It may be proper, therefore, to give a few quotations from the more eminent commentators. Jerome, on Isa. 65:17, quotes Ps. 102:26 and 27, which he thinks “clearly demonstrates, that the perdition spoken of is not a reducing to nothing, but a change to the better;” and having referred to what Peter says of the new heavens and the new earth, he remarks that the Apostle “does not say, we look for other heavens and another earth, but for the old and original ones transformed into a better state.” Of the fathers generally, as of Justin Martyr in particular, Semisch states that they regarded the future destruction of the world by fire “far more frequently as a trans formation than as an annihilation.”—(Life and Times of Justin, Bib. Cab., vol. xlii., p. 366.) Calvin, while he discourages minute inquiries and vain speculations regarding the future state, expresses himself with confidence, on Rom. 8:21, as to this world being the destined theatre of glory, and considers it as a proof of the incomparable glory to which the sons of God are to be raised, that the lower creation is to be renewed for the purpose of manifesting and ennobling it, just as the disorders and troubles of creation have testified to the appalling evil of our sin. So also Haldane, as little inclined to the fanciful as Calvin, on the same passage, after quoting from 2 Pet. And Rev., continues: “The destruction of the substance of things differs from a change in their qualities. When metal of a certain shape is subjected to fire, it is destroyed as to its figure, but not as to its substance. Thus the heavens and the earth will pass through the fire, but only that they may be purified and come forth anew, more excellent than before. This hope—the hope of deliverance—was held out in the sentence pronounced on man, for in the doom of our first parents the Divine purpose of providing a deliverer was revealed. We know not the circumstances of this change, how it will be effected, or in what form the creation—those new heavens and that new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, suited for the abode of the sons of God—shall then exist; but we are sure it shall be worthy of the Divine wisdom, although at present beyond our comprehension.” To the same effect Fuller, in his Gospel its own Witness, ch. v. Thiersch says of the promise to Abraham, “Undoubtedly it pointed to a kingdom of God upon earth, not in an invisible world of spirits. Paradise itself had been upon earth, much more should the earth be the centre of the world to come.”—(History, i., p. 20.) See Olshausen also on Matt. 8. Mr Stuart, in his work on Romans, expresses his strong dissent from such views, on the ground of their being opposed to the declarations of Christ, and requiring such a literal interpretation of prophecy as would lead to absurd and ridiculous expectations in regard to other predictions. We can perceive no contrariety, however, to any declaration of Christ or His apostles; and the other predictions he refers to belong to quite another class, and do not require, or even admit, as might quite easily be shown, of a strictly literal fulfilment.

Appendices.

Appendix A.—The Old Testament in The New. P. 138.

I.—THE HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PORTIONS.

[[@Page:423]] BESIDES numberless allusions of various kinds in the New Testament to the Old, there are somewhat more than two hundred and fifty express citations in the writings of the one from those of the other. These citations are of unequal length; they consist often of a single clause, but sometimes also extend to several verses. They are taken indiscriminately from the different parts of Old Testament Scripture; though, with very few exceptions, they belong to the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the writings of the prophets.

Not a few of these citations from the Old Testament are citations of the simplest kind; they appear merely as passages quoted in their plain sense from the previously existing canon of Scripture. Such, for example, are the passages out of the books of Moses, with which our Lord, after the simple notification, “It is written,” thrice met the assaults of the tempter in the wilderness; and such also are those with which Stephen, in his historical speech before the Jewish council, sought, through appropriate references to the past, to enlighten the minds and alarm the consciences of his judges. In examples of this description, there is nothing that can be said to wear even the semblance of a difficulty, unless it may be regarded as such, that occasionally a slight difference appears in the passages as quoted, from what they are as they stand in the original Scripture. But the difference is never more than a verbal one; the sense of the original is always given with substantial correctness by the inspired writers in the New Testament; and so far as the great principles of interpretation are concerned, there is no need for dwelling on a matter so comparatively minute.

But there still remains a considerable variety of Old Testament passages, so cited in the New as plainly to involve certain principles of interpretation; because they are cited as grounds of inference for some authoritative conclusion, or as proofs of doctrine respecting something connected with the person, the work, or the kingdom of Christ. And on the supposition of the authors of the New Testament being inspired teachers, the character of these citations is of the gravest importance—first, as providing, in the hermeneutical principles they involve, a test to some extent of the inspiration of the writers; and then as furnishing in those principles an infallible [[@Page:424]] direction for the general interpretation of ancient Scripture. For there can be no doubt that the manner in which our Lord and His apostles understood and applied the Scriptures of the Old Testament, was as much in tended to throw light generally on the principles of interpretation, as to administer instruction on the specific points, for the sake of which they were more immediately appealed to. What, then, is the kind of use made of the passages in question, and the spirit in which they are explained? Is it natural and proper? Is there nothing strained, nothing paradoxical, nothing arbitrary and capricious, in the matter? Does it altogether commend itself to our understandings and consciences? Undoubtedly it does so in the great majority of cases. And yet it is not to be denied that there are certain peculiarities connected with the treatment of the Old Testament in the New, which are very apt to stagger inquirers in their first attention to the subject. Nay, there are real difficulties attaching to some parts of it, which have long exercised the ingenuity of the ablest interpreters, and of which no satisfactory solution can be given, without a clear and comprehensive insight being first obtained into the connection subsisting between the preparatory and the ultimate things in God’s kingdom.

In a small publication, which materially contributed to the solution of some of these difficulties, issued so far back as 1824, Olshausen remarks concerning the use made of the Old Testament in the New:—”This has been for all more recent expositors a stone of stumbling, over which not a few of them have actually fallen. It has appeared to them difficult, and even impossible, to discover a proper unity and connection in the constructions put upon the passages by the New Testament writers, or to refer them to rules and principles. Without being able to refer them to these, they could not properly justify and approve of them; neither could they, on the other hand, altogether disapprove and reject them, without abandoning everything. So that, in explaining the passages of the Old Testament which pointed to the New, and again explaining the passages of the New Testament which expressly referred to and applied the Old, expositors for the most part found themselves involved in the greatest difficulties, and, on the one side or the other, resorted to the most violent expedients. But the explanation of the Old Testament in the New is the very point from which alone all exposition that listens to the voice of Divine wisdom must set out. For we have here presented to us the sense of Holy Scripture as understood by inspired men themselves, and are furnished with the true key of knowledge.”[1]

It is more especially, however, in the application made by New Testament writers of the prophecies of the Old Testament, that the difficulties in question present themselves. Nor are they by any means of one kind: they are marked by a considerable diversity; and the passages will require to be taken in due order and connection, if we are to arrive at a well-grounded and satisfactory view of the subject. This is what we mean to do. But as there are other portions of Old Testament Scripture, besides the prophecies, [[@Page:425]] referred to and quoted in the New,—as much use also is made there of the historical and didactic portions,—it is important, in the first instance, to notice that this use, with only one or two apparent, and no real exceptions, is always of a quite natural and unsophisticated character; free from any ridiculous or extravagant conceits, and entirely approving itself to the judgments of profound and thoughtful readers. Such readers, indeed, so naturally expect it to be so, that they scarcely take cognizance of the fact, or ever think of the possibility of its having been otherwise. But it is the rather to be noted, as, at the period the New Testament was written, there was, both in the age generally, and in the Jewish section of it in particular, a strong tendency to the allegorical in interpretation—to the strained, the fanciful, the puerile. The records of Gospel history contain many plain indications of this. Our Lord even charged the Jewish scholars and interpreters of His day with rendering of no effect the law of God by their traditions (Mark 7:11-13); and evidently had it as His chief aim, in a considerable part of His public teaching, to vindicate the real sense of ancient Scripture from their false glosses and sophistical per versions. The oldest Rabbinical writings extant, which profess to deliver the traditional interpretations of the leading doctors of the synagogue, sufficiently evince what need there was for our Lord adopting such a course. Such as know these only from the quotations adduced by Ainsworth, Lightfoot, and similar writers, see them only in what is at once by far their best side and their smallest proportions. For, to a large extent, they consist of absurd, incredible, and impure stories; abound with the most arbitrary and ridiculous conceits; and, as a whole, tend much more to obscure and perplex the meaning of Old Testament Scripture than explain it. It was even regarded as a piece of laudable ingenuity to multiply as much as possible the meanings of every clause and text; for, as Jeremiah had compared the word of God to a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces, so, it was thought, the word must admit of as many senses as the rock smitten with the hammer might produce splinters. Some Rabbinical authorities, therefore, contend for forty-nine, and others for as many as seventy, meanings to each verse.[2]

When we pass out of the strictly Jewish territory to the other theological writings of the first ages, we are seldom allowed to travel far without stumbling on something of the same description. To say nothing of the writings of Philo, which are replete with fanciful allegorical meanings, but [[@Page:426]] which could have little if any influence in Judea, in the epistle of Barnabas (a production probably of the second century) we find among other frivolous things, the circumcision of 318 persons in Abraham’s house interpreted as indicating that the patriarch had received the mystery of three letters. For the numerical value of the two leading letters that stand for the name of Jesus is 18, and the letter T, the figure of the cross, is 300; “wherefore by two letters he signified Jesus, and by the third His cross. He who has put the engrafted gift of His doctrine within us, knows that I never taught to any one a more certain truth.” In the epistle of Clement, a still earlier production, the scarlet thread which Rahab suspended from her window, is made to signify that there should be redemption through the blood of Jesus to all that believe and hope on Him; and the fable of the Phoenix, dying after five hundred years, and giving birth, when dead, to another destined to live for the same period, is gravely treated as a fact in natural science, and held up as a proof of the resurrection. Some things of a similar nature are also to be met with in Irenaeus, and many in the writings of Justin Martyr. Let the following suffice for a specimen:—

“When the people fought with Amalek, and the son of Nun, called Jesus, led on the battle, Moses was praying to God, having his arms extended in the form of a cross. As long as he remained in that posture, Amalek was beaten; but if he ceased in any degree to preserve it, the people were worsted, all owing to the power of the cross; for the people did not conquer because Moses prayed, but because the name of Jesus was at the head of the battle, and Moses himself made the figure of the cross.”—(Dial. Tryph., p. 248, Ed. Sylburg.)

Now, it is surely no small proof of the Divine character of the New Testament writings, that they stand entirely clear from such strained and puerile interpretations, notwithstanding that they were the production of the very age and people peculiarly addicted to such things. Though Jesus of Nazareth, from the circumstances of His early life, could not have enjoyed more than the commonest advantages, He yet came forth as a public teacher nobly superior to the false spirit of the times; never seeking for the frivolous or the fanciful, but penetrating with the profoundest discernment into the real import of the Divine testimony. And even the Apostle Paul, though brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, whose name is still held in veneration in the schools of Rabbinical learning, betrays nothing of the sinister bias in this respect, which his early training must have tended to impart. [[@Page:427]] He writes as one well skilled, indeed, to reason and dispute, but still always as one thoroughly versant in the real meaning of Scripture, and incapable of stooping to anything trifling and fantastical. And that there should thus have been, in persons so circumstanced, along with a frequent handling of Old Testament Scripture, a perfectly sober and intelligent use of it,—a spirit of interpretation pervading and directing that use, which can stand even the searching investigations of the nineteenth century,—cannot fail to raise the question in candid and thoughtful minds, “Whence had these men this wisdom?” It is alone fitted to impress us with the conviction, that they were men specially taught by God, and that the inspiration of the Almighty gave them understanding.

We have stated, however, that though there are no real departures in the writings of the New Testament from a sound and judicious explanation of the historical and didactic parts of the Old, there are a few apparent ones—a few that may seem to be such on a superficial consideration. One passage, and only one, in our Lord’s history, belongs to this class. It is His scriptural proof of the resurrection, in reply to the shallow objection of the Sadducees, which He drew from the declaration of God to Moses at the bush, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” It is clear from this alone, our Lord argued, that the dead are raised; “for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him.” (Matt. 22:32; Luke 20:38) The argument was openly stigmatized by the notorious Wolfenbuttle-fragmentist of the last century, as of the Rabbinical hairsplitting kind; and more recently, Strauss, with some others of a kindred spirit in Germany, have both regarded it as a “cabalistical exposition,” and urged as an additional reason for so regarding it, that the doctrine of a future state was derived by the Jews from other nations, and cannot be proved from the writings of the Old Testament. Most worthy successors truly to those Sadducean objectors whom our Lord sought to confute—equally shallow in their notions of God, and equally at fault in their reading of His written word! So far from deriving the notion of a future state, in the particular aspect of it now under consideration,—a resurrection from the dead,—from the heathen nations around them, the Jews were the only people in antiquity who held it; the Gentile philosophy in all its branches rejected it as incredible. And the construction put by our Lord on the words spoken to Moses, so far from being cabalistical or hairsplitting, simply penetrates to the fundamental principles involved in the relation they indicate between God and His servants. “The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob”—theirs in the full and proper sense, to be to them, and to do for them, whatever such a Being, standing in such a relation, could be and do; therefore, most assuredly, to raise them from the dead, since, if one part of their natures were to be left there the prey of corruption, He might justly be ashamed to be called their God.—(Heb. 11:16) “How could God,” Neander properly asks, “place Himself in so near a relation to individual men, and ascribe to them so high a dignity, if they were mere perishable appearances, if they had not an essence akin to His own, and destined for immortality? The living God can only be conceived [[@Page:428]] of as the God of the living.”[3] Yes, the whole law, in a sense, bore witness to that; for there death constantly appears as the embodiment of foulness and corruption, with which the pure and holy One cannot dwell in union. So that for those who are really His, He must manifest Himself as the conqueror of death; their relation to Him, as His peculiar people, is a nonentity, if it does not carry this in its train. How profound, then, yet how simple and how true, is the insight which our Lord here discovers into the realities of things, compared either with His ancient adversaries or His modern assailants! And how little does His argument need such diluted explanations to recommend it as those of Kuinoel,—”God is called the God of any one, in so far as He endows them with benefits; but He cannot be stow benefits upon the dead, therefore they live!”

A passage that has much more commonly been regarded by commentators as breathing the dialectics of the Jewish schools, is Gal. 4:21-31, where the Apostle, in arguing against the legal and fleshly tendencies of the Galatians, summons them to “hear the law.” And then he calls to their remembrance the circumstances recorded of the two wives of Abraham and their offspring; the one Sarah, the free woman, the mother of the children of promise, or the spiritual seed, corresponding to the heavenly Jerusalem and its true worshippers; the other, Hagar, the bond woman, the mother of a seed born after the flesh, carnal and ungodly in spirit, and so corresponding to the earthly Jerusalem, or Sinai, with its covenant of law, and its slavish carnal worshippers. And the Apostle declares it as certain, that worshippers of this class must all be cast out from any inheritance in the kingdom of God, even as Hagar and her fleshly son were, by Divine command, driven out of Abraham’s house, that the true child of promise might dwell in peace, and inherit the blessing. It is true, the Apostle himself calls this an allegorizing of the history, which is quite enough with some to stamp it as fanciful and weak. And there are others, looking merely to the superficial appearances, who allege that the exposition fails, since the child of Hagar had nothing to do with the law, while it was precisely the posterity of Sarah, by the line of Isaac, who stood bound by its requirements. This is an objection that could be urged only by those who did not perceive the real drift of the Apostle’s statement. We shall have occasion to unfold this in a subsequent part of our inquiry, when we come to speak of what the law could not do. Meanwhile, we affirm that the Apostle’s comment proceeds on the sound principle, that the things which took place in Abraham’s house in regard to a seed of promise and blessing were all ordered specially and peculiarly to exhibit at the very outset the truth, that such a seed must be begotten from above, and that all not thus begotten, though encompassed, it might be, with the solemnities and privileges of the covenant, were born after the flesh—Ishmaelites in spirit, and strangers to the promise. The Apostle merely reads out the spiritual lessons that lay enfolded in the history of Abraham’s family as significant of things to come; and to say that the similitude fails, because the law was given to the posterity of Sarah and not of Hagar, betrays an utter misapprehension, of what the real design of the [[@Page:429]] law was, and what should have been expected from it. The interpretation of the Apostle brings out the fundamental principles involved in the transactions, and it does no more.

Those who would fasten on the Apostle the charge of resorting to Rabbinical arbitrariness and conceit, point with considerable confidence to a passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The passage is 1 Cor. 10:1-4, where the Apostle reminds the Corinthians how their fathers had been under the cloud, and had passed through the sea; and had been baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and had all eaten the same spiritual food, and all drunk of the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ. In this latter part of the description, it has been alleged (latterly by De Wette, Ruckert, Meyer) that the Apostle adopts the Jewish legends respecting the rock at Horeb having actually followed the Israelites in their wanderings, and puts a feigned allegorical construction on the other parts to suit his purpose. The passage will naturally present itself for explanation when we come to the period in Israel’s history to which it refers.[4] At present it is enough to say, that we have merely to take the Apostle’s statements in their proper connection, and make due allowance for the figurative use of language. He is representing the position of the Israelites in the desert as substantially one with that of the Corinthians. And, to make it more manifest, he even applies the terms fitted to express the condition of the Corinthians to the case of the Israelites:—These, says he, were baptized like you, had Christ among them like you, and like you were privileged to eat and drink as guests in the Lord’s house. Of course, language transferred thus from one part of God’s dispensations to another, could never be meant to be taken very strictly; no more could it be so, when the new things of the Christian dispensation were applied to the Israelites, than when the old things of the Jewish are applied to the members of the Christian Church. In this latter mode of application, the Christian Church is spoken of as having a temple as Israel had, an altar, a passover-lamb and feast, a sprinkling with blood, a circumcision. Yet every one knows that what is meant by such language is, not that the very things themselves, the things in their outward form and appearance, but that the inward realities signified by them, belong to the Church of Christ. The old name is retained, though actually denoting something higher and better. And we must interpret in the same way when the transference is made in the reverse order—when the new things of the Christian Church are ascribed to the ancient Israelites. By the cloud passing over and resting between them and the Egyptians, and afterwards by their passing under its protection through the Red Sea in safety, they were baptized into Moses: for thus the line of demarcation was drawn between their old vassalage and the new state and prospects on which, under Moses, they had entered; and Christ Himself, whose servant Moses was, was present with them, feeding them as from His own hands with direct supplies of meat and drink, till they reached the promised inheritance. In short, these were to them [[@Page:430]] relatively what Christian baptism and the Lord’s Supper are to believers now. But not in themselves formally the same. Christ was there only in a mystery; Gospel ordinances were possessed only under the shadow of means and provisions, adapted immediately to their bodily wants and temporal condition. Yet still Christ and the Gospel were there; for all that was then given and done linked itself by a spiritual bond with the better things to come, and as in a glass darkly reflected the benefits of redemption. So that, as the Israelites in the desert stood relatively in the same position with the professing Church under the Gospel, the language here used by the Apostle merely shows how clearly he perceived the points of resemblance, and how profoundly he looked into the connection between them.

II.—PROPHECIES REFERRED TO BY CHRIST.

We no sooner open the evangelical narratives of New Testament Scripture, than we meet with references and appeals to the prophecies of the Old. The leading personages and transactions of Gospel times are constantly presented to our view as those that had been foreseen and described by ancient seers; and at every important turn in the evolution of affairs, we find particular passages of prophecy quoted as receiving their fulfilment in what was taking place. But we soon perceive that the connection between the predictions referred to and their alleged fulfilment, is by no means always of the same kind. It appears sometimes as more natural and obvious in its nature, and sometimes as more mystical and recondite. The latter, of course, in an inquiry like the present, are such as more especially call for consideration and remark; but the others are not on that account to be passed over in silence: for they are so far at least of importance, that they show what class of predictions, in the estimation of our Lord and His apostles, most obviously point to the affairs of the Messiah’s kingdom, and afford also an opportunity of marking how the transition began to be made to a further and freer application of Old Testament prophecy.

In this line of inquiry, however, it will not do to take up the references to the prophets precisely as they occur in the Gospels; for the evangelists did not write their narratives of our Lord’s personal history till a consider able time after the events that compose it had taken place—not till the deeper as well as the more obvious things connected with it had become known to them; and not a few of the prophetical references found in their narratives were only understood by themselves at a period much later than that at which the events occurred. It is in Christ’s own teaching, communicated as the events were actually in progress, that we may expect to find the most simple and direct applications of prophecy, and the key to the entire use of it subsequently made by His apostles. For the present, therefore, we shall throw ourselves back upon the transactions of the Gospel age, and with our eye upon Him who was at once the centre and the prime agent of the whole, we shall note the manner in which He reads to those around Him the prophecies that bore on Himself and His times. [[@Page:431]] We shall take them, not in the historical order they occupy in the narratives of the evangelists, but in the antecedent order which belonged to them, as quoted in the public ministry of Christ. We shall thus see how He led those around Him, step by step, to a right understanding of the prophecies in their evangelical import.

Not far from the commencement of our Lord’s public ministry, and on the occasion, as it would seem, of His first public appearance in the synagogue of Nazareth, He opened the book of the prophet Isaiah that had been put into His hands, and read from chap. [[61 >> Bible:Is 61:1-11]] . The following words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor: He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book,” it is added by the Evangelist, “and began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” The passage thus quoted, and so emphatically applied by Jesus to Himself, is one of those in the later portion of Isaiah’s writings (comprehending also chap. [[42 >> Bible:Is 42:1-25]] , [[49 >> Bible:Is 49:1-26]] , [[53 >> Bible:Is 53:1-12]] ) which evidently treat of one grand theme,—”the Lord’s servant,” His “elect” one, Him “in whom His soul delighted;” unfolding what this wonderful and mysterious personage was to be, to do, and to suffer for the redemption of the Lord’s people, and the vindication of His cause in the earth. It is matter of certainty that, in the judgment of the ancient Jewish Church, the person spoken of in all these passages was the Messiah;[5] so that, in applying to Himself that particular passage in Isaiah, Jesus not only advanced the claim, but He must have been perfectly understood by those present to advance the claim, to be the Messiah of the Jewish prophets.

The modern Jews, and a considerable number also of Christian expositors (chiefly on the Continent), have endeavoured to prove that the immediate and proper reference in this, and the other passages in Isaiah connected with it, is to the Jewish nation as a whole, or to the prophetical class in particular. But these attempts have signally failed. It stands fast, as the result of the most careful and searching criticism, that the words of the prophet can only be understood of a single individual, in whom far higher than human powers were to develop themselves, and who was to do, as well for Israel as for the world at large, what Israel had been found utterly in competent, even in the lighter departments of the work, to accomplish. In a word, they can be understood only of the promised Messiah. And of all that had been spoken concerning Him by the prophet Isaiah, there is not a passage to be found that could more fitly have been appropriated by Jesus than the one He read at that opening stage of His career; as it describes Him in respect to the whole reach and compass of His Divine commission, with all its restorative energies and beneficent results. We see as well the wisdom of the selection as the justness of the application. It is also to be noted, that the appropriation by our Lord of the passage in this sixty-first [[@Page:432]] chapter of Isaiah, gives the virtual sanction of His authority to the applications elsewhere made of other passages in the same prophetical discourse to Gospel times such as Matt. 12:18-21; Acts 8:32-35, 13:47; Rom. 10:21; 1 Pet. 2:23-25, where portions of Isa. 42, 49, 53, are so applied.

The next open and public appeal made by our Lord to an ancient prophecy, was made with immediate respect to John the Baptist. It was probably about the middle of Christ’s ministry, and shortly before the death of John. Taking occasion from John’s message to speak of the distinguished place he held among God’s servants, the Lord said: “This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, and he shall prepare Thy way before Thee.” The words are taken from the beginning of the third chapter of Malachi, with no other difference than that He who there sends is also the one before whom the way was to be prepared: “He shall prepare the way before Me.” The reason of this variation will be noticed presently. But in regard to John, that he was the person specially intended by the prophet as the herald-messenger of the Lord, can admit of no doubt on the part of any one who sincerely believes that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, and personally tabernacling among men. John himself does not appear to have formally appropriated this passage in Malachi. But he virtually did so when he described himself in the words of a passage in Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord;” for the passage in Malachi is merely a resumption, with a few additional characteristics, of that more ancient one in Isaiah. And on this account they are both thrown together at the commencement of St Mark’s Gospel, as if they formed indeed but one prediction: “As it is written in the prophets (many copies even read, by Isaiah the prophet ), Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” And there is still another prediction—one at the very close of Malachi—which is but a new, and in some respects more specific, announcement of what was already uttered in these earlier prophecies. In this last prediction, the preparatory messenger is expressly called by the name of Elias the prophet; and the work he had to do “before the coming of the Lord,” is described as that of turning “the heart of the fathers (or making it return) to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.” As this was the last word of the Old Testament, so it is in a manner the first word of the New; for the prophecy was taken up by the angel, who announced to Zacharias the birth of John, and at once applied and explained it in connection with the mission of John. “Many of the children of Israel,” said the angel, “shall he turn to the Lord their God; and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”—(Luke 1:16, 17). Here the coming of the Lord, as in all the passages under consideration, was the grand terminating point of the prophecy, and, as preparatory to this, the making [[@Page:433]] ready of a people for it. This making ready of the people, or turning them back again (with reference to the words of Elijah in 1 Kings 18:37) to the Lord their God, is twice mentioned by the angel as the object of John’s mission. And, between the two, there is given what is properly but another view of the same thing, only with express reference to the Elijah-like character of the work: John was to go before the Lord as a new Elias, in the spirit and power of that great prophet, and for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation between the degenerate seed of Israel and their pious forefathers making them again of one heart and soul, so that the fathers might not be ashamed of their children, nor the children of their fathers; in a word, that he might effect a real reformation, by turning “the disobedient (offspring) to the wisdom of the just (ancestors).” Thus in all these passages—to which we may also add the private testimony of our Lord to the disciples as to Elias having indeed come (Mark 9:13)—there is a direct application of the Old Testament prophecy, in a series of closely related predictions, to the person and mission of John the Baptist. And so far from any violence or constraint appearing in this application, the predictions are all taken in their most natural and obvious meaning. For that the literal Elias was no more to be expected from the last of these predictions, than the literal David from Ezek. 34:23, seems plain enough: the person meant could only be one coming in the spirit of Elias, and commissioned to do substantially his work. So, also, Jezebel and Balaam are spoken of as reviving in the teachers of false doctrine and the ringleaders of corruption who appeared in some of the churches of Asia.—(Rev. 2:14, 20)

But we must pass on to another instance of fulfilled prophecy. It will be observed, that in all those passages out of Isaiah and Malachi applied to John the Baptist, there was involved an application also to Christ Himself, as being the person whose way John was sent to prepare. The assertion, that John was the herald-messenger foretold in them, clearly implied that Jesus of Nazareth was the Lord who was to come to His people, or “the Angel of the Covenant that was to come suddenly to His temple.” He, therefore, was the Lord of the temple, or the Divine head and proprietor of the covenant people whom that temple symbolized, and in the midst of whom He appeared as God manifest in the flesh. But this the Lord merely left to be inferred from what He said of John; He even seems to have purposely drawn a sort of veil over it, by the slight change He introduced into the words of Malachi, saying, Not “before Me,” but “before Thy face.” For He well knew, that those to whom He spake could not bear in this respect the plain announcement of the truth, indeed, least of all here; they could not even bear to hear Jesus call Himself by the milder epithet of the Son of God. Sometime, however, if not at present, the Lord must give them to know, that in this rooted antipathy to the essentially Divine character of Messiah, they had their own Scriptures against them. And so, in the next public appeal He made to the prophetical Scriptures, He selected this point in particular for proof. But that the appeal might come with more power to their consciences, He threw it into the form, not of an assertion, [[@Page:434]] but of an interrogation. He put it to themselves, “What think ye of Christ? whose Son is He? They say unto Him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool? If David then call Him Lord, how is He his son?”—(Matt. 22:42-45) The familiar allusion here, and in other passages of the New Testament, to this psalm as descriptive of the Messiah, clearly evinces what was the view taken of it by the ancient Jewish Rabbis. Such an argumentative use of it could only have been made on the ground that it was held by general consent to be a prophecy of Christ. Efforts have again and again been made in modern times to controvert this view, but without any measure of success. And, indeed, apart altogether from the explicit testimony of our Lord and His apostles, looking merely to what is said of the hero of this psalm,—that He stood to David himself in the relation of Lord; that He was to sit on Jehovah’s right hand, that is, should be invested with the power and sovereignty of God; that He should, like Melchizedek, be a priest on the throne, and that for ever,—it is impossible to take these parts of the description in their natural meaning, and understand them of any one but the Messiah,—a Messiah, too, combining in His mysterious person properties at once human and divine. The silence of our Lord’s adversaries then, and the fruitless labours of His detractors since, are confirmatory testimonies to the soundness of this application of the psalm as the only tenable one.

Another purpose—one immediately connected with His humiliation—led our Lord, very shortly after the occasion last referred to, to point to another prophecy as presently going to meet with its fulfilment. It was when, fresh from the celebration of the paschal feast and His own supper, He had retired with His disciples, under the shade of night, to the Mount of Olives: “Then said Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.”—(Matt. 26:31) So it had been written in Zech. 13:7, respecting that peculiar Shepherd and His flock, who was to be Jehovah’s fellow, or rather His near relation for so the word in the original imports; and hence, when spoken of any one’s relation to God, it cannot possibly denote a mere man, but can only be understood of one who, by virtue of His Divine nature, stands on a footing of essential equality with God. All other interpretations, whether by Jews or Christians, can only be regarded as shifts, devised to explain away or get rid of the plain meaning of the prophecy. And it was here more especially chosen by our Lord, as, more distinctly and emphatically perhaps than any other prediction in Old Testament Scripture, it combined with the peerless dignity of Christ’s nature the fearful depth of His humiliation and suffering; and so was at once fitted to instruct and comfort the disciples in respect to the season of tribulation that was before them. It told them, indeed, that the suffering was inevitable; but at the same time imparted the consolation, that so exalted a sufferer could only suffer for a time. But though this was the only prophetical passage particularly noticed, as having been explained [[@Page:435]] by Christ with reference to His sufferings, we are expressly informed that, after His resurrection at least, He made a similar application of many others. He reproved the two disciples on their way to Emmaus for their dulness and incredulity, because they had not learned from the prophets how Christ must suffer before entering into His glory: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Indeed, it would appear that, even before His death, He had referred to various Scriptures bearing on this point; for, at Luke 24:44, we find Him saying to the disciples as a body: “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me.” But as what had been spoken previously had been spoken to little purpose, He then “opened their understandings, that they might understand the Scriptures; “and said unto them, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day,” etc.

Nor are we left altogether without the means of knowing what portions of Old Testament Scripture our Lord thus applied to Himself. The apostles undoubtedly proceeded to act upon the instruction they had received, and to make use of the light that had been imparted to them. And when, on opening the Acts of the Apostles, we find Peter, in chap. [[1 >> Bible:Ac 1]] , applying without hesitation or reserve what is written in Ps. 109, of the persecutions of Jesus and the apostasy of Judas: again, in chap. [[2 >> Bible:Ac 2]] , applying in like manner what is written in Ps. 16 to Christ’s speedy resurrection; Ps. 110, to His exaltation to power and glory; and Joel 2:28-32, to the gift of the Spirit; in chap. [[3 >> Bible:Ac 3]] , affirming Jesus to be the prophet that Moses had foretold should be raised up like to himself; in chap. [[4 >> Bible:Ac 4]] , speaking of Jesus as the stone rejected by the builders, but raised by God to the head of the corner, as written in Ps. 118 (an application that had already been indicated at least by Christ in a public discourse with the Jews, Matt. 21:42); and, along with the other apostles, describing Christ as the anointed king in Ps. 2, against whom the heathen raged, and the people imagined vain things; when we read all this, it is scarcely possible to doubt that we have in it the fruit of that more special instruction which our Lord gave to His disciples, when He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. It is Christ’s own teaching made known to us through the report of those who had received it from His lips. And any interpretation of those passages of Old Testament Scripture which would deny their fair and legitimate application to Christ and the things of His kingdom, must be regarded as a virtual reflection on the wisdom and authority of Christ Himself.

But it does not follow from this, that Christ and Gospel events must in all of them have been exclusively intended; it may be enough if in some they were more peculiarly included. More could scarcely be meant, especially in respect to Ps. 109 and [[118 >> Bible:Ps 118:1-29]] , in both of which the language is such as to comprehend classes of persons, and whole series of events. That the proper culmination of what is written should be found in Christ and the [[@Page:436]] Gospel dispensation, is all that could justly be expected. But of this it will be necessary to speak more fully, as it touches on a more profound and hidden application of Old Testament things to those of the New. There were other parts also of our Lord’s personal teaching which still more strikingly bore on such an application, but which, from their enigmatical character, we have purposely omitted referring to in this section. Mean while, in those more obvious and direct references which have chiefly passed under our review, what a body of well-selected proof has our Lord given from the prophecies of the Old Testament, to the truth of His own Messiahship! And how clear and penetrating an insight did He exhibit into the meaning of those prophecies, compared with what then prevailed among His countrymen!

III.—THE DEEPER PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN CHRIST’S USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

We have seen that nearly all the prophecies of Old Testament Scripture, which our Lord applied to Himself and the affairs of His kingdom, during the period of His earthly ministry, were such as admitted of being so applied in their most direct and obvious sense. In nothing else could they have found a proper and adequate fulfilment. This can scarcely, however, be said of the whole of them. When His ministry was drawing to a close, He on one occasion publicly, and on several occasions with the disciples privately, made application to Himself and the things of His kingdom, of prophecies which could not be said to bear immediate and exclusive respect to New Testament times. And we have now to examine these later and more peculiar applications of prophetical Scripture, in order to perceive the deeper principles of connection between the Old and the New, involved in our Lord’s occasional use of the word of prophecy.

The public occasion we have referred to was when, a few days before His death, Christ solemnly pointed the attention of the Jews to a passage in Ps. 118 “Did ye never read,” He asked (Matt. 21:42), “in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” Though Jesus did not say in respect to this psalm, as He said shortly after in respect to the [[110th >> Bible:Ps 110]] , that in inditing it the Psalmist spake through the Spirit of Christ; yet both the question itself He put regarding the passage, and the personal application He presently afterwards made of it, clearly implied, that He considered Himself and the Jewish authorities of His time to be distinctly embraced in the Psalmist’s announcement. And the same opinion was still more explicitly avowed by the Apostle Peter, after he had been instructed more fully by Christ respecting the Old Testament Scriptures, when, standing before the Jewish council, He exclaimed, “This is the stone which was set at nought by you builders, which is become the head of the corner.”—(Acts 4:11)

Yet when we turn to the psalm itself, the passage thus quoted and applied to Christ, in His relation to the Jewish rulers, has the appearance [[@Page:437]] rather of a statement then actually verified in the history and experience of the covenant people, than of a prediction still waiting to be fulfilled. The psalm throughout carries the aspect of a national song, in which priests and people joined together to celebrate the praise of God, on some memorable occasion when they saw enlargement and prosperity return after a period of depression and contempt. It was peculiarly an occasion of this kind, when the little remnant that escaped from Babylon, amid singular tokens of Divine favour, found themselves in a condition to set about the restoration of God’s house and kingdom in Jerusalem. Indeed, Ezra 3:11 seems not doubtfully to indicate that the psalm owes its origin to that happy occasion, as we are there told, that when they met to lay anew the foundation of the temple, the assembled multitude began to praise the Lord in such strains as occur at the commencement of this psalm. There could not be a more seasonable moment for the joyous burst of thanksgiving which the people seem in the psalm, as with one heart and soul, to pour forth to God, on account of His distinguishing goodness in having rescued them from the deadly grasp of their heathen adversaries, and for the elevating and assured hope they express of the final and complete ascendancy of His kingdom. Of this, the eye of faith was presented with an encouraging pledge in current events. By a remarkable turn in God’s providence, the apparently dead had become alive again; the stone rejected by the mighty builders of this world as worthless and contemptible, was marvellously raised to the head of the corner; and, in connection with it, a commencement was made, however feebly, toward the universal triumph of the truth of God over the corruption and idolatry of the world. But such being the natural and direct purport of the psalm, how could the sentiment uttered in it concerning the stone be so unconditionally applied to Christ? The right answer to this question presupposes the existence of a peculiarly close relation between the commonwealth of Israel and Christ, and such a relation as can only be understood aright when we have first correctly apprehended the real calling and destiny of Israel.

Now, this was declared at the outset by anticipation to Abraham, when the Lord said concerning His seed, that it should be blessed and made a blessing—made so peculiarly the channel of blessing, that in it all the families of the earth were to be blessed. To fulfil this high destination, was the calling of Israel as an elect people. Viewed, therefore, according to their calling, they were the children of God, Jehovah’s first-born (Deut. 14:1; Ex. 4:22); Jehovah was the father that begot them—that is, raised them into the condition of a people possessing a kind of filial relationship to Himself (Deut. 32:6, 18; Jer. 31:9), but possessing it only in so far as they were a spiritual and holy people, abiding near to God, and fitted for executing His righteous purposes for so far only did their actual state correspond with their destination.—(Ex. 19:5, 6; Deut. 14:2; Ps. 73:15) For the most part, this correspondence palpably failed. God was true to His engagements, but not Israel to theirs. He gave freely to them of His goodness—gave often when He might have withheld; but their history is replete with backslidings and apostasies, [[@Page:438]] shame and reproach. Even within the limits of Canaan, the real children of God—the seed of blessing—were usually in a grievous minority; they were, for the most part, the comparatively poor, the afflicted, the needy, amid multitudes of an opposite spirit the internal heathen, who differed only in name and outward position from the heathen abroad. But this very imperfection in the reality, as compared with the idea, was here, as in other things, made to contribute toward the great end in contemplation. For it was this especially that showed the necessity of something higher and better to accomplish what was in prospect. So long as God stood related to them merely as He did or had done to their fathers, believers in Israel felt that they had to wage an unequal conflict, in which fearful odds were generally against them, even on Israelitish ground. And how could they expect to attain to a righteousness and acquire a position that should enable them to bless the whole world? For this, manifestly, there was needed another and still closer union than yet existed between Israel and God,—a union that should somehow interpenetrate their condition with the very power and sufficiency of Godhead. Only if the relation between earth and heaven could be made to assume a more vital and organic form—only if the Divine and human, the Angel of the Covenant and the seed of Abraham, Jehovah, and Israel, could become truly and personally one—only then could it seem possible to raise the interest of righteousness in Israel to such an elevation as should bring the lofty destination of Abraham’s seed to bless the world within the bounds of probability. It was one leading object of prophecy to give to such thoughts and anticipations a definite shape, and convert what might otherwise have been but the vague surmises or uncertain conjectures of nature into a distinct article of faith. Especially does this object come prominently out in the latter portion of Isaiah’s writings, where, in a lengthened and varied discourse concerning the calling and destiny of Israel, we find the Lord perpetually turning from Israel in one sense to Israel in another; from an Israel full of imperfection, false, backsliding, feeble, and perverse (for example, in ch. [[42:19 >> Bible:Is 42:19]] , [[43:22 >> Bible:Is 43:22]] , [[48:4 >> Bible:Is 48:4]] , [[58 >> Bible:Is 58:1-14]] , [[59 >> Bible:Is 59:1-21]] ), to an Israel full of excellence and might, the beloved of Jehovah, the very impersonation of Divine life and goodness, in whom all righteousness should be fulfilled, and salvation for ever made sure to a numerous and blessed offspring. (Ch. [[42:1-7 >> Bible:Is 42:1-7]] , [[49 >> Bible:Is 49:1-26]] , [[52:13-15 >> Bible:Is 52:13-15]] , [[53 >> Bible:Is 53:1-12]] , [[55 >> Bible:Is 55:1-13]] , [[61:1-3 >> Bible:Is 61:1-3]] ). So that what Israel, as a whole, had completely failed to realize—what, even in the spiritual portion of Israel, had been realized in a very partial and inadequate manner,—that, the prophet gave it to be understood, was one day to be accomplished without either failure or imperfection. But let it be marked well how it was to be accomplished;—simply by there being raised up in Israel One who should link together in His mysterious person the properties of the seed of Abraham and the perfections of Jehovah; in whom, by the singular providence of God, should meet on the one side all that distinctively belonged to Israel of calling and privilege, and all, on the other, that was needed of Divine power and sufficiency to make good the determinate counsel of Heaven to bless all the families of the earth.

[[@Page:439]] But this is still only one, and what may be called the more general, aspect of the matter. Within the circle of the chosen seed, a special arrangement was from the first contemplated (Gen. 49:8-10), and came at last to be actually made, which was rendered yet more remarkably subservient to the design of at once nourishing the expectation of a Messiah, and exhibiting the difference, the antagonism even, that should exist between Him and the fleshly Israel. We refer to the appointment of a royal house, in which Israel’s peculiar calling to bless the world was to rise to its highest sphere, and by which it was more especially to reach its fulfilment. To render more clearly manifest God’s real purpose in this respect, He allowed a false movement to be made, in the first instance, concerning it. The choice was virtually given to the people, who sought merely to have a king and kingdom like the nations around them (1 Sam. 8:5, 9:20, 12:13); and so the king they got, being carnal, like themselves, soon proved incapable, notwithstanding the peculiar means that were employed to elevate his spiritual condition, of reigning as God’s vicegerent, and his kingdom equally incapable of establishing righteousness within, or resisting assaults from without. It was but a human institution, and fell alike unblessed and unblessing. Therefore the Lord stepped in to exercise His choice in the matter, and found David, who, by special training and gifts, was prepared to wield the kingdom for the Lord. So thoroughly did he enter into the Lord’s mind in the matter, and act as the Lord’s servant, that the kingdom was made to stand in him as its living root, and the right to administer a kingdom of blessing in the earth was connected in perpetuity with his line.—(2 Sam. 7) But here, again, the same kind of results presently began to discover themselves as in the former case. It was with the utmost difficulty at first, and never more than in the most imperfect manner, that David himself, or any of his successors, could succeed in establishing righteousness and dispensing blessing even among the families of Israel. The kingdom, too, with all its imperfections, lasted but for a brief period, and then fell into hopeless confusion. So that if the Divine purpose in this matter was really to stand; if there was to be a kingdom of truly Divine character, administered by the house of David, and encompassing the whole earth with its verdant and fruitful boughs (Ezek. 17:22-24; Dan. 7:13, 14), it was manifest that some other link of connection must be formed than any that still existed, between the Divine source and the earthly possessor of the sovereignty,—a connection not merely of delegated authority, but of personal contact and efficient working; on the one side humanizing the Diety, and on the other deifying humanity. For not otherwise than through such intermingling of the Divine and human could the necessary power be constituted for establishing and directing such a kingdom throughout the nations of the earth.

Now, this destined rise in the kingdom founded in David, and its culmination in a Divine-human Head, is also the theme of many prophecies. David himself took the lead in announcing it; for he already foresaw, through the Spirit, what in this respect would be required to verify the [[@Page:440]] wonderful promise made to him.—(2 Sam. 7; Ps. 2, 45, 72, 110; also Isa. 7:14, 9:6, etc.) But as David was himself the root of this new order of things, and the whole was to take the form of a verification of the word spoken to him, or of the perfectionment of the germ that was planted in him, so in his personal history there was given a compendious representation of the nature and prospects of the kingdom. In the first brief stage was exhibited the embryo of what it should ultimately become. Thus, the absoluteness of the Divine choice in appointing the king; his seeming want, but real possession, of the qualities required for administering the affairs of the kingdom; the growth from small, because necessarily spiritual, beginnings of the interests belonging to it—still growing, however, in the face of an inveterate and ungodly opposition, until judgment was brought forth unto victory;—these leading elements in the history of the first possessor of the kingdom must appear again they must have their counterpart in Him on whom the prerogatives and blessings of the kingdom were finally to settle. There was a real necessity in the case, such as always exists where the end is but the development and perfection of the beginning; and we may not hesitate to say, that if they had failed in Christ, He could not have been the anointed King of David’s line, in whom the purpose of God to govern and bless the world in righteousness was destined to stand. Here, again, we have another and lengthened series of predictions, connecting, in this respect, the past with the future, the beginning with the ending (for example, Ps. 16, 22, 40, 49, 109; Isa. 53; Zech. 9:9, 12:10, 13:1-7).

Such, then, is the close and organic connection, in two important respects, between God’s purpose concerning Israel and His purpose in Christ. And if we only keep this distinctly in view, we shall have no difficulty in perceiving that a valid and satisfactory ground existed for the application of Ps. 118:22 to Christ, and many applications of a similar kind made both by Him and by the apostles. In the psalm now mentioned, the calling and destination of Israel to be blessed, and to bless mankind, notwithstanding that they were in themselves so small in number, and had to hold their ground against all the might and power of the world—this is the theme which is chiefly unfolded there, and it is unfolded in connection with the singular manifestation of Divine power and goodness, which had even then given such a striking token of the full accomplishment of the design. But this accomplishment, as we have seen, could only be found in Christ, in whom was to meet what distinctively belonged to Israel on the one side, and, on the other, what exclusively belongs to God. In Him, therefore, the grand theme of the psalm must embody itself, and through Him reach its complete realization. He pre-eminently and peculiarly is the stone, rejected in the first instance by the carnalism of the world, as presented in the Jewish rulers, but at length raised by God, on account of its spiritual and Divine qualities, to be the head of the corner. And all that formerly occurred of a like nature in the history of Israel, was but the germ of what must again, and in a far higher manner, be developed in the work and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The same thing, with no material difference, holds of an entire class [[@Page:441]] of passages in the Psalms, only in most of them respect is chiefly had to the covenant made with the house of David, rather than to the more general calling and destination of Israel. Such, for example, are the too closely related Psalms 49. And [[109 >> Bible:Ps 109]] , parts of which were first privately applied by Christ, and afterwards more publicly by Peter, to the case of Judas (John 15:25; Acts 1:20, comp. with Ps. 69:4, 25, 109:3, 8); but to him only as the worst embodiment and most palpable representative of the malice and opposition of which the Messiah was the object: for such Judas was in reality, and such also is the kind of enmity described in these Psalms,—an enmity that had many abettors, though concentrating itself in one or more individuals. Hence St Paul applies the description to the Jews generally.—(Rom. 11:9, 10) Other passages in the same two psalms are applied by the evangelists and apostles to Christ.—(Matt. 27:34, 48; John 2:17; Rom. 15:3) And to these psalms we may add, as belonging to the same class, Ps. 41, a verse of which—”He that did eat of My bread, lifted up His heel against Me”—is pointed to by our Lord as finding its fulfilment in the treachery of Judas (John 13:18); Ps. 22, of which several similar appropriations are made concerning Christ (Matt. 27:46; John 14:24, etc.); and Ps. 40, which contains the passage regarding the insufficiency of animal sacrifices, and the necessity of a sublime act of self-devotion, quite unconditionally applied to Christ in Heb. 10:4-10. The references to these psalms, it will be observed, were made either by Christ, near the close of His ministry, when seeking to give the disciples a deeper insight into the bearing of Old Testament Scripture on Gospel times, or by the evangelists and apostles after His work on earth was finished, and all had become plain to them. The Psalms themselves are so far alike, that they are all the productions of David, and productions in which he, as the founder and root of the kingdom, endeavoured, through the Spirit, out of the lines of his own eventful history, to throw a prospective light on the more important and momentous future. That his eye was chiefly upon this future is evident, as well from the extremity of the sufferings described, which greatly exceeded what David personally underwent (Ps. 22:8, 14-18, 69:8, 21, 109:24, 25), as from the world-wide results, the everlasting and universal benefits that are spoken of as flowing from the salvation wrought, far beyond anything that David could have contemplated respecting himself.—(Ps. 22:27, 40:5, 10, 16, 41:12, 69:35) But still, while the future is mainly regarded, it is seen by the Psalmist under the form and lineaments of the past;—his own sufferings and deliverances were like the book from which he read forth the similar but greater things to come. And why should not David, who so clearly foresaw the brighter, have foreseen also the darker and more troubled aspect of the future? If it was given him through the Spirit to descry, as the proper heir and possessor of the kingdom, One so much higher in nature and dignity than himself, that he felt it right to call him Lord and God (Ps. 45, 110), why should it not also have been given him to see that this glorious personage, as his son, should bear his father’s image alike in the more afflicting and troubled, and in the better and more glorious part of his career? This is simply what David did see, and what [[@Page:442]] he expressed with great fulness and variety in the portion of his writings now under consideration. And hence their peculiar form and structure, as partaking so much of the personal. When unfolding the more divine aspect and relations of the kingdom, the Psalmist speaks of the possessor of it as of another than himself, nearly related to him, but still different, higher and greater.—(Ps. 22, 45, 72, 110) But when he discourses, in the psalms above referred to, concerning its more human aspect and relations, he speaks as of himself: the sufferings to be borne and overcome seemed like a prolongation, or rather like a renewal in an intenser form, of his own; the father, in a manner, identifies himself with the son, as the son again, in alluding to what was written, identifies himself with the father; for so it behoved to be—the past must here foreshadow the future, and the future take its shape from the past.

The view now given of this series of psalms, it will be observed, differs materially, not only from that which regards them as properly applicable only to David, and merely accommodated to Christ and Gospel things, but also from that of Hengstenberg and others, according to which the psalms in question describe the suffering righteous person in general, and apply to Christ only in so far as He was pre-eminently a righteous sufferer. We hold them to be, in a much closer sense, prophecies of Christ, and regard them as delineations of what, in its full sense, could only be expected to take place in Him who was to fulfil the calling and destination, of which the mere foreshadow and announcement was to be seen in David. And this connection between David and Christ, on which the delineation proceeds, seems to us satisfactorily to account for two peculiarities in the structure of these psalms, which have always been the occasion of embarrassment. The first is the one already noticed—their being written as in the person of the Psalmist. This arose from his being led by the Spirit to contemplate the coming future as the continuation and only adequate completion of what pertained to himself—to descry the Messiah as the second and higher David. The other peculiarity is the mention that is made in some of these psalms of sin as belonging to the person who speaks in them; as in Ps. 40, for example, where he confesses his sins to be more in number than the hairs of his head—and that, too, presently after he had declared it to be his purpose and delight to do the will of God in a way more acceptable than all sacrifice—This has been deemed inexplicable, on the supposition of Christ being the speaker. And if Christ alone, directly and exclusively, had been contemplated, we think it would have been inexplicable. His connection with sin would not have been represented exactly in that form. But let the ground of the representation be what we have described; let it be understood that David wrote of the Messiah as the Son, who, however higher and greater than himself, was still to be a kind of second self, then the description must have taken its form from the history and position of David, and should be read as from that point of view. If it is true in some respects that “things take the signature of thought” (Coleridge), here the reverse necessarily happened—the thought, imaging to itself the future as the reflection and final development of the past, naturally took the signature of things; and [[@Page:443]] sin, with which the second as well as the first David had much to do in establishing the kingdom, must be confessed as from the bosom of the royal Psalmist. It is merely a part of the relatively imperfect nature of all the representations of Christ’s work and kingdom, which were unfolded under the image and shadow of past and inferior, but closely related circumstances. And this imperfection in the form was the more necessary in psalms, since, being destined for public use in the worship of God, they could only express such views and feelings as the congregation might be expected to sympathize with, and should, even when carrying forward the desires and expectations of the soul to better things to come, still touch a chord in every believer’s bosom.

There is, however, another and more peculiar indeed, the most peculiar—application made by our Lord of the Old Testament Scriptures; but an application proceeding on a quite similar, though more specific, connection between the past and the future in God’s kingdom. We refer to what our Lord said after the transfiguration respecting John the Baptist. Before this, He had even publicly asserted John to be the Elias predicted by Malachi: “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”—(Matt. 11:14, 15) It was a profound truth, our Lord would have them to know, which He was now delivering one that did not lie upon the surface, and could only be received by spiritual and divinely-enlightened souls. This much is implied in the words, “If ye will receive it,” if ye have spiritual discernment so far as to know the mind of God; and still more by the call that follows, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,”—a call which is never uttered but when something enigmatical, or difficult to the natural mind, requires to be understood. The disciples themselves, however, still wanted the capacity for understanding what was said, as they betrayed, when putting the question to Christ after the transfiguration, “Why, then, do the scribes say, that Elias must first come?” This led our Lord again to assert what He had done before, and also to give some explanation of the matter: “And He answered and said unto them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things. . . . But I say unto you, That Elias has indeed come, and they have done to him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.”—(Mark 9:12, 13) Here He so nearly identifies John with Elias, that what had been recorded of the one He considers as in a manner written of the other; for certainly the things that had happened to this second Elias were no other wise written of him, than as things of a similar kind were recorded in the life of the first. The essential connection between the two characters rendered the history of the one, in its main elements, a prophecy of the other. If John had to do the work of Elias, he must also enter into the experience of Elias; coming as emphatically the preacher of repentance, he must have trial of hatred and persecution from the ungodly; and the greater he was than Elias in the one respect, it might be expected he should also be greater in the other. It must, therefore, have been merely in regard to his commission from above, that he was said to “come and restore all things;” for here again, as of old, the sins of the people—headed at last by a new Ahab and Jezebel, in Herod and Herodias—cut short the process: “they rejected [[@Page:444]] the counsel of God against themselves,” and only in a very limited degree experienced the benefit which the mission of John was in itself designed and fitted to impart. Nor could John have been the new Elias, unless, amid all outward differences, there had been such essential agreements as these between his case and that of his great predecessor.

We have now adverted to all the applications of Old Testament prophecy which are expressly mentioned by the evangelists to have been made by our Lord to Himself and Gospel times, with the exception of a mere reference in Matt. 24:15, to Daniel’s “abomination of desolation,” and the use made of Isa. 6:9, 10, as describing the blind and hardened state of the men of his own generation, not less than of those of Isaiah’s. Besides those passages, however, expressly quoted and applied by our Lord, it is right to notice, as preparatory to the consideration of what was done in this respect by evangelists and apostles, that He not unfrequently appropriated to Himself, as peculiarly true of Him, the language and ideas of the Old Testament; as when He takes the words descriptive of Jacob’s vision, and says to Nathanael, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man;” or when He said to the Jews of His own body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up;” or when He speaks of Himself as going to be lifted up for the salvation of men, as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, and of the sign of the prophet Jonas going to appear again in Him. Such appropriations of Old Testament language and ideas evidently proceeded on the ground of that close connection between the Old and the New which we have endeavoured to unfold, as one that admitted of being carried out to many particulars. If, therefore, we shall find the evangelists and apostles so carrying it out, they have the full sanction of Christ’s authority as to the principle of their interpretation. And on the ground even of Christ’s own expositions, we may surely see how necessary it is, in explaining Scripture, to keep in view the pre-eminent place which Christ from the first was destined to hold in the Divine plan, and how everything in the earlier arrangements of God tended to Him as the grand centre of the whole. Let us indeed beware of wresting any passages of the Old Testament for the purpose of finding Christ where He is not to be found; but let us also be ware of adopting such imperfect views as would prevent us from finding Him where He really is. And especially let it ever be borne in mind, that the union of the Divine and the human in Christ, while in itself the great mystery of godliness, is, at the same time, the grand key to the interpretation of what else is mysterious in the Divine dispensations; and that in this stands the common basis of what ancient seers were taught to anticipate, and what the Church now is in the course of realizing.

IV.—THE APPLICATIONS MADE BY THE EVANGELISTS OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES.

It is to be borne carefully in mind, then, that the stream of Old Testament prophecy respecting the Messiah, in its two great branches,—the one [[@Page:445]] originating in the calling and destination of Israel, the other in the purpose to set up a kingdom of righteousness and blessing for the world in the house of David,—flowed in the same direction, and pointed to the same great event. The announcements in both lines plainly contemplated and required an organic or personal connection between the Divine and human natures as the necessary condition of their fulfilment; so that if there was any truth in the pretensions of Jesus of Nazareth—if He was indeed that concentrated Israel, and that peerless son of David, in whom the two lines of prophecy were to meet and be carried out to their destined completion, the indwelling of the Divine in His human nature must have existed as the one foundation of the whole building. That very truth which the Jews of our Lord’s time could not bear even to be mentioned in their presence, the truth of His proper Deity,—was the indispensable preliminary to the realization of all that was predicted. Hence it is that the four Evangelists, each in his own peculiar way, but with a common insight into the import of Old Testament prophecy and the real necessities of the case, all begin with laying this foundation. St John opens his narrative with a formal and lengthened statement of Christ’s relation to the Godhead, and broadly asserts that in Him the Divine Word was made flesh. St Luke also relates at length the circumstances of the miraculous conception, and with the view evidently of conveying the impression, that this mode of being born into the world stood in essential connection with Christ’s being, in the strictest sense, “the Son of the Highest.” Even Mark, while observing the greatest possible brevity, does not omit the essential point, and begins his narrative with the most startling announcement that ever headed an historical composition: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And the first Evangelist, who wrote more immediately for his Jewish brethren, and continually selects the points that were best fitted to exhibit Jesus as the Messiah of the Jewish Scriptures, characteristically enters on his narrative by describing the circumstances of Christ’s miraculous birth as the necessary fulfilment of one of the most marvellous prophecies of the incarnation: “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us.”

Commentators, it is well known, are not agreed as to the precise manner in which this prediction should be applied to Christ; and not a few hold that it is to be understood, in the first instance, of an ordinary child born after the usual manner in the prophet’s own time, and only in a secondary, though higher and more complete sense, applicable to the Messiah. Their chief reason for this is, that they see no other way of understanding how the facts announced in the prophecy could properly have been a sign to Ahaz and his people, as they were expressly called by the prophet. Without entering into the discussion of this point, we simply state it as our conviction, that the difficulty felt arises mainly from a wrong view of what is there meant by a sign—as if the prophet intended by it something which would be a ground of comfort to the wicked king and kingdom of Judah. [[@Page:446]] On the contrary, the prediction manifestly bears the character of a threatening to these, though with a rich and precious promise enclosed for a future generation. Between the promise of the child and its fulfilment, there was to be a period of sweeping desolation; for the child was to be born in a land which should yield to him “butter and honey,”—the spontaneous products of a desolated region, as opposed to one well-peopled and cultivated.—(Comp. Isa. 7:15 with [[ver. 22 >> Bible:Is 7:22]] ; also Matt. 3:4, where honey is mentioned as a portion of the Baptist’s wilderness food.) This state of desolation the prophet describes to the end of the chapter as ready to fall on the kingdom of Judah, and as inevitably certain, notwithstanding that a present temporary deliverance was to be granted to it; so that, from the connection in which the promise of the child stands, coupled with the loftiness of the terms in which it is expressed, there appears no adequate occasion for it till the impending calamities were overpast, and the real Immanuel should come. Indeed, as Dr Alexander justly states (on Isa. 7:14), “There is no ground, grammatical, historical, or logical, for doubt as to the main point, that the Church in all ages has been right in regarding the passage as a signal and explicit prediction of the miraculous conception and nativity of Jesus Christ.” Even Ewald, whose views are certainly low enough as to his mode of explaining the prediction, yet does not scruple to say, that “every interpretation is false which does not admit that the prophet speaks of the coming Messias.” (I have discussed the subject at some length in my Hermeneutical Manual, p. 416-26.)

We have no hesitation, therefore, in regarding the application of this prophecy of Isaiah to Christ as an application of the more direct and obvious kind. And such also is the next prophecy referred to by St Matthew,—the prophecy of Micah regarding Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birth-place. The Evangelist does not formally quote this prophecy as from himself, but gives it from the mouth of the chief priests and scribes, of whom Herod demanded where Christ should be born. The prediction is so plain, that there was no room for diversity of opinion about it. And as both the prediction itself, and its connection with Isa. 7:14, have already been commented on in the earlier part of this volume (p. 171), there is no need that we should further refer to it here.

Presently, however, we come in the second chapter of St Matthew to another and different application of a prophecy. For, when relating the providential circumstances connected with Christ’s temporary removal to Egypt, and His abode there till the death of Herod, he says it took place, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called My Son.”—(Chap. [[2:15 >> Bible:Mt 2:15]] ) It admits of no doubt that this word of the prophet Hosea was uttered by him rather as an historical record of the past, than as a prophetical announcement of the future. It pointed to God’s faithfulness and love in delivering Israel from His place of temporary sojourn,—”When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my Son out of Egypt.” When regarded by the Evangelist, therefore, as a word needing to have its accomplishment in Christ, it manifestly could not be because the word itself was prophetical, [[@Page:447]] but only because the event it recorded was typical. Describing a prophetical circumstance or event, it is hence, by a very common figure of speech, itself called a prophecy; since what it records to have been done in the type, must again be done in the antitype. And the only point of moment respecting it is, how could the calling of Israel out of Egypt be regarded as a prophetical action in such a sense, that it must be repeated in the personal history of Jesus?

This question has already been answered by anticipation, as to its more important part, in the last section, where the relation was pointed out between Christ and Israel. This relation was such that the high calling and destination of Israel to be not only blessed, but also the channel of blessing to the world, necessarily stood over for its proper accomplishment till He should come who was to combine with the distinctive characteristics of a child of Abraham the essential properties of the Godhead. All that could be done before this, was no more than the first feeble sproutings of the tree, as compared with the gigantic stature and expansion of its full growth. So that, viewed in respect to the purpose and appointment of God, Israel, in so far as they were the people of God, possessed the beginnings of what was in its completeness to be developed in Jesus; they, God’s Son in the feebleness and imperfection of infancy, He the Israel of God in realized and concentrated fulness of blessing. And hence to make manifest this connection between the Old and the New, between Israel in the lower and Israel in the higher sense, it was necessary not only that there should belong to Christ, in its highest perfection, all that was required to fulfil the calling and destination of Israel, as described in prophetic Scripture, but that there should also be such palpable and designed correspondences between His history and that of ancient Israel, as would be like the signature of Heaven to His pretensions, and the matter-of-fact testimony to His true Israelite destiny. Such a correspondence was found especially in the temporary sojourn in Egypt, and subsequent recall from it to the proper field of covenant life and blessing. If, as our Lord Himself testified, even the things that befell the Elias of the Old Testament were a prophecy in action of the similar things that were to befall the still greater Elias of the New, how much more might Israel’s former experience in this respect be taken for a prophecy of what was substantially to recur in the so closely related history of Jesus! That the old things were thus so palpably returning again, was God’s sign in providence to a slumbering Church, that the great end of the Old was at length passing into fulfilment. It proclaimed—and as matters stood there was a moral necessity that it should proclaim—that He who of old loved Israel, so as to preserve him for a time in Egypt, and then called him out for the lower service he had to render, was now going to revive His work, and carry it forward to its destined completion by that Child of Hope, to whom all the history and promises of Israel pointed as their common centre.

In such a case, of course, when both the prophecy and the fulfilment are deeds, and deeds connected, the one with a lower, the other with a higher sphere of service, there could only be a general, not a complete and detailed, [[@Page:448]] agreement. There must be many differences as well as coincidences. It was so in the case of John the Baptist as compared with his prototype Elias. It was so, too, with our Lord in His temporary connection with Egypt, as compared with that of ancient Israel. Amid essential agreements there are obvious circumstantial differences; but these such only as the altered circumstances of the case naturally, and indeed necessarily, gave rise to. Enough, if there were such palpable correspondences as clearly bespoke the same overruling hand in Providence, working toward the accomplishment of the same great end. These limitations hold also, they hold with still greater force, in respect to the next application made by St Matthew, when he says of the slaughter by Herod of the infants at Bethlehem, “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Here the relation is not so close between the Old and the New as in the former case; and the words of the Evangelist imply as much, when he puts it merely, “Then was fulfilled,” not as before, “That it might be fulfilled.” It is manifest, indeed, that when a word originally spoken respecting an event at Rama (a place some miles north of Jerusalem) is applied to another event which took place ages afterwards at Bethlehem (another place lying to the south of it), the fulfilment meant in the latter case must have been of an inferior and secondary kind. Yet there must also have been some such relation between the two events, as rendered the one substantially a repetition of the other; and something, too, in the whole circumstances, to make it of importance that the connection between them should be marked by their being ranged under one and the same prophetical testimony.

Now, the matter may be briefly stated thus: It was at Rama, as we learn incidentally from Jer. 40:1, that the Chaldean conqueror of old assembled the last band of Israelitish captives before sending them into exile. And being a place within the territory of Benjamin, the ancestral mother of the tribe, Rachel, is poetically represented by the prophet as raising a loud cry of distress, and giving way to a disconsolate grief, because getting there, as she thought, the last look of her hapless children, seeing them ruthlessly torn from her grasp, and doomed to an apparently hopeless exile. The wail was that of a fond mother, whose family prospects seemed now to be entirely blasted. And, amid all the outward diversities that existed, the Evangelist descried substantially the same ground for such a disconsolate grief in the event at Bethlehem. For here, again, there was another, though more disguised enemy, of the real hope of Israel, who struck with relentless severity, and struck what was certainly meant to be an equally fatal blow. Though it was but a handful of children that actually perished, yet, as among these the Child of Promise was supposed to be included, it might well seem as if all were lost; Rachel’s offspring, as the heritage of God, had ceased to exist; and the new covenant, with all its promises of grace and glory, was for ever buried in the grave of that Son of the virgin—if so be that He had fallen a victim to the ruthless jealousy of the tyrant. [[@Page:449]] So that, viewed in regard to the main thing, the Chaldean conqueror had again revived in the cruel Edomite, who then held the government of Judea; and the slaughter at Bethlehem was, in spirit and design, as fatal a catastrophe as the sweeping away of the last remnant of Jews into the devouring gulph of Babylon. As vain, therefore, for the Church of the New Testament to look for a friend in Herod, in respect to the needed redemption, as for the Church of the Old to have looked for such in Nebuchadnezzar. Such is the instruction briefly contained in the Evangelist’s application of the prophecy of Jeremiah; an instruction much needed then, when so many were disposed to look for great things from the Herods, instead of regarding them as the deadliest enemies of the truth, arid the manifest rods of God’s displeasure. The lesson, indeed, was needed for all times, that the Church might be warned not to expect prosperity and triumph to the cause of Christ from the succour of ungodly rulers of this world, but from God, who alone could defend her from their ceaseless machinations and violence.

In this last application of a prophetic word by St Matthew to the events of the Gospel, there is a remarkable disregard of external and superficial differences, for the sake of the more inward and vital marks of agreement. It is somewhat singular, that, in his next application, the reverse seems rather to be the case—a deep spiritual characteristic of Messiah is connected with the mere name of a city. The settling of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth, it is said, at the close of ch. [[2 >> Bible:Mt 2:23]] , took place “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” There is here a preliminary difficulty in regard to the thing said to have been spoken by the prophets, which is not in so many words to be found in any prophetical book of the Old Testament; and, indeed, from its being said to have been spoken by the prophets generally, we are led to suppose that the Evangelist does not mean to give us the precise statement of any single prophet, but rather the collected sense of several. He seems chiefly to refer to those passages in Isaiah and Zechariah, where the Messiah was announced as the Nezer or sprouting branch of the house of David, pointing to the unpretending lowliness of His appearance and His kingdom. It is understood that the town Nazareth had its name from the same root, and on account of its poor and despised condition. That it was generally regarded with feelings of contempt even in Galilee, appears from the question of Nathanael, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”—(John 1:46) And it is quite natural to suppose that this may have been expressed in its very name. So that the meaning of the Evangelist here comes to be, that the providence of God directed Joseph to Nazareth, as a place in name, as well as general repute, peculiarly low and despised, that the prophecies respecting Jesus as the tender shoot of David’s stem might be fulfilled. The meaning, certainly, thus becomes plain enough; but it seems strange that so outward and comparatively unimportant a circumstance should be pointed to as a fulfilment of prophecy. In this, however, we are apt to judge too much from the present advanced position of Christ’s cause and kingdom; and also from the greatly altered tone of thinking in respect to the significance of names. The Jews were accustomed to mark everything by an appropriate name: [[@Page:450]] with them, the appellations of men, towns, and localities everywhere uttered a sentiment or told a history. A respect to this prevalent tone of thinking pervades the whole Gospel narrative, and appears especially in the names given to the place of Christ’s birth (Bethlehem, house of bread), to the Baptist (John, the Lord’s favour), and Jesus (Saviour); in the surnames applied by Christ to Simon (Cephas), to James and John (Boanerges). So natural was this mode of viewing things to the disciples, that the Evangelist John even finds a significance in the name of Siloam as connected with one of the miracles of Jesus.—(Ch. [[9:7 >> Bible:Jn 9:7]] ) It was fitly called Siloam, sent, since one was now sent to it for such a miracle of mercy; its name would hence forth acquire a new significancy. It might, therefore, be perfectly natural for those who lived in our Lord’s time, to attach considerable importance to the name of the town where He was brought up, and whence He was to manifest Himself to Israel. And in that state of comparative infancy, when a feeble faith and a low spiritual sense required even outward marks, like finger-posts, to guide them into the right direction, it was no small token of the overruling providence of God, that He made the very name of Christ’s residence point so distinctly to the lowly condition in which ancient prophets had foretold He should appear. By no profound sagacity, or deep spiritual insight, but even as with their bodily eyesight, they might behold the truth, that Jesus was the predicted Nezer, or tender shoot of David. Thus the word of the prophets was fulfilled in a way peculiarly adapted to the times.

The same kind of outwardness and apparent superficiality, but coupled with the same tender consideration and spiritual discernment, discovers itself in some of the other applications made by the Evangelists of ancient prophecy. Thus, in Matt. 8:17, Christ is said to have wrought His miraculous cures on the diseases of men, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” Was this the whole that the prophet meant? Was it even the main thing? The Evangelist does not, in fact, say that it was: he merely says that Christ was now engaged in the work of which the prophet spake in these words; and so, indeed, He was. Christ was sent into the world to remove by His mediatorial agency the evil that sin had brought into the world. He began this work when He cured bodily diseases, as these were the fruits of sin; and the removal of them was intended to serve as a kind of ladder to guide men to the higher and more spiritual part that still remained to be done. It was this very connection which our Lord Himself marked, when He said alternately to the man sick of the palsy, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” and, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk:” it was as much as to say, the doing of the one goes hand in hand with the other; they are but different parts of the same process. That Matthew knew well enough which was the greater and more important part of the process, is evident from the explanation he records of the name of Jesus (ch. [[1:21 >> Bible:Mt 1:21]] , “He shall save His people from their sins”); and his reporting such a declaration of Christ as this, “The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many.”—(Ch. [[20:28 >> Bible:Mt 20:28]] ) We have similar examples [[@Page:451]] in John 19:36, where the preservation of our Lord’s limbs from violence is regarded as a fulfilment of the prophecy in type—”A bone of Him (the Paschal Lamb) shall not be broken;” and in [[ver. 37 >> Bible:Jn 19:37]] , where the piercing of Christ’s side is connected with the prediction in Zechariah—”They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” It is evident that in both cases alike the original word looked farther than the mere outward circumstances here noticed, and had respect mainly to spiritual characteristics. But this Evangelist, who had a quick eye to the discerning of the spiritual in the external, who could even see in the slight elevation of the cross something that pointed, as it were, to heaven (ch. [[12:33 >> Bible:Jn 12:33]] ), saw also the hand of God in those apparently accidental and superficial distinctions in Christ’s crucified body the—finger-mark of heaven, giving visible form and expression to the great truths they embodied, that they might be the more readily apprehended. It was not as if these outward things were the whole in his view, but that they were the heaven-appointed signs and indications of the whole: seeing these, he, in the simplicity of faith, saw all—in the unbroken leg, the all-perfect Victim; in the pierced side, the unutterable agony and distress of the bleeding heart of Jesus.

We need do little more than refer to the other applications made of Old Testament prophecy to Jesus by the Evangelists. They are either applications in the most direct and obvious sense of predictions, that can be understood of no other circumstances and events than those they are applied to, or applications of some of the psalms and other prophecies, which had already been employed in part by Christ Himself. Thus, Matt. 4:15, 16, which regards the light diffused by the preaching of Jesus in the land of Naphtali and Zebulun as a fulfilment of the prophecy in Isa. 9:1, 2; Matt. 21:4; John 12:15, which connect Christ’s riding into Jerusalem on an ass with the prophecy in Zech. 9:9; Matt. 27:9, which, in like manner, connects the transactions about the thirty pieces of money given to Judas with the prophecy in Zech. 11:13;—these are admitted by all the more learned and judicious interpreters of the present day to be applications of prophecy of the most direct and simple kind. Portions of Ps. 22, and of Isa. 42:1-4, 53:1, 12, of which we have already had occasion to speak, in connection with our Lord’s own use of ancient Scripture, are referred to, as finding their fulfilment in Christ, in Matt. 27:35; John 12:38, 40, 19:24; Mark 15:28. The only remaining passage in the Gospels, in which there is anything like a peculiar application of Old Testament Scripture, is Matt. 13:34, 35, where the Evangelist represents our Lord’s resorting to the parabolical method of instruction as a fulfilment of what is written in Ps. 78:2, and which has been explained in the chapter to which this Appendix refers. See p. 139.

Thus we see, that no arbitrary or unregulated use is made by the Evangelists of ancient prophecy in regard to the events of Gospel history, but such only as evinced a profound and comprehensive view of the connection between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations. They had Christ’s own authority for all they did—either as to the principle on which their applications were made, or the precise portions of Scripture applied by [[@Page:452]] them. And nothing more is needed to ensure for them our entire sympathy and concurrence, than, first, that we clearly apprehend the relation of Christ, as the God-man, to the whole scheme and purposes of God, and then that we realize the peculiar circumstances of the Church at the time when the higher and more spiritual things of the Gospel began to take the place of those that were more outward and preparatory. The want of these has been the chief source of the embarrassment that has been experienced on the subject.

V. APPLICATIONS IN THE WRITINGS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

No one can fail to perceive that very frequent use is made of Old Testament Scripture in the writings of the Apostle Paul. Sometimes the use he makes of it is quite similar to that made by the Apostle Peter in his epistles—one, namely, of simple reference or appropriation. He adopts the language of Old Testament Scripture as his own, as finding in that the most suitable expression of the thoughts he wished to convey (Rom. 2:24, [[ >> Bible:Ro 10:18]] 10:18, [[ >> Bible:Ro 12:19-20]] 12:19, 20; [[ >> Bible:Eph 4:26]] Eph. 4:26, [[ >> Bible:Eph 5:14]] 5:14, etc.); or he refers to the utterances it contained of God’s mind and will, as having new and higher exemplifications given to them under the Gospel.—(Rom. 1:17; 1 Cor. 1:19, [[31 >> Bible:1Co 1:31]] ; 2 Cor. 6:16, 17, 8:15, 9:9, etc.) Of this latter sort also, substantially, is the application he makes to Christ in Eph. 4:8, of a passage in Ps. 68 (“He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive,” etc.),—a psalm which is nowhere else in New Testament Scripture applied to Christ, nor is it one of those which, from their clear and pointed reference to the things of Christ’s kingdom, are usually distinguished Messianic. In applying the words of the psalm to the ascension of Christ, and His subsequent bestowal of Divine gifts, the Apostle can hardly be understood to mean more than that what was done figuratively and in an inferior sense in the times of David by God, was now most really and gloriously done in Christ.

And there is also another application of an Old Testament Scripture by the Apostle Paul, which might, perhaps, without violence be understood, and by some evangelical interpreters is understood, in a similar manner, not as a direct prophecy, uttered in respect to Christian times, but as the announcement of a principle in God’s dealing with His ancient people, which came again to be most strikingly exemplified under the Gospel. We allude to the passage in Isa. 28:16 (combined with ch. [[8:14, 15 >> Bible:Is 8:14-15]] ), which is adduced by Paul in Rom. 9:33 (as it is also, and still more emphatically, by Peter in his first Epistle, ch. [[2:7, 8 >> Bible:1Pe 2:7-8]] ) as bearing upon Christ, and the twofold effect of His manifestation upon the destinies of men, “Behold I lay in Zion a stone,” etc. We regard it, however, as by much the most natural method, to take the word of the prophet there as a direct prediction of Gospel times. The difficulty in finding a specific object of reference otherwise, is itself no small proof of the correctness of this view—some understanding it of the temple, some of the law, others of Zion, and others still again of Hezekiah. The prophet, we are persuaded, is looking above and beyond all these. Contemplating the people in their guilt and [[@Page:453]] waywardness as engaged in contriving, by counsels and projects of their own, to secure the perpetuity of their covenant blessings, he introduces the Lord as declaring that there was to be a secure and abiding perpetuity, but not by such vain and lying devices as theirs, nor for the men who followed such corrupt courses as they were doing; but God Himself would lay the sure and immoveable foundation in Zion, by means of which every humble believer would find ample confidence and safety; while to the perverse and unbelieving this also should become but a new occasion of stumbling and perdition. It can be understood of nothing properly but Christ. And we, therefore, have no hesitation in considering the word as a direct prediction of Gospel times, of which the only proper fulfilment was to be found in the events of Christ’s history.

It is not so much, however, by way of simple reference or application, that Paul makes either his most frequent or his most peculiar application of Old Testament Scripture; he is more remarkable for the argumentative use he makes of it. He often introduces it in express and formal citations to establish his doctrinal positions, or to show the entire conformity of the views he unfolded of Divine truth with those which had been propounded by the servants of God in former times. It is in connection with this use of ancient Scripture by Paul, that the only difficulties of any moment in his application of it are to be found. And as we have already referred (in the first section) to his use, in this respect, of the historical and didactic portions, we have at present only to do with his employment of the prophecies. In respect to these also, the subject, in so far as it calls for consideration here, narrows itself to a comparatively limited field; for it is only in the application made of a few prophecies, and these bearing on the questions agitated in the Apostle’s day between Jew and Gentile, that any marked peculiarity strikes us. In saying this, however, we must be under stood as leaving out of view the Epistle to the Hebrews; in which such a distinctive use of Old Testament Scripture is made as will require a separate consideration.

Now, the chief peculiarity is this, that while the Apostle, in the portions of his writings referred to, wrote argumentatively. And consequently behoved to employ his weapons in the most unequivocal and uniform manner, he seems to vary considerably in his manner of handling the prophecies: he even seems to use a strange freedom with the literal and spiritual mode of interpretation; now, apparently, taking them in the one, and now, again, in the other sense, as suited his convenience. So, at least, the depreciators of the Apostle’s influence have not unfrequently alleged it to be. But is it so in reality? The matter certainly demands a close and attentive consideration.

I. The passage that naturally comes first in order is that in Rom. 4:11-16, where the Apostle refers to the promises of blessing made to Abraham, and in particular to the two declarations, that he should be a father of many nations, and should have a seed of blessing—or rather, should be the head of the seed of blessing throughout all the families of the earth. In [[@Page:454]] reasoning upon these promises, the object of the Apostle is plainly to show, that as they were made to Abraham before he received circumcision,—that is, while he was still, as to any legal ground of distinction, in a heathen state,—so they bore respect to a posterity as well without as within the bounds of lineal descent and legal prescription; to those, indeed, within, but even there only to those who believed as he did, and attained to the righteousness of faith: and besides these, to all who should tread “in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had when still uncircumcised.” According, therefore, to the Apostle’s interpretation, the seed promised to Abraham in the original prophecy was essentially of a spiritual kind; it comprehended all the children of faith, wherever they might be found,—as well the children of faith apart from the law, as the children of faith under the law. The justness of this wide and profoundly spiritual interpretation, the Apostle specially bases, as we have said, on the time when circumcision—the sign and seal of the covenant—began to be administered; not before, but after the promises were given. And he might also have added, as a collateral argument, the persons to whom it was administered—not to that portion only of Abraham’s lineal descendants, of whom the Jews sprung, nor even to his lineal descendants alone as a body; but to all collectively, who belonged to him at the first as a household, and all afterwards who, by entering into the bond of the covenant, should seek to belong to him.—(Ex. 12:48, etc.) What could more evidently show that Abraham’s seed, viewed in the light contemplated in the promise as a seed of blessing, was to be pre-eminently of a spiritual nature? a seed that was only in part to be found among the corporeal offspring of the patriarch; but, wherever found, was to have for its essential and most distinctive characteristic his faith and righteousness?

It is the positive side of the matter that the Apostle seeks to bring out at this stage of his argument: his object is to manifest how far the spiritual element in the promise reaches. But at another stage, in ch. [[9:6-13 >> Bible:Ro 9:6-13]] , he exhibits with equal distinctness the negative side; he shows how the same spiritual element excludes from the promised seed all, even within the corporeal descent and the outward legal boundary, who at any period did not possess the faith and righteousness of Abraham. All along the blessing was to descend through grace by faith; and such as might be destitute of these were not, in the sense of the original prophecy, the children of Abraham: they were rather, as our Lord expressly called the Jews of His day, the children of the devil, John 8:44,—a declaration that rests on the same fundamental view of the promise as that unfolded in the argument of the Apostle.

II. But now, if we turn to another portion of the Apostle’s writings, to the Epistle to the Galatians, where he is substantially handling the same argument as to the alone sufficiency of faith in the matter of justification,—we find what, at first sight, appears to be in one respect a quite opposite principle of interpretation; we find the mere letter of the promise so much insisted on, that even the word seed, being in the singular, is regarded as [[@Page:455]] limiting it to an individual. In ch. [[3:6-18 >> Bible:Ga 3:6-18]] of this epistle, the argument of the Apostle is of the following nature:—Abraham himself attained to blessing simply through faith; and when he was told that even all nations should come to partake in his blessing, it was implied that they also should attain to it through the same faith that dwelt in him. The law entered long after this promise of blessing had been given; and if the blessing were now made to depend upon the fulfilment of the law, then the promise would be virtually disannulled. Not only so, but the promise was expressly made to Abraham’s seed, as of one, not as of many—”to thy seed,” which, says the Apostle, “is Christ;” thus apparently making the promise point exclusively to the Messiah, and in order to this, forcing on the collective noun seed a properly singular meaning.

Yet, on the other hand, it would be very strange if the Apostle had actually done so. For every one knows, who is in the least degree acquainted with the language of the Old Testament, that seed, when used of a person’s offspring, is always taken collectively; it never denotes a single individual, unless that individual were the whole of the offspring. Educated as Paul was, it was impossible he could be ignorant of this; nay, in this very chapter, he shows himself to be perfectly cognizant of the comprehensive meaning of the word seed; and the drift of his whole argument is to prove that every child of faith is a component part of the seed promised to Abraham that “they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham;” or, as he again puts it at the close, “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

It is thus clear as day, that the Apostle here took the same comprehensive view of the promise to Abraham that he did in the fourth chapter of Romans; so that the distinction between seed and seeds, when properly understood, can only be meant to draw the line of demarcation between one class of Abraham’s family and another—between posterity and posterity. For though it would be quite against the ordinary usage to speak of individuals in the same line as so many seeds, it would by no means be so to speak thus of so many distinct lines of offspring; these might fitly enough be regarded as so many seeds or posterities. Such, actually, is the meaning of the Apostle here. In his view, Abraham’s seed of blessing in the promise are his believing posterity—these alone, and not the descendants of Abraham in every sense. “Had this latter been expressed in the words,” as Tholuck justly remarks, “seeds would require to have been used; as then only could it have been inferred that all the posterity of Abraham, including those by natural descent, were embraced. But since the singular is used, this shows that the prophecy had a definite posterity in view,—namely, a believing posterity. The Jew must have been the more disposed to admit this, as for him also it would have proved too much, if the prophecy had been made to embrace absolutely the whole of Abraham’s offspring. He, too, would have wished the lines by Ishmael and Esau excluded.” So that, viewed in respect to the promised inheritance of blessing, those, on the one hand, who were merely born after the flesh, in the common course of nature, were not reckoned of the seed—they were still, in a sense, unborn, [[@Page:456]] because they have wanted the indispensable spiritual element; while, on the other hand, those are reckoned, who, though they want the natural descent, have come to possess the more important spiritual affinity—they have been born from above, and have their standing and inheritance among the children.

But if such be the import of the Apostle’s statement, why, then, it may be asked, does he in [[ver. 16 >> Bible:Ga 3:16]] so expressly limit the seed of blessing to Christ? He does it, we reply, in the very same sense in which at [[ver. 8 >> Bible:Ga 3:8]] he limited the blessing to Abraham: in the one case, he identifies Abraham with all the posterity of blessing, and in the other Christ; in both cases alike, the two heads comprehend all who are bound up with them in the same bundle of life. “The Scripture foreseeing,” he says at [[ver. 8 >> Bible:Ga 3:8]] , “that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, ‛In thee shall all nations be blessed.’” In thee, combining the blessing of Abraham and all his spiritual progeny of believers into compact unity; he, the head, and those who spiritually make one body with him, being viewed together, and blessed in the same act of God. In like manner, when at [[ver. 16 >> Bible:Ga 3:16]] the Apostle passes from the parent to the seed, and regards the seed as existing simply in Christ, it is because he views Christ as forming one body with His people; in Him alone the blessing stands as to its ground and merit, and in Him, therefore, the whole seed of blessing have their life and being. So that the term seed is still used collectively by the Apostle; it is applied to Christ, not as an individual, but to Christ as comprehending in Himself all who form with Him a great spiritual unity—those who in this same chapter of the Galatians are said to have “put on Christ,” and to have become “all one in Him” (a personal mystical unity, [[ver. 27, 28 >> Bible:Ga 3:27-28]] ). We find precisely the same identification of Christ and His people, when the Apostle elsewhere says of the Church, that it is “His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:23); and yet again, when he says in 1 Cor. 12:12, “As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ”—that is, Christ taken in connection with His Church; He and they together.

III. Reverting again to the Epistle to the Romans, to that part of it in which the Apostle discusses the subject of the present unbelief and rejection, together with the future conversion of the Jews, chap. [[9 >> Bible:Ro 9:1-33]] , [[10 >> Bible:Ro 10:1-21]] , [[11 >> Bible:Ro 11:1-36]] , we find an apparent want of uniformity somewhat more difficult to explain. If we look at one part, there is the greatest freeness; but if at another, there seems the greatest strictness and literality in the manner he handles and applies the words of prophecy. In ch. [[9:25, 26 >> Bible:Ro 9:25-26]] , he introduces from Hosea what was unquestionably spoken in immediate reference to ancient Israel, and gives it a quite general application. Speaking of Israel as now apostate and rejected, but afterwards to be converted, the prophet had said that those who had been treated without mercy should yet obtain mercy, and those who had been called, “Not My people,” should yet be called, “The children of the living God.”—(Ch. [[1:10 >> Bible:Ho 1:10]] , [[2:23 >> Bible:Ho 2:23]] ) This the Apostle [[@Page:457]] adduces in proof of the statement, that God was now calling to the blessings of salvation vessels of mercy, “not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.” It is certainly possible, that in applying the words thus, the Apostle did not mean to press them as in the strict sense a prophecy of the calling and conversion of the Gentiles. He may have referred to them simply as exhibiting a display of Divine mercy, precisely similar in kind to what was now exemplified in the salvation of the Gentiles; that is, mercy exercised on persons who previously were cut off from any interest in its provisions, and in themselves had lost all claims to its enjoyment. That was to be done, according to the prophet, in the case of many in Israel; and if it was now also done in the case of a people called alike from among Jews and Gentiles, it was no new thing; it was but the old principle of the prophecy finding a new exemplification. Such, perhaps, is all the Apostle means by this application of prophecy to Gospel times.

But we cannot so explain another application made in the next chapter of the epistle. There, in proof of the declaration that “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, the same Lord over all being rich unto all that call upon Him,” he quotes what is said in Joel 2:32, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” As found in Joel, the prediction has throughout an Israelitish aspect. It is “in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem” that the deliverance or salvation is said to be provided; and while the Spirit is spoken of as going to be poured out on “all flesh,” still it seems to be flesh only as belonging to the Israelitish territory: for in describing the effect of the outpouring, the prophet says, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men,” etc. Referring to it, therefore, as the Apostle does, for a formal proof of the position, that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek in the matter of salvation, he must have considered the prophet as simply addressing the Church of God, without respect to the Jewish element, which at that time so largely entered into its composition. He must have understood the prophecy as uttered respecting the visible Church of God no matter of what element composed, or how constituted; otherwise there would have been room for plying him with the objection, that by the connection the “all flesh,” and the “every one that calleth,” should be understood of such only among the circumcised Jews, not of those who belonged to the uncircumcised Gentiles. In this more restricted sense, St Peter plainly applied the words of the prediction on the day of Pentecost; for not till some years afterwards did he entertain any thought of comprehending in its provisions the Gentiles as such. Paul’s application of it, therefore, is much freer than Peter’s, and proceeds on the ground of converted Gentiles, not less than believing Jews, being interested in the promises of salvation addressed to the Israelitish Church.

We find also the same broad principle of interpretation in the fourth chapter of Galatians, where, in regard to the Church of the New Testament, the Apostle quotes Isa. 54:1, “Sing, barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of [[@Page:458]] the married wife, saith the Lord.” It is distinctly as a proof text that the Apostle introduces this passage from Isaiah, prefacing it with the words,—”for it is written,” a proof that the “Jerusalem that is above,” in other words, the real Church, is “the mother of us all” who are Christians, and as such is “free,” the real and proper spouse of the Lord. Yet there can be no doubt, that in uttering the word the prophet addressed more immediately the Jewish Church; of that, no one who reads the prophecy in its original connection can entertain the slightest doubt. Hence, according to the interpretation of St Paul, it is not the Jewish element at that time existing in the Church which is now to be respected; it is simply the element of her being the spouse of God (“For thy Maker is thine husband”), which consequently gives to the Church of the New Testament, though formed mainly of believers from among the Gentiles, an equal interest in the grace promised in that prophetic word, with the Church as it was when composed almost exclusively of the descendants of Jacob.

But then the Apostle seems suddenly to abandon this broad principle of prophetical interpretation, when in Rom. 11:26 he comes to speak of the future conversion of the natural Israel,—”And so (that is, after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, till which blindness in part has happened to Israel) all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” Appealed to as in itself a sufficient proof that the natural seed of Israel as a whole shall be saved, is not this prophecy from Isa. 59:20, 21, here understood as spoken to the Jewish people not as a Church, but merely as a race? Are not those “in Jacob” the fleshly descendants merely of the patriarch, with the literal Zion as the centre of their commonwealth? And if so here, why not elsewhere? Why not also in the prophecies already referred to? And how, then, should the Apostle in them have made account only of the spiritual element in Israel as the Church of God, and regarded the natural (as expressed in the words, Jacob, Zion, Jerusalem) as but incidental and temporary?

Such questions not unnaturally arise here; and the rather so, as the Apostle has somewhat altered the words of the prophecy, apparently as if to make them suit better the immediate object to which he applied it. In the prophet it is to Zion, not out of it, that the Redeemer was to come; and He was to come, not to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, but “to those that turn from transgression in Jacob.” Such deviations from the scope and purport of the original have appeared to some so material, that they have come to regard the Apostle here, not so properly interpreting an old prediction, as uttering a prediction of his own, clothed as nearly as possible in the familiar language of an ancient prophecy. But this is an untenable position; for how could we, in that case, have vindicated the Apostle from the want of godly simplicity, using, as he must then have done, his accustomed formula for prophetical quotations (“As it is written”), only to disguise and recommend an announcement properly his own?

We can acquiesce in no solution of the difficulty which would represent [[@Page:459]] the Apostle as sailing under false colours. Nor can we regard the alterations as the result of accident or forgetfulness. They have manifestly sprung from design. The correct view, both of the use made of the prediction, and of the line of thought connected with it, we take to be this: The Apostle gives the substantial import of the prophecy in Isaiah, but in accordance with his design gives it also a more special direction, and one that pointed to the kind of fulfilment it must now be expected in that direction to receive. According to the prophet, the Redeemer was to come, literally for Zion—somehow in its behalf; and in the behalf also of penitent souls in it those turning from transgression. So, indeed, He had come already, in the most literal and exact manner, and the small remnant who turned from transgression recognised Him and hailed His coming. But the Apostle is here looking beyond these; he is looking to the posterity of Jacob generally, for whom, in this and other similar predictions, he descries a purpose of mercy still in reserve. For while he strenuously contends that the promise of a seed of blessing to Abraham, through the line of Jacob, was not confined to the natural offspring, he explicitly declares this to have been always included—not the whole, indeed, yet an elect portion out of it. At that very time, when so many were rejected, he tells us there was such an elect portion; and there must still continue to be so, “for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance:” that is, God having connected a blessing with Abraham and his seed in perpetuity, he could never recall it again; there should never cease to be some in whom that blessing was realized. But besides, here also there must be a fulness: the first fruits of blessing gave promise of a coming harvest; and the fulness of the Gentiles itself is a pledge of it: for if there was to be a fulness of these coming in to inherit the blessing, because of the purpose of God to bless the families of the earth in Abraham and his seed, how much more must there be such a fulness in the seed itself! The overflowings of the stream could not possibly reach farther than the direct channel. But then this fulness, in the case of the natural Israel, was not to be (as they themselves imagined, and as many along with them still imagine) separate and apart; as if by providing some channel, or appointing for them some place of their own. Of this the Apostle gives no intimation whatever. Nay, on purpose, we believe, to exclude that very idea, he gives a more special turn to the prophecy, so as to make it out of Zion that the Redeemer was to come, and to turn away ungodliness from those in Jacob. For the old literal Zion, in the Apostle’s view, was now gone: its external frame work was presently to be laid in ruins; and the only Zion, in connection with which the Redeemer could henceforth come, was that Zion in which He now dwells, which is the same with the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church of the New Testament. He must come out of it, at the same time that He comes for it, in behalf of the natural seed of Jacob; and this is all one with saying, that these could only now attain to blessing in connection with the Christian Church; or, as the Apostle himself puts it, could only obtain mercy through their mercy—namely, by the reflux of that mercy which has been bearing in the fulness of believing Gentiles. Thus alone, now, could the prophecy as [[@Page:460]] the result of a Saviour’s gracious presence coming forth from His dwelling-place in Zion, and acting through the instrumentality of a Christian Church.

So explained, this part of the Apostle’s argument is in perfect accordance with his principles of interpretation and reasoning elsewhere; and it holds out the amplest encouragement in respect to the good yet in store for the natural Israel. It holds out none, indeed, in respect to the cherished hope of a literal re-establishment of their ancient polity. It rather tends to discourage any such expectations; for the Zion in connection with which it tells us the Messiah is to come, is the one in which He at present dwells—the Zion of the New Testament Church; to which He can no longer come, except at the same time by coming out of it. Let the Church, therefore, that already dwells with Him in this Zion (Heb. 12:22), go forth in His name, and deal in faith and love with these descendants of the natural Israel. Let her feel that the presence and the blessing of the Lord are with her, that she may bring His word to bear with living power on the outcasts of Jacob, as well as on those ready to perish among the heathen. Let her do it now, not waiting for things that, if they shall ever happen, lie beyond the limits alike of her responsibility and her control; and remembering that, for anything we can tell, the fulness of converted Israel may be brought about gradually, somewhat like the fulness of converted Gentiles. This also was spoken of as one great event by our Lord, when He warned the Jews that the Gospel would be taken from them, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.—(Matt. 21:43) Yet how slow and progressive the accomplishment! Converted Jews, step by step, diffused the leaven of the kingdom among the Gentiles, and converted Gentiles may have to do the part of similarly diffusing it among the Jews that still remain in unbelief. And so “the life from the dead,” which the conversion of Israel is to bring to the Christian Church, may be no single revival effected by a stroke, but a succession of reviving and refreshing influences coming in with every new blessing vouchsafed to the means used for turning away ungodliness from Jacob.

VI.—THE APPLICATIONS MADE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS—CONCLUSION.

Apart altogether from the doubts which, since an early period, have hung around the authorship of this epistle (on which it were impossible to give any satisfactory deliverance here), there are peculiarities in the use made of Old Testament Scripture, which call for separate treatment, whether it proceeded from the pen of St Paul or not.

The epistle abounds with references to Old Testament Scripture, and with direct quotations from it; as was, indeed, unavoidable from the nature of the subject it discusses. It is in its main theme a reasoning from the Old to the New; not, however, for the purpose of proving that Jesus was the Christ promised to the fathers, but rather, taking for granted this as a point mutually held, and showing, from the dignity of Christ’s person, and the perfection [[@Page:461]] of His work, as indicated even in Old Testament Scripture, the completeness of His dispensation in itself, and the mingled folly and danger of keeping up the shadowy services of Judaism, which had lost all their importance when their design was accomplished in Christ. To continue still to adhere to them, of necessity betokened at the very outset defective views of the superlative glory of Christ, and a tendency to look to those merely temporary representations of it for more than they were ever intended to impart; and the probability was, that, if persevered in, the carnal element would carry it entirely over the spiritual, and complete shipwreck of the faith would be made amid the dead observances of an obsolete and now annulled Judaism. Such, briefly, is the aim and drift of this epistle; and it very naturally leads us to expect that the author, in treating the subject, would make considerable use of passages in Old Testament Scripture bearing on Gospel times; that he would lay especial emphasis on those passages which either substantially implied or expressly announced the pre-eminent greatness of Christ’s person, and work, and kingdom; and that he would also draw largely upon the accredited memorials of the past for warnings and expostulations against the danger of backsliding and apostasy, and for incentives to progress in the higher degrees of knowledge and virtue. All this we might have expected, and all this we find, in an epistle full of doctrinal expositions, happily combined with the earnest enforcement of practical duty. But there are some peculiarities in the application of Old Testament passages that appear in the course of the argument, which are not to be met with, at least to the same extent, in any other portions of the New Testament, and which call for some explanation.

1. First of all, there is a peculiarity in the mode of selection. Out of thirty-two or thirty-three passages in all that are quoted from the Scriptures, no fewer than sixteen, or one-half, are taken from the book of Psalms; and these, with only one or two exceptions in the two first chapters, comprise all that are referred to as bearing immediately on the person or work of Christ. There is something very singular in this, and something, we are disposed to think, which should have a degree of importance attached to it in connection with the author’s manner of dealing with Scripture. For some reason or another, he felt himself, if not absolutely shut up, yet practically influenced to confine almost entirely his proof passages, respecting Christ as the Head of the new dispensation, to such as might be found in the book of Psalms. What that reason might be we can only conjecture, or with some probability infer from the nature and object of the epistle. Possibly it arose from the constant use made of the psalter in the Jewish worship, whereby it was not only rendered more familiar to the minds of the Judaizing Christians than any other portion of ancient Scripture, but was also most naturally regarded as of special authority in matters connected with the devotional service of God. So that arguments drawn from this source in behalf of a more spiritual worship, and for the disuse of those fleshly services with which it had been wont to be associated, could scarcely fail to tell with peculiar force on the subject of controversy—might even seem to come like a voice from the temple itself in testimony against its [[@Page:462]] antiquated usages. At all events, the fact of the Apostle’s quotations on this point being derived almost wholly from the Psalms, may justly be regarded as resting on some important consideration which it was necessary to keep in view. And this being the case, we should not so much wonder at testimonies respecting Christ being taken from passages there where He is not so plainly exhibited, while no reference is made to others in the prophetical books of Scripture more direct and explicit. The author deemed it right to draw his materials from a limited field, and he naturally pressed these as far as he properly could.

2. But does he not press them too far? Does he not really seek for materials in proof of Christ’s personal or mediatorial greatness where they are not to be found? So it has been supposed; and it is not to be denied that another peculiarity meets us here, in the extent to which the book of Psalms is used in this epistle for testimonies respecting Christ. Particular psalms are employed in the discussion which are nowhere else in the New Testament applied to Christ. Not, however, it should be observed, to the neglect of those which are elsewhere applied to Him; not as if the author were hunting for concealed treasures, and making light of such as lay open to his view. The more remarkable Messianic psalms—the [[2d >> Bible:Ps 2:1-12]] , the [[22d >> Bible:Ps 22:1-31]] , the [[40th >> Bible:Ps 40:1-17]] , the [[45th >> Bible:Ps 45:1-17]] , the [[110th >> Bible:Ps 110:1-7]] are all referred to at different places as testifying of the things belonging to the Messiah. But besides these (to which we do not need now to refer more particularly), we find in the first chapter alone two other psalms, the [[97th >> Bible:Ps 97:1-12]] and the [[102d >> Bible:Ps 102:1-28]] , quoted without a note of explanation as portions bearing respect to Christ. Thus, at [[ver. 6 >> Bible:Heb 1:6]] , it is said, “When He bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him,” quoting the latter clause of Ps. 97:7. And the concluding part of Ps. 102 is brought forward as spoken directly to the Son, “To the Son He saith, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands,” etc.

It should be carefully remembered, however, in respect to the use made of such passages, that the Apostle is not appealing to them for the purpose of proving that Jesus was the Messiah, or that He who became the Messiah in the fulness of time originally brought the universe into being. The Apostle is writing to persons who understood and believed these points—believed both that Jesus was the Christ, and that by Him, as God’s Word and Son, the worlds had been at first made, as well as redemption now accomplished for a believing people. The question was, What honour and respect might be due to Him as such? and whether there was not a glory in Him that overshadowed, and in a manner extinguished, the glory of all preceding revelations? Now, for this purpose the passages referred to were perfectly in point, and contained a testimony which must have been quite valid with believing Hebrews. According to their belief also (in fact, they could not have been in any proper sense Christians without having first come to the belief that), the Messiah was, as to His Divine nature, the Son of God, and the immediate agent of Godhead in the creation of the world. Hence, as a matter of course, the word, in the concluding portion of the [[@Page:463]] [[102d >> Bible:Ps 102:1-28]] Psalm, addressed to God as the Creator, must have been held as immediately applicable to the Son; it is of necessity His creative energy, and uncreated, unchangeable existence that is there more directly celebrated. No one can doubt this who knows the relation of the Son to the Father as the revealer of Godhead, in the works of creation and of providence. And, in like manner, the [[97th >> Bible:Ps 97:1-12]] Psalm, which points to the manifestation of God’s power and glory in the world, as going to bring discomfiture on all the worshippers of idols, and joy to the Church. What believer can really doubt that this was mainly to be accomplished in the person and the work of Christ? Even Rabbinical writers have understood it of Messiah. There is no other manifestation of God, either past or to come, fitted to produce such results but the personal manifestation given in Christ; and the call to worship God, written in the psalm, was most properly connected with the incarnation of the Divine Word. When by that event the First-begotten was literally brought into the world, there was the loudest matter-of-fact proclamation, calling upon all to worship Him. It was only then, indeed, that the peculiar displays of Divine power and glory began to be put forth, which the psalm announces; and the spiritual results it speaks of always appear according as Christ comes to be known and honoured as the manifested God.

But the use made in the second chapter of the eighth Psalm is thought by some still more peculiar and difficult of explanation. For in that psalm the glory of God is celebrated in the most general way, as connected with the place and dignity of man upon the earth; and how can it be produced as a testimony for Christ? But is it so produced? As far as we can see, the Apostle does not understand what is written in that psalm as pointing at all, directly or exclusively, to Christ. He is answering an objection, which, though not formally proposed, yet was plainly anticipated as ready to start up in the minds of his readers, to what he had advanced concerning the Divine honour and glory due to Christ, as the Eternal Son of God. However He may be so when viewed simply in respect to His Divine nature, yet as known to us, He was a man like ourselves; yea, a man compassed about with infirmity, and subject to suffering above the common lot of humanity; and might not the consideration of this detract somewhat from His dignity? Might it not even be justly regarded as placing Him below the angels? By no means, says the Apostle, there is a glory of God connected also with man’s estate; the Psalmist was filled with wonder and admiration at the imperfect indications he beheld of it in his day, regarding these as pledges of the more complete realizations of it yet to come; and it must be realized and perfected, not in connection with the nature of angels, but in connection with the nature of man. In allying Himself with man, the Son of God, indeed, stooped for a time below the dignity of angels, but it was only that He might raise manhood to a higher position even than theirs; He made Godhead incarnate, that He might, in a manner, deify humanity, that is, raise it to a participation in His own peerless majesty and fulness of blessing. In a word, the lordship of this world, which from the first was destined for man, and the thought of which filled the Psalmist with rapture [[@Page:464]] and astonishment—this, in all its perfection and completeness, is still to be the inheritance of redeemed man, because the Eternal Son, as Redeemer, has, by becoming man, secured the title to it for Himself and as many as are joined to Him by a living faith. So that Christ has lost nothing of His proper glory by assuming the nature of man, but has simply made provision for a redeemed people sharing with Him in it.

It is in connection with this branch of the argument also that the Apostle refers to a passage in Isaiah, which has been thought not strictly applicable to Christ. It is Isa. 8:17, 18, where the prophet, in his own name or another, says, “I will wait (or trust) upon the Lord; behold, I and the children which the Lord hath given me, are for signs and wonders,” etc. The prophet, it has been thought, speaks there of himself, and of his own proper children, as specially raised up by the Lord, to encourage the people to trust in the Divine power and faithfulness for deliverance. That, however, is by no means so clear as some would have it. It is fully as probable, and the opinion is certainly growing among commentators, that the prophet rather rises here above himself and his children to those whom they represented to the Angel of the Covenant, and His spiritual seed; for he says immediately before, “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples, and I will wait,” etc. Who could speak thus of his disciples, and command the testimony to be bound up? Surely a higher than Isaiah is there. But even supposing that the prophet spoke of himself—supposing that in what follows, at least in the words quoted here, he does speak of himself and his own children; yet, as these must unquestionably have been viewed as personating the Immanuel and His spiritual offspring, the pas sage, even in that view of it, was a perfectly valid proof of the point for which it is quoted. It plainly indicates a oneness of nature in the Head and the members of the Lord’s covenant people, and a common exposure to the ills of humanity.

3. A third peculiarity, and one that has been thought still more characteristic of the Old Testament quotations in this epistle from those elsewhere made in the New Testament, is, that they are uniformly taken from the Septuagint (i.e., the old Greek translation of the Old Testament), even where that differs materially from the original Hebrew. The New Testament writers generally, and the Apostle Paul in particular, very frequently quoted from that version, because it was in common use in the synagogues, and had acquired a kind of standard value. But they also, in many cases, departed from it, when it did not give at least the general sense of the original. This, however, is never done in the Epistle to the Hebrews; the Septuagint version is almost uniformly quoted from, whether it gives or deviates from the exact meaning. Thus the words of the [[ >> Bible:Ps 99:1-9]] 99th Psalm, rendered in ch. [[1:6 >> Bible:Heb 1:6]] , “Let all the angels of God worship Him,” are literally, “Worship Him, all ye gods.” So again in the quotation from the eighth Psalm in the second chapter, what is literally, “Thou hast made Him want a little of God,” is given from the Septuagint, “Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels.” A still greater deviation occurs in ch. [[10:5 >> Bible:Heb 10:5]] , where the words from Psalm 40, which are in the original, “Mine ears hast [[@Page:465]] Thou bored,” or opened, stand thus, “A body hast Thou prepared me.” And once more, a passage taken from Habakkuk, in ch. [[10:38 >> Bible:Heb 10:38]] , which, according to the Hebrew, is, “Behold, his soul is lifted up, it is not upright in him,” appears in the much altered form of the Greek version, “If any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him.”

We omit other and less important variations. Those we have adduced undoubtedly show a close adherence to the Greek version, even where it is not strictly correct. At the same time, it is to be observed, that nothing in the way of argument is built upon the differences between that version and the original; and the sentiment it expresses, so far as used by the Apostle, would not have been materially affected by a more literal translation. Indeed, in the last instance referred to, the passage from the prophet Habakkuk is not formally given as a citation at all; and as the order of the clauses also stands differently in the epistle from what it does in the Septuagint, so as to suit more exactly the object of the writer, we may rather regard him as adopting for his own what was found in the Septuagint, and giving it the sanction of his authority, than intending to convey the precise sense of the ancient prophet. And, after all, it is only a differently expressed, not by any means a discordant, sense from that of the prophet. The swollen, puffed-up soul is not upright, or does not maintain the even course of integrity. When the prophet says this, he only expresses more generally what is more fully and specifically intimated by the Apostle, when he speaks of such as draw back in times of trial, and incur thereby the displeasure of God. The passage taken from the fortieth Psalm admits of a similar explanation. The Apostle lays no stress upon the words, “A body hast Thou prepared me;” he lays stress only on the declared readiness of the speaker in the psalm to do the will of God, by a personal surrender to its requirements; and as to say, “Mine ears hast Thou opened,” means, Thou hast made me ready to listen to all the demands of Thy service; so to say, “A body hast Thou prepared me,” is but to turn it from a part of the body to the whole, and to intimate that his body itself was provided for the purpose of yielding the obedience required. The difference is quite a superficial one as regards the vein of thought running through the passage. And such also is the case with the other quotations, in which the angels are substituted for God or gods. It is plain that, in such expressions as, “Worship Him, ye gods,” and, “Thou hast made him to want but a little of God,” something else than the supreme Jehovah is meant by the Elohim of the original—it must denote more generally something divine or divine-like in condition and dignity, whether esteemed such on earth, or actually such in heavenly places. And the angels being the creatures nearest to God that we are acquainted with, they were not unnaturally regarded as substantially answering to the idea indicated in the expression. Many, even of the most learned interpreters, still think, that it is best to abide by the word angels in the passages referred to.

4. In conclusion, we shall make only two remarks—the one more immediately applicable to the peculiarity just noticed in this epistle, and the [[@Page:466]] other common to it with the New Testament generally, in respect to the use of the Old Testament Scriptures.

The first is, that it perfectly consists with a profound regard to Scripture as given by inspiration of God, to employ a measure of freedom in quoting it, if no violence is done to its general import. There are cases in which much hangs on a particular expression; and in these cases the utmost exactness is necessary. In this very epistle a striking example is furnished of the pregnancy of single words, in the comment made upon those of the [[110th >> Bible:Ps 110:1-7]] Psalm, “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,” where every expression is shown to be important. And it is not too much to affirm, from such specimens of inspired interpretation, that the very words of Scripture are to be held as bearing on them the stamp of the Spirit’s guidance. On the other hand, the free renderings adopted in other places where it was enough to obtain the general import, teach us to avoid the errors of superstitious Jews and learned pedants, and to be more anxious to imbibe the spirit of Scripture, than to canonize its mere words and letters. We must contend for every jot and tittle of the word, when the adversary seeks, by encroaching on these, to impair or corrupt the truth of God. But we are not absolutely bound up to that; we may freely use even a general or incomplete representation of its meaning, if by so doing we are more likely to get a favourable hearing for the important truths it unfolds. Correctness without scrupulosity should be the rule here, as in the Christian life generally.

Our second remark is, that the chief thing necessary for enabling us to go heartily along with the applications made both here and elsewhere, of the Old Testament in the New, is a correct apprehension of the relation between the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. It is because the inspired writers went so much farther in this respect than many of their readers and commentators are disposed to do now, that the great difficulty is experienced in sympathizing with this part of their writings. They saw everything in the Old pointing and tending towards the manifestation of God in Christ; so that not only a few leading prophecies and more prominent institutions, but even subordinate arrangements and apparently incidental notices in matters connected with the ancient economy, were regarded as having a significance in respect to Christ and the Gospel. No one can see eye to eye with them in this, if he has been wont practically to divorce Christ from the Old Testament. And in proportion as an intelligent discernment of the connection between the two economies is acquired, the course actually adopted by the New Testament writers will appear the more natural and justifiable. Let there only be a just appreciation of the things written and done in former times, as preparatory to the better things to come in Christ, and there will be found nothing to offend even the science and the taste of the nineteenth century in the principles of interpretation sanctioned in the writings of the New Testament.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Ein Wort über tiefern Schriftsinn, pp. 7, 8.

[2] Eisenmenger, Entwectes Judenthum, vol. i., cb. 9. This laborious investigator of Jewish writings justly calls their expositions “foolish and perverted,” and supports the assertion with ample proof. Thus—to refer only to one or two—on the passage which narrates the meeting of Esau and Jacob, it is gathered in the Bereschith Eabba, from a small peculiarity in one of the words, that Esau did not come to kiss, but to bite, and that “our father Jacob’s neck was changed into marble, so that the teeth of the ungodly man were broken.” The passage in Ps. 92:10—”My horn shalt Thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil “is explained in the Jalkut Chudash by the statement, that while in “anointing the other sons of Jesse the oil was poured out, when David’s turn came, the oil of itself flowed and ran upon his head.” These, indeed, are among the simpler specimens; for, by giving a numerical value to the letters, the most extravagant and senseless opinions were thus obtained. The fact, however, is of importance, as it provides a sufficient answer to the mode of interpretation adopted by many modern expositors, who think it enough, to justify the Evangelists in putting what they regard as a false meaning upon words of prophecy, to say that the Jewish writers were in the habit of applying Scripture in the same way—applying it in a sense different from its original import. It is forgoten in this case that the Jewish writers actually believed Scripture to have many senses, and that when they speak of its being fulfilled, they meant that the words really had the sense they ascribe to them.

[3] Life of Jesus, § 248.

[4] See vol. ii., Ch. L, § 4.

[5] See Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. On Matt. 12:20, and John 5:19; Schöttgen de Messia. pp. 113, 192; Hengstenberg’s Christology on Isa. 42:1-9, 49, 53:2. Also Alexander on the same passages, and 61.

Appendix B.—The Doctrine of a Future State.—P. 215.

[[@Page:467]] IN the text we have merely vindicated the Old Testament Scriptures from any charge of inconsistence in the reserve these maintained regarding the doctrine of a future state. It is desirable, however, to present the subject in a fuller light, and to consider both the state of opinion that prevailed respecting it in heathen antiquity, and the relation in which the Old and the New Testament Scriptures alike stand to it. We shall thus have an opportunity of pointing out several erroneous views, as we conceive, that are still of frequent occurrence in discussions upon the subject.

1. First of all, we look to the general fact that—somehow, and in some form or another, a belief in the doctrine of the soul’s immortality has prevailed in nations which had only natural resources to guide them in their religious views and tenets. We are not aware of any considerable people, either in ancient or in modern times, of whom this might not be affirmed; and among all nations that have reached any degree of intelligence and civilisation, it is notorious that the doctrine has always held a recognised and prominent place in the articles of popular belief. In no age or country has a public religion existed, which did not associate with it the prospect of a future state of happiness or misery as one of its leading elements and most influential considerations. So much is this the case, that the fear of the gods in heathen states was very commonly looked upon as identified with the expectation of good and evil in a life after the present; and the ancient legislators, who established, and the sages who vindicated, the importance of religion, with one consent agree in deriving its main virtue from the salutary hopes and terrors it inspired respecting the life to come.[1] We are perfectly entitled, therefore, from the existence and prevalence of religion among men, to infer, in a corresponding degree, the existence and prevalence of a belief in the immortality of the soul, or its destination in some form hereafter to a better or a worse state than belongs to it here. And as nothing ever attains to the rank of a universal belief, or general characteristic of mankind, which is not rooted in some common instinct of man’s nature, we may further assert it as an undoubted fact, that this idea of a future state is one that springs from the spiritual instincts which belong to man as man; or, in the expressive language of Coleridge, that “its fibres are to be traced to the taproot of humanity.”

[[@Page:468]] Exceptions, no doubt, are to be found to it, even among those who externally joined in the popular religion of their country; but only in the case of persons, or parties, who were unfavourably situated for the development of their spiritual instincts, and who have seldom, in any age or country, formed more than a small minority of their generation. Such an exception, for example, appeared in the case of the Sadducees in the latter days of the Hebrew commonwealth,—a sect small in point of numbers, and one that sprang up, partly as a reaction from the superstitions and frivolities of Pharisaism, and partly from the spread of Grecian culture among the richer and more ambitious classes in Judea. It was essentially a sect of philosophy, and had drunk too deeply of the sceptical influences of heathenism to be much impressed with any religious beliefs; though its repulsion to Pharisaism probably led it to take up more of an extreme position in respect to them than it might otherwise have done. But it is impossible for any one to read the occasional notices given of the sect in Josephus, without perceiving that, as a party, they habitually did violence to the moral as well as the spiritual instincts of their nature; that they exhibited the usual characteristics of the infidel spirit, and would very soon have ceased even from the profession of religion, if they had not been surrounded by a religious atmosphere. So that they can scarcely be regarded as exceptions to the natural union of the religious sentiment with the prospect of an hereafter; for the religious sentiment had but a shadowy existence in their bosom.

Substantially the same explanation is to be given of the views entertained by individual writers, and by some whole sects of heathen philosophers. Their intellectual culture unfitted them for sympathizing with the popular forms, into which either the worship of the gods or the belief of a future state of existence had thrown itself. They saw the grossness and manifold absurdity of what had obtained the general assent, without having anything of their own clearly defined and thoroughly ascertained to put in its place; and the inevitable result was, that many of them became sceptical on the whole subject of religion, and others wavered from side to side in a kind of half-belief sometimes giving utterance to the hopes and fears that naturally sprang from the conviction of a Supreme Governor, and again expressing themselves as if all heaven were a fable, and all futurity a blank. It was not that nature in them wanted the spiritual instincts it seems to possess in other men, or that these instincts failed to link themselves with the prospect of a future existence; but that, situated as they were, the instincts wanted appropriate forms in which to clothe their feelings and expectations, and thus had either to hew out a channel of their own for faith and hope to flow in (which they were often too weak to do), or collapsed into a state of painful uncertainty or sceptical disbelief.

We take this to be both a fairer and a more rational account of the state of opinion prevalent among the more thoughtful and speculative part of ancient heathens, than that given by Bishop Warburton, and argued anew in recent times by Archbishop Whately. Warburton has laboured, with a great profusion of learning, to show that all the ancient philosophers, with [[@Page:469]] the exception of Socrates, were in their real sentiments disbelievers in a future state of reward and punishment, and only taught it in their exoteric writings as a doctrine profitable to the vulgar. We think it is impossible to make out this by any fair interpretation of the better writings of heathen antiquity, and without giving far too much weight to the explanations and statements of the later Sophists and Neo-Platonists, who are no proper authorities on such questions. The doctrine of the soul’s immortality, and of its destination to a future state of reward or punishment, comes out too frequently in the higher and even more philosophical productions of the ancients, to admit of being explained on the ground of a mere paltering to vulgar superstition and prejudice. And both the frequency of its recurrence, and the variety of forms in which the belief is uttered, force on us the conviction that the writers, in uttering it, often expressed the native sentiments of their hearts. But then the crude representations and incredible absurdities with which the doctrine was mixed up in the only authoritative form known to them, as often again drove them back from the ground they were inclined to occupy, and set speculation, with her daughters, doubt and uncertainty, wholly adrift. They could not fall in, heart and soul, with what had been embodied in the religion of their country, and had established itself in the popular belief; and it was, therefore, perfectly natural, that many inconsistencies on the subject should appear in their writings; that they should be found retracting at one time what they seemed to have conceded at another; and that in their recoil of feeling from the palpably erroneous on one side, they should often have lost themselves in thick darkness on the other.

All this, however, is to be understood only of the more learned and speculative portion of heathen antiquity; of those who either formally attached themselves to some sect of philosophy, or were, to a certain extent, imbued with the spirit of philosophy. Such persons were manifestly in the most unfavourable position for the free development of their spiritual instincts. Policy alone, or a sense of public duty, led them to take any part in defending the existence, or in observing the rites, of the prevailing religion; so that they were continually doing the part of dissemblers and hypocrites. But, undoubtedly, they would not have done in this respect what they did, or avowed so often their belief in a moral government above, and a state of recompense before them, unless these ideas had been inter woven with the established religion, and had come, through it, to pervade the minds of their countrymen. Warburton’s declarations to this effect may be regarded as substantially correct, when he lays down the position, that a future state of rewards and punishments was not only taught and propagated by lawgivers, priests, and philosophers, but was also universally received by the people throughout the whole earth.[2]

Dr Whately, however, who, in his Essay on the Revelation of a Future State, generally re-echoes, as before stated, the sentiments of Warburton, expresses discordant views on this part of the subject. He seems to think that the people generally had as little belief in the existence of a future [[@Page:470]] state of reward and punishment as the philosophers. From an expression in Plato, that “men in general were highly incredulous as to the soul’s future existence,” he concludes it to have been “notoriously the state of popular opinion” at the time, that “the accounts of Elysium and Tartarus were regarded as mere poetical fables, calculated to amuse the imagination, but unworthy of serious belief.” Let us test this conclusion by a parallel declaration from a Platonic English philosopher—Lord Shaftesbury. This nobleman, ridiculing the fear of future punishment as fit at best only for the vulgar, adds regarding others, “Such is the nature of the liberal, polished, and refined part of mankind; so far are they from the mere simplicity of babes and sucklings, that, instead of applying the notion of a future reward or punishment to their immediate behaviour in society, they are apt much rather, through the whole course of their lives, to show evidently that they look on the pious narrations to be indeed no better than children’s tales, and the amusement of the mere vulgar.”[3] This is, in fact, a far stronger and more sweeping assertion of a general disbelief among the learned now regarding the expectation of a future state, than that made by Plato of the generality of men in ancient times; but who would think of founding on such a statement, though uttered with the greatest assurance, as if no one could doubt what was said, a conclusion as to the all but universal rejection by educated men in modern times of the Scripture representations of the future world? Who does not know that the conclusion would be notoriously false? But the inference drawn from the remark of Plato rests on a still looser foundation. And, indeed, if the matter had been as Dr Whately represents it, even in Plato’s time, where should have been the temptation to the philosophers who lived then and afterwards, for so often speaking and writing differently, as is alleged, from what they really thought, respecting the world to come? They did so, we are told, in accommodation to the popular belief—that is (if this representation were correct), in accommodation to a belief which was known to have had no actual existence.

Dr Whately lays special stress in this part of his essay on the account given by Thucydides, of the effects produced among the Athenians by the memorable plague which ravaged the city and neighbourhood. Many at first, the historian tells us, “had recourse to the offices of their religion, with a view to appease the gods; but when they found their sacrifices and ceremonies availed nothing against the disease, and that the pious and impious alike fell victims to it, they at once concluded that piety and impiety were altogether indifferent, and cast oft all religious and moral obligations.” “Is it not evident from this,” the Archbishop asks, “that those who did reverence the gods had been accustomed to look for none but temporal rewards and punishments from them? Can we conceive that men who expected that virtue should be rewarded, and vice punished, in the other world, would, just at their entrance into that world, begin to regard virtue and vice as indifferent?” We take this to be an entire misapplication of the historian’s facts; and a misapplication that has arisen from an error very [[@Page:471]] prevalent among English theologians, and shared in by Archbishop Whately, in the mode of contemplating the doctrine of a future recompense—as if the expectation of a future were somehow incompatible with the experience of a present recompense. We shall have occasion to expose this error by and bye. But, meanwhile, we assert that such a dissolution of manners and general lawlessness as took place at Athens under the awful visitation of the plague, and as always to some extent attends similar calamities, is rather a proof of men’s expecting a future state of reward and punishment than the reverse—that is, of their doing so in their regular and ordinary state of mind, when they appear to pay some regard to virtue, and to wait on the offices of religion. The recklessness of what may be called their abnormal condition, bespeaks how much their normal one was under the restraining and regulating influences of fear and hope.

We hold it, then, as an established fact, that the expectation of a future state of reward and punishment has been the general characteristic of men in every age, wherever they have been so situated as to find free scope to the spiritual instincts of their nature. The general prevalence alone of religious worship is a proof of it; for religion, whether in the nation or the individual, has never long flourished—it soon languishes and expires, when divorced from the belief of a coming state of happiness or misery. The expectation, no doubt, of such a state, in all heathen forms of belief, has never failed to connect itself with many grievous errors, especially as to the mode of existence in the future world, and the kinds of reward and punishment that have been anticipated. There human reason and conjecture have always proved miserable guides; and the doctrines of the metempsychosis, from one fleshly form to another, the higher doctrine of the absorption into the Divine unity, and the fables of Tartarus and Elysium, were but so many efforts on the part of the human mind to give distinct shape and form to its expectations of the future. These efforts were necessarily abortive. And the facts of the case will bear us no farther in the right direction, than in enabling us to assert the prevalence of a wide-spread, well-nigh universal belief of a future existence, mainly depending for the good or evil to be experienced in it, on the conduct maintained during the present life. But so far, we are thoroughly satisfied, they do bear us.

Before leaving this point, we must be allowed to say, that there is a manifest unfairness in the way in which the sentiments of heathen antiquity, especially of its more profound thinkers, are very commonly represented by Warburton and his followers. This is particularly apparent in the use that is made of the alleged secret doctrine amongst them. It cannot be denied that their writings contain strong statements in favour of a future state; but then, it is affirmed, these were only the writings that contained their exoteric doctrines: their real, or more strictly philosophical and esoteric doctrines, must be sought elsewhere. In this way the whole argumentation in Plato’s Phaedo goes for nothing; because that, it is alleged, belonged to the exoteric class, or his writings for the vulgar. A strange sort of vulgar it must have been, that could be supposed to enter with relish into the line of argumentation pursued in that discourse! We should like also, on that [[@Page:472]] supposition, to see the line described that separates, as to form and style, between the philosophical and the popular, the esoteric and the exoteric, in ancient writings. But the ground for such a distinction at all has been enormously exaggerated, and was very much the invention of the later Platonists. Recent criticism has come to a different mind: thus, Professor Brandis, in the article on Plato in Smith’s Dictionary, treats “the assumption of a secret doctrine as groundless;” and the late Professor Butler holds the division of Plato’s dialogues into exoteric and esoteric to be a mere hypothesis.—(Lect., vol. ii., p. 33.) We cannot but reckon it unfair, also, in regard to Cicero, the next great writer of antiquity, who has treated at large of the question of the soul’s immortality, to set against his deliberate and formal statements on the subject, a few occasional sentences culled from his private letters, and but too commonly written when the calamities of life had enveloped him in gloom and despondency. In the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, c. 15, he enunciates both his own and the general belief, as one growing out of the rational instincts of humanity; and we have no reason to question the sincerity of the statement: Nescio quomodo, inhaeret in mentibus quasi seculorum quoddam augurium futurorum; idque in maximis ingenüs, altissimisque animis, et existit maxime, et apparet facillime. He ridicules, indeed, the popular belief about Hades, as contrary to reason, and says enough to indicate how much of darkness and uncertainty mingled with his anticipations of the future; but the belief itself of a state of being after the present is never disparaged or denied, but rather clung to throughout. It admits, however, of no doubt, that in the age of Cicero the general tone of society at Rome among the more refined and influential classes was deeply tinctured with infidelity. The sceptical spirit of the later philosophy of Greece, which regarded nothing as true, except that everything was involved in uncertainty, had become extensively prevalent among the rulers of the world. And such public disclaimers respecting the future punishments of Hades as are to be found in Caesar’s speech against Catiline, ascribed to him by Sallust, or in Cicero’s oration for Cluentius, and the nox est perpetua, una dormienda, of the loose but refined epicurean Catullus (on which Dr Whately lays stress), are no more to be regarded as fair indications of the general belief of heathendom, than the infidel utterances of the French philosophers of last century are to be taken as just representations of the general belief of Christendom.

2. Let us proceed, however, in the next place, to look at the natural grounds for this belief.

And here, at the outset, we are to bear in mind a truth which is often verified in respect to men’s convictions and judgments, as well in secular matters as in those of a moral and spiritual kind, viz., that a belief may be correctly formed, or a fact may be truly stated, and yet the reasons assigned for it in individual cases may be, if not absolutely wrong, at least very in adequate and inconclusive. It was the advice of a learned judge to a man of much natural shrewdness and sagacity, when appointed to a judicial function in the colonies, to give his decisions with firmness, but to withhold the reasons on which they were grounded; for in all probability the decisions [[@Page:473]] would be right, while the reasons would be incapable of standing a close examination. We need, not wonder, therefore, if in the higher field of religious thought and inquiry—if, especially in respect to those anticipations which men are prompted to form respecting a future existence—anticipations originating in the instincts of their rational nature, and nourished by a great variety of thoughts and considerations insensibly working upon their minds, both from within and from without—when they began to reason out the matter in their own minds, they should often have rested their views on partial or erroneous grounds. This is what has actually happened, both in ancient and in modern times.[4]

If we look, for example, into the most systematic and far-famed treatise which has come down to us from heathen antiquity on this subject the Phaedo of Plato—we can scarcely help feeling some surprise at the manifest fancifulness of some of the reasons advanced for a future state of existence, and their utter inconclusiveness as a whole. It is the greatest of Grecian sages who is represented as unfolding them—Socrates;—Socrates, too, when on the very eve of his martyrdom; and his thoughts have the advantage of being developed by one of the greatest masters of reasoning, and the very greatest master of dialectical skill, of whom antiquity could boast. But what are the arguments adduced? There are altogether five. The first is the soul’s capacity and desire for knowledge, beyond what it can ever attain to in the present life: for, at present, it is encumbered on every side by the body, and obliged to spend a large portion of its time and resources in providing for bodily wants; so that it can never penetrate, as it desires, into the real nature and essence of things, and can even get very imperfectly acquainted with their phenomenal appearances. Hence the soul being made for the acquisition of knowledge, and having capacities for making indefinite progress in it, there must be a future state of being where, in happier circumstances, the end of its being in this respect shall be realized. The second argument is from the law of contraries—according to which things in nature are ever producing their opposites—rest issuing in labour, and labour again in rest—heat terminating in cold, and cold returning to heat—unity resolving itself into plurality, and plurality into unity;—and so, since life terminates in death, death must in turn come back to life; not, however, through the body which perishes, but in the soul itself that survives it. Then, thirdly, there are the soul’s reminiscences of a previous life, by which are meant the ideas which it possesses other than those it has derived from the five senses—such as of matter and space, cause and effect, truth and duty,—ideas which, it is supposed, must have been brought by the soul from a previous state of existence; and if it has already passed out of one state of existence in coming into this world, the natural supposition is, that in leaving it the soul shall again pass into another. The simple and indivisible nature of the soul is advanced as a fourth argument for immortality;—the soul in its essence is not, like bodily substances, compounded, divisible, and hence corruptible, but is itself, like the ideas it apprehends, immaterial, spiritual, incapable of change or dissolution into other elements. Then, [[@Page:474]] lastly, there is the consideration of the soul’s essential vitality, being the principle of life that animates and supports the body, and which, like the element of heat in material substances, may leave its former habitation, but must still retain its own inherent properties—must be vital still, though the body it has left necessarily falls into inertness, corruption, and death.

Such are the arguments advanced in this celebrated discourse for the soul’s immortality—every one of them, it will be observed, except the first, of a metaphysical nature; though toward the close a kind of moral application is made of them, by urging the cultivation of mental, as opposed to sensual, desires and properties. “On account of these things,” Socrates is made to say, “a man ought to be confident about his soul, who during this life has disregarded all the pleasures and ornaments of the body as foreign to his nature, and who, having thought they do more harm than good, has zealously applied himself to the acquirement of knowledge, and who, having adorned his soul, not with a foreign, but with its own proper ornament, temperance, justice, fortitude, freedom, and truth, thus waits for his passage to Hades, as one who is ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him.” The meaning is, not that the enjoyment of immortality depends upon the cultivation of such tendencies and virtues, for the reasons are all derived from the soul’s inherent nature, and if good for anything are good for every one who possesses a soul, but that, by being so exercised here, the soul becomes ready for at once entering on its better destiny; while in the case of others, a sort of purgatory has first to be gone through—processes of shame and humiliation to detach it from the grosser elements that have gained the ascendancy over it. But in regard to the arguments themselves, who would now be convinced by them? There is manifestly nothing in that derived from the law of contraries; for in how many things does it not hold? how many evils in nature appear to issue in no countervailing good? Neither is there anything in that derived from the supposed reminiscences of a former life—there being in reality no such reminiscences. And the reason found in the soul’s essential vitality is a simple begging of the question; for, apart from what has appeared of this in its connection with the body, what is known of it? What proof otherwise exists of the soul’s vitality?

Of the two remaining arguments, the one placed in the soul’s simple and indivisible nature has often been revived. Not only does it recur in Cicero, among the ancients, and in such modern metaphysical productions as those of Clarke and Cudworth; but the sagacious Bishop Butler also makes use of it in his Analogy, and puts it, perhaps, in its least objectionable form. Dr Thomas Brown even lays the chief stress on it: “The mind,” he contends, “is a substance, distinct from the bodily organ, simple, and in capable of addition or subtraction.” That is his first proposition; and his next is, “Nothing which we are capable of observing in the universe has ceased to exist since the world began.” The two together, he conceives, establish the conclusion, so far as analogy can have influence, that “the mind does not perish in the dissolution of the body.” And he adds: “In judging according to the mere light of nature, it is on the immaterialism of [[@Page:475]] the thinking principle that I consider the belief of its immortality to be most reasonably founded; since the distinct existence of a spiritual substance, if that be admitted, renders it incumbent on the asserter of the soul’s mortality to assign some reason which may have led the only Being who has the power of annihilation, to exert His power in annihilating the mind, which He is said, in that case, to have created only for a few years of life.” As if there were here no alternative between the annihilation of the substance of mind, and the destruction of its existence and identity as a living agent! The matter of the body, it is true, is not annihilated at death; the particles of which it is composed still continue to exist, but not surely as the component elements of an organized structure. In that respect the body is destroyed—as far as our present observation goes, annihilated. And why may it not be so in respect to the mind? Allow that this is an immaterial substance, and as such, essentially different from the body; yet, for aught we can tell, it might be capable of being resolved into some condition as far from a continuation of its present state, as that of the dead body is in respect to its living state. The phenomena of swoons and sleep clearly show that immateriality is no security against the suspension of thought and consciousness; and who shall be able to assure us, on merely natural considerations, that death is not a destruction of them?

In truth, no sure footing can be obtained here on metaphysical grounds. It was the error and misfortune of the ancient philosophers so far we certainly agree with Bishop Warburton[5]—that they suffered themselves to be determined by metaphysical rather than by moral arguments on the subject; for this naturally took off their minds from the considerations that have real weight, and involved them in many absurd and subtle speculations, which could not stand with the soul’s personal existence hereafter. When he excepts Socrates from the number, and accounts for his firm belief in a future state on the ground of his avoiding metaphysical and adhering only to moral studies, he certainly gives us a very different view of the reasonings of Socrates on the subject from that presented in Plato. And we are persuaded, that neither was Socrates so singular in his belief, nor the others so universal in their disbelief, of a future state, as Warburton would have us to believe. But, undoubtedly, there would have been far more of belief among them, if their reasonings had taken less of a meta physical direction, and they had looked more to those moral considerations connected with man’s nature and God’s government, on which the stay of the argument should alone be placed.

Let us now endeavour to indicate briefly the different steps of the ratiocination, which it is possible for unassisted nature, when rightly directed, to take in the way of establishing the belief of the soul’s existence after death in a state of reward or punishment.

(1.) First of all, there is an argument furnished by the analogies of nature,—an argument partly, indeed, of a simply negative character, and amounting to nothing more than that, notwithstanding the visible phenomena of death, the soul may survive and pass into another state of painful [[@Page:476]] or blessed consciousness. For, however nearly connected the soul is with the body, it still is capable of many things that argue the possibility of its maintaining a separate and independent existence. Bodily organs may be lost—even great part of the body be reduced to an inactive lump by paralysis, while the mind exists in full vigour. In dreaming, and the exercise of abstract thought, there is sometimes found the most lively exercise of mind, when its connection with the body is the slightest, and, as far as we can discern, mind alone is at work. Why may it not, then, live and act when it is altogether released from the body—especially when we see the period of its release is often the moment of its highest perfection and most active energy? Those preceding analogies render it not unreasonable to imagine, that such at least may be the case.

Besides, life here is seen to move in cycles. It proceeds from one stage to another each end proving only the starting-point of a new beginning. Man himself exists in two entirely different conditions—before and after birth; and throughout his whole course of life on earth, he is perpetually undergoing change. Other creatures have still more marked changes and progressions in their career. Thus in many insects there is first the egg, then the worm, then the chrysalis, then the fully developed insect. And there are cases (of Aphides) in which as many as six or eight generations of successive change and development pass away, before a return is made to the original type. Such things appearing in the present operations of nature, afford, indeed, no positive proof that life in man is destined to survive the body, and enter on a sphere entirely different from the present; but they are well fitted to suggest the thought—and they meet the objection, which might not unnaturally arise, when the thought was suggested, from the great diversity necessarily existing between the present and that supposed future life. For they show that it is part of the Divine plan to continue life through very different circumstances and conditions.

It is manifest, however, that such analogies in nature cannot be pressed farther than this—they simply render possible or conceivable the soul’s destination to another life, and answer objections apt to arise against it; but they contain no positive proof of the fact. Indeed, proceeding as they do upon the constitution of man’s physical nature, and what is common to him with the inferior creation, they start the objection on the other side—that if on such grounds immortality might be predicated of man, it might also be predicated of all animals alike. But there is another class of analogies, to which this objection does not apply, which bring out the essential difference between man and the inferior animals; and are not simply negative in their character, but contain something of presumptive evidence in favour of a future state, closely connected with the present. The analogies in question are those presented by the adaptations so largely pervading the Divine administration on earth, by means of which every being and every part of being is wisely fitted to its place and condition. We see this adaptation in the construction of the organs of the human body—the eye, the ear, the taste, the limbs,—all so nicely adjusted to the positions they occupy, both in respect to the human frame itself, and to the purposes they [[@Page:477]] have to serve in connection with the material objects around them. We see it in the masticating and digestive apparatus, with which the various kinds of animals are furnished—one after one fashion, another after another, but each most appropriately suited to the nature and habits of the specific animal, and the kind of aliment required for its support. We see it even in the general condition of the inferior creation, which is so ordered in the great majority of instances, that each living creature gets the measure of good of which it is capable, and with which it is satisfied. And then there are prospective contrivances in connection with all animal natures,—contrivances formed at one stage of their existence, and preparing them for entering upon and enjoying another still before them—such as the eyes that are already fashioned in the foetus, and the second row of teeth that lie for a time buried in the mouth of the child, and spring up only when they are required.

Now, when we turn to man with his large capacities and lofty aspirations,—growing and rising as he proceeds through life, but still capable of indefinite expansion, and conscious of desires that can find no satisfaction here, does it not impress itself on our minds, that there would be something anomalous—at variance with the analogies everywhere appearing around us—if man, so formed and constituted, should terminate his existence on earth? He would, in that case, be the only creature that might seem out of place in the world, and that always the more, the higher he rose in the scale of intelligence and purity: in him alone there would be powers implanted, which seemed to fail of their proper end and object. “A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass: in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of His infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries? Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can He delight in such abortive intelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings? How can we find that wisdom, which shines through all His works in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick succession, are only to receive the rudiments of their existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may flourish to all eternity?”[6]

[[@Page:478]] This argument might be presented as one merely arising out of the general law of adaptation, and is so presented by Dr Chalmers in his Institutes. But it is the analogies connected with that law which give it all its power to awaken any presumption in favour of a future state of being for man, as separate and distinct from the inferior creation; for the presumption arises on the contemplation of the apparent discrepancy between man’s present condition and his present capacities, viewed in the light of analogous arrangements in providence. It properly belongs, therefore, to the argument from analogy, and shows how that argument is capable also of assuming a positive form. It bears, too, quite appositely on the real state of the question,—which is not, as Bishop Butler and most others in his day seemed to think, whether the soul is naturally and essentially immortal; but whether we are warranted to conclude it to be the will and design of God, as indicated in our own natures and His government of the world, that it should have a prolonged existence in a future state, different from, yet closely connected with, the present.

(2.) A second and still stronger ground for the general belief in such a state is furnished by the actings of conscience. For it belongs to this faculty to pronounce authoritatively on what men should and should not do, and to record in the secret chambers of the breast sentences of approval or condemnation, according as the things done are perceived to have been right or wrong. But there is always a felt incompleteness about these judgments of the moral faculty, viewed simply by themselves; and they rather indicate, that the things so judged are fit subjects of reward and punishment, than that they have thereby received what is properly due. In short, the authority of conscience, by its very nature, stands related to a higher authority, whose will it recognises, whose verdict it anticipates. And, as Bishop Butler justly remarks concerning it in his sermons, “if not forcibly stopt, it naturally and always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sentence which shall hereafter second and affirm its own.”

It is from the powerful sway that conscience has in awakening such anticipations, and its tendency to connect its own awards with those of a righteous lawgiver, that we are to account for the predominantly fearful and gloomy character of men’s native thoughts respecting a future state. There is much in their natural condition to dispose them, when looking forward to another region of existence, to clothe the prospect in the most agreeable and fascinating colours, that they might find in it an effectual counterbalance to the manifold troubles of life, and a support amid the approaching agonies of death. But the reverse is so much the case, that it is the apprehension, rather than the expectation, of a future state, which the belief of immortality most commonly awakens. And the vividness with [[@Page:479]] which the mind of heathen antiquity pictured to itself the punishments of Tartarus, appear strangely contrasted with the dim and ghost-like pleasures of Elysium. A ready explanation of this peculiarity presents itself in uncommon operations of conscience, in which the notes of condemnation, if not more frequent, are at least greatly more distinct and impressive, than those of satisfaction; and hence, as in glancing upwards, its sense of guilt naturally awoke the idea of an offended deity, requiring to be appeased by the blood of sacrifice, so in pointing forward, its sentences of reproof not less naturally cast ominous shadows before them, and threw a sombre and forbidding aspect over the coming eternity.

The convictions thus produced in men’s minds respecting a future world by the natural workings of conscience, it is plain, involve the recognition of a moral government of the world, and one that is accompanied with sanctions which are destined to take effect in a state of being after the present. It is, if we may so speak, on the background of such a government with such sanctions, that conscience raises in the bosom its forebodings of a judgment to come.—Nor, indeed, on any other ground could it beget either fear or hope for the future.

(3.) But closely connected with this, and strongly corroborative of the argument it affords for a coming existence after the present, is the evidence that appears of a moral government in the actual course of things—a government accompanied by present sanctions. And this we announce as a third, and, upon the whole, the most tangible and convincing, reason for the anticipation of a future state of retribution. But here it will be necessary to go into some detail, as it is in connection with this part of the argument that divines in this country have most commonly erred, and, by a strange inversion, have sought for proof of a future state of retribution rather in the inequalities of the Divine government, or its apparent want of moral rectitude and present sanctions, than in what it possesses of these. Thus, it is mentioned by Jeremy Taylor, in his sermon on the death of Sir George Dalston, as one of the things “which God has competently taught to all mankind, that the soul of man does not die; that though things may be ill here, yet to the good, who usually feel most of the evils of this life, they should end in honour and advantages. When virtue,” he adds, “made man poor, and free speaking of brave truths made the wise to lose their liberty: when an excellent life hastened an opprobrious death, and the obeying reason and our conscience lost us our lives, or at least all the means and conditions of enjoying them, it was but time to look about for another state of things, where justice should rule, and virtue find her own portion.” The want of justice here, and virtue’s bereavement of her proper reward, is thus represented as the main reason and impelling motive for anticipating a better state of things hereafter. And a long array of similar representations might be produced from the works of English moralists and theologians.

But we would rather point to the manifestation of this error—the error of overlooking the connection between a present and a future recompense—as exhibited in a more doctrinal form, and with a more direct injustice [[@Page:480]] to the character of Scripture, by those who have treated of the religious tenets and prospects of the Jews. Not unfrequently do we find the one presented as the antithesis of the other—as if the expectation of a future recompense could only begin to take effect when the other began to give way. This is done in the coarsest manner by Spencer, in his work, De Leg. Hebraeorum (L. I., c. vi.), where it is alleged the ancient Israelites were so gross and sensual, so addicted to the flesh and the world, as to be incapable of being moved by anything but present rewards and punishments;—and which is but another modification of the same view—since idol-worship owed its influence chiefly to the expectations of present good or ill, which its imaginary deities were supposed to have at their command, so the tendency to idolatry among the Israelites required to be met by temporal threatenings and promises. As if God were willing by any sort of means to attach men to His service, and were content to fight idolatry with its own weapons, provided only He could induce His people to render Him a formal and mercenary homage! The view of Warburton, as usual, differs only in a slight degree from Spencer’s. It proceeds on the idea, that down to the later periods of the Jewish commonwealth, everything was administered by what he calls an extraordinary providence of present rewards and punishments, which supplied the place of the yet undiscovered and altogether unknown future world; and that in proportion as the extraordinary providence broke down, the belief of a future state of reward and punishment rose in its stead. Dean Graves, in his work on the Pentateuch, follows much in the same track, although he would not so absolutely exclude the belief of a future world from the remoter generations of God’s people. Among the secondary reasons which he assigns for the employment of merely temporal sanctions. To the law, he mentions “the intellectual and moral character of the Jewish nation, which was totally incapable of that pure and rational faith in the sanctions of a future state, without which these sanctions cannot effectually promote the interests of piety and virtue. Their desires and ideas being confined to the enjoyments of a present world, they would pay little attention to the promises of a future retribution, which they could never be sure of being fulfilled.”—(Works, ii., p. 222.) No doubt, if their desires and ideas were, and must have been, confined to a present world;—but why such a necessity? Would it not have been the most likely way to give their desires and ideas a loftier direction, to lay open to their view something of the good and evil to be inherited in the world to come? And if it had consisted with the Divine plan to impart this, is it to be imagined that the Israelites, who were so immeasurably superior to all the nations of antiquity in the knowledge of Divine truth, should on this point alone have been incapable of entertaining ideas which the very rudest of these were found in some measure to possess?

But not to spend farther time in the disproof of a notion so manifestly weak and untenable, we must refer more particularly to what Dean Graves, in common with many British divines, regards as the great reason for the silence observed by Moses in respect to a future state. “I contend,” [[@Page:481]] he says (Works, ii., p. 208), “that the reality of an extraordinary providence (i.e., an administration of present rewards and punishments) being established by unquestioned authority, and by the general nature of the Mosaic code, we can thence satisfactorily account for the omission of a future sanction, and that this is the only way in which it can be accounted for.” That is, the presentadministration of rewards and punishments is the only way of accounting for the omission of future rewards and punishments! This might have been said with some degree of truth, if it had been meant, that through the present the future might be descried; but not in the sense understood by Dr Graves, as if the one had been to some extent incompatible with the other. The truth and reality of the temporal sanction should rather have been viewed as the necessary foundation and undoubted evidence of a future retribution. On this point Hengstenberg forcibly remarks, “Where this foundation—that, namely, of a moral government on earth, a temporal recompense—is not laid, there the building of a faith in immortality is raised on sand, and must fall before the first blast. He who does not recognise the temporal recompense, must necessarily find in his heart a response to the scoff of Vanini at the revelation, ‛which, indeed, promises retributions for good and bad actions, but only in the life to come, lest the fraud should be discovered.’ There is to be found in Barth on Claudian, p. 1078 sq., a rich collection from heathen authors, in which despair as to a future recompense is raised on the ground of unbelief as to a present one. And does not the history of our own age render it clear and palpable, how closely the two must hang together? The doubt was first directed against the temporal recompense; and it seemed as if the belief of immortality was going to rise, in consequence of this very misapprehension, to a higher significance and greater stability. Supra-naturalistic theologians themselves, such as Knapp and Steudel, derived one of their leading proofs of a future retribution from deficiencies of the present one. But the realconsequence was not long in discovering itself. The doctrine of reward, driven from the lower region, could not long maintain its ground in the higher. It became manifest that the hope of immortality had fed itself with its own heart’s blood. ‛If ye enjoy not such a recompense on earth,’ says Richter justly, according to the conceptions of the age, ‛God is by no means truly righteous, and you find yourselves in opposition to your own doctrine.’ Where the sentiment that the world’s history is a world’s judgment, is first of all heartily received in the true, the scriptural sense, there the advance becomes certain and inevitable to faith in the (final) judgment of the world.”—(Pent., ii., p. 573.)

Earlier and more appalling illustrations than those referred to in this extract, might have been produced of the certainty with which disbelief in a present, tends to beget disbelief also in a future recompense. In those great and sweeping calamities, in which all distinctions seem to be lost between the good and the bad, all alike standing in jeopardy of life, or ruthlessly mowed down by the destroyer, it is seldom long till a general relaxation of principle, and even total regardlessness of future consequences, [[@Page:482]] comes to prevail. It seems at such times as if the very foundations of religion and virtue were destroyed, and nothing remained but a selfish and convulsive struggle for the interests of the moment: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” This is the right reading of the account given by Thucydides of the plague at Athens, formerly adverted to, in which the historian tells us, “Men were restrained neither by fear of the gods, nor by human law; deeming it all one whether they paid religious worship or not, since they saw that all perished alike, and not expecting they should live till judgment should be passed on their offences here.” Similar visitations in later times have always been observed to produce similar effects, excepting where religious principle has been so deeply rooted and so generally diffused, as to triumph over present appearances. During the plague of Milan in 1630, deeds of savage cruelty and wholesale plunder were committed that would never have been thought of in ordinary times. Even in London during the great plague in 1665, while there were not wanting proofs of sincere devotion and living principle, there was also a terrific display of the worst passions of human nature. And of times of pestilence generally, Niebuhr says in one of his letters, “They are always those in which the animal and the devilish in human nature assume prominence.” The lurid light reflected from such apparent temporary suspensions of God’s moral government, abundantly shows what results might be anticipated, if its ordinary sanctions did not exist, and the present recompenses of good and evil were withdrawn. It would no longer be the utterance merely of the fool, but the general sentiment of mankind, that there is no God—none judging in the earth now, and therefore none to judge in eternity hereafter. For, as Hengstenberg remarks again, “what God does not do here, neither will He do hereafter. If He is indeed the living and the righteous God, He cannot merely send forth letters of credit for blessing, nor terrify with simple threatenings of future evil.”[7]

The ground on which we here rest the natural expectation of a future state of reward and punishment, is precisely that which has been so solidly laid by Bishop Butler in the second and third chapters of his Analogy; and it may well excite our wonder, that especially English divines, who must be well acquainted with the train of thought there pursued, should suppose an extraordinary providence, or an exact distribution of reward and punishment [[@Page:483]] on earth, to militate against either the revelation or the belief of a future state. It is simply the want, the apparent or real want, of exactness in these temporal distributions in the usual course of providence, which mars the completeness of Butler’s argument. Yet, as things actually stand, he does not hesitate to draw from the present aspect and constitution of providence the following conclusions: First, That the Author of nature is not indifferent to virtue and vice; secondly, that if God should reward virtue and punish vice, as such, so that every one may upon the whole have his deserts, this distributive justice would not be a thing different in kind, but only in degree, from what we experience in His present government. It would be that in effect, toward which we now see a tendency. It would be no more than the completion of that moral government, the principles and beginning of which have been shown, beyond all dispute, discernible in the present constitution and course of nature. And from hence it follows, thirdly, that as under the natural government of God, our experience of those kinds and degrees of happiness and misery which we do experience at present, gives just ground to hope for and to fear higher degrees and other kinds of both in a future state, supposing a future state admitted; so, under His moral government, our experience that virtue and vice are actually rewarded and punished at present, in a certain degree, gives just ground to hope and to fear, that they may be rewarded and punished in a higher degree hereafter. And there is ground to think that they actually will be so, from the good and bad tendencies of virtue and vice, which are essential, and founded in the nature of things; whereas the hindrances to their becoming effect are, in numberless cases, not necessary, but artificial only. And it is much more likely that these tendencies, as well as the actual rewards and punishments of virtue and vice, which arise directly out of the nature of things, will remain hereafter, than that the accidental hindrances of them will.

The solid foundation which these considerations lay for the expectation of a future state of reward and punishment, and which, growing out of the observation of what is constantly taking place here, must be felt in thousands of bosoms that never thought of turning it into the form of an argument, is entirely overlooked by Archbishop Whately in the essay formerly referred to. He does not, indeed, like Warburton and Graves, place the temporal rewards and punishments in direct antagonism to the disclosure of a future state; but neither does he make any account of the one as constituting a proper ground for the expectation of the other, and forming a kind of natural stepping-stone to it. His line of argument rather implies that it would have the reverse tendency, and that the Jews were only prepared to receive the doctrine of immortality when their present temporal blessings ceased (§ 10). He deems it absolutely incredible that the Israelites, as a people, should have looked for an after state of being, seeing that their attention was so very rarely, if at all, directed to such a state, and seeing also that they so seldom believed what was of much easier credence—the temporal promises and threatenings held out to them. The presumption against it he thinks greatly strengthened by the difficulty still experienced in getting people to realize the prospect of a future world, notwithstanding [[@Page:484]] the comparative clearness and frequency with which it is pressed on their notice in the Gospel. In this, however, two things are evidently confounded together—the speculative knowledge or notional belief, and the practical faith of a future state of happiness and misery. For, on the same ground that Dr Whately denies the hope of immortality to those who lived under the Jewish dispensation, he might hold it to be very doubtfully or darkly propounded to believers now. Besides, he is obliged after all to admit, that somehow the doctrine and belief of a future state did become prevalent among the Jews long before the revelations of the Gospel,—an admission which is totally subversive of his main positions; for, beyond all dispute, this prevalent belief arose without the doctrine being frequently and directly inculcated in any book of authoritative Scripture. It is fatal, also, to the argument from 2 Tim. 1:10, “Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” For, if the knowledge of a future state existed at all before Christ, this could not have been brought to light by Him, as a thing till then wrapt in utter darkness and obscurity. Nor does the statement of the Apostle imply so much. It merely declares, that by means of Christ’s Gospel a clear light has been shed on the concerns of a future life; they have been brought distinctly into view, and set in the foreground of His spiritual kingdom. And we have no more reason to maintain, from such a declaration, that all was absolute darkness before, than to argue from Christ being called “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9), that a total ignorance reigned before His coming in regard to the things of God’s kingdom.

In truth, it is no more the specific object of the Christian, than it was of the earlier dispensations, to disclose and formally establish the doctrine of a future state. They both alike take it for granted, and have it for their immediate aim to prepare men for entering on its realities. Only, in the dispensation of the Gospel, as there the adequate provision for eternity is made, and the way laid open into its abiding mansions, a light shines upon its momentous interests, which, from the nature of things, could not be imparted previously, without confounding shadow and substance together, and merging the preparatory in the final. But still the existence of a future state of reward and punishment was implied from the very first in the history of the Divine dispensations, and is not doubtfully indicated in many of the earlier notices of Scripture, as among the settled beliefs of God’s people. It was implied even in the first institution of a religion of mercy and hope for fallen man; since, connecting with God’s worship the prospect of a recovery from the ruin of sin, it would have only mocked the worshippers with false expectations, unless an immortal state of blessedness had been the issue it contemplated for such as faithfully complied with the appointed services. It was implied in the special dealings of God with His more honoured servants,—such as Abel and Enoch before the flood, and after it Abraham and the patriarchs,—whose history, in many of its bearings, is an inexplicable riddle, if viewed apart from the hope of better things to come in their future destiny. It is implied again, as an object of well-grounded [[@Page:485]] faith and expectation, to such persons and their spiritual seed, in the relation which God acknowledged Himself to hold towards them, as their and their Father—titles that manifestly bespoke for them an abiding interest in his eternal power and Godhead.—(Gen. 6:2; Ex. 3:6, 4:22; Matt. 22:32; Heb. 11:16) Could such special dealings and revelations have been made to the ancestors of the Jewish race without awakening a response in the bosoms of those that received them? Could they have failed to stimulate and call forth that instinctive belief in a future state, which even common providences were sufficient to evoke in all other nations of the earth? The idea is utterly incredible: and scanty as the notices are which are given us of their feelings and prospects (for a supernatural restraint was laid upon the sacred penmen in this respect), they yet tell us of a hope in death which was enjoyed by the good,—a hope which it was the highest wish of Balaam in his better moods to possess as his own last heritage the hope of being gathered, in the first instance, to their fathers in the peaceful chambers of Sheol, and of ultimately attaining to a better resurrection.—(Gen. 25:8, 49:33; Num. 23:10; Heb. 11:13, 35)

These views respecting the earlier dispensations, as connected with the doctrine and belief of a future state, are strongly confirmed by the argument maintained in the Epistle to the Romans, and that to the Hebrews. The professed object of these Epistles is to prove the necessity of the Christian religion, and its superiority over even the true, though imperfect, forms of religion that existed before it. And if there had been such an utter lack of any just ground for the expectation of a future state in the Old Testament dispensations, as is supposed by those we are now contending against, the chief stress would naturally have been laid upon the great omission in this respect which had been supplied by the Gospel. But is it so in reality? So far from it, that the reverse is frequently stated, and uniformly assumed. Ancient as well as present believers looked and hoped for a better existence after this. The main discussion in both epistles turns on man’s relation to the law of God, and (to use the words of Coleridge, “Aids to Reflection,” vol. i., p. 293), “to the point, of which this law, in its own name, offered no solution—the mystery which it left behind the veil, or in the cloudy tabernacle of types and figurative sacrifices. It was not whether there was a judgment to come, and souls to suffer the dread sentence; but rather, what are the means of escape? where may grace be found, and redemption? Not, therefore, that there is a life to come, and a future state; but what each individual soul may hope for itself therein; and on what grounds: and that this state has been rendered an object of aspiration and fervent desire, and a source of thanksgiving and exceeding great joy; and by whom, and through whom, and for whom, and by what means, and under what conditions these are the peculiar and distinguishing fundamentals of the Christian faith. These are the revealed lights and obtained privileges of the Christian dispensation. Not alone the knowledge of the boon, but the precious inestimable boon itself, is the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ.”

To return, however, to our main theme: We hold it to be a great and [[@Page:486]] unhappy oversight that has been committed by many, who, in ignoring the connection between a present and a future recompense, have thereby left out of view the very strongest of nature’s grounds for anticipating an hereafter of weal or woe. But it is quite possible to err on the one side as well as on the other. “There is no error so crooked, as not to have in it some lines of truth.” And it seems to us, that Hengstenberg, in the treatise already quoted from, has, to some extent, overlooked the lines of truth which are in the error he controverts. It is quite true, as he has correctly and vigorously stated, that the temporal is the necessary basis of the future recompense; and that it is from what God does here men are to argue, and in fact do argue and infer, regarding what He will do hereafter. It is also true, as farther stated by him, that a clear knowledge of the breadth and purity of God’s law, and of the various spiritual ends God aims at in His dealings with men on earth, are sufficient to explain many seeming irregularities in His outward providence; as it discovers enough of imperfection in the righteousness of the good to account for their liability to sufferings, and enough of evil in the prosperity of the bad to render their condition destitute of real blessing. All this is admitted, and yet one cannot but feel that there is something which is left unexplained by it, or not thoroughly met. The assertion of a perfect administration of right holds in the full sense, only when eternity is added to time: that is, when the point now under consideration is virtually taken for granted. Looking simply to a present world, it is impossible to maintain that the administration is perfect; the more impossible, the clearer and more spiritual our views are of the law of righteousness. For how, then, could the doers of righteousness be found to suffer, as is sometimes the case, for their good deeds? or how could prosperity of any kind be accorded to the enemies of righteousness? True, their prosperity may prove in the long run their punishment, but only in respect to its bearing on the issues of a coming eternity; and even then only as abused on their part, not as given on the part of God. In themselves, His gifts are all good; and the commonest bounties of providence, if conferred on the unworthy, mark a relative imperfection, at least, in the administration of justice on earth. Without some measure even of real imperfection, where would there be room for the cry of an oppressed Church, “Lord, how long?” Or where again the necessity for the righteous looking so much away from the present world, and fixing their expectations on what is to come? In truth, a certain degree of imperfection here is as much to be expected, and, in a sense also, as necessary, as in all the preparatory dispensations of God. For it is the feeling of imperfection within definite limits, which more especially prompts the soul to look and long for a more perfect future.

To bring the discussion to a close: It is indispensably necessary, in order to ground the conviction and belief of a future state of reward and punishment, that there should be in the present course of the Divine administration palpable and undoubted evidences of a moral government of the world. And in furnishing these in such manifold variety, and with such singular clearness, consisted the peculiar service rendered by the Mosaic dispensation [[@Page:487]] to the doctrine of a future state. But enough being seen in the providence of God to establish this doctrine in the convictions of men, the appearance, along with that, of anomalies and imperfections, must naturally tend to confirm its hold on serious minds, and foster the expectation of its future realities; as they cannot but feel convinced, that a righteousness which gives such indubitable marks of its stringent operation, shall sometime remove every defect, and perfect its work. They deem it certain, that under the government of a God to whom such righteousness belongs, the apparent must at length be adjusted to the real state of things, and that all instances of prosperous villany and injured worth must be brought to an end. “There is much, therefore,” to use the words of Dr Chalmers, “in the state of our present world, when its phenomena are fully read and rightly interpreted, to warrant the expectation, that a time for the final separation of all those grievous unfitnesses and irregularities is yet coming—when the good and the evil shall be separated into two distinct societies, and the same God, who, in virtue of His justice, shall appear to the one in the character of an avenger, shall, in virtue of His love, stand forth to the other as the kind and munificent Father of a duteous offspring, shielded by His paternal care from all that can offend or annoy in mansions of unspotted holiness.”[8] Were it not, he justly adds, for the element of justice visible in God’s administration, we should have no stepping-stone to arrive at this conclusion. And yet the partial defects and imperfections apparent in its present exercise have their share in contributing to the result; as they materially tend, when once the conclusion itself is established in the mind, to nourish the expectation of another and more perfect state to come.

FOOTNOTE

[1] See Warburton’s Div. Leg., B. III. § 1, for the proof of this; and Russell’s Connection, vol. i., p. 308, seq.

[2] Div. Leg., B. III., § 2.

[3] Characteristics, vol. iii., p. 177.

[4] Plato’s Repub., B. L, § 5.

[5] Div. Leg., B. III., § 4.

[6] Addison, in Spectator, Brit. Essayists, vi., No. 111. The essay is a fine specimen of that delicate sensibility and admirably-balanced judgment, which enabled Addison often to seize on thoughts that had escaped profound thinkers. He introduces the argument merely as a “hint that he had not seen opened and improved by others who had written on the subject,” and as something subsidiary to the reasons derived from the essence and immateriality of the soul, which were then chiefly pressed. Bishop Butler contents himself with those current reasons, and has in consequence left his chapter on a future life the most imperfect and unsatisfactory of his whole book.

[7] How strongly the more thinking portion of heathen antiquity clung to the doctrine of a retributive providence as the abiding ground of hope amid appearances fitted to shake it, may be seen alone from the train of argument pursued by Juvenal in his 13th Book, where, treating of the prosperities of bad men, he finds consolation in the thought, that they suffer from the inflictions of an evil conscience, itself the heaviest of punishments; that hence, things naturally pleasant and agreeable, such as delicious food and wines, fail to give them satisfaction; that their sleep is disturbed; that they are frightened with thunder and disease, seeing in such things the signs of an offended deity; and that they go on to worse stages of iniquity, till they are overwhelmed with punishment; and concludes, that if these things are considered, —Poena guadebis amara Numinis iuvisi tandemque fatebere ketus. Nee surdum, nee Tiresiam quemquam esse Deorum.

[8] Institutes, vol. i., p. 131.

Appendix D.—Does The Original Relation of The Seed of Abraham to The Land of Canaan afford any Ground for Expecting their Final Return to it?—P. 405.

THIS question very naturally suggests itself in connection with the subject discussed in the text, although, from its involving matter of controversy, we deemed it better not to enter upon it there. The view presented, however, of the relations of the covenant people, as connected with the occupation of Canaan, leads naturally to the conclusion, that their peculiar connection [[@Page:493]] with that territory has ceased with the other temporary expedients and shadows to which it belonged. The people had certain ends of an immediate kind to fulfil, by means of their residence in the land—being placed there as representatives and bearers of the covenant, more fully to exhibit its character and tendencies, and to operate with more effect upon the nations around. But while intended to serve this present purpose, their possession of the land was also designed to be to the eye of faith an car and a pledge of the final occupation of a redeemed and glorified earth by Christ, and His elect seed of blessing. This is the proper antitype to the possession of the inheritance by the natural seed, in so far as that could justly be accounted typical.

One can easily perceive, therefore, that the representation entirely fails in its foundation, which is often made by recent writers on unfulfilled prophecy, viz., that the original possession of the land of Canaan by the seed of Jacob, was “only a token and earnest of a more glorious occupation of the land hereafter to be enjoyed by them.” It is contrary to the nature of prophecies of this sort, as determined by the history of previous fulfilments, to make an event foreshadow itself—to make one occupation of the land of Canaan the type of another and future occupation of it. As well might it be alleged, that the natural Israel having eaten manna in the desert, was a type of their having to eat it again, or that their former killing of the passover-lamb foreshadowed their doing so hereafter in some new style, as that their ancient occupation of the land of Canaan typified a future and better possession of it.

It is possible enough, however, that what we have put here in the form of extravagant suppositions, will be readily embraced by many, who believe in the future restoration of Israel to Canaan. An entire reproduction of the old is now contended for, as necessary to establish the literal truthfulness of Scripture. And among other things to be expected, we are told, in connection with the return of Israel to Canaan, is the building anew, and on a style of higher magnificence, of the material temple, the resuscitation of the Levitical priesthood, and the re-institution of the fleshly sacrifices and pompous ceremonial of the ancient worship. To hold this, indeed, is only to follow to its legitimate results the idea, that the former possession of Canaan was typical of another; since, if that earlier possession gave promise of a later one, the establishment of the religious economy connected with it must have foreshadowed its future restoration. But the notion, in this form of it, stands in direct antithesis to the whole genius of the New Testament dispensation, and to some of the most explicit statements also of New Testament Scripture. If anything be plain in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is, that everything there assumes a spiritual character and a universal aspect, as contradistinguished from the local and fleshly. Foreseeing this, the prophet Malachi had said, that in the coming age, “incense and a pure offering should in everyplace be offered to the Lord;” and our Lord Himself announced to the woman of Samaria the approaching abolition of all local distinctions: “The hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father;” that is, shall not regard [[@Page:494]] worship rendered in these places as more sacred or more acceptable than worship paid elsewhere. The law, with all its limitations of time and place, its bodily lustrations and prescribed services, was for the nonage of the Church, and in form falls away, remains only in spirit, when the Church reaches her maturity. Such, unquestionably, is the argument of the Apostle in his Epistle to the Galatians; and it would surely be to run counter to all sense and reason, if, when the furthest extreme from the nonage condition is attained, the nonage food and discipline should return. As well might one expect to hear of angels being put into leading-strings! Nay, it is expressly declared, that the abolition of the outward forms and services of Judaism was on account of its “weakness and unprofitableness” (Heb. 7:18); and that the law, which ordained such things, was of necessity changed or disannulled with the introduction of a new priesthood made after the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7:12). And hence those who, in the apostolic age, insisted on the continued observance of the now antiquated rites of Judaism, were expostulated with by the Apostle as virtually making void the work of Christ, and acting as if the Church stood at where it was before He came into the world (Gal. 5:2-4; Col. 2:14-23).

Where such scriptural testimonies, so plain in their terms, and so conclusive in their import, have failed to produce conviction, it would be vain to expect anything from human argumentation. It may be proper, however, to present briefly, and more formally than has yet been done, what we deem the proper view of Israel’s typical relations, with respect more immediately to the subject now under consideration. The natural Israel, then, as God’s chosen people from among the peoples of the earth, were types of the elect seed, the spiritual and royal priesthood, whom Christ was to choose out of the world, and redeem for His everlasting kingdom. When this latter purpose began to be carried into effect, the former, as a matter of course, began to give way—precisely as the shedding of Christ’s blood upon the cross antiquated the whole sacrificial system of Moses. Hence, to indicate that the type, in this respect, has passed into the antitype, believers in Christ, of Gentile as well as of Jewish origin, are called Abraham’s seed (Gal. 3:29); Israelites (ch. [[6:16 >> Bible:Ga 6:16]] ; Eph. 2:12, 19); comers unto Mount Zion (Heb. 12:22); citizens of the free or heavenly Jerusalem (ib.; Gal. 4:26); the circumcision (Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11); and in the Apocalypse, which is written throughout in the language of symbol and type, they are even called Jews (ch. [[2:9 >> Bible:Re 2:9]] ); while the sealed company, in ch. [[7 >> Bible:Re 7:1-17]] , who undoubtedly represent the whole multitude of the redeemed, are identified with the sealed of the twelve tribes of Israel. Further, this spiritual Israel of the New Testament are expressly declared to be “heirs according to the promise”—(Gal. 3:29) the promise, namely, given to Abraham; for it is as Abraham’s seed that they are designated heirs; and, of course, the possession of which they are heirs can be no other than that given by promise to Abraham. But then, as the antitypical things have now entered, not the old narrow and transitory inheritance is to be thought of, but that which it typically represented—”the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away,” which now as an object of hope takes its place. [[@Page:495]] Accordingly, when the higher things of the Gospel are fairly introduced, it is to this nobler inheritance, as alone remaining, that the desires and expectations of the heirs of salvation are pointed. The Apostles never allude to any other, when handling the case either of believing Jews or converted Gentiles; and when that inheritance of endless blessing and glory,—the in heritance, as we believe it to be, of this earth itself in a state of heavenly perfection,—when this shall become the possession of a redeemed and glorified Church, then shall the promise contained in the Old Testament type be fully realized.

But may not something specially belonging to Israel be included in the antitype? Something to distinguish the natural line of believers from those who belong to the seed only by spiritual ties? So, sometimes, it is argued, as in Israel Restored, p. 193: “Do they tell us the literal Israel was a type of the spiritual? We instantly grant it. Do they tell us again, that therefore there is a spiritual fulfilment of the covenant to believers? We grant it also. But all this, we say, is nothing to the point. You must go farther. What you need to prove is, that Israel of old, whose descendants still exist, was so a type of the spiritual Israel, that they were finally to merge, and be lost in them whom they typified.” There is no need for any such proof: the point in question is implied in the very fact of their being types; for, as such, they of necessity merged and became lost in the antitype. Was not the Paschal Lamb merged and lost in Christ? And the veil of the temple in Christ’s body? And David in the Son of Mary? Every type must, as a matter of necessity, share the same fate; and if anything peculiar is reserved for the land or people, who served a typical purpose, it must be on some other account than this that it shall belong to them.

More commonly, however, the stress of the argument, as connected with the original position of the Israelites, is laid upon the terms of the covenant with Abraham, in which Canaan is spoken of as their sure and abiding possession. So, among many others, Kurtz (Geschichte des Alien Bundes, p. 128), who says, “In the renewed promise (Gen. 17:8), the possession of the land is called an everlasting possession, as the covenant is also called an everlasting covenant.—(vers. [[7 >> Bible:Ge 17:7]] , [[13 >> Bible:Ge 7:13]] ) That the covenant should be called an everlasting one cannot appear strange, as it is a covenant that must reach its end. If the fruit of the covenant is of a permanent kind, such also must be the covenant itself, of which it is the fulfilment. The promise of an everlasting possession of the land had respect primarily to the pilgrim-condition of Abraham, which was such as not to admit of his possessing a single foot-breadth in it as his own. But the land of promise is the inheritance and possession of his seed, and remains so for ever, though Israel may have been exiled from the land, and whether the exile may have lasted seventy or two thousand years.” True, no doubt, if the relative position of things continues substantially the same during the longer, as during the shorter period of exile; but not, surely, if they have undergone an essential change. The seed of Abraham has become unspeakably ennobled in Christ, and it is but natural to infer that the inheritance [[@Page:496]] also should be correspondingly ennobled. The peculiar distinction of Canaan, and that which most of all rendered it an inheritance of blessing, was its being. God’s land. And if in Christ the whole earth becomes in the same sense the Lord’s, that Canaan was of old claimed to be His, then the promise will embrace the earth; nor will it be, in such a case, as if Canaan were lost to any portion of the seed, but rather as if Canaan were indefinitely widened and enlarged to receive them. In like manner, believers have the promise, that they shall worship God in His heavenly temple; and yet, when the heavenly appears to John in its glory, he sees no temple in it. Does the promise therefore fail? On the contrary, it is in the highest sense fulfilled. The no-temple simply means, that all has become temple, alike sacred and glorious; just as we may say, the no-Canaan in Christ has become all-Canaan. The inheritance is not lost; it has only ceased to become a part, and extends as far and wide as Christ’s peculiar possession reaches.—(Ps. 2) Here, however, we tread on the confines of prophecy, a field on which at present we do not mean to enter. We simply add, in confirmation of what has now been advanced regarding the Abrahamic covenant, that as the covenant is called everlasting, and the land also an everlasting possession, so circumcision is called everlasting: “My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.”—([[ver. 13 >> Bible:Ge 17:13]] ) But we know for certain, that this was not intended to be in the strict sense perpetual. Baptism has virtually taken the place of circumcision; and circumcision should have been dropped when Christ appeared. It is the sin of the Jews to continue it, and it cannot now be to them the pledge of blessing. (See “Prophecy in its Distinctive Nature,” etc., Part ii., ch. ii., where the subject is discussed at some length.)

Appendix C.—On Sacrificial Worship.—P. 299.

THE great, and, we may say, fundamental mistake in the sounder portion of English theologians, who have written upon primitive sacrifice, has been their holding the necessity of a Divine command to prove the existence of a Divine origin. They have conceived that the absence of such a command would inevitably imply the want of such an origin. And hence the whole strength of the argument, as it has been usually conducted, is directed to show, that though no command is actually recorded, yet the facts of the case prove it to have been issued. As a specimen of this style of reasoning, we take the following from Delany:—”Nothing but God’s command could create a right to take away the lives of His creatures. And it is certain that the destruction of an innocent creature is not in itself an action acceptable [[@Page:488]] to God; and therefore nothing but duty could make it acceptable, and nothing but the command of God could make it dutiful.”—(Revelation examined with Candour, vol. i., p. 136.) And so generally. Uncommanded sacrifice, it has been presumed, would necessarily have been unwarranted and unacceptable; and therefore the right to kill animals for clothing, but still more the duty of sacrificing their lives in worship, has appeared conclusively to argue the prior existence of a Divine command to use them in acts of worship.

The opponents of this view, on the other hand, have maintained, and, we think, have maintained successfully, that if such a command, expressly and positively enjoining the sacrifice of animal life in worship, had actually been given, it is unaccountable that it should not have been recorded; since, to drop it from the record, if so certainly given, and so essentially necessary, as is alleged on the other side, was like leaving out the foundation of the whole edifice of primitive worship. The only warrantable conclusion we can be entitled to draw from the silence of Scripture in such a case, is, that no command of the kind was really given. So with some reason it is alleged; but when the persons who argue and conclude thus, proceed, as they invariably do, to the farther conclusion, that since there was no command, there was nothing properly Divine in the offerings of sacrificial worship, they unduly contract the boundaries of the Divine in human things, and betray, besides, an entire misapprehension of the nature of the first dispensation of God toward fallen man. This, as we have said, is distinguished by the absence of command in everything; throughout, it exhibits nothing of law in the strict and proper sense; and yet it would surely be a piece of extravagance to maintain that there were not, in the procedure of God, and in the relation man was appointed to hold toward Him, the essential grounds and materials of Divine obligation. How readily these were discovered in the Divine operations, where still there was no Divine command, may be inferred from what is written of the formation of Eve: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman (Isha), because she was taken out of man (Ish).” He had come to know the manner of her formation; the Divine act had been disclosed to him, as it had, doubtless, been in all others in which he was personally interested, because in the act there was contained a revelation of God, involving responsibilities and duties for His creatures. “Therefore,” it is added, by way of inference from the act of God, and an inference, if not drawn on the spot by Adam, yet undoubtedly expressing the mind of God, as to what might even then have been drawn, and what actually was drawn, by the better portion of his immediate descendants, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The act of God alone, without any accompanying command, laid the foundation for all coming time of the conjugal relation, and not only entitled, but bound men to hold, as of Divine appointment, its virtual incorporations of persons, and corresponding obligations of mutual love and fidelity.

The principle that ought to be laid as the foundation of all just reasoning [[@Page:489]] on such subjects, is, that whatever man can plainly learn from the revelations God gives of Himself, to be in accordance with the Divine mind and will, that is of God, and it is man’s duty to believe and act accordingly. But the issuing of authoritative commands is not the only way God has of revealing His mind and will; nor, to creatures made after His own it and even though fallen, yet capable within certain limits of understanding and imitating His procedure, is it even the first and most natural way of doing so. It is rather the manifestations which God gives of Himself in His works and ways, in which they might be expected to find the primary grounds of their faith and practice; and only when such had proved to be inadequate, might they require to be supplemented by explicit commands and stringent enactments. Holding, therefore, as we do, that the command to sacrifice was not necessary to establish the Divine authority of the rite of sacrifice,—holding, moreover, that in the Divine act of covering man’s person by the skins of slain beasts, as the symbol of his guilt being covered before God, there was an actual revelation of the mind of God in regard to His purposes of mercy and forgiveness to the sinful, precisely such as was afterwards embodied in animal sacrifice,—we can satisfactorily account for the absence of the command, and, at the same time, maintain the essentially Divine origin of the rite. And the reasoning of Davison and others, on the principle of no command, therefore no Divine authority, falls to the ground of itself as a false deduction.

Of course the soundness of our own view, respecting the essentially Divine origin of sacrifice and its properly expiatory character, depends upon the correctness of the interpretation we have put upon the Divine act referred to. Davison, in common with British divines generally, regards it in a merely natural light. He sees in it simply “an instance of the Divine wisdom and philanthropy; interposing, by the dictation and provision of a more durable clothing, to veil the nakedness and cherish the modesty of our fallen nature, by sin made sensible to shame.”—(P. 24.) This he deems an object worthy of a special intervention of God, worthy also of a sacrifice of animal life to secure its accomplishment; and being so secured, he thinks it quite natural that the first pair might afterwards have felt themselves perfectly at liberty to use, for the sacred purposes of worship, what they had been taught to consider at their service for the lower purposes of corporeal clothing. This inference might certainly have been legitimate, if the premises on which it is founded had been accurately stated. But there we object. If corporeal clothing alone had been the intention of the act, it would have been the fruit of a needless interposition—the more so, as our first parents were themselves powerfully prompted to seek for clothing, and had already found a temporary relief. When the instincts and feelings of nature were manifestly so alive to the object, is it to be conceived that the ingenuity and skill which proved sufficient to accomplish so many other operations for their natural support and comfort, should have been in competent here? It is altogether incredible. On simply natural grounds, the action admits of no adequate explanation, and must ever appear above the occasion—consequently unworthy of God. Besides, how anomalous, [[@Page:490]] especially in a historical revelation, which ever gives the foremost place to the moral element in God’s character and ways, if He should have appeared thus solicitous about the decent and comfortable clothing of men’s bodies, and yet have left them wholly in the dark as to the way of getting peace and quietness to their consciences? Such must have been the case with our first parents, if they were thrown entirely upon their own resources in the presentation of sacrificial offerings. And so Mr Davison himself substantially admits. For, while he endeavours to account naturally, and by means of the ordinary principles and feelings of piety, for the offering of animal life in sacrifice to God, considered simply as an expression of penitence in the offerer, or of His sense of deserved punishment for sin, he denies it could properly be regarded as an expiation or atonement of guilt; and hence postpones this higher aspect of sacrifice altogether, till the law of Moses, when he conceives it was for the first time introduced. Up till that period, therefore, sacrificial worship was but a species of natural religion; and man had no proper ground from God to expect, in answer to His offerings, the assurance of Divine pardon and acceptance. But this, we contend, had it been real, would have been anomalous. It would have been to represent God as caring originally more for the bodies than for the souls of His people; and as utterly ignoring at one period of His dealings, what at another He not only respects, but exalts to the highest place of importance. How could we vindicate the pre-eminently moral character of God’s principles of dealing, and the unchangeable nature of His administration, if He actually had been at first so indifferent in regard to the removal of guilt from the conscience, and afterwards so concerned about it as to make all religion hinge on its accomplishment? Any satisfactory vindication, in such a case, must necessarily be hopeless. But we are convinced it is not needed; the moral element is pre-eminent in God’s dealings toward men. It was this which gave its significance and worth to His act of clothing our first parents, as painfully conscious of guilt, with the skins of living creatures, whose covering of innocence was in a manner put on them. And on the ground alone of what was moral in the transaction, symbolically disclosing itself (as usual in ancient times) through the natural and corporeal, can we account for the sacrifice of slain victims becoming so soon, and continuing so long, the grand medium of acceptable communion with God. If, in so clothing man, God did mean to give indication respecting the covering of man’s guilt, and men of faith understood Him to do so, all becomes intelligible, consistent, and even comparatively plain. But if otherwise, all appears strange, irregular, and mysterious,[1] respecting sacrifice, which will be taken up at its proper place. See vol. ii., ch. 2, sec. 5.

We are not disposed, in a matter of this kind, to lay much stress upon philological considerations. Yet it is not unimportant to notice, that the technical and constantly recurring expression under the law, for the design [[@Page:491]] of expiatory offerings (לָכַפֵּר עָלָיו), seems to have its most natural explanation by reference to that fundamental act of God, considered in respect to its moral import. To cover upon him, as the words really mean, is so singular an expression for making an atonement for guilt, that it could scarcely have arisen without some significant fact in history naturally suggesting it. We certainly have such a fact in the circumstance of God’s covering upon our first parents with the skins of animals, slain for them, if that was intended to denote the covering of their guilt and shame, as pardoned and put away by God. The first great act of forgiveness in connection with the sacrifice of life, would thus not unfitly have supplied a sacrificial language, as well as formed the basis of a sacrificial worship.

But if some collateral support may be derived from this quarter to the view we have advanced, we certainly must disclaim being indebted to another philological consideration, more commonly urged by the advocates of the Divine origin of sacrifice. We refer to the argument so much pressed by Lightfoot, Magee, and others still in the present day, and based on what is regarded as a more exact rendering of Gen. 4:7, as if it should be, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, a sin-offering lieth at the door.” Magee calls this “the plain, natural and significant interpretation” of the words, and vindicates it at great length—more especially on three grounds: 1. That the word translated sin (חטאת) is very frequently used in the sense of sin-offering; 2. That when so used, it is usually coupled (though a feminine noun) with a verb in the masculine; and 3. That the verb connected with it here, properly has respect to an animal (רבץ), and literally denotes couching or lying down—quite appropriately said of a beast, but not so of sin. A single fact is perfectly sufficient to dispose of the whole; the fact, namely, that the Hebrew term for sin never bears the import of sin-offering till the period of the law, and could not indeed do so, as till then what were distinctively called sin-offerings were unknown. To give the passage this turn, therefore, is to put an arbitrary and unwarranted sense upon the principal word, as there used; and nothing but the high authority of such men as Lightfoot and Magee could have given it the currency which it has so long obtained in this country. The real explanation of the feminine noun being coupled with a masculine verb, is to be found in the personification of sin as a wild beast, or cunning tempter to evil. And the whole passage bears respect to the circumstances of the first temptation, and can only, indeed, be correctly understood when these are kept in view: “And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? Shall there not, if thou doest good (viz., in regard to the sacrifice), be acceptance (or lifting up)? and if thou doest not good, sin coucheth at the door. And unto thee shall be its desire, and thou shalt rule over it.” The last words are simply a transference to sin, in its relation to Cain, of what was originally said of Eve in her relation to Adam (Gen. 3:16); and many Jewish (see, for example, the exposition of Sola, Lindenthall, and Raphall) as well as Christian interpreters have discerned the allusion, and had respect to it in their exposition. Our translators, however, have unhappily understood the parties [[@Page:492]] spoken of to be Cain and Abel, instead of Cain and sin, and thereby greatly obscured the meaning. The object of the Divine expostulation with Cain is evidently to show him, in the first instance, that the evil he frowned at really lay with himself, in his refusing to acknowledge and serve God, as his brother did. If he would still take this course, the ground of complaint should be removed; he would find acceptance, as well as his brother. But if he refused, then there was but one alternative—he could not get rid of sin: like an evil genius, it lay couching at the door, ready to prevail over him; but it was for him to do the manly part, and assert his superiority over it. In short, he is reminded by a silent reference to the sad circumstances of the fall, that giving way to sin, as he was doing, was allowing the weaker principle of his nature (represented by the woman in that memorable transaction) to gain the ascendant, while it became him, by cleaving to the right, to keep it in subjection; and it was implied, that if he failed in this, a second fall should inevitably follow—instead of rising, he must sink.

While, however, we reject the argument commonly derived from this passage in behalf of the Divine origin of sacrifice, we derive an argument from it of another kind—viz., from the explicit manner in which it connects doing good with the acceptable presentation of sacrifice, and its representing sin as unforgiven, unsubdued, reigning in the heart and conduct, if sacrifice was not so performed. Had sacrifice not been essentially of God; had it not required the humble and childlike heart of faith to present it aright; had it not carried along with it, when so presented, the blessing of forgiveness and grace from Heaven, we cannot understand how such singular importance should have been attached to it. Like the sacrifice of Christ now, it has all the appearance of having then been the great touchstone of an accepted and blessed, or a guilty and rejected condition; not one of many, as it would have been if devised by man, but standing comparatively alone as an all-important ordinance of God.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Davison’s internal reason, as he calls it (p. 84), against the atoning character of the ante-legal oblations—that such oblations, even under the law, atoned only for ceremonial offences, which of necessity had no existence in earlier times, proceeds on a not uncommon misconception of the law of Moses.

Appendix E.—The Relation of Cannan to The State of Final Rest (Heb. 4:1, 10)—P. 422.

THE view presented in the text upon this subject, and the conclusion arrived at, substantially coincide with the argument maintained in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. And as a somewhat intricate turn is there given to the line of thought pursued in the epistle, I shall here refer a little more particularly to the passage, as well for the purpose of explicating its proper meaning, as for confirmation of what has been said upon the subject itself. This part of the epistle is introduced by an exhortation in chapter [[3 >> Bible:Heb 3]] . To stedfastness in the faith, and to diligence in the use of the means naturally fitted to secure it; and the exhortation is further confirmed by a reference to the words employed for the same purpose by [[@Page:497]] the Psalmist in Ps. 95, who there calls upon the men of his day to beware of falling into the apostasy, and incurring the doom of their forefathers in the desert, when they provoked God by refusing to go forward in faith upon His word to occupy the land of Canaan, and He, in consequence, sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest. Catching up this word rest—God’s rest—contained in the divine utterance of judgment (as given by the Psalmist), the inspired writer goes on, at chap. [[4:1 >> Bible:Heb 4:1]] , to discourse of the relation in which believers under the Gospel stand to it. He reminds them that they had, as a matter of course, succeeded to the heritage of promise given in former ages to God’s people concerning it; it had come down as an entail of blessing to them, and might now, precisely as of old, be either appropriated by faith or forfeited by unbelief. Not only does He thus connect believers under the Gospel with believers under the law in respect to the promised rest, but the promise itself He connects with the very commencement of the world’s history with that rest of God which He is said to have taken, when He ceased from all His works which He created and made.—(Gen. 2:2) This was emphatically God’s rest, the only thing expressly characterized as such in the history of the Divine dispensations; and the Apostle points to it as a noteworthy thing, that while the works, from which God is thus said to have rested, were finished at the creation of the world, the promise of the land of Canaan should somehow, thousands of years afterwards, have been associated with it. Yet he does not (as is too commonly supposed) simply identify the two; while both he and the Psalmist speak of exclusion from Canaan as involving for ancient Israel exclusion from an interest in God’s rest: they both also conceive the possibility of having an inheritance in Canaan, and yet wanting a participation in the rest of God. On this account the Psalmist had plied his contemporaries when they were in Canaan with the admonition to beware, lest, by provoking God, they should still lose their interest in God’s rest. And now, again, the writer of this epistle, laying hold of the words of the Psalmist, repeats the same warning, and calls upon Christians to take good heed, that by stedfastly adhering to the faith and obedience of the Gospel, they should secure their entrance into that rest of God which remains for them, as it has remained for God’s people in every age—the blessed result and consummation of a life of faith.

Such are the leading points in the line of thought pursued in this portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews, viewed simply in itself, and without regard to the debateable questions and conflicting views which have been too often brought into it. The plainest reader can easily perceive the connection, when it is put in a distinct and orderly manner before him. But there is a marked peculiarity in the representation as first given by the Psalmist, and silently adopted by the Apostle, which must be noticed in order to make the inspired exposition appear altogether natural, and to apprehend the full depth of meaning involved in it. For, it will be observed, the language of the psalm in naming the rest in question strikingly differs from that of the original passage which relates to it, though no comment is made on the diversity by the author of the epistle. He takes [[@Page:498]] the word just as he finds it. But it is remarkable that the utterance which it connects with the oath of God is nowhere found in the earlier Scriptures precisely in the form there given to it. In the passage more directly referred to by the Psalmist, the words are, “As truly as I live .... if they shall see” (that is, they shall certainly not see) “the land which I sware unto their fathers.”—(Num. 14:21-23) In another verse of the same chapter ([[ver. 30 >> Bible:Nu 14:30]] ), the declaration is again repeated, and very nearly in the same words. It was undoubtedly these sayings which the Psalmist refers to, when he speaks of God reversing, as it were, His oath—swearing in regard to the generation that had provoked him, that they should not possess what he had previously sworn to their fathers to give them. But why, in pointing to this fresh oath or asseveration, should he have so remarkably departed from the language of Moses? Why, instead of saying, They shall not see, or they shall not come into the land, which I sware to give to their fathers, should he have represented God as swearing, They shall not enter into My rest? There must have been some reason for this; and, indeed, there needs no great search to discover it. The Psalmist would give the old word in its substance, but with a difference, such as might serve to convey an insight into the spiritual meaning involved in it, and let the men of his own generation see—the carnal and ungodly among them—that they were substantially on a footing with those who perished in the wilderness. They were living, indeed, in the land promised to their fathers; but what of that? The promise was never made to secure for them simply the possession of so much territory, as if in that alone they could find a proper and satisfying good. It could only be realized in the sense meant by God. And necessary to His people’s well-being, if the land was held as God’s land, and the rest it brought was enjoyed as a participation in God’s rest. If such, however, were the case, it must plainly follow, that for those who had entered the land, but who had not also entered into rest in this higher sense, the promise still remained essentially unfulfilled; they were but formally in possession of the children’s heritage, while in reality they knew nothing of the children’s blessing, and were in danger of being cast out as aliens. So that to them also reached the words of excision pronounced by God against their fathers, “They shall not enter into My rest:” no, it is not with Me they are sojourners; and whatever rest they may enjoy, it is not that rest which I engaged to share with My chosen.

But what precisely is meant by this rest of God in its relation to God’s people? It has, we see, been set before them under all dispensations, as the one grand good which they are invited to make their own; but which those who in ancient times provoked God by their unbelief and waywardness were cut off from inheriting—which still also professing Christians are in danger, on similar accounts, of forfeiting. What, then, is it? Or how in reality is it to be entered on? That it is not simply to be identified with heaven is evident; since otherwise it could not have been so connected, as it was by the Psalmist, with a proper realization of the promised inheritance of Canaan, as at least a partial enjoyment of the blessing; nor, indeed, can it be absolutely tied to any one place, region, or time. “For [[@Page:499]] they that have believed enter into the rest;” that is, they do it by virtue of their belief, and, in a measure, whenever they have it.

In proof of this, the inspired writer carries his readers back to the creation of the world, and shows how, by the sanctification and blessing of the seventh day, it was from the first man’s calling and destination to share in God’s rest. But this destination, and God’s purpose in connection with it, were interrupted by the fall. They were for the moment foiled, and rendered incapable of being carried into execution after the primeval pattern; but they were by no means abandoned. The eternal purpose could not be frustrated; the calling of God was here necessarily without repentance; and the economy of grace entered, that it might be made good in a way consistent with the attributes of His character. Perpetually, therefore, as the plan of God proceeds, there must in substance be sounded in men’s ears the call to share alike in God’s works and God’s rest—to imbibe the spirit of the one, and enter into the participation of the other. And sometimes, as in the passages now under consideration, the call takes a more explicit form in this direction, in order to keep before us the thought, how God’s purpose in redemption coalesces with His original purpose in creation, and how the final issue of the one shall bring the realization of the good contemplated in the other. It tells us that redemption in all its stages—even in such preliminary and typical movements as were connected with the possession of Canaan, and still more, of course, in the riper movements and results pertaining to the work of Christ—ever aims at the restoration of man to the right knowledge and use of God’s works, and the blessed participation of God’s rest. The aim can be attained only in part now, but shall be perfectly so hereafter, when the work of God in this higher aspect of it being finished by the bringing in of the new heavens and the new earth, there shall be administered to all the redeemed a full as well as final entrance into the joy of their Lord. But for those who lived in the times preceding the Gospel, and who had spiritual insight to discern the meaning of what was established, the external rest of Canaan should (according to both the Psalmist and the Apostle) have been regarded, not as the ultimate boon they were to look for, but as the sign and earnest of an everlasting fellowship with God, in a sabbatism which shall be in complete accordance with His own perfect and glorious nature.

VOLUME II.

Chapter First.—The Divine Truths Embodied in The Historical Transactions connected with The Redemption from Egypt, Viewed as Preliminary to The Symbolical Institutions Brought in by Moses.

Section First.—The Bondage.

THE history of what is called the Patriarchal religion may be said to terminate with the descent of the children of Israel into Egypt, or at least with the prosperous circumstances which attended the earlier period of their sojourn there; for the things which afterwards befell them in that land, rather belong to the dispensation of Moses. They tended, in various respects, to prepare the way for this new dispensation, more especially by furnishing the facts in which its fundamental ideas were to be embodied, and on which its institutions were to be based. The true religion, as formerly noticed, has ever distinguished itself from impostures, by being founded on great facts, which, by [[@Page:2]] bringing prominently out the character of God’s purposes and government, provide the essential elements of the religion He prescribes to His people. This characteristic of the true religion, like every other, received its highest manifestation in the Gospel of Christ, where every distinctive element of truth and duty is made to grow out of the facts of His eventful history. The same characteristic, however, belongs, though in a less perfect form, to the Patriarchal religion, which was based upon the transactions connected with man’s fall, his expulsion from the garden of Eden, and the promise then given of a future Deliverer;—these formed, in a manner, the ground-floor of the symbolical and typical religion under which the earlier inhabitants of the world were placed. Nor was it otherwise with the religious dispensation which stood midway between the Patriarchal and the Christian—the dispensation of Moses. For here also the groundwork was laid in the facts of Israel’s history, which were so arranged by the controlling hand of God, as clearly to disclose the leading truths and principles that were to pervade the entire dispensation, arid that gave to its religious institutions their peculiar form and character.

When we speak of fundamental truths and principles in reference to the Mosaic religion, it will be readily understood that these necessarily required to be somewhat more full and comprehensive than those which constitute the foundation of the first and simplest form of religion. The Mosaic religion did not start into being as something original and independent; it grew out of the Patriarchal, and was just, indeed, the Patriarchal religion in a farther state of progress and development. So much was this the case, that the mission of Moses avowedly begins where the communications of God to the patriarchs end; and, resuming what had been for a time suspended, takes for its immediate object the fulfilment of the purpose which the Lord had, ages before, pledged His word to accomplish.[1] Its real starting-point is the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with an especial reference to that part of it which concerned the occupation of the land of Canaan. And as the one dispensation thus commenced with the express design of carrying out and completing what the other had left unfinished, the [[@Page:3]] latter of the two must be understood to have recognised and adopted as its own all the truths and principles of the first. What might now be regarded as fundamental, and required as such to be interwoven with the historical transactions by which the dispensation of Moses was brought in, must have been, to a considerable extent, super-additional,—including those, indeed, which belonged to the Patriarchal religion, but coupling with them such others as were fitted to constitute the elements of a more advanced state of religious knowledge and attainment.

We are not to imagine, however, that the additional religious truths and principles which were to be historically brought out at the commencement of the Mosaic dispensation, must have appeared there by themselves, distinct and apart from those which descended from Patriarchal times. We might rather expect, from the common ground on which the true religion always erects itself, and the common end it aims at, that the New would be intermingled with the Old; and that the ideas on which the first religion was based, must reappear and stand prominently forth in the next, and indeed in every religious dispensation. The Patriarchal religion began with the loss of man’s original inheritance, and pointed, in all its institutions of worship and providential dealings, to the recovery of what was lost. It was the merciful provision of Heaven to light the way and direct the steps of Adam’s fallen family to a paradise restored. The religion brought in by the ministry of Moses began with an inheritance, not lost, indeed, but standing at an apparently hopeless distance, though conferred in free grant, and secured by covenant promise for a settled possession. As an expression of the good-will of God to men, and the object of hope to His people, the place originally held by the garden of Eden, with the way barred to the tree of life, but ready to be opened whenever the righteousness should be brought in for which the Church was taught to wait and strive, was now substantially occupied by that land flowing with milk and honey, which had become the destined inheritance of the heirs of promise. It was the immediate design and object of the mission of Moses to conduct the Church, as called to cherish this new form of hope, into the actual possession of its promised blessings; and to do this, not simply with the view of having the hope [[@Page:4]] turned into reality, but so as at the same time, and in accordance with God’s general plan, to unfold the great principles of His character and government, and raise His people to a higher position in all religious knowledge and experience. In a word, God’s object, then, was, as it has ever been, not merely to bring His Church to the possession of a promised good, but to furnish by His method of doing it the elements of a religion corresponding in its nature and effects to the inheritance possessed or hoped for, and thus to render the whole subservient to the highest purposes of His moral government.

When we speak, however, of the inheritance of Canaan being in the time of Moses the great object of hope to Israel, and the boon which his mission was specially designed to realize, we must take into account what, we trust, was satisfactorily established concerning it, in the earlier part of our investigations.[2] 1. The earthly Canaan was never designed by God, nor could it from the first have been understood by His people, to be the ultimate and proper inheritance which they were to occupy; things having been spoken and hoped for concerning it, which plainly could not be realized within the bounds of Canaan, nor on the earth at all, as at present constituted. 2. The inheritance, in its full and proper sense, was one which could be enjoyed only by those who had become children of the resurrection, themselves fully redeemed in soul and body from the effects and consequences of sin. 3. The occupation of the earthly Canaan by the natural seed of Abraham, in its grand and ultimate design, was a type of the occupation by a redeemed Church of her destined inheritance of glory. Hence everything concerning the entrance of Israel on that temporary possession had necessarily to be ordered, so as fitly to represent and fore shadow the things which belong to the Church’s establishment in her final and permanent possession. The matter may thus be briefly stated: God selected a portion—for the special ends in view, the fairest portion—of the earth,[3] which He challenged as His own in a peculiar sense, that He might convert it into a suitable habitation and inheritance for the people whom He [[@Page:5]] had already chosen to be peculiarly His own. On this people, settled in this possession, He purposed to bestow the highest earthly tokens of His gracious presence and blessing. But what He was going to do for them in temporal and earthly things, was only a representation and a pledge of what, from before the birth of time, He had purposed to do in heavenly things, when the period should come for gathering into one His universal Church, and planting her in His everlasting inheritance of life and glory. There is, therefore, a twofold object to be kept in view, while we investigate this part of the Divine procedure and arrangements, as in these also there was a twofold design. The whole that took place between the giving of the hope to the patriarchs, and its realization in their posterity, we must, in the first instance, view as demonstrating on what principles God could, consistently with His character and government, bestow upon them such an inheritance, or keep them in possession of its blessings. But we must, at the same time, in another point of view, regard the whole as the shadow of higher and better things to come. We must take it as a glass, in which to see mirrored the form and pattern of God’s everlasting kingdom, and that with an especial reference to the grand principles on which the heirs of salvation were to be brought to the enjoyment of its future and imperishable glories.

We are furnished at the very outset with no doubtful indication of the propriety of keeping in view this twofold bearing, in the condition of the heirs of promise. These, when the promise was first given, and for two generations afterwards, were kept in the region of the inheritance; and if the purposes of God respecting them had simply been directed to their occupation of it as a temporal and earthly good, the natural, and in every respect the easiest plan, would manifestly have been, to give them a settled place in it at the first, and gradually to have opened the way to their complete possession of the promised territory. But instead of this, they were absolutely prohibited from having then any fixed habitation within its borders; and by God’s special direction and overruling providence, were carried altogether away from the land, and planted in Egypt. There they found a settled home and dwelling-place, which they were not only permitted, but obliged, to keep for generations, [[@Page:6]] before they were allowed to possess any interest in the promised inheritance. And it was precisely their long-continued sojourn in that foreign country, the relations into which it brought them, the feelings and associations which there grew upon them, and the interests with which they became connected, that so greatly embarrassed the mission of Moses, and rendered the work given him to do so peculiarly difficult and complicated. Had nothing more been contemplated by their settlement in Canaan than their simply being brought to the possession of a pleasant and desirable inheritance, after the manner of this world, nothing could have been more unfortunate and adverse than such a deep and protracted entanglement with the affairs of Egypt. Considered merely in that point of view, there is much in the Divine procedure, which could neither be vindicated as wise, nor approved as good; and the whole plan would manifestly lie open to the most serious objections. But matters present themselves in a different light, when we understand that everything connected with the earthly and temporal inheritance was ordered so as to develop the principles on which alone God could righteously confer upon men even that inferior token of His regard; and this, again, as the type or pattern according to which He should afterwards proceed in regulating the concerns of His everlasting kingdom. Viewed thus, as the whole ought to be, it will be found in every part consistent with the highest reason, and, indeed, could not have been materially different, without begetting erroneous impressions of the mind and character of God. So that, in proceeding to read what belongs to the work and handwriting of Moses, we must never lose sight of the fact, that we are tracing the footsteps of One whose ways on earth have ever been mainly designed to disclose the path to heaven, and whose procedure in the past was carefully planned to prepare the way for the events and issues of “the world to come.”

The first point to which our attention is naturally turned, is the one already alluded to, respecting the condition of the Israelites, the heirs of promise, when this new stage of God’s proceedings began to take its course. We find them not only in a distant country, but labouring there under the most grievous hardship and oppression. When this adverse position of affairs [[@Page:7]] took its commencement, or how, we are not further told, than in the statement that “a new king arose up over Egypt, who knew not Joseph,”—a statement which has not unfrequently been thought to indicate a change of dynasty in the reigning family of Egypt. This ignorance, it would seem, soon grew into estrangement, and that again into jealousy and hatred; for, afraid lest the Israelites, who were increasing with great rapidity in numbers and influence, should become too powerful, and should usurp dominion over the country, or, at least, in time of war prove a formidable enemy within the camp, the then reigning Pharaoh took counsel to afflict them with heavy burdens, and to keep them down by means of oppression.

It is quite possible there may have been peculiar circumstances connected with the civil affairs of Egypt, which tended to foster and strengthen this rising enmity, and seemed to justify the harsh and oppressive policy in which it showed itself. But we have quite enough to account for it, in the character which belonged to the family of Jacob, when they entered Egypt, coupled with the extraordinary increase and prosperity which attended them there. It was as a company of shepherds they were presented before Pharaoh, and the land of Goshen was assigned them for a dwelling-place, expressly on account of its rich pasturage.[4] But “every shepherd,” it is said, “was an abomination to the Egyptians;” and with such a strong feeling against them in the national mind, nothing but an overpowering [[@Page:8]] sense of the obligation under which the Egyptians lay to the Israelites, could have induced them to grant to this shepherd race such a settlement within their borders. Nor can it be wondered at, that when the remembrance of the obligation ceased to be felt, another kind of treatment should have been experienced by the family of Jacob than what they at first received, and that the native, deep-seated repugnance to those who followed their mode of life should begin to break forth. That there was such a repugnance, is a well-ascertained fact, apart altogether from the testimony of Scripture. The monuments of Egypt furnish ample evidence of it, as they constantly present shepherds in an inferior or despicable aspect, sometimes even as the extreme of coarseness and barbarity, and the objects of unmingled contempt.[5] We cannot suppose this hatred towards shepherds to have arisen simply from their possessing flocks and herds; for we have the clearest evidence in the Pentateuch that Pharaoh possessed these, and that they existed in considerable numbers throughout the land.[6] It seems rather to have been occasioned by the general character and habits of the nomade or shepherd tribes,[7] who have ever been averse to the arts of cultivation and civilised life, and most unscrupulous in seizing, when they had the opportunity, the fruits that have been raised by the industry and toil of others. From the earliest times the rich and fertile country of Egypt has suffered much from these marauding hordes of the desert, to whose incursions it lies open both on the east and on the west. And as the land of Goshen skirted the deserts of Arabia, where especially the Bedouin or wandering tribes, from time immemorial, have been accustomed to dwell, we can easily conceive how the native Egyptians would watch with jealousy and dread the rising power and importance [[@Page:9]] of the Israelites. By descent they were themselves allied with those shepherd tribes; and, by the advantage of their position, they held the key on an exposed side to the heart of the kingdom; so that, if they became strong enough, and chose to act in concert with their Arab neighbours, they might have over-spread the land with desolation. Indeed, it is a historical fact, that “the Bedouin Arabs settled in Egypt have always made common cause with the Arabs (of the Desert) against the communities that possessed the land. They fought against the Saracen dynasty in Egypt; against the Turkomans, as soon as they had acquired the ascendancy; against the Mamlook sultans, who were the successors of the Turkomans; and they have been at war with the Osmanlis without intermission, since they first set foot upon Egypt more than 300 years ago.”[8]

Hence, when the Israelites appeared so remarkably to flourish and multiply in their new abode, it was no unnatural policy for the Egyptians to subject them to hard labour and vexatious bur dens. They would thus expect to repress their increase, and break their spirit; and, by destroying what remained of their pastoral habits, and training them to the arts and institutions of civilised life, as these existed in Egypt, to lessen at once their desire and their opportunities of leaguing for any hostile purpose with the tribes of the desert. At the same time, while such reasons might sufficiently account for the commencement of a hard and oppressive policy, there were evidently other reasons connected at least with the severer form, which it ultimately reached, and such as argued some acquaintance with the peculiar prospects of Israel. It was only one ground of Pharaoh’s anxiety respecting them, that they might possibly join hands with an [[@Page:10]] enemy and fight against Egypt; another fear was, that they “might get them up out of the land.”[9] This seems to bespeak a knowledge of the fact, that some other region than Goshen belonged to the Israelites as their proper home, for which they were disposed, at a fitting time, to leave their habitations in Egypt. Nor, indeed, would it be difficult for the king of Egypt to obtain such knowledge, as, in the earlier period of their sojourn, the Israelites had no motive to hold it in concealment. Then, the announcement of Jacob’s dying command to carry up his remains to the land of Canaan, of which the whole court of Pharaoh was apprized, and afterwards the formal withdrawal of Joseph and his family from the court of Pharaoh, to identify themselves with the state and prospects of their kindred, were more than sufficient to excite the suspicion of a jealous and unfriendly government, that they did not expect to remain always connected with the land and fortunes of Egypt. “It is clear that Pharaoh knew of a home for these stranger-Israelites, while he could on no account bear to think of it; and also that though his forefather had treated them to a possession in the land of Egypt, he now considered them as his servants, whom he was determined not to lose. It is precisely because he would know nothing of freedom and a home for Israel, that the increase of Israel was so great an annoyance to him. The seed of Abraham were, according to the promise, to be a blessing to all nations, and should, therefore, have been greeted with joy by the king of Egypt. But, since the reverse was the case, we can easily see, at this first aspect of Israel’s affairs, that the further fulfilment of the promise could not develop itself by the straightest and most direct road, but would have to force its way through impediments of great strength and difficulty.”[10]

The kinds of service which were imposed with so much rigour upon the Israelites, though they would doubtless comprehend the various trades and employments which were exercised in the land, consisted chiefly, as might be expected in such a country, in the several departments of field labour. It was especially “in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, that their lives were made bitter with hard bondage.”[11] The [[@Page:11]] making of bricks formed of clay and straw appears, during the later period of the bondage, to have been the only servile occupation in which they were largely engaged, and, of course, along with that, the erection of the buildings for which the bricks were made. As the hard and rigorous service to which they were subjected in this department of labour did not seem to answer the end intended, but the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied and grew, the gloom and distress that hung around their condition were fearfully deepened by the issuing of a cruel edict, commanding that their male children should be killed as soon as they were born. This was too atrocious an edict even for the despot of a heathen land to enforce, and he could not find instruments at his command wicked enough to carry it into execution. In all probability it was soon recalled, or allowed gradually to fall into abeyance; for though it was in force at the birth of Moses, we hear nothing of it afterwards; and its only marked effect, so far as we are informed, was to furnish the occasion of opening a way for that future deliverer into the temples and palaces of Egypt. So marvellously did God, by His overruling providence, baffle the design of the enemy, and compel “the eater to give forth meat!” The only evil in their condition which seems to have become general and permanent, was the hard service in brick-making and collateral kinds of servile labour, and which, so far from suffering relaxation by length of time, was rather, on slight pretexts, increased and aggravated. It became at last so excessive, that one universal cry of misery and distress arose from the once happy land of Goshen,—a cry which entered into the ear of the God of Abraham, and which would no longer permit Him to remain an inactive spectator of a controversy which, if continued, must have made void His covenant with the father of the faithful.[12]

So much for the condition itself of hard bondage and oppressive labour to which the heirs of the inheritance were reduced, [[@Page:12]] before the time came for their being actually put in possession of its blessings. And situated as they were within the bounds of a foreign kingdom, at first naturally jealous, and then openly hostile towards them, it is not difficult to account for the kind of treatment inflicted on them, viewing the position they occupied merely in its worldly relations and interests. But what account can we give of it in its religious aspect—as an arrangement settled and ordained on the part of God? Why should He have ordered such a state of matters concerning His chosen seed? For the Egyptians “though their hearts thought not so”—[[@Page:13]] were but instruments in His hands, to bring to pass what the Lord had long before announced to Abraham as certainly to take place, viz., “that his seed should be strangers in a land that was not theirs, and should serve them, and be afflicted by them four hundred years.” (Gen. 15:13)

1. Considered in this higher point of view, the first light in which it naturally presents itself is that of a doom or punishment, from which, as interested in the mercy of God, they needed redemption. For the aspect of intense suffering, which it latterly assumed, could only be regarded as an act of retribution for their past unfaithfulness and sins. We should be perfectly warranted to infer this, even without any express information on the subject, from the general connection in the Divine government between sin and suffering. And when placed by the special appointment of Heaven in circumstances so peculiarly marked by what was painful and afflicting to nature, the Israelites should then, no doubt, have read in their marred condition, what their posterity were, in like circumstances, taught to read by the prophet—”that it was their own wickedness which corrected them, and their blackslidings which reproved them.” But we are not simply warranted to draw this as an inference. It is matter of historical certainty, brought out in the course of the Mosaic narrative by many and painful indications, that the Israelites were not long in Egypt till they became partakers in Egypt’s sins; and that the longer their stay was protracted there, they only sunk the deeper into the mire of Egyptian idolatry and corruption, and became the more thoroughly alienated from the true knowledge and worship of God. Not only had they, as a people, completely lost sight of the great temporal promise of the covenant, the inheritance of the land of Canaan, but God himself had become to them as a strange God; so that Moses had to inquire for the name by which he should reveal Him to their now dark and besotted minds.[13] The very same language is used concerning their connection with the abominations of Egyptian idolatry, while they sojourned among them, as is afterwards used of their connection with those of Canaan: “they served other gods,” “went a whoring after them;” and even long after they had left the [[@Page:14]] region, would not “forsake the idols of Egypt,” but still carried its abominations with them, and in their hearts turned back to it.[14] Of the truth of these charges they gave too many affecting proofs in the wilderness; and especially by their setting up, so recently after the awful demonstrations of God’s presence and glory on Sinai, and their own covenant engagements, the worship of the golden calf, with its bacchanalian accompaniments. Their conduct on that occasion was plainly a return to the idolatrous practices of Egypt in their most common form.[15] And, indeed, if their bondage and oppression in its earlier stages did not, as a timely chastisement from the hand of God, check their tendency to imitate the manners and corruptions of Egypt, as it does not appear to have done, it could scarcely fail to be productive of a growing conformity to the evil. For it destroyed that freedom and elevation of spirit, without which genuine religion can never prosper. It robbed them of the leisure they [[@Page:15]] required for the worship of God and the cultivation of their minds (their Sabbaths seem altogether to have perished), and it brought them into such close contact with the proper possessors of Egypt, as was naturally calculated to infect them with the grovelling and licentious spirit of Egyptian idolatry. So that probably true religion was never at a lower ebb, in the family of Abraham, than toward the close of their sojourn in Egypt; and the swelling waves of affliction, which at last overwhelmed them, only marked the excessive strength and prevalence of that deep under-current of corruption which had carried them away. Now this condition of the heirs of promise, viewed in reference to its highest bearing, its connection with the inheritance, was made subservient to the manifestation of certain great principles, necessarily involved in this part of the Divine procedure, in respect to which it could not properly have been dispensed with. (1.) It first of all clearly demonstrated, that, apart from the covenant of God, the state and prospects of those heirs of promise were in no respect better than those of other men—in some respects it seemed to be worse with them. They were equally far off from the inheritance, being in a state of hopeless alienation from it; they had drunk into the foul and abominable pollutions of the land of their present sojourn, which were utterly at variance with an interest in the promised blessing; and they bore upon them the yoke of a galling bondage, at once the consequence and the sign of their spiritual degradation. They differed for the better only in having a part in the covenant of God. (2.) Therefore, secondly, whatever this covenant secured for them of promised good, they must have owed entirely to Divine grace. In their own condition and behaviour, they could see no ground of preference; they saw, indeed, the very reverse of any title to the blessing, which must hence descend upon them as Heaven’s free and undeserved gift. This they were after wards admonished by Moses to keep carefully in remembrance: “Speak not thou in thy heart, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land. Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess the land, but that the Lord may perform the word which He sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”[16] [[@Page:16]] (3.) Hence, finally, the promise of the inheritance could be made good in their experience only by the special kindness and interposition of God, vindicating the truth of His own faithful word, and in order to this, executing in their behalf a work of redemption. While the inheritance was sure, because the title to it stood in the mercy and faithfulness of God, they had of necessity to be redeemed before they could actually possess it. Having become the victims of corruption, they were also the children of wrath; sin had brought them into bondage; and before they could escape to the land of freedom and rest, the snare must be broken. But the hand of Omnipotence alone could do it. If nature had been left to itself, the progress would only have been to a fouler corruption and a deeper ruin. It was simply as the Lord’s chosen people that they held the promise of the inheritance, and they could enter on its possession no otherwise than as a people ransomed by His power and goodness. So that the great principles of their degenerate and lost condition, of their absolutely free election and calling to the promised good, of redemption by the grace and power of God in order to obtain it, were interwoven as essential elements with this portion of their history, and imprinted as indelible lines upon the very foundations of their national existence.

The parallel here, in each particular, between the earthly and the spiritual, or, as we more commonly term it, between the type arid the antitype, must so readily present itself to all who are conversant with New Testament Scripture, that we need do nothing more than indicate the agreement. It is most expressly declared, and indeed is implied in the whole plan of redemption unfolded in the Gospel, that those who become heirs of salvation are in their natural state no better than other men,—they are members of the same fallen family,—the same elements of corruption work in them,—they are children of wrath even as others.[17] When, therefore, the question is put, who makes them to differ, so that while others perish in their sins, they obtain the blessed hope of everlasting life? the only answer that can be returned is, the distinguishing goodness and mercy of God. The confession of Paul for himself, “By the grace of God I am what I am,” is equally suited to the whole company of the [[@Page:17]] redeemed; nor is there anything in the present, or the future heritage of blessing, which it shall be given them to experience, that can be traced, in the history of any of them, to another source than the one foundation of Divine goodness and compassion.[18] And as the everlasting inheritance, to the hope of which they are begotten, is entirely the gift of God, so the way which leads to it can be that only which His own outstretched arm has laid open to them; and if as God’s elect they are called to the inheritance, it is as His redeemed that they go to possess it.[19]

2. We have as yet, however, mentioned only one ultimate reason for the oppressed and suffering condition of the Israelites in Egypt, though in that one were involved various principles bearing upon their relation to the inheritance. But there was another also of great importance it formed an essential part of the preparation which they needed for occupying the inheritance. This preparation, in its full and proper sense, must, of course, have included qualities of a religious and moral kind; and of these we shall have occasion to speak at large afterwards. But apart from these, there was needed what might be called a natural preparation; and that especially consisting of two parts,—a sufficient desire after the inheritance, and a fitness in temper and habit for the position which, in connection with it, they were destined to occupy.

(1.) It was necessary by some means to have a desire awakened in their bosoms towards Canaan, for the pleasantness of their habitation had become a snare to them. The fulness of its natural delights by degrees took off their thoughts from their high calling and destiny as the chosen of God; and the more they became assimilated to the corrupt and sensual manners of Egypt, the more would they naturally be disposed to content themselves with their present comforts. To such an extent had this feeling grown upon them, that they could scarcely be kept afterwards from returning back, notwithstanding the hard service and cruel inflictions with which they had latterly been made to groan in anguish of spirit. What must have been their state if [[@Page:18]] no such troubles had been experienced, and all had continued to go well with them in Egypt? How vain would have been the attempt to inspire them with the love of Canaan, and especially to make good their way to it through formidable difficulties and appalling dangers!

The affliction of Israel in Egypt is a testimony to the truth, common to all times, that the kingdom of God must be entered through tribulation. The tribulation may be ever so varied in its character and circumstances; but in some form it must be experienced, in order to prevent the mind from becoming wedded to temporal enjoyments, and to kindle in it a sincere desire for the better part, which is reserved in heaven for the heirs of salvation. Hence it is so peculiarly hard for those who are living in the midst of fulness and prosperity to enter into the kingdom of God. And hence, also, must so many trying dispensations be sent even to those who have entered the kingdom, to wean them from earthly things, and constrain them to seek for their home and portion in heaven.

(2.) But if we look once more to the Israelites, we shall see that something besides longing desire for Canaan was needed to prepare them for what was in prospect. For that land, though presented to their hopes as a land flowing with milk and honey, was not to be by any means a region of inactive repose, where everything was to be done for them, and they had only to take their rest, and feast themselves with the abundance of peace. The natural imagination delights to riot in the thought of such an untaxed existence, and such a luxurious home. But He who made man, and knows what is best suited to the powers and capacities of his nature, never destined him for such a state of being. Even the garden of Eden, replenished as it was with the tokens of Divine beneficence, was to some extent a field of active exertion: the blissful region had to be kept and dressed by its possessor as the condition of his partaking of its fruitfulness. And now, when Canaan took for a time the place of Eden, and the covenant people were directed to look thither for their present home and inheritance, while they were warranted to expect there the largest amount of earthly blessing, they were by no means entitled to look for a state of lazy inaction and uninterrupted rest. There was much to be done, as well as much to be enjoyed; [[@Page:19]] and they could neither have fulfilled, in regard to other nations, the elevated destiny to which they were appointed, as the lamp and witness of heaven, nor reaped in their own experience the large measure of good which was laid up in store for themselves, unless they had been prepared by a peculiar training of vigorous action, and even compulsive labour, to make the proper use of all their advantages. Now, in this point of view, the period of Israel’s childhood as a nation in Egypt might be regarded as, to some extent, a season of preparation for their future manhood. It would not have done for them to go and take possession of Canaan as a horde of ignorant barbarians, or as a company of undisciplined and roving shepherds. It was fit and proper that they should carry with them a taste for the arts and manners of civilised life, and habits of active labour, suited to the scenes of usefulness and glory which awaited them in the land of their proper inheritance. But how were such tastes and habits to become theirs? They did not naturally possess them, nor, if suffered to live at ease, would they probably ever have attained to any personal acquaintance with them. They must be brought, in the first instance, under the bands of a strong necessity; so that it might be no doubtful contingence, but a sure and determinate result, that they left Egypt with all the learning, the knowledge of art and manufacture, the capacity for active business and useful employment, which it was possible for them there to acquire. And thus they went forth abundantly furnished with the natural gifts, which were necessary to render them, not only an independent nation, but also fit instruments of God for His work and service in the new and not less honourable than arduous position they were destined to occupy.[20]

[[@Page:20]] The correspondence here between the type and the antitype has been too much overlooked, and even the more direct intimations of New Testament Scripture, respecting the state and employment of saints in glory, have too seldom been admitted to their full extent, and followed out to their legitimate practical results, as regards the condition of believers on earth. The truth in this respect, however, has been so happily developed by a well-known writer, that we must take leave to present it in [[@Page:21]] his own words: “Heaven, the ultimate and perfected condition of human nature, is thought of, amidst the toils of life, as an elysium of quiescent bliss, exempt, if not from action, at least from the necessity of action. Meanwhile, every one feels that the ruling tendency and the uniform intention of all the arrangements of the present state, and almost all its casualties, is to generate and to cherish habits of strenuous exertion. Inertness, not less than vice, is a seal of perdition. The whole course of nature, and all the institutions of society, and the ordinary course of events, and the explicit will of God declared in His word, concur in opposing that propensity to rest which belongs to the human mind; and combine to necessitate submission to the hard yet salutary conditions under which alone the most extreme evils may be held in abeyance, and any degree of happiness enjoyed. A task and duty is to be fulfilled, in discharging which the want of energy is punished even more immediately and more severely than the want of virtuous motives.”

He proceeds to show that the notices we have of the heavenly world imply the existence there of intelligent and vigorous agents:—

“But if there be a real and necessary, not merely a shadowy, agency in heaven as well as on earth; and if human nature is destined to act its part in such an economy, then its constitution, and the severe training it undergoes, are at once explained; and then also the removal of individuals in the very prime of their fitness for useful labour, ceases to be impenetrably mysterious. This excellent mechanism of matter and mind, which, beyond any other of His works, declares the wisdom of the Creator, and which, under His guidance, is now passing the season of its first preparation, shall stand up anew from the dust of dissolution, and then, with freshened powers, and with a store of hard-earned and practical wisdom for its guidance, shall essay new labours in the service of God, who by such instruments chooses to accomplish His designs of beneficence. That so prodigious a waste of the highest qualities should take place, as is implied in the notions which many Christians entertain of the future state, is indeed hard to imagine. The mind of man, formed as it is to be more tenacious of its active habits than even of its moral dispositions, is, in the present state, trained, often at an immense [[@Page:22]] cost of suffering, to the exercise of skill, of forethought, of courage, of patience; and ought it not to be inferred, unless positive evidence contradicts the supposition, that this system of education bears some relation of fitness to the state for which it is an initiation? Shall not the very same qualities which here are so sedulously fashioned and finished, be actually needed and used in that future world of perfection? Surely the idea is inadmissible, that an instrument wrought up at so much expense to a polished fitness for service, is destined to be suspended for ever on the palace-walls of heaven, as a glittering bauble, no more to make proof of its temper?

“Perhaps a pious but needless jealousy, lest the honour due to Him, ‘who worketh all in all,’ should be in any degree compromised, has had influence in concealing from the eyes of Christians the importance attributed in the Scriptures to subordinate agency; and thus, by a natural consequence, has impoverished and enfeebled our ideas of the heavenly state. But, assuredly, it is only while encompassed by the dimness and errors of the present life, that there can be any danger of attributing to the creature the glory due to the Creator. When once with open eye that excellent glory has been contemplated, then shall it be understood that the Divine wisdom is incomparably more honoured by the skilful and faithful performances, and by the cheerful toils of agents who have been fashioned and fitted for service, than it could be by the bare exertions of irresistible power; and then, when the absolute dependence of creatures is thoroughly felt, may the beautiful orders of the heavenly hierarchy, rising and still rising toward perfection, be seen and admired, without hazard of forgetting Him who alone is absolutely perfect, and who is the only fountain and first cause of whatever is excellent.”[21]

FOOTNOTE

[1] Ex. 3:7-17.

[2] Vol. i., see section on the hope of the inheritance.

[3] Ezek. 20: “A land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands.”

[4] Gen. 47:11: “And Joseph gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses.” “The land of Goshen,” says Robinson, in his Biblical Researches, “was the best of the land; and such, too, the province of Esh-Shŭrkiyeh has ever been, down to the present time. In the remarkable Arabic document translated by De Sacy, containing a valuation of all the provinces and villages of Egypt in the year 1376, this province comprises 383 towns and villages, and is valued at 1,411,875 dinars,—a larger sum than is put on any other province, with one exception. During my stay in Cairo, I made many inquiries respecting this district; to which the uniform reply was, that it was considered the best province in Egypt…. There are here more flocks and herds than anywhere else in Egypt, and also more fishermen.” Wilkinson also states, that “no soil is better suited to many kinds of produce than the irrigated edge of the desert (where Goshen lay), even before it is covered by the fertilizing deposit of the inundation.” Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, i., p. 222. How such a rich and fertile region should have been so little occupied at the time of Jacob’s descent into Egypt, as to afford room for his family settling in it, and enlarging themselves as they did, need occasion no anxiety, as the fact itself is indisputable. And Robinson states, that even at present there are many villages wholly deserted, and that the province is capable of sustaining another million.

[5] Rossellini, vol. i., p. 178; Wilkinson, vol. ii., p. 16; also Heeren’s Africa, ii., p. 146, Trans.

[6] Gen. 47:16, 17; Ex. 9:3, etc.

[7] See Heeren’s Africa, ii., p. 157; Rossellini, Mon. dell’ Eg., i., p. 177, etc.; Hengstenberg, Beitr., ii., p. 437.

[8] Prokesch, Errinnerungen aus Eg., as quoted by Hengstenberg in his Eg. and the books of Moses, p. 78. If Egypt had previously been overrun, and for some generations held in bondage, by one of these nomade tribes of Asia, there would have been a still stronger ground for exercising toward the family of Jacob the jealous antipathy in question. Of the fact of such an invasion and possession of Egypt by a shepherd race, later investigations into the antiquities of Egypt have left little room to doubt; but the period of its occurrence, as connected with the history of the Israelites, is still a matter of uncertainty. A full review of the opinions and probabilities connected with the subject, may be seen in Kurtz, Geschichte des Alten Bund, ii., p. 178, sq.

[9] Ex. 1:10.

[10] Baumgarten, Theol. Com., i., p. 393.

[11] Ex. 1:4; 5:6-19.

[12] A modern rationalist (Von Bohlen, Einleitung zur Genesis) has attempted to throw discredit on the above account of the hard service of the Israelites, by alleging that the making of bricks at that early period belonged only to the region of Babylonia, and that the early Egyptians were accustomed to build with hewn stone. “We can scarcely trust our own eyes,” says Hengstenberg, “when we read such things,” and justly, as all well-informed writers concerning ancient Egypt, whether of earlier or of later times, have concurred in testifying that building with brick was very common there so common, indeed, that private edifices were generally of that material. Herodotus mentions a pyramid of brick, which is thought to be one of those still standing (ii. 136). Modern inquirers, such as Champollion, Rossellini, and Wilkinson, speak of tombs, ruins of great buildings, lofty walls, and pyramids, being formed of bricks, and found in all parts of Egypt. (See the quotations in Hengstenberg’s Eg. and books of Moses, p. 2, 80) Wilkinson says (Ancient Egyptians, ii., p. 96), “The use of crude brick, baked in the sun, was universal in Upper and Lower Egypt, both for public and private buildings; and the brick-field gave abundant occupation to numerous labourers throughout the country.…. Inclosures of gardens, or granaries, sacred circuits encompassing the courts of temples, walls of fortifications and towns, dwelling-houses, and tombs,—in short, all but the temples themselves, were of crude brick; and so great was the demand, that the Egyptian government, observing the profit which would accrue from a monopoly of them, undertook to supply the public at a moderate price,—thus preventing all unauthorized persons from engaging in the manufacture. And in order the more effectually to obtain this end, the seal of the king, or of some privileged person, was stamped upon the bricks at the time they were made.” He says, farther, “It is worthy of remark, that more bricks bearing the name of Thothmes II. (whom I suppose to have been king of Egypt at the time of the Exodus) have been discovered than of any other period.” And not only have multitudes of bricks been thus identified with the period of Israel’s bondage, and these sometimes made of clay mingled with chopped straw, but a picture has been discovered in a tomb at Thebes, which so exactly corresponds with the delineation given by Moses of the hard service of the Israelites,—some digging and mixing the clay, others fetching water for it; others, again, adjusting the clay to the moulds, or placing the bricks in rows; the labourers, too, being of Asiatic, not Egyptian aspect, but amongst them four Egyptians, two of whom carry sticks in their hands, taskmasters,—that Rossellini did not hesitate to call it, whether correctly or not, “a picture representing the Hebrews as they were engaged in making brick.”

[13] Ex. 3:13.

[14] Josh. 24:14; Lev. 17:7; Ezek. 23:3, 20:8; Amos 5:25, 26; Acts 7:39.

[15] It is admitted on all hands, that the worship of the gods under symbolical images of irrational creatures had its origin in Egypt, and was especially cultivated there in connection with the cow, or bovine form. It was noticed by Strabo, 1, xvii., as singular, that “no image formed after the human figure was to be found in the temples of Egypt, but only that of some beasts” (τῶν ἀλόγων ζώων τινός). And no images seem to have been so generally used as those of the calf or cow, though authors differ as to the particular deity represented by it. It would rather seem that there were several deities worshipped under this symbol. Most of the available learning on the subject has been brought together by Bochart, Hieroz. Lib. ii., ch. 34; to which Hengstenberg has made some addition in his Beit., ii., p. 155-163. The latter would connect the worship of the golden calf in the desert with the worship of Apis; Wilkinson connects it with that of Mnevis (Manners of Ancient Eg., 2d series, ii., p. 96); and Jerome had already given it as his opinion, that Jeroboam set up the two golden calfs in Dan and Bethel, in imitation of the Apis and Mnevis of Egypt.—(Com. on Hos., 4:15) But however that may be, there can be no doubt, that if the Israelites were disposed to Egyptize in their worship, the most likely and natural method for them to do so, was by forming to themselves the image of a golden cow or calf, and then by engaging in its worship with noisy and festive rites. For it is admitted by those (for example, Creuzer, Symbol., i., p. 448) who are little in the habit of making any concessions in favour of a passage of Scripture, that the rites of the Egyptians partook much of the nature of orgies, and that a very prominent feature in their religion was its bacchanalian character.

[16] Deut. 9:4-6.

[17] Eph. 2:1-3; Rom. 3:9-20, 7; Matt. 9:13; Luke 13:3, etc.

[18] 1 Cor. 4:7, 15:10; Eph. 1:4; John 3:27, 6:44; Matt. 11:25; Phil, 1:29, etc.

[19] Eph. 1:6, 7, 18, 19; Col. 1:12-14; 2 Tim. 1:9, 10; Heb. 2:14, 15; 1 Pet. 1:3-5, etc.

[20] The view given in the text may be said to strike a middle course between that of Kitto, in his History of Palestine, vol. i., p. 150, etc., and that of Hengstenberg, in his Authen., i., p. 431, etc. (We mention these two writers, chiefly as being among the last who have held respectively the views in question, not as if there was anything substantially new in either. Deyling has a clear and, in the main, well-conducted argumentation for the view adopted by Hengstenberg, and against the opposite, at the end of P. I. of his Obs. Sac.) The former regards the Israelites, at the period of their descent into Egypt, as distinguished by all the characteristics of the wandering and barbarous shepherd tribes, and not improbably giving occasion at first, by some overt acts of plunder, to the Egyptian government to adopt harsh measures toward them. Most German writers of the rationalist school not only go to the full length of maintaining this, but, apparently forgetting the discipline to which the Israelites were subjected in Egypt, consider it to have been their condition also when they left the country; and object to the account given of the erection of the tabernacle in the wilderness, as implying too much skill in various kinds of arts and manufactures for a simple shepherd race. So, in particular, Winer and Vatke. Hengstenberg, on the other hand, maintains that the roughness and barbarity properly distinguishing the shepherd tribes never belonged to the Hebrews—that their possessing the character of shepherds at all, arose chiefly from the circumstances in which they were placed during their early sojourn in Canaan—that they were glad to abandon their wandering life and dwell in settled habitations, whenever an opportunity afforded—that, set down, as they afterwards were, in one of the most fertile and cultivated regions of Egypt, which they held from the first as a settled possession (Gen. 47:11, 27), their manner of life was throughout different from the nomadic, was distinguished by possessions in lands and houses, and by the various employments and comforts peculiar to Egyptian society. This view must be adopted with some modification as to the earlier periods of their history; for, though the Israelites never entered fully into the habits of the nomade tribes, yet they were manifestly tending more and more in that direction toward the time of their descent into Egypt. The tendency was there gradually checked, and the opposite extreme at last reached as it appears, that at the time of the Exodus they had all houses with door-posts (Ex. 12:4, 7, etc.), lived to a considerable extent intermingled with the Egyptians in their cities (Ex. 3:20-22, 11:1-3, 12:35, 36), were accustomed to the agricultural occupations peculiar to the country (Deut. 11:10), took part even in its finest manufactures, such as were prepared for the king (1 Chron. 4:21-23), and enjoyed the best productions both of the river and the land (Num. 11:5, 20:5). It is but natural to suppose, however, that some compulsion was requisite to bring them to this state of civilisation and refinement; and as it was a state necessary to fit them for setting up the tabernacle and occupying aright the land of Canaan, we see the overruling hand of God in the very compulsion that was exercised. For an example of a modern Arab tribe settling down to agricultural occupations in the same region, see Robinson’s Researches, i., p. 77.

[21] Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 150-154.

Section Second.—The Deliverer and His Commission.

[[@Page:24]] THE condition to which the heirs of promise were reduced in the land of Egypt, we have seen, called for a deliverance, and this again for a deliverer. Both were to be pre-eminently of God the work itself, and the main instrument of accomplishing it. In the execution of the one here was not more need for the display of Divine power, than for the exercise of Divine wisdom in the selection and preparation of the other. It is peculiar to God’s instruments, that, though however to man’s view they may appear unsuited for the service, they are found on trial to possess the highest qualifications. “Wisdom is justified of all her children,” and especially of those who are appointed to the most arduous and important undertakings.

But in the extremity of Israel’s distress, where was a deliverer to be found with the requisite qualifications? From a family of bondsmen, crushed and broken in spirit by their miserable servitude, who was to have the boldness to undertake their deliverance, or the wisdom, if he should succeed in delivering them, to make suitable arrangements for their future guidance and discipline? If such a person was anywhere to be found, he must evidently have been one who had enjoyed advantages very superior to those which entered into the common lot of his brethren—one who had found time and opportunity for the meditation of high thoughts, and the acquirement of such varied gifts as would fit him to transact, in behalf of his oppressed countrymen, with the court of the proud and the learned Pharaohs, and amidst the greatest difficulties and discouragements to lay the foundation of a system which should nurture and develop through coming ages the religious life of God’s covenant people. Such a deliverer was needed for this peculiar emergency in the affairs of God’s kingdom; and the very troubles which seemed, from their long [[@Page:25]] continuance and crushing severity, to preclude the possibility of obtaining what was needed, were made to work toward its accomplishment.

It is not the least interesting and instructive point in the history of Moses, the future hope of the Church, that his first appearance on the stage of this troubled scene was in the darkest hour of affliction, when the adversary was driving things to the uttermost. His first breath was drawn under a doom of death, and the very preservation of his life was a miracle of Divine mercy. But God here also “made the wrath of man to praise Him;” and the bloody decree which, by destroying the male children as they were born, was designed by Pharaoh to inflict the death-blow on Israel’s hopes of honour and enlargement, was rendered subservient, in the case of Moses, to prepare and fashion the living instrument through whom these hopes were soon to be carried forth into victory and fruition. Forced by the very urgency of the danger on the notice of Pharaoh’s daughter, and thereafter received, under her care and patronage, into Pharaoh’s house, the child Moses possessed, in the highest degree, the opportunity of becoming “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” and grew up to manhood in the familiar use of every advantage which it was possible for the world at that time to confer. Bat with such extraordinary means of advancement for the natural life, with what an atmosphere of danger was he there encompassed for the spiritual! He was exposed to the seductive and pernicious influence of a palace, where not only the world was met with in its greatest pomp and splendour, but where also superstition reigned, and a policy was pursued directly opposed to the interests of God’s kingdom. How he was enabled to with stand such dangerous influences, and escape the contamination of so unwholesome a region, we are not informed; nor even how he first became acquainted with the fact of his Hebrew origin, and the better prospects which still remained to cheer and animate the hearts of his countrymen. But the result shows, that somehow he was preserved from the one, and brought to the knowledge of the other; for when about forty years of age, we are told, he went forth to visit his brethren, and that with a faith already so fully formed, that he was not only prepared to sympathize with them in their distress, but to hazard all for their [[@Page:26]] deliverance.Ex. 2:11-15; Acts 7:23; Heb. 11:24. [1]And, indeed, when he once understood and believed that his brethren were the covenant people of God, who held in promise the inheritance of the land of Canaan, and whose period of oppression he might also have learned was drawing near its termination, it would hardly require any special revelation, besides what might be gathered from the singular providences attending his earlier history, to conclude that he was destined by God to be the chosen instrument for effecting the deliverance.

But it is often less difficult to get the principle of faith, than to exercise the patience necessary in waiting God’s time for its proper and seasonable exercise. Moses showed he possessed the one, but seems yet to have wanted the other, when he slew the Egyptian whom he found smiting the Hebrew. For though the motive was good, being intended to express his brotherly sympathy with the suffering Israelites, and to serve as a kind of signal for a general rising against their oppressors, yet the action itself appears to have been wrong. He had no warrant to take the execution of vengeance into his own hand; and that it was with this view, rather than for any purpose of defence, that Moses went so far as to slay the Egyptian, seems not obscurely implied in the original narrative, and is more distinctly indicated in the assertion of Stephen, who assigns this as the reason of the deed, “for he supposed they would have understood, how that God by his hand would deliver them.” The consequence was, that by anticipating the purpose of God, and attempting to accomplish it in an improper manner, he only involved himself in danger and difficulty; his own brethren misunderstood his conduct, and Pharaoh threatened to take away his life. On this occasion, therefore, we cannot but regard him as acting unadvisedly with his hand, as on a memorable one in the future he spake unadvisedly with his lips. It was the hasty and irregular impulse of the flesh, not the enlightened and heavenly guidance of the Spirit, which prompted him to take the course he did; and without contributing in the least to improve the condition of his countrymen, he was himself made to reap the fruit of his misconduct in a long and dreary exile.[2]

[[@Page:27]] We cannot, therefore, justify Moses in the deed he committed, far less say of him with Buddeus (Hist. Eccles. Vet. Test., i., p. 492), Patrick, and others, that he was stirred up to it by a Divine impulse, nor regard the impulse of any other kind than that which prompted David’s men to counsel him to slay Saul, when an occasion for doing so presented itself (1 Sam. 24),—an impulse of the flesh presuming upon and misapplying a word of God. The time for deliverance was not yet come. The Israelites, as a whole, were not sufficiently prepared for it; and Moses himself also was far from being ready for his peculiar task. Before he was qualified to take the government of such a people, and be a fit instrument for executing the manifold and arduous part he had to discharge in connection with them, he needed to have trial of a kind of life altogether different from what he had been accustomed to in the palaces of Egypt,—to feel himself at home amid the desolation and solitudes of the desert, and there to become habituated to solemn converse with his God, and formed to the requisite gravity, meekness, patience, and subduedness of spirit. Thus God overruled his too rash [[@Page:28]] and hasty interference with the affairs of his kindred, to the proper completion of his own preparatory training, and provided for him the advantage of as long a sojourn in the wilderness to learn Divine wisdom, as he had already spent in learning human wisdom in Egypt. We have no direct information of the manner in which his spirit was exercised during this period of exile, yet the names he gave to his children show that it did not pass unimproved. The first he called Gershom, “because he was a stranger in a strange land,”—implying that he felt in the in most depths of his soul the sadness of being cut off from the society of his kindred, and perhaps also at being disappointed of his hope in regard to the promised inheritance. The second he named Eliezer, saying, “The God of my father is my help,—betokening his clear, realizing faith in the invisible Jehovah, the God of his fathers, to whom his soul had now learnt more thoroughly and confidingly to turn itself, since he had been compelled so painfully to look away from the world. And now having passed through the school of God in its two grand departments, and in both extremes of life obtained ample opportunities for acquiring the wisdom which was peculiarly needed for Israel’s deliverer and lawgiver, the set time for God was come, and He appeared to Moses at the bush for the special purpose of investing him with a Divine commission for the task.

But here a new and unlooked-for difficulty presented itself, in his own reluctance to accept the commission. We know how apt, in great enterprises, which concern the welfare of many, while one has to take the lead, a rash and unsuccessful attempt to accomplish the desired end, is to beget a spirit of excessive caution and timidity—a sort of shyness and chagrin—especially if the failure has seemed in any measure attributable to a want of sympathy and support on the part of those whose co-operation was most confidently relied on. Something not unlike this appears to have grown upon Moses in the desert. Remembering how his precipitate attempt to avenge the wrongs of his kindred, and rouse them to a combined effort to regain their freedom, had not only provoked the displeasure of Pharaoh, but was met by insult and reproach from his kindred themselves, he could not but feel that the work of their deliverance was likely to prove both a heartless and a perilous task,—a work that would [[@Page:29]] need to be wrought out, not only against the determined opposition of the mightiest kingdom in the world, but also under the most trying discouragements, arising from the now degraded and dastardly spirit of the people. This feeling, of which Moses could scarcely fail to be conscious even at the time of his flight from Egypt, may easily be conceived to have increased in no ordinary degree amid the deep solitudes and quiet occupations of a shepherd’s life, in which he was permitted to live till he had the weight of fourscore years upon his head. So that we cannot wonder at the disposition he manifested to start objections to the proposal made to him to undertake the work of deliverance; we are only surprised at the unreasonable and daring length to which, in spite of every consideration and remonstrance on the part of God, he persisted in urging them.

The symbol in which the Lord then appeared to Moses, the bush burning but not consumed, was well fitted on reflection to inspire him with encouragement and hope. It pointed, Moses could not fail to remember, when he came to meditate on what he had seen and heard, to “the smoking furnace and the burning lamp,” which had passed in vision before the eye of Abraham, when he was told of the future sufferings of his posterity in the land that was not theirs.—(Gen. 15:17) Such a furnace now again visibly presented itself; but the little thorn-bush, emblem of the covenant people, the tree of God’s planting, stood uninjured in the midst of the flame, because the covenant God Himself was there. Why, then, should Moses despond on account of the afflictions of his people, or shrink from the arduous task now committed to him?—especially when the distinct assurance was given to him of all needful powers and gifts to furnish him aright for the undertaking, and the word of God was solemnly pledged to conduct it to a successful issue.

It is clear from the whole interview at which Moses received his commission, that the difficulties and discouragements which pressed most upon his mind were those connected with the sunk and degenerate condition of the covenant people themselves, who appeared to have lost heart in regard to the promise of the covenant, and even to have become deeply estranged from the God of the covenant. His concern on the latter point led him to ask what he should say to them when they inquired for the name of [[@Page:30]] the God of their fathers, under whose authority he should go to them? His question was met with the sublime reply, “I AM THAT I AM: thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, JEHOVAH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.” In this striking revelation we have to look, not merely to the name assumed by God, but to the historical setting that on each side is given to it, whereby it is linked equally to the past and the future, and becomes in a great measure self-explanatory. He who describes Himself as the “I AM THAT I AM,” and turns the description into the distinctive name of JEHOVAH, does so for the express purpose of enabling Israel to recognise Him as the God of their fathers—the God who, in the past, had covenanted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who now, in the immediate future, was going to make good for their posterity what He had promised to them. Obviously, therefore, we have here to do, not with the metaphysical and the abstract, not with being simply in the sense of pure absolute existence,—an idea unsuitable alike to the circumstances and the connection; nor can we think of a manifestation of the attributes of being with respect alone to the future—as if God would represent Himself in relation only to what was to come—the God pre-eminently and emphatically of the coming age (“I will be what I will be”). For this were to narrow men’s ideas of the Godhead, and limit the distinctive name to but one sphere of the Divine agency—making it properly expressive of what was to be, in God’s manifestations, not as connected with, but as contradistinguished from, what had been—therefore separating, in some sense, the God of the offspring from the God of the fathers. If, looking to the derivation of the word Jehovah (from the substantive verb to be), we must hold fast to simple being as the root of the idea; yet, seeing how this is imbedded in the historical relations of the past and the future, we must understand it of being in the practical sense: independent and unalterable existence in respect to principles of character and consistency of working. As the Jehovah, He would show that He is the God who changeth not (Mal. 3:6),—the God [[@Page:31]] who, having made with the patriarchs an everlasting covenant, continued to abide in the relations it established, and who could no more resile from its engagements than He could cease to be what He was. Nothing, therefore, could be better suited to the urgencies of the occasion, as well as to the stage generally that had been reached in the Divine dispensations, than the revelation here made to Israel through Moses, summed up and ratified by the signature of the peculiar covenant name of God. The people were thus assured, that however matters might have changed to the worse with them, and temporary darkness have come over their prospects, the God of their fathers remained without variableness or shadow of turning—the God of the present and the future, as well as of the past. And so, in the development now to be given to what already existed in germ and promise, they might justly expect a higher manifestation than had yet appeared of Divine faithfulness and love, and a deeper insight into the manifold perfections of the Divine nature.[3]

With such strong encouragements and exalted prospects, was Moses sent forth to execute in the name of God the commission given to him. And as a pledge that nothing would fail of what had been promised, he was met at the very outset of his arduous course by Aaron his brother, who came from Egypt at God’s [[@Page:32]] instigation, to concert with him measures for the deliverance of their kindred from the now intolerable load of oppression under which they groaned.

The personal history of the deliverer and his commission, viewed in reference to the higher dispensation of the Gospel, exhibits the following principles, on which it will be unnecessary to offer any lengthened illustration:—1. The time for the deliverer appearing and entering on the mighty work given him to do, as it should be the one fittest for the purpose, so it must be the one chosen and fixed by God. It might seem long in coming to many, whose hearts groaned beneath the yoke of the adversary; and they might sometimes have been disposed, if they had been able, to hasten forward its arrival. But the Lord knew best when it should take place, and with unerring precision determined it beforehand. Hence we read of Christ’s appearance having occurred “in due time,” or “in the fulness of time.” There were many lines then meeting in the state of the Church and the world, which rendered that particular period above all others suitable for the manifestation of the Son of God. Then for the first time were all things ready for the execution of Heaven’s grand purpose, and the vast issues that were to grow out of it.

[[@Page:33]] 2. The Deliverer, when II came, must arise within the Church itself. He must be, in the strictest sense, the brother of those whom He came to redeem; bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh; partaker not merely of their nature, but also of their infirmities, their dangers, and their sufferings. Though He had to come from the highest heavens to accomplish the work, still it was not as clad with the armoury and sparkling with the glory of the upper sanctuary that He must enter on it, but as the seed of the vanquished woman, the child of promise in the family of God, and Himself having experience of the lowest depths of sorrow and abasement which sin had brought upon them. He must, however, make His appearance in the bosom of that family; for the Church, though ever so depressed and afflicted in her condition, cannot be indebted to the world for a deliverer; the world must be indebted to her. With her is the covenant of God; and she alone is the mother of the victorious seed, that destroys the destroyer.

3. Yet the deliverance, even in its earlier stages, when existing only in the personal history of the deliverer, is not altogether independent of the world. The blessing of Israel was interwoven with acts of kindness derived from the heathen; and the child Moses, with whom their very existence as a nation and all its coming glory was bound up, owed his preservation to a member of Pharaoh’s house, and in that house found a fit asylum and nursing-place. Thus the earth “helped the woman,” as it has often done since. The Captain of our salvation had in like manner to be helped; for, though born of the tribe of Judah, He had to seek elsewhere the safety and protection which “His own” denied Him, and partly—not because absolutely necessary to verify the type, but to render its fulfilment more striking and palpable—was indebted for his preservation to that very Egypt which had sheltered the infancy of Moses. So that in the case even of the Author and Finisher of our faith, the history of redemption links itself closely to the history of the world.

4. Still the deliverer, as to his person, his preparation, his gifts and calling, is peculiarly of God. That such a person as Moses was provided for the Church in the hour of her extremity, was entirely the result of God’s covenant with Abraham: and the whole circumstances connected with his [[@Page:34]] preparation for the work, as well as the commission given him to undertake it, and the supernatural endowments fitting him for its execution, manifestly bespoke the special and gracious interposition of Heaven. But the same holds true in each particular, and is still more illustriously displayed in Christ. In His person, mysteriously knitting together heaven and earth; in His office as Mediator, called and appointed by the Father; prepared also for entering on it, first by familiar converse with the world, and then by a season of wilderness-seclusion and trial; replenished directly from above with gifts adequate to the work, even to His being filled with the whole fulness of the Godhead;—everything, in short, to beget the impression, that while the Church is honoured as the channel through which the Deliverer comes, yet the Deliverer Himself is in all respects the peculiar gift of God, and that here especially it may be said, “Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things.”

FOOTNOTE

[1] Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 150-154.

[2] We can scarcely have a better specimen of the characteristic difference between the stern impartiality of ancient inspired history, and the falsely coloured partiality of what is merely human, than in the accounts preserved of the first part of Moses life in the Bible and Josephus respectively. All is plain, unadorned narrative in the one, a faithful record of facts as they took place; while in the other, everything appears enveloped in the wonderful and miraculous. A prediction goes before the birth of Moses to announce how much was to depend upon it a Divine vision is also given concerning it to Amram the mother is spared the usual pains of labour—the child, when discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter, refuses to suck any breast but that of its mother—when grown a little, he became so beautiful that strangers must needs turn back and look after him, etc. But with all these unwarranted additions, in the true spirit of Jewish, or rather human partiality, not a word is said of his killing the Egyptian; he is obliged to flee, indeed, but only because of the envy of the Egyptians for his having delivered them from the Ethiopians (Antiq., ii., 9, 10, 11). In Scripture his act in killing the Egyptian is not expressly condemned as sinful; but, as often happens there, this is clearly enough indicated by the results in providence growing out of it. Many commentators justify Moses in smiting the Egyptian, on the ground of his being moved to it by a Divine impulse. There can be no doubt that he supposed himself to have had such an impulse, but that is a different thing from his actually having it; and Augustine judged rightly, when he thought Moses could not be altogether justified, “quia nullam adhuc legitimam potestatem gerebat, nee acceptam divinitus, nee humana societate ordinatam.”—Quaest. in Exodum, ii.

[3] The view given above substantially accords with what appears now, after not a little controversy, and the exhibition of extremes on both sides, to be the prevailing belief among the learned on the name Jehovah, as brought out in Ex. 3:14, 15, and 6:3-8. A summary of the different views may be seen in the article Jehovah, by Œhler, in Hertzog’s Enclycopaedia. The name itself has been much disputed: Ewald maintaining that the proper form can be nothing but Jahve, Caspari and Delitzsch with equal confidence affirming we can only choose between Jahaveh and Jahavah; while Œhler thinks it may be read either Jahveh or Javah. It is admitted to be derived from the imperfect, or from the future used as the imperfect, of the substantive verb, after its older form (הוה). As to the meaning, had it been viewed more with reference to the occasion and the context, there would have probably been less disputation; but the result comes virtually to the same thing. “God,” says Œhler, “is Jehovah, in so far as for the sake of men He has entered into an historical relationship, and in this constantly proves Himself to be that which He is, and, indeed, is who He is.” According to him, it comprises two fundamental ideas—God’s absolute independence (not as arbitrariness, or as free grace, but generally) in his historical procedure, and this absolute continuity or unchangeableness remaining ever in essential agreement with Himself in all He does and says. In this absolute independence or self-existence of God, lies, of course, His eternity (which the Jewish interpreters chiefly exhibit), in so far as He is thereby conditioned in His procedure by nothing temporal, or as He is Himself, the first and the last (Isa. 44:6, 48:12). But the idea of unchangeableness, as through all vicissitudes remaining and showing Himself to be one and the same, is (Œhler admits) the element in the name most frequently made prominent in Scripture (Mal. 3:6; Deut. 32:40; Isa. 41:3, 43:13, etc.). Much the same also Keil (on Genesis, 1861), only with a somewhat closer reference to the historical connection: “Jehovah is God of the history of salvation.” But this signification, he admits, limiting it to the history of salvation, does not lie in the etymology of the word; it is gathered only from the historical evolution of the name Jehovah. From the very import of the name as thus explained, it is evident that the patriarchs could not know it in anything like its full significance; they could not know it as it became known even to their posterity in the wilderness of Canaan; and this is all that can fairly be understood by what is said in Ex. 6:3. It is altogether improbable, as Œhler states, that Moses, when bringing to his people a revelation from the God of their fathers, should have done so under a name never heard of by them before. Only, therefore, a relative ignorance is to be understood as predicated of the patriarchs.

Section Third.—The Deliverance.

WE have now come to the actual accomplishment of Israel’s deliverance from the house of bondage. One can easily imagine that various methods might have been devised to bring it about. And had the Israelites been an ordinary race of men, and had the question simply been, how to get them most easily and quickly released from their state of oppression, a method would probably have been adopted very different from the one that was actually pursued. It is by viewing the matter thus, that shallow and superficial minds so often form an erroneous judgment concerning it. They see nothing peculiar in the case, and form their estimate of the whole transactions as if only common relations were concerned, and nothing more than worldly ends were in view. Hence, because the plan from the first savoured so much of judgment, because, instead of seeking to have the work accomplished in the most peaceful and conciliatory manner, the Lord rather selected a course that was likely to produce bloodshed,—nay, is even represented as hardening the heart of Pharaoh, that an occasion might be found for pouring a long series of troubles and desolations on the land, because the plan actually chosen was of such a kind, many have not scrupled to denounce it as unworthy of God, and more befitting a cruel and malignant than a wise and beneficent being.

Now, in rising above this merely secular view, and the erroneous conclusions that naturally spring from it, it is first of all to be borne in mind that higher relations were here concerned, and more important objects at stake, than those of this world. The Israelites were the chosen people of God, standing in a covenant relation to Him. However far most of them had been living beneath their obligations and their calling, they still occupied a position which was held by no other family on earth. [[@Page:36]] With them was identified, in a peculiar sense, the honour of God and the cause of heaven; and the power that oppressed and afflicted them, was trampling at every step on rights which God had conferred, and provoking the execution of a curse which He had solemnly denounced. If the cause and blessing of Heaven were bound up with the Israelites, then Pharaoh, in acting toward them as an enemy and oppressor, must of necessity have espoused the interest and become liable to the doom of Satan.

Besides, it must be carefully borne in mind, that here especially, where God had immediately to work, His dealings and dispensations were of a preparatory nature. They were planned and executed in anticipation of the grand work of redemption, which was afterwards to be accomplished by Christ, and were consequently directed in such a manner as to embody on the comparatively small scale of their earthly transactions and interests, the truths and principles which were afterwards to be developed in the affairs of a divine and everlasting kingdom.[1] This being the case, the deliverance of Israel from the land of Egypt must have been distinguished at least by the following features:—1. It must, in the first instance, have appeared to be a work of peculiar difficulty, requiring to be accomplished in the face of very great and powerful obstacles, rescuing the people from the strong grasp of an enemy, who, though a cruel tyrant and usurper, yet, on account of their sin, had acquired over them a lordly dominion, and by means of terror kept them subject to bondage. 2. Then, from this being the case, the deliverance must necessarily have been effected by the execution of judgment upon the adversary; so that, as the work of judgment proceeded on the one hand, the work of deliverance would proceed on the other, and the freedom of the covenant people be completely achieved only when the principalities and powers which held them in bondage were utterly spoiled and vanquished. 3. Finally, this twofold process of salvation with destruction, must have been of a kind fitted to call forth the peculiar powers and perfections of Godhead; so that all who witnessed it, or to whom the knowledge of it should come, might be constrained to own and admire the wonder-working [[@Page:37]] hand of God, and instinctively, as it wore, exclaim, “Behold what God hath wrought! It is His doing, and marvellous in our eyes.”—We say, all this must have been on the supposition of the scriptural account of the work being taken; and, excepting on that supposition, we cannot be in a fit position to judge of the things which concerned it.

On this scriptural ground we take our stand, when proceeding to examine the affairs connected with this method of deliverance; and we assert them not only to be capable of a satisfactory vindication, but to have been incapable of serving the purposes which they were designed to accomplish, if they had not been ordered substantially as they were. It is manifestly impossible that here, any more than in what afterwards befell Christ, the order of events should have been left to any law less power, working as it pleased, but that all must have been arranged “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” and arranged precisely as they occurred. The outstretching of the Divine arm to inflict the most desolating judgments on the land of Egypt, the slaying of the first-born, and the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host, were essential parts of the Divine plan. But since these appear as the result of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, this also must have formed an essential element in the plan; and was therefore announced to Moses from the first as an event that might certainly be expected, and which would give a peculiar direction to the whole series of transactions.[2]For this hardening of the heart of Pharaoh was the very hinge, in a sense, on which the Divine plan turned, and could least of all be left to chance or uncertainty. It presents itself not simply as an obstacle to be removed, but as a circumstance to be employed for securing a more illustrious display of the glorious attributes of God, and effecting the redemption of His people in the way most consistent with His righteous purposes. It could not, therefore, be allowed to hang merely upon the will of Pharaoh; somehow the hand of God must have been in the matter, as it belongs to Him to settle and arrange all that concerns the redemption of His people and the manifestation of His own glory. Nor, otherwise, could there have been any security for the Divine [[@Page:38]] plan proceeding to its accomplishment, or for its possessing such features as might render it a fitting preparation for the greater redemption that was to come.

It seems to us impossible to look at the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in the connection which it thus holds with the entire plan of God, or to consider the marked and distinct manner in which it is ascribed to His agency, and yet to speak of Pharaoh being simply allowed to harden his own heart, as presenting a sufficient explanation of the case. It is true, he is often affirmed also to have himself hardened his heart; and in the very first announcement of it ch. ([[3:19 >> Bible:Ex 3:19]] , “I am sure, or rather, I know, that the king of Egypt will not let you go”), as acutely remarked by Baumgarten, “the Lord characterizes the resistance of Pharaoh as an act of freedom, existing apart from the Lord Himself; for I know that which objectively stands out and apart from me.”[3] At the same time, it is justly noticed by Hengstenberg, that as the hardening is ascribed to God, both in the announcement of it beforehand, and in the subsequent recapitulation (Ex. 4:21, 7:3, 11:10), “Pharaoh’s hardening appears to be enclosed within that of God’s, and to be dependent on it. It seems also to be intentional, that the hardening is chiefly ascribed to Pharaoh at the beginning of the plagues, and to God toward the end. The higher the plagues rise, the more does Pharaoh’s hardening assume a supernatural character, and the reference was the more likely to be made to its supernatural cause.”[4]

The conclusion, indeed, is inevitable. It is impossible, by any fair interpretation of Scripture, or on any profound view of the transactions referred to, to get rid of the Divine agency in [[@Page:39]] the matter. Even Tholuck says, “That the hardening of the Egyptian was, on one side, ordained by God, no disciple of Christian theology can deny. It is an essential doctrine of the Bible, that God would not permit evil, unless He were Lord over it: and that He permits it, because it cannot act as a check upon His plan of the world, but must be equally subservient to Him as good— the only difference being, that the former is so compulsorily, the latter optionally.”[5] That God had no hand in the sin, which mingles itself with evil, is clearly implied in the general doctrine of Scripture; since He everywhere appears there as the avenger of sin, and hence cannot possibly be in any sense its author. In so far, therefore, as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart partook of sin, it must have been altogether his own; his conduct, considered as a course of heady and high-minded opposition to the Divine will, was pursued in the free though unrighteous exercise of His own judgment. This, however, is noway inconsistent with the idea of there being a positive agency of God in the matter, to the effect of limiting both the manner and extent of the opposition. “It is in the power of the wicked to sin,” says Augustine, “but that in sinning they do this or that by their wickedness, is not in their own power, but in God’s, who divides and arranges the darkness.”[6] A later authority justly discriminates thus: “God’s providence extendeth itself to all sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing them, in a manifold dispensation, unto His own holy ends; yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God.”[7] It is wholly chargeable on man himself, if there is a sinful disposition at work in his bosom; but that disposition existing there, and resisting the means which God employs to subdue it, the man has no longer any control over [[@Page:40]] the course and issue of events. This is entirely in the hands of God, to be directed by Him in the way, and turned into the form and channel, which is best adapted to promote the ends of His righteous government. “He places the sinner in such situations, that precisely this or that temptation shall assail him—links the thoughts to certain determinate objects of sinful desire, and secures their remaining attached to these, and not starting off to others. The hatred in the heart belonged to Shimei himself; but it was God’s work that this hatred should settle so peculiarly upon David, and should show itself in exactly the manner it did. It was David’s own fault that he became elated with pride; the course of action which this pride was to take was accidental, so far as he was concerned; it belonged to God, who turns the hearts of kings like the rivers of waters. Hence it is said, 2 Sam. 24:1, ‘The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.’ Yet was he not thereby in the least justified, and therefore, [[ >> Bible:2S 24:10]] ver. 10, he confesses that he had greatly sinned, and prays the Lord to take away his iniquity.”[8]

Now, applying these views to the case of Pharaoh, it was certainly his own proud and wicked heart which prompted him to refuse the command of God to let Israel go. But he might have retained that disposition in all its force, and yet have acted differently from what he did. Mere selfishness, or considerations of policy, might have induced him to restrain it, as from like motives, not from any proper change of heart, his magicians first, and afterwards his counsellors, appear to have wished.—(Ex. 8:19, 10:7) But the hand of God exerted such control over him, so bounded and hedged him in, that while he clung to the evil principle, he must pursue his infatuated and foolhardy course: this one path lay open to him. And for his doing so, two things were necessary, and in these the action of Omnipotence [[@Page:41]] was displayed:—1. First, the strong and courageous disposition capable of standing fast under formidable dangers and grappling with gigantic difficulties—a natural endowment which could only have been derived from God. That such a disposition should have been possessed in so eminent a degree by the Pharaoh who then occupied the throne of Egypt, was the result of God’s agency, though Pharaoh alone was responsible for its abuse. 2. But, besides, there was needed such a disposal of circumstances as might tend to prompt and stimulate to the utmost this disposition of Pharaoh; for otherwise it might have lain comparatively dormant, or, at least, might have been far from running such a singularly perverse and infatuated course. Here also the hand of God manifested its working. It was He who, in the language of Tholuck, “brought about those circumstances which made the heart disposed to evil still harder.” Many writers, who substantially admit this, limit the circumstances tending to produce the result in question to the lenity and forbearance of God, in so readily and frequently releasing Pharaoh from the execution of judgment. There can be no doubt that this was one of the circumstances which, on such a mind as his, would be fitted to produce a hardening effect; but it was not the only nor the chief one: there were others, which must have had a still more powerful tendency in the same direction, and which were also more properly judicial in their character. Such, in the first instance, and most evidently, was the particular kind of miracles which Moses was instructed to work at the commencement of his operations—the transforming of his rod into a serpent, and back again to a rod; for this was precisely the field on which Pharaoh might be tempted to think he could successfully compete with Moses, and might rival at least, if not outdo, the pretended messengers of Heaven. However inexplicable the fact may be, of the fact itself there can be no question, that from time immemorial the art of working extraordinary, and to all appearance supernatural, effects on serpents, has been practised by a particular class of persons in Egypt—the Psylli. Many of the ancients have written of the wonderful exploits of those persons, and celebrated their magical power, both to charm serpents at their will, and to resist unharmed the bites of the most venomous species. And it would seem, by the accounts of some of the [[@Page:42]] most recent inquirers, that descendants of the ancient brotherhood still exist in Egypt, forming an association by themselves, and able to handle without fear or injury the most noxious serpents, to walk abroad with numbers of them coiling around their necks and arms, and to make certainly one species of them rigid like a rod, and feign themselves dead.[9] It is also certain, that when they do these wonders, they are in a sort of phrenzied or ecstatical condition, and are believed by the multitude to be under divine influence. That this charming influence was, at least in its origin and earlier stages, the offspring to some extent of demoniacal power, is not inconsistent with what Scripture testifies concerning the workings of that power generally, and is most naturally implied in the particular statements made respecting the magicians when contending with Moses. For although we might, without much violence to the interpretation of the text, suppose it to represent that as being done which to all appearance was done, without being understood positively to affirm that the effect was actually produced; yet the language used of their changing the rods into serpents, and on a small scale also turning water into blood, and producing frogs, does in its proper import indicate something supernatural—corresponding, as we conceive, to the wonders of the demoniacal possessions of our Lord’s time, and still more closely perhaps to “the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders,” which is made to characterize the coming of Antichrist.—(Matt. 24:24; 2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 13:13) But even without pressing this, the mere fact of there being then a class of persons in the service of Pharaoh, who themselves pretended, and were generally believed, to be possessed of a divine power to work the wonders in question, must evidently have acted as a temptation with Pharaoh to resist the demands of Moses, being confident of his ability to contend with him on this peculiar field of prodigies. And [[@Page:43]] having fairly ventured on the arena of conflict, we can easily understand how, with a proud and heaven-defying temper like his, he would scorn to own himself vanquished; even though the miraculous working of Moses clearly established its superiority to any act or power possessed by the magicians, and they themselves were at last compelled to retire from the field, owning the victory to be Jehovah’s.

This, however, was only one class of the circumstances which were arranged by God, and fitted to harden the heart of Pharaoh. To the same account we must also place the progressive nature of the demands made upon him, in beginning first with a request for leave of three days absence to worship God; then, when this was granted for all who were properly capable of taking part in the service, insisting on the same liberty being extended to the wives and children; and again, when even this was conceded, claiming to take with them also their flocks and herds: so that it became evident an entire escape from the land was meditated. There was no deceit, as the adversaries of revelation have sometimes alleged, in this gradual opening of the Divine plan; nor, when the last and largest demand was made, was more asked than Pharaoh should from the first have voluntarily granted. But so little was sought at the beginning to make the unreasonableness of his conduct more distinctly apparent, and the gradual and successive enlargement of the demand was intended to act as a temptation, to prove him, and bring out the real temper of his heart.

Finally, of the same character also was the last movement of Heaven in this marvellous chain of providences—the leading of the children of Israel, as into a net, between the Red Sea and the mountains of the wilderness, fitted, as it so manifestly was, to suggest the thought to Pharaoh, when he had recovered a little from his consternation, and felt the humiliation of his defeat, that now an opportunity presented itself of retrieving his lost honour, and with one stroke avenging himself on his enemies. He was thus tempted, in the confident hope of victory, to renew the conflict, and, when apparently sure of his prey, was led, by the opening of the sea for the escape of the Israelites, and the removal of the Divine cloud to the rear, so as to cover their flight, into the fatal snare which involved him in destruction. In the whole, we [[@Page:44]] see the directing and controlling agency of God, not in the least interfering with the liberty of Pharaoh, or obliging him to sin, but still, in judgment for his sinful oppression of the Church of God, and unjust resistance to the claims of Heaven, placing him in situations which, though fitted to influence aright a well-constituted mind, were also fitted, when working on such a temperament as his, to draw him into the extraordinary course he took, and to render the series of transactions, as they actually occurred, a matter of moral certainty.

But to return to the wonders which Moses was commissioned to perform: it is to be borne in mind, that the humiliation of Pharaoh was not their only design, nor even the redemption of Israel their sole end. The manifestation of God’s own glory was here, as in all His works, the highest object in view; and this required that the powers of Egyptian idolatry, with which the interest of Satan was at that time peculiarly identified, should be brought into the conflict, and manifestly confounded. For this reason, also, it was that the first wonders wrought had such distinct reference to the exploits of the magicians or serpent-charmers, who were the wonder-workers connected with that gigantic system of idolatry, and the main instruments of its support and credit in the world. They were thus naturally drawn, as well as Pharaoh, into the contest, and became, along with him, the visible heads and representatives of the “spiritual wickednesses” of Egypt. And since they refused to own the supremacy and accede to the demands of Jehovah, on witnessing that first and, as it may be called, harmless triumph of His power over theirs; since they resolved, as the adversaries of God’s and the instruments of Satan’s interest in the world, to prolong the contest, there remained no alternative but to visit the hind with a series of judgments, such as might clearly prove the utter impotence of its fancied deities to protect their votaries from the might and vengeance of the living God. It is when considered in this point of view, that we see the agreement in principle between the wonders proceeding from the instrumentality of Moses, and those wrought by the hand of Christ. They seem at first sight to be entirely opposite in their character—the one being severe and desolating plagues; the other, miracles of mercy and healing. This seeming contrariety arises from their [[@Page:45]] having been wrought on entirely different fields—those of Moses on an avowedly hostile territory, those of Christ on a land and among a people that were peculiarly His own. But as in both cases alike there was a mighty adversary, whose power and dominion were to be brought clown, so the display given in each of miraculous working, told with the same effect on his interest, though somewhat less conspicuously in the one case than in the other. While Christ’s works were, in the highest sense, miracles of mercy, supernatural acts of beneficence towards “His own,” they were, at the same time, triumphant displays of Divine over satanic agency. “The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.” As often as His hand was stretched out to heal, it dealt a blow to the cause of the adversary; and the crowning part of the Redeemer’s work on earth, His dying the accursed death of the cross, was that which at once perfected the plan of mercy for the faithful, and judged and spoiled the prince of darkness. In like manner we see mercy and judgment going hand in hand in the wonders that were done by the instrumentality of Moses on the “field of Zoan;” only, from that being the field of the adversary, and the wonders being done directly upon him, the judgment comes more prominently into view. It was essentially a religious contest between the God of heaven on the one side, and the powers of Egyptian idolatry on the other, as represented by Pharaoh and his host; and as one stroke after another was inflicted by the arm of Omnipotence, there was discovered the nothingness of the divinities whose cause Pharaoh maintained, and in whose power he trusted, while “the God of Israel triumphed gloriously, and in mercy led forth the people whom He had redeemed, to His holy habitation.”

It is not necessary that we should show, by a minute examination of each of the plagues, how thoroughly they were fitted to expose the futility of Egyptian idolatry, and to show how completely everything there was at the disposal of the God of Israel, whether for good or evil. The total number of the plagues was ten, indicating their completeness for the purposes intended by their infliction. The first nine were but preparatory, like the miraculous works which Christ performed during His active ministry; the last was the great act of judgment, which was to carry with it the complete prostration of the adversary, [[@Page:46]] and the deliverance of the covenant people. It was therefore, from the first, announced as the grand means to be employed for the accomplishment of Israel’s redemption.—(Ex. 4:22, 23) But the preceding miracles were by no means unnecessary, as they tended to disclose the absolute sovereignty of Jehovah over the whole province of nature, as well as over the lives of men (which came out in the last plague), and His power to turn whatever was known of natural good in Egypt into an instrument of evil, and to aggravate the evil into tenfold severity. This was manifestly the general design; and it is not necessary to prove, either that these plagues were quite different in their nature from anything commonly known in Egypt, or that each one of them struck upon some precise feature of the existing idolatry. In reference to the first of these points, we by no means think, with Hengstenberg, that in the natural phenomena of Egypt there was a corresponding evil to each one of the plagues, and that the plague only consisted in the super natural degree to which the common evil was carried; nor can any proof be adduced in support of this at all satisfactory. But as the evil principle (Typhon) was worshipped in Egypt not less than the good, and worshipped, doubtless, because of his supposed power over the hurtful influences of nature,[10] we might certainly expect that some at least of the plagues would appear to be only an aggravation of the natural evils to which that land was peculiarly exposed: so that these, as well as its genial and beneficent properties, might be seen to be under the control of Jehovah. Of this kind unquestionably was the third plague (that of lice, or, as is now generally agreed, of the gnats, with which Egypt peculiarly abounds, and which all travellers, from Herodotus to those of the present day, concur in representing as a source of great trouble and annoyance in that country).[11] Of the same kind, also, was the plague of flies, which swarm in Egypt, and that also of the locusts;[12] to which we may add the [[@Page:47]] plague of boils, which Scripture itself mentions as possessing a peculiarly Egyptian character.—(Deut. 28:27) But while we can easily account for the production, on a gigantic scale, of these natural evils, the same object viz., the executing of judgment upon the gods of Egypt—would also lead us to expect other plagues of an entirely different kind, in which the natural good was restrained, and even converted into a source of evil. For in this way alone could confusion be poured upon the worship of the good principle, and which, there as elsewhere, took the form of a deification of the genial and productive powers of nature. Some of these belonged to Egypt in a quite extraordinary degree, and were regarded as constituting its peculiar glory. Such especially was the Nile, which was looked upon as identical with Osiris, the highest god, and to which Pharaoh himself is evidently represented as paying divine honours, in Ex. 7:15, 8:20.[13] Such, also, are its almost cloudless sky and ever-brilliant sun, rendering the climate so singularly clear and settled, that a shade is seldom to be seen; and not only the more violent tempests, but even the gentlest showers of rain, are a rarity. Hence of the earlier plagues, the two first those of the turning of the water into blood, and the frogs—took the form of a judgment upon the Nile, converting it from being the most beneficial and delightful, into the most noxious and loathsome, of terrestrial objects; while in the two later plagues of the tempest and the thick darkness, the Egyptians saw their crystal atmosphere and resplendent heavens suddenly compelled to wear an aspect of indescribable terror and appalling gloom. So that whether nature were worshipped there in respect to her benignant or her hurtful influences, the plagues actually inflicted were equally adapted to confound the gods of Egypt in the one case by changing the natural good into its opposite evil, and in the other by imparting to the natural evil a supernatural force and intensity.[14]

Taking this general and comprehensive view of the preliminary [[@Page:48]] plagues, it will easily be seen that there is no need for our seeking to find in each of them a special reference to some individual feature of Egyptian idolatry. If they struck at the root of that system in what might be called its leading principles, there was obviously no necessity for dealing a separate and successive blow against its manifold shades and peculiarities of false worship. For this an immensely greater number than nine or ten would have been required. And as it is, in attempting to connect even these ten with the minutiae of Egyptian idolatry, much that is fanciful and arbitrary must be resorted to. So long as we keep to the general features and design, the bearing of the wonders wrought can be made plain enough; but those who would lead us more into detail, take for granted what is not certain, and sometimes even affirm what is manifestly absurd. To say, for example, that the plague of flies had any peculiar reference to the worship of Baal-zebub, the Fly-god, assumes a god to have been worshipped there who is not known for certain to have had a place in the mythology of Egypt. It is equally arbitrary to connect the plague of locusts with the worship of Serapis. And it is surely to draw pretty largely on one’s credulity, to speak of the miracle on the serpents as intended to destroy these, on account of their being the objects of worship; or to set forth the plague on cattle as aimed at the destruction of the entire system of brute worship, as if no cattle were killed in Egypt, because the Deity was there worshipped under that symbol![15] The general argument is weakened by being coupled [[@Page:49]] with such puerilities; and the solemn impression also, which the wonders were designed to produce, would have been frittered down and impaired, rather than deepened, by so many allusions to the mere details of the system.

But now, when God had by the first nine plagues vindicated His power over all that was naturally good or evil in Egypt, and had thus smitten with judgment their nature-worship in both of its leading characteristics, the adversary being still determined to maintain his opposition, it was time to inflict that last and greatest judgment, the execution of which was from the first designed to be the death-blow of the adversary, and the signal of Israel’s deliverance. This was the slaying of the first-born, in which the Lord manifested His dominion over the highest region of life. Indeed, in this respect, there is clearly discernible, as was already noticed by Abenezra and other Jewish writers,[16] a gradual ascent in the plagues from the lower to the higher provinces of nature, which also tends to confirm the view we have presented of their character and design. The first two come from beneath—from the waters, which may be said to be under the earth (the Nile-blood and the frogs); the next two from the ground or surface of the earth (the lice and the flies); the murrain of beasts and the boils on men belong to the lower atmosphere, as the tempest, the showers of locusts, and the darkness, to the higher; so that one only remains, that which is occupied by the life of man, and which stands in immediate connection with the Divine power and glory. And as in the earlier plagues God separated between the land of Goshen and the rest of Egypt, to show that He was not only the Supreme Jehovah, but also the covenant God of Israel, so in this last and crowning act of judgment it was especially necessary, that while the stroke of death fell upon every dwelling of Egypt, the habitations of Israel should be preserved in perfect peace and safety. [[@Page:50]] But two questions naturally arise here: Why in this judgment upon the life of man should precisely the first-born have been slain? and if the judgment was for the overthrow of the adversary and the redemption of Israel, why should a special provision have been required to save Israel also from the plague?

1. In regard to the first of these points, there can be no doubt that the slaying of the first-born of Egypt had respect to the relation of Israel to Jehovah: “Israel,” said God, “is My son, My first-born: if thou refuse to let him go, I will slay thy son, thy first-born.”—(Ex. 4:22, 23) But in what sense could Israel be called God’s first-born son? Something more is plainly indicated by the expression, though no more is very commonly found in it, than that Israel was peculiarly dear to God, had a sort of first-born’s interest in His regard. It implies this, no doubt, but it also goes deeper, and points to the divine origin of Israel as the seed of promise; in their birth the off spring of grace, as contradistinguished from nature. Such pre-eminently was Isaac, the first-born of the family, the type of all that was to follow; and such now were the whole family, when grown into a people, as contradistinguished from the other nations of the earth. They were not the whole that were to occupy this high and distinctive relation; they were but the beginning of the holy seed, the first-born of Jehovah, the first-fruits of a redeemed world, which in the fulness was to comprehend “all kindreds, peoples, and tongues.” Hence the promise to Abraham was, that he should be the father, not of one, but “of many nations.” But these first-fruits represent the whole, and, themselves alone existing as yet, might now be said to comprehend the whole. If they were to be destroyed, the rest cannot come into existence, for a redeemed Israel was the only seed-corn of a redeemed world; while if they should be saved, their salvation would be the pledge and type of the salvation of all. And, therefore, to make it clearly manifest that God was here acting upon the principle which connects the first-fruits with the whole lump, acting not for that one family merely, and that moment of time then present, but for His people of every kindred and of every age, He takes that principle for the very ground of His great judgment on the enemy, and the redemption thence accruing to His people. As the first-born in God’s [[@Page:51]] elect family is to be spared and rescued, so the first-born in the house of the enemy, the beginning of his increase, and the heir of his substance, must be destroyed: the one a proof that the whole family were appointed to life and blessing; the other, in like manner, a proof that all who were aliens from God’s covenant of grace, equally deserved, and should certainly in due time inherit, the evils of perdition.

2. In regard to the other question which concerns Israel’s liability to the judgment which fell upon Egypt, this arose from Israel’s natural relation to the world, just as their redemption was secured by their spiritual relation to God. For, whether viewed in their individual or in their collective capacity, they were in themselves of Egypt: collectively, a part of the nation, without any separate and independent existence of their own, vassals of the enemy, and inhabitants of his doomed territory; individually, also, partakers of the guilt and corruption of Egypt. It is the mercy and grace alone of God’s covenant which makes them to differ from those around them; and, therefore, to show that while, as children of the covenant, the plague should not come nigh them, not a hair of their head should perish, they still were in themselves no better than others, and had nothing whereof to boast, it was, at the same time, provided that their exemption from judgment should be secured only by the blood of atonement. This blood of the lamb, slain and sprinkled upon their door-posts, was a sign between them and God: the sign on His part, that, according to the purport of His covenant, He accepted a ransom in their behalf, in respect to which He would spare them, “as a man spareth his son;” and the sign on their part, that they owned the God of Abraham as their God, and claimed a share in the privileges which He so freely vouchsafed to them. Thus, in their case, “mercy rejoiced against judgment;” yet so as clearly to manifest, that had they been dealt with according to their desert, and with respect merely to what they were in themselves, they too must have perished under the rebuke of Heaven.

It was in consideration of the perfectly gratuitous nature of this salvation, and to give due prominence and perpetuity to the principle on which the judgment and the mercy alike proceeded [[@Page:52]] that the Lord now claimed the first-born of Israel as peculiarly His own.—(Ex. 13) The Israelites in their collective capacity were His first-born, and as such were saved from death, the just desert and doom of sin which others inherited; but within that election there was henceforth to be another election,—a first-born among these first-born, who, as having been the immediate subjects of the Divine deliverance, were to be peculiarly devoted to Him. They were to be set apart, or literally, “to be made to pass over to God” (Ex. 13:12),—leaving what might be called the more common ground of duty and service, and connecting themselves with that which belonged exclusively to Himself. It implied that they had in a sense derived a new life from God lived, in a sense, out of death, and consequently were bound to show that they did so, by living after a new manner, in a course of holy consecration to the Lord. This was strikingly taught in the ordinance regarding the first-born of cattle and beasts, afterwards introduced, of which the clean were to be presented as an offering to the Lord, that is, wholly given up to Him by death (Ex. 22:29, 30; 34:19, 20); while in the case of the unclean, such as the ass, a lamb was to be sacrificed in its stead. The meaning evidently was, that the kind of consecration to Himself which the Lord sought from the first-born, as it sprung from an act of redemption, saving them from guilt and death, so it was to be made good by a separation, on the one hand, from what was morally unclean, and, on the other, by a self-dedication to all holy and spiritual services. But then, as the redemption in which they had primarily participated was accorded to them in their character as the first-fruits, the representatives of their respective households, and all the households equally shared with them in the deliverance achieved, so it was manifestly the mind of God that their state and calling should be regarded as substantially belonging to all, and that in them were only to be seen the more eminent and distinguished examples of what should characterize the people as a whole. Hence they were in one mass presently addressed as “a kingdom of priests and an holy nation” (Ex. 19:6); they were called to be generally what the first-born were called to be pre-eminently and peculiarly. In short, as these first-born had been as to their redemption [[@Page:53]] the proxies, in a manner, of the whole, so were they in their subsequent consecration to be the symbolical lights and patterns of the whole. Nor was any change in this respect made by the substitution of the tribe of Levi in their room.—(Num. 3:12) For this, as will appear in its proper place, was only the supplanting of a less by a more perfect arrangement, which was also done in such a way as to render most distinctly manifest the representative character of the tribe, which entered into the place of the first-born;—so that we see here, at the very outset, what was God’s aim in the redemption of His people, and how it involved not simply their release from the thraldom and the oppression of Egypt, but also their standing in a peculiar relation to Himself, and their call to show forth His glory. We perceive in this act of redemption the kernel of all that was afterwards developed, as to duty and privilege, by the revelations of law and the institutions of worship. And we see also what a depth of meaning there is in the expression used in Heb 12:23, where it is represented as the ennobling distinction of Christians, that they have “come to the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.” To designate the Church as that of the first-born, is to present it to our view in its highest character as being in a state of most blessed nearness to God, having a peculiar interest in His favour, and a singular destination to promote the ends of His righteous government; it is the calling and destination of those who have been ransomed from the yoke of servitude, to live henceforth to His glory, and minister and serve before Him.[17]

[[@Page:54]] When we come to consider the commemorative institution of the Passover, we shall see how admirably its services were adapted to bring out and exhibit to the eye of the Church the great principles of truth and duty, which were involved in the memorable event in providence we have now been reviewing. But before we leave the consideration of it as an act of providence, there is another point connected with it, at which we would briefly glance, and one in which the Egyptians and Israelites were both concerned. We refer to what has been not less unscripturally than unhappily called “the borrowing of jewels” from the Egyptians by the Israelites on the eve of their departure.[18] That the sacred text in the original gives no countenance to this false view of the transaction, we have explained in the note below; and, indeed, the whole circumstances of the case render it quite incredible that there should have been a borrowing and lending in the proper sense of the term. It is not conceivable that now, when Moses had refused to move, unless they were allowed to take with them all their flocks and herds, any thought should have been entertained of their return. Nor could this, at such a time, have been wished by [[@Page:55]] any; for after the land had been smitten by so many plagues on account of them, and when, especially by the last awful judgment, every heart was paralyzed with fear and trembling, the desire of the Egyptians must have run entirely in the opposite direction. Such, we are expressly told, was the case; for “the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste: for they said, We be all dead men.” Besides, what possible use could they have had for articles of gold, silver, and apparel, if they were only to be absent for a few days? The very request must have betrayed the intention, and the utmost credulity on the part of the Egyptians could not have induced them to give on such a supposition. It is farther evident that this must have been the general understanding in Egypt, from the numbers—”the mixed multitude,” as they are called—who went along with the Israelites, and who must have gone with them under the impression that the Israelites were taking a final leave of Egypt. Hence the reasoning of Calvin and other commentators who, under the idea of its being a proper borrowing and lending, endeavour to justify the transaction by resting on the absolute authority of God, who has a right to command what He pleases—falls of itself to the ground.

Now, that this giving on the part of the Egyptians, and receiving on the part of the Israelites, was intimately connected with God’s great work of judgment on the one, and mercy to the other, is manifest from the place it holds in the Divine record. It was already foretold to Abraham, that his posterity should come forth from the land of their oppression with much substance. That the prediction should be fulfilled in this particular way, was declared to Moses in God’s first interview with him.—(Ex. 3:21, 22) And both then, and immediately before it took place, and still again when it did take place, the Lord constantly spoke of it as His own doing a result accomplished by the might of His outstretched arm upon the Egyptians. We can never imagine that so much account would have been made of it, if the whole end to be served had simply been to provide the Israelites with a certain supply of goods and apparel. A much higher object was unquestionably aimed at. As regards the Egyptians, it was a part of the judgment which God was [[@Page:56]] now visiting upon them for their past misdeeds, and which here, as not infrequently happened, was made to take a form analogous to the sin it was designed to chastise. Thus, in another age, when the Israelites themselves became the objects of chastisement, they said, “We will flee upon horses; therefore (said God) ye shall flee, and they that pursue you shall be swift.”—(Isa. 30:16) And again, in Jeremiah, “Like as ye have forsaken Me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”—(Ch. [[5:19 >> Bible:Je 5:19]] ) In like manner here, the Egyptians had been long acting the part of oppressors of God’s people, seeking by the most harsh and tyrannical measures to weaken and impoverish them. And now, when God comes down to avenge their cause, He constrains Egypt to furnish them with a rich supply of her treasures and goods. No art or violence was needed on their part to accomplish this; the thing was in a manner done to their hand. The enemies themselves became at last so awed and moved by the strong hand of God upon them, that they would do anything to hasten forward His purpose. Their proud and stubborn hearts bow beneath His arm, like tender willows before the blast; and they feel impelled by an irresistible power to send forth, with honour and great substance, the very people they had so long been unjustly trampling under foot. What a triumphant display of the sovereign might and dominion of God over the adversaries of His cause! What a striking manifestation of the truth, that He can not only turn their counsels into foolishness, but also render them unconscious instruments of promoting His glory in the world! And what a convincing proof of the folly of those who would enrich themselves at the expense of God’s interest, or would enviously prevent His people from obtaining what they absolutely need of worldly means to accomplish the service He expects at their hands!

Yet, palpable as these lessons were, and affectingly brought home to the bosoms of the Egyptians, they proved insufficient to disarm their hostility. The pride of their monarch was only for the moment quelled, not thoroughly subdued; and as soon as he had recovered from the recoil of feeling which the stroke of God’s judgment had produced, he summoned all his might to avenge on Israel the defeat he had sustained; but only with the [[@Page:57]] effect of leaving, in his example, a more memorable type of the final destruction that is certain to overtake the adversaries of God. In a few days more the shores of the Red Sea resounded with the triumphant song of Moses: “I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea….The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou hast overthrown them that rose up against Thee: Thou sentest forth Thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were gathered together,” etc. Of this song, “composed on the instant of deliverance, and chanted to the music of the timbrel,” Milman justly says: “What is the Roman arch of triumph, or the pillar crowded with sculpture, compared, as a memorial, to the Hebrew song of victory; which, having survived so many ages, is still fresh and vivid as ever, and excites the same emotions of awe and piety in every human breast susceptible of such feelings, which it did so many ages past in those of the triumphant children of Israel?”[19] How closely also the act of victorious judgment this ode celebrates stands related to future acts of a like kind,—how, especially, it was intended to foreshadow the final putting down of all power and authority that exalts itself against the kingdom of Christ, is manifest from Rev. 15:3, where the glorious company above are represented as singing at once the song of Moses and of the Lamb, in the immediate prospect of the last judgments of God, and of all nations being thereby led to come and worship before Him. It is also in language entirely similar, and indeed manifestly borrowed from that song of Moses, that the Apostle, in 2 Thess. 2:8, describes the sure destruction of Antichrist, “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit (or breath) of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.” Overlooking the scriptural connection between the earlier and the later here in God’s dealings, between the type and the antitype,—overlooking, too, the rise that has taken place in the position of the Church, [[@Page:58]] and its relations to the world, by the introduction of Christianity, not a few writers have sought to fasten upon those prophetic passages of the New Testament an interpretation which is too grossly literal even for the original passage in the Old, as if nothing would fulfil their import but a corporeally present Saviour, inflicting corporeal and overwhelming judgments on adversaries in the flesh. The work of judgment celebrated in the song of Moses is ascribed entirely to the Lord: it is He who throws the host of Pharaoh into the sea, and by the strength of His arm lays the enemy low. But did He do so by being corporeally present? or did He work without any inferior instrumentality? Was there literally a stretching out of his own arm? or did He actually send forth a blast from His nostrils? But if no one would affirm such things in regard to the over throw of Pharaoh, how much less should it be affirmed in regard to the destruction of Antichrist, with his ungodly retainers! Here the Church has to do, not with a single individual, an actual king and his warlike host, as in the case of Pharaoh, but with an antichristian system and its wide-spread adherents; and the real victory must be won, not by acts of violence and bloodshed, but by the spiritual weapons which shall undermine the strong holds of error and diffuse the light of Divine truth. Whenever the Lord gives power to those weapons to overcome, He substantially repeats anew the judgments of the Red Sea; and when all that exalteth itself against the knowledge of Christ shall be put down by the victorious energy of the truth, then shall be the time to sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Vol. i., Book I., c. 3.

[2] Ex. 3:19, 4:21.

[3] Commentary on Ex. iii. 19, 20.

[4] Authentie, ii., p. 462. Some stress is laid by Hengstenberg on the hardening being ascribed seven times to Pharaoh, and the same number of times to God, as indicating that it has respect to the covenant of God, of which seven is the sign. Baumgarten also lays some stress on the numbers, but finds each to be ten times repeated, the sign of completeness. Both have to deal arbitrarily with the sacred text to make out their respective numbers (for example, Hengstenberg leaves out the three hardenings of God in ch. 14; and Baumgarten treats ch. 7:13 and 14, as if they spoke of two distinct hardenings). It is also against the simplicity of the Scripture narrative to draw from the incidental form of its historical statements such hidden meanings.

[5] On Rom. 9:19, note furnished to English translation, Bib. Cab., xii., p. 249. Bush, however, in his notes on Exodus, still speaks of the mere permission as sufficient: “God is said to have done it, because He permitted it to be done.” His criticism on the words does not in the least contribute to help this meaning. Dean Graves, as Arminian writers generally, hold the same view.—(Works, vol. iii., p. 321, etc.)

[6] Liber, de Praedestinatione Sanctorum, § 33.

[7] Westminster Confession, ch. v.

[8] Authentie, ii., p. 466. See also Calvin’s Institutes, B. I., c. 18, and B. II., c. 4, for the proof, rather than the explanation, of the fact, that “bare permission is too weak to stand, and that it is the merest trifling to substitute a bare permission for the providence of God, as if He sat in a watch-tower, waiting for fortuitous events, His judgments meanwhile depending on the will of man.”

[9] See the quotations from the ancients in Bochart, Hieroz., ii., p. 393 and 4; and for the account of the moderns, Hengstenberg’s Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 98-103. See also Mr Lane’s account of the modern serpent-charmers (Modern Eg., c. 20), who represents them as certainly doing extraordinary feats, but states it as an ascertained fact, that they do not carry serpents of a venomous nature about their persons till they have extracted the poisonous teeth. It is to be inferred that the ancient Psylli did the same, though they professed differently.

[10] Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, p. 362, 380. See also the note of Mosheim to Cudworth’s Intellectual System, vol. i., p. 353. Tegg’s ed., and Bochart, Hieroz. Lib. ii., c. 34.

[11] See the note in the Pictorial Bible on Ex. 8:17. Also Hengstenberg’s Eg. and Books of Moses, for quotations from various authorities.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Hengstenberg, p. 109, where the authorities are given. Also Vossius, de Origine et Prog. Idolatriae, L. ii., c. 74, 75.

[14] We are surprised that Hengstenberg (also Kurtz) did not see the necessity of the one class of wonders as well as of the other, for the object in view. He has hence laboured to find a corresponding natural evil to all the plagues, and in some of the cases has most palpably laboured in vain. He is at pains to prove, that the Nile, when swollen, has somewhat of a reddish colour, and that it is not without frogs—the wonder, indeed, would be, if it were otherwise in either respect; but he has not produced even the shadow of proof that these things belonged to it to such an extent as to render it nauseous or unwholesome, or so much as to suggest the idea of a plague. On the contrary, the redness of the water is rather a sign of its becoming again fit for use. (See Pictorial Bible on Ex. 7:17) Resort is had by Kurtz, and some others, for a natural basis, to a lately discovered fact, that a slightly red tinge is occasionally given to the waters of the Nile by certain microscopical fungi or infusoria. But microscopical observations in such a case are entirely out of the question, so long as the people know nothing of it as a practical evil. The same virtually may be said of storms and thunder, which are all but unknown in Egypt.

[15] The contrary needs no proof, as every one knows who is in the least acquainted with ancient Egypt, that “oxen generally were used both for food and sacrifice” (Heeren, Af., ii., p. 147); and evidence has even been found among the ancient documents, of a company of curriers, or leather-dressers.—(Ib.. p. 137) Bryant, in his book on the plagues, led the way to those weak and frivolous opinions, and he has been followed by many without examination. See, for example, the Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, chapter iii.

[16] See in Baumgarten’s Commentary, i., p. 459.

[17] It is singular how frequently commentators have missed the proper force of this passage in Hebrews. The first-born to which Christians are come, says Whitby, are the apostles, who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit. But it is of the New Testament Church generally, of which the apostles were a part, that the declaration is made; and the explanation amounts simply to this:—Ye who have the first-fruits of the Spirit are come to those who have the first-fruits of the Spirit! Macknight is no better: “The first-born of man and beast being reckoned more excellent than the subsequent births, were appropriated to God. Hence the Israelites had the name of God’s first-born given them, to show that they belonged to God, and were more excellent than the rest of the nations.” A poor distinction, surely, on which, as a basis, to raise the peculiar privileges and hopes of the redeemed!

[18] The sense of borrowing was, by a mistranslation of the Septuagint on ch. 12:35, first given to the Hebrew word. This misled the fathers, who were generally unacquainted with Hebrew; and even Jerome adopted that meaning, though possessed of learning sufficient to detect the error. The Hebrew word is שאל, which simply means to ask or demand: “Speak now to the ears of the people, and let every man ask of his neighbour jewels (rather, articles) of gold,” etc. (ch. 11:1-3). It is the same word that is used in 12:36, and which has there so commonly obtained the sense of lending. Here it is in the Hiphil or causeform, and strictly means, “to cause another to ask,” = give, or present. Rendered literally, the first part of the verse would stand, “And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, and they made them to ask or desire.” This can only mean, that the Lord produced such an impression upon the minds of the Egyptians in favour of the Israelites, that, so far from needing to be cozened or constrained to part with the articles of gold, silver, and apparel, they rather invited the Israelites to ask them: take what you will, we are willing to give all. Even Ewald, though the narrative is merely a tradition in his account, which he handles after his own fashion, yet affirms it to be the self-evident import of the account, that the plundering was no act of theft, that only Pharaoh’s subsequent breach of promise rendered the restoration of the goods impracticable, and that the turn matters took was to be regarded as a kind of Divine recompense.—(Gesch., ii., p. 87)

[19] History of the Jews, third ed., vol. i., p. 95.

Section Fourth.—The March through The Wilderness—Manna—Water from The Rock—The Pillar of Cloud and Fire.

[[@Page:59]] THE children of Israel are now in the condition of a ransomed people, delivered from the yoke of the oppressor, and personally in a state of freedom and enlargement. They have been redeemed for the inheritance, but still the inheritance is not theirs; they are separated from it by a great and terrible wilderness, where many trials and difficulties must certainly be encountered, and nature, if left to itself, will inevitably perish. They were not long in feeling this. To the outward eye, the prospect which lay immediately before them, when they marched from the shores of the Red Sea, was peculiarly dark and disheartening. The country they had left behind, with all the hardships and oppressions it had latterly contained for them, was still a rich and cultivated region. It presented to the eye luxuriant fields, and teemed with the best of nature’s productions; they had there the most delicious water to drink, and were fed with flesh and bread to the full. But now, even after the most extraordinary wonders had been wrought in their behalf, and the power that oppressed them had been laid low, everything assumes the most dismal and discouraging aspect: little to be seen but a boundless waste of burning sand and lifeless stones; and a tedious march before them, through trackless and inhospitable deserts, where it seemed impossible to find for such an immense host even the commonest necessaries of life. What advantage was it to them in such a case, to have been brought out with a high hand from the house of bondage? They had escaped, indeed, from the yoke of the oppressor, but only to be placed in more appalling circumstances, and exposed to calamities less easy to be borne. And as death seemed inevitable anyhow, it might have been as well, at least, to have let them meet it amid the comparative comforts they enjoyed in Egypt, as to have it now [[@Page:60]] coining upon them through scenes of desolation and the lingering horrors of want.

Such were the feelings expressed by the Israelites shortly after their entrance on the wilderness, and more than once expressed again as they became sensible of the troubles and perils of their new position.[1] If they had rightly interpreted the Lord’s doings, and reposed due confidence in His declared purposes concerning them, they would have felt differently. They would have understood, that it was in the nature of things impossible for God to have redeemed them for the inheritance, and yet to suffer any inferior difficulties by the way to prevent them from coming to the possession of it. That redemption carried in its bosom a pledge of other needful manifestations of Divine love and faithfulness. For, being in itself the greatest, it implied that the less should not be withheld; and being also the manifestation of a God who, in character as in being, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, it bespoke His readiness to give, in the future, similar manifestations of Himself, in so far as such might be required.

The Israelites, however, who were still enveloped in much of the darkness and corruption of Egypt, though they were outwardly delivered from its thraldom, understood as yet comparatively little of this. They knew not how much they had to expect from God, as the JEHOVAH, the self-existent and unchangeable, who, as such, could not leave the people whom He had redeemed to want and desolation, but must assuredly carry on and perfect what He had so gloriously begun. They readily gave way, therefore, to fears and doubts, and even broke out into open murmuring and discontent. But this only showed how much they had still to learn in the school of God. They had yet to obtain a clearer insight into God’s character, and a deeper consciousness of their covenant relation to Him. And they could not possibly be in a better position for getting this, than in that solitary desert where the fascinating objects of the world no longer came between them and God. There they were in a manner forced into intimate dealings with God; being constantly impelled by their necessities, on the one hand, to throw themselves upon His care, and drawn, on the other, by [[@Page:61]] His gracious interpositions in their behalf, into a closer acquaintance with His character and goodness. By the things they suffered, not less than those they heard, they were made to learn obedience, and were brought through a fitting preparation for the calling and destiny that was before them. Even with all the advantages which their course of wilderness-training possessed for this purpose, it proved insufficient for the generation that left Egypt with Moses; and the promise of God required to be suspended till another generation had sprung up, in whom that training, by being longer continued, was to prove more thoroughly effectual. So again, in later times, when their posterity had fallen from their high calling, the Lord had again to put them through a discipline so entirely similar to the one now undergone, that it is spoken of as a simple repetition of what took place after the deliverance from Egypt.[2] And is it not substantially so still with the sincere believer in Christ? Spiritually he enters upon a desert the moment he takes up his Master’s cross and begins to die to the world, and never altogether leaves it till he enters the rest which remains for the people of God. But what life to him here may be, will necessarily depend to a large extent on the use he makes of his privileges as a believer, and the manner in which he prosecutes his calling in the Saviour. If his soul prospers, he may, as to other things, be in health and prosperity, and his present condition may approach nearer and nearer to that which awaits him here after.

In regard to the Lord’s manifestations and dealings toward Israel during this peculiar portion of their history, the general principle unfolded is, that while He finds it needful to prescribe to His ransomed people a course of difficulty, trial, and danger, before putting them in possession of the inheritance, He gives them meanwhile all that is required for their support and well-being, and brings to them discoveries of His gracious nearness [[@Page:62]] to them, and unfailing love, such as they could not otherwise have experienced.

I. This appeared, first of all, in the supply of food provided for them, and especially in the giving of manna, which the Lord sent them in the place of bread. It is true that the manna might not necessarily form, nor can scarcely be supposed to have actually formed, their only means of subsistence during the latter and longer period of their sojourn in the wilderness; for, to say nothing of the quails, of which at first in kindness, and again in anger, a temporary supply was furnished them (Ex. 16; Num. 11), there were within reach of the Israelites not a few resources of a common kind. The regions which they traversed, though commonly designated by the name of desert, are by no means uniform in their character, and contain in many places pasturage for sheep and cattle. Hence considerable tribes have found it possible, from the most distant times, to subsist in them such as the Ishmaelites, Midianites, Amalekites. That the Israelites afterwards availed themselves of the means of support which the wilderness afforded them, in common with these tribes of the desert, is clear from what is mentioned of their flocks and herds. They are expressly said to have left Egypt with large property in these (Ex. 12:38); and that they were enabled to preserve, and even perhaps to increase, these possessions, we may gather from the notices subsequently given concerning them, especially from the mention made of the cattle, when they sought liberty to pass through the territory of Edom (Num. 20:19); and from the very large accumulation of flocks and herds by Gad and Reuben, which led to their obtaining a portion beyond the bounds of what was properly the promised land.—(Num. 32) The Israelites thus had within themselves considerable resources as to the supply of food; and the sale of the skins and wool, and what they could spare from the yearly increase of their possessions, would enable them to purchase again from others. Besides, the treasure which they brought with them from Egypt, and the traffic which they might carry on in the fruit, spices, and other native productions of the desert, would furnish them with the means of obtaining provisions in the way of commerce. Nor have we any reason to [[@Page:63]] think that the Israelites neglected these natural opportunities, but rather the reverse; for Moses retained his father-in-law with them, that, from his greater experience of the wilderness-life, he might be serviceable to them in their journeyings and abodes (Num. 10:31); and it would seem that during the thirty-eight years of their sojourn, appointed in punishment for their unbelief, their encampment was in the neighbourhood of Mount Seir, where they had considerable advantages, both for trade and pasturage. So that the period of their sojourn in the wilderness may have been, and most probably was, far from being characterized by the inactivity and destitution which is commonly supposed; for Moses not only speaks of their buying provisions, but also of the Lord having “blessed them in all the works of their hands, and suffered them to lack nothing.” (Deut. 2:6, 7)[3]

[[@Page:64]] It is clear, however, that these natural resources could not well become available to the Israelites till they had lived for some time in the desert, and had come to be in a manner naturalized to it. To whatever extent they may have been indebted to such means of subsistence, it must have been chiefly during those thirty-eight years that they were doomed by the judgment of God to make the wilderness their home. And as that period formed an arrest in their progress, a sort of moral blank in their history, during which, as we shall see at the close of this chapter, the covenant and its more distinctive ordinances [[@Page:65]] were suspended, we need not wonder if the things properly typical in their condition should also have suffered a measure of derangement. It is to these things, as they happened to them during their march through the wilderness and encampment around Sinai, that we are to look for the types (in their stricter sense) of Gospel realities. And there can be no doubt that, with reference to this period, the entire people were dependent upon manna for the chief part of their daily support. With a considerable proportion of the people, those who were in humbler circumstances, it must, indeed, have been so to the last. Therefore the nocturnal supply could not cease, though it may have varied in amount, till the people actually entered the territory of Canaan. It was the peculiar provision of Heaven for the necessities of the wilderness.[4]

In regard to the manna itself, which formed the chief part of this extraordinary provision, the description given is, that it fell round about the camp by night with the dew; that it consisted of small whitish particles, compared to hoar-frost, coriander-seed, and pearls (for so בְּרֹלַח in Num. 11:7 should be rendered, not bdellium; see Bochart, Hieroz., P. ii., p. 675-7); that it melted when exposed to the heat of the sun, and tasted like wafers made with honey, or like fresh oil. Now it seems that in certain parts of Arabia, and especially in that part which lies around Mount Sinai, a substance has been always found very much resembling this manna, and also bearing its name the juice or gum of a kind of tamarisk tree, which grows in that region, called tarfa, oozing out chiefly by night in the month of [[@Page:66]] June, and collected before sunrise by the natives. Such a fact was deemed perfectly sufficient to entitle modern rationalists to conclude that there was no miracle in the matter, and that the Israelites merely collected and used a natural production of the region where they sojourned for a period. But even supposing the substance called manna to have been in both cases precisely the same, there was still ample room for the exertion of miraculous power in regard to the quantity; for the entire produce of the manna found in the Arabian peninsula, even in the most fruitful years, does not exceed 700 pounds, which, on the most moderate calculation, could not have furnished even the thousandth part necessary for one day’s supply to the host of Israel! Besides the enormous disproportion, however, in regard to quantity, there were other things belonging to the manna of Scripture which clearly distinguished it from that found by naturalists—especially its falling with the dew, and on the ground as well as on plants; its consistence, rendering it capable of being used for bread, while the natural is rather a substitute for honey; its corrupting, if kept beyond a day; and its coming in double quantities on the sixth day, and not falling at all on the seventh. If these properties, along with the immense abundance in which it was given, be not sufficient to constitute the manna of Scripture a miracle, and that of the first magnitude, it will be difficult to say where anything really miraculous is to be found.

But this by no means proves the absence of all resemblance between the natural and the supernatural productions in question; and so far from there being aught in that resemblance to disturb our ideas regarding the truth and reality of the miracle, we should rather see in it something to confirm them. For though not always, yet there very commonly is a natural basis for the supernatural, or, at least, an easily recognised connection between the two. Thus, when our Lord proceeded to administer a miraculous supply of food to the hungry multitudes around Him, He did not call into being articles of food unknown in Judea, but availed Himself of the few loaves and fishes that were furnished to His hand. In like manner, when Jehovah was going to provide in the desert a substitute for the corn of cultivated lands, was it not befitting that He should take some [[@Page:67]] natural production of the desert, and increase or otherwise modify it, in adaptation to the end for which it was required? It is in accordance with all reason and analogy, that this corn of the desert should, to some extent, have savoured of the region with which it was connected; and the few striking resemblances it is found to bear to the produce of the Arabian tamarisk are the stamp of verisimilitude, and not of suspicion; the indication of such an affinity between the two as might justly be expected, from their being the common production of the same Divine hand, only working miraculously in the one case, and naturally in the other.[5]

It is obvious that this miraculous supply of food for the desert was in itself a provision for the bodily, and not for the spiritual nature of the Israelites. Hence it is called by our Lord, “not the true bread that cometh down from heaven,” because the life it was given to support was the fleshly one, which terminates in death: “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” (John 6:32, [[ >> Bible:Jn 6:49-50]] 49, 50) And even in this point of view the things connected with it have a use for us, apart altogether from any higher, typical, or prospective reference they might also bear to Gospel things. Lessons may be drawn from the giving [[@Page:68]] and receiving of manna in regard to the interests and transactions of our present temporal life— properly and justly drawn; only we must not confound these, as is too commonly done, with the lessons of another and higher kind, which it was intended, as part of a preparatory dispensation, to teach regarding the food and nourishment of the soul. For example, the use made of it by the Apostle in the second Epistle to the Corinthians ([[8:15 >> Bible:2Co 8:15]] ), to enforce on the rich a charitable distribution of their means to the needy, so that there might be provided for all a sufficiency of these temporal goods, such as was found by the children of Israel on gathering the manna: this has no respect to any typical bearing in the transaction, as in both cases alike it is the bodily and temporal life alone that is contemplated. In like manner, we should regard it, not in a typical, but only in a common or historical point of view, if we should apply the fact of their being obliged to rise betimes and gather it with their own hands, to teach the duty of a diligent industry in our worldly callings; or the other fact of its breeding worms when unnecessarily hoarded and kept beyond the appointed time, to show the folly of men labouring to heap up possessions which they cannot profitably use, and which must be found only a source of trouble and annoyance. Such applications of the historical details regarding the manna, are in themselves perfectly legitimate and proper, but are quite out of place when put, as they often are, among its typical bearings; as may be seen even by those who do so, when they come to certain of the details to the double portion, for example, on the last day of the week, that there might be an unbroken day of rest on the Sabbath; for, if considered, as in the examples given above, with reference merely to what is to be done or enjoyed on earth, the instruction would be false—the day of rest being the season above all others on which, in a spiritual point of view, men should gather and lay up for their souls. They are here, therefore, under the necessity of mixing up the present with the future, making the six days represent time, during which salvation is to be sought, and the seventh eternity, during which it is to be enjoyed. Yet there is an important use of this part also of the arrangement regarding the manna, in reference to the present life, apart altogether from the typical bearing. For when the Lord sent that double [[@Page:69]] portion on the last day of the week, and none on the next, it was as much as to say, that in His providential arrangements for this world, He had given only six days out of the seven for worldly labour, and that if men readily concurred in this plan they should find it to their advantage: they should find, that in the long run they got as much by their six days labour as they either needed or could profitably use, and should have, besides, their weekly day of rest of spiritual refreshment and bodily repose. Nor can we regard this lesson of small moment in the eye of Heaven, when we see no fewer than three miracles wrought every week for forty years to enforce it, viz., a double portion of manna on the sixth day, none on the seventh, and the preservation of the portion for the seventh from corrupting when kept beyond the usual time.

When we come, however, to consider the Divine gift of manna in its typical aspect, as representative of the higher and better things of the Gospel, we must remember that there are two distinct classes of relations—corresponding, indeed, yet still distinct, since the one has immediate respect only to the seen and the temporal, and the other to the unseen and the eternal. In both cases alike there is a redeemed people, travelling through a wilderness to the inheritance promised to them, and prepared for them, and receiving as they proceed the peculiar provision they require for the support of life, from the immediate hand of God. But in the one case it is the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, redeemed from the outward bondage and oppression of Egypt, at the most from bodily death; in the other, the spiritual members of an elect Church redeemed from the curse and condemnation of sin: in the one, the literal wilderness of Arabia, lying between Egypt and Palestine; in the other, the figurative wilderness of a present world: in the one, manna; in the other, Christ. That we are warranted to connect the two together in this manner, and to see the one, as it were, in the other, is not simply to be inferred from some occasional passages of Scripture, but is rather to be grounded on the general nature of the Old Testament dispensation, as intended to prepare the way, by means of its visible and earthly relations, for the spiritual and Divine realities of the Gospel. Whatever is implied in this general connection, however, is in the case of the manna not [[@Page:70]] obscurely intimated by our Lord in the sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel, where He represents Himself, with evident reference to it, as “the bread which cometh down from heaven;” and is clearly taken for granted by the Apostle Paul, when he calls it “the spiritual meat “of which the Israelites did all eat.—(1 Cor. 10:3) Not as if, in eating that, they of necessity found nourishment to their souls; but such meat being God’s special provision for a redeemed people, had an ordained connection with the mysteries of God’s kingdom, and, as such, contained a pledge that He who consulted so graciously for the life of the body, would prove Himself equally ready to administer to the necessities of the soul, as He did in a measure even then, and does now more fully in Christ. The following may be presented as the chief points of instruction which in this respect are conveyed by the history of the manna:—

(1.) It was given in consideration of a great and urgent necessity. A like necessity lies at the foundation of God’s gift of His Son to the world; it was not possible in the nature of things for any other resource to be found; and the actual bestowment of the gift was delayed, till the fullest demonstration had been given in the history of the Church and the world that such a provision was indispensable.

(2.) The manna was peculiarly the gift of God, coming freely and directly from His hand. It fell by night with the dew (Num. 11:9), which is itself the gift of heaven, sent to fertilize the earth, and enable it to yield increase for the food of man and beast. But in the wilderness, where, as there is no sowing, there can be no increase, if bread still comes with the dew, it must be, in a sense quite peculiar, the produce of heaven hence called “the corn,” or “bread of heaven.”—(Ps. 78:24, 105:40) How striking a representation in this respect of Christ, who, both as to His person and to the purchased blessings of His redemption, is always presented to our view as the free gift and offer of Divine love!

(3.) But plentiful as well as free; the whole fulness of the Godhead is in Jesus, so that all may receive as their necessities require; no one needs to grudge his neighbour’s portion, but all rather may rejoice together in the ample beneficence of Heaven. So was it also with the manna; for when distribution was made, [[@Page:71]] there was enough for all, and even he who had gathered least had no lack.

(4.) Then, falling as it did round about the camp, it was near enough to be within the reach of all; if any should perish for want, it could be from no outward necessity or hardship, for the means of supply were brought almost to their very hand. Nor is it otherwise in regard to Christ, who, in the Gospel of His grace, is laid, in a manner, at the door of every sinner: the word is nigh him; and if he should still perish, he must be without excuse—he perishes in sight of the bread of life.

(5.) The supply of manna came daily, and faith had to be exercised on the providence of God, that each day would bring its appointed provision; if they attempted to hoard for the morrow, their store became a mass of corruption. In like manner must the child of God pray for his soul every morning as it dawns, “Give me this day my daily bread.” He can lay up no stock of grace which is to save him from the necessity of constantly repairing to the treasury of Christ; and if he begins to live upon former experiences, or to feel as if he already stood so high in the life of God, that, like Peter, he can of himself confidently reckon on his superiority to temptation, his very mercies become fraught with trouble, and he is the worse rather than the better for the fulness imparted to him. His soul can be in health and prosperity only while he is every day “living by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him, and gave Himself for him.”

(6.) Finally, as the manna had to be gathered in the morning of each day, and a double portion provided on the sixth day, that the seventh might be hallowed as a day of sacred rest; so Christ and the things of His salvation must be sought with diligence and regularity, but only in the appointed way, and through the divinely-provided channels. There must be no neglect of seasonable opportunities on the one hand, nor, on the other, any over valuing of one ordinance to the neglect of another. We cannot prosper in our course, unless it is pursued as God Himself authorizes and appoints.

There is nothing uncertain or fanciful in such analogies; for they have not only the correspondence between Israel’s temporal and the Church’s spiritual condition to rest upon, but the character [[@Page:72]] also of an unchangeable God. His principles of dealing with His Church are the same for all ages. When transacting with His people now directly for the support of the spiritual life, He must substantially re-enact what He did of old, when transacting with them directly for the support of their bodily life. And as even then there was an under current of spiritual meaning and instruction running through all that was done, so the faith of the Christian now has a most legitimate and profitable exercise, when it learns from that memorable transaction in the desert the fulness of its privilege, and the extent of its obligations in regard to the higher provision presented to it in the Gospel.

II. But Israel in the wilderness required something more than manna to preserve them in safety and vigour for the inheritance; they needed refreshment as well as support “a stay of water,” not less than “a staff of bread.” And the account given respecting this is contained in the chapter immediately following that which records the appointment of God respecting the manna.—(Ex. 17) Here also the gift was preceded by a murmuring and discontent on the part of the Israelites. So little had they yet learned from the past manifestations of Divine power and faithfulness, and so much had sight the ascendancy over faith in their character, that they even spoke as if certain destruction were before them, and caused Moses to tremble for his life. But however improperly they demeaned themselves, as there was a real necessity in their condition, which nothing but an immediate and extraordinary exertion of Divine power could relieve, Moses received the command from God, after supplicating His interposition, to go with the elders of Israel and smite the rock in Horeb with his rod, under the assurance, which was speedily verified, that water in abundance would stream forth.[6]

[[@Page:73]] The Apostle says of this rock, that it followed the Israelites. (1 Cor. 10:4) And some of the Jewish Rabbis have fabled that it actually moved from its place in Horeb and accompanied them through the wilderness; so that the rock, which nearly forty years after was smitten in Kadesh, was the identical rock which had been originally smitten in Horeb. We need scarcely say that such was not the meaning of the Apostle.[7] But as the rock at Horeb comes into view, not as something by itself, but simply as connected with the water which Divine power constrained it to yield, it might justly be spoken of as following them, if the waters flowing from it pursued for a time the same course. That this, to some extent, was actually the case, may [[@Page:74]] be inferred from the great profusion with which they are declared to have been given “gushing out,” it is said, “like overflowing streams,” “and running like a river in the dry places.”—(Ps. 78:20, 105:41; Isa. 48:21). It is also the nearly unanimous opinion of interpreters, both ancient and modern, and the words of the Apostle so manifestly imply this, that we can scarcely call it anything but a conceit in St Chrysostom (who is followed, however, by Horsley, on Ex. 17), to regard the Apostle there as speaking of Christ personally. But we are not thereby warranted in supposing, with some Jewish writers, that the waters flowing from the rock in Horeb so closely and necessarily connected themselves with the march of the Israelites, that the stream rose with them to the tops of mountains, as well as descended into the valleys.[8] Considering how nearly related the Lord’s miraculous working in regard to the manna stood to His operations in nature, and how He required the care and instrumentality of His people to concur with His gift in making that miraculous provision effectual to the supply of their wants, we might rather conceive that their course was directed so as to admit of the water easily following them, though not, perhaps, without the application of some labour on their part to open for it a passage, and provide suitable reservoirs. Nor are we to imagine that they would require this water, any more than the manna, always in the same quantities during the whole period of their sojourn in the wilderness. They might even be sometimes wholly independent of it; as we know for certain it had failed them when they reached the neighbourhood of Kadesh, and were on their way to the country of the Moabites.—(Num. 20 and [[21 >> Bible:Nu 21:1-35]] ) It was God’s special provision for the desert for the land of drought; and did not need to be given in any quantities, or directed into any channel, but such as their necessities when traversing that land might require.[9]

Understanding this, however, to be the sense in which the [[@Page:75]] rock followed the Israelites, what does the Apostle farther mean by saying, that “that rock was Christ?” Does he wish us to understand that the rock typically represented Christ? and so represented Him, that in drinking of the water which flowed from it, they at the same time received Christ? Was the drink furnished to the Israelites in such a sense spiritual, that it conveyed Christ to them? In that case the flowing forth and drinking of the water must have had in it the nature of a sacrament, and answered to our spiritually eating and drinking of Christ in the Supper. This, unquestionably, is the view adopted by the ablest and soundest divines; although there are certain limitations which must be understood. The Apostle is evidently drawing a parallel between the case of the Church in the wilderness and that of the Church under the Gospel, with an especial reference to the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Sapper. The passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, under the guidance and direction of Moses, he represents as a sort of baptism to him; because in the same manner in which Christian baptism seals spiritually the believer’s death to sin, his separation from the world, and his calling of God to sit in heavenly places with Christ, in the very same, outwardly, did the passage through the Red Sea seal the death of Israel to the bondage of Pharaoh, their separation from Egypt, and their expectation of the inheritance promised them by Moses. In what he says regarding the manna and the rock, he does not expressly name the ordinance of the Supper; but there can be no doubt that he has its sacred symbols in view, when he calls the manna the spiritual food of which the Israelites ate, and the water from the rock the spiritual drink of which they drank, and even gives to the rock the name of Christ. Such language, however, cannot have been meant to imply that the manna and the water directly and properly symbolized Christ, in the same sense that this is done by the bread and wine of the Supper; for the gift of the manna and the water had immediate respect to the supply of the people’s bodily necessities. For this alone they were [[@Page:76]] directly and ostensibly given; and hence our Lord, speaking of what the manna was in itself, depreciates its value in respect to men’s higher natures, and declares to the Jews it was not the true bread of heaven, as was evident alone from the fact that the life it was sent more immediately to nourish, actually perished in the wilderness. Not, therefore, directly and palpably, but only in a remote, concealed, typical sense, could the Apostle intend his expressions of spiritual food and drink to be understood. Still less could he mean, that all who partook of these, did consciously and believingly receive Christ through them to salvation. The facts he presently mentions regarding so many of them being smitten down in the wilderness by the judgments of God for their sins, too clearly proved the reverse of that. The very purpose, indeed, for which he there introduces their case to the notice of the Corinthian Church, is to warn the disciples to beware lest they should fall after the same example of unbelief; lest, after enjoying the privileges of the Christian Church, they should, by carnal indulgence, lose their interest in the heavenly inheritance, as so many had done in regard to the earthly inheritance, notwithstanding that they had partaken of the corresponding privileges of the ancient economy. But as the bread and wine in the Supper might still be called spiritual food and drink, might even be called by the name of Christ, who is both the living bread and the living water, which they represent, although many partake of them unworthily, and perish in their sins; so manifestly might the manna and the water of the desert be so called, since Christ was typically represented in them, though thousands were altogether ignorant of any reference they might have to Him, and lived and died as far estranged from salvation as the wretched idolaters of Egypt.

In perceiving the higher things typically represented by the water flowing from the rock, the Israelites stood at an immense disadvantage compared with believers under the Gospel; and how far any did perceive them, it is impossible for us to determine. In regard to the great mass, who both now and on so many other occasions showed themselves incapable of putting forth even the lowest exercises of faith, it is but too evident that they did not descry there the faintest glimpse of Christ. But, for such as really were children of faith, we may easily understand [[@Page:77]] how they might go a certain way at least, in rising through the provisions then administered, to the expectation of better things to come. They must, then, have discerned in the inheritance which they were travelling to inherit, not the ultimate good itself which God had destined for His chosen, but only its terrestrial type and pledge—something which would be for the present life, what, in the resurrection, the other would be for the spiritual and immortal life. But, discerning this, it could not be difficult for them to proceed one step farther, and apprehend, that what God was now doing to them on their way to the temporal inheritance, by those outward, material provisions for the bodily life, He did not for that alone, but also as a sign and pledge, that such provision as He had made for the lower necessities of their nature, He must assuredly have made, and would in His own time fully disclose, for the higher. And thus, while receiving from the hand of their redeeming God the food and refreshment required for those bodily natures which were to enjoy the pleasant mountains and valleys of Canaan, they might at the same time be growing in clearness of view and strength of assurance, as regarded their interest in the imperishable treasures which belonged to the future kingdom of God, and their relation to Him who was to be pre-eminently the seed of blessing, and the author of eternal life to a dying world.

But, whether or not those for whom the rock poured out its refreshing streams may have attained to any such discernment of the better things to come, for us who can look back upon the past from the high vantage-ground of Gospel light, there may certainly be derived not a little of clear and definite instruction. In seeking for this, however, we must be careful to look to the real and essential lines of agreement, and pay no regard to such as are merely incidental. It is not the rock properly that we have to do with, or to any of its distinctive qualities, as is commonly imagined, but the supply of water issuing from it, to supply the thirst and refresh the natures of the famishing Israelites. No doubt, the Apostle, when referring to the transaction, speaks of the rock itself, and of its following them, but plainly meaning by this, as we have stated, the water that flowed from it. No doubt, also, Christ is often in Scripture represented [[@Page:78]] as a rock; but when He is so, it is always with respect to the qualities properly belonging to a rock—its strength, its durability, or the protection it is capable of affording from the heat of a scorching sun. These natural qualities of the rock, however, do not come into consideration here; they did not render it in the least degree fitted for administering the good actually derived from it, but rather the reverse. There was not only no seeming, but also no real aptitude in the rock to yield the water; while in Christ, though He appeared to have no form or comeliness, there still was everything that was required to constitute Him a fountain-head of life and blessing. Then, the smiting of the rock by Moses with the rod, could not suggest the idea of anything like violence done to it; nor was the action itself done by Moses as the lawgiver, but as the mediator between God and the people; while the smiting of Christ, which is commonly held to correspond with this, consisted in the bruising of His soul with the suffering of death, and that not inflicted, but borne by Him as Mediator. There is no real correspondence in these respects between the type and the antitype; and the manner in which it is commonly made out, is nothing more than a specious accommodation of the language of the transaction, to ideas which the transaction itself could never have suggested.[10]

The points of instruction are chiefly the following:—

(1.) Christ ministers to His people abundance of spiritual refreshment, while they are on their way to the heavenly inheritance. They need this to carry them onward through the [[@Page:79]] trials and difficulties that lie in their way; and He is ever ready to impart it. “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” What He then did in the sphere of the bodily life, He cannot but be disposed to do over again in the higher sphere of the spiritual life; for there the necessity is equally great, and the interests involved are unspeakably greater. Let the believer, when parched in spirit, and feeling in heaviness through manifold temptations, throw himself back upon this portion of Israel’s history, and he will see written, as with a sunbeam, the assurance that the Saviour of Israel, who fainteth not, nor is weary, will satisfy the longing soul, and pour living water upon him that is thirsty.

(2.) In providing and ministering this refreshment, He will break through the greatest hindrances and impediments. If His people but thirst, nothing can prevent them from being partakers of the blessing. “He makes for them rivers in the desert;” the very rock turns into a flowing stream; and the valley of Baca (weeping) is found to contain its pools of refreshment, at which the travellers to Zion revive their flagging spirits, and go from strength to strength. How often have the darkest providences, events that seemed beforehand pregnant only with evil, become, through the gracious presence of the Mediator, the source of deepest joy and consolation!

(3.) “The rock by its water accompanied the Israelites—so Christ by His Spirit goes with His disciples even to the end of the world.” (Grotius) The refreshments of His grace are confined to no region, and last through all ages. Wherever the genuine believer is, there they also are. And more highly favoured than even Israel in the wilderness, he has them in his own bosom—he has there “a well of water springing up unto life everlasting,” so that “out of his belly can flow rivers of living water.”

III. The only other point apart from the giving of the law, occurring in the march through the wilderness, and calling for notice here, was the pillar of fire and cloud, in which from the first the Lord accompanied and led the people. The appearance of this symbol of the Divine Presence was various, but it is uniformly spoken of as itself one—a lofty column rising toward [[@Page:80]] heaven. By day it would seem to have expanded as it rose, and formed itself into a kind of shade or curtain between the Israelites and the sun, as the Lord is said by means of it to have “spread a cloud for a covering” (Ps. 105:39), while by night it exchanged the cloudy for the illuminated form, and diffused throughout the camp a pleasant light. At first it went before the army, pointing the way; but after the tabernacle was made, it became more immediately connected with this, though sometimes appearing to rest more closely on it, and sometimes to rise higher aloft.[11] The lucid or fiery form seems to have been the prevailing one, or rather, to have always essentially belonged to it (hence called, not only “pillar of fire,” but “light of fire,” אוּר אֵשׁ i.e., lucid matter presenting the appearance of fire), only during the day the circumambient cloud usually prevented the light from being seen. Sometimes, however, as when a manifestation of Divine glory needed to be given to overawe and check the insolence of the people, or when some special revelation was to be given to Moses, the fire discovered itself through the cloud. So that it may be described as a column of fire surrounded by a cloud, the one or the other appearance be coming predominant, according as the Divine purpose required, but that of fire being more peculiarly identified with the glory of God.—(Num. 16:42)

(1.) Now, as the Lord chose this for the visible symbol, in which He would appear as the Head and Leader of His people when conducting them through the wilderness, there must have been, first of all, in the symbol itself, something fitted to display His character and glory. There must have been a propriety and significance in selecting this, rather than something else, as the seat in which Jehovah, or the angel of His presence, appeared, and the form in which He manifested His glory. But fire, or a shining flame enveloped by a cloud, is one of the fittest [[@Page:81]] and most natural symbols of the true God, as dwelling, not simply in light, but “in light that is inaccessible and full of glory,”—light and glory within the cloud. The fire, however, was itself not uniform in its appearance, but, according to the threefold distinction of Isaiah (ch. [[4:5 >> Bible:Is 4:5]] ), sometimes appeared as light, sometimes as a radiant splendour or glory, and sometimes again as flaming or burning fire. In each of these respects it pointed to a corresponding feature in the Divine character. As light, it represented God as the fountain of all truth and purity.—(Isa. 40:1, 19; 1 John 1:5; Rev. 21:23, 22:5) As splendour, it indicated the glory of His character, which consists in the manifestation of His infinite perfections, and especially in the display of His surpassing goodness as connected with the redemption of His people; on which account the “showing of His glory” is explained by “making His goodness pass before Moses.”—(Ex. 33:18, 19; comp. also Isa. 40:5) For as nothing appears to the natural eye more brilliant than the shining brightness of fire, so nothing to the spiritual eye can be compared with these manifestations of the gracious attributes of God. And as nothing in nature is so awfully commanding and intensely powerful in consuming as the burning flame of fire, so in this respect again it imaged forth the terrible power and majesty of His holiness, which makes Him jealous of His own glory, and a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity. Hence the cloud assumed this aspect pre-eminently on Mount Sinai, when the Lord came down to give that fundamental revelation of His holiness, the law of the ten commandments.—(Ex. 24:17; Deut. 4:24; Isa. 33:14, 15; Heb. 12:29) Still, whatever the Lord discovered of Himself in these respects to His ancient people, it was with much reserve and imperfection: they saw Him, indeed, but only through a veil; and therefore the glory shone forth through a cloud of thick darkness.

This, it is true, is the case to a great extent still. God even yet has His dwelling in unapproachable light; and with all the discoveries of the Gospel, He is only seen “as through a glass darkly.” This feature, however, of the Divine manifestations falls more into the background in the Gospel; since God has now in very deed dwelt with men mi the earth, and given such revelations of Himself by Christ, that “he who hath seen Him,” [[@Page:82]] may be said to “have seen the Father.” It seems now, comparing the revelations of God in the New with those of the Old Testament, as if the pillar of cloud were in a measure removed, and the pillar of light and fire alone remained. And in each of the aspects which this pillar assumed, we find the corresponding feature most fully verified in Christ. He is the light of men. The glory of the Father shines forth in Him as full of grace and truth. He alone has revealed the Father, and can give the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Therefore He is the Word or revelation of God, and the effulgence of His glory. And while merciful and compassionate in the last degree to sinners—the very personification of love—He yet has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet as of burning brass; and He walks amid the golden candlesticks, as He did in the camp of Israel, to bring to light the hidden works of darkness, and cause His indignation to smoke against the hypocrites.[12]

(2.) But besides being a symbol of the Lord’s revealed character, the pillar of fire and cloud had certain offices to perform to the Israelites. These were for guidance and protection. It was by this that the Lord directed their course through the dreary and trackless waste which lay between Egypt and Canaan, showing them when to set forth, in what direction to proceed, where to abide, and also affording light to their steps when the journey was by night. For this purpose, when the course was doubtful, the ark of the covenant with its attendant symbol went foremost (Num. 10:33); but when there was no doubt regarding the direction that was to be taken, it appears rather to have occupied the centre (Num. 10:17, 21),—in either case alike appearing in the place that was most suitable, as connected with the symbol of the Lord’s presence. In addition to these important benefits, the pillar also served as a shade from the heat of a scorching sun; and on one occasion at least, when the Israelites were closely pursued by the Egyptians, it stood as a wall of defence between them and their enemies.

That in all this the pillar of fire and cloud performed externally and visibly the part which is now discharged by Christ [[@Page:83]] toward His people in the spiritual and divine life, is too evident to require any illustration. He reveals Himself to them as the Captain of salvation, by whom they are conducted through the wilderness of life, and brings them in safety to His Father’s house. He leaves them not alone, but is ever present with His word and Spirit, to lead them into all the truth, to refresh their souls in the time of trouble, and minister support to them in the midst of manifold temptations. He presents Himself to their view as having gone before them in the way, and appoints them to no field of trial or conflict with evil, through which He has not already passed as their forerunner. Whatever wisdom is needed to direct, whatever grace to overcome, He encourages them to expect it from His hand; and “when the blast of the terrible ones comes as a storm against the wall,” they have in Him a “refuge from the storm, and a shadow from the heat.” Does it seem too much to expect so great things from Him? Or does faith, struggling with the infirmities of the flesh and the temptations of the world, find it hard at times to lay hold of the spiritual reality? It will do well in such a case to revive its fainting spirit by recurring to the visible manifestations of God in the wilderness. Let it mark there the goings of the Divine Shepherd with His people; and rest in the assurance, that as He cannot change or deny Himself, but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, so what He then did amid the visible realities of sense and time, He cannot but be ready to perform anew in the spiritual experience of His believing people to the end of time. The record of what was done in the one case, stands now, and for all time, as a ground for faith and hope in respect to the other.

The whole of what has been said regarding the sojourn in the wilderness, has reference more immediately to the comparatively brief period during which properly the Israelites should have been there. The frequent outbreakings of a rebellious spirit, and especially the dreadful revolt which arose on the return of the spies from searching the land of Canaan, so manifestly proved them to be unfit for the proper occupation of the promised land, that the Lord determined to retain them in the wilderness till the older portion—those who were above twenty [[@Page:84]] years when they left Egypt—had all perished. It was some time in the second year after their departure, that this decree of judgment was passed; and the period fixed in the decree being, in round numbers, forty years,—a year for every day the spies had been employed in searching the land, including, however, what had been already spent,—there remained the long term of upwards of thirty-eight years, during which the promise of God was suffered to fall into abeyance. Of what passed during the greater part of this unfortunate period scarcely anything is recorded. The only circumstances noticed respecting it, till near the close, are those connected with the case of the Sabbath-breaker, and the rebellion of Korah and his company. How far the miraculous provision for the desert was affected by the change in question, we are not told, though we may naturally infer it to have been to some extent—to such an extent as might render it proper, if not necessary, to bring into play all the available resources naturally belonging to the region. It was a time of judgment, and the very silence of Scripture regarding it is ominous. That their state during its continuance was to be viewed as alike sad and anomalous, may be inferred alone from what is recorded at the close of the period in Josh. 5:2-9, where we are told, that from the period of their coming under the judgment of the Lord up till that time, they had not been circumcised; the reason of which, though not very explicitly stated, is yet distinctly connected with the people’s detention in the wilderness, as a punishment for their having “not obeyed the voice of the Lord.” And now, when the circumcision was renewed, and the whole company became a circumcised people, “the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.”

What is meant here by the reproach of Egypt, is not the reproach or shame of the sin they had contracted in Egypt, as if now at length that impure state had come to an end, and had been publicly purged away: this were too remote an allusion to have been connected with such an occasion. The thing meant is the reproach which the people of Egypt were all this time casting upon them for the unhappy circumstances in which they were placed; the genitive in such cases always denoting the party from whom the reproach comes.—(Isa. 51:7; Ezek. 16:57; [[@Page:85]] Zeph. 2:8) It was that reproach which Moses so much dreaded on a former occasion, when he prayed the Lord not to pour out His indignation on the people to consume them: “For wherefore (says he) should the Egyptians say, For mischief did He bring them out to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?”—(Ex. 32:12) And this reproach was again the first thought that presented itself to the mind of Moses, when, on the occasion of the return of the spies, the Lord threatened to consume the mass of the people, and raise a new seed from Moses himself: “Then the Egyptians shall hear it (for Thou broughtest up this people in Thy might from among them), and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land,” etc.—(Num. 14:13-16) The ground and occasion of the reproach was, that the Lord had not fulfilled in their behalf the great promise of the covenant, for the realization of which they had left Egypt with such high hopes and such a halo of glory. So far from having obtained what was promised, they had been made to wander like forlorn outcasts through the wilds and wildernesses of Arabia, where their car cases were continually falling into a dishonoured grave. The covenant, in short, was for a time suspended—the people were lying under the ban of Heaven; and it was fitting that the ordinance of circumcision, the sacrament of the covenant, should be suspended too. But now that they were again received through circumcision into the full standing and privileges of a covenant condition, it was a proof that the judgment of God had expired—that their proper relation to Him was again restored—that He was ready to carry into execution the promise on which He had caused them to hope; and that, consequently, the ground of Egypt’s reproach, as would presently be seen, was entirely rolled away.[13]

[[@Page:86]] It would seem, as might also have naturally been expected, on the supposition of this view of the case being correct, that the celebration of what might now be called the other sacrament of the covenant, the Passover, was suspended during the same period. We read of its having been celebrated at the beginning of the second year after their departure from Egypt (Num. 9), but never again till the renewal of circumcision on the borders of Canaan.—(Josh. 5:10) The same cause which brought a suspension of the one ordinance, naturally led to a disuse of the other, since the circumcised alone could partake of it. The more so, indeed, as it was the children who were more directly concerned in the ceasing of circumcision, while the non-celebration of the passover directly touched the parents themselves. Even in regard to the ordinance of circumcision, the parents could not but conclude, that as that rite had ceased to be performed, which was the peculiar sign of the covenant, their circumcision had become in a manner uncircumcision. On their account, the flow of the Divine goodness toward the congregation had meanwhile received a check as to its outward manifestation; and even what was promised and in reserve for their children, must for the present lie over, till the revival of a better spirit opened the way for the possession of a more privileged condition.

But the question will naturally occur, Did the whole of that generation, which came out of Egypt as full-grown men, actually perish without an interest in the mercy of God? Did they really live and die under the solemn ban of Heaven, aliens from His commonwealth, and strangers to His covenant of promise? Was not Aaron, was not Moses himself, among those who bore in this respect the punishment of iniquity, and died while the covenant was without its sacraments? Undoubtedly, [[@Page:87]] and this alone may suffice to show that there was mercy mingled with the judgment. The Lord did not cease to be the gracious God, long-suffering, and plenteous in goodness to those who truly sought Him. His grace was still there, as it is in every judgment He executes on those who have come near to him in privilege; but it was grace in a disguise—grace as breaking through an impending cloud, rather than as shining forth from a clear and serene sky. Hence, while the two greatest ordinances of the covenant were suspended, others were still left to encourage their hope in the Lord’s mercy: there was the pillar of fire and cloud, the tabernacle of testimony, the altar of sacrifice, not to mention others of inferior note. So that, to use the words of Calvin, who had a far better discernment of the anomalous state of things which then existed than the great majority of commentators since: “In one part only were the people excommunicated; there still were means of support to bear them up, that (the truly penitent) might not sink into despair. As if a father should lift up his hand to drive from him a disobedient son, and yet with the other should hold him back—at once terrifying him with frowns and chastisements, and still unwilling that he should go into exile.”

The feelings to which this very peculiar state of Israel gave rise are beautifully expressed in the [[90th >> Bible:Ps 90]] Psalm,—whether actually written by Moses or not,—which breathes throughout the mournful language of a people suffering under the judgment of God, and yet exercising hope in His mercy. We need have no doubt, therefore, that subjects of grace died in the wilderness, just as afterwards, when the covenant with most of its ordinances was again suspended, subjects of grace, even pre-eminent grace, were carried to Babylon and died in exile. Yet there is much reason to fear, in regard to the Israelites in the wilderness, that the number of such was comparatively small, both on account of the nature of the judgment itself, and also from the testimonies of the prophets (especially Ex. 20 and Amos 5:25, 26), concerning the extent to which the leaven of Egypt still wrought in the midst of them.

This remarkable portion of God’s dealings brings strikingly out a few important truths, which are of equal moment for all times. 1. The tendency of sin to root itself in the soul: seeing [[@Page:88]] that, when once fairly dominant within, it can resist all that is wonderful in mercy and terrible in judgment. For what astonishing sights had not those men witnessed! what awful displays of God’s justice! what glorious exhibitions of His goodness! Yet, with the vast majority, all proved to be in vain.

2. The honour God puts upon His ordinances, especially the sacraments of His covenant. These are for the true children of the covenant; and when those who profess to belong to it have flagrantly departed from its obligations and aims, they thereby cease to be the proper subjects of its more peculiar ordinances.

3. The inseparable connection between the promise of God’s covenant and the holiness of His people. The inheritance cannot be entered into and possessed but by a believing, spiritual, and holy seed. God must have such a people, and will rather let His inheritance lie waste than have persons of another stamp to possess it, who could only abuse it to their sinful ends. Hence He waits so long now, as of old He waited for the fit occupants of Canaan. The kingdom is for those who are of clean hands and a pure heart; and till the destined number of such is prepared and ready, it must be known only as an “inheritance reserved in heaven.” 4. Finally, how heavy a guilt attaches to a backsliding and unfaithful community! It stays the fountain of God’s mercy; it brings reproach on His name and cause, and compels Him, in a manner, to visit evil upon those whom He would rather—how much rather!—encompass with his favour, and with the blessings of His well-ordered covenant.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Ex. 15:24, 16:2, 17:2, 3; Num. 11, 12.

[2] See Ezek. 20:35, 36, and the beautiful passage, Hos. 2:14-23, which describe the course to be adopted for restoring a degenerate Church, and God’s future dealings with her, as if the whole were to be a re-enacting of the transactions which occurred at the beginning of her history. The same mode of procedure was to be adopted now which had been pursued then, though the actual scenes and operations were to be widely different.

[3] The view given in the text was maintained by several writers long before the controversies which have recently sprung up respecting the numbers of Israel in the wilderness, and the difficulties connected with their support. See, for example, Vitringa, Obs. Sac., Lib. v., c. 15; Hengstenberg’s Bileam, p. 280. A distinction must be made between the case of the people themselves, and that of their flocks and herds. The exact numbers of the latter are not stated, though such epithets as great and very much are applied to them; but no mention is made of any miraculous supply of food for them; and we are led to infer, that ordinarily sufficient pasturage was found for them in the desert. Two considerations are here to be taken into account, by way of explanation. One is, that in point of fact large tracts of good pasture land exist in what goes generally by the name of desert. The desert of Suez, in which before the Exodus, and partly perhaps even after it, the Israelites, pastured their flocks, is “full of rich pasture and pools of water during winter and spring.” So says Burckhardt (Syria and Palestine, ii., p. 462), confirmed by later authorities. In the neighbourhood of Sinai itself, in the El Tyh ridge of mountains, which form the northern boundary, Burckhardt testifies that they are peculiarly “the pasturing places of the Sinai Bedouins,” and that these “are richer in camels and flocks than any other of the Towara tribes (p. 481). Again and again he speaks of falling in with wadys (Wady Genne, Feiran, Kyd, etc.), which were covered with pasturage, sometimes even presenting an appearance of deep verdure. Leake, who edited the travels of Burckhardt, in his preface gives this as the result of B.’s testimony: “The upper region of Sinai, which forms an irregular circle of thirty or forty miles in diameter, possessing numerous sources of water, a temperate climate, and a soil capable of supporting animal and vegetable nature, was the part of the peninsula best adapted to the residence of near a year, during which the Israelites were numbered and received their laws” (p. xiii). But another important consideration is, that there is good reason to believe changes to the worse have passed over the region in question—some of them even at no very distant date—which have rendered it greatly less fertile than it once was. Burckhardt and other travellers have found large tracts, which not long previous had been well wooded and clothed with pasture, from various causes reduced to a state of desolation. Ewald admits the fact as incontrovertible, that the peninsula could at the time of the Exodus “support more human beings (of course also more flocks and herds) than at present.” So also Stanley (Sinai and Pales., p. 24), who reckons it as certain that “the vegetation of the wadys has considerably decreased,” and mentions various circumstances to account for it. There is nothing, therefore, to argue the improbability of this part of the scriptural narrative, when due allowance is made for all the circumstances of the case; and if anything more might be required, we cannot reasonably doubt, that, as the Psalmist suggests, the extraordinary nature of the occasion called forth from above special showers of refreshment (Ps. 68:9). As regards the people themselves, their numbers are more specifically given; and if the numbers are correct, the whole, young and old, cannot be estimated at less than two millions. Nor, after all the conjectures and modes of solution that have been tried on the one side and the other, does it seem probable that the number is exaggerated, or that a body materially smaller could have sufficed for the extensive work of conquest and possession afterwards accomplished by it. That considerable portions of them would often be at some distance from the main body—the camp is extremely probable, and would hence more readily find a measure of support from natural sources. But still, that for such a body large supplies of a supernatural kind would be required, is certain, and is admitted in the sacred narrative. The growth of Jacob’s family into such a host seems to imply both the existence of very special influences favouring it (plainly indicated also in Ex. 1:7-12), and a longer residence in Egypt (so, at least, I believe) than is assigned it in the common chronology. I think the statement in Ex. 12:40, of 430 years sojourn, should be taken in the strictest sense, and that the genealogies, which seem to conflict with this, should be regarded as abbreviated a practice well known to have been in frequent use.

[4] In Ex. 16:35, the supply of manna is spoken of as continuing till the people “came to a land inhabited,” or to their reaching “the borders of Canaan.” In Josh. v. 12, its actual cessation is said to have taken place only when they had entered Canaan, and ate the corn of the land. Hengstenberg’s explanation of the matter does not seem to us quite satisfactory. But why might not the first passage, written in anticipation of the future, indicate generally the period during which the manna was given, viz., the exclusion of the people from a land in such a sense inhabited, that they were still dependent on miraculous supplies of food? Then the passage in Joshua is the fact, that this dependence actually ceased only when they had crossed the Jordan, and lay before Jericho; so that we may conclude their conquests to the east of Jordan, though in lands inhabited, had not sufficed till the period in question to furnish an adequate supply to their wants.

[5] There has been a considerable controversy among the learned, whether the manna of Scripture is to be held as formally the same with that of the shrub in question, or essentially different (see Kurtz’s Hist, of Cor., vol. iii., s. 3, Trans.). The two main points of difference urged by Kurtz viz., that the food ate by the Israelites for forty years was not produced by the tarfa shrubs of the desert, and that the one had nutritive qualities which the other has not must be allowed to constitute most material differences between the two. But still it is important not to overlook the agreements, for these were evidently designed as well as the other. They may be of service also in exposing the fanciful and merely superficial nature of many of the resemblances specified by typical writers between the manna and Christ: for example, the roundness of the manna, which was held to signify His eternal nature; its whiteness, which was viewed as emblematic of His holiness; and its sweetness, of the delight the participation of Him affords to believers. These qualities the manna had simply as manna, as possessing to a certain extent the properties of that production of the desert. In such things there was nothing peculiar or supernatural; and it is as unwarrantable to search for spiritual mysteries in them, as it would be for a like purpose to analyze the qualities and appearance of the water which issued from the rock, and which, so applied, would convey in some respects a directly opposite instruction.

[6] This occurrence must not be confounded with another considerably similar, of which an account is given in Num. 20. This latter occurrence took place at Kadesh, and not till the beginning of the fortieth year of the sojourn in the wilderness, when the period of their abode there was drawing to a close.—(Comp. ch. 20 with ch. 33:36-39) On account of the rebellious conduct of the people, Moses called the rock smitten, in both cases, by the name of Meribah, or Strife. But as the occasions were far separate, both as to space and time, the last was also unhappily distinguished from the first, in that Moses and Aaron so far transgressed as to forfeit their right to enter the promised land. Aaron was coupled with Moses both in the sin and the punishment; but it is the case of Moses which is most particularly noticed. His sin is characterized in ch. 20:12 by his “not believing God,” and in ver. 24, and ch. 17:14, as a “rebelling against the word of God.” Again, in Deut. 1:37, 3:26, 4:21, the punishment is said to have been laid on Moses “for their sakes,” or, as it should rather be, “because of their words.” The proper account of the matter seems to be this: Moses, through their chiding, lost command of himself, and did the work appointed not as God’s messenger, in a spirit of faith and holiness, but in a state of carnal and passionate excitement, under the influence of that wrath which worketh not the righteousness of God. The punishment he received, it may seem, was peculiarly severe for such an offence; but it was designed to produce a salutary impression upon the people, in regard to the evil of sin: for when they saw that their misconduct had so far prevailed over their venerable leader as to prevent even him from entering Canaan, how powerfully was the circumstance fitted to operate as a check upon their waywardness in the time to come! And then, as Moses and Aaron were in the position of greatest nearness to God, and had it as their especial charge to represent God’s holiness to the people, even a comparatively small backsliding in them was of a serious nature, and required to be marked with some impressive token of the Lord’s displeasure.

[7] Yet the charge has been made, and is still kept up (for example, by De Wette, Rückert, Meyer), that the Apostle does here fall in with the Jewish legends, and uses them for a purpose. We utterly disavow this; but we cannot, with Tholuck (Das Alte Test, im neue, p. 39), deny the existence of the Jewish legends, and hold that the passages usually referred to on the subject, speak only of the water of the well dug by Moses and the princes out of the earth. Some of them certainly do, but not all. Those produced by Schöttgen on 1 Cor. x. 4, clearly show it to have been a Jewish opinion, that, not the water indeed by itself, but the rock ready to give forth its supplies of water, did somehow follow the Israelites.

[8] Lightfoot on 1 Cor. 10:4.

[9] The exact route pursued by the Israelites from Sinai to Canaan is still a matter of uncertainty. At some of the places where they are supposed to have rested, there are considerable supplies of water.—(See Bib. Cyclop., Art. Wandering) It is, however, certain that the region of Sinai is very elevated, and that not only are the mountain ridges immensely higher than the south of Palestine, but the ground slopes from the base to a considerable distance all round, so that the water would naturally flow so far with the Israelites; but how far can never be ascertained.

[10] This has been done most strikingly by Toplady, in the beautiful hymn, “Rock of Ages cleft for me,” which derives its imagery in part from this transaction in the wilderness. Considered, however, in a critical point of view, or with reference to the real meaning of the transaction, it is liable to the objections stated in the text; it confounds things which essentially differ. Ainsworth produces a Jewish comment, which seems to justify the interpretation usually put on it: “The turning of the rock into water, was the turning of the property of judgment, signified by the rock, into the property of mercy, signified by the water.” But Jewish comments on this, as well as other subjects, require to be applied with discrimination, as there is scarcely either an unsound or a sound view, for confirmation of which something may not be derived from them. Water may as well symbolize judgment as mercy, and was indeed the instrument employed to inflict the greatest act of judgment that has ever taken place in the world the deluge.

[11] Ex. 13:21, 22, 14:19, 40:34-38; Num. 9:15-23. This subject has been carefully investigated by Vitringa in his Obs. Sac., L. v., c. 14-17, to which we must refer for more details than can be given here. What is stated in the text claims to be little more than an abstract of his observations. Those who wish to see the attempts of German rationalists to bring down the miraculous appearance to ordinary caravan-fires, may consult Kurtz, Geschichte des Alteu Bundes, p. 149, sq.

[12] John 1:4, 5, 11, 8:12, 9:5; Matt. 11:21; Eph. 1:17; Heb. 1:3; Rev. 1:14, 15, 2, 3, etc.

[13] See Hengstenberg’s Authentie, ii., p. 17; also Keil on the passage. It is scarcely necessary to notice the various opinions which have been entertained respecting the reproach that was removed the Egyptian state of bondage (Theodoret), the state of uncircumcision itself, which was eyed with disfavour or contempt in Egypt (Spencer, Clericus, etc.), unfitness for war (Maurer): all fanciful, and unsuited to the circumstances. Kurtz (Gechichte des alt. Bundes, ii., p. 414; Eng. Trans., iii., p. 414) lays stress simply upon the expression in Josh. 5:7, which states, that those who had come out of Egypt “were not circumcised by the way.” and views the omission of the rite in the wilderness as a matter merely of convenience. But in that case no explanation is given of the rolling away of the reproach of Egypt by the performance of the rite, nor of the express reference to the judgment of God in keeping them in the wilderness, at ver. 6. Besides, during the forty years how many opportunities must they have had of performing the rite, if it had seemed in itself a suitable thing to be done at the time! The circumstance of their being by the way might account for the suspension of the rite during the first period, when they really were on their way to Canaan, but not for the delay afterwards.

Chapter Second.—The Direct Instruction given to The Israelites before The Erection of The Tabernacle, and The Institution of its Symbolical Services The Law.

Section First.—What Properly, and in The Strictest Sense, Termed The Law, Viz., The Decalogue—Its Perfection and Completeness Both as to The Order and Substance of its Precepts.

[[@Page:89]] THE historical transactions connected with the redemption of Israel from the land of Egypt, were not immediately succeeded by the introduction of that complicated form of symbolical worship which peculiarly distinguishes the dispensation of Moses. There was an intermediate space occupied by revelations which were in themselves of the greatest moment, and which also stood in a relation of closest intimacy with the symbolical religion that followed. The period we refer to is that to which belongs the giving of the law. And it is impossible to understand aright the nature of the tabernacle and its worship, or the purposes they were designed to accomplish, without first obtaining a clear insight into the prior revelation of law, and the place it was intended to hold in the dispensation brought in by Moses.

What precisely formed this revelation of law, and what was the nature of its requirements? This must be our first subject of inquiry; and by a careful investigation of the points connected with it, we hope to avoid some prolific sources of confusion and error, and prepare the way for a correct understanding [[@Page:90]] of the dispensation as a whole, and the proper adjustment of its several parts.

I. There can be no doubt that the word law is used both in the Old and the New Testament Scriptures with some latitude, and that what is meant by “the law” in one place, is sometimes considerably different from what is meant by it in another. It is used to designate indifferently precepts and appointed observances of any kind, as well as the books in which they are enjoined. This only implies, however, that the things commanded by Moses had so much in common, that they might be all comprehended in one general term. It does not prevent that the law of the ten commandments may have been properly and distinctively the law to Israel, and on that account might have a peculiar and pre-eminent place assigned it in the dispensation. We are convinced that such in reality was the case, and present the following considerations in support of it.

1. The very manner in which these commandments were delivered is sufficient to vindicate for them a place peculiarly their own. For these alone, of all the precepts which form the Mosaic code, were spoken immediately by the voice of God; while the rest were privately communicated to Moses, and by him delivered to the people. Nor was the mode of revelation merely peculiar, but it was attended also by demonstrations of Divine majesty such as were never witnessed on any other occasion. So awfully grand and magnificent was the scene, and so overwhelming the impression produced by it, that the people, we are told, could not endure the sight, and Moses himself exceedingly feared and quaked. That this unparalleled display of the infinite majesty and greatness of Jehovah should have been made to accompany the deliverance of only these ten commandments, seems to have been intended to invest them with a very peculiar character and bearing.

2. The same also may be inferred from their number—ten, the symbol of completeness. It indicates that they formed by themselves an entire whole, made up of the necessary, and no more than the necessary, complement of parts. A good deal of what, if not altogether fanciful, is at least incapable of any solid proof, has recently been propounded, especially by Bähr and [[@Page:91]] Hengstenberg, regarding the symbolical import of numbers. But there are certain points which may be considered to have been thoroughly established respecting them; and none more so than the symbolical import of ten, as indicating completeness. The ascribing of such an import to this number appears to have been of very ancient origin; for traces are to be found of it in the earliest and most distant nations; and even Spencer, who never admits a symbol where he can possibly avoid it, is constrained to allow a symbolical import here.[1] “The ten,” to use the words of Bähr,[2] “by virtue of the general laws of thought, shuts up the series of primary numbers, and comprehends all in itself. Now, since the whole numeral system consists of so many decades (tens), and the first decade is the type of this endlessly repeating series, the nature of number in general is in this last fully developed, and the entire course comprised in its idea. Hence the first decade, and of course also the number ten, is the representative of the whole numeral system. And as number is employed to symbolize being in general, ten must denote the complete perfect being,—that is, a number of particulars necessarily connected together, and combined into one whole. So that ten is the natural symbol of perfection and completeness itself a definite whole, to which nothing is wanting.” It is on account of this symbolical import of the number ten that, the plagues of Egypt were precisely of that number—forming as such a complete round of judgments; and it was for the same reason that the transgressions of the people in the wilderness were allowed to proceed till the same number had been reached when they had “sinned ten times,” they had filled up the measure of their iniquities.—(Num. 14:22) Hence also the consecration of the tenths or tithes, which had grown into an established usage so early as the days of Abraham. (Gen. 14:20) The whole increase was represented by ten, and one of [[@Page:92]] these was set apart to the Lord, in token of all being derived from Him and held of Him. So this revelation of law from Sinai, which was to serve for all coming ages as the grand expression of God’s holiness, and the summation of man’s duty, was comprised in the number ten, to indicate its perfection as one complete and comprehensive whole—”the all that a divinely called people, as well as a single individual, should and should not do in reference to God and their neighbour.”[3]

3. It perfectly accords with this view of the ten commandments, and is a farther confirmation of it, that they were written by the finger of God on two tables of stone—written on both sides, so as to cover the entire surface, and not leave room for future additions, as if what was already given might admit of improvements; and written on durable tables of stone, while the rest of the law was written only on parchment or paper. It was for no lack of writing materials, as Hengstenberg has fully shown,[4] that in this and other cases the engraving of letters upon stones was used in that remote period; for materials in great abundance existed in Egypt and its neighbourhood, and are known to have been used from the earliest times, in the papyrus, the byssus-manufacture, and the skins of beasts. “The stone,” he justly remarks, “points to the perpetuity which belongs to the law, as an expression of the Divine will, originating in the Divine nature. It was an image of the truth uttered by our Lord, ‘Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.’”

4. Then these ten words, as they are called, had the singular honour conferred on them of being properly the terms of the covenant formed at Sinai. Thus Moses, when rehearsing what had taken place, says, Deut. 4:13, “And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten [[@Page:93]] commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.” Again, in ch. [[9:9 >> Bible:Dt 9:9]] , [[11 >> Bible:Dt 9:11]] , he calls these tables of stone “the tables of the covenant.” So also in Ex. 34:28, “the words written upon the tables, the ten commandments,” are expressly called “the words of the covenant.” To mark more distinctly the covenant nature of these words, it is to be observed (as remarked by Deyling, Obs. Sac., L. ii., obs. 47), that the Scripture never once uses the expression, “the tables of the law,” but always simply the tables, or the testimony, or, conjoining the two, the tables of the testimony, or tables of the covenant. It is true, some other commands are coupled with the ten, when, in Ex. 34:27, the Lord said to Moses, that “after the tenor of (at the month of, according to) these words he had made a covenant with Israel.” It is true, also, that at the formal ratification of the covenant, Ex. 24, we read of the book of the covenant, which comprehended not only the ten commandments, but also the precepts contained in ch. [[21 >> Bible:Ex 21]] -[[23 >> Bible:Ex 23]] ; for it is clear that this book comprised all that the Lord had then said, either directly or by the instrumentality of Moses, and to which the people answered, “We will do it.” But it is carefully to be observed, that a marked distinction is still put between the ten commandments and the other precepts; for the former are called emphatically “the words of the Lord,” while the additional words given through Moses are called “the judgments” (ver.[[3 >> Bible:Ex 24:3]] ). They are, indeed, peculiarly rights or judgments, having respect, for the most part, to what should be done from one man to another, and what, in the event of violations of the law being committed, ought to be enforced judicially, with the view of rectifying or checking the evil. Their chief object was to secure, through the instrumentality of the magistrate, that if the proper lore should fail to influence the hearts and lives of the people, still the right should be maintained. Yet while these form the great body of the additional words communicated to Moses and written in the book of the covenant, the symbolical institutions had also a certain place assigned them; for both in ch. [[23 >> Bible:Ex 23:1-33]] , and again in ch. [[24 >> Bible:Ex 24:1-18]] , the three yearly feasts, and one or two other points of this description, are noticed. But still these directions and judgments formed no proper addition to the matter of the ten commandments, considered as God’s [[@Page:94]] revelation of law to His people. The terms of the covenant still properly stood, as we are expressly and repeatedly told, in the ten commandments; and what, besides, was added before the ratification of the covenant, cannot justly be regarded as having had any other object in view, in so far as they partook of the nature of laws, than as subsidiary directions and restraints to aid in protecting the covenant, and securing its better observance. The feast-laws, in particular, so far from forming any proper addition to the terms of the covenant, had respect primarily to the people’s profession of adherence to it, and contained directions concerning the sacramental observances of the Jewish Church.

5. What has been said in regard to the ten commandments, as alone properly constituting the terms of the covenant, is fully established, and the singular importance of these commandments further manifested, by the place afterwards assigned them in the tabernacle. The most sacred portion of this, that which formed the very heart and centre of all the services connected with it, was the ark of the covenant. It was the peculiar symbol of the Lord’s covenant presence and faithfulness, and immediately above it was the throne on which He sat as King in Jeshurun. But that ark was made on purpose to contain the two tables of the law, and was called “the ark of the covenant,” simply because it contained “the tables of the covenant.” The book of the law was afterwards placed by Moses at the side of the ark (Deut. 31:26), that it might serve as a check upon the Levites, who were the proper guardians and keepers of the book; it was a wise precaution lest they should prove unfaithful to their charge. But the tables on which the ten commandments were written alone kept possession of the ark, and were thus plainly recognised as containing in themselves the sum and substance of what in righteousness was held to be strictly required by the covenant.

6. Finally, our Lord and His apostles always point to the revelation of law engraven upon these stones as holding a preeminent place, and, indeed, as comprising all that in the strict and proper sense was to be esteemed as law. The Scribes and Pharisees of that age had completely inverted the order of things. Their carnality and self-righteousness had led them to [[@Page:95]] exalt the precepts respecting ceremonial observances to the highest place, and to throw the duties inculcated in the ten commandment! comparatively into the background, thus treating the mere appendages of the covenant as of more account than its very ground and basis. Hence, when seeking to expose the insufficient and hollow nature of “the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees,” our Lord made His appeal to the testimony engraved on the two tables, and most commonly, indeed, though not exclusively, to the precepts of the second table, because He had to do more especially with hypocrites, whose defects and shortcomings might most readily be exposed by a reference to the duties of the second table.—(Matt. 19:16; Luke 10:25, 18:18, etc.) The object of our Lord naturally led Him to give prominence to those things by which a man approves himself to be just, or the reverse. Those parts of duty which more immediately relate to God in their proper observance, have to do so peculiarly with the heart, that it is comparatively easy, on the one hand, for hypocrites to feign compliance with them, and difficult, on the other, to make a direct exposure of their pretensions. For the same reason, Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which was chiefly intended to be an exposition of the real nature and far-reaching import of the ten commandments, bears most respect to those commandments which belonged to the second table, and which had suffered most from the corruption of the times. But the prophets of the Old Testament had done precisely the same thing in reproving the ungodliness prevalent in their day. They were continually striving to recall men from the mere outward observances which the most worth less hypocrites could perform, to the sincere piety toward God, and deeds of substantial kindness toward man, required by the law of the two tables; so that the prophets, as well as the law, were truly said to hang upon one and the same commandment of love.[5] In like manner, the Apostle Paul, after Christ, as the [[@Page:96]] prophets before, when discoursing in regard to the law, what it was or was not, what it could or could not do, always has in view pre-eminently the law of the two tables. Without an exception, his examples are taken from the very words of these, or what they clearly prohibited and required.—(Rom. 2:17-23, 3:10-18, 7:7, 13:9, 10; 1 Tim. 1:7-10) This could not, of course, be expected in the argument maintained in the Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians, where the error met and opposed consisted in an undue exaltation of the ceremonial institutions by themselves, as if the observance of these by the Christian Church were essential to salvation. In this case he could not possibly avoid referring chiefly to precepts of a ceremonial nature, and discussing them with respect to the light in which they were improperly viewed by certain parties in the apostolic Church. But when the question was, what the law in its strict and proper sense really required, and what were the ends it was fitted to serve, he never fails to manifest his concurrence with the other inspired writers, in taking the ten words as the law and the testimony, by which everything was to be judged and determined.

We should despair of proving anything respecting the Old Testament dispensation, if these considerations do not prove that the law of the ten commandments stood out from all the other precepts enjoined under the ministration of Moses, and were intended to form a full and comprehensive exhibition of the righteousness of the law, in its strict and proper sense. No doubt, many of the other precepts teach substantially what these commandments did, or contain statements and regulations bearing some way upon their violation or observance. But this was not done with the view of supplying any new or additional matter of obligation; it was merely intended to explain their real import, or to give instructions how to adapt to them what might be called the jurisprudence of the state. We cannot but regard it as an unhappy circumstance, tending to perpetuate much misunderstanding and confusion regarding the legislation of Moses, that the distinction has been practically overlooked, which it so manifestly assigns to the ten commandments, and that they have so frequently been regarded by the more learned theologians as the kind of quintessence of the whole Mosaic code, as the few general or representative heads under which all the rest are to [[@Page:97]] be ranged. Thus Calvin, while he held the ten commandments to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and gave for the most part a correct as well as admirable exposition of their tenor and design, yet failed to bring out distinctly their singular and prominent place in the Mosaic economy, and in his commentary reduces all the ceremonial institutions to one or other of these ten commandments. They were therefore regarded by him as standing to the entire legislation of Moses in the relation of general summaries or compends. And in that case there must have been, as he partially admits there was, something shadowy in the one as well as in the other. But what was chiefly a defect of arrangement in Calvin and many subsequent writers, has in Bähr assumed the form of a guiding principle, and is laid as the foundation of his view of the whole Mosaic system. Agreeing substantially with Spencer, whom he here quotes with approbation, and who considered the decalogue as a brief compend or tabular exhibition of the several classes of precepts in the law, he says: “The decalogue is representative of the whole law; it contains religious and political, not less than moral, precepts. The first command is a purely religious one; as is also the fourth, which belongs to the ceremonial law; and indeed, generally, by reason of the theocratic constitution, all civil commands were at the same time religious and moral ones, and inversely; so that the old division into moral, ceremonial, and political, or judicial, appears quite untenable.”[6] There is an element of truth in this. The theocracy, doubtless, stamped all [[@Page:98]] with a religious impress, and brought the ceremonial and political into close connection with the moral. But it by no means follows that these were all indiscriminately fused together; otherwise, they must also have been retained, or have fallen together. The view overlooks distinctions which are both real and important, as will appear in the course of our remarks upon some parts of the decalogue itself, and also afterwards, when unfolding the relation of the decalogue to the ceremonial institutions. It is such an error as confounds the means of salvation with the great principles of religious and moral obligation, and leaves, if followed out, no solid basis for the doctrine of a vicarious atonement to rest on. With perfect consistence, Bahr constructs his system without the help of such an atonement; sacrifice in all its forms was but an expression of pious feeling on the part of the worshipper, and consequently fell under one or other of the duties man owed to his Maker.

II. We proceed now to consider the excellence of this law of the ten commandments, and to show, by an examination of its method and substance, how justly it was regarded as a complete and perfect summary of religious and moral duty.

It is scarcely possible, even at this stage of the world’s history, to consider with any care the precepts of the decalogue, without in some measure apprehending its high character as a standard of rectitude. And could we throw ourselves back to the time when it was first promulgated—instead of looking at it, as we now do, from the eminence of a fuller and more perfect revelation—could we distinctly contemplate it, as given seventeen centuries before the Christian era, and received as the summary of all that is morally right and dutiful by a people who had just left the polluted atmosphere of Egypt, we could not fail to discern, in the very existence of such a law, one of the most striking proofs of the Divine character of the Mosaic legislation. We should be much more disposed to exclaim here, than in regard to the outward prodigy which first called forth the declaration, “This is the finger of God.”

A remarkable testimony was given to the general excellence of the decalogue, and its vast superiority, as a code of morality, to anything found among the native superstitions of the East, [[@Page:99]] in the language of those Indians referred to by Dr Claudius Buchanan: “If you send us a missionary, send us one who has learned your ten commandments.”[7] modern idolaters were thus taken with the Divine beauty and singular preciousness of these commandments, we know those could have no less reason to be so to whom they were first delivered; for the land of Egypt, out of which they had recently escaped, was as remarkable for the grossness of its superstition as for the superiority of its learning and civilisation. As far back as our information respecting it carries us,—at a period certainly more remote than that in which Israel sojourned within its borders,—the Egyptians appear to have been immersed in the deepest mire of idolatry and its kindred abominations; and on them, in an especial sense, was chargeable the guilt and folly of “having changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” “The innermost sanctuary of their temples,” says Clement of Alexandria, “is overhung with gilded tapestry; but let the priest remove the covering, and there appears a cat or a crocodile, or a domesticated serpent, wrapt in purple.” Worshipping the Deity thus under the image of even the lower creature-forms, the religion of Egypt must have been of an essentially grovelling tendency, and could scarcely fail to have carried along with it many foul excesses and pollutions. There are not wanting indications of this in Herodotus, and several allusions are also made to it in the Books of Moses. But some of the most profound inquirers into the religion of the ancients have recently shown, on evidence the most complete, that the worship of ancient Egypt was essentially of a bacchanalian character, full of lust and revelry; that its most frequented rites were accompanied with scenes of wantonness and impure indulgence; and that it sometimes gave rise to enormities not fit to be mentioned.[8]

Such was the atmosphere in which the Israelites had lived during their abode in Egypt; and it was when fresh from such a region that the law of the ten commandments was proclaimed in their hearing, and given to be enshrined in the innermost recess [[@Page:100]] of their sacred structure,—a law which unfolds the clearest views of God’s character and service—which denounces every form and species of idolatry as inconsistent with the spirituality of the Divine nature which enjoins the purest worship and the highest morality, and in its very form is a model of perfection and completeness. Wisdom of this kind Moses could least of all have learned from the Egyptians; nor could it have been his, unless it had descended to him from above.[9]

1. This revelation of law is equally remarkable for the order and arrangement of its several parts, and for the roundness and completeness of its summary of moral obligation; in both respects a certain perfection belongs to it. As regards the former, there are general features which strike one at the first glance, and about which there can be no difference of opinion. This is the case especially with the relative place assigned in it to those things which have more immediate respect to God, and those which concern the rights and interests of one’s fellow-men. However the line of demarcation may be drawn between the two, there can be no doubt—for it stands upon the surface of the code—that the forms and manifestations of love to God occupy the first and most prominent place, while those which are expressive of love to man take a secondary and, in a sense, dependent rank. Religion was made the basis of morality—piety toward God the living root of good-will and integrity toward men; and on this great principle, that unless there were maintained a dutiful and proper regard to the great Head of the human family, it could not reasonably be expected that men would feel and act aright to the different members of the family. We have here, therefore, the true knowledge and love of God virtually proclaimed to be, what was so happily expressed by Augustine, the parent, in a sense, and guardian of all the virtues (mater quodammodo omnium custosque virtutum); or, as it is [[@Page:101]] put by Josephus, “religion was not made a part of virtue, but other virtues were ordained to be parts of religion.”—(Apion., ii:17)

There may, no doubt, be a measure of love and fair dealing between man and man, where there is no spiritual acquaintance with God, and no principle of dutiful allegiance to Him. Were it not so, indeed, society in countries where the true religion is unknown would fall to pieces. But in such cases, the love is destitute of what might give it either the requisite stability or the proper spirit; it is not sustained by adequate views of men’s relationship to God, nor animated by the motives which are supplied by a consideration of their higher calling and destiny: hence it is necessarily defective, partial, irregular, in its manifestations. It was, therefore, in accordance with the truest wisdom, that the things which belong to God were, in this condensed summary of Divine requirement, exalted to the first place; and in farther attestation of their pre-eminent rank and importance, it is to the commands connected with this branch of duty chiefly, if not exclusively, that special reasons have been attached enforcing the obedience required. In all the later precepts there is a simple enunciation of the command.

So far all are agreed; but in regard to the manner of making out the division between what is called the first and the second tables of the law, there is not the same general unanimity among theologians. Scripture itself gives no explicit deliverance on the subject. It frequently enough affirms the law to have been written on two tables; but it never intimates how many of the ten words were inscribed on the one, how many on the other; and while it more than once comprises the ten in two still more fundamental and comprehensive precepts—to love the Lord with all the heart, and one’s neighbour as one’s self (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 19:37)—it leaves altogether undecided the question, how much of the decalogue is embraced in the one, and how much in the other. We cannot but think that there is a profound design in this reserve of Scripture, which it had been good for Christian divines to have inquired into, rather than to have insisted on sharply distinguishing, some in one way, some in another, what perhaps is incapable of a complete and formal separation. For in this [[@Page:102]] revelation of law, while there is a diversity of parts, there is a pervading unity of principle; and, branching out, as it does, the whole sphere of obligation into two great lines of duty, it would yet have us to regard these as cognate and affiliated, rather than absolutely diverse the one merging into the other, and both to a certain extent mutually overlapping each other. Thus, the command enjoining the sacred observance of the weekly Sabbath, in its most obvious and direct aspect, bears on the duty one owes to God, and is in consequence, by all classes of theologians, associated with the first table of the law; while yet the rest to which it calls is inseparably bound up with the best interests of mankind; and the violation of it by the rich was sternly denounced by the prophets among other acts of hardship and oppression.—(Deut. 5:15; Isa. 58:13; Jer. 17:20-22) In His exposition of the sixth commandment, our Lord has given a striking illustration of the manner in which the love it demands toward a fellow-creature intertwines itself with the love which is due to God, and the service He requires of man.—(Matt. 5:23, 24) So also the command to honour father and mother has points of affinity with both departments of duty, according as parents are contemplated in the light of Heaven’s representatives, clothed with a measure of supernal authority, or as standing merely in the highest rank of earthly relations. Philo, in his treatise on the decalogue, draws attention to this peculiarity, and represents the command as having its place on the confines of the two tables, because of the parental relationship appearing to partake partly of the Divine and partly of the human element. Formally, however, he assigns it to the first table; and makes the division of the ten to consist of two fives—the first terminating with the command to honour father and mother. Josephus follows exactly the same method, throwing the whole into two equal halves, and making the command to honour parents the closing member of the first five.—(Ant., iii., c. 6, § 6)

There can be no reasonable doubt that these ancient Jewish writers expressed in this matter the common belief of their countrymen; and the division of the decalogue into two fives, with an acknowledgment that the boundary line was not very broadly marked, or altogether free from dubiety, is the one which has the highest claim to antiquity. It has also the advantage of [[@Page:103]] being the most natural and simple; for as the whole law is comprehended in ten, the number of completeness, and from its very nature falls into two grand divisions, we naturally think of two fives—each by itself the symbol of incompleteness, but, as related to each other, the component parts of a perfect whole—for the proper distribution of the commands. Other considerations come in aid of this conclusion: in particular, the circumstance that the fifth command is, like those preceding it, enforced by a reason which places it in immediate connection with the great ends of the covenant; and the sacredness attached by the Apostle Paul to the discharge of the duties enjoined in it, as being, on the part of the young, the showing of piety at home (1 Tim. 5:4),—a spirit characteristically different from that of brotherly love. And, indeed, the relation of a child to a parent is not strictly that of neighbour to neighbour. “It is through the parents that the creative power of God, on which all life depends, is communicated to the children; so that God, as the Creator of life, appears to the children primarily in the parents—the earthly divinities (diis terrestribus), as Grotius calls them. But since the relation between parents and children is the basis of all the divinely-constituted relations of human society, which involve stations of superiority and inferiority, since the names also of father and mother have been made to stretch over the whole natural circle (Gen. 45:8; Judg. 5:7)—[and even the name of God, it might have been added, is sometimes given to the judges, who represented Him, Ex.22:8, 28; Ps. 82:6]—it is certainly in the spirit of the law to explain this command, with Luther, in reference to the sphere of the civil life” (Baumgarten). Hence, also, we may most easily explain why this should be called the first commandment with promise (Eph. 6:2), because it is the one in respect to which we have first to do with the authority of God, as appearing in those earthly representatives; and on which the greater stress is justly laid, since in them that authority is associated with so much of a winning and attractive nature, that if it fails to elicit from those placed under it a reverential and obedient spirit, much more may the same failure be expected when account has to be made only of the mysterious and dread majesty of Heaven.

These considerations, it seems to us, are sufficient to establish [[@Page:104]] the propriety of this ancient division of the ten commandments into two halves; one which was acquiesced in by the two most learned of the fathers,—Origen (in his 8th Homily on Genesis), and Jerome (on Eph. 6:2),—and became also the received opinion in the Greek Church. It is preferable to that which has so generally prevailed in the Reformed Church, and which so far concurs with the earlier view as to hold the command respecting parents to be the fifth in order, but differs in laying the chief stress upon the human element in the parental relation, and consequently assigning the fifth command to the second table of the law. The division then falls into four and six, and thereby loses sight of the significance of number in the two divisions, though making account of it in the totality, and, at the same time, overlooks the more distinctive peculiarities of the precept respecting the honouring of parents. But if, in comparison of this view, the other seems deserving of preference (though the difference between them, it must be owned, is not very material), much more is it so when compared with another view which received the sanction of Augustine, and from him has descended to the Romish, and in great part also to the Lutheran Church. According to it, the division falls into three and seven—the three, however, terminating with the fourth command, while the first and second are thrown into one; and the seven is made out by splitting the tenth into two, and placing the coveting of a man’s wife in a different category from the coveting of his house and other possessions. Augustine expressed his preference for this distribution primarily on the ground, that in the three directly pertaining to God he saw an indication of the mystery of the Trinity.—(Quaest. in Ex., § 71) This was evidently the consideration that chiefly weighed with him, although he also thought there was ground for coupling the prohibition against idol-worship with that against the acknowledgment of another God than Jehovah, and for distinguishing between concupiscence toward a neighbour’s wife, and concupiscence in respect to material possessions. Kurtz, along with not a few Lutherans of the present day, still adheres to this view, and very much also from regard to the sacred three and seven, which is thereby obtained.—(Hist, of Old Cov., ii., sec. 47, § 3) But in a grand objective revelation, any [[@Page:105]] to numbers, except such as is quite natural and simple, would be entirely out of place; and the recondite considerations which are required here to discover and elevate into significance a three and a seven, betray the character of their origin: they might do for the speculations of the closet, but were greatly too far to seek for what was required in the fundamental document of a popular religion. Besides, the acknowledgment of one God is not by any means inconsistent with the worship of that God by idols—as, indeed, the history of the Old Testament renders manifest by the marked distinction it draws between the sin of Jeroboam, who corrupted the worship of Jehovah by idols, and the much greater sin of Ahab, who introduced the worship of strange gods: therefore, what are usually called the first and second commandments, are not to be identified; the one has respect to the object, the other to the mode, of worship. On the other hand, the concupiscence condemned in the tenth commandment is substantially one, whatever possession or property of a neighbour’s may be its more immediate object: to regard it when directed towards his wife as specifically different from what it is when directed to other objects, were virtually to identify it with what is forbidden in the seventh commandment. And then there is this fatal objection to the rending of the tenth into two, that it obliges us to discard the form of the precept as given in Exodus, and substitute that in Deut. 5:21 as the more correct: for in this last alone does the wife, as an object of prohibition, stand first; while in Ex. 20:17, first the house is forbidden to be coveted, then the wife, afterwards man-servant, and whatever may belong to one’s neighbour. A theory which requires for its support either a corruption in the text of Exodus, of which there is no evidence, or the assertion of a higher claim in respect to originality for the form of the decalogue given in Deuteronomy as compared with that in Exodus, has manifestly but a poor foundation to stand upon.[10]

[[@Page:106]] Holding then by the generally received view in the Reformed Church, that, in making out the ten commands of the law, the prohibition against idol-worship ranks independently of the first, and that the prohibition against concupiscence is not diverse, but one; holding, farther, that the simplest and most natural, as it is also the oldest, division of the whole, is into two fives,—though the division is not to be understood as very sharply drawn, or as involving anything like an abrupt and formal separation of the one portion from the other,—there is found in this summary of moral and religious obligation a beautiful order and progression in the precepts which compose it. In that part which has more immediate reference to God, it demands for Him the supreme love and homage of mankind—(1) in respect to His being, as the one living God; (2) to His worship, as, like Himself, spiritual, and abhorrent to the rites of idolatry; (3) to His name; (4) to His day of holy rest; (5) to His earthly representatives. Then, as the two last commands have already brought the duties of God’s service into contact with the interests of one’s fellow-men and the relations of social life, the Divine revelation now passes formally over to the things which directly concern the well-being of our neighbour, claiming for him what is due successively in regard to his life, his domestic happiness, his property, his good name in the world, his place in the feelings and affections of our heart. Nothing could be more orderly, and at the same time more compact.

2. But it is of more importance to note the character of the decalogue in regard to the revelation of duty contained in it, or the substance of its precepts. Does it prove itself here, on examination, to be indeed a comprehensive summary of all moral and religious duty; and that with reference to the heart as well as the outward behaviour?

An extremely low estimate, in this respect, is formed of the ten commandments by Spencer and his school, as well as of the [[@Page:107]] other portions of the law of Moses. Spencer himself smiles at the idea of all religious and moral obligation being contained here in its fundamental principles, and affirms that such an extent of meaning can be brought out of it only by forcing on its worth an import quite foreign to their proper sense. He can find nothing more in it than a few plain and disconnected precepts, aimed at the prohibition of idolatry and its natural effects.[11] “In the Mosaic covenant,” says one, who here trod in the footsteps of Spencer, “God appeared chiefly as a temporal prince, and therefore gave laws intended rather to direct the outward conduct than to regulate the actings of the heart. A temporal monarch claims from his subjects only outward honour and obedience. God, therefore, acting in the Sinai covenant as King of the Jews, demanded from them no more.”[12] What! the holy and righteous God stoop to form a mock covenant like this, and resort to such a wretched expedient to uphold His honour and authority! Could it possibly become Him to descend from heaven amid the awful manifestations of Divine power and glory, in order to proclaim and settle the terms of a covenant, the only aim of which was to draw around Him a set of formal attendants and crouching hypocrites—men of show and parade—the mere ghosts and shadows of obedient children! It is the worst part of an earthly monarch’s lot to be so often surrounded with creatures of this description; but to suppose that the living God, who from the spirituality of His nature must ever look mainly on the heart, and so far from seeking, must indignantly reject, any profession of obedience which does not flow from the wellspring of a loving spirit—to suppose that He should have been at pains to establish a covenant of blood for the purpose of securing such a worthless display,—betrays an astonishing misapprehension of the character of God, or the most shallow and unsatisfactory view of the whole transactions connected with the revelation of Moses.[13]

[[@Page:108]] Indeed, if no more had been required by God in His law than what these divines imagine, the commendations bestowed on it, and the injunctions given to study and weigh its precepts, as a masterpiece of Divine wisdom, could only be regarded as extravagant and bombastical. What, on such a supposition, could we make of the command laid upon Joshua to meditate in it day and night (Josh. 1:8); or of the celebration of its matchless excellence and worth by the Psalmist, as better than thousands of gold and silver (Ps. 119:72); or of his prayer, that his eyes might be opened to behold the wondrous things contained in it?—(Ps. 119:18) Such things clearly imply a latent depth of meaning, and a large compass of requirement in the law of Moses, more especially in that part of it which formed the very heart and centre of the whole—the decalogue. Nor would the low and shallow views respecting it, on which we have animadverted, ever have been propounded, if, as Calvin suggests,[14] men properly considered the Lawgiver, by whose character that of the law must also be determined. An earthly monarch who is capable of taking cognisance only of the outward actions, must prescribe laws which have respect simply to [[@Page:109]] these. But, for a like reason, the King of heaven, who is Himself a Spirit, and a Spirit of infinite and unchanging holiness, can never prescribe a law but such as is in accordance with His own Divine nature; one, therefore, which pre-eminently aims at the regulation of the heart, and takes cognisance of the outward behaviour only in so far as this may be expressive of what is felt within. And it is justly inferred by Bähr from this view of God’s character even in regard to the ceremonial part of the law of Moses, that the outward observances of worship it imposed could not possibly be in themselves an end; that they must have been intended to be only an image and representation of internal and spiritual relations; and that the command not to make any likeness or graven image, is of itself an incontestable proof of the symbolical character of the Mosaic religion.[15]

Perhaps nothing has tended more to prevent the right perception of the spirituality and extent of the law of the ten commandments, than a mistaken view of the generally negative aspect they assume, as if their aim were more to impose restraints on the doing of what is evil, than to enforce the practice of what is pure and good. If this, however, were the right view of the matter, there manifestly would have been no exception to the negative form of the precepts; they would one and all have possessed the character simply of prohibitions. But the fourth and fifth have been made to run in the positive form; and one of these—the fourth—combines both together, as if on purpose to show, that along with the prohibition of the specified sins, each precept was to be understood as requiring the corresponding duties. In truth, this predominantly negative character is rather a testimony to their deep spiritual import, as confronting at every point the depravity and sinfulness of the human heart. The Israelites then, as professing believers now, admitted by divine grace into a covenant relation to God, and made heirs of His blessed inheritance, should have been disposed of themselves to love and serve God; they should not even have needed the stringent precepts and binding obligations of law to do so. But as a solemn proof and testimony how much the reverse was the case, the law was thrown chiefly into the prohibitory form: “Thou shalt not do this or that;” as much as to say, Thou art [[@Page:110]] of thyself ready to do it this is the native bent of thy inclination but it must be restrained, and things of a contrary nature sought after and performed.

It is perhaps too much to say, with Hengstenberg, that the law was called the testimony (Ex. 25:16, 30:6, etc.), and the tables on which it was written, the tables of the testimony (Ex. 31:18, 34:29), simply on account of the revelation therein made of God’s judgment against man’s sin (Pent., ii., p. 600); for this was rather an incidental result, than the direct object of the law: yet it was a result which so inevitably took place, that the name could scarcely have been imposed without some reference to it. In one passage we even find the idea distinctly exhibited, though with reference to the book generally of the law, when Moses was commanded to have a copy of it placed beside the ark of the covenant, that it might be for a witness against Israel.—(Deut. 31:26) The same, undoubtedly, was done in a pre-eminent degree by the two tables, which, as containing the essence of the whole legislation, were put within the ark. And their position there directly under the mercy-seat, where the blood of atonement was perpetually sprinkled, could signify nothing else than that the accusation which was virtually borne against Israel by the law of the covenant, required to be covered from the eye of Heaven by the propitiatory above it. In itself, however, the law was simply the revelation of God’s holiness, with its circle of demands upon the faith, love, and obedience of His people: it testified of what was in His heart as the invisible Head of the kingdom, in respect to the character and conduct of those who should be its members. But the testimony it thus delivered for Him necessarily involved a testimony against them, because of the innate tendency to corruption which existed in their bosoms. And this incidental testimony against the sinfulness of the people,—which is, at the same time, an evidence of the law’s inherent spirituality and goodness,—has its reflection in the very form of the precepts in which it is contained.

The more closely we examine these precepts themselves, the more clearly do we perceive their spiritual and comprehensive character. That they recognise love as the root of all obedience, and hatred as inseparable from transgression, is plainly intimated in the description given of the doers and transgressors of the [[@Page:111]] law in the second commandment; the latter being characterized as “those that hate God,” and the former as “those that love Him and keep His commandments.” And that the love required was no slight and superficial feeling, such as might readily give manifestation of itself in a few external acts of homage,—that, on the contrary, it embraced the entire field of man’s spiritual agency, and bore respect alike to his thoughts, words, and deeds,—is manifest from the following analysis and explanation of the second table, given by Hengstenberg:[16] “Thou shalt not injure thy neighbor—1. In deed, and that (1) not in regard to his life, (2) not in regard to his dearest property, his wife, (3) not in regard to his property generally [in other words, in regard to his person, his family, or his property]. 2. In word (‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’). 3. In thought (‘Thou shalt not covet’). While it may be admitted, however, that the prohibition of lust or covetousness has an internal character, it may still with some plausibility be maintained, that on this very account the preceding commands are to be taken externally—that we are not in them to go beyond the word and deed—that the mere outward acts, for example, of murder and adultery, are prohibited, so that the four first precepts of the second table may be satisfied without any in ward feeling of holiness, this being required only in the last. There is certainly some degree of truth in this remark. That a special prohibition of sinful lust should follow the rest, shows that what had been said in reference to word and deed primarily has respect to these. Still it must not be overlooked, on the other hand, that precisely through the succession of deed, word, and thought, the deed and word are stript of their merely outward character, and referred back to their root in the mind, are marked simply as the end of a process, the commencement of which is to be sought in the heart. If this is duly considered, it will appear, that what primarily refers only to word and deed, carried at the same time an indirect reference to the emotions of the heart. Thus, the only way to fulfil the command, Thou shalt not kill, is to have the root extirpated from the heart, out [[@Page:112]] of which murder springs. Where that is not done, the command is not fully complied with, even though no outward murder is committed. For this must then be dependent upon circumstances which lie beyond the circle of man’s proper agency.”

There is no less depth and comprehensiveness in the first table, as the same learned writer has remarked; and a similar regard is had in it to thought, word, and deed, only in the reverse order, and lying somewhat less upon the surface. The fourth and fifth precepts demand the due honouring of God in deed; the third in word; and the two first, pointing to His sole God head and absolute spirituality, require for Himself personally, and for His worship, that place in the heart to which they are entitled. Very striking in this respect is the announcement in the second commandment, of a visitation of evil upon those that hate God, and an extension of mercy to thousands that love Him. As much as to say, It is the heart of love I require; and if ever My worship is corrupted by the introduction of images, it is only to be accounted for by the working of hatred instead of love in the heart. So that the heart may truly be called the alpha and the omega of this wonderful revelation of law: it stands prominently forth at both ends; and had no inspired commentary been given on the full import of the ten words, looking merely to these words themselves, we cannot but perceive that they stretch their demands over the whole range of man’s active operations, and can only be fulfilled by the constant and uninterrupted exercise of love to God and man, in the various regions of the heart, the conversation, and the conduct.

We have commentaries, however, both in the Old and the New Testament Scriptures, upon the law of the ten commandments, and such as plainly confirm what has been said of its perfection and completeness as a rule of duty. With manifest reference to the second table, and with the view of expressing in one brief sentence the essence of its meaning, Moses had said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Lev. 19:18); and in like manner regarding the first table, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”—(Deut. 6:5) It is against all reason to suppose, that these precepts should require more than what was required in those which formed the very groundwork and heart [[@Page:113]] of the whole Mosaic legislation; and we have the express authority of our Lord for holding, that the whole law, as well as the prophets, hung upon them.—(Matt. 22:40) Nor only so, but, as already noticed, in the Sermon on the Mount, He has Himself given us an insight into the wide reach and deep spiritual meaning of the ten commandments, clearing them from the false and superficial glosses of the carnal Pharisees. That this is the true character and design of that portion of our Lord’s discourse, that it was intended to bring distinctly out the full import of the old, and not to introduce any new and higher legislation, is now generally admitted by at least the sounder portion of exegetical writers.[17] And, to mention no more, the Apostle Paul, referring to the law of the ten commandments, calls it “spiritual,” “holy, just, and good,”—represents it as the grand instrument in the hands of the Spirit for convincing of sin, and declares the only fulfilment of it to be perfect love.—(Rom. 7:7-14, 13:10)

We trust enough has been said to establish the claim of the law of the ten commandments to be regarded in the light in which it has commonly been viewed by evangelical divines of this country, as a brief but comprehensive summary of all religious and moral duty. And, as a necessary consequence, the two grand rules with which they have been wont to enter on the exposition of the decalogue are fully justified. These rules are—1. That the same precept which forbids the external acts of sin, forbids likewise the inward desires and motions of sin in the heart; as also, that the precept which commands the external acts of duty, requires at the same time the inward feelings and principles of holiness, of which the external acts could only be the fitting expression. 2. That the negative commands include in them the injunction of the contrary duties, and the positive commands the prohibition of the contrary sins, so that in each there is something required as well as forbidden. Nor is the [[@Page:114]] language too strong, if rightly understood, which has often been applied to this law, that it is a kind of transcript of God’s own pure and righteous character,—i.e., a faithful and exact representation of that spiritual excellence which eternally belongs to Himself, and which He must eternally require of His accountable creatures. The idea which such language conveys is undoubtedly correct, if understood in reference to the great principles of truth and holiness embodied in the precepts, though it can be but partially true if regard is had to the formal acts in which those principles were to find their prescribed manifestation; for the actual operation of the principles had of necessity to be ordered in suitable adaptation to men’s condition upon earth, to which, as there belong relations, so also there are relative duties, not only different from anything with which God Himself has properly to do, but different even from what His people shall have to discharge in a coming eternity. There, such precepts as the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, or the eighth, as to the formal acts they prohibit or require, shall manifestly have lost their adaptation. And of the whole law we may affirm, that the precise form it has assumed, or the mould into which it has been cast, is such as fitly suits it only to the circumstances of the present life. But the love to God and man, which constitutes its all-pervading element, and for which the several precepts only indicate the particular ways and channels wherein it should flow—this love man is indispensably bound in all times and circumstances to cherish in his heart, and manifest in his conduct. For the God in whom he lives, and moves, and has his being, is love; and as the duty and perfection of the creature is to bear the image of the Creator, so to love as He loves—Himself first and supremely, and His offspring in Him and for Him must ever be the bounden obligation and highest end of those whom He calls His children.

FOOTNOTE

[1] De Leg. Heb. 3, Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in Matt. 25:1: Numero denario gavisa plurimum est gens Judaica et in sacris et in civilibus. But see the proof fully given in Bähr, Symb. i., p. 175 ss. Among other ancient authorities he produces the following: Etymol. Mgn., s.v. δεκὰς· ἡ ἔχουσα ἐν αὐτῇ πάντα ἀριθμὸν. Cyrill. In Hos. iii.: σύμβολον δὲ τελειότητος :ὁ δὲκα ἐστὶν ἀριθμος, παντέλειος ὤν. Herm. Trismeg. Poemand. 13: ἡ ἐνὰς οὖν κατα λόγον τὴν δεκάδα ἔχει καὶ ἡ δέκας τὴν ἑνάδα.

[2] Symabolik, i.. p. 175.

[3] Sack’s Apologetik, p. 180. As further examples of the scriptural import of ten, we might have mentioned the ten men in Zechariali laying hold of the skirt of a Jew, ch. 8:23, the parable of the ten virgins, and the ten horns or kingdoms in Revelation.

[4] Authentie, i., p. 481 ss. So Buddeus, Hist. Eccl., i., p. 606: Argumento vero id etiam erat, perennem istam legem esse atque perpetuam, etc., and Calvinistic divines generally.

[5] See especially Ps. 15, 24, which describe the righteousness required under the covenant, by obedience to the ten commandments, and more particularly to those of the second table; specially indited, no doubt, to meet the tendency which the more attractive and orderly celebration then introduced into the ritual service was fitted to awaken. See also Ps. 40, 50, 51; Isa. 1, 42., etc.; Micah 6.

[6] Symbolik, i., p. 384. He elsewhere, p. 181, seeks to justify this view from the number ten, in which the law was contained; and which number he considers to have been employed in the promulgation of this law, because “it was the fundamental law of Israel, in a religious and political respect—the representative of the whole Israelitish constitution.” It certainly might be called the fundamental law of Israel, but that is a different thing from its being also the representative of the whole Israelitish constitution. In this case the ten must have been individually and conjunctly comprehensive of the whole, and that in their distinctive character as component elements of the Israelitish constitution. But what has any of them in that sense to do, for example, with sacrifice for sin? or with thankofferings for mercies? or with distinctions in meat and drink? If the whole law had been comprised in ten groups, and the decalogue had consisted of one from each group, we could then, but only then, have seen the force and justice of the interpretation.

[7] Essay on the Estab. of an Episcopal Church in India, p. 61. If

[8] Creuzer, Symbolik, i., p. 448, ss.; comp. also, Hengstenberg, Authentie, i., p. 118, ss.; Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 203, ss.

[9] See the subject again referred to at B. iii., c. 5. It is one of the few correct things which Tacitus states concerning the religion of the Jews, that they counted it profanity to make images in the likeness of man, and that they worshipped only one supreme, eternal, unchangeable, and everlasting God.—(Hist., v. 5) It would be difficult, however, to throw together a larger amount of ignorance and error in the same space, than is expressed in this and the preceding chapter, by Tacitus, respecting the religious customs and rites of the Jews.

[10] It seems strange that any one should view the passage in Deut. 5:6-21 in any other light than as a free rehearsal of the commands given as originally uttered in Ex. 20. The account itself professes to be nothing else than such a rehearsal; and, in connection with one of the commands, gives explicit intimation of this: “Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God commanded thee.” The addition, also, at ver. 15, in connection with the fourth commandment, where the people are, as by a separate word of exhortation, called upon to remember that they had been bondmen in Egypt, and had been redeemed by the Lord, has all the appearance of an after-thought, thrown in at a later period, when Israel was farther removed from the era of redemption.

[11] De Legibus Heb., L,, i., c. 2.

[12] Theol. Dissertations by Dr John Erskine, p. 5, 37.

[13] It is strange that this notion, so unworthy of God, and so obviously inconsistent with the nature of the law itself, and the recorded facts of Israelitish history, still holds its ground among us. The shades of Spencer and Warburton still rest even upon many minds of vigorous thought. The covenant of law is with the utmost confidence, and with the tone of one who had made a sort of discovery in the matter, represented by Mr Johnstone, in his Israel after the Flesh, as a simply national covenant, having no other object than to maintain the national recognition of God, and no respect whatever to individuals.—(Ch. i) Mr Litton, in his Bampton Lecture, has, however, taken a more correct view, and brought out distinctly the spiritual element in the law. See especially Lect. III. The ten commandments express the spirit and essence of the whole economy, and only the first of them refers to the national acknowledgment of God. If that had been all they required, how could the Israelites in the wilderness have been treated as guilty of a breach of the covenant for simply failing to exercise faith in a particular word of God? Or how could our Lord charge the Scribes and Pharisees of His time with being condemned by their law, while they rigidly adhered to the acknowledgment of God? Besides, the law is not now, and never was intended, to be viewed as standing by itself. It was a mere appendage to the covenant of Abraham, and the revelations therewith connected. And if these were express on any point, it was, as we have shown in vol. 1st, on the necessity of personal faith and heart-holiness, to fulfil the calling of a son of Abraham. If the law did not require spiritual service, it must have been a retrogression, not an advance, in the revelation of God’s character.

[14] Institutes, B. ii., c. 8, § 6.

[15] Symbolik, i., p. 14.

[16] Authentie, ii., p. 600. Substantially the same analysis was made by Thomas Aquinas, in a short but very clear quotation given by Hengstenberg from the Summa i 2, q. 100, § 5.

[17] Tholuck, indeed, as usual on such points, holds a sort of middle opinion here in his Comm. on the Sermon on the Mount, although he is substantially of the opinion expressed above, and opposed to the view of Catholic, Socinian, and Arninian writers. See, however, Baumgarten, Doc. Christi de Lege Mosaica in Oratione Mon., with whom also Hengstenberg concurs, loc. cit.

Section Second.—The Law continued—Apparent Exceptions to its Perfection and Completeness as The Permanent and Universal Standard of Religious and Moral Obligation—Its References to The Special Circumstances of The Israelites, and Representation of God as Jealous.

[[@Page:-115]] IT is necessary to pause here for a little, and enter into some examination of the objections which have been raised out of the ten commandments themselves, against the character of perfection and completeness which we have sought to establish for them. For if any doubt should remain on this point, it will most materially interfere with and mar the line of argument we mean afterwards to pursue, and the views we have to propound in connection with this revelation of law to Israel.

By a certain class of writers, we are met at the very threshold with a species of objection which they seem to regard as perfectly conclusive against its general completeness and universal obligation. For it contains special and distinct references to the Israelites as a people. The whole is prefaced with the declaration, “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt,” while the fifth commandment embodies in it the promise of the land of Canaan as their peculiar inheritance. And this, we are told, makes it clear as noon-day, that the decalogue was not given as a revelation of God’s will to mankind at large, but was simply and exclusively intended for the Israelites binding, indeed, on them so long as the peculiar polity lasted under which they were placed, but also ceasing as an obligatory rule of conduct when that was abolished.[1] But, [[@Page:116]] on this ground, the Gospel itself will be found scarcely less imperfect, and we might almost at every step question the fitness or obligation of its precepts in respect to men in general. For it carries throughout a reference to existing circumstances; and by much the fullest development of its principles and duties,—that, namely, contained in the epistles, was given directly and avowedly to particular persons and churches, with the primary design of instructing them as to the things they were respectively to believe or do. So that, if the specialties found in the law of the two tables were sufficient to exempt men now from its obligation, or to deprive it at any time of an ecumenical value, most of the revelations of the Gospel might, for the same reason, be shorn of their virtue; and in both alike, men would be entitled to pick and choose for themselves, what they were to regard as of temporary moment, and what of perpetual obligation.

But were not this egregious trifling? The objection overlooks one of the most distinctive features—and, indeed, one of the greatest excellences—of God’s revelation, which at no period was given in the form of abstract delineations of truth and duty, but has ever developed itself in immediate connection with the circumstances of individuals and the leadings of Providence. From first to last it comes forth entwined with the characters and events of history. Not a little of it is written in the transactions themselves of past time, which are expressly declared to have been “written for our learning.” And it is equally true of the law and the Gospel, that the historical lines with which they are interwoven, while serving to increase their interest and enhance their didactic value, by no means detract from their general bearing, or interfere with their binding obligation. The ground of this lies in the unchangeableness of God’s character, which may be said to generalize all that is particular in His revelation, and impart a lasting efficacy to what was but occasional [[@Page:117]] in its origin. Without variableness or shadow of turning in Himself, He cannot have a word for one, and a different word for another. And unless the things spoken and required were so manifestly peculiar as to be applicable only to the individuals to whom they were first addressed, or from their very nature possessed a merely temporary significance, we must hold them to be the revelation of God’s mind and will for all persons and all times.

That the Lord uttered this law to Israel in the character of their Redeemer, and imposed it on them as the heirs of His inheritance, made no alteration in its own inherent nature; neither contracted nor enlarged the range of its obligation; only established its claim on their observance by considerations peculiarly fitted to move and influence their minds. Christ’s enforcing upon His disciples the lesson of humility, by His own condescension in stooping to wash their feet, or St Paul’s entreating his Gentile converts to walk worthy of their vocation, by the thought of his being, for their sakes, the prisoner of the Lord, are not materially different. The special considerations, coupled in either case alike with the precept enjoined, leave perfectly untouched the ground of the obligation or the rule of duty. Their proper and legitimate effect was only to win obedience, or, failing that, to aggravate transgression. And when the things required are such as those enjoined in the ten commandments,—things growing out of the settled relations in which men stand to God and to each other,—the obligation to obey is universal and permanent, whether or not there be any considerations of the kind in question tending to render obedience more imperative, or transgression more heinous.

But what if some of the considerations employed to enforce the observance of the duties enjoined, involve views of the Divine character and government partial and defective, at variance with the principles of the Gospel, and repulsive even to enlightened reason? Can that really have been meant to be of standing force and efficacy as a revelation of duty, which embodies in it such elements of imperfection? Such is the form the objection takes in the hands of another large class of objectors, who think they find matter of the kind referred to in the declarations attached to the second commandment. The [[@Page:118]] view there given of God as a jealous being, and of the manner in which His jealousy was to appear, has by some been represented as so peculiarly Jewish, by others as so flagrantly obnoxious to right principle, that they cannot tolerate the idea of the decalogue being considered as a perfect revelation of the mind and will of God. The subject has long afforded a favourite ground of railing accusation to avowed infidels and rationalist divines; and Spinosa could not think of anything in Scripture more clearly and manifestly repugnant to reason, than that the attribute of jealousy was ascribed to God in the decalogue itself.

The treatment which this article in the decalogue has met with, is quite a specimen of the shallow and superficial character of infidelity. It proceeds on the supposition that jealousy, when ascribed to God, must carry precisely the same meaning, and be understood to indicate the same affections, as when spoken of men. Considered as a disposition in man, it is commonly indicative of something sickly and distempered. But as every affection of the human mind must, when referred to God, be understood with such limitations as the infinite disparity between the Divine and human natures renders necessary, it might be no difficult matter to modify the common notion of jealousy, so far as to render it perfectly compatible with the other representations given of God as absolutely pure and good. But even this is scarcely necessary; for every scholar knows that the word in the original is by no means restricted to what is distinctively meant by jealousy, and that the radical and proper idea, unless otherwise determined by the context, has respect merely to the zeal or ardour with which any one is disposed to vindicate his own rights. Applied to God, it simply presents Him to our view as the one Supreme Jehovah, who as such claims—cannot indeed but claim—He were not the One, Eternal God, but an idol, if He did not claim—the undivided love and homage of His creatures, and who, consequently, must resist with holy zeal and indignation every attempt to deprive Him of what is so peculiarly His own. It is only to give vividness to this idea, by investing it with the properties of an earthly relation, that the Divine affection is so often presented under the special form of jealousy. It arises, as Calvin has remarked, from God’s condescending [[@Page:119]] to assume toward His people the character of a husband, in which respect He cannot bear a partner. “As He performs to us all the offices of a true and faithful husband, so He stipulates for love and conjugal chastity from us. Hence, when He rebukes the Jews for their apostasy, He complains that they have cast off chastity, and polluted themselves with adultery. Therefore, as the purer and chaster the husband is, the more grievously is he offended when he sees his wife inclining to a rival; so the Lord, who has betrothed us to Himself in truth, declares that He burns with the hottest jealousy, whenever, neglecting the purity of His holy marriage, we defile ourselves with abominable lusts; and especially when the worship of His Deity, which ought to have been most carefully kept unimpaired, is transferred to another, or adulterated with some superstition; since, in this way, we not only violate our plighted troth, but defile the nuptial couch, by giving access to adulterers.”[2]

Allowing, however, that the notion of jealousy, when thus explained, is a righteous and necessary attribute of Jehovah, does not the objection hold, at least in regard to the particular form of its manifestation mentioned in the second commandment? If it becomes God to be jealous, yet is it not to make His jealousy interfere with His justice, when He declares His purpose to visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation? So one might judge, if looking not merely to the attacks of infidels, but to the feeble and unsatisfactory attempts which have too often been made to explain the declaration by Christian divines. Grotius, for example, resolves it simply into the absolute sovereignty of God, who has a right to do what He will with His own.[3] Warburton represents it as a temporary expedient to supply the lack of a future state of reward and punishment under the law; and in his usual way, contends that no otherwise could the principle be vindicated, and the several Scriptures referring to it harmonized.[4]Michaelis,[5] Paley,[6] and a host besides, while they also regard it as, to a great extent, a temporary arrangement, rest their defence of it mainly on the ground of its having to do only with [[@Page:120]] temporal evils, and in no respect reaching to men’s spiritual and eternal interests. It is fatal to all these attempts at explanation, that none of them fairly grapples with the visitation of evil threatened as a punishment; for, viewed in this light, which is unquestionably the scriptural one, such attempts are manifestly nothing more than mere shifts and evasions of the point at issue. When resolved into the sovereignty of God, it still remains to be asked, whether such an exercise of His sovereignty is consistent with those ideas of immutable justice which are implanted in the human breast. When viewed as a temporary expedient to supply a want which, to say the least, might, if real, have admitted of a very simple remedy, the question still waits for solution, whether the expedient itself was in proper accordance with the righteous principles which should regulate every government, whether human or divine. And when it is affirmed, that the penalties denounced in the threatening were only temporal, the reply surely is competent, Why might not God do in eternity what He does in time? Or, if the principle on which the punishment proceeds be not in all respects justifiable, how could it be acted on by God temporarily, any more than eternally? Is it consistent with the notion of a God of infinite rectitude, that He should do on a small scale what it would be impious to conceive Him doing on a large one?

The fundamental error in the false explanations referred to, lies in the supposition of the children, who are to suffer, being in a different state morally from that of their parents—innocent children bearing the chastisement due to the transgressions of their wicked parents. But the words of the threatening purposely guard against such an idea, by describing the third and fourth generation, on whom the visitation of evil was to fall, as of those that hate God; just as, on the other hand, the mercy which was pledged to thousands was promised as the dowry of those that love Him. Such children alone are here concerned, who, in the language of Calvin, “imitate the impiety of their progenitors!” Indeed, Augustine has substantially expressed the right principle of interpretation on the subject, though he has sometimes failed in making the proper application of it, as when he says: “But the carnal generation also of the people of God belonging to the Old Testament, binds the sons to the sins of [[@Page:121]] their parents; but the spiritual generation, as it has changed the inheritance, so also the threatenings of punishment, and the promises of reward.”[7] And still more distinctly in his commentary on Ps. 114:14, where he explains the visiting of the “iniquities of the fathers upon them that hate Me,” by saying, “that is, as their parents hated Me; so that, just as the imitation of the good secures that even one’s own sins are blotted out, so the imitation of the bad renders one obnoxious to the deserved punishment, not only of one’s own sins, but also of the sins of those whose ways have been followed.” In short, the Lord contemplates the existence among His professing worshippers of two entirely different kinds of generations: the one haters of God, and manifesting their hatred by depraving His worship, and pursuing courses of transgression; the other lovers of God, and manifesting their love by stedfastly adhering in all dutiful obedience to the way of His holy commandments. To these last, though they should extend to thousands of generations, He would show His mercy, causing it to flow on from age to age in a perennial stream of blessing. But as He is the righteous God, to whom vengeance as well as mercy belongs, the free outpouring of His beneficence upon these, could not prevent or prejudice the execution of His justice upon that other class, who were entirely of a different spirit, and merited quite opposite treatment. It is an unwelcome subject, indeed; the merciful and gracious God has no delight in anticipating the day of evil, even for His must erring and wayward children. He shrinks, as it were, from contemplating the possibility of thousands being in this condition, and will not suffer Himself to make mention of more than a third or a fourth generation rendering themselves the objects of His just displeasure. But still the wholesome truth must be declared, and the seasonable warning uttered. If men were determined to rebel against His authority, He could not leave Himself without a witness, not even in regard to the first race of transgressors, that He hated their iniquities, and must take vengeance of their inventions. But if, notwithstanding, the children embraced the sinfulness of their parents, with the manifest seal of Heaven’s displeasure on it, as their iniquity would be more aggravated, so its punishment should become [[@Page:122]] more severe; the descending and entailed curse would deepen as it flowed on, increasing with every increase of depravity and corruption, till, the measure of iniquity being filled up, the wrath should fall on them to the uttermost.

That this is the aspect of the Divine character and government which the declaration in the second commandment was meant to exhibit, is evident alone from the glowing delineations of mercy and goodness with which the visitation of evil upon the children of disobedient parents is here and in other places coupled.[8] But it is confirmed beyond all doubt by two distinct lines of reflection, and, first, by the facts of Israelitish history. These fully confirm the principle of God’s government as now expounded, but give no countenance to the idea of a punishment being inflicted on the innocent for the guilty. However sinful one individual or one generation might be, yet if the next in descent heartily turned to the Lord, they were sure of being received to pardon and blessing. We are furnished with a striking instance of this in the [[14th >> Bible:Nu 14]] chapter of Numbers, where we find Moses pleading for the pardon of Israel’s transgressions on the very ground of that revelation of the Divine name or character in Ex. 34:6, 7, which precisely, as in the second commandment, combines the most touching representation of the Divine mercy with the threat to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. It never occurred to Moses that this threat stood at all in the way of their obtaining a complete forgiveness. He found, indeed, that the Lord had determined to visit upon that generation their iniquities, so far as to exclude them from the land of Canaan, but without in the least marring the better prospects of their children, who had learned to hate the deeds of their fathers. And when, indeed, was it otherwise? Is it not one of the most striking features in the whole history of ancient Israel, that, so far from suffering for the sins of former generations, they did not suffer even for their own when they truly repented, but were immediately visited with favour and blessing? And, on the other hand, how constantly do we find the Divine judgments increasing in severity when successive generations hardened themselves in their evil courses? Nor did it rarely happen that the series of retributions reached their last [[@Page:123]] issues by the third or fourth generation. It was so in particular with those who were put upon a course of special dealing—such as the house of Jeroboam, of Jehu, of Eli, etc.

Another source of confirmation to the view now presented we find in the explanations given concerning it in the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. These prophets lived at the time when the descending curse had utterly failed, so far as it had gone, to turn the children from the sinful courses of their fathers, and was fast running to a fatal termination. But the infatuated people being not less distinguished for self-righteous pride than for their obstinate perseverance in wickedness, they were constantly complaining, as stroke after stroke fell upon them, that they were made unjustly to bear the sins of their fathers. Anticipating our modern infidels, they charged God with injustice and inequality in His ways of dealing, instead of turning their eye inward, as they should have done, upon their own unrighteousness, and forsaking it for the way of peace. The [[18th >> Bible:Eze 18:1-32]] chapter of Ezekiel contains a lengthened expostulation with these stout-hearted offenders, in the course of which he utterly disclaims the interpretation they put upon the word and providence of God, and assures them, that if they would only turn from their evil doings, they should not have to suffer either for their own or their fathers guilt. And Jeremiah, in his [[31st >> Bible:Je 31:1-40]] chapter, speaking of the new covenant, and of the blessed renovation it would accomplish on those who should be partakers of its grace, foretells that there would be an end of such foolish and wicked charges upon God for the inequity of His ways of dealing; for such an increased measure of the Spirit would be given, such an inward conformity to His laws would be produced, that His dealing with transgressors would in a manner cease—His ways would be all acquiesced in as holy, just, and good.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Bialloblotzky, de Legis Mos. abrogatione, p. 131. Archb. Whately also repeats the same objection, in his Essay on the Abolition of the Law, p. 186—(Second Series of Essays) The view of both these authors, which is radically the same, regarding the abolition of the law under the Christian economy, we shall have occasion to notice afterwards. The affirmation of the Archbishop, at p. 191, that “the Gospel requires a morality in many respects higher and more perfect in itself than the law, and places morality on higher grounds,” has already been met in the preceding section. We admit, of course, that the Gospel contains far higher exemplifications of the morality enjoined in the law than are to be found in the Old Testament, and presents far higher motives for exercising it; but that is a different thing from maintaining that this morality itself is higher, or essentially more perfect.

[2] Inst., B. 2., c. 8, § 18.

[3] De Jure Belli et Pacis, 2., p. 593.

[4] Divine Legation, B. v., sec. 5.

[5] Laws of Moses.

[6] Sermons.

[7] Contra Julianum Polagianutu, Lib. vi., § 82.

[8] Compare besides Ex. 34:5, 6; Num. 14:18; Ps. 103:8, 9.

Section Third.—The Law Continued—Further Exceptions—The Weekly Sabbath.

[[@Page:124]] OBJECTIONS have been raised against the decalogue as a complete and permanent summary of duty, from the nature of its requirements, as well as from the incidental considerations by which it is enforced. It is only, however, in reference to the fourth commandment, the law of the Sabbath, that any objection in this respect is made. The character of universal and permanent obligation, it is argued, which we would ascribe to the decalogue, cannot properly belong to it, since one of its precepts enjoins the observance of a merely ceremonial institution—an institution strictly and rigorously binding on the Jews, but, like other ceremonial and shadowy institutions, done away in Christ. It would be impossible to enumerate the authors, ancient and modern, who in one form or another have adopted this view. There can be no question that they embrace a very large proportion of the more learned and eminent divines of the Christian Church, from the fathers to the present time. Much diversity of opinion, however, prevails among those who agree in the same general view, as to the extent to which the law of the Sabbath was ceremonial, and in what sense the obligation to observe it lies upon the followers of Jesus. In the judgment of some, the distinction of days is entirely abolished as a Divine arrangement, and is no further obligatory upon the conscience, than as it may be sanctioned by competent ecclesiastical authority for the purposes of social order and religious improvement. By others, the obligation is held to involve the duty of setting apart an adequate portion of time for the due celebration of Divine worship,—the greater part leaving that portion of time quite indefinite, while some would insist upon its being at least equal to what was appointed under the law, or possibly even [[@Page:125]] more. Finally, there are still others, who consider the ceremonial and shadowy part of the institution to have more peculiarly stood in the observance of precisely the seventh day of the week as a day of sacred rest, and who conceive the obligation still in force, as requiring another whole day to be consecrated to religious exercises.

It would require a separate treatise, rather than a single chapter, to take up separately such manifold subdivisions of opinion, and investigate the grounds of each. We must for the present view the subject in its general bearings, and endeavour to have some leading principles ascertained and fixed. In doing this, we might press at the outset the consideration of this law being one of those engraved upon tables of stone, as a proof that it, equally with the rest, possessed a peculiarly important and durable character. For the argument is by no means disposed of, as we formerly remarked, by the supposition of Bähr and others, that the ceremonial as well as the other precepts of the law were represented in the ten commandments; and still less by the assertion of Paley, that little regard was practically paid in the books of Moses to the distinction between matters of a ceremonial and moral, of a temporary and perpetual kind. It is easy to multiply assertions and suppositions of such a nature; but the fact is still to be accounted for, why the law of the Sabbath should have been deemed of such paramount importance, as to have found a place among those which were “written as with a pen in the rock for ever?” Or why, if in reality nothing more than a ceremonial and shadowy institute, this, in particular, should have been chosen to represent all of a like kind? Why not rather, as the whole genius of the economy might have led us in such a case to expect, should the precept have been one respecting the observance of the great annual feasts, or a faithful compliance with the sacrificial services?[1] It is impossible to answer these questions satisfactorily, or to show any valid reason for the introduction of the Sabbath into the law of the two tables, on the supposition of its possessing only a ceremonial [[@Page:126]] character. But we shall not press this argument more fully, or endeavour to explain the futility of the reasons by which it is met, as in itself it is rather a strong presumption than a conclusive evidence of the permanent obligation of the fourth command.

It deserves more notice, however, than it usually receives in this point of view, and should alone be almost held conclusive, that the ground on which the obligation to keep the Sabbath is based in the command, is the most universal in its bearing that could possibly be conceived. “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” There is manifestly nothing Jewish here; nothing connected with individual interests or even national history. The grand fact out of which the precept is made to grow, is of equal significance to the whole world; and why should not the precept be the same, of which it forms the basis? God’s method of procedure in creating the visible heavens and earth, produced as the formal reason for instituting a distinctive, temporary Jewish ordinance! Could it be possible to conceive a more “lame and impotent conclusion?” And this, too, in the most compact piece of legislation in existence! It seems, indeed, as if God, in the appointment of this law, had taken special precautions against the attempts which He foresaw would be made to get rid of the institution, and that on this account He laid its foundations first in the original framework and constitution of nature. The law as a whole, and certain also of its precepts, He was pleased to enforce by considerations drawn from His dealings toward Israel, and the peculiar relations which He now held to them. But when He comes to impose the obligation of the Sabbath, He rises far beyond any consideration of a special kind, or any passing event of history. He ascends to primeval time, and, standing as on the platform of the newly created world, dates from thence the commencement and the ordination of a perpetually recurring day of rest. Since the Lord has thus honoured the fourth commandment above the others, by laying for it a foundation so singularly broad and deep, is it yet to be held in its obligation and import the narrowest of them all? Shall this, strange to think, be the only [[@Page:127]] one which did nut utter a voice for all times and all generations? How much more reasonable is the conclusion of Calvin, who in this expressed substantially the opinion of all the more eminent reformers: “Unquestionably God assumed to Himself the seventh day, and consecrated it when He finished the creation of the world, that He might keep His worshippers entirely free from all other cares, while they were employed in meditating on the beauty, excellence, and splendour of His works. It is not proper, indeed, to allow any period to elapse, without our attentively considering the wisdom, power, justice, and goodness of God, as displayed in the admirable workmanship and government of the world. But because our minds are unstable, and are thence liable to wander and be distracted, God in His own mercy, consulting our infirmities, sets apart one day from the rest, and commands it to be kept free from all earthly cares and employments, lest anything should interrupt that holy exercise.... In this respect the necessity of a Sabbath is common to us with the people of old, that we may be free on one day (of the week), and so may be better prepared both for learning and for giving testimony to our faith.”[2]

But then it is argued, that whatever may have been the reason for admitting the law of the Sabbath into the ten commandments, and engraving it on the tables of stone, it still is in [[@Page:128]] its own nature different from all the rest. They are moral, and because moral, of universal force and obligation; while this is ceremonial, owing its existence to positive enactment, and therefore binding only so far as the enactment itself might be extended. The duties enjoined in the former are founded in the nature of things, and the essential relations in which men stand to God or to their fellow-men: hence they do not depend on any positive enactment, but are co-extensive in their obligation with reason and conscience. But the law of the Sabbath, prescribing one day in seven to be a day of sacred rest, has its foundation simply in the authoritative appointment of God, and hence, unlike the rest, is not fixed and universal, but special and mutable.

There is unquestionably an element of truth in this, but the application made of it in the present instance is unwarranted and fallacious. It is true that the Sabbath is a positive institution, though intimately connected with God’s work in creation; and apart from His high command, it could not have been ascertained by the light of reason, that one entire day should at regular intervals be consecrated for bodily and spiritual rest, and especially that one in seven was the proper period to be fixed upon. In this respect we can easily recognise a distinction between the law of the Sabbath, and the laws which prohibit such crimes as lying, theft, or murder. But it does not therefore follow, that the Sabbath is in such a sense a positive, as to be a merely partial, temporary, ceremonial institution, and, like others of this description, done away in Christ. For a law may be positive in its origin, and yet neither local nor transitory in its destination; it may be positive in its origin, and yet equally needed and designed for all nations and ages of the world.

For of what nature, we ask, is the institution of marriage? The seventh commandment bears respect to that institution, and is thrown as a sacred fence around its sanctity. But is not marriage in its origin a positive institution? Has it any other foundation than the original act of God in making one man and one woman, and positively ordaining that the man should cleave to the woman, and the two be one flesh?[3] Wherever this is not [[@Page:129]] recognised, as it is not, in part at least, in Mahommedan and heathen lands, and by certain infidels of the baser sort in Christendom, there also the moral and binding obligation of the ordinance is disowned. But can any humble Christian disown it? Would he not indignantly reject the thought of its being only a temporary ordinance, because standing, as to its immediate origin, in God’s method of creation, and the natural obligations growing out of it? Or does he feel himself warranted to assume, that because, after Christ’s appearing, the marriage-union was treated as an emblem of Christ’s union to the Church, the literal ordinance is thereby changed or impaired? Assuredly not. And why should another course be taken with the Sabbath? This too, in its origin, is a positive institution, and was also, it may be, from the first designed to serve as an emblem of spiritual things—an emblem of the blessed rest which man was called to enjoy in God. But in both respects it stands most nearly on a footing with the ordinance of marriage: both alike owed their institution to the original act and appointment of God; both also took their commencement at the birth of time—in a world unfallen, when, as there was no need for the antitypes of redemption, so no ceremonial types or shadows of these could properly have a place; and both are destined to last till the songs of the redeemed shall have ushered in the glories of a world restored.

The distinction, we apprehend, is often too broadly drawn, in discussions on this subject, between the positive and the moral; as if the two belonged to entirely different regions, and but incidentally touched upon each other; as if also the strictly moral part of the world’s machinery were in itself so complete and in dependent, that its movements might proceed of themselves, in a course of lofty isolation from all positive enactments and institutions. This was not the case even in paradise, and much less could it be so afterwards. A certain amount of what is positive in appointment, is absolutely necessary to settle the relations in connection with which the moral sentiments are to work and [[@Page:130]] develop themselves. The banks which confine and regulate the current of a river, are not less essential to its existence than the waters that flow within them; for the one mark out and fix the channel which keeps the other in their course. And, in like manner, the moral feelings and affections of our nature must have something outward and positive, determining the kind of landmarks which they are to observe, and the channels through which they are to flow. There may, no doubt, be many things of this nature at different times appointed by God that are variable and temporary, to suit the present condition of His Church and the immediate ends He has in view. But there may also be some coeval with the existence of the world, founded in the very nature and constitution of things, so essential and necessary, that the love which is the fulfilment of all obligation cannot operate stedfastly or beneficially without them.

The real question, then, in regard to the Sabbath, is, whether such love can exist in the heart, without disposing it to observe the rest there enjoined? Is not the present constitution of nature such as to render this necessary for securing the purposes which God contemplated in creation? Could mankind, as one great family, properly thrive and prosper even in their lower interests, as we may suppose their beneficent Creator intended, without such a day of rest perpetually coming round to refresh their wearied natures? Could they otherwise command sufficient time, amid the busy cares and occupations of life, to mind the higher interests of themselves and their households? Without such a salutary monitor ever and anon returning, and bringing with it time and opportunity for all to attend to its admonitions, would not the spiritual and eternal be lost sight of amid the seen and temporal? Or, to mount higher still, how, without this ordinance, could any proper and adequate testimony be kept up throughout the world in honour of the God that made it? Must not reason herself own it to be a suitable and becoming homage rendered to His sole and supreme lordship of creation, for men on every returning seventh day to cease from their own works, and take a breathing-time to realize their dependence upon Him, and give a more special application to the things which concern His glory? In short, abolish this wise and blessed institution, and must not love both to God and man be deprived of one of [[@Page:131]] its best safeguards and most appropriate methods of working? Must not God Himself become practically dishonoured and forgotten, and His creature be worn down with deadening and oppressive toil?

Experience has but one answer to give to these questions. Hence, where the true religion has been unknown, it has always been found necessary to appoint, by some constituted authority, a certain number of holidays, which have often, even in heathen countries, exceeded, rarely anywhere have fallen short of, the number of God’s instituted Sabbaths. The animal and mental, the bodily and spiritual nature of man, alike demand them. Even Plato deemed the appointment of such days of so benign and gracious a tendency, that he ascribed them to that pity which “the gods have for mankind, born to painful labour, that they might have an ease and cessation from their toils.”[4] And what is this but an experimental testimony to the wisdom and goodness of God’s having ordered His work of creation with a view to the appointment of such an institution in providence? It is manifest, besides, that while men may of themselves provide substitutes to a certain extent for the Sabbath, yet these never can secure more than a portion of the ends for which it has been appointed, nor could anything short of the clear sanction and authority of the living God command for it general respect and attention. The inferior benefits which it carries in its train are not sufficient, as experience has also too amply testified, to maintain its observance, if it loses its hold upon men’s minds in a religious point of view. So that there can scarcely be a plainer departure from the duty of love we owe alike to God and man, than to attempt to weaken the foundations of such an ordinance, or to encourage its habitual neglect.

If the broad and general view of the subject which has now been given were fairly entertained, the other and minuter objections which are commonly urged in support of the strictly Jewish character of the Sabbatical institution would be easily disposed of. Even taken apart, there is none of them which, if due account is made of special circumstances, may not be satisfactorily removed.

1. No notice is taken of the institution during the antediluvian [[@Page:132]] and earlier patriarchal periods of sacred history; the profanation of it is not mentioned among the crimes for which the flood was sent, or fire and brimstone rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah; it never rises distinctly into view as a Divine institution till the time of Moses; whence it is inferred, it only then took its commencement. But how many duties of undoubtedly perpetual and universal obligation might be cut off on similar grounds? And how few comparatively of the sins which we may infer with the utmost certainty to have been practised, are noticed in those brief records of the world’s history! It is rather, as we might have expected, the general principles that were acted upon; or, in regard to heinous transgressors, the more flagrant misdeeds into which their extreme depravity ran out, that find a place in the earliest portions of sacred history. Besides, even in the later and fuller accounts, it is usual, through very long periods of time, to omit any reference to institutions which were known to have had a settled existence. There is no notice, for example, of circumcision from the time of Joshua to the Babylonish exile; but how fallacious would be the conclusion from such silence, that the rite itself was not observed! Even the Sabbath, notwithstanding the prominent place it holds in the decalogue and the institutions of Moses, is never mentioned again till the days of Elisha (nearly seven hundred years later), when we meet with an incidental and passing allusion to it.—(2 Kings 4:23) Need we wonder then, that in such peculiarly brief compends of history as are given of antediluvian and patriarchal times, there should be a similar silence?

And yet it can by no means be affirmed that they are without manifest indications of the existence of a seventh day of sacred rest. The record of its appointment at the close of the creation period, as we have already noticed, is of the most explicit kind, and is afterwards confirmed by the not less explicit reference in the fourth commandment, of its origin and commencement to the same period. Nor can any reason be assigned one-half so natural and probable as this, for the sacredness attached from the earliest times to the number seven, and for the division of time into weeks of seven days, which meets us in the history of Noah and the later patriarchal times, and of which also very [[@Page:133]] early traces occur in profane history.[5] Then, finally, the manner in which it first presents itself on the field of Israelitish history, as an existing ordinance which God Himself respected, in the giving of the manna, before the law had been promulgated (Ex. 16), is a clear proof of its prior institution. True, indeed, the Israelites themselves seem then to have been in a great measure ignorant of such an institution; not perhaps altogether ignorant, as is too commonly taken for granted, but ignorant of its proper observance, so far as to wonder that God should have bestowed a double provision on the sixth day, to relieve them from any labour in gathering and preparing it on the seventh. Habituated as they had become to the manners, and bowed down by the oppression, of Egypt, it had been strange indeed if any other result should have occurred. Hence it is mentioned by Moses and by Nehemiah, as a distinguishing token of the Lord’s goodness to them, that in consequence of bringing them out of Egypt, He made them to know or gave them His Sabbaths.—(Ex. 16:29; Deut. 5:15; Neh. 9:14)

2. But the institution of the Sabbath was declared to be a sign between God and the Israelites, that they might know that [[@Page:134]] He was the Lord who sanctified them.—(Ex. 31:13) And if a sign or token of God’s covenant with Israel, then it must have been a new and positive institution, and one which they alone were bound to observe, since it must separate between them and others. So Warburton,[6] and many besides. We say nothing against its having been, as to its formal institution, of a positive nature; for there, we think, many defenders of the Sabbath have lost themselves.[7] But its being constituted a sign between God and Israel, neither inferred its entire novelty, nor its special and exclusive obligation upon them. Warburton himself has contended, that the bow in the cloud was not rendered less fit for being a sign of the covenant with Noah, that it had existed in the antediluvian period. And still less might the Sabbath’s being a primeval institution have rendered it unfit to stand as a sign of the Israelitish covenant, as this had respect not so much to its appointment on the part of God, as to its observance on the part of the people. He wished them simply to regard it as one of the chosen means by which He intended them to become, not only a comfortable and blessed, but also an holy nation. Nor could its being destined for such an use among them, in the least interfere with its obligation or its observance among others. Circumcision was thus also made the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, although it had been observed from time immemorial by various surrounding tribes and nations, from whom still the members of the covenant were to keep themselves separate. For it was not the merely external rite or custom which God regarded, but its spiritual meaning and design. When connected with His covenant, or embodied in His law, it was stamped as a religious institution; it acquired a strictly religious use; and only in so far as it was observed with a reference to this, could it fitly serve as a sign of God’s covenant.

[[@Page:135]] Indeed, a conclusion exactly the reverse of the one just referred to, should rather be drawn from the circumstance of the Sabbath having been taken for a sign that God sanctified Israel. There can be no question that holiness in heart and conduct was the grand sign of their being His chosen people. In so far as they fulfilled the exhortation, “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” they possessed the mark of His children. And the proper observance of the Sabbatical rest being so specially designated a sign in this respect, was a proof of its singular importance to the interests of religion and morality. These, it was virtually said, would thrive and flourish if the Sabbath was duly observed, but would languish and die if it fell into desuetude. Hence, at the close of a long expostulation with the people regarding their sins, and such especially as indicated only a hypocritical love to God, and a palpable hatred or indifference to their fellow-men, the prophet Isaiah presses the due observance of the Sabbath as in itself a sufficient remedy for the evil: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”—(Isa. 58:13, 14)

This passage may fitly be regarded as an explanation of the sense in which the Lord meant them to regard the Sabbath as a sign between them and Him. And it is clear, on a moment’s reflection, that the prophet could never have attached the importance he did to the Sabbath, nor so peculiarly connected it with the blessing of the covenant, if the mere outward rest had been all that the institution contemplated. This is what the objectors we now argue with seem uniformly to take for granted; as if the people were really sanctified when they simply rested every Sabbath-day from their labours. The command had a far deeper import, and much more was involved in such a compliance with it, as should prove a sign between them and God. It was designed at once to carry the heart up in holy affection to its Creator, and outwards in acts of good-will and kindness to [[@Page:136]] men on earth. Hence its proper observance is so often put, both in the law and the prophets, for the sum of religion. This is frankly admitted by some who urge the objection (for example, Barrow), while they still hold it to have been a ceremonial institution. But we would ask, if any other ceremonial institution can be pointed to as having been thus honoured? Are they not often rather comparatively dishonoured, by being placed in a relation of inferiority to the weightier matters of the law? And we might also ask, if precisely the same practical value is not attached to the strict religious observance of the Lord’s day now, by all writers of piety, and even by those who, with strange perversion or inconsistency, labour to establish the freedom of Christians from the obligation of the Sabbath? It is one of the burdens, says Barrow, which the law of liberty has taken off from us; and yet he has no sooner said it, than he tells us, in regard to the very highest and most spiritual duties of this law, that we are much more obliged to discharge them than the Jews could be.[8] Paley, too, presently after he has endeavoured to relax the binding obligation of the Sabbath, proceeds to show the necessity of dedicating the Sunday to religious exercises, to the exclusion of all ordinary works and recreations; and still more expressly in his first sermon, written at a more advanced stage of life, when he knew more personally of the power of religion, he speaks of “keeping holy the Lord’s day regularly and most particularly,” as an essential mark of a Christian.[9] The leading Reformers were unanimous on this point, holding it to be the duty of all sound Christians to use the Lord’s day as one of holy rest to Him, and that by withdrawing themselves not only from sin and vanity, but also from those worldly employments and recreations which belong only to a present life, and by yielding themselves wholly to the public exercises of God’s worship, and to the private duties of devotion, excepting only in cases of necessity or mercy. The learned Rivet, also, who unhappily argued (in his work on the decalogue) against the obligation of keeping the Sabbath as imposed in the fourth commandment, yet deplored the prevailing disregard of the [[@Page:137]] Lord’s day as one of the crying evils of the times; and Vitringa raised the same lamentation in his day (on Isa. 58:13).

What, then, should induce such men to contend against the strict and literal obligation of the fourth command? They must be influenced by one of two reasons: either they dislike the spirit of holiness that breathes in it, or, relishing this, they somehow mistake the real nature of the obligation there imposed. There can be no doubt that the former is the cause which prompts those who are mere formalists in religion to decry this obligation; and as little doubt, we think, in regard to the Reformers and pious divines of later times, that the latter consideration was what influenced them. This we shall find occasion to explain under the next form of objection.

3. It is objected that the Sabbath, as imposed on the Jews, had a rigour and severity in it quite incompatible with the genius of the Gospel: the person who violated its sacredness, by doing ordinary work on that day, was to be punished with death; and so far was the cessation from work carried, that even the kind ling of a fire or going out of one’s place was interdicted.—(Ex. 16:29, 35:3) It looks as if men were determined to get rid of the Sabbath by any means, when the capital punishment inflicted on the violators of it in the Jewish state is held up as a proof of its transitory and merely national character. For there is nothing of this in the fourth commandment itself; and it was afterwards added to this, in common with many other statutes, as a check on the presumptuous violation of what God wished them to regard as the fundamental laws of the kingdom. A similar violation of the first, the second, the third, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh commandments, had the same punishment annexed to it; but who would thence argue, that the obligation to practise the duties they required, was binding only during the Old Testament dispensation?

The other part of the objection demands a longer answer; in which we must first distinctly mark what is the exact point to be determined. The real question is, Did the fourth commandment oblige the Jews to anything which the people of God are under no obligation now to perform? Did it simply enjoin a rigid cessation from all ordinary labour, every seventh day, and did such cessation constitute the kind of sanctification it required? [[@Page:138]] Such unquestionably was the opinion entertained by Calvin and most of the Reformers; who consequently held the Sabbath exacted of the Israelites under this precept to be chiefly of a ceremonial nature, foreshadowing through its outward repose the state of peaceful and blessed rest which believers were to enjoy in Christ, and like other shadows, vanishing when He appeared. There is certainly a measure of truth in this idea, as we shall have occasion to notice under the next objection, but not in the sense understood by such persons. Their opinion of what the Jewish Sabbath should have been, almost entirely coincided with what it actually was, after a cold and dead formalism had taken the place of a living piety. But so far from being justified by the law itself, it is the very notion which our Lord sought repeatedly to expose, by showing the practical impossibility of carrying it out under the former dispensation itself. Parents performed on the Sabbath the operation of circumcising their children; priests did the work connected with the temple service; persons of all sorts went through the labours necessary to preserve or sustain life in themselves or their cattle; and yet they were blameless—the command stood unimpaired, notwithstanding the performance of such works on the seventh day, for they were not inconsistent with its real design. In regard to all such cases, Christ announced the maxim, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,”—meaning, of course, the Sabbath in its original purport and existing obligation not under any change or modification now to be introduced; for had there been any intention of that sort, it would manifestly have been out of place then to speak of it but the Sabbath as imposed in the fourth commandment upon the Israelites: this Sabbath was made for man, as a means to promote his real interests and well-being, and not as a remorseless idol, to which these were to be sacrificed. “To work in the way of doing good to a fellow-creature (such was the import of Christ’s declaration), or entering into the employments of God’s worship, is not now, nor ever was, any interference with the proper duties of the Sabbath, but rather a fulfilment of them. Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath, He who is Lord of man must needs also be Lord of that which was made for man’s good—but its Lord, not [[@Page:139]] to turn it to any other purpose than that for which it was originally given—no, merely to use it Myself, and teach you how to use it for the same. You do therefore grievously err in supposing it possible for Me to do anything inconsistent with the design of this institution; for though, as the Father worketh hitherto, I also must work on this day (John 5:17), so far as the ends of the Divine government may require, yet nothing is or can be done by Me, which is not in the strictest sense a Divine work, and as such suitable to the day of God.”[10]

It is to wrest our Lord’s words quite beside the purpose for which they were spoken, to represent Him in those declarations He made respecting the Sabbath, as intending to relax the existing law, and bring in some new modification of it. His discourse was clearly aimed at convincing the Jews that this law did not, as they erroneously conceived, absolutely prohibit all work, but work only in so far as the higher ends of God’s glory and man’s best interests might render needful. Precisely as in the second commandment, the prohibition regarding the making of any graven image or similitude was not intended simply to denounce all pictures and statues—both, in fact, had a place in the temple itself but to interdict their employment in the worship of God, so that His worshippers might be free to serve Him in spirit and in truth. And as men might have abstained from using these, while still far from yielding the spiritual worship which the second command really required, so they might equally have ceased from ordinary labour on the seventh day, [[@Page:140]] and yet been far from sanctifying it according to the fourth commandment.

This was distinctly enough perceived by some of the more thinking portion of the Jews themselves. Hence, not only does Philo speak of “the custom of philosophizing,” as he calls it, on the seventh day, but we find Abenezra expressly stating, that “the Sabbath was given to man, that he might consider the works of God, and meditate in His law.” To the same effect Abarbanel: “The seventh day has been sequestered for learning the Divine law, and for remembering well the explanations and inquiries regarding it. As is taught in Gemara Hierosol.: ‘Sabbaths and holidays were only appointed for meditating on the law of God; and therefore it is said, in Medrash Schamoth Rabba, that the Sabbath is to be prized as the whole law.’” Another of their leading authorities, R. Menasse Ben Isr., even characterizes it as “a notable error to imagine the Sabbath to have been instituted for idleness; for as idleness is the mother of all vice, it would then have been the occasion of more evil than good.”[11]

These comments, wonderfully good to come from such a quarter, are in perfect accordance with the import of the fourth commandment; that is, if this commandment is to be subjected to the same mode of interpretation which is made to rule the meaning of the rest—if it is to be regarded simply as prohibiting one kind of works, that those of an opposite kind may be performed. Yet, in strange oversight of this, perhaps also unwittingly influenced by the mistaken views and absurd practices of the Jews, such men even as Calvin and Vitringa held, that in the Jewish law of the Sabbath there was only inculcated a cessation from bodily labour, and that the observance of this cessation formed the substance of Sabbatical duty.[12] Their holding this, however, did not, we must remember, lead them to deny the fact of God’s having set apart, and men’s being in all ages bound to observe, one day in every seven to be specially devoted to the worship and service of God. This with one [[@Page:141]] voice they held: but they conceived the primeval and lasting institution of the Sabbath to have been so far accommodated to the ceremonial character of the Jewish religion, as to demand almost nothing from the Jews but a day of bodily rest. And this rest they farther conceived to have been required, not as valuable in itself, but as the legal shadow of better things to come in Christ: so that they might at once affirm the Jewish Sabbath to be abolished, and yet hold the obligation binding upon Christians to keep, by another mode of observance, one day in seven sacred to the Lord. This is simply what they did. And therefore Gualter, in his summary of the views of the divines of the Reformation upon this subject, has brought distinctly out these two features in their opinions—what they parted with, and what they retained: “The Sabbath properly signifies rest and leisure from servile work, and at the same time is used to denote the seventh day, which God at the beginning of the world consecrated to holy rest, and afterwards in the law confirmed by a special precept. And although the primitive Church abrogated the Sabbath, in so far as it was a legal shadow, lest it should savour of Judaism; yet it did not abolish that sacred rest and repose, but transferred the keeping of it to the following day, which was called the Lord’s day, because on it Christ rose from the dead. The use of this day, therefore, is the same with what the Sabbath formerly was among the true worshippers of God.” Only, the particular way, or kind of service, in which it is now to be turned to this sacred use, is different from what it was in Judaism; and he goes on to describe how the Reformers thought the day should be spent, viz., in a total withdrawing from worldly cares and pleasures, as far as practicable, and employing the time in the public and private exercises of worship.[13]

[[@Page:142]] It presents no real contrariety to the interpretation we have given of the fourth commandment, as affecting the Jews, that Moses on one occasion enjoined the people not to go out of their place or tents on the Sabbath-day. For that manifestly had respect to the gathering of manna, and was simply a prohibition against their going out, as on other days, to obtain food. Neither is the order against kindling a fire on the Sabbath any argument for an opposite view; for it was not less evidently a temporary appointment, suitable to their condition in a wilderness of burning sand—necessary there, perhaps, to ensure even a [[@Page:143]] decent conformity to the rest of the Sabbath, but palpably unsuitable to the general condition of the people, when settled in a land which is subject to great vicissitudes, and much diversity as to heat and cold. It was, in fact, plainly impracticable as a national regulation; and was not considered by the people at large binding on them in their settled state, as may be inferred from Josephus noticing it as a peculiarity of the Essenes, that they would not kindle a fire on the Sabbath.—(Wars, ii., c. § 8, 9) Indeed, it is no part of the fourth commandment, fairly interpreted, to prohibit ordinary labour, excepting in so far as it tends to interfere with the proper sanctification of the time to God; and this in most cases would rather be promoted than hindered by the kindling of a fire for purposes of comfort and refreshment. So we judge, for example, in regard to the sixth commandment, which, being intended to guard and protect the sacredness of man’s life, does not absolutely prevent all manner of killing, nay, may sometimes rather be said to require this, that life may be preserved. In like manner, it was not work in the abstract that was forbidden in the fourth commandment, but work only in so far as it interfered with the sanctified use of the day, as was already indicated in the Sabbath of the Passover, which, while prohibiting ordinary work from being done, expressly excepted what was necessary for the preparation of food.—(Ex. 7:16) And the endless restrictions and limitations of the Jews, in our Lord’s time and since, about the Sabbath-day’s journey, and the particular acts that were or were not lawful on that day, are only to be regarded as the wretched puerilities of men in whose hands the spirit of the precept had already evaporated, and for whom nothing more remained than to dispute about the bounds and lineaments of its dead body.

4. But then there is an express abolition of Sabbath-days in the Gospel, as the mere shadows of higher realities; and the Apostle expressly discharges believers from judging one another regarding their observance, and even mourns over the Galatians, as bringing their Christian condition into doubt by observing days and months and years. We shall not waste time by considering the unsatisfactory attempts which have frequently been made to account for such statements, by many who hold the still abiding obligation of the fourth commandment. But supposing [[@Page:144]] this commandment simply to require, as we have endeavoured to show it does, the withdrawal of men’s minds from worldly cares and occupations, that they might be free to give themselves to the spiritual service of God, is it conceivable, from all we know of the Apostle’s feelings, that he would have warned the disciples against such a practice as a dangerous snare to their souls, or raised a note of lamentation over those who had adopted it, as if all were nearly gone with them? Is there a single unbiassed reader of his epistles, who would not rather have expected him to rejoice in the thought of such a practical ascendancy being won for spiritual and eternal things over the temporal and earthly? It is the less possible for any one to doubt this, when it is so manifest from his history, that he did make a distinction of days in this sense, by everywhere establishing the practice of religious meetings on the first day of the week, and exhorting the disciples to observe them aright. When he, therefore, writes against the observing of days, it must plainly be something of a different kind he has in view. And what could that be but the lazy, corporeal, outward observance of them, which the Jews had now come to regard as composing much of the very substance of religion, and by which they largely fed their self-righteous pride? Sabbath-days in this sense it is certainly no part of the Gospel to enforce; but neither was it any part of the law to do so: Moses, had he been alive, would have denounced them, as well as the ambassador of Christ. But this, it may perhaps be thought, scarcely reaches the point at issue; for the Apostle discharges Christians from the observance of Sabbath-days, not in a false and improper sense, but in that very sense in which they were shadows of good things to come, placing them on a footing in this respect with distinctions of meat and drink. It is needless to say here, that certain feast-days of the Jews, being withdrawn from a common to a sacred use, were called Sabbaths, and that the Apostle alludes exclusively to these.[14] There can be no doubt, indeed, [[@Page:145]] that they were so called, and are also included here; but not to the exclusion of the seventh-day Sabbath, which, from the very nature of the case, was the one most likely to be thought of by the Colossians. Unless it had been expressly excepted, we must in fairness suppose it to have been at least equally intended with the others. But the truth is simply this: what the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath was not necessarily, or in itself, it came to acquire in the general apprehension, from the connection it had so long held with the symbolical services of Judaism. In its original institution there was nothing in it properly shadowy or typical of redemption; for it commenced before sin had entered, and while yet there was no need for a Redeemer. Nor was there anything properly typical in the observance of it imposed in the fourth commandment; for this was a substantial re-enforcement of the primary institution, only with a reference in the letter of the precept to the circumstances of Israel, as the destined possessors of Canaan. But, becoming then associated with a symbolical religion, in which spiritual and divine things were constantly represented and taught by means of outward and bodily transactions, the bodily rest enjoined in it came to partake of the common typical character of all their symbolical services. The same thing happened here as with circumcision, which was the sign and seal of the Abrahamic covenant of grace, and had no immediate connection with the law of Moses; while yet it became so identified with this law, that it required to be supplanted by another ordinance of nearly similar import, when the seed of blessing arrived, which the Abrahamic covenant chiefly respected. So great was the necessity for the abolition of the one ordinance and the introduction of the other, that the Apostle virtually declares it to have been indispensable, when he affirms those who would still be circumcised to be debtors to do the whole law. At the same time, the original design and spiritual import of circumcision he testifies to have been one and the same with baptism—speaks of baptized believers, indeed, as the circumcision of Christ (Col. 2:11)—and consequently, apart from the peculiar circumstances arising out of the general character of the Jewish religion, the one ordinance might have served the purpose contemplated as well as the other.

[[@Page:146]] So with the Sabbath. Having been engrafted into a religion so peculiarly symbolical as the Mosaic, it was unavoidable that the bodily rest enjoined in it should acquire, like all the other outward things belonging to the religion, a symbolical and typical value. For that rest, though by no means the whole duty required, was yet the substratum and groundwork of the whole; the heart, when properly imbued with the religious spirit, feeling in this very rest a call to go forth and employ itself on God. To aid it in doing so, suitable exercises of various kinds would doubtless be commonly resorted to;[15] but not as a matter of distinct obligation, rather as a supplementary help to that quiet rest in God, and imitation of His doings, to which the day itself invited. This end is the same also which the Gospel has in view, but which it seeks to accomplish by means of more active services and direct instruction. The end under both dispensations was substantially the same, with a characteristic difference as to the manner of attaining it, corresponding to the genius of the respective dispensations—the one making more of the outward, the other addressing itself directly to the inward man; the one also having more of a natural, the other more of a spiritual, redemptive basis. Hence the mere outward bodily rest of the Sabbath came, by a kind of unavoidable necessity, to acquire of itself a sacred character, although ultimately carried to an improper and unjustifiable excess by the carnality of the Jewish mind. And hence, too, when another state of things was introduced, it became necessary to assign to such Sabbaths the Jewish seventh day of rest a place among the things that were done away, and so far to change the ordinance itself as to transfer it to a different day, and even call it by a new name. But as baptism in the Spirit is Christ’s circumcision, so the Lord’s day is His Sabbath; and to be in the Spirit on that day, worshipping and serving Him in the truth of His Gospel, is to take up the yoke of the fourth commandment.

5. This touches on, and partly answers, another objection—[[@Page:147]] the only one of any moment that still remains to be adverted to—that derived from the change of day, from the last to the first day of the week. This was necessary, not merely, as Horsely states,[16] to distinguish Christian from Jew, but also to distinguish Sabbath from Sabbath a Sabbath growing up amid symbolical institutions, which insensibly imparted to it a spirit of outward ritualism, and a Sabbath not less marked, indeed, by a withdrawal from the cares and occupations of worldly business, but much more distinguished by spiritual employment and active energy, both in doing and receiving good. Such a change in its character was clearly indicated by our Lord in those miracles of healing which He purposely performed on the Sabbath, that His followers might now see their calling, to use the opportunities presented to them on the day of bodily rest, to minister to the temporal or the spiritual necessities of those around them. And in fitting correspondence with this, the day chosen for the Christian Sabbath was the first day of the week—the day on which Christ rose from the dead, that He might enter into the rest of God, after having finished the glorious work of redemption. But that rest, how to be employed? Not in vacant repose, but in an incessant, holy activity, in directing the affairs of His mediatorial kingdom, and diffusing the inestimable blessings He had purchased for men. A new era then dawned upon the world, which was to give an impulse hitherto unknown to all the springs of benevolent and holy working; and it was meet that this should communicate its impress to the day through which the Gospel was specially to develop its peculiar genius and proper tendency. But pre-eminent as this Gospel stands above all earlier revelations of God, for the ascendancy it gives to the unseen and eternal over the seen and temporal, it would surely be a palpable contrariety to the whole spirit it breathes, and the ends it has in view, if now, on the Lord’s day, the things of the world were to have more, and the things of God less, of men’s regard than formerly on the Jewish Sabbath. Least of all could any change have been intended in this direction; and the only variation in the manner of its observance, which the Gospel itself [[@Page:148]] warrants us to think of, is the greater amount of spiritual activity to be put forth on it, flowing out in suitable exercises of love to God, and acts of kindness and blessing towards our fellow-men.

What though the Gospel does not expressly enact this change of day, and in so many words enjoin the disciples to hallow the ordinance after the manner now described? It affords ample materials to all for discovering the mind of God in this respect, who are really anxious to learn it; and what more is done in regard to the ordinances of worship generally, or to anything in God’s service connected with external arrangements? It is the characteristic of the Gospel to unfold great truths and principles, and only briefly to indicate the proper manner of their development and exercise in the world. But can any one in reality have imbibed these, without cordially embracing, and to the utmost of his power improving, the advantages of such a wise and beneficent institution? Or does the Christian world now not need its help, as much as the Jewish did of old? Even Tholuck, though he still does not see how to give the Christian Sabbath the right hold upon the conscience, yet deplores the prevailing neglect of it as destructive to the life of piety, and proclaims the necessity of a stricter observance. “Spirit, spirit! we cry out: but should the prophets of God come again, as they came of old, and should they look upon our works—Flesh, flesh! they would cry out in response. Of a truth, the most spiritual among us cannot dispense with a rule, a prescribed form, in his morality and piety, without allowing the flesh to resume its predominance. The sway of the Spirit of God in your minds is weak; carry, then, holy ordinances into your life.”[17]

It is not unimportant to state farther, in regard to the change of day from the last to the first day of the week, that while [[@Page:149]] strong reasons existed for it in the mighty change that had been introduced by the perfected redemption of Christ, no special stress appears, even in the Old Testament Scripture, to have been laid on the precise day. Manifestly the succession of six days of worldly occupation, and one of sacred rest, is the point chiefly contemplated there. So little depended upon the exact day, that on the occasion of renewing the Sabbatical institution in the wilderness, the Lord seems to have made the weekly series run from the first giving of the manna. His example, therefore, in the work of creation, was intended merely to fix the relative proportion between the days of ordinary labour and those of sacred rest—and with that view is appealed to in the law. Nay, even there the correspondence is closer than is generally considered between the Old and the New; for while the original Sabbath was the seventh day in regard to God’s work of creation, it was man’s first. He began his course of weekly service upon earth by holding Sabbath with his Creator; much as the Church was called to begin her service to Christ on His finishing the work of the new creation. Nor, since redemption is to man a still more important work than creation, can it seem otherwise than befitting to a sanctified mind, that some slight alteration should have taken place in the relative position of the days, as might serve for a perpetual memorial that this work also was now finished. By the resurrection of Christ, as the Apostle shows, in 1 Cor. 15:20, sq., a far higher dignity has been won for humanity than was given to it by the creation of Adam; and one hence feels, as Sartorius has remarked (Cultus, p. 154), that it would be alike unnatural and untrue, if the Church now should keep the creation-Sabbath of the Old, and not the resurrection-Sabbath of the New—if she should honour, as her holy-day, thatday on which Christ was buried, and not rather the one on which He rose again from the dead. It was on the eve of [[@Page:150]] the resurrection-day that He appeared to the company of the disciples, announced to them the completion of His work, gave them His peace, and authorized and commissioned them to preach salvation and dispense forgiveness to all nations in His name.—(Luke 24) So that, if Adam’s Sabbath was great by the Divine blessing and sanctification, Christ’s Sabbath was still greater through the Divine blessing of peace, grace, and salvation, which He sheds forth upon a lost world, in order to reestablish the Divine image in men’s souls, in a higher even than its original form, and bring in a better paradise than that which has been lost.

In conclusion, we deem the law of the Sabbath, as interpreted in this section, to have been fully entitled to a place in the standing revelation of God’s will concerning man’s duty, and to have formed no exception to the perfection and completeness of the law:—

(1.) Because, first, there is in such an institution, when properly observed, a sublime act of holiness. The whole rational creation standing still, as it were, on every seventh day as it returns, and looking up to its God—what could more strikingly proclaim in all men’s ears, that they have a common Lord and Master in heaven! It reminds the rich that what they have is not properly their own that they hold all of a Superior—a Superior who demands that on this day the meanest slave shall be as his master—nay, that the very beast of the field shall be released from its yoke of service, and stand free to its Creator. No wonder that proud man, who loves to do what he will with his own, and that the busy world, which is bent on prosecuting with restless activity the concerns of time, would fain break asunder the bands of this holy institution; for it speaks aloud of the overruling dominion and rightful supremacy of God, which they would willingly cast behind their backs. But the heart that is really imbued with the principles of the Gospel, how can it fail to call such a day the holy of the Lord, and honourable? Loving God, it cannot but love what gives it the opportunity of holding undisturbed communion with Him.

(2.) Secondly, because it is an institution of mercy. In perfect harmony with the Gospel, it breathes good-will and kindness to men. It brings, as Coleridge well expressed it, [[@Page:151]] fifty-two spring-days every year to this toilsome world; and may justly be regarded as a sweet remnant of paradise, mitigating the now inevitable burdens of life, and connecting the region of bliss that has been lost with the still brighter glory that is to come. As in the former aspect there is love to God, so here there is love to man.

(3.) Lastly, we uphold its title to a place in the permanent revelation of God’s will to man, because of its eminent use and absolute necessity to promote men’s higher interests. Religion cannot properly exist without it, and is always found to thrive as the spiritual duties of the day of God are attended to and discharged. It is, when duly improved, the parent and the guardian of every virtue. In this practical aspect of it, all men of serious piety substantially concur; and as a specimen of thousands which might be produced, we conclude with simply giving the impressive testimony of Owen: “For my part, I must not only say, but plead, whilst I live in this world, and leave this testimony to the present and future ages, that if ever I have seen anything of the ways and worship of God, wherein the power of religion or godliness hath been expressed—anything that hath represented the holiness of the Gospel and the Author of it—anything that looked like a prelude to the everlasting Sabbath and rest with God, which we aim, through grace, to come unto,—it hath been there, and with them, where, and among whom, the Lord’s day hath been held in highest esteem, and a strict observation of it attended to, as an ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ. The remembrance of their ministry, their walk and conversation, their faith and love, who in this nation have most zealously pleaded for, and have been in their persons, families, parishes or churches, the most strict observers of this day, will be precious to them that fear the Lord, whilst the sun and moon endure. Let these things be despised by those who are otherwise minded; to me they are of great weight and importance.”—(On Heb., vol. i., 726, Tegg’s ed.)

FOOTNOTE

[1] The Catholics have felt the force of this in reference to their own Church, which, like the Jewish, deals so much in ceremonies, and therefore have sometimes in their catechism presented the fourth commandment thus: Remember the festivals, to keep them holy.

[2] Comm. on Ex. 20:11. The same view is taken in his notes on Gen. 2:3: “God, therefore, first rested, then He blessed that rest, that it might be sacred among men through all coming ages. He consecrated each seventh day to rest, that His own example might continually serve as a rule,” etc. To the same effect, Luther on that passage, who holds, that “if Adam had continued in innocence, he would yet have kept the seventh day sacred;” and concludes, “Therefore the Sabbath was, from the beginning of the world, appointed to the worship of God.” We have already treated of this branch of the subject in vol. i., and need not go farther into it at present. It is proper to state, however, that the leading divines of the Reformation, and the immediately subsequent period, were of one mind regarding the appointment of a primeval Sabbath. The idea, that the Sabbath was first given to the Israelites in the wilderness, and that the words in Gen. 2 only proleptically refer to that future circumstance, is an after-thought, originating in the fond conceit of some Jewish Rabbins, who sought thereby to magnify their nation, and was adopted only by such Christian divines as had already made up their minds on the temporary obligation of the Sabbath.

[3] Gen. 2:23, 24. This has a great deal more the look of a proleptical statement than what is written at the beginning of the chapter about the Sabbath, for it speaks of leaving father and mother, while still Adam and Eve alone existed. Yet our Lord regards it as a statement fairly and naturally drawn from the facts of creation, and as applicable to the earlier as to the later periods of the world’s history.—(Matt. 19:4, 5)

[4] De Leg., ii., p. 787.

[5] Gen. 8:10, 12, 29:27. A large portion of the Jewish writers hold that the Sabbath was instituted at the creation, and was observed by the patriarchs, although some thought differently. References to various of their more eminent writers are given in Meyer, De Temporibus Sacris et Festis Diebus Hebraeorum, P. ii., c. 9. Selden (De Jure Nat. et Gent., L. iii. 12) has endeavoured to prove that the elder Jewish writers all held the first institution of the Sabbath to have been in the wilderness, though by special revelation made known previously to Abraham, and that the notice taken of the subject at the creation is by prolepsis. This, however, does not appear to have been the general opinion among them certainly not that of some of their leading writers; and, as Meyer remarks, it by no means follows from their having sometimes held the proleptical reference in Genesis to the institution of the Sabbath in the wilderness, that they therefore denied its prior institution in paradise. See also Owen’s Preliminary Dissertations to his Com. on Heb. Ex. 36; where, further, the notices are gathered which are to be found in ancient heathen sources regarding the primitive division of time into sevens, and the sacredness of the seventh day. As to the ancient nations of the world not observing it, or not being specially charged with neglecting it, the same may be said in reference to the third commandment, the fifth, many of the sins of the seventh, eighth, and ninth. Besides, when they forsook God Himself, of how little importance was it how they spent His Sabbaths?

[6] Divine Leg., B. iv., Note R. R. R. R.

[7] It has been called a moral-positive command, partly moral and partly positive; in itself a positive enactment, but with moral grounds to recommend or enforce it. See, for example, Ridgeley’s Body of Divinity, ii., p. 267, who expressess the view of almost all evangelical divines of the same period in this country. The distinction, however, is not happy, as the same substantially may be said of all the ceremonial institutions. Moral reasons were connected with them all, and yet they are abolished.

[8] Works, v., p. 565, 568.

[9] Moral and Polit. Philosophy, B. v., c. 7 and 8, comp. with 1st of the Sermons on several subjects.

[10] No texts have been more perverted from their obvious meaning, by the opponents of the Sabbath, than those referred to in Mark 2:27, 28, about the Son of Man being Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath being made for man, as if the Lord had been there bringing in something new, instead of explaining what was old. The latter is also held “as manifestly implying that the observance of the Sabbath was not a duty of an essential and unchangeable nature, such as those for which man is especially constituted and ordained.”—(Bib. Cyclop., Art. Sabbath) But the same may be said of marriage—it was made for man, and not man for it; and seeing, if there be no marriage, there can be no adultery, is therefore the seventh command only of temporary obligation? Or, since where there is no property there can be no theft, and man was not made for property, is the eighth command also out of date? The main point is, Were they not all alike coeval with man’s introduction into his present state, and needful to abide with him till its close?

[11] See Meyer de Temp. Sacris et Festis diebus Hub., p. 197-199, where the authorities are given at length.

[12] Calvin, Inst., ii., c. 8. Vitringa Synagog. vet., ii., c. 2, and Com. in Isa., c. 56.

[13] I have entered so fully into the views of the Reformers, because their sentiments on this subject are almost universally misunderstood, even by theologians, and their names have often been and still are abused, to support views which they would themselves have most strongly reprobated. The ground of the whole error lay in their not rightly understanding—what, indeed, is only now coming to be properly understood—the symbolical character of the Jewish worship. They viewed it too exclusively in a typical aspect, in its reference to Gospel things, and saw but very dimly and imperfectly its design and fitness to give a present expression to the faith and holiness of the worshipper. Hence, positive institutions were considered as altogether the same with ceremonial, and the services connected with them as all of necessity bodily, typical, shadowy—therefore done away in Christ. In this way superficial readers, who glance only at occasional passages in their writings, and do not take these in connection with the whole state of theological opinion then prevalent regarding the Old and New dispensations, find no difficulty in exhibiting the Reformers as against all Sabbatical observances; while, if it suited their purpose to look a little farther, another set of passages might be found which seem to establish the very reverse. Archbishop Whately says (Second Series of Essays, p. 206) that the English Reformers were almost unanimous in disconnecting the obligation regarding the keeping of the Lord’s day among Christians from the fourth commandment, and resting it simply on the practice of the apostles and the early Church—thus making the Christian Lord’s day an essentially different institution from the Jewish Sabbath. We don’t need to investigate the subject separately as it affects them; for their opinions, as the Archbishop indeed asserts, agreed with those of the Continental Reformers. But we affirm that the Reformers, as a body, did hold the Divine authority and binding obligation of the fourth command, as requiring one day in seven to be employed in the worship and service of God, admitting only of works of necessity and of mercy to the-poor and afflicted. The release from legal bondage, of which they speak, included simply the obligation to keep precisely the seventh day of the week, and the external rest, which they conceived to be so rigorously binding on the Jews, that even the doing of charitable works was a breach of it the very mistake of the Pharisees. In its results, however, the doctrinal error regarding the fourth commandment has been very disastrous even in England, but still more so on the Continent. However strict the Reformers were personally, as to the practical observance of the Lord’s day—so strict, especially in Geneva, that they were charged by some with Judaizing the separation they made here between the law and the Gospel soon wrought most injuriously upon the life of religion; and the saying of Owen was lamentably verified: “Take this day off from the basis whereon God hath fixed it, and all human substitutions of anything in the like kind will quickly discover their own vanity.” See Appendix A.

[14] This is Haldane’s explanation in his Appendix to his Com. on Romans, as it had also been Ridgeley’s and others in former times. But if that explanation were right—if the Apostle really intended to except what the world at large pre-eminently understood by Sabbath-days—it would be impossible to acquit him of using language almost sure to be misunderstood.

[15] 2 Kings 4:23, where the Shunammite woman’s husband expressed his wonder that she should go to the prophet when it was neither new moon nor Sabbath, implies that it was customary to meet for social exercises on these days.

[16] Works, vol. i., p. 356. The greater part of his three Sermons is excellent, though he does not altogether avoid, we think, some of the misapprehensions referred to above.

[17] Sermons, Bib. Cab., vol. xxviii., p. 13. The absolute necessity of a strict observance of the Lord’s day to the life of religion, is well noted in a comparison between Scotland and Germany, by a shrewd and intelligent observer—Mr Laing, in his Notes on the Pilgrimage to Treves, ch. x. He does not profess to state the theological view of the subject, and even admits there may be some truth in what is sometimes pleaded for a looser observance of the day, especially in regard to those situated in large towns; but still holds the necessity of a well-spent Sabbath to produce and maintain a due sense of religion, and attributes the low state of religion in Germany very much to their neglect of the Sabbath. He justly says, the strict observance of Sunday “is the application of principle to practice by a whole people; it is the working of their religious sense and knowledge upon their habits; it is the sacrifice of pleasures, in themselves innocent and these are the most difficult to be sacrificed—to a higher principle than self-indulgence. Such a population stands on a much higher moral and intellectual stop than the population of the Continent,” etc.

Section Fourth.—What The Law could not do—The Covenant Standing and Privileges of Israel before it was given.

[[@Page:152]] HAVING now considered what the law, properly so called, was in itself, we proceed to inquire into the ends and purposes for which it was given, and the precise place which it was designed to hold in the ancient economy. Any misapprehension entertained, or even any obscurity allowed to hang upon these points, would, it is plain, materially affect the result of our future investigations. And there is the more need to be careful and discriminating in our inquiries here, as, from the general and deep-rooted carnality of the Jewish people, the effect which the law actually produced upon the character of their religion was, to a considerable extent, different from what it ought to have been. This error on their part has also mainly contributed to the first rise and still continued existence of some mistaken views regarding the law among many Christian divines.

There can be no doubt that the law held relatively a different place under the Old dispensation from what it does under the New. The most superficial acquaintance with the statements of New Testament Scripture on the subject, is enough to satisfy us of this. “The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” There is, however, one point—the first that properly meets us in this department of our subject in regard to which both dispensations are entirely on a footing. This point has respect to the condition of those to whom the law was given, and which, being already possessed, the law could not possibly have been intended to bring. So that an inquiry into the nature of that condition, of necessity carries along with it the consideration of what the law could not do.

Now, as the historical element is here of importance, when was it, we ask, that this revelation of law was given to Israel? Somewhere, we are told, about the beginning of the third month [[@Page:153]] after their departure from the land of Egypt.[1] Hence, from the very period of its introduction, the law could not come as a redeemer from evil, or a bestower of life and blessing. Its object could not possibly be to propose anything which should have the effect of shielding from death, rescuing from bondage, or founding a title to the favour and blessing of Heaven—for all that had been already obtained. By God’s outstretched arm, working with sovereign freedom and almighty power in behalf of the Israelites, they had been brought into a state of freedom and enlargement, and under the banner of Divine protection were travelling to the laud settled on them as an inheritance, before one word had been spoken to them of the law in the proper sense of the term. And whatever purposes the law might have been intended to serve, it could not have been for any of those already accomplished or provided for.

It is of great importance to keep distinctly in view this negative side of the law; what it neither could, nor was ever designed to do. For if we raise it to a position which it was not meant to occupy, and expect from it benefits which it was not fitted to yield, we must be altogether at fault in our reckoning, and can have no clear knowledge of the dispensation to which it belonged. It is in reference to this that the Apostle speaks in Gal. 3:17, 18: “And this I say, that the covenant, which was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.” The Jews had come in the Apostle’s time, and most of them, indeed, long before, to look to their deeds of law as constituting their title to the inheritance; and the same leaven of self-righteousness was now beginning to work among the Galatian converts. To check this tendency in them, and convince them of the fundamental error on which it proceeded, he presses on their consideration the nature and design of God’s covenant with Abraham, which he represents as having been “confirmed before of God in Chart,” became in making promise of a seed of blessing it had respect pre-eminently to Christ, and might justly be regarded, in its leading [[@Page:154]] objects and provisions, as only an earlier and imperfect exhibition of the Christian covenant of redemption. But that covenant expressly conferred on Abraham’s posterity, as Heaven’s free gift, the inheritance of the land of Canaan; and it must also have secured their redemption from the house of bondage, and their safe conduct through the wilderness, since these were necessary to their entering on the possession of the inheritance. Hence, as the Apostle argues, their title to these things could not possibly need to be acquired over again by deeds of law afterwards performed; for this would manifestly have been to give to the law the power of disannulling the covenant of promise, and would have made one revelation of God overthrow the foundation already laid by another.

But that God never meant the law to interfere with the gifts and promises of the covenant, is clear from what He said to the children of the covenant immediately before the law was given: “Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now therefore, if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”—(Ex. 19:5) Here God addresses them as already standing in such a relation of nearness to Him, as secured for them an interest in His faithfulness and love. He appeals to the proofs which He had given of this, as amply sufficient to dispel every doubt from their mind, and to warrant them in expecting whatever might still be needed to complete their felicity. “Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice”—not because ye have obeyed it, have the great things which have just been accomplished in your experience taken place; but these have been done, that you might feel your calling to obey, and by obeying fulfil the high destiny to which you are appointed. In this call to obedience we already have the whole law, so far as concerns the ground of its obligation and the germ of its requirements. And when the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai to proclaim the words of the law, He is simply to be regarded as giving utterance to that voice which they were to obey. Hence, also, in prefacing the words then spoken by the declaration, “I am the Lord thy God, which [[@Page:155]] brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” He rests his claim to their obedience on precisely the same ground as here: He resumes what He had previously said in regard to the peculiar relation in which He stood to them, as proved by the grand deliverance He had achieved in their behalf, and on that founds His special claim to the return of dutiful obedience which He justly expected at their hands. And when it was proclaimed as the result of this obedience, that they should be to God “a peculiar people, a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation,” they were given to understand, that thus alone could they continue to occupy the singular place they now held in the regard of Heaven, enjoy intimate fellowship with God, and be fitting instruments in His hand for carrying out the wise and holy purposes of His Divine government. This, however, belongs to another part of the subject, and has respect to what the law was given to do.

We see, then, from the very time and manner in which the law was introduced, that it could not have been designed to interfere with the covenant of promise; and as all that pertained to redemption, the inheritance, and the means of life and blessing, came by that covenant, the law was manifestly given to provide none of them. Nor could it make any alteration on the law in this respect, that it was made to assume the form of a covenant. Why this was done, we shall inquire in the sequel. But looking at the matter still in a merely negative point of view, it is obvious that the law’s coming to possess the character of a covenant could give it no power to make void the provisions of that earlier covenant, which secured for the seed of Abraham, as Heaven’s free gift, the inheritance, and everything properly belonging to it. And if the Israelites should at any time come to regard the covenant of law as having been made for the purpose of founding a title to what the covenant with Abraham had previously bestowed, they would evidently misinterpret the meaning of God, and confound the proper relations of things. This, however, is what they actually did on a large scale, the grievous error and pernicious consequences of which are pointed out in Gal. 4:21-31: “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons; the one by a bond maid, the other by a five woman. [[@Page:156]] But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is (i.e., corresponds to) Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written (Isa. 54:1), Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise,” etc.

Here the proper wife of Abraham, Sarah, and his bond maid Hagar, are viewed as the representatives of the two covenants respectively; and the children of the two mothers as, in like manner, representatives of the kind of worshippers whom the covenants were fitted to produce. Sarah, the only proper spouse of Abraham, stands for the heavenly Jerusalem; that is, the true Church of God, in which He perpetually resides, and begets children to Himself. Whoever belong to it are born from above, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” And that Sarah’s son might be the fit representative of all such, his birth was delayed till she had attained an advanced age. Born as Isaac was, it was impossible to overlook the immediate and supernatural operation of God’s hand in his birth; and if ever mother had reason to say, “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” it was Sarah, when she brought forth Isaac. But what was true of Isaac’s natural birth, is equally true of the spiritual birth of God’s people in every age. The Church, as a heavenly society, is their mother. But that Church is so, simply because she is the habitation of God, and the channel through which His grace, flowing into the dead heart of nature, quickens it into newness of life. And the covenant in the hand of this Church, by which she is empowered to bring forth such children to God, must be substantially the same in every age—viz., the covenant of grace, which began to be disclosed in part on the very scene of the fall—which was again more distinctly revealed to Abraham, when he received the promises of a seed of blessing, and an inheritance everlasting, and [[@Page:157]] which has been clearly brought to light and finally confirmed in Christ for the whole elect family of God. This unquestionably is the covenant which answers to Sarah, and belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem: to this covenant all the real children of God owe their birth, their privileges, and their hopes; those who are born of it, in whatever age of the Church, are born in freedom, and heirs of the inheritance.

It is this Church, standing in and growing out of this covenant, that the prophet Isaiah addresses, in the passage quoted by the Apostle, as a “barren woman, a widow, and desolate,” and whom he comforts with the promise of a numerous offspring. He does not expressly name Sarah, but he evidently has her in his eye, and draws his delineation both of the present and the future in language suggested by her history. For, as in her case, so the seed of the true Church was long in coming, and slow of increase, compared with those born after the flesh. It seemed often, especially in such times of backsliding and desolation as those contemplated by the prophet, as if the spouse were absolutely forsaken, or utterly incapable of being a mother; and she appeared all the more in need of consolation, as her carnal rival even then possessed a large and numerous offspring. But the prophet cheers her with the prospect of better days to come; and gives her the assurance, that in the long run her spiritual seed would greatly outnumber the fleshly seed of the other. This prospect began (as the Apostle intimates, [[31 >> Bible:Ga 4:31]] ver.) to be more especially realized when the kingdom opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles.

The other covenant, which answers to Hagar, was the covenant of law, ratified at Sinai; but that by no means corresponding, as is often represented, to the Old Testament dispensation as a whole. For, viewed in the light of mothers, the two covenants are spoken of as directly opposite in their nature, tendency, and effects, while the Old and New Testament dispensations present no such contrast to each other. They are rather to be regarded as in all essential respects the same. They differ, not as Ishmael differed from Isaac, but only as the heir when a child differs from the heir when arrived at maturity. Of all the true members of both Churches, Abraham is the common parent and head; and whether outwardly descended from his [[@Page:158]] loins or not, they constitute properly but one people. They are all the children of faithful Abraham, possessing his covenant relation to God, and his interest in the promises of good things to come.—(Rom. 4:11-13; Gal. 3:29) But the seed that came by Hagar, which was born, not properly of God, but of the will of the flesh, was entirely of another kind, and represented no part of the true Church in any age: it represented only the carnal portion of the professing Church—the unregenerate, idolatrous, or self-righteous Israelites of former times, who deemed it quite enough that they were able to trace their descent from Abraham; and the merely nominal believers now, who satisfy themselves with an outward standing among the followers of Jesus, and a formal attendance on some of the ordinances of His appointment. These are they “who say they are Jews, but are not;” they no more belonged to the seed of God under the Old Testament, than they do under the New; they are Ishmaelites, not Israelites—a spurious fleshly offspring, that should never have been born, and when born, without any title to the inheritance and the blessing.

It was the prevailing delusion of the Jews in our Lord’s time, as it had been also of many in former times, not to perceive this—failing to understand, what yet God had taken especial pains to teach them, that the subjects of His love and blessing were always an elect seed. From the time of Abraham, they had chiefly belonged to his stock, but never had they at any period embraced all his offspring: not the sons of Gagar and Keturah, but only the son of Sarah; not both the sons of Isaac, but only Jacob; not all the sons of Jacob, but only such as possessed his faith, and were, like him, princes with God. The principle, “not all Israel who are of Israel,” runs through the entire history; and too often also do the facts of history afford ground for the conclusion, that those who were simply of Israel had greatly the preponderance in numbers and influence over such as truly were Israel.

But how did such children come to exist at all? How did they get a being within the bosom of the Church of God? They also had a mother, represented by Hagar, and that mother, as well as the other, a covenant of God—the covenant of Sinai. But why should it have produced such children? In one way alone could it possibly have done so; viz., by being elevated [[@Page:159]] out of its proper place, and turned to an illegitimate use. God never designed it to be a mother; no more than Hagar, respecting whom Abraham sinned when he turned aside to her, and took her for a mother of children: her proper place was that only of an handmaid to Sarah. And it was, in like manner, to pervert the covenant of law from Sinai to an improper purpose, to look to it as a parent of life and blessing; nor could any better result come from the error. “It gendereth unto bond age,” says the Apostle; that is, in so far as it gave birth to any children, these were not true children of God, free, spiritual, with hearts of filial confidence and devoted love; but miserable bondmen, selfish, carnal, full of mistrust and fear. Of these children of the Sinaitic covenant we are furnished with the most perfect exemplar in the Scribes and Pharisees of our Lord’s time—men who were chiefly remarkable for the full and ripened development of a spirit of bondage in religion who were complete in all the garniture of a sanctified demeanour, while they were full within of ravening and wickedness—worshipping a God, whom they eyed only as the taskmaster of a laborious ritual, by the punctual observance of which they counted themselves secure of His favour and blessing—crouching like slaves beneath their yoke of bondage, and loving the very bonds that lay on them, because nothing better than the abject and hireling spirit of slavery breathed in their hearts. Such were the children whom the covenant of law produced, as its natural and proper offspring. But did God ever seek such children? Could He own them as members of His kingdom? Could He bestow on them an interest in its promised blessings? Assuredly not; and therefore it was entirely against His mind, when His professing people looked in that direction for life and blessing. If really His people, they already had these by another and earlier covenant which could give them; and those who still looked for them to the covenant of law, only got a serpent for bread—instead of a blessing, a curse.[2]

[[@Page:160]] It seems very strange that so many Christian divines, especially of such as hold evangelical principles, should here have fallen into substantially the Jewish error, representing the Israelites as being in such a sense under the covenant of law, that by obedience to it they had to establish their title to the inheritance. Not only does Warburton call the dispensation under which they were placed, roundly “a dispensation of works,”[3] but we find Dr John Erskine, an evangelical writer, among many similar things, writing thus: “He who yielded an external obedience to the law of Moses, was termed righteous, and had a claim in virtue of his obedience to the land of Canaan, so that doing these things he lived by them. Hence Moses says, Deut. 6:25, ‘It shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God;’ i.e., it shall be the cause and matter of our justification—it shall found our title to covenant blessings. But to spiritual and heavenly blessings, we are entitled by the obedience of the Son of God, not by our own.”[4] It was very necessary, when the learned author made obedience to the covenant of Sinai the ground of a title to the inheritance of Canaan, that he should bring down its terms as low as possible; for had these not been of a superficial and formal nature, it would manifestly have been a mockery to make the people’s obedience the ground of their title. But what, then, becomes of the covenant of Abraham, if the inheritance, which it gave freely in promise to his seed, had to be acquired over again by deeds of law? And what, indeed, becomes of the spiritual and unchangeable character of God, if, in one age of the Church, He should appear to have imposed duties of an external kind, as the ground of a title to His blessing, while in another all is given of grace, and the duties required are pre-eminently inward and spiritual? In such a case, there not only could have been no proper correspondence between the earlier and the later dispensations, but the revealed character of God must have undergone an essential change: He could not be “the Jehovah, that changeth not.” The confusion arises from assigning to the covenant of law a wrong place, and ascribing to it what it was never intended to do or give. “God did never make a new promulgation of the law by revelation to [[@Page:161]] sinful men, in order to keep them under mere law, without set ting before them, at the same time, the promise and grace of the new covenant, by which they might escape from the curse which the law denounced. The legal and evangelical dispensations have been but different dispensations of the same covenant of grace, and of the blessings thereof. Though there is now a greater degree of light, consolation, and liberty, yet if Christians are now under a kingdom of grace, where there is pardon upon repentance, the Lord’s people under the Old Testament were (as to the reality and substance of things) also under a kingdom of grace.”[5] So that it is quite wrong, as the judicious author states, to represent those “who were under the pedagogy of the law, as if they had been under a proper and strict covenant of works.”

Bähr, who rises immeasurably above all who, have imbibed their notions of the legal dispensation in the school of Spencer and Warburton, and who everywhere exhibits a due appreciation of the moral and religious element in Judaism, still so far coincides with them, that he elevates the law to a place not properly its own. After investigating the descriptions given of the decalogue, he draws the conclusion, that “for Israel this formed the foundation of its whole existence as a people, the root of its religious and political life, the highest, best, most precious thing the people had their one and all.”[6] So also again, when speaking of the covenant and the law being entirely the same, he says to the like effect: “This covenant first properly gave Israel as a people its being; it was the root and basis of the life of Israel as a people.”[7] No doubt understanding, as he does, by the law or covenant all the precepts and institutions of Moses, which he holds to have been represented in the decalogue, the idea here expressed is not quite so wide of the truth as it might otherwise appear. But still the statement is by no means correct; it is utterly at variance with the facts of Israel’s history, and calculated to give a false impression of the whole nature and design of the Mosaic legislation. It presents this to our view simply as a dispensation of works, having law for the root of life, and consequently the deeds of law for the only ground of blessing. In [[@Page:162]] plain contrariety to the assertion of the Apostle,[8] it virtually says that a law was given which brought life, and that righteousness was by the law. Finally, it gives such a place to the mere requirements and operations of law, that nothing remained for grace to do, but merely to pardon the shortcomings and transgressions of which men might be guilty, as subject to law: all else was earned by the obedience performed; even forgiveness itself in a manner was thus earned, because obtained as the result of services rendered in compliance with the terms and prescriptions of law.

This glorification of law, however, has not been confined to the Old Testament Church. There are not a few Christian divines who are so enamoured of law, that the Gospel of the grace of God has become in their hands only a kind of modified covenant of works; and they can only account for faith holding the peculiar place assigned to it in the work of salvation, because in their view it comprises all other graces and virtues in its bosom. Salvation appears not directly and properly as the free gift of Divine grace in Christ, but rather as the acquired result of man’s evangelical righteousness, or, as it is generally termed, his sincere though imperfect obedience. The title to heaven must still be earned, only the satisfaction of Christ has secured its being done on much easier conditions. There is no need for our entering into any exposure of this New Testament legalism, as we have seen that its prototype under the Old Testament, though it had more seemingly to countenance it, was still without any proper foundation. But we may briefly advert to the statements of another class of theologians, who, while they admit that the Old as well as the New Testament Church was under a dispensation of grace, to which it owed all its privileges, blessings, and hopes, at the same time regard the covenant of Sinai as in itself properly the covenant of works, by obedience to which, if faithfully and fully rendered, men would have founded a title to life and blessing. They justly regard it as in substance a republication of the law of holiness originally impressed upon the soul of Adam; but fall into perplexity and confusion by adopting a somewhat erroneous view of the primary design and object of that law. The righteousness there required they are accustomed [[@Page:163]] to represent as that “by the doing of which man was to found his right to promised blessings;”[9] or, to use the language of another, “in virtue of which he might thereon plead and demand the reward of eternal life.”[10] Then, viewing such a law or covenant of works in reference to men as sinful, the works required in it are necessarily considered as “the condition of a sinner’s justification and acceptance with God,” “a law to be done that he might be saved.”[11]

But was a law ever given, or a covenant ever made with man, with any such professed design? Was it even propounded thus to Adam in paradise? Had he not received as a free gift from the hand of God, before anything was exacted of him in the way of obedience, both the principle of a divine life and an inheritance of blessing? So far from needing to found by deeds of righteousness a title to these, he came forth at the very first fully fraught with them; and the question with him was, not how to obtain what he had not, but how to continue in the enjoyment of what he already possessed. This he could no otherwise do than by fulfilling the righteous ends for which he had been created. To direct him towards these, therefore, must have been, if not the sole, at least the direct and ostensible object of whatever law was outwardly proposed to him, or inwardly impressed upon his conscience. If the word to him might be said to be, “Do this and live,” it could only be in the sense of his thereby continuing in the life, in the possession and blessedness of which he was created. And it was the fond conceit of the Pharisaical Jews, that their law was given for purposes higher even than those for which any law was given to man in innocence; that they might, by obedience to law, work out a righteousness, and acquire a title to life and glory, which did not naturally belong to them. It is simply against this groundless and perverse notion, which had come latterly to diffuse its leaven through the whole Jewish mind, that our Lord and His apostles are to be understood as speaking, when in a manifold variety of ways they endeavour to withdraw men’s [[@Page:164]] regards from the law as a source of life, and point them to the riches of Divine grace.[12]

It is, then, carefully to be remembered, in regard to the Old Testament Church, that she had two covenants connected with her constitution—a covenant of grace as well as of law; and that the covenant of law, as it came last, so it took for granted the provisions of the elder covenant of grace. It was grafted upon this, and grew out of it. Hence, in revealing the terms of the legal covenant, the Lord spake to the Israelites as already their God, from whom they had received life and freedom (Ex. 20:2),—proclaimed Himself as the God of mercy as well as of holiness (vers. [[5, 6 >> Bible:Ex 20:5-6]] ),—recognised their title to the inheritance as His own sovereign gift to them ([[ver. 12 >> Bible:Ex 20:12]] ),—thus making it clear to all, that the covenant of law raised itself on the ground of the previous covenant of grace, and sought to carry out this to its legitimate consequences and proper fruits.[13]

That this also is the order of God’s procedure with men [[@Page:165]] under the Gospel, nothing but the most prejudiced mind can fail to perceive. Everywhere does God there present Himself to His people as in the first instance a giver of life and blessing, and only afterwards as an exacter of obedience to His commands. Their obedience, so far from entitling to salvation, can never be acceptably rendered till they have become partakers of the blessings of salvation. These blessings are altogether of grace, and are therefore received through faith. For what is faith, but the acceptance of Heaven’s grant of salvation, or a trusting in the record in which the grant is conveyed? So that, in the order of each man’s experience, there must be, as is fully brought out in the Epistle to the Romans, first a participation in the mercies of God, and then growing out of this a felt and constraining obligation to run the way of God’s commandments. How can it, indeed, be otherwise? How were it possible for men, laden with sin, and underlying the condemnation of Heaven, to earn anything at God’s hands, or do what might seem good in His sight, till they become partakers of grace? Can they work up to a certain point against the stream of His displeasure, and prosecute of themselves the process of recovery, only requiring His supernatural aid to perfect it? To imagine the possibility of this, were to betray an utter ignorance of the character of God in reference to His dealings with the guilty. He can, for His Son’s sake, bestow eternal life and blessing on the most unworthy, but He cannot stoop to treat and bargain with men about their acquiring a title to it through their own imperfect services. They must first receive the gift through the channel of His own providing; and only when they have done this, are they in a condition to please and honour Him. Not more certainly is faith without works dead, than all works are dead which do not spring from the living root of faith already implanted in the heart.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Ex. 19:1.

[2] On this negative side of the law, may be consulted Bell on the Covenants, which, though full of repetition, is clear and satisfactory on this part of the subject; it forms a sort of expanded, though certainly rather tedious, illustration of Vitringa’s Com. on Isa. 54:1. On the positive side of the law, or what it was designed to do, the work is by no means so successful.

[3] Div. Leg., B. v., Note C.

[4] Theological Dissertations, p. 41.

[5] Fraser on Sanctification; Explic. of Rom. 7:8.

[6] Symbolik, i., 386, 387.

[7] Symbolik, ii., 389.

[8] Gal. 3:21.

[9] Bell on Covenants, p. 198.

[10] Boston’s Notes on Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. 1, Introd.

[11] Ib. P. 1, c. 1, and the Marrow itself there; also Fraser on Rom. 7:4, and Chalmers’ Works, vol. x., p.207.

[12] Rom. 3, 7; 2 Cor. 3:6, 7; Gal. 3:11, 21; Phil. 3:8, 9; Eph. 1:3-7; Tit. 3:4-7; 1 John 1, 5:11; also of our Lord’s discourses, Luke 15:19:1-10; John 3:16-18, 6:51. When He directed the lawyer, who tempted Him with the question, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” to the commandments of the law, and in reference to the perfect love there required to God and man, said, “This do and thou shalt live,” it is clear He merely met the inquirer on his own ground, and aimed at sending him away with an impression of the impossibility of obtaining life by perfecting himself in the law’s requirements. So, also, such expressions as that in Rom. 7:10, of “the commandment being ordained to life” (lit., which was for, or unto life), cannot mean that it was given to confer life, or to show the way of obtaining it, for this is denied of any law that ever could have been given to sinful men (Gal. 3:21). It simply means, that the law was given to subserve or promote the purposes of God in respect to life.

[13] The relation between the two covenants is briefly but correctly stated by Sack in his Apologetik, p. 179: “The matter of the law is altogether grounded upon the covenant of promise made with Abraham. . . . The law neither could nor would withdraw the exercise of faith from the covenant of promise, or render that superfluous, but merely formed an intermediate provision until the fulfilment came.” The relation is seldom correctly made out by writers of the class last referred to. For example, Boston would have the two covenants to have been revealed simultaneously from Sinai, making the Sinaitic covenant as much a covenant of grace as of law (on the Marrow, p. 1, c. 2). Burgess (on Mural Law and Covenants, p. 224) represents it as properly a covenant of grace.

Section Sixth.—The Relation of Believers under The New Testament to The Law—In what sense they are Free from it—And why it is No Longer Proper to Keep The Symbolical Institutions connected with it.

[[@Page:184]] THE relation of believers under the New Testament to the law has been a fruitful subject of controversy among divines. This has arisen chiefly from the apparently contradictory statements made respecting it in New Testament Scripture; and this, again, partly from the change introduced by the setting up of the more spiritual machinery of the Gospel dispensation, and partly also in consequence of the mistaken views entertained regarding the law by those to whom the Gospel first came, which required to be corrected by strong representations of an opposite description. Thus, on the one hand, we find our Lord saying, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whoso ever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”[1] Stronger language could not possibly be employed to assert the abiding force and obligation of the law’s requirements under the New Testament dispensation; for that this is specially meant by “the kingdom of heaven,” is too obvious to require any proof. In perfect conformity with this statement of our Lord, we find the apostles everywhere enforcing the duties enjoined in the law; as when St James describes the genuine Christian by “his looking into the perfect law of liberty, and continuing therein,” and exhorts the disciples “not to speak evil of the [[@Page:185]] law, or to judge it, but to fulfil it;”[2] or when the Apostle Paul not only speaks of himself as “being under the law to Christ,”[3] but presses on the disciples at Koine and Galatia the constant exercise of love on the ground of its being “the fulfilling of the law;”[4] and in answer to the question, “Do we then make void the law through faith?” he replies, “God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”[5]

But, on the other hand, when we turn to a different class of passages, we meet with statements that seem to run in the precisely opposite direction, especially in the writings of St Paul. There alone, indeed, do we meet with them in the form of dogmatical assertions, although in a practical form the same element of thought occurs in the other epistles. In the first Epistle to Timothy he lays this down as a certain position, that “the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.”[6] And in the Epistle to the Romans he indicates a certain contrast between the present state of believers in this respect with what it was under the former dispensation, and asserts that the law no longer occupies the place it once did: “Now we are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”[7] And again: “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”[8]

That in all these passages the law, in the strict and proper sense, is meant,—the law of the ten commandments, the sum of whose precepts is perfect love to God and man,—we may here take for granted, after what has been said regarding it in the first section of this chapter. It seems perfectly unaccountable, on any grounds of criticism at least, that so many English writers should have thought of solving the difficulty arising from the use of such language, by alleging the Apostle to have had in view simply the ceremonial law, as contradistinguished from the moral. This view, we should imagine, is now nearly exploded among the better-informed students of Scripture; for [[@Page:186]] not only does the Apostle, as Archbishop Whately states, speak of the freedom of Christians from the law, “without limiting or qualifying the assertion, without even hinting at any distinction between moral and ceremonial or civil precepts,” but there can be no doubt that it is what is commonly understood by the moral part of the Mosaic legislation the decalogue—that he has specially and properly in view.[9]

In what respect, then, can it be said of Christians, that they are freed from this law, or are not under it? We must first answer the question in a general way; after which only can we be prepared for pointing out distinctly wherein the relation of the members of the New Covenant to the law differs from that of those who lived under the Old.

1. Believers in Christ are not under the law as to the ground of their condemnation or justification before God. It is not the law, but Christ, that they are indebted to for pardon and life; and receiving these from Him as His gift of grace, they cannot be brought by the law into condemnation and death. The reason is, that Christ has, by His own pure and spotless obedience, done what the law, in the hands of fallen humanity, could not do—He has brought in the everlasting righteousness, which, by its infinite worth, has merited eternal life for as many as believe upon Him. “There is thereforenow no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; “Whosoever believeth upon Him is justified from all things; “or, in the still stronger and more comprehensive language of Christ Himself, “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but hath passed from death to life.”[10]

This, it will be perceived, is what is commonly understood by deliverance from the law as a covenant. But it is proper to remark, that though the idea expressed in such language is [[@Page:187]] scriptural, the language itself is not so, and is rather fitted to mislead; for it appears to imply that, as the law certainly formed the basis of a covenant with the Old Testament Church, its being so formed made it something else than a rule of life, and warranted the Israelites to look to it, in the first instance at least, for life and blessing. This, we have already shown, was not the purpose for which the law was either given or established as a covenant among them; and deliverance from it in the sense mentioned above, marks no essential distinction between the case of believers under the Old and that of those under the New Testament dispensation. The standing of the one as well as the other was in grace; and when the law came, it came not for the purpose of subverting or changing that constitution, but only to direct and oblige men to carry out the important ends for which they had been made partakers of grace and blessing. Strictly speaking, therefore, the Church never was under the law as a covenant, in the sense commonly understood by the term; it was only the mistake of the carnal portion of her members to suppose themselves to have been so. But as God Himself is unchangeable in holiness, the demands of His law, as revealed to men in grace, must be substantially the same as those which they are bound in nature to comply with under pain of His everlasting displeasure. In this respect all may be said, by the very constitution of their being, to be naturally under law to God, and, as transgressors of law, liable to punishment. But through the grace of God we have ceased to be so under it, if we have become true believers in Christ. We have pardon and acceptance through faith in His blood; and even though “in many things offending, and in all coming short,” yet, while faith abides in us, we cannot come into condemnation. To this belong all such passages as treat of justification, and declare it to be granted without the law, or the deeds of the law, to the ungodly, and as God’s gift of grace in Christ.

2. But this is not the only respect in which the Apostle affirms believers now to be free from the law, nor the respect at all which he has in view in the sixth and seventh chapters of his Epistle to the Romans; for the subject he is there handling is not justification, but sanctification. The question he is discussing is not how, as condemned and sinful creatures, we may [[@Page:188]] be accepted as righteous before God; but how, being already pardoned and accepted in the Beloved, we ought to live. In this respect, also, he affirms that we are dead to the law, and are not under it, but under grace the grace,—that is, of God’s in dwelling Spirit, whose quickening energy and pulse of life takes the place of the law’s outward prescriptions and magisterial authority. And if it were not already clear, from the order of the Apostle’s thoughts, and the stage at which he has arrived in the discussion, that it is in this point of view he is now considering the law, the purpose for which he asserts our freedom to have been obtained would put it beyond all reasonable doubt, viz., “that sin might not have dominion over us” (Ch. [[6:14 >> Bible:Ro 6:14]] ), or, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.”—(Ch. [[8:4 >> Bible:Ro 8:4]] )[11]

According to the doctrine of the Apostle, then, believers are not under the law as to their walk and conduct; or, as he says elsewhere, “the law is not for the righteous:” believers “have the Spirit of the Lord; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” But is not this dangerous doctrine? For where now is the safeguard against sin? May not each one do as he lists, oblivious of any distinction between holiness and sin, or even denying its existence, as regards the children of God, on the ground that where no law is, there is no transgression? To such questions the Apostle’s reply is, “God forbid,”—so far from it, that the freedom he asserts from the law has for its sole aim a deliverance from sin’s dominion, and a fruitfulness in all well-doing to God.

The truth more fully stated is simply this: When the believer receives Christ as the Lord his righteousness, he is not only justified by grace, but he comes into a state of grace, or [[@Page:189]] gets grace into his heart as a living, reigning, governing principle of life. What, however, is this grace but the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? And this Spirit is emphatically the Holy Spirit; holiness is the very element of His being, and the essential law of His working; every desire He breathes, every feeling He awakens, every action He disposes and enables us to perform, is according to godliness. And if only we are sufficiently possessed of this Spirit, and yield ourselves to His direction and control, we no longer need the restraint and discipline of the law; we are free from it, because we are superior to it. Quickened and led by the Spirit, we of ourselves love and do the things which the law requires.

Does not nature itself teach substantially the same lesson in its line of things? The child, so long as he is a child, must be subject to the law of his parents; his safety and well-being depend on his being so; he must on every side be hemmed in, checked, and stimulated by that law of his parents, otherwise mischief and destruction will infallibly overtake him. But as he ripens toward manhood he becomes freed from this law, because he no longer needs such external discipline and restraint. He is a law to himself, putting away childish things, and of his own accord acting as the parental authority, had he still been subject to it, would have required and enforced him to do. In a word, the mind has become his from which the parental law proceeded, and he has consequently become independent of its outward prescriptions. And what is it to be under the grace of God’s Spirit, but to have the mind of God?—the mind of Him who gave the law simply as a revelation of what was in His heart respecting the holiness of His people. So that the more they have of the one, the less obviously they need of the other; and if only they were complete in the grace of the Spirit, they should be wholly independent of the bonds and restrictions of the law.

Or let us bring into comparison the relation in which a good man stands to the laws of his country. In one sense, indeed, he is under them; but in another and higher sense he is above them, and moves along his course with conscious freedom, as if he scarcely knew of their existence. For what is the object of such laws but to prevent, under severe penalties, the commission of crime? Crime, however, is already the object of his abhorrence; [[@Page:190]] he needs no penalties to keep him from it. He would never harm the person or property of a neighbour, though there were not a single enactment in the statute-book on the subject. His own love of good and hatred of evil keep him in the path of rectitude, not the fines, imprisonments, or tortures which the law hangs around the path of the criminal. The law was not made for him.

It is not otherwise with one who has become a partaker of grace. The law, considered as an outward discipline placing him under a yoke of manifold commands and prohibitions, has for him ceased to exist. But it has ceased in that respect only by taking possession of him in another. It is now within his heart. It is the law of the Spirit of life in his inner man; emphatically, therefore, “the law of liberty:” his delight is to do it; and it were better for him not to live, than to live otherwise than the tenor of the law requires. We see in Jesus, the holy child of God, the perfect exemplar of this free-will service to Heaven: for while He was made under the law, He was so replenished with the Spirit, that He fulfilled it as if He fulfilled it not; it was His very meat to do the will of Him that sent Him; and not more certainly did the law enjoin, than He in His inmost soul loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Such also, in a measure, will ever be the case with the devout believer in Jesus—in the same measure in which he has received of his Master’s Spirit. Does the law command him to bear no false witness against his neighbour? He is already so renewed in the spirit of his mind, as to speak the truth in his heart, and be ready to swear to his own hurt. Does the law demand, through all its precepts, supreme love to God, and brotherly love to men? Why should this need to be demanded as matter of law from him who has the Eternal Spirit of love bearing sway within, who therefore may be said to live and breathe in an atmosphere of love? Like Paul, he can say with king-like freedom, “I can do all things through Christ strengthening me;” even in chains I am free; I choose what God chooses for me: His will in doing or suffering I embrace as my own; for I have Him working in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Now it is here that the difference properly comes in between the Old and the New Testament dispensations,—a difference. [[@Page:191]] however, it must be carefully marked, of degree only, and not of kind. The saying is here especially applicable, “On the outside of things look for differences, on the inside for likenesses.”[12] In correspondence with the change that has taken place in the character of the Divine administration, the relative position of believers to the law and the Spirit has changed; but under both covenants alike, an indispensable place belongs to each of them. In the former dispensation the law stood more prominently out, and was the more peculiar means for leading men to holiness—supplying, as by a sort of artificial stimulant and support, the still necessary defect in the inward gift of the Spirit’s grace. We say the necessary defect; for the proper materials of the Spirit’s working, not yet being provided or openly revealed, the Spirit could not be fully given, nor could His work be carried on otherwise than in a mystery. It was so carried on, however; every true member of the covenant was a partaker of the Spirit, because he stood in grace at the same time that he stood under the law. But his relation to the Spirit was of a more hidden and secret, to the law of a more ostensible and manifest, character. In the New Testament dispensation this relation is exactly reversed, although in each respect it still exists. The work of Christ, which furnishes the proper materials of the Spirit’s operations, having been accomplished, and Himself glorified, the Spirit is now fully and unreservedly given. Through the power of His grace, in connection with the word of the Gospel, the Divine kingdom avowedly purposes to effect its spiritual designs, and bring forth its fruits of righteousness to God. This, therefore, it is to which the believer now stands immediately and ostensibly related, as the agency through which he is to fulfil the high ends of his calling; while the law retires into the background, or should be known only as existing within, impressed in all its essential lines of truth and duty upon the tablet of the heart, and manifesting itself in the deeds of a righteous life. But whether the law or the Spirit stand more prominently forward, the end is the same—namely, righteousness. The only difference that exists, is as to the means of securing this end more outward in the one case, more inward in the other; yet in each a measure of both required, and one [[@Page:192]] and the same point aimed at. Hence the words of the Apostle: “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” i.e., both alike are for righteousness—this is the one great end which Christ and the law have equally in view. But in Christ it is secured in a far higher way than it could possibly be through the law, since He has not only perfected Himself as the Divine Head and Surety of His people in the righteousness which the law requires, but also endows them with the plentiful grace of His Spirit, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in them, walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

With these distinctions clearly perceived, we shall easily understand what is said in the New Testament Scriptures of the difference, in a practical point of view, as to the condition of believers under the past and the present dispensations respectively. This is spoken of as a state of comparative freedom, that of a certain species of restraint or bondage—not the bondage, indeed, of slaves and mercenaries, which belonged only to the carnal, as opposed to the believing portion of the Church—but the bondage of those who, though free-born children, are still in nonage, and must be kept under the restraint and discipline of an external law. This, however, could in no case be the whole of the agency with which the believer was plied, for then his yoke must have been literally the galling bondage of the slave. He must have had more or less the Spirit of life within, begetting and prompting him to do the things which the law outwardly enjoined—making the pulse of life in the heart beat in harmony with the rule of life prescribed in the law; so that, while he still felt as under tutors and governors, it was not as one needing to be “held in with bit and bridle,” but rather as one disposed readily and cheerfully to keep to the appointed course. This would be the case with him always the more, the more diligently he employed the measure of grace within his reach; and if in a spirit of faith he could indeed “lift the latch and force his way” onwards to the end of those things which were then established, he might even have become insensible to the bonds and trammels of his childhood-condition, and attained to the free and joyful spirit of the perfect man. So it unquestionably was with the Psalmist, and doubtless might have been [[@Page:193]] with all, if they had but used, as he did, the privileges granted them. For such, the law was not a mere outward yoke, nor in any proper sense a burden: it was “within their heart;” they delighted in its precepts, and meditated therein day and night; to listen to its instructions was sweeter to them than honey, and to obey its dictates was better than thousands of gold and silver.[13]

It is only, therefore, in a comparative sense, that we are to understand the passages in the New Testament Scripture formerly referred to; and in the same sense, also, that similar passages are to be interpreted in Old Testament Scripture,—such, for example, as Jer. 31:31-34: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt . . . but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour,” etc. (Comp. Ezek. 36:25-27, which differs only in particularizing the agency by which the better state of things was to be introduced—the larger gift of the Spirit.) “The discourse here cannot be of a new and more complete revelation of the law of God, for this is common to both economies: no jot or tittle of it can be lost under the New Testament, nor can a jot or tittle be added to it; God’s law rests on His nature, and this is eternally immutable.—(Mal. 3:6) Just as little can the discourse be of the introduction of an entirely new relation, which by no means has the former for its groundwork. In this respect Kimchi rightly remarks: ‘Non erit foederis novitas, sed stabilimentum ejus’ (not a change, but an establishing of the covenant). The covenant with Israel is eternal; Jehovah would not be Jehovah, if an absolutely new beginning could take place.—(Rom. 15:8) When, therefore, the subject of discourse is here the antithesis of an Old and New covenant, the former must designate, not the relation of God to Israel in itself, and in all its extent, but rather only the [[@Page:194]] former manifestation of this relation—that through which the Lord, until the time of the prophet, had made Himself known as the God of Israel.”[14] And in regard to the difference indicated by the prophet, as to the believer’s connection with the law under the two covenants, the learned author, expressing his concurrence in particular with Calvin and Buddeus, goes on to show that this also is not absolute, but only relative. He justly states that the idea of a purely outward giving of the law is inconceivable, as God would then have done for Israel nothing farther than He did for the traitor Judas, in whose conscience He proclaimed His holy law, without giving him any power to repent—that the terms in which the law is spoken of by the Psalmist, in the name of the Old Testament saints, shows it to have been in their experience no longer a law that worketh wrath, but a law in connection with the Spirit, whose commands are not grievous; and that the antithesis between the Old and the New state of things, though in itself but relative, was expressed in the absolute form, merely because the gift of the Old Testament appeared, when compared with the infinitely more important and richer blessing of the New, as so small, that it vanished out of sight.

But something else than that should also vanish from our sight. For if we enter as we should into these views, the idea of the law’s abrogation or abolition under the New Testament, in whatever form proposed, will be repudiated as equally dangerous and ungrounded. The law is in no proper sense abolished by the revelations of the Gospel; nor does the Apostle in any fair construction of his language say that it is. He merely says, that through grace we are not under it, and in a conjugal respect are dead to it. In a certain qualified sense, believers in Old Testament times might be said to have been married to it, or to have been under it; only, however, in a qualified sense, for God Himself—the God of grace as well as of law—was properly their husband (Jer. 31:32), and they stood under the covenant of grace before they came under the covenant of law. But though, even in that qualified sense, believers are not now under the law, or married to it, the righteousness required is as much binding upon their consciences, and expected at their hands, as [[@Page:195]] it ever was at any former period of the Church’s history. More so, indeed; for the very reason, as the Apostle tells us, why they are placed less directly under the law, and more under the Spirit, is, that the end of the law might be more certainly attained, and a richer harvest yielded of its fruits of righteousness. Therefore it is, that in the same epistle in which those expressions are used, conformity to the law’s requirements is still held out, and inculcated as the very perfection of Christian excellence.—(Rom. 13:8-10) For it is not as if these two, the law and the Spirit, were contending authorities, or forces drawing in two distinct and separate lines. On the contrary, they are essentially and thoroughly agreed—alike emanations of the unchanging holiness of Godhead—the one its outward form and character in which it was to appear, the other its inward spring and pulse of life. What the one teaches, the other wills—what the one requires, the other prompts and qualifies to perform; and as the law at first came as an hand maid to the previously existing covenant of grace, so does it still remain in the hand of the Spirit to aid Him, amid the workings of the flesh and the imperfections of grace, in carrying out the objects for which He condescends to dwell and act in the bosoms of men.

Hence appears the monstrous absurdity and error of Antinomianism, which proceeds on the supposition of the law and the Spirit being two distinct, possibly contending, authorities a doctrine not so much opposed to any particular portion of Scripture, as the common antithesis of all its revelations, and the subversion of all its principles. But let it once be understood that the law and the Spirit have but one end in view, and one path, in a sense, to reach it—that the motions of the Spirit within, invariably, and by the highest of all necessities, take the direction prescribed by the law without—let this be understood, and Antinomianism wants even the shadow of a ground to stand upon.—It is not merely the Antinomians, however, who contend for the abrogation of the law; the same thing is substantially done by many divines who belong to an entirely different class. For example, Archbishop Whately, in his Essay on the Abolition of the Law, maintains this position: “The simplest and clearest way then of stating the case, is to lay down, on the one hand, that the Mosaic [[@Page:196]] law was limited both to the nation of the Israelites, and to the period before the Gospel; but, on the other hand, that the natural principles of morality which, among other things, it inculcates, are, from their own character of universal obligation, and that Christians are bound to obey the moral commandments it contained, not because they are commandments of the Mosaic law, but because they are moral.” This view, which puts the decalogue on a footing with the laws of Solon or Mahomet, in so far as any obligation on the conscience is concerned, is that also maintained, and with a considerable show of learning supported, by Bialloblotzky, in his work De Abrogatione Legis. The form into which the learned author throws his statement is, that the nomothetical authority of the Mosaic law is abolished, but its didactical authority remains; in other words, it has no binding force as a law upon the conscience, but may still be profitably used for direction in the way of duty,—due allowance of course being made for all that belonged to it of temporary appointment and ceremonial observance, which is no longer even a matter of duty. His chief arguments in supporting this view are, that in some things, especially in regard to the Sabbath, marriage, the symbolical rites (for all are thrown, as we observed before, into one mass), Christ and His apostles have corrected the law, and that they oppose the authority of the Spirit to the external tyranny of the law (as if these were two contending masters; and we actually have the passage, “No man can serve two masters,” produced in proof of the argument, p. 63). Such views have been substantially met already; and we simply remark farther, that they necessarily open the widest door for Antinomians and Rationalists: for if, as possessors of the Spirit, we must first judge what part of the law is moral or didactic,—and even when we have ascertained this, still are permitted to hold that we are not connected with it as a matter of binding and authoritative obligation,—it is easy to see what slight convictions of sin will be felt, what loose notions of duty entertained, how feeble a barrier left against either the carnal or the fanatical spirit ridding itself of the plainest obligations. It is quite possible, no doubt, to produce unguarded statements, easily susceptible of an improper meaning, and partly, indeed, expressing such, from Luther’s works on the law. But his real views, when carefully and doctrinally, [[@Page:197]] not controversially expressed, were substantially correct, as will appear from a quotation to be given presently, or from Melancthon’s works, which Luther is well known to have held to be better expositions than his own of their doctrinal views. For example, after speaking (vol. i., p. 309) of the Mosaic law as not availing to justification, and in its civil and ceremonial parts done away, Melancthon adds: “But the moral law, since it is the wisdom of God and His eternal rule of righteousness, and has been revealed that man should be like God, cannot be abolished, but remains perpetually (Rom. 3:31, 8:4).”

The question, however, naturally arises, Of what use is the law to those who really are under the Spirit? We answer, it would be of none, if the work of spiritual renovation, which His grace is given to effect, were perfected in us. But since this is far from being the case—since imperfection still cleaves to the child of God, and the flesh, in a greater or less degree, still wars against the Spirit, the outward discipline of the law can never be safely dispensed with. Even St Paul was obliged to confess that he found the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and that though he was ever following after, he was conscious of not having yet attained to the full measure of grace and excellence in Christ. Therefore, for his own quickening and direction, as well as for that of others, he felt it needful to press the demands of law, and to look to the exceeding breadth of its requirements. Luther also, and his fellow-labourers, although their views were not always correct as to the relation in which Israel stood to the law, nor by any means clear regarding the precise nature of the change introduced by the Gospel, yet were sound enough on this point. Thus they say in one of their symbolical books: “Although the law was not made for the righteous (as the Apostle testifies, 1 Tim. 1:9), yet this is not to be understood as if the righteous might live without law; for the Divine law is written upon their hearts. The true and genuine meaning, therefore, of Paul’s words is, that the law cannot bring those who have been reconciled to God through Christ under its curse, and that its restraint cannot be irksome to the renewed, since they delight in the law of God after the inner man. . . . But believers are not completely and perfectly renewed in this life; and though their sins are covered by the absolutely perfect [[@Page:198]] obedience of Christ, so as not to be imputed to believers to their condemnation, and though the mortification of the old Adam and the renovation in the spirit of their mind has been begun by the Holy Spirit, yet the old Adam still remains in nature’s powers and affections,” etc.[15]

There are three different respects in which we still need the law of God, and which it will be enough briefly to indicate: 1. To keep us under grace, as the source of all our security and blessing. This we are ever apt, through the pride and self-confidence of the flesh, to forget, even though we have already in some measure known it. Therefore the law must be our schoolmaster, not only to bring us to Christ at the beginning of a Christian life, but also afterwards to keep us there, and force continually back upon us the conviction, that we must be in all respects the debtors of grace. For when we see what a spirituality and breadth is in the law of God, how it extends to the thoughts and affections of the heart as well as to our words and actions, and demands, in regard to all, the exercise of an unswerving devoted love, then we are made to feel that the law, if trusted in as a ground of confidence, must still work wrath, and that, convinced by it as transgressors, we must betake for all peace and consolation to the grace of Christ. Here alone, in His atonement, can we find satisfaction to our consciences; and here alone also, in the strengthening aid of His Spirit, the ability to do the things which the law requires. 2. The law, again, is needed to restrain and hold us back from those sins which we might otherwise be inclined to commit. It is true, that in one who is really a subject of grace, there can be no habitual inclination to live in sin; for he is God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus, created in Him unto good works. But the temptations of the world, and the devices of the spiritual adversary, may often be too much for any measure of grace he has already received, successfully to resist: he may want in certain circumstances the willing and faithful mind either to withstand evil or to prosecute as he should the path of righteousness; and therefore the law is still placed before him by the Spirit, with its stem prohibitions and awful threatenings to move with fear, whenever love fails to prompt and influence the heart. Thus the Apostle: “I am [[@Page:199]] determined to know nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified”—it is my delight, my very life, to preach the doctrines of His salvation; but if the flesh should recoil from the work, and render the spirit unwilling, “a dispensation is committed to me, yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel.” Thus the discipline of the law comes in to supply the imperfections of the Spirit, and curb the still remaining tendencies of sin. 3. And it is yet farther needed to present continually before the eye of the mind a clear representation of the righteousness which, through the grace of the Spirit, believers should be ever striving to attain. While that grace is still imperfect, they are necessarily in danger of entertaining low and defective views of duty; nay, in times of peculiar temptation or undue excitement, they might even mistake the motions of the flesh for the promptings of the Spirit, and under the guise of truth embrace the way of error. But the law stands before them, with its revelation of righteousness, as a faithful and resplendent mirror, in which they may behold, without any danger of delusion or mistake, the perfect image of that excellence which they should be ever yielding to God. “We are free we have the Spirit, and are not subject to bondage.” True, but free only to act as servants of Christ, and not to throw around you a cloak of maliciousness. Believers are free, not to introduce what they please into the service of God, for He is a jealous God, and will not allow His glory to be associated with the vain imaginations of men; they are free to worship Him only in spirit and in truth. Shall any one say he is free to give or withhold, as seems good to him, what may be needed to advance the cause of God in the world to employ or not for holy ends the means and opportunities he enjoys! How impossible! seeing that if he is really filled with the Spirit, the love of God must have been breathed into his soul, so as of necessity to make it his delight to do what he can for the Divine glory, and to engage in the services which bring him into nearest fellowship with Heaven.

Thus the freedom of the Spirit is a freedom only within the bounds and limits of the law; and the law itself must stand, lest the flesh, taking advantage of the weakness of the Spirit’s grace, should in its wantonness break forth into courses which are displeasing to the mind of God.

[[@Page:200]] So much for the law in the strict and proper sense,—the law of the ten commandments,—the freedom from which enjoyed by the Christian is not absolute, but relative only; just as the Israelites want of the Spirit was also of a simply relative description. But in regard to what is called the ceremonial law, the freedom is absolute; and to keep up the observance of its symbolical institutions and services after the new dispensation entered, was not only to retain a yoke that might be dispensed with, but also an incongruity to be avoided, and even a danger to be shunned. For, viewed simply as teaching ordinances, intended to represent and inculcate the great principles of truth and duty, they were superseded at the introduction of the Gospel by the appointment of other means, more suitable as instruments in the hand of the Spirit for ministering instruction to the minds of men. The change then brought into the divine administration was characterized throughout by a more immediate and direct handling of the things of God. They were now things no longer hid under a veil, but openly disclosed to the eye of the mind. And ordinances which were adapted to a state of the Church when neither the Spirit was fully given, nor the things of God were clearly revealed, could not possibly be such as were adapted to the Church of the New Testament. The grand ordinance here must be the free and open manifestation of the truth—written first in the word of inspiration, and thenceforth continually proclaimed anew by the preaching of the Gospel; and such symbolical institutions as might yet be needed, must be founded upon the clear revelations of this word not—like those of the former dispensation, spreading a veil over the truth, or affording only a dim shadow of better things to come. Hence the old ritual of service should have fallen into desuetude whenever the new state of things entered; and the tenacity with which the Judaizing Christians clung to it, was the indication of an imperfect enlightenment and a perverted taste. Had they known aright the new wine, they would straightway have forsaken the old. So long as they could get the kernel only through the shell, it was their duty to take the one for the sake of the other. But now, when the kernel itself was presented to them in naked simplicity, still to insist upon having the shell along with it, was the clear sign of a disordered [[@Page:201]] condition,—an undoubted proof that they had not yet come to the full knowledge and appreciation of Gospel truth, and were disposed to rest unduly in mere outward observances. The Apostle, therefore, on this ground alone, justly denounces such Judaizers as carnal,—in spiritual things acting the part of persons who, though of full age, have not put away childish things, but continue in a willing “bondage to the elements of the world.” This, however, was by no means the whole of the misapprehension which such conduct betrayed. For while those ordinances of the former dispensation were in one point of view means of instruction and grace, in another they were signs and acknowledgments of debt. Calling, as they did, continually for acts of atonement and cleansing, and yet presenting nothing that could satisfactorily purge the conscience, they were, even when rigorously performed, testimonies that the heavy reckoning for guilt was not yet properly met—bonds of obligation for the time relieved, but standing over to some future period for their full and adequate discharge. This discharge in full was given by Christ when He suffered on the cross, and brought in complete satisfaction for all the demands of the violated law. He is therefore said to have “blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” The charges of guilt and condemnation which that handwriting had been perpetually making against men as transgressors, were now laid in one mass upon the body of the crucified Redeemer, and with its death were for ever abolished. So that those ceremonies being, as Calvin justly terms them, “attestations of men’s guilt, and instruments witnessing their liability,” “Paul with good reason warned the Colossians how seriously they would relapse, if they allowed a yoke in that way to be imposed upon them. By so doing, they at the same time deprived themselves of all benefit from Christ, who, by His eternal sacrifice once offered, had abolished those daily sacrifices, which were indeed powerful to attest sin, but could do nothing to destroy it.”[16] It was in effect to say, that they did not regard the death of Christ as in itself a perfect satisfaction for the guilt of their sins, but required the purifications of the law to make it complete—at once dishonouring Christ, and [[@Page:202]] showing that they took the Old Testament ceremonies for something else than they really were.

It has sometimes been alleged, that in the case of the Jewish believers there was still a sort of propriety, or even of obligation, in continuing to observe the ceremonies of Moses—until, at least, the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, formally discharging them from all further attendance upon such services. But there is no real foundation for such an opinion. It is true that no express and authoritative injunction was given at first for the discontinuance of those services; but this arose simply out of accommodation to their religious prejudices, which might have received too great a shock, and among their unbelieving neighbours excited too outrageous an opposition, if the change had at once been introduced. But so far as obligation and duty were concerned, they should have required no explicit announcement on the subject different from what had already been given in the facts of Gospel history. When the veil was rent in twain, abolishing the distinction at the centre, all others of an outward kind of necessity gave way. When the great High Priest had fulfilled His work, no work remained to be done by any other priest. The Gospel of shadows was conclusively gone, the Gospel of realities come. And the compliances which the apostles generally, and Paul himself latterly, made (Acts 21) to humour the prejudices and silence the senseless clamours of the Jews, though necessary at first, were yet carried to an undue and dangerous length. They palpably failed, in Paul’s case, to accomplish the end in view; and, in the case of the Jewish Christians themselves, were attended with jealousies, self-righteous bigotry, growing feebleness, and ultimate decay. “Before Messiah’s coming, the ceremonies were as the swaddling bands in which He was wrapt; but after it, they resembled the linen clothes which He left in the grave. Christ was in the one, not in the other. And using them as the Galatians did, or as the Jews do at this day, they and their language are a lie; for they say He is still to come who is come already. They are now beggarly elements, having nothing of Christ, the true riches, in them.”[17]

FOOTNOTE

[1] Matt. 5:17-19.

[2] Jas. 1:25, 2:8-12.

[3] 1 Cor. 9:21.

[4] Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:14.

[5] Rom. 3:31.

[6] 1 Tim. 1:9.

[7] Rom. 7:6.

[8] Rom. 6:14.

[9] The work of Fraser on Sanctification, which has been less known in England than it should have been, is perfectly conclusive against Locke, Hammond, Whitby, and others, that the Apostle in Romans had in view the moral rather than the ceremonial law. It is impossible, indeed, that such a notion could ever have been entertained by such men except through strong doctrinal prejudices.

[10] Rom. 8:1; Acts 13:39; John. 5:24.

[11] It seems very strange, considering bow plain and explicit the Apostle’s meaning is, that the late Professor Lee of Cambridge should still say: “The main question, I think, here discussed (viz., in ch. 7) by the Apostle is, How is a man to be justified with God?” (Dissertations, i., sec. 10) Haldane, also, in his Commentary, maintains the same obviously untenable view. Fraser (Sanctification, on Rom. 7:4) justly remarks, that though the similitude of marriage used by the Apostle in ch. 7 “might be explained to show that the sinner cannot attain justification or any of its comfortable consequences by the law,” yet that it is another consequence of the marriage covenant and relation that he hath in his eye,” viz., “the bringing forth of fruit unto God; “in other words, the maintaining of such holy lives as constitute our sanctification.

[12] Hares, Guesses after Truth, ii., p. 3.

[13] See especially Ps. 1, 15, 24, 40, 119.

[14] Hengstenberg’s Christology on Jer. 31:31.

[15] De Abrog. Legis.. p. 72-73.

[16] Inst., B. 2., c. 7, § 17.

[17] Bell on Cov., p.140.

Chapter Third.—The Religious Truths and Principles Embodied in The Symbolical Institutions and Services of The Mosaic Dispensation, and Viewed in their Typical Reference to the Better Things to come.

Section First.—Introductory on The Question why Moses was instructed in The Wisdom of The Egyptians, and what Influence this might be expected to exercise on his Future Legislation.

[[@Page:203]] THE learning of Moses was briefly adverted to in an earlier part of our investigations.[1] But this is the proper place for a more formal discussion of it, when we are entering on the explanation of the Mosaic symbols of worship and service. That an acquaintance with Egyptian learning was advantageous to Moses, to the extent formerly stated, no one will be disposed to question. Whatever might be its peculiar character, it would at least serve the purpose of expanding and ripening the faculties of his mind, would render him acquainted with the general principles and methods of political government, would furnish him with an insight into the religious and moral system of the most intelligent and civilised nation of heathen antiquity, and so would not only increase his fitness, in an intellectual point of view, for holding the high commission that was to be entrusted to him, but would also lend to the commission itself, when bestowed, the recommendation which superior rank or learning ever yields, when devoted to a sacred use.

Such advantages, it is obvious, Moses might derive from [[@Page:204]] his Egyptian education, irrespective altogether of the precise quality of the wisdom with which he thus became acquainted. It is another question, how far he might be indebted to that wisdom itself, as an essential element in his preparation, or to what extent the things belonging to it might be allowed to mould and regulate the institutions which he was commissioned to impose on Israel. Scripture throws no direct light upon this question; it affords materials only for general inferences and probable conclusions. And yet the view we actually entertain on the subject cannot fail to exert a considerable influence on the spirit in which we investigate the whole Mosaic system, and give a distinctive colouring to our interpretations of many of its parts.

1. The opinion was undoubtedly very prevalent among the Christian fathers, that no small portion of the institutions of Moses were borrowed from those of Egypt, and were adopted as Divine ordinances only in accommodation to the low and carnal state of the Israelites, who had become inveterately attached to the manners of Egypt. With the view, it was supposed, of weaning them more easily from the errors and corruptions which had grown upon them there, the Lord indulged them with the retention of many of the customs of Egypt, though in themselves indifferent or even somewhat objectionable, and gave a place in His own worship to what they had hitherto seen associated with the service of idols. They rarely enter into particulars, and never, so far as we remember, formally discuss the grounds of their opinion; but very commonly think it enough to refer, in support of it, to Ezek. 20:25, where the Lord is said to have given Israel “statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” This passage is also much pressed by Spencer, and, indeed, is the main authority of a scriptural kind to which both he, and after him, Warburton (Div. Legation, B. iv., c. 6), appeal in confirmation of their general view of the Mosaic ritual. By an arbitrary interpretation of the passage referred to, they regard the decalogue as the statutes in themselves really and properly good, for breaking which in the wilderness, others namely, the ceremonial observances were imposed on them: “Because they had violated my firstsystem of laws,—the decalogue,—I added to them my second system, the ritual [[@Page:205]] law, very aptly characterized (when set in opposition to the moral law) by statutes that were not good, and by judgments whereby they should not live.”—(Warburton) A quite groundless distinction in the circumstances; for certainly they could least of all have lived by the moral law, which, as the Apostle testifies, brings the knowledge of sin, and the judgment of death; and through whatever channel the life they possessed might come, it could by no possibility come from such a source. Besides, Moses had got all the instruction regarding the tabernacle and its ordinances before the revolt with the golden calf took place; so that the tabernacle-worship went before this, and was no after-thought, resorted to in consequence of the revolt. But it is quite beside the purpose of the prophet to compare one part of the law with another: “it is impossible that he could, especially after his own declarations regarding the law, designate it by such terms; the laws not good, bringing death and destruction, are opposed to those of God; they are the heathen observances which were arbitrarily put in the room of the other.”—(Hävernick) So also Calvin, Vitringa, Obs. Sacrae, L. ii., c. 1, sec.17. Indeed, Jerome, though he hesitates as to the proper meaning, has correctly enough expressed it in these words: “Hoc est, dimisit eos cogitationibus, et desideriis suis, ut facerent quae non conveniunt.” Parallel is Ps. 81:12, “So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts, and they walked in their own counsels;” Acts 7:42, “He gave them up to worship the host of heaven;” Rom. 1:24; 2 Thess. 2:11.[2]

Spencer, supporting himself on the authority of the fathers, and by a distorted interpretation of one or two passages of [[@Page:206]] Scripture, has, with great learning and industry (in his work De Legibus Hebraeorum), endeavoured to make good the proposition, that the immediate and proper design of the Mosaic law was to abolish idolatry, and preserve the Israelites in the worship of the one true God; and that, for the better effecting of this purpose, the Lord introduced many heathenish, chiefly Egyptian, customs into His service, and so changed or rectified others, as to convert them into a bulwark against idolatry. He coupled with this, no doubt, a secondary design, “the mystic and typical reason,” as he calls it—that, namely, of adumbrating the better things of the Gospel. But this occupies such an inferior and subordinate place, and is occasionally spoken of in such disparaging terms, that one cannot avoid the conviction of his having held it in very small estimation. He even represents this mystical reference to higher things than those immediately concerned, as done partly in accommodation to the early bent given to the mind of Moses.[3] And of course, when he comes to particulars, it is only in regard to a few things of greater prominence, such as the tabernacle, the ark, and the more important institutions, that he can deem it advisable to search for any mystical meaning whatever. To go more minutely to work, he characterizes as a kind of “sporting with sacred things;” and declares his concurrence in a sentiment of Chrysostom, that “all such things were but venerable and illustrious memorials of Jewish ignorance and stupidity.”[4]

It is not so much, however, in this depreciation of the symbolical and typical import of the Mosaic ritual, that the work of Spencer was fitted to give a false impression of its real character and object, as in the connection he necessarily sought to establish, while endeavouring to prove his main proposition, between the institutions of Moses and the rites of heathenism. Though charged with a Divine commission, Moses appears, in point of fact, only as an improved Egyptian, and his whole religious system is nothing more than a refinement on the customs and polity of Egypt. Not a few of the rites introduced were useless (legibus et ritibus inutilibus, p. 26), some were viewed as only tolerable fooleries (quos ineptias norat esse tolerabiles, p. 640), and would never have found a place in the institutions of [[@Page:207]] Moses, but for the currency they had already obtained in Egypt, and the liking the Israelites had there acquired for them. But on such a view, it is impossible to conceive how to worship God according to the ritual of Moses could have been an acceptable service, and the very imposition of such a ritual in the name of God must have been a kind of pious fraud. “God,” to use the language of Bähr, “appears as a Jesuit, who makes use of bad means to accomplish a good end. Spencer, for example, considers sacrifice as an invention of religious barbarity—an evidence of superstitious views of the Divine nature. Now, when God by Moses not only confirmed for ever the offerings already in common use, but also extended and enlarged the sacrificial code, instead of thereby extirpating the mistaken views, He would really have sanctioned and most strongly enforced them. . . . Besides, the relation of Israel to the Egyptians, and that in particular of Moses, as represented in the Pentateuch at the time of the Exodus, would lead us to expect an intentional shunning of everything Egyptian, especially in religious matters, rather than an imitating and borrowing. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt is set forth as the special token of Divine love and power, as the greatest salvation wrought for Israel, as the peculiar pledge of the covenant with Jehovah; and a separate feast was devoted to the commemoration of this Divine goodness. It is unquestionable that there was here every inducement for Moses making the separation of Israel from Egypt as broad as possible. For this, however, it was indispensably necessary to brand everything properly Egyptian, and extirpate by all means the very remembrance of it. But by adopting the Egyptian ritual, Moses would have directly sanctioned what was Egyptian, and would have perpetuated the remembrance of the land of darkness and servitude.”[5]

Indeed, the objectionable character of Spencer’s views could scarcely be better exposed than in the words of Lord Bolingbroke, when railing in his usual style against the current [[@Page:208]] theology of his day: “In order to preserve the purity of His worship, God prescribes to them a multitude of rites and ceremonies, founded on the superstitions of Egypt, from which they were to be weaned, or in some analogy to them. They were never weaned entirely from all the superstitions; and the great merit of the law of Moses was teaching the people to adore one God, much as the idolatrous nations adored several. This may be called sanctifying pagan rites and ceremonies in theological language, but it is profaning the pure worship of God in the language of common sense.”[6]

But while Spencer’s views lay open to such formidable objections, and were opposed to the more serious theology of the age, they gradually made way both in this country and on the Continent; and the influence of his work may be traced through a very large portion of the theological literature connected with the Old Testament down even to a recent period. The work owed this extraordinary success to the immense pains that had been bestowed upon it its exact method, comprehensive plan, and lucid expression—and also to the great skill which the author displayed in availing himself of all the learning then accessible upon the subject, and bringing it to bear upon the general argument. His views were eagerly embraced on the Continent by Le Clerc, and (in his work on the Pentateuch) pushed to consequences from which Spencer himself would have shrunk. Then Michaelis came with his masculine intellect, his stores of oriental learning, but low and worldly sense, discovering so many sanatory, medicinal, political, and, in short, all kinds of [[@Page:209]] reasons but moral and religious ones, for the laws and institutions of Moses, that if the Jewish lawgiver was in some measure vindicated from the charge of accommodating his policy to heathenish notions and customs, it was only to establish for him the equally questionable reputation of a well-skilled Egyptian sage, or an accomplished worldly legislator. In this case, as well as in the other, it was impossible to avoid the conviction, that it was somewhat out of character to claim for Moses a properly divine commission, and quite incredible that signs and wonders should have been wrought by Heaven to confirm and establish it. After such pioneers, the way was open for the subtle explanations of rationalism, and the rude assaults of avowed infidelity.[7]

In Britain the influence of Spencer’s work has also been very marked, though, from the character of the national mind, and other counteracting influences, the results were not so directly and extensively pernicious. The more learned works that have since issued from the press, connected with the interpretation of the Books of Moses, have for the most part borne no unequivocal indications of the weight of Spencer’s name; while the better convictions and the more practical aim of the authors, generally kept them from embracing his views in all their grossness, and carrying them out to their legitimate conclusions. Even Warburton, who espouses in its full extent Spencer’s view regarding the primary and immediate design of the Mosaic institutions, as being intended to “preserve the doctrine of the unity by means of institutions partly in compliance to their Egyptian prejudices, and partly in opposition to those and the like superstitions,”[8] yet gives a decidedly higher place to the typical bearing of the Mosaic ritual, and comes much nearer the truth in representing both its religious use under the Old Testament dispensation, and its prospective reference to the New.[9] Such writers as Lowman[10] and Shaw[11] gave only a [[@Page:210]] partial and reluctant assent to some of Spencer’s positions; and chiefly, it would seem, because they did not see how to dispose of his proofs and authorities. The latter, in particular, though he afterwards substantially grants what Spencer contended for, yet expresses his dissatisfaction with the general aim of Spencer’s work, by saying, that “upon the whole he was still apt to imagine, that however it might have been one part of the Divine purpose to guard Israel against a corruption from the Egyptian idolatry, by the institution of the Mosaic economy, this was not the principal design of it.” It would have been strange, indeed, if such had been its principal design. And strange it certainly was, that men, not to say of penetration and learning, but with their eyes open, could ever have imagined that it was so. For what do we not see, when we direct our view to the latter days of the Jewish commonwealth? We see this end most completely attained. A people never existed that were more firmly established in the doctrine of the unity, and more thoroughly alienated from the superstitions of heathenism; and yet never were a people less intelligently and properly acquainted with the true knowledge of God, and more hostile to the claims of Heaven. So that, in adopting the hypothesis in question, one must be prepared to maintain the monstrous proposition, that the principal and primary design of that religious economy might have been accomplished, while still the persons subject to it were neither true worshippers of the living God, nor fitted to enter into the kingdom of His Son.

The same considerations hold in regard to the other reason commonly assigned by this class of writers for the rites of Judaism—the separation of the people from the other nations of the earth. Indeed, from the very nature of things, that could not have been more than an incidental and temporary end. The covenant, out of which all Judaism grew, containing the promise that in the seed of Abraham all the families of the earth should be blessed, it could never be the direct intention and design of the ordinances connected with it, to place them in formal antagonism to other nations. This effect was no farther to have been produced than by the Israelites becoming too holy for intercourse with their Gentile neighbours. In so far as this distinction did not exist, both were virtually alike: the Israelites [[@Page:211]] also were uncircumcised, virtually heathen; and the circum stance of their being placed under such sanctifying ordinances, was chiefly designed to have a salutary influence on the surrounding nations, and induce them to seek for light and blessing from Israel. Hence, Deut. 32:43, “Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people;” and Isa. 56:7, “Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.”

2. A widely different, and in many respects entirely opposite, view of the institutions of Moses, has also been maintained. Its chief expounder and advocate, as opposed to Spencer, was Witsius, whose AEgyptiaca was published with the express design of meeting the arguments and counteracting the influence of the work of Spencer.[12] In this production, Witsius admits at the outset that there is a striking similarity between the rites of the Mosaic law and those of other ancient nations, in particular of the Egyptians; and he even quotes with approbation a passage from Kircher, in which this similarity is asserted to have been so manifest, that “either the Egyptians must have Hebraized, or the Hebrews must have Egyptized.” Nor does he think it improbable that this may have been the reason why the Egyptian and Jewish rites were so often classed together at Home, and enactments made for restraining them as alike pernicious.[13]But he contends, at the same time, that some of the things in which this resemblance stood were not peculiar to the Egyptians, but common to them with other nations of heathen antiquity; and especially, that in so far as there might be any [[@Page:212]] borrowing in the case, it was more likely the Egyptians borrowed from the Hebrews than the Hebrews from the Egyptians. His positions were generally acquiesced in by the more orthodox and evangelical divines of Britain; and it is a somewhat singular fact, that the commencement of a false theology in regard to the Old Testament had its rise in this country, and this country itself derived the chief corrective against the evil from abroad. In two important respects, however, the argument of Witsius was not satisfactory, and failed to provide a sufficient antidote to the work of Spencer. 1. He failed in proving, or even in rendering it probable, that the Egyptians borrowed from the Israelites the rites and ceremonies in which the customs of the two nations resembled each other. Warburton is quite successful here in meeting the positions of Witsius and his followers, both on account of the unquestionable antiquity of the Egyptian institutions, and the want of any such connection between the two nations as to render a borrowing on the part of the Egyptians from the Israelites in the least degree likely. And the more recent investigations which have been made into the history and condition of ancient Egypt, and the better knowledge that has been obtained of its religious rites and ceremonies, have given such confirmation to the views of Warburton in this respect, that they may now be regarded as conclusively established. It is not only against probability, but we may even say against the well-authenticated facts of history, to allege that the Egyptians had to any extent borrowed from the Israelites. 2. If in this respect the argument of Witsius was erroneous, in another it was defective; it made no attempt to supply what had partly occasioned the work of Spencer, and certainly contributed much to its success—a more solid and better grounded system of typology. This still remained as arbitrary and capricious in its expositions of Old Testament events and institutions as it had been before like a nose of wax, as Spencer somewhere sneeringly, though not without reason, terms it, which might be bent any way one pleased. Orthodox divines should, as Hengstenberg remarks, “have directed all their powers to a fundamental and profitable investigation into the symbolical and typical meaning of the ceremonial institutions.”[14] But not having done [[@Page:213]] this, though they succeeded in weakening some of Spencer’s statements, and proving the connection between the Jewish and Egyptian customs to be less in certain cases than he imagined, yet his system, as a whole, had the advantage of an apparently settled and consistent groundwork, while theirs seemed to swim only in doubt and uncertainty.

3. In recent times, considerable advances have been made toward the supplying of this deficiency on the part of Witsius and his followers. Much praise is due especially to Bähr, for having laid the foundation of a more profound and systematic explanation of the symbols of the Mosaic dispensation, although, from some radical defects in his doctrinal views, the meaning he brings out is often far from being satisfactory. On the particular point now under consideration, he substantially agrees with Witsius, holding the institutions of Moses to have been in no respect derived from Egypt; but differing so far, that he conceives the Egyptians to have been as little indebted to the Israelites, as the Israelites to the Egyptians. He maintains, that whatever similarity existed between their respective institutions, arose from the necessity of employing like symbols to express like ideas, which rendered a certain degree of similarity in all symbolical religions unavoidable. “Even if we should grant,” he says, “a direct borrowing in particular cases, why should not the lawgiver have adopted that which appeared formally suitable to him? The natural and the sensible is by no means in itself heathenish, and the sensible things of which the heathens availed themselves, to represent religious ideas, did not become in the least heathenish from having been applied to such a use. The main inquiry still is, what was indicated by these signs, and that not merely in the particulars, but pre-eminently in their combination into one entire system. Besides, no case is known to us, in which any such borrowing can with certainty be proved.”[15] “The investigations,” he again says, “recently prosecuted in such a variety of ways into the religions of the eastern nations show, that what was formerly regarded as peculiarly Egyptian in the religion of Moses, is also to be found among other nations of the East, especially amongst the Indians, and yet nobody would maintain that Moses borrowed his ceremonial institutions from India.”[16] [[@Page:214]] Unquestionably not; but there may still be sufficient ground for holding that, without travelling to India to see what was there, he took what suited his purpose near at hand. Besides, Hengstenberg, in his Egypt and the Books of Moses, has endeavoured to prove and in some cases we think has successfully proved—that there are distinct traces to be found in the Mosaic legislation of Egyptian usages, and that Bähr is not borne out by his authorities in alleging the same usages to have existed elsewhere. We are disposed, therefore, to regard Bähr’s position as somewhat extreme; and on the whole subject of the Egyptian education of Moses, and the influence this might warrantably be supposed to exert upon the institutions he was afterwards honoured to introduce,—a subject not formally discussed by either of these authors,—we submit the following propositions, as at once grounded in reason, and borne out by the analogy of the Divine procedure.

(1.) It is, in the first instance, to be held as a sacred principle, that whatever might be the acquaintance Moses possessed with the customs and learning of Egypt, this could in no case be the direct and formal reason of his imposing anything as an obligation on the Israelites. For the whole and every part of his work he had a commission from above; and nothing was admitted into his institutions which did not first approve itself to Divine wisdom, and carry with it the sanction of Divine authority. “When the Lord was going to found a new commonwealth, as it was really new, He wished it also to appear such to the Israelites. Hence its form or appearance, not as fabricated from the rubbish of Canaanite or Egyptian superstitions, but as let down from heaven, was first shown to Moses on the sacred mount, that everything in Israel might be ordered and settled after that pattern. Nor did He wish liberty to be granted to the people, to determine by their own judgment even the smallest points in religion. He determined all things Himself, even to the minutest circumstances; so that, on pain of instant death, they were for bidden either to omit or to change anything. Thus, it became the majesty of the supreme God to subdue His people to Himself, not by the wiles of a tortuous and crooked policy, but by a royal path—the simple exercise of His own authority; and so to accustom them from the first to lay aside all carnal considerations, [[@Page:215]] and to take the will alone of their King and Lord as their common rule in all things.”[17]The passage in Deut. 12:30-32 is alone sufficient to establish the truth of this: “Take heed that thou inquire not after their gods (viz., of the nations of Canaan), saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord which He hateth have they done unto their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.”

That, in point of fact, there was a marked difference between the religious customs and sacrificial system of the Israelites and those of other nations, sufficient to stamp theirs as peculiarly their own, even heathen writers have in the strongest terms affirmed.[18] That it would be so, was implied in the declaration of Moses to Pharaoh, when he insisted upon being allowed to leave the land of Egypt, lest “they should sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians.” In whatever respects this might be the case,—whether in the kind of victims offered, or in the manner of offering them,—the statement at least indicates a strong contrariety between the worship to be instituted among them, and that already established among the Egyptians. And in the further statement of Moses, “We shall sacrifice to the Lord our God as He shall command us” (Ex. 8:27), he grounds their entire worship, whether it might in some respects resemble or differ from that of the Egyptians, on the sole and absolute authority of God.

(2.) But as the laws and institutions which God prescribes to His people in any particular age, must be wisely adapted to the times and circumstances in which they live, so it is impossible but that the fact of the lawgiver of the Jewish people having been instructed in all the wisdom of the most civilised nation of antiquity, must have to some extent modified both the civil and religious polity of which he was instrumentally the author. No man legislates in the abstract: there must be in every code of laws an adaptation to the existing state and aspect [[@Page:216]] of society; and this always the more, the higher the skill and wisdom of the legislator. Moses, it must be remembered, did not stand alone in his connection with what was counted wise and polished among the Egyptians; he only possessed in a more eminent degree what belonged also in some degree to his brethren. And that the people for whom he was to legislate had grown up in a civilised country and an artificial state of society, familiar, at least, with the results of Egyptian learning, if but little initiated into the learning itself, naturally called for a corresponding advancement in the whole structure of his religious polity; for what was needed to develop and express either the civil or the religious life of a people so reared, would in many respects differ from what might have suited a rude and uncultivated horde. So that a certain regard to the state of things in Egypt was absolutely necessary in the Hebrew polity, if it was to possess a suitable adaptation to the real progress of society in the arts and manners of civilised life. To instance only in one particular—the knowledge of the art of writing must alone have exercised a most material influence on the code of laws prescribed to this new people. Where such an art is unknown, the laws must necessarily be few, the institutions natural and simple, and the degree of instruction connected with them of the most elementary nature—such as oral tradition might be sufficient to preserve, or the verses of some popular bards to teach. But if, on the other hand, the legislation is for a people among whom writing is known and familiarly used, it will naturally embrace a much wider range, and branch itself out into a far greater variety of particulars. Nor can we doubt that, for this reason among others, the Israelites were associated with the manners of Egypt, and Moses was from his youth instructed in all its learning. For, whatever mystery hangs over the first invention of letters, there can no longer be any doubt that Egypt was the country where the art of writing was first brought into general practice, and that at a period long prior to the birth of Moses. But, without an intimate and familiar acquaintance with this art, Moses could not have delivered such a system of laws as constituted the framework of his dispensation—which, from their multiplicity, it had been impossible to have accurately preserved, and from their prevailing [[@Page:217]] character, as opposed to the corrupt tendencies of the people, the people themselves were but too willing to forget. It was therefore necessary that they should all be written, and that what was pre-eminently the law should even be engraved, for the sake of greater durability, upon tables of stone. All this implies a certain amount of learning on the part of the lawgiver, as requisite to fit him for being instrumentally the author of such a dispensation, and a certain influence necessarily exerted by his learning on his legislation. It implies also a considerable degree of civilisation on the part of the people, whose circumstances were such as to admit of and call for such a legislator.[19]

(3.) We can very easily, however, advance a step farther, and [[@Page:218]] perceive how a still more direct and intimate connection might in some respects be legitimately, and even advantageously, established, between the state of matters in Egypt, and that introduced by Moses among the Israelites. In things, for example, required for the maintenance of a due order and discipline among the people, or for the becoming support of the ministers and ordinances of religion,—things which human nature is disposed, if not altogether to shun, at least improperly to curtail and limit,—it might have been the part of the highest wisdom to adopt substantially the arrangements which already existed in Egypt; for as these must, from their very nature, have imposed a species of burden upon the Israelites, the thought that the same had been borne even by the depraved and idolatrous [[@Page:219]] people from whom they were now separated, would the more easily reconcile them to its obligations. This is a principle which we find recognised and acted on in Gospel times. There must be self-denial, and a readiness to undergo labour and fatigue, in the Christian; and this the Apostle enforces by a reference to the toils of the husbandman, the hardships of the soldier, and even the painstaking laborious diligence of the combatant in the Grecian games.—(2 Tim. 2:3-6; 1 Cor. 9:24) There must be a decent maintenance provided for those who devote their time and talents to the spiritual work of the ministry; and the reasonableness and propriety of this, he in part grounds on what was usually done amongst men in the commonest occupations of life, as well as the custom, prevalent alike among Jews and Gentiles, for those who ministered at the altar to live of the altar.—(1 Cor. 9:7-14, 10:21) It was absolutely necessary, however distasteful it might be to men of corrupt minds, that proper means should be employed in the Church for the preservation of order, and the enforcement of a wholesome discipline; and the state of things among the Gentiles is appealed to as in itself constituting a call to attend to this, sufficient even to shame the churches into its observance.—(1 Cor. 5, 11:1-16) Not only so, but the officers appointed in the Christian Church to take charge of its internal administration, and preside over its worship and discipline, it is well known, were derived, even to their very names, from those of the Jewish synagogue, which was not immediately of Divine origin, but gradually arose out of the exigencies of the times: the Holy Spirit choosing, in this respect, to make use of what was known and familiar to the minds of the disciples, rather than to invent an entirely new order of things.[20]

We should not, therefore, be surprised to find the application [[@Page:220]] of this principle in the Mosaic dispensation to find that some things there, especially of the kind supposed, bore a substantial conformity to those of Egypt. The officers, or shoterim, mentioned in Deut. 20, were evidently of this class. And such also were some of the arrangements respecting the apportionment of the land, and the support ministered from its produce to those who were regarded more especially as the representatives of God. In these respects there was the closest resemblance between the Egyptian and Jewish polities, and in the points in which they agreed they differed from all the other nations of antiquity with which we are acquainted. It is an ascertained fact, confirmed by the reports of the Greek historians, that the king was regarded as sole proprietor of the land in Egypt, with the exception of what belonged to the priests, and that the cultivators were properly fanners under the king. Diodorus, indeed (L. i. 73), represents the military caste as having also a share in the land; and Wilkinson (vol. i., p. 263) says, that kings, priests, and the military order, these, but these only, appear to have been landowners. Herodotus, however, explains this apparent contradiction in regard to the military order, by stating (B. 2., sec. 141) that their land properly belonged to the king; that they differed from the common cultivators only in holding it free of rent, and in lieu of wages; that hence, while it had been given them by one king, it had been taken away by another. He also mentions, that not only had the priests property in land connected with the temples in which they served, but also that they had allowances furnished them out of the public or royal treasures, and along with the soldiers received a salary from the king (ii. 37, 168). These are very striking peculiarities, and, as Hengstenberg justly remarks,[21] imply, at least in regard to the king’s proprietorship in the land, a historical fact through which it was brought about. We have such a fact in the history of Joseph (Gen. 47), when he bought the land for Pharaoh, but rented it out again to the people, on condition of their paying a fifth of the produce, with the exception, however, of the land of the priests, whose land Pharaoh had no opportunity indeed of purchasing, because they had a stated allowance from his stores.

[[@Page:221]] It is perhaps not too much to say, that one of the reasons why this singular state of things was introduced into Egypt by the instrumentality of Joseph, was, that a similar arrangement in regard to the land of Canaan might the more readily be gone into on the part of the Israelites. The similarity is too striking to have been the result of anything but an intentional copying from the Egyptian constitution. For in the Jewish common wealth God is represented as King, to whom the whole land belonged, and the people were as tenants under Him—obliged also, by the tenure on which they held it, to yield two-tenths, or a fifth, of the yearly produce unto God, who again provided out of this fifth for the support of the priests and Levites, the widow and the orphan, His peculiar representatives.[22] This large contribution from the regular increase of the land was necessary for the proper administration of Divine ordinances, and the beneficent support of those who, according to the plan adopted, had no other resources to trust to for their comfortable maintenance. But it implied too entire a dependence upon God, and exacted too much at their hands, to meet with a ready compliance. And it was not only compatible, but we should rather say in perfect accordance with the highest wisdom, to adopt an arrangement for securing it, which was thus grounded in the history and constitution of Egypt, rather than to contrive one altogether new: for it thus came to them, on its first proposal, recommended and sanctioned by ancient usage. And the thought was obvious, that if the citizens even of a heathen empire, in consideration of a great act of kindness in the time of famine, gave so much to their earthly sovereign, and held so dependently of him, it was meet that they should willingly yield the same to the God who had redeemed them, and freely bestowed upon them everything they possessed.

In these, and probably some other matters of a similar kind, we can easily understand how the Egyptian learning of Moses, without the slightest derogation to his Divine commission, might be turned to valuable account in executing the work given him to do. Nor have we any reason to suppose that the Divine direction and counsel imparted to him superseded the light he [[@Page:222]] had obtained, or the benefit he had derived by his opportunities of becoming acquainted with the internal affairs of Egypt.

(4.) But there is a still farther point of connection between the Egyptian learning of Moses, coupled with the Egyptian training of the people, and what might justly be expected in the institutions under which they were to be placed, and one still more directly bearing on the religious aspect of the dispensation. For the handwriting of ordinances brought in by Moses was predominantly of a symbolical nature. But a symbol is a kind of language, and can no more than ordinary speech be framed arbitrarily; it must grow up and form itself out of the elements which are furnished by the field of nature or art, and be gathered from it by daily observation and experience. The language which we use as the common vehicle of our thoughts, and which forms the medium of our most hallowed intercourse with heaven, is constructed from the world of sin and sorrow around us, and, if viewed as to its origin, savours of things common and unclean. But in its use simply as a vehicle of thought or a medium of intercourse, it is not the less fitted to utter the sentiments of our heart, and convey even our loftiest aspirations to heaven. Why should it be thought to have been otherwise with the language of symbol? This too must have its foundation to a great extent in nature and custom, in observation and experience; for as it is addressed to the eye, it must, to be intelligible, employ the signs which, by previous use, the eye is able to read and understand. Plow should I imagine that white, as a symbol, represents purity, or crimson guilt, unless something in my past history or observation had taught me to regard the one as a fit emblem of the other? It would not in the least mar the natural import of the symbol, or destroy its aptitude to express, even on the most solemn occasions, the idea with which it has become associated in my mind, if I should have learned its meaning amid employments not properly sacred, or the practices of a forbidden superstition. No matter how acquired, the bond of connection exists in my mind between the external symbol and the spiritual idea; and to reject its religious use because I may have seen it abused to purposes of superstition, would not be more reasonable than to have proscribed every epithet in the language of [[@Page:223]] Greece or Rome, which had been anyhow connected with the worship and service of idolatry.

Now, it so happened in the providence of God, that the children of Israel were brought into contact with the religious rites and usages of a people deeply imbued, no doubt, with a spirit of depravity and superstition, but abounding, at the same time, with symbolical arts and ordinances. And it was in the nature of things impossible that another religion abounding with the same could be framed, without adopting to a large extent the signs with which, from the accident of their position, they had become familiar. The religion introduced might differ—in point of fact, it did differ—from that already established, as far as light from darkness, in regard to the spirit they respectively breathed and the great ends they aimed at. But being alike symbolical, the one must avail itself of the signs which the other had already seized upon as fitted to express to the eye certain ideas. This had become, so to speak, the current language, which might to some extent be modified and improved, but could not be arbitrarily set aside. And as such language consists for the most part of a figurative use of the sensible things of nature, the assertion of Bähr is undoubtedly correct, that a very large proportion of the symbols so employed must be common to all religions of a like nature. Yet as each nation also has its peculiarities of thought, of custom, of scenery, of art and commerce, it can scarcely fail to have some corresponding peculiarities of symbolical expression. And it should by no means surprise us it is rather in accordance with just and rational expectation, if, since the Egyptians were in various respects so peculiar a people, and the Israelites in general, and Moses in particular, had been brought into such close and intimate connection with their entire system, the symbols of the Jewish worship should in some points bear a resemblance to those of Egypt, which cannot be traced in those of any other nation of heathen antiquity.

Such in reality is the case, as will afterwards appear; and we perceive in it a mark, not of suspicion, but of credibility and truth. It bears somewhat of the same relation to the authenticity of the Books of Moses, and the original genuineness of the revelation contained in them, that the language of [[@Page:224]] the New Testament Scripture, the peculiar type of the period to which it belonged, does in reference to the truths and statements contained in them. Though certain critics, of more zeal than discretion, have thought it would be a great achievement for the literature of the New Testament, if they could establish its claim to be ranked in point of purity with the best of the Greek classics, no individual of sound judgment will dispute, that if they had succeeded in this, the loss would have been immensely greater than the gain; that one most important proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament record would have perished, and that the language itself would have become less pliant and expressive as a medium for communicating the spiritual ideas of the Gospel. In like manner, it is no discredit to the religion of Moses, that its symbols can so generally be identified with those currently employed at the period when it arose; and the peculiar resemblance borne by some of them to the customs and usages of Egypt, is like a stamp of veritableness impressed upon its very structure, testifying of its having originated in the time and circumstances mentioned in the original record. Nor can we fail to see in this the marvellous wisdom of the Divine working, in connection with the history of the undertaking of Moses, that while he was to be commissioned to set up a symbolical religion among the Israelites, the reverse in all its great features of that prevalent in Egypt, he should yet have been thoroughly qualified by his original training to serve himself of whatever suitable materials were furnished by the land of his birth. These were in a sense part of the spoils taken from the enemy, out of which the tabernacle of the wilderness was reared—though still all things there were made after the Divine pattern shown to Moses in the mount; and in the truths it symbolized, and the purposes for which it was erected, it was an embodiment, not of the things pertaining to a corrupt nature-worship, but of those which reveal the character of a righteous God, and the duty of service which His redeemed owe to Him.

It is not certainly for the purpose of finding any continuation in a theological point of view, to the argument maintained in the preceding pages, but only to show the foundation in nature, or the scientific basis which it also has to rest upon, that [[@Page:225]] we produce the following quotation from C. O. Müller. The quotation is farther valuable, as it exhibits the view of a profound thinker, and one who has made himself intimately conversant with the thoughts and customs of remote antiquity, in regard to the meaning treasured up in the symbols of ancient worship, and the aptitude of the people to understand them. It is possible, that in the work from which we give the extract he carries his views to an extreme, as we certainly think he does, in often making too much of particular transactions, and also in making the instruction by myths and symbols not only independent of, but in some sort inconsistent with, direct instruction in doctrine. The general soundness, however, of his view regarding the significance of those ancient forms of instruction, especially of symbol, there are few men of learning or judgment who will now be disposed to call in question. “That this connection of the idea with the sign when it took place, was natural and necessary to the ancient world; that it occurred in voluntarily; and that the essence of the symbol consists in this supposed real connection of the sign with the thing signified, I here assume. Now, symbols in this sense are evidently coeval with the human race; they result from the union of the soul with the body in man; nature has implanted the feeling for them in the human heart. How is it that we understand what the endless diversities of human expression and gesture signify? How comes it, that every physiognomy expresses to us spiritual peculiarities, without any consciousness on our part of the cause? Here experience alone cannot be our guide; for without having ever seen a countenance like that of Jupiter Olympus, we should yet, when we saw it, immediately understand its features. An earlier race of mankind, who lived still more in sensible impressions, must have had a still stronger feeling for them. It may be said that all nature wore to them a physiognomical aspect. Now, the worship which represented the feelings of the Divine in visible external actions, was in its nature thoroughly symbolical. No one can seriously doubt that prostration at prayer is a symbolic act; for corporeal abasement very evidently denotes spiritual subordination: so evidently, that language cannot even describe the spiritual, except by means of a material relation. But it is [[@Page:226]] equally certain that sacrifice also is symbolical; for bow would the feeling of acknowledgment, that it is a God who supplies us with food and drink, display itself in action, but by withdrawing a portion of them from the use of man, and setting it apart in honour of the Deity? But precisely because the symbolical has its essence in the idea of an actual connection between the sign and the thing signified, was an inlet left for the superstitious error, that something palatable was really offered to the gods—that they tasted it. But it will scarcely do to derive the usage from this superstition; in other words, to assign the intention of raising a savoury steam as the original foundation of all sacrifice. It would then be necessary to suppose, that at the ceremony of libation the wine was poured on the earth, in order that the gods might lick it up! I have here only brought into view one side of the idea, which forms the basis of sacrifice, and which the other, certainly not less ancient, always accompanied, namely, the idea of atonement by sacrifice; which was from the earliest times expressed in numberless usages and legends, and which could only spring from the strongest and most intense religious feeling: ‘We are deserving of death; we offer as a substitute the blood of the animal.’”[23]—He states a little further on, that we must not always presuppose that a particular symbol corresponds exactly to a particular idea, such as we may be accustomed to conceive of it; that the symbols will partly, indeed, remain the same as long as external nature continues unchanged, but that their signification will vary with the different national modes of intuition and other circum stances; so that a moral and religious economy, like that of Judaism, might be engrafted on the nature-worship of Egypt,—meaning thereby, we suppose, that while many of the symbols were retained, a new and higher meaning would be imparted to them.[24]

Having given the sentiments of one high authority, bearing on the external resemblance in some points between Judaism and the religions of heathen antiquity, we shall give the sentiments of another as to the radical difference in spirit and character which distinguished the true from the false, an authority [[@Page:227]] whose defective views on some vital points of doctrine only render his opinion here the less liable to suspicion. “Heathenism,” says Bähr, “as is now no longer disputed, was in all its parts a nature-religion; that is, the deification of nature in its entire compass. That mode of contemplation which was wont to perceive the ideal in the real, proceeded in heathenism a step farther; it saw in the world and nature not merely a manifestation of Godhead, but the very essence and being of nature were regarded in it as identical with the essence and being of Godhead, and as such thrown together: the ultimate foundation of all heathenism is pantheism. Hence the idea of the oneness of the Divine Being was not absolutely lost; but this oneness was not at all that of a personal existence, possessing self-consciousness and self-determination, but an impersonal One, the great It,a neuter abstract, the product of mere speculation, which is at once everything and nothing. Wherever the Deity appeared as a person, it ceased to be one, and resolved itself into an infinite multiplicity. But all these gods were mere personifications of the different powers of nature. From a religion which was so physical in its fundamental character, there could only be developed an ethics which should bear the hue and form of the physical. Above all that is moral rose natural necessity fate, to which gods and men were alike subject; the highest moral aim for man was to yield an absolute submission to this necessity, and generally to transfuse himself into nature as being identified with Deity, to represent in himself its life, and especially that characteristic of it, perfect harmony, conformity to law and rule.—The Mosaic religion, on the other hand, has for its first principle the oneness and absolute spirituality of God. The Godhead is no neuter abstract, no It, but I; Jehovah is altogether a personal God. The whole world, with everything it contains, is His work, the offspring of His own free act, His creation. Viewed as by itself, this world is nothing; He alone is—absolute being. He is in it, indeed, but not as property one with it; He is infinitely above it, and can clothe Himself with it as with a garment, or fold it up and lay it aside as He pleases. Now this God, who reveals and manifests Himself through all creation, in carrying into execution His purpose to save and bless all the families of the earth, revealed and [[@Page:228]] manifested Himself in an especial manner to one race and people. The centre of this revelation is the word which He spoke to Israel; but this word is His law, the expression of His perfect holy will. The essential character, therefore, of the special revelation of God is holiness. Its substance is, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” So that the Mosaic religion is throughout ethical; it always addresses itself to the will of man, and deals with him as a moral being. Everything that God did for Israel, in the manifestations He gave of Himself, aims at this as its final end, that Israel should sanctify the name of Jehovah, and thereby be himself sanctified.”[25]

There can be no doubt that this view of the being and character of God, unfolded in the books of Moses, entered as a pervading element into the religion of the Old Covenant, and gave a tone altogether peculiar to everything connected with it. Even where the form of Egyptian laws and institutions was retained, these became informed with another spirit, and directed to a nobler aim. Religious worship itself assumed a new character; it ceased to be, as in heathenism, an abject prostration of spirit before powers known only as working in nature, and subject to it,—powers that might be worshipped with cringing homage or dread, but could not be properly loved or adored,—and became a free and elevated communion with the Great Parent of the universe, Himself the lofty ideal of all that is pure and good. From his relation to such a Being, each individual was raised to a higher sphere of life and action. It was a kind of sacrilege now to view him as the simple property of his fellow-men, the creature of circumstances, or the tool of arbitrary sway; he had become the subject and servant of Jehovah, in whose covenant he stood, and whose image he bore. All the relations, too, which he filled,—domestic, social, and public, were brought under the influence of the same hallowed and elevated spirit; and the object he was called to realize in the midst of them was, not a mere conformity to external order or hereditary custom,—the common aim of heathenism,—but the cultivation, the exercise, of that moral excellence and purity which was seen in the character and law of his God.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Vul. 2., Chap. I., s. 2.

[2] The references to the fathers may be found in Spencer, De Leg. Hebr. 1, c. 1. Deyling has an acute dissertation on this passage (Obs. Sac., P. ii., ch. 23), in which he very successfully refutes the interpretation of the fathers, Spencer, and those of later times, who substantially adopt his view, but also objects to the view given of it here, and contends, that the statutes not good, and the laws by which they could not live, were God’s chastisements, punishing them for their violations of His good and life-giving ordinances. We have no doubt that these chastisements were in the eye of the prophet, but not to the exclusion of the other: God gave them up to foolish counsels and a reprobate mind, that they might manifestly appear to be undeserving of His care, and be left to inherit the recompense that meet for their perversity.

[3] .De Leg. Heb., p. 210.

[4] Ibid., p. 215.

[5] Symbolik, B. i., s. 41, 42. The later part is stated rather too comprehensively, as we shall show by and by. The circumstances were such as to have led Moses rather to avoid than to seek an imitation of what was Egyptian, but it was impossible altogether to exclude it, or precisely to brand everything properly Egyptian.

[6] Philosophical Works, vol. v., p. 377. It is remarked by Archbishop Magee, that Spencer’s work “has always been resorted to by infidel writers, in order to wing their shafts more effectively against the Mosaic revelation.” See note 60 to his work on the Atonement, where also are to be found some good remarks on such views generally, although, in resting upon the ground of Witsius, he does not place the opposition to them on its proper basis. He speaks of Tillotson as having been beforehand with Spencer in propounding the general view regarding the nature of the Mosaic ritual; and certainly Barrow (in his Sermon on the Imperfection of the Jewish Religion) exhibits to the full as low a view of the legislation of Moses as Spencer himself did shortly afterwards. We have no doubt that the view itself was an offshoot of the semi-deistical philosophy which sprang up at that period in England as a kind of reaction from Puritanism, and almost simultaneously insinuated itself into various productions of the more learned theologians.

[7] Michaelis did not himself positively avow his disbelief of the miraculous in the history of Moses, but he plainly betrayed his anxiety to get rid of it as far as possible, by his questions to Niebuhr in regard to the passage through the lied Sea.

[8] Divine Leg., B. iv., s. 6, and v., s. 1.

[9] Ibid., B. vi., s. 5 and 6.

[10] Rational of the Ritual of the Hebrew Worship.

[11] Philosophy of Judaism.

[12] Spencer’s work called forth many other opponents, but Witsius continued to hold the highest place. The AEgyptiaca was followed by a respectable work of Meyer, De Temporibus et Festis diebus Hebraeorum the first part against Sir John Marsham, the second against Spencer, taking up substantially the same ground as Witsius. Vitringa also opposes the leading views of Spencer, in various parts of his Obs. Sacrae, as is done by Deyling also, in his Obs. Sac. In this country, Shuckford in the first vol. of his Connection of Sacred and Profane History, and Graves in his Lectures on the Pentateuch (he has only one lecture on the subject, P. ii., Lee. v), with various other writers of inferior note, have opposed Spencer, on the ground of Witsius, but without adding to its strength. Daubeny’s Connection between the Old and the New Testament, though praised by Magee in his notes on this subject, does not touch on the controversy, and, in a critical point of view, is an inferior work.

[13] Lib. i., c. 2.

[14] Authentie, i., p. 8.

[15] Symbolik, i., p. 34.

[16] Ibid., 42.

[17] Witsius, AEgyptiaca, L. iii., c.14, § 3.

[18] Moses, quo sibi in posterum gentem firmaret, novos ritus, contrariosque caeteris mortalibus, indidit. Profana illie omnia, quae apud noa sacra, etc.—Tacitus, Hist., 50:5:4; also Plin. II. N. xiii. 4.

[19] We have already spoken, toward the close of Chap. I., s. 1, of the connection between the civilisation of the Israelites, and the ultimate purposes of God in respect to them. The particular point more especially noticed in the text here—the existence and familiar use of the art of writing in Egypt, at the time of Israel’s sojourn there—has given rise to a good deal of controversy, but is now virtually settled, so far as our immediate purpose is concerned. How alphabetical writing was invented, or by whom, or whether it was not transmitted from the ages before the flood, and might consequently be claimed by each of the more eminent races or nations that afterwards arose as their own, these are still unexplored mysteries, and likely to remain such. The opinion is now very prevalent, that the invention belongs to Egypt, and grew out of a gradual improvement of the original hieroglyphic or picture writing. So especially Warburton, Div. Leg., B. iv., s. 4, and many of the recent writers on hieroglyphics. But this opinion is by no means universal, and it stands connected with such difficulties, that some of those who have devoted most attention to the subject, hold the order of things to have been precisely the reverse. They conceive that the most complicated was also the last that out of the alphabetical writing came the phonetic hieroglyphic, and this again gave rise to the ideographic and figurative. So, in part at least, Zoega, also Klaproth, Latronne, and Hengstenberg, who remarks, in confirmation of this view, that “the hieroglyphic writing was exclusively a sacred one, and hence conveys the impression, that it was intended to darken what already existed in a simple form; if we seek in hieroglyphic writing the commencement of writing in general, we can scarcely comprehend how it should from the first have been exclusively employed by the priests.” (Authentie, des Pent., i., p. 444-6, where also see quotations from the other writers mentioned as holding this view.) But, however this may be, it is certain that the knowledge and use of writing by letters reaches back to a period beyond all authentic profane history, and dates from the very infancy of the human race. Hence, by most early nations, the invention of it was ascribed to one of their gods—by the Phoenicians to Thaaut, by the Egyptians to Thot or Hermes, etc. The fact, also, that a person, whether personally designated, or characterized by the name of Cadmus, a supposed contemporary of Moses, brought letters from Phoenicia to Greece, is a sufficient proof that letter-writing was then in current use in the East. Even Winer (Real Wört., art. Screib-Kunst) admits that Moses might possibly have become acquainted with it in Egypt. The Greek writers, Diodorus (iii., c. 3), Plato (De Leg., L. vii), speak of it as customary in Egypt for the multitude learning letters; and the name given by Herodotus to the alphabetic kind of writing, demotic (popular), and by Clemens and Porphyry, epistolic, implies it to have been generally known and used. “In Egypt,” says Wilkinson, “nothing was done without writing. Scribes were employed on all occasions, whether to settle public or private questions, and no bargain of any consequence was made without the voucher of a written document.”—(Vol. i., p.183) He tells us also, that papyri of the most remote Pharaonic period have been found with the same mode of writing as that of the age of Cheops. (Vol. iii., p. 150) Rosselini says, that “they probably wrote more in ancient Egypt, and on more ordinary occasions than among us” that “the steward of the house kept a written register” that “their names used to be inscribed upon their implements and garments” that “in levying soldiers, persons wrote down their names as the commanders brought the men up,” etc. (Vol. 2., p. 241, ss.) That this accords with the representations given in the Pentateuch, and that the Israelites partook in the privilege, is evident from the name given to their officers both in Egypt and Canaan, shoterim, or scribes (Ex. 5:15; Deut. 20:5), and also from the very frequent references to writing in the books of Moses, for example, Ex. 32:16; Deut. 4:9, 11:20, 27, where they were enjoined to have the whole law written upon stones covered with chalk or plaster (according to a practice common in Egypt, Wilkinson, iii., p. 300), that all might see it and read it.

[20] Abrogate templi liturgia et cultu, utpote ceremoniali, cultum atque publicam Dei adorationem in Synagogis, quae quidem moralis erat, Deus in ecclesiam transplantavit Christianam, publicum scilicet ministerium, etc. Hine ipsissima nomina ministrorum evangilii, Angelus ecclesiae, atque Episcopus, quae ministrorum in Synagogis, etc., Lightfoot, Op. ii., p. 279. But the full and satisfactory proof is to be found only in Vitringa, De Synagoga Vet., in the third part of which it is demonstrated, that the form of government and ministry belonging to the synagogues was in a great measure transferred to the Christian Church.

[21] Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 62, Trans.

[22] Deut. 18; Lev. 25; comp. also Michaelis’ Laws of Moses, vol. ii., p. 258, and Hengstenberg’s Authentie, ii., p. 401, ss.

[23] Müller’s Introd. to Scientific System of Mythology, p. 196, Eng. Trans.]

[24] Ibid., 219, 222.

[25] Symbolik, i., p. 35-37, where also confirmatory testimonies are produced from Creuzer, Görres, Hegel, Schlegel.

Section Second.—The Tabernacle in its General Structure and Design.

[[@Page:229]] BY the establisliment of the Sinaitic covenant the relation between God and Israel had been brought into a state of formal completeness. The covenant of promise, which pledged the Divine faithfulness to bestow upon them every essential blessing, was now properly supplemented by the covenant of law, which took them bound to yield the dutiful return of obedience He justly expected from them. The foundation was thus outwardly laid for a near relationship subsisting, and a blessed intercourse developing itself between the God of Abraham on the one hand, and the seed of Abraham on the other. And it was primarily with the design of securing and furthering this end, that the ratification of the covenant of Sinai was so immediately followed up by the adoption of measures for the erection of the tabernacle.

I. The command is first of all given for the children of Israel bringing the necessary materials: “And let them make Me,” it is added, “a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”—(Ex. 25:8) The different parts are then minutely described, after which the general design is again indicated thus: “And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God.”—(Ex. 29:45, 46) With this representation of its general design, the names or designations applied to it perfectly correspond.

(1.) Most commonly, when a single name is used, it is that which answers to our word dwelling or habitation,[1] although the word generally employed in our translation is tabernacle. Sometimes we find the more definite term house,[2] the house of God, or the Lord’s house (Ex. 23:19; Deut. 23:18; Josh. 9:23; [[@Page:230]] Judg. 18:31), or tent.[3]—(Ex. 26:11) The dwelling in its original form was a tent, because the people among whom God came to reside and hold converse were then dwelling in tents, and had not yet come to their settled habitation. But afterwards this tent was supplanted by the temple in Jerusalem, which bore the same relation to the ceiled houses in the land of Israel, that the original tabernacle held to the tents in the wilderness. And coming, as the temple thus did, in the room of the tabernacle, and holding the same relative position, it was sometimes spoken of as the tent of God (Ezek. 41:1), though more commonly it received the appellation of the house of God, or His habitation.

(2.) Besides these names, certain descriptive epithets were applied to the tabernacle. It was called the tent of meeting[4]for which our version has unhappily substituted the tent of the congregation. The expression is intended to designate this tent or dwelling as the place in which God was to meet and converse with His people; not, as is too commonly supposed, the place where the children of Israel were to assemble, and in which they had a common interest. It was this certainly; but merely because it was another and higher thing—because it formed for all of them the one point of contact and channel of intercourse between heaven and earth. This is clearly brought out in Ex. 29:42, 43, where the Lord Himself gives an explanation of the “tabernacle of meeting,” and says concerning it, “Where I will meet with you, to speak there unto thee; and there I will meet with the children of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by My glory.”

(3.) The tabernacle is again described as the tabernacle of the testimony, or tent of witness.[5] —(Ex. 38:21; Num. 9:15, 17:7, 18:2) It received this designation from the law of the two tables, which were placed in the ark or chest that stood in the innermost sanctuary. These tables were called “the testimony” (Ex. 31:18, 34:29), and the ark which contained them “the ark of the testimony” (Ex. 25:21, 22); whence, also, the whole tabernacle was called the tabernacle or tent of the testimony. For God dwells in His law, which makes [[@Page:231]] known what He Himself is, and on what terms He will hold fellowship with men. The witnessing, as previously noticed (Ch. II., sec.1), had respect more immediately to the holiness of God, but by necessary implication also to the sinfulness of the people. While the tables expressed the righteous demands of the former, they necessarily witnessed in a condemnatory manner respecting the latter. So that the meeting which God’s people were to have with Him in His habitation, was not simply for receiving the knowledge of the Divine will, or holding fellowship with God in general: it was for that, indeed, more directly; but it also bore a prominent respect to the sins on their part, against which the law was ever testifying, and the means of their restoration to His favour and blessing.

Viewing the tabernacle, then (or the temple), in this general aspect, we may state its immediate object and design to have been the bringing of God near to the Israelites in His true character, and keeping up an intercourse between Him and them. It was intended to satisfy the desire so feelingly expressed by Job, “O that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat;” and to provide, by means of a local habitation, with its appropriate services, for the attainment of a livelier apprehension of God’s character, and the maintenance of a closer and more assured fellowship with Him. To some extent this end might have been reached without the intervention of such an apparatus; for in itself it is a spiritual thing, and properly consists in the exercise of suitable thoughts and affections towards God, calling forth in return gracious manifestations of His love and blessing. But, under a dispensation so imperfect as to the measure of light it imparted, the Israelites would certainly, without such outward and visible help as was afforded by a worldly sanctuary, have either sunk into practical ignorance and forgetfulness of God, or betaken themselves to some wrong methods of bringing divine things more distinctly within the grasp and comprehension of their minds. It was thus that idol-worship arose, and was with such difficulty repressed in the chosen family itself. Till God was made manifest in flesh, in the person of Christ, even the pious mind anxiously sought to lay hold of some visible link of communion with the higher region of glory. So Jacob, after he had seen [[@Page:232]] the heavenly vision on the plains of Bethel, could not refrain from anointing the stone on which his head was laid, and calling it “the house of God.” He felt as if that stone now formed a peculiar point of contact with heaven; and had his mind been less enlightened in the knowledge of God, he would assuredly have converted it in the days of his future prosperity into an idol, and erected on the spot a fane where it might be enshrined and worshipped.

It was therefore with the view of meeting this natural tendency, or of assisting the natural weakness of men in dealing with divine and spiritual things, that God condescended to provide for Himself a local habitation among His people. His doing so was an act of great kindness and grace to them. At the same time, it manifestly bespoke an imperfect state of things, and was merely an adaptation or expedient to meet the existing deficiencies of their religious condition, till a more perfect dispensation should come. Had they been able to look, as with open eye, on the realities of the heavenly world, they would have been raised above the necessity of any such external ladder to place them in apposition with its affairs; they would have found every place alike suitable for communing with God. And hence, when the intercourse between Him and His redeemed shall be brought to absolute perfection—when “the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He shall dwell with them,” no temple shall any longer be seen;[6] for the fleshly weakness, which at one time required this, shall have finally disappeared: everywhere the presence of God will be realized, and direct communion with him maintained. But it was otherwise amid the dim shadows of the earthly inheritance. There a visible pattern of divine things was required to help out in men’s minds the imperfection of the spiritual idea; a habitation was needed for the more peculiar manifestations of God’s presence, such as could be scanned and measured by the bodily eye, and by serving itself of which the eye of the mind might rise to a clearer apprehension both of His abiding nearness to His people, and of the more essential attributes of His character and glory.

II. But that this material dwelling-place of God might be [[@Page:233]] a safe guide and real assistance in promoting fellowship with Heaven—that it might convey only right impressions of divine things, and form a suitable channel of communication between God and man, it must evidently be throughout of God’s, and not of man’s devising. Hence there was presented to Moses on the mount, the pattern form after which it was in every particular to be constructed (Ex. 25:40); and though it was to be a tabernacle built with men’s hands, yet these—from Moses, who was charged with the faithful execution of the whole, to the artificers who were to be employed in the preparation of the materials—must all be guided by the Spirit of God, supplying “wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge “for the occasion. This plainly indicates the high importance which was attached in the mind of God to the proper construction of this Divine habitation, and what a plenitude of meaning was designed to be expressed by it. Yet here, also, there is a middle path which is the right one; and it is possible, in searching for the truths embodied in those patterns of heavenly things, to err by excess as well as by defect. Due regard must be had to the connection and order of the parts one with another—their combination so as to form one harmonious whole—the circumstances in which, and the purposes for which, that whole was constructed. And it is no more than we might expect beforehand, that in this sacred structure, as in erections of an ordinary kind, some things may have been ordered as they were from convenience, others from necessity, others again from the general effect they were fitted to produce, rather than from any peculiar significance belonging to them in other respects. Such, we think, will appear to be the case in regard to the only two points we are called to consider in the present section the materials of which the tabernacle was formed, and its general structure and appearance.

(1.) In regard to the materials, one thing is common to them all—that they were to be furnished by the people, and presented as an offering, most of them also as a free-will offering, to the Lord: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take My offering.”—(Ex. 25:2) That the materials were to be brought by the people as an offering, implied that [[@Page:234]] the structure for which they were given was altogether of a sacred character, being made of things consecrated to the Lord. And that the offering should have been of a free-will description, implied that there was to be no constraint in anything connected with it, and that, as in the erection of the dwelling, so in the carrying out of the purposes for which it was erected, there must be the ready concurrence of man’s sanctified will with the grace and condescension of God. And the people, who had recently experienced the Lord’s pardoning mercy, after their shameful violation of the covenant, gave expression to their grateful feelings by the readiness and abundance of their contributions. Other ideas have sometimes been sought in connection with the source from which the materials were derived, but without any warrant from Scripture. For example, much has frequently been made of the circumstance that these materials formed a portion of the spoils of Egypt. There can be no doubt that they were, to a considerable extent at least, of that description; but the text is silent upon the subject, and at the time when they were brought in free-will offering by the people they were their own property, and simply as such (not as having been in any particular manner obtained) were the people called upon to give them. Again, a portion of the materials—the whole of the silver, it would seem, which was employed in the erection—was formed of the half-shekel of redemption money, which Moses was ordered to levy from every male in the congregation; and as this was chiefly used in making the sockets of the sanctuary, special meanings have been derived from the circumstance. But that nothing peculiar was designed to be intimated by that, is clear from the twofold consideration, that a part of this silver was applied to a quite different use, to the making of hooks and ornaments for the pillars, and that all the sockets were not made of it; for those of the door or entrance were formed of the free-will offerings of brass.—(Ex. 38:25-28)

The materials themselves were of various sorts, according to the uses for which they were required: Precious stones, of several kinds; gold, silver, and brass; shittim-wood; linen or cotton fabrics of blue, purple, and scarlet, and skins for external coverings. Separate and distinct meaning have been found in each of these, derived either from their inherent qualities or [[@Page:235]] from their colours, and by none with so much learning and ingenuity as Bähr; but still without any solid foundation. That the wood, for example, should have been that of the shittah-tree, or the acacia, as it is now generally supposed to have been, had a sufficient reason in the circumstance, which Bähr himself admits,[7] that it is the tree chiefly found in that part of Arabia where the tabernacle was constructed, and the only one of such dimensions as to yield boards suitable for the purpose. It was not, therefore, as if a choice lay between this and some other kinds of trees, and this in particular fixed upon on account of some inherent qualities peculiar to itself. Besides, in the temple, which for all essential purposes was one with the tabernacle, the wood employed was not the acacia, but the cedar; and that, no doubt, for the same reason as the other had been, being the best and most suitable for the purpose which the region afforded. The lightness of the acacia wood, and its being less liable to corrupt than some other species,[8] were incidental advantages peculiarly fitting it for the use it was here applied to. But we have no reason to suppose that anything further, or more recondite, depended on them; according to the just remark of Hengstenberg, that in so far as things in the tabernacle differed from those in the temple, they must have been of an adventitious and external nature.[9]

In regard to the other articles used, it does not appear that any higher reason can be assigned for their selection, than that they were the best and fittest of their several kinds. They consisted of the most precious metals, of the finest stuffs in linen manufacture, with embroidered workmanship, the richest and most gorgeous colours, and the most beautiful and costly gems. It was absolutely necessary, by means of some external apparatus, to bring out the idea of the surpassing glory and magnificence [[@Page:236]] of Jehovah as the King of Israel, and of the singular honour which was enjoyed by those who were admitted to minister and serve before Him. But this could only be done by the rich and costly nature of the materials which were employed in the construction of the tabernacle, and of the official garments of those who were appointed to serve in its courts. It is expressly said of the high priest’s garments, that they were to be made “for glory (or ornament) and for beauty” (Ex. 23:2); for which purpose they were to consist of the fine byss or linen cloth of Egypt (Gen. 41:42; Luke 16:19), embroidered with needlework done in blue, purple, and scarlet, the most brilliant colours. And if means were thus taken for producing effect in respect to the garments of those who ministered in the tabernacle, it is but reasonable to infer that the same would be done in regard to the tabernacle itself. Hence we read of the temple, the more perfect form of the habitation, that it was to be made “so exceeding magnifical as to be of fame and glory throughout all countries” (1 Chron. 22:5), and that among other things employed by Solomon for this purpose, “the house was garnished with precious stones for beauty.”—(2 Chron. 3:6) Such materials, therefore, were used in the construction of the tabernacle, as were best fitted for conveying suitable impressions of the greatness and glory of the Being for whose peculiar habitation it was erected. And as in this we are furnished with a sufficient reason for their employment, to search for others were only to wander into the regions of uncertainty and conjecture.

We therefore discard (with Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, and others) the meanings derived by Bähr, as well as those of the elder theologians, from the intrinsic qualities of the metals, and the distinctive colours employed in the several fabrics. They are here out of place. The question is not, whether such things might not have been used so as to convey certain ideas of a moral and religious nature, but whether they actually were so employed here; and neither the occasion of their employment, nor the manner in which this was done, in our opinion, gives the least warrant for the supposition. So far as the metals were concerned, we see no ground in Scripture for any symbolical meaning being attached to them, separate from that suggested [[@Page:237]] by their costliness and ordinary uses. That brass should have been the prevailing metal in the fittings and furniture of the outer court, where the people at large could come with their offering, and in the sanctuary itself silver and gold, might undoubtedly be regarded as imaging the advance that is made in the discovery of the Divine excellence and glory, the more one gets into the secret of His presence and is prepared for be holding His beauty. A symbolical use of certain colours we undoubtedly find, such as of white, in expressing the idea of purity, or of red, in expressing that of guilt; but when so used, the particular colour must be rendered prominent, and connected also with an occasion plainly calling for such a symbol. This was not the case in either respect with the colours in the tabernacle. The colours there, for the most part, appeared in a combined form; and if it had been possible to single them out, and give to each a distinctive value, there was nothing to indicate how the ideas symbolized were to be viewed, whether in reference to God or to His worshippers. Indeed, the very search would necessarily have led to endless subtleties, and prevented the mind from receiving the one direct and palpable impression which we have seen was intended to be conveyed. As examples of the arbitrariness necessarily connected with such meanings, Bähr makes the red significant, in its purple shade, of the majesty, in its scarlet, of the life-giving property of God; while Neumann, after fresh investigations into the properties of light and colour, sees in the red the expression of God’s love, inclining as purple to the mercy of grace, as scarlet to the jealousy of judgment. With Bähr, the blue is the symbol of the skyey majesty whence God manifests His glory; with Neumann, it points to the depth of ocean, and is the symbol of God’s substance, which dwells in light inaccessible, and lays in the stability of the Creator the foundation of the covenant. Such diverse and arbitrary meanings, rivalling the caprice of the elder typologists, show the fancifulness of the ground on which they are raised. And interwoven as the colours were in works of embroidery, not standing each apart in some place of its own, we have no reason to imagine they had any other purpose to serve than similar works of art in the high priest’s dress, viz., for ornament and beauty.

[[@Page:238]] The total value of the materials used in the construction of the tabernacle must have been very great. Estimated according to the present commercial value, the twenty-nine talents of gold alone would be equal to about L.173,000; and Dr Kitto’s aggregate sum of L.250,000 might probably come near the mark of the entire cost. But there can be no doubt that the precious metals and stones were much more common, consequently of much less comparative value, in remote antiquity than they are now. In some of the ancient temples, as well as treasure-houses of kings, we read, on good authority, of almost incredible stores of them. For example, in the temple of Belus at Babylon, there was a single statue of Belus, with a throne and table, weighing together 800 talents of gold; and in the temple altogether about 7170 talents. Still, even this was greatly outdone by the amount of treasure which, on the most moderate calculation, we have reason to think was expended on the temple at Jerusalem. In such vast expenditure, whether on the tabernacle or the temple, it is not necessary to think of an accommodation to heathen prejudices, nor of anything but an intention to represent symbolically the greatness and glory of the Divine Inhabitant.

(2.) Looking now to the general structure and appearance of the tabernacle, we might certainly expect the following characteristics: that, being a tent, or moveable habitation, it would be constructed in such a manner as to present somewhat of the general aspect of such tenements, and be adapted for removals from place to place; and that, being the tent of God, it would be fashioned within and without so as to manifest the peculiar sacredness and grandeur of its destination. This is precisely what we find to have been the case. Like tents generally, it was longer than broad—thirty cubits long by ten broad; and while on three of the sides possessing wooden walls, which assimilated it in a measure to a house, yet these were composed of separate gilded boards or planks, rising perpendicularly from silver sockets, kept together by means of golden rings, through which transverse bars were passed, and hence easily taken asunder when a removal was made. So also the larger articles of furniture belonging to the tabernacle, the ark, the table, and the altars of incense and burnt-offering, were each furnished with rings and staves, for the greater facility of transportation. [[@Page:239]] But neither within nor without must the wooden walls be seen, otherwise the appearance of a tent would not be preserved. Hence a series of curtains was provided, the inner most of which was formed of fine linen—ten breadths, five of which were joined together to make each one curtain, and the two curtains were again united together by means of fifty loops. This innermost curtain or covering was not only made of the finest material, but was also variegated with diverse colours and cherubic figures inwrought. Hence it is probably to be regarded as the tent in its interior aspect, consequently not merely forming the roof (where there were no wooden boards), but also attached by some means to the pillars (like the veil in ver.[[33 >> Bible:Ex 36:33]] ) so as to hang down inside to near the floor of the dwelling. In this way at least, one can more easily understand why it should be called simply the tabernacle or dwelling (mishkan) both at Ex. 36:1, where the direction is given for making the curtains, and again at [[ver. 8 >> Bible:Ex 36:8]] , where, when joined together, they are represented as forming one dwelling (mishkan). Then over this another set of curtains, made of goats hair, was thrown, certainly forming an external covering, and, being two cubits longer than the other, reaching to well-nigh the bottom of the boards. To this day, the usual texture of Arabian tents is of goats hair; and this being the tent proper as to its external aspect, it was designated the tent (Ohel, Ex. 26:11), as the other, which appeared from within, was called the habitation or dwelling. And above both these sets of curtains a double coating of skins was thrown, but merely for the purpose of protection from the elements the first consisting of rams skins dyed red, the other and outermost of skins of tachash, which have often been rendered, as in our version, badgers skins, but which are now more commonly understood to be those of the seal, or, perhaps, some kind of deer.[10]

[[@Page:240]] These parts and properties, or things somewhat similar, were essential to this sacred erection as a tent; it could not have possessed its tent-like appearance without them, or been adapted for moving from place to place. Therefore, to seek for some deeper and spiritual reasons for such things as the boards and bars, the rings and staves, the different sorts of coverings, the loops and taches, etc., is to go entirely into the region of conjecture, and give unbounded scope to the exercise of fancy. A plain and palpable reason existed for them in the very nature and design of the erection; and why should this not suffice? Or, if licence be granted for the introduction of other reasons, who shall determine, since it must ever remain doubtful, which ought to be preferred? It is enough to account for the things referred to, that as God’s house was made in the fashion of a tent, these, or others somewhat similar, were absolutely necessary: they as properly belonged to it in that character, as the members of our Lord’s body and the garments He wore be longed to His humanity; and it is as much beside the purpose to search for an independent and separate instruction in the one, as for an independent and separate use in the other. Hence, when the house of God exchanged the tent for the temple form, it dropt the parts and properties in question, as being no longer necessary or suitable; which alone was sufficient to prove them to have been only outward and incidental.

But other things, again, were necessary, on account of the tabernacle being not simply a tent, but the tent of the Most [[@Page:241]] High God, for purposes of fellowship between Him and His people,—such as the ornamental work on the tapestry, the division of the tabernacle into more than one apartment, and the encompassing it with a fore-court by means of an enclosure of fine linen, which in a manner proclaimed to the approaching worshippers, Procul profani! That the apartments should have consisted of no more than an outer and inner sanctuary, or that the figures wrought into the tapestry should have been precisely those of the cherubim,—in these we may well feel ourselves justified in searching for some more special instruction; for they might obviously have been ordered otherwise, and were doubt less ordered thus for important purposes. On which account, both characteristics reappear in the temple as being of essential and abiding significance. The square form of the erection itself, and of the court also,—the predominant regard to certain numbers in the several parts, especially to five, ten, seven, and twelve,—could not be without some reason for the preference, of which occasion will afterwards be found to speak. But considered in a general point of view, the external form, the embroidery, the separate apartments, and the surrounding enclosure, may all be regarded as having the reason of their appointment in the sacred character of the tabernacle itself, and the high ends for which it was erected. Such things became it as the tent which God took for His habitation.

III. This habitation of God, whether existing in the form of a tent or of a temple, was at once the holiest and the greatest thing in Israel, and therefore required not only to be constructed of such materials and in such a manner as have now been described, but also to be set apart by a special act of consecration. For it was the seat and symbol of the Divine kingdom on earth. The one seat and symbol; because Jehovah, the God of Israel, being the one living God, and though filling heaven and earth with His presence, yet condescending to exhibit, in an outward, material form, the things concerning His character and glory, behoved to guard with especial care against the idea so apt to intrude from other quarters, of a divided personality. In heathen lands generally, and particularly in Canaan, every hill and grove had its separate deity, and its peculiar solemnities [[@Page:242]] of worship.—(Deut. 12) God therefore sought to check this corruption in its fountain-head, by presenting Himself to His people as so essentially and absolutely one, that He could have but one proper habitation, and one throne of government. Here alone must they come to transact with God in the things that concerned their covenant relation to Him. To present elsewhere the sacrifices and services which became His house, was a violation of the order and solemnities of His kingdom;[11] while, on the other hand, to have free access to this chosen residence of Deity, was justly prized by the wise among the people as their highest privilege. Exclusion from this was like banishment from God’s presence, and excision from His covenant. And, as appears from the experience of the Psalmist, pious Israelites, in the more nourishing periods of the Theocracy, counted it among the most dark and trying dispensations of Providence, when events occurred to compel their separation from this appointed channel of communion with the Highest.

Still enlightened worshippers understood that the enjoyment of God’s presence and blessing was by no means confined to that outward habitation, and that while it was the seat, it was also the symbol, of the kingdom of God. They perceived in it the image of His character and administration in general, and understood that the relations there unfolded were proper to the whole Church of God. Hence the Psalmist represents it as the common privilege of an Israelite to dwell in the house of God, and abide in His tabernacle (Ps. 15, 24), though in the literal sense not even the priests could be said to do so. Of himself he speaks as desiring to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life (Ps. 27), by which he could only mean, that he earnestly wished continually to realize and abide in that connection and fellowship with God which he saw so clearly symbolized in the form and services of the tabernacle. And, indeed, this symbolical import of the tabernacle was plainly indicated by the Lord Himself to Moses, in the words, “And I [[@Page:243]] will set My tabernacle among you, and I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people.”—(Lev. 26:11, 12) The least in spiritual discernment could scarcely fail to learn here, that what was outwardly exhibited in the tabernacle of God’s nearness and familiarity with His people, was designed to be the image of what should always and everywhere be realizing itself among the members of His covenant; that the tabernacle, in short, was the visible symbol of the church or kingdom of God.

Now, to fit it for this high destination and use, a special act of consecration was necessary. It was not enough that the materials of which it was built were all costly, and so far possessing a sacred character that they had been all dedicated by the people to God’s service; nor that the pattern after which the whole was constructed, was received by direct communication from above. After it had been thus constructed, and before it could be used as the Lord’s tabernacle, it had to be consecrated by the application to all its parts and furniture of the holy anointing oil, for the preparation of which special instructions were given.—(Ex. 30:22, sq.)[12] “And thou shalt sanctify them,” was the word to Moses regarding this anointing oil, “that they may be most holy; whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy.”

Old Testament Scripture itself provides us with abundant materials for explaining the import of this action. It expressly connects it with the communication of the Spirit of God; as in the history of Saul’s consecration to the kingly office, to whom it was said by Samuel, after having poured the vial of oil upon his head, “And the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee.” (1 Sam. 10:6) And still more explicitly in the case of David is the sign coupled with the thing signified: “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.”—([[16:13, 14 >> Bible:1S 16:13-14]] ) The gift, symbolized by the anointing, having been conferred upon the one, it was necessarily withdrawn [[@Page:244]] from the other. More emphatically, however, than even here, is the connection between the outward rite and the inward gift, marked in the prophecy of Isaiah, [[61:1 >> Bible:Is 61:1]] : “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach good things,” etc.

This passage may fitly be regarded as the connecting link between the Old and the New Testament usage in the matter. It designated the Saviour as the Christ, or Anointed One, and because anointed, filled without measure by the Spirit, that in the plenitude of spiritual grace and blessing He might proceed to the accomplishment of our redemption. In His case, however, we know there was no literal anointing. The symbolical rite was omitted as no longer needed, since the direct action of the Spirit’s descent in an outward form gave assurance of the reality. He was hence said by Peter to have been “anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.”—(Acts 10:38) And because believers are spiritually united to Christ, and what He has without measure is also in a measure theirs, they too are said to be “anointed by God,” or “to have the unction (χρίσμα) of the Holy One, which teacheth them all things.”—(2 Cor. 1:21; 1 John 2:20) Even under the dispensation of the New Testament, in regard to its earlier and more outward, its miraculous operations, we find the external symbol still retained: “The apostles anointed many sick persons with oil, and made them whole in the name of the Lord” (Mark 6:13); and James even couples this anointing with prayer, as means proper to be employed by the elders of the Church for drawing down the healing power of God (v. [[14 >> Bible:Mk 6:14]] ). But the external rite could now only be regarded as appropriate in such operations of the Spirit as those referred to, in which the natural and symbolical use of oil ran, in a manner, into each other.

This sacred use of oil, however foreign to our apprehensions, grew quite naturally out of its common use in the East, especially in Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine. There it has from the earliest times been regarded as singularly conducive to bodily health and comfort, and the custom has descended to modern times. Niebuhr tells us that the inhabitants of Yemen always anoint their bodies when the intense heat comes in, because it serves to protect them from excessive perspiration and other [[@Page:245]] enervating effects of the climate. The inhabitants of Africa do the same, and find in it a sort of light clothing both for sun and shade.—(Livingstone’s Travels, p. 246) Even in Greece, where the heat is less enervating, the bodies of the combatants in the public games, it is well known, were always copiously rubbed and suppled with oil. And when mixed with perfumes, as the oil appears generally to have been, the copious application of it to the body, partly from usage, and partly also from physical causes, produced the most agreeable and invigorating sensations. So much, indeed, was this the case, especially in respect to the head, that the Psalmist even mentions his “being anointed with oil” among the tokens of kindness he had received from the hand of God; and in entertainments, it was so customary to administer this species of refreshment to the guests, that our Lord charges the omission of it by Simon the Pharisee as an evident mark of disrespect (Luke 7:46); and in ancient Egypt “it was customary for a servant to attend every guest as he seated himself, and to anoint his head.”[13]

As the body, therefore, which was anointed with such oil, felt itself enlivened and refreshed, and became expert and agile for the performance of any active labour, it was an apt and becoming symbol of the Spirit-replenished soul, which is thus endowed with such a plenitude of grace, as disposes and enables it to engage heartily in the Divine service, and to run the way of God’s commandments. So that, in the language of Vitringa, “the anointed man was he who, being chosen and set apart by God for accomplishing something connected with God’s glory, was furnished for it by His good hand with necessary gifts. And the more noble the office to which any one was anointed, the greater was the supply of the Spirit’s grace which the anointing brought him.”[14] Understood thus in reference to persons, to whom the outward symbol was both most naturally and most commonly applied, we can have no difficulty in apprehending its import when applied to the tabernacle and its furniture. This being a symbol of the true Church as the peculiarly consecrated, God-inhabited region, the anointing of it with the sacred oil was a sensible representation of the effusion of the [[@Page:246]] Holy Spirit, whose part it is to sanctify the unclean, and draw them within the sphere of God’s habitation, as well as to fit them for occupying it. And as the anointing not only rendered the tabernacle and its vessels holy, but made them also the imparters of holiness to others,—”whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy,”—the important lesson was thereby taught, that while all beyond is a region of pollution and death, they who really come into a living connection with the Church or kingdom of God are brought into communion with His spiritual nature, and made partakers of His holiness. It is only within the sphere of that kingdom that true purification and righteousness proceed.[15]

IV. In turning now to Gospel times for the spiritual and heavenly things which answer to the pattern exhibited in that worldly sanctuary, we are not, of course, to think of outward and material buildings, which, however necessary for the due [[@Page:247]] celebration of Divine worship, must occupy an entirely different place from that anciently possessed by the Jewish tabernacle or temple. “What is true of the Divine kingdom generally, must especially hold in respect to the heart and centre of its administration, viz., that everything about it rose, when the antitypes appeared, to a higher and more elevated stage; and that the ideas which were formerly symbolized by means of outward and temporary materials are now seen embodied in great and abiding realities. Of what, then, was the tabernacle a type? Plainly of Christ, as God manifest in the flesh, for the redemption of His people, and their participation in the life and blessing of God. This is Heaven’s grand and permanent provision for securing what the tabernacle, as a temporary substitute, aimed at accomplishing. In Christ personally the idea began, in the first instance, to be realized when, as the Divine Word, “He became flesh, and dwelt (ἐσκήνωσεν, tabernacled) among us.” For the flesh of Jesus, though literally flesh of our flesh, yet, being sanctified in the womb of the Virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost, possessed in it “the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily “(σωματικῶς in a bodily receptacle or habitation); and held such pre-eminence over other flesh, as the tent of God had formerly done over the tents of Israel. But this was still merely the first stage in the development of the great mystery of godliness; only as in the seed-corn was the indwelling of God with men seen in the person of the incarnate Word. For Christ’s flesh was the representative and root of all flesh as redeemed; in Him the whole of an elect humanity stands as its living Head, and therein finds the bond of its connection with God the channel of a real and blessed fellowship with Heaven. So that, as the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, He again dwells in the Church of true believers as His fulness; and the idea symbolized in the tabernacle is properly realized, not in Christ personally and apart, but in Him as the Head of a redeemed offspring, vitally connected with Him, and through Him having access even into the Holiest. Consequently the idea, as to its realization, is still in progress; and it shall have readied its perfect consummation only when the number of the redeemed has been made up, and all are set down with Jesus amid the light and glories of the New Jerusalem.

[[@Page:248]] Every reader of New Testament Scripture is aware how prominently the truths involved in this representation are brought out there, and how much the language it employs of divine things bears respect to them. The transition from the outward and shadowy to the final and abiding state of things, is first marked by our Lord in the words, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), by which He plainly wished it to be understood that His body had now become what the temple had hitherto been—or rather, that the great idea symbolized in the temple was now actually embodied in His person, in which Godhead had really and properly taken up its dwelling, that men might draw near and have fellowship with it. As there could be but one such place and medium of intercourse, Christ’s saying this of His body, of necessity implied that the outward temple, built with men’s hands, had served its purpose, and was among the things ready to vanish away. But the peculiar expression he uses implies somewhat more than this. For when He speaks of the destroying of the temple, and the raising of it up again in three days, He so identified His body with the temple, as in a manner to declare that the destruction of the one would carry along with it the destruction of the other; that that alone should henceforth be the proper dwelling-place of Deity, which, from being instinct with the principle of an immortal life, could be destroyed only for a season, and should presently be raised up again to be the perpetual seat and centre of God’s kingdom. From that time, therefore, the other must necessarily lose its significance and use, and had, indeed, as our Lord intimated, become as a house left desolate.—(Matt. 23:38)

But this inhabitation of God in the man Christ Jesus, being not for Himself alone, but only as the medium of intercourse and communion between God and the Church, we find the idea extended so as to embrace both each individual believer and the entire company of believers as one body. The Church is “the house of God,” or “His habitation through the Spirit” (1 Tim. 3:15; Eph. 2:21, 22); and as the Church universal of believers is only an aggregate of individuals, who must each be in part what the whole is, so they also are designated “a building of God,” and more especially “the temple of the living God;” [[@Page:249]] or, as St Peter describes them, “lively stones built up on Christ the living stone, into a spiritual house.”—(1 Cor. 3:9, 6:19; Eph. 3:17; 1 Pet. 2:5, 6) In this apparent complexity of meaning there is still a radical oneness; and it is by no means as if the tabernacle or temple idea were applied to so many objects properly distinct and apart. There is an essential unity in the diversity, arising from the vital connection subsisting between Christ and His people; for all redeemed humanity is linked with His, as His is linked with the Godhead, so that what belongs to the one is the common property and distinction of the whole. This was unfolded in the sublime words of Christ Himself, which describe the ultimate realization of what was typified in the temple: “And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.”—(John 17:22, 23)

And as everything in the original tabernacle required to be sprinkled with the holy anointing oil to fit it for its sacred destination and use, so in these higher and ultimate realities of the Divine kingdom all is pervaded and consecrated by the living Spirit of God. It is as replenished with His fulness that Jesus accomplished in His own person the work of reconciliation, and placed on a secure foundation the intercommunion between God and man. It is, again, as having received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, and shedding forth His regenerating grace upon the members of the kingdom, that it becomes a hallowed region, consecrating whatever really comes within its borders, and that every one whom a living faith brings into contact with Christ, is made partaker of His holiness. It is thus, indeed, that all becomes instinct with life and blessing. The ordinances of the Church are made fruitful of good because they are the ordained channels of the Spirit’s communications. He who has become really united to the one spiritual body, has done so by bring baptized into it by the one Spirit.—(1 Cor. 12:13) He who, through the word of the Gospel, has been convinced of sin, righteousness, and judgment, is a monument in what he has experienced of the powerful and blessed agency of that Spirit. (John 16:8, [[14 >> Bible:Jn 16:14]] ) And of wry grace he exhibits, and every [[@Page:250]] work of acceptable service he performs, it may be said, that the will and the power to perform it have been wrought by the self same Spirit.

In the preceding remarks we have made no allusion to the views of other writers respecting the tabernacle, but have simply unfolded what we conceive to be the true idea of it, and its relation to Christ and His kingdom. It may be proper, however, to give here a brief outline of other views, noticing, as we proceed, what is mainly erroneous or defective in them.

1. By Philo, the tabernacle was taken for a pattern of the universe: to the two sanctuaries belonged τά ὀνοητὰ, and to the open fore-court τὰ ἀισθητά; the linen, blue, purple, and scarlet, were the four elements; the seven-branched candlestick represented the seven planets, the light in the centre, however, at the same time representing the sun; the table with the twelve loaves pointed to the twelve signs of the zodiac and months of the year, etc. Josephus adopts the same view, only differing in some of the details; as do also many of the fathers,—in particular, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Chrysostom, and Theodoret. Several of the Jewish Rabbis also concur in regarding the erection as an image of creation both in heaven and earth, references to whom, as well as the others, are given by Bähr, i., p. 104, 105. The view proceeds on an entire misapprehension of the true spirit of the Old Testament worship, and would place its symbols substantially on a footing with those of heathenism; both alike would have been employed in the service of a mere nature-worship. Not only would the peculiar ideas and principles of the true religion have been excluded from the one sanctuary and centre of all its services, but religious symbols of a precisely opposite kind must have occupied their place. This was plainly impossible.

2. But Bähr’s own view so far coincides with the one just mentioned, that he also holds the tabernacle to have been a representation of the creation of God, which he endeavours to show is frequently exhibited in Scripture as the house or building of God; not, however, in the heathen sense—not as if the Deity and creation were identified, but in the sense of creation being the workmanship and manifestation of God—the outgoing [[@Page:251]] and witness of His glorious perfections. In like manner, the tabernacle was the place and structure through which God gave to Israel a. testimony or manifestation of Himself; and, therefore, it must contain in miniature a representation of the universe—the habitation, in its two compartments, representing heaven, God’s peculiar dwelling-place, and the fore-court the earth, which He has given to the sons of men.

It may be regarded as alone fatal to this view, that amid the many allusions in Scripture to the tabernacle, and express explanations of the things belonging to it, no idea of the kind is ever once distinctly brought out. And as a great deal is found there in direct confirmation of the view we have presented, we are fully entitled to consider it as involving a substantial repudiation of the other. No doubt heaven and earth are often represented in Scripture as a building of God; but, as Hengstenberg justly remarks,[16] “there is not to be found in all Scripture a single passage in which the universe is described as the building or dwelling-place of God; so that the view of Bähr fails in its very foundation.” He further remarks, that it provides no proper ground for explaining the separation between the Holy and the Most Holy Place, and that Bähr has hence been obliged to put a false interpretation upon the furniture belonging to the Holy Place. As for the confirmation which the learned author seeks for the basis of his view, in the opinion of Philo and Josephus, as if that were the originally Jewish mode of contemplating the tabernacle, no one unbiassed by theory can regard it in any other light than as the fruit of that anxiety, which these writers constantly display, to bring the Jewish Scriptures and religion into some degree of conformity with the heathen philosophy. It is proper to note, however, that in his later treatise on the temple of Solomon (1848), Bähr has considerably modified his original view, and represents the sanctuary as a symbol of the covenant relation of God to Israel, for holy aims and purposes; so that in the outer court there was a kind of concentrated covenant land, as in the sanctuary a like concentrated dwelling of Jehovah. In this later work also he recognised an organic connection between the Old and the New, rendering the one strictly typical of the other.

[[@Page:252]] 3. The work of Bähr has called forth a laboured defence of another view, equally unsupported in Scripture, and still more arbitrary according to which the tabernacle was made in imitation of man as the image of God. This view had been briefly indicated by Luther, not as a formal explanation of the proper design and purpose of the tabernacle, but rather by way of illustration and similitude, when expounding the words of Mary’s song: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour.” There, after mentioning the different divisions of the tabernacle, he says: “In this figure there is represented a Christian man; his spirit is the Holy of Holies, God’s dwelling, in dark faith without light; for he believes what he sees not. His soul is the Holy Place, where are the seven lights, that is, all sorts of understanding, discernment, knowledge, and perception of corporeal and visible things. His body is the fore-court which is open to all, so that every one can see what it does, and how it lives.” Bähr had justly said of this, that it was only an allegorical explanation, and intimated that he conceived it impossible to carry out such a view into the particulars. But a zealous Lutheran, Ferdinand Friederich, offended at the slight thus put upon “the words of the blessed Luther,” has undertaken a vindication of the view, in a volume of considerable size, and accompanied by twenty-three plates. The work contains some good remarks on the more objectionable parts of Bähr’s system, yet adopts a number of its errors, displays throughout, indeed, the want of a sound discrimination, and utterly fails to establish the main point at issue. The objections given above to Bähr’s view apply with increased force to this.

4. The view of what are distinctively called the typical writers, errs primarily and fundamentally in considering the tabernacle as too exclusively typical, in seeking for the adumbration of Christ and His salvation as the only reason of the things belonging to it. Hence no proper ground or basis was laid for the work of interpretation; and unless where Scripture itself had furnished the explanation, the most arbitrary and even puerile meanings were often resorted to, without the possibility of applying, on that system, any proper check to them. Not keeping in view the complex idea or design of the tabernacle, everything for the most part was understood personally of Christ; [[@Page:253]] and oven where a measure of discretion was observed in abstaining from too great minutiae, and keeping in view the larger features of the Christian system, as in Witsius (Miscellanea Sacra), still all swims in a kind of uncertainty, because no care was taken to investigate the meaning of the symbols before they were interpreted as types.

5. The only remaining view requiring a separate notice is what is commonly regarded as the Spencerian, although Spencer did not originate it, but found its leading principles already laid down by Maimonides.[17] It proceeds on the ground of an accommodation in the grossest sense to the heathenish tendencies and dispositions of the people. The Egyptians and other nations had dwellings for their gods; it was not convenient or practicable at once to abolish the custom; and God must, therefore, to prevent His people from lapsing into heathenism, suit Himself to this state of things, and have a tabernacle for His dwelling, with its appropriate furniture and ministering servants. We have already, in the introductory chapter, substantially met this view; as it rests upon the same false principles which pervade the whole system of Spencer. According to it, God accommodates Himself not merely to what is weak and imperfect in His creatures, but to what is positively wrong; and lowers and adjusts His requirements to suit their depraved tastes and inclinations. Consequently the views of God which such a structure was fitted to impart, and the services connected with it, must have been quite opposed to the spiritual nature of God, and an [[@Page:254]] obstruction, rather than a help, to pious Israelites in their endeavours to worship and serve Him aright. It was not a temporary and fitting expedient to aid men’s conceptions of divine things, and to render the divine service more intelligible and attractive; but a sop put into the mouth of a rude and heathenish people, to keep them away from the grosser pollutions of idolatry. God’s house could never be reared on such a foundation.—Some of the elder typical writers, such as Outram (De Sac., L. i. 3), trod too closely upon this view of the tabernacle, as regards its primary intention for Israel; and so also, we regret to say, does Dr Kitto among recent writers (Hist, of Palestine, i. 245-6).

FOOTNOTE

[1]מֹשְכָן

[2] בֵּית

[3] אֹהֶל

[4] אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד

[5] מִשְׁכָן חָעֵדוֻת אֹהֶל הָעֵדוֻת

[6] Rev. 21:3, 22.

[7] Symbolik, i., p. 262.

[8] That it was absolutely incorruptible, is not of course to be imagined, though the language of Josephus, Philo, and some heathen writers, would seem to imply as much. It is called ζύλον ἄσηπτον by the LXX., and Joseph us affirms it could not “suffer corruption.” For other authorities, in Bähr, i., p. 262. The simple truth seems to have been, that it was light, and stood the water well; hence was much used by the Egyptians in making boats, and was loosely talked of as incorruptible.

[9] Authentie, ii., p. 639.

[10] We have purposely confined our description to the leading features, for the minute questions about the thickness of the planks, the setting of the pillars, etc., which are still agitated, would be here out of place. The chief point of dispute in regard to what is stated, has respect to the innermost set of curtains,—whether, after covering the top, they hung over outside: or, as we are rather inclined still to believe, though stating it only as a probability, were made to fall inside, and cover to within a cubit or so of the bottom the interior of the boards. This latter view was given by Bähr, (Symbolik, i., p. 222, 223), and is concurred in by Neuman (Die Stiftshütte, p. 65), also by Keil, Kurtz, Torneil, etc.; while the opposite is held by Lund, Ewald, Friedrich, Umbreit, and latterly with some keenness by Riggenbach (Die Mosaische Stiftshütte, p. 12 sq., 1862). Upon the whole, the former seems the more natural view, as it both affords an easy explanation of the designations employed for the two sets of coverings, and shows how the tent-form of the erection would still be preserved. Indeed, the boards in the original description appear only as a sort of accessory, and are not referred to till after the two sets of curtains which properly formed the tent are described.—(Ex. 26:18, sq.) They were merely instead of the usual poles for bearing up the curtains, and the curtains hence occupy the chief prominence in the description, and are spoken of in their relation to each other as if the boards were not regarded. The view has also in its support the analogy of the temple, all the interior walls of which were ornamented by carved figures of cherubims.

[11] Hence sacrificing in the high places, though occasionally done by true worshippers, always appears as an imperfection. In times of war or great internal disorder, such as those of Samuel, when the ark was separated from the tabernacle, and the stated ordinances suffered a kind of suspension, sacrifices in different places became necessary.

[12] It consisted of olive-oil, mixed with the four best kinds of spices, myrrh, sweet cinnamon, calamus, and cassia, producing, when compounded together, the moat fragrant smell.

[13] Wilkinson, Manners, etc., of Eg., ii. 213.

[14] Com. in Isa., vol. ii., p. 494; comp. also i., p. 289.

[15] In connecting the spiritual with the natural use of this symbol, Bähr does not appear to us to be happy. He throws together the two properties of oil, as does more recently Neumann (Symbolique, p. 149), its capacity for giving light, and for imparting vigour and refreshment,—and holds the anointing symbolical of the Spirit’s gift, as the source of spiritual light and life in general; or rather (for he evidently does not hold the personality of the Spirit), as symbolical of the principle of light and life, or, in one word, of the holiness which was derived from the knowledge of God’s law.—(ii., p. 173) But to say nothing of the doctrinal errors here involved, why should those two quite distinct properties of oil be confounded together? The qualities and uses of oil as an ointment had nothing to do with those which belong to it as a source of light, and should no more be conjoined symbolically than they are naturally. Oil as an ointment does not give light, and it is of no moment whether it were capable of doing so or not. When used as an ointment, it was also usually mixed with spices, which still more took off men’s thoughts from its light-giving property; and especially was this the case in regard to its symbolical application in the tabernacle.—When oil began to be applied symbolically for consecrating persons and things, is unknown. It was so used by Jacob on the plains of Bethel, and there is undoubted proof of its having been used in consecrating kings and priests in Egypt.—(Wilkinson, v. 279, ss.) But the spirit of the action in Egypt, it must be remembered, was very different from what it was in Canaan, inasmuch as consecrating or setting apart to a heathen god or temple bespoke nothing of that separation from sin, that high and holy calling, which consecration to Jehovah necessarily carried along with it. The oil was the symbol of sacredness, indeed, but not of moral purity.

[16] Authentie, ii., p. 639.

[17] He is substantially followed by many of the Later Rabbis, who represent the tabernacle and temple as constructed with the view of imitating, and at the same time outdoing, the palaces of earthly monarchs. Various quotations may be seen in Outram. That from R. Shem Tob is the most distinct and graphic, and is held in great account by Spencer: “God, to whom be praise, commanded a house to be built for Himself, such as a royal house is wont to be. In a royal house all these things are to be found of which we have spoken: namely, there are some to guard the palace; others, whose part it is to do things belonging to the royal dignity, to prepare banquets, and do other things necessary for the monarch. There are others, besides, who serve with vocal and instrumental music. There is a place also for making ready victuals; a place for burning perfumes; a table also for the king, and an apartment appropriated to himself, where none are permitted to enter, excepting his prime minister, and those who are specially favoured by him. In like manner God,” etc.

Section Third.—The Ministers of The Tabernacle—The Priests and Levites.

[[@Page:255]] THE general divisions of the tabernacle, and even its particular parts and services, were so peculiarly connected with the persons who were appointed to tread its courts, that it is necessary, before proceeding farther, to understand distinctly the place which these held in the Mosaic dispensation, and especially how they stood related to God on the one hand, and to the people on the other. This section must therefore be devoted to the consideration of the Levitical priesthood.

I. It is somewhat singular, that the earliest notices we have of a priesthood in Scripture, refer to other branches of the human family than that of the line of Abraham. The first person with whom the name of priest is there associated, is Melchizedek, who is described as “king of Salem, and priest of the Most High God.” To him Abraham, though the head of the whole chosen family, paid tithes of all, and thus virtually confessed himself to be no priest as compared with Melchizedek. Then, in the days of Joseph, we meet with Potipherah, priest of On, or Heliopolis in Egypt, and of the priests generally, as a distinct and highly privileged order in that country (Gen. 41:45, 47:22); and a few generations later still, mention is made of Jethro, the priest of Midian. Not till the children of Israel left the land of Egypt, and were placed under that peculiar polity which was set up among them by the hand of Moses, do we hear of any individual, or class of individuals, holding the office of the priesthood as a distinct and exclusive prerogative. How, then, did they make their approach to God and present their oblations? Did each worshipper transact for himself with God? Or did the father of a family act as priest for the members of his household? Or was the priestly function [[@Page:256]] among the privileges of the first-born? This last position has been maintained by many of the leading Jewish authorities (Jonathan, Onkelos, Saadias, Jarchi, Abenezra, etc.), and also by some men of great learning in Christian times (Grotius, Selden, Bochart, etc.). They have chiefly grounded their opinion on the circumstance of Moses having employed certain young men to offer the sacrifices, by the blood of which the covenant was ratified (Ex. 24:5), connecting this fact, on the one hand, with the profaneness of Esau in having despised his birthright, which is thought to have been a slighting of the priesthood, and, on the other, with God’s special consecration of the first born after their redemption in Egypt. This opinion, however, may now be regarded as almost universally abandoned. The consecration of the first-born on the eve of Israel’s departure from Egypt did not, as we shall see, include their appointment to the priestly office; nor was this reckoned among the rights of primogeniture. These rights Scripture itself has plainly restricted to pre-eminence in authority among the brethren, and the possession of a double portion in the inheritance.—(1 Chron. 5:1-4) And it would appear, from the scattered notices of patriarchal history, that there was no bar then in the way of any one drawing near and presenting oblations to God, who might feel himself called to do so. So long, however, as the patriarchal constitution prevailed, it was by common consent felt due to the head of the family, as the highest in honour, and the proper representative of the whole, that he should be the medium of their communications with God in sacrificial offerings. By degrees, as families grew into communities, and the patriarchal became merged in more general and public authorities, the sacerdotal office also naturally came to be vested, at least on all great and special occasions, in the persons of those who occupied the rank of heads in their respective communities, or of others, who, being regarded as peculiarly qualified for exercising the priestly function, were expressly chosen and delegated to discharge it. So in particular with the chosen family. In earlier times each patriarch did the work of a sacrifice; but when they had become a numerous people, and were going as a people to offer sacrifice to God, while they were primarily represented by Moses, whom God had raised up for their head, and [[@Page:257]] who, therefore, alone properly did the part of a priest at the ratification of the covenant, by sprinkling the blood, they appear, as was natural, to have appointed certain of their number, pre-eminent in rank, in comeliness of person, or qualities of mind, to assist in priestly offices. These, no doubt, were the persons from whom Moses selected a few to furnish him with the blood of sprinkling on the occasion referred to, and who had previously been spoken of as a body under the name of priests.—(Ex. 19:22)[1]

Indeed, so far from wondering that there was no distinct class invested with the office of priesthood during the patriarchal [[@Page:258]] period of sacred history, it should rather have been matter of surprise if any had appeared. For, in those times, everything in religion among the true worshippers of God was characterized by the greatest simplicity and freedom. They possessed as yet no temple, nor even any select consecrated place in which their offerings were to be presented, and their vows paid. Wherever they happened to dwell, in the open field, or under the shade of a spreading tree, they built an altar and called upon the name of God. And it would have been a sort of anomaly, an institution at variance with the character of the worship and the general condition of society, if there had been so artificial an [[@Page:259]] arrangement as a distinct order of persons appointed exclusively to minister in holy things.

But this being the case, does it not seem like a travelling in the wrong direction, to institute at last an order of priests for that purpose? Was not this to mar the simplicity of God’s worship, and throw a new restraint around the freedom of access to Him? In one sense unquestionably it was; and separating, as it did, between the offering and him in whose behalf it was presented, it introduced into the worship of God an element of imperfection which cleaves to all the sacrifices under the law. In this respect, it was a more perfect state of things which permitted the offerer himself to bring near his offering to God, and one that has, therefore, been restored under the Gospel dispensation. But, in other respects, the worship of God made a great advance under the ministration of Moses, and an advance of such a nature as imperatively to require the institution of a separate priesthood. So that what was in itself an imperfection became relatively an advantage, and an important handmaid to something better.—The patriarchal religion, while it was certainly characterized by simplicity, was at the same time vague and general in its nature. The ideas it imparted concerning Divine things were few, and the impressions it produced upon the minds of the worshippers must, from the very character of the worship, have been somewhat faint and indefinite. By the time of Moses, however, the world had already gone so far in the pomps and ceremonies of a false worship, that on that ground alone it became necessary to institute a much more varied and complicated service; and the Lord, taking advantage of the evil to accomplish a higher good, ordered the religion He now set up in such a manner as to bring out far more fully His own principles of government, and prepare the way more effectually for the work and kingdom of Christ. The groundwork of this new form of religion stood in the erection of the tabernacle, which God chose for His peculiar dwelling-place, and through which He meant to keep up a close and lively intercourse with His people. But this intercourse would inevitably have grown on their part into too great familiarity, and would thus have failed to produce proper and salutary impressions upon the minds of the worshippers, unless something of a [[@Page:260]] counteracting tendency had been introduced, fitted to beget feelings of profound and reverential awe toward the God who condescended to come so near to them. This could no otherwise be effectually done, than by the institution of a separate priesthood, whose prerogative alone it should be to enter within the sacred precincts of God’s house, and perform the ministrations of His worship. And so wisely was everything arranged concerning the work and service of this priesthood, that an awful sense of the holiness and majesty of the Divine Being could hardly fail to be awakened in the most unthinking bosom, while still there was given to the spiritual worshipper a visible representation of his near relationship to God, and his calling to intimate communion with Him.

For the Levitical priesthood was not made to stand, as the priesthood of Egypt certainly stood, in a kind of antagonism to the people, or in such a state of absolute independence and exclusive isolation as gave them the appearance of a class entirely by themselves. On the contrary, this priesthood in its office was the representative of the whole people in its divine calling as God’s seed of blessing; it was a priesthood formed out of a kingdom of priests; and, consequently, the persons in whom it was vested could only be regarded as having, in the higher and more peculiar sense, what essentially belonged to the entire community. In them were concentrated and manifestly displayed the spiritual privileges and dignity of all true Israelites. And as these were represented in the priesthood generally, so especially in the person of the high priest, in whom again everything belonging to the priesthood gathered itself up and reached its culmination. “This high priest,” to use the words of Vitringa,[2] “represented the whole people. All Israelites were reckoned as being in him. The prerogative held by him be longed to the whole of them, but on this account was transferred to him, because it was impossible that all Israelites should keep themselves holy, as became the priests of Jehovah. But that the Jewish high priest did indeed personify the whole body of the Israelites, not only appears from this, that he bore the names of all the tribes on his breast and his shoulders, which unquestionably imported that he drew near to God in the name and [[@Page:261]] of all,—but also from the circumstance that when he committed any heinous sin, his guilt was imputed to the people. Thus, in Lev. 4:3, ‘If the priest that is anointed sin to the trespass or guilt of the people’ (improperly rendered in the English version, ‘according to the sin of the people’). The anointed priest was the high priest. But when he sinned, the people sinned. Wherefore? Because he represented the whole people. And on this account it was that the sacrifice for a sin committed by him had to be offered as the public sacrifices were which were presented for sin committed by the people at large: the blood must be brought into the Holy Place, and the body burnt without the camp.”

There was even more than what is here mentioned to impress the idea, that the priesthood possessed only transferred rights: for as the sins of the high priest were regarded as the people’s, so theirs also were regarded as his; and on the great day of atonement, when the most peculiar part of his work came to be discharged, he had, in their name and stead, to enter into the Most Holy Place with the blood of sprinkling, and thereafter confess all their sins and iniquities over the head of the live goat. On other occasions, also, we find this impersonation of Israel by the high priest coming distinctly out, as in Judges 20:27, 28, where, not the people (as the construction in our version might seem to imply), but Phinehas, in the name of the people, asks, “Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin, my brother? “and receives the answer, “Go up, for to-morrow I will deliver them into thine hand.” Besides, in one most important respect, the priestly function was still allowed to remain in the hands of the people, even after the consecration of Aaron and his family. The paschal lamb, which might justly be regarded as in a peculiar sense the sacrifice of the covenant, was by the covenant people themselves presented to the Lord, and its flesh eaten; which was manifestly designed to keep up a perpetual testimony to the truth of their being a kingdom of priests. So Philo plainly understood it, when he describes it as the custom at the passover, “not that the laity should bring the sacrificial animals to the altar, and the priests offer them, but the whole people,” says he, “according to the prescription of the law, exercise priestly functions, since each one, for his own part, [[@Page:262]] presents the appointed sacrifices.”[3] And as thus the priestly functions of the people were plainly not intended to be destroyed by the institution of the Aaronic priesthood, but were only, at the most, transferred to that body, and represented in them, we can easily understand how pious Israelites, like the Psalmist, could read their own privileges in those of the priests, and speak of “coming into the house of God,” and even of “dwelling in it all the days of their life.”[4] Betokening, however, as the institution of such a priesthood did, a relative degree of imperfection on the part of the people, we can also easily understand how the spirit of prophecy, when pointing to a higher and more perfect dispensation, should have intimated the purpose of God to make the priestly order again to cease, by the unreserved communication to the people of its distinctive privileges: “Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord, men shall call you the ministers of our God.”[5] This purpose began to be realized from the time that, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, believers were constituted a “royal priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God,” and is destined to be realized in the fullest sense in the future kingdom of glory, when the redeemed shall be able with one voice to say, “Thou hast made us kings and priests unto our God.”

The relation, then, in which the Levitical priesthood stood to the people, still consisted with the preservation, to a considerable extent, of their spiritual privileges. Even through such an institution they could see the dignity of their standing before God, and their right to hold near fellowship with Him. But if, in this part of the arrangement, care was taken to keep up a sense of the grace and condescension of God toward the whole covenant people, care was also taken, on the other hand, by means of the priesthood’s peculiar relation to God, to keep up a sense of His adorable majesty and untainted righteousness; for how ever the people were warranted to regard themselves as admitted by representation into the dwelling-place of God, they were yet obliged personally to stand at an awful distance. One tribe alone [[@Page:263]] was selected and set apart to the office of handling the things that concerned it. But not even the whole of this tribe was permitted to enter the sacred precincts of God’s house, and minister in its appropriate services. That honour was reserved for one family of the tribe—the family of Aaron; and even the members of that family could not be allowed to discharge the duties of their priestly office without the most solemn rites of consecration; nor, when consecrated, could they all alike traverse with freedom the courts of the tabernacle: one individual of them alone could pass the veil into its innermost region, the presence-chamber of God, and he only in such a manner as must have impressed his soul with the intense sanctity of the place, and made him enter with trembling step. Guarded by so many restrictions, and rising through so many gradations, how high must have seemed the dignity, how sublime and sacred the privilege, of standing in the presence of the Holy One of Israel, and ministering before Him! And as regards the people generally, how clearly did all show, that while God dwelt among them, He was yet at some distance from them! At once a manifested and a concealed God! in whose courts the darkness still intermingled with light, and fear alternated with love.

II. But we must now inquire into the leading characteristics of this priestly office: what peculiarly distinguished those who exercised it from the nation at large? Nothing for certain can here be learned from the name (כֹּהֵן, cohen) the derivation of which is differently given by the learned, and the original import of which cannot now be correctly ascertained. But looking at their position and office in a general light, we cannot fail to regard them as occupying somewhat of the place of God’s friends and familiars.[6] Their part was not to do much in the way of active and laborious service, but rather to receive and present to God, as His nearest friends and associates, what properly [[@Page:264]] belonged to Him. And on this account also was a great proportion of the sacrifices divided between God and them; and the shew-bread, as well as other meat-offerings, were consumed by them, there being such a close relationship and intimacy between them and God, that it might be regarded as immaterial whether anything were appropriated by them or consumed on the altar of God. But there were evidently three elements entering into this general view of their position and office, which together made up the characteristics of the priestly calling, and which are distinctly brought out as such in the description given by Moses on the occasion of Koran’s rebellion: “And he spake unto Korah, and unto all his company, saying, To-morrow the Lord will show who is His, and who is holy; and whom He makes to draw near to Him: and him whom He chooses will He make to draw near to Himself.”—(Num. 16:5) There can be no doubt, from the connection in which this stands, that it was intended to be a description of the properties or personal characteristics of a Divine calling to the priesthood; for it was intended to meet the assumption of Korah and his company, that as the whole congregation was holy, they had an equal right with Aaron to enter into the tabernacle of God, and minister in holy things. The person to whom such a right belonged, must be in a peculiar sense the choice or property of God—must be a possessor of holiness, and have the privilege of drawing near to God; and these qualities it was declared belonged to the family of Aaron as to no other. It could only be, however, as having these things in a peculiar sense that the Aaronic priesthood were here meant to be characterized; for they were also the characteristics of the congregation generally as a kingdom of priests, and are mentioned as such in the [[19th >> Bible:Ex 19]] of Exodus. The people are there described as having been “brought unto God,” as being chosen for “a peculiar treasure to Him,” and as “an holy nation.” So that everything was affirmed to be theirs, which was [[@Page:265]] peculiarly to distinguish the family of Aaron. And there can be no doubt, that it was on the ground of this passage which had made a deep impression upon all the people, that the rebellion of Korah was raised. The differences were those of degree, not of kind; but still, as matters now stood, they were differences on the side of the family of Aaron.

(1.) They were in a peculiar sense God’s property, or the objects of His election—for these two expressions properly involve but one idea. The choice of God, as well in respect to the priesthood as to the people at large, exercised itself in selecting a particular portion from the general property of God, to be His peculiar possession. As thus chosen and set apart for God, Israel was His heritage among the nations; and as similarly chosen and set apart for the special work of the priesthood, the family of Aaron was his heritage in Israel. The privilege was to be theirs of drawing peculiarly near to God, and their first qualification for using it was that they were the objects of His choice. Their designation and appointment must be from above—not assumed as of their own authority, or derived from the choice of their fellow-men—”for no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.”—(Heb. 5:4) Referring to this, and recognising in it the essential distinction of every true Israelite, the Psalmist says, “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, and causest to approach unto Thee, that he may dwell in Thy courts.”—(Ps. 65:4) The grounds of the Divine choice in the case of Aaron are nowhere given; nor even when Korah contested with him the right to the office, did the Lord condescend to assign any reason for having selected that family in preference to the other families of Israel. He wished His own election to be regarded as the ultimate ground of the distinction; and by making the office hereditary in the family of Aaron, He kept the appointment for all coming time, as it were, in His own hands. This does not, however, preclude the possibility of such ostensible grounds of preference existing in Aaron and his family, as might have been sufficient to commend the Divine choice to the people; such as his distinguished rank as the first-born of the house to which Moses belonged, the services he had already rendered to the cause of Israel, or his personal fitness for the office. But there is no [[@Page:266]] authority for holding, with Philo, Maimonides, and other Jewish writers, that the priesthood was conferred on this family as a reward for their zeal and devotedness to the service of God. So far from this, at the very time when the appointment of Aaron was intimated to Moses, he was going along with the people in the worship of the golden calf.[7]

(2.) The second element in the distinctive properties of the priesthood, was the possession of holiness. Expressly on the ground of holiness being the general characteristic of the people, did the company of Korah assert their claim to the prerogatives of the priesthood; and on this point especially was the trial by means of the twelve rods laid up before the Lord designed to bear a decisive testimony. The rod of the house of Aaron alone being made to bud, and blossom, and yield almonds, was a visible miraculous sign from heaven, of a holiness belonging to the family of Aaron, which did not belong to the congregation at large. For what is holiness but spiritual life and fruitfulness? And of this there could not be a more natural emblem than a rod flourishing and yielding fruit after its kind. Such singular and pre-eminent holiness became those who were to be known as the immediate attendants and familiars of Jehovah, who revealed Himself as “the Holy One of Israel.” Hence, not only is it said in the general, that “holiness becometh God’s house,”—that is, those who dwell and minister in its courts,—but Aaron is called by way of distinction “the saint of the Lord;” and the law enjoins with special emphasis respecting the priests as a body, that they should be “holy unto their God:” “for,” it is added, “I the Lord, that sanctify you, am holy.”—(Ps. 93:5, 106:16; Lev. 21:8) Hence also, as holiness in the priesthood derived the necessity of its existence from the holiness of the Being whose attendants they were, it must have been holiness of the same character and description as His; the law of the ten commandments, which was the grand expression of the one, must undoubtedly have been intended to form the fixed standard of the other. It was an excellence which, however it might be [[@Page:267]] symbolized by outward things, could not possibly be formed of these, but must have been a real and personal distinction. This is forcibly brought out in the description given of the character of those who were originally appointed to fill the sacred functions of the priesthood in Mal. 2:1-7; and it is also clearly implied in the threatenings uttered against the house of Eli, and their ultimate degradation and ruin, on account of the moral impurities into which they fell. Their wicked course of life disqualified them from holding the sacred office, which must therefore have indispensably required purity in heart and conduct.

(3.) The last distinction belonging to the priesthood, was their right to draw near to God,—a right which grew out of their election of God, and their eminent holiness, as the end and consummation to which these pointed. The question in the rebellion of Korah was, Who were in such a sense chosen by God, and holy, as to be privileged to draw near to Him? And the decision of God was given on the two former, with a special respect to this latter prerogative: “And him whom He chooses will He make to draw near to Himself.” Hence, “those who draw near to Jehovah,” is not uncommonly given as a description of the priests (Ex. 19:22; Lev. 21:17; [[Ez. 42:13 >> Bible:Eze 42:13]] , [[44:13 >> Bible:Eze 44:13]] ); and the distinctive priestly act in all sacrificial services is called “the bringing near” (הקריב); as also the thing sacrificed is called, in its most general designation, corban (קרבן) the thing brought near, offering. On this account, what is mentioned in one place as “an offering of burnt-offerings,” is described in another as a “bringing near” of them.—(2 Sam. 6:17; 1 Chron. 16:1) But this right of the priesthood to come into the immediate presence of God, and submit to His acceptance the gifts and offerings of the congregation, of necessity involved the idea of their occupying an intermediate position between God and the people, and gave to their entire work the character of a mediation. “They were ordained for men in things pertaining to God,” charged to a certain extent with the interests of both parties, but having especially to transact with God in the behalf of those whom sin had removed to a distance from Him. Through them the families of Israel were blessed, as through Israel—the kingdom of priests—all the families of the earth were to be [[@Page:268]] blessed. In the high priest alone, however, was this function fully realized, as was plainly indicated by the outward distinctions held by him above the other priests, as well as above the people at large. “For to the outward of the high priest it be longed: First, that while the people, remaining at a greater or less distance from the sanctuary, approached to it only at befit ting times, the high priest, on the contrary, was always in the midst—so that though his functions were few, and confined to certain times, yet his whole existence appeared consecrated; and secondly, that though the people presented their offerings to God by the collective priesthood, still the sacrifice of the great day of atonement was necessary as an universal completion of the rest; and this the high priest alone could present. The idea, therefore, of his office seems to be, that while to the Jewish people their national life appeared as an alternation of drawing near to God, and withdrawing again from Him, the high priest was the individual whose life, compared with these vacillating movements, was in perpetual equipoise; and as the people were always in a state of impurity, he was the only person who could present himself as pure before God.”[8]

III. It was not, however, the sole end of the appointment of the priesthood, to represent the people in the sanctuary, and mediate between them and God and holy things. It belonged also to their office to secure the diffusion among the people of sound knowledge and instruction; so that there might be a right understanding among the people of the nature of God’s service, and a fitness for entering in spirit into its duties, while the priests were personally employed in discharging them. A certain amount of such knowledge was necessary, in order that the people might be disposed to bring their gifts and offerings at suitable times; and a still greater, that, in the presentation of these by the hand of the priests, they might be blessed as acceptable worshippers. With the oversight of this, therefore, so nearly connected with their sacred employments about the tabernacle, the priesthood were charged: “And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord [[@Page:269]] hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.”—(Lev. 10:11) So again in Deut. 33:10, “They shall teach Jacob Thy judgments, and Israel Thy law.” The words of Malachi also are express on this point: “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.”—([[ 2:7 >> Bible:Ml 2:7]] ) As a teacher, he had a divine mission to accomplish; and it was hence justly charged against the priesthood of his day by the prophet, as an entire subversion of the great end of their appointment, that instead of teaching others the law, “they caused many to stumble at it.” The prophet Hosea even ascribes the general ruin to their neglect of this part of their functions: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me.”—([[4:6 >> Bible:Ml 4:6]] )

The office of the priesthood thus necessarily involved somewhat of a prophetical or teaching character; and in after times, when those destined lights of Israel became themselves sources of darkness and corruption, prophets were raised up, and generally from among the priesthood, for the express purpose of correcting the evil, and supplying the information which the others had failed to impart. It is plain, however, that even if the priests had been faithful to this part of their calling, they were quite inadequate, from their limited number, to be personally in any proper sense the teachers of all Israel. It is true, they enjoyed peculiar advantages for this in the frequent recurrence of the stated feasts, which caused the people to assemble in one place thrice every year, and kept them on each returning solemnity for a week at the very centre of priestly influence. But much beside what could then be accomplished would require to be done, to diffuse a sufficient acquaintance with the law of God, and give instruction from time to time concerning numberless cases of doubt or difficulty, which in daily life would be certain to arise. On this account, more particularly, were the Levites associated with the priesthood, and planted at proper distances in certain cities throughout the tribes of Israel. They were “given to Aaron and his sons,” to minister unto him in subordinate and preparatory offices, while he was doing the service of the tabernacle, and generally “to [[@Page:270]] execute the service of the Lord.”—(Num. 3:5-10, 8:2)[9] In fulfilling this appointment, it fell to them to keep the tabernacle and its instruments in a proper state for the divine service, to bear its different parts when removing from place to place, to occupy in later times the post of door-keepers in the temple, to take part in the musical arrangements connected with the public service, to assist at the larger feasts in the killing and flaying of victims, etc.—(1 Chron. 23:28-32; 2 Chron. 35:6, 11) But separated as the Levites were from secular employments, without lands to cultivate, and “wholly given to the service of the Lord,” it was obviously but a small number of them who could be regularly occupied with such ministrations about the sanctuary; and as both their abundant leisure and their dispersion through the land gave them many opportunities of acting as the spiritual instructors of the people, it must have been chiefly through their instrumentality that the priests were to keep the people acquainted with the statutes and judgments of the Lord. This is clearly implied, indeed, in those passages which speak most distinctly of the obligation laid upon the priesthood to diffuse the knowledge of the law, and which refer equally to the priests and the Levites. Thus their common calling to “teach Jacob God’s judgments and Israel His law,” is announced in the blessing of Moses upon the whole tribe (Deut. 33:8-11); and in Malachi the failure of the priesthood to instruct the people in divine knowledge, and their guilt in causing many to err from the law, is called a “corruption of the covenant of Levi.”

Common discretion and self-interest, concurring with the principles of piety, must have enforced upon them this obligation, and dictated the employment of active measures for the diffusion of divine knowledge by the instrumentality of the [[@Page:271]] Levites. If these possessed the spirit of their office as men dedicated to the Lord’s service, in subordination to the priest hood, they must have felt it their duty to prepare the minds of the people for the solemnities of the tabernacle-worship, much more than to prepare the instruments of the tabernacle itself for the same. A moment’s reflection must have taught them, that their services, as ministering helps, to promote the ends of the priesthood, were greatly more necessary for the one purpose than the other. But if higher considerations should fail to influence them in the matter, they were still urged to exert themselves in this direction from a regard to their own comfortable maintenance, which was made principally to depend upon the tithes and offerings of the people. The chief source of revenue was the tithe, which belonged to the tribe of Levi, from their being more peculiarly the Lord’s; the whole property being represented by the number ten, and one of these being constantly taken as a tribute-money or pledge, that the whole was held in fief or dependence upon Him. Then, out of this tithe accruing to the entire tribe, another tithe was taken and devoted to the family of Aaron, as the peculiarly sacred portion of the tribe. But for the actual payment of these tithes and the other offerings of the people in which they had a share, the priests and Levites were dependent on the enlightened and faithful consciences of the people. The rendering of what was due, was simply a matter of religious obligation; and where this failed, the claim could not be enforced by any constraint of law. It consequently became indispensable to the very existence of the sacred tribe, that they should be at pains to preserve and elevate the religious sense of the community, as with this their own respect and comfort were inseparably connected. And when they proved unfaithful to their charge, as the representatives of God’s interest, and the expounders of His law among the people (as they appear to have done in the age of Malachi), their sin was visited upon them, in just retribution, by a withdrawal on the part of the people of the appointed offerings. So that, although nothing was said as to the particular means proper to be employed for the purpose (the Church being left then, as in New Testament times, to discharge the obligation laid upon it by suitable arrangements), there can be no doubt that the [[@Page:272]] obligation was imposed upon the priesthood to be partly themselves, and still more through their ministers the Levites, the teachers of the people in divine knowledge. The proper discharge of the priestly, presupposed and required a certain discharge of the prophetical function; and prophets, as extraordinary messengers, after having been occasionally sent to chastise their unfaithfulness and rouse them from their lethargy, were at last instituted as a distinct and separate order, only to supply what was found to be a lack of service on the part of those regular instructors. Indeed, as the members of the prophetical order seem generally to have been taken from the tribe of Levi, the institution of that order may be regarded as a perfecting of the Levitical office in one of its departments of duty.[10]

[[@Page:273]] IV. Now, the outward and bodily prescriptions which were given respecting the priesthood, were merely intended to serve, by their observance, as symbolical expressions of the ideas we have seen to be involved in the nature of their calling and office. It is not necessary for us to enter into any minute detail concerning them; and we shall content ourselves with briefly noticing some of the leading points.

(1.) There were, first, personal marks and distinctions of a bodily kind, the possession of which was necessary to qualify any one for the priesthood, and the absence of which was to prove an utter disqualification. These, therefore, being manifestly given or withheld by God, bore upon the question of a person’s election; and when not possessed, bespoke the individual not to be chosen by God in the peculiar sense required for the priestly office. Such were all kinds of bodily defects; it was declared a profanation of the altar or the sanctuary, for any one to draw near in whom they appeared.—(Lev. 21:16-24) Not that the Lord cared for the bodily appearance in itself, but through the body sought to convey suitable impressions regarding the soul. For completeness of bodily parts is to the body what, in the true religion, holiness is to the soul. To the requirement or the production of this holiness, as the perfection of man’s spiritual nature, the whole of the Mosaic institutions were bent. And as signs and witnesses to Israel concerning it, those who occupied the high position of being at once God’s and the people’s representatives, must bear upon their persons that external symbol of the spiritual perfection required of them. The choice of God had to be verified by their possessing the outward symbol of true holiness.[11]—The age prescribed for the [[@Page:274]] Levites (which would probably be regarded as the usual rule also for the priests) entering upon their office, and again ceasing from active service, carried substantially the same meaning. It comprehended the period of the natural life’s greatest vigour and completeness, and, as such, indicated that the spiritual life should be in a corresponding state. The age of entry is stated in Num. 4 at thirty, while in chap.[[8 >> Bible:Nu 8:1-26]] twenty-five is given; but the former has respect simply to the work of the Levites about (not at or in) the tabernacle, in transporting it from place to place; the latter speaks of the period of their entering on their duties generally; and it would seem that the practice latterly made it even so early as twenty.—(1 Chron. 23:27; 2 Chron. 31:17)[12]

(2.) Then, certain restrictions of an external kind were laid upon the priests, as to avoiding occasions of bodily defilement; such as contact with the dead, excepting in cases of nearest relationship; cutting and disfiguring the hair of the beard, as in times of mourning; marrying a person of bad fame, or one that had been divorced. And the high priest, as being in his own person the most sacred, was still farther restricted, so that he was not to defile himself even for his father or mother, and should marry only a virgin. These observances were enjoined as palpable symbols of the holiness, in walk and conduct, which became those who stood so near to the Holy One of Israel. Occupying the blessed region of life and purity, they must exhibit, in their external relations and deportment, the care and jealousy with which it behoves every one to watch against all occasions of sin, who would live in fellowship with the righteous Jehovah.

(3.) The garments appointed to be worn by the priesthood in their sacred ministrations were also, in some respects, strikingly expressive of the holiness required in their personal state, while in certain parts of the high priest’s dress other ideas be sides were symbolized. The stuff of all of them was linen, and, with the exception of the more ornamental parts of the high priest’s dress, must be understood to have been white. They are not expressly so called in the Pentateuch, but are incidentally described as white in 2 Chron. 5:12; and such also was known [[@Page:275]] to be the usual colour of the linen of Egypt, as worn by the priests. The coolness and comparative freedom from perspiration attending the use of linen garments, had led men to associate with them, especially in the burning clime of Egypt, the idea of cleanliness. Their symbolical use, therefore, in an ethical religion like the Mosaic, must have been expressive of inward purity; and hence, in the symbolical language of Revelation, we read so often of the white and clean garments of the heavenly inhabitants, which are expressly declared to mean “the righteousness of saints.”—(Rev. 19:8, 4:4, 6:11, etc.) Hence also, on the day of atonement, the plain white linen garments which the high priest was to wear, are called “garments of holiness”—evidently implying that holiness was the idea more peculiarly imaged by clothing of that description. It was this idea, too, that was emblazoned in the plate of gold which was attached to the front of the high priest’s bonnet or mitre, by the engraving on it of the words, “Holiness to the Lord.” This became the more necessary in his case, on account of the rich embroidery and manifold ornaments which belonged to other parts of his dress, and which were fitted to lessen the impression of holiness, that the fine white linen of some of them might otherwise have been sufficient to convey. The representative character of the high priest was symbolized by the breast-plate of the Ephod, which in twelve precious stones bore the names of the tribes of the children of Israel, indicating that in their name and behalf he appeared in the presence of God. The Urim and Thummim (lights and perfections) connected with the breast-plate, if not identical with it, and through which, in cases of emergency, he obtained unerring responses from heaven, bespoke the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the mind and will of God, with which he should be endowed to fit him for giving a clear direction to the people in the things of God, and the perfect rectitude of the decisions he would consequently pronounce respecting them.—The girdle with which his flowing garments were bound together, denoted the high and honourable service in which he was engaged; and the bells and pomegranates, which were wrought upon the lower edge of the tunic below the Ephod, bespoke the distinct utterances he was to give of the Divine word, and the fruitfulness in righteousness of which this should be productive. [[@Page:276]] Finally, the fine quality of the stuff of which all the garments of the priests were made, and the gold, and diversified colours, and rich embroidery appearing in the ordinary garments of the priesthood, expressly said to have been for ornament and beauty, (Ex. 28:40), were manifestly designed to express the elevated rank and dignity of those who are recognised by God as sons in His house, permitted to draw near with confidence to His presence, and to go in and out before Him.[13]

(4.) Lastly, the rites of consecration proclaimed the necessity of holiness—a holiness not their own, but imputed to them by the grace of God; and following upon this, and flowing from the same source, a plentiful endowment of gifts for their sacred office, with the manifest seal of Heaven’s fellowship and approval. They were first brought to the door of the tabernacle and washed—as in themselves impure, and requiring the application of water—the simplest and commonest element of cleansing. Then, the body being thus purified, the pontifical garments were put on; and on the high priest first, afterwards on the other priests, was poured the holy anointing oil, which ran down upon their garments.—(Ex. 28:21, 30:30, etc.) And in the case of the sons the anointing is declared to have constituted [[@Page:277]] them “an everlasting priesthood through all their generations” (Ex. 40:15)—meaning, apparently, and as has been commonly understood, that the act did not need to be renewed in respect to the ordinary members of the priesthood. This was the peculiar act of consecration, and symbolized the bestowal upon those who received it, of the Spirit’s grace, so as to make them Ht and active instruments in discharging the duties of God’s service. As such anointing had already stamped the tabernacle as God’s hallowed abode, so now did it hallow them to be His proper agents and servitors within its courts (p. 243). But, different from the senseless materials of the tabernacle, these anointed priests have consciences defiled with the pollution and laden with the guilt of sin. And how, then, can they stand in the presence of Him who is a consuming fire to sinners, and minister before Him? The more they partook of the unction of the Holy One, the more must they have felt the necessity of another kind of cleansing than they had yet received, and raised in their souls a cry for the blood of atonement and reconciliation. This, therefore, was what was next provided, and through an entire series of sacrifices and offerings they were conducted, as from the depths of guilt and condemnation, to what indicated [[@Page:278]] their possession of a state of blessed peace and most friendly intercourse with God. Even Jewish writers did not fail to mark the gradation in the order of the sacrifices. “For first of all,” says one of them, “there was presented for the expiation of sin the bullock of sin-offering, of which nothing save a little fat was offered (on the altar) to God (the flesh being burned without the camp); because the offerers were not yet worthy to have any gift or offering accepted by God. But after they had been so far purged, they slew the burnt-offering to God, which was wholly laid upon the altar. And after this came a sacrifice like a peace-offering (which was wont to be divided between God, the priests, and the offerers), showing they were now so far received into favour with God, that they might eat at His table.”[14]

This last offering is called the “ram of consecration,” or of “filling,” because the portions of it to be consumed upon the altar, with its accompanying meat-offering, were put into Aaron’s hands, that he might present and wave them before the Lord. Being counted worthy to have his hands filled with these, the representatives of what he was to be constantly presenting and eating before the Lord, he was thereby, in a manner, installed in his office. But first he had to be sprinkled with the blood of the victim the blood in which the life is, and which, after being sprinkled on the altar, and so uniting him to God, was applied to his body, signifying the conveyance of a new life to him, a life out of death from God, and in union with God. Nor was Aaron’s body in the general only sprinkled with this holy life-giving blood, but also particular members apart:—his right ear, to sanctify it to a ready and attentive listening to the law of God, according to which all His service must be regulated; his right hand, and his right foot, that the one might be hallowed for the presentation of sacred gifts to God, and the other for treading His courts and running the way of His commandments. And now, to complete the ceremony, he receives on his person and his garments a second anointing—not simply with the oil, but with the oil and this blood of consecration mingled together—symbolizing the new life of God, in which he is henceforth to move and have his being, in conjunction with the Spirit, on whose softening, penetrating, invigorating influence all the [[@Page:279]] powers and movements of that divine life depend. So that the Levitical priesthood appeared emphatically as one coming “by water and by blood.” It spoke aloud, in all its rites of consecration, of sin on man’s part, and holiness on God’s. The memorials of human guilt, and the emblems of divine sanctity, must at once meet on the persons of those who exercised it. Theirs must be clean hands and a pure heart, sanctified natures, a heaven-derived and heaven-sustained life, such as betokened a real connection with God, and a personal interest in the benefits of His redemption.

The full meaning, however, of the offerings connected with the consecration of the priests will only appear when we have considered the various kinds of sacrifices employed on the occasion. It is enough at present to have given the general import. The whole was repeated seven times, on as many successive days—because seven was the symbol of the oath or covenant, and indicated here that the consecration to the priestly office was a strictly covenant transaction. That it was done, not merely seven times, but on seven successive days, might also be intended to indicate its completeness—a week of days being the shortest complete revolution of time. That the parts of the peace and the bread-offering, which were put into Aaron’s hand, and which were to be his for ever, were burnt on the altar, and not eaten by Moses (who here acted, by virtue of his special commission, as priest), may have simply arisen from Moses not being able to eat the whole; he had to eat the wave bread, which might be enough; hence also what remained over of the parts given to Aaron to be eaten, were to be burnt.—(Ex. 29:34) We see nothing, therefore, in that arrangement to be regarded as a difficulty, though Kurtz has noted it as one. (Mosaische Opfer, p. 249) The action of the second anointing we have explained substantially with Baumgarten, and not differing very materially from Bähr.—(Symb., 2., 424, etc.) We cannot, with Mr Bonar (Comm. on Lev., p. 160), regard the first anointing as the consecration of the man, and the second as that of the priest; for at the first as well as the second, Aaron had on the priest’s garments, and nothing could more distinctly intimate, that what was afterwards done had respect to him as priest. The fire which came out from before the Lord and [[@Page:280]] consumed the burnt-offering on the altar, the first which Aaron presented for the people (Lev. 9:24), was the solemn seal and recognition of Heaven to the office and work of the high priest. It inaugurated not Aaron merely, but the priesthood generally of the covenant, as the elect of God. The rites of consecration differ materially from those used in Egypt. In particular, the shaving of the whole body, which was practised in Egypt every three days (Herod., ii. 37), and kept the head as well as the body generally bald, was entirely omitted here. It was done at first, but only then, with the Levites (Num. 8) as an act of cleansing, along with the sprinkling of water and washing of the clothes. It hence appears to have been regarded as a symbol of an inferior kind, as the consecration of the Levites was much less solemn than that of the priests.

V. In applying now what was ordained respecting the Levitical priesthood to the higher things of Christ’s kingdom, we find, indeed, everywhere a shadow of these, but “not the very image” of them. The resemblances were such as imperfect, earthly materials, and an instrumentality of sinful beings, could present to the heavenly and divine—inevitably presenting, therefore, some important and palpable differences. Thus, from the high priest being taken from among men, he necessarily partook of their sinfulness, and required to be himself cleansed by rites and offerings, to be invested with what might be denominated an artificial, imputed holiness, in order that he might mediate between the holy God and his sinful fellow-men. And then, that he might go through such a process of purification as should raise him to a proper religious elevation above his brethren, there were meanwhile needed the ministrations of one standing between him and God. The mediator of the covenant, who consecrated, had of necessity to be different from, and higher than, the person who was consecrated for high priest. These were obvious though unavoidable imperfections, even as regarded the preparatory dispensation itself; and it must have suggested itself as manifestly a more perfect arrangement, could it have been obtained, if the high priest had been possessor of the nature, without being partaker of the guilt of his brethren, and by his inherent qualities had united in his own person what [[@Page:281]] fitted him to be at once mediator and high priest over the house of God.

Now, this is precisely what first meets us in the Gospel constitution of the kingdom; and the defects and imperfections which gave a sort of anomalous and arbitrary character to the arrangements under the Old Testament, have no place whatever here. He who is the Mediator, is also the High Priest of His people; and while partaker of flesh and blood like the brethren, yet being “without sin,” “holy, harmless, and undefiled,” He needed no offerings and ablutions to consecrate Him to the office of priesthood. At once very God and true man, the Eternal Son in personal union with real though spotless humanity, He was thoroughly qualified to act the part of the day’s-man between the Father and His sinful children, being able to “lay His hand upon them both.” Who could appear as He the friend and familiar of God?—He, who was in the bosom of the Father, and who could say in the fullest sense, “I and the Father are one?”—who even as the Son of Man, appearing in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet Himself had no fellowship with the accursed thing, but ever shunned and abhorred it? With the divine and human thus meeting all purely in His person, He has everything that could be desired to render Him the proper Head and High Priest of His people. The arrangement for reconciling heaven and earth, and re-establishing the intercourse between lost man and his Creator, is absolutely perfect, and leaves nothing to be desired. On the one side, as the Beloved Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased, He has at all times free access to the presence of the Father, and in whatever He asks must also have power as a prince to prevail. On the other, as the representative of His people, and one in nature with themselves, they can at all times make known with confidence to Him the sins and sorrows of their condition, and, recognising what is His as also theirs, can rise with filial boldness to realize their near relationship to God, and their full participation in the favour and blessing of Heaven.

It is impossible, surely, to contemplate the God-man as the head of restored humanity, and the pattern after which all believers shall be formed, without feeling constrained to say, not only how admirable is the arrangement, but also how amazing [[@Page:282]] the condescension! How wonderful, that the Most High should thus accommodate Himself to man’s nature and necessities! And how wonderful, on the other hand, that He should elevate this nature into such near and personal union with Himself, and, for the sake of establishing a fit medium of communication and intercourse between the creature and the Creator, should make it His own eternal habitation and instrument of working! It is this pre-eminently which crowns our nature with dignity and honour, and tells to what a peerless height our humanity is destined. We know not what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him in whom our nature is linked in closest union with the Godhead; and to have our lot and destiny bound up with His, is to be assured of all that it is possible for us to enjoy of blessing and glory.

In accomplishing this great work of mediation, however, the High Priest of our profession, like the earthly type, “must have somewhat to offer.” And here, again, where the very heart and centre of His work is concerned, such differences appear as betoken the one to have been only the imperfect shadow, not the exact image, of the other. For, under the Old Testament priesthood, the offerer was different, not only from the thing offered, but also, for the most part, from the person on whose behalf the offering was presented. And so impossible was it, amid the imperfections of the shadow, to combine these properly together, that on the great day of atonement it was found necessary to cause the high priest to offer first for himself apart, and then for the people apart. But now that the perfect things of God’s kingdom have come, this imperfection also has disappeared. The one grand offering, through which Christ has finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in the everlasting righteousness, was at once furnished by Himself, and offered by Himself. He gave Himself to death as thus laden with their guilt, an offering of a sweet-smelling savour to God, and rose again for their justification, as one fully able of Himself to provide and to do everything that was needed to close up the breach which sin had made between man and God.

Yet, while there were such imperfections as we have noted, rendering the Levitical priesthood but a defective representation of the Christian, there were, at the same time, many striking [[@Page:283]] resemblances, and the fundamental principles connected with the priesthood of Christ were as fully embodied there as it was possible for them to be in a single institution. For,

(1.) The Levitical priesthood was for Israel the one medium of acceptable approach to God. Aaron and his sons were called, and alone called, to the office of presenting all the offerings of the people at the house of God, and securing for them the blessing. And the attempt made on one occasion to supersede the appointment, and dispense with their ministrations, only led to the discomfiture and perdition of those who impiously attempted it. What else can be the result of any similar attempt under the Gospel? A far higher necessity, indeed, reigns here, and any dishonour done to Jesus in His priestly function must be revenged with a much sorer condemnation. The one Mediator between God and man, no one can come to the Father but by Him; and they only who are redeemed by His blood, and presented by Him to the Father as His own ransomed and elect Church, can be accepted to blessing and glory. Therefore it is the Father’s will that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father; and salvation by any other name than that of Jesus is absolutely unattainable.

(2.) The personal holiness of Christ in His priesthood was also strikingly typified in the consecrations and garments of the Levitical priesthood, and especially in the purifications by water and blood. In His case, however, the holiness was not acquired, but original, inherent, and complete, manifesting itself in the fulfilment of all righteousness, and magnifying the law of God to the fearful extent of bearing the penalty it had denounced against numberless transgressions. His obedience was such as left no demand of righteousness unsatisfied, and His blood was that of the Lamb of God, without spot or blemish—blood of infinite value. If God accepted the services and heard the intercessions of the priesthood of old, all lame and imperfect as their righteousness was, how much more may His people now count on the blessing, if they approach in humble reliance on the worth and sufficiency of Christ?

(3.) Then we see the representative character of His priest hood, and all its functions, imaged in that of the high priest, possessing as he did the names of the twelve tribes upon his [[@Page:284]] breast when he entered the tabernacle, and having their cause and interest ever before him. Christ, in like manner, does nothing for Himself, but only as the Shepherd and Saviour of His people. “For their sakes He sanctified Himself,” by laying down His life to purchase their redemption. And none of them escapes His regard. “He knows His sheep.” All the real Israel whom the Father has given to Him, are borne upon His bosom within the veil, and shall assuredly reap the fruits of His successful mediation.

(4.) Further, his thorough insight into the mind of God, and capacity to give forth clear revelations and unerring judgments of His will, was prefigured in the Urim and Thummim of the Jewish high priest, through which the priesthood gave oracular decisions in regard to the things of God, and in the authority generally committed to the priesthood of declaring the Divine will. “No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Himself the Divine Word, through whom Godhead, as it were, speaks and makes itself known to the creatures, it is His part in all His operations, but especially in the discharge of His priestly functions, to declare the Father. In Him, as fulfilling the work connected with these, is seen, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord; and while He conducts His people to an interest in what He has done for their redemption, it is as the truth that He manifests Himself to them. He has even promised to lead them into all the truth, and to fill them with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

(5.) Once more, in the anointing of the high priest, we plainly read the connection between the work of Christ and the agency of the Holy Spirit. As the oil there sanctified all, so the Spirit here seals and works in all. By the power of the Spirit was the flesh of Christ conceived; with the fulness of the Spirit was He endowed at His baptism: all His works were wrought in the Spirit, and by the Spirit He at last offered Himself without spot to God. The Father had given the Spirit not by measure to Him; and as the oil that was poured on the head of Aaron flowed down upon his garments, so is this Spirit ever ready to descend from Christ upon all who are members of His body.

[[@Page:285]] The priesthood of Aaron was certainly highly honoured in being made to represent beforehand, in so many points, the eternal priesthood of Christ. But in one respect a manifest blank presents itself, which required to be met by a special corrective. As seen in the Old Testament institution, the priestly bore a distinct and easily recognised connection with the prophetical or teaching office; but none, or at least a very distant and obscure one, with the kingly. This of necessity arose from God Himself being King in Israel when the priesthood was instituted; so that no nearer approximation to the ruling authority could be allowed to the members of the priesthood, than that of being expounders and revealers of the law of the Divine-King. Something more than this, however, was required to bring out the true character of the Eternal priesthood, especially after the time that an earthly head of the kingly function was appointed, and the priesthood became still less immediately connected with an authority to rule in the house of God. Hence, no doubt, it was that the Spirit of prophecy, in directing the expectations of the Church to the coming Messiah, began then so peculiarly to supply what was lacking in the intimations of the existing type, and to make promise of Him as “a priest after the order of Melchizedek.”—(Ps. 110) There were in reality far more points of similitude to Christ’s office in the priesthood of Aaron than in that of Melchizedek; but in one very important and prominent respect the one supplied what the other absolutely wanted Melchizedek—being at once a king and a priest, a priest upon the throne. And it was more especially to teach that Messiah should be the same, and in this should differ from the Aaronic priesthood, that such a prediction was then given. It was virtually an assurance to the Church, that the sacerdotal and regal functions, then obviously dissevered, should be united in the person of Him who was to come; and that as the power and splendour of royalty was, in His hands, to be tempered by the tenderness and compassion of the priest, the coming of His kingdom should on that account be looked for with eager expectation. The prediction was again renewal, though without any specific reference to Melchizedek, by Zechariah after the restoration.—(Ch. [[6:13 >> Bible:Zc 6:13]] ) But while this was the main reason and design of the reference,—when the Jews of [[@Page:286]] our Lord’s time not only overlooked the leading point of the prediction, but entirely misconceived also the relation that the Levitical priesthood bore to Christ’s work and kingdom, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews took occasion to bring out various other and subordinate points of instruction from the prophecy in the [[110th >> Bible:Ps 110:1-7]] Psalm, which it was also fitted to convey. These were mainly directed to the purpose of establishing the conclusion, that the priesthood of our Lord must, by that reference to Melchizedek, have been designed to supersede the priesthood of Aaron, and to be constituted after a higher model; that both in His person and His office He was to stand pre-eminent above the most honoured of the sons of Abraham, as Melchizedek appears in the history rising above Abraham himself.

It only remains to notice, that in virtue of the law in Christ’s kingdom, by which all His people are vitally united to Him, and partake, to some extent, in every gift and distinction which belongs to Himself, sincere believers are priests after His order and pattern. Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, consecrated by the sprinkling of His blood on their consciences, and the unction of His Spirit, and brought near to God, they are “an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” It is their privilege to go nigh through Him even unto the holiest of all, and minister and serve before Him as sons and daughters in His kingdom. And as in their Great Head, so in them the priestly calling bears relation to the prophetical office on the one hand, and to the kingly on the other. As those who are privileged to stand so high and come so near to God, they obtain the “unction which teaches them all things” “leads them into all the truth,” makes them “children of light,” and constitutes them “lights of the world.” And along with this spirit of wisdom and revelation, there also rests on them the spirit of power, which renders them a “royal priesthood.” Even now, in a measure, they reign as kings over the evil in their natures, and in the world around them; and when Christ’s work in them is brought to its proper consummation, they shall, as kings and priests, share with Him in the glories of His everlasting kingdom. Hence, in the Christian priesthood as well as in the Jewish, [[@Page:287]] everything in the first instance depends upon the condition of the person. It is not the offering that makes the priest, but the priest that makes the offering. He only who has attained to a state of peace and fellowship with God, who has been regenerated by Divine grace, and brought to a personal interest in the blessings of Christ’s salvation, is in a fit condition for presenting to God the spiritual sacrifices of the New Testament. For what are these sacrifices? They are the fruits of grace, yielded by a soul that has become truly alive to God; and simply consist in the willing and active consecration of the person himself, through the varied exercises of love to God and his fellow-men. It is only, therefore, in so far as he is already a subject of grace standing on the ground of Christ’s perfected redemption, and replenished with the life-giving influences of the Holy Spirit, that his good deeds possess the character of sacrifices, acceptable to God. They are, otherwise, but dead works, of no account in the sight of Heaven, because presented by unclean hands, and coining from those who are unsanctified; and even though formally right, they must rank among the things of which God declares that He has not required them at men’s hands.—(Isa. 1:12; Hag. 2:10-13)

But those, on the other hand, who are in the spiritual condition now described, have freedom of access for themselves and their offerings to God; and let no man spoil them of their privilege. Chosen as they are in Christ, and constituted in Him a royal priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, to interpose any others as priests between them and Christ, were to traverse the order of God, and subvert the arrangements of His house. It were to block up anew the path into the Holiest, which Christ has laid fully open. It were to degrade those whom He has called through glory and virtue nay, to disparage Christ Himself, the living root out of which His people grow, in whose life they live, and in whose acceptance they are accepted. A priesthood, in the strict and proper sense, apart from what be longs to believers as such, can have no place in the Church of the New Testament; and the institution of a distinct priestly order, such as exists in the Greek and Roman communities, is an unlawful usurpation, proceeding from the spirit of error and of antichrist. In such a kingdom as Christ’s, where every real [[@Page:288]] member is a priest, there can be room only for ministerial functions necessary for the maintenance of order and the general good. But as regards fellowship with Heaven, there can be no essential difference, since all have access to God by faith, through the grace wherein they stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Vitringa, Obs. Sac., i., De Praerogativis Primogenitorum in Eccl. Vet. This subject, and the closely related one of the consecration of the Levites in the room of the first-born, is so ably and satisfactorily discussed there, that little has been left for subsequent inquirers. Of the general practice in appointing persons to exercise priestly functions, where no separate order existed for the purpose, and which prevailed in common with God’s more ancient worshippers and many heathen nations, he says, “Nothing is more certain, than that the ancients required sacrifices to be performed, either by princes and heads of families, or by persons singularly gifted in body and mind, as being deemed more deserving than others of the Divine fellowship.” This holds especially of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Of the former, C. O. Müller says, that “the worship of a deity peculiar to any tribe was, from the beginning, common to all the members of the tribe; that those who governed the people in the other concerns of life, naturally presided over their religious observances, the heads of families in private, and the rulers in the community; and that it might be said with just as much truth, that the kings were priests, as that the priests were kings.” And so much was it the practice in the properly historical periods of Greece, to have priestly offices performed by means of public magistrates, or persons delegated by the community, that he does not think “there ever was in Greece a priesthood, strictly speaking, in contradistinction to the laity.”—(Introd. to Mythology, p. 187, 188, Trans.) Livy testifies that, among the early Romans, the care of the sacred things devolved upon their kings, and that after the expulsion of these, an officer was appointed for the purpose, with the name of Rex Sacrorum.—(L. 2. 2) It was still customary, however, as is well known, for private families to perform their own peculiar sacrifices and libations to the gods. On special occasions, besides, persons were temporarily appointed for the performance of sacred officess, as on the occasion of the taking of Veiae, thus related by Livy, v. c. 22: “Delecti ex omni exeritu juvenes, pure lotis corporibus, candida veste, quibus deportanda Romam Regina Juno assignata erat, veneribundi templum iniere, primo religiose admoventes manus; quod id signum more Etrusco, nisi certae gentis sacerdos, attrectare non esset solitus.” In Virgil, we find: “Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phoebique sacerdos” (AEn., iii. 80), on which Servius remarks: “Sane majorum haec erat consuetudo, ut rex etiam esset sacerdos vel pontifex, unde bodieque Imperatores pontifices dicimus.” So also Aristotle, speaking of the heroic times, says: στπατηγὸς γὰρ ἦν καὶ δικαστὴς ὁ βασιλεὺς καὶ τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς κύριος.—(Pol. iii. 14) There was nothing peculiar, therefore, in the fact of Melchizedek having been at once a king and a priest. The only remarkable thing was, that among such a people he should have been a priest of “the Most High God,” and so certainly called of God to the office, that even Abraham recognised his title to the honour. It is impossible with any certainty to trace the transition from this to that other state of things which prevailed in some ancient countries, and in which the priests existed as an entirely separate class a distinct caste. Yet, in regard especially to Egypt, the country where such a state of things probably originated, the transition may have implied no very great change, and may have been quite easily effected. For it is now understood that the earlier kings there were priest-kings, either belonging to the priest caste, or held in great dependence by that body; that the land was originally peopled by a kind of priest colonies, who either appointed one of their number to rule in the name of a certain god, or at least formed, in connection with the ruler, the reigning portion of the community. The members of this caste consequently were the first proprietors of lands in each district. Even by the account of Herodotus, they appear still in his day to have been the principal landed proprietors; each temple in a particular district had extensive estates, as well as a staff of priests connected with it, which formed the original territory of the settlement, and were subsequently farmed out for the good of the whole: so that “the families of priests were the first, the highest, and the richest in the country; they had exclusively the transacting of all state affairs, and carried on many of the most profitable branches of business (judges, physicians, architects, etc.), and were to a certain extent a highly privileged nobility.”—(Heeren. Af., i., p. 368, ii., p. 122-129; Wilkinson, i. 245, etc.)

[2] Obs. Sac., i., p. 292.

[3] Vita Mosis. iii., p. 686.

[4] Ps. 5:7, 27:4, etc.

[5] Isa. 61:6, 66:21; Jer. 33:22; on which last see Hengstenberg’s Christol.; as also on Zech. 3:1, for some good remarks on the subject now under discussion.

[6] Vitringa (Obs. Sac., i., p. 272) gives this even as the radical signification of the name cohen, “familiarioris accessionis amicum,” appealing for proof to Isa. 61:10. In this he followed Cocceius, who makes the fundamental idea of the verb to be that of drawing near to a superior. Many, after Kimchi, understand it of the performing of honourable and dignified service; while many again in recent times resort to the Arabic, and find the sense of discovering secret things, prophesying, which they consider as the original one.—(Pye Smith on Priesthood of Christ, p. 82) There can he no doubt, however, that, whether from usage or from original meaning, the word came to convey the idea of something like a familiar or chosen friend and counsellor. Hence, David’s sons being priests (2 Sam. 8:18), is explained in 1 Chron. 18:17 by their being at the hand of the king.

[7] Spencer, De Leg., L. i., c. 8, concurs with the Jewish writers in the reason they assign, and quotes Philo with approbation: naturally enough, as his grand reason for the institution of the priesthood was simply the prevention of idolatry!

[8] Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre, as quoted by Tholuck, in Diss. ii., in Com. on Ep. to Hebr., Bib. Cabinet, xxxix., p. 265.

[9] They were given to Aaron, the Lord’s familiar, as a sacrifice offered up and consecrated to the Lord in the room of the first-born. The first-born, at the deliverance from Egypt, had represented all the people,—in them, all the people were redeemed; so now the people, when substituting the Levites in their place, had to lay their hands on their heads, and Aaron waved them before the Lord as an offering; and as originally God accepted the blood of the lamb for the blood of the first-born, so now He accepted a burnt-offering and a sin-offering for the Levites, on which they had to place their hands.—(Num. 3 and 8)

[10] Vitr. Synag. Vet., L. i., P. 2, c. 8, where also see various Jewish authorities in proof of the calling of the Levites to be teachers and expounders of the law, and especially one from Baal Hattarim, which expressly assigns this as the reason of the dispersion of the Levites among the Israelites (dispergentur per omnes Israelitas ad docendam legem). See also Mover’s Kronik, p. 300, and Graves on Pent., ii., Lec. 4. Michaelis (Com. on Laws of Moses, i., art. 35, 52) has asserted, that a great many civil and literary offices belonged to the priests and Levites—that they were not only ministers of religion, but physicians, judges, scribes, mathematicians, etc., holding the same place in Israelitish that the Egyptian priesthood did in Egyptian society—and that on this account alone were such large revenues assigned them. This view has been too often followed by divines, especially by the rationalist portion of them, and is still too much countenanced in the Bib. Cyclop., art. Priest, and even by Mr Taylor in his Spiritual Despotism, p. 99. It is entirely, however, without foundation, and has been thoroughly disproved by Bähr (Symbolik, ii., p. 34, 53), and by Hengstenberg, who has shown that the Levites, as well as the priests, were set apart only for religious purposes, and that in particular the civil constitution as to judges, as settled by Moses, was merely the revival and improvement of that patriarchal government which had never been altogether destroyed in Egypt. (Authentie, 2., p. 260, 341, 654, etc.) There can be no doubt that the Egyptian and Indian priests held many of the offices referred to; that their political went hand in hand with their religious influence; and that, especially in Egypt, the most fertile lands belonged to them, with many other lucrative privileges. It was very different with the Levitical priesthood—no lands worth naming—a dependence upon the offerings of the people for their livelihood; so that they are commended to the care of the people as objects of kindness with the widow and orphan (Deut. 12:12, 16:11, 14), and were often, from the low state of religion, in comparative want.

[11] The Greeks and Romans, it is well known, were very particular in regard to the corporeal soundness and even beauty of their priests. Among the former, every one underwent a careful examination as to his bodily frame before he entered on the priestly office; and among the Romans there are instances of persons resigning the office on receiving some corporeal blemish—such as M. Sergius, who lost his hand in the defence of his country. But holiness was not the perfection aimed at in those religions; and such regard was paid to bodily completeness merely because it was thought a token of Divine favour, and an omen of good success. Hence Seneca, Controv. iv. 2: Sacerdos non integri corporis quasi mali omiuis res vitanda est. See Bähr, ii., p. 59.

[12] Hengstenberg, Authentie, ii. 2., p. 393; Relandi, Antiq., ii., 6, 3; Lightfoot, Op., ii., p. 691.

[13] We have not specified in detail the different parts of the priest’s garments; they consisted, in the case of the priesthood generally, of breeches or drawers of linen, a coat or tunic reaching from the neck to the ankles and wrists, an embroidered girdle, and a mitre or turban (the usual parts, in fact, of an Oriental dress). But in the case of the high priest, there were, beside these, a mantle or robe of blue, worn over the inner coat or tunic, and immediately under the ephod; then the ephod itself, a sort of short coat, very richly embroidered and ornamented, with its corresponding girdle and breast-plate, with the Urim and Thummim, which was regarded as the peculiar and distinctive garment of the high priest, who is thence often described as he “who wore the ephod.” (Common linen ephods, however, were worn by the priests generally, and sometimes even by laymen.) That there was much in these garments peculiar to the Israelites, and differing from what existed in Egypt, we think Bähr has sufficiently established. For example, the tunics of the Egyptian priests appear to have reached only from the haunch to the feet, leaving the upper part naked; the mitres were of a different shape, and fell back upon the neck; the girdle seems not to have been used, but they wore shoes, and on great occasions leopard skins, which the Israelitish priests did not.—(Symbolik, ii., p. 92) It is clear, therefore, there could be no slavish imitation, as Spencer and others have laboured to show. Yet this by no means proves that there might not have been in some leading particulars the same symbols employed to represent substantially the same ideas. That this was the case in regard to the white linen garments, seems indisputable; Spencer’s proofs there, as Hengstenberg remarks against Bähr (Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 146), are quite conclusive. Such dresses were peculiar only to the priests of Egypt and Palestine as symbolic of cleanliness or purity; hence the former were called by Juvenal “grex liniger,” by Ovid “linigera turba,” by Martial “linigeri calvi,” by Seneca “liuteali senes.”—(Spencer, de Leg., l. iii., c. 5, s. 2) There does seem also to have been a reference in the Urim and Thummim to the practice in Egypt of suspending the image of the goddess Thmei, who was honoured under the twofold character of truth and justice, from the neck of the chief judge.—(See Hengstenberg as above, p. 150, with the quotations there, especially from Wilkinson.) Still there was a very characteristic difference, in that the high priest did not act properly as a judge, but as a spiritual servant of God, and was only represented as having a sure revelation if ho faithfully waited upon God, and sought in earnest to guide the people into the right knowledge of God, and a true judgment of matters as between them and God. For direct consultation with God, the Urim and Thummim seems only to have been used in cases of emergency, when ordinary resources failed. And what it was precisely, or how responses were obtained by it, cannot now be ascertained.

[14] R. Levi Ben Gerson, as quoted by Outram, De Sac., p. 56.

Section Fourth.—The Tabernacle in its Several Divisions—1. The Forecourt, with its Two Articles, The Laver and The Altar of Burnt-Offering—Sacrifice by Blood in its Fundamental Idea and Ritual Accompaniments (Choice of The Victims, Imposition of Hands, and Sprinkling of The Blood).

[[@Page:289]] IN the preceding chapters we have contemplated the tabernacle and its officiating priesthood in a somewhat general light,—with reference simply to the great design of the one, and the distinctive character and privileges of the other. It is necessary now to descend to particulars, and look at the several compartments into which it fell, with their respective furniture and services, so as to apprehend with some distinctness the religious ideas more particularly associated with each, the relation in which they stood one to another, and the regulated system of worship, both in its primary and in its typical character, which found here its common centre and development. The divisions of the tabernacle will form in this part of our inquiry the most appropriate divisions of the subject.

The tabernacle proper had merely a twofold division, an outer and an inner compartment—a Holy and a Most Holy Place, or, as they are sometimes called, the Sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. The innermost of the two was the smallest in compass, but the most perfect in its proportions, being an exact cube of ten cubits—the length, height, and breadth being all equal. It is scarcely possible to doubt that the number ten here was symbolic, as well as in the number of commandments written upon the two tables, which belonged to this compartment; for in both cases alike it stood quite prominently out, and, from the modes of thought prevalent in ancient times respecting number, would quite readily convey the idea of completeness. The cube form alone, with whatever number associate [[@Page:290]] might have suggested this—as in the case of the New Jerusalem seen in the apocalyptic vision, where attention is specially called to the circumstance that “the length, and the breadth, and the height were equal” (Rev. 21:16); but the cube being formed of ten, itself a symbol of perfection, would naturally serve to strengthen the impression. This region of inner most sacredness and perfection was separated from the other part of the tabernacle by a curtain or veil, which was formed of the same kind of material, and inwrought with the same figures as the curtain which formed the interior of the roof, and, most probably, also of the walls of the structure. The curtain was suspended from four pillars, overlaid with gold. Then from this to the door of the tabernacle was a space of twenty cubits in length by ten in breadth and height—the proportions, though larger, being manifestly less perfect; while also the curtain which hung over the doorway or entrance was without the cherubic figures inwoven, though otherwise resembling the interior curtain, and was suspended by golden hooks upon five pillars. Here there were evidently certain marks of incompleteness, which seemed to denote this as relatively the inferior place, and standing at some remove from the region of absolute perfection. But there was a sacred region without, as well as these two hallowed compartments within, the tabernacle; an outer court, surrounding the tabernacle on every side, and consisting of 100 cubits long and 50 cubits broad. This court was enclosed by a screen of linen, of fine quality, but not embroidered, five cubits in height, and was supported by 60 pillars, 20 on each side, and 10 at each end, to which the linen was attached by hooks and fillets of silver, while the pillars themselves rested in sockets of brass. The veil, or curtain, however, which hung at the doorway, of 20 cubits broad, was made after the pattern of the outer veil of the tabernacle, and similarly embroidered. The exact position of the tabernacle within this court is not given, though we naturally suppose it to have been such as to leave more space at the entrance than at the further end, as there more room was required for the laver, which stood immediately in front, and the altar of burnt-offering in front of that again. But in the prevalence of the number five, in the use of silver where before there was gold, and of brass where there [[@Page:291]] was silver,—in the employment also of plain instead of embroidered linen, and the unprotected openness of the court above, one descries still farther signs of relative imperfection.

The tabernacle, it may be added, with its surrounding court, was appointed to stand with the entrance fronting the east; so that the two sides looked the one toward the north, the other towards the south, and the end, containing the Most Holy Place, toward the west. That in the general position a respect was had to the four quarters of the earth, as emblems of universality, may readily be conceived: the sacred structure, however limited in dimensions, was still the habitation of Him to whom the earth and all his fulness belongs, and whose kingdom, spiritually as well as naturally, must rule over all. But why the more peculiarly sacred region should have looked towards the west, no certain reason has been discovered. Some have supposed it was with reference to the site of paradise, as understood to lie in a somewhat westerly direction. But more commonly the reason has been sought in the relation which was thereby secured for the entrance towards the east—that the tabernacle might catch the earliest rays of morn, or that in worshipping men might have their backs towards the sun and their faces towards God, the real source of light and blessing; and such like. It is, however, better to confess ignorance than to multiply reasons of this description, which are mere conjectures, and can yield no real satisfaction.

Not attempting to explain all the adjustments in this sacred erection, or to go into the minute details in which many of the more learned expositors have lost themselves, there still are connected with the great outlines of the matter certain easily recognised principles, both of agreement and diversity, in the revelation God made of Himself to Israel, and the extent to which this might be entered into, and appropriated by, the people. Being collectively, at least by profession, a kingdom of priests to Jehovah, or members and subjects of the theocracy He established among them, they, one and all, stood in a definite relation to the whole and every part of the tabernacle, which He constituted the seat of the kingdom. There could be no more than relative differences between one part and another, as also among the people themselves the distinction subsequently introduced [[@Page:292]] of priesthood and laity was only relative, not absolute; and hence, isolated and withdrawn as the Most Holy Place seemed to be, there was yet a point of contact between it and the remotest article in the outer court: for it was with blood taken from the altar of burnt-offering that the mercy-seat, under the very throne of God, was propitiated in the one yearly service connected with it, and that, too, a service in which the entire community were formally represented. In the furniture, therefore, and service of the Most Holy Place, as well as in those of the sanctuary and the outer court, the covenant people as a body had a representation of what, on the one side, Jehovah was to them, and what, on the other, they should be and do to Jehovah: in the whole, they were to read their privileges, their calling, their obligations. But seeing that, in point of fact, they were only allowed directly to enter the outer court, and even there had to transact with God through the mediation of the priesthood, this plainly spoke of imperfection in their actual condition; ordinarily, and as a whole, they were not able to be very close in their relation and very intimate in their walk with God. A higher stage, however, they might reach, if they distinctly realized their calling, and pressed anxiously forward in the course it set before them: they might in spirit do what was visibly done by a representative priesthood, when daily entering into the sanctuary and performing the service of God. Nay, higher still, if they but rose to the nobler exercises of faith and love which lay within their reach, they might even approach as near to God, and be as close in their communings with Him as the high priest, when, with the cloud of incense and the blood of sprinkling, he went to the footstool of the Divine Majesty, and stood in the presence of His manifested glory. That this action could be done so seldom by the high priest too clearly indicated that, as matters then stood, such spiritual elevation was one that should be but rarely reached by the children of the covenant. And yet, what less is it than this, that we see so strenuously aimed at, and in a measure also realized, by the Psalmist, when he speaks of abiding in God’s tabernacle—seeing God’s glory in the sanctuary,—nay, making it, in a manner, the one desire of his soul to dwell in the house of God, that he might there behold His beauty, and inquire in His temple?—[[@Page:293]] (Ps 15:1, 27:4, 63:2). This, surely, savoured of priestly, even of high-priestly privilege and service; not the less, we may rather say the more, that it was experienced and done in the Spirit; and being by him represented as so done, it but told distinctly out to all Israel, what, in the silent yet expressive language of symbol, the structure and services of the tabernacle were continually witnessing before them. While, therefore, we are ready to admit with Kurtz (Sac., Worship of Old Test., B. i., c. 2), that the court of the tabernacle imaged the stage of Israel, in so far as Israel generally attained, the sanctuary with its priestly freedom and service before God that of the Christian Church, and the Most Holy Place that of the beatific vision, we hold it not less clear and certain, that in respect to each of the successive stages, a measure of attainment lay open also for Israel, and that nothing represented in any of the divisions of the tabernacle was absolutely peculiar to any one class, or to any particular age of the Church of God.

Again, looking simply to the general aspect of things, and considering how, in the tabernacle proper, while all bore the name of God’s dwelling and served as His meeting-place with Israel, still the Most Holy Place was the apartment which He most peculiarly identified with Himself: there was His throne, His law, the symbol of His glory—the region, in short, of His immediate presence; and it is, consequently, in connection with the furniture and services of this place of pre-eminent sacredness that we may expect to find the things which most expressly revealed Jehovah, and showed what He, as King of Zion, should be toward His people, and how His purposes in their behalf should proceed. The other division, or the sanctuary, being that into which the priesthood, as representatives of the people, could enter daily and perform certain ministrations, had obviously somewhat of the same relation to them that the other had to God; and though everything here also bore on it the name and impress of God’s character, yet it was through its furniture and services that one might chiefly expect to see imaged what should be ever appearing in their walk before Him. In neither respect are we to be understood as indicating an absolute and unqualified distinction, but merely such general and predominant characteristics as were reflected in the formal aspect and [[@Page:294]] appearance of things. And in the examination of the particulars, we shall find everything in accordance with the impressions which the relative adjustment and bearing of the parts are fitted to produce.

THE FORE-COURT AND ITS FURNITURE.

What is meant by the fore-court was that part of the enclosure surrounding the tabernacle which stood directly in front of the erection. It probably occupied a space of about 50 cubits (or eight yards) square, and was the only part of the entire area to which the people had access. In this spot, however, by far the greater number of the actions connected with the tabernacle-worship proceeded; and though in one respect it might be said to represent the lowest stage of religious privilege and communion, in another it stood associated with whatever was most fundamental and important in the religious state and prospects of Israel. This relative importance it derived from the two pieces of sacred furniture belonging to it the laver, and the altar of burnt-offering but especially from the latter, which was the proper centre of the whole sacrificial system.

1. The laver. This utensil is nowhere very exactly described; but it was a sort of wash-pot or basin, usually supposed to have been of a roundish shape, and placed on a foot or basement.—(Ex. 30:17-21) Both were of brass (more strictly, indeed, of bronze, as what is now known by the name of brass, a composition of copper and zinc, was not known to the ancients), and the material in this case was derived from a specific source. Moses, we are told (Ex. 38:8), “made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the looking-glasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation;” or, as it should rather be, “of the serving-women who served at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” The expression in the original (עבא) is the term commonly applied to designate military service; but it is also used of the stated services of the priests in their sacred vocation (Num. 4:23, 35, 49, 8:25), and is here transferred to a class of females who appear from early times to have devoted themselves to regular attendance on the worship of God, for the purpose of [[@Page:295]] performing such services as they might be capable of rendering. In process of time, a distinct place was assigned them somewhere in the precincts of the tabernacle. Latterly, and probably not till the post-Babylonian times, the service of the women in question appears to have consisted much in exercises of fasting and prayer. Hence the Septuagint, interpreting rather than translating, renders, “the looking-glasses of the fasting-women who fasted.” And Abenezra, as quoted by Lightfoot (vol. ix., p. 419, Pitman’s ed.), thus explains: “It is the custom of all women to behold their face every morning in a mirror, that they may be able to dress their hair; but To! there were women in Israel that served the Lord, who abandoned this worldly delight, and gave away their glasses as a free-will offering, for they had no more use of them; but they came every day to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation to pray, and hear the words of the commandments.” Such a woman in the Gospel age was Anna (Luke 2:37), and it is interesting to know that she had her representatives at the very commencement of the tabernacle-worship, in the women who, whatever other service they might be in the habit of rendering, gave a becoming example of devotedness, in the consecration of their metallic mirrors to the higher ends of God’s worship. There can be no reasonable doubt that it was of or from the metal of these glasses that the laver was formed; for the sense put upon the passage by Bähr, that the laver was “furnished with mirrors of the women” (i., p. 485), or by Knobel, “with forms, likenesses of women,” is both in itself unsuitable and grammatically untenable. The same construction again occurs in [[ver. 30 >> Bible:Ex 30:30]] , where the preposition (ב) is used of the material of which certain articles were made, as also generally of all the materials employed in the construction of the tabernacle at ch. [[31:4 >> Bible:Ex 31:4]] ; and here it can with no propriety be understood in any other sense. So also the ancient translators all understood it.

The laver thus made was placed between the door of the tabernacle and the altar of burnt-offering, in the most convenient position for the ministering priests, who were always to wash at it their hands and their feet, before either serving at the altar or going into the tabernacle, lest they should die.—(Ex. 30:20, 21) That merely the hands and the feet were to be washed at [[@Page:296]] the laver, arose simply from these being the organs immediately employed in the service; the hands being engaged in presenting the sacred oblations, and the feet in treading ground that was hallowed. The action, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Mosaic institutions, was symbolical of inward purity; it bespoke the freedom from pollution which should characterize those who would present an acceptable service to Jehovah. As the sanctification or holiness of Israel was the common end aimed at in all the institutions under which they were placed, it was indispensable that they who ministered for them in holy things should be in this respect their exemplars, and in the daily service of the sanctuary should have a perpetual admonition of the nature of their calling. The Psalmist clearly indicates the meaning of the rite, and shows also how, according to the spirit of the ordinance, he held it to be not less applicable to himself than to the priests, when he says, “I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass Thine altar, O Lord” ([[26:6 >> Bible:Ps 26:6]] ) and that he spoke of no corporeal ablution, but of the state of his heart and conduct, is evident from the whole tenor of the Psalm, which is throughout moral in its import, protesting his separation from the ways of “evil-doers” and “dissemblers,” and even praying God to “try his reins and his heart.” In like manner, when describing the true worshipper in Ps. 24, in answer to the question, “Who shall ascend into the hill of God, or who shall stand in His holy place?” he replies, “He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” As much as to say, such an one is the true priest in God’s house, whether he have the outward calling of a priest or not; he alone serves Him in spirit and in truth.

The symbol here employed is of so natural a kind, and so fitly adapted for purposes of spiritual instruction, that it has been in a sense retained, and raised to still higher significance in the Christian Church. For in the rite of baptism, whatever may be the precise mode of administration adopted, there can be no doubt that the cleansing nature of the element is the natural basis of the ordinance, and that from which it derives its appropriate character, as the formal initiation into a Christian state. Symbolically, it conveys the salutary instruction, that he who becomes Christ’s, and through Christ would dedicate himself to [[@Page:297]] the work and service of God, must be purified from the guilt and pollution of sin—must be regenerated unto holiness of life. Genuine believers are therefore described as “having their bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22), as if the outwardness of the old economy were still in force, though it is unquestionably the real sanctification of the person that is meant. Or they are said to have undergone “the washing of regeneration” (Tit. 3:5), where the internal nature of the work is distinctly intimated, as it is also presently afterwards coupled with the efficient cause in the mention that is made of “the renewal of the Holy Ghost.” Or, still again, the entire body of the redeemed Church is represented as brought into its present condition by having been “sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5:26), where the same result is exhibited, but the instrumental cause in connection with it made prominent. However represented, both the initiatory rite of baptism, and the general language of New Testament Scripture, proclaim the fact, that they only who have been cleansed from the defilements of sin, and made partakers of a new nature, can be recognised as the true servants of Christ, and heirs of His salvation. Or, as our Lord himself put it, after the symbolical service He had performed in the circle of His disciples, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.”—(John 13:8)

2. The Altar of Burnt-offering.—This formed, as to its position, the outermost of all the sacred furniture of the tabernacle, having its place immediately before the door of the court, while still it was on many accounts the most important article connected with the whole apparatus of worship. Nothing, in a manner, could be done without it—neither in the more common rites of sacrifice and oblation, which were every day proceeding, nor in the more peculiar services of the great religious festivals. In its construction it was of the most simple and unpretending character; indeed, the general direction given for the formation of altars seemed scarcely to leave room for any exercise of art: a sort of rude mound, rather than a regular structure, was the ideal presented. “An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings,” etc.; “in all places where I record My name I will come unto thee and bless thee.” It was added, that if they would employ stones instead of earth, [[@Page:298]] the stones should at least be unhewn; for should a tool be lifted upon it, the altar would be polluted. (Ex. 20:24, 25) This, at first sight, appears somewhat strange, especially when viewed in connection with the many costly materials and elaborate workmanship which were expended on the tabernacle itself and its internal furnishings. The repudiation of human skill and outward pomp here could have arisen from no abstract dislike to these, but must have had its reason in the leading object and design of the erection itself. What was this altar? It was emphatically the meeting-place between God and men the one as infinitely holy and good, the other as sinful that they might transact together respecting sin and salvation, that the fallen might be again restored, or if already restored, might be enabled to grow in the fellowship and blessing of Heaven. That such a meeting-place should be somewhat raised above the common level of the ground, and carry in its very form a heavenward aspect, could not but seem natural to the feelings of the worshipper. Hence this is the idea which was embodied in the names most generally adopted in antiquity for the designation of altar.[1] But in the true religion this idea required to be tempered by another, derived from the unworthiness of those who might come there to present the worship, as compared with the surpassing greatness and glory of Him who was the object of it—something to image the wonderful condescension which appeared in His appointing any place in this sinful world, where He would record His name and meet with men. Naturally, His curse rests upon the ground for man’s sake, and man himself cannot remove it. By no art or elaboration on his part can the natural relation of things be changed: these would but serve to disguise its real character, or dispose men to forget it; and only in the condescension of God, stooping in His rich grace to meet the necessities of His fallen creature, and by a kind of new creation to renovate the face of nature, can the evil be properly dealt with and overcome. This, therefore, is what must especially express itself in His chosen meeting-place with men as sinful: it must be of God’s workmanship rather than man’s—[[@Page:299]] naked, simple, unadorned, such as might convey the impression of a direct contact between the God of heaven and the earth which Himself had made.

The prominent idea thus intended to be impressed on the form of the altar, was also confirmed and deepened by the name specially appropriated to it. For here we meet in Scripture with a departure from the common usage of antiquity, and one that brings vividly out the humbling element on man’s side, and the condescension and grace on God’s. The distinctive name for it was misbeach (from זבח, to kill or slaughter), the slaughtering-place, or the place where slaughtered victims were to be brought and laid, as it were, on the table of God. This denoted how pre-eminently the communion between God and sinful men must be through an avenue of blood, and the sentence of death must ever be found lying across the threshold of life. In such a case, pomp and ornament, such as man himself could have furnished, had been altogether out of place. Materials directly fashioned by the hand of God were alone suitable, and these not of the more rare and costly description, but the simple earth formed originally for man’s support and nourishment, but now the witness of his sin, the drinker-in of the blood of his forfeited life, the theatre and home of death.

Contemplating a stationary provision for the offerings of God’s people in the altar before the sanctuary, it was necessary so far to depart from this simple erection of earth as might be required to secure for it a regular form and consistence. Hence directions were given for the construction of a kind of case, made, like all other wooden portions of the tabernacle, of the shittim or acacia tree, and overlaid, not with gold, but with brass—whence it not unusually got the name of the brazen altar. Of the same material were made the several instruments attached to it pans, shovels, flesh-hooks, etc. The boards that formed the external walls of the altar, were a square of five cubits (somewhere about eight feet), and in height three (or from four and a half to five feet). No stress, perhaps, is here to be laid on the five and the three, as they were probably adopted more from their convenient and suitable proportions than anything else; the rather as in the altar subsequently erected at the temple, not only are the dimensions greatly enlarged, but [[@Page:300]] the ratio is also different—twenty being now the number for the length and breadth, and ten for the height which were again changed, as we learn from Joseph us (Wars, 5:5, 6), in the Herodian temple into fifty cubits for the length and breadth, and fifteen for the height. In the altar connected with the ideal temple of Ezekiel, the dimensions correspond with none of these (Ezek. 43:13-16); but as in all the square-form was retained, we can scarcely err in imputing to this a symbolic meaning, indicating the relative order and perfection which must ever characterize the institutions of God’s kingdom. In respect to the boards, however, it must be remembered they formed only the exterior case or shell of the altar; the interior part, and what more properly constituted the altar as the place of sacrifice, would undoubtedly be composed, according to the original prescription, of earth or stones, and so we find Jewish writers interpreting the matter.[2]“Hollow with boards shalt thou make it,” that is, with a vacant or hollow space to be partially filled up and adjusted, so as to adapt it to the various purposes of sacrifice. But this is naturally left to be understood; and almost the only other part of the description which requires explanation is what is said of a kind of lattice-work connected with it. “Thou shalt make for it,” we read in Ex. 27:4, “a trellis, network, of brass . . . and thou shalt put it under the compass (כַּרְכֹּב, karkob, environment) of the altar from beneath, arid the net shall be unto the half of the altar.” Such is the literal rendering, and it points, not, as used commonly to be supposed, to an internal grating (Lightfoot, “a grate of brass hanging within it for the fire and sacrifice to lie upon”), but to an external framework, reaching from the ground to the middle of the altar, and compassing it outside. The karkob was a kind of projecting bank or ledge, and under it, and supporting it, was the network of brass, surrounding the altar on all sides. “It formed,” says Fr. von Meyer,[3] who has the merit of bringing distinctly out this part of the structure, “along with the encompassing bank or karkob, a projecting shelf, [[@Page:301]] by menus of which the lower half of the altar appeared broader than the upper. Upon this bank or ledge the priest stood when he offered sacrifice, laid down wood, or performed anything about the altar.” This can only be rendered quite plain by a pictorial representation.[4] But as the altar was furnished with the projecting ledge and its supporting network for the convenience of priestly ministrations, it was also furnished with projecting horns at each corner, which were to have the appearance of coming out of it.—(Ex. 27:2) These horns were undoubtedly to be regarded as shaped like those of oxen (Jos., as above, κεπατοειδεῖς προανέχων γωνίας, jutting up horn-like corners), and, according to the emblematic sense ever ascribed to these in Scripture, were intended to symbolize that divine strength which necessarily distinguishes the place of God’s manifested grace and love, and which forms, in a manner, its crowning elevation. Hence, to lay hold of the horns of the altar, if only it were warrantably done, was to grasp the almighty and protecting arm of Jehovah.—(1 Kings 1:50, 2:28)

Such, briefly, was the altar of burnt-offering, the peculiarly chosen and consecrated place where Jehovah condescended to reveal His grace to sinners, and accept the offerings they brought in token of their self-dedication to Him. These offerings were to be consumed there, in part by His appointed representatives, and in part by fire. This fire, once at least issuing directly from the clouds of glory in the tabernacle (Lev. 9:24), was the visible symbol of Jehovah’s acceptance of the offerings; but it did so then, as appears, only for the purpose of giving a visible seal to Aaron and his sons in their official ministrations. The altar had been for several days before that the scene of sacrificial action, in which fire must have been employed; and on the particular occasion referred to, the lightning-flash which came out from the Most Holy Place and consumed the burnt-offering and the fat of Aaron’s sacrifice, is not said to have left any permanent flame behind. It was a sign, however, to testify that the acceptance then openly given to Aaron’s offering, as the consecrated head of the priestly order, would be equally given to the sacrifices which in time coming might be offered through him or his successors at that altar. [[@Page:302]] Consumed there by fire under the hand of God’s accredited priesthood, they were owned to be in accordance with God’s holiness (which the fire symbolized), and, if not marred by sin, stamped with His approval. Hence the expression so commonly used of those offerings by fire, that they were a sweet-smelling savour, or a savour of rest for Jehovah, ascending up, as it were, to the region of His presence like a grateful and refreshing odour.[5]

3. Sacrifice by Blood in its fundamental idea, and Ritual Accompaniments.—From what has been said respecting the altar of burnt-offering, the conclusion forces itself upon us, that the great object of its appointment, and the essential ground of its importance in the Old Testament worship, arose from the connection in which it stood with the presentation before God of the blood of slain victims. And we have now to inquire into the truths involved in this fundamental part of the tabernacle service, with the view of ascertaining distinctly both its direct and its prospective bearing. In doing so, we shall present in as brief a manner as possible what appears to us the correct account of the institution and its related service; and throw into an appendix the discussion of some of the points which have been made matter of special controversy.[6]

The grand reason of the singular place which, in the hand writing of Moses, is assigned to sacrifice by blood, is that expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where it is said, that “without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins,” consequently no peace or fellowship with God for the sinner. The principle was still more fully brought out, however, in a declaration of Moses himself, which in this connection is entitled to the most careful consideration. The passage is in Lev. 17:11, which, according to the correct rendering, runs thus: “For the soul (נפש) of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to atone for your souls, for the blood atones [[@Page:303]] through the soul” (בנפש). It is scarcely possible to mistake the general souse of this important passage; but its precise and definite meaning has been often obscured, by not perceiving that the soul at the close of the verse refers back to the soul at the beginning, and expresses the principle or seat of life, not in him who is to be atoned for, but in the creature by which the atonement is made for him. And the full and correct import of the passage is to the following effect: “You must not eat the blood, because God has appointed it as the means of atonement for your sins. But it is the means of atonement, as the bearer of the soul. It is not, therefore, the matter of the blood that atones, but the soul or life which resides in it; so that the soul of the offered victim atones for the soul of the man who offers it.” The passage, indeed, is intended simply to provide an answer to two questions: Why they should not eat blood? viz., because the blood was appointed by God for making atonement. And, why should blood have been appointed for this purpose? viz., because the soul or life is there, and hence is most suitably taken for the soul or life of man forfeited by sin. This is also the only sense of the passage that can be grammatically justified; for the particular preposition (ב) here used after the verb to atone (כפר), invariably denotes that by which the atonement is made; while as invariably the person or object for which it is made is denoted by another preposition (ל or על). And the general form of expression upon the subject is, that such a person is atoned for concerning his sin, or he is covered upon in respect to that which needed to be put out of sight. (Lev. 4:35, 5:13; Ex. 30:15; Lev. 16:11, etc.)

The ground upon which this merciful arrangement plainly proceeds, is the doomed condition of men as sinners, and the purpose of God to save them from its infliction. Their soul or life has, through sin, been forfeited to God, and, as a debt due to His justice, it should in right be rendered back again to Him who gave it. The enforcement of this claim, of course, inevitably involves the death of transgressors, according to the sentence from the very first hung over the commission of sin, denouncing its penalty to be death. But as God appears in the institution of sacrifice providing a way of escape from this deserved doom, He mercifully appoints a substitute—the soul [[@Page:304]] or life of a beast, for the soul or life of the transgressor; and as the seat of life is in the blood, so the blood of the beast, its life-blood, was given to be shed in death, and served up on the altar of God, in the room of that other and higher but guilty life, which had become due to Divine justice. When this was done, when the blood of the slain victim was poured out or sprinkled upon the altar, and thereby given up to God, the sinner’s guilt was atoned (covered); a screen, as it were, was thrown between the eye of God and his guilt, or between his own soul and the penalty due to his transgression. In other words, a life that had not been forfeited was accepted in the room of the sinner’s that was forfeited; and this was yielded back to him as now again a life in peace and fellowship with God—a life out of death.

It is clear, however, that while in one respect the life or soul of the sacrifice was a suitable offering or atonement for that of the sinner, as being unstained by guilt, innocent; in another it was entirely the reverse, and could not in any proper and satisfactory sense take away sin. This imperfection or inadequacy arose from the vast disproportion between the two—the one soul being that of a rational and accountable creature, free to think and act, to determine and choose for itself; the other that of an irrational creature, destitute of independent thought and moral feeling, and so incapable alike of sin or of holiness. It is therefore only in a negative sense that the sacrificed victim could be regarded even as innocent; for, strictly speaking, the question of guilt or innocence belongs to a higher region than that which, by the very law of its being, it was appointed to occupy. And being thus so inferior in nature, how far was it from possessing what yet the slightest reflection could easily discern to be necessary to constitute a real and valid atonement or covering for the sinner’s deficiency, viz., an equivalent for his life! The life-blood, then, which God gave for this purpose upon the altar, must obviously have been but a temporary expedient; His offended holiness could not rest in that, nor could He have intended more by the appointment than the keeping up of a present testimony to the higher satisfaction which justice demanded for the sinner’s guilt, and a symbolical representation of it. Then, out of these radical defects there inevitably arose others, [[@Page:305]] which still further marked with imperfection and inadequacy the sacrifices of irrational victims. For here there was necessarily wanting that oneness of nature between the sinner and his substitute, and in the latter that consent of will to the mutual interchange of parts, which are indispensably requisite to the idea of a perfect sacrifice. Nor could the sacrifice itself—which was a still more palpable incongruity—be, like the sin for which it was offered in atonement, a voluntary and personal act: the priest and the sacrifice were of necessity divided, and the work of atonement was done, not by the victim in willing self-dedication, but upon it, all unconsciously, by the hand of another.

Such defects and imperfections inhering in the very nature of ancient sacrifice, it could not possibly have been introduced or sanctioned by God as a satisfactory and ultimate arrangement. Nor could He have adopted it even as a temporary one, so far as to warrant the Israelitish worshipper to look for pardon and acceptance by complying with its enactments, unless there had already been provided in His eternal counsels, to be in due time manifested to the world, a real and adequate sacrifice for human guilt. Such a sacrifice, we need scarcely add, is to be found in Christ; who is therefore called emphatically “the Lamb of God”—”fore-ordained before the foundation of the world”—and of whose precious blood it is written, that “it cleanseth from all sin.”

How far, however, the Jewish worshippers themselves were alive to the necessity of this alone adequate provision, and realized the certainty of its future exhibition, can only be matter of probable conjecture or reasonable inference. As the light of the Church, generally, differed at different times and in different individuals, so undoubtedly would the apprehension of this portion of Divine truth have its diversities of comparative clearness and obscurity in the Jewish mind. If there were faith only to the extent of embracing and acting upon the existing arrangements,—faith to present the appointed sacrifices for sin, and to believe in humble confidence, that imperfect and defective as these manifestly were, they would still be accepted for an atonement, and that God Himself would know how to supply what His own provision needed to complete its efficacy,—if only [[@Page:306]] such faith existed, we have no reason to say it was insufficient for salvation; it might be faith very much in the dark, hut still it was faith in a revealed word of God, implicitly following the path which that word prescribed. It was the child relying on a father’s goodness, and committing itself to the guidance of a father’s wisdom, while still unable to see the end and reason of the course by which it was led.

But it was scarcely possible for thoughtful and reflective minds, for any length of time at least, to stand simply at this point. The felt imperfection and deficiency in the appointed sacrifices could not fail in such minds to connect itself with the Messiah, with whose coming there was always associated the introduction of a state of order and perfection. Some even of the Rabbinical writers speak as expressly upon this point as the New Testament itself does.[7] And “when the conscience of the Israelite (to use the words of Kurtz, Mos. Opfer, p. 43, 44) was fairly awakened to the insufficiency of the blood of irrational creatures to effect a real atonement for sin, there was no other way for him to obtain satisfaction than in the supposition that a perfect, ever available sacrifice lay in the future. This supposition was the more natural to him, and must have readily suggested itself, as the Israelite, according to his constitutional temperament, was “a man of desire,” and was farther stimulated [[@Page:307]] and encouraged by the whole genius and tendency of his religion to look forward to the future. Besides, his entire life and history, his ancestors, his land, his people, his law, all bore a typical character, which his own spiritual tendency prompted him to search for, and which antecedent Divine revelations instructed him to find. . . . And had not Moses himself given some indication of the typical character of the whole ritual introduced by him, when he testified that the Eternal Archetype of it was shown him upon the holy mount? How natural was it, moreover, to bring the heart and centre of the entire worship into connection with the promises respecting the seed of the woman and of the patriarchs, and possibly with still other elements in the earlier revelations or devout breathings! How natural to connect together the centre of his expectations with the centre of his worship—to descry a secret though still perhaps incomprehensible connection between them, and in that to seek the explication of the sacred mystery!”

The ritual directions given respecting the sacrificial blood, as well before as after its being shed in death, tend in every respect to confirm the views now exhibited of its vicarious import. They relate chiefly to the selection of the victim—the imposition of the offerer’s hands on its head—and the action with (the sprinkling of) the blood.

(1.) The selection of the victim. This was limited to “the herd and the flocks” (oxen, sheep, and goats), and to individuals of these without any manifest blemish. Why animals from such classes alone were to be taken, was briefly but correctly answered even by Witsius,[8] when treating of the connection between the restriction as to clean animals for food, and the appointment of the same for sacrifice upon the altar: “God wished (says he) these two to be joined together, partly that man might thereby exhibit the more clearly his gratitude to God, in offering what had been given him for the support of his own life, and partly that the substitution of the sacrifice in his stead might be rendered the more palpable. For man offering the support of his own life, appeared to offer that life itself.” This last thought, we have no doubt, indicates what may be called the primary reason, and brings the selection of the victim [[@Page:308]] into closest contact with the essential nature of the sacrifice. It was not permitted to offer in sacrifice human victims, because none such could be found free from guilt, and so they were utterly unfit for being presented as a substitution for sinful men. But to make the gap as small as possible between the offerer and the victim—to secure that at least the animal natures of the two should stand in the nearest relation, the offerer was obliged to select his representative from the tame domestic animals of his own property and of his own rearing, the most human in their natural disposition and mode of life; and not only that, but such also as might in a certain sense be regarded as of one flesh with himself—so far homogeneous, that the flesh of the one was fit nutriment for the flesh of the other. The fact, however, that the animal was the representative of the offerer, and on that account alone was either desired or accepted by God, is a vitally important one in this connection. God did not, and as a spiritual Being could not, care for material offerings, considered simply by themselves; and in Scripture He often repudiates in the strongest terms the offerings of those who so presented them. What He sought was the worshipper himself, and pre-eminently the heart of the worshipper: the offerings laid upon His altar were acceptable only in so far as they represented and embodied this. Then they became in a sense His food, and yielded Him holy delight. (See next section.) But as regards the principle which lay at the bottom of the selection of victims for the altar, like every other in the ancient economy, it is seen rising to its perfect form and highest manifestation in Christ, who, while the eternal Son of God, and as such infinitely exalted above man, yet brought Himself down to man’s sphere, became literally flesh of man’s flesh, and, sin alone excepted, was found in all things like to man, that He might be a suitable offering, as well as High Priest, for the heirs of His salvation.[9]

[[@Page:309]] It was for a reason very closely related to the one noticed, that the particular animal offered in sacrifice was to be always perfect in its kind. In the region of the animal life it was to be a fitting representative of what man should be what his real and proper representative must be, in the region of the moral and spiritual life. Any palpable defect or blemish, rendering it an imperfect specimen of the natural species it belonged to, would have visibly marred the image it was intended to present of the holy beauty which was sought by God first in man, and now in man’s substitute and ransom. For the reality we are again pointed by the inspired writers of the New Testament to Christ, whose blood is described as that “of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” and who is declared to have been such an High Priest as became us, because “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.”

In cases of extreme poverty, when the worshipper could not afford a proper sacrifice, the law permitted him to bring pigeons or turtle-doves, the blood of which was to be brought to the altar as that of the animal victim. That these rather than poultry are specified, the domestic fowls of modern times, arose from the manners prevalent among the ancient Israelites. These doves were, in fact, with them the tame, domesticated fowls, and in the feathered tribe corresponded to sheep and oxen among animals. No mention whatever is made of home-bred fowls or chickens in Old Testament Scripture.

(2.) The second leading prescription regarding the victim,—viz., that before having its blood shed in death, the offerer should lay his hand or hands upon its head,—was still more essentially connected with the great idea of sacrifice. This imposition of hands was common to all the bloody sacrifices, and is given as a general direction before each of the several kinds of them, except the trespass-offering (Lev. 1:4, 3:2, 4:4-15, 16:21; 2 Chron. 29:23), and was no doubt omitted in regard [[@Page:310]] to it on account of its being so much of the same nature with the sin-offering, that the regulation would naturally be understood to be applicable to both. There can be no question that the Jewish writers held the necessity of the imposition of hands in all the animal sacrifices except the Passover.[10] What the rite really imported would be easily determined, if the explanation were sought merely from the materials furnished by Scripture itself. There the custom, viewed generally, appears as a symbolical action, bespeaking the communication of something in the person who imposes his hands, to the person or being on whom they are imposed. Hence it was used on such occasions as the bestowal of blessing (Gen. 48:14; Matt. 19:15); and the communication of the Holy Spirit, whether to heal bodily disease (Matt. 9:18; Mark 6:5; Acts 9:12-17, etc.), or to endow with supernatural gifts (Acts 19:6), or to designate or qualify for a sacred office.—(Num. 27:18; Acts 6:6; 1 Tim. 5:22) In all such cases there was plainly a conveyance to one who wanted from another who possessed; and the hand, the usual instrument of communication in the matter of gifts, simply denoted, when laid upon the head of the recipient, the fact of the conveyance being actually made. What, then, in the case of the bloody sacrifices, did the offerer possess which did not belong to the victim? What had the one to convey to the other? Primarily, and indeed always, guilt. This, as we have already shown, was the grand and fundamental distinction between the offerer and his victim. It was especially as being the representative of him in his state of guilt and condemnation, that its blood required to be shed in death, to pay the wages of his sin. And as God had given it to be used for such a purpose, so the offerer’s laying his hands upon its head, indicated that he willingly devoted it to the same, and made over to it as innocent the burden of guilt with which he felt himself to be charged. Besides this, however, other things in the offerer might also be symbolically transferred to the sacrifice, according [[@Page:311]] to the more special design and object of the sacrifice. As his substitute, presented to God in his room and stead, it might be made to embody and express whatever feelings toward God had a place in his bosom—not merely convictions of sin and desires of forgiveness, but also such feelings as gratitude for benefits received, or humble confidence in the Divine mercy and loving-kindness. And when the law entered with its more complete sacrificial arrangements, appointing sin and trespass-offerings as a distinct species of sacrifice, there can be no doubt that in these would more especially be represented the sense of guilt on the part of the offerer, while in the peace or thank-offerings it would be the other class of feelings, those of gratitude or trust, which were more particularly expressed. But still not to the exclusion of the other. In whatever circumstances, and with whatever special design, man may approach God, he must come as a sinner, conscious of his unworthiness and his guilt. Nor, if he comprehends aright the relation in which he naturally stands to God, will anything tend more readily to awaken in his bosom this humble and contrite feeling, than a sensible participation of the mercies of God; for he will regard them as tokens of Divine goodness, of which his sinfulness has made him altogether unworthy. So that the nearer God may have come to him in the riches of His grace, the more will he always be inclined to say with Jacob, “I am not worthy of all the mercies and the truth which Thou hast shown unto Thy servant;” or with the Psalmist, “Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” It was therefore of necessity that there should have been even in such offerings a sense of guilt and unworthiness on the part of the worshipper, and hence the stress laid in all the animal sacrifices under the law on the shedding and sprinkling of the blood, a peculiarity quite unknown to heathenism. Even in the thank-offerings, the atoning property of the blood was kept prominently in view.

It is impossible, then, we conceive, to separate in any case the imposition of hands on the head of the victim from the expression and conveyance of guilt; because the worshipper could never approach God in any other character than that of a sinner, consequently in no other way than through the shedding [[@Page:312]] of blood. The specific service the blood had to render in all the sacrifices, was to be an atonement for the sinner’s guilt upon the altar; and in reference to that part of the victim—always the most essential part the imposition of the offerer’s hands was the expression of his desire to find deliverance through the offering from his burden of iniquity, and acceptance with God. In those offerings especially—such as sin and trespass-offerings in which the feeling of sin was peculiarly prominent in the sinner’s bosom, the outward ceremony would naturally be used with more of this respect to the imputation of guilt; the whole desire of the offerer would concentrate itself here. And in perfect accordance with what has been said, we learn from Jewish sources that the imposition of hands was always accompanied with confession of sin, but this varying, as to the particular form it assumed, according to the nature of the sacrifice presented. And in the only explanation which Moses himself has given of the meaning of the rite,—namely, as connected with the services of the day of atonement,—it is represented as being accompanied not only with confession of sin, but also with the sin’s conveyance to the body of the victim: “Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.”[11]

The principle involved in this transaction is equally applicable to New Testament times, and, stripped of its external form, is simply this, that the atonement of Jesus becomes available to the salvation of the sinner only when he comes to it with heartfelt [[@Page:313]] convictions of sin, and with mingled sorrow and confidence disburdens himself there of the whole accumulation of his guilt. Repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ must grow and work together, like twin sisters, in the experience of his soul. And assuredly, if there be no genuine sense of sin, showing itself in a readiness to make full confession of the short comings and transgressions in which it has appeared, and an earnest desire to turn from it and be delivered from its just condemnation through the blood of sprinkling, as there is then no real preparedness of heart to receive, so there can be no actual participation in, the benefits of Christ’s redemption.

(3.) The only remaining direction of a general kind, applicable to all the sacrifices of blood, was the killing of the victim, and the action with the blood after it was shed. The killing is merely ordered to be done by the offerer, and on the north side of the altar (Lev. 1:11), at least in the case of sheep, but is understood also to have been the same with oxen. Why on that side, however, rather than on any other of the altar, has never been distinctly ascertained. And perhaps nothing more can be gathered from it, than that the killing also was matter of specific arrangement, ordered by God as the necessary consequence and result of the destination of the animal to bear the burden and doom of sin. The blood was collected by the priest, and by him was sprinkled—on ordinary occasions—upon the altar round about; but on the day of atonement, also upon the mercy-seat in the inner, and the altar of incense in the outer apartment of the tabernacle. For the present we confine our attention to the ordinary use of it. “This sprinkling of the [[@Page:314]] blood,” Outram remarks, “was by much the most sacred part of the entire service, since it was that by which the life and soul of the victim were considered to be given to God as supreme Lord of life and death; for what was placed upon the altar of God was supposed, according to the religion of the Old Testament, to be rendered to him.”[12] But in what relation did the blood stand, when thus rendered to God? Was it as still charged with the guilt of the offerer, and underlying the sentence of God’s righteous condemnation? So the language just quoted would seem to import. But how then shall we meet the objection, which naturally arises on such a supposition, that a polluted thing was laid upon the altar of God? And how could the blood with propriety be regarded as so holy when sprinkled on the altar, that it sanctified whatever it touched? We present the following as in our judgment the true representation of the matter: By the offerer’s bringing his victim, and with imposition of hands confessing over it his sins, it became symbolically a personation of sin, and hence must forthwith bear the penalty of sin—death. When this was done, the offerer was himself free alike from sin and from its penalty. But was the transaction by which this was effected owned by God? And was the offerer again restored, as one possessed of pure and blessed life, to the favour and fellowship of God? It was to testify of these things—the most important in the whole transaction—that the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar took place. Having with his own hands executed the deserved penalty on the victim, the offerer gave the blood to the priest, as God’s representative. But that blood had already paid, in death, the penalty of sin, and was no longer laden with guilt and pollution. The justice of God was (symbolically) satisfied concerning it; and by the hands of His own representative He could with perfect consistence receive it as a pure and spotless thing, the very image of His own holiness, upon His table or altar. In being received there, however, it still represented the blood or soul of the offerer, who thus saw himself, through the action with the blood of his victim, re-established in communion with God, and solemnly recognised as possessing life, holy and blessed, as it is in God Himself. His soul had been accepted as [[@Page:315]] a holy thing on the place where God most peculiarly recorded His name, and he could now go forth as one received under the shadow of the Almighty.—(Ps. 91:1)

How exactly this representation accords with what is written of Christ, must be obvious on the slightest reflection. When dying as man’s substitute and representative, He appeared laden with the guilt of innumerable sins, as one who, though He knew no sin, yet had “been made sin,” bearing in His person the concentrated mass of His people’s pollution; and on this account He received upon His head the curse due to sin, and sank under the stroke of death, as an outcast from heaven. But the moment He gave up the ghost, an end was made of sin. With the pouring out of His soul unto death, its guilt and curse were exhausted for all who should be heirs of salvation. Godhead was completely glorified concerning it; and when the life laid down in ignominy and shame was again resumed in honour and triumph, and this, or the blood in which it resided, was presented before the Father in the heavenly places, it bespoke His people’s acceptance in Him to the possession of a life out of death, to nearest fellowship with God, and the perpetual enjoyment of the Divine favour; so that they are even said to “sit with Him in heavenly places,” and to have “their life hid with Him in God.” Hence also the peculiar force and significancy of the expression in 1 Pet. 1:2, formerly explained (vol. i., p. 220 sq.), “unto,” not only obedience, but also “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus;” in other words, unto the participation of His risen, divine, heavenly life—a life that is replete with the favour and partakes of the blessedness of God. It is there spoken of as the end and consummation of a Christian calling. Not as if such a calling could really be entered upon without a participation in Christ’s risen life; but there must be a growing participation; and the spiritual life of a child of God approaches to perfection, according as he becomes “complete in Jesus,” and is through Him “filled into the fulness of God.”

But it is unnecessary here to enter into a full exhibition of the truth, as it will again occur, especially in connection with the service of the day of atonement. When formerly explaining the passage in First Peter, the sprinkling was viewed with a more special reference to the service at the ratification of the [[@Page:316]] covenant, when the blood was partly sprinkled on the altar and partly on the people, to denote more distinctly their participation and fellowship in what belonged to it. In the case of ordinary sacrifices, however, this was not done; nor could it be said to be necessary to complete the symbolical action. The offerer, after having brought his victim to the altar, laid his hands on its head with confession of sin, and having solemnly given it up for his expiation, could have no difficulty in realizing his connection with the blood, and his interest in its future application. The difficulty rather stood in his realizing God’s acceptance of such blood in his behalf, and on its account restoring him to life and blessing. Now, however, the difficulty is entirely on the other side, and stands in realizing not the acceptance of Christ’s soul or blood by the Father, but our personal interest in it,—in apprehending ourselves to be really and truly represented in the pouring out of His soul for sin, and its presentation for acceptance and blessing in the heavenly places. Hence, while respect is also had to the former in the New Testament, yet, in the practical application of the doctrine of redemption, the latter is commonly made more prominent, viz., “the sprinkling of the believer’s heart,” or “the purging of his conscience” with the blood of Jesus. This is done, however, simply out of respect to the difficulty referred to; and stript of their symbolical colouring, the essential and radical idea in all such representations is, God’s owning in the behalf of His people, and receiving into fellowship with Himself, as pure and holy, that life which has borne in death the curse and penalty of sin; so that the recompense of blessing and glory due to it becomes also their heritage of good. This owning and receiving on the part of God, is what is meant by Christ’s sprinkling with His blood the heavenly places. And to realize on solid grounds the fact of its having been done for us, is on our part to come to the blood of sprinkling, and enter into the participation of its divine life.[13]

FOOTNOTE

[1] The Heb. בָמָה, bamah, high place; Gr., βωμός, primarily an elevation of any sort, then a sacred elevation for worship; Latin, altare, from altus, high, or ara, cognate with the Gr. ἄιρω, I raise, or lift up.

[2] Altare terreum est hoc ipsum aeneum altare, cujus concavum terra implebatur.—Jarchi, on Ex. 27:5. Cavitas vero altaris terra replebatur, quo tempore castra ponebunt.—Bechai, in ibid.

[3] Bibeldeutungen, p. 206.

[4] See Appendix B.

[5] There appears to be no need for contemplating the action of fire in sacrifice in any other light than that here presented. The express and authoritative sanction of God for it was enough. And the traditionary belief, that it was first kindled from heaven, then perpetually preserved by the priesthood, has no distinct warrant in Scripture. It is more, indeed, a heathenish than a scriptural notion.

[6] See Appendix C.

[7] Schoettgen (Hor. Heb. et Tal., ii., p. 612) produces from Jewish authorities the following plain declarations: “In the times of the Messiah all sacrifices will cease, but the sacrifice of praise will not cease.” “When the Israelites were in the holy land, they took away all diseases and punishments from the world, through the acts of worship and the sacrifices which they performed; but now Messiah takes these away from the sons of men.” One quoted by Bahr from Eisenmenger (Entdectes Judenthum, ii., p. 720) goes so far as to say, “that He would pour out His soul unto death, and that His blood would make atonement for the people of God.” It is right to state, however, that the value of such testimonies is greatly diminished by the multitude of directly opposite ones, which are also to be found in the Rabbinical writings. In the very next page, Schoettgen has passages affirming that the day of expiation should never cease, and the mass of the Jews in our Lord’s time certainly believed in the perpetuity of the law of Moses. The utmost that can be fairly deduced from the quotations noticed above is, that there were minds among them seeking relief from felt wants and deficiencies, in the expectation of that more perfect state of things which was to be brought in by Christ.

[8] Miscel. Sac., Lib. ii., Diss. ii, § 14.

[9] The reasons often given for the choice of the victims being confined to the flock and the herd, such as that these were the more valuable, were more accessible, ever at hand, horned (emblematical of power and dignity), and such like, fall away of themselves, when the subject is viewed in its proper connection and bearings. It is, of course, quite easy to find many analogies in such respects between the victims and Christ; but they are rather beside the purpose, and tend to lead away the mind from the main idea. The thought also of the animal being, as a living creature, dear to the offerer, as a part of his domestic establishment, on which some, among others Kurtz, would lay stress, is rather fanciful than solid. The offerer might gel his ox or sheep anywhere only it required to be his own property, that he might be free to use it for such a purpose as this. But to make its special fitness or worth sacrificially depend on its value qua property, as Hofmann and many more do, is another thing, and one which has no warrant in Scripture.

[10] Omnibus victimis, quae a quopiam privato offerebantur, sive ex praecepto, sive ex arbitrio offerentur, oportebat ipsum impouere manus dum vivebant adhuc, exceptis tantum primitiis, decimis, et agno paschali. Maimon. Hilc. Korbanoth 3. See also Outram, De Sac., L. i., c. 15; Ainsworth, on Lev. 1:4, 16:6, 11. Magee on Atonement, Note 39.

[11] Lev. 16:21. The Jewish authorities referred to may be seen in Outram, L. i., c. 15, 10, 11; Ainsworth, on Lev. 1:4; Magee, Note 39. Upon the sin-offering the offerer confessed the iniquity of sin, upon the trespass-offering the iniquity of trespass, upon the burnt-offeriug the iniquity of doing what he should not have done, and not doing what he ought, etc. Outram gives several forms of confession, of which we select merely the one for a private individual, when confessing with his hands on his sin-offering: “I beseech Thee, Lord, I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have rebelled, I have done so and so (mentioning the particular transgression); but now I repent, and let this victim be my expiation.” So closely was imposition of hands associated in Jewish minds with confession of sins, that it passed with them for a maxim, “Where there is no confession of sins there is no imposition of hands; “and they also held it equally certain, that the design of this imposition of hands “was to remove the sins from the individual and transfer them to the animal.”—(Outram, L. i., c. xv. 8, xxii. 5) The circumstance of the hearers of blasphemy being appointed to lay their Lands on the head of the blasphemer before he was stoned (Lev. 24:14), is no contradiction to what has been said, but rather a confirmation; for till the guilt was punished, it was looked upon as belonging to the congregation at large (comp. Josh, 7; 2 Sam. 21), and by this rite it was devolved entirely upon himself, that he might bear the punishment. Bähr finds nothing in the rite but a symbolical declaration, that the victim was the offerer’s own property, and that he was ready to devote it to death.

[12] De Sac., L. i., c. 16, 4.

[13] See further in Appendix C.

Section Fifth.—The Different Kinds of Offerings connected with The Brazen Altar in The Court of The Tabernacle—Sin-Offerings—Trespass-Offerings—Burnt-Offerings—Peace or Thank-Offerings—Meat-Offerings.

[[@Page:317]] WE here take for granted what has been unfolded in the preceding section, and the appendix attached to it, respecting the proper nature and design of sacrifice by blood, and the symbolical actions therewith associated. It was common, as we have seen, to all sacrifices of that description, that there should be in them, on the part of the offerer, a remembrance of sin, and, on the part of God, a provision made for his reconciliation and pardon. The death of the animal represented the desert due to him for sin, the wages of which is death. God’s appointing the life-blood of His own guiltless creature to be shed for such a purpose, and afterwards sprinkled on His altar, denoted that He accepted this symbolically as an atonement or substitution for the life of the guilty offerer, and typically implied that He would in due time provide and accept a real atonement or substitution in Christ. In so far as the ancient believer might present the blood of his sacrifice according to the manner prescribed, and in so far as the believer now appropriates by faith the atoning blood of Christ, in each case alike the blessed result is—He is justified from sin, and has peace with God.

But it is evident on a moment’s consideration, that while the things now mentioned form what must have been the fundamental and most essential part of every sacrifice, various other things, of a collateral and supplementary kind, were necessarily required to bring out the whole truth connected with the sinner’s reconciliation and restored fellowship with God, as also to give suitable expression to the diversified feelings and affections which it became him at different times to embody in his acts of worship. If anything like a complete representation was to be given, by means [[@Page:318]] of sacrifice, of the sinner’s relation to God, there must, at least, have been something in the appointed rites to indicate the different degrees of guilt, the sense entertained by the sinner, not only of his own sinfulness, but also of his obligations to the mercy of God for restored peace, his several states of comparative distance from God and nearness to Him, and the manifold consequences, both in respect to his condition and his character, growing out of his acceptable approach to God. This could not otherwise be done than by the institution of a complicated ritual of sacrifice, suited to the ever varying circumstances of the worshipper, prescribing for particular states and occasions the kinds of victims to be employed, the application that should be made with the blood, the specific destination of the several parts of the offering, or the supplementary services with which the main act of sacrifice should be accompanied. In these respects, opportunity was afforded for the symbolical expression of a very considerable variety of states and feelings. And it was more particularly by its minute prescriptions and diversified arrangements for this purpose, that the Mosaic ritual formed so decided an improvement on the sacrificial worship of the ancient world. Before the time of Moses, this species of worship was comparatively vague and indefinite in its character. There appear to have been at most but two distinct forms of sacrifice, and these probably but slightly varied—the burnt-offering and the peace-offering. That such distinctions did exist, as to constitute two kinds of sacrifice under these respective appellations, seems unquestionable, from mention being made of both at the ratification of the covenant (Ex. 24:5), prior to the introduction of the peculiar distinctions of the Mosaic ritual; and also from the indications that exist in earlier times of a feast in connection with certain sacrifices, while it was always the characteristic of the burnt-offering that the whole was consumed by fire.—(Gen. 31:54) But the line of demarcation between the two was probably restricted to the participation or non-participation on the part of the offerers of a portion of the sacrifice, leaving whatever else might require to be signified respecting the state or feeling of the worshipper, to be either expressed in words, or to exist only in the silent consciousness of his own mind.

It is, no doubt, partly on account of this greater antiquity, [[@Page:319]] especially of the burnt-offering and of its more comprehensive character, that the precedence was given to it in the sacrificial ritual.—(Lev. 1) Yet only partly on that account; for as this kind of offering is the only one that had no special occasions connected with it, and was that also which every morning and every evening was presented for all Israel, it was plainly intended to be viewed as the normal sacrifice of the covenant people,—embodying the thoughts and feelings which should habitually prevail in the bosom and regulate the life of a pious Israelite. Hence, also, the altar of sacrifice bore the name of the altar of burnt-offering. As they who really were children of the covenant stood already in an accepted condition before God, the idea of expiation could manifestly not hold the most prominent place in the sacrifice; this place rather belonged to the sense of entire dependence on God, and devoted surrender to His service, which Israel was called as God’s redeemed heritage to profess and manifest. Yet, with this as the more predominant idea in the burnt-offering, there could not fail also to be associated with it thoughts of sin and atonement: for the proper idea of their calling was never fully realized by even the better portion of Israel; and with every day’s expression of devout acknowledgment of God’s goodness, and renewed surrender to His service, there behoved to be also such consciousness of sin and unworthiness as called for fresh application to the blood of atonement. In the burnt-offering both of these were provided in that general form which was suited to a people who were presumed to be in a state of reconciliation with God; while, for the more explicit confession of sin, and the blotting out of its guilt, the yearly service of the great day of atonement was specially appropriated for Israel as a whole, and the occasional sin and trespass-offerings for those who had been guilty of particular offences, which seemed to call for more immediate personal dealing with God. But while the considerations now mentioned enable us to explain why, in the ritual for the different kinds of offering (Lev. 1-7), they stand in the order there exhibited, if respect be had to the natural order and succession of ideas connected with sacrifice, especially after the introduction of the law, the offerings which made most distinct recognition of sin properly took rank before the others. By [[@Page:320]] the law is the knowledge of sin. It did not, indeed, originate that knowledge, but it contributed both to impart much clearer views and awaken a deeper consciousness of sin than generally existed before its promulgation. And as, with fallen man, the consciousness of sin must ever be regarded as the starting-point of all acceptable worship, those offerings which, in a sacrificial system, that had specially to do with sin and forgiveness, could not fail to be regarded as being of a more fundamental character than the others. It was to them that resort was naturally first made by those who had not yet attained to a covenant standing, or had by transgression fallen from it. Accordingly, on those occasions which called for a complete round of sacrificial offerings, in order to express every kind and gradation of feeling appropriate to the worship of God, the offerings for sin invariably come first (Ex. 19; Lev. 8, 9, 11): the order was, sin-offering or trespass-offering (occasionally even both), burnt-offering, peace-offering, the two latter supplemented with a meat-offering. Such, also, will be the most appropriate order in which to take them here, where they must be chiefly viewed with respect to the religious ideas and feelings expressed in them.

It is proper, however, to draw attention—before entering on the several kinds of sacrifice to the general name by which they are designated in the law namely, offerings (corbanini). This is the more deserving of notice, as the term was a more general one even than sacrifice, and included whole classes of things which were not for presentation at the altar, while yet the common name sufficiently indicated that in some fundamental point they coincided. The word corban (קָרְבָּן), signifying literally a gift (Mark 7:11), everything which was solemnly dedicated or presented for holy uses, might be called generally a gift or an offering to God. The free-will contributions which were made by the people for the erection of the tabernacle were so called (Ex. 25:2, etc.), though consisting of all sorts of materials; and what was afterwards required for the maintenance of the daily service, bore the same character: in particular, the half-shekel, which was first levied of all grown males at the institution of the tabernacle, and called their ransom-money—this, though originally applied to the construction of the tabernacle (Ex. 38:25-31), was afterwards, according to the manifest [[@Page:321]] design of the ordinance, regularly levied, and was the memorial-offering from the children of Israel, “to make atonement for their souls,” that, namely, which served as a connecting link between the members of the congregation and the atonement services of the sanctuary.—(Ex. 30:16; Neh. 10:32; Matt. 17:24) Through this, which ministered the supplies, they gave formal expression to their desire to have an interest in all the expiatory rites of the daily service; and there were also occasional offerings which had the same end in view.—(Num. 7:3, 31:50) Beside these, however, which stood in close proximity to the sacrificial institution, though they did not strictly belong to it, there were the contributions which went to support the ministers of the sanctuary, but which, in their proper nature and design, were offerings of a religious kind— tithes, first-fruits, and free-will offerings. These bore in common the name of corbanim) or offerings, because solemnly dedicated to a sacred use (Ex. 23:15; Num. 18:15-18; Deut. 16:16, 17); and, along with the others mentioned before, were required by God from His people to maintain in due consideration and regard the house which for their advantage and honour He condescended to set up among them. But it was of His own they gave to Him; they took a select portion for tribute-offerings, in token of their holding all of Him as the supreme Lord of the land which they had received for a possession, and in the hope that they might obtain His blessing on what remained. It was really this feeling of dependence, coupled with spiritual desire and expectation of the Divine favour, which the Lord sought in the offerings, and without which they could be of no avail in His sight. On the other hand, where these feelings were actually experienced, the heart could not rest satisfied with an inward consciousness of them, but would seek, and with an earnestness proportioned to their strength, to have them embodied in outward manifestations, such as the nature of God’s service required. “While the people,” as happily expressed by Œhler (Hertzog, x., p. 625), “in appearing before God, did not come before Him empty, but brought Him gifts of the increase they had gained in their ordinary calling, they not only gave a practical testimony that all their gain, all the fruits of their labour, were from the Divine blessing, but they at the same time consecrated their worldly activity, [[@Page:322]] and along therewith their life itself, with all its powers, to the Lord, who had taken them for His peculiar treasure.”

But still more would such feelings prevail in regard to another class of offerings—those which pertained to the altar of God, which consequently were rendered directly to Him. It was on that altar most especially and peculiarly that He gave promise of meeting with them to bless them. There, in a manner, was His table; and in return for the offerings which His people laid on it, if they only did so in a right spirit, presenting their offerings as the expression of what they themselves thought and felt,—He came near and visited them with such favour as He bore to His own. The altar-offerings were hence called in a more peculiar sense the bread of Jehovah, a fire-offering of sweet savour to Jehovah.—(Lev. 1:9, 8:21, 24:9) If this should appear to infringe on the propitiatory character of sacrifice, by presenting it simply in the light of a gift rendered, or a homage paid, by man to God, it must be remembered that here also the gifts were not primarily man’s: they had been received from the hand of God, that they might be applied to the purposes for which they were intended; and, in particular, the blood or soul of the victims was expressly given by God, that it might be employed as the medium of atonement.—(Lev. 17:11) As all life is of God, so it belonged only to Him to make such a destination of it, even in the lower sphere of the animal creation, and for the ends of a symbolical worship. And the principle has its noblest exemplification in the higher sphere of the New Covenant; for the infinitely precious life, by the surrender of which the real atonement was accomplished, is made known as pre-eminently the Father’s gift to a perishing world. Yet in each case alike the divine must reach its end through the instrumentality of a human agency: the altar of God must be furnished by the offerings and ministrations of those who are warranted to approach it from among men; and not as a matter thrust on the Church by arbitrary appointment, but thankfully appropriated, and by a living devoted faith rendered back to God from a soul respondent to the will of Heaven, must the work of sacrifice and atonement equally in the lower and the higher sphere proceed. The place of this could no otherwise be the one where God recorded His name to come unto His people and bless them (Ex. 22:24), [[@Page:323]] or the propitiatory where heaven and earth meet in loving accord.—(Rom. 3:25, 26)

THE SIN-OFFERING.

The offering so called was that which had specially to do with the consciousness of sin and its atonement; and on this account, being so identified with sin, it came to receive its distinctive name—the same word (חַטָּאת) denoting both. In the great majority of cases, perhaps, it was offered on special occasions, when some particular act of sin had interrupted the covenant relationship, and called for a specific atonement to reestablish the offender’s position. But to impress upon Israel the conviction that such sins were always proceeding, even though they might not be distinctly brought home to the people’s consciousness, and made the subject of individual confession and forgiveness, the service of the day of yearly atonement was appointed, which derived its peculiar character from the regard that was to be had in it to all the sins and transgressions of Israel, and the purging of them away by a grand sin-offering. In this case, of course, the sins of the people were contemplated in their totality, and not with reference to particular kinds or occasions. And the same was the case when there was the introduction to a new sphere of covenant relationship, as at the consecration of Aaron and his sons, or at the joint consecration of priesthood and people in their relation one to another (Lev. 8:9); in such services we find the sin-offering taking precedence of all others, not because of any formal acts of sin committed, but because the transaction proceeded on the idea of a new stage or development going to be reached of covenant standing, and it was fit that the sin and unworthiness of the parties concerned should be brought to remembrance and purged away. Although no express instances are on record, yet it will be understood of itself—the analogy of the preceding cases clearly involves it—that when persons for the first time sought to be admitted into the bond of the covenant, it would need to be done, among other services, with confession of sin and the presentation of a sin-offering. And as sins generally had to be thought of in connection with those greater occasions which called for the sin-offering, it [[@Page:324]] plainly unwarrantable to limit its application, as necessarily and in its own nature referring only to sins of a subordinate or inferior kind.

It is true, when we turn to the ritual of the sin-offering as prescribed for special occasions, there is a certain limitation, not so properly in the kind of sins to be atoned, as in the mode of their commission. The sins themselves are characterized quite generally,—”If a soul shall sin against any of the commandments of the Lord” (Lev. 4:2); this is the common description which is afterwards in succession applied to priest, congregation as a body, ruler, private individual, in almost the same words, and in each case varied by the explanatory statement of something having been done which should not be done. But the doing is qualified by the term bishgagah (בִשְׁגָגָה), not strictly in ignorance, as the English Bible puts it, but by erring, by mistake, or oversight. The expression is partly explained by an additional clause, as at ch. [[4:13 >> Bible:Le 4:13]] , where the thing said to have been done bishgagah is represented as “hid from the eyes of the congregation,” and only afterwards becomes known to them; and again, at vers. [[23 >> Bible:Le 4:23]] , [[28 >> Bible:Le 4:28]] , where the discovery of the sin is spoken of as the occasion of offering the sacrifice. Some light is thrown on it also by being used in one place of the manslayer (Num. 35:11), as compared with the later description, which distinguishes him from the murderer by his having done the deed “without knowing”—(בִּבְלִי דַעַת), and “not hating him in times past.” (Deut. 4:42) Then, finally, we have sins of this description further distinguished by being contrasted with sins of presumption, literally “sins with a high hand” (Num. 15:28-30), that is, sins committed in deliberate and open defiance of the authority of Heaven, and as with a wilful determination to contest with Him the supremacy. For sins of this description no sin-offering was to be allowed, while it should be accepted for the others.[1]

[[@Page:325]] It is quite plain, by putting together these comparative and explanatory statements, what are to be understood by the sins under consideration. If one might say, with Kurtz, that from the stress laid on the sins being at first hid from the guilty party, and only afterwards becoming known, unconscious and unintentional sins were those primarily meant—the normal sins, in a manner, of this class yet it is impossible to think only of such; and Kurtz himself (Sacred Offerings, § 90) has latterly found it needful to include many that were done knowingly and intentionally—sins of infirmity, committed in the violence of passion, under some powerful temptation, or from some motive appealing to the weaker part of the soul, as contradistinguished from deliberate and settled malice. Some of the cases specified at the beginning of ch. [[5 >> Bible:Le 5]] , as among those for which sin-offerings might be presented,[2] put it beyond a doubt that sins of that description were to be understood. For while we have there such things mentioned as touching, even unwittingly, the carcase of an unclean beast, or the person of a man who at the time happened to be in a state of uncleanness, there is also the case of one who, when solemnly called upon to give evidence regarding a matter of which he had been cognizant, yet, for some selfish reason operating on him at the time, withheld the testimony he should have given ([[ver. 1 >> Bible:Le 5:1]] ), and the case of one who had pronounced a rash vow or oath, committing himself to do what should either not at all or not in the circumstances have been under taken ([[ver. 4 >> Bible:Le 5:4]] ). These were plainly things which could not have happened without knowledge or consciousness on the part of the transgressor; but they betrayed hastiness of spirit, or the moral [[@Page:326]] weakness which could not resist a present temptation. Viewed in this light, too, they cannot be regarded otherwise than as specimens of a class; for no one could possibly imagine, that moral weakness displaying itself in the matter of rash swearing, or in a cowardly refusal to give faithful testimony on fitting occasions, was different in kind from such weakness when taking many other directions. On this account, and also on account of the close connection between the sin and trespass-offering (which differed only, as will appear, in subordinate points), we are certainly warranted to include the sins mentioned in Lev. 6:1-5, as belonging to the class now under consideration; and among these are lying, deceit, betrayal of trust, false swearing, fraudulent behaviour. In farther proof of the same thing, we find even adultery mentioned elsewhere (Lev. 19:20), if committed with a bondmaid, as an offence which might be expiated by this class of offerings.

From this induction of particulars several important conclusions follow, in respect to the nature and design of the offerings for sin and trespass, as indeed of the sacrificial worship generally of the Old Covenant, which, if duly considered, should put an end to certain partial and mistaken views, that occasionally appear in quarters and obtain a countenance they are not entitled to. (1.) One of these is, that sin-offerings availed only for special acts of sin, or sins committed on special occasions,—a view that we are surprised to see Kurtz still adhering to. Undoubtedly special sins formed appropriate occasions—and, indeed, the greater number of occasions on which such offerings were expected to be presented; but not by any means the whole. The grand sin-offering of every year was alone conclusive proof against such an idea, since in it a remembrance was made of sins without distinction, and the object was to cleanse the people from all their impurities. The sin-offerings at the consecration of Aaron, and the formal entrance of the people on the tabernacle-worship, constitute another proof. Coupling with such things the specific instructions given for the presentation of a sin-offering, as often as conviction of some particular sin bore in upon their souls, conscientious and thoughtful Israelites must have felt, that whenever a sense of sin troubled their conscience, and made them [[@Page:327]] afraid of God’s rebuke, it was through an offering of this description that relief should be sought.

(2.) Another and greatly more common, though equally ungrounded notion, is, that offerings for sin, or, as it is sometimes put, all offerings under the Old Covenant, availed only for the atonement of ceremonial transgression, or the removal of ceremonial uncleanness. Bähr has exhibited this view of the sin-offering, holding it to have contemplated only theocratical sins, but not such as were in the stricter sense moral, though he has in this met with little support from the abler theologians of his own country, as in his view of sacrifice by blood generally. But there has ever been a tendency on the part of Unitarian writers, or such as are opposed to the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, to restrict the object of the sin-offerings to merely ceremonial and slighter offences. So zealously was the idea advocated by them about the close of last century, that Magee found it necessary to give the subject a measure of consideration.—(On Atonement, Note 27) Since then, however, it has occasion ally appeared in the writings of evangelical divines, who hold entirely orthodox views on the person and the work of Christ, and who would explain the connection between the Old and the New as to sin and sacrifice, by all being outward and ceremonial in the one, inward and real in the other. According to them, the sins atoned, not merely by the special sin-offerings, but also on the day of yearly atonenent, are to be regarded as mere “breaches of legal order and ceremonial etiquette, involving neither moral guilt nor even bodily soil or stain.” As a necessary consequence, the purification effected was entirely of the same kind: it rectified the worshipper’s relation merely in an outward respect to the camp of God’s people, or the courts of His house, secured for him a right of access to these, and to the external privileges therewith connected; but left all the sins which really wounded his conscience and disturbed his spiritual relation to God untouched, except in so far as he could descry through the outward and ceremonial services the type and assurance of a higher redemption.[3] There can be no doubt that the essentials of Christian doctrine can in this way be set [[@Page:328]] forth and maintained, and also that the connection between type and antitype can be formally preserved; but it seems scarcely less certain, that the character of the Old Testament religion, and the organic relation which especially its sacrificial institute held to the work of Christ, would suffer material damage, and be virtually undermined. For what could we seriously think of a religion which took specially to do with the moral and religious training of a people, gave them the purest law, and, in connection therewith, often charged them with the gravest sins, which yet in its most solemn services contemplated nothing higher than points of religious etiquette—matters simply of conventional propriety, and lying outside the strictly moral sphere? Could the means, in such a case, seem to have been in fitting correspondence with the aim ostensibly pursued? And the punctilios of Pharisaism, instead of being the improvable follies and perversions of men who had lost sight of the spirit and design of the institutions under which they lived, should they not have been the native tendency and proper development of the system? If the most solemn parts of their religion spoke only of religious etiquette and outward decorum, it had surely been hard to blame them if they made this their chief concern: they but took the impress of the economy they lived under. And yet this economy, strange to think, was set up by the God of the Bible, which is throughout so predominently ethical in its tone, and sets so little by the outward where the outward alone was to be found! The whole, on such a view, appears full of in consistencies and practical contradictions. Nor can the objections thus raised be met by pointing to the higher things typified by those ceremonial expiations; for this typical element had no formal place in the system: it existed no otherwise than as something underlying or implied in the great principles and relations on which the system was constructed; and how, even after such a fashion, could it exist, if the moral element was wanting in the typical? In the antitypical things of Christ’s redemption the moral is the one and all; and if the ritual of Old Testament sacrifice had carried no proper respect to it, either as to guilt or purification, then the most vital link of connection between the two systems was missing. But when we look to the sacrificial institute itself, we find the view we contend [[@Page:329]] against destitute of foundation in fact. Hengstenberg, in his treatise on the sacred offerings, has justly said, in opposition to Bähr, that “such a separation between the moral and the ceremonial law was quite foreign to the spirit of the Old Testament; and it can only be upheld with any appearance of truth by those who utterly misconceive the symbolical character of the ceremonial law.”[4] Indeed, as we have shown in an earlier part of this volume (Ch. II., sec. 5), there was nothing merely ceremonial in the Old Covenant: the moral element pervaded the whole, and every part of it; and neither an exclusion nor a privilege was rightly understood, till it was seen in a moral light. Besides, in the ritual prescriptions concerning offerings for sin and trespass, breaches of the moral law (as we have seen) not only are included, but even occupy by much the largest place; and both in that ritual and in the service of the day of atonement, “all transgressions,” or sins against “any of the commandments of God, in doing what should not be done,” are expressly mentioned.

(3.) A still further though closely related form of error, regarding this part of the ancient sacrificial system, consists in distinguishing, not between moral and ceremonial (for this is held by the parties concerned chiefly, though not exclusively, of the school of Spencer to be untenable), but between external and internal, or sin as a political and social misdemeanour, and sin as a spiritual evil and disease of the heart. The law of Moses generally, it is alleged, and its prescriptions especially respecting offerings for sin, had to do with transgressions only in the one aspect, but not in the other. The code which regulated penalties and atonements among the Jews, was “a mere system of external control, exactly parallel to the penal codes of other nations, except so far as it was modified by its recognising no sovereign but God Himself.” This exception, however, was an all-important one; for as the Sovereign, so of necessity His law; the one being holy,—holy in the sense of spiritual, inward, requiring truth in the heart,—the other could not be different. And yet the theory in question proceeds on the supposition that they [[@Page:330]] were different. It acknowledges that, from the state being a theocracy, sins were necessarily regarded as crimes, and vice versa; but holds overt acts only to have possessed this character. These alone exposed to excision; and it being the object of expiatory sacrifice to prevent excision, its atoning value went no further. What the worshipper gained by his offerings for sin, was simply to have the overt acts covered which violated its code of external jurisprudence; but sin as a defilement of the conscience, or a moral depravity, was alike beyond legal punishment and legal sacrifice. How, then, on such a view, shall we reconcile the Lawgiver with His law? They stand in ill agreement with each other; for, by the supposition, the spiritual and holy Jehovah legislated much like an earthly sovereign, and dealt with things rather than with persons. Now, the law of the sin-offering, as the law of sacrifice in general, was based upon the exactly opposite principle: it had respect to persons, and to these as related to a God of righteousness and truth, in the proper sense of the terms; and to the offerings only in so far as they represented what belonged to the persons, not to anything they might or could be by themselves. Their object, consequently, was not alone to prevent excision from the theocracy, but rather to secure continuance therein with the favour and blessing of Him who presided over its interests, without which, to the true Israelite, the theocracy was but a shell without a kernel. Such an one knew perfectly that the God with whom He had to do, tried the reins and the hearts; that, however blameless outwardly, still if he regarded iniquity in his heart, God would not hear or bless him; and so, when called to think of having atonement made for whatever he had done against any of the commandments of God, and which should cleanse him from all his transgressions, it was inevitable that the inward as well as the outward, the moral as well as the political, defections, should have risen into view. It mattered not that the theocracy itself had a local habitation and a temporal history, and that its penalties partook of the same local and temporal character; for not the less on that account did they bear on them the impress of God’s will and character, and it was this with which all the laws and services of the religion of the Israelite were designed to bring him into harmony. The higher [[@Page:331]] and future worlds were comparatively veiled to his view: with the present alone he had directly and ostensibly to do; but with this as subject to the oversight and control of One who, in His method of dealing, could not but show that He loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And the sprinkling of the blood of atonement, whether on the horns of the altar (as in the private sin-offerings) or on the mercy-seat (as in the day of atonement), could not have properly met His case, if it had not furnished him with a present deliverance from any burden of guilt under which he groaned. It is not, in truth, so much a consideration of the passages of Old Testament Scripture which treat of the sacrificial offerings for sin, that has given rise to the views we have been controverting, as certain passages in the New Testament, which appear to deny to those ancient sacrifices any validity as to the purifying of the soul. Thus it is said by Paul, “that by Christ all who believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.”—(Acts 13:39) And still more strongly and expressly in Hebrews, it is declared, that the gifts and sacrifices of the law “could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience” ([[9:9 >> Bible:He 9:9]] ); that it was “not possible the blood of bulls and of goats could take away sins” ([[10:4 >> Bible:He 10:4]] ); and that such blood, as the ashes also of the heifer sprinkling the unclean, could but avail to the purifying of the flesh, while the blood of Christ, and this alone, can purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God ([[9:13, 14 >> Bible:Heb 9:13-14]] ). If such passages were to be taken absolutely, they would certainly deny any spiritual benefit whatever to the Old Testament worshipper from his legal sacrifices. But that they cannot be so taken, is evident alone from this, that even when viewed as offerings for such offences as affected the out ward and theocratical position of an Israelite, and satisfying for these, they did not, and could not, stand altogether apart from his conscience; to a certain extent, at least, conscience had been aggrieved by what was done, and must have been purged by the atonement presented. But in all the passages the Apostle is speaking of what, in the proper sense, and in the estimation of God, or of a soul fully enlightened by His truth, can afford a real and valid satisfaction for the guilt of sin, not of what might or might not provide for it a present and accepted though inadequate [[@Page:332]] atonement. The matter stood thus: A certain visible relationship was established under the old economy between Israel and God admitting of being re-established, as often as it was interrupted by sin, through a system of animal sacrifices and corporeal ablutions. But all was, from the nature of the case, imperfect. The sanctuary itself, in connection with which the relationship was maintained, was a worldly one—the mere image of the heavenly or true. And even that was in its inner glory veiled to the worshipper: God hid at the very time He revealed Himself—kept Himself at some distance, even when He came nearest, so that manifestly the root of the evil was as not yet reached: the conscience was not in such a sense purged as to be made perfect, or capable of feeling thoroughly at its ease in the presence of the Holy One; for that another and higher, medium of purification was needed, and should be looked for. At the same time, there was such a purification administered as secured for those who experienced it a certain measure of access to God’s fellowship and sense of His favour; it sanctified their flesh, so as to admit of their personal approach to the place where God recorded His name, and met with His people to bless them. The flesh of the worshipper, in such a connection, becomes the correlative to the worldly sanctuary, on the part of God; not as if these were actually the whole, though ostensibly they were such; and while atonements mediated between the two, removing from time to time the barrier which sin was ever tending to raise, yet it was by so imperfect a medium, and with results so transitory, that the conscience of the worshipper could not feel as if the proper and efficient remedy had yet been found. Hence, as elsewhere it is said of the difference between the Old and the New in God’s dispensations, “The law came by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ,” or, “The darkness is past, the clear light now shineth”—not as if there had been no light, no grace and truth before, but merely none worthy to be compared with what now appeared; so in the passages under consideration, the measure of relief and purification to guilty consciences which were afforded by the provisional institutions of the tabernacle, because of their inadequate character, and the imperfect means employed in their accomplishment, are for the occasion overlooked or placed out of sight, in order to bring [[@Page:333]] prominently out the real, the ultimate, and perfect salvation that had been at length brought in by Christ.

With these explanations in regard to the general nature of the sin-offering, and the objects for which it was presented, we turn now to the ritual concerning the offering itself. And first in respect to the choice of victims: where we meet with a striking diversity, according to the position of the party for whom the offering was to be made. When the sin was that merely of a private member of the congregation, the offering was to consist of a female kid of the goat or lamb (Lev. 4:28, 5:6)—so also at the discharge of the Nazarite, and the purification of the leper (Num. 6:14; Lev. 14:10)—or, in cases of poverty, two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, but merely as a substitute for the normal offering; and when even such would have proved too heavy a tax on the circumstances of the offerer, a little flour was allowed to be used, though without oil or frankincense. When the offender was a ruler in the congregation, the offering was to be a malekid,—when it was the congregation or the high priest, on ordinary occasions, a young bullock; while on the day of atonement the offering for the congregation consisted of two goats, and that for the high priest was a bullock; because not only in his official capacity did he represent the congregation, but, from his standing in a relation of peculiar nearness to God, sinfulness in him assumed a more offensive and aggravated character. There was thus, by means of a graduated scale in the offerings, brought out the important lesson, that while all sin is offensive in the sight of God, so as by whomsoever committed to deserve a penalty, which can only be averted by the blood of atonement, it grows in offensiveness with the position and number of transgressors; and the higher in privileges, the nearer to God, so much greater also is the guilt to be atoned. Hence, in Ezekiel’s vision of judgment, the words, “Slay utterly young and old, and begin at my sanctuary” ([[9:6 >> Bible:Eze 9:6]] ) where, namely, the sin was most aggravated.

But the chief and most distinctive peculiarity in this species of sacrifice, was the action with the blood, which, though variously employed, was always used so as to give a relatively strong and intense expression to the ideas of sin and atonement. [[@Page:334]] When the offering had respect to a single individual, a ruler or a private member of the congregation, the blood was not simply to be poured round about the altar, but some of it also to be sprinkled upon the horns of the altar its prominent points, its insignia, as they may be called, of honour and dignity. When the offering was of an inferior kind, and consisted only of doves, as in the case of very poor persons, this latter action was not prescribed.—(Lev. 5:9) But if it was for the sin of the high priest (“the priest that is anointed,” Lev. 4:3, meaning, however, the high priest, because he had the anointing in a pre-eminent sense; comp. Lev. 16:32; Ps. 133:2), or of the congregation at large, besides these actions in the outer court, a portion of the blood was to be carried into the Sanctuary, where the priest was to sprinkle with his finger seven times before the inner veil, and again upon the horns of the altar of incense. It was to be done in the Holy Place before the veil, because that was the symbolical dwelling-place of the high priest, or of the congregation as represented by him; and upon the altar of incense in particular, because that was the most important article of furniture there, and one also that stood in a near relation to the altar of burnt-offering. A still higher expression, and the last, the highest expression which could be given of the ideas in question by means of the blood,—was presented when the high priest, on the day of atonement, went with the blood of his own and the people’s sin-offering into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkled the mercy-seat—the very place of Jehovah’s throne. In this action the sin appeared, on the one hand, rising to its most dreadful form of a condemning witness in the presence-chamber of God, and, on the other, the atonement assumed the appearance of so perfect and complete a satisfaction, that the sinner could come nigh to the seat of God, and return again not only unscathed, but with a commission from Him to banish the entire mass of guilt into the gulph of utter oblivion.

It is from the peculiar character of the sin-offering as God’s special provision for removing the guilt of sin, from what might be called the intensely atoning power of its blood, that the other arrangements, especially in regard to the flesh, were ordered. The blood was so sacred, that if any portion of it should by accident have come upon the garments of the persons officiating, [[@Page:335]] the garment “whereon it was sprinkled was to be washed in the Holy Place” (Lev. 6:27); it must not be carried out beyond the proper region of consecrated things. The flesh was not consumed upon the altar—the fat alone was burned, as standing in near connection with the more vital parts, and the indication of life in its greater healthfulness and vigour (but see under Peace-offering, in which the burning of the fat formed a more distinguishing feature); and though the kidneys and the caul above the liver, or rather, the greater lobe of the liver, which had the caul attached to it, are also mentioned as parts to be burnt, yet it was simply from their being so closely connected with the fat, that they were regarded as in a manner one with it (whence, in Lev. 3:16, 7:30, 31, all the parts actually burnt are called simply the fat). These portions, as specially set apart for Jehovah, were burnt upon the altar, in token of His acceptance of the offering, and were declared to be “a sweet savour” to Him (Lev. 4:31)—so completely had the guilt been abolished by the blood of expiation. But while the flesh itself was not consumed upon the altar, it was declared to be most holy (literally, “a holy of holies”), and could be eaten by none but the officiating priests, not even by their families, and by themselves only within the sacred precincts of the tabernacle. And if the vessel in which it was prepared was earthen, receiving as it must then have done a portion of the substance, it was required to be broken, as too sacred to be henceforth applied to a common use; or if of brass, it was ordered to be scoured and rinsed in water, that not even the smallest fragment of flesh so holy might come in contact with common things, or be carried beyond the bounds of the sanctuary.—(Lev. 6:25-29, 7:6)

In connection with this eating of the flesh of the sin-offering by the priesthood, there is a passage which has given rise to a good deal of controversy; it is that in which Moses said to Aaron of this offering, “It is most holy, and it is given you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord.”—(Lev. 10:17) This cannot mean that the flesh of the sin-offering still had the iniquities of the people, as it were, inhering in it, and that the priests, by devouring the one, made finally away with the other. In that case, the flesh must rather have been regarded as most polluted, instead of being most holy. [[@Page:336]] And it seems strange that Hengstenberg should still adhere to that view, which was adopted by some of the older commentators. But the atonement, in the strict and proper sense, was made when, after the imposition of hands, the penalty of death was inflicted on the victim, and its blood sprinkled on the altar of God. This denoted that its life-blood was not only given, but also accepted by God, in the room of the sinful; which was further exhibited by the burning of the fatty parts as a sweet savour. And the eating of the flesh by the priests, as at once God’s familiars and the people’s representatives, could only be intended to give a symbolical representation of the completeness of the reconciliation—to show by their incorporation with the sacrifice, how entirely through it the guilt had been removed, and the means of removing it converted even into the sustenance of the holiest life. The “bearing of the iniquity,” if viewed in reference to the eating of the flesh by the priesthood, could only be viewed as a still farther exhibition of the same idea—completing the transaction by the surrender of the Lord’s portion to His chosen servants for their enjoyment, and thereby showing the perfected result of the atonement. But it is not necessary to connect what is said in the passage referred to specifically with the eating of the flesh: the view of Hofmann, adopted by Kurtz and several others, seems the more correct, viz., that it is of the sin-offering itself, not of the eating of its flesh, that God had given it to the priesthood to take away the iniquity of the congregation; and this is mentioned for the purpose of showing why it should be regarded by them as a most holy thing, and therefore fit to be eaten. When, however, Kurtz says (Sac. Offerings, § 118), that “the eating of the flesh by the priests had no other signification than to set forth the idea that the priests, as the servants of God and the members of His household, were supplied from the table of God,” this seems to carry the matter somewhat too far on the other side; for it was surely a most natural inference to draw from such eating, that God intended thereby to set before the offerer how completely his sin had been taken away, and his restoration to the favour of Heaven had been effected.[5]

[[@Page:337]] But it was only in the case of sin-offerings for the private member, or the single ruler in the congregation, that the flesh was to be eaten by the priesthood: in those cases in which the blood was carried within the sanctuary, that is, when the offering had respect to a sin of the high priest, or of the congregation at large with whom, as the public representative, he was nearly identified then the flesh was appointed to be carried without the camp, and burnt in a clean place.—(Ch. [[4:12 >> Bible:Le 4:12]] , [[21 >> Bible:Le 4:21]] , [[6:30 >> Bible:Le 6:30]] ) These being sacrifices of a higher value, and bearing on them a stamp of still greater sacredness than those whose flesh was eaten by the priesthood, the injunction not to eat of it here, but to carry it without the camp and burn it, could not, as Bähr remarks (ii., p. 397), have arisen from any impurity supposed to reside in the flesh. It is true that all impure things were ordered to be carried out of the camp, but it does not follow from this, that everything taken without the camp was impure; and in this case it was expressly provided, that the [[@Page:338]] place to which the flesh was brought should be clean, implying that it was itself pure. The arrangement both as to the not eating, and the burning without the camp, seems to have arisen from the nature and object of the offering. In the cases referred to, the high priest was himself concerned, directly or indirectly, in the atonement, and could not properly partake of the flesh of the victim, as this would have given it the character of a peace-offering. The flesh, as well as the blood, must therefore be given to the Lord. But it could not be burnt on the altar, for this would have given it the character of a burnt-offering; neither could there in that case have been so clear an expression of the ideas which were here to be rendered prominent, viz., first, the identification of the offering with the sinner’s guilt, then the completeness of the satisfaction, and the entire removal of the iniquity. These ends were best served—as in private cases by the priest eating the flesh—so here, by the carrying of the carcase to a clean place without the camp, and consuming it there as a holy of holies to the Lord; for as all in the camp had to do with it, it was thus taken apart from them all, and out of sight of all devoted by fire to the Lord.[6]

The only additional regulation regarding the sin-offering was, that of no meat or drink-offering accompanying it; and [[@Page:339]] in those cases of extreme poverty, in which an offering of flour was allowed to be presented, instead of the pigeons or the goat, no oil or frankincense was to be put on it, “for it is a sin-offering.”—(Ch. [[5:11 >> Bible:Le 5:11]] ) The meaning of this is correctly given by Kurtz: “Oil and incense symbolized the Spirit of God and the prayer of the faithful; the meat-offering, always good works; but these are then only good works and acceptable to God, when they proceed from the soil of a heart truly sanctified, when they are yielded and matured by the Spirit of God, and when, farther, they are presented to God as His own work in man, accompanied on the part of the latter with the humble and grateful acknowledgment that the works are the offspring, not of his own goodness, but of the grace of God. The sin-offering, however, was pre-eminently the atonement-offering; the idea of atonement came so prominently out, that no room was left for the others. The consecration of the person, and the presentation of his good works to the Lord, had to be reserved for another stage in the sacrificial institute.”[7]

[The occasions on which the private and personal sin-offerings were presented, beside those mentioned in Lev. 4 and [[5 >> Bible:Le 5]] , were: when a Nazarite had touched a dead corpse, or when the time of his vow was completed (Num. 6:10-14); at the purification [[@Page:340]] of the leper (Lev. 14:19-31), and of women after long-continued haemorrhage or after child-birth (Lev. 12:6-8, 15:25-30), pointing to the corruption not only indicated by the bodily disease, but also strictly connected with the powers and processes of generation—the fountain-head, as they might be called, of human depravity. This also accounts for the case mentioned in Lev. 15:2, 14, being an occasion for presenting a sin-offering; as it does also for the relative impurity connected in so many ways with the same, even where an atonement was not actually required, but washing only enjoined.]

THE TRESPASS-OFFERING.

That the trespass, or, as it should rather be called, the guilt or debt-offering (אָשָׁם, asham) stood in a very near relation to the sin-offering, and to a great extent was identified with it in nature, is evident from the description given of the trespass-offering in Lev. 5:14-6:17, and in particular from the declaration in ch. [[7:7 >> Bible:Le 7:7]] , “as the sin-offering is, so is the trespass-offering: there is one law for them.” But great difficulty has been found in drawing precisely the line of demarcation between the two kinds of offerings, and in pointing out, regarding the trespass-offering, what constituted the specific difference between it and the sin-offering. The difficulty, if not altogether caused, has been very much increased, by the mistake adverted to in a preceding note, of supposing the directions regarding the trespass-offering to begin with ch. [[5 >> Bible:Le 5]] , whereas they really commence with the new section at [[ver. 14 >> Bible:Le 5:14]] , where, as usual, the new subject is introduced with the words: “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying.” These words do not occur at the beginning of the chapter itself; the section to the end of the [[13th >> Bible:Le 5:13]] verse was added to the preceding chapter regarding the sin-offering, with the view of specifying certain occasions on which it should be presented, and making provision for a cheaper sort of sacrifice to persons in destitute circumstances. But in each case the sacrifice itself, without exception, is called a sin-offering, vers. [[6 >> Bible:Le 5:6]] , [[7 >> Bible:Le 5:7]] , [[8 >> Bible:Le 5:8]] , [[9 >> Bible:Le 5:9]] , [[11 >> Bible:Le 5:11]] , [[12 >> Bible:Le 5:12]] . In one verse, indeed (the [[6th >> Bible:Le 5:6]] ), it is said in our version, “And he shall bring his trespass-offering;” but this is a mere mistranslation, and should have been rendered, as it [[@Page:341]] is in the very next verse, where the expression in the original is the same, “And he shall bring for (or as) his trespass.” Throughout the section the sin is denominated an asham, that is, a matter of guilt or debt; and all sin is such, viewed in reference to the law of God, so that every sin-offering might also be called an asham, as well as a hattah, or sin-offering. The same mode of expression is used in respect to what was unquestionably the sin-offering (see ch. [[4:3 >> Bible:Le 4:3]] , [[13 >> Bible:Le 4:13]] , etc.). But what were distinctively called by the name of asham, were offerings for sins in which the offence given, or the debt incurred by the misdeed, admitted of some sort of estimation and recompense; so that, in addition to the atonement required for the iniquity, in the one point of view, there might also, in the other, be the exaction and the payment of a restitution.

That this is the real import of the asham, as distinguished from the hattah or sin, is clear from the passage Num. 5:5-8, where the former is marked as a consequence of the latter, and such a consequence as admitted and demanded a material recompense: “When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass (or deal fraudulently) against the Lord, and that person be guilty (אָשְׁמָה); then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and he shall recompense his asham with the principal thereof, and add to it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed (literally, to whom he has become guilty). But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the ashamunto, let the asham be recompensed unto the Lord, to the priest, besides the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall be made for him.” The Lord, in this latter case, as being the original proprietor of the land, slept into the room of the deceased person who had sustained the injury, and received, through His representative, the priest, the earthly restitution, while the sacrifice was also given to the Lord for the offence committed against His authority. In the primary law on the subject in Leviticus, there are two sections, each beginning with the formula, “And the Lord spake to Moses,”—ch. [[5:14-17 >> Bible:Le 5:14-17]] , [[6:1-7 >> Bible:Le 6:1-7]] , and each including a distinct class of cases for trespass-offerings. The relation of the two to each other has been matter of much controversy of late; but the order and succession of topics may be briefly stated, and [[@Page:342]] in a perfectly clear and natural manner. In the first section are mentioned in the front rank sins committed against the holy things of God, i.e., anything devoted or vowed to Him, tithes, first-fruits, etc.,—a want of faithfulness in respect to these, and done in ignorance or oversight; then, besides these, in vers. [[17-19 >> Bible:Le 5:17-19]] , all sins whatever against the commandments of the Lord are included, if done in a similar manner, unconsciously, or from want of due consideration. In the other section, beginning with the next chapter, a different class of cases is introduced, and one in which there must have been a perfect consciousness on the part of the person offending, viz., violation of a pledge or trust committed to any one, swearing falsely regarding it, or regarding lost property which had been found, and generally acting in a deceitful and fraudulent way concerning the property of another. It is impossible but that there must here have been a clear perception of the nature of the things done, and a sense of their wrongness; while yet, if no reconciliation and atonement had been allowed for the offender, the law would have proved too rigorous for human frailty and imperfection. This, consequently, was allowed. But in all such cases a debt was manifestly incurred; and, indeed, a twofold debt: a debt, first of all, to the Lord as the only supreme Head of the commonwealth whose laws had been transgressed, and a debt also to a party on earth whose constitutional rights had been invaded. In both respects alike the priest was to make an estimate of the wrong done; and in the first respect, the debt (whatever might be the valuation) was discharged by the presentation of a ram for the asham or trespass-offering, [[ver. 15 >> Bible:Le 5:15]] ; while in the other, the actual sum was to be paid to the party wronged, with an additional fifth.

The same limitations as to the manner of committing the sins in question, were evidently intended to apply here, as in respect to those for which the sin-offering was presented. They were such as had been done in ignorance, unawares, through the influence of passion or temptation; and it is plain, that those most distinctly specified could not possibly have been committed without a consciousness of sin at the very time of their being done. But the precise aspect under which the sins were considered, was taken from a somewhat lower point of view than [[@Page:343]] in the case of the sin-offering. It was a reckoning for sin with a predominant respect to the social and economical evils growing out of it, or to the violation of rights involved in its commission; the higher and primary relations not being, indeed, overlooked,—for every violation of duty is also a sin against God,—but only less prominently exhibited. Hence, while, to mark the amount of evil done, a ram from the flock was always to be the offering, the manner of dealing with it, when presented, was such as to indicate that a relatively inferior place belonged to it as compared with the sin-offering; the blood was only poured around the altar, not sprinkled on the horns, nor carried within the sanctuary; and on those more public and solemn occasions on which a whole series of offerings was to be presented, we never find the trespass-offering taking the place of the sin-offering, or occurring in addition to it.—(Ex. 19; Lev. 16; Num. 7, [[ >> Bible:Nu 28]] 28, [[ >> Bible:Nu 29]] 29) So that the trespass-offering may justly be regarded as a kind of sin-offering of the second rank, intended for such cases as were peculiarly fitted for enforcing upon the sinner’s conscience the moral debt he had incurred by his transgression, in the reckoning of God, and the necessity of his at once rendering satisfaction to the Divine justice he had offended, and making restitution in regard to the brotherly relations he had violated.[8]

There can be little doubt that this more restricted and inferior character of the trespass-offering is the reason why, in New Testament Scripture, the one great sacrifice of Christ is never spoken of with special reference to it, while so often presented under the aspect of a sin-offering. We find there, however, mention frequently enough made of sin as a debt incurred toward God, rendering the sinner liable to the exaction of a suitable recompense to the offended justice of Heaven. This satisfaction it is possible for him to pay only in the person of his substitute, the Lamb of God, whose blood is so infinitely precious, that it is amply sufficient to cancel, in behalf of every [[@Page:344]] believer, the guilt of numberless transgressions. But while this one ransom alone can satisfy for man’s guilt the injured claims of God’s law of holiness; wherever the sin committed assumes the form of a wrong done to a fellow-creature, God justly demands, as an indispensable condition of His granting an acquittal in respect to the higher province of righteousness, that the sinner show his readiness to make reparation in this lower province, which lies within his reach. He who refuses to put himself on right terms with an injured fellow-mortal, can never be received into terms of peace and blessing with an offended God. And if he should even proceed so far as to bring his gift to the altar, while he there remembers that his brother has somewhat against him, he must not presume to offer it, as he should then offer it in vain, but go and render due satisfaction to his brother, and then come and offer the gift.—(Matt. 5:23, 24

THE BURNT-OFFERING.

The name commonly given in Scripture to this species of sacrifice is olah (עֹלָה), an ascension, so called from the whole being consumed and going up in a flame to the Lord. It also received the name kalil (כּלִיל), the whole, with reference also to the entire consumption, and possibly not without respect to its general and comprehensive character.

For in this respect it was distinguished from all the other sacrifices, and raised above them. The sin and trespass-offerings were presented with the view simply of making atonement for sin, very commonly particular sins, and had for their object the restoring of the offerer to a state of peace and fellowship with God, which had been interrupted by the commission of iniquity. But the burnt-offering was for those who were already standing within the bonds of the covenant, and without any such sense of guilt lying upon their conscience as exposed them to excision from the covenant. We are not, however, to suppose on this account, that there was to be no conscience of sin in the offerer when he presented this sacrifice; for he was required to lay his hand on the head of the victim (with which confession of sin was always accompanied), and it was expressly said “to be accepted for him, to make atonement for him.”—Lev. 1:4, and [[@Page:345]] also ch. [[16:24 >> Bible:Le 16:24]] ) But the guilt for which atonement here required to be made, was not that properly of special and formal acts of transgression, but rather of those shortcomings and imperfections which perpetually cleave to the servant of God, and mingle even with his best services. Along, however, with this sense of unworthiness and sin, which enters as an abiding element into the state of his mind, there is invariably coupled, especially in his exercises of devotion, a surrender and consecration of his person and powers to the service of God. While he is conscious of, and laments the deficiencies of the past, he cannot but desire to manifest a spirit of more complete devotedness in the time to come. And it was to express this complicated state of feeling, to which the whole and every individual of the covenant people should have been continually exercising themselves, that the service of the burnt-offering was appointed.

Hence this offering, combining in itself to a considerable extent what belonged to the other sacrifices, might be regarded as embodying the general idea of sacrifice, and as in a sense representing the whole sacrificial institute. So it appears in Deut. 33:10, where the office of the priesthood in the presentation of offerings is described simply with a reference to this species of sacrifice: “They shall put incense before Thee, and whole burnt-sacrifice upon Thy altar.” On the same account, it was the kind of offering which was to be presented morning and evening in behalf of the whole covenant people, and which, especially during the night, when the altar was required for no other use, was to be so slowly consumed that it might last till the morning.—(Ex. 29:38-46; Num. 28:3; Lev. 6:9) So that it was the daily and nightly, in a sense the perpetual sacrifice—the symbolical expression of what Israel should have been ever receiving from Jehovah as the God of the covenant, and what they, as children of the covenant, should ever have yielded to Him in return. And on account of its having such a position in the sacrificial institute, as formerly noticed, the altar of sacrifice came to be familiarly called “the altar of burnt-offering.”

All the more special directions regarding particular burnt-offerings agree with the view now exhibited. In conformity with its general and comprehensive character, or its connection [[@Page:346]] with the abiding and habitual state of the worshipper, much was left to his own discretion, both as to the kind of victim to be presented, the greater or less amount of the sacrifice (which on very joyful occasions rose to an immense height, 1 Kings 3:4, etc.), and the particular times for presenting it. It might be chosen either from the herd or the flock, but in each case must be a male without blemish, the best and most perfect of its kind; or he might even go to the genus of fowls, and choose a turtle dove or young pigeon. The blood of the victim was simply poured around the altar, the most general form of the atoning action; and, with the exception of the skin, which was all that could be given to the priests without detracting from the completeness of the offering, the whole carcase, after being cut into suitable pieces, and the filth that might adhere to any of them washed off, was laid upon the altar and burnt. (In the case of the pigeons, the crop was first removed, as but imperfectly belonging to the bird, not properly a part of its flesh and blood.) In that consumption of the whole, after the outpouring of the blood, for his acceptance, the offerer, if he entered into the spirit of the service, saw expressed his own dedication of himself, soul and body, to the service of God—self-dedication following upon, and growing out of, pardon and acceptance with God. And as such consecration of the person to God must again appear, and express itself in the fruits of a holy life, the burnt-offering was always accompanied with a meat and drink-offering, through which the worshipper pledged himself to the diligent performance of the deeds of righteousness.—(Num. 15:3-11, 28:7-15) For the thankful consecration of the person to the Lord must show itself in a life and conduct conformed to the Divine will, responding to the word of Christ, “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.”

That Christ was here also the end of the law, and realized to the full what the burnt-offering thus symbolized, will readily be understood. In so far as it contained the blood of atonement, ever in the course of being presented for the covenant people, it shadowed forth Christ as the one and all for His people, in regard to deliverance from the guilt of sin—the fountain to which they must daily and hourly repair, to be washed from their uncleanness. And in so far as it expressed, through [[@Page:347]] the consumption of the victim and the accompaniment of food, the dedication of the offerer to God for all holy working and fruitfulness in well-doing, the symbol met with unspeakably its highest realization in Him who came not to do His own will, but the will of the Father that sent Him; who sought not His own glory, but the glory of His Father; who said, even in the last extremities, and in reference to the most appalling trials, “Not My will, but Thine, be done. I have glorified Thee on earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”

But in this the blessed Redeemer did not stand alone; here it could no longer be said, “Of the people there was none with Him.” As bearing the doom and penalty of sin, He is infinitely exalted above the highest and holiest of His brethren. None of them can share with Him either in the burden or the glory of the work given Him to do. These are exclusively His own, and it is for them simply to receive from His hand, as the debtors of His grace, and enter into the spoils of His dear-bought victory. But in the spirit of self-dedication and holy obedience, which animated Him throughout the whole of His undertaking, He was the forerunner of His people, and the same spirit must breathe and operate in them. As He yielded Himself to the Father, so they must yield themselves to Him, drawn by the constraint of His love and the mercies of His redemption to present themselves in Him as living sacrifices, that they may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. And the more always they realize their interest in His blood for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, the more will they be disposed to yield themselves to the Lord for a ready submission to His righteous will, and to say with the Psalmist, “O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, the son of Thine handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds.”

THE PEACE-OFFERING.

The general name for this species of offering is shelamim (שְׁלָמִים): it comes from a root which signifies to make up, to supply what is wanting or deficient, to pay or recompense; and [[@Page:348]] hence it very naturally came to express a state in which, all misunderstandings having been removed and good experienced, there was room for friendship, joy, and thankfulness.[9] And the sacrifice which went by this name, might be employed in reference to any occasion on which such ideas became strikingly displayed.

The peace-offerings appear under three divisions—the sacrifice of thanksgivings or praise (תוֹדָה), of a vow (נֶדֶר), and of free-will (נְדָבָה). The last of these is marked as being somewhat inferior, by the circumstance that an animal with something lacking or superfluous in its parts might be offered (Lev. 22:23), while in both the other sorts the rule, of being without blemish, was strictly enforced ([[ver. 21 >> Bible:Le 22:21]] ). And again a difference is marked, a measure of inferiority in both of the two last as compared with the first, in that they are treated conjointly, as coming under the same general laws (Lev. 7:16-21), while the first has a section for itself (vers. [[11-15 >> Bible:Le 7:11-15]] ); and also that the flesh of those two might be eaten, either on the first or the second day, while the flesh of the thank-offering required to be eaten on the first, or else burnt with fire. These are certainly rather slight distinctions; but they are quite sufficient to indicate degrees of excellence or worth in the respective offerings, in which the sacrifice of praise holds the highest, and that of free-will the lowest place. While also the free-will and the votive peace-offering had much in common, and are made to stand under one general law as to the service connected with them, they are not unfrequently presented as in a kind of contrast to each other.—(Lev. 7:16, 22:21, 23, etc.) This. however, merely arose from the different circumstances in which they were usually presented. Persons, who received some striking interpositions of Providence at a time when they could not make any suitable outward return,—or, more commonly, persons who were involved in danger or distress, and greatly desired the interposition of the Divine hand to bring deliverance,—were accustomed to vow certain offerings to the Lord in respect to the [[@Page:349]] goodness either actually vouchsafed or fervently sought. From the moment that the vow was made, they lay under an express obligation to perform what was specified; their sacrifice as to its obligation ceased to be a voluntary service; and if some time elapsed between the promise and the performance, there was considerable danger of the feeling that dictated the vow suffering abatement, and the worshipper either failing to make good his obligation, or doing so under a constraint. Jacob himself, the father of the covenant people, formed a memorable example of this; having failed in the strict and proper sense to pay the vow he made at Bethel, after he returned to Canaan, until, reproved by judgments in his family, and warned by God, he repaired to the place.—(Gen. 35:1-7). Hence not only the sort of contrast sometimes indicated between the votive and the free will offerings, but also the pointed allusions to the necessity of fulfilling such vows after they were made, and the care which pious men took to maintain in this respect a good conscience.—(Ps. 22:25, 66:13, 76:11; Prov. 20:25; Eccl. 5:4, 5, etc.) When actually presented, such votive offerings must have partaken chiefly of the nature of thanksgivings, as in the mode of their origination they possessed somewhat of the character of a prayer. In ordinary circumstances, however, and when the worshipper was in a condition to give outward and immediate expression to his feelings in an act of worship, it would seem that the free-will peace-offering was the embodied prayer, as we find peace-offerings presented in circumstances which naturally called for supplication, and which preclude the thought of any other free-will offerings.—(Judg. 20:26, 21:4; 1 Sam. 13:9; 2 Sam. 24:25) And the relation of the three kinds to each other, with their respective gradations, may be indicated with probable correctness as follows: The thank or praise-offering was the expression of the worshipper’s feelings of adoring gratitude on account of having received some spontaneous tokens of the Lord’s goodness—this was the highest form, as here the grace of God shone prominently forth. The vow-sacrifice was the expression of like feelings for benefits received from the Divine beneficence, but which were partly conferred in consideration of a vow made by the worshipper—this was of a lower grade, baying something of man connected with it. And the [[@Page:350]] free-will offering, which was presented without any constraint of necessity, and either without respect to any special acts of mercy experienced, or with a view to the obtaining of such, occupied a still lower ground, as the worshipper here took the initiative, and appeared in the attitude of one seeking after God.[10]

In regard to the offerings themselves, they were all to be accompanied with imposition of hands and the sprinkling of the blood round about the altar, which implied that they had, to some extent, to do with sin, and, like all the other offerings of blood, brought this to remembrance. The occasion of their presentation being some manifestation of God, of His mercy and goodness, whether desired or obtained, it fitly served to remind the worshipper of his unworthiness of the boon, and his unfitness in himself to stand before God in peace when God should be drawing near. It was this feeling which gave rise to the sentiment, that no one could see God’s face and live, and which so often found vent for itself in the ancient worshipper, even when the manifestation actually given of God was of the most gracious kind. This is well brought out by Bähr in reference to the matter now under discussion, however his defective views have led him to misapply the statement, or to overlook the plain inferences deducible from it: “The reference to sin and atonement discovers itself in the most striking and decided manner, precisely in regard to that species of peace-offerings which was the most important and customary, and which might seem at first sight to have least to do with such a reference, viz., in the praise-offering. The word (תוֹדָה) comes from a verb, which signifies as well to confess to Jehovah sin, guilt, misconduct, as to ascribe adoration and praise to His name.—(Comp. Ps. 32:4; 1 Kings 8:33; also Josh. 7:19) The confession of sin can only be made in the light of God’s holiness; hence, when man confesses his sin before God, he at the same time confesses the holiness of God. But as holiness is the expression of the highest name of Jehovah, the confession of sin with Israel carries along with it [[@Page:351]] the confession of the name of Jehovah; and every confession of this name, as the front and centre of all Divine manifestations, is at the same time glory and praise to God. Accordingly, the Hebrews necessarily thought in their praise-offerings of the confession of sin, and with this coupled the idea of an atonement; so that an atoning virtue was properly regarded as essentially belonging to this sacrifice.”[11]

It was not peculiar to the peace-offerings (for the same also had place in the ordinary sin-offerings), but it was a more marked and pervading characteristic in them, that the fat, with the parts on which it chiefly lay (the kidneys and the greater lobe of the liver), had to be burnt on the altar. In such offerings this was the one part reserved for consumption by fire; and the reason undoubtedly was, that the fat stood nearest to the blood as the representative of life. It was in a manner “the efflorescence of the animal life “the sign of its full healthfulness and vigour; and hence, in well-fed animals, found clustering in greatest fulness around the more inward and vital parts of the system; though in the sheep also growing into a lump on the tail. On this account the term fat was commonly applied to everything that was best and most excellent of its kind (Gen. 45:18; Deut. 32:14, etc.); and the fat of the offering, as the richest portion of the flesh, was fitly set apart for Jehovah. It was, however, peculiar to the peace-offerings that certain parts of the flesh were, by a special act of consecration, waving and heaving, set apart for the priests, and given them as their portion. These parts were the breast and the right shoulder. Why such in particular were chosen is nowhere stated; but it probably arose from their being somehow considered the more excellent parts. And in regard to the ceremony of consecration, according to Jewish tradition, it was performed by laying the parts on the hands of the offerer, and the priest putting his hands again underneath, then moving them in a horizontal direction for the waving, and in a vertical one for the heaving. It would appear that the ceremony was commonly divided, that one part of it alone was usually performed at a time, and that in regard to the peace-offerings the waving was peculiarly connected with the breast,—which is thence called the wave-breast, Lev. 7:30, 32, 34,—and [[@Page:352]] the heaving with the shoulder, for this reason called the heave-shoulder. There can be little doubt that the rite was intended to be a sort of presentation of the parts to God, as the supreme Ruler in all the regions of this lower world and in the higher regions above: the more suitable in connection with the peace-offerings, as these were acknowledgments of the Lord’s power and goodness in all the departments of Providence, and in the blessings which come down from above. When those parts were thus presented and set apart to the priesthood, the Lord’s familiars, the rest of the flesh, it was implied, was given up to the offerer, to be partaken of by himself and those he might call to share and rejoice with him. Among these he was instructed to invite, beside his own friends, the Levite, the widow, and the fatherless.—(Deut. 12:18, 16:11)

This participation by the offerer and his friends, this family feast upon the sacrifice, may be regarded as the most distinctive characteristic of the peace-offerings. It denoted that the offerer was admitted to a state of near fellowship and enjoyment with God, shared part and part with Jehovah and His priests, had a standing in His house, and a seat at His table. It was therefore the symbol of established friendship with God, and near communion with Him in the blessings of His kingdom; and was associated in the minds of the worshippers with feelings of peculiar joy and gladness, but these always of a sacred character. The feast and the rejoicing were still to be “before the Lord,” in the place where He put His name, and in company with those who were ceremonially pure. And with the view of marking how far all impurity and corruption must be put away from such entertainments, the flesh had to be eaten on the first, or at farthest the second day, after which, as being no longer in a fresh state, it became an abomination.

Turning our view to Christian times, we find the ideas symbolized in the peace-offering reappearing, and obtaining their adequate expression, both in Christ Himself and in His people. What it indicated in regard to the presenting of an atonement, could of course find its antitype only in Christ, as all the blood shed in ancient sacrifice pointed to that blood of His which alone cleanseth from sin. And inasmuch as all the blessing which Christ obtained for His Church were received in answer [[@Page:353]] to intercessory prayer, and when received, formed the occasion also on His part of giving praise and glory to the Father, so here also we see the grand realization of the peace-offering in Him who, in the name and the behalf of His redeemed, could say, “My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation: I will pay My vows before them that fear Him.”—(Ps. 22:25)

Viewed, however, as a representation of the state and feelings of the worshipper, the service of the peace-offering bears respect more directly and properly to the people of Christ than to Christ Himself. And so viewed, it exhibits throughout an elevated and faithful pattern of their spiritual condition, and the righteous principles and feelings by which that is pervaded. In the feast upon the sacrifice, the feeding at the Lord’s own table, and on the provisions of His house, we see the blessed state of honour and dignity to which the child of God is raised; his nearness to the Father, and freedom of access to the best things in His kingdom; so that he can rejoice in the goodness and mercy which are made to pass before him, and can say, “I have all, and abound.” But let it be remembered, that the very place where the feast was held—”before the Lord”—and the careful exclusion of all putrid appearances, give solemn warning that such a high dignity and blessed satisfaction can be held only by the sanctified mind, and the spiritual delight which is reaped cannot possibly consist with the love and practice of sin. Nay, in the prayers, the vows, the thanksgivings and praises with which those peace-offerings were accompanied, and of which they were but the outward expression, let it be perceived how much the possessors of this elevated condition should be exercised to the work of communion with Heaven, and especially how sweet should be to them “the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of the lips!”—(Heb. 13:15) And then, in the way by which the worshipper attained to a fitness for enjoying the privilege referred to, namely, through the life-blood of atonement, how impressive a testimony was borne to the necessity of seeking the road to all dignity and blessing in the kingdom of God through faith in a crucified Redeemer! By Him has the provision been made, and the door opened, and the invitation issued to go in and partake. Such only as have been covered upon by His atoning blood can be admitted to taste, or be prepared to relish, the feast of fat [[@Page:354]] things He sets before them; for through Him, as the grand medium of reconciliation and acceptance, must their persons be brought nigh, their devotions presented, and their souls prepared for communion and fellowship with God. The unsanctified by the blood of Christ must of necessity be aliens from God’s house hold, and strangers at His table.

THE MEAT-OFFERING.

The proper and distinctive name for what is called the meat offering, was mincha (מִנְחַה), although the word is sometimes used in a more extended sense, as a general name for offerings or things presented to the Lord. It is not expressly said that this kind of offering was only to be an addition to the two last species of bloody sacrifices (the burnt-offering and peace-offering), and that it could never be presented as something separate and independent. But the whole character of the Mosaic institutions, and the analogy of particular parts of them, certainly warrants the inference, that it was not the intention of God that the meat offering should ever be presented alone; as there was here no confession of sin and no expiation of guilt. And accordingly, when the children of Israel were enjoined to bring, on two separate occasions, special offerings of this kind,—the sheaf of first-fruits, and the two loaves (Lev. 23:10-12, 17-20),—on both occasions alike the offering had to be accompanied with the sacrifice of slain victims. The ordinary employment of the meat-offering was in connection with the burnt and peace-offerings, which were always to have it as a necessary and proper supplement.—(Num. 15:1-13)

The meat-offering, as to its materials, consisted principally of a certain portion of flour or cakes, with which, it would seem, there was always connected a suitable quantity of wine for a drink-offering. The latter is not mentioned in Lev. 2, which expressly treats of the meat-offering, but is elsewhere spoken of as a usual accompaniment (Ex. 29:40; Lev. 23:13; Num. 15:5, 10, etc.), and was probably omitted in the second chapter of Leviticus for the same reason that it is also noticed only by implication with the show-bread, viz., that it formed quite a subordinate part of the offering, and was merely a sort of accessory. [[@Page:355]] Being of the same nature with the show-bread, which will be treated of in next section, we need not enter here on any investigation into the design of the offering; but may simply mention, in respect to this generally, that it was appended to the two kinds of offerings specified, to show that the object of such offerings was the sanctification of the people by fruitfulness in well-doing, and that without this the end aimed at never could be attained.

This meat-offering was not to be prepared with leaven or honey, but always with salt, oil, and frankincense. Leaven is a piece of dough in a state of putrefaction, the atoms of which are in a continual motion; hence it very naturally became an image of moral corruption. Plutarch assigns as the reason why the priest of Jupiter was not allowed to touch leaven, that “it comes out of corruption, and corrupts that with which it is mingled.”[12] This, however, has been thought by some to be too recondite a reason for the prohibition, especially as there can be no doubt that leavened bread was used in ordinary life by the covenant people, without apparently suggesting any idea of corruption. It is thought to be more natural, and altogether more in accordance with the original prohibition of leaven, to understand by it simply the old, that which savoured of the state of things to be done away, whereas the unleavened was the new, the fresh, the unmixed, consequently pure.—(Ewald, Keil, Baur, Legrer, etc.) Such, certainly, may have been the original ground on which leaven was forbidden, though in this way also it came to be viewed as a symbol of corruption—corruption as a penetrating and pervading power. The New Testament usage leaves no room to doubt, that while leaven might be viewed simply with reference to its penetrating and expansive qualities (Matt. 13:33), it was commonly understood to symbolize malice and wickedness—whatever tends to mar the simplicity and corrupt the purity of the people of God—from which, therefore, the symbolical offerings that represented the good works and holy lives of the worshipper must be kept separate.—(Matt. 16:6; Luke 12:1; 1 Cor. 5:6-8; Gal. 5:9) The prohibition of honey is variously understood; and is very commonly regarded as interdicted for the same reason substantially which excluded leaven, [[@Page:356]] as being both in itself, and as an article of diet, when taken in any quantity, liable to become sour and corrupt. So Winer, Bähr, Baumgarten, and many others. But this seems rather far-fetched, and has little to countenance it in the references made to honey in the Old Testament. There it almost uniformly appears as of all things in nature the most sweet and gratifying to the natural taste the fitting representative, therefore, of whatever is most pleasing to the flesh. Hence, as Jarchi says, “All sweet fruit was called honey;” and another Jewish authority, connecting the natural with the spiritual here, testifies that “the reason why honey was forbidden, was because evil concupiscence is sweet to a man as honey.”—(See Ainsworth on Lev. 2:11.) As, therefore, the corrupting element of leaven was forbidden, to indicate the contrariety of everything spiritually corrupt to the pure worship and service of God, so here the most luscious production of nature was also prohibited, to indicate that what is peculiarly pleasing to the flesh is distasteful to God, and must be renounced by His faithful servants.[13]

In regard to the ingredients with which the meat-offering was to be accompanied, there is scarcely any room for diversity of opinion. Salt is the great preservative of animal nature, opposing the tendency to putrefaction and decay. It was therefore well fitted to serve as a symbol of that moral and religious purity which is essential to the true worship of God, and on which all stability and order ultimately depend. Hence, also, it is called “the salt of the covenant of God,” being an emblem at once of the perpetuity of this, and of the principles of holy rectitude, the true elements of incorruption, for the maintenance of which it was established. When our Lord said to His disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth,” He wished them to know that it was their part to exercise in a moral respect the same sanatory, healthful, purifying, and preservative influence which salt did in the things of nature. And when again asserting [[@Page:357]] that everyone should have “salt in themselves, and that every sacrifice must be salted with salt” (Mark 9:49, 50), He intimates that the property which enters into the lives of God’s people, and renders them a sort of spiritual salt, must be within, consisting in the possession of a good conscience toward God.—The oil, symbol of the grace of God’s Spirit, with which the meat-offering was to be intermingled, implied that every good work, capable of being presented to God, must be inwrought by the Spirit of God. And that frankincense was to be put upon it, bespoke the connection between good works and prayer, and that all righteous action should be presented to God in the spirit of devotion. So that “the good works of the faithful are represented by the oil, as prompted, quickened, and matured by the Holy Spirit—by the frankincense, as made acceptable and borne heavenwards in prayer—and by the salt, as incorruptible, perpetually abiding signs and fruits of God’s covenant of grace.”Kurtz, Mos. Opfer, p. 102. Compare also what is said on the shew-bread in next section.[14]

FOOTNOTE

[1] There was undoubtedly a rigour in the Old Testament regarding presumptuous sins, which is not found in the New. The greater manifestation of grace in the latter called for a difference, though still it is a difference only in degree; for here also there is a hardened impenitence which is practically beyond the reach of mercy a phase of sin for which there is no forgiveness, as the following passages show: Matt. 12:31; Heb. 10:26-29; 1 Tim. 1:20; 1 John 5:16, etc. Now, however, the range and compass of mercy has become greater.

[2] There is an unfortunate division and heading of chapters here; for the law of the sin-offering should include all ch. 4, and also ch. 5 of Leviticus to the end of ver. 13. It is only at ver. 14, where a new section opens with, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,” that the law of the trespass-offering begins, while there is no such formal introduction of a new subject it the commencement of the chapter. With the exception of Bahr and Hofmann, most commentators of note are now agreed on this as the proper division. That the word trespass sometimes occurs in the earlier part of ch. 5, merely arose from the two kinds of offering having much in common, though still the proper sacrifice here is once and again called a sin-offering (vers. (1, 7, 9, 11, 12), and the victims appointed are also those of the sin-offering.

[3] See, for one of the latest exhibitions of this view, Dr Candlish’s work on the Atonement, ch. v.

[4] See also Keil, Archaeologie, i, p. 220, who repeats the same sentiments; and Kurtz, in his Sacred Offerings, § 92. Both hold the division between positively religious or ceremonial and moral laws, to have no existence the Mosaic economy as to sacrifice.

[5] The elder, and indeed most also of the recent typologists, completely misunderstood this eating of the flesh of the sin-offering, regarding it as a kind of eating of the sin, and so bearing it, or making it their own. See, for example, Gill on Lev. 10:17; Bush on ibid, and ch. 6:30; also Deyling, Obs. Sac., i., sect. 65, § 2. It was thought in this way to afford the best adumbration of Christ, whom the priests typified, being made a sin for His people, or taking their guilt upon His own person and bearing it away. But it proceeds upon a wrong foundation, and utterly confounds the proper relation of things; the flesh as most holy, and appointed to be eaten, must have represented the acceptableness or completeness of the sacrifice, not the sinfulness of the sin atoned. Keil’s statement in support of the other view, that the priests, by virtue of their office, and as the holy ones, who themselves needed no atonement, took the sins of the people on themselves and consumed them, would place the atoning power in the priesthood rather than in the sacrifice, and would also regard the flesh as being still charged with sin, after it had become most holy. Philo, De Viet., § 13, as quoted by Œhler, who takes the view we advocate, gave the sense correctly when he said, God would not have allowed His priests to partake of such a meal, if full forgiveness of sin had not entered. By this view also the correspondence is best preserved between the sin-offering and Christ. For, as soon as He completed His offering by bearing the penalty of death, the relative impurity was gone; He was immediately treated as the Holy One and the Just; His Spirit passed into glory, and even His body was preserved as a sacred thing and treated with honour, providentially kept from violence, sought for and received by the rich among the people, and committed to the tomb with the usages of an honourable burial. Christ’s work of humiliation was consummated in His death, and from that moment began to appear the precursors of His exaltation to glory.

[6] The same fundamental error here also pervades most of the typical interpretations, which generally proceed on the supposition of the flesh being still charged with sin, and very commonly regard the consuming of it with fire as representing either the intense suffering of Christ, or the personal sufferings of the lost hereafter. Besides going on a wrong supposition, this notion is still further objectionable on account of its deriving the idea of suffering from what was absolutely incapable of feeling it. The dead carcase was unconscious alike both of pain and pleasure; and then, as it was entirely consumed, if referring to Christ, it must have signified His absolutely perishing under the curse—if to the lost sinner, His annihilation by the sufferings.—The reference made in Heb. 13:11, to the burning of the carcase of the sin-offerings without the camp, is in perfect accordance with the explanation given above: “For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin (i.e., the sin-offerings), are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us, therefore,” etc. It is rather an allusion to the rite than an explicit and proper interpretation of it. The real city, to which God’s people belong, and out of which Christ suffered, is heaven, as the inspired writer, indeed, intimates in ver. 14. But the overruling providence of God so ordered matters, that there should be an image of this in the place of Christ’s sufferings as compared with the earthly Jerusalem. In His case it was designed to be a mark of infamy, to make Him suffer without the gate—a sign that He could not be the Messiah. But viewed in reference to the ancient type, it proved rather the reverse, as, in addition to all the proper and essential marks of agreement between the two, it served to provide even a formal and external resemblance. Though the bodies of those sin-offerings were burnt without the camp, they were still a holy of holies to the Lord: they did not on that account become a polluted thing; and Christ’s having, in like manner, suffered without the gate, though certainly designed by men to exhibit Him as an object of ignominy and shame, did not render Him the less the holy child of God, whose blood could fitly be taken into the highest heavens. But if He suffered Himself to be cast out, that He might bear our doom, it surely would ill become us to be unwilling to go out and bear His reproach. This is the general idea; but the passage is rather of the hortatory than the explanatory kind, and passes so rapidly from one point to another, that to press each particular closely would be to make it yield a false and inconsistent meaning.

[7] Mosaische Opfer, p. 192.

[8] This view of the trespass-offering is now generally concurred in, also by Hengstenberg in his last treatise, Mos. Op., p. 21, as well as by Bähr, Kurtz, and others. For the reason of a trespass-offering being required in the purification of a leper, and also of a Nazarite who had broken his vow, see what is said in connection with the two cases.

[9] Some recent commentators would derive the terra from the Piel of the verb (שִׁלֵם), which means to compensate or repay; and hence the idea of thankfulness comes more distinctly out. Thank-offerings, rather than peace-offerings, they regard as the proper appellation.

[10] Kurtz, Mosaische Opfer, p. 138-9. The view given above is substantially the same also with that of Scholl, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, Œhler (in Hertzog), and in its leading features was already given by Outram. i. 11, § 1. Bähr differs on some points, and is far, indeed, from being a safe guide in regard to any of the sacrifices.

[11] Symbolik, ii., p. 379, 380.

[12] Qu. Nom. ii. 289.

[13] The prohibition of leaven and honey was only for the usual meat-offering, and did not apply to the first-fruits, as the first-fruits of everything had to be presented to the Lord; hence the wave-loaves were leavened, Lev. 23:17, and honey is mentioned among the first-fruits presented in 2 Chron. 31:5. These, however, did not come upon the altar, but were only presented to the Lord, and given to the priests.

[14] The prohibition of leaven and honey was only for the usual meat-offering, and did not apply to the first-fruits, as the first-fruits of everything had to be presented to the Lord; hence the wave-loaves were leavened, Lev. 23:17, and honey is mentioned among the first-fruits presented in 2 Chron. 31:5. These, however, did not come upon the altar, but were only presented to the Lord, and given to the priests.

Section Sixth.—The Holy Place—The Altar of Incense—The Table of Shew-Bread—The Candlestick.

[[@Page:358]] As the court of the Tabernacle was the place where the body of the covenant people could have access to God, so the Sanctuary or Holy Place was the more hallowed ground, where they could only appear by representation. Into this apartment the priests, in their behalf, went every day to accomplish the service of God, having freedom at all times to go in and out. It might therefore be justly regarded as their proper habitation; and the furniture and services belonging to it might as naturally be made to express their relation to God, as those of the Most Holy Place the relation of God to them. We shall find this fully borne out by a consideration of the several particulars. The first of these is—

THE ALTAR OF INCENSE.

Its position appears to have been the nearest to the veil, which formed the entrance into the Most Holy Place, and, indeed, immediately in front of it. “Thou shalt put it before the veil, that is, by the ark of the testimony; before the mercy-seat, that is, over the testimony, where I will meet with thee.” —(Ex. 30:6) The meaning of the direction obviously is, that this altar was to be placed directly before the veil, in close relationship to it, and in the middle of the apartment; and this for the reason that, being so placed, it might the more readily be viewed as standing in a kind of juxtaposition to the mercy-seat. Hence also, in Lev. 16:18, it is called “the altar that is before the Lord,” being as near to His throne as the daily service to be performed at it admitted. In regard to its form and structure, it was a square-like box, on the top one cubit each way, and two cubits in height (i.e., about 3½ feet high, and 21 inches [[@Page:359]] square on the top); made of shittim-wood overlaid with gold, with jutting points or corners called horns, and a crown or ornamented edge of gold. The name of misbeach (sacrificing place), commonly rendered altar, was applied to it, not from there being any sacrifices, in the strict sense, or slain victims presented on it,—for it served merely as a stand for the pot of incense which was placed on it,—but probably from the intimate connection in which it stood to the altar of burnt-offering. It was with live coals taken from this altar that the incense daily offered in the sanctuary was to be kindled; so that the one altar might be regarded as a kind of appanage to the other, serving to carry forward the intercourse with God, which it had begun. In its position nearer to the peculiar dwelling-place of Jehovah, this altar of incense bespoke intercourse with Him of a more advanced and intimate kind; and what we naturally expect to find in connection with it is a symbolical expression of the innermost desires and feelings of a devout spirit. On this account, also, it probably was, that of all the articles belonging to the Holy Place, the altar of incense alone was sprinkled with blood on the day of atonement, as being the highest in order of them all, and the one that held a peculiarly intimate relation to the mercy-seat; hence most fitly taken to represent them all.

The incense, for the presentation of which before the Lord this altar was erected, was a composition formed of four kinds of sweet spices, stacte, onycha, galbanum, and pure frankincense—of which the latter alone is known with certainty. The composition was made, we have every reason to think, with the view of yielding the most fragrant and refreshing odour. The people were expressly forbidden to use it on any ordinary occasion, and the priests restricted to it alone for burning on the altar that there might be associated with it a feeling of the deepest sacredness. It possessed the threefold characteristic of “salted (not tempered together, as first in the LXX., and from that transferred into our version, Ex. 30:35; see Ainsworth there, and Bähr, i., p. 424), pure, holy;” that is, having in it a mixture of salt, the symbol of uncorruptness, but otherwise unmixed or unadulterated, and set apart from a common to a sacred use. And the ordinance connected with it was, that when the officiating priest went in to light the lamps in the evening, and again [[@Page:360]] when he dressed the lamps in the morning, he was to place on this golden altar a pot of the prescribed incense with live coals taken from the altar without, that there might be “a perpetual incense “ascending before the Lord in this apartment of His house.—(Ex. 30:8)

The meaning of the symbol is indicated with sufficient plainness even in Old Testament Scripture, and in perfect accordance with what might have been conjectured from the nature and position of the altar. Thus the Psalmist says, “Let my prayer be set before Thee as the incense” ([[141:2 >> Bible:Ps 141:2]] ), literally, Let my prayer, incense, be set in order before Thee, implying that prayer was in the reality what incense was in the symbol. The action also in Isa. 6:3, 4, where the voice of adoration is immediately followed by the filling of the temple with smoke, proceeds on the same ground; as by the smoke we are doubtless to understand the smoke of the incense, the only thing of that description commonly found there, and which, as an appropriate symbol, appeared to accompany the ascription of praise by the seraphim. Passing to New Testament Scripture, though still only to that portion which refers to Old Testament times, we are told of the people without being engaged in prayer, while Zacharias was offering incense within the sanctuary (Luke 1:10); they were in spirit going along with the priestly service. And in the book of Revelation the prayers of saints are once and again identified with the offering of incense on the golden altar before the throne.—(Rev. 5:8, 8:3, 4)[1]

That the devotional exercises, the prayers of God’s believing people, should have been symbolized by this offering of incense, may appear to some in our age and country to carry a somewhat fanciful appearance. Yet there is a very natural connection between the two, which persons accustomed to the rites of a symbolical worship could have had no difficulty in apprehending. [[@Page:361]] For what are the odours of plants and flowers, but a kind of sweet breath, which they are perpetually exhaling? It is the free and genial outpouring of that spirit of fragrance which is in them. And taking prayer in its largest sense, which we certainly ought to do here, as consisting in the exercise of all devout feeling and spiritual desire towards God—in the due celebration of His adorable perfections—in thanksgiving for the rich and innumerable mercies received from His bountiful hand in humble supplications for His favour and blessing, if we understand prayer in this wide and comprehensive sense, how can it be more suitably regarded than as the breath of the Divine life in the soul? Here especially there is the pouring out before God of the best and holiest affections of the renewed heart. There is the earnest reaching forth of the soul to unite itself in appropriate actings with the great centre of Being, and to consecrate its best energies to Him. Of such spiritual sacrifices it is saying little, that the presentation of them at fitting times is a homage due to God from His redeemed offspring. The permission to offer them is, on their part, a high and ennobling privilege, in the exercise of which they rise to sit in heavenly places with Christ, and occupy the lofty position of princes with God. Nor, when done in sincerity and truth, can it ever fail, on God’s part, to meet with His cordial reception and most favourable regard. In such breathings of childlike confidence and holy affection He takes especial delight; and hence chose for a symbol of these the incense of sweet spices, that by the gratefulness of the one to the bodily sense, might be understood the spiritual satisfaction yielded by the other.

But it ought ever to be considered what kind of devotions it is that rise with such acceptance to the sanctuary above. That the altar of incense stood before the Lord, under His immediate eye, intimates that the adorations and prayers He regards must be no formal service, in which the lip rather than the heart is employed; but a felt approach to the presence of the living God, and a real transaction between the soul and Him. That this altar, from its very position, stood in a close relation to the mercy-seat or propitiatory, on the one hand, and by its character and the live coals that ever burned in its golden vials, stood in an equally close relation to the altar of burnt-offering, [[@Page:362]] on the other, tells us, that all acceptable prayer must have its foundation in the manifested grace of a redeeming God,—must draw its breath of life, in a manner, from that work of propitiation which He has in His own person accomplished for the sinful. And since it was ordained that a “perpetual incense before the Lord” should be ever ascending from the altar—since injunctions so strict were given for having the earthly sanctuary made peculiarly and constantly to bear the character of a house of prayer, most culpably deaf must we be to the voice of instruction that issues from it, if we do not hear enforced on all who belong to the spiritual temple of an elect Church, such a lesson as this—Pray without ceasing; the spirit of devotion is the very element of your being, the indispensable condition of health and fruitfulness; all, from first to last, must be sanctified by prayer; and if this be neglected, neither can you fitly be named a house of God, nor have you any ground to expect the blessing of Heaven on your means of grace and works of well-doing.

THE TABLE OF SHEW-BREAD.

This table was made of the same materials as the other articles in the tabernacle of the same height as the ark of the covenant, but half a cubit narrower in breadth; and as the table was for a service of food, a provision-board, it had connected with it what, in our version, are called “dishes, spoons, covers, and bowls,” the usual accompaniments of such a table among men. It is proper to notice, however, that these names scarcely suggest what is understood to have been the exact nature and design of the articles in question. What on such a table could be the use of spoons or covers, it is impossible to understand. The rendering, accordingly, of these parts of the description may with good reason be inferred to be erroneous, and in regard to the latter of them most certainly was so. Of the four subsidiary articles mentioned (Ex. 25:29), the first (קְעָרוֹת) were probably a sort of platters for carrying the bread to and from the table, on which also it might stand there; the second (פַפוֹת, fromכף , the hollow of the hand), some sort of hollow cups, or vessels, possibly for the frankincense (the LXX. have expressly censers); the third and the fourth, (קְשָׂווֹת) and [[@Page:363]] (מְנַקְיוֹת), with the latter of which in Ex. 25:29, and with the former in Num. 4:7, there is coupled the additional expression, “to pour withal “(not “to cover withal,” as in our version), were most likely the vessels appropriated for the wine, and are probably rendered with substantial correctness by the LXX. by words corresponding to “bowls and cups.” That we cannot fix more definitely the form and use of these inferior utensils, is of little moment; as we can have no doubt that they were simply such as were required for the provisions and services connected with the table itself. The vessels were all of pure gold.

Turning, therefore, to the provisions here mentioned, the main part, we find, consisted of twelve cakes, which, when placed on the table, were formed into two rows or piles. The twelve, the signature of the covenant people, evidently bore respect to the twelve tribes of Israel, and implied, that in the symbolical design of these cakes the whole covenant people were equally interested and called to take a part. These cakes, as a whole, were called the “show-bread,” literally “bread of faces or presence.” The meaning of the expression may, without difficulty, be gathered from Ex. 25:30, where the Lord Himself names it “show-bread before Me always; “it was to be continually in His presence, or exhibited before His face, and was hence appropriately designated “show-bread,” or ”bread of presence.” The table was never to be without it; and on the return of every Sabbath morning, the old materials were to be withdrawn, and a new supply furnished. Why precisely on the Sabbath, will be explained when we come to speak of the Moadeem, or stated feast-days.

It has been thought that something more must have been intended by the peculiar designation “bread of presence,” than we have now mentioned, since, if this were all, the altar of incense and the golden candlestick might, with equal propriety, have been called the altar and candlestick of presence which, however, they never are (Bähr). But a special reason can easily be discovered for the peculiar appropriation of this epithet to the bread, viz., to prevent the Israelites from supposing,—what they might otherwise, perhaps, in their carnality, have done,—that this bread was, like bread in general, simply for [[@Page:364]] being eaten; to instruct them, on the contrary, that it was rather for being seen and looked on with complacency by the holy and ever-watchful eye of God. They would thus more easily rise from the natural to the spiritual use, from the symbol to the reality. The bread, no doubt, was eaten by the officiating priests each Sabbath; not on the table, however, but only after having been removed from it, and simply because, being most holy, it might not be turned to a profane use, but must be consumed by God’s representatives in His own house. As connected with the table, its design was served by being exhibited and seen, for the well-pleased satisfaction and favourable regard of a righteous God; so that it is not possible to conceive a fitter designation than the one given to it, of shew-bread, or bread of presence.

But in what character precisely was this bread laid upon the table? We are furnished with the answer in Lev. 24:8, where it is described as “an offering from the children of Israel by a perpetual covenant;” a portion, therefore, of their substance, and consecrated to the honour of God. It was, consequently, a kind of sacrifice; and as the altar of God was, in a sense, His table, so this table of His in turn possessed somewhat of the nature of an altar:[2] the provision laid on it had the character of an offering. Hence, also, there was placed upon the top of each of the two rows a vessel with pure frankincense (Lev. 24:7), which was manifestly designed to connect the offering on the table with the offering on the altar of incense, and to show that they not only possessed the same general character of offerings presented by the people to the Lord, but also that there existed a near internal relationship between the two: “Thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row for the bread, for a memorial (a calling to remembrance, viz., of the covenant people before the Lord), an offering of fire unto the Lord.” Now, the offering of incense was simply, as we have seen, an embodied prayer; and the placing of a vessel of incense upon this bread was like sending it up to God on the wings of devotion. It implied that the spiritual offering symbolized by the bread was to be ever presented with supplication, [[@Page:365]] and only when so presented could it meet with the favour and blessing of Heaven. Thus hallowed and thus presented, the bread became a most sacred thing, and could only be eaten by the priests in the sanctuary: “for it is most holy (a holy of holies) unto him, of the offerings of the Lord, made by fire by a perpetual statute.”

It is also to be borne in mind, with the view of helping us to understand the symbolical import of the show-bread, that there was not only frankincense set upon each row, but also a vessel, or possibly two vessels, of wine placed beside them. This is not, indeed, stated in so many words, but is clearly implied in the mention made of bowls or vessels for “pouring out withal,” or making libation with them to God. Wine is well known to have been the kind of drink constantly used for the purpose; and the simple mention of such vessels, for such a purpose, must have been perfectly sufficient to indicate to the priesthood what was meant by this part of the provisions. Still, from the table deriving its name from the bread placed on it, and from the bread alone being expressly noticed, we are certainly entitled to regard it as by much the more important of the two, the main part of the provisions, and the wine only as a kind of accessory, or fitting accompaniment. But these two, bread or corn and wine, were always regarded in the ancient world as the primary and leading articles of bodily nourishment, and were most commonly put as the representatives of the whole means of life.—(Gen. 27:28, 37; Judges 19:19; Ps. 4:7; Hag. 2:12; Luke 7:33, 22:19, 20, etc.) And from the two being placed together on this table, with precisely such a prominence to the bread as properly belongs to it in the field of nature, it is impossible to doubt that something must have been symbolized here which bore a respect to the Divine life, similar to what these did in the natural.

But the things presented here, we have already stated, possessed the character of an offering to the Lord: if spiritual food was symbolized, it must have been so in respect to Him. And how, it will naturally be asked, could His people present anything to Him that might with propriety be regarded as ministering nourishment or support to the all-sufficient God? Not certainly as if He needed anything from their hands, or [[@Page:366]] could derive actual refreshment from whatever they might be capable of yielding in His service. But we must remember the relation in which Israel stood to God, and He again to Israel,—their relation first in respect to what was visible and outward,—and then we shall have no difficulty in perceiving how fitly what was here presented in that lower region shadowed forth what was due in respect to things spiritual and divine. The children of the covenant were sojourners with God in that land which was peculiarly His, and on which His blessing, if they only remained faithful to the covenant, was perpetually to rest. On their part, they were to obtain bread and wine in abundance for the comfortable support of their bodily natures, as the fruit of their labours in the cultivated fields and luxuriant vineyards of Canaan. And even in this point of view they owed a return of tribute-money to God, as the absolute Lord and Sovereign of the land, in token of their holding all in fief of Him, and deriving their increase from the riches of His bounty. This they were called to render in their tithes, and first-fruits, and free will offerings. But as the table of shew-bread was part of the furniture of God’s house, where all bore a religious and moral character, it is with the spiritual alone we have here to do, and with the outward and natural only as the symbol of the other. The children of the covenant, as God’s royal priesthood, had a spiritual relation to fill; they had a spiritual work to do for the interests of God’s kingdom, and in the doing of which they had also from His hand the promise of fruitfulness and blessing. How was such a result to appear? What here corresponds to the bread and wine obtained in the province of nature? It can only be the fruits of righteousness, for which the spiritual mind ever hungers and thirsts, and which, the more it grows in the Divine life, the more must it desire to have realized. But as the Divine life exists in its perfection with God, He must also supremely desire the same: a becoming return of righteousness from His people cannot be otherwise than a refreshment to His nature; and with such a spiritual increase, they must never leave His house unfurnished. Had they been the subjects of an earthly king, it would have been their part to keep his table replenished with provisions of a material kind, suited to the wants of a present life. But since God is a Spirit, infinitely exalted [[@Page:367]] above the pressure of outward necessities, and seeking what is good only from His love to the interests of righteousness, it is their fruitful obedience to His commandments, their abounding in whatsoever things are just, honest, pure, lovely, and of good report, on which, as the very end of all the privileges He had conferred, His soul ever was, as it still is, supremely set. These are the provisions which, as labourers in His kingdom, they must be ever presenting before Him; and on these His eye ever rests with holy satisfaction, when sent up with the incense of true devotion from the humble and pious worshipper. Hence, while in Ps. 1, 13, 14, he repudiates the idea of His requiring such gross materials of refreshment as the blood and flesh of slain victims, He earnestly desires (vers. [[14 >> Bible:Le 24:14]] , [[23 >> Bible:Le 24:23]] ) the spiritual gifts of a pure and holy life. Sacrifices of any kind were acceptable only in so far as they expressed the feelings and desires of a righteous soul.

If the community of Israel at large had entered aright into the mind of God, they would, in the ordinance of the shew-bread, have seen this to be their calling, and laboured with unfeigned earnestness to fulfil it. It was in reality done only by the spiritual members of the seed, who too frequently formed but a small portion of the whole. To such, however, Cornelius is plainly represented as belonging, even though he had not yet been admitted to an outward standing in the community of the faithful, when, in the language of this ordinance, it is said of him, that “his alms-deeds and his prayers came up for a memorial before God”—for a memorial or bringing to remembrance of the worshipper for his good; the very description given of the design of the shew-bread with its pot of incense. For God never calls His people to serve Him for nought. He seeks from them the fruits of righteousness, only that He may send them in return abundant recompenses of blessing. And every act of grace or deed of righteousness that proceeds from their hands, does for them in the upper sanctuary the part of a remembrancer, putting their heavenly Father, as it were, in mind of His promises of love and kindness. What encouragement to be faithful! How does God strew the path of obedience with allurements to the practice of every good and pious work! And in proportion to His anxiety in securing these happy results of [[@Page:368]] righteousness and blessing, so must be His disappointment and indignation when scenes of an opposite kind present themselves to His view. Of this a striking representation was given by the symbolical action of our Lord in blasting the fig-tree, on which He went to seek fruit but found none (Matt. 21:19), and in the parables of the barren fig-tree in the vineyard, and of the wicked husbandman to whom a certain householder let out his vineyard.—(Luke 13:6-9; Matt. 21:33-43; comp. also Isa. 5:1-7)

It is scarcely necessary to add, that the lesson taught in the ordinance of the shew-bread speaks with a still louder voice to the Christian than it could possibly do to the Jewish believer; as the gifts of grace conferred now are much larger than formerly, and the revenue of glory which God justly expects to accrue from them should also be proportionally increased. We accordingly find in New Testament Scripture the strongest calls addressed to believers, urging them to fruitfulness in all well doing; and every doctrine, as well as every privilege of grace, is employed as a motive for inciting them to run the way of God’s commandments. So much is this the characteristic of the Gospel, that its highest demands on the obedience of men come always in connection with its fullest exhibitions of grace to their souls; and nothing can be more certain than that, according as they become subject to its influence, they are effectually taught to “deny themselves to all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world.”[3]

THE GOLDEN CANDLESTICK.

This is the only remaining article of sacred furniture in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle. Its position was to be on the south side, opposite the table of shew-bread, the altar of incense being in the middle, and somewhat nearer to the veil of separation. It was not so properly a candlestick, as a stand or support for lamps. It was ordered to be made with one erect stem in the centre, and on each side three branches rising out of the [[@Page:369]] main stem in regular gradation, and each having at the top a place fitted for holding a lamp, on the same level and of the same construction with the one in the centre. The material was of solid gold, and of a talent in weight; so that it must have been one of the costliest articles in the tabernacle.

In the description given of the candlestick, nothing is said of its height, or of the proportions of its several parts. Both in the stem, however, and in the branches, there was to be a threefold ornament wrought into the structure, called “bowls, knops, and flowers.” The bowls or cups appear to have been fashioned so as to present some resemblance to the almond-tree (Ex. 25:33), as, in the passage referred to, they are called “almond-shaped cups.” The knops or globes are supposed by Josephus to have been pomegranates, and by the ancient Jewish writers generally to have been apples; but the word used in the original is not that elsewhere employed for apples or pomegranates, and there is no certain ground for holding such to be the meaning of the term here. That they were some sort of rounded figures, is all we can certainly know of them. And from the relative position of the three, according to which the flowers come last, it seems out of place to find in the candlestick a representation of a fruit-bearing tree, with a trunk, and on each side three flowering and fruitful branches. We should at least proceed on fanciful ground, did we make anything depend for the interpretation of the symbol on this notion; and for aught we can see to the contrary, the figures in question may have been designed simply as graceful and appropriate ornaments. Its being of solid gold denoted the excellency of that which it symbolized; and the light it diffused being sevenfold (seven being the signature of the holy covenant, hence of sanctification, holiness) denoted that all was of an essentially pure and sacred character.

In the lamps on this candlestick Aaron was ordered to burn pure olive oil; but only, it would seem, during the night. For in Ex. 27:21 he is commanded to cause the lamps to burn “from evening to morning before the Lord;” and in ch. [[30:7, 8 >> Bible:Ex 30:7-8]] , his “dressing the lamps in the morning “is set in opposition to his “lighting them in the evening.” The same order is again repeated in Lev. 24:3. And in accordance with this [[@Page:370]] we read in 1 Sam. 3:3 of the Lord’s appearing to Samuel ”before the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord “—which can only mean early in the morning, before sunrise. Josephus, indeed, mentions that the custom was to keep the lamps burning night and day; but this only shows that the arrangement in the second temple varied from the original constitution. The candlestick appears to have been designed in its immediate use to form a substitute for the natural light of the sun; and it must hence have been intended that the outer veil should be drawn up at break of day, as in ordinary tents, so far as might be needed to give light for any ministrations that should be performed in the sanctuary.

This symbol has received such repeated illustration in other parts of Scripture, that there is scarcely any room for difference of opinion as to its fundamental import and main idea. In the first chapter of Revelation, the image occurs in its original form, “the seven golden lamps” (not candlesticks, as in our version, but the seven lamps on the one candlestick), which are explained to mean “the seven churches.” These churches, however, are to be understood not merely as so many organized communities, but as replenished by the Spirit of God, and full of Divine light and power; and hence in the 4th chapter of the same book we again meet with seven lamps of fire before the throne of God, which are said to be “the seven spirits of God”—either the One Spirit of God in His varieties of holy and spiritual working, or seven presiding spirits of light fitted by that Spirit for the ministrations referred to in the heavenly vision. Throughout Scripture—as we have already seen in ch. iii. of this part—oil is uniformly taken for a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It is so not less with respect to its light-giving property than to its qualities for anointing and refreshment; and hence the prophet Zechariah, ch. [[4 >> Bible:Zc 4]] , represents the exercise of the Spirit’s gracious working and victorious energy in behalf of the Church, under the image of two olive trees pouring oil into the golden candle stick the Church being manifestly imaged in the candlestick, and the Spirit’s assisting grace in the perpetual current of oil with which it was supplied. Clearly, therefore, what we see in the candlestick of the tabernacle is the Church’s relation to God as the possessor and reflector of the holy light that is in Him, [[@Page:371]] which she is privileged to receive, and bound again to give forth to others, so that where she is there must be no darkness, even though all around should be enveloped in the shades of night. It is her high distinction to dwell in a region of light, and to act under God as the bountiful dispenser of its grace and truth.

But what exactly is meant by darkness and light in this relation? Darkness, in a moral sense, is the element of error, of corruption and sin; the rulers of darkness are the heads and instigators of all malice and wickedness; and the works of darkness are the manifold fruits of unrighteous principle. Light, on the other hand, is the element of moral rectitude, of sound know ledge or truth in the understanding, and of holiness in the heart and conduct. The children of light are those who, through the influence of the Spirit of Truth, have been brought to love and practise the principles of righteousness; and the deeds of light are such as may stand the examination and receive the approval of God. When of God Himself it is said, that “He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,” it implies not only that He is possessed of all spiritual discernment so as to be able to distinguish with unerring precision between the evil and the good, but also that this good itself, in all its principles of truth and forms of manifestation, alone bears sway in His character and government. And so, when the Apostle writes to believers (Eph. 5:8), “Ye are light in the Lord, walk as children of the light,” he immediately adds, with the view at once of explaining and of enforcing the statement, “for the fruit of the Spirit (or of light, as it is now generally read) is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth:” these are the signs and manifestations of spiritual light; and only in so far as your life is distinguished by these, do you prove and verify your title to the name of children of light.

The ordinance, therefore, of the golden candlestick, with its sevenfold light, told the Church of that age—tells the Church, indeed, of every age—that she must bear the image of God, by walking in the light of His truth, and shining forth in the garments of righteousness for the instruction and edification of others. Our Lord virtually gives a voice to the ordinance, when He says to His disciples, “Ye are the light of the world: let your light so shine before men, that they seeing your good works [[@Page:372]] may glorify your Father in heaven.” Or it may be heard in the stirring address of Isaiah, pointing to Christian times: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord has arisen upon thee.” As much as to say, Now, since the true light has shone, since He has come who is Himself the life and the light of men, it is day with thee; therefore, not a time to slumber and take thy rest, but to be up and doing in thy Master’s service. Self-pleasing inaction, or unhallowed enjoyment, is no privilege in God’s kingdom. He has brought to thy hand the richest talents of grace, not that they may be wrapt up in a napkin, but faithfully laid out for the glory of Him who conferred them. Arise, therefore, and shine; reflect the light which has shone from heaven upon thy soul; give forth, in the acts of a consistent and godly life, becoming manifestations of that glory which the Spirit of Glory has poured around thy spiritual condition.

In the preceding discussions regarding the Holy Place, we have avoided referring to the interpretations of the elder typologists, or the views of commentators. It would have taken too long to notice every diversity, and it seemed better to notice none till we had unfolded what we conceive to be the correct view of the several parts. And this, we trust, has appeared so natural, and is so fully borne out by the language of Scripture, that the contrary opinions may be left without special consideration. Indeed, little more is needed than to look at them, to see how uncertain and unsatisfactory they commonly are, even to those who propound them. Bähr, indeed, speaks dogmatically enough, although his fundamental error regarding the general design of the tabernacle, formerly referred to, carried him here also for the most part in the wrong direction. But take, for example, what Scott says in his commentary regarding the shew-bread, which may be paralleled by many similar explanations: “They (the cakes) might typify Christ as the bread of life and the continual food of the souls of His people, having offered Himself unto God for them; or they may denote the services of believers, presented before God through Him, and accepted for His sake; or, the whole may mean the communion betwixt our reconciled Father and His adopted children in Christ Jesus, who, as it were, feast [[@Page:373]] at the same table,” etc. What can any one make of this diversity of meaning? When the mind is treated to so many and such different notions under one symbol, it necessarily takes in none distinctly; they become merely so many perhapses; and instead of multiplying the benefit and instruction of the ordinance, we only leave it without any clear or definite import. The ground of most of the erroneous interpretations on the furniture and services of the Holy Place, lay in understanding all directly and peculiarly of Christ. And this, again, arose from not perceiving that the Tabernacle was intended to symbolize what concerned the people as dwelling with God, not less than what concerned God’s dwelling with them. It is not to be forgotten, however, that when Christ is contemplated, not as the substitute, but as the Head, the Pattern, and Forerunner of His people, everything that was here shadowed forth concerning them is true in a pre-eminent sense of Him. His prayers, His work of righteousness, and His exhibition of the light of Divine truth and holiness, take precedence of all that in a like kind ever has been, or ever may be, presented by the members of His body. But as Christ’s whole undertaking is something sui generis, and chiefly to be viewed as the means of securing salvation and peace, provided by God for His people as under this view it is more especially symbolized in the furniture and services of the Most Holy Place, it is better, and more agreeable to the design of the tabernacle, to consider the things belonging to the Holy Place as having immediate respect to the calling and services of Christ’s people.

FOOTNOTE

[1] In the last of these passages the incense is said to have been offered “with the prayers of saints,” whence some have inferred that the two were different—that the incense symbolized only Christ’s intercession, and not the prayers of saints. But in ch. 5:8 the incense is expressly called “the prayers of saints.” And it is the usual style of the Apocalypse to couple the symbol with the reality, as, besides the instance before us, the golden candlesticks and the churches, the white linen and the righteousness of the saints, etc.

[2] Sicut enim ara mensa Dei, ita mensa Dei ara quaedam erat, araeque plane vicera praestabat. (Outram. Do Sac., L. i., c. 8, 7)

[3] The provisions of the table of shew-bread were but another and higher mode of exhibiting what was constantly being presented directly by the people in the outer court by means of the meat and drink-offerings.

Section Seventh.—The Most Holy Place, with its Furniture, and The Great Annual Service connected with it on The Day of Atonement.

[[@Page:374]] THOUGH the tabernacle, as a whole, was God’s house or dwelling-place among His people, yet the innermost of its two apartments alone was appropriated for His peculiar place of abode the seat and throne of His kingdom. It was there, in that hallowed recess, where the awful symbol of His presence appeared, or possibly had its fixed abode, and from which, as from His very presence-chamber, the high priest was to receive the communications of His grace and will, to be through Him made known to others. The things, therefore, which concern it, most immediately and directly respect God: we have here, in symbol, the more special revelation of what God Himself is in relation to His people.

I. The apartment itself was a perfect cube of ten cubits, thus bearing on all its dimensions the symbol of completeness—an image of the all-perfect character of the Being who condescended to occupy it as the region of His manifested presence and glory. The ark of the covenant, with the tables of the testimony, and the mercy-seat, with the two cherubims at each end, formed originally and properly its whole furniture. The ark or chest, which was simply made as a depository for holding the two tables of the law, the tables of the covenant, was formed of boards of shittim-wood, overlaid with gold, two and a half cubits long by one and a half broad, with a crown, or raised and ornamented border of gold, around the top. This latter it had in common with the table of shew-bread and the altar of incense; so that it could not have been meant to denote anything connected with the peculiar design of the ark, and in all the cases, indeed, it seems merely to have been added for the purpose of forming a suitable and becoming ornament.

[[@Page:375]] The mercy-seat, as it is called in our version, was a piece of solid gold, of precisely the same dimensions in length and breadth as the ark, and ordered to be placed above, on the top of it, probably so as to go within the crown of gold, and fit closely in with it. The Hebrew name is capporeth, or covering; but not exactly in the sense of being a mere lid or covering for the ark of the covenant. This might be said rather to suggest than to express the real meaning of the term, as used in the present connection. For the capporeth is never mentioned as precisely the lid of the ark, or as simply designed to cover and conceal what lay within. It rather appears as occupying a place of its own, though connected with and attached to the ark, yet by no means a mere appendage to it; and hence, both in the descriptions and the enumerations given of the holy things in the tabernacle, it is mentioned separately.—(Ex. 25:17, 26:34, 35:12, 39:35, 40:20) It sometimes even appears to stand more prominently out than the ark itself, and to have been peculiarly that for which the Most Holy Place was set apart; as in Lev. 16:2, where this Place is described by its being “within the veil before the mercy-seat,” and in 1 Chron. 28:11, where it is simply designated “the house of the capporeth,” or mercy-seat.

What, then, was the precise object and design of this portion of the sacred furniture? It was for a covering, indeed, but for that only in the sense of atonement. The word is never used for a covering in the ordinary sense; wherever it occurs, it is always as the name of this one article—a name which it derived from being peculiarly and pre-eminently the place where covering or atonement was made for the sins of the people. There was here, therefore, in the very name, an indication of the real meaning of the symbol, as the kind of covering expressed by it is covering only in the spiritual sense—atonement. Hence the rendering of the LXX. was made with the evident design of bringing out this: ἱλαστήριον ἐπίθεμα (a propitiatory covering). Yet, while the name properly conveys this meaning, it was not given without some respect also to the external position of the article in question, which was immediately above and upon, not the ark merely, but also the tables of the testimony within: ”And thou shalt put the mercy-seat upon the ark of the testimony” [[@Page:376]] (Ex. 26:34); “the mercy-seat that is over the testimony” ([[26:34 >> Bible:Ex 16:34]] ); “that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy-seat that is upon the testimony.”—(Lev. 16:13) The tables of the covenant, as formerly explained (p. 110), contained God’s testimony, primarily indeed for what, in His character of holiness, He required of His people, but not without regard to the counter tendency which existed in them; so that incidentally it became also a testimony against them on account of sin; and as they could not stand before it when thundered with terrific majesty in their ears from Mount Sinai, neither could they spiritually stand before the accusations it was constantly raising against them in the presence of God, in the Most Holy Place. A covering was therefore needed for them between it, on the one hand, and God on the other—but an atonement-covering. A mere external covering would not do; for the searching, all-seeing eye of Jehovah was there, from which nothing outward can conceal; and the law itself also, from which the covering was needed, is spiritual, reaching to the inmost thoughts of the heart, as well as to every action of the life. That the mercy-seat stood over the testimony, and shut it out from the bodily eye, was a kind of shadow of the provision required; but still, even under that dispensation, no more than the shadow, and fitted not properly to be, but only to suggest, what was really required, viz., a covering in the sense of an atonement. The covering required must be a propitiatory, a place on which the holy eye of God may ever see the blood of reconciliation; and the Most Holy Place, as designated from it, and deriving thence its most essential characteristic, might fitly be called “the house of the propitiatory,” or the “atonement-house.”—(1 Chron. 28:11)

At the two ends of this mercy-seat, and rising, as it were, out of it—a part of the same piece, and constantly adhering to it—there were two cherubim, made of beaten gold, without stretched wings overarching the mercy-seat, and looking inwards towards each other, and towards the mercy-seat, with an appearance of holy wonder and veneration. The symbolical import of these ideal figures has already been fully investigated,[1] and nothing more is necessary here than a brief indication of their [[@Page:377]] design as connected with the mercy-seat. Placed as they were with their outstretched wings rising aloft and overshadowing the mercy-seat, they gave to this the appearance of a glorious seat or throne, suited for the occupation or residence of God in the symbolic cloud as the King of Israel. That forms of created beings were made to surround this throne of Deity, and impart to it an appearance of becoming grandeur and majesty—this was simply an outward embodiment of the fact, that God ever makes Himself known as the God of the living, of whom not only have countless myriads been formed by His hand, but attendant hosts also continually minister around Him and celebrate His praise. And that the particular forms here used were compound figures, representations of ideal beings, and beings whose component parts consisted of the highest kinds of life on earth in its different spheres,—man first and chiefly, and with him the ox, the lion, and the eagle,—this, again, denoted that the forms and manifestations of creature-life, among whom and for whom God there revealed Himself, were not of heaven, but of earth chiefly,—indeed, and pre-eminently man, who, when the work of redemption is complete, and he is fitted to dwell in the most excellent glory of the Divine presence, shall be invested with the properties of what is still to Him but an ideal perfection, and be made possessor of a yet higher nature, and stand in yet nearer fellowship with God than he did in the paradise that was lost. But these new hopes of fallen humanity all centre in the work of reconciliation and love shadowed forth upon the mercy-seat: thither, therefore, must the faces of these ideal heirs of salvation ever look, and with outstretched wing hang around the glorious scene, as in wondering expectation of the things now proceeding in connection with it, and hereafter to be revealed. So that God sitting between the cherubim is God revealing Himself as on a throne of grace, in mingled majesty and love, for the recovery of His fallen family on earth, and their final elevation to the highest region of life, and blessedness, and glory. This explanation applies substantially to the curtains, which appear to have formed the whole interior of the tabernacle, and which were throughout inwrought with figures of cherubim. Not the throne merely, but the entire dwelling of God, was in the midst of these representatives (as we conceive [[@Page:378]] them to have chiefly been) of redeemed and glorified humanity.

The articles now described formed properly the whole furniture of the Most Holy Place, being all that was required to give a suitable representation of the character and purposes of God in relation to His people. But three other things were after wards added, and placed, as it is said, before the Lord, or before the testimony—the pot of manna, the rod of Aaron, and the entire book of the law. These were all lodged there in the immediate presence of God, as in a safe and appropriate depository—lodged partly as memorials of the past, and partly as signs and witnesses for the future. The manna testified of God’s power and willingness to give food for the life of His people even in the most destitute circumstances—to sustain life in parched lands—and was ready to witness against them in all time coming, if they should distrust His goodness or repair to other sources for life and blessing. The rod of Aaron, which in itself was as dry and lifeless as the rods of the other tribes, but which, through the peculiar grace and miraculous power of God, “brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds,” testified of the appointment of Aaron to the priestly office—of him alone, though not, as some wickedly affirmed, to the detriment and death of the congregation, but rather for their life and fruitfulness in all that is pure and good. It was therefore well fitted to serve as a witness in every age against those who might turn aside from God’s appointed channel of grace, and choose to themselves other modes of access to Him than such as He had Himself chosen and ordained. Finally, the book of the law, which contained all the statutes and ordinances, the precepts and judgments, the threatenings and promises, delivered by the hand of Moses, and which it was the part of the priests and Levites to teach continually, and on the seventh or sabbatical year to read throughout in the audience of the people,—this being put beside, or in the ark of the covenant, testified God’s care to provide His people with a full revelation of His will, and stood there as a perpetual witness before God against His ministering servants, in case they should prove unfaithful to their charge.—(Deut. 31:26) But these things were rather accessories to the furniture of the Most Holy Place, than essential [[@Page:379]] parts of it. The ark of the covenant, with the tables of testimony within, and the mercy-seat with the cherubim of glory above, upon the testimony, these alone were the sacred things, for the reception of which that interior sanctuary was properly reserved and set apart. It is only with these, therefore, that we have now to do.

II. Now, considered in themselves, and without respect to any service connected with them, what a clear and striking representation did they present to the Israelite of the spiritual and holy nature of God! How much was here to be learned of His perfections and character! It is true, as certain writers have been at pains to tell us, there was nothing absolutely original in the plan of a sacred building or structure having an inner sanctuary, with a chest or shrine of the Deity deposited there, in whose honour the house was erected. But what then? Does this general similarity account for what we have here, or place the one upon a level with the other? Far from it. For what do we perceive, when we look into those shrines that stood in the innermost recesses, more especially of Egyptian temples? Some paltry or hideous idol, formed after the similitude of a beast, sacredly preserved and worshipped as a representative of the Deity, and this only as a substitute for the living creatures themselves, which appear to have been kept in the larger temples. “Living animals (says Jablonsky, Pan. Proll., p. 86), such as were worshipped for images or statues, and treated with all Divine honours, were to be found only in temples solemnly consecrated to the gods, and indeed only in certain of these. But effigies of these animals were to be seen in many other temples through the whole of Egypt, and are still discovered among their ruins; And another says, “Some of the sacred boats or arks contained the emblems of life and stability, which, when the veil was drawn aside, were partially seen; and others presented the sacred beetle of the sun, overshadowed by the wings of two figures of the goddess Thmei or Truth.”[2] But what, on the other hand, do we perceive, when we turn from these instruments [[@Page:380]] of a debasing and abominable superstition, to look into the inner most sanctuary of the tabernacle? No outward similitude of any kind that might be taken for an emblem or an image of God; nor any representation of Him but what was to be found in that revelation of law which unfolds what He is in Himself, by disclosing what He requires of moral and religious duty from His people,—a law which, the more reason is enlightened, the more does it consent to as “holy, just, and good,” and which, therefore, reveals a God infinitely worthy of the adoration and love of His creatures. We here discern an immeasurable gulph between the religion of Moses and that of the nations of heathen antiquity; and see also how the Israelites were taught, in the most central arrangements of their worship, the necessity of serving God in spirit, and of rendering all their worship subservient to the cultivation of the great principles of holiness and truth.

But, considered farther, with reference to the professed object and design of the whole, what correct and elevated views were here presented of the fellowship between God and men! Had God only appeared as represented by the law of perfect holiness, who then could stand before Him? Or if without law, as a God of mercy and compassion, stooping to hold converse with sinful men, and receiving them back to His favour, what security should have been taken for guarding the rectitude of His government? But here, with the ark and the mercy-seat together, we behold Him, in perfect adaptation to the circumstances of men, appearing at once as the just God and the Saviour—keeping in His innermost sanctuary, nay, placing underneath His throne, as the very foundation on which it rested, the revelation of His pure and holy law, and, at the same time, providing for the transgressions of His people a covering of mercy, that they might still draw near to Him and live. It is already in principle the mystery of redemption—the manifestation of a God essentially just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly—of a God whose throne is alike the dwelling-place of righteousness and mercy—righteousness [[@Page:381]] upholding the claims of law, mercy stretching out the sceptre of grace to the penitent: both, even then, continually exercised, but rising at length to unspeakably their grandest display on the cross of Calvary, where justice is seen rigidly exacting of the Lamb of God the penalty due to transgression, and mercy providing, at an infinite cost, a way for the guilty to peace and blessing.

Since the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat contained such a complete revelation of what God was in Himself and toward His people, we can easily understand why the symbol of His presence, the overshadowing cloud of glory, should have been immediately in connection with that, and why the life and soul of the whole Jewish theocracy should have been contemplated as residing there. There peculiarly was “the place of the Lord’s throne, and the place of the soles of His feet, where He had His dwelling among the children of Israel.”—(Ezek. 43:7) Hence it was called emphatically “the glory of the Lord;” and on their possession or loss of this sacred treasure, the people of God felt that all which properly constituted their glory depended.—(Ps. 78:61; 1 Sam. 4:21, 22) It was before this, as containing the symbol of a present God, that they came to worship (Josh. 7:6; 2 Chron. 5:6); and from a passage in the life of David (2 Sam. 15:32), where it is said, according to the proper rendering, “And it came to pass that when David was come to the top (of the Mount of Olives, where the last look could be obtained of the sacred abode), where it is wont to do homage to God,” it would appear, that as soon as they came in sight of the place of the ark, or obtained their last view of it, they were in the habit of prostrating themselves in adoration. Happy, if they had but sufficiently remembered that Jehovah, being in Himself, and even there representing Himself, as a spiritual and holy God, while He condescended to make the ark His resting-place, and to connect with it the symbol of His glory (Lev. 16:2, “for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat”), yet could not so indissolubly bind His presence and His glory to it, as if the one might not be separated from the other! By terrible things in righteousness the Israelites were once and again made to learn this salutary lesson, when, rather than appear their patron and [[@Page:382]] guardian in sin, the Lord showed that He would, in a manner, leave His throne empty, and surrender His glory into the enemy’s hands. The cloud of glory was still but a symbol, which must disappear when the glorious Being who resided in it could no longer righteously manifest His goodness, and the ark itself, and the tabernacle that contained it, became as a common thing. Nor is it otherwise now, whenever men come to hold the truth of God in unrighteousness. The partial extent to which they exercise belief in the truth utterly fails to secure for them any real tokens of His regard. Even while they handle the symbols of His presence, He is to them an absent God; and when the hour of trial comes, they find themselves forsaken and desolate.

III. But it is only when viewed in connection with the service of the day of atonement,—the one day on which the Most Holy Place was entered by the high priest,—that we can fully perceive either the symbolical import or the typical bearing of its sacred furniture. We therefore notice this service here, in connection with the place which it chiefly respected, rather than postpone the consideration of it to the time when it was performed. That not only no Israelite, but that no consecrated priest, not even the high priest himself, was permitted at all times to enter within the veil, that even he was limited in the exercise of this high privilege to one day in the year, “lest he should die,”—this most impressively bespoke the difficulties which stood in the way of a sinner’s approach to the righteous God, and how imperfectly these could be removed by the ministrations of the earthly tabernacle, and the blood of slain beasts. It indicated that the holiness which reigned in the presence of God, required on the part of men a work of righteousness to lay open the way of access, such as could not then be brought in, and that while the Church should gladly avail itself of the temporary and imperfect means of reconciliation then placed within her reach, she should be ever looking forward to a brighter period, when every obstruction being removed, her members would be able to go with freedom into the presence of God, and with open face behold the manifestations of His glory.

1. In considering more closely the service in question, we [[@Page:383]] have first to notice the leading character of the day’s solemnities. The day, which was the tenth of the seventh month, and usually happened about the beginning of our October, was to be “a Sabbath of rest” (Lev. 16:31), yet not, like other Sabbaths, a day of repose and satisfaction, but a day on which ”they should afflict their souls.” It is not expressly said they were to fast (nor is fasting as an ordinance ever prescribed in the Pentateuch), but it would very naturally come to be observed in that way, and in later times was familiarly styled the fast.—(Acts 27:9) This striking peculiarity in the mode of its observance arose from the nature of the service peculiar to it; it was the day of atonement, or, literally, of atonements (Lev. 23:27), not a day so much for one act of atonement, as for atonement in general—for the whole work of propitiation. The main part of the Mosaic worship consisted in the presentation of sacrifice, as the guilt of sin was perpetually calling for new acts of purification; but on this one day the idea of atonement by sacrifice rose to its highest expression, and became concentrated in one grand comprehensive series of actions. In suitable correspondence to this design, the sense of sin was in like manner to be deepened to its utmost intensity in the national mind, and exhibited in appropriate forms of penitential grief. It was a day of humiliation and godly sorrow working unto repentance. But why all this peculiarity on the day of entrance into the Most Holy Place? Was it not a good and joyful occasion for men personally, or through their representative, to be admitted into such near fellowship with God? Doubtless it was; but that dwelling-place of God is a region of absolute holiness: the fiery law is there which reveals the purity of heaven, and is ready to flame forth in indignation and wrath against all unrighteousness of men. And so the day of nearest approach to God, as it was on His part the day of atonement, must be on the part of His people a day for the remembrance of sin, and for the exercise of that godly sorrow and contrition which it ought to awaken. For to the penitent alone is there forgiveness; not simply to men as sinners, but to men convinced of sin, and humbling themselves before God on account of it. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive them;” but without confession there can be no forgiveness, no [[@Page:384]] atonement, as we have not yet entered into God’s mind respecting the character and desert of sin.

2. But if the remembrance of iniquity which was made on this day, gave to it a character of depression and gloom, the purpose and design of its services could not fail to render it in the result a season of blessed rest and consolation. For atonement was then made for all sin and transgression. It was virtually implied, that the acts of expiation which were ever taking place throughout the year, but imperfectly satisfied for the iniquities of the people, since the people were still kept outwardly at some distance from the immediate dwelling-place of God, and could not even through their consecrated head be allowed to go within the veil. So that when a service was instituted with the view of giving a representation of complete admission to God’s presence and fellowship, the mass of sin must again be brought into consideration, that it might be blotted out by a more perfect atonement. And not only so, but as God’s dwelling and the instruments of His worship were ever contracting defilement, from “remaining among men in the midst of their uncleanness,” so these also required to be annually purified on this day by the more perfect atonement, which was then made in the presence of God. Not that these things were in themselves capable of contracting guilt; they were so viewed merely in respect to the sins of the people, which were ever proceeding around them, and, in a sense, in the very midst of them. For the structure and arrangements of the tabernacle proceeded on the idea, that the people there dwelt (symbolically) with God, as God with them; and consequently the sins of the people in all their families and habitations were viewed as coming up into the sanctuary, and defiling by their pollutions the holy things it contained. No separate offering, therefore, was presented for these holy things, but they were sprinkled with the blood that was shed for the sins of the land, as these properly were what defiled the sanctuary. And that no remnant of guilt, or of its effects, might appear to be left behind, the atonement was to be made and accepted for sin in all its bearings—for the high priest and his house, for the people in all their families, for the tabernacle and all its utensils.

[[@Page:385]] 3. In this service, then, which contained the quintessence of all sacrifice, and gave the most exact representation the ancient worship could afford of the all-perfect atonement of Christ, there was everything in the manner of accomplishing it to mark its singular importance and solemnity. The high priest alone had here to transact with God; and as the representative of the entire spiritual community, he entered with their sins as well as his own, into the immediate presence of God. After the usual morning oblations, at which, if he had personally officiated, he had to strip himself of the rich and beautiful garments with which he was wont to be attired, as unsuitable for the services of a day which was fitted to stain the glory of all flesh; and after having washed himself, he put on the plain garments, which, from the stuff (linen) and from the colour (white), were denominated “garments of holiness” (Lev. 16:4), and were peculiarly appropriated for the work of this day. Then, when thus prepared, he had first of all to take a bullock for a sin-offering for himself and his house, that is, the whole sacerdotal family, and go with the blood of this offering within the veil. Yet not with this alone, but also it is said with a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord (viz., the altar of incense, though the coals for it had to be obtained from the altar of burnt-offering); and to this he was to apply handfuls of incense, that there might arise a cloud of fragrant odours as he entered the Most Holy Place—the emblem of acceptable prayer. The meaning was, that with all the pains he had taken to purify himself, and with the blood, too, of atonement in his hand, he must still go as a suppliant into that region of holiness, as one who had no right to demand admittance, but humbly imploring it from the hand of a gracious God. Having thus entered within, he had to sprinkle with the blood upon the mercy-seat, and again before the mercy-seat seven times: the seven the number of the oath or the covenant; and the double act of atonement, first, apparently, having respect to the persons interested, and then to the apartments and furniture of the sanctuary, as defiled by their uncleanness.

When this more personal act of expiation was completed, that for the sins of the people commenced. Two goats were presented at the door of the tabernacle, which, though two, are [[@Page:386]] still expressly named one victim ([[ver. 5 >> Bible:Le 16:5]] , “two kids of the goats for a sin-offering”), so that the sacrifice consisted of two, merely from the natural impossibility of otherwise giving a full representation of what was to be done; the one being designed more especially to exhibit the means, the other the effect, of the atonement. And this circumstance, that the two goats were properly but one sacrifice, and also that they were together presented by the high priest before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle ([[ver. 7 >> Bible:Le 16:7]] ), indisputably stamped the sacrifice as the Lord’s. Nor was the same obscurely intimated in the action which there took place respecting them, viz., the casting of lots upon them; for this was wont to be done only with what peculiarly belonged to God, and for the purpose of ascertaining what might be His mind in the matter. The point to be determined respecting the two, was not, which God might claim for Himself, and which might belong to another, but simply to what particular destination He appointed the two parts of a sacrifice, which was wholly and exclusively His own. And, indeed, the destination itself of each as thus determined could not be materially different; it could not have been an entirely diverse or heterogeneous destination, since it appeared in itself an immaterial thing which should take the one place arid which the other, and was only to be determined by the casting of the lot.[3]

Of these lots, it is said that the one was to be for the Lord, and the other for the scape-goat, as in our version, but literally for Azazel. The one on which the Lord’s lot fell was forthwith to be slain as a sin-offering for the sins and transgressions of the people; and with its blood, as with that of the bullock previously, the high priest again entered the Most Holy Place, and sprinkled, as before, the mercy-seat first, and then before it seven times; making atonement for the guilt of the congregation, both as regarded their persons and the furniture of the tabernacle. After which, having come out from the Most Holy into the Holy Place, he sprinkled the altar of incense seven times with the blood both of the bullock and of the goat, “to cleanse and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.”—([[ver. 19 >> Bible:Le 16:19]] , comp. with Ex. 30:10)

It was now, after the completion of the atonement by blood, [[@Page:387]] that the high priest confessed over the live goat still standing at the door of the tabernacle, “all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions,” and thereafter sent him away, laden with his awful burden, by a fit person into the wilderness, into a land of separation, where no man dwelt. It is expressly said, [[ver. 22 >> Bible:Le 16:22]] , that this was done with the goat that he might bear all their iniquities thither; but these iniquities, as already atoned by the blood of the other goat—the other half, so to speak, of the sacrifice—for as, on the one hand, without shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin by the law of Moses, so, on the other hand, where blood was duly shed, in the way and manner the law required, remission followed as a matter of course. The action with this second goat, therefore, is by no means to be dissevered from the action with the first; but rather to be regarded as the continuation of the latter, and its proper complement. Hence the second or live goat is represented as standing at the door of the tabernacle, [[ver. 10 >> Bible:Le 16:10]] , while atonement was being made with the blood of the first, as being himself interested in the work that was proceeding, and in a sense the object of it. He was presented there, not to have atonement made with him, as is incorrectly expressed in our version, but as the people’s substitute in a process of absolution. And it is only after this process of absolution or atonement is accomplished that the high priest returns to him, and, as from God, lays on him the now atoned for iniquities, that he might carry them away into a desert place. So that the part he has to do in the transaction, is simply to bear them off and bury them out of sight, as things concerning which the justice of God had been satisfied, no more to be brought into account—fit tenants of a land of separation and forgetfulness.[4]

[[@Page:388]] Thus, from the circumstances of the transaction, when correctly put together and carefully considered, we can have no difficulty in ascertaining the main object and intent of the action with the live goat—without determining anything as to the exact import of the term Azazel. We shall give in the Appendix a brief summary of the views which have been entertained regarding it, and state the one which we are inclined to adopt.[5] But for the right interpretation of this part of the service, nothing material, we conceive, depends on it. What took place with the live goat was merely intended to unfold, and render palpably evident to the bodily eye, the effect of the great work of atonement. The atonement itself was made in secret, while the high priest alone was in the sanctuary; and yet, as all in a manner depended on its success, it was of the utmost importance that there should be a visible transaction, like that of the dismissal of the scape-goat, embodying in a sensible form the results of the service. Nor is it of any moment what became of the goat after being conducted into the wilderness. It was enough that he was led into the region of drought and desolation, where, as a matter of course, he should never more be seen or heard of. With such a destination, he was obviously as much a doomed victim as the one whose life-blood had already been shed and brought within the veil: he went where “all death lives and all life dies;” and so exhibited a most striking image of the everlasting oblivion into which the sins of God’s people are thrown, when once they are covered with the blood of an acceptable atonement.

The remaining parts of the service were as follows: The high priest put off the plain linen garments in which, as alone [[@Page:389]] appropriate for such a service, the whole of it had been performed, and laid them up in the sanctuary till the next day of atonement should come round. Then, having washed himself with water—which he had to do at the beginning and end of every religious service—and having put on his usual garments, he came forth and offered a burnt-offering for himself, and another for the people; by the blood of which, atonement was again made for sin (implying that sin mingled itself even in these holiest services), as by the action with the other parts there was expressed anew the dedication of their persons and services to the Lord. The fat of the sin-offering also—as in cases of sin-offering generally—the high priest burnt upon the altar; while the bodies of the victims were—as in the case of sin-offerings generally for the congregation, or the high priest as its head, Lev. 4:1-21—carried without the camp into a clean place, and burned there. The import of these rites has already been explained in connection with sin-offerings as a class, and need not be repeated here. Finally, the person employed in burning them, as also the person who had conducted the scape-goat into the wilderness, were, on their return to the congregation, to wash themselves, as being relatively impure: not in the strict and proper sense; for if they had really contracted guilt, an atonement would have had to be offered for them; and the relative impurity could only have arisen from their having been engaged in handling what, though in itself not unclean, but rather the reverse, yet in its meaning and design carried a respect to the sins of the people.

IV. It is the less necessary that we should enlarge on the correspondence between this most important service of the Old Testament dispensation, and the work of Christ under the New, since it is the part of the Mosaic ritual which of all others has received the most explicit application from the pen of inspiration. It is to this that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews most especially and frequently refers when pointing to Christ for the great realities which were darkly revealed under the ancient shadows. He tells us that through the flesh of Christ, given unto death for the sins of the world, a new and living way has been provided into the Holiest, as through a veil, no [[@Page:390]] longer concealing and excluding from the presence of God, but opening to receive every penitent transgressor; of which, indeed, the literal rending of the veil at Christ’s death (Matt. 27:51) was a matter-of-fact announcement;—that through the blood of Jesus we can enter not only with safety, but even with boldness, into the region of God’s manifested presence; that this arises from Christ Himself having gone with His own blood into the heavens, that is, presenting Himself there as the perfected Redeemer of His people, who had borne for them the curse of sin, and for ever satisfied the justice of God concerning it;—and that the sacrifice by which all this has been accomplished, being that of one infinitely worthy, is attended with none of the imperfections belonging to the Old Testament service, but is adequate to meet the necessities of a guilty conscience, and to present the sinner, soul and body, with acceptance before God. (Heb. 9:10)[6] This is the substance of the information given us respecting the things of Christ’s kingdom, in so far as these were foreshadowed by the services of the day of atonement; in which, it will be observed, our attention is chiefly drawn to a correspondence in the two cases of essential relations and ideas. We find no countenance given to the merely outward [[@Page:391]] and superficial resemblances, which have so often been arbitrarily, and sometimes even with palpable incorrectness, drawn by Christian writers; such as, that in the high priest’s putting on and again laying aside the white linen garments, was typified Christ’s assuming, and then, when His work on earth was finished, renouncing, the likeness of sinful flesh; in the two goats, His twofold nature; in their being taken from the congregation, His being purchased with the public money; in the slain goat a dying, in the live goat a risen Saviour; or, in the former Christ, in the latter Barabbas, or, as the elder Cocceians more commonly have it, the Jewish people sent into the desert of the wide world, with God’s curse upon them. This last notion has been revived by Professor Bush in the Biblical Repository for July 1842, and in his notes on Leviticus, who gravely states, that the live goat made an atonement simply by being let go into the desert, and that the Jewish people made propitiation for their sins by being judicially subjected to the wrath of Heaven!

We inevitably run into such erroneous and puerile conceits, or move at least amid shifting uncertainties, so long as we isolate the different parts of the outward transaction, and seek a distinct and separate meaning in each of them singly, apart from the grand idea and relations with which they are connected. But, rising above this defective and arbitrary mode of interpretation, fixing our view on the real and essential elements in the respective cases, we then find all that is required to satisfy the just conditions of type and antitype, as well as much to confirm and establish the hearts of believers in the faith. For what do we not behold? On the one side the high priest, the head and representative of a visible community, all stricken with the sense of sin, going under the felt load of innumerable transgressions into the awful presence of Jehovah, as connected with the outward symbols of an earthly sanctuary; permitted to stand there in peace and safety, because entering with the incense of devout supplication and the blood of an acceptable sacrifice; and in token that all sin was forgiven, and all defilement purged away, sending the mighty mass of atoned guilt into the waste howling wilderness, to remain for ever buried and forgotten. On the other side, corresponding to this, we behold Christ, the head and representative of a spiritual and invisible Church, [[@Page:392]] charging Himself with all their iniquities, and, having poured out His soul unto death for them, thereafter ascending into the presence of the Father, as with His own life-blood shed in their behalf; so that they also, sprinkled with this blood, or spiritually interested in this work of atonement and intercession, can now personally draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, having their sins blotted out from the book of God’s remembrance, and shall in due time be admitted to dwell amid the bright effulgence of His most excellent glory. Does faith stagger while it contemplates so free an absolution, ventures on so near an approach, or cherishes so elevating a prospect? Or, having once apprehended, is it apt to lose the clearness of its view and the firmness of its grasp, from having to do with things which lie so much within the territory of the unseen and eternal? Let it throw itself back upon the plain and palpable transactions of the type, which on this account also are written for our learning and assured consolation. And if truly conscious of the burden of sin, and turning from it with unfeigned sorrow to that Lamb of God who has been set forth as a propitiation to take away its guilt, then, with what satisfaction Israel of old beheld the high priest, when the work of reconciliation was accomplished, send their iniquities away into a land of forgetfulness, and with what joy they then rejoiced, let not the humble believer doubt that the same may also, with yet more propriety, be his; since in what was then transacted there were but the imperfect adumbrations of the symbol, while now he has to do with the grand and abiding realities of the substance.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Vol. i., B. ii., s. 3.

[2] Wilkinson, v., p. 265, last ed. We should doubt if in any case emblems of life and stability formed the only or even the chief figures, since beast-worship was the leading characteristic of Egyptian idolatry. But even in external form, none of the articles referred to present any proper resemblance of the ark of God. They always possess the ship or boat form, with something like an altar in the midst; they have nothing corresponding to the mercy-seat; and the chief purpose for which they appear to have been used, was to preserve an image of the creature that was worshipped as emblematical of the god.

[3] See Bähr, Symbolik, ii., p. 678.

[4] That the sense here given to the expression in ver. 10 respecting the live goat, לְכַפֵר עָלָּין, cover upon him, or to make atonement for him, is the correct and only well-grounded one, may now be regarded as conclusively established. Bochart, Witsius, Stiel, also Kurtz and some others, would render it, as in our version, to make atonement with him. But Cocceius already stated that he could find no case in which the expression was used, “excepting for the persons in whose behalf the expiation was made, or of the sacred utensils,” when spoken of as expurgated, Bähr expressly affirms that the means of atonement is never marked by על, but always by ב, and that the former regularly marks the object of the atonement. (Symbolik, ii., p. 683) Hengstenberg also concurs in this view (Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 165), who further remarks, that by the live goat being said to be atoned for, “he was thereby identified with the first, and the nature of the dead was transferred to the living; so that the two goats stand here in a relation entirely similar to that of the two birds in the purification of the leper, of which the one let go was first dipped in the blood of the one slain.” The minute special objections plied against this view by Kurtz (Sac. Offerings, § 209), seem to me an exemplification of that hair splitting tendency, which, in searching for an overstrained exactness, is apt to overlook the more natural and obvious aspect of things. (See App. C.)

[5] See Appendix D.

[6] The only part of the statement, perhaps, which calls for a little explanation is what is said of the veil: “the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (ch. 10:20), identifying apparently our Lord’s body with the veil which separated between the Holy and the Most Holy Place. It is clear that this is only meant to be taken in a kind of figurative or popular sense; for the veil had already been referred to as, in spiritual things, forming the ideal boundary line between the state of believers here and their prospective condition in glory (ver. 19). Yet one can easily perceive certain points of resemblance, on account of which Christ’s flesh might in that general way be identified with the veil. For the use of this was, first to conceal the Most Holy Place from common view, and second to provide at proper times the way of entrance. So the flesh or humanity of Christ, so long as it existed in the life of His humiliation, concealed the most excellent glory of the Godhead—nay, by its very holiness seemed to put this at a greater distance from mankind; but when given to death for their sin, and received in their behalf to glory, it then laid open the way for the guilty. The rent veil was therefore the proper symbol of the access opened through Christ’s death into the very presence of God. But as it was the atoning value of Christ’s death which gave it this power, while in the veil, considered by itself, there was nothing similar, it is obvious the analogy cannot be carried very far, and must necessarily be understood with some license.

Chapter Fourth.—Historical Developments.

[[@Page:461]] IN the course of the preceding discussions, we have so often had occasion to refer to the greater events in Israelitish history, that it would be alike needless and unprofitable, as regards our present object, to go at any length into the consideration of its particular parts. It will be enough to take a brief survey of the more prominent points connected with the state of the covenant people, while under the law and the promises. And we shall do so under two leading divisions,—the one having respect to their actual settlement in the land of Canaan, and the other to their subsequent condition, as placed under the Theocratic constitution, with its peculiar privileges and obligations of duty. The two subjects together will afford opportunities for meeting various objections against the history of the Old Testament, and also for exhibiting the distinctive excellences of its economy, and the gradual preparation made by its actual working for the kingdom of Christ.

Section First.—The Conquest of Canaan.

The conquest and actual possession of Canaan by the children of Israel, both in point of time and importance, deserves the first place. The possession of that hind formed one of the things most distinctly promised in the Abrahamic covenant; and as matters actually stood when the fulfilment came to be accomplished, the possession could be made good only by the overthrow and destruction of the original inhabitants. This [[@Page:462]] mode of entrance on the possession has been often denounced by infidel writers as cruel and unjust, and has not unfrequently met with a lame defence from the advocates of a Divine revelation. Even heathen morality is said to have been offended at it; and we learn from Augustine and Epiphanius, that the ancient sect of the Manicheans, who were more Pagan than Christian in their sentiments, placed it among “the many cruel things which Moses did and commanded,” and which went to prove, according to their view, that the God of the Old Testament could not be the God of the New. All the leading abettors of infidelity in this country—Tindal, Morgan, Chubb, Bolingbroke, Paine have decried it as the highest enormity; and Boling broke, in his usual style, did not scruple to denounce the man “as worse even than an atheist, who would impute it to the Supreme Being.” Voltaire, and the other infidels, with their allies the neologians on the Continent, have not been behind their brethren here in the severity of their condemnation and the plentifulness of their abuse. And it would even seem as if the more learned portion of the Jews themselves had been averse to undertake the defence of the transaction in its naked and scriptural form, as we find their elder Rabbinical writers attempting to soften down the rugged features of the narrative, by affirming that “Joshua sent three letters to the land of the Canaanites before the Israelites invaded it; or rather, he proposed three things to them by letters: that those who preferred flight, might escape; that those who wished for peace, might enter into covenant; and that such as were for war, might take up arms.”[1]

This apparently more humane and agreeable view of the transaction has been substantially adopted by many Christian writers,—among others, by Selden, Patrick, Graves,—who conceive that the execution of judgment upon the Canaanites was only designed to take effect in case of their refusing to surrender, and their obstinate adherence to idolatry; but that in every case peace was to be offered to them on the ground of their acknowledging the God of Israel, and submitting to the sway of their conquerors. The sacred narrative, however, contains nothing to warrant such a supposition. Indeed, the supposition [[@Page:463]] is made in despite of an express line of demarcation on that very point, drawn between the Canaanites and the surrounding nations. To the latter only were the Israelites allowed to offer terms of peace: “But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth, but thou shalt utterly destroy them.”—(Deut. 20:16, 17) And as they were not permitted to propose terms of peace, so neither were they at liberty to accept of articles of agreement: “Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land;” “they shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against Me.”—(Ex. 23:33, 34:12) Such explicit commands manifestly did not contemplate any plans of reconciliation, and left no alter native to the Israelites but to destroy. According to the view of Scripture, the inhabitants of Canaan were in the condition of persons placed under the cherem or ban of Heaven,—that is, devoted to God by a solemn appointment to destruction, as no otherwise capable of being rendered subservient to the Divine glory. The part assigned to the Israelites was simply to execute the final sentence as now irrevocably passed against them; and in so far as they failed to do so, it is charged upon them as their sin; and their failure was converted into a judgment on themselves a judgment that involved them in many troubles and calamities during the earlier period of their residence in Canaan. (Judg. 2:1-5)

Another series of attempts has been made to soften the alleged harshness and severity of the Divine command in reference to the Canaanites, by asserting for the Israelites some kind of prior right to the possession of the country. A Jewish tradition, espoused with this view by many of the Fathers, claims the land of Canaan for the seed of Abraham, as their destined share of the allotted earth in the distribution made by Noah of its different regions among his descendants. Michaelis, justly rejecting this distribution as a fable, holds, notwithstanding that Canaan was originally a tract of country that belonged to Hebrew herdsmen; that other tribes gradually encroached upon and usurped their possessions, taking advantage of the temporary descent of Israel into Egypt to appropriate the whole; and that the seed of Abraham were hence perfectly justified in vindicating [[@Page:464]] their right anew, when they had the power, and expelling the intruders sword in hand. This opinion has found many abettors in Germany, and quite recently has been supported by Ewald and Jahn; though the original right of the Israelites is now commonly held to have reached only to the pastoral portions of the territory. A more baseless theory, however, never was constructed. Scripture is entirely silent respecting such a claim on the part of the Israelites. But there is more than its silence to condemn the theory; for at the very first appearance of the chosen family on the ground of Palestine, it is expressly stated that “the Canaanite was then in the land” (Gen. 12:6); and in it, not merely as a wandering shepherd or temporary occupant, but as its settled and rightful possessor, to whom Abraham and his immediate descendants stood in the relation of sojourners. Hence the promise given to Abraham was, that he and his seed should get for an everlasting possession “the land wherein he was a stranger.” The testimony of Scripture is quite uniform on the two points that—Canaan, as an inheritance, was bestowed as the free gift of God on the seed of Abraham, and that the gift was to be made good by a forcible dispossession of the original occupants of the land.

It is plain, therefore, that according to the representations of Scripture, the family of Abraham had no natural right to the inheritance of Canaan. Nor would it be hard to prove that such false attempts to smooth down the inspired narrative, and adapt it to the refinement of modern taste, instead of diminishing, really aggravate, the difficulties attending it; that if, in one respect, they seem to bring the transaction into closer agreement with Christian principle, they place it, in another, at a much greater and absolutely irreconcilable distance. For, on the supposition that the posterity of Abraham were the original possessors, why should God have kept them for an entire succession of generations at a distance from the region, making their right—if they ever had any virtually to expire,—and rendering it capable of vindication no otherwise than by force of arms? Surely, on any ground of righteous principle, a right at best so questionable in its origin, and so long suffered to fall into abeyance, ought rather to have been altogether abandoned, than pressed at the expense of so much blood and desolation. And [[@Page:465]] if the situation of the Canaanites had been such as to admit of terms of peace being proposed to them, then the decree of their extermination must have been in contrariety with the great principles of truth and righteousness.

It will never be by such methods of defence, that the objections of the infidel to this part of the Divine procedure can be successfully met, or, what is more important, that the God of the Old Testament can be shown to be the same, in character and working, with the God of the New. There will still be room for the sneer of Gibbon, that the accounts of the wars commanded by Joshua “are read with more awe than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the present age.”[2]On the contrary, we affirm, that if contemplated in the broad and comprehensive light in which Scripture itself presents them to our view, they may be read with the most perfect satisfaction; that there is not an essential element belonging to them, which does not equally enter into the principles of the Gospel dispensation; and that any difference which may here present itself between the Old and the New is, as in all other cases, a difference merely in form, but founded upon an essential agreement. This will appear whether it is viewed in respect to the Canaanites, to the Israelites, or to the times of the Gospel dispensation.

1. Viewed, first of all, in respect to the Canaanites, as the execution of deserved judgment on their sins (in which light Scripture uniformly represents it, so far as they are concerned), there is nothing in it to offend the feelings of any well-constituted Christian mind. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, God appears as the righteous Judge and avenger of sin, and does so not unfrequently by the infliction of fearful things in righteousness. If we can contemplate Him bringing on the cities of the plain the vengeance of eternal fire, because their sins had waxed great, and were come up to heaven; or, at a later period, even in Gospel times, can reflect how the wrath was made to fall on the Jewish nation to the uttermost; or, finally, can think of impenitent sinners being appointed, in the world to come, to the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever;—if we can contemplate such things entering into the administration of God, without any disturbance to our convictions [[@Page:466]] that the Judge of all the earth does only what is right, it were surely unreasonable to complain of the severities exercised on the foul inhabitants of Canaan. Their abominations were of a kind that might be said emphatically to cry to Heaven—such idolatrous rites as tended to defile their very consciences, and the habitual practice of pollutions which were a disgrace to humanity. The land is represented as incapable of bearing any longer the mass of defilements which overspread it, as even “vomiting out its inhabitants;” and “therefore,” it is added, “the Lord visited their iniquity upon them.”—(Lev. 18:25) Nor was this vengeance taken on them summarily; the time of judgment was preceded by a long season of forbearance, during which they were plied with many calls to repentance. So early as the age of Abraham, the Lord manifested Himself toward them both in the way of judgment and of mercy—of judgment, by the awful destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, cutting off the most infected portion, that the rest might fear, and turn from their evil ways; of mercy, by raising up in the midst of them such eminent saints as Abraham and Melchizedek. That period, and the one immediately succeeding, was peculiarly the day of their merciful visitation. But they knew it not; and so, according to God’s usual method of dealing, He gradually removed the candlestick out of its place—withdrew His witnesses to another region, in consequence of which the darkness continually deepened, and the iniquity of the people at last became full. Then only was it that the cloud of Divine wrath began to threaten them with overwhelming destruction—not, however, even then, without giving awful indications of its approach by the wonders wrought in Egypt and at the Red Sea, and again hanging long in suspense during the forty years sojourn in the wilderness, as if waiting till a little further space was given for repentance. But as all proved in vain, mercy at length gave place to judgment, according to the principle common alike to all dispensations, “He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy;” and, “Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” In plain terms, whenever iniquity has reached its last stage, the judgment of Heaven is at hand. This principle was as strikingly exemplified in the case of the Jews after our [[@Page:467]] Lord’s appearing, as in the case of these Canaanites before. In the parables of the barren fig-tree and the wicked husbandmen in the vineyard, the same place is assigned it in the Christian dispensation which it formerly held in the Jewish. And in the experience of all who, despite of merciful invitations and solemn threatenings, perish from the way of life, it must find an attestation so much more appalling than the one now referred to, as a lost eternity exceeds in evil the direst calamities of time. In fine, the very same may be said of the objections brought against the destruction of the Canaanites, which was said by Richard Baxter of many of the controversies started in his day, “The true root of all the difference is, whether there be a God and a life to come.” Grant only a moral government and a time of retribution, and such cases as those under consideration become not only just, but necessary.

2. Again, let the judgment executed upon the Canaanites be viewed in respect to the instruments employed in enforcing it—the Israelites—and in this aspect also nothing will be found in it at variance with the great principles of truth and righteousness. The Canaanites, it is to be understood, in this view of the matter, deserved destruction, and were actually doomed to it by a Divine sentence. But must not the execution of such a sentence by the hand of the Israelites, have tended to produce a hardening effect upon the minds of the conquerors? Was it not fitted to lead them to regard themselves as the appointed executors of Heaven’s vengeance, wherever they themselves might deem this to be due, and to render their example a most dangerous precedent for every wild enthusiast, who might choose to allege a commission from Heaven to pillage and destroy his fellow-men? So it has sometimes been alleged, but without any just foundation. Such charges evidently proceed on the tacit assumption, that there was in reality no doom of Heaven pronounced against the Canaanites, and no special commission given to the Israelites to execute it thus ignoring one part of the sacred narrative for the purpose of throwing discredit on another. Or, it is implied that God must be debarred from carrying mi Ills administration in such a way as may best suit the ends of Divine wisdom, because human fraud or folly may take encouragement from thence to practise an unwarranted [[@Page:468]] and improper imitation. Thoughts of this description carry their own refutation along with them. The commission given to the Israelites was limited to the one task of sweeping the land of Canaan of its original occupants. But this manifestly conferred on them no right to deal out the same measure of severity to others; and so far from creating a thirst for human blood, in cases where they had no authority to shed it, they even fainted in fulfilling their commission to extirpate the people of Canaan. This, however, is only the negative side of the question; and viewed in another and more positive aspect, the employment of the Israelites to execute this work of judgment was eminently calculated to produce a salutary impression upon their minds, and to promote the ends for which the judgment was appointed. For what could be conceived so thoroughly fitted to implant in their hearts an abiding conviction of the evil of idolatry and its foul abominations—to convert their abhorrence of these into a national, permanent characteristic, as their being obliged to enter on their settled inheritance by a terrible infliction of judgment upon its former occupants for polluting it with such enormities? Thus the very foundations of their national existence raised a solemn warning against defection from the pure worship of God; and the visitation of Divine wrath against the ungodliness of men accomplished by their own hands, and interwoven with the records of their history at its most eventful period, stood as a perpetual witness against them, if they should ever turn aside to folly. Happy had it been for them, if they had been as careful to remember the lesson, as God was to have it suitably impressed upon their minds.

3. But the propriety and even moral necessity of the course pursued become manifest, when we view the proceeding in its typical bearing the respect it had to Gospel times. There were reasons, as we have seen, connected with the Canaanites themselves and the surrounding nations, sufficient to justify the whole that was done; but we cannot sec the entire design of it, or even perceive its leading object, without looking farther, and connecting it with the higher purposes of God respecting His kingdom among men. What He sought in Canaan was an inheritance—a place of rest and blessing for His people, but still only a temporary inheritance, and as such a type and pledge [[@Page:469]] of that final rest which remains for the people of God. All, therefore, had to be arranged concerning the one, so as fitly to represent and image the higher and more important things which belong to the other that the past and the temporary might serve as a mirror in which to foreshadow the future and abiding, and that the principles of God’s dealing toward His Church might be seen to be essentially the same, whether displayed on the theatre of present or of eternal realities. It was partly, at least, on this account, that the place chosen for the inheritance of Israel was allowed, in the first instance, to become in a peculiar sense the region of pollution—a region that required to be sanctified by an act of Divine judgment upon its corrupt possessors, and thereby fitted for becoming the home and heritage of saints. In this way alone could the things done concerning it shadow forth and prepare for the final possession of a glorified world,—an inheritance which also needs to be redeemed from the powers of darkness that meanwhile over spread it with their corruptions, and which must be sanctified by terrible acts of judgment upon their ungodliness, before it can become the meet abode of final bliss. The spirit of Antichrist must be judged and cast out; Babylon, the mother of abominations, which has made the earth drunk with the wine of her fornications, must come in remembrance before God, and receive the due reward of her sins; so that woes of judgment and executions of vengeance must precede the Church’s occupation of her purchased inheritance, similar in kind to those which put Israel in possession of the land of Canaan. What, indeed, are the scenes presented to our view in the concluding chapters of Revelation, but an expansion to the affairs of a world, and the destinies of a coming eternity, of those which we find depicted in the wars of Joshua? In these awful scenes we behold, on the one hand, the Captain of Salvation, of whom Joshua was but an imperfect type, going forth to victory with the company of a redeemed and elect Church, supported by the word of God, and the resistless artillery of heaven; while, on the other hand, we see the doomed enemies of God and the Church long borne with, but now at last delivered to judgment—the wrath falling on them to the uttermost,—and, when the world has been finally relieved of their abominations, the new heavens and the new [[@Page:470]] earth rising into view, where righteousness, pure and undefiled, is to have its perennial habitation.

We have said that the work of judgment in the one case was similar in kind to what shall be executed in the other; but we should couple with this the qualification, that it may be very different in form. It both may and should be expected to possess less of an external or compulsory character, according to the general change that has taken place in the spirit of the Divine economy. Outward visitations of evil may, no doubt, still be looked for, upon such as act a hostile part toward the kingdom of Christ; yet not by any means to the same extent as in former times. Christ’s own personal conquest over evil has struck in this respect a higher key for future conflicts with the adversary,—a conquest effected not by external violence, but by the exhibition of truth and righteousness putting to shame the adherents of falsehood and corruption. Conquests of this kind should now be regarded as the proper counterpart to those of the earlier dispensation. And while the Church has still, as she had in the days of Joshua, a two-edged sword in her hand to execute vengeance on the heathen (Ps. 149:6), the noblest vengeance she can execute, and the only vengeance she should seek to execute, is that of destroying their condition as heathen by the sword of the Spirit, and turning their antagonistic into a friendly position.

If such views of Israel’s conquest and occupation of the land of Canaan are just, the more striking and peculiar facts connected with it admit of an easy and natural explanation. The administration, for example, of the rite of circumcision to the whole adult population, was most fitly done before they formally entered on the work (Josh. 5:2-9); as it is never more necessary for the Lord’s people to be in the full enjoyment of the privileges of a saved condition, and in a state of greater nearness to Himself, than when they are proceeding in His name to rebuke and punish iniquity. The work given Israel to do in this respect was emphatically a work of God, bearing on it the impress alike of His greatness and His holiness. And both a living faith and a sanctified heart were needed, on the part of Israel, to fulfil what was required of them. On this account special supports were given to faith in the miracles wrought by [[@Page:471]] God at the commencement of the work, in the separation of the waters of the river, and the falling of the walls of Jericho, as afterwards in the extraordinary prolongation of the day at the request of Joshua; showing it was God’s work rather than their own they were accomplishing, and that His power was singularly exerted in their behalf. And not only in the charges given to Joshua regarding his careful meditation of the law of God, and punctual observance of all that was commanded in it; but also, and more particularly, in the discomfiture appointed on account of the sin of Achan, was the necessity forcibly impressed upon the people of the maintenance of holiness: they were made to feel the inseparable connection between being themselves faithful to God, and having power to prevail. It served also impressively to teach them their unity as a people, and how the holiness which they were bound collectively to maintain, must be individual, in order that it might be national. Nor was the instruction disregarded by the immediate agents in the work of judgment. They cast out from among them the sin that was discovered in Achan; and, at a later period, their jealousy regarding the tribes on the other side of Jordan, lest they would separate themselves from the one altar and common wealth of Israel, and the protestations of allegiance to God which Joshua made before his death, and they again to him, clearly showed that much of the spirit of faith and holiness rested upon that generation. In them the covenant found, in no small degree, a faithful representation, as well in regard to its requirements of duty, as to its promises of grace and blessing.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Nachman, as quoted by Selden, dc Jure Nat., etc., L. vi., c. 13.

[2] History, c. 50.

Section Second.—The Theory, Working, and Development of the Jewish Theocracy.

THE term theocracy, as used to indicate a specific form of government, that has found a place among the politics of nations, belongs exclusively to the Jewish people: the term itself had to be invented by their historian Josephus, to express what peculiarly distinguished their national polity from that of any other people who had figured in the history of the world. “There are,” says he (Contra Ap. 2. 16), “endless differences, in respect to individual nations and laws among mankind, which may be briefly reduced under the following heads: for some have committed the power of civil administration to monarchies, others to the sway of a few (oligarchies), others again to the body of the people (democracies); but our lawgiver, making account of none of these, proclaimed a theocracy as the form of government, ascribing to God alone the authority and the power.” In drawing this contrast between his own and other nations, the Jewish historian, beyond doubt, intended to prefer a claim to special honour and distinction for his people. He pointed to their theocratic polity as an evident proof of superior insight on the part of their great legislator, and the ground of distinguished excellence in the community. He did so more especially on this account, that by such a constitution, “Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he considered and ordained other virtues to be parts of religion;” that is, he elevated all to the religious sphere, gave to men’s studies and actions generally “a reference to piety towards God,” and thereby stamped them with the highest authority, and secured for them the firmest hold on the hearts and manners of the people.

In this estimate, however, of the theocratic element in Judaism, Josephus has not had many followers among those who have made political science their study, and who have tried to [[@Page:473]] cast the balance as between different political constitutions. More commonly it has been regarded by such in the light of an arbitrary and abnormal state of things one that neither actually had, nor could theoretically be expected to have, any other effect than that of producing a singular race of men—isolated, intractable, antagonistic in their habits and feelings to all but their own community. In this light the Jewish people and their theocratic constitution were certainly regarded by Tacitus and other writers in heathen antiquity. And the picture which they drew of Jewish bigotry and exclusiveness, senseless hatred and intolerance, as a kind of practical commentary on the system under which they were reared, has often been reproduced in modern times, and charged not unfrequently with still darker and more revolting features. Such, especially, has been the course adopted by men of the stamp of Bolingbroke and Voltaire, who have had it for their main object, in writing on things connected with Divine revelation, to find as many grounds of censure as possible, and present what they found in the most obnoxious form. With them the polity of Judaism was founded in injustice and cruelty; the spirit which it breathed was “detestable;” since, “by the very constitution of the law itself, the Jews found that they were the natural enemies of all mankind, and were reduced to such a necessity, that either they must enslave the whole world, or they, in their turn, must be crushed and destroyed.”[1] Even writers of a higher stamp—professed apologists and expounders of the legislation of Moses have felt themselves sadly embarrassed by the theocratic form it assumed. And when we turn to the learned pages of Spencer, Le Clerc, Michaelis, partly, too, of Warburton, we find them either virtually ignoring it, as a thing which could scarcely be treated otherwise than as a devout imagination, or viewing it merely as an accommodation on the part of God to the heathenish tendencies of the people, and an expedient to check the introduction of palpable idolatry.

Properly understood, the theocratic constitution of the Old Covenant as little needs such lame apologies from the one class, as it is open to such rude assaults from the other. The favourable estimate of Josephus in no degree overshot the mark, nay, [[@Page:474]] failed, from the defective nature of his moral position, in various respects, to reach it. The singularity of the phenomenon presented by the theocracy in the history of nations, and the imperfect character of its results, is the world’s shame rather than its condemnation; for the ideal it embodied is that which should have been, and which, but for the world’s blindness and self-idolatry, also would have been, regarded as the normal state of things, which it is the misfortune, and not the excellence, of earthly administrations, that they are so far from being able to realize. In that very theocratic element lay the foundation of Israel’s past greatness and future glory; more than that, and far from breaking on the world as a novelty in the revelations of Sinai, it formed the most essential principle in the primeval constitution of things; and surviving, as an indestructible seed, both the general ruin of the fall, and the special perversities of the people with whom it became more peculiarly identified, it is destined, in another form and under better auspices, to over shadow the world with its greatness, and bring under its sway every tribe and people of the earth.

That this is no exaggerated statement, will, I trust, appear, when we have considered the subject of the theocracy under the three following aspects:—first, in respect to its true idea; secondly, in respect to its actual working; and, thirdly, in respect to its ulterior development and final issues.

I. First, then, in respect to the true idea of the theocracy—wherein stood its distinctive nature? It stood in the formal exhibition of God as King or Supreme Head of the common wealth, so that all authority and law emanated from Him; and, by necessary consequence, there were not two societies in the ordinary sense, civil and religious, but a fusion of the two into one body, or, as we might express it from a modern point of view, a merging together of Church and State. This, it will be observed, is a different thing from giving religion, or the priesthood appointed to represent its interests and perform its rites, a high and influential place in the general administration of affairs. Not a nation in heathen antiquity can be named, in which that was not, to some extent, done, nor any, perhaps, in which it was carried altogether so far, as the one from which Israel was taken [[@Page:475]] to be a separate people. The religious interest was peculiarly powerful in Egypt. The priestly caste stood nearest to the throne, and furnished from its members the supreme council of state. Much of the property, and many of the higher functions of government, were in their hands; so that they formed a kind of ruling hierarchy. But while this naturally gave to religion and its offices a peculiar ascendancy in the political administration of Egypt, it by no means rendered the constitution a theocracy. The civil and the religious were still distinct provinces; and it was more as “a highly privileged nobility” (to use an expression of Heeren) that the priesthood had such a sway in the government, than as persons acting in their religious capacity. Indeed, in that, as in all heathen countries, the loss of a belief in the Divine Unity, and the worship of many separate deities, with their diversified and rival claims of service, rendered a theocracy in the proper sense impracticable. It was only at particular points and in individual cases, not as an organic whole, that the civil and the divine could possibly meet together: there might be an occasional commingling of the two, or a dominant influence flowing from the religious into the political sphere; but an actual identification, a proper fusion between them, could not come into play.

It was otherwise, however, in Israel, where the doctrine of one living and true God formed, as it were, the Alpha and the Omega of all instruction. Here there was, what was elsewhere wanted, a proper religious centre, whence a sovereign and presiding agency might issue its injunctions upon every department of the state, as well as upon all the spheres of domestic and social life. And this is simply the idea embodied in the Jewish theocracy; it is the fact of Jehovah condescending to occupy, in Israel, such a centre of power and authority. He proclaimed Himself “King in Jeshurun.” Israel became the common wealth with which He more peculiarly associated His presence and His glory. Not only the seat of His worship, but His throne also, was in Zion—both His sanctuary and His dominion.[2] The covenant established with the people, laid its bond upon their national not less than their individual interests; and the laws and precepts which were “written in the volume of the [[@Page:476]] book,” formed at once the directory of each man’s life and the statute-book of the entire kingdom. Nor was this state of things materially interfered with by the special commissions given to prophets, the temporary elevation of judges, or the more settled government of the kings; for these had no authority to do or prescribe aught but as the ambassadors and delegates of Him who dwelt between the cherubim. Nay, the higher any one might stand in office, he was only held the more specially bound to “meditate in the law of the Lord, and observe to do all that was written therein.”[3] Hence, also, as being alike formally and really at the head of the kingdom, Jehovah charged Himself with the practical results of its administration: He held in His own hand the sanctions of reward and punishment; and according to the loyalty or disobedience of His subjects, made distribution to them in good or evil.

Now, that we may more distinctly apprehend the essential nature and tendency of this fundamental idea, let us endeavour to follow it out into a few leading particulars.

1. Let its bearing, in the first instance, be marked on the position of the people as members of such a kingdom. It was emphatically God’s kingdom, wherein all were directly subject to His sway, and placed under His immediate counsel and protection. On their part, therefore, it was “a kingdom of priests,” as being composed of those who were called to occupy a state of peculiar nearness to God, were divinely instructed in the knowledge of His will, and appointed to minister and serve before Him. What an elevated position, as compared with the worshippers of senseless idols, and the tools of arbitrary power, in heathen monarchies! Manly thoughts and lofty aims, consciousness of personal dignity, the liberty to do, and the right to expect great things, might seem to belong to such a position, as plants to their native soil. Hence it was precisely that close relationship to God, with the noble aspirations and exalted prospects to which it instinctively gave rise, that kindled such a glow of delight in the aged bosom of Moses, and drew from him the exclamation, “Happy art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord! the Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

[[@Page:477]] True, there was in Israel also a select priesthood, separated from the rest of their brethren, to serve at the altar of God, and in sacred things to mediate between Him and the people. But this priesthood was not, as in heathen countries, invested with rights antagonistic to those of the people, nor made depositaries of secrets, to be confined to their own fraternity, nor charged with any kind of arbitrary and irresponsible power in religious matters. They were but a narrower and more privileged circle, within a large one of essentially the same priestly standing and character, chosen and set apart simply for the purpose of providing more effectively for the preservation of the knowledge of God, and the due administration of the solemnities of His worship. They had no statutes to teach, no mysteries to celebrate, but what lay open to the cognizance of all; and if they failed in their own peculiar province, it was competent for judges, rulers, prophets, from any tribe or family of Israel, to rebuke their unfaithfulness, and, to a certain extent, supplement their deficiency. The existence, indeed, of such a priesthood, bespoke prevailing imperfection in the community of Israel. It told of a practical inaptitude to attain to the proper height of their vocation, and live habitually in the observance of the duties it imposed. On this account they needed to have representatives of their number, who might discharge the more sacred functions of the theocracy, and act the part of watchmen in respect to the law of God. But still the same covenant relationship belonged to all; all ministered and partook together in the ordinance of the passover, which was emphatically the Feast of the Covenant; the same book of the law was open to the inspection of every member of the community, nay, enjoined upon his thoughtful consideration; and even the more solemn ministrations, which were assigned to the priesthood in the sanctuary of the Lord, were but an outward exhibition of what should constantly have been in spirit proceeding among the people throughout their habitations.

In this one point, then—the high position accorded to the community by the theocratic principle of the constitution—what a boon was conferred on Israel! It gave to every one who imbibed the spirit of the constitution, the lofty sense of a proprietorship in God, and not only warranted, but in a manner [[@Page:478]] constrained him to view everything connected with his state in the light of the Divine will and glory. What he possessed, he held as a sacred charge committed to him from above; what he did, he behoved to do as a steward of the great Lord of heaven and earth. Then, in the oneness of this covenant standing among the families of Israel, what a sacred bond of brotherhood was established! what a security for the maintenance of equal rights and impartial administrations between man and man! Members alike of one divinely constituted community—subjects of one Almighty King—partakers together of one inheritance, and that an inheritance held in simple fee of the same Lord; surely nowhere could the claims of rectitude and love have been more deeply grounded—nowhere could acts of injustice and oppression have worn a character more hateful and unbecoming.

2. Let the bearing of the theocratic principle of Judaism, again, be noted on the calling of the Jewish people. The principle itself bound them in close alliance with Jehovah, as subjects to their king; but for what ends and purposes? This must necessarily have been determined by the character of Him whose people they were. And from the first no uncertainty or doubt was allowed to exist in respect to that; the same word which declared them to have been taken by God for a peculiar treasure, and a kingdom of priests, called them to be an holy nation—to be holy, even as God Himself was holy.—(Ex. 19:5, 6) And throughout all the revelations of the law, and its manifold ordinances of service, the voice which continually sounded in the ears of the people was, in substance, this: “I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. And ye shall be holy unto Me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be Mine.”—(Lev. 20:24, 26) Next to the fundamental principle of the Divine unity, the point in respect to which the object of Jewish worship differed most essentially from the gods of the heathen, was the absolute holiness of His character. The heathen objects of worship, being but in some form or another the deification of nature, always partook of nature’s changeableness and corruption; they could not rise materially above the world of imperfection from which they derived their own imaginary being. But Jehovah, the God of Israel, made Himself known as the [[@Page:479]] supreme and only good, the irreconcilable opponent of every form and manifestation of sin. And the law which He imposed upon Israel, which He inwove into all their institutions, which He charged their priests to teach, their judges to enforce, and their people to keep—this law was the expression, in a form suited to the existing time and circumstances, of His own peer less excellence; its one tendency and aim were to mould the people into the likeness of their Divine Sovereign.

Doubtless, in so far as it might accomplish this aim, it would place the Israelitish people in a state of isolation, in respect to the corrupt and idolatrous masses of heathendom. As the servants of a holy God, and the children of a covenant which sought to have the law of holiness inscribed upon every bond and relation of life, Israel must dwell comparatively alone, and shun familiar intercourse with the Gentiles. But simply on this account, and only in so far as it might imperatively require; not, as so often falsely represented, from any essential faultiness in their position, or a kind of indigenous hatred of the human race. No—the very theory of their constitution embodied a perpetual protest against the indulgence of such a spirit; since the God whom it called them as obedient subjects to serve and imitate, made Himself known as also the God of the whole earth; and the ulterior design it contemplated was, through their instrumentality, to bring all nations to share in their peculiar blessing.[4] But as called to be the representatives of God in holiness, they were bound to keep aloof from the region of pollution; they must of necessity do the part of witnesses against the false imaginations and corrupt practices of idolatry. In this, however, was there not again conferred a mighty boon upon Israel? What better or higher thing can a [[@Page:480]] people have, than being made partakers of the holiness of God? What nobler object can any institution propose for its accomplishment, than the extirpation of sin, and nourishing in its stead the seeds of genuine piety and worth? All history and experience, if interpreted aright, give testimony in this respect to the wisdom of the Jewish lawgiver, and to the distinguishing goodness of God in establishing, through him, a constitution for Israel, which had for its great practical end the training of a people to the love and practice of righteousness.

3. The bearing of the theocratic principle of government on the quality of their actions as good or evil, is another point that calls for consideration. The ordinary constitution of earthly kingdoms has here necessitated a division; it has led to the contemplation of actions under a twofold aspect—the one having respect to civil, the other to moral and spiritual relations the one dealing with actions in a materialistic manner, as objectively beneficial or hurtful, criminal or commendable; the other, making account mainly of the principle involved in them, and adjudging them to the category of sin or of holiness. Every one may see, at a glance, how superficial the former of these aspects is, as compared with the latter; and how, when actions are dealt with merely in relation to a human tribunal, considered as criminal or commendable in the eye of law, depths remain still unexplored concerning them: nothing, or next to nothing, is determined as to the real nature of what is done, or the moral condition of him from whom it has proceeded. Now, in a theocracy, where God Himself is King—where, consequently, everything comes to be tried by a divine standard, and with reference to the principle which it exhibits, as well as to the formal character it assumes—this division, with the superficiality involved in one of the aspects of it, disappears; the inherent [[@Page:481]] nature and the outward tendency of actions become inseparably linked together. The distinction no longer exists between sin and crime; for whatever is a crime in respect to the community, is also a sin in respect to God, the Head of the community; and, indeed, a crime in their reckoning, because it was already a sin in His. Is it not always really so, however commonly over looked? And is it not the great weakness and imperfection of a merely political administration, that it must concern itself only with actions as criminal, and not also as sinful? On this account, earthly polities do the work of effective government but half, since they only lay their hand on the exterior of the sores which mar the well-being and endanger the interests of society; they contemplate and handle the evil with the view rather of checking the violent eruptions to which it tends, than of quenching the latent fires out of which it originates. But bring in the higher element of essential right and wrong, establish the theocratic principle, which places every member of the community in the presence of His God, and weighs every action in the balance of eternal rectitude, and you then touch the evil in its root,—not, it may be, with the effect of thoroughly eradicating it, yet surely with the tendency of awakening men’s consciousness of its existence, and engaging their common sympathies and strivings to have it brought into subjection. To do this, is to aim directly at the moral healthfulness of a people; and by setting the springs of life and goodness in motion, to accomplish a far higher work in their behalf, than can ever be effected by the machinery of civil jurisprudence, and the enactments of a criminal code.

But in saying this, we again indicate the happy privilege of Israel in their singular constitution. The design and tendency of this was to raise them to the level of which we now speak. Its policy was to prevent crime by subduing sin. The same law which said, “Thou shalt not steal,” said also, “Thou shalt not covet,” and thereby laid the axe to the root of the tree. It said not merely, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” but, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and strength, and mind. And so, through all the departments of religious and social life, the object of the theocratic constitution ever was to lay upon the conscience the claims of God, to [[@Page:482]] bring men into contact with truth and righteousness; and thus to make their fidelity to Heaven the gauge and measure of their dutifulness to the interests of the commonwealth. Where, if not on such a territory, should we look for a morally strong and healthful community?

4. Once more, let the bearing be noted of the theocratic constitution on the mode of treatment to be given to men’s actions, and the extent to which it should be applied. The Jewish theocracy, it must be remembered, was an attempt to realize on the visible theatre of a present world, and within a circumscribed region, the idea of a divine kingdom, to establish a community of saints; and so to do this, as to render manifest to all at once the moral dignity and the high blessedness attainable by such a community. That being the case, it is obvious that there required to be, not only a strict recognition of actions as good or bad in the eye of the Divine Head, but also a corresponding treatment of them an administrative system of reward and punishment. Nor should it scarcely be less obvious, however often it has been overlooked, that to serve the ends of the institution, the rewards and punishments connected with it—so far, at least, as they were to be formally announced and acted upon—must have been of a temporal nature; they must have been such as immediately and palpably to affect the interests of community where the actions to be visited by them were done. For nations, as has been well remarked on this subject, “can only be visited in this life, that is, with temporal inflictions. To have inserted in the public code of the nation eternal sanctions, would have been virtually to dissolve it as an earthly polity, and to reduce it to a collection of individuals, or at best to a Church in the Christian sense of the word; that is, a purely religious society, and therefore unable to exercise the stringent powers necessary to suppress the visible excesses of idolatry and corruption.”[5] There were reasons, besides, of a deeper kind,—reasons connected with the shadowy nature of the religious institutions of Judaism, and their merely temporary place in a scheme of progressive dispensations,—which also required that the issues of eternity should be, for the time then present, kept in comparative abeyance, however certainly they might be implied or [[@Page:483]] anticipated.[6] These reasons must be taken into account, if we would give a satisfactory explanation of the difference in this respect, doctrinally considered, between the old and the new economies. But apart from them, and looking simply to the formal character and proposed ends of the theocracy, temporal sanctions are the only ones that, from the nature of the case, could be brought distinctly into notice; since to have in any measure overleapt the present, and transferred the distribution of good and evil to a future world, must inevitably have tended to relax the whole framework of the polity, and mar its uniformity of plan and purpose. The objection so often urged on this ground against the Mosaic legislation, turns rather, when the matter is considered from the right point of view, into an argument in its behalf; the more especially so, when it is farther considered that the establishment in so remarkable a manner of recompenses, in the temporal and earthly sphere, laid the surest foundation for the expectation of them hereafter.[7]

The same, substantially, may be said in respect to another and closely related point, on which also a ground of accusation has been raised; we mean the extent to which, in such a commonwealth, those temporal sanctions should have been applied. From the very nature of its constitution, matters of religious belief and practice were among the things subject to reward and punishment; for on the basis of these was the entire polity framed, and with a view to their efficient maintenance was its administration to be carried on. What in other states might [[@Page:484]] be regarded as matter of personal predilection, or, at most, harm less devotion—namely, the introduction of new gods must here, of necessity, be held at variance with the first principles of the constitution, and be dealt with as treasonable conduct was elsewhere; it must be repressed as a capital offence against the laws of the state. The ablest defenders of civil and religious liberty in modern times have admitted this, as an essential part of the ancient theocracy, and forming a broad line of demarcation between it and worldly states. Thus Mr Locke, in his treatise on Toleration, says, in reference to those who apostatized from the worship of the God of Israel, that they were justly “proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high treason. For the commonwealth of the Jews, different in that from all others, was an absolute theocracy; nor was there, nor could there be, any difference between the commonwealth and the church. The laws established there concerning the worship of the one invisible Deity, were the civil laws of that people, and a part of their political government, in which God Himself was the Legislator.” In short, with the theocratic principle for the basis of the polity, the tolerance of idolatry and its accompanying rites would have been as incongruous, as it were, in the bosom of a Christian community, to allow the claims of Mahommed to rank beside those of the Saviour.

But must any abatement be made on this account from the privileged condition of Israel? Viewing the matter simply in connection with the old theocracy (as it ought to be), and with reference to the real interests of the people, was it a disadvantage [[@Page:485]] to have idolatry prohibited there under the penalty of death? Let it only he considered what that idolatry was, especially in Egypt and the licentious countries of the East, with which Israel came more immediately into contact. Changing the truth of God into a lie, it did, in the moral and religious sphere, what, in the province of the intellect, Bacon justly called the greatest evil of all, “the apotheosis of error, since, when folly is worshipped, it is, as it were, a plague-spot upon the understanding,” and we may add here, upon the heart. For while thus it corrupted the very fountain-head of knowledge, and stifled the better aspirations of the soul, it also served, by its fouler practices, to bring the unholy desires of the flesh and the pollutions of lust within the sanctuary of religion. Yet, with such inherent evils in idolatry, and tendencies on the side of corruption, so great, in the ancient world, was the disposition to fall in with the practice, that it spread everywhere like a moral contagion; causing Egypt, with her mystic lore, and even Greece, with her fine intellect, and manly heart, and philosophic culture, to bow down before it. In such circumstances, what should reasonably be esteemed the wisest legislation? Should it not be that which raised the strongest barriers against the tide of heathenism, and tended to hold its abominations in check? If we may not say—as some have unadvisedly done that the one great object of the theocracy, with all its ritual observances, and the rigid sanctions by which they were enforced, was to guard the doctrine of the Divine unity against the encroachments of idolatry, we must still hold that this was an object of fundamental importance, an object that at once deserved and called for the most stringent measures of defence. And, assuredly, when read in the light of history, the real ground for complaint lies, not in that guardianship being too vigilant, and those defences too stern, but that practically they proved all too feeble to resist the assaults of the giant and insidious adversary against which the truth had to struggle.

Such, then, was the Jewish theocracy, both in respect to its general idea, and to some of the more distinctive peculiarities which it threw around the aspect and constitution of affairs in Israel. Viewed simply as an ideal, after which their views of [[@Page:486]] truth and their strivings in duty were to aim at being conformed, it was a great thing for Israel to be placed under such a polity. For, in bringing them acquainted, as it did, with the being and character of God, with the relation in which they stood to Him, the connection between the lower and the higher elements of their welfare, and the dependence of all upon their fidelity to the interests of truth and righteousness, it placed them, as it were, on sure foundations, and set full before them the path to glory and virtue. If “noble deeds are but noble truths realized,” then in Israel, above all other people in ancient times, might such deeds be looked for; the seeds were there sown in the very framework of their constitution, from which the richest harvest should have sprung. But did it actually do so? Did the reality in any measure correspond to the idea? Can we appeal to the actual working of the theocratic principle in proof of its heaven-derived origin and practical importance?

II. This was to form our second branch of inquiry—the actual working of the theocracy.

That the reality should, in many respects, come far short of the idea, is only what might have been expected; considering that the pattern of the kingdom, though heavenly in its origin, and in itself wisely adapted to the circumstances of the time, was necessarily committed, for its ordinary administration, to the hands of men—and this at a comparatively immature stage of the Divine dispensations. It was therefore inevitable that human weakness and perversity should have mingled in the results actually produced, so as materially to mar the completeness of the work; yet not (we may conceive) so as wholly to defeat the design, or to render its execution altogether unworthy of the source from which it came. For the method of administration was also of God. And the real question is, how such a polity, having such Divine and human elements entering alike into its theory and its administration, wrought on the theatre of earthly things? whether, in this respect also, there was enough to attest the wisdom and the agency of God?

1. In answer to such questions, let the matter be viewed, first, in relation to the knowledge of the being and character [[@Page:487]] of God Himself. The foundation of all lies there, as already intimated; the foundation, not only of the affairs of the old economy, but of all genuine religion and true moral excellence. Most deeply, therefore, does it concern the world to possess that knowledge, and have it preserved in living energy and power. But where was it so preserved and possessed? In what land, or by what people, was anything like a clear and faithful testimony borne in ancient times to the existence and perfections of God? Nowhere but in the land and by the people of Israel; it was confined to the favoured region of the theocracy. Even there, no doubt, the light was too often obscured by the surrounding darkness, and the national testimony was far from being so uniform and distinct as it should have been. But still it was maintained and perpetuated; the truth never ceased to have its faithful witnesses; and while the gross polytheism, which brooded over the other nations of the earth, suffered only a few glimmerings of the truth at times to break through the gloom, the monotheism of Israel shone clear and bright upon the world, down even to the closing epoch of the theocracy. It were difficult to imagine a nobler proof of the superiority in this respect of ancient Israel, and a finer contrast between their polity and that of other nations, in the results yielded concerning the knowledge of God, than was presented by the Apostle Paul at Athens, when, appearing on Mars Hill, a solitary representative of the theocratic kingdom, standing there as on the very summit of heathen civilisation, and in the presence of its most wonderful achievements in art and science, he could descry but one element of truth in the whole; and that not a revelation of knowledge, but a confession of ignorance, embodied in the altar dedicated to the unknown god. On that confession the virtual acknowledgment of heathendom, that it had not yet attained to any true acquaintance with the things of God—the Apostle disclosed that certain knowledge which he possessed; and not he alone, but which, under the fostering care of the theocracy, had become the common heritage of the families of Israel.

It is not merely, however, the possession of this knowledge concerning God, in the midst of surrounding ignorance and superstition, which here deserves our notice, but the fulness of [[@Page:488]] that knowledge, and the living freshness and power by which it was characterized. The relation held by God to His people as King of Zion, with the many special appointments of service and interpositions of Providence to which it naturally gave rise, served to bring out, in almost endless variety and minuteness of detail, the revelation of His mind and will. Every attribute of His character received in turn its appropriate manifestations; and nothing that essentially concerned His wisdom and power, His faithfulness and love, His inflexible hatred of sin or supreme regard to righteousness and truth, could remain hid from those who meditated aright in His word and ways. Not only so; but the things connected with these, which might have been known, and yet have continued dim and shadowy to men’s view, became, through the working of the theocratic institution, clothed as with flesh and blood; the Eternal was brought as from the depths of infinitude, whither the human spirit labours in vain to find Him, and rendered objectively present to the soul, by being on every hand allied to the relations of sense and time. The children of the covenant, continually as they came to draw near to His habitation, and witness or take part in the outward ministrations of His service, were made, in a manner, to feel as if they saw His form and heard His voice. They stood comparatively under a clear sun and an open sky,—walked where communications were ever passing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; so that the experiences of their bosom, and the lines of their history, became as a mirror on which the face of God’s countenance reflected itself in traits of life and truthfulness. Oh! what a happiness had it been for the heathen world, what an advance should it have made in divine knowledge, had it but known to look there for light and blessing! And even we, amid the higher privileges and ampler revelations furnished to our hand, yet how much do not we owe for our clearness of conception in the things of God, and for fitting terms to tell forth our conceptions, to the records of those dealings of God with Israel, and the impressions produced by them on the hearts of the people! What a loss should we not have sustained had we but wanted the more special reflection given of them in the Book of Psalms,—a book to which even the French theosophists of the last century were fain to betake themselves when seeking to compose [[@Page:489]] a liturgical service to their god of nature,—and of which one of the profoundest of modern historians (John von Müller) writes, “My most delightful hour every day is furnished by David. His songs sound to the depth of my heart, and never in all my life have I so seen God before my eyes.”

2. We may find another and closely related proof of the actual working of the theocracy in the elevated moral tone of the writings it produced. The writings of a people, the better class of writings especially, are the fruits and evidences of its inner life; and if they have been called forth by the genius and interests of the constitution, they may justly be taken as among the best exponents of its real tendency and operation. Of no writings may this be so emphatically said as of those included in Old Testament Scripture. For these were no random or scattered effusions; they were the productions of men who may be said to have lived and laboured for the great ends of the theocracy. To this, indeed, they owed their existence,—having been indited by the sacred penmen partly for the purpose of explaining the nature and objects of the theocracy, partly to inculcate the duties it imposed, and partly, again, to exhibit the failures and achievements, the fears and hopes, connected with its history. We speak, it will be understood, of the writings belonging to the theocracy, only in respect to their immediate occasion and formal design,—not in that higher respect in which they stand related to the supernatural workings of God’s Spirit, and the special communications of His grace to men; for as such they might have stood apart from the theocratic polity, and have come forth as independent spiritual communications from heaven. But, in reality, the higher and the lower met together in them. They had a human, a national, and we may even say a political side, which formed the specific ground of their appearance and character; since they appeared as representations of the mind and feelings of those who were themselves the fittest representatives of the state. But, considered simply in this aspect, what a spirit of moral life and energy breathes in them! What treasures of practical wisdom have they laid up in store for all future times and generations of men! Reflecting the character of the great Head of the theocracy, a profoundly earnest and ethical tone everywhere pervades them,—one that looks through [[@Page:490]] the appearances into the realities of things, brings prominently into view the principles of eternal truth and righteousness, and subordinates all interests to those of justice, goodness, and mercy. Even in dealing with the natural attributes of God, the natural becomes penetrated with the moral; not the naked reality, but the bearing of that reality upon the heart and conscience, is what comes prominently into view; as (to take but one example) in the earnest and lofty meditation on the omniscience and almightiness of God which is contained in the [[139th >> Bible:Ps 139:1-24]] Psalm, and in which the thought, woven like a thread throughout the whole discourse, is the respect borne by those Divine attributes to the psalmist himself, in his relation to the character of Jehovah. We shall search in vain among the other nations of antiquity for any productions comparable in this respect to those of the Old Testament,—in vain, more especially, in those regions of Asia which lay around the territory of the chosen people,—regions which have been from remotest times the favourite haunts, not of the practical, but of the contemplative, and which have given birth to many an airy speculation and philosophical reverie, but to nothing, save what came from the bosom of the theocracy, which has exercised the slightest influence for good on the character and destinies of the world. Whence, then, the mighty and permanent influence of the writings now under consideration, but that they sprung under the shade and breathed the spirit of the theocratic constitution? On this account they possessed, and have carried along with them wherever they have gone, the elements of a higher wisdom, and a more ennobling morality than can be learned from the pages even of the most thoughtful and enlightened of other lands. For that heritage of good in the ethical sphere, the world again stands indebted to the theocracy of Moses.[8]

[[@Page:491]] 3. For a still further proof of the actual working of the theocracy on the side of good, we look to the results it produced in the personal and family life of the people. Here, also, there is evidence of a fruit in Israel which was nowhere else produced in the ancient world. Not, indeed, to the extent it should have been among the subjects of the theocracy, even in the better periods of its history; while, at times, corruption came in with such sweeping violence, that it seemed as if all were to be borne along by the current. But look to the history as a whole—look to it more especially as it appears in the better and more prominent members of the theocracy, and the superiority of Israel will be seen to be beyond dispute, in the things which more peculiarly constitute the worth and well-being of a people. With many of the nations of antiquity they could stand no comparison, as regards matters of secondary moment—the cultivation of science and learning, and whatever may be included in the sphere of taste, refinement, and art. But where did life exhibit so many of the purer graces and the more solid virtues? Or where, on the side of truth and righteousness, were such perils braved, and such heroic deeds performed? There alone were the interests of truth and righteousness even known in such a manner as to reach the depths of conscience, and bring fully into play the nobler feelings and affections of the heart. What elsewhere was contemplated by a select few merely as a fine ideal, or reckoned fit and proper to be done should circumstances favour the attempt, assumed here the form of lofty principle, and laid upon the spirit the bonds of a sacred obligation, which, instead of weakly bending to circumstances, sought rather to make circumstances bend to it. It is to Israel, therefore, alone of all the nations of antiquity, that we must turn alike for the more pure and lovely, and for the more stirring [[@Page:492]] examples of moral excellence. Sanctified homes, where the relations of domestic and family life stood under law to God, and where something was to be seen of the confiding simplicity, the holy freedom, and peaceful repose of heaven; lives of patient endurance and suffering, or of strong wrestling for the rights of conscience, and the privilege of yielding to the behests of duty; manifestations of zeal and love, in behalf of the higher interests of mankind, such as could scorn all inferior considerations of flesh and blood, and even rise at times in “the elected saints” to such a noble elevation, that they have “wished themselves razed out of the book of life, in an ecstacy of charity and feeling of infinite communion” (Bacon);—for refreshing sights and ennobling exhibitions like these, we must repair to the annals of that chosen seed, who were trained under the eye of God, and moulded by the sacred institutions of His kingdom. How different from what is recorded of the worldly, self-willed, and luxurious Asiatics around them! And how fraught with lessons of wisdom and heroic example to future times and other generations of men!

It is impossible, however, by any general survey, to apprehend aright the difference that here separates Jew from Gentile, or to make fully palpable the wide chasm that lies between life as formed and maintained under the Jewish theocracy, and as groping its devious way or rioting at will amid the darkness and corruption of heathenism. “We should need to descend into the particular details of comparative history. But merely to indicate what might be done, let it just be thought, how peculiar to Israel, how unlike to what is elsewhere to be met with, are such family pictures as those of Boaz and Ruth, Elimelech and Hannah! or such characters as those of Samuel, Elijah, and the more distinguished prophets! Let but one be selected, who had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the theocracy, and entered cordially into its design: take David, for example, of whom this may strictly be said, notwithstanding a few mournful failures, which he himself most bitterly deplored; and where, in those ancient times, shall any approach be found to his marvellous combination of gifts and graces? Where may we descry a character, at once so high-toned and so fully orbed? Think of this man as passing from the rustic simplicities of shepherd-life [[@Page:493]] to the throne of the kingdom, yet bearing with him still the same tender, open, and glowing heart; treated on his way to the throne with the basest ingratitude and most ruthless persecution, forced even to become for many tedious years the tenant of savage wilds and caves of the desert, yet never lifting, when it was in his power to do so, the arm of vengeance, but ever repaying evil with good, and over the fall of his fiercest persecutor raising the notes of a most pathetic lamentation; distinguished above others by deeds of chivalry and military prowess, by which the kingdom was raised from its oppression and widely extended in its domain, yet reigning not for selfish ambition or personal glory, but as Jehovah’s servant for the establishment of truth and righteousness in the land; gifted, moreover, with a genius so fine, with sympathies so fresh and strong, as to be able to originate a new species of poetry, yet consecrating all to the service of the same Lord, in celebrating the praise of His doings, and telling forth the moods and experiences of the soul in its efforts to be conformed to the will of Heaven; and doing it in strains of such touching pathos and power, that they have found an echo in every pious bosom through succeeding generations, and to myriads of tempted souls have proved the greatest solace and support. The history of remote times can, indeed, tell of individuals who have risen from humble and sequestered life to sit with princes of the earth, or extend the glory of their country; but it can tell of no individual fitted by many degrees to be placed beside the shepherd-king and sweet psalmist of Israel. Nor could it have told of him, but for the training he enjoyed under that theocracy with which he was so closely identified, and of which, in the grand features of his character, he was at once the legitimate offspring and the noblest representative.

May we not appeal, in proof of all we have said, to the common sentiments of Christendom? Why have the thoughts and feelings, not of the superstitious or devout merely, but of the most enlightened and spiritual in later times, hung around the region of the old theocracy, with an attraction which no other has been able to exercise. Why still, after centuries of desolation have passed over it, does it seem invested with so peculiar a glory? No doubt, in great part, because on it were performed [[@Page:494]] formed the marvellous transactions of gospel history because there are

“The holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,

Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed,

For our advantage, on the bitter cross.”

Yet not by any means on that account alone. The interest thence arising, is but the enhancement and consummation of that which is awakened by the long train of similar characters and events which had distinguished it in the ages preceding. These did of themselves raise the land of Israel to a height, in moral estimation, above all the kingdoms of the earth—rendering it emphatically the region of light and valley of vision—the land of uprightness, where were found the habitations of the righteous, where angels visited, where prophets witnessed and struggled for the cause of God, and men of faith and piety hazarded their lives for the kingdom of heaven. There, in short, as nowhere else in the ancient world, were moral elements of a high and ennobling kind, not only embodied in the ideal of the theocratic polity of Israel, but exhibited also in the results actually produced by it among the people; and the hallowed feelings and associations of which the land itself is the object, are a standing and hereditary evidence of the fact.

So much, then, for the favourable side of the picture; but undoubtedly there is another, that must go along with it to give a fair exhibition of the reality. The Jewish theocracy contained also elements of weakness and imperfection, which materially hindered the fulness of its efficiency, and rendered its termination in the original form ultimately a matter of necessity. The existence of such elements, to some extent, was unavoidable, on account of the comparatively immature stage of the Divine economy to which the old theocracy belonged; for, as that economy is formed on the plan of a regular progression, it was inevitable but that there should be imperfections in the earlier as compared with the later forms of administration. What, then, were those elements of weakness? It will be enough if here they are briefly indicated.

(1.) First of all may be named the local and earthly conditions with which it was entwined. These, as already stated,[[@Page:495]] were of great service in giving objectivity to the truths and principles of the theocracy, rendering them more palpable to men’s view, and lending, as it were, outward sense to faith, that it might, through the near and visible, realize the unseen and eternal. But there was, at the same time, a tendency formed to contract the idea of God, and the interests of the economy, too much within those local and earthly bounds—to rest in them, instead of rising through them to a higher sphere and more enlarged considerations. From want of discernment and faith, multitudes were always giving way to this tendency, looking simply to the temporal recompense, and thereby becoming selfish and sordid in their minds; regarding God as little more than, in the restricted heathen sense, the tutelary God of the land and people of Israel—yea, regarding Him as, even within that local territory, chiefly confining the manifestations of His presence to the place and ordinances in which He chose to put His name, and, by natural consequence, regarding themselves as in a position of privileged antagonism to the heathen, rather than as furnished with peculiar endowments and opportunities to do them service. All this, doubtless, proceeded on a misinterpretation and abuse of the local and earthly conditions amid which the theocracy was set, and tended, in so far as it might be practised, virtually to subvert the ends of the institution. But there can be no doubt that, with a large portion of the people, matters took very much the direction now indicated, and that this feature in the Jewish theocracy proved, in the result, a material element of weakness. (2.) As another thing of this description, must be mentioned the predominantly outward character of the means employed to maintain the knowledge of God, and a course of obedience to His will. These took the distinctive form of law, and, consequently, even when they conveyed direct instruction as to the things to be believed and done, they were imposed from without, and formed a yoke of service resting upon the individual, rather than a spirit of life springing up and working within. Not only so, but a great part of the instruction thus conveyed, and of the moral training connected with it, was tied to ritual forms and observances, in which the external act was always the first and most prominent thing to be attended to, since the object aimed at by them was first to [[@Page:496]] form the habit of obedience, and through the habit to establish the principle. Imperfection was obviously stamped upon this mode of action; and the result was, that many stopt short at the earlier stage of the course, satisfied themselves with the mere form of knowledge and of truth in the law, and never attained to the inward power of life, which becomes a law to itself. Coldness, formality, distrust of God, selfishness of spirit, corruption of manners, necessarily ensued—how commonly and fatally, the records of the nation but too amply testify—yet how far from being an inevitable result of the polity, how certainly arising from a failure in apprehending or using aright the privileges belonging to it, equally appears from the examples of faith, and spirituality, and love, always found in a select portion of the community. In short, the system, in its ostensible aspect, had a tendency to the formal and outward, and, on the part of the great majority, it was not met by a sufficient counteractive. (3.) Difficulties, and, by reason of difficulties, imperfections of administration, must be named as a third great element of weakness in the theocratic constitution, and of comparative failure in its working. The administration of affairs, as to its ultimate authority and power, was in the hands of God Himself; but, in ordinary circumstances, it was necessarily exercised by those who were put in stations of trust, and were more peculiarly called to act as His servants. Now, these were not only beset by the difficulties arising from human frailty and imperfection in themselves, but, by special difficulties, adhering to the law they had to administer. For this law, as we have said, however outward in form, was still essentially inward in principle; it was the law of Him who is emphatically a Spirit, and required nothing less than habitual holiness in heart and conduct. To administer such a law properly required discernment of spirits, as well as observance of outward actions; it required often dealings with the conscience; and this, again, could not be adequately performed except by those who had themselves a conscience void of offence toward God and man. Then the sanctions of the law, which, for deliberate overt transgressions, imposed the penalty of death—necessarily imposed it, for otherwise there could have been no proper exhibition of sin and holiness, as they are known in the Divine [[@Page:497]] government these sanctions brought other difficulties into the administration. For men who had themselves imperfect views of sin and holiness, naturally felt averse to the enforcement of what was threatened; offences were suffered to proceed with impunity; “the law was slacked, and judgment did not proceed;” and, from the mixed state of things which in consequence resulted, neither could the blessing nor the curse be made good in such a way as to manifest fully the righteousness of God. First, partial disorders; then general decay; finally, total decrepitude and dissolution came on. (4.) Once more, an element of weakness and imperfection in the old theocracy, and the fundamental ground, indeed, of all the others, consisted in the defective nature of its revelations, in those things especially which concern the relation of God to man. Near as God was to Israel, and accessible in worship, compared with what He was to the heathen, there was still a great gulph. Satisfaction was not yet made to the deeper wants and necessities of the soul. The demands of law and the guilt of sin stood more prominently out than the riches of Divine grace, and righteousness, and love. A thick veil hung over the things which were to form the great redemption of man, and which, when they came, were to exert the mightiest influence upon the soul for good, and in a manner transfigure the entire state of a believer’s condition. For want of these, the theocracy in Israel was necessarily defective in the more vital functions, and naturally became partial and imperfect in its actual working. On this account, also, it had to stand so much in the outer sphere of things, the higher and better being as yet not directly available; and so, in comparison of what was to come, it might fitly be designated “weak and unprofitable.”

On the whole, therefore, we perceive that the Jewish theocracy, as to its actual working, was of a mixed description. It had results connected with it of a most important and interesting character, on account of which the world then, and, indeed, for all time, has become largely its debtor. But, at the same time, there were imperfections in its framework, which gave rise to many failures in the accomplishment of what it aimed at; so that the idea it embodied of a kingdom of God on earth was never more than very partially realized, and, as became but too [[@Page:498]] manifest in the progress of time, could not be realized under so imperfect and provisional a state of things.

III. Still it did not properly die; for nothing that is of God perishes, or ultimately fails of its destination: in so far as there may be change, it can only be in the particular form assumed, or the mode of operation. This will appear in regard to the subject before us, if we turn now, in the third place, to consider the Jewish theocracy in respect to its ulterior development and final issues.

There was a striking difference, in this respect, between the kingdom of God in Israel, and the worldly kingdoms by which it was surrounded, and for a time overborne. “Their end and aim,” so even the semi-rationalist Ewald writes, in his History of the Jewish People, “lay only in themselves, rose into strength through human power and caprice, and again passed away. But here (viz., in the Jewish theocracy) we have for the first time in history, a kingdom which finds its origin and its aim external to itself, which did not come into being of man, nor of man attained to its future increase; therefore a kingdom which, itself affecting only what is divine, carries also in its bosom the germ of an eternal duration, in spite of all incidental change, preserves still its inner truth, and revives anew in Christianity as with the freshness of a second youth.”[9] It was not, however, reserved for the historian of the past to discover this mark of superiority in the theocratic kingdom; it was done as well by the prophets of the future, and never more clearly and emphatically than when the external fortunes of the kingdom were in the most enfeebled or prostrate condition. “Unto us a child is born,” said Isaiah in the time of Ahaz, when everything was tottering to its fall, “unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.” Not only so, but when the kingdom had fallen to its very foundations, and to the [[@Page:499]] eye of sense lay smitten by the rod of Babylon as with an irrecoverable doom, that precisely was the time, and Babylon itself the place, chosen by God to reveal, through His servant Daniel, the certain resurrection of the kingdom, and its ultimate triumph over all rival powers and adverse influences. In contradistinction to the Chaldean and other worldly kingdoms, which were all destined to pass away, and become as the dust of the summer threshing-floor, he announced the setting up of a kingdom by the God of heaven, which should never be destroyed,—a kingdom which, in principle, should be the same with the Jewish theocracy, and in history should form but a renewal and prolongation, in happier circumstances, of its existence; for it was to be, as of old, a kingdom of priests to God, or of the people of the saints of the Most High; and, as such, an everlasting kingdom, which all dominions were to serve and obey. And as this kingdom was imaged in the visions of Daniel by one having the appearance of a son of man, so did it begin, in the last days of the Jewish theocracy, to assume a formal existence in the person of Him who purposely took the title of Son of Man to Himself, that He might be the more easily recognised as the Head of Daniel’s kingdom of saints—the Reviver of the Old, and, at the same time, the Founder of the New—coming to establish, as of Himself, the kingdom of heaven, and yet coming to occupy the throne of His father David. What, indeed, was the end and purpose of His mission? What the design of His sufferings and death? Simply to raise up for Himself a community of saints a royal priesthood, with whom, and through whom, He might exercise dominion in the earth. And so, as the world began with a theocratic paradise, in which God associated Himself in closest fellowship with man, and man, in turn, acknowledged no law, was subject to no authority, but God’s; in like manner, it shall end with a paradise and theocracy restored, when no kingdom shall any longer appear but the Lord’s, and to the farthest bounds of the earth the saints shall live and reign with Him in glory.

It is, undoubtedly, with Christ’s appearance and work for the salvation of men—in other words, with the institution of the New Testament Church—that we are to connect the theocracy in its new, more expanded, and permanent form. And yet, in [[@Page:500]] what may be designated the most fundamental characteristic of this form, in the comparative disuse of the outward and carnal for the more inward and spiritual elements of strength, it might not improperly be said, that the times of Daniel and the captivity formed the turning-point from the Old to the New, and that thenceforward the one was continually shading into the other. The external framework and political aspect of the kingdom, in its original and independent state, had assimilated it too much to the kingdoms of this world, had always had the effect of taking off the minds of the people from the things in which their polity differed from that of others—had led them, in short, from undue regard to the external and secular features in the constitution of the kingdom, to lose sight of the great truths and principles which constituted the real elements of its strength and permanence. The special efforts put forth from time to time to check this carnalizing tendency, had proved unavailing. The mission, for example, of Samson,—the externally strong, but internally weak, Nazarite,—so singularly furnished, and yet accomplishing so little (in each respect the exact type of the people); the higher and more successful mission of Samuel, who, shortly after the times of Samson, and by no weapons of war, but by the spiritual agency of God’s word, and the labours of like-minded men, trained and drawn together by the schools of the prophets, brought in a period of revival; the occasional missions and still higher gifts of the later prophets; as also, the earnest spiritual strivings of David, and some of his better successors, in the administration of the kingdom: these things, and others of a like kind, though all pointing in one direction, and perpetually sounding in the ears of the people a call to look to the realities of Divine truth and righteousness, enshrined in their peculiar polity as the bulwarks of their safety and well-being, were never more than partial and transitory in their influence. The more carnal elements of power—worldly resources and expedients—the things in which they resembled, not those in which they differed from, the nations of heathendom, always rose to the ascendant, and marred the proper working of the theocracy by the carnality and corruption of the world. Hence, as a last resort, the Lord laid prostrate the in dependence of the kingdom, annihilated its political power by [[@Page:501]] the hand of the King of Babylon, and by the captivity and subsequent dispersion of the people, suspended, to a large extent, even the more peculiar observances of worship. They were thus driven more from the outward shell to the inward kernel, and led to seek the ground of their strength and relative superiority in the grand truths and principles of the theocracy. And seeking it thus, they found that, even amid external ruin, the way was still open to the greatest power and glory. Daniel, and his companions in Babylon, by their uncompromising adherence to the truth, and the special direction and support they in consequence received from the hand of God, showed in Babylon itself that a might slumbered in their arm which was capable of the greatest things, which could carry them at the very seat of the world’s empire to the highest place of power and influence,—a type of that victorious energy and progressive advancement to glory which were destined to appear in the true, the spiritual members of the theocracy. And sad and humiliating as they were in one respect, yet in another and higher respect, important benefits were derived by the covenant people from their period of exile, from the comparative meanness of their circumstances after the time of restoration, and their prolonged dispersion throughout the cities of heathendom. For these led, among other things, to the institution of the synagogue, with its simpler forms of worship, and helped materially to work the people into a greater freedom from what was local and outward, spiritualized and elevated their ideas of divine things, and enlarged their opportunities of displaying the banner, which God had given them because of the truth, in the sight of the heathen.

A great advance was thus made in the fortunes that befell the theocracy and its people, in preparation for the coming of Christ, and the institution of the New Testament Church. What was earthly and carnal in it was made to fall into comparative abeyance, that the glory of its spiritual excellence might be brought more prominently into view. But it was only by the mission of Christ that the change was properly effected, and that provision was fully made for the establishment of a theocratic kingdom among men. By the union in His person of the Divine and human, by the infinite satisfaction [[@Page:502]] accomplished in His death for sin, by the clear revelations of His word, and the plentiful endowments of His Spirit, the truth embodied in the old theocracy was extricated from its cumbrous environments, and raised to a nobler elevation. And by the institution of a church founded in this truth—a church confined to no local territory or temporal jurisdictions, but chartered with the rights of universal citizenship, holding directly of Christ as its Divine Head, and committed to the hands of those who in every place might receive His Gospel and exhibit the virtues of His Divine life—by such an institution He set the theocratic principle on a new course of development, and gave it, as it were, a commission to take possession of the habitable globe. A noble calling, indeed, for the Church to have received! Would that she had always understood aright its nature, and entered into the mind of Christ as to the way by which it should be carried into effect! How plain did all seem to have been made to her hand by the course of preparation going before, and still more by the actual teaching of Christ and His apostles! In laying the foundations of the Church, and labouring to give the right tone as well as the needed impulse to all future times, how carefully did they abstain from intermeddling with anything but the truth of God, and its manifestation to the hearts and consciences of men! How clear was it that the weapons of their warfare were not carnal, but spiritual! They had perfect confidence in the higher elements of power; and, rejecting all others as unsuitable to their vocation, they sought “by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left”—by such means, but only by such, they sought to raise men into living fellowship with God, and bring God’s will and authority to rule in the affairs of men.

But the Church had not proceeded far on her course till she began to distrust these spiritual weapons, and by a retrograde movement fell back upon the weak and beggarly elements which in earlier times had proved the constant source of imperfection and failure, and from which the Church of the New Testament should have counted it her distinctive privilege to be [[@Page:503]] free. Instead of the common priesthood of believing souls, anointed by the Spirit of holiness, and dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, a select priesthood of artificial distinctions and formal service were constituted the chief depositaries of grace and virtue; instead of the simple manifestation of the truth to the heart, there came the muffled drapery of symbolical rites and bodily ministrations; and for the patient endurance of evil, or the earnest endeavour to overcome it with good, resort was had to the violence of the sword, and the coercive measures of arbitrary power. Strange delusion! As if the mere form and shadow of the truth were mightier than the truth itself—or the circumstantial adjuncts of the faith were of more worth than its essential attributes—or the crouching dread and enforced subjection of bondmen were a sacrifice to God more acceptable than the childlike and ready obedience of loving hearts! Such a depravation of the spirit of the Gospel could not fail to carry its own curse and judgment along with it; and history leaves no room to doubt, that as men’s views went out in this false direction, the tide of carnality and corruption flowed in; the Christian theocracy, as of old the Jewish, was carried captive by the world; the spouse became an harlot.

This mournful defection was descried from the outset, and in vivid colours was portrayed on the page of prophetic revelation, as a warning to the Church to beware of compromising the truth of God, or attempting to seek the living among the dead. What constitutes the peculiar glory of the Gospel, and should ever have been regarded as forming the main secret of its strength, is the extent to which its tidings furnish an insight into the mind of God, and the power it confers on those who receive it to look as with open face into the realities of the Divine kingdom. Doing this in a manner altogether its own, it reaches the depths of thought and feeling in the bosom, takes possession of the inner man, and implants there a spirit of life, which works with sovereign power on the things around it, and casts aside, as being no longer needed, the external props and appliances that were required by the demands of a feebler age. Not that Christianity is altogether independent of outward things, and refuses the aid of the world in so far as this may be of service in providing defences for the truth, or securing for [[@Page:504]] it a free course and a favourable consideration among men. There are respects in which the earth can help the woman. And the very tendency of the truth to work from within outwards to work on till it bring under its sway the whole domain, first of the personal relations, then of the social, finally of the public and political,—naturally leads, and in a sense compels, those who are conscious of its power, to make everything under their control subservient to its design. How far they may right fully go in this direction can only, with good men, be a question of fitness and propriety, viewed in connection with the state of the Church, the condition of the world, and the spirit of Christianity itself. But with such men it never ought to be, it never can justly be, a question, whether the external should so far be brought in upon the internal affairs of the Divine kingdom, as to allow the truth to be overshadowed by outward pomp and circumstance, impeded in its working by the restraints of worldly power, or thrust upon men’s consciences by weapons of violence. For, the kingdom established by the Gospel is essentially spiritual: it is a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; and when true to itself, and conducted in harmony with the mind of its Divine Head, it must ever give to the spiritual the ascendancy over the carnal, and look for its gradual extension and final triumph to the power and influence of the truth itself.

Therefore—to sum up the whole matter, and to indicate, in a word, how one part links itself with another, and all with the responsibilities of a Christian calling—the Church of Christ, according to its idea, is the theocracy in its new, its higher, its perennial form; since it is that in which God peculiarly dwells, and with which He identifies His character and glory. Every individual member of this Church, according to the proper idea of his calling, is a king and a priest to God; therefore not in bondage to the world, nor dividing between the world and God, but recognising God in all, honouring and obeying God, and receiving power, as a prince with God, to prevail over the opposition and wickedness of the world. Every particular Church, in like manner, is, according to the idea of its calling, an organized community of such kings and priests; therefore bound to strive that the idea may be realized by the united strenuousness of [[@Page:505]] its exertions in the cause of Christ, and the steady growth of its members toward a state in which they shall be without spot and blameless. The more this is the case, the more is the prayer of the Church fulfilled, “Thy kingdom come;” and the nearer shall we be to that happy time, when all power, and authority, and rule, shall give way before the one heaven-anointed King, to whom the heritage of the earth belongs.

FOOTNOTE

[1] See the quotations given in Warburton’s Legation, B. v., c. 1; and Works, vol. xii., on Bolingbroke’s Philosophy.

[2] Ex. 19:5, 6; Ps. 132:13, 149:2, 114:2, etc.

[3] Josh. 1:8; 1 Sam. 13:14; 1 Kings 2. 3, etc.

[4] Ex. 19:5, 6. “Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is mine,” etc. On the grounds stated in the text, we entirely object to the appellation often given to Jehovah, even by Christian divines, as “the tutelary God of the Jews.” The language savours too much of heathenism to afford a fitting expression of the truth, even if it were formally correct. But it is not so. The God of Israel was no more the tutelary God of the Jews, than Christ is the particular Saviour of the Jews. The manifested relations in both cases had an immediate respect to the seed of Israel, but in neither case were they by any means restricted to these. The God of the Jews was the God also of the Gentiles; and what He did and promised to the one, was at the same time done and promised to the other. Not only was the door open for any believing Gentile to come in and obtain the blessing of Israel, but the path itself of God’s dispensations continually pointed from the more special to the more general of these relations. Everything done for and given to Israel, was for others as well as for themselves; and their peculiar privileges and priestly calling could reach their proper end only when the Abrahamic covenant of blessing was made coextensive with the world.

[5] Litton’s Bampton Lectures, p. 33.

[6] See vol. i., p. 210 sq.

[7] In truth, the point now under consideration is not quite fairly dealt with when presented under the aspect of rewards and punishments on this side of eternity as contradistinguished from the other; and it is rather out of accommodation to the common mode of contemplating it, than from a conviction of its essential Tightness, that the matter has been so presented in the text. Canaan, according to the idea of the theocracy, was the temporary substitute or type of heaven; and so the constitution of things appointed for those who were to occupy it was framed with a view to render the affairs of time as nearly as possible an image of eternity. The temporal and eternal were not so properly distinct and separate regions, when contemplated from the theocratic point of view, as the counterparts of each other. Ideally, the dwellers in Canaan were in their proper home; the land was the habitation of holiness, therefore also of life and blessing; death was regarded as something abnormal, hence treated as a pollution and put out of sight; and every needful precaution was taken both to avoid death as the great evil, and to prevent the alienation of inheritances from those who were entitled to live and enjoy the good. The representation was, of course, imperfect, like everything under the old economy, and rendered still more so by prevailing unfaithfulness on the part of the people; but the nature and object of the representation itself should not the less be taken into account. And if it is, instead of deeming it strange that the issues of eternity were not formally brought into view and placed over against those of time, we shall rather wonder that any one should seriously have expected such an incongruity; for, in the formal aspect of things, there was not a state of probation for a coming good (though in reality it was such), but the good itself,—a good destined, no doubt, with the antagonistic evil, to be reproduced in a higher sphere of being, but only under that aspect to be anticipated as a matter of hope or expectation.

[8] It is marvellous that the practical working of the theocracy, as thus seen reflected in its writings,—the pervading and intensely ethical spirit that characterizes these, and that in respect to the heart not loss than the outward conduct,—should not alone have been sufficient to convince all of the fundamentally spiritual character of the theocratic constitution and its ordinances of service. If these had been, as some even evangelical writers assert, “quite irrespective of personal character, conduct, or faith,”—if the covenant and its institutions “had nothing to do with any single individual, but only with the nation of Israel,” and was “quite irrespective of individual righteousness,”—if, in short, all was merely national, outward, ceremonial, in the framework of the polity, would it not be an inexplicable anomaly, that the writings connected with it—its histories, songs, didactic and prophetical discourses—should all be so peculiarly ethical in their tune, and personal in their application. But it was morally impossible that the laws and ordinances of the theocracy could be of such a merely formal and outward character; the spiritual and holy nature of God forbade it; and from that nature, as shown in the second and third particulars of the first division, everything took its determining and influential form.

[9] Geschichte, ii. 138.

Section Eighth.—Special Rites and Institutions Chiefly Connected with Sacrifice—The Ratification of The Covenant the Trial and Offering of Jealousy—Purgation from an Uncertain Murder—Ordinance of the Red Heifer—The Leprosy and its Treatment—Defilements and Purifications Connected with Corporeal Issues and Child-Birth—The Nazarite and His Offerings—Distinctions of Clean and Unclean Food.

[[@Page:393]] THE subjects which we bring together in this section are of a somewhat peculiar and miscellaneous nature, though they have also certain points in common. We mean to introduce, respecting them, only so much as may be necessary for the explanation of what more particularly belongs to each, as the more general principles they embodied and illustrated have already been fully considered. The remarks to be submitted must, therefore, be taken in connection with what goes before respecting the greater and more important sacrificial institutions, and presupposes an acquaintance with it.

THE RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT.

The account given of this solemn transaction is referred to in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. [[ >> Bible:Heb 9:18-22]] 9:18-22), with an especial respect to the use then made of the sacrificial blood, and for the purpose of proving, that as the inferior and temporary covenant then ratified required the shedding of animal blood, blood of a far higher and more precious kind must have been required to seal the everlasting covenant brought in by Christ. The whole ceremony stood thus: Moses had on the previous day read the law of the ten commandments, “the words of the Lord,” in the audience of the people, with the few precepts and judgments [[@Page:394]] that had been privately communicated to him after their promulgation. Then, on the following morning, he caused an altar to be built under the hill, and twelve stones erected beside it, to represent the twelve tribes of the congregation; certain young men, appointed as helps to the mediator to do priestly service for the occasion, were next sent to kill oxen for burnt-offerings and peace-offerings; and the blood of these slain victims being received in basins, Moses divided it into two parts—the one of which he sprinkled on the altar, thereby making atonement for their sins, and so rendering them ceremonially fit for being taken into a covenant of peace with God; and with the other half—after having again read the terms of the covenant, and obtained anew from the people a promise of obedience he sprinkled the people themselves, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”—(Ex. 24:5-8) It is added in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the book of the covenant was also sprinkled; which, we presume, must have been done with the first half of the blood, and with somewhat of the same meaning and design with which the mercy-seat, that was afterwards placed over the tables of the covenant, was annually sprinkled in the Most Holy Place.

The grand peculiarity in this service was manifestly the division of the blood between Jehovah and the people, and the sprinkling of the latter with the portion appropriated to them. We found something similar in the consecration of Aaron, whose extremities were touched with the blood of the ram of consecration. But the action here differed in various respects from the other, and was directed to the special purpose of giving a palpable exhibition of the oneness that now subsisted between the two parties of the covenant. Naturally they stood quite apart from each other. Sin had formed an awful gulph between them. But God having first accepted in their behalf the blood of atonement, by that portion which was sprinkled on the altar, they were brought into a capacity of union and fellowship with Him; and then, when they had solemnly declared their adherence to the terms on which this agreement was to be maintained, as declared in the tables of the covenant and the judgments therewith connected, the agreement was formally cemented by [[@Page:395]] the sprinkling of the other part of the blood upon them. Thus they shared part, and part with God: the pure and innocent life He provided and accepted in their behalf became (symbolically) theirs; a vital and hallowed bond united the two into one; God’s life was their life; God’s table their table; and as a farther sign of this conjunction of feeling and interest, they partook of the meat of the peace-offerings, which formed the second kind of sacrifices presented.

There were, of course, obvious imperfections marring the completeness of this service; and in Christ alone and His kingdom is a reality to be found, such as the necessities of the case and the demands of God’s righteousness properly required. Here, too, the parties are naturally far asunder, the members of the covenant being all by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And that the covenant of reconciliation and peace might be established on a solid, satisfactory, and permanent basis, it was necessary not only that there should be the shed ding of blood, but also that it should be blood having a common relation to both the contracting parties, and as such, fit to become the blood of reconciliation. Such, in the strictest sense, was the blood of Jesus; and in it, therefore, we discern the real bond and only sure foundation of a covenant of peace between man and God. He whose conscience is sprinkled with this, is thereby made partaker of a Divine nature; he is received into the participation of the life of God, and is consecrated for ever more to live at once in the enjoyment of God’s favour and for the interests of His kingdom.

But a question may here, perhaps, suggest itself in respect to the covenant itself, which was ratified between God and Israel in the manner we have noticed. For if the terms of that covenant were, as we formerly endeavoured to show, specially and peculiarly the law of the ten commandments, and if this law is equally binding on the Church now as a permanent rule of duty, how should it have been taken as the distinctive covenant or bond of agreement with Israel? Was not this, after all, to place Israel simply on a footing with men universally? And does it not appear something like an incongruity, to ratify such a covenant by such symbolical and shadowy services? There would undoubtedly be room for such questions, if this covenant [[@Page:396]] were entirely isolated from what went before and came after—if it were not viewed in connection with the circumstances out of which it grew, and with the ordinances and institutions by which it was presently followed up. On the one hand, the covenant was prescribed by God as having redeemed His people from a state of bondage and conferred on them a title to an inheritance of blessing, thereby pledging Himself to give whatever was essentially needed, to aid them in striving after conformity to its requirements of duty. But while these requirements of necessity pointed to the great lines of religious and moral duty binding on the Church in every age—for God’s own character of holiness being perpetually the same, He could not then take His people bound to live according to other principles of duty than are always obligatory—while, therefore, they necessarily possessed that broad and general character, still, in the peculiar circumstances in which Israel stood, many things were needed to go along with what properly constituted the terms of the covenant, which were of a merely national, shadowy, and temporary kind. The redemption they had obtained was itself but a shadow of a greater one to come, and so also was the inheritance to which they were appointed. No adequate provision was yet made for the higher wants of their nature; and though, even in that lower territory, on which God was avowedly acting for them, and openly revealing Himself to them, He could not but exact from them a faithful endeavour after conformity to His law of holiness, as the condition of their abiding fellowship with Him, yet the ostensible provision for securing this was also manifestly inadequate, and could only be regarded as temporary. So that the covenant on every hand stood related to the symbolical and typical, though itself neither the one nor the other. As it grew out of relations having a typical bearing, so it of necessity brought with it ordinances and institutions which had a typical character; “it had (appended to it, or bound up with it) ordinances of Divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.”—(Heb. 9:1) These could not be dispensed with during the continuance of that covenant; and the members of the covenant were bound to observe them, so long as the covenant itself in that temporary form lasted. The new covenant, however, can dispense with them, because it brings directly into view the things that belong [[@Page:397]] to salvation in its higher interests and ultimate realities. The inheritance now held out in prospect is the final portion of the redeemed, and the redemption that provides for their entrance into it is replete with all that their necessities require. It is, therefore, a better covenant, both because established upon better promises, and furnished with ampler resources for carrying its objects to a successful accomplishment. Yet, in respect to fundamental principles and leading aims, both covenants are at one: a people established in friendly union with God, and bound up to holiness that they may experience the blessedness of such a union this is the paramount object of the one covenant as well as of the other.

THE TRIAL AND OFFERING OF JEALOUSY.

The prescribed ritual upon this subject, recorded in Num. 5:11-31, is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in the Mosaic code; and we introduce it here because it can only be rightly understood when it is viewed in relation to the covenant engagement between God and Israel. The national covenant had its parallel in every family of Israel, in the marriage-tie that bound together man and wife. This relation, so important generally for the welfare of individuals and the prosperity of states, was chosen as an expressive image of that in which the whole people stood to God; and on the understood connection between the two, Moses represents in another place (Num. 15:39), as the later prophets constantly do, the people’s unfaithfulness to the covenant as a committing of whoredom toward God. It was, therefore, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Mosaic legislation, that the strongest enactments should be made respecting this domestic relation, that the behaviour of man and wife to each other throughout the families of Israel might present a faithful image of the behaviour Israel should maintain toward God; or if otherwise, that exemplary judgment might be inflicted. This was the more appropriate under the Mosaic dispensation, as it was in connection with the propagation of a pure and holy seed that the covenant was to reach its great end of blessing the world. So that to bring corruption and defilement into the marriage-bed, was to pollute the very channel of [[@Page:398]] covenant blessing, and in the most offensive manner violate the obligation to purity imposed in the fundamental ordinance of circumcision. Adultery, therefore, if fully ascertained, must be punished with death (Lev. 20:10), as a practice subversive of the whole design of the theocratic constitution. And not only must ascertained guilt in this respect be so dealt with, but even strong suspicions of guilt must be furnished with an opportunity of bringing the matter by solemn appeal to God, since guilt of this description, more than any other, is apt to escape detection by arts of concealment, and particularly in the case of the woman has many facilities of doing so. It is also on the woman that most depends for the preservation of the honour and integrity of families, and hence of greater moment that incipient tendencies in the wrong direction should in her case be met by wholesome checks.

It was on this account that the ritual respecting the trial and offering of jealousy was prescribed. The terms of the ritual itself imply, and the understanding of the Jews we know actually was, that the rite was to be put in force only when very strong grounds of suspicion existed in regard to the fidelity of the wife. But when suspicion of such a kind arose, the man was ordained to go with his wife to the sanctuary, and appear before the priest. They were to take with them, as a corban or meat-offering, the tenth part of an ephah of barley-meal, but without the usual accompaniments of oil and frankincense. The priest was then to take holy water—whence derived, it is not said, but most probably water from the laver is meant, and so the Chaldee paraphrast expressly renders it. This water the priest was to put into an earthen vessel, and mingle it with some particles of dust from the floor of the sanctuary. He was then to uncover the woman’s head, and administer a solemn oath to her—she meanwhile holding in her hand the corban, and he in his the vessel of water, which is now called “the bitter water that causeth the curse.” The oath was to run thus: “If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside unto uncleanness under thy husband (so it should be rendered, meaning, while under the law and authority of thy husband), be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse. But if thou hast gone aside under thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some [[@Page:399]] man have lain with thee, while under thy husband, the Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, by the Lord making thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; and this water that causeth the curse, shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot.” To this the woman was to say, Amen, amen; and the priest, proceeding meanwhile on the supposition of the woman’s innocence, was then to blot out the words of the curse with the bitter water, and afterwards to wave the offering of barley-flour before the Lord, burning a portion of it on the altar;—which done, he was to close the ceremony by giving the woman the remainder of the water to drink.

The most important part of the rite, undoubtedly, was the oath of purification. The spirit of the whole may be said to concentrate itself there. And, in accordance with the character generally of the Mosaic economy,—a character that attached to the little as well as the great, to the individual as well as the general things belonging to it, the oath took the form of the lex talionis; on the one side announcing exemption from punishment, if there was freedom from guilt; and on the other denouncing and imprecating, when guilt had been incurred, a visitation of evil corresponding to the iniquity committed—viz., corruption and unfruitfulness in those parts of the body which had been prostituted to purposes of impurity. The draught of water was added merely for the purpose of giving increased force and solemnity to the curse, and supplying a kind of representative agency for certifying its execution. It was called bitter, partly because the very subjection to such a humiliating service rendered it a bitter draught, and also because it was to be regarded as (representatively) the bearer of the Lord’s righteous jealousy against sin, and His purpose to avenge Himself of it. Hence, also, the water itself was to be holy water, the more plainly to denote its connection with God; and to be mingled with dust, the dust of God’s sanctuary, in token of its being employed by God with reference to a curse, and to show that the person who really deserved it was justly doomed to share in the original curse of the serpent.—(Gen. 3:14; comp. Ps. 72:9; Micah 7:17) Of course, the actual infliction of the curse depended upon the will and power of God, whose interference was at the time so solemnly invoked; and the action proceeded on the [[@Page:400]] belief of a particular providence extending to individual cases, such as would truly distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. But the whole Mosaic economy was founded upon this assumption, and justly—since that God, without whom a sparrow falleth not to the ground, could not fail to make His presence and His power felt among the people upon whom He more peculiarly put His name; nor refuse to make His appointed ordinances of vital efficacy, when they were employed in the way and for the purposes to which He had destined them. From not being acquainted with the whole of the circumstances, the principle might often appear to men involved in difficulty as regarded its uniform application. But that it was, especially then, and, with certain modifications, is still, a principle in the Divine government, no believer in Scripture can reasonably doubt.

The other and subordinate things in the ceremonial such as the use of an earthen vessel to contain the water, the appointment of barley-meal for an offering, without oil or incense, and the uncovering of the woman’s head admit of an easy explanation. The two former, being the cheapest things of their respective kinds, were marks of abasement, and were intended to convey the impression, that every woman should regard herself as humbled, on whose account they had to be employed. The impression was deepened by the absence of oil, the symbol of the Spirit, and of incense, the symbol of acceptable prayer. By the uncovering of the head, this was still more strikingly signified, as it deprived the woman of the distinctive sign of her chastity, and reduced her to the condition of one who had either to confess her guilt, or to be put on trial for her innocence. The only parts of the transaction that are attended with real difficulty, are those which concern the presentation of the corban of barley-meal. Many both defective and erroneous views have been given of what relates to these; but without referring more particularly to them, we simply state our concurrence generally with the view of Kurtz (Mosaische Opfer, p. 326), who has placed the matter, we think, in its proper light. This offering, which in [[ver. 25 >> Bible:Nu 5:25]] is called “the jealousy offering,” is also in [[ver. 15 >> Bible:Nu 5:15]] called expressly the woman’s offering. And that it is to be identified with her rather than with the man, is [[@Page:401]] plain also from the circumstance, that she was appointed, during the administration of the oath, to hold this in her hands. Nor can we justly understand more by the direction in [[ver. >> Bible:Nu 5:15]] 15, to the man to bring it, than that, as the whole property of the family belonged to him, he should be required to furnish out of his means what was necessary for the occasion. And as the woman was obliged to go with him to the sanctuary for this service, whenever the spirit of jealousy so far took possession of his mind, the offering, though more properly hers, might with perfect propriety be also called the offering of jealousy, being itself the offspring of the spirit of jealousy in the husband. The woman, as was stated, during the more important part of the ceremony, held the offering in her hands, while the priest held in his the water of the curse. The priest then appears, not as the representative and advocate of the man who holds his wife guilty (for there, we think, Kurtz has slightly deviated from the natural view), but as the minister of Jehovah, whose it was to see the right vindicated, and, as such, fitly places himself before her with the symbol and pledge of the curse. The woman, on the other hand, maintaining her innocence, as fitly stands before him with the symbol of her innocence, the meat-offering, which was an image of good works, and which could only be rendered by those who were in a full state of acceptance with God. As soon as the curse was pronounced, and the woman had responded her double Amen, then the articles changed hands. The priest received from the woman her meat-offering, waved and presented it to God, the heart-searching and righteous; so that, if He found it a true symbol of her innocence, He might give her to know in her experience, that “the curse causeless should not come.” The woman, on her part, received from the priest the water of the curse, and drank it; so that, if it were a true symbol of her guilt, it might be like the pouring out of the Lord’s indignation in her innermost parts. Thus the matter was left in the hands of Him who is the searcher of hearts. If there was guilt before Him, then the offering was a remembrancer of iniquity; but if not, it would be a memorial of innocence, and a call to defend the just from false accusations of guilt. The whole service, viewed in respect to individuals, was fitted to convey a deep impression of the jealous care with which the [[@Page:402]] holy eye of God watched over even the most secret violations of the marriage vow, and the certainty with which He would avenge them. And viewed more generally, as an image of things pertaining to the entire commonwealth of Israel, it proclaimed in the ears of all the necessity of an unswerving and faithful adherence to covenant engagements with God, otherwise the curse of indelible shame, degradation, and misery would inevitably befall them.

PURIFICATION FROM AN UNCERTAIN MURDER.

The rite appointed to be observed in this case so far resembles the preceding one, that they both alike had respect, not to the actual, but only to the possible, guilt of the persons concerned. They differed, however, in the probable estimate that was formed of the relation of the parties to the hypothetical charge. The presumption in the last case was against the accused, here it is rather in their favour; and so the rite in the one seemed more especially framed for bringing home the charge of iniquity, and in the other for purging it away. The rite in this case, however, should not be termed, as it is in the heading of our English Bibles, and as it is also very commonly treated by divines, the expiation of an uncertain murder; for there is no proper atonement prescribed. The law is given in Deut. 21:1-9, and is shortly this:—When a dead body was found in the field, in circumstances fitted to give rise to the suspicion of the person having come to a violent end, while yet no trace could be discovered of the murderer, it was then to be presumed that the guilt attached to the nearest city, either by the murderer having come from it, or from his having found concealment in it. That city, therefore, had a certain indefinite charge of guilt lying upon it indefinite as to the parties really concerned in the charge, but most definite and particular as regards the greatness of the crime involved in it, and the treatment due to the perpetrator. For deliberate murder the law provided no expiation. Even for the infliction of death, not deliberately, but by some fortuitous and unintentional stroke, it did not appoint any rite of expiation, but only a way of escape by means of a partial exile. Here, therefore, where the question is respecting a murder [[@Page:403]] the prescribed ritual cannot contemplate a work of expiation. Nor is the language employed such as to convey that idea. The elders of the city were enjoined to go down into a valley with a stream in it, bringing with them a heifer which had never been yoked, and there strike off its head by the neck. Then in presence of the priests, the representatives and ministers of God, they were to wash their hands over the carcase of the slain heifer in token of their innocence, and to say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O Lord, unto Thy people Israel, whom Thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto Thy people of Israel’s charge. And (it is added) the blood shall be forgiven them.”

The forgiveness here meant was evidently forgiveness in the more general sense; the guilt in question would not be laid to the charge of the elders of the city, nor would the punishment due on account of it be inflicted on them. They were personally cleared from the guilt, but the guilt itself was not atoned; there was a purgation, but not an expiation. And, accordingly, none of the usual sacrificial terms are applied to the transaction with the heifer. It is not called an oblation, a sacrifice, a sin or trespass-offering; nor was there any sprinkling of its blood upon the altar; and even the mode of killing it was different from that followed in all the proper sacrifices—not by the shedding of the blood, but by the lopping off of the head. Indeed, the process was merely a symbolical action of judgment and acquittal before the priests, not as ministers of worship, but as officers of justice. The heifer, young and unaccustomed to the yoke, in the full flush and beauty of life, was yet subjected to a violent death—a palpable representative of the case of the person whose life had been wantonly and murderously taken away. The carcase of this slain heifer is placed before the elders, and over it, as if it were the very carcase of the slain man, they wash their hands, and solemnly declare their innocence respecting the violent death that had been inflicted on him. The priests, sit ting as judges, receive the declaration as satisfactory, and hold the city absolved of guilt. The washing of the hands in water was merely to give additional solemnity to this declaration, and exhibited symbolically what was presently afterwards announced in words. Hence, among other allusions to this part of the rite, [[@Page:404]] the declaration of the Psalmist, “I will wash mine hands in innocence “(Ps. 26:6); and the action of Pilate, when wishing to establish his innocence respecting the death of Jesus, though it cannot be considered as done with any allusion to the part here performed by the elders over the body of the heifer, yet serves to show how natural it was in the circumstances, according to the customs of antiquity. The leading object of the rite was to impress upon the people a sense of God’s hatred of deeds of violence and blood, and make known the certainty with which He would make inquisition concerning such deeds, if they were allowed to proceed in the land. It was one of the fences thrown around the second table of the law; and if performed on all suitable occasions, must have powerfully tended to cherish sentiments of humanity in the minds of the covenant people, and promote feelings of love between man and man.

ORDINANCE OF THE RED HEIFER

The ordinance regarding the Red Heifer (described in Num. 19) had respect to actual defilements, though only of a particular kind, and to the means of purification from them. The defilements in question were such as arose from personal contact with the dead, such as the touching of a dead body, or dwelling in a tent where death had entered, or lighting on the bone of a dead man, or having to do with a grave in which a corpse had been deposited. In such cases a bodily uncleanness was contracted, which lasted seven days, and even then could not be removed but by a very peculiar element of cleansing, viz., the application of the ashes, mixed with water, of the body of a heifer, red-coloured, without blemish, unaccustomed to the yoke, burnt without the camp, and with cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet cast into the midst of the burning.

In regard, first, to the occasion of this very peculiar service, it will readily be understood that, in accordance with the general nature of the symbolical institutions, the body stands as the representative and image of the soul, and its defilement and cleansing for actual guilt and spiritual purification. This, indeed, was clearly indicated in the ordinance being called “a purification for sin “(ver.[[9 >> Bible:Nu 19:9]] ). But it is the soul, not the body, [[@Page:405]] which is properly chargeable with sin; and the whole, therefore, of what is here described, was evidently intended to serve as the mere shell and representation of inward and spiritual realities. Divine truths and lessons were embodied in it for all times and ages. For what, according to the uniform language of Scripture, is death? It is the direful wages of sin—the visible earthly recompense with which God visits transgression; and being in itself the end and consummation of all natural evils, the state from which flesh naturally and most of all shrinks with abhorrence, it is the proper image of sin, both as regards its universal prevalence and its inherent loathsomeness. This may be said of death merely in the aspect it carries to men’s natural state and feelings, but much more does such language become applicable to it when viewed in relation to the Most High. For it belongs to Him to have life in Himself, yea, to stand in such close connection with the powers and blessings of life, that no corruption can dwell in His presence. But death is the very climax of corruption; it is therefore most abhorrent to His nature, and has been appointed as the proper doom of sin, the awful seal and testimony of His displeasure on account of it. Hence, the priests who had to minister before Him were forbidden to come into contact with the dead, except in the case of their nearest relatives (Lev. 21:1-4), and the high priest even in the case of his father or mother ([[ver. 11 >> Bible:Le 21:11]] ).

This is the painful truth which lies at the foundation of the whole of the rite respecting the Red Heifer. It is a rite which presents in bold relief what was one grand design of the law’s observances—the bringing of sin to remembrance, and teaching the necessity of men’s being purified from its pollution. It is true there was no actual sin in simply touching a dead body, or being in the place where such a body lay. In the case of ordinary persons it was even a matter of duty to defile one’s self in connection with the death of near relatives. But, as the corporeal relations were here made the signs and interpreters of the spiritual, there was, in such cases, the coming, on the part of the living body, into contact with what bore on it the awful mark and impress of sin—a breathing of the polluted atmosphere of corruption, most alien to the region where Jehovah has his peculiar dwelling, and which [[@Page:406]] corruption cannot inherit. Therefore, in a symbolical religion like the Mosaic, the neighbourhood or touch of a dead body was most fitly regarded as forming an interruption to the intercourse between God and His people,—as placing them in a condition of external unfitness for approaching the sanctuary of His presence and glory, or even for having freedom to go out and in among the living in Jerusalem. That sin, which is the bitter well-spring of death, is utterly at variance with the soul’s peace and fellowship with God,—that it should, therefore, be most carefully watched against and shunned,—that on finding his conscience defiled with its pollution, the sinner should regard himself as incapacitated for holding intercourse with Heaven, or performing any work of righteousness, and should betake himself without delay to the appointed means of purification,—these are the important and salutary truths which the Lord sought continually to impress upon the people by means of the bodily defilements in question, and the channel provided for obtaining purification.

In regard now to the purifying apparatus, there are certainly some points connected with it, which it is scarcely possible to explain quite satisfactorily, and which probably refer to customs or notions too familiar and prevalent in the age of Moses to have then appeared at all strange or arbitrary. But the leading features of the ordinance would present, we conceive, little difficulty, were it not that the whole has been viewed in a somewhat mistaken light. Recent as well as former writers have gene rally gone on the supposition that the ideas concerning sin, and atonement or cleansing, are here represented in a peculiarly intense form, and that from this point of view everything must be explained. We regard the occasion as pointing rather in the opposite direction. It was not an ordinance for purging away the guilt of actual sin, although it had the character of a sin-offering (vers. [[9 >> Bible:Nu 19:9]] , [[17 >> Bible:Nu 19:17]] ), but for a sort of incidental corporeal connection with the effect and fruit of sin,—the means of purification not from personal transgression, but from a merely external contact with the consequence of transgression,—a symbolical ordinance of cleansing for what, in itself, was only a symbolical defilement. Directly, therefore, and properly it is the flesh and not the spirit that is concerned; and we might certainly expect a marked inferiority [[@Page:407]] in various respects between this ordinance and the offerings which had for their object the expiation of real guilt. This is what we actually find. The victim appointed was a female, while in all the proper sin-offerings for the congregation, a male, an ox, was required. And of this victim no part came upon the altar; even the blood was only sprinkled before the tabernacle of the congregation, and that not by the high priest, but only by the son of the high priest; and while the carcase was burnt entire without the camp, not even the skin or the dung was removed from it. From the respect the offering had to bodily defilements, the priest and the other persons engaged in the work contracted a similar defilement, and had to wash their clothes, and bathe themselves in water. That the ashes were regarded as in themselves clean, is obvious from a clean person being required to gather them up and put them in a clean place; as also from their being the appointed means of purification. For this it was necessary that living or running water should be poured upon them; and then during the seven days that the defilement from contact with the dead lasted, the persons or articles requiring it were twice sprinkled, first on the third, then on the seventh day; after which the restraint was taken off, as to fellowship with the camp. The mixture of the ashes strengthened the cleansing property of the water, not, however (as Bähr and Kurtz), by rendering it a sort of wash, if that had been all, common ashes might have served the purpose, but rather from their connection with the sin-offering, through which the curse of death was taken away. That the wash should be called the water of abomination (מֵי נָדּה), not of purification, as in the English Bible, is to be explained in the same way as the application of the term sin to the sin-offering: it was water which had specially to do with abominations, or defilements, but to do with them for the purpose of taking them away. And the bearing of the whole on Christian times, with respect to the higher work of Christ, is so plainly and distinctly intimated in the epistle to the Hebrews, that there is no need for any further comment: “If the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, [[@Page:408]] purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!” Whoever looks with this view to the ordinance, will see in it the perfect purity and completeness of Christ’s character, the corrupt and loathsome nature of that for which He died, and the sole as well as perfect efficacy of His blood, so that he who has not this applied to his conscience must inevitably perish.[1]

[We have taken little or no notice of some of the peculiarities connected with this ordinance, which have given rise to much discussion, but have as yet ended in no satisfactory result. The female sex of the victim (sufficiently accounted for, we trust, above) has been thought by Bähr to point to Eve, or the female sex generally, as the mother of life among men, and others have produced equally fanciful reasons. The colour was by the Jewish doctors accounted of such difficult interpretation, that they conceived the wisdom of Solomon to have been inadequate to the discovery of it. With Bähr, Keil, Kurtz, etc., it is the colour of blood, life in an intensive form; with Hengstenberg, of sin, etc. And the latter recently, as well as many others in former times, have found an allusion in it to the Egyptian notion, that the evil god Typhon was of red colour, and the practice prevalent in Egypt of sacrificing red bullocks to him. Only, that the rite here might savour somewhat less of heathenism, not a bullock, but an heifer, was required, to discountenance the idolatrous veneration paid in Egypt to the cow. We deem it quite unnecessary to enter upon any particular examination of these different opinions. None of them can be regarded as quite natural and satisfactory. And it is possible that the colour of the animal had originally some ideas associated with it, of which later times lost the key. Of the two reasons suggested above, that which connects it -with the life—life in its more intensive form—is certainly the preferable; but one does not readily perceive, either why in this one case the red colour should so distinctly symbolize life, or why in this particular ordinance that idea should be so prominently displayed, when only the ashes of a slain creature were to be employed. Possibly red may have been chosen as emphatically the flesh colour, since the [[@Page:409]] ordinance pointed in a peculiar manner to the purification of the flesh. But we would lay no stress on any reason that can now be assigned. The burning, along with the victim, of cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool, has also given rise to a great variety of suppositions. The cedar from its loftiness, and the hyssop from its smallness, have been regarded by Hengstenberg (Egypt and Books of Moses, and again in Commen. on Ps. 51:7) as emblems, the one of the Divine majesty, and the other of the Divine condescension. But the supposition is quite arbitrary, and has nothing properly to support it in Scripture. Besides, it could scarcely be the lofty cedar which was meant to be used in the ordinance, for such were not to be found in the desert; it must rather have been some species of juniper. It is more commonly regarded as an emblem of life or immortality. The hyssop, it would appear, was anciently thought to possess some sort of medicinal or abstergent properties, and on that account is supposed to have been used in purifications. It appears to have been usually employed among the Hebrews in sprinklings, along with some portion of scarlet wool.—(Comp. Ex. 12:22; Lev. 14:6, 7; Ps. 51:7; Heb. 9:19) It is quite possible that notions and customs regarding these articles, of which now no certain information is to be had, may have led to their use on such occasions as the present. It would seem, however, from what is said in the case of the leper (Lev. 14:6, 7), that their use was merely to apply the cleansing or purifying element—the scarlet and hyssop being probably attached to a stick of cedar. On this account a portion of each was here burnt along with the carcase of the heifer, as the whole together were to furnish the means of purification. But it is needless to pursue the matter farther, as certainty is unattainable, and little comparatively depends on it for a general understanding of the purport and design of the ordinance.]

THE LEPROSY AND ITS PURIFICATION.

The case of the leper, with its appointed means of purification, stood in a very close relation to the one just considered, and the lessons taught in each are to a considerable extent the same. As disease generally is the fruit and evidence of sin, [[@Page:410]] every form of disease might have been held to be polluting, and to have required separate purifications. This, however, would have rendered the ceremonial observances an intolerable burden. One disease, therefore, was chosen in particular, and that such an one as might fitly be regarded at the head of all diseases, the most affecting symbol of sin. This disease, that of leprosy (the white leprosy, as it is sometimes called, to distinguish it from other forms of the same malady), is described with much minuteness by Moses (Lev. 13, 14), and various marks are given to distinguish it from others, which, though somewhat resembling it, yet did not possess its inveterate and virulent character. It began in the formation of certain spots upon the skin, small at first, but gradually increasing in dimensions; at their first appearance of a reddish colour, but by and by presenting a white, scaly shining aspect, attended by little pain, but incapable of being healed by any known remedy. Slowly, yet regularly, the spots continued to increase, till the whole body came to be over spread with them, and assumed the appearance of a white, dry, diseased, unwholesome scurf. But the corruption extended inwardly while it spread outwardly, and affected even the bones and marrow: the joints became first relaxed, then dislocated; fingers, toes, and even limbs, dropt off; and the body at length fell to pieces, a loathsome mass of dissolution and decay. Such is the description of the disease given in Scripture, taken in connection with what is known of certain bodily disorders which still go by the name of leprosy. It was disease manifesting itself peculiarly in the form of corruption—a sort of living death.

Persons on whom any apparent symptoms were found of this disease, were ordered to go to the priests for inspection; and if it was ascertained to be real leprosy, then the diseased was removed into a separate apartment, and shut out of the camp, or the city, as a person politically dead. So rigidly was this regulation enforced, that even Miriam, the sister of Moses, could not obtain exemption from it; nor at a later period king Uzziah, since we are told, that from the time he was smitten with leprosy to the day of his death, “he dwelt in a several house” (2 Kings 15:5)—literally, a house of emancipation, as one discharged from the ordinary service and occupations of the Lord’s people. Even in the kingdom of Samaria, where the Divine [[@Page:411]] laws were by no means so strictly observed, the history presents to our view lepers dwelling in a separate house before the gate, which they were not permitted to leave even during the straitness of a siege.—(2 Kings 7:3-10) And that there was a place or hill set apart for such in Jerusalem, and called by their name, may be inferred from Jer. 31:39, where mention is made of the hill Gareb, which means, the hill of the leprous.

Besides this careful separation of the leper, he was to carry about with him every mark of sorrow and distress, going with rent clothes, with bare and uncovered head, with a bandage on the chin or lip; and when he saw any one approaching, was to give timely warning of his condition by crying out, “Unclean, unclean!” Why, we naturally ask, all this in the case only of leprosy? It could not be simply because it was a severe and dangerous disease, for no other disease was ordered to have such signs of grief attached to it; nor did they give occasion to uncleanness, excepting in disorders connected with generation and birth, presently to be noticed. Neither could such singular precautions and painful treatment have been employed here on account of the infectious character of the disease, as if the great object were to prevent it spreading around. For had that been all, several of the things prescribed would have been needless aggravations of the distress, such as the rent clothes, bare head, and covered chin; and, besides, the diseases which go by the name of leprosy, and which are understood to possess the same general character, though hereditary, are now known not to be infectious; while the really infectious diseases, such as fevers or the plague, have no place whatever in the law, either as regards uncleanness or purification.

The only adequate reason that can be assigned for the manner in which leprosy was thus viewed and treated, was its fitness to serve as a symbol of sin, and of the treatment those who indulge in sin might expect at the hand of God. It was the visible sign and expression upon the living, of what God thought and felt upon the subject. Hence, when He manifested His righteous severity toward particular persons, and testified His displeasure against their sins by the infliction of a bodily disease, it was in the visitation of leprosy that the judgment commonly took effect, as in the cases of Miriam, Uzziah, and Gehazi. Hence, also, [[@Page:412]] Moses warned the people against incurring such a plague (Deut. 24:9); and when David besought the infliction of God’s judgment upon the house of Joab, leprosy was one of the forms in which he wished it might appear.—(2 Sam. 3:29) So general was the feeling in this respect, that the leprous were proverbially called the smitten, i.e., the smitten of God; and from the Messiah being described in Isaiah as so smitten, certain Jewish interpreters inferred that He should be afflicted with leprosy.—(Hengst., Christol. on Isaiah 53:4) Now, viewing the disease thus, as a kind of visible copy or image of sin, judicially inflicted by the immediate hand of God on the living body of the sinner, it is not difficult to understand how the leper especially should have been regarded as an object of defilement, as theocratically dead, until he was recovered and purified. He bore upon him the impress and mark of iniquity, the begun and spreading corruption of death, the appalling seal of Heaven’s condemnation. He was a sort of death in life, a walking sepulchre (Spencer, “sepulchrum ambulans”), unfit while in such a state to draw near to the local habitation of God, or to have a place among the living in Jerusalem. And his exiled and separate condition, his disfigured dress, and lamentable appearance, while they proclaimed the sadness of his case, bore striking testimony at the same time to the holiness of God, and solemnly warned all who saw him to beware how they should offend against Him. But these things are written also for our learning; and the malady, with its attendant evils, though but rarely visible to the bodily eye, speaks still to the ear of faith. It tells us of the insidious and growing nature of sin, spreading, if not arrested by the merciful interposition of God, from small beginnings to a universal corruption—of the inevitable exclusion which it brings when indulged in from the fellowship of God and the society of the blessed—of the deplorable and unhappy condition of those who are still subject to its sway and of the competency of Divine grace alone to bring deliverance from the evil.

The purification of the leper had three distinctly marked stages. The first of these bore respect to his reception into the visible community of Israel, the next to his participation in their sacred character, and the last to his full re-establishment in the favour and fellowship of God. When God was pleased to [[@Page:413]] recover him from the leprosy, and the priest pronounced him whole, before he was permitted to leave his isolated position outside the camp or city, two living clean birds were to be taken for him; the one of which was then to be killed over a vessel of living or fresh water, so that the blood might intermingle with the water, and the other, after being dipt in this blood-water, was let loose into the open field. That the two birds were to be regarded as ideally one, like the two goats on the day of atonement, and that they together represented what was adjudged to belong to the recovered leper, is clear as day. The life-blood of the one, mingled with pure fresh water, imaged life in its state of greatest purity; and by the other bird being dipt in this, showed its participation in what it signified, as did also the sprinkling of the recovered leper seven times with the same. Then, as thus alike identified with that life of freshness and purity, the recovered leper saw represented in the bird’s dismissal, to fly wherever it pleased among the other fowls of heaven, his own liberty to enter into the society of living men, and move freely up and down among them. But in token of his actual participation in the whole, and his being now separated from his uncleanness, he must wash his clothes and his flesh also, even shave his hair, that every remnant of his impurity might appear to be removed, and nothing be left to mar the freedom of his intercourse with his fellow-men.

In all this, however, there was no proper atonement; and though the ban was so far removed, that the leper was now regarded as a living man, and could enter into the society of other living men, he was by no means admitted to the privileges of a member of God’s covenant. He had to remain for an entire week out of his own dwelling. Then, for his restoration to the full standing of an Israelite, he had to bring a lamb for a trespass-offering, another for a sin-offering, and another still for a burnt-offering, with the usual meat-offering, and a log of oil. It was a peculiarity in the case, that both a trespass and a sin-offering were required among the means of purification. But it may be explained by the consideration, that the leper was regarded by his leprosy as having become unfitted for doing the part of a proper citizen, and in consequence lying under debt to the commonwealth of God from failure in what it had a right to expect [[@Page:414]] of all its members. The lamb for the trespass-offering, and the log of oil, were for his consecration—the second stage of the process; and for this purpose they were first waved before the Lord. Then with a portion of the blood of the trespass-offering the priest sprinkled his right ear, the thumb of his right hand, the great toe of his right foot, repeating the same action after wards with the oil, and pouring also some upon his head. This action with the blood and oil was much the same with that observed in the consecration of the priesthood; but differed, in that the blood used on this occasion was that of a trespass-offering, whereas the blood used on the other was that of a peace-offering. The service still further differed, in that here the consecration came first, whereas, as in the case of Aaron, the sin and burnt-offering preceded it. The differences, however, are such as naturally arose out of the peculiar situation of the restored leper. As a man under the ban of God and the doom of death, he had lost his place in the priestly kingdom, and a fitness for the discharge of its obligations. By a special act of consecration he must be received again into the number of this family, before he can be admitted to take any part in the usual services of the congregation. And the blood by which this was chiefly done was most appropriately taken from the blood of a trespass-offering, because, having forfeited his life to God, there was here, according to the general nature of such an offering, the payment of the required ransom, the (symbolical) discharge of the debt; so that he was at one and the same time installed as the Lord’s freeman, and consecrated for His service. The consecration of Aaron, on the other hand, was that of one who already belonged to the kingdom of priests, and only required an immediate sanctification for the peculiar and distinguished office to which he was to be raised. It therefore came last, and the blood used was fitly taken of the peace-offering. But when the recovered leper had been thus far restored,—his feet standing within the sacred community of God’s people, his head and members anointed with the holy oil of Divine refreshment and gladness,—he was now permitted and required to consummate the process, by bringing a sin-offering, a burnt-offering, and a meat offering, that his access to God’s sanctuary, and his fellowship with God Himself, might be properly established. What could [[@Page:415]] more impressively bespeak the arduous and solemn nature of the work, by which the outcast, polluted, and doomed sinner regains an interest in the kingdom and blessing of God! The blood and Spirit of Christ, appropriated by a sincere repentance and a living faith this, but this alone, can accomplish the restoration. Till that is done, there is only exclusion from the family of God, and alienation from the life that is in Him. But that truly done, the child of death lives again he that was lost is again found.We have said nothing of what is called the leprosy of clothes and houses, for nothing certain is known of the thing itself, although Michaelis speaks dogmatically enough about both. The whole of what he says upon the leprosy is a striking specimen of the thoroughly earthly tone of the author’s mind; and if Moses had looked no higher than he represents him to have done, he would certainly have been little entitled to be regarded as a messenger of Heaven. The leprosy in garments and houses was evidently considered and treated as an image of that in man; and on that account alone was purification or destruction ordered. See Hengstenberg’s Christol. on Jer. 31:38; Baumgarten on Lev. 13, 14.[2]

DEFILEMENTS AND PURIFICATIONS CONNECTED WITH CORPOREAL ISSUES AND THE PROPOGATION OF SEED.

A considerable variety of prescriptions exists in the books of Leviticus and Numbers, relating to these defilements and purifications; but, for obvious reasons, we refrain from going into particulars, and content ourselves with giving their general scope and design. The laws upon the subject are to be found chiefly in the [[12th >> Bible:Le 12:1-8]] and the [[15th >> Bible:Le 15:1-33]] chap. of Leviticus, the one relating to the uncleanness arising from the giving birth to children, and the other to that arising from issues in the organs therewith connected. The impurities of this class were all more or less directly connected with the production of life. And it may seem strange, at first sight, that production and birth, as well as disease and death, should have been marked in the law as the occasions of defilement. It would be not only strange, but in explicable, were it not for the doctrine of the fall, and the inherent depravity of nature growing out of it. By reason of this the powers of human life are tainted with corruption, and all that pertains to the production of life, as well as to its cessation [[@Page:416]] appears enveloped in the garments of impurity. That the whole was viewed in this strictly moral light, and not in relation to natural health or cleanliness, is evident, not only from the predominantly ethical character of the whole legislation of Moses, but also from the kind of purifications prescribed, in which atonement is spoken of as being made in behalf of the parties concerned (Lev. 12:6, 15:30); and also from the references made to the cases under consideration in other parts of Scripture—as in Ezek. 36:17; Lam. 1:17—which point to them as defilements in a moral respect. There is no possibility of obtaining a satisfactory view of the subject, or accounting for the place assigned such things in the symbolical ritual of Moses, excepting on the ground of that moral taint which was believed to pervade all the powers and productions of human nature, and thus regarding them as an external embodiment of the truth uttered by the Psalmist, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”—(Ps. 51:5) Some of the Hebrew doctors themselves have virtually expressed this idea, as in the following quotation produced from one of them by Ainsworth on Lev. 12:4: “No sin-offering is brought but only for sin; and it seemeth unto me, that there is a mystery in this matter, concerning the sin of the old serpent”—the sin, namely, introduced by the temptation of the old serpent, and in immediate connection with the moral weakness of the woman.

Indeed, it is by a reference to that original act of transgression that we can most easily explain, both the general nature of the legal prescriptions respecting defilements and purifications of this sort, and some of the more striking peculiarities belonging to them. In what took place in that fundamental transaction, an image was presented of what was to be ever afterwards occurring. The woman having taken the leading part in the transaction, she was made to reap in her natural destiny most largely of its bitter fruits, and that especially in respect to child-bearing: ”Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, and in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.” No doubt, the evil originating in the fall was to cleave to the nature, and appear in the condition of each portion of the human family; but in the female portion the signs of it were to be most apparent, and particularly in connection with the bearing [[@Page:417]] of children. Hence, perhaps, the emphasis laid on this side by the Psalmist, “In sin did my mother conceive me.”—(Ps. 51:5) This one fact, prominently written in God’s word, and perpetually exemplified in history, sufficiently accounts for the peculiar stress laid on the case of the female in the regulations of the law. The occasions that called for purification on the other side were comparatively rare; but in hers they were of constant recurrence. And hence also, partly at least, is to be explained the difference in regard to the continuance of the period of her uncleanness when the birth was a female child, as compared with what it was at the birth of a male. In the one case a term of seven days only of total separation from the usual business and intercourse of life, and three and thirty more from the sanctuary; but in the other, a term of fourteen days of total separation, and sixty-six more from the sanctuary. It was not from any physical diversity in the cases, as regards the mother herself, that the two periods in the latter case were exactly the double of those in the former; but because it was the birth of one of that sex with which the signs of corruption in this respect were more peculiarly connected. Partly, we say, on this account, not wholly; for the express mention of circumcision in the case of the male child (chap. [[12:3 >> Bible:Le 12:3]] ), seems plainly intended to ascribe to that circumstance a portion of the difference. The first stage of the mother’s cleansing terminated with the circumcision of her son. On the eighth day he had the corruption of his fleshly nature (symbolically) removed, and stood, as it were, by himself, as the mother also by herself. The terms of separation, therefore, were fitly shortened, so as to make the one only a full week, and the other a full month. But in the case of a female child there was no ordinance to distinguish so precisely between the mother and her offspring; and as if there were a prolonged connection in what occasioned the defilement, so there was for her a prolonged period of separation from social life and access to the sanctuary. Together with the other circumstances referred to, this is enough to account for the seeming anomaly; and serves also to render more obviously and conclusively certain the reference in the whole matter to moral considerations.

There is no necessity for enlarging on the prescribed means [[@Page:418]] of purification. They were such, both in the case of men and women, as to bear distinct reference to guilt, and to renewed surrender to the Lord’s service. A sin-offering, as well as a burnt-offering, was necessary. But to render the way of pardon and acceptance open to all, turtle-doves or pigeons were allowed to be substituted for the more expensive offerings.

THE NAZARITE AND HIS OFFERINGS.

The institution of the Nazarite vow is introduced without any explanation (Num. 6), either as to the manner or the reason of its original appointment; and some have hence inferred that its origin is to be sought in Egypt, and only its proper regulation to be ascribed to Moses. But no traces of it have been found among the antiquities of Egypt, nor could it properly exist there. The Nazarite was to be a living type and image of holiness; he was to be, in his person and habits, a symbol of sincere consecration and devotedness to the Lord. It was no mere ascetical institution, as if the outward bonds and restraints, the self-denials in meat and drink, were in themselves well-pleasing to the Lord. Such a spirit was as foreign to Judaism as it is to Christianity. The Nazarite was an acted, symbolical lesson in a religious and moral respect; and the out ward observances to which he was bound were merely intended to exhibit to the bodily eye the separation from everything sinful and impure required of the Lord’s servants.

The import of the name Nazarite, is simply the separate one; and the vow he took in all ordinary cases, voluntarily took—upon him, is said to have been (ver.[[2 >> Bible:Nu 6:2]] ) “for separating to the Lord.” What was implied in this separation? There must have been, unquestionably, a withdrawing from one class of things as unbefitting, that there might be the more free and devoted application to another class, as proper and becoming. And we shall best understand what both were by glancing at the requirements of the vow.

The first was an entire abstinence from all strong drink; from whatever was made of grapes—from grapes themselves, whether moist or dried from everything belonging to the vine. There can be no doubt that it was the intoxicating property of [[@Page:419]] the fruit of the vine which formed the ground of this prohibition; for special stress is laid upon the strength of the drink; and as the vine in Eastern countries was the chief source of such drink (although other ingredients, it would seem, were sometimes added to increase the strength), not only wine itself, but the fruit of the vine in every shape, even in forms without any intoxicating tendency, was interdicted, that the separation might be the more marked and complete. A like abstinence was imposed upon the priests when engaged in sacred ministrations.—(Lev. 10:8) Like the ministering priest, the Nazarite was peculiarly separated to the Lord; and in his drink, not less than other things, he was to be an embodied lesson regarding the manner in which the Divine service was to be performed. This service—such was the import of that part of the Nazarite institution—requires a withdrawal and separation from whatever unfits for active spiritual employment from everything which stupifies and benumbs the powers of a divine life, and disposes the heart to carnal ease and pleasurable excitement rather than to sacred duty. There must, indeed, be a careful and becoming reserve in regard to the means and occasions of a literal intoxication; but not in respect to these alone. The more inward and engrossing love of money, the eager pursuit after worldly aggrandizement, or the delights of a soft and luxurious ease, may as thoroughly intoxicate the brain, and incapacitate the soul for spiritual employment, as the more grovelling vice of indulgence to excess in liquor. From all such, therefore, the true servant of God is here wanied to abstain, and admonished to keep his vessel, in soul and body, as holiness to the Lord.

The next thing exacted of the Nazarite was to leave his hair unshorn. And this was so different from the prevailing custom, yet so strictly enjoined upon him, that it might be regarded as the peculiar badge of his condition. Hence, if, by accidentally coming into contact with any unclean object, his vow was broken, he had to shave his head and enter anew on his course of service. So also, when the period of the vow had expired, his hair was cropt, and burned as a sacred thing upon the altar. Thus he was said to bear “the consecration (literally the separation, the distinctive mark, the crown) of his God upon his head.” [[@Page:420]] The words readily suggest to us those of the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 11:10, and the appointment itself is best illustrated by a reference to the idea there expressed. Speaking of the propriety of the women wearing long hair, as given to her by nature for a modest covering, and a token of subjection to her husband, the Apostle adds, that “for this reason she must have power upon her head;” i.e. (taking the sign for the thing signified, as circumcision for the covenant, Gen. 17:10), she must wear long hair, covering her head, as a symbol of the power under which she stands, a sign of her subjection to the authority of the man. For the same reason, because the hair did not cover the face, a veil was added, to complete the sign of subjection. But the man, on the other hand, having no earthly superior, and being in his manly freedom and dignity the image of the glory of God, should have his face unveiled, and his hair cropt. Hence it was counted even a shame, a renouncing of the proper standing of a man, a mark of effeminate weakness and degeneracy, for men, like Absalom, to cultivate long tresses. But the Nazarite, who gave himself up by a solemn vow of consecration to God, and who should therefore ever feel the authority and the power of his God upon him, most fitly wore his hair long, as the badge of his entire and willing subjection to the law of his God. By the wearing of this badge he taught the Church then,—and the Church, indeed, of all times,—that the natural power and authority of man, which in nature is so apt to run out into self-will, stubbornness, and pride, must in grace yield itself up to the direction and supremacy of Jehovah. The true child of God has renounced all claim to the control and mastery of his own condition. He feels he is not his own, but bought with a price, and therefore bound to glorify God with his body and spirit, which are His.[3]

The only other restriction laid upon the Nazarite, of a [[@Page:421]] special kind, was in regard to contracting defilement from the dead; for, like the priest, he was discharged from entering into the chamber of death and mourning for his nearest relatives. Separated for God, in whose presence death and corruption can have no place, the Nazarite must ever be found in the habitations and the society of the living. He must have no fellowship with what bore so distinctly impressed on it the curse and wages of sin. But this sin itself is, in the sphere of the spiritual life, what death is in the natural. It is the corruption and death of the soul. And as the Nazarite was here also an embodied lesson regarding things spiritual and divine, he was a living epistle, that might be known and read of all men, warning them to resist temptation and flee from sin—teaching them that, if they would live to God, they must walk circumspectly, and strive to keep themselves unspotted from the world.

Such persons in Israel must have been eminently useful, if raised up in sufficient number, and going with fidelity and zeal through the fulfilment of their vow, in keeping alive upon men’s consciences the holy character of God’s service, and stimulating them to engage in it. The Nazarites are hence mentioned by Amos along with prophets, as among the chosen instruments whom God provided for the good of His people, in proof of His covenant faithfulness and love: “And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites” ([[2:11 >> Bible:Am 2:11]] ). They were a kind of inferior priesthood in the land by their manner of life, as the priests by the duties of their office, acting the part of symbolical lights and teachers to Israel. And the institution was farther honoured by being connected with three of the most eminent servants of God,—Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist,—on whom the vow was imposed from their very birth, to show that they were destined to some special and important work of God. This destination to a high and peculiar [[@Page:422]] service, in connection with the Nazarite vow, still more clearly indicated its symbolical character; the more so, as the end of the institution appears to be always the more fully realized, the higher the individual’s calling, and the more entirely he consecrated himself to its fulfilment. Of the three Nazarites referred to, Samson was unquestionably the least, because in him the spiritual separation and surrender to the Lord was most imperfect: he did not resist the temptation, to which his singular gift of corporeal strength exposed him, of trusting too much to self; and the gift, when exercised, led him to act chiefly on the lower and merely physical territory. Though in one respect a remarkable witness of the wonderful things which God could do, even on that territory, by a single instrument of working, he yet proved in another a sad monument of the inefficacy of such instruments to regenerate and save Israel. A far higher manifestation of Divine power and goodness developed itself in Samuel, by whom, more than all the other judges, the cause of God was revived; and a higher yet again in John the Baptist. But highest and greatest of all was Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the idea of the Nazarite rises to its grand and consummate—realization although in this, as in other things, the outward symbol was dropt, as no longer needed. In Him alone has one been found who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners,” light of light, perfect even as the Father is perfect; so that, without the least flaw of sin or failing of weakness, he executed immeasurably the mightiest undertaking that ever was committed to the charge of a messenger of Heaven.

The offerings prescribed for the Nazarite refer to two points in his history—to his contracting defilement, whereby the vow was broken, and to the period of its fulfilment. In the first case, he had to bring a lamb for a trespass-offering, having, like the leper, contracted a debt in the reckoning of God, by failing to fulfil what he had vowed, and so requiring to be discharged from this bond before anything could be accepted at his hands. One pigeon or turtle-dove for a sin-offering, and another for a burnt-offering, had also to be brought, that he might enter anew on his vow, as from the starting-point of full peace and fellowship with God; and the time past being all lost, his hair had to be cut or shaved, to mark the entirely new commencement. [[@Page:423]] Then, when his period of consecration was finished, he had to bring a whole round of offerings: a sin-offering, in token that, however carefully he might have kept himself for the Lord, sin had still mingled itself with his service, and that he was far from having anything to boast of before God; a burnt-offering, to indicate his desire that not only the sins of the past might be blotted out, but that the imperfection of his obedience to the will of God might be supplemented by a more full, an entire surrender; lastly, a peace-offering, with various kinds of bread and drink-offerings (including wine, of which he also now partook), to manifest that he had ceased from his peculiar state of consecration, and entered upon the more ordinary path of dutiful obedience, in settled friendship and near communion with God.

DISTINCTIONS OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN IN FOOD.

The distinctions made in the Mosaic law regarding food (Lev. 11), are quite analogous in their nature to some of the prescriptions already noticed under the preceding heads, and stand also in several respects very closely related to the sacrificial institutions. From this latter respect, certain portions of all animals were forbidden to be used as food: the blood, the fat that covered the inwards, probably, also, these inwards themselves, and the tail of the sheep, which, in the Syrian sheep, is a mass of fat. These were the portions which were set apart in sacrifice for the altar of the Lord, and were hence regarded as too sacred for common use.—(Lev. 3:17, 17:11) Why such parts in particular were devoted to the altar, has already been considered. With the exception of the parts just mentioned, the bodies of all creatures that could be used in sacrifice were considered as clean, and given for food. More, indeed, than these; for the permission extended to all animals that at once chew the cud and divide the hoof, comprising chiefly the ox, sheep, goat, and deer species—to such fish as have both fins and scales—and in regard to fowls, though no general rule is given, but only individuals are mentioned, yet it would appear that such as feed on grain or grass were allowed. All others, such as birds of prey, feeding on other birds or [[@Page:424]] carrion, or fish, or insects, serpents, and creeping things, fishes without scales or fins, and animals that do not both divide the hoof and chew the cud, were accounted unclean, and expressly forbidden.[4]

Now, in thinking of what was thus prohibited and allowed in respect to food, we can see at a glance that the restrictions could not have been issued for the purpose properly of forming a check upon the gratification of the palate. The articles permitted include, with very few exceptions, all that the most refined and civilised nations still choose for their food. And whether from a certain natural correspondence between the bodily taste and the kinds of meat in question, or from these possessing the qualities best adapted for food and nourishment, or perhaps from both together, one thing is manifest, that the restrictions under which the Israelites were here laid imposed upon them no heavy burden; and that, practically, they were allowed to eat nearly all that it was desirable or proper for them to consume.[5]

Some commentators have rested the whole matter upon this ground; and have thought that the prohibition to use other kinds of flesh was sufficiently accounted for by those allowed being the most easy of digestion, the fullest of nourishment, the [[@Page:425]] best adapted to prevent disease and promote a healthful state of body. In these respects the kinds permitted were certainly of the highest order; but this is the whole that can be said, as some of those prohibited were not absolutely either distasteful or unhealthy. And it was a proof of the Divine wisdom and goodness in this part of the legal arrangements, that the articles appointed for food were among the best which the earth affords. But higher grounds than this must have entered into the distinction; otherwise the line of demarcation would not have been drawn as between clean and unclean, but rather as between wholesome and unwholesome. That the different species permitted were pronounced clean, this evidently brought them within the territory of religion; defilement, excision, death, was the consequence of trespassing the appointed landmarks.—(Lev. 11:43-47) The law respecting the two classes is made to rest, in the passage referred to, upon the same footing with all the rights and institutions of Judaism, viz., the holiness of God, demanding a corresponding holiness on the part of His people. So that the outward distinctions could only have been intended to be observed as symbolical of something inward and spiritual. Of what, then, symbolical?

If we look to the Jewish doctors for the answer, we shall certainly find that they understood by the unclean animals different sorts of people, with whom the Jews were to have no communion, as between brethren—such as the Babylonians, Modes, Persians, Romans, etc. And we can readily perceive how the restrictions in question would, in point of fact, operate to prevent any free and friendly intercourse at meals; for at the table of a heathen, not only might the eye of a Jew be offended by seeing articles served up for food which his law taught him to regard as abominations, but he would scarcely feel at liberty to taste of others, lest in the preparation the flesh had not been carefully separated from the blood and fat. Practically, there can be no doubt, the distinctions as to clean and unclean, lawful and unlawful in food, did, to a great degree, cut off the Jews from social intercourse in meat and drink from the rest of the world. But if we ask, why the forbidden articles of diet should have represented idolatrous nations, rather than any other sources of defilement within the land of Israel itself; [[@Page:426]] or what fitness there was in the particular things prohibited for food, to stand as images of the persons or things to be shunned in the daily intercourse of life,—we shall look in vain for any satisfaction to the Jewish doctors, nor is it possible to find this by treading in their footsteps.

We must look somewhat deeper; and if we do, the leading principles at least of the distinction will be found intelligible enough, and in perfect accordance with the general spirit of the Mosaic economy. The body requires food; and as in all its relations the body was made to image relations of a higher and more important nature, so, in particular, the manner it was dealt with in respect to food must be of a kind fitted to represent what concerned the proper sustenance and enjoyment of the soul. The food, therefore, could not be everything that might come in the way capable of being turned into an article of diet; for in a fallen world the soul that would be in health and prosper, must continually exercise itself to a choosing between the evil and the good. Hence, to present a shadow of this in the lower province of the bodily life, there must here also be an evil and a good—a permitted and a forbidden—a class of things to be taken as lawful and proper, and another class to be rejected as abominable. It must also be God’s own word which should regulate the distinction, which should single out and sanctify certain kinds of food from the animal creation (within which alone the distinction could properly be drawn) for the comfort able support of the body. But, in doing this, the word of God did not act capriciously or without regard to the natural constitution or fitting order of things; and while it prescribed, with an absolute authority, what should or should not be eaten, it selected in each department for man’s use the highest of its kind—whatever it was best and most agreeable to its nature to partake of. But in choosing out such things in the sphere of the bodily life, putting on them a stamp of sacredness, that they might be adapted to the use of a consecrated people, and commanding them to look upon all that lay beyond as common and unclean, what was it but to make the things of that lower sphere speak as a kind of elbow monitor in regard to the higher—to bring perpetually to the remembrance of the covenant people, that they must restrain and regulate the dispositions of their [[@Page:427]] nature, and that, surrounded as they were on every hand with the instruments and occasions of evil, they must be ever directed by a spiritual taste, formed after the pattern of the law of God? The object of the whole was, as expressly stated in Lev. 11:44, that as Jehovah, the Holy One, was their God, they should sanctify themselves, and be also holy. It said—it says still, for though the outward ordinance is gone, its spiritual meaning remains—Child of God, thou must put a bridle in thy mouth, and a rein upon the neck of thy lust; thy path must be chosen with the most careful discrimination, and a holy reserve maintained in thy intercourse with the objects and beings around thee. For the world has a thousand channels through which to pour in upon thee its pollution, and separate between thy soul and God. Let His word, therefore, in all things be thy directory; make the precepts of His mouth thy choice; and since “evil communications corrupt good manners,” set a watch upon thy companionships as well as thy doings: go not in the way of sinners, nor be desirous to eat of their dainties; for righteousness has no part with unrighteousness, and the companion of fools shall be destroyed.

Taking this view of the ordinance, we get at once at the root of the matter, and have no need to search for recondite and fanciful reasons in the scales and fins, or the chewing of the cud and the dividing of the hoof. Neither do we need to stop at the merely external, and in part arbitrary, distinction between one nation and another; for we have here a principle which comprehends that, and much more, within its bosom. We see also how completely the Jews of our Lord’s time erred regarding this ordinance, from their carnal sense and want of spiritual insight. They erred here, as in other things, by resting in the mere outward distinction as if God cared with what sort of flesh the body was sustained! or as if the holiness He was mainly in quest of depended upon the things which ministered to men’s corporeal necessities! Gross and carnal in their ideas, they practically forgot that God is a Spirit, who, in all His ordinances, deals with men as spiritual beings, and seeks to form them to the love and practice of what is morally good. Christ, therefore, sharply rebuked their folly, and declared, with the utmost plainness, that defilement in the eye of God is a disease [[@Page:428]] and corruption of the heart, and that not the kind of food which enters into the body, but the kind of thoughts and affections which come out of the soul, is what properly renders men clean or unclean. This obviously implied that the outward distinction was from the first appointed only for the sake of the spiritual instruction it was fitted to convey. It implied, further, that the outward, as no longer needed, and as now rather tending to mislead, was about to vanish away, that the spiritual and eternal alone might remain. And the vision shortly after unfolded to St Peter, with the direction immediately following, to go and open the door of faith to the Gentiles, as in God’s sight on a footing with those who had eaten nothing common or unclean, made it manifest to all, that as at first the outward symbol had been established for the sake of the spiritual reality, so again, for the sake of that reality which could now be better secured otherwise, the symbol was finally and for ever abolished.

By looking back upon this ancient ordinance, the follower of Christ may be taught to remember: 1. That he is constantly in danger of contracting spiritual defilement, through the love of improper objects, or entering into unhallowed alliances. 2. That he is therefore bound to exercise himself to watchfulness, and to practise self-denial, apart from which the graces of religion can never grow and flourish in the world. 3. But that still, so far from losing by this restraint and discipline of his nature, he is a gainer in everything essential to his real happiness and well-being. The Lord withholds nothing that is good; and the enjoyments He does interdict are only such dangerous and hurtful gratifications as never fail to bring with them a painful recompense of evil.

FOOTNOTE

[1] For the contrast indicated in the passage from Hebrews between the bodily and the spiritual purifications,—as not absolute, but relative,—see under SIN-OFFERING, in sec. 5.

[2] For the contrast indicated in the passage from Hebrews between the bodily and the spiritual purifications,—as not absolute, but relative,—see under SIN-OFFERING, in sec. 5.

[3] We deem this by much the most natural and appropriate view of the Nazarite’s long hair. It is not a new one, but may be found (though only, indeed, as one among other reasons) in Ainsworth, and later commentators; last and best in Baumgarten, Comm. on Num. 6. It also renders the best explanation of the loss of power in Samson, flowing from his allowing his hair to be shorn; for this, viewed in the light presented above, betokened the breaking of his allegiance to his God, ceasing to make God’s arm his dependence, and God’s will his rule. The idea of Hengstenberg—(Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 190), that the long hair was the sign of the Nazarite’s withdrawing from the world to give himself to the Lord, separating from the world’s habits and business, is not sufficiently grounded, more especially as it does not appear that the Nazarite vow bound men actually to bound worldly employments. The idea of Bähr, that the hair of men corresponds to the grass of the earth, the blossoms and leaves of trees, and thus imaged the spiritual blossoms and productions of men, the fruits of holiness, is too fanciful and far-fetched to need any special refutation.

[4] There is very considerable difficulty in making out the precise species of birds interdicted. Several of the modern names given to them, are given merely on the authority of the rabbinical writers, which is not greatly to be depended on. There are twenty in all named; and even as given in our English Bibles, they are, with scarcely an exception, such as are in modern times thought unfit as articles of diet.

[5] The kind of flesh that seems principally to form an exception is pork, which is now in common use, and yet was forbidden food to the Israelites. Indeed, it was regarded as so peculiarly forbidden, that it was sometimes put as the representative of whatever is most foul and abominable.—(Isa. 65:4, 66:3, 17) But though in common use now, it is still esteemed an inferior sort of butcher meat, and chiefly consumed by persons in humble life. And the special dislike to it among the Israelites probably arose in part from their connection with Egypt, where, though once a year every house sacrificed a pig to Osiris, yet the animal itself was accounted unclean; and the swineherds formed an inferior race, with whom the other tribes would not intermarry, and who were not permitted even to enter the temples of the gods.—See Heeren, Afr. ii., p. 148; Wilkinson, i. 239, 3:34, 4:46. The filthy habits of the sow also rendered it a very natural and fitting image of what is impure. Reference to this is expressly made in 2 Pet. 2:22.]

Appendices

Appendix A.—Views of the Reformers Regarding the Sabbath.—P. 142.

WE regret that Hengstenberg, in his recent treatise on the Lord’s day, takes much the same course with those referred to in the note, of producing quotations from the writings of the Reformers, that present only one side of their opinions, and without any qualifying statement as to there being grounds on which they also acknowledged the abiding obligation of a weekly Sabbath. Any one would conclude, from the representation he has given, that the stream of sentiment ran entirely in one direction. There are undoubtedly very strong, as we think, unguarded, and improper, and, as might seem at first sight, quite conclusive declarations in the writings and authorized standards of the Reformers, against Sabbatical observances. Thus Luther, in his larger Catechism, says, ‘God set apart the seventh day, and appointed it to be observed, and commanded that it should be considered holy above all others; and this command, as far as the outward observance was concerned, was given to the Jews alone, that they should abstain from hard labour and rest, in order that both man and beast might be refreshed, and not be worn out by constant work. Therefore this commandment, literally understood, does not apply to us Christians; for it is entirely outward, like other ordinances of the Old Testament, bound to modes, and persons, and times, and customs, all of which are now left free by Christ.’ So again, in the Augsburg Confession, expressing not only the mind of Luther, but also of Melancthon and the leading Lutheran Reformers, ‘Great disputes have arisen concerning the change of the law, concerning the ceremonies of the new law, concerning the change of the Sabbath, which have all sprung from the false persuasion, that the worship in the Church ought to correspond to the Levitical service. They who think that the observance of the Lord’s day was instituted by the Church in place of the Sabbath, as a necessary thing, completely err. Scripture grants that the observance of the Sabbath now is free; for it teaches, that since the introduction of the Gospel, Mosaic ceremonies are no longer necessary.’ To add only one more, and that from the Reformed Church, the Helvetic Confession drawn up in 1566, after referring to the observance of Sunday in early times, and the advantages derived from it, adds the following statement: ‘But we do not tolerate here either superstition or the Jewish mode of [[@Page:508]] observance. For we do not believe that one day is holier than another, or that rest in itself is pleasing to God. We keep the Sunday, not the Sabbath, by a voluntary observance.’

Now, we freely admit that such statements, taken by themselves, and viewed apart from the circumstances of the time, might very naturally be understood to imply an absolute freedom from any proper obligation to keep the Lord’s day. But it ought, first of all, to be borne in mind, that the subject engaged a comparatively small share of the attention of the Reformers, and that, in so far as it did, they were placed in circumstances fitted to give a peculiar bias to their thoughts and language. There is no regular and systematic treatise on the Sabbath in the works of the more eminent divines of that period; it is only incidentally alluded to in connection with other points, such as the power of the Church in decreeing ceremonies, or briefly discussed in their commentaries on Scripture, or, finally, made the subject of a few paragraphs under the Fourth Commandment, in their elements of Christian doctrine. A few minutes might suffice to read what each one of the Reformers has left on record concerning the permanent obligation of the Sabbath; indeed, that part of the question is rather summarily decided on, than calmly and satisfactorily examined. It was only about the beginning of the seventeenth century, when a controversy arose concerning it in Holland, that it began to attract much notice on the Continent, and that a careful investigation was made into the grounds of its existing obligation. Before the meeting of the famous Synod of Dort, considerable heats had been occasioned by the subject in the province of Zealand; and with the view of somewhat allaying these, or at least restraining them within certain bounds, that Synod, in one of its last sederunts, held on the 17th May 1618, and after the departure of the foreign deputies, passed certain resolutions, which were intended to serve as interim rules for the direction of those who might still choose to agitate the controversy, until it might be fully and formally discussed in a future synod. These resolutions were passed in the course of one day, and were carried with the consent of the Zealand brethren themselves, so that they may be regarded as embodying the nearly unanimous judgment of the Dutch Church at that period. They are as follows:—1. “In the Fourth Commandment there is something ceremonial and something moral; 2. The ceremonial was; of the seventh day, and the rigid observance of that day prescribed to the Jewish people; 3. but the moral is, that a certain and stated day was appointed for the worship of God, and such rest as is necessary for the worship of God, and devout meditation upon Him; 4. The Sabbath of the Jews having been abrogated, the Lord’s day must be solemnly sanctified by Christians; 5. From the time of the apostles, this day was always observed in the ancient Catholic Church; 6. The day must be so consecrated to Divine worship, that there shall be a cessation from all servile works, excepting those which are done on account of some present necessity, and from such recreations as are discordant with the worship of God.”

The publishing of these resolutions had not the desired effect; for neither did the controversy cease, nor was it carried on within the prescribed bounds. [[@Page:509]] A few years afterwards, a treatise on the subject was published by Gomar, then at the head of the Calvinists, disputing two or three of the resolutions. Ho was soon replied to at considerable length by Walaeus; and still more elaborately, some years later, by J. Altingius. It was then first that the points connected with the permanent obligation of the Fourth Commandment came to be fully discussed in the churches of the Reformation. And if certain mistakes in the way of handling the matter appeared in the writings of the earlier divines, we may be the lees surprised, when we know the comparatively small share it had in their inquiries and meditations.[1]

But if we further take into account the circumstances in which they were placed, we shall be still less surprised at the particular error they adopted; for these naturally gave their minds the bias which led them to embrace it. The gigantic system of heresy and corruption against which they had to contend, was chiefly distinguished by the multitude of its superstitious rites and ceremonies, and the substitution of an outward attendance upon these for a simple faith in Christ, as the ground of men’s acceptance before God. This false method of salvation by works had branched itself out into so many ramifications, and had taken such a powerful hold of the minds of men, that the Reformers were in a manner constrained to speak of all outward observances as in themselves worthless, and not properly required to the salvation of sinners. They represented, in the strongest terms, the inward nature of the kingdom of God, its independence of things in themselves, outward and ceremonial, so that no bodily service, merely as such, was incumbent upon Christians as it had been in Judaism, but was only to be used as a help for ministering to, or an occasion for exercising, the graces of a Christian life. Hence, in the Augsburg Confession, difference of days and distinctions of food are classed together, as things about which so many false opinions had gathered, that “though in themselves indifferent, they had become no longer so.” And the false opinions are particularly specified to be such as tended to produce the conviction, that people thought themselves entitled by those corporeal satisfactions to deserve the remission of their sins. Melancthon, in his defence of that Confession, arguing against the idea so prevalent regarding the Church and her external ceremonies, affirms that “the apostles did not wish us to consider such rites as necessary to our justification before God. They did not wish to impose any burden of that kind upon our consciences; did not wish that righteousness and sin should be placed in the observance of days, of food, and such things. Nay, Paul declares opinions of such a kind to be doctrines of devils.” In like manner, Calvin, in his remarks upon the Fourth Commandment, contained in his Institutes, says that as the Jewish Sabbath was but a shadow of Christ, “there ought to be amongst Christians no superstitious observance of days:” and that to regard the sanctification of every seventh, though not precisely the last, day of the week, as the moral part of the Fourth Commandment, was “only to change [[@Page:510]] the day in despite of the Jews, and at the same time to keep up in the mind the conviction of its sanctity.” Quotations of a like import might be multiplied almost indefinitely; but there can be no need for it, as all who are even moderately acquainted with the times and writings of the Reformers must know, that from the circumstances in which they were placed, and the peculiar nature of the warfare they were called to wage, such expressions regarding outward ceremonies in general, and the sanctification of the Lord’s day in particular, are both of frequent occurrence and easily accounted for. At the same time, though such expressions unquestionably involve a doctrinal error, so far as the Lord’s day at least is concerned, no one really acquainted with the spirit of their writings can need to be told that it is the mere opus operatum,—the outward service alone that is there spoken of. Nothing more, after all, is meant, than that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink,—that there is no essential inherent sanctity in the days and observances considered by themselves, as apart from the way in which they are used, and the ends for which they are appointed. That the Reformers did not mean the statements referred to, to be taken in the most unqualified sense, is evident alone from their views of the primeval Sabbath. They held, we believe, without any exception worth naming, that the weekly Sabbath appointed at the creation had a universal aspect, and has a descending obligation to future times. We have already given the judgment of Calvin, and also of Luther, on this subject.—(See p. 142.)

Beza was of the same mind, as will appear from a quotation to be produced shortly. So also Peter Martyr, who, in his Loci Com., says,—”God could indeed have appointed all or many days for His own worship; but since He knew that we were doomed to eat our bread by the sweat of our face, He rested one in seven, on which, discarding other works, we should apply to that alone.” And Bullinger, who says on Matt. 12,—”Sabbath signifies rest, and is taken for that day which was consecrated to rest. But the observance of that rest was always famous and of highest antiquity, not invented and brought forth for the first time by Moses when he introduced the law; for in the Decalogue it is said, ‘Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,’ thereby admonishing them that it was of ancient institution.” And to pass over many of the learned writers, from whom similar extracts might be taken, we conclude with the testimony of Pareus, who, though not properly a Reformer, was yet the disciple of the Reformers, and who, in his commentary on Gen. 2:3, says,—”It pertains to us to keep holy the day sanctified by God, by imitating His rest. To imitate the rest of God is not to be idle, to do nothing, for God was not idle, nor did He bless idleness; neither is it to feign that a sanctity was impressed upon that day (as hypocrites do, who make an idol of the Sabbath); but it is, according to God’s example, to cease from our works, that is, from sins, which properly are our works, tending most of all to desecrate the Sabbath, and from the labours of this life, to which the six days are destined. It is, further, to apply the Sabbath to Divine worship, by teaching, hearing, meditating, doing those things which pertain to the true knowledge and worship of God, to the love of our neighbour, and our own salvation. Such sanctification is suitable [[@Page:511]] lay; for in blessing the seventh day, God did not curse other days; but the sanctification was, by way of distinction, pronounced upon that day, on which no other labours were to entangle us.”

It is evident, that with such views regarding the original appointment and descending obligation of a weekly Sabbath, the Reformers could only have disowned the duty of keeping a Christian Sabbath by being inconsistent with themselves, and could only have denied the abiding obligation of the Fourth Commandment by holding some peculiar notions (different from those now generally entertained) respecting the import of that commandment. We believe that they were at one in holding the Decalogue to be the revelation of the moral law, and as such, therefore, binding in all its precepts upon men of every age and condition of life. As a specimen, we may take what Melancthon says of it in the introduction to his treatise on the Decalogue, contained in vol. 2. of his works, which he begins with these words: “It is necessary to retain the usual division; the principal part of the law is called the moral, which is the Decalogue rightly understood.” Then, shortly after, describing this Decalogue, as a whole, he says,—”THE MORAL LAW is the eternal and unchangeable wisdom that is in God, and a rule of life, distinguishing what is right from what is wrong, commanding the one, and with severe indignation forbidding the other, the knowledge of which was in creation implanted in rational creatures, and afterwards often repeated, and by Divine voice proclaimed, that men might know that God is, and what He is, and that He is a Judge who obliges all His rational creatures to be conformed to Himself, to yield our obedience entirely accordant with His law, and accusing and destroying all that are not possessed of this conformity.” In like manner, Calvin, in his Institutes, heads the chapter which treats of the Decalogue, “An explanation of the Moral Law,” describes it as “the rule of perfect righteousness,” and gives it as the reason why God has set up this law in writing before us, “both that it might testify with more certainty what in the law of nature was too obscure, and might more vividly, as by a palpable form, strike our mind and memory.”

Regarding the Decalogue in this light, the Reformers plainly ought to have considered the Fourth Commandment, as well as the others, of universal and permanent obligation. And yet it is certain they did not. They laid down right premises on the subject, while, by some strange over sight or misapprehension, they failed to draw the conclusion these inevitably lead to. It was the unanimous opinion of those divines, that the rest enjoined in the Fourth Commandment was of a ceremonial and typical nature,—that, as Luther expresses himself, “it was entirely outward,” and as such, therefore, consummated and done away in Christ. Even Alting could not get rid of this view of the matter, and consequently feels himself necessitated to maintain the extreme position, that man was not only made, but also sinned and fell on the sixth day, and that the rest of the Sabbath having been brought in subsequent to the fall, was even, in its first observance, a type of redemption. By such a position, though too improbable to be generally received, he of course vindicated his consistence, [[@Page:512]] in regard to the rest of the Sabbath, as being from the first of a typical nature. The Reformers, however, cannot receive the benefit of the same vindication, not having broached the opinion that the original institution of the Sabbath was subsequent to the fall. The inconsistence probably never struck them, from the subject having occupied so comparatively small a share of their attention. And what seems more than anything else to have misled them, was the passage in Colossians, where, “Sabbath days “are classed by the Apostle among the things which were shadows of Gospel truth, and hence done away when Christ, the substance, came. They constantly bring forward this passage when speaking of the ceremonial and typical nature of the Jewish Sabbath.

But how did they reconcile to their own minds the manifest inconsistence of at once holding the Fourth Commandment to be of moral and perpetual obligation, and, at the same time, of considering the sacred rest imposed in that commandment as of a ceremonial nature, and only of temporary obligation! There was here a real difficulty in the way; and though we find some variety in their endeavours to get rid of it, yet they all concurred in introducing into this part of the Decalogue the distinction—at variance as it was with the general view they entertained of that code of precepts—that the precept was partly ceremonial and partly moral. It was ceremonial, as interdicting all servile work, and enjoining a day of outward unbroken rest,—thus typifying the peaceful and blessed rest which believers enjoy in Christ; free alike from the labours of sin and the fears of guilt. But did the typical stand in that day of rest being simply one in every seven, or in its being precisely the seventh and last of the ever-returning cycle? Here we find great diversity of opinion. And did the moral stand in the appointment of one day in every seven, though not precisely the last in order, as a day of bodily rest and spiritual employment, or more generally, in its requiring adequate and proper times to be set apart for these merciful and holy purposes? Here also no less diversity.

Some of the Reformers descended so little into particulars, that we cannot, for certain, know what opinion they held on these points. For example, Melancthon, in his Loci Theol., and in his treatise, De Lege Divina (using almost the same words), writes thus:—”In this commandment there are properly said to be two parts—the one natural, the other moral; the one the genus, the other the species. Of the former it is said, that the natural part or genus is perpetual, and cannot be abrogated, as being a command concerning the maintenance of the public ministry, so that on some one day the people should be taught, and divinely appointed ceremonies handled. But the species, which bears respect to the seventh day in particular, is abrogated.” He carefully avoids saying whether he looked upon the abolition as standing in the change of the day from the seventh to some other; and also, whether the morality of the commandment required the day preserved to be some one day in every week. His language does not necessarily imply any positive decision on these points, although the natural inference is, that by the day still to be observed for pious purposes, he meant one day in each week; and by the abrogation of [[@Page:513]] the species, the mere removal of that day from the last to another day of the week, the first.

The opinions of the reformed divines, however, are generally expressed with sufficient distinctness upon the points in question; and they divide themselves into two leading classes. One class, with Calvin at their head, maintained that the typical mystery of the sabbatical rest stood not simply in its being held on the seventh or last day, but in that along with the other six preceding days of work—in the number seven viewed as one whole, and terminating in the most strict and rigorous cessation from all labour; hence the removal of the day from the last to the first of the week, if the day itself was still viewed in precisely the same character, did not essentially alter the nature of the institution: the number seven was still preserved, and if viewed in the same light, and in all its parts held equally binding as before, the Jewish ordinance, in their estimation, was substantially retained. Considering the sabbatical rest, therefore, of every seventh day as a shadow of Gospel realities, they conceived that the moral obligation couched under the figure could be carried no further than to impose the necessity of setting apart such times as might be sufficient to maintain the worship of God; but that it did not strictly bind Christians to confine themselves to one day in seven, as if to take more would be to err in excess, or to take fewer would be to err by deficiency. The exact length of the period which was to separate one day of rest from another, under the Christian dispensation, they held should be determined by other considerations. But did they, therefore, question that that should be one in seven? Not in the least, for there were considerations enough besides to fix that as the proper rotation. Gomar, indeed, says that days for the solemn worship and service of God ought to be more frequent now than under the Jewish dispensation; and he gives us to understand, that to impress this upon the minds of Christians, was one of his reasons for undertaking to show the abrogation of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath: for God, he contends in sec. 5th, imposes only one day in seven upon the Jews, because they were a carnal and stiff-necked people, and were burdened with many heavy ceremonies; and hence arises a clear obligation, in the altered and improved circumstances of Christians, to have, when they can, more frequent days of sacred rest for the worship of God. Gomar, therefore, held the propriety, and even the obligation, if circumstances permitted, to have a more frequent than a seventh-day sabbath.

But he seems to stand alone in connecting such an obligation with the Fourth Commandment. The Reformers, at any rate, appear to have had no doubt that the day to be observed for holy purposes was to be one in each week, not excepting those of them who took the most general view of the moral obligation imposed in the Fourth Commandment, feeling themselves drawn to that conclusion by a regard to the other purposes for which it was given, as well as from the primeval character of the ordinance, and the recorded procedure of the Apostolic Church in keeping the first day of the week. Luther, in his German annotations on the Fourth Commandment, says,—”Although the Sabbath is now abolished, and the conscience is freed [[@Page:514]] from it, it is still good, and even necessary, that men should keep a particular day in the week for the sake of the word of God, on which they are to meditate, hear, and learn, for all cannot command everyday; and nature also requires that one day in the week should be kept quiet, without labour either for man or beast.” In like manner, in his Larger Catechism, after stating that the worship of God is “not now bound to certain times, as it was among the Jews, as if this day or that were to be preferred for such a purpose, for no day is better or more excellent than another,” he goes on to remark, that “since the mass of men cannot attend on it every day, from the entanglements of business, some one day, at the least, in the week must be chosen for giving heed to that matter,”—mentioning the example set by the Apostolic Church in choosing the first day of the week as what ought to determine the Church in succeeding times. Calvin is, if possible, still more decided; for he holds, that even as imposed upon the children of Israel in the Fourth Commandment, the Sabbath was designed not merely to prefigure spiritual rest, but also to afford an opportunity for engaging in religious exercises, and for a respite from labour to the humbler classes of society. And, “since these two latter reasons,” he remarks in his Institutes, “ought not to be numbered amongst the ancient shadows, but alike concern all ages, although the Sabbath is abolished, it yet has that place among us, that on stated days we meet for hearing the word of God, for partaking of the Lord’s Supper, and for public prayers; also that servants and work-people may have a respite from labour.” And a little afterwards, more expressly, bespeaks of “the Apostle having retained the Sabbath” for the poor of the Christian community, so far keeping up the distinction of days, and of the danger of superstition being almost taken away by the substitution of another day of the week for religious purposes, instead of that which the Jews held to be peculiarly sacred.

There was, however, another class of opinions, or rather of divines holding the opinion, that the sabbatical rest, as enjoined upon the Jews in the Fourth Commandment, was indeed typical of the spiritual rest of the Gospel, but that the mystery or type existed in the day of rest being precisely the seventh or last day of the week—that the moral obligation contained in the precept for all times and ages, was its imposing the duty of hallowing one day in seven,—and that, consequently, by changing the day from the last to the first, which was done by the apostles under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the moral part of the commandment was retained in full force, while the Jewish mystery necessarily ceased. This more correct opinion was, I should say, more generally adopted by the earlier divines after the Reformation, than the one just considered. Beza may first be mentioned, who thus writes on Rev. 1:10: “He calls that day the Lord’s, which Paul names the first of the week (μία σαββάτων), 1 Cor. 16:2, on which day it appears that even then the Christians were accustomed to hold their own regular meetings, as the Jews were wont to meet in the synagogue on the Sabbath, for the purpose of showing that the Fourth Commandment, concerning the sanctification of every seventh day, was ceremonial, as far as it respected the particular day of rest and the legal services, but that, as [[@Page:515]] regards the worship of God, it was a precept of the moral law, which is perpetual and unchanging during the present life. That day of rest had stood, indeed, from the creation of the world to the resurrection of our Lord, which being as another creation of a new spiritual world (according to the language of the prophets), was made the occasion (the Holy Spirit, beyond doubt, directing the apostles) for assuming, instead of the Sabbath of the former age, or the seventh day, the first day of this world, on which, not the corporeal and corruptible light created on the first day of the old world, but this heavenly and eternal light, hath shone upon us. Therefore the assemblies of the Lord’s day are of apostolical and truly divine tradition; yet so that a Jewish cessation from all work should not be observed, since this would manifestly be not to abolish Judaism, but only to change what respected the particular day. This, however, was afterwards introduced by Constantine, as appears from Eusebius and the laws of the emperor, and was afterwards, by succeeding emperors, restrained within still narrower bounds: till at length, what was first instituted for a good purpose, and is still properly retained, namely, that he mind, freed from its daily labours, should give it itself wholly up to the hearing of the word of God,—came to degenerate into mere Judaism, or rather the most vain will-worship, innumerable other holy-days having been added to it.”

This passage puts it beyond a doubt that, according to Beza, the ceremonial part of the Fourth Commandment consisted only in the particular day, and the bodily rest, and that the moral part required still one day in seven to be set apart for the worship of God. What he says of the manner in which the rest should now be observed, will fall to be noticed under the next head. Peter Martyr expresses the same opinion in his Loci Communes, under the Fourth Commandment, remarking, that “as in other ceremonies there is something abiding and eternal, and something changeable and temporal (as in circumcision and baptism, it is perpetual that they who belong to the covenant of God, and are admitted among His people, should be distinguished by some outward sign), the kind of sign was changeable and temporary; for that it might be done, either by the cutting off of the fore skin, or by the washing with water, God manifested by His appointment. In like manner, that one fixed day in seven should be set free (mancipetur) for the worship of God, is fixed and determined; but whether this or that day should be appointed, is temporary and changeable.” To the same effect also, Ursinus, the friend of Melancthon, in his Catechism,—”That the first part of the command (that, namely, which enjoins the keeping holy of a seventh-day Sabbath) is moral and perpetual, appears from the end of the institution, and the reasons assigned for it, which are perpetual.” Then, mentioning these, he concludes, that as “they relate to no definite period, but to all times and ages of the world, it follows that God wished to bind men from the beginning of the world even to its end, to keep a certain Sabbath.” And again: “Though the ceremonial Sabbath is abrogated in the New Testament, a moral Sabbath still remains, and itself therefore a kind of ceremonial Sabbath, i.e., some regular time must be set apart for the ministry. For it is not less needful now in the Christian than it was formerly [[@Page:516]] in the Jewish Church, that there be some fixed day on which the word of God may be taught, and the sacraments publicly administered, which, however, we are not strictly bound to make either the third, fourth, fifth, or any other determinate day of the week.” He evidently means that, so far as the morality of the Fourth Commandment is concerned, it simply obliges us to one day in the seven. It is almost unnecessary to mention the names of more who adhered to this opinion. We may just add, that it seems to have been that of Bucer, and of Viret, the colleague of Calvin; that it was the opinion of Pareus is certain, as it seems also to have been that of the Synod of Dort, if we may judge from what may be regarded as the natural import of their resolutions; and both Walaeus and Altingius have not only affirmed it as their opinion, but are at considerable pains to prove that the very substance of the Fourth Commandment is its requiring the sanctifying of one day in seven for the service of God,—that unless it included an obligation to this, there could be no proper meaning in the express mention of six days as the appointed period of weekly labour, continually succeeded by another of rest, and no force in the appeal to God’s example and work in creation,—and consequently, that while the moral requires the observance of one day in seven, the ceremonial ceased when the change took place from the last to the first day of the week.

There is still another point, on which it is of importance to give a correct exhibition of the views of the Reformers, viz., in regard to the due observance of the Lord’s day, the Christian Sabbath. Here it is necessary to premise at the outset, what must have occasionally struck those who have read the preceding quotations, that some of the reformed divines looked upon the cessation from work on Sabbath as more strictly and absolutely required of the Jews than is now binding on Christians, and that the entireness of the prohibition in that respect was essential to the mystery wrapt up in the Sabbath. In proof of this they generally refer to such passages as Exodus 16:23, 35:3, which they understand as prohibiting all preparation of food even on Sabbath. Altingius has endeavoured to show, and I think with perfect success, that such was not really the meaning of those passages, and that such works as were necessary for the ordinary support and refreshment of the body were always permitted, and practised too, among the Jews. We have already discussed this point, however, and shall not further refer to it here. But the Reformers undoubtedly did believe that a degree of rigour, an extent of prohibition, belonged to the Jewish Sabbath, for which we find no proper warrant in Scripture; and well knowing, from New Testament Scripture, that no such yoke was laid upon the Christian Church, they naturally drew the equally unwarranted conclusion, that the strictness of prohibition as to the performance of works requiring labour was somewhat relaxed. In using such language, they still did not mean that ordinary works might be performed on any plea of worldly convenience or pleasure, but such only as were performed by our Lord,—works required for the necessary support or the comfort of men, and some of which at least they conceived to have been interdicted to the Jews, for the purpose of rendering their sabbatical rest more exactly typical of the spiritual rest enjoyed by believers in Christ.

[[@Page:517]] For the proof of this we can appeal to a case which will put the matter, in regard to one great man at least, beyond a doubt,—we mean the venerable Calvin. During his lifetime a book was published by some Dutchman, in which the lawfulness of images in Divine worship, to a certain extent, was maintained on the following ground:—That though all use of images, and consequently all kinds of image-worship, were prohibited in the Second Commandment, yet this was not to be understood too rigorously; for we have the same exclusive prohibition of all work on Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment, and yet we know that Christ both did and allowed certain kinds of work on that day: so that either He must be held to have violated the Sabbath, or the commandment must be regarded as less strict in its prohibitions of work than the plain import of its words would lead us to suppose,—an alternative, he contended, which would render it equally consistent with the purport of the Second Commandment to make some use of images in the worship of God. Calvin wrote a reply to this treatise, which is contained in vol. 8 of the Amsterdam edition of his works. We quote only that part of it which bears upon our present subject. At p. 486 he says, “They who profess Christianity have always understood that the obligation by which the Jews were bound to observe the Sabbath-day was temporary. But it is quite otherwise in regard to idolatry. I grant it, indeed (that is, the Sabbath), as the bark of a spiritual substance, the use of which is still in force, of denying ourselves, of renouncing all our own thoughts and affections, and of bidding farewell to one and all of our own employments (operibus nostris universis valedicendi), so that God may reign in us, then of employing ourselves in the worship of God, learning from His word, in which is to be found our salvation, and of meeting together for making public profession of our faith,—all which differ from the Jewish shadows; for it was so servile a yoke to the Jews, that they were bound on one day of each week to abstain from all work, so that it was even a capital offence to gather wood or bear any burden.” And then he goes on to defend Jesus from the charge of having broken the Fourth Commandment by performing works of healing on the Sabbath, on the ground that such works did not fall within the prohibition,—that they were properly God’s works, and in no age, on no occasion, were unseasonable or improper.

It is singular that this great man did not here perceive the full force of his own argument, and is another proof that the subject had not, in all its bearings, been fully weighed by his masterly mind. For the same argument which he applied to the defence of Christ in the liberties He personally took with the sabbatical rest, would, if properly carried out, have equally availed to show that the Sabbath, as imposed upon the Jews, was not the servile yoke it is here represented; that all work was not absolutely forbidden to them on that day,—not simply the engaging in any worldly employment, or the bearing of any burden, for whatever purpose, but only such as was done in the way of ordinary traffic or worldly business,—for purposes merely of temporal profit or carnal pleasure, not immediately called for by any proper plea of necessity or mercy. It is strange also that Calvin, and many of the other Reformers, should have spoken so often of the Sabbath enjoined in [[@Page:518]] the Fourth Commandment, as if it had been an ordinance of mere bodily rest. They did not so interpret the other commandments. They did not make the fulfilment of the second to stand in the mere rejection of idolatry, nor that of the sixth in the simple withholding of the hand from murder; and why should they ever have thought or spoken as if the fourth only enjoined a day of outward rest, and not that rather as a means for the higher end of sanctification? But with such mistakes regarding the Jewish Sabbath, properly considered, the above passage from Calvin gives us very distinctly to understand how he conceived the ordinance of the Sabbath, as still binding on the Church, should be observed; that though the obligation was not the same in his judgment as in the Jewish Church, yet so much was it to be made a day of spiritual and sacred rest, that not only is it to be hallowed by the denying and crucifying of our sinful affections, but also by taking a solemn leave of our own, that is, undoubtedly, our common worldly occupations, and employing ourselves in the public and private exercises of God’s worship. The distinction, as he regarded it, between the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath, was not that the latter did, while the other did not admit, of manual labour or worldly employments, without any urgent plea of necessity or mercy, but that the Jewish Sabbath so rigorously enforced the outward rest, as to prevent things being done which were necessary to the ordinary comfort, or conducive to the higher interests of man. He held the obligation still in force to keep the Sabbath, as a day set apart for the peculiar worship and service of God, liable to be interrupted only by doing what might be required for the relief of our present wants, or by labours of love for our fellow-creatures.

At the risk of being tedious, and for the sake of removing all possible doubt about the real sentiments of Calvin concerning the way in which the Christian Sabbath ought to be spent, we produce other two extracts from his works,—passages found in his discourses (in French) to the people of Geneva on the Ten Commandments. The fifth and sixth of these treat of the Sabbath. And in the fifth, after having stated his views regarding the Sabbath as a typical mystery, in which respect he conceived it to be abolished, he comes to show how far it was still binding, and declares that, as an ordinance of government for the worship and service of God, it pertains to us as well as to the Jews. “The Sabbath, then,” says he, “should be to us a tower whereon we should mount aloft to contemplate afar the works of God, when we are not occupied nor hindered by anything besides, from stretching forth all our faculties in considering the gifts and graces which He has bestowed on us. And if we properly apply ourselves to do this on the Sabbath, it is certain that we shall be no strangers to it during the rest of our time, and that this meditation shall have so formed our minds, that on Monday, and the other days of the week, we shall abide in the grateful remembrance of our God,” etc. Again: “It is for us to dedicate ourselves wholly to God, renouncing ourselves, our feelings, and all our affections; and then, since we have this external ordinance, to act as becomes us, that is, to lay aside our earthly affairs and occupations, so that we may be entirely free (vaquions du tout) to meditate the works of God, may exercise ourselves [[@Page:519]] in considering the gifts which He has afforded us, and, above all, may apply ourselves to apprehend the grace which He daily offers us in His Gospel, and may be more and more conformed to it. And when we shall have employed the Sabbath in praising and magnifying the name of God, and meditating His works, we must, through the rest of the week, show how we have profited thereby.”

It is only necessary to bear in mind the explanation already given regarding the sentiments generally entertained by the Reformers of the Jewish Sabbath, to see that Beza, in his remarks on Rev. 1:2, is of the same mind with Calvin, as to the exclusion of worldly employments from the proper observance of the Lord’s day. When he speaks there of a Jewish cessation from all work not being now imperative, he evidently means in the sense already explained—the mistaken sense, as we have endeavoured to show; for he not only affirms that the sanctification of the seventh day was a part of the moral law, as regards the worship of God, ceremonial only in so far as it respected the particular day and the legal services, but also expresses it as proper, on that day, for the mind to be freed from its daily labours, that it may give itself wholly up to the hearing of the word of God. And that Viret, another of Calvin’s colleagues, entirely concurred with him regarding the due sanctification of the Lord’s day, his discourse on the Fourth Commandment is abundant evidence. For he thus expresses himself there:—”Since we have from God everything we possess, soul, body, and outward estate, we ought never to do anything else all our lives, than what He requires and demands of us for the true and entire sanctification of the day of rest. Nevertheless, we see that He assigns and permits us six days for doing our own business, and of the seven He reserves for Himself only one—as if He had contented Himself with the seventh part of the time which was specially given up and consecrated to Him, and that all the rest was to be ours. . . . . What ingratitude is it, if, in yielding us six parts of the seven, which we owe Him, we do not at the least strive with all our power to surrender the other part, which He exacts of us, as a token of our fidelity and homage!” Then, in reference to the objection that it seemed to follow from his views of the Sabbath, that after the public duties were over men might spend the remaining hours of the day in other occupations, he replies,—”Since we are permitted all other days of the week excepting this for attending to our bodily concerns, it seems to me that we hold very cheap the service of God and the ministry of the Church, on which we ought to wait more diligently on that day than any other, if we cannot find means for employing one whole day of the week in things which God requires of us upon it. For they are of such weight, and consequence that we must take care, in every manner possible, lest we occupy ourselves with anything which might turn our attention elsewhere; so that we may not bring our hearts by halves, but that ourselves and all our family may without detraction apply,” etc.

Bucer, the friend both of Luther and Calvin, expresses sentiments quite similar in the fifteenth chapter of his work on the kingdom of Christ: “Since our God, with singular goodness towards us, has sanctified one day [[@Page:520]] out of seven, for the quickening of our faith, and so of life eternal, and blessed that day, that the sacred exercises of religion performed on it might be effectual to the promoting of our salvation, he verily shows himself to be a wretched despiser, at once of his own salvation and of the wonderful kindness of our God towards us, and therefore utterly unworthy of living among the people of God, who does not study to sanctify that day to the glorifying of his God, and the furthering of his own salvation, especially since God has granted six days for our works and employments, by which we may support a present life to His glory.” Then, in reference to the neglect of daily worship, through the carelessness of some and the impediments in the way of others, he asks, “Who, therefore, does not see how advantageous it is to the people of Christ, that one day in seven should be so consecrated to the exercises of religion, that it is not lawful (fas) to do any other kind of work than assemble in the sacred meeting, and there hear the word of God, pour out prayers before God, make profession of faith, and give thanks to God,—present sacred offerings, and receive divine sacraments, and so, with undivided application, glorify God, and make increase in faith? For these are the true works of religious holy-days.” And he goes on to mention, with satisfaction, the laws made by Constantine, and other emperors, to prohibit by penalties the transaction of ordinary business, the exhibition of spectacles, and such things, on the Lord’s day.

It is abundantly obvious, from the quotations already given, that the Reformers, from whom they are taken, inculcated the duty of keeping the Lord’s day not in part merely, but as a day of spiritual rest and sacred employment; and of doing this, first of all, by ceasing from all ordinary labours and occupations, in so far as the claims of necessity might permit; then, by giving attendance upon the means of grace in public; and finally, by ordering our thoughts and behaviour during the other parts of the day, so as still to make it available to our spiritual improvement. The more express and definite statements contained in these quotations prove, that though frequently in the writings of the Reformers the duties proper to the observance of the Lord’s day are spoken of in a general way, as consisting in doing what pertains to the preservation and improvement of the public ministry, they did not, by so speaking, mean to intimate, that, excepting what was spent at church, the time might be taken up in any worldly business or recreation. They are most pointed in excluding all worldly occupations whatever,—the proper work of the six days, whether done for profit or for pleasure. And in dwelling so specially as they sometimes do upon the public ministry, it was not as if they slighted the more private and family duties—for these, we see, they also enforced—but only because they regarded them as in a manner bound up with a faithful attendance upon the public services of religion. For the school of Geneva, in particular, as it existed under the teaching of Calvin, Viret, and Beza, nothing can be more satisfactory than the manner in which they practically inculcated the devout and solemn observance of the Lord’s day; and that their own practice, and their general doctrine upon the subject, was in perfect accordance with the extracts that have been produced, we have a striking proof in the taunt [[@Page:521]] which Calvin, in his Institutes, says was thrown out against them by some restless spirits, as he calls them (probably the libertine Anabaptists), “that the Christian people were nursed in Judaism,” because they keep the Lord’s day. The very accusation bespeaks how strict was the enforcement of that day, and how orderly its observance at Geneva during the ascendancy of those great men.

In reality, the observance of the Lord’s day practised at Geneva, and enforced by Calvin and the other Reformers, differed very materially from the Judaical observance, according to the notions of the later Jews; and it was, no doubt, partly their regard to these notions, which led the Reformers astray as to their ideas of the import of the Fourth Commandment. They suffered themselves to be unduly biassed by the maxims and the legislation of the synagogue on the subject, as if these were properly grounded in the Divine command, and not rather the turning of its benignant spirit into an oppressive and irksome yoke. How much they made it of this description, and how justly the Reformers might speak of our being delivered from the Jewish yoke, in the sense now mentioned, may be seen by looking into that portion of the Mischna which treats of the Sabbath. There, the securing of a merely outward, corporeal rest, as opposed to labour or work, is treated as the whole object of the command; and a yoke of numberless restrictions and prohibitions is imposed, for the purpose of determining what is work and what is not, with reference to the law of the Sabbath. As specimens of the vexatious trifling to which this Rabbinical legislation has descended, the following may be taken. The question is asked, With what species of wick the lamps may be lighted on the Sabbath, and with what not? And as many as fourteen substances are specified which might not be used, and about half as many which might. “He that extinguishes the lamp, because he is afraid of heathen, of robbers, of an evil spirit, or that the sick may sleep, is absolved; but if to save his lamp, oil, or wick, he is guilty.” “The tailor must not go out with his needle near dusk [on the Sabbath eve], lest he forget and carry it out with him [after the Sabbath has begun]. The scribe is not to go out with his writing-reed; nor must a man cleanse his garments of vermin, or read by candle-light.” “An egg must not be put at the side of a hot kettle, that it become seethed, nor must it be wrapt in hot cloths, nor must it be put into hot sand or dust, that it be roasted.” “Into a pot or kettle, which has been moved from the fire boiling, a man must not put spice; but he may do so in a dish or on a plate.” “If a man carries a loaf into the public reshuth, he is guilty; if two carry it they are absolved [namely, because in the one case a man does a complete work, but in the other not].” “He who pairs his nails, or who pulls the hair out of his head, or off his lip, or out of his beard; likewise a woman who plaits her hair, or dyes her eyebrows, or who parts the hair on her forehead; the sages prohibit all these, on the score of their violating the Sabbath rest.” Thus the subject is prosecuted through twenty-four chapters, setting forth all manner of frivolous distinctions for the purpose of deciding what is work and what not, and, by consequence, what may and what may not be done on the Sabbath. Had this miserable and petty legislation really been [[@Page:522]] warranted by the Fourth Commandment, we need not say it had been utterly at variance with the spirit of the Gospel; since it would place the most selfish and inactive formalist in the highest rank of observers of the Divine law. But a Sabbath observance made up of such external punctilios never was required by God: it is the ignorance and folly of the Rabbinical Jews, as of modern Anti-Sabbatarians, to suppose that it was; and it was in some degree, also the mistake of the Reformers, to think that the command, as imposed upon the Jews, gave a certain countenance to the error. The kind of observance really required by the Divine precept was of a far higher kind; and it is that which the better part of the Reformers in past times, as well as evangelical Christians in the present, hold to be matter of abiding obligation.

It appears, then, upon a full and careful examination of the whole matter, that the Reformers and the most eminent divines, for about a century after the Reformation, were substantially sound upon the question of the Sabbath, in so far as concerns the obligation and practice of Christians. Amid some mistaken and inconsistent representations, they still, for the most part, held that the Fourth Commandment strictly and morally binds men in every age to set apart one whole day in seven for the worship and service of God. They all held the institution of the Sabbath at the creation of the world, and derived thence the obligation upon men of all times to cease every seventh day from their own works and occupations. Finally, they held it to be the duty of all sound Christians to use the Lord’s day as a Sabbath of rest to Him,—withdrawing themselves not only from sin and vanity, but also from those worldly employments and recreations which belong only to a present life, and yielding themselves wholly to the public exercises of God’s worship and to the private duties of devotion, excepting only in so far as any urgent call of necessity or mercy might come in the way to interrupt them. We avow this to be a fair and faithful representation of the sentiments of those men upon the subject, after a patient consideration of what they have written concerning it. We trust we have furnished materials enough from their writings, for enabling our readers to concur intelligently in that representation. They will see that the summary given by Gualter of their views (as quoted at p. 141) is greatly nearer the mark than the one-sided representation of Hengstenberg. And they will henceforth know how to estimate the assertions of those who, after dancing into the works of the Reformers, and picking up a few partial and disjointed statements, presently set themselves forth as well acquainted with the whole subject, and as fully entitled to say that the Reformers agree with them in holding men at liberty, after they may have been at church, to work, or travel, or enjoy themselves as they please, on other parts of the Sabbath. Such persons may be honest in representing this as the mind of the Reformers, but it must not be forgotten that their credit for honesty in the matter rests upon no better ground than that of ignorance and presumption.

It were wrong to bring our remarks on this subject to a close without pointing to the important lesson furnished, both to private Christians and to [[@Page:523]] the Church at large, by the melancholy consequences which soon manifested themselves as the fruit of that one doctrinal error into which the Reformers did certainly fall regarding the Sabbath. For, though there was much in their circumstances to account for their falling into it, and though it left untouched, in their opinion, the obligation resting on all Christians to keep the day of weekly rest holy to the Lord,—yea, though some of them seemed to think that one day in seven was scarcely enough for such a purpose, yet their view about the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, as a Jewish ordinance, told most unfavourably upon the interests of religion on the Continent. There can be little doubt that this was the evil root from which chiefly sprung, so soon afterwards, such a mass of Sabbath desecration, and which has rendered it so difficult ever since to restore the day of God to its proper place in the feelings and observances of the people. It was well enough so long as men of such zeal and piety as the Reformers kept the helm of affairs—their lofty principles, and holy lives, and self-denying labours, rendered their error meanwhile comparatively innoxious. But a colder age both for ministers and people succeeded; when men came to have so little relish for the service of God, and were so much less disposed to be influenced by the privileges of grace than to be awed by the commands and terrors of law, that the loss of the Fourth Commandment, which may be said to be the only express and formal revelation of law upon the subject, was found to be irreparable. The other considerations which were sufficient to move such men of faith and piety as the Reformers, fell comparatively powerless upon those who wanted their spiritual life. Strict and positive law was what they needed to restrain them, which being now in a manner removed, the religious observance of the day of God no longer pressed upon them as a matter of conscience. The evil once begun, proceeded rapidly from bad to worse, till it scarcely left in many places so much as the form of religion. No doubt many other causes were at work in bringing about so disastrous a result, but much was certainly owing to the error under consideration. And it reads a solemn and impressive warning to both ministers and people, not only to resist any improper encroachments upon the sanctity of the Lord’s day, but also to beware of weakening any of the foundations on which the obligation to keep that day is made to rest; and in this as well as in other things, to pray with heighten, that they may “be saved from the errors of wise men, yea, and of good men.”

FOOTNOTE

[1] For a full, interesting, and impartial account of the controversies waged in Holland, and also in this country, during the seventeenth century, see the excellent work on the Sabbath by the Rev. James Gilfillan, published since this Appendix was written.

Appendix B.—P. 301.

[[@Page:524]] THE subjoined cut represents the altar of burnt-offering, as understood and explained in the text. It no farther differs from the figure given in F. Von Meyer, than that the horns at the four corners are made in imitation of actual horns (of cattle), while in Meyer they are merely little perpendicular projections.

A is the open space within the boards, in which an earthen or stone fire place was constructed.

B is the network of brass, supporting the projecting ledge.

C is the projecting ledge itself (the carcob of Ex. 27:4, 5).

D is the incline, made of stones or earth, by which the priest readied the ledge.

a b c d are the horns of the altar.

Appendix B.—P. 301.

A is the open space within the boards, in which an earthen or stone fire place was constructed.

B is the network of brass, supporting the projecting ledge.

C is the projecting ledge itself (the carcob of Ex. 27:4, 5).

D is the incline, made of stones or earth, by which the priest readied the ledge.

a b c d are the horns of the altar.

Appendix C.—P. 302.—Supplementary Remarks on the Subject of Sacrifice by Blood.

IN the earlier editions of this work, it was deemed unnecessary to do more, by way of supplement on the subject under consideration, than to indicate with some fulness the defective, though somewhat plausible, views of [[@Page:525]] Bähr respecting atonement, and expose their essential contrariety to the teaching of Scripture. Since then, however, a great deal has been written upon sacrifice, both in regard to the blood which formed the more vital clement of its efficacy, and the actions which were appointed to accompany its presentation; so that the views of Bähr no longer hold the prominence in the false direction which they once did. Latterly, indeed, Hofmann (in his Schriftbeweis), with no higher views than Bähr, has endeavoured, by a still more careful and elaborate exegesis, to unsettle the received doctrines of the Church upon the points at issue. In this, however, he has been vigorously met by Kurtz, Delitzsch, and many besides, who, with solid learning as well as distinguished ability, have maintained and vindicated, on Old Testament ground, the great principles involved in the doctrine of vicarious atonement. It has been, I think, a misfortune, naturally indeed, yet unhappily, growing out of this minute and controversial discussion of the topics in question, that a degree of precision and exactness has sometimes been sought by the defenders of the church doctrine, as well as their opponents, to be imposed upon the Old Testament symbols, which they cannot fairly be expected to convey. A symbolical religion, from its very nature, addresses itself to the popular apprehension rather than the analytic and discriminating reason: it deals in what may be called the broader aspects of things; and while admirably adapted to express the more fundamental articles of belief, and impress them vividly on the mind, yet, when the question comes to be respecting the minuter shades of belief, or the preference due to one as compared with another mode of explicating the same radical idea, religious symbols are not the proper means for determining the dispute; and the probability is, that if they are turned to such an account, they will serve the purpose of a perverted ingenuity as well as of a scriptural faith. It had been well if some of the distinguished men above referred to had refused to be led upon such uncertain ground. With this general remark, for the application of which some occasion will presently be found, we proceed to notice certain of the disputed points on the subject of sacrifice by blood.

1. What may fitly be taken first, is the sacrificial import of the blood. Was this in the room of the offerer’s blood or life? and if so, did it convey the idea of a penal quid pro quo? On this point, it is scarcely necessary to refer to the differences which still exist on the proper translation of Lev. 17:11. Instead of, “for the blood makes atonement through or by means of the soul,” which, after Bähr, Delitzsch, Keil, Kurtz, etc., we conceive to be the correct rendering, Hofmann would take the preposition (ב) as indicative of the essence, “the blood atones as the soul,” or in that character; Ebrard adheres to the old meaning of for, with reference to the idea of barter or exchange, the soul of the one for the soul of the other,—an idea altogether out of place in connection with the word atone; and Hengstenberg makes the preposition refer to the object, “blood expiates the soul;”—all strained and untenable interpretations, as Kurtz has conclusively shown (Sac. Worship. B. ii.. Pt. 1). also Delitzsch (Psychologie, p. 197). Keil (Archäol., i. 23) has raised the question,—a very needless one, we think,—[[@Page:526]] whether the passage ascribes atoning value to the blood simply as God’s appointment for the purpose, or as this along with its being the seat of animal life. He decides in favour of the former; but without any solid ground in the reason of things (see Kurtz as above, B. i., c. 1), and certainly against the plain and natural import of the words, which distinctly mention, first, the fact that the soul of the flesh is in the blood, then that God has given it upon the altar to make atonement for men’s souls; whence comes the conclusion, “for the blood maketh atonement by means of the soul.” But, practically, it is of no moment whether we hold the atoning property of the blood to consist in a twofold ground, or simply in God’s appointing it to such a purpose, and this because the life of the animal is in the soul; for either way we have the natural fitness exhibited, as well as the explicit appointment. The question is one that should never have been raised.

Another and more important question has respect to this atoning power in the blood, whether it was simply as blood, or as blood that had been shed in death—in other words, whether we are to emphasize the blood alone, or the blood in connection with the death which preceded, and in which it flowed out. Bähr had sought to separate the blood, as containing the nephesh or life, from the death going before, and to make account only of the former: he would have the blood, and not the death, to be regarded as the core of the sacrifice; although on his system, which makes all to stand in the giving away of the natural life in death, as being all one with giving it away or surrendering it to God, he found it impossible to properly dissociate the two. But Hofmann goes straight to the point; with him it is the blood, and nothing else. “The nephesh of the offering is not that which comes upon the altar, but the blood which streamed forth in the slaying, and which had been the animal’s life or soul while it was in the creature; therefore, also, not a life that had been killed, but that wherein the beast had had its life.”—(Schriftbeweis, p. 240) And again, on Lev. 17:11: “In this passage we neither find the blood and the soul treated as one; nor are we told how far the blood, when it was applied to the altar, had an expiatory effect,” etc. His object is to destroy as much as possible the peculiar significance of sacrifice by blood, to identify the bloody and unbloody offerings, and make sacrifice generally the payment of a sort of redemption-fee, or compensation, with faith on God’s pardoning mercy. There was in it merely the parting with one’s own property, which had been acquired with labour, and which, in the case of an animal, was besides related, as a living creature, to the offerer, and dear to him. But as the radical idea of atoning in Scripture is that of covering, it can never be identified with a compensatory payment, which, as Delitzsch justly remarks (Hebr., p. 740), is a metaphor entirely foreign to the Hebrew language. According to its mode of representation, it is not the thing exigible which was covered by the ransom, but the person in whose behalf the ransom was paid. It is also a vain attempt at hair splitting to distinguish, as Hofmann seeks to do, between the blood and the nephesh of the animal as devoted to death for the offerer. It was plainly the soul contained in and represented by the blood, which gave its value and significance to the blood; and in the common apprehension the two [[@Page:527]] could not fail to be regarded, in a sacrificial respect, as one. Manifestly, to use the words of Delitzsch, “the soul of the beast, when given to make atonement for the soul of the offerer, entered into the place of the soul of the man; since, being poured out in the blood, it covered the death-deserving soul of the man before an angry God.”

So much for the general idea; but if we ask, How or in what sense covered? the answers given take different shades in the hands of different interpreters, as we have no doubt the matter itself did in the experience of different worshippers; for they are but various phases of the same idea, in respect to which the symbol could not sharply distinguish. Thus Delitzsch: “The blood in the sacrifice atones, i.e., covers for sinful man, as a third thing entering between him and God, and brought upon the place of God. It enters there for the man; and as it enters for the man, whose sin, though in respect to God’s dispensation of grace a peccatum veniale, yet as sin has worked death, so there is no getting rid of this, that it enters as a substitution for the man.” Œhler (in Hertzog, Opfercultus): “The guilt is covered, and hence no longer exists for the Divine observation, is wiped away; as also the forgiveness of sin is expressed by a covering of iniquity, and a casting of it away into the depths of the sea.—(Ps. 32:1; Mic. 7:19) The immediate consequence is, that by means of such covering the sinful man is protected before the punishing Judge, and without danger can draw nigh to the holy God.” Kurtz is not quite satisfied with these explanations, and thinks they scarcely come up to the definiteness which is attainable by a careful consideration of the language of Scripture. According to him, “the covering of sin in the sacrificial worship is a covering by which the accusing or condemnatory power of sin—its power to excite the anger and wrath of God—is broken; by which, in fact, it is rendered both harmless and impotent. And, understood in this sense, the sacrificial covering was not merely an apparent conventional expiation of sin (which would have been the case if it had been merely removed from the sight of Jehovah), but a process by which it was actually rendered harmless, which is equivalent to cancelling and utterly annihilating.” In reality, there is no proper difference between the several explanations, except that some particular aspect or bearing of the truth gets greater prominence in one than another. The basis of the whole plainly lay in the life-blood of the victim taking the place and bearing the doom (symbolically, of course) of the offerer; for this alone, in the presence of a righteous God, could warrant the covering of the guilt, or the person who had committed it, so that it ceased in a manner to exist as an object of wrath before the Holy One.

2. The laying on of hands, which stood in a very close relation to the blood in its sacrificial import, is another point about which there has been much recent discussion. In the course of it, Kurtz has been led to modify the view he formerly entertained and set forth in his treatise on the Mosiac offerings, though we think his difficulties and change of view are the result chiefly of that over-refinement in discussion, to which this series of topics has given rise. Formerly, indeed, he carried the idea understood to be expressed by the action of a transference of guilt to an extreme; for in all [[@Page:528]] the offerings, peace and burnt-offerings, as well as those for sins and trespasses, he connected it with that idea alone. This was certainly too exclusive; and by the greater part of orthodox writers, the transference of guilt is supposed to have been exclusively indicated only in the case of the sin and trespass-offerings, while in the others this would to a certain extent fall into the background, that expression might also be given to the other feelings proper to the particular offering; though latterly the tendency has been to give too little prominence to the sense and imputation of guilt. So, for example, Delitzsch: “By the imposition of hands, the persons presenting the sacrifice dedicated the victim to that particular object which he hoped to attain by its means. He transferred directly to it the substance of his own inner nature. Was it an expiatory sacrifice? he laid his sins upon it that it might bear them, and so relieve him of them.” So also Hengstenberg, who takes it to indicate “the rapport between the person sacrificing and the sacrifice itself. Anything more precise must necessarily be learned from the nature of the particular sacrifice.” Hofmann, however, sought to explode this view of the imposition of hands, with all its subordinate shades of meaning; and to show that it meant simply “the appointing of the animal to be slain, for the double aim of obtaining its blood for the altar, and its flesh for food of fire to Jehovah—and this equally whether it was destined for supplicating God’s favour toward the sinner, or presenting thanks and prayers in respect to the goods of life.” He asks, in regard to the laying on of hands, when the person doing so was going to impart a blessing, or accomplish a cure, whether he exchanged places with the individual benefited, or conveyed over to him what he himself had? And if, in such cases, he did not give his own peace, or his own soundness, why should it be thought that in animal sacrifices the offerer transferred his own, either guilt or thanksgiving, to the victim? So also, in appointing to an office, those who laid their hands on the person designated did not make over to him their own official standing, but simply destined him to some specific undertaking.

Kurtz has yielded to these considerations so far. He thinks it improbable that the imposition of hands in the different kinds of sacrifice could have been intended to effect the transfer of different objects, unless some indication had been given of the difference. He thinks, and justly thinks, that there could not be a total difference between the meaning of the action in sin-offerings and burnt-offerings, or even peace-offerings, because what followed in respect to the life-blood was so nearly akin in all, viz. the slaughtering and sprinkling with blood. “Take (he says) the burnt-offering, in connection with which, in the very front of the sacrificial law, in Lev. 1:4, expiation is so evidently, expressly, and emphatically mentioned as one point, if not as the main point, and placed in the closest relation to the laying on of hands (‘He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him’). Is it really the fact, that even here the imposition of hands stood in no relation whatever to the expiation? Certainly, if there were nothing to overthrow such a view, the passage just quoted would suffice, and before [[@Page:529]] this alone it would be compelled inevitably to yield” (ch. iii). And this proves the inadequacy of Hofmann’s view, that the laying on of hands was only a matter-of-fact declaration that the animal brought to the altar was destined to the purpose of sacrifice: for the very bringing of it there declared that; and to connect the further act of laying on of hands in so peculiar a manner with the acceptance of the offering and the forgiveness of the offerer, would have been unaccountable. In all the other acts, too, of imposition of hands, such as ordination to a particular office, there is always implied something more than a mere declaration of the end in view; there is a formal destination to the purpose, and solemn devolving on the party concerned all that is necessary to its accomplishment.

Now it is this more general sense which Kurtz is disposed to attribute to the action of laying on of bauds, which (Elder also, and others, have come to adopt. Œhler’s definition is, “that the offerer, when, through the presentation of his victim, he had declared his readiness to present it as a gift to God, now through the laying on of his hands made to pass over upon the animal the intention with which he brought the gift, and so dedicated it to the sacrifice, which represented his person in the specific direction intended.”—(Hertzog, x., p. 627) Kurtz, also, is disposed to rest in the general sense of dedication, as what the act involves in all cases, but with a specific aim according to the nature of the particular service or occasion. In some cases, there was indicated by the dedication the substitution of one person for another, as when the Levites were put in the place of the first-born, and Joshua in the place of Moses (Num. 8:10; Deut. 34:9); but in others there was no room for this. In sacrificial offerings, however, there was room, and the special object of the service was to set apart the victim as the offerer’s representative and substitute to the ends for which it was presented. Thus, in the burnt-offering, Lev. 1:4, it denoted “the dedication of the sacrificial animal as the medium of atonement for the sins of the person whose hands were kid on its head.” Or, as he otherwise puts it, there was in the act “the transference of an obligation by the person sacrificing to the animal to be sacrificed, that it might render or suffer all that was due from him to God, or, vice versa, on account of his sin; and through this, the blood of the animal, in which is its soul, became the medium of expiation for the soul of the person sacrificing “(ch. iii., § 43). It is only, therefore, as to the form of the representation that Kurtz has changed his opinion: instead of a transference of sin, he would make it a transference of obligation to take the offerer’s room, and do or suffer all that he owned him-elf bound to; but as the shedding of blood always had respect to sin and its atonement, the obligation in question necessarily earned with it a prominent reference to the hearing of death as the wages of sin. Yet the learned author thinks he has greatly improved his view by this change, and has got rid of an otherwise insuperable difficulty; since, if the sins adhering to the sold of the person sacrificing were to be atoned or covered by the blood of the sacrifice, as is affirmed in Lev. 17:11, then these sins could not have been communicated to the blood itself, or the soul that was in the blood: they must have adhered to the soul of the sacrificer after the imposition of hands as well as before, viz., to render it possible for them to covered.

[[@Page:530]] I confess I cannot see the force of this argument, although Kurtz seems to think it almost self-evident; and it appears to me, that the difficulties which have been thrown around the subject are but another exemplification of the effort so apt to be made by learned men, studying and writing in their closets, to distinguish where common minds could see no essential difference, and to make the symbolical action in question speak with more precision and definiteness than it was properly designed or fitted to do. First of all, the view has against it the explanation given of the action on the one occasion, where an explanation was given; namely, on the great day of atonement, when the high priest was instructed “to lay his hands on the head of the goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, putting them on the head of the goat.” This, Kurtz is obliged, without any reason in the nature of things, to regard as an exceptional case. One would rather imagine that, being by way of eminence the atonement day for Israel, it was that which might be expected, in some degree, to throw light on atonements generally. Then, if the personation of the offerer, as a sinner, with the destination to bear the penalty due to his sin, was the more immediate and prominent aim of sacrifice by blood, what could it signify for the great mass of worshippers, whether one should say his obligation to suffer was transferred to it, or his sins as to their guilt were so transferred? To them it would make no appreciable difference which form were adopted. And the argument derived with such apparent satisfaction from the circumstance of the offerer’s sins being covered by the blood of the offering, consequently still regarded as adhering to him, is precisely such an argument as might occur to a scholar, criticising and scanning the exact meaning of the words, but would scarcely be dreamt of by a worshipping people, who had to do with the complex transaction. Nay, how does it square with Kurtz’s own explanation already given, about the covering of the offerer’s sin? This was covered, he says, by being rendered harmless, cancelled, extinguished, so that it had ceased to exist anyhow; and how, then, could it still be viewed as adhering to the offerer? Or how could the obligation to suffer for it be transferred without the guilt, which involved the obligation, being transferred along with it? Apart from the guilt, the obligation could have had no meaning wanted, indeed, the very ground on which it was based. In short, the matter is to be viewed in its complexity, perfectly intelligible and impressive if so viewed—adapted, one might say, even to the capacity of a child; but if curiously analyzed and split into parts, instead of becoming more transparent and satisfactory under our hands, it will inevitably become involved in disorder and confusion. Let it be enough for us, as it doubtless was for the pious worshipper of old, that the victim brought to the altar was, by the imposition of hands, solemnly set apart to take his place, to bear his burden of guilt, and along with that, by the action taken with particular parts of the sacrifice, to express any other subordinate desires and feelings which may have exercised his soul. These were the grand features that appeared on the very face of the transaction: no criticism will ever be able to explain them away; and any criticism that would serve itself of minute observations and subtle distinctions, can do little to make them appear more consistent or reasonable.

[[@Page:531]] 3. The Slaughtering, and the Sprinkling of the Blood.—These two actions, which immediately followed the imposition of hands, go in a manner together, for they are properly but different parts of the same transaction; but a great deal depends upon the light in which they are contemplated, and the relation which they are conceived to hold one to another. It was one of Bähr’s great efforts to get rid of the slaying of the victim as a thing of any moment: he would have it regarded as simply the medium whereby the blood was obtained; and in the blood as symbolizing the giving away of the sinner’s soul, or selfish life, through repentance to God, the sacrifice really stood. The penal character of the transaction, or the juridical view, as it is called, of the atonement, was thus sought to be exploded; the slaying merely completed the exhibition of the sinner’s self-surrender. Hofmann, of course, follows in the same line, though on other grounds; for with him the compensatory value of the offering was the grand thing, and the killing of the animal could certainly no way enhance its value, and so far hangs as an embarrassment around the theory. But others, of much sounder views on the general subject, have recently joined hands with these writers in disparaging the slaughter of the animal, and making account only of the sprinkling of its blood. Delitzsch holds “the schehitah, or killing, to have served only as the means of obtaining the blood of atonement, and of making the beast an altar-gift; and the giving up of the gift in fire is only the means of the giving away to God, and being taken away by Him.”—(On Hebr., p. 742) He finds a proof of this in the circumstance, that the killing is never called a putting to death (המית), but always a slaughtering(שׁחט). In this, however, there is nothing; for the latter verb is frequently used for killing, when the idea of punishment was involved (Num. 14:16; Judg. 12:6; 1 Kings 18:40, etc.), which is quite in point here, and is, indeed, the appropriate word for any sudden or violent infliction of death. In the general view, however, and even in this argument for it, Œhler concurs with Delitzsch: “In the Mosaic ritual the slaying of the victim has evidently no other significance than a transition-process; it merely serves as the means for obtaining the blood.” And, in support of the view, he urges the consideration, which was much pressed by Bähr—that the slaying was no priestly act, but usually done by the offerer himself. Keil slightly differs, yet substantially concurs; for while he admits that the slaying of the animal was “a symbol of the surrender of life to death,” he at the same time maintains that the death was not to be viewed as the punishment of sin. And his special reason is. that “although (he death (symbolizing the death of the sacrificer) was a fruit and effect of sin, yet it did not come under the aspect of punishment; because sacrifice was an institution of Divine grace, intended to secure to the sinner not the merited punishment, but, on the contrary, the forgiveness of sins; whereas the death which follows sin is, and remains, as a rule, a punishment only for that sinner for whom there is no redemption.” The death, therefore, he thinks, should be regarded as “the medium of transition from a state of separation from God into one of grace and living fellowship with Him, or as the only way into the divine life out of the ungodly life of this world.”—(Archaeol., i., p. 206)

Now, in all this attempt to shade nicely off and distinguish between [[@Page:532]] something, which the slaughtering might very readily be taken to be, and some other thing which it is held to have actually been, we have but a fresh exhibition of the tendency to give way to learned and unimportant minutiæ, which is out of place for the occasion, and which, for the sake of a small distinction, is apt to endanger great principles. Appealing, as the rite did, to popular sense and apprehension, the slaying of the sinner’s offering, solemnly destined to death, that its soul might be accepted in lieu of the sinner’s, could not but wear the aspect of a doom or judgment: it was a death not incidentally alone, but formally associated with sin as its immediate cause; and whatever grace it might instrumentally be the channel of conveying to the offerer, it manifestly fell with all the severity of a curse on the victim. People were not in a condition, at the sight of such a spectacle, to make nice discriminations: here, on the one hand, was the sin crying for condemnation, and there, on the other, was the slain victim that the cry might be silenced. Could people look at this, or take part in it, and feel that there was nothing of punishment? We may judge of the unlikelihood, when we find authors with fine-spun theories to support, which would lead them to exclude the idea of punishment, insensibly gliding into a mode of speech regarding it which ill accords with the demands of their system. Thus Keil, when he conies to speak of the sin-offering, says, that “by being slain the animal is given to death, and suffers for the sinner—i.e., as a substitute for the offerer—the death which is the wages of sin.” And on the trespass-offering, “The ram,” says he, “stood for the person of the guilty man, and by being slain, suffered death in his stead as the punishment for his guilt.” Such language stands in irreconcilable opposition to the author’s theory. And the theory itself, as Kurtz has justly remarked (ch. 4, § 53), is at variance with the relative position of things in the ordinance; if the expiation was simply in the sprinkling of the blood, while the death of the victim imaged the transition of the offerer, as a redeemed person, into the eternal and blessed life of God, the expiation should obviously have gone first, for then only was the offerer redeemed. Death before that would rather be the image of life expiring under a load of unpardoned guilt. And if the idea is admitted, as it is by Keil and the others who here go along with him, that the animal was the offerer’s substitute and representative, and as such had to make expiation for him, it must have been practically impossible to dissociate the thought of a penal suffering from the infliction of death.

Many of the individual objections pressed on the subject are so weak and frivolous a nature, that it is needless to refer to them particularly.[1] One of the most plausible that raised on the ground of the slaying being effected by the offerer himself, and not by the priest was long ago satisfactorily met by Kurtz, in reply to Bähr (Mosaische Opfer, p. 65): “The relation of punishment to sin is a necessary one; the punishment is the continuation no longer depending on the sinner’s choice—of the sin, its filling up or complement. Sin is a violation of the righteous government of the world, an impression against the law: the punishment is the law’s counter-impression, striking the sinner and paralyzing his sin. But all punishment [[@Page:533]] runs out into death, which is the wages of sin. ‘Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ Sin, therefore, is a half, incomplete thing, calling for its proper completion in death, which again is not something foreign and arbitrary, but essentially belonging to sin; so that the sinner himself may justly be regarded as self-punished. No doubt, the execution of the punishment might also be properly ascribed to God as the righteous Governor of the world; but there is a special propriety in allowing the sinner himself, in the rite of sacrifice, to perform the symbolical act of punishment: for there God appears as the merciful Being, who wills not the death of the sinner, but his atonement, his deliverance and salvation—of course in the way of righteousness; the sinner, again, as one who has drawn upon himself, through his sin, condemnation and death, and conscious of this being the case. Here, then, especially was it peculiarly proper and significant that he should accuse himself, should pronounce his own judgment, should bring it down symbolically upon himself. Whoever can explain how the criminal who has deserved death should ever desire this, and so put himself out of the reach of the grace of his monarch, can find no difficulty in explaining how the symbolical act of punishment in sacrifice should have been left to the execution of the sinner himself.”

It was otherwise, however, with the sprinkling of the blood, which completed the work of atonement; for this respected the acceptance of the substituted life for that of the offerer, and could only be done by God’s accredited representatives—the consecrated priesthood. The mere bringing of the victim to the altar, laying on it the guilt which burdened the sinner’s conscience, with other collateral acknowledgments, and taking from it its life-blood in token of what the offerer felt himself bound to render, however necessary and important, were still not sufficient to restore peace to his conscience. There must be the formal approval of Heaven, or the palpable acceptance of the one soul as a covering for the guilt of the other. And this was done by the pouring out or sprinkling of the sacrificial blood on the altar—not as that which, according to Hofmann, had once had the life of the animal (for apart from this it was only so many particles of blood, meaningless and worth less), but which, as flowing fresh and warm, still in a sense had it—the very life of the animal in its immediate seat and proper representation. This blood so presented, gave assurance to the offerer both of a satisfaction rendered for him by death, and of a pure life granted to him in the presence of God.

It is proper to add, in regard to some of those whose views on particular points have, in the preceding pages, been controverted—especially Delitzsch, Œhler, Keil—that they, not less than Kurtz, hold the strictly vicarious character of Old Testament sacrifice, and also the orthodox doctrine of atonement in relation to Christ’s work on the cross, in which the other rose to its proper consummation. It is only on certain parts of the symbolic ritual that they have adopted what we conceive to be mistaken and untenable views. Delitzsch, in particular, has done good service by maintaining, in his work on the Epistle to the Hebrews, the more essential features of the Church doctrine. Even comparatively slight departures, however, from the simplicity of scriptural statement on such a matter, are fraught with danger, and [[@Page:534]] call for earnest resistance. And it seems somewhat strange and illogical, that he and the others just mentioned, who concur in holding the strictly vicarious and penal character of Christ’s death, should yet appear so anxious to eliminate the idea of punishment from the sacrificial institution of the law—as if (and so they often put it) because, being an institution of grace, it were incongruous to represent justice punishing where grace was forgiving. For, with Kurtz, we naturally reply, Could grace do under the Old Testament what it cannot do under the New—forgive without the satisfaction of justice? If on Calvary there was a real demonstration of Divine justice against sin, why should there not have been a symbolical one at the altar of burnt-offering? In both cases alike there was grace exhibited as reigning, but reigning, as the Apostle says, through righteousness,—pardon, indeed, freely extended to the guilty, but simply on the ground—indispensably demanded by Divine righteousness—of a vicarious or penal death having been borne by the sacrifice. Leave out this, and no satisfactory explanation can be given, why the soul of the sacrifice, in itself guiltless, should cover or wipe out the guilt of the sinner.

FOOTNOTE

[1] They may be seen fully discussed in Kurtz’s work on the Sacred Offerings, already referred to, now made accessible to the English reader.

Section Ninth.—Stated Solemnities or Feasts—The Weekly Sabbath—The Feast of the Passover—Of Pentecost—Of Trumpets and New Moons—The Day of Atonement—The Feast of Tabernacles—The Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee.

[[@Page:429]] IN a symbolical religion like that of the Old Covenant, it was unavoidable that time should be brought within the circle of sacred things, and that, among other means for accomplishing its important ends, there should be the consecration of particular days and seasons. By the perpetual burnt-offering on the altar, every day might be said to be sanctified, as a call was thereby addressed to all the members of the covenant to dedicate their daily life to God. But this was manifestly not enough; and as nature itself requires an alternation of rest with work,—seasonable periods of relief perpetually coming round to break the monotony of its daily taskwork,—so, to keep up in Israel the proper feeling of a community chosen and set apart for the service of Jehovah, it was necessary to take advantage of such periods, and turn them into occasions for freshening up in the minds of the people a sense of their sacred calling. Not only was this actually done, but the extent to which it was carried out rendered it one of the more distinguishing features of the Old Testament ritual.

The term feasts, which in the English Bible has been applied as a general designation to the most of these sacred seasons, is far from being appropriate, and is even apt to suggest mistaken ideas. It is the common rendering of two Hebrew words which differ considerably in regard to their exact shade and compass of meaning. The one is hag (חַג), the root meaning of which is to move in a circle, to whirl round, or dance, and was doubtless applied to certain of the greater solemnities, on account of the [[@Page:430]] joyful processional movements with which they were wont to be celebrated. Indeed, in the beginnings of their national existence, the covenant people (as might be inferred from their Egyptian sojourn, and as actually appears from the first solemnity they kept in the wilderness (Ex. 32:5, 19) would associate with such occasions the excitement and even revelry of the joyous throng as their chief attraction. But when the true character of the religion established among them became better understood, their ideas in this respect necessarily changed; and while the name was still retained for some of the sacred seasons and the observances accompanying them, the thoughts it suggested would be more in accordance with the spirit of the Mosaic institutions. The word is very rarely applied, excepting to the passover and the feast of tabernacles (Ex. 12:14; Lev. 23:39; Num. 29:12; Deut. 16:13), which were both regarded as occasions for special manifestations of joy and gladness; and, in later times, the term became almost appropriated to the feast of tabernacles, which was called emphatically the hag, on account of the greater hilarity which used to mingle in its processions and services.

The name which is employed to denote the entire series of the stated solemnities connected with particular seasons, in the passage which treats of these in order (Lev. 23), is moadeem (מווֹעֲדִים). There is a difference of opinion as to the sense in which the word should be understood when so applied—whether it should be meetings, or places of meeting; if of meetings, whether not such only as were held around the tabernacle. But while the word undoubtedly sometimes bears the sense of places of meeting, the manner in which it is used in the passage referred to points simply, and at the same time distinctly, to the meetings themselves. In [[ver. 2 >> Bible:Le 23:2]] it is said, “The moadeem of Jehovah, on which ye shall call holy convocations, these are the moadeem” Their prominent characteristic is here plainly declared to be one that should express itself in convocations or meetings for holy purposes.[1] And though the tabernacle would certainly be [[@Page:431]] regarded as the proper place of holding thorn, in so far as it might be accessible, yet as attendance there was enjoined, and indeed practicable, only in the case of a limited number, it could never have been designed to associate the convocations generally with that particular locality. Those held around the tabernacle at the three stated solemnities (the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles) would naturally be of a kind better adapted for realizing the idea of such meetings than the others, and, as such, fitted to give a tone to the rest. But wherever or however held, the holiness so expressly connected with them clearly distinguishes the meetings in question from mere social or political gatherings. That they might have been designed—those especially which were to be kept at the tabernacle—to foster the spirit of brotherhood among the covenant people, and strengthen the bond of their national unity, may readily be admitted; but this could be no more than an incidental and secondary result. The oneness aimed at, as justly stated by Bähr, “was primarily and chiefly a religious, and not merely a political one; the people were not simply to meet as among themselves, but with Jehovah, and to present themselves before Him as one body. The meeting together was in its very nature a binding of themselves in fellowship with Jehovah; so that it was not politics and commerce that had here to do, but the soul of the Mosaic dispensation, the foundation of the religious and political existence of Israel, the covenant of Jehovah. To keep the people’s consciousness alive to this; to revive, strengthen, and perpetuate it, nothing could be so well adapted as such meetings together.”[2]

It was no doubt to keep up this idea of sacredness in connection with the festal solemnities, that the number sevenplayed so prominent a part in them. The seventh day Sabbath the day peculiarly set apart from the period of creation, and stamped with an impression of sacredness—not only forms the starting-point of the whole series, but also imparts its distinctive character to each of them, and determines the periods of their celebration. In each of the three greater feasts, the solemnity commenced with a Sabbath, and in two of them also the passover and tabernacles— it ended with a Sabbath, after completing [[@Page:432]] a week of sacred observances. Seven times seven days, or a week of weeks, separated the feast of first-fruits (Pentecost) from that of the passover. The seventh month of the year was made the peculiarly sacred one, distinguished by three solemnities—the feast of trumpets on the first day, of the yearly atonement on the tenth, and of tabernacles on the fifteenth. And then, though not strictly belonging to the cycle of feasts, yet nearly allied to them, came, at the distance of seven annual revolutions, the Sabbatical year; and again, after seven times seven, the year of jubilee. Throughout, we see a predominant regard to that sacred seven, which, originating with the work of God in creation, perpetually recalled the thoughts of His people to Him, as the One by whom and for whom all was made; and finding, as it did from the first, its culmination in a day of hallowed rest, it also served, when thus associated with their peculiar seasons of worship, to impress them with a sense of their calling, as the people who were themselves sanctified and set apart for Jehovah. Hence the seven as a number, and the seventh as a portion of time, might be regarded as in an especial sense the signature of the covenant, viewed in respect to its higher ends and obligations.—(Ex. 31:12-17) The number appears again with this meaning in the seven-branched candle stick, and in the seven sprinklings practised in some of the more solemn services of purification.

Beside this regard to the number seven, however, and the idea of holiness associated with it, a respect was had in the order and relative adjustment of the sacred festivals both to the historical periods, which were of special importance to Israel, and to the continued manifestations of God’s goodness to them in the land of Canaan. The three greater festivals were all linked at once to fitting seasons in nature, and to great moments in the national history of the people. In an historical respect, the passover recalled the deliverance from the land of Egypt, which gave birth to their national existence; the feast of first-fruits pointed to the miraculous preservation of the first-born, and the consecration practically grounding itself therein of all their increase to the Lord; while the feast of tabernacles reminded them of their long sojourn in the wilderness, and of the lessons this was intended to render perpetual in their experience [[@Page:433]] as to faith and holiness. In beautiful accordance with these historical grounds for the different ordinances, were the seasons appropriated to each: the passover being assigned to Abib (the ear-month), when the fresh hopes of spring began to take distinct shape; the first-fruits to summer, when the harvest-field had already yielded its produce; and tabernacles to the period of late autumn, when, all the year’s fruits being gathered, the experience of another season’s heritage of good brought anew the call to rejoice before the Lord, heightened by the comparison of what they now had with what they had wanted in the earlier period of their existence. Thus nature and grace, the ordinary providences of the present, and the more special providences of the past, were marvellously combined together in the general arrangements which were made respecting the feasts. Other points of a like nature will suggest themselves as we proceed to particulars.

THE WEEKLY SABBATH.

When this ever-recurring day of rest was placed by the Lawgiver at the head of the moadeem (Lev. 23:3), it was viewed as an existing institution, not now imposed for the first time, and merely needing to have its relation determined to other institutions which had certain points of agreement with it. The words employed in this connection regarding it are very few: “Six days shall work be done: the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest (literally, Sabbath of sabbatism), an holy convocation; ye shall do no work: a Sabbath to Jehovah is it in all your dwellings.” The reference in the last clause to the private dwellings of the people, as scenes that ought to witness the due observance of the Sabbath, is a proof that the day is here contemplated in its general aspect, and not simply with respect to the observances of the sanctuary. The additions, also, that were required to be made to the ceremonial of worship for that day would have been mentioned, if the matter had been viewed in its more special light. As actually presented, however, in the sacred text, there are just two points on which stress is laid—the distinctive character of the Sabbath among the days of the week, and the appointment to hold on it holy convocations. [[@Page:434]] The former was, doubtless, the more fundamental point, and that which constituted the ground or occasion of the other. The day is for sabbatism, or resting; but this not as in itself all: for it is resting to Jehovah that is spoken of; namely, keeping the day apart from ordinary business, that the soul might be at leisure for the things of God—resting from the world in order to rest in God. Hence also was it so expressly connected with the manifestations which God had given of Himself, not merely in the work of creation, but also in His covenant dealings with Israel, so that its observance might fitly serve, as already noticed, for a characteristic sign of the covenant between God and His people.—(Ex. 31:17; Deut. 5:15) The simple return of the Sabbath, therefore, brought with it a call to lift their minds to the believing contemplation of God, and to long after the nearer communications of His presence and favour.

Mere repose from worldly labour, however, would have gone but a short way to accomplish such an end, had it stood alone; and without any employment of a religious kind to take the place of the occupations of ordinary life, the listless inactivity of the seventh day could have been of little service in promoting the higher ends of the covenant. Holy convocations, or meetings for sacred purposes, were hence declared to be appropriate to the day. They were simply indicated in this connection, not specifically defined. Separate households and local parties were left to regulate them in the manner they might find most profitable or convenient—as, indeed, in the peculiar circumstances of the Israelites, first sojourning in the wilderness, then occupying a territory which for generations was not wholly theirs, it was impossible that any uniform rule should be observed. But they were from the first taught to regard meetings for religious purposes as adapted to the Sabbath, and tending, by the interchange of spiritual thought and the exercises of devotion they would naturally lead to, to render it subservient to the duties of their calling. Nor can we well conceive how, without some such helps, they could in any proper measure realize the description given by Isaiah of a well-spent Sabbath: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, [[@Page:435]] nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride on the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father” ([[58:13, 14 >> Bible:Is 58:13-14]] ).

In recent times this view of the Mosaic legislation, regarding the practical observance of the Sabbath, has been vindicated by impartial writers, even though in other respects their opinions are somewhat loose. Bähr maintains expressly enough that the Sabbath had a positive as well as a negative side; that it was not merely for the withdrawal of the soul from worldly business, but, along with this, for the sake of its participation in the rest of God; and that it was a day for the Israelites having holy convocations among themselves, as well as at the tabernacle (ii., p. 542). In the practical treatment of the matter, however, he seems to make little account of such meetings. Hengstenberg goes farther. He not only opposes the view of Vitringa, as to the Jewish Sabbath aiming at nothing higher than bodily rest, but holds it as certain that meetings for the reading of the law, prayer, and sacred song, were in accordance both with the letter and the spirit of the Mosaic legislation.—(Tag des Herrn, p. 33, 34) Keil represents the Sabbath as designed for quickening the souls of the people, by bringing them into fellowship with God’s rest; and regards the holy convocations mentioned as among the means appointed for attaining this end, by reason of the edifying converse to which they would necessarily lead in the law of the Lord.—(Archaeol., i., p. 363) Yet Moses Stuart (Old Testament Canon, p. 66) could speak of there being no command in the whole Pentateuch to keep the Sabbath by attendance on public worship, and affirms that, in point of fact, the covenant people, up to the Babylonish exile, had no public, social devotional worship. What, then, could have been meant by the holy assemblies prescribed for every Sabbath, whether stated or occasional? And if, in earlier times, God had never given nor the people enjoyed such, how could they be said to be again taken away?—(Hos. 2:11) Josephus showed a better insight into the Mosaic legislation, when he stated that Moses “commanded not that they should hear the law once, or twice, or frequently, but that every week they should leave their work, and assemble to hear the law, and learn it accurately.”—(Ap., ii., 17) [[@Page:436]] If it be asked, Who were to preside over and conduct those assemblies I the law, it should be remembered, called every parent, and, in particular, every elder in Israel, to be a teacher of its truths and precepts: the people were still, to some extent, a kingdom of priests; but those who were specially set apart to Levitical and priestly service had it as their more peculiar charge, “to teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord had spoken to them by the hand of Moses.”— (Deut. 33:10; Lev. 10:11) And for the purpose of securing facilities toward the discharge of this important mission, they were at once separated from ordinary business, and dispersed at convenient distances throughout the land. Whatever grounds there may be for holding that the synagogal institution, with its separate buildings, official organization, regulated discipline, and prescribed ritual of service, came into being only after the Babylonish exile,—and so far we think the arguments of Vitringa conclusive (De Synag., L. i), there is nothing in this to invalidate the obligation imposed in the law to observe the weekly meetings under consideration, or to disprove the fact, that in the better periods of Israel’s history such meetings were generally observed. (See at sec. iii., p. 2 68.)

The special services appointed for the Sabbath at the sanctuary are in perfect accordance with the views now advanced. These consisted first in the doubling of the daily burnt-offering—two lambs instead of one, with a corresponding increase in the meat-offering (Num. 28:9)—stamping the Sabbath, to use the expression of Bähr, as the day of days, the most important of all the days of the week in its bearing on the people’s calling to dedicate themselves, soul and body, to the Lord’s service. The other service, which consisted in presenting the fresh loaves of shew-bread on the Lord’s table (Lev. 24:5-9), was of quite similar import; for this bread, like the meat-offering generally, was a symbol of the fruitful and holy lives which the members of the covenant were to be ever rendering to the Lord. And that the Sabbath should have been chosen as the day for the perpetual renewal of this offering, clearly indicated the place it was intended to hold then, and which the Lord’s day must hold still, in disposing and enabling the people to abound in such fruitfulness. It virtually declared, that “while diligence in good [[@Page:437]] works should pervade the whole life, yet this would soon flag did it not receive fresh invigoration on the day of rest and meeting together before the Lord. Without the day of the Lord, the Church can never reach its aim of doing righteousness and justice.”—(Hengs., as above, p. 60) Such also is the instruction conveyed on the subject by that psalm which is entitled a Psalm-song for the Sabbath-day (Ps. 92), the main theme of which is the characteristic of the true Israelite as called to the meditation of God’s work, and finding therein an incitement to perseverance in the duties of an upright and godly life. Such was to be specially his Sabbath employment; and the mere circumstance of a psalm having been indited to indicate this, besides conveying the instruction in question, incidentally furnishes a testimony to the religious meetings proper to the day, and the kind of exercises with which they should be accompanied.

THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER.

This, in point of order, was the first of the annual feasts, and fitly stands next the weekly Sabbath. It was called the feast of unleavened bread, as well as of the passover, and especially when there was need for distinguishing between the sacrifice and the other parts of the solemnity.—(Lev. 23:5-8, etc.) It could be held only in the place where the altar and house of God were stationed, and all the males—with such females, of course, as could conveniently accompany them—were ordered to repair thither at the appointed time for its celebration. This time was the month Abib (literally the ear-month, when the corn was in the ear), the first month in the Jewish calendar, and usually corresponding with the time between the beginning and middle of our April. The actual commencement, as in all the other Jewish months, was determined by the moon. On the tenth day of that month, each head of a household was required to separate a kid, or a lamb,—in later times apparently always the latter,—without blemish, and on the fourteenth to kill it toward the evening (literally between the evenings, or, as the phrase strictly means, between sunset and total darkness, but according to later Jewish usage, any time between three in the [[@Page:438]] afternoon and sunset). The feast did not commence till the fifteenth day, or the time immediately after sunset on the fourteenth, though the sacrificial action with the lamb would usually take place before the close of the fourteenth. The blood, after the erection of the tabernacle, was given to the priests to be sprinkled upon the altar, which determined it to be a sacrifice; and indeed the Lord more than once calls it, by way of eminence, My sacrifice.—(Ex. 23:18, 34:25; see Ainsworth, Rivet, in loc., and Hengstenberg, Authen., 2., p. 372.[3]) The body of the lamb was immediately roasted entire, none of its bones being allowed to be broken, nor its flesh to be boiled; if any portion should remain uneaten, to prevent it from seeing corruption, or being put to a common use, it was to be consumed with fire.

At the original institution the Israelites were commanded to eat the passover with their loins girt, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand; but this appears to have been enjoined only in consideration of the circumstances in which they were then placed, as ready to take their departure from Egypt, and, like the sprinkling of the blood on the door-posts, seems afterwards to have been discontinued. The only permanent accompaniments of the feast appear to have been the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs with which the lamb was to be eaten. So strict was the prohibition regarding leaven, that they were ordered to make the most careful search for it in their several dwellings before the slaying of the paschal lamb; so that it might not be killed upon leaven (as the expression literally is in the passage last referred to), that there might be nothing of this about them at the time of the sacrifice. And the prohibition extended throughout the whole of the seven days during which the feast lasted. Finally, in addition to the daily offerings for the congregation, there was presented on each of the seven days a goat for a sin-offering, and two bullocks, [[@Page:439]] one ram, and seven lambs for a burnt-offering, with meat and drink-offerings.

The feast was, in the first instance, of a commemorative character, being intended to keep in everlasting remembrance the execution of judgment upon Egypt by the slaying of the first-born, and the consequent liberation of Israel from the house of bondage. That was the birth-season of their existence as a people. It was the stretching out of Jehovah’s arm to save them from destruction, and vindicate them to Himself as a peculiar treasure above all the nations of the earth. By mighty acts the Lord then did what He afterwards expressed when he said, “I have formed thee, O Jacob; I have redeemed thee, O Israel: thou art Mine.” Above all others, then, this event deserved to be embalmed in the hearts of the people, and held in everlasting remembrance.

But while thus instituted to commemorate the past, the ordinance of the passover at the same time pointed to the future. It did this partly in common with all other acts in which God executed judgment upon the adversary, and brought redemption to His people. For what Bacon said of history in general—”All history is prophecy”—holds with special application to such portions of it. They are the manifestations of God’s character in His relation to His covenant people; and that character being unchangeably the same, He cannot but be inclined substantially to repeat for them in the future what He has done in the past. Hence we find the inspired writers, in the Psalms and elsewhere, when feeling their need of God’s interposition in their behalf, constantly throwing themselves back upon what He had formerly done in avenging the enemies of His cause, and delivering it from adversity; assured that He who had so acted once, had in that given them a clear warrant to look for a like procedure again. But another and still higher element of prophetical import mixed with that singular work of God, which gave rise to the institution of the passover. For the earthly relations then exiting, and the operations of God in connection with them, framed on purpose to represent and foreshadow corresponding but immensely superior ones, connected with the work and kingdom of Christ. And as all adverse power, though rising here to its most desperate and malignant working, was destined [[@Page:440]] to be put down by Christ, that the salvation of His Church might be finally and for ever accomplished, so the redemption from the land of Egypt, with its ever recurring memorial, necessarily contained the germ and promise of what was to come; the lamb perpetually offered to commemorate the past, pointed the expecting eye of faith to the Lamb of God, one day to be slain for the yet unatoned sins of the world; and only when it could be said, “Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us,” did the purpose of God, which lay enclosed as an embryo in the paschal institution, meet with its full development.

This twofold bearing runs also through the subordinate and accompanying arrangements. The lamb had to be prepared for food to those in whose behalf its blood was accepted, that the sacrifice, by which they were ransomed from destruction, might become to them the food of a new and better life.[4] And for this purpose the lamb must be preserved entire, and roasted, so that it might not be served up to them in a mutilated form, nor have part of its substance wasted by being boiled in water. Itself whole and undivided, it was to be partaken of at one and the same time by entire households, and by an entire community, that all might realize their Divine calling to the same life, and the oneness as well as completeness of the means by which it was procured and sustained. So also, in the higher things of Christ’s work and kingdom, while He gave Himself unto death for sinners, and suffered the doom He voluntarily took upon Him amid the furious assaults of men and devils, yet a special providence secured that His body, after it had received the stroke of death, should be dealt with as a sacred thing, and be preserved free from mutilation or violence—the sign and token of its preciousness in the sight of the Father, and of the completeness of the redemption it had been given to provide. But this Saviour, even in death whole and undivided, must also be received as [[@Page:441]] such by His people. No more in their experience than in His own person, can He be divided. He is, in the fulness of His perfected redemption, the one bread of life; and by partaking of this in a simple and confiding faith,—thus, but no otherwise,—do sinners become in Him one bread and one body—possessors of His life, and fellow-heirs of His glory.—(1 Cor. 10:17; John 4:43-57)

The bitter herbs, with which the lamb was to be eaten, may possibly have borne respect to the affliction and bondage which the Israelites had endured in Egypt; on which account it is thought by many, both Jewish and Christian, commentators, to have been omitted in the later passages of the Pentateuch which refer to the ordinance. But we should rather regard them as pointing, at least chiefly, to that intermingling of sorrow and grief, amid which the soul enters into the fellowship of the life which is of God. That life itself, when actually established in the soul, is one of serene and elevated joy; but, as it can only be entered on by the deep in working of a sense of sin, and the crucifixion of nature’s affections and lusts, there must be painful experiences in the way that leads to its possession. The Israelites were made conscious of this in the lower territory of a present life, when, at the very time that they were brought to the participation of the goodness and mercy of God, the judgment of Heaven was awakening all around the wail of sorrow, and they were obliged to flee in haste and for ever from a land in which they had found many natural delights. And in the higher region of Christ’s everlasting kingdom, the same thing in principle is experienced by all who, through the godly sorrow that worketh repentance unto salvation, take up their cross and follow Jesus.

The putting away of the leaven, that there might be the use only of unleavened bread, may also be regarded as carrying some respect to the circumstances of the people at the first institution of the feast. And on this account it seems to be called “the bread of affliction” (Deut. 16:3), because of the trembling haste and anguish of spirit amid which their departure was taken from Egypt. But there can be no doubt that it mainly pointed, as already shown in connection with the meat-offering to holiness in heart and conduct, which became the ransomed people of the [[@Page:442]] Lord—the uncorrupt sincerity and truth that should appear in all their behaviour. Hence, while the bitter herbs were only to be eaten with the lamb itself, the unleavened bread was to be used through the whole seven days of the feast,—the primary sabbatical circle, as a sign that the religious and moral purity which it imaged was to be their abiding and settled character. It taught in symbol what is now directly revealed, when it is declared, that the end for which Christ died is, that He might redeem to Himself a people, who must put off the old man with his evil deeds, and be created anew after the image of God.

The only remaining part of the solemnity was the presentation to the Lord of a sheaf of barley, which took place on the second day of the feast, and was done by waving it before the Lord, accompanied by a burnt-offering, with its meat-offering (Lev. 23:12), expressive of that sense of sin, and renewed dedication of heart and life to God, which was proper to such a season. On this account, in part at least, the time for the celebration of the feast was fixed at a season when it was possible to obtain a few handfuls of ripening corn. The natural thus fitly corresponded with the spiritual. The religious presentation of the first ripe grain of the season was like presenting the whole crop to God, acknowledging it to be His property, and receiving it as under the signature of His hand. It thereby acquired throughout a sacred character; for “if the first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy.” The service bore respect to the consecration of the first-born at the original institution of the passover, and was therefore most appropriately connected with this ordinance. Those first-born, as previously noticed, represented the whole people of Israel, and in their personal deliverance and future consecration all Israel were saved and sanctified to the Lord. So, after they had reached the inheritance for which all was done, there was the yearly presentation of the first of their increase to the Lord, in token of all being derived and held of Him; and as the passover feast served as a perpetual renewal of their birth to the Lord, so the waving of the first sheaf was a sort of perpetual consecration of their substance to His glory. Whence, also, being thus connected with the very existence of the people in their redeemed condition, and with [[@Page:443]] the first of their annual increase, the month on which the passover was celebrated was fitly made to stand at the commencement of the Jewish calendar. In Christian times, in like manner, everything may be said to date from the work of Christ in the flesh; everything in the history of the believer from his new birth in Christ to God. Till then he was dead, now he is alive in the Lord; and partaking of the life of Him who is the first-born among many brethren, he grows up to a meetness for the same blessed and glorious immortality.

THE FEAST OF WEEKS, PENTECOST.

This feast was appointed to be held at the distance of seven weeks complete, a week of weeks, from the second day of the passover, when the first ripe barley sheaf was presented—therefore on the fiftieth day after the former. The males were then again to repair to the house of God. And from the Greek word for fifty being Pentecoste, the feast itself in the New Testament, and in later times generally, came to be designated Pentecost. But its Bible name is rather that of Weeks, being determined by the complete cycle of weeks that followed the waving of the barley sheaf at the time of the passover, and forming the close of that period which stretched from the one solemnity to the other; whence it was frequently called by the ancient Jews Atzereth (Josephus, 3:10, 6, Asartha), i.e., the closing or shut ting up.

There are, however, two other names applied to it in the Pentateuch. In Ex. 23:16 it is called “the Feast of Harvest,” because it was kept at the close of the whole harvest, wheat as well as barley—the intervening weeks between it and the passover forming the season of harvest. And in the same passage, as again in Num. 28:26, it is also called “the Feast of the First-fruits,” because it was the occasion on which the Israelites were to present to God the first-fruits of their crop, as now actually realized and laid up for use. This was done by the high priest waving two loaves in the name of the whole congregation. But, besides this, as they wore enjoined to give “the first of all the fruit of the earth to the Lord,” to whom it all properly belonged, it was ordered that at this feast they [[@Page:444]] should bring these first-fruits along with them. The precise amount to be rendered of such was not fixed, but was left as a free-will offering to the piety of the individual.—(Deut. 16:10) The offering itself, however, was a matter of strict obligation; whence the precept of the wise man: “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of thine increase.” (Prov. 3:9) The form of confession and thanksgiving recorded in Deut. 26 was commonly used on such occasions.

In later times the feast is understood to have been held for an entire week, like the passover; and is often regarded as having been appointed to continue for the same period. But no time is specified in Scripture for its continuance, and as a holy solemnity it appears to have been limited to one day, when the same number and kind of offerings were presented as on each day of the Paschal Feast.—(Num. 28:26-30) But as the people were specially required at this feast to extend their liberality to their poorer brethren, and to invite not only their servants, but also the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the Levite, to share with them in the goodness which the Lord had conferred upon them (Deut. 16:10), it is obvious that a succession of days must have been required for its due celebration.

This feast has been very commonly viewed as at least partly intended to commemorate the giving of the law, which certainly took place within a very little of fifty days after the slaying of the passover—although the time cannot be determined to a day. But not a hint occurs of this in Scripture, nor is any trace to be found of it either in Philo or in Josephus. It was maintained by Maimonides and one class of Rabbinical writers, but denied by Abarbanel and another class; and it seems somewhat strange that the opinion should so readily have found acceptance with so many Christian authors. The points of ascertained and real moment in connection with the feast are—(1.) Its reference to the second day of the passover, when the first barley sheaf was presented the former being the commencement, the latter the completion, of the harvest period. Hence, all being now finished, and the year’s provision ready to be used, the special offering here was, not of ripe corn, but of loaves, baked as usual with leaven, representing the whole staff of bread. In this case the fermenting property of leaven was not taken into account. [[@Page:445]] But the loaves were not placed upon the altar, to which the prohibition about leaven strictly referred; they were simply waved before the Lord, and given to the priests. (2.) Then, secondly, there was the reference it bore to the week of weeks—the complete revolution of time, shut in on each hand by a stated solemnity, and thus marked off as a time peculiarly connected with God, a select season of divine working. Why should this season in particular have been so distinguished? Simply because it was the reaping time of the year. Canaan was in a peculiar sense God’s land: the people were guests and sojourners with Him upon it; He was bound by the relation in which He stood to them (so long as they continued faithful in their allegiance to Him) to provide for their wants, and satisfy them with good things. The harvest was the season more especially for His doing this; it was His peculiar time of working in their behalf, when He crowned the year with His goodness, and laid up, as it were, in His storehouses what was required to furnish them with supplies, till the return of another season. Hence it was fitting that he should be acknowledged both at the beginning and ending of the period—that as the first of the ripening ears of corn, so the first of the baked loaves of bread, should be presented to Him—and that as guests well cared for, and plentifully furnished with the comforts of life, they should at the close come before the Lord to praise Him for His mercies, and give substantial expression to their gratitude, by sharing with His representatives a portion of their increase, and causing the poor and needy to sing for joy.

There are important lessons of instruction here for every age of the Church, in respect even to the sphere of the natural life. For as God still pours into the lot of His people of the bounties of His providence, the same regard to His hand, amid the operations by which this is accomplished, and the same grateful and liberal acknowledgment of it when the results have been obtained, which were required of the ancient Israelite, should now in substance be exercised by Christians. But looking to the higher things of grace and salvation, which alone form the antitype to the other, we are reminded by the arrangements of this feast of the two great seasons in the history of Chris’s redemption—the one of working towards the provision of its [[@Page:446]] blessings, the other of participation and enjoyment in what has been provided. The eventful period of our Lord’s ministry on earth, with all its trials and triumphs, its perfect obedience to the will of the Father, and in doing and suffering, accomplishing whatever was needed for laying anew the foundation of man’s peace with God—this was the peculiar season of divine working, during which the rich provisions of grace were, in a manner, brought to maturity, and reaped for the benefit of those who should be the heirs of salvation. Then, when this work of preparation was over, and the feast of fat things so long in prospect was now ready to be enjoyed, there came, after our Lord’s ascension in glorified humanity, the actual dispensation to believing souls of the treasured good, through the free outpouring of the Holy Spirit. What day could be more fitly chosen for such a purpose than that of Pentecost? The Spirit was expressly promised and given for the purpose of taking of the things of Christ, and showing them to His people; in other words, to turn the riches of His purchased redemption from being a treasure laid up among the precious things of God, into a heritage of good actually possessed by His people, so that they might be able to rejoice, and call others to rejoice with them, in the goodness of His house. It was the day of the Church’s first-fruits, and these were a pledge from the Spirit of the whole that remains to complete the fulness of the purchased possession.

THE FEAST OF TRUMPETS AND THE NEW MOONS.

We couple these together, for, to a certain extent, they were of the same description. Strictly speaking, the New Moons were not feasts, and have no place among the moadeem in the [[ >> Bible:Le 23]] twenty-third chapter of Leviticus. They were not days of sacred rest, nor of holy convocations. But being the commencement of a new portion of time, and of that monthly revolution of time which might be said to rule the whole year, they were so far distinguished from other days, that the same special offerings were presented on them which were presented on the moadeem.—(Num. 28:11-15) And they were further distinguished by the blowing of trumpets over the burnt-offerings.—(Num. 10:10; Ps. 83:3) This latter service brought [[@Page:447]] them into a close connection with the Feast of Trumpets, which took place on one of them, and was a day of rest and holy convocation: it had its peculiar and distinctive characteristic, from the blowing of trumpets; and it is hence probable, that on it the blowing of these would then be continued longer, and made to give forth a louder sound than on other days. The feast so characterized took place on the first day of the seventh month, which fell about the latter end of September or the beginning of October; and though the people were not required to appear at the tent of meeting, yet, in token of the importance of the day, an additional series of offerings was presented, beside those appointed for the new moons in general.

There can be no doubt that the sacred use of the trumpet had its reason in the loud and stirring noise it emits. Hence it is described as a cry in Lev. 25:9 (the English word sound there is too feeble), which was to be heard throughout the whole land. The references to it in Scripture generally suggest the same idea.—(Zeph. 1:16; Isa. 58:1; Hos. 8:1, etc.) On this account the sound of the trumpet is very commonly employed in Scripture as an image of the voice or word of God. The voice of God, and the voice of the trumpet on Mount Sinai, were heard together (Ex. 19:16, 18, 19), first the trumpet-sound as the symbol, then the reality. So also St John heard the voice of the Lord as that of a trumpet (Rev. 1:10, 4:1), and the sound of the trumpet is once and again spoken of as the harbinger of the Son of Man, when coming in power and great glory, to utter the almighty word which shall quicken the dead to life, and make all things new.—(Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16) The sound of the trumpet, then, was a symbol of the majestic, omnipotent voice or word of God; but of course only in those things in which it was employed in respect to what God had to say to men. It might be used also as from man to God, or by the people as from one to another. In this case, it would be a call to a greater than the usual degree of alacrity and excitement in regard to the work and service of God. And such, probably, was the more peculiar design of the blowing of trumpets at the festivals generally, and especially at the festival of trumpets on the first day of the seventh month. That month was distinguished above all the other months of the [[@Page:448]] year, for the sacred services to be performed in it: as noticed near the commencement of this section, it was emphatically the sacred month. For not only was its first day consecrated to sacred rest and spiritual employment, but the tenth was the great day of yearly atonement, when the high priest was permitted to sprinkle the mercy-seat with the blood of sacrifice, and the liveliest exhibition was given which the materials of the earthly sanctuary could afford of the salvation of Christ. And then on the fifteenth of the same month commenced the Feast of Tabernacles, which was intended to present a striking image of the glory that should follow, as the former of the humiliation and sufferings by which the salvation was accomplished. In perfect accordance with all this, not only is the feast named the Feast of Trumpets, but “a memorial of blowing of trumpets,” a bringing to remembrance, or putting God, as it were, in mind of the great things by which (symbolically) He was to distinguish the month that was thus introduced; precisely as, when they went to war against an enemy that oppressed them, they were to blow the trumpet; and it is added, “Ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies.” (Num. 10:9)[5]

THE DAY OF ATONEMENT.

This day formed the most distinguishing solemnity of the seventh month, and indeed of the whole sacrificial ritual. But we have already treated of it in another connection, and refer to what is written there. (Sec. VII)

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.

This had all the marks of a great and solemn feast. The males were to repair for its celebration to the place where God [[@Page:449]] put His name; it was to be begun and ended by a day of holy convocation, and the last the eighth, an additional day, so that the whole reached a day beyond the feast of unleavened bread. It is sometimes called “the Feast of Ingathering in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field” (Ex. 23:16; Deut. 16:13); for it took place immediately before the winter months, and after the labours, not only of the harvest, but also of the vintage and the fruit season generally, were past. The year might, therefore, with an agricultural population like the Israelites, be then considered as tending towards its close; and the comparative leisure of the winter months being before them, they would have ample time for the celebration of the feast. But we remark in passing, that this feast, which began on the fifteenth of the seventh month, being spoken of as falling about the close of the year, is a clear enough proof how little, in the mind of the lawgiver, the Feast of Trumpets at the beginning of it had to do with a New Year.

The more distinctive appellation, however, of this feast was that of Tabernacles, or, as it should rather be, of booths (חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת), because during the continuance of the feast the people were to dwell in booths. A booth is not precisely the same as a tent or tabernacle, though the names are frequently interchanged. It properly means a slight, temporary dwelling, easily run up, and as easily taken down again,—a house or shed for a day or two; such as Jacob made for his cattle in the place which, on that account, was called Succoth (booths, Gen. 33:17), and Jonah, for himself, which was so slim and insufficient, that he was glad of the foliage of a gourd to cover him. Tents might also be called booths, as being habitations of a very imperfect description, light and moveable, speedily pitched, and easily transported, the proper domiciles of a yet unsettled and wandering population. In this respect they form a contrast to solid, fixed, and comfortable houses; as with the Rechabites, whose father commanded them not to build houses, but to dwell in tents; and with the Israelites at large before, as compared with their condition after, they entered the promised land. There seems no necessity for pressing the matter further in regard to the use of booths at this feast; and for saving, with [[@Page:450]] Bähr, that they were intended to recall the deprivations and troubles of the wilderness life; or with Keil, that respect was had in them rather to the gracious care and protection of God, while they were exposed to these. It is enough to say, that the booth-like structures, which were to serve for tents in the feast, were symbols of the wilderness state, leaving all besides, which this was fitted to suggest, to be supplied.

The reason assigned for the ordinance in Scripture indicates so much, and no more: the people had to dwell in booths, “that their generations might know that the Lord made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.”—(Lev. 23:43) In this respect it was designed, in the first instance, to serve what may always be regarded as the immediate end of all commemorative religious institutions,—that, namely, of keeping properly alive the remembrance of the historical fact they refer to. In every case of this nature, it is of course understood, that the fact itself be one of a primary and fundamental character, containing the germ of spiritual ideas vitally important for every age of the Church. Such certainly was the character of the period of Israelitish history, when the people were made to dwell in tents or booths after they had left the land of Egypt. It was, in a manner, the connecting link between their house of bondage on the one hand, and their inheritance of blessing on the other. Then especially did the Lord come near and reveal Himself to them, pitching His own tabernacle in the midst of theirs, communicating to them His law and testimony, and setting up the entire polity which was to continue unimpaired through succeeding ages. Hence, the annual celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles was like a perpetual renewing of their religious youth; it was keeping in fresh recollection the time of their espousals, and re-enforcing upon their minds the views and feelings proper to that early and formative period of their history.—On this account we have no doubt it was, that the Feast of Tabernacles was the time chosen, every seventh year, for reading the whole law to the people (Deut. 31:10-13), and not, as Bähr thinks, because it was the greatest feast, and the one most largely frequented. The law was given them in the wilderness on their way to the land of Canaan, as the law by which all their doings [[@Page:451]] were to be regulated, when they were settled in the land, and on the faithful observance of which their continued possession of it depended. So that nothing could be more appropriate, when commemorating the period and reviving the thoughts and feelings of their religious youth, than to have the law read in their hearing. But this shows, at the same time, that the Feast of Pentecost could not have been intended to commemorate the giving of the law; as in that case, unquestionably, the time of its celebration would rather have been chosen for the purpose.

Even in this point of view, there was a much closer connection between the wilderness-life, the booth-dwelling portion of Israel’s history, than if it had formed the mere passage from Egypt to Canaan. But the same will appear still more, if we look to the bearing it had upon the personal preparation of Israel for the coming inheritance. It was not simply the time of God’s manifesting His shepherd care and watchfulness toward them, guiding them through great and terrific dangers, and giving them such astonishing proofs of His goodness in the midst of these, as were sufficient to assure them in all time coming of His faithfulness and love. It was this, doubtless; but, at the same time, much more than this. While the whole period was strewed with such tokens of goodness from the hand of God, by which He sought to draw and allure the people to Himself, it was also the period emphatically of temptation and trial, by which the Lord sought to winnow and sift their hearts into a state of meetness for the inheritance. Hence the words of Moses, Deut. 8:2-5: “Thou shalt remember all the way by which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or not. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that He might make thee know that man liveth not by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord,” etc. This alternating process of want and supply, of great and appalling danger, ever ready to be met by sudden and extraordinary relief, was the grand testing process in their history, by which the latent evil in their bosoms was brought fully to light, that it might be condemned [[@Page:452]] and purged out, and by which they were formed to that humble reliance on God’s arm, and single-hearted devotedness to His fear, which alone could prepare them for taking possession of, and permanently occupying, the promised land. It proved in the issue too severe for by far the greater portion of the original congregation; or, in other words, the evil in their natures was too deeply rooted to be effectually purged out, even by such well-adjusted and skilfully applied means of purification; so that they could not be allowed to enter the promised land. But for those who did enter, and their posterity to latest generations, it was of the greatest moment to have kept perpetually alive upon their minds the peculiar dealing of God during that transition period of their history, in order to their clearly and distinctly realizing the connection between their continued enjoyment of the land, and the refined and elevated state, the lively faith, the binding love, the firm and devoted purpose, to which the training in the wilderness conducted. They must, in this respect, be perpetually connecting the present with the past—at the close of every season renewing their religious youth; as it was only by their entering into the spirit of that period, and making its moral results their own, that they had any warrant to look forward to another season of joy and plenty. For this high purpose, therefore, the feast was more especially instituted. And while the fulness of supply and comfort amid which it was held, as contrasted with their formerly poor and unsettled condition, called them to rejoice, the solemn respect it bore to the desert-life taught them to rejoice with trembling: reminded them that their delights were all connected with a state of nearness to God, and fitness for His service and glory: and warned them, that if they forsook the arm of God, or looked to mere fleshly ease and carnal gratifications, they should inevitably forfeit all title to the goodly inheritance they possessed. Hence, also, when this actually came to be the case, when the design of this feast had utterly failed of its accomplishment, when Israel “knew not that it was the Lord who gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold,” He resolved to send her again through the rough and sifting process of her youth: “Therefore will I return, and take away My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof. I will [[@Page:453]] also cause all her mirth to cease, and I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees; and I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and will speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope,” etc.—(Hos. 2:8-15; compare Ezek. 20) Not that the literal scenes were to be enacted over again; but that a like process of humiliation, trial, and improvement had to be undergone—the severe training first, and then the holy, earnest spirit of the past revived, that they might be fitted for being partakers of the goodness of the Lord.

This view of the nature and design of the feast, which we take to be the only scriptural one, sufficiently discovers the fallacy of those representations which would make the celebration of this feast to have been an occasion merely for carnal merriment, dancing, feasting, and revelry. When the people themselves became carnal, it would, no doubt, partake too much of that character; but such was by no means the manner in which God designed it to be kept. They were, indeed, to rejoice over all the goodness and mercy which the Lord had given them to experience; but their joy was still to be the joy of saints, and nothing was to be done or relished which might have the effect of weakening the graces of a divine life, or disturbing their fellowship with God. It is, no doubt, in connection with the joy that was to characterize the feast, and as symbolical of it, that branches of palms and other trees were to be taken (whether in their hands or on their booths, is not said, Lev. 23:40). Having taken these, they were to “rejoice before the Lord,”—the joy having respect more immediately to the gathered produce of the year, and more remotely to the abundance of Canaan, as contrasted with the barrenness of the desert. The palm-tree was specially selected, most probably from having the richest foliage, and thus presenting the fittest symbol of joy. The history of our Lord shows how naturally the people associated the palm leaf with joy.—(John 12:12)

In regard to the mode of celebrating the feast, beside the dwelling in booths, there was a great peculiarity in the offerings to be presented. The sin-offering was the same as on the other feast-days, a single goat; but for the burnt-offering the rams and lambs were double the usual number, two and fourteen instead [[@Page:454]] of one and seven; while, in place of the two young bullocks of other days, there were to be in all, during the seven days of the feast, seventy, and these so divided, that on the last day there were to be seven, eight on the day preceding, and so on up to thirteen, the number offered on the first day of the feast. The eighth day did not properly belong to the feast, but was rather a solemn winding-up of the whole feast season: the offerings for it, therefore, were much of the usual description. But for those peculiarities in the offerings properly connected with this feast,—the double number of one kind, and the constant and regular decrease in another, till they reached the number of seven,—we are still without any very satisfactory reason. The greater number may possibly be accounted for by the occasion of the feast, as intended to mark the grateful sense of the people for the Lord’s goodness, after having reached not only Canaan, but the close of another year of its plentiful increase in all natural delights. We make no account of its being called in a passage often quoted from Plutarch (Sympos., i. 4, 5), “the greatest of the Jewish feasts,” as also by Philo, Josephus, and most of the Rabbins; for there is no ground in Scripture for making it in itself greater than the passover, and in deep solemnity both of them fell below the day of atonement. The other point is more obscure. That some stress was intended to be laid on the whole number seventy, ten times seven, the two most sacred and complete numbers, is probable. But the gradual diminution till seven is reached, remains a sacred enigma. The views of the Rabbins are mere conjectures, most of them frivolous and nonsensical. To see in it, with Bähr, a reference to the waning moon, is entirely fanciful; nor is it less so to understand it, with the greater part of the elder typologists, of the gradual ceasing of animal sacrifice, for there should then have been none on the last day, or at most one, whereas there were still seven—the very symbol of the covenant. We might rather regard it as intended to signalize this covenant, as designed to impress upon the people the conviction that, however their blessings might increase, and however many their grateful oblations might be, yet they must still settle and rest in the covenant, as that with which all their privileges and hopes were bound up. But we can scarcely venture to present this as a satisfactory explanation. [[@Page:455]] We only mention farther, regarding the observance of the feast, that several things were added in later times, and, in particular, the practice of drawing water from the fountain of Siloam, and pouring it on the sacrifice, together with wine, amid shouts of joy, and every manifestation of exuberant delight. This was done, however, only during the seven days of the feast, not on the eighth or last, as is commonly represented.—(See Winer’s Real-wört, on the Feast; also Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. Ev. Joh., vii. 37) And if our Lord, in John 7:37, when He said, on the last, the great day of the feast, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,” made any reference to the libations connected with the feast, it must have been to what had taken place on the previous days, and of which there was a marked absence on this last day. Taking advantage of the cessation, He intimated that in Him the reality was to be found of the symbolical service that had been performed with such demonstrations of joy on the preceding days.

The Israelites, in their outward history, were a collective type of the real children of God; and, therefore, in this feast, which brought the beginnings and the endings of their history together, we naturally look for a condensed representation of a spiritual life, whether in individuals or in the Church at large. We see its antitype first of all, and without its imperfections, in the man Christ Jesus,—who also was led up, after an obscure and troubled youth, into a literal wilderness to be tempted forty days, a day for a year, that the people might the more readily identify Him with the true Israel; and when Satan could find nothing in Him, so that He was proved to be fitted for accomplishing the work of God, and casting out the wicked one from his usurped dominion, He came forth to enter on the great conflict of man’s and the world’s redemption. In this great work, too, the beginning and the end meet together, and are united by a bond of closest intimacy. The sufferings necessarily go before, and lay the foundation for the glory. Jesus must personally triumph over sin and death, before He can receive the kingdom from the Father, or be prepared to wield the sceptre of its government, and enjoy with His people the riches of its fulness. And, therefore, even now, when He has entered on His glory, to show the bond of connection between [[@Page:456]] the one and the other, He still presents Himself as “the Lamb that was slain,” and receives the adorations of His people, as having, by His obedience unto death, redeemed them from sin, and made them kings and priests unto God.

With a still closer resemblance to the type, because with a greater similarity of condition in the persons respectively concerned, is the spiritual import of the feast to be realized in the case of all genuine believers. And on this account the Prophet Zechariah, when speaking of what is to take place after the final overthrow of the Church’s enemies, represents all her members as going up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles ([[14:16 >> Bible:Zc 14:16]] ). She shall then rejoice in the fulness of her purchased and redeemed inheritance, and have her experiences of heavenly enjoyment heightened and enhanced by the remembrance of the past tribulation and conflict. Now she is passing through the wilderness; it is her period of trial and probation; she must be sifted and prepared for her final destiny, by constant alter nations of fear and hope, of danger and deliverance, of difficulties and conquests. By these she must be reminded of her own weakness and insufficiency, her proneness to be overcome of evil, and the dependence necessary to be maintained on the word and promises of God; the dross must be gradually purged out, and the pure gold of the divine life refined and polished for the kingdom of glory. Then shall she ever hold with her Divine Head a feast of tabernacles, rejoicing in His presence, satisfied with His fulness; and so far from grudging at the trials and difficulties of the way, rather reflecting on them with thankfulness, because seeing in them the course of discipline that was needed for the fulfilment of her final destiny. The blessed company in Rev. 7, clothed in white robes, and with palms in their hands, representatives of a redeemed and triumphant Church, are the final antitypes of the Israelites keeping the Feast of Tabernacles.

THE SABBATICAL YEAR.

The appointment of a sabbatical year does not strictly belong to the stated festivals, nor is it included among these in the [[23d >> Bible:Le 23]] chapter of Leviticus; but it was very closely related to [[@Page:457]] them, and in some respects had the same purposes to serve. It is hence called by the name moed, festival, in Deut. 31:10. The principal law on the subject is given in Lev. 25:1-7. There it is enjoined, that after the children of Israel came into possession of the land of Canaan, they were to allow it every seventh year an entire season of rest. The land was to be untilled—a promise being also given of such plenty on the sixth year as would render the people independent of a harvest on the seventh. They might enjoy a year’s respite from their toils, and yet be no losers in their worldly condition. But as there would still be a certain return yielded from the fruit-trees and the ground, so whatever grew spontaneously was to be used, partly indeed by the owner, but by him in common with the poor and the stranger that might sojourn among them. And along with this freedom to the humbler classes of the community, there was also ordained, by a subsequent law (Deut. 15), a release from all personal bondage and a cancelling of debts. The name given to this year, “a Sabbath of rest,” and “a Sabbath to the Lord,” alone denotes its close connection with the weekly Sabbath; and this was farther confirmed by the promise of a larger increase than usual on the sixth year, corresponding to the double portion of manna that fell on the sixth day in the wilderness. On account of this connection and resemblance, Calvin has assigned it (in his Commentary), as one of the reasons of the appointment, that “God wished the observance of the Sabbath to be inscribed upon all the creatures, so that wherever the Jews turned their eyes, they might have it forced on their notice.”

The sacredness of the rest during this year was more especially indicated by the prescription, that the whole law should be road at the Feast of Tabernacles. Such a prescription indicated something more than that provision should be made for this purpose at the feast; for that might have been done, so far as the necessary time, was concerned, any year. It must rather have been designed to teach the Israelites, that the year, as a whole, should be much devoted to the meditation of the law, and engaging in exercises of devotion. If they entered, as they should have done, into the Divine appointment, the release from ordinary work would be gladly taken as an opportunity to [[@Page:458]] direct the mind more to Divine things, to be more frequent in conversing with each other upon the history of God’s dealings, and to take order that anything which seemed to be out of course in respect to the Divine appointments might be rectified. How much, too, would the periodical return of such a season tend to impress upon all ranks and classes of the people the important truth, that the land, with every plant and creature in it, was the Lord’s! Nor could it be less fitted to impress upon the richer members of the community the image of God’s beneficence and tender consideration of the poor and needy. Such an institution was utterly opposed to the niggardly and selfish spirit which would mind only its own things, and would grind the face of the poor with hard exactions or oppressive toil, in order to gratify some worldly desires. No one could imbibe the spirit of the institution without being as distinguished for his humanity and justice toward his fellow-men, as for his piety toward God.

It may possibly be thought, that the encouragement given to idleness by such a long cessation from the ordinary labours of the field, would be apt to counterbalance the advantages arising from the ordinance. The cessation, however, could only be comparative, not absolute; and each day would still present certain calls for labour in the management of household affairs, the superintendence or care of the cattle, the husbanding of the provisions laid up from preceding years, and the execution, perhaps, of improvements and repairs. The appointment was abused, if it was turned to an occasion for begetting habits of idleness. But the solemn pause which it created in the common occupations and business of life—the arrest it laid on men’s selfish and worldly dispositions—and the call it addressed to them to cultivate the graces of a pious, charitable, and beneficent life, these things conveyed to the Israelites, and they convey still to the Church of God (though the outward ordinance has ceased), salutary lessons, which in some form or another must have due regard paid to them, if the interest of God is to prosper in the world.

THE YEAR OF JUBILEE.

[[@Page:459]] This institution stood in the closest relation to the sabbatical year, and may be regarded as the higher form of the same. It was appointed that when seven weeks of years had run their course, this great Sabbath-year, the year of jubilee, should come; when not only, as in the ordinary sabbatical year, the land should be allowed to rest, the fruit-trees to grow unpruned, and debts to be cancelled, but also every personal bond should be broken, every alienated possession restored to its proper owner, and a general restitution should take place.—(Lev. 25:9, sq.) The sabbatical idea, as involving a participation in the perfect order and peaceful rest of God, rose here, so far as social arrangements were concerned, to its proper consummation; it could ascend no higher in the present imperfect state of things, nor accomplish any more. Its object was one of deliverance from trouble, grievance, and oppression, a restitution to order and repose, so that the face of nature and the aspect of society might reflect somewhat of the equable, brotherly, well-ordered condition of the heavenly world. As such it fitly began, not at the usual commencement of the year, but on the day after the yearly atonement, in the seventh month, when the sins of the people in all their transgressions were (symbolically) atoned for and forgiven by God—when all, in a manner, being set right between them and God, it became them to see that everything was also set right between one person and another. It implied, however, that Canaan was not the region of bliss in which the desire of the righteous was to find its proper satisfaction, but only an imperfect type and shadow of what should actually possess this character. It implied that everything there was constantly tending, through human infirmity and corruption, to change and deteriorate what God had settled; so that times of restoration must perpetually come round to check the downward tendency of things, to rectify the disorders which were ever rising into notice, and especially to maintain and exhibit the principle, that every one entitled to dwell with God was also entitled to share in His inheritance of blessing ([[ver. 23 >> Bible:Le 25:23]] ).

Happy had it been for Israel if he had heartily fallen in with these restorative sabbatical institutions. But they struck [[@Page:460]] too powerfully against the current of human depravity, and drew too largely upon the faith of the people, to be properly observed. Considered in respect to the people generally, there is but too much reason to believe that the breach of the law here was greatly more common than the observance; since the seventy years desolation of the Babylonish exile is represented as a paying of the long arrears due to the land for the want of its sabbatical repose, “until the land had fulfilled her Sabbaths.”—(2 Chron. 36:21) The promise, however, contained in this year of jubilee for the Church and people of God, cannot ultimately fail. A presage and earnest of its complete fulfilment was given in the work of Christ, when at the very outset He declared that He was anointed to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound—to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. But it is from His finished work of reconciliation on the cross, from the great day of atonement, that the commencement of the proclamation properly dates, respecting the world’s coming jubilee. Sin still causes innumerable troubles and sorrows. Even in the best governed states, the true order of absolute righteousness and peace is to be found only in scattered fragments or occasional examples. Darkness and corruption are everywhere contending for the mastery; but the truth shall certainly prevail. The prince of this world shall be finally cast out; and amid the manifested power and glory of God all evil shall be quelled, and sorrow and sighing shall for ever flee away. Then shall the joyful anthem be sung, “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; let the field be joyful, and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world with righteousness, and His people with His truth.”

FOOTNOTE

[1] There can be no doubt that such is the meaning of the expression, מָקְדָא קִדֶש, and that Cocceius and Vitringa, after some Jewish authorities, quite misunderstood it, when they explained it by an announcement of holiness, or a proclamation (at the sanctuary) that the day or time was holy.

[2] Symbolik, ii., p. 543.

[3] This has never been denied except for some polemical reasons, as by Chemnitz, Calov, and some other Lutherans, in their controversies with the Catholics about the Supper, and by Socinians and Rationalists of later times, in their efforts to make void the doctrine of a vicarious atonement. In the present day, no one will scarcely attempt to establish for the passover a different character from that which he concedes to the other sacrifices by blood.

[4] It was in this personal eating of the flesh by each household, rather than the killing of the victim, that the people exercised a priestly dignity at the annual celebration of the passover. At the original celebration, a separate priesthood had not yet been appointed, and so each head of a house hold did the whole. But afterwards the priests alone could sprinkle the blood, though the households still ate the flesh of the sacrifice. We mention this in qualification of the opinion of Philo, formerly quoted, which erroneously makes the mere killing a priestly act.

[5] Most commonly by the Jews, and generally also by Christian writers, the Feast of Trumpets is called that of the New Year, viz., of the civil year, as distinguished from the sacred. But Bähr justly remarks, there is nothing in Old Testament Scripture of this twofold year, nor does any record of it exist till after the Babylonish captivity. It is therefore quite arbitrary to regard this feast as pointing at all in such a direction.

Appendix D.—On the Term Azazel.—P. 388.

THE term Azazel, which is four times used in connection with the ceremony of the day of atonement, and nowhere else, is still a matter of controversy, and its exact and determinate import is not to be pronounced on with certainty. It is not precisely applied to the live-goat as a designation; but this goat is said to be “for Azazel” (לעזאזל).

1. Yet one of the earliest opinions prevalent upon the subject regards it as the name of the goat himself; Symmachus τράγος ἀπερξόμενος, Aquila τρ. ἀπολελυμμένος, Vulg. hircus emissarius; so also Theodoret, Cyrill, Luther, Heine, Vater, and the English translators, scape-goat. When taken in this sense, it is understood to be compounded of az (עז), a goat, and azal (אזל), to send away. The chief objections to it are, that az never occurs as a name for a buck or he-goat (in the plural it is used as a general designation for goats, but in the singular occurs elsewhere only as the name for a she-goat), and that in Lev. 16:10 and [[ >> Bible:Le 16:26]] 26, Azazel is expressly distinguished from the goat, the one being said to be for the other. For these reasons, this view is now almost entirely abandoned. 2. It is the name of a place, either a precipitous mountain, in the wilderness to which the goat was led, and from which he was thrown headlong, or a lonely region where he was left; so Pseudo-Jonathan, Abenezra, Jarchi, Bochart, Deyling, Reland, Carpzov, etc. The chief objection to this view is, that it does not seem to accord with what is said in [[ver. 10 >> Bible:Le 16:10]] : “to let him go for Azazel into the wilderness,” which would then mean, for a desert place into a desert place. 3. It is the name of Satan, or an evil spirit: So the LXX. ἀποπεμπαῖος (which does [[@Page:535]] not mean “the sent away,” the scape-goat, as most of the older interpreters took it, and as we are still rather surprised to see it rendered by Sir J. Brenton in his recent translation of the LXX., but “the turner away,” “the averter.” See Gesen. Thes., Kurtz, Mos. Opfer, p. 270.) So probably Josephus, Antiq., 3:10, 3, and many of the Rabbins. In the strongest and most offensive sense this opinion was espoused by Spencer, Ammon, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, who all concur in holding, that by Azazel is to be understood what was called by the Romans averruncus, a sort of cacodaemon, inhabiting the desert, and to be propitiated by sacrifice, so that the evils he had power to inflict might be averted. The opinion was first modified by Witsius (who is also substantially followed by Meyer, Turretin, Alting, etc.) to indicate Christ’s relation to the devil, to whom He was given up to be tried and vexed, but whom He overcame. And in recent times it has been still further modified by Hengstenberg, who says in his Christology on Gen. 3, “The sending forth of the goat was only a symbolical transaction. By this act the kingdom of darkness and its prince were renounced, and the sins to which he had tempted, and through which he had sought to make the people at large or individuals among them his own, were in a manner sent back to him; and the truth was expressed in symbol, that he to whom God grants forgiveness, is freed from the power of evil.” The opinion has been still further explained and vindicated by the learned author in his Eg. and Books of Moses, where he supposes the action to carry a reference to the practice so prevalent in Egypt, of propitiating, in times especially of famine or trouble, the evil god Typhon, who was regarded as peculiarly delighting in the desert. This reference he holds, however, not in the gross sense of the goat being a sacrifice to the evil spirit; for both goats he considers to have been the Lord’s, and this latter only to have been given up by the Lord to the evil spirit, after the forgiven sins were laid on it, as indicating that that spirit had in such a case no power to injure or destroy. Comp. Zech. 3:1-5. Ewald, Keil, Vaihinger (in Hertzog’s Encycl.), concur substantially in the same view. 4. Many of the greatest scholars on the Continent—Tholuck first, then Steudel, Winer, Bähr—take the word as the Pealpal-form of azal (אזל), to remove, with the omission of the last letter, and the putting in its place of an unchangeable vowel; so that the meaning comes to be, for a complete removing or dismissal. Kurtz hesitates between this view and that of Hengstenberg, but in the result rather inclines to the latter. Certainly the contrast presented respecting the destinations of the two goats, is best preserved by Hengstenberg’s. But still, to bring Satan into such prominence in a religious rite,—to place him in a sort of juxtaposition with Jehovah, in any form,—has an offensive appearance, and derives no countenance from any other part of the Mosaic religion. And however, on a thoughtful consideration, it might have been found to oppose a tendency to demon-worship, with the less thinking multitude, we suspect it would be found to operate in a contrary direction. Besides, if it may be objected, as it has been, to Tholuck’s view, that it takes a very rare and peculiar way of expressing a quite common idea, so unquestionably to designate, according to the other view, the evil spirit about whom, if really intended, there should have been no room for mistake, by a name never again occurring, appropriated solely for this occasion, is yet more strange and unaccountable.

[[@Page:536]] This very circumstance of a word having been coined for the occasion, and entirely appropriated to it, suggests what seems to me the right view. That appears to have been done on two accounts: partly, that no one might suppose a known and real personage to be meant; and partly, that the idea, which the occasion was intended to render peculiarly prominent, might thus be presented in the most palpable form—might become for the time a sort of personified existence. The idea of utter separation or removal is what Hengstenberg, as well as the other eminent scholars who hold the last opinion specified, regard as the radical meaning of the term; and by its form being properly a substantive, he conceives that it denotes Satan as the apostate, or separate one. But there is nothing in the whole transaction to lead us to suppose that such an adversary is brought forward; and when the goat is sent away, it is simply said to be “that he might bear the iniquities of Israel into a land of separation: “the conductor of the goat has fulfilled his commission when he has “let go the goat into the wilderness,” [[ver. >> Bible:Le 16:22]] 22. To have the iniquities conveyed by a symbolical action into that desert and separate region, into a state of oblivion, was manifestly the whole intention and design of the rite. And why might not this condition of utter separateness or oblivion, to render the truth symbolized more distinct and tangible, be represented as a kind of existence, to whom God sent and consigned over the forgiven iniquities of His people? Till these iniquities were atoned for, they were in God’s presence, seen and manifest before Him; but now, having been atoned, He dismisses them by a symbolical bearer to the realms of the ideal prince of separation and oblivion, that they may never more appear among the living.—(Micah 7:19) From the great peculiarity of the service, it is impossible to support this view by anything exactly parallel; but there is certainly something not very unlike, in the personification which so often meets us of Sheol or Hades, as the great devourer and concealer of men.—Comp. especially Ps. 16:10, 49:14; Isa. 14, 25:8, etc. Still, the difference is only in the mode of explanation, the results arrived at are substantially the same; and it may be well to add that the following are the ideas which Vaihinger (in Hertzog) finds in the transaction: “(1) That the sins must not belong to the congregation of the Lord, which is appointed to holiness, nor be suffered to abide with it; (2) that the horrible wilderness, the abode of impure spirits, is alone the place to which they, as originally foreign to human nature and society, properly belong; (3) that Azazel, the abominable, the sinner from the beginning (John 8:44), is the one from whom they have proceeded, to whom they must again with abhorrence be sent back, after the solemn atonement and absolution of the congregation had been accomplished; (4) that the person who would not accept of the atonement effected, was not set free from them, consequently could be no true member of the congregation, but belonged with his sins to Azazel, and should be cut off from the congregation of the Lord.” Hence, as the author concludes, there is nothing also, on this view, of a sacrifice to the wicked one supposed to be designated by Azazel.

INDICES

INDEX OF CONTENTS.

[[@Page:537]] AARON’S rod in the Most Holy Place, ii. 378.

Abel, not a type of Christ as a Shepherd, i. 94.

---, how his faith and sacrifice differed from Cain’s, i. 295.

---, feelings of Eve at his birth, i. 315.

Abraham, the connection between his call and the blessing oil Shem, i. 344.

---, his faith as connected with the call, i. 352, sq.

---, the supernatural nature of the things promised in it, i. 352.

---, the trial of his faith in obeying it, i. 353.

--- his relation to Melchisedek, i.

---, how his faith was counted for righteousness, i. 358.

---, the covenant made with him in its first stage, i. 359, sq.

---, the covenant in its second stage, i. 362, sq.

---, his offering up of Isaac, i. 373.

---, how the heir of the world, i. 347.

Adam, whether as created typical, i. 125.

Adultery, why punished with death, ii. 398.

Alexander, Dr, his typological views, i. 45.

Allegory, its relations to type, i. 18.

Altar of burnt-offering, ii. 297.

---, the fire on it, ii. 301.

Analogy in God’s methods of preparatory instruction, i. 206.

---- of faith and practice, i. 209.

Animals for sacrifice, why to be taken from the herd and the flock, ii. 307.

Anointing with oil, of what symbolical, ii. 243, sq.

Antichrist may have his types, i. 179.

Antinomianism, its opposition to Scripture, ii. 1195.

Ark of the covenant in comparison with heathen shrines, ii. 374, 379

Atonement, day of, and its services, ii. 385

Azazel, meaning of the term, ii. 534

BABEL, TOWER OF, for what purpose probably erected, i. 331.

Babylon, deliverance from, its relation to Messianic prophecy

in Isaiah, i. 160.

Babylonish exile and its results, ii. 501.

Bacon’s remark on the nature of prophecy, i. 168.

Bähr’s view of the cherubim, i. 283.

--- of the origin of sacrifice, i. 292.

--- of the independent origin of the Mosaic institutions, ii. 213.

--- of the difference between the spirit of the Mosaic and Heathen

institutions, ii. 227.

--- of the colours and materials of the tabernacle, ii. 237, sq.

--- of the general design of the tabernacle, ii. 252.

--- of the nature of atonement, ii. 531.

Baptism, its relation to the deluge, i. 324.

Beza, his views on the Sabbath, ii. 514.

Bitter herbs, why eaten with the passover, ii. 438.

Borrowing of Jewels from Egypt, proper meaning of, ii. 54.

Brazen serpent, how typical, i. 91.

---, false explanations of, i. 188.

Bricks, making of, in Egypt of great antiquity, ii. 11.

Buddeus, his views on typical interpretation, i. 33.

Burnt-offering, its nature and design, ii. 344, sq.

CAIN, feelings of Eve at his birth, i. 314.

Cainites as a party, i. 317.

Calvin, his views on the Sabbath, ii. 127, 513.

Canaan, why especially cursed in Noah’s prophecy, i. 341.

---, inheritance of, how promised, i. 343, sq.

---, boundaries of, i. 347.

---, conquest of, explained and vindicated, ii. 461 sq.

Candlestick in the Sanctuary, its structure, ii. 368.

--- lighted only at night, ii. 368.

Cedar-wood, why probably used in some purifications, ii. 409.

Ceremonial institutions had also a moral element, ii. 177, 327.

Cherubim, their appearance and import,

--- on the mercy-seat, ii. 370.

Childbirth, defilements and purifications connected with, ii. 415.

Christianity, its present condition and future prospects, i. 223 sq.

[[@Page:538]] Circumcision, its nature and meaning, i. 363, sq.

---, its relation to baptism, i. 368.

---, why suspended in the wilderness, ii. 84, sq.

Clean and unclean in food, ii. 308, 423.

Clement of Alexandria, his allegorical interpretations, i. 22.

Clothing of Adam and Eve with skins, why done, i. 296, sq.

Cloud of glory, why connected with the ark of the Covenant, ii. 381.

Cocceian school of typologists, i. 27, sq.

Combination of type with prophecy, i. 136, sq.

Connection between the Old and the New, organic as well

as typical, i. 215.

Cornelius, his prayers and alms-deeds described as a

meat-offering, ii. 367.

Corporeal issues, defilements and purifications connected with, ii. 388.

Covenant, ratification of, at Horeb, ii. 393.

Creation, its relation to the Incarnation. i. 115, sq.

Croly, his view of the origin of sacrifice, i. 298.

DARKNESS and light, of what symbolical, ii. 371.

David emphatically the Lord’s servant, i. 146.

---, his singular and elevated character, ii. 492.

Davison’s view of the double sense of prophecy, i. 167.

--- of the origin of sacrifice, i. 291.

---, his objections to the divine origin of sacrifice, i. 489.

Decalogue, its perfection and completeness, ii. 90, sq.

---, its arrangement and division, ii. 100.

---, has respect to the heart as well as the outward conduct, ii. 107, sq.

Delitzsch’s view of the cherubim, i. 270, 285.

--- views on circumcision, i. 370.

Deluge, what typical of, i. 324, sq.

Dorner on the Incarnation, i. 119.

Double sense of prophecy examined, i. 165, sq.

De Wette’s remarks on Old Testament typology, i. 54.

Drawing near to God often given as a description of the

priest’s work, ii. 267.

EAGLE, its symbolical import in the cherubim, i. 263.

Egypt, the bondage of the Israelites there, ii. 8.

---, worship practised there, ii. 13.

---, plagues of, their nature and design, ii. 44, sq.

---, the period of the children of Israel’s sojourn in, i. 360.

Election, mistakes regarding the doctrine of, corrected, i. 199.

---, principle of, in connection with the first promise, i. 314.

Enoch, his faith, and the fruits of it, i. 319.

Esau and Jacob, i. 177.

Evangelists all begin their gospels with reference to Christ’s

divine nature, i. 445.

FALL, doctrine of, i. 240.

Fat, why offered with the blood, ii. 335.

Fathers, their views respecting man’s original state, i. 116.

---, their opinion respecting the Mosaic ordinances, ii. 204.

Feasts, stated, their proper meaning and design, ii. 429, sq.

First-born of Egypt, why alone slain, ii. 50.

---, Israel, why specially redeemed, ii. 52.

---, church of, ii. 53.

---, not distinctively priests, ii. 256.

Fulness of typical matter in Scripture as connected with the

fulness of time, i. 108, sq.

Future state, doctrine of, in Old and New Testaments

respectively, i. 210, sq.

---, general belief of, among the heathen, i. 469, sq.

---, unsatisfactory nature of metaphysical arguments for, i. 475.

---, argument for, from analogy, i. 476.

---, argument for, from conscience, i. 478.

---, argument for, from a present moral government of

the world, i. 479.

---, the doctrine of, not advanced in Scripture as a

formal difference between the Old and the New

Dispensations, i. 485.

Friederich’s view of the tabernacle, ii. 252.

GARDEN of Eden the region of holy life, i. 268.

Glass’ typological views, i. 28.

Goats, why two on the day of atonement, ii. 385.

Goshen, land of, locality and fertility, ii. 7.

Gospel realities not necessarily perceived by ancient

worshippers, i. 82, sq.

Grace, its exhibition after the fall, i. 242.

HABITS of activity and skill, their relation to a

future life, ii. 20, sq.

Hannah’s song. i. 147, sq.

Headship, principle of, in connection with the first

and second Adam, i. 244, sq.

Heaving, its import in sacrifice, ii. 351.

Hebrews, the singular use made of the Psalms in

the Epistle to, i. 461.

[[@Page:539]] Hengstenberg’s view of the cherubim, i. 270.

Herder’s view of the cherubim, i. 280.

Historical types, their nature and reality, i. 87.

Historical notices of ancient Scripture, their necessity and

importance, i. 216, sq.

Hofmann’s typological views, i. 59.

Holy place in the sanctuary, mistaken views of, ii. 358.

Honey, why prohibited in sacrifices, ii. 356.

Human guilt and corruption, doctrine of, in connection

with the fall, i. 240.

Hutchinsonian’s interpretations, i. 37.

--- views of the cherubim, i. 282.

Hyssop, why probably used in some purifications, ii. 409.

JACOB, and Patriarchs, i. 379, sq.

Jacob’s conduct in getting the blessing not typical, i. 177.

Japheth, the blessing on him by Noah, i. 343.

Jealousy of God, its proper nature, ii. 118, sq.

---, trial and offering of, ii. 397, sq.

Jebb’s view of Hannah’s song, i. 150.

Jehovah, import of the name, ii. 31.

Jesus, his recall from Egypt in relation to that of Israel, i. 203, sq.

Jews, perhaps to be converted gradually, i. 460.

Immortal life, difference between Old and New Testament

revelation of, i. 210.

---, the hope of, an element in the first religion, i. 253.

Imposition of hands in sacrifice, import of, ii. 309, 527.

Incense, symbolical meaning of, ii. 359.

---, altar of, ii. 358.

Inheritance destined for the redeemed, what, i. 402, sq.

Joseph, how far his history a type of Christ’s, i. 381.

Israel’s proper calling and destination, i. 437.

Israelites, their civil condition when in Egypt. ii. 19.

---, their typical position in Canaan of what predictive, i. 493.

Jubilee, year of, ii. 459.

KINGLY government in Israel, its institution and influence

on Messianic prophecy, i. 150, ii. 499.

Klausen’s Hermeneutik, i. 57.

Kurtz’s typological views, i. 61.

LAMECH’S speech to his wives, i. 277.

Lange on the Incarnation, i. 118.

Laver of tabernacle, its construction and use, ii. 294.

Law, prepared for, as well as the Gospel, i. 281, sq.

---, not the form of God’s earlier revelations, i. 231.

---, what strictly and properly called such, ii. 89, sq.

---, what it could not do, ii. 153, sq.

---, misapprehensions regarding its design, ii. 160, sq.

---, the purposes for which it was given, ii. 166, sq.

---, connection between its moral precepts and ceremonial

institutions, ii. 176.

---, relation of Christians to, ii. 170, sq.

---, not properly abrogated, ii. 186, sq.

Leaven, its symbolical meaning, ii. 441.

---, why not allowed to be present in meat-offerings, ii. 356.

Leprosy and its purification, ii. 409, sq.

Levites, their relation to priests, ii. 270.

Lion, its symbolical import in the cherubim, i. 263.

Litton’s view of circumcision, i. 370.

Living ones, cherubim, why so called, i. 265.

---, their connection with the seven-sealed book, i. 276.

Lord’s Ecclesiastical and Literary Journal, examination of

its views on the types, i. 45, sq.

Luther, his view of primitive Sabbath, ii. 127, 514.

MACDONALD on creation as typical, i. 125.

Maimonides, his view of the tabernacle, ii. 253.

Manna, natural and supernatural, ii. 65, sq.

---, pot of, in the Most Holy Place, ii. 378.

Marriage relation, whether typical, i. 303.

Marsh, Bishop, his school of typology, i. 37, sq.

---, on double sense of prophecy, i. 165.

Meat-offering, its nature and design, ii. 354, sq.

---, why not mingled with leaven or honey, ii. 356.

Melchisedek, who he was, and how greater than Abraham, i. 313.

Mercy-seat, object and meaning of, ii. 375.

Messianic Psalms, i. 440, sq.

Michaelis’ view of the cherubim, i. 280.

Miller, Hugh, on typical forms, i. 165.

Moses, the wonderful circumstances connected with his

preparation, ii. 24, sq.

---, the coloured notices of Josephus regarding him, ii. 26.

---, his Egyptian learning, what influence it had on his

legislation, ii. 203, sq.

Müller’s view of the origin of symbol and sacrifice, ii. 225.

Murder, purification from an uncertain, ii. 402, sq.

[[@Page:540]] NATHAN’S prophecy to David, i. 158.

Nazarite, ordinance of, and his offerings, ii. 418.

Noah and the deluge, i. 322, sq.

---, in what sense an heir of righteousness, i. 332.

OFFERINGS, why sacrifices so called, ii. 320.

Old Testament worshippers, their knowledge of types and

prophecies not to regulate ours, i. 183.

Old Testament Scripture, its life-like freshness, i. 219.

---, its elevated moral tone, ii. 489.

Old world, inhabitants of, probably not very numerous or

--- scattered, i. 331.

Origen’s allegorical interpretations, i. 20.

Ox, its symbolical import in the cherubim, i. 263.

PASSOVER, feast of, ii. 437.

Patristic writers, their views on the types, i. 18, sq.

Peace-offerings, their nature and design, ii. 347, sq.

Pentecost, or feast of weeks, ii. 443.

Pharaoh, the hardening of his heart, ii. 40, sq.

---, his destruction typical of antichrist’s, ii. 57.

Philo’s view of the tabernacle, ii. 250.

Pillar of fire and cloud, its nature and symbolical import, ii. 79, sq.

Plato’s Phaedo, reasons assigned there for the soul’s immortality, i. 473.

Prayer, how symbolized by incense, ii. 322.

Priesthood, first mention of, in Bible, not among the chosen people, ii. 255.

---, among Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, ii. 257.

---, Levitical, representatives of the people, ii. 260.

--- leading characteristics and privileges of, ii. 263.

Priests and Levites, their duty to teach Israel, ii. 268.

---, personal qualifications and garments, ii. 273.

---, rites of consecration for, ii. 276.

---, typical relation of Levitical priesthood to Christ, ii. 280, sq.

---, all Christians such, ii. 286.

Prophecy, its combination with type, i. 137.

---, its tendency to make use of the past, i. 142, sq.

Prophetical types, i. 137, sq.

Psalms, book of, its singular character, i. 101, ii. 488.

RAINBOW, its symbolical meaning, i. 335.

Ratification of covenant, rites connected with, ii. 393.

Reconciliation with man essential to reconciliation with God, ii. 344.

Red heifer, ordinance of, ii. 404.

Reformers, their style of interpretation, i. 25.

---, their opinion on the Sabbath. ii. 135, 475.

Resurrection contrary to views of heathen philosophy, i. 396.

---, expected by Patriarchs and Old Testament believers, i. 398, sq.

---, expected also by modern Jews, i. 401.

Righteousness of God, in connection with the fall, i. 241.

Ritual types, their nature explained, i. 69, sq.

---, in what sense shadows of Gospel things, i. 79.

---, in what sense rudiments, i. 80.

Rock in the desert, ii. 72.

Romanism, its false views and abuse of the types, i. 198.

SABBATH, original appointment of, i. 306, sq.

---, its place in Decalogue vindicated, ii. 124, sq.

---, why one of the Moadeem, ii. 433.

---, false views of the Rabbinical Jews upon, ii. 521.

Sabbatical year, ii. 456.

Sacrifice by blood, the fundamental idea of, ii. 302, 525.

---, how far understood in its typical bearing by ancient

worshippers, ii. 305.

---, worship by, its early institution and acceptance, i. 287, sq.

---, on divine origin of, i. 487.

---, different kinds of, ii. 317, sq.

Salvation with destruction, i. 322, sq.

Salt, its symbolical use, ii. 356.

Seed, meaning of the word in Scripture, i. 455, sq.

--- of promise, its character and subjects, i. 314, 455, sq.

Seraphim in Isaiah, what, i. 266.

Serpent charmers in Egypt, ii. 41.

Seth, reason of his name, i. 316.

Shem, his peculiar blessing, i. 343.

Shewbread, its spiritual import, ii. 362.

Sin, how sense of, mingled even with thank-offerings, ii. 350.

Sinful actions cannot typify acts of God, i. 175.

Single sense of prophecy of Rationalists, i. 170, sq.

Sin-offerings, peculiar nature of, ii. 323.

---, what meant by their being presented for sins done

through ignorance, ii. 324.

---, why not allowed for presumptuous sins, ii. 324

---, offered for moral as well as political transgressions, ii. 327.

---, what marked by diversity of victims and actions with

blood, ii. 333.

---, why the flesh of some to be eaten by the priests, ii. 336.

---, and of others to be burnt without the camp, ii. 337.

---, why not accompanied with frankincense, oil, or

meat-offering, ii. 339.

Smith’s view of the cherubim, i. 279.

Socinian objection, from the character of Christ’s public

instruction, exposed, i. 208.

Spencer’s view of the cherubim, i. 281.

---, his view of Mosaic institution, ii. 205

---, view of tabernacle, ii. 253.

Sprinkling of the blood in sacrifice, its import, ii. 313.

--- of the blood of Jesus, its meaning, when applied to

sanctification, i. 220, sq.

Stuart, Moses, erroneous views regarding the institutions

of Moses, ii. 435.

Symbolical institutions peculiarly suited to people of the East, i. 233.

TABERNACLE, its names, ii. 228, sq.

---, its object, ii. 231.

---, its materials, ii. 288.

---, its structure, ii. 238.

---, its design, ii. 241.

---, its typical import, ii. 247.

---, erroneous views respecting, ii. 250.

---, why anointed with oil, ii. 245.

---, division into two apartments, ii. 288.

---, court of, ii. 294, sq.

---, Holy Place. ii. 358.

---, Most Holy Place, with its furniture, ii. 374, sq.

---,why atonement made yearly for defilements of it, ii. 382.

Tabernacles, feast of, ii. 448.

Table of Shewbread, its structure and meaning, ii. 362 sq.

Ten, symbolical import of, ii. 90.

Theocracy, view of the nature, working, and development of, ii. 472 sq.

---, its treatment of sin as crime, ii. 480.

---, why it exhibited only temporal sanctions, ii. 483.

---, the imperfections attaching to it, ii. 494, sq.

Tholuck’s view of the origin of sacrifice, i. 292.

Thucydides, his account of the effect of the plague at Athens,

--- in a moral respect, i. 470, 482

Tree of life, its original use and symbolical meaning, i. 250, sq.

Trench on the Incarnation, i. 120.

Trespass-offering, how distinguished from the sin-offering, ii. 340.

Trumpets, their symbolical use, ii. 447.

---, feast of. ii. 446.

Types, meaning of the term, i. 64.

---, often not used precisely in Scripture, i. 65.

---, their proper nature and design, i. 67, sq.

---, relation of, to prophecy, i. 72.

---, in proper sense not entirely like prefigurative actions

of prophets, i. 92.

---, did not always necessarily subsist till the coming of the

Antitype, i. 95, sq.

---, specific principles and directions for, i. 174, sq.

---, import of, not always perceived by the Old Testament

worshippers, i. 183.

Typical forms in nature, i. 104.

UNPARDONABLE sins in Old and New dispensations, ii. 324.

VIRET on fourth commandment, ii. 519.

Vitringa’s view of the cherubim, i. 280.

--- of ancient priesthood, ii. 257.

WARBURTON’S view of double sense of prophecy, i. 165, sq.

interpretation of Psalm 16:10, i. 169

---, view of sacrifice, i. 290.

---, of Mosaic institutions, ii. 209.

Washing of hands, its symbolical import, ii. 296.

Waving in sacrifice, its import, ii. 351.

Weeks, feast of, Pentecost, ii. 443.

Whately. Archbishop, his view of election, i. 200.

---, his assertions regarding the disbelief of a future state, i. 470.

Wilderness, what corresponds to it in Christian experience, ii. 61.

Witsius, his Egyptiaca, and view of Mosaic institutions. ii. 201.

Worsley’s allegorical scheme, i. 24, 25.

World, the new, after deluge, and its heirs, i. 330. sq.

Writing, its early use in Egypt, and its influence on Mosaic

legislation, ii. 216.

ZION, what such regarded now by St Paul, i. 458, 459.

INDEX OF TEXTS.

[[@Page:542]]

OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis 2:15, i. 272

Genesis 2:23-24, ii. 128

Genesis 4:1, i. 314

Genesis 4:7, i. 491

Genesis 9:25-27

Exodus 3:14-15, ii. 31

Exodus 6:3-8, ii. 31

Exodus 12:35, ii. 54

Exodus 12:46, i. 140

Exodus 20:24, ii. 298

Exodus 38:8, ii. 294

Leviticus 4:2, ii. 324

Leviticus 5:6, ii. 325

Leviticus 5:14, ii. 325

Leviticus 6:25, 30, ii. 337

Leviticus 10:17, ii. 335

Leviticus 17:11, ii. 302

Numbers 16:5, ii. 264

Joshua 5:2-9, ii. 84, sq.

1 Samuel 2:1-10, i. 147

2 Samuel 7:4-16, i. 158

2 Samuel 15:32, ii. 381

Psalm 2, i. 155

Psalm 8, i. 463

Psalm 16:10-111, i. 169

Psalm 40:6-8, i. 465

Psalm 41:9, i. 138

Psalm 69:4, i. 138

Psalm 69:9, i. 138

Psalm 78:2, i. 139

Psalm 97:7, i. 462

Psalm 102:25, sq., i. 462

Psalm 18:22, i. 138, 436

Psalm 141:2, ii. 360

Isaiah 7:14-16, i. 171, sq., 445

Isaiah 8:17-18, i. 464

Isaiah 40-66, i. 161, sq.

Isaiah 59:20-21, i. 458

Isaiah 61:1, ii. 244

Jeremiah 31:31, ii. 193

Ezekiel 1:26, i. 265

Ezekiel 10:4, i. 271

Ezekiel 10:7, i. 276

Ezekiel 20:25, ii. 204

Ezekiel 34:23, i. 145

Hosea 2:14-23, ii. 61

Hosea 8:13, i. 143

Hosea 9:3, i. 143

Hosea 11:1, i. 140, 146

Hosea 11:5, i. 143

Zechariah 6:12-13, i. 144

Zechariah 13:7, i. 434

NEW TESTAMENT

Matthew 1:23, i. 446

Matthew 2:15, i. 446

Matthew 2:17-18, i. 447

Matthew 2:23, i. 449

Matthew 8:17, i. 450

Matthew 11:11, i. 70

Matthew 11:14-15, i. 443

Matthew 13:34-35, i. 139

Matthew 22:32, i. 427

Mark 2:27-28, ii. 139

Mark 9:12-13, i. 443

Luke 1:16-17, i. 432

Luke 20:38, i. 427

John 2:19: ii. 248

John 3:14-15, i. 91

John 7:27, ii. 455

John 19:36, i. 140, sq., 451

John 19:37, i. 451

Romans 4:11-16, i. 453

Romans 4:18-22, i. 358,

Romans 5:14, i. 245

Romans 9:25-26, i. 458

Romans 11:26-27, i. 458

1 Corinthians 5:7-8, i. 48

1 Corinthians 10:1-4, i. 429, ii. 73

1 Corinthians 11:10, ii. 420

[[@Page:543]] Galatians 3:16-18, i. 455

Galatians 4:21-31, i. 428, ii. 155, sq.

Galatians 4:27, i. 457

Ephesians 1:14, i. 405, sq.

Colossians 2:16, ii. 144

2 Thessalonians 2:8, ii. 57

Hebrews 1:6, i. 462

Hebrews 1:10, i. 462

Hebrews 2:11-3, i. 463

Hebrews 4:1-10, i. 496

Hebrews 9:5-8, i. 465

Hebrews 9:13-14, ii. 331

Hebrews 10:38, i. 465

Hebrews 12:23, ii. 53

Hebrews 13:11-12, i. 202, ii. 338

1 Peter 1:2, i. 220, sq.

1 Peter 3:21, i. 327.

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Preface to The Fourth Edition.

Book First.—Inquiry into The Principles of Typical Interpretation, with a View Chiefly to The Determination of The Real Nature and Design of Types, and The Extent to which they Entered into God’s Earlier Dispensations.

Chapter First.—Historical and Critical Survey of the Past and Present State of Theological Opinion on The Subject.

Chapter Second.—The Proper Nature and Province of Typology.—1. Scriptural Use of The Word Type Comparison of This with The Theological Distinctive Characteristics of a Typical Relationship, Viewed with Respect to The Religious Institutions of The Old Testament.

Chapter Fourth.—The Proper Nature and Province of Typology—3. God’s Work in Creation, how Related to The Incarnation and Kingdom Of Christ.

Chapter Fifth.—Prophetical Types, or The Combination of Type with Prophecy—Alleged Double Sense of Prophecy.

Chapter Sixth.—The Interpretation Of Particular Types—Specific Principles And Directions.

Chapter Seventh.—The Place Due to The Subject of Typology as A Branch of Theological Study, and The Advantages Arising from its Proper Cultivation.

Book Second.—The Dispensation of Primeval and Patriarchal Times.

Preliminary Remarks.

Chapter First. The Divine Truths Embodied in The Historical Transactions on which The First Symbolical Religion for Fallen Man was Based.

Chapter Second.—The Tree of Life.

Chapter Third.—The Cherubim (and The Flaming Sword).

Chapter Fourth.—Sacrificial Worship.

Chapter Fifth.—The Marriage Relation and The Sabbatical Institution.

Chapter Sixth.—Typical Things in History During The Progress of The First Dispensation.

Section First.—The Seed of Promise Abel, Enoch.

Section Second.—Noah and The Deluge.

Section Third.—The New World and its Inheritors The Men of Faith.

Section Fourth.—The Change in The Divine Call from The General to The Particular—Shem, Abraham.

Section Fifth.—The Subjects and Channels of Blessing—Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and The Twelve Patriarchs.

Section Sixth.—The Inheritance Destined for The Heirs of Blessing.

Appendices.

Appendix A.—The Old Testament in The New. P. 138.

I.—THE HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PORTIONS.

Appendix B.—The Doctrine of a Future State.—P. 215.

Appendix D.—Does The Original Relation of The Seed of Abraham to The Land of Canaan afford any Ground for Expecting their Final Return to it?—P. 405.

Appendix C.—On Sacrificial Worship.—P. 299.

Appendix E.—The Relation of Cannan to The State of Final Rest (Heb. 4:1, 10)—P. 422.

VOLUME II.

Chapter First.—The Divine Truths Embodied in The Historical Transactions connected with The Redemption from Egypt, Viewed as Preliminary to The Symbolical Institutions Brought in by Moses.

Section First.—The Bondage.

Section Second.—The Deliverer and His Commission.

Section Third.—The Deliverance.

Section Fourth.—The March through The Wilderness—Manna—Water from The Rock—The Pillar of Cloud and Fire.

Chapter Second.—The Direct Instruction given to The Israelites before The Erection of The Tabernacle, and The Institution of its Symbolical Services The Law.

Section First.—What Properly, and in The Strictest Sense, Termed The Law, Viz., The Decalogue—Its Perfection and Completeness Both as to The Order and Substance of its Precepts.

Section Second.—The Law continued—Apparent Exceptions to its Perfection and Completeness as The Permanent and Universal Standard of Religious and Moral Obligation—Its References to The Special Circumstances of The Israelites, and Representation of God as Jealous.

Section Third.—The Law Continued—Further Exceptions—The Weekly Sabbath.

Section Fourth.—What The Law could not do—The Covenant Standing and Privileges of Israel before it was given.

Section Sixth.—The Relation of Believers under The New Testament to The Law—In what sense they are Free from it—And why it is No Longer Proper to Keep The Symbolical Institutions connected with it.

Chapter Third.—The Religious Truths and Principles Embodied in The Symbolical Institutions and Services of The Mosaic Dispensation, and Viewed in their Typical Reference to the Better Things to come.

Section First.—Introductory on The Question why Moses was instructed in The Wisdom of The Egyptians, and what Influence this might be expected to exercise on his Future Legislation.

Section Second.—The Tabernacle in its General Structure and Design.

Section Third.—The Ministers of The Tabernacle—The Priests and Levites.

Section Fourth.—The Tabernacle in its Several Divisions—1. The Forecourt, with its Two Articles, The Laver and The Altar of Burnt-Offering—Sacrifice by Blood in its Fundamental Idea and Ritual Accompaniments (Choice of The Victims, Imposition of Hands, and Sprinkling of The Blood).

THE FORE-COURT AND ITS FURNITURE.

Section Fifth.—The Different Kinds of Offerings connected with The Brazen Altar in The Court of The Tabernacle—Sin-Offerings—Trespass-Offerings—Burnt-Offerings—Peace or Thank-Offerings—Meat-Offerings.

THE SIN-OFFERING.

THE TRESPASS-OFFERING.

THE BURNT-OFFERING.

THE PEACE-OFFERING.

THE MEAT-OFFERING.

Section Sixth.—The Holy Place—The Altar of Incense—The Table of Shew-Bread—The Candlestick.

THE ALTAR OF INCENSE.

THE TABLE OF SHEW-BREAD.

THE GOLDEN CANDLESTICK.

Section Seventh.—The Most Holy Place, with its Furniture, and The Great Annual Service connected with it on The Day of Atonement.

Chapter Fourth.—Historical Developments.

Section First.—The Conquest of Canaan.

Section Second.—The Theory, Working, and Development of the Jewish Theocracy.

THE RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT.

THE TRIAL AND OFFERING OF JEALOUSY.

PURIFICATION FROM AN UNCERTAIN MURDER.

ORDINANCE OF THE RED HEIFER

THE LEPROSY AND ITS PURIFICATION.

DEFILEMENTS AND PURIFICATIONS CONNECTED WITH CORPOREAL ISSUES AND THE PROPOGATION OF SEED.

THE NAZARITE AND HIS OFFERINGS.

DISTINCTIONS OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN IN FOOD.

Appendices

Appendix A.—Views of the Reformers Regarding the Sabbath.—P. 142.

Appendix B.—P. 301.

Appendix B.—P. 301.

Appendix C.—P. 302.—Supplementary Remarks on the Subject of Sacrifice by Blood.

Section Ninth.—Stated Solemnities or Feasts—The Weekly Sabbath—The Feast of the Passover—Of Pentecost—Of Trumpets and New Moons—The Day of Atonement—The Feast of Tabernacles—The Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee.

Appendix D.—On the Term Azazel.—P. 388.

INDICES

INDEX OF CONTENTS.

INDEX OF TEXTS.

Philippians 2:16. — Holding forth the word of life.